ISA 23:1 An oracle concerning Tyre: Wail, O ships of Tarshish! For Tyre is destroyed and left without house or harbor. From the land of Cyprus word has come to them. Even the ships of Tarshish (a city on the southern border of Spain) traded with them; hence we see that there is much dismay at the sudden destruction of the city. As the reader will be aware, Spain is today a de facto Muslim country in all but name. Spain is also the gateway to the rest of Europe for Muslim insurgents wanting to migrate. And if this is not wholly true today, then it soon will be.

ISA 23:2 Be silent, you people of the island and you merchants of Sidon, whom the seafarers have enriched. Sidon is close to Tyre, but it was to Tyre that Sidon looked for trading goods. The people of the Island of Cypress were also enriched and Cypress comes in for mention in V12.

ISA 23:3 On the great waters came the grain of the Shihor; the harvest of the Nile was the revenue of Tyre, and she became the marketplace of the nations.

ISA 23:4 Be ashamed, O Sidon, and you, O fortress of the sea (Tyre), for the sea has spoken: "I have neither been in labor nor given birth; I have neither reared sons nor brought up daughters." This is the sea speaking here metaphorically, which ties into a certain monster that arises out of the sea in Rev 13:1. This monster has no offspring and neither does he care much for any human being. Satan generally sides with his own offspring, called the children of the devil in 1John 3:10. But the monster that will arise from the sea cares for no-one and nothing, and his only desire is to kill and destroy everyone and everything. So Satan gives him the power to do just that (Rev 13:1). His target will be every tribe, people, language and nation, as well as blasphemous belligerence towards the Great God of Heaven (V6-7). But we’re starting to jump way ahead of the theme relating to the destruction of Tyre.

ISA 23:5 When word comes to Egypt, they will be in anguish at the report from Tyre. Tyre was the principle trading port for the Egyptian Nile produce as Isaiah states above in V3.

ISA 23:6 Cross over to Tarshish; wail, you people of the island. And not without good reason would the people of the eastern seaboard of the Mediterranean seek out a safe haven after their trading city is destroyed. Of all places they will choose Tarshish in Southern Spain – the Muslim gateway to Europe. What occurs that brings about this great change in fortunes will all unfold as we progress in this Bible Study. But be aware that in the next chapter, major changes are prophesied for the whole earth as the Lord God punishes the whole world for their wickedness. The beast that arises from the sea is complicit in triggering these events.

ISA 23:7 Is this your city of revelry, the old, old city, whose feet have taken her to settle in far-off lands? As long ago as the days of Isaiah the prophet, people were emigrating to other lands through this port city of Tyre.

ISA 23:8 Who planned this against Tyre, the bestower of crowns, whose merchants are princes, whose traders are renowned in the earth?

ISA 23:9 The LORD Almighty planned it, to bring low the pride of all glory and to humble all who are renowned on the earth. Well, all the arrogant have had their moments, and its time to bring it all to an end. All of this was planned a long time ago by the Great God. The city of Tyre was strategically important to many men of renown along the way. Alexander was one who had to conquer it because of its significance to the whole region. Much later there were the Crusading Knights Templar who conquered and held it for a time because of its strategic value as the port to all Europe.

ISA 23:10 Till your land as along the Nile, O Daughter of Tarshish, for you no longer have a harbor. Tarshish traditionally traded with Tyre to avail themselves of Middle Eastern products and produce. It was a principal port of call for the whole Mediterranean. God is referring to the ‘Daughter’ of Tarshish. In other words, a later generation of Tarshish. God is telling them to start tilling the earth as the Egyptians do along the Nile, and to start producing their own food as there will be no more plunder. Another power has taken over from their trading nations and this power cares for no-one.

Just to input something of interest that relates to Tarshish in Spain: Jonah was a prophet who wrote the Book bearing his name in the Bible. He was sent by God to go to Ninevah in the Kurdish heartland today. The land was called both Media (from where we get the name ‘Medes’) and Assyria. To cut a long story short, Jonah decided to flee to Tarshish in Spain (Jonah 1:3) and we all know the story of how he was swallowed by a giant sea creature, which spewed him out on dry land. He then went to where God had told him to go. Amazingly, the ruler of Ninevah, the city in Media or Assyria, repented and turned to God in obedience. And this set off a chain of events that gained God’s favour, which we partially covered in earlier chapters. Even today, the Kurds are a different breed of people to those around them. Notwithstanding, they were used by God to punish His people, the House of Israel for their rebellion against Him long ago. As you’ll recall from earlier chapters, These Assyrians hammered Syria and their city Damascus and seized power over the whole region including the conquest of the northern Ten Tribes of Israel. In so doing, they were actually performing a service to God, who was determined to teach Israel a lesson – one that they would understand and never forget. They spent generations in exile and slavery, and never returned to their ancestral homelands. Instead, they gradually filtered through to live in Europe.

ISA 23:11 The LORD has stretched out his hand over the sea and made its kingdoms tremble. He has given an order concerning Phoenicia that her fortresses be destroyed. Here we see that God stretches out His hand over the sea – and its kingdoms. So Almighty God is speaking of the Mediterranean Sea and all the kingdoms that surround it. Through the prophet Isaiah, God makes known a prophecy that will affect all the nations around this sea. He singles out one particular group of people for destruction, namely the Phoenicians. Many of the Phoenicians were forced off-shore by the Israelis when they took the Promised Land and drove out many of the former inhabitants. Many Phoenicians migrated to coastal regions of northern Africa. Hannibal appears to be a Phoenician according to limited evidence. They were renowned as sea-farers. Yet even in the days of David and Solomon, they occupied the territory of both Tyre and Sidon.

ISA 23:12 He said, "No more of your reveling, O Virgin Daughter of Sidon, now crushed! "Up, cross over to Cyprus; even there you will find no rest." This is an indication that new players are controlling Sidon and driving out the former occupiers. When God gives the order for the destruction of Tyre and Sidon, the inhabitants will be forced out and to seek refuge in the Island of Cypress to the north-west. Still they won’t find any rest. Cypress is an divided Island today with two nations claiming sovereignty. On the east, the Muslim Turks have taken over from the Greeks who occupy the territory to the west. Neither side is prepared to give ground, and the acrimony continues with minor skirmishes periodically. The Greek-Macedonians won’t tolerate this for much longer! Perhaps the Muslims have forgotten the lesson of Alexander the Great and how he dealt with their forebears. My advice to the Muslims is: Don’t get too arrogant! You definitely won’t like what arises from the sea! And Muslims in Cypress will find no rest in that day.

ISA 23:13 Look at the land of the Babylonians, this people that is now of no account! The Assyrians have made it a place for desert creatures; they raised up their siege towers, they stripped its fortresses bare and turned it into a ruin. You might find it of interest to know that it was a Mede from the land of Media (a Kurd or Assyrian) who took over the kingdom from Nebuchadnezzar’s son Belshazzar (Dan 5:30). He took the title of King Darius, though you will note that he is also referred to as King Cyrus in the Book of Daniel. Darius was the man, and Cyrus was the spirit ruler of the heavenly realms. It was Cyrus who was virtually deified by the Persians, and they’ve even built a huge monument to his memory.

It could be argued that the Prophet Isaiah wrote all this about Tyre and Sidon centuries before and that it could relate to conditions that existed then. But this is what God says elsewhere in the Scriptures concerning this: Eze 28:21-26 "Son of man, set your face against Sidon; prophesy against her ²² and say: `This is what the Sovereign LORD says: " `I am against you, O Sidon, and I will gain glory within you. They will know that I am the LORD, when I inflict punishment on her and show myself holy within her. ²³ I will send a plague upon her and make blood flow in her streets. The slain will fall within her, with the sword against her on every side. Then they will know that I am the LORD. ²⁴ " `No longer will the people of Israel have malicious neighbors who are painful briers and sharp thorns. Then they will know that I am the Sovereign LORD. <sup>25</sup> " `This is what the Sovereign LORD says: When I gather the people of Israel from the nations where they have been scattered, I will show myself holy among them in the sight of the nations. Then they will live in their own land, which I gave to my servant Jacob. ²⁶ They will live there in safety and will build houses and plant vineyards; they will live in safety when I inflict punishment on all their neighbors who maligned them. Then they will know that I am the LORD their God.'" And who’s maligning the House of Israel today? The definition of maligning is ‘to assail with contemptuous language’. You hear it every day, and it’s coming from Islam! The weird thing about Muslims is, they hate the Western nations with unbridled contempt, but they all want to live in their countries, and will do almost anything to get there.

Joel 3:4-8 "Now what have you against me, O Tyre and Sidon and all you regions of Philistia? Are you repaying me for something I have done? If you are paying me back, I will swiftly and speedily return on your own heads what you have done. ⁵ For you took my silver and my gold and carried off my finest treasures to your temples. ⁶ You sold the people of Judah and Jerusalem to the Greeks, that you might send them far from their homeland. ⁷ "See, I am going to rouse them out of the places to which you sold them, and I will return on your own heads what you have done. ⁸ I will sell your sons and daughters to the people of Judah, and they will sell them to the Sabeans, a nation far away." The LORD has spoken.

Joel 3:9-12 "Proclaim this among the nations: Prepare for war! Rouse the warriors! Let all the fighting men draw near and attack. ¹⁰ Beat your plowshares into swords and your pruning hooks into spears. Let the weakling say, "I am strong!" Notice that God invites them to turn their farm tools into weapons for a war. At a different time, God tells His people to turn their weapons into farming tools and equipment in preparation for peace. ¹¹ Come quickly, all you nations from every side, and assemble there. Bring down your warriors, O LORD! ¹² "Let the nations be roused; let them advance into the Valley of Jehoshaphat, for there I will sit to judge all the nations on every side. So God is going to lead them down the Valley of Jehoshaphat to challenge God’s warriors. It’s a big mistake for these silly fools who think they can fight God. The 14^th Chapter of the Book of Zechariah details the outcome of this event. The slaughter will be so great that the survivors are going to rethink their positions: Zech 14:16 "Then the survivors from all the nations that have attacked Jerusalem will go up year after year to worship the King, the LORD Almighty, and to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles." It’s amazing what can result from a bit of shock and awe.

Joel 3:13-17 "Swing the sickle, for the harvest is ripe. Come, trample the grapes, for the winepress is full and the vats overflow-- so great is their wickedness!" ¹⁴ Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision! For the day of the LORD is near in the valley of decision. ¹⁵ The sun and moon will be darkened, and the stars no longer shine. ¹⁶ The LORD will roar from Zion and thunder from Jerusalem; the earth and the sky will tremble. But the LORD will be a refuge for his people, a stronghold for the people of Israel. ¹⁷ "Then you will know that I, the LORD your God, dwell in Zion, my holy hill. Jerusalem will be holy; never again will foreigners invade her."

The Book of Revelation also speaks of this event: Rev 14:19-20 "The angel swung his sickle on the earth, gathered its grapes and threw them into the great winepress of God's wrath. ²⁰ They were trampled in the winepress outside the City, and blood flowed out of the press, rising as high as the horses' bridles for a distance of 1,600 stadia."

ISA 23:14 Wail, you ships of Tarshish; your fortress is destroyed! Tarshish in southern Spain had a reputation for selling white Europeans as slaves to the Arabs and other Middle Easterners. They were called Janissaries. Many of these were children who were raised and trained to fight against their own people. These slaves were the primary back-loading cargo to the Middle East and North Africa. Tarshish was a huge trading base for slaves. From memory I think it was Pliny who noted that these Janissaries were white-skinned, blue-eyed children, in other words, Israelites.

ISA 23:15 At that time Tyre will be forgotten for seventy years, the span of a king's life. But at the end of these seventy years, it will happen to Tyre as in the song of the prostitute:

ISA 23:16 "Take up a harp, walk through the city, O prostitute forgotten; play the harp well, sing many a song, so that you will be remembered."

ISA 23:17 At the end of seventy years, the LORD will deal with Tyre. She will return to her hire as a prostitute and will ply her trade with all the kingdoms on the face of the earth. The prostitute mentioned here relates to the greatest of prostitutes – Satan himself, whom Tyre will be endeavouring to emulate. They will have no regard for God’s people Israel, nor any form of morality, but will be motivated purely by monetary gain. This aptly describes the conduct of a prostitute, and the prophet goes on to confirm this with the mention of profits and earnings.

ISA 23:18Yet her profit and her earnings will be set apart for the LORD; they will not be stored up or hoarded. Her profits will go to those who live before the LORD, for abundant food and fine clothes. What the precise situation was in Isaiah’s day is unclear, apart from the fact that the House of Israel was carried off as slaves, and sold to the Greeks and elsewhere, in and around the Mediterranean. No doubt the plunder of the ten northern tribes of Israel made some of these merchants from the shipping ports very rich. So here we see that their ill-gotten gains will be plundered as the spoils of war by the servants of God for all ‘those who live before the LORD’

ISA 24:1 See, the LORD is going to lay waste the earth and devastate it; he will ruin its face (that is, the landmass) and scatter its inhabitants--

ISA 24:2 it will be the same for priest as for people, for master as for servant, for mistress as for maid, for seller as for buyer, for borrower as for lender, for debtor as for creditor.

ISA 24:3 The earth will be completely laid waste and totally plundered. The LORD has spoken this word.

ISA 24:4 The earth dries up and withers, the world languishes and withers, the exalted of the earth languish.

ISA 24:5 The earth is defiled by its people; they have disobeyed the laws, violated the statutes and broken the everlasting covenant. Some might be tempted to say, ‘Well wait a minute! Most of the inhabitants were not given God’s Laws, Statutes, and the everlasting Covenant!’ The truth is that the 12 Tribes of Israel were given these, and they were supposed to be the light of the world to teach them to other nations. Yet these teachers chose to learn the way of the heathen and to forsake God’s requirements. Thankfully, a tiny minority chose to obey God and to preserve His teachings out of love, obedience and respect for the one True Creator God. And believe it or not, it’s these who have kept the door open for an eventual good outcome. If not for these, God would have rung down the curtain on all mankind and wiped them off the face of the earth.

ISA 24:6 Therefore a curse consumes the earth; its people must bear their guilt. Therefore earth's inhabitants are burned up, and very few are left. Does anyone seriously believe that God is going to allow disobedience to prevail in the earth forevermore into the future? What is wrong with having laws in place to guide us all? And why wouldn’t a Great King establish His own Law, when He rules the entire earth? For all those detractors, didn’t God emphasize this point in the closing chapter of the Scriptures that the Lord Christ used? The Scriptures says, ‘Remember the Law of my servant Moses, the Decrees and Laws I gave him at Horeb for all Israel.’ (Mal 4:4) It’s certainly true that God gave these Laws for all Israel, but it’s also true that God’s Laws are universal, and anyone who wants to live in His Kingdom, which will fill the entire earth, will be bound by these same Laws and Decrees.

ISA 24:7 The new wine dries up and the vine withers; all the merrymakers groan.

ISA 24:8 The gaiety of the tambourines is stilled, the noise of the revelers has stopped, the joyful harp is silent.

ISA 24:9 No longer do they drink wine with a song; the beer is bitter to its drinkers.

ISA 24:10 The ruined city lies desolate; the entrance to every house is barred. This is what people do when confronted with marauders. If you want the perfect example of this, then look at South Africa today. It has the highest crime and murder rate in the world. And this came about when the world enforced the rule of Nelson Mandela on them, ending the rule of the white Europeans in favour of black rule. Once apartheid was ended, anarchy prevailed. White Europeans have been forced to barricade their houses like fortresses to keep out the black marauders. And it all began with a black president in South Africa. Are you getting the message? What about the other black nations in Africa, who have black presidents? How are they faring? Have you noticed Zimbabwe? Nigeria? Uganda? Sudan? Perhaps the reader can understand now why God doesn’t favour black rulers. Would you want your hard-earned tax dollars going to these degenerates as ‘carbon offsets’? This is the scenario that is developing under the auspices of the black President of the United States. He wants your money to go to his own homeland, the place of his birth.

ISA 24:11 In the streets they cry out for wine; all joy turns to gloom, all gaiety is banished from the earth.

ISA 24:12 The city is left in ruins, its gate is battered to pieces.

ISA 24:13 So will it be on the earth and among the nations, as when an olive tree is beaten, or as when gleanings are left after the grape harvest. This is speaking of the gleanings of the olive harvest and the grape harvest. (The grape harvest occurs in the vineyard, which is a reference to God’s vineyard.) These ‘gleanings’ or ‘remnant’, who are left alive, will have a very great change of heart.

ISA 24:14 They raise their voices, they shout for joy; from the west they acclaim the LORD's majesty. There won’t be a lot of people left who will exalt God and acknowledge Him in that day. Remember Isaiah, chapter 8, where he references this? Isa 8:18-22 "Here am I, and the children the LORD has given me. We are signs and symbols in Israel from the LORD Almighty, who dwells on Mount Zion. ¹⁹ When men tell you to consult mediums and spiritists, who whisper and mutter, should not a people inquire of their God? Why consult the dead on behalf of the living? ²⁰ To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, they have no light of dawn. ²¹ Distressed and hungry, they will roam through the land; when they are famished, they will become enraged and, looking upward, will curse their king and their God. ²² Then they will look toward the earth and see only distress and darkness and fearful gloom, and they will be thrust into utter darkness."

