Isaiah 60:15-61:9 (Episode 502)

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We are in Isaiah 60 talking about that future glory of Israel.

So God's got a lot of good things to say about what's going to happen down the road for

his people.

And some of it is a little bit surprising, Chad.

There's a lot about, you know, the enemies and stuff, but there's, there's cool stuff

like foreigners building up your walls, you know, their kings ministering to you.

So this is, this is good.

How about those forever open gates, huh?

There isn't a way to describe security, maybe more in this time than I can't just leave

your gates open all the time, right?

Like, I mean, if you're trying to figure out, how do I describe the safety of this?

It's like, well, you just, the doors are all unlocked.

In fact, they're not even just unlocked, they're just wide open.

And so you talked, you talked about that.

And, and basically you got down to the sons of those affliction, you should come bending

low to you.

All those despise you.

So bow at your feet.

So there's like, of course, there's a great reversal.

You were being afflicted by these people.

Now these people are coming in and bound down to you.

Yeah, lots of, lots of great stuff, lots of reversals are going on there and he's, he's not

done yet.

So we're going to pick up with, with 15 and he's got some more contrast to come up.

A lot of this is, of course, describing the good things of God in terms of what's happening

to the city.

And he's going to expand on that with verse 15 and following.

Now verse 15 in the SV begins, whereas you could also translate that, translate that instead

of.

In fact, was checking out the Hebrew and in verse 17, four different times you have the

word tahat, which is translated there as instead of, so instead of this, you have that,

instead of this, you have that.

Same things happening here.

So whereas or instead of, we might translate it, instead of being forsaken and hated with

no one passing through, I will make you majestic forever, a joy from age to age.

You shall, now we have some interesting metaphors coming up here verse 16.

You shall suck the milk of nations.

You shall nurse at the breast of kings.

And you shall know that I, the Lord, am your Savior and your Redeemer, the mighty one of

Jacob.

I got a minute.

If God said it to me, I'm like, do I have to do those things to know that?

Like is that, is that the only way for me to know that because we're talking about

here?

Yeah, little, little strange.

I mean, it starts out, you know, nothing uncommon here.

You're not going to be forsaken.

You're not going to be hated.

You're not going to be a ghost town in this idea of nobody passing through or maybe not

even a ghost town, maybe just shun like, oh, man, you don't want to go in that place.

Instead, you're going to have majesty, you're going to be a joy from from age to age.

And then he shifts to these strikingly odd metaphors about sucking the milk of nations

and nursing at the breast of kings.

Now if you can kind of get past the image there, really what he's talking about is, listen,

the nations, the peoples, you know, that formerly oppressed you, that are now coming to

you actually, even their kings, so even their royalty are going to be basically ministering

to you, serving you, just like you'd have a wet nurse who's taken care of a child.

So the king is described here as sort of a wet nurse, a servant to the people of God.

So that's where we get the, you know, it's kind of what is behind this odd metaphor.

And the result of all this is that you shall know, of course, this isn't just, oh, now

you're going to have a mental cognizance of some fact.

No, you're going to know, experientially, that I, the Lord, am your savior and your

redeemer, the mighty one of Jacob.

So that will be, of course, the result of all these things that God is doing for you,

all the reversals will be this intimate, saving knowledge that God is, in fact, your redeemer,

the mighty one of Jacob.

This is kind of how you know that this is a eschatological thing, right?

So what is he talking about here?

When does this happen?

I'm like, when I'm trying to, trying to figure this out.

Well, this is, this is like the ultimate promise.

This is the fulfillment of all your salvation.

And one of the reasons you, you can know that is because this is not a faith thing.

This is a knowing thing, right?

So it's not, it doesn't say, and then you will believe that I am the Lord, your savior.

He says, you're going to know it.

Well, when it comes time to know it, that means that faith is becoming sight.

Yeah.

Yes.

The evidence of, no longer the evidence of things not seen, but the, the

knowledge of things which are, which are seen.

Yeah.

This is talking about a time when, when your faith becomes unnecessary, right?

Because you, you know, you know it.

You're looking at it.

Yes.

That great, great point.

