What insights in faith do the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah have for America? Find out with Dr. David Reagan on television’s “Christ in Prophecy”!
Air Date: June 13, 2021
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Transcript
Tim Moore: Is your faith unshakeable? When storms rage and society seems to be coming apart at the seams, do you stand firm on the solid Rock? Stay tuned to hear about faith that is unshakeable.
Welcome to Christ in Prophecy! I’m Tim Moore, the Director and Senior Evangelist of Lamb & Lion Ministries.
When the COVID pandemic forced us to cancel our annual conference in 2020, we knew many people would be disappointed. That year represented a great trial, both to our nation and to individuals.
In order to offer a shot of encouragement, Lamb & Lion Ministries held its first online Streaming Prophecy Conference last November. Our theme was “What on Earth is God Doing?” Over 2,000 people watched live, with many thousands more viewing the presentations and question and answer session in the weeks that followed.
In March of this year, we offered our second Streaming Conference with the theme: “Unshakeable Faith.” Today, we’re going to present Dr. David Reagan’s message from that conference about Isaiah and Jeremiah. Isaiah was the first to proclaim, “a voice crying in the wilderness.” Jeremiah has been called “the weeping prophet” because he pronounced God’s judgment on the Jewish people. Both exhibited incredibly tough faith in the face of withering criticism and heartbreak.
All of us who have put our faith in Jesus Christ are promised grace and power to withstand any trial. We are called to have faith that is unshakeable.
And now, here’s Dave Reagan with a message of incredible hope from these great prophets of God.
Part 2
Dr. David Reagan’s March Conference Presentation:
Dr. Reagan: Greetings in the name of Jesus, our Blessed Hope! My topic is “Insights for America from Isaiah and Jeremiah.”
And I would like to begin with two foundational scriptures: The first is Psalm 33:12 which says: “Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD.”
The second is Proverbs 14:34 which reads: “Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a disgrace to any people.”
Ever since I began holding Bible prophecy conferences 41 years ago, the number one question asked during question and answer sessions has been: Where is the United States in Bible prophecy? In response to this question, I have always replied by saying I do not believe our nation is mentioned specifically anywhere in Bible prophecy.
But I have also taught that we are in the Bible in prophetic symbolism, or what is usually referred to as prophetic type. And I am convinced that our prophetic type is ancient Judah. No other nation in history has been so richly blessed by God as the United States except Judah.
If you will remember, after the death of Solomon, the kingdom of David split into two nations, Israel and Judah. The northern nation of Israel was apostate from the beginning. It was founded in rebellion against God and continued in that condition for 208 years until it was conquered by the Assyrians in 722 BC. During its lifetime, the nation had 19 kings, and not a single one was considered righteous in the eyes of God.
The southern nation of Judah lasted 136 years longer for a total of 344 years, and 8 of its 20 kings were considered righteous by the Lord. Consider the parallels between our nation and Judah:
Judah was given great leaders like Hezekiah, Jehoshaphat, Josiah, just as we have been blessed in our history with leaders like Washington, Lincoln, the Roosevelts, and Reagan.
Judah enjoyed a degree of freedom that was unparalleled for that day and time, just as we have been blessed.
Judah was granted great prosperity just as we have been.
And Judah was favored with abundant spiritual blessings just as we have been.
The Shekinah Glory of God resided in Judah’s Temple in Jerusalem. And likewise, we have been blessed to be used by God to proclaim the Gospel all over the world.
Well, I wish I could stop there with this list of positive parallels, but I cannot. That’s because we share some negative characteristics with Judah.
One is pride. Judah became proud of its blessings and the people deceived themselves into thinking they were the ones responsible for their blessings. They forgot the One who was truly responsible, just as we have.
Another negative parallel is rebellion. As Judah distanced itself from God, it began to rebel against His Word, just as we are now in the process of doing the same thing.
The result for Judah was the destruction of their nation by the Babylonians in 586 BC. But before God poured out His wrath on the nation, He patiently called them to repentance and warned them of His impending judgment. He did this in two ways, through prophetic voices and remedial judgments.
Let’s consider the prophetic voices first. In about 740 BC, God anointed a sophisticated and erudite man named Isaiah to be a prophet to Judah, and the first thing God asked him to do was to search out the land and compile a spiritual inventory of the sins of the people.
Now, God knew the sins. This was His way of acquainting Isaiah with them firsthand.
Isaiah’s subsequent report was startling and heartbreaking. It clearly revealed that the people whom God had so richly blessed had turned their back on Him and His Word.
