Isaiah Lesson 60

And we're going to say good afternoon. We're gathered again together with Isaiah.

Pastor Jeff had to start the camera, so he's come back to join us. Continuing in Lesson 60,

Pastor. Yes. Lesson 60. Let's see, my kids said when my father -in -law clicked on our

Cornerstone channel on YouTube on his TV, and he said he's going to click one of these sermons. And my kids said, oh,

I've seen them all. So I said, wait a minute. I don't think you've seen

Isaiah yet. I think we have 60 episodes you have to catch up on. So they're like, no, they thought they were caught up.

I think one of the things that we talked about, which, you know, maybe somewhere next year when people have time, would be to take our website and to divide it into tabbed sections.

That would be great. An Isaiah section. And we're going to talk a little bit about next year where we've been considering some specialty topics.

We would call them like a university class. And so maybe take a Wednesday or two to talk about, because I think you were asked to teach one on evangelism.

Yeah. Yes. Yes. I would love to do that. And so then maybe have a section, a tab where our university classes or whatever.

But what's the over under for how many lessons it's going to take? I'm going to set it over under and you can choose over or under.

All right. So we're about two thirds of the way through. We're in 60. I'm going to put the over under at 90.

I'll take the under. Okay. So it depends on how many times I teach and you teach.

Yeah. I'll try to speed it up and slow it down to try to win the bet.

Would you open us in prayer, brother, and then I'll get in. Lord, it is awesome to be here and it is awesome to be with our brothers and sisters who want to chew the truth of scripture and grow by what it's taught.

We're not just taking a class so that we can have information. We know, Lord, that in our world today there are false gods who have their methods and sometimes they're very, very subtle.

We pray for protection as we continue in this section, the trial of the false gods, to have a reality that you are

Yahweh and we pray that these lessons would help us to have our focus on the

God who cares for us. We pray these things in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. The largest open drug market in the country is in Kensington in Philadelphia right now.

People will walk the streets and openly shoot up. There are drug dealers being made right there in open view.

I was there and we lived within just a block of Kensington Avenue and the only thing that kept me on this side of that situation and any of you, the same thing, the only thing that has carried us to where we are is grace.

There's nothing different in any of us than those who are like walking zombies in Philadelphia.

Often what happens is a person is coping with pain in their life, perhaps there's some anxiety disorder, perhaps there is a great loss or maybe a child is raised in an abusive home.

Maybe there's some other situation like that and when they get a little bit older, they begin to try to dull that pain.

Maybe it's just going to drinking parties in high school and they begin to look to alcohol as a crutch to help them deal with the pain of life.

Somebody suggests they smoke pot and they try that and at some point this gateway opens up to harder drugs and instead of carrying them through the anxiety or the pain or the difficulty of their childhood, what ends up happening is that thing that they relied on becomes an even heavier burden.

It turns around and enslaves them instead of setting them free. They look for alcohol to carry them and there's many young moms who just begin to have a drink of wine at night to take the edge off of the day and to de -stress, but a decade later they're an alcoholic and alcohol has become their master.

The idols of the nations promise to save and to help and many people look to idols to find deliverance and they never do.

In fact, they do the opposite. They become the burden. As we sit here as saved people walking in the

Holy Spirit, forgiven and cleansed and upheld, we should testify that from the womb it was the

Lord's grace that carried us. He gave us the grace of a womb to begin with, a protected place in a mother to grow and develop.

Yes. Only find joy and peace in Jesus Christ. Yes. As we were carried in the wombs of our mother, every step that we've taken in this life we've been carried.

Who knows the footprints poem? You guys like that footprints poem? I love that poem. It's quaint, but it's beautiful.

You know, the idea that a man looking back on his life, he sees the tracks of him walking with God, but there comes these certain places along the road where there's only one set of tracks and it corresponds to the most difficult times in your life.

And so he asks, God, why is there only one set of tracks there? Did you leave me? And he says,

I was carrying you all the while. So footprints is a great way to think about it. We have been carried from our youth.

Everything we've been through in this life that could have undone us. He was carrying us.

Yes. Solitary life, but one solitary life. You know that one life. Okay, go ahead.