ISA 24:15 Therefore in the east give glory to the LORD; exalt the Name of the LORD, the God of Israel, in the islands of the sea.

ISA 24:16 From the ends of the earth we hear singing: "Glory to the Righteous One." But I said, "I waste away, I waste away! Woe to me! The treacherous betray! With treachery the treacherous betray!" Isaiah experienced first-hand the treachery that develops when everything goes wrong, and all hope is abandoned. Treachery and betrayal become commonplace as people seek their own survival. The prophet Micah spoke of this type of treachery and betrayal, and the Lord Christ quoted from this in Matt 10:35. Micah wrote of the day of the Watchmen and the scheduled time of their arrival. Micah speaks of the treachery and betrayals that will ensue and warns to be careful with your words. Micah 7:4-7 "The best of them is like a brier, the most upright worse than a thorn hedge. The day of your watchmen has come, the day God visits you. Now is the time of their confusion. ⁵ Do not trust a neighbor; put no confidence in a friend. Even with her who lies in your embrace be careful of your words. ⁶ For a son dishonors his father, a daughter rises up against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law-- a man's enemies are the members of his own household. ⁷ But as for me, I watch in hope for the LORD, I wait for God my Savior; my God will hear me."

ISA 24:17 Terror and pit and snare await you, O people of the earth.

ISA 24:18 Whoever flees at the sound of terror will fall into a pit; whoever climbs out of the pit will be caught in a snare. The floodgates of the heavens are opened, the foundations of the earth shake. Yes, flooding is a real problem now, and so are earthquakes. And all this at a time when terrorism has become endemic across the face of the earth!

ISA 24:19 The earth (landmass) is broken up, the earth (landmass) is split asunder, the earth is thoroughly shaken.

ISA 24:20 The earth reels like a drunkard, it sways like a hut in the wind; so heavy upon it is the guilt of its rebellion that it falls--never to rise again. What have we been saying about all the mountains collapsing? The guilt of the rebellion by Satan resulted in the original landmass being broken up prior to Adam’s appearance on earth. It was during this rebellion that the original continent broke up and the pieces slid violently across the face of the earth, pushing up mountains and forming the terrain that we see today. All this will be repaired, and the useless mountain ranges will no longer exist. Forget all about what geologists would have you believe with their childish, amateurish renditions about plate-tectonics, cold deformations of mountains, etc. If they collectively had half a brain, they’d recognize the madness of their theories. Geologists today have no idea what they are talking about! Everything they believe is based on fiction!

ISA 24:21 In that day the LORD will punish the powers in the heavens above and the kings on the earth below. This confirms the truth of the previous verse concerning the guilt of its rebellion and who is to be punished for it all. Notice the link between the powers of the heavens, that is, the rulers of the heavenly realms, and the kings on the earth below. So, of course, God is going to repair the damage to the earth, and the perpetrators – Satan and his demons – will be punished!

ISA 24:22 They will be herded together like prisoners bound in a dungeon; they will be shut up in prison and be punished after many days. This prison is called the Abyss. It’s a terrifying place to be, and demons don’t want to be sent there. There was a time when demons begged Jesus repeatedly not to send them there: Luke 8:30-31 "Jesus asked him, "What is your name?" "Legion," he replied, because many demons had gone into him. ³¹ And they begged him repeatedly not to order them to go into the Abyss." Obviously, the Abyss is not a good place to be; it literally terrifies the demon hordes. As you will notice from this verse, incarceration in the Abyss is not the final punishment – this comes after many days, and after they are locked away in prison. As God has made very plain, there will be no place for them on earth, or anywhere else for that matter. Death is the only remedy.

ISA 24:23 The moon will be abashed, the sun ashamed; for the LORD Almighty will reign on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, and before its elders, gloriously. Ah, the moon! The symbol of Islam and their demented view of everything! The terror they inflicted on others will be returned on their own heads and Islam will be wiped off the face of the earth. And what about the phrase, ‘the sun ashamed’? Who was designated as the ‘light-bringer’? He’s also referred to as Lucifer or the devil. He is presently the ruler of the earth, and soon he will be shamed with imprisonment. With the dawning of a new day, a new Sun will arise with healing in His wings: Mal 4:1-3 "Surely the day is coming; it will burn like a furnace. All the arrogant and every evildoer will be stubble, and that day that is coming will set them on fire," says the LORD Almighty. "Not a root or a branch will be left to them. ² But for you who revere my Name, the Sun of Righteousness will rise with healing in its wings. And you will go out and leap like calves released from the stall. ³ Then you will trample down the wicked; they will be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day when I do these things," says the LORD Almighty." So the former light-bringer, Lucifer, will be replaced by the new Sun of Righteousness, and this will usher in the new dawn that Peter spoke of in 2Pet 1:19-21, when the Morning-Star begins to illuminate a dark world. The sun promotes growth and provides the means for sustaining life. Without the sun no life could survive. The present ‘light-bringer’ turned out to be a liar and a murderer from the beginning, and hence his days are numbered. In fact, he was given six millennial days to do all his work, but the Seventh Millennial day belongs to the new Sun of Righteousness, who will arise with healing in His wings.

ISA 25:1 O LORD, you are my God; I will exalt you and praise your name, for in perfect faithfulness you have done marvelous things, things planned long ago. Those who know their God will be aware that much planning has gone into everything connected with the coming Kingdom of God.

ISA 25:2 You have made the city a heap of rubble, the fortified town a ruin, the foreigners' stronghold a city no more; it will never be rebuilt. This is a reference to Babylon – Satan’s principle city of residence. In speaking of herding Satan and all his demons together and imprisoning them, it’s interesting to note that the city of Babylon will be turned into a fiery hell-hole and will become the Abyss for the imprisoned rulers of the heavenly realms.

ISA 25:3 Therefore strong peoples will honor you; cities of ruthless nations will revere you.

ISA 25:4 You have been a refuge for the poor, a refuge for the needy in his distress, a shelter from the storm and a shade from the heat. For the breath of the ruthless is like a storm driving against a wall

ISA 25:5 and like the heat of the desert. You silence the uproar of foreigners; as heat is reduced by the shadow of a cloud, so the song of the ruthless is stilled.

ISA 25:6 On this mountain the LORD Almighty will prepare a feast of rich food for all peoples, a banquet of aged wine-- the best of meats and the finest of wines. I don’t suppose it will make much difference to those who, through self-righteousness, disagree about drinking the finest aged wines. They even substitute grape-juice when they observe ‘the Lord’s supper’ – a flagrant misnomer for the Passover which must observed on the correct day. So now they know that God disagrees with them! If they lack the character to drink and appreciate a good wine without turning into a legless lunatic, well there is something seriously wrong with their character and their doctrine.

ISA 25:7 On this mountain (the Temple Mount) he will destroy the shroud that enfolds all peoples, the sheet that covers all nations;

ISA 25:8 he will swallow up Death forever. The Sovereign LORD will wipe away the tears from all faces; he will remove the disgrace of his people from all the earth. The LORD has spoken. This particular ‘death’ is the name of a certain spirit ruler, who is spoken of in Revelation, chapter 6. Death and Grave are two horrifically evil demon rulers who will do astounding damage. You will note that these two names are capitalized in the Book of Revelation to indicate two distinct personages.

ISA 25:9 In that day they will say, "Surely this is our God; we trusted in him, and he saved us. This is the LORD, we trusted in him; let us rejoice and be glad in his salvation." God’s people will then know the meaning of salvation, when they realize that God has rescued them from the hand of their enemy. The pudding-headed nonsense about ‘salvation’ today is just ridiculous. It’s a little galling to hear people running around claiming to be ‘saved’ when they have never served God or obeyed His Law in their entire lives. Such people will soon find that they haven’t been saved from anything, and they need to brace themselves for what is coming. They would do well to try to understand the climactic upheaval that is coming and why. Recall what you have just read a few verses ago: ^{ISA 24:5} The earth is defiled by its people; they have disobeyed the Laws, violated the Statutes and broken the everlasting Covenant.

ISA 25:10 The hand of the LORD will rest on this mountain; but Moab will be trampled under him as straw is trampled down in the manure.

ISA 25:11 They will spread out their hands in it (that is the manure), as a swimmer spreads out his hands to swim. God will bring down their pride despite the cleverness of their hands. Who says God doesn’t have a sense of humour? Here the Moabites are depicted using their hands to swim around in feces. In such circumstances, I don’t think the men of Moab will have much pride left! We covered details of the women of Moab earlier, who will tend the flocks and turn to the Lord and actually pay tribute in lambs to the Holy Mountain of God.

ISA 25:12 He will bring down your high fortified walls and lay them low; he will bring them down to the ground, to the very dust. The men of Moab might have been enjoying themselves in the cities, but the woman were busy in the field. God generally holds the men responsible for the demise of a nation, but with one exception as we found in the earlier chapters. This is the example of the women of Jerusalem who tarted themselves up to be alluring, immediately before disaster struck. Their actions were at least partially responsible for God’s retribution. As we’ll see in the next chapter, bad influences have to be removed before God brings His people home.

ISA 26:1 In that day this song will be sung in the land of Judah: We have a strong city; God makes salvation its walls and ramparts. This song is about the City of Jerusalem, a strong City, where God makes its walls and ramparts salvation for all survivors. This song is, once again, the Song of Moses, where it climaxes with these words: Deut 32:43 "Rejoice, O nations, with his people, for he will avenge the blood of his servants; he will take vengeance on his enemies and make atonement for his land and people." As God has said, this Song of Moses will be sung.

ISA 26:2 Open the gates that the righteous nation may enter, the nation that keeps faith. The City of Jerusalem will taken by force by armed men of force! The world will believe them to be transgressors – such is the mentality of those who have driven themselves mad with political correctness. Perhaps the reader will remember when Jesus told His disciples to arm themselves with swords to fulfill the Scripture that says ‘He was numbered with transgressors’. Jesus later told Pontius Pilate that if His Kingdom were of that time, then His servants would fight.

In this V2 above, we see that the Gates of Jerusalem will be opened to allow a righteous nation to enter – a nation that keeps faith. Prior to this, when the Holy City is stormed and taken, everyone – and I mean everyone! – will be driven out or slaughtered and the City cleansed. Only then will the gates be opened to allow a righteous nation to enter. And which nation would this be? It’s the same nation that remained faithful to God and His Holy City for millennia, even through the most callous of holocausts that they’ve endured during these many centuries. It’s the Lord’s own tribe through whom He was born as a man. It’s the Jews. Judah will be restored and allowed to enter the Holy City. Yet even then, a secondary slaughter will occur and this is mentioned in the Eze 9:1-11. You don’t put new wine into old wineskins, and so new wineskins will be the order of the day. In this account of Ezekiel, there will be a selection process where only those who are fully compliant with God and have grieved for the Holy City and the horror that has been done in it, will be spared. These will be the new wine skins, and the old wineskins discarded. The old wine is better and the new wine skins will preserve it. The rest will be utterly slaughtered, including men, women and children. These who are identified for slaughter by the omission of the mark, are the ‘progressives’ who were prepared to compromise God’s Holy City to His enemies. We won’t go into all that Ezekiel wrote about these things, because there are things there that require voluminous explanations; not least of which is the reference to the Glory of God. The Glory is where God’s sapphire Throne is, and this Glory moves around from place to place. The Glory is God’s dwelling place. If you read the passage from Ezekiel carefully, you will understand this.

ISA 26:3 You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in you. And this perfectly describes the righteous nation that keeps faith, and whose mind is steadfast. Wavering, indecisive people are unstable in all their ways. They can never be trusted. Obviously, there is no place for such people in God’s Kingdom.

ISA 26:4 Trust in the LORD forever, for the LORD, the LORD, is the Rock eternal.

ISA 26:5 He humbles those who dwell on high, he lays the lofty city low; he levels it to the ground and casts it down to the dust.

ISA 26:6 Feet trample it down-- the feet of the oppressed, the footsteps of the poor.

ISA 26:7 The path of the righteous is level; O upright One, you make the way of the righteous smooth. There is more to this verse than meets the eye, and this will become more evident when we get to Isaiah, chapter 40. Nevertheless, there is an important reference to the pathways of God’s people in Isa 40:3-5 "A voice of one calling: "In the desert prepare the way for the LORD; make straight in the wilderness a highway for our God. ⁴ Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain. ⁵ And the Glory of the LORD will be revealed, and all mankind together will see it. For the mouth of the LORD has spoken." Here we see another mention of the Glory of God. In addition to this, we see the pathways that God will provide for the return of His people. These will be level and easy to navigate, once the mountains and hills are leveled – which we mentioned earlier on.

ISA 26:8 Yes, LORD, walking in the way of your Laws, we wait for you; your Name and renown are the desire of our hearts. And who will traverse these level pathways to return? God clearly reveals that it’s those who walk in the way of His Law! And who is it that upholds God’s Name and reputation or renown above all else? God actually mentions some of these people who teach righteousness (which is mentioned in the next verse), and this is how they are described: Mal 3:16-18 "Then those who feared the LORD talked with each other, and the LORD listened and heard. A scroll of remembrance was written in his presence concerning those who feared the LORD and honored his Name. ¹⁷ "They will be mine," says the LORD Almighty, "in the day when I make up my treasured possession. I will spare them, just as in compassion a man spares his son who serves him. ¹⁸ And you will again see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between those who serve God and those who do not." I’m sure everyone hopes his own name is written in the Scroll of Remembrance (The Book of Life), but if they don’t fear Him as well as reverence and honour His Name, then their names are probably not written in this Book.

There are some clarifications however. When a person truly repents and turns to God in obedience to His Law, they are given a down-payment of His Holy Spirit which qualifies them for entry of their names in the Book of Life. Yet their names can be blotted out of the Book of Life if they turn away and willfully cease to obey God anymore. This is made very clear in Heb 6:4 "It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, ⁵ who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age, ⁶ if they fall away, to be brought back to repentance, because to their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace." As we can see, it’s a very serious matter! Those who folded up and turned away during the mild days would’ve had great difficulty when things get tough. These weak, wimpish people wouldn’t have made the grade anyway.

ISA 26:9 My soul yearns for you in the night; in the morning my spirit longs for you. When your judgments come upon the earth, the people of the world learn righteousness. When judgment comes upon the earth, there will be changes to human behaviour. Then people will learn what righteousness is! Almighty God hates the play-acting of self-righteous dopes who want to grandstand to everyone else about their delusional qualifications for teaching about God. In so doing, they make others twice the sons of hell as they are. Their every waking moment is spent trying to enhance their own image in the eyes of others. How would such people cope with trying to explain the judgments that will come on the whole earth?

ISA 26:10 Though grace is shown to the wicked, they do not learn righteousness; even in a land of uprightness they go on doing evil and regard not the majesty of the LORD. These are the very points we’ve been making. Even when grace is shown to these people, they still don’t learn the way of righteousness. They seem to believe they can trump the Majesty of the Great King with their own brand of righteousness. Obviously, there is a lot of cleaning-up to do in the House of Israel and in the churches who actively teach hostility to God and His Law.

ISA 26:11 O LORD, your hand is lifted high, but they do not see it. Let them see your zeal for your people and be put to shame; let the fire reserved for your enemies consume them. They fail to see that God’s hand is lifted up, which is God’s way of saying they are marked for slaughter. As long as His hand is upraised, disaster will continue to befall them. Even more to the point, the very fire God has reserved for His enemies will consume them also.

ISA 26:12 LORD, you establish peace for us; all that we have accomplished you have done for us. How refreshing it is to see gratitude towards God for things accomplished, without the holier-than-thou vanity of people who are so proud of their own accomplishments. How well I remember a certain ministry that always spoke of other’s vanity by way of ‘evaluation’. Yet this very ministry comprised the most arrogant, vain creatures imaginable, who somehow believed they were running God’s government on earth. They never did understand that the Church is the people – not the ministry – and certainly not these ministers. God shattered this organization because of the foolish and worthless conduct of these ultra-vain ministers. In God’s eyes they were contemptuous!

ISA 26:13 O LORD, our God, other lords besides you have ruled over us, but your Name alone do we honor.

ISA 26:14 They are now dead, they live no more; those departed spirits do not rise. You punished them and brought them to ruin; you wiped out all memory of them. You can take your pick whether this is speaking of humans or demons but there are plenty of demons who are now dead and will never rise again. All memory of these departed spirits is removed. We still remember many of the human despots who have ruled however, like Hitler and Stalin; both of whom had an obsession with killing Jews. Obviously, neither Hitler or Stalin will rise again, yet generations later, we still remember them as the evil overlords they were. Both were the puppets of demons. There’s plenty of these humans still around today. There’s presently one in the White House.

ISA 26:15 You have enlarged the nation, O LORD; you have enlarged the nation. You have gained glory for yourself; you have extended all the borders of the land. The Land of Israel, the Promised Land was established anciently to accommodate just a few million people, and even today, with a population of about 6 million, the Israelis are running short of land. Naturally enough, God intends to expand the territory. Of course the evil prince Obama would like to reduce its size, but he’ll have to be content with having his own accommodation reduced in size – and of this he can be certain!

ISA 26:16 LORD, they came to you in their distress; when you disciplined them, they could barely whisper a prayer. When God expands the borders of His Land, the exiles will return in a pitiful state and in need of a lot of help.

ISA 26:17 As a woman with child and about to give birth writhes and cries out in her pain, so were we in your presence, O LORD.

