We're into the Latter Prophets and so the handout that you see there is an introduction to the Latter Prophets and I'd like you to open up your Bibles to the book of 2 Kings chapter 17. 2 Kings chapter 17 is the first text we'll be looking at together as we introduce the Latter Prophets, 2 Kings being the last book in the former prophets. As you see on the handout that I gave you, we are now going to follow the logical movement of the Old Testament rather than following the order of the English Bible that we have where after 1st and 2nd Kings you would find 1st and 2nd Chronicles. we're going to do a different order in our Old Testament survey class here, because the logical movement from the history of kings leads us into the latter prophets, and that is the order in the Hebrew scriptures. If you were to go to the Jewish synagogue and open up their Tanakh, as they call their Old Testament, they don't recognize the New Testament yet, they will someday, but for now they are in unbelief. Don't call the Old Testament the Old Testament. They're still trying to live under the Old Testament. And if you opened up one of their Bibles, the Tanakh, you would find that after the book of Kings, you have the book of Isaiah. Very different. It takes quite a lot of pages in our Bible after you finish Kings to get to the book of Isaiah. But the reason why Isaiah comes after Kings in the Jewish Bible is because the history of first and second kings is what gives you the necessary background to be able to understand the messages of the prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the twelve. Those are the four prophets who are part of the latter prophets as the Jewish people called them. And so we're going to follow that order. It's not that that's the only correct way of reading the Old Testament. I'm not trying to say that the order in the English Bible is wrong or deficient. I'm just saying that we're very familiar with the order of the English Bible and so it can be helpful for us to consider the order in the Hebrew Bible just to be able to get another perspective on how all of these amazing books that God has given us of inspired scriptures in the Old Testament work together and build off of one another. We have our Bibles open to 2 Kings chapter 17 because this chapter is really the most important chapter in the books of 1 and 2 Kings as it explains how God has been working in Israel's history during the United and the Divided Kingdom, particularly the Divided Kingdom, and why the kingdom of Israel, the kingdom of God, God's holy nation, was brought to utter destruction at the end of this book. And it begins here in 2 Kings 17 with the fall of the Northern Kingdom in 722 BC to Assyria. And then at the end of this book, 2 Kings, with the fall of the Southern Kingdom, Judah, in 586 BC as the Babylonians invade Now, 2 Kings 17, I'm not going to read the first few verses, but I want to pick it up in verse 7, where in the ESV, it's got this as a separate section with its own section title, where it's titled, Exile Because of Idolatry. And that exile because of idolatry is really the setting, it's the major historical event, and the reason for that event, helps us to get a handle on the prophets, the later prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, the Twelve. It's all about Israel in exile, Israel being restored from exile, why they went into exile and what God's purpose is for the future of Israel now that their destruction and prophesied return is completed. That's why 2 Kings 17 is really the key passage leading into the book of Isaiah and all of the major prophets as we call them. So follow along in your Bibles, I'll read a large section here out loud for us. It says, and this occurred, that is the fall of Israel, their exile, this occurred because the people of Israel had sinned against the Lord their God, who had brought them up out of the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt. and had feared other gods, and walked in the customs of the nations, whom the Lord drove out before the people of Israel, and in the customs that the kings of Israel had practiced. And the people of Israel did secretly against the Lord their God things that were not right. They built for themselves high places in all their towns, from watchtower to fortified city. They set up for themselves pillars and ashram on every high hill and under every green tree, And there they made offerings on all the high places, as the nations did whom the Lord carried away before them. And they did wicked things, provoking the Lord to anger, and they served idols of which the Lord had said to them, you shall not do this. Yet the Lord warned Israel and Judah by every prophet and every seer, saying, turn from your evil ways and keep my commandments and my statutes in accordance with all the law that I commanded your fathers, that I sent to you, by my servants the prophets." We'll stop here for a moment. 