Isaiah 58 vs 1-14

Calvary Chapel Cherry Creek

Media Give

Isaiah 58 vs 1-14

Calvary Chapel Cherry Creek

May 15, 2024 • Pastor Matt Korniotes • Isaiah 58

Give

Isaiah Chapter 58 Verses 1 – 3

· This is such a great chapter because it points out that simply doing the right things is simply not the whole story. The objective of these first three verses is to educate them/us, the people of God and the nation of Israel (which is the entirety of the elect) that a limiting factor in our growth, in our maturity, in our lives, our satisfaction and our faith is not only how we discipline our behaviors but much more so the condition of the heart!

· I seek the Lord daily, as do many of you. I delight to know the ways of God, as do many of you. I pray for justice and take great delight in approaching God! And yet simply doing those things doesn’t constitute righteousness nor what God has asked of me… The result of this condition is the beginning of verse 3 where the people respond to God, “We are doing what is written but we aren’t getting anything out of it…” See the problem?

· This chapter speaks more on fasting and uses the term fast or fasting more than any other chapter in the Bible. And it is authoritative and very revealing as to what fasting is all about. What is fasting? In the context of the Bible, fasting is a withholding of some sort of physical necessity for a period of time for spiritual purposes. Most common, fasting is a total neglect of food but can also be the neglect of something specific as we see in Daniel 10:3 where Daniel fasted for three weeks from “pleasant bread, meat, and wine.”

· Why fast, should we fast, and why is it called a fast?! It goes so SLOW! HA! Well, the rest of this chapter we will discuss the why behind fasting. Should we fast? Absolutely! You’ll see that before the end of the study today as well. And why is it called a FAST!? HA! Let’s answer this one now. Perhaps this isn’t the textbook answer but a fast essentially accelerates the work of the Spirit as the flesh is weakened…

· So, let’s look at what the issue is with the fasting that is mentioned in verse 3 as we take in the next verses, and this topic is important, you’ll know more as we continue, because Jesus was questioned about fasting in Matthew 6 and His response in verse 16 was, “Moreover, when you fast, do not be like the hypocrites, with a sad countenance. For they disfigure their faces that they may appear to men to be fasting. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. But you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, so that you do not appear to men to be fasting, but to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.” Jesus lays out a very clear directive, expectation and result…, so yes, this is an important topic for any Christian…

Isaiah Chapter 58 Verses 4 – 5

· So, the end of verse 3 through verse 5 lays out the problem statement of how not to approach fasting. God says, “In the day of your fast you find pleasure,” which is an indictment that the reason behind the fast was some sort of worldly desire, something I want from God, and we know that because the end of verse 3 goes on to say that the attitude of the one that is fasting is selfishness. Exploiting or increasing the load of the other laborers, those serving you…

· This fast is certainly for something personally desired, wanted, demanded as we read in verse 4 that the purpose of the fast is for strife, debate and to strike with the fist of wickedness. This fast is to make YOUR voice heard on HIGH. As we will see as we continue is the exact opposite of the fast that God desires.

Isaiah Chapter 58 Verse 6

· Perhaps the single authoritative summarized scripture on the subject of fasting. Survey all of the fasts we find in the Bible; Paul fasted, Gideon fasted, Moses fasted, Elijah fasted, Samual fasted, Esther faster, Ezra fasted…, and some fasted for victory and others for deliverance, and yet survey them all in the shadow of Isaiah 58:6 and you will see that this is why they all fasted… Even Jesus, just not for Himself…

· We don’t fast so that our voice will be heard on high, that’s verses 1 – 5. We fast so that God’s voice is heard in here (my brain/heart) without hindrance. We fast so that the flesh might be put into its place and the spirit might have the preeminence. To loosen the bonds of wickedness, to undo heavy burdens, to let the oppressed go free, to break every yoke!

