- Okay, Isaiah, Isaiah, what a book. I so appreciate Isaiah, the more that I read and study his book and this class is Isaiah For Beginners. This is the third lesson in our series and it has a wonderful title
structures and features, boy. Actually, people got up
early to get to Bible class for a class entitled structures
and features part two. (laughing) But I am telling you once again, the more you understand how
Isaiah put this thing together the easier it will be to
understand what he's talking about when you actually read the book. In building a house the first
elements to go in to the house are the foundation and the
plumbing that type of thing and the framing of the building itself and when you see that, these
give you a kind of an idea of what the finished
structure will be like. I remember Liz and I when we lived in Midwest City,
they were building new houses near us and we used to go for a walk and we used to walk inside these houses that were half finished. They had the framing up but
they didn't have any doors yet or garage doors or anything and I remember us walking
around trying to figure out, Oh, I guess this is where
the kitchen is going to be here the living room and
it was fascinating to see these houses kind of
being built piece by piece and you had an idea if it's
going to be a big house or a small house and of course,
depending on the framing you can tell if it's going
to be a commercial building or a barn or whatever. Well, this is what we've been doing with our introductory material on Isaiah. We've been seeing how did the Prophet put this book together? And in understanding that,
it'll help us understand what the message of the book is. We'll actually understand
what he's talking about in different parts of the book. So briefly then just as
for purposes of review, I've shown you so far the following, we've said that Isaiah's
prophecies were made over a period of time during
the eighth and seventh century BC and it was during the period
of the divided Kingdom of Israel where there
was the Northern Kingdom referred to many times
as Israel or Ephraim and there was the Southern Kingdom referred to as the Kingdom of Judah. We also said that he,
Isaiah, was a contemporary of the Prophets. In other words, he wasn't the
only Prophet who is speaking and working at that time, there were other Prophets,
the Prophet Amos and Hosea and the Prophet Micah also
were preaching and teaching at the same time as Isaiah
they were all contemporaries, also said that he
prophesied during the reigns of four Kings. He began during the reign of
King Uzziah just at the end of that reign and then through the King,
the reign of the King Jotham and then Ahaz and King Hezekiah and most of the action
in his book takes place during the time of Ahaz and Hezekiah, a lot more description
of that period of time. We also know that he
was based in Jerusalem. That was his home and
that's where he worked from, ministered from and according to Jewish tradition, he died at the hands of King Manasseh who had him sawed in two,
pretty terrible way to die and there's a reference to this and I showed it to you
last time in Hebrews 11:37. His teachings are contained
in five main topics. We've called them topics, we've called them themes, we've called them strands. Five main topics which
are interwoven in his book to form a single narrative and I said it was like
braiding five different strands into one. They tend to overlap
and if you understand, if you know that there
are five different strands kind of working at the same time, you're able to spot
what he's talking about and what he's referring
to because you know, Oh that's this strand
or that's this strand and so on and so forth. So the five topics or the five
themes or the five strands I've given them different
names, are the following. One is the Messianic Hope. The Messianic Hope, he talks
about the Messianic Hope. Number two, is the Motif
or the Pattern of the City and of course the city
is the city of Jerusalem and he talks about that. He also talks about
the Holy One of Israel. The Holy One of Israel. And then one of the patterns, one of the topics is the faith response of the Jewish people. How did the Jewish people respond to the things that were
taking place at that time, how did they respond to God? And we get some history if you wish from especially two of the
Kings, Ahaz and Hezekiah, we get stories from those
and from those two stories, we get an idea of how the
Jewish people responded to attacks to prophecies, to warnings and then the fifth strand is
the special literary features of Isaiah's writings. There are special types of literary I don't want to call them tricks but they're features, they're ways he has of writing if you wish that if you understand what he's doing, and the way he's putting
his material together, you'll understand the meaning
