Book of Isaiah Bible Study - Part 2

Well, good evening again, everyone. I hope you were able to receive the handouts. The last handout that I sent, I believe, was on the structure of the book of Isaiah. And by studying that structure of the book of Isaiah, you can see basically what each section is related to, and that's what I did. The first five chapters have to do with what I would call the indictment or the arraignment of Judah and Israel. Isaiah mainly prophesied to Jerusalem and Judah, but also to Israel and also to other nations as well. So let's start verse by verse in Isaiah chapter 1, and verse 1. Isaiah 1 and verse 1. The vision of Isaiah. And the word vision is in the Hebrew, it is chesan, c-h-a-z-o-n, and it denotes properly that which is seen to behold. It is a term which is often used in reference to the prophecies of the Old Testament. Initially, people who were prophet were called seers. For example, I'm reading from Numbers 12 and verse 6. Hear now my words, if there be a prophet among you, the Lord will make myself known unto him in a vision, a chesan, and speak unto him in a dream. Initially, the prophets were called seers. Now I'm going to read from 1 Samuel chapter 9 and verse 11. 1 Samuel chapter 9 and verse 11. In 1 Samuel 9 and verse 11, they went up the hill to the city where they found young maidens going out to draw water and said unto them, Is the seer here? Eventually, the prophets were better known by calling them prophets. Instead of seers, they were called prophets. In 1 Chronicles 29 and 29, we're reading here about Nathan. Nathan was called a prophet. So the progression of the term seer to prophet is common in the Bible. And now we go back to Isaiah chapter 1 and verse 1.

In Isaiah 1 and verse 1, once again we see the vision or the prophecy of Isaiah the son of Amos, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Isaiah. Now, as we've already mentioned, he prophesied mainly to Judah and Jerusalem, but also to the nation of Israel and to other nations as well. Isaiah started his prophecy, and he was called to the office of a prophet in the year that Isaiah died.

So if you look at Isaiah chapter 6, in verse 1, we see this prophecy where Isaiah receives his calling, and in verse 1 of Isaiah 6, it clearly says that, Isaiah died. In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and this train filled the temple. We read this last time, but calling it to your attention once again, this is where Isaiah received his calling to the office of prophet. Isaiah was very afraid because he said, I have seen God sitting upon his throne, and he said, I am a man of unclean lips.

Verse 6 then flew one of the seraphim unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongues from off the altar. And he laid it upon the mouth and said, Lo, this has touched your lips, and your iniquity has taken away, and your sin purged. So evidently, Isaiah had a problem with unclean lips. I take that to be using the name of God in vain or some other form of cursing.

Also, I heard the voice of the Lord saying, whom shall I send and who will go for us? Then said I, here am I, send me. And the response was, and he said, Go, and tell this people, hear you indeed, but understand not, and see you indeed, but perceive not. So time after time in the Gospels, we'll see that when Jesus was speaking, he in essence said that there is a veil over their eyes, and their ears are stopped from hearing the Word of God. And by the way, I meant to mention this up front, I would like for someone to volunteer to take notes of what we say to be our official notekeeper.

And you don't have to say you'll do it right now. But whomever, there could be two or three, three or four, and you could email me the notes. And this applies to those who will listen to this later on, on the internet. So the prophecy of Isaiah, the son of Amos, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah. And so Isaiah began his prophecy in the year that Isaiah died.

Uzziah was 16 years old when he began to reign in Judah. And as we mentioned last time, he he reigned for, I believe it was 53 years, either 53 or 55. And he did tremendous works. And he was highly regarded throughout the Mediterranean world. But his heart became lifted up, and he took to himself, in essence, the office of priests, and began to burn incense on the altar. And God struck him with leprosy. And he was a leper until the day he died, and he was succeeded by his son Jotham.

