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 33,
beginning with verse 13, as we continue with
an in-depth message entitled, The Spoiler of
Jerusalem.
1.
One thing is needful, O my Father, 1.
One thing is needful, O my God, 2.
That I sit at your feet and pour
out my love.
3.
This thing is needful, O my God.
And now with today's study, here's Pastor Chuck.
A people of deeper speech than you can
understand, whose stammering tongue you do not understand.
The foreign language of the Assyrians.
You're not going to hear it.
You're not going to see it.
Look upon Zion, the city of our solemnities.
Your eyes shall see Jerusalem as a quiet
habitation.
The enemy has been destroyed.
A tabernacle that shall not be taken down,
not one of the stakes thereof shall ever
be removed, neither shall any of the cords
thereof be broken.
But there the glorious Lord will be unto
us a place of broad rivers and streams,
wherein shall no galley with oars, neither shall
gallant ship pass by.
The prophet begins to wax poetic and enters
into poetic speech of this glorious city in
the future, God's future for the city of
Jerusalem.
For the Lord is our judge.
The Lord is our lawgiver.
The Lord rules.
The Lord reigns.
The Lord is our King.
We will see the King in His beauty.
The Lord is our King and He will
save us.
Thy tacklings are loose, talking again in the
poetic terms of the ship.
They could not well strengthen their mast.
The cables that held up the mast were
loosened.
The mast wouldn't stand.
They could not spread the sail because of
the mast being shaky, unstable.
Then is the prey of great spoil divided
and the lame take the prey.
And the inhabitants shall not say, I am
sick.
People that dwell therein shall be forgiven their
iniquity.
God's blessing.
Inhabitant will not know sickness.
Now, the prophet saw the dark days that
were going to come.
And throughout the Scripture, the Scripture deals with
those dark days that are coming.
But the Scripture never ends with the dark
days.
The Scriptures always take you beyond the dark
days into those glorious days of light in
the future.
So, yes, going through trials.
Yes, you're going to have a lot of
problems.
There's going to be severe tribulation.
But the day of the Lord is coming
beyond.
You're going to come out on the other
side.
Now, we get that as we move into
chapter 34 because we're going to move into
some of the darkest days of man's history
as we deal with the days of the
Battle of Armageddon, the great wrath of God
culminating in the Battle of Armageddon as we
get into chapter 34.
Really, the way that these chapters are coming
out, it's sort of, in a way, a
little difficult because you're going to be in
darkness for a week.
It won't be until next week when we
get to chapter 35 that we come out
into the light.
So, we're going to leave you in the
darkness of the tribulation in chapter 34.
I'm glad that you already know chapter 35
and you know the end of the story,
that we do come out into the glorious
Kingdom Age.
But before that is going to come, there
is going to be a period of great
tribulation upon the earth as God's wrath and
God's judgment is poured out upon the sinner,
upon the iniquity of man.
So, come near, the prophet calls.
Come near ye nations to hear.
Hearken, ye people.
Let the earth hear and all that are
in it, the world and all of the
things that come forth of it.
He is calling now everybody, the earth, everyone
listen, because this judgment of God is going
to be universal on the earth.
We're hearing a lot about global strategy.
And the word global is a buzzword today
among the politicians and all.
It's a significant buzzword because we're moving into
that one world government and the global community
and all.
And we're moving into that and thus it
is significant that the prophet calls for the
global ear to hearken, to listen.
Come near ye nations to hear.
Hearken, ye people.
Let the earth hear all that are therein
and all of the things that come forth
out of the world.
For the indignation, now I've said before, that
this word indignation in the Old Testament is
the equivalent of tribulation in the New, the
Great Tribulation.
And so wherever you read of this indignation,
most, in most cases, it is a reference
to that period of Great Tribulation that Jesus
said was going to come upon the earth.
So the indignation of the Lord is upon
all nations and His fury upon all their
armies.
He has utterly destroyed them.
He has delivered them to the slaughter.
In the book of Revelation, as it speaks
of this tremendous slaughter that is coming, they
cry for the birds of the earth to
gather together and to feast on the carcasses
of the princes and of the kings and
of the mighty men of the earth as
it speaks of this horrible carnage that is
going to take place.
In Revelation 19, 17, I saw the angel
standing in the sun.
He cried with a loud voice saying to
all of the fowls that fly in the
midst of heaven, come and gather yourselves together
unto the supper of the great God.