of what he's actually saying. All right. So last week, we covered the first two of these five strands. The first, was the Messianic Hope and I told you that the
Messianic Hope in Isaiah was seen in three types of images. The first, was the Messianic
Hope seen as the King, the second, was the Messianic
Hope seen as the servant and then the third, the Messianic Hope seen as the conqueror. So three different images
of the Messianic Hope. So when he's writing about
the conqueror and all will bow and everyone will bend the
knee and so on and so forth, he's talking about the conqueror and you know, Oh, he's talking
about the Messianic Hope as conqueror and sometimes he talks
about the Messianic Hope of the Jewish people, not as
a conqueror, but as a servant a suffering servant, same
hope different image. Okay, and then of course, sometimes he speaks about
the Messianic Hope as King. Then the second strand,
was the pattern of the city and of course the city, well, there could only be one city and that is the city of Jerusalem and I told you that Jerusalem in Isaiah is used as a metaphor. As a metaphor for, at times
a metaphor for God's people at the present time
when Isaiah was writing or he uses the city as a
metaphor for the people in the future, what's
going to happen to them sometimes in the near future,
maybe just a hundred years, forward from the time
that Isaiah is preaching and then sometimes he uses
the metaphor of the city to refer to God's people
all over the world, at the end of the world, an
eschatological reference. So you have to kind of keep on your toes. If he's talking about the
city, who's he talking about? Is he talking about them
now, or is he talking about what's going to happen in
50 years or a hundred years or is he talking about
the end of the world when everything will be finished, when the Savior will have
finished all of his work? So it's good to understand how he's using the pattern of the city
or the motif of the city. So today we're going to continue
examining the next two topics found in Isaiah. One is the Holy One of Israel and the next is the Faith
Response of the Jewish People. And the way that we're
going to do Isaiah is I'm going to do four of
these introductory lessons, one more next week and then we're going to
do six different lessons on six key verses, key passages in Isaiah that demonstrate a lot of the
stuff that we have learned. All right. So let's do the Holy One of Israel the third motif, the third
pattern, the third strand. So Isaiah is the Prophet of holiness. In his book the word holiness as an adjective describing
God is used more frequently than in all of the other Old
Testament books put together. The term, Holy One of
Israel is used 25 times in the book of Isaiah but
it's only used seven times in the rest of the Old Testament. So, Isaiah is the Prophet
that uses that term more than any other Prophet or
writer of the Old Testament and so the holiness theme or strand is introduced in chapter six where Isaiah recounts his initial call into ministry through a heavenly vision and so Isaiah explains
the notion of holiness in three different ways. All right. The first way is God's
Holiness and Transcendence. So he explains holiness in
the sense of transcendence and I'll give you an example
of that in chapter six, one to three, it says or he writes, in the year of King Uzziah's death, and that's the first King. That's how we know when
he started to prophesy because we know when King Uzziah died. So it says, in the year
of King Uzziah's death I saw the Lord 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, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew and
one called out to the other and said, Holy, Holy,
Holy is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is full of his glory. So there we see Isaiah
explaining or describing the holiness of God in
a transcendent manner. In other words, in a way that transcends, that surpasses anything
that you see on earth. Has anyone ever seen what
Isaiah just described happening on earth? The Lord sitting on a
throne and his temple and the angels, around him
saying, Holy, Holy, Holy and those angels had six wings. Has anyone ever seen that
like, anywhere on earth? Has anyone ever had a vision like that? No, of course not. And so Isaiah's vision of God's holiness, he first describes in its transcendency. In other words, God's
holiness is beyond anything that we can ever imagine here on earth or anything we've ever seen here on earth and so he sees God as an exalted King with the ceaseless call
of the angels crying out, Holy, Holy, Holy. This is a heavenly vision with no similarity to what he
had ever seen, meaning Isaiah to what Isaiah had ever seen on earth. It was transcendent,
meaning it's surpassed earthly or physical reality and so that's the first way that Isaiah describes the Holy One of Israel. He is transcendent, he
