40 Minutes In The Old Testament - Isaiah 59:17-60:14 (Episode 501)

Episode Date: March 17, 2026

God is wearing armor and passion as He goes to work. The covenant God is making is a someone. And peace and love are very attractive. 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: 1517 Youtube: How God Still Speaks Today Being Family by Dr. Scott Keith A Reasoned Defense of the Faith by Adam Francisco Stretched: A Study for Lent and the Entire Christian Life by Dr. Christopher Richmann The Essential Nestingen: Essays on Preaching, Catechism, and the Reformation Philip Melanchthon's Commentary on Ecclesiastes, Translated by Dr. Derek Cooper 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. Check out all the other podcasts that are living over there. And while you're over there, check out everything else that 1517 is doing, articles, academies, and events. You can go grab some tickets to the Northwest Arkansas Regional Event. It's May 1st and 2nd. There's a link in the show notes, or just go over to the website, go to the events page, click on the events, and sign up for that.

Come hang out with me and Chad and Eric and Scott Keith and Flame and Caleb Keith and Kelsey. It's going to be a good time. We'd love to see you there. Chad, we are in Isaiah 59. We are a good way through the chapter. Didn't quite finish it. This chapter kind of starts out with God saying, hey, it's not really that I have a short arm. God is very concerned, I don't know if you noticed, about you not believing that his arm is short. Just because he's not doing something that you can see does not mean that somehow his arms have shrunk. You know, this is not what he has going on. He's like, I still, I'm still a long-armed

God. It's not that. It's that has put, you know, separation between us. It happens to be that you're, you know, surprise, surprise, a bunch of idolaters. It's all this sin. Man, this sin is what is keeping us apart, not the length of my arms. And so he goes through all that. And then And as we were wrapping up, because of all this sin and because of all this idolatry, God, of course, can find nobody, you know, to do anything. So he's going to have to do everything. This is the conclusion that God comes to quite often. Yeah, it's the, if you want a job done right, do it yourself. So God's going to, he's going to do it as the divine warrior, which is what he's going

to start unpacking in verse 17. Yep. No, no one can intercede. So his own arm brought him salvation and his righteousness upheld him. That's where we finished at verse 16. And let me read 17 through 19. Now he put on righteousness as a breastplate and a helmet of salvation on his head. He put on garments of vengeance for clothing and wrapped himself in zeal as a cloak.

according to their deeds so will he repay wrath to his adversaries repayment to his enemies to the coastlands he will render repayment so they shall fear the name of the lord from the west and his glory from the rising of the sun for he will come like a rushing stream which the wind of the lord drives and our word wind here is the hebrew ruach which as we've commented times without number, can either mean wind, spirit, or breath. So you might even say, I would probably translate this the breath of the Lord. You could do spirit too, but it's the idea of the breath or the spirit or the wind of the Lord driving on this rushing stream. Well, we start out here with the divine warrior motif, which is all over the Old Testament. Well, it's all over the ancient

Near East as far as that goes. One of the most prominent places where you see this come up early on in the Torah is Exodus 15, where God, Yahweh is called the man of war, and he goes to battle for his people there at the Red Sea. But here, you got the same thing going on. You know, God's going to have to go out to battle. So what do you do when you're an ancient warrior? Well, the first thing you have to do is you get on your armor. You got to put on your breastplate. You got to get that helmet. It's going to protect your head. And then he could have gone on and on, of course, with other elements of the armor or weaponry, but you get the idea. And this, by the way, of course, you're picking up on this. I'm sure this kind of language and these kind of images

are where Paul, in his letter to the Ephesians, gets the whole armor of God description, right? I mean, he goes into quite a bit of detail in Ephesians, but he's drawing from all over Isaiah, as well as other places in the Old Testament to talk about that. And I always like to accent that. So this is God's armor. We call it the armor of God, meaning it's God's armor, which of course is perfectly fitting with the Old Testament here. This is God's armor. And so when we put on the armor, it's not like we're going to our closet. We're going to God's closet. He's clothing us in all of this armor. And then as he goes on in those next couple of verses to do what he has to do, he's pouring out wrath. I mean, he's gone to war, right? So he's issuing repayments. He's

