Hey everybody. Welcome back to another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. Hello and hi, Megan. We have your question. We're looking right at it. We are looking directly at it, and now we're gonna attempt to answer it, so I'm gonna ask it. Okay. And then you are going to do the privilege of answering. Okay. You ready? I'll give you my best shot. Hi pastors, this is Megan. Hi pastors. Can you do a higher pitched Hi pastors. A question related to the sermon today. How do we go about holding Jesus' name with reverence? When even in the Bible it lowercases the personal pronoun? He as a person in the Trinity, do we need to capitalize? He, I see a lot of inconsistency on this, specifically related to Jesus, but also in also God in Genesis chapter one, Hebrew chapter four, for example. I don't wanna be legalistic about this, but I do. I also don't want to be flippant or lack of reverence when writing Jesus' name. Please help me. I'm emotionally and spiritually conflicted. I don't know what to do with my life anymore. What's even true at this point? Sincerely, Megan Clancy. I think you embellished the signature there at the end. I think, I don't know if the emotional distraughtness and I don't know what to do. I'm just reading the between the lines. I feel you like. That's fair. Okay. I'm just trying to defend Megan A. Little bit here. I don't think she's like an existential crisis about this, but No, it's, it is a great question. So one thing to that. I remember when I first learned it blew my mind is in the original documents as they were written, especially in the New Testament. They're written in what's called unseals, which are Capital Greek letters, and those documents, those manuscripts that we have, there's no spacing or punctuation in any of them. That's frustrating. So all caps smushed together. No spacing. No punctuation. And you say then how do we know what it said? If you took a paragraph and you made it all caps and put it together, you'd still be able to tell what it said. It's a little bit more difficult, but that was their way that they wrote, part of which was the scarcity of resources at the time. They could fit more words on a line and so it wasn't wasting as much materials, as much resources as Inc. Papyrus, things like that. But, all that to say that means that when we're looking at the manuscripts that we have, we don't know whether or not they were intending to capitalize their personal pronouns or not. So when you read, for example, in the New American Standard Bible and you come across the he's that refer to Jesus or God, and you'll see that they're capitalized, and you look at your ESV and that they're in lowercase, that comes down to a human editorial decision. Along the lines of your question, the editorial boards of the NASB and the LSB and some others, probably the KJ V two, I can't remember. They will, they've chosen to capitalize those pronouns because they want to make sure that they are honoring, but it's also helps you to know who the pronoun is talking about when you come across it in the Bible. So the editor said, this is gonna help the reader know that this is referring to God. If we capitalize, kinda like the red letters for sure. And there's sometimes that you're gonna have to make a decision, and those editors are gonna have to make a decision that it's not always clear who the pronoun is referring to. And so they're gonna have to, for example, some of the times we're reading in Isaiah and it's referencing the Messiah, the suffering servant, there's times where it's okay, is that who this is about? Or is it about the, they're gonna make an editorial decision. It's a human decision. So when it comes to you, Megan as you're writing and. You're texting somebody about God and if you come across and you're gonna refer to him or he or whatever and you wanna capitalize it, that's fine. You've got the freedom in Christ to do that. And if you've got on your conscience, that man that helps me honor him by capitalizing his pronoun here, or it helps me be clear about who I'm referring to, then by all means do that. And you've got the freedom to do that. I. I just, honestly, I'll go back and forth there, there's times that I've just gone with the lowercase because it's the ESV and it's easy to just track with that. There's other times as I'm writing my messages and my outlines that I'll capitalize it because again, I think it's something that helps me know who I'm talking about. Number one, it helps give honor to him as well it's not a, you're not robbing God of honorees due by using a lowercase letter. But if your heart says, Hey, I want to do the capitalization, that's fine as well. Your thoughts pr Yeah. I appreciate the heart behind the desire to capitalize pronouns referring to God. And for the longest time I did that as a matter of practice, though I no longer do that. Mostly because I got into the habit of not doing that when I was writing papers for seminary. Interestingly enough it's not, style guides would not, they don't discourage it, but neither do they encourage it. So I just got in the habit of making sure that my pronoun usage was consistent across the board, which meant that I'm often just using lowercase, but in my conscience, I don't have any sense of I'm lowering God, my status. And so I I can appreciate when someone does it, but also I do appreciate clear and clean grammar. And there's something about it that just makes me feel