Bible Study: March 15, 2023

Okay, so tonight we are going to finish Isaiah 28. So I know it seems like we've been in Isaiah 28 for a couple weeks here, but we will get through it tonight. It is an interesting chapter as we began to see last night.

Or not last night, last week. And there's some verses in there when we get into verses 10 through 13 that we've all heard before.

Hello? Okay.

Verses for us to be able to talk about. God gives us a lot of instruction in the book of Isaiah.

You know, the longer we've been in this book and the more I read through it and go through it, I see more and more truth. Isaiah is a unique book in a way. When you look at Isaiah and look at what God gave Isaiah and the timing of the book. We've talked about the kings of Isaiah.

We've talked about Ahaz, his resistance to God. And in response to that, God gave all these prophecies.

He gave the prophecy of the Messiah and all the detail that the people of New Testament times were able to see those prophecies fulfilled as Christ was born. Without the book of Isaiah, a lot of those prophecies, those details aren't there. But they were there and they looked at the book of Isaiah and they could see, wow, all these prophecies. You talk about Tyre, you talk about Babylon, you talk about these cities we've seen.

So for the people of the early New Testament time, the book of Isaiah was a very, well, a very, they knew an inspired book because God would say, you know, my word stands. Every word I say will happen exactly, will stand and be accomplished exactly the way that I said it. And they saw that. Now we're here at the other end, you know, the other end of the age before Christ's second coming. Now we can see all those things that the early New Testament people saw, but we also see the dual fulfillment of these.

And we understand these verses that they didn't understand that Christ would return a second time, you know, that He would come a second time. And that these prophecies that we're going through, and here is where in chapters 27 through 33, we see these prophecies that are there for an end time.

They may have a kind of fulfillment in the past, but we see many times, as we are in 27, 28, we're going to see the prophecy in Jerusalem in 29, and so on, these fulfillments. So we even have the book of Isaiah is a very vibrant and timely book, again, a very telling book that inspires us as we see God fulfilling everything and everything coming to pass exactly the way He said.

And of course, we have the New Testament, we have the book of Revelation, to which we've been turning quite a bit to show exactly what is going to happen at the end of the time. So as we go through the book of Isaiah, I mean, every book of the Bible is foundational, but you know, the book of Isaiah is quite a fascinating book, and one where you absolutely can prove that God exists from time past and that we have the assurance of what He's going to be doing going forward.

So okay, last week we got through a few verses in chapter 28. My notes show that we got through verse 6, so we'll begin in verse 7, and you'll remember that we talked about the drunkards of Ephraim, you know, the other name for Israel. We talked about spiritual intoxication as well as the physical intoxication. We talked about the Day of the Lord coming, the land fading, being as beautiful as a flower, but then fading over time.

And then we came down to verses 5 and 6, where we had those three words in that day that puts us into the future, the time of Christ's return, you know, Christ coming down, the crown of glory, to the remnant of His people.

So in verse 7, then we go back to God talking about and using the theme of this chapter, which is people that are intoxicated. They are drunk on wine. So verse 7 says, but they have also erred through wine and through intoxicating are out of the way. So he goes back to the prior, goes back to the earlier verses in verse 1, for instance, where he talks about this intoxication and the drunkards of Ephraim, and we talked about that.

But he returns to this, and they've erred. And he talks about, you know, wine in the sense that, again, too much, as we talked about last night or last week, can dull our senses, can render us, you know, cause all sorts of problems. We're going to talk about that a little bit. But in verse 7, he adds to it, you know, it's not just the people of the land. He talks, says the priests and the prophet have erred through intoxicating drink.

They're swallowed up by wine. They are out of the way through intoxicating drink. So you have a nation that's lost his way. They stumble around as in the dark.

They've lost control of their senses. They're not thinking clearly. But then he says the priests and the prophet have done the same thing, too. Because God expects that his people and the people that are preaching his word would have a clear mind. In fact, we have to have a clear mind for God to work through us. You know, his Holy Spirit is in us. But, you know, we guard our minds, too. We make sure that what goes in it and what goes into our bodies are such that we can receive what God wants and not have put anything into ourselves that would cause us to distort the message that God has given, to misinterpret something that is there in the Bible, or that we would just have such a disrespect for God's word that we wouldn't, you know, that we would actually do the physical drinking before. In fact, back in Leviticus 9, God has a specific command to his priest. So let's go back to Leviticus 9. He gave it back then. It stands, you know, for all of his priests and prophets and ministers today, and anytime that we may be talking about God's word. Yep, let me make sure I've got the right chapter here. Did that by memory?

28-7. Leviticus 10-9. So, okay, not 9-10, but Leviticus 10-9.

Okay, so it says in verse 8, The Lord spoke to Aaron, saying, Don't drink wine or intoxicating drink, you nor your sons with you, when you go into the tabernacle of meeting, and look how he accentuated that, lest you die, it shall be a statute forever throughout your generations. And then he gives the reason why in verse 10, that you may distinguish between holy and unholy, and between clean and unclean, that you may teach the children of Israel all the statutes which the Lord has spoken to them by the hand of Moses. So, you know, if it was what God wanted back then, it's what God wants today. And I would even say, you know, as we study the Bible, as we are at home and doing our own Bible study, don't mix it with wine, don't mix it with intoxicating drink. Come before God with purity and clarity of mind, so that you can read those words, and that he can reach you, and don't have polluted your mind with intoxicating drink. There's a time and a place for everything. Wine and Bible study, Sabbath services, and certainly men who are preaching or teaching whether they're an ordained elder or not. That's not the time. It's not the time for for for a drink. We rely on God's Spirit to lead and guide us. You know, if we go forward to the book of Proverbs, we'll just talk a little bit more about intoxicating drink. Again, the church has no prohibition. There's nothing wrong with having a glass of wine. There's nothing wrong with having a beer. Of course, everything should be done in moderation. But in Proverbs 20, just like some of our entertainment in the computer, they can be used for good. They can be used for good, but they can also be used, and too much of it can be a detriment to us as well.

Proverbs 20 verse 1 says this. It says, wine is a mocker. Strong drink is a brawler, and whoever is led astray by it is not wise.

And we know that, right? I mean, through our years, we've seen people, some handle a little bit too much liquor well, others don't handle it so well. Don't let it call our senses and fall prey to what it would have us do. A couple of few chapters later, Proverbs 23 and verse 29.

