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Creator, Owner and Lord (Part C)

Cross Reference Radio / Pastor Rick Gaston
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October 14, 2024 6:00 am

Creator, Owner and Lord (Part C)

Cross Reference Radio / Pastor Rick Gaston

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October 14, 2024 6:00 am

God, thru Isaiah, reassures that He is the Redeemer of Israel even though Israel is unfaithful. The LORD gives a promise of victory, they are God’s witness and Babylon will be destroyed. The Lord reminds them of the shortcomings of Israel, but that in the end He is Sovereign of all.  

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I'm not going to let you go until you bless me.

You can hear, you know, just desperation, exhaustion. You just wanted God to bless him and he didn't know how to get there. And so with such advantages, more was expected from Israel, but they felt God was a burden and the fake gods were liberating. And again, this is one of the reasons why Felix, the governor of Rome there in Caesarea, didn't want to hear anymore because he enjoyed his sin. 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. But for now, let's join Pastor Rick in the book of Isaiah chapter 43 with this edition of Cross-Reference Radio. 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 were 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. 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 on the tarmac, and you say, hey, the wing fell off, and you look at the wood, 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 in verse 9, or let them hear and say it's truth.

So God is saying establish your conclusions based on fact, not feasibility. 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.

First of all, the fire's going to, water's 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. 15 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, 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 of 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, you know, could you imagine the Jews taking you to Isaiah 43 and say, let me tell you how great my God is.

And that he should be your God. But it's the Christians doing that. And our motive is not to, it better not be, to get, 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. Verse 11, I, even I, am Yahweh, and besides me there is no Savior. Mary is no co-redemptrix. And by the way, it's a sin to pray to the dead. Mark chapter 12, verse 32, so the scribe said to him, well said, teacher, you have spoken the truth, for there is one God and there is no other but he. Did you catch the pronoun alert?

It's masculine, is it not? There is no other God but he. And, of course, Mary, the co-redemptrix status that Rome gives her, or at least tolerates, contradicts that. Luke 2, 11, for there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior who is Christ the Lord. Titus 1, 4, grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ our Savior. But it says there's no Savior but Yahweh. Well, Yahweh of the Old Testament is Jesus Christ of the New Testament. The Godhead is inseparable. God has designed it so that, you know, the Holy Spirit is not to steal the thunder of the sun, not that he deserves to be equal, because he is, but because people will mess that up. Look at the American Indians talking about the Great Spirit. That's all you got?

You're just telling me there's a Great Spirit? What's he like? What irritates him?

What finds favor? Where does he come from? What has he done? What is he going to do for my sin? What is he going to do for your sin?

God is ingenious in his word at setting up the boundaries that we need to operate within and be very comfortable doing it. One day the title, My Witnesses, will receive a fuller force than compared to when Isaiah spoke it. You're to be my witnesses, God says through Isaiah to the Jews. But then we come to the New Testament, where you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be witnesses to me in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth. But again, to this day Israel appears reluctant to share the faith. Verse 13, indeed before the day was, I am he and there is no one who can deliver out of my hand.

I work and who will reverse it? Eternity passes included in this. I give them eternal life, Jesus said, and they shall never perish. Neither shall anyone snatch them out of my hand.

You've got to love that. Hosea 13.4, there is no savior besides me. There's no contradiction in any of this.

There's explanation. There is revelation and there's light. I work, bottom of verse 13, I work and who will reverse it? Doctrinal attribute of God is indomitable.

You can't conquer him. Verse 14, thus says Yahweh, your Redeemer, there's that word goel again, the Holy One of Israel, for your sake I will send to Babylon and bring them all down as fugitives, the Chaldeans who rejoice in their ships. Now this is again a hundred years before Babylon becomes a world power.

Right now they're under the Assyrian dominance. The connection to Jesus is inescapable. Thus says Yahweh, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel.

Criteria to be Redeemer. Holiness. So Jesus goes into the church, the synagogue, the equivalent of the church, the assembly, that's what it means, and there's a demon-possessed guy in the church.

No surprise there. Some churches have him in the pulpits. Mark 1.24 tells us what the demon said when Jesus comes to church. Let us alone. What have we to do with you, Jesus of Nazareth?

Did you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God. You can't say that about Michael, the angel, Gabriel, or Paul, or Moses. You're the Holy One of God, not in this context.