It's about how Jesus was the one solitary life and made all the difference in the world.

And the world granted salvation and that Jesus came in grace and truth.

The truth is we all deserve hell. If it wasn't for grace, that's where we would be going. Amen. But for the grace of God, there go

I. We've been carried all the while and we were carried unto salvation because our

God actually saves. When you call upon his name, he hears you. He answers and he saves you.

He is a God who hears and who saves. Let's read about it in Isaiah 46. So John, can

I call on you for the first two verses? And then Barbara, if you could begin to look for Hebrews 3 16 to 19, or you could just read it right out of the notes there.

So Bell bows down, Nebo stoops. Their idols are on beasts and livestock.

These things you carry are born as burdens on weary beasts. They stoop.

They bow down together. They cannot save the burden, but themselves go into captivity.

Bell bows down, Nebo stoops. The picture here is the idols of the nations, either being taken away, captive, or just move from place to place.

They're laid down and tied up to a camel or a donkey. They gotta take their gods with them.

They gotta take their gods with them. So it says Bell bows down, Nebo stoops. Their idols are on beasts.

And livestock. These things you carry are born as burdens on weary beasts.

Poor beasts, says Rich. So look at their posture. First of all, they stoop.

And the idea there in verse 2, they stoop, they bow down together. It ought to be the other way around.

The idea here is a true God ought to be worshipped. We should be the ones bowing down.

But here is a so -called God that's bowing down. They have to lay them flat and tie them on with straps and bring them along on a camel.

They're bowing. That's the posture. But moreover, look on. It says they cannot save the burden, but themselves go into captivity.

The gods of the nations, Bell, Nebo, any other idol made by hands, is only an idol.

It cannot save. Itself goes into the burden, is a burden, and goes into captivity.

So if you would, Barbara, would you read Hebrews 3, 16 to 19? For those who live, for who were those who heard and yet rebelled?

Was it not all those who left Egypt, led by Moses? And with whom was he provoked for 40 years?

Was it not those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient?

So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief. Okay, the first generation of Israelites coming out of Egypt failed to enter into God's rest.

And you remember why? They had wicked hearts that refused to believe

God. Instead, as soon as Moses went up the mountain, what did they do? They made, they made a gold calf.

They were chasing after the idols of the nations. The wrong God. They were looking for rest to a false

God. And so they heard and yet rebelled. But they left

Egypt, led by Moses, and they provoked the Lord for 40 years.

The Lord promises us rest. In fact, the whole concept of the

Sabbath is rest. You work for six days, you rest on the 7th.

And that is a picture of God working for six days and resting on the 7th. And ultimately, that whole pattern is to point us to Christ because he is a true

God that we can come to and in him find rest from our work, but there's no rest for the weary in the idols of Bel and Neba.

Notice, they can't save from the captor. In fact, the idols themselves can be taken captive by the captor.

They cannot save the burden. There are many false gods in the world that promise to lift the burden.

I open this, this teaching with alcohol. How many people have believed that alcohol would take the edge off of the burden of this life?

Only to find that it became the heaviest burden in their life. How many people have looked to drugs to, to mitigate their pain and suffering?

A lot. Many people turn to the things of this earth to cope with the difficulties of this life.

Ralph, you're a sports guy. You ever seen anybody turn to sports to cope with life? Well, they immerse themselves in it.

Exactly. So that, you know, to the exclusion of reality. Yep.

And of course, John Calvin said our hearts are idle factors. We can make idols out of anything, whether it be sports or alcohol or drugs or any other thing in life that gives you some pleasure.

As soon as you begin to trust in that thing to give you rest and turn to it, it becomes an idol, but it cannot deliver.

It cannot keep you out of captivity. It cannot keep you out of hell and it becomes a burden.

It adds to your pain, even though it promises to take that pain away.

So Ivan, would you read three and four for us? Now think about that.

The idols can't lift the burden, but now look in comparison versus three and four. Listen to me, old house of Jacob and all the remnants of the house of Israel.

You who have been born by me from birth and have been carried from the womb, even to your old age,

I will be the same and even to your graying years. I will bear you.

