The beggar, what did the prosperity teachers do with this? He struggled in his life for unknown reasons, but he goes to heaven. It profited him to not gain the world, but he gained his soul. But the rich guy who gained the world lost his soul. These lessons aren't to be bypassed.
They're not, oh, that's cute. Anyone who carries their God is not carrying a God, but is carrying a time bomb. And when death comes, that bomb goes off.
That's the time it goes off. 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. Isaiah chapter 53 is the text Pastor Rick will be teaching from today on this edition of Cross-Reference Radio. A reminder, if Satan can't take you out, he'll be happy to just harass you for your whole life.
Don't give it to him. Verse 6, among the smooth stones of the stream is your portion. They, they are your lot. Even to them you have poured a drink offering. You have offered a grain offering.
Should I receive comfort from these? The prophet is mocking them. From verse 6 through 13, the pronoun you is feminine singular because they were supposed to be the bride of God. They were in a covenant with him. And this is the metaphor that he's using here. A metaphor for Judah, the unfaithful wife and the diabolical mother. That is who she became. The stones rounded all smoothed out because they're in the stream in the kernel.
The water smoothed them out. And so, to the stream, let's go. Pick a handful of gods for ourselves.
Rock stars for ourselves. And he's criticizing their hateful rituals when he says they, they are your lot. It's emphatic. You can feel the emotion here. You say you love them? You love those stones more than Yahweh? They, they are your gods?
Keep them. That's the tone. He's saying you're making the pathetic and the absurd an offering to your demons. Then he says, should I receive comfort in these? Jeremiah said three times in Jeremiah 5, 9, 5, 29, Jeremiah 9, 9.
He repeats it verbatim. Shall I not punish them for these things says Yahweh? And shall I not avenge myself on such a nation as this? God is saying this is a disgusting culture. It is made so because they chose to worship false things so that they could enjoy the flesh.
And in the process, they threw me away. So he says shall I not punish them for these things says Yahweh? And shall I not avenge myself on such a nation as this?
And he says it three times for emphasis. And now, verse 7, on a lofty and high mountain you have set your bed. Even there you went up to offer sacrifice.
There's no shame where everybody can see you. Judah's field and stream of adulterous idolatry against God which he's going to hit from verses 7 through 9. Remember these are people sacrificing children. Let's not act like well, you know, they just took a wrong turn.
Yeah, they did. They took a lot of people with them. Here where it says on a lofty and high mountain. You know, Tibet's, we'll get back to this in verse 13, Tibet's beautiful landscape.
I've not been to Tibet, but I've seen enough watching, you know, documentaries and things like that on them, exposing myself to different places in the world without having to go there and eat their food because I'm picky that way. Anyway, they've spoiled their landscape, their beautiful landscape with these Buddhist prayer flags and banners all over the place used to spread the blessings and prayers, but it doesn't work. Chinese communists coming in taking over their land for them demonstrating prayers aren't working here. Your system's not right. Where does this come from? Why do you believe these things?
Well, you can ask but you, doesn't mean that you, they're going to say, you know, that's a really good question. What alternative do you have? And if you present your alternative, well, you got to confess it. You are a sinner. You have nothing to offer God, but he loves you anyway. He's made a way for you to come to him and you can't earn it.
You have to receive it and much of humanity doesn't want to hear that. Verse eight, also behind the doors and their posts, you have set up your remembrance for you have uncovered yourself to those other than me and have gone up to them. You have enlarged your bed and made a covenant with them. You have loved their bed where you saw their nudity. Well, he's continuing with the theme of metaphor of the marriage relationship gone bad because of them. This is the pagan invasion into homes and it was willful shrines for household gods.
Got to have them. Spiritual infidelity violated the covenant with God. Now Isaiah, throughout his writings, he employs euphemisms, dual meanings, wordplay. There are too many to keep up with. He's got some here in this verse in particular, but it's not going to improve the study if I take the time to point them out.
Get yourself a thick commentary and you'll say, oh, look at that. He was right and that'd be it. Verse nine, but in his day it was quite meaningful. You went to the king with ointment and increased your perfumes. You sent your messengers far off and even descended to Sheol. Well, Sheol's the underworld, the spiritual realm. So this is all spiritual.