wrath to his adversaries. And this isn't just like, I'm going to go out and I'm going to get the Edomites or I'm going to go down to the coast and I'm going to get the Philistines. This is a worldwide kind of perspective because he goes from the West and then he says to the East and there's going to be a resultant fearing of the name of the Lord, which I think is important to accent. God isn't just like, listen, I'm going to get my armor on. I'm going to go wipe out everybody. He does go to battle. He does go to war. But the goal is actually for the people that he has conquered to fear the name of the Lord. And as a result, we'll see this in the next few verses to actually become part of the people of God. And one of the things I love about this, and

I don't know why I love this word so much. I love the word zeal. I think it's like, I think for some reason it, I don't know, it expresses more than like maybe a word you would put in its place. So I like zeal. And I like that basically, so God talks about himself like a little bit in the third person here. So he's saying he, but he means me, right? So here's what it looks like. This guy, who's me, you might be wondering, what's he going to be dressed in? And it's like, oh, well, he's going to be dressed in armor and passion.

That's what. So it's you have all this, you know, all the breastplate and the helmet and all this stuff. And then just wrapped himself in zeal or passion or, you know, that's that paints a pretty good picture. It's just armor and passion. That's what I'm wearing. Yeah. Yeah, that's for sure. We have some earthly examples of this.

I mean, we've all been around people who are, we would describe as zealous, right? And you just, you know what a person like that's like, like unstoppable, right? I mean, whatever they're zealous or passionate about, it's like, yeah, well, good luck tamping that down. There's no stopping them. We'll just take that and then, you know, pivot it upwards to our understanding of God. Well, that gives you an idea as just to how passionate and zealous he is when he goes out to do what needs to be done whether that is his proper work or his alien work when he's done

it's done it's not going to be a job that's half done but fully done yeah now all this uh which i just read which was 17 through 19 now leads us to kind of a uh you might say a summary of this and then also a pivot to what's coming next i'm just going to read verse 20 there's only two verses left in the chapter 20, 21. Let me read 20 now. And he says, a redeemer. So here's our divine next of kin. A redeemer will come to Zion, to those in Jacob who turn from transgression, declares the Lord. So we have the divine warrior, but we also have here now this redeemer, this next of kin who's going to show up in Zion. And then those in Jacob are going to turn from transgression and then, by implication, turn to him. So the preceding verses gave us kind of a

big perspective, right? This worldwide perspective from the East and from the West. But as is very common in the prophets, you do this dance between a worldwide perspective and then a Zion-centered perspective. And this works in different ways, but most of the time you'll have the world coming to zion sometimes you have this idea of zion also spreading like a mountain that covers the whole earth as daniel talks about but a lot of times it's more of a uh an inward focus so the world is coming to to zion and this is basically the old testament way of talking about christ the redeemer the next of kin establishing his kingdom in zion and then the world is coming into this kingdom which here is called zion you call it jerusalem you call it the church you know whatever

whatever you want to call it but anyway that's that that's verse 20 now verse 21 just kind of wrap this up is going to talk about god making a covenant but then we have a focus upon a you and this you you should know you can't tell this in english unfortunately because our you looks the same in singular and plural but this you is a masculine singular so it's talking about a guy My spirit that is upon you, talking about a particular male individual, which, of course, as we know for the rest of Isaiah, not to mention the rest of the Old Testament, is in fact this servant, this redeemer. So let me read verse 21. And as for me, God speaking here, as for me, this is my covenant with them, referring to the people in Zion who turned from transgression. This is my covenant with them, says the Lord.