I have done it and I will carry you and I will bear you and I will deliver you. This is the

God who carries us and saves us. He is not a burden to us.

He is the one that carries our burdens. And it says here from the womb to the gray hair.

I remember when my son was only four years old. We were in the park and we saw some runners go by.

And so we follow them along. We end up talking to the coach and it was the Mount Moral Striders. They were a cross -country team and he was only four years old, but the coach let him start running with them.

But as a four -year -old, he couldn't quite keep up. So I would run with the little kids in the back of the pack and little

Timmy couldn't quite keep up because he's four years old running with six, seven, eight, nine -year -olds. So he would run as long and as hard as he could and then he'd start to fall behind and I'd be right behind him and I would pick him up and I just jog along behind the pack and he would catch his breath.

His legs would get strong and after about a minute of running that way, my arms were all tired. I set him down and there he goes again, keeping up and lo and behold, by the time this two -mile run is over, he's kept up with the big kids.

Of course, a big part of that time, he was carried by his father. In that imagery, we see what this life is really like.

God is with us all the time. Our father is with us and when we can't, he can.

And the beautiful imagery here is from the womb, it says in verse 3, all the way to gray hairs.

Thank God for that. John brings the amen. I'm starting to bring the amen from my chinny chin chin there.

But that's a crown of glory. The Proverbs says, John, the gray hair is a crown of glory.

I think I'll set free and die home for him. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, he's got a crown, doesn't he?

Yeah. So it says, listen to me, O house of Jacob, all the remnant of the house of Israel.

Yeah. Even in those days of slavery, imagine the burden of making these bricks for Pharaoh.

Imagine the struggles. Imagine that all of their hopes were put in a deliverer and this baby,

Moses, born to save, would have to be called Moses because he was drawn out of water.

There was no ability for Israel to save themselves. Moses at one point as an infant, as a child, was put in a basket and cast upon the waters.

What an image that is, their Savior, completely in the hands of God.

Nothing can keep that basket from tipping, from an alligator, from being overwhelmed by the flood.

He would have been a tasty snack. You're on fire today, Rich. I can hardly keep up with my own teaching.

A tasty snack. Amen. And that's the point here. This from the, from infancy, he was carried along in a basket and in the providence of God, this unseen hand, he was drawn out and became, yeah, the daughter of Pharaoh pulls him out and he becomes the deliverer for Israel.

So he carries us from the womb, but not just from the beginning, all the way to the tomb and then into eternity.

Look at verse four, even to your old age, I am he. There comes a point when all of us become physically unable to care for ourselves.

And that's a, that's probably a more scary proposition for us as adults than the same concept is for a toddler.

Because a toddler doesn't know that he's dependent. He doesn't even realize that his dad carried him for half that month, you know, but when you're older, you've lived life and you feel the loss of your ability to be self -sufficient and that's a hard thing.

And especially with a debilitating disease, you know, my mom with Parkinson's and many of us have have experienced that when you see someone who used to be the rock and the one who cared for everybody else now needing to be carried again.

This is the image here from the womb helpless in the womb until you breathe your last breath.

He will carry you. So there's nothing to fear in aging because the same one who cared for us when we didn't even know any different, he will see us through.

It says even to your old age and look what he says. I am he. Again, this echoing this concept that I'm the one

I'm the, I'm the sufficient one. Your sufficiency comes from me. I will carry you.

I have made and I will bear. He's the one that made you and he's the one that will carry you.

I will carry and I will say I love that image when you contrast that with every other

God. Nebo bows down and stoops has to be carried along on a beast of burden.

So it is with every God of the nations that people look to for help.

They cannot say it makes me feel bad. You know, the the addict on Kensington Avenue, that's looking again and again to the same source, but it never saves.

It only becomes a heavier burden. The Muslim who's looking to Allah but never finds love the

Hindu who has a million gods, but not one of them speaks 330 million.

Thank you. Really? Yeah, 330 million gods in Hinduism. Okay, none of them can save.