like, man, I just wanna be consistent in how I refer to God. And so it helps me to just be consistent across the board. But I do appreciate when I see it, I'm not against it. I love it. I love when people try to show away. It's ah here's what it's like. Tell us what it's like. It is thank you for bringing that up. It is like when we stand for a Bible reading. Yep. I never stand when I read my Bible. I just want you to know that whenever I'm reading my Bible, I am that's not true. Sometimes I am standing and sometimes I'm actually walking while I read my Bible. Most of the time though, I'm sitting down as I read my Bible. The only time that I stand as a matter of intentional practice is at church. But that's just one way that we say we're honoring the reading of the word. We're demonstrating that we're listening. We're attentive. We're trying to show that we respect it, although. As a matter of practice, we never do it otherwise. It's similar with the capitalization of the pronouns. We're just trying to show that we esteem this person. In this case, God, nothing wrong with it. Nothing wrong with not doing it. Yeah. How about this, do you think there's any significance to not putting the Bible on the floor or to stacking other books on top of the Bible if you have it on your desk? I think it's in the same category. Yeah, I think it's exactly the same category. Although I am more conscious of that. I'm not frivolous with my Bible. I'm very, I have a Bible cover and I used to transport my Bible to and from the office to home. So I am conscious. I want to keep my Bible in good condition, and when I come time to let a Bible go, it's really hard for me to think about what to do with it. It's actually that talk about existential crisis. I like, what do I do with my old Bible? There are organizations that will accept donated Bibles if they're still in good order. Other organizations will tell you if it's in such bad condition, you've used it for years, you should just get rid of it. And if it makes you feel better cover it up and wrap it up with some paper and dedicated to the Lord, bury it. Something like that. Anyway, all that to say, I don't think there's any difference in that. I think it's one of those ara things that are neither forbidden, nor. Forbidden what's or allowed, it's one of those gray areas where you get to make a decision according to your conscience. So I'm, I don't put stuff on top of my Bible 'cause it feels weird, but I don't have any principled stance against it except it's God's words, but wanna get technical. The words are. Arabic and Greek, and do we have God's words, right? Yes, we do if we know them, but we don't have the originals. So it's a strange argument. I know I'm getting too much out in the weeds now, but what do you think about all that? Yeah. I agree with you. I think it's Ara, I think it's third tier, fourth tier issue as far as. Brothers in, in Christ can be concerned. So yeah. Alright. You're not sinning if you like using those, we just wanna be clear. Totally. You're not sending, it's not at all. It's fine. It's a great instinct. Yeah. Shows your heart behind the desire to love God. But there, just to be clear, there's nothing wrong with not doing that either. And I feel like we need to say both. And it's not legalistic. As long as you're not looking at somebody going, Hey, you have to do it my way. Otherwise, you're doing it wrong. Yeah. Hey, Isaiah 59 through 63 is our text for this day, today, this morning. Whenever you happen to be reading this. Isaiah 59, 1 answers the question of Isaiah 52 not 52, the chapter 50, verse two. There God says, is my hand shortened that it cannot redeem or have I no power to deliver? Isaiah 59, 1 says. Behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, or his ear dull, that it cannot hear, but then he introduces the problem. But your iniquities, verse two, have made a separation between you and God. This is a key and core doctrine to our understanding of our need for Jesus is this right here that sins separates us from God. It was true in the Old Testament was. With Israel. It's true today of us, and there's consequences for that. And those consequences for Israel were found in verse nine. Therefore, justice is far from us and righteousness does not overtake us. We hope for light, but behold darkness and for brightness, but we walk in gloom. We grope for the wall like the blind. We grope like those who have no eyes. And so God is going to come in judgment because that's what God does with sin. If you look at verse 11 and 12, he says, we hope for justice but there's none for salvation, but it's far from us. For our transgressions are multiplied before you and our sins testify against us. This points to the reality and the truth that God has to punish sin. And so though 59 1 says that his. Arm is not short, that it cannot save. The problem Israel was facing is that they were unrepentant, that there was evil, there was injustice going there, and God had to punish that. And that's where he goes in the rest of chapter 59. Verse 16, he saw there was no man and wondered that there was no one to intercede then his. Own arm brought him salvation. His righteousness upheld him. He put on righteousness as a breastplate and the helmet of salvation on his head and garments of vengeance for his clothing. So God is acting now and God is coming to judge the sin that he has to judge. So his hand is not too short, his arm is not too short, that