Telescopic Predictions (Part C)

So he shall open and no one shall shut and he shall shut and no one shall open.

So Eliakim is going to have all the power that Shebna lost. There's a messianic value here. Revelation 3 verse 7. And to the church in Philadelphia. That's us.

Okay? It's up here. These things says he who is holy and he who is true, he who has the key of David, he who opens and no one shuts and shuts and no one opens. And so there's the total authority of Christ and we see an element in Eliakim. This is Cross Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the book of Isaiah. Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching.

And now here's Pastor Rick in Isaiah chapter 21 with this edition of Cross Reference Radio. They don't care. They don't believe their own history. When I grew up in high school, they gave you European history. I learned my European history and American history from war movies. I didn't learn anything. I can't tell you one thing I learned in those classes.

Maybe that's where I first heard the name Picasso. I don't know. But why weren't they giving me my history? As a Jew, why aren't the Jews hungry for their history, which is you can't get God out of it. You can't get Yahweh out of it. That's the problem Isaiah had. He saw that the people would be dying and not on the battlefield. Isaiah alone sees where their escapism is leading them.

Escapism. They didn't want to hear it. They wanted to have a party.

They didn't want to talk conviction. And he's saying, well, this is where it's going. Verse 3, all your rulers have fled together. They have captured by the archers.

All who are found in you are bound together. They have fled from afar. Well, when Babylon took Jerusalem, the warriors and the king fled the city, left the besieged people in the city.

It was sort of, you know, let them whatever happens, happens. And over a century away, he's telling them that there's going to be famine. Jeremiah writes about it in Lamentations 4. He talks about the coward leaders, which we read about in 2 Kings 25. And then he talks about, Isaiah does when we get further down, about the houses in Jerusalem that are going to be dismantled so that they can use the materials to fortify the city against the siege.

And it's all going to fail. Verse 4, therefore I said, look away from me. I will weep bitterly. Do not labor to comfort me because of the plundering of my daughter, the daughter of my people. And now he's recording his own feelings concerning Jerusalem's doom, as he did with Babylon and earlier with Moab.

This is amazing to me that you have a man that is faced with wicked people like we are. The corrupt and evil politicians that infest the land and seem to be just increasing. And you say to yourself, who is voting these people into office? Well, the voting machines.

The voting machines are voting them in. Anyway, the initial feeling, the surge is bitterness towards them, anger. And here we have a prophet that is faced with a people who are bringing judgment on themselves because of how they treat God. And he sees what's going to happen to them and he weeps bitterly. It affects him.

As the Babylonians who are going to bring the siege. He's a man in touch with God. It reflects the heart of God that God does not get satisfaction out of judging the wicked. Which is one reason why people who think that God does are so bitter towards God. And so he sees what they do not see, incompetence, the apostasy, death, defection, and that they are captured.

How mature this man is at the carnage, the avoidable carnage that's not avoided. Verse 5, for it is a day of trouble treading down and perplexity by the Lord Yahweh of hosts in the valley of vision, breaking down the walls and of crying to the mountain. Again, poetic type language, trying to keep the readers engaged, not doing a very good job with us.

But it did with them. Where it says for, and for it is a day, is further explanation. You know, just what do you do? The judgments are coming. The people, you know, the near judgments and the future judgments, they're coming.

Jesus brings this up. He says, when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then you know its desolation is near. And of course, that is not a single verse that tells us, because Jerusalem has been surrounded by armies before, and the end hasn't happened. It goes with other prophecies, you know, the temple being rebuilt, the Antichrist committing the abomination of desolation.

We know that there's another one coming. There was one in the days that Daniel prophesied, Antiochus, and that's past, and there's another one coming, Zechariah 12, and it shall happen in that day. I read this last session in Isaiah, that I will make Jerusalem a very heavy stone for all the peoples.

All who would heave it away will surely be cut in pieces, though all the nations of the earth are gathered against it. Well, I don't know, I don't follow the news too much, but Jerusalem's not in the news too much these days. Not like it's been in the past, you know, the Arabs, and they're not Palestinians. There's no such thing as a Palestinian. These are Arab people, and when the Jews were coming, giving their land back, they gave the Arab people a chance to go to Jordan where they came from. They came and took over Jerusalem when the Jews were put out.