We have something that the world lacks and it's the difference and that is we have the true

God of Israel. So versus 5 through 7. Oh before we read that. Let's let's have someone read

Sandy. I hear you back there chuckling. So you get to read Matthew 11 29 to 30 take my joke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and though it's hard and you will find rest for your soul for my yoke is easy and my burden is fine.

Wow. Isn't it great to serve the God who says you will find rest for your souls.

It's important. I also think to recognize the the gospel of everything is love.

Everything is going to be good. That's not the gospel because you do take a yoke. Yeah. Yes.

Yep. He says pick up your cross right follow me. Yeah. Yeah, Joyce.

Would you like to read 5 through 7? Sure. It says to whom will you liken me and make me equal and compare me that we may be alike those who lavish gold from the purse and weigh out silver in the scales hire a goldsmith and he makes it into a

God and they fall down and worship. They lift it to their shoulders. They carry it.

They set it in its place and it stands there. It cannot move from its place. If one cries to it, it does not answer or save him from his trouble.

Amen. Yeah again. What is this section called? Isaiah 40 to 48. I say it every week.

Anybody know? Yes, close close.

John's got it. Trial the trial of false gods. He's putting the idols on trial.

And what is the evidence that they are no gods at all here? He gives five pieces of evidence one.

They can be bought to they need to be carried three.

They're stuck. They're immobile number four. They're mute. They can't speak and number five the big one that this all leads to there's no salvation.

So look at this in verse five to whom will you liken me and make me equal?

The idols rich are unable to do any of the things that the true

God can do. So to whom will you liken me and make me equal and compare me that we may be alike.

So God here, he is putting the idols on trial and he does that to display his own

Glory and what sets him apart as unique. He is the true God that can't be bought that can't be carried that's never stuck that always answers when we call and he is the only

God who saves verse 6 those who lavish gold from the purse.

And way out silver in the scales higher goldsmith and he makes it into a

God then they fall down and worship. Isn't that just rich?

They pay money. It reminds me of teacher Demetrius yelling the greatest orifice in the

Ephesians. Yeah. Sure. Greatest Artemis. Yeah, so they bow down and worship the thing that they just bought.

Right? I don't understand the psychology of the whole thing because if they these gods never do anything for them, they never answer.

They don't give them salvation. They don't give them hope. Why do they continue? Why it's a it's a stronghold.

It's in fact, the deceiver is himself deceived. We talked about this on Sunday with the illustration.

I gave of the powwows of the Indians. They actually believe that these spirits could do things because there were demonic forces behind them.

The the conjurer was deceived and he might even give some true information like you made this.

I told the story on Sunday. You promised that the next deer you killed you will offer as a sacrifice and he didn't and he didn't do it and the conjurer said this is what happened and he just blew his mind.

There was some spiritual power there, but it was a demonic force and it spoke because Satan actually knows things and so there's a deception there and the person is caught in that deception.

And so the deceiver is himself to see. At the at the root of it.

It's two words. It's translated into the English. I will as opposed to two words that are translated.

I am and Satan stood before God up in heaven. He said I will make myself but God professed at the burning bush.

I am the idols are it's basically a continued manifestation of Satan's Desire to take

God out of the equation and I say I will I will make I will I will I will so the first mark here of a false.

God is that it can be bought. There are many in ministry that can be bought.

There is a word for it and that is Simon Simon it comes from Simon when

Paul encountered him the false prophet, he would make a profit selling or was it acts 8 when

Philip it was Philip in Acts 8 not 13. Yes, I'm trying.

Yes. He was trying to buy the gift of God. Yes, right before we get the word

Simon. That's where we get Simon. Yes, Simon is where we get Simon. So so Simon is trying to buy.

Well, these gods these false gods are there. They're bought with money that they pay the silversmith and the goldsmith the fashion and they bow down next.

They lift it to their shoulders. They carry it. We're looking at verse 7 of Isaiah 46.

The false gods need to be carried. Yeah, the true God carries you.

Hmm next it cannot move from its place.

It's immobile. It's stuck. The true God is never stuck.

There is never a conundrum too great for him that has some pin to the ground. He is free absolutely sovereign sovereignly free next.

He's mute. The false God is mute. If one cries to it, it does not answer.