He's going to keep on with us in verse 17 by some more instead of, so I'll read

a, at least 17 and 18 instead of bronze, I will bring gold instead of iron, I will

bring silver instead of wood, bronze instead of stones, iron, I will make your overseers

peace and your taskmasters for righteousness, violets shall no more be heard in your land,

devastation or destruction within your borders.

You shall call your walls salvation and your gates, praise.

Well, now you know, for sure, this, you know, for sure, this hasn't happened yet now.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Definitely what we're waiting for when the New Jerusalem comes down to the heaven, right?

Yeah.

It's a nice set up at the beginning there.

You know, give it to that bronze and iron and wooden stones.

You got gold and silver and bronze and iron.

I mean, it's just a, you know, it's a, it's an upward movement.

You're going to get rid of the, it's going to have the building materials which are of

lower quality or lower worth that can be replaced by something which is, was even better.

It reminds me of that line.

I think it's mentioned a couple of times in, in kings where Solomon, during Solomon's

reign, there was so much gold that silver was just basically worth nothing.

Yeah.

You know, you're walking along.

Oh, like at least somebody drops some silver, but you don't even stop and pick it up because

gold is, is worth so much and so prevalent.

That's kind of the idea here.

And then of course, the removal of violence and devastation and destruction, all of that's

going to disappear.

And instead, you're going to name your wall salvation and your, your gates, your gates

praise.

Oh, and I forgot this one line, at the end of verse 17, it's kind of, I like this one

too.

I will make your overseer's peace and your task masters righteousness.

Yes.

Sign me up.

Sign me up.

It's like, you know, a, I, I think this in terms of leaders, politicians, government, it's

all this going to be basically peace, righteousness, you're not going to be vote for somebody.

Your task masters are righteousness.

Of course, that is meant to be ironic.

Your task masters, oh, yeah, it's just righteousness.

That's all.

So this is a, yeah, just a beautiful revelation, 21 and 22 kind of picture.

Yeah.

I mean, in times like these, man, violence, no more in the land, no devastation or destruction

within your borders, sounds pretty good.

Sounds very good.

Very good.

Yeah.

Come Lord Jesus, right?

Absolutely.

Yeah.

And he's got to, just to, just to wrap this up 19 through 22, that's going to take us

through the end of Isaiah 60.

And you're going to hear more of this language that John is going to echo in Revelation.

The sun shall be no more.

Your light by day, nor for brightness shall the moon give you light.

But the Lord will be your everlasting light and your God will be your glory.

Your son shall no more go down, nor your moon will draw itself.

For the Lord will be your everlasting light and your days of mourning shall be ended.

Your people shall all be righteous.

They shall possess the land forever.

The branch of my planting, the work of my hands that I might be glorified.

The least one shall become a clan and the smallest one a mighty nation.

I am the Lord in its time.

I will hasten it kind of a nice way to wrap that up too, right?

In its time, I will hasten it.

I'm going to make this happen.

It's not happening right now during Isaiah's day.

It's something we are still anticipating.

But when it happens, God is going to hurry up and make it, make it happen.

Yeah.

That's kind of like God saying, when I decide to do it, I'm going to do it quick, right?

Yeah.

I'm going to be waiting around for this to finally transpire.

It's going to happen fast.

So verse 19 and 20, I mean, it's just two different ways of saying the same thing.

Verse 19 basically says, you're not going to need the sun and moon anymore because God's

going to be your everlasting light.

And the verse 20 is communicating basically the same thing except now it says, the sun's

never going to go down.

The moon's always going to be there because what he's saying in that verse is that your

sun and your moon are the Lord.

He's going to be your everlasting light and no more days of mourning.

There could be, I'm not sure that this is the case, but there could be kind of a another

message that's communicated here because in the ancient world, the astral worship, the

worship of the sun, the moon, the stars, I mean, that was super, super popular.

So that could also be kind of a subtext of what's going on here at the sun and the moon

and the stars.

You know that all these peoples around you worship and that in fact, Israelites on

more than one occasion were tempted to worship, all that's going to be gone.

All you're going to have is the Lord, no more idolatry, no more looking outside of him

for any kind of blessing.

It's going to be the Lord alone who is your everlasting light.

