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Isaiah’s Prayer (Part B)

Cross Reference Radio / Pastor Rick Gaston
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January 9, 2025 6:00 am

Isaiah’s Prayer (Part B)

Cross Reference Radio / Pastor Rick Gaston

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January 9, 2025 6:00 am

This is Isaiah’s heartfelt prayer that the Lord Himself would come down from heaven and set things right. His prayer is answered in Christ and things will be set in order at His second coming.

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Humility, in the biblical sense, primarily is our sense of self in the presence of God.

And when you see men like Daniel and John the Apostle fall down as though dead in the presence of a manifestation of God, then you get an idea that humility is beneficial, but it is not to humiliate. 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. Now here's Pastor Rick with the conclusion of his message called Isaiah's Prayer in Isaiah chapter 64. Saul's religion was the outcome of a life of secondhand worship. That was his life.

Secondhand worship. And he thought because he was fooling people like him, that he was also fooling people unlike him. Samuel didn't want to see what he was seeing in Saul. It broke his heart.

And he had to struggle with that. And I don't think Samuel ever really loved David like he loved Saul. And that's understandable because, you know, there was so much he put into Saul, and he's much older now, and when David comes, that doesn't mean he didn't love David.

But you can tell that he just didn't want Saul to be the failure that he was. And so, true faith demonstrates itself not only by moral conduct, but by unswerving acceptable worship. A lot of people worship God in an unacceptable way. A lot of Christians go to church and behave in unacceptable ways. You say, wait a minute, that's not scriptural. That's a fact that's contradictory. Some things may not be in the scripture, and they're acceptable. Maybe you go to a church and instead of singing songs, they yodel. I mean, you know, maybe that's not so bad.

Not my way. But then, you know, there's some space, is what I'm saying, but then in other areas there is no space. Wrong is wrong, and that's that. So, again, it is possible to walk in strict adherence to religion, the legalist, without delighting oneself in that religion that would be Saul. Can you say, when you read about Saul, do you say, boy, he had those moments where he delighted in the Lord.

He had flashes of possibility, and that's it. Well, he says here, you are indeed angry, for we have sinned. Well, they're spiritually impure, and there was never far from them as a people. And you can say this about some sex of Christianity or tracts of Christianity. Impurity, if it wasn't running in the background, it was running in the foreground.

It was either running wild or waiting for its opportunity to run wild. That's the history of the Jews, and in many cases it's history of some people in Christianity. Isaiah 67, verse 7, your iniquities and the iniquities of your fathers together, says Yahweh, who have burned incense on the mountains and blasphemed me on the hills, therefore I will measure their form of work into their bosom. So what I'm pointing out here from Isaiah 65 is God says, this has been a habit with the wicked in Israel. And remember Judah, this tribe of Judah, the southern kingdom, there were those that fled from the northern kingdom to the southern kingdom, so all the tribes were in Judah now. It wasn't as though they were all taken captive and there were no more Benjamites and no more Gadites.

No, they were there now in Judah, but Judah was of course the dominant tribe, both in number and authority, and calling. And in this country we enjoy prosperity, while at the same time there are others in this country who want to destroy that prosperity from within, using that prosperity they've gained here. Well Isaiah had the same type of people in his world, trying to replace Yahweh with Satan, or paganism that came out of Satan. And it broke his heart, and there's the things he's dealing with. He says in these ways we continue and we need to be saved. Well, there needed to be repentance from the guilty, which did not come. You look at the last four kings of Judah, they didn't repent, they had every reason to. They had the prophet Jeremiah, they had other prophets.

Uriah who they hunted down in Egypt and killed, and brought him back and killed him with the sword, and threw his body into the common grave. So Jeremiah, dealing with this impudent women and defiant men who worship the queen of heaven, I alluded to it earlier, Jeremiah 44. This is what they said to Jeremiah after he said this is what God wants, and this is what's going to happen to you if you don't listen. You asked me, you promised you'd listen, and now we're finding out you're liars.