Mr. Shaby? Yes, sir. The drink offering that is put out in the meat offerings in these different things. Why is the strong drink offering in Numbers 28 and the drink offering thereof shall be the fourth part of an hen for the one lamb, and the holy place shall be caused strong drink wine to be poured unto the Lord for our drink offering? Why is God using an intoxicating...

Well, remember, it's not the wine itself. It's bad, right? God uses wine as a symbol of Christ-shed blood. It is of the fruit of the vine. It is considered good. It's the misuse of it that God is talking about. So, you know, some churches, not our church or any church of God, will say, all drink is bad. We don't say that. We don't say that. A little wine is good. Even Paul, when he's talking to the top, he says a little wine is good and healthy for you. God bless that drink. And so it is, you know, we read in Isaiah 5 about the vineyard, and God blesses, and the people will drink their own wine. It was a blessing to do that. It's the misuse of it. It's the misuse of it that is the problem. So God is talking about the, you know, the misuse of it there.

So, dependence and adultery type of... Right. Yeah. So, yeah, it's a blessing, but not when misused, right? Too much of it is too much of it is not what God had ordained. So, okay, Proverbs 20-23, right? Yeah, Proverbs 23. Let's look at verse 29. God has, sometimes he has these series of questions that are in his word, and they kind of lead us to a conclusion. He goes, who has woe? Who has sorrow? Who has contentions? Who has complaints? Who has wounds without cause?

Who has redness of eyes? Ah, those who linger long at the wine, those who go in search of mixed wine. Don't look on the wine when it's red, when it sparkles in the cup, when it swirls around smoothly. You can kind of see the lust, right, of it that is theirs. Not just there to drink, but there's this desire. This is it intoxicates you. It just mesmerizes you. At the last, it bites like a servant and still like a viper. Your eyes will see strange things and your heart will utter perverse things. Yes, you will be like one who lies down in the midst of the sea, or like one who lies at the top of the mast saying, they strayed, but I wasn't hurt. They'd beaten me, but I didn't feel it. When shall I awake that I can seek another drink? You can kind of almost hear the drunken stupor of the person who is saying that. Too much is just what God is talking about. He gives it as a gift. The fruit of the vine is a good thing, but too much of it does not lead to anything good. Finally, let's go to Amos. Amos was a contemporary of Isaiah. If we look at Amos 6, we look at the book of Amos, and it talks about ancient Israel. It talks about some of the ways that they lived their lives, the way that they behaved. We can look at ourselves and say, boy, this is exactly talking about our modern day nations as well. In Amos 6, verse 1, it says, woe to you who are at ease in Zion, woe to you who trust in Mount Samaria, notable persons in the chief nation to whom the house of Israel comes. We can kind of compare that to ourselves today.

We live in a life of ease. We live in a life where just everything is so easy.

So many put their trust in the government. They put their trust in man rather than God. God is now almost not even thought of anymore in our nation today, and the notable persons in the chief nation to whom the house of Israel comes. If we drop down to verse 3, woe to you who put far off the day of doom. Well, you know, Peter talks about that in 1 Peter, maybe 2 Peter 3, where he talks about, you know, the Lord delays is coming. It's not going to happen in my time. Things go on as they always do. Woe to you who put far off the day of doom, who caused the seat of violence to come near, who lie on beds of ivory, stretch out on your couches, eat lambs from the flock and calves from the midst of the stall. You got all this good food. You live the life of luxury. You got nice things all around you. Life is just really good and comfortable. Who sing idly to the sound of stringed instruments and invent for yourselves musical instruments like David? Who drink wine from bowls and anoint yourselves with the best ointments, but are not grieved for the affliction of Joseph? You look at all those things and again, one of those luxuries is having wine as a blessing from God. But all these luxuries, but we enjoy them, but we don't grieve for what's going on in the country. Knowing the departure from God that is all around us and what this is all going to lead to as a country pretty much throws away the blessings that God has given them as they just seek to serve themselves rather than God. So, we'll go back to Isaiah 28 here.

So, when God talks about this intoxication and how people air through wine, we've been talking about the physical intoxication now. Certainly, that is a situation, but we also have to remember the spiritual intoxication that we talked about last week. We went to Revelation at the end of Revelation and how it talked about how the nations have committed harlotry, the cup of abominations that the great harlot holds, and how they are drunk on the blood of the saints. All the spiritual intoxication that you and I, if we aren't watching what's going on and what's going into our minds and what we're doing with our free time, could become intoxicated with the world. It's a wine and it's just perversity as well. So, that's what he's talking about in verse 7. He adds in here the priests and prophets as well that we are to be people of clear minds. It doesn't mean we never should take a drink. That's okay, but don't mix it with the things of God.

Okay, so I came down to, let me see, I got two lines left in verse 7. They are out of the way through intoxicating drink, talking about the priests and prophets. They err in vision. They stumble in judgment. That's what God is saying. You just don't think clearly for all tables—and he's quite graphic in verse 8—for all tables are full of vomit and filth. No place is clean.

When we become spiritually drunk, or when we become drunk otherwise, I mean, he's pretty graphic at what happens. What is the physical? That's the way God looks at what comes out of us when we're spiritually drunk with the ways of the world or enamored with it. Then in verses 9 through 13, God gives a principle of learning, if you will. In verse 9, he says, well, who will he teach knowledge and who will he make to understand the message?

Those just weed from milk. Those just draw from the breasts. What he's saying is here, I mean, are you going to have a babe up teaching the truth? Is that who God is going to do? Is someone, you know, if we compare it to the New Testament verses where Peter talks about, you know, we're babes when we first come to the church, we're fed on milk, but then we grow, and we can eat stronger food. We understand more and more and more. We grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ. We come in as babes, and we grow up to be spiritually mature as we see all the examples and all the way of the Bible that we become spiritually mature. Well, is he going to teach those who are still babes who are on milk? Is he going to teach them the knowledge that they should go out and teach? Will he make them to understand the message? Well, yes, God's spirit does help us to understand the message, but they're not going to be the ones that he's going to use to go out and teach others. It will be those who have been seasoned. And he says this in verse 10, a very good verse. And I remember hearing this a lot years and years ago, but I haven't heard it much, you know, in quite a while. For precept must be upon precept. Precept upon precept.

Line upon line, line upon line, here a little, there a little. And that's how God teaches us, isn't it? This is how God works with us. I mean, that's why we could read through the Bible, and we could go through any book of the Bible, and we can read it, and we will learn something.

And we can go back to it a year later or even two months later, and we'll learn something new.

