WWUTT 1824 Introduction to Isaiah

The Book of Isaiah Is About God

The book of Isaiah is about God. That's what Isaiah sees in all of his visions and the prophecies that are given to him. He makes God magnificent and we'll see that in this book when we understand the text.

This is when we understand the text, teaching through a New Testament book on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, an Old Testament book on Thursday, and a Q &A on Friday. With our Old Testament study today, here's Pastor Gabe.

Thank you, Becky.

Reading Isaiah 6 and Beginning the Overview of Isaiah

In our study of the Old Testament, we are heading into a new study today. Open up the book of Isaiah, the first of the major prophets, but we're not gonna begin today in chapter one. Join me in chapter six, if you will.

Typically, when I start a study, I'll start it right at the very beginning. Today, I wanna begin in chapter six, and then we'll do our overview of the book of Isaiah. This is out of the Legacy Standard Bible, the word of the Lord, in Isaiah six, beginning in verse one.

In the year of King Uzziah's death, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, 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 another and said, holy, holy, holy is Yahweh of hosts. The whole earth is full of his glory. And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called out, while the house of God was filling with smoke.

Then I said, woe is me, for I am ruined, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, for my eyes have seen the King, Yahweh of hosts. Then one of the Seraphim flew to me with a burning coal in his hand, which he had taken from the altar with tongs.

And he touched my mouth with it and said, behold, this has touched your lips, and your iniquity is taken away, and your sin is atoned for. Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, whom shall I send, and who will go for us?

Then I said, here I am, send me. He said, go and tell this people, keep on hearing, but do not understand, keep on seeing, but do not know. Render the hearts of this people insensitive, their ears dull and their eyes dim, lest they see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their hearts and return and be healed.

Then I said, Lord, how long? And he said, until cities are devastated and without inhabitant, houses are without people, and the land is devastated to desolation, and Yahweh has removed men far away, and the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land.

Yet there will be a 10th portion in it, and it will again be subject to burning like a terebinth or like an oak, whose stump remains when it is felled. The holy seed is its stump. So there's our beginning to the book of Isaiah, and that actually starts another section there in Isaiah chapter six.

Judgment, Remnant, and Messiah in the First Half of Isaiah

What we have in the first five chapters of Isaiah is an issue of judgment upon Judah because of their sin against God. There will be descriptions of their wickedness, there will be the plea for them to repent and turn back to the Lord.

There will be a description of those things that will happen to them in the future when judgment comes upon them, but the Lord will not utterly wipe them out. He will preserve for himself a remnant. He promises a Messiah and also shows what the glorious kingdom of God will look like at the end of the book of Isaiah.

So we have this book broken up into three main parts. Some people will divide Isaiah into two parts. I wanna say there's really more like three parts. So the way it gets divided into two is chapters one through 39 and then chapters 40 through 66.

I think one of the reasons why people do that is because it's neat. You have 39 chapters at the start. How many books of the Old Testament are there? There's 39 books of the Old Testament. How many chapters are left to go in Isaiah in the second part?

There's 27. How many books of the New Testament are there? 27. So there are some people that like to say, see, it's kind of like a mini Bible here in the book of Isaiah. You have 39 chapters on one side and 27 chapters on the other side, just like you have the books divided up in a certain way in the Bible.

But that would not be intentional because that's not the way Isaiah was written. It wasn't written with chapter and verse markers. So I think you're wanting or you're kind of anticipating something a little too much there when you divide the book of Isaiah in that way.

Rather, I think the division works better like this. You have chapters one through 39 and this is the description of the Assyrian era. Then you have the Babylonian era and that's going to be chapters 40 through 55.

And then you have the promise of glory, which will come in chapters 56 through 66. So I think that's the better way to divide up Isaiah into three parts rather than split it in half. Although we definitely have a certain, a definite line between chapters 39 and 40.

Isaiah's Prophecy, God's Sovereignty, and the Mocking of Idols

So definite a line in fact, that there are some people out there, some scholars, I don't think any of these scholars are correct, but some scholars will claim that there was two Isaiahs and these two Isaiahs have been blended into one book.

