40 Minutes In The Old Testament - Isaiah 64:1-65:10 (Episode 505)

Episode Date: April 17, 2026

People have been in sin so long that they wonder if salvation is even a possibility. Sinners need God to remember them but forget their sin. And God will always leave at least one cluster of grapes. 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. While you're over there, go over to 1517 and check out everything else that 1517 is doing. Probably sign up for Chad's academy class, one of the three that he's done. You could, I think it's three. Is it three?

It is three. Yeah, three. Three academy classes from Chad. Take them all. You know, go ahead. That's what you can do this summer. That's the summer of the Chad Academy. That's what they say.

So go ahead and do that. And, you know, sign up for an event or buy some books or listen to other podcasts, watch some videos, whatever you want to do. And then, of course, go over to that right-hand corner, go to the Donate link and become a contributor, you know, because you're getting all that stuff for free. And so, you know, you'd be like, let me kick back a little bit and help them keep going, help them keep this thing working. And if you are someone that already does that, thank you very much. You do make it all possible. Chad, we are in Isaiah 64, ended last episode with the prayer for mercy, which I like this prayer for mercy, as we talked about last episode,

because it gives you kind of some interesting ways of talking to God. I mean, the end of this prayer is, hey, God, why you make me wander? What is that? Why are you hardening your heart so I don't fear you anymore? How come all of a sudden I feel like I'm somebody whom you never ruled over and I was never called by your name? And this is, of course, the answer to all this is because you're rebellious and hard-hearted and wander around all the time. And that's why. And don't follow my rules. And it's not that I didn't give you any.

It's that you don't like them. But what it does is it gives you – there is a helplessness. And, of course, when you're helpless, that's when you're asking for mercy. It says, you know how I am. Only you can change this. I have no chance of changing any of these things, so I'm going to put all the responsibility right on you. And I like that. Yeah, I like that, too.

That's a great place to put the responsibility. He's the only one who's going to be able to take care of the problem anyway, so we'll put it all on his lap. Yeah, it's a nice corollary to a nice setup, actually, for what we're going to see in 64, too. So if you're looking at your actual Bible or your phone or whatever, listen, or even if you're not, just listen to this. This is verse 15. So the kind of the end of that section in chapter 63, where he says, look down from heaven and see. You know, basically, hey, can you not tell what's going on here with us? So look down from heaven and see.

And well, then when you get to 64, he steps it up. He doesn't say, I wish you would look down from heaven and see what's going on. Beginning of 64, he's like, I want you to rip the heavens in half and I want you to come down. I don't want you to just like to, yeah, look, kind of looking down from heaven. Oh, yeah, you guys are in bad shape. I want you to exit heaven. I want you to, you know, tear the door off its hinges and come down. That's what I want.

So that's the way 64 is going to start. So 63 was a nice setup for what we're about to see in 64. So I'll read the first, oh, I don't know, maybe four verses. Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains might quake at your presence, as when fire kindles brushwood and the fire causes water to boil, to make your name known to your adversaries and that the nations might tremble at your presence.

When you did awesome things that we didn't look for, you came down, the mountains quaked at your presence. From of old, no one has heard or perceived by the ear, no eye has seen a God besides you who acts for those who wait for him. And so, yeah, it's kind of a nice expansion of what we see happening at 63. And I think it's an advent for those churches that celebrate Advent. I believe it's an advent where you have, as part of the worship service, at least in some churches, the singing of Isaiah 64.1, which is kind of nice.

Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down. I can hear it kind of in the back of my mind, the tune behind that. So Advent is a great time to do that because this is the period of waiting, right? You're waiting for the coming of Christ. You're celebrating his coming in the past. You're celebrating his coming in the present. You're looking forward to his coming again at the last day. But this is a perfect kind of prayer for the Advent season.

