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. 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. And now here's Pastor Rick with his continuing teaching in Isaiah chapter 43 on this edition of Cross Reference Radio. They also went on to conquer Egypt and northern Ethiopia, which would be likely, Seba is likely Sudan or northern Ethiopia. And so it's sort of like, here he is almost 200 years before the event happened, Isaiah is calling it. 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 nations are there but the story is 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 in 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'm just, 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. And you know there are some similarities to 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 end quote. 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 of 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, 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'll 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. Otherwise, you're in perpetual uncertainty. Well, how can faith thrive in that?
This is one of the problems with those as well. You'll know if you're saved if you persevere. In other words, you drop dead believing.
Do I got to wait till then? Yep. Well, that's not blessed assurance. 1 John 5.13, I've written these things to you that you may know that you have eternal life. How could you be affected for Christ? Well, I'm going to wing it. I don't know if my landing gear is down, but let's try.
I don't think that's necessary. I think it is a robust faith that knows what Christ has done and moves forward with a boldness that is otherwise absent. And that's why those who believe that they are saved, I think are very evangelical. They'll reach out and witness, you know, in the back of your head you're going to find, you know, I get next person.
There's got to be somebody I can get saved. Mark chapter 13, and then he will send his angels and gather together his elect from the four winds from the farthest part of the earth and the farthest part of heaven. So ultimately there will be another, a final one, but that one is outside of the, that is in the great tribulation. The one that Isaiah has here in verse 5 and 6 is pre-great tribulation, and we're living it as I mentioned. Isaiah 11 says the same thing.
I'm not going to take the time to read it, but 11, 12, because there's so much more to talk about here from this chapter. Verse 7, everyone who is called by my name whom I have created for my glory, I have formed him. Yes, I have made him. This is a powerful doctrinal statement as a catechism of doctrine. Four verbs describe Israel's final gathering called, created, formed, and made, here in verse 7. Three of these words describe God's right to man, makes him the divine prerogative, whom I have created for my glory. That word created, at least in the New King James version, which I prefer, is bara. And this is the best idea, this is divine fiat. This is God willing something into existence and it happening. This is God creating something out of nothing. Now, in the Hebrew, that word bara, it does not mean to create out of nothing. However, it is exclusive to God. If you read about a potter creating something in the Bible, it's not that Hebrew word, bara, only when it's talking about God, because this is to create something from nothing.
Well, you got to be divine to do that. So it is the distinct word reserved for God. Genesis 1, 7, thus God made, bara, or in the beginning God created, bara. He created from nothing. But that's not the whole story, because God didn't just make things.
He shaped them into what they would be used for, and then he uses them for what they were made to be used. And this is what the language here brings out, because man is created for friendship with God. And even after the fall, friendship and companionship is very possible. He says, I have created for my glory. There's the part about the companionship, of communion with God. The difference between companionship and communion for us as Christians is, one's got blood on it. You see, before Christ, companionship was available, but the sins were covered by the rituals. Sort of an IOU of God saying, you know, I owe you to deal with that, because I choose to owe you to deal with that. Not that God is indebted, God cannot be indebted to man. Then comes Christ on the cross, and he washes away the sin. It is what everything was gearing up for.
So many lessons in these things. But anyway, coming back to these Hebrew words here, I have formed him. Now that Hebrew word formed, yatza, means to fashion a thing that's already been made, as a potter would fashion something. In fact, that word is used for a potter in Jeremiah 18.
I'll come to that in a minute. Genesis 2, 7, and Yahweh, God, yatza, formed man out of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being. Well, if you've got problems with Genesis 1, verse 1, if the first verse in the Bible is a problem to you, then everything else is going to be a problem.
But if the first verse is like, he's God, I don't have a problem with that. Somebody did it, why not him? He's got love.
I'm going to buddy up with him. You see, but look at my life. I don't have much love in my life. You know, you can tell how much a person is in touch with the love of God by how they can sing to God, sight unseen. Not every case, because again, sometimes I'm not in the mood to sing. Sunday morning, my head is so busy racing about, I want to say this and I want to say that like a dog tail.
But other times, I've gotten it all together, I know where I'm going with this, and I can enjoy the song. But anyhow, yes, I have made him. Now, made there is another Hebrew word. Again, bara yatza, this one is asa, meaning to make something from things that are already made.