And then over time, we just lost the fact that there were two Isaiahs that had actually written one book, which we call Isaiah. And they'll say that because the things that are written about later on in chapters 40 through 66 are so prophetic.

There's no way that Isaiah could have known those things in the way that chapters one through 39 were written. So it must be a different Isaiah writing at a different period. And then we just merge these two prophets together.

But if that would be the case, that wouldn't be necessarily prophetic. Since those things that are talked about in chapters 40 to 66 are things that are going to happen into the future, which of course, Isaiah knows those things because God who has predestined the future has revealed those things to him.

We read about God's sovereignty on such a magnificent level in chapters 40 through, I think, 48 or 49. The sovereignty of God that he has foreordained all things. He knows the future because he has predestined the future.

And what God has said, man cannot turn back. He has purposed and he will accomplish it. It's such a wonderful section there, especially as the Lord puts Judah on trial. And there's kind of this interrogation of the gods as if, hey, you think your gods can save you?

Well, sure, let's talk to your gods and see what they can do. This is the Lord mocking Judah because they would worship something that had been made by them or fashioned by their own hands. God declares himself as the one true God who has moved history, has determined the future for the sake of his name and for the benefit of his people.

Though there is a judgment that is coming upon them, God is not going to annihilate them. He will save them. And so you have throughout the book of Isaiah promises of a savior. And that's not just in the latter half.

That's not just in the, well, you know, chapters 40 through 66 in the prophetic portion. It's even, of course, in the first part where we have the promise of the virgin that will be with child in chapter seven.

And unto us, a child is born that we read about in chapter nine. So of course there's promises in the savior throughout. This is a wonderfully messianic book as we are seeing the prophetic and pointing toward Christ.

In fact, the book of Isaiah is quoted more in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John than any other book. It is the most quoted prophet in the gospels. All of these things that are pertaining to the savior. Isaiah was blessed and privileged to have received more insight into this promised salvation that was to come than any other prophet that was writing in the Old Testament, even Daniel.

Though Daniel had some wonderful prophetic visions about the Messiah who was to come. Nothing compares to the kinds of things that Isaiah wrote down. When John MacArthur wrote his book, The Gospel According to God, it's basically Isaiah 53.

It's from this chapter that God proclaimed how he was going to send his son and save his people. So we have a gospel proclamation that comes up in Isaiah. Paul quotes heavily from Isaiah. And it may not be direct quotations, but there's so many things in Paul's writing that is very thematic of Isaiah.

A lot of people will compare Jeremiah to Paul. I think maybe personally, like on a personal level, maybe in their personalities, there might've been some similarities between Paul and Jeremiah. I haven't necessarily looked at it at that angle, at least too intently.

But Paul was more thematic, or the themes of Isaiah, rather, make their way into Paul's writings more so than any other prophet. The whole armor of God thing, right? In Ephesians chapter six, that comes from Isaiah.

There might be some other thematic things as we go through this book. You'll start to see in the New Testament because you're probably more familiar with the New Testament than you are with the book of Isaiah.

So as we go through this, as we read certain things in Isaiah, you might begin to think to yourself, oh, I remember reading that in my devotional just this past week when I was in such and such a book.

So there's a lot of neat things that we're gonna come across like that as we go through Isaiah together. Now, as we do this particular study, I'm gonna keep a fairly brisk pace. This is, well, other than the Psalms, this is the longest book that I have gone through on the podcast.

And it would be easy for me to spend two years or more in the book of Isaiah. I mean, this is 66 chapters, and I'm only spending one day a week going through whatever Old Testament book that we're in.

It's only on Thursday. So if I were just doing a chapter a week, well, that's easily over a year right there. But there's a lot of narrative in the first half of Isaiah. I think as we get into some of that, you'll recognize how these things will move a little bit faster than some of the other parts we might wanna sit on a little bit longer and understand more deeply.

Since this is a prophetic book, there's a lot of poetry, a lot of song. There's gonna be a lot of imagery used. And I mentioned when we finished up going through Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs, as we had been applying our hermeneutic there of understanding how the symbols and pictures work in Hebrew literature.