Oh, that you would rip the heavens in half. He would split the heavens and come down. And, of course, it's not just a prayer that's prayed. It's a prayer that's answered, too. I mean, you could point to all kinds of situations where God did that. And the one that comes to my mind is the baptism of Jesus. In Mark's gospel, anyway, I don't think Matthew and Luke do this, but in Mark 1.10, he says that the heavens were ripped open, torn open. It's the Greek verb skidzo, which means to tear.

So kind of a fulfillment of this, right? Oh, that you would rip those heavens, tear them open, and come down. And, of course, that's what happens. I mean, the Father's voice comes down. Jesus is already there, incarnate, being baptized. The Holy Spirit comes down in the form of a dove. So nice connection there between that opening verse and what happens in the Gospels. yeah i like how this goes hey your enemies don't know your name so how about you like

rip the heavens open and change that right this is this is the the whole the whole prayer here that there's people out here that don't know about you uh there is a remedy for that uh you could go introduce yourself rip the rip the heavens come on down uh you know maybe do some awesome things that nobody was looking for you know it's quite a quite a first impression right yeah yeah so that that's that's good man uh yeah and uh it's it's kind of a cyanide cyanide situation too right this mountains quaking at your presence i think that's what verse three is telling us when you did awesome things that we didn't look for you came down the mountains quaked at your presence yeah so you got all that mountain stuff with the the trembling the smoke the fire happening

at at sinai and uh i mean that made not just the adversaries tremble right that made the israelites tremble as well who's who is not going to tremble when you're seeing a volcanic kind of uh thing happening there right right in front of you i would be quaking along along with the mountain yeah uh but yeah this is a this is theophanic this is a theophany kind of kind of language so you see it at sinai uh you see you see this language actually used in i believe it's psalm 18 and second samuel 22 which are parallel to each other it's david's prayer where he talks about how god comes down and rescues him and he uses uh theophany language to describe that and of course the most prominent theophany in the new testament is the at the baptism of jesus

where you have all these things happening. Yeah, and in his prayer, when he says, hey, there was a time where you did some stuff and we weren't even looking for it, that you just did it. But then says, you're the kind of God who acts for those who wait for him. And the implication here is like,

you've done things when we weren't looking for it. We are looking for it now. right and uh and and this is sort of like when you tell god something about himself you know what you're kind of reminding him be like my wife said like you're the kind of husband who mows the grass uh and uh that look outside and the grass is not mowed and uh i know what's being implied here you don't need someone to spell that out for you and she's letting me know like i just love that you're the kind of husband that makes sure the grass gets mowed and uh there's some of that i feel going on here like hey sometimes you act you know sometimes you mow

the grass without being told to uh but uh but here they're saying hey you're the kind of god who acts for those who wait for him that's the kind of guys you are by the way um we are waiting we're waiting for that that action well we saw that kind of language used i believe it was in the last chapter where you had the watchman stationed upon the walls not letting god get any rest the image is like god god's kind of tired he's ready to go to sleep and uh there's like this knock at his door and the watchmen are hollering up at him and hey hey we're we're calling upon you to act we're not going to give you any rest until you you answer us same thing happening here uh you're the guy who acts and so well act do do something while we're while we're waiting for

you. Yeah. So that takes us through verse four. Pick up here with verse five. And we're going to get here into some of the problems. You know, why does God need to act? Well, it turns out there's not a lot of people waiting on him. There's some problems with folks that need for God to rip those heavens in half and come down. So verse five through seven, you meet him who joyfully works righteousness those who remember you in your ways behold you were angry and we sinned in our sins we have been a long time and shall we be saved we all now listen to uh listen to all of these universal kind of words like all and no one we have all become like one who is unclean and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment we all fade like a leaf and our iniquities

like the wind take us away there is no one who calls upon your name who rouses himself to take hold of you i love that verb it means to wake up it's like you're just like everybody's asleep no one no one wakes up there's no one who rouses himself to take hold of you for you have hidden your face from us and have made us melt in the hand of our iniquities. Wow. What a, what an image. So yeah, it starts out here. You know, all those, all those people who joyfully work righteousness and those who remember you in your ways, you know, you, you meet those feet, you meet those people. The only problem is none of those people are around because we've all become like unclean and our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment and we fade like the leaf so on and so

