40 Minutes In The Old Testament - Isaiah 60:15-61:9 (Episode 502)

Episode Date: March 25, 2026

God promises peace and righteousness with reign over His people. When God finally acts, He acts fast. And work will be entirely good in the new creation. 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, make sure you check out everything else that 1517 is doing. Chad, you got a new academy? I heard you had a new academy that people could sign up for. Yeah.

Reading and interpreting the Bible. Get over there and sign up for that thing. Come on. Reading and interpreting the Bible. If you're listening to this podcast, how are you not signing up for that? Right? There's a link in the show notes. You can just go over to 1517.org.

Go to the academies. Sign up. You know what it's going to cost you? Nothing. It's going to cost you nothing to go take this academy. And so sign up for that. While you're over there, sign up for an event. Come hang out with us in northwest Arkansas.

Chad and I will both be there talking about baptism. It's May 1st and 2nd. We would love to see you there. Hang out with us. Shake your hand. Chad will sign one of his 100 books or whatever, and it would be good to have you there. We are in Isaiah 60 talking about that future glory of Israel. So God's got a lot of good things to say about what's going to happen down the road for his people.

And some of it is a little bit surprising, Chad. There's a lot about the enemies and stuff, but there's cool stuff like foreigners building up your walls. They're kings ministering to you. So this is good. How about those forever open gates? there isn't a way to describe security maybe more in this time than like can you just leave your gates open all the time right like i mean if you're trying to figure out how do i describe the safety of this it's like well you just the doors are all unlocked in fact they're not even

just unlocked they're just wide open and uh so he talks he talked about that and uh and basically You got down to the sons of those afflicting you shall come bending low to you. All those that despise you shall bow at your feet. So there's, of course, this great reversal. You were being afflicted by these people. Now these people are coming in and bowing down to you. Yeah, lots of great stuff. Lots of reversals are going on there, and he's not done yet.

So we're going to pick up with 15, and he's got some more contrast to come up. A lot of this is, of course, describing the good things of God in terms of what's happening to the city. And he's going to expand on that with verse 15 and following. Now, verse 15 in the ESV begins, whereas. You could also translate that instead of. In fact, I was checking out the Hebrew and in verse 17, four different times you have the word tahat, which is translated there as instead of. So instead of this, you have that. Instead of this, you have that. Same thing's happening here. So whereas or instead of, we might translate it, instead of being forsaken and hated with no one passing through, I will make you majestic forever, a joy from age to age. you shall now we have some interesting metaphors coming up here verse 16 you shall suck the milk

of nations you shall nurse at the breast of kings and you shall know that i the lord am your savior and your redeemer the mighty one of jacob i gotta admit if god said it to me i'm like do i have to do those things to know that like is that is that the only way for me to know that because because what are we talking about here? Yeah, a little strange. I mean, it starts out, you know, nothing uncommon here. You're not going to be forsaken. You're not going to be hated.

You're not going to be a ghost town, this idea of nobody passing through, or maybe not even a ghost town, maybe to shun, like, oh, man, you don't want to go in that place. Instead, you're going to have majesty. You're going to be a joy from age to age. And then he shifts to these strikingly odd metaphors about sucking in the milk of nations and nursing at the breast of kings.

Now, if you can kind of get past the image there, really what he's talking about is, listen, the nations, the peoples that formerly oppressed you, that are now coming to you actually, even their kings, so even their royalty, are going to be basically ministering to you, serving you, just like you'd have a wet nurse who's taking care of a child. So the king is described here as sort of a wet nurse, a servant to the people of God. So that's where we get the, you know, it's kind of what is behind this odd metaphor. And the result of all this is that you shall know. Of course, this isn't just, oh, now you're going to have a mental cognizance of some fact.

But no, you're going to know experientially that I, the Lord, am your Savior and your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob. So that will be, of course, the result of all these things that God is doing for you. All the reversals will be this intimate saving knowledge that God is, in fact, your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob. This is kind of how you know that this is an eschatological thing, right? So what is he talking about here? When does this happen? I'm trying to figure this out. Well, this is like the ultimate promise.

