Introduction:
When the Lord Jesus comes back He is going to meet the armies of Islam head on at the place where the city of Bozrah was located in Bible times in Southern Jordan which in ancient times was called Edom but the geographical landscape of Edom also swept down into Saudi Arabia the heart of the Muslim world today.
In Ezekiel Chapter 25 we are told that Edom stretches from Teman to Dedan which in ancient times were located on the Saudi Arabian Peninsula (Ezekiel 25:12-13). Ezekiel tells us that the men and even the animals in Edom will be killed and the region from Teman to Dedan laid waste by the hand of the Lord working through His people Israel. This final judgement will be from God for the way Islam has treated God’s people down through the centuries even to the present day. Israel’s enemies will then know the vengeance of the Lord (Ezekiel 25:14).
The ancient Edomite people trace their origin to Esau who was antagonistic to his brother Jacob and wanted to kill him after he had through carelessness forfeited his birth right to Jacob his brother. Esau sold his birthright for a meal to fill his stomach. He actually despised his birthright which was an act of indifference to spiritual matters connected to his birthright. He did not have the spiritual insight or even the desire to honour the Lord because his spiritual priorities were misplaced (Genesis 25:34) (Hebrews 12:16).
Down through history the descendants of Esau have been at odds with the descendants of Jacob and this conflict has continued to this present day between the Jews and the Arabs. The Arab nations that have come from Ishmael and Esau have been Israel’s implacable arch enemies and hell-bent of their destruction as a nation that continues to this day. The land of Israel was promised to the decedents of Isaac and Jacob by God and not to the descendants of Ishmael and Esau, whose decedents are the Arab nations today. The Bible also speaks of this destruction Isaiah sees of the militant Islamic world. The first half of the Book of Obadiah deals directly with the utter destruction of Islam and its armies at the end of this age while the second half of the book deals with the judgement of the nations at the end of this age. Both of these portentous end-time events will occur consecutively at the Second Coming of the Messiah our Lord Jesus.
And so with this background in view let’s now look at what will happen on that day when The Messiah Himself will repay His enemies for what they have done to Israel and by extension to the New Covenant believers spiritually grafted into Israel. When you look at the persecution of God’s people today the bulk of it is seen in the Islamic world. And so Isaiah has a vision of the Second Coming of the Messiah that for faithful New Covenant believers and for the nation of Israel will be their best dream come true but for the Islamic world their worst unimaginable nightmare!
Exposition: (Isaiah 63:1-6)
(Isaiah 62:1-6) (Vs.1) “Who is this coming from Edom, from Bozrah, with His garments stained crimson? Who is this, robed in splendour, striding forward in the greatness of His strength? “It is I, proclaiming victory, mighty to save.” (Vs.2) Why are your garments red, like those of one treading the winepress? (Vs.3) “I have trodden the winepress alone; from the nations no one was with Me. I trampled them in My anger and trod them down in My wrath; their blood spattered My garments, and I stained all My clothing. (Vs.4) It was for Me the day of vengeance; the year for Me to redeem had come. (Vs.5) I looked, but there was no one to help, I was appalled that no one gave support; so My own arm achieved salvation for Me, and My own wrath sustained Me. (Vs.6) I trampled the nations in My anger; in My wrath I made them drunk and poured their blood on the ground.”
Now let’s look at this…
(Vs.1) “Who is this coming from Edom, from Bozrah, with His garments stained crimson? Who is this, robed in splendour, striding forward in the greatness of His strength? “It is I, proclaiming victory, mighty to save.”
The prophet Isaiah sees the Messiah coming from Edom with His garments stained with the blood of His enemies. We see this same vision that John sees in the Book of Revelation where he sees the Messiah riding the white horse of a conquering king, whose garments are stained with the blood of His enemies as He deals out retribution on them and whose name is the Word of God followed by the armies of heaven and the glorified saints. John also tells us that the Messiah will rule the survivors with a rod of iron but only after He has trodden down His enemies in the winepress of the wrath of God. In that day He will be KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS! And the surviving nations will know it! (Revelation 19:13-16).
