We're going to be in the book of Isaiah for a while. How long? I don't know. It took John MacArthur seven years to go through Matthew, and that's only 28 chapters. And we've got 66 chapters here in Isaiah, so your guess is as good as mine. But it's going to be good. I can tell you that much. It is great. I was having a good time today just putting together the introductory message. We launch into the book of Isaiah, and it is what arguably could be called the greatest prophecy in the Bible, particularly in the Old Testament. It's the third largest complete literary entity in the entire Bible. The only two books of the Bible that are larger are Jeremiah and the Psalms. And of course, the Psalms is a collection of 150 different songs. So, the Psalms is not even a complete unit in itself, except for the fact that it's a collection. There are more quotations from Isaiah in the New Testament than any other book in the Old Testament. When it comes to messianic prophecy and allusions, only in the Psalms do you find more quotations about Messiah in the New Testament. Isaiah would be second only to the Psalms in terms of Old Testament prophecy of Christ in the New Testament. And you know what I think? This is my opinion, and I think it's a good opinion. My opinion is usually not worth too much if it's just an opinion, but I think it's a crime for people to not be reading their Bibles. I've heard an illustration one time, and the illustration... Now, you see, when I ask people, I see, they say, what are you reading in the Bible? I say, well, I haven't been, so it kind of catches people. It's like when you go to the dentist and he says, have you been flossing your teeth? It's like, well... We're supposed to be reading our Bible, okay? That's the point. You're supposed to be reading your Bible. Now, you know, I heard an illustration one time, and the illustration that somebody gave is that it's like, you know, the newlywed whose husband just went off to war. Maybe he's in the Vietnam War, and he writes back a letter. Do you think that she's going to wait to open that thing? No way. She's going to open that letter up right away, and she's going to be in that letter because it's a love letter from her beloved. And that is what we should see in the Word of God. We should see this is God's love letter to us. One commentator by the name of Grogan says, Ignorance on any part of Scripture is to be deplored. But this is particularly so with a book that gives such a manifold presentation of Christ, a view of him that is most majestic and moving and one in which the virtually unknown context of the well-known passages shed a flood of light on those passages themselves. In other words, when we come and we study the New Testament and we look at all of these things that are brought out in the New Testament, we see these things and really to appreciate it, We have to understand what is the Old Testament contextual background. Otherwise, it's all in an abstract. You know, we've got to know what the Old Testament is all about. It's going to be real hard to appreciate the fullness of the beauty of the New Testament until we see what the background is. Isaiah is a beautiful book by itself. I mean, if you just look at the literary beauty of Isaiah, it's a fantastic book. Again, Grogan says, the survey of the whole book reveals the high literary quality of so much of its material, in its poetic style, in the wonderful way thought and language are matched to each other, in the plentiful and not forced use of devices, literary devices. Now, it's a book that stands on its own. I mean, it's just the Prince of Prophets. So far in the last five years, and this has been our place tonight, we have gone through the book of Daniel, which just unfolds the future like no other book in the Bible. And we've also gone through the 12 minor prophets. You have 17 prophets in the Hebrew canon of scripture. And the Hebrew canon originally was actually kind of arranged a little differently, but if you look at your own testament, you have what's called the five major prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel. And those five prophets are called the major prophets because they're bigger books. Generally speaking, there are larger books. Then you have what's called the Twelve, or we call it the Minor Prophets. Now, it starts in Hosea and then go all the way to the end of Malachi. So far, what we've done is we have done Dana and the Twelve and Isaiah. Now, before you launch into any study of any book or the Bible, it is very important that you lay a foundation through an introductory message, because there is an important background about the context and the writer and all of these other things that is very important to understand to know what the book is about. A lot of people, they read the Bible, and they never get the kind of teaching or the kind of background It helps them to understand the contextual background. And, you know, you can just pick up a Bible and listen to me on Yes or Aye and start reading it. You're going to get the point. You need a Savior, you know? God will make sure that you get that point. You need a Savior, and His name is Jesus Christ. But there is a whole lot of background, and it's very helpful to understand things that may not be in the Bible itself, things about history. Because when Isaiah was writing, like any other part of the Scripture, when Isaiah was writing, he was writing to real people, real situations. And so, when you have a discussion about some guy like the name of Tiglath-Pileser, the Assyrian king, when we say Tiglath-Pileser, what in the world is that? Well, you know, if you understand a little bit about the Assyrian armies, then you know what Assyria was all about. You say, ooh, wow, that's a bad dude. And you understand the contextual background. That's what we're going to do tonight. Now, the first of the five things that I want to bring out for you is, first of all, author. It's interesting how so many of the prophets didn't need really points to who we are. For example, do you know what the word Malachi, what it means in Hebrew? It means my messenger, my key, my messenger. And if you look in Malachi chapter 3, what God says to the nation is, He said, before I am going to send my messenger before me, before Him. In other words, He's talking about the messenger that will come before the Messiah. We would basically have the John of Aptos, Elijah, who was, he had to cover some prophet's