Now some conjurer may try to answer for it, but it can't speak. The idol is mute.

And then lastly builds to this or save him from trouble. There is no salvation as many times as the

Muslim chance to Allah. He will never say the

Hindu God will never say Vishnu as many times as you try to travel the eightfold path of Buddhism and speak of Siddhartha, Guatemala, the

Buddha. He'll never save you. There is no other God that saves.

This is the one true God. What does the name Jesus mean? Yahweh is salvation.

Yeshua Yahweh is salvation. He is the one God who saves so God here has put the idols on trial.

And he himself is exalted in contradistinction with them.

So verses 8 through 11. Now we we get to the epistemology of the

Christian faith. How do we know that our God is the true God? He doesn't ask us to arbitrarily take a blind leap, but rather he always gives this test which we've heard again and again.

How about you read this for us? Verses 8 to 11. Remember this and show yourselves men.

Recall to monitor you transgressors. Remember the former things of old for I am

God and there is no other. I am God and there is none like me. Declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things that are not yet done saying my counsel shall stand and I shall do all my pleasure calling a bird of prey from the east.

The man who executes my counsel from a far country. Indeed. I have spoken it.

I will also bring it to pass. I have purposed it. I will also do it.

So the Lord appeals to both former things and future things.

And he said he begins this passage with remember that word is an important Christian word to remember.

How many times has the Lord carried you? Can someone share a testimony?

Has he has he carried you through something? What is he brought you through when

I lost my husband? I mean, I knew right away. I just simply said God, you're going to have to carry me because this is a tough one.

Yeah, and he did. And to the point that at his memorial service,

I could actually stand up and I said fill me with the Holy Spirit and help me do your will in spite of my pain and I could speak the gospel message to all my friends and people who came to that and that was

God. That was not me. He carried you on. I did not have strength at all. Amen.

Beautiful. Someone else. I run into a telephone pole 50 miles an hour.

Wow. Yeah. And I'm still here. Could only have been an angel.

He carried you. He carried you. My entire life. Yeah, my head.

The screws got a little loose upstairs. He carried me through the streets of Kensington.

I used to walk those streets every night, you know, walking to teen club. Never a hand laid on me. You dodged a lot of bullets.

Twelve years. Well, we could hear him at night sometimes. And all of us have that testimony.

Anybody else? What has he carried you through? Ralph, you have one.

I know you do. One. I guess for me,

I got lost at Great Adventure. I was on a flash trip. I was eight years old and I remember being very fearful and I went to the lost caboose thing and there were kids a lot smaller than me crying.

I was tall for my age and I decided, well, this is no fun. And I just really felt the companionship of the

Lord to the extent that I went out and rode roller coasters and whatever I could until my mom found me at eight o 'clock at night.

If you hear the story from her perspective, it's a lot more dramatic. But I can truly say at eight years old,

I knew I was not alone. And I knew I was safe and I can't explain that other than the

Lord was really ministering to my little fearful spirit. I didn't know what else to do.

I tried to find my teacher. Apparently, I went out to the car to make sure the buses were still in the parking lot.

I knew to get my hand stamped at eight years old and I was like, okay, my ride's still here.

I'm not going to sit around and be afraid. I'm not alone and enough that I was a blessed little girl that day.

It was like the best day of my life and the worst for my parents, but I was okay.

I was in the palm of his hand. That's an amazing story of just being carried. I was in the palm of his hand. And doesn't he give you that sense of his presence when you need it the most?

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, you know, he's there and just this peace comes over you that it's going to be okay because he's carrying you.

He said it in Isaiah 40, right? He'll mount you up with wings as eagles. He'll run and not be weary walk and not faint through cancer through many trials.

Many snares. I have already come. His grace has brought me safe thus far.

His grace shall lead me home from the womb to the tomb. He's carrying us remember and Israel's told remember

I brought you out of Egypt. I brought you into the promise line there to remember.

Now he moves from past to the future. He's the only God that tells the end from the beginning.

He says for I am God. There is no other. I am God. There is none like me verse 10 declaring the end from the beginning just in the last chapter chapter 45.

