66:1  Thus says the Lord: The heavens are my throne and the earth is my footstool. What house would you build me? What would serve me as a place of residence?

And now as we’re getting into the Millennium, we are going to see that the Lord is going to have a temple there to which he comes.  The question is, can God be confined in an earthly temple?  The answer is no.  The heavens are his throne, the earth is his footstool.  The whole earth is a footstool.  Why confine him to a little tiny building, relatively speaking, upon the earth?  Can’t do that.   He says what house would you build me, what kind of house? One that could serve him as a place of residence, do you think he is going to confine himself here when he comes?   No, but he will dwell in the temple at some point, or at some times.  He is not going to sit there on his throne in the temple all the time.   He’s got the whole cosmos as his creation, to which he ministers.  Being the highest level of the spiritual ladder, he ministers to everybody.  But as in the days of Moses, the Lord appeared to Moses whenever Moses needed to speak to God, the Lord came in the cloud of glory and rested upon the tabernacle and spoke with Moses.  He spoke with Isaiah and other prophets, but he wasn’t there all the time waiting for Isaiah to come and go through the veil to see him.  He wasn’t there for the high priest, as the high priest walked into the holy of holies, the Lord wasn’t there waiting for him.  The high priest pronounced the name, and then the Lord appeared, the Lord came.  It’s not a confining house for him.  Yes, he will appear there when there is a need, but there is no indication that he will be sitting there on his throne day and night for a thousand years.  It seems kind of ridiculous that people have that kind of conception.  What house would you build me, what would serve me as a place of residence?  It’s only a token of the real thing and a reflection.

66:2  These are all things my hand has made, and thus all came into being, says the Lord.

He’s made the elements, he’s made the wood, he’s made the marble, the precious stones, the gold and the silver for the implements.  We can’t confine God within the small space of the elements that he has made.  On the other hand, it also says, these are all things my hand has made.  First of all we take it literally that God has made it.  But the hand is also a metaphor describing the Lords servant, implying that perhaps in some premortal condition, the Lords servants, and by implication other servants too, assisted in this very creation, this creation of the earth, at least.  And thus, all came into being; it came into being when he made them.  

66:2  And yet I have regard for those who are of a humble and contrite spirit and who are vigilant for my word.

What has that got to do with the building of a house, a place for the Lord to dwell in?  The answer is that he dwells with those who are of a humble and contrite spirit, who are vigilant for his word.  Cross reference there is chapter 57 verse 15, that’s what he says there.  Thus saith the Lord who is highly exalted, who abides forever, whose name is sacred.  I dwell on high in the holy place and with him who is humble and lowly in spirit, refreshing the spirits of the lowly, reviving the hearts of the humble.  So we ourselves, in other words are temples or houses of God, of his spirit at least. And when his spirit dwells in us, he revives us and refreshes us or regenerates us.  For them the Lord has regard, special regard.  What does he do with the proud on the other hand?  The proud, he humbles them, and if they won’t be humbled, he destroys them.  And once we’re humble and contrite, contrite meaning penitent, in the repentant mode.   Who are vigilant for his word, in other words, his word to receive through the prophet of God, the prophets of God, which you receive in the books that they have written, scriptures which is our spiritual food, which guides us on the right path, teaches us the ways of God and how he thinks, teaches us Gods will for us.  If we are vigilant for his word, in other words we’re applying it in our lives, we want more, we are living by the word of God, then he has regard to us, and then he will dwell in us.  We become temples of God, of his holy spirit. And then the contrast with another group of people, that:

66:3  But whoever slaughters an ox is as one who kills a man, and whoever sacrifices a lamb, as one who breaks a dog’s neck; whoever presents a grain offering is as one who offers swine’s blood, and whoever burns incense, as one who venerates idols.

Those who are doing those kinds of things, offering sacrifices of animals like the lamb or an ox which were legitimate forms of sacrifice under the law of Moses, when the animal was the proxy for the man who had sinned or transgressed.  Under the law of justice, if he transgressed against God with a serious transgression, he was guilty of death.  If he sacrificed an animal, the animal died in his place, it was a proxy for him.  Or if the atoning sacrifice of Christ, the Lamb of God, those animal sacrifices became redundant, except perhaps in one or two lone instances of symbolic restoration.  They become redundant because they were not any way themselves atoning sacrifices, they were only prefiguring or looking forward to the great and eternal sacrifice of Jesus Christ our Savior.  And so, killing the animal sacrifices after that fact, after the fact of the atonement of Jesus Christ is not only redundant, but it is also mocking God.  