worries up. Now I want to take you by the method of the book. The prophet who spoke this actually had the same name, related to some of the subject material. Isaiah's name means, Yahweh is salvation. Yahweh is salvation, Yisra'el, and Yah is the Yahweh. The name Yahweh or Isaiah, it means Yahweh is salvation. And that's very fitting because the book as a whole is about the salvation that God brings. Gleason Archer says approximately, appropriately enough, the basic theme of Isaiah's message is that salvation bestowed only by grace, by the power of God, the Redeemer, rather than by the strength of man or by the good works of the flesh. You know, Isaiah so clearly says, Your salvation is not from what you do. He says in chapter 59, he says, Your sins, they have separated you from God. That's why God won't hear you. But God's arm is not so short that it cannot save. God's power is not so weak that He can't save. But you need to confess your sin. And so clearly, the Bible says, Your salvation is of God and by God. Now, I believe that there was one man named Hytan who wrote this book. You may say, well, so what? Okay, well, the so what about it is that if you picked up a lot of commentaries, a lot of books around here, Christian, well, Christian love story. It's not a grace, it's not the book shape. The book shape, well, you don't believe it. There's things here that you'll have to believe. I mean, there's just so much we believe in theology that it doesn't tell you two or three things. I mean, it's pretty anecdotal, and the grace is the same way in a couple of books, but there's so many theologians today that are basing it on the Bible. The letter that we approach to Isaiah really is, it is written to say that there was not one author, but there were a lot of authors, and they wrote over a long period of time. Now, the reason why I'm really giving you some of these background things, and why I'm doing this, is because I think that's the most exciting stuff in the world to talk about. But, listen, if you pick up something and you start reading something, or somebody comes to you and says, oh, you see, I didn't write that book. It was written by, you know, several other people, you know, over centuries, so you don't have to worry about it in the first place. What I'm doing right now is I want to give you important points of background. I mean, none of this here says people know how to smell a dead fish. There's a dead fish in here. Yeah, you know what? When you smell a dead fish, it's because you have been trained to smell a dead fish. And that's what I want to do for you. I'm going to train you how to smell a dead fish. One of my classes might be animal science now, which is a PhD in animal science. we are providing a kind of scientific funding to the classroom, even to the professors here, in a way it's a little bit more secure. I find it, there's some things here that work kind of in the background, but it's important to know, because if you come across these bubble ideas that have never been posed before, you say, well, we need to do a little bit more of that before, and it kind of changes your focus. OK? Listen, look at Chapter 1, verse 1. the vision of multiple authors When it comes to the Bible, we should take the Bible at its base value, just like we would take any other document. You know, we the people in order to form a more perfect view. You know, when these guys sign their names when they say, we are the ones who are writing this book and making this document, we should accept documents at this degree, at this value, not through some reason to reject one instead. I mean, shouldn't we give them a fair opportunity now? God says that this book was written by Isaiah. Now you see Isaiah's name in numerous books. He's in chapter 2, chapter 7, chapter 14, 37, 38, 39. He's in Isaiah's name in many, many books. He's in Isaiah's name in many, many books. He's in Isaiah's name in many, many books. He's in Isaiah's name in many, many books. He's in Isaiah's name in many, many books. He's in Isaiah's name in many, many books. He's in Isaiah's name in many, many books. He's in Isaiah's name in many, many books. He's in Isaiah's name in many, many books. He's in Isaiah's name in many, many books. He's in Isaiah's name in many, many books. He's in Isaiah's name in many, many books. He's in Isaiah's name in many, many books. He's in Isaiah's name in many, many books. He's in Isaiah's are presented by one man, back in the 8th century BC, a strength, a mane-raker, a genius, a genius, a genius, a genius, a genius, a genius, a genius, a genius. I'm going to do this, and then I'm going to do this, and then I'm going to do this. Well, you see, the liberals, right off the bat, they reject the supernatural God, and they predict a public league. So, it's impossible, in their view, that it could have been one way of writing in the United States, because they reject this supernatural God. Well, you know, it's not a lot of reasoning. It's like a whole evolution thing. They reject a creator God, and so, therefore, They would say, there cannot be such a thing as creation. Why? Because there is no God who created. Well, that's circular. That's right. They've got a circular argument. But I want to give you just kind of a condensed little bit about the historical development of this multi-author theory. Really, until the 18th century, nobody questioned the fact that it was Isaiah, except one guy back in the 12th century by the name of Kuben Ezra. He was a 12th century Jew who came up with the idea that there was two Isaiahs, one that wrote in chapters 1 to 39, and then somebody else a little bit of a shift of focus in that latter section of the book. But until the 18th century, basically everybody, Jewish and Christian, felt that there was one author, the one that we know as Isaiah. But what happened in the 18th century is that there was an onslaught of liberal thinking, of godless, liberal theology, that began to attack the Bible. And it began with the first five books of the Old Testament, the Pentateuch. And you had these theories come out, like the J-E-P-D theory. that says that there was four authors to the Old Testament books of Moses. There was the Talmud, and then there was the Elohim, and then there was the Priestly, and then there was the Deuteronomy. And they come up with this theory to say that, you know, Genesis was written by four different people. And these guys, I kid you not, they will take something