So next we see in the days of Jotham and Ahaz and Hezekiah, the kings of Judah. At the same time, the two main contemporaries with Isaiah were Hosea and Micah, and their prophecy, along with Amos, was more toward the northern kingdom than to Judah and Jerusalem. Verse 2, Hear, O heavens, and give ear O earth. This phrase, Hear, O heavens, give ear, O earth, is a familiar one that was used by various writers, especially Moses. And once again, I bring to your attention that nearly all prophecy is covenantal. By that I mean that the prophecies were based on the covenants that God had made with his people, starting with Abraham in covenant, and where the promises passed on Isaac and Jacob.

When Israel entered into the New Covenant, the prophecies were based on the covenants. In other words, because of the covenants, you said you would do this, that, or the other, and you have not done that. So a common appellation when the prophet came on the scene was to address, in essence, the whole universe. Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth, for the Lord has spoken, I have nourished and brought up children. And this word, nourished, it means to mind them, to set them a right, to help them in every sense of the word, to be successful in keeping the covenants that they had made with God.

I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me. How did they rebel? They rebelled by going after other gods and forgetting the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They're a covenantal God. In verse 3, here God uses two of the, first of all, the ox, and the ox is known for being very slow and quite dumb in a way. The ox knows its honor, knows its owner, and the donkey, his master's crib.

So the donkey is a very stubborn animal. I've had a lot of experience following a mule, and when sunset was beginning, the mule would walk very fast toward the crib, toward the barn, but going away would walk very slow. So the donkey knows his master's crib, but Israel, here see Israel is addressed, does not know my people, does not consider.

Now, I want to pause here for a moment, and I will reiterate and reiterate and come to this over and over again. Consider the handouts that I've said to you. The handouts that I've sent are supplemental material for you to study on your own, basically. I will refer to them at times, and they're wonderful study aids on the internet. People have meticulously gone through the Bible in so many different ways, and you can easily use various search engines and come to see this material. However, those basic things, understanding who is God, what is God, what is His purpose, who is man, what is man, what is His purpose, they do not understand. They believe that God is a trinity. They accept it as a fact up front. So everything is presented assuming that God is a trinity. With regard to man up front, they assume up front that man has an immortal soul, that upon death he will either go to hell and burn forever, or he will go to heaven and live there in eternal bliss. It is only the Church of God that has the truth with regard to the answers to the great questions of life. Now, many people have studied the Bible and given their lives to study and have produced some wonderful supplemental material, but they do not know and do not present the answers to the great questions of life. Now, a few people along the way have come close to understanding what I would call the total package, but no one has come to the point of understanding of what we do about God and man until the 1900s and the work of Herbert Armstrong and others during that period of time, especially beginning in the late 1800s and during the lifetime of Mr. Armstrong, and we're continuing that work today.

Verse 4, a sinful nation, a people laden, and this word laden means burden, weighted down with lawlessness, a seed of evildoers. They are producing children that are corruptors. They have forsaken the Lord. They have provoked the Holy One of Israel.

Remember now with regard to children, in Ephesians chapter 2, the first two verses, I'm not turning there, but I'm referring to Ephesians 2 verses 1 through 3, that we all at one time walked according to the prince of the power of the air. We had our part as the children of disobedience, and we have talked about in the past of tuning into Satan's wavelength that the natural, normal human mind, apart from God, is enmity toward the law of God, not subject to it, neither indeed can be. That's Romans 8-7.

And we're all familiar, I think, with that scripture that the normal, natural man, apart from God, is his mind, is enmity toward the law of God. We have the opportunity not only to, quote, tune into, but to have within our minds and hearts a new knowing within, a new conscience, whereby we have can have the word of God written upon our inward parts, have a new knowing within, and a new conscience. So these children, notice how this is worded, a seed of evildoers, in other words, offspring, children that are corruptors, they have forsaken the Lord, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger, they are gone away backwards.

Another thing I would like to remind you of with regard to prophecy is that much of prophecy, in fact, nearly all of it, I'd say 90 percent plus, is written in poetic form, and to a large degree it is the form of parallelism, corrupted seed, and then it is stated in a different way by saying the children.

And so time after time, the last sentence oftentimes of a prophecy will state the prophecy in one way, and then it will close with it stated in another way, thus being parallel to it. Also, please keep in mind that prophecy is dual in many cases. When you read the book of Isaiah, it is almost like reading in certain parts, not every part, obviously, but it's almost like reading the morning newspaper, as they say, or watching the morning and listening to the morning news. Continuing now in Isaiah chapter 1 verse 5, why should you be stricken anymore?

