mes5464 wrote:Thomas wrote:Sam wrote: Fortunately for us, Heavenly Father and Christ are still more powerful and have no intention of giving up on us, so good will still overcome evil. We just have to earnestly seek Them as Ruth so eloquently described above.
Fortunately for a very few would be more like it. The scriptures tell us that an evil dictator will control the entire earth and destroy all but those under the protection of God. ( See Revelation, Isaiah) This dictator will be unknowingly doing the will of God. Isaiah calls him the left hand of God.
The survivors of this will be few. Only those prepared to live with Christ, in his glory, will survive. Isaiah says, a child will be able to count them.
Thomas,
Can you give the references for the "left hand" and "child will count" scriptures? I would like to read them.
Isaiah 10:
17 the Light of Israel will be the fire
and their Holy One the flame,
and it shall burn up and devour
his briars and thorns in a single day.
18 His choice forests and productive fields
it will consume, both life and substance,
turning them into a rotting morass.
19 And the trees left of his forest shall be so few,
a child could record them.
20 In that day those who survive of Israel
and who escape of the house of Jacob
will no longer rely on him who struck them,
but will truly rely on Jehovah,
the Holy One of Israel:
21 of Jacob a remnant will return
to the One Mighty in Valor.
For though your people, O Israel,
be as the sands of the sea,
only a remnant will return;
although annihilation is decreed,
it shall overflow with righteousness.
23 For the Lord, Jehovah of Hosts,
will carry out the utter destruction
decreed upon the whole earth.
6. Isaiah Uses Metaphors as Aliases of Important End-Time Persons
I sat spellbound as a rabbi taught that the clean animals Isaiah mentions allude to God’s people Israel and the unclean to Gentiles. This gave new meaning to the ox and the @#$ and the millennial idea of harmony between the lamb and the lion. Although I don’t recall much of what the rabbi taught, he planted a seed that bore good fruit. Later, I discovered a network of synonymous parallel lines in the Book of Isaiah that figuratively depict one thing to mean another. A single verse could have multiple meanings: trees could represent people, forests represent cities, mountains represent nations, and so forth. Key end-time persons, I found, personified God’s attributes, such as righteousness and light, on the one hand, and anger and wrath, on the other.
http://www.isaiahexplained.com/resource ... -of-isaiah" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Isaiah knows that God’s people have never before returned out of bondage from the four parts of the earth. Nor have they overthrown a world superpower like Assyria. Isaiah can predict those very things, however, within the context of Israel’s past. He has seen, for example, that events before Jehovah’s coming will involve two principal human actors: (1) a tyrannical king of Assyria—a destroyer; and (2) God’s servant and son—a deliverer. Whenever necessary, therefore, Isaiah can refer to these persons by means of aliases. Terms such as ensign, hand, rod, staff, mouth, voice, fire, and sword designate either individual, depending on the context. Each personifies those things. Terms such as light and darkness, on the other hand, set these two opponents apart.
Ancient Near Eastern mythology provides an additional source that Isaiah draws on. In the Ugaritic myth of Baal and Anath, for example, the terms Sea and River describe a god of chaos, an enemy Baal must conquer. These terms, therefore, suit Isaiah’s purpose as aliases of the king of Assyria. God’s raising his staff over the Sea and his hand over the River, for example, signifies a victory by God’s end-time servant and son (his staff and hand) over the king Assyria (Sea/River). Personifying God’s anger and wrath, this evil ruler acts as a rod and staff to punish the wicked. In the end, however, God’s servant and son—his righteous rod and staff—breaks him. The key to these identities appears in the paralleled lines that establish these terms’ dual meanings.
5 Hail the Assyrian, the rod of my anger!
He is a staff—my wrath in their hand.a
6 I will commission him against a godless nation,
appoint him over the people
deserving of my vengeance,
to pillage for plunder, to spoliate for spoil,
to tread underfoot like mud in the streets.
Jehovah’s rod, staff, anger, wrath, vengeance, and (left) hand of punishment all designate the king of Assyria/Babylon (v 15; Isaiah 5:25; 13:9). Jehovah sends him against the “godless nation” of his own people in their unrepentant state and against the nations of the world (Isaiah 13:4-6; 37:24-27). The archtyrant fulfills Isaiah’s prediction inherent in the name of his son Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz (“Hasten the Plunder, Hurry the Spoil”) (Isaiah 8:1-4; cf. 10:13-14; 13:16; 28:2-4; 42:22, 24). He reduces the wicked to “mud,” a chaos motif, signifying their return to an elemental state—to nonentities.
http://www.isaiahexplained.com/10#commentary" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
