Welcome to our class, A Walk Through the Old Testament. I must admit that when I come to the book of Isaiah, I'm tempted to change the title, A Crawl Through the Old Testament, and just hang out here for some length of time, since this is my favorite book in the Bible. I guess it's okay to have a favorite, isn't it? I've never heard anybody discuss that. I suppose we could talk about the possibility of having a favorite out of wonderful books of the Bible. But anyway, this is my favorite. Notice we have chosen as the theme, the Holy One of Israel judges the proud but saves those who trust Him in humility. So the main aspect of the book, is related to the Holy One of Israel. Now that's an interesting phrase in Hebrew, the Holy One of Israel. The Hebrew language loves these something of something constructions. We give that the technical term a genitive. And Hebrew grammarians have dozens of uses of the genitive. In Hebrew, that genitive construction does duty for just about anything you can imagine. We don't talk that way in English a lot, although we do use it with some degree of regularity. We wouldn't say, that is the house of me. We would say, that is my house. So, we like to use the possessive rather than that something of something. The Hebrews though, this is such a pervasive feature of the Hebrew language as to be, you would say, even one of the major features of Hebrew. And so, we ask ourselves a question, what does that holy one of Israel mean? It's used approximately in equal distribution throughout the book. It seems to be Isaiah's signature name for the God of heaven. It's used only three times outside the book of Isaiah in the entire Old Testament. So it appears to be Isaiah's signature or his mark, if you would say, on the book of Isaiah. But what does it mean? The Holy One of Israel. Obviously, it's not possessive. Israel doesn't own the Holy One. It seems to be some sort of a genitive of identification or something like that. The Holy One of Israel so identifies Himself as to have a special relationship with Israel. Now, isn't that an astounding thing that the Holy deigns to have a special relationship with one people group, a special people. And of course, we saw that in the book of Deuteronomy, when the Lord called Israel, my special treasure. And the Hebrew term there is Segula. Do you have a special treasure? Have you ever seen a kid who buys his first car. Our next door neighbor has a teenage son that just bought his first car. It's a elderly Mustang GT, pretty blue color. And he was out there washing it the other day and tenderly caring for his treasure. Well, I've been there, done that. That's a guy thing. It's a rite of passage. If somebody would come along and open their door and ding his car, I wonder what his reaction would be. Probably not too good. And that's a tried example, but begins to get our understanding going of what the Holy One of Israel really means. Israel is his special treasure. They have a unique relationship with him. So that's a central focus. And then we have the central foci of judging and trusting, polar opposites, salvation and perdition, pride and humility. The book is a book of contrasting themes. Okay, we've taken a look already at the two main key verses, I'm calling them, and we finished up 57.15 last time, so let's go back and take a look here at Isaiah 57.15. For thus says the Holy One who is high and lifted up. And we mentioned that, in fact, those are the same terms for the Lord that we've already seen in Isaiah 6. where Isaiah sees Adonai, the Lord, high and lifted up, same two words. He is the one who is high and lifted up. In other words, to use a fancy term, He is transcendent. He is far above His creation. He's not like man. Man is finite or God is infinite. As a matter of fact, inhabits eternity. How do you inhabit eternity? Well, that's a way of saying He is eternal. He's so transcendent, He transcends time. Can you imagine? Transcends time. What would that be like? Everything we do practically takes into account time. If you have an hourly job, you clock in and out. If you have a salaried position, you get there early in the morning, you might have to leave late at night, but during the day, you're keeping track of the time. When we cook, you ladies who cook, you do so according to time. Your dinner, your dish or your cookies or cake or whatever you're baking has to bake for a certain key amount of time. Don't leave it in long enough, undercooked. Leave it in too long, it's ossified. Everything goes by time. If you're a cyclist, if you're not careful, your stupid GPS unit will rule your life because you get so concerned about the time that your ride is taking. And if you upload your rides to Strava, you're in competition with everybody else's time, whoever rode that segment. And if you're not careful, it can take the joy right out of the sport. We live according to the clock and the calendar. Especially teachers live by calendars. You know, you can't live without a calendar as a teacher. You've got the beginning of the semester, midterms, the end of the semester, and the due date for your final grades. And let me tell you, you'd better not be late with your final grades. Yeah. One of my, I used to have an office mate who was time challenged