Restoration of the Jews (Part A)

They're resisting right up to the end, because they're resisting God. That's why Jeremiah suffered so much at the hands of the politicians, the princes, the kings, because he was telling them, you need to submit. This is punishment from God. Go to Babylon. And he wrote to those in Babylon, build houses, have gardens, raise families, because you're not coming back. This is punishment from God. But he knows the thoughts that he has towards you, thoughts of love and peace to give you a future and hope you will be brought back.

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 54. With today's edition of cross reference radio, we're in Isaiah again, chapter 54, the restoration of the Jews, that's the subject, I think, standing out for us in this section.

I'm going to take about 15% of the text to talk about the things going on here. Much of what is happening in chapter 54 is fulfilled in the kingdom age, that we know is the millennial reign of Christ. But why say it to generations of Jews who will not live to see it?

Well, some will, but not all of them. Well, you have to ask yourself, I guess, why are you curious about end time prophecy? Why is the church been curious about end time prophecy if most of the church did not live to see the fulfillment of the rapture or the end time things that we're getting to see ourselves? Well, the same reason that God tells the church about future things that excites us. For instance, in Revelation chapter 1, God says we're going to be kings and priests in the millennial kingdom with Christ. We'll be in leadership positions and spiritual positions.

There'll be no more corrupt governments and will be one of the reasons why there'll be no more corruption in government. We want to hear about these things, how the world ends, what Christ, what God is going to do. Well, the Jews also, they're curious, they want to know what was going to happen. And Isaiah is telling them, this is what's going to happen to us as a people.

And he'll point out as he goes through his prophecies to the end that, of course, there will be those that aren't faithful amongst the Jews and they will be dealt with by God. They will not benefit from these things that are coming. In both cases, we don't know when the next age begins.

The age of the church was unknown to the ancient Jews. We do not know the day nor the hour of the rapture. We know the season. We don't expect, there's nothing really left to fulfill before the rapture takes place. It can happen at any moment. There are no more prophecies. The only, maybe the one detail that could slow things up a little bit is technology where it needs to be for Antichrist to globally rule the world. I think we're almost there.

Not quite, but when I say not quite, it could be a year away, the way technology goes. So these are the end time things that we're interested in and the Jews would have been interested too. In this chapter, he's going to call them to sing about the things that God is going to do, because remember Isaiah 53 about the servant, the Messiah, it hasn't taken place in the days of Isaiah.

Future prophecy to them is past prophecy for us. It's fulfilled in Christ. And this singing is associated with marriage. That's the metaphor that God chooses, because that's associated with the covenant between God and Israel. The image in this chapter is of Yahweh, the faithful husband, forgiving Israel or Judah, the unfaithful wife, because of the idolatry that she was determined to invest in. Now Isaiah has used the marriage image earlier in chapter 50. He'll use it again in chapter 64. It's a fitting metaphor. Hosea picks it up. Jeremiah picks it up.

Ezekiel does also. Nation was joined to Yahweh at Mount Sinai. Now here's, I think, an interesting part of why this metaphor was chosen. Would you have preferred, if you were a Jew, for God to choose a business metaphor?

That we're business partners. That wouldn't work well. The intimacy of a marriage is just right for God to make his points about his emotional attachment, if we can say that about God, to the Jewish people, to any of his people. But in the course, the days of Isaiah is primarily focused on the Jews, although God has other people. Job was not a Jew. Enoch, you could not say was a Jew, though the Jews come along the line of Enoch, but God is always mindful of all people. And so he sends the prophets with this promise that Israel will ultimately be restored when Messiah returns.

And I would have wanted to hear that. Now, we covered earlier, Yahweh divorced the northern kingdom. Their idolatry was so bad, they were done. And the Assyrians came, conquered the land, took the people out of the land, and Judah remained. He does not give a certificate of divorce to Judah. Now, these are little technical things, but they're eye-opening as to what God is doing and how he treats those who have tremendous opportunity and ruin it.

They choose to ruin it. God is metaphorically married to Judah. And if that is true, how can the church be the bride of Christ?

