Plural Comfort

0:02 Looking at our world from a theological perspective. This is the Theology Central podcast making Theology Central. Someone, please make it stop. Please, I'm begging you. I'm really I'm begging you. I'm just I'm pleading with you. Make it stop. Now, I know. Really the person I should be talking to is myself. I should be looking in a mirror right now, going please make it stop. Please just stop. Just give up, just retire, just delete your podcast, sell the microphone, flip over the table, and just give up. Just go home. That's what I should do.

0:42 But here I am and I can't stop. I just can't stop. What am I talking about? Well, I guess I will tell you here in just a minute, But right now, I guess I probably should tell you this. It is Tuesday, November the nineteenth, twenty twenty four. It is currently two fifty four pm Central time, and I am coming to you live from the Theology Central studio located right here in Abilene, Texas. Now, what am I saying needs to stop? Well, one needs to stop, I think is all churches need to receive. I think this is what needs to occur. Someone needs to send a memo to all churches across the United States of America and around the world and say you're no longer allowed to preach from the Book of Isaiah. You have been banned, you have been prohibited to do so due to all of the misinformation, wrong information, the spiritual malpractice that has occurred because of your preaching of Isaiah. It has now been banned. You can no longer preach from it. That's what I need to happen, and what I need to stop is pastors touching the Book of Isaiah. Do you think I can make at work? Do you think I can't? Obviously, yeah, that's ridiculous. I know that's that's that's even insane to say.

2:07 But please make it stop. Please now, As many of you know, I have been going through a dark, dark, dark valley that I've been I've been going. I have fallen off the cliff into it an abyss in which I cannot get myself out from. I cannot crawl myself out. It's over, it's helpless, it's hopeless. And it all has to deal with preaching on Isaiah forty forty one, forty two, forty three, Isaiah forty to fifty five, which is so ironic that I feel I feel so discouraged, so defeated, and so depressed. Because Isaiah forty through fifty five is supposed to be the Book of comfort, the Book of consolation show, So all this preaching on Isaiah forty through fifty five should bring me great comfort. It should bring me great consolation. It should make the dark clouds part and the sun shine through. It should turn night into day, my sorrow into joy, my tears and the laughter. It should, but it's having the absolute opposite effect. It's taken the sun and blotted it out. It's taken joy and turned it into sorrow. It's taken contentment and turned it into discontentment.

3:27 You just every positive thing has gone the other way. And I know this sounds exaggerated and hyperbolic and over dramatic, but really it's had a I've just kind of just wanted to throw my hands up and say, I don't get it anymore. And I think in some ways it's causing me even I think it's caused such a negative impact that it's making it difficult to broadcast about anything. I'm second guessing everything. It's just gone so horribly wrong. And we know what's happened, right, Isaiah these passages in Isaiah forty to fifty five, just simply put. Pastors go to it and they insert us into the passage within thirty seconds, forty seconds, fifty seconds. I don't think anyone makes more than a minute. But or even in the title, they make it about us, and I know people like, wow, it's not that big a deal. It is a big deal because when you offer comfort, when you offer peace to people, you offer promises to people. And that comfort and that peace and those promises aren't for people that you're giving it to. You're ultimately hurting them. You're ultimately going to lead them disillusioned, disgruntled, disappointed, frustrated, deconstructing. They're going to just it's going to hurt them in the long run, short term gain, Oh I've got this comfort, I've got this piece, I've got these promises, Thank you, pastor.

5:00 But then sooner or later and all falls apart. If you just listened to the last broadcast that I did. Once again, we're talking about how the church says, oh, because you're a Christian, you have this, this, this, this, this, and this, but the reality contradicts everything those pastors say, and sooner or later people are confronted with reality. So we've been talking about Isaiah forty through fifty five. I spent two hours Sunday talking about Jeremiah and the religious leaders of the time saying peace where there was no peace. How that connects to Isaiah forty. We got into Isaiah forty verse one. We looked at the word comfort comfort. It's repeated twice, right. We talked about the meaning of the of the Hebrew word. We talked about how it's choosed in other parts of the Bible, we talked about how it's used in Isaiah. I was not I mean, I don't at this point, I don't know what I can do anymore and be happy with. But I wasn't really happy with it. Put it this way, once again, they weren't very good. They weren't very good messages. I don't know why I can't get to good right now.

6:04 I can't even get to I can't even get to okay right now. But I'm doing my very best trying to address these issues that I think are so important. But I'm starting to get this overwhelming sense that I'm the only one who thinks it's important. I think most people are like, yeah, okay, get it, we get it. Other people take the passage and make it about us. Get it, you're upset about it? Move on? Nobody cares. Okay, I get it. I get that nobody else cares. I just don't understand why nobody else cares. When you go to a passage that says comfort ye, comfort ye, my people, you insert us in there so that we can steal the comfort. First, it's not fair to the original recipients because you move them out. And if you move us in and the comfort is not really for us or about us, doesn't that bother everyone? So I spend all of that time on Sunday again, I still feel like, Yeah, I think I can't really explain it. It's like it's like you. In my mind, I see exactly what I want to accomplish. I see exactly how I want to present it, but it seems like every time I try, I can't quite get there. It's like having that dream where you're you're walking down a hallway towards a doorway, but every time you get close to the doorway the doorway the door gets further away, and you keep walking and and then you start running, but you just can't never get to the door. It feels like I'm chasing this how to talk about this, how to move forward,

7:34 but I just can't get there. And it feels like every time I were moving forward, then we we we kind of fall back. So we we got to talk about all of this false comfort. We gotta, we gotta, we gotta deal with all of it, because well, I'm good. I'm just gonna keep doubling down talking about it until I feel like I have reached the door that I may never be able to reach. But here we are once again, and we're gonna be talking about Isaiah forty. Now. I have listened to I don't even know how many sermons at this point on Isaiah chapter forty, Isaiah chapter forty one, forty two, forty three, and it's just become maddening because I don't think I can find any sermon it even attempts to try to do. I mean, they give the illusion that they're putting it in historical context, they pay lip service to the historical context, and then almost instantaneously, boom, it's about us again. So I try it on Sunday to try to show how it can relate to us. I think I don't know if that was of any value. But we have another sermon on Isaiah forty. This one's called Comfort, Comfort My People. And in this sermon about the fourteen fifteen minute mark, between thirteen and sixteen minutes, the person off is kind of an interpretation here that I had never heard. I don't

9:06 even understand where it's coming from. But I think if I'm going to if we're gonna do this work on Isaiah forty through fifty five, then I have to try to present to you every possible interpretation I stumble upon, or you stumble upon an email to me whoever may find it, so that at least everyone can go, well, here's an interpretation, here's an interpretation. Now what this should show you, what this should demonstrate. This is what I want you to take away, is I don't care. Look you name the passage of scripture. If you start digging, you're gonna find not just one interpretation, not just two interpretations, not just three, not just four, not just five, not just six, not just seven, not just You're it's almost as the amount of possible interpretation seems to be there's no end to them, and that that can drive you crazy, right because everyone preaches as if this is the right interpretation.