my spirit that is upon you masculine singular and my words that i put in your mouth all of these you and yours are all masculine singular and my words that i have put in your mouth shall not depart out of your mouth or out of the mouth of your seed or offspring or out of the mouth of your children's offspring says the lord from this time forth and forevermore now the reason this is important is because this is going to lead us into chapter 60 as well. We're going to hear much more about what God is going to do for his people, especially under the picture of Zion. But Isaiah has talked about the king, the messianic king, especially in the first 12 chapters. He talked about the messianic servant beginning in 40, 42, all the way up to 54. And now he's going to be

talking about him again under this picture of a redeemer or a covenant keeper, one who basically is going to take the will of the Lord and make sure that it happens. So we've already heard about how the spirit of the Lord is upon him. Well, he repeats that here, my spirit is upon you. And his words are in the Messiah's mouth. And the Messiah, as we heard back in chapter 53, is going to have seed, not in the sense of physical descendants, but in the sense of of a family right jesus himself talks about little children he talks about his his family so that's what isaiah is picturing here for us god makes a covenant god calls his servant uh redeemer this covenant fulfiller puts his words in his mouth and this this messianic servant who

establishes it keeps this covenant is going to have this growing kingdom full of his family full of those who have been bound to him by faith. It's weird that so often in Isaiah that the covenant has becomes, maybe in a way that is different than other times. I don't know. I'd have to look at it with those eyes, I suppose. But the covenant is spoken of almost as a person, right? Like, it's not just, I don't know, a deal that you've made, an agreement that you've come to, or a promise.

And, of course, like, the promise that makes sense, because the promise is ultimately a person, right? But the covenant, when Isaiah talks about it so often, like, you kind of get the idea of, like, are you talking about, like, someone when you talk about this thing? Because it feels like you are. Yeah. And you, well, you hear that in the servant songs, right? I will make you a covenant to the people. Yeah. So rather than thinking about this covenant in the same way that we think about the old covenant, you know, you have the tablets of stone.

I mean, it's called the, they're called the tablets of the testimony because the testimony or the covenant's written on them. rather than having things like that or a written document or a verbal agreement what you have is a person right this is yeah in fact he even talks about the this is my blood of the covenant yeah the physical stuff of his own body uh that's that's the covenant it's not something external to him rather it is who he is and so our entire covenant with god is jesus himself the incarnate the incarnate son of god so yeah it's a great distinction to make between old and new covenants yeah this is like uh yeah a covenant that then he tells you to eat and drink right yeah right an edible covenant yeah yeah yeah so this is the blood of the covenant so take

take it into yourself this is my body which is given for you establishing the new covenant so take this into you you're gonna literally consume the covenant himself when you when you consume christ yeah it's pretty awesome it is pretty awesome so that that's gonna wrap up 59 and we'll jump now into 60 which as i mentioned a couple minutes ago is really all about the establishment of Zion, even though it's not named at the very beginning, it was named in verse 20 of the previous chapter, a Redeemer will come to Zion. And it's going to be mentioned in verse 14 of Isaiah 60, where we have the city of the Lord, the Zion of the Holy One of Israel. So clearly we're talking here about the city when it begins saying, arise, shine, for your light has come.

But when you hear about Zion, don't be thinking of the earthly city of Jerusalem that sits now in modern-day Israel. Be thinking of the way that Zion is typically described in the Old Testament as the kingdom Zion, I suppose, is one way that we can think about it. God's people, God's kingdom is described in lots of different ways. It's described as a family. It's described as a people, as a nation. It's described as a temple. and it's also described as Zion or a mountain. All these are various biblical ways of describing the same reality.

So to kind of keep that in mind when you hear about the light shining and people from all over the world bringing the exiles home and then also at the same time bringing with them expensive goods to beautify the kingdom, to worship God. So all of this is in an Old Testament accent describing the influx of people into God's established kingdom. So let me start with the first three verses. Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. For behold, darkness shall cover the earth, thick darkness the peoples.

But the Lord will arise upon you, and his glory will be seen upon you, and nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising. So you kind of got, of course, this play between darkness and light, which is all over the scriptures. I mean, it's full. Genesis 1 opens with that, right? You get darkness over the face of the deep, God's first words, let there be light. So here you got this cosmopolitan darkness, and not just kind of a, you know, what we think of as darkness, but a deep, thick darkness that's everywhere. It covers the earth, thick darkness over the peoples. And the only way this is dispelled, of course, is when light comes.