like Genesis, and they'll say, well, this word was written by J, and I think Tish is right, and then they'll say the next word, and then this came in by E, then the next line went out by D, and they just tear the whole book apart. And they spent their whole life consisting these theories. A thing you've never even heard of, right? It's like, well, that's right. When you come across this idea, it's so ridiculous. But the unbelieving liberals spent their lives tearing down the Bible, saying, here's why you need to believe in the Bible. It was ideas that brought the same attacks. Most of them were Germans, OK? That's really where they were. I'm not going to go through the details of all these guys, but one of them was named Doderlein back in the mid-18th century. Doderlein came along and he says, well, there must have been two people that wrote. There must have been a first Isaiah and then a Deutero-Isaiah. Well, eventually, there was developments in these thinkings, and people began to say, well, we see that there's also predicting in chapter one to thirty-nine. You know, when I've been written by somebody, well, Isaiah, who lived in seven hundred B.C., and they came up with other theories to try to explain away chapter one to thirty-nine, and people like I have to say, both of you are professors of life and the universe, and you have joined me tonight in the United States of America. And yet, it seems that there must have been other authors who wrote, perhaps, that would have been invaluable and appreciable, and it was going to be just as valuable. So they'd say, well, these people must have been later on in Babylon, but they just died in Babylonian captivity after it already took place. And then this developed into another phase of thinking that you had for quite some time, so that's what we're going to look at here. They came out with a theory that the Orcs three Isaiahs. Isaiah, Deutero-Isaiah, and Tripto, Deutero-Isaiah. And, you know, all these ideas come along, and they had all these ideas about, well, you know, they wrote this piece, and then it just got put into, I guess, a lot of what we know, what you can and what you don't know about the Marines, about their style, and a lot of stories, and all these things, and nobody can do it. It's a very tight fairy-tale, so it's very hard to get. Once in a while, it's just kind of a moment in their lives, where they say, well, one person who came with all of these kinds of information, and no matter how much information he's retrieved now, they can't use it for their own use. And then somebody puts it in the air, and finally, they disappear. And a lot of centuries later, Maybe even in the first century, an editor came along and put it all together into what we call Isaiah. Wrong answer. It's not true. It didn't happen that way. Be aware of it, because the things that you read and the things that you hear from liberals, they will say things like that. You know, like this guy over here, this friend of mine, He's an Orthodox Jew, been witnessing to him for three plus years, three, four years. And I was witnessing to him out of my Hebrew Bible from Daniel, showing him that Christ had to come and die before the destruction of the second temple, which happened 1930 years ago, A.D. 70. And Daniel 9 predicts it. Christ would come and die before the destruction of that temple. And he came back a week later and he says, well, you know, my rabbi said that, you know, that wasn't written by Daniel. It was written later on. And I said, don't you try to do that with me, because that's not true. That's not true, and basically I confronted him and just kept bringing back to what Scripture says. Listen, what you have here is a prophecy by God Himself written through a human channel, and the driving supposition behind all of this attack is they don't want to acknowledge that there is a sovereign God who rules the universe. They don't want to acknowledge it. By the way, things haven't changed. This is how it was back in Isaiah's time, too. They didn't want to acknowledge the sovereign Lord. Instead, what they did is they turned to their own idols. This is the human heart. To turn away from the fountain of living water and to hew out for yourselves cracked cisterns which cannot hold water, cracked water pools that won't hold water. They turn away from the living God. This is mankind historically. Our position is this. God knows the future because He's sovereign over the future. How can God predict the future? Here's how. Because He foreordained it. How does He know that I'm going to do this? How does He know that Cyrus is going to declare that Israel can be released from captivity? How does God know that Babylon is going to release the Jews? How does God know these things? Here's how. Because He is the sovereign master of time. You've heard the analogy. You know what history is, right? His story. His story. This is who our God is. Now, I want to just give you the kind of condensed the four reasons for these liberal views. They reject predictive prophecy. They would say that there are differences between chapters 1 to 39 and 40 to 66 differences in subject matter. They would say that there are differences in language and style and differences in theological ideas. Well, there are. You know why? There's a good reason. Because Isaiah was writing over a 50 plus year time period to all kinds of different circumstances, addressing all kinds of different issues. So there was different topics. There were different ideas. And I want to give you five good reasons why we should believe in the unity of Isaiah in terms of authorship. First of all, because when we look at the manuscript evidence, there is no absolutely no basis for looking at the manuscript evidence to say that there are two or three different sources for the book of Isaiah. Something happened very significant in 1947. You know what that was? Huh? 1948, May 14th. A year before that, a little shepherd boy was out there in a place called Qumran, and he was just tossing some rocks, and he heard a clink! And he went up into this little cave where he threw the rock, and he found some clay pots that he broke when he threw the rock, and inside of it was something that looked like manuscripts. And this little kid took them into Jerusalem, and he began speaking to some archaeologists and some people, and they looked at these and they said, where did you get these? This is the Dead Sea Scrolls and one of the scrolls that was