00:00
00:00
00:01
Transcript
1/0
Well, we're going to be reading
from Isaiah 42, verses 1 through 4. Yet another thing we can rejoice
in is the victory, though it takes the eyes of faith to see
it, the victory that He has promised in history. Isaiah 42, hear God's
Word. Behold My servant, whom I uphold,
My elect one, in whom My soul delights. I have put My Spirit
upon him. he will bring forth justice to
the Gentiles. He will not cry out, nor raise
his voice, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street. A
bruised reed he will not break, and smoking flax he will not
quench. He will bring forth justice for
truth. He will not fail, nor be discouraged,
till he has established justice in the earth, and the coastlands
shall wait for his law. Father God, we thank You for
this, Your Word, and that Jesus Christ Himself fights the good
fight, never giving up, never growing discouraged, persevering
in Your calling upon His life. May we imitate Him. And may we
be sanctified as we hear Your Word and submit to it. May Your
Holy Spirit quicken that Word to our hearts and transform us.
And we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, as you can see from your
outlines, we've come to the book of Isaiah, and what an incredible
book this is. Some people have called Isaiah
the Romans of the Old Testament because of how clearly it displays
the gospel of Jesus Christ, and some people actually call it
the fifth gospel instead of calling it the Romans of the Old Testament.
It is just rich, rich display of the gospel of Jesus. Scholars
say it's the third longest book of the Bible. I didn't take the
time to count up the total number of words or total number of verses,
but they say it's the third longest book of the Bible, excuse me.
And they claim that there are more details about Jesus that
are revealed in this book than any other Old Testament book. Now, whether that's the case
or not, it is definitely rich in Christology. 50 or so minutes, however long it
takes to bring this, we're barely going to get into the Christology
of this book. You're going to see so much more.
In fact, I've given you some assignments to do at the end
of the outline for digging into it yourself. Now, here are a
few fun facts that might help you to remember some of the features
of this book. There are a lot of scholars that
speak of Isaiah as being a miniature Bible. What do they mean by that?
Well, just as the Bible has 66 books in it, Isaiah has 66 chapters. Okay, that kind of helps you
to remember both. And just as the Old Testament
has 39 books, well, the first book of Isaiah has 39 chapters. And just as the New Testament
has 27 books, the second half of Isaiah has 27 chapters. chapters in it. And interestingly,
the two sections of Isaiah do seem to have a corresponding
emphasis to the Old and New Testaments. The first part of Isaiah has
kind of an Old Testament feel. The second part of Isaiah has
kind of a New Testament feel to it. Scholars have pointed
out that there are similar features between Genesis 1 and the first
part of A lot of parallel themes, the
first chapter, and there are a lot of parallels between the
last book of the Bible, Revelation, and the last chapter of Isaiah. The last verse of Isaiah takes
us into eternity with the residents of heaven looking on at the non-elect
burning in hell for all of eternity. Isaiah and Revelation contain
the seven times in the entire Bible where God refers to Himself
as the first and the last. And interestingly the first chapter
of the second section of Isaiah, that's Isaiah 40, starts with
a voice crying in the wilderness just like the New Testament begins
with John the Baptist being a voice crying in the wilderness. So
for these and a number of other reasons they say it's kind of
like a miniature Bible. Now, I'm not sure how significant
that is, but for me, it's a cool memory tool for looking at the
different parts of the book. Certainly, it is a rich deposit
of the Bible's entire theology. It deals with the six days of
creation, as well as the renewal of the creation at the end of
history. It deals with all five points
of Calvinism that Rodney's been preaching on over the past five
weeks. It is incredibly rich depository
of Trinitarian theology. In fact, my favorite verse, when
I'm debating people who don't believe in the Trinity, comes
from Isaiah 48, verse 16. Now earlier, the speaker of verse
16 is identified as the Messiah, and he's called Yehoah. Very
interesting, he's a divine Messiah, and in verse 16, This future
Messiah is said to say this, and now the Lord Yehoah and His
Spirit have sent me. Yehoah and His Spirit are sending
Yehoah to be a future Messiah in order to save His people.
It's just a lot of really cool things like this in this book.