ISA 26:18 We were with child, we writhed in pain, but we gave birth to wind. We have not brought salvation to the earth; we have not given birth to people of the world. Little Israel was like a young bride who married young, and while seeming to be pregnant gave birth only to wind. Their efforts will be rewarded because they did try to provide a homeland and salvation for their fellow Israelites. After WW2, this salvation was offered to all the surviving Jews, but even in their weakened state in the aftermath of the world war, they still had to fight the Arabs who vowed to wipe them out. In spite of their hard work and ingenuity, the Israelis still don’t have peace.

By an odd coincidence, the Prophet Hosea speaks of another birth, only this time the child doesn’t come to the opening of the womb. Hos 13:12-15 "The guilt of Ephraim is stored up, his sins are kept on record. ¹³ Pains as of a woman in childbirth come to him, but he is a child without wisdom; when the time arrives, he does not come to the opening of the womb. ¹⁴ "I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death. Where, O Death, are your plagues? Where, O Grave, is your destruction? "I will have no compassion, ¹⁵ even though he thrives among his brothers. An east wind from the LORD will come, blowing in from the desert; his spring will fail and his well dry up. His storehouse will be plundered of all its treasures." As it turns out, this is an ominous statement for a number of reasons. We’ve been speaking of Judah, but now Ephraim comes back into the picture with the childbirth parables. In one parable, the birth results in only wind, and in the other, the child doesn’t even come to the opening of the womb. Neither succeeds in bringing salvation to the world. Instead, Ephraim must be ransomed from the power of the Grave and redeemed from Death. And here we see further mention of the two spirit entities spoken of in Rev 6:8. These two creatures are thoroughly evil, just like so many of Satan’s other lieutenants. Death is the master of plagues, while Grave is a master of destruction. Death seems to be making some progress with his plagues now, though not of the magnitude he’d hoped for. His hope is to kill millions.

Christians feel it’s not their problem. In truth, they couldn’t care less. If God wants to set His base in Jerusalem in fulfillment of Bible Prophecy, they feel He should do it Himself. Generally speaking, Christians are only interested in rewards in the afterlife. Oddly enough, they don’t seem to understand that God gives His Holy Spirit only to those who obey Him. Acts 5:32 "We are witnesses of these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him." Those who obey God will receive His Holy Spirit! Those who don’t obey, won’t! And neither will they live again. You have but one shot in this lifetime to prove your obedience to God. If you refuse to obey the Laws that God gave to His servant Moses, then you are but dust, and to dust you will return. Rom 8:11 "And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you." Without God’s Holy Spirit dwelling in you, then you are merely dust, and without His Spirit, God will never give life to your mortal bodies either now or forever. You have only one shot at life! The resurrection is only for the obedient and no other.

And now the prophet addresses the Jewish people who have obeyed God in obedience to His Law for literally thousands of years. So there are advantages in being a Jew as the Apostle Paul states: Rom 3:1 "What advantage, then, is there in being a Jew, or what value is there in circumcision? ² Much in every way! First of all, they have been entrusted with the very words of God." So it’s just as well God chose the Jews to preserve the Scriptures that Jesus used, because mainstream Christianity today would have deleted them.

ISA 26:19 But your dead will live; their bodies will rise. You who dwell in the dust, wake up and shout for joy. Your dew is like the dew of the morning; the earth will give birth to her dead. Doesn’t this confirm that God gives His Holy Spirit to those who obey Him, and doesn’t this also confirm that it’s through God’s Spirit that we are raised from the dead?

ISA 26:20 Go, my people, enter your rooms and shut the doors behind you; hide yourselves for a little while until his wrath has passed by. Some may think this is a bit of a stretch, but this is a reference to another time when the people of Israel observed the Passover in Egypt. They were told to go into their rooms or houses and shut the door and wait for God’s wrath to pass by or pass over, while He destroyed His enemies of that time. Such a time is coming again.

ISA 26:21 See, the LORD is coming out of his dwelling to punish the people of the earth for their sins. The earth will disclose the blood shed upon her; she will conceal her slain no longer. There will be dead everywhere with no-one to bury them. When God emerges from His dwelling place, the whole world will see it. Just remember the lesson of Passover.

ISA 27:1 In that day, the LORD will punish with his sword, his fierce, great and powerful sword, Leviathan the gliding serpent, Leviathan the coiling serpent; he will slay the monster of the sea. You will notice that at the very outset in the Garden of Eden, God identified two entities. Human, and another, which was not human! God referred to this non-human as a serpent. This serpent was the enemy of God, who sought to corrupt God’s instructions. This serpent, of course, was Satan the devil. Concerning the Leviathan, this requires lengthy explanations, which are provided later in this study.

ISA 27:2 In that day-- "Sing about a fruitful vineyard:

ISA 27:3 I, the LORD, watch over it; I water it continually. I guard it day and night so that no one may harm it. God’s vineyard Ephraim has certainly had a good run; they have prospered beyond their wildest dreams.

ISA 27:4 I am not angry. If only there were briers and thorns confronting me! I would march against them in battle; I would set them all on fire. The briers and thorns mentioned here are America’s enemies, and God confirms that He would march against them in battle and set them all on fire. But it’s not these enemies that God is concerned about now. It’s His own people Israel, whom He has blessed and nurtured, yet they turn away from Him. So now they’ve forced God to react against them. It might have helped if America had been a bit more like God and marched against them in battle and set them all on fire, reducing them to ashes. Instead, America sought to win their hearts and minds! Now it’s left to others to take care of America’s enemies, which just happens to be God’s enemies of old.

ISA 27:5 Or else let them come to me for refuge; let them make peace with me, yes, let them make peace with me." Makes sense to me! Almighty God is certainly not the One that Ephraim should be provoking and the sensible approach is to make peace with Him while you still have life.

ISA 27:6 In days to come Jacob will take root, Israel will bud and blossom and fill all the world with fruit. Yes, these days are coming! The fruit of a vineyard are grapes from which wine is made. Without going into a lengthy digression, wine symbolizes the Blood of the Lord Jesus – the One whom all Christians are supposed to emulate. In days to come, Israel will bud and blossom and fill the world with this fruit. Christianity will fill the earth and no other religion will be tolerated. So sorry to alarm all those advocates of multiculturalism! But what of Judaism? Well, the Jews will have their own epiphany, which is described in Zech 12:10-14. They will certainly grieve and mourn for the One they pierced and mourn for Him as one mourns for an only child. They will be deeply repentant for their rejection of Him as this Scripture shows. What is more, they will recognize Him as the Mighty One, the Promised Messiah, which contrasts spectacularly with the concept of most of Christianity today.

ISA 27:7 Has the LORD struck her (the vineyard) as he struck down those who struck her? Has she been killed as those were killed who killed her? As we’ve been saying all along, Islam started this world war and while they presently have a few victories through terrorism, their end will be total annihilation – and they won’t survive! Ephraim, on the other hand, will survive, though with catastrophically reduced numbers. In fact, just a remnant will survive.

ISA 27:8 By warfare and exile you contend with her (the vineyard) -- with his fierce blast he drives her out, as on a day the east wind blows. Yes, warfare and exile will do it, and the warfare comes primarily from the direction of the east wind, and as God states elsewhere, the east wind from the desert [regions] of the East. Islam has inherited most of the desert regions of the Middle East, and then, of course, there’s Africa – from where the hurricanes that batter the coast of America emanate. Even when Muslims live in areas that are not desert they seemed to have a penchant for turning it into desert. They must be about the most slothful and indolent people on earth. They seem to create nothing but squalor. Some may argue about the wealth and splendor created by petro-dollars, but whom does this benefit? The opulence of the palaces are for the benefit of their rulers. Most other developments are funded by foreign aid or foreign investors.

ISA 27:9 By this, then, will Jacob's guilt be atoned for, and this will be the full fruitage of the removal of his sin: When he makes all the altar stones to be like chalk stones crushed to pieces, no Asherah poles or incense altars will be left standing. I guess the time has come for Jacob’s (Israel’s) guilt to be dealt with and a good starting point would be to stop putting superstitious nonsense in place of God. Every pagan religion seems to have some form of ‘life after death’ promise, and they lavishly serve their gods in the hope of it. Not so with most of Christianity today! Instead, they bypass the service aspect and spring straight for the rewards in heaven. It’s merely a pagan idea that they’ve adopted from sources apart from God’s Word, and it’s based on pagan superstition. For those who disagree, God plans to make it a whole lot easier to believe that ‘dust you are and to dust you will return’, unless you atone for your guilt and turn to God in repentance. Everyone who sins breaks God’s Law because sin is lawlessness (1John 3:4). Lawlessness means failing to uphold the Law, and God is concerned with His Law!

ISA 27:10 The fortified city stands desolate, an abandoned settlement, forsaken like the desert; there the calves graze, there they lie down; they strip its branches bare. This certainly describes the outcome of war when the battle is lost. Desolation becomes commonplace.

ISA 27:11 When its twigs (of the vines) are dry, they are broken off and women come and make fires with them. For this is a people without understanding; so their Maker has no compassion on them, and their Creator shows them no favor. Yes, well the term ‘Creator God’ is no longer in fashion among the inhabitants of the vineyard. They are at the forefront of divesting in any mention of Him in any public place. This hostility has in part been brought about by the belief in the theory of evolution. God is making a timely reference to Himself as the Creator God.

ISA 27:12 In that day the LORD will thresh from the flowing Euphrates to the Wadi of Egypt, and you, O Israelites, will be gathered up one by one. ¹³ And in that day a great trumpet will sound. Those who were perishing in Assyria and those who were exiled in Egypt will come and worship the LORD on the Holy Mountain in Jerusalem. And here we see the destination of many of the exiles, specifically Assyria (the land of the Kurds today) and Egypt. Notice that God states that the Israelites will be gathered up one by one? The verses above specifically mention the Wadi (River) of Egypt, which is the Nile, and the Euphrates River in Iraq. Everything between these two points will be mown down, and this naturally includes the present inhabitants, who happen to be Muslims. So there’s some good news for you!

For a number of reasons, God has all but omitted Europe from specific Bible prophecy. That is, they are not specifically referred to by name, but only inference. It’s inferred that they will be gathered at the appointed time, and at a time when there is little hope of survival for man or beast. I guess Europe’s conduct concerning the Jews throughout the ages, as well as during WW2, is going to be revisited upon their heads. They will suffer the ‘eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth’ retribution for their conduct, which still continues today with anti-Semitism becoming rife. At that time, they’ll come to the realization that Judah is not the enemy! What is more, they will be forced to realize that salvation is of the Jews (John 4:22) – just as the Lord Christ stated! For all those Christians who think they are ‘saved’ now, they are in for a rude awakening. I know it sounds very ‘spiritual’ to be speaking of salvation as some indefinable state, but the truth is that salvation means to be saved from the hands of the enemy. Luke 1:69-80 "He has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David ⁷⁰ (as he said through his holy prophets of long ago), ⁷¹ salvation from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us-- ⁷² to show mercy to our fathers and to remember his Holy Covenant, ⁷³ the oath he swore to our father Abraham: ⁷⁴ to rescue us from the hand of our enemies, and to enable us to serve him without fear ⁷⁵ in holiness and righteousness before him all our days. Here we see the father of John the Baptist, speaking of his son, as the means by which salvation would come; that is, salvation from the enemy. ⁷⁶ And you, my child (John the Baptist), will be called a prophet of the Most High; for you will go on before the Lord to prepare the way for him, ⁷⁷ to give his people the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins, ⁷⁸ because of the tender mercy of our God, by which the Rising Sun will come to us from heaven ⁷⁹ to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the path of peace. ⁸⁰ And the child grew and became strong in spirit; and he lived in the desert until he appeared publicly to Israel." Did you notice that this prophecy concerning John was to prepare the way for the Rising Sun that will come to us from heaven? That prophecy, concerning John, is for a future event. The life of John the Baptist was cut short before he could fulfill all that is written of him, but then, this also occurred with the Lord Jesus. There are unfulfilled prophecies still to be fulfilled by both of them.

This is what was meant concerning ‘salvation’ in the days of Jesus and the Apostles, and in fact, this is what occurred about 40 years after Jesus’ departure. There was a worldwide pogrom against Christians and Jews, which lasted for hundreds of years. And it all began with the destruction of Herod’s Temple. There is quite a bit of historical evidence where many Christians gave themselves up willingly and went to their deaths confident of the resurrection in the future. This is confirmed in Heb 11:35 where Christians were tortured but refused to be delivered in the hope of a better resurrection. This is the type of faith exhibited by Jesus, and this is the kind of faith that God requires of all His sons and daughters. Where does mainstream Christianity get the idea that God is only interested in flowery lip-service? God is interested only in works that prove their faithfulness. Why on earth would Jesus go through that torturous death if mere lip-service would’ve sufficed? I don’t know whether the reader is aware of this, but Jesus didn’t have to go through this death – instead He chose to do it because it had to be this way: Matt 26:53-54 "Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels? ⁵⁴ But how then would the Scriptures be fulfilled that say it must happen in this way?" If Jesus had requested twelve legions of angels to be put at His disposal, one can only imagine the killing power of such a force. In order to extract Jesus from the situation He was in, it would only have required the presence of Michael or Gabriel, either of whom could have slaughtered everyone in sight. But Jesus said that His request would have brought twelve legions of angels! The reason being that such a request would have meant the end of mankind altogether and the end of God’s Plan for a ruling human family in His Kingdom.

The second part of the question is that the Scriptures must be fulfilled – all Scripture – and Jesus was every mindful of this. The fulfillment of the Scriptures is in complete contrast to the beliefs of so many Christians today, who choose to believe that Bible Prophecy is of no importance. Especially the only Scriptures (the Old Testament) that existed in Jesus time! This is why we are going through the Book of Isaiah to identify all the Scripture that has yet to be fulfilled. As the reader would have noticed, there is plenty of it! As a point of interest, it was the Book of Isaiah that Jesus was referring to when He said it must happen this way. For those interested, they can read the whole chapter of Isaiah 53. As an interesting footnote, this is the chapter that so many Christians like to quote as evidence that Jesus was fulfilling Scripture. All of which is commendable, and it’s a good starting point, but it stops short of detailing the whole picture of what will occur before Jesus returns as the Rising Sun from heaven.

So we see that Bible prophecy is advancing towards the establishment of the Kingdom of God, and forceful men will lay hold of it (Matt 11:12-15). These forceful men will be of the clan of Levi just like Moses and just like John the Baptist. What places them in the Levite clan is not their ancestral linage (though God’s servant and prophet had to be a true Levite), but their determination to fulfill what is required of them and the logical state of their minds. Recall Isa 26:3 where is speaks of those ‘whose minds are steadfast’. These men (and women) are hand-picked by God just as all the Apostles were, and they are not deceived by stupid, human reasoning. They are not persuaded by the so-called merits of multiculturalism, political correctness, global warming propaganda, ad nausea, or any of the alarmist views of the ungodly heathen. The Lord Jesus referred to this Levite clan as the ‘elect’ and stated that it was not possible to deceive them: Matt 24:24-25 "For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and miracles to deceive even the elect--if that were possible. ²⁵ See, I have told you ahead of time." Well, it’s not possible to deceive the real elect! So if anyone has fallen prey to some of these propaganda issues that are so prevalent today, then they need to get a grip on themselves and come to their senses. What is more, it seems that Christians today are embracing these mad views in increasing numbers as a badge of righteousness. If they are so easily deceived by men like Al Gore with his mad theories about global warming, and like Obama who supports his views, then they’ll be prepared to believe anything! Just remember that Jesus warned you ahead of time, and once someone advances down the road to deception, he will, indeed, believe anything. There are powerful seducing spirits ever ready to control your mind, and these have a large repertoire of ‘signs’ and ‘miracles’ designed to deceive anyone – other than the very ‘elect of God’.

ISA 28:1 Woe to that wreath, the pride of Ephraim's drunkards, to the fading flower, his glorious beauty, set on the head of a fertile valley-- to that city, the pride of those laid low by wine! And what city would this be? Who are these fools who act as if in a drunken stupor, who pass destructive legislation against the well-being of the people? It hasn’t always been this way, of course, but only a fool today would not be alarmed by the present madness emanating from the nation’s capital. Just remember that Obama and his crazy cronies have four years of his term to do their destructive work and this is advancing very efficiently. Unheard of things are now being proposed at enormous expense while the unemployment figures show 10% of the people out of work, and this figure is growing.

In God’s Kingdom there will be a banking system, which will be administered by the Tribe of Levi exclusively. This is God’s way, and what is more, every nation on earth will be required to pay tithes to the Levites or else disaster will befall them. As a point of interest, only Levi is authorized to collect the tithe, which is specifically stated in the Book of Hebrews (Heb 7:5-10).

ISA 28:2 See, the Lord has one who is powerful and strong. Like a hailstorm and a destructive wind, like a driving rain and a flooding downpour, he (the one who is powerful and strong) will throw it forcefully to the ground. Does anyone really believe that God can’t empower one of Satan’s rulers to bring destruction to a recalcitrant and stubborn nation? All God has to do is to raise His hand and these rulers will bring devastating power to bear on the glorious beauty of Ephraim’s principal city – Washington! These spirit rulers have been planning this for years now, and they’re anxious to do it.

