Cosmic Judgment (Part B)

Now, the Chaldeans were in Babylon, and the Babylon represents the world's collective powers against God.

That would include the haters of God, it would include the occultic religions, the false religions, the apostate religions, the financial world, the political world, the military world, the global culture. That is apocalyptic Babylon, and in that is apocalyptic Edom also. 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. Isaiah chapter 34 is the text Pastor Rick will be teaching from today on this edition of Cross-Reference Radio. The hatred climaxed between the Jew and the Edomites when, as Obadiah 11 tells us, and I'm going to read Psalm 137, when they cheered on the destruction of Jerusalem. Psalm 137 verse 7, remember, O Yahweh, against the sons of Edom, the day of Jerusalem, who said, raise it, raise it to its very foundations, destroy it, get rid of it, we hate it.

And that is going on. It's funny, the Muslims have done what they could to destroy any of the Israel, the Jewish history, that is anywhere near the Temple Mount, thinking that it would, it's part of the, they have the spot where the Jews had their temple, but they've claimed it. As you know, Muhammad descended, ascended, what he left from there on a horse into the sky is their story, their myth, but I don't believe that's where the Temple Mount was anyway.

I think that's where the Antonia fortress was, and I'm not alone with that, but that's another subject we've got a lot to cover here. So if you want more on the judgment of Edom, Obadiah 10, 14 gives you the meat of it. Well, let's move forward to verse 7, the wild oxen shall come down with them, the young bulls with the mighty bulls, their land shall be soaked with blood and their dust saturated with fatness. And so, again, these are clean animals for the ceremonial sacrifices, blood sacrifices, and it speaks of God's justification in his wrath. These are beasts for slaughter.

But here's interesting, and pause the sound, one minute, I've got to cough. Well, at least that, thank you. Coming back to this, Isaiah, typical of Isaiah, he's such a wordsmith and creative writer. Here in verse 7 it says Yahweh has a sacrifice in Basra, a great slaughter in the land of Edom. Well, in the Hebrew, the word for sacrifice is zevak, and I'm sure there's a ch in there, but I was just speaking the other, yesterday I was speaking to someone from Persia, that's, you know, from Iran, which is Persia, and I said, so where's that accent from? And she said, Iran. I said, you're Persian. And boy, she just lit up, you know, because that's who they are. And they begin to engage, and we talked, I said, well how do you say some of the words in the Farsi? And she used one of them, and she said, well you all don't have the ch. And here I am today talking about it, it sounds like there's a phlegm coming next, right? Anyway, sorry.

So going back to this, I'm going to just anglinize it. The zevak and the tevak, that's the sacrifice and the slaughter. So he says, the Lord has a zevak and a great tevak.

These aren't cars. These are Isaiah being, phonetically, using phonetically similar words, the wordplay to make his point. Revelation 14, speaking of Basra, which incidentally, Basra means the gate, great gathering, which plays into the judgment in Revelation, verse 20 of Revelation 14.

And the winepress was trampled outside the city, and blood came out of the winepress up to the horses' bridles for 1,600 furlongs. And so there's the winepress that is associated with the judgment to come. You can tie that in with Isaiah 63, verses 1-6.

Anyway, moving on, verse 8. For it is the day of Yahweh's vengeance, the year of recompense for the cause of Zion. Well, Israel is a prophetic battleground.

If Satan can undo any of God's promises concerning the Jews, then he wins. He thinks that. Well, of course, he's insane, and it's not a petty shot. He truly is. How do you get to see God in all of his splendor, not in an exhaustive sense, but in heaven, and turn on God?

You have to be insane. And he is the father of lies. He is the father of insanity. So he is the father of all the ills that mankind suffers. And this is why the indignation wrath of God is so fierce on that generation that bows down to everything that hates Israel, to everything that hates Christianity, to everything that hates anything to do with the Bible.