I told Rodney earlier that I went through a systematic theology
outline, and I don't think there's a single bit of theology that
you do not find in Isaiah. The author of this book is clearly
Isaiah, and yet evangelicals have this bizarre tendency to
follow liberals in attributing Isaiah to two different authors. Bible Project, which actually
has some pretty cool videos, has unfortunately given credence
to this Deutero-Isaiah theory, is what they call it. But there
is absolutely no legitimate basis for it. I think that liberals
came up with this idea because they hate the idea of anything
supernatural. They're opposed to miracles,
they're opposed to anything supernatural. So they do not believe that God
could possibly, or the scriptures could possibly have predicted
the kind of intricate details of the future. They say, after
all, it mentions Cyrus the Great by name. And it mentions his
detailed battles and that these people are going to be in exile,
then they're going to be brought back from exile out of Babylon. Surely
this had to have been written after those events were recorded. They have no basis for saying
that, but they are kind of embarrassed. We just say, no, God wrote this
book and he knows the future. He controls the future. He has
planned it all out. But evangelicals sometimes buy
into this theory because they want to appear academically respectable. Now, I'm all about academics,
but this lust for academic respectability has made people lose all academic
credibility in my mind. For example, liberals love to
point to the fact that the Messiah is described as a king in chapters
1 through 39, but he is described as a suffering servant in chapters
40 through 66. So, such different looks of the
Messiah. It's obviously two different
authors. Now, it is true there are different
emphases in both halves of this book. And yet, what we would
say is that both sections refer to Jesus as king, and both sections
refer to him as servant. You really cannot pit one against
the other. Liberals love to point to differences
in language, style, and theology between the two sections, whereas
conservatives say that yes, there are some differences between
them, but the similarities of language style between them are
far greater than the dissimilarities. And all of the dissimilarities
that they point to, 100% of those can be explained by the fact
that each half has a different content, has a different purpose,
a different focus. And so it's obvious to me that
liberals are approaching the text with hostile presuppositions,
and it's obvious to me that a lot of evangelical scholars are approaching
scholarship with naive presuppositions that you can somehow be neutral. And we can—these other scholars
are neutrally approaching the Scripture. Now, everybody approaches
with presuppositions. We've just got to be sure that
our presuppositions are biblical. Here's the bottom line. The Inspired
Gospel of John quotes from Isaiah 6 and Isaiah 53. Okay, those are the two halves
of the book that people say supposedly had two different authors. Quotes
from those both and attributes them both to Isaiah the prophet.
That's John 12, 37 through 41. So by inspiration, we know that
both halves were written by the same prophet. The inspired Apostle
Paul quotes from Isaiah 10, 53, and 65, and gives credit to all
three chapters to Isaiah the prophet. That's in Romans 9,
27, and Romans 10, 16 through 21. You see a unity of authorship. and the unity of the book of
Isaiah and other inspired quotes like Matthew 3.3, Matthew 12.17-21,
Luke 3.4-6, Acts 8.28. In fact, if you want to really get into this, Isaiah chapters 1, 6, 7, 9, 10,
11, 28, 29, 40, 48, 53, 62, and 65 are all quoted by the
New Testament as being written by Isaiah the prophet. Now if
you just read the book for itself, you would have come to that conclusion
because Isaiah identifies himself as the author 16 times in this
book, okay? So if Isaiah 40 through 46 is
written by a different author than the beginning of this book,
according to compromising evangelicals and liberals, then we should
not, as they try to do, say, this is such a cool book. No,
it is not a cool book if their theory is true. On their theory,
it is a deceptive book, and the New Testament has deceived us
about this book as well. But really, the reverse is true.
For the Bible Project and numerous other modern evangelicals to
give even the slightest credence whatsoever to the Deutero-Isaiah
theory is an offense of the highest nature and should be called out
as a direct attack upon the inspiration of Scripture. Now the reason
I'm even being so forthright with you is you see good stuff
on the web where evangelicals have unwittingly adopted bad
presuppositions and bad conclusions and they don't even realize the
dangers that this will lead to because it completely undermines
the authority of the Scripture. Well enough on that. Who was
this Isaiah? Well, he is sometimes called
the Apostle Paul of the Old Testament. He came from a very wealthy,
very distinguished, very prestigious Jewish family. He was married
to a prophetess, and he fathered two children by this prophetess,
chapter 7, verse 3, chapter 8, verse 3. The name of one of those
kids was Mahar Shalom Hashbaz. How would you like to have a
name like that? Actually, it's a pretty cool name. It's a prophetic
name, and I'm not going to tell you the meaning of that name.
You can look it up in the margin for yourself sometime. Isaiah
1, verse 1 says that the prophecies in this book were given under
the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, and tradition
says that he died under King Manasseh. He kept rather close
contact with royalty, and the royalty tended to persecute. him. Tradition says about his
death that he was stuffed into a hollow log and then sawn in
half by King Manasseh. When Isaiah started his ministry,
Assyria had already become a growing threat under Tiglath One of the
names I used to tell Kathy, we had to name one of our kids,
call him Tiggy for short, Tiglath-Pileser. And then Sennacherib was the
dominant king during the reign of Hezekiah. And he's mentioned
quite a few times in this book. And there is an incredibly detailed
description of when he came and laid siege to Jerusalem in chapters
36 through 37. Now, Syria had conquered already
a lot of the countries in the east, started conquering countries
in the north, came down to the south, and was really making
everybody in the south very nervous. And so Isaiah predicted the fall
of the northern 10 tribes during the same time that Hosea and
Micah prophesied. So that gives you a little bit
of the chronology of the book. But Isaiah also records the incredible
threat that Assyria posed to the southern tribes. After conquering
the 10 northern tribes, Assyria's army surrounded Jerusalem during
the reign of Hezekiah. And Hezekiah humbled himself
before God. This was a real spiritual turning
point in his life. And he asked God for a supernatural
victory. And God sent a supernatural victory.
He sent his angel. who without any human means destroyed
185,000 Assyrian soldiers and Sennacherib went fleeing back
north again with his tail between his legs. Anyway, the riveting
story of that is told in chapters 36 through 37, which forms a
beautiful and very deliberate transition between the two halves
of the book. So let me give you a brief overview
of Isaiah. Isaiah 1-39 is often called the
book of judgments because there are so many judgments upon all
of the nations that are pronounced in that section. Isaiah is a
very theonomic book. Theos is God, namos is law. God's law, very, very important
in the book of of Isaiah, and interestingly he does not just
apply God's law to Israel. He makes it very clear that God
expects all nations, yes even pagan nations, to live by His
law, and when they do not they will be judged by His law. So
this book completely undermines the antinomianism of the modern
church. But where chapters 1–39 are a
book of judgments, chapters 40–66 is called the book of comfort.
