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Isaiah 61
Lord, we are, we're excited to read your word and some of the blessings, as we know our hope is in you, knowing that because you have always been faithful, you will be faithful, and the messages that you have here from the book of Isaiah are for us.
We pray, Lord, for your Holy Spirit, in Jesus' name, amen.
Amen.
The content of Isaiah 61 is so important that John and I deliberately chose that I would teach the same material as he did last week.
Yes.
Well, this was planned because it's so important, right?
Being a strong Calvinist, this was all preordained.
It was preordained. So John taught through 61 when I was absent last week, but I read his notes and thought he only went through 61 .1, and now I'm doing 61 also, but we'll just spend more time in the chapter.
I don't think we've mastered it in one week, so to take another dive into 61 would be good, especially because it's so important as the first thing that Jesus reads. I wanted to begin by setting in context the view of justice that many in evangelicalism are promoting today.
I have a question for you. What is justice? That's a very big and important question in our day.
What is it?
What is justice?
The penalty for violating God's law.
Oh, okay.
That would be giving, in a negative sense, giving people what they.
Negative side of justice, yeah.
Right, what they deserve, right? Does the gospel depend on a clear definition of justice?
I would think so.
It does, yeah. In Romans chapter three, justice is set forth as a category,.
And it's exactly what Rich said.
It's giving people what they deserve, what they're owed, right? In the gospel, what is the difference between justice and grace? And this is so prominent in the book of Romans.
Justice is getting what we do deserve. Grace is getting what we don't deserve.
Grace is getting what we don't deserve. So to have a gospel, you have to have justice. How is God both just and the justifier of those who have faith in him? Jesus took over. Through the propitiation that Christ made on the cross.
You need to let somebody else answer.
Yeah.
Rich is like a, he's a biblical theology guy.
You're on a roll today.
I know that the reason that Rich wasn't at the men's Bible study, he missed it, and usually while I was playing golf, I was sleeping in. For Rich, I was so engrossed in systematic theology, reading thesis, that I forgot, I lost track of time,.
And I missed the Bible studies.
If you miss a Bible study because you're studying the Bible, that's a legitimate reason. No, but here's the point. Justice, as a category of thought, is giving people what they deserve, what they are owed.
It's just to give a criminal punishment, or it's just to give a worker what he's earned, the wages of his work, positively. Now, what about sin?
What would be the wages of sin?
Debt, that's justice. In the gospel, we have this merit-based view of justice, and it's very important. Would you mind sliding over, because you're having to lean to be seen. I keep feeling like, oh, so you can see me.
So justice is a very important concept to understand in order to grasp the gospel. Now, in evangelicalism today, there is a prominent teaching that justice is giving people what they need.
Social justice.
And that becomes social justice. Now, if somebody's poor, is it justice or compassion to give them of what you have?
Compassion.
In order for the gospel to be the gospel, justice and mercy have to be rightly defined. If you define mercy and compassion as justice, then God owes you something in salvation. My greatest need was to be forgiven of my sin and delivered from the death penalty that I deserve.
But in the gospel, God does not give me what I need because I'm owed it or deserve it, but because he's compassionate and merciful and abounding in loving kindness. So for grace to be grace, it has to be unmerited.
So this distinction is very important because nowadays people are teaching social justice and the definition is a very need-based definition. If you see your brother in need, justice demands that you give to him.
Now, here's where the scam happens. In order for me to be rightly justified with God and to walk righteously before God, one of the fruits of that righteousness is that I be compassionate. So in a vertical sense, being just does include compassion.
But in the horizontal,.
With regard to the neighbor who has a need, he has no demand on me, right? For me to give would be an act of compassion. It cannot be demanding. And that distinction becomes very important because social justice flips that on its head.
It would say that if you see a brother or a person in need, the Good Samaritan, you owe it to them to meet that need rather than it being an act of compassion and grace to do that, which you do vertically because you're right with God, but it's not demanding.
So Isaiah 61. It becomes one of the passages that is used to justify socialism.
If you look at verse eight,.