You will revolt more and more. The whole head is sick and the whole heart faint. See, one of the things that's amazing about Israel and about people is that even though they are being stricken, and that being stricken, they should understand what is happening to them and should examine themselves and turn around. If you would turn to Amos 4, in Amos 4, we see an example of this, which ties into what the prophets talked about time after time. Hosea, Amos, Jeremiah, Isaiah, and other other prophets as well, with regard to sacrifice. After the northern tribes broke away and became the northern kingdom under Jeroboam, they were diligent to offer sacrifice. And even during the days of Jeremiah in Judah, they were diligent to offer sacrifice, but they were sacrificing to pagan gods. In Amos 4, 1, hear this word, euchine, or kine is another word for cattle of Beshan that are in the mountains of Samaria. So Amos basically was sent to the northern kingdom, and capital in Samaria, which oppressed the poor, which crushed and eatied, which say to their masters, bring and let us drink. The Lord God has sworn by his holiness that the loathe days shall come upon you, that he will take you away with hooks, and your posterity with fish hooks. You see the parallelism there. And you shall go out at the breeches every cow. You notice that's in italics, the kind, as I said, it's using cattle as a metaphor to show how willfully they had disobeyed God. A cow at that witch is before her, and you shall cast them into the palace, says the Lord. Come to Beth-El. Beth-El means house of God, or house of bread. Beth is the Hebrew word for bread, and El is the Hebrew word for God, of course, one of the main, there are three main, there are three main words that are primary names for God. They are Yahweh, El, and Adonai.

The other words for God, the other names of God, are taken from these three principal words. Once again, those three principal names of God are Yahweh, El, and Adonai. So Beth-El means house of God, or house of bread, and transgress at Gilgal. They had set up an altar at Gilgal, multiply transgressions, and bring your sacrifices every morning and your tithes after three years. So the whole tithing package of first and second and third tithes, they were doing, but it was in vain, and offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving with leaven.

And of course, sacrifices were to be offered and waived, except the two lobes at Pentecost and proclaim and publish the free offerings for this like you. This is what you like to do, a show of righteousness, but you have forgotten what judgment, mercy, and faith really means.

O you children of Israel, says the Lord God. And I also, now this is tied in with what we were talking about in Isaiah verse 4. Why do you want to keep on suffering?

So Amos 4, 6, and I also have given you cleanness of teeth. In other words, I have sent famine in all your cities, one of bread, parallelism, in all your places, yet you have not returned unto me, says the Lord. So in spite of famine, in spite of drought, the next verse talks about, I will have withheld the rain in some places, of course, it to rain to the point that it flooded in other places, yet you will not return. Now, while we are on this topic with regard to sacrifice, sacrifice is mentioned very often by the prophets, and Jesus Christ mentions sacrifice quite often as well. I would like for us to really understand what it means when the prophet says, I would have mercy and not sacrifice. So at this point, I want us to go to Hosea chapter 6, Hosea chapter 6, and chapter 6. Well, I mean, Hosea chapter 6. Let's start in verse 1 and read down through verse 6. Hosea 6. Now, what are we talking about? What do we want to come to understand?

We want to come to understand why God took them to task so much for being diligent to offer sacrifice. Their sacrifice is somewhat like the Pharisee and the publican when they both went up into the temple to pray, and the publican, the Pharisee prayed to himself. And God, he wasn't like other men. He fasted twice in the week. He gives alms everything that he possessed, and he was really proud of himself. Whereas the publican, not so much as lifted up his eyes, said, Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner. That reflects, if you understand it, what is meant by I would have mercy and not sacrifice. And after the publican said that, the paraphrase says, and I say unto you that this man, the publican, went down to his house justified. So, Hosea 6.1, come and let us return unto the Lord.