discovered. It was discovered in Cave 1, what they called Cave 1. I've been there, I've seen these caves, I've got pictures of them. One of the scrolls that was discovered there in Cave 1 is a complete scroll of Isaiah. They've got a museum in Jerusalem called the Shrine of the Book and the roof is shaped, you know how like on a scroll you have these, you know, these I don't know what you say. You know, if you're in the scrolls, they hold a scroll on, and it's got these ends on it like these poles and you carry it and the roof is shaped like one of these scrolls and you go inside and they have. It was a sixty foot long copy of the book of Isaiah, and it goes around about the room about the size of this sanctuary, and you can walk all the way around this scroll and look at this scroll of Isaiah that dates back to about one hundred and twenty five B.C. or earlier. Now, that one is right there is actually a copy. They've got the original under preservation, but that is an identical copy of this Isaiah scroll. Sixty-six chapters perfectly preserved, dating back a thousand years earlier than what had been the earliest hand copy of Isaiah that dated to 900. This one was a thousand years earlier. Guess what? It's exactly with minor minor exception. It is exactly like the one that dates to eighty nine hundred. virtually exact. I mean, there were differences in orthography and, you know, it would be like spelling cat C. A. T. instead of K. A. T. or, you know, there were differences, minor differences, but listen, virtually identical in terms of the scroll. The Dead Sea Scrolls. What it did is it confirmed for us that when those Hebrew scribes copied and kept the Old Testament, that they were meticulous. They were meticulous. And guess what? It's all one scroll. You know what the manuscript, and there is no manuscript evidence at all that would suggest that you had different sources for Isaiah. So that is the first reason the Jews always held it to be a single book. Furthermore, actually, that was kind of my second point here. The Dead Sea Scrolls. You have the Jewish traditions. Also, you have the Dead Sea Scrolls. Also, outside of the Bible, you have other books that quote from Isaiah, like the book called Ecclesiasticus, which is actually in the in the, what do you call it, oh, what's that, the Apocrypha, talks about, and this was written In the second century B.C., a quote from Isaiah and a quote from chapter forty-eight, or a quote from chapter sixty-one, and it says, this is what Isaiah said. Well, guess what? Chapter forty is where they try to say this wasn't Isaiah. Furthermore, Josephus, writing in the first century, says that these things were written by Isaiah the prophet. Also, if you look and we're not going to look at all these details, I will gladly make a copy of any of my notes for you, but they're very detailed notes. But you can look at the verbal parallels between things that are spoken in chapters one to thirty nine and things that are spoken in chapters forty to sixty six, where you've got expressions and phrases and words that occur in both sections. It would suggest that it is the same author. There's at least twenty five Hebrew words found in both parts of Isaiah that are occurring nowhere else in the Bible. And most significant is this. The New Testament quotes Isaiah, and guess who it says wrote it? No surprise, it says Isaiah. For example, we don't have to turn it, but Romans chapter 9, verse 27. And when it quotes it, okay, go and look for just a minute. Look at Romans 9, because there's quite a few in Romans. Paul is really picking up on this. Romans chapter 9, for example, in verse 27. He says in Romans 9.27, Isaiah cries out concerning Israel. Now in Romans 9.27, he's quoting from Isaiah chapter 10. You go here to Romans 9.29, just as Isaiah foretold, and here he's quoting from the prophet Isaiah 1.9. Romans 10.16, however, they did not all heed the glad tidings, for Isaiah says, and that's Isaiah 53, who has believed our report. So there are numerous Old Testament quotations by Isaiah. Now, I want to go back with me to John for just a minute. John chapter 12, because this is really neat. I was showing this to somebody. Oh, it's Ty Young. We had lunch yesterday. This is really pretty neat section right here. Look at Isaiah chapter 12. John chapter 12. I'm sorry. John chapter 12. John is summarizing the fact that there's so much disbelief by the Jews, even though Jesus is doing all these miracles. He's saying, how could these people not believe? How could they disbelieve when Jesus is doing these things before their very eyes? Jesus has just raised a man from the dead, and they don't believe Him. Here's how. John 12, 37. Even though He had performed so many signs before them, yet they were not believing in Him. Why? Verse 38, that the word of Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled which he spoke. Lord, who has believed our report? Where does that come from? Isaiah chapter 53, the suffering servant. So he quotes from Isaiah 53, and then this is really neat, OK? Now, OK, keep your place right here, but put your finger for just a second in Isaiah chapter 6. While I'm going through this, put your place in Isaiah 6, and I want to show you something. Verse 38, verse 39, For this cause they could not believe. For Isaiah said again, He has blinded their hearts. and he has hardened their heart, or blinded their eyes and hardened their heart, lest they see with their eyes and perceive with their heart." Now, look with me at Isaiah chapter 6, verse 10. Isaiah is speaking to his own generation, and God is saying, through Isaiah 6, I am going to blind the hearts of the people as a judicial blinding, because they are rejecting my word. They will not listen. So, Isaiah 6.10, Isaiah speaks to his own generation. Render the hearts of this people insensitive, their ears dull, their eyes dim. Why? Lest they see with their eyes and hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and return and be healed. So in Isaiah's generation, God says, you know what? I'm going to judge them. I will not let them believe because they have rejected me. Now, in John chapter 12, in verse 40, he quotes from that passage and he says, Isaiah spoke, and John applies this to his own generation that is rejecting Christ. Now, this is neat. OK, look at verse 41. These things Isaiah said. Why? Because he saw his glory and spoke of him. Whose glory? Jesus Christ. When did Isaiah see glory? Go