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Isaiah 60
When God was initially approaching Abram, living in the land of Ur, the Chaldees, and he gave him his first marching orders, and it was to go to a land that I will show you, and reading in Genesis 12, 1 -3, go forth from your country and your relatives and your father's house to the land which I will show you.
And then there's these promises, these I will promises. I will make you a great nation, I will bless you, make your name great and so you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and the ones who curse you, I will curse.
And all the families of the earth through you will be blessed. These are promises that were given to Abram, this is God's first covenant, the Abram covenant. It does not go away, God's covenants are true and forever, yea and forever.
Conditional and permanent.
Now we are living in a new covenant right now through the blood of Christ. That being said, we know through the Old Testament the history of the nation of Israel, and when you get into Deuteronomy you have the blessings and the curses.
If you don't listen, you will be cursed. So the nation of Israel experienced a significant change of being under God's, the Kadesh Barnea when the spies came back and said, it's a great land, but they're too big.
That's my parable.
God was dissatisfied. Or when Moses spent so much time up on the mountain that the people got antsy and they had Aaron make them golden calves.
This calf came out. We threw the gold in and this calf came out.
Yea, there you go, all of these things. Where we have been and where we're going to continue today is the realization that God's promises are eternal. Now God's wrath does punish sin, God's dissatisfaction.
We saw that in the beginning of Isaiah where he said, your empty festivals and sacrifices, I have grown weary of them. That's a slight paraphrase. Then he even says, even when you pray, I'm not going to listen because what was missing was their hearts.
So the reality that Israel was going to be punished, they were going to go into captivity, is all true. The promise of God's blessings do not stop just because of that. We got partway through chapter 60 last week.
We're talking about the Millennial Kingdom, things that are in the Millennial Kingdom because there's such beautiful, beautiful prophecies and such a great hope. Today we're going to finish 60 going to 61.
What happens because of God's blessings that are promised? These are, again, our hope. I find it fascinating because, Pastor Jeff, this has been a theme of his of late, the Millennial Kingdom, the promises that are to come.
In my care group, that's where we've been in 1 Peter, the blessings that are to come, and here we are in Isaiah. God, for some reason, is making this a significant point about the season. I would love to have somebody tell me for sure what soon means.
Well, we are, and in fact we're 10 minutes closer than we were when we got started.
But what does closer mean? If you read it in 2 Peter, it was imminent. He's coming soon. That was way back in the first century. It's in God's timing, guys. It's in God's timing that these promises are assured.
Let's pray.
Father, as we look into the Scriptures here in Isaiah, the blessings that are promised, what that actually is going to look like. What are some of the manifestations of your blessings here in your creation amongst your nations and your people?
Pray that you would speak through me. Give me the words that you would want me to say. Pray that you prepare all of our hearts so that we would hear in Jesus' name.
Amen.
Okay, 60 verses 15 to 22. God's presence is assured. There is, in 1 Peter, where we were last night, he was talking about, I want to stir up to you your sincere mind. When he's talking about that, and I think Rich's version said the true mind, the true thoughts, pure mind.
I want to stir that up because there are scoffers. They're saying, you keep saying it's going to happen and it hasn't happened. And they were scoffers. I will tell you by the assurity of Scripture that the scoffers are wrong and that we have the assurance of God's presence and the blessings that we'll have, what we will experience at God's presence.
Rich giving in chapter 60 verses, excuse me, 15 to the end of chapter 60.
Whereas you have been forsaken and hated so that no one went through you, I will make you an eternal excellence, a joy of many generations. You shall drink the milk of the Gentiles and the milk of the beast of kings.
You shall know that I, the Lord, am your savior and your redeemer, the mighty one of Jacob. Instead of bronze, I will bring gold. Instead of iron, I will bring silver. Instead of wood, bronze. And instead of stones, iron.
I will also make your offices peace and your magistrates righteousness. Violence shall no longer be heard in your land, neither wasting nor destruction within your borders. But you shall call your walls salvation and your gates praise.
The sun shall no longer be your light by day, nor your brightness shall the moon give you by night. But the Lord will be to you an everlasting light and your God, your glory. Your sun shall no longer go down, nor shall your moon withdraw itself.
For the Lord will be your everlasting light, and the days of your mourning shall be ended. Also, your people shall all be righteous. They shall inherit the land forever, the branch of my planting, the work of my hands, that I may glorify.
