Hey everybody. Welcome back to another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. Hello, and thank you for waiting on this conversation. I know you guys are wondering why we haven't talked about it yet, but Dr. John MacArthur has perished. He did? Yes. Physically he has been deceased. Yes. Declared dead. Yes. But our hope, of course, is not that he's ultimately gonna stay dead. He actually is very much a alive right now, probably more alive than he is ever been. And his body will be resurrected. So Pastor pge, share a couple thoughts about your reflections on Dr. MacArthur and what he means to you. Yeah. I think a lot of you know this, but I went to my, I got my undergrad at Masters University, is that master's College at the time, and then I got my doctorate back at Master Seminary. And so he, he's had a huge impact on my life. In fact, probably as far as a, a theologian slash pastor probably the greatest impact that I've been informed by as far as he was. When I was impressionable and coming up in, in college and learning what ministry looked like, and then pursuing my doctorate there. He's just a guy that I've always looked up to and respected. And one of the things that struck me most as I've been reflecting about his life and the legacy that he is left behind the last couple days is just his faithfulness in and out of the pulpit. When I think about integrity he's a man that I. Feel lived a life of integrity. And I told my wife after his passing, I said, it is not so much that I ever thought to myself, man, I wanna preach like MacArthur because I know there's only one guy that's ever gonna be able to have that power and that ability. But I do wanna live a life like his I wanna be able to follow him as he followed Christ. And I think that's a sentiment that I've seen come out a lot from a lot of different people in the last handful of days as they've been posting, memories of him and everything else. But he just was a guy that, that you could tell loved his flock. And and loved his lock really well. He was great. When he would come to the college campus, he would come to college basketball games and sit in the stands with the students and hang out there. He was accessible even though, he's a guy that, that is has thousands of people that want his attention on a regular basis. And I appreciated Phil Johnson's response of saying, and that really came out too. He, I think he posted something online where he said, look at all of the pictures of John with people. That are coming out there. These are not pictures people are sharing of him behind the pulpit and all these, in professional mode pictures. But so many of the pictures that are in memoriam of him the last couple of days right, have been him standing next to people smiling with his arm around people or taking, shots of pictures of him at dinner with people. He was a man that, that. Loved others and did that really well. And so he left a huge impact on me, both professionally as a pastor, but also just personally. I just I wanna live a life like his as much as I possibly can. Yeah. What a legacy he has left for us. And it's funny 'cause not too long ago we shared this meme that was going around. Do you remember this? It's a Meet the pastor line. Oh yeah. And here's what it says. Please observe. Oh, I can't see it. It's so pixelated. Do you remember? Yes. Okay, the line says, please observe the following. No photos with the pastor. No handshakes or hugs. Pastor is unable to receive. I can't see what that says there. Receive any I don't know what it says, but it's, Hey don't get too close. Don't allow yourself to enjoy this guy too much because he's got bigger fish to fry or whatever it is. I don't even know who it was. But we have every reason to believe that it's real. Pastor's unable to receive any items at this time. Don't bring him any gifts. Don't give him any gifts. No. No chocolate covered. What do, what's your favorite treat? Your little Christmas trees? Little Debbie's Reese's. Oh, your Reese's No re s or the little Debbie's? Yeah. Like those, no, little Debbie's. Yeah, but that's not John MacArthur. Dr. MacArthur was super accessible. I remember going to several shepherds conferences and just different events that the church was hosting and he was there. Yeah, I always was a bit leery. To talk to him. 'cause I know people were clamoring to get his attention, so I always felt like I'm, I'll just spare him, he doesn't need to talk to me. But I was always so honored honored. I was always so impressed by his accessibility and how real he was. He wasn't a face on a book cover. He wasn't just a talking head from the pulpit. He was a man who loved people. And I think that's one of his lasting legacies. And in addition to the Bible teaching, obviously there's so many other things, but man, I remember having to download his sermons for pay. I bought them a long time ago before, after CDs, but before freely accessible MP threes. I had to buy them. And I did. I did that joyfully. He was one of the reasons I ended up believing the charismatic movement. 