This is exclusive. For your sake I will send to Babylon and bring them all down as fugitives, the Chaldeans who rejoice in their ships. Now, the Babylonians are probably most often referred to as Chaldeans.

How did they get that? Well, Chaldeans has to do with looking at the stars, at the occult. And it is an attest to their occultic infestation, which Alexander Hislop documents in his book, Two Babylon's, which has been the target of. Well, he didn't really write that.

Yeah, consider who makes the charge. And so now you've got, you know, the naysayers at Hislop's book, and he documents what he writes. So that's the part if you're going to show me the proof if Hislop in his book is not accurate. Anyway, coming back, verse 15, I am Yahweh, your Holy One, the creator of Israel, your King. Colossians 1, 1, of course, talks about Christ. For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth. All things were created by Him, through Him, and for Him.

So we have this, everything is dovetailing neatly into each other. Verse 16, thus says Yahweh, who makes a way in the sea and a path through the mighty waters. It should stop and say, Matthew Moray is the one that discovered the shipping lanes that we still use to this day.

At least he gets much of the credit for that. Came about when he was sick, and his daughter was reading him scripture, and she read Psalm 8, 8, the fish of the sea that passed through the paths of the sea, and he had this conviction that if the Bible says there are paths in the sea that are ideal for shipping, then they're there. And there was this big shipping accident outside of these shipping lanes, and he made a big discovery in about the 1850s, thereabout. I think Sunday I mentioned Matthew Poole, the Puritan theologian pastor, was in the 1700s. It was actually the 1600s, just testing you. So, verse 17, who brings, that's the kind of stuff you drive, I'm driving home like, wait a minute, I don't think it was the 1700s.

Quick, back to church, get everybody back in. So, 17, who brings forth the chariot and horse, the army and the power, they shall lie down together, they shall not rise, they are extinguished, they are quenched like a wick, like you just put out a candle. This is the pharaoh's army. And so Isaiah is reminding them of their heritage, of what God has done for them. And again, you go to Tel Aviv, and you know, Tel Aviv is Israel's version of, I don't know, San Francisco night life, now I don't know if there's any life in San Francisco, zombies have taken over.

But, actually, they're the ones running the city. Dead men walking, it's just a shame, it's the capacity of man for demonic, for demons, is illustrated when 2,000 pigs couldn't hold the demons that one man had, or two men had. Anyway, back to this, verse 18, do not remember the former things, nor consider the things of old. So he says the past miracles, they're not extinct, God's going to do more things. This was Gideon's problem. We're the miracles of our fathers that they all talked about, God doing this.

And the angel could have said to him, well, if you people learn how to obey, maybe you see some of that stuff. But he doesn't, he's too much the gentleman, and he just, like, dismisses it, and moves forward with Gideon, and Gideon becomes one of the miraculous workers in the Bible. Verse 19, behold, I will do a new thing, now it shall spring forth, shall you not know it?

I will even make a road in the wilderness and rivers in a desert. Verse 20, the beasts of the field will honor me, the jackals and the ostriches, because I give waters in the wilderness and rivers in the desert to give drink to my people, my chosen. Verse 21, this people I have formed for myself, they shall declare my praise. So this moves on as want of the prophets into the messianic kingdom, they blend all the time, and all you have to do is find context and say, well, this is historically so, but this one hasn't happened yet, not all of it. The messianic kingdom in sight here goes beyond Babylon and Rome and present history.

When Israel is healed, creation will benefit too. Verse 22, but you have not called upon me, O Jacob, and you have been weary of me. So now God returns to their guilt, because it can't be swept under the rug. Jacob became Israel because of a touch of God. Initially, Jacob offered God only resistance, and that's illustrated in his wrestling with the angel of the Lord. And he prolonged the struggle, which caused him to be injured by the angel, and he changed his walk. Well, when you come to Christ, your walk should change too. And the angel blessed Jacob, and he asked for a blessing.

I'm not going to let you go till you bless me. You hear, you know, just desperation and exhaustion. He just wanted God to bless him, and he didn't know how to get there. And so with such advantages, more was expected from Israel, but they felt God was a burden, and the fake gods were liberating.

And again, this is one of the reasons why Felix, the governor of Rome there in Caesarea, didn't want to hear anymore because he enjoyed his sin. Amos chapter 8, we don't have time, but Amos chapter 8 goes into how the Jews, an element of them, complained about the feast days and the offerings, and they didn't want the Sabbath. They wanted to sell things on the Sabbath, and the Sabbath was in the way. And Amos calls them out on that. They hated Amos.

