65:1 I was available to those who did not inquire of me; I was accessible to those who did not seek me. I said, Here am I; I am here, to a nation that did not invoke my name. Now, the Lord doesn't respond by saying, "Well, you didn't inquire of me. I was here and you didn't seek for me." He didn't personalize it, he just said, I was available to those who did not inquire of me. I was accessible to those who did not seek me. The ones who went on the exodus did inquire of the Lord. We have seen that over and over. Inquire of the Lord and he answers them. They sought him, they found him; but some of them didn't. This group didn't, and so it takes them longer to be saved. When was he available and accessible? He was available and accessible when the Lord's servant performed his mission, because the Lord's servant's job was to bring people into God's presence like Moses, to prepare the people to meet God. God was available and accessible. They could have come into his presence as individuals at that time, but the servant is long gone. He and those who went on the exodus are somewhere under God's protection, wandering in the wilderness that blossoms, eventually ending up in Zion or Jerusalem where they build a temple and where God comes. This group is kind of left in outer darkness, like the five foolish virgins who didn't go into the marriage supper to see the Lord, to welcome him. They are out there in outer darkness, first wailing and weeping and gnashing their teeth, and then coming around to repentance. That's what they've been doing here. They've been wailing and weeping and gnashing their teeth. Accusing God, but eventually recognizing that the problem is with themselves not with God. And when the Lord says Here I am, or I am here means that they could have come into his presence then, at that period of time, as these other individuals did and continue to do. to a nation that did not invoke my name. In other words, most of the people did not. It was the nation across the board that didn't seek after him and inquire of him, that did not pray, call upon God, or take hold of him, or invoke his name. The invoking of his name brings people into God's presence. That's what the high priest did in the Holy of Holies on the Day of Atonement. He pronounced the name of the Lord, and the Lord would appear. As a person is led further and further through the refining process, they eventually learn the Lord's name and call upon him literally, and see him face to face as Moses did, as the seventy elders did upon the mount, and as other prophets of God have done down through the ages. In God's name is salvation. If they call upon him they are invoking his name for the sake of their salvation and those over whom they have stewardship – their wives, their children, their families, their relatives. That's what the Lord's servants in Isaiah do. As it says in Chapter 63: Relent, for the sake of thy servants… Those servants were saviors on Mt. Zion, as it were, to God's people, to those over whom they have stewardship, or to those to whom they administer. When a person invokes the name of the Lord he does so, not just for himself, but in behalf of others. 65:2 I held out my hands all the day to a defiant people, who walk in ways that are not good, following their own imagination— The holding out of the hands is, again, two individuals. Yes, God is welcoming them into his arms, as it were. He is beckoning them to come, but at the same time the hands are metaphors describing the Lord's servant on the one hand and the king of Assyria on the other. Deliverance is offered them through the servant, deliverance in the name of the Lord, or punishment and destruction through the instrumentality of the king of Assyria. Those are the two options: deliverance or destruction, or deliverance or bondage. This group finds themselves in a less than desirable situation and in the power of the king of Assyria. I held out my hands all the day to a defiant people… They were not just ignoring God, they were actually defiant, defying him, rejecting him outright like it says in chapter 1: …they have forsaken the Lord, they have spurned the Holy One of Israel… Perhaps most of that group who were defiant are now destroyed, but those left alive are having second thoughts about being defiant. who walk in ways that are not good… In other words not the ways of God, and not good also means not of the covenant. Good is a covenant term. So, some other way than God's way, some other way than keeping covenant with the Lord; because keeping covenant with the Lord is the good way, the right way, the only way that will bring them into God's presence. following their own imagination - Or their own idea of what is right or good for them, or what constituted the true religion, or whatever form it may have taken; they were duped in some way, and the imaginations of the heart is one of the forms of idolatry that Moses describes. One has to be very careful that one's lifestyle conforms to what God lays down, not what we ourselves think. In the Book of Judges it talks about people after Moses and Joshua beginning to do every man what was right in his own eyes (Judges 21:25), and it didn't add the part about following their own imagination, but that's the next step. What was involved here? 65:3–4 a people who constantly provoke me to my face, sacrificing in parks, making smoke upon bricks, who sit in sepulchres, spend nights in hideouts, who eat swine's flesh, their bowls full of polluted broth, So there's ritualistic, or cult, manifestations here. That could just mean something quite harmless, maybe you'd say