I don't know if we're mindful of how profound this laid out for us in Scripture. Verse 5, I see someone, what are you doing today? I'm going to be between the first and second coming of Christ.
That's a good answer, right? Strangers shall stand and feed your flocks and the sons of the foreigner shall be your plowmen and your vine dresses. Now they're not, they're willfully, the Gentiles are going to love the Jews.
It could be a reversal of what we're seeing. There'll be no more, you know, the Jewish Haters Club will be destroyed. 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 in the book of Isaiah chapter 61 with today's edition of Cross-Reference Radio. This isn't like, yeah Lord, I can't wait till you finally shut them up. It's not how we do it. We accept that this is going to happen. We do what we can to save those who are lined up for this to happen to them, to comfort all who mourn. So resolving the violent earth problem that we're faced with, he heals the broken hearted. He binds up their wounds. Verse three, and in time, in time, it is all the wounds are gone. The righteous go to heaven. Verse three, to console those who mourn in Zion, to give them beauty for ashes, oil for joy and oil.
Let me reread that. To give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, that they may be called trees of righteousness, the planting of Yahweh that he may be glorified. Well, verse 10, we'll get back to this. The beauty here spoken in the Hebrew is a garland, a headdress to adorn the head, a sign of victory and joy and delight. And the ashes tell us that fire has done his work.
It's reduced it down to nothing, whatever it may be. It speaks of complete loss. And so he's saying, I'm going to give you a garland, a delight, a joy for the ruin, for the ashes. I'm going to fix this. I'm going to make good on it.
And what he doesn't say, what he could have said, and you're going to be impressed. He could have said that because that's what's going to happen. When we get to heaven, it won't matter what we've been through here. What will matter is we're there. What if God told us how beautiful heaven was? We'd all be trying to get out of here.
That would interfere with a lot of things. Anyway, he has water to wine. He's going to change his sorrows into joy. His all things new are all things better. One of the great things about the letter to the Hebrews, how many times Paul says he's better. He's better. He's better than Aaron. He's better than him. He's better.
So I'll take one of them. Hebrews 7, 22. By so much more, Jesus has become a surety of a better covenant. Everything he brings, when he says, you know, there'll be no more sorrow in heaven. What he's leaving out is how much better it's going to be without the sorrow.
How do you even communicate that? The oil of joyful mourning. These are blessed exchanges. This verse removes sorrow, matching Revelation 21, 4. There shall be no more death, no sorrow, no crying. And of course, he goes on and itemizes a few more things.
The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness. When the prodigal came home, he was heavy and he had messed up his life. And he did not know he had taken, when he took that first step towards his father's house, his life was going to get better. Barefoot with the stench of the pig pen on him.
That's how he came home. Sort of like Gomer, the wife of Hosea. Go and buy her.
She's useless now. He went and bought her. Nonetheless, Hosea is a quite powerful story. And not only do men go through what Gomer went through, women do too. People go through these sinful things.
It's not a gender competition. Anyway, what did the father say when the son came home? Bring out the best robe. Put a ring on his hand and sandals. Barefoot. I probably would have said take off those ugly ones, but I think it's safe to assume that he was barefooted.
But even if he wasn't, he was going to get an upgrade. Things were going to get better for that son because of the father. And so our father in heaven commands that our garments be changed when we come to him. This is pictured for us in Zechariah chapter 3, the first five verses, where there the high priest named Joshua is refitted in front of Satan. This beautiful section of the Old Testament. That they may be called trees of righteousness. Well, that alludes to planting to a forest. It reverses the imagery back in chapter 1 where the trees that they were interested in were connected with idolatry and sin.
The word tree here in the Hebrew could be translated oaks or post or pillars, matching Revelation chapter 3. And again, this is just how the language, the language is not so important as the meanings. You know, the words don't create the ideas. The ideas create the words. And when you get someone who tries to use the word to create the reverse that, right, use the idea to create whatever it is I was saying, when you get someone who's not listening to the idea of what the words are communicating, you're going to have heresy.