These are little questions that I just wanted to tinker with up here. Well, the metaphor of marriage, again, to Judah comes from the covenant. Now, Judah is the dominant tribe, but under their umbrella are all members of all the tribes. There were Jews in the tribe of Gad and Asher, for example, in the northern kingdom. And when the Assyrians came, they took all those tribes away. But peoples from those tribes had migrated to Judah and stayed there. In fact, when Jeroboam becomes king of the northern kingdom and he sets up his false idols, many of the righteous Jews from the various tribes left the northern kingdom and came to Judah. And so Judah, when we speak of Judah, that is the dominant tribe, but it is encompassing all of the tribes of the Jews.

So we're kind of splitting hairs here, but I think it's informative. Well, the metaphor of marriage to Judah stems from the covenant, and the metaphor of marriage to the church stems from the new covenant, nullifying the old. Now again, a metaphor, the parables, the illustrations, they only go so far.

They're not absolute. They're vehicles that God uses to teach us about himself. There are no parables or metaphor or superlative words that can really describe God.

They all fall short, but they help us. They help us to understand he's a father, he's a shepherd, he's a king, he's a king with a shepherd's heart, he's the great physician. But there's much more to God than any of those descriptions, but they're very helpful to us. So the metaphor of marriage to Judah from the old covenant, the metaphor of marriage to the church in the new covenant, nullifying the old covenant, and then it is all put together by Jesus in this one verse in John chapter 10. Other sheep I have which are not of this fold, them also I must bring, and they will hear my voice, and there will be one flock and one shepherd. So the metaphors of marriage sort of fade out of the way, and we end up with the final result of we will be with the king, all of us, the righteous will be together. And when there's a new heavens, a new earth, it will be made up of those people who loved God in this lifetime and entered into his gates of glory. I don't know, I find all of this fascinating how the scripture just ties it all in. If the Old Testament was limited to the Jewish people only, it would drastically reduce its usefulness to us, but it is very useful to us, very helpful. Even in the parts of it that are no longer enforced, the rituals of the burnt offering, the whole burnt offering, the sin offering, the trespass, the peace offering, they all speak to us about things in our lives, even though we do not have to take a peace offering to Jerusalem and offer it up. And even if we could, we should not, we have an altar, our altar is Christ, no Christian should engage in any of those Old Testament rituals, which was Paul tells the Jews in Hebrews when he writes the Hebrew letter.

But you can't, there's no temple for the Jew to do any of these things, which has been prophesied in the Old Testament. But all of the Old Testament goes beyond the Jewish people. It starts off with their great patriarch, Abraham. God said, I'm going to bless all the people through you in Genesis 12, verse 3. Of course, Isaiah 42, 1, I want you to reach the Gentiles, be a light to the Gentiles. In the New Testament, the Jewish Messiah says, go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. And what he meant by that is just preach to the Jews, preach to every creature, not the cats and the chickens and stuff like that, but the people. God used the Jews to reach mankind, a mankind that turned on him before the flood, a mankind that turned on him at the Tower of Babel, a mankind that turned on him in Sodom and Gomorrah, and a mankind that turned on him at the place called Golgotha, Calvary, the skull, where they crucified Christ. Isaiah, preaching to righteous Jews and unrighteous Jews alike, holding out the message of hope to one and warning the other.

The choice would be on them individually. But they had this rich history in their scripture of those who betrayed God, and they could measure themselves by that. Am I going to betray God? Am I going to behave like those that were washed away in the flood? Am I going to behave like those at the Tower of Babel that were looking to factor God out of human development? Am I going to be like those in Sodom and Gomorrah that satisfy my sinful urges no matter what God says? Or will I be one that crucifies the Messiah again? These are vital lessons that the church is supposed to bring to the world.

How else are they going to find out about it? We're going to trust Hollywood to bring the message, to drive it home, to uphold it, to maintain it. This section is about Judah's relationship with God and their end times given in metaphor.

And it is rich with information for us also. And so we come to the first verse, and this first verse is directly linked to the last verse of the previous chapter. Remember when these prophecies were given, there were no chapter divisions. Sing, O barren, you who have not born, break forth into singing and cry aloud, you who have not labored with child.