is beyond the earthly. Then he describes God's
holiness as a sense of judgment. Not just something, his holiness isn't just something that you've never seen on earth but his holiness goes
along with his judgment and we continue reading the same passage, it says, and the foundations
of the thresholds trembled at the voice of him who called out while the temple was filling with smoke. Remember in the Old Testament, when the temple was filling with smoke, it meant God's presence was in the temple. Okay. Then Isaiah says, woe
is me for I am ruined because I am a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips for my eyes have seen the
King, the Lord of hosts. So Isaiah realizes the deadly result for one who is unholy and
who comes into contact or in the presence of one who is Holy. The earthly cannot be in
the presence of the divine without being annihilated. He realizes, it's like
he's saying to himself, wait a minute, I'm in heaven. Wait a minute, I'm face-to-face with God. Wait a minute, how am I surviving this? I should be dead, I should be burned up. Okay. So there's no mixing of
the Holy with the unholy. You see the great cathedrals
in Europe especially that took 200 years to build and their magnificent
architectural structures, and they were decorated and painting painted rather by the
world's best artists, expensively done. What was the purpose of that you wonder, why did they do that? Well, in the middle ages, that was the way that they
were trying to express the holiness and the grandeur of God. They read passages like this in Isaiah and wanted to replicate in a physical way and give the worshiper a sense of awe when they would walk into a building such as Notre-Dame cathedral. Those of you who've been to Montreal, went to St. Joseph's Oratory and it's a pretty amazing thing when you walk into that
huge Oratory and see that. Well, that was the purpose, the idea of being in the presence of God. And then the third way that
he talks about God's holiness is that God's holiness
is also connected to the salvation of mankind. So first of all, he's Holy there's nothing on earth like him. Second of all, he's a God that will
judge what is not Holy and I forgot to read a passage here and I'll read it in a minute that says that if you're not Holy and you're in the presence
of God, you can't survive and so therefore holiness is
also connected to salvation not just judgment, but salvation and we read about that
in verse six and seven. He says, then one of
the seraphim flew to me with a burning coal in his hand, which he had taken from
the altar with tongs. He touched my mouth with it and said, behold this has touched your lips and your iniquity is taken away
and your sins are forgiven. So we see the seraph, that's the angel, taking the coal from the altar and purging Isaiah's uncleanness thus saving his life and enabling him to stand in the presence of the Holy God without judgment falling upon him. This action demonstrates
that man has no power to save and no ability to make himself holy. Isaiah and imagine Isaiah is saying, I'm a man of unclean lips, I'm unworthy, I shouldn't be here and Isaiah was like the best
of the best that you could have of Jewish society. He had access to the Royal Court. He was a poet, he was an educated man, he was in the upper classes
of that society of that time. He was the cream of the crop so to speak of the Jewish society. Next to the high priest, for example, Isaiah, we believe came
from a priestly family and yet when he comes before God, the first instinct, the
first thought that he has is, Oh, no, I'm dirty. I'm filthy. I have no right to be here. I'm not going to survive. Okay. So we take from that, that
we don't have the power to make ourselves holy,
only God has that power. Salvation, cleansing, holiness, this comes from God through
his appointed servant and in this case it was the seraph but ultimately the cleansing
would come of course through Christ. He would be the one that would
cleanse the unholy person. That term seraph, another term for angel, the seraph was the highest
order of angelic beings and they were associated
with light or fire. Okay, seraphs. You read different articles about angels and some places they say
there are nine levels categories of angels and
the seraphs were at the top. They were the angels that were before God. The concept or the strand if you wish of the holiness of God is found throughout Isaiah's
prophecies in various ways. His visions portray God. For example, he portrays God
as the Holy One as creator in chapter 41, verse 20, there's the Holy One as the Potter in 45, verse nine, the Holy One as the Maker in 45, verse 11. So, the main storyline in
the use of the Holy One, the Holy One of Israel, that strand, is the
rejection of this Holy One and the judgment that follows as a result and then the Holy One as Savior who invites the people to return to God. Isaiah will write about