Whoever slaughters an ox is as one who kills a man, it’s like committing murder.  Whoever sacrifices a lamb is one who breaks a dog’s neck, an act of perversity, or perhaps even cult, satanic cult.  Whoever presents a grain offering which is also legitimate anciently under the Law of Moses is as one who offers swine’s blood which is an unclean animal and was an abomination to God, and therefore was a provocation.  It’s what the Greeks did in the temple in Judea to provoke the God of Israel.  Whoever burns incense which was done by the Priests anciently is one who venerates idols.  Those things will no longer be necessary because men will be so filled with the spirit of God, that those things will seem like shadows of the past, the practices of a bygone age.  

66:3  Just as they have preferred to go their own ways, their souls delighting in their abominations,

And those things become their abominations, their own ways are abominations.  And not follow Gods ways, their own ways as parallels with abominations.  And it’s a preference, it’s a choice.  They delight in these things, showing their really perverse condition, so I prescribe intrigues for them, in other words they are going to get their reward of these actions.  I will bring upon them the thing they dread, which was their destruction, in a more specific sense, the kind of destruction that was being threatened in that day and age.  Maybe nuclear war, maybe the king of Assyria is rattling his sabers and getting his missiles ready for the attack.  Who knows what the scenario will be.  It will be something that people are dreading at the time.   And we have seen that in other places in the book of Isaiah.  That very thing that they have dreaded is going to catch up with them; with this particular group of people, in other words, these are part of the Sodom and Gomorrah category.  

66:4  so will I prescribe intrigues for them  and bring upon them the thing they dread. For when I called, no one responded; when I spoke, none gave heed. They did what was evil in my eyes; they chose to do what was not my will.

So will I prescribe intrigues for them.  Why?  Because they have been practicing all kinds of intrigues, and machinations.  And now the Lord is going to give them measure for measure.  For when I called, no one responded, when I spoke none gave heed.  They did what was evil in my eyes; they chose to do what was not my will.  The same is in chapter 65 verse 12 which we just read.  The Lord called and spoke in that brief time period before the millennium, before the judgments of the world, and he spoke through his servants.  He called people to repentance and to renew the covenant relationship with God so that they might be blessed, so that they might be prepared to meet God and enjoy the millennial age.  Among this group no one responded, none gave heed.  They did what was evil in my eyes, or broke the covenant and chose to do what was not my will, and it was a deliberate choice to go against God.  But the consequence for that in chapter 65 was that great division between the servants being blessed and this group being cursed.  In fact, in chapter 65 it says my servants shall eat indeed while you shall hunger, my servants shall drink indeed while ye shall thirst.   It leaves the you anonymous.  Servants are identified, and the you is some anonymous group.  Although they were Gods people, or potentially Gods people, they rejected him; they became alienated from the covenant and could no longer be called God’s people.

66:5  Hear the word of the Lord, you who are vigilant for his word: Your brethren who abhor you, and exclude you because of my name, say, Let the Lord manifest his glory, that we may see cause for your joy! But it is they who shall suffer shame.

There’s that word vigilant again which you saw in verse 2.  If you are vigilant for the word of the Lord, you will hear the word of the Lord and want more of it because it will help you ascend the ladder.  It will help you in the spiritual progression.  Hear the word of the Lord, you are vigilant for his word, your brethren who abhor you, exclude you because of my names sake.  And this lets you know that this group, that is vigilant, that are of a humble and contrite spirit, as verse 2 says, who are the temples of God or of this spirit, that they are being abhorred and excluded or ostracized in some way, excommunicated in their religion perhaps, or disfellowshiped, in some way made to be outcasts of society by some who have the power to do that.  It goes in authority.  Who are these?  Brethren, people in authority among your own brethren, who exercise unrighteous dominion over you.  Your brethren abhor you.  That is an enormous anomaly that it should be coming from that source.  It is not surprising because it happened in the days of Jesus Christ, in Caiphas the high priest.  Caiphas condemned Christ to death, he ostracized him, he abhorred him, excluded him.  The same with the apostles of Jesus’ day, their own brethren among the Jews were the ones who put them to death, who excommunicated them; put them out of the synagogue.  