I take this to be during the time of the Great Tribulation when Israel and Judah, a whole nation, both kingdoms, began to see their sins and faults, because you know in Revelation 7, it mentions a great multitude standing before the throne there in Revelation 7. Come and let us return unto the Lord, for he hath torn and he will heal. He has smitten, he will bind us up. After two days, you have a year for a day in prophecy. So, after two years, if we apply that principle, will he revive us in the third day? So, in the third day, he begins to revive. He will raise us up and we shall live in his sight. Then shall we know, we follow on to know the Lord, and his going forth is prepared as the morning, and he shall come unto us as the rain, as the latter, and former rain unto the earth. O Ephraim, what shall I do unto you? O Judah, both kingdoms, what shall I do unto you? For your goodness is as a morning cloud. Well, you know, almost every morning here, we have clouds, and it looks like, oh, is it going to rain today? But by ten o'clock, those clouds have disappeared and burned away. Your goodness is as a morning cloud, and as the early dew, it goes away. Therefore, have I hewed them by the prophets. I have slain them by the words of my mouth, and your judgments are in the light that goes forth.

Your judgments are in the light that goes forth. For I desired mercy and not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings. So what does it mean when God says, I would have mercy and not sacrifice? Let's go now to Matthew chapter 12, and pursue this, I would have mercy and not sacrifice. In Matthew chapter 12, here is the example of Jesus and the disciples plucking grain on the Sabbath day.

And of course, they were taken to task by the scribes and Pharisees for them. Once again, we see the principle of mercy and not sacrifice. It's what God wants. Also, the ultimate conclusion or understanding of this we'll find in James, and I present to you the question before we get there, where it says, mercy glories against judgment. So how does mercy glory against judgment?

So here we are in Matthew 12. At that time, Jesus went up on the Sabbath day through the the grain, the grain fields, and his disciples were hungry, began to pluck the ears of corn and eat.

For when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto him, Behold, your disciples, do that which is not lawful to do on the Sabbath day. But he said unto them, Have you not read have you not read what David did when he was hungry and he ate the showbread?

How he entered into the house of God, and he did eat the showbread, which was not lawful for him to eat, neither for them which were with him, but only for the priest.

So you have a what might be called, as we'll see as we go on here, an oxen-the-ditch situation, or have you read in the law, How that on the Sabbath day the priest in the temple profane the Sabbath, and are blameless. See, the priest had to work hard on the Sabbath in preparing the sacrifices to be offered. But I say unto you that in this place is one greater than the temple. Oh, they would place so much stock in the temple and the worship in the temple. It's sort of like people who go to church on Sunday morning and hit the golf links as soon as they stop at one of the fast food places or any other restaurant to eat. But if you had known what this means, I will have mercy and not sacrifice. You would not have condemned the guiltless, for the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath day.

And when he was departed from there, he went into their synagogue, and behold, there was a man which had a withered hand. They asked him, saying, Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath day that they might accuse him? And he said unto them, And what man shall be among you that shall have one sheep, and one if it fall into a pit on the Sabbath day, will not lay hold on it and lift it out?

How much more then is a man better than a sheep?

Wherefore it is lawful to do well on the Sabbath days. Now, of course, there is a limitation to what is doing well. What is an ox in the ditch? And I remember back when all the doctoral discussions were going on as people were leaving the worldwide Church of God, because they were saying the Sabbath is done away with. They would quote this verse to do well on the Sabbath day. Yes, but you have to use common sense and proper judgment with regard to what is lawful and what is not lawful on the Sabbath day. It's lawful to do good, but that doesn't mean that you don't strive to keep the Sabbath day holy. You cannot seek your own pleasure, do your own thing, and try to justify it. So, to understand this more completely of what it means, I would have mercy and not sacrifice. Now I want us to go to James 2, and hopefully I'm not going to, since this is posted on the internet, and a lot of people listen to it, we won't have back into class discussion. We can have it after the class with regard to I would have mercy and not sacrifice. And what does it mean here in James, where it says, and mercy glories against judgment. How does mercy glory against judgment? Well, the judgment, see, in order for ultimate mercy to be extended, there must be a judgment made. Once again, I say unto you that in order for ultimate mercy to be extended, there has to be a judgment. A lot of people confuse long suffering with judgment.