For I, the Lord, love justice. I hate robbery and wrong. And when we get there, I'm gonna show you that in fact, socialism is robbery.
It's what the Lord hates.
It's unjust because it's forcibly using the hand of government to extract from people what doesn't belong to the government for the purpose of redistributing to others. It's the opposite of compassion and grace from a heart reconciled to God.
It is theft. We'll get to that. So I open with that concept.
It's just difficult because the government takes our taxes to redistribute our wealth and we have no choice in that regard.
Exactly.
That's the point. It becomes theft at a certain point, but what is that point? Well, that would be determined by the role of government. What is the role of government? Well, we find that from 1 Peter 2, from Romans 13, and from other passages in the Old Testament, the government actually is to bear the sword.
And punish wrongdoing.
They're to be the law. They're to uphold the law. They're not to be the nanny state. They're not to be a redistributor of wealth, but our government actually is almost 50 socialistic. So many government programs are unbiblical.
They're doing what the church ought to be doing,.
What individuals ought to be doing,.
And in fact, it's unjust when they redistribute wealth.
That way. So, yeah.
Jeff, to that point, I think what happened is is that they have marginalized the word justice and fairness.
And fairness has overtaken this whole idea of what justice is.
100%.
And it becomes very ambiguous at that point.
Yeah, and what does equity mean in our culture? It means the outcome, the equality of outcome. So, if there are disparities between amount of wealth or income, that's considered inequity, and they're calling that injustice.
But there's no injustice in the God who gives and makes Job wealthy and another man poor, like poor Lazarus, and then flips that around and gives Lazarus the riches in heaven. It's God who determines what people have,.
And he is just in doing that.
Just two things.
One, I learned a while back about justification is a play on the word justify. It's just as if I never sinned.
Okay.
And the other one, and I'm sure I've said it to people here, but people ask me how I am, and I say I'm better than I deserve.
I stole it from David Rames. That has opened up an awful lot of evangelical opportunities for me. What do you mean by that? Well, it's in the Bible.
Yep, and that is a great one. I love that expression. I use it as well. Better than I deserve. Say it all the time because it opens the conversation.
To what does that mean?
Well, I deserve the wrath of God. Justification, always remember justification is a legal forensic term. It is a declaration of righteousness that a judge issues. It's not a matter of how well you're doing at being righteous.
It's a declaring of God, innocent, righteous, over the person because of the merits of another. It's a foreign right, and that's actually important because it comes into play in verse 10 and 11 with this imputed righteousness.
All right, so let's get into it. Isaiah 61. You'll recognize the verses because Jesus opens his ministry in his hometown by reading this passage. So why don't you start? Isaiah 61, one to three, Rich.
One to three.
The spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor. He has sent me to heal the broken heart, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord and the day of vengeance of our God, as Jesus taught before that, to comfort all who mourn, to console those who mourn in Zion, to give them beauty for ashes and the oil of joy for mourning.
The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, that they may be called trees of righteousness, complaining to the Lord that he may be glorified.
Very good, thank you.
What translation was that?
That was the, this is the New King James.
The first thing I want you to notice is that the three members of the Trinity appear at the start of this verse. The spirit of the Lord God, that's the Father, is upon me. Now, the original reader of this would probably take this as Isaiah speaking.
As the prophet for God.
Turn back with me to Isaiah chapter 48, verse 16. Remember what we said there? That very often Isaiah speaks as a prophet in the near sense, but for God and picturing the voice of the Son of God. In fact, Israel as a nation and the Messiah who comes from Israel are often conflated in the way that Isaiah speaks of Israel.
He begins to speak of Israel, but Christ becomes the fulfillment of Israel. Because the reason that Israel was created in Genesis 12, one to three, was to mediate blessing to the world. But as a nation, they constantly fail.
And so the Messiah will come and fulfill the role of Israel. He becomes the true Israel, the mediator of blessing to the world. So back with me in Isaiah 48, verse 16. It says, draw near to me, hear this.
