ISAIAH - CHAPTER 65 - NEW HEAVEN AND NEW EARTH
ISAIAH 65 – NEW HEAVEN AND NEW EARTH
Tuesday Morning Bible Study
May 12, 2015, the Year of Our Lord
Pastor Carolyn Sissom
Chapter 65:17 reveals a NEW HEAVEN and NEW EARTH (Rev. 21:1; Isa. 65:17) in this NEW DAY. There is a NEW ORDER of people who have another name, which is a NEW NAME (Rev. 2:17; 3:12). This NEW NAME is a NEW NATURE, even the nature of Christ (Col. 1:27, Gal. 4:6, Lk. 17:20-21). This NEW NATURE (heart) is the heart of a SERVANT. In this chapter the word “servants” is mentioned seven times. This reveals a Church that is a perfect, or a complete Servant. This NEW ORDER of people will become a NEW WINE.
The NEW ORDER is the establishment of the KINGDOM OF GOD on earth as it is in Heaven under a NEW COVENANT which is NEW JERUSALEM.
This NEW ORDER of people is seen in Isa. 61: 9-11 as the SEED whom the Lord has blessed. These are there designated as:
- The garments of Salvation.
- The Robe of Righteousness.
- Ornaments.
- Jewels.
- The Bud.
- The Seed Springing Forth.
- Righteousness and Praise.
On my return from D.C., the Lord gave me a dream of the men of the church and those extended men who have received from this ministry. They were in a cluster of 30-40-50 men. They were all wearing a “change of garments”. These were New Garments and garments of Godliness. (This dream is not shared to promote Eastgate---but to encourage all of us of the visible touch of God upon lives through His strong right arm. I also believe these men represented the remnant.)
This chapter could be called the sifting of the people of God. There is first a contrast between the false and the true. The rebellious people are described as those who, in spite of all Jehovah’s patience, still persist in idolatrous and evil practices. Against these, Jehovah is compelled to proceed with judgment.
Isa. 65: 13-15: “Thus says the Lord God, Behold, My servants shall eat, but you shall be hungry; behold, My servants shall drink, but you shall be thirsty; behold, My servants shall rejoice, but you shall be ashamed. Behold, My servants shall sing for joy of heart, and shall howl for vexation of spirit. You shall leave your name for a curse to My chosen; for the Lord God shall slay you, and call His servants by another name: That he who blesses himself in the earth shall bless himself in the God of truth…”
The servants of Jehovah are described as the remnant, the holy seed within the cluster. These are not to be destroyed by the wicked, but are to be led out of the places of difficulty into their inheritance and prosperity.
The sifting process is described, and the life of the servants of God and the life of the rebellious are placed in a striking contrast. The result of the sifting of judgment is the establishment of the NEW ORDER.
The KINGDOM OF GOD is joy, justice, prosperity, righteousness and peace.
Rev. 21:5: “…Behold, I make all things new…”
God the King has
found Himself a resting-place and dwelling-place in the hearts of His people in
the God of truth. “Carolyn teach NEW JERUSALEM as purity”.
65: 18-19: “Be glad and rejoice forever in that which I create; for behold, I create Jerusalem a rejoicing and her people a joy. I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and joy in My people; and the voice of weeping shall be no more heard in her, nor the voice of crying.”
The true and ultimate interpretation of these words is unquestionably where literal Jerusalem and her Temple are spiritualized and transfigured as types of the Gospel Church throughout all the world; purchased and consecrated by the Lord Jesus’ Blood.
The prophet describes the emancipation of the true Israel of God in every age and in every land---our entry within the gates of the spiritual Zion which is our admission within Spiritual Jerusalem.
The Lord God Himself rejoices in Jerusalem and His people: “The Church rejoicing in God, and God rejoicing in the Church, so that the light of the two co-mingle, and each is reflected on the other.” (Delitzsch).
Rev. 21:4: “God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain; for the former things are passed away.”
Chapters 65-66 are the Lord’s answer to the remnant’s cry of intercession as they hang their harps on the willows as exiles from the land of promise.
“Rejoice in the Lord always and again I say rejoice” (Phil 4:4). “The voice of weeping shall no more be heard in her, nor the voice of crying;” ---this is fulfilled in living, moving and having our being in the realm of the Spirit. There is no pain in the realm of the Spirit. Pain is in the realm of the soul and flesh.
When the Presence of Jesus Christ rests upon us and we rest in Him, there is “fullness of joy,” and “at your right hand, there are pleasures forevermore” (Ps.16:11).
Through the baptism of the Holy Spirit of Truth, the third person of the Godhead of the God of truth, we share the infinite heart of an infinite God. “The Lord your God in the midst of you is mighty. He will save. He will rejoice over you with joy. He will rest in His love. He will joy over you with singing.” (Zeph. 3:17).