10:03 But that's according to you. I can find thirty other people who interpret it a completely different way, and they're just as dogmatic and assertive as you are. And that's maddening, because don't we just want to find truth? Don't we just want to know what the scriptures actually say? But if no one can agree on what it says, that's maddening. But I feel like I'm not doing my job if I just well, here's a new interpretation. Well okay, thanks, let's just move on. Now I have to say, well, we got to at least share this right and again, you with the listener, you're gonna make the ultimate determination. You're gonna have your own interpretation. You may agree with the interpretation I'm about to play, you may agree with my interpretation. Who knows, but at least you have to be informed. So are you ready? I wish I could say I'm excited for this, but I'm not. Now the the actual part. What I was going to do is just fast forward it to like thirteen minutes and just play thirteen fourteen fifteen between thirteen minutes to sixteen minutes and just kind of talk about it. But then as soon as I do that, I knew I would get an email. You took it out of context. You took it out of context. You took it out of context.

11:13 You're a heretic. You're going to burn in hell, You're an idiot. Okay, So instead of getting all of that nonsense, I get enough negative emails per day. I thought I would at least play the context. But that means I'm not going to try to do a lot of interrupting the context. Unless I stumble upon something here that who knows. We'll just going to see what happens. The goal, though, is to get to the thirteen minute mark and between thirteen minutes and sixteen minutes. That's what we really want to focus on. Everything else is just to ensure that you've heard the context and then you can determine what you think about their interpretation. All right, I've got I did have AI analyzed the sermon, So I do have AIS come complete analysis of the sermon. But I don't think I'm going to break it down because AI breaks it down into they break it down into a lot of parts. They see me let me go through all everything AI did. AI first gives me a summary that includes one, two, three, three points. Then it gives me an analysis which breaks it down into one to two points.

12:24 Then it gives me a critique. It breaks it down into one, two, three, four five parts. Then it gives suggestions for improvements, it breaks it down into one, two, three four parts, then it gives a conclusion. So if I just go through AI's analysis of the sermon, that'll be an hour long right there, right, So I'm not going to go through AI's analysis of the entire sermon because the entirety of the sermon is not as important as what he does around the fourteen thirteen fourteen fifteen sixteen minute mark, where he offers a kind of an interpretation of Isaiah forty verse one that leaves me baffled and confused because I've never heard of it before, and I can't find any commentaries that support it, And to be to be fair, even AI doesn't even know where it's coming from. Nobody seems to know where's coming from.

13:14 But according to the sermon, there's commentaries that support it. So if you know of the commentaries that support this idea, please send me the name of the commentary the page number. Send me a screenshot something so I can at least come back on and say everyone, here's the two commentaries that support it, or the three or the four, or the five or the ten. But as of right now, I'm not aware of where this comes from. But I have not to be fair, I haven't spent you know, I've spent. I've spent a little bit of time. I could spend much more. But well, we'll see if do we need to. You can draw your own conclusions. Are you ready? So here we go?

14:05 What else that you would turn in your bibles? First to the Gospel of Matthew. Matthew chapter three. Matthew chapter three, I'm just gonna read the first six verses. This ties in with what we're looking at both this week and next week with Isaiah chapter forty. And I can understand why the kid is crying in the background, because anytime I hear someone say we're going to be preaching on Isaiah chapter forty, I start weeping as well. If I was visiting your church and your pastor said, turn to Isaiah forty, I would just fall on the floor, curl up in the fetal position, and start wailing and crying. And people would be like who's this visitor you brought. He seems to have I think he has a demon, And yes, I have a demon that says no, no, no, Isaiah forty no. Okay, right does that sound Does that sound scary? All right? People are like, we need an exorcism, we need a deliverance. Now, we just need to stop preaching on Isaiah forty Okay.

15:21 Here we go. At least the first portion of Isaiah chapter forty Matthew chapter three, beginning at verse one, This is the word of our God. In those days, John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. For this is he who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah when he said, the voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Now John wore a garment of camel's and a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locust and wild honey.

16:06 Then Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region about the Jordan were going out to him, and they were baptized by him in the River Jordan, confessing their sins. And now turned to Isaiah chapter forty. I'll be reading verses one through eleven. We'll be looking at, actually both this week and next week versus one through eleven. Thought originally it was going to do one sermon with this, but no, so think of this as two parts. And in many respects, his first part will seem incomplete. But the passage at least verses one through five that will be looking at certainly stands, but it certainly helped next week when we look at the rest of six through eleven.

17:06 A couple of thoughts. One, it's amazing that he can make it through eleven verses in Isaiah forty and two sermons, and that's insane that he thought he could do it at first and one sermon. Secondly, I'm confused about the breakdown. He's gonna do Isaiah forty one through five, almost as if it's its own self contained section. My argument is Isaiah forty should be broken down. Isaiah forty one through two is kind of the prologue, the introduction, Then you go three through five, then you go six through eight, then maybe nine through eleven, then maybe twelve through seventeen. Like I would break it down, I keep one and two separate from verse three. I think three something's going on in three and that we've got to figure out.

17:53 And not only that he started in Matthew three. Now he started in Matthew three, because obviously there's something in Isaiah forty verse three through five that would take you to Matthew three, mark to the New Testament. Now, this is where it's going to get hermeneutically very complex, because we then have to consider a hermeneutical understanding of how New Testament writers utilize Old Testament passages. And they utilize Old Testament passages in a variety of ways that can be almost perplexing, confusing, confounding from a hermoneutical standpoint, You're like, what are the rules. It's like, the New Testament writer can just go back and use Old Testament passages anyway they want. They can only quote a part of it, they can kind of in some ways seem to rip it out of its original context. They can paraphrase it.

18:46 They basically can do whatever they want. Now, on one hand, you've got to be very careful because you can't look at how New Testament writers use Old Testament passages and then establish a hermeneutical principle from how they do so, because that will be very, very problematic. What you have to remember is that New Testament writers are using Old Testament passages under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, so that gives them a freedom to do so that I may not have because they are doing so under really the direction of God, when we are doing so under the direction of our own study. Okay, now, I know pastors like to claim, no, this is what God told me to say, this is what God's leading me. But if God is leading and guiding and telling preachers what to say, then we would only have one interpretation of every passage of scripture. And so while we can get on and on and on to show that the reality clearly contradicts any claims that God is telling you what to say, guy, no, he guided the New Testament writers.