Well here's what happened. This is the bad guys talking to Jeremiah. But we will certainly do whatever has gone out of our own mouth to burn incense to the queen of heaven and pour out drink offerings to her, as we have done. We and our fathers, our kings and our princes, in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem, for them we had plenty of food, well off, and saw no trouble. That's these smart-mouthed people coming up to Jeremiah saying these things like that. This is what God, Isaiah had to deal with a hundred years earlier, and before him, the other prophets had to deal with it. And that's, I'm reading it to show you the infestation was there over the centuries, and if it wasn't running in the background, it was right up front.

There it is up, right up front. Ezekiel, he comes after Jeremiah. He's a contemporary to a point, but he's a little later, a little after. And he saw women worshiping Tammuz, and the male priests worshiping the son, both of them from the house of God in Jerusalem. Ezekiel 8, so he brought me to the door of the north gate of Yahweh's house, and to my dismay, this is Ezekiel talking, talking, women were sitting there weeping for Tammuz.

Tammuz was like a god and he's married to a goddess. It's all junk. It's all, who cares? The bottom line.

I'm not here to learn about Tammuz. And it's like I'm not worried about Antichrist, it's Jesus Christ that I'm interested in, and it's the same thing. Well, here, and when I was younger, younger years, I would look up all these gods, and all of them, the Lord, what are you doing?

Who cares? They're lies. Somebody just made them up, they're cartoon characters, not even funny ones. Anyway, then he said to me, this is Ezekiel still talking, have you seen, oh son of man? Turn again, you will see greater abominations than these.

Okay, so the women worshiping Tammuz at the entrance of the temple is one thing, but now to find the priest doing it, so he continues, so he brought me to the inner court of the prophet's house, and there at the door of the temple of Yahweh between the porch and the altar, about 25 men with their backs toward the temple of Yahweh and their faces toward the east where the sun rises, and they were worshiping the sun toward the east, and he said to me, have you seen this, oh son of man? Is it a trivial thing to the house of Judah to commit the abominations which they commit here? He continues to roll out the evil that they were doing before the prophet. So Judah made themselves unclean. This is not, you know, this is not identical to the Christian struggling, so don't make that connection, but it is identical to anybody who is brazen in their sin, blatant, and has no sense of conviction. So verse 6, he continues, Isaiah does, and we all like an unclean thing, we are all like an unclean thing, and all our righteousness are like filthy rags, we all fade as a leaf, and our iniquities like the wind have taken us away.

And so he's including himself because he's not, again, he's not obnoxious, he's not, I'm better than these people, though he was, but he's humble enough, and if he didn't say it this way, we'd probably charge him with a little arrogance. When he gets to the next chapter, he's going to talk about the pagan Jews that were holier than thou. Well, Isaiah knew that even though he did not break the first commandment, thou shalt have no other gods before me, he still was unclean before God, as are all created beings.

The unclean was forbidden from entering into the temple for sacrifice and worship. Sin makes men not only guilty, it makes us unclean. And because we are guilty, we need to be saved. And because we are unclean, we need to be sanctified.

Thus the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin, but only if you are saved. And so just as our goodness had nothing to do with our salvation, our goodness does not entitle us to take our place in heaven, it is all through Christ, and being aware of that makes us more effective, that's humility. Humility in the biblical sense primarily is our sense of self in the presence of God. And when you see men like Daniel and John the Apostle fall down as though dead in the presence of a manifestation of God, then you get an idea that humility is beneficial, but it is not to humiliate.

It is a sense of one's presence, of who we truly are, and who God is, that relationship, that we're not disfellowshipped from God anymore. Well, he says here, and all our righteousness are like filthy rags. He's talking about himself, he's talking about all the righteousness of the righteous. Self-righteousness shrivels up before a verse like this one, yet sinners can be ingenious, surviving the hit, the death knell of self-righteousness. Anyway, if our righteousness is filthy, what must our sins look like to God? What must that unrighteousness about us be like? Well, in spite, he knows that, in spite of that he died for us. This Psalm, Psalm 143, do not enter into judgment with your servant, for in your sight no one living is righteous.