when it came to getting his final grades in. and one day he was a half hour late. He got a letter, a little note in the mail from a key administrator at school, and it informed him that if he desired to have further employment as a teacher at Bob Jones University, next semester his grades would be in on time. In other words, we are not transcended over time. We can't even imagine. what that's like. But God is so transcendent that He dwells in eternity. All right? Notice, what's the next statement we have here about the Holy One of Israel? Not only is He transcendently great, high and lifted up, not only does He transcend time, His name is holy. We're going to talk more about God's holiness. He says, I dwell in the high and holy place. But here's the unexpected phrase, with him also who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite. And so, in God's holiness is not only transcendence, it is also closeness to those He redeems. He is immanent, I-M-M-A-N-E-N-T, the opposite of transcendent. Alright, so there is then in the overall holy character of God both a transcendence and a knowability. And if someone steadfastly refuses to humble himself before the Holy One of Israel, then he will never have a relationship with Him, because those who come to the Holy One come on His terms, or they come not at all. All right, so what is this concept of holiness? One of the best title, best descriptions I've ever seen. is by a fellow named A.S. Wood, and he noted in the Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible that holiness is not merely one of God's attributes. It represents his essential nature. Holiness is his selfhood. When he swears by his holiness, he swears by himself. All right, now, that's kind of a key argument right there. Notice in parentheses are Amos 4.2 and Amos 6.8. So turn a few pages ahead in your Bible, if you would please, to the prophecy of Amos. And we're going to take a look, first of all, at Amos 4.2. Let's pick up the context here. in Amos 4.1. Hear this word, ye cows of Bashan, who are on the mountain of Samaria, who oppress the poor, who crush the needy, who say to your husbands, bring that we may drink. Now, he is not, Isaiah is, Amos is not addressing bovines. He's addressing human beings. And so obviously these women are not cows, literally. And of course the prophets love to use metaphors, metaphoric language. Now would you say in the general realm of metaphors that to be referred to as a cow is an admirable thing or something that is not so flattering? Obviously not too flattering. And so, what is the similarity between a cow and these women of Samaria? Well, it's not too apparent. One thing is they oppress the poor, they crush the needy, they're bossy, they're telling their husbands what to do, and apparently they are into drinking. implication to excess. In other words, they're kind of lazy, they're indolent, they're bossy, and that kind of thing. Okay, now, how does the Lord respond to this? Verse 2, the Lord God, there we have, basically you can think of this as a term speaking of the sovereign Yahweh. This is the one who has this covenantal relationship with his people, and he is sovereign in that relationship. That's the meaning of those two names together. The Lord God has sworn by his holiness. Behold, the days are coming upon you when they shall take you away with hooks, even the last of you with fishhooks, and you will go through the breaches, everyone straight ahead, and you shall be cast down to the Harmon, Harmon declares the Lord." In other words, judgment is coming on these Northern Israelite women who are not right with God. They're so proud, in fact, they're bossing their own husbands around, which would have been in the ancient world, the epitome of a high-handed rebellious spirit. All right, so what we have here is a situation where God is guaranteeing that His judgment is coming. How does He guarantee it when it says here that He swears by His holiness This means he's taking an oath. We know from the New Testament God does not take an oath by anything less than himself. And so we suspect then that God's holiness is another way of describing his selfhood. That's why Wood says, holiness is his selfhood. Now in order to remove any doubt about this, Go over a couple of pages in your Bible and there is an exactly parallel statement about God's holiness and his judgment in chapter 6, verse 8. So go there if you would. The Lord God, there's the same term, sovereign Yahweh, has sworn by himself, declares the Lord, the God of hosts, I abhor the pride of Jacob. and hate his strongholds, and I will deliver up the city," this is the city of Samaria, and all that is in it. And of course, Samaria was taken over by the Assyrians not long after Amos' prophecy, and many of Israel were taken into dispersion among the nations of the Assyrian Empire, and many Assyrians were imported into Israel, and then the Israelites intermarried with them, and they became kind of a half-breed Jewish person, and what by the first century did we call these people? Samaritans. This is the source of them. So judgment is coming. This time, notice, Chapter six, verse eight says that God has sworn by himself. I can't remember now. Did I put this down on the next? No, I didn't. All right, so