From the beginning, I have not spoken in secret and from the time it came to be, I have been there. And now the Lord God has sent me and his Spirit. There's a Trinitarian reference there where Isaiah is speaking, and yet he is standing in the place of, as a placeholder, foreseeing the speech of Christ.
So you have Father, Son, and Spirit. The Father sending the Son, and then of course we know that the Spirit also proceeds from the Father and the Son. The filioque, remember that? In the 10 hundreds, the church split between East and West over whether it was just the Father that sent the Spirit or the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son.
In either case, the point is, the Spirit proceeds from the Father and from the Son. This verse says, now the Lord has sent me and his Spirit. It's a Trinitarian reference. It's veiled, the first reader of it is not seeing the fullness of it, but from the New Testament light, we're able to see that Isaiah is speaking prophetically of the Son.
Same thing in verse one of Isaiah 61. The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me. Now this of course is so significant because in the New Testament, after Jesus has been out in the wilderness and he's been tempted for 40 days and angels ministered to him, angel food cake.
He comes back and he goes to his hometown of Nazareth and he goes right into the synagogue and he stands up and they bring him the great Isaiah scroll. It might be the same one that was discovered in 1948, the great Isaiah scroll that was discovered in the caves of Qumran, intact, yeah.
By Muhammad Ali, the little boy who threw a rock into the, that was his name. Anyway, he opens the great Isaiah scroll and he begins to read the Spirit of the Lord is upon me and he will say, today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.
Jesus says that he's the me.
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me.
Because the Lord has anointed me, of course, what is anointed? Mashiach, Messiah, he has anointed me. This of course is the verbal form, what?
The rule of Kakadosh in Holy Spirit.
You would know that, see, that's why you've been studying. To bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives. What do you see in common among those listed in this verse?
Poor, brokenhearted, captive, imprisoned. And some translations, the Septuagint has there the recovery of sight to the blind as opposed to the delivery from captivity. But in all cases, the blind, the deaf, it's those who are suffering and humbled and meek and here comes a deliverer who is gracious and kind and meets their need.
To proclaim the year of the Lord's faith. It is the kindness of God manifested in the coming of Messiah.
So it's interesting that money is not mentioned here.
Giving. Right.
In that way.
You're ahead of me, but that's exactly right. What kind of healing is he bringing? At times physical, because he won't touch the blind and he will give them. But he doesn't heal every leper and every blind man and every deaf man.
But he does provide salvation for all. The year of the Lord's favor is first of all a spiritual healing. But it is a kindness. It is a kindness. Now Rich, you couldn't help yourself. You were reading and you made a comment which was my next point and I love it.
And that is, this is important. As Jesus reads this in Luke chapter four, he stops at the first part of verse two after that word favor.
The F through 19.
What's that?
Luke four, 18, 19.
Correct.
F through 19. Halfway through verse 19 of Luke and here in Isaiah 61 at verse two, after that first phrase, Jesus stops. Rich, you are not allowed to answer because we know you know it.
Why did Jesus stop there?
Why would Jesus stop after, proclaim the year of the Lord's favor and not go on to say, and the day of vengeance?
Because at this point, his first coming, he's come as a servant. A servant and to take on the sin of man. Later he'll come back.
Right.
Second coming.
It is a division between the first and second advent.
Absolutely.
Yes, and that's the clear reason why he did that. Isn't it amazing how the word of God fits together? That he would stop right there. Now the reader in Isaiah, of course, doesn't have that, the mountain peaks.
And understand that the distance in time between first and second advent, they're collapsed together, just like in Daniel nine. But in the New Testament, we have that light and that's the reason for him stopping there.
In his first advent, he comes in favor to atone for the sins of all who would believe in him. Isn't that amazing? And then the second part, we'll get to. So Jesus stops, he introduces himself and he stops after the word favor.
So let's keep reading then what is coming at the second advent. And the day of vengeance of our God. Why would you have comfort in the midst of a day of vengeance? The day of vengeance is the day of the Lord, so often spoken of by Isaiah chapter 34.
Throughout all of the Old Testament, it's really the tribulation. It's a period of wrath.
Why comfort? Where's the comfort in that?