God is long suffering, and He is merciful. But it doesn't mean that if the law has been broken, and if it's not repented of, that there will not be a penalty. Oftentimes, even when sin has been committed and has been repented of, there is still a penalty to be exacted.

So let's read here in James 2.12. So speak you, and so do you, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty, or you shall have judgment without mercy that has shown no mercy. So God wants us to be merciful. Now, some people also confuse 1 Peter 4.8 with this, where it says that love covers a multitude of sins. See, love covers a multitude of sins, to some degree, what they were doing in Corinth, where Paul takes them to task in 1 Corinthians 5 for them not putting away the adulterous fornicator who was evidently having relationships with his stepmother. So they knew about it, but they did nothing about it. See, in order for ultimate mercy to be extended, you have to repent. And so mercy will glory against judgment. For example, in John chapter 8, when the woman was caught in the act of adultery, and they brought him brought her before Jesus Christ, and says the law says that she should be stoned.

But what do you say? And Jesus wrote their sins down, apparently on the ground. It doesn't exactly say that. It just says that he wrote them on the ground, and they being condemned in their heart or feeling guilty, they got up and left because they knew that if judgment was exact, that they too would be stoned. God could tell, Jesus Christ could tell, what her attitude and heart of repentance was, and so he extended mercy. A judgment had been made, no question. She had broken the law. She had committed fornication or adultery, either one, and she was guilty, but she had a repentant heart. So after they left, Jesus Christ asked, where are thine accusers? She said, in essence, they're gone. He said, neither do I condemn you, go and sin no more. In other words, go walk in faith. So mercy, then, glories against judgment, but the judgment has to be made for mercy in the ultimate sense to be extended. Now, one could be long suffering, but there is a pitfall to long suffering, as in the case of Paul with the incestuous fornicator there in 1 Corinthians 5, that they knew about it and did nothing about it. The judgment was clear, it's wrong, it's unlawful, so you need to take action, and repentance needs to be forthcoming, so ultimate mercy can be extended. So Paul did disfellowship that person, and then in 2 Corinthians we find that this person had returned, and yet some wanted to apparently blame him, and Paul wrote to them saying, you need to accept him back and to accept his repentance and extend to him mercy. So I hope now you understand what is meant by mercy, glories against judgment, and that God would have mercy and not sacrifice. The reason he would have mercy is because when God extends mercy, in the ultimate sense, repentance has taken place. So the way to your matters of the law are judgment. The public can judge himself. I have sinned. And so God saw that he was repentant, and so then he would extend mercy and forgive his sins. So what a wonderful thing it is, the understanding of the Word of God, what it really means when it is absolutely understood.

So we're back in Isaiah chapter 1. I'm reading 4 again. A sinful nation, a people waded down with sin, a seed of evildoers, children that are corruptors.

They are forsaken the Lord. They provoke the Holy One of Israel.

Under anger, they're gone away backward. Why should you be stricken anymore? So I read from Amos how that they had the famine. They had floods. They had drought. You were revoked more and more. A whole head is sick and a whole heart faint. It would seem that we would learn the lesson.

All of us have gone astray at one time or another, even after we are baptized.

And the way back is through repentance, heartfelt repentance. And as it says in 1 John, that God is faithful and just to forgive us of all unrighteousness. And that forgiveness, once again, is dependent upon our judging ourselves and saying, that I have sinned, will you forgive me? And we determine to go walk in faith and sin no more, just as Christ told the woman.

