Son of Isaac Restoration Ministry

If one mentions Isaiah 54 in many Christian circles, most will immediately think of verse 17, “No weapon formed against you will prosper…” That is an important promise to every believer, but the reason that it’s true is found earlier in that chapter. I want to focus attention on the 10th verse, in which God promised a “covenant of peace.”

Isaiah 54:10 For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but my kindness shall not depart from you, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, says the LORD (Yahweh, the I AM) that has mercy on you.

The Hebrew word translated “peace” is “shalom,” the root meaning of which is “wholeness and completeness.” As an anointed Bible teacher named Billye Brim has put it, and many teachers and preachers have since quoted her, it means “nothing missing, nothing broken.” That is the source of the peace that shalom indicates! Why could God make this promise, and the other precious ones in this chapter? What comes before Chapter 54 lays the groundwork.

Let’s back up to the 53rd chapter of Isaiah where we find a significant prophecy of the Messiah, whom we know to be the Lord Jesus Christ.

Isaiah 53:4 Surely he has borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.
5 But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his
stripes we are healed.

Again, the word translated “peace” is “shalom,” wholeness and completeness! Jesus took our sin upon Himself and gave us His righteousness. He received the punishment for our sin, that we don’t have to be punished by God. He bore our griefs and carried our sorrows that we might have the joy of the Lord. By His stripes (wounds from the beating upon His back), we are healed.

All of what the Lord Jesus Christ did for us at Calvary was a “substitutionary sacrifice” by the Lamb of God. If He purchased our shalom, and provided us with a Covenant of Shalom, the New Covenant, what was the “chastisement for our peace” (nothing missing, nothing broken)?

1 Corinthians 11:23 For I have received of the Lord that which I also delivered unto you, That the Lord Jesus the same night in which the Lord Jesus was betrayed took bread:
24 And when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: do this in remembrance of me.

His body was broken for us that we are made whole! This is the provision of “the covenant of peace” — the covenant of wholeness and completeness. His body broken for us is that which was promised in Isaiah 53:4, the “chastisement for our peace” — for us to receive the covenant of “nothing missing and nothing broken!” This is but one more of those exceeding great and precious promises to those who are in Christ Jesus!

2 Peter 1:2 Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord,
3 According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue:
4 Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises…

[NOTE: It is suggested that you first read the referenced article, posted October 13, 2007 — which is found below.]

The previous article “I AM” was originally written and published more than a year ago (citing something the Lord gave me a number of years prior). Since then I believe the Lord has given me even more insight on this topic, which I share here for the first time.

Many times I have heard preachers/teachers speak of God as “The Great I AM” and make the comment: “He is not the Great I Was or the Great I Will Be, but always the Great I AM.” That is very true; but what I share here goes even beyond that! He is always the I AM — past, present and future.

God created time as a part of the created natural world, even as He created gravity and all of the laws of physics as parts of His creation. God created time, but He Himself is not in time. He is the Creator, but not a part of creation! God is over all of His creation — and that includes time. The picture He gave me looks something like this:

********** G O D **********
past……….present……….future

In other words, God is simultaneously over the past, the present and the future. To see the past, He need only look down. Likewise, to see the future, He also needs to do no more than look down. Either of those are as simple to Him as looking down at the present!

If you think about it, this is in complete agreement with the doctrine that He is omni-present. Time in the created world is such that we experience the passing of it — and the past, present and future are different times. But God is present over all of these simultaneously.

Now consider the statement that “With God a day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as a day.” God is the Almighty, with absolutely no limitations. Time is, to us, a limitation, but to Him there are no limitations. All things are possible with God!

Think about the words of the song, “Amazing Grace” that say, “When we’ve been there ten thousand years, bright shining as the sun, we’ve no less days to sing God’s praise than when we first begun.” Time as we know it exists only in this created world, but not in heaven!

If you can accept this concept that God is above time — over it but not in it — then it should be easy to understand how it can be said that “He knows the end from the beginning.” Do we think that He has a divine crystal ball to discern the future? No, He sees it right now as clearly as He sees the present or the past! He is there — in your future, in my future — right now! This certainly adds to the reality that God is always I AM.

In light of this we can go beyond the commonly stated, “God is never I Was or I Will Be,” to the place where He says, “yesterday I AM” and not “yesterday I Was.” Likewise, “tomorrow I AM” and not “tomorrow I Will Be.”

Our God is the Alpha and Omega — the first and the last, the beginning and the end. However, let us not think He was the Alpha and will be the Omega. He is the Alpha and Omega right now, as you read this! He is the past and the future, as well as the present — all right now as you read this!

Much theological debate about the “foreknowledge of God” and “predestination” (based on that foreknowledge) could be ended once and for all by an understanding of this — which I sincerely believe to be a revelation from the Lord.

Remember, He Himself said, “I AM” and “This is My Name forever” (Exodus 3:14,15).

