Month: August 2018

BELIEVERS’ SELF CONDEMNATION

SELF CONDEMNATION IN THE SAINT.
All who have the indwelling Spirit of God (not just God WITH them) will go through periods of self condemnation. Paul in Romans 7 talks about this cycle.

POSSIBLE CAUSES:
1) Neglect of private devotions in the word and prayer
2) Mental stress and unresolved tensions of the home
3) Monetary concerns and lack of faith for resolution
4) Unequal yoke in the home and dependence upon the partner instead of God.
5) Time management due to unrealistic crowding of daily regimen from social media and screen addiction
6) Compulsive addiction to home or work tasks which eclipse private time with God.
7) In equally yoked marriages overdependence upon the dominant partner’s program
8) Refusal to reserve private time with God fearing the discomfort to joint regimen.
9) Addiction to the endless demands of a house-proud partner
10) A refusal to say: ‘No, not now, maybe later.’
11) Boredom in a Bible book such as in the Major or Minor Prophets which seems incomprehensible, but one’s reluctance to grapple studiously with it.
12) Unwillingness of the believer to accept that God forgets his past sins and refuses to remember them again.
13) In other words he indulges in self recrimination and self accusation, unwilling to believe particular individual sins are totally covered by Christ’s atoning blood forgetting that the Father lay on his crucified Son the iniquity of us all. (Isaiah 53)
14) Nostalgia filled with regret is grieving the Spirit because the believer in his doubt is unwilling to forget those things which are behind and buried in the sea of God’s forgetfulness. (Philippians 3:13; Psalm 103:12).
15) Downheartedness over the repeated failure from the besetting sin and blaming demons instead of one’s own sin only perpetuates depression. ‘But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.’ (James 1.14)

To blame demons instead of your ‘flesh’ makes one forget he is still only a sinner saved by grace. For some, however, the person concerned is a goat, not a sheep, but wearing a fleece put on by some preacher or evangelist, or ardent soul-winner. As such a goat has confessed his sin/s, but never accepted that he is a sinner. There is a world of difference.

To the saint the answer to self condemnation is found in pondering the promise: “Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature”. (2 Peter 1.4). Despite his bleak and downcast spirit this will generate a refreshing relief, as will other promises: “forgetting those things which are behind”. “If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.”

The word of John’s epistle (3.20) comes to some dear struggling saint who is over mystical or compulsively looking for phenomena, instead of the precious promises from the word of God: “if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knows all things”.

This is the difference between the downcast goat and the discouraged sheep. The goat (the follower who only has the Spirit WITH HIM, but not yet IN HIM) indulges in inescapable cycle of self pity/self justification. No matter what, he cannot leave it with God and trust the promises regardless of addictive, compulsive thought patterns.

The sheep, on the other hand, eventually assures his heart in the fact that God is greater than his internal or external conflicts. The flame of the burning Spirit that has been reduced to ‘smoking flax’ will never go out.” A bruised reed he will not break and smoking flax he will not quench.” (Matthew 12.20; Isaiah 42.3) No matter how low he gets the saint will rise up again when he ponders the promises of the Word for faith comes by hearing and hearing comes by meditating again on the Word.

How can the sheep leave his own self-condemnation behind? By pondering and meditating (not just hurriedly reading) the Scriptures whose promises impart assuring comfort.

Conceded that Satan is the accuser of the brethren, confirmed by the opposition the brethren uncover from hostile worldlings. Yet though I am beleaguered by the god of this world and his spiritual forces of wickedness there is a greater enemy: one within: “another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.” “The flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh.” Galatians 5:17

This inner enemy is one that he carries wherever he goes: ‘the body of this death’ always ready to bring him into captivity if he decides to walk independent of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. To reject original sin and pretend that dead carcass is no longer a burden means he is no longer vigilantly watchful and floats from day to day in a sea of egotist self -justification.

The saint is compelled to bear testimony of Christ in some small way, or spiritual boredom and drought will set in. Each of us brush shoulders with scores of lost souls in our day to day living. The saint, no matter how dejected, will carry something in the pocket or handbag with the gift of life. E.g. a small tract, pocket Gospel, that can be handed to ‘other sheep’ not yet in the fold of the kingdom, but whom the Father is drawing to His Son. This does not mean saturating all and sundry, but being ready when a positive opportunity arises.

Every decent, warm conversation in personal encounter, though only short is the Lord opening the heart to the Word by readying the person to receive it. Seeds must be sown for germination and you may well be the catalyst. If one refuses to carry the Word of Life, preferably without a church soliciting itself on the back page, there is no chance of a seed being deposited. This does not mean confronting the person and forcibly arresting them in their tracks, as some unwise zealots do. Evidence cannot be measured by response and that must be left to eternity, for often in most cases you will never meet the person again. Ye are my witnesses, and besides you I have no other.