A little one shall become a thousand, a small one a strong nation. I, the Lord, will hasten it in its time.
Let's unpack this a little bit at a time because there's so many. First of all, as you read this little section here, these eight verses, I will, I will, I am, are just powerfully throughout this thing.
How long is swiftly to the Lord?
I'm sorry?
How long is swiftly to the Lord? He says, I'm going to do this swiftly, and here we are a thousand years later, two thousand years later.
I think that what we don't understand, first of all, is God's timing, but I will say this also, that once He makes a decision it's going to happen, He's not going to be in a protracted negotiation with somebody, and He's not going to have to stand up in opposition because somebody is opposing Him.
Once He makes a decision that it's time, it's happening.
And you know, I talked to you about this last week. We don't really, we aren't able to really understand eternity, how long that really is. We say the word, we know it's forever, but what is that? You know, I mean, we can't picture, or I can't picture it anyway.
Plus a thousand years.
It's beyond our ability.
It is beyond our ability.
Go ahead.
A thousand years are as a day unto the Lord.
Okay, and that throws the hyperbole of how is time measured. For God, we don't know. I'm going to not spend a lot of time, but I will say this. How would you describe God to somebody?
Okay.
We describe God to somebody because He is totally incomprehensible to us, beyond our imagination, by using terms that we can't understand, and we call them attributes. So we describe God as, well, God is love.
Because we can resonate with the concept of what love is, but that's, you know, or we say that God is omniscient. We throw these attributes because we can use communication, we can use words, we can use thoughts to try to establish a picture of what God must be.
But they're so incomplete. They're so incomplete.
We do not know the love. Like you said, we know love, but His love, His total love is hard for us to understand.
So you can look at it one way, and you can say eternity with nothing but worshiping God. Well, I don't know if that's all we're going to be doing, because it does sound like there's going to be participation that we're going to be doing things.
But let me put it this way. Instead of thinking, wow, what am I going to do for eternity? I look at it this way. I only have one eternity to learn all there is about God. I feel like a day one. It really will.
Yeah, I have one eternity. All right, here's some of the things that he has to say here. You were forsaken. Now this is a statement of fact. Again, he's written this to the Jews in the time of Isaiah.
They have had times where they have gone under the thumb of other nations. They have time where they have felt abandoned by God because of their sin. You have been forsaken and hated. I will make you majestic forever.
There are some from-tos in this passage. And one is going to be, because of your inadequacies and your sins, you've been punished. In fact, I said I won't even listen to your prayers anymore. But I will make you majestic forever.
Isaiah 60, verse 1 says, Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. What a great verse. This is a promise to the nation. And what he's going to get in here now is that God's presence is going to be with them.
And because His presence is going to be with them, it was, it is. It was, it is. It was, you were being punished. You were being forsaken. It is, you are going to be majestic forever. And it's not by their doing.
It's by God's doing. It says that you will know, at the end of verse 16, you will know that I am the Lord, your Savior. There is, again, an amazing from, too. You have a perception, maybe, of who I am, or maybe you've tried to establish who you think I should be.
But not only is there going to be an understanding of who I am, but the word here, know, has depth, a part of, I am not a linguist. The little bit I remember about the Spanish that I study is that there are two words for know.
Conocer, saber. Saber means I know that this is a pen. I can tell you that if I push this button, that ends good. I can tell you the information about saber. I have intellectual knowledge of something.
But conocer means I know my brother Rich. There's a depth of relationship.
Intimacy.
Intimacy is a great word for it. Intimacy is a great word for it. Because my relationship with him has changed my life. And intimacy. And it says here, you will know that I am the Lord, your Savior. You know, it says in James, Satan believes.
Yeah.
And trumbles. Because he doesn't know him as Savior. It says you will know. So we're going to go from having a, perhaps, a peripheral knowledge of God to actually knowing God.
It reminds me of when Adam knew Eve.
Yes.
They became one flesh. When we know God, we become that intimate with him.
He possesses our souls.
That's a beautiful picture. That he has even allowed the intimate act of marital sex to help us understand having a depth of knowledge of God. Intimacy with God. Thank you for that. It's going to talk about the violence that you had.
And there will no longer be violence in your land, in verse 18. What have they experienced ever since they've been in the promised land?
Conflict.
Part of it has to do, what were they supposed to do when they got into the land?
Totally destroy the people that were there.
Which they didn't.
No.
