ISAIAH’S END-TIME TIMELINE

Isaiah’s End-time Timeline Chapter 40

Relating Isaiah Chapter 40 with the Irrevocable Curse of the Fall; Death

Genesis 2:17, 1 Peter 1:24-25, Romans 7:24, Hebrews 9:27

The Law was given, its purposes are multiple: To supernaturally articulate sin according to God’s standard and make men fear Him. To hold men accountable as sinners. To reveal the exceedingly sinfulness of sin. To represent that only by the blood of a living being can sin be atoned for. To establish that it is neither by the works of the Law alone, nor by the blood alone that atonement can be attained.

And in the course of time, the chosen people, through the weakness of the flesh, have shown man’s incapability of attaining salvation atonement in the observance of the Law. [Read Hebrews 8:8 with Galatians 3:10-14] Attesting to the imperative purpose of the Law, that “…the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.” That is to point towards the Savior’s Coming and Blood Atonement Sacrifice of Himself. To which not only did the Law of Moses speak and point, but the Psalms and Prophets also. What the Old Covenant represented/ and now represents was/is the shadow of the reality; the letter of the law in advance of the spirit of the law.

What the propensity was/is, is to confound/ mix up the sign with the thing which is being signified or typed; to lose sight of the vital need in the pursuit of holiness, (represented in the shadow) and confuse the means in its intended most important aspect. Which is the case with most ancient and present Jews, and some ancient and present Messianics. To this, Paul testifies: “For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.” That being a willing ignorance of the ancient and present requirement of righteousness by *“faith in Him” for salvation, either in the Old or New Covenant.

(*The dynamic of God testing and trying our trust in Him, in bringing us to the end of ourselves, the place where self-trust resides. Bit by bit, confronted by His Word, He destroys our faith in ourselves by eroding all our false sense of security. Wherein we may finally discover the true meaning of a divine influenced [grace] living militant faith, in loving dependence upon Him. This pleases God and is the dynamic Paul expounds on in 2 Corinthians 12:7-10 and Romans Chapters 5-8.

As we take up these later prophecies in chapters 40-66, (the next 26) let us glance over the main subjects of those prophecies. That we may direct our minds properly, and not wander away from the Spirit’s intents. Namely, that He is instructing and directing the prophet’s words that will record history, predict the future, inspire God-fearing men in the past, present and future and reveal connectivity to us who have begun to enter into the law’s spiritual realities.

In summary of the 26 chapters before us….

  1. Isaiah records the carnality of the Jewish Church/ Nation in that some had strayed away from their original called purposes and are standing aloof from the Gentiles.
  2. Some were confounding the truth with error in believing that the sacrifices of blood had in themselves the power to atone.
  3. Some were in direct idolatry worshiping idols.
  4. And others had gravitated to a dead formalism, hypocritical self-serving ritual; practices detestable and unacceptable to God. Some, having chronically behaved, have fallen under the judgments of God. In spite of these severe judgments, there is the Remnant according to Grace, as a result of promise to the forefathers. That remnant will maintain the favor and protection of God continually throughout time, although often weak in faith and apprehensive about their future.
  5. Isaiah also predicts the Babylonian exile, and Restoration from it, that will precede the Coming of the Messiah. The intermediate events being sure signs and examples of His just Wrath and promised Mercy.
  6. Isaiah writes about the actual Coming of the Messiah, His character, and the deliverance of His people into “glorious liberty.”
  7. And finally, he writes about the contrasting conditions and character of that following Dispensation; the Millennial reign of the Christ. These are the subjects of Isaiah 40-66 directed by the Spirit. And this is the general chronological flow of the subjects, although they are interwoven throughout.

