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 if you're following along in your
Bible, we'll be continuing today in Isaiah chapter
29, beginning with verse 1, as we continue
with an in-depth message entitled The Woe
to Jerusalem.
And now with today's study, here's Pastor Chuck.
Ariel means the Lion of God.
It is a reference to the city of
Jerusalem, and the 29th chapter begins with a
woe, a warning.
Woe to Ariel, to Ariel, the city where
David dwelt.
There was David's palace, his headquarters.
Add ye year to year, let them kill
sacrifices.
The place where the people would come year
by year for the feast, for the offering
of sacrifices unto the Lord.
And yet the Lord said, I will distress
Ariel, and there shall be heaviness and sorrow,
and it shall be unto Me as Ariel.
And I will camp against thee round about,
and I will lay siege against thee with
a mount, and I will raise forts against
thee.
And thou shalt be brought down, and shalt
speak out of the ground, and thy speech
shall be low out of the dust, and
thy voice shall be as one that hath
a familiar spirit.
Out of the ground, and thy speech shall
whisper out of the dust.
And so God speaks about His coming against
Jerusalem.
And the reason, of course, being that they
have turned from God.
And the prophecy is of the future of
people who have turned their back upon their
God.
From the time of Hezekiah, who was now
reigning, there was a surface revival.
It didn't really go deep enough.
It was just something on the surface.
At the death of Hezekiah, the nation of
Judah plunged to its deepest depths of depravity,
from which it never fully recovered.
And so it was a downhill direction from
this time on, as God, having been forsaken
of the people, has now forsaken the people.
As Jeremiah will say, Israel, or the people
of God, have committed two evils.
They have, number one, forsaken the fountain of
living waters, and they have hewn out cisterns
that could hold no water.
They have forsaken the living God, life.
And they had tried to substitute faith in
the living God with philosophies, with other chief
interest in life that became their gods.
And as a result, God Himself turned against
them.
He said to the king Asa, the Lord
is with you while you will be with
Him.
And if you seek Him, He'll be found
of you.
But if you forsake Him, He will forsake
you.
This is always true.
If you seek God, you'll find God.
If you forsake God, you will be forsaken
of God.
You are in a position of either waiting
on God, trusting in God, or you are
in that other position of God waiting on
you until you hit bottom, until you cry
out for help.
And so God speaks of the woe that
is going to come upon Jerusalem as God
will camp against them, will lay a siege
against them, and they will be brought down
and speak out of the ground and speaking
incoherently like a person who is possessed of
an evil spirit.
And then in verse five, there's a dramatic
change as God speaks of the way that
He is going to destroy their enemies.
Moreover, the multitude of thy strangers or enemies
shall be like small dust and the multitude
of the terrible ones shall be as the
chaff that passes away.
Yea, it shall be at an instant suddenly.
So God is going to come against those
who come against Jerusalem.
And this prophecy, I believe, actually moves on
in to the time of the end, to
the time really of the Antichrist as God
speaks about how He is going to destroy
those that have come against Jerusalem.
Instant destruction.
Thou shalt be visited of the Lord of
hosts with thunder.
He's talking now about the enemies of Jerusalem.
With an earthquake and a great noise, with
a storm and a tempest and the flame
of devouring fire.
And the multitude of all the nations that
fight against Ariel, even all that fight against
her and her fortifications that distress her, shall
be as a dream of the night vision.
It will be like a hungry man who
is dreaming and in his dream he's eating.
But when he wakes up, he's still hungry.
Or he's thirsty and he dreams that he's
taking a drink of water.
But when he wakes up, he's still thirsty.
So shall it be for those that come
against Jerusalem.
He is faint, his soul hath appetite, and
so shall the multitude of all nations be
that fight against Mount Zion.
Now God speaks of the effect of this
vision as Isaiah declares it to the people.
They're wondering, as he talks about God's destruction
of their enemies, in God's defending of them,
they are wondering.
And he says, stay yourselves and wonder, cry
you out and cry.
They are drunken, but not with wine.
They stagger, but not with strong drink.
For the Lord has poured upon you the
spirit of a deep sleep and hath closed
your eyes, the prophets and your rulers and
the seers has he covered.
And the vision of all has become unto
you as the words of a book that
is sealed.
So he speaks of the condition of the
people.
He tells them what God is going to
do.
They stand there, not really understanding, standing in
awe.
And they sort of staggering, in a sense,
at the promises of God.
Those that stagger, but not with wine.
You remember in the fourth chapter of Romans,
as Paul is talking about being justified by
faith, apart from works.
And he gives Abraham as the example who
believed God and God encountered his faith for
righteousness.
And then he goes on to tell us
concerning the faith of Abraham.
And he tells us that who against hope
believed in hope.
And he did not consider his own age
being about a hundred years old, nor yet
the deadness of Sarah's womb.
And he staggered not at the promises of
God through unbelief.
