This is the material that makes the most
beautiful clothing, will cover people wonderfully, whereas the
other is just a bit of foam that
soon passes away and disappears, and when men
and women are trying to work out a
righteousness of their own, when they're hoping to
placate God by religious observances and attendance upon
forms and ceremonies and by their own good
work, they're just like people trying to close
themselves with the result of a spider's web.
The spider's web gives them nothing that's substantial.
A number of years ago in Los Angeles,
I don't know whether there's still a big
store there called Hamburgers, there used to be
anyway, a great big department store, and one
time when I was in Los Angeles years
ago, it was announced in all the newspapers
that a human fly was going to go
up the face of Hamburgers store.
I think it was about a four or
five story department store, something like that.
And so thousands of people gathered down there,
I think it was on Broadway, I believe
it was Broadway, but one of those main
streets, to see this human fly go up
the face of the building.
He had come from city to city and
he had accomplished this feat in many, many
places.
And so here they watched.
The man came out, dressed in tights, and
he began to go up the surface of
the building.
He'd go from one little ledge to another
and reach out and get hold of something,
and up he'd go, and the people just
watched him breathlessly.
There were pictures of it in the newspaper.
Sometimes he'd have to stretch in order to
get hold of something he could grasp and
something he could put his toe upon.
But up and up and up he went
until he was up about the fourth or
fifth story, whatever it was.
And then he stood upon a ledge, a
window ledge, and he was looking now, he
must have had to get to the top,
and he evidently he saw what seemed like
a jutting piece of stone, the stone facing
the building.
And so he waited a moment and then
he reached forward and left his footing in
order to grasp that.
And the next moment he fell to the
floor and was broken all the pieces, right
before the public.
And you know, when the police hurried through
to get him, they found in his hand
a spider's web.
What he thought was gray stone was just
a spider's web.
And he reached out to take hold of
that and down he went.
Well, it'll be just that way with people
who trust in their own work and in
outward religiousness for the salvation of their souls
instead of in the precious gospel of the
grace of God and the work that our
Lord gave us to accomplish.
Now the closing part of this chapter, there's
a lot in this chapter that I'd like
you to, in fact I'm so sorry that
I didn't have sense enough to order some
copies of a little book of mine.
I have a sermon on this called Adder's
Eggs and Spider's Webs, Moody Press Publishers.
I'd like to have given you one each
so that you'd get a sample of at
least one poor sermon in your collection.
But I didn't think they'd bring it.
I forgot that I had it on my
side.
But there's a lot in this chapter that
makes a good gospel message.
Then the latter part you have the delivered,
the coming glory.
I could read verses 15 and 16 at
the present.
Praise truth faithless, and he that departeth from
evil maketh himself a presence, and the Lord
saw it, and he was pleased.
He saw that there was no man, and
wondered that there was no intercessor.
Therefore his arm brought salvation unto him, and
his righteousness, and the Redeemer shall come to
Zion, and unto them that turn from sin.
For me, this is my covenant with them,
saith the Lord.
My spirit that is upon thee, and my
words which I have put in thy mouth,
shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor
out of the mouth of thy seed, nor
out of the mouth of any of the
Lord, from henceforth and forever.
So all hope for a guilty man, for
Israel as well as for the nation, is
in the man of God's right hand, and
it's the Lord Jesus Christ who speaks here.
There was no intercessor, there was no deliverer,
so he said, my own arm brought salvation.
And for his coming, the people were waiting.
He came in grace the first time, coming
again to bring in the glory.
As we go on to the last part
of the book, we have a great deal
of detail in connection with the glory, but
we have still certain things to notice in
connection with the state of the people.
We'll consider ourselves.
We're coming near the end of our study
of the book of the prophet Isaiah.
We have just seven chapters left to consider,
and this period, and then tomorrow morning, and
then examination will be on the last, second
hour tomorrow.
