Isaiah, Chapter 12

Good morning. We're going to be proceeding just as you would expect with the book of Isaiah. How about that? Can you handle that? We're going to be looking at chapter 12 here. And this was a chart that we showed, I think it was the third week in our study of Isaiah.

This will finish up this first section according to the way this chart lays it out here. Then we'll proceed into kind of another section as we go next week into chapter 13. And then also we want to point out our typical pattern is to kind of do a quick summary of the entire chapter and then zero in on a specific portion of each chapter, a selected portion. And this week will be a little bit different in that the selected portion is the whole chapter. So that's all folks. All right, so as we go through this here, we want to ask some questions.

One of them is, what on earth is Isaiah talking about? This chapter, six verses, describes what will be the mindset and the sentiment, the perspective, if you will, that the Jews will have during the coming reign of Christ upon the earth. So this is describing how they will be thinking, how they will be viewing things, how they'll be looking at things. It's also about the unique role that the Jews will have because the Lord has, as their chosen people, they being His chosen people rather, the Lord has given them a special place and a special role. And so this passage describes that and gives us some insights on that.

Something else to take a look at as you go through this passage, all these pronouns, you, I, me, lots of use of this pronoun that speaks of the Jews, either them saying something out of their own perspective, or Isaiah telling them, this will be your perspective. So the pronouns keep popping up from the first verse to the last. Now we have to ask the question, are all pronouns created equal?

One of the ways that the authors of Scripture wrote is that they at times spoke to a present body of people as representing a future body of people. We found that when we were studying several years back in Matthew 24. The Lord said, you, speaking to the disciples, as future Jews living in a future period of time. So that's the way he's speaking. And if we were to try to sort of give a description of it in grammar, in grammatical terms, it'd be sort of like a future all y'all, okay? That would be the grammatical stance here. So Isaiah would write of the Jews of his own day, but while he's speaking to them, he's talking about this future group of Jews, those of the same group. in some future time.

This was the way, for example, we saw in Isaiah 7.14.

It says, unto you is given a sign. Who was he talking to? Those of the house of David. Was it those that were right there then? No. It's the future group of the house of David, that same group that existed at that time. Alright, so that's the way he's talking. We mentioned the pronouns that come out, the you's and the I's and the me's and the my's. There's also this that clarifies it for it. It's the inhabitants of Zion. Those Jews, Zion being even today, we talk of Zionism. This is the idea that this is their land. This is the land that God gave them. You who are inhabiting Zion at that time.

Something else we've talked about in that day or on that day. Recognize that? That's a phrase. have seen a few times and will see numerous times again. It talks about a future time, oftentimes the tribulation of the millennium. In this case, specifically, the millennial kingdom, that thousand-year period described in Revelation chapter 20, verse 10, when Christ will reign upon the earth. Now, also note this.

We have Gentiles, Israel, and the Church. These are the three main people groups that show up in scripture. They each have a unique part, a different part, in fulfilling God's eternal purpose. There was the Gentiles, and then Israel, and then finally the church. We looked at this in Ephesians chapter 2, verses 11 through 22, and if you want to throw the whole third chapter in on top of that, that's fine with me. Then, the Gentiles are the first group in time. Who have we got as the first Gentiles? Adam and Eve. Those are the first Gentiles.

Followed by Israel. Both of these are ethnic distinctions, aren't they? They are human ethnic distinctions. When we speak of somebody being Jewish, it is an ethnic distinction. When we speak of Gentiles, non-Jews, that's an ethnic distinction. Those are earthly distinctions as well.

Now the third group, the Church, is not based on ethnic distinctions. Paul wrote to the church at Galatia, and he says, there's neither Jew or Gentile, neither Jew nor Greek. All those ethnic distinctions make no difference in the church. We have two groups, the Gentiles and the Jews, that are ethnic distinctions, and the third group, the church, no ethnic distinction whatsoever. Those three groups are repeatedly talked about.

The last millennium of this present earth, that's what this is talking about, isn't it? the last millennia of this present earth, Christ will reign. He will sit at that time on David's throne, the throne that was promised to David about 3,000 years ago, that his descendant would sit upon. Those of us in the church, so if you're a believer here this morning, you're in the church, you will be there with Christ in resurrected bodies.

