40 Minutes In The Old Testament - Isaiah 1:16-2:5 (Episode 443)

Episode Date: December 2, 2024

God desires that all people wash and be made clean. He promises to make what is red as scarlet, white as snow. But the people will not listen and end their unfaithfulness, so judgment is coming. And yet, there is still a promise of God drawing a people to Himself. Have a listen. Show Notes: Support 1517 Podcast Network 1517 Podcasts 1517 on Youtube 1517 Podcast Network on Apple Podcasts 1517 Events Schedule 1517 Academy - Free Theological Education   What's New from 1517: Broken Bonds: A Novel of the Reformation, Book 1 of 2 by Amy Mantravadi Junk Drawer Jesus By Matt Popovits Listen to 1517 Executive Director Scott Keith and Magnus Persson on the latest Re:Formera podcast Signup For Free Advent Church Resources for 2024 Clothed with Christ by Brian William Thomas   More from the hosts: Daniel Emery Price Chad Bird  

Welcome to another episode of 40 Minutes in the Old Testament. 40 Minutes in the Old Testament is a 1517 Podcast Network podcast. You can go to 1517.org slash podcast and check out all the other podcasts that are living over there. While you're over there, make sure you check out everything else that 1517 is doing. Events. We're doing those. You know we're doing events, and you could be at one. You could come hang out with Chad and myself in our own flesh. That old carnal flesh.

You could come hang out with it at one of these events. We've got the national event next October. We've got the regional event coming up in April. Still a handful of tickets left for that. link in the show notes uh come hang out we'd love to see you there we're going to be recording a live podcast a live one of these at both those places so if you like this podcast come watch us do it and then uh hang out with us we'd love to see you also while you're over there you know registering for those events don't forget to hit that donate link and become a supporter because

of course all this free stuff all these podcasts all these videos all these articles all these academies only free because you know people support it people just like you maybe you're one of them and if you are one of them thank you very much and if you're not one of them yeah you can become one of them you know just sign up for any amount reoccurring one time whatever you want to do we'd appreciate it very much chad we are in isaiah chapter one we did a little bit of a lengthy introduction last uh episode and uh you know covered the first 15 or so verses and you know isaiah starting out hot and uh the lord has some things to say and the things he has to say is i really feel like these people have uh abandoned me i feel like i'm calling out to them

uh and they have their back turned to me you know i i feel they're they're a little bit like sodom and gomorrah as far as i'm concerned that's that's what we had going on and you know you hinted at some good stuff you kind of like you couldn't you couldn't do it chad because you're such a gospeler i mean it was all doom and gloom i mean it was it was a lot of insults and uh you had you had to give a little sneak peek starting at verse 16 that there was some hope because it was sounding pretty dire that the lord might just be done with this people all together yeah if we had stopped at the end of 15 you'd be like i'm not gonna listen to your prayers your hands are full of blood amen end of sermon uh so yeah we uh we we jumped a little bit into verse 16 just to

end on a note of grace. But leading up to that, yeah, that's some pretty heavy stuff. You've got basically God taking the worship in which the Israelites were engaged and saying, I'm sick of it. You're pretending as if you can just kind of go through these ritual motions and I'm going to be pleased with you just because you're offering your sacrifices and you're observing your new moons and your point of feast and all this kind of stuff. And God basically says, I'm not happy with this. In fact, it's like you're burdening me with this, with this kind of stuff. So I'm going to hide my eyes from you and you can make as many prayers as you want to. And I'm not going to listen because when you, when you stretch out your hands to pray, what I'm looking at are hands

that are smeared with, with murderous blood. So yeah, that was, that was where he, uh, he ends verse 15 now thankfully that's not the end because he goes on to 16 and 17 to do what well what god does throughout isaiah and that is to balance law with gospel you know threat with with promise so to read those a couple verses actually i'm going to read more let's read i'm going to read 16 through 20 get our bigger context here so after he says your hands are full of blood he goes on to say, wash yourselves, make yourselves clean, remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes, cease to do evil, learn to do good, seek justice, correct oppression, bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow's cause. Verse 18, come now, let us reason together, says the Lord.

Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool if you are willing and obedient that is if you're willing and you listen if you shema you shall eat the good of the land but if you refuse and rebel you shall be eaten by the sword for the mouth of the lord has spoken oh isaiah is right away showing us what a wordsmith he is this shakespeare of the prophets he's already doing word plays here you know you got two choices people uh if you're willing and you listen to god's word you can eat the good of the land but if you if you close your ears and your heart if you refuse and rebel well guess what you're not going to be eating the good of land the sword is going to open its mouth and devour you

for the mouth of the lord has has spoken doesn't it seem here like uh so last episode we talked a little bit about uh you know how how god was like hey i know that you're doing all these things that you think i love because i told you to do them so they do sacrifices and i mean you got holy days and man you're just like hey as long as we sort of like go through the motions here you know this this is the stuff that god likes like he likes this stuff so you know we'll do it and he'll be fine and god's like man i can't tell you how much i hate that stuff right now right like so it's it's like completely changed like i i did like it uh but here's the thing about god like the thing that he institutes that he likes when you just like go through the motions and do it or

or do it in ways he hasn't said to do it he doesn't become like indifferent towards it now all of a sudden like it's the reverse of that and like he absolutely despises it right um and then he and then he says this this thing in 16 like all right let me give you something else to do I just can't Chad like here there's like wash yourselves and make yourselves clean and like not think about baptism

be like alright there's actually there's actually like a different thing that needs to happen here and uh all this stuff that you were doing I don't like any of it like it's all terrible

let me give you the simplest of all things wash yourself baptize yourself make yourself clean what will this do this will remove the evil of your deeds from my eyes that's what it will do

and that's what that's why i need to happen and then after that uh you know you could like walk in my ways you could listen to me you could you could learn about um bringing justice to the fatherless and pleading the widow's case and then he does this this kind of famous line here and isaiah does that come let's uh let's be reasonable okay let's let's talk this out uh here's what's going to happen i've got this one thing for you to do and even though your sins are like scarlet This thing, this simple thing, this little repent and be baptized thing, you'll be white as snow. Even though they're red like crimson, they'll be white as wool. If you're willing to listen to do this, everything's going to be good.

This plea of God has not changed. This is like what he's saying to the entire earth, right? This one thing. Yeah, this is the ongoing message. I mean, so I was thinking of John the Baptist. This echoes John the Baptist's ministry perfectly. Okay, what's the invitation? Well, get baptized, wash yourselves, and you're going to be clean.

Okay, so you repent, you believe, you're baptized. Well, what are you going to do then? Well, how about bring forth fruits and keeping with repentance? In other words, how about love and serve your neighbor? What does that look like? Well, here's some ideas. Cease to do evil. Learn to do good.

seek justice correct oppression bring justice plead the widow's cause i mean this is like lifted right out of mark chapter one or any of the gospels where you have this introduction of of john the baptist ministry be baptized bring forth fruits and keeping with repentance wash yourselves live a life of love and service to to your neighbor it's not complicated yeah it's very simple then you have this contrast right it's like because you want you want to take all this in the it's like he says wash yourselves and be clean here's what all this looks like this is what's going to happen and so you're like okay so here's the contrast here's the options there is no other options here it's wash yourselves or be eaten by the sword that's

what it is right and those are still the options yeah that's that's it or to to keep on to keep up the john the baptist thread here i mean the axe is already laid at the root of the trees right yeah so he uses an axe it's pretty common in the old testament for a for a sword to be pictured as like the edge is a mouth and it's going to devour everywhere everywhere that it goes so those uh those are the options i mean you can it can be great you can eat the good of the land but if you decide you're going to stop up your ears and harden your hearts well then there really is only one option it's not you're now going to be neutral and ambiguous toward god no it's it's either for or against uh it's one or the other because the mouth of the lord has

