Kingdom Age Transformations (Part A)

The monies that would go into arming militaries will be redirected into agriculture and industry, and I'm sure entertainment too, without the loony entertainers that we have today. So, just very exciting. Entertainment is not evil. Sin is evil. And if you take sin and you mix it with entertainment, then of course, that goes for everything. Even money.

So, nothing evil inherently about cash or money, but it becomes a root of evil because of the sinful heart. 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 60 with today's edition of Cross-Reference Radio. Isaiah chapter 60 this evening, rise shine for your light has come and the glory of Yahweh is risen upon you. Long before I knew that this was in the Bible, my dad would wake me up, rise and shine. I thought it was an army thing, but it turned out to be a biblical thing.

He actually said something like this back in chapter 26, and there he said, awake and sing. And so, you know, Isaiah, you go through his prophecies, he's a passionate man about his faith. And I think that's why so many of us are passionate about the book of Isaiah.

It comes out in various ways. He saw Zion at the present time, covered in darkness because of its disobedience. And as it had been revealed to him, Messiah was going to transform the world. And so, arise and shine for your light has come.

Now, light is a metaphor in Scripture for salvation and for spiritual knowledge, being imparted, an awakening brought about by, of course, the Christ to us who is Jesus Messiah. And Zion cannot shine in her own light. She dimmed it.

She dimmed it down because of the disobedience. And having preferred to walk in darkness as we pick up in Isaiah 59, the previous chapter, there in verse 9, as the prophet laments the present state of Israel when he wrote these things, when he preached this word, therefore justice is far from us, nor does righteousness overtake us. We look for light, but there is darkness for brightness, but we walk in blackness.

We grope for the wall like the blind, and we grope as if we had no eyes. And so, it's just, again, a lamentation of the current events in Israel. Here's this righteous man, and he's watching his nation fall apart because they're not interested in their God. And so, we're not alone in that with, I mean, today we see things falling apart.

And it's so easy to hold them together, just turn to God, but so difficult to take place. And when Messiah comes, the prophet is sharing that Israel will reflect his glory. Well, that's, you know, one of us, the moon preaches that sermon to us.

The moon says, I have no light of my own. The light I shine is reflected from the sun. And, you know, when Messiah comes, Israel will reflect the light.

The church is supposed to do that, and many churches do. Christians that bear witness and glorify Christ, they are reflecting the light of Christ. Psalm 36, verse 9, for with you is the fountain of life.

In your light we see. And so, at the Messiah's first coming, because Israel failed to receive him, they missed that opportunity to arise and shine. But like Jonah, Israel gets a second chance at the second coming of Christ, and they will not fail that time. Here in verse 1 he continues, and the glory of Yahweh is risen upon you.

So, again, he's, you know, rise and shine. The light, the glory of God is upon you. And this has a feel, this verse, of the Christmas story, the coming of Christ, and all that unfolded after that. John, in his first letter, when he was speaking about, John the Apostle, speaking about John the Baptist, he says, he, John the Baptist, was not that light, but was sent to bear witness of that light.

And, of course, that's something Christ passed on to us. Simeon in the temple said, a light to bring revelation to the Gentiles and the glory of your people. In that one phrase of Simeon, he's saying, I understand my scripture, I know what the prophets say, I know what Isaiah said about the Gentiles. He was one of the Jews that had a heart for the Gentiles.

It shows up, that outburst of the Spirit. And then in the public ministry of Christ, Matthew chapter 4, he adds, Matthew adds this, writing to Jewish people, primarily, he says, the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and upon those who sat in the region, the shadow of death, light has dawned. And so those who were in, you know, the dark places under the Roman rule at the time, he's saying, the old Messiah is coming. And, you know, Christ, he's talking about the northern areas of Israel, where, where Christ was better received than he was in Jerusalem.

And Luke chapter 24, you're going to love this one if, when I read it, you'll probably, probably recall it. This is the two disciples on the road to Emmaus making a U-turn now, after, you know, I was dining with Christ and doubling back to the city. And they said to one another, did not our heart burn within us while he talked with us on the road, and while he opened the scriptures to us?