Okay, it shows how God will extend the comfort of His gospel to
the ends of the earth, and yes, through that grace He will also
extend the knowledge of His law to the end of the earth. So that's
the big overview picture. Let's go back to chapter one
again. Chapter one forms kind of an introduction to the whole
book. Isaiah introduces himself in
verse 1 and says right from the get-go that his prophecies are
going to take place during the reigns of four kings. So you don't really need any
theory of two or three authors. He lays out the whole book at
each start of each section by which king he's prophesying under.
So Epic 1, and I've listed this in your outlines, Epic 1 takes
place during the reign of Ahaz and covers all of chapters Well,
let me go back. Chapters 1 through 6 was under
Uzziah and continued into the reign of Jotham. And he kind
of identifies that in chapter 6, which occurs right before
chapter 1. I don't know why it's out of
order, but it is out of order there. It's thematically not
out of order. It's got a brilliant purpose
there. Epic 2 takes place under the
reign of Ahaz, covers all of chapters 7 through 27. Epic 3
takes place during the first 15 years of Hezekiah's life. Now the reason I'm even giving
these time periods is it helps us to interpret the book. One
of the things that it tells us is that having a Christian king
is not enough. Hezekiah was a professing believer
And yet God, during the reign of Hezekiah, is pronouncing all
of these woes upon Judah. Why would He do that when you've
got a Christian king? Well, it's because the rest of
the nation was still in rebellion against God, and He points the
finger at some of these people. So even though a top-down revival
is a good thing, it stays God's hand, it does not have lasting
power. And the reason is that kings
cannot change people's hearts. Archaeologists think that the
seal of Hezekiah that's on the last page of your outlines, that
was an imprint that they found not too long ago, that that shows some of the compromises that
Hezekiah had even in the first part of his reign. The first
part of his reign, chapter 28 through 39. And the compromises
are, you can see some of the pagan symbols on there. He was
living under the dominance and acknowledging the authority of
pagan Assyria. Epic four takes place during
the last 15 years of Hezekiah's reign, and it covers all of chapters
40 through 66, and those brought incredible comfort to God's people.
So that's looking at the whole book through the lens of which
years Isaiah prophesied in, and knowing that helps you not only
oppose weird liberal ideas, but it also helps in the interpretation
of the book. Now, what I want to do is I want
to fly the airplane a little bit lower down so that you can
get some of the details of the landscape. Chapters 1 through
12 give us God's covenant lawsuit against Jerusalem. And in the
process, God gives us a tale of two cities. There is the old
Jerusalem, which is going to be going up in flames long after
Isaiah dies. It's a prophecy about the future.
And it's gonna be replaced with the New Jerusalem, which will
be inaugurated under the Messiah in the New Covenant, and that
is going to last forever. Now that theme, Old Jerusalem,
New Jerusalem, is going to keep cropping up in this book. So chapters 1 through 12 is the
covenant lawsuit against Jerusalem. Chapters 13 through 27 is the
covenant lawsuit against pagan nations. And again, the tale
of two cities comes up, but in this section it's a little bit
different. It's the cities of Nineveh and Babylon. Both of
those are going to go up in flames as well, and they are going to
be replaced at some period with the New Jerusalem. Now, that
is fascinating to me because it means to me that God is not
just going to replace apostate Judaism with the New Jerusalem. That's all that hyper-preterists
are ever focused on is Jerusalem and Israel. No, He's going to
replace all cities of man that have exalted themselves against
the knowledge of God with the New Jerusalem. All cities. Chapters 28-39 deal with the
rise and fall of the earthly city of Jerusalem once again,
and so it's revisiting the theme of chapters 1-12. And he says
there that it was once a faithful city, but now has become a harlot
city that is no different than paganism. And that section ends
with a prediction that Babylon will take away everything that
Hezekiah very pridefully showcased to the Babylonian embassy that
had come to visit him. He was very proud of his accomplishments,
and Isaiah came up and kind of perked his bubble and said, you
know what? Out of the pride of your heart,
you showed all of these things to Babylon. I'm gonna bring Babylon
along, and he's gonna steal all of that from you. Okay, so that's
the end of that period there. So at least thematically you
can put the 70-year exile between chapters 39 and 40. So in my
white space there I've got this is where the exile occurs and
then chapter 40 deals with the post-exilic period of of Israel,
and it gives some incredibly detailed prophecies of how Israel
will be released, well first of all cast into exile, we already
saw that, but then released from that exile by Cyrus the Great
when Cyrus conquers Babylon. So there's a lot to rejoice about
in chapters 40 through 48. But sadly, God still has to address
unbelief that will in the future still occur in that post-exilic
a period of Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther, and all of those people.