forth so this is kind of setting things up for actually for what's going to come so we're in isaiah 64 isaiah 65 and 66 are going to tell us what god is going to do in response to the inability of his people to do anything he's going to step in he's going to do the new creation he's going to redeem them, all those sorts of things. This is a lot like Psalm 14 and Psalm 53 that Paul draws from in Romans when he has that whole litany of the things that are wrong with Jews and Gentiles. Everybody's turned aside. No one does good. No, not one. So on and so forth. Well, this is all a description of the universality of of of sin no one is left out here and he uses all kinds of language to describe this everything from nature you know like a leaf that's blown away

to uh ritual kind of language we're like one who's unclean you know he could have in mind someone who's simply ritually impure for a time he could have in mind someone who has a skin disease like leprosy who is perpetually unclean and then a lot of people are familiar with this language of our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment. The specific language there is of a menstrual impure garment. And that's more than just kind of the ick factor. What's going on there is, you know, you're polluted ritually. And it's not even because of your sins. He says, our righteous deeds, not our unrighteous deeds, our righteous deeds are like this polluted garment. And so, as people often say, you know, if such be our righteous deeds, then how bad must be our unrighteous, righteous deeds?

I mean, even our good works are completely polluted by our sin. So just imagine how bad our sins are. Yeah, I mean, you basically have this acknowledgement that we've been in our sin for a long time here. right so like this is this has been going on for a while and uh so so much so that uh you're starting to wonder if salvation is even an option for you you know so you're like man we've been in this sin a long time and can we really be saved um everyone's unclean and even the good things that we're doing i mean they're doubly dirty right so they're they're the polluted the garment like the the menstrual rag is like it's just yes it's not clean obviously uh because

that's what you're using it to soak up blood but then also is like ceremonially unclean also now it's not just that it's dirty uh it's that it's rendered me uh ceremonially unclean so yeah you you you are painting like a pretty hopeless situation here where uh can't get out of our sins, even the good things we try to do, increase our damnation. This is exactly the kind of situation that you need to be found in for God to do something, though. I mean, because you got nothing. Yeah, and what you do, you have nothing, and what you do have makes you kind of less than nothing, right? Yeah, so it's not the kind of situation that there's any hope for us to get ourselves out of. So it's going to take something else, somebody else, and that's what

we're going to get to in 8 through 12, at least kind of a setup for that. So this is going to take us to the end of the chapter. But now, O Lord, you are our Father. We are the clay. You are our potter. We are all the work of your hand. Be not so terribly angry, O Lord. I just love that line. It's not even, don't be angry. Just don't be so terribly angry, oh Lord. And remember not iniquity forever. Behold, please look, we are all your people. Your holy cities have become a wilderness. Zion has become a wilderness. Jerusalem is a desolation. Our holy and beautiful house where our fathers praised you has been burned by fire and all our pleasant places have become ruins. And then it finishes with this question. Will you restrain

yourself at these things, O Lord? Will you keep silent and afflict us so terribly? So that's a repetition of that so terribly from verse nine. So be not, it begins and ends the same way. So be not so terribly angry, O Lord. Will you keep silent and afflict us so terribly? So it paints you know, a desolate picture. The verses we just talked about are more pointing to the spiritual malady that afflicts the people. We're ritually impure, we're sinful, all this kind of stuff. Here, the vision, I guess you could say, broadens a bit to not just us, but look at our cities. I mean, they're like a desert now. Your holy city, Zion, it's a wilderness. Jerusalem, all the jerusalem was a desolation in fact look at look at your temple this holy and beautiful house

