How to increase righteousness on the Earth (Isaiah 11; John 20; Ezekiel 18)

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In this study

How to be really slain in the Spirit (Isaiah 10:32–12:6)
Remember when you were strange?
- Mark of the feast: We've seen the wicked, and the wicked were we

One theme we don’t typically associate with Passover and Matzot¹ is ingathering of people. The Feast of Sukkot² is the time primarily associated with the idea of ingathering. However, one can’t procrastinate if one wants to join God’s people.

For many of us, procrastination is a really bad habit that is very hard to break. There are few advantages to procrastination and many disadvantages and setbacks that come along when we procrastinate.

Ezekiel 18:21-32 tells us that if a righteous person decides to turn their back on God and decides to live the remainder of their life in wickedness and debauchery, God will consider them as wicked but if a wicked person turns their back on evil and decides to live the remainder of their live in holiness, God will accept them because He knows their heart.

It doesn’t behoove us to wait until the last minute to repent and turn to God, because we never know when our end will actually come. It could be tomorrow, it could be 10 seconds from now, it could be 100 years from now, we have no idea. We can not predict the date and time of our own death. It is very unwise to try to play the game of procrastination when it comes to repentance and holy living.

Since the start of Passover, we have started “counting the omer,” which is the counting of the 50 days from Passover to Shavuot. Counting the omer is not about counting the number of days; it’s about counting the people who are coming to a knowledge of God, who are on the same journey from bondage to freedom, from slavery to Torah.

Our goal is to be counted among the righteous, to be a part of God’s people, because we know there’s something beyond this life, this plane of existence.

How do we know this? Because God has told us.

How to be really slain in the Spirit (Isaiah 10:32–12:6)

This passage starts with a prophecy about the decisive downfall of Assyria. God was condemning, correcting and reprimanding His own people by allowing the Assyrians to take the 10 northern tribes of Israel into exile. God reprimands His own people is a good thing, even if He leaves the wicked unpunished in this life. Correcting a wicked person is not always useful, because they don’t receive the correction. They don’t care what is right, because they choose to do what is wrong regardless of the law.

“Then a shoot will spring from the stem of Jesse, And a branch from his roots will bear fruit. The Spirit of the LORD will rest on Him, The spirit of wisdom and understanding, The spirit of counsel and strength, The spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD. And He will delight in the fear of the LORD, And He will not judge by what His eyes see, Nor make a decision by what His ears hear; But with righteousness He will judge the poor, And decide with fairness for the afflicted of the earth; And He will strike the earth with the rod of His mouth, And with the breath of His lips He will slay the wicked.”
Isaiah 11:1–4 NASB

The prophecy in Isaiah 11 where the “shoot will sprout from the root of Jesse” is a prophecy most of us have learned from childhood, as it pertains to Messiah Yeshua, but we glance over what it says in Isa. 11:4 about the “breath of His (Messiah’s) lips, will slay the wicked.”

Forgiving sin: Breathe out death; breathe in Life (John 20:19–23)

There is something really odd the Messiah did after His resurrection, in a passage we covered on the last day of Matzot. Yeshua breathed on His students, which seems really odd.

So when it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and when the doors were shut where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, “Peace be with you.” And when He had said this, He showed them both His hands and His side. The disciples then rejoiced when they saw the Lord. So Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you; as the Father has sent Me, I also send you.” And when He had said this, He breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, their sins have been forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they have been retained.”
John 20:19–23 NASB

Yeshua breathed on His students. That sounds bizarre.

What’s more, this odd event happened before Shavout, before the Spirit came down on the Apostles and other disciples at the Temple, as recorded in Acts 2. What this a sort of spiritual possession?

Now, remember that the Apostles, who were raised in Jewish households, would have memorized large chunks of the TaNaKh³ as children. They would have memorized the prophecy in Isaiah 11 and other messianic prophecies. They all knew these prophecies.

He breathes on them, which is performing an action, and also teaching them a lesson, connecting words with actions. Right after He breathed on them, He tells them that the sins they forgive will be forgiven and the sins they retain will be retained. What does that mean?

