Well, good morning, everybody. Welcome to Sunday School. It is good to see all of you today. Let me go ahead and get my notes opened up here, and we will begin our time. Let's go ahead and begin our time with a word of prayer. Father, we are thankful for your goodness to us on this Lord's Day. We are thankful for the opportunity to gather with the saints, Father, to study your word, and Father, to worship you. I pray that this morning as we take a first look at the book of Isaiah, Father, that you would be drawn near to us, that you would encourage us, that you would instruct us, that you would rebuke us, and Father, that you would amaze us with the glory of how you have worked in the lives of your people. So we pray that you would bless our time, in Christ's name, amen. Well, welcome to everybody. Jake, who I guess just walked in while I was praying. I look up and there he is, so sneaky, right? Jake finished up the book of Ezekiel last week. I was out, my family living outside on purpose, and it was a good time. So today we are going to be moving into the book of Isaiah. So we are doing an Old Testament survey class, walking through the entire Old Testament and giving, you know, kind of an overview of each book and trying to tie it into an overall story of redemptive history. We've studied the Pentateuch, the Law, The pre-exilic histories, okay, those were known as the former prophets, that goes from Samuel all the way through Kings. And then we've also studied the first two books of the latter prophets, that's Jeremiah and Ezekiel. Now these are a little bit different ways of talking about these books, and the reason we're doing it this way is because we're actually following the order of the Hebrew Bible. So this is the order of how Jesus would have interacted with the Old Testament. We're following in that order. And so that's why we're doing Isaiah now, after we've done Jeremiah and Ezekiel. So today, as I said, we're going to enter the book of Isaiah. But before we turn there, I want to spend a little time thinking about Old Testament prophecy. Now these comments I'm about to make, they're relevant for what we studied already in Jeremiah. Hopefully you'll kind of, as we think about these things, you'll already have some categories based on what we've been teaching. But also they're going to have relevance for Isaiah, obviously, but also relevance as we move into the latter prophets or the minor prophets, if you'd rather. So let's spend a little time talking about that. So the prophetic books, and this is, I'm speaking of all of them, they really began in the middle of the 8th century BC, and they ended some 300 years later. In my Bible, there's a really helpful timeline that has the division of the people of Israel into Judah and Israel, has all the kings listed out, and it also has when the prophets and what side the prophet was prophesying to. So if you want to look at that, you can take a picture of it with your phone. It's a really helpful map. I reference it all the time just to kind of get a sense of where I'm at in the timeline of Israel's history. So come find me after that if you want that. I can open it up and you can snap a photo of it. But that's the period of time. And the prophets really begin by looking backward, right? They're really comparing God's covenant as it's given in the Pentateuch, so in the first, in the law, in the first five books of the Old Testament, with special focus on the book of Deuteronomy. And they're looking at those things and comparing them with Israel's history. And really the bottom line that the prophets say is, you know, you've broken the covenant, you've been unfaithful to God. Now, if you look at your handout, and hopefully everybody has one of these, I have a distinction at the very top there. The distinction is this, forth-telling versus fore-telling. Okay, those two words may sound very similar, and they are, but what do y'all think the difference is? What's the difference between forth-telling and fore-telling? Yeah, one's predictive, that's good. So which one is that? That'd be, yeah, foretelling is speaking, maybe we can even say forthrightly. Speaking honestly, right? Foretelling is much more predictive, much more future-oriented. Okay, so when you're reading the prophets, it's important to have these two ways of speaking in mind. Because sometimes the prophets will be foretelling something, other times they'll be foretelling something. Probably more often than not, they're foretelling. And there is some foretelling going on as well. But that's just a helpful thing for us to keep in mind as we read these texts. So people often think that prophecy is concerned with foretelling. They think prophecy, and they think it's always telling the future, right? But really, prophecy begins with foretelling, which is being forthright about the present in light of what was promised or warned in the past. It's just truth-telling. hey, this is what God said, this is what you're doing, here's gonna be the consequences. Okay, this is why if you think about the Puritans, a lot of them thought of preaching as a form of prophecy. We're taking what God said, right, and we're proclaiming it and warning and exhorting the people with what God said. Okay, so you can see that there's a connection there. But the prophets do also turn to foretelling. Okay, the future concerning, I'm sorry, yeah, foretelling. They look forward to the promises, and really they're looking usually towards one or two things, either salvation or in some cases judgment. Now keep in mind, even the promises of judgment, there are also implicit calls to repentance, okay, which would in fact turn away God's judgment. So even in