For those who realize they're worthy of God's own and repentant.
And specifically, who is Isaiah's audience?
Israel. Israel.
Israel, Israel. The last seven years, the day of God's vengeance is especially with reference to Israel. Of the 144 ,000 that are listed and marked and kept during the tribulation, how many of them are Jews?
All of them.
12 ,000 from each of the 12 tribes, regathered. So if you take that literally, we're not talking about the church, we're talking about ethnic Israel, even down to the very tribe. And the two witnesses are Jewish.
Why would that be?
Well, there is a gap between Daniel 69th and 70th week. We've talked about this. But in the last seven years, there is a comforting of those who mourn. What does that mean? It means they look upon him whom they pierce.
And they mourn for him.
It means there was a hardening in part for a time till the fullness of the Gentiles come in,.
But in the end, they will be saved. All Israel.
All Israel will be saved. Israel is the point. So this is Romans chapter 11. What you have here is a day of vengeance, but it is a comforting to all who mourn. Will there be anybody saved during the tribulation?
There are tribulation saints spoken of during the last seven years. They're called the tribulation saints. And there's a distinction there between that and the church age, but all people of God belong to the same family of God.
And in eternity, we'll all be together. It's just God deals differently according to different time periods as he brings his whole plan together. So there's not an absolute distinction between God's people.
We're all God's children who will belong to him, but there's a difference between a tribulation saint and a member of the church. So it says, and the day of vengeance of our God to comfort all who mourn, to grant to those who mourn in Zion.
This is something that never described Israel because Israel was always a rebellious people,.
Even from when they were brought out of captivity.
For 40 years, they fell in the wilderness. And then even coming into the promised land, they became disobedient and right away erred. And they had wicked kings and they were disciplined. They were never fulfilling their potential, if you will.
Right?
But there's coming a day, and this is the beautiful picture, to grant to those who mourn in Zion, to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes. What should our perspective be towards Israel? The world hates Israel.
God's not done with them yet. There is chosen people and they still have a purpose on the earth.
We should love them.
Yep.
And yet antisemitism is the worst hatred in the history of the world. I mean, you think of the book of Esther and what Haman wanted to do to exterminate the Jews. It's always the case. And throughout history, it's common in our day as well.
It seems to be rising again. And it will rise.
But in the end, God wins.
The oil of gladness instead of mourning. The garment of praise instead of a faint spirit, that they may be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified. Now, in Luke chapter four, when Jesus comes to Nazareth, would somebody read for me Luke four, 16 to 17 out of your notes?
And he came in Nazareth where he had been brought up. And as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day and he stood up to read. And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him.
He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written.
And of course, he quotes now from Isaiah 61. Do you think that that was one of the random, let me just let the Bible fall open wherever it may.
I have heard that it's planned out each year what the readings are gonna be.
And that certain families were supposed to read certain weeks in the synagogue. This happened to be a week that Jesus' family was supposed to be the ones doing the reading. And that was the prescribed reading for that week.
That's what I've heard.
I have heard that as well. Now, is that view incompatible with Luke 4, 16 and 17? He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written.
It's not incompatible.
The providence of God in his timing. And yet Jesus needed that place because he wanted to begin his ministry by proclaiming himself to be the me of Isaiah 61. It all comes together in that moment is the idea.
He finds the place and he reads this and what is he saying? When he says the spirit of the Lord God is upon me.
He's the anointed.
He's the Messiah.
The Lord has anointed me. I'm the Messiah.
So how does Nazareth respond to their own prophet?
There's no fury after me.
People were furious.
They were furious. And where does he end up?
The prophet is on the cross.
Well, on the cross, ultimately.
Call them a blasphemer.
Isn't that where they ushered him to the cliff to throw him over?
Yeah, right.
And he disappeared from their midst. The contempt of familiarity. Yeah, he wasn't welcome. So he proclaims himself and yet he is there to bless. He has healing for the brokenhearted.
Liberty for the captive.