And since these are the sins that motivated God to destroy the nation, the city, and the temple He loved so much, we should pay close attention to what they were.
Isaiah’s report is found in chapter 5 of his writings, and he begins in verse 7 with the sin of injustice: “He, God, expected…justice, but instead He found oppression. He expected to find righteousness, but instead He heard cries of violence.”
Next, Isaiah mentioned greed: “You buy up property, so others have no place to live. Your homes are built on great estates so you can be alone in the midst of the earth!” (Isaiah 5:8)
The next sin he discovered was pleasure-seeking: “They furnish wine and lovely music at their grand parties lyre and harp, tambourine and flute but they never think about the LORD or notice what He is doing.” (Isaiah 5:12)
The fourth sin he reported was blasphemy: “They even mock the Holy One of Israel and dare the Lord to punish them. ‘Hurry up and punish us, O LORD,’ they say. ‘We want to see what you can do!'” (Isaiah 5:19)
Next, Isaiah pointed to the shocking sin of moral perversion: “They say that what is right is wrong and what is wrong is right; that black is white, and white is black; bitter is sweet and sweet is bitter.” (Isaiah 5:20)
The sixth sin Isaiah lamented was the sin of intellectual pride: “Woe to those who are wise and shrewd in their own eyes!” (Isaiah 5:21)
Next, Isaiah identified the sin of intemperance: “Woe to those who are “heroes” when it comes to drinking and boast about the liquor they can hold.” (Isaiah 5:22)
The final sin identified by Isaiah was political corruption: “They take bribes to pervert justice, letting the wicked go free and putting innocent men in jail.” (Isaiah 5:23)
Isaiah concluded his list with a summary statement that identified the fundamental reason for all the sins. He wrote: “…they have thrown away the laws of God and despised the Holy One of Israel.” (Isaiah 5:24)
So, the eight sins of Judah that Isaiah reported were: injustice, greed, pleasure, blasphemy, moral perversion, intellectual pride, intemperance and political corruption.
All of which he asserted were produced by contempt for the Word of God. Isaiah also reported that all his calls to repentance were met with scoffing and frivolity.
Isaiah responded to this crass indifference with a very strong warning, he wrote, “God will send a signal to the nations far away, whistling to those at the ends of the earth, and they will come racing toward Jerusalem…They will seize my people and carry them off into captivity with none to rescue them.” (Isaiah 5:26-30)
That prophecy was ultimately fulfilled when Judah fell to the Babylonians in about 587 BC.
But amidst all of Isaiah’s calls to repentance and his warnings of destruction, he always gave messages of glorious hope by pointing to the future Millennial reign of Jesus on this earth when the Jewish nation would be elevated as the prime nation of the world, and the earth would be flooded with peace, righteousness and justice as the waters cover the seas.
As we view the spiritual darkness that has overtaken our nation and converted it from one founded on Judeo-Christian principles to one that is now secularized and paganized and wallowing in rebellion against God, we need to keep an eternal perspective by reminding ourselves of the promise that one day soon Jesus will be reigning over all the earth.
As Isaiah pointed out over and over, maintaining an eternal perspective will give us the hope we need in coping with a society in revolt against God.
Sixty years after Isaiah, God called a young priest named Jeremiah to do the same thing he had requested of Isaiah. He asked him to go forth and make an inventory of the sins of Judah.
And when he reported back to God, he listed the same sins as Isaiah, but he added three new ones.
The first was immorality. Now, this, of course, had been hinted at in Isaiah’s accusation of moral perversion. But Jeremiah got very specific: He declared that God had fed His people until they were full, but they thanked Him by “committing adultery and lining up at the brothels.”
He compared them to “well-fed, lusty stallions, each neighing for his neighbor’s wife.” (Isaiah 5:7-8)
The second sin Jeremiah detected was religious corruption. He wrote: “A horrible and shocking thing has happened in this land, the prophets give false prophecies, and the priests rule with an iron hand. Worse yet, my people like it that way!” (Isaiah 5:30-31)
The third sin he added to the growing list was closed minds. He declared the people did not listen when God spoke. “Their ears are closed, and they cannot hear. They scorn the word of the Lord. They don’t want to listen at all.” (Isaiah 6:10-11)
Jeremiah then concluded with three powerful summary statements:
“Their faces are harder than rock.” (Isaiah 5:3)
“They have a stubborn and rebellious hearts.” (Isaiah 5:23)
“They do not know how to blush.” (Isaiah 6:15)
At this point, Jeremiah issued a called to repentance, coupled with a stern warning: “Oh, my people, dress yourselves in burlap and sit among the ashes. Mourn and weep bitterly, as for the loss of an only son. For suddenly the destroying armies will be upon you!” (Isaiah 6:26)
But the people of Judah were so caught up in rebellion that they refused to repent, and they scoffed at the warning, responding by shouting, “The Temple, the Temple, the Temple!”
