Isaiah 34 vs 1--17

Isaiah Chapter 34 Verse 1

Isaiah sets the audience clearly as the nations, the earth and the world. Notice this chapter is not directed towards God’s people or Zion. This is a tough chapter that speaks to the hardship and the disaster that lies ahead as a result of the rejection of God. We will read of God’s indignation and fury but understand that is ours, the worlds, perspective of what is happening. God is incapable of temper tantrums and I just want you to know that. 

The anger of God is not some sort of uncontrollable emotional reaction. God leads in everything He does. These things we read, and the judgements and consequences dealt from God, are not Him angry like we get angry but rather He is simply being faithful to His Word. Hebrews 12:29 says, “God is a consuming fire.” How you experience that consumption has nothing to do with God’s specific emotional response to your actions or decisions and everything to do with whether or no you’re paying attention and hearing/heeding what He has already said.

With that, this is a dark chapter. A chapter of wave after wave of disastrous circumstance…, but the next chapter is the future glory of Zion, God’s people. Truly this is a chapter that looks to the end times, which we are on the very cusp of commencement. All of the chess pieces are on the board and in their place!

On May 14, 1948 the impossible happened. A nation that was gone, wiped off of the face of the earth, and yet essential for Biblical eschatology, was reborn. How? By proclamation. By word. Pretty interesting! David Ben-Gurion, the head of the Jewish Agency, simply proclaimed the establishment of the State of Israel. U.S. President Harry S. Truman recognized the new nation on the same day… and then Israel again, simply was…

And since then, the chess pieces have all, and I’m saying all, have moved into place in precise alignment with the Word of God! The stage is set for a rebuilt temple that is necessary to fulfill several end times prophecies including the abomination of desolation at the mid-point of the Great Tribulation. The stage is set for the set of nations prophesied by Daniel and John in Revelation 13 and 17, heir to the Roman Empire, from which will arise the Anti-Christ.

And speaking of him, the stage is set for a political and economic one-world leader to arise with answers to the complex and copious world problems. The stage is set for a false world-wide religion that the Bible talks about during the last days. The stage is set for a one-world economic system predicted by the Bible. The stage is set for the end-times scenario war between Russia and Israel. There are no pieces missing and every piece is entirely in place! The stage is set in completion for the final period of judgment upon the earth known as the Tribulation period.

But take heart! Jesus said in Luke 21:34-36, “Take heed to yourselves, lest your hearts be weighed down with carousing, drunkenness, and cares of this life, and that Day come on you unexpectedly. For it will come as a snare on all those who dwell on the face of the whole earth. Watch therefore, and pray always that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things that will come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man.” 

Jesus said, promised, that for the people of God, people able to stand before Jesus Himself, worthy, washed clean by His own blood, escape all that we read in Isaiah 34, all that we read in Revelation Chapters 6 – 19. Paul told us how this escape will be accomplished…

1 Thessalonians 4:16-18, “For the Lord Himself will descend from Heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus, we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words!” 

Before kicking off the Tribulation period, before pouring out judgement, righteous judgment, those that have already stood in judgment through the cross of Jesus Christ, worthy now of heaven itself being forgiven and washed clean of all sin and impurity in the spirit, are taken out of the way. Which must take place before the Anti-Christ even comes forth…

2 Thessalonians 2:7-8, “For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only He who now restrains will do so until He is taken out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed…” What’s the shout of the Lord as He comes for His people? Revelation 4:1, “After these things I looked, and behold, a door standing open in heaven. And the first voice which I heard was like a trumpet speaking with me saying, “Come up here….!”

So, Chapter 34, dark…terrible…a horrible time upon the earth…, a time that you want to most certainly miss and you most certainly can miss! We get to choose which chapter plays out for us specifically. Chapter 34 or Chapter 35….

Isaiah Chapter 34 Verses 2 – 3

The Bible predicts that during the Great Tribulation that there will be so much death that the leading professional job on earth will be corpse removal and even with all of the effort possible there will be far more bodies left than can be dealt with. Revelation 9:18 alone says, “Be these three plagues a third of mankind was killed…” Revelation 14:20 says there will be so much blood that it will be up to the horse’s bridle (between 4 and six feet high) over a span of 200 miles!

Isaiah Chapter 34 Verses 4 – 7

Could this be a partial fulfillment of the shadow cast by the Old Testament sacrificial law? I know Jesus is and was the fulfillment of the mandate for animal sacrifice in the Old Testament. All the laws that lined-out exactly what to do in terms of animal sacrifice at the temple in order to atone for specific sins, and when Jesus, who was our Sacrificial Lamb of God, was sacrificed on the cross, His blood was sufficient to atone for all sin for all time… And thus, the Old Testament sacrificial system was fulfilled in Jesus…, but what if Jesus is rejected? God says this is for “the people of My curse…”

The judgements of God are the purifications of God. The cleansing of God. And as God judges the earth, it is destroyed…, in a way unable to be cleansed…, but here we see perhaps that all sin is dealt with somehow. Either by Jesus, or…, by the law. Hebrews 9:22 says, “Without the shedding of blood, sin is not dealt with…” And so, this terror-filled scene? Why? Because Jesus, His blood, His atonement, His sacrifice, has been rejected…

Isaiah Chapter 34 Verses 8 – 12

Interesting, that which is unclean inhabits the earth. Makes complete sense in light of the rapture of the church discussion we have already had! And notice this super interesting statement by Isaiah, “The nobles of confusion and the princes of emptiness.” Wow. Aggressive and revealing titles given to people and to a world that chooses to walk in the dark and not open their eyes to the truth of God and the Person of Jesus Christ!

Isaiah Chapter 34 Verses 13 – 17

The word translated “goat” is the Hebrew word “sair” meaning literally “hairy one” which the King James translates not as goat but as satyr, speaking of perhaps some sort of demonic creature. Interesting the phare here “night creature” is the Hebrew word “lilit” or Lilith, which is a feminine form of the word for “night” and according to Jewish folklore speaks of some sort of beautiful demon of the night that seduced men and slaughtered children… So, this is far darker and more demonic than the translation renders.

God calls as witness His Word and righteous measurement if you will. There are no surprises with God and I love that about Him. No shocks. No startles. He has said exactly what He did, what He does, and what He will do. And all His works are righteous. May not like them. May sound horrifying…, but man, we have sinned. We have rebelled. We have ruined our own situation…

And God is a Fixer. He is perfection so He must perfect. And He did. Through stepping into this ruin Himself as ourself. He parachuted in to humanity and lived without ruin from within ruin and then endured ruin…, so that through Him, through what He has done, we can be ransomed, paid in full, rescued…, we call it “saved.” Saved from what? From hell for sure…, eternal separation from God because we forever hold on eternally to our ruin, to our sin…, but also saved from all of this… The final purification of the planet which ends in its destruction…

God needs not purify that which has been perfected… And that’s exactly what Jesus has accomplished for us!