harmless, like weekenders and their barbeques up in the mountains or in the parks, canyons. Or it could be actual satanic cults like we saw in chapter 57, where they burn with lust among the oaks, under every burgeoning tree, slayers of children in the gullies under the crags of rocks. Whatever degree it is it is a provocation of the Lord, they provoke him to his face. It is a substitute for true religion, or the true conduct that God expects of his people. He expects them to be a peculiar people. To be sanctified means to be set apart, consecrated to God, unto the things of God, and not to be doing what the rest of the world does. They are a chosen people, chosen to serve him, to minister in his name. making smoke upon bricks… That could be just your regular barbeque out there in the back yard, even, or it could take more ritualistic forms. Eating swine's flesh was against the law of Moses because kosher meat was of animals that divided the hoof and chewed the cud. Dividing of the hooves symbolizing the choice between right and wrong or good and evil, and the chewing of the cud symbolizing assimilating the good. Swine don't chew the cud. This also implies not just literal eating of pork, but also in a more spiritual, intellectual sense swallowing whole the philosophies of men, or false religion, or false teachings and things that would take them away from the things of God, from the pure religion. Sitting in sepulchres, spending nights in hideouts, that's bizarre behavior. So this is bordering on satanic cultism. 65:5 who think, Keep your distance, don't come near me; I am holier than you! Such are a smoke to my nostrils, a fire smoldering all day long. That's what they say to those who do observe the ways of God. Keep your distance from me, don't come near me; I'm holier than thou! So even while they themselves are more wicked and more perverse in their activities, they still think themselves better than the people of God. Now it doesn't necessarily say that these people to whom the Lord is speaking were that. Some of them may have been, have come all the way back from that, but this was the tenor of the activity of the people in general, the nation that rejects him. Things get that bad in God's people by the time the judgment comes. You see that today. A lady in class was just saying the other day, she works as a librarian and many of the youth come and want books on satanic cult rituals, and magic, and things like that. It's coming to that, and maybe it's already here. The Lord says, Such are a smoke to my nostrils, a fire smoldering all day long. Like at the dump where there's a fire in the garbage pit and an evil smell that just goes on and on and on, and that's how these people are to the Lord, an abomination. …all the day long… is also the day of judgment, signifying that these people don't repent. 65:6–7 See, it is written before me that I will not be still till I have paid back into their bosom their own iniquities and their fathers' alike, says the Lord. To those who kindle sacrifice in the mountains, who affront me on the hills, I will measure out in their laps the payment that has accrued. In other words, it's a decree. Now, this I will not be still has been mentioned before. On the one hand it had to do with the establishment of Zion, of Jerusalem, of the Lord's kingdom in all its glory, and the building of the temple, and so forth. It all has to do with the deliverance of the righteous, their salvation, their exaltation. But on the other hand, here, the Lord is not going to be still until he sees to the destruction of the wicked. Again, the twofold nature of his coming is the deliverance of the righteous and the destruction of the wicked. I will not be still till I have paid back into their bosom their own iniquities and their fathers' alike. They're not repenting, they're going on in their iniquities. Iniquities are getting worse from generation to generation, until their iniquity is full. It says in the scriptures when the iniquity of a people is full, and they have come full circle to wickedness, the Lord intervenes and destroys them just like he destroyed the people of Sodom and Gomorrah when their iniquity was full, or the Canaanites when their iniquity was full, or the Israelites when their iniquity was full. …till I have paid back into their bosom their own iniquities and their fathers alike… because the iniquities of the fathers are cumulative upon the heads of the children. In this generation they are full, says the Lord. To those who kindle sacrifice in the mountains, who affront me on the hills… The kindling of sacrifices or performing these rituals, whether it's so-called innocent barbeque, or whether it's satanic cult, it's an affront to the Lord. They are seeking a false or counterfeit paradise out there. It's not God's way. They should be busy in the things of God, serving him, and not just leading some kind of free lifestyle and thinking that God is going to be there for them when they need him. He says, I will measure out in their laps the payment that has accrued. In other words justice, covenant curses has accrued over several generations. There's no mercy for this group because they don't repent. There's only mercy for the group that repents. That's the whole nature of the atonement of Jesus Christ. If people don't repent, then they remain under the law of justice. They must suffer for their sins. 65:8 Thus says the Lord: As when there is juice in a cluster of grapes and someone says, Don't destroy it, it is still good, so I will do on behalf of my servants by not destroying everything: Again using imagery out of life - the harvesting of the grapes - when the grapes are pressed and the juice comes out maybe not all of the grapes are destroyed, maybe there are still some parts of a bunch that are still juicy, the remaining grapes, they are not all pressed down. And someone says, "Don't throw that piece away there, it still has some juice in it. Those grapes could be eaten." Because the grape harvest, as we saw in Chapter 63, was part of the judgment imagery. The storm imagery is judgment imagery, but so is the harvest imagery, whether the reaping or just the picking of the fruit, the treading of the grapes. It's all imagery that describes the harvest of the earth, the harvest of the wicked when the wicked are destroyed and trampled down in the grape vat. But not everything is destroyed, the destruction is not total, or the whole earth would be under a curse, but some come under blessing. Don't destroy it, it is still good… Good is a synonym of covenant. So it means that those who are not destroyed are the ones who keep covenant with the Lord. Don't destroy it, it is still good, so I will do on behalf of my servants… or for the sake of my servants …by not destroying everything… which shows that the mission of these servants, or their roll or function, is to be saviors of others, to be proxies as King Hezekiah was for his people in delivering his people from destruction. These servants assume the function of King Hezekiah, who was a son and servant of the Lord. These are also sons and servants of the Lord. These are people who have come out of the Zion category to a higher level and are functioning as mediators with God on behalf of their people in the pattern of the Davidic servant or the Davidic king, King Hezekiah, or the latter day servant. These are Isaiah's equivalent of the 144,000 servants who do that in the Book of Revelation. Remember John sees 144,000 servants and he also sees an innumerable multitude that were sanctified and cleansed and purified. 144,000 are the saviors of that numberless multitude in an end time scenario, that is, on the earth. They go out and they minister the law of the covenant to the people out there, like Abraham did in a cursed situation. When famine came upon the land, Abraham came into the Promised Land the Lord gave him and brought 300 souls that he had won or converted with him. That's what these servants do. If every one of the 144,000 servants brought 300 souls with him, then we'll have the kind of proportions that Isaiah is talking about - a tenth of a tenth of the earth's population of sanctified ones, of ones who are not destroyed, of ones who are still good, who are keeping covenant with the Lord. 65:9 I will extract offspring out of Jacob, and out of Judah heirs of my mountains; my chosen ones shall inherit them, my servants shall dwell there. Again the extraction process implies the refining process, too, because you are squeezed out. It's a birth, just like you're squeezed out of the womb. I will extract offspring out of Jacob, and out of Judah heirs of my mountains… This is the Jacob/Israel category in which Judah is also part of that. Jacob/Judah/Israel in Isaiah is a category. They are going to be extracted out of that category and go to a higher category, the Zion/Jerusalem category. Offspring implies descendants. It's a covenant blessing to have seed, or offspring. This offspring is paralleled with the heirs of his mountains or nations. They will receive an inheritance in the promised land, or promised lands in this case because they inherit the nations, their offspring inherits the nations as we saw earlier in Isaiah. After the destruction as they spread and multiply they eventually cover the whole earth, the whole earth becomes the promised land for the covenant people of the Lord, by the end of the millennium anyway. I will extract offspring out of Jacob, and out of Judah heirs of my mountains; my chosen ones shall inherit them, my servants shall dwell there. Here the servants is paralleled with the chosen ones which denotes their special status. They inherit twofold. They are the ones who receive not only their own inheritance, but they also receive the priesthood; they administer in the priesthood and they receive the office of ruler or kings over other people because they are on a higher spiritual level. They are above the Zion/Jerusalem level. my chosen ones shall inherit them -that is the mountains, or the nations – my servants shall dwell there – on the earth. 65:10 Sharon shall become pasture for flocks, and the Valley of Achor a resting place for the herds of my people who seek me. Not for the people who don't seek him. He has these little qualifiers all over the place to let you know that it's just an elect group. We can't just assume that because we claim God as our God that we're part of this group. He gives us all these little qualifiers to let us know what we need to be doing to qualify. He starts right off doing that in chapter 1, taking care of the needy, standing up for the oppressed, pleading the cause of the widow. It goes on all the way through, letting you know that it's only the holy ones, the valiant ones, the ones who wait for him, the ones who call upon him day and night – all of that – the ones who seek him, the ones who knock. Only those ones are going to inherit lands in the millennium. And it is a rural economy, again. Pasture for flocks, a resting place for the herds. It's a peaceful, pastoral scene. Sharon was the plain in Israel; and, of course, there's many plains in the world. We could just say any plain, really, in the promised land. It doesn't need to be just in Palestine, because these people are going to become heirs of his mountains, or his nations, all over the world. 