My Bible reading today included Isaiah 1-8. When you get a chance, compare Isaiah 1 and the letter to the church at Sardis, especially Revelation 3:3, 4. Both speak of the Remnant and threaten judgment. Historicists interpret the letters to the churches as representing ages of the Church (post-Ascension). I have great difficulty with this, as it requires constant re-interpretation. Each generation has to extend the Laodicean age further. Frankly, everyone has claimed to be Laodicean. I've yet to find anyone claiming themselves to be Ephesus or Philadelphia or any other. Everyone thinks he is in the last age. However, I do think there is something to the church-representing-an-age theory. The ages, though, are the ages of the Old Covenant: Ephesus - the Fall in the Garden, Smyrna - the Egyptian captivity, Pergamum - wilderness wanderings, Thyatira - the kings, Sardis - the prophets, Philadelphia - post-Exile, and Laodicea - AD 30 to 70. Why would this matter? Because these confirm the Lord's working in history for His people.

Moving on, though, in Isaiah: In 1:2, the Lord says, "Children have I reared and brought up, but they have rebelled against me." In v. 3, "Israel does not know, my people do not understand." Clearly, He is speaking to Israel. In v. 10, He says, "Hear the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom! Give ear to the teaching of our God, you people of Gomorrah!" Did you catch that? He calls Israel Sodom and Gomorrah. Also in v. 21, "How the faithful city has become a whore, she who was full of justice! Righteousness lodged in her, but now murderers." On into chapter 3, in verse 9, "For the look on their faces bears witness against them; they proclaim their sin like Sodom; they do not hide it. Woe to them! For they have brought evil on themselves." We will see this language again in Jeremiah 23 and Ezekiel 16. And, of course, we see it again in Revelation 11: "And when they have finished their testimony, the beast that rises from the bottomless pit will make war on them and conquer them and kill them, and their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city that symbolically is called Sodom and Egypt, where their Lord was crucified."

As I just mentioned 1:21, so also in Jeremiah 2, Ezekiel 16, and Hosea 9, Israel is called a whore. Israel broke the Covenant of marriage with her God and went whoring after idols. I just finished reading the two books of Kings. Even the "good" kings, who would tear down the Asherah or the temples of Baal, would leave the high places or the golden calves. Generation after generation ran after idols. It was a depressing read. I would find myself cheering for a king, just to have my hopes dashed as he left one thing undone. And that undone things would be the undoing of Israel. But it all points to the Christ, the King who leaves nothing undone, who fulfills all righteousness, and who thoroughly destroys His enemies. Consider Revelation 14:4a, "It is these who have not defiled themselves with women, for they are virgins." Not literal virgins, but in the language of 2 Corinthians 11:2, "For I feel a divine jealousy for you, since I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ." The army of the Lamb is faithful to Him. Unlike the Great Prostitute, Isreal, "with whom the kings of the earth have committed sexual immorality, and with the wine of whose sexual immorality the dwellers on earth have become drunk." (Revelation 17:2)

Compare Isaiah 2:1-5 with Revelation 14:1-5. The two mountain visions.

Compare Isaiah 4:4-5 with Revelation 7:15-17. This is the Church of the New Covenant.

Oh, one last thing: Compare the Vineyard of Isaiah 5:1-7 with the Parable of the Tenants. Then the fulfillment in the Sixth Seal and the Harvest (grapes of wrath).