Line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little, there a little. And over time, we come to an understanding, a greater understanding of God's way of life. Just like every year when we keep the Holy Days, we learn more about God's plan. We see the beauty of it. We see the wisdom in it. We see how great it is, and we learn to keep those days and appreciate those more the way God wants us to every time. Line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little, there a little.

That's why we continue, and God gives us our lifetimes here physically to grow in the grace and knowledge and to... We never stop learning. We never stop going to the Bible. We never stop reading the Word. We never stop discussing it with each other. We never stop going to church. We never stop listening. We never stop hearing, because the minute we think that we know it all, boy, we better get down on our knees and repent and realize that if we think we know it all, boy, we've lost it. We've lost it all, and we need to get back to God and ask Him to get us back to where we need to be. Mr. Glasgow, you got a comment?

Yes, sir. I think that that is one of the most valid and concepts of the entire Bible than the way it has been written and the way that we should study it.

However, I want to emphasize that because the Septuagint, the King James and most of the English translations use the Masoretic Hebrew text, which was penned 900 AD and after.

And the Septuagint, that passage reads much differently in Isaiah, the preceptor, because the Septuagint sticks more to the theme of the drunkenness of Ephraim than this does.

But now I'm not invalidating this in any way. It's still beautiful, wonderful.

But for those who might have the Septuagint, it would be worth reading.

You know, we're going to see that. We're going to see that in a little bit in the Septuagint and another verse that comes up here that gives a more understanding on it as well.

Yeah, but it is a valid precept. It is a valid concept. It is what God does. And you could see that throughout the Bible. He just keeps adding to it. And as He adds to it, our faith in Him grows, and we become more like Him, as the New Testament says. As we understand those things, take Him into our heart and let Him build His will and His Spirit and His mind in us.

You know, He repeats it. In verse 9 and 10, we're going to go back and we're going to see the same word again, the same words again in verse 13, and He adds a little bit to it. But as we go into verse 11, you know, He says something interesting. This is how He teaches and this is how He brought Israel along, right? For 40 years they were in the wilderness. He kept feeding them. He kept taking care of them. They kept disappointing them. He kept, He stayed patient with them, kept providing, kept trying to teach. But in verse 11, He says, For with stammering lips and another tongue, He will speak to this people, His people, His people Israel, to whom, well, let's just stop right there. For with stammering lips and another tongue, He will speak to this people.

Now, you know, that's an interesting concept when you see where He is and what Isaiah is prophesying, you know, in this time He's speaking in the Hebrew. But as we go through and just take it as a word, you know, stammering lips can be a different language, something that we have a hard time understanding. You know, someone stammers or whatever. They may not understand even everything that's going on. So with stammering lips, but in another tongue. So He talks about the different tongues, the same concepts, the same precepts, the same lines, the same here, a little, there, a little will be taught. It was then in Hebrew. Later on, you know, the New Testament was written in Greek.

Today, we read it in English and people in the French-speaking areas may, you know, read it in French and German and Spanish and Portuguese and all these different languages. It's the same message, no matter what language you're listening to, no matter what list, what, how God is speaking to us. It's the same, it's a different tongue, but it's the same language, but still they don't understand. But let's, let's look at 1 Corinthians 14 because Paul quotes from this verse as well in 1 Corinthians 14.

In verse 21, 1 Corinthians 14 verse 21, he says, in the law, speaking of Isaiah, and you're, you know, it will tell you there, it's coming right from where we are, with men of other tongues and other lips, I will speak to this people, and yet for all that they will not hear me. This people wouldn't listen in the time of Israel. You know, the people in Jesus Christ day, he spoke to them in the language they spoke then. They weren't listening to God. It's in the Greeks, you know, as he wrote in in the Greek, they didn't listen. Today the Bible is here in plentiful form. More Bibles than any other book, you know, ever been sold, and it's all over the country in English. They still don't listen. They still don't understand. They may say they read the Bible. They don't get it. With stammering lips and another tongue, he will speak to this people. It's the same truth he gave to his people back then as they came out of Egypt. It's the same truth he gives us today. It's the same truth around the world, and that's why we say wherever you are in a church of God, you will hear the same message. It's the same gospel, maybe a different language, but the same gospel. And yet the world around, you know, people will talk about the Bible, but it's almost like they're speaking in another tongue. They read the Bible, and they come up with a totally different view of what God is saying than what the clear Word of God is. It shows us how merciful God is for all of us online here and everyone who he has called has put his Holy Spirit in. We have his Holy Spirit, and we can read these words and understand what they mean. One day, when Christ returns, all will understand, and their minds will be opened, and they will feel the excitement and the zeal that you and I should every day for what God has made us see here. But for with stammering lips and another tongue, he will speak to this people, to whom he said, this is the rest with which you may cause the weary to rest, and this is the refreshing that they would not hear. You know, how many times do you say, just come to me, I'll provide you rest. You'll have peace. We just read it back in Isaiah 26. They have perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you. Now, as we read that, you might have thought of what Christ said in a different language. If he wasn't speaking Hebrew, if he was speaking Aramaic back in Matthew 11, or as it was recorded in Greek, as Matthew, we have the scrolls that were found in Greek in Matthew 11. Verse 28 is exactly what Jesus Christ said. We see it here in Isaiah 28. I see my margin says we can look at Isaiah 30 as well, but let's look at Matthew 11. And in verse 28, Christ, in his words, whatever language he was working, at that time, the same message, come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. God says, come to me. You don't, you can throw away worry, you can throw away anxiety, have complete faith, have complete trust in me, and you will find the perfect peace that will see you through whatever it is that lies ahead of us between now and the return of Jesus Christ. We can rest in him and rest assured that his will is done. As we understand the future and as we see what his plan is, that for you and me, and for all mankind, you know, God would love, his will is that everyone would be able, would come to repentance and receive eternal life.

This is just one phase of what he has in mind for us.

So if we go back to Isaiah 28 there for a moment, actually, you know what, let's look at Isaiah 30 since I have that written down in my margin here. Yeah, Isaiah 30 verse 15.

You know, again in Isaiah, we could spend a lot of time in Isaiah just going forward in some chapters as we read these things too because we'll see these recurring themes throughout Isaiah as God repeats them over and over and over again to show us, you know, his word is true. But Isaiah 30 verse 15 says this as the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, in returning and rest you will be saved, in quietness and confidence shall be your strength. But he says, but you wouldn't. I offered it to you.