19:40 We do believe that because we believe the New Testament's written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Right, it's inspired scripture, it's an errant, it's infallible. Our preaching is not an errant. It's not infallible, and it doesn't come from God. It comes from our own study of the text. Therefore, it is filled with misunderstanding, misapplication, misinterpretation. It is. It is flawed at his very best. All right, So there's a lot of principles here. But I do find it interesting he's going to take Isaiah forty one through five. Now, maybe in the sermon he's going to break it down into two parts, and he's going to say one through two is its own separation, and then three through its own section. Three through five is another section. Maybe he's going to do that, but I would just like, for our outlining purposes, Isaiah forty one through two, I think it belongs in its own separate sections. Now I may change my mind an hour from now, but that's where I stand right now.

20:36 Isaiah, chapter forty, beginning at verse one, Comfort, comfort my people, says your God, speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the Lord's hand double for all her sins, a voice crime in the wilderness. Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low. The uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together. For the mouth of the Lord has spoken, a voice says, cry, And I said, what shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all its beauty is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades, when the breath of the Lord blows on it. Surely the people are grass. The grass withers, and the flower fades. But the word of our God will stand forever. Go on up to a high mountain, Ozion, Herald of good news. Lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good news, Lift it up. Fear not, say to the cities of Judah,

22:10 behold your God. Behold the Lord. God comes with might, and his arm rules for him. Behold, his reward. Is with him, and his recompense before him. He will tend his flock like a shepherd. He will gather the lambs in his arms. He will carry them in his bosom, and gently lead those that are with young. May the Lord add his blessing to the reading of his holy word. So we come now to. And to the kid crying in the background. I'm right there, with you, right there with you. I want to weep, I want to cry. I want to gnash my teeth.

22:56 I want to tear my garments. I want to throw ash upon my head. I want to put sackcloth on because it's Isaiah forty all right, and because I'm not finding any comfort in it. But all right, we'll see where this is going to go. All right, so far we have he's going to break the sermon. There's going to be a two part sermon that's going to cover Isaiah forty one through eleven. He's going to cover eleven versus and two sermons. And the sermons really not even that long. I think it's about forty minutes so, and it sounds like he's going to cover verses one through five as its own section, which I but our focus is not on where he's going to go. We're just focusing on what he's going to say around the fourteen minute mark, right, So let's just let this go. If I interrupt it too long, we're never going to get there, right, But let's I want to make sure we at least have context. I don't want anyone accuse me of taking anything out of context. He's going to put forth his hypotheses.

23:46 I may disagree with the hypotheses. I'm not here to criticize his hypotheses. I may disagree with it, but it really I all I want to do is just like, here's another interpretation. Now just forget the Then at that point, it's no longer about this preacher, is no longer the sermon. It's just about here's this idea that's been presented, and then we'll challenge the idea. All right, So here we go. The second half, so to speak, of Isaiah. It is interesting because a lot of critical scholars get to chapter forty and they see that chapter forty on was written by somebody else, a dudo Isaiah, that's what they call him.

24:28 It sounds fancy and academic, and a lot of it is because they really can't settle on the reality that prophecy actually happened in the Old Testament, predictive prophecy actually happened. Many of these critical scholars see a much later date that these were written in so that they can read their stories of the news, of what they've already seen and and experience and write it into the text as though somehow it becomes prophecy that way, but that's not really the case. In fact, though, chapters forty and especially through fifty five and really to the end of the book seems very different in some respects. The first half, as we went through chapters one through thirty nine, while there was comfort, while there was hope that was presented, there was a lot of warnings of judgment. As we move into chapter forty and really to the end of the book, it sort of flips on its head. There's a lot more hope, a lot more comfort, a lot more looking forward to the grace that God is going to bestow, but there will be warnings. Those won't be absent.

25:50 But most especially as we move into chapter forty to the end, we start seeing more and more the one who is to come, the one who is the servant of the Lord, the one who would be the suffering servant, the one predicted from of old, none other than our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Okay, now immediately he's going, he throws in, he goes directly to Christ. Now let me just state again, when we get to the idea of the servant, let's make it very clear we cannot forget Cyrus. I mean, I've talked about this in our overview of Isaiah forty through fifty five. I mean, he just immediately, we're gonna have this one, the servant, and immediately it's Jesus Christ, who wha wha wha wa. Wait a minute, Wait a minute, Wait a minute, wait a minute, there's gonna be a servant of God. There's gonna be this anointed one that's going to be raised up by the name of Cyrus, who's going to be instrumental in actually doing the actual deliverance that these people actually need in a tangible, physical, material way. I know we want to into the text immediately make it about Jesus, and make it about salvation, and make it about us. But slow down when we talk about the servant in what ways when you go to Isaiah forty through fifty five and you see the servant being described, how many times is it clearly referencing Sorrus?

27:19 And when can you say it's referencing Christ? Now whatever you say that it's referencing Christ, you can't forget Cyrus in it. He's key to all of this what's going on. And Isaiah forty this is prophe this is comfort that was given, that was written before they ever go into captivity. Remember, Isaiah in a sense is given this comfort and he shares this. He's given this comfort by God to give to the people, but he gives it. You know, he's long dead before they go into captivity. He's long dead before they come out of captivity. But this comfort is waiting for them. It's it's kind of like, you know, predictive comfort. It's prophetic comfort waiting for you to go into this situation. And they get this comfort, But what do they need. They need a comfort that's about them coming out of their captivity. And who's going to be the one who lets them go. It's going to be Cyrus.

28:17 So we cannot forget Cyrus in this, Okay, So I cannot stress that. That's why I when we did our overview and everything I talked about right down the name of Cyrus. I think I said circle it and put seventy five exclamation points, put it in all caps. I went, you know, over dramatic and hyperbolic over it. But I cannot stress that because I mean, you just do it yourself. You just for yourself. You don't remember I told you you're supposed to be reading Isaiah forty through fifty five, over and over and over and over and over. You're supposed to be listening to sermons on it. Just take go through Isaiah forty through fifty five, look up anything that references the servant and see if you can determine which references are clearly to Cyrus and which references may be pointing to Christ. We've already talked about this, but I have to emphasize this because he immediately went to Christ, and he just kind of left Alsirius, didn't he.

29:10 And even as we look at these first eleven verses both this week and next week, and as we look at the rest of this second half of Isaiah time and time again, we'll see something that we saw before, how the passage has in many respects a certain contemporary meaning that was useful for the time of Isaiah, useful for the days of Israel of old, but yet also has an eschatological side, that is, it points to the end of all time, and our texts today verses one through eleven today and next week bears that out. Now verses one through eleven of chapter forty, it really is kind of a prologue to this whole section. It opens it up. It opens up the idea of comfort. Well, why does Israel need such comfort?