How many Christians just don't care to have the scriptures open to them? They want to just kind of burrow and do it on their own, and that, you know, there's some of that is mandatory, but this, what is also mandatory is the assembly and the preaching of the word by those given to the church as a gift. And when, in, in Ephesians 4, Paul says that the Lord has gifted the church with some to be apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers. So Paul, he quotes part of this first and second verse in Isaiah 60, and also Isaiah 26, where arise and sing in that section back there, he quotes this sort of a, he, he compounds the two sections in their teachings. He says in Ephesians 5 14, awake you who sleep, arise from the death, and Christ will give you light. And he, he, so he renders Yahweh from Isaiah as Christ, which is saying Paul recognizes that Jesus Christ is Yahweh in the Old Testament, same person.

So you can do a little study on that if you want to. Isaiah 26 19 and Isaiah 60 verses one and two with Ephesians 5 14, and, and you might see that, you should see that there. Well, anyway, Israel sent his light to the nation, something that was said right out in Isaiah 42, but then we get to Isaiah 46, and the role is transferred to Messiah, because Israel's failing at it. So Messiah picks it up.

And here, she is going to get another chance. And in the Kingdom Age, Israel will be, you know, where the, the, the capital of the world and the people that survived the Great Tribulation, they will be converts, but largely very ignorant of Christianity. Well, how are they going to learn? And it's not going to be miraculously imparted. There's going, they're going to have to go through the same processes of, of learning and discovery as the rest of the believers do. You can say, well, can't God just give it to him?

Of course he can, but that's not what the scripture teaches. And we always have to be careful not to read miracles into scripture where they don't belong. The thing about the miracles in the scripture, they're right there on the surface. You know, Jesus walked on the water.

There's no guessing about that. Elijah rolled up the mantle of Elijah and he touched the Jordan and it rolled all back and he walked across on dry ground. So, you know, there are subtle miracles, but miracles, nonetheless, when they were going to throw Christ off a cliff, he just walks right through the crowd and they're arguing with, fussing with themselves.

So he just walks right through. Well, that's miraculous. So there's no need to, to inject miracles into text. If there's none there, then the teaching has something to do with reasoning apart from supernatural events. And so I'm saying all this to say that the survivors of the millennial age will need to be taught.

And we're going to get through all of that and hopefully you'll see why I say these things. Verse two, for behold, the darkness shall cover the earth and deep darkness, the people, but Yahweh will arise over you and his glory will be seen upon you. Well, 144,000 Jews and the two witnesses will understand that, but the rest of the Jews will not.

And only the survivors will finally get it. This darkness, like a thick darkness that covered the earth in Egypt for three days when Moses pronounced that judgment. But then we read in that same section of Exodus 10, verse 23, but all the children of Israel had light in their dwellings.

So that's a miracle. Everybody else is, it's pitch black everywhere. And, but the Jews had their light. So here, here we have it happening at the climax of Antichrist's reign. The darkness comes unlike ever before spiritual darkness in the days of Antichrist. But then of course, when Jesus return, returns, it is to a world covered in the spiritual darkness that he will begin to address. And so Isaiah, of course the prophets think they only had partial information. We have more information than the prophets.

Now, that does not mean we could see as far as they could. It's a miracle how far these men saw and how courageous and determined they were to preach it and absolutely embrace it. For behold, again, verse two, the darkness shall cover the earth and deep darkness, the people, but Yahweh will arise over you and his glory will be seen upon you. And you would hope a present day Jew would read that and say, well, you know, the darkness is going to go and Messiah is going to bring it.

Who is this Messiah? And many Jews that convert to Christ do see it. Anyway, verse three, the Gentiles shall come to your light and kings to the brightness of your rising.

Now, that's not the case anymore, but it will be the case again. Those Gentiles coming to the Jews are the surviving Gentiles of the tribulation period. Jesus said, lest those days were shortened, no flesh would survive, which means there are survivors who are victims of the darkness, spiritual darkness in this world and not champions of Antichrist. Again, I'll be referring to these things, but not only was apostate Israel in darkness, but the Gentiles were too.