Which they didn't. And so that has resulted in difficulty and temptations, trials, and a lot of violence. And this picture that says there will be a time where there will be no more violence in your land.
And I go back to my understanding of the Millennial Kingdom. There will be non-believers who are born in there. And we've already seen that they're going to be wanting to rise up against you, but I'm not going to let it happen.
There will be no more violence in your land. In verses 19 and 20, I had to spend a lot of time on these two verses, because it says, I will be your everlasting light. No more will be the brightness of the sun and the brightness of the moon.
No more, I will be your everlasting light. Now we know, scripturally, when does that actually occur?
During the millennium. New birth.
No, it doesn't. It happens in the New Jerusalem. It happens in the New Jerusalem. That's when that actually happens.
Did you ever hear the song, the New Jerusalem?
I have not.
Jerusalem, Jerusalem.
Oh, that I've heard, yes.
So that's the line in there, there'll be no light. No light. It's a beautiful song. There will be no more violence.
No more will your moon withdraw itself. The Lord will be your everlasting light. Now, taking an application to this, because this is actually a passage about the millennial kingdom. How on earth can this apply to the millennial kingdom?
And so I've actually spent a lot of time on this, because the sun is not going away in the millennial kingdom. The moon, the stars, they will still be there, and they will still be providing light by day, light by night, all that kind of stuff.
But here's the front, too, on this one, as best I can figure out. Instead of believing that you can perceive spiritual truth, Jesus God will be your spiritual light. And there will never be darkness into your understanding, because he is going to.
Give you the true light.
We know in 1 John, the reality of what true light is. There will never be a time for you where you will draw in a spiritual darkness. Opposition, forgetting God, that's not going to happen. You will now reside purely in his pure light, intimately in his pure light.
And then it says that your people will be righteous, and they'll possess the land forever. And I love that, because now the people that have been want for following God, he says, I will put in you a new heart.
The heart of stone will be replaced by a heart of flesh. I will put in you a new heart. Now there's a little phrase at the end of verse 21 that gives a reason for all of this to happen. Give me the end of verse 21 again, Richard, if you would, that I...
I'll read all 21.
Also your people shall all be righteous. They shall inherit the land forever. The branch of my planting, the work of my hands, that I may be glorified.
That I may be glorified. See, there's the reality of it. God is going to be there. His presence is assured. He's going to change so much. But it isn't for the glorification of the people. It's for His glory.
All for His glory. Matthew 5, it says, in the same way, let your light shine before men so that they may see your good works and praise your Father who is in heaven.
This is...
Yes, solidae gloriae. Only for the glory of God. And it says that you already quoted for me at the end of that chapter, I am the Lord. In its time, I will hasten it. But that's the key. In its time, I will hasten it.
When I say it's time, when God decrees it's time, according to His sovereign will, the world cannot... Satan cannot stop it. It will occur. Bob, if you would give me the first three verses in 61, please.
Yep.
61.
The spirit of the sovereign Lord is on me because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.
They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of His splendor.
When God steps up and it says, I am the Lord, in my time I will hasten it, there is a promise of God's equipping for people to be proclaiming, being fully equipped.
It says here,.
The spirit of the Lord is upon me because the Lord has anointed me. There is a reality that being able to speak the word of God is going to be a gift given by God. And some of the things that he's going to be able to do is to proclaim the good news to the poor, proclaim liberty to the captives, proclaim the year of the Lord, proclaim the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all, to grant to those who mourn.
The reality of the equipping that's going to come when the spirit of God is on him is the total, when you talked about, was it the pure?
Pure heart?
The pure heart, the pure mind.
And Jesus proclaimed the first half of this section in Luke 4.
The scripture has been fulfilled among you.
And has been fulfilled with the coming of Jesus. Now there are so many mountain peaks in this one. Clearly when Jesus comes, this has a fulfillment in Christ. Second half, yeah. But the ultimate comes in the year of God's favor, in the year that God has ordained.
He is going to make things right. The concept of being anointed by God with things is another one that I spent. Second Corinthians 1. Barbara, I'm going to ask if you would get that. Second Corinthians 1, verses 20 to 22.
Is this Isaiah speaking, by the way, in this section, I think? Because there's no quotation marks like the Lord was speaking.
Correct.
So I think this is Isaiah saying the spirit of the sovereign Lord is on me.
And what he's going to be able to do now with the spirit of the Lord is he's going to be able to proclaim the truths.