The 40th chapter is in connection to the 39th chapter; in both the threatening of the Historical Babylonian exile which shall come to pass and then the promised comforts to follow in that Restoration in the age of Mosaic law. But it more significantly has in view the latter days of the Age of Grace and Mercy, further in the future, wherein a worse devastation is predicted. And that after a revitalizing and establishing of Israel in the arm of the flesh, which will finally bring about the far greater glorious Restoration by God’s strong Arm, at the end of this Age/Dispensation. So the 40th chapter assures the true Israel that although these devastating pronouncements of judgments will certainly occur, they will not utterly destroy nor impede Him from saving His own elect.

Isaiah 40:1-11 (Read)

Isaiah Chapter 40 Verse 1 “COMFORT ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God….Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her that her warfare is accomplished, for she hath received of the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.” This then now, having been but partially fulfilled by ancient Babylon, again becomes the message to the Church of Israel just before His 2nd Coming. The prophecy of her appointed time of trouble and her iniquity being pardoned, (the prophetic word being not yet fully accomplished) still lays yet in her future. It is yet the message of comforting encouragement to the Church in its final days of the coming Great Tribulation. As the Beast on which Mystery Babylon rides, the great persecutor of Israel is yet to manifest again, and conquer once more even more fiercely in the future. [Revelation 17:8, 13:1-7] Which is just before the great and dreadful day of the Lord. [Revelation 16:13-16 with Revelation 19:11-21]

According to Isaiah in Chapter 40 verse 3, (with Malachi 4:5) a voice must come before this great and dreadful day of the Lord. And as John the Baptist came in the “spirit” of Elijah, and that out of time so to speak, Scripture still declares the appearance of Elijah, as Elijah and Enoch themselves are those 2 Witnesses who will come and minister for 3 ½ years. These two will be preparing the way for the dreadful day of the Lord. [Revelation 11:3-6] They then come in the fullness of the prophecy, being, “The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness…(which speaks to that place where the Remnant has fled as seen in Revelation 12:14) Prepare ye the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.”

The irrevocable Curse of the Fall;* death will be finally played out in these two faithful Witnesses in the End Time, who then meet every man’s appointed fate. “And when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them.” [Revelation 11:1-7] “And (then) the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, (at His Second Coming, His way having been made ready in the testimony and blood of these martyrs) and all flesh shall see it together; for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.”

The (first) voice said, Cry. And (the second voice) he said, What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field: The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: because the spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it: surely the people is grass. (The first voice responding; yes) The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever.” [Isaiah 40:6-8]

*IN WAY OF EXPLANATION, IT IS APPOINTED UNTO MEN ONCE TO DIE, BUT AFTER THIS THE JUDGMENT. [Genesis 3:19, Hebrews 9:27]

The Words of Isaiah; “COMFORT ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God.” are applicable to the Babylonian exile, in the temporary relief of that restoration. They are also applicable after the FIRST COMING rejection judgments of devastation and exile, as well as the predicted devastation preceding the SECOND Coming of Christ, as they are so intertwined with each other in Scripture. We as Christians are instructed to see these first verses in this light: …you ministers of the Gospel Word ….comfort the people, you comfort the people….speak comfortably to the new man in Christ….your appointed time of suffering (in the testimony of obedience to Jesus Christ, 2 Timothy 3:12 Romans 8:17) is accomplished… your iniquity (inherent in the flesh) is pardoned… take comfort, although you will, as grass, wither away, the glorious Work and Word of Jesus Christ developed by faith within you will never fade away, but will stand forever…[2 Peter 1:3-12 with Romans chapter 5]

This thought is in line with Peter’s use of those same words of Isaiah in 1 Peter 1: 24,25. (Read) And with Paul’s declarations of Romans 7 & 8, wherein he states very clearly that principle we are hearing in Isaiah 40, that the Word of God is spiritual and eternal where we as men, and our words, our souls and bodies are flesh and pass away like grass. And in the spirit of the second voice of Isaiah 40:6,7, we hear Paul’s equally dispirited-filled words in Romans 7. “For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me…. For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin….For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and binging me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O Wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?…”