ISA 28:3 That wreath, the pride of Ephraim's drunkards, will be trampled underfoot. That wreath is the glorious city of Ephraim – presently! It’s the present ruling Capital where decisions of national importance are taken. As we read on, we find that this wreath will be replaced by God’s Wreath (V5) when He alone will preside over the remnant of Ephraim’s people.

ISA 28:4 That fading flower, his glorious beauty, set on the head of a fertile valley, will be like a fig ripe before harvest-- as soon as someone sees it and takes it in his hand, he swallows it. You’ve got to admit that Washington really is set in a lush and beautiful area! There is no Capital City in the whole world that is so gloriously beautiful.

ISA 28:5 In that day the LORD Almighty will be a glorious crown, a beautiful wreath for the remnant of his people. Notice the words ‘a glorious crown – which denotes rulership. America has a wreath rather than a crown because they are not governed by royalty or kingship. You’ll also notice that God will not be a glorious crown or a beautiful wreath to all the American people, but only a remnant! This will be after Ephraim’s glorious city of Washington is thrown forcefully to the ground.

ISA 28:6 He will be a spirit of justice to him who sits in judgment, a source of strength to those who turn back the battle at the gate. God is referring to a man who makes judgments and who leads a force that turns back the battle at the gate. The remnant of Ephraim will see these things and realize that their only hope is the Kingdom of God, which will be in the process of being taken by force. Today, Ephraim has a hard time identifying the enemy. For years now they’ve been brainwashed by their own political correctness to believe that they are fighting two wars in Islamic countries because of a few isolated terrorists, though the catch-phrase for ‘terror’ is now ‘man-made disasters’. And now you know what God means by Ephraim’s drunkards.

Instead of holding all of Islam accountable for the tens of thousands of terrorist acts committed around the world, Ephraim decided to try ‘to win their hearts and minds’. Why would anyone want to win the hearts and minds of these evil creatures? Why not just slaughter the lot of them and continue until they holler ‘uncle’? After nearly ten years of viewing their atrocities, have any hearts and minds been won? Well, in contrast to those who turn back the battle at the gate, Ephraim in these latter days has done just the opposite! They always turn back on the day of battle and allow the enemy to regroup and come at them again. Ps 78:9 "The men of Ephraim, though armed with bows, turned back on the day of battle; ¹⁰ they did not keep God's covenant and refused to live by his law. ¹¹ They forgot what he had done, the wonders he had shown them." The ‘wonders’ is right! No other nation on the face of the earth has been the recipient of the bountiful blessings enjoyed by America. They’ve had it all – power, wealth, strength, influence, glory and praise like no other. So when God says that He will be a beautiful wreath and a glorious crown, He also confirms that a new order of things will occur. It’s found in these words in Rev 5:12-13 "In a loud voice they sang: "Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise!" ¹³ Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, singing: "To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power, for ever and ever!"

The Lamb is the Son of God and He will inherit all that God gave to Ephraim, power, wealth, strength, etc. The significance of this is that Ephraim is also a son of God. In order to understand this clearly, we need to give a little background. There was a time, in the days of Jacob, when his son Joseph had a dream. Joseph was a prophet (he was also the father of Ephraim), and he related the dream to his father Jacob. In the dream, Joseph saw the sun, moon and 11 stars (planets) and they all bowed down to him. Jacob was angry with him for suggesting that he himself and Joseph’s mother and all his brothers should bow down to him – but still he kept it in mind. The account is found in Gen 37:9-11. Much later, Jacob did bring it to mind when he blessed Joseph’s two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh. Jacob could see that Joseph had excelled them all in greatness by becoming first lord of Egypt under Pharaoh. The account of Jacob’s blessings on Joseph’s two sons is found in Gen 48:11-22. So Joseph was the greatest over all his brothers, and Ephraim inherited that quality of greatness from his father Joseph.

Just so there is no misunderstanding about this, Ephraim is presently a son of God in Bible prophecy. Jer 31:20-21 "Is not Ephraim my dear son, the child in whom I delight? Though I often speak against him, I still remember him. Therefore my heart yearns for him; I have great compassion for him," declares the LORD. ²¹ "Set up road signs; put up guideposts. Take note of the highway, the road that you take. Return, O Virgin Israel, return to your towns." Notice the descriptor here of ‘Virgin Israel’? The term ‘virgin’ denotes purity, and when Ephraim, or Virgin Israel return to their ancestral lands, they will have been purified! Though only a remnant will return, they will be pure of all their crazy excesses of these latter days.

ISA 28:7 And these also stagger from wine and reel from beer: Priests and prophets stagger from beer and are befuddled with wine; they reel from beer, they stagger when seeing visions, they stumble when rendering decisions. Well, we’ve certainly seen the priests and would-be prophets having a field day with everything that is happening today, but with completely false ideas about it all. It’s as if they’re all in a drunken stupor! The law-makers in Washington can’t seem to render a decision on anything.

ISA 28:8 All the tables are covered with vomit and there is not a spot without filth. The legalization of partial-birth abortions, turning the US armed forces into a clubhouse of homosexuals, the collapse of the housing boom which resulted from giving sub-prime mortgages to the undeserving who had no means to repay the loan (remember Acorn and Freddie Mac and Fannie May and the community organizers who enforced these mortgages with blackmail of the lending institutions?). For eight years under the Bush Administration, the country enjoyed unprecedented prosperity and the nation was kept safe. Now the nation is going down the gurgler economically, and the threat of terrorist attacks seems to be without end. Is the present administration rendering good decisions? They’re like vomiting drunkards, befuddled with alcohol and incapable of doing anything right. Instead, they listen to a silver-tongued liar and deceiver who predicts good outcomes while rendering appalling decisions and attempts to use his house majority to bulldoze them through. His administration line-up is like looking into the faces of the depraved and the insane.

ISA 28:9 "Who is it he is trying to teach? To whom is he explaining his message? To children weaned from their milk, to those just taken from the breast? And what a message it is! In the next few verses we’ll know the outcome of this message from God.

ISA 28:10 For it is: Do and do, do and do, rule on rule, rule on rule; a little here, a little there." Every successful nation must live by rule of law, and this means that every rule of law must be considered on other established rules. Of course God had in mind that rule among the House of Israel would be based on His Eternal Law, but Ephraim doesn’t even want any references to God’s Commandments displayed in any public place.

ISA 28:11 Very well then, with foreign lips and strange tongues God will speak to this people,

ISA 28:12 to whom he said, "This is the resting place, let the weary rest"; and, "This is the place of repose"-- but they would not listen. God gave them rest and He gave them peace, but they were not prepared to listen. Instead they preferred the madness of deception. They didn’t want a white Israelite in the White House; instead they wanted a black African. And what is the record of black Africa? Once the British and the Dutch left Africa, the whole continent went to hell in a hand-basket. What honourable nation is there in Africa? Every nation is ruled by a black despot who scarcely resembles anything human. And this is apparently what the American people wanted when they elected a black, Muslim President – howbeit, a slick, slimy snake of a man.

ISA 28:13 So then, the word of the LORD to them will become: Do and do, do and do, rule on rule, rule on rule; a little here, a little there-- so that they will go and fall backward, be injured and snared and captured. So go on America, make all your silly, socialist rules that have failed in many other nations in the past, don’t learn from historic mistakes, keep the rules coming that favour the undeserving over the decent, law-abiding citizens, keep doing the same things over and over, and expect a different result.

At this point, it’s worth reminding the reader who God’s people are, and He makes this very clear: Amos 3:1-2 "Hear this word the LORD has spoken against you, O people of Israel--against the whole family I brought up out of Egypt: ² "You only have I chosen of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your sins." So go ahead and drench yourself with multiculturalism and political correctness if you have a mind to do so, but be aware that God has no interest in any other race or nation on earth except the whole family of Israel. Apart from the 12 Tribes of Israel, the whole population of the earth belongs to Satan the devil and he is at liberty to do as he pleases with them. As you are probably aware, Satan is not known for his kindness even to his own brood. He is a despot, par excellence, and has been a murderer and a liar from the beginning.

ISA 28:14 Therefore hear the word of the LORD, you scoffers who rule this people in Jerusalem. These present evil creatures that rule in the White House have suddenly decided that they must give God’s Holy Land to God’s enemies – the protestations of the Israelis notwithstanding. Hussein ‘the insane’ Obama has set his course to favour the Muslim hordes over God’s people Israel, and he will use whatever force or coercion is necessary. Meanwhile, God is planning other things, and this surprise agenda will hit so hard and so rapidly, that the people won’t know what hit them. They’ll be literally left shell-shocked!

ISA 28:15 You boast, "We have entered into a covenant with Death, with the Grave we have made an agreement. When an overwhelming scourge sweeps by, it cannot touch us, for we have made a lie our refuge and falsehood our hiding place." Who is this they’ve made an agreement with? Believe it or not, they have made an agreement with two of the most destructive and evil creatures – rulers of the heavenly realms both – and the very two that God has specifically named in the Book of Revelation. God Almighty gave this Revelation to Jesus Christ to show His servants what must soon take place (Rev 1:1). God Almighty and Jesus Christ happen to know Death and Grave very well, and He names them in Rev 6:7-8 "When the Lamb opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature say, "Come!" ⁸ I looked, and there before me was a pale horse! Its rider was named Death, and Hades was following close behind him. They were given power over a fourth of the earth to kill by sword, famine and plague, and by the wild beasts of the earth." Notice that Death and Hades (another name for Grave) are capitalized here because these are their names. It’s unlikely that their names will appear in the covenant mentioned in Isa 28:15 above, because the covenant will be with the ‘horse or nation’ not the rider.

ISA 28:16 So this is what the Sovereign LORD says: "See, I lay a stone in Zion, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone for a sure foundation; the one who trusts will never be dismayed. There will be a lot of dismayed people on earth at that time, but those who seek Zion will never be dismayed. The prophets of old longed to see Zion come, and a sure foundation laid. Here you will see the hope of the ages and the advance of God’s peace. This peace will be based on justice, and I mean real justice, where the guilty will be made to pay – with their lives, never to live again.

ISA 28:17 I will make justice the measuring line and righteousness the plumb line; hail will sweep away your refuge, the lie, and water will overflow your hiding place. While God’s justice will be enacted in Zion and the Holy Land, the day of reckoning will come for Ephraim. Their refuge, their safety, is all based on a satanic lie formulated by a satanic Muslim who deludes the people into believing they will be safe, based on delusions authored by Satan himself.

ISA 28:18 Your covenant with Death will be annulled; your agreement with the Grave will not stand. When the overwhelming scourge sweeps by, you will be beaten down by it. Well, God couldn’t be fairer than that! He’s told them in advance. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a trumpet blower to sound the warning and perhaps change the course of history by getting rid of this evil creature in the White House? It won’t happen! America is too far gone now to return to God and to restore sanity, so disaster will come like the waves of the sea.

ISA 28:19 As often as it comes it (the overwhelming scourge) will carry you away; morning after morning, by day and by night, it will sweep through." The understanding of this message will bring sheer terror. I hope the reader understands the message because it relates to sheer terror. I know the reader thinks he knows what sheer terror is, based on a few planes crashing into buildings and a few other incidents of shootings, etc, but you’ve seen nothing yet! When God uses the term sheer terror, He means what He says.

ISA 28:20 The bed is too short to stretch out on, the blanket too narrow to wrap around you. This is a reference to peace and comfort – none of which will be available to man or beast.

ISA 28:21 The LORD will rise up as he did at Mount Perazim, he will rouse himself as in the Valley of Gibeon-- to do his work, his strange work, and perform his task, his alien task. When God rouses Himself to do His work, it will seem very strange to the general perception. It will seem alien to all the expectations of the people. In their mind, God is not supposed to be waging war on the hordes surrounding the Holy Land. Rather, He’s supposed to be whisking people away to heaven in a rapture (whatever that means). In any event, it seems to be strangely ungodly to those who never knew the Great Creator God. To most people, it’s expected that life would go on forever, and that after death they would face some sort of judgment and finish in heaven. In their minds, God is making a mockery of all they believed.

ISA 28:22 Now stop your mocking, or your chains will become heavier; the Lord, the LORD Almighty, has told me of the destruction decreed against the whole land. Yes, this whole chapter is about Ephraim and the City set at the head of a fertile valley, also described as a beautiful wreath and a glorious crown – the pride of all Ephraim.

ISA 28:23 Listen and hear my voice; pay attention and hear what I say. At some point everyone must listen and learn from their Creator, and as the Prophet records in V29 this is wonderful in counsel and magnificent in wisdom.

ISA 28:24 When a farmer plows for planting, does he plow continually? Does he keep on breaking up and harrowing the soil? The answer is no – he must plant some seed. Neither is God going to continue to plough the field – He also wants to plant some seed! So when a sower goes out to plant some seed, he expects a return on his investment. Some of the seed will fall on stony ground or on poor soil contaminated with tares and weeds, but other seed will fall on fertile ground and yield many times the return on his investment.

ISA 28:25 When he has leveled the surface, does he not sow caraway and scatter cummin? Does he not plant wheat in its place, barley in its plot, and spelt in its field? This is exactly what a good farmer does. With a little diversification he grows a balanced crop.

ISA 28:26 His God instructs him and teaches him the right way. God doesn’t generally occupy His time teaching farmers to grow cereal crops. This is a parable, and God is not speaking of farmers but someone else.

ISA 28:27 Caraway is not threshed with a sledge, nor is a cartwheel rolled over cummin; caraway is beaten out with a rod, and cummin with a stick. Different grains need different treatment if it’s to find itself used in bread.

ISA 28:28 Grain must be ground to make bread; so one does not go on threshing it forever. Though he drives the wheels of his threshing cart over it, his horses do not grind it. The purpose of grain is to make bread, which is a staple of life. But there is much more to this parable. For instance, Jesus is the Bread of life. Bread represents His Body – just as wine represents His Blood. At this point I don’t want to get sidetracked in explanations about this, even as important as they are. So we’ll go on to the next verse:

ISA 28:29 All this also comes from the LORD Almighty, wonderful in counsel and magnificent in wisdom. Now, this verse is extremely important, and this can’t be emphasized enough, assuming of course, that the reader has a desire to be a servant of God. It speaks of ‘wonderful in counsel’ and ‘magnificent in wisdom’. What are these terms referring to? To begin with, who is ‘wonderful in counsel’? This may well be the most important lesson you will ever learn. The Counsellor is a promised gift from God that is given in addition to the down-payment of His Holy Spirit. Combined, they become a double-portion of God’s Holy Spirit. The Counsellor is the Spirit of Jesus.

This is the account of the Counsellor, which Jesus promised the Father would give to those who obey Him and love Him. John 14:15-31 "If you love me, you will obey what I command. ¹⁶ And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever-- ¹⁷ the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. ¹⁸ I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. ¹⁹ Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. ²⁰ On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. ²¹ Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him." After His resurrection, Jesus Christ appeared to His disciples as promised. They saw Him – and touched Him after He had presented Himself to the Father. They saw the wounds on His body and understood that He was bodily resurrected. His body was no longer in the tomb. Just to add a little perspective here; if a body is still in the grave, then that person has not been resurrected. They are dead, and they remain dead – until the resurrection. If they died without God’s Holy Spirit, then they are dead forever. Dust they are and to dust they return. There is no resurrection for them. Without God’s Holy Spirit, they are like the animals that perish. There is no difference.

V22 "Then Judas (not Judas Iscariot) said, "But, Lord, why do you intend to show yourself to us and not to the world?" At the time, the disciples thought it would be a good idea for Jesus to appear to the world, and to prove that He had risen from the dead. They reasoned that if this happened then everyone would believe Him to be the Son of God. But Jesus had already explained that the world cannot accept Him or His Spirit. So when you see present-day ‘evangelists’ parading themselves on the world stage, masquerading as disciples of Jesus and craving attention and recognition for themselves, you can be sure they don’t have the Spirit of Christ. Their sanctimonious message is not the testimony that Jesus gave. And just for the record, God makes it very clear what that Testimony is! It’s found in Rev 19:10 "At this I fell at his feet to worship him (the angel of God). But he said to me, "Do not do it! I am a fellow servant with you and with your brothers who hold to the testimony of Jesus. Worship God! FOR THE TESTIMONY OF JESUS IS THE SPIRIT OF PROPHECY." Do these ‘evangelists’ teach the Testimony of Jesus? Not only do they not teach Bible Prophecy, they cannot even understand it!

In this study, you’ve already seen a random sample of the many Bible Prophecies for these last days – and all from the Scriptures that Christ used and taught. Can you even imagine these ‘evangelist’ dunces teaching such things? They would be booed and run out of town. The reason why they have their audience is because of the sanctimonious and emotional uplift they present, designed to siphon off the people’s money. These preachers are not servants of God, and God doesn’t even know them. Jesus made this very plain: Matt 7:21-23 "Not everyone who says to me, `Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. <sup>22</sup> Many will say to me on that day, `Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?' ²³ Then I will tell them plainly, `I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!' You’ve seen all the stage acts, where evangelists ‘cast out demons’, pretend to heal the sick and conjure up all sorts of ‘miracles’ – and it’s all fakery! They are merely consummate deceivers who refuse to do the will of the Father!

