As with all prophecies, Isaiah’s prophecy is time-specific. It speaks to both Jesus’ first and second coming. In His first coming, John the Baptist prepared the way for the Lord. In His second coming we prepare the way for the Lord.
      What exactly is this way? Verses 3 and 4 tell us: (1) Make a straight highway in the wilderness so people can know the way to go; (2) Raise up every low place; (3) Bring down every high place; (4) Straighten out the crooked places; and (5) Make the rough places smooth. In short, clear away all the hindrances that keep people from walking the appointed path.
      What does this have to do with Christ’s second coming? Because of the many and varied man-made interpretations of the end-times, people have lost their scriptural way. Certain biblical truths have been trodden under foot. So-called scholarly renditions have been raised up as if monuments to man’s wisdom. There are so many different views and paths that few Christians know which view to follow. The fog of confusion has made our blessed hope rough going. It’s time to clear away the hindrances and follow the straight highway found in Scripture.
      The End-Time Lesson. The biblical prophecies, like Jesus’ parables, were meant to be understood by those who would earnestly seek to know God’s ways and plans. As the appointed time for the fulfillment of the prophecy draws near, God’s Spirit brings clear revelation.
      He is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. But Christ’s disciples can know Him, for He dwells with you and in you. Our Lord has not left us orphans. If we are willing to lay aside our preconceived paths that lead us off course and spend some time seeing what God’s Word tells us about the end-times, the Spirit will confirm the straight path of Scripture to you.
      That is the purpose and calling of this ministry. Knowing the truth is what makes the path clear, and brings comfort, hope, and victory as we endure these final few years. It is not just a matter of being assured of our eternal life. The imperative has to do with sharing that assurance with those who are unsure or have lost their way on the contrary paths and those who have never heard of the path.
      Our prayer is that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling for you, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in you as a believer, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power in you who believe, according to the working of His mighty power which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the 3rd Heaven, far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come. 

     You may remember the young captive turned wise man, Daniel, who prophesied and spoke wisdom to Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon. The king’s request to interpret the meaning of his dream without even telling his wise men what he dreamed was too much for them. But that was not the case for the Most High God and his earthly representative. We will come back to the rest of the story of the statue of the times of the Gentiles shortly.
      End-Time Lesson: Isn’t it interesting that the world still thinks they are wiser than God? They have enlightened themselves throughout history and now declare themselves Woke. They cannot understand, or they refuse to understand, that the “message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (1 Cor. 1:18).
        Paul asks the question: “Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe” (1 Cor. 1:20-21). 
       The apostle reminds us that the Jews requested signs and the Greeks sought after worldly wisdom. But the foundational apostles preached Christ crucified. To the Jews it was a stumbling block. To the Greeks it was foolishness. But to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God. Can there be any doubt that “the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men”?
      Now before we get too puffed up with this knowledge, Paul continues his thoughts into the next chapter. “For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty…that no flesh should glory in His presence.” (1 Cor. 2:26-27, 29).
        Those God chooses He also equips. So Paul also adds, “But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God—and righteousness and sanctification and redemption—that, as it is written, ‘He who glories, let him glory in the Lord’ ” (vs. 30-31).
       No wonder Paul prayed, “that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, and attaining to all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the knowledge of the mystery of God, both of the Father and of Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Col. 2:2-3).
        How do we walk in this wisdom in the Woke environment? Paul tells us, “Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord” (Col. 3:16).
       If you don’t feel particularly wise, no problem. Remember, God has given us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of the Godhead. That’s why James tells us, “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways” (James 1:5-8).

