Next Level Isaiah (Part B)

Relief is the ultimate ambition of God. That's what this is saying. It's his comfort. Yes, comfort my people.

This is what I'm going towards. Consolation through prophecy. And prophecy comforts because we know it's a promise. And that's why the book of Revelation is such a blessing because it's a promise. It's a promise of this is what's going to happen and this is how it's going to end.

And we take comfort in that. 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. Next level Isaiah is the title of Pastor Rick's message. He'll be teaching in Isaiah chapter 40. Isaiah 59, when the enemy comes in like a flood, the Spirit of Yahweh will lift up a standard against him. Isaiah 61, 1.

We know this one. Jesus applied it to himself. The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor. Isaiah 63, 10. But they rebelled and grieved his Holy Spirit.

You can't think this stuff up. This is why this is one of the most comforting Old Testament books when you get, especially this section, 40 through 66. So rather than further outlining much of what is coming, we'll just go through it together. But I do want to read some of these New Testament verses about these Old Testament prophets. Jesus said, blessed are your eyes for they see and your ears for they hear. For surely I say to you that many prophets and righteous men desire to see what you see and did not see it and to hear what you hear and did not hear it. And he's telling the New Testament Church, where the church is still not even born yet, more, as much more is coming. He's telling the believers that by seeing Christ, you're going to see a lot more than what the prophets saw and you're going to better understand the things they wrote about. Peter said of his salvation, the prophets have inquired and searched carefully, who prophesied of the grace that would come to you.

Searching what or what manner of time? The Spirit of Christ who was in them. Did you catch the deity of Christ there? The Spirit of Christ, Jesus, was in the Old Testament prophets. That just refutes everything the Jehovah Witnesses believe. The Mormons are just ridiculous.

You just refute them with common sense. But anyway, the Spirit of Christ who was in them was indicating when he testified beforehand, the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow. To them it was revealed, not to themselves, but to us, they were ministering the things which now have been reported to you through those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit, sent from heaven, things which angels desire to look in. Peter just had, you know, we had talked so much about Paul and rightfully so, but Peter was right there with him. You look at Peter's writings, they're not, boy, they're not as good as Paul.

Well, they're grammatically, in the Greek they may not be, but far as content, they lack nothing. They are God's Word. 2 Peter chapter 1, verse 19, and so we have the prophetic word confirmed, which you do well to heed as a light that shines in a dark place. Until the day dawn, dawns, and the morning star rises in your hearts, knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. I don't know, this is fantastic verses. Okay, one more, Luke chapter 1, this is the father of John the Baptist, Zacharias. It says in Luke chapter 1, verse 70, as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets who have been since the world began, he's saying there's no unbroken witness of righteousness from the days of Abel, who was a preacher of righteousness, all the way to Malachi, and then from Malachi forward. There has always been a witness of God in some form. Well, now we come to the first verse, having looked at the authorship of this verse, the microcosm style of these last 27 chapters, also the transition from the Assyrian to the Babylonian front that the Jews will face. So he starts off this next session with, yes, comfort my people says your God.

The translators have rightfully inserted usually an exclamation there. I've been waiting to teach from this section again for a long time. What pastor does not want to comfort the congregation from the word of God? But it's not that simple. It's more complex than that, because there are dangerous behaviors lurking, looking to attach themselves to us, and therefore to fight these things, the Holy Spirit is the one that guides the pastor, even commands, if he's listening.

Otherwise, a man will tend to go in the path of least resistance, and he will bury his head in the sand when it comes to the unpleasant sections, which may be perceived as unpleasant sections of scripture, and try to grow a crowd instead of a church. You want to grow a crowd? You just keep speaking nice things. You just tell people what they want.

You tickle their ears. You tell them what they want to hear. You want to do the work of God? You preach precept upon precept, line upon line. You don't hold back, but then you don't look to be brutal, but you cannot censor the word of God. I quoted this Sunday, Lamentations 2.14. Here's Jeremiah weeping over, lamenting over the disaster of Jerusalem that he tried so hard to stop, that he was persecuted severely for trying to stop. And he writes, he says to the people that brought this on themselves, your prophets have seen for you false and deceptive visions. They have not uncovered your iniquity to bring back your captives, but have envisioned for you false prophecies and delusions.