Asaph the psalmist also sees the same event when he writes about the Messiah; “Strap your sword at your side, O mighty warrior; appear in your majesty and splendour. In your splendour ride forth in victory on behalf of truth and humility and justice; may your right hand show your awesome deeds. Your arrows pierce the hearts of the king’s foes; the nations fall beneath your feet” (Psalm 45:3-5). Isaiah, seeing into the eternal unseen spiritual realm where time does not exist as it does down here, he asks the Messiah who He is and why He is coming up from Bozrah with His robes stained with blood. Isaiah also recognizes that this mighty victorious conqueror is clothed in the garments of a king and striding on horseback and all ablaze with the glory and splendour of God!
Isaiah’s Messiah answers him saying that He is the one who proclaims victory over all of God’s enemies and who is mighty to save. Not only is He coming to rescue Israel physically but to also save them spiritually. He is coming back to bring total redemption, and to inaugurate truth, humility and justice for all! This is our resurrected glorified Lord Jesus the Messiah coming back in the strength and power of an indestructible life! (Hebrews 7:16). This is the same eternal and indestructible life that dwells in us who have been spiritually reborn by the Spirit, redeemed, sanctified, justified and cleansed by the blood of the Messiah and filled with His Holy Spirit! It is the blood of the Messiah that will protect us in the day of His burning anger (Romans 5:9). Now let’s read on…
(Vs.2-3) “Why are your garments red, like those of one treading the winepress?“ I have trodden the winepress alone; from the nations no one was with Me. I trampled them in My anger and trod them down in My wrath; their blood spattered My garments, and I stained all My clothing.””
The feature that captures Isaiah’s attention is the Messiah’s blood spattered garments. It reminds Isaiah of the Israelite winepress where the grapes are trodden down by the feet of several men and the juice not only splatters onto their garments but flows freely out of the winepress. The winepress metaphorically in this vison represents the winepress of the wrath of God that sees the blood of His enemies flowing across the ground which we see in other passages of scripture. In Joel Chapter 3:12-13 we see the armies of the nations being drawn by God into the valley of Jehoshaphat where God will sit in judgement on them because of the way they have treated the Jewish people. He will command the sickle of the heavenly reaper to reap those Islamic armies into the winepress of God’s wrath and trample them down because of their wickedness.
The prophet Joel is seeing the same vision that Isaiah is seeing. This vision encompasses all of the nations of the world being judged. We are told that multitudes will be in the Valley of Decision while at the same time the sun and the moon will be darkened and the stars will no longer shine. See also: (Isaiah 13:10; 24:23a) (Joel 2:30-31) (Matthew 24:29) (Revelation 6:12-13). These nations will be surrounding Jerusalem at the time when the Messiah returns to judge them (Zechariah 12:1-9; 14:2-4).
Now if we turn again to Revelation 14:17-20 we see another vision of the winepress of the wrath of God. It is a harvest of judgement and once again we see the wicked being reaped and cast into the winepress of the wrath of God where their blood flows outside of the City of Jerusalem for 180 miles and as high as a horses bridle. Indeed this will be the Valley of Decision for the nations that have attacked Israel. Now the Messiah answers the question Isaiah asks…
The Messiah says to Isaiah that this judgement is a divine justice that only God can dispense and that no one else has the capacity to do this. God’s anger is a pure and righteous and just anger and it is His alone to express it! In His first coming the Messiah our Lord Jesus did not come to judge the world but that the world might be saved through Him from the grip of sin and from its penalty in the Lake of Fire (John 3:17; 12;47). In His first coming He came as the suffering servant to seek and to save the lost (Luke 19:10). We see in the life of Joseph, a type of the Messiah as the suffering servant. In His Second Coming the Messiah will come as the All-Conquering King, typified in the life and military campaigns of King David. The Messiah our Lord Jesus will not be coming as the saviour but as the judge whose eyes we are told are like blazing fire (Revelation 19:12) (Revelation 1:14b). The Messiah them explains to Isaiah that the blood stains on His robes is the blood of His enemies as John also perceives in his vision which was the same one Isaiah is seeing (Revelation 19:13). The Messiah continues to explain the real reason why He is coming back…
(Vs.4-5) “It was for Me the day of vengeance; the year for Me to redeem had come. I looked, but there was no one to help, I was appalled that no one gave support; so My own arm achieved salvation for Me, and My own wrath sustained Me.”