That is that He has prepared for you
that you may eat the flesh of kings,
the flesh of captains, the flesh of mighty
men, the flesh of the horses and of
those that sat upon them, the flesh of
all men, both free and bond, both small
and great.
And so this battle of Armageddon ending in
this horrible carnage when the blood will flow
to the horse's bridle for the length of
fourteen furlongs or fourteen hundred furlongs.
So here is a mention of that.
His fury is against all their armies.
He's utterly destroyed them.
He has delivered them to the slaughter.
Their slain also shall be cast out and
the smell will come up out of their
carcasses and the mountains will be melted with
their blood.
It is figurative speech and yet it is
speaking of this horrible time when the blood
will flow to the horse's bridles and the
smell of these millions of bodies as they
are going through the process of deterioration.
And all the host of heaven shall be
dissolved.
And so this great judgment of God will
be cataclysmic.
It will not just be confined to the
earth but will be also in the heavens
great earthquakes, great tornadoes, great meteorite showers that
will hit the earth and destroy.
The host of heaven will be dissolved.
The heavens will be rolled together as a
scroll and all their hosts shall fall down
as the leaf falleth from the vine and
as a falling fig from the fig tree.
Jesus spoke about the stars of heaven falling
as a fig tree casteth forth its untimely
figs.
For my sword shall be bathed in heaven.
Behold it shall come down upon Idumea and
upon the people of my curse to judgment.
The sword of the Lord is filled with
blood.
It is made fat with the fatness and
with the blood of the lambs and goats
and the fat of the kidneys of rams.
For the Lord hath a sacrifice in Basra
and a great slaughter in the land of
Idumea.
Now these references to Idumea and to Basra
and all are figurative and they are referring
to those nations that have opposed themselves to
the people of God.
Now God way back said to Abraham as
a part of his covenant with Abraham.
He said I will bless those that bless
you and I will curse those who curse
you.
Now we are told by intimation at least
in Zechariah the 12th chapter that in these
last days the whole earth will be gathered
together against Israel.
And so this chapter deals with these nations
and of which Idumea becomes the sort of
classic example for the Idumeans have always been
the perpetual enemy of Israel throughout history.
They are representative of those nations that are
perpetual enemies to the people of God or
enemies to the people of God to Israel.
And thus God said I will bless those
that bless you I will curse those that
curse you and I challenge you to look
at history.
And look at those nations that have cursed
Israel and see what has happened and look
at those nations that have blessed Israel and
see what has happened.
But the final result is yet to come.
The day of the Lord's vengeance verse 8.
Well he lists the Sower of the Lord
is filled with blood, fat and so forth.
Basra the great slaughter in the land of
Idumea.
The unicorns verse 7 shall come down with
them and the bullocks with the bulls and
their land shall be soaked with blood and
their dust made fat with fatness.
For it is the day of the Lord's
vengeance.
God is judging now.
The year of recompenses for the controversies of
Zion.
God is now moving in judgment for his
people.
And verse 9 I find extremely fascinating.
The streams thereof shall be turned into pitch
or tar.
Oil.
Crude oil.
The dust thereof into brimstone.
And the land thereof shall become burning oil.
Or pitch.
Pitch which is the oil.
It is the tar.
It was actually the fact that the Bible
mentions that the ark was covered with pitch.
Noah built the ark and he covered it
with pitch.
Well Rockefeller in reading the Bible and reading
that thought to himself covered it with pitch.
That's interesting.
If there's pitch knowing that it is tar
there must be oil over there.
And that's what caused Rockefeller to go over
there and start drilling for oil.
And thus the vast oil reserves were discovered
by him reading the Bible.
It is interesting also that in the war
in 1967 the terrorists and the
Syrians were planning to blow up that oil
pipeline that comes across the northern part of
Israel to the coast to bring the oil
Middle East oil in this big pipeline flows
through Israel under this treaty and they were
planning to blow up the pipeline up in
the northern portion if you know geography of
Israel so the northern most portion of the
of the Hula Valley which is the upper
Galilee region where the headwaters of the Jordan
River come the Banias River and the Dan
River and the Chutzpahni River all three joined
together to make the Jordan River.
The word Jordan means down from Dan.
And so the tribe of Dan was up
there in the north the river came down
from Dan and so the Jordan but it's
actually made up of three rivers and the
one the Banias comes right out of the
base of Mount Hermon in the place known
as Banias in the Bible times it was
known as Caesarea Philippi where Jesus was with
his disciples at the time of his transfiguration.