The opening of the prison. It is the year of the Lord's favor. Okay, four through nine, Israel was to mediate blessing to the world, right? Genesis 12, that was their creation mandate. When Abraham was called, it was to be a blessing.
That those who bless you will be blessed and those who curse you will be cursed. And Israel then is the mediator of blessing to the world. So let's read four through nine and I want you to see this as a beautiful picture of Israel mediating blessing to the world.
Christ does that in his flesh, but the nation also comes back around.
And notice here, this is national Israel.
Oh yeah, sorry, I thought you were gonna say, but would you wanna do the reading?
Sure.
All right, so four through nine.
They shall build up the ancient ruins. They shall raise up the former devastations. They shall repair the ruined cities, the devastations of many generations. Strangers shall stand and tend your flocks.
Foreigners shall be your plowmen and vinedressers. But you shall be called the priests of the Lord. They shall speak of you as the ministers of our God. You shall eat the wealth of the nations and in their glory you shall boast.
Instead of your shame, there shall be a double portion. Instead of dishonor, they shall rejoice in their lot. Therefore, in their land, they shall possess a double portion. They shall have everlasting joy.
For I, the Lord, love justice. I hate robbery and wrong. I will faithfully give them their recompense and I will make an everlasting covenant with them. Their offspring shall be known among the nations and their descendants in the midst of the peoples.
All who see them shall acknowledge them that they are an offspring the Lord has blessed.
All right, in Exodus 19 .6, just before Exodus 20, when Moses gets the Ten Commandments, it says, and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel.
Israel was constantly unfaithful and it looks like this promise would never happen. But here in verses five through nine, we picture Israel in the millennium where they finally are. Is that how you taught it last week?
Good, I wanted to make sure. Because in Christ, we have those blessings, right? In a spiritual sense, in Christ, the church fulfills those blessings,.
But does that mean that there's not still.
A plan for ethnic Israel to be in the promised land, regather, what did the nation of Israel look like at the end of the tribulation, remember? At the end of the book of Revelation, essentially. How's it look?
Ruined, right? You have, the nations have stormed to destroy, the remnant has fled to the mountains, they're being, Jerusalem is laid ruins. Even babies are cast to the stones. There's hailstones falling from heaven.
The world is wrecked.
What does it say in verse five? Strangers shall stand and tend your flocks. Foreigners shall be your plowmen and bind dressers. But you, I'm sorry, I wanted to say verse four. That was the rebuilding I meant to mention.
Verse four, they shall build up the ancient ruins. They shall raise up the former devastations. They shall repair the ruined cities, the devastations of many generations. Yes, that refers to the rebuilding of Jerusalem after Babylon wrecks it, right?
They go into captivity, they come back. As a near fulfillment of this prophecy, you have Israel rebuilt, but then it'll get destroyed again.
In 70 AD.
Well, there's an interesting comparison between the two narratives. They come back out of captivity under Ezra to rebuild the temple, and they are opposed by the people. In fact, there are letters written, okay?
False claims, et cetera. Then under Nehemiah, they come back, and again, they are opposed, all right? They're trying to rebuild the ruins, they're trying to rebuild the cities. Where it changes is in verse five, because in the time of Ezra and Nehemiah, it would say, and strangers shall stand against you.
And here it says, they shall tend your flocks. And in Nehemiah and Ezra, they will make false claims against you, they will claim that you are standing in opposition to the governors and the kings, but here it says, you're gonna be called priests of the Lord.
So, we were at the end of 2 Peter yesterday, last night, and it's the scoffers who are saying, you keep saying the Lord's coming, but he isn't coming, so they scoff, they scoff, they scoff. And I can imagine for Israel, eventually, because this is written a month before that happens, the scoffers, and the scoffers are still there, but this, you have to believe that because God said it, this is going to happen, and it hasn't happened yet.
But it is going to happen.
I could take or leave the title dispensationalist, right? It's just a theological term, but here's what I can't leave, my hermeneutic. My hermeneutic says, I need a literal fulfillment of what God literally said.
And I care about the specifics of these words, right? So, in verse five, when it says, strangers shall stand and tend your flocks, and we say, that's not how it happened in the rebuilding.
