Wednesday, April 10, 2024 PM

Okay, let's open our Bibles to Isaiah chapter 1 and we're going to return to our study of Isaiah and considering what is a prophet? What were the prophets all about? What was their role? What were their concerns?

We've talked about how the prophet Isaiah, like the other prophets, had a special calling to declare the word of the Lord to kings and to priests and to other prophets, to declare the word of the Lord to the people about what God's expectations were, what his covenant standards were, what promises he was going to keep, and what they could expect.

And, Isaiah, with his special calling, had the same concerns as the other prophets did. They were concerns that centered on what it means to be made in the image of God, expressed by the covenant standards.

Therefore, Isaiah, like the other prophets, preached against idolatry. Isaiah, like the other prophets, preached against immorality and injustice. And, he was not only a negative preacher. The prophets were not simply messengers that had criticisms, and that's all they had.

They had positive things to say. In other words, they had things to say that were constructive, that were hope-filled. It wasn't simply a doom and gloom future where all sorts of bad things are about to happen, so buckle up.

That wasn't the entirety of their message. Now, as you're reading through your Bible or reading through one of the prophets, you might encounter a section. It seems like that's all they talk about. Here's all the ways you've messed up, and you've messed up really bad.

And then, they follow that up with, here's all the horrible things that are going to happen to you, and you can't avoid it. And sometimes, that'll go on for a few chapters, and you wonder, where's the hope?

Where's the good? The prophets had constructive things to say. They declared the character of God. They declared the truth of God's Word. They declared the nature of humans being made in God's image. They declared the past faithfulness of God and the present faithfulness of God and the future faithfulness of God.

The Prophets Preached Christ

And the prophets preached Christ. We have many different prophecies in the prophets, wherein we see very clear details of how Jesus would be born, what kind of nature He would have, what kind of things that He would do, where He would go, the things that He would say.

Very clear prophecies about the nature of His death and His resurrection, His ascension, His reign, and His return. The prophets preached Christ. They preached His coming long before He came. But it wasn't only that they preached in a predictive sense of saying, this is going to happen, the Messiah is going to come, and here are the signs by which you will know it is He.

They also preached Christ in terms of His character, His own significance. It wasn't simply predicting that a very important person would come. The prophets explained why He was important, showing how all of the current problems of sin and distress, and even the pending judgment of God about to come upon the nation, is all to be understood and resolved in this person to come, the Messiah.

So the prophets preached Christ. Jesus Himself said to the scribes, to the Pharisees, the Sadducees, He told them, you search the scriptures because in them you think you find eternal life, but it is these that testify of Me.

They thought they could find eternal life in the Bible without Jesus of Nazareth. But Jesus came to give us eternal life. Eternal life is in Him. So He said, you're looking for eternal life in the scriptures, but it is they that testify of Me.

So He comes to offer Himself to us as our eternal life. This is eternal life that we know God and Jesus Christ whom He has sent, John 17 .3 says. And so, let's think about the prophets. Now of course, Jesus had told the Pharisees, the scribes, and the Sadducees, if you believe Moses, you would believe Me because Moses testified of Me.

And of course, Moses was understood to be a great prophet, a foundational prophet. But we've been talking about the structure of the Old Testament, the way that it was compiled in the days of Christ. There was the first section, the Torah, the first five books of the Bible that Moses wrote.

And then there was the middle section called the Nevi 'im or the prophets. And those ran from Joshua all the way to the scroll of the twelve, which was Hosea through Malachi. And those were the prophets.

And then the writings included books that we would sometimes call history, like Ruth and Ezra, Nehemiah, and 1st and 2nd Chronicles. Those were in the writings, but also we find books that we would expect there in the writings section of the Hebrew Old Testament, like Job and Psalms and Proverbs, Song of Songs, and so on.

So when we think about the prophets in the way that Jesus would have explained it, in the way in which the New Testament would describe the prophets, it begins with Joshua and goes through the scroll of the twelve.

That's also what I want to do tonight, just a very quick survey, beginning with Joshua and then going to the scroll of the twelve, how the prophets preached Christ. When we go back to the book of Joshua, what was Joshua known for?

Joshua was the one who led the people into the promised land. What was Joshua's original name? Trivia time. It was Hoshea. Hoshea. And then it was changed to Joshua, pronounced in the Hebrew Yeshua, or Jesus.

Remember in the New Testament where it was said that the prophets said that his name would be Jesus. How'd they come up with that? You go back to Joshua, whose name was changed from Hoshea to Yeshua, and he's the successor of Moses.