They're twisting the words. But when you just read them for what they say, Revelation chapter 3 verse 12, he who overcomes, I will make him a pillar. There's that word that the meaning doesn't, it says in Greek, but the meaning is the same in the temple of my God. Now he's not going to turn us into a column of pillar structure like I'm stuck.
But the language is beautiful right there on the surface and he shall go out no more. I will write on him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem which comes down from heaven from my God and I will write on him my new name. So he makes that distinction between the new Jerusalem on earth versus the new Jerusalem that comes down from heaven because the new Jerusalem on earth is run by people who are outside of a glorified body. They can still die, but the ones that come down, the saints, the church, the saints of the Old Testament, we come down in the new Jerusalem, we're not glorified bodies, which we're never going to die again and be susceptible to elements. So coming back to Isaiah chapter 61 verse 3, that they will be called trees or pillars of righteousness, strong, impressive, useful, fruitful, because we have work to do when we come back.
That idea about we're up and on a cloud playing a harp is, it's just, I don't want to harp on it, but it's dumb. Anyway, in Jeremiah 23, the Messiah directly says Yahweh t'sidkenu, Yahweh t'sidkenu, the Lord our righteousness. And then later in Jeremiah chapter 23, he says Jerusalem is the Lord's righteousness. And here we are, the Lord's righteousness. Just like he said, I am the light of the world. And then he says to the church, you're the light of the world.
So he said on the hill, can't be hidden. Let your light shine before men that your father in heaven might be glorified. Basic Christianity is beautiful Christianity. It doesn't need to be embellished. It doesn't need to be modified.
And if it's boring to you, that's your problem. You should take it to God to get it fixed. But anyway, the planting of the Lord that they may be glorified. Well, when we plant something, we envision its contribution to the landscape. When you plant a tree or something, you say, boy, it's going to look nice over here. You know, God has done that.
He's thought it through. It's a personal labor. When you plant something, your hands are on it. You have contact with it.
You're touching it. And God's hands will handle us in a very personal and precious way. Verse four, and they shall rebuild the old ruins. They shall rise up from the former desolations. They shall repair the ruined cities, the desolations of many generations. Well, now that I've spent time on the good comma, we're going to kind of move faster.
That's the plan. So all this here in verse four about the rebuilding the cities, this is in the kingdom age. This is by people who were born in iniquity, but changed, made righteous. Now the Spirit of the Lord is upon them. Ezekiel says this, thus says Yahweh, the Lord, on the day that I cleansed you from all your iniquities, I will also enable you to dwell in the cities and the ruins shall be rebuilt.
What ruins? Well, Armageddon, the Great Tribulation period, Gaza, Hebron, Nazareth, no longer unsafe, unpleasant cities that they are now. These are the Arab strongholds in the Promised Land, and those are not places that are just very nice to be in. I enjoy in Jerusalem, the Jerusalem quarter most. There's the Muslim quarter, the Christian, the Jewish quarter is just the nicest place.
There's some good pizza shops there also. But anyway, God's going to take back the land. Jerusalem will be rebuilt. And what Antichrist and Islam have ruined in God's land with God's people, God's people will restore it. All of Satan's tunnels destroyed, never a threat again. And those giant hideous windmills, I don't know if Israel has any of them, but I hope they're removed from the earth.
They just, they look like a Picasso on the landscape. I don't know, I just, what I think of when I see those, you know what I'm those windmills out there, the new energy, like 300 feet tall, killing birds and stuff. Anyway, back to this, today we are living now in a parenthesis between Daniel's 69th week where Messiah is cut off and the 70th week, which starts the tribulation period, that last seven years. And between the beginning of the acceptable year of the Lord and the day of vengeance, that's where we are right there, kind of like just hovering between the first and second coming of Christ. I don't know if we're mindful of how profound this is laid out for us in scripture. Verse five, I see, so what are you doing today? I'm going to be between the first and second coming of Christ.
It's a good answer, right? Strangers shall stand and feed your flocks and the sons of the foreigner shall be your plowmen and your vine dresses. Now they're not, they're good, they're willfully, the Gentiles are going to love the Jews.