That matters.
All of God's promises are yes and amen. Every small thing he ever said will come to pass. So, when it doesn't line up with history, what's the answer?
It's the millennium.
It hasn't been fulfilled yet.
It hasn't been fulfilled yet, but it will.
Everything he said will come to pass, down to the smallest detail, just like John is saying. We're saying the exact same thing. This isn't fully fulfilled in the rebuilding. It will be in the millennium.
The millennium is the answer here. So, in verse five, strangers shall stand and tend your flocks. Foreigners shall be your plowmen and vine dressers. But you shall be called the priests of the Lord. That's Exodus 19 .6.
Israel will be the mediating nation on earth.
During the millennium.
And they, which are the nations, shall speak of you as ministers of our God. There's no scoffing.
That's right. Israel will be there in Jerusalem. Where do you guys think we'll be during the millennium?
Where do you think you'll be?
We'll be ruling with Jesus.
Where do you think, Rick?
You guys think you'll be? I actually think in the millennium, we reign with him here as his vice regents on earth. That's what Paul says to Timothy. And it's with him, of course. But it says if we endure, we will reign with him.
Right? So if we remain faithful, he remains faithful. He cannot disown himself. The idea of reigning with him, that we're a kingdom of priests, I think we're over the Gentile nations. My hope is that I'll have some station either in Mount Laurel, or better yet, in Tampa, Florida.
That's where I was born, in Seattle. Maybe I'll be back out there. Even Seattle will be righteous at that.
I know that's impossible.
No, no, no. I got you a question. Will there be hurricanes during the millennial kingdom?
Probably not.
I don't know.
Do you think there will be?
I don't.
Yeah, I know, because it's part of the curse.
It's part of the curse?
Yeah, of course. The lions laying down with the lamb?
There you go.
Yeah, and there's not, yeah, that's part of the curse. The groaning of the earth of Romans 8 until his revealing of the sons of God.
Bob, yeah.
Reference to, we just read it, that they will be called.
Where did that go?
Oh, all who see them will acknowledge that they are people the Lord has blessed.
There's nothing sweeter than being accused of being a Christian.
Wow, amen.
And it happened to me delightfully at work once. I turned and said, oh, Bob's one of those Jesus people. And it was meant as a slur, but it filled my heart. Just the fact that I was doing something right that people acknowledged.
Acknowledged that. And it didn't happen very often, but.
Beautiful.
So just staying on this rabbit trail for just one more point. In the millennial kingdom, we will already be glorified.
Do you realize that? Because when we're called up to meet in the air, we are changed in an instant, twinkling of an eye, and we're made like him.
We have our glorified bodies.
We cannot sin. We don't even have an inclination to sin. But the people who had survived the tribulation, especially the children that weren't part of that rebellion, we had this conversation amongst the elders, will everybody go up to oppose the Messiah?
During the tribulation. I don't think so, because in Zechariah 14, it says the survivors of the nations. I think children, like babies, anybody that was young and wasn't able to go and fight against Messiah,.
They come right into the millennium.
They're not necessarily saved yet. And that's why you'll see at the end of the millennium,.
A final rebellion.
It's these people who have grown up and had children of their own. Some of them will get saved during the millennium, I think.
There'll be salvation. But they have to come to genuine safe and faith. The nations will be kept at peace by the rod of the Lord and by his vice regents keeping the peace for 1 ,000 years.
Isaiah 54 is a powerful picture.
Yes, Isaiah 54.
Opposition with peace.
Opposition with peace, yeah. So I think that's what happens during the millennium. And Israel, national Israel, ethnic Israel, is in the promised land, fulfilling all the promises.
And the Gentiles are grafted in.
We're part of this kingdom. It's not like we're just set aside. We're grafted in as part of it. So anyway, that's where we are. In verse seven, you have Israel in view. Instead of your shame, there shall be a double portion.
Instead of dishonor, hatred among the nations, they shall rejoice in their lot.
Therefore, in their land,.
This is why I'm being very literal, right?
Because I take land to mean land.