30:08 Okay? Now, he says, Isaiah forty one through eleven is the prologue. I kind of put verses one through two in a prologue. But he just asked a great question, why does Israel need comfort? Okay? That's that's great. At least we have a sermon that is making it about Israel. All right, that is awesome. Praise God for that. I am happy. Whoo, the clouds have parted, the sun has come out, all right, the rainbow is Their skittles are falling from the rainbow. And I'm getting, you know, buckets full. Oh, there's a unicorn that you're run by. There's butterflies. Oh, the rain has parted. Oh it's wonderful. Okay, because he actually asked the question why does Israel need comfort? Okay? Great, And we know he's gonna immediately go to Isaiah thirty nine.

30:57 He's gonna put this in context. Things are goin about, things are looking up, things are getting better. Why have you guys been so discouraged and so defeated and so negative and so cynical? How shame on all of you? Now I'm hitting my microphone. Why, all right? Because you should have been you should have been much more positive. All right? So here we go, we get to the positive, right, here we go. Well, there's a couple of ways that we can look at it. First of all, think of it from the perspective of what we saw last week at the end of chapter thirty nine. What was the warning there everything in the House of the Lord was going to be taken everything a doom and gloom type of scenario, and Hezekiah's response was just simply, well, I'll have peace in my day. The prediction was that essentially Jerusalem would be destroyed, everything taken from the temple, and the people would be carried off, and we know that happened. So you move into chapter forty and you have words of comfort in stark contrast to the so called doom and gloom of chapter thirty nine and its prediction. But it's also important to understand that Isaiah is already writing here from chapter forty one, to a people that are yet to be exiled.

32:24 It's a fascinating thing. The people are not yet exiled, and yet Isaiah is writing to them as if they will be because they will be and the reality is it's preparation. They will need to turn back to words of comfort when the exile comes. And that's what much of the second half deals with words of comfort to an exiled people looking forward to the day when they're Messiah. Well we move into chapter forty and as I mentioned versus.

33:06 Yeah, to an exiled people when their Messiah comes, and their Messiah their deliverer is Cyrus, because he's the one who's going to deliver them from captivity. I know that I got to keep mentioning out because Cyrus is going to get And what does it mean so called doom and gloom? I don't know. If your city is destroyed, your temple is destroyed, everything inside the temple is carried away, and you go into slavery and people die and suffer, I don't know if that's so called doom and gloom. I think that's actual doom and gloom. Okay, I don't know. It's kind of weird, do wa he say? You know, well, if so called doom so called doom and gloom, it's can it get worse than everything being destroyed and you get taked off? You're taken off as a slave, which you're going to be there for seventy years, meaning a large portion of these people are going to never get out.

33:55 They're going to die there. Like I think that's more than so called doom and gloom. That sounds like Sirius doom and gloom. Okay, all right, so all right, so we're I'm with him here. So if I didn't like the so called part, but I understand I say things in sermons that I look back and go, I probably wouldn't have said it that way, So I don't think he meant it that way. But all right, I get it, all right, Okay, to an exile people who are looking for their messiah. I think it's for the exile people looking for deliverance. And who's going to be the delivery is going to be Syrus? Okay, all right, all right, all right, let's let's continue. Does one through eleven really form a prologue to much of the second half, and in fact, if you want to look at verses one and two, they sort of form a prologue to the prologue.

34:41 Right now, that's good, all right, So he says forty In one sense, forty one through eleven is a prologue, But In another sense, forty one through two is the prolog to the prologue. And I love that because I think forty one through two, Chapter forty verses one through two have to be separated from everything else. I think that's the only thing that may sense. So all right, I may not his way of arguing. Okay, great, forty one through eleven is a prologue, but forty verses one through two is a prologue to the prologue. Okay, great. I still think three through five has to kind of be separated from six through maybe eight, and then maybe nine through eleven. I think I would break it down a little bit more. Well, next Sunday we'll probably break I'll probably try to come to some kind of conclusion in how I want to outline the chapter. Right. But but okay, so there's a lot of agreement here. There's a lot of agreement. This is a good thing. We're finding some agreement, all right, So what's going to happen?

35:35 Let's find out. It sets the stage for the rest of chapter forty verses one through eleven. What do we need this for? Well, the church at large today, the church at large today is in many respects in a lot of trouble. Okay, what just happened? What just happened? The so called doom and gloom for them, but for us in many aspects, the church is in serious trouble. Hey, the people going into captivity, so called doom and gloom. But hey, hey, now all of a sudden, it's about us. Now, Wait a minute, so Isaiah forty, does Isaiah forty have any words of comfort for you and I and the church that is in serious trouble? Okay, all right, let's we How do we do this? How do we do this?

36:53 He even acknowledges to some point the historical context, but he he almost was dismissive of it. Hey, so called doom and gloom. And then there's some comfort from them. Hey, but why do we need this? What do you mean? Why do we need this? They needed it? What where did we come into play? But all of a sudden, now it's about the church. It's in serious trouble. All right, Let's see how he takes the church being in serious trouble and somehow inserts this sorry, let's see. Let's see. I'm gonna be patient. I'm gonna be patient, I'm gonna be optimistic because just a little while ago. I was saying, the sun was coming out, there was a rainbow, Skittles were falling, a unicorn, butterflies. Everything was wonderful, right, I know, I see I see some storm clouds gathering there. Do you see them? I see the lightning. Oh, that looks like, oh it's gonna be Let's hope there's not an F five tornado in that. Let's hope. Come on, come on, come on, I'm gonna watch. I'm gonna be a good storm watcher. I'm watching. I'm tracking the storm. Maybe it's gonna slide off to our north or to our south, or east or west, depending on how the storms move in your local area. Okay, maybe maybe it's gonna slide away.

38:04 It's gonna it's gonna bypass us. All right, let's let's I see the clouds forming. But I'm going to be hopeful. All right, here we go. The church at large today has been making nice with the world, has tried to make alliances with the world, has compromised its message for the sake of not offending the world. The very thing that was worn throughout this first half of Isaiah. Don't make alliances with other pagan nations is what the church at large is doing today, and there may come a point where the church in this land will have to read through this second half of Isaiah itself.

38:59 Okay, so the church has played nice with the world and there's gonna come a day where the church is gonna have to read through Isaiah forty through fifty five. Why are we going to have to read through it? Because somehow you're telling me the words of Isaiah forty through fifty five that was written to us specific people, and actual captivity is not how, somehow going to apply to us. Somehow, We're just gonna rip this out of it to context and go, hey, guys, the church is in trouble. Now here's some comfort. I know it has nothing to do with you. I know it's not written about you, but go ahead and steal the comfort because we can steal comfort because we don't care about the stinking context. Man. Okay, the dark clouds have come back. Man, I don't understand this. So I guess if we're gonna take Isaiah forty through fifty five and say, well, the church is going to read through this, does that mean the church, because we play nice with the world, we're gonna go into captivity into Babylon for seventy years or are we just going to turn this into one just gigantic allegory. Well, we're not going to really go into captivity.