And this light is also described as the glory of God. So the light comes, the Lord arises, his glory is seen. And it's kind of a magnetic light, I suppose, is the way we can think of it. I mean, there is a sense in which light draws, not just moths, but all of us. I do a walk early in the morning. I'm usually out of the house around 6, something like that, most days. And at least right now, it's dark. And if I'm walking along and I see any light, maybe it's from a house, maybe it's from headlights, wherever, my eyes immediately pivot toward that.

There's something about the light that just immediately attracts my attention. And the same thing happens theologically. There's this magnetic attraction of the light of God so that nations come to it and kings come to the brightness of its rising. yeah yeah that's that is the uh the nature of light and there's there's something um there's something interesting about a thick darkness right like the the it's like what i mean what does that mean like darkness is like the absence of light man like so it's yeah it's dark it's dark right it's dark it's dark like yeah but a thick darkness like like it does a good job of of like painting like a heaviness to this darkness right it's not just

like walking around outside at you know at midnight and it's like oh it's real dark out here but like more like um uh like you were walking around in the dark but there's also just like thick fog everywhere like right you know i was thinking like when you talk about fog you can cut with a knife yeah that's the idea darkness you can cut with a knife you're like this darkness is wet it's really heavy yeah i know this is a a worn out analogy but i mean it does work here it's just like when you're in the cave right and you probably a lot of people have been in the caves and your guide says all right nobody move but everybody shut everything off and yeah i mean that's that's thick darkness right yeah i mean you cannot see anything hold your hand up in front of

your face you can't see you can't see your hand it's a deprivation of every single element of light well that's thick darkness and uh when the glory of the lord shines well that it's going to be seen and it's going to attract people that's what's what's going on here in those first three verses. Yeah. It almost sounds like a thick darkness, almost sounds like a darkness that it's not just the absence of light, but like extinguishes, you know, all light. And so God has to break in there and be like, I have to bring in this unextinguishable light so that you can see. That's the opening of John's gospel too, right? Yeah. The light shines. Yeah. So John is pulling on all this. Well, I mean, John wants you to think of Genesis 1. That's why he starts the

gospel the way he does. And then he builds on that by this interplay of darkness and light, just like Genesis 1 does. And yeah, just like Isaiah is doing here too. Now in verse 4, he's going to shift our attention to people who are coming and what they, or rather who they bring with them. So let me read. I'll read 4 through 7. Lift up your eyes all around and see. They all gather together. They come to you. Your sons shall come from afar, and your daughter shall be carried on the hip. Then you shall see and be radiant. Your heart shall thrill and exult, because the abundance of the sea shall be turned to you. The wealth of the nation shall come to you. A multitude of camels shall cover you. The young camels of Midian and Ephah, also those, all those from

Sheba shall come. They shall bring gold and frankincense and shall bring good news, the praises of the Lord. All the flocks of Kadar shall be gathered to you. The rams of Nebaioth shall minister to you. They shall come up with acceptance on my altar and I will beautify my beautiful house. It's got all kinds of things happening here. I mean, the most obvious is that you got folks coming from everywhere, right? You got a whole list of here. Most of these places that are mentioned, Midian, Ephah, Sheba, Kadar, Nevioth. I mean, they're all over the Middle East, mainly places like Saudi Arabia today, but other places as well. Midian we hear all about. Of course, Moses married a Midianite. You have aforementioned Sheba. We think about the Queen

of course. Kadar is mentioned a few times. That was a nomadic tribe. Nebaioth is probably linked to what became later known as the, I'm losing my train of thought, oh, the Nabateans, who of course kind of settled in the area that was formerly inhabited by Edom to the south of Israel. Anyway, they're coming from all over the place. And they're bringing with them gold, frankincense. They're bringing with them the sons and daughters of Zion. They're carried on the hip and they're also bringing the wealth of the nations. So this is Isaiah's way of basically standing up and looking all around them and seeing people come from that direction and that direction and that direction. They're carrying the children of Zion. They got camels that are

just stocked full of the wealth of the nations. And they're all coming to Zion. This worldwide return from exile that we hear about in Isaiah, in Jeremiah, in Hosea, all over the place is happening. And Isaiah describes it with all these various details. I love the hint too of an allusion to what happens in Matthew's Gospel when the Magi show up, right? You get the gold and the frankincense.

