Chapters 34 - 40
CHAPTER 34
We come again to one of the many Old Testament prophets who
tell us about the prophetic "day of the Lord" or as John in the
book of Revelation chapter 6:17 called, "The GREAT DAY of His
WRATH is come ..."
The almighty says through Isaiah:
"Come near, to hear, and harken, you people: let the earth hear,
and all that is therein; the world, and all things that come
forth from it. FOR, the INDIGNATION of the Lord is upon ALL
nations and His FURY upon all their armies: He has utterly
destroyed them, He has delivered them to slaughter. Their slain
also shall be cast out, and their stink shall come up out of their
carcases, and the mountains shall melt with their blood" (verses
1-3).
Notice verse 4, see again the time of the great heavenly
signs that usher in the day of the Lord, as told by Jesus in
Matthew 24 and by John the apostle in Revelation 6.
"All the host of heaven shall be dissolved, and the heavens shall
be rolled together as a scroll; and all their host shall fall
down, as the leaf off the vine, and as a falling fig from the fig
tree" (verse 4).
This prophecy is for the yet future, after the heavenly
signs and after we enter the day of the Lord. It is the time for
"Idumea" or modern Turkey to be punished, for their dealing
harshly with Judah when the Jews of the Holy Land are taken
captive by the Beast power, and the Jews have to flee for their
lives. The punishment of Turkey is given in full details by the
Prophet Obediah. As Isaiah puts it "For it is the day of the
Lord's vengeance, and the year of recompenses for the controversy
of Zion." I shall cover and give the details of Turkey's
punishment when I come to the book of Obediah.
The verses 9-17 give the desolation of Turkey in graphic
pictures. It will be a time of turning the streams into pitch,
the dust into brimstone, and the land thereof shall become
burning pitch. No one will be able to put out the fiery
destruction. It shall lie desolate from generation to generation.
People are to seek out the book of the Lord, and note that what
God has written shall come to pass, and so the prophecy against
Turkey is sure and the wild beasts shall have their land.
CHAPTER 35
We are given once more a snap-shot of the age to come, when
the Messiah shall return to earth in glory and power and Israel
and Judah will be recovered from the lands where they have been
scattered after their fall and captivity to the end-time Beast
Babylon power of the Holy Roman Empire of Europe.
This must be a prophecy for the yet future, the beginning
and moving into the Kingdom of God on earth, for Israelites are
to come to Zion, and obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and
sighing shall flee away (verse 10). The Jews in Zion today are
far from having sorrow and sighing fleeing away. There is much
sorrow and much sighing in Zion today.
This chapter 35 is indeed for the 1,000 years or the
millennium as it is often called.
"The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them;
and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose ... they
shall see the GLORY of the Lord and excellency of our God ... say
to them of a fearful heart, Be strong, fear not; BEHOLD your GOD
WILL COME WITH VENGEANCE, even God with a recompense; He will
come and SAVE you."
The Jews are not saved today! Notice what else is to take
place at this time in Israel's history.
"THEN the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the
deaf shall be unstopped. THEN shall the lame man leap as an hart,
and the tongue of the dumb sing: FOR in the wilderness shall
waters break out, and streams in the desert. AND the parched
ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of
water: in the habitation of jackals (dragons) where each lay,
shall be grass with reeds and rushes. AND an HIGHWAY shall be
there, and a way, and it shall be called 'The Way of Holiness' -
the unclean shall not pass over it; but it shall be for those:
the wayfaring men, though fools shall not err therein. No lion
shall be there, nor any ravenous beast shall go up thereon, it
shall not be found there; BUT THE REDEEMED SHALL WALK THERE: AND
the RANSOM OF THE LORD SHALL RETURN, AND COME TO ZION with songs
and everlasting JOY upon their heads: they shall obtain JOY and
GLADNESS, and SORROW and SIGHING shall FLEE AWAY!"
It is the time for the nature of animals to be changed, as
we read in Isaiah 11. It is the time to recover Israel and Judah
from the four corners of the earth, and to bring them back to the
Holy Land and Zion. It is the time to RESTORE the wilderness and
make the earth as the garden of Eden. The time for mighty
miracles of healing to begin, as we move into the promised age to
come, the Kingdom of God on earth.
What an age that will be, an age that has not been on earth
since before the sins of Adam and Eve.