This is the fulfillment of all your salvation. And one of the reasons you can know that is because this is not a faith thing. This is a knowing thing, right? He doesn't say, and then you will believe that I am the Lord, your Savior. He says you're going to know it. Well, when it comes time to know it, that means that faith is becoming sight. Yeah. Yes.

No longer the evidence of things not seen, but the knowledge of things which are seen. Yeah, this is talking about a time when your faith becomes unnecessary, right? Because you know. You know it. You're looking at it. Yes. Great point. He's going to keep on with us in verse 17 by some more instead ofs.

So I'll read at least 17 and 18. Instead of bronze, I will bring gold. Instead of iron, I will bring silver. Instead of wood, bronze. Instead of stones, iron. I will make your overseers peace and your taskmasters righteousness. Violence shall no more be heard in your land, devastation or destruction within your borders. You shall call your walls salvation and your gates praise.

Well, now you know for sure this hasn't happened yet now. Yeah, yeah, this is definitely what we're waiting for when the new Jerusalem comes down into heaven, right? It's a nice setup at the beginning there. Get rid of that bronze and iron and wood and stones. You got gold and silver and bronze and iron. I mean, it's just a, you know, it's a, it's an upward movement. You're going to get rid of the, it's going to have the building materials, which are of lower quality or lower worth that can be replaced by something, which is, was even

better. It reminds me of that line. I think it's mentioned a couple of times in Kings where Solomon, during Solomon's reign, there was so much gold that silver was just basically worth nothing. Yeah. You know, you're walking along, oh, look, somebody dropped some silver, but you don't even stop and pick it up. because gold is worth so much and so prevalent.

That's kind of the idea here. And then, of course, the removal of violence and devastation and destruction. All of that's going to disappear. And instead, you're going to name your walls salvation and your gates praise. Oh, and I forgot this one line at the end of verse 17. I like this one, too. I will make your overseers peace and your taskmasters righteousness. Yeah, sign me up.

Sign me up. It's like, you know, I think of this in terms of leaders, politicians, government. It's all this can be basically peace, righteousness. You're not going to be voting for somebody. Your taskmasters are righteousness. Of course, that is meant to be ironic.

Your taskmasters, oh, yeah, it's just righteousness, that's all. So this is a, yeah, just a beautiful Revelation 21, 22 kind of picture. Yeah, I mean, in times like these, man, violence no more in the land, no devastation or destruction within your borders. Sounds pretty good. Sounds very good. Very good. Yeah. Come Lord Jesus, right? Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, and he's got, just to wrap this up, 19 through 22, that's going to take us through the end of Isaiah 60. And you're going to hear more of this language that John is going to echo in Revelation. your people shall all be righteous they shall possess the land forever the branch of my planting the work of my hands that i might be glorified the least one shall become a clan and the smallest one a mighty nation i am the lord in its time i will hasten it kind of a nice way to wrap that up too right in its time i will i will hasten it i'm going to make this happen it's not happening right now during Isaiah's day. It's something we are still anticipating. But when it happens, God is going to hurry up and make it happen. Yeah, that's kind of like God saying,

when I decide to do it, I'm going to do it quick, right? Yeah. Yeah, I'm not going to be waiting around for this to finally transpire. It's going to happen fast. So verse 19 and 20, I mean, it's just two different ways of saying the same thing. verse 19 basically says you're not going to need the sun and moon anymore because god's going to be your everlasting light and then verse 20 is communicating basically the same thing except now it says the sun's never going to go down the moon's always going to be there because what he's saying in that verse is that your sun and your moon are the lord he's going to be your your everlasting light and no more days of of mourning there could be i'm not sure that this is the case