that was once so full of praise well it's just a pile of ashes now so you can't get a more desolate picture of the individuals and the land and the city and the temple it's like everything has been has been wiped out and begins this section this last section begins basically by reminding god once more, who He is, and then as a result of who He is, who we are. Look, you're our Father. You're not just our God. You're not just our Lord. You're not just our Creator. We're your kids. You're our Father. And you're the one who made us. I mean, we're the clay, right? You're the potter. So you made us. You fashioned us. We're all the works of your hands. So be our Father and look upon us as the one that you have so carefully and skillfully made. Don't forget us. Don't be blind

to the situation in which we find ourselves. Yeah, I mean, they have the solution right in here. So they know the only way for this to work is I'm going to need you to remember that we're your people but not remember the iniquity so um that's that's the whole thing right right is that hey if you're not going to be angry the only way for this to happen is for you to not remember iniquity forever like so we need a day to come where you forget iniquity but remember your people yeah man that sums it up perfectly yeah remember us but don't remember what we've done yeah yeah remember remember who we are remember that you made us remember that we're your children but all the other stuff just throw it away toss it over your shoulder bury it in the

depths of the sea drown the depths of the sea uh do whatever it takes to get that out of your out of your memory and instead just remember when you look upon us oh those are my my beloved children yeah it's it's uh it seems like an unlikely salvation um even though you are you know you're gonna get it uh because this is what god's gonna do though um but if you're asking like what is that what is the salvation gonna require what's it gonna take and you're like well it's gonna take god to both remember and forget that's what it's gonna take and uh you're like well that doesn't seem very likely. How is he going to do both of those things? How is he going to remember us but forget everything we've done? I don't know, but that's what it's got to be. And that is what

it's going to be. Yeah. I'm glad that we have the language of father too here. You know, that doesn't occur with as much frequency in the Old Testament as it does in the New. I think in last episode, we saw some occurrences of that. But I mean, it is part of, of course, part of the Old Testament, understanding of who the children of Israel are. But its place here is just so fitting because this is, it's not leading up just to one action of redemption in the Old Testament. You know, God's going to save him from the Philistines or he's going to bring him out of Babylon or he's going to rescue them from Egypt or whatever it might be. I mean, there's a lot of rescues, a lot of salvations in the Old Testament, but all this is leading up to the

rescue the salvation and what better language to use in in view of that than our father because it'll be our father who steps in and sends his son to accomplish all the things that isaiah 64 has set us up with our need to to receive well and that the the father thing is good too because what they're needing, like, hey, you need to remember who I am, but not hold everything I've done against me. It's sort of like, it takes like a father to do that, right? That's something a father might do with his children. Yeah. You think about, you know, you have a boss, maybe you have a really good boss. We have a good boss, you know, and it's great when, you know you make a mistake and you know your boss you know you you ever talk about it and uh

you know he says all right we're just gonna forget that well that's great right but he's still just your boss right he's not dad yeah but when uh because you know he could you make a mistake again what could he do we'll fire you you know that's just the way this works it's different with fathers and children your father can't fire you you know you're you're his son or his daughter there's that intimacy of relationship that is uh is unique in in the world and those of us who are parents i mean we know that i mean i can't imagine anything i mean not nothing in my mind uh that i can fathom would ever make me say you're not my child yeah i mean of course my child is always going to be my my child uh for the moment they were conceived they are my child and will continue

to be. So, so it is with, with our father. I mean, he looks upon us as his children because that's, that's who we are. And so, uh, it's, uh, his compassion, his mercy, his paternal love that's accented here. Yeah. All right. That is, uh, halfway through the episode and we finished Isaiah 64. Look at that. Man, short chapter, but we'll take it as a huge win. We'll take it as a huge win. Two more to go, 65 and 66. So 65 is going to have God speaking here, first person. And we're going to hear some Jew-Gentile kind of language that Paul is going to actually quote in his letter to the Romans. That's the way this is going to start out. And then before he gets to the really good news, which is going to be in, where was that at? Verse 17.