BIBLE REFERNCES. (ex King James Version of the Holy Bible-Public Domain)
“Fear ye not, neither be afraid: have not I told thee from that time, and have declared it? ye are even my witnesses. Is there a God beside me? yea, there is no God; I know not any”…”but if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost.”
(Isaiah 44:8; 2 Corinthians 4:3)

1 John 3:19-21.
19 And hereby we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before him.20 For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things.21 Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God.
John 5:24
Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that hears my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.
Romans 8:1
There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

BELIEVERS’ SELF CONDEMNATION

THE PILGRIM’S DOWNCAST PERIOD

THE PILGRIM’S DOWNCAST PERIOD OF DESPAIR
who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us…… a merciful and faithful high priest…to make reconciliation for the sins of (His sheep) the people(saints)… Wherefore, holy brethren…consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus… a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God…an high priest … touched with the feeling of our infirmities…in all points tempted like as (us)we…Whither the forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus, made an high priest… became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners… he did once, when he offered up himself…an high priest, who is set on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens… which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh… an high priest over the house of God…Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith… sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed…without wavering; (for he is faithful that promised;)…
Romans 8:34Hebrews 3:1; (Hebrews 4:14); Hebrews 4:15;
Hebrews 5:1; Hebrews 5:5; Hebrews 6:20; Hebrews 7:26; Hebrews 7:27; Hebrews 8:1; Hebrews 10:19-23;
kjv bible excerpts are Public Domain

THE PILGRIM’S DOWNCAST PERIOD

FOREWORD TO ISAIAH 11.

EXPLAINING THE BOOK OF ISAIAH
Analytical Notes hereunder are on the eleventh chapter of Isaiah, which covers epochs totalling several thousand years
Isaiah 11:1
‘rod out of the stem of Jesse…Branch shall grow out of his roots’: God’s unbreakable Messianic promise to Jesse’s son King David would be the root in Judah’s dry ground that would grow from its stem and would bear the Branch. Jesus would be born from the descendants of Jesse’s son David in the tribe of Judah 700 years later.

Isaiah 11:4-10.
Isaiah predicts the final post apocalyptic millennial reign of Christ from Jerusalem’s Mt. Olivet. (Cp. Zechariah 14)
Isaiah 11:7. The ‘lion shall eat straw’ in the millennium of peace after the Second Coming shows the return of the lion and other carnivores to be subject unto the human race and void of aggression. It seems they may become herbivores.

Isaiah 11:10.
Christ Jesus came from that root in the dry ground of Judah’s wicked apostasy. He was born of the lineage from the ‘root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign to Jew and Gentile. God’s unbreakable Messianic promise to Jesse’s son King David would be the root in Judah’s dry ground that would grow the stem that would bear the Branch: Jesus would be born from the descendants of Jesse’s son David in the tribe of Judah 700 years later. Cp. 5:24; 11:1; 27:6; 37:31; & 53:2.

Isaiah 11:12.
The first return was led by Ezra and Nehemiah when Cyrus destroyed Babylonia’s power and released the captive Jews. The second return of the Diaspora was during the benevolent reign of the Greek Empire’s Alexander the Great. The third return began in the early 19th C through to 1944. This began with a trickle and slowly grew to a stream after December 1917 when General Allenby conquered Jerusalem and captured it from Turkey (Islam). From 1917 to 1944 under a British UN Protectorate’s benevolence the British Parliament and Armed Forces aided Palestine’s redevelopment. Albeit, in 1945 the new Labour Government of Westminster turned hostile to resettling Jewish war refugees and the idea of Israeli independence.
The fourth return was after Israel’s war of Independence. Thus from 1948 onward the fourth and largest return of the Diaspora occurred via the agency of the USA which became its saviour. Concomitant with migration back to the Promise Land was also the movement of Jewish refugees from anti-Semitic countries to North America. In New York State, over five million live there freely today.
Isaiah and the other prophets predicted that the fifth and final return of the Diaspora will ensue after Christ Himself returns to Jerusalem’s Mount of Olives, from which he ascended (Zechariah 14).
Isaiah glimpses all five returns of God’s people to the Promised Land in amazing detail, and subsequent history affirms the very fulfilment of those prophecies about the return of God’s people, the Jews to the land of Palestine.
During the reign of Alexander the Great he appointed 72 scholars to recover the lost Hebrew Old Testament and translate it into Koine Greek Septuagint (LXX) for the Jewish people.

Isaiah 11:13.
Ephraim is another name for the northern ten rebel tribes, also called Israel, in contrast with the southern kingdom of Judah after Solomon’s death. There was often civil war between the two kingdoms headed at first by Rehoboam and Jeroboam.
Isaiah 11:14-16. Figurative language describing future Israeli victories over attacks from surrounding hostile nations, so far fulfilled in 1948, 1967, & 1973. The subordination of Israel’s enemies, particularly hostile Muslim Arabs was clearly predicted by Isaiah and accurately fulfilled after 12/ 1917 & since 1948 to the present hour.

Isaiah 11
Prophecy of Immanuel the son of David and the Diaspora return.
1 And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots:
2 And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord;
3 And shall make him of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord: and he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of his ears:

Diaspora’s return: via Persians; Greeks; 20thC; & 2nd Advent.
4 But with righteousness shall he judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth: and he shall smite the earth: with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked.
5 And righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins, and faithfulness the girdle of his reins.
6 The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.
7 And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
8 And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice’ den.
9 They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.

Isaiah predicts the future birth of Christ.
10 And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the people; to it shall the Gentiles seek: and his rest shall be glorious.

Prophesied return of Diaspora to modern Israel.
11 And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall set his hand again the second time to recover the remnant of his people, which shall be left, from Assyria, and from Egypt, and from Pathros, and from Cush, and from Elam, and from Shinar, and from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea.
12 And he shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth.
13 The envy also of Ephraim shall depart, and the adversaries of Judah shall be cut off: Ephraim shall not envy Judah, and Judah shall not vex Ephraim.

A separate glimpse of modern Israel’s military feats.
14 But they shall fly upon the shoulders of the Philistines toward the west; they shall spoil them of the east together: they shall lay their hand upon Edom and Moab; and the children of Ammon shall obey them.
15 And the Lord shall utterly destroy the tongue of the Egyptian sea; and with his mighty wind shall he shake his hand over the river, and shall smite it in the seven streams, and make men go over dryshod.
16 And there shall be an highway for the remnant of his people, which shall be left, from Assyria; like as it was to Israel in the day that he came up out of the land of Egypt.

