Isaiah [Part 3] - A wake-up-call

Read the transcript below, or watch a video of the teaching by Joseph Shulam.

Shalom. The reason that I went through chapter one and two almost verse by verse is because those two chapters are programmatic. In other words, they set the tone on things that are not commonly known or understood in the Messianic and the Christian world. They pull the emphasis from the worship and keeping the ceremonial Commandments—holidays, sabbaths, new moons—to another level, to the level of relationship. Relationship with God and relationship with our fellow brothers and sisters and our fellow men is much more important to the Lord than the ceremonial Priestly Temple functions or church functions, if you wish. But we can't go verse by verse with all of Isaiah. It's too long; it would take several years. So, I'm going to hit the highlights of the things that I think that we need to know as Disciples of the Messiah, Disciples of Yeshua, Disciples of Jesus today in our own time and culture and frame.

Now, before I jump into chapter five of Isaiah, I just want to say that something that I didn't say in the introduction: that almost all the prophets, the classical prophets that we have books of them—Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, and all the way to Zechariah—all the prophecy is written in verse. If you look at a Hebrew Bible, you'll see that it's in two columns. The First Column makes a statement, the second column elaborates, interprets, and comments on the statement of the First Column. That makes it poetry.

And chapter five is actually, even looking at the text in Hebrew, I get the Goosebumps because it's so beautiful and so loving and so terrible at the same time. That gives me goosebumps. I'm going to read it in English from the Jewish translation to English, not the King James, not the NIV, but the Jewish translation of the Hebrew to English.

That's the beginning of chapter five. Isaiah is taking us into something that was very, very common in Judea during that time. Judea was famous in the ancient world, in Egypt, in Babylon, in Assyria, in Cyprus, with the wine that was produced in Judea. And they had their own brand of grapes, their own strain of grapes, that disappeared for more than 2,500 years and just recently, recently as God is restoring Israel, He's restoring that ancient Judean grape from which this choice wine was made. And we have Jewish wineries in Judea and in Samaria making wine from the same strand of grapes that our forefathers did here thousands of years ago. So, wine was famous. Vineyards were famous.

And if you drive between Jerusalem and Hebron to Beersheva, oh, you see the Vineyards growing grapes in the ancient form, in the ancient way that our forefathers did in the same Hills. So, it's a song, the song of the Vineyard.

Oh, wow, I'm getting real good goosebumps now, chills all over my body.

Oh, oh, the prophet is moaning.

- What He wants, you know. I'm commenting on it. Everybody is doing what He wants, enjoying what He wants to enjoy. The banquets, the parties, the music, the wine, the good food, living in beautiful palaces. Nobody thinks about God. What does God want from us? That's what Isaiah the prophet is saying.

You know, the poor people, the normal people are hungry. The rich people are enjoying the parties with music and with wine and good food. But the regular people, my people, my people, assuredly, the prophet says, my people will suffer exile for not giving heed, for not paying attention. It's multitude victims of hunger and its masses parched with thirst.

"Assuredly, Sheol will open wide its gullet, (Sheol means Hell/ Hades.) and partake it's Jaw in measureless gap. And doubt into it shall go that splendor and tumult that din and revelry," all the party that the people will have, will go to Hell. That's what the prophet is saying here.

After reminding you, we're talking about Isaiah, the son of Amoz, who prophesied in the 8th Century BC, in the mid-700 BC.

Yes, harsh, harsh song, harsh prophecy, but there are times when the God that created the Heaven and the Earth reveals Himself in His whole, full splendor. It's not all grace and all candy and all sweet and all hallelujah and all, let's sing and dance.