the Holy One of Israel and in the few passages we've looked at that the Holy One of Israel
that Isaiah comes before him and realizes that he's unworthy
even to be in his presence that Holy One of Israel
he'll later on and say, that Holy One of Israel has
been rejected by Israel. He'll point this out, see this Holy One, Israel has rejected him and in other passages, he'll say but it will be that Holy One that we'll be able to
save Israel in the future. Well, we'll get to that as
we talk about the Holy One and the storyline. So the idea of the Holy One is weaved throughout the book and
braided with portraits of the Messianic Hope which we spoke of in the previous lesson as the
first of these five strands. So, the imagery of the
Holy One is intertwined with the imagery of the Messianic Hope, these two kind of work together as seen in the versions of
Messianic Hope Isaiah uses, for example, he talks about
the Holy One as a King. He talks about the Holy One as a Conqueror and in chapter 60 verse
14, let's just read that. It says, the sons of
those who afflicted you. This is God now talking to his people. The sons of those who afflicted
you will come bowing to you, and all those who despised you will bow themselves at
the soles of your feet excuse me, he's talking about the Savior who is now become the Conqueror. Okay. And they will call you
the city of the Lord, there's motif of the city, which city? The city that belongs to the Lord. Remember I said, he uses the
idea of the city of Jerusalem as a metaphor for the people of God. So basically he's saying
the city of the Lord the people of the Lord, the
Jewish people of the Lord. The Zion, whoops, there's another, another way to say the city say Jerusalem the Zion of the Holy One of Israel. So you see how he mixes the images there? He's talking about the Holy One of Israel who's going to be the conqueror
that everybody's going to kneel to, then he talks
about the city or Zion will be the people of
God that God will save. So these images here, they
all represent something in particular and if
you know this in advance in reading chapter 60 verse 14 you'll understand what
Isaiah is talking about. Those who were against God's servant will eventually bow down
to him as the conqueror and the people, the Jerusalem, the Zion they'll rejoice because they have, they have become the people
of God, the city of God. All right. So the overarching storyline that uses all of these
metaphors and portraits and strands to tell the story
really has only three parts. Remember, Isaiah is a poet and I told you at the very beginning, he doesn't write, he doesn't write about his
time period and prophecies, like somebody writing a story, like the book of Acts, we did this and then the
following year we did that, then we traveled over here and then, it's a timeline, and that's how you teach the book of Acts. You start a timeline from Pentecost, and you do a timeline, the time of Peter, and then the time of Paul,
it's kind of easy to follow, but Isaiah, it's a book of poetry. It's very hard to find the timeline. So in Isaiah, you have
to follow the characters, you have to follow the images, you have to follow the metaphors, if you're going to understand
what he's talking about. But basically the overarching
story, just three parts to it. First, the threat posed by a Holy God the Holy One of Israel,
to a sinful people. In other words, God's
people have rejected him and that's a very
dangerous thing for them. They don't even realize
the trouble that they're in and Isaiah is a Prophet that
has come along to tell them, to announce to them, the
trouble that they're in and who it is that they have rejected. Okay. And what will happen to
them, not just right away but what will happen to them, within a hundred years, and then what will happen
to them in the far future and he tells them this
all in poetic language. The second part is, the Holy One's efforts to save a sinful people. The things that God does,
the Holy One or the Savior or the King or the servant, no matter what image you give to him, it's always the same
person, it's always God, it's always Christ. So the things that the Holy One does to save the sinful people and then the third part of the story, is the Holy One's gift of eternal life, for those who respond and this is later on in the book you find Isaiah describing, what will happen to those who believe, what will be the gift,
what will be the reward for those who respond to God's calling? The eternal state of holiness which the Holy One will prepare for those who respond to
him, which will last forever and that's in the final
chapters, 56 to 66. Okay. So let's now examine the fourth strand that Isaiah tells his story. We've looked at the Holy One
of Israel, how he uses that. The fourth strand is History