2 Kings 17, it introduces the reason why the exile occurred and as it focuses on the sin of Israel, what's the major sin that is emphasized here in this paragraph that I just read? It's repeated over and over again. What did Israel do? Idolatry, yep. So that's the chief, that's the root of the sin of Israel. And all of the other sins, they flow out of that sin of idolatry. This is seen in Israel's history, but it's also seen in the history of the nations, as Paul, in Romans chapter one, writes a similar chapter about God's wrath revealed against all of the nations of first century world, the Roman world that he lived in, that it was out of the idolatry of the Greco-Roman civilization, and all the others that were the same, basically a pluralistic religion all with the same pagan foundation, that all the other sins that people committed were coming from that heart of idolatry, that they worshipped and served the creation rather than the creator, and therefore God gave them up to all of the degrading passions. And so you see also this is true in our world today, that all of the murders that are in the world, such as our abortion culture, all of the immorality, all the divorce, all the destruction of marriage, all of the corruption in the political system, all of that, it flows from a heart that is not worshiping the creator, the God who made us. And so the problem to fix the problem, to fix the immorality, to fix the corruption, to fix the murder, to fix the wars, and all the evil that's in the world, well, you've got to get to the problem of the heart, and the heart in relationship to God. That's why we as the Church have the most important role in the world, that we have the answer to every problem that is in the world, which is restoring people's hearts to the Creator through faith in Jesus Christ. That's the power of the Gospel. So we must never lose sight of what our mission is, is to proclaim the gospel and restore individuals and families to worshiping God instead of worshiping idols like humanism. And therefore, we save people from sin. And by saving people from sin, then that's going to take care of all of those other problems. And we're supposed to be this lighthouse that is shining in the world showing, well, look what God can do in saving people from their sin. Look at what he can do to save marriages. Look what he can do to cause us to walk in humility and love and self-sacrifice instead of revenge and bitterness and suicide and all those things that fill the world. We're supposed to be showing the world that this is God's saved people and you can come and be a part of God's salvation. So we have such an important job of proclaiming the gospel and living the gospel. All that just from this text here that shows you Israel's main problem was idolatry. And once that problem would get fixed, then the other things would also fall in line as they trusted in God and walked in his word. So the prophets are introduced here also at the end of this paragraph that we read, that God warned Israel in verse 13, by every prophet and every seer saying, turn from your evil ways and keep my commandments and my statutes in accordance with all the law that I commanded your fathers that I sent you by my servants the prophets. So the law, the commandments, the covenant, all of that goes back to Torah. So here you see the former prophets, former prophets being Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, four former prophets in the prophets, four latter prophets. So here you see the former prophets are based upon Torah, and the book of Joshua is really just a continuation of the Torah, the Pentateuch, and then Judges is the failure, and then Samuel is God, creating the kingdom and moving the plan forward and then Kings is the failure of Israel after the Davidic covenant. And so you see the former prophets are all built on the foundation of Torah and here the latter prophets who are referenced here, the ones who warned Israel and we're going to get into Isaiah who's one of these guys that God sent to warn Israel about their idolatry and turning away from God's covenant and God's commandments, it's all based upon the Torah. The books of Moses, the Pentateuch, that is the foundation and Israel is judged according to faithfulness to God's covenant that was formed there at Mount Sinai with Moses. They were not faithful and that's why the exile came. That's a summary of those verses. It's a long explanation more than a summary. So let's continue, verse 14. But they would not listen, but were stubborn as their fathers had been. who did not believe in the Lord their God. Notice that the unfaithfulness to the covenant here is linked to lack of faith in God. And you're going to see that in the prophets also, that when people trust in the Lord, then they're faithful to the covenant. But when people don't trust in the Lord, then they're unfaithful to the covenant. So it's always been by faith. Salvation has always been by faith, whether they were under the old covenant law or whether we're in the new covenant with the blood of Jesus Christ. A right relationship to God has always been dependent upon trust in the Lord. So, they didn't trust in the Lord. Instead, they despised His statutes and His covenant that He made with their fathers and the warnings that He gave them. They went after false idols and became false, and they followed the nations that were around them. So, you see, the idols and the nations. They followed after idols and they followed the nations, and the nations and idolatry were wed together. that the nations were basically idolatrous nations, so when they're following the idols, they are following the nations, and when they're following the nations, they are following the idols, because the nations were built on this idolatrous foundation. Concerning whom the Lord had commanded them that they should not do like them, and they abandoned all the commandments of the Lord their God, like the Ten Commandments. Ten Commandments start with what? What's the first commandment? Yeah, no other gods before me. And the second commandment? Yeah, don't bow down to idols, right? So the commandments start with the relationship with God. And if your relationship with God is right, then the other commandments will be doable. But if your relationship with God is not right, then you see the dishonoring of parents, like commandment number five, you see