Redemption has three phases. Firstly; as New Covenant believers In the Messiah our Lord Jesus “we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s unearned, unmerited favour” (Ephesians 1:7). This redemption was fully provided for us at the cross. Secondly; we are being redeemed continuously by the same blood during this present evil age in which we are living and thirdly; we will be redeemed out of this present evil age at the rapture and resurrection. In other words we were saved and justified in God’s sight when we believed in the Lord Jesus for salvation, we are being saved, that is we are continuously being sanctified or set apart to God, and ultimately we will be completely saved having been delivered out of this present evil age.
So then this vision Isaiah is seeing relates to the ultimate redemption that will come to the world where the Messiah will separate the wicked from the righteous, a separation between those sheltering by faith under the blood of the Messiah and between those who are not but are continuing in their wickedness and rebellion against God and his Commandments and who are despising the Messiah’s blood shed to redeem them.
This work of redemption is not the work of man neither does it reside within man but only in God alone. As God says; “There is no other God but Me, a righteous God and Saviour; there is none but Me. Turn to Me and be saved, all the ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no other” (Isaiah 45:22).
Now notice that the Messiah tells Isaiah that He is appalled because no one on earth supported Him but they were rejecting Him. Only through the Messiah is salvation assured for repentant sinners. He is the only door of salvation through which a man or woman, boy or girl must enter if they would be saved for time and for eternity. (John 10:9:14:6) (Acts 4:12).
The Messiah then tells Isaiah that He was sustained by His wrath because of His righteous anger which is pure and totally just and undefiled. He is “the rider on the white horse who is faithful and true” and the one who “with Justice He judges and makes war” (Revelation 19:1-11) It is little wonder that when He comes back that the kings of the earth being the politicians and leaders of nations, the princes and generals and their armies, the rich and wealthy who have lived in opulence and luxury, the mighty who are the elite in society and those living as slaves or living as free men, will all hide in caves and among the rocks of the mountains and calling to the mountains and the rocks to fall upon them to hide them from the face of Him who sits on the throne in His heavenly dwelling and from the wrath of the lamb because the great day of their wrath has come and who can stand? (Revelation 6:15-17)
The lamb speaks of His sacrifice as a sheep before its shearers is dumb and opens not its mouth in protest. However, it also speaks of the fact that He now appears as an angry Lamb because people have despised and rejected the sacrificial blood of the spotless Lamb of God the Messiah shed to atone for their sin. Usually we associate a lamb with a gentle and mild creature. The whole idea of an angry lamb does not fit the human concept of how a lamb behaves. This lamb is an angry Lamb that in righteous anger dispenses justice as a judge in a court of law dispenses it. The Messiah knows that His anger and wrath is just and fair and without partiality and this fact sustains his righteous anger against the wickedness and rebellion of fallen men who reject Him as the only way into the Kingdom of God. And so Isaiah continues to record the words of the Messiah. It is a dire vision!
(Vs.6) “I trampled the nations in My anger; in My wrath I made them drunk and poured their blood on the ground.”