'cause that's where I started my Christian faith. His sermons were really instrumental in developing my theology and has even influenced me to where I am today. And I'm sure a million other people can say that, but man, we thank God for people like that. Yeah. Talk to the people now who are concerned about where Christiandom goes after this, because if there's anybody. Who was a unifying figure, right? It was him, right. People would jokingly call him the evangelical pope, right? 'cause of his word having such authority and power, and now he's off the scene. First we lost rc and now we have, now we lost dr. Ma MacArthur. Yep. Already. Yeah. What, now what, what's gonna happen next? Who's gonna be the next pastor of Grace who's gonna command the authority that Pastor MacArthur had? Yeah. And the answer really is no one Jesus. Yeah. They, there, there are cling voices in our culture and there are still some. That are here. You think of Al Muller, I think that's another one that you look to or Oh, yeah. Or, I think John Piper in a different way, but he carries weight when he speaks. And there's other men that have been faithful that are growing older though. And I remember thinking about that with MacArthur and there is a sense in which it's okay. Wow. I you feel like your, one of your spiritual dads died. It's he's gone. Something big happens to the world. You could always go what is MacArthur saying right now? During COVID that was especially true. He was leading so many, he was so helpful during COVID. Yeah, man. Yeah, just stalwart there and I think two, two thoughts that I have. Number one he showed us the path forward and one of the things I love is that he didn't make it complicated. Hi. His response and his guidance and his counsel always started with, what does the Bible say? And what the Bible says. That's where we're gonna stand and that's where we're gonna land. And I think what was so appealing to him and why it was so effective is he was so confident there. He just, he bel he was a man of conviction and he believed what he believed what he knew to be true in the scriptures. And so he came out and said, this is what we're gonna do and this is what we need to do and this is what's right. And so the good news there is that we can follow as lead in that. In fact, that's what Hebrews 13 says. Consider their way of faith and imitate them. Imitate them in that, be like them in the way that they, that. They conducted themselves. So there's that there's no magic sauce here that he possessed that. Now we're like, okay, it's gone and it's perished with him forever. I think the second thing is, as far as grace goes man, there's, are you the next pastor of Grace? No. Did they call you? No, they didn't. No. No. Have they called you yet? They have not. Alright. And I don't think they will keep your phone on, even if they did keep your phone ringer on. No, man. It's. We were talking about it this morning, tongue in cheek, like that's the worst job anybody could ever take. It's doomed to fail. Yeah. Because, no, I'm sorry. No one's gonna repeat. He's inimitable. Yeah. That's he's a definition of the word. Which is why they need somebody who, that's not their goal. They need somebody who is gonna step into that pulpit and say, our job is not to be, to continue to be the grace community church that we've always been because it's been so marked by him, but to be a faithful bride of Christ. And that's gonna look different. And I'm here to tell you guys that's gonna look different. My leadership's gonna be different than Dr. MacArthur's leadership. I'm not gonna preach the same way. We're gonna have different things. We may go in different directions than we've ever gone before, but we're gonna be faithful to the Bible. We'll stay. That's, that legacy will continue. But our goal is to simply be a faithful bride of Christ. And our identity as a lampstand has changed because we're no longer MacArthur's church. And MacArthur would've said, Hey, this is Christ Church. It's not my church. Yeah. But humanly speaking the guy that's next up has to simply say, you know what? This is truly. Our identity, first and foremost is the bride of Christ. And and that's what's gonna characterize us moving forward, not necessarily the. Clearing voice from the pulpit. We talked offline about this, but let's quickly discuss what success and failure looks like from at least an outsider's perspective. We were talking shop about the fact that the next guy that takes the pulpit at Grace Community Church is probably not gonna be successful to the same degree as Dr. MacArthur. It almost would be, I don't wanna say it's impossible. God could do that, right? But it's not likely that the next guy that takes that role will be as influential. As authoritative and as powerful as Dr. MacArthur's ministry is. So let's talk shop about what it is then for a church to be successful. Yeah. And I think that's what I was I'm driving at there even with