Verses 18 and 19 in their noblest meaning, refers to the glories of the Gospel Church triumphant. However, the dualistic interpretation of the nation of Israel’s restoration must be applied. In my lifetime and yours, we have been blessed to witness the restoration of the nation of Israel to many of the glories described in this chapter. On May 14, 1948, the state of Israel was declared. That was 67-years ago. I was eight years old. With my eyes, I have seen the partial fulfillment of their prophetic glories as a nation.
65:21-23: “”They shall build houses, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them. They shall not build, and another inhabit; they shall not plant, and another eat; for as the days of a tree are the days of My people, and My elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands. They shall not labor in vain, nor bring forth for trouble; for they are the seed of the blessed of the Lord, and their offspring with them. It shall come pass, that before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear.”
Jerusalem has risen and put on her beautiful garments. Chains rusty with age have fallen away.
Isaiah is placed in scripture as a beacon tower with a spiritual prophetic telescope in his hand, surveying the nations past and future.
I like to say, “Isaiah saw it all”. From the date of his own public ministry in seven centuries B.C., onwards to that Great Day when the political firmament shall finally be “dissolved”---“When the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken: (Mt. 24:29)
He foretold the dissolution of the great world-powers of his era. He saw Babylon, Assyria, Tyre, Ammon, Edom, Moab, Philistia, Ethiopia, Egypt, etc---empires shining like “fixed stars”, a constellation of kingdoms, pass away with their phantom glories, like the mirage of the desert.
Jehovah used them as his own vassal agents; instruments for the infliction of punishment on His own people, as well as on neighboring empires. When they had done his work, “his strange work”. He expunged them from the roll of nations. Isaiah’s prophesies are fulfilled and minutely verified.
After Isaiah had gone to heaven, others, who ascended his vacant mountain of vision, saw sun after sun, orb after orb going down, not even leaving behind them the glory of their setting. “Behold the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance…Their stock shall not make root in the earth; and He shall also blow upon them, and they shall wither, and the whirlwind shall take them away as stubble” (Isa. 40: 15-24).
But amid this indiscriminate wreck and dissolution, the fall of Jerusalem was deepest and saddest. She, the proudest jewel in Israel’s queenly crown whose name of peerless and pre-eminent honor was “the City of God,” “the city of the Great King,” was to be sacked and pillaged. Her Temple was to be destroyed.
A voice more potent and powerful than Isaiah declared that not one stone, not one gem in that coronal of glory, was to be left remaining.
However, Jerusalem is one wondrous exception as one nation after another is passing away like falling stars or departing suns, “Your sun shall no more go down; neither shall your moon withdraw itself; for the Lord shall be your everlasting light, and the days of your mourning shall be ended.” (Isa. 60:20)
Beginning with chapter 60, we studied the prayers and pleadings of Israel. They anxiously wait for the answer from the God they have offended. His reply is contained in this chapter and the closing chapter.
I am reminded that the theme scripture for the National Day of Prayer – 2015 was “Lord hear our Cry” (1 Kings 8:28). Our nation has backslid. Our leaders are arrogantly breaking and usurping the laws of God. Wickedness and evil abounds in our cities and there is only a remnant who is crying out to the Lord for the soul of this nation. There is no moral standard held up in many of the denominations and churches as well as many preach “another Jesus”.
I am able to report to our church that all of the leaders at the NDP are passionately crying out to the Lord for the soul of our nation. Their voices are strong, uncompromising and bold in their declaration of the Word of God and His Holiness. Their voices strongly denounce the wicked rule of the present administration.
I am praying and considering the vision the Lord gave me at the Israeli Embassy in light of this prophecy as well as His covenant with our nation.
May 7, 2015 – In a caucus room in the Cannon Office Building, I saw in the Spirit a banner, THE KINGDOM OF GOD, flying above the other flags.
May 8, 2015 – I saw in the Spirit at the Israeli Embassy the U.S.A. flag being carried by two angels, “Union” and “Love”. There was also a banner for “Liberty”. Of course, the only visible banner in the room was the Israeli national flag.
In September 2008 at a meeting in Austin, Texas, I had a vision of those angels carrying our flag.
To add to “the flag” visions and my considering, the Pine Tree Flag of the American Revolution was presented as a banner at the Tuesday evening reception at the Reagan Building as well as the Wednesday Morning Prayer Meeting hosted by Shirley Dobson. The Pine Tree Flag represents “An Appeal to Heaven”. It is a prophetic sign of intercession for the United States.
Isaiah 62:10: “Go through, go through the gates; prepare you the way of the people; cast up, cast up the highway; gather out the stones; lift up a banner for the people.
I strongly feel the Lord is reaffirming His covenant with this nation and His covenant with the remnant in every age. I pray our nation will not have to go through what Israel went through before we see the fulfillment of Isaiah 65 in the Gospel Church. “Lord hear our cry”.
(Mary Bertman remembered the preamble of our constitution which is our covenant: “We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our posterity. Do ordain and establish this constitution of the United States of America.)