Your brethren who abhor you, we also see that in Isaiah, that the people abhor the servant.  Chapter 49 verse 7.  Thus says the Lord the Redeemer, Holy One of Israel, to him who is despised as a person, who is abhorred by his nation, a mere servant to those in authority.  At first before the servant is empowered, this next line says the rulers shall rise up, and they see you, and heads of state shall prostate themselves in front of the servant when the Lord empowers him.  At first the servant is abhorred and is despised by his own people, by his own nation.  And so it is here, these people who are in authority, their own nation abhorred these servants, the ones who are vigilant for his word, the ones who are of a humble and contrite spirit.  What happens to the one happens to the group, and that’s the pattern in Isaiah.  The one is a paradigm for the others.  If they want to be servants they will know ahead of time that that’s what they’re gonna get.  Those were the kind of responses that they would get from certain types of people.  And you go into that situation with your eyes open, you say okay, I’m prepared for that, I’m willing to pay that price.  I want to refine my allegiance to God, upgraded, if that’s what it takes.  That’s okay.  Your brethren abhor you and exclude you because of my names sake.  Let the Lord manifest your glory, that when they see cause for your joy, it is they who shall suffer shame.

These ones who are in authority, who are ostracizing, are asking for some kind of sign.  They see these zealots, these people who are zealous for God, vigilant for his word and so forth, and they don’t believe that the Lord is coming, imminently.  Let the Lord manifest his glory or his presence, glory and presence are interchangeable ideas in Hebrew.  Let him give us some kind of sign that you’re for real, that the things you’re believing about his coming; it’s so close and so imminent, is near.   That when they see cause for your joy; why are you so happy all the time?  Why are you so joyful and so zealous?  You embarrass us.  And so they persecute the elect of God.  It says, but it is they who shall suffer shame.  They put these elect of God to shame in persecuting them, then they themselves are shamed in the end.  It’s the self exaltation, before humiliation, that Isaiah talks about, the opposite of humiliation before exaltation.  God’s way is to be humiliated and then exalted, as Christ was himself.  Humiliated before Caiphas, before his own people, before the Romans, and then when he comes in glory, he will be exalted and come as an exalted being.  And so it happens with the Lords servant as I just read in chapter 49, he is abhorred and despised before rulers rise up before him and prostrate themselves before him.  Peter goes through humiliation before his exaltation, and so do these.  

In chapter 61 verse 7 we read because their shame was two fold, and shouted insults were their lot, therefore and their land shall their inheritance be two fold, and everlasting joy be theirs.  They first must go through persecution, and that persecution and humiliation and ostracism serves to sanctify them.  It’s a price they pay, it’s a sacrifice they make to God and they are willing to do so, not just for themselves, they have long since repented of their sins, they are not suffering that because of their own sins, they’re suffering it for the sake of others.  They are suffering it for the sake of those whose saviors they become.  As this king Hezekiah suffered, immense suffering, and then the Lord blessed him by healing him, and also promising to deliver his people from the Assyrians and that great miracle of deliverance.  These ones who are ostracized and who suffer, suffer as proxies for others.  That’s why the Lord says that he delivers these others for the sake of his servants for their sake, because their prayers to God are effectual in behalf of those lower on the spiritual ladder.  They suffer, they’re willing to go through all of this and pay a price, so the Lord respects that, he has a regard for them, he responds to them, he gives heed to them, he fulfills the words of his servants, it says in Isaiah, and his messengers.  Let the Lord manifest his glory that they may see cause for your joy, but it is they who shall suffer shame.  They will suffer shame in the end even though they’re shaming the elect now.

66:6  Hark, a tumult from the city, a noise from the temple!  It is the voice of the Lord paying his enemies what is due them.