Now, you know, when we're conscious of these things, we esteem the Lord, humble yourself in the presence of the Lord, in the presence of the Lord, and he will lift you up in due time. The word filthy in the Hebrew here is a severe word. It's worse than just the word filthy, so we can leave it there. And filth opposes cleanliness.

And the world hears about these things, and they shriek. The Bible, they say, is nothing more than a purest message that interferes with pleasure. In other words, you do goodies don't have the good.

We're good too. Who gives you the right to say what's moral and immoral? Well, God does, and that's where the battle continues. Malachi, echoing Isaiah, these are the Jewish people, and you know, Malachi is calling them out on their behavior. And he says, everyone who does evil, he says, you say, everyone who does evil is good in the sight of Yahweh, and he delights in them.

Well, centuries later, they gave a name to that called universalism. Everybody's going to go to heaven. The universe is going to go, everybody's going to go, it doesn't matter about your sin, and the existential nonsense, all the other philosophical demonic teachings come out of that. And then they said, I'll reread Malachi 2.17, in that you say, everyone who does evil is good in the sight of Yahweh, and he delights in them, or Malachi saying to them, or you say this, where is the God of justice? In other words, I'm doing fine today. I don't see fire coming out of heaven getting me. It's just big talk. There's no God there to judge me, a bunch of smart mouths, like Cain. Who am I, my brother's keeper?

I mean, you would like to God, you just backhand him one time, and he'll tumble for a month. But that's not what happened. So they were mocking that God could not judge him, and so the New Testament stands defiant, as does the old. There's none righteous, as it is written, as the scripture says, regardless of what they say, because there's no Satan, well this is written, well it's written again. As it is written, there is none righteous, no not one, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and that's why Jesus said, you have to be born again.

You're a train wreck, and you've got to get God's touch on you, to be born from above. Romans 10.13, whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved to get out of that unclean state. And so again, Jesus said, don't marvel that I said you must be born again.

Don't be amazed by that. And so he fast-forward a little bit more to Zechariah the priest, and there Joshua, sorry, Zechariah was a priest, he was a prophet too, and he gives us this picture of Joshua the high priest as Zechariah was ministering, and this is in the days when the Jews come out of captivity, they come back to the promised land, and they're very slow about rebuilding their temple, their place of worship. They settled in, they made houses for themselves, and God raised up Haggai and Zechariah to light a fire under the people. And in one scene, Zechariah tells us this story that is insightful about Satan, the accuser of the brethren, and what God wants to do with his people who are unclean, but his people still, the righteous, not like all of Israel, the people in that sense, the individual that is in love with the Lord. And so now Joshua was clothed with filthy garments and was standing before the angel. Now those filthy garments, all of our righteousness is like filthy rags. Then he answered and spoke to those who stood before him saying, this is the Lord, take away the filthy garments from him, and to him he said, see, I have removed your iniquity from you, and I will clothe you which with rich robes. Where does that show up in the New Testament? A prodigal son.

Put a robe on my son, and a ring, and sandals on his feet, and give him a bath, because he's with the pigs. So anyway, this powerful story to see how, Psalm 51 verse 2, this is David after he had been busted in his sin. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. Just the cry of the believer. Okay, so God is merciful with me and I love it so much.

Am I merciful with those around me who repent? We all fade as a leaf, it says here in verse 6. Well, sin dims the glory, the evidence of inherent sin, and our iniquities, that's the inside and the out, like the wind have taken us away, incapable of changing direction, out of control. Our iniquity has taken us away like a leaf in the wind.

There's a difference between being blown and flying. Psalm 38, for my iniquities have gone over my head like a heavy burden, they are too heavy for me. God does not look at a verse like that and say, how did that get in the Bible?