· People say there are so many reasons to fast and so many reasons why anyone fasted in the Bible. I don’t see that at all. There is one reason why everyone fasted in the Bible with many results! Look at this result…

Isaiah Chapter 58 Verse 7

· I love this! This is a heart and an action, just not an action alone. You are fasting from bread and although it is what you physically need the most, you don’t store it for when you break your fast, you give it to someone who is in need of it. Cover the naked, take care of the people around you, and in doing so you end up asking yourself, “Why am I not like this just in general?” My own flesh becomes evident to me, why? Because it screams and I acknowledge it, but I don’t give to it!

Isaiah Chapter 58 Verses 8 – 9

· People could take that (and have taken that) to mean that if you fast hard enough, if you starve long enough, this is what God requires for Him to answer you. That’s just ridiculous on so many levels! My sister lives in Florida. Let me call out to her right now with the most volume-filled shout I can muster! Will she answer!? NO! Why? Because she’s not here! Jesus said in John 14:6, “I am the way, the truth, and the life and NO ONE comes to the Father except through ME!”

· This is the proof text to James 4:6 where it says, “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble!” God told us through the profit Isaiah that His people reach out to Him all day long expecting to worship but their hands are covered in blood. Isaiah 1:12-17, “When you come to appear before Me, who has required this from your hand, to trample My courts? Bring no more futile sacrifices; Incense is an abomination to Me. The New Moons, the Sabbaths, and the calling of assemblies—I cannot endure iniquity and the sacred meeting. Your New Moons and your appointed feasts My soul hates; they are a trouble to Me. I am weary of bearing them. When you spread out your hands, I will hide My eyes from you; Even though you make many prayers, I will not hear. Your hands are full of blood. Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean; Put away the evil of your doings from before My eyes. Cease to do evil, learn to do good; Seek justice, rebuke the oppressor; Defend the fatherless, plead for the widow.”

· If we have not the heart to humble ourselves and receive the grace of God and serve Him and be for Him and not for us then a thousand prayers, a thousand church attendances, a thousand ministry outings, a thousand Bible Studies…, all thousand apart from the Lord. Jesus said to the church in Ephesus in revelation 2:2-4, “I know your works, your labor, your patience, on and on all the things you do, nevertheless I have this against you, that you have left your first love…”

· Folks have asked me over the years what to do…, I pray, I go to church, I serve and yet God doesn’t answer me. I tell them stop! Stop all of that! Why? Because what truly is needed is for us to get to a position of worship, praise and honor unto God even if He never answers us! Humility is the position of approach to God because that looks like the cross. No one, Jesus said, no one comes to the Father except through Him!

· It’s not that God wasn’t answering. Its that you are calling to Him not where He is… Angela doesn’t live in Colorado, she’s in Florida! But I shout for her here and she doesn’t answer me…, she must not love me, she must not be good…, no… Unfortunately, the issue is me. And folks don’t want to hear that…, through fasting, this is how we perhaps begin to listen… And the position of our hearts perhaps will go from shouting to service! Look at what that looks like…

Isaiah Chapter 58 Verses 10 – 12

· But I demand God to restore me, build me, repair me…, the mystery of holiness is that when you let that go and submit your will unto God’s, (essentially accepting the situation of a doulos/slave/disciple to Christ) that’s when He does those things…, and not a moment sooner. It’s when you become yourself what you are demanding of God…, to serve you, to answer you, to incline His ear to you…, and yet perhaps through fasting I surrender all and weaken my flesh so that I serve Him, I answer Him, I incline my ear to Him…, it’s then…, in that drought, God satisfies the soul…, as James puts it…, God gives His grace to the humble…

Isaiah Chapter 58 Verses 13 – 14

· The way up is down, man. It’s true in your home, its true in your marriage, it’s true in your career, it’s true in your walk towards victory in Christ…, it’s just true. Hard and narrow is the path that leads to life…, few find it. Why? Because we all get stuck on the “hard” and on the “narrow.” When we entirely disregard that that path is the PATH OF LIFE! It’s not easy this path, but touch that life, man… (Jesus said it’s Him), and in a mysterious way you begin to actually love and to cherish the work, the labor, the toughness of that path…