You and I will see this. This won't be something we'll say, gee, it's nice to read about it, and it sure would be nice if we were there, but I'm not involved with it. No, you will be there. That's why we want to look at it. We will be reading it here this morning, and there will come a day, and it may be as close as seven years from now, there will come a day when we will see this come to pass.

We'll say, oh yeah, I remember that. I remember when we studied Isaiah 12. the living of Israel will be in their land with their Messiah on the throne of King David. The Gentiles, as we saw earlier in the book of Isaiah, will long to have access. At one point it said ten Gentiles will grab a hold of a Jew and say, let me go with you to see the Messiah.

Can you imagine that? Now it's almost inconceivable, but it will be Do you mean that there's a door of opportunity for me to go see the Messiah? Are you Jewish? Oh, please let me go with you. Please introduce me to him. Now, there's something that Isaiah never saw coming. You need to know that. Here's this guy. He's a prophet of the Lord. He's telling you thousands of years in advance what's going to happen. But here's something he never saw coming.

What he never saw coming, even though he wrote about this millennial kingdom, He wrote about Israel and he wrote about the Gentiles, but he didn't write about the church. That's right. You and I. He did not write about the church. It wasn't revealed by Isaiah. It wasn't revealed to him.

Seven centuries later, it would be revealed by Christ and the apostles and more specifically and in detail by the apostles that the Lord set in place to minister to us. Here's this picture that we started off here. This is a picture from down near the town of Lauterbrunnen. This is the Swiss Alps. And while they're very beautiful and impressive, believe it or not, none of those three mountains are as tall as any of our 14ers. Nonetheless, it's a beautiful place. And I bring it up here for illustration.

This is Eiger. And you may remember about three decades ago, Clint Eastwood was in a movie. He just got over being Rowdy Hayes. And so he did the movie there and that's the movie it's about. This is Monk and this is Jungfrau. So that's the trio of mountains there above Lauterbrunnen. We're going to zero in on Monk and Jungfrau and take a little bit different perspective on it for a good purpose here, not just for beautiful scenery, as nice as it is. We're going to be reading between the mountains. And what do we mean here? Here's Monk, there's Jungfrau.

And if a person were to stand on one side of Monk and look over to Jungfrau, you would not see the restaurant and the ice sculpture exhibit that's between them. It is up there. Matter of fact, you've got to travel through, it's eight miles of tunnel that goes through the mountains and comes up between the mountains. But if you were standing on one side of Monk and looked across Jungfrau, you wouldn't see that little saddle in between.

You wouldn't see the restaurant. or any of the other things that are positioned there in that saddle. There at the restaurant, there's an ice sculpture. Here's one of an angel. There's another one that got some penguins there, appropriate for ice. Here's an Eskimo and igloo configuration. And here's the view out of the restaurant. It's gorgeous view. It's very nice.

But if we carry this over and look at it as an example of what Isaiah saw and didn't saw, Isaiah looked across the two mountain peaks, if you will. He looked at Christ's first coming. He looked at Christ's second coming. He didn't see the church between. He saw the two mountain peaks, but didn't see what was between them.

What we studied some time back in Ephesians chapter 3, where Paul says, it's been given to us. It wasn't revealed before. It's been given to us to reveal it. That's what Isaiah as much as he was given to reveal, didn't know about. From Isaiah's view, the church was just not visible.

It was between the mountains. If you look at Acts 1, 6-8, here is the scene on the Mount of Olives. Here is Jesus with his disciples, seeing them at the last moments before his ascension. When they had come together, they were asking him, Lord, is it at this time you are restoring the kingdom to Israel? Is now going to be the time of your second coming?

You see, they didn't see the gap either. They didn't see the saddle between. They saw Christ's first coming, here they were living right at the very end of it, and now they're asking, is now the second coming going to start? No, something else is happening between. What Isaiah saw was the Gentiles, and he writes about them, and he saw Israel and writes about them.

This is a song. It's often viewed as a song, and I think rightfully so. Here is a song that is Jewish, only it doesn't have a sad tone to it. Now, one of the things I have to tell you, I can tell you this because Nancy's not here this morning, and so I can talk about her. Nancy puts up with a lot of my odd sense of humor.