Now, I think that I should just briefly
review a few things before going right into
the portion for today, because I want your
minds to be clear and fresh in regard
to the things that I think need to
be emphasized, and concerning which I'm more likely
to ask you some questions than otherwise.
First, I think it's well that everyone should
have a clear outline of this book.
I don't mean in detail.
That you have to work out in after
years for yourselves, if you're studying the book
or giving addresses on it.
But the simplest thing, as you look at
this book, is just to note that it's
divided into three parts.
First, the chapters 1 to 35, consisting of
a series of prophecies delivered by Isaiah, leading
up to the dispersion of the people of
Israel, but with promises of regathering eventually.
Then you have the historical interlude, giving the
account of Hezekiah and God's dealings with him.
It's well, I think, to have those four
chapters clearly in mind.
In chapters 36 and 37 really go together,
Hezekiah and the siege of Jerusalem, and God's
deliverance from the Assyrians.
It's important to remember that at the time
that Isaiah gave these messages, Palestine was like
a buffer state between Assyria on the one
hand and Egypt on the other.
Ahaz, for instance, in his desperation, was looking
to Egypt for help against the Assyrians.
But God eventually dealt with the Assyrians, as
finally in the last days he will deal
with Israel's great enemy.
In the third chapter of the interlude, that
is chapter 38, you have Hezekiah's illness and
recovery.
And then in the last chapter, the visit
of the ambassadors of the king of Babylon.
And don't forget those two letters that come
before us there, the letter of blasphemy and
the letter and a present, remembering the way
in which they were dealt with.
Then in the last part of the book
is divided easily into three sub-provisions.
In these last prophecies from 40 to 46,
the great outstanding theme is the coming glory
and Messiah's kingdom and steps leading up to
it.
But it divides into three parts.
In chapters 40 to 48, you have Jehovah's
controversy with Israel concerning idolatry.
In chapters 49 to 57, Jehovah's controversy with
Israel concerning their attitude toward the Messiah, the
Redeemer that he was to send into the
world.
And then in the rest of the book,
from 58 to the end, you have ministry
designed to exercise the conscience in view of
the coming glory, which is most graphically brought
before us.
So to outline something like that in your
mind is helpful.
I've always felt that studying any book of
the Bible, I wanted to get the outline
of it before my own mind, clearly.
In fact, I've always gotten this principle.
I like to know what's in every chapter.
I generally have made it a practice in
studying any book to just go over it
and over it and over it until I
could sit down, shut my eyes, and then
just remind myself that thought was the leading
theme of every chapter.
Now I'm getting old, I can't do that
so well.
But when you're young, it's easy to fix
these things in your mind.
And then try to keep in mind some
of the outstanding things.
Isaiah's ministry.
When did it begin?
In the year that King Uzziah died.
That's the date that's given for the beginning.
He ministered through the reigns of four kings,
under Uzziah, Joseph, Ahaz, and Hezekiah.
I think he epitomizes God's dealings with Israel
in that parable of the vineyard, in which
he shows that God brought a vine out
of Egypt and planted it in the land
of Palestine, hedged it about, did everything possible
for it, then looked for it to bring
forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes.
A picture of God's care and Israel's answer
to it.
Instead of responding in loving obedience, they acted
willfully, and instead of God finding the fruit
that he had a right to expect, they
just brought forth fruit to themselves.
Then there are other features that are important
to keep in mind.
I would try to fix in memory, if
I were you, some of the outstanding prophecies
in regards to the coming Savior.
Suppose that one were to ask you to
name a dozen prophecies from Isaiah, without giving
chapter and verse, in regards to the Savior,
what would you think of?
You'd naturally think, I suppose, of a virgin
shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt
call his name Immanuel.
That would be one.
You'd think of, unto us a son is
given, unto us a child is born, and
so on.
That would be two.
You would think of the branch of the
Lord, who shall be glorious.
That would be three.
You'd think of a king shall reign in
righteousness.
That would be four.
You'd think of the wonderful prophecy concerning the
coming and rejection of Christ in Isaiah 53.
That would be five.