Again, dual meanings. The idolatrous Jews did influence their kings and the kings loved to be influenced to follow this sorcery. And then when the pressure was on, rather than turning to Yahweh, for instance, when the Assyrians came, they turned to the their sorcerers and their false prophets. Remember, there were 800 of them on Mount Carmel when Elijah had to deal with them and call fire from heaven on his altar.
The place was infested. If you had 800 prophets, how many followers did you have? For every prophet, how many followers? So the land, you know when Elijah, how long halt you between two opinions? If Yahweh is your God, serve him.
If not, go serve whatever. They didn't answer. They flat-footed.
Well, let's see how this turns out. Well, it was a big slaughter that day and the prophet mocked them every chance he got because that's what it called for. He wasn't being mean-spirited. They were being mean-spirited by bringing into the land and sustaining practices of religion that slaughtered the newborns.
But yet, the critics will come along, he's being mean, and they do that to this day. Anyway, the alternative meaning to this verse, so verse 9, one meaning is, well, you're corrupting your kings with the sorcery and you're going not to Yahweh, but elsewhere. Isaiah's covered that before, but the alternate meaning is that the king referred here in verse 9 is actually the Ammonite God Molech who endorsed child sacrifice because Molech's name means king.
And I think, of course, Isaiah, in the midst of this stuff, there's a word, you know, he's doing these word plays and these double entendres all over the place. Sheol points to the gods of the underworld, seances, things like that, which people think are cute, some people. It's nothing cute about trying to contact demons no matter what you call them.
You may think they're your relatives, but they're not. So Isaiah 30 verse 1, woe to the rebellious children says Yahweh, who take counsel but not of me, who devise plans but not of my spirit, that they may add sin to sin. So God was onto their motives.
Yeah, you're not coming to me. So, you know, sometimes we know when someone doesn't want to come to us and ask us, hey, pastor, I would like to do this and that, they don't come to us because they know we're going to take them to the scripture and that's what they don't want. So they make their move and then when it all falls apart, they still won't come to us because they're afraid we're going to say, told you so, which we would not do because it's too serious. We're not looking to hurt anybody, but we're not going to back down from what God's word says. My point is, even Christians pull that little stunt.
They want to do what God has forbidden because they want it so much. We understand that. We're not persecuting them. But on the other side, we have our duty to perform. Do you want pastors who are not looking to uphold every word out of the mouth of God without a self-righteous attitude? What is the alternative? Well, the Burger King Church, have it your way.
Just anything you want, fine. Long as you put that offering in the box, we'll be here. This is all over the place. PD fakes, look at that big church.
It's Jake's. It's a shame. People go there and they think that this is the way to heaven.
It's really the way to greed. Can't say anything because then you're the meanie pants. You know, I had the same spirit before I became a pastor, but people didn't call me names because not being a pastor, I could take them out to lunch, to dinner. But as a pastor, oh man, it's too official. You have to endorse things or at least don't attack them. You know when somebody leaves the church?
What did you do? No one says that to me, but sometimes I feel it. It's like I didn't do anything but stood my ground the way I've been doing it for 30 years and I don't plan on changing.
If they finally had a problem with it, that's on them. But don't come to me saying, Pastor, what did you do? Well, I flattened all their tires because they criticized my sermon. Verse 10, you are wearied in the length of your way, yet you did not say, there is no hope. You have found the life of your hand, therefore you were not grieved.
Man, he's got their number. Judah traveled far from God seeking a better God. So for Christianity, if you think that because life is tough, there's a better God, then you're doing the same thing they're doing. Life is tough because it's under the curse. We accept this, that's why we do our duty. Duty means I don't care what my mood is, I know what has to be done. A mother who's nursing a child, she may not feel a bit in the mood, she might want us to sleep.
She's got to get up and do her duty. This actually is good for us. Anyway, here they are, they've tried everything they can do to find satisfaction in these false religions to the point of exhaustion in their quest and has failed them, and yet, as he says here, yet you did not say there is no hope. You had the proof that your false gods were fake, but you did not say, man, you know, I've sinned, I need to get right again.