This will be the fate of the armies that attack Jerusalem and of all the nations that have rejected the Messiah’s salvation. While this wrath is directed to all the nations in this context it is directed at the Muslim Arab world that has persecuted and killed God’s servants and in whose lap is the blood of martyrs and of all who have been slain (Revelation 18:24). When you think of the death and devastation and the murder and mayhem that militant Islam is wreaking in the nations of the world, especially directed at Israel and by extension faithful New Covenant believers, this judgement from the Lord is fair and just. As it is written; “Shall not the judge of all the earth do right?” (Genesis 18:25). As it is also written; “He is the LORD our God; His judgments carry throughout the earth” (Psalm 105:7). Of course God is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance but not all are coming and in the end it will be only a faithful remnant that will be saved! (2 Peter 3:9). In the time of Noah the Lord gave mankind 120 years in which to repent but at the end only a faithful remnant were saved by entering through the door of the Ark of salvation and spared from the wrath of God. The Lord Jesus is the ark of salvation and the only door by which we can be saved and rescued from the coming wine press of the wrath of God!
God tells us elsewhere in His Word that He has prepared a sacrifice in Bozrah for the militant Islamic armies that have attacked His people. “When My sword has drunk its fill in the heavens, then it will come down upon Edom, upon the people I have devoted to destruction. The sword of the LORD is bathed in blood. It drips with fat— with the blood of lambs and goats, with the fat of the kidneys of rams. For the LORD has a sacrifice in Bozrah, a great slaughter in the land of Edom” (Isaiah 34:5-6). This same event is recorded in the Book of Ezekiel. The prophet Ezekiel writes; “On the mountains of Israel you (Gog and his armies) will fall — you and all your troops and the nations with you. I will give you as food to every kind of ravenous bird and wild beast” (Ezekiel 39:4).
The apostle John sees this same end-time event in his vision and writes; “And I saw an angel standing in the sun, who cried in a loud voice to all the birds flying in mid- air, “Come, gather together for the great supper of God, so that you may eat the flesh of kings, generals, and the mighty, of horses and their riders, and the flesh of all people, free and slave, great and small.” Then I saw the beast and the kings of the earth and their armies gathered together to wage war against the rider on the horse and his army. But the beast was captured, and with it the false prophet who had performed the signs on its behalf. With these signs he had deluded those who had received the mark of the beast and worshiped its image. The two of them were thrown alive into the fiery lake of burning sulphur. The rest were killed with the sword coming out of the mouth of the rider on the horse, and all the birds gorged themselves on their flesh” (Revelation 19:17-21).
After the Lord Jesus has totally annihilated the armies of the Antichrist an angel calls for all of the birds of the air to come to the Great Supper of God where the carrion birds will feed on the carcases of many thousands of corpses strewn across the length and breadth of the Land of Israel. The Lord Jesus Himself alluded to this when He said “For as the lightening comes from the east and flashed to the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. Wherever there is a carcass, there the vultures will gather” (Matthew 24: 27-28). As for the armies of the beast empire of the Antichrist and the false prophet they will all be cast into the lake of fire in wholesale lots. The armies of the nations that go down into the pit are specifically named and they are all Islamic nations today (Ezekiel 32:18-32). When comparing these passages of scripture that line up with Isaiah 63:1-6 we see that it is the final judgement upon Edom being the Arab Muslim nations. The Beast Empire headed up by the Antichrist and the false prophet would also have to be Islamic. We are also told in Isaiah Chapter 34:1-4 that this outpouring of God’s wrath will be upon all of the nations, not just the ones that have been devastating Israel. It is all pointing to the Second Coming of the Messiah our Lord Jesus (Isaiah 34:1-4).
Conclusion:
There is no doubt we are living in the very last of the last days and the fact that makes this a feasible reality is that the Jewish people have been back in their own land for over 70 years now. Israel is God’s prophetic time clock for the nations and will be at the epicentre of World shattering events that are coming. In 70AD when Jerusalem was destroyed along with the Temple the clock broke down but in 1948 when Israel as a nation was resurrected the clock started ticking again after centuries of being repaired by its creator. If you look at a flat map of the world you will see that the City of Jerusalem in Israel God has placed at the centre of the nations, a fact testified to by Ezekiel the prophet (Ezekiel 5:5).