It could be a reversal of what we're seeing. There'll be no more, you know, the Jewish Haters Club will be destroyed. God's going to purge the earth of that stuff. Israel will be so adored and revered at the same time by other people who have been living in the, and born in the, in the kingdom age that they're going to, you know, I want to go to Israel for a year and serve, you know, like a kibbutz kind of an arrangement, not a kibbutz, a kibbutz. So anyway, also never again will the Jew think that Yahweh is exclusively theirs.
It's not going to be this competition. Well, I'm a messianic Jew. There's not going to be any of that. Well, I'm a Gentile that figured it out. You should have got it. It's not going to happen.
No more competition like that. Verse six, but you shall be named the priest of Yahweh. They shall call you the servants of our God. You shall eat the riches of the Gentiles and in their glory you shall boast. There's not no hostility in any of this, nothing forced.
It's all voluntary and delightful. And a priest, so a prophet and priest, it's like two lanes of a highway. The priests are with their communication upward to God. God, your people repent of their sin. The priest brings the offering, going up, a wave offering before the Lord. The prophet thus says the Lord, this is coming down from the Lord. So you've got one going up with prayers and supplications. You've got the other coming down with a word from the Lord. It's not always a bad word.
And when it is, it's because of the people. So in Isaiah's day, they're reading this and there are many folks that were apostate. And Isaiah's saying, yeah, well, the day's coming, we're going to have your type here. And your type is your fault. It's not like you were born type apostate.
What's your blood type? A type of apostate. Anyway, the surviving Jews, they will be priests in the new temple, the temple of Christ. And from the Christians will come or from, I'm not sure how God's going to class like Moses. He's sort of not a Jew. He's sort of a Christian now.
How's that all going to work? We don't have those details. But what we do have right now is there's no longer Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, but all in Christ. I have to say Scythian because it's fun to say that.
Or barbarian, that's another close. Anyway, coming back to this. So think in terms of billions of people. There'll be no abortions. Death will be non-existent. It'll be like one funeral home. And he's going to be like the Maytag guy. He's like, man, when's somebody going to die?
They'll do it unless they do a crime. So and we'll get to that later in Isaiah. You shall eat the riches of the Gentiles in their glory. You shall boast. And so that language takes away the idea that they've conquered the Gentiles and now are eating what they've pillaged and plundered from them. That's not what's happening.
This is all mutual. Christians belong to another priesthood. There will be the priesthood in the king in Jerusalem and there will be one independent of the Levitical priesthood but not independent of the same God. And that's what when Peter said, you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, his own special people that you may proclaim the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. This is Peter the fisherman talking like he's on the same level with Paul because he is. He might, you know, if Peter wrote that with his hand, which he probably didn't, he probably dictated the letter, uh, you know, it would be grammatically sloppy compared to Paul, but its meaning would be equal, quite powerful.
Uh, you gotta love that about God. Anyway, um, verse seven, instead of your shame, you shall have double honor and instead of confusion, they shall rejoice in their portion. Therefore in their land they shall possess double. Everlasting joy shall be theirs.
Double land to the borders of Israel are going to expand. The message of verse seven is God is going to give ample compensation. They'll be satisfied. In other words, nobody's goes, what? After all that, this is all I get. Won't be any of that.
They're not out of fear out of just me. I can't believe this. This is incredible.
Thank you. Verse eight for I Yahweh love justice. I hate robbery for burnt offerings. I will direct their work in truth and will make them an everlasting covenant. Well, the very thing that corrupt authorities chase out of their sight is justice. But God says it's going to rain. Isaiah one verse three, your princes are rebellious companions of thieves.
Everyone loves bribes and follows after rewards. They do not defend the fatherless nor does the cause of the widow come before them. That's talking about that last sentence is talking about their heart. They have no, they don't empathize with anyone's grief and sorrow. They don't take their abilities, their platform to help some.
If someone's lying down, they'll go through their pockets for something, but they're not going to help them up. And that's the kind of savage characters were in government then and through the ages and just wasn't then to this day. You know, we have, we have people in government that say, I don't mind burning this country down long as I get to be ruler over the ashes.
That's how they think. Where does that come from? The fires of hell.
