Would to God that we would be as thankful and as assured of the sovereign will of God as we are the revealed will of God of which we understand.  When God reveals His will, we see a promise; we get excited.  But having faith in God’s sovereignty when He’s doing things we don’t understand causes us to fall back on one of the greatest revelations we need, and that is “God is good.”  Amen?  And He does good, and He’s just, and He’s merciful and He’s kind, and “He’s not willing that any would perish” (2 Peter 3:9).  And man is not seeking Him.  He sought us and came and was made sin with our sin, praise God!  We get so down at times, and “Why does God allow this to happen to me and God’s love.”  The fact that you have any affinity toward God at all is His gift to you.  It did not originate in you.  “There is none that seek the Lord, no, not one” (Romans 3:10‑11); amen?  The fact that you even care what God thinks today is a gift to you.  If you’re at your lowest point, but you’re still thinking about God, it’s because He’s thinking about you and is not willing that any would perish.

This anointing that’s coming upon Him at this particular time—He comes out in the power of the Holy Spirit.  His custom was to go to the synagogue on the Sabbath.  And He stood up to read, and they handed Him the book, the scroll of Isaiah.  And He didn’t do one of those daily bread type things, where you just pick a verse.  “God, speak to me.  What’s the word?”  “And Judas went out and hanged himself.”  He found the place that it was written: Isaiah 61, verse 1.  He found that verse, Isaiah 61, verse 1, and He read it.  “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor.”  Now, we know who the poor are—His teaching on the Sermon on the Mount—the poor in spirit.  This isn’t talking about monetary or physical wealth.  It’s talking about those who are poor in spirit, those who haven’t heard the truth, those who are in bondage to the letter of the law, those who are held in bondage by all of the perverted religions of the world.  “He hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, and to set at liberty them that are bruised, To preach the acceptable year of the Lord” (Luke 4:18‑19).

Isaiah 35 speaks here again concerning the great power of God and purpose of God to bring wholeness to His people.  Again, another messianic promise.  But there’s a great truth in this, Isaiah 35:5.  It’s talking about the manifestation of the kingdom of God.  This is referencing the millennial reign.  Many prophecies, of course, as we know very clearly, can have dual purposes.  Some will even speak to different periods of time—same prophecy manifesting and fulfilling itself in an immediate manifestation to those who are hearing it and also to those who could be hundreds or even thousands of years in its finished work, the final fulfillment of it, such as millennial promises that are yet to come.

So, He says, “Say to them (verse 4) that are of a fearful heart, Be strong, fear not: behold, your God will come with vengeance, even God with a recompence; he will come and save you.”  Hallelujah!  Now remember, Israel was going into bondage.  They were in the process of the Babylonian captivity.  But He’s saying there’s a time of deliverance; God is going to save you.  After seventy years, they were delivered and came back and built the temple.  Despised by some, but He said “The glory of the latter will be greater than that of the former” (Haggai 2:9).  Amen?  It was speaking toward a hope for that final temple in the millennium that was going to be built someday, with the full glory of God manifested in the fact that Jesus was there upon the throne?