In the Book of Psalms we find this: Ps 119:113-115 "I hate double-minded men, but I love your Law. ¹¹⁴ You are my refuge and my shield; I have put my hope in your word. ¹¹⁵ Away from me, you evildoers, that I may keep the commands of my God!" I have yet to see any evangelist preaching on the world stage that advocates obedience to the Commandments of God. These preachers exhibit an arrogance that is detestable to God! No wonder they are called evil-doers!

Continuing in John 14:23 "Jesus replied, "If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. ²⁴ He who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me. ²⁵ "All this I have spoken while still with you. ²⁶ But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. ²⁷ Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. The Counsellor is the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in Jesus’ Name. This Holy Spirit will teach all things and remind the one who receives it of everything Jesus has said. Without this Holy Spirit, the additional double-portion, then you cannot understand the Testimony of Jesus, which happens to be the Spirit of Prophecy. Continuing: ²⁸ "You heard me say, `I am going away and I am coming back to you.' If you loved me, you would be glad that I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. ²⁹ I have told you now before it happens, so that when it does happen you will believe. ³⁰ I will not speak with you much longer, for the prince of this world is coming. He has no hold on me, ³¹ but the world must learn that I love the Father and that I do exactly what my Father has commanded me. "Come now; let us leave." So there you have it! Jesus Christ does exactly what the Father commands Him, because He loves the Father and the Father is greater than He.

Though it’s a bit off-topic, Jesus continued His dialogue in the next verse: John 15:1-8 "I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. ² He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. ³ You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. ⁴ Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me." We’ve already seen that ‘the vineyard of the Lord Almighty is the House of Israel, and the men of Judah are the garden of His delight’ (Isa 5:7). Jesus is confirming that He is the True Vine and the Father cultivates and prunes that vine in order to bear much fruit. The branches represent Jesus’ disciples. ⁵ "I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. ⁶ If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. ⁷ If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. ⁸ This is to my Father's glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples."

And just to link this into verses we read back in Isa 17:10-11 "You have forgotten God your Savior; you have not remembered the Rock, your fortress. Therefore, though you set out the finest plants and plant imported vines, ¹¹ though on the day you set them out, you make them grow, and on the morning when you plant them, you bring them to bud, yet the harvest will be as nothing in the day of disease and incurable pain." I think most Christians know they’ve imported a whole lot of vines that are not the True Vine. They’ve ignored their Saviour and therefore their harvest will be nothing. This will become obvious to them in the day of disease and incurable pain. That day is fast approaching!

Just to complete the comments on the last verse we read from Isaiah: ^{ISA 28:29} All this also comes from the LORD Almighty, wonderful in counsel and magnificent in wisdom." We need to address this last phrase. What, then, is the Wisdom of God? We find that Jesus Christ is both the Power of God and the Wisdom of God to all those whom God has called. 1Cor 1:24 "But to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God." Without that magnificent Wisdom, you will understand nothing!

At the time Paul wrote the above verse, Christians and Jews were headed for a persecution that was to last hundreds of years. These true believers were hunted down and killed. So the Wisdom of God had to be fully grasped if people were to lay down their lives willingly in honour of their Creator – as they were required to do if they were to follow Jesus. They were not to fear death! Early Christians died in droves in the hope of a better resurrection. Jesus had previously warned His followers, the Church, that the prince of the world is coming and that he had no hold over Him. The worst that Satan could do was to kill them, but he couldn’t shake the Wisdom of God in those who possessed it. These were faithful and obedient people and they honoured God above their own lives. These people were tasked with this responsibility to make it known to the prince of the world and all the rulers of the heavenly realms that God’s eternal purpose will be accomplished: Eph 3:10-11 "His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, ¹¹ according to His eternal purpose which he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord." In speaking of the Church here – the one that Christ built, it is not referring to any church that doesn’t have the Wisdom of God or the Testimony of Jesus. Such churches are merely unfruitful branches that need to be pruned out and thrown in the fire. This is exactly what will happen! This judgment comes from God – not me!

As we saw, the previous chapter, Isaiah 28, spoke of the principal city of Ephraim and all the woes that will befall it. Now the prophet reports on the City of Ariel, the City where David settled – Jerusalem. Judah and their City are not exactly blameless, and they need to be brought to book over many issues and purified of their sins.

And now the focus turns to Judah and their Holy City. You’ll recall how Judah came under attack with the enemy at their very gates. Yet God had no plans to destroy Jerusalem at that time. Instead, God sent the Archangel Michael, who protects God’s people Judah (Dan 12:1) to slaughter all 185,000 of the enemy at the gates of Jerusalem (Isa 37:36-37). That was then, and this is now, yet Judah has yet to face this again. Jerusalem will be besieged and once again the enemy will be at the gate. This time there will be fellow-servants with Michael as we learned in Rev 19:10. These are human and they are servants of Almighty God. These are an elite task force who will turn back the battle at the gate.

ISA 29:1 Woe to you, Ariel, Ariel, the city where David settled! (Jerusalem) Add year to year and let your cycle of festivals go on. Jerusalem has had years of contending with the enemy that surrounds the Holy Land. Today, they are demanding Jerusalem for themselves, and the whole world seems to believe that by acquiescing to their demands this will bring peace. How wrong they are! The only standout in the region, who has vowed never to concede any part of Jerusalem is the present PM Benjamin Netanyahu! Even in his own cabinet, there are dissenters, who want peace so bad that they are willing to concede the Holy City of God – to God’s enemies! Well, Almighty God has other ideas. He plans to take it right to the brink, and to the point of despair. Then suddenly, everything will change!

ISA 29:2 Yet I will besiege Ariel; she will mourn and lament, she will be to me like an altar hearth. There is quite a bit of mourning going on right now, as many Israelis see circumstances closing in on them.

ISA 29:3 I will encamp against you all around; I will encircle you with towers and set up my siege works against you.

ISA 29:4 Brought low, you will speak from the ground; your speech will mumble out of the dust. Your voice will come ghostlike from the earth; out of the dust your speech will whisper. When all hope seems lost and death seems inevitable, God makes a pronouncement that help is on the way. At that time, the whole House of Israel will know they backed the wrong horse. And those they backed will be reduced to dust and ashes and blown around like chaff. And just to remove any misconceptions about the severity of this attack by the Servants of Almighty God – God makes it very graphic and clear in the following verses.

ISA 29:5 But your many enemies will become like fine dust, the ruthless hordes like blown chaff. Suddenly, in an instant,

ISA 29:6 the LORD Almighty will come with thunder and earthquake and great noise, with windstorm and tempest and flames of a devouring fire.

ISA 29:7 Then the hordes of all the nations that fight against Ariel, that attack her and her fortress and besiege her, will be as it is with a dream, with a vision in the night--

ISA 29:8 as when a hungry man dreams that he is eating, but he awakens, and his hunger remains; as when a thirsty man dreams that he is drinking, but he awakens faint, with his thirst unquenched. So will it be with the hordes of all the nations that fight against Mount Zion. Yes, they will be stunned, amazed and reeling with shock and awe. These evil creatures will see their own people blowing past them as dust and ashes.

Many would-be prophets have arisen among the House of Israel and succeeded only in telling lies in God’s Name. They don’t have the Spirit of Christ, nor do they have the Wisdom of God. So what the hell do they think they’re doing? Are they trying to pick a fight with God? Whatever their motivation was, they have certainly succeeded! In their drunken stupor, which God speaks of in the previous chapter (28:7) in regard to drinking wine and beer that the House of Israel is going to be stunned and amazed at what they see! All their false predictions will lead to disaster.

As we’re about to see, God is giving exact details about what to expect and He takes them straight to the source of the relevant prophecy today in V11 below.

ISA 29:9 Be stunned and amazed, blind yourselves and be sightless; be drunk, but not from wine, stagger, but not from beer. They’re drunk all right, drunk on their desire to be seen as important and mentally incompetent enough to provoke God.

ISA 29:10 The LORD has brought over you a deep sleep: He has sealed your eyes (the prophets); he has covered your heads (the seers). For generations these weird people have been teaching their own lying prophecy and deceiving the people. Ephraim has been the source of most of these false prophets.

ISA 29:11 For you this whole vision is nothing but words sealed in a scroll. And if you give the scroll to someone who can read, and say to him, "Read this, please," he will answer, "I can't; it is sealed." ¹² Or if you give the scroll to someone who cannot read, and say, "Read this, please," he will answer, "I don't know how to read." And what Scroll would this be that is sealed from understanding? This Scroll is identified in the Book of Revelation in the 5^th and 6^th chapters. God the Father handed it to Jesus, sealed with seven seals (Rev 5:1). Of all those who dwelt in heaven and in earth, only Jesus Christ was given the task of opening the seals. Who then, would understand the Scroll when Jesus opened the seals? Only those who have the Spirit of Christ, that is the Counsellor, whom God sent in Jesus Name. This Testimony of Jesus is the Spirit of Prophecy (Rev 19:10) and without the Counsellor, no-one can prevail to understand the prophecies.

You will notice that these seven seals detail the appearance of what are called the four horsemen of the Apocalypse. The very reference to four horsemen is a clear indication of war, and the very first horseman rides out set on conquest (Rev 6:1-2). Even the most illogical of false prophets could hardly miss that! There is even a reference to them in the Book of Zechariah, and this just happens to tie in with the theme of this chapter, as recorded by Isaiah, and the fate of Judah and Jerusalem. The Book of Zechariah speaks of these riders and horses and refers to them as the horses of the nations. It further identifies them as the nations that surround the Holy Land and Jerusalem.

This is what Zechariah recorded: Zech 12:1-14 "This is the word of the LORD concerning Israel. The LORD, who stretches out the heavens, who lays the foundation of the earth, and who forms the spirit of man within him, declares: ² "I am going to make Jerusalem a cup that sends all the surrounding peoples reeling. Judah will be besieged as well as Jerusalem. Here God is confirming that He is the Creator who made all things. He then confirms that Jerusalem will send all the surrounding nations reeling with shock and awe. In other words, they won’t know what hit them! Prior to this, however, both Judah and Jerusalem will be besieged, just as Isaiah stated. V3 "On that day, when all the nations of the earth are gathered against her, I will make Jerusalem an immovable rock for all the nations. All who try to move it will injure themselves." Well that’s fair warning! However, they’re unlikely to heed the warning. And now we come to the reference to the four horsemen of the apocalypse: ⁴ On that day I will strike every horse with panic and its rider with madness," declares the LORD. "I will keep a watchful eye over the house of Judah, but I will blind all the horses of the nations. ⁵ Then the leaders of Judah will say in their hearts, `The people of Jerusalem are strong, because the LORD Almighty is their God.' The leaders of Judah are going to have their own epiphany, an enlightenment of stunning perplexity. The people, or Sons of Jerusalem, were taught by God – just as Jesus confirmed in John 6:45. He said this was written in the prophets, and indeed it is. It’s written in Isa 54:13, and here these sons are identified as Jerusalem’s sons – the Sons of Jerusalem. If you have read this far in this study of Isaiah, then you are being taught by the Sons of Jerusalem – just as they have been taught by God. Obviously, those who are taught by God have the Lord Almighty as their God, and God considers them His sons.

Well, once the leaders of Judah perceive in their hearts that the people of Jerusalem are strong, and that Lord Almighty is their God, they will take heart and follow the Sons of Jerusalem and with stunning effect: V6 "On that day I will make the leaders of Judah like a firepot in a woodpile, like a flaming torch among sheaves. They will consume right and left all the surrounding peoples, but Jerusalem will remain intact in her place. So this is good news for all those who love Jerusalem! Mind you, it seems they are in the minority today. The Western World seems to want to favour the four horsemen of the Apocalypse. So they’ve backed the wrong horse, and these four horsemen of the Apocalypse are about to be hammered!

And now God expresses the desire to save the dwellings of Judah first, so that these dwellings can house the House of Judah. The reestablished House of David will be the Sons of Jerusalem, and they will occupy the City of David. God wants the House of Judah to have equal opportunity to live in their houses without fear. The exploits of Judah against the marauding hordes will earn them a very great honour. But first they must see the demonstration of force that will clear the Holy City and empower them to do likewise. They will witness for themselves the very great power of God in the hands of His servants, the Sons of Jerusalem. V7-9 "The LORD will save the dwellings of Judah first, so that the honor of the house of David and of Jerusalem's inhabitants may not be greater than that of Judah. ⁸ On that day the LORD will shield those who live in Jerusalem, so that the feeblest among them will be like David, and the house of David will be like God, like the Angel of the LORD going before them. ⁹ On that day I will set out to destroy all the nations that attack Jerusalem. Notice the reference to the Angel of the Lord going before them. The House of David will be like God, because they will have been taught by Him, and empowered by Him as His very own sons.

You want to see real repentance? Here you have it: V10 "And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication. They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son. ¹¹ On that day the weeping in Jerusalem will be great, like the weeping of Hadad Rimmon in the plain of Megiddo. ¹² The land will mourn, each clan by itself, with their wives by themselves: the clan of the house of David and their wives, the clan of the house of Nathan and their wives, ¹³ the clan of the house of Levi and their wives, the clan of Shimei and their wives, ¹⁴ and all the rest of the clans and their wives. The Jews had to reject Jesus because it was fore-ordained to be this way. Otherwise these Scriptures would not have been fulfilled. Jesus Himself said, "Father, forgive them because they don’t know what they are doing" (Luke 23:34). And now we know that God will forgive them and also reward them for their obedience to the Law over the past two centuries or so.

You might have noticed that Zech 12:1 above is directed towards Israel. God intended to clearly show who has His favour. It’s not the House of Israel – it’s the House of David! And just one more verse from the Book of Zechariah: Zech 13:1 "On that day a fountain will be opened to the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin and impurity." Christians today had better hope that they distinguish themselves as much as the Jews have done, because, if they don’t, they won’t join the Jews in the Kingdom of God. Just remember that the Jews have been assigned the task of preparing a place for you in God’s Kingdom. But first you must endure the coming holocaust just as the Jews have done in the past. This will be make-or-break time for all those who chose, in the past, to serve God according to their own ideas. And this takes us back to the theme of the Book of Isaiah.

ISA 29:13 The Lord says: "These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men. As we’ve said many times, God doesn’t respond to mere lip-service, and this is the extent of the worship of most Christian churches today. They make their own rules for worship, and these don’t include the Laws of God. They are certainly not whole-hearted in their worship of God. It’s merely human emotion that doesn’t come from the heart. As God says, their hearts are far from Him.

ISA 29:14 Therefore once more I will astound these people (the House of Israel) with wonder upon wonder; the wisdom of the wise will perish, the intelligence of the intelligent will vanish." The intelligence of the intelligent today is certainly going to vanish. They’ll have no answer for anything. All their mad theories will vanish as they’re shown to have no validity. And don’t these people love to appear intelligent with all their cockeyed ideas about everything. Such people just crave attention! What a worthless, useless brood they are!

ISA 29:15 Woe to those who go to great depths to hide their plans from the LORD, who do their work in darkness and think, "Who sees us? Who will know?" Just analyze some of the Congressional Bills being presented by the US Administration today. It’s what is hidden in these that the Administration doesn’t want the people to see! They don’t realize that God sees it all. And it’s a work of darkness – of impending doom.

ISA 29:16 You turn things upside down, as if the potter were thought to be like the clay! Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, "He did not make me"? Can the pot say of the potter, "He knows nothing"? We’re seeing far too much of this today, where people are rejecting the Creator God in favour of theories about evolution. God is going to make it clear to all these pompous morons just who is the clay! Well, all I can say to this is that if God didn’t make you and shape you, then you have no hope of survival. So don’t be bragging that God didn’t make you. You’ll soon find that your pompous ‘intelligence’ is a death sentence. The Creator God, the Potter, will ensure that this is so.

ISA 29:17 In a very short time (after these things unfold), will not Lebanon be turned into a fertile field and the fertile field seem like a forest? There are a few things that can be deduced from this. Firstly, it describes Lebanon as a fertile field rather than a densely populated area. I don’t know what the reader’s perception about Lebanon is today, but the government is presently in a coalition with a Hezbollah political party. Hezbollah is a Shiite terrorist group and considered one of the most radical and dangerous terror groups in the world. Hezbollah is largely financed by Iran, and to a lesser degree by Syria. Not surprisingly, they too, want the Israelis wiped off the face of the earth. President Amadinejab of Iran also wants the ‘great satan’ America wiped off the face of the earth, and has predicted this outcome in the near future. So whether consciously or knowingly, Lebanon has become involved with bad company, and this is against the interests of Almighty God. So when the cities of Lebanon are wiped off the face of the map, just call it justice. Their cleared land will be put to good use growing crops, which will grow so well in the fertile soil that they will look like a forest.

ISA 29:18 In that day the deaf will hear the words of the scroll, and out of gloom and darkness the eyes of the blind will see. Yes, this is still talking about the same Scroll that was sealed, and which was unsealed by the Lord Christ Himself and the knowledge passed on to the sons who were taught by God. No-one else has ever understood this Scroll because they were not taught by God, but it didn’t stop many would-be prophets from using their own interpretation – all of which was sheer nonsense. Yet God tells us that the deaf will hear it and the blind will see it but only out of the gloom and darkness that is descending on the earth. People will be desperately seeking answers to the gloom and darkness that will be evident everywhere. They will get the answers from an unexpected source.

ISA 29:19 Once more the humble will rejoice in the LORD; the needy will rejoice in the Holy One of Israel. These will contrast strikingly with those who blame God for their predicament, and who stand as mockers of, not only of God, but also those who seek God’s forgiveness in humility.