Although the regenerated man in Jesus Christ is “free” from the Mosaic law of sin and its condemnation of death, (as it relates to eternal life, and by its demands excluding us from running of the race to be an overcomer and receive the prize) yet in this new freedom, he withers like the grass and blows away. Why? Because the law of sin and death never leaves the flesh, as it requires death to be delivered from the body of death. And man’s death, which includes the body, answers to the Curse of God from the Garden. That he can live in that dead condition perpetually is seen in being banned from the Garden lest he partake of the tree of life and live forever. So the death sentence came on every man that comes from the seed of Adam. But Life comes to all men in Jesus Christ. The depth or quality of that life, of the Atonement Work of Christ in the regenerated, is realized in the resurrection power of the new life. That is to say, in the successful application of the law of the spirit/Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. And so from one perspective, man is sadly (especially in the unregenerate) like grass and withereth away. But from another, His most comforting Word of promise, that is the eternal work of the resurrected newness of life, effected by successful testing and trying our faith by God and overcoming satan, the flesh, and the world in enduring hope-filled patience. And that only by the Blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony, in God’s purifying Words work in our soul. That is to say, the essence of me, through and in Jesus Christ, the glory of which shall stand for ever.

Let it be understood if there was a chance for a man to live in the carnal flesh until such time he, by the spirit/Spirit, could fully eradicate that carnal part of him, even if it took a billion years, he would then need to be allowed to live. But in God’s warning of “in the day that you eat you shall surely die” was the eternal irrevocable sentence of death. Never will a man in the carnal flesh, neither unregenerate or regenerate, ever be able to fully expunge or totally purge his blood/flesh from taint of death. Although he may have a renewed will and conscience and the power of the Holy Spirit within. For the curse of the Fall stands until that man suffers both the death and reanimating of his spirit (at re-birth), and the death and the reanimating of his body (at the time of his resurrection). Thus the redundancy, and vain quest of man, of living hundreds and hundreds or thousands and thousands of years. In that God suffers not a man to live longer than 70-80 yrs or so in this Age, it must therefore be ample time to work out our soul’s salvation in fear and trembling at His Word. That is to say, engage and maintain a war on the flesh until you pass from here in death, under the irrevocable Curse of the Fall. (This understanding is not adverse to the glorification of the First-Fruits offering, who have experienced no less the death than those who had died normally. In that corruption must put on incorruptibility and Death is swallowed up in victory…. in either case.)

Dying on the earth removes us from the sensual corrupt body BUT also from the place of testing, tempting and trial of our faith. (1Peter 1) The opportunity then is over for some, the race is finished for others. WE ARE STILL IN THE STATE OF DEATH AFTER WE DIE The place commensurate with our state, to which we go is referred to as the PLACE OF THE DEAD. Where all men who ever lived and died are, and where we stay in comforting hope until the End Time Words of the First Resurrection pierce the belly of the earth. Wherein those with that faithful work for Christ wrought in their souls will now be made manifest. In that they rise out from among the dead in glorified bodies to join the Lord into the first heaven above. [See Isaiah 26:19 see Daniel 12:1-3 Luke 20:35,36 and Revelation 20:5,6] Wherein in that time only these words of ISAIAH 40:9,10 will see fulfillment:

“Behold, the Lord God will come (in His First Coming He went away and committed His talents unto His servants, Matthew 25:14…. in His 2nd Coming, ….with strong hand and his arm shall rule for him….the Messiah now comes, the Deliverer of Israel, to destroy their enemies and rule over the Earth): behold, his reward (recompense for faithful service Matthew 25:19) is with him and his work before him.” This is seen in the full light of Revelation 22:12. “And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be….Blessed are they who wash their robes, that they may have right to the tree of life….” (Tregelles) Literally, “that their power may be over the tree of life.”

It is then in His Millennial Kingdom that Isaiah 40:11 is filled with its full meaning. “He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young.”

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