There's no mention of camels, of course, in Matthew's Gospel. But usually, when the Magi are pictured, what do you see? You've got camels there. That's the one promise. That's the promise I'm really looking for, is to be covered in camels.

it's like the multa i need a multitude of camels to cover me is what i need you know i i think we laugh i think the reason i could be wrong but i think the reason isaiah says that is because if you i'm doing this from memory but i think i had this right if you go back to judges six that's where we meet gideon right and uh gideon's gideon's living in time when we're told that the Midianites and the Amalekites and the people of the East would bring their camels and probably other livestock too, and they would like cover the land. And of course, this was bad because they were just eating up everything, right?

Israel was being deprived of their crops. So this was a divine chastisement. And so when he says, a multitude of camels shall cover you, the young camels of Midian, And I think he's kind of alluding back to that time of the judges and saying, hey, yeah, but this time it's actually good. You want all these camels. They're all going to be part of the people of God now. Love it.

Yeah, yeah. So a lot of good stuff there. A lot of, of course, just joy. The heart shall thrill, shall exalt. The people that bring gold and frankincense also bring good news. That's the Hebrew word for gospel. Uh, they're going to bring good news and the animals they bring are going to be accepted on God's altar, which means that this is a picture of Jews and Gentiles becoming one

people and worshiping together. I mean, this is described in old Testament terms, of course, but they're worshiping together. They're gathering around the altar of God in his house. And he's happy about this. There's no like, all right, you Gentiles, you stay back over there. Don't you come any closer. You stay in the court of the Gentiles, and we Jews are going to be up close. There's none of that business that was what was happening in the temple in the first century.

This is the inclusion of Gentiles fully into the citizenship of the kingdom of God, where you no longer have Jews and Gentiles, but you have one people united in Christ. Yeah, and this is what he means when he says, I will beautify my house, is that he finds this to be a beautiful thing, right? Yes, yeah, yes. yeah this is exactly what he this is exactly what god wants this was this was the plan all along from the time of abraham when god's gonna make you a blessing to all the families of the earth now it's going to continue this uh in verse eight and nine with a slightly different imagery but kind of the same thing happening who are these that fly like a cloud and like doves to their windows for the coastlands shall hope for the coastlands shall hope for me the ships of tarshish

first to bring your children from afar their silver and gold with them for the name of the lord your god and for the holy one of israel because he has made you beautiful so you have the picture of uh clouds flying or doves flying to to windows uh kind of homing pigeons i guess is one way you can think of it. They're coming home. They're landing on the windows. And the ones who are flying, like clouds or like doves, these are the coastlands, the ships of Tarshish.

The coastlands in Isaiah is Isaiah's word for kind of the far-flung parts of the world. Now, I love the way he describes them, though. He says, for the coastlands shall hope for me. You can also translate that Hebrew as wait for me, which wait and hope are just two sides of the same coin in biblical terminology. When you're waiting for the Lord, you are hoping for the Lord because you know he's going to come.

You're just waiting for him to get there. And these coastlands, even though they might not even realize it, they're hoping, they're waiting for the Lord. I mean, this is Augustine, right? Our hearts are restless until they rest in thee. there there's this this desire this hope uh that everyone has for for god himself and here the coastlands are described that way the tips ships of tarshish we've seen lots of times that could be in reference to actual ships from tarshish or it could be in reference to a kind of ship

either way these are seafaring vessels that are going to bring your children from afar so earlier they were carried on the hip here putting them on ships we're going to get those kids home no matter what it takes we're going to get people home to god and with them comes more treasures silver and gold all for god's name all for the holy one viserum well the the reason behind all this even if it's just like a little hope you know maybe they don't really know uh the what seems to be being said here is that i'm going to make you uh very attractive right like and and in the sense that people will that you will be an attraction so uh i made you beautiful and people are going to come check that out right they're gonna come from all over the place and check that out and

