Today: [Isaiah 65] Is the Church God’s Second Choice? In this chapter, we see Isaiah declaring the coming of the Gentile church by the word of the Lord. Was the church God’s alternative plan after the Jews rejected the Messiah? Is Christianity as we know it simply God’s contingency plan after He came to His own people and His own received Him not? In this chapter Isaiah speaks centuries ahead of time of a people who “are not a people” calling upon the Lord and constituting a chosen community of faith. In that context we can look at the major decisions of the earliest church community regarding Gentile believers and get a deeper sense of our place in the purposes of God.