He said I will send Cyrus. He calls him by name and says

I tell you his name and 150 years after saying that Cyrus is delivering the

Jewish people and allowing them back to their home. Lady. This is our God. He declares the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done and here's a very key verse to a theology that I hold and I teach regularly.

This is a very key verse in verse 10 and it answers the question. How does

God know the future? Okay, exactly. It says my counsel shall stand and I will accomplish all my purpose.

Did you ever ask yourself? Why does God have the ability to make predictive prophecy?

Yes, that's the answer because not because he learns it by looking down the corridor of history and therefore his foreknowledge is based on just being omniscient.

No, it's that he has a purpose meaning he's doing it.

He's ordaining it to take place and this is what's called the counsel of God or his decree.

So the second part of verse 10. It said this is why he can declare the end from the beginning. This is how he does that.

He says my counsel shall stand. In other words, if he purposes to do it, then he will and he can tell what's coming that Messiah will be born in Bethlehem because he's purposed that Messiah would be born in Bethlehem.

And if Joseph has a bad day and he tries to use his free will to go north instead of South to Bethlehem to run off to Syria instead of to go be registered.

When Quirinius gave the command God's purpose will stand. God's purpose will stand.

It's not debatable. It's not something which he's only hoping he will accomplish but can be thwarted by the free will of man.

No, the point here is things happen as predicted because he actually holds the whole world in his hand.

So another parallel verse to 4710 would be Ephesians 1 11. If you want to see a

New Testament teaching where the same thing is said in Ephesians 1 11 who would like to read that for me?

Thank you, Sandy. We have obtained an inheritance having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will.

We could do a word study and see how each of these words reiterate this point. Of course, the big idea in verse 11 is predestination unto salvation, but notice it goes on to say you're predestined according to him and to the purpose of him who works all things, not just the salvation of us who believe, but it actually says his counsel, his purpose, his bullet, his willful plan is meticulous in his providence.

It's all -encompassing. It's all things. He holds the whole world in his hands. He is the one who's working a purpose in the world.

Rich. In regard to the crucifixion of Jesus, it says in Acts 2 23, in being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, you have attained by all his hands.

It wasn't done by men. It was a plan by God. Yes. From eternity past. Amen. And that foreknowledge is key there as well.

It's connected to his determined plan. Some people read 1

Peter 1 and say, oh, see election is according to foreknowledge. We'll read on in 1 Peter 1 to verse 20, where the son himself is foreknown.

It's not because God learned he had a son. He's foreknown in this intimate knowledge before being revealed.

So God is working his plan, not learning things and accomplishing plan

B, you know, as he works things out. No, his plan A, his bullet, his plan. So back to Isaiah 46 10.

It's also here. He makes an explicit statement. My counsel shall stand and I will accomplish all my purpose.

I love that verse. I love I love these doctrines and people wonder why do you know why

I love the doctrines of grace and sovereignty? Because it means he has a purpose and we can trust this purpose.

It's something you can rest in. I need to be carried because I can't carry myself.

I could make an idol and carry that along and ask it to, you know, manipulate the powers like Nebo and Bell, but I need a

God who has a purpose and is in control because if I have that I have nothing to fear.

I don't I have no anxiety. I don't live my life with anxiety. I think largely because I have a really high view of God's sovereignty.

So I know that there's bad things happening and I'm aware just like you know, as much bad stuff happens to me as others, but I think one of the reasons that I've never struggled with anxiety is because of a high view of sovereignty, whatever he's doing.

There's a purpose in it that he's going to work and the more we set our eyes on that bullet that plan the counsel of his will.

We recognize yes, this is going to be painful when suffering comes.

It doesn't feel good, but God is in the suffering like Job says though he slay me yet.

Will I praise him? God will allow these painful things but God has a purpose in it.

Now if you say well God's not in that, you know, he's just allowing it but he can't stop it. It's free. Well, it's the natural course of things.

Wait a minute. The only thing you've lost in that exchange is purpose. The thing itself is still going to happen.

The predestined plan is still going to be worked out. You're not controlling anything.

All you're doing is taking away God's purpose in it. It's him that's allowing this that's decreed this to come this come about this way.