the murder, you see the lying, you see the covetousness, all that flows out of not loving the Lord. When they had idolatry and followed the nations, then they abandoned all the commandments of the Lord their God, and made for themselves metal images of two calves, and they made an Asherah, and worshipped all the hosts of heaven, and served Baal. And they burned their sons and their daughters as offerings, and used divination and omens, and sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the Lord, provoking him to anger. Therefore the Lord was very angry with Israel, and removed them out of his sight. None was left but the tribe of Judah only." So, the list of sins there that God hates. The sacrifice of children, like our culture. Divination, omens. You know, as the atheists, the secularists, have tried to get Christianity out of our culture, men like Richard Dawkins have been very disappointed that they haven't created a secular culture, but that instead all kinds of superstition is on the rise in Europe, in England, in America. that the occult and witchcraft and all of that is becoming much more prevalent. And the atheists, they thought that they were going to create this intellectual society that had left all this superstition and stuff behind and find out that no, you get rid of God and what do you get? Well, you get the demons. And that's basically what happened in Israel. They stopped worshiping God, and what did they get? Well, they got the witchcraft, they got the sorcery, they got the omens, they got the sacrifice of children. They got all the mess that we're getting when we turn away from God as well. Therefore the Lord was very angry, removed them out of his sight. None was left but the tribe of Judah only. But, look at verse 19. Judah also did not keep the commandments of the Lord their God, but walked in the customs that Israel had introduced. And the Lord rejected all the descendants of Israel, and afflicted them and gave them into the hand of plunderers until he had cast them out of his sight. When he had torn Israel from the house of David, that's how the book of Kings starts, right? They made Jeroboam the son of Nebat king and Jeroboam drove Israel from following the Lord and made them commit great sin. The people of Israel walked in all the sins that Jeroboam did. They did not depart from them until the Lord removed Israel out of his sight as he had spoken by all his servants, the prophets. So Israel was exiled from their own land to Assyria until this day. So the book of Kings is about kings, but it's also about the prophets. And the prophets were there telling the kings, you're not following the Lord. You're not being faithful to the covenant. God is going to judge you. God is going to judge the nation. God is going to judge your dynasty. And so time and time again, God sent the prophets. The kings didn't listen. The people didn't listen. And so finally, God's patience is at an end, and he brings the ultimate punishment, the ultimate discipline of his people, which is the exile, which had been predicted all the way back in the Pentateuch in the days of Moses, a good 700 years before Sennacherib's invasion and Assyria and Babylon and all of that. So, that is the Book of Kings and that is what is leading us into then the latter prophets, where now instead of a focus on the kings, it's going to be a focus on the prophets. So all throughout this time period, it was kings and prophets. Kings focuses on the kings, and Isaiah is one of these prophets, and now we're gonna get a big focus on him with a book that is 66 chapters long, and it's the first among the latter prophets. It's first in the Hebrew Bible for the latter prophets, Isaiah comes first. It's also first in the English Bible among the prophets, as we have Isaiah through the minor prophets as the end of our Old Testament, And it's first among the prophets for a reason. Now, before we dig into Isaiah, there's a few more things that I want to say about the latter prophets as a whole. When it comes to understanding the latter prophets, I want to continue to emphasize the importance of the exile. So, you've got prophets who were ministering before the exile, prophets who were ministering during the exile, and prophets who were giving the Word of God after the exile. So when you're dealing with Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the Twelve, and we also have Daniel in there in our Bible, in the Hebrew Bible, Daniel is in the writings, but in our Bible he's put in with the prophets. And when you're looking at the prophets, the most important event is the exile and the return from exile. Now, Jeremiah, is mostly before the exile, but the exile happens during his ministry, during his lifetime, so he's also an exilic prophet, but he's mostly pre-exilic. And Ezekiel is a little bit pre-exilic, but mostly exilic. There's a little bit of overlap here, but I just want you to see this and get the idea that when it comes to the prophets, it's all about the exile. The last three in the Book of the Twelve, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, They are post-exilic. They are those who are living in Jerusalem after the people of Israel have come back. So we only have three prophets. That's the last part of the twelve, which is really one book in the Hebrew Bible. We've separated it into twelve books, but the Hebrews had it as one large book. And the last part of that large book, or the last three in our English Bibles, focus on the post-exilic prophets. So just get that in mind, that when you're reading the prophets, it's all about what's going on in the exile and then after the exile as we come to the end of the