Whose mind has stayed on you? That applies to those who see beyond this life. That's what we're talking about when Isaiah says, In that day, Lord, come in that day. This peace characterized to Christ. Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.
He's telling us right out, listen, my definitions are not the world's definitions. 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. On today's edition of Cross-Reference Radio, Pastor Rick will be teaching in Isaiah chapter 26. Perfect love casts out fear. Well, that's what Isaiah is saying. Paul said he's not given us a spirit of fear, but of love and power, a sound mind. He says because fear involves torment, but he who fears has not been made perfect in love.
Doesn't mean he's not loved, doesn't mean he's not loving. It's just still some work. And coming from these men we say, okay, this is that upper level of Christianity that I never want to lose sight of. I mean, what is the alternative? To offer a cheaper version of courage than the world has? That wasn't for these men. They suffered as true believers, setting the example for us all. And agape love is only from faith in Christ according to the Bible. That is what we mean when we talk about Peter, do you agape me?
Do you have that highest love for me? And Peter was man enough to tell God Almighty, I don't have that much. And the Lord loves him nonetheless. Used him, sent him out to shepherd the flock.
I mean, what was the end result? Christ said, I want you to take care of my sheep, my lands. I want you to teach them. The man who had courage enough to say, I don't have what it takes is the one God said, I'm using you. You're not going to find this anywhere else, only in Christ. And sometimes this perfect love struggles. We've seen it on display in Gethsemane, that perfect love casting out fear, beating it down there in the garden because it remained in the Father's will. When the smoke settled and the dust cleared or the dust cleared and the smoke settled whichever way it goes, Christ was in the will of his Father. And the Father had to take it too.
As a parent, you know what it's like when your child is sick. Imagine that whole thing, the whole thing since the foundations of the world. And so in the midst of unparalleled troubles, and that's what the cross was, an unparalleled trouble. Nothing could match it.
Nothing ever will. The physical side is such an insignificant part of it. When you factor in or make it relative to what was going on spiritually, what would make the Son of God say, why have you forsaken me? Well, of course, there's whole sermons on that. He's bearing, he bore our sin. He became sin for me in 2 Corinthians 5. He's reconciling man to God by becoming sin, taking our sin on him. This from one that was perfect. Anyway, there the passion of peace evidenced itself like sweat, like drops of blood.
Those are like machine gun casings popping out, you know, just taking hell out. Hell couldn't stop him from going to the cross. It tried to do it subtly with Peter, you know, at Caesarea Philippi. It ain't so, Lord.
You ain't going to die for us. And Jesus put that down. And Jesus said, now my soul is troubled. And it came to him and said, sir, we wish to see Jesus. And we don't know if Jesus granted the audience or not, but we know that Andrew told Jesus. And Jesus said, my soul is troubled. What shall I say? Father, save me from this hour, but for this purpose I have come to this hour.
I'm not backing down. That's perfect love. That's the peace that surpasses understanding. This is the one that is saying that you will keep him in perfect peace.
In shalom, shalom, whose mind has stayed on you. How different from the world. James points this out. He says, you know, when we talk about love and wisdom, he says, but the wisdom that is from above is first pure. Well, the world doesn't have that philosophy.
They have it on paper, but still with them, the end justifies the means. He continues, he says, the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable. Peace comes after.
Purity is first. Blessed are the pure in heart. They shall see God. Then blessed are the peacemakers.
They shall be called the sons of God. That order does not, you cannot upset it. You cannot, well, peace comes before purity. There's no purity if the peace of God is compromised. Well, it continues, James does, gentle, willing to yield.
Some of us need to work on that gentleness more than others. Full of mercy and good fruit. Mercy does not have retaliation in its heart. It may have to retaliate, but it's not with glee. He says, full of mercy and good fruits without partiality, without hypocrisy.
No favoritism, no nepotism. Oh, well, it's my kid, they get a pass. We've seen this in Christianity. We've seen people rail against sins in the Bible, in churches, and then when their child gets caught up in the sin, all of a sudden, they don't want to do that anymore.
All of a sudden, they don't want to hear it. And that is the move of the devil, and may we be fortified against it. It's very easy to tell you, shall I love you as long as I'm in this life, but I will never side with sin for you or anybody else. I don't side with sin on myself. And usually the guilty don't want to hear that.
The guilty just want to be accepted. When you tell a homosexual advocate that, well, we love the sinner, we hate the sin, they don't want to hear, they don't care about that. Oh, that's deep.