Verse 6, from the soul of the foot even to the head, there is no soundness in it, but wounds and bruises and putrefying sores. They have not been closed, neither bound up, neither modified or softened with ointment. They are an open sower. There is nothing uglier than an open sower. I have seen open sores caused by cancer. I have heard the screams of people who are suffering with open sores from cancer. There is hardly anything more ugly than that, or uglier. Your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire, your land strangers devour it in your presence, and it is desolate as overthrown by strangers. And the daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard. The daughter of Zion, I sent you a handout. This title here, Appalachian of the daughter of Zion, is used quite often in Scripture, and it literally means the place itself, and or it's the children from the place. I'm reading here from the handout that I sent you down in the paragraph. It says, the phrase daughter of Zion here means Zion itself, or Jerusalem. The name daughter is given to it by personification in a common custom in Eastern writers by which beautiful towns and cities are likened to young females. The name mother is also applied in the same way. Now, we have mentioned time after time in sermons that Zion is symbolic of the church. In the Bible, how do I know, as the old song goes, how do I know the Bible tells me so. In Revelation, not Revelation, but in Hebrews chapter 12, once again, I always say this, and yet I have, there are people who somehow don't get it. What does the book of Hebrews do? It compares and contrasts elements of the old covenant with elements of the new covenant. One thing I'm perplexed by is that it seems that people don't want to repeat what someone else has said, even though it may be the truth, and review of something and emphasis of something. Something is one of the best ways to plant it in a person's mind so they don't forget it. In Hebrews chapter 12, the last part of it, Paul contrasts Mount Sinai with Mount Zion. Mount Zion is a physical, literal place, as we read, but it also can be personified by the people, and also it can be symbolic of the Church, as I'm going to read here now.

When the people came to Mount Sinai, and just before God spoke the Ten Commandments, in Exodus 20, he spoke the Ten Commandments, and in Exodus 19, he prepared them. In verse 22 of Hebrews 12, you're coming to Mount Zion, and the city, where they come to, the city of the living God. Now, heavenly Jerusalem. Last time I told you there were two Jerusalem's. There were two Zion's. There's Jerusalem, the physical place, which at the end of the age is called Sodom and Gomorrah. There is Zion, the physical place, which is symbolic of the Church. Jerusalem also is referred to in Galatians 4.26 as the mother of us all, the heavenly Jerusalem. You have come to the heavenly Jerusalem, through the innumerable company of angels, ten thousands times ten thousand, and more, to the general assembly and church of the first begotten, which are written in heaven, and to God the judge of all into the spirit of just men, made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel. He ratified the new covenant with his own blood. So the daughter of Zion is left as a cottage. Oftentimes, in a garden area or in a vineyard, they would build a little hut, as it were, for the watcher of the garden to stay so he'd have a place to get in the shade, or a place to go while animals should come, or whatever. So he's noticed the daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge, parallelism in a garden of cucumbers. Cucumbers evidently is used in a metaphoric, generic sense as well. Cucumbers were known for their taste, even though they give me an ingestion, raw. But a garden of cucumbers, and it is said they're easy to digest, and they are cooling as a besieged city, as a lodge, a garden of cucumbers as a besieged city. So the only thing that's left is this little little cottage, a little hut, that the watcher would go to. And in view of that, except the Lord of Host had left unto us a very, notice it, a very small remnant.

We should have been as Sodom, and we should have been like the Gomorrah. It doesn't necessarily mean that they would be homosexuals. It means that they would be burned up. They would be destroyed. Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed by hailstones from God Himself. This small remnant. And I sent you a handout about the remnant. And maybe we should have titled it remnant, but 29 verses, and there are many more, about the gathering of Israel. In other words, the gathering of the remnant. So those 29 verses I sent you, and you can read them yourself.

I'm going to read Micah 2.12. Micah 2.12, I will surely assemble all of you, Jacob. When you see just Jacob, Jacob by itself generally means the 12 tribes, the physical 12 tribes. I will gather the remnant of Israel. Remember, Jacob's name was changed to prince with God or ruler with God. I will put them together like a sheep in the foal, like a flood in a flock in the midst of its pasture. They will be noisy with men.

There's scripture after scripture that talks about the remnant. I want to enlarge on this to some degree as well. I say that we're not making a lot of progress in the number of verses, but I want to be thorough. I want you to understand when the millennium begins, it's not going to be like a lot of people think it's going to be apparently because the earth is going to be purged, and there are going to be only a few men left.