latter prophets. All right, one other thing I want to focus on on the prophets is their titles. We had it there in 2 Kings 17, they were called prophets and they were called seers. And they have another title also, and I want you to see all three of these back in 1 Samuel 9. So turn back to 1 Samuel chapter nine. In 1 Samuel nine, verses five through 10, we've got the account of how Saul was first chosen to be the king over God's people Israel. And it was as he was sent out to search for the lost donkeys. You remember this is, you read it during this part of our Old Testament survey. Pick up there in verse five, where it says, when Saul and his servant, they, came to the land of Zuth, Saul said to his servant, who was with him, come, let us go back, lest my father cease to care about the donkeys and become anxious about us. But the servant said to Saul, behold, there is a man of God. So there's another title. Man of God is something that was used to refer to the prophets in the Old Testament. And he is a man who is held in honor, so that all that he says comes true. Let us go up there, perhaps he can tell us the way that we should go. Then Saul said to his servants, but if we go, what can we bring the man for the bread and our sacks is gone and there's no present to bring to the man of God, what do we have? The servant answered Saul again, here I have with me a quarter of a shekel of silver and I will give it to the man of God to tell us our way. Formerly in Israel, when a man went to inquire of God, he said, come, let us go to the seer. For today's prophet was formerly called a seer. So man of God, prophet, seer. This is the older term. Man of God is just another term that was used. And then prophet became the predominant term to refer to these men when the book of Samuel was being written. But when the story of Saul here was actually happening, then they used the word seer more often. So sometime in this time period, the predominant word went from being a seer to being a prophet, and that's noted there in the text. by the author Samuel, whoever he was, probably not Samuel. Those three titles are important because it gives you insight into the latter prophets, men like Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and all the 12. They were men of God. Let's take a look at that one first. A man of God means that he is God's servant. that when you say that he's somebody's man, you're saying that he belongs to that person's household. Like Saul has his servant with him, well God has his servants. And his servants are called men of God, whereas if you were a man of Saul, you'd be called a man of Saul if you were his servant. So this is a way of describing somebody's servant. And the man of God is supposed to be treated with respect and honor because he is God's servant. And it reminds me of back when we had kings and servants and all of that, that Shakespeare was writing about a fictional king, King Lear, who sent his man to deliver a message to one of his family members and they put his man in the stocks. And he got really mad that they put his man in the stockade. And he said, who put my man in the stocks? And he was really furious about that. And so basically that's what Israel does to God's men. They put God's men in the stocks. They throw Jeremiah down into the well. They end up killing many of the prophets And so God takes that personally. Who put my man in the well? Who put my man in jail? Who put my man to death? That's an offense. That's an attack against me because it's my man and he represents my household. And so that's the way it is when God treats Christians. I am not a man of God anymore than you are a man or a woman of God. You are his servant. We are all his servants. We are all doing his work in the world. And just because I have the ministry of preaching and teaching doesn't make any difference. That the ministry of administration, the ministry of service, all of that is being a servant of God. And if somebody mistreats a servant of God because he is a servant of God, well then God takes that personally. And he's going to avenge the blood of his servants as we will read as we get further into the book of Revelation. So understand the title, Man of God, and don't think of that as a pastor. Think of that as a Christian. men and women of God now. We tend to think of it as a pastor because we associate it with the prophet who spoke the word of God and the pastor speaks the word of God so that's how we get confused on that but I wanted to clear that up. All right, and then also the prophet is one who speaks for God, that's what the word prophet means, focuses on the speaking forth of God's word. And then the seer is somebody who saw visions from God that he would then relate to the people like in the book of Revelation. Isaiah, not Isaiah, John saw visions, so he is a prophet who is writing down the visions, the dreams that God gave for him that are revelation, so that focuses on the receiving. Seer focuses on the receiving of the revelation. Prophet focuses on the speaking forth of the revelation, but both focus on the revelation. All right, so God's words come with God's authority. That's what I wanted to drive home by focusing on these titles, these designations of the prophets. And Moses was the first and the greatest of the prophets. And when we get to Isaiah and the other prophets, recognize that these are lesser than Moses, but they're still important, they're still great. Moses is the first, he's the greatest, but the prophets that come later, they are prophesied by Moses, God told us that he was going to send more prophets, and that we needed to listen to God's prophets as we were