He's going to be able to proclaim the truths that are eternal and that are guaranteed because of God's covenant and his faithful promise. He gets the spirit of the Lord upon him and he's anointed. Give me that, if you would.
Second Corinthians 1, 20 to 22, please.
Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in wisdom of God the world, through its wisdom, did not know him, God was pleased with the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believed.
Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom.
That does not sound like what I wanted. Is that Second Corinthians 1?
First Corinthians.
Second Corinthians 1.
That's a great passage.
That was really good, though.
I was trying to work with it. Second Corinthians 1, 20 to 22.
20 to 22. For no matter how many promises God has made, they are yes in Christ. Is that right?
First of all, you can just stop right there. That's a great screensaver to put on your computer. For as many as the promises are of God, in him they are yes.
We talked about scoffers last night.
And so through him the amen is spoken by us to the glory of God. Now it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ. He anointed us, set his seal of ownership on us, and put his spirit in our hearts as a deposit guaranteeing what is to come.
The prophet here is going to say, what I've got to say are the promises of God which are yes. The spirit is anointing me. I understand that there's a new economy. After Pentecost we actually get the indwelling of the Holy Spirit that never leaves us.
But prior to that there were times that the Holy Spirit would anoint and come upon somebody. But they weren't at the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. In this case he's getting ready to give them some beautiful promises of the blessings.
What's going to happen when God does what he does. And he says, these words are coming to me through the Holy Spirit by God's anointing. And what I've got is good news. And what I've got is liberty. And what I've got is God's favor even in the day of vengeance.
What I've got is to grant to everybody who's mourning in Zion this truth and this hope. Nations are going to see. This is part of the first bit of the message. Carol, Carol right?
I'm terrible with names.
We used to call her Carol too.
That's how we answered them.
Thank you.
Give me verses four through six of Isaiah 61 please.
They will rebuild the ancient ruins, repairing cities long ago destroyed. They will revive them though they have been emptied for many generations. Foreigners will be your servants. They will feed your flocks and plow your fields and tend your vineyards.
You will be called priests of the Lord, ministers of our God. You will be fed with the treasures of the nations and will boast in their riches.
The world is going to acknowledge that God is there and the nations are going to see. It starts out in verse four and I had to follow the pronouns. That's always an important thing to do. They will build up the ancient ruins.
They shall rise up the former devastations. They shall repair the ruined cities, the devastations of many generations. There will come a time where after destruction and after oppression is going to come rebuilding and restoration.
Now this particular passage, the they, it's hard to say who is they.
Doesn't it go back to verse one?
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners.
That is a strong reference that they is actually Israel. They is actually Israel who has been under oppression by the nations for a long time. And I think that's strongest to the text is that the nation of Israel is going to come back and again this is very strong evidence that the book of Revelation does not have the church replacing Israel.
There was a period of time the church age comes to an end and now Israel is God's chosen people. When you get to the millennial kingdom they're going to be able to rebuild everything that was destroyed.
Many of these passages are quoted in Luke 4 starting in 18 when Jesus was in the synagogue. So yeah, I believe it is referring to saved Israel.
Saved Israel. But when you go on into verse five, it expands that. Now here you're going to have the nations observing what's going on with the nation of Israel. And the nations it says, strangers shall stand and tend your flocks, foreigners shall be your plowmen and find dressers.
The nations that are going to see Israel's hand with God's blessing are going to step up and be alongside them.
Will they be saved Gentiles?
Well, initially it's Gentiles who are saved but again this does not limit it to say that it's only the saved that it's not their children as well. It doesn't limit it to that. Because now it goes on and it says, you shall be called the priests of the Lord.
They shall speak of you as ministers of our God. The nations will be able to perceive that Israel has this special blessing that comes down upon them. And what was Israel always supposed to be? I had a couple of passages.
A light to the Gentiles.
Exodus 19 .6. Bob, if you would get that out for me. And again, I guess Isaiah 14 .1, if you would get that for me also. The nation comes out of captivity. 70 years of captivity. Initially under Ezra they return and then eventually under Nehemiah there's another return.
And when they're in the back of the land under Ezra, what are they supposed to be doing? Rebuilding the temple.
Under the time of Nehemiah, what are they supposed to be doing?
The walls.
Rebuilding the walls.