We're gonna take that discipline that we've been applying in the wisdom books, and now we're gonna carry it over into the prophetic books. Understand, as I said in Song of Songs, sometimes the imagery, it's not meant to be visual, which is typically the way that we use metaphor and simile and stuff like that in our Western world English thinking.

We will use these symbols to paint a picture. So instead of saying something like, a heart is red, you might say, a heart is crimson, like a blooming rose, the petals pulsing with each beat, or something like that.

You're painting something visual there, trying to be poetically descriptive of the heart. But in Hebrew literature, the words that are used aren't necessarily to paint a picture. It's more characteristic of the thing.

So it's saying something about the thing's character, not necessarily about how it looks or how it might sound, which is appealing to the senses. It's a sensory perception of the thing. But rather, in Hebrew poetry, it's more symbolic.

What does this represent? What does it symbolize? Not how does this metaphor translate into something that we can perceive with our senses. Even when you consider the description of God here in Isaiah 6, in the year of King Uzziah's death, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne.

Do you think that God in his heaven is sitting on a literal throne? He was high and lifted up, with the train of his robe filling the temple. Does God sit in heaven in a robe? If so, who sewed it? Like, is there a royal heavenly seamstress up there somewhere who is sewing these garments that God wears?

Is there some carpenter of some kind who fashioned this throne that God sits on? These things are symbolic of God's royalty. Isaiah is not describing something he is visually seeing. Here's what I saw with my eyes.

But saying something about God's majesty being enthroned at a time when the king has just died. In the year of King Uzziah's death, what are we gonna do? Our king is dead. Isaiah sees God enthroned. That's essentially how that is supposed to be understood.

Not that we can look into the heavens and we're gonna see God standing there with a robe flowing as he's sitting on his throne. That's not what Isaiah is describing there. It's more symbolic of the thing rather than some sort of visual description.

So those are the kinds of ways that we need to apply this Hebrew symbolism to the poetic things we're gonna read here as we go through this book of prophecy. That'll come up a lot. But like I said, there's also a lot of narrative here and those narrative portions will move quite a bit faster.

Isaiah the Priest, the Prophet, and His Strange Signs

Now, how about this guy, Isaiah? I haven't talked much about the author. We really don't know much about him except that he is the son of Amoz. You know, that comes up there. He was probably a priest because of the way that he talks with Uzziah and his access into the temple.

That doesn't seem like anything that even any prophet would be able to do. But Isaiah is able to do it because he was one of the priests. He wouldn't have been the high priest, but he was ministering in the temple and God used a priest and gave prophecy to him.

God will use anybody as a prophet. He used Moses who was tending sheep. He used Amos who was a farmer. Amos who was the one who said, I am not a prophet nor am I the son of a prophet. And yet God gave him prophecy and Amos prophesied.

So the Lord will use anybody in that sense. We tend to think of, you know, prophets must be priests or they must be pastors in some way or something like that. God used women as prophets and Isaiah's wife whose name is never mentioned in the book of Isaiah, but she's described as a prophetess.

So he's a prophet and even she apparently receives vision from God intended to be communicated to whomever God intends the recipient to be. That does not mean that women can be pastors. Prophet is not the same office as a pastor.

It doesn't mean that women can be priests either. That's also a different office. But in this particular case, Isaiah was both a prophet and a priest. Now Isaiah prophesied for over 50 years. It was a really long time.

And we do have some very strange prophecies that come from Isaiah. He's the guy that walked around naked for three years. The Lord told him to do this as it would be a sign to the Egyptians how judgment was going to come upon them.

So the Lord will use some very strange ways in order to prophesy to a group of people. You probably know about, you know, Ezekiel having to bake bread over human dung and he protested that. So God said, okay, fine, you can bake it over cow dung.

But that was supposed to be symbolic of a judgment that was coming upon the people as well. So Isaiah prophesies in many of those bizarre ways, but we also see some very cool events in Isaiah. He turns the sun back.

It is through Isaiah prophesying to Hezekiah that revival swept the land. One of Isaiah's contemporaries would have been the prophet Micah. He prophesied at the same time as Isaiah. And this would have been over 700 years before Jesus.