listening to God himself. And you can read about that in Deuteronomy 18, where it predicts the coming of these prophets after Moses, and also Deuteronomy 34, which tells us that Moses was the greatest among the prophets, and none have arisen like him in Israel. So to understand the prophets, you need to understand who the prophets were, which we just did, and the historical background of the prophets, which is what we looked at in Kings. And really, when you're talking about the historical background of the prophets, you're looking at 2 Kings. From 2 Kings 14 to 2 Kings 25, where it starts to focus on the fall of Judah, and also 2 Kings 17, which explains the fall of Israel. That last part of the book of Kings is really the most pertinent historical background for the books of the latter prophets, starting with Isaiah. So turn to Isaiah, chapter one, verse one. As planned, we are just spending part of our time here on an introduction to the latter prophets, and the rest of our time is going to be focused on Isaiah. We won't get all the way through Isaiah, obviously, in half an hour. 66 chapters, the most important of all of the Old Testament prophets, We'll probably spend several weeks here introducing Isaiah in our Old Testament survey, and that will give you time to be doing your reading of the book of Isaiah. Yes? Yeah, so God's word gives us the standard by which to judge so-called prophets. And so any prophet who says that I have a message from God or from the heavenly world has to be held to that standard of what God laid out in Deuteronomy. that everything the prophet says, all of his predictions, have to come true. If there's a prediction that he makes that doesn't come true, then the Bible tells us that's a false prophet, you don't listen to him, you don't fear him. And so prophets need to be able to prove that they're prophets by predicting the future with 100% accuracy. And any prophet who doesn't measure up to that standard shows himself to be a false prophet. And that's why there is so much predictive prophecy in the Bible, is so that God can authenticate the true prophets. And the true prophets would have prophecies not only that were far distance in like the coming of Jesus Christ hundreds of years later, but they would have prophecies that were for their own time. so that people who were living with them in their generation would be able to know who's a true prophet and who's a false prophet. So for example, Jeremiah said that Babylon was going to conquer Jerusalem and told the people what they should do. People didn't want to hear that. They didn't listen. They didn't do what Jeremiah told them to do. They thought, no, we can hold out. We can defeat Babylon and not lose the city. So they were listening to false prophets who were telling them, no, God is with us. The temple's here. Babylon will never take this city. And so, when Babylon did take the city, then everyone knew. Okay, Jeremiah was the true prophet, these other guys were false prophets, or at least they should have. Although, surprisingly, even when people speak the truth and it comes to pass and people tell lies and it doesn't come to pass, people still don't listen, they still don't learn, they still continue to listen to people who tell lies. We see that in our own time, even when it's not dealing with prophecy and it's just dealing with common sense predictions of what's going to happen. People still don't know who to listen to, even after it happens. But, they should. And so people should know which prophets to listen to and which prophets are false prophets by the standard that God has set up. They need to be able to predict the future with 100% accuracy. So guys like Joseph Smith failed. He did not predict the future with 100% accuracy. And anyone who comes along and proclaims himself a prophet, you know, many false prophets were proclaiming that Trump was going to win the 2020 election. And so they were all shown to be false prophets when we got a different president sworn in. Now, you know, they can make all kinds of arguments and say well he really won but it was cheated and you know there's a way to interpret my prophecy that still makes sense and all that but these guys are charlatans and they're not getting prophecies from the Lord and that's been the experience of the believing church for the last two thousand years that since the apostles went off the scene prophecy also disappeared in the church as a gift that God has given and so if a prophet were to come along he would have to be Orthodox he'd have to be preaching the truth and most of these prophets are not and it's pretty obvious that they're not and he would also have to have pretty remarkable short-term prophecies that would come to pass that would show that he was a prophet from the Lord in order to you know convince the wise people who have been living in the church for thousands of years without prophets in the church to that God is restoring the gift of prophecy to the church. So I'm not saying that God can't send a prophet, he can, but there'd have to be pretty awesome evidence that God would give in light of the long history without prophets in the church. All right, so when it comes to Isaiah, we're gonna just get started on it here this morning, and I wanna show you the purpose, or not the purpose, start off with just an overview statement that I put there at the top of your handout, that the book of Isaiah, it ties together the Old Testament and the New Testament in the most complete way of any book in the Bible. Therefore, it is essential to understanding the message of the Bible. Now, one of the great things about the way that we have our Bible set up