Our Unseen Friend (Part B)

Islam, in that region of the world, is always acting violently against the Christians, and this would explain it. When you have a faux god, a fake god, you have to prop it up, because it is a product that comes out of you, out of mankind, and therefore must be sustained by mankind.

Whereas we're just witnesses telling you what we've seen, and whenever so-called Christianity has opted for violence, it is not biblical. 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. Our unseen friend is the title of Pastor Rick's message, and today he'll be teaching in Isaiah chapter 41. Verse 5, the coastlands saw it and feared. The ends of the earth were afraid. They drew near and came. Verse 6, everyone helped his neighbor and said to his brother, be of good courage.

So you've got to watch the context. It shows up in one of the pronounced places where Joel says, go ahead, prepare for war. Beat your plowshares into swords. He's not encouraging God's people. He's telling the enemy, you want to fight?

Well, get your stuff ready. Well, here, it's the nations facing Cyrus and his invading armies. The prophet is saying they're going to rally together. When the day comes for Cyrus to start marching through territories that didn't belong to him yet, they're going to arm themselves. The nations are going to turn to each other for help, and they're going to make more idols doing it.

They're going to double down with their fake gods, and Isaiah's trying to bring this to the front and say, let me show you what human nature does without God, and it's quite proud of this. And we see the secular world without God, there's camaraderie there. There are fraternities and brotherhoods, and there are noble human characteristics about it. Human love is not evil.

It is the, you know, the phileo, the stroge. It's nothing evil in and of itself. It just becomes a problem when that's as far as you go. It's like sinking on a nice boat. You've got some nice things there, but you still perish without reaching your destination, and agape love is that it's love with God's fingerprints. And we struggle to have that kind of love, because it is an exotic love. It is imported from heaven.

It doesn't come natural to us anymore since Eden. Anyway, these human alliances, they're not able to defeat God's prophetic word. This is what I think about his number being six, six and six. The scripture says, calculate his number. I think as arrogant as evil is, the personified evil, Satan, Lucifer, Antichrist, and those who side, I think they're going to mock the Bible and intentionally use that number, just playing right into God's hand. God is saying, I gave you the number to tell you what you were going to do, thinking.

You would say, wait, wait, let's not do this. Let's repent. But no, you won't. So I've bypassed you, and I've turned my attention to my martyrs. And that, I think, is how it's going to play out, that it will be an intentional, because the world knows about that number.

And I'm seeing it pop up in some things every now and then. I'm saying, no, I'm getting the feeling that these techies behind this stuff is doing this on purpose. Well, it really doesn't matter if I'm right or wrong. God is right, and it's going to be that number, and I won't be here to be worried about it. And neither will you, who believe.

Anyway, they will turn to their idols for help, one of the worst things they could do. And we want to tell that to an unbeliever in trouble. One of the worst things you can do is turn somewhere else than Jesus Christ for help. And maybe you want to say, add to that, maybe you don't believe Christ because you've had bad experiences with Christians, or people who say they're Christians. That's not enough in the court of God to get you off the hook. God is not going to say, well, I told you to follow my people.

He's going to say, I told you to follow me. Anyway, sharp satire coming from Isaiah, no surprise there. I started a file, you know, sarcasm from the prophets.

I couldn't keep up with it. It's so much. This is getting to be clerical.

I need a scribe just to enter these things. Anyway, he describes the various trades, the workmen, helping each other fabricate useless gods. He's mocking them. And what they're doing here with woods and metals and other materials, the end-time generation will do with their imagination and technology. That deep fake is upon us. And hopefully more to come about how this artificial intelligence is really shaping humanity into a funnel to go right to Antichrist, right into his arms. If once they reject the truth of Christ, they're going to love what technology has for them.

Tragedy for most. Anyway, in verse 6, it talks about just a natural thing of circling the wagons. Everyone helped his neighbor, encouraging each other to defy Cyrus, you know, die with your boots on.

Yeah, but God is not on your side here and, you know, it would be better if you would submit. Can he use the unconverted on such a scale as world leaders? Of course, we know, especially to help his people and fulfill prophecy.