Again, and I'll try to button that down in a minute. Jeremiah 18, 4, this is Jeremiah who was sent to the potter's house because he didn't know what God was doing and God wanted him to understand, Jeremiah, I'm doing something, I know what I'm doing, I know where this is going, and maybe if you watch the potter work, you'll figure it out. And he did, and he wrote about it. And the vessel, as he's looking at the potter, he writes, he says, and the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter, so he, the potter, made it again into another vessel as it seemed good to the potter to make. And that word potter is our first word, formed, and the other one is made, something he did with, or something already made. So, men can make things from things formed by God, but only God can create from nothing. God creates the clay, he shapes the clay, he uses the clay.
I took that long trip through these Hebrew words just to, that's the point. He creates, he shapes, and he works with it. Creatorship is ownership and ownership is lordship. I made you, I own you, and now I'm going to work it out with you. That's the ideal. And with creatorship comes the rights of lordship.
And we love it. The righteous, look, everybody born gets brainwashed once they reach the cognitive age. The question is, who's doing it? It's either God or not. And that not is Satan. That's why the word Satan means the enemy, opposed to God, anything God loves Satan hates by default. And so brainwashing is part of life.
So I'd rather be brainwashed than have my brains made dirty, as we know Satan loves to do. You know, you want to say to humanity, grow up. Somebody's working behind the scenes. There is no way we're here on this planet alone. And don't give me the alien stuff, because that's a whole other story. I don't believe it.
You got a lot of questions. Anyway, verse 8, bring out the blind people who have eyes and the deaf who have ears. So Jeremiah, Isaiah, doesn't let them get away, his generation, the ones that were unrighteous. He covered, he addressed these chaps back in chapter 42, verses 19 and 20. And they have eyes, but they're not seeing what God is doing.
They have ears. They're not hearing the voice of God. They don't want to, but God wants to fix this awful spiritual condition. And he wants Israel restored, Romans 11, 26. And so all Israel will be saved as it is written. The Deliverer will come out of Zion, and he will turn away ungodliness from Jacob.
He will have a generation that will listen, that will see, but it's going to be a bloodbath first. And you say, why does God allow so much suffering? Why don't we allow God to have people in heaven who have not seen Him before on earth love Him? And why should God be cheated of that? Just because man fell into sin. And when man fell into sin, the consequences are severe. So when Adam and Eve sinned, God did not say, oh, this is going to be a mess. So let's do this again.
And then they would have failed again. So, I mean, in my head, it's fine. But when I suffer, I don't like it any more than anybody else. Knowing or understanding, at least to me, I'm satisfied with my understanding of what's going on with the universe based on scripture. It doesn't mean I like it, but I also know it's worth it. And our word, worship and worthy, carry that meaning, that it's worth it. God is worth it.
If He allowed this because of His character, it's got to be right. And when we get to heaven, it will be all laid out. I don't think there's going to be a question and answer session. I wouldn't even want to be part of that. Have you ever been a part of a question and answer session?
Why does that person always ask that question or something like that? Anyway, verse 9, let all the nations be gathered together. Let the people be assembled. Who among them can declare this and show us former things? Let them bring out their witnesses that they may be justified.
Or let them hear and say, it is truth. So bring your other religious Bibles and tell us the prophecies you've got. Let's see what you've got. You got nothing.
Get Vinny from Brooklyn. What you got? You got nothing.
You don't. Only the Bible has the prophecies. And so many of them on so many topics, just Christ alone, just the Old Testament prophecies concerning the coming of Christ. And then what about the second coming of Christ?
They're all over the place. So here is God. Peter says, we didn't follow cunningly devised fables when we made known to you the power of his coming. We were eyewitnesses of this stuff. And I really, I don't really appreciate you calling me a liar.
So, that's just the way it is. Who else can tell the future with absolute accuracy all the time? Only Yahweh. What nation has been the center of predictive prophecy? Israel. And who among them, he says, can declare this?
Show us the form of things. So God says, you know, it's unparalleled what I've done to Israel and what I'm saying about the future. Nobody else has got this. Let them bring out their witnesses. Yeah, without witnesses they still scoff. Listen, if I were speaking to a room full of MIT, you know, they're supposed to be the real smart guys. If I was speaking to a room full of them, they would more than likely be scoffing at all of this.
