Welcome to The Word for Today.
The Word for Today is a continuous study
of the Bible, taught by Pastor Chuck Smith
of Calvary Chapel, Costa Mesa, California.
Pastor Chuck is currently teaching from the Old
Testament.
And for those of you following along in
your Bibles, we'll be continuing today in Isaiah
chapter 13, beginning with verse 12, as we
continue with And
so there have been, in past history, great
climactic changes that were caused by cataclysmic of
events.
The physicists talk about this polar axis shift.
And there seems to be evidence of the
polar axis shift in the ionized iron and
rocks and so forth by the directions that
the ionization is pointing is not to what
we know as the North Pole today.
And thus they speak of the polar axis
shift and the things that transpired during a
polar axis shift.
How that mountain ranges are removed.
How that ocean bodies and ocean beds are
changed.
We do know that the area up around
the Painted Desert and the Great Salt Lake
was once a vast ocean and there were
dinosaurs that roamed around the shores of that
ocean up there.
The Grand Canyon could possibly have been caused
by a polar axis shift when that great
vast ocean that was up in that area
was emptied on down into the Pacific through
the area of the Gulf of Mexico.
And the geologists today, rather than ascribing to
the theory that the Grand Canyon was formed
by hundreds of or billions of years of
gradual erosion by the Colorado River, are now
saying it probably happened more rapidly by a
massive flow of water over a short period
of time rather than a small flow of
water over a long period of time.
We do know that a canyon almost half
the size of the Grand Canyon was created
in just a few days up at Mount
St. Helens.
When Mount St. Helens erupted and that lake
was emptied, it formed a vast canyon up
there that is similar to the Grand Canyon,
about half the size.
So that it tends towards the theory of
the Grand Canyon being formed by a massive
amount of water over a short period of
time.
And we do have the evidence of the
fossils there around the Grand Canyon and up
in the area of the Painted Desert and
all that show that it was once an
ocean floor.
So this, they believe, took place during a
polar axis shift.
And they say that these shifts do take
place about every 5,000, 6,000 years.
The last one took place, according to them,
about the time that the scripture says that
the flood of Noah took place.
It would sort of coincide with the time
of the flood, which is interesting to consider.
The Lord says He's going to shake.
The heavens and the earth will remove out
of her place in the wrath of the
Lord of hosts in the day of His
fierce anger.
That being removed out of its place could
be a reference to a polar axis shift.
Now, in light of this prophecy, you might
find the book, Worlds in Collision, by Immanuel
Velikovsky, quite interesting, as Isaiah types it together
with the heavens shaking and the earth removing
out of her place.
I'll just leave it there.
You can read the book and draw your
own conclusions.
But it is fascinating reading.
And it shall be as the chased deer
or as a sheep that no man taketh
up, and they shall every man turn to
his own people and flee every one into
his own land.
So there's going to be this tremendous cataclysmic
event that is going to terrorize the world.
And every one that is found shall be
thrust through, and every one that is joined
unto them will fall by the sword.
And their children also shall be dashed to
pieces before their eyes, and their houses shall
be spoiled and their wives ravaged.
And these are events that usually take place
in war.
It's one of those horrible side effects and
consequences of war.
The inhumanity of man to man is manifested
and demonstrated in war.
Man is as a wild beast and it
becomes manifested in a time of war.
Now in the immediate, and it's interesting, a
lot of Bible critics ascribe this portion of
Isaiah to another writer.
You're familiar with the theory that there is
not one author of the book of Isaiah,
but there are actually two authors.
And they ascribe much of the writing of
Isaiah to a second author of a later
period.
Now why do they do that?
Here's one of the reasons why they speak
of a second Isaiah.
Because he said, Behold, I will stir up
the Medes against them, that is the Babylonians,
which will not regard silver, and as for
gold, they shall not delight in it.
Now at this time the Medes were just
a very small tribal group.
And so for Isaiah to say that the
Medes were going to conquer Babylon was just
so preposterous and far-fetched that no one
could even think that at that time.
And therefore there must have been a later
Isaiah who wrote it after the Medes became
powerful in their joining together with the Persians.
And because it's prophetic, they cast it out
for that.
And so if you want to know why
a lot of Bible critics are critical, it's
because they don't believe the Bible.
They don't believe God.
They don't believe that God can speak of
things in advance.
They don't believe that God can speak prophetically
of things that will take place in the
future.
And thus they always invent a late date
for the book.
It happened they wrote it after the fact
because these details, they could not have known.
It was just not, they couldn't even have
imagined the Medes at that time rising up.
The interesting thing about the idea of two
Isaiahs is that Jesus spoke of Isaiah and
he quotes from Isaiah.
And Jesus said, as Isaiah the prophet declared,
and he quotes from Isaiah.