* * *
Foreword, Heading, & Sub Headings by John David.
*King James Version Bible is Public Domain (ex biblegateway.com).

FOREWORD TO ISAIAH 11.

FOREWORD TO ISAIAH 10

It is evident from Jeremiah’s prophecies in this chapter that the fierce monster from the North: Assyria will be the tool of God’s wrath against Egypt, Syria, Samaria, and Galilee. God’s tool of affliction, but present ally of Judah, would later turn against Jerusalem as punishment for its impenitent idolatry.
Assyria had just come to the aid of Judah to protect Jerusalem and Judah’s borders against the confederated forces of Syria’s King Rezin and Samaria’s King Pekah.

Assyria’s presence was in response to the Ahaz’s distrust of Jehovah, (vs.12) and her military might would first vanquish Egypt, Syria, Samaria, and Galilee before marching on its one-time ally Judah.

However, the Chaldeans from Mesopotamia’s Babylonia (vss.13-16) would sack Nineveh and the Assyrian empire would be hamstrung and crippled. The doom of Nineveh was predicted by the prophet Nahum some 150 years after Jonah brought it to repentance.
Chapter ten’s two difficult passages (Jeremiah 10:17-19; & 10:28-34) were written to confuse Isaiah’s enemies, including those in the royal court. They should not deter the reader comprehending the unique accuracy, manifest in the annals of ancient history. Then too, the glorious prophesied promises of the return of the captives from Babylon, and the gathering of the Diaspora, first under the Greek Alexander the Great, and then in the modern era their 19th and 20th century global migration to Palestine.

1. The power of Babylon that will break the kingdom of Assyria: vs. 23-27;
2. The return of the scattered Diaspora back to Palestine
a. Under Cyrus the Persian within two decades of Nebuchadnezzar’s decease;
b. Under Alexander the Great, the empire that superseded the Chaldean empire of Babylon;
c. In the modern era Jewry would:
i. return to the Land in the early 19th C (1817-1917);
ii. increasingly flow into Palestine after UK General Allenby retook Jerusalem from Islamic Turk control (1917-1944);
iii. migrate in even greater numbers after Israel’s 1948 Independence by sea and air from Eastern and Western Europe;
iv. in the largest Jewish air migration of Jews in history, return to Israel by a U.S. air armada which had gathered exiles, outcasts and endangered Jewish refugees from anti-Semitic territories of the globe.

BRIEF HISTORICAL SUMMATION.
1. ABRAHAM. Call of Abram from Ur of the Chaldees.
2. JACOB. (Israel) The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (renames the latter grandson into ‘Israel’) preserves Abram’s seed by sending Jacob’s son Joseph to Egypt.
3. THE EXODUS. 430 years later the Exodus of the Hebrews occurs.
4. JOSHUA ENTERS PALESTINE. 40 years later Israel’s people enter Palestine.
5. POST SOLOMON PERIOD Israel splits into two kingdoms. 1380 years after Joshua crossed Jordan Israel and its two kingdoms end in captivity.
6. THE PERSIANS TAKE BABYLON. After Cyrus the Persian frees the captives a remnant return to Palestine under Ezra & Nehemiah to rebuild.
7. GREEK EMPIRE supersedes Persia. Alexander the Great preserved the almost destroyed Old Testament Hebrew Scriptures by translating them into the Koine Greek Septuagint (LXX). Thus the kind Persian and Greek empires superseded Babylonia, but preceded the antagonistic Roman Empire.

7 a. ROMAN EMPIRE. For 450 years it persecuted the Jews so intensely that it became a burnt earth policy. The burning of the world renowned Alexandria Manuscript Library by Julius Caesar was an example. Under Roman Palestine 15,000 were commonly crucified each year.

8. ROMAN EMPEROR CONSTANTINE. Early in the 4thC AD the new emperor Constantine arranged with Rome an Edict of Toleration towards the Jews and Christians. But the new Church of Rome was no friend to the Jew or the regenerated believer in Christ born again of His Spirit.
9. THE DARK AGES: 300-800 AD. The dark ages that followed the sacking of Rome by Goths and Huns showed little more tolerance to the Jews than to the Romans.

10. THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE: 800-1800. Thus in 800 AD Pope Leo ordained Charlemagne as Holy Roman Emperor for the new Franco-German Holy Roman Empire. It lasted a thousand years, until 1800, though it was weakened by the Reformation of 1517.

This Germanic reign of Roman religious power from Europe discriminated against Jews throughout its vast global empire. Jewish historians attest to the continued, but devastating disenfranchisement, quarantine, ghettos, and mass deportation of the whole Jewish populace from cities and their region or country.

11. DIASPORA RETURN STARTS. (1817 to 1917) At the end of a thousand year blot on the annals of history a few Jews of Europe began to migrate from Europe to Palestine, despite its Muslim rulers. This was concurrent with USA’s ‘Golden Age of Evangelism’. From 1817 to 1917 the first trickle had steadily increased to a stream. God sparked a flame among the scattered Jews that grew into a bright light 150 years later, with the creation of the State of Israel. This fulfilled the prophecies of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and the minor prophets of the Old Testament.

12. UK ARMY CAPTURE JERUSALEM. 1917-1944. British General Allenby freed Jerusalem from the Islamic rule of the Turks in December 1917 and in the ensuing twenty seven years the stream broadened to a steady flow of returning Jews to Palestine.