identity. His if his identity is in, the numbers in the butts, in the seats and the numbers and the financial offerings that come in year over year. And if his identities in, the, whether or not. He's writing books and he's being asked to go and speak on the preaching circuit like MacArthur was. Then he's gonna fail because people are gonna leave the church. Inevitably, people are gonna leave the church because MacArthur's not there anymore. Their giving's gonna drop, which it already has. They even released a statement a couple months ago saying, Hey we're having to cut our budget back. Yeah. People are gonna not give as much. Outside donors are gonna cut down. He's not gonna be asked on the speaking tour and the speaking circuit. He's not gonna write the books that MacArthur wrote. People aren't gonna flock to Simi Valley anymore, to San Fernando Valley anymore to be able to go to his church. And so that's a standard of success, then he's gonna fail. And that's the standard of a lot of people's success because a lot of people look from the outside and measure things by, those things. Yeah. One of the first questions you ask a pastor is how many people go to your church? Yeah, for sure. But if his standard of success is, what? I know I'm gonna lose people, but my job is to shepherd the people that God has here. And I'm gonna do that through faithfully preaching and teaching the word. We're gonna do the ordinances of the church. We're gonna lead biblically. We're gonna have, we're gonna do the job that Christ has called us to. And it may not look the same that it's looked in the past, but this is our priority is to preach the word. Then I think he can be successful as far as where. It biblically counts as for success, man. Amen. We're gonna miss Dr. MacArthur for sure. We love you. We look forward to seeing you soon, Dr. MacArthur, if you can even hear us right now. But let's do what he did and let's talk shop about the Bible. Let's do that, man. Yeah. Isaiah 18, 19, 20, 21, 22. So Isaiah 18 through 22. We continue to talk about the nations and the first one up in chapter 18 at least, is the nation of Kush and either associated with the the. The Ethiopians or just Southern Egypt. It's a region of Africa. We do know that, but it's, as far as specifically identifying, this is modern day Ethiopia. It's an area that incorporates that, but probably a broader region too. And as you were talking about in yesterday's episode, as he's continuing to zero in on Jerusalem now he's south. He's in Egypt in the Kush region here. In fact, he goes to Egypt in chapter 19. And again, God is. Showing his lordship, his reign and rule over all of the nations, and talking about the vulnerabilities here. In with Egypt in chapter 19, he's talks about the Nile and identifies, Hey the Nile's gonna dry up and you're gonna have massive problems there when the Nile does dry up. And Egypt becomes a, a. Problem for God's people throughout the history of God's, people from the very beginning when they're in slavery to Egypt all the way through the very end of right before their fall and the downfall of Jerusalem, Egypt is the broken read that they're trying to lean on. And God, I think here is. Saying, I'm stronger than both Egypt. I'm stronger than Kush, I'm stronger than Assyria. I'm stronger than Babylon. And and he's addressing that in chapters 18 and 19 there. Yeah. One of the things that stood out to me in particular, chapter 19, is verse one, the second half of verse one. He says, the idols of Egypt will tremble at his presence. Now, I know that there's poetic license here, and so I don't wanna make a mountain out of a molehill, but I wonder if this is alluding to what Paul will later say is that all idols are basically demons that are behind them. And so it seems here. To me that Isaiah is demonstrating through verse one, that idol idolatry is based on real entities, but those real entities are demonic entities, which would explain a lot of things for us. Number one, it would explain their appeal and their power because there are personal forces at work. And number two, it would explain why under some circumstances these false religions can produce real results. That is they produce something that for the worshiper is tangible and they could, I don't know. I think about when someone visits a witch or someone like that, a psychic, they can produce real results and potentially accurate results. How? Because there are real personal forces behind their power, and that's what he's saying here in verse nine or chapter 19 verse one, I think. I think that's my humble assessment here, that he's talking to the fact that idols have real personalities and powers behind them, but they're demonic powers and get this, they tremble at his presence. Yeah. The chapter 19 then shifts to this forward looking picture of Egypt in a different light though, and this is Egypt and Assyria and Israel now in the rest of chapter 19, in a sense where it's, they're put in a positive light, which is. Is confusing 