I like taking happy songs and sing them in minor key because it just, you know, seems funny to me you know that so anyway this is sort of an example of that here is a Jewish song that is happy here is a Jewish song that there's nothing negative about it other than just saying you were angry with me and now you're you're not and you comfort me that little glimpse of what was sad but mostly extolling the wonders and the wondrous time that is that it's going to be upon them There are key phrases that are exactly like the Psalms.

The Psalms I have heard called, and I think it's appropriate, Israel's national hymn book. If we were to have a national hymn book as a country, that would be some equivalent to what Israel had. Israel had this hymn book that was their national hymn book from which they would sing. And verse 5 starts with a call to sing.

The end of chapter 11 in Isaiah refers to God bringing Israel out of Egypt, and then this song, chapter 12, begins. And what it is, it is Exodus 14 and 15 in miniature. It is the Lord, if you look at the end of chapter 11, it tells about Israel being brought out of Egypt, and now in chapter 12, you see the praise of the Lord. There's even more parallel that we'll see shortly. You have on page two of your handout a slide similar to this, parts of Isaiah 12 from other biblical songs, mostly the Psalms, but also Exodus 15 and a few other places.

Look at the number of places where the phrases or words are exactly out of some other song. So as Isaiah puts this together, this is a prophet song, if you will. Imagine here's a guy who is a prophet and he's also being a songwriter and as he does so he draws upon phrases multiple times over that they would all be familiar with because they would be phrases that come out of songs that they have sung in some cases for centuries. They would recognize it and so it would be a song looking back to the past and yet what is it? Telling about the future. Very interesting. So here's a prophet. drawing on songs of centuries past, telling about a future yet centuries yet to come. Here's the book, The Song of Isaiah 11, immediately after the declaration of the reign of Christ. Remember, as we studied last week, it was about the declaration of Christ's second coming. Now he sings a song about it. chapter 7 through 12. And here's where we start to take a bigger look. Chapter 7 through 12.

Remember chapter 6, Isaiah went to the heavenly scene. He saw the Lord and the seraphim said, holy, holy, holy. When he comes down out of heaven, chapter 7 through 12, he keeps talking about Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ. And interestingly, the order in which he does so, the first portion of that, chapter 7, chapter 8, and the first part of 9.6 talk about Christ's first coming. From the last half of 9.6 on into chapters 11 and 12 talk about his second coming.

So the order is perfect. Isn't it interesting that Isaiah comes out of the heavenly scene and all he can do is talk about Jesus Christ. His first coming and his second coming Not the church, because that hadn't been revealed yet. But everything about Christ's first and second coming laid out in advance, centuries in advance.

We can also say this is the God is my package. As we look at it here, God is my three S's. Salvation, strength, and song. Now here's something to think about. Did the Jews look at salvation in the same way we do? No. In truth, they looked at salvation a little bit differently. But can we say the same thing? God is my salvation? Yes. The truth is still there, even though we look at salvation differently. The Jews will see salvation differently than we do. No Jew was told in Isaiah's time, you are in Christ, in the Messiah, as we are. No Jew was told you have a heavenly citizenship. Nonetheless, We can say God is my salvation too.

How about my strength? We saw in, as we studied through Ephesians and Colossians, God is, and this is Ephesians 3, 20 and 21, God is my energeo, our word where we get energy. God is my strength and my song. He is the one about whom we sing. He is the one that we have sung about already this morning and we'll sing about some more.

Now, beyond that, how about the I wills? I will give thanks to you, O Lord. I will trust and not be afraid. These are things that Jews will say as well. Can we do that? We might be thankful for different things, but can we do that? Certainly we can. Being thankful to the Lord makes sense. Are we in the church called to trust the Lord for different things than the Jews did?

Yeah. Yeah. But doesn't it apply to us as well? Certainly. So it means different things, and yet the truth is still there. We are called to trust in the Lord, even though it means different things than what it will mean to the Jews in the millennium who say that. And not be afraid. Are we not called to trust in the Lord? Paul wrote to the church at Philippi, and what did he say? Be anxious for just a little bit. Be anxious for the things that I hear on my list. I'll send you an email for the things that you can be anxious about, right? No. Be anxious for nothing. Not us. Zilch. Not be afraid. I will trust and not be afraid.

