When God figuratively awakens in Isaiah 51:9 he then calls his Bride to awaken. We see his specific call in Isaiah 51:17 and 52:1. In fact it was recently when reading this passage of Scripture that God showed me that his Bride has been, if not all, at least part of the harlot sitting on the beast in Revelation 17. (I first saw that the church was part or all of the harlot back in 1997, but had assumed the Bride, since she must be pure, could not also be considered the harlot). The key to seeing this is that, because of her sins, God has made his Bride drink the cup of his wrath. This is the very cup we see the harlot holding in Revelation 17:4. Isaiah prophesies concerning this,
17 (AO)Wake yourself, wake yourself,
stand up, O Jerusalem,
(AP)you who have drunk from the hand of the Lord
the cup of his wrath,
who have drunk to the dregs
the bowl, (AQ)the cup of staggering.
18 (AR)There is none to guide her
among all the sons she has borne;
there is none to take her by the hand
among all the sons she has brought up.
19 (AS)These two things have happened to you—
who will console you?—
devastation and destruction, famine and sword;
who will comfort you?[d]
20 (AT)Your sons have fainted;
they lie at the head of every street
like an (AU)antelope (AV)in a net;
they are full of the wrath of the Lord,
the rebuke of your God.
21 (AW)Therefore hear this, you who are afflicted,
who are drunk, but not with wine:
22 Thus says your Lord, the Lord,
your God (AX)who pleads the cause of his people:
“Behold, I have taken from your hand (AY)the cup of staggering;
the bowl of my wrath you shall drink no more;
23 (AZ)and I will put it into the hand of your tormentors,
(BA)who have said to you,
‘Bow down, that we may pass over’;
and (BB)you have made your back like the ground
and like the street for them to pass over.” (Isaiah 51:17-23 ESV Reference Edition)
We know this is the Bride because God addresses this to Jerusalem and we will see in succeeding passages that the references to Jerusalem in this part of Scripture actually prophecy about the New Jerusalem which John more fully reveals in Revelation 21 and 22. We know this because Isaiah uses the very same symbols in prophetic language as does John at the end of the Bible. We will look at this in more detail later.
Right now we need to pay attention to the type of world that exists when the Bride awakens. She lives in a world of devastation and destruction, famine and sword. Also notice that God has been directing these plagues toward his Bride, not yet toward her “tormentors.” Why? Because “judgment begins in the House of God.” In these latter years God’s people have born the brunt of persecution in the world. Today Christians are the only group of people routinely discriminated against or killed in almost every nation of the world. Over the last fifty years, since the infamous Supreme Court decision in 1962 which stripped prayer and the Bible from American public schools, Christians have witnessed one defeat after another. Today in America a Christian bakery cannot even refuse to bake a “wedding” cake for a homosexual couple. If things were to continue on the current path a Christian jeweler would one day be required to make the gold altar upon which a satanist planned to sacrifice someone’s newborn infant. And yet most Christians remain strangely blind to their new servitude to those who worship Satan and the beast.
Yes, Christians have become the people to whom the world says, ‘Bow down, that we may pass over,” “And,” says God, “you have made your back like the ground and like the street for them to pass over.” In other words, the LORD says, “You have refused to stand up for my righteousness. You have willingly bowed your backs before the insulting and demeaning demands of your satanic enemies, just as your President bows his back before the king of Saudi Arabia. It is now time to wake up from your slumber and come out of and away from the Babylonian system you have served all your lives. For now I am ready to take the cup of my judgment from you and give it to your tormentors.”
And God says yet again,
(A)Awake, awake,
put on your strength, O Zion;
(B)put on your beautiful garments,
O Jerusalem, (C)the holy city;
(D)for there shall no more come into you
the uncircumcised and the unclean.
2 (E)Shake yourself from the dust and arise;
be seated, O Jerusalem;
(F)loose the bonds from your neck,
O captive daughter of Zion.
3 For thus says the Lord: (G)“You were sold for nothing, and (H)you shall be redeemed without money.” 4 For thus says the Lord God: (I)“My people went down at the first into Egypt to sojourn there, and the Assyrian oppressed them for nothing.[a] 5 Now therefore what have I here,” declares the Lord, “seeing that my people are taken away for nothing? Their rulers wail,” declares the Lord, “and (J)continually all the day my name is despised. 6 Therefore my people shall know my name. (K)Therefore in that day they shall know that it is I who speak; here I am.” (Isaiah 52:1-6)
In this passage we can easily see that God speaks to New Jerusalem, his eternal Bride, not to old Jerusalem which Hagar represented. The reference to Zion’s beautiful garments should take our minds to Revelation 19 where we see the John proclaim,
6 Then I heard what seemed to be (J)the voice of a great multitude, like (K)the roar of many waters and (L)like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, crying out,
“Hallelujah!
For the Lord our God
the Almighty (M)reigns.
7 Let us rejoice and exult
and give him the glory,
for (N)the marriage of the Lamb has come,
and (O)his Bride has made herself ready;
8 (P)it was granted her to clothe herself
with fine linen, bright and pure”—
for the fine linen is (Q)the righteous deeds of the saints.
Revelation 19 pictures the Bride in the beautiful garments that Isaiah tells her to put on. Christian, now is the time to awake, to fill yourself with oil, to come out of Babylon, and to put on your beautiful garments. And what will happen to us if we do not?
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