So we're looking at a timeline of somewhere between 740 to 700 BC, possibly until about 680 BC. That would have been the time in which Isaiah would have prophesied. And if you'll remember the judgment that came upon Judah happened in about the year 600.

So that would have been decades after Isaiah was dead that these things that he prophesied came to fulfillment. Isaiah directly named Cyrus, named a ruler that did not even exist yet. Isaiah said Cyrus was going to be the guy, named him exactly, who would be used by God in both the judgment and the deliverance of Israel.

That's in chapters 44 and 45. So as we wrap up the lesson today, let's do a little bit more detailed outline. I already mentioned to you the three parts. Let me give you titles to those three parts. So chapters one through 39 are about God's condemnation that is coming upon a wicked nation.

So we have condemnation that's mentioned there. In chapters 40 through 55, you have comfort for God's exiles. And then in chapters 56 to 66, you have the coming of glory. So we have condemnation, there's comfort, and then there's coming glory.

That's kind of the three parts there of the book of Isaiah. Here's a little bit more detail to those three parts. So as I mentioned, those first five chapters are describing the wickedness of Judah. Their sins are confronted in chapter one, and then their sins are condemned in chapter five.

And those are kind of the bookends. In between, you have a mention of their guilt and even the promise of hope. Now in the next portion, we, of course, read about what Isaiah saw looking into heaven in chapter six, very, very famous chapter.

R .C. Sproul was famous for teaching very broadly and deeply on Isaiah chapter six. So we have a judgment that's being talked about upon Isaiah. Isaiah himself saying, woe is me, for I have seen God, and I'm a man who dwells in a wicked land.

I'm a man of unclean lips, full of people. I dwell among people of unclean lips. So there's grace upon Isaiah, even though what he deserves is judgment. And then through that same demonstration of grace for Isaiah, the Lord talks about, though Judah deserves judgment, and judgment will certainly come to them, God will show them grace.

And the same thing is said for Israel as well. That's in chapters nine through 11, that there is going to be a judgment upon Israel, and yet God will extend grace. So you have the enjoyment of God's grace that's mentioned in chapter 12, and then we get to God's judgment and grace for the whole world.

So you have it for Isaiah, there's Judah, there's Israel, which you might consider all of the people of God together. And then there is even God's judgment and grace that he will give to the whole world.

You have mention of different nations, Babylon, Philistia, Moab, Syria, Egypt, Edom, Arabia. You have cities mentioned, Jerusalem and Tyree. And then you have the oracles of the wasted city that the Lord will punish, but he will swallow up death forever, a promise that's given in chapter 25.

He will ordain peace and the whole world even will be fruitful. It's kind of a vision of glory that is to come, which will be expounded upon in much greater detail when you get to the latter portion of the book of Isaiah.

So that particular description there, these oracles that come to these different people and cities and nations, that's from chapters 13 through chapters 27. Then you get to chapter 28 and you have God's sovereignty that's being spoken over the whole world.

Chapters 28 through 35, there are six laments that are given in chapters 28 through 33. You have the lament of Ephraim. You have the city where David is encamped. There are things that are being turned upside down, the third lament.

You have stubborn children with their own best laid plans in opposition to God. That is in, that's the fourth lament that comes up in chapter 30. You have those who will not trust God, but they will go down to Egypt for their help.

That's a lament that comes up in chapters 31 and 32. And then there is the destroyer that will come and there's a lamentation for the destroyer in chapter 33. Then there are the final two outcomes. There is judgment or salvation.

So where are you going to end up? Are you going to continue to rebel against God and come into judgment? Or will you turn from your sin to the Lord and be saved? That's in chapters 34 and 35. And of course that translates to us.

Same sort of warning, same sort of either or. You are either going to receive judgment or salvation. So are you going to continue in your sin and your wickedness and in your opposition to God and not paying attention to his word, not honoring Christ, instead going after the passions of your flesh, then you will perish in judgment.

But are you going to turn from those things to the one whom God sent to save us, to take our sins upon himself, to pay the penalty that we deserve, to atone for our sins by his sacrifice, Jesus Christ, the righteous one.