has spoken and this is and isn't it in light of all of this sort of you know rebuke uh that he's issuing and then here's like the the simplest solution which is like just the graciousness of god right the solution is like so simple just listen to me it's the one thing this is the only thing that needs to happen here is this uh now is that isaiah is not a short book and so it's not as though like and then isaiah says and the lord rejoiced as the people listened to his word and that's not how this goes uh even this like simple gracious thing that god has given us to undertake is you know something that we don't want to really do yeah yeah don't you love too how there are two extremes here you got scarlet and snow crimson and wool and i love that it's two

extremes it's not like god says you know though your sins are like scarlet they shall be you know sort of sort of white like oh i don't know whatever is sort of white out there you know they'd be tan you know though your sins are like scarlet i'll make them at least tan No, it's a complete opposite because when God forgives, he doesn't forgive in part. He's a 100% kind of guy. So, yeah, they're like scarlet. All right, I'll make them white as snow. They're red like crimson.

All right, I'll make them white as wool. He doesn't forgive partially or mostly. It's 100% every time. Well, man, I wish we could just stop there. That'd be great. And then Isaiah goes on to say, And then the people of Israel repented, they believed in the Lord, they washed, they were made clean, and everyone lived happily and righteously ever after. Yeah, I think this header before the next section implies that that's not exactly how this goes.

No, no. ESV has the unfaithful city. They're being kind of nice here. I mean, if they would have been like more as blunt as Isaiah, it would be something like the whoring city, the city that became a whore or something, something like that, because that's exactly how the the prophet begins. So let's read. Let's read 21 through 23. How the unfaithful city I would I would translate this, by the way, alas, I'll explain why in just a minute. but esv a lot of translations have how but how alas the faithful city has become a whore she who was full of justice righteousness lodged in her but now murderers your silver has become dross

your best wine could also be translated as as beer your best wine or your beer has become mixed with water you got you got watered down beer now basically your princes are rebels that's a word that is definitely a word play in hebrew robert alter translates it your your nobles are knaves that's not bad we got a bunch of s sounds between uh between those two hebrew words so uh so s s s s all these s sounds so he tries to capture that with your nobles or knaves your princes are rebels and companions of thieves everyone loves a bribe and chases after runs after gifts they do not bring justice to the fatherless and the widow's cause does not come to them so it doesn't sound like things worked out the way that uh he pictured them in those preceding

preceding verses this is uh this is going to be an ongoing theme in isaiah 2 the city and the faithful city or the unfaithful city and of course the depiction here of of the faithful city becoming a prostitute well yeah man it's pretty hard to to miss that when you're going through the old testament that's the image that comes up over and over so it's not just like oh the faithful city has become you know has had an affair has committed adultery this is going beyond that she's actually become a prostitute and no longer full of justice no longer full of righteousness but instead murderers assassins uh however you want to you want to translate that but basically what she should have been and what she and what she had been and presumably the had been

is pointing back to the time of david that's kind of pictured as the the ideal age of jerusalem back when the city was faithful back when there was righteousness back when her silver had not become dross but now everything is turned upside down and i mean you and i we we walk that path When we were going through 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, it was like you're watching the nation just circling the drain until finally it hits the very bottom. And that's what—Isaiah has not gone through all that history yet. He's going to experience the destruction of the northern kingdom during his ministry, but he's seeing it happen right before his eyes. Do you ever get the impression when you're reading Isaiah Really just the prophets in general

That God really doesn't like The neglect of orphans and widows Oh yeah This is like a big thing With it It's almost like orphans and widows Being mistreated Or just not being cared for

Or being disregarded in general Is like the symptom That you are gone Like everything's gone This is like the symptom that he points out over and over again is that when this is going on you know that your society has completely failed yeah basically you any in when your society is is taking advantage of the most weak and vulnerable members of society that's when you know you know so this isn't when like the powerful

are fighting the powerful you know the the government leaders are fighting other government leaders but it's when it's when people who have no way to defend themselves are being taken advantage of the least powerful in society you're being trampled underfoot yeah that is uh that's the kind of stuff that leads that points to that's that points to the fact that things have completely gone and which which by the way is just like uh yeah what do you have here really uh so when you have like this sort of unfaithful city that's become a whore this is all like idolatry language The idea here is that you had this husband, and that husband was God, and you've left him and, like, prostituted yourself out.