They chose the losing team. So in verse 8, there's that word vengeance, the day of Yahweh's vengeance, the year of recompense, payback, and because of Zion. So the times of the Gentiles began when Nebuchadnezzar, just the first siege of Jerusalem, when he just asserted his power over the Jews in Jerusalem, began the times of the Gentiles. We are in the times of the Gentiles now. That ends when the great tribulation period starts. It's kind of still some of the facts they share, but there's another phase in God's prophetic calendar, the time of Jacob's trouble. And of course, when the Lord returns at the second coming, he puts an end to human rule, and he himself will rule. Israel is invincible since God upholds her cause, which is to be, not only to bring us Messiah, but Israel is God's vessel of fulfilled prophecy.

That's what makes it the battleground. If God had said that about Rhode Island, then Rhode Island would have been the target. Satan would target whatever God upheld, and God is upholding war. He's made pledges to Israel.

He's given judgments and mercy to Israel. And this is why this teeny little country that invades no one is the brunt of humanity's hatred because of the satanic influence. And whenever you find someone target the Jew in hatred, you are looking at Satan's work, whether they know it or not. And if they claim to be a Christian, you call them out right away. I have had several occasions where you said you're a Christian, you're messing with the Jews, you're not a Christian. You're something else. You're an imposter, but you're not a Christian. And I haven't always had to say it with that force, and most, if not all of the times, they have submitted.

You know, what could you say? If you want to be a Christian, you've got to follow what the scripture says. And the scripture's not foggy on that. Anyway, Satan and his world, the Gebors, the power makers, the decision makers that run the world, they ran it before the flood, they got wiped out. What we have now, we have the Gebors are back, and they're trying to get rid of the middle class.

I just watched a political pundit talk about how Europe is losing its middle class. Yeah, because the powers that be, you know, they've got to get rid of them. They're a competitor to greed. So anyway, back to this, no one will ever defeat Israel again. We are in the last of the last days.

The technology demands it, the world stage, everything is in line. And any who think God is merely a God of sentimental love without truth and without justice is under the persuasion of Satan. If you believe that God is not going to have this wrath poured out, then you have fashioned for yourself a self-baked image of God, which is an idol. Verse 9, now you younger ones, when you get out to the world, you're going to meet people, don't share those views. You've been sheltered maybe to some degree in a home that loves the Lord.

You attend a church where the word is preached. Well, when you get out in the world, you're going to find people that are beyond antagonistic. They're going to resent you. They're going to hate you. You are going to be a walking sermon to them and they're going to try to find a way to stop you from believing what you believe. Don't you give in to them. You be ready for them. You love them and you hit them with truth. They're going to do what they're going to do and you're going to do what you're going to do.

And that's what creates the battleground. Don't you cave. We've watched so many, not only Christians, we watched their parents cave in, right along with them. And there really is, I don't think there's an excuse for that.

I mean, there's just some things that don't get a pass and that's one of them. And that's the Lord, you know, he's pretty serious about apostasy, an apostate of someone who had the faith and fell from it, by choice. Nothing made them do it. It wasn't some sneaky little virus that got in there and altered their thinking.

It was their choice through and through. So, if you love the Lord, you don't have to worry about that stuff. If he's real to you and you love him, you are invincible in your faith.

No one will snatch you out of his hands. And you won't leap if you love the Lord. Anyway, coming back to this, verse 9, its stream shall be turned into pitch and its dust into brimstone. Its land shall become burning pitch. Verse 10, it shall not be quenched night or day. Its smoke shall ascend forever from generation to generation. It shall lie waste.

No one shall pass through it forever and ever. Well, God is going to take the deserts of the world and there are some big ones. Not only the Gobi Desert in China or the Siberian Desert, you know, Russia has the largest landmass of all the nations and it's all frozen.

Antarctica, you know, the North Pole. These places are going to turn into lush environments, but there are going to be some places that are going to remain a wilderness. And they will be monuments through the millennial age, inhabitable for humans. And this judgment is certainly ignited by God as it was with Sodom and Gomorrah.

And that is on purpose. God is saying, remember what I did to Sodom? Peter comes along in his letter and he says, Ray, remember? God turned those people to ashes.