in the English Bible is that Isaiah is about in the middle. See how Isaiah is about halfway through? That works out well because Isaiah is basically the connecting point of the Old Testament Torah, everything that happened in the Old Testament that was built upon Moses, and then what God is going to do in the New Covenant with the coming of Jesus, that Isaiah, he stands in the midst of that. And he looks back on Mount Sinai and says, everything that God told us at Mount Sinai has come to pass. 700 years of history, from Moses to Isaiah's time, and it's all happened exactly as God said it was gonna happen. Now that that's all happened, let me tell you what's gonna happen next. And so God, through Isaiah, his servant, God tells the people of Israel what's gonna happen next. And what's gonna happen next is salvation. The law brought condemnation. Moses, 700 years of Israel's history, not keeping the law, they got the curse of the law. The law brought the condemnation. What's gonna happen next is salvation. And that's in fact what Isaiah's name means. You see there, when it comes to the title of the book, the book is named for the author. And then, I think I put this a little bit later, when you come down to the themes, And you see the fourth theme of the book is salvation, that Isaiah's name means Yah is salvation, that Yahweh is salvation. Isaiah means God is salvation, the God of Israel, Yahweh. And so not only does the title of the book go from the author, but then the title of the book also represents the message of the book, that God is going to save his people now that he has judged them for their sins. And that's really the second half of the book of Isaiah, And we'll talk about that when we get to the outline. So, the book of Isaiah, it ties together Mount Sinai and Mount Calvary. He's looking back to Mount Sinai, he's looking forward to Mount Calvary, where you've got Jesus instituting the new covenant in his blood. And he shows how this is all part of God's plan. So it's an awesome, awesome book. It's really splendorous and it's probably my favorite Old Testament book. It might be my favorite book of the Bible overall. That might be why we're also following this order in studying the Old Testament survey. Can't wait to get to Isaiah. Good stuff. Now, Isaiah chapter 1 then is the beginning of a new section of our Bible. Whether you're looking at the Hebrew Bible or whether you're looking at the English Bible, it's the beginning of the latter prophets in the Hebrew Bible. It's the beginning of the prophets as a whole in the English Bible. And so I want to read for you Isaiah chapter 1. because the first chapter in a new section of God's Word really sets the stage. It's very important and foundational. So, it starts off this way. The vision, notice the vision, he's a seer, he's seeing visions. The vision of Isaiah, the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. So he's a prophet to Judah and Jerusalem. In the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah. So he dates his prophecies according to the kings of Israel. As we've read the book of 2 Kings, we've read about the kingdom of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, and whether or not these men were good and faithful to the Lord. And we find out that three of them were. Ahaz was a wicked king, but Uzziah, Jotham, and Hezekiah were all good kings. Now keep that in mind as then we read the prophecies of Isaiah which are kicked off here in chapter one that the people are still wicked even when they have a good king. That's one of the things I want you to get from understanding Isaiah is that even during the reign of their good kings, the people still had a lot of idolatry and wickedness among them. So this is how it starts and most of these prophecies that are recorded by Isaiah were probably spoken first to the people of Israel. So he receives it in like a vision or a dream and then he goes out and he speaks it on the streets of Jerusalem. You could picture him maybe taking his stand outside the temple, maybe inside the temple, maybe going to the marketplace in Jerusalem, goes to the public places and he just calls out Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel. So imagine you're an inhabitant of Jerusalem or Israel in the 7th century BC, 8th century BC, and there's this prophet that's standing out there in the marketplace and he's yelling out God's word. This is what he says. Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth, for the Lord has spoken. Children have I raised and brought up, but they have rebelled against me. The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master's crib. But Israel does not know. My people do not understand." Ah, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, offspring of evildoers, children who deal corruptly. They have forsaken the Lord. They have despised the Holy One of Israel. They are utterly estranged. Why will you be stricken down? Why will you continue to rebel? The whole head is sick and the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot, even to the head, there is no soundness in it, but bruises, sores, and raw wounds. They are not pressed out or bound up or softened with oil. Your country lies desolate. Your cities are burned with fire. In your very presence, foreigners devour your land. It is desolate, as overthrown by foreigners. and the daughter of Zion is left like a booth in a vineyard, like a lodge in a cucumber field, like a besieged city. If the Lord of hosts had not left us a few survivors, we should have been like Sodom and become like Gomorrah. Hear the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom. Give ear to the