the predictive prophecies that are concerned with judgment, the people hearing those, there is this almost call for them to turn, to avoid that end, right? So even in that foretelling, there is this call to repent. Now one thing that can make the prophets difficult to read is the complexity of their time horizons. So when you think about, you know, them prophesying over periods of time and going in and out of, you know, different, focusing on different aspects, it can be very difficult to challenge, to follow. When they make predictions about the future, and this is an important point too when we're thinking about prophecy, when they make predictions about the future, those predictions may have multiple fulfillments. So this is where it gets really challenging as you're reading through the prophets to know what's being spoken of here. And sometimes it's something historical that's more immediate. Sometimes it's something that's future, way future. Kind of an escalated fulfillment. But sometimes there's both. There's an immediate historical fulfillment. followed by a greater fulfillment that's to come, you know, under the new covenant. Okay, so these things are, I'm just introducing you to, as you're reading the prophets, don't be too quick to jump to one conclusion. There may be complexities here that we have to be aware of. So predictions can have multiple fulfillments. One example of that is the promise in Isaiah 7. that the virgin or the unmarried woman would be with child. Okay, everyone reads that, and what's their immediate thought? It's Christmas, right? So come on, Jesus, right? That's not wrong. That is not wrong. That is absolutely true. But there seems to be also possibly a short-term fulfillment with Isaiah's then virgin fiancee eventually giving birth. Okay, so you can see, and that's in the text, that there could be a kind of more historical fulfillment with Isaiah's fiancee, who at this point was a virgin, right, who eventually will have a child no longer being a virgin. But that fulfillment has a greater fulfillment in the person of Jesus Christ, obviously through Mary. So the prophets have this telescopic view of history, everything looks like it's up close, and determining the way in which prophecy is fulfilled is not always easy. Now the prophets use a number of literary forms to communicate their message. They use allegory, they use, like in Isaiah 5, you see some allegory. Ezekiel 18, you see Ezekiel using proverbs as a form of prophecy. Amos 5, you see lamentation. Book of Lamentations by Jeremiah, also lamentation. Okay, you see prayers in Habakkuk that are predictive and prophetic. You see narrative. Isaiah chapter 36 through 39 is largely narrative. It's prophetic narrative. So their style of writing is diverse. Think about Jeremiah's laments all the way to Ezekiel's shocking statements in Ezekiel chapter 20. Habakkuk questioning Amos' sarcasm and irony that we'll study later. So all that to say, this is not a straightforward process to interpret these books. It just takes attention. I will say I think you're greatly helped by having a quality study Bible just to help you kind of along the way, and we'll talk about that in just a few minutes as well. But I definitely encourage you to have a good one of those as you study the prophets. Something else that's helpful for me, I have a Bible that doesn't have those titles that says, they're not obviously part of scripture, but they kind of give a statement about what the next section's about. I have a Bible that doesn't have those. And if I'm reading that Bible, In the prophets, it's very difficult for me to follow what's going on, so I've taken to start reading a script of the Bible that has those narrations above the sections about, you know, that describes what the next section's about, just to help follow the argument. So, just another little tip for you. So let me give you a few tips about interpreting Old Testament prophecy. These things are in your handout. They're on the front there. Very short. Seven tips. These should be pretty obvious to you, but it's good to think about them as we turn to a book like Isaiah. Okay, the first principle is to discern the immediate context. And that includes the structure and the flow of the book. OK, so back to my comment about a good helpful study Bible. There is an outline on the back here. Most study Bibles have a really good outline of the book. It's always helpful when you're turning to a prophet to, of course, consider its historical place in history, what king was this prophet prophesying to. But in terms of the internal structure of the book, a nice outline. They're all going to look a little different. But it'll help you capture the flow of the argument. in what the author's doing. So, first thing, to discern the immediate context, which would be the structure and the flow of the book. Principle two, discern the kind of oracle employed. The two main ones I've already mentioned. be judgment, salvation. A lot of the prophets are concerned with those two things, future judgment or impending judgment, or a future salvation or an impending salvation. But there could be others, other types of oracles that the Lord is bringing forth for His people. Now back to the point about foretelling and foretelling, study the balance between the historical foretelling and the predictive foretelling. So recognize that many prophecies may have multiple fulfillments. They may have one that's more immediate, but a more exaggerated or a more, what's the word, escalated fulfillment in the future. You may want to call this two-tier fulfillment, but there may be more than two fulfillments. It could be that there's actually a series of