We're coming, the British are giving us a state of our own, and you can leave, and many of them opted to stay. And the Arab world was saying, oh, they're going to slaughter you, they're going to torture you, they're going to do all these horrible things to you, and none of that happened. And it is an act of Satan to say, well, these are Palestinian people, and that's their land, they've been there for them, no they were not. They're Arab peoples, they're not Canaanites, the Canaanites are gone. Suppression of the truth, and a distortion of the truth. Israel's not in the news right now, but she will be again.

It's not going to stop, because the world wants to get rid of her. You see, though, I see in the news little things about anti-Semitism on the rise. Well, who can believe anything nowadays? I mean, I don't know. If you wanted to know, if you googled the color of your grass, would you trust the answer? I wouldn't. He's lying.

What color, what shade green? Anyway, verse 6, Elam bore the quiver with the chariots of men and the horsemen, and Ker uncovered the shield, so they're getting ready for war. Verse 7, it shall come to pass that your choicest valleys shall be full of chariots, and the horsemen shall set themselves in array at the gate. Well, the watchmen in earlier verses, of course, saw the chariots with the donkeys, the camels, and the horses, and here we're back to this. This is likely Assyria.

He bounces back and forth. No wonder. Nobody can understand these things without hours of study, right? Like, it would have been nice if we had little notes from Isaiah. Anyway, verse 8, he removed the protection of Judah. You looked in that day to the armor of the house of the forest. So the temple is still up, this house of the forest, from Solomon. Verse 9, you also saw the damage of the city of David, that it was great, and you gathered together the waters of the lower pool. We know that this is Jerusalem that he's been talking about from the first verse. Verse 10, you numbered the houses of Jerusalem, and the houses you broke down to fortify the wall. So the valley of vision confirmed here that it is Jerusalem. We know it's likely, very likely, Hezekiah's reign, because he fortified Jerusalem this way.

The armor of the house of the forest, constructed by Solomon out of cedar wood, and served as an armory, among other things, verse 11. You also made a reservoir between the two walls for the water of the old pool, but you did not look to your maker, nor did you have respect for him who fashioned it long ago. Well, I've been saying, we look around at humanity and we see the incredible achievements, you know, just, you know, waste processing plants. It's just amazing what cities can do. The buildings, the recreational areas, the parks, the amazing things as we counted. But then down to God, God says, you know, wait till you get to heaven.

You're going to realize you lived in a dump. And so what's happening here is the people were doing these things to protect themselves, but they wouldn't look to God. Hezekiah was looking to God. He and Isaiah worked tirelessly to try to get the people revived. And whatever revival that these good kings saw was just on the surface.

The people would go home to their idols. We see this with some churchgoers. They come to church, they act like they're into church, and really they don't believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. And they don't want to hear the gospel. Anyway, the prophet, he personifies the city as is the habit.

You also made a reservoir between the two walls. Well, the people did, of course, doing that. That's who he's addressing here. Other kings fortified the city in the past, but they were godly men. Jehoshaphat, David, Uzziah, etc.

The list goes on. But they were willfully and conveniently oblivious to God. Verse 12. And in that day, the Lord Yahweh of hosts called for weeping, and for mourning, for baldness, and for girding with sackcloth.

Well, he called them to pay attention, to grasp the severity of the situation. But again, they're on the rooftop having fun with these things. Their life goes on.

You know, what could be wrong? Look at the decadent cities today. The suburbs, the areas where the other people are, you know, like Philadelphia and Los Angeles, it's just they have these shanty towns.

They're just horrific. But if you go down to certain other areas, it's like, boy, this is really nice. Man without God is not getting it right.

If best, he gets it right on the surface. And again, knowledge of the truth demands a greater reaction. Ecclesiastes 3. A time to weep, a time to laugh, a time to mourn, a time to dance.

Well, they just wanted to dance. Fools mock at sin, it says in Proverbs 14, 9. James says, lament and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. James was saying, you know, there's a time where levity is not it. It's not party time.

There's work to be done. This reference to baldness and girding with sackcloth or cultural exhibitions of sorrow and distress. And he's trying to say to the people, it's going to get ugly if you continue building up your life without your God. Verse 13. But instead, joy and gladness, slaying oxen and killing sheep, eating meat and drinking wine.

Let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die. Now he's not verbalizing their words, but their attitudes. They're just, you know, this carefree escapism.

This is, you know, I get off of work and I just want to have fun. I don't want to think about judgment and sin and righteousness and all that. And Isaiah says, well, that comes with a price. And so this misguided practice of doubling down with an irrational defense exhibited by the world. You show them the truth of Christ and they just double down against it. And it is an enigma to us. The irrational that is applied to Jesus Christ is just that.