it cannot save. But the problem is Israel had to deal with their sins and they weren't. They were multiplying their sins instead, and they could expect God's judgment in response. Yeah, it's interesting here. If you look at the beginning where you just quoted in chapter 59 verse two, notice that the thing that causes God not to act in the way that they desired is their iniquities. Your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God. Your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear, which tells us that God cannot, based on his righteous standard, he cannot indulge us in our sin. And even though it's true, this is Israel and we are the church, and there is a difference there. It is true that God. His relationship with us can be interrupted and successfully withheld because of your ongoing sin. It's like when God says to the husband through Peter, if you don't live with your wife in an understanding way. That your prayers will be hindered. There's questions about what exactly we he means by that. And I guess you're probably gonna get into that in your series, your upcoming series in the book of one Peter. But at the very minimum it means that there's some kind of static or there's some kind of there's some kind of interruption between you and God when there's sin. And that's an obvious thing to say. It's the same thing between you and your husband, you and your wife, you and your kids. When there's some kind of sin between you guys, it hinders the relationship and so it is with you and God, if you want God to answer favorably. And even then, of course, God has the God card. There has to be a sense in which your conscience is clean before God. So if your conscience is not clean and you're wondering by God's not answering, maybe take a look at Isaiah 59 verse two. Chapter 60, everything shifts again forward to the millennial kingdom, the future. And again, Isaiah's, I think trying to motivate a sinful nation to think about this future and to be to develop the right posture, the right mentality, the repentance, the contrition of heart. In the present. So he is flashing forward again and saying of God, a rise and shine for your light has come. The glory of the Lord has risen upon you. So he's anticipating this future for the new Jerusalem, for the millennial kingdom, though before that nations shall come to your light. Verse three kings to the brightness of your rising. And this is what I found particularly interesting is down in verse six, he says, A multitude of camels shall cover you young camels of Midian and pha, and those from the Sheba shall come and. Here it is. They shall bring gold and frankincense and shall bring good news, the praises of the Lord. That the millennial kingdom is gonna be a time when people are coming into Jerusalem to testify to the goodness of God. They're bringing good news, and I think the only good news that we can understand them bringing at that point is how God has been faithful to them. And so that just is another reminder that we have an opportunity to do that now as we come to worship. And that part of our worship of the Lord is bringing the praise reports of the good things that he's done in our lives bringing. Good news as we come to worship, whether that's your community group that you're gathering together or you're meeting with men's bible study, women's bible study you're meeting together as as the church on Sunday mornings. Part of our praise can be to come in and to bring good news, the praises of God. God has done good things. These are the things that he's done for us. And chapter 60, anticipating the millennial kingdom here for Israel, which is gonna be good news for them. Yeah. Can you identify something good that God has done for you in this last week? I'm not, I'm putting you on the spot here, but you're putting me on the spot here this last week. Yeah. I mentioned it already, but even just my son getting a job, that was something we were praying for. Wow. And we were praying about that. And we were praying even just about something simple. And sometimes I think we make it too hard, we. Before he left for his first shift we prayed together as a family. We prayed for him and that he would have, 'cause he was a little nervous, starting a brand new job and not knowing I remember what it was like. Yeah. And we just prayed for him and he came back and it was great. He had a great report. Wow. And that's an answer to prayer. And we could just shrug that off or we could use that as an opportunity to praise God and say, God thank you. You're kind even in the small areas for us to be kind to us towards that. So that's one way. How about you? Yeah, I just got done celebrating my wife and my daughter, so That's right. We thanked God for their lives. And we don't take those lives for granted. There are so many people that I don't wanna get morbid, but they die every day. Yeah. We don't take it for granted that we're gonna live until we're 85 or 90 or whatever age that you think you're supposed to live. Yeah. Someone said the other day on a podcast, if you made it to 38 and a half, you are technically middle aged. And I thought, wow. Yeah, I missed my midlife crisis. I know. Shoot, I need to schedule it next time, so if you're under 38 and a half, be sure to schedule it for yourself anyway. I'm just thankful for the people that are in our lives, and particularly for those who are I'm closest to, obviously my wife, my kids. I'm thankful for