back to chapter 6. Look at verse 1. Isaiah 6-1, in the year of Kinuziah's death, Isaiah says, I saw Yahweh, the Lord, Jehovah, sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of His robe filling the temple. Seraphim stood above Him, each having six wings. With two He covered His face, with two He covered His feet, with two He flew. And He called out to another and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of His Glory. And what does John chapter 12 verse 141 say? Whose glory did Isaiah see? Christ. You know who was sitting on that throne? Who was sitting on the throne of heaven? Christ. The King. That's right. Christ. See these Jehovah Witnesses and cults that want to reject the deity of Jesus Christ? They don't know their Bible. They've got a system, but they don't know their Bible. So, the point is that I think we have extremely strong reason to believe when it says that Isaiah is the author. Isaiah was the author, okay? Isaiah was the author. Now, as far as Isaiah's family, there is evidence that Isaiah came from the royal family, that he was from the tribe of Judah. You see this, for example, in chapter 7, verse 3, and in chapter 37. that Isaiah apparently was from the royal family. One of the reasons to suggest that is because he had an open door to associate with the kings of Judah. You know, he had an open door to go in and to associate with the kings, and it would seem from this that he was part of the royal family. Also, in Isaiah chapter eight, we know that he was married. His wife may have been called the prophetess in Isaiah chapter 8 verse 3. And he had two sons. Isaiah chapter 7 tells us about one of these sons. In Isaiah chapter 7 verse 3, the Lord said to Isaiah, go out now and meet Ahaz, you and your son, Shear Yashuv. Shear means a remnant, Yashuv means will return. So he said, name your son, a remnant, will return. In other words, there will be a future remnant of Jews, of believers who come back and live in the land, Isaiah. Even though you're going to go into captivity, there will be some who survive and come back. So name your son, a remnant will return. She'ar Yeshua. And then in chapter 8, We see that he had at least one more son. In chapter eight, verse three, he says, I approached the prophetess and she conceived and gave birth to a son. Then the Lord said, Name him Maharshal al-Hashbaz. I like that. Maybe name my son that if I ever have another son. Maharshal al-Hashbaz. What it means is this. It means swift is the booty and speedy is the prey. talking about the fact that there was going to be an invasion coming in. It was going to take them away. They were going to be booty. They were going to be taken away as plunder for their enemies. Swift is the booty and speedy is the prey. There is a very old, as far as his death, there is tradition that Isaiah died at the hands of the king of Judah, King Manasseh. Manasseh was a wicked guy, and in the Ascension of Isaiah, an old book, the Ascension of Isaiah, there is a tradition that says that he was killed by Manasseh who put him inside of a hollow log and had him sawn in two. And if you look in your Bibles in Hebrews chapter 11 verse 37, you will see a reference to those who were sawn in two, who were cut in two. And that probably is going back and assuming the tradition is correct, then that was Isaiah, who was sawn in two by Manasseh, the king. He probably lived till at least 680 BC. Because Isaiah records the death of the king of Assyria, King Sennacherib, who died in 681 BC. We see that in Isaiah 37, 37. And so he probably lived till about 680. Now, as far as the dating of Isaiah goes, if you look in chapter 1, verse 1 with me, I'm giving you a lot of stuff. If you want to get. If you look at all these facts, you say, gee, this is great, but I can't keep up with you. I don't expect you to. There's a lot of stuff here. I'm just kind of giving a really, really quick glimpse of it. You want to copy? I mean, there's 18 pages of notes just for this. If you want to have freedom study purposes are gladly make copies of you, but I'm not going to dwell on every detail and just give you the big overview picture so we can know a little bit about the contextual background. If you look in chapter one verse one. Division of Isaiah, the son of Amoz concerning Judah and Jerusalem, which he saw during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, the kings of Judah. These are four kings. Now, Isaiah probably lived until the reign of Hezekiah's son Manasseh, but these four kings are mentioned right here. They are called the kings of Judah. Now remember, Israel was a divided monarchy. At one point in Israel's history, going back to the time of King Saul, which was about 1051 BC, you had one united kingdom. Saul was their first king. ten fifty one roughly and then all I was taken away from the throne and God raised up another king who is that. David. OK, David ruled a united kingdom. His son, Solomon, came to the throne. It was still a united monarchy. But Solomon's son, Rehoboam, was a bonehead, to put it bluntly. And the guy split the kingdom in half. And when the people said, hey, lighten up on us, stop taxing us to death like your dad did. He said, I'm going to make it worse on you. I'm going to be a Democrat. And they said, well, if that's where you're going to be, we're not going to let you be our king, and we're going to leave. And so, ten of the tribes departed and formed a new monarchy called... by the way, I hope there's no Democrats here. No offense intended. Ten of the tribes went and they made their own monarchy called Israel. Two tribes, Benjamin and Judah, I remain faithful to the king was sitting in David's family, and that was called the kingdom of Judah. So from that point on, from 931 BC on, you have Israel in the north with ten tribes and Judah in the south with two. And these kings right here are the kings of Judah. They were sitting on the throne of David and basically the kings in the north, Israel, They were bad from the beginning. There is not a single good king that sat on the northern monarchy. It was an illegitimate kingdom. It was illegitimate because it was not the son of David. They started off a little bit better in the south, but they ended up going south in the end. They were a little bit better, but they ended up blowing it in the end, and they finally turned to idolatry like the northern kingdom did. Finally, what happened in 722 BC is that the Assyrian armies came and destroyed the