And then when it gets to the bottom there to the very end of the chapter, you have more

of this reversal where the least one becomes a clan, smallest one, a mighty nation.

So God is going to make this happen in his own time.

And that will be a perfect lead in to what Isaiah 61 is going to start out with, what

we're going to hear about the anointed one who is clothed with the spirit and who goes

about the task of making sure all this is going to happen.

It does make you wonder if John, the apostle John had ever read Isaiah, it does make you

wonder this.

As he's talking about the sun being no more and the Lord being your light, I think he

might have been kind of familiar with this book.

Yeah.

I mean, John is of course constantly referring to the Old Testament through allusions and

echoes.

So the picks it up here, I mean, you've got a relish 21, 23, the city has no need of

sun or moon to shine on it for the glory of God gives it light, that revelation 22, 5.

They shine no more need the light of lamp or sun for the Lord God will be their light.

Yeah, it's a, it's a, it's a beautiful tie in between the picture that Isaiah gives us

and the picture that John gives us.

Is it exactly word for word the same?

No, but I mean, the message is clearly rhyming with each other displaying this end time

of the Lord we're going to have in the city of God.

Okay.

So now let's transition here into Isaiah 61 on a lot of this language in these opening,

this opening verse into the second verse is going to be familiar to our ears, to our

new Testament ears, because this is going to be the section that Jesus read when he was

invited to speak in the synagogue in his hometown in Nazareth.

So he's going to open up the scroll of the prophet Isaiah and he's going to read these,

this first verse and then a little bit into the second verse as well.

What I'm going to do is I'll read the first four verses to kind of give us the, the

Baker context.

Yeah, this is what, this is one of those Shad where you and I don't have to do too much

extra, you know, exegetical work to figure out who this is talking about, the new, the

New Testament has done this, this heavy lifting for us, right?

So Jesus has made it very clear who he thinks this is referring to.

Yeah, yeah, the, the me here, I think is, it's pretty clear.

Jesus makes that very, very, very clear to us when he says today, the scripture is fulfilled

in your ears, in your hearing.

Okay, so one through four, the spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord has

anointed me, of course, in Hebrew that word is, it's where you get our word, Messiah.

He's Messiah at me.

He has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.

He has sent me to bind up the broken hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and the

opening of the prison, prison to those who are bound.

To proclaim the year of the Lord's favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort

all who mourn, to grant to those who mourn in Zion to give them a beautiful headdress instead

of ashes.

The oil of gladness is said 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.

They shall build up the ancient ruins, they shall raise up the former devastations, they

shall repair the ruined streets, the devastation of many generations.

So in the first part of Isaiah, or really kind of the middle section of Isaiah, we heard

the servant songs, and of course, as a name itself implies, all of these were united

by the theme of this chosen one being the servant of God.

Now as we get toward the end of Isaiah, beginning in chapter 59, once more, this chosen one

appears, but he's not called a servant here, instead he's called the mediator of the

covenant in chapter 59, and now here in chapter 61, he is referred to by the verbal form

of Messiah, he is the anointed one, as well as the one who bears the spirit of God.

Of course, this is all talking about the same person, this is talking about Jesus, just

in different sorts of ways.

We've heard a lot in Isaiah about how the spirit is connected to his work, probably the

best first is Isaiah 112, where we have a description of the son of David, and then we hear

that the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding

of counsel in mind, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.

But you have the same thing repeated in Isaiah 42, 1, the first of the servant songs, behold

my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen one, and whom I sold the light I put my spirit upon

him.

So the work of the spirit and the work of the Messiah are inseparable, as I mean, of course

already in Genesis chapter 1 of the work of creation, where the spirit of God is hovering

there and God speaks, and you can't speak without breath or spirit coming out of God's

mouth.

The word and spirit and, of course, the Lord God, all of these are inseparable.

Here he's anointed to bring good news to the poor, to bind up the brokenhearted, to do

all these Jesus things, right, that finally ends with the first line of verse 2 to proclaim

the year of the Lord's favor, which is Old Testament technical terminology for the Jubilee

year, which is every 50th year.

So you have your seven Sabbaths of years, so seven, seven year length time periods, 49

years, followed by the Jubilee year, which is the great year of release.