· I see now. How worth it is. How necessary it is… Without that hard and narrow, the bonds of wickedness would never have broken. The heavy burdens would never have lightened. The oppression in me would have never freed. The yokes that weighed me down and halted me would have never broken!! Many are called, few are chosen, and few find it…, and it’s obvious why…

Isaiah 66 vs 7-24

September 4, 2024 • Pastor Matt Korniotes • Isaiah 66:7–24

Isaiah Chapter 66 Verses 7 – 11 · This makes it entirely clear that the woman ready to give birth described to us in Revelation 12 was and is indeed Israel and the birth coming forth is the Messiah! · And Isaiah says here, “Before she was in labor, she gave birth; before her pain came, she delivered a male child. Who has heard of such a thing?” Child birth is painful, or so I’ve heard! But the result of the child delivered is a cause for joy! This prophecy has at least two meanings… · One, God is working His plan such that there will come a day when the result will be glorious and it will come without torment or trouble! Victory will come easily to the people of God! I think of Neo in the Matrix when he figures out that he has the ability to control the matrix and then all of a sudden, he cannot be touched. He can’t even be troubled by Agent Smith any longer! (I know, that movie is decades old but it paints a good picture…) · Proverbs 1:27 speaks of those that refuse to turn to the Lord for help, accept His help, obey His direction…, “When your terror comes like a storm, and your destruction comes like a whirlwind, when distress and anguish come upon you…” Do you know that God has promised to be YOUR God and YOUR Savior? Look how this chapter ends in Proverbs Chapter 1 verses 28 – 33… · “Then they will call on me, but I will not answer; They will seek me diligently, but they will not find me. Because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord. They would have none of my counsel, and despised my every rebuke. Therefore, they shall eat the fruit of their own way, and be filled to the full with their own fancies. For the turning away of the simple will slay them, and the complacency of fools will destroy them; But whoever listens to me will dwell safely, and will be secure, without fear of evil.” · This is a powerful promise given to us by Isaiah that without pain, we will bring forth, Salvation Himself will come forth into our lives if we would but hear Him, believe Him, heed Him…, just simply obey Him. · The second way one can take these verses, specific to Israel, is how their greatest troubles would come AFTER the Messiah. Why? They reject Him. The rejection of Jesus Christ will eventually thrust Israel into the Great Tribulation, the Time of Jacob’s Trouble. Jeremiah 30:7, “Alas! For that day is great, so that none is like it; and it is the time of Jacob’s trouble, but he shall be saved out it,” (speaking of the final salvation of Israel). But that time is yet ahead and that time is after the Messiah had/has already come… Isaiah Chapter 66 Verses 12 - 13 · God comforts those who groan in this present age by long-casting to what will come AND by reminding us NOW of the Messiah who HAS COME into this world. Giving that to us not only as a present hope and encouragement but a reminder of His faithfulness! · Can a nation be born at once!? Absolutely! 2600 years later! At once, May 14, 1948 Israel was born again and all those today who live for today yes but live for today from a position of the coming Kingdom, all of y’all today can look to Israel and allow even the fact that they are on the map to comfort you as a parent would comfort their child! Isaiah Chapter 66 Verse 14 · Isn’t that SO true! We look to Israel and we see the faithfulness of God and the effectivity of His Word! The unquenchable power of the promises of God! And yet, the entire world seems to disdain this little sliver of people! Israel as a land and a population is equivalent to 0.12% of the world! That is like, have you ever clipped your toenails? I SURE HOPE SO you disgusting animal! But that one small clipping that flung off into the carpet that you can’t find…, that’s Israel! AND everyone, the entire WORLD, is concerned! Isn’t God’s Word TRUE!! Isaiah Chapter 66 Verses 15 – 17 · The completion of this prophecy is Revelation Chapter 19. Revelation 19:11-15 says, “Now I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse. And He who sat on him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and makes war. His eyes were like a flame of fire, and on His head were many crowns. He had a name written that no one knew except Himself. He was clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God. And