13. BRITISH BETRAYAL. (1945-1948) Despite the new British (Labour) Government’s betrayal of post war Jewry from sudden new anti-Semitic hostility in Westminster the Jews of Palestine turned to fight for their Land, not only with Arab Muslim saboteurs, but also with British hostile troops. Their onetime ally and saviour became an enemy. But to fulfil God’s prophetic predictions the Jews survived hostilities and achieved national independence against all odds.

In spite of Britain abstaining in New York and an intransigent Washington, President Truman worked behind the scenes to outsmart the U.S. State Department and the United Kingdom by working directly with Jerusalem and the United Nations. By God’s grace Truman worked a modern miracle and Palestine became the prophesied State of Israel.

In May 1948 the UN voted to accept the new State of Israel into its fraternity as a valid, fully fledged, sovereign Nation State.

DIFFICULT PASSAGES IN ISAIAH 10.
These are purposely interwoven by the prophet to confuse his godless enemies within the palace and the priesthood. The indirect vagueness is typical of the prophet’s writings early in the book.
1. Isaiah 10:17-19 in which the simile of trees is likened to the coming Assyrian conquering princes.
2. Isaiah 10:28-34 filled with a poetic topographical complexity.
3. Isaiah 10:20-22 describes the godly remnant inclosing the Diaspora return from Babylon etc. as described above.
.

* Foreword, Footnotes, Chapter Heading and Sub Headings by John David.

Isaiah 10. King James Version of the Bible (Public Domain).
Isaiah predicts Jerusalem’s destruction & survival of a holy remnant.
1 Woe unto them that decree unrighteous decrees, and that write grievousness which they have prescribed;
2 To turn aside the needy from judgment, and to take away the right from the poor of my people, that widows may be their prey, and that they may rob the fatherless!
3 And what will ye do in the day of visitation, and in the desolation which shall come from far? to whom will ye flee for help? and where will ye leave your glory?
4 Without me they shall bow down under the prisoners, and they shall fall under the slain. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.
5 O Assyrian, the rod of mine anger, and the staff in their hand is mine indignation.
6 I will send him against an hypocritical nation, and against the people of my wrath will I give him a charge, to take the spoil, and to take the prey, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets.
7 Howbeit he meaneth not so, neither doth his heart think so; but it is in his heart to destroy and cut off nations not a few.
8 For he saith, Are not my princes altogether kings?
9 Is not Calno as Carchemish? is not Hamath as Arpad? is not Samaria as Damascus?
10 As my hand hath found the kingdoms of the idols, and whose graven images did excel them of Jerusalem and of Samaria;
11 Shall I not, as I have done unto Samaria and her idols, so do to Jerusalem and her idols?
12 Wherefore it shall come to pass, that when the Lord hath performed his whole work upon mount Zion and on Jerusalem, I will punish the fruit of the stout heart of the king of Assyria, and the glory of his high looks.
13 For he saith, By the strength of my hand I have done it, and by my wisdom; for I am prudent: and I have removed the bounds of the people, and have robbed their treasures, and I have put down the inhabitants like a valiant man:
14 And my hand hath found as a nest the riches of the people: and as one gathereth eggs that are left, have I gathered all the earth; and there was none that moved the wing, or opened the mouth, or peeped.
15 Shall the axe boast itself against him that heweth therewith? or shall the saw magnify itself against him that shaketh it? as if the rod should shake itself against them that lift it up, or as if the staff should lift up itself, as if it were no wood.
16 Therefore shall the Lord, the Lord of hosts, send among his fat ones leanness; and under his glory he shall kindle a burning like the burning of a fire.
17 And the light of Israel shall be for a fire, and his Holy One for a flame: and it shall burn and devour his thorns and his briers in one day;
18 And shall consume the glory of his forest, and of his fruitful field, both soul and body: and they shall be as when a standard-bearer fainteth.
19 And the rest of the trees of his forest shall be few, that a child may write them.
20 And it shall come to pass in that day, that the remnant of Israel, and such as are escaped of the house of Jacob, shall no more again stay upon him that smote them; but shall stay upon the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, in truth.
21 The remnant shall return, even the remnant of Jacob, unto the mighty God.
22 For though thy people Israel be as the sand of the sea, yet a remnant of them shall return: the consumption decreed shall overflow with righteousness.
23 For the Lord God of hosts shall make a consumption, even determined, in the midst of all the land.
24 Therefore thus saith the Lord God of hosts, O my people that dwellest in Zion, be not afraid of the Assyrian: he shall smite thee with a rod, and shall lift up his staff against thee, after the manner of Egypt.
25 For yet a very little while, and the indignation shall cease, and mine anger in their destruction.
26 And the Lord of hosts shall stir up a scourge for him according to the slaughter of Midian at the rock of Oreb: and as his rod was upon the sea, so shall he lift it up after the manner of Egypt.
27 And it shall come to pass in that day, that his burden shall be taken away from off thy shoulder, and his yoke from off thy neck, and the yoke shall be destroyed because of the anointing.
28 He is come to Aiath, he is passed to Migron; at Michmash he hath laid up his carriages:
29 They are gone over the passage: they have taken up their lodging at Geba; Ramah is afraid; Gibeah of Saul is fled.
30 Lift up thy voice, O daughter of Gallim: cause it to be heard unto Laish, O poor Anathoth.
31 Madmenah is removed; the inhabitants of Gebim gather themselves to flee.
32 As yet shall he remain at Nob that day: he shall shake his hand against the mount of the daughter of Zion, the hill of Jerusalem.
33 Behold, the Lord, the Lord of hosts, shall lop the bough with terror: and the high ones of stature shall be hewn down, and the haughty shall be humbled.
34 And he shall cut down the thickets of the forest with iron, and Lebanon shall fall by a mighty one.