ISA 29:20 The ruthless will vanish, the mockers will disappear, and all who have an eye for evil will be cut down--

ISA 29:21 those who with a word make a man out to be guilty, who ensnare the defender in court and with false testimony deprive the innocent of justice. Well, you know the type. Whenever anything goes wrong these types seek a scapegoat and through innuendo and hearsay, they do everything possible to convict the innocent. God says these ruthless creatures and the mockers will vanish and disappear – in fact, they will be cut down! Hacked to death! And just a word of caution to those silly enough to try to bring charges against the humble and needy – those who rejoice in the Lord God, such treachery will be repaid with surgical precision and the offenders will disappear forever – never to live again.

ISA 29:22 Therefore this is what the LORD, who redeemed Abraham, says to the house of Jacob: "No longer will Jacob be ashamed; no longer will their faces grow pale. Yes, it is speaking about the House of Jacob or Israel as distinct from the House of Judah. The day is coming when God will remove the shame of the survivors and they will no longer need to be afraid.

ISA 29:23 When they see among them their children, the work of my hands, they will keep my name holy; they will acknowledge the holiness of the Holy One of Jacob, and will stand in awe of the God of Israel. The reference to their children is a bit ambiguous, but one thing to keep in mind is that many of the captives taken into slavery will be neutered and unable to bear children. We see a reference to this later in the study of the Book of Isaiah: Isa 56:3-5 "Let no foreigner who has bound himself to the LORD say, "The LORD will surely exclude me from his people." And let not any eunuch complain, "I am only a dry tree." ⁴ For this is what the LORD says: "To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths, who choose what pleases me and hold fast to my covenant-- ⁵ to them I will give within my temple and its walls a memorial and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that will not be cut off." To be perfectly honest, I don’t know if this is the full explanation to the reference about their children being the work of God’s hands, but it is certainly a part of the full explanation. There will be a lot of men who feel they have nothing left to live for after castration.

ISA 29:24 Those who are wayward in spirit will gain understanding; those who complain will accept instruction." Well, the remnant will gain understanding of the meaning of the Sealed Scroll at the proper time, especially when they see the evidence of it all unfolding, and at that time they will accept instruction. This will be helpful to many instead of the silly arguments that some church groups like to present today. Many of these church groups have never known God, yet they still feel qualified to advance their own theories about Bible Prophecy.

ISA 30:1 "Woe to the obstinate children," declares the LORD, "to those who carry out plans that are not mine, forming an alliance, but not by my Spirit, heaping sin upon sin;

ISA 30:2 who go down to Egypt without consulting me; who look for help to Pharaoh's protection, to Egypt's shade for refuge. In V15 of the last chapter, God’s speaks of those who make their own plans, and here He confirms that they are not His plans. We can recall from Bible history that Jacob and his 12 sons went to live in Egypt in the time of severe famine. It just so happens that God has said that some Ephraimites will return to Egypt. Hos 11:1-6 "When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. ² But the more I called Israel, the further they went from me. They sacrificed to the Baals and they burned incense to images. ³ It was I who taught Ephraim to walk, taking them by the arms; but they did not realize it was I who healed them. ⁴ I led them with cords of human kindness, with ties of love; I lifted the yoke from their neck and bent down to feed them. ⁵ "Will they not return to Egypt and will not Assyria rule over them because they refuse to repent? ⁶ Swords will flash in their cities, will destroy the bars of their gates and put an end to their plans." Well, it seems that all their present plans will end in failure. And some of them will seek to live in Egypt to escape the hell-hole that is coming in their own land. In the scenario that is now developing, where else would they seek refuge? Europe, Asia, the Middle East? None of these will be options! Americans will be hated by everyone, even more so than they are today. In that day, it will be considered fashionable and desirable to kill them, largely because of the satanic tendency of people to destroy the ‘tall poppies’ – the rich and influential. We’ve already seen that highways will be built from Egypt and Assyria for the return of the House of Israel, and many of these refugees to Egypt will be escaping from the land of the Kurds (Assyrians and Medes). It’s these Medes of Media who will gain control of the Persian Empire after the mad ‘Mahdi’ of Iran has accomplished his task with his large sword (Rev 6:4).

ISA 30:3 But Pharaoh's protection will be to your shame, Egypt's shade will bring you disgrace. Egypt is not the place to seek help or refuge! Both the House of Israel and the House of Judah have, in days gone by, and even today, experienced the uselessness of Egypt and the situation continues to be no different.

ISA 30:4 Though they have officials in Zoan and their envoys have arrived in Hanes,

ISA 30:5 everyone will be put to shame because of a people useless to them, who bring neither help nor advantage, but only shame and disgrace."

ISA 30:6 An oracle concerning the animals of the Negev: Through a land of hardship and distress, of lions and lionesses, of adders and darting snakes, the envoys carry their riches on donkeys' backs, their treasures on the humps of camels, to that unprofitable nation,

ISA 30:7 to Egypt, whose help is utterly useless. Therefore I call her Rahab the Do-Nothing. So this is God’s clear view of His feelings towards Egypt. The fact that the term ‘gypsies’ is derived from the name Egypt speaks volumes against the Egyptians in general. Gypsies are harlots, thieves, liars and plunderers. Traditionally, they lived nomadic lives and in primitive circumstances, relying on horse-drawn carriages, donkeys and camels. This gypsy lifestyle continues to this day. This says much about the mentality of Egyptians.

ISA 30:8 Go now, write it on a tablet for them, inscribe it on a scroll, that for the days to come it may be an everlasting witness. Here we have another mention of the Scroll. About 130 years after the obstinate nation – Israel – went into captivity, a new prophet arose, called Ezekiel. God sent Ezekiel to that obstinate nation with a lasting message – one that has survived to this day as the Book of Ezekiel. This is what God taught Ezekiel concerning the House of Israel: Eze 2:3-10 "He said: "Son of man, I am sending you to the Israelites, to a rebellious nation that has rebelled against me; they and their fathers have been in revolt against me to this very day. ⁴ The people to whom I am sending you are obstinate and stubborn. Say to them, `This is what the Sovereign LORD says.' ⁵ And whether they listen or fail to listen--for they are a rebellious house--they will know that a prophet has been among them. ⁶ And you, son of man, do not be afraid of them or their words. Do not be afraid, though briers and thorns are all around you and you live among scorpions. Do not be afraid of what they say or terrified by them, though they are a rebellious house. ⁷ You must speak my words to them, whether they listen or fail to listen, for they are rebellious. ⁸ But you, son of man, listen to what I say to you. Do not rebel like that rebellious house; open your mouth and eat what I give you." So here was Ezekiel being sent to the House of Israel who had gone into captivity far from their homeland over 130 years before. Ezekiel was told to consume a Scroll that God gave him, and to take the message to the House of Israel. By eating and consuming the Scroll, it ceased to exist for nearly six hundred years until it was again given to the Prophet John. Yet at that time, Ezekiel was told to deliver its contents to the House of Israel from memory and to illuminate its portent for their future.

Eze 2:9-10 "Then I looked, and I saw a hand stretched out to me. In it was a scroll, ¹⁰ which he unrolled before me. On both sides of it were written words of lament and mourning and woe. Eze 3:1 "And he said to me, "Son of man, eat what is before you, eat this scroll; then go and speak to the house of Israel." ² So I opened my mouth, and he gave me the scroll to eat." ³ Then he said to me, "Son of man, eat this scroll I am giving you and fill your stomach with it." So I ate it, and it tasted as sweet as honey in my mouth. ⁴ He then said to me: "Son of man, go now to the house of Israel and speak my words to them. ⁵ You are not being sent to a people of obscure speech and difficult language, but to the house of Israel-- ⁶ not to many peoples of obscure speech and difficult language, whose words you cannot understand. Surely if I had sent you to them, they would have listened to you. ⁷ But the house of Israel is not willing to listen to you because they are not willing to listen to me, for the whole house of Israel is hardened and obstinate. ⁸ But I will make you as unyielding and hardened as they are. ⁹ I will make your forehead like the hardest stone, harder than flint. Do not be afraid of them or terrified by them, though they are a rebellious house." ¹⁰ And he said to me, "Son of man, listen carefully and take to heart all the words I speak to you. ¹¹ Go now to your countrymen in exile and speak to them. Say to them, `This is what the Sovereign LORD says,' whether they listen or fail to listen."

ISA 30:9 These are rebellious people, deceitful children, children unwilling to listen to the LORD's instruction. The Lord’s instruction comes through His prophets and the prophets are rarely sent with good news. To a prophet, God’s message is sweet in the mouth, because the final outcome of the message is glorious. Traditionally though, the House of Israel has never seen it as such. The House of Israel is rebellious towards God and don’t want His interference in their lives. They don’t want to be warned by God’s prophets and neither do they want to hear the message of the messenger.

ISA 30:10 They say to the seers, "See no more visions!" and to the prophets, "Give us no more visions of what is right! Tell us pleasant things, prophesy illusions. The House of Israel is good at believing illusions and delusions for that matter. They seem willing to believe anything that contradicts God as their Creator God.

ISA 30:11 Leave this way, get off this path, and stop confronting us with the Holy One of Israel!" In other words, get out of here and leave us alone! We don’t want advice from you or the Holy One of Israel. We’ll decide for ourselves how to conduct our lives, and God can take it or leave it!

ISA 30:12 Therefore, this is what the Holy One of Israel says: "Because you have rejected this message, relied on oppression and depended on deceit,

ISA 30:13 this sin will become for you like a high wall, cracked and bulging, that collapses suddenly, in an instant. This high wall implies a defense barrier from external forces – which will collapse suddenly.

ISA 30:14 It will break in pieces like pottery, shattered so mercilessly that among its pieces not a fragment will be found for taking coals from a hearth or scooping water out of a cistern." The high wall is already cracked and bulging and when it collapses, there will be no fragments left to do any form of work. This high wall that is supposed to protect the American people is already on the pathway to betrayal. When it collapses it will render any form of protection useless. It’s the government that is supposed to protect the American people, and today, their sole aim seems to be to expose the people to external threats.

ISA 30:15 This is what the Sovereign LORD, the Holy One of Israel, says: "In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it. Totally exposed the people will realize that the hand of God is upraised against them, but repentance will be far from their minds. Instead of realizing they have pursued the wind and reaped the whirlwind, exposing themselves to the enemy, they will make plans to flee. God says that when this event occurs, quietness and trust will be their strength. At such a time, repentance towards their Creator God should be paramount, and they should be prepared to take their punishment and trust in God that He will deliver them. But they would have none of it!

ISA 30:16 You said, `No, we will flee on horses.' Therefore you will flee! You said, `We will ride off on swift horses.' Therefore your pursuers will be swift! And here we have it! The pursuers are your enemy – the ones whom you thought to ‘win hearts and minds’. As an observation, just days ago (Feb, 2010) President Ahmadinejab of Iran announced that he was forming alliances with the black nations of Africa. He claimed to have cultivated these alliances over the past few years. In America today, which group has the highest conversion rate to Islam? It’s a no-brainer! It’s the black Africans. It’s no secret that these people have organized nationwide gangs of thugs and criminals that are feeding off the drug cartels.

ISA 30:17 A thousand will flee at the threat of one; at the threat of five you will all flee away, till you are left like a flagstaff on a mountaintop, like a banner on a hill." In other words, totally exposed and at the mercy of the enemy.

ISA 30:18 Yet the LORD longs to be gracious to you; he rises to show you compassion. For the LORD is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him! There won’t be too many people waiting on the Lord God for deliverance, they’ll be too busy trying to flee by whatever means is available.

ISA 30:19 O people of Zion, who live in Jerusalem, you will weep no more. How gracious he will be when you cry for help! As soon as he hears, he will answer you. ²⁰ Although the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, your teachers will be hidden no more; with your own eyes you will see them. ²¹ Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, "This is the way; walk in it." ²² Then you will defile your idols overlaid with silver and your images covered with gold; you will throw them away like a menstrual cloth and say to them, "Away with you!" Here we see an example of those who listened to God and believed His messenger, and their teachers will live right among them to instruct and guide them. They will have instant access to God and He will respond immediately to them.

ISA 30:23 He will also send you rain for the seed you sow in the ground, and the food that comes from the land will be rich and plentiful. In that day your cattle will graze in broad meadows. ²⁴ The oxen and donkeys that work the soil will eat fodder and mash, spread out with fork and shovel. ²⁵ In the day of great slaughter, when the towers fall, streams of water will flow on every high mountain and every lofty hill. ²⁶ The moon will shine like the sun, and the sunlight will be seven times brighter, like the light of seven full days, when the LORD binds up the bruises of his people and heals the wounds he inflicted. The people of Zion will have peace and prosperity and freedom from fear in that day. And just to put this into perspective as to the timing of it, this is the time when God arises to shake the earth with fury:

ISA 30:27 See, the Name of the LORD comes from afar, with burning anger and dense clouds of smoke; his lips are full of wrath, and his tongue is a consuming fire.

ISA 30:28 His breath is like a rushing torrent, rising up to the neck. He shakes the nations in the sieve of destruction; he places in the jaws of the peoples a bit that leads them astray. Placing a bit in the mouth is what you do to horses, and this is precisely what is meant! God is speaking of the horses of the nations just as the Scroll indicates.

ISA 30:29 And you will sing as on the night you celebrate a holy festival; your hearts will rejoice as when people go up with flutes to the mountain of the LORD, to the Rock of Israel.

ISA 30:30 The LORD will cause men to hear his majestic voice and will make them see his arm coming down with raging anger and consuming fire, with cloudburst, thunderstorm and hail.

ISA 30:31 The voice of the LORD will shatter Assyria; with his scepter he will strike them down. The scepter is also called His punishing rod in the next verse.

ISA 30:32 Every stroke the LORD lays on them with his punishing rod will be to the music of tambourines and harps, as he fights them in battle with the blows of his arm. In the Book of Revelation this very verse is referenced in Rev 2:26:27 "To him who overcomes and does my will to the end, I will give authority over the nations-- ²⁷ `He will rule them with an iron scepter; he will dash them to pieces like pottery' -- just as I have received authority from my Father. ²⁸ I will also give him the morning star. ²⁹ He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches." You see here that Jesus Christ has been given authority from the Father to do precisely this. What is more, the Churches of God, who overcome to the end will also be given this authority. But not just any Church! And certainly not mainstream Christianity who have never obeyed God’s Commandments and Statutes or God’s Holy Days for that matter. Long, long ago, God identified this Church that would arise in the last days and identified its founder. This identification is found in Zech 11:17, which we’ve already covered in earlier chapters. His name was Herbert Armstrong.

ISA 30:33 Topheth has long been prepared; it has been made ready for the king. Its fire pit has been made deep and wide, with an abundance of fire and wood; the breath of the LORD, like a stream of burning sulfur, sets it ablaze. And this is the final scene when the king of the earth (Satan) is confined in his specially prepared prison to serve his 1,000 year sentence.

ISA 31:1 Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help, who rely on horses, who trust in the multitude of their chariots and in the great strength of their horsemen, but do not look to the Holy One of Israel, or seek help from the LORD.

ISA 31:2 Yet he too is wise and can bring disaster; he does not take back his words. He will rise up against the house of the wicked, against those who help evildoers. The House of Israel has become absolutely mindless in their determination to help evildoers – both at home and abroad. This mad concept of ‘winning the hearts and minds’ of evildoers is the reasoning of the deranged. Why would the House of Israel be trying to ‘win the hearts and minds’ of God’s most virulent enemy? Namely the Muslim hordes! These disgusting people have vowed to seize God’s City Jerusalem, and to wipe His people Israel off the face of the earth. This is not only a treasonous and treacherous act against God, but similarly, it is also against the people of the House of Israel, many of whom now have the wit to see who the enemy really is. The present Administration, led by a Muslim President, is hell-bent on deluding the people.

ISA 31:3 But the Egyptians are men and not God; their horses are flesh and not spirit. When the LORD stretches out his hand, he who helps will stumble, he who is helped will fall; both will perish together. God is reminding us of an age-old problem that existed in the days of Moses. The Egyptian Pharaoh, who would not let God’s people go, considered himself to be a god. In fact, Pharoah was a god – a demon, just like Allah and just like all other pagan gods. But none of them are the God – the Invincible One. God makes the point here that the Egyptians horses are flesh and not spirit. In contrast to this, the ‘horses and chariots’ of God are spirit. They are invisible to the human eye except when God chooses to reveal them. This is the evidence of this: 2Kings 6:16 "Don't be afraid," the prophet answered. "Those who are with us are more than those who are with them." ¹⁷ And Elisha prayed, "O LORD, open his eyes so he may see." Then the LORD opened the servant's eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha." These are the same chariots that Elisha saw when Elijah was lifted up and taken elsewhere. This account is found here: 2Kings 2:11-12 "As they were walking along and talking together, suddenly a chariot of fire and horses of fire appeared and separated the two of them, and Elijah went up [into the] heaven[s] in a whirlwind. ¹² Elisha saw this and cried out, "My father! My father! The chariots and horsemen of Israel!" And Elisha saw him no more. Then he took hold of his own clothes and tore them apart." It may seem offensive to some that Elisha referred to Elijah as ‘my father’, but Elijah is destined to become a father to a whole nation. In the lead-up to this, Elijah will command the spirit ‘horses and chariots’ of God. These spirit craft will be engaged in saving and preparing a place for Israel. At that time, they will be known as ‘the chariots and horsemen of Israel’ and the commanders or horsemen will be men! These are the true servants of God, and they will establish the Kingdom of God by force.