that and I thank God that I have a healthy family. No one's got any major issues. That's a huge thing, and I. Yeah, that's not a small thing. Yeah. The chapter ends, but with something to build on that. But real quick, I think there is a mashup in this chapter between the millennial kingdom and the eternal state. Oh, for sure. Because if you look at verse 19, the sun shall be no more. Your light by day, nor your brightness shall the moon give you light, but the Lord will be your everlasting light. That's Revelation 21, specifically. Revelation 21, 23 says There will be no more sun in the millennial kingdom. There's still gonna be the sun. But in the eternal state, the new Jerusalem, the new Earth, there's not gonna be sun anymore there. So it's a mashup of both there. I think Isaiah does this more than once. Yeah. Because there's a few times where I'm like, wait a minute, right? This is a little different. This is not quite fitting right. And I, here's some something. As you're reading it is easy to get confused. And I think one of the things that you're gonna have to do as a Bible reader to read carefully and read a little more slowly than what you might be. Tempted to do otherwise because Isaiah does compressed timeframes, and that's typical with prophetic words. God will often allow the prophets to put what looks like one singular mountain together, mountain of prophetic material, when in reality we're only seeing it from one angle. But if you look at it from the sideways glance, you'll see, oh, there's multiple mountains and peaks there. So you have to just be careful and recognize that sometimes that there's a compression when you're reading the I, the major profits or the minor profits and. What you'll notice is that you just have to be patient and read your New Testament as well as your Old Testament to put the pieces together more accurately. Yeah. Yeah. Chapter 60 ends though, and this is what I was thinking about, how it connects back to giving him thanks. In verse 21, he says, your people shall all be righteous. They shall possess the lamb forever. The branch of the, of my planting, the work of my hands, that I might be glorified. And that's the thing. That's, God is gonna be glorified. That's what it's about. The eternal state is fun for us to think about. No more sin, no more glorified bodies and all that we're gonna get to experience in the eternal state. And yet we can't forget that it's all gonna be ultimately for the glory of God, chapter 61. Then we get into some familiar territory for New Testament readers because the opening here, at least the spirit of the Lord is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the broken hearted to proclaim. Liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to those who are bound. This is when Jesus reads this portion in the temple and says, this has been fulfilled in your hearing. And even I think there's some elements here of when you know, John the Baptist sends his disciples to Jesus and says, Hey are you the one? And there's some overlap. There's other passages more directly. Quotable here, but Jesus says, Hey, go tell John what and what you hear that Jesus is fulfilling, that Jesus is the Messiah, but Jesus himself says, this is fulfilled in me. And that's significant. That's massive. Anyone who might have argued that Jesus didn't see himself as the fulfillment of the Old Testament or see himself as the Messiah. You've got major problems, right? Be gone. It's interesting speaking of compression and prophecy. He reads all the way through verse two, actually two A Jesus stops at 61 2 A to proclaim the year of our Lord's favor. Jesus stops there, but the rest of it says, and the day of vengeance of our God. And to comfort all who mourn, to grant those who mourn in Zion to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes. Or as Shannon Shane say, beauty instead of ashes or beauty for ashes. So this is interesting because you see. Elements of Jesus ministry here, but not all of it, not all the time. There is a separation, a start and an end date, and there's a big chasm of time between that you have to be patient for. So that's a cool indication of what we're just talking about. Yep. Yeah. Advent one, advent two. Great point. Yeah. Verse five, by the way, here's the Gentiles again. Strangers. She'll stand in tender flocks and foreigners shall be your plowing. In your vine dressers, but you, pastor Rod, you will be called priests of the Lord. That's right. So that's right. As gentiles will be tending your sheep and you're gonna be priests of the Lord. If you work for it may be. Yeah. I'll think about you. Okay. Taking applications, smile promise. Yeah. Chapter 62. Then we get again the future deliverance. This is, again, so much focus on the eternal state slash the millennial kingdom here. Verse five, as a young man, marries a young woman, she'll show your sons marry you, and the bridegroom rejoices over the bride. So shall your God rejoice over you. Revelation 21 is gonna talk about the new Jerusalem coming down as a bride adorned for her husband. And this is again looking forward to the ultimate fulfillment there. And there's not gonna be any more exile or defeat. He says, I will give you grain to be your food for your enemies, or I will never do that again. Rather, and foreigners shall not drink your wine for which you've labored. And so exile, though it was coming in Israel's short-term future, there was a time in the future where it was gonna be gone and no more. Why verse 11? Because the Lord has proclaimed to the end of the earth, say to the daughter, Zion, behold your salvation comes. Behold the reward is with him and is recompense before him. This is fulfilled in part again at the triumphal entry. Your king comes mounted on a donkey. That's Zechariah, which is, you wouldn't know that. 