He authored this. He knows who he's dealing with. The sinners that repent don't want to sin but are stuck with a sinful nature. Verse 7, and there is no one who calls on your name who stirs himself up to take hold of you, for you have hidden your face from us and have consumed us because of our iniquities. Well, when he says there is no one who calls on your name, it certainly does not, it's not an absolute statement, but it is the state of the kingdom of Judah. Those outside the remnant. And when we get to chapter 65 in verses 8 and 10, God brings up, I know who my remnant is, I know who the righteous are. And so we understand that all of this belongs together. The chapter divisions are just for us to help us find things, but that's not always how they flow. So God was not in their thoughts because he was not allowed to be in their hearts.

Very simple. He did not come to mind, therefore he did not come into sight. And that's why Isaiah says, you have hidden your face from us and have consumed us because of our iniquities. And as a kingdom, they all got it, they all suffered.

Daniel had to suffer because of unrighteous people. And so verse 8, but now O Yahweh, you are our Father, we are the clay, and you our potter, and all we are the work of your hand. Well there you are as a believer spinning on the wheel, the pressure of the hands of God on you.

And yet he's shaping you into the image that he wants, which is the image of the sun. And he is saying through the potter's wheel that I am a hands-on God. I have not outsourced this, which Moses can fear, you know, I'll send my angel, oh no Lord if you're not going, I don't want to go, don't send us, we want your hands on us. This is likely the inspiration of Jeremiah 18 when he goes down to the potter's house and there he sees God doing what he does. And so we continue, verse 9, do not be furious, O Yahweh, nor remember iniquity forever.

Indeed, please look, we all are your people. And as the psalmist said, you know, the sheep of his hand, continuing verse 10, your holy cities are a wilderness, Zion is a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation, our holy and beautiful temple where our fathers praised you is burned up with fire and all our pleasant things are laid waste. Well, this verse is one of them that causes some of the theologians to say, well, it's not one Isaiah, there's two parts of the book written by two different men. Jesus disagreed with that because Jesus quotes both parts of the book and in both times he says, well did the prophet Isaiah say? So I'm going to go with Jesus on this one and every other one too. So, but you can understand if they're not, you know, if they're not coming to the scripture ready to trust the scripture, they're going to come up with these harebrained observations and get a paycheck for it. You know, some university paying these guys to teach this stuff and they have been for centuries, well, for a long time.

I don't want to do the math right now, but so what is happening here? Because what he's describing is the temple destroyed. Well, that's 120 years away at least from, from right now where Isaiah's life is. Well, as John on Patmos was shown enough of the future to speak with prophetic authority as though he were there.

That's what we're getting here. This has a lasting relevance to the people that he is writing this for and publishing this. Future generations will come. And just like when Daniel read Jeremiah talking about 70 years, they're going to be in their captivity. Well, Jeremiah's going to read Isaiah and of course Isaiah references the Potter and God like that twice and Jeremiah is, has it in his prophecies too. It's called, I don't know who made it up, but prophetic presence. You're speaking prophetically about a future event as though you're there in the future. And we've seen this before and we covered it, we didn't covet, we covered it in chapter 53. To be so certain in your description of the future that you're a participant and it's all over the Old Testament prophets. These guys spoke as those, I mean, there's no doubt about this coming, maybe thousands of years away and they were sure. Isaiah 53, he has despised, he is despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief and we hid as it were our faces from him. Well Isaiah, you weren't there, that's 700 years away, but that's prophetic presence.

It shows up in other places, I just chose that example. I could give you more but then we'll get out of here later. So anyway, these things are God saying to his people that what's going to happen is not by chance, it is the satanization of the kingdom that brought these things about and I told you this, so that we could come along and say this has a lasting relevance to me. God has already called these things before they happened, I have no reason to doubt him going forward, he is that trustworthy. Verse 12, will you restrain yourself because of these things, oh Yahweh, will you hold your peace and afflict us severely because of the iniquity coming, the ruin of the temple, the destruction of these things, are you done with us? That's where the prophet is going.

Or at least have you withdrawn so far from us that we're just going to writhe in pain. Is this where we have seen Israel today after the crucifixion? Well, those are big questions. God's reply is in the next chapter.

In the next chapter he's going to answer these questions. 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 / 2025-01-09 08:32:14 / 2025-01-09 08:41:24 / 9

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