Anyone who has been enslaved because of impoverished conditions is released.

You have the return of ancestral lands.

You have the land getting year of rest.

I mean, this is just a time of great joy and rejoicing and divine blessing.

And it's that year of Jubilee then that Jesus shows up to inaugurate in all that he

does.

Yeah.

I love that Jesus is able to preach like the shortest sermon's ever.

So his text is, you know, Isaiah 61, you know, one in two, half a two.

And his sermon consists of, this is about me, that's it.

Amen.

Amen.

Like most controversial sermon ever, it's great.

That's a, that's a mic drop moment.

I mean, there's a lot of mic drop moments in the Gospels, but that's definitely one of

them.

Yeah.

Because I mean, look, if you're just reading this, if Jesus doesn't do that, I mean,

we might, you know, Chad and I might be sitting here and telling you like, like, now ultimately,

of course, this is true about Jesus.

Like, I mean, we probably, I'm sure we would do that.

But it, you know, this is one of those things if you're just reading it, though, and you

don't know about Jesus, you obviously think Isaiah is speaking about himself and it's not

that Isaiah isn't speaking about himself in any way, but he is not ultimately speaking

about himself, right?

And Jesus makes that really clear.

So yeah, I'm sure it was like a jarring thing for those guys to hear where they're like,

no, Isaiah is speaking of himself.

He's a little, the spirit of the Lord is upon him.

And it's like, well, I mean, yeah, it is, but this is ultimately about me.

This is about me.

Yeah.

And you'll often hear this pointed out, but it's worth pointing out here on these verses

to that when Jesus reads from the scroll of the prophet Isaiah, he stops midverse.

So he ends to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.

Now if you were listening as I was reading, the very next line is and the day of vengeance

of our God.

And I think this is what I think is going on there is that here we have an example of

how the prophets, in this case, Isaiah often telescoped events to where they saw everything

together when they're looking ahead and when they're speaking to the work of the Messiah,

they will often talk in the in the same breath about what we would distinguish between the

first and second coming of the Messiah.

They will collapse that into one message.

So will the day of the vengeance of our God come?

Yes.

Of course it will come with a second coming of Christ.

But Christ, when he reads from the scroll of the prophet Isaiah, stops after he says to

proclaim the year of the Lord's favor, indicative of the fact that what he comes to do in his

ministry is to release and to proclaim good news and to bind up the brokenhearted and

to do all of these things, which you read about him literally doing through his healing

miracles, as well as we might say figuratively or spiritually doing as he proclaims the

good news and forgives sinners and gives hope to those who are downcast.

Yeah.

No, we've said this a little bit with Isaiah, but yeah, for the prophets, first and second

advent are, yes, there are two events, but they're the same promise.

So where you speak of one, you speak of the other, where Jesus is able to say, well,

of course, that's true.

And he is the one that's going to do both of those things, but he's able to stop short

sort of and say, but this is the part I'm doing right now.

This is the part of the first part of that promise.

Yeah, I think that's a, this particular example is super helpful for just teaching purposes,

because it shows us what the prophet does.

It shows us what Jesus does and what he says.

And when you compare and contrast those two, you get a pretty good feel for the different

ways that you see the prophets viewing things from afar and how they're actually happening

on the ground as they're being fulfilled.

Yeah.

I actually had a guy one time.

I can't remember.

I can't remember the text I was speaking about, but I'll speed on some text and someone

and I stopped at a place where I wanted to stop, and it wasn't the end of the chapter

or the end of the book or anything, but I did have someone tell me that, you know, if

you keep reading, you know, and he actually then goes into judgment and stuff.

Like, you made a scene like, this is all about, you know, grace and forgiveness and stuff.

He's like, you can't just stop short and I was like, Jesus does.

Yeah.

So quite clearly, right?

Yeah.

I mean, I don't know, what point am I trying to make here?

I mean, when am I supposed to stop?

I mean, I just read the entire Bible and then talk about that, like, I mean, it got

stopped somewhere.

Right.

Yeah.

Well, you know the, what's really going on there?

Yeah.

Someone wants to, someone wants to really hear about the judgment that's what's happening

there.

Yeah.