It's not just a spiritual beulah land, right? This is Israel in Israel, in their land. They shall possess a double portion. They shall have everlasting joy. So when it comes to verse eight, now we'll talk for just a minute about this justice issue.
People love to use this as justification for Marxism, redistribution of wealth, right? He's saying here, I, the Lord, love justice. When will justice be done in the earth?
When Jesus comes.
When Christ comes in the millennium. Do you realize that of the hundreds of murders, I used to follow the murders when I was a missionary in Kensington. And we were always hoping that it'd be less than the number of days of the year.
So less than 365 per year would be a good year in Philadelphia. Of those murders, how many of them are solved? Less than half. They don't even know who did the others, right? There's not justice in this earth.
There isn't, but how is it that God is still a just God? Does he not love justice? We always have to keep our mind set on final justice.
Right, because time's not over yet.
Time's not over. God will be vindicated and he will vindicate his justice.
This cannot be used as a support for equity because, in verse seven, therefore in their land they shall possess a double portion. This goes back.
That's not fair.
But it is.
It is.
It goes back to Deuteronomy 21.
We know the firstborn gets double portion. And Israel is God's first chosen people. They get double portion.
That's good.
So there is no. Thank you.
To the Jew first, also to the Greek.
Isn't that unfair that won't we in heaven all have equal glory and all have equal joy?
So for the crowns.
I would say no.
We'd get it back to him.
Why would we?
This whole concept that everything has to be equal between people is not God's economy. He can bless and give more. In fact, some people I think will be more radiant than others in heaven.
Because he talks about rewards in heaven, doesn't he? I think that reward. Jonathan Edwards wrote a lot about this. I think it's capacity for joy.
I think we grow even in our joy in heaven.
And Edwards talks about this ever-increasing joy as we come to appreciate more and more the knowledge of him. Because he's infinite. It's an infinite ocean. And we're constantly increasing. And some might have a greater capacity and might be a little bit more bright than others,.
But there won't be any jealousy of that one.
We'll delight in that person's favor before God. And even in this earth, it's the same way. People are not equal. God gives and he takes away.
Blessed be the name of the Lord. We need to have a view with God being.
The center of the universe. He can give and he can take away. He can make one man rich and another man poor. He can strike me with cancer tomorrow and be just as loving towards me as he is right now. He has the right to dispose of us, doesn't he?
We don't have the right to tell the potter what to do with the clay. And that's this world's problem.
They don't believe in a God who's sovereign to do what he wants.
And so they try to flatten everything out and make everything equal as if that's their God. Equality and equity. So anyway, but what the Lord actually hates in verse eight is what? Robbery and wrong. Does he hate man stealing?
Slavery?
He hates it with a passion. God hates man stealing. Does God hate forcible redistribution of wealth? He hates it with a passion. That's why so many people die under Marxism. It's not just because it's a bad idea.
Like, well, capitalism works better. No, it's evil to redistribute wealth, to forcibly take from one and give to another.
That's evil, it's robbery. It's the government doing it.
The strong sword being used against people rather than to punish evil. It's robbery and it's wrong and the Lord hates it. It's not justice. So we need to keep that straight because we're gonna be fighting this battle for years to come.
The more socialist our country becomes, the stronger we'll have to fight against that evil because the government is the most powerful evil.
In the world.
It was Francis Schaeffer who said, if you don't worship a God over government, you will worship government. Think about that.
22 years ago.
Why did he say that? Because if you don't have a God over government, the highest authority in the world is government and it will take more and more power and receive more and more worship from man who will want them to do everything, to be that name state, to be the one that punishes and does whatever the authoritarian government wants them to do.
So people are more than happy to force you to take an injection into your arm. Government needs to protect us. Instead of the biblical view, which is individual rights, which come from the Bible.
You're made in the image of God.
God has stewardship over these things. So people will elevate government to the place of God and that's what we'll be fighting. And that's injustice. It's not justice, but they'll call it justice. Remember Isaiah 520?