there is something about that that you know um i don't know like sometimes i think that oh maybe we don't do the best job of making christianity attractive the only way to do that is like through like joy peace love like like things that like the world has short supply of this is the thing that like outwardly to the world should look a little different it's not just like your shoulds and should nots and like and all that stuff but but more like you know i gotta to go check it out because uh peace is elusive and uh and joy is elusive and i and i love is is lacking and they seem like they got that in spades and i'm i'm gonna go go check it out i'm gonna go see and uh that that seems to be what it is right i mean even the picture he's painting

here i'm just like yeah dude like doves and windows and all this all sounds very nice you know yeah yeah yeah our minds are in the same wavelength i was thinking that that same thing too before you you started describing it uh that i mean that is one of the vocations of the church right to be this kind of attraction in that sense you know yeah and that's one of the one of the common one of the ongoing uh temptations for the church is to is to so fit in with the world that we don't look like anything different than the world and if you don't look anything different than the world then there's nothing really to attract the world to you that's been one of the beautiful things about the church throughout the centuries

i mean there's of course we have plenty of skeletons in our closet plenty of ugly things that are connected with the church but i mean think of all the the wonderful loving actions that have deeply and continue to deeply affect humanity that are the result of the work of the church. I mean, think of orphanages, think of hospitals, think of back in the days of plagues in Rome when everybody deserted the city except the Christians who stayed behind to care for the suffering. I mean, that stuff cannot go unnoticed. And when the world sees that, They're like, man, these people are different. You know, I need to check this out.

So it is, I mean, it's a good reminder to the church, individual Christians too, but certainly to the church of this vocation of attraction that we're also called to. Yeah, which is also hard to do if you go too far the opposite direction and are so weird and insular that no one could possibly understand anything that you're doing. That's not attractive either. So, yeah, you have to sort of split it and say, hey, you got to be different. The Christians are different. The church is different. but not like so different that people don't know

what they're looking at. Yeah, don't start driving buggies around and refusing to have electricity like the outfish. Yeah. Yeah, the church is like the proverbial drunk peasant

who's falling into one ditch and getting up and falling into the other ditch, right? We just kind of go to both extremes. Now, verse 10 is going to, I mean, this whole chapter is on this same theme. So verse 10 is going to pick it up

with a description of more the city itself, how it's going to be built and beautified through the work of all these Gentiles pouring in. 19 begins this way. Foreigners shall build up your walls, and their kings shall minister to you. Which, love the irony there. Their kings not shall rule over you.

Kings shall minister to you. For in my wrath I struck you, but in my favor I've had mercy on you. your gates shall be open continually day and night they shall not be shut that people may bring to you the wealth of the nations with their kings led in procession for the nation and kingdom that will not serve you shall perish those nations shall be utterly laid waste pause there just for a second so i this is uh john is dipping his his uh quill right into the ink of isaiah chapter 60 here for sure when he talks about the gate shall be open continually yeah

revelation 21 uh 21 24 and following this is revelation 21 says by its light will the nations walk let's talk about the new jerusalem by its light the nations will walk and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it and its gates will never be shut by day and there will be no night there they will bring into it the glory and honor of the nations well yeah i mean this is this is john engaging in holy plagiarism yeah call it right yeah this is a which he does of course all over the place in revelation but i mean think so your gates open continually of course we don't think in those terms these days but just imagine you are you are in a neighborhood where uh you are so safe. It's like pleasant time. It's a spring and it's just beautiful. And so what do

you just open your windows and you leave your front and back door completely open and you go to bed and you go immediately to sleep and you sleep the sleep of the just because you know that nothing whatsoever bad is going to befall you. Just, I mean, most of us, I live out in the country. I mean, I'm in a, I'm in a neighborhood, uh, and I feel safe here, but I still lock my door tonight well here's a here's the thing this is like this is like like one upping uh your security here because i live in a like there's a very safe place like it's just there's nothing going on there okay that's the main thing it's just like nothing's happening okay uh don't speed where i live those cops have nothing to do okay so uh the so anyway uh i leave my door unlocked

all the time like if i run to the store and i know i'm gonna be back in like 10 minutes and i like i'm gonna have like groceries in my hand i know that like i don't want to have to unlock the door i just leave it unlocked like there's nothing gonna happen i got neighbors they're gonna tell me you know um i don't leave it open like that's that's like a different level i mean i do shut it like i do shut the door um i got a lot of security like i feel very safe but i don't leave it wide open at night when i go to bed like i'm like let's leave the door open it's nice night i don't do that yeah yeah no city in the ancient world would have been naive enough to leave gates open at night continually and probably during the day at least a lot of cities