They get angry. Yeah, but you're still against me is the bottom line. There may be exception here and there, but overall, I'm right and you know it, and I like it that way. But anyhow, well, I got a pastor, he doesn't like being right. Well, you need to go to another church.
You got one that really likes being right. But anyway, coming back to this, Stephen, again, died in the perfect peace, the cast out fear. He exhibited that. Paul again, Philippians chapter one. For to you, it has been granted on behalf of Christ, not only to believe in him, but also to suffer for his sake.
Huh? Listen, the more God blesses me, the more comfortable I get. God said to Israel, Jerusalem has grown fat.
You've been blessed so much in the land of milk and honey. You just don't want to move now. Now you're wasting it. And Paul faced the uncertain, the uncertain from notoriously violent Jerusalem. So to face the uncertain. So this is one of the scares of death.
How do I really know? I mean, how's that going to be? I mean, Paul faced the uncertainty. I mean, again, what's going to happen?
Maybe it's a surgery. Maybe it's a court case. You don't know the outcome. That's fear when the stakes are high and you're searching for God to be this example of courage, not walking around judge. And that's another, when you have fear, fear knocks self-righteousness out of you. You're not too quick to judge people when you are fearful. You're just like, Oh yeah, I love you brother.
It's like, you never said that before. Anyway, we covered this in Acts. I need to move on. We're halfway through our time when Paul said, none of these things move me.
I don't count my life dear to myself. Then he was, I'm ready to die. Not only to be bound, but to die in Jerusalem.
That is the perfect piece. You know, what was going through his mind when he saw the crowd pulling on him and punching him right before the centurion rescued him? Was he saying to himself, well, this is how it's going to end. You know, it's just incredible.
He didn't fight back, which is just so outstanding. His mind has stayed on you. That applies to those who see beyond this life.
That's what we're talking about. When Isaiah says, in that day, Lord, come in that day, this peace characterized to Christ. Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you. Let not your heart be troubled.
Neither let it be afraid. He's telling us right out, listen, my definitions are not the world's definitions. And now we're seeing him create these stupid pronouns.
It's insane. Because Satan has said, you know what, no more Mr. Nice Guy. I'm just going to do the most stupid thing I can do because I have a generation that will help me.
And he does, of all ages. Anyway, Christ went on to say, these things I have spoken to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have a lot of trouble, but be of good cheer. I have overcome the world. You see, when we read it, you will have tribulation.
Sounds like a theological word. But when you said, you're going to have a whole bunch of trouble, it's like, oh man, at least he's honest with me, right? Well, even if you're not in Christ, you're going to have a lot of trouble. What are you going to do with it though?
You're going to waste it? You end up dying and all that trouble you went through counted for nothing? Or you're going to endure like a believer and hear the Lord say, well done. The stress, you know, under stress. You can have physiological problems.
You get ulcers and things like headaches and then you're fighting it. I've seen Christians fight, many of them, fighting all the way. That is that perfect peace, casting out fear. Again, my soul is troubled.
What should I say? Father, spare me? This is what I came for. Peace in the midst of unrest. So, well, I think I've covered that. One last thing, by Christ putting on display, remember the apostles were sleeping for a portion of his time in Gethsemane. He had to tell them a few things that were going on.
Why did he do that? He's putting on display that he knows what it is to face the dragon and that's brought out in Hebrews. Not that he needed this experience to understand, but we need to see him so we can understand. For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but in all points was tempted as we are, yet without sin. Can't say that about Mary. Can't say that about anybody but Christ. He says because he trusts in you. Here's a quote from a Christian long ago.
Name is not known. I have it in my records. Anyway, believe your beliefs and doubt your doubts. Most people believe their doubts and doubt their beliefs.
Pretty good. I should have said I thought of that. You would have never known the difference. God would have said, now that's not funny. Anyhow, verse four.
Let's see if we can get through chapter 26. Trust in the Lord. Trust in Yahweh forever for Yah. Yahweh is everlasting strength.
So there's some excitement in this. Yahweh is named three times in 12 words. That's 25% of that sentence is just the name of God. The covenant name of God.
And that double title, Yah, Yahweh, there's an endearment there. It shows up in chapter 12, also of Isaiah, nowhere else in the Bible. And as I mentioned, there's superlatives, repetitive, shalom, shalom. In Genesis chapter 14, we read that the area bound by the Red Sea, the Sodom and Gomorrah, Dead Sea was full of pits. That's how the translators in the New King James say.