Several years ago, when I was attending a large Charismatic church, the pastor asked me to bring a message to the congregation.  As I sought the Lord, He gave me something which changed my own prayer and faith life forever.  Many in that church, including the pastor and his three assistant pastors, said it was a blessing to them. I present it here the way the Lord gave it to me!

When one of us has a problem, a need, a situation, our first tendency is to seek “an anointed man of God” such as a pastor or evangelist or other minister. Or we might turn to a born-again brother or sister in the faith and seek their counsel. However, when all is said and done, it matters not what any of them would say!  All that matters is one thing:

WHAT WOULD GOD SAY?

So then, what would God say? We know His Word is forever established, never changes, so whatever God says in His Word, the Bible, will never change. Jesus said heaven and earth would pass away, but His words would not pass away.  In Exodus 3:14 God says something very important, “…say to the children of Israel, ‘I AM has sent you.’” God tells Moses that His Name is I AM, or in the Hebrew “Yahweh,” and He also instructs Moses that “This is My Name forever” in verse 15. The Old Testament people went on to believe that the sacred Name of God was too holy to utter, and began to identify the name Yahweh only as YHWH. The early English translators picked up on that and substituted LORD for the holy Name of the Most High.

From this the Lord spoke to my heart saying, “When you pray ‘hallowed be your name’ what do you think My Name is?  When you pray Psalm 103, ‘Bless the LORD, O my soul and all this is within me, bless His Holy Name,’ what do you think My Name is?”  “Obviously,” He said, “it is I AM.”  That’s the written Word of God, forever established and never subject to change.

This was followed by the giving of a series of questions and answers which I still employ regularly in my devotional life. The revelation contained in this dialogue is a real faith builder!

When I have a problem or a need, I go to God the Father, in the name of Jesus, and ask, “Father, are you able to deal with this?”  He says, “I AM.”

Then I go back to Him again saying, “I know you are able. You are Almighty God, Creator of the universe. You can do anything. But are you willing?” Again, He says, “I AM.”

Then I go once more to my Father in heaven and say, “I know you are able. I can even believe that You are willing. But…” (here’s where the rubber meets the road!) “are You going to?”  And, yet again, he says, “I AM.”

How many Christians are there today who are not connected to, and with, a local fellowship of believers?  Too many!

Why are there so many born-again believers who have left the organized church?   A survey of such people would uncover many different reasons that they might offer.  The purpose of this article is not to discuss those “excuses” or the range of them.

Clearly, the Word of God, in the book of the prophet Ezekiel, offers one underlying truth that can be universally applied to all such “scattered sheep” who are not in the sheepfold!

Ezekiel 34:1  And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
2  Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel, prophesy, and say unto them, Thus says the Lord GOD unto the shepherds; Woe to the shepherds of Israel that feed themselves!  Should not the shepherds feed the flocks?
3  You eat the fat, and you clothe yourselves with the wool, you kill them that are fed: but you do not feed the flock.
4  The diseased you have not strengthened, neither have you healed that which was sick, neither have you  bound up that which was broken, neither have you brought back that which was driven away, neither have you  sought that which was lost; but with force and with cruelty have you ruled them.
5  And they were scattered, because there is no shepherd: and they became meat to all the beasts of the field, when they were scattered.

There are those in the Body of Christ who would say these verses are only applicable to the Old Covenant natural Israel and their “shepherds” (pastors) at the time of Ezekiel (about 600 years before Christ, during the Babylonian captivity).  But the words of Jesus clearly bring into the New Testament Church the concept that if there are “scattered sheep” who have not been brought back to the sheepfold, it is because the shepherds (pastors) have not “brought back that which was driven away.”

Matthew 18:12  What do you think?  If a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them goes astray, doesn’t he leave the ninety and nine, and go into the mountains, and seek that which has gone astray?
13  And if he finds it, truly I say unto you, he rejoices more about that  one than about the ninety nine which did not go astray.

Regarding some of the other failures of the shepherds to whom Ezekiel’s prophecy was addressed, are these not things that the Body of Christ is called to do?  Consider the words of our Lord, Jesus, the Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed One) in Luke 4:18 (as He quoted from Isaiah 61:1):

Luke 4:18  The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,  because  he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he has sent me to heal the brokenhearted,  to preach deliverance to the captives,  and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are bruised…

As His Body on earth — the Body of Christ, the Body of the Anointed One — are we not called to do that which Jesus did, and then told us to do in His Name?  Could the words of Ezekiel 34, the words of God Himself through the prophet, have application to us as born-again believers today?

More than 20 years ago, as the Lord placed a God-given burden in my heart about “the scattered sheep,” He challenged me to ask a question to a number of pastors whom I knew at the time — pastors of a number of different “Bible-believing” churches.  The question was this: “What do you do when one of your sheep wanders off, for whatever reason they might cite?”

The answers ranged from, “I say good riddance to bad rubbish” to “I pray for them, as I release them from this fellowship.”  Not one of those polled at the time said, “I leave the 99 who stayed to go after the one who has gone astray.”