The interesting thing he quotes from what the
critics have said are both Isaiahs.
In other words, the second Isaiah, he quotes
from that and attributes it to Isaiah.
And he quotes from the first and attributes
that to Isaiah.
So Jesus did not have the advantage of
modern scholarship and liberalism and thus he did
not know that there were two authors.
And one was sort of a, used the
pseudonym at a later date, adding details that
the first Isaiah could not have known.
And so you see the Bible stands or
falls as a unit.
You take away part of it and you've
destroyed the whole.
The moment you ascribe to the two Isaiah
theory, then you have to discredit and discount
Jesus and the words of Jesus.
Because he was mistaken in assuming that there
was only one prophet, Isaiah.
And thus the words of Christ are actually
impugned by such a scholarship of liberal theology.
So the Lord said, I will stir up
the Medes, which he did.
It was the Medes that ultimately conquered the
Babylonian kingdom.
But this was several hundred years later.
And they will not regard silver.
And as for gold, they will not delight
in it.
Their bows also shall dash the young men
to pieces.
And as I said, near and far fulfillment.
He gave us the far fulfillment first.
Now he's giving us the nearer fulfillment will
be by the Medes.
This is in contrast to kingdoms of nations,
plural, gathered from the far country, even from
the end of heaven.
Here are the Medes close by.
And they will have no pity on the
fruit of the womb, that is the babies.
And their eyes will not spare children.
And Babylon, the glory of the kingdoms, the
beauty of the Chaldees, excellency, shall be as
when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah.
Now that did not take place under the
Medes.
When the Medes conquered Babylon, they did not
even destroy the walls.
Cyrus, the Medo-Persian general, diverted the river
Euphrates, built some dikes and diverted the river
Euphrates around the city of Babylon.
And in the night, they shut off the
river Euphrates and the soldiers of Cyrus came
under the wall of Babylon on the banks
of the river Euphrates that had been stopped
by the dikes upstream that they had built.
The Babylonians were so drunken and so engaged
in a big party, the celebration of Belshazzar,
that they weren't aware of what was going
on.
As the water level of the Euphrates went
down, it exposed the under part there and
the men came on the river bed into
the city of Babylon and then up and
through the gates, the levee gates, that the
river Euphrates ran right through the center of
Babylon and there were 25 major boulevards that
crossed the river Euphrates, each with a bridge
and gates and walls along the river bank.
But these gates, the levee gates, were left
open and Cyrus and his troops were able
to come through these gates and into the
palace and they took Belshazzar and the Babylonians
almost without firing a shot, so to speak.
Please turn cassette over, this time for side
two.
They just took the city and for two
or three days the city of Babylon was
so vast that many people in the city
of Babylon didn't even know that it had
been conquered for two or three days.
And the walls were left intact, the palaces
and all were left intact, they were not
destroyed, they did not need to destroy them,
but they were destroyed at a later date
when Babylon about 200 years later was again
conquered, at that time the walls were destroyed.
But surely it was not as when God
overthrew Sodom and destruction, that was with fire
and brimstone from heaven and it was a
pretty thorough destruction.
And so this destruction that is prophesied here
that is coming upon Babylon will be a
fiery destruction and a total destruction as the
cities of Sodom and Gomorrah were totally wiped
out.
And thus after this destruction it will never
be inhabited.
Now the ancient site of Babylon is inhabited
at the present time.
They have rebuilt the palace of Nebuchadnezzar.
They have rebuilt many of the other buildings
in the ancient city of Babylon.
And once God overthrows it, it will never
be inhabited, neither will it be dwelt in
from generation to generation, neither shall an Arabian
pitch a tent there, neither shall the shepherds
make their fold there, but wild beasts of
the desert will lie there, their houses will
be full of doleful creatures, owls will dwell
there and satyrs or demons shall dance there,
and the wild beasts of the islands shall
cry in their desolate houses and dragons in
their pleasant palaces, and her time is near
to come and her days shall not be
prolonged.
For the Lord will have mercy upon Jacob
and will yet choose Israel and set them
in their own land.
Now the Lord has had mercy upon Jacob
and again there's a dual fulfillment.
They came home from the Babylonian captivity and
they were reestablished, but never as a major
power.
This prophecy deals with Israel being reestablished but
becoming a major power, and thus this prophecy
is yet future.
The Lord will have mercy on Jacob and
will yet choose Israel.
God will pour out His Spirit and His
grace upon Israel.
He will deal with them as a nation
for seven more years prior to the return
of Christ and the establishing of God's great
kingdom.
And so the strangers shall be joined with
them and they shall cleave to the house
of Jacob, yet future.
And the people shall take them and bring
them to their place and the house of
Israel shall possess them in the land of
the Lord for servants and handmaids and they
shall take them captives whose captives they were
and they shall rule over their oppressors.