You'd think of the Redeemer come to Zion.
That would be six.
You'd think, who is this that cometh from
Eden, the Avenger?
Seven.
Oh, you go on and find ever so
many of them.
Far more than I can think of, of
course, if you were asking.
I think if you fix a few of
these things in your mind, you'll not have
any difficulty at all when it comes to
examination.
Well, those are just a few ideas to
remember.
Now, we come to chapter 60, isn't it?
Chapter 60.
I don't know how I could ever forget
that chapter.
What fixed my mind years ago was the
first verse.
Arise, shine, for thy light is come, and
the glory of the Lord is risen upon
me.
People often ask me what my life verse
is.
Well, I don't know that I ever actually
selected a life verse, but that is the
verse that I suppose I've inscribed beneath my
signature in literally thousands of Bibles.
Personally, I'd like to get the fellow that
first started that signature business and lock him
up in the penitentiary.
But you couldn't even then stop the effects
of it.
I often wish we could.
It's all right, though, as long as I
tell people, as long as they'll pray for
me every time they look at it.
I don't mind putting my signature in their
Bible.
But that's the verse that's appealed to me
so much.
Arise, shine, for thy light is come, and
the glory of the Lord is risen upon
me.
And the prophet goes on to show the
need for that light, the darkness.
I wish you'd read a few of those
verses here.
I think it'll fix it in our minds.
And there, as the chapter goes on, you'll
find restored Israel brought into the forefront of
God's plan of blessing for the whole earth,
the kings of the earth bowing down to
them, the nations that once persecuted them, coming
to them and acknowledging that God is with
them and seeking to enter into fellowship and
communion with them.
It's a wonderful chapter.
Read it through.
And remember, it's to be taken literally.
God is going to deal thus with his
people Israel, and he is going to bring
the nations that once antagonized and persecuted them
into this blessed harmony in the last days.
of many generations.
And then 19 and 20.
The sun shall be no more thy light
by day, neither for brightness shall the moon
give light unto thee, but the Lord shall
be unto thee an everlasting light, and thy
God thy glory.
The sun shall no more go down, neither
shall thy moon withdraw itself, for the Lord
shall be thine everlasting light, and the days
of thy mourning shall be ended.
What a day that will be for Israel,
after long centuries of suffering that they've gone
through, and the days of their mourning shall
be ended.
This carries us right on through the millennial
glory, and I think right into the eternal
faith, for God's never going to give up
this people.
They shall always have a separate place in
his mind, just as the church will have
a separate place.
God has various groups, all of whom have
their place in his counsels, all redeemed alike
by the precious blood of the Lord Jesus
Christ.
Now when we come to chapter 61, we
have the portion that the Lord Jesus directed
attention to.
You remember when he went into Nazareth, he
had been after his baptism in the Jordan
and his temptation in the wilderness.
Then he came up through Judea, he gave
the word to stay in Judea, then came
on into Galilee, and entered into the city
where he'd been brought up, into Nazareth.
From there we're told that as his custom
was, on the Sabbath day he went into
the synagogue.
That's very significant, isn't it?
We have, as I said the other day,
we have so little information as to the
early days of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Men have tried to imagine what may have
taken place between his childhood and his 30th
year, when he went forth to be baptized
by John, as he consecrated himself to his
great work.
And all sorts of vain imaginations have been
indulged in.
Some years ago a Russian wrote a book
which he professed to be a translation of
a record that he had found in Tibet,
in the way up north of India.
He said that he found this in a
Lama monastery, and it was supposed to be
a record of the journeys of Issa.
And it was taken for granted that Issa
was to be identified with Jesus, and that
Issa came from Palestine to India and went
up from India to Tibet.
And there, among the Lamas, he learned the
secrets that enabled him to perform miracles, and
so on, and eventually went back to Palestine
to begin his work, but was suspected by
the Jewish leaders of trying to subvert their
teaching, and so eventually was crucified.
Well, people hailed it at first as a
wonderful discovery, and thought it might add to
our knowledge of Jesus.