So that's loving. You don't love God. You love everything else. What's the orphan and the widow? That's, like, your most vulnerable, most powerless neighbor. so like you just what you have here is god just say it saying in a very explicit way uh here's what you've done uh you haven't loved god and you haven't loved your neighbor at all like you complete like not just that uh and and not and not just this isn't just um

sins of omission right uh so like you haven't like maybe you're not like loving on your spouse very much and you're like hey you're not really being you're not really showing a lot of love well that's not the same as like going and being a prostitute like now you've gone you've gone to like the next level and you know and maybe you're not like caring for your neighbor the way that you should that's not the same as like oppressing your neighbor like you've gone all the way right so not only are you not loving god and not loving your neighbor you're a whore and a and someone who takes advantage of like their most vulnerable neighbor uh so yeah That's kind of the idea here.

Yeah, and keep in mind that what Isaiah is describing is—so this is in the opening chapter, and these opening chapters, one through five, are going to be basically symptomatic of what Isaiah was seeing throughout his ministry. So he's pulling together here in these first five chapters, which is kind of a prelude to the rest of the book, samples of his preaching from various stages, which represent what was going on in the country at large throughout this time. And bear in mind, too, I mean, just to kind of go back to what we talked about last episode, the opening episode of this, Isaiah is not in the northern kingdom. So he's not up north where they have, you know, Jeroboam setting up the golden calves and Dan and Bethel, and you have all Israel worshiping, going after the Baals and the Asherim and all of that. And you have, you know, already the beginning of the northern kingdom, you have moral as well as theological and ritual degeneracy. You don't really have that in the south, at least at first, but that's now kind of where he's at. So he's not standing, in other words, in the streets of Sodom Preaching against the Sodomites

He's standing in the streets of Jerusalem Saying, hey, you guys have become like the Sodomites So anyway, this is just par for the course As we're going to see throughout the rest of Isaiah's preaching Where he's accusing them of this kind of infidelity This kind of oppression This kind of abandonment of what the Lord has caused him to do so verse 24 we have a threefold reference to god he's called uh the lord which in hebrew is

here is adon he's called the lord of hosts which would be yabe yabe sabayoth the lord of you could translate that host you could translate that as as armies and then he's also called the the mighty one of israel which is usually trent usually it's the mighty one of jacob that occurs a few times in the old testament this one is mighty one of israel i mean does no no big difference there but there's a heaping up of divine titles therefore the lord declares the lord of hosts the mighty one of jacob what does what does he say he says ah i will get relief from my enemies and avenge myself on my foes i will turn my hand against you and will smelt away your draw says with line remove all your alloy and i will restore your judges as at the first

and your counselors as at the beginning and afterward you should be called the city of righteousness the faithful city so you hear the there's a there's a of course an echo of what we saw at the beginning so afterward then you're going to be called the city of righteousness the faithful city where as opposed to now you're the faithful city that's become a prostitute and righteousness lodged in you, but now murderers. So in other words, God says, I'm going to have to take care of this. I'm going to have to turn your unfaithfulness, your prostitution, back to where you're faithful.

And I'm going to have to turn this city full of murderers back into a city of righteousness. This is not going to happen because of the people. And so God's going to get relief from his enemies, avenge himself on his foes by stepping in to engage in this very uh often very painful and destructive work of smelting away of dross and removing of alloy which is yeah this is what we saw happening in first and second kings where the lord usually when he's when he's smelting away he uses the fires of assyria or the fires of babylon or the

fires of other the egyptians sometimes to do this to uh put his people through this drossing discipline by which they come out better than they were before because all their idols have been destroyed and they've their hearts have been turned back to to the lord yeah i know this when the lord speaks and he's like i will get relief from my enemies and avenge myself on my foes i will turn my hand against you that's a bummer when he's when he's talking about you If you're part of Israel, this is the kind of thing you want him to say about the Assyrians or the Philistines or something. You don't want him to be saying this and then have you in mind. Yeah, these are the typical words that are used to refer to the enemies of Israel, all the peoples who are around them, the Amorites, the Canaanites, all the Ites, as well as Assyrians and Egyptians and others.

