King of My Life, I Crown Thee Now (Hussey, 1921), Psalm 8:1.

My Shepherd met me in His green pastures, reading in Isaiah 62-63. So much here touched my heart:

Isaiah 62 must be the most tender and profound proclamation of God’s assured love for and commitment to Israel and Jerusalem.

Jehovah will not rest until Zion and Jerusalem are beacons of His righteousness: “And the Gentiles shall see thy righteousness, and all kings thy glory” (Isaiah 62:1-2). GOD will make of Israel a crown of glory and a royal diadem in His hand (62:3). She will “no more be called Forsaken,” and her land will no more be called “Desolate” (62:4a). But at the time Isaiah wrote this, Judah, and its capital, Jerusalem, was ruled by Hezekiah and the city and her land was prosperous. Isaiah warned Hezekiah of the coming desolation, to which he replied, “Good is the world of the LORD which thou hast spoken. He said moreover, For there shall be peace and truth in my days” (Isaiah 39:8).

“Forsaken” and “Desolate” are capitalized. This indicates that the prophecy is intended for the people of Israel during the time of their “divorce” (Jeremiah 3:8, referring to the act of putting away) and the desolation of the land (Jeremiah 25:11; Ezekiel 36:35). Isaiah wrote his prophecy in c712 BC, Jeremiah declared the fulfillment of the prophesied Desolation about 100 years later, in c605 BC, and Ezekiel reiterated the prophesied restoration in c580 BC, about 125 years after Isaiah’s prophecy. This means Isaiah is looking beyond his time to the Desolation, and beyond the Desolation to the restoration.

Isaiah 63 testifies that at the time their Messiah would come to them with “the day of vengeance in [His] heart,” at the coming of the “year of [His] redeemed,” when He would have restored the “kingdom to Israel” (Acts 1:4), His people would fulfill the prophecy, that they “rebelled, and vexed his holy Spirit” (63:7-10; see Matthew 21:43).* GOD desired to show His righteousness to the Gentiles through Israel (62:2; He did in a modified manner—see Romans 6:1-2), but He set them aside and turned to the Gentiles, and put His Spirit in them, intending to provoke Israel to jealousy (Romans 10:19; 11:11). Still, we join Israel in prayer for their restoration (63:15-19), even though “Abraham be ignorant of us, and Israel acknowledge us not” (63:16a).

Along the still waters, I thought about these things. Israel’s land, around Jerusalem, would not be described as “Desolation” today, but the people of the land continue in their rebellion against receiving Jesus Christ as their Messiah.

There is a danger in failing to rightly understand the current divine status of Israel. Some might think that God’s restoration of Israel to her land is the fulfillment of this prophecy. First, God’s righteousness is not a peculiar characteristic of Israel. Second, as I said, Israel continues to reject Jesus as Christ, and Christians are begrudgingly countenanced in their laws. Persecution against the Christian message continues, though relatively soft by comparison to the days of Acts. One significant insight the Spirit pressed on me is that God’s prophecies about how things will be are not His instructions to bring them about. 

I could not dislodge my mind from the current controversy over “the files.” I’m sure the U.S. is compromised in the Epstein affair, but I don’t know if Israel is. I do know there is a peculiar sensitivity to this issue in Israel; in July this year (2025), a former Prime Minister of Israel (Naftali Bennett—2021 to 2022), strongly condemned any allegation that Israel’s Mossad was connected to Epstein.** He passionately called it a “vicious slander.” Suppose a full release of “the files” compromises Israel. In that case, it is reasonable to suppose that Benjamin Netanyahu might be under significant pressure from influential voices in Israel to utilize his friendship with Trump to halt the release, in the interest of peace. I don’t know if any of this even remotely approximates the truth about what’s going on, or offers any insight into Trump’s recent actions. It does highlight the importance of getting prophecy right. The fact that God has promised the complete restoration of Israel does not mean we are tasked with making that happen. It is not our mission to fulfill prophecy. Our responses to such things must be focused on justice and the judgment that serves it.

