<< Start at Isaiah 1
The "ER" numbers below reference an Exhaustive Reference which will be made available when completed.
You may have noticed by now two things from the book of Isaiah. The first is that Isaiah primarily deals with the first few months of Tribulation. That has certainly been the case to this point. The other thing you may have noticed is how each chapter shows the beginning of the Tribulation from a unique viewpoint. Like a multi-faceted gem turned in the light, so each passage shows the beginning of Tribulation in a slightly different manner. This chapter deals with the first arrival of Yahshua (Jesus), then his return at the end of the age after he holds his “peace a long time.” Though at this first coming “He will not cry out, nor raise His voice,” at his second “He shall cry out, yes, shout aloud; He shall prevail against His enemies.”
Summary by Section
1. (v.1-8)
“He will not cry out, nor raise His voice, nor cause His voice to be heard in the street. A bruised reed He will not break.” Quite easily we know this passage speaks of the first arrival of the Messiah, as the gospel of Matthew quotes this passage:
That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying: 18 Behold! My Servant whom I have chosen, My Beloved in whom My soul is well pleased! I will put My Spirit upon Him, and He will declare justice to the Gentiles. 19 He will not quarrel nor cry out, nor will anyone hear His voice in the streets. 20 A bruised reed He will not break, and smoking flax He will not quench, till He sends forth justice to victory; 21 and in His name Gentiles will trust. (Mat 12:17-21)
2. (v.9-12)
“Behold, the former things have come to pass.” A time of great transition is now being spoken of. The former age passes to the time of Christ and time of Christ passes to our day, the end of the age. “Before they spring forth I tell you of them.” Yahshua’s first arrival is predicted, though they understood it not, until the time of his arrival. His second arrival is also predicted, as we shall see, though many do not understand it either. Nevertheless, it is there in the Book for all to see who have eyes to see.
“And His praise from the ends of the earth…The villages that Kedar inhabits…declare His praise in the coastlands.” Spoken of here is the spread of the gospel near and far; the Great Commission. The lands near, the desert region of Arabia (Kedar) all the way to the ends of the earth; let them declare His praise. Let the light be sent to the Gentiles; let the blind eyes be opened, let the prisoners be loosed from prisons void of truth and light.
3. (v.13-16) [ER 3.6, 6.3, 6.5]
“I have held My peace a long time, I have been still and restrained Myself. Now I will cry like a woman in labor, I will pant and gasp at once.” After a long age of mercy and grace, now our Lord Yahshua (Jesus) the Christ stirs up his zeal. Though he came first as suffering Servant, bearing the sins of many to redeem many lost sheep, now he returns as triumphant Messiah. Many today understand this point in time to be his physical return to earth at the end of Tribulation, but this is not the case. Spoken here is when Christ stands up to enter into judgment with the world. The woman in labor is an often-used word picture denoting the beginning of Tribulation. Though Christ does not physically appear until the end, he now makes his presence known in the earth in a most mighty and terrible manner. It is a day of sudden and untold destruction. It is a day of great dread and fear. Nations, large and small, are laid waste on that first day. “I will pant and gasp at once.” The KJV more accurately renders this “I will destroy and devour at once.”
“I will bring the blind by a way they did not know.” Even God’s people are clueless of these predicted events. We despise his Word, we do not delight in it. (Jer. 6:10) The Bible sits on the shelf collecting dust. Those who read it mostly do not understand what it says about our day. (Is. 29) The events coming to Babylon, in particular, are events the people have not known. We have not known war within our borders. We are a generation unfamiliar with devastation. Yet devastation is coming and God will preserve a remnant. He will not forsake his remnant; though two-thirds of that remnant will forsake him in the months to come from this point in time.
4. (v.17-25) [ER 3.2, 3.5.2, 4.3]
“Hear, you deaf; and look, you blind, that you may see.” The scene now shifts before our eyes from the first day of Tribulation to the days leading to it. As it did in the previous chapter, attention now turns to the servant Elijah. The people are encouraged to listen and heed the message of the servant who speaks on God’s behalf and shows great signs and wonders.
