Shipwrecked in need of rescue!

Koot van wyk (DLitt et Phil; ThD)

Visiting Professor

Department of Liberal Arts Education

Kyungpook National University

Sangju Campus

Conjoint lecturer of Avondale College

Australia

It was 1 June 1773 in Capetown harbor. Five Dutch ships were anchored in the harbor. A storm came up and the anchor of the ship De Jonge Thomas broke loose and head into the sea and about 200 meters from the beach ran on the rocks. 288 people were on board and started to scramble for their lives. The government in Cape Town at the castle sent out soldiers to the beach. Farmers gathered on the beach to think how they could help these poor people on the sinking ship. The soldiers came and prohibit them to be on the beach for they expected that valuable cargo may float to the beach and it can be stolen. In the meantime the people were screaming on the ship.

A farmer on a horse, Wolraad Woltemade made his way to the beach to bring his son, a young rookie, some lunch. He heard the screams and inside him, something switched on. He couldn’t sit any longer. He had to go. He went in with his horse, reached the ship and two passengers could come out to the beach. Safe! He went in again and brought another two. It went on for seven times. Each time two passengers were saved. The horse was very tired and bystanders were pleading him not to go again. He did and could not come back. The horse and Wolraad died that day. The sailors all reached the beach safely. About 183 passengers died that day since the ship was breaking apart by the big waves.

With this interlude we wish to turn to an Old Testament prophet who was called by the Lord.

Isaiah was a professor in history for the palace of Jerusalem. He wrote the histories of the kings of Israel during the time of Jeroboam and it was during that time that the Lord came to call him to the ministry. Isaiah had only one focus in his history writing. Not the horizontal anthropological view but the vertical view, not the view from man to God but from God to man.

His history of Jeroboam and the other kings was only interested in their relationship with God. He was not taken in by their buildings, projects, their economic policies. Only their relationship with God. Period. Some had much like Hezekiah but then his son came, Manasseh and he did evil that we cannot even imagine.

Isaiah’s book of 66 chapters was almost done. He had only the last chapter to write to complete the book.

When he started this chapter, he wanted to say, this world is a shipwreck and all of us are sinking and we need to get off and reach the strand. All packed in chapter 66. The captain of the ship, Satan, and his sailors, his angels, told us all to stay where we are but Isaiah’s message is that there is a man on a horse on His way to take us to the strand, to the beach of safety.

He says that heaven is His throne and earth His footstool (v. 1).

The image is one of involvement with heaven and earth.

It is not the building that attracts the Lord or impresses Him,

“to him who is humble and contrite of spirit and who trembles at My Word” (v. 2d)

“to this one I will look” (v. 2c).

There is a beach where God wants to take us and Isaiah mentioned it in 66:10:

He asks the remnant to be joyful with Jerusalem [New Jerusalem in heaven] (v. 10a).

All those who mourn over the New Jerusalem “be exceedingly glad” (v. 10b).

Isaiah then used a baby image to explain that “you may nurse and be satisfied with her comforting breasts” which is the baby remnant that is enjoying the comfort of the New Jerusalem (v. 11a).

The Lord says that He will extend peace to her like a river (v. 12a).

The remnant “shall be nursed you shall be carried on the hip and fondled on the knees” (v. 12c).

“As one whom his mother comforts, so I [the Lord] will comfort you [remnant]” (v. 13a).

The remnant shall be comforted in New Jerusalem (v. 13b).

The heart of the remnant shall be glad (v. 14a).

Whenever Isaiah wrote, he is talking to the remnant. He has in mind the remnant weed or evil ones among the faithful and the remnant seed, the true faithful ones among the remnant. There is a day when God will deal with Satan and his angels and also with the remnant weed.

However, at the end of the millennium, He shall be indignant to His enemies (v. 14d).

At the executive judgment at the end of the millennium, “behold the Lord will come in fire and His chariots like the whirlwind to render His anger and fury and His rebuke with flames of fire” (v. 15).

“For the Lord will execute judgment by fire” (v. 16a) which is the Hell-event.

“And by His sword on all flesh and those slain by the Lord will be many” (v. 16b-c).

Isaiah then identifies the evil:

The evil are those who in history has “sanctify and purify themselves to the gardens” (v. 17a).

There are people who use nature as a cultic refreshing experience and not only as a refreshing experience.

They are following one [Satan] in the center (v. 17b).

They “eat swine flesh, detestable things and mice” (v. 17c).

They shall come to an end altogether (v. 17d).

Stepping back into our own times, Isaiah foresee just like Joel a day when the Holy Spirit will be poured out and the Latter Rain will cause everyone around the globe to praise the Lord. The problem is that not all who praise will remain in the Lord since they did not have true oil in their lamps.

The Lord knows the remnant seed and their works and thoughts that the time is coming to gather all nations and tongues and they shall come and see His glory (v. 18).

The Lord will set a sign among the faithful ones of the earth “and will send survivors from them to the nations” that will join the remnant “that have neither heard My fame nor seen My glory” (v. 19).

“And they will declare My glory among the nations” (v. 19).

The harvest of the Lord is at the Second Coming when angels [compare Joel 2:5] “they shall bring all your brethren from all the nations [goyim which is a term for heathen nations] as a grain offering to the Lord, on horses, in chariots, in litters, on mules, and on camels to My holy mountain [Zion] Jerusalem, says the Lord”

in the same way in history when the sons of historical Israel brought their grain offering in a clean vessel to the house of the Lord (v. 20).

Revelation 14:6-7 is a rehearsal of the same events and chapter 14 in Revelation ends with the great harvest of the remnant weed and the harvest of the remnant seed.

The Lord will make from them priests and levites:

Some of them will be priests and Levites “for just as the new heavens and the new earth which I make will endure before Me . . .so your [remnant] offspring and your name will endure” (v. 22).

Then Isaiah saw a new heaven and a new earth, the beach, and on this beach every month and every week all nations will come to worship the Lord on the Sabbath.

“And it shall be from that which is [Aramaic relative particle] the month in its newness,

and from that which is [Aramaic relative particle] the Sabbath in its rest,

all flesh will come to worship before Me, says the Lord” (v. 23).

Some note to go to the last verse which caused many people to expect an eternal hell. Not so.

The remnant weed’s corpses and those who transgressed against the Lord,

whose worms shall not die

and their fire not quenched for probably a short time

until “they shall be an abhorrence to all mankind” (v. 24d-e).

This is not the doctrine of eternal fire or eternal Hell fire.

When the new heavens and new earth is created in future,

there will be no more evil.

This is a period in which saved humanity must realize

and come to a full understanding of the end of evil.

All flesh or humanity do not need to look at it for eternity.

It is until their human system had enough of it.

We should not ask how long the fire will burn

but how long it will take for humans to be abhorrent of the evil by the results of the event of their extermination.

When Isaiah came to this part in his book, he knew His God very well and that his God is interested to save:

It is not the building that attracts the Lord or impresses Him,

“to him who is humble and contrite of spirit and who trembles at My Word” (v. 2d)

“to this one I will look” (v. 2c).

Isaiah could wrap it up by saying that all should get off this shipwrecked world and follow Jesus on His horse of rescue to the New World He will create in future for the remnant.

Dear God

The new heaven and new earth captivate also our imagination

since it is the hope for hopeless mankind in this hostile environment.

Grant that we may be part of this wonderful future. Amen.