Isaiah
23:10
10 Pass [`abar] through thy land ['erets] as a river [ya`or], O
daughter [bath] of Tarshish [Tarshiysh]: there is no more strength [maziyach]. KJV-Interlinear
10 Cross over your land like the Nile, O
daughter of Tarshish; there is no restraint anymore. ESV
The daughter is
the offspring of a parent. Tarshish is the
parent being referred to here. And since
the center of trade is through Tyre, and Tarshish refers to the many islands
and distant ports to and from which trade was conducted, then the daughter
would refer to the subsequent trade or offshoots of this vast trading activity.
The collapse
extends to, and reaches the entire world.
The word for
strength, ‘maziyach,’ is a reference to a girdle or a restraint, or a boundary
that holds something together, or in place.
After the destruction
of Tyre, or as we have been studying, the collapse of the worlds economy, then
we now have a reference to the vast and extensive magnitude of the collapse.
No more structure,
no more boundaries, nothing of a trading economy will remain or exist. This means that the farms, the freight, the
manufacturing, even the monetary systems will be in a shambles, and not only in
a shambles, they will simply not exist anymore, and if anything does exist,
like paper money, it will be virtually worthless, assuming that any one has
any.
And then we have
the river being referred to as it flows unhindered. The word for river, ‘yaor,’ typically refers
to the Nile, but it also refers to a river that flows undisturbed, which means
no dams, no barriers, nothing being diverted, no traffic.
And so while the
world has collapsed, the various components of the world, such as a river, or
the weather and so forth, will continue on as they have in the past and will continue
on currently and will continue in the future without interruption.
Mans life, or
lack of it, will have no effect on time or the many natural and normal elements
of life all around us.
Look out your
window and see the clouds as they move, without regard to you. Or the rivers and creeks and such as they continue
on their course without any regard to you, or the winds, or the grass or
anything outside of the human element.
These things continue day and night regardless of you or your life.
Whether you are
happy or sad, angry or mad, time and life move on in spite of you, just as Gods
plan moves on, just as grace continues uninterrupted, without hindrance,
without interruption.
You can either
wake up and smell the realities of life around you, from Gods perspective, or
you can continue on clinging to your stubbornness, and your failing ways,
figuring out how to either ignore God or blame God or someone else, for
everything, when He and they really had nothing to do with anything bad in this
world or in your life.
It is your
negative attitude, your unbelieving nature, your unyielding thinking, which by
the way, God grants you to pursue, that has set into motion all of the
negatives of this world. So why would you blame God for allowing you to make
your own decisions, regardless if they are right or wrong?
God does give
full disclosure, and warns everyone of the repercussions of their anti-God
attitudes. So there is no one but
yourself to blame, and certainly not God.
Just saw the
movie, ‘Left Behind.’ A pretty good
description of what life may be like when the Rapture does occur. The clothing
part is derived from the clothes left behind by Jesus when He was resurrected
and the clothes remained in the tomb.
But His body was dead and wrapped in burial wraps, not clothes, so that
aspect may or may not be accurate. We simply
do not know what the specifics will be. But the Rapture when it does occur, will
take everyone by surprise and it will be instantaneous. That much we do know for certain.
And of those that
remain, there will be an unleashing of crime and sin natures that will no
longer be restrained. Attitudes will be
anti-God and certainly anti-truth, and a whole lot of blaming God, along with initial
confusion, the magnitude of which we cannot know, plus all of the theories and
ideas and explanations of what actually happened.
But then it won’t
take long before the confusion of the Rapture will turn into the ever growing
confusion of the Tribulation. Remember
that in the first there-and-a-half years following the Rapture, literally half
of the worlds population will die from famine, starvation, disease, crime, war
and from the many atrocities that will occur.
We have been
studying the collapse of the worlds economies.
These things will not occur in one night but throughout the entire
period of the Tribulation. And mans
attempts to fix things, with laws, regulations, identity numbering and such, will
only make things worse and worse and worse, until it all crashes.
It is all
definitely a period of history in which you do not want to be living. But alas, most folks don’t seem to be
interested in the Bible or Gods mandates, or Gods warnings, or their roles that
God has assigned them in life.
Sooo…?