'cause we didn't actually preach that, that passage. I will not say a word about it. Did you not? Were you not gonna say anything? I am. Let it drop. I'm gonna stick here and let it happen. But there's also this one, and that's partially fulfilled at the first coming, but ultimately fulfilled at his second return. The revelation 19. Jesus is quite a different Jesus than you get. Or Revelation 20, Jesus Rather, is quite a different Jesus than you get at the first coming with a tattoo on his side of his leg, king of Kings and Lord of Lloyds. That's the one that's coming with his recompense before him. I just wanna shout out verse five one more time. God rejoices over his people. Yeah, I love that. Yeah. God is rejoicing over his people. I know you talked about it briefly and last week's sermon about the way that God emotes, it's not the same way as humans do. There is something about. God rejoicing over us, though that is so moving and so touching. Now, one of the minor prophets says that God sings over us too. There's a, there's an interesting thought that I don't think a lot of us give attention to. God loves us and it's not just a static passive love where he says, I tolerate you. You may come into my presence, but I'm not particularly excited about it. No, God rejoices over us and he sings over us too. What a cool idea. Yeah. Chapter 63 is a sharp turn though, because this is God's judgment. And he's notice in verse one, he's coming from Edem in Crimson garments from Basra, and he's coming from his wrath being poured out. And so that's the question. Who is this? Who comes? And why is he, why is the garment red? His garments, it says it's red with the blood of the people. So this is slaughter. Yeah. This is the judgment. And 63 is sobering on the heels of all of this anticipation of the millennial kingdom. It's gonna be great, it's gonna be awesome, but there is judgment that is, is coming and. This is something that Isaiah even begins to pray in verse seven and recount the Lord's steadfast love in his past deliverance of Israel as though he's, the uncomfort level with this and just asking God to be merciful in the midst of all of this. But this is this is the judge that's coming back to deal with. Sin and to deal with those that are opposed to him. Edam. Basra is typified as the nation, they represent the nations that are surrounding. So there's nothing inherently special about Edam Basra being one of the capital cities of Edem. So in case you're confused about why is Edem get special treatment here or a singular treatment, it's, they were chosen to, to be a reference or a representation of the surrounding nations that God would eventually judge. But. It's interesting. He does that oftentimes multiple times with the Edem. He does. And I, I think that does go back to the Jacob and Esau, the brothers, and the fact that betrayal was perhaps even greater than the betrayal of the Philistines or the, the Assyrians or the Babylonians, because this was part of God's family. You could put it that way. He also got those peculiar words in Romans chapter nine. Jacob, I have loved, I think you quoted it this weekend. Yep. Esau, I hated Es. Yeah. So there's more to it than what meets the eye. But my only point is that he's using them as an indicator for the rest of the nations. Although what you're saying is true, right? There's more there than what meets the eye. Yeah. Malachi, yeah, that Malachi is where Paul gets that from is 'cause God says that first through Malachi says Jacob, I loved it, but Isai hated. But yeah. Yeah. Hey, did you hear that joke? About the only Italian prophet. Ah yeah. And the minor prophets. Did you hear about that one? I didn't. I didn't say. You didn't say it? I didn't say it. I didn't say it on Sunday intentionally. I didn't say it. People were thinking about it though. They were wondering why he didn't talk about the Italian prophet. Everybody was asking. Everybody was asking. Everybody was asking. I had 15 people in my head asking me why he wasn't talking about the Italian prophet. Did you? Hey, let's be done with this episode after I pray, and then we'll we'll move on. Yeah. We thank you so much for your word and for these passages. We thank you that if we're in Christ, we don't have to fear you coming from Edem and Basra to tread the wine, press with us as victims of your wrath or objects of your wrath, rather not victims, because our sin is what deserves your wrath. And for those of us in Christ, that wrath was. Trotting out upon him on the cross. And we are so utterly thankful for that in ways that we can't even fathom. And I'm sure once we stand in your presence and eternity our gratitude and our thanksgiving for that will only increase all the more. And so we thank you for your grace, your mercy in our lives, and we thank you for Jesus, and we pray this all in his name. Amen. Amen. Keep reading your Bibles. Tune in again tomorrow for another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. We'll see you then. Folks. Please come back. Bye.

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