CHAPTERS 36-39
These chapters contain the past historical events in the
life of Hezekiah in Jerusalem. Please take the time to read it,
maybe in a modern translation. One outstanding note is to be
observed. God CAN fight for His people. He has the power to
destroy the enemy of those who will call out to Him and put
their faith in Him. He can be the battle axe, the war machine,
for those who trust Him. The Lord can send His mighty angels to
fight for His people (chapter 37:35-37).
Also to note is that God can give more years of life, to the
physical man, if it pleases Him to answer those who desire more
years. Hezekiah cried out for more years and God granted him 15
more years of physical life (chapter 38:1-5).
We find here also the miracle of the "sun dial" moving back
10 degrees (verses 6-8). This miracle together with Joshua's
"long day" and some other Old Testament miracles are included in
the expounding under the category of the study "Joshua's Long
Day" on this website.
One more point of notice is chapter 38:17-19. The truth of
"death" is here given in a nut-shell. The grave CANNOT praise
God, death CANNOT celebrate the Lord; they that go down into the
grave CANNOT be given more truth. It is the LIVING, the LIVING,
who praise God, and it is parents living in the present who can
make known truth to their children. Parents CANNOT give truth to
their children AFTER those parents have died.
The truth of the matter on the subject of "death" and then
what, is given in full detail contained in many studies on this
website, one study especially called "DEATH - then What?"
CHAPTER 40
A prophecy that most will immediately relate to the first
coming of the Messiah. Some prophecies have a DUAL application,
and this is certainly one of them. In the context it is even MORE
related to the coming of the Messiah is power and glory. Israel
and Judah are in CAPTIVITY when the Messiah comes as a warring
King, to establish the Kingdom of God on earth. All is not lost
for Israel/Judah/Jerusalem.
"Comfort you, comfort you, My people, says your God. Speak
comfortably to Jerusalem and cry unto her, that her warfare
(margin is "appointed time" meaning her punishment) is
accomplished, that her iniquity is PARDONED: for she has received
of the Lord's hand double for her sins. The voice of him that
crieth in the wilderness, Prepare you the way of the Lord, make
straight in the desert a highway for our God" (verses 1-3).
John the baptist was the first "Elijah to come" but there
will also be an Elijah to come again, at the end-time, who will
warn and shout the salvation (which also includes repentance and
punishment sometimes to bring about repentance). This subject of
the "Elijah to come" is clearly given by Jesus Himself in Matthew
17:9-13. There is also a full study article on the subject on
this website, called "The Elijah to Come?"
It is the time in prophecy when: "Every valley shall be
exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the
crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain. And
the GLORY of the Lord be revealed, and ALL FLESH shall SEE it
together: for the mouth of the Lord has spoken it" (verses 4-5).
The way God will deal with the earth and the nations upon it
at the end time, will be as we have seen, like the shaking of the
vine. It will be astonishing and like nothing that mankind as a
whole has ever witnessed before.
The time element of this prophecy is made clearer still as we
read the next verses.
"The voice said, Cry! And he said, What shall I cry? All flesh is
grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the
field: The grass withers, the flower fades; but the Word of our
God shall stand for ever. O Zion, that brings good tidings, get
you up into the mountain; O Jerusalem that brings good tidings,
lift up your voice with strength; lift it up, be not afraid; say
unto the cities of Judah, BEHOLD YOUR GOD!"
There will be the TWO Witnesses in the streets of Jerusalem
in the last 42 months of this age (Revelation 11) who will indeed
be shouting and bringing GOOD NEWS. The Beast power will not think
they are bringing good news, but those in tune with God's Word will
know the Mighty Eternal is witnessing to the nations of the earth.
It is the time when:
"Behold, the Lord God WILL COME with STRONG HAND, and His arm
shall RULE for Him. Behold, His REWARD (to give to faithful
saints) is with Him, and His WORK BEFORE Him. He shall feed His
flock like a shepherd: He shall gather the lambs with His arms,
and carry them in His bosom, and shall gently lead those that are
with young" (verses 6-11).
The Lord Jesus will indeed love and reward His disciples of
all ages, as they are resurrected to meet Him in the clouds and
descend to the Mount of Olives (1 Thes.4 with Zech.14).
It is also the time when the Lord shall deliver the tribes
of Israel from their captivity by the end time Beast Power. They
will be humble and repentant for sure by this time. The Lord will
bring them as lost sheep are found and cared for by their
shepherd. This is given in detail in Ezekiel chapters 34 to 36.