If you turn to him and put your faith in him, you will receive salvation. And the one who is in Christ will do righteousness. Whereas the one who is opposed to God will be in unrighteousness. So there is the contrast.

There's the final outcomes mentioned in chapters 34 and 35. Then we have a historical transition that's going to happen in chapters 36 to 39. Trust in God will be vindicated. And those who go about their own way will be sent into exile, chapters 38 and 39.

That's the conclusion of part one of the book. And then part two, which is chapters 40 through 55, you have the comfort that is being given to God's exiles. Now they've been exiled into Babylonian captivity.

So the first 39 chapters, we're talking about the judgment that's going to come upon them by the Assyrians, or the Assyrian age rather, because they come into Israel before Judah gets conquered. So in that time of the Assyrians, what is that like?

What's going on there? That's what you have described in chapters one through 39. And then the exile into the hands of the Babylonians, that's what's described in chapters 40 to 55. So you have the God of glory.

You have the one true God who's moving through history for the purpose of his great name, and even for the benefit of his own people. That's mentioned in chapter 41 and 42. God will reclaim his people for his glory, chapters 42 and 43.

God revives his people, chapters 43 and 44. God predicts the use of Cyrus in chapters 44 and 45. There's the mocking of the gods in chapters 46 and 47. The Lord will rescue his people from Babylon. That is in chapter 48.

The Lord's servant displayed chapters 49 and 50. The Lord's servant is taught and his people will be assured. This is chapters 50 and 51. There is encouragement to our responsive faith for those who respond in faith and trust in the Lord in chapters 51 and 52.

Then you have the Lord's servant, the exalted sin bearer, the anointed one in chapters 52 and 53. And then compassion for God's people is offered to all in chapters 54 and 55. That's the conclusion of that prophetic section, which is going on or being issued to the people, the hope that they need to hold onto while they are in Babylonian exile, which doesn't come in Isaiah's time.

Remember that. That doesn't come until decades later, but it's through Isaiah that these things are prophesied and the people are to remember, though they will be sent in exile because of their rebellion against God.

The Promise of Coming Glory and the Call to Hope

And then finally, there is the promise of coming glory. When we find in these promises, even something to look forward to in God's eternal kingdom that is described for us, and that's in chapters 56 to 66.

I'll probably flesh that one out a little bit more as we get to it. So there is our introduction to the book of Isaiah. Next week, we'll actually get into reading a little bit more. We still read a whole chapter today.

We read chapter six, all of chapter six. So we'll try to get through all of chapter one next week. That's a pretty beefy chapter. It's 31 verses long. But as we see the wickedness of Judah described, I think we're gonna see some things that are even going on in our world today.

And I've done this before. In fact, if you want, go look up a couple of what videos called Modern Worship and then Modern Worship Explained. You can find them both on YouTube. When I read from Isaiah 1, 10 through 20, and show how some of the things that are being described there about a rebellious people, you can even find in the world today among those who claim to be worshipers of God, but are not.

So again, those two what videos on YouTube are Modern Worship and Modern Worship Explained. And then I'll come back to Isaiah chapter one on Thursday of next week. Let's finish with prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your goodness to us, which you proclaim to us through your word.

Even going back to Old Testament prophets, we read about the promise of a Messiah that is to come. And we know who that Messiah is now on this side of the cross, Jesus Christ who has fulfilled all these things.

But reading about the promises that we have in Isaiah is gonna give us an even deeper look and an understanding of what Christ has done for us. And the call as to how we as Christians are to live for him, to honor our King, to the glory of our Father, who is in heaven.

Lord, if there is any wicked way in us, convict us of our sins and turn us from these things back to the Lord Jesus Christ, so we may walk in the righteous way and live. And we hold fast to this promise of glory that is to come.

Lord, deliver us from these wicked times into your eternal kingdom. Come quickly, Lord Jesus. It is in his precious name that we pray, amen.

This has been When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabriel Hughes. For all of our podcasts, episodes, videos, books, and more, visit our website at www .utt .com. If you'd like to submit a question to this broadcast, or just send us a comment, email whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.

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