He used two different Egyptian kings in a very pronounced way, or Egyptian pharaohs. There was the pharaoh in the time of Joseph, who couldn't help himself when he meets Jacob. He says to Jacob, how old are you? That's a funny scene.

Jacob, I'm 135. He's like, I knew it. Well, I enjoyed it. Anyhow, that pharaoh was good. And then, of course, it was the wicked pharaoh whose heart was hardened. In other words, God just said, all right, I'll give you what you want, turn you over to your own deception. And I know a lot of theologians make a lot of twists and turns with that, and I think, unfortunately. Anyway, he used wicked Herod.

He used cowardly Pontius Pilate to fulfill the crucifixion plan. Proverbs 21, verse 1. King's heart is in the hand of Yahweh. Like the rivers of water, he turns it wherever he wishes.

And that is precisely what we're going to see happen. We see it happen with Nebuchadnezzar, who was even more powerful than Cyrus as kings go. Anyway, verse 7. So the craftsman encouraged the goldsmith. He who smoothed with the hammer inspired him who strikes the anvil. There's a blacksmith in the one peening, I guess, saying, it is ready for the soldering. Then he fastened it with pegs that it might not totter. So here he is, the satire on how they make their gods.

He's saying, take me down to the shop. I want to see how you guys create your creator. It's the goofiest thing, right? Idolatry. High up on the list of rebukes from the prophets, because it is high up on God's list to rebuke this madness. The capacity of man for sin is astounding. Humanity is very complex. When you think about all the hang-ups, you think about the people who walk around in guilt that they don't deserve. They're no more guilty than other good people. And then you have the others who have a lot of guilt to lay on other people. You used to have, back in the 60s and 70s, trying to lay a guilt trip on me.

We should revise that, or revive it. What are you trying to lay a guilt trip on me? I didn't do anything wrong. Stop making me feel bad.

It's not my fault you didn't finish your spinach. Anyway, verse 7 is where we are. Isaiah talking about them shaping these non-existent gods. God is seen using, again, Cyrus, while men try to use idols to deliver them from Cyrus, and it's going to fail. And all this passionate care, the costs, the craftsmanship, you see the alliteration there, the three Cs, wasted on demonically influenced renderings of God. It's a good question to an unbeliever.

What is your rendering of God? If you were given a pen, I just saw today that some artists used technology to show us what Jesus looked like. I mean, it's just like, you know, and people are just, this is fit to print? So there's no way you're going to know. It's just impossible.

But there wasn't stop you from making a buck off of it at the same time. He's boasting how he's using, you know, this artificial intelligence and, you know, computers to, and they show you the picture. And so I'm supposed to say, oh, yep, yep, yep, yep, that's him.

If I want to see what Jesus looks like, I'll read my Bible. And this is what the world, the blindness that we're up against, and, you know, it's not that we hate, at least speaking for myself, I don't hate any of them. I despise what they believe, where they're going with it, but I'm very passionate about what I believe. I used to be on that team, and it was going to hell.

And when I got off that team, I became passionate about not getting back on that team and getting other people off of it. You know, people do this, if you find out, hey, do you know you're eating radioactive meat? You would, from a distance, try to convince them to stop doing it, from a distance. Anyway, artificial gods, you have to keep them from toppling over.

That's what they're seen doing, that's the satire. This explains, in practice, what is practice, invisibly nowadays, with those religions who violently defend perceived insults against their god. We are never allowed to use violence to protect our god or his image or the understanding of him. If someone was to take our Bible and shoot a hole in it, we're not supposed to do violence to them. But the other, many other religions of the world, ramping up even more in India, with the Hindus, who are trying to really revive Hinduism as the religion of India, the persecution against the Christians is really stepping up. Islam in that region of the world is always acting violently against the Christians, and this would explain it. When you have a faux god, a fake god, you have to prop it up, because it is a product that comes out of you, out of mankind, and therefore must be sustained by mankind.