They'll call good, evil and evil good. Up, down, down, up. Bittersweet, sweet, bitter. They're gonna call justice what is actually the opposite. It's robbery and wrong. I will faithfully give them their recompense.
What is justice? Recompense.
Giving people what they deserve.
Well, did God give me what I deserve?
In Christ, he punished my sin in Christ and gave me Christ's righteousness. And so he's just and the justifier.
Of the one who has faith in him. He is just.
Justice is recompense. It's giving people what they are owed, what they deserve. It's not giving them what they need. Adolf Hitler, right before he shot himself in the head, needed forgiveness. He needed a redo on life.
But God did not choose to do that. He gave him what he deserved and now is suffering eternal hell.
He's just in doing that.
That's justice. Mercy cannot be demanded, but somehow he gives it to us. Wow, that the objects of mercy also see the objects of his wrath, prepared for ignoble purposes, only helps us appreciate his mercy all the more.
Because but for the grace of God, there go I, right? I will faithfully give them their recompense and I will make an everlasting covenant with them. Their offspring shall be known among the nations and their descendants in the midst of the peoples.
All who see them shall acknowledge them, that they are an offspring the Lord has blessed. And you should bless Israel, as America has done for years until recently, this new administration. You bless Israel, you'll be blessed.
You curse Israel, you'll be cursed. There'll come a day where all the nations will bless Israel, because the king is there, Messiah. Lastly, I said that verses 10 and 11 have imputed righteousness. What is imputed righteousness?
It is a foreign righteousness, an alien righteousness that's not from within you. It's alien to you, credited to you. And here it's pictured this way. I will greatly rejoice in the Lord. My soul shall exult in my God.
You know why we love him so much and we exult and rejoice so much? For he has clothed me with the garments of salvation. He, from outside of me, came and saved me and clothed me, just like Adam and Eve in the garden, clothed with those animal skins.
We're clothed in a righteousness not our own. It's the precious blood of Christ that washes us. He's covered me with the robe of righteousness. It's an imputation of righteousness. Imputation, that means you're credited, reckoned with a righteousness that's not you.
It's not coming from within. It's foreign, it's alien. It's like being clothed with a robe. It comes from him to you. As a bridegroom decks himself like a priest with a beautiful headdress, he's putting his beautiful headdress in and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.
Of course, this is a picture of the people of God in the feminine with Christ as the masculine. He's the one who's doing this for her and for all of us as a body. By the way, I'll just say quickly, because this really bothers me.
Individual believers are not pictured as the bride. It's the corporate body of Christ. I've seen so many Christians, especially in charismatic circles, write about Jesus as their lover, Jesus as their groom, and picturing themselves in the feminine.
That's not ever done at the individual level. That's pictured as the church as the bride, as Israel as the wife in Hosea, right? It's not an individual thing. It becomes odd. Ann Voskamp and some of these, Christine Kane, they have a very mystical view and it gets really weird the way they describe it.
Look at the corporate view of the church in the feminine, not as individual believers. We're made individually as man and woman. He created them, male and female, so keep those distinctions. Otherwise, you get into that weird stuff.
And as a bride adorns herself with jewels, for as the earth brings forth its sprouts and as a garden causes what is sown in it to sprout up, so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to sprout up before all the nations.
Well, I hope I taught that the way you did and I think we did. Teach it the same.
Yeah, absolutely.
It's the millennium. It's when Israel is fulfilling her role, all the nations grafted in, worshiping and praising God. And then ultimately, it's a new heavens and a new earth where we do this forever.
Absolutely, absolutely.
With ever-increasing joy. John, would you close with some prayer?
Lord, we live with the hope and the reality that your promises are yes and yes. Your plan is to care for your chosen people. Israel, we know the tribulation, the difficulties of that time, but coming out of it, the second coming of the Lord, establishing of the millennial kingdom here on earth.
Lord, we rejoice that when things are made right according to your will, according to your plan, even the nations will speak of Israel as ministers of God. The scoffers will be gone. We know that at the end you win.
And it says here, so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to sprout up before all the nations come quickly, Lord Jesus, amen.
Amen. Amen.