For more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married woman, says Yahweh. Well, looking back at verse 12 of Isaiah 53, he poured out his soul unto death for our iniquities. That summarizes the entire 53rd chapter. That's how that chapter closes with that summary.

It's an epilogue. The prophet now shouts on the heels of that, sing. This is something to rejoice about. There is a servant coming that is going to rescue us from sin. Our iniquities will be upon him.

Sing about this. And then he brings into this picture the barren. The personal connection between the sacrifice and the servant and the song of the ransom sinners cannot be missed.

Is that important? Zephaniah, who comes in the days of Jeremiah and the last days of King Josiah, Zephaniah chapter 3, Yahweh your God in your midst, the mighty one will save. He will rejoice over you with gladness. He will quiet you with his love.

He will rejoice over you with singing. Sounds like a New Testament verse. Sounds like something maybe John would write. It's an Old Testament prophet writing in the midst of a people determined to reject God, which is not hard for us to believe because we look at so many churches today. They're not interested in the Bible. They just want to be told to feel good about themselves and they're going to heaven.

That's all they want to know in some circles. That's always been. There's always been these fraudulent churches.

It's not new. And there have always been a remnant at the least that really want what God wants. The ultimate fulfillment is when the Redeemer comes to Zion and the nation is born again. Isaiah 59 verse 20. I won't read it yet.

Maybe if we have time later I can come back to it. He says, O barren, you who have not born. Allegorical verse with national and prophetic and literal applications. It speaks to Judah's present condition in the days of Isaiah. Personified Zion in chapter 49 described herself as barren and bereaved of her children because of the judgments that would befall them, the captivity that was coming to Babylon, which most of them probably did not believe at the time that Isaiah preached it.

They'll find out the hard way. They'll resist it right up to the end because they're resisting God. And that's why Jeremiah suffered so much at the hands of the politicians, the princes, the kings, because he was telling them, you need to submit. This is punishment from God. Go to Babylon. And he wrote to those in Babylon, build houses, have gardens, raise families because you're not coming back. This is punishment from God, but he knows the thoughts that he has towards you, thoughts of love and peace to give you a future and a hope. You will be brought back.

Most of you from that generation will not, but some of you will. Anyway, coming back to this here, it speaks of Judah's condition. It also promises Judah's recovery. This speaking about this metaphor now of a barren woman has, again, wide applications. He's moved away from the marriage metaphor.

Well, he's coming back to that. We haven't gotten to that yet. But this analogy points to Abraham and Sarah. Sarah was barren. Abraham and Sarah had no children together. Sarah came up with that harebrained idea of bringing in Hagar, which is so typical to this day of Christians who want something. God's not doing it, and they take matters into their own hands. They might put his name on it, but it's not God, and they create a Hagar in their life. Abraham had to live with Hagar to the end of his life. The consequences are real.

They matter. Judah's roots reached to the promise of offspring to come from Sarah. Paul quotes this verse in Isaiah about the barrenness, applying it to Christians that we will be the children of promise, that we will not be barren as the servants of the Lord, as illustrated in Abraham and Sarah, our legitimate place as the people of God. That's what Paul was writing.

He's writing to the Christians in Galatia, many of them Gentiles, and he's saying the Jews may be coming along telling you that you're not really a believer, and I'm telling you, you are, and he used such verses as this one and the story of Abraham and Sarah to make his point. One other thing, this, O barren, you who have not borne, break forth into singing, cry aloud, has to do with those who are righteous but have not been fruitful. In two different ways, this can apply.

It can be both at the same time or two or just one. Literally, a childless person through no fault of their own, for example, still a blessing to God. This society made that difficult on the women, and I'll come to that, but the other one is spiritually, so you literally, this applies to those who are without children, and then spiritually, if you have no converts through no fault of your own, you just haven't, that's not happened. Well, there's more to your Christian life than making converts. There are other things for you to do. If you cannot captain a ship, maybe you can row on that ship.