And Jesus said, "For judgment I have come into this world, that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may be made blind." 40 Then some of the Pharisees who were with Him heard these words, and said to Him, "Are we blind also?" 41 Jesus said to them, "If you were blind, you would have no sin; but now you say, 'We see.' Therefore your sin remains. John 9:39-41
“Who is blind but My servant, or deaf as My messenger whom I send? Who is blind as he who is perfect, and blind as the LORD's servant?” Woe to us when we think we see clearly. Woe to us when we think we have God figured out. Woe to us when we don’t think we have to abide in God’s Word daily and labor in his Word to rightly understand. When we become blind to our own ways, our presumptions, only then do we begin to see clearly according to his Word. This is why Yahshua said “Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner.” (John 5:19) The Son, who is the Word made flesh, is the express image of the Father. He only says what he hears the Father say and he only does what he sees the Father do. He does the will of the Father and not his own. In like manner, angels are sent forth by the Father to perform his will and not their own. Likewise, his children are to do his will and not our own. The servant in question is prepared to go out to say and do only those things which he receives from the Father.
This is why Zechariah tells us Judah’s horses will be struck with blindness. (Zec. 12:4) Only then will they recognize Yahshua as Messiah, the one they pierced. In like manner today, millions of Christians go about their daily lives completely devoid of Truth. Though they believe on Jesus to the saving of the soul, yet they are blind to his Truth because their eyes are open only to their own ways. But when we become blind to our own ways and presumptions only then can we see God’s ways clearly. Only then do we have power over sin. Only then can we walk in the Spirit and not in the flesh. We do not presume to know anything, therefore we must abide in his Word. We must abide in his Word and allow his Word to abide in us. In this way our minds are being renewed according the ways and purpose of the Father. (Further reading - http://wakeupbabylon.blogspot.com/2011/11/ become-blind-that-you-may-see.html)
Such things are spoken of God’s latter-day servant, Elijah. God rhetorically asks, Who is like this one? Who has become so blind to his own ways that he now sees My ways so clearly? Remember all the chariots this one saw as he listened earnestly, and with great care. (Is. 21) As he becomes blind to his own way of thinking, as he begins to abide in God’s Word, God reveals to him great revelation within the Word of God as it speaks of our day.
“Seeing many things, but you do not observe; opening the ears, but he does not hear.” Attention now turns back to the primary audience, God’s people. The NIV more accurately renders this: “You have seen many things, but have paid no attention; your ears are open, but you hear nothing.” Simply stated, even God’s people are not heeding his Word. We’ve seen much. We can now look back on 6000 years of recorded history. We can understand how we got to this point in time just prior to the Tribulation. We have God’s Word and can now see how it all fits together. Yet God’s people pay no attention to it. "For My people are foolish, they have not known Me. They are silly children, and they have no understanding. They are wise to do evil, but to do good they have no knowledge." (Jer. 4:22) "But they refused to heed, shrugged their shoulders, and stopped their ears so that they could not hear." (Zec. 7:11) “And He said, Go, and tell this people: 'Keep on hearing, but do not understand; Keep on seeing, but do not perceive.’ " (Is. 6:9)
“The LORD is well pleased for His righteousness' sake; He will exalt the law and make it honorable.” The word for “well pleased” (H2654) means to incline to or to bend. Remember what we learned in chapter 32 regarding this Elijah. God is very pleased with this servant. So much so that God is now granting his requests. Anything this servant asks in the name of Yahshua, God is performing. And what is this servant asking? He’s asking that God heal the people who come in faith. And what is this servant preaching? What’s his message? He’s preaching hard against sin, especially within the Church. And we see from this passage this servant is exalting the law. The law? Don’t all Christians now hold the law in such low regard today? Don’t we sneer at it, and despise it as passé? (Mal. 1:13) But didn’t God tell this generation to remember the law given at Mount Horeb? (Mal. 4:4) Why do you suppose God wants this generation to remember the law? The reason is because we’ve gotten so far away from the law of God that we have become lawless. Though the “law of truth” should now be written on our hearts, how can it? We don’t labor in the Word of God. We don’t study it. We certainly don’t abide in his Word. How then can we be changed by it? How can we be cleansed by it? We can’t. Therefore God’s people have been taken in all the idolatry of the land. We have become defiled, as the first chapter of Isaiah clearly shows.
