God is the Creator of His character.
Now, the world's landscapes may change, but the ownership does not. God, in connection to chapter 42, the last verse, God has noticed that they didn't take him seriously. And so he says, but, that disjunctive, connective, but now, thus says the Lord.
He says, I noticed you didn't take me seriously, wanting to war with me. And he says, but the one who created you, O Jacob, I've got some things to say. And this is what this 43rd chapter is about.
It will continue into chapter 44. And where he says, who created you, O Jacob? Well, that is so typical of divinity.
God is the Creator. I'm going to open that Hebrew word up later, too. But Jacob here in context, these are the Israelites, and they are being reminded that they don't have anything to boast as a people. It's not like, well, you know, we were more, we were better than the Amalekites, and God loved us more than the Edomites, and that is not the case. And God used, of course, Abraham as his platform to select a people.
It had to be somebody for Messiah to come from, and it was the descendants of Abraham, because Abraham was a faithful man. And neither their origins, their ancestry, or their spiritual leaders caused them to be special. God caused them to be special.
It's the same for everybody. If you are a blessing as a Christian, it's because God has blessed you. And we love it that it's that way. Because what we could say is that God doesn't need us, but he wants us. And to do things, he has deputized us, he's invited us, and it won't get done without us. He has arranged this.
He has not delegated the gospel, not yet, to angels, but to sinners. So it's quite a blend, it's quite a doing of the Lord, but with creatorship, where he says, I created you, O Jacob, with creatorship comes the rights of lordship. I made you, I own you.
If you make something and somebody takes it from you, there's a big problem there, is there not? God is the creator, and he has the right to be Lord. Well, what kind of Lord is he?
Well, the Bible tells us about his character, so that we won't be afraid of him, revere him highly. With lordship comes rights of ownership and love, because of who he is, because of his character. Now, the world's landscapes may change, but the ownership does not. If man were able to nuke the planet, he's not going to be allowed to do that. But if he could, it still would be God's planet, and that's why they're not going to be able to do it. He is sovereign. And he who forms you, O Israel. Well, creation is the making, and forming is the shaping, and he is calling, the calling is the working it out. He created, he formed.
That's where we are so far. God makes the clay, he shapes the clay, and then he uses the clay. And there you have the Lord creating and forming and making this process, and we learn how much God loves us as Christians by how much he loves Israel.
Now, maybe you've gone through a lot of drama in your life, a lot of hardship, and you think God doesn't love you, because you've set the terms of love. When you come to Christ, you've got to give him time. For some of us, it's instant. We get it.
The lights turn on, we get it. For others, it's a slower process to jettison the baggage, to forget those things which are behind and reach forward to those things which are ahead in Christ Jesus. But it all has to do with God's love for us. And again, we learn how much God loves us by how he loved Israel. That's why we love the Old Testament.
We see ourselves in it. And you get that out of the New Testament. Romans 9, 21. Does not the potter have power over the clay? Yes, because he made the clay, he shaped the clay as God, and he uses the clay. If he makes a jug, he uses the jug, but he created the clay that he shaped into that vessel. None could claim that the Jewish people concocted a plan and then carried it out to be the people of God. So that's why God lays it out from the foundations of the world, and he goes back to their history.
He says, science didn't do that, you didn't do that, I did this. And thus the power of prophecy, which the world doesn't want to hear. Trying to trivialize scripture. Ah, it's just a myth, those stories aren't true.
Yeah, well then what do you do with the prophecies that we see coming to pass? Well, fear not, for I have redeemed you. Now the word redeemed is goel in the Hebrew, as we came across this one in chapter 41. If you know the story of Ruth, Boaz, that's a bad name in a good way.
You gotta love that name. I would like to show it to work, Boaz is here. Anyway, Boaz was to Ruth, one who looked out for her, one who provided for her and protected her. He paid for her and Naomi, he was the redeemer, the goel.
Christ is, of course, he's a type of the coming Christ, the Messiah. Ruth chapter 4 verse 9. And Boaz said to the elders and all the people, you are witnesses this day, I have bought all that was Alamelek's, and all that was Killian's and Malon's from the hand of Naomi.
He purchased it. He was the kinsman redeemer, the next in line, well the next in line waved his right and it fell to Boaz. And so that story of Ruth is a precursor to the plan of salvation on the cross.
We have a redeemer. With God's redemption, always there is God's love. Because he doesn't have to do it. What's his motive? Why would he want us in heaven?
Do you wake up in the morning and go, God's going to get a bargain out of me. No, it's love. God is love. And we define love in different ways. But ultimately agape love, spiritual love, is not, it's made in heaven. It is the only love that is made in heaven. You can find traits of other types of love. Love for sports or love for a profession, love for people or love for a loved one, family members.
Those are other types of love, lesser loves, but not trivial at all. But agape is one that comes from the throne of God to the born again. I have called you by your name. God named Israel and by so doing he assigned their role. Name is nature with God, in scripture. Israel was first Jacob. And Genesis 32, 28, and he said, your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel.
This was after a wrestling match with God. And God claimed ownership of Jacob. And he changed his name. And it wasn't a nickname, it was an assigned name.