And it's good to try to, you know, it's good to try to get a broad view of things without losing that straight and narrow view. For example, in Sodom and Gomorrah, well, there were heterosexuals in Sodom and Gomorrah. They were all not, you know, as we would say Sodomites, though they were citizens of Sodom, they were not all practicing those sins, but they were all wicked. Nonetheless, you didn't have to practice the homosexuality to be in line for judgment. There are plenty of other sins that put you in effect ahead of the line sometimes. And so, you know, when we think about these things, what comes out to me is the just, the fairness of God, just He's always right.

His judgments are always sure. Well, the Gentiles, they will come to the light. There will be Jews that survive the Great Tribulation and Gentiles also.

And what we get is a glimpse of the glory not realized by the ancient Jews to this day. Presently the work of the church, Jesus said, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to myself. And, you know, there's no particular people that are ostracized from the gospel.

Every ethnicity is, the gospel is available to every ethnicity under the sun. And there will be, more than likely, appointed leaders by Christ when He comes, and this is a little tricky here. So again, looking at verse 3, the Gentiles shall come to your light and the kings to the brightness of your rising.

Well, who are these kings? Because many of them during the reign of Antichrist are wicked, and they're going to be judged. Luke chapter 17, 36, two will be in the field, one will be taken, the other left, even though that has rapture overtones, it's about judgment. It has its application to rapture, but its first meaning is to the judgment of the wicked. There's going to be a global purging by Christ Himself when He comes and His saints with them. Armageddon is not going to be the only place that suffers His judgment, and it's going to take a long period of time, not years, but almost a year.

It's going to be some time of that involved. If you look at verse 17 real quick, instead of bronze, I will give you gold, but I want to get to the bottom of the verse. I will also make your officers peace and your magistrates righteousness. And so, there's going to be appointed administrators, government officials. This is one of the applications that those purge, the wicked will be purged, and those left behind will be appointed, or perhaps I should say, and or we will be these kings referenced in verse three. Now, when we think of kings, we think of a throne and a crown, but the idea, the leaders, the government officials, in Isaiah's day, it was the kings.

Monarchies were everywhere. And so, Revelation 5-10, speaking of the saints, that He has made us kings and priests to our God, and we shall reign on earth. So, we will be that will you say, well, why won't there be any corrupt governments anymore? Well, one of the reasons this is going to be this injection of the saints that come back with Christ. We're going to be upholding righteousness, and we're going to be those who teach those who have not heard the Word of God.

It's a big world. People won't be dying as they die now in the millennial age. Commerce and things are going to be going on as always.

So, why does He need to appoint kings and priests? The priests will be the royal priesthood of believers, because again, the earth is going to be loaded with people, and more people will be born during this period, and death won't be snatching away so many. There'll be no more wars. There'll be no more military, no more police stations.

It's quite radical. I think the firemen will probably still get to be here. I don't know that the laws of physics are going to stop, but violence will go away, will largely go away, and I'll give you verses for that, but before I do, Psalm 86 verse 9. All nations whom you have made shall come and worship before you, O Lord, and shall glorify your name.

Well, that hasn't happened, but that will happen. Malachi chapter 1. Remember, these prophets are writing from their standpoint. They don't see as much as we see, and that accounts for why so much is locked into Israel. They really certainly couldn't see the church. They couldn't see the Gentiles, you know, leading in churches, teaching Jews, but that's happened. Malachi 1.11, for from the rising of the sun, even to its going down, my name shall be great among the Gentiles, and every place incensed shall be offered to my name, and a pure offering.

Now pause there. That pure offering is to Christ, but Malachi, you know, how much of that did he, did he know, or did he just have enough to know? Whatever offerings we offer, Messiah is going to have it right. Well, we have the details of such a statement. Anyway, incense shall be offered to my name, and a pure offering for my name shall be great among the nations, says Yahweh of hosts.