and Faith, history and faith. This strand deals with the
actual events that take place during Isaiah's ministry
and highlights the history and the faith of the Jewish people and this is kind of the
easiest part of Isaiah because he's actually
writing in narrative form. So it's like a story. Oh, finally, you get to these
chapters and you go, okay. Something I can really understand here. Okay. So we talk about the history. Isaiah, as I say,
prophesied during the reigns of four Kings, Uzziah who died in 740 the year that Isaiah is called
and has that first vision. Jotham who reigned from 740 to 732, Ahaz, from 732 or 731 to 715 and Hezekiah from 715 to 686 BC. Now, you have to understand the history under which these people were living. Here's a little map that describes or that demonstrates the countries at play during Isaiah's time. There's no description of what Isaiah does basically during the time of Jotham but we pick up the story for
the history of the Israelites during the reign of Ahaz and we know Ahaz was not a good King. Okay. He did not do well. He disobeyed God, but what was happening? What was happening during Ahaz's reign, was that the Northern Kingdom of Israel, Okay. Up here, where the
headquarters was Samaria and later, the Southern Kingdom of Judah were each in turn effected or threatened by the expansionism plans of Assyria up here, up in the North and later on the expansionist
plans of Babylon, Assyria was the world power and then Babylon took over Assyria and when each of these took
over world power status if you wish, they attacked Israel and Judah. So, Isaiah served at a
time when the threats to two of these Kings, Ahaz and Hezekiah, came from these two world powers. So the first one that he describes is the crisis under King Ahaz, 732 to 716. Let's just read a little
part of what he talks about during this time. It says, now it came
about in the days of Ahaz the son of Jotham, the son
of Uzziah king of Judah that Rezin the King of Aram and Pekah the son of Remaliah king of Israel, went up to Jerusalem
to wage war against it, but could not conquer it. So the Northern Kingdom
and the country of Aram where Damascus was the Capital, those two, try to take over
Judah, the Southern Kingdom. When it was reported to
the house of David saying, the Aramaeans have camped in Ephraim, Ephraim is just another
word they use to describe the Northern Kingdom. Sometimes they called it Israel and sometimes they called
the Northern Kingdom Ephraim, but it's the same thing. Okay. So the Aramaeans have encamped in Ephraim, his heart and the hearts
of this people shook as the trees of the forest. So Aram, this country here
in the purple and Damascus, okay, those are the Aramaeans. They camped on the border,
they were ready to attack. Okay. It says, then the Lord said to Isaiah go out now to meet Ahaz you
and your son Shear-jashub, at the end of the
conduit of the upper pool on the highway to the
fuller's field and say to him, take care and be calm, have no fear and do not be fainthearted because of these two stubs
of smoldering firebrands on account of the fierce
anger of Rezin and Aram, and the son of Remaliah, because Aram with Ephraim
so these two Northern, the Northern Kingdom and
the Kingdom of Aram here, God says, and the son of
Remaliah has planned evil against you saying, let us go up against
Judah and terrorize it and make for ourselves breach in its walls and set up the son of Tabeel
as King in the midst of it, thus says the Lord God: It shall not stand nor
shall it come to pass for the head of Aram is Damascus and the head of Damascus is Rezin. Now within another 65 years,
Ephraim will be shattered so that it has no longer a people and the head of Ephraim is Samaria and the head of Samaria
is the son of Remaliah. If you will not believe,
you surely shall not last. So, the nations to the
immediate North, Israel, and or Ephraim, and the
country of Aram were United in order to protect themselves against their Northern
threat, which was Assyria and so these two, Israel and Aram, tried to invade and overtake Judah, but they failed to do so the first time. They then planned a second
invasion by the same power and this time the goal
was to conquer the people and depose the King, who was Ahaz, and Ahaz remember, he was not a good King but here's the important thing,
he was in the line of David. He was in the line of David. It was the only thing that was protecting the Southern Kingdom, that Ahaz the King was
in the line of David. He was the Davidic King,
and God had promised that there would always be a
King on the throne of Judah. Okay. And so the Northern Kingdom
and Aaron decided to go in overtake the country, depose
Ahaz, and put in his place another King who was
not in the Davidic line this fellow called Tabeel and therefore they would