No, you didn't do that, you doubled down. You dug deeper into it, knowing that idolatries, the inferiority of the idolatry that you invested yourself in, the false hopes, but you're carefree about that part of it. So he says, therefore, you are not grieved. Well, being on the lying side, the side that's dishonest, it didn't cause you a problem. Years ago, there was a group of Calvary pastors that were Calvinists, and we're not Calvinists.
You know, if you're a Calvinist, fine, but that's not who we are. But they stayed Calvary pastors, and they tried to steal away guys. This was dishonest behavior, deceptive from pastors. Why would you do that? Why would you have to resort to deception?
I think many of them were weeded out, I don't know how many, but I never could get that. You know, why would you resort to deception to convert people who have, who disagree with your position? Why don't you, you know, go elsewhere? But it was a very sad time. Anyway, verse 11, and of whom have you been afraid or feared that you have lied and not remembered me, nor taken it to heart? Is it not because I have held my peace from old that you do not fear me? Verse 12, I will declare your righteousness and your works, for they will not profit you. Well, God says, how could you forget all that I've done for the nation? So, in verse 11, he says, and of whom have you been afraid or feared that you have lied and not remembered me?
What makes you dishonest like this? In Deuteronomy, no less than 15 times, it's a good, take your concordance, not now, but later, and look up the word remembered in the book of Deuteronomy, or the word mighty, and see how God is telling his people, don't forget me, don't forget what I've done. Remember who I am, who you are, and who the devil is. And, of course, they weren't doing this in Isaiah's day, and it disturbed him just as much as it disturbs us. So much of Judah's abandonment of Yahweh and devotion to the new deities was caused by fear of man. Well, they feared the Assyrians, that was one.
Misplaced reverence, respecting things that weren't worthy of respect, and they feared the non-existence gods of their imagination. Anyway, is it not because I have held my peace from old that you do not fear me? Well, God says, what, because I'm showing you mercy and I'm putting up with this?
You think that you can treat me this way? I'll not endure it forever. Paul writes Timothy and says, some men's sins are clearly evident, preceding them to judgment. In other words, that guy is so bad, you know he's going to get judged.
But those of some men follow later. Some get it now, some have to wait, but in both cases, God is going to deal with things amongst the wicked. Unbelief is a deadly drug and a sole killer, and that's what we're looking at in chapter 57, verse 13. When you cry out, let your collection of idols deliver you, but the wind will carry them away, a breath will take them away, but he who puts his trust in me shall possess the land and shall inherit my holy mountain.
Well, the collection of idols, they didn't have just a few. At death, the idol always forsakes the host, every time. The one who carried their God in their hands, their heart and their head, only the God of creation can carry the sinner into heaven. Listen to this, Luke chapter 16, I love this verse, so it was that the beggar died and was carried by the angels to Abraham's bosom. The rich man also died and was buried, very blunt, just plopped him down. So the beggar, what do the prosperity teachers do with this? He struggled in his life for unknown reasons, but he goes to heaven. It profited him to not gain the world, but he gained his soul. But the rich guy who gained the world lost his soul.
These lessons aren't to be bypassed, they're not, oh that's cute. Anyone who carries their God is not carrying a God, but is carrying a time bomb. And when death comes, that bomb goes off.
That's the time it goes off. Anyway, verse 14, and one shall say, heap it up, heap it up, prepare the way, take the stumbling block out of the way of my people. Sort of an abrupt change now. He's going to get back to them of course, but he moves here to the righteous. And this, heap it up, heap it up, is get busy. Remove the obstacles of unbelief and disobedience. This is the counter move, to counter all that he's been talking about. Ephesians 4, why did God give pastors, evangelists, and apostles, and prophets to the church? For the equipping of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edification of the body of Christ, to heap it up, to build it up. Jude, verse 20, you beloved, but you, that's disjunctive is important, it separates, but you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit. Remember, the Holy Spirit is not the author of confusion or insanity amongst the righteous, he's the cure. So if you say, well I just lost control, it wasn't the Holy Spirit. Because we don't lose control, we gain, we gain control by coming to the Lord, by being in the Spirit. Now there are times that God lets us, gives us a little liberty, we can, we can just, you know, sing with emotion, but not out of control.
