Is. 66:19 ¶ “I will set a sign among them, and I will send some of those who survive to the nations—to Tarshish, to the Libyans and Lydians (famous as archers), to Tubal and Greece, and to the distant islands that have not heard of my fame or seen my glory. They will proclaim my glory among the nations.
Is. 66:20 And they will bring all your brothers, from all the nations, to my holy mountain in Jerusalem as an offering to the LORD—on horses, in chariots and wagons, and on mules and camels,” says the LORD. “They will bring them, as the Israelites bring their grain offerings, to the temple of the LORD in ceremonially clean vessels.
Is. 66:21 And I will select some of them also to be priests and Levites,” says the LORD.
I read this and I am just amazed.
I get goosebumps and tears in my eyes.
Libyans, Lydians, and Greeks, and other people from the nations WILL BE SELECTED TO BE PRIESTS AND LEVITES.
In the 8th Century B.C., God tells the world that He is going to bust out of Abraham’s ancestry and out of the tribe of Levi and call priests from the nations. That blows me away. I don’t know why. I already know and experience GOD living IN me, so why am I so blown away that we are made into Levites.
I guess because that would have been such a crazy thing for Isaiah to say to the Jews then. That would be like saying I’m going to turn these druggies on the street into the elders and preachers of megachurches. awesome.
Is. 51:7 “Hear me, you who know what is right, you people who have my law in your hearts: Do not fear the reproach of men or be terrified by their insults.
Is. 51:8 For the moth will eat them up like a garment; the worm will devour them like wool. But my righteousness will last forever, my salvation through all generations.”
There are two main themes (I am thinking about today) through Isaiah 49-53
God is my avenger and He holds my payment in His hand. There are numerous places in here where he talks about moths eating things up. My wife pulled a shirt out of the closet just 2 days ago that had moth holes in it. The wild and amazing thing about moth holes is that most of the time you never see the moths.
David had the nickname “mothbane” when we lived in Asia, because any time he saw a moth he would kill it. Even if he was eating dinner. Even if we told him not to. The thing is, it wasn’t the moths that we could see that were tearing up our clothes. The moths we could see were safely locked OUT of our closets. It’s the moths IN our closets that were destroying our clothes.
I read all this stuff about evil men, and I can’t help but think how unseen their destruction is. It’s not obvious that God is fighting for the oppressed. It’s not blatant to the world, or media especially, that moths are eating holes through the insulting, evil powers of this age.
Moth and Rust. They both destroy slowly, from the inside out, and both destroy because of poor maintenance. If people would give attention to their insides, to the hidden areas inside the locked closets of their souls, there would be fewer holes, and less hidden destruction.
Isaiah 1:8 The Daughter of Zion is left like a shelter in a vineyard, like a hut in a field of melons, like a city under siege
One time when I was in Central Asia, I went with a friend up to his mother’s house in a village in the mountains. We could look out and see for miles and miles. We looked out over this one big field, I think it was a vineyard. In the middle was a little broken down wooden thing. I asked him what it was.
In the harvest time, there are fields and fields of ripe fruit to harvest and process. They do it all by hand, with minimal machines and minimal automation. They also have minimal security-fences are often made of piles of stones or boards marking a boundary but operating mainly on the honor system (which is a joke in Central Asia!). At the time of the harvest, that little broken wooden thing is a shelter. It’s fixed up a bit and becomes a sturdy place to put a cushion to sleep on and to have a little roof for shade. It’s not fancy or sturdy, but when inhabited by the OWNER OF THE VINEYARD it provided security to the whole place. When inhabited by the OWNER OF THE VINEYARD it helped make the entire vineyard fulfill it’s purpose. When inhabited by the OWNER OF THE VINEYARD that little junky shack was the HQ and base of all operations for that vineyard
But at the end of the harvest, when the fruit is gone, the OWNER OF THE VINEYARD leaves too, and that little wooden deal shows that it really wasn’t sturdy or strong, but it was just what the OWNER needed for that time.