He's warning them. There's still going to be unbelief
at that point in time. In fact, he gives hints that
God is going to have to motivate his people, bring them to repentance
through the pain, the very pain that the book of Esther is going
to be describing. So this makes it very clear that
the post-exilic period is not the Messianic kingdom. And as
good as Cyrus was, he is not the Messiah. God is quick to
show that the true Messiah described in chapter 42 will be infinitely
better. And it's that Messiah who is
the main theme of the next section, chapters 49 through 55. Those
chapters show that Jesus, the faithful servant of YHWH, will
completely fulfill God's mission for planet earth. He will conquer
the earth. And then chapters 56 through
66 show how the servants of the Messiah will inherit God's kingdom
over time. So that's kind of a little bit
more detailed overview, but I want to fly the airplane even lower
so that we can see some of the really cool features of this
book. I wanted you to at least see
what the roadmap was before we start flying over this country.
So let's go back to chapter one. In some ways, chapter one encapsulates
the message of the whole book. It forms an introduction. It
encapsulates, first of all, the sinful depravity of man that
is in need of the gospel, just like the whole first half of
the book, first 39 chapters, encapsulate the incredible sinfulness
of man. Impossible to redeem themselves,
they need a redeemer. So take a look at the graphic
description of man's evil and man's desperate need. I'm gonna
read chapter one, verses four through six. Alas, sinful nation, a people
laden with iniquity, a brood of evildoers, children who are
corruptors. They have forsaken the Lord.
They have provoked to anger the Holy one of Israel. They have
turned away backward. Why should you be stricken again?
You will revolt more and more. The whole head is sick and the
whole heart faints from the soul of the foot, even to the head.
There is no soundness in it, but wounds and bruises and putrefying
sores. They have not been closed or
bound up or soothed with ointment. So that captures the predominant
theme of evil and judgment. in the first half of the book.
And the basic point is you cannot appreciate the good news of the
gospel till you understand that you need the gospel. So he's
using Ray Comfort's approach to evangelism. He's saying, here's
the law of God that shows what a dirty, rotten sinner you are. But here's the good news, we've
got a parachute, right? And you can get out of the airplane
that's going down. So having shown man's sinfulness,
look now at verses 18 through 20, a section which presents
really the beauty of what the gospel does. In some ways, I
think this showcases the second half of the book. So again, keep
in mind, chapter one is going to show what the rest of the
book is going to be about. Beginning at verse 18. Come now,
let us reason together, says the Lord. Though your sins are
like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Though they are
red like crimson, they shall be as wool. If you are willing
and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land. But if you
refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured by the sword, for the
mouth of the Lord has spoken. So despite the fact that both
Israel and Judah deserved judgment, God was offering forgiveness
to anyone in those nations who would turn to Him and who would
believe the gospel. And gospel means good news. It
was good news to them indeed, because what He was saying is
despite the fact that you have stinking mass of putrefying sores
and sin and uncleanness, God is going to wash them, make them
sparkling clean through the blood of Jesus Christ, the coming Messiah.
It really is a beautiful message. But chapters one through 12 show
how Judah would ignore this message and would continue to increase
in wickedness and would eventually be cast out. Apart from the gospel
of Jesus Christ, this is the trajectory of any nation. Chapter
1, verse 12 complains, how the faithful city has become a harlot.
It was full of justice, righteousness lodged in it, but now murderers. There is no such thing as neutrality
or standing still. You're either pressing with all
your might or fighting the good fight with all your might against
the world of flesh and the devil, or you are backsliding into depravity.
Some people think, well, I'm just taking a break here. You
know, I've, we all need a time to coast. If you're coasting,
you're coasting backwards. It's just the way it is. Unless
we are pressing into our upward calling, we are drifting backwards. There is no neutrality. And so
in this section, A covenant lawsuit is proclaimed against Jerusalem,
the capital of Judah, and against Israel, which would soon be cast
out of the land. Jerusalem on earth becomes a
symbol of everything that is wrong in the world. And in chapters
one through two, Isaiah describes a purifying fire that will destroy
the old Jerusalem that is so full of rebellion and idolatry
and sinfulness. and injustice, and it contrasts
that with the new Jerusalem that will be established by Christ
in the new covenant that is going to be filled with justice, will
eventually bring peace to the entire nations. So it's heaven
invading earth transforming the earth. And what he does in the
first four verses of chapter two is to give us a sneak peek
of the second half of the book. The word that Isaiah son of Amon
saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. Now it shall come to pass in
the latter days that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be
established on the top of the mountains and shall be exalted
above the hills and all nations shall flow to it. Many people
shall come and say, come, let us go up to the mountain of the
Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us His
ways and we shall walk in His paths. For out of Zion shall
go forth the law and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He
shall judge between the nations and rebuke many people. They
shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into
pruning hooks. Nations shall not lift up sword
against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore. So it
is a marvelous picture of Christ's kingdom advancing so effectively
that eventually all nations will submit to Jesus, will submit
to His law, and will be at peace. There will no longer be war on
planet Earth. Now sadly, the United Nations
has quoted that last verse and put that on their building. They
proudly display it, you know, turning plows, How is it worded
here? Beating their swords into plowshares,
their spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift up sword
against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore. But they
very deliberately left the Messiah out of that. They left God's
grace out of that. So when you are quoting the results
of what Christ alone can do, and you're leaving out the Christ
of verse 4, then you have become an antichrist. Basically, that's
what the United Nations is. It is an antichrist organization
because they want to bring the peace that Christ will, but not
with his methods. They want to bring that peace
through the city of man. But Christ, in chapters 1 through
2, guarantees that He will tear down the city of man and replace
it with the city of God, ruled over by Jesus and advanced by
His saints. So He's using poetic language
to describe the church. That's what He's doing. Beautiful
description of New Covenant times. And this contrast between old
Jerusalem, new Jerusalem keeps coming up in this book. New Jerusalem
is mentioned 14 times and the old Jerusalem is mentioned 35
times, but the new replaces the old. Now of course it's the Messiah
and the Messiah alone who can accomplish that. And even this
first covenant lawsuit, which covers chapters one through 12,
has constant forward references to the Messiah. What Ahaz was
unwilling to do, Messiah will do. After Isaiah's amazing call
to ministry is described in chapter six, God gives what some people
call the book of Emanuel in chapters seven through 12. Now you'll
see that the book of Emanuel is highlighted, kind of a little
side note on page one, page two of your outlines. And then page
three, it shows it in a chiasm. It kind of expands upon that
little section so that you can see what the heart of that book
of Emanuel is. There's still judgments from
Assyria, but then he points out there is a coming Messiah in
the future who's going to be God with us. So he's going to
be a divine Messiah. and He's going to be the solution.
