"The lofty looks of man shall be humbled, and the haughtiness of men shall be bowed down, and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day." Isaiah 2:11

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Isaiah 2  
The word that Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.
And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it.

And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.

O house of Jacob, come ye, and let us walk in the light of the Lord.

Therefore thou hast forsaken thy people the house of Jacob, because they be replenished from the east, and are soothsayers like the Philistines, and they please themselves in the children of strangers.

Their land also is full of silver and gold, neither is there any end of their treasures; their land is also full of horses, neither is there any end of their chariots:

Their land also is full of idols; they worship the work of their own hands, that which their own fingers have made:

And the mean man boweth down, and the great man humbleth himself: therefore forgive them not.

Enter into the rock, and hide thee in the dust, for fear of the Lord, and for the glory of his majesty.

The lofty looks of man shall be humbled, and the haughtiness of men shall be bowed down, and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day.

For the day of the Lord of hosts shall be upon every one that is proud and lofty, and upon every one that is lifted up; and he shall be brought low:

And upon all the cedars of Lebanon, that are high and lifted up, and upon all the oaks of Bashan,

And upon all the high mountains, and upon all the hills that are lifted up,

And upon every high tower, and upon every fenced wall,

And upon all the ships of Tarshish, and upon all pleasant pictures.

And the loftiness of man shall be bowed down, and the haughtiness of men shall be made low: and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day.

And the idols he shall utterly abolish.

And they shall go into the holes of the rocks, and into the caves of the earth, for fear of the Lord, and for the glory of his majesty, when he ariseth to shake terribly the earth.

In that day a man shall cast his idols of silver, and his idols of gold, which they made each one for himself to worship, to the moles and to the bats;

To go into the clefts of the rocks, and into the tops of the ragged rocks, for fear of the Lord, and for the glory of his majesty, when he ariseth to shake terribly the earth.

Cease ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils: for wherein is he to be accounted of?
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"Christianity is the period of God's forbearance and long-suffering, the period when Christ is waiting at God's right hand for His foes to be made His footstool. Judgment is what characterises God's dealings with the earth. Nothing is more suitable than such language as we have quoted when bringing back His earthly people, and re-establishing His scheme of earthly government; nothing more inconsistent with the whole spirit in which He is now acting. This distinction is clearly shown in the Psalms. There we have Christ's present attitude thus described:

"Jehovah said unto my Lord, Sit Thou at My right hand, until I make Thine enemies Thy footstool (Ps. 110:1).

Then follows God's principle of action when this season of expectation is closed.

"Jehovah shall send the rod of Thy strength out of Zion; rule Thou in the midst of Thine enemies. Thy people shall be willing in the day of Thy power" (vv. 2, 3).

How exactly this agrees with what we have seen. During the day of God's grace, "Thy people," the Jews, are enemies. But when the day of Christ's power comes, when the rod of His strength goes out of Zion, His people are willing, and a remnant is gathered in righteousness. Not by the preaching of the gospel, only

"when Thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness" (Isa. 26:9).

But this period of Jerusalem's prosperity and righteousness under the sceptre of the root of Jesse, is accompanied with blessings to the nations. Hear

"the word that Isaiah, the son of Amoz, saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of Jehovah's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow into it. And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of Jehovah, to the house of the God of Jacob; and He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths; for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of Jehovah from Jerusalem. And He shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people; and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more" (Isa. 2:1-4).

This passage is expressly written concerning Judah and Jerusalem; it presents Christ, not pleading with the nations to be reconciled to Him, but judging and rebuking them; it foretells the blessings that will follow an earthly reign of peace and righteousness — blessings which are never in the New Testament predicted as about to flow from the spread of the gospel or Christianity; and it speaks, as I have before pointed out of "last days" as different from the "last days" predicted for the professing Church as light from darkness. It refers, therefore, to the literal nation of Israel, and the literal city of Jerusalem, and declares that when the sceptre of Christ's strength has gone out of Zion, not merely shall the nation be exalted above all others, but general blessing, and peace, and acknowledgment of God, shall prevail in the earth.