65:11–12 As for you who forsake the Lord and forget my holy mountain, who spread tables for Luck and pour mixed wines for Fortune, I will destine you to the sword; all of you shall succumb to the slaughter. For when I called, you did not respond; when I spoke, you would not give heed. You did what was evil in my eyes; you chose to do what was not my will. He draws a contrast between the holy ones, or between the chosen or servants, and those who are theirs, those to whom they minister, for whom they are proxies and saviors after the pattern of King Hezekiah in concert with the Lord's servant, the one servant. They are all doing the same kind of thing. They are contrasted with these other kind, the ones who are lowest on the scale. Basically you have only those three groups – the Servant category; the Zion/Jerusalem category, the one that inherits the land in the millennium; and then this category that's destroyed. Why are they destroyed? Because they forsake the Lord and forget his holy mountain, or his holy nation. They don't care about God's people. They're just the same as anybody else, basically heathen. …spread tables for Luck and pour mixed wines for Fortune… Into gambling, maybe they're people who frequent casinos in Las Vegas. They are into wine and partying and gambling. I will destine you to the sword; all of you shall succumb to the slaughter. The sword and the slaughter are in parallel. The sword is a metaphor describing the king of Assyria; he is the fire and the sword that destroys the wicked. They are given into the power of the king of Assyria to their destruction. Not just to be oppressed, but to be destroyed by him, to the slaughter. Slaughter is a term used in chapter 34 of the beasts of Edom, represent those who sell their birthright for a mess of pottage. They are all slaughtered like the beasts of Edom, a huge slaughter of beasts. Well the day of judgment is like unto a huge slaughter of all these animals, all at once. when I called… When I spoke. When did he call and speak and they didn't respond and would not give heed? Through his servant, his servant that is sent, the Lord calls his people to repentance. He calls them to renew their allegiance to him. The Lord speaks through the servant. He is called the Lord's mouth, his lips, his voice to the people. God gives revelation through the servant and they don't respond, they don't care, they don't give heed. They rejected God, and not just through the one servant, but through all of his servants. You did what was evil in my eyes; you chose to do what was not my will. Evil means covenant breaking. They chose to do what was evil; in other words, they willfully chose it. They were not just born into a situation and didn't know any better. They were given the choice and they made their choice. Because evil or covenant breaking is parallel with not his will, means that his will is to keep covenant with the Lord, or do good. It implies that. Then we see this huge dichotomy between the righteous and the wicked. As we go through these chapters, this last part of the Book of Isaiah, this dichotomy emerges so clearly, so dramatically, of the righteous on the one hand, and the wicked on the other hand – a great spiritual polarization. In fact, because of the extreme forms of wickedness that exist at that time that enables the righteous to rise to new spiritual heights, to have to deal with that. Dealing with the opposition makes them stronger, and God empowers them against the opposition when they call upon him for help. So the empowerment of the servants or the righteous happens almost, you might say, in direct proportion to the degree of wickedness that's out there, to the degree of opposition that they receive. 65:13–14 Therefore thus says my Lord the Lord: My servants shall eat indeed, while you shall hunger; my servants shall drink indeed, while you shall thirst; my servants shall rejoice indeed, while you shall be dismayed. My servants shall shout indeed, for gladness of heart, while you shall cry out with heartbreak, howling from brokenness of spirit. Wow! This is very much like Malachi saying, Then shall ye … discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him who serves God and him who does not serve God. The righteous are those who serve him, but that's a technical term. The servants is not just those who serve him in some kind of mysterious or vague way. It's a technical term that implies that these are vassals, these are sons and servants of God after the vassal pattern to a suzerain or an emperor. They keep the terms of the covenant of the emperor. They are proxies for their people. They answer to the emperor for the transgression, the disloyalties of the people; and they take them upon themselves like King Hezekiah did, and they suffer for the sake of their people. That's why these servants are such important instruments in their day. If there were not these servants, people themselves might not be able to lift themselves up to a stage where they could be saved. Certain individuals who are valiant go ahead and progress up the ladder, and part of their progression is to minister down to those lower than them. In so doing, as they minister to them, both ascend up the ladder. The one goes from being Israel or Jacob or Judah to a Zion/Jerusalem level; and the one goes from the Zion/Jerusalem level to the Servant/Son level; and the one goes from the Servant/Son level to the Seraph level. These servants are proxies; remember that, they are proxies for a people. They are temporal