40:12 I mean, it's not going to really be Babylon. I mean, well, it's gonna be Babylon, a spiritual Babylon. And it's not gonna be really a seventy years because seventy years doesn't really mean seventy years, and it's not Israel, it's really the Church. And we get comforted, Well, we're not gonna get a cyrus well, I mean, and we just start I don't know, just turning this into I don't know, let's just everyone grab a piece of paper and make up your own story. We need the. Comfort of the Lord because we, of all people should know, especially on this side of the cross and this side of the resurrection, that when God says he will do something, he will do it, and that includes judging wickedness.

40:55 I don't know what. The immediate future holds for the Church here on earth. Reason to believe, as a amillennialist myself, that Jesus will come back soon he could. I had to know it was an amillennialist, didn't you. I had to know. I had to know it was an amillennialist. I had to know. I mean I could have guessed it. As soon as they start leaving Israel and making it about the church, you almost inevitably know you're listening to an ammillennialist. You can just guess. Look, you don't even knowed to go to seminary, you don't need Bible college. Just listen. Listen. How quickly does it become about us? How quickly is the church inserted where Israel once stood? Insert the Church, replace Israel with the Church, and you know you're listening to amillennialism. You know it.

41:45 It's a guarantee. Oh man, okay, But we don't know. And so the church at large needs to remember these words throughout the rest of Isaiah, these words of comfort, these words of hope. So the church needs to remember the words of comfort that wasn't given to them. Now, if you see some sections in Isaiah forty through fifty five that you could say, well, I think that clearly is referencing. I think that clearly has implications beyond I'm all ready to accept that when we get there. But comfort, ye, comfort ye, my people.

42:39 That has nothing to do with you or me. The context is Isaiah thirty nine. It's for people in Babylonian captivity. You haven't been in Babylonian captivity. I haven't been in babylon captivity. They were in Babylonian captivity. The comfort is for them and their real real life not so called doom and glue. They're real life tragedy. They're real life suffering, and they need to be comforted. This is their their you know there, their comfort given to them before they even face the tragedy, and the words are ready now when they're there. Someone needs to take these words to them. It can't be Isaiah, he's dead. These words have to be taken by someone to the people. Comfort ye, Comfort ye, my people, saith your God. This is God's words of comfort to his people. His people is identified in Isaiah thirty nine as the people who are in Babylonian captivity.

43:36 That's who the words are for. That's who they have to be applied to. If you're going to apply him to anybody else, you need textual bases in order to do that. You just can't take your awn millennial eschatology and to just cram it into the Bible and just remove people and replace people because your theology says so, I don't care about your stinking theology. I don't care about dispensational theology, all millennial theology, pre millennial theology. Stop allowing your theology to guide your hermeneutics. Your hermaeneutics should not be guided by your theology. Your theology should be guided by the text. And guess what if you go by the text, sooner or later, you're gonna find yourself at odds with every theological system unless you just forget this text and you just follow the philological system.

44:25 That you and I may keep our eyes fixed heavenward, no matter how bad things might get for us. So as we look at verses one through eleven, this is going to be a two part sermon. Part two is next week. We're looking at basically the same thing as a whole. It's four points. We'll look at the first two points today, the next two points next week. Well, what I have to show out of this text Versus one through eleven, part of it today, part of it next week. It's simply this that the promised glory and present of Jehovah will bring great hope and consolation. The promised glory and presence of Jehovah will bring great hope and consolation. I'll tell you all four points. So we're only going to look at the first two this evening.

45:18 First of all, God's comfort, secondly God's glory, thirdly God's Word, and finally God's gentleness, God's Comfort, God's glory, God's Word, and God's gentleness. So, now that's an interesting outline you may want to write. You may actually may want to write that outline down and you can then see what you would do with each point. Comfort, Glory, Word, Gentleness, God's Comfort, God's Glory, God's Word, God's gentleness. Now you can take those four points, break it down. Now, what does each section then say to the original people and the original context. Don't don't turn around and make it about you or I don't, don't don't be a narcissistic textual hijacker. We keep talking about this over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. Now let's see what he's going to do with the comfort part. I know we're already at forty six minutes. Okay, I knew see when I when I when I provide the fuller context, it can become much more frustrating. But at least we now know this is coming from an ameal perspective. And I hate to be so dismissive, but if it comes from an ameal perspective, you just know the Church is going to replace Israel almost instantaneously. It's what's gonna happen.

46:47 And there's going to be an allegorical leaning and allegorical propensity to take text and turn it into some spiritualized, allegorical thing that somehow is fulfilled in the Church because Israel gets the boot. All right, that's ah. This evening, Justic's first two points God's comfort and God's glory. So first of all, God's comfort. Look again at verse one. Comfort comfort my people, says, your God, speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the Lord's hand double for all her sins. As I mentioned at the end of chapter well, really chapter thirty nine was not all that long, but at the end we're left with the sad reality that judgment was coming, exile was coming. After the warning of doom to come given to Hezekiah. Come now these words comfort, comfort my people. Now, unfortunately the ESV kind of masks it of us are familiar with more of the King James and even well the Messiah know that it's comfort, ye my people. No, we also have to understand that even there, that the

48:18 subject of the command to comfort is the plural you you all, comfort my people. So it's important to understand that. And we also see here that what we've got is a dual command. It's repeated. Okay, now now we're up to the point that we wanted to get to. All right, He's going to make a great emphasis that it's a dual command comfort, comfort. I got no problem with that. It's it's very important. It's emphatic comfort. Comfort. You look at the Hebrew word for comfort. It's it's it's showing its need. It's it's immediacy.

48:59 It's needed. Now the consolation is needed. Now there's an urgency comfort comfort. He focuses on comfort ye, comfort yee, And that ye, he says, is plural. And he's gonna make a claim about the use of the plural that well, I have never heard before. All right, And so he says that's been it's other commentaries. Make this. You can see what you think here. Here's what we really wanted to get to a right. All that other stuff is just kind of stuff we've already talked about over and over and over. But every time I listen to sermons on Isaiah forty, it's the same problem that is presented over and over and over with how the text is handled.

49:42 But here, now something unique occurs. His focus is okay, comfort comfort. It's a dual command. It's a double command. It's repeated. Okay, got it. But he wants to focus on the ye the plural comfort, yee you all comfort my people? All right? So this who is the plural? Who is this who is commanded to comfort? Who is this plurality that is supposed to comfort? And what does that? I mean, well, well, we'll see what he says, and then I think we can just work through it. And I think it kind of I don't know why this makes a lot of difference, but let's see where he goes with. This comfort comfort. It's emphatic, and when you see things that are repeated, it's intended to be emphatic to really emphasize the point. It also underscores the emotional intensity that is involved here. People that will be under such duress will need comfort. And again, as I mentioned, the command is actually plural. Hence where you see in the old King James, comfort e my people. The plural commands is a poetic expression really of the heavenly court of gone.