northern monarchy. Wipe it out. 722 and from that point on from 722 until the time the Babylon came in 605. You just had the kingdom of Judah in the South. Now Judah. I mean, these kings right here. These kings were ruling at a time when there was great prosperity. And if you want to compare it to something, compare it to our own United States of America right now. There is a very strong similarity to Isaiah's time to our own time. Really, really, because the country was very strong. I mean, the economy was good. They were prospering. They were expanding their borders, but they were so corrupt. They were so corrupt and walking away from God so badly. Uzziah came to the throne, this guy that is mentioned right here, in 790 BC, and he reigned until 739. Now, if you look at chapter 6, chapter 6 would suggest that Isaiah's ministry began roughly around the time of Uzziah's death, because it says in chapter 6, verse 1, in the year of King Uzziah's death, I saw the Lord. And this would seem to be Isaiah's commission into ministry. This would seem to be his commission into ministry. Uzziah was a good king, but his pride was his undoing. Remember what Uzziah tried to do? Remember your Bible history? Uzziah did something bad. Remember what it was? He tried to offer incense in the temple that only belonged to the priest. Remember what God did to him? Turned him into a leper. King Uzziah was a leper until the day he died, and his son, Jotham, had to come and basically be a co-regent, and Uzziah didn't even get buried in the royal cemetery in the city of David. Wasn't a bad guy, though. He wasn't entirely bad. He just blew it, you know, on one occasion. And he was a leper till the day he died. I guess there's a lesson for us, you know. All it takes is one time and you might really blow it. But he did a lot of good things. He had a lot of military projects to build up Israel and he had many other projects to make Israel strong and prosperous. His son Jotham came to the throne in 750 BC and served as a co-regent until his father died. He was a builder and he was a fighter against the enemies. Jotham, though, had a downfall in that he was not a strong spiritual influence on the nation. Ahaz, that is mentioned right here, was kind of worthless. On the one hand, he tried to resist the temptation to associate with the foreign powers. At one point, he tried to avoid alliances with foreign powers. But on the other hand, when he got in trouble and when he got afraid because he thought that the foreign nations were going to overtake him, he ran off to Assyria. And he went to the king of Assyria and he said, hey, come help me. I'm in trouble. Isaiah comes to him in chapter 7 and he says, what about turning to God? What about turning to God instead of to these foreign nations? How can you turn away from the living God to make alliances with pagan kings? And he was not a believer. He was not a believer. Look at chapter seven, for example. Chapter seven. The Lord in Chapter seven and verse ten. Nine. He said the head of everything is Samaria. That's the northern kingdom. The head of Samaria is the son of Amalia. If you will not believe, surely you will not last. The Lord spoke again to ask a sign for yourself from the Lord. In other words, if you don't believe that I'm going to deliver you from destruction by the Assyrians or by the armies that are invading, he says. Ask me for some kind of miracle, and I'll show you to prove that I'm going to deliver you. He says, make it high as heaven or deep as the grave. Ahab says, Oh, I'm not going to test the Lord. So look at verse 14. Therefore, the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, a virgin will conceive and bear a child, and you shall call his name Immanuel. See, here's this messianic prophecy, but it comes right out of a real-life situation. God says, I'll give you proof that I'm not going to let my people be destroyed. When you see a virgin bear a child, you'll know that I am with you. You'll know it is Emmanuel. Well, anyhow, Ahaz died in 715 B.C. Then you had this guy, Hezekiah, his son, came to the throne. Hezekiah was a good king, and he was involved in trying to purge idolatry from the land. He ruled from 715 to 686. He was not perfect, but he was a good, godly king. Hezekiah made one big mistake later on. He paid tribute to the king of Assyria. Instead of trusting God, he kind of buckled at the knees and he paid tribute to the king of Assyria. Later on, he tried to resist, and Isaiah said, Hezekiah, stop doing this. See, Isaiah is right there with him. Hezekiah, don't bow your knee to these guys. Don't give them money. God will be with us. He has told me." And Hezekiah said, OK, Isaiah, I'll trust. I'll trust. I'll believe God. But what happened as a result of this is that Assyria came in 701 B.C. Assyria came in 701 and attacked big time. Took 46 cities of Judah and conquered them. And he tracked Israel within the city of Jerusalem. But God stopped them dead in their tracks. In 2 Kings chapter 18, it says that God sent an angel. And do you remember how many people the angel killed that night of the Assyrian army? 186,000 Assyrian army soldiers died that night sitting outside the walls of Jerusalem. God said, hey, I'll take care of you. And this is really what the prophets are doing. They're coming to the people and saying, turn to the Lord and trust the Lord. Don't turn away from God. I don't care how prosperous you are, or I don't care how bad the situation is. Trust in the Lord and you will be established. Hezekiah got sick at one point after this event. And God said, Hezekiah, you better make your will out, buddy. Get your affairs in order, because you're going to die. And Hezekiah prayed. He said, Oh God, not now. God said, OK, I'll give you 15 years. God gave him an extension of 15 years. He kind of blew it in that time period, because what he did is the king of Babylon, who was kind of on friendly terms with him, the king of Babylon came to visit him and said, Oh, you know, that's great. I'm so glad to hear that you got healed, Hezekiah. and I had to show them all the treasuries that he had all the money in the temple in the treasuries and what the king of Assyria, Babylon, wanted to do is make an alliance against Assyria. So has a kind of bragging about his money and afterwards. I think I'm going to get back because you did it. They're going to be the ones to take all this money away. You blew it, buddy. You blew it. But, in any case, he