ISA 31:4 This is what the LORD says to me: "As a lion growls, a great lion over his prey-- and though a whole band of shepherds is called together against him, he is not frightened by their shouts or disturbed by their clamor-- so the LORD Almighty will come down to do battle on Mount Zion and on its heights. And how is the Lord Christ described in the Sealed Scroll, which relates to the four horsemen of the Apocalypse, which we’ve been mentioning? He’s described as the Lion of the Tribe of Judah (Rev 5:5). And who would the LORD Almighty send to do battle on Mount Zion? He will send His Mighty Son Jesus – the Great Lion and the ferocious adversary of all God’s enemies.

ISA 31:5 Like birds hovering overhead, the LORD Almighty will shield Jerusalem; he will shield it and deliver it, he will `pass over' it and will rescue it." Well, we all know the story of the Passover in Egypt, don’t we? This is what God is referring to. And infiltrators into Jerusalem will be dealt with as the Passover did back in Egypt. God has no intention of providing a safe haven for deceitful and insincere interlopers. This will be the preliminary act of separating the sheep from the goats.

ISA 31:6 Return to him you have so greatly revolted against, O Israelites. ⁷ For in that day every one of you will reject the idols of silver and gold your sinful hands have made. Well, we all know about returning to God (Mal 3:7-9) because we extensively covered it in earlier chapters. Just for the record, God is not interested in mere lip-service.

ISA 31:8 "Assyria will fall by a sword that is not of man; a sword, not of mortals, will devour them. They will flee before the sword and their young men will be put to forced labor. The weapons of God are spirit and they are capable of knocking down whole cities leaving no trace, just as they did in the days of Sodom and Gomorrah.

ISA 31:9 Their stronghold will fall because of terror; at sight of the battle standard their commanders will panic," declares the LORD, whose fire is in Zion, whose furnace is in Jerusalem. Yes, there will be a battle standard unfurled against the bow of the ships that hover overhead like birds.

ISA 32:1 See, a king will reign in righteousness and rulers (plural) will rule with justice. We’ve seen how the invisible rulers of the heavenly realms have ruled over the past six thousand years, and this is the beginning of the evidence that God plans to replace them with those of the human kind.

ISA 32:2 Each man (a reference to the rulers in the previous verse) will be like a shelter from the wind and a refuge from the storm, like streams of water in the desert and the shadow of a great rock in a thirsty land. So these rulers will provide comfort, protection and support.

ISA 32:3 Then the eyes of those who see will no longer be closed, and the ears of those who hear will listen. Remember how Jesus so often said, ‘Let he that has ears to hear, let him hear’? In that day, people will open their eyes to see what is really happening, instead of being deluded by liars and deceitful people. The scales will fall from their eyes and they will no longer be deluded by Satan’s propaganda in all its forms.

ISA 32:4 The mind of the rash will know and understand, and the stammering tongue will be fluent and clear. There have been some rash judgments concerning the propaganda that continues to emanate from from unreliable sources. It seems that people will believe anything. For instance, what sort of crazy mind would believe that a gas like carbon dioxide, which represents only 0.3 percent of the atmosphere could cause global warming. Yet people seem to want to listen to a satanic idiot like Al Gore.

ISA 32:5 No longer will the fool be called noble nor the scoundrel be highly respected. Yes, well we’ve just mentioned Al Gore. Of course he’s just one part of the equation where people are easily duped. Just about every theory known to man is based on utter crap. As long as it’s presented as ‘science’ people fall over each other trying to appear ‘scientific’. They lack the brains to think for themselves! This is also true of those who set themselves up as teachers of God’s Word, and what a pudding they’ve made of it! They’ve deceived many people and exposed them to unheard-of risks that have been prophesied for these last days.

ISA 32:6 For the fool speaks folly, his mind is busy with evil: He practices ungodliness and spreads error concerning the LORD; the hungry he leaves empty and from the thirsty he withholds water. Let’s do a mini-study on this last phrase. We begin with the fool ‘who spreads error concerning the LORD’ and ‘withholds water from the thirsty’. Jer 2:13 "My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water." These ‘cisterns’ cannot hold water – living water! So what is meant by this? Jeremiah explains: Jer 17:13 "O LORD, the hope of Israel, all who forsake you will be put to shame. Those who turn away from you will be written in the dust because they have forsaken the LORD, the spring of living water." So the Living Water is the LORD. The Living Water is also a gift from God: John 4:10 "Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water." And now we clearly learn what the Living Water is: John 7:37-39 "On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. ³⁸ Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him." ³⁹ By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified."

ISA 34:15 The owl will nest there and lay eggs, she will hatch them, and care for her young under the shadow of her wings; there also the falcons will gather, each with its mate. What God is saying here is that Esau will be removed from their land and be replaced by jackals and birds of prey – a fitting replacement!

After the parable about Esau, the next verse is a continuation of V8.

ISA 34:16 Look in the scroll of the LORD and read: None of these will be missing, not one will lack her mate. For it is his mouth that has given the order, and his Spirit will gather them together. And this is exactly what we will do! We will look in the Scroll of the LORD and read it!

ISA 34:17 He allots their portions (for the Tribes of Jacob); his hand distributes them by measure. They will possess it forever and dwell there from generation to generation. So what does the Scroll of the LORD have to say about this? This occurs between the opening of the Sixth Seal and the opening of the Seventh. Rev 7:1-8 "After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth to prevent any wind from blowing on the land or on the sea or on any tree. ² Then I saw another angel coming up from the east, having the seal of the living God. He called out in a loud voice to the four angels who had been given power to harm the land and the sea: ³ "Do not harm the land or the sea or the trees until we put a seal on the foreheads of the servants of our God." ⁴ Then I heard the number of those who were sealed: 144,000 from all the tribes of Israel.

^{REV 7:5} From the tribe of Judah 12,000 were sealed,

^{REV 7:6} from the tribe of Asher 12,000,

^{REV 7:7} from the tribe of Simeon 12,000,

^{REV 7:8} from the tribe of Zebulun 12,000,

from the tribe of Benjamin 12,000.

These are not just believers, they are servants of God (V3) and they serve Him! We’ve made it very clear over and over, that there is a difference between real service to God and merely giving lip-service – so we won’t go into it now, but it will be discussed at length in later chapters. And now we’ve read it in the Scroll of the LORD and no-one has any excuse for ignoring it. Unless of course they want to wait for the hell that comes after this, but we’ll defer from discussion of this for a while until later in these chapters, when we reveal more about these 144,000 and who they are.

ISA 35:1 The desert and the parched land will be glad; the wilderness will rejoice and blossom. Like the crocus, ² it will burst into bloom; it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy. The glory of Lebanon will be given to it, the splendor of Carmel and Sharon; they will see the glory of the LORD, the splendor of our God. Remember how God said Lebanon will become a fertile field (Isa 29:17)? Lebanon will be given to Zion for growing crops. As a point of interest, Zion will also keep the farm lands of the Golan Heights which Syria is trying to take possession of. As we all know, Syria is notorious for interfering in the affairs of Lebanon. Syrians will be lucky to escape with their lives, and not too many of them will be that lucky. And, anyway, the whole nation of Syria will be swallowed up by the expanding Promised Land, which will extend from the River of Egypt to the Euphrates River – and even beyond this in days to come. In fact, the Kingdom of God will fill the whole earth – just as Daniel says in Dan 2:35.

ISA 35:3 Strengthen the feeble hands, steady the knees that give way;

ISA 35:4 say to those with fearful hearts, "Be strong, do not fear; your God will come, he will come with vengeance; with divine retribution he will come to save you." After seeing the destruction in Bozrah as well as Mecca and Medina, it will be Muslim knees that are shaking through fear! After the Lord Christ has drenched His sword in the heavens against the demon hordes, He will descend on their human brood – those who have the very characteristics of snakes and scorpions.

ISA 35:5 Then will the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped. It’s going to be a tremendous time of reversals and changing fortunes. The vanquished will become the conquerors, and the Jews will sweep through all the surrounding nations like a flaming torch among sheaves of wheat.

ISA 35:6 Then will the lame leap like a deer, and the mute tongue shout for joy. Water will gush forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert. This will result from the River of Life that we’ve already discussed.

ISA 35:7 The burning sand will become a pool, the thirsty ground bubbling springs. In the haunts where jackals once lay, grass and reeds and papyrus will grow.

ISA 35:8 And a highway will be there; it will be called the Way of Holiness. The unclean will not journey on it; it will be for those who walk in that Way; wicked fools will not go about on it. In the next two verses we find that it’s only the redeemed, those who’ve been ransomed, that will walk there.

ISA 35:9 No lion will be there, nor will any ferocious beast get up on it; they will not be found there. But only the redeemed will walk there,

ISA 35:10 and the ransomed of the LORD will return. They will enter Zion with singing; everlasting joy will crown their heads. Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away. These last few verses are self-explanatory of God’s intentions, and the Holy Land will become like the Garden of Eden.

ISA 36:1 In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah's reign, Sennacherib king of Assyria attacked all the fortified cities of Judah and captured them. ² Then the king of Assyria sent his field commander with a large army from Lachish to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem. When the commander stopped at the aqueduct of the Upper Pool, on the road to the Washerman's Field, ³ Eliakim son of Hilkiah the palace administrator, Shebna the secretary, and Joah son of Asaph the recorder went out to him.

ISA 36:4 The field commander said to them, "Tell Hezekiah, " ‘This is what the great king, the king of Assyria, says: On what are you basing this confidence of yours? ⁵ You say you have strategy and military strength--but you speak only empty words. On whom are you depending, that you rebel against me? ⁶ Look now, you are depending on Egypt, that splintered reed of a staff, which pierces a man's hand and wounds him if he leans on it! Such is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who depend on him. ⁷ And if you say to me, "We are depending on the LORD our God"--isn't he the one whose high places and altars Hezekiah removed, saying to Judah and Jerusalem, "You must worship before this altar"? In fact, it was King Ahaz, Hezekiah’s father that did this, although Hezekiah was co-regent at the time.

It was the king of Assyria who gave him the plans for this pagan altar and is now at the gates to attack him. Remember how earlier in this study we gave the account where, during the co-regency of Ahaz/Hezekiah, Ahaz removed the Bronze Altar in favour of the pagan one? Yet he still used the Bronze Altar for enquiring of God personally. And here is Sennacherib’s commander telling all the people how Hezekiah violated God’s instructions with pagan installations. These rulers knew very well what the consequences would be, but Hezekiah didn’t seem to realize what he and his father had done. This is the account of what the Commander of the Assyrian armies was referring to when he spoke to Hezekiah: 2Kings 16:10-16 "Then King Ahaz went to Damascus to meet Tiglath-Pileser king of Assyria. He saw an altar in Damascus and sent to Uriah the priest a sketch of the altar, with detailed plans for its construction. ¹¹ So Uriah the priest built an altar in accordance with all the plans that King Ahaz had sent from Damascus and finished it before King Ahaz returned. ¹² When the king came back from Damascus and saw the altar, he approached it and presented offerings on it. ¹³ He offered up his burnt offering and grain offering, poured out his drink offering, and sprinkled the blood of his fellowship offerings on the altar. ¹⁴ The bronze altar that stood before the LORD he brought from the front of the temple--from between the new altar and the temple of the LORD--and put it on the north side of the new altar. ¹⁵ King Ahaz then gave these orders to Uriah the priest: "On the large new altar, offer the morning burnt offering and the evening grain offering, the king's burnt offering and his grain offering, and the burnt offering of all the people of the land, and their grain offering and their drink offering. Sprinkle on the altar all the blood of the burnt offerings and sacrifices. But I will use the bronze altar for seeking guidance." ¹⁶ And Uriah the priest did just as King Ahaz had ordered." No doubt Hezekiah was somewhat amazed by the Assyrian Commander’s knowledge of this offence against God. Here was a pagan ruler castigating Hezekiah for an offence against the LORD God Himself, which shows the hypocrisy of these creatures. We have the same hypocrisy today where Muslims commit horrific atrocities with their indiscriminate killings, yet always seem to be able to find fault with God’s people Israel.

ISA 36:8 " `Come now, make a bargain with my master, the king of Assyria: I will give you two thousand horses--if you can put riders on them! ⁹ How then can you repulse one officer of the least of my master's officials, even though you are depending on Egypt for chariots and horsemen? ¹⁰ Furthermore, have I come to attack and destroy this land without the LORD? The LORD himself told me to march against this country and destroy it.'" Is God in the habit of conferring with pagan, human kings? Not at all! God does, however, confer with the rulers of the heavenly realms – the spirit rulers, and they know better than to violate God’s people and property without His permission. These spirit rulers tremble with fear for the Power and Might of the Great Creator God.

ISA 36:11 Then Eliakim, Shebna and Joah said to the field commander, "Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, since we understand it. Don't speak to us in Hebrew in the hearing of the people on the wall."

ISA 36:12 But the commander replied, "Was it only to your master and you that my master sent me to say these things, and not to the men sitting on the wall--who, like you, will have to eat their own filth and drink their own urine?"

ISA 36:13 Then the commander stood and called out in Hebrew, "Hear the words of the great king, the king of Assyria! ¹⁴ This is what the king says: Do not let Hezekiah deceive you. He cannot deliver you! ¹⁵ Do not let Hezekiah persuade you to trust in the LORD when he says, `The LORD will surely deliver us; this city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.'

ISA 36:16 "Do not listen to Hezekiah. This is what the king of Assyria says: Make peace with me and come out to me. Then every one of you will eat from his own vine and fig tree and drink water from his own cistern, ¹⁷ until I come and take you to a land like your own--a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards.

ISA 36:18 "Do not let Hezekiah mislead you when he says, `The LORD will deliver us.' Has the god of any nation ever delivered his land from the hand of the king of Assyria? ¹⁹ Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim? Have they rescued Samaria from my hand? ²⁰ Who of all the gods of these countries has been able to save his land from me? How then can the LORD deliver Jerusalem from my hand?" Never challenge God! A belated lesson that Sennacherib will learn the hard way!

ISA 36:21 But the people remained silent and said nothing in reply, because the king had commanded, "Do not answer him."

ISA 36:22 Then Eliakim son of Hilkiah the palace administrator, Shebna the secretary, and Joah son of Asaph the recorder went to Hezekiah, with their clothes torn, and told him what the field commander had said.

ISA 37:1 When King Hezekiah heard this, he tore his clothes and put on sackcloth and went into the temple of the LORD. ² He sent Eliakim the palace administrator, Shebna the secretary, and the leading priests, all wearing sackcloth, to the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz. ³ They told him, "This is what Hezekiah says: This day is a day of distress and rebuke and disgrace, as when children come to the point of birth and there is no strength to deliver them. ⁴ It may be that the LORD your God will hear the words of the field commander, whom his master, the king of Assyria, has sent to ridicule the living God, and that he will rebuke him for the words the LORD your God has heard. Therefore pray for the remnant that still survives."

ISA 37:5 When King Hezekiah's officials came to Isaiah, ⁶ Isaiah said to them, "Tell your master, `This is what the LORD says: Do not be afraid of what you have heard--those words with which the underlings of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me. ⁷ Listen! I am going to put a spirit in him so that when he hears a certain report, he will return to his own country, and there I will have him cut down with the sword.'" Notice the phrase, "I am going to put a spirit in him"; this refers to a negative thought directly planted into his mind. God is well able to do this either for good or for bad. Remember when God created Adam, He planted the knowledge of a whole language into his mind so that he was able to speak. Today, human beings are able to do similar things with computers, but God can do it with the human mind – a ‘computer’ that is magnitudes superior to anything that humans have devised.

ISA 37:8 When the field commander heard that the king of Assyria had left Lachish, he withdrew and found the king fighting against Libnah.

ISA 37:9 Now Sennacherib received a report that Tirhakah, the Cushite king of Egypt, was marching out to fight against him. When he heard it, he sent messengers to Hezekiah with this word: ¹⁰ "Say to Hezekiah king of Judah: Do not let the god you depend on deceive you when he says, `Jerusalem will not be handed over to the king of Assyria.' ¹¹ Surely you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all the countries, destroying them completely. And will you be delivered? ¹² Did the gods of the nations that were destroyed by my forefathers deliver them--the gods of Gozan, Haran, Rezeph and the people of Eden who were in Tel Assar? ¹³ Where is the king of Hamath, the king of Arpad, the king of the city of Sepharvaim, or of Hena or Ivvah?"

ISA 37:14 Hezekiah received the letter from the messengers and read it. Then he went up to the temple of the LORD and spread it out before the LORD. ¹⁵ And Hezekiah prayed to the LORD: ¹⁶ "O LORD Almighty, God of Israel, enthroned between the cherubim, you alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth. ¹⁷ Give ear, O LORD, and hear; open your eyes, O LORD, and see; listen to all the words Sennacherib has sent to insult the living God.

ISA 37:18 "It is true, O LORD, that the Assyrian kings have laid waste all these peoples and their lands. ¹⁹ They have thrown their gods into the fire and destroyed them, for they were not gods but only wood and stone, fashioned by human hands. ²⁰ Now, O LORD our God, deliver us from his hand, so that all kingdoms on earth may know that you alone, O LORD, are God."