the armies in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, followed Him on white horses. Now out of His mouth goes a sharp sword, that with it He should strike the nations. And He Himself will rule them with a rod of iron. He Himself treads the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.” · And interesting here, Isaiah tells us that a portion of those that are destroyed it says here are those that, “Go after an idol in the midst, eating swine’s flesh and the abomination and the mouse…” All things that are unclean in the eyes of the Lord however, so wildly relevant for today, he says before those things in verse 17, these are “those who sanctify themselves and purify themselves to the gardens…” We aren’t to do those things…, we are to let God sanctify us and purify us. The implication here is that they are their own gods… · This is rampant, RAMPANT in the world and a major issue even in the church today. Defining God on our own terms. Or making God the center of your life but giving Him no voice and no authority! · In terms of the world, it’s almost impenetrable! God is love. And leaving it there. So, no matter what I do, no matter if I follow Him or not, God must love me and accept me. That is in no way God as revealed to us in the scripture. That is a complete twisting of the word of God. It just simply stops short of who God really is… But its through that type of thinking that folks establish their salvation… · For God to sanctify and purify me, I must completely submit to Him. NO other way. Am I holy in my own eyes or am I holy in His eyes? Psalm 119:9-11 says, “How can a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed according to Your word. With my whole heart I have sought you; Oh, let me not wander from Your commandments! Your word I have hidden in my heart that I might not sin against you!” It’s like a husband in his own way is faithful to his wife, loves his wife. But she has no say in it… He is NOT faithful and that is NOT love! And yet this has become personally totally acceptable even in the church! · Verse 17 actually says, look at it in the Hebrew, these are “those who are dedicated to themselves…, and those that proclaim within themselves their own innocence…” This is the real separation of the sheep and the goats, man… Loyalty and dedication of heart to Jesus, the Good Shepherd or first place dedication to the god, me! Isaiah Chapter 66 Verses 18 – 21 · All of this simply speaks of the divisions and appointing of peoples as Jesus takes over rule one day soon to come… Interesting as well that it appears that God extends the priesthood past the bloodline of the Old Testament/Covenant as He “takes some of them for priests and Levites…” Isaiah Chapter 66 Verses 22 – 24 · After the battle of Armageddon, there will be so many bodies that a good entire career will be able to be made just out of dealing with the corpses. Jeremiah 25:33 says, “And at that day the slain of the Lord shall be from one end of the earth even to the other end of the earth. They shall not be lamented, or gathered, or buried; they shall become refuse on the ground.” Just in the land of Israel alone, we read in Ezekiel 39:12, “For seven months the house of Israel will be burying them, in order to cleanse the land.” · And this is end-game, not just for the Book of Isaiah but for this world and the history of creation, at one point in the future, all flesh shall come to worship before Me, says the Lord. That word for worship is literally to obey and to honor the Lord. And the kicker is this…, it won’t matter then, worshipping then doesn’t get you there…, it’s all about today whom you choose to worship today…, because in this day, in a way, there’s no more choice… Why? Because that choice has already been made. And so revealing…, here’s the choice today…, worship (honor and wanting obedience to the Lord), or the worm which doesn’t die and fire that isn’t quenched… · That is the flesh! The worm doesn’t stop worming! Decaying and degrading and distracting from the life that God wants for you and for real for real, the life we each want for ourselves also! “They shall be an abhorrence to all flesh.” A strong, disgusting word only used twice in scripture…, it means contemptable…, it means repulsive… · The fire of the flesh though, never quenched…, always burns…, just some folks can’t help themselves but be moths… always getting burnt and never learning… Serving the Lord, this book the theme of it all and the revelation of it all, life is so so so much better serving and obeying the Lord. Many will hear it. Many will understand it. Many will agree with it. Only the wise will find it…