He was from the south, and he went to the north and prophesied, and they told him to go back to the south, and he kept prophesying, at least for some time. Verse 23, you have not brought me the sheep for your burnt offerings, nor have you honored me with your sacrifices. I have not caused you to serve with grain offerings, nor wearied you with incense. Well, the grain offerings were voluntary, most of them. They would put frankincense on them, Leviticus 2.1. Malachi talks about how they were bringing God the defective offerings, and then Malachi says, try that with your governor.

Go take him something defective, see what he does with you, but you don't have a problem doing that with me. We find this in Christianity all the time. People will pull stunts that they would not allow in their own homes from their own children in the workplace, but they come to the church and they think they can pull it off. You know, there are some business owners, you know, they wouldn't tolerate the things that they try to pull inside of a church.

They'd fire people. So, it's the sinful nature that we have, and just because we come to Christ and we are dead to our sins, our sins aren't dead to us. Not cooperating is what I'm trying to say. Verse 24. Actually, I did say it. You have brought me no sweet cane with money, nor have you satisfied me with the fat of your sacrifices, but you have burdened me with your sins and you have weared me with your iniquities. In other words, God says, I see through your fake religion. I want inward truth. It's more important than outward ritual. Psalm 51. You desire truth in the inward parts.

We have a single word for that in the English language. Integrity. Malachi 1.13. You also say, Oh, what a weariness, and you sneer at it, says the Lord of hosts, and you bring the stolen, lame, and the sick. Thus, you bring an offering. Should I accept this from your hand, says the Lord? Oh, man, why do people think they could just get away with things with God? Verse 25.

Because God's not real to them in the truest sense of the word. I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins as a nation and for those who repent. Only Yahweh, not the idols, deal with the worst thing that can happen to a human being, and that is sin.

That's the worst thing that has happened to people. Sin is the worst thing about us. Without sin, there'd be no keys. There'd be no hospitals, cemeteries, Tylenol.

We wouldn't have, you're like this one, healthcare. You know, you just, sin is the cause, and in heaven, these things will be gone. But right now, they're used by God to separate the sheep from the goats.

Anyway, God did not delegate forgiveness and judgment of sin to angels. God suffered loss in the Garden of Eden with mankind, and he personally handled sin on Calvary, the place of the skull, Golgotha. Ephesians 2. Now, Christ Jesus, but now in Christ Jesus, you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. You Gentiles that were on the other side of the wall, you're brought in.

You Jews that were blocked out because of your sin, you're allowed in. 1 Corinthians 6.20, for you have been bought at a price, therefore glorify God in your body and your spirit, which are gods, which belongs to God, possessive. The ownership, creator, and therefore owner, and therefore Lord. He has every right to dictate to us, and he doesn't have to love us, but he can't help himself. You could say it that way, I think, because God is love.

Put me in remembrance. Let us contend together. State your case that you may be acquitted. So God says, all right, come on, justify your sacrilege. Tell me why you think you can do this. Well, they can. Verse 27, your first father sinned, and your mediators have transgressed against me.

Well, again, Israel is reminded that she has nothing to boast in herself. John chapter 1, verses 12 and 13, Jesus is not by the will of men, not by blood. God is the one that makes man fit to be with God.

Man can't do that without God. We all come from sinners. We are born sinners.

We are not sinners because we sin, we sin because we are sinners. It's our nature. It's like a dog, you know, I don't care how well you train him, you leave that piece of meat there long enough, he's going to crack.

He's going to go for it. Because that's his nature. Just the other day, I'm walking through my garage door, and this wasp just stung me, just because he didn't like the way I looked. That's his nature. You're too close. I'm stinging you. You can't change that. I'm still annoyed that I didn't kill him.

I couldn't get him. Verse 28, therefore I will, well, what time is it? Let's finish this up. Therefore, I will profane the princes of the sanctuary. I will give Jacob to the curse and Israel to reproach it. So God says, this is a startling rebuke. He said, I got to deal with this. I had to deal with you as a people for doing these things.

You will be judged. And they were. But that's, of course, not the end of the story. And chapter 44 will continue. 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.
Whisper: medium.en / 2024-10-14 08:33:01 / 2024-10-14 08:43:06 / 10

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