Now what they meant by this taunt was that they did not believe God would ever destroy their nation and their capital city because the Shekinah Glory of God rested in their Temple.
Meanwhile, God was speaking through prophetic voices, while He was doing that, while He was calling the people to repentance and warning them of an ultimate judgment, He was simultaneously inflicting the nation with remedial judgments.
Now, these are judgments designed to humble people and motivate them to think with an eternal perspective and repent of their sins.
Before they entered the Promised Land, God had warned them through Moses that if they were not faithful to His commandments, they would suffer remedial judgments to call them to repentance. These judgments are listed in detail in Deuteronomy 28, and they include such things as: crop failures, rebellion of teenagers, epidemic of divorce, rampant disease, confusing government policies, defeats by enemies, foreign domination, and ultimately exile.
But the people of Judah were set in their sins. They refused to repent, and Jeremiah therefore declared that their “wound was incurable.” (Jeremiah 10:19)
The result was the Babylonian conquest of the nation and its capital in 587 BC, resulting in most of the people being carried away into captivity.
God in His mercy allowed them to return 70 years later, but during the next 400 years, they persisted in their sins, and so, in 70 AD, God allowed them to be conquered by the Romans and dispersed worldwide, just as he had warned.
This sordid history of a people rebelling against their God who had blessed them so overwhelmingly is summed up in two very sad verses in 2 Chronicles 36:15-16. As the verses are read, you can almost hear the Lord weeping: “And the Lord, the God of their fathers, sent word to them again and again by His messengers, because He had compassion on His people and on His dwelling place; but they continually mocked the messengers of God, despised His words, scoffed at His prophets, until the wrath of the LORD rose against His people, until there was no remedy.”
From this history of Judah, we can draw some conclusions about how God deals with a rebellious nation which He has so richly blessed.
First, He raises up prophetic voices to call the nation to repentance. And, if there is no repentance, He places remedial judgments upon the nation.
If the nation repents, He forgives and blesses. But if there is no repentance, God destroys the nation when its rebellion becomes entrenched, reaching a point of no return.
The Bible says this point of no return occurs when “the wound becomes incurable.”
Nahum declared that Nineveh had “an incurable wound.”
Jeremiah used the same terminology with reference to Judah.
And Jeremiah was even told to stop praying for Judah. (Jeremiah 7:16)
Ezekiel was told the same thing, but in even stronger terms.
Ezekiel was told that if the most righteous men who have ever lived, Noah, Daniel and Job, were to intervene for Judah, it would be of no avail, except for themselves and their families, because the nation had reached the point of no return and was going to be destroyed.
All of which reminds me of the words of the prophet Nahum who wrote, “A jealous and avenging God is the LORD; The LORD is avenging and wrathful. The LORD takes vengeance on His adversaries, And He reserves wrath for His enemies. The LORD is slow to anger and great in power, And the LORD will by no means leave the guilty unpunished.” (Nahum 1:2-3)
Now, let’s quickly apply these principles to the United States. As I have said many times, I believe God raised up this nation with the purpose of using our great natural resources and technical ingenuity to spread the Gospel all over the world. As we fulfilled His purpose, He poured out blessings upon us, blessings like unparalleled freedom, prosperity, immense power, worldwide influence.
He even gave us the blessing of serving as the key nation in the rebirthing and nurturing of the nation of Israel. But we became enamored with our wealth and power, and we began turning our back on God.
The Almighty Dollar became our god.
Greed became our motivator.
Gambling became a national pastime.
Sex became our obsession.
We became the world’s largest consumer of illegal drugs.
We kicked God out of our schools.
We legalized abortion.
We endorsed moral perversion.
And we became the moral polluter of planet earth through our violent, immoral, and blasphemous movies and television programs.
As we wallowed in the sexual revolution of the 1960’s, God began to raise up prophetic voices like Dave Wilkerson, calling this nation to repentance.
And in the years since that time, he has raised up many more prophetic voices, 13 of which I identify in my book, “God’s Prophetic Voices to America.”