Because that then brings a lot of other problems. One of them is you become the center of attention, not God. Anyway, verse 15, for thus says the high and lofty one who inhabits eternity, whose name is holy, I dwell in the high and holy place with him who has a contrite and humble spirit to revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.
Man, what a bunch of doctrine is packed into that, all of it good. Isaiah's view of God, then I saw the Lord, Lord sitting on the throne, high and lifted up, and the train of his robe filled the temple. Well, this is what he's saying in contrast to those who are sacrificing their children, who are going down to the stream to get stones to worship, to build little shrines for themselves.
And this is the side we want to belong on. Lofty, the realm of God, not a physical distance, like God is so high up, you know, it's like 10 million miles, no, he is above us, the created world. God transcends creation, he goes beyond it and we call it glory. Anyway, the eternity that he speaks of here is without beginning, without end, it is the meaning of the alpha and the omega. I am without beginning, I am without end. As far back as you can go to the beginning and then beyond, I'll still be there.
And that's going forward too. Whose name is holy? Well, because his being is holy. His character is righteous when he interacts with created beings, but if he had no created beings, he'd still be holy, pure, he'd be perfect, and he'd be powerful.
He doesn't need anything to influence his holiness. I dwell in the high and holy place with him who has a contrite and humble spirit. This is communion.
Jesus answered and said to them, if anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. Well, that's good doctrine right out of Isaiah. To revive the spirit of the humble. Well, God resists the proud. In Psalm 138, he says this about God concerning the proud. He regards the lowly, but the proud, he knows the far off.
He can see them a mile away, and for us, we get that with experience and age, our perception develops, we can see, we can smell a rat a lot faster when we get older than when we were younger as a rule. James 4, God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. So, without humility, Lucifer turned into the first idolater, the first known sinner of creation, the first liar. He lied, who did he lie to first?
Himself. He told himself that he was like God. So, he had an identity problem. He wanted to identify with God. I identify with God. God said, no, you don't.
You're a devil, and that was that. Verse 16, for I will not contend forever, nor will I always be angry, for the spirit would fail before me, and the souls which I have made. So, God says, without mercy, everybody would perish. There is mercy, but there's judgment, and Isaiah's talking about these habits and practices that are going to be judged. Verse 17, for the iniquity of his covetness, I was angry and struck him.
I hid and was angry, and he went on backsliding in the way of his heart. This is Judah. Israel and the northern kingdom is already gone. He's preaching to Judah. All the people in the past, really, of the promised people of God. Verse 18, I have seen his ways and will heal him. I will also lead him and restore comforts to him and to his mourners.
Well, we know that's going to happen. He's talking about the Jewish people. Zechariah talks about then they will see the one whom they pierced, and they will weep as for an only son.
So, this is yet to be fulfilled. Verse 19, I create the fruit of his lips. Peace, peace to him who is far off and to him who is near, says Yahweh.
I will heal him. Well, the New Testament, Paul says, and he came and preached peace to you who are far off and to those who were near. So, Paul is saying Gentile and Jew alike, God wants to save people. He wants them in heaven, and so our charges us with this, Ephesians 6, 15, having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace, and that's what verse 19 is all about, peace that God is looking for. Verse 20, but the wicked are like the troubled sea when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. Verse 21, there is no peace, says my God, for the wicked. Well, that's an undesirable outcome, both to God and to the righteous. Close with Jude 13, speaking about the wicked, raging waves of the sea, foaming up their own shame, wandering stars for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever.
In other words, God's not going to reward satanic behavior. Let's pray. Our Father, we ask that you minister to us from your word, if anything we've received, in Jesus' name, amen. Thanks for joining us for today's teaching on Cross Reference Radio. This is the radio ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville in Virginia.
We trust that what you've heard today has been something to remember. If you'd like to listen to more teachings from this series, go to crossreferenceradio.com. Once more, that's crossreferenceradio.com. We encourage you to subscribe to our podcast, too, so you'll never miss another edition. Just go to your favorite podcast app to subscribe. You can also connect with us through YouTube. We hope you'll tune in again next time as we continue spending time reading God's word and learning together. Make a note in your calendar to join Pastor Rick again right here on Cross Reference Radio.
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