But this servant will exalt the law. Though the rituals and customs fell away with the first covenant, yet the spirit of the Law remains and should be written on our hearts. But it is not. We have so focused on our glorious chariots, the grace and mercy of God, that it has become a drunken excess to us. (Is. 28) We have forgotten that we are to be holy as God is holy. We have ignored God’s righteousness and justice just as we’ve forgotten to strengthen the hands of the widows and orphans and the weak and downtrodden of our communities. We do not rightly reflect the Holy God we claim to serve!
And because this servant exalts the law of God, which speaks of the very character of our Holy God, God inclines to him. God greatly favors him. God loves him. (Is. 48:14) “But this is a people robbed and plundered.” But the people this servant addresses are corrupt and defiled. Though many of them serve God, and though many more claim to serve God, they are largely not pleasing in God’s sight. They are all taken in the sin of the land. They are prisoners of a walk according to the flesh.
“Who among you will give ear to this? Who will listen and hear for the time to come?” Understand that this Elijah begins to come before the people about one year before the destruction of America. (Is. 32) He speaks of things “for a time to come.” Who among the people listening to Elijah will truly have ears to hear? Who among them will heed his message and change their lives? Who will believe time is short and changes must be made now?!
“Therefore He has poured on him the fury of His anger.” But we already know the people, as a whole, will not turn and repent. Instead they largely shrug their collective shoulders. Therefore the judgment set against America will surely come at the appointed day and hour. Surely it is set and surely it will come. The Tribulation will begin at precisely the minute appointed for it. In “Quenched Like a Wick” I show what day and hour that is. For those who believe we cannot know the day or hour, I address this concern as well. We cannot know the precise day and hour of our Lord’s physical return to earth. But I show that we are expected to know when his judgments begin. As I show, that day is described in detail the in Bible.
“Yet he did not know; and it burned him, yet he did not take it to heart.” Is it possible some of the preserved remnant, even a large portion of them, will not understand even after America is destroyed? Will they still not consider it to be a judgment from God Almighty? Perhaps this is why we are reminded to remember the law. Deuteronomy clearly explains what happens to nations who turn from God and refuse to return to him. “Even the stork in the heavens knows her appointed times; and the turtledove, the swift, and the swallow observe the time of their coming. But My people do not know the judgment of the LORD.” (Jer. 8:7)
Recap
1. Yahshua comes first as gentle Servant to redeem mankind.
2. The gospel message goes out, even to the ends of the earth.
3. Yahshua rises up in fury at the beginning of Tribulation.
4. At what point will you truly see?
End of Age Context
This chapter speaks of both Christ’s first coming as well as his second. But of his second it speaks not of his physical return to earth at the end of that Day, as does chapter 27, but of his standing up in judgment at the beginning of Tribulation. It’s a time when people now inhabit land at “the ends of the earth.” It’s when the woman with child now labors to give birth at the start of that Day.
End of Age Themes
- God stands up in judgment at the end of the age.
- God’s end-time messenger.
- The nation of God’s people, Babylon, is brought to nothing by God.
- God’s people are blind and deaf to his Word.
Sequence of Events
From this chapter we understand Yahshua (Jesus) first comes as gentle suffering Servant to redeem the people. Then this gospel goes out far and wide until the earth is covered with people at the end of the age. Then, after this long age of grace and mercy, the earth is filled with corruption. Yahshua then stands up in fury to judge the world, starting with his people, who also have become corrupt. Their prominent nation, which we’ve been reading about since chapter 1, is wholly overthrown when that Day begins. But before that Day begins, God sends them a messenger with his Word.
Final Thoughts
If the very purpose of Yahshua’s first coming was to open blind eyes and bring people out of their prisons of sin, how is it that at the end of the age he finds his people blind, robbed, and imprisoned? The answer is found as early as chapter 1 and is a theme woven throughout the entire book: “Alas, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a brood of evildoers, children who are corrupters! They have forsaken the LORD, they have provoked to anger the Holy One of Israel, they have turned away backward.” (Is. 1:4) Understand that Christians are being spoken of here. Though we call on his name and continue to worship him, yet our hearts are far from him and the truth of his Word.
Buy on Amazon Europe
Visit my Bookstore