teaching of our God, you people of Gomorrah. What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices, says the Lord. I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of well-fed beasts. I do not delight in the blood of bulls or of lambs or of goats. When you come to appear before me, who has required of you this trampling of my courts? Bring no more vain offerings. Incense is an abomination to me. New moon and Sabbath and the calling of convocations. I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly. Your new moons. and your appointed feasts, my soul hates. They have become a burden to me. I am weary of bearing them. When you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you. Even though you make many prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are full of blood. Wash yourselves. Make yourselves clean. Remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes. Cease to do evil. Learn to do good. Seek justice. Correct oppression. Bring justice to the fatherless and plead the widow's case. Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord. Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool. If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land. But if you refuse and rebel, You shall be eaten by the sword, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken. How the faithful city has become a whore. She was full of justice. Righteousness lodged in her. But now, murderers. Your silver has become dross. Your best wine mixed with water. Your princes are rebels and companions of thieves. Everyone loves a bribe and runs after gifts. They do not bring justice to the fatherless, and the widow's cause does not come to them. Therefore, the Lord declares, the Lord of hosts, the mighty one of Israel, ah, I will get relief from my enemies and avenge myself on my foes. I will turn my hand against you and will smelt away your dross, as would lie, and remove all your alloy. And I will restore your judges as at the first, and your counselors as at the beginning. you shall be called the city of righteousness, the faithful city. Zion shall be redeemed by justice, and those in her who repent by righteousness. But rebels and sinners shall be broken together, and those who forsake the Lord shall be consumed. For they shall be ashamed of the oaks that you desired, and you shall blush for the gardens that you have chosen. For you shall be like an oak whose leaf withers, and like a garden without water, and this strong shall become tender and his work a spark and both of them shall burn together with none to quench them." That's the word of the Lord. That's God speaking through the prophet to the people of Jerusalem in the days of Isaiah. It could have been in Hezekiah's days because in Hezekiah's day Sennacherib invaded the land and captured all the fortified cities and Jerusalem was the last fortified city that was left and that seems to fit with the historical description that you have of Jerusalem being like a hut out in the cucumber field left all alone. So that gives you the sense for what the message of the prophets sounded like in the ears of the people of Jerusalem. It sounded very dour, it sounded very negative, It sounded very judgmental, sounded very hopeless, but it wasn't hopeless because God gave them the opportunity to repent. There was this silver lining of salvation for those who turn to the Lord and repent. And that we're going to find throughout the book of Isaiah and throughout the prophets, that while there's this storm cloud and thunder of God's wrath and God's judgment that is the predominant note that the prophets hit, there is this silver lining of salvation and hope. and future glory for Israel throughout the books and throughout Isaiah. And Isaiah, whose name means Yahweh is salvation, really finishes his book on highlighting God's salvation, as we'll see when we get to chapters 40 through 66 of this amazing prophecy. So, as we look into Isaiah's book, let's talk about the date. We talked about Isaiah, the author, and the title of the book. You see on your handout the date for the book. He ministered from 739 to 686. He has over 50 years of public ministry, if you go from the death of Uzziah, which is noted in Isaiah chapter 6 verse 1, until the end of Hezekiah's reign. And because he records the events of the end of Hezekiah's reign, and he also records the death of Sennacherib, which took place in 681 B.C., that we know that the final form of the book of Isaiah didn't come to be until Isaiah was quite old, and around 681 B.C. is probably when the book was brought together and composed by Isaiah as we have it. So, about 700 years after Moses, and about 700 years before Christ. So once again, he's in the middle. Halfway between Moses and Christ is Isaiah, not only in the placement of the book, but also in the chronology of Israel's history. Pretty cool. Now Uzziah, you can read about his kingdom in 2 Kings 14, Jotham in 2 Kings 15, Ahaz in 2 Kings 15, and Hezekiah in 2 Kings 18 through 20. Second Kings 14 through 20 really is the time period that Isaiah is doing these prophecies in. So that's why reading Second Kings, and particularly those chapters, is such good background. It's the necessary historical background for understanding the prophecy of Isaiah. And since many Christians don't read the book of Kings, therefore they don't read the book of Isaiah, because you kind of need to know Kings in order to make sense of Isaiah. So the more you read scripture, the more it opens up, the more its treasure is revealed to you. Those who value and treasure God's word will be repaid. Those who neglect God's word will be shut out. That's the way God works. He's