An elevated name. And he had gone from the heel catcher, Jacob, to governed by God, under God rule. And of course, God would have been the God of Abraham, not the God of the pagans. Essentially, paganism is very much alive today.
You know, the environmental terrorists, that arsonists set fires, they're going to save the planet. That's paganism. Paganism is the worship of created things, the worship of creation. They used to dance around the stars, you know, before the stars dance around fires and call upon the powers of the universe. That's paganism.
Whereas, hedonism is more lover of the pleasures of the flesh, with no interest in the spirit. Well, I have called you, he says, and when you name a child, you look for a noble name. We don't name, typically, there have been a few glitches here and there, but no one names their kid, not in America, at least not to my knowledge, Hitler, because you want no association with the history that made that name so prominent, you know, in a bad way. But other names, you know, Joshua, David, Paul, these are names that you hope that some of that noble character will rub off on your child. The name is nature, and God says, I have called you by your name. I have an expectation that you will be governed by me. I will be the controlling force in your life. That's what the definition of God is, that controlling force in one's life.
Even if you failed to meet the standard, that's what you aspire to. He says, you are mine. Well, of course, more than a parent, he's the creator, God Almighty, and this is ownership. You are mine. I created you. That's ownership, and he has the rights. Lordship is what happens after that, hopefully in cooperation, and to be possessed by God and benefit from his redemptive powers, which is finalized in eternity, and that requires faith, which we would call trust, and God says, I'm going to make this life worth it, but you've got to get to me.
And it's very simple. You've got to believe in my son. Verse two now, when you pass through the waters, I will be with you, and through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, nor shall the flame scorch you, and Jonah would have said, Amen.
The waters will not overflow you, though he did slush around a bit. The first application is to Israel as a nation and her existence. The precedence, of course, is crossing Yam Suph, the Red Sea, when the sea parted, the Sea of Reeds parted, and the Jewish people passed through. But there's a much broader meaning than that. The first meaning is Israel always survives, always. No matter what fire they go through, no matter what flood they go through, they're going to be here. Can't say that of everybody. Again, you won't meet a Canaanite.
They're gone. And they were not as subject as the Jewish people to genocide as the Jewish people were. Israel's survival is guaranteed by God and His presence, because He says, I will be with you. When you pass through the waters, and there's one of those I wills, I will be with you.
Very personal. And we see this illustrated in Paul's survival and arrival in Rome in Acts chapter 27, 28. He goes through this storm. He's like Israel, going through this storm, suffers shipwreck, but he survives. Then he gets, you know, a viper latches onto him, he survives.
But finally, he gets to Rome. And you can, again, see an illustration there. There's so many. This is one of the beautiful things about illustrations, is they make their point if you don't abuse them.
If you abuse them, then it shuts down. And the point only goes far as it needs to go in a given situation. As he said to the church, so he says to Israel. So it is with all his people. I said earlier that these promises, this love on Israel, applies to the church. And you have to use the Bible to back that up. Well, in the New Testament, to the church, to Christians, albeit Christian Jews particularly, but it applies to all Christians, Paul quotes, for he himself said, I will never leave you nor forsake you. Well, Jesus said that, of course, to his apostles before he ascended. And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you.
This recalls the Red Sea and the Jordan crossings. Companionship with God, communion with God, is not what the natural man wants when faced with fire and flood. They want rescue. But the Christian, of course, we want rescue too, but not at the cost of our faith. Otherwise, we'd never stand for persecution. Romans 8, who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword, shall any of these knock out my faith?
No, it's hopefully going to be our answer and our response. There's more. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned. Clearly, there's a more profound meaning than surviving a fire, a flame.
Tyndale, Jan Hus, they say it is so. Where are they now? What did fire do to those men? They were burned at the stake because they believed in the scripture. What did the fire do? It took them to heaven.
I mean, where are you going to find a deal like that? The Oxford martyrs, Hugh Latimer, Ridley and Cranmer, burned at the stake alive. Well, they went to heaven. Men's bodies can burn, but their souls don't have to burn. And so this is a broader meaning to everybody. If you have the immediate meaning, Isaiah is saying, Israel, nothing's going to happen to you. You're going to survive as a people, as a nation, not as individuals.
They're going to suffer the curse. Well, to the church, to the Christian, it has its genuine application. There's no stretch here.
I don't need to come along to pull this to where I want it to go. There's clearly a greater application, and I'm going to come to that, from scripture. How shall the flame scorch you? Will the righteous of God hold his testimony, such as Daniel 3? These promises extend, as I've been saying, beyond the Jewish people. Look at verse 7 in Isaiah 43. Everyone who was called by my name, whom I have created for my glory, I have formed him. Yes, I have made him. Now, you tell me, when you became a Christian, did you not feel the hand of the potter shaping you into the likeness of Christ, in spite of yourself, and repeating the process, and cleansing you, recurrent cleansing, not a one-time pop, but any time it's needed, the blood of Christ cleanses from all sin.