fulfillments leading to a final fulfillment. So be aware of that as well. Determine what kind of language is being used. Poetic language, disputation, narrative. Another important point when interpreting prophecy is to place these texts in their overall place in redemptive history. And here's a word of caution, be careful to not make the wrong associations between Israel and the nation. Right? You see, I don't know what this means, I hope it doesn't offend anybody, but there's those, you know, pray for America signs. Maybe you have one in your front yard, but it has that numbers. If my people will call my name, I will heal their land. And that's obviously a promise for Israel. If you think about how to apply that to our nation, I don't know how you do that. I really don't, you know. So maybe someone can explain that to me. But I think that's an example of maybe making too close of an association between our country and the people of Israel, right? So just an example of something I've seen recently where that might be a little bit off. or even applying it to our church, right? There's certain things that are applicable, but being too quick to draw those connections can lead you to some very strange places exegetically. So make sure you're placing the text in its overall place in redemptive history. These things are written pre-cross, pre-crucifixion, pre-resurrection. We live after those things. So how do all these things connect as we look at interpreting prophecy? And then last one, be alert for certain recurring and sweeping themes, especially those which bear on the relationship between the Testament. Sorry, one more. So pay attention to sweeping themes. And we'll see some of those, not this time, but next time as we continue through the book of Isaiah. We'll look at some of these themes that show up again and again throughout the book. And then lastly, my last one, And this is an important one. Consider how the New Testament authors employ your passage. Or at least the book, how they make reference to the book. Consider how the New Testament authors employ your passage. So remember that in the New Testament we have essentially an authoritative interpretation of many Old Testament texts. And in this way, the New Testament writers are teaching us how to interpret these Old Testament prophecies. And just a point on that when it comes to the book of Isaiah. Isaiah, maybe other than the Psalms, is probably the most quoted book in your New Testament. It's everywhere. And it really is fascinating to study. If you just read through it, we have two weeks. We're not going to meet next week for Sunday school, so we'll come and finish Isaiah. the following week. So you'll have two weeks. I would encourage you to read it. It's a perfect text to read for the season, right? As we celebrate the first advent of Christ, it's a perfect book to read for that. But as you read it, you'll just be amazed at how many phrases, how many sentences, how many sections you'll read it and you'll recognize, I've heard this. a lot. And you've heard it in the New Testament. The New Testament authors make frequent use of the book of Isaiah as they're trying to make sense of the Christ event and the Christ child. So really, really fascinating and really important point. So read the book of Isaiah over the next two weeks, and I think you'll find much encouragement there. Any questions about that, about those principles? Very basic, but hopefully that helps you as you approach reading these books on your own. With the help of a good study Bible, just to kind of keep you understanding some of the broader context. Hopefully these things will help you. Questions or comments? Yes, ma'am. Just kind of thinking about how it is so easy to be mistaken. Yeah. Too quickly or, yeah. Right. Right, right. Yeah, that is a good question. I think that attending a class like this is helpful because what this class is doing is it's providing you kind of a big picture. Sometimes we get so fixated on the trees that we lose sight of the bigger picture of the forest, of what God's doing across all that He's revealed. And so I think, you know, in those disciplines, biblical theology is a discipline that is concerned with discerning themes of scripture from the whole of the canonical books. And essentially that's kind of what we're doing. We're providing a biblical theology of redemptive history in this class. So we're looking at the books individually, but we're trying to place them in a broader context of what God has done throughout history, throughout the history of his people. And so, if you have some good categories for what he's doing over time, you know, all the way from Genesis 3.15, which we spend a lot of time on, where he makes the promise, you know, to crush the head of the serpent, and the serpent would bruise his heel. You know, all the way from there, all the way through the consummation that we read in Revelation, you see how these pieces fit together, and you see how the Lord uses different covenants along the way in order to tell this story. I think if you have an understanding of that, you're going to be somewhat inoculated against doing the kind of thing you're talking about, which is just kind of taking a verse completely out of context, completely out of its historical context, and too quickly applying it to yourself. All of scripture, you can apply it to yourself in some way, but it does matter how you apply it. There's a principle there, many times, that is applicable to you. But we can jump too quickly, I think, if we remove it from the broader context. So a class like this is helpful. There's books that kind of tell the whole story of scripture. And that will help