I told you this is the way it is. You'll find the rest. You would not. It's always us. We just will not believe God. We will not just put our trust in him. And you said no, for we will flee on horses. And he says, therefore you will flee. And we'll read it right on swift horses. Therefore those who pursue you shall be swift. A thousand shall flee at the threat of one, at the threat of five you shall flee, till you are left as a pole on top of a mountain and as a banner on a hill.

And God says, okay, go ahead and trust in yourself. Go ahead and trust in whatever your plan is.

But he says in verse 18, always the reassuring, you know, word from God, therefore the Lord will wait, that he may be gracious to you. And therefore he will be exalted, that he may have mercy on you, for he is a God of justice. Blessed are all those who wait for him.

And we, you know, we come to realize that just wait on God. He says, when he says he will do it, he will do it. Not on our time, Trent fame, but on his his time frame. And we build faith by waiting sometimes, well, by waiting for him, that we have the absolute assurance of his word.

Okay, so verse, we go back to Isaiah 28, and we have God repeating that concept that we find in the Bible. Verse 13 of Isaiah 28 says, but the word of the Lord was to them precept upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, hear a little, there a little. When God repeats something twice, we pay attention. Yeah, Xavier, you had a comment?

I brought a chibi. Yes, in regards to this whole context, it reminds me of Matthew chapter 13, where after Christ spoke the parables, the disciples came to me and said, why do you speak to them as such? And he answered them that, you know, and it reminds me also of that, round six, where he says, you can't come to him, and it's our Father, gracious, he calls us.

And to us, it's been given to know, but to them, it's not yet.

Yep, very good. Yeah, that's exactly what the parables were. You're exactly right. That's a good thing. They just didn't understand. They just didn't understand. Yeah, very, very good point.

Okay, so we are in verse 13. We read precept upon precept, line upon line, hear a little, there a little. That they might go and fall backward and be broken and snared and caught.

It's like mankind will take a few steps forward, maybe have some understanding, but what do they do? They don't understand. They fall backward. They go back. We've seen it, you know, we've probably done it in our own lives as well. Go a little forward, go a little back, but never should we be broken and snared and caught. You know, those words, snared and caught, they just can't understand. You know, it's how many people have started coming to church and they get some of it, right? They understand the Sabbath day, but then there's this wall that they hit and they cannot, they can't get past it. So then, you know, while they've moved forward, they don't get that. And so they stop and they go all the way back and they're snared and they're caught and they lose the thing. You know, Christ talks about the parable of the sower and the seed. And this probably, you know, talks about, or it refers to that a little bit there. They come, but then they don't get it. They don't understand. They don't see it all and they fall backwards. They're snared and they're caught up in the ways of the world and they lose the truths that they were given. I want to look at that word, snared, a little bit, because God uses that word, snared, a lot. We're talking about birds and and prey and things like that.

So let's look at a few things here. If we go back to Psalm 124, again, God uses so many times His creation to help us understand the spiritual concepts of what we could fall prey to, or as an encouragement as well. I remember when the Bible was written, people were much more aware of wildlife, agriculture, the way and nature of the world that we may be today. Today, we may look at nature shows on the Discovery Channel, but we're not out and about it and we may not know the ways as much of them. So sometimes we have to just stop and when God uses those analogies, they meant something to them back then that they would pick up on right away. We have to stop and think about it a little bit and maybe contemplate these things. In Psalm 124, verse 6, David says, Blessed be the Eternal, who hasn't given us as prey to their teeth, our soul has escaped as a bird from the snare of the fowlers.

Whatever he was in the analogy that God inspired him to use, here's a bird that's about to get trapped, but God has given us the way of escape to know the truth that we don't fall back into that.

Our soul has escaped as a prey or has escaped as a bird from the snare of the fowlers. The snare is broken and we have escaped. Our help is in the name of the Eternal who made heaven and earth.

So we don't get caught by the world. Those who come a little bit of a way and then they don't understand something and they just quit. They don't get the precept upon precept. They don't get the waiting on God. They don't get the asking for God and just continuing and, you know, as a pastor told me decades ago, right, when I had a question on something, he just put it on a shelf.

Just put it on a shelf and God will eventually show you and you will understand what that is.

And you know he is exactly right. And sometimes we hear something. It's like, well, I can't prove it's wrong. I don't understand it, but God will give us the understanding. We have to be patient and let the precept upon precept, line upon line and life experience that he brings us through help us to understand. Now don't run away, fall backwards, and get caught in the way of the world and lose everything that God has opened our minds to. Sherri?

Yeah, I just wanted to get that verse. I got you said Psalm 120.

Psalm 124? Yeah, verses 6 through 8.

6 through 8. Okay, thank you.

Now if we go back to 91, Psalm 91, he uses that, you know, I think a lot of people look at Psalm 91 as a pima, as a psalm of comfort when we're going through trials. And in Psalm 91 verse 3, one of the promises he says, he says, Surely he will deliver you from the snare of the fowler and from the perilous pestilence.

He will cover you with his feathers and under his wings you shall take refuge. And then he says, His truth will be with your shield and buckler and so on and so on. A beautiful psalm, you know, that we can turn to when we're looking, you know, when we are in trials and we need the, you know, we need God's Word to encourage us to keep going. But God delivers us from the snare of the fowler. Satan is the one who would love to trap us in something. And when he traps us, you know, it's very, very difficult, very difficult to escape. God's given you and me the escape. And of course, in the book of Proverbs, Proverbs 6 and verse 1, this is just an interesting principle here where God is talking about indebtedness and how we can fall into a snare here. Proverbs 6 verse 1, he says, My son, if you become surety for your friend, if you've shaken hands and pledged for a stranger, that means if you've guaranteed a debt or whatever, said, Hey, whatever, he doesn't pay, I'll pay for him, etc. If you become surety, if you have shaken hands and pledged for a stranger, you are snared by the words of your mouth. You are taken by the words of your mouth. So do this, my son, and deliver yourself, for you have come into the hand of your friend. Go and humble yourself. Plead with your friend. Give no sleep to your eyes nor slumber to your eyelids. Deliver yourself like a gazelle from the hand of the hunter and like a bird from the hand of the fowler. You know, just a principle. I'm not going to go in and talk about all that. But again, you know, the provers, when we read through them, I mean, it is a one of the books of wisdom, and there's a lot of wisdom in there, life principles.