Death to the (old) man! (Ezekiel 18)

How do you kill a wicked person? You can do it in one of two ways:

Physically kill them with a sword, gun, etc.
Bring them to repentance so they are no longer counted among the wicked but are counted among the righteous.

If you go with a sword or gun and kill every single evil person you meet, you will reduce the number of wicked people in the world but you will not increase the number of righteous people in the world.

But, if instead of killing the wicked, you bring the wicked to repentance, then you have not only reduced the number of wicked people in the world, you have also increase the number of righteous people in the world.

This is what Ezekiel 18:21-32 is about. If a wicked person, converts from wickedness to righteousness, they are no longer wicked, their wickedness is erased, they are now became righteous. In bringing a wicked person to repentance, you have, spiritually speaking, killed the wickedness in them by doing so. You have rid the world of an evil person, and the world has now gained another righteous soul. The ratio of evil to righteousness is improved to the side of righteousness.

When the wolf learns to love the lamb

“And the wolf will dwell with the lamb, And the leopard will lie down with the young goat, And the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; And a little boy will lead them. Also the cow and the bear will graze, Their young will lie down together, And the lion will eat straw like the ox. The nursing child will play by the hole of the cobra, And the weaned child will put his hand on the viper’s den. They will not hurt or destroy in all My holy mountain, For the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD As the waters cover the sea.”
Isaiah 11:6–9 NASB

What we see in Isaiah 11:6-9 are list of opposites living together. Does the wolf become a lamb or a lion become a calf? No, they are the same on the outside. What changes is their actions. The wolf doesn’t eat the lamb and the lion doesn’t eat the calf. Instead, the wolf and the lion act like the lamb and the calf, grazing and eating grass.

How the wicked become holy

It is by the authority of Yeshua the Messiah that the wicked are forgiven. It is by His power that the wicked are made holy. He is the reason that those who were once counted as wicked can be counted among the righteous.

Those who are righteous should treat both the righteous and the wicked with kindness and respect. We do this not because of what they are, but because of who we are. This is how we represent God. This is how Messiah treats others. We are called upon by God to help each other along this way.

“Then in that day The nations will resort to the root of Jesse, Who will stand as a signal for the peoples; And His resting place will be glorious.”
Isaiah 11:10 NASB

We can bring others to God but it is only the Messiah who can truly change a person’s heart. He is the banner, He is the standard. He’s the method. He’s the direction and the path.

Siblings reunited: Ephraim and Judah, Christianity and Judaism

“Then it will happen on that day that the Lord Will again recover the second time with His hand The remnant of His people, who will remain, From Assyria, Egypt, Pathros, Cush, Elam, Shinar, Hamath, And from the islands of the sea. And He will lift up a standard for the nations And assemble the banished ones of Israel, And will gather the dispersed of Judah From the four corners of the earth. Then the jealousy of Ephraim will depart, And those who harass Judah will be cut off; Ephraim will not be jealous of Judah, And Judah will not harass Ephraim. They will swoop down on the slopes of the Philistines on the west; Together they will plunder the sons of the east; They will possess Edom and Moab, And the sons of Ammon will be subject to them.”
Isaiah 11:11–14 NASB

As you may recall your Bible history, the united kingdom of Israel split into two nations: Judah and Ephraim. As the generations passed, they grew more distant from each other, arguing with each other more and more over which one was worshiping God properly.

Over 1,000 years before, it was the same. Joseph was hated by his brothers and they ganged up on him and sold him into slavery.
Not much had changed by this point, Ephraim and Judah were each going their own way.

Ephraim ended up breaking away, creating their own holy places, holy festivals, priesthood and liturgy. Judah and Ephraim went to war with each other on several occasions, going to blows over who was right and who was wrong. It’s sibling rivalry on steroids.

We see the same thing in the Christian community, different sects bickering with each other over who is right and who is wrong. The bickering between Judah and Ephraim and between the different Christian sects doesn’t just reflect badly on them, it also reflects badly on the God they claim to represent.