It has a little bit of some similarity. They'll rebuild the ancient ruins. They'll repair the ruined cities. It has some of this, except that there does not appear in this prophetic promise opposition.
Rather, there's going to be participation, help, assistance, and recognition of who they are. If we go into Ezra in chapter 4, what are they experiencing? Opposition. The surrounding kings write a letter back to exercise and say, hey, these dudes that you sent back here and they told all these lies about them.
And a decree was written that the temple must be...
Must Dubai be sent out?
That's part of it, but...
I don't know if that's Ezra or Nehemiah.
Nehemiah, in Nehemiah chapter 4, again, there's opposition. When they're trying to rebuild the walls, the people are going to come up and try to get Nehemiah to compromise and let them help them so they can infiltrate.
There is opposition in the time of the post-exile. This is a point in time where the strangers are going to come along and help them. The strangers are going to come along and be their plow. And they're going to recognize them as priests and as ministers of God.
And it says that you, Israel, are going to eat the wealth of the nations. They're going to be so blessed. Isaiah 14 .1, did I give that to somebody? Yeah, go ahead.
The Lord will have mercy on Jacob and will still choose Israel and settle them in their own land. The strangers will be joined with them and they will cling to the house of Jacob.
There's going to be a time where Jacob is restored and the nations are going to come. In fact, it even says that, what is it? Ten Gentiles will grab the hem of a Jew and say, bring us with you. Take me to your leader.
They're going to be so drawn to it and they'll recognize that the Jews are the ones that have that. Exodus 19, do you have that?
Yes, ma 'am.
Exodus 19, verse 6.
Tiny little numbers here. You will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words you are to speak to the Israelites.
This is the passage that we use as why we say that Israel was not just God's chosen people to have a relationship with him, but that was the fulfillment of Exodus 12. Three, that they will be a blessing and all nations will be blessed through them.
They are a kingdom of priests to all the nations. And it says here, when we get into this obligation, this opportunity that they have, continues through the millennial kingdom.
My column here in Exodus 19, my notes are scattered all over the place, but the one thing I see down the way in the column all the time, is set apart, set apart, set apart, set apart. Absolutely. And that's holy, meaning set apart.
Absolutely. That's very, very well said. The nations are going to see the blessings that are going to come upon Israel and they're going to respond. They're going to acknowledge God for who he is through the nation of Israel.
Now give me verse 7.
If you're over there, Rich, give me verse 7, please. I'm sorry, where are you? In Isaiah 51, verse 7.
Isaiah 51, verse 7.
I'm sorry.
That's okay. I passed by this one when I was first putting this lesson together. And then when I came back into it, it was like, this was one of those verses that had so much richness to it. The more time I would spend meditating on this one verse, the better it got.
Okay, I'll read it for you. Instead of your shame, there will 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.
Everlasting joy shall be theirs.
Yeah, now this is part of that from 2 again. Now this is, again, these are words that Isaiah got from the Holy Spirit anointed to proclaim. The nation has been under shame. Daniel 9, it tells us that it's because of their sin that they're under shame.
Sin has that impact. They have been a nation that has been in rebellion against God. Instead of shame, they're going to get a double portion. What is a double portion?
Firstborn son, and their culture received a double portion.
It doesn't have to do with Thanksgiving dinner?
No. What?
God is saying Israel is His firstborn.
Israel is His firstborn, yes.
They're going to get a double portion of blessing because they are His chosen people. There is this consistency of that covenant that God is making with Israel. You are My chosen people. You have been in rebellion against Me.
You have sinned, and so you've been punished, and you've felt shame. But folks, you are My firstborn, and what you are going to receive at My time is a double portion. There's no dishonor. Instead, you're going to get all of this.
Your land, everything, everything you're going to get is going to be doubly, doubly good for you. That's a beautiful promise, and it says you will have everlasting joy. I think it's Jeremiah 38 -40. I think that's what I wanted.
If you would get that up. I have a dash there. It's not reading two chapters. I think it means Jeremiah 38 verse 40.
I hope.
If not, you'll be here a long time reading two chapters. Okay, that's not working.
That's not right.
No?
It's Jeremiah something verses 38 -40.
I'm going to put in you a new heart. I'm going to put in you a new heart. I will make an everlasting covenant with you, and I will never turn away from you again. These are the future promises, and what he's saying here,.
Instead of shame,.
You are My first chosen. I'm going to give you a double portion. You are My first chosen, and there's no more dishonor, but what you're going to get is rejoicing in the land, and your joy will be everlasting.