How about the you wills? You will say on that day, I will give thanks to you. You will joyously draw water from the springs of salvation. You will say, give thanks to the Lord, call on his name. Now, we'll split this up, this nice six verses. We'll do two verses at a time, so no problem at all. So let's take a look at the first couple of verses, okay? All right. Habanagila? No, let's pass on that. All right. I will give thanks to you.

This phrase is almost entirely in the book of Psalms in the Old Testament. If you look up, I will give thanks to you, Lord, what you find is a few places, and this is one of them, where it shows up, but mostly in the book of Psalms. And so this, as the Jews would see that, would say, oh, I recognize that. This is a song. This is a song that I'm reading here. I recognize that from our national songbook. I've seen it numerous times.

Israel is going to be thankful to the Lord. Were they always thankful to the Lord? No, not really. But they will be. They will be thankful to the Lord. Can we be thankful to the Lord? Yeah. One of the things we pointed out as you go through the book of Colossians, repeated reference to being thankful, thankful, thankful, thankful. Philippians as well. You were angry with me and your anger has turned away. You comforted me.

During the last half of the tribulation period, things are going to get so difficult for the Jews that they will, from an earthly and human standpoint, despair of their survival. They will come to a place of recognizing at the end that the only place, the only way that they made it through this was by God's intervention. It is only because God saved them, pure and simple. Well, they'll see in the Romans class and some, I think it'll be several years from now, but Romans 11, 26, all Israel will be saved. Yeah, all Israel will be saved at the end there.

Now here is, oh, guess what this is? This is one of those, well, we'll just stay real calm about it, right? But this is one of those Hebrew poetry patterns. Okay. So you see that God's my salvation, then this sort of middle thing, and then he has become my salvation, sort of a restatement. So there's another one of those Hebrew poetry patterns.

But we'll try to keep calm and quiet about it, okay? Not make a big thing. No big deal. All right. Okay, now here's another part, and this we wanted to bring out here. This line, and again, the Jews who are reading this are thinking, oh, this is a song. Believe me, this is a song. I can tell, okay? They would have no question. The Lord is my strength and song, and he has become my salvation.

That's exact same words out of Exodus 15.2 and Psalm 118.14. Exactly the same words. look at this Exodus 15 to passage that's the song that they sang immediately after they had crossed the sea when the Lord had part of the waters for them and they got across the next the the next line right as they're beginning the song points to this and they're looking to the Lord's salvation so what does Isaiah do he draws upon those words as he puts this song together the song of the of the prophet looking back as well as looking forward to the time when Messiah would reign. All right, now, third and fourth verses. Therefore you will joyously draw water from the springs of salvation. Now, we need to ask the question here, what does Isaiah have in mind with the words, joyously draw water from the springs?

This isn't with a pen or pencil, by the way. This is pulling water out. And let me give you an example of what this is like. In those days, I can talk about Nancy again, can't I? One of the things that Nancy will do is she walks around our place. She probably says this once a week, thank God for indoor plumbing. And one of the reasons is because of this very thing.

Here is the pool of Gibeon. Gibeon, as you see, is a city roughly a half dozen miles north of Jerusalem there. and slightly towards the coast. Here is this well, and this well was actually covered up until, you know, recent years when they took 3,000 tons of debris out of it, rock and things of that sort. So it took quite a bit to clean it up, but they got down to this thing. And let's take a look at it. Here is the side view of what this well is like. Now, imagine you live here next to this well or this pool, and you need water.

How far are you going to have to go down to the water? Oh, by the way, with a jug on your head, which isn't made of any space-age plastic, so it's heavy. It's made of, guess what? Clay. 82 feet. 79 steps down to the bottom of this thing. So you're talking about each step, on average a little bit more than a foot. So our steps, just to give you some comparison, typically about seven inches. So you're taking double of our steps about each time. Now, you go down the well, down is nice, right? Down the well with a pot on your head that's made of clay. Like this, see? You carry it like that. It's commonly done. Here'd be another example. This guy's really incredible. I mean, just amazing. Some little kid. I can't imagine that. So here it is.