The judgment of other people, probably.

Of other people, yeah.

You know, I had not noticed until just this morning that we have a kind of, and I know

part of this is just kind of Hebrew poetic parallelism, but notice how he says that he's

here to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor, but it doesn't go on to say and the year

of vengeance of our God.

It's just the day.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Which is, I thought, yeah, it's kind of a, it's a nice detail to point out.

I mean, it, it resonates with passages like Exodus 34 where God appears to Moses and

he says, the Lord, the Lord compassionate gracious, you know, showing mercy to thousands

of generations.

But then when it goes on to talk about the judgment, the law part of it, it's two, three

or four generations.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I mean, these kind of contrasts are actually nice to point out the year of the Lord's

favor.

Yeah.

There's also going to be a day of, of vengeance.

The Lord's favor is stretched out, and his vengeance is contracted to just that one

particular day of judgment.

Well, there's, there's always more grace than there is judgment on this with God.

And yeah, I mean, that what you get in the gospel is the promise of the, of the favor

of, of the Lord being on you for all eternity.

But the judgment is just judgment day.

There's not something that God wishes to have going on forever and ever or anything

like that.

Like this is just like, hey, we have a day, we're going to, we got to do this, right?

And then, and then after that, we're not doing that anymore.

This is not like modern trials, which will sometimes stretch on for weeks or or months,

because you just one day, there will be no like, you know, defense attorneys in prosecution

and then all of that got, God, it will render the verdict and case closed.

Yeah.

Well, this is a, this sort of alien work, right?

And it's like, I don't want to make this my primary thing, you know, this is a, that's

how that works.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Now, the rest of this goes on to kind of elaborate more on the, the positive aspects

of what you described in the first couple of verses, where we have more of the contrast

set up, you know, people who are mourning, well, they're going to,

be all decked out.

They're going to have a beautiful head dress instead of ashes.

They're going to have oil of gladness instead of mourning the garment of praise instead of

a faint spirit, they're going to be oaks of righteousness.

And then in verse four, he picks up the, the same kind of language that we saw in the

previous chapter where he had the building up the ancient ruins, raising a former devastations.

So the city is going to be rebuilt because that time has passed.

And the Messiah has shown up to make sure that everyone is cared for, is loved, is restored.

And the city itself then will be rebuilt as a result.

Yeah.

And it's an interesting thing too that they have this, but almost as if they did, you'll

play, play a part in, in doing some of the, and now, I mean, I don't know exactly what

to say about that.

And I don't want to say, you know, too far with it.

I do think it, it, it means at least that sort of when, when all things are, are made

new, your, your job in the, in the everlasting life won't be nothing, right?

They think, I don't know, do we build?

I don't know, but like, maybe we do, you know, I don't think you're going to be bored.

And I do think work is good.

So when I put these things together, I don't know, I don't know if it, if there is a, if

you get to play a part in sort of the building up of, of new things and stuff like that, but

that would be cool.

I suspect that that we will, I mean, yeah, think of how God created us to be, He created

us to, to work and to enjoy, to enjoy our work, to build, to plant, to do all those things

that, I mean, Adam and Eve were, were created to do.

And just imagine a, a creation where you can do that, where you can enjoy that kind

of work, where you can build up, where you can clear a field, whatever, whatever you

can be doing in the new creation, you're not going to be sitting around all day, being

lazy and, you know, popping candy in your mouth or whatever it might be, it's good to

see.

We're going to be, we're doing what humans were created to do, which of course is to

receive the good things of God and to praise His name, but at the same time to engage

in very human kinds of activities, part of which involves, yeah, being able to, to build

and do all the things that give us pleasure in this life, in a, you know, which in a shadowy

sort of way is an arrow pointing to what we're going to enjoy in the life to come.

Yeah, man.

You know how this is, like you ever decided to go do something, I did this not too long

ago, I was like, I'm a trim all these trees in my backyard because some of these branches

are getting crazy and, you know, we get lost to worms and stuff like that.

And so I went out there on a Saturday and I spent all day trimming these, I have a lot

of trees and trimming these trees and then hauling the branches and all this stuff.

And it felt super good at the end of it.

It was really hard.