here, I need to explain this. Himself is literally in Hebrew, his nephash. You say, well, that doesn't help me any. What's nephash? Nephash is a word that describes all that you are. It's often confusingly translated in the Old Testament, soul. But it most of the time, it describes much more than your soul, the immaterial part of you that departs to go be with God after you die. Nephesh includes the entirety of your being. everything you are, inner character qualities, your body, only this word looks at the person as an integral whole. In the Old Testament scriptures, the Old Testament scriptures were not that concerned with picking people apart into their component parts. Man was viewed more in the sense of a whole person, a holistic individual. And when God saves people, it is the entire person, body, soul, and spirit. And so this word then is a picture of all you are. And when it refers to God, God's nephesh is his entire being. And so, when you put these two things together, God swears by His holiness, God swears by His entire being, what is the conclusion? That God's holiness is the entirety of His being. In other words, it is His selfhood. Now, we've already seen in the book of Isaiah that his selfhood is that he is transcendently great. In fact, he is unique. By the way, it really bugs me when people say that something or someone is very unique or really unique or exceptionally unique or something like that. Something is either unique or not. There are no varying degrees of uniqueness, because unique means one of a kind, nothing comparable with it. That's what this means here. As holy, he is thus unique. That is, there's only one of him. And in fact, he is incomparable as well. Look what Hannah says about the Lord. in 1 Samuel 2, verse 2. Here she's had an answer to prayer. She is thanking the Lord that now she has a precious little son that she has prayed for for years and years and years. Hannah prayed and said, my heart exalts in Yahweh, in the Lord. My strength is exalted in the Lord. My mouth derides my enemies because I rejoice in your salvation. There is none holy like the Lord. There is none besides you. There is no rock like our God. And by the way, look what she says next. Talk no more so very proudly. Let not arrogance come from your mouth. Oh, that's interesting. Notice the way Hannah contrasts somebody who recognizes the unique incomparable greatness of God, that is, they recognize God as holy. That means that a person who recognizes that holiness will not have a problem with what? Pride and arrogance. But pride and arrogance stems from not knowing who God is, or knowing who He is but choosing to forget about Him and to compare yourself with someone else. Now, unfortunately, Hannah was in a relationship with a husband who had another wife. What a crummy situation that would be. And this other wife, was what, humble or proud? She was extremely proud and just gave Hannah a horrible time, made her life miserable by comparing herself with Hannah. Oh, you're barren, Hannah. Boy, I'll tell you what, you're nothing and I'm really something. Look at all the children I'm bearing and blah, blah, blah. But now, Hannah's confidence is in the Lord. She humbly trusts Him and she recognizes when God finally answers her prayer that God is incomparably great. You see, that's where humility comes from. The only genuine, genuinely humble person in the world is somebody who is humble because he or she has taken a look at the incomparable greatness of the holiness of God and has made a conclusion. What's that conclusion? I fall infinitely short of the holiness of God. I rank infinitely impoverished in comparison with him. Or, to put it in the terms of Isaiah, back in chapter 6, when he saw the Lord high and lifted up, he said, woe is me! I'm about to be destroyed, for my eyes have seen the Lord. I've seen God in a display of His holy, incomparable being. I am miserably, wretchedly short of that revelation of his character. That's true humility. There are lots of false kinds of humility. Have you ever known a falsely humble person? What do they sound like? Somebody tell me, what does a falsely humble person sound like? Falsely humble persons may come across as, oh, you know, I'm a dumb head, but they're really not. They're just searching for a compliment, or, oh, I'm just so incompetent, but they're really not, and they want you to make much of their competence. Oh, no, no, no, you're not incompetent. Look at all the good things you do, and you have strengths. And they want to get puffed up, only they sort of go about it through the back door, and no, no, no, that's false humility. And people who are beating themselves down all the time, this is not a humble person. Humility comes from understanding the scriptural revelation of who God is and ranking yourself accordingly as Isaiah did. All right, so basically then to be a proud person is to reject what the Bible says about the greatness of God and to make everything in the world focus on you so that you become the determiner of truth. You determine what is right or wrong morally. You plan your own life. You know, I feel sorry. for the folks who had everything destroyed in Superstorm Sandy on the New Jersey coast. Many people made their livelihood at shops and