But now, yeah, God calls his own people, his enemies, his foes, and so he's going to have to turn his hand against them. By the way, I forgot to mention this earlier. This kind of fits with this whole section, though. I mentioned in verse 21, I would translate the how as alas, and the Hebrew there is eka. That's the beginning word. In fact, that's the Hebrew name of Lamentations. that's the way lamentations begin is with a car how lonely sits the city that was full of people so that word is used to introduce a lament over god is lamenting over his unfaithful city and that

that fits with this what we just read as well god is lamenting that his people have become what they are he's lamenting that they've actually become his enemies and his foes those against whom he will turn his hand so this isn't what this isn't what god wants to do this wasn't what he had planned for the people of israel but because they become what they are he's left with no other option than to engage in this smelting and removal process so that he can he can he can he can bring the nation back to where he wanted it to be so he says i will restore your judges as at the first again probably what he's talking about here is the time of david this this time when things were as they should have been and then it's going to be called a

righteous city and a faithful city now what we're going to see as we work our way through the rest of isaiah is that this theme will come up over and over where zion or jerusalem is going to be not just restored so this isn't just kind of a repristination oh if we could only be like we were back in david's time it's going to be even better there is a there is a renewal of the time of david but it's in the future and this renewal of the time of david is going to be greater and bigger than anything that israel's seen in the past because what's being portrayed by isaiah is the the messianic kingdom of the the son of david the messiah who is who is to come but he's introducing this idea here that he's going to unpack many times throughout the rest of the book

yeah and it is cool that you have this sort of uh it's not even a threat i mean like you have a a promise that's sort of a promise of judgment, right? So, like, this is what I'm going to do. But what it also tells you is that the law is always in service to the gospel, right? And so, like, God's people are about to get the law, and they're about to get it good and hard. But it's so that he can make this other promise, right? I mean, this is all, I'm going to do this, but I'm doing that so that this can happen, right? And he's going to keep saying some stuff about this as well, where God doesn't give you the law and then withhold the promise of restoration and renewal from you.

That's not what he does. He says, oh, it's going to get bad, but then it's going to get real good. he's like a he's like he's the good father in that way you know when when a father has to discipline a child maybe he doesn't give this this exact speech but the only reason the father's doing that is because he loves the child and wants what's best but you know sometimes a discipline has to happen uh so that uh lessons can be learned so what's going to happen verse 27. I'll just read through 27 through the rest of the chapter. Zion shall be redeemed by justice and those in her who repent by righteousness. But rebels and sinners shall be broken together,

and those who forsake the Lord shall be consumed. For they shall be ashamed of the oaks that you desired, that you shall blush for the gardens that you have chosen. You should be like an oak whose leaf withers and like a garden without water and the strong shall become tender and his work a spark and both of them shall burn together with none to quench so this whole talk of uh you know oaks and gardens and and whatnot this is pointing to the kind of stuff that happened out off about you know israel's history were as you'll often read under every green tree they were worshiping false gods so any kind of any kind of natural religion any nature religion which uh you know worship the forces of nature that were deified you know where they have storm gods or

water gods or rain gods or whatever it might be well those are of course practiced in in nature that just fits best with the whole theology behind that that idolatry and that's what he's talking about here the oaks you have desired and you shall blush for the gardens that you have chosen well these are the places these were their quote-unquote churches right their sanctuaries this is where this kind of stuff would have would have happened isaiah is saying you're going to be ashamed of those you're going to blush for them because it's going to he's going to switch everything the oaks are going to lose their trees you're going to have a garden but it's going to be without without water in other words he's going to take idolatry and it's going to demonstrate its its inherent emptiness

