'I WILL GIVE YOU JUDGES"
“I WILL GIVE YOU JUDGES”
(Isaiah 1:26)
September 27, 2020, the Year of Our Lord
Pastor Carolyn Sissom
We rejoice and praise God that Donald J. Trump has appointed Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court vacancy of Ruth Bader Ginsberg. Our prayer was that the LORD would choose His Judge.
We can rejoice that over 55,000 people were expected at the Franklin Graham Prayer march in Washington D.C. They prayed and marched peacefully prior to the announcement of the Judge Amy Coney Barrett. They prayed specifically for God to give us a righteous Supreme Court Judge. The Restore was another prayer gathering on Saturday humbling and repenting before God asking Him to heal our nation.
Friday night I was blessed to Be a guest minister at a Call To Pray meeting hosted by Harold and Andy McDougal at The Gathering Place Church in Albany, Louisiana, Pastors Sha and Chuck Degruy. This is another remnant on-fire church filled with the passion and zeal of the Lord. It was a powerful meeting of prayer for the nation. The glorious overcoming church is arising out of the tribulation and judgment that is now in the earth. We will be stronger.
It is a blessing from the LORD for Him to set righteous judges over a nation.
Isa. 1: 24-28: Therefore, says the Lord, the Lord of hosts, the mighty One of Israel, ‘Ah, I will ease Me of My adversaries, and avenge Me of My enemies; and I will turn My hand upon you, and purely purge away your dross, and take away all your tin. I will restore your judges as at the first; and your counselors as at the beginning; afterward you shall be called, the city of Righteousness, the faithful city. Zion shall be redeemed with judgment and her converts with righteousness. The destruction of the transgressors and of the sinners shall be together, and they that forsake the Lord shall be consumed.
This is the promise of the Word of Lord given through Johnny Enlow on April 22, 2019:
“This is now MY TIME and I will not be held back. I have predetermined that this is the time I go after nations with their appointed destinies. You will do so with Me. We are just beginning. As I begin, I am busting up rings of darkness in your justice systems. I am busting up rings of darkness in Hollywood. I am busting up rings of darkness in DC. I am busting up rings of darkness in what is called MY Church. I am busting up rings of darkness in Media.”
As in the time of Isaiah, the LORD God is moving across the earth with a strong hand and outstretched arm. He is moving in judgment against the wicked and apostate. He is moving in great fire, redemption, and glory for His overcoming remnant church.
In Isaiah 1: 24-31, there is nothing conditional; the ultimate, unswerving intentions of God for His holiness are clearly stated. Jerusalem’s (the church universal, the U.S.A., etc.) real enemies are not external, but those inside the government and temple who have emptied it of justice and right dealings. The city’s need was righteousness and justice. It required purging and purifying, until it could truly be named the Faithful City. In these verses “redeemed” is equivalent to purified.
“Ah” is an exclamation expressing satisfaction and determination regarding what God intends to do. “Turn My Hand” means to send judgment to bring them back to God. “Take away all your tin” means to purify and purge away all dross and all alloy in the furnace of judgment.
The faithful city Zion is the church or the high order of God (the overcomer). Heb. 12:22: “You have come to Mt. Zion, and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel. See that you refuse not Him that speaks…”
Zion is the place of sacrifice and symbolic of the sacrifice of Christ Jesus for the New Testament Church.
Israel was Jehovah’s servant used of God to bring the Word and the Savior to the earth. Isaiah’s charge to Israel takes the form of a courtroom scene in which the whole universe is called upon to witness the twofold accusation of base ingratitude and rebellious apostasy. “Hear O heavens and give ear, O earth; for the Lord has spoken.” Heaven and earth are commanded to hear, for Jehovah, not Isaiah, has spoken. All celestial and terrestrial beings are called upon to witness the Divine plea and sanction the justice of God in His case against the sin of the nation.
1:2-3: I have nourished and brought up children and they have rebelled against Me. The ox knows its owner, and the ass its master’s crib; but Israel does not know. My people do not consider.
Wickedness has infiltrated every area of Zion, but the call for a willingness to reason with Jehovah will cleans them of unrighteousness and the Lord will be gracious to them.
Isa. 1: 18-23: Come now, and let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. If you will be willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land; but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured with the sword; for the mouth of the Lord has spoken it.
This is the same message and choice to the church in the year 2020. It is the message to those who have rejected Jesus Christ and the cleansing of his precious Blood. Time and time again, the prophet makes a direct appeal to his people, to listen and to change their attitudes and behavior. His words continue to constitute a challenge to any community at all times. If the nation will not repent and choose the path of willing obedience, nothing but warfare and invasion can be expected.