There's something for you to do. If you cannot preach from the pulpit, there are plenty of other things to do within the house of God. Break forth into singing, cry aloud, because God's going to make you fruitful, that's why. That's why He's telling them to sing and cry aloud, because the servant has come for sinners, and if you are in a place spiritually or literally and you're barren, God has not turned His back on you. God's exhortation is to rejoice, and it comes from the revelation of His word and Sarah again, and Abraham being an example, you who have not labored with child. I believe when Isaiah makes many of these prophecies, analogies, illustrations, etc., that he often has someone in mind.

Perhaps at such a time he knew of a woman, and it would not have been impossible, it was not far-fetched at all. Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel, Hannah, Elizabeth, all of these women at some point felt the social frown of being childless, and in that society, man, if you didn't have a child, some people are going to raise some eyebrows on you. Sarah, Rachel, and Hannah were harassed because of it. Hannah, the mother of that great prophet Samuel. Peninnah, her wife-in-law, under that polygamous system, harassed her, provoked her. Peninnah is remembered as an irritant, that's it. Hannah, the mother of Samuel, she was a prophetess, not a practicant, a lot like Isaiah and Jeremiah, but God used that woman in such a mighty way to raise, you know, okay, if I can't be a prophet, I can raise one. She did, and we have that beautiful prophecy of hers in 1 Samuel, chapter 2.

It is incredible. He takes the beggar off the dung hill. I mean, that's what happens when Christ takes a life and is born again. Anyway, there's something here for all who are wrongfully victimized, which is part of this message that God is giving through Isaiah. If you are victimized in an un-Christ-like setting, no matter if you're around people who claim to be Christians or not, God is mindful of that. You still have something to sing about. Your sins have been dealt with.

You won't be here forever. There are many bullies in life. God is no bully, and never. He says, for more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married woman, says Yahweh. They will reap as one who has not sown. There will be blessings that they really had not much to do with. Christ was biologically childless.

We covered that in the last chapter. But spiritually, of course, he was not. The barren are given here an assurance of becoming spiritually prolific.

What does that mean? Well, the barren, or those childless, we'll use more modern form, they are less divided, less distracted with their personal interests. The blessedness of being childless exists. It's not a curse to have children, and it's not a curse to be without children. Although some will try to make it so, but here, clearly the Bible goes against that.

I'm going to build on that in a little bit. But you can have a spiritual orchard. You can be very fruitful. Such men as Daniel, John the Baptizer, Paul the Apostle. 1 Corinthians, Paul says in the seventh chapter, But I say to the unmarried and to the widows, it is good for them if they remain even as I am. Yeah, they might be fighting loneliness, or you know, the one companion.

They may have, you know, other desires, or society is pressing on them. Here comes the Apostle Paul, and he says, you know, it's good if you don't marry. Well, he develops that in the same chapter in verses 32 and 33.

But I want you to be without care. He who is unmarried cares for the things of the Lord, how he may please the Lord. But he who is married cares about the things of the world, how he may please his wife. And so Paul is saying, look, everybody can't receive this, but let's be honest here. Those without families, children, and that, you know, marriage thing, they're less distracted when it comes to serving. Paul did not have to check with his wife, get home to the kids as a single apostle. And this is not a condemnation on either side. But what it is, what it is is saying, don't go around saying, I'm better than you because I have children. Or somehow you're not blessed as much as I am. Mother Hubbard could have a platoon of children.

That's fine. But the minute she starts boasting that she's better than those without as many children or any children, that would be a problem. You say, well, why are you even staying on this? Well, because I have come across some short-sighted people who were like, were judgmental of those without children. Going so far to say it's a sin not to have kids. Well, then John the Baptist, what do you do with that?

Jeremiah likely also didn't have any children. Here's another one. Proverbs 21, verse 4. This is when you look down. When you look down on those without children, you're picking a fight with God. Now, again, you may not have had this encounter.

You may have it later. And it's worth covering while we're on it because we really don't get it in too many other places in Scripture. Proverbs 21, verse 4. Concerning those who look down on others. A haughty look, a proud heart, and the plowing of the wicked are sin. Proverbs 21, verse 4.

Nothing confusing about that. You want to pick a fight with God? Come arrogant. Heirs of superiority doesn't serve God well. Psalm 101, verse 5. And there's just some of them. Who has a haughty look and a proud heart? Him I will not endure.

God resists the proud. 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.