'cause Assyria is gonna be judged to the point that they're taking out six 12 when the Babylonians come in and defeat Assyria. Assyria is, if you look on the Google Maps right now and type in Assyria, you're not gonna find them. There is no Assyrian Nation anymore. And so this is looking forward to this time when he's talking about the Egyptians and he's talking about the Assyrians and he's talking about the Israelites and they're in it's a period of blessing upon these nations. So something's gonna shift. And that is the arrival of the Messiah and the setting up the millennial kingdom. And this is where we see that the millennial kingdom's not just gonna be about Israel, but it's gonna be about the nations surrounding Israel as well. That all of the nations that are still on the earth during the millennial kingdom are going to flock to Jerusalem. In fact, there's other passages that talk about the log. Coming out of Jerusalem they're going to come to Jerusalem to learn the law from Jesus as he reigns there on the throne in the millennial kingdom. But Egypt is gonna be judged during Isaiah's time. But again, like we've been talking about, Isaiah's gonna now fast forward and say there's gonna come a time when Egypt is gonna be blessed along with the Syria, because their relationship with Israel during the millennial kingdom. Yeah. So this isn't a Syria proper. Right this 'cause they're no longer on the scene, right? They're missing. But this is to say that Gentiles will have inclusion into the blessings of Israel. And we're gonna say that the way that happens is during the millennial reign of Christ, right? When all of the nations are brought under the rulership of Jesus Christ, and therefore every nation will have representation for those who worship and serve King Jesus. That's not to say there won't be unbelievers. There will be unbelievers will be born at that time and we believe that there will still be evil. That is, that happens, but it will be under the rulership of King Jesus in Jerusalem. Yeah. Restrained because Satan will be bound. But that just goes to remind us that our sin is not, because Satan is not only Satan. It's not Satan may be do it. That's right. Yeah. It's the fallen nature. Alright. Chapter 20, he returns back though to the present time. He's okay. It's again Isaiah. It's can you, Isaiah, can you help please? Can you explain why you set things up the way you did? 'cause now he's back to judgment. Against Kush Egypt. Pastor Rod did Isaiah walk around naked for three years? That's what everybody wants to know. I man. Okay. I don't know if it was an uni uninterrupted timeframe where he was all day, every day, just strutting his stuff. I don't think he enjoyed it, whatever it was. Clearly there was some shame there. But I, man, there are so many questions I have about this. Yeah. I, why don't you give a, you answered that. Y. So maybe it's like he, this was his job. Like he clocked in at eight and clocked out at five and got the close back on it at five. I, man, what a challenging scenario it is. And we're gonna see this other places too. Ezekiel has similar situations where we're like, okay, is this, how do we understand? And I think the important thing to remember is the point, and that is verse four. And that is this. So shall the king of his hero lead away the Egypt? Egyptian caption captives in the cushite exiles, both the young and the old, naked and barefoot with the buttocks uncovered in the nakedness of Egypt. So Isaiah's doing this as a, an object lesson to the Cushite and to the Egyptians and saying, Hey, look the Assyrians are gonna come and take you guys away. And this is that warning shot across, across the bow. I've been talking a lot in your stead of, we, we look at, we would look at the Northern kingdom before they were carried off into exile and say, man. Was God merciful to them? And you have to say yes. There were so many times that God went to them and said, here's judgment. Will you repent and turn? Will you come back? Here's famine, here's drought, here's these things. Here's prophets, here's everything else. God gave them every opportunity to turn from their sin and they didn't. And I think here again, there's warning shots being delivered to these nations too, saying. Turn to the true God. Turn to the true God of Israel. Yes, you're gonna do that in a millennial kingdom, but even now do this otherwise, Hey, judgment is coming. So much like judgment was prophesied against Israel and judgment was prophesied against Judah. I think there's judgment prophesy against these other nations saying this is the thing that's coming. If you don't recognize the only true God that there is. Oh, absolutely. Because we're gonna get to that in chapter 22. He's gonna the bullseye or the funnel is gonna land on them and he, they're gonna realize, look, God is not just gonna judge those nations. If he's gonna judge them. Of course he's gonna judge you, right? How could he not? He loves you. You are the apple of his eye, and