Yeshua takes the people into the promises. The writer to the Hebrews picks up on that, as well as other New Testament authors. In this case, when you're reading through Joshua, you're looking maybe for, it shall be that Messiah will come and do this, and by this sign you will know him.

You're not going to find that in Joshua. But Joshua testifies to there's one coming, a successor of Moses, and at the end of the book, Joshua tells the people that through his ministry, God has kept all of his promises to them, and not a single one has failed.

Chapter 23, verse 14. But what does the New Testament say about Yeshua, about Jesus, the successor of Moses? That all of God's promises in him are yes, yes, and amen, right? That's right. In the book of Judges, of course, in those days, there was no king in Israel, and every man did what was right in his own eyes.

What a horrible situation that was. As judges began to stand in from, we read about Othniel and Ehud, and we read about all these early judges and the latter judges like Jephthah and Samson and so on.

As these judges stood in as champions of the people, when God would anoint a champion and raise them up, he would deliver the people again and again, and the need for a victorious seed is made very clear throughout the book of Judges.

And of course, the story of Ruth is about, well, it's not about Ruth, is it? Well, the story of Ruth is significant because of what? It's a kinsman redeemer that Boaz had to play the role of kinsman redeemer to bring Ruth into his home as his wife, and that she would bear a child for the sake of Baron Naomi or Naomi who lost her, bereaved Naomi.

And so Boaz marries Ruth and Boaz begot Obed who begot Jesse who begot David the king, the ancestor of Jesus. Of course, Romans says Jesus is Christ of the seed of David according to the flesh. In 1 and 2 Samuel, we start off this very, it's a two-parter.

It's 1 and 2 Samuel because they couldn't fit it on one scroll. They had to have two scrolls, it's so big. And we start off the prophecy of Samuel looking at Hannah. And Hannah, Baron Hannah prays for a son, and then when God gives her a son, she praises God for his anointed one.

She praises God for the coming Messiah, the anointed one in her prayer in 1 Samuel 2. She prays about the king that God has appointed in the days when there was no king, the faith of Hannah. They knew more and believed more than what we have written down, and they knew Messiah was coming.

This son Samuel that she has anoints David as king while Saul was still alive. King Saul was alive and reigning, and Samuel snuck down to Bethlehem and anointed one of Jesse's sons king while there was still a king on the throne.

What do you call that today? A coup, usurpation, bad things happen when you do things like that. Samuel knew bad things happen, but again, God had moved his favor away from rebellious, wicked Saul and put his blessing upon David, a man after his own heart.

And so this new king begins to defeat the enemies that the old king cannot. Saul stays in his tent and wonders who in the world is supposed to go out and fight Goliath. The Philistines put forth their tallest guy.

Do you know who the tallest guy in Israel was? Saul, son of Kish. He was head and shoulders taller than everybody else in Israel. So the Philistines say, here's our tallest guy. And the tallest guy over Israel says, well, I don't know who we should send out, but I'm going to sit here and polish my armor.

But David, shepherd boy David, comes and he defeats, the anointed one defeats the enemies that the old king cannot. And we find that David's seed will be the fulfillment of all the prior seed promises in 2 Samuel chapter 7.

And then we go on to the book of Kings. And we find that the son of David builds the temple and blesses all the families of the earth. Isn't that great? All the families of the earth come to the son of David who has built the temple, and they are blessed.

You can read about that in 1 Kings chapter 6 through 10. And then as you keep on reading in Kings, you find that the downfall of Solomon, the split kingdom and the many troubles of the kingdom, emphasize the need for what?

We need a good king, but we need a good permanent king. Because you might have a good king Asa and a good king Josiah, but then, well, then they die. And then the bad kings come back. And now what? Just kind of like the high priest keeps dying and has to be replaced.

The good kings go away. We need a good permanent king, one who would reign on an everlasting throne, just like God said to David back in 2 Samuel 7. And so the myriads of blessings which always attended the righteous king anticipate the Messiah who would come with all the blessings.

Now when you go through the book order in the original Tanakh, the Hebrew Old Testament, you go from Joshua to Judges to Ruth, Samuel, Kings, and then you come to Isaiah. The book we're going to study, Isaiah.

Isaiah's Servant Songs and Messianic Prophecies

Now what prophecies about Jesus Christ do we have in Isaiah? This is a little more familiar territory. Yes, so the servant songs. Of course, Isaiah 52 and verse 13 through 53 and verse 12, the most famous of all the servant songs, speaking in detail about the Messiah who would die on the cross in the place of his people for their transgressions.