51:03 All right, the plural is a poetic expression of the court of God. Comfort ye, because they use the plural, this is a poetic expression about the court of God. What just happened here, right, Let's see if he articulates that explain that seems to be what he's saying is God is telling the court of heaven to comfort his people. What. Okay, let's see if he explains.

51:45 Comfort my people, says your God. Now. Commentators have noted that the grammar here of the Hebrew indicates that really it's not we really need to understand this as something that God keeps on saying. It's an ongoing message and that alone should give us. Comfort now, he says. Commentaries say that the grammar demonstrates that this is God saying comfort, comfort, keep on comforting. So therefore it goes beyond the people in Babylonian captivity and it goes all the way to us. So he's finding a way. He's arguing that the Hebrew grammar makes this goes beyond its historical setting. And I was a little confused by this. So I started looking and trying to see what I could find and try to understand.

52:41 So I had to ask artificial intelligence. I'm like, so I gave artificial intelligence the entire sermon. I gave artificial intelligence the entire sermon. It provided a complete breakdown of the sermon, and it critiqued some of this, like even AI immediately caught like, m what about this? What about this? So I had to then get specific that he in the sermon makes a claim in the attached file that the command to comfort is the plural comfort yee. He makes claims about that. Are these claims accurate because he says commentaries, but he doesn't give the name of the commentary. So it's not like I could look up the commentaries and go where where are they getting this in the Hebrew grammar. I could go look at the Hebrew grammar.

53:27 I don't I'm not qualified enough to be able to determine where where is this coming from. He's not relying on his understanding of Hebrew grammar. He's relying on some commentary and supposedly what they say about Hebrew grammar. But you don't know if the commentary writer has the knowledge of the Hebrew grammar, or if the commentary writer is relying on someone else's supposed knowledge. So you don't know what this is second hand, third hand, fourth hand, fifth hand. You don't even know where this whole thing originates from. You're kind of just left at Well, what he's saying is accurate. So this is his way of getting the comfort beyond the original people to you and I, because the whole thing is about hijacking the text to make it about us. That's all what preachers do. So the Ai said Isaiah forty verse one is indeed in the plural form in the original Hebrew, and then it gives me the original Hebrew. It says, this detail has implications for interpreting the passage, but the accuracy of his claims about its significance depends on how well they align with the textual, linguistic, and contextual understanding of the passage. So the Ai is like, look, he made these claims, but the accuracy of this claim really depends on how well they align with the textual, linguistic, and contextual understanding. So AI is a little easy? Is even going? We got to pause here, right? So the plural imperative in Hebrew, the repetition here of comfort ye, comfort ye, and the

54:58 plural form indicat that the command is directed to multiple individuals or groups. This could suggest that God is addressing a collective audience. So if God is addressing a collective audience, comfort yee, all of you, comfort my people, who could all of the you plural? Who could that be referring to in the historical context. I don't think it's that complicated. It can't be referring to Isaiah. He's dead. So Isaiah gives the message, someone's got to take the message and give it to the people. Is that going to be one individual or is it going to be the prophets, the priest, the religious leaders, plural. It's not going to go to It's not like Isaiah handed this over to hear you, Bob, you're the man, got No. He was to write down give the message. The message then was to be given. God is calling anyone who has access to Isaiah forty through fifty five, anyone who has this prophetic comfort? You take it. This is not about the court of heaven for crying out loud. This is the people living at that time. They are to bring the message, so Ai said. This could suggest that God is addressing a collective audience such as wait for it, wait, wait wait, who could it be a prophets? Oh wait, who could it be? Spiritual leader? Or oh wait wait the nation of Israel causing them to bring calling them to bring comfort.

56:24 So anyone in the nation, everyone in the nation, take these words of comfort and comfort one another with them. Everyone, anyone who has access to Isaiah forty through fifty five, anyone who knows these words of comfort, give them. It's not I don't understand why this is something like, oh, this is about the court of heaven. What do we even How did we get into some kind of mysticism here? It's to anyone who has access comfort one another. The common interpretation of the plural form directed at the prophets. Many commentators understand the plural and pair of his God's instruction to the prophets to proclaim his message of comfort to his people. It is a collective responsibility. It could also imply a broader call to any who would act as God's messenger to share his comfort and promises with Israel.

57:12 I mean, it's it's not even complicated. Why don't we turn this into this represents the poetic expression of the Court of God, and this says that God is continuing to comfort way past the historical context. None of that is found here. The double command intensifies the urgency and importance of message and underscores God's deep desire for his people to comfort after the judgment of the exile. So even AI's like, it's pretty simple, and it's pretty straightforward. Comfort ye who is the Ye? Well, it's whoever has access to I is a forty through five prophets, people, priest, religious lators, anybody, and who are you to comfort my people?

57:56 The whole name anyone in the nation is to comfort everyone in the nation, because the nation needs comfort because they are in Babylonian captivity. This has nothing with saying well, now this extends beyond this is the court of Heaven. I don't know where any of that even goes. Now, the speaker, well, well we'll we'll let him go a little bit longer. Ai Ai then says, okay Ai says, I'm going to access the the I'm going to access I'm going to examine the entire sermon, and especially on this particular point. So AI starts computing and does its thing. I'll get to that. Let's see where where else he takes this, because right now there I don't I don't even know where he's going. We've already made it pretty.

58:41 I mean, it's not even that complicated. That God in his heavenly court is consistently and continually saying, comfort my people. That's because we need it. We need it. And God, because of his covenantal promises to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob, because of his love for us that is found in Christ Jesus our Lord, he continually in the heavenly court says, comfort my people. This is insane. So he takes this. He just makes some claim that in the Hebrew grammar, this means God is continuing to tell everyone in the heavenly court, comfort my people, Comfort my people. And he says, why because we need it. No, they needed it, not we. They unless you're in Babylonian captivity. Stop why did you just insert us they need comfort, not we? Man, This is the stuff that drives me crazy. With the Bible, we can literally make it say whatever we want. Hey, this is a poetic expression about the Court of God, and this somehow demonstrates that God forget them. This goes way beyond them, and God is every single day saying everyone in the heavenly Court, comfort my people, Comfort my people.

1:00:11 And why is God doing that? Because we need it? Why because of Covenant of the Covenant promises. Wait, the Covenant promises made to Israel. Yeah, that makes perfect sense, and Isaiah forty, because Israel needs the comfort promises that come from the Covenant, where God promise them let me see land restoration. Yeah, specific promises. Are you going to go still these promises and then spiritualize them and then give them to us man Even Ai at this point says that the person makes the claim that the command is directed to all believers of the Church today. Ai says this is a misstep if it implies a direct application.