But the Hebrew is pits, pits, which means like it was really a lot there. And so when he comes out with Yah, Yahweh is superlative. Now the Hebrew, which is, I like, where it says in the New King James, everlasting strength, in the Hebrew, it's everlasting rock. This is where, this verse inspired the hymn, Rock of Ages, because he took the marginal, which in the margin the Bible would have said, it's rock.
And he makes the hymn out of it. Christ is our rock, 1 Corinthians 10, 4, and of course, from the Old Testament. Anyway, verse 5, for he brings down those who dwell on high, the lofty city, he lays it low, he lays it low to the ground, he brings it down to the dust. This is a reversal of what James said, and Peter echoed it.
Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he will lift you up. And Peter says, in due time. Peter's a realist, you know, he said, listen, I've humbled myself, and I've waited, and waited, and waited.
He's just like, this is it. And you know, the Lord, I think the Lord loves that. I think he loves and, you know, we're just standing our ground, what we claim to believe. I believe I'll just wait on the Lord. Even if he shows up after I die, that doesn't make him unfaithful. I'll be with him. Anyway, verse 6, the foot shall tread it down the feet of the poor and the steps of the needy.
I don't think to us, it's like, oh boy, there's a lot of words. But I think Isaiah, he's still got this fire in that day. He's still, he has seen these things. And when Christ faced Pilate and Annas and Caiaphas, he knew that this would be the case with them. That the foot will tread them down, metaphorically. That the poor, the meek of the earth, the poor is not necessarily the meek. You can be poor and not meek.
And you can be meek and not poor. But Christ knew that in the end, the wicked would be dealt with. Verse 7, the way of the just is uprightness, oh most upright. You weigh the path of the just.
Verse 8, yes, in the way of your judgments, oh Yahweh, we have waited for you. You, the desire of our souls, is for your name and for the remembrance of you. Their desire was not simply to be delivered. They catch this, but they wanted to honor his name in the process.
As again, Stephen, for example. Jonah, contrast Jonah. Jonah wanted to be delivered out of the fish. He's cried out to him.
But I guess at the end of it, he still doesn't get it. What prophet had the hardest head? What prophet would be recruited by the NFL? That guy doesn't need a helmet.
His head is so hard. That would be Jonah. And yet, what a magnificent man to come out and say, look how dumb I was. And we can all do some of that, right? You look back at your life and say, man, that was like another person. Verse 9, with my soul I have desired you in the night. Yes, in my spirit within me I will seek you early, for when your judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness.
So this is David-esque of him. This is Isaiah, the prophet, breaking out into this song. In the night, I'm desiring you.
I'm just wanting you. Living under the shadow of the Assyrian, again, cannot be stated. I mean, they wiped out. The Assyrians came and they took out so much of all the cities of Judah and were at the gates of Jerusalem. And we'll get to that story again in the latter chapters.
Anyway, we should move on for the sake of time. But when he says, when your judgments here in verse 9 are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness. Yeah, because the devil will be locked up during the kingdom age. In that day, the devil will be locked up and wickedness will be way down. Verse 10, let grace be shown to the wicked and yet he will not learn righteousness in the land of uprightness.
He will deal unjustly and will not behold the majesty of the Lord. I love this verse because it is so practical. Grace and kindness is wasted on some people.
Trample it. They take kindness for weakness. They take kindness for opportunity to exploit you. They take kindness for folly, for stupidity. Look at that guy.
He's a con artist or a crook. They're counting on your kindness so that they can unleash their craft of wickedness. Hebrews makes this comment of whom the world was not worthy. So this is quite a, you know, just not going to stay on this verse much longer, but it's a verse that all of us should be familiar with because I don't want grace to be wasted on me, be it from God or the righteous. Verse 11, Yahweh, when your hand is lifted up, they will not see, but they will see and be ashamed for their envy of people. Yes, the fire of your enemies shall devour them. And so the prophet says, it's not going to go well for them. The judgment's going to befall them, that kind of behavior. And if you know somebody like that, then maybe there's an excellent verse to point it out.
You show you kindness and you just turn on me and bite the hand that feeds you. Verse 12, Yahweh, you will establish peace for us, for you have also done all our works in us. Well, Jesus said, without me you can do nothing. And the Bible in such agreement as it flows through from Genesis through. I have the Gospels penned on my documents and I have Genesis and Revelation because you just have to go back to them all the time.