And indeed, even after he died and suffered, satisfying God's justice, this same servant would live to see the rewards and the blessings of his work, of his labor amongst his people. Very important. And the other prophecies, promises that we can think of in the book of Isaiah about Jesus Christ.

Yes, unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given. Let's look at a couple of those. Isaiah chapter 7 and then Isaiah chapter 9. We'll start with Isaiah 7 and we'll begin in verse 10. Moreover, the Lord spoke again to Ahaz.

By the way, Ahaz was a bad king, just so we're clear. Moreover, the Lord spoke again to Ahaz, saying, Ask a sign for yourself from the Lord your God. Ask it either in the depth or in the height above.

But Ahaz said, I will not ask, nor will I test the Lord. Then he said, Hear now, O house of David. Is it a small thing for you to weary men, but will you weary my God also? Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign.

Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son and shall call his name Immanuel. Well, this very prophecy is brought up again in Matthew chapter 1. We see the fulfillment of this prophecy in the conception and birth of Jesus Christ and the angel saying to Joseph, to call his name Immanuel, to call his name Jesus.

Then in chapter 9 of Isaiah, in verse 6, what Chris had mentioned, in verse 6 of chapter 9,. For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given. Some of you are hearing Handel's Messiah right now, listening to it in your head.

And the government will be upon his shoulder and his name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace, there will be no end.

Upon the throne of David and over his kingdom to order it and establish it with judgment and justice from that time forward, even forever, the zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this. Born of a virgin, a child who is king.

In the days of those kings, Daniel 2 says, that's when the kingdom of heaven is set up and Jesus of Nazareth is the king. From that time forward, he reigns. And of course, he reigns today. Not only about the advent of the king, but also the nature of his ministry.

If you back up in chapter 9 to verses 1 and 2, we read,. Nevertheless, the gloom will not be upon her who is distressed, as when at first he lightly esteemed the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, and afterward more heavily oppressed her by the way of the sea beyond the Jordan.

And Galilee of the Gentiles, the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. Those who dwelt in the land of the shadow of death, upon them a light has shined. That's Matthew chapter 4. When Jesus went through the land of Galilee, teaching about the kingdom, teaching the gospel, and this passage from Isaiah chapter 9 is brought up as Matthew says, this was to fulfill.

And we read that. So, Isaiah is just chock full of promises and prophecies of Christ, something that we're going to return to before we're finished with our introduction. In the book of Jeremiah, which is the next prophet in the list, we find different prophecies about Christ.

Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel Point to the Coming King

One of them in chapter 23, in Jeremiah chapter 23, we read about a particular name of Christ in verses 5 and 6. Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, that I will raise to David a branch of righteousness.

A king shall reign and prosper. All right, so it's God keeping his promises to David. He's going to raise up a king, a branch pertaining to David, a king who shall reign and prosper and execute judgment and righteousness in the earth.

In his days, Judah will be saved and Israel will dwell safely. Now, this is his name by which he will be called the Lord our righteousness. And this passage is taken up in the New Testament and it is said in more than one place, by more than one writer, that this is fulfilled in Jesus of Nazareth coming and preaching the gospel, dying on the cross, being raised from the dead and ascending to the right hand of the Father.

He is the branch. Also, in Matthew chapter 2, and when you hear the story, the troubling story about Herod killing all of the male children, two years and under in Bethlehem, trying to assassinate Jesus the king because he was threatened, Joseph and Mary and the child Jesus had fled down to Egypt for safety because they were warned.

After Herod died and the immediate threat to the child Jesus had been eliminated, Joseph sought to bring Mary and the child back into the land and decided to go settle back in the hometown of Nazareth.

Nazareth, naseer in the Hebrew, naseer, oath, branch town. So the prophet said, Matthew says, so it should be fulfilled what the prophet said that he would be a Nazarene. Not a Nazarite, long hair, no alcohol.

That's where all the shampoo hair model pictures of Jesus come from. He's got the long hair and he's always sitting there and it's like fluffy and glowing. That's where those pictures came from. People say, well, he's a Nazarite.

He didn't cut his hair. No, Nazarene branch. He was the branch man from branch town. So that's the fulfillment of this prophecy. In Ezekiel, I'll be very quick here. Ezekiel chapters 34 and 37, God promises in Ezekiel 34 verses 23 and 24 that God is going to put a single shepherd, make a single shepherd attend to his flock.