But there could be kind of another message that's communicated here because in the ancient world, the astral worship, the worship of the sun, the moon, the stars, I mean, that was super, super popular. So that could also be kind of a subtext of what's going on here at the sun and the moon and the stars. You know that all these peoples around you worship and that, in fact, Israelites on more than one occasion were tempted to worship. all that's going to be gone. All you're going to have is the Lord. No more idolatry. No more looking outside of him for any kind of blessing. It's going to be the Lord alone who is your everlasting light. And then when it gets to the bottom there, to the very end of the chapter, you have more of this reversal where the least one becomes a clan, smallest one, a mighty nation. So God is going to make this happen in his own time. And that will be

a perfect lead-in to what Isaiah 61 is going to start out with, where we're going to hear about the anointed one who is clothed with the Spirit and who goes about the task of making sure all this is going to happen. It does make you wonder if John, the Apostle John, had ever read Isaiah. It does make you wonder that as he's talking about the sun being no more and the lord being your light um i think i think he might have been kind of familiar with this book yeah uh i mean john is of course constantly referring to the old testament uh in through illusions and echoes and he certainly picks it up here i mean you've got uh uh revelation 21 23 the city has no need of sun or moon to shine

on it for the glory of God gives it light. Revelation 22.5, they shall no more need the light of lamp or sun for the Lord God will be their light. Yeah, it's a beautiful tie-in between the picture that Isaiah gives us and the picture that John gives us. Is it exactly word for word the same? No, but I mean, the message is clearly rhyming with each other, displaying this end-time glory we're going to have in the city of God. Okay, so now let's transition here into Isaiah 61. A lot of this language in this opening verse into the second verse is going to be familiar to our ears, to our New Testament ears, because this is going to be the section that Jesus read when he was invited to speak in the synagogue in his hometown of Nazareth. So he's going to open

up the scroll of the prophet Isaiah and is going to read this first verse and then a little bit into the second verse as well. What I'm going to do is I'll read the first four verses to kind of give us the Baker context. Yeah, this is one of those, Chad, where you and I don't have to do too much exegetical work to figure out who this is talking about. The New Testament has done this a heavy lifting for us, right? So Jesus has made it very clear who he thinks this is referring to. Yeah. Yeah. The me here, I think, is pretty clear. Jesus makes that very, very, very clear to us when he says, today the scripture is fulfilled in your ears, in your hearing. Okay. So one through Therefore, the Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me.

Of course, in Hebrew, that word is, that's where we get our word, Messiah. He's messiahed me. He has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound, To proclaim the year of the Lord's favor And the day of vengeance of our God To comfort all who mourn

To grant to those who mourn in Zion To give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes The oil of gladness instead of mourning The garment of praise instead of a faint spirit That they may be called oaks of righteousness The planting of the Lord That he may be glorified They shall build up the ancient ruins

they shall raise up the former devastations, they shall repair the ruined streets, the devastation of many generations. So, you know, in the first part of Isaiah, or really kind of the middle section of Isaiah, we heard the servant songs. And of course, as the name itself implies, all of these were united by the theme of this chosen one being the servant of God. Now, as we get toward the end of isaiah beginning in chapter 59 once more this chosen one appears but he's not called a servant here instead he's called the the mediator of the covenant in chapter 59 and now here in chapter 61 he is referred to by the verbal form of messiah he is the anointed one as well as the one who bears the spirit the spirit of god of course this is all talking about the same person this is

talking about Jesus, just in different sorts of ways. We've heard a lot in Isaiah about how the spirit is connected to his work. Probably the best verse is Isaiah 11, 2, where we have a description of the son of David. And then we hear that the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the lord but you have the same thing repeated in isaiah 42 1 the first of the servant songs behold my servant whom i uphold my chosen one and whom my soul delights i put my spirit upon him so the work of the spirit and the work of the messiah are inseparable as i mean of course in genesis chapter 1 in the work of creation where the spirit of god is hovering there and