Whereas we're just witnesses telling you what we've seen, and whenever so-called Christianity has opted for violence, it is not biblical. And anyway, verse 8, but you, Israel, are my servant Jacob, whom I have chosen, the descendants of Abraham my friend. There is a burst of warmth coming out of the beginning of this verse, but you. In contrast to the idolaters that are going against the prophecies of God, whether they know it or not, whether they know their role or not, God's people know the basics of their role, what they're supposed to be doing.

And so the tone changes, and if you were reading it with music, the music would reflect that, hopefully. And the repeated personal pronouns of Jacob and Abraham. There's no apology coming from Isaiah for this uncompromising contrast that, but you, Israel, belong to real people who have a real God, and this God cares about you. Israel, he says, but you, Israel, are my servant.

He's moving away from the coast lands, the Gentile nations, the unbelievers, and he's now going to bring forward, in chapter 40 through 53, two servants he's going to introduce. The first represented the entire nation of Israel. Israel's supposed to be God's servant, as a people, as a kingdom. The second individual, of course, is Messiah. The church is not Israel, the church is not a nation.

We are a kingdom of priests in the sense that we do the work of the Lord on behalf of people, and our prophetic element is that we share God's word. One servant is a struggling servant, that's Israel. The other servant is a spectacular servant, and that, of course, is the Messiah. And the emphasis will gradually shift and increase towards Messiah as we move through chapters 40 to 53. I'm really looking forward to, I was looking forward to chapter 40 forward, but then when we get into the messianic prophecies, it's just, you know, how can you not love talking about the one you love? What is your beloved more than another that you so charge us, the women ask, the Shulamite in the Song of Solomon, and is she let them have it? And your Holy Spirit comes along and says, now that's how you do it.

Jacob, whom I have chosen. So he goes back to the consolation of chapter 40, comfort, yes, comfort, my people. And God speaking through Isaiah, remember, this is not Isaiah, this is God speaking through him.

The descendants of Abraham, my friend. Friend is a higher description than a servant in a relationship, in relationships with each other. It speaks of a greater bond.

It speaks of mutuality, and it is more developed. Now a servant can be a friend, and we are servants of Christ, and we are also his friends. John chapter 14, verse 15, you are my friends if you do whatever I command you.

Which seems to be, wait a minute, that's not the same, no it does not, because of who's saying it? It's just prerogative, he is God. And he's saying, I want you to be my friends, but to be my friends you have to have this relationship that's in its right place, setting, that I am God and you are not.

That's just a fact. And he says, no longer do I call you servants, though they are, and happy to be so. We are zealous to be servants. And then he says, no servant does not know what his master is doing, but I have called you friends. He promoted them. He promoted us. He's trying to get us into this relationship with him where we can be more comfortable in righteousness, on his terms.

Thus the command. Three times Abraham is called a friend of God in the Bible. The first time is when King Jehoshaphat is praying, and in that prayer he refers to Abraham, the friend of God. Then there is, and that would have happened chronologically, Jehoshaphat has already lived and gone.

Then there is here, this divine consolation from God. And then James, who combines God's dealings with Abraham and this passage in Isaiah. And the result is, if God can be one man's friend, he can be any man's friend. If Abraham can be God's friend, so can I. I can be God's friend.

Well, I just read from John where it says that. Jesus called Lazarus his friend. John 11, verse 11, these things he said after that he said to them, our friend Lazarus sleeps. But I go that I may wake him up.

Now of course this euphemistic, the language is using a euphemism for death. He's not sleeping, he's dead. But he says our friend, he doesn't say my friend only. He brings him, I mean he just still loved this stuff.

Vance Havner, if you don't know who Vance Havner is, you're missing out. You might want to look him up. Good, he's with the Lord now. Very witty, very unique.

If Toziah liked him, you know he's good. Anyway, Vance Havner says, if we are beset by an unseen foe, we are also befriended by an unseen friend. Great is our adversary, but greater is our ally. Greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world.

That's good theology. And the unseen friend, that's so easy to lose sight of that when the visible enemy is on you. Whether it is through the courts, through the hospitals, you know, some diagnosis, whatever the enemy may be, some neighbor, whatever it is, there is an unseen friend. And he is every bit the friend. He is an ally. He is on our side. His angels are rooting for people. He makes his angels ministers of fire for us.