FOOTNOTES.
Isaiah 10:5. Assyria is the ‘rod of God’s anger and indignation’ against all twelve apostate tribes, (ten in the North & two in the South) including Levi, the 13th tribe, not given a territory, but dispersed among the cities. Only a remnant of Jewry, called the tenth, will turn to God in repentance and faith after the Babylonian captivity. They will abandon idolatry; return to temple worship and restore Sabbath observance.

FOREWORD TO ISAIAH 10

FOREWORD to Isaiah 9

Isaiah sees the present darkness of Judah and Israel to the north which gives him no hope. He also sees seven hundred years into the future: where hope and light is suddenly birthed by a young man (Immanuel) in Galilee. The present vexation of Judah by Samaria and her allies is a dark day indeed living under the ‘shadow of death’. In Joel’s words, ‘Joy had withered away’ from the people of Judah. By faith he sees the threatening yoke of Syria broken.

He saw hope when there was no hope: the attribute of faith by endowed grace (Hebrews 11:1). Paul’s ensuing verse shows the natural man void of faith by hope, no matter how he musters up his bravado of positive freewill. Only God could give embattled Isaiah hope against hope. Indeed the New Testament says that we are saved by hope.

However, this Prince of Peace, though he would be raised in Galilee, would reign from Jerusalem in the end days after the great apocalypse when he returns as prophesied to Jerusalem’s Mount of Olives (Zechariah 14). This Wonderful Counsellor, the embodiment of the divine heavenly Father; this mighty God in human flesh, would centre most of his focus upon Jerusalem of Judea with his ‘great light’ during his last three years.

While Tiglath-Pileser is ravaging neighbouring Syria, Samaria, and Galilee among other regions of Palestine, Jerusalem is shaking in fear, even though the Assyrian has come at Ahaz’s request to defend it. How could hope ever arise in Galilee?

*Foreword; heading; sub headings; and footnotes by John David.
Holy Scripture from the King James Version (1611) Public Domain ex biblegateway.com

ISAIAH 9
Amid prevailing darkness Isaiah forecasts Christ the Light..
1 Nevertheless the dimness shall not be such as was in her vexation, when at the first he lightly afflicted the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, and afterward did more grievously afflict her by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, in Galilee of the nations.
2 The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined.
3 Thou hast multiplied the nation, and not increased the joy: they joy before thee according to the joy in harvest, and as men rejoice when they divide the spoil.
4 For thou hast broken the yoke of his burden, and the staff of his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor, as in the day of Midian.
5 For every battle of the warrior is with confused noise, and garments rolled in blood; but this shall be with burning and fuel of fire.

Birth of Immanuel predicted.
6 For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.
7 Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.

The advance of the Assyria into Syria and Samaria.
8 The Lord sent a word into Jacob, and it hath lighted upon Israel.
9 And all the people shall know, even Ephraim and the inhabitant of Samaria, that say in the pride and stoutness of heart,
10 The bricks are fallen down, but we will build with hewn stones: the sycomores are cut down, but we will change them into cedars.
11 Therefore the Lord shall set up the adversaries of Rezin against him, and join his enemies together;
12 The Syrians before, and the Philistines behind; and they shall devour Israel with open mouth. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.

13 For the people turneth not unto him that smiteth them, neither do they seek the Lord of hosts.
14 Therefore the Lord will cut off from Israel head and tail, branch and rush, in one day.
15 The ancient and honourable, he is the head; and the prophet that teacheth lies, he is the tail.
16 For the leaders of this people cause them to err; and they that are led of them are destroyed.
17 Therefore the Lord shall have no joy in their young men, neither shall have mercy on their fatherless and widows: for every one is an hypocrite and an evildoer, and every mouth speaketh folly. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.

18 For wickedness burneth as the fire: it shall devour the briers and thorns, and shall kindle in the thickets of the forest, and they shall mount up like the lifting up of smoke.
19 Through the wrath of the Lord of hosts is the land darkened, and the people shall be as the fuel of the fire: no man shall spare his brother.
20 And he shall snatch on the right hand, and be hungry; and he shall eat on the left hand, and they shall not be satisfied: they shall eat every man the flesh of his own arm:
21 Manasseh, Ephraim; and Ephraim, Manasseh: and they together shall be against Judah. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.

(King James Version of the Bible 1611: Public domain-biblegateway.com)

FOOTNOTES
Isaiah 9:1-2.
Matthew 4:15-16 records Matthew’s quote of Isaiah’s prophecy. There are more quotes from Isaiah in the New Testament than all the other prophets combined.

Isaiah 9:4.
This is a remarkably accurate description of Jesus, the babe of Bethlehem, who would first come to earth in peace, and then after they had killed him he would return to rule and judge the nations at the end of the age in which we live. The prophets, the Psalms, the apostles, the Gospel writers, and Christ Himself all confirmed this description of Isaiah.

Isaiah 9:8.
“The Lord sent a word into Jacob.” This was the message of God’s retribution and wrath upon the ten rebel tribes of Israel lapsed and lost in horrific and beastly idolatry. The messenger of wrath would be the Assyrian Tiglath-Pileser invading Samaria, Galilee, and Philistia.