saviors. They merit the physical deliverance of God's people, or a number of God's people, just like Abraham did for those 300 souls whom he delivered physically from the famine and from starvation, and brought into the promised land with him. My servants shall eat indeed… that's covenant blessing. …while you shall hunger… that's covenant curse - the consequences of covenant keeping and of covenant breaking. But eating and drinking is also spiritual in the Book of Isaiah. They eat not just physical food but also spiritual food; and these guys also hunger, not just from physical food but also from spiritual food. my servants shall drink indeed, while you shall thirst; my servants shall rejoice indeed, while you shall be dismayed. When do people rejoice in the Book of Isaiah? They rejoice in those songs of salvation when God finally comes, and they rejoice in his presence, and they rejoice at their deliverance because the majority of people will have been destroyed out of the earth. Here are a few left, survivors of a dark age, living into the millennium. Wouldn't you rejoice? …my servants shall rejoice indeed, while you shall be dismayed. Because you see that it's all over for you. You see you didn't care, you didn't make it, you chose wrong and here are the consequences face to face. You didn't believe that they would happen, and finally they actually happened to you. Wouldn't you be disappointed? Like the five foolish virgins who were the people of God. They were virgins, they were not harlots. But they just didn't get their act together. They were dismayed. All the more so the wicked, those who don't repent at all. The idolaters are dismayed when their false Gods don't help them, when their gold and silver isn't any good to them in that time. My servants shall shout indeed, for gladness of heart… They will totally exult. What is the most spontaneous spiritual expression after you have gone through all the gambit of life? In the Book of Psalms it's praise; that's what the Psalms are called. In Hebrew they are called teheeleem which means praises. There is every form of spiritual expression in the Book of Psalms, but the one that the psalm ends up with very often after the person goes through all of the spiritual trials of life, is spontaneous joy and praise of God. …shall shout indeed, for gladness of heart, while you shall cry out with heartbreak, howling from brokenness of spirit. Maybe you won't even be here, maybe you won't even be around here. In the next world you'll be howling down there in the spirit prison, in Sheol, in hell. That's not the point, where it is, the fact is that it does happen because you lost everything, you sold your birthright. 65:15 Your name shall be left to serve my chosen ones as a curse when my Lord the Lord slays you. But his servants he will call by a different name. Like the people of Sodom. When you think of Sodom and Gomorrah what do you think of? Immorality, perversion, wickedness in the extreme. It's a curse. The name Sodom and Gomorrah is a curse. That's the name that these people are going to have, some name like that, identifying a group of people whose iniquity was full, who refuse to repent. There is really no hope, and they go down to the next world in that condition. Your name shall be left to serve my chosen ones as a curse when my Lord Jehovah slays you. But his servants he will call be a different name. Or a new name. That new name is the one that they receive as they ascend the spiritual ladder. So these servants and sons, themselves, after they perform that ministry to God's people, they ascend a level up the spiritual ladder. Every time you ascend the ladder you are given a new name. Jacob/Israel is one level; Jerusalem/Zion is another level; Servant and Son, each has his own individual name; and then Seraphim has a new name there again. In the Book of Revelation it talks about the stone that is given, and the name that a person is given. It happens when they become Seraphim. …his servants he will call by a different name. 65:16 Those of them who invoke blessings on themselves in the earth shall do so by the true God, and those of them who swear oaths in the earth shall do so by the God of truth. The troubles of the past shall be forgotten and hidden from my eyes. There are those who are praying to God for a blessing, for a particular cause, for something that has arisen in their particular situation that needs attention, that needs some kind of special blessing or divine intervention - they are doing that, that's great, that's part of what it means to be a Servant and Son - upon themselves and upon others, too. Not just upon themselves, individually, but upon themselves as a family, or as a nation, or as a clan, as a group of people. shall do so by the true God, or the God of truth. Meaning that in the past it hasn't been so. They were maybe invoking blessings by some false god, some statue, or some misconception of God; and so they were not getting the answer to their prayers because there weren't praying to the right God, or they were praying to a false concept of God. One of the most important things to do is to get a clear concept of the attributes of God so that you know who you worship and what you worship, so that your worship and your prayers can be effectual, so that your intercession with God on behalf of your children, or your wife, or grandma, whatever, can be effective. those of them who swear oaths in the earth… That's legitimate, you can do that. You can make covenants and oaths with God, for example, and keep them and obtain even greater blessings than you could without doing