And when one soul is converted, the angels rejoice. We have an unseen friend, and it does us well to be more mindful of that if we lose sight. Verse 9, and of course it is this unseen friend that Isaiah is so deeply in love with, and all of these Isaiahic writings we have come from this relationship that he has with God. It's like, as you read, as you consider the life and the ministry of Isaiah, it's as though he blocked out the terror of the Assyrian threat that was so real.

Just blocked it out. And it's almost like, I guess on a smaller scale, as though he's a prophet in present day Ukraine. With all of that madness, he's just focused on God. And when the dust clears, he's the one standing, not the Assyrians. Verse 9, you whom I have taken from the ends of the earth and called from its farthest regions and said to you, you are my servant. I have chosen you and have not cast you away. He's speaking about, of course, the Jewish people, Abraham out of Mesopotamia, which from Canaan was the far side of the world, Israel out of Egypt.

The application is more than one, it's multiple. And called from its farthest regions and said to you, you are my servant. I have chosen you and have not cast you away. Well, they've been disciplined so much, even in Isaiah's time. The church has not replaced the nation of Israel.

It cannot do it. Just a simple, basic doctrine. Romans 10, verse 1, brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved. Well, if the church is Israel, according to that verse, the church is lost and needs to be saved. See the madness of such a theology?

It's a broken theology. And some people lap it up. Well, you know, the first one to get to you can make a deep impression. The only defense is whose image is pressed upon you. And Jesus said, go grab a coin and tell me whose image is on it. We like to say, well, I can tell you Caesar's image is on the coin, Lord, but I want your image pressed upon me. We call it Christ's likeness that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, the fellowship of his suffering, if by any means I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.

That's commitment. So incidentally, Isaiah nowhere calls Cyrus God's servant. Even though he is used by God, he's not a cup, see, that's the part. He's not a believer.

He's still an outsider. And he was kind to other religions, too. And so his kindness to Israel, though called by God, is no indication that he became a believer. Where it's a little different with Nebuchadnezzar. Nebuchadnezzar looks like in the end, he did become a believer.

Anyway, verse 10, the believer in Yahweh, that is. Fear not, for I am with you. Do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you.

Yes, I will help you. I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. How many times have you used that verse when you were going through bad times and it didn't seem to be working? So it's not like, you know, there's some stories about people out by grizzly bears and using the bear spray and then getting eaten. And it's just like, and they know that because when they find the remains, it's pepper spray everywhere, and anyway, they find out.

And you know, you say, well, you should have used something other than a bear spray, like a lead spray. But anyhow, my point is, you know, he used the wrong thing. For us, we don't want to use the wrong thing. We're subjects to the king. And God loves to tell his people, fear not.

But his definition is higher than ours, not different, it's higher. He tells us do not fear, not so much to calm our fears, but to keep us focused because there we can be strong. And you know, if you've ever felt panic sweeping up, you're getting weak very quickly. Fear is not a hollow encouragement, and we're not to use it that way. I mean, you're not in an airplane crashing and saying, oh, don't worry, fear not.

That's probably not the right thing to say to your fellow passengers. The gospel would probably, well, give me time, just use the scripture to tell you what I'm thinking. Revelation chapter 2, to the church at Smyrna. This is a suffering church. It's one of two churches of the seven that received no rebuke. But unlike Philadelphia, that church was promised to be spared tribulation. That's coming on the whole earth, thus one of the reasons why we believe in a raptured church.

But here, this church wasn't going to be spared. Do not fear any of those things which you are about to suffer. Lord, you just contradicted yourself.

No, I did not. Suffer them, but keep your faith intact. Go out in glory.

Unbelievers can do this. I expect my people to do this. Do your duty, complete your mission, do your job, bring glory. How do I bring glory? Remain the witness of Christ. Do not fear any of those things which you are about to suffer. Indeed, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison that you may be tested, and you will have tribulation ten days. Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life.

There's nothing in that that's hollow. Don't worry about it. It's going to be okay.

He's saying to them, it's not going to be okay, but you be okay in the midst of it. That's Christianity at its highest level. 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.