You know, young people that we have on the line with us and everyone else, very good to review these every once in a while, we can quit caught up in something that can create some problems for us if we if we don't watch what's going on. God gives us the, you know, He gives us the wisdom.

He kind of uses that things. Don't get caught up in the snare. Don't get caught. That's what He's saying in Isaiah 28 here in verse 13. Don't go and then fall back. Be broken, snared, and caught.

Keep marching forward. Keep your eyes on God and keep asking. He will deliver. I mean, Christ said, you know, ask and you will find, or ask and you will ask and you will receive.

Seek and you will find. We have to ask and then continue, and then oh God will provide.

Okay, let's go back to Isaiah 28.

So, he, you know, as we've gone through this section of 9 through 13, he says, therefore, okay, going on from here, understanding this concept that we've just talked about, line upon line, precept upon precept, therefore, hear the word of the Lord you scornful man.

You who would kind of mock him, you who would like calling your roll of your eyes at it, hear his word. You know, again, look at the word here. You know, you can write down Romans 10, verse 17. How does faith come? Faith comes by the hearing of the word. We read the Bible. We study the Bible, but there is the principle of we hear the word. Where do we hear the word? In God's Hall of Holy Convocations and in things like this, when we're hearing God's word, therefore, hear his word. You know, even when we read it, we could say we're hearing what God has to say if we have our minds into it, and we're not just reading words, but actively listening to what is being said.

Therefore, hear the word of the Lord, you scornful men who rule this people who are in Jerusalem.

And then he goes into kind of a...

And he goes in, you know, kind of... It's interesting the way that God puts this. He's just talked to us about, you know, don't fall backwards, don't get caught in a trap, don't be snared.

And then he kind of puts in pretty plain language if we would look at the things that we do in our lives and some of the choices that we make. And so we have the people in Jerusalem, we have the people in Israel. He's talking to his people here, and he says, here's what you said. We've made a covenant with death. Well, we know, you know, Deuteronomy 13 and the eternal principle, right?

One that was applied the day that God inspired Moses to say it, it's explained to us today.

Therefore, I said before you this day, life and death, blessing and cursing, therefore, choose life that you and your seed may live. So there is only... There's life and death. You choose life as you follow God. As he opens your mind, you follow him, you make your decisions, you make your choices to follow him, you build your faith, your character, your trust, your reliance on him, line upon line, precept upon precept, experience upon experience, triable upon trial, year upon year, year upon year.

Because you said, we've made a covenant with death. So what does that... What do this people do?

Well, we're going to look to ourselves. We're going to trust in ourselves. We're going to...

We're going to rely on ourselves to deliver ourselves. Because you said, we've made a covenant with death, and with Sheol, the grave, we are in agreement. Well, they didn't consciously do that. They didn't say, we're going to make a covenant with death, but by their actions, we're not going to trust in you, God. We're going to trust in the things of the world.

Ahaz was the master of this, right? King Ahaz, we've talked about him enough. He wasn't going to make a covenant with God. He wasn't going to listen to God. He was going to resist God. I'll make an alliance with Assyria. I'll make an alliance with Egypt. I'll make an alliance against Syria and Israel. I don't want to make an alliance with God. I don't want to trust in you. I don't trust in the world. So, when we do that, when we choose the world, when we say, and God sees what's in our hearts, and we need to examine ourselves what's in our hearts too, you've made a covenant with death. You've made a covenant with Sheol. When the overflowing scourge passes through, the overflowing scourge, wow, that's kind of quite a statement there. God says it again later on in chapter 2. He talks about this overflowing scourge. If you look up scourge, we all know what probably the name that you think about Jesus Christ, he was scourged.

When you were scourged, you were punished. It was supposed to be for a cleansing. It was something that you did something wrong, and you were going to be scourged, and it was going to literally beat the evil out of you, if I could put it that way. There was a cleansing that was that. God says, you know, you're going to make a covenant. You're choosing death. When this overflowing scourge comes through, this cleansing, this purification, this punishment that's going to come upon you, it's going to be overflowing. It did happen to Israel. It did happen to Judah. We know it's going to happen in the future. It happens to people and God's people who turn away from Him.

The overflowing scourge, when it passes through. We're going to come back to that in a little bit, but let's go on. When you say, verse 15, it won't come to us. For we have made lies our refuge.

I'm not going to trust in the truth of God. I'm going to trust in what the world says.

Five years ago, we know the world. Satan is the father of liars. He is the liar. But when you look at the world around us today, you would have to have your head deeply buried in the sand to not know that there are lies in a way that we have not seen before in our lifetimes that are everywhere.

Not just in one group or another, but our society is based on lies. Sometimes I sit and I marvel, and I hear someone say something, and I don't mean anyone in church. But I listen to something on the news, and I think, well, that's a flat-out lie. That's a flat-out lie. And they don't even make an excuse for it. It's just a flat-out lie. They don't offer any proof, no substance. If we just keep repeating it, it's going to be the truth. And that's kind of the society we live in.

If we say, oh, you know, this isn't going to come on us because we have made lies, our refuge. We're going to trust in what mankind is telling us. We'll just believe the lie, as it says later on in Thessalonians, and under falsehood, we have hidden ourselves. We'll just take that under the air. We'll be protected because we were told this and we were told that. And so we'll just trust in that instead. So God says, if you've made this your covenant, that this is what you've said, and as if we do these things, and as the country does these things, and as the world does these things around us, that's how God looks at it. You've trusted in death rather than life. In verse 16, therefore, thus says the Lord God, Behold, I lay in Zion a stone for a foundation, a tried stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation. Whoever believes will not act hastily. Okay, you have Jesus Christ, He's the sure foundation, He's the cornerstone, you can rely on Him. He is there. You know He's there. You know you can trust in Him. We all know we can trust in Him. Whoever believes will not act hastily. And that's kind of a weird, kind of a weird thing to say, hastily. But what it means, and some of the other translations say it more appropriately, those who believe in Him, like when we believe in Christ that changes us to our very court, they won't act in panic. What do people do when they panic? When they panic, right, we have the example coming up on the days of Unleavened Bread. They fear, they become hysterical, they do anything, they run all over, they lose their wits, right? Those who don't panic, those who have trust in God, won't act hastily. They will rely on God, right? I'm going to get to you in a moment, Xavier. But Paul also quotes this verse in Romans, and it gets back to what Mr. Glasgow was saying before. You look at the Septuagint and how they translate this verse. We see it in Romans 9 and verse 13.

Romans 9.