So you, you know, you, you really think you're going to rule the ashes. There were Kings like that in, in the book of Kings. God says, I hate robbery for burnt offerings. Robbery is always a violent word. Thieves can steal without hurting you physically, but a robbery is there. They're going to take it from you right from out of your hand. Like those little monkeys in Japan that run around the street, like hordes of gangs.
They even have leather jackets now. See, this is why the second amendment would not allow that. There'd be a bunch of shot up monkeys.
No monkey business in this town. Where'd they go? I don't know. I mean, what's wrong with those people? They used to make the best swords in the world.
Any okay? Maybe you don't know about these monkeys. I mean, they steal your phone. They just, they do stuff. They're vandals.
They're robbers and people are just, oh, it's so cute. That's why I'm not going there. Anyway.
All right. I will direct their work in truth. Well, something Satan can never do. And, and we'll make with them an everlasting covenant. We know that's the New Testament. Hebrews 12, 24. Jesus, the mediator of a, of the new covenant. In the same manner, he also took the cup after supper saying, this cup is the new covenant in my blood. Second Corinthians three, six. This is, you know, you ever meet those Christians, they're so into the Old Testament, they don't know how to be New Testament Christians because they never thought about this verse. He has made second Corinthians three, six, who has also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant. We're not ministers of the old covenant, the new one. And in the old covenant is enough of the new to keep using it. Just of course with better understanding. Oh, look at that. We're almost done.
I got a lot more time. I don't know what to do with myself. Verse nine, their descendants shall be known among the Gentiles and their offspring among the people. All who see them shall acknowledge them that they are the posterity whom Yahweh has blessed. I mean, this is going to be so much unlike what we have right now where it says they, they have, this tells us they have descendants. Procreation continues with those who survive the tribulation to the point of a thousand years when you have those who've been born and have no knowledge, personal knowledge of the great tribulation period.
And out of that number will come a rebellion and they will be swiftly dealt with. And then we get on with the new heavens and the new earth. But we have enough information up to then the glorified saints, again, no longer susceptible to death or decay. The second resurrection will not destroy us. Jesus said, you'll be like the angels.
There'd be no need to procreate. You're glorified now. I'm using those who are in the flesh to populate eternity. When you get to eternity, you're one of those people in the population that I have drawn out of earth, a hateful environment. And in that hateful environment, you love me still.
Then the next time you say, I hate this life, which some of you youngins haven't gotten there yet at probably, but you will. Just remember that the Lord, you know, your love is for the Lord is stronger than your disdain for this life. And so anyway, Matthew 22 verse 30, for in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like the angels of God in heaven. So anyway, verse 10, I will greatly rejoice in Yahweh. My soul shall be joyful in my God for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation. He has covered me with the robe of righteousness as a bridegroom decks herself with ornaments as a bride adorns herself with jewels. Verse 11 for as the earth brings forth its bud, as the garden causes the things that are sown in it to spring forth. So the Lord Yahweh will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all the nations.
Well, again, not fulfilled, but coming. The speaker, Israel is being personified as thankful for what the Lord, I will greatly rejoice in Yahweh. That's, he's personifying Israel, which is saying what the people are now saying in Israel, which they weren't doing under his ministry, much of his ministry. They weren't in the days of Ahaz and and Manasseh, they weren't praising God. So the entire nation will recognize that Jesus is more than Messiah, he is Christ. Gentiles too.
That's the big distinction there. Some of the commentators, you know, they, well, some say it's Isaiah speaking, some say it's Messiah speaking and some say it's Zion, but I'm the right one. I got it right. It's Isaiah personifying Israel and they're some others that agree with me.
I let them. Anyway, clothed in righteousness in verse 10, we close with this verse from Ephesians chapter four, that you put on the new man which was created according to God. Returning back to Genesis 1 26, created in his own image according to his own likeness that you put on the new man which was created according to God and true righteousness and holiness. Well, if you never get there, you must never give up. Let's pray. Our Father, exciting, exciting teachings from your word. Now to go out and try to make it count to your glory.
That's what it is about. And we thank you for the privilege of letting us be part of your processes. We ask you in Jesus name. 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.