Who are these enemies?  Are these very brethren that are doing the persecuting.  That’s how chapter 1 starts off.  Who are the enemies of Gods people that he destroys?  The wicked of his own people, the ones in leadership positions in particular.  Here’s the word of the Lord, you leaders of Sodom, give heed to the law of our God, ye people of Gomorrah, you rulers or renegades, accomplices of robbers, criminals and sinners shall be altogether shattered, and those who forsake the Lord  are annihilated, speaking of the leadership and the masses both.  Where does that retribution begin, when the Lord comes to pay his enemies what is due them?  It starts with his own house, the noise from the temple, literally the temple, also the people in general.  A tumult from the city, the main city, some kind of controversy, some kind of uproar, disturbance, is the voice of the Lord paying his enemies what is due them.  Like the voice of the Lord was heard on Mt. Sinai rebuking the wicked, and they ran far away.  Well the voice of the Lord is also a metaphor and is clouding the Lords servant, and in the book of Malachi it says that the messenger will come to refine the sons of Levi, or those who are serving as priests, where they serve as priests in the temple.  The voice of the Lord could also be the king of Assyria, he’s also a voice, not necessarily the voice of the Lord, but he’s a voice of the wicked.  The wicked are left in his care, that’s perhaps another level we could look at it.

66:7  Before she is in labor, she gives birth; before her ordeal overtakes her, she delivers a son!

The son is that servant and son in Isaiah who prepares the way before the coming of the Lord, who is the voice of the Lord in the temple, who is the preparer of the way, who is the light to the nations, to bring them out of the long darkness.  He’s the one who lifts the people of God up to a level of righteousness so that they may endure Gods presence and prepares them to meet God as Moses did, who delivers them in an exodus.  When does he arrive on the scene?  Well, obviously in the context of this noise from the temple.  The Lord intervened to deal with these false brethren, these authorities who are persecuting Gods elect.  In that context, the woman gives birth.  Who is she?  Zion, the woman Zion, as soon as she was in labor Zion gave birth to her children in the next verse.  Zion is that group of people who are a righteous people, the ones who are in a repentant mode.  If she gives birth, then she gives birth to someone who is higher on the spiritual ladder than herself.  It’s a new birth, it’s someone who comes out of that category and is reborn, or is born again on a higher level than that, and that is the servant in Isaiah.  It is the same individual as the male child to which the woman Zion gives birth in the book of Revelation.  She flees into the wilderness for three and a half years after she gives birth to her male child.  This is exactly the situation in the book of Isaiah.  The three and a half years is the time of the exodus and wandering in the wilderness.  

The male child is the Lords servant.  He’s born before the time of judgment, before she’s in labor it says, before she’s in labor she gives birth.  The labor is the Day of Judgment when the people of God go through this horrendous ordeal of refinement and becoming refined through the ordeal of the day of judgment, the group that we have been talking about, the little group.  Before she’s in labor, she gives birth, before her ordeal overtakes her, she delivers a son.  That, of course is a word link to chapter 9 verse 6.  Unto us a child is born, a son appointed who will shoulder the burden of government.  In Isaiah, that son through word links, links to the servant chapter 42 and chapter 49.  That’s called the birth pangs of the Messiah in Judaism, when the people of God go into the situation of travail like the Israelites in Egypt who served under hard bondage to the Egyptians.  And the people of God are in travail, Moses is born as the deliverer, and then Moses turns around and delivers the people, or those who gave him birth.  The same thing with King David, the people of God were in travail and they were about to be wiped out by the Philistines.  King David was born, and he became the deliverer.  The same thing with King Hezekiah, the Assyrians laid siege to Jerusalem and overrun the whole of the land except that city.  The people were in travail and they gave birth to a deliverer, Hezekiah and he delivers the people, he turns around and delivers the woman.  That’s the situation here.

66:8  Who has heard the like, or who has seen such things? Can the earth labor but a day and a nation be born at once? For as soon as she was in labor, Zion gave birth to her children.

First, he is born and then the rest of them are born, the other children.  Zion gave birth to her children.  He’s born, out of Zion come other servants as we’ve seen and sons of God who assist the one servant, John says 144,000 of them.  They have born also in that day, that day is the day of judgment.  That’s when the ordeal begins; they are born in that day.  The servant is born before that day of judgment, and Zion herself is born in that day.  Because you have the spiritual ladder and you have all of these categories, in that day it’s the time when everybody is ascending the ladder.  Those who are on a Jacob/Israel level will be born as a Zion and Jerusalem category.  Those who are a Zion/Jerusalem category will be born as a Servant/Son category and those who are a Servant/Son category will be born as Serve category.  