that. You'll say to God, "I have this need in my family, or in this country, or among this people. This is what I will covenant with you to do. I will do this, this, and this, and this and you do that for me, would you? That's what Jacob did. Jacob swore an oath to serve the God of Israel all his days, and he asked God to provide him with food and clothing; in other words sufficient for his needs, and God did that. That was what Jacob did. The troubles of the past shall be forgotten and hidden from my eyes. You don't want to remember that time, it was a time when everything was on such a low level, and now the whole earth has ascended a level also, to a paradisiacal state. So why remember that dark age before that, when so many problems were in the earth? Why would you want to remember it, or why would the Lord want to remember it? He's not going to hang onto the past and keep all your wrongdoing in front of him if you've repented of it. He's going to forgive you and forget it, and forgetting is part of being forgiven. The troubles of the past shall be forgotten and hidden from my eyes. 65:17 See, I create new heavens and a new earth; former events shall not be remembered or recalled to mind. We are at a different level now, there's a higher vibration here than before. The earth was jarred out of place in chapter 13, and then set in place in chapter 51, so when you look up in the sky there's a different configuration of stars, I guess. A new earth because it's a paradisiacal state. The way Isaiah prophecies is to prophecy new versions of ancient events, and one of the ancient events was paradise. former events shall not be remembered or recalled to mind. Because everything is new now. When Isaiah ascended the seven levels into the presence of God, in The Ascension of Isaiah, a document that was translated in about 6 ancient languages, at some point in his ascension he says the remembrance of that world where he came from was no longer there, it was forgotten. It means that this world will go up to one of those higher levels where the remembrance of this present earth that we live in now will no longer be remembered. It won't be worth remembering, except maybe as a lesson or something that taught us something that got us to where we are now on this higher level. 65:18 Rejoice, then, and be glad forever in what I create. See, I create Jerusalem to be a delight and its people a joy. This creation motif here is a link to the creation of Jerusalem, to the creation of a people. This is the level we're talking about. We're not talking about the present world or the Israel/Jacob level. We are talking about the Zion/Jerusalem level. He creates Jerusalem to be a delight and its people a joy. On that level there is only delight and joy, there is no more sadness, there is no more pain, there is no more tribulations and afflictions and oppression and bondage and deception and darkness. All those things are gone forever. Won't that be nice. The thing is to get to that point. …be glad forever… It's an everlasting happiness. 65:19 I will delight in Jerusalem, rejoice in my people; no more shall be heard there the sound of weeping or the cry of distress. As there has been. In this world there is weeping going on everywhere. There's distress, there's violence, and wickedness. 65:20 No more shall there be infants alive but a few days, or the aged who do not live out their years; those who die young shall be a hundred years old, and those who fail to reach a hundred shall be accursed. Everything will be different. It will be like the time of the ancients, from Adam to Noah or Methuselah. The people lived almost a thousand years, and that's what we'll do again. That will be a new version of an ancient event. The dying of infants alive but a few days is a covenant curse. It comes upon the sins and iniquities of the people. …the aged who do not live out their years… If you die young you will be a hundred years old; but dying, as Paul tells us, is not going to be like dying now, disintegration of the body. It will be changing to a different state in the twinkling of an eye. …those who fail to reach a hundred shall be accursed. There may still be a cursed condition, or covenant curses, following some individuals; but you can see that if that is, in fact, the case it's the opposite of what it is today when the majority of the people are in a sinful condition and are under covenant curse. Only a few are righteous and under covenant blessings. In this case that situation will be turned around, at least that. 65:21–22 When men build houses, they will dwell in them; when they plant vineyards, they will eat their fruit. They shall not build so that others may dwell, or plant so that others may eat. Not like they have done now, or they are doing now. People build houses and other people live in them. They have to sell their own house for one reason or another, financial difficulties. Or a contractor builds a house, and someone else lives in it. Or you build your house yourself, and you can't finish it because you run out of money. Or you work in someone's vineyard or orchard, and it's not your own, it's someone else's. Other people eat the fruit, mass production like today. It won't be like that. They shall not build so that others may dwell, or plant so that others may eat. Whatever you build or plan will be your own, belong to you and your family. And you will see people, your own families eating those things and you'll get satisfaction from your labors. If you work for someone else, or if you are an hireling, or if you are in a difficult condition, you get no satisfaction, there is no spirit there, it's without soul. So, you're just part of the big assembly line, you don't know where the products are going, and who eats them, you don't see the satisfaction on their faces when they eat the fruits of your labors. 