Let's say you have a clay pot. Let's just pick a number. Let's say it weighs six pounds. Say you've got 30 pounds of water in it. Here's 36 pounds you've got in your head, and now you've got 79 steps, 82 feet to climb out, and then you have to go home. Oh, by the way, the pot's made out of clay. Don't drop that thing. Now, let me tell you, by the time you make one trip to get water, What's that like?

Oh boy, tiring, right? Now, here's another example. Here's Jesus with the Samaritan woman at the well. And she says to him, Sir, you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. By the way, that's 115 feet deep. And this one, you don't walk down into it. You lower something down into it and then pull it up by hand, right? So every time you pull that up, You're doing over 100 feet of pull with whatever you've got. So if you want to be real efficient, you have a really big pot to pick it up with, right? Probably not. Yeah, a little too heavy. Now you're picking it up not with your leg power, but with your arms.

Notice Jesus had presented to her living water. So the water he was talking about wasn't the water that was 115 feet down. It was the water sitting right next to her. There's the water right there. Water from the springs of salvation. He's ultimately not talking about something physical, is he? But the illustration is a marvelous illustration. It's the nature of God's salvation.

The springs represent water that doesn't come from a well that we dig. It doesn't come from water that we've pulled up from a great depth or walked down and brought back up out of our own strength. The water is right there. There's no work getting it. It is a marvelous picture of salvation that's entirely God's doing and not our own effort. It's a marvelous illustration of the Lord providing everything for our salvation and not one that we have to pull off.

We might worry about, am I going to fall going down those stairs? Is the rope going to break? Am I going to have enough arm strength to pull the water up? And he says, nope, it's God's doing. God did it all. It'll be like springs. The water will be right there, right at the surface. No effort on your part to draw it out.

And notice this. Here's John 4, 13 through 14, just a little farther down from that same passage in John 4. Everyone who drinks of this water, This is the water of the well of Jacob. That's the well right there, by the way. Whoever drinks of the water I will give him will never thirst, but the water that I give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life. Springing up. It'll be the Lord's own provision of salvation. His life.

This water. The other aspect of the water illustration that is helpful is that this is in a desert region. Remember the picture there? This is a desert region. Having water means life. Water means life itself. You've got to have this. By the way, this is the only well for some distance in any direction. This is definitely the source of life. The second aspect of this water illustration, then, is that it pictures God as the very source of life.

The Gentiles, Ephesians 4 says that the Gentiles were separated the life of God. Here is the very source of life, right with them, in their midst, among them. Jesus could claim, I am the way, the truth, and the life. And what this song of Isaiah talks about is that life will be right in the midst of them, will be reigning from the middle of them.

Then we see this, give thanks to the Lord, call on his name, make known his deeds among the peoples, make them remember that his name is exalted. Isaiah tells about the people of Israel, the Jews, saying these four things. The first one is about giving thanks to the Lord. And the next one is about making requests of him. You make requests, why? We are in utter dependence upon him. We make the requests of him because he is the one upon whom we are entirely dependent.

They will come to recognize that in the way that the Lord has saved them, just as we recognize it now. The third is about declaring the things that He has done in the past. Make known His deeds. For the Jews, they had deeds that they looked at and they say, boy, it is very clear that God has done things. For us, those deeds are different that we recognize, and yet it's still the same. We make known his deeds. Among the peoples, this is the ethnos, the Gentiles, the nations. The fourth is to bring a focus upon the exaltation of the Lord because he's awesome and mighty. Now it says, give thanks to the Lord, call on his name, make known his deeds among the peoples.

This is right out of other songs in 1 Chronicles 6.18 and Psalm 105.1. Give thanks to the Lord, call upon his name.

These are the exact same words here, just only the English translation is slightly different between on and upon there, so you have it noted. Then remember, now this is an important one to get straight, this remember thing here. This doesn't mean that, you know, when they say in the Hebrew, you know, remember, they don't always mean, you know, somebody forgot. And so they would mean by it, call it to central focus in your thinking, in your mind. It's what's central in your mind.