And so Israel, the nation, God's people are
yet to have power and to rule as
they take them captives whose captives they were.
It shall come to pass in the day
that the Lord shall give thee rest from
thy sorrow and from thy fear and from
your hard bondage wherein you were made to
serve, that you will take up this proverb
against the king of Babylon and say, how
has the oppressor ceased and the golden city
ceased?
For the Lord has broken the staff of
the wicked and the scepter of the rulers
and he who smote the people in wrath
with a continual stroke, he that ruled the
nations in anger is persecuted and none hinders.
And the whole earth is at rest and
is quiet and they break forth into singing.
Yea, the fir trees rejoice at thee and
the cedars in Lebanon.
They say, since you are laid down, no
feller has come against us."
Or that is a, what do they call
guys that chop down trees?
Here the word is feller, but logger.
So the prophecy of the future, when God
restores the glory to Israel, when Jesus comes
to reign as king over the earth, when
oppression ceases, when the staff of the wicked
is broken, the scepter of the rulers that
is earthly rulers, and the whole earth is
at rest in the righteous reign of peace
through Jesus Christ.
The whole earth at rest and is quiet.
And they break forth into singing.
Glorious day.
Now, hell from beneath is moved for thee
to meet thee at thy coming.
And the earth is at rest.
It stirs up the dead for thee, even
all of the chief ones of the earth.
It has raised up from their thrones all
of the kings of the nations.
And they shall speak and say unto thee,
are you also become weak as we?
Are you become like unto us?
Your pomp is brought down to the grave
and the noise of thy vials and the
worm is spread under thee and the maggots
cover thee.
So it's, it's speaking really of the, the,
the beast who is cast into Gehenna.
Hell from beneath is moved for thee to
meet thee at your coming.
It stirs up the dead for thee, the
chief ones of the earth, and there will
be no one quite the equal to, of
course, the Antichrist in power and glory, the
last final world leader who will be given
the power of Satan to rule over the
earth.
And yet he will be cast down.
And as he is, uh, the former world
rulers and all will say, have you become
as weak as we, you become like us.
Your pomp is brought down to the grave
and the noise of your vials or the
worm has spread under thee and the maggots
cover thee.
Face to face, Lord, let me know you.
Face to face, Lord, let me see you.
Pastor Chuck Smith will return with a few
closing comments, but first I'd like to remind
you that today's message is available in its
unedited form on cassette or CD.
Simply write or call and ask for ordering
details on tape or CD number C-3248.
Again, that's tape or CD number C-3248.
As we come to a close in today's
program, we'd like to introduce a brand new
book written by Pastor Chuck Smith entitled six
vital questions of life.
Once again, Pastor Chuck has helped us to
understand the scriptures with the anointing of the
Holy Spirit in his new book.
Pastor Chuck considers six life changing questions asked
by the apostle Paul in the book of
Romans and then expounds upon the biblical answers
that can revolutionize your Christian walk with God.
After discovering this revelation, the change was so
profound in Pastor Chuck's own life, he says
it was almost like a second conversion, putting
him in the winner's circle.
So if you have any questions concerning your
relationship with God, the book six vital questions
of life by Pastor Chuck will reassure and
reinforce God's special plan and purpose for your
life.
To order Pastor Chuck's new book, six vital
questions of life for yourself or for a
friend, you can call the word for today
at 1-800-272-WORD or write to
us at P.O. Box 8000, Costa Mesa,
California 92628.
Once again, that number to call is 1
-800-272-9673.
And for those of you that would like
to visit our website, you can do so
at www.twft.com or if you'd like
to email us, you can do so at
info at twft.com.
We'll coming up next time on the word
for today, Pastor Chuck will be continuing his
fascinating study through the book of Isaiah.
That's coming up next time on the word
for today.
And now with a few closing comments, here's
Pastor Chuck.
As we see the minds of our children
being polluted by the perverted music of this
day and by the false images being portrayed
in the movies and the videos and how
their whole value system is being destroyed, undermined,
and how evil is looked upon as good
and good is looked upon as evil.
Lord, our hearts weep for our children and
for our grandchildren, for the world that they
are growing up in so corrupted by sin.
And Lord, we pray that you will put
a hedge around your people, around your church.
And Lord, that we might determine in our
hearts to live for Jesus Christ, even in
this dark and perverted age.
And may our lives shine like a light
in this darkness.
May we stand against the forces of evil
that are so entrenched today within our society.
Gird us, Lord, that we might carry your
message of peace and love to a world
that's about ready to destroy itself.
In Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.
This program
is
sponsored by The Word for Today, the radio
ministry of Calvary Chapel, Costa Mesa, California.