They would have guards there, right? Checking who's coming in, maybe looking at cargo, all that kind of stuff. Well, here you have the picture of perfect peace and security. Open continually. In fact, just remove the gates. You know what it is? It's a different thing. So the unlocked door or gate, this would mean that you feel safe. That would mean that you feel secure. You don't need to lock your doors or your gates, not worried about it. that's different than the open door the open gate which is not the same thing as an unlocked door an open gate or an open door is an invitation right and i think that this is what's going on here so it's not just that like hey man you're gonna have all this safety and security you don't have to worry about bad things getting in it's hey leave those doors and those gates not just unlocked but wide open so that people know that they're invited yeah which is what happens here as it goes on, of course, he says, day and night, this shall not be shut. Why? So you got people

coming in, right? People may bring you the wealth of the nations, their kings are led in processions. So you've got all these folks that are just streaming in. You couldn't shut the gates if you wanted to, right? You got too many people coming in all the time. So this is the open door policy of the church. Leave those doors open. People are going to be streaming in. uh and then he does i mean that's that's the gospel that's the work of the gospel he does pivot in verse 12 in the same way that john does in in revelation by talking about those who uh are are outside he says the nate for the nation and kingdom that will not serve you well what's going to happen to them their parish they'll be utterly utterly laid waste and to go back to

Revelation 21, that's the same thing John goes on to say. He says nothing in his own way. He says nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those who have written the Lamb's book of life. So John's saying, okay, gates are open. Everyone's streaming into New Jerusalem. Isaiah's saying the same thing, but he also says, yeah, but it's not like everybody, right? There's still those who are not serving him or in John's language, those who or unclean or uh or detestable or false not written the lamb's book of life they will be they'll be outside well this is not universalism this is the universal uh invitation and atoning work of christ and the result of that but yeah i mean sadly it's not like everybody's going to be

saved well it's it's also like man is this really a good idea to leave these doors wide open like what about all the all the the bad people out there what would the people that mean to do us harm and the answer is oh they're not around anymore you don't need to worry about them yeah yeah all right we got a couple minutes i just finished out 13 and 14 then the glory of lebanon shall come to you the cypress the plain the pine to beautify the place of my sanctuary and i will make the place of my feet glorious the sons of those who afflicted you shall come bending low to you all who despised you shall bow down at your feet they shall call you the city of the lord the zion of the holy one of israel now isaiah here is picking up on what

happened back in in david and solomon's day where of course you have the the the cedars of lebanon and the workers the skill workers from lebanon showing up to build the house of the lord and you used, of course, various trees from Lebanon. They floated them down the Mediterranean Sea to the port. Then they were hauled over land to Jerusalem. The temple was built. So he's using that same kind of imagery here to talk about how the city of God is going to be built. And those who formerly afflicted you, despised you, well, they will be brought to humility, to repentance, to faith. And they will also come then to the city of the Lord, to the Zion of the Holy One. of israel so all this is just uh isaiah's poetic beautiful old testament way of saying god is going

to establish his kingdom he's going to beautify his kingdom and he's going to bring people from all over the place to become part of it until we finally see the the consummation of that at the resurrection of the dead and the descent of the new jerusalem from heaven yeah great stuff well All right, well, we are out of time, so we'll leave it there. We're getting towards the end here. I mean, I don't know how many episodes we have left, maybe five or so. But, yeah. We're getting closer and closer.

We're getting there. So, hey, join us next week, and we will conclude this chapter and get into the next one. Chad, I will see you then. See you then. We'll see you next time.