They told the people what they wanted to hear. They let the flesh rule. You know, you read it, well, I want to always speak comfort and love to God's people.

Well, you can't do that from a human approach. Humans are sinners. We have to depend on the Holy Spirit and be guided into all truth through this relationship with God, which will come out when God says, well, he says it here, comfort, yes, comfort my people. That's an interesting and yet critical insertion by the Lord. How much do you think, or let me put it this way, do you think, without calling out, Elijah, the great prophet, who called fire down on troops or Malachi, do you think they wanted to just comfort the people? Of course they did, but they had to deal with the beast.

They had to deal with the monster of unchecked sin, and God led them into those ministries. Well, Isaiah has been doing that, and now he comes to comfort, yes, comfort my people. The Jews called, the Jewish people called this section from Isaiah 40 to 66, the book of consolation, because of the contrast. Now, comfort is not synonymous with rescue, unfortunately. It is relief within discomfort, but not necessarily from.

This does not undervalue comfort, but it notifies those who are suffering through this life for righteousness sake that God is still present, that he has not disowned them. And so you can think, you know, some tragedy, a series of tragedies can hit you, and you can say, as Jacob did, you know, all these things work against me. God was actually working for Jacob, but Jacob did not see that.

Not at that point. He saw it later. David knew about this in Psalm 35. He says, Lord, how long will you look on?

Rescue me from their destructions, my precious life from the lions. And, you know, he goes on to talk about the presence of God with him. In Psalm 86, again, he writes, show me a sign for good that those who hate me may see it and be ashamed because you, Yahweh, have helped me and comforted me. So David is saying, let them see your mercy on my life, and maybe they'll realize you're with me and leave me alone.

It doesn't work that way oftentimes, but sometimes it does. But because of the apostate kings and the apostate people who love those kinds of kings, the Jews suffered in Isaiah's day and beyond, and the righteous suffered with them. Isaiah suffered with them. So God gets a message out to those who suffer in his name, to the remnant that will be coming out of Babylon and are in Babylon. Relief is the ultimate enemy. Relief is the ultimate ambition of God. That's what this is saying. When it says comfort, yes, comfort my people.

This is what I'm going towards. Consolation through prophecy. And prophecy comforts because we know it's a promise. And that's why the Book of Revelation is such a blessing, because it's a promise.

It's a promise of this is what's going to happen, and this is how it's going to end. And we take comfort in that. Isaiah 66 verse 13, as one whom his mother comforts, so I will comfort you and you shall be comforted in Jerusalem. We know that goes beyond Jerusalem. He just said that's his audience, but behind the audience or above the audience stands God. God the Son, God the Father.

The Father is seen as comforting. The believers in 2 Corinthians chapter 1 verse 3, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort. As for the Son, Luke's gospel, and behold, there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon. And this man was just and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel. And the Holy Spirit was upon him.

Well, he got to hold the consolation of Israel. It was Christ, the child Christ, then the Holy Spirit. The new King James has substituted the word helper for comforter, and there's no loss in that. They're both the same, the paraclete.

It is in the Greek, the paraclete is the one that comes beside you to comfort you, to help you. He will guide you into all truth. John 14, 16, and I will pray the Father and he shall give you another comforter, that he may abide with you forever. So this is the direction God wants to go in with his people as we're doing his... Well, I'll get to that when we get back to John the Baptist, because the message is more important than the messenger, and yet the one that is more important, Christ, died for that messenger.

So it's tied in. But, you know, God looks at the life of his prophets, he said, they're expendable. That's what it takes to reach others. I'm going to have to lose some of my own so I can reach more.

So I can reach more. This is what martyrdom is all about. The world understands that. They send their troops into war. So God does the same. He is the Lord of hosts, which is his military title. He's the Lord of armies. That's what that title means in the Old Testament.

When you come across the Lord of hosts, he's the Lord of armies, because there is spiritual war. And may we remember this when our flesh surges forward in a fit of insecurity or carnality or terror. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. That's what God wants to do, but he does it often without rescuing us at that time. Ultimately, he will.