Look at Isaiah 4 and verse 13. I believe it is. Isaiah 4 is verse 6. Isaiah 4 and verse 6, There shall be a tabernacle as a shadow in the daytime, from the heat and for a palace of refuge, and from a covert from the storm. There's going to be just a few men left. I want to the scripture says there'll be a few men left.

So look at verse 4, When the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and shall have purged the blood of Jerusalem from the midst thereof by the spirit of judgment, and the spirit of burning. And the Lord will creed up on every dwelling place of Mount Zion, and upon her assemblies of cloud, and smoke by day, and the shining of a flaming fire by night. For upon all the glory shall be his defense. There's going to be only a few men that are left during that time, after this burning and after this fire. In Isaiah 6 verse 13, yet in it shall be a tenth of it shall return. A tenth shall return, one in ten, and shall be eaten as a teal tree, and as an oak, whose substance is in them when they cast their leaves. So the holy seed shall be the substance thereof. When the millennium begins, it's going to be starting all over, as it were, from scratch. And what God is going to do, as we'll see here, as we read a few more verses, He is going to restore things, and He's going to restore His government, as He did in the days of old, when Israel entered into the Old Covenant. When they agreed to abide by it. You know, it says in Hebrews chapter 10, He didn't find fault with the covenant, He found fault with them. And so He is going to institute a system, a societal structure that will work. And a lot of that is described in the last eight chapters of Ezekiel, not going there now. So once again, verse 9 in Isaiah 1, Except the Lord of hosts has left unto us a very small remnant. We should have been as Sodom, we should have been like unto Gomorrah. You've been burned up, you've been destroyed. But that's not what God is going to do. Hear the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom, give ear unto the law of our God, you people of Gomorrah. So then, in verse 10, He likens them metaphorically to the rulers of Sodom and Gomorrah. The rulers of Sodom and Gomorrah did not listen to Lot. In fact, Lot's own family didn't listen to them. What happened was, He grabbed them by the nape of the neck and set them outside of the city. And even then, the wife looked back and turned to a pillar of salt. Verse 11, to what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices? So I've already covered that. The multitude of your sacrifices.

Under me says the Lord, I went to Amos and I went to other, to Hosea, and I went to Matthew, and I went to James, showing that God would have mercy and not sacrifice. I showed how the glory, how that mercy, glory is against judgment. And the judgment, mercy, and faith, in the ultimate sense, is dependent upon a judgment being made that in repentance taking place, then mercy can be extended. I am full of burnt offerings of rams and the fad of fed beasts, and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of hegoats. Psalm 50 ties in there where God says, you know, if I were hungry, I would tell you I own the cattle on a thousand hills. The world is mine, and the fullness thereof. When you come to appear before me, who has required this at your hand, and to tread my courts? Why are you coming in here and treading this like you're all holy, when in your heart you're not? Verse 13, bring no more vain oblations. Oblations is a general term that generally refers to gifts.

Bring no more vain gifts. Incense is an abomination unto me. The new moons and Sabbaths, the calling of assemblies. I cannot bear it. I can't bear your hypocrisy. Away with it is lawlessness, even a solemn meeting. Your new moons, your appointed feasts, my hope my soul hates. They are a trouble unto me. I'm weary to bear them.

So once again, those days, the annual feast days, the weekly Sabbath days, they are holy days unto God. They're not a time to seek your own pleasure. Verse 15, and when you spread forth your hands, this has to do with prayer. The position of prayer in the Old Testament was to get on your knees and spread your hands up toward the heavens. And so that's what it means. And when you spread forth your hands, you could translate it safely and say, When you pray, I will hide mine eyes from you. Yes, when you make many prayers, parallelism, I will not hear your hands are full of blood. So you're lifting hands up, hands full of blood. And at the same time, you're praying, you're praying to me. Wash you, make you clean. Put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes. Cease to do evil. Learn to do well. Seek judgment. Relieve the oppressed. Judge the followers. Plead for the widow.

So that's we come now to our hour here. We have gone through verse 17. We have covered a lot of very important principles here this evening. We will have much to say about verses 18 and 19 next time. They are very, very important. Come now and let us reason together. What do you reason from? You reason from the Word of God. So we will begin there next time.