It’s all going on at the same time, the whole situation is in flux, because of the pressure of that day and part of that pressure is those authorities pressuring or ostracizing the righteous.  Part of the pressure is the King of Assyria and all of that scenario, the political scenario going on.  In Isaiah the political and the spiritual are always on the par.  It’s extreme wickedness on the one hand, and extreme righteousness on the other, both in the political field and in the religious field, both for good and for evil.  When the King of Assyria comes along, he being the most evil, you also have the counterpart, you have the most good, or the Lords servant.  When you have all of these wicked brethren, you also have righteous brethren.  The wicked allow the righteous to rise higher because of the things they have to go through and suffer at the hands of these wicked.  The wicked are given a chance and they fail the test and they end up humiliated and shamed and ostracized themselves, cut off from Gods presence, they very thing that they are doing or thinking they are doing to the righteous.  

This labor of the earth, can the earth labor but a day, this huge labor that is going on, the whole earth goes into labor, but it’s also Zion that is going into labor.  Everything is in labor, God is in labor, the servant is in labor, the servants of God are in labor, Babylon is in labor as we saw in chapter 13, now he brings forth wind, produces nothing but an  abomination.  Can the earth labor but a day, that day of judgment and a nation be born at once?  That nation is the new nation of Zion, the people of Zion are born in a day, that category of people are born as a nation as a people in the day of judgment, all at once within a very brief period of time.  Of course they must have been a precondition; there must have been some kind of emerging state that they were in that allowed them to be lifted to that level.  They were not wicked people to begin with necessarily; they just became more refined at that time through the instrumentality of the Lord’s servant, and the servants of God.  As soon as she was in labor, Zion gave birth to her children, and those are the servants, so that’s another level, that’s a higher level, and then there’s the son who came first, of course.

66:9  Shall I bring to a crisis and not bring on birth? says the Lord. When it is I who cause the birth, shall I hinder it? says your God.

This is like a pregnancy; it doesn’t just go on and on forever.  There comes a time when there is a birth, there has to be a birth, a pregnancy that may go over the time, but can’t go on forever.  It implies here that there are some resisting that idea.  God wants to bring forth this people Zion, or these children of Zion, or this servant and son, and there are those who are opposing that idea, and saying, this is not of God.  We saw that earlier, there are those who are saying whatever you are begetting, is not of God.  As in chapter 45, woe to those who say to their father, what have you begotten after the woman, what have you born?  Thus says the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, your maker, will you ask me for signs concerning my children, or dictate to me about the deeds of my hands?  He’s the one who is doing all of this, God is, and there’s a group that’s opposing God in effect.  Shall I bring to a crisis and not bring on birth says the Lord, when it is I who cause the birth, shall I hinder it?  Says your God, your covenant God, rejoice with Jerusalem and be glad for her, all who love her.  Join in her celebration, all who mourn for her.  Meaning the birth has happened, and there’s jubilant celebration because of it.  There was mourning first because of what she had to endure, and these people had to endure.  And there is the Jerusalem category; well it’s the same thing as the Zion category.

66:10  Rejoice with Jerusalem and be glad for her, all who love her; join in her celebration, all who mourn for her.

Maybe there are some who don’t love her, and go another direction, or oppose her.  Join in her celebration, the celebration happens after the birth.

66:11  From now on nurse contentedly at her consoling breasts; draw at your pleasure from the abundance of her bosom.

And this is part of Isaiah’s imagery, how he takes the life cycle process from birth through lactation, and through childhood, teenage years, marriage, rebellion, divorce, and through death and resurrection, and remarriage.  There are those who were persecuted, who are now going to be consoled.  There are those who were ostracized, who are now going to be received back and comforted, like a child who is comforted when he nurses from his mother.  And also the abundance of the bosom, enjoy it at ones pleasure that is covenant blessing.  It is an abundance to eat, it is a sufficiency, and that’s the millennial age, the time of great peace.

66:12  For thus says the Lord: See, I will extend peace to her like a river, the bounty of the nations like a stream in flood.