create a three nation block to defend against Assyrian expansion. There would be Aram, there would be Northern Israel or Israel, and then there would be Judah with a non Davidic King,
Tabeel on the throne and those three, would form an alliance to protect themselves against Assyria. All right. Now, the true threat here was that the notion of ending the divinely
appointed lineage of Kings from David's family through military means and so it's at this point
that Israel or Isaiah rather brings a message to Ahaz the Jewish King, who is on David's throne from God and basically the
message is to do nothing. Wait on God and decide
after to see what happens. If God sees the Kingdom of Judah
like other worldly Kingdoms dependent on military might for survival, or is Judah and its King
dependent on God for its survival. Why? Because the King, even
though he's not a good King is in the Davidic line. Which is it going to be Isaiah says, are you going to be a military power to stand up to these two countries or are you going to depend on your lineage on the blessing that you have from God? Well, we learn that Ahaz
chose to make an Alliance with the Assyria and in an exchange for
submission to Assyria, Ahaz gave up the freedom and
independence and sovereignty of his throne in exchange
for Assyria's protection from Judah's immediate Northern
enemies, Israel and Aram. In other words, he double-cross them. He kind of hopscotched over them and he went to the far North,
made a deal with Assyria and said, look, I'll
give you all the money and we'll become your servants and slaves, if you protect us from these two nations. So Ahaz does this, despite Isaiah's prophecy
that God would destroy both of these Northern
threats in the near future. So, that's the first story. Remember I said, one of
the strands is the reaction of the Jewish people in history. Okay. Well, Isaiah tells the story of Ahaz. Ahaz doesn't do a good job. Isaiah promises him, just wait, do nothing you'll see what happens and he doesn't. Then he tells the story of Hezekiah who ruled from 716 to 687. So we learn that the
two Northern powers fell just as Isaiah had prophesied to Ahaz. Damascus or Aram, it fell in 732 and Samaria or Israel or Ephraim,
whatever you want to call it, it fell in 722 to Assyria,
just as Isaiah had prophesied. The Assyrian empire was now
a major and immediate threat to Judah. At least before it had
those two other countries as a buffer but now Assyria has taken over these two countries and they're parked right
on the doorstep of Judah. Okay. So the Assyrian empire was now
a major and immediate threat, and the only other power in
the region, Egypt to the South, wanted to form a military
alliance with Judah in order to defend
against their mutual enemy to the North, Assyria. So the same scenario repeats itself. Instead of making a deal with
the two Northern nations, now, Judah and the King Hezekiah are asked to make an alliance with Egypt to protect themselves against
the same old enemy Assyria. So what happens? Isaiah counsels Hezekiah
against forming such an alliance since Judah's defender
was God, not human power, same message to a different King. So Assyria led by Sennacherib
eventually attacks Judah and it declared its
independence and easily crushed the effort that Egypt made
to come to Judah's defense. So Hezekiah surrenders and
he asks for terms of peace, with Assyria and in response, he's forced to pay a huge tribute in exchange for the cessation of war. In other words, the Assyrians say, look, if you don't want us to
come in and wipe you out you just need to empty the
temple of all of its gold and give us all your money,
everything that's worthwhile, just give it to us and that
way, we'll leave you alone. Like the bully, when I was a little kid and I had a little bag of
marbles that we would play with, the bully would say give me your marbles and I won't beat you up. Well, it was pretty much
the same thing going on. However, once the payment is made the Assyrians treacherously
violate the condition of the surrender treaty and they attacked Jerusalem
anyways, talk about treachery. So Hezekiah belatedly accepts
Isaiah's inspired council to trust in God for his
safety and his survival. Well, he's got nothing left to lose he's already given away the kitchen sink there's nothing left and Hezekiah to show the
mercy of God says, look, there's still time. If you trust in God,
even now he'll save you and so we read that the city is saved and the Assyrians return North and their empire and their
power begin to decline and eventually they are
taken over by the Babylonians and you read about this in Isaiah 37,38. So the second part or
theme of this fourth strand deals with Isaiah's visions
concerning two periods in Judah's history. First, the period when
God's people are saved through the actions and
edicts of King Cyrus Medo-Persian King who released the Jews from Babylonian captivity and