it has nothing to offer you offer you you know all the false gods have a three-word creed take take take that's all they want they just they just take everything and then they don't give you anything in exchange uh so he's going to demonstrate that futility that emptiness of them and then he's going to just destroy the idolater idolatry and then those who continue to engage in that well they too will be destroyed as he says in verse verse 28 yeah you have this sort of a promise of repentance and and uh everything's going to be great uh if you don't want that so in other words if you don't if you don't want to like turn from your idolatry back to god you don't want that you can be consumed because all of like this is the thing is that all of sin all

sin and idolatry and all this at the end of the day like all must be consumed i don't know if you remember back i don't know if you were listening to such things but you know uh you have you remember the the song consuming fire by third day you know and it would be like our god is a consuming fire and uh they would sing this like this was like a real good thing you know it's like all right sweet like our god's a consuming fire uh and uh it's a true thing but that's not what you want uh like that god is a consuming fire like this is this is for for sure and what it consumes is like as unrighteousness i mean it burns up all the drugs i mean this is pervasive throughout the entirety of the of the scriptures and

certainly in the old testament this is what god does he burns it all up yeah yeah the fire of god is usually used for two purposes either to purge or to completely destroy the fire of god is not usually used as an image like a campfire you you gather around and you know warm up roast your marshmallows over it's a destructive metaphor the positive fire is like hey here's this bush it's burning and it's not consumed and that's like an anomaly you see like that that's like oh that's different yeah that's good most of the time it's like utterly consuming like an all-consuming fire. Nothing comes

out of it. There's nothing left. Yeah. This is what fires do. They take in whatever you give to them and they reduce it down to nothing. Ashes. Man, we did good here. We're finished with chapter one. Look at that.

We might finish this book before we retire after all. Maybe so. Time will tell. Man, we've got a great section coming up here in the opening of chapter two. This is actually, I mean, I have a lot of favorite sections of Isaiah,

but this is one of probably the top three or five for sure. Because what Isaiah accomplishes here is he preaches this beautiful vision of God's work in Christ by drawing from images all over the Old Testament. And he does it in such a brief fashion. I mean, we got four or five verses. He packs so much in here.

So let me, I'm going to read the opening five verses. The word that Isaiah, the son of Amoz, saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. It shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established as the highest of the mountains and shall be lifted up above the hills and all the nations shall flow to it. And many people shall come and say, come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths for out of zion shall go forth the torah i know esv has law but i'm gonna i'm gonna render that literally out of zion shall go forth the teaching the torah and the word of the lord from jerusalem he shall judge between the nations shall decide disputes for many peoples and they shall beat their swords into plowshares

and their spears into pruning hooks nation shall not lift up nation sword against nation neither shall they learn war anymore oh house of Jacob come let us walk in the light of the Lord so I think a lot of people are familiar this is actually parallel not not verbatim but by and large the same in Micah Micah chapter 4 so Isaiah 2 Micah 4 are parallel in that way almost like you you know you put together something from Matthew and Mark or Mark and luke side by side and maybe it's not word for word in the greek but it sure is close that's kind of the way isaiah 2 and micah 4 are here so scholars debate which which is first which is barring from which or are they barring from each you know from a common hymn at that time that

they're both quoting it but really doesn't matter what matters is the content here and the content is is uh is magnificent because so there's a lot of first of all there's a lot of uh genesis one and two echoes here for instance there's there's a lot of places in the old testament where after genesis where eden is depicted as on a mountain so you have the mountain of the garden of eden is this this highest place and it kind of makes sense because what comes out of eden a river rivers flow down and so there's a river flowing from eden that of course divides into the four four different rivers what's going to happen here well you have a mountain of the lord's house it's going to be the highest of the mountains and all the nations are

going to flow to it that's the verbal form of of nahar which is the word for stream or for flow the noun is river so just like you have a river flowing out of eden now you have in this anti-gravitational sort of way you have all the nations returning to the mountain of the lord so yeah they're coming back to god and and and this isn't happening just naturally again this is they're they're flowing up this mountain that's anti-gravitational you know there's a They're being drawn this way. God alone is going to be able to make the people stream toward him. And they go there, number one, because out of Zion, so out of this mount of the house of the Lord,

which I would say is the kingdom of God, it's the kingdom of the Messiah, it's the church, whatever you want to call it. What's gone from there? Well, the teaching. The Torah has gone forth. The word of the Lord has gone forth. And because of that, then people say, let's go up so that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his walk in his path. So the verb for teach Yara is where we get our word Torah, the teaching. So right here, they say, let's go up so we can teach us because out of Zion has gone forth his teaching.