Finally, the writer of it himself confessed that
it was just a forgery, that he had
written it himself as the product of his
own imagination.
People have tried to imagine what Jesus may
have done during those years.
The scripture says that when some of his
townspeople came to hear him, they said, isn't
this the carpenter?
Isn't this the carpenter?
They'd known him as a carpenter.
And then it says here that, it says
in Luke, that on the Sabbath day he
went as his custom was into the synagogue.
It shows that the Lord Jesus submitted himself
to the ordinary, not only to obedience to
the laws divinely given, but to the ordinary
regulations of the rabbis.
And he attended the synagogue service, and apparently
took part in it, for he was recognized
as one who had right to go up
to the dais and read from the holy
scriptures.
So there, in that synagogue at Nazareth, it
was handed to him the book of the
prophet Isaiah, and that's this book, this last
part, too, of this book, remember, and it's
called the prophet Isaiah.
And he began to read these verses that
you and I are familiar with, but let's
hear them again.
The Spirit of the Lord God is upon
me, because the Lord hath anointed me to
preach good tidings unto the needy.
He hath sent me to bind up the
brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captive, and
the opening of the prison to them that
are bound, to proclaim the acceptable year of
the Lord.
Now let's do what he did.
He got that far, and then you remember
what happened?
He closed the book.
Now that's in the middle of a sentence.
He closed the book.
Why didn't he go on?
Because those verses tell what he came to
do with his first coming.
His first and his second comings are intimately
linked together in this passage in Isaiah.
He came to preach the liberty to the
captives, to give sight to the blind, to
open the prisons to those that are bound,
to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.
There he stopped at what we would call
a comma, and he put this whole dispensation
in which you and I live into that
comma.
It's the acceptable year of the Lord still.
We haven't moved one eye over beyond that
point where he closed the book.
Why did he close it there?
Because the rest of the sentence would carry
us on into the day of the Lord
after this present age has come to an
end.
So now is the accepted time.
Now is the day of salvation.
When he comes again, then he'll open that
book once more.
I'm speaking metaphorically, of course, but then he'll
take up the rest of this passage, and
it will all be fulfilled to the letter.
Let's read it.
"...and the day of vengeance for thy God,
to comfort all that mourn, to part unto
them that mourn in Zion, to give unto
them beauty for ashes, to all that joy
for mourning, the dawn of the praise of
the Spirit of heaven, that they might be
called treated with righteousness, the planting of the
Lord, that he might be glorified."
So then there's a lynching of the first
and second comings here.
He came to proclaim the acceptable year of
the Lord.
He's coming again to declare the day of
vengeance of our God.
And God is going to destroy all those
who are found in red-handed opposition to
himself, and to destroy the enemies of his
people Israel.
It'll be the time of the Lord's vengeance.
And then he's going to bring comfort and
blessing to those who have suffered so much,
to comfort all that mourn, to give them
beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for
the Spirit of heaviness.
I think the figures here are those of
a funeral and a wedding.
At a funeral service they put ashes upon
their heads and mourned and lamented.
At a wedding they put beautiful bridal wreaths
upon their heads.
And so he's going to appoint unto them
beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for
the Spirit of heaviness.
Israel's long centuries of mourning will be over,
and she'll enter into the joyousness of her
marriage to Jehovah and all the blessings that
are attendant upon it.
And they'll be called the priests of the
Lord.
The nation of Israel will be a nation
of priests who will go into God on
behalf of all the other peoples of the
earth, and will be God's messengers to the
other peoples of the earth.
This brings before us what I have called
in a book of mine that some of
you have seen, the great parenthesis.
That is, I've tried to point out that
we are living in the parenthesis, in the
period between the 69th and the 70th week
of Daniel.
We are living between the beginning of the
acceptable year of the Lord and the day
of vengeance of our God.
There's other passages that can be examined and
found to contain the same thought.
For instance, the Apostle Peter speaks of those
who would see good days and so on,
and let us speak decently to it.