So let me read the heart of that chiasm. This is chapter 9, verses
6 through 7. For unto us a child is born,
unto us a son is given, and the government will be upon his shoulder,
and his name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting
Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of His government
and peace there will be no end. Upon the throne of David and
over His kingdom, to order it and establish it with judgment
and justice from that time forward even forever, the zeal of the
Lord of hosts will perform this." So God's putting His very reputation
at stake. He guarantees the successful
growth of Christ's kingdom and of His justice in the earth.
Why? Because God's zeal is going to be behind the Lord Jesus Christ.
So even in the midst of judgments, you have these constant forward
references to Jesus being the solution. One of my favorite
prophetic passages in Isaiah is actually Isaiah chapter 11,
And I was so tempted to go through it, but we're gonna skip over
it. But you do have to read that passage, the incredible depth
to which His grace is gonna transform even animals and even snakes
upon the earth. It's just an amazing passage. But He does say that it's going
to take place over a long period of time. Chapter 12 then closes
out the book of Emanuel with praise, it's a hymn of praise,
as missions successfully goes to the ends of the earth. So
that's the end of first section. If you look at the outline on
page two, you'll see that chapter three returns to the theme of
judgment. And this time it is judgment
against all the nations. Chapters 13 through 14 gives
us remarkable prophecies long, long, long before they ever happened
about the fall of Assyria and then later the fall of Babylon.
And your outline then in the next chapters shows Philistia
being judged, chapter 14, Moab, chapters 15 and 16, Syria, Israel,
Ethiopia, Egypt, another prophecy against Babylon, Edom, Arabia,
Judah, Shebna, who is one of the leaders within Judah, Tyre,
and then all the other nations. Now, when you look at that long
list, the implications of this are huge. If the only ones that
God expected to live by his laws were the Jews, as so many modern
Christians try to claim, why on earth did God judge Gentile
nations for violating laws that they're supposedly not bound
by? That makes no sense whatsoever. Anti-theonomists constantly assume
that God will never judge our nation for violating biblical
law, and they insist they don't want God's laws anyway. That's
for the Jews. That's not for us. And they say, well, who would
want to be under God's laws against blasphemy and against adultery
and against sodomy? And I raise my hand and I say,
I do. I don't see how it is avoidable because I want God's blessing
on our nation, not His curse. And when you read Isaiah, you
begin to realize that every modern nation is just as much in danger
of God's wrath as those pagans were in Isaiah's day. Isaiah
is just giving us God's paradigm or plan for how He brings lawsuits
against all nations in all times. we have committed some of the
exact same sins that were committed by Babylon, Assyria, Ethiopia,
Moab, Arabia, and the other Gentile nations. And let me just look
at the reason for some of these condemnations. I'll back up just
a bit and give you God's general overview reason in chapter 5,
verse 24. Why is He bringing judgments?