Paul says, as it is written, Behold, I lay in Zion a stumbling stone and a rock of offense, and whoever believes on him will not be put to shame.

See the kind of difference in there? If we rely on God, people may mock us, people may score us, people may laugh at us and say, What are you trusting in? But our reliance is always in God, and we will never be put to shame ultimately when we trust in God. We won't panic, and we won't make hasty decisions. Take that mark of the beast because we're panicked, and we don't have our faith and trust developed over the years of this life in God. Xavier, did you want to make a comment?

Our God graciously tells us of a few admonitions. One of them is to guard the door of our heart, and the next one is to study so that we are really approved. One of the tools of the world is fear, and we have seen that even through the authorities of the nations. They use fear as a means to get the people to do what they want them to do, whatever the reason may be. God says to me, He said, they've made lies their refuge and covered themselves with falsehood, and truth can't enter in, and we see it. And if you say you're sharing the truth, you're a conspiracist, you're against authority, you don't love your neighbor, all kinds of nonsense. And we see that, and then they flip it again and give you another thesis. Just keep going on the thesis, synthesis, and it gives you keeps evolving and revolving in the same nonsense. So if we're not careful with God's help, we'll just be swept up out to the deep ocean. Yes, we will. Yeah. Mr. Glasgow?

Fear and faith are opposites. They cannot coexist.

Well-spoken. That's why Christ says over and over, right? It says the most often thing, don't fear, have faith in me exactly. So, okay, I'm looking at the time. I'm going to speed it up a little bit. When we get to 23 through 29, we can move through that pretty quickly. But let's look at verse 17 here in Isaiah 20. It says, God says, also I will make justice the measuring line.

Okay, we live in a land we've mentioned last week that, you know, justice is becoming increasingly perverted, you know, I mean, it has different different different justice for different people, it seems, so we can see more and more. Also, I will make justice the measuring line. When we measure a line, remember, God is measuring the temple. He's building the house.

We're part of that house He's building. We're supposed to be building that house individually and collectively. I will make justice the measuring line. And righteousness, the plummet, you know, the plummet, if I remember correctly, is the thing that you put on a wall to make sure that it is, you know, perfectly in line or straight or whatever the word is. The hail, okay? I will make justice the measuring line, not lies. Righteousness, living by God's way, the plummet, that's how you'll be measured. The hail. Boy, we've talked about hail for the last couple weeks now.

Hail is something that comes from God, right? I'm not going to go back. In times past, we talked about Job 38, where he says he has this treasury of hail for the time of trouble. Let's go just one chapter, two chapters ahead in Isaiah 30. And we see hail where God describes it here in Isaiah 30 and verse 30. He says, The eternal will cause his glorious voice to be heard and show the descent of his arm with the indignation of his anger. Notice what he's doing with the indignation of his anger and the flame of a devouring fire with scattering, tempest, and hailstones. How does God show his anger? What is the punishment? That hailstone. We talked about Revelation 16 and the great hail that came down. The hail. It says in verse 17 of Isaiah 28, the hail from God that he uses as that instrument, that hail, will sweep away that refuge of lies. That's what you've trusted in?

The hail's going to wipe it away. Whatever refuge, whatever covering or protection you thought you have from that, it's going to wipe it clean away. And the waters will overflow the hiding place.

I know you know the verses in Revelation 12, 15, and 16 where it talks about God takes his people to a place where they will be nourished for time, times, and half a time from the face of the servant. It talks about the waters that come, and at the last minute it appears, you know, God opens up the earth and it swallows the waters. These waters that are going to come, they're going to try to overcome God's people, but here these waters will overflow the hiding place. Whatever you're hiding under, there's going to be no hiding place. If you trust in death, if you trust in man, if you trust in the instruments of the world, there is no place to hide. The hail will sweep away the lies. The waters will overflow the hiding place. Your covenant with death will be annulled, and your agreement with Sheol will not stand. I'm in verse 18 of Isaiah 28. Your agreement with Sheol will not stand when the overflowing scourge passes through. Then you will be trampled by it.

So we have this overflowing scourge that God's talking about, and we know what lies ahead.

We know when we look in the book of Revelation, we know when we look at Christ's words, what is going to happen. The overflowing scourge where the earth is going to be laid bare. They have all turned away from God, and He will punish them. We have talked about the day of the Lord, even in Isaiah. We even talked about it, I think, tonight in Amos when we were there, about the day of the Lord, the time of the vengeance of God upon an earth who has rejected and has this overflowing scourge where the whole world will be punished.

And all the things that we read about in Revelation 13. And again, as we see the world forming and moving in the direction it is, we can see all those alliances forming. We can see through these recent bank failures that we've seen that are just going to be the the beginning of our economic problems. The government hold the assurances they want, but what has plagued three banks so far is plaguing the rest of them as well.

Well, we will just see what happens. And of course, we've seen recently the China involvement in the Middle East and for the first time in our history and all the ramifications of that, which we'll talk about more in another time.

But we have this overflowing scourge. Do you know that the Bible pictures, of course, it ends with Jesus Christ returning in a time of peace and prosperity and harmony for all of mankind, but you will be trampled by it when the overflowing scourge passes through. You will be trampled down by it because you trusted in the world as often. Verse 19. And actually, if you look at the old King James, it says, from the time it goes out, it will take you.

It means when God determines the time, from the time that this begins, he says in the rest of verse 19, there's going to be no delay. From the time this goes out, when God's word goes out, it's the time for these, the lies to be swept away, the hiding places be swept away by the waters, the time for this overflowing scourge to occur when God determines that time. From the time that goes out, it will take you. For morning by morning, it will pass over, and by day and by night, it will be a terror just to understand the report.

Those are mild words, but what God has inspired Isaiah to talk about here is a time of terror that will be on all mankind. He's talking about an unrelenting tire from the terror. From the time it starts, there won't be any delay. There won't be any vacations from it. It will just be, as Ezekiel says, disaster upon disaster. One passes, another one starts. Absolutely no time to recover. God gives warnings. God wants the people he wants you and me to turn to him when he gives us those warnings and these signs that are there. We should not be scared. We shouldn't be, you know, running and fearing and looking for alliances in the world. We should be growing closer to God because he is our refuge. He is our rock. He is the one who will see us through. From when the time this occurs, it's unrelenting. We go back to Deuteronomy 28. We see what God is talking about. Remember the last chapters of Deuteronomy, where God has given Moses those words. He's talking about a time that didn't occur yet for the people of Israel, but it certainly shows that it's a time that something's going to be fulfilled in the future. We look at chapter 28 and verse 58.

