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.