1:00:57 If it implies a direct appleation, the original context addresses a specific audience, likely profits or messengers tasked with declaring comfort to Israel, and the context of the Babylonian exile. Applying this directly to the Church today overlooks the historical and textual context. However, by extension, one could argue that believers are called to reflect God's character, including offering comfort. But this is an application definitely not the text primary meaning. So if you're going to expand it, then you would be like, okay, as they were called the comfort, we are called the comfort. But the comfort they offer is different than the comfort we can offer because they can offer very physical, material, tangible promises that I can't offer to people because they are under covenant. Promises that are not directly are comforted promises. So I explained in church how this comfort could work. Right, we need to be comforted, but with what it's a different kind of comfort. We can be comforted with our all that Christ has done for us in our position. And then the engible, material, physical promises are for us in heaven where there's a new heaven, new earth, no more pain, no more suffering, no more death. But in the meantime we're gonna have pain, suffering, death, and there is no promise that God is going to do any intervention to help us with any of our daily suffering and tragedies. But if you immediately take this and make it about the church. You're going way beyond the intended meaning of the text.

1:02:31 Does that knowledge not give you some sense of comfort? It should? And when God commands in the heavenly court, guess what happens the command He commands comfort? His comfort will come. Now. I realize all of us can go through things, hardships, difficulties, whatever the case may be. But you can be assured because your God in heaven is crying out comfort my people, that that comfort will indeed come.

1:03:14 Oh my goodness, gracious he acknowledges we're going to suffer things. But hey, hey, God is calling for comfort for you right now in heaven. So you can be assured that comfort is coming. Now, what do you mean by that? I need you to define that, and I need you to be very specific. Because there's some child being molested week after week after week. Is God's comfort coming for that kid? There's some kid right now laying in some children's hospital, dying of some disease that he's never going to see a sixtieth birthday. Is God's comfort coming for him? Now? What do you mean? Do you mean any eternity? Now?

1:03:56 These promises in Isaiah forty are tangible. It's about them and very specific time and real history being delivered from a very tangible, I material thing. If you go take these promises, no, wait a minute, or how are you gonna apply them to us? Oh? I know you're going through different a difficult time, but hey, hey, hey, hey, no, God's comfort is coming now. What do you mean by that? Is my situation going to get better? Is the cancer going away? Is my dead mother going to be resurrected so that I can talk to her again? What do you mean by that? The people are the thousands of people who starve to death every week in the world.

1:04:37 Are they gonna get food all of a sudden? Is famine gonna go away? Is this gonna go away? Is this gonna go away? What do you mean by comfort? He's just some generic, vague thing. Hey, I know you're going through a difficult time, but just know comfort is coming. Well what does that mean? Well, you're gonna feel better, You're gonna feel You're gonna get a feeling. What does it mean now? Is he gonna clarify? Of course, on this side of the cross and the resurrection of Jesus Christ, whom did the Lord Jesus pour out upon us? None other than the Holy Spirit, the peraclet, the comfort as that down payment of the inheritance that is to come. He is the one who is the beginning of the ultimate fulfillment of this comfort.

1:05:30 Now what comfort does the Holy Spirit give? Is the Holy Spirit the seal, the down payment of my salvation. So doesn't the Holy Spirit comfort me and knowing that I am sealed and kept until the day of redemption? Is the comfort one about my security and eternity? Or is it somehow he brings me comfort? Now? Is this like he gives me good feelings during horrible trial tragedy? It about a feeling like when you talk about comfort, Yeah, God, I say something tangible, especially if you're stilling the comfort from the people in Isaiah forty comfort my people.

1:06:16 But notice also how this goes speak tenderly to Jerusalem, somewhat woodenly. It's speak to the heart, Speak to the heart, a heart that is troubled, a heart that is in duress and despair. We think about a people that are exiled. If you want to understand the deep distress that Israel was in, that Judah was in, just go through the Book of Lamentations. That's the perfect setting for this, the time of exile, taken away from the land. Is there God with them comfort My people speak tenderly to Erusalem and cry to her, call to her. Both of these, the speaking tenderly and the calling or crying out to her, carry the weight of persuasion. And if you think about it, when we are in deep distress, it is hard sometimes to hear words of comfort.

1:07:21 We talked about this earlier. It is hard to hear those words of comfort. Now. He did a good job by reverting back to Israel, to Judah and Babylonia captivity. He did a really good job, and then immediately came right back to us and immediately just won't right back to us. Hey, I gotta throw them in. But let's make it about us. Let's make it about us now. So I had to continue talking and trying to figure this out. But the grammar of Isaiah forty one, specifically, the plural imperative, does not inherently indicate that the command is ongoing or extends beyond the historical context to apply universally. Let me read that again.

1:08:01 The grammar of Isaiah forty the plural imperative does not inherently indicate that the command is ongoing or extends beyond the historical context to apply universally. This interpretation of this as an ongoing command or one that applies to us relies more on philological inference than on strict grammatical artextual evidence. Let me state that again, this relies on philological inference, then on strict grammatical textual evidence. What did I say? He indicated he's all millennial is a tech This is a thiological inference to get it about to get it about us. There's nothing in the grammar, there's nothing in the text that would say, oh, this command is happening in the heavenly courts, and it's for you, and it's for me. And whenever you go through a difficult time, you go to Isaiah forty and you read comfort, Ye, comfort you. You say that comfort is for me. No, it's for them, not you. Hebrew imperatives Hebrew and peratives do not imply duration whether the action, whether the action is ongoing or time bound. The command comfort is immediate and specific, reflecting the urgency of the message rather than timelessness.

1:09:33 A Hebrew imperative does not say, oh, I'm about to knock the microphone over the Hebrew imperative does not say, oh, this means it goes on and on and on and on and on. That is not the case. There's nothing in the grammar that says that. The context of Isaiah forty anchors this command within a specific historical setting, the impending deliverance of Israel from Babylonian exile. God is commanding his messengers to claim comfort to Israel at a particular moment and redemptive history. There is no linguistic or grammatical feature here that directly supports an extension beyond the context.

1:10:23 There's nothing in the grammar. There's nothing. This is just being inferred because of someone's still a logical position. We'll just now wrap this up. But both of these words and the way it is all structured here, there's an intended attempt to persuade us. And even this is gracious on God's part because it ought to be that. God says it, and that settles it. But God is patiently working with us trying to persuade us. Notice, now, us us us us, us, us, us us, would it all become us? Not them? No, no, no, no, no, forget them, forget they. It's us us. It's so funny. Christians.