therefore, because of your position, you have greater responsibility that God will necessarily have to respond to. And I think you're absolutely right to call that out. The fact that he's judging these other nations would comfort them on the one hand, but warn them on the other to say, look, if you don't get your own act together, that is through repentance and faith. To overstate it a little simply, then this is gonna be your lot as well. And they would deserve it because they're seeing, oh, they're being charged with the same sins that we are being charged with. Pride, idolatry. That's just Jerusalem de two. Yeah. Yeah. And I think there's another thing going on, and that is God is singling out these nations that Judah might be trusted to turn to and trust in instead of trusting in him. That's a good point. Saying, Hey I'm taking these out. And I think that's where he goes in chapter 21 when he says, fall on his Babylon. Now. There's multiple, I think there's three levels to look at this. The level the furthest out level is, this is picked up in Revelation. In fact, this is quoted in Revelation that Babylon is gonna fall and that Babylon's gonna be no more that's Neo Babylon. That's yet future Babylon. And then we can come back and say, okay, 5 39 BC Babylon. The powerful Empire is ultimately gonna fall to the Meads and the Persians. But even before that, Babylon is gonna fall to Assyria when Assyria is still powerful in 6 89. Now, not a complete destruction, but as I read through this, and I know there's differing views on this, I'm curious to get yours two pr, but. I, I think this is a timeframe there during the seven hundreds late or I guess early, I don't know, close to 700 BC down to through the time that Babylon falls, when Judah and Babylon were actually teaming up together a little bit against Assyria. Again, Babylon was a nation. Judah was tempted to trust in, to avoid the judgment that God was bringing by the Assyrians against other regions and nations. And here God is saying you can't trust Babylon either because Babylon's gonna be overcome by the Assyrians as well during this timeframe. Yeah, I guess I would agree with that. I haven't done enough homework to say with certainty that's the case. I do know that Israel was always tempted to trust outside nations rather than to trust the Lord. So that would make perfect sense if that's his goal. Isaiah's goal, I think, is to shake awake Israel. Judah's rather Judah's complacency because Isaiah's a southern prophet. Yeah. So all that to say I would agree with that. I think that would be a perfectly suitable interpretation. And remember Isaiah six, the people aren't gonna listen to this. That's no. That's what God told him. He's delivering all this and we're reading this going, okay, this seems powerful. Maybe people are gonna wake up and see, and yet God said they're not gonna listen to you, even if he's naked walking around. That's pretty powerful, right? That'll get your attention. That will get your attention. We're not gonna do that, by the way. Which tells you that you're welcome. Secret sensitive techniques aren't guaranteed to work just because they appeal to a broader audience. Uh, that, do you wanna talk about appealing to somebody if one of the, yeah. Pastors around here. Yeah. Went into his pulpit naked. I think there'd be headlines the next day. A few, maybe a few. I, and he'd get a lot of attention. Eddie Young Jr. Did a whole series. Was he naked though? I don't wanna know. No. I don't know about that. But he did a series where he put his he, his wife to bed on the roof of their church. Of the church. Yeah. I was thinking exactly of him. I didn't wanna name his name 'cause I didn't wanna give anyone any fodder, but Yeah, that's who I was thinking of. Yeah, exactly. And yeah, that's not. That's not that's not great. Yeah. Okay, so chapter 22, pr we do target, we do land on Jerusalem here. Yeah. And this is the Valley of Vision. What's the significance? Why is it called the Valley of Vision here? I think it's an ironic statement because this is mount. Zion. Yeah. So the Mount is now a valley, and the Valley of Vision suggests that he's showing them something. He's giving them an opportunity. He's hemming them in. Think about a valley. You got walls on either side, or at least not walls. Walls, but you get the idea. You're hemmed in, you're being shown something, and now you have an opportunity to respond to it. So I think that's what he's getting at. I did a little bit of digging on that before we came onto the podcast about what the value of vision referred to, and I think that's the best take. And of course, as he's gonna show them this burden, this oracle. About their impending future. It's not gonna work. The vision is gonna be obscure. They're not gonna see as they should. Yeah. Yeah. And yeah. So I think it is, you're right an ironic play on words because it was the place where they had, he had given so many visions to so many prophets in the past and now that was going to be drying up. I