For the face of the Lord is against
them that do iniquity.
And he stops there, where you go back
in the Old Testament, it says, to cut
off the remembrance of them from the earth.
But that day hasn't come yet.
God's face is still against wickedness and corruption,
but the day hasn't come when he's going
to cut off the remembrance of them from
the earth.
We're still preaching the gospel of the grace
of God and offering salvation to the worst,
to the vilest, to those who have done
the very worst, God is offering his grace.
So that we are living in this period
between the first coming of Christ and the
second coming, one having to do with the
fulfillment of these early prophecies, and the other,
the later ones, all linked up with the
restoration of Israel and then the blessing of
the whole Gentile world.
Well, that's the outstanding message of chapter 61.
Did I, did we select something else I
wanted to read?
I have to use my wife's memory, you
see, because now it's gone.
Verse 6, that ye shall be made the
priests of the Lord.
Men shall call you the ministers of our
God.
Ye shall eat the riches of the Gentiles,
and in God's glory shall you boast yourselves.
Verse 10 and 11, I will greatly rejoice
in the Lord.
My soul shall be joyful in my God,
for he has clothed me with the garments
of salvation.
He has covered me with the robe of
righteousness.
As a bride will he dress himself with
ornaments, and as a bride adorning herself with
her jewels.
As the earth brings forth her blood, and
as the God who causes the things that
are stolen in it to spring forth, so
the Lord God will cause righteousness and pleasure
to spring forth before all the nations.
Well, those are wonderful promises these are.
How much they should mean to God's earthly
people, and how much we should be interested
in them.
How blessings are heavenly.
Theirs to a great extent will be earthly,
and yet their salvation is just the same
as our salvation.
He has clothed me, they'll be able to
sing in that day, with the garments of
salvation, with a robe of righteousness.
And isn't that true of us today?
We who at one time were trying to
piece out a covering for ourselves with the
filthy rags of our own unrighteousness, have cast
that to one side, and now we can
say he has clothed us with the garments
of salvation, with the robe of righteousness.
God has provided a righteousness for men and
women who have none of their own, and
in that coming day Israel will learn this
precious truth.
They'll give up all pretension to human righteousness,
and rejoice in the righteousness of God, which
will be bestowed upon them.
The prophet Jeremiah, referring to this time, says,
and this is his name, whereby he shall
be called Jehovah Sidkenia, the Lord our righteousness.
And then a little farther on in his
prophecy, speaking of Jerusalem and its restoration, he
says, and this is her name, whereby she
shall be called Jehovah Sidkenia, the Lord our
righteousness.
So that recognizing that she has no righteousness
of her own, the day will come when
the people of Israel will find their righteousness
in the Lord God himself.
What a blessed thing it is when we've
learned that lesson even now.
So many people never have learned it.
I remember years ago when we were first,
if you'll allow a personal reference, we were
first starting the colored school, and my son
was here in Dallas carrying on.
It wasn't an easy thing.
We couldn't seem to get any help financially,
and nearly all the finances I had to
raise myself would be responsible for.
And as I went from place to place
and tried to interest people in it, finally
I just began to wonder whether it was
worthwhile trying to do anything for these colored
people down here or not.
And so I, after a third year, I
came back, came down here to lecture, and
as usual I went over there to give
an address one night, and I said to
my son, I don't know, Ed, it costs
us so much a year to run this,
and you're giving your very life for it,
and I don't know whether it's really worthwhile
or not.
And he looked at me rather strangely, and
he said, well, Dad, why don't you ask
the men what they think about it?
So that night before giving my lecture, there
were about, just about 30 in school in
those days, I said, I told them what
was in my mind.
I said, I'd like to know what you
men think of it.
Is this a worthwhile investment?
Are you getting enough out of it?
And you know, for, oh, I don't know
how many minutes, there wasn't a syllable.
They just sat there with downcast faces and
didn't say a word.
Finally, one man got up.