He says there, therefore, as the fire devours the stubble
and the flame consumes the chaff, so their root will be as rottenness
and their blossom will ascend like dust. And here's the reason,
because they have rejected the law of the Lord of hosts and
despised the word of the Holy One of Israel. When you do that,
you're in trouble. And Christians don't like to
think about those kinds of things in America, but we need to. Okay,
so look at chapter 24 and verse five. Chapter 24 begins the section
on worldwide judgment with this observation, the earth is also
defiled under its inhabitants because they have transgressed
the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant. Now, Jameson, Fawcett, and Brown,
in their comments on this, summarize those three things this way,
quote, the moral laws, positive statutes, and national covenant. Has America thrown off the moral
laws of God? Well, obviously, yes. Has America
cast off the civil laws of God? Obviously, yes. Has America broken
covenant with God? Well, however faulty you think
our national covenants were at the beginning of our nation,
we have broken them. However faulty they were, we have broken
those covenants. And if God expected pagan nations
to obey his civil statutes or face judgment back then, he expects
the same today. And you, when you vote next year,
you need to vote as civil representatives of God, not as fearful prognosticators
of which candidate will be worse. You represent God in your office
of voter, not your safety, not your safety, you represent God
and you will be held accountable by God for your votes. In chapter
30, God pronounces judgments on children who will not hear
the law of Yehovah. So even the children in those
nations were responsible to his law. The judgment in 42 24 was
they would not walk in his ways, nor were they obedient to his
law. Now, some people give the excuse,
OK, I admit Gentile nations were judged by God's law, but that's
Old Testament. God doesn't deal with the same laws today. And so to counter that, Isaiah
very clearly gives prophecy after prophecy after prophecy that
the Messiah is going to be teaching and holding nations during the
new covenant period accountable to his law. Why on earth would
he do that if the Gentile nations are not supposed to be under
God's law? It didn't make any sense. Isaiah 2, verse 3 says
that during Christ's gospel advance in the new covenant, many people
shall come and say, come, let us go up to the mountain of the
Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us His
ways. We shall walk in His paths, for
out of Zion shall go forth the law and the word of the Lord
from Jerusalem. So it's not just grace that's
going to be preached in the new covenant. God's law will be taught
and it will be followed. Isaiah 8 prophesies the closing
of the canon in AD 70 and declares to all of the word that from
that point on, no laws can be added to his word. That's Isaiah
8 verse 16. Now we've added hundreds of thousands
of laws to the law of God and we've unlawfully done so. Once
the scriptures were completed, God commands all the earth in
these words. to the law and to the testimony,
if they do not speak according to this word, it is because there
is no light in them. Chapter eight, verse 20. Now
he said that in the context of the new covenant. So he's addressing
post AD 70 nations, nations like America. And he says to those
nations, to the law and to the testimony, if they do not speak
according to this word is because there is no light in them. That
pretty much encapsulates 98% of America's laws. There is no
light in them because they do not conform to the law of God.
Chapter 42, verse 4 prophesies of Christ's kingdom. He will
not fail nor be discouraged till he has established justice in
the earth and the coastlands shall wait for his law. Jesus
is predicted as saying in 51.4, For the law will proceed from
me, and I will make my justice rest as a light to the peoples. In 42.11, God says of Jesus,
He will exalt the law and make it honorable. Now the law is
not honorable to natural man until God's grace grabs a hold
of their hearts and suddenly it does become honorable. But
if this is God's purpose to make His law honorable, if this is
Christ's purpose to make God's law honorable, then we are fighting
against Christ when we put down the law or are ashamed of the
law or we make it dishonorable with the excuse that America
is not Israel. It doesn't matter if America is not Israel. We
are still accountable to God's laws, just like all of the pagan
nations at the time of Isaiah were accountable to His laws. God's law reflects God's character,
and since God does not evolve and change, His law does not
evolve and change. We need to be prepared for God's
judgments upon America, not think that things are gonna always
continue as they have continued in the past, including the stock
market. There is no area of life that we can say it will continue
as it has always continued. And people will say, well, if
that's true, how come God hasn't judged us before? I say, well,
you have not read history of the West if you think God has
not been at work judging the nations. He has been at work
in multitudes of ways, and I've explained that in previous sermons,
how He has done that in very specific ways. So, for example,
just very briefly, the numerous plagues that have hit the world
over the last 200 years There is a cause-and-effect relationship
between rebellion and these outbreaks, these plagues. And there have
been a number of books and people who have discussed this cause-and-effect
relationship. You can think of smallpox, with
over 300 million killed by that disease since 1800. Or the Spanish
Influenza, which killed 100 million people in a two-year period between
1918 and 1919. Bubonic plague with an estimated
100 million people killed. And there are numerous other
plagues, which even the websites describe as plagues because they
killed so many people. How many people died in the war
between the states? It's astounding when you look
at it. How many people have died in subsequent wars in America?
It really is astounding. And there's many other ways that
I've documented that God has brought judgments in our country,
including ungodly taxation. I was just reading this past
week that Iowa and Nebraska have made it into Kiplinger's top
10 absolutely worst states for taxation. We are in the worst,
you know, the top of these 10 worst states for taxation. That
is a judgment. Now, it's a minor, mild, mild
judgment, but it is a kind of judgment according to the Word
of God. But according to Isaiah, the worst that America has suffered
in the past is nothing compared to the kinds of judgments that
the high-handed rebellion we are seeing in D.C. and even in
our city council and in our states is deserving of from God's hand.
We have not seen anything yet. And people complain, well, why
would God judge the people for the sins of the rulers? Well,
this is the way I look at it. Back when our nation was formed
in 1776, at least the second stage of our nation, one of the
favorite expressions that tended to circulate was, resistance
to tyrants is obedience to God. But they also pointed out that
the reverse of that or the inverse of that is also true. If we fail
to resist tyrants, we are disobeying God as a population and are therefore
implicitly guilty. That's why God killed 70,000
people because of David's sin of numbering
Israel. And people say, that's just not
fair. We're so individualistic, we don't realize the covenantal
connections that we have. 2 Samuel chapter 24. Even the
public has a responsibility to oppose the lawless actions of
government, whether those are abortion, homosexuality, economic
theft, the ungodly American census, or whatever. And so it should
be no surprise to us that in chapters 28 through 35, God pronounces
woes upon entire nations for the sins of their leaders and
for their own sins. The citizens are held accountable,
and the series of woes in those chapters cover a ton of territory. It's just incredible. Let me
just list a few of these sins. Pride, self-sufficiency, drunkenness,
formality in worship, entangling ourselves with God-hating nations,
relying on military might, fraud, cowardice, immorality, murder,
fornication, the death of innocence, bribery, graft, financial oppression,
inflation of currency, and other sins. As I was looking through
the lists of sins that God pronounced judgments upon the nations, I
realized I don't think there's a single sin that they were judged
for that we do not see right now in America. I think we need
to get used to applying the books that we read to our own situation
and then saying, Lord, how do you want me to respond as one
of your remnant people? How do we respond? Because we
know how you generally work in history. Help us to anticipate. And yet those same chapters give
hope sprinkled throughout them that if there is repentance and
a pursuing of God, God will relent of his disasters. Now, He does
predict nobody is going to repent as a result of your preaching,
Isaiah. How would you like that as a call? You preach your heart
out for the next few years, nobody is going to listen to you. So
even though he predicted that there would be no positive results
from his preaching, he also predicted that during the time of the Messiah
there would be phenomenal results of the preaching, that entire
nations would indeed repent and turn after the Lord. And so I
think we have far greater hope for things being able to be turned
around in America than Isaiah had. We have far greater hope.