Isaiah 66 Verses 1 – 13

August 28, 2024 • Pastor Matt Korniotes • Isaiah 66:1–13

Isaiah Chapter 66 Verses 1 – 2 · I call this the perfecting of perspective because this is not so much the lens through which everything makes sense (God’s ways are higher than ours), but this is the lens of longevity. All that we deal with, situation, relationships, problems, even blessings and victories, in the end all that will remain is that which is of the Kingdom of God. To realize that now is wisdom…, (and you need to know this!) maybe not practically for today…, might cause you great inconvenience today, but it’s later…, it’s later to be revealed the true importance of really everything… · Guzik says it this way and I like this, “We can never understand much of anything until we understand that God is enthroned in heaven, and the earth is commanded by His sovereignty….” · God’s house, God’s place of rest… In the Hebrew, “where is God’s family, where is God’s place of still… Where does He stop and remain,” (in the Hebrew this word speaks even of matrimonial relationship). The answer is one who is poor and of a contrite spirit, and who trembles at His word. · Poor, the word doesn’t mean to be without. The word means to be humble, to accept and step into an existence of lowliness. Setting one’s importance less than another. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 10:1, “Now I, Paul, myself and pleading with you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ, who in presence am lowly among you…” · But what if they’re rude? What if they don’t serve me? What if they don’t believe what I believe? What if they do wrong by me? Do you belong to Jesus or not? This is where God makes His name known. In this house. The heart of the poor. · And contrite. This word means straight up stricken! Those that are cut up by the world and by others and yet they don’t hide their backs (God help me with this)! Why? Because they have chosen to be lowly and that choice will always include abuse… Harm… Disregard… All of this so much looks like Jesus! (Still wanting to walk in Romans 12:1-2?) Tough stuff!! · And who trembles at My word! There are many reasons why one might tremble. Excitement, fear, temperature…, the person that just loves to be warmed in Spirit by the word of God… But what is more obvious and yet less plain here is that trembling is a physical response… · Jesus said in John 13:16-17, “Most assuredly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master; nor is he who is sent greater than he who sent him. If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.” God takes no pleasure and builds no relationship and works no mighty works in the lives of those who simply hear and believe and yet do not do. To tremble at the Word of God is to hear the Word and obey it… A physical response to what God has said. A manifestation, a bringing forth of a reality of a life in response AND alignment to God’s Word… · And perhaps the most impactful statement of all…, “For all these things My hand has made, and all those things exist, says the Lord.” Relationship with God and the blessings of God is far less what you do and far more what you surrender. My part is to surrender…, and it is God that works and builds and establishes! Isaiah Chapter 66 Verses 3 – 4 · Can I just say something about these verses…? Religion without commitment of heart is nothing more than narcissism. Narcissism is simply the service of self and the reason its called narcissism or perhaps why I’m calling this form of religion by that name and not pride is because the person doing it somehow is unaware of it… Well, not somehow. They’ve not cared for so long that it’s just not even close to an awareness presently. · The narcissist can be identified very very very very very simply. In the face of what is right, they chose to do what is right…, for them. Paul wrote of this condition in 2 Timothy 3:5 and 7, “Having a form of godliness but denying its power…, from such people turn away! Always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.” · Hearing the Word, studying the ways and the will of God, learning even the heart of God and yet when the rubber meets the road, when it comes time