He's got to talk a little bit more about some of the issues that the people of God have. So here's how it starts out. I'll read, let's see, just maybe the first two verses to kind of set the stage. I was ready to be sought by those who did not ask for me. I was ready to be found by those who did not seek me. I said, here I am, here I am, to a nation that was not called by my name. I spread out my hands all the day to a rebellious people who walk in a way that is not good, following their own devices. Actually, let me read a little bit more.

a people so this is more of a description of who these people are that are not good and follow their own devices a people who provoke me to my face continually how do they do that he goes on sacrificing in gardens and making offerings on bricks who sit in tombs who spend the night in secret places who eat pig's flesh and broth of tainted meat is in their vessels who say keep to yourself. Do not come near me, for I am too holy for you. These are a smoke in my nostrils, a fire that burns all the day. So this is not the gospel of the Lord. This is not good news. He starts out here by making us wonder, okay, who's he talking about? I was ready to be sought by those who didn't ask for me.

I was ready to be found by those who didn't seek me. I said, here I am, here I am, to a nation that was not called by my name. Well, I mean, I don't think there's any mistake as to who this is going to be referring to. If you have a nation that's not called by God's name and he's going to be found by those who didn't seek him, well, that's about a perfect description

of who the Gentiles are. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, this is what, I mean, Paul quotes this. This is going to come up in Romans chapter 10. I'll read Romans 10, 19 through 21. So Paul says, but I ask, did Israel not understand? First, Moses says, I will make you jealous of those who are not a nation. With a foolish nation, I will make you angry. Then Isaiah is so bold as to say, I love how he attributes boldness to Isaiah. Isaiah is so bold as to say, I have been found by those who did not seek me. I have shown myself to those who did not ask for me. But of

Israel, he says, all day long, I have held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people. So when Paul is talking about Jews and Gentiles and God's ways of preaching salvation, preaching the gospel to Jews and Gentiles alike, and some believe and some don't believe. He's pulling here upon Isaiah 65, those first two verses, as an indication that Isaiah already talked about the fact that the promise of the salvation that's found in the Jewish Messiah is not for the Jews alone, but it's for Jews and Gentiles, to the Jew first, and then also to the Greek, also to the Gentile. And Isaiah makes it plain here that it's going to be those who hear aren't just going to be those and believe aren't going to be just those who are of Israel, but those who are part of a

nation that wasn't called by God's name. And the reason this happens, not the reason, but one of the things happening that is in conjunction with this is God holds out his hands to a rebellious people who just walk in their own way and follow their follow their own devices yeah and eat that pig's flesh man they got that uh tainted meat broth you don't know yeah quite quite quite the meal yeah uh yeah we should talk about we should talk about that uh that doesn't that doesn't make it sound appetizing i gotta be honest taint broth of tainted meat sounds gross well that's yeah Actually, I thought the same thing, so I had never looked this up in the Hebrew before this morning, or just kind of the background of this. It could actually be tainted meat, but this is the same word that's used in Leviticus, for instance, where, you know, say you and I, our families make a trip to Jerusalem, and we're there for one of the festivals, and we have a celebration.

we have a peace offering, right? Where we offer sacrifice. Part of it goes to the altar. Most of the meat comes back to us and we have our sacred barbecue and we all get together and we share this meal together. And keep in mind, the Israelites rarely had meat. I mean, it wasn't like us or for those of us who are carnivores, it wasn't like they had meat every five days or seven days a week. It was pretty rare for them to have meat. So they would enjoy this meal, But they could only eat that meat for the first couple of days. If any was left over for the third day, it was considered to be, here's the Hebrew word, pigarim, which just sounds gross. Pigarim.