And God speaks, and you can't speak without breath or spirit coming out of God's mouth. So word and spirit and, of course, the Lord God, all of these are inseparable. Here, he's anointed to bring good news to the poor, to bind up the brokenhearted, to do all these Jesus things, right? But it finally ends with the first line of verse 2, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor, which is Old Testament technical terminology for the Jubilee year, which is every 50th year. So you have your seven Sabbaths of years, so seven year-length time periods, 49 years, followed by the Jubilee year, which is the great year of release. anyone who is been enslaved because of impoverished conditions is released you have the return of ancestral lands you have the land getting a year of rest i mean this is just a time of great joy and rejoicing and divine blessing and it's that year of jubilee then that jesus

shows up to inaugurate in all that that he does yeah i love that um that jesus is able to preach like this the the shortest sermons ever so his text is you know isaiah 61 you know one and two half of two and his sermon consists of this is about me that's it amen amen like most controversial sermon ever uh it's great that was a it's a mic drop moment and i mean There's a lot of mic drop moments in the Gospels, but that's definitely one of them. Yeah, because, I mean, look, if you're just reading this, if Jesus doesn't do that, I mean, we might, you know, Chad and I might be sitting here telling you, like, no, ultimately, of course, this is true about Jesus. Like, I mean, we probably, I'm sure we would do that. But, you know, this is one of those things, if you're just reading it, though, and you don't know about Jesus, you obviously think Isaiah is speaking about himself.

And it's not that Isaiah isn't speaking about himself in any way, but he is not ultimately speaking about himself, right? And Jesus makes that really clear. And so, yeah, I'm sure it was like a jarring thing for those guys to hear where they're like, no, Isaiah is speaking of himself. The Spirit of the Lord is upon him. And it's like, well, I mean, yeah, it is, but this is ultimately about me. This is about me. Yeah. Yeah. And you'll often hear this pointed out, but it's worth pointing out here on these verses too,

that when Jesus reads from the scroll of the prophet Isaiah, he stops mid-verse. So he ends to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. Now, if you were listening as I was reading, the very next line is and the day of vengeance of our god and i think this is what i think is going on there is that here we have a an example of how the prophets in this case isaiah often telescoped events to where they saw everything together when they're looking ahead when they're speaking to the work of the messiah they will often talk in the in the same breath about what we would distinguish between the first and second coming of the Messiah. They will collapse that into one message.

So will the day of the vengeance of our God come? Yes, of course it will come with the second coming of Christ. But Christ, when he reads from the scroll of the prophet Isaiah, stops after he says to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor, indicative of the fact that what he comes to do in his ministry is to release and to proclaim good news and to bind up the brokenhearted and to do all of these things, which you read about him literally doing through his healing miracles, as well as we might say figuratively or spiritually doing as he proclaims the good news and forgives sinners and

gives hope to those who are downcast. Yeah, and I know we've said this a little bit with Isaiah, But yeah, for the prophets, first and second advent are – yes, they're two events, but they're the same promise. And so where you speak of one, you speak of the other. Where Jesus is able to say, well, of course that's true, and he is the one that's going to do both of those things. But he's able to stop short sort of and say, but this is the part I'm doing right now. This is the part of that – the first part of that promise. Yeah, I think this particular example is super helpful for just teaching purposes, because it shows us what the prophet does. It shows us what Jesus does and what he says. And when you compare and contrast those two, you get a pretty good feel for the different ways that you see the prophets viewing things from afar and how they're actually happening on the ground as they're being fulfilled. yeah I actually had a guy one time I can't remember I can't remember the text I was I was

speaking about but I was speaking on some text and someone um and and I stopped at a place where I wanted to stop which and uh it wasn't the end of the chapter the end of the book or anything but um I did have someone tell me like you know if you keep reading you know it actually then like goes into judgment and stuff like you made it seem like this is all about you know grace and forgiveness and stuff he's like you can't just stop short and i was like jesus does yeah so quite clearly right yeah jesus does like so i mean i don't know what what point am i trying to make here i mean when am i supposed to stop i was i mean i just read try to read the entire bible and then talk about that like i mean i gotta stop somewhere right yeah well you know the what's