When we refused to repent, the remedial judgments began to fall.
They included such things as:
The Vietnam War which occurred on the heels of the sexual revolution of the 60’s.
The 9/11 Attacks in 2001, where God allowed the terrorists to be successful in attacking the two symbols of our pride: The Twin Towers in New York which represented our wealth; and the Pentagon in Washington, DC which represented our power.
Then there was Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Undoubtedly God’s response to our immorality and our forcing Israel to abandon the Gaza Strip.
The storm formed suddenly in the Gulf on the last day of the Gaza Strip withdrawal and it hit New Orleans just as it was getting ready to host its annual homosexual festival.
The Sept 2008 Stock Market Crash. Again, this was another remedial judgment, a response to our attempts to strong arm Israel into surrendering its heartland. It occurred on the eve of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and the market fell by 777 points, indicating the signature of God.
And then there were the type of leaders we deserve. It is no accident that President Obama was the most pro-abortion, pro-homosexual, anti-Capitalist, anti-Israel leader in the entire history of our nation.
The man who promised us hope proceeded to destroy that hope with a myriad of ungodly programs and actions.
Let’s consider the parallels once again between Judah and the United States:
Ancient Judah was blessed with great leaders, freedom, prosperity, and spiritual blessings, all of which our nation has enjoyed. But, like Judah, we have drifted into pride and rebellion. We have forgotten about God and we have rejected His Word. And as with ancient Judah, God has responded with warnings and judgments. Now, we are courting His destruction.
This brings us to a very important question: Why should the United States be treated any differently? The answer, of course, is that God is not treating us any differently. He has raised up prophetic voices to call us to repentance, He has sent remedial judgments. And our response has been one of patriotism, when the needed response is repentance. And so, our society has continued to slouch toward Gomorrah.
Let me take a moment to emphasize to you how serious the decay of our society has become. Only a person my age can appreciate how radically and how quickly our society has disintegrated.
When I was born in 1938-
Abortionists were sent to prison.
Pregnancy out of wedlock was thought of as scandalous.
Homosexuality was considered unnatural and immoral.
Pornography was despised as a perversion.
Drugs were something you bought at a drug store.
Marriage was sacred.
Living together was taboo.
Divorce was a disgrace.
Same-sex marriage was beyond even the wildest and most depraved imagination.
Homemaking was honored, and day care was provided by mothers in their homes.
Child abuse was almost unheard of.
Ladies did not curse or smoke.
The word, “damn,” was considered flagrant language in a movie.
The first motion picture to use a curse word was Gone with the Wind in 1939. The movie ended with the phrase, “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.”
In 2013 a film called “The Wolf of Wall Street,” starring Leonardo DiCaprio, had the “f-word” in it 544 times in 180 minutes!
In 1997, the veteran television star, Steve Allen, denounced the growing filth in movies and television by saying, “We have become a society where vulgarians entertain barbarians.” And folks, that was 24 years ago!
It is true that in His grace and mercy, God gave us a temporary respite, a window of grace through the miraculous election of Donald Trump in 2016.
Incidentally, I believe the crucial factor in producing that miracle was Franklin Graham’s prayer crusade that he took to every state capital in our nation.
And at each stop, he began his presentation with the same words: “I have no hope in the Democratic Party, I have no hope in the Republican Party. Zero hope. Our only hope is God.”
And he proceeded to call our nation to prayer and repentance.
President Trump did a lot of things right while he proclaimed that he was going to “Make America Great Again.”
But no one can make our nation great again as long as we continue in our outright rebellion against God and His Word.
Our nation, like Judah, has gone too far in its rejection of God. I believe our wound is incurable. When Trump was elected I said that his election was not a portent of our future. And I pointed to four brutal facts to prove that point. After eight years of the most ungodly administration in American history:
President Obama left office with a 60% approval rating.
His designated heir, Hillary Clinton, received 3 million more votes than Trump.
And our nation’s future, the Millennials supported an out-and-out Socialist, and when he failed to get the nomination, they voted overwhelmingly for Clinton.
And then consider, too, the ignorance of God’s Word that has come to characterize both our nation and professing Christians.
This ignorance is reflected in polls conducted by the Barna Association which show that only 9% of Americans are Bible-believing. And even more shocking, only 17% of professing Christians are truly Bible-believing Christians!
I think Romans chapter 1 makes it crystal clear that the fate of our nation is sealed. It says that the wrath of God is called down from Heaven by: ungodliness, unrighteousness, suppression of the truth, and worship of the creation rather than the Creator.