It was called pigarim. So this is the, that's the Hebrew behind the translation tainted meat. So it could be that the reason it was considered to be unclean was because, well, this was the third day and this is before you have refrigeration. but whatever it might be it was ritually impure at that point so that's the that's kind of the background of here of this this word so it's either broth of tainted meat or you could even translate this broth of ritually impure meat either way you do it it's the kind of food just like the pig's flesh that's unclean and yet this is exactly what the israelites are eating broth of old meat doesn't sound good either

it's not good still not appetizing no image yeah but that's what's going on i mean you got so these people are provoking god to his face continually they're uh they're making their own little holy spaces their own little temples and gardens and they're making offerings on bricks, they might be saying, okay, well, so what? What's the big deal about bricks? Well, keep in mind that bricks were not an authorized material to be used in the construction of altars. One of the things about the altars was they had to be made of unhued stones.

It's a natural, not bricks. So they're using, they're eating unclean meat, unclean foods in places not authorized by God, cooked on stones or offered on stones, bricks that are unauthorized by God. It's like they are going out of their way to do every single thing to flaunt their sin in the face of God. Even going so far, I love this line in verse 5, to say to other people, hey, step back. Don't come near me. I am too holy for you. Yeah, that's great. They're doing all this and still being like, hey, hey, I'm a little too holy for you. You might want to keep your distance. You don't want a situation like Moses had.

You come too close to me. You know, I've got a lot of holiness going on here. Yeah, if it weren't so horrible, it would be funny. Just imagine these people doing everything completely contrary to what God has ordained. And then having the audacity to say, oh, I'm so sanctified. I'm so holy. You shouldn't even come near me. Take your shoes off because the place where you're standing near me is holy ground. But that's what's going on.

You wouldn't see anything like this today, maybe, at all. You don't know what God really wants. And you just – there's a weird thing that can happen where if you think you got the right God, and you're doing what you you know i'm doing these things or whatever um and you can look at another person who just like isn't like you and be like oh i'm hurt i'm holy just because of who i am right like i mean whether that's i'm a child of abraham or whatever um god thinks this is pretty laughable when you're just like i in and of myself because of because of my person and because of the faith I was born into or whatever.

I'm holier than you. God's like, I don't think you know what makes something holy. No, that's kind of a self-declared and supposedly self-manufactured sanctification, right? Yeah. Yeah. The only thing that's holy is what God has told us is holy. I mean, he's holy.

He holies things. He sanctifies things. But, yeah, that's what sinful humanity does. We try and come up with our own system of holiness, And we think that our system of holiness far exceeds any other system of holiness, even though it's self-created. And all of this, Isaiah says, God, through Isaiah says, is so much smoke that's coming up his nose. It's a fire that burns all the day. Now, there's a nice connection here between verse 2 and then verse 5.

Because God says, you know what I do? I spread out my hands all the day to a rebellious people. And then they go on and do all these things so that they are a smoke in my nostrils, a fire that burns all the day. The Hebrew is exactly the same there for all the day. So here you have a picture of God. And this never struck me before, but just notice it today. I spread out my hands. Now, that is quite a shocking image because most of the time when you have this language of the spreading out of hands, it's the posture of prayer.

So Solomon spreads out his hands when he prays at the dedication of the temple. And you have the spreading of hands that happens in some of the Psalms, like Psalm 143, verse 6. And Isaiah chapter 1 begins with the people spreading out their hands. Now here, this image is like God, like I am begging, I'm supplicating you. I'm like begging you to come to me like all day long. And yet, here's what you do. You know, you provoke me, you make these sacrifices, you claim the sanctification, and all of this is just so much smoke that's coming up my nose all the day. Yeah, you provoke me right to my face.

just like right in my face, provoking me. And this is how you get, God is fuming, apparently. That's maybe what it is. He's got that smoke in his nostrils. So he is not happy about this at all. No, no. So just to kind of finish this section, verse 6 and 7. Behold, it is written before me, I will not keep silent, but I will repay. I will indeed repay into their lap, both your iniquities and your father's iniquities together, says the Lord, because they made offerings on the mountains. That's kind of hearkening back to the days of Baal worship. They made worship offerings on the mountains and insulted me on the hills. I will measure into their lap payment for their former deeds.