There is a huge chasm between how God sees something and how we see it. It would be easy for us to think that introducing controversy amid efforts to secure peace in the Middle East is a mistake. There would be a strong temptation to bury the controversy in the interests of peace. Indeed, the controversy of Intelligence agencies feeding innocent children and young women to the appetite of highly placed pedophiles to obtain and maintain control over them as political assets would undoubtedly be expected to be distracting from the high and lofty objective of peace in the Middle East. But God sees it differently. Wickedness, especially against children, provokes Him (Luke 17:2). From His perspective, I would expect Him to be more focused on the villainy perpetrated against innocent children than on some manufactured peace used to cover this evil. There will be “no peace, saith my God, to the wicked” (Isaiah 48:22; 57:21).

In the valley, I thought about Isaiah 63:14, “As a beast goeth down into the valley, the Spirit of the LORD caused him to rest: so didst thou lead thy people, to make thyself a glorious name.” I confess it’s an extended application, but the LORD used it to remind me He has given His Spirit to comfort us in the valley. His Spirit met me in the valley this morning, and I found Jesus’ words ironically comforting: “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me” (Luke 9:23). There is something about putting “self” aside that removes all the handles in our flesh that Satan uses to take hold of us. It’s an excellent stress reducer!

At the table, He anointed my head with His oil and filled my cup with His grace. Goodness and mercy took our six as we went together into the harvest.

Praying for revival! 🙏

Going live as soon as the livestream can be established.

https://rumble.com/v6w9uwq-shepherds-pasture.html

[*Stephen, Christ’s martyr, who was stoned while Saul (later called Paul, the Apostle) stood by approving the murder of this great saint, preached a message recounting the history of Israel and concluded:

Acts 7:51 ¶ Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye.

Acts 7:52 Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? and they have slain them which shewed before of the coming of the Just One; of whom ye have been now the betrayers and murderers:

Acts 7:53 Who have received the law by the disposition of angels, and have not kept it.

Saul heard this message and it pricked his heart until Jesus revealed Himself and Saul was converted (Acts 9). He became Paul, the Apostle, and the greatest champion of the Gospel in history. This same Paul will concluded a sermon he preached to the unbelieving Jews with the same message he heard from Stephen:

Acts 28:25 And when they agreed not among themselves, they departed, after that Paul had spoken one word, Well spake the Holy Ghost by Esaias the prophet unto our fathers,

Acts 28:26 Saying, Go unto this people, and say, Hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and not perceive:

Acts 28:27 For the heart of this people is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes have they closed; lest they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.

Acts 28:28 Be it known therefore unto you, that the salvation of God is sent unto the Gentiles, and that they will hear it.

Acts 28:29 And when he had said these words, the Jews departed, and had great reasoning among themselves.]

[**Ehud Barak, former Prime Minister of Israel, might be compromised in the files. I do know he had an extensive relationship with Epstein, meeting him 30 times between 2013 and 2017, visiting his New York residence, and taking a ride on Lolita in 2014. Epstein was convicted in 2006 on embarrassingly reduced charges of crimes that Barak would later call “heinous” behavior, and yet continued and deepened his association with Epstein after his conviction. Why? I know Benjamin Netanyahu called for investigations into Barak’s relationship with Epstein, so! Other Prime Ministers had dealings with Epstein (Ehud Olmert—2006 to 2009), and speculation has percolated for years about Epstein’s connection with U.S. and Israeli Intelligence. Another former Prime Minister, Naftali Bennett (2021-2022), and opposition leader against Netanyahu, strongly condemned allegations that Epstein was connected to Israeli Intelligence, Mossad, calling them “totally false” and part of a “vicious wave of slander” against Israel. All of this feeds into the concern that Trump, who considers Israel a critically important ally in his mission to secure peace in the Middle East, might have been pressed by Israel to keep the files hidden, to avoid backlash from Israel accusing the US of being part of what another former Prime Minister said was a “vicious wave of slander” against Israel.]