Like it was hot out and stuff and I was a sweaty mess, but like, you know, you kind of,

you felt like you'd done something like, and that's, that's how work is.

You know, lots of times work as frustrating and all that kind of stuff too, but everybody

knows about like deciding to, and this wasn't, it is different because that's not like,

I know it was paying me to do it.

It's not my job.

It's just a task that I decided to perform and then I go and perform this task.

And there is like this sense of like, oh, I, that's, that was good that I did that.

And I was set out in the morning to do it and out of something down and then it's done

and you kind of, you know, you feel good about that.

The only problem is that your back hurts terribly after that, right?

So you get, you get to maybe have all that without that without back pain, yeah, without

I'd be profan.

Yeah.

Chad and I might say, you know, we'll be up there in heaven and say, let's go, let's

go trim those trees and we'll spend all, you know, we might spend a hundred years doing

that.

And, and afterwards our backs won't even hurt.

It'll be great.

Yeah.

I kind of like that idea of work without the ill effects, especially the older you get,

right?

Yeah.

And all the work will be like sort of that unpaid sort of stuff too.

Like, I mean, you're not going to have like a job in the sense of like, okay, well, what

am I getting paid to do it and then, you know, how much is, you know, how much is coming

out for taxes and all that, you're just going to have jobs to do because work is good.

That stuff is just not perfect here.

You get like little glimpses of like work, like, oh, that's, that is good.

Like, it's good to get out there and sweat and work and stuff.

And it's better when it's not something that you're obligated to do, but that you decide

to do and or whatever it is, like, because you want to, you know, I, there's, while

back I built my life like a, like a, like a standing flower bed and I was like, I don't

know how to build anything.

So I got to figure it out.

So I got wood and saws and everything of that and took me way longer than it should have.

But, you know, you got this thing at the end, no one's paying you to do that.

It's something that you decide to do.

That kind of stuff is really rewarding and I think that, um, this is, I know, totally

a side thing, but as I look at this, I think that the new heavens and new earth will be full

of things like that where you really to do things for the sake of doing them, which is

the most rewarding kind of work.

Yeah.

I think that really resonates with most people because, you know, when I think back to

some of the most enjoyable, rewarding, pleasurable times in my life, it was, it was connected

with things that I love to do, you know, things that I'm good at or that I, you know,

can at least learn how to do.

And part of the joy is in figuring it out and doing it.

And then part of the joy is in stepping back from what you've done, what you've created

and saying, yeah, yeah, I like that.

It's good.

There's just something fundamentally human about that, that kind of experience.

And I can see that moving right on into life and the resurrection as well.

Oh, yeah, I mean, it's one of the really big bummers about getting older and I'm not

even old yet.

I still do most things, but that's part of like, that's part of sin.

That's part of the curse is that some of those things get stripped away from you.

You know, you start to not be able to do things that you used to be able to do.

And you don't, you're not going to deal with that.

I mean, that's, that's all part of the promise.

I mean, you'll be able to, you'll be a million years old, Chad.

And you can still say, hey, today you're going to go climb that mountain.

We haven't been up on that mountain.

You want to go climb it?

All right.

Let's do it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, as you get older and you're not able to do those things, that also has a way of increasing

your hope in the resurrection and your sense of anticipation.

Not many 20 year olds waiting around thinking, man, I can't wait for the resurrection.

But there's a lot of people over 50 waiting with great anticipation for that day to come.

Okay.

So, uh, back to Isaiah 61, we read verses five through seven, we're going to have something

that's going to sound familiar with what we covered in chapter 60 here, too, were strangers

and foreigners are going to be doing some work.

So strangers shall stand and tend your flocks, foreigners shall be your plowman and vindressers.

But you shall be called the priest of the Lord.

They shall speak of you as the ministers of our God.

You shall eat the wealth of nations and in their glory, you shall boast.

Instead of your shame, there shall be a double portion.

Instead of dishonor, there shall rejoice in their lot.

Therefore in their land, they shall possess a double portion.

They shall have everlasting joy.

So we saw some of this going on in the previous chapter where you got people from all over

the place.

All these nations are streaming to design and becoming part of the people of God.

And I guess we have, I guess there's a contrast here.