really going on there yeah someone wants to someone wants to really hear about the judgment that's what's happening there yeah the judgment of other people probably of other people yeah you know i i had not noticed until just this morning that uh we have a kind of and i know part of this is just kind of hebrew poetic parallelism but notice how he says that he's here to proclaim the year of the lord's favor but it doesn't go on to say and the year of vengeance of our God. It's just the day. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Which is, I thought, it's kind of a, it's a nice detail to point out. I mean, it, it resonates with passages like Exodus 34, where God appears to Moses and he says, the Lord, the Lord, compassionate, gracious, you know,

showing mercy to thousands of generations. But then when he goes on to talk about the judgment, the law part of it, it's to three or four generations. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, These kind of contrasts are actually nice to point out, the year of the Lord's favor. Oh, yeah, there's also going to be a day of vengeance. The Lord's favor is stretched out, and His vengeance is contracted to just that one particular day of judgment. Well, there's always more grace than there is judgment with God. And, yeah, I mean, what you get in the gospel is the promise of the favor of the Lord being on you for all eternity. But the judgment is just judgment day.

That's not something that God wishes to have going on forever and ever or anything like that. Like, this is just like, hey, we have a day. We got to do this. And then after that, we're not doing that anymore. This is not like modern trials, which will sometimes stretch on for weeks or months. This is just one day. There will be no, like, you know, defense attorneys and prosecution and all of that. God will render the verdict and case closed.

Yeah, well, this is this sort of alien work, right? And it's like, I don't want to make this my primary thing. You know, this is, that's how that works. Yeah, yeah. Now, the rest of this goes on to kind of elaborate more on the positive aspects of what he described in the first couple of verses, where we have more of the contrast set up. You know, people who are mourning, well, they're going to be all decked out. They're going to have a beautiful headdress instead of ashes. They're going to have oil of gladness instead of mourning, the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit.

They're going to be oaks of righteousness. and then in verse 4 he picks up the same kind of language that we saw in the previous chapter where you had the building up the ancient ruins raising a form of devastations so the city is going to be rebuilt because that time has passed and the messiah has shown up to make sure that everyone is cared for is loved is restored and the city itself then will be rebuilt as a result yeah it is an interesting thing too that they have this um almost as if like that you'll play play a part in in doing some of the right now i mean i don't know exactly what to say about that and i don't want to say go too far with it but i do think it it it means at least that

And sort of when all things are made new, your job in an everlasting life won't be nothing, right? I don't know. Do we build? I don't know. But maybe we do. I don't think you're going to be bored, and I do think work is good. So when I put these things together, I don't know. I don't know if you get to play a part in sort of the building up of new things and stuff like that, but that would be cool.

I suspect that we will. I mean, yeah, think of how God created us to be. He created us to work and to enjoy, to enjoy our work, to build, to plant, to do all those things that, I mean, Adam and Eve were created to do. And just imagine a creation where you can do that, where you can enjoy that kind of work, where you can build up, where you can clear a field. Whatever you're going to be doing in the new creation, you're not going to just be sitting around all day being lazy and popping candy in your mouth or whatever it might be. We're going to be doing what humans were created to do, which of course is to receive the good things of God and to praise his name. But at the same time, to engage in very human kinds of activities, part of which involves, yeah, being able to build and do all the things that give us pleasure in this life, which in a shadowy sort of way is an arrow pointing to what we're going to enjoy in the life to come. Yeah, man.