was not a bad guy. His son, Manasseh, who came to the throne after that, was wicked to the core. You can read about him in 2 Kings 21 and 2 Chronicles 33. We're not going to look at him in detail, but he was a wicked, wicked guy, sacrificing children, you know, sorcery, idolatry, all kinds of stuff. Now, the nation itself, OK, what was happening at this time is that you had a period of great prosperity. I mean, Israel was flourishing in prosperity. And there was a reason why. Right before Isaiah's time period, and Isaiah began to prophesy in about 740, but about a couple of generations right before that, Assyria had seen a period of international weakness. Assyria was the bullies, OK? From about the 13th century until about the year 612 BC, Assyria, they were the bullies on the Middle Eastern bloc. And man, they just used to terrorize the Middle East with oppression and invasions and all these kinds of things. But what happened is that there was kind of a period of weakness in the Assyrian forces, and what that allowed in that gap is that allowed Israel to kind of gain some strength, and they were really strong. It'd be like kind of right now. Do we have anybody to fear in the world, really, on a major scale? Not really. I mean, we don't have another superpower threatening us. We have to worry about people with nukes and all this other kind of stuff. But basically, we're riding at the very top of the world. Israel was as well. Now, what also happened is that in their prosperity, they turned away from God totally, and they basically said, well, you know what? Who do you think you are, Isaiah, telling us that we have to follow Yahweh? We'll do it our way. And they totally walked away from God. Kind of reminds me about this strange group comic that was in the paper today, where this little kid writes 2 plus 2 equals 4. And the little kid says, well, although my personal philosophy is that there are no absolutes, he says, OK, 2 plus 2 is 4. You know, the little kid, hey, there is no absolute, right? We do whatever we want. Who do you think you are to tell me that, you know, that I have to follow this God? There is no God. And furthermore, if there was, he's not the God, my God, he may be your God, but there is no absolute. That was the kind of culture that they lived in, like ours. They lived in the kind of culture that we do that, you know, basically wants to change the ground rules about what is right and wrong. I saw this picture just came in this magazine, the American Family Association Journal. Here's a kid. In Minnesota high school, a student, Elliot Chambers, he was wearing a t-shirt in school and it said straight pride. You know what they did? They kicked him out of school for wearing a shirt that says straight pride because the principal said it offended the homosexuals at the school. That's what kind of a society we live in, you know? Who do you think you are to tell me that, you know, I have to follow this rule?" And this was the kind of thing that they had to deal with at that time. They were totally walking away from God. Now, let's see here. I want to keep it flowing here, and I'm going to have to skip over a whole bunch of stuff. Let me just give you a little bit, just a taste, about what these Assyrians were like, okay? These guys were mean. One of them was named Tiglath-Pileser. Listen to this. This is a quotation that comes from inscriptions that came out of their palace in Nineveh. Now, this guy here was back to about the year 1077 BC. I am Tiglath-Pileser, the legitimate king of the world, king of Assyria, king of the four parts of the earth, the courageous hero guided by the oracles of Asher and Minurta, the great gods of his lords, who has overcome his foes. I receive tribute from Byblos. a lot of people taking the heads of the men when they would conquer cities, and they would put them on the poles outside the city. Really, really vicious and cruel. The Assyrians were really, really mean. And they kept coming. Like I say, they would come, you know, just against Israel, you know, decade after decade, they just kept assaulting the Middle East. There were a couple times in between when they got weak and maybe they couldn't, you know, make as many invasions as they could because their king was weak. But by and large, they just kept coming in. Finally, what happened is that in 722 B.C., they were successful in conquering that northern kingdom called Israel. 722 B.C., they destroyed the northern monarchy. As I was mentioning a few minutes ago, they came in 701 B.C. and they began to attack the southern monarchy called Judah. God delivered them. That was the only thing that kept them from getting delivered. Eventually, what happened is that in back in the sixth and seventh century in about the year in the in the six hundred and about six twenty six. The Babylonians began to gain power and the Babylonians in the needs ganged up against the Assyrians and wiped him out. That's kind of the end of a Syrian power and Babylon became the new power on the block under King Nebuchadnezzar, who conquered the southern kingdom of Judah in six oh five. Well, you know what? Again, you want to know with a lot of details to put together for all your studies. I'll make them, but I'm going to skip over a whole lot of stuff that I spent a whole lot of time on, but they want to move on. And you know what? I've got a whole page here. Deborah was asking about this, about about maybe you prophecies and Messianic prophecies. I can shoot a copy of these things. If you want to have something that lists prophecies and all these things, I will shoot a copy for anybody that wants it. If you just tell me afterwards of all of these prophecies, because Isaiah is filled with prophecies about about Christ. Some of the prophecies portray him as a king. Some of the prophecies show him as a warrior, a conquering warrior. Look over at chapter four. Chapter four In verses one verse two chapter four verse two in that day. He's talking about the kingdom when the kingdom arrives in that day. The branch of the Lord will be beautiful. Now, if you've read your Bibles, you know that this expression branch occurs in a number of different places in the in the Old Testament. Jeremiah twenty three five Jeremiah thirty three verse fifteen. But you can also find it all the way back in 2 Samuel chapter 23 verse 5. The idea of a branch is something that sprouts up and sprouts and branches out. It's a promise that when Christ comes, he