Isaiah 9:12. The merciful loving Father had to mete dire judgment upon his people before his extended hand of atoning mercy would be received. John 1:11-12. My God is holy, just and merciful, but his entreaties through preaching prophets to wayward sinners have a time limit. Cp.vs 9:21; 10:4.

Isaiah 9:21. This alliance of Israel (Ephraim) and Joseph’s descendants with Syria against Judah would fail.

FOREWORD to Isaiah 9

FOREWORD TO ISAIAH 8.

UNDERSTANDING THE COMPLEX BOOK OF ISAIAH by John David
FOREWORD TO ISAIAH 8.
To confuse his enemies, Isaiah sends a message in code to the faithful godly remnant of Judah and their descendants. Using indirectness; transposition of pronouns; in additioned metonyms to disguise and protect that which he writes in his book, even this Book of Isaiah in holy writ.

The reader needs first to understand that Isaiah’s wife was the nameless prophetess who bore his two sons: Shearjashub and Mahershalalhashbaz, the latter being a portentous sign. But this sign was nowhere near as significant as the sign of a virgin birth of a Saviour: Immanuel. This was fulfilled over 700 years later at the birth of Christ Jesus, the son of David, and the Son of God. The Gospels describe it in St. Matthew and St. Luke. Isaiah’s second born son would signify the disappearance of Pekah in Samaria (Israeli rebel tribes)and Rezin in Syria. The power of their kingdoms would never recover and Tiglath-Pileser would abduct and deport captives from Samaria, Syria and the Trans-Jordan Jews, but he would be unsuccessful in routing Jerusalem at that time as Isaiah predicted. Before the toddler Mahershalalhashbaz would begin to talk Assyria would sack the Syrian capital Damascus and vanquish Samaria. (Isa. 8:4)

Isaiah places both signs together, and almost merges the two together. However, second sign would come to pass in the immediate future, but the first more than 700 years later. The Assyrian empire would be superseded by the Chaldean one of Babylonia. In 612 BC the Assyrian capital of Nineveh was sacked by Babylon. Later at the end of Judah’s kingdom the Jerusalem captives would be taken by Nebuchadnezzar to Babylon (50 miles south of modern Baghdad) leaving a ruined city, to a small Jewish remnant and the prophet Jeremiah: Isaiah’s successor.

REVIEW:
Samaria allied with Syria besieged Jerusalem only to be turned away by a miracle. Both kingdoms would be overpowered by Assyria shortly afterwards. Ahaz had called for help from Assyrian might to help resist Pekah and Rezin. But God intervened through the prayers of Isaiah and outside help was not needed. The city was filled with fear and many wanted a confederacy to survive the multiple attacks from different neighbouring nations. Isaiah had exhorted them to trust in God rather than a military alliance.

Foreword, footnotes, headings and subheadings are by John David.

ISAIAH 8.
King James Version of the Bible. Public Domain ex biblegateway.com

ISAIAH CALMS BESIEGED JERUSALEM.
1 Moreover the Lord said unto me, Take the a great roll, and write in it with a man’s pen concerning Mahershalalhashbaz.
2 And I took unto me faithful witnesses to record, Uriah the priest, and Zechariah the son of Jeberechiah.
3 And I went unto the prophetess; and she conceived, and bare a son. Then said the Lord to me, Call his name Mahershalalhashbaz.
4 For before the child shall have knowledge to cry, My father, and my mother, the riches of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria shall be taken away before the king of Assyria.

ISAIAH URGES AHAZ TO TRUST GOD NOT ASSYRIAN ARMIES.
5 The Lord spake also unto me again, saying,
6 Forasmuch as this people refuseth the waters of Shiloah that go softly, and rejoice in Rezin and Remaliah’s son;
7 Now therefore, behold, the Lord bringeth up upon them the waters of the river, strong and many, even the king of Assyria, and all his glory: and he shall come up over all his channels, and go over all his banks:

ISAIAH WARNS ASSYRIAN AFFILIATION WILL DESTROY THEM.
8 And he shall pass through Judah; he shall overflow and go over, he shall reach even to the neck; and the stretching out of his wings shall fill the breadth of thy land, O Immanuel.
9 Associate yourselves, O ye people, and ye shall be broken in pieces; and give ear, all ye of far countries: gird yourselves, and ye shall be broken in pieces; gird yourselves, and ye shall be broken in pieces.
10 Take counsel together, and it shall come to nought; speak the word, and it shall not stand: for God is with us.
11 For the Lord spake thus to me with a strong hand, and instructed me that I should not walk in the way of this people, saying,
12 Say ye not, A confederacy, to all them to whom this people shall say, A confederacy; neither fear ye their fear, nor be afraid.
13 Sanctify the Lord of hosts himself; and let him be your fear, and let him be your dread.
14 And he shall be for a sanctuary; but for a stone of stumbling and for a rock of offence to both the houses of Israel, for a gin and for a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
15 And many among them shall stumble, and fall, and be broken, and be snared, and be taken.
16 Bind up the testimony, seal the law among my disciples.
17 And I will wait upon the Lord, that hideth his face from the house of Jacob, and I will look for him.
18 Behold, I and the children whom the Lord hath given me are for signs and for wonders in Israel from the Lord of hosts, which dwelleth in mount Zion.

ISAIAH WARNS JERUSALEM: IDOLS WILL NOT HELP
19 And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits, and unto wizards that peep, and that mutter: should not a people seek unto their God? for the living to the dead?
20 To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.
21 And they shall pass through it, hardly bestead and hungry: and it shall come to pass, that when they shall be hungry, they shall fret themselves, and curse their king and their God, and look upward.
22 And they shall look unto the earth; and behold trouble and darkness, dimness of anguish; and they shall be driven to darkness.