The Bible tells us that God has given
to us exceeding rich and precious promises.
By these we may be my partakers of
the divine inheritance.
But there are a lot of times when
we find ourselves staggering at the promises of
God.
Sort of like the servant of the king
in Elisha's day, when the king of Samaria
was distressed because of the sore famine as
the result of the Syrian army having besieged
the city.
It had come to the point where they
were beginning to cannibalize.
They were desperate.
And the king in his twisted logic was
blaming the prophet of God for all of
their problems.
And so he sent his servant down to
the house of Elisha to take him as
a prisoner, to bring him to the king
that he might put Elisha to death.
Now, Elisha was a fellow who had very
keen insight into the realm of the spirit,
great spiritual discernment.
And as he was sitting there with his
friends, he suddenly probably got sort of a
look in his eye that his friends recognized,
well, you know, wonder what's going on.
And he got that look and he says,
look what that son of a murderer is
planning to do now.
He's sending a guy down here to get
me.
He said, when he knocks on the door,
open the door and pin him with a
door for behold, the footsteps of his master
is right behind him.
So there was a knock on the door
and Elisha's friends opened it and pin the
guy against the door.
And here came the king riding up with
his prime minister.
And he said, I finally caught up with
you.
You've troubled Israel long enough.
And Elisha said, let's get this straight.
You're the one that's troubled Israel.
You're the one who's led them into idolatry.
You're the one who has turned them away
from God.
That's their problem.
But don't worry.
Tomorrow in the gate of Samaria, they'll be
selling a bushel of corn and a bushel
of fine flour for 65 cents.
And this prime minister on whom the king
leaned said, if God would open the windows
of heaven, could such a thing be?
He was staggering at the promises of God.
Now, the reason why we stagger at the
promises of God is because of a lack
of faith, because we cannot in our minds
figure out how God can do it.
And the guy couldn't figure out how God
could do that.
How would it be possible that they could
be selling a bushel of fine flour for
65 cents?
A jawbone of a donkey is selling for
65 pieces of silver so people can cook
up some soup.
But a bushel, oh, come on.
What's God going to do?
Open the windows of heaven and dump flour
down on us?
Are you trying to kid?
So Elisha said, well, man, you'll see it,
but you won't eat it.
God is going to do it whether you
believe it or not, but you won't partake
of it.
Your unbelief will keep you from partaking of
the blessing and the goodness of God.
And that's always a tragedy.
God is going to do his work, believe
it or not.
But many times your unbelief will cost you
the privilege and the opportunity of partaking in
that work of God.
And so these people hearing the promise of
Isaiah staggered.
They staggered at the promises of God.
Could such a thing be?
How can that ever be?
They were aware of the Assyrian power that
they were facing.
They had heard of the fall of Samaria
to Assyria and they were fearful and they
were trying to figure out every possible way
to deliver themselves from the hands of the
Assyrians.
And they realized that it was almost hopeless.
And so here the promise of God that
he's going to really wipe out their enemies
and they're staggering.
And so he said, the Lord has poured
out on you at this spirit of deep
sleep.
That is a spiritual lethargy where you cannot
comprehend the things of the spirit.
Now the Bible tells us that the natural
man does not understand the things of the
spirit and neither can he know them for
they are spiritually discerned.
And there are many people who are spiritual
dunces.
I mean they can talk to you about
the economic situation and how terrible it is
and they can give you their solution to
all of the problems that we have here
in the United States.
And if they were only in the position
of the president they could have things rolling
again you know.
And they have all kinds of wisdom.
They know all about the coming Super Bowl
and why which team will be in it
and who will win.
And they've got things all analyzed and doped
out.
But you get into the realm of spiritual
issues and they're duh.
You know there's nothing there.
They have no comprehension.
They cannot see.
And God spoke of the condition of the
people.
Having eyes to see they cannot see, ears
to hear they cannot hear.
And it's just a dullness to the things
of the spirit.
And so here the people are with this
spirit of deep sleep and spiritual matters.
God has closed your eyes.
And even those of the prophets, your rulers
and the seers He has covered.
The people are going around in this false
hope, in this blindness.
They cannot see what's going on.
And I wonder today if we really are
seeing what's really happening in the moral degeneration
of our nation.
Can we perceive what has really happened to
our nation?
You know I think that we're really going
down the tubes fast.
But I think people are sleeping.
I don't see an alarm.
I don't see a deep concern.
I don't see people really gathering together and
saying let's have more prayer.
Let's gather together during the week.
Let's get praying you know and really get
serious about these things.
And the time has come when the people
of God need to get desperate before God.
Because we are living in very desperate times.
When are we going to realize that hey
we're in trouble.
We've got some serious social problems that we're
facing.
And there's a tremendous deterioration from a spiritual
standpoint and a moral standpoint.
We're going down the tubes fast.
The Santa Ana City Schools Board is considering
now the putting of these sex clinics into
the public schools.