Yet I'd leave them in the dust when it came to the reality of it all. They might, you know, they'll do better at mathematics and other things than I can, but when it comes to God, again, I'll leave them in the dust. And I know it because I've got the written word, the more sure word of prophecy.
And Paul felt this way when he witnessed before Felix, and I'm going to get to that in a minute. There's no boasting in myself for that, but there's boasting in God. If any man boasts in this, then he knows the Lord. And it's, what am I going to say?
God, you've put your hand on my life, but I'm not going to tell anybody. I'm going to deny it. It's not a boast.
And it's true of you too. If you stick by the facts, they have no defense for these things. You know, the Ingersols, they came along and took Darwinism and they articulated it because Darwin couldn't. He wasn't that smart.
And they really pushed the evolution of the species forward, which is a disaster, but they cling to it nonetheless. And it is too bad that there are people that will not listen to facts and truth when it comes to God when they are otherwise ready to listen to facts and truth about other things. If you were on an airplane and the wing fell off while you were still in a tarmac, and you say, hey, the wing fell off, and you look at the wing, look at that.
Let's get out of here. You know, they would have no problem believing what they see with those kind of eyes. But when it comes to God, they won't reason it through. It's because they don't want it to be true. Well, let me finish here. That they may be justified, continues verse 9, or let them hear and say it's truth. So God is saying establish your conclusions based on fact, not feasibility. It sounds feasible. You can't put out fire with hot water.
Sounds right. Fire is hot. You put hot water on it, it's got to make it hotter. But it's not right. It's a lie. And first of all, the fire is going to, water is going to turn to steam anyway when it hits the fire, if it gets there, if it's big enough fire. So, but it sounds, maybe it doesn't sound feasible to you, but it does to me. You know, I can see where hot water can't put out fire, but it's a lie.
Of course it can. I find those things interesting. Fruit flies don't taste like fruit. Now that's a fact. Okay.
So, I've got some more of those. It sounds feasible. Fifteen feet down in the middle of the ocean, it's not salt water, it's all fresh. It sounds feasible. How would you even pull that off?
I mean, how, it's like, is it oil and vinegar separating? Anyway. All right.
Back to this. As I mentioned, most unbelievers want the Bible to be untrue. And so they hide from honesty when it comes to scripture. Acts 24, now as he reasoned about righteousness and self-control and the judgment to come Felix was afraid and answered, go away for now.
When I have a convenient time, I won't call for you. Well, why was he afraid? Because he felt the truth. He didn't like it. King Agrippa, do you believe the prophets?
I know that you do believe. But Agrippa did nothing with it. He was created, he was formed, but he couldn't make, he didn't follow through.
That was it. He sat on the shelf. Verse 10. You are my witnesses, says Yahweh, and my servant whom I have chosen, that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he. Before me there was no God formed, nor shall there be after me. Man, I love the authority of these words. That's why you read it out loud. It appeals to your spiritual senses.
And your natural resistance just kind of moves out the way. He's referring to Israel, you are my witnesses. God's people are to call it like they see it. That's what helps make a faithful witness.
And without exaggeration, without embellishment. We don't have to paint the gold of the gospel to make it appealing to people. It's an ultimatum. It's not, you know, it's easier to be entertained than it is to be educated. But that love of learning opens the path of knowledge.
It opens up the door. And that is very much so the case with God. Our eyes are to see and our ears are to hear. Faithful Israel was to testify as a faithful witness on behalf of Yahweh before the nations. And they will in the kingdom age. They were to testify of his sole divinity, of his mighty acts, which incidentally, yes the Jews today who aren't, especially the Tel Aviv crowd, who care nothing for religion.
They go through the rituals at holiday season, but that's just because it's, you know, cultural, many of them. But you ask them, how did you get here to Israel as a people? Do you believe in the mighty acts that got you out of Egypt? You're supposed to testify of these things, of his revelation, his salvation, his eternity and his power. That's what verses 10 through 13 or Isaiah is bringing up. This was Israel's calling as a servant to tell the world these things and to pursue them themselves. And to this day, could you imagine the Jews taking you to Isaiah 43 and saying, let me tell you how great my God is.
And that he should be your God. But there's the Christians doing that. And our motive is not to, it better not be, to convince people to think like us. Our motive is not to get more people into a church.
Our motive is to get people to heaven, God's way, according to the scriptures. You know, evangelism is not, well, I'm saved, too bad for you. 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 additions 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.