The peace like a river, is a word link to chapter 48 where it says, had you but obeyed my commandments, your peace would have been like a river, your righteousness like the waves of the sea.  Speaking about a group that was cut off from Gods presence because they did not merit this condition, they did not merit living on into the millennium.  Those who do, people of Zion or Jerusalem, their peace will be like a river, the bounty of the nations, like a stream and flood.  The nations will come to them like a stream and a flood, that’s a word link to chapter 2 where the nations stream to Zion.  Also chapter 60 verses 5 and 11 where it speaks about the return of Gods people to Zion from among the nations.  We have a group then that’s in Zion—the Zion/Jerusalem category, to which another category, after it’s all over, after the day of judgment, at the beginning of the millennium returns from out there to Zion.  Remember the group that we talked about that did not participate in the exodus, that was getting its repentance process together, that was going through the refiners’ fire?  They return from among the nations, or they return as nations out there to Zion, after the day of judgment.  The first group, the elect, or the holy and valiant ones, they individually went through the refiner’s process before the day of judgment. They go with the exodus.  They are protected in that day.  The second group that has need to repent, does repent, is refined, then they return from out there, they are a much larger group, they return to Zion.  And the third group, of course, doesn’t return at all, they are destroyed by the King of Assyria. So, it says I will extend peace to her like a river, this is the group at home now, the one that is spared the destruction, or the judgment.  They are the ones now, to whom these nations stream as in a flood.

66:12–13  Then shall you nurse and be carried upon the hip and dandled on the knees. As one who is comforted by his mother I will comfort you; for Jerusalem you shall be comforted.

So basically there are two gatherings spoken of in the book of Isaiah.  One, the gathering in Exodus led by the servants, and last of all, a gathering and a linking up with them by others who were out there during the judgment.  

66:14  Your heart shall rejoice to see it, your limbs flourish like sprouting grass, when the hand of the Lord shall be manifest among his servants and his rage among his enemies.

In that day of judgment, in his deliverance for the righteous and destruction for the wicked the intermediate category will in the end rejoice too, because they thought that they had missed the boat, and they had, but they still survived and there was still deliverance there that eventually they participated in, and their hearts too rejoiced, and their limbs flourished like sprouting grass, they were regenerated physically.  

When the hand of the Lord shall be manifest among his servants, meaning the servant, the right hand of God, is known among his servants.  That is like Moses and the seventy Elders, the one servant and the other servants who assist him and help him, and work together with him.  And his rage among his enemies, that’s the King of Assyria, personifies God’s rage; he’s manifested among the wicked, including the enemies of God’s own people. Verse 6 Paying his enemies what is due them, who were the false brethren who were in authority, who excluded the righteous.  They are given into the hand of the King of Assyria, into his power.  

66:15  See, the Lord comes with fire, his chariots like a whirlwind, to retaliate in furious anger, to rebuke with conflagrations of fire.

66:16  For with fire and with his sword shall the Lord execute judgment on all flesh, and those slain by the Lord shall be many.

Many, meaning the majority.  Using Isaiah’s tithing imagery, we can guess that about 90 % of the earth’s population will perish, will be in the wicked category that’s destroyed.  About 9 % of the earth’s population will be in the intermediate category, and about 1% of the earth’s population will be in the category that’s protected through divine intervention.  So those slain by the Lord shall be many, indeed they will like they were at the flood when most of the world’s population was destroyed.  With fire and with his sword shall the Lord execute judgment on all flesh. That’s with the King of Assyria.  Through the instrumentality of the King of Assyria he personifies the fire and the sword; he’s given power over all flesh.  Executing judgment is justice, the law of justice for them that didn’t repent, he’s a world conqueror, he destroys all nations, we’ve seen that, that happens at the time of his coming.  See the Lord comes with fire; his chariots revolve like a whirlwind to retaliate in furious anger, to rebuke with conflagrations of fire.  The fire, the anger, are again personifications of the King of Assyria, he’s the one through whom the Lord destroys the wicked, he’s the one who burns up the wicked, conflagrations of fire, chariots like a whirlwind, perhaps nuclear weapons, some kind of Sodom and Gomorrah destruction as we saw in chapter 13.  