and then at the very end you have more eden imagery where you have the weapons of warfare such as swords and spears are transformed into implements of agriculture to plowshares into pruning hooks why because you're going back to that place where adam and eve were the garden of eden where you're called to use pruning hooks and plowshares and to engage in agriculture because you don't need weapons of warfare anymore because now you have this peace in the kingdom of god which has been initiated through god's work of establishing this this mountain there's so much there i mean this is this is this is some rich rich material in in in lots of ways it kind of pulls together everything from genesis 1 and 2 all the way really to the end of revelation where

once more you're on a mountain uh at the at the very end yeah i love the contrast of uh going to uh the house of the lord to learn his ways and this results in you not learning not needing to learn war yes so yeah we're gonna go uh we're gonna go go up to get that teaching and we're gonna like you know we're gonna learn we're gonna learn his ways and uh and we're gonna walk in his paths and what that means is that we're not going to need to play war games anymore we're not going to learn anything about war uh not going to need these weapons uh that's pretty great and yeah i love i love the part of the this sort of like river that runs up a mountain uh which of course doesn't happen rivers only run one way when i was like 11 or 12 years old uh me and my brother

spent like weeks building a raft there's a river that runs down below my parents house and we weeks building this raft i mean uh and then we and then we took it out and to our credit it it floated floated huh yeah it's pretty good good man we spent all afternoon floating this raft down and then it occurred to us that this river runs one direction and there's there's no way we tried mightily to try to get this raft uh we had the sticks and like we were trying to yeah and uh this is a this is a futile thing to try to do and uh just had to ditch it miles down and like you know parents didn't know where we were all day uh so that's my experience of rivers don't run uphill that's not what they do uh but in this case they do because yeah god is uh

is drawing to himself uh all these people and uh and he can make that the that river of people run backwards yeah yeah he's he's pulling them back to to the source and it's going to happen uh he starts this off by saying in the what is it in the in the latter days uh so this is kind of cool that in hebrew that that phrase for latter days also occurs in back in genesis 49 is the first occurrence this is when jacob is going to talk about what's going to happen to each of his sons you know including judah from which the messiah will come jacob called his sons and said gather yourselves together that i may tell you what shall happen to you in days to come and well that's esv it's in the latter days because exactly the same hebrew that's used in genesis 49 that we find here

in Isaiah, in Isaiah chapter two. And then if you, if you look in the Greek, the Greek translation, the Septuagint of Isaiah in the, uh, in the latter days, that exact same phrase occurs in, in Peter's sermon in Acts chapter two, where he's, he's quoting Joel and he says, and in the last days, God is going to pour out his spirit on all flesh, on your sons and on your daughters so this latter days or last days that becomes a biblical catchphrase for what's gone god's going to do in the in the days in messiah which is of course what we're what we're in i mean this is what hebrews begins right god spoke to his people of old by the prophets but now in these last days he has spoken to us by by his son so when isaiah is talking about what's going

to happen in the last days of the latter days he's pointing toward the establishment of this kingdom, this mountain kingdom of God that is going to draw all nations to it, which is precisely what's happening as the gospel is preached, as the word of the Lord goes forth, and people are drawn by the Spirit uphill to be part of the kingdom, kingdom of God. Great stuff. Yeah, awesome. All right, man. Well, we are going to have to leave it there because we are out of time uh we'll be back next episode to continue chapter two more good stuff to come i'll see you then chad all right see you then