You know how this is. Like, you ever decided to go do something? I did this not too long ago. I was like, I'm going to trim all these trees in my backyard because some of these branches are getting crazy. And, you know, we get a lot of storms and stuff like that. And so I went out there on a Saturday and I spent all day trimming these. I have a lot of trees. And trimming these trees and then hauling the branches and all this stuff.

and uh it felt like super good at the end of it like it was really hard like it was hot out and stuff and i was a sweaty mess but like you know you kind of you felt like you'd done something like like and and that's that's how work is you know lots of times work is frustrating and all that kind of stuff too but everybody knows about like deciding it and this wasn't it is different because that's not like no one was paying me to do it it's not it's not my job it's just a task that i decided to perform and then i go and perform this task and there is like this sense of like oh i like that's that was good that i did that and i i was set out in the morning to do it and now the sun's down and it's done and you kind of you know you feel good about that the only

problem is is that your back hurts terribly uh after right so you get you get to maybe have all that without that without back pain yeah without ibuprofen yeah like chad and i might say you know we'll be up there in heaven and say let's go let's go trim those trees and we'll spend all you know who knows we might spend a hundred years doing that and uh and afterwards our backs won't even hurt it'll be great yeah i kind of like that idea work without uh the ill effects especially the older you get right yeah and all the work will be like sort of that unpaid sort of stuff too like i mean you're not gonna have like a job in the sense of like okay well what's what i what am i getting paid to do and then you know how much is you know how much is coming out for

taxes and you know all that none of that you're just going to have um uh jobs to do um because is work is good uh the the that's that stuff is uh just not perfect here you get like little glimpses of like work like oh that's yeah that is good like it's good to get out there and sweat and work and stuff and it's better when you when it's not something that you're obligated to do but that you decide to do and or whatever it is because you want to you know you know i'm there's A while back I built my wife like a standing flower bed, and I was like, I don't know how to build anything. So I had to figure it out.

So I got wood and saws and everything like that, and it took me way longer than it should have. But, you know, you got this thing at the end. No one's paying you to do that. It's just something that you decide to do. That kind of stuff is really rewarding, and I think that this is, I know, totally a side thing, but as I look at this, I think that the new heavens and new earth will be full of things like that

where you'll get to do things for the sake of doing them, which is the most rewarding kind of work yeah i think that really resonates with most people because you know when i think back to some of the most enjoyable rewarding pleasurable times in my life it was it was connected with things that i love to do you know things that i'm good at or that i you know can at least learn how to do and part of the joy is in figuring it out and doing it and then part of the joy is in stepping back from what you've done what you've created and saying, yeah, yeah, I like that. It's good.

There's just something fundamentally human about that kind of experience. And I can see that moving right on into life and the resurrection as well. Oh, yeah. I mean, it's one of the really big bummers about getting older. And I'm not even old, old yet.

I can still do most things. But that's part of sin. That's part of the curse is that some of those things get stripped away from you. You start to not be able to do things that you used to be able to do, and you're not going to deal with that. I mean, that's all part of the promise. I mean, you'll be a million years old, Chad, and you can still say, hey, today you want to go climb that mountain? We haven't been up on that mountain.

You want to go climb it? All right, let's do it. Yeah, yeah. Well, as you get older and you're not able to do those things, that also has a way of increasing your hope in the resurrection and your sense of anticipation. Not many 20-year-olds waiting around thinking, man, I can't wait for the resurrection. But there's a lot of people over 50 waiting with great anticipation for that day to come. Okay, so back to Isaiah 61. Let me read verses 5 through 7.

We're going to have something that's going to sound familiar with what we covered in chapter 60 here, too, where strangers and foreigners are going to be doing some work. So strangers shall stand and tend your flocks. Foreigners shall be your plowmen and vinedressers. But you shall be called the priest of the Lord. They shall speak of you as the ministers of our God. You shall eat the wealth of nations, and in their glory you shall boast. Instead of your shame, there shall be a double portion.