“65: 20; 25: “There shall be no more there an infant of days, nor an old man that has not filled his days; for the child shall die a hundred years old; but the sinner being a hundred years old shall be accursed…The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock; and dust shall be the serpent’s meat. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain, says the Lord.”
I have no doubt this prophecy will be literally fulfilled. However, I offer to you one of the spiritual truths of verse 25. The dust is the carnal mind (1 Cor. 14: 44-49). Satan lives, moves, and has his being in the carnal mind of man. The serpent of Genesis 3 becomes a dragon by Revelation 12, for he has been eating the dust of our carnality all these years. The diverse natures of the wolf, lamb, lion and ox will become one in the Most Holy Place. The mark of the Kingdom of God is joy, peace, rest, and tranquility (Rom. 16:20).
65:1-3: “…Behold, me! Behold Me, to a nation that was not called by My name. I have spread out My hands all the day to a rebellious people, which walks in a way that was not good, after their own thoughts; a people who provokes me to anger continually to My face; that sacrifices in gardens, and burns incense upon altars of brick”
The Lord’s rejection of Israel was temporary and not a permanent one. He, the true Joseph, might speak harshly to his brothers, but all the while his heart is unaltered in love. The young Hebrew ruler unable to “refrain” himself any longer burst into tears, “I am Joseph!” In 64:12, we hear the cry of the remnant, “Will you refrain Your self for these things, O Lord?
The time came when “Messiah the Prince,” the true Joseph (in the person of the rejected Brother-man) revealed Himself to the brothers who hated and sold Him. There will be mutual recognition and when looking upon Him whom they had pierced, the will “mourn” (Zech 12:10).
Still further in reply to the earnest pleadings of the Jewish people, God proceeds to use another familiar metaphor. He speaks of the vinedresser discovering among the damaged clusters which he is casting away, one which retains some juicy grapes.
These are the types of that remnant which is yet to be saved from the long-decayed mass of the nation. These sound grapes contain the holy seed of that cherished Vine which Jehovah’s own right hand is yet again to plant, as it had planted before. The hills of Palestine once more are to be covered with the shadow of it, and the boughs thereof are to be like the goodly cedars.
65:8-9: “Thus says the Lord, As the new wine is found in the cluster, and one says Destroy it not; for a blessing is in it; so will I do for My servant’s sakes, that I may not destroy them all. I will bring forth a seed out of Jacob, and out of Judah an inheritor of My mountains; and My elect shall inherit it, and My servants shall dwell there. Sharon shall be a fold of flocks, and the valley of Achor a place for the herds to lie down in, for My people who have sought Me.”
This is an answer to the prayer of King David – Psalm 80:14-17: “Return, we beseech Thee, O God of hosts; look down from heaven, and behold, and visit this vine; and the vineyard which your right hand has planted, and the branch that you made strong for Yourself.”
Jesus is the Vine, we are the branch.
The long curse, which, for eighteen hundred years had brooded over the soil of Palestine, turning fertility into barrenness is removed.
“Go through, go through the gates; prepare the way of the people; cast up, cast up the highway, gather out the stones. Lift up a standard (banner) for the people”. (62:10) The crooked places are being made straight and the rough places plain. The Valley of Achor which is associated with Israel’s past trouble will become “a door of hope” (Hos. 2:15). The land has become a scene of plenty, industry and wealth.
Then in verse 16, the Divine Promiser calls Himself by the name, “the God of Truth”
65:16-17: “He who blesses himself in the earth shall bless himself in the God of truth; and he that swears in the earth shall swear by the God of truth; because the former troubles are forgotten, and because they are hid from My eyes. For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth; and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind.”
The third person of the God-head, the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Truth. The God of truth literally means “the God of Amen”. The God who pledges and guarantees His word for all that He has spoken utters the beautiful declaration:
“I create new heavens and a new earth…be glad and rejoice forever in that which I create a rejoicing and her people a joy. I will rejoice in Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy.”
Jesus Christ fulfilled the Jubilee.
O Israel and persecuted church, “Though you have lain among the pots, yet shall you be as the wings of a dove covered with silver and her feathers with yellow gold” (Ps. 68:13).
Not by the Tigris and Euphrates only, but by every stream and river in either hemisphere, has afflicted Zion hung her harp on the willows of sadness and despair. All Israel shall be saved; ---the mouth of the Lord has spoken it.” A voice, like an Angel’s whisper, (no it is diviner; ---it is the Spirit of the living God coming from the four winds and breathing his breath on the Church. Sooner or later, it must be---that voice will be heard, like a rustling among the willow-leaves, waking harp and soul in unison --- “Comfort You, Comfort You My People.”
Carolyn Sissom, Pastor
Eastgate Ministries Church ---going through the gates---Abiding at the Willows. .
Scripture from K.J.V. – I entered into the labors of John Ross MacDuff; Kelly Varner, Principles of Present Truth of Isaiah. Visions and comments were given to Carolyn Sissom on indicated dates.