Have you ever thought about something and it's just, boy, that's right in front of your thinking. That's got your attention. I remember, I had a job at an engineering office when I'd just gotten out of school and Randy was born and it's amazing. I would sit down and look at the papers and books that were in front of me and all I could see was Randy's face. It was just phenomenal. That was front and center. It was central to my thinking. That was what I was thinking about no matter what I saw.

Here's an illustration of it. Here's Noah. He's out. in the ark, in the middle of this flood, this phenomenal flood, and it says, God remembered Noah. It wasn't that the Lord says, oh my gosh, what have I done? Oh man, I forgot about Noah. What it meant that Noah was central in God's thinking. God had Noah's life and what God was doing through Noah central in his thought. That's what it means when he says remembered. His name is exalted.

We've seen this before in our study of Isaiah. This idea of a name isn't just an audible handle. It isn't just what we call somebody. It isn't just sort of an assortment of sounds that we attach to a person. It has instead to do with character. God's character is exalted. He is by fundamental character exalted. We can acknowledge that or not acknowledge it, but He is exalted just the same. It is our place to glorify Him. Israel will have that place of exalting Him as not a creation of Him being exalted, but a recognition of the exaltation that He already has. They're not going to raise Him up to some place He doesn't have. They're going to see it as reality because He will be exalted and is exalted now.

Okay, now, the last couple of verses. Praise the Lord in song. This is an exclamation that matches verse 2. The Lord is my strength in song. So, praise the Lord in song. He is my strength in song. Now, a call to all of you to join me. See, that's what he's saying there. I am singing. We are singing. Now, a call to all to join in in that song. These two verses make the Isaiah's song about more songs. You've heard songs about songs? Songs where they sing a song and they're singing about songs that are other songs? Anyway, that's what this is about.

The singing will be the ultimate fulfillment of God's eternal purpose. One of the things we communicated back in Ephesians chapter 3. God's eternal purpose, if you've got four fingers, this one's a little bent on mine, but you'll have to handle that. If you've got four fingers to reveal his glory, to declare his glory, to share his glory, and to glorify Him.

So what does this do? This fulfills God's eternal purpose for the Jews. Why did God make three different groups of people? Why didn't He just lump them all into one? Because He wishes to have His eternal purpose fulfilled differently and expressed differently in each one. That's why we make the distinctions when we teach here. That's why we bother to point out, look, there's Gentiles, there's Jews, and there's the Church. We're seated in the heavenlies right now. Are the Jews seated in the heavenlies right now? No. Unless they're Jews that happen to be saved and in the church. But we are seated in the heavenlies.

It is unique to the church. It is the way in which God will fulfill his eternal purpose in and through the church. He will do it differently through the Jews, and this describes that. We saw reference to the nations. and they will fulfill God's eternal purpose differently as well. He has done excellent things. You think about it, whether we're talking about the saints of Israel, the Gentiles, the church, the spiritual bottom line is about what He's done. Isn't that really what it comes to? When we study through the Bible, what are we looking for? We're looking for what God's done. That's what we're wanting to understand.

What has He accomplished? When Paul wrote to the church at Ephesus, he started off quickly with, and notice what he described. He didn't say, hello Ephesians, I need to tell you, here's a bunch of stuff you gotta get doing. Do this, do this, do this, do this. No. What does he describe?

God blessed us, he chose us, he predestined us, he freely bestowed on us, and his pen exploded. He went on to write for three chapters and a little bit more what God has done, what God has done, what God has done, what God has done. His pen, if you will, had ADHD. It was kind of hyperactive. He went on describing what God has done.

Now, Ephesians 2, 4 through 7, this is a passage that we seem to keep being drawn to notice. It's a multiple description of what God has done in us who are in the church. made us alive together with Christ. You have been saved. That's passive voice, by the way. He did the saving of us, okay? Raised us up with Him, seated us with Him.

It's His accomplishment that He might show the surpassing riches of His grace and kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. He might show. He might show. Let this be known throughout the earth. This makes sense. He's already mentioned in the verse or two before about tell it among the peoples. Let it be known throughout the earth. Tell everybody! Tell everybody. These are the nations, the Gentiles. That's where they are. They're throughout the earth, so tell them.