You know, some of these Negroes are real
orators when they get going, and they're very
capable.
And he got up and he said, I
have been wondering if I heard it right.
Did I understand that this school may be
closed?
If this school is closed, then I shall
feel that the last bit of light for
us poor colored people in Dallas has gone
out, and we're just to be left in
the dark.
He said, let me tell you how I
was in the dark.
I was a pastor of a church for
13 years.
I didn't know the gospel.
I didn't know how sinners were saved.
I preached, and the people come together, and
I baptized them, and they joined the church,
and they shouted, and they went on, and
I thought if I put on plenty of
rousements and got them all going, that that
was the power of the Holy Spirit.
He said, I heard about this school, but
I was kind of prejudiced when I heard
a white man was running, because I thought
there must be something queer about it.
But finally, I came one night, and he
turned to me, and he said, your son
that night was speaking on the first three
chapters of the Epistles of the Romans.
And he said, that night he took away
from me all the religion I'd been building
up for 13 years.
I just sat there in a daze as
he tore off one filthy rag after another,
until I stood there naked before God.
I had no righteousness in my bones, and
I thought I had so much.
I thought I was doing so well.
He said, you know, I went out of
the class that night and went home, and
I said, what am I going to do?
All that I've tried to do to fit
myself for heaven is gone.
I haven't anything left.
He said, I could hardly wait for the
next class, which was two nights later.
He said, when I came, that night he
began in the middle of the third chapter
of Romans, and he went on to show
that God had a righteousness for men who
had none of their own.
Oh, he said, I can't tell you what
that meant to me.
I found out that night I didn't have
to provide my own righteousness.
God had provided one, and if I just
trusted the Lord Jesus Christ, I was made
the righteousness of God in him.
He said, you know, from that day to
this, I've been preaching the righteousness of God,
and my people have been learning to see
this great truth.
And he said, brother, don't close up this
school.
It's the only place I know where they
open up these things, Dutch common folks.
But you know, there's a whole lot of
white folks haven't learned those things.
They're just trying to build up a righteousness
there, and poor Israel is doing that.
The Apostle Paul says, they being ignorant of
God's righteousness, and going about to establish their
own righteousness, have not submitted themselves to the
righteousness of God.
But in this coming day, everything will be
changed.
They'll have their eyes opened, and they'll see
in Christ their Redeemer, and they'll be able
to sing with gladness, he has clothed me
with the garments of salvation, with the robe
of righteousness.
Well, that was chapter 61, wasn't it?
Then we turn to chapter 62.
For Zion's sake will I not hold my
peace, and for Jerusalem's sake I will not
rest, until the righteousness thereof goes forth with
brightness, and the salvation thereof as a lamp
that brings.
And the Gentiles shall see thy righteousness, and
all kings thy glory, and thou shalt be
called by my name, which the mouth of
the Lord shall name thee.
Thou shalt also be a crown of glory
in the hand of the Lord, and a
royal diadem in the hand of thy God.
How precious this is.
You can understand how these words, even today,
would naturally fill the heart of every redeemed
Hebrew, as he thinks of his people still
wandering in the darkness of unbelief, and he
prays for the peace of Jerusalem, and looks
forward to the day when all will be
brought unto this knowledge.
And so in that coming day, in the
very beginning of tribulation period, a remnant will
be called out, and they will be the
ones who will carry this message to all
their brethren, and there will be an intercession
to God, looking to him, to hasten the
day when Jerusalem shall be made a praise
throughout all the earth.
And as the chapter goes on, it tells
of the Lord coming in, and in grace,
restoring Israel to himself, and bringing them into
all the blessings of the Abrahamic covenant.
Behold, the Lord hath proclaimed unto the end
of the world, Praise ye to the daughter
of Zion.
Behold, thy salvation coming.
Behold, his reward is with him, and his
weight before him.
And they shall call them the holy people,
the redeemed of the Lord.
And thou shalt be called, sought out, a
city not forsaken.
But the doors will be when all this
is fulfilled.