It's irrational. When he says, come let us reason, they said, no, we want no parts of reason on this one. We can reason to you about, you know, sports statistics.

We can reason to you about our financial portfolio. There are many things we can reason with you about. Jesus Christ is not one of them. For Isaiah, it was Yahweh.

He did everything as people go, except trust God. Verse 14, then it was revealed in my hearing by Yahweh of hosts, surely for this iniquity there will be no atonement for you, even to your death, says the Lord Yahweh of hosts. So God says, fine, you don't want me.

There's no solution for that. You either come to me or you're judged. The whole passage gives us this contrast of salvation by faith versus salvation by the efforts of men. They felt that the good they did for their society, their kingdom was enough. And the prophets were there to say, no, it is not. In fact, when Amos comes along, he starts off saying, well, let's judge these people around us. And he starts prophesying about all the peoples around Israel, and they're loving this. And then he starts on them, Israel and Judah.

And they hated him for it. And don't we have the same thing? They're sacred cows. Now today's sacred cow is homosexuality. You can't say anything evil against that.

And then they took it to have taken it to another level now. And you can't say anything. And so the comeback is, so let me get this right. I have to believe in what you believe. I'm not free to believe in what I believe.

And if I believe in what I believe, somehow I become wicked. Well, God's saying that to you. But he's going to back it up.

And because he's not doing it now, you think you're getting away with it. Well, anyhow, they're going to hate us even more as we move forward. We're all looking for somebody to finally put a silver bullet in this werewolf. It ain't going to happen. It's going to just get worse. But what can happen, so that's very encouraging. What can happen is we can be very successful in the lives of people around us. Because the evil is not taking everybody. It's taking the ones that reject the gospel. And that's where we come in to try to be used by God to reduce that number.

And because God knows who it is, doesn't mean he's causing it. And he's also giving us the invitation to be part of it. Well, their sin was a pride and self-reliance.

Okay, we're coming to it now. Instead of repentance, they just wanted to indulge. Verse 15, now we come to Shebna. Thus says the Lord God of hosts, go proceed to this steward to Shebna who is over the house and say, verse 16, What have you here? And whom have you here? That you have hewn a sepulcher here, as he who hews himself a sepulcher on high, who calves a tomb for himself in a rock.

I'll get to that in a moment. Verse 17, indeed, Yahweh will throw you away violently, O mighty man, and will surely seize you. So here's this man Shebna. He is the second in command in Judah, next to the king. Now if the king dies, he will not become king because he's not of the royal line. But he's a chief of staff for the king. He's the steward in the kingdom, as the individual is not a nation. And so we know this is Hezekiah's time, because when the Assyrians surround Jerusalem, Shebna, who will be demoted by that time, he goes out with two others.

He parleys with Rabshakah, the commander of the Assyrian army. We'll get to that in chapter 36, which I wish we were in already, where he says, Go tell this steward. In the Hebrew, it is there.

The translators have inserted this, but it's there in the Hebrew. And it expresses, at most, divine contempt for this man, and at least annoyance for him. And pride is his problem. So he has a significant amount of authority, and yet he is presumptuous, very much so, that he is going to carve out for himself a tomb fit for a king. But he's not the king, and he's not supposed to do this.

This is self-exaltation, inspired by pride, self-serving pride. And he wants this memorial for himself, and he draws divine condemnation. It angers Hezekiah. That's why he demotes him, and raises up someone else in his place. God says, I'm going to fling you away.

That's pretty intense. And Isaiah sounds like he doesn't like this guy. He's like, I'm so hoping we get a prophecy on him. Anyway, so when we get to 36, he's going to show up as a scribe, meaning he's demoted, which tells us Hezekiah felt, well, he's valuable.

He's got a lot of information on how things run. Plus, maybe he'll keep him around, keep an eye on him. Maybe he'll come out of it. Well, Eliakim will be his replacement. When it says here in verse 17, oh mighty man, Isaiah is referring to Shebna's estimation of himself. God is not calling him a mighty man. God's going to fling him away. But Shebna is telling us he had a lot of power. He was a big player in the kingdom, and is full of himself, and he decides, I'm going to make a monument for me.

Who else did this? Absalom. Neither one of them were buried in that tomb that they carved out for themselves. So anyway, he can't resist God. Verse 18, he will surely turn violently and toss you like a ball into a large country. There you shall die, and there your glorious chariots shall be the shame of your master's house. So somehow, he goes out of the country, and Isaiah says, in case you missed verse 17 about God flinging you away, he's going to throw you away like a ball.