cool little stores there on the boardwalk, and Sandy just wrecked that thing. In the aftermath of that, the governor of New Jersey assured the people, we will rebuild We'll make it better than before. This can't stop us. Why, we're New Jerseyans or whatever a person from New Jersey is. A person from Maine is a maniac, right? But I don't know what a person from New Jersey is, a New Jerseyite or whatever. We'll, you know, we'll lick this. We're strong and resilient. And so they did. And then, the Lord sent a strong southerly wind and a little frozen custard shop had a fire. And now, and once again, I'm not, I don't want to seem unkind here, but in just a couple of hours, it all burned down and it's gone again. Now, how is the governor New Jersey going to react this time? Is he ever going to come to the point where he realizes that there's a God in heaven and that man is not this indomitable, unconquerable being that can just do everything that they set their mind to do apart from the true and living God? Sometimes it almost seems to me like some of these political figures are like the people who encouraged the building of the Tower of Babel. No glory goes to God as the one who controls things like super storms and like the providential aspects of how fast the wind is blowing and from what direction it's blowing. If it had been blowing that day from the north at 30 or 35 miles an hour, Just so happened the fire started at the very southerly end of the boardwalk and it would have done nothing. They would have easily been able to put the thing out. Any recognition here that there's a sovereign God in heaven who simply allows wind to blow and destroys what man proudly built back up again? No. Not a word. That is the kind of person who's ripe for judgment. All right, so let's take a look now at the fact that God's holiness is unique. God's holiness means that no one can match the excellencies of his character. In addition to Hannah's statement, let's go now back to Isaiah, and we'll take a look at just a few. We could camp out here quite a bit, but just a few verses that make much of God's unique holiness. First of all, chapter 40, verse 25, and by the way, just let me interject here quickly, that the book of Isaiah is perhaps the richest book in all the Bible in declaring to us who our God is. If we didn't have the book of Isaiah, we would be severely impoverished when it comes to knowing the God we serve and the God we love. Notice, to whom then will you compare me? The Lord says in the first person that I should be like him, says the holy one. Lift up your eyes on high and see who created these. These what? What you lift your eyes up and see stars. the greatness of the stellar heavens. He brings out their host by number, calling them all by name, by the greatness of his might, and because he is strong in power, not one is missing. Billions, times multiplied, billions of stars, and God created them, he spoke them into existence, he calls them all by name, he preserves them, What kind of omniscience and omnipotence is that? That is why he says, look, you can't compare me to anyone that I should be like him. Take a look at chapter 44, verse 6. Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel, and his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts. I am the first, I am the last. Beside me, there is no God. Who is like me? Let him proclaim it. Let him declare and set it before me." Of course, no one is like the Lord. He's the King. He's the Redeemer. He's the Lord of hosts. Now, that concept of the Lord of hosts. Hosts here is a reference to everything in the universe. All the heavenly stars and planets, everything on earth, all human powers and celestial powers. He is master over them all. So, he is the Lord of hosts and he is unique and incomparable because he created everything. And so, that is one of the main reasons why in our humanistic age, the theories we have of evolution become so important. To the man, woman, the person, who has rejected the scriptural revelation of God. And Romans 1 tells us that many, many people have done this. Because one aspect of the revelation of who God is, is what He has made. Everyone with eyes in his head can look at what God has made and see the glory of God. But some people choose to reject that general revelation and professing themselves to be wise. They become what? Fools. And you look at the history of pagan religion that is idolatrous and it's always the same. Ridiculous stories of how some false god created everything. Laughable. Crazy stories. I will tell you what is the most laughable and the craziest. Oh, it might be the most sophisticated, but it's the most laughable. That four and a half billion years ago, there was a huge explosion and everything in the world, everything in the universe came from that explosion. And here we are, we've evolved into what we are today. And it all happened by chance. Wow. You really believe that? Does an unbeliever really believe that? Or is it just simply essential for him to come up with some alternative view of how we got here? evolution is for him a necessity and he hopes that the idiocy of that idea is eclipsed in your understanding by the sophistication of his arguments for it and by the education of the persons who