FOOTNOTES.
Isaiah 8: 6.
“the waters of Shiloah’ allude to the pool of Siloam (John 8:7) a reservoir within Jerusalem’s wall. Shiloah may have been a pun on Shiloh a once godly centre of the priests and prophets in the early days of settlement in Palestine which the faithful remnant always supported even in apostate times. Rezin was the Syrian king whom with king Pekah (Remaliah’s son) was crushed by the Assyrian who in a later campaign besieged and invaded Jerusalem. This attack up the river bed and under the city wall is described in Isaiah 8:8-9.

Isaiah 8: 8.
The prophet ends his brief description of the coming Assyrian attack upon Jerusalem, addressing his words to God, whom he calls the Saviour: “thy land, O Immanuel”. I.e. God is my witness.

Isaiah 8:18.
One sign was Isaiah’s firstborn child, who marked the moment of Assyria’s sacking of Damascus. The second born was a time marker for the capture of Israel (Ephraim) in the north. The prophet was instructed to record both on his manuscript journal for posterity. But a far greater sign was that of the prophecy of Immanuel’s birth coinciding therewith. Judah would also be imminently waylaid by Assyria. (Isaiah 8:8)

Isaiah 8:21.
The prophet describes the absolute fear of Judah’s citizenry as it awaits Tiglath-Pileser’s attack, having already destroyed Damascus and captured Samaria.

FOREWORD TO ISAIAH 8.

ISAIAH 7 FOOTNOTES’ ERRATA .

ERRATA TO JOHN DAVID’S FOREWORD TO ISAIAH 7.
FOREWORD and FOOTNOTES to Isaiah 7 have been duly added to John David’s post of August 6.
There should be no confusion between Syria and Assyria despite Ahaz calling for Assyrian assistance to resist the confederate force of Syria and Samaria. Assyria would still attack Jerusalem in the end.

Apologies herewith to readers involved.

ISAIAH 7 FOOTNOTES’ ERRATA .

FOREWORD TO ISAIAH 7.

Explaining the Book of Isaiah.
FOREWORD by John David.
Isaiah the poetic prophet begins the historical narrative of Judah’s descent into its wayward ways of idolatry and immorality. It is not always easy to discern between Isaiah’s own voice (viewpoint) and God’s direct voice to Judah through Isaiah’s prophecies. Isaiah the historian is not the same voice as Isaiah the poet whose verse embellishes much of what he says.

Then too, the poetic literary devices using simile, metaphor, metonym, and allegory make the text puzzling. This is because of the continuous flow of geographic references unfamiliar to all but scholars and those of the literati. Thus nearly half of its sixty six chapters seem so crowded they are obtuse. However, if the reader can persist in the slow digestion of this unusual book, and focus on the glorious main themes of Isaiah he will be amply rewarded for his perseverance. These themes are:-

1. Restoration;
2. return to Palestine;
3. preservation of the godly remnant;
4. the pleas of the Lord for repentance;
5. the overtures of an atoning Saviour to wholehearted seekers;
6. the irrevocability of the Messianic promise to David’s descendants;
7. the endearing place of Judah in the heart of God;
8. that painful suffering of divine chastisement has a merciful purpose;
9. that sins even in worst case scenarios can be forgiven at repentance;
10. that sin always has consequences;
11. that the sinner can pass the point of no return in his impenitence;
12. that the stubbornness was typical of God’s people called Israel;
13. that God uses godless nations to discipline the wayward godly;
14. that God shows vengeance towards enemies of God’s people;
15. that God is sovereign in the hearts of kings to accomplish His will.

Only under the evil reign of Ahaz (worse than all others except Manasseh) does he commence his anecdotal style weighed down with a multitude of varying literary devices and geographic place names. The metonym ‘Ephraim’ represents the rebel ten tribes in Samaria to the north, otherwise called Israel. What is confusing, however, is that Isaiah later uses ‘Israel’ to solely mean the southern kingdom of Judah (and Benjamin) with its capital Jerusalem. The alternating use of real name at one moment and the pseudonym the next moment is perhaps the prophet’s purposeful indirectness to confuse his hostile opponents. Thus it was a security measure to preserve his freedom and the continuance of his prophetic ministry. Jesus used parables in like manner.

In the midst of desolation and retribution for Judah’s idolatrous ways, Isaiah predicts the Saviour, God’s own beloved Son: Immanuel.

Compare Isaiah 7: 14-16, to 9:6-7.
Always bear in mind that the promises and offers of merciful loving-kindness that appear so unexpectedly in the sixty six chapters are based upon his avowed promise to David and his descendants of Judah on the one hand. On the other hand undeserved mercy is based on His promise to Solomon over Jerusalem. This is essential to fathom the Book of Isaiah and Paul’s Epistle to the Hebrews.

Hereunder is: *KJV Bible Public Domain ex biblegateway.com
Chapter heading, sub headings, and footnotes by John David.