very wise in how he dispenses the treasures of his wisdom. There's also some important political background that I want you to understand when it comes to the history from 739 to 680 BC here. Isaiah is ministering during a time where the predominant world powers in the ancient world, we're talking about the cradle of civilization there from Egypt to Mesopotamia, the dominant world powers in that area were Egypt and Assyria. And Israel was caught in between, geographically and politically. In between Egypt and Assyria is Israel and all the lands there around Israel. And so they had to decide, are we going to throw in our lot with the Assyrians and make allies with them? Or are we going to throw in our lot with the Egyptians and make allies with them? And that's what every king who was living during this time had to figure out. What's our foreign policy when it comes to Egypt and Assyria? And so you're going to see that come up a lot in Isaiah's book. That Isaiah, as a prophet, is going to encourage the people of Israel to put their trust in the Lord and not put their trust in Assyria or Egypt. the people of Israel and their kings are going to constantly be making the mistake of putting their trust in Egypt or Assyria instead of putting their trust in the Lord. Now Hezekiah gets a major section of the book of Isaiah dedicated to him just as he has more in Kings about him so he also has more in Isaiah. So Hezekiah is a very important king in the southern kingdom of Judah and that's why the scripture focuses in on him, because he is the one king who trusts in the Lord in the midst of all this. Uzziah is a good king, Jotham is a good king, Ahaz is a bad king, Hezekiah is a good king, but Hezekiah stands out as being the one who broke his alliance with the Assyrians, didn't trust in Egypt, but who wholly trusted in the Lord to save him, from the political threats that surrounded his kingdom. And so he's going to be a good example in the book of Isaiah of what it means to trust in the Lord, whereas Ahaz is the counterexample, he's the foil to Hezekiah. So Ahaz is the one who trusts in his political alliances. And then his son, Hezekiah, reverses that and trusts in the Lord. And Isaiah uses that as a major message throughout his book, showing the disastrous results of trusting in the nations versus the good results that come about from trusting in the Lord. So be aware of that as you read through the book. You've got Egypt and Assyria. And then I also want to introduce the concept of Babylon here. Now, Babylon is a city. Assyria is a region, an area, and they had their capital at Nineveh. But we call them the Assyrians because they were a group of people that had different cities and Nineveh was their most important. But Babylon is a city and Babylon as a city is dominated and controlled by the Assyrians at this time. Now Babylon was an ancient city, Babylon was an important city, and so the kings of Assyria were very proud of the fact that they had control over the city of Babylon, and in fact they called themselves the kings of Assyria and Babylon. They valued Babylon so much that that was part of their identity, that we are kings of Assyria and Babylon. But Babylon also had its own people, it had its own culture, and it had its own desire to rise again to prominence. And so at some points Babylon breaks free from Assyrian control and is trying to establish their own independence. And eventually Babylon will break free from Assyria, not only establishing their independence, but conquering Assyria and taking over the empire. So Assyria becomes very powerful during this time. They start to take over all the nations and threaten even as far as Egypt. As they're doing that, they're coming through Israel, capturing the northern kingdom of Israel, destroying all the cities of the southern kingdom. And it's only because of Hezekiah's faith in God that Jerusalem is saved from destruction at this time. And that becomes an important theme in the book, as I said. But then, after Assyria falls to Babylon, Babylon becomes the threat. And so, Hezekiah, as good as he is in trusting in the Lord for deliverance against the Assyrians, will find in Isaiah's book that he makes the mistake of making an alliance with Babylon. And so he trusts in the Lord to defend against Assyria and yet he still makes the mistake of seeking an alliance with Babylon and that is ultimately going to be the city, the people that destroy Hezekiah's kingdom in the days of his great-grandchildren or whatever. Assyria, Babylon, Egypt, these are some of the important players that you're going to be reading about as you go through Isaiah's prophecies. And Babylon becomes especially important in the second half of Isaiah's book, in chapters 40 through 66, and we'll talk about that when we get there. So that's an introduction to the former prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the Twelve. And it's an introduction to the Book of Isaiah, looking at the title, the date, and the political background. Next time we'll get into the outline of the Book of Isaiah, and we'll also talk about the themes and the purpose. That will probably take most of our time next week, but if we are able, we'll even start to look into the difficulties that are in the Book of Isaiah, but I imagine that'll be a couple of weeks from now. So I encourage you, if you haven't already started reading the Book of Isaiah, do. finish 2 Kings first because you need that historical background but then get into Isaiah and I think you'll find that going from 2 Kings to Isaiah just makes a lot of sense and the book of Isaiah opens up a lot more if you've got 2 Kings fresh in your mind.