propound these educated farces and the number of degrees behind their name But it's still absolute idiocy. Okay, chapter 45, verses five and six. I am the Lord and there is none other. Beside me, there is no God. I equip you, though you do not know me, that people may know from the rising of the sun and from the west that there is none beside me. I am the Lord, there is no other. He is unique. I form light, create darkness. I make well-being and create calamity. I am the Lord who does all these things. Because he's creator, no one can compare with him. All right, now, we just have a couple of minutes to get into this idea, and that is that God's idolatry God's uniqueness makes idolatry absurd. In light of the incomparable greatness of God's being, which is His holiness, idolatry becomes absurd. And so in the book we have, notice I give you references in chapter 41 and chapter 44. Those are in a section of the book that especially brings the idols to court for a court case. There's a technical Hebrew verb for it. It refers to initiating a case, a judicial case against someone. And so the Lord is bringing a lawsuit here, think of it that way, against the false idols. Okay, you false idols, come on into court here and we'll have a trial. And here's what I want you to do, false idols. Just show something you've done that should make us, you know, fear and stand in awe of you. Take a look at chapter 41, for instance, verses 21 through 29. We start off, set forth your case. There's that verb to argue a case. says the Lord, bring your proofs, says the God of Jacob. Let them bring them and tell us what is to happen. Tell us the former things, what they are, that we may consider them, that we may know their outcome. Or declare to us the things to come. Tell us what is to come after, that we may know that you are gods. Do good or do harm, that we may be dismayed and terrified. But behold, you are nothing. Your work is less than nothing. An abomination is he who chooses you. False idols can't produce one example of when they said that something was coming, it kind of come to pass and it did. On the other hand, the Lord can say things are going to come to pass. It doesn't matter how far in advance it is. And so in chapter seven, verse 14, God can tell Isaiah to tell King Ahaz that there's a time coming when a virgin will be pregnant and she's going to bring forth a son and his character is going to be the character of Emmanuel, God is with us. Now that prophecy was in the year 735 B.C. And Christ was not born of a virgin, of course, until over 700 years later. 700 years. Look at chapter 45. Here's an interesting prediction of what's going to come in the future. Thus says to the Lord his anointed one, to Cyrus, whose hand I have grasped, to subdue nations before him, to loose the belts of kings, to open doors before him, that the gates may not be closed. Or verse 28 of chapter 44, who says of Cyrus, he is my shepherd, he will fulfill all my purpose, saying to Jerusalem, she shall be rebuilt, and to the temple, your foundation will be laid. That prophecy was given about the year 701 BC. Cyrus first came on the scene in 540 BC, 160 years later. And the prophet Isaiah mentions him by name. What would you think if tomorrow they're tearing down an old farmhouse in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and they find that in the walls, the walls were insulated with old letters, which is something, you know, they used to insulate walls with paper, because that was about the best insulation they had. And in there is an intact letter, and one line of that letter, which was a Union soldier who'd written back to his wife there in Gettysburg, and the letter talked about the battles he'd fought in, and he talks about the time when things are going to be better, the war will be over, and Barack Obama will be President of the United States. What would you think about a letter like that? You'd say, that's impossible. Nobody could know that. And you know what? That's what theological liberals say about the last verse of chapter 44 and the first one of chapter 45. They say Isaiah of Jerusalem couldn't have written that. Well, that would be supernatural to know that. But wait a minute, it's right at the end of this section where Isaiah is bringing this lawsuit. He's telling people the idols can't predict anything, but watch what I can do. I can tell you the name of the king that's going to allow the rebuilding of the temple and Jerusalem. I'm going to tell you this 160 years in advance, so that when that comes to pass, you're going to know who I am. I'm the Holy One of Israel. I am unique. No one can compare with me. We serve a great God. His understanding is infinite, and so is His power. And so is his grace to those who believe. Let's pray. Our Father, we're thankful for your word. We're thankful for the description of your greatness in the prophet Isaiah. Help us, I pray, to stand in awe of you, to live our lives in obedience and submission to you, and in thankfulness for your great power the great power you wrought when you raised Jesus Christ from the dead and set him far above all rule and dominion and principalities, and you have appointed a day when he is coming again. Lord, hasten the day, we pray. In Jesus' name, amen.