Instead of dishonor, they shall rejoice in their lot. therefore in their land they shall possess a double portion. They shall have everlasting joy. So we saw some of this going on in the previous chapter where you got people from all over the place. All these nations are streaming to Zion and becoming part of the people of God. And I guess we have, I guess there's a contrast here. I don't know how rigid we would want to set up this contrast, but you do have strangers and foreigners who are shepherds. They're taking care of the fields. They're taking care of the vines. And then it says, you, I suppose, talking about the people of God, about the Israelites, you are going to be the priest of the Lord,

ministers of our God. Now, we don't want to force this prophetic imagery too far and act like there's actually, you know, there's kind of the in-group and the out-group. All of these are part of the people of God. They're all just having different vocations here. And this is under the typical Old Testament imagery of everybody having their place. And the result is going to be they're going to have the wealth of nations, they're going to boast in their glory, and they're going to have a double portion. It was a lot that they lost, but instead of having the shame and the loss of honor, there's going to be a double portion so that they have everlasting joy as a result of God's good gifts to them. Yeah, that's great. I mean, this is all just Isaiah's way of saying

it's going to be great, right? I mean, you're not going to find a single thing to complain about in this arrangement. The image of, you know, standing and tending flocks and being plowmen and vinedressers, one of my earliest memories from childhood is people talking about, You know, I don't care what I have to do in the heavenly Jerusalem. If I'm a street sweeper of the streets of gold, I'm fine. Yeah, for some reason that always stuck with me. And it's kind of along these same lines. I mean, all of this is just describing for us that we have a place, we have a calling, we're part of God's people,

and he's going to have us doing whatever it is he has us to do because we're all part of the one body of Christ. Yeah, what does the psalmist say? Better to be a doorman, basically. Yeah, better to be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness. Yeah. I'll be a doorkeeper. That's right. I'm out here opening doors, man, in the kingdom of God.

It's all good. And rejoicing in that calling. Yeah. All right. A couple more verses here. I think we've got time for that. 8 and 9 says, I, the Lord, love justice. I hate robbery and wrong.

I will faithfully give them their recompense, and I will make an everlasting covenant with them. Their offspring shall be known among the nations and their descendants in the midst of the peoples. All who see them shall acknowledge them, that they are an offspring the Lord has blessed. so a lot of talk in isaiah about justice and god loves justice he establishes justice and righteousness and here he's going to act upon that quality of his by faithfully giving them his people their recompense not a negative recompense but rather he's giving to them what he wants him to have as a result of all the things that they have suffered from and he follows it up was saying, I will make an everlasting covenant with them. This is Isaiah's way of saying the

same thing that Jeremiah much later will say, where God is going to make a new covenant with his people. We already heard back in chapter 59 and elsewhere, too, about this covenant which is to come. One of the servant songs identifies the servant himself as the covenant. So this is God's covenant he establishes in the Messiah, which then makes all of this possible. Everything, the salvation accomplished by the Messiah, the righteousness brought by him, the covenant enacted by him is going to result in everything happening to the people of God so that they'll be known among the nations in the midst of the peoples. Everyone's going to know that they are the offspring of the Lord, the children of God,

the children of our Heavenly Father that he has blessed. doesn't the the promise of an everlasting covenant mean that not all covenants are everlasting yeah yeah this is a this is the covenant which will have no end like that i mean like sometimes i think that you know depending on who you're talking to um people act like all covenants that like god could ever make are like obviously like for all time or whatever i'm like well why Why does he have to distinguish, then, between, like, what is the promise of this one that, like, never ends? Like, it seems that that is the distinction between this one and every other covenant, is that this one is everlasting, unlike many other covenants which are not. Yeah, and why make a new covenant if the old one is still going to be in existence, right?

The very purpose of promising a new covenant is because the old one is going to be fulfilled and become obsolete, as the book of Hebrews says. Yeah, and the thing about this everlasting covenant is it's a promise and a person, and this person, their resurrection is the first fruits of your resurrection. It's going to be everlasting because this covenant literally won't die, right? Yeah, because the covenant is the Messiah, and because he is everlasting, therefore this covenant is everlasting as well. Yeah, it's good stuff. Great. Well, all right. Well, we will leave it there.

We are out of time. got just two more verses in 61, but we'll get to that next episode. Chad, I'll see you then. All right. See you then.