There's so much there. Today's Jews, they're not ready to embrace the prophetic certainty of scripture. We are. So when we say Maranatha, we believe in the prophets. We believe what the scripture says about the future and we've embraced it. And sadly, many Jew and Gentile do not. Verse 13, Oh Yahweh, our God, masters besides you have had dominion over us, but you only we make mention of your name. So Isaiah, of course, speaking of those who love the Lord and not speaking of those who are into idolatry, he's saying, you know, we've suffered a lot of abuse from conquerors, but we don't bow down to them. Ahaz can do that. He can go to Damascus to see an altar.
Ooh, I want that. But the righteous don't do that kind of stuff. We don't look at the world and say, now what are we doing?
Hopefully we don't. It's tricky. Anyhay, it can be tricky. Verse 14, anyhay, that's what the hay salesman said. Verse 14, they are dead. They will not live. They are deceased.
They will not rise. Therefore you have punished and destroyed them and made all their memory to perish. Yeah, well, it's going to contrast this verse 19 when he talks about the righteous will live. And this is the wicked that are determined to be wicked. And Isaiah's going to show some impatience, proper impatience with this behavior before God.
They're going to be gone forever. So what? A person has these great achievements in this life. There's a guy that climbed El Capitan, this mountain, this big rock with no ropes or hammers, spikes, none of it. He just climbed it, free handed. No one else has ever done it. Others may have tried.
They won't get another second chance. But when he dies, it's not going to come up in heaven. I saw that.
That was really impressive. That's not going to come up. Well, many of the people who have made any of these achievements, not going to heaven.
So the point of it is, what am I doing that's going to survive? The judgment, separating the wood, the hay, and the stubble from the gold, the silver, the precious metals. Verse 15, you have increased the nation, O Yahweh. You have increased the nation.
You are glorified. You have expanded all the borders of the land. Now this is end times, because it's certainly, they were losing land in his lifetime.
But he is emphasizing that in the millennial reign, Israel's territory will be expanded. Verse 16, you notice how many times he starts off with Yahweh, he's just loaded with this Jesus, Lord Jesus. There was a song we used to sing back in the 80s, Jesus, just a mention of your name. I think Jimmy Swaggart, I think it was his song. I know you had some problems, but man, he put me in the spirit, his songs. I was begging for money, he could take me out just as quick.
So, just go figure. But anyhow, you have increased the nation, O Yahweh. You have increased the nation. Verse 16, we read that Yahweh, in trouble they have visited you. They poured out a prayer when your chastening was upon them. As a woman with child is in pain, verse 17, and cries out in her pangs.
When she draws near the time of her delivery, so have we been in your sight, O Yahweh. I'm chuckling, because I've learned that women don't like men to talk about pain in childbearing. It's like, you don't qualify.
You weren't there. Maybe I'm the only one that feels that way. I don't think so. I think some of you are afraid to say, Amen, brother! Anyhow, coming back to this, so in times of trouble the Jews will turn to God under great stress and pictures of women in labor. The problem, as he's going to go ahead to point out, is it's not going to produce the results without God. Of course, labor pains are directly linked to mankind's disobedience. You can't say, well, it's linked to the woman.
That is, too. But he sinned also, and he's just as guilty. They were both driven from the garden. He didn't say, okay, Adam, you don't have to go out so far.
She has to go way out. They were both just as guilty, and he more so. Verse 18, we have been with child, we have been in pain, we have, as it were, brought forth wind. We have not accomplished any deliverance in the earth, nor have the inhabitants of the world fallen. So he's saying, we failed as your people. We did not carry out our commission to show that you are God of the earth. The Jews had become just so disgusted with the Gentiles that they weren't even interested in reaching them, and that's what's going to come out in Paul's day.
Paul's preaching, and once he mentions the word Gentiles, they riot it again, just at the mention of the word Gentile. In their own Bible, you would think you could go up to them today and say, in your own Bible, you are rebuked for this behavior. That's the benefit of going verse by verse through the Bible. You don't get to skip. It's tough sometimes, but you don't get to cherry pick.
Well, you can if you skip over it, and then your conscience is bothered. Verse 19, your dead shall live. See, this is the righteous now, in contrast to earlier. Together with my dead body, they shall arise. Awake and sing, you who dwell in the dust, for your dew is like the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead. Well, Daniel said in Daniel 12, and many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. So there's going to be that resurrection of the just and the unjust.
Isaiah is in contrast to verse 14, saying, Israel, the righteous, the remnant, in that day the righteous will live, and they will live forever. 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.