These words hardly require comment, they are so
clear and so plain.
Then we turn to the next chapter, chapter
63.
In this chapter we have the wonderful picture,
the gray picture, of Israel's Redeemer, with garments
red with the blood of their enemies, coming
up from the east.
You see, their enemies generally came from the
east.
Assyria was pressing upon them at this time,
and Assyria would come to them through Moab
and Edom, the lands of Moab and Edom.
So now as they look on for the
last days, to the time of their grave
trial in the tribulation period, Isaiah depicts the
mighty conqueror coming toward the land, driving his
foes before him, taking vengeance upon Israel's adversaries
in order to redeem his chosen people.
He had looked for someone to help.
There was no one to do it.
And so he came to do it himself.
Just as he came himself to die for
their sins upon the cross, so he himself
is to be their final deliverer from the
power of their enemies.
It's a majestic passage.
Let's note it carefully as it's read.
Who is this that cometh out of the
garments from Bartholomew?
This that is glorious in his apparel, traveling
in the great eye that speaks in righteousness,
mighty to save you.
Remember, the salvation here is salvation from their
enemies, deliverance from every power that has oppressed
them, the bringing them in, the blessing in
their land.
For therefore I am also red in thine
apparel, and thy garments, like him that treadeth
in that hath trodden the wine for my
fury, and their blood shall be sprinkled upon
my garments, for the day of vengeance is
in my heart, and the year of my
redeeming is come.
And I looked, and there was none to
help, and I wondered that there was none
to uphold me.
Therefore mine own arms upheld thee, and I
will tread down the people in mine anger,
and make them drunk in my fury, and
I will bring their strength to the earth.
I think this passage has often been misapplied.
Take the words, I've trodden the winepress alone.
I've heard that applied very often, you know,
to our blessed Lord, going through the agony
of Gethsemane's garden.
And of course there is a sense in
which one might think of him there as
treading the winepress.
But the whole context here shows it's treading
the winepress in judgment on the foes of
Israel.
And it links with that passage in the
book of Revelation, where we have the vintage,
and the vine of the earth is fully
ripe, and is cast into the great winepress
of the wrath of God.
It's the eastern figure, you know, they gathered
their grapes, and then they threw them into
a great winepress, and then the people took
off part of their garments, and with bare
feet the young man got right into the
wine vat and trod out the grapes.
I think probably gave a special flavor to
the wine.
And they would become all spattered with the
red blood of the grapes, the garments they
still wore, and their own flesh, and so
on.
But it was always a time of great
rejoicing.
Among the Greeks, for instance, it was a
festival in honor of the god Bacchus, or
Dionysius.
But among the Hebrews, too, there was this
treading of the winepress annually.
And the picture here is God putting into
the winepress all the enemies of Israel, all
of those who have sought to destroy his
own chosen people, and then looking for someone
to tread that winepress.
And there's no one to do it.
And so he says, I'll do it myself.
I looked for some, but there was none.
So I came.
I have trodden the winepress alone, and of
the people there's none to help me.
So he says, I'll stain all my raiment.
His garments are looked upon as stained with
the blood of Israel's foes.
I think this is different to what we
have in the 19th of Revelation.
In Revelation 19, where we have the wonderful
vision of the Lord descending from heaven, where
he's pictured as a mighty warrior astride a
great white charger, it said there that he
was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood.
That, I take it, is his own precious
blood, the blood that poured from the wound
in his side, and that naturally would stain
his vesture.
He's clothed with a vesture dipped in blood.
It's the symbol of his love for his
people.
But here his garments are stained with the
blood of his enemies.
It's the day of vengeance of our God,
of which we've just been speaking in connection
with the previous chapter.
When that day comes, all those that are
found in opposition to God will be destroyed.
You know, if you look carefully into the
prophetic word and link it up to the
book of Revelation, it's evident that there are
two different characters of judgment upon the world
at the time of the Lord's second advent.
There's what you might call the warrior judgment,
when the nations will be gathered together and
the Lord will descend in power from heaven
and destroy them.