65:22 The lifetime of my people shall be as the lifetime of a tree; my chosen ones shall outlast the work of their hands. These chosen ones, who are they? The servants, verse 9. Verse 9 parallels the chosen ones with the servants in a synonymous parallelism. The work of their hands is the servants work. Their outlasting the work of their hands is not just referring to the planting of vineyards and building of houses. The works of their hands was also the ministry that they had to those on a lower level on a spiritual ladder, and they will outlast them because they are the higher vibration, the higher spiritual level, themselves. 65:23 They shall not exert themselves in vain, or bear children doomed for calamity. For they are of the lineage of those blessed by the Lord, and their posterity with them. Again, talking about literal children, but they could also be spiritual children. Like the sons of the prophets, or not literally their sons, but they were disciples. Sometimes when you taught people, the prophets taught, was in vain. At any rate, there is both the literal interpretation that we can easily identify with, and also more of an esoteric interpretation. Doomed for calamity? Calamity was always a consequence of covenant transgressions. It was a curse, its evil, the result of covenant breaking, which often made the efforts of the righteous people administering to them, vain because the people just wouldn't respond they harden their hearts, they rejected the truth, they mock the things of God, or they forgot about God. People administering to that category were administering in vain, but they did anyway because everyone was given the chance to repent. They are of the lineage of those blessed by the Lord and their posterity with them. Posterity means covenant blessing and comes to us the covenant curse, children doomed for calamity. And there was a special lineage involved here, a lineage like a dynasty that goes on and on and on down the generations, all the way through the Millennium. It's like the lineage of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and Joseph, the lineage of King David, and of the prophets and apostles. Those ones, who come through and prove themselves to be saviors or servants and sons of God in that day, they are especially blessed, more especially blessed than the rest, they and their children or their posterity with them. Their blessing occurs upon the heads of their children. In this case it is not the iniquities of the fathers upon the heads of the children to the third and fourth generation, but the blessings of the fathers on the heads of the children down the generations. 65:24 Before they call I will reply; while they are yet speaking I will respond. In contrast to the others who called too late, or didn't call with sufficient faith, or called when they were not worthy or whatever. In this case they call, and the Lord answers them immediately. The group that we just were talking about a little while ago, they are calling and they are not getting immediate answers, because they still needed to go through more repentance, through more refining, and when you finally get through that process, then you call and He will answer just that quick. There is nothing to prevent the Lord at that point, from answering you immediately. 65:25 The wolf and the lamb will graze alike, and the lion will eat straw like the ox; as for the serpent, dust shall be its food: there shall be no harm or injury done throughout my holy mountain, says the Lord. These are some word links to chapter 11 verses 6 through 9 which is looking forward to the millennial age of peace. With what's happening in that millennial age, the wolf is an unclean animal and the lamb is a clean animal, and they will graze alike. While the wolf has been eating meat, now he is going to graze. Same with the lion eating straw like the ox. The unclean lion becoming clean like the ox, a clean animal. Which implies on an esoteric, metaphorical or allegorical level that these animals, the unclean will become like the clean, or in other words, those who are not the covenant people now will become the covenant people of the Lord. They will all become this covenant people. The clean representing this covenant people, the unclean representing the heathen. As for the serpent, dust shall be its food. I'm not sure how to interpret that one. In Isaiah you have two serpent types. You have the good serpent representing the messiah, symbolizing the messiah as we have seen in chapter 14. The brazen serpent that Moses held up in the wilderness, that was an antidote to the fiery flying serpents that killed the people. Well this implies that the serpent that was harmful is going to be reduced to an innocent state, or an innocuous or harmless condition. It is not going to bite people; it's going to eat dust. Dust meaning chaos, dust is a chaos motif. It's reduced to a harmless condition like a worm. There shall be no harm or injury done throughout my holy mountain, or throughout the Promised Land, or His holy nation. It is a holy nation now, not just my mountain period, but my holy mountain because all who live there will be holy, or sanctified says the Lord. As in chapter 35 where it says the way of return will be called the way of holiness, and we have returned to Zion, the whole land will become holy, because the people who dwell there will be holy.