will branch out and he will bring a kingdom that fills the earth. Second Samuel chapter twenty three verse five. David talks about the promise that God made to him. David says, Oh God will take this promise and God will cause it to branch and that expression branch became a title. for the Messiah. It's actually a title or an expression for the Messiah, and that's where chapter 4 verse 2. This is a direct prophecy of Christ. In that day, the branch will be beautiful. This is a prophecy about Christ. In any case, I've got a whole slew of these that I will copy for you because we will look at these point by point as we go through the book. Let me see what else I want to bring for you. There's so much here. Purpose. Well, how about just some of the themes that you know, you'll find there's themes when you read through a book, you find all kinds of themes. One of the themes in Isaiah that is really prominent is the holiness of God. And there's a title for God. It's called the Holy One of Israel. God says, I am the Holy One of Israel. 25 times in the book of Isaiah. Holiness is a major theme. God's sovereignty, which means that God is over all. He rules everything. God is waiting for the battle. They can predict the future that I do, because I'm the one who planned it and make it happen, especially if you look at a chapter forty six very strong subject in Isaiah chapter forty six and God's hatred of human pride and especially got hatred of idolatry. What is the purpose of the book? If you look through all of the prophets of the Old Testament, there is basically a two-fold message. Basically two-fold in all the prophets. One side, God comes to his people and says, you must turn from your evil, otherwise I'm going to thrash you with judgment. If you don't turn from your evil, I'm going to bring a horrible judgment. And just as Moses had predicted, God says, what I will do in the end is I'm going to let a foreign nation come in and they're going to take you away in captivity and you will be kicked out of the land. I will spew you out of the land. That was one part of the prophecies that came. The second major idea that comes through all the prophets, Isaiah, Daniel, You know, Joel, Hosea. The second part of these prophecies that is very prominent is that God says, even though I'm going to bring a judgment upon you, Israel, my nation for the sin, one day I will restore you. I will restore you. And when you look at these prophecies about Christ, these messianic prophecies, that is the context where these prophecies come from. When God says, I'm going to judge you, but I will restore you to myself. I will restore you to Christ. I'll restore you through Christ. So you see, when you look at the context of, let's say, the when Jesus Christ came to the nation of Israel 2000 years ago, and God is standing here in the person of Christ saying, your king has come. The promises, all these promises about deliverance from evil, removal of pain and death will be banished and no more pain, no more sickness, no more crying. The blind will see, the deaf will hear, the dumb will speak. waters will break forth in the wilderness. All these promises God was handing him to Israel on a silver platter. And Israel said, Crucify him. We will not have this man to be our king. And you say, How could they do it? You see, this is what Isaiah is telling us. These are the things that will happen, and they will happen. But they're going to happen for Israel, not until the second coming of Christ, because they rejected Him. They rejected Him. So, twofold basically purpose to warn people about sin and to turn them away from their sin and to promise a restoration through the Messiah. And then finally, the last thing is that there's an outline and again, I'll shoot a copy of this total outline for you that is a full page in detail. But basically, you can cut Isaiah into three major sections. Chapters one to thirty five. which would be a whole series of various properties against the people in judgment. Chapter one thirty five would be judgment properties chapter thirty six to thirty nine would be a historical narrative about King Hezekiah. and how God was going to work in the life of Hezekiah to deliver Hezekiah from the Assyrians, and then chapters forty through sixty six, where God announces a future salvation that will come, where he will bring comfort and peace and rest to a nation that has been at warfare for so, so long. Well, you know what? I hate this so much. I hate kind of cutting off But I understand that some of this stuff too is not the most exciting when you're not going through verse by verse. So I appreciate your patience, but I do want. I do like to give these things to you when we start a book study, because it is important. And, you know, if you don't get it here and then you hear things otherwise and you've never been exposed to it, you'll say, well, how come I didn't know about that? And then kind of shakes you up. How come my pastor didn't tell me these things? I wish I knew that. That's what I want to do for you tonight. I promise next week we'll get into a verse by verse and we'll start seeing the riches. Without question, I think Isaiah stands as a major monument of God's revelation. And if we want to capsulize the idea, God says, I want you to know me. I want you to know me. And by knowing me, I want you to have life through my son. And then he says, and look ahead, because the day is coming when he's coming and he's going to bring a restoration to this world. And you know what? Quite frankly, I'm ready for it. I'm ready. Like John said in Revelation 22, even so, come Lord Jesus, we're ready. The day is coming. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for this night and we thank you for the time that we've had to just give this overview of a marvelous prophecy, Lord, by a man of God, one who, as best as we can tell, was brutally murdered by a wicked king. And Father, You have preserved this Word so marvelously through the ages, Lord, even as we learned about this scroll in the Dead Sea and how You preserved Your Word that we might have it. We thank You, Lord, that You have spoken through Your prophets and that You providentially have preserved Your Word that it might come down to us. This Word is able to make us wise unto salvation. I pray that you would help us to be faithful to you in all that we do and think and say. And I ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. Alright. Lord bless you.