Well, that’s exactly where we are in our nation’s history. We are practicing ungodliness as we kick God out of our schools and all aspects of our public life.
We are practicing unrighteousness in our daily murder of babies.
We are suppressing the truth of the origin of the universe and of life.
And we are worshiping the Creation rather than the Creator.
Romans 1 tells us how God responds to the kind of rebellion that is going on here, He steps back, He lowers the hedge of protection, He allows evil to multiply. And the results are:
A sexual revolution- which occurred in our nation in the 1960s.
A plague of homosexuality- which followed in the 1980s and 90s.
The society being delivered over to a depraved mind- which is where we are today.
What else but depravity of mind could explain our nation’s celebration of the Supreme Court’s decision to legalized same-sex marriage? As we celebrated, God must have wept.
Or consider the depravity of this sordid spectacle of the White House lit up in the colors of the Sexual Perversion Movement.
I have no doubt that we signed our nation’s death warrant on June 26, 2015 when our Supreme Court rendered its despicable, ungodly decision in behalf of same-sex marriage.
Is there any hope for our nation? I do not believe so.
But we should not despair for several reasons:
First, what we are experiencing is a fulfillment of end time prophecy.
The biblical prophets, including Jesus Himself, all prophesied that in the end times society would disintegrate into violence and immorality, that it would become as evil as in the days of Noah. And that people would go about their business as if everything was normal.
And folks, that is exactly where we are today. And thus, we are witnesses to the very signs that are heralding the soon return of Jesus.
That’s why the great pastor, Adrian Rogers, once said, “The world is growing gloriously dark.”
Or, as Jan Markell likes to put it: “The world is not falling to pieces; rather, the pieces are all falling into place.”
The second reason we should not despair is because there is individual hope. For those of us who are believers. God has promised that He will never forsake us. Here’s how Isaiah expressed it, he said, “Thus says the LORD, your Creator…When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they will not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be scorched, Nor will the flame burn you. For I am the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.” (Isaiah 43:1-3)
In like manner, Jeremiah provides us with an incredible example of tough faith. It is found in one of the saddest books of the Bible, the book called Lamentations, which Jeremiah wrote in response to the destruction of Jerusalem, including the Jewish Temple.
He describes walking thru the devastation of his beloved city of Jerusalem, viewing the destroyed homes and buildings, the dead bodies, and even the evidence of cannibalism due to the severe famine the city experienced before its destruction.
And then, suddenly, as if the sun broke thru, Jeremiah proclaimed: “This I recall to my mind, and therefore I have hope. The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; His mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning. Great is Your faithfulness. ‘The LORD is my portion,’ says my soul, ‘Therefore I will hope in Him.'”
A third reason we should not despair is because of the sovereignty of God. In short, God is in control, He has the wisdom and power to orchestrate all the evil of Mankind and Satan to the triumph of His will in history.
Here’s how God expressed it through Isaiah: “Remember this, and be assured…I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like Me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things which have not been done, saying, ‘My purpose will be established, and I will accomplish all My good pleasure’…Truly I have spoken; truly I will bring it to pass. I have planned it, surely I will do it.
And don’t forget, we have a fourth reason for hope. We have the incredible hope of the Rapture.
There is also hope for unbelievers. As Pastor Robert Jeffress likes to point out: “When the darkness deepens, the light of Jesus will shine more brightly, like a diamond on a black cloth, and more and more people will be drawn to Jesus and be saved.”
Meanwhile, as the darkness deepens, those of us who are believers must serve as salt and light, standing for God and His Word and refusing to give in to the demands of a pagan society, regardless of the cost.
We must be beacons of hope, pointing people to the God of hope, while urging them to put their hope in their only hope, Jesus, the Son of God and the soon returning King of kings and Lord of lords.
Closing
Tim Moore: Wow! It’s easy to see why Dave Reagan has impacted so many lives over the years.
You know the prophetic Word of the Lord Amos delivered to ancient Israel is sadly descriptive of our own day and age. Our nation is experiencing a famine, not for bread and water, but rather “for hearing the words of the Lord.”
Today you’ve heard from God’s eternal Word. We pray that Dave’s message has been an encouragement to you.
In spite of growing adversity, let’s purpose to finish well in the race to our heavenly home. In the words of Hebrews, “let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith.”
Until next week, this is Tim Moore for Lamb & Lion Ministries saying, Godspeed!
End of Program