Verse 58. Deuteronomy 28.58. I'm going to read through all this. When we get down to where it talks about this, if you do not carefully—you're going to hear me say, probably increasingly more, carefully, earnestly, diligently, right? Observe all the words of God's law that are written in this book, that you may fear this glorious and awesome name, the Lord your God, that the Lord will bring upon you and your descendants all these things, extraordinary plagues, great and prolonged plagues, and serious and prolonged sicknesses. Let's talk down to verse 63. It will be that just as the Eternal rejoiced over you to do you good and multiply you, so the Eternal will rejoice over you to destroy you and bring you to nothing, and you will be plucked from off the land which you go to possess. He will scatter you among all peoples from one end of the earth to the other, and there you will serve other gods, which neither you nor your fathers have known, wooden stone, and among those nations you shall find no rest, nor shall the soul of your foot have a resting place. But there the Lord will give you a trembling heart, failing eyes, and anguish a soul.

Your life shall hang in doubt before you. You shall fear day and night and have no assurance of life.

In the morning you will say, O that it were evening, at evening you will say, O that it were morning, because of the fear which terrifies your heart and because of the sight which your eyes see.

And the Lord will take, well, we'll have to read verse 68. But you can see what God is prophesying.

There is an endless terror if we turn from Him. If we go back to the ways of the world and don't do the things that He would have us do. One book forward in Joshua, Joshua 23.

I just got a text from Dave Primar. Robin is still in surgery. What time is it here? A little bit after eight o'clock. So, wow. Joshua 23, verse 13. Know for certain. Now, verse 12. Or else if indeed you do go back and cling to the remnants of these nations, these that remain among you, talking about when they go over into the Promised Land, God says, don't follow them. Don't make their God your gods. Don't make marriages with them. Don't go into them. And they do you know for certain if you do this, that the Lord your God will no longer drive out these nations from before you. There will be snares and traps and scourges on your sides and thorns in your eyes until you perish from the good land which the Lord your God has given you. And that's what he's talking about in verse 19 there. Once it starts, when the warning signs are over, once it starts, it will not relent. It will be until the time that Jesus Christ returns. So, we go back to Isaiah 28.

Isaiah 28 verse 20. He talks about some of the in verse 20, he talks about these things that we kind of like we can identify with. For the bed is too short to stretch out on. I mean, I don't know.

I don't know. Last time I stretched, I said I slept on a bed that was too short on. Sometimes you sleep on a couch and you think, well, if I could if I could just stretch out into bed, it would be really comfortable, right? It's a very nice comfort thing. So, he's talking about this time of uncomfort. For the bed is too short to stretch out on. And the covering so narrow that one can't wrap himself in it, you know, now that we live up here where it gets cold, cold at night. It's kind of nice to have those covers that you wrap up in, right? And it's like if they weren't there, it'd be like, whoa, I'm cold and not as comfortable. The bed is too short to stretch out on. The covering so narrow that one cannot wrap himself in it. For the Lord will rise up as at Mount Parazim.

He will be angry as in the valley of Gibeon. I will tell you, Mount Parazim is when King, what time we have here, I'm going to keep you a little longer. We are going to get through 28 tonight. Let me keep you just a little longer. Let's go back here and look at Mount Parazim because there is something there I wanted to draw your attention to. Second Samuel Second Samuel. I think we got a little later start anyway. So, Second Samuel 5.

Now here we have David. He's taken over the throne. In chapter 5 or 7, we see David taking the stronghold of Zion. It's what became Jerusalem, the city of David. He dwelt in the city of David. You can see there in this chapter where God gave David Jerusalem the place to do.

The Philistines wanted to come up against David. He's a new king. In verse 19, you see David turning to God in this time of being attacked by the Philistines. David inquired of the Lord saying, shall I go up against the Philistines? Will you deliver them into my hand? God said, go up. I will doubtless deliver the Philistines into your hand. So, David, not looking at it physically, physically been like, I don't know what to do, but he believed God. He went to Baal-Parazim and David defeated them there. He said, the Lord has broken through my enemies before me like a breakthrough of water. Therefore, he called the name of that place, Baal-Parazim.

Here God is inspiring Isaiah in chapter 28 verse 21. The Lord will rise up. He'll be there. He's going to break through those waters. He's going to provide the victory, but it's not quite what it seems when we get to verse 22. He will be angry, as in the Valley of Gibeon. Let's go back to the book of Joshua 10. Joshua 10 and verse Well, you can read verses down through verses 8 through 14 or so, and even the whole chapter, and read about this Valley of Gibeon. But let's look at verse 8. God said that, Joshua, don't fear, for I have delivered them into your hand. Not a man of them shall stand before you. In verse 11, we see these hailstones. It happened as they fled before Israel, and were on the descent of Bethoron, that the Lord cast down large hailstones from heaven.

Who were they fighting against here? All these kings that had assembled against them after they conquered Jericho. The Lord cast down large hailstones from heaven on them as far as the Zechariah, and they died. And here's where God made the Son stand still. Joshua spoke to the Lord in the day when the Lord delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel.

And he said in the sight of Israel, Son stand still over Gibeon, and moon of the Valley of Ijalan. So the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, till the people had revenge upon their enemies. And there it says, verse 14, there has been no day like that before or after that the Lord heeded the voice of a man, for the Lord fought, or the Eternal fought, for Israel.

So as it was in those days, the God who has command over everything, who literally has command over everything that can even make the Son stand still for his purpose to be accomplished, he says in verse 21, complaining, it says, He will rise up as he did in for David and as he did in Joshua's day, that he may do his work, his awesome work, and bring to pass his act, his unusual act. Interesting verse, and probably, you know, mistranslated in the New King James, because when you look up awesome, and when you look up unusual act in those two things, you see that, I think in the Old King James, it does say strange as opposed to awesome.

Awesome makes him think, and certainly what God did at Gibeon was awesome. Certainly what God did as parazim was awesome. But it was a strange act, something that only he could do, right? And this was an unusual act. Only God could do what happened at Gibeon. Only God could do, you know, what happened to Tyre when we go back to that prophecy. But this is a work that he would do, a strange work, and it has more of a negative effect, because what God is showing is, I'm going to do it to you.

You've made this agreement with death. You've made this agreement with lies. You've made this agreement with the waters and the allies. You've made allies of the earth. And so I'm going to do to you this unusual act, what God would turn against his people like that. So because we see in this verse, and when you look at what the original Hebrew means, God's going to bring those punishments against a nation that turns against him and that puts their trust in the world.