As we discussed earlier, the wolf doesn’t become a sheep, but acts like a sheep. If the wolf acts like a sheep, will the sheep care that it is a wolf? No. So our actions, our nature, the way which we project ourselves and follow God’s instructions reflects to everybody around us.

Remember when you were strange?

“You shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.”
Exodus 22:21 NASB

We read this refrain quite often in this section of the Torah, “you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” Even though you don’t know the stranger well enough to know if he is righteous or evil, you can’t mistreat them.

Exodus 23:1-9 has a small list of various commands from God regarding civil law, such as not filing false reports in court, not bearing false testimony, not playing favorites in the eyes of the law, etc. This list also ends with this refrain:

“You shall not oppress a stranger, since you yourselves know the feelings of a stranger, for you also were strangers in the land of Egypt.”
Exodus 23:9 NASB

We are called to treat others with respect. We are not called to blindly trust people, regardless of whether they are walking in righteousness or evil. Rather, we are called to treat them with dignity and respect.

This is how we properly reflect the God who saves us. We treat them how the Messiah would treat them. The Messiah in effect says, “I’ll walk with you. I’ll talk to you. I’ll teach you. I’ll be the person you need to learn how to live a better life.”

Mark of the feast: We’ve seen the wicked, and the wicked were we

We tend to want to isolate ourselves from the wicked, to protect ourselves from temptation. When someone who is wicked wants to have the same peace and happiness we have, it’s a form of jealousy and envy but that desire in them is righteous. Rather than avoiding them, we need to help them bear fruits of repentance so they can be called among the righteous.

Then I looked, and behold, the Lamb was standing on Mount Zion, and with Him one hundred and forty-four thousand, having His name and the name of His Father written on their foreheads. And I heard a voice from heaven, like the sound of many waters and like the sound of loud thunder, and the voice which I heard was like the sound of harpists playing on their harps. And they sang a new song before the throne and before the four living creatures and the elders; and no one could learn the song except the one hundred and forty-four thousand who had been purchased from the earth. These are the ones who have not been defiled with women, for they have kept themselves chaste. These are the ones who follow the Lamb wherever He goes. These have been purchased from among men as first fruits to God and to the Lamb. And no lie was found in their mouth; they are blameless.
Revelation 14:1–5 NASB

If God’s name is on your forehead, you have been counted righteous. The righteous here are without fault or blameless, not because they had never sinned, but because they had repented and walked in fruits of repentance. This is why God’s signature — the seal/mark of Heaven — is on their foreheads.

Then He cried out in my hearing with a loud voice saying, “Draw near, O executioners of the city, each with his destroying weapon in his hand.” Behold, six men came from the direction of the upper gate which faces north, each with his shattering weapon in his hand; and among them was a certain man clothed in linen with a writing case at his loins. And they went in and stood beside the bronze altar. Then the glory of the God of Israel went up from the cherub on which it had been, to the threshold of the temple. And He called to the man clothed in linen at whose loins was the writing case. The LORD said to him, “Go through the midst of the city, even through the midst of Jerusalem, and put a mark on the foreheads of the men who sigh and groan over all the abominations which are being committed in its midst.”
Ezekiel 9:1–4 NASB

Those who had God’s mark on their forehead refused to participate in wickedness and lamented the wickedness of the world around them. The wicked have the living witness of the righteous among them and actively choose to live in wickedness. If they have no example of righteousness, they bear less culpability in their wickedness, but if they have righteous examples and they refuse to follow those examples, like in the days of Noah, they will be destroyed in their sin.

You can repent from wickedness to righteousness, and receive a blessing, but giving up on righteousness to join yourself to the wicked will never be blessed.

We can either reflect God on Earth, or we can reflect the evil one. We should reflect God’s goodness and mercy in the same way to those around us, whether they are believers or not. We should be willing to converse and engage with those who do not believe as we believe, reflecting God’s love to all. We want others to see God’s love in our words, our actions, our way of life, and how we treat one another. We can do this without allowing unrighteous behavior to rub off on us.

Summary: Tammy