And so if he has a purpose then you can rest and that's what no other

God can deliver. The Christian God alone can deliver this all other gods need to be carried on donkeys, but our

God is carrying us. Amen. It's beautiful. It all comes together here and it's a shame that so many

Christians have never even read through Isaiah, but when you get into the 46 chapter and you're learning about his his counsel is his plan his purpose.

And then you think well, what is he what does he compare it to here verse 11 calling a bird of prey from the

East? Who's that? Yes, bad love.

Good job a bird of prey. That's not a very delightful thing to have you don't you want the turkey on your table at Thanksgiving dinner.

You don't want the vulture coming after you, right? Yeah. When you see one of those really big vultures circling you don't want to even lay down and play dead because it might think, you know, it might come get you.

I bring my little fluffy white dog inside when you see a bald eagle sitting on the tree looking at it.

I've done that before. It's like, oh, you might be looking for a snack Richard. Richard hungry today.

Yeah, so a bird of prey now, but the reason I stress that Babel is coming that's scary.

But what is he saying? I've decreed the man of my counsel remember in the previous verse my counsel shall stand fusions 111 all things according to the counsel of his will.

This is his decree. God has decreed that Babylon's coming 70 years, but it's all part of the plan.

In fact, that's how he knows it's exactly 70 years. He's decreed it not because that's as soon as he can get them out.

No, he's sending them there for 70 years because they neglected 70 Sabbath years.

They never let the land lay fallow. So he's going to give him 70 years of time out. There's all these purposes are being worked out.

He's sending the bird of prey Nebuchadnezzar and his commanders.

I have spoken and I will bring it to pass. Did it come to pass? Wow, do you realize where we sit in history at the end times?

How much we can remember of what God already said and did every prophecy of Messiah that's fulfilled in his first coming should make us look to a second coming and say, okay, he's coming riding on a horse with a sword from his mouth eyes blazing like fire his robe dipped in blood and on his side

King of Kings and Lord of Lords. It's coming. He's coming. We should have utmost confidence because he's fulfilled every promise.

He's ever spoken. I have spoken. I will bring it to pass. I have purpose.

I will do it. That's our God. Unlike the false gods of the nations verses 12 and 13.

Let's finish it. John you want to read that for us? Listen to me you stubborn of heart. And he's speaking to Israel.

He's speaking to us. We need to be reminded. Why did you have me read this? You are far from righteousness.

I bring near my righteousness. It is not far off and my salvation will not delay.

I will put Salvation in Zion from Israel. My glory. Wow. There's a whole magazine called

Israel. My glory. From friends of Israel friends of Israel and so his people the apple of his eye.

They're still in his plan. The remnant he spoke of earlier. Where was the remnant verse 3?

There is a chosen people within ethnic Israel that will always be believe believing and will be safe.

And in the end that remnant turns out to be ethnic Israel. They're a last generation revival among the

Jewish people. God will save but it's a promise for us too because we're grafted in and it says listen to me.

You stubborn of heart you who are far from righteous. You have nothing you you bring nothing to the table.

You cannot establish your own righteousness. This is all God carrying you not the other way around.

You don't carry God. You don't bring anything. I bring near my righteousness.

I bring my imputed righteousness from the King of Kings. It is not far off.

My salvation will not delay when you're elderly and you can no longer make it from your bed to the bathroom and someone must carry it's a scary thought.

It is he'll carry and he will carry you safely home from the womb to the tomb and then for all

Eternity. This is the true God and we haven't shouldn't we share him if we have this true

God that can carry you and all these people that are searching for someone to carry their burdens.

We know who can't and none of their idols can they'll look everywhere searching but never find we have the true

God. That's right. Thank Lord God. We do have the true God and it's this message where he called out to the nation of Israel.

Listen to me. Oh house of Jacob and then the promise I will put my salvation in Zion.

This is the God that we worship. We know that the promises that you have given to us are true.

We thank you Lord that we don't have to look to idols. We in fact can see the folly of idols.

We have Yahweh the God of all as our God. We say thank you in Jesus name.

Amen. We spoke about you earlier