And also in Ezekiel 37, God promises to put David back on the throne. David was dead. Peter makes that point on the day of Pentecost in Acts chapter two. And he says, you know, David is dead. His body did see corruption.

He was, he's rotting in the tomb and his tomb's right over there. Everybody knew where the tomb of David was and the tomb was full of dead men's bones. But the prophecy said that David would sit on the throne and reign from Ezekiel.

And Peter says, that's Jesus, right? Just like Elijah was drawn to the Baptist. There's shadows being fulfilled, pictures being fulfilled. And we've already mentioned Daniel from Daniel chapter two in the days of those kings.

Christ is the stone uncut by human hands that becomes, he becomes a mountain, Mount Zion fills the earth. In Daniel seven, the son of man ascends to victory. And in Daniel chapter nine, there's a timeline for Messiah's ministry.

And Daniel is given a timeline of 483 years. And the 483 years comes due at the exact time that Jesus is baptized by John the Baptist, according to Luke chapter three. So down to the very date on the calendar in Daniel chapter nine.

Daniel chapter nine has been used very often to witness to Jews, some of them who greatly appreciate their traditional scriptures and say, look here in Daniel about this timeline and look how Jesus of Nazareth fits the bill.

And that has been used in more than one case to effectively witness and give the gospel to Jews to turn to Jesus Christ as their Messiah. And then we have the scroll of the 12. We have books like Hosea and Micah and Zechariah and Malachi, and they too proclaim Christ.

In Hosea chapter 11, verse one, God says out of Egypt, I called my son. Now, when you go back and you read the book of Exodus, God calls the nation of Israel, his son. And he's very direct with Pharaoh.

It says, let my people go. And he tells them that you have treated my son wrong. You have oppressed my son. You have attacked my son. Therefore, the last of the 10 plagues was what? God attacked the firstborn of Egypt because Egypt had attacked the firstborn of God, his firstborn son, Israel.

And Hosea was pointing out that God, in his faithfulness and his kindness and mercy, had brought up his son, Israel, up out of Egypt, reminding them of God's past faithfulness. Well, in Matthew chapter two, when Joseph and Mary take Jesus out of their refuge in Egypt back into the land of Israel, Matthew says this was to fulfill Hosea chapter 11, verse one.

Out of Egypt, I called my son. Meaning that what the New Testament says about Christ, the Old Testament said about Israel. Because Jesus is, in his person, the fulfillment of the nation. We also have Micah 5 .2, which identifies Bethlehem as the birthplace of Messiah.

That was the little insider information that the scribes told Herod about where to go find Jesus. In Zechariah 9 .9, there is the prophecy of Christ's triumphal entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday on the foal of a donkey.

That was Zechariah 9 .9, fulfilled to the letter. And then in Malachi chapter three, we read about the messenger, lowercase m, messenger. And the messenger, capital M, messenger. There's John the Baptist, who's the messenger of the messenger.

And then it comes the messenger of the covenant, Jesus Christ himself, in Malachi chapter three. Now that's a brief sampling. It's by no means exhaustive. But when we think about the prophets preaching Christ, it's not limited to very clear formulas where the prophet says, now everybody pay attention.

Here's a predictive prophecy of Messiah. It doesn't always look like that. Sometimes the prophet is simply saying something about Israel that the New Testament says, that's Jesus. Sometimes the prophet himself is called to do something rather strange with his body or with his life or with his livelihood.

And then later on, the New Testament says, that was a picture of Christ. But throughout the prophets, Christ is proclaimed. Okay, so that's the thing. The last thing we're going to do is we're going to talk about, on this little study on the prophets, we're going to talk about more in detail how the prophets fit within the Old Testament canon.

Like we've been kind of talking about a little bit, the law, the prophets, the writings. Why is it that the prophets are organized the way that they are in the Old Testament, and what the significance of that is.

And that will help us understand Isaiah's position when Isaiah was written, and then how Isaiah was linked together with the other books of the Bible, and how that helps us understand the message a little bit better.

The Law, the Prophets, and the Writings in the Hebrew Canon

All right, any questions or thoughts as we close? All right. Let's close with a word of prayer. Father, I thank you so much for this day. I thank you for our time together. I thank you for the blessing of being able to pray for each other and to bear each other's burdens.

I thank you for our visitors tonight, and I pray that you would transform their lives in the gospel of your son, Jesus Christ. And I thank you for those who are serving in TAG tonight. Pray a special blessing upon them and the children of the church.