That’s called the coming of the Lord, it’s the same idea as in the New Testament, the Lord will come as a thief in the night, the thief is the King of Assyria, he does the plundering and spoiling in the book of Isaiah.  The coming of the Lord is immediately preceded by this cleansing process of the earth when the King of Assyria destroys the wicked.  It says as we read a minute ago the mountains melting at thy presence, the nations trembling at thy presence, and this presence is when the Lords coming is imminent, the King of Assyria is doing his thing, but whatever he does to the wicked, or to others is also done to him himself, and we’ve seen that happen in the book of Isaiah, he himself ends up being part of this destruction. You see that we’re switching back in time here from one situation to another, to another.  Time is not sequential in the book of Isaiah, as by now you have surely noticed.  He just goes back and reiterates the same situation just using different imagery and different terminology over and over.

66:17  As for the cultists who fornicate in the parks, the devotees of one in the center, who eat the flesh of swine and prawn and rodents—they with [their practices and ideas] shall be made an end of, says the Lord.

Here we have again that cult. He keeps dropping these remarks here and there throughout the book of Isaiah.  When you put all of these descriptions together, you get a pretty comprehensive picture of what a satanic cult is all about, or lesser versions of the cult, but it’s a very prevalent idea in that time period of the judgment, and here it’s linked, or appears in the context of God’s judgment.  God comes to judge through the agency of the King of Assyria when things come to this head in the society of God’s people.  It describes probably a cult scene in the parks, not necessarily the town park, but maybe national parks, canyon lands, mountains, following one in the center all fornicating or committing immoral acts, imitating one leader who is the big guy, it has to do with eating unclean foods, swine, kine and rodents were all unclean animals in the law of Moses, but again not just necessarily physically but also spiritually. They with their practices and ideas shall be made an end of says the Lord.  That whole category of people disappears from the earth, their name becomes a curse as we’ve seen, they’re a Sodom and Gomorrah category whose iniquity is full, and this is a manifestation of their iniquity being full.  

66:18  For I will come to gather all nations and tongues, that they may approach and behold my glory.

Meaning that there are those out there in the world who now will be gathered.  When that destruction of the wicked takes place, there’s that middle category left out there, and they also will be gathered and behold his glory.  Because of the things that they have gone through, the tribulations that they have endured, and the repentance process and the refining process that they’ve gone through, they now, too are worthy to behold his glory. This concerns then the second gathering that I’ve been mentioning, the first gathering being the holy ones and valiant ones who gather in Exodus under the Lord’s protection to Zion, and don’t suffer the ravages of that day of judgment, they are totally protected, as it says in chapter 4, which we read, that cloud of glory, it says will be a shelter and shade from the heat of the day, a secret refuge from the downpour and from rain.  Chapter 4 verses 5 and 6 talk about that cloud of glory being a protection during that day. 
This middle category that survives out there is also going to be gathered.  Who gathers them?  Why, the ones that were gathered the first time, under the protection of the cloud, they go out and gather the second category.  This, as the servants of the Lord, the one servant and the other servants gathered the first category, you see how it works?  The one servant, and the servants who assist him, when they fulfill their mission and they preach repentance, people renew their allegiance to the God of Israel in the day of judgment. Like Lot, on the eve of the destruction, is taken out by the angels, so these servants gather out the holy and valiant ones and protect them, or God protects them because they have measured up spiritually to merit God’s protection, because of the servants who ministered to them.  These servants really in effect, gather them physically as they first minister to them spiritually, and now, the same thing that those who were gathered the first time, they perform the same function to these now who were left out there during the day of judgment.

66:19–20  And I will set a mark upon them, sending those of them who survive to the nations that had not heard the news concerning me, nor seen my glory—to Tarshish, Pul, and Lud (the archers), to Tubal and Javan, and to the distant isles. And they shall declare my glory among the nations and shall bring back all your brethren from throughout the nations to Jerusalem my holy mountain, says the Lord, as offerings to the Lord—on horses, in chariots and wagons, and on mules and dromedaries—just as the Israelites brought offerings in pure vessels to the house of the Lord.