You think he's playing around? And he's either real to you or not. Luke chapter 17. Likewise, as it was also in the days of Lot, they ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built. They were having just a good old time hating God. And look what happened. It was a sad ending for them. Their wickedness was so bad, God said, I can't let this spread. Not yet, but it's happening now. Sodom has been revised. You wish they would get back in the closet. They're not going to.

And we're not either, incidentally. And anyway, this corresponds, this section about the pitch and the fire and the brimstone, it corresponds to the apocalyptic Babylon and the judgments that are coming. The fires of eternal hell, the lake of fire. Also, we're told by Jesus himself will never be quenched.

This language is intentional. So I have a, you know, a reference here to John 14, not four, Revelation 14 and Obadiah 18, but don't have time to read it all, but I can take part of Revelation 14. Then a third angel followed them saying with a loud voice, if anyone worships the beast in his image and receives his mark on his forehead or on his hand, he himself should also drink the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out in full strength into the cup of his indignation. He shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, in the presence of the land.

And it just goes on. So these judgments are real. They match what Isaiah is saying. You see the pitch, that's, you know, oil-based. Is the prophet talking about Saudi Arabia, those areas of the world that produce a lot of oil?

I think there's some of that included. Anyway, coming back, not all of them necessarily, but in Edom's neck of the woods, verse 11, Pelican, the porcupine shall possess it, also the owl and the raven who dwell in it, and he shall stretch out over it the line of confusion and the stones of emptiness. Remember, God is not the author of confusion for his people. He is the author of confusion for the enemy, and the Bible is very clear about that.

And here's one example. These are ceremonially unclean animals, and they speak of God's rejection. You know, Cain bought fruit when he was supposed to bring a blood offering. God rejected it. These, in this picture here, Isaiah presents people that are, that have these ceremonially unclean animals which God would reject.

It is their unbelief. Verse 12, they shall call its nobles into the kingdom, but none shall be there, and all of its princes shall be nothing. Verse 13, the thorn shall come up in its palaces, nettles, and brambles in its fortresses.

It shall be a habitation of jackals, a courtyard of ostriches. Again, this, now so, we've talked about apocalyptic Babylon. This is apocalyptic Edom, representing the nations that have this hatred for the Jews. In a sense, compared to Edom, Babylon didn't hate the Jews.

They just conquered everybody. But it was, it was, it was emotional. There was a rage against the Jewish existence in the heart of the Edomites. Anyway, this, just review this a little more. This, what he is saying here, verses 12 and 13, matches Jeremiah 50, verse 39. The difference is, Jeremiah uses Babylon, and says almost identical to what Isaiah is saying.

And there's a reason for that, of course. Edom, Israel, the haters of Israel, the Chaldeans, they embody the powerful false religions of the world. Now, the Chaldeans were in Babylon. The Babylon represents the world's collective powers against God. That would include the haters of God.

It would include the occultic religions, the false religions, the apostate religions, the financial world, the political world, the military world, the global culture. That is apocalyptic Babylon. And in that is apocalyptic Edom also. I hope that, you know, I hope, if you read enough Isaiah and Jeremiah and Revelation and Zechariah, Ezekiel, you begin to see the pattern. It forms right in front of you. You say, okay, I got this.

But it can take a while to get to that place. So, verse 14 is the next verse. The wild beast of the desert shall also meet with jackals and the wild goat shall bleat to its companion. Also the night creature shall rest there and find for herself a place of rest. Verse 15, the arrow snake shall make her nest and lay eggs and hatch and gather them under her shadow.

There also shall, there also shall the hawks be gathered, every one with her mate. Well, the reason why, because snakes have no arms, they can't wear vests. It's a random thought. It's nothing to do with what we're talking about.

The precise identification of these animals is sometimes impossible. Some of them we get, okay, that is a raven in the Hebrew, but some of the others the translators struggle. I try to look at the root words and figure out, okay, he must be talking about this. And it's really incidental.

It's not important. Isaiah knew what he was talking about. He's actually kind of showing off how much knowledge he has, has me, and not in a bad way. Anyway, again, all this reads, these details and this assurance reads like he watched, watched it on a screen, like, you know, a video.