Our nation has been invaded from within. We have war in our streets. Anarchists are ruling in cities in the United States of America. The Law of the land is treated in contempt. This is the judgment of the LORD on those who have refused His grace. But the solution is easy. “Come now, and let us reason together, says the Lord, though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool”
The Lord gave Isaiah a vision at the time of the death of King Uzziah, of “a sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters; they have forsaken the Lord, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel to anger, they are gone away backward.”
Isaiah describes the apostasy of Israel and is also the apostasy of the church. This apostasy is illustrated by the figure of a diseased body. Because of God’s punishment, the kingdom remnant was the only hope against complete annihilation. Israel and Judah had rejected the Lord and he rejected their empty worship.
“Why should you be stricken anymore? You will revolt more and more; the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot even to the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and purifying sores; they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment. Your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire; your land, strangers devour it in your presence, and it is desolate, as over-thrown by strangers.
This is a description of the progression in judgment of what is happening in the United States.
EXCEPT, the LORD has heard the prayers of His Church.
1: 8-9: The daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city. Except the Lord of hosts had left to us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, and we should have been like to Gomorrah.
This scripture is quoted by Paul in Romans 9:29: As Isaiah said before, 'Except the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed, we would have been as Sodom and like Gomorrah.
Isaiah is exposing the sin of homosexuality in Judah, which is in rebellion against the very image of God.
Isa. 1: 10: Hear the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom; give ear to the law of our God, you people of Gomorrah.
Isa. 1:11-15: To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices to Me? says the Lord; I am full of the burned offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he-goats. When you come to appear before Me, who has required this at your hand, to tread My courts? Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination to Me; the new moons and Sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I can no longer endure. It is iniquity, even the solemn meeting. Your new moons and your appointed feasts My soul hates; they are a trouble to Me; I am weary to bear them. When you spread forth your hands, I will hide My eyes from you; yes, when you make many prayers, I will not hear; your hands are full of blood.
The hands of the government leaders and those who elected them in the United States are full of the blood of the unborn. It is absolute insanity to slaughter innocent babies who have done nothing right or wrong and call it justice for woman. This blood on the hands of our nation constitutes failure to care for the unborn who are without a doubt orphans (unloved and unwanted).
This indictment of the LORD stands against all nations of all time. The battle to confirm the appointment of Judge Amy Coney Barrett has everything to do with God’s judgment of our nation and our sins of abortion. Not only the sins of abortion, but the sins of permitting killing, stealing and destroying.
Their suffering is a result of their sin, and yet they rebelled more and more. Their external acts of worship will not give them access to God. Their sins nullified their prayers and offerings. The Lord hated their practices, yet he loved His people and appealed to them to turn from their evil ways.
Isa. 1: 16-17: Wash, make yourself clean; put away the evil of your doings from before My eyes, cease to do evil; Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow.
James 1:27: Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.
Isa. 1:28: The destruction of the transgressors and of the sinners shall be together, and they that forsake the LORD shall be consumed.
“None shall quench the fire of judgment. No man could do this who had not known God at one time and who did not have Him to forsake; so, this clearly refers to backsliders who reject Him to the point of being destroyed. Men are warned not to forsake God.” (Dake)
Now the accusation of idolatry is made. The details of worship under the oaks relate to the Canaanite fertility cult practices. Many trees were cut off at the top and made into totem poles.
Isa. 1: 29-31: For they shall be ashamed of the oaks which you have desired, and you shall be confounded for the gardens that you have chosen. For you shall be as an oak whose leaf fades, and as a garden that has no water. The strong shall be as a tow, and the maker of it as a spark, and they shall both burn together, and none shall quench them.”
The man and his work shall be burned. The makers of idols to be the spark to this destruction. Idols and their makers to be destroyed by fire together.
The glorious, overcoming church has won a great victory; but we are still in the battle. We must continue to pray for the election, for the confirmation of Judge Barrett and for the repentance of the apostate church as well as those who are lost. The Lord is not a man that he should lie. Nor is he fickle like man. His judgment is sure. His redemption is just as sure.
Isa. 1: 18-23: Come now, and let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. If you will be willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land; but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured with the sword; for the mouth of the Lord has spoken it.
Pastor Carolyn Sissom
Eastgate Ministries church
Scripture from K.J.V.
I entered into the labors of Principles of Present Truth from Isaiah 1-39 by Kelly Varner. Comments and conclusions are my own and not meant to reflect the views of Brother Varner; Sissom sermon notes from 6/13/13; 9/15/17.