And if it weren't so, it would not have used the word all. He cleanses sometimes. He cleanses when he's in the mood. He cleanses if you don't mess up too much.
None of that. This is why Satan hates the church so much. In Hebrews, when it talks about the martyrs, it says, others, still others.
There are boatloads of them. And what about me? I ask myself, when life comes tumbling down, the flame, will it scorch me? Will it burn deep enough to cause me to abandon my God? May it never be so. Well, he's going to never leave me nor forsake me. So I don't fret about those kind of things.
I am a strong believer that when persecution, when physical or economic, whatever persecution comes, God fits us for that. And it's sort of like a spare tire. You don't need it till you need it. But you want to have it there. And now it comes in a can, actually.
Anyway, a lot easier to change. Verse 3, for I am Yahweh your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I gave Egypt for your ransom, Ethiopia and Seba, in your place. Verse 4, since you were precious in my sight, you have been honored.
And I have loved you. Therefore, I will give men for you and people for your life. You're a dastardly of this prophet saying these things while Assyria is rattling her sword every day just to the north. He trusted God. He didn't, you know, you're either focused on Antichrist or Jesus Christ.
It's up to you. And Isaiah is one that was focused on his God. It's an unmistakable declaration. It added to the advantage of Israel. Paul in Romans says, what advantage then has the Jew? Or what is the prophet of circumcision? Much in every way. Mainly because to them were committed the scriptures, the oracles of God.
But here's another advantage. That God bypassed helping other nations but did not bypass helping Israel. We can confirm this verse from history. The Persians, who took over Babylon, you know, King Nebuchadnezzar was a Babylonian king. And he is the one that conquered Jerusalem, leveled it, and took the people captive to, into captivity to Babylon and parts of the kingdom. And then the Persians, the Medes and the Persians came and, you know, killed his son and took over that kingdom. And they released the Jews to go back, and other peoples to, to their land.
Well, they also went on to conquer Egypt and northern Ethiopia, which is, would be likely, Seba is likely Sudan or northern Ethiopia. And so it's sort of like they, here he is, almost 200 years before the event happened, Isaiah's calling it. He's saying God is saying, is telling them the future so when the future arrives, they could be fortified and says, our God called this, I will trust in him. This is why men like Daniel were Daniel. This is why men like Jeremiah and Ezekiel were Jeremiah and Ezekiel in captivity. God withheld protection from those kingdoms, but he did not. He preserved Israel. And in some senses, these, these nations are there, but that's, the story's not over and Ezekiel 38 talks about a new list, a final list of nations that will come against Israel and be defeated. And so by how God cares for Israel, we know he cares for the one who cares for Jesus.
Paul applied these Old Testament lessons of God's care to New Testament believers, 1 Corinthians 10. Now all these things happened to them as examples. And they were written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the ages have come. You can't make it any more clear than that. He's saying all those Old Testament events of God and his people apply to us too, of his love and care apply to us too.
And who was us? Well, the church and the end of the age, which the end times began with the coming of Christ. With the coming of such technology as today, we have the end of the end. We have the last of the last days. We're on the precipice of these things. And as a new believer, I was so excited about the rapture. Now I'm more excited about saving souls.
I mean, I'm not going to opt out, but I want to see people saved. Anyway, there is a however that belongs to this. The role of the church is not identical to the role of Israel.
Here's an example. There are some similarities, which bring light, of course, but there are other separating factors. Persecution of the Jews was due to the Jews being disobedient. Persecution of Christians is for us being obedient. We're, you know, 2 Timothy 3.12.
Yes, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. Special care for the nation of Israel has its proof in the history, past, present, and, of course, future. As I mentioned, gone are the Edomites, the Amalekites, the Canaanites, the Philistines, the Nazis, because of their treatment of Israel. And as I also mentioned, I say as I also mentioned, because it's not fun hearing a person repeat themselves, unless they put that disclaimer on it.
Okay, he's not going loony. Anyway, Ezekiel 38 gives us a list of nations arrayed against Israel that will be defeated. And then there's more. I believe Ezekiel 38 is the battle that will bring Antichrist into power, and then there will be another great war there, Armageddon, led by Antichrist in Ezekiel 39. Not everybody agrees with that, but I've learned in humility to let people who disagree with me be wrong. Anyway, verse 5.
Fear not, for I am with you. I will bring your descendants from the east and gather you from the west. I will say to the north, give them up. And to the south, do not keep them back. Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the ends of the earth. I get goosebumps reading this, because this is fulfilled prophecy.
We're living at a time where God is doing this. Israel has an aggressive repatriation program. If you prove you'd be from anywhere in the world, if you can prove you have a Jewish ancestry, you're a citizen, you're back in.
They want you to come back. Look how many Jews have come back when the Soviet Union collapsed. Look how many Jews they brought back. They packed them in airplanes and flew them back from all over the world. We're living at a time, it goes beyond the repatriation after the Babylonian captivity and the Roman conquest of Jerusalem. This is the final repatriation. No other country has this kind of history and written down with God's stamp on it to make us say, bad mouth the Bible is a big mistake.
It is not advisable. God wants his people assured. 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.