I will set a mark upon them, that’s the same mark as in the book of revelation, where they are sealed with the seal of God upon their foreheads, and that mark means that they too will receive God’s protection or power over the elements to lead people through the fire, through the elements, whatever conditions may stand in the way as the servants did.  I will set a mark upon them sending those of them who survive to the nations that have not heard the news concerning me, basically all the nations, any nation, declaring his glory among the nations, meaning that they declare the coming of the Lord, or God’s presence.  The word glory and presence in Hebrew are synonymous ideas.  When the cloud of glory rests upon the temple it signifies the Lord’s presence there, and when he comes, he comes to the temple, and shall bring back all your brethren from throughout the nations.  Brethren meaning that these too, are now the covenant people of the Lord.  From throughout the nations, wherever they were, to Jerusalem my holy mountain, the holy place or the sanctified place, the place for the elect on the Jerusalem level says the Lord, as offerings to the Lord, on horses and chariots, as the Israelites brought offerings in pure vessels to the house of the Lord. Here again linking the idea of vessels to people, which we saw earlier in chapter 22.  People are trees, people are vessels, and these people go out and gather them up as offerings to the Lord as it were, because these people have gotten their spiritual act together as we saw, they came around through the repentance process of their day and renewed their allegiance to the Lord, they became the clay in the hands of the potter, they were recreated or reborn, and now they’re worthy as an offering at the temple to God.

66:21  Of them likewise I will accept men to be priests and Levites, says the Lord.

They’re also worthy to see the Lord there, as the Israelites brought offerings of pure vessels to the house of the Lord, and then likewise, I will accept men to be Priests and Levites, because they’re sanctified now and they can minister to the Lord, minister as his priests as these others minister as his priests, the ones who gathered them.  

66:22  And as the new heavens and the new earth which I make shall endure before me, says the Lord, so shall your offspring and name endure.

In contrast to those whose offspring and names were cut off.  In chapter 14 verse 22 I will rise up against them says the Lord of Hosts, I will cut off Babylon’s name and a remnant, its offspring and descendants.  Those who are of Babylon, or the Sodom and Gomorrah type of category leave no offspring behind them, and that’s a covenant curse, no name, their name is on the accursed name.  But these have offspring and it’s an eternal offspring as the new heavens and the new earth which I shall make, shall endure before me.  All through the Millennium, it’s an everlasting offspring of the nature of Abraham’s offspring, as numerous as the sands of the seashore, and as the stars of heaven from?

66:23  And New Moon after New Moon, Sabbath after Sabbath, all flesh shall come to worship before me, says the Lord.

All through the Millennium.  In other words, year after year, month after month, week after week, people of all nations wherever they may be in the earth shall come to worship before me.  That is at Jerusalem, or at the center place Zion in a pilgrimage at least once or twice or a few times a year as they did anciently at the times of the feasts, Passover and Tabernacles.   And in this case going on all year round, not just on one particular occasion or two particular occasions, every month somebody will be coming, or every Sabbath somebody will be there.  Maybe those people only come twice a year, but they will be coming from all over, all the time, all year round.  

66:24  And they shall go out and look upon the corpses of the people who transgressed against me, whose worms do not die and whose fire shall not be extinguished. They shall be a horror to all flesh.

So again, right to the very end, drawing the contrast between the righteous and the wicked; here the wicked are a remembrance of what could happen and what did happen and a lesson to be learned.  They go out and look upon the corpses of the people who transgressed.  The transgressors are the enemies of God, the criminals and sinners, the tyrants the prideful, and maybe the ones of his own people because they had the highest knowledge; they had the greater knowledge given to them.  The false brethren, they transgressed against God the most.  Whose worms do not die, whose fire shall not be extinguished.  It doesn’t say that they live in an everlasting hell.  It says Gehenna, this is a kind of a Gehenna or a hell here of which there was a tradition in Jerusalem anciently when people were burned there in the valley of Gehenna and offered to idols, the God Moloch.  The fate of these people is kind of like that, people then used to go and look upon those corpses and see what a horrible thing it was.   Isaiah turns that around and says that this is the fate of the wicked; it doesn’t say that they’re going to be in the fire for all eternity, it just says that the fire shall not be extinguished, the worms will not die.  It doesn’t say that there is no end to their suffering.  It shall be a horror to all flesh to remind everybody of what happens to transgressors, and what a lesson that should be to them.  All through the millennium, perhaps all through eternity, perhaps there are black holes out there somewhere, where the wicked go, if we ever want to have a look at them from eternity, we can look at them and say, well that’s what happens to the wicked, let’s not make that mistake.  And on that note we end the book of Isaiah.