No, when God looks at the debauchery, the immorality, the inequity, the neglect that His children, neglect the poor, the hungry, the simple, the strangers, God gets angry. We need to know this, dear brothers and sisters, that God does get angry, and He gets angry more on His children than on the strangers. He expects from His children, His chosen ones, the ones who've been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb, the ones who have eaten manna 40 years in the wilderness and drank water from the rock. He expects from us, and I include today the Christian, the Protestant, the Evangelical, the Spirit-filled brothers and sisters around the world. He expects from us more than He expects from the pagans because they don't know who created them. We know because of His love revealed to us through Yeshua.

"The lambs, the sheep, are going to look at us. They will be in their meadows, and strangers shall feed on the ruins of the rich, the strong, the stout." It's Isaiah, and again he moans in the text. "Oi". "Oi" is the most important Hebrew and Yiddish word. It can mean 50 different things. It can mean wonderful, it can mean terrible. It can describe the greatness of something. That's a bit of Jewish culture here in the text, but we have the word "oi" here in verse 18 of chapter 5 of Isaiah.

Yeah, in other words, they're so involved in their sin. It's as if they are hauling it with ropes of lies, of falsehood, and their iniquity is so strong. They need a car, a bulldozer, to lift that iniquity in it's spoon up front. That's the picture that Isaiah is drawing over here.

Brothers and sisters, ah, the words of Isaiah were spoken about 2,800 years ago are touching my heart because I see these words being lived among Christians, among brothers and sisters around the world, and including the Messianic Jews in Israel.

I'm going to read again verse 20.

This is the paradigm of our western civilization today! If somebody opposes sins that are called Abominations in the Torah, he is called evil. The one who approves of all the Abominations: it gets popular, it gets accepted, he gets rewarded. The politically correct get rewarded, the ones who speak to the heart of the nation from the heart of God, from the word of the prophets of ancient Israel: they're considered crazy, evil, bitter. Let me read verse 20 of Isaiah 5 again.

Yes. Oi, again! Oi, again! Oi, again!

This is yesterday's news in Israel; in reality, for the top leaders of this nation, the top politicians of this nation. I'm repeating verse 23 and 24 of Isaiah 5:

He's continuing to be angry. In the days of Isaiah, because we have the Assyrian and the Babylonian from the north, breeding down our neck, and the Egyptians from the south, breeding our neck, and the Philistines from the West, breeding our neck. The situation today is not that much different, dear brothers and sisters, not that much different. I'm repeating verse 25: "That is why the Lord's anger was roused against his people; why he stretches arm against us and struck it so that the mountains quaked, and the corpses lie like refuse, like garbage in the streets. Yet the anger has not turned back." God has not stopped being angry at us, and his arm is outstretched still.

In other words, the soldiers that are going to come, the people are going to come when God called them, not the Jews, not the Israelites, from the far ends of the Earth; the Gentiles, he's going to call them, and they're going to come running. They're not going to stumble along the way;

They will come equipped, strong, prepared.

Verse 29:

See, this is one of those really, really strong reprimands, that God is giving to Israel in the days of Isaiah, the prophet in the middle of the 8th Century before Christ. It happened; we have records; we have records of the Assyrians; we have texts from Sargon, from Nebuchadnezzar; we have pictures from the days of Isaiah, that are described in the temples in Babylon, in relief, in three-dimensional relief, describing how the Assyrians came and conquered the cities of Judea, destroyed them, burned them, and took the people to Exile. Isaiah is saying the thing before these things happened, they happened later, in the days of Jeremiah and in the days of the, the later prophets.But Isaiah is warning them; he's warning them; he's saying it's going to happen to you guys; don't think they're going to escape it; no, you're not going to escape it; it's going to happen. Darkness, it is lowering clouds, as the clouds come down; darkness is going to fall, distressing Israel, because they didn't hear God, and they went to Exile. But this is before they went, a warning, a prophetic uttering, that not many such prophets exist today, in the body of Christ.

Let's speak the truth without fear, in the name of God, because they had it in revelation. God bless you all; pray for us; press for Israel; pray for Korea; pray for Asia, that our world may see the light and avoid God's Wrath, in Yeshua's name.