ISA 37:21 Then Isaiah son of Amoz sent a message to Hezekiah: "This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: Because you have prayed to me concerning Sennacherib king of Assyria, ²² this is the word the LORD has spoken against him: "The Virgin Daughter of Zion despises and mocks you. The Daughter of Jerusalem tosses her head as you flee.

ISA 37:23 Who is it you have insulted and blasphemed? Against whom have you raised your voice and lifted your eyes in pride? Against the Holy One of Israel!

ISA 37:24 By your messengers you have heaped insults on the Lord. And you (Sennacherib) have said, `With my many chariots I have ascended the heights of the mountains, the utmost heights of Lebanon. I have cut down its tallest cedars, the choicest of its pines. I have reached its remotest heights, the finest of its forests.

ISA 37:25 I have dug wells in foreign lands and drunk the water there. With the soles of my feet I have dried up all the streams of Egypt.' All this is the type of bragging and boasting that Almighty God will not tolerate from the rulers of the heavenly realms. This same thing happened more than a century later when Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, pulled the same stunt. He was boasting and bragging, and while the words were still in his mouth, he was driven out of his kingdom and became a wild beast. This is the account: Dan 4:28-33 "All this happened to King Nebuchadnezzar. ²⁹ Twelve months later, as the king was walking on the roof of the royal palace of Babylon, ³⁰ he said, "Is not this the great Babylon I have built as the royal residence, by my mighty power and for the glory of my majesty?" ³¹ The words were still on his lips when a voice came from heaven, "This is what is decreed for you, King Nebuchadnezzar: Your royal authority has been taken from you. ³² You will be driven away from people and will live with the wild animals; you will eat grass like cattle. Seven times will pass by for you until you acknowledge that the Most High is sovereign over the kingdoms of men and gives them to anyone he wishes." ³³ Immediately what had been said about Nebuchadnezzar was fulfilled. He was driven away from people and ate grass like cattle. His body was drenched with the dew of heaven until his hair grew like the feathers of an eagle and his nails like the claws of a bird." What is so remarkable about this is that Nebuchadnezzar, a ruler of the heavenly realm, actually repented before God and praised Him, acknowledging his guilt: V34-35 "At the end of that time (seven times or years), I, Nebuchadnezzar, raised my eyes toward heaven, and my sanity was restored. Then I praised the Most High; I honored and glorified him who lives forever. His dominion is an eternal dominion; his kingdom endures from generation to generation. ³⁵ All the peoples of the earth are regarded as nothing. He does as he pleases with the powers of heaven and the peoples of the earth. No one can hold back his hand or say to him: "What have you done?" Nebuchadnezzar concluded with some good advice for everyone: V37 "Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and exalt and glorify the King of heaven, because everything he does is right and all his ways are just. And those who walk in pride he is able to humble." After his sanity was restored, Nebuchadnezzar no longer had the demon ruler influencing him and he saw things clearly. We’ll have more to say about this later in the study.

ISA 37:26 "Have you not heard? Long ago I ordained it. In days of old I planned it; now I have brought it to pass, that you have turned fortified cities into piles of stone.

ISA 37:27 Their people, drained of power, are dismayed and put to shame. They are like plants in the field, like tender green shoots, like grass sprouting on the roof, scorched before it grows up. Remember the words ‘like grass’, because these words will come up when we get to chapter 40, and they have an important meaning.

ISA 37:28 "But I know where you stay and when you come and go and how you rage against me.

ISA 37:29 Because you rage against me and because your insolence has reached my ears, I will put my hook in your nose and my bit in your mouth, and I will make you return by the way you came.

ISA 37:30 "This will be the sign for you, O Hezekiah: "This year you will eat what grows by itself, and the second year what springs from that. But in the third year sow and reap, plant vineyards and eat their fruit.

ISA 37:31 Once more a remnant of the house of Judah will take root below and bear fruit above.

ISA 37:32 For out of Jerusalem will come a remnant, and out of Mount Zion a band of survivors. The zeal of the LORD Almighty will accomplish this.

ISA 37:33 "Therefore this is what the LORD says concerning the king of Assyria: "He will not enter this city or shoot an arrow here. He will not come before it with shield or build a siege ramp against it.

ISA 37:34 By the way that he came he will return; he will not enter this city," declares the LORD.

ISA 37:35 "I will defend this city and save it, for my sake and for the sake of David my servant!"

ISA 37:36 Then the angel of the LORD went out and put to death a hundred and eighty-five thousand men in the Assyrian camp. When the people got up the next morning--there were all the dead bodies! ³⁷ So Sennacherib king of Assyria broke camp and withdrew. He returned to Nineveh and stayed there.

ISA 37:38 One day, while he was worshiping in the temple of his god Nisroch, his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer cut him down with the sword, and they escaped to the land of Ararat. And Esarhaddon his son succeeded him as king. Ararat is a region in Eastern Turkey today. It’s just north of the land of Assyria, the homeland of the Medes. Mount Ararat is the site where Noah’s Ark came to rest. Jer 51:27 associates the kingdoms of Ararat, Minni and Ashkenaz with the kings of the Medes who took over Babylonia.

ISA 38:1 In those days Hezekiah became ill and was at the point of death. The prophet Isaiah son of Amoz went to him and said, "This is what the LORD says: Put your house in order, because you are going to die; you will not recover."

ISA 38:2 Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the LORD, ³ "Remember, O LORD, how I have walked before you faithfully and with wholehearted devotion and have done what is good in your eyes." And Hezekiah wept bitterly.

ISA 38:4 Then the word of the LORD came to Isaiah: ⁵ "Go and tell Hezekiah, `This is what the LORD, the God of your father David, says: I have heard your prayer and seen your tears; I will add fifteen years to your life. ⁶ And I will deliver you and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria. I will defend this city.

ISA 38:7 "`This is the LORD's sign to you that the LORD will do what he has promised: ⁸ I will make the shadow cast by the sun go back the ten steps it has gone down on the stairway of Ahaz.'" So the sunlight went back the ten steps it had gone down. When you think about it, this was quite a miracle!

ISA 38:9 A writing of Hezekiah king of Judah after his illness and recovery:

ISA 38:10 I said, "In the prime of my life must I go through the gates of death

ISA 38:11 I said, "I will not again see the LORD, the LORD, in the land of the living;

ISA 38:12 Like a shepherd's tent my house has been pulled down and taken from me.

ISA 38:13 I waited patiently till dawn, but like a lion he broke all my bones; day and night you made an end of me.

ISA 38:14 I cried like a swift or thrush, I moaned like a mourning dove. My eyes grew weak as I looked to the heavens. I am troubled; O Lord, come to my aid!"

ISA 38:15 But what can I say? He has spoken to me, and he himself has done this. I will walk humbly all my years because of this anguish of my soul.

ISA 38:16 Lord, by such things men live; and my spirit finds life in them too. You restored me to health and let me live.

ISA 38:17 Surely it was for my benefit that I suffered such anguish. In your love you kept me from the pit of destruction; you have put all my sins behind your back.

ISA 38:18 For the grave cannot praise you, death cannot sing your praise; those who go down to the pit cannot hope for your faithfulness.

ISA 38:19 The living, the living--they praise you, as I am doing today; fathers tell their children about your faithfulness.

ISA 38:20 The LORD will save me, and we will sing with stringed instruments all the days of our lives in the temple of the LORD.

ISA 38:21 Isaiah had said, "Prepare a poultice of figs and apply it to the boil, and he will recover."

ISA 38:22 Hezekiah had asked, "What will be the sign that I will go up to the temple of the LORD?" This is apparently how Hezekiah phrased his request for a sign that God will spare his life. The sign, as we read above was that the earth’s rotation would be reversed to allow the sun’s shadow to go back ten steps on the stairway of Ahaz (Hezekiah’s father). The choice of this miracle by God was not done at random, but had a specific meaning in regard to Hezekiah. He was being given 15 years to reverse some of the bad decisions made by his father Ahaz, while he was actually co-regent with him.

ISA 39:1 At that time Merodach-Baladan son of Baladan king of Babylon sent Hezekiah letters and a gift (beware of Greeks – and Babylonians – bearing gifts, as the old saying goes), because he had heard of his illness and recovery. ² Hezekiah received the envoys gladly and showed them what was in his storehouses--the silver, the gold, the spices, the fine oil, his entire armory and everything found among his treasures. There was nothing in his palace or in all his kingdom that Hezekiah did not show them.

ISA 39:3 Then Isaiah the prophet went to King Hezekiah and asked, "What did those men say, and where did they come from?" "From a distant land," Hezekiah replied. "They came to me from Babylon."

ISA 39:4 The prophet asked, "What did they see in your palace?" "They saw everything in my palace," Hezekiah said. "There is nothing among my treasures that I did not show them."

ISA 39:5 Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, "Hear the word of the LORD Almighty: ⁶ The time will surely come when everything in your palace, and all that your fathers have stored up until this day, will be carried off to Babylon. Nothing will be left, says the LORD. ⁷ And some of your descendants, your own flesh and blood who will be born to you, will be taken away, and they will become eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon." I guess the reader knows all about Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego – all princes of Judah and descendants of Hezekiah (Dan 1:6).

ISA 39:8 "The word of the LORD you have spoken is good," Hezekiah replied. For he thought, "There will be peace and security in my lifetime." I don’t know about you, but if I knew that my offspring were to become enslaved eunuchs in a foreign land because of my conduct, I would not be saying that it’s good. I would rather have no peace and security in my lifetime that to inflict this on my progeny. However, Hezekiah did receive God’s favour for other events in his life, which are detailed in the Book of Kings. We have this verse: 2Kings 18:5 "Hezekiah trusted in the LORD, the God of Israel. There was no one like him among all the kings of Judah, either before him or after him." We have to conclude that, the kings that this is referring to, are the two kings before and after him, who were Ahaz and Manasseh – neither of which had much going for them. There were far more righteous kings before Hezekiah, including King David – the man after God’s own heart, and the one who will be resurrected to rule over the Tribes of Israel. Yet, Hezekiah was the man of the moment through his trust in the LORD, and the contrasting conduct of his son Manasseh bears this out. Manasseh was totally evil: 2Kings 21:1-16 "Manasseh was twelve years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem fifty-five years. His mother's name was Hephzibah. ² He did evil in the eyes of the LORD, following the detestable practices of the nations the LORD had driven out before the Israelites. ³ He rebuilt the high places his father Hezekiah had destroyed; he also erected altars to Baal and made an Asherah pole, as Ahab king of Israel had done. He bowed down to all the starry hosts and worshiped them. ⁴ He built altars in the temple of the LORD, of which the LORD had said, "In Jerusalem I will put my Name." ⁵ In both courts of the temple of the LORD, he built altars to all the starry hosts. ⁶ He sacrificed his own son in the fire (the worship of Molech, where little children were burned to death to satisfy a diety), practiced sorcery and divination, and consulted mediums and spiritists. He did much evil in the eyes of the LORD, provoking him to anger.

^{2KI 21:7} He took the carved Asherah pole he had made and put it in the temple, of which the LORD had said to David and to his son Solomon, "In this temple and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, I will put my Name forever. ⁸ I will not again make the feet of the Israelites wander from the land I gave their forefathers, if only they will be careful to do everything I commanded them and will keep the whole Law that my servant Moses gave them." ⁹ But the people did not listen. Manasseh led them astray, so that they did more evil than the nations the LORD had destroyed before the Israelites.

^{2KI 21:10} The LORD said through his servants the prophets: ¹¹ "Manasseh king of Judah has committed these detestable sins. He has done more evil than the Amorites who preceded him and has led Judah into sin with his idols. ¹² Therefore this is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: I am going to bring such disaster on Jerusalem and Judah that the ears of everyone who hears of it will tingle. ¹³ I will stretch out over Jerusalem the measuring line used against Samaria and the plumb line used against the house of Ahab. I will wipe out Jerusalem as one wipes a dish, wiping it and turning it upside down. ¹⁴ I will forsake the remnant of my inheritance and hand them over to their enemies. They will be looted and plundered by all their foes, ¹⁵ because they have done evil in my eyes and have provoked me to anger from the day their forefathers came out of Egypt until this day."

^{2KI 21:16} Moreover, Manasseh also shed so much innocent blood that he filled Jerusalem from end to end--besides the sin that he had caused Judah to commit, so that they did evil in the eyes of the LORD.

So, on second thoughts, perhaps we should give Hezekiah a pass for not caring too much for his offspring. He seemed to know more about his own offspring than anyone else. Perhaps he recognized what his wife Hephzibah was, the mother of Manasseh, and recognized that nothing good could come from her. She was the mother of the wicked. Lo and behold, we find in Isa 62:4 that God symbolically refers to Jerusalem as Hephzibah – the mother of the wicked! But with a difference! In Isaiah chapter 62 God is speaking of a wedding of the House of Israel, when they will be wedded to the Promised Land, and Jerusalem will be their mother. We’ll get to that chapter soon.

With the conclusion of Chapter 39, the historical record of Isaiah’s day ends. There is no further mention of the kings and rulers of his era, and the rest of the Book is all about the coming Kingdom of God and all the events that lead up to it. From this chapter forth, you will see references to the appearance of Jesus Christ, together with all that He was prophesied to endure, including His death. Having qualified as the Eternal Ruler for the replacement for Satan, you will see reference to His grand entrance as the Messiah King, the Mighty Warrior. Perhaps the reader won’t be surprised to find out that one of the Lord Christ’s first targets will be Esau/Edom and his territories, which today, stretch all the way to Mecca and Medina. In the upcoming chapters, you’ll read of an absolute bloodbath as the Lord Christ makes war. Remember how Jesus said "I have not come to bring peace, but a sword’. You’ll find out what He meant in these remaining chapters.

So what we are saying is that the rest of the chapters (40-66) detail all the events that will lead to the ultimate establishment of the Kingdom of God.

John the Baptist died early, barely reaching the age of 30. He fulfilled what was prophesied of him by preceding the arrival of Jesus Christ, but never fulfilled much else, and certainly not all that prophesied by his father Zechariah (himself a Levite priest and prophet). The account of Zechariah’s prophecies is found in Luke 1:62-80.

ISA 40:1 Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. ‘My people’ here is speaking of the people of Jerusalem. Jerusalem is the City of Judah, and the Jews have never forgotten it. They had a tradition of saying, while in exile and when observing God’s Holy Days, ‘Next year in Jerusalem!’

ISA 40:2 Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed, that her sin has been paid for, that she has received from the LORD's hand double for all her sins. Judah and Jerusalem certainly suffered double for all their sins. The House of Israel went into captivity once, but Judah suffered this ignominy twice! Judah was first conquered and led into captivity in 586 BC by Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon. The second time was in 70 AD. On top of this, Judah has been persecuted almost to extinction down through the ages, including 70 years ago in the European Holocaust. So this prophecy begins with words of encouragement for their hard service towards God. He begins with ‘Comfort, comfort, my people’. It may have gone unnoticed by many, but God says there that Judah’s hard service has been completed. What hard service would that be? Well, while Christianity has been basking in their holier-than-thou attitude towards the Jews, and see themselves as the logical replacement for God’s people Judah, they’ve forgotten to whom God chose to entrust the Scriptures. Without the Jews, there would be no Scriptures! Throughout all their exiles and enslavement, they still managed to preserve the Scriptures. In contrast to this, the House of Israel went into captivity and preserved none of the scrolls containing God’s Word. At great risk to their own lives, the Jews managed to preserve what scrolls they could, ensuring a legacy for all those who would follow.

Remember what the Apostle Paul said? Rom 3:1-2 "What advantage, then, is there in being a Jew, or what value is there in circumcision? ² Much in every way! First of all, they have been entrusted with the very words of God." Did you notice the word ‘entrusted’? What part of the Scriptures could God entrust to mainstream Christianity today? The Old Testament – the very Scriptures the Lord Jesus used? They’ve virtually rejected it in favour of some pagan idea about going to heaven when they die. They think because Jesus went to heaven when He died, they can claim the same privilege. Yet there is nothing in the Scriptures to support this view. Why, then, would God entrust the Scriptures to such people, when He has the Jews in His service?

And so it was that God called a prophet to service, immediately before the appearance of Jesus, and as Jesus would later say, ‘More than a prophet’. Luke 7:24-30 "After John's messengers left, Jesus began to speak to the crowd about John: "What did you go out into the desert to see? A reed swayed by the wind? ²⁵ If not, what did you go out to see? A man dressed in fine clothes? No, those who wear expensive clothes and indulge in luxury are in palaces. ²⁶ But what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. ²⁷ This is the one about whom it is written: "`I will send my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way before you.' ²⁸ I tell you, among those born of women there is no one greater than John; yet the one who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he." ²⁹ (All the people, even the tax collectors, when they heard Jesus' words, acknowledged that God's way was right, because they had been baptized by John. ³⁰ But the Pharisees and experts in the law (Scribes) rejected God's purpose for themselves, because they had not been baptized by John.) John was born of a woman, and there was none greater than he, as Jesus stated. Then Jesus adds, that those who are least in the Kingdom (among those who are born of God as sons and daughters), will be greater than John the Baptist. John died, and has not yet entered God’s Kingdom. Others, who do exploits will precede him. John will, of course, be resurrected to live in God’s Kingdom.