to honor the Lord or honor themselves…, well, you know what I’m going to say. They honor themselves. · God says to us here that all of their works, all of their sacrifices, all of the service in the ministry…, it’s just simply not acceptable because although you do so much you refuse the change of heart power and authority of God in your life! · Jesus crushed this topic in Matthew 23:23-33, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone. Blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel! “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cleanse the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of extortion and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee, first cleanse the inside of the cup and dish, that the outside of them may be clean also.” · “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. Even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! Because you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous, and say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.’ Therefore, you are witnesses against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers’ guilt. Serpents, brood of vipers! How can you escape the condemnation of hell?” · Simple answer, revelatory issue if you don’t defend, deflect or deafen…, do YOU choose that which God delights? This is the second time it has come up in this book. Last time was the previous chapter, verse 12. Sin is not the act of wickedness only. It is also the heart that does not seek to be challenged, altered and changed constantly by the strength of the relationship you say you have with Jesus. In fact, that sin is by far the worst because it is a condition of the heart from which all other sin flows… This is what God is trying to talk to us about here… Isaiah Chapter 66 Verses 5 – 6 · What’s interesting is that as I went through that last point of study in the previous verses, the folks that have and do bow their heart to Jesus and allow Him the right to call them to account and allow Him the right to lead them into a better heart, as I went through that last bit of scripture, you weren’t convicted as much as you were hurting…, like someone brought up something that was done against you in the past… · Why? Because nothing hurts a follower of Jesus more than followers of Jesus that deny His worthiness. Nothing hurts more. It’s just like the saints that come out of the Great Tribulation who are situated under the alter in Heaven calling out to God day and night, “How long Lord!?” God says, “Your brethren that hated you…” But all the brethren in the Body of Christ that do not strive forward to delight the Lord would all say, “I don’t hate them! I’ve never hated them!” But that’s just your narcissism talking… It hits like hate to those who are on the receiving end of you serving your own delight rather than God’s… · I know some can’t hear or receive or understand that…, Until your heart finds a knee in front of the throne of God in Jesus…, His will, His way, His words, until that moment, your ears just simply don’t work. Your understanding to this is darkened… You can understand and process a ton…, a form of godliness absolutely, but never able to see the harm caused to yourself, those you love and the heart of God…, and that is precisely why God gives us these verses… To comfort those who mourn in this present evil age with the promise of what WILL come! Isaiah Chapter 66 Verses 7 – 13 · This makes it entirely clear that the woman ready to give birth described to us in Revelation 12 was and is indeed Israel and the birth coming forth is the Messiah! · What does God do? He comforts those who groan in this present age by long-casting to what will come AND by reminding us NOW of the Messiah who HAS COME into this world. Giving us that not only as a present hope and encouragement but a reminder of His faithfulness! · Can a nation be born at once!? Absolutely! 2600 years later! At once, May 14, 1948 Israel was born again and all those today who live for today yes but live for today from a position of the coming Kingdom, all of y’all today can look to Israel and allow even the fact that they are on the map to comfort you as a parent would comfort their child!