think that the context in chapter 22 seems to be still with the Assyrians on the scene, just as we're dealing with the rest of the context leading up to this. Yes, this is pointing to ultimately Babylon as well, but I think it's first pointing to the Assyrians coming again right up to the neck of Judah there, as we're gonna read about in Second Kings 19, 18, 19, with the Rob Saka and Sona and all of this. That seems to be what's happening here as the prophet is receiving this vision and this seems to be that siege there, as he's talking about in verses seven and eight, your choice is valley is full of chariots. The horseman took their stand at the gates. He's taken away the covering of Judah again until Hezekiah's repentance. God was ready to take Judah. And and that's what it looked like was gonna happen. And in fact, we're gonna get into what was taking place inside the city. Horrible things were taking place inside the city because of the famine, because of the siege, because of everything else. And this is what Isaiah's warning about here in chapter 22. Yeah, I would agree with that. And in fact, I think that's what verse 11 points to is Hezekiah's ingenuity and creating a reservoir of water to supply fresh water to them while they were undergoing the siege. Which is so fascinating because in verse 11 it says, even though this happened, you did not look to him. Who did it? Or see him who planned it long ago, which is incredible because Hezekiah and his team were the ones who, I don't know, had the idea to say, Hey, let's divert water into our city so that they don't have access into it, and yet God is taking full credit. He says, I'm the one that did that. Yeah, I gave you the idea. I told you how to invent this process. And the ingenuity of it is still visible today. You can go to Israel or Juda rather go to Jerusalem. You could see this in effect, and yet God is taking full credit. I find that so fascinating because they, no one knew that. No one said, I got a word from God. I have an idea about how to divert water, and God is saying, that was me. Yeah. Oh, so cool. Yeah. If you go to Jerusalem today, you can still walk through Hezekiah's Tunnel. Isn't that amazing? Yeah. I, ah, man I can't wait someday. Yep. 15 through 25. The last part of chapter 22, there's two men highlighted in this section. The first being Sheb, who represented a general mindset of the people resigned to die and be buried. In this choice tomb cut out that he prepared for himself. And then the second is this man, Elia Kim, who would provide a, at least a glimpse of hope and security for the people as he served as their governor slash kind of prime minister during this time. But he too would eventually fall as well. And so this section reminded the people that their trust had to transcend human princes and rulers. So again, even Okay, don't. Externally to all these nations, but even internally, you can't look to a human being for your hope in the midst of all of this. Because if this is God's wrath coming, there's only one response that's appropriate and right and gonna be effective. And that is repentance in, in returning to him in obedience. And so the chapter ends with that message as well. Which doesn't mean that you throw away your leaders, your pastors, your governors, right? Yeah. Please don't throw us out. Yeah. Please. Thank you. But it does mean that your ultimate trust is not in them. Yeah. This is, this goes back to what we opened the podcast with and it's that Dr. MacArthur for all that he was not Jesus. He's not the one that we put our hope in, and he would be mortified to think that we thought otherwise. Totally. He wants us to have our trust in Jesus. And that's what Isaiah's pointing us to. He's not saying it. He's not saying, by the way, when Jesus comes in 700 years, I want you to trust him. But that really is the point. Yeah. Don't put your trust in people. Ultimately, they are your proximate trust. But your ultimate trust is in Jesus and he alone is worthy and strong enough to carry it. Yeah. Yeah. Let's pray and then we'll be done with this episode of the Daily Bible Podcast. God, we do thank you for the life and legacy and ministry of Dr. MacArthur and how he has impacted so many and I know so many in our church. Lord we're grateful for that and thankful for the His faithfulness. And yet it's a good reminder. He is not the Messiah. Jesus is our messiah. Jesus is our savior, and he was simply there to point us to Christ. And so help us to glean that from his life and to be more like Jesus as a result. I know that would be the best way to honor him. Is if we are more godly, more like Christ as a result of the impact that he's made in our lives. And so we thank you so much for these things and we praise you for this all in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Hey, keeper in your Bibles and tune in again tomorrow for another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. See you then. Bye.

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