returned them to Jerusalem from exile in Babylon. Yes, thank you for doing that. Isaiah does not provide a history for this but he speaks of it through
prophecy and visions of this event and era taking place. It is an eschatological vision of their ultimate freedom
from physical bondage and then in chapters 49
to 55, in these chapters, Isaiah describes the visions representing the people's
spiritual freedom from their captivity of sin. Historically, after the
invasion of Assyria, Assyria is conquered by Babylon and we know that Babylon
comes and attacks Judah and eventually takes
over and takes the people into Babylonian captivity and they're there for 70 years and then eventually, Cyrus
the Medo-Persian King who overcomes and who
conquers the Babylonians, he releases the Jews who are in captivity and sends them back to Jerusalem. Well, Isaiah doesn't
live during that period but his prophecies talk about that period. His prophecy say, one day you're
going to be off into captivity but the Lord is going to
remember you and bring you back. So remember I said, he
speaks to them about things that are happening right away, and then he speaks to
them about future things, not too far into the future, maybe a hundred years into the future. Well, those are the
prophecies concerning Babylon and concerning the Medo-Persian empire and then prophecies concerning
the end of the world where not only the cultural Jews but all those who are Jews, the children of Abraham in
spirit will be saved from sin. So it's here in the final
chapters that he introduces the suffering servant who is the one who will
accomplish the liberation through the sacrifice of himself. He is the Messianic Hope not
as King, not as Conqueror, but this time, the
Messianic Hope as Servant. The full gospel message of
the completeness of sin, the weakness, and inability to save self, the manner of salvation
which is vicarious atonement, the identity of the savior, all of these are contained
in Isaiah's prophecy concerning the suffering servant. Just give me a moment almost here. It also includes the necessity of waiting for this event patiently and expectantly until it's sure arrival. In Isaiah, you have the clearest and most complete
description of the Messiah of anywhere else in the Bible. A third and final
section, chapters 56 to 66 continues Isaiah's description
of the Lord's people aware of their need,
waiting for the anointed one who will fulfill God's
requirements for salvation on their behalf and the Prophet ends his book with a picture of the
people praying and waiting and hoping for the eternal
glory and a new creation. And so he emphasizes the central theme of this fourth as well as
every other of the five strands of thought that makes up his book, faith, a faith that
persists, a faith that prays, a faith that waits in hope and I want to read just
one more little passage where he talks about this. For just as the new
heavens and the new earth which I will make will endure
before me declares the Lord, so your offspring and
your name will endure and it shall be from new moon to new moon and from sabbath to sabbath, all mankind will come to bow
down before me, says the Lord. There's the Lord as what's said? The Messianic Hope as what? As Conqueror. And he said don't worry, in the end, every knee shall bend, right? Every tongue shall confess,
Paul talks about that, right? One of his epistles, well, he gets it from Isaiah here, where he's talking about the fulfillment of the Messianic Hope. Alright, so our next lesson,
we're going to to talk about the fifth and final strand
literary structures and features, a better understanding
of the literary devices that Isaiah uses again,
will help the reader accurately discern the Prophet's message. So, one last slide, one last
review, the five themes. So the Messianic Hope, as
King, as Conqueror, as Servant. Second, the Motif of the City, Jerusalem God's people now in the
future and at the end of time and he refers to it as Jerusalem or Zion or Mount or the Mountain. The third one is the Holy One of Israel. The Holy One of Israel is transcendent. He is the judge and he's also the Savior and the Holy One of Israel is
presented also as the Creator the Potter and the Maker. The fourth is the History
and Faith Response of God's people and he gives two examples. How they responded under Ahaz, how they responded under Hezekiah and what God did in both
of these circumstances and then next week, the special literary features that we find particular to Isaiah and
how to understand these as we read the book. Okay. So, there's our third lesson in Isaiah and I promise you if the Lord is willing in one more lesson or two more lessons we will actually open the book and read some of the
work that Isaiah has done and begin to interpret it. All right. That's our lesson for today, thank you very much for your attention.