It is the Almighty God of Israel who has so written and who
will bring to pass what He has decreed. I cannot give you the
time in this 21st century as when all this will come to pass, but
I can tell you with full assurance, IT WILL BE AS IT IS WRITTEN!!
Some of you reading this will probably see these things come on
this earth, and then you will know that God is true and that He
has indeed done what He said He would do, and that is do nothing
like this unless He first gives you warning through His true
servants (Amos 3:7).
The following words from the Holy One of Israel need to be
repeated in all there FULL power and GLORY. It is the Almighty
One who tells you there is NO ONE greater than He!!
"Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted
out heaven with the ruler, and comprehended the dust of the earth
in a measuring cup, and weighed the mountains in a scale, and the
hills in a balance?
Who has directed the Spirit of the Lord, or being His counsellor,
has taught Him?
With whom did God take counsel, and who instructed Him, and
taught Him in the path of judgment, and taught Him knowledge, and
showed to Him the way of understanding?
Behold, the nations are like a drop in the bucket, and are
counted as the small dust of the balance. Behold He takes up the
isles as a very minute thing. All the tree of Lebanon is not
sufficient to burn, nor the beasts of it sufficient for a burnt
offering.
All nations before Him are as nothing; and they are counted to
Him even less than nothing, and emptiness.
TO WHOM WILL YOU LIKEN GOD? OR WHAT LIKENESS WILL YOU COMPARE
UNTO HIM? .....
Have you not known? Have you not heard? Has it not been told to
you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the
foundations of the earth?
It is He that sits upon the circle of the earth, and the
inhabitants of it are as grasshoppers; that stretches out the
heavens as a curtain, and spreads them out as a tent to dwell in.
That brings the Princes to nothing; He makes the Judges of the
earth as worthless.... they will wither and as before the
whirlwind, they are stubble and they are blown away.
TO WHOM WILL YOU LIKEN ME, OR SHALL I BE EQUAL WITH ANYONE? SAYS
THE HOLY ONE.
LIFT UP YOUR EYES ON HIGH AND BEHOLD WHO HAS CREATED THESE
THINGS, THAT BRINGS OUT THEIR HOST BY NUMBER: HE CALLS THEM ALL
BY NAMES, BY THE GREATNESS OF HIS MIGHT, FOR THAT HE IS STRONG IN
POWER; NOT ONE FAILS.
Why do you say O Jacob, and speak o Israel, 'My way is hid from
the Lord, and my right is passed over from my God (He does not
care about me).'
Have you not known? Have you not heard, that the everlasting God,
the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, FAINTS NOT,
neither is WEARY, there is no way to search out all His
understanding. He can give power to the faint; and to those with
no might He can give strength.
Even the youths shall eventually faint and be weary, and the
young men shall finally utterly fall: But they that wait upon the
Lord shall change (margin) their strength; they shall mount up
with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they
shall walk, and not faint" (verses 12-31).
......
Looking only to the physical present, we have no everlasting
youth, even the young in age can fall, get weary, and faint. We
should not pin out hope on this life, for it can often be a
battle of one sort or another. Verse 31 is not so much a promise
for this physical life as it is for the life to come in the
resurrection. Certainly God can give strength to anyone of His
children at any age in this physical life, but this is not a
verse that promises some quick fix in all situations. For this
lifetime in the flesh, this verse should be viewed as a "general
statement" and the Bible is loaded with "general statements."
There is an important study on this website called "An Important
Key" which all readers should make sure they read and remember
it.
More important is to view this verse as concerning the
resurrection life. When those who have waited on the Lord will be
given an immortal body as that which the apostle Paul expounded
on in the 15th chapter of 1 Corinthians, and the amazing promise
from God of which we find in 1 John 3:1-3.
There is no GREATER in the universe than God. He is the
creator of all that is. He has promised many things, very many
things in His word the Bible. All of those promises and what He
has declared WILL COME TO PASS, it is just a matter of time, His
time, as He wills when He wills it. We must remember that with
the Eternal One a day can be a thousand years and a thousand
years as a day. He can slow things down, or speed things up, all
according to His will.
The prophecies of Isaiah are TRUE and they WILL come to
pass, not according to our time table, but according to the time
table that He alone determines.
..................
To be continued
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