I love chapter 35. Speaks of deserts blossoming
and becoming productive again. Of God healing the blind, the
deaf, the lame. It's just remarkable. Very poetic
descriptions of what can happen to this world if this world,
the nations, would wholeheartedly turn to Jesus Christ. There will
be no more judgments whatsoever. Chapter 35, verse 8 says, a highway
will be there and a road, and it shall be called the highway
of holiness. The unclean shall not pass over it, but it shall
be for others. Whoever walks the road, although
a fool, shall not go astray. No lion shall be there, nor shall
any ravenous beast go up on it. It shall not be found there,
but the redeemed shall walk there, and the ransomed of the Lord
shall return and come to Zion with singing, with everlasting
joy on their heads. They shall obtain joy and gladness,
and sorrow and sighing shall flee away. May it be so, Lord
Jesus, even in our own day. But God knows how lousy we are
at applying the Word of God, and so He gives us very tangible
examples. He does so in 1 Samuel, 1 Kings,
1 Chronicles, but He does so in chapters 36-39. It's a very
vivid case study of what happens to an entire nation when a king
will turn to the Lord. The remarkable story of Hezekiah. It does end, sadly, with him
pridefully showing off his wealth to the Babylonian embassy. And
I talked about that earlier. But God does miraculously save
them from Sennacherib. That is His grace. He does miraculously
heal Hezekiah and extends his life 15 years. That is grace. But Isaiah never lets us think
that an earthly king is the solution. We realize that when Hezekiah
messes up. Earthly kings must put their
trust in King Jesus, and we must never put our trust in princes.
though chapters 40-48 will give fabulous predictions of King
Cyrus delivering Israel it also makes clear that he doesn't measure
up to Jesus, the true servant of the Lord who is described
in chapters 42 and 49. Now Cyrus is a very important
figure in that section. I'll just read one little bit
here chapter 48, verses 17 and following. And this would have
given a huge comfort to Ezra, Nehemiah, Mordecai, and others
many years later. Thus says the Lord your Redeemer,
the Holy One of Israel, I am the Lord your God who teaches
you to profit, who leads you by the way you should go. Oh,
that you had heeded my commandments. Then your peace would have been
like a river and your righteousness like the waves of the sea. Your
descendants also would have been like the sand and the offspring
of your body like the grains of sand. His name would not have
been cut off nor destroyed from before me. go forth from Babylon,
flee from the Chaldeans with a voice of singing, declare,
proclaim this, utter it to the end of the earth, say the Lord
has redeemed his servant Jacob." And so chapters 40 through 48
announce hope of a future return from a future exile. This is
long before the exile happened. It's a marvelous prediction.
Then chapters 49 through 55, Return to that theme of Jesus
being the true servant of the Lord and give marvelous predictions
of His birth, His life, death, resurrection, and reign. Yes,
Hezekiah is a great king. He's a servant, but nothing like
Jesus. Yes, Cyrus was a servant of God, but nothing like Jesus
the Messiah. Messiah will be the faithful
servant, the suffering servant, the rejected servant, the kingly
servant, the conquering servant, and the worshiped servant. He
will establish a kingdom which will never end. He is the first
and the last, the Redeemer of Israel. He is our Creator, our
Sustainer, and in light of His all-sufficiency Isaiah says,
why on earth would you ever go to idols? Why would you do that? In chapter 52 He bears the sins
of His people. In chapter 53 we have the remarkable
prophecy of His crucifixion and His resurrection. In fact it
is so remarkable that It is excluded from the public readings in modern
Jewish synagogues. They read through all of the
prophets and all of Moses, but they very deliberately exclude
Isaiah 53. Why? It looks too much like Jesus. If you want a remarkable prophecy
of Jesus and even that he has a beard, you know, all kinds
of things about Jesus, read Isaiah 53. There's many Jews who have
become converted as a result of reading that chapter. Now
this death and resurrection of the coming Messiah results in
the perpetual covenant of peace being established in chapter
54. Chapter 55 is an invitation to partake of the Lord Jesus
Christ. He alone can satisfy. Don't look
anywhere else for satisfaction in life. He is your satisfaction.