But right up in that area of Banias
where the Banias River comes down they were
planning to blow up the pipeline and dump
millions of gallons of oil on down into
the Jordan River that would have flowed down
into the Dead Sea and would have erect
horrible ecological damage on Israel and then they
were planning to just ignite the thing so
you'd have a river of fire that almost
happened the Israelis caught the men and who
were trying to come in and to blow
up the pipeline and the men were destroyed
but and Israel was saved from this Holocaust
that would have been had they carried out
that plan but that is mentioned here as
a strategy of war so it is interesting
that they are using oil as a strategy
for warfare now but it will it'll go
one further step as they turn the oil
into the stream beds the stream should be
turned into pitch oil the dust thereof into
brimstone and the land shall become burning pitch
it will not be quenched by night or
by day the smoke thereof shall go up
forever forever being figurative speech I'm sure from
generation to generation it shall lie waste none
shall pass through it forever and ever and
so it speaks of the area that will
be made so desolate but the wild animals
and the cormorant, the bittern the owl, the
raven will dwell in it will stretch the
line of confusion on the stones of emptiness
they shall call the nobles thereof to the
kingdom but none shall be there all of
her princes shall be nothing thorns, weeds and
all will grow up in the area where
the palaces were and in the fortresses it
will be a habitation of demons actually dragons
and a court for owls the wild beast
of the desert shall meet with the wild
beast of the island and the hairy ones
shall cry to his fellows the demons, the
screech owl shall rest there and find herself
a place of rest there shall the great
owl make her nest and lay in hatch
and gather her shadow in other words it'll
be inhabited only by wild animals and under
the shadow there shall the vultures also be
gathered everyone with their mate now having given
this prophecy of horrible desolation and all he
then declares seek ye out of the book
of the Lord and read at that time
he's saying just hey, get this book out
and read it you'll find out you know
you'll see it now and just read about
it then it's interesting how that so many
times as we read the Bible the daily
events come alive and we realize what an
amazing book the Bible is speaking of future
events before they ever take place and here's
the challenge that when these things happen then
seek out the book of the Lord and
it is interesting that it is referred to
as the book of the Lord the Bible
and read because not one of these things
shall fail now one of these days we'll
have another Bible lesson and we will be
looking back on these events and I'll say
you see this is what Isaiah was you
see right there he was talking about now
you see it over there rivers of pitch
and not one of these shall fail not
one of the scriptures not one word that
God has said shall fail Jesus said heaven
and earth will pass away but my word
will never pass away God's word is certain
God's word is steadfast God's word is sure
not one word of this prophecy shall fail
as God said I said it and I
will do it and that which he was
talking about he is already done we've seen
that that's one of those it's already checked
off none shall want her mate for my
mouth it has commanded and his spirit it
has gathered them God said not anything is
going to be lacking it will all come
together there won't be any missing pieces for
I have commanded and my spirit is putting
it together and he has cast the lot
for them and his hand has divided it
unto them by line now the line was
usually used in the matter of construction you
you set out your lines for the corners
of the buildings and so forth and and
all and it's usually thought in the terms
of destruction laying out the lines where you're
going to build but this is the laying
out of the line for where you're going
to destroy the line for destruction I've divided
it unto them by line and they shall
possess it forever from generation to generation they
shall dwell therein that is the wild animals
and all and not be a dwelling place
for man so that desolation that will follow
the great battle of Armageddon when God destroys
the armies of man face to face
Lord let me know 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-3257 again that's tape or CD number
C-3257 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
complement 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 2000 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 and if you call right now and
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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
-800-272-9673 and for those of you
who would like to visit our website you
can do so at www.twft.com or
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can do so at info at twft.com
well 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 is Pastor Chuck I pray
that God will raise up from among this
body people who will get desperate before God
in intercession that it will not be said
of God concerning our day and our city
that there was no one to intercede that
he sought for a man to stand in
the gap to fill in the hedge but
he found none and thus the judgment proceeded
may God really call us unto prayer and
may we obey and respond to that call
of God and may each of us spend
time this week in prayer for our city
for our state and for our country that
we might see a real spiritual awakening a
move of God's spirit and a return unto
the Lord may the Lord be with you
bless and keep you through this week this
program is sponsored by the word for today
the radio ministry of Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa
California