That's the treading of the winepress that we
have here.
And then there's what we might call the
sessional judgment, when the Son of Man shall
come in his glory and all his holy
angels with him.
Then shall he sit upon the throne of
his glory, and before him shall be gathered
all nations, and he shall separate them one
from another as a shepherd, divide up his
sheep from the goats, and so on.
There he's not dealing with the nations that
have been vicious, have maintained a vicious attitude
toward God and his people, but the nations
as such, and they'll be judged in that
day according to their attitude toward his messengers,
these messengers of Israel, as they've gone through
the world proclaiming the coming of the King.
We need to distinguish these two aspects of
judgment.
In the one, there's no separating one from
another, but the Lord Jesus is revealed in
flaming fire, taking vengeance from those that know
not God and that have baying off the
gospel, those who have had every opportunity to
be saved and they've refused it and have
taken the place of enemies of God and
his people.
Whereas in the sessional judgment, it's the nations
as such, many of whom, to many of
whom the gospel message had never before gone,
and they are judged according to their attitude
toward his people.
It isn't that the sheep, for instance, are
saved because of what they did toward his
people, or that the others are lost because
of their bad treatment of them.
It's a question in either case of whether
there was faith in Christ or not, but
if there was real faith, it would be
manifested by their treatment of his messengers.
Where there was no faith, it would be
manifested by their indifference to his messengers.
But judgment is always according to works, and
so he speaks of their attitude in each
instance toward those who carried the message.
Inasmuch as you did it unto one of
the least of these my brethren, you did
it unto me.
Inasmuch as you did it not unto the
least of these my brethren, you did it
not unto me.
Here in the 62nd of Isaiah, the treading
of the winepress, it's the warrior judgment when
all the enemies, those who are found in
definite, open opposition to God and his people
will be destroyed when the Lord Jesus is
revealed from heaven in flaming fire.
In his pity he redeemed them, and he
bared them and carried them all the days
of old.
On the precious portion, and of course this
applies to God's care over all his people
in any dispensation.
While here it's primarily dealing with the suffering
saints of the last days and also those
who might be suffering for truth's sake in
Isaiah's own day.
Yet it may be taken home, taken to
heart by God's afflicted people at any time
because he's always concerned about his saints.
You remember that beautiful translation of Weymouth's in
the New Testament, casting all your care upon
him, for it matters to God about you.
So here in all their affliction he was
afflicted and the angel of his presence saved
them.
God is not an unmoved spectator as he
gazes upon the sufferings of his saints.
His heart of compassion goes out to every
one of them, and if he permits the
suffering to go on, it's because he sits
as a refiner of silver, waiting to purge
them from all dross that his own countenance
may be fully manifested in them.
What a comfort a passage like this will
be to the remnant of Israel in the
last days, when their sufferings are terribly under
the beast and the antichrist, and waiting for
the manifestation of the king.
And he will come, and their sufferings will
come to an end, and they'll enter into
all the blessing here predicted.
His airplanes were the fulfillment of it, and
told us that now the time of the
end had actually come.
Well, you see, that's over 30 years ago.
So often history shows the fallacy of a
lot of our interpretations.
I don't know exactly the meaning of this
bird flying with the Lord to deliver Israel.
It might have reference to an air campaign
in the last days.
I don't know.
But the real deliverance is coming when the
Lord Jesus himself, with all his holy ones,
descends from heaven, and his feet shall stand
in that day upon the Mount of Olives
over against Jerusalem in the east, and the
Mount of Olives will be the center.
That will be the time when, as birds
fly, the Lord will deliver Israel.
You see, Isaiah looks forward to the deliverance
from the power of Samacharab, as set forth
more fully in this chapter, if you read
it carefully.
But he looks at it as a little
picture of the complete deliverance of Jerusalem in
the last days, when the Lord himself will
intervene on their behalf at the time when
their foes are surrounding the city, when the
word has been fulfilled that says,