It is a tremendous promise to them. Okay, who's next? Bob, if you would read verses 8 and 9, please.
For I, the Lord, love justice. I hate robbery and iniquity. In My faithfulness, I will reward them and make an everlasting covenant with them. Their descendants will be known among the nations, and their offspring among the peoples.
All who see them will acknowledge that they are a people the Lord has blessed.
There again is this promise that although there has been wrong, I abhor wrong, but I love justice, and I'm going to faithfully give to you the reward for what is due to you as My people, an everlasting covenant coming to you.
Israel's offspring will be known amongst the peoples. They are an offspring that has been blessed by God. The promise of what is to come for them, again placing them in a time of despair, and in the years, the decades to come, the time of being under siege by the Assyrians, and then captivity by the Babylonians, these promises holding true to them.
He loves justice, but He hates the wrong, and He sees, and He will faithfully give to His people what is coming to them. Ezekiel 39 7, Barb, if you would read that for me, please.
Which part?
Barb, Barb, sorry.
Ezekiel 9 .7?
39 .7, if you would read that, please.
I will make known My holy name among My people Israel. I will no longer let My holy name be profaned, and the nations will know that I, the Lord, am the Holy One of Israel.
These are promises from God. I will make My name known amongst the people and amongst the nations. Now, Isaiah has given these proclamations from God, the blessings that are going to come, what those blessings will look like, how peoples in the world will be impacted because of these blessings.
And I love the way he finishes this chapter because he shifts from taking a video of this and a picture of that to now making it personal. And I love the way he does that. So Carol, if you would give me 10 and 11, please.
I am overwhelmed with joy in the Lord my God.
Just stop right there. Just stop right there. In fact, emphasize the word I. It's got to be personal. When you can see these kinds of promises and hope and truth. Go ahead and do that again. Yeah, a little more.
I am overwhelmed with joy in the Lord my God, for he has dressed me with the clothing of salvation and draped me in a robe of righteousness. I am like a bridegroom in his wedding suit or a bride with her jewels.
The sovereign God will show his justice to the nations of the world. Everyone will praise him. His justice, righteousness, will be like a garden in early spring filled with young plants springing up everywhere.
We are going to experience, at the end of times, something called the Bemis Seat. Our judgment is ordained and it is unavoidable. For those whose name is not written in the Book of Life, they'll be the Great White Throne Judgment.
And their deeds will be played out in front of them. And with their name not in the Lamb's Book of Life, there is no covering of blood. They have one ultimate destination. Their ticket is paid for at the Lake of Fire.
That's where they're going. None of their works can stand. For those of us who are believers, we're going to sit in front of the throne of God, the Bemis Seat. And there our deeds will be judged as by fire.
Those things that we have done that are not pleasing will be burned as it would stay in huddle, wood, hay, stubble. But what we have done that is pleasing to God, they will survive. And there will be rewards.
You know, one of the rewards that we get for our righteousness is a robe of fine linen.
I drown.
I'll get there. We get a robe of fine linen that we will wear at the wedding feast of the Lamb. We will go in fully dressed appropriately at the wedding feast of the Lamb because as we go in front of the Bemis Seat, those things that we have done that are pleasing to God. We also will receive crowns.
And all we're going to do with those crowns is say, I didn't do it, I didn't deserve it. We're going to cast them right back in front of the Lord. This verse here that says, I will greatly rejoice in the Lord.
And this is out of the ESV. It says, my soul shall exalt in my God for He has clothed me with the garments of salvation. The blessings that God has and the future promises that He has are so overwhelming that when the prophet started out by saying, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me because the Lord has appointed me to bring good news.
And then when he proclaims all this good news, he can't help it. He says, I gratefully rejoice in the Lord. And my soul exalts. At the end of verse 11 in the ESV, it says, the Lord will cause righteousness and praise to rise among the nations.
This is His promise. Amen to that. Lord, we do thank You for these promises. We thank You that although Satan, the prince of the power of the air, right now has made creation, made peoples go in very, very wrong directions, Your promises are not going to be held back.
When You say it, it will happen immediately when You say it. And we know, Lord, that You will bless the nation of Israel, that the nations will be blessed through them. And that Your, just Your exuberance will cause people to say and to rejoice greatly in the Lord to exalt in God.
We thank You in Jesus' name. Amen.