This is not good news. no i i came listen to this quote i uh read this this morning this is an alec matiers commentary i thought this was a great summation of kind of what's going on here because isaiah is god is saying you know i'm not just going to repay you for your iniquities but your father's iniquities too you might think why why i thought ezekiel you know said you know let me punish a son does not punish for his father's iniquities but i thought he summed this up really well he says this is from his Isaiah commentary. In scripture, sin becomes more aggravated with each succeeding generation. Not that coming generations are pre-doomed by the sins of the past, but that failure to break

with the past involves burying the past so that this is the price of becoming human. So the idea is that it's kind of this buildup, right? Each generation builds up, builds up, builds up. It's like Jesus says in Luke 11 about the blood of all the prophets shed from the foundation of the world will be charged against this generation. You might be saying, well, this generation was not responsible for all the blood of all the prophets. Yeah, but they're responsible for not breaking that, right? There's been this bonfire that's been built up over time over time and so finally when the match is lit the fire is not just going to burn the parts of the bonfire that we added to it but the whole thing yeah yeah this is uh we've talked

about this a lot where when god deals with sin like he he deals with it like it's uh he doesn't he doesn't like mess around with it or whatever um he deals with it in totality this of course you see most certainly at the cross but what that also means is that then god is very long suffering because he knows that when it comes time to deal with sin it's going he's going to sodom and gomorrah that thing and so he does let it build and build and build and build because he's long suffering uh because the answer to just wiping away all this sin is repentance i mean you just repent and then just that's it's gone yeah right yeah yeah yeah so when you know when when you have threats about you know uh sin being visited on the third and fourth generation of

those who hate me this is not talking about those who repent bearing the punishment for the sins of their grandfather this is talking about those who build upon the sins of their great-grandfather and the sins of their grandfather and father, and they just keep doing the same thing. Well, you know, there will come a reckoning. So, yeah, that's kind of the background here. Now, we're almost out of time, and so rather than ending on that sour note, a note of judgment, let me at least work in verse 8, because we have a promise here that there's going to be a remnant. So verse 8 says,

thus says the Lord, as the new wine is found in the cluster and they say, do not destroy it for there's a blessing in it. So I will do for my servants sake and not destroy them all. And verse nine, I will bring forth offspring from Jacob and from Judah possessors of my mountain. My chosen shall possess it and my servant shall dwell there. And then verse 10, Sharon will become a pastor for flocks in the valley of Achor, a place for herds to lie down for my people who have sought me. So here in verse 8 through 10, God is saying, listen, it's not like everybody's going to be, everybody's going to be gone because there's always going to be a remnant. Just like you have this new wine found in a cluster of grapes and it's a blessing that's there. So he says there's

going to be a blessing because there's going to be those found among the people of Israel who are going to repent and believe we're going to be going to be saved and then he begins this description of the future blessing with the promise of offspring possession of the land and sharon which is uh kind of between the coast and the hill country it's going to be a pasture for flocks the valley of acor which is associated with aiken back in the book of joshua the place of trouble and punishment That's going to be a place for herds to lie down in, for the people who have sought him. So here we begin to kind of shift focus to the fact that there will be a remnant who's spared, a remnant who's saved, a remnant who believes.

He's going to expand upon this when we get farther into Isaiah 65. Yeah, I mean, he's saying, hey, I've spied at least one cluster of grapes over there. Let's see if I can preserve that, right? this whole vineyard might be going up but like i see one guy i'm gonna take that one cluster and make some new wine out of it yeah and he'll have a lot more good stuff to say uh when we uh continue with this with verse 11 but he's he's getting us ready for the new creation which he will describe later in isaiah 65 so great stuff to come awesome all right well we will uh do that next episode i'll see you then chad see you then

We'll see you next time.