Verse 22, he says, "'Thou therefore, don't be mockers.'" Again, we can look at 2 Peter 3.3, right? It says, you know, they'll mock. Don't be scoffers in the last day saying, come on, we've heard about Jesus Christ returning forever and ever and ever. He's not going to return.

The time is not close. Everything goes on. America will always stand. This is just a hiccup or a bump in the road along the way. "'Now therefore, don't be mockers lest your bonds be made strong.'" Like when you go into captivity, boy, you are going to be bond. You will pay the, you will, there will be consequences for turning against God or not trusting in him.

"'For I have heard from the Lord God of hosts, a destruction determined even upon the whole earth.'" You know, if we look at verse 22 and we go back to verses 5 and 6 in the same chapter we'll talk about in that day, we can see this is for a future time. This is, this is something that is yet ahead of us. And then verses 23 through 29, God gives an agricultural analogy here that has a really beautiful meaning. I'm going to read through 23-29 since we're reading through every verse and this verse by verse study, but I'm going to, I'm going to give you what I think is a really good and beautiful synopsis that comes from the UCG Bible commentary on these, on these six verses.

So let me read, let me read these verses here. "'Give ear,' God says, and hear my voice, listen and hear my speech. Does the plowman keep plowing all day to sow? Does he keep turning his soil and breaking the clods? When he has leveled its surface, doesn't he sow the black common and scatter the common? Plant the weed in rows? The barley in the appointed place and the spelt in its place? Isn't everything done decently in order? Doesn't the one who's plowing the fields?

God would be the plower, we would be the seed, right? Doesn't he do everything exactly in order, because he knows exactly what he needs to happen to raise a good crop? For he instructs him in right judgment, as God teaches him. For the black common is not threshed with his threshing sledge.

You know, we might use a threshing sledge for wheat, but you don't use it for black common, apparently. Nor is a cartwheel rolled over the common. Might use it for some things, but you don't use it for cartwheel. There's ways you work with the various crops, but the black common is beaten out with a stick and the common with a rod. Bread flour must be ground. So God talks about all these things and how we work differently with the seeds and how those who work in these areas, God knows exactly what to do for that seed and that crop to turn out exactly the way that it should.

Bread flour must be ground. Therefore, he does not thresh it forever. He does not break it with his cartwheel or crush it with his horseman. There's a thing and a way God works with every crop, and that's different. The way he may work with me, knowing my weaknesses, is different than the way that he would work with you. The way he worked, you know, is we went through the book of Acts and we saw what happened in Thessalonica, and they were a city that was persecuted. They had trouble that they didn't have in some of the other cities, but then other cities that Paul went into had a different way that God worked. They had a different character. You know, I've said before, and when you become a pastor, you can begin to even see if you have multiple churches, you can see the personality in one church, and it's a little different than the personality in another church. It doesn't mean either you're right or either is wrong, just different. So you work, and you might even preach things in just a slightly different way in both places, because God will lead you to help the people, you know, so that the the common is cultivated in the way it should be cultivated. The bread is needed in a way that it needs to be needed to produce the desired product. And so verse 29 says, this also comes from the Lord of Hosts, who is wonderful in counsel and excellent in guidance. He knows it all. And so I thought that the Bible commentary, the UCG Bible commentary, summed up those verses very well. Let me just read through that, because I think it explains it very well, and you can find this at bible.ucg.org.

Click on Isaiah, and then you'll see the Isaiah 28 commentary there. And this is in that section, that it's more just an overview of the book. It says, finally, in the last few verses of Isaiah 28, God uses some harvesting analogies that contain both a warning. Did I share that with you?

Do you see that on the screen? I don't think you do, actually. No, it's invisible right now.

I didn't hit the share screen thing. Okay, let me...

Okay, now you see it, right? It's coming, not yet.

Now we see it. Okay, good, good. In the last few verses of Isaiah 28, God uses some harvesting analogies that contain both a warning and some encouragement. The farmer uses his judgment on how much the grain needs to be ground. God, the farmer, will continue to grind Israel through trials as long as he determines it is necessary. It's not up to Israel, the grain in the analogies, to say when God should bring their trials to an end. But God adds two encouraging thoughts.

He reminds Israel—that's you and me in today's world and all of us online here—he reminds Israel that he is aware of the fact that some types of grain need delicate threshing methods, lest the grain be ruined. To be sure, some of the trials he allows his people to endure are truly gentle by comparison to what they would be or could be without his oversight.

The other point is that, regardless of how much threshing needs to be done, it's only part of the process. That is, Israel can count on the fact that at some point the grinding that is the trials will cease, and God will move on to the next part of his plan. And we know what the next part of his plan is. Christ returns, and then life is eternally good when we are under his unrain.

As David wrote in Psalm 103, for he knows our frame, he remembers that we are dust, and the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting. So I thought that summed up those verses very well as God made that analogy. So let's stop there. We'll start with chapter 29, which is the prophecy of Ariel, Jerusalem, next week. But let me stop there and open it up for any comments, questions, or anything anyone wants to talk about for a few minutes here. So Mr. Glasgow?

I need to run pretty quick, but I wanted to say I apologize by step on your Bible study there with comment. No, no, no, not at all. Not at all. No, no, every every comment. That was a good comment.

Not a problem at all. So. Sherry? Do I have my hand up? No, I saw your light. I saw your name light up. Okay. Well, that's okay. I do need to ask you. I do need to ask you. Can I call you afterward for a few minutes? You sure can. Okay, thank you. Could I see Raymond Young? Raymond, are you still there? All right, can you hear me now? Can you hear? Yes. You just turned your microphone off.

All right, now you can hear me. Okay. Isaiah 28 verse 11, I get the impression that it's like a prophecy, speaking in stammering lips with another tongue. It's like a prophecy. And not only that, I see that God is not tied to worshiping Him in just the Hebrew language.

Yeah. Yeah, some people, they think you got to say certain terms or certain languages to worship God, but, you know, okay, that's between them and God. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, that's between them and God, but no. I know exactly what you're saying, and you're right. God does work with all the languages, and it's not one way we just call on God as some would have us believe or have us do. So, okay. Anything else?

Okay. Well, let me say good night, everyone, then. So, have a good rest of the week.

See those of you in Cincinnati.

Good night, everybody. Have a good evening.