We get to that in the end, too. This is my people, says the Lord. Now, this comfort that we're speaking about is conditioned upon a relationship with Christ.

The unbeliever does not benefit from this. However, we can offer them, too, a comfort sometimes in life. And we see this Paul the apostle when he was about to suffer shipwreck with over 200 shipmates. And he said, he said, take heart. The angel of the Lord stood by me this night.

There will be no loss of life. And he comforted them. But that was not spiritual.

That was physical. And you say, well, why waste it on them? Well, because it is a contributing factor for them heeding what he has to say about spiritual things, too. In the workplace, if you are the worst employee in the workplace because of laziness or meanness or whatever else, then you want to go preach Christ to somebody, it's not going to happen. But if you are a hard worker and you're trying to do your best as a human being because of Christ, people will seek you out when the Lord sent.

We need somebody to send someone to. Verse two now, speak comfort to Jerusalem, cry out to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned for she has received from the Lord's hand double for all her sins. So he speaks as though these things have happened, clearly have not. Jerusalem still suffers war.

They will be conquered more than once from this point. But he's peaking from God's view, and he's amplifying verse one. Actually, when comfort here is different from verse one in the Hebrew, this word for comfort, speak comfort in verse two, is speak to the heart. Speak to the heart of my people. It's used by Hosea. Therefore, behold, I will allure her, will bring her into the wilderness and speak to her heart.

And it's translated to speak comfort to her, but it's the same Hebrew word. And there's an endearment, there's an emotional attachment, there's a relationship there. This is not casual.

This is something that's larger. And we who love the Lord will love the Lord when, you know, if you're a Christian, you're not afraid to love the Lord. That's why we love to sing. I mean, you can make yourself shy and you'll be shooting yourself in the foot.

I would not advise it. I'm not saying you should lose control either, because that's not evidence of the Holy Spirit. That's evidence of loss of the Holy Spirit. Self-control is one of the attributes that come from the Holy Spirit, one of the virtues. So, you know, his comfort to us is never because we deserve it, but because we need it.

And if you have children, you know, their needs are a big thing for you as a parent. And that's because of love. And so our needs, you know, we don't deserve the comforts of God, but we need them. And God is sensitive to that. He doesn't write, yeah, you don't deserve it.

You're not getting anything from me. That's not our God. He's looking for a way to bring comfort. And sometimes it calls for some cutting through with the machete, through, you know, time, just hacking away, waiting for these things.

Those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. The Bible is very frank with us. It does not pretend. Oh, don't worry.

Life's just this wonderful experience. It never tells us that. It tells us in the midst of these things that we are to persevere. It says here in verse 2, and cry out to her.

In other words, say this out loud. He's telling the prophet, this is your sermon. And say it out without shame that God wants to bring comfort to his people. The remnant Jews who would read this over a hundred years later, this was like a care package of prophecy for them.

They would read this. They would be motivated spiritually. The strength of God motivates our faith.

When you remember the Lord is with me, oh man, you just get these spiritual muscles. That's how Christians have gone to the stake and faced lions and other things in life, even the ordinary things, even personal failure, personal setback. If you do anything, if you set out to work for the Lord, you're going to fail from time to time. But that's not the whole story. Satan wants it to be the whole story, but it's not.

He hates it when we get up. Anyway, cry out to her as we do today. We preach our message here. Her warfare is ended. Again, that's future. Her iniquity is pardon, God's solution to man's plight. And man's plight is personal sin, which is a product of original sin.

Satan, a very real, invisible opponent who causes much harm. And then there's society that wants to paint crosswalks with perverted rainbow colors and hang it from buildings and yellow. How come the heterosexuals don't get to get a flag? You know, this is, well, you're not going to get any, it's always going to be a double standard with Satan, no matter what. But that just points out more of the folly that we're beyond that. We're beyond pointing out their folly. We're now just dealing with sheer evil, just evil and people that refuse reason and yet insist at the same time that they're scientific and they're rational. Nothing new about that.