The rest of the chapter goes on to show how this period of blessing will be brought in. Is it by grace proclaimed? No, but by fearful judgments executed. "The day of Jehovah" comes, destroying the pride of man, causing him to throw his idols to the moles and to the bats, and to "go into the clefts of the rocks, and into the tops of the ragged rocks, for fear of Jehovah, and for the glory of His majesty." The consequence of this terrible shaking of the earth, and bringing down the pride of man, is, that

"Jehovah alone shall be exalted in that day" (Isa. 2:12-22)

. . . Malachi predicts, as we have seen, the Lord's appearing, "like a refiner's fire and like fullers' soap," so terrible that he asks —

"Who may abide the day of His coming?"

The effect of His return is that He purifies the house of Levi, so that they

"offer unto Jehovah an offering in righteousness. Then shall the offering of Judah and Jerusalem be pleasant unto Jehovah, as in the days of old, and as in former years. And I will come near to you to judgment . . . For I am Jehovah, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed" (Mal. 3:3-6).

Such is the unvarying testimony of the Hebrew prophets. Did God mean those to whom it was given to understand it in its natural sense, or not to understand it at all? Would it have been possible for any Jew to have understood it in any other sense than as a magnificent series of prophecies concerning his own nation? And is it credible that any believer in the Lord Jesus can maintain, that when God used language which could only arouse such hopes, He was mocking them with hollow and delusive expectations?

Let us take a parallel, though of course impossible, case. Let us imagine that the Lord sent a series of prophets who foretold the destruction of the British monarchy, the dispersion of the people, and the foreign occupation of the land; but, while announcing these woes, predicted in the same breath that, after a long period of national degradation and desolation, a great prince of the royal family would arise, the scattered people would be gathered, an era of untold prosperity and glory would dawn upon the country, and signal judgments would be inflicted on the foreign usurper. Supposing that the first part of this prophecy were fulfilled, the monarchy destroyed, the people dispersed, the country given over to foreign occupation, what would the British outcasts have to look forward to? Would it not be to the accomplishment of the other part of the same prophecy foretelling their final deliverance and blessing? And what would be said if a Russian priest, expounding these prophecies during the time of Britain's overthrow, were to explain the predictions of calamity as having had their literal fulfilment in the disgrace and dispersion of the English people, but to contend that the predictions of blessing had no reference to the nation whatever, and simply foretold the prosperity and glory of the Oriental Church — that when the prophets spoke of Britain they meant the Greek ecclesiastical system, when they spoke of London they meant Constantinople, when they spoke of the descendant of Queen Victoria they meant the Eastern patriarch? 

Would not everybody call this solemn trifling? And yet this is just what Christendom has done with the prophecies given to Israel. It has readily admitted that the curses are the national inheritance of the Jewish race, but it has appropriated to itself the blessings foretold by the same prophets, in the same breath, about the same people, and it has applied their promises of national prosperity and glory, dominion and vengeance, to a spiritual system which bears no more resemblance to the nation of Israel than the Greek Church to the British Empire." 

From: The Lord's Coming, Israel, and the Church



Photo by Callie Joseph on Unsplash 

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I'm a Christian saved by God, by His Sovereign grace. I want to encourage all to read, to hear, to believe, and to feed upon the only Words in all the world that are truly spirit and life, living and active; to know the One True God: God the Father, His Only Begotten Son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit; Who has graciously given us the Holy Scriptures
“All Scripture is God-breathed..."
2 Timothy 3:16–17; cf., John 3:31-36; John 6:63; John 14:26; John 17:3, 17; Romans 1:1-6, 16-17; 1 Corinthians 2:1-16; 1 Thessalonians 2:13; 2 Thessalonians 2:13-14; 2 Peter 1:20–21; Hebrews 4:12-13. As for the commentaries I post and refer to; with much gratitude, as they have done for me, it is my hope and prayer that they serve to edify all who read them.

Shalom, beccaj
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