I don't know how rigid we would want to set up this contrast.

But you do have strangers and foreigners who are shepherds.

They're taking care of the fields.

They're taking care of the vines.

And then it says, you, I suppose, talking about the people of God, about the Israelite,

you are going to be the priest of the Lord, ministers of our God.

Now we don't want to force this prophetic imagery too far and act like there's actually,

you know, there's kind of the in-group and the out-group.

All of these are part of the people of God.

They're all just having different, different vocations here.

And this is under the typical Old Testament imagery of everybody having their place.

And the result is going to be they're going to have the wealth of nations, they're going

to boast in their glory, and they're going to have a double portion.

It was a lot that they lost, but instead of having the shame and the loss of honor,

there's going to be a double portion so that they have everlasting joy as a result of

God's good gifts to them.

Yeah.

That's great.

I mean, this is all just Isaiah's way of saying it's going to be great.

Right.

I mean, you're not going to find a single thing to complain about in this arrangement.

The image of standing and tending flocks and being plowing and vying dressers, one of

my earliest memories from childhood is people talking about, you know, I don't care what

I had to do in the heavenly Jerusalem.

If I'm a street sweeper of the streets of gold, I'm fine.

Yeah.

Yeah.

For some reason, I'd always suck with me and it's kind of along these same lines.

I mean, all of it, all of this is just describing for us that we have a place we have a calling.

We're part of God's people and he's going to have us doing whatever, whatever he has

us to do because we're all part of the one, the one body of Christ.

Yeah.

What is a, what does a Psalmist say better to be a dormant, a dormant, basically, better

to be a doorkeeper.

The house of my God and dwell in the tents of wickedness.

Yeah.

I'll be a doorkeeper.

That's right.

I'm here opening doors, man, and the kingdom of God is all good and rejoicing in that

calling.

Yeah.

Yeah.

All right.

A couple more verses here.

I think we got time for that.

Eight and nine says, I, the Lord, love, justice, I hate robbery and wrong.

I will faithful to 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.

So a lot of talking Isaiah about justice and God loves justice, he establishes justice

and righteousness and here he's going to act upon that quality of his by faithfully giving

them his people, their recompense, not a negative recompense, but rather he's giving

to them what he wants him to have as a result of all the things that they have suffered

from.

And he follows it up with saying, I will make an everlasting covenant with them.

This is Isaiah's way of saying the same thing that Jeremiah much later will say where

God makes, and it's going to make a new covenant with his people.

We already heard back in chapter 59 and elsewhere too about this covenant which is to come.

One of the servant songs identifies the servant himself as the covenant.

So this is God's covenant he establishes in the Messiah which then makes all of this

possible.

Everything the salvation accomplished by the Messiah that righteous is brought by him,

the covenant enacted by him is going to result in everything happening to the people of

God so that they'll be known among the nations in the midst of the peoples.

Everyone's going to know that they are the offspring of the Lord, the children of God,

the children of our Heavenly Father that he has blessed.

Doesn't the promise of an everlasting covenant mean that not all covenants are everlasting?

Yeah.

Yeah.

This is the covenant which will have no end.

I mean, sometimes I think that you're talking to people like all covenants that like

God could ever make are like obviously like for all time or whatever.

I'm like, why does he have to distinguish then between like what is the what is the promise

of this one that like never ends like it seems that that is the distinction between this

one and every other covenant is that this one is everlasting unlike many other covenants

which are not.

Yeah.

And why make a new covenant if the old one is still going to be in existence, right?

The very purpose of promising a new covenant is because the old one is going to be fulfilled

and making them obsolete as the book of as the book of Hebrews says.

Yeah.

And the thing about this everlasting covenant is it's a promise and a person.

This person, their resurrection is the first fruits of your resurrection.

It's going to be everlasting because it's this covenant literally won't die, right?

Yeah.

Because the covenant is the Messiah because he is everlasting.

Therefore, this covenant is everlasting as well.

Yeah.

It's good stuff.

Great.

Well, all right.

Well, we will leave it there.

We are out of time.

We've got just two more verses in 61, but we'll get to that next episode chat.

I'll see you then.

All right.

See you then.