And so, again, this is future. You know, we, we talk about the rapture, the, those prophets they were all about, the messianic kingdom. To them, that was the, the kingdom age, and to, for us, if you might not know this, but those with less hair, like Elijah the prophet, will be raptured at a faster rate than those of you with a full head of hair. This is hair-o-dynamics. I'll let that sit to you.

Hair-o-dynamics. Okay, anyway, noted tough crowd, what's today's date? Verse 4, lift up your eyes all around and see, they all gather together, they come to you. Your son shall come from afar, and your daughter shall be nursed at your side. He's looking back at, he said these things in chapter 49, the revival in Israel creates a global movement of the Spirit. So a revival, technically, is something that's been dead and now has been brought back to life.

And you can say that of those in Judaism. They had the right faith, and then the wicked have gained power, and the, you know, before King Josiah, the wickedness, you know, was in control, was exalted, and then he becomes king, and there's this revival, and then he dies, and then the wickedness is exalted, and these cycles that take place. But amongst the Gentiles, technically, there's no revival. There's a movement of the Spirit, like in the book of Acts. It's not that they weren't believers and then drifted away and came and revived.

I'm splitting hairs, but I think it's helpful because in Acts, the Gentiles are brought into the church, into salvation, unlike anything since the giving of the law to Moses. And so Israel will be revived, but as for the Gentiles that survive, they will be converted in the Spirit. And it's going to be very exciting. Jesus has made us a part of this process.

So he doesn't just return to earth with us, and we have nothing to do. We have quite a bit to do, because not only will life change, but so will the landscape. The deserts will not be deserts anymore.

They're just going to be incredible. So anyway, verse 5, then you shall... Oh, I have to pause. I just hope there's no summer and humidity. Just, you know, that's... Verse 5, then you shall see and become radiant, and your heart shall swell with joy, because the abundance of the sea shall be turned to you. The wealth of the Gentiles shall come to you. Their hearts will be throbbing. The Hebrew is literally beat with excitement, and it's supposed to be exciting.

I think the prophet was very much excited when he was writing these things, as God revealed them to him. Maritime commerce will thrive. There'll still be shipping, and the ships will still be built, and just, you know, the work to maintain ships, you know, this life's going to continue without the corruption. Nations will finally recognize that Yahweh, the Christ, is the only God, and this stays until deep until the thousand-year reign of Christ when Satan is released, and then the boat gets rocked again, but that's a brief, very... Seems like it's just a thought, a moment of a thought, and it's dealt with, but the Gentiles will bring their wealth and their merchandise as offerings coming to worship in Jerusalem.

They're going to help finance the build. You know, there's going to be wars, nuclear exchanges in the days of Antichrist. Well, when Christ comes back, he's not going to magically, you know, clean up the rubble. This damage is going to have to be, cities are going to have to be rebuilt. Rubbish is going to have to be removed.

Think of Nazi Germany, what the bombings did to Nazi Germany. The work has to take place, and it's going to happen. The survivors will have, there'll be so much to do.

We'll continue to develop it, to develop it. Verse 6, the multitude of camels shall cover your land. The dromedaries of Midian and Ephah, all those of Sheba shall come, they shall bring gold and incense, and they shall proclaim praises of Yahweh.

These are Muslim, presently Muslim territories. Well, Islam's going to be gone, and so will Buddhism and Hinduism and all the rest of those false religions. Climate change will take place, but it will not be man-made. It will be God-made, and it will be good. And these folks here are coming to worship, and there's going to be, okay, there'll be, I mentioned no more war, no more military.

Well, the monies that would go into arming militaries will be redirected into agriculture and industry, and I'm sure entertainment too, without the loony entertainers that we have today. So just very, very exciting. Entertainment is not evil. Sin is evil. And if you take sin and you mix it with entertainment, then of course, that goes for everything. Even money. There's nothing evil inherently about cash or money, but it becomes a root of evil because of the sinful heart. But there's going to be money in this kingdom age.

There's going to be commerce, trade. Verse 7, all the flocks of Kedar shall be gathered together to you. The rams of Nebioth shall minister to 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 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.