Dispersing condiments and so forth in our public
schools here in Santa Ana.
Planned Parenthood of America is behind the scenes
pushing for this.
Are we concerned?
Do we care?
Now it has been proven statistically that wherever
Planned Parenthood has gone with their sex education
that pregnancies increase.
Yet they're giving that whole you know big
spiel of you know the kids need to
be educated you know.
And so by our education we won't have
these little girls getting pregnant anymore.
Because we'll teach them how to have sex
but safely so they won't get pregnant.
I mean rather than teaching the kids purity,
morality, save yourself until you're married, be pure.
They say well we'll teach them how to
have sex but that how that they can
have it safe sex so they won't get
pregnant.
But it's not working.
They're teaching them how to have sex but
the kids are ignoring the safety factors.
And pregnancy has gone up 40% everywhere
that the Planned Parenthood has put in their
sex education clinics.
And we said my that's terrible.
I think that's a rotten shame.
Where are we going to eat tonight?
Should we go to Rubin's you know?
I mean we just shrug it it doesn't
there seems to be this lethargy, a deep
sleep.
While this moral evil just seems to like
fog come in and engulf us.
And we're concerned about who's going to win
the World Series or the Super Bowl.
The vision of God has become like a
book that is sealed.
The Word of God is something that they
just don't understand.
They hand it to a man who has
learned and they say read this to me
I pray you.
And he said I can't read that that's
sealed.
It's an interesting thing that across America today
and in so many of the pulpits and
I would venture to say the majority of
the pulpits.
The ministers treat the Bible as though it
was a sealed book.
You ask them do you ever teach on
the book of Revelation?
Oh no no nobody understands that book.
That's a sealed book.
It's a sealed book?
Then why do they call it the unsealed?
The apocalypse?
The unveiling?
Rather than being sealed just the opposite.
It's an unveiling.
It's taking the veil off.
It's not putting the veil over.
There's only one part of the book of
Revelation that was sealed and that is when
the seven thunders uttered their their thunders and
John started writing.
He said seal that up.
That's you know not to be revealed but
that's the only part of the book that's
sealed.
And yet they won't venture to touch the
book.
And so you hand it to the learned
you say read this.
Oh I can't read that that's a sealed
book.
And they say you shouldn't try to read
the Bible.
You're not a scholar.
Only the scholars can understand the Bible and
this blindness.
And so the book is delivered to him
who has not learned.
And they say read this to me.
I haven't studied it man I don't know
it.
I can't read it.
Wherefore the Lord said for as much as
this people draw near me with their mouth
and with their lips they do honor me
but have removed their heart far from me
and their fear toward me is taught by
the precept of men.
It isn't a genuine fear of God.
They're taught well you should fear God so
they fold their hands and close their eyes
when they pray.
But it isn't a true reverence of God
from their hearts.
And so he speaks of these people and
these are the people who are in the
temple worshiping.
They draw near with their lips.
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 3255.
Again that's tape or cd number c 3255.
Well Christmas time is soon approaching and it's
easy to get caught up in the hustle
and bustle of the season.
Buying presents, decorating, cooking, the list grows longer
every day.
Without realizing it we can easily forget the
true meaning of why we celebrate our Lord's
birth.
For this reason the word for today would
like to present a booklet by Pastor Chuck
Smith entitled How Can a Man Be Born
Again and also an audio cd entitled Why
by Pastor Chuck that would be the perfect
compliment for Christmas cards and gifts this year.
Both resources share the gospel of Jesus Christ
and explain the true meaning of Christmas and
why a man born 2,000 years ago
can still affect the world today.
And best of all they contain a message
leading people to accept Jesus Christ as their
personal Lord and Savior.
And remember the word for today would like
to assist you this Christmas in spreading the
gospel of Jesus to your family, friends, and
co-workers.
Please call our customer service department to help
you in finding that perfect gift that will
reflect the true meaning of Christmas.
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So 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
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And for those of you that would like
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Well coming up next time on the word
for today Pastor Chuck will be continuing his
fascinating study through the of Isaiah.
That's coming up next time on the word
for today.
And now with a few closing comments here's
Pastor Chuck.
Interesting description.
We'll be looking at God as a consuming
fire in a couple of weeks when we
get to chapter 33.
And I think you'll find it quite interesting.
We'll take a little more look at it
at that time.
And now may the Lord be with you
and bless you and cause you to be
enriched as you walk in fellowship with him
this week.
May your heart be in tune with his
and may your eyes be opened by the
Spirit of God.
That those things that concern God will become
a concern to you.
And may you really commit the issues of
your life to him.
And may you have that quietness that comes
from confidence in God that he is going
to work and take care of those things
that concern you.
May you just cast all your cares upon
him because he does care for you and
he is concerned about you.
This program is sponsored by the word for
today.
The radio ministry of Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa,
California.