So you're very clear on this. And he evidently goes out, and they kill him. And he doesn't get buried in his own tomb. Verse 19, so I will drive you out of your office, and from your position, he will pull you down. And so, again, Proverbs 16, 18, we all know it, pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall. So a pride of like, you know, I'm it. I'm pretty special. And the haughty is, I'm so special, I'm not even going to talk to you.

That kind of paints the picture for us. And again, I don't think Isaiah liked this guy. I think he knew who he was. Verse 20, then it shall be in that day that I will call my servant Eliakim, the son of Hilkiah. I will clothe him, verse 22, with your robe and strengthen him with your belt. I will commit your responsibility into his hand. He shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and to the house of Judah.

So this is a heavy hit. He says, you know, everything you have is going to be, you're losing it. Someone else is going to get it. Isaiah is going to be driving around town in your car, and you're going to see him do it. And so he loses his position to Eliakim. Revelation 3, 11, behold, I am coming quickly. Hold fast what you have, that no one may take your crown.

Well, he's losing his. In verse 21, instead of helping the people, he exploited them. And Eliakim, however, is going to help not exploit them. Eliakim is going to be like a father to them. And the reference to the key is the authority, good for the nation. Verse 22, the key of the house of David, I will lay on his shoulder. That's on Eliakim. So he shall open and no one shall shut, and he shall shut and no one shall open.

So Eliakim is going to have all the power that Shebna lost. There's a messianic value here. Revelation 3, verse 7, and to the church in Philadelphia. That's us, okay?

It's up here. These things says he who is holy and he who is true, he who has the key of David, he who opens and no one shuts and shuts and no one opens. And so there's the total authority of Christ, and we see an element in Eliakim. Verse 23, I will fasten him as a pig in a secure place, and he will become a glorious throne to his father's house. And we know that the Dab is going to be pride of Eliakim, but this is messianic also. Verse 24, they will hang on him all the glory of his father's house, the offspring and the posterity, all vessels of small quantity, for the cups to all the pitchers. And so he's going to be a dependable peg.

This is Christ, of course. It is also in the smallest sense Eliakim. He's anchored. He's anchored into his office. He's anchored into the wall, that language. You can hang many burdens on him, and he'll hold it.

And Eliakim on the smaller level, Christ on the fuller level, verse 25. In that day, says Yahweh of hosts, the peg that is fastened in the secure place will be removed and cut down and fall, and the burden that was on it will be cut off, for Yahweh has spoken. Huh? What?

You just got through telling us he's a secure peg. He's not talking about Eliakim now. He's talking about the office in Jerusalem.

It's all going to fall apart. After Hezekiah comes his son Manasseh. The treachery of King Manasseh followed the righteous work of King Hezekiah, and then after Manasseh came more wicked ones. Well, Josiah would be the last, and then it just, it all fell apart. It was not able to hold anything together, and that office was gone when the Babylonians came.

Only Immanuel can do it. Of the increase of his government and peace, there will be no end. Upon the throne of David and over his house, to order and establish it with judgment and justice, from that time forward, even forever, the zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this. Imagine Isaiah saying that when he had all these rotten kings around him, like we have today. And there's just an, I don't know, I didn't live 80 years ago to tell you how many bad politicians there are.

I know there were a lot of them, but man, today they seem like old. They even strut around when they're sitting. Let's pray. Our Father takes courage to go through all of your word, and I thank you for these, your people who have that courage to come out and sit through an hour of very heavy duty information. But it's how we get from one point to another. There's a danger in skipping over and being too free and skimming.

It calls for discipline to get to those prizes that you have for your people. And so with all of that, may you indeed bless us more and more, that not only do we grasp what is in your word with our minds and our intellect, but with our lives. Amen. Thanks for tuning in to Cross Reference Radio today. Cross Reference Radio is a ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville in Virginia. If you'd like to learn more about this ministry, we invite you to visit our website, crossreferenceradio.com.

You'll find a number of teachings from Pastor Rick available there. We also encourage you to subscribe to our podcast. When you subscribe, you'll be notified of new editions of Cross Reference Radio. Just search for Cross Reference Radio on your favorite podcast app. You can also follow the links at crossreferenceradio.com. We're glad we were able to spend time with you today. Tune in next time to continue learning from the book of Isaiah with Pastor Rick right here on Cross Reference Radio.