1:11:16 We so we supposedly are all worried about pronouns, but we're not really worried about pronouns when it comes to the Bible, because them and they can become you, me and us just like that, Just like that. See, we can simply say I now identify as them, I now identify as they. Oh no, no, you're gonna change your pronouns. Yes, I'm at them and they. Oh what do you mean by that? I'm all the them's and days in the Bible. Anything that refers to them or they is about me. I don't refer to me as me, don't refer to me as No, No, I'm them and they. I'm everyone in the Bible. Just the promises, Oh, any of the curses for crying out loud, that's that's them. Now. I'm me and I'm I and I'm he when it comes to curses. But when it comes to promises, I'm them and they because I don't care about them. I only care about my stinking self.

1:12:19 To have hope in Him. What a god we serve? I mean, after all, how many of us give up after a while, and it seems like we can't get anywhere with somebody who's wallowing in whatever pity, whether self inflicted or because of situations outside of themselves. How often do eventually we just kind of throw up our hands and give up. Well, I tried. Our God does not give up. He does not give up, and he will continue to speak tenderly to you.

1:13:01 So now it's gone to we to you. It's the game, man, it's the game. It's the way sermons are played. Man, It's just a game, all right. I have no idea how comfort ye comfort ye turns into ye is now the he It's a poetic expression of the heavenly court. And now this means that God is continuing to speak to the heavenly court to bring you comfort. I do have no clue how that even occurred. I have no idea. I don't know where that even came from. Supposedly it comes from commentaries plural, but we're not given the name of any commentaries, so I have no way of knowing where this comes from. I looked in a number of commentaries I could find that comes from an a mil position.

1:13:48 None of them stated anything like this. AI has no clue where it's coming from. AIS like there is no grammatical, linguistic argument about there's nothing. There's nothing there, there's nothing. It even clearly identifies that a Hebrew imperative does not speak of duration unless the text says, but it says comfort ye, comfort ye, my people, sayeth the Lord, and he immediately says, speak comfortably to Jerusalum. It's about them, It's about their situation. It's about their situation. Now what can apply? What can we apply from that? Yes? Are there to talk of comfort to us in the New Testament? Yes, but we can't can take our comfort and connect it to their comfort. Their comfort and my comfort is different.

1:14:33 Their comfort was based on specific covenantal promises given specifically to them that were about things that were tangible, material, physical, about deliverance from a physical captivity. My promises are about what I have in Christ Jesus, about my positional standing before God, about an imputed righteousness. But at the same time it Christianity acknowledges it in this life, pain, suffering, death, and there's no hope that God's going to intervene in any way perform to fix any of my temporal problems. If I say that God's gonna bring me some comfort, now you just make it some meaningless. Supposedly you get a good feeling instead of a bad feeling. I don't know. Yeah, yeah, that's so vague. I don't even know what that means.

1:15:13 But I can say that I can find comfort that in the New Testament there are promises that there will be a new heaven, a new earth, no more pain, no more suffering, no more death. Now I get to tangible promises. When you mix this all up and you rip things out of context, what you're doing is you're telling people, hey, you see how God jumped in and helped these people out of their really bad situation. Well, when you leave church today, you can believe that God can step in and fix your bad situation. And the people say, I have this expectation. And then your bad situation goes from bad to worse and the cancer doesn't go away, and your mom dies oh, or your brother can never walk again, your daughter is killed by a drunk driver, or you lose your job, you lose your home.

1:16:04 This happens, this happens, this happens, this happens, this happens. But wait, wait wait, wait, deliverance is coming. Well, if you're speaking of eternity, yes, all right there, you have it. There's probably a lot more to it. You can look it up if you want comfort, comfort my people. He does mention in Israel a lot, and I'm very grateful for that. But you saw how quickly it becomes about me and you, me and you, me and you you us. It's not about them, are they anymore? Them and they is now turned into us? So we become to them and they and the them and they they just get that, don't even they just get eliminated? Oh no, no, they take all the curses. Of course, you know they see that them and they, they got the literal punishment. But now that them and they is now us and we get all the blessings. Isn't that wonderful? What a coincidence we get the good and not the bad? All right?

1:17:06 I don't know what else to say. This is just the I don't know how how many sermons do we need to review to just show that this is just never going to end. This is just how Isaiah forty through fifty five is handled over and over and over and over again. But the reason I had to review this one is not because of everything else was said. Just those first like two are those two or three minutes right there about the fourteen minute mark, where all of a sudden comfort yee ye becomes the heavenly court. Comfort. Comfort means that God is speaking to the heavenly court continually for you and me, and it bypasses them and they, and it bypasses the What Now, there may be a commentary out there. If I find a commentary that offers that argument, it would be interesting one to see if it's all millennial, because I have a strong feeling it will be. And number two, where they supposedly get the information, Like anyone can write a comentary says according to the Hebrew grammar, it says this, and it means this. Well, the average person's like, okay, I mean, the average person is not going to go and enroll in a course on Hebrew grammar to the determine if it's true or false.

1:18:11 So the church member has to rely on the pastor telling them that's what the Hebrew grammar means. Well, in many cases, the pastor doesn't know that what's the Hebrew grammar means he took it from some book. But then you don't know where the book got the information, So does the person writing the commentary. Did they get that from a study of Hebrew grammar or did they get that from another source? Typically, the commentaries then don't cite the source in which they're getting it, So then you have to track down where did this even begin? And sometimes you track it down and you're like, oh, this started in a sermon in the seventeen hundreds. Nobody has a clue where it came from. Now I don't know where this idea supposedly originated from. I don't know. I know, I mean, I know AI is not perfect, but AI polls open, AI polls from all kinds of sources, and it's like, I don't know what this is talking about.

1:19:00 And even IT challenged it going these claims would be dependent on the linguistic textual grammatical proof, and it comes to the conclusion that there's no textual linguistic grammatical proof for any of the arguments being made. Now, I hate to say it, I trust AI more than I trust myself, okay at this point, because AI doesn't have a philological dog in the fight right now, unless it's an AI that's being fed a specific theology. Now I can tell AI to only answer my questions from a specific philological perspective. I can get AI to do that, but I'm always like no, no, no, no, no no, don't give me one theological answer. I want to. I want to hear how everyone looks at it. I want to, I want to know.

1:19:45 I want to be confronted with every perspective. But this one is about language, about grammar, and it even states that this is pill this is being placed into the text. From a philological perspective, this 's theology being read into the text. And if you're dispensational, if you're a millennial, I don't care. If you're pre millennial, post millennial, pre tribmit, I don't care what your eschatology is. You can't allow that to govern how you read the text. You can't do that. I don't care if you're a Calvinist. I don't care. If you're a non Calvinist. I don't care. If you're a Pelagian, semi Palagian, Augustinian, I don't care what.

1:20:28 I don't care if you're calvinistic. I don't care what you are. You can't let your theology control and guide your interpreting of the text. The text wins, not your theology. The end God bless