And he's just, he has this information. Verse 16, search from the book of Yahweh and read, not one of these shall fail, not one shall lack her mate from my mouth, for my mouth has commanded it and his spirit has gathered them. So he evokes the scripture. He is saying the scripture can't fail. What I'm giving you comes from God and is now scripture. This is the third time in Isaiah. Isaiah 8, bind up the testimony, seal the law among nine disciples. Well, that was what Isaiah was given to preach. God said, I want you to make a book out of that.

And that's for your students. And then in chapter 30, he says, now go write it before them on a tablet and note it on a scroll that it may be for a time to come forever and ever. And we've been reading these things. So here's another example of the spoken prophetic word becoming written scripture. New Testament answers that too. Peter treats Paul's writings as scripture. He says as they twist the rest of the scripture, which means that Paul's writing was considered scripture. Jesus said this, assuredly, I say to you till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled. So there's the assurance of scripture. Verse 17, he has cast the lot for them.

His hand has divided it among them with a measuring line. They shall possess it forever from generation to generation. They should dwell in it. So what he is saying, he's summing up everything he's been saying. And he is saying, God has put boundaries on the judgment that befalls Edom and nothing's going to reverse it.

This is everything he said about animals inhabiting their territories will happen. Well, chapter 35, the wilderness and the wasteland shall be glad for them and the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose. It shall blossom, verse two, abundantly and rejoice even with joy and singing. The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it. The excellence of Carmel and Sharon, they shall see the glory of Yahweh, the exceeding, the excellency of our God. Now it's a radical shift. We now come to the second coming of Christ, which happens right, which ends the tribulation period and brings all the slaughter that we've been reading about. I'm kind of like developing a new preaching style.

It's called the cost-suppressant preaching style. I don't know if you can pick it up. I hope you can't, but I'm usually wrong on those kinds of things. Anyway, whether it's the sand of the desert or the ice deserts, Christ comes and there will be climate change.

It will be radical and it will be wonderful. So isn't it interesting that no matter what language you speak, all coughs are the same. You would think that, you know, someone who speaks, you know, Norwegian or Nordic language would have a different cough, but they're all the same. Hmm. Anyhow, coming back to this, so you can't get to chapter 35, the meanings, until you've passed chapter 34. Chronologically, the prophet's end-time theology is perfect and it matches everything we get in the New Testament, which is a critical point. Verse 3, strengthen the weak hands and make firm the feeble knees. Paul writes that in Hebrews 12.

He adds, though, strengthen the hands which hang down. It's an interpretive rendering of Isaiah 35, verse 3. Now we come to verse 4 of Isaiah 35. Say to those who are fearful hearted, be strong, do not fear. Behold your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God.

He will come and save you. You ever try to strengthen somebody who's in fear? And you're saying, be strong.

Now sometimes we can mess that up. It's not the time to say be strong. They already know that. They're doing the best they can do.

We don't, they don't need to hear us. You just got to be strong, tiger. But then there are other times where we can say, listen, you got to, you got to do better. You got to be stronger than this. God is with you. God loves you.

And you know it. And you just haven't, you know, you're in a retreat moment. We need you to get into a regroup moment. The difference between a retreat and a regroup, you're both going the opposite way of the attacking enemy. But one is intention is to stand and fight and then counter attack at some point.

Whereas the one that just in full retreat is just looking to go as far away as they can. Second Thessalonians, chapter 1, Paul writing to the Thessalonians, they're being persecuted now as Paul and Silas were when they arrived there. And he says about those persecuting them. These shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power.

When he comes in that day to be glorified in his saints and to be admired among those who believe because our testimony among you was believed. Because you believed our preaching of Jesus Christ. You've suffered this persecution. God's going to deal with them because you belong to that group of people that love the appearing of the Lord, that admire Him. And of course it's superlative language. It's not like, well I admire people, but this is on another level. And so there we find the New Testament in rhythm with the Old Testament prophecies. 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.