ISAIAH 7
Under evil Ahaz the Messianic hope is foreshadowed.
1 And it came to pass in the days of Ahaz the son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah, king of Judah, that Rezin the king of Syria, and Pekah the son of Remaliah, king of Israel, went up toward Jerusalem to war against it, but could not prevail against it.
2 And it was told the house of David, saying, Syria is confederate with Ephraim. And his heart was moved, and the heart of his people, as the trees of the wood are moved with the wind.
3 Then said the Lord unto Isaiah, Go forth now to meet Ahaz, thou, and Shearjashub thy son, at the end of the conduit of the upper pool in the highway of the fuller’s field;
4 And say unto him, Take heed, and be quiet; fear not, neither be fainthearted for the two tails of these smoking firebrands, for the fierce anger of Rezin with Syria, and of the son of Remaliah.
5 Because Syria, Ephraim, and the son of Remaliah, have taken evil counsel against thee, saying,
6 Let us go up against Judah, and vex it, and let us make a breach therein for us, and set a king in the midst of it, even the son of Tabeal:
7 Thus saith the Lord God, It shall not stand, neither shall it come to pass.
8 For the head of Syria is Damascus and the head of Damascus is Rezin; and within threescore and five years shall Ephraim be broken, that it be not a people.
9 And the head of Ephraim is Samaria, and the head of Samaria is Remaliah’s son. If ye will not believe, surely ye shall not be established.
10 Moreover the Lord spake again unto Ahaz, saying,
11 Ask thee a sign of the Lord thy God; ask it either in the depth, or in the height above.
12 But Ahaz said, I will not ask, neither will I tempt the Lord.

The sign of Immanuel, the Son of David, the Messiah..
13 And he said, Hear ye now, O house of David; Is it a small thing for you to weary men, but will ye weary my God also?
14 Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.
15 Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil, and choose the good.
16 For before the child shall know to refuse the evil, and choose the good, the land that thou abhorrest shall be forsaken of both her kings.

Unprecedented Assyrian attacks upon region predicted.
17 The Lord shall bring upon thee, and upon thy people, and upon thy father’s house, days that have not come, from the day that Ephraim departed from Judah; even the king of Assyria.
18 And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall hiss for the fly that is in the uttermost part of the rivers of Egypt, and for the bee that is in the land of Assyria.
19 And they shall come, and shall rest all of them in the desolate valleys, and in the holes of the rocks, and upon all thorns, and upon all bushes.
20 In the same day shall the Lord shave with a razor that is hired, namely, by them beyond the river, by the king of Assyria, the head, and the hair of the feet: and it shall also consume the beard.
21 And it shall come to pass in that day, that a man shall nourish a young cow, and two sheep;
22 And it shall come to pass, for the abundance of milk that they shall give he shall eat butter: for butter and honey shall every one eat that is left in the land.
23 And it shall come to pass in that day, that every place shall be, where there were a thousand vines at a thousand silverlings, it shall even be for briers and thorns.
24 With arrows and with bows shall men come thither; because all the land shall become briers and thorns.
25 And on all hills that shall be digged with the mattock, there shall not come thither the fear of briers and thorns: but it shall be for the sending forth of oxen, and for the treading of lesser cattle.

*KJV Bible is Public Domain ex biblegateway.com Sub headings of text by John David.

FOOTNOTES by John David.

Isaiah 7:5.
Ephraim, one of the twelve tribes, is also used as metonym for all ten rebel Israeli tribes in Samaria. It would ally itself with Rezin of Syria to attack Jerusalem. Though this was the plan, Isaiah predicted it would be unsuccessful.

Isaiah 7:8.
Within 65 years Ephraim (Israel in Samaria) would not be a people. This obscure prophecy meant that the ten rebel tribes in Samaria, called Israel, would disappear within sixty five years. This was fulfilled within the time span predicted. Assyria, which would sack Damascus the capital of Syria, would also invade Samaria and deport the mass bulk of the population into exile. In their place Syrians would repopulate the region, similar to what occurred under Stalin using mass forced migration to accomplish his Soviet Union’s atheistic revolution. Millions of Russians were, for example, sent to repopulate Kazakhstan in central East Asia. .

Isaiah 7:9.
Remaliah’s son was King Pekah of the Israeli rebel tribes in the north.

Isaiah 7:11. Though the disbelieving Ahaz refused to even ask for a sign that the prophecy was true, two signs were indicated in this chapter: the messianic sign in vs.14, and the sign of Isaiah’s son being conceived. This alluded to Mahershalalhashbaz (Cp: 7.16; 8:4).
The purposeful indirectness of the prophet makes for difficult differentiation. The Son in 7:14 was not the same as the son in 7:16. The first would be seven centuries in the distant future: Immanuel, the Son of David, born to Mary the young virgin. The son in 7:16 was Mahershalalhashbaz to be born by Isaiah’s wife, the Prophetess.

Isaiah 7:14.
The sign of a renewed kingdom of David lay in the birth of Christ. The child would be given the name of Immanuel about 700 years later in Bethlehem, Judea born of the Virgin Mary. Cp. Isaiah 7:14-16; 8:13-15; 9:2; 9: 6-7. Though the angel Gabriel told Mary and Joseph to name the child Jesus, the gospel writer calls him Immanuel.

Isaiah 7:16.
‘The land that thou abhorrest,’ is an allusion to Samaria. Both the thrones of Samaria and Syria will be broken. The power of the confederate two kingdoms: Israel in Samaria and Damascus in Syria would cease to exist while the boy Mahershalalhashbaz is still only a young minor. Ephraim (poetic name) or Israel was at continual enmity with the southern kingdom of Judah.

Isaiah 7:17. ‘The land’, is an allusion to ‘The Promised Land of Israel’, once united under King David and Solomon. Both kingdoms would cease to exist when the boy is still only a minor, before the age of reason. Ephraim the poetic name of Israel was at continual enmity with the southern kingdom of Judah.

Isaiah 7:24. Because of enemy hostilities by Ephraim and Assyria farming would be neglected and the land arid.

FOREWORD TO ISAIAH 7.