Evolutionists have been pulling it off for years. Anyhow, coming back to this, for she has received from the Lord's hand, that is from the throne of God, double for her sins. That's punishment and penalty. The sin itself carries a punishment, but there's also a penalty. If you are, you know, robbing a bank and you get shot in the process, but you survive and you get caught, well, you go to jail, but you also suffer from the wound. It's a double penalty.

Well, that's just logic. The scriptural definition, the one that I think is the most accurate is Exodus 22, 9. And according to that verse, a man had to pay double for a trespass against his neighbor. So if he, you know, accidentally killed his neighbor's dog, he'd have to pay for the dog plus pay for it twice.

It would be a penalty. And dogs weren't so unclean that people just never had anything to do with them. People are people in every age. They may not have been as embraced as we may embrace them, but I just throw that on the side because I chose dog as opposed to lamb. Anyway, the appropriate punishment has a limit and God knows that and he's telling his people that these things are going to get fixed. Verse 3, as for the nation, for the people, the Jewish people, if you were a Bible-believing Jew in Nazi Germany, you'd be taking comfort from them. You say, yeah, they may kill a lot of us, but we're still going to survive because I believe in the scripture. And look, we look back at that and we say, look at that. Germany couldn't get rid of them.

They tried genocide, modern genocide, and it failed. Verse 3, the voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Interesting, prepare a way for Yahweh. And well, this is applied in the New Testament to Christ. Christ is Yahweh in the New Testament, Yahweh of the Old Testament. Verses 3 through 5 here, concerning John the Baptist, are all quoted in all of the Gospels. Each of the four Gospels quote this section.

Isaiah's section of grace, chapters 27 through 40, begin where the New Testament begins. The forerunner, the herald, John's Gospel, chapter 1, John bore witness of him and cried out, saying, this was he of whom I said, he who comes after me is preferred before me for he was before me. Now John was older than Jesus by a few months.

Remember Elizabeth, you know, she became, you know, and when when Mary came to the house, the baby jumped in her womb, but she was, that child was older. So what's John talking about? What he's saying that the Messiah is self-existent.

He's always been, therefore he's older than him. John 1 20, he confessed and did not deny, but confessed, I am not the Christ, John the Baptist speaking. But he knew what his role was and he embraced it.

I'll get to that in a minute. He says, the voice of one crying in the wilderness, says Isaiah. This is again John the Baptist. With prophetic symbolism, John the Baptist used a literal wilderness for his work.

He's the voice of the one crying in the wilderness. Well that's where his ministry was. People had to go out to see him, which was part of his ministry. If you want this, you got to come get it.

He didn't put it, you know, like I'll just come and meet you where you are. He put his ministry out in the wilderness and he ate nasty things like bugs and washed it down with honey, which is sensible. I don't know, you can't really wash down a bad piece of, you ever bite into a bad piece of fruit? You're done. You just got to suffer through it.

You, it's not gonna, I don't, because I just had a bad grape the other day. Anyway, yeah, you know, you want to hear that. Coming back to this, John the Baptist, he claimed the fulfillment of this Isaiah verse upon himself that he is the voice. John's Gospel chapter 1, John speaking, I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness.

You can't be any more clear than that. And he continues, make straight the way of Yahweh, which is in the New Testament, it's translated Lord because it's a Greek writing, as the prophet Isaiah said, just like that. So there's John saying that Isaiah wrote that second part that the liberal theologians protest and scoff at, or he couldn't have written with such accuracy.

Somebody else after the fact edited John. I'm gonna go with John the Apostle, I'll go with John the Baptist before I go with any of those doomed souls in that state. Unless they repent, they're not likely they're gonna make it. Prepare the way of the Lord.

And so, so quite powerful, got to kind of speed it up here. Who else had so much go into the announcing of their arrival on earth, their birth? No one. You would think that the Jews would have picked up the unbelieving Jews. We got to be careful because they were Jews that did believe and it's not, you know, a racial slur.

But those of the Jewish people that resisted the testimony of Christ and John the Baptist were opposing their scripture. It was already laid out. The path was already paved.

The obstacles were cleared. 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.