Unfortunately, a large percentage of those believers who leave, depart not only from that particular body of believers, but from all fellowship with other church-going brothers and sisters.  Yes, some leave one church to go to another.  I am not writing about them.  The ones in focus here are those who “go astray” and all too often are “devoured” by the wild beasts in the wilderness and “became meat to all the beasts of the field, when they were scattered.”  These are ones we often self-righteously call “backsliders” who after leaving the church become overtaken by sins of the flesh of all types, and soon do not even resemble believers.

Eze 34:6  My sheep wandered through all the mountains, and upon every high hill: yes, my flock was scattered upon all the face of the earth, and none did search or seek after them.

Where today are the shepherds (pastors) who go after the scattered sheep to bring them back?  Many good sermons have been preached about why God refers to His people as “sheep.”  Most know that sheep are not that smart and will wander off, if the shepherd doesn’t “sheep herd” them.  They will, if allowed, wander into a place of danger where wild beasts might devour them, oblivious to the dangers they face.  It is the shepherd’s job to feed, care for and protect the sheep — and to go after them and bring them back if they wander off!  (Look at the life of young David, the eventual king, as he cared for his sheep, as recorded in First  Samuel.)

Eze 34:7  Therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the LORD;
8  As I live, says the Lord GOD,  surely  because  my flock  became a prey, and my flock  became meat to every beast of the field, because there was no shepherd, neither did my shepherds search for my flock, but the shepherds fed themselves, and fed not my flock;
9  Therefore, O you shepherds, hear the word of the LORD;
10  Thus says the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against the shepherds; and I will require my flock at their hand, and cause them to cease from feeding the flock;  neither shall the shepherds feed themselves any more; for I will deliver my flock from their mouth, that they may not be meat for them.

My intention is not to attack the shepherds (pastors) that are set in place in the universal church today.  They answer only to God, not to me.  However, I would do anything possible to give them a true pastoral burden for the scattered sheep.  Clearly, it is God’s heart to deliver His sheep, His people, from the wildernesses to which they have been scattered.

Eze 34:11  For thus says the Lord GOD; Behold,  I, even I, will both search for my sheep,  and seek them out.
12  As a shepherd seeks out his flock in the day that he is among his sheep that are scattered; so will I seek out my sheep, and will deliver them out of all places where they have been scattered in the cloudy and dark day.

Some will look at the words of God through Ezekiel and say, “Well, the LORD said He Himself would seek them and bring them back.”  And just how will He do that?  Will Jesus physically descend to earth to go gather up the scattered sheep and bring them back to the sheepfold?  No!  He will do that the same way He does all things in the earth — through His people, His Body, the Body of Christ!

Eze 34:16  I will seek that which was lost, and bring back that which was driven away, and will bind up that which was broken, and will strengthen  that which was sick….

What did the resurrected Jesus say to Peter who had denied Him?

John 21:14  This is now the third time that Jesus showed himself to his disciples, after that he was risen from the dead.
15  So when they had dined, Jesus said to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jona, do you love me more than these? He said to him, Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.  He said to him, Feed my lambs.
16  He said to him again the second time, Simon, son of Jona, do you love me? He said to him, Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.  He said to him, Feed my sheep.
17  He said to him the third time, Simon, son of Jona,   do you love me?   Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, Do you love me? And he said to him, Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you.   Jesus said to him, Feed my sheep.

Some pastors will say that despite Ezekiel 34, it is the job of the evangelist, not the pastor, to reach those who are outside the church — even those who were once a part of the church.  They, the shepherds, feed the sheep who are in the church. (How does that square with the words of Jesus in Matthew 18:12?)

We have much evangelism in the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ today.  This is good.  Most of us would agree that “the fields are white to harvest.”  Nevertheless, why is so little (if any) of evangelistic outreach aimed at the scattered sheep — the disillusioned believers who for whatever reason have left the church entirely and will not likely even attend an evangelistic meeting?

Do we place too much emphasis on the prodigals who return of their own choice, and not enough on the sheep who have been scattered for lack of a shepherd — for whom someone must go after them?

So who will seek out the scattered sheep and bring them back?  I, for one, have made myself available to the Lord to send me!  Whether He does so or not is up to Him.  I cannot conceive that He has given me this burden and does not intend to send me to do the job.  And I sincerely believe He has been preparing me.  In fact, over the years, every time I forgot or put aside this Ezekiel 34 burden, I seem to have found myself back in that horrible wilderness of the scattered sheep!   I truly believe I have heard the Holy Spirit saying to me, ‘This is due season — the appointed time!”

I, however, am only one person.  Who else will “catch the burden”?  Are there pastors (shepherds) and evangelists who will read this article and allow the Holy Spirit to impart to them a burning passion for this assignment?  Are there those to whom the Lord Jesus has spoken about this assignment who have yet to respond?   Are there those who have been prepared and are just waiting for the Lord to say, “Now”?

Thus says the Lord, “NOW!“