Chapters 56 through 59 speaks of another future judgment on
Jerusalem. still hundreds of years in Isaiah's
future, and an extension of the kingdom to the Gentiles. Chapter
60 speaks of the kingdom extending so powerfully that the Gentiles
will be converted. They in turn will convert Israel. Chapter 63 is an exhortation
to give God no rest until God establishes all of these purposes
in history. We have a song, a beautiful song,
that that's based on that chapter. But it's obvious from the later
chapters that Christ's kingdom glory will not grow overnight. We must have patience, we must
have perseverance. It will gradually grow until
it fills the earth. But I want to read to you from
chapter 65 beginning at verse 17 that gives, this is the trajectory,
this is what's eventually going to be on earth. For behold I
create new heavens and a new earth and the former shall not
be remembered or come to mind. But be glad and rejoice forever
in what I create. For behold, I create Jerusalem
as a rejoicing and her people a joy. I will rejoice in Jerusalem
and joy in my people. The voice of weeping shall no
longer be heard in her, nor the voice of crying. No more shall
an infant from there live but a few days, nor an old man who
has not fulfilled his days. For the child shall die 100 years
old, but the sinner being 100 years old shall be accursed.
They shall build houses and inhabit them. They shall plant vineyards
and eat their fruit. They shall not build and another
inhabit. They shall not plant and another
eat. For as the days of a tree, so shall be the days of my people.
And my elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands. They
shall not labor in vain, nor bring forth children for trouble.
For they shall be the descendants of the blessed of the Lord, and
their offspring with them. It shall come to pass that before
they call, I will answer. And while they are still speaking,
I will hear. The wolf and the lamb shall feed together. The
lion shall eat straw like the ox, and dust shall be the serpent's
food. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountains,
says the Lord." Now, even though the fullest expression of the
new heavens and new earth takes place in eternity, the last day
of history, this passage is clear that Christ begins to make all
things new right now while people are giving birth to babies, while
there are still sinners, while there is still some death that
is going on. So it's the already and the not
yet. Jesus has already purchased everything needed for the new
heavens and new earth. He has already begun advancing the newness
of the new heavens and the new earth, and the ultimate expression
of that will come into being when the last enemy, death, is
conquered in the resurrection. But that implies every other
enemy is put down long before that. Chapter 66 then forms a
conclusion, just like chapter 1 formed an introduction. It
takes us back to Genesis chapter 1. It says, hey, God created
everything, and God is not going to put up with the continued
rebellion and false worship that you guys are engaged in, in Isaiah's
day, he's telling them, because God maintains antithesis. Instead, God is going to do miracles
like the Incarnation, verses 7-8, overnight conversion of
nations, extending His peace like a river, the glory of the
Gentiles like a flowing stream. But He says in verses 14-24,
always. God will maintain antithesis. By the way, that antithesis will
continue throughout all of eternity because the last verse of Isaiah
has heaven, they're the righteous, looking on the wicked, burning
for all of eternity in hell. God's victory is most fully manifested
when we see and are able, because we will be glorified at that
point, able to rejoice in that antithesis that God lays before
us. And so perhaps you can see why
I labeled the key word as salvation. I'm going to skip over all of
the keys that are in your outline, and I'm going to skip over the
examples of the Christ of Isaiah in your outline. I've touched
upon some, but there's really no better way of seeing Christ
in this book than to prayerfully read this book and asking God
to show Himself to you in this book. I've given you an assignment,
fill-in-the-blank assignment of 18 chapters. If you can figure
out Christ in those 18 chapters, you get extra points, okay? He's
in other chapters in Isaiah as well, but if you can figure Him
out in those 18 chapters, I'll be very proud of you. That'll
be great. But I do want to end this sermon by reading a quote
from the introduction to John Oswalt's commentary. He says,
of all the books in the Old Testament, Isaiah is perhaps the richest. Its literary grandeur is unequaled. Its scope is unparalleled. The
breadth of its view of God is unmatched. In so many ways, it
is a book of superlatives. Thus, it is no wonder that Isaiah
is the most quoted prophet in the New Testament, and along
with Psalms and Deuteronomy, one of the most frequently cited
of all Old Testament books. Study of it is an opportunity
for unendering inspiration and challenge. It comes to us as
a word from God, a revelation of the inevitable conflict between
divine glory and human pride, of the self-destruction which
that pride must bring, and of the grace of God in restoring
that destroyed humanity to Himself. To read the book with the open
eyes of the Spirit is to see oneself, at times all too clearly,
but also to see a God whose holiness is made irresistible by His love. And may we find the God of Isaiah
irresistible to us. Amen. Father, we thank you for
this book. We thank you for the whole Bible,
that you have given to us everything that we need for life and godliness
in these scriptures. And we do want to study them,
to know them, to be transformed by them. And I pray that you
would bless this people as they continue to dig into your word.
We pray this in Jesus' name.
Isaiah
Series Bible Survey
This marvelous book displays not only the depravity of man in need of grace, and the Gospel of Jesus Christ, but virtually every doctrine found in the Bible. It's eschatology gives faith and hope to persevere. It's judgments motivate us to influence culture with grace and law. In sum, it is a book needed for transformation.
Sermon transcripts can be found at kaysercommentary.com
| Sermon ID | 101019510521 |
| Duration | 57:19 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Bible Text | Isaiah 1:1 |
| Language | English |
Add a Comment
Comments
No Comments
© Copyright
2026 SermonAudio.