The nations are on the move today. China is flexing its military and economic muscles while America is losing ground on being the leading military and economic power house among the nations with Russia also setting its sights on expanding its empire wherever it can in the Middle-East especially in Syria. As for the nations of the European Union they are in disarray right now. The United nations are seemingly an ineffective power in dealing with the real hot spots in the world especially in the Middle-East. The biggest threat to the West today is the Islamic world especially Turkey and Iran and the Islamic ‘Trojan Horse’ with its sleeper cells well ensconced within the Western democracies. Once the Islamic Antichrist is revealed centre stage in world affairs he will gain a following from the nations like no other ruler in the entire history of the world. He will have at his command such firepower and backed with 200 million soldiers at his disposal. (Revelation 9:13-19) Comp (Revelation 16:12-14). He will go to war with other nations but they will be hard-pressed to defeat him (Daniel 11:36-45).
It will be said of him and his empire; “Who is like the beast? Who can make war against him?” (Revelation 13:4b). Today the war with Islam is by and large an urban conflict where we see terrorists, who are remorseless killers for Allah, but the time will come when the armies of Islam, accompanied by the armies of other nations, will arise up to attack and to sack Jerusalem. (Ezekiel 38:1-6). After three and a half years the Lord Jesus will return to rapture and resurrect the saints, to save Israel and to pour out on those wicked and militant nations divine fire out of heaven! (Ezekiel 38:22; 39:6). As the prophet Habakkuk writes about the Lord; “God came from Teman, and the Holy One from Mount Paran. Selah. His glory covered the heavens, and His praise filled the earth. His radiance was like the sunlight; rays flashed from His hand, where His power is hidden. Plague went before Him, and fever followed in His steps.…” (Habakkuk 3:3-5). Teman and Mt Paran today are located in the Arab Muslim world. Teman was located in Saudi Arabia. The world is yet to see the full extent of Islam’s power. At present it is a fragmented empire with the Shiite and Sunni divide but when the man of sin, the Antichrist indwelt by Satan is revealed, the whole Islamic world will follow him and embark on a Jihad unparalleled in the annuls of Islamic history.
When the Lord Jesus comes back His feet will touch the Mt of Olives and the mountain will be split from east to west. Already there is a fault line from east to west in the mountain itself. When the Lord Jesus comes back the moment his feet stand on the Mount it will be split in two from east to west and the redeemed survivors of Israel, the faithful remnant, will run into that huge crevice and be protected (Zechariah 14:3-5). As it is written; “The name of the LORD is a strong tower; the righteous run to it and are safe” (Proverbs 18:10). From the Mount of Olives the Messiah will take the fight to Islam down to Bozrah and then retake the whole land of Israel from the Wadi of Egypt all the way up to the River Euphrates and this will include the Saini Peninsula, Gaza, Jordan, the West Bank, the Golan Heights, Lebanon and most of Syria and then after that all of the surviving nations of the whole world will be His. At the sound of the seventh and last trumpet, and at the sound of the voices shouting in heaven, the clarion call will be heard so loud that it will bring about the rapture and resurrection of all the righteous (Matthew 24:31) (1 Corinthians 15:51-52) (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18). That same trumpet call and shout will also go forth to all of the nations that have survived the Time of the Big Trouble. As for the kingdoms of this present evil age they will be no more (Daniel 2:34-35, 44-45). As the apostle John writes; “The seventh angel sounded his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, which said: The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Messiah, and He will reign forever and ever!” (Revelation 11:15). This is the blessed hope of every blood redeemed, blood sanctified, blood washed, born again Spirit sanctified and Spirit filled believer!
As John the beloved apostle continues to write; “And the twenty-four elders, who sit on their thrones before God, fell on their faces and worshiped God, saying, “We give You thanks, O Lord God, the Almighty, who are and who were, because You have taken Your great power and have begun to reign. And the nations were enraged, and Your wrath came, and the time came for the dead to be judged, and the time to reward Your bond-slaves the prophets and the saints and those who fear Your name, the small and the great, and to destroy those who destroy the earth” (Revelation 11:16-18). Amen!