     While David sat on a hillside tending his father’s sheep, he learned to commune with God. He journaled those precious times in many of his Psalms. Later, when he found himself in the wilderness of Judah, even though he had been anointed king by Samuel the prophet, he found himself recording his feelings once again. He probably wasn’t feeling very kingly in this rugged place of isolation. But hear what he wrote in response to those feelings.
      “O God, You are my God; early will I seek You; my soul thirsts for You; my flesh longs for You in a dry and thirsty land where there is no water. So I have looked for You in the sanctuary, to see Your power and Your glory. Because Your loving-kindness is better than life, my lips shall praise You. Thus I will bless You while I live; I will lift up my hands in Your name” (Psalm 63:1-4).
       Note, too, what happened in David when he communed with God, not ignoring the facts, but acknowledging the greater reality of intimacy with God. “My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness, and my mouth shall praise You with joyful lips. When I remember You on my bed, I meditate on You in the night watches. Because You have been my help, therefore in the shadow of Your wings I will rejoice. My soul follows close behind You; Your right hand upholds me” (vs. 5-8). In effect, David was choosing the Tree of Life over the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Remember, good is good, but it’s not God’s best life.
        End-Time Lesson: In these last Days, we still see injustice. We still see evil and wickedness attempting to thwart God’s life in us. In the natural, it makes sense that this world brings us stress, anxiety, or perhaps even depression. But when we are “in Christ” we’re no longer restricted only to the natural facts. We’ve been blessed with every blessing in the heavenly places—the throne room of God (Eph. 1:3). “For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, ‘Abba, Father’ ” (Rom. 8:15). “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind” (2 Tim. 1:7).
       The reason we don’t see these spiritual realities to the extent that we should is because we are more prone to speak out fear and confusion than the power of the heavenly kingdom available to us. Remember, Jesus said we are to release on earth what it in Heaven.
       The acceleration of lawlessness is to be expected because Satan thinks he is winning. He thought that once before when he crucified Christ. And that didn’t go well for him! Because he is not all-knowing, all-powerful, and present everywhere like God our Father, he believes he can still continue as the god of this age and eventually usurp God.
         But we already know that at the appointed time, God’s Mountain shall crush Satan’s counterfeit mountain. It’s inevitable because God has spoken it in His chronos agenda. This is why it is so important that we understand the chronos times and kairos seasons so that we don’t let the counterfeit mountain lay aside the hope of our calling. Part of our calling as the heavenly Esther is that we get to thwart Haman’s satanic plot to destroy the Jewish people who will have their 3rd Day revival at the appointed time.
        It just so happens to coincide with our rapture. For when the Jews witness our 3rd Day resurrection to be seated as the heavenly court, it will trigger their 3rd Day acceptance of Jesus (Hosea 6:1-2). From that point onward, Revelation refers to the reborn Jewish remnant as saints—those set apart to Christ and God the Father. They are redeemed and part of the family of God, but they are not part of the Church, the heavenly court, for they shall not believe until they see Jesus coming again. Of course, any Jewish person who accepts Jesus before He comes again shall be part of the Church and the Body of Christ.
      “Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit” (Rom. 15:13).

     As Moses stood overlooking the Promised Land, knowing that he would not enter it, his last message to the Israelites reminded God’s people of their covenant with the Lord. He reminded them of the blessing and curse set before them. What will they choose? The choice is always between the Tree of Life—the life and blessings that comes from being in relationship with God—and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil—settling for less than God’s best and succumbing to the ways of Satan, the god of this age. Blessings or curses.
       “Now it shall come to pass, when all these things come upon you, the blessing and the curse which I have set before you, and you call them to mind among all the nations where the Lord your God drives you, and you return to the Lord your God and obey His voice, according to all that I command you today, you and your children, with all your heart and with all your soul, that the Lord your God will bring you back from captivity, and have compassion on you, and gather you again from all the nations where the Lord your God has scattered you” (Deut. 30:1-3).
      By rejecting the time of their visitation from the Messiah at Christ’s first coming, in a sense, they are once again in captivity. As in times past—the early Days—their captivities always resulted from the choice not to pursue their relationship with God with all their heart and soul.
       End-Time Lesson: The same two choices are set before us in these last Days. Peter echoes Moses’ last words in the first chapter of 2 Peter 1. Only this time the message is set in the covenant of grace made possible through our Lord Jesus, to those who have obtained this same precious faith by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ.
       “Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust” (vs. 2-4).
        Did you catch that? He has given us all things that pertain to life and godliness even while we live out our earthly lives. We don’t have to wait for that glorious Day when we are perfected at the rapture. We can learn to walk in godliness even now. Why? Because God has given us His promises in His Word. By diligently studying and acting on these, we can we partake of the divine nature—that is. experiencing the supernatural ways of Heaven. We don’t become Gods, but we are expected to walk in godliness and Christlikeness.
       Practically speaking, these promises mean we don’t have to pray to God to give us these things. He’s already done His part. Our part is to give all diligence to add to the measure of faith God has already given us  regarding the things Peter lists in the rest of chapter 1. We can summarize them as the fruit of the Spirit that is already inside us. If they’re already in us, then why do we need to give all diligence? Because it is up to us to draw out of that living well what is within us.
      Now for most of us, drawing up all that water at once would overwhelm us like a supernatural tsunami. Instead, the Spirit brings those things to our remembrance that we need when the circumstances of life threaten to engulf us. But to do this, we have to be “in touch” with the Spirit. That’s why Peter prays that grace and peace be multiplied to us through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. That is, through our times of intimacy with the Godhead. This is really what the majority of our prayer time is about—fellowshipping with God.
      He longs to fellowship with us in the same way He would come into the garden in the cool of the day to commune with Adam and Eve. Think about that. It happened before the fall. They had every provision they needed in the Garden. We could say that they had no prayer needs to bring to His attention. So what did they do? They ministered to the Lord by spending precious time with Him, learning His heart and His ways. Isn’t that what every spouse and parent longs for from those closest to them?
      This is why prayer should be a dialogue. We need to be still and listen for His voice. We need to quiet our own thoughts so that we can come to know Him in a deeper, more intimate way.