It's the fulfillment of God's eternal purpose to declare and to share his glory, to reveal it and to be glorified. Remember the reading between the mountains picture here? Christ's first coming, Christ's second coming. The church wasn't seen between these two mountains. God has a purpose in all the revelations, including the hidden revelation, the one that Isaiah did not see, that he would be glorified, that he would be glorified in us, that we would be a part of declaring and revealing and sharing his glory and glorifying him.

Notice in Acts 1, 6-8, which we quoted the first part of, And look at the last part here, it is on page one of your handout, so a little flipping around there if you don't mind. But notice that Jesus says, you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be my witnesses both in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.

Cry aloud and shout for joy, O inhabitant of Zion. Now this is something I thought, what's this going to be like? We're talking about, this isn't just something short term here, this is a thousand years of cry aloud and shout for joy. So try to think, what are some human equivalents? It's sort of like yippee for a thousand years. Wahoo! Yes! Hooray! I love the way Nancy says hooray, by the way.

Anyway, you don't have to tell her that. It's even sort of comparable, but you have to recognize it doesn't quite match up to it, to some excitement that we have here on earth for a time that's limited, but certainly doesn't have the same duration. Here's for example, some of you may remember Super Bowl 32.

Broncos took it over on the Packers. That was good. That was good. The people in Denver were really excited. It may have lasted for a few days. Really excited about that. It was great. Even Elway was excited. Even Elway was excited. If you can imagine that. Super Bowl 33. Look at what happened. It was even better. I mean, it was really, really good.

And even then Elway was excited. Now, look at what Elway is excited about. But the one thing he can't, he says that John Elway, it's guaranteed. The one thing he can't guarantee is Super Bowl 1030. Okay? But the Lord can. On beyond Super Bowl, and it isn't just Denver beat somebody else.

The entire earth, centered upon the Jews, will have an excitement that is not superficial, but deep-seated for a thousand years. People will get up each morning and they'll say, wow, today is a day when God himself is living in our midst. Today is a day when I can go talk to the Messiah. Today is a day when I can see my Savior. Now, it's totally guaranteed in writing.

That's something that, nice as it might be, Elway can't do. It's an excitement that has not just a short-term high and a low to it, but goes on and on and on for that whole time. Now, ten continuous centuries of deep-seated excitement, fully justified, nothing fake, nothing hyped for ten centuries, all about who he is and what he's done for the Gentiles, for the Jews, and for us who will be there with the Lord in resurrection bodies. For great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel. This is the Holy One of Israel. It's a phrase that is almost uniquely Isaiah's phrase. A few other places it shows up in the Old Testament.

He's clearly referring to God. This is the one that he's been writing about since chapter 7. This is the one who was born of the Virgin, who's named Emmanuel three times. The child born to us, the son given to us, the wonderful counselor, the mighty God, father of the ages, prince of peace. It is God himself and no less. That's, by the way, counter to my rabbi friend who told me, oh, it'll be just a human son of David. I don't think so. It doesn't sound like it to me. Mighty God, fully God and fully man.

This was a song. We've been looking at a song that the Jews will sing, but we're going to sing a song as well. Did you know that? We're going to sing a song. There's some differences. Notice some differences. Here's Revelation 5, 9 of the 24 elders. They sang a new song, and the song is different in this respect. It's seven years earlier. It starts. It's in the heavenlies. Why not? That's where our citizenship is.

We will have a seven-year jump. on what we just read about in Isaiah chapter 12. We will be with the Lord. What's interesting is, if you see the 24 elders, they're continually laying down before the Lord, laying their crowns down before the Lord, these victor's crowns, and worshiping the Lord. A new song, a song that worships the Lord for who He is and what He's done. All the things we saw of Israel, but a different place, seven years earlier, and then we'll join them as well. That'll be a wonderful thing.

The Lord asks us to put our hope in Him as we look forward to this time. Let's pray. Lord, as we see this passage, we see very clearly that You have called us, Lord, to look to the hope that You have given us. We look to the time when we will see You face to face. We look to the time when we will glorify You in everything that we say and do, when your glory will grab our every attention. We won't be glancing down at our watches or looking for the next coffee break or wondering what we've got to do next. But you will overwhelm every other thought. And we look forward to that. We put our hope and trust in you. In you, Lord, do we trust. In you, indeed, are our song. We pray in Jesus' name.