Isaiah 65 vs 19-25

August 21, 2024 • Pastor Matt Korniotes • Isaiah 65:19–25

Highlighted points from last study: · Verse 16 says, “He who blesses himself in the earth, shall bless himself in the God of truth.” The most blessed life any of us can have, is to enter as soon as possible and as much as possible into the kingdom of God! The kingdom of God on earth is the dominion of God in a life! The servants of God are those that are within the kingdom of God. There are no other positions available! Why? Because that is our rightful place in the presence of the King of kings! Isaiah Chapter 65 Verses 19 · We jump back to the Millennial Reign here… Isaiah isn’t concerned with just simply narrating a linear progression. He is layering as the Lord gives Him inspiration. Verse 19 is a transitional verse that goes back in time from the New Jerusalem to the Millennial Reign Jerusalem and we know that by what comes next… Isaiah Chapter 65 Verse 20 · Isaiah is talking about death and age here which points not to the New Jerusalem but to the Millennial Reign. Before God creates the New Heavens and the New Earth, death is finished. It says in Revelation 20:11-15, “Then I saw a great white throne and Him who sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away. And there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God, and books were opened. And another book was opened, which is the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to their works, by the things which were written in the books. The sea gave up the dead who were in it, and Death and Hades delivered up the dead who were in them. And they were judged, each one according to his works. Then Death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire.” So, death is gone… · During the Millennial Reign, there will be two kinds of people on the earth. Those that came back with Jesus in Revelation 19 and those that somehow survived the Great Tribulation. So, there will still be birth, birthdays, life, and death…, and even those that sin, during the Millennial Reign of Christ… AND, things will be very different than they are today… Check this out… Isaiah Chapter 65 Verses 21 – 25 · Before the flood, people lived far longer than they do today. Adam was 930 years old when he died. Seth was 912 years old. Noah was 600 years old when the flood happened (according to Genesis 7:6). Why is that? Well, first and foremost, it is because that was the decree of God, that He would shorten the length of man’s years. · Right before the flood, we read in Genesis 6:3 God say, “My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, for he is indeed flesh; yet his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.” Now it is interesting that after the flood we see the lifespan of people greatly decreased…, and some very astute scholars have offered further information on that fact by describing the ecological difference between the pre-flood earth and the post-flood earth in what is called the Canopy Theory or the Water Canopy Theory. · Genesis 1:1-2 and verses 6-7 says, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the fact of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.” “Then God said, “Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.” Thus, God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament; and it was so.” · Ok, why is this interesting? Genesis 1:8, “And God called the firmament Heaven…” Thought it was the land, didn’t you? Genesis 1:20 tells us that “The birds fly above the earth across the face of the firmament of the heavens…” And so, the waters separating the firmament are waters under the sky and also above the sky. · In the days of Adam, Seth, Noah and all people before the flood, the earth was in many ways a literal paradise (theoretically – none of us were there). Similar climate across the world with a very different ecology than today. This is why petrified animals are still found with fresh vegetation in their bellies is sub-arctic climates… · Check out the design of the human body. When you cut yourself, what happens? You heal… Your body is designed in such a way as to replenish itself, heal itself…, so what is it that causes us to perish? Primarily it is age. And what is aging? Partly and rapidly affected by UV energies radiating us at a cellular level. · We see this clearly on the outside, on the skin but this also happens all the way through our bodies. If the world had a blanket of water above the skies before the flood, then the UV radiation would be essentially diffused prior to reaching the earth… Causing us to age much much slower than we do today… SO what happened? The flood… The waters of the deep came up and the waters from above came down. And so, the aging process extremely accelerated due to the loss of the protective layer of water above… Thus, the Canopy Theory… · Now, during the time of the Great Tribulation and even at the start of the Millennial Reign of Christ, worldwide ecology will again be changed. Revelation 6:12-14 says, “I looked when He opened the sixth seal, and behold, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became like blood, and the stars of heaven fell to the earth, as a fig tree drops its late figs when it is shaken by a mighty wind. Then the sky receded as a scroll when it is rolled up, and every mountain and island was moved out of its place.” · Something happens to the sky at the beginning of the Great Tribulation and Jesus said at the time of the end of the Great Tribulation, Matthew 24:29, “Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken.” So, the atmosphere, the ecology of the world, just like in the days of Noah where people lived 900 years, will change again, and during the Millennial Reign of Christ, some people will probably live the entire time… · It’s during the Millennial Reign period, according to Isaiah, lifespans are increased again. 100 years old will be the new 20! And there will be some other sort of monetary system as one will build and there will be no mortgage…, no owing someone else for what one has… · And Jesus will rule and reign from Jerusalem… Revelation 19:15 says that He will rule them with a rod of iron. Every sin, Jesus will see. Every statement, Jesus will hear. You will simply ask for Him and He is there. Peace will be on the earth and even peace in the animal kingdom… · And everyone will have what he works for… “They shall not plant and another eat…” I love this one. If a man will not work, in the reign of Christ, neither shall he eat… Everyone will reap entirely and exactly what they sow… And the truth is, the truth is, that’s today too…, it just hasn’t been yet revealed!