form categories in your mind about how these things should be interpreted within their particular context. That's a good question. Any other thoughts on that or other questions? Yeah, right. Yeah, that's good. So making sure we're paying attention to the immediate context, the audience that he's talking to, those things are all good. But we have to keep in mind that there's not just that context, there's also the broader canonical context. where the Lord inspired this, even for us in some way. It's there not just for them. I mean, it says that, I think it's in the book of Hebrews. These things were not written just for them, but for us also, upon whom the end of the ages has come. So we do need to pay attention to the immediate context, but there is also a broader canonical context where we see the relevance for ourselves a little more clearly sometimes. Great questions. All right, let's go ahead and turn to the book of Isaiah. We do have some youth in here, and I'm gonna see if I can get some volunteers to read. So youth, if you're here, I'm gonna have you read some scripture in just a few minutes. So read nice and loud. That'll be fun. All right, so let's try a couple of these interpretive principles as we open up the book of Isaiah. Before we get started, I'd like to hear maybe a few samples of what some of your favorite texts, or why do you love the book of Isaiah? Why do people love the book of Isaiah? You can share a text, or you can just tell me generally why. Sorry. If you don't love the book of Isaiah, I have two weeks to convince you to love the book of Isaiah. It talks about Jesus. It talks about Jesus. Amen. It really does. It really, really does. And that's a wonderful thing. OK? Because the promised restoration. Yeah. That's right. There's a deep, restorative, especially how it ends. It's his focus on restoration. And even though Jeremiah had some really high points of restoration and promise and these things, overall it's a very negative book, right? Isaiah definitely has some of that negativity, but there's so much more hope and this hope for restoration that we see in the book. That's good. What else? Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Right. Yeah. That's right. Yeah, you see these examples of him declaring judgment on the Assyrians or Egypt, and then you see other texts where it talks about even those pagan nations who are going to fall under his judgment. that they too will be brought in. So it's a beautiful picture. Any other ideas? Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's good. Thank you. So here we are, we're a few days away from Christmas, and I did want to highlight a few texts that are just very famous Christmas texts. Okay, so these were relating to the first advent of Christ, or rather, maybe in some of them, more his person and his work. And I'm going to call on Rowan to read first, because I can. And I'm going to have him read chapter 7, 10 through 14. So read nice and loud, please. Isaiah 7, 10-14. Go for it. Okay, so there it is, right? So a very famous text. I love this because we were doing this in our family worship, and God tells Ahaz to ask for a sign, one that's as deep as Sheol and as high as heaven. So a sign that exceeds even the highest and the deepest things that we can imagine, right? And the response is, behold, a virgin will bear a son and you will call his name Immanuel. So of all the glorious mysteries that we see in all of creation, as high as heaven, as deep as Sheol, okay, and the Lord gives us the incarnation. God made man, right? That's amazing. And as we enter Christmas, it's good to think about this. That what we're actually celebrating in the person of Jesus Christ and his incarnation is something that exceeds even the greatest to the deepest things that we can fathom. This great mystery of how the divine took on human in order to reconcile us to himself. That's remarkable, okay? Who wants to read chapter 9, verses 3-7? I bet Diego will do that for us. Chapter 9, 3-7. You have multiplied the taxes of temptation. You have increased the joy of days and joys before you, as the joy of the harvest, as people exult in the fight of thunder. For the yoke of their birth in the bar crosses their shoulders. You are their oppressor. You have broken, as on the day of many. For all the boots of the trampled warriors and all the crowns filled with blood shall be burned as fuel for the fire. For a child has been born to us, a son given to us, authority rests on his shoulders. Amen, right? What more can be said than that? Someone turned to chapter 11, verses 1 through 2. Who would like to read this one? Seth, would you do that for us? This is chapter 11, one through two. Okay, so, shoot of Jesse. And again, you hear these phrases and hopefully you're hearing things we've already looked at in the survey. Root of Jesse. Okay, Jesse being who? David's father, right? So all these themes get picked up in these prophetic idioms and language that are brought forth in the prophets. We can go on, but I want us to finish our lesson. But there's a lot of glorious stuff like that in the book of Isaiah, and I would encourage you to read it over the next two weeks and mark stuff that sounds familiar to you. Find it in the New Testament, see how the New Testament author's using it. That's fun to do. So there's a lot of ways that we can describe the theme of Isaiah. And in keeping with the format of what we looked at in Jeremiah, and if you remember Jeremiah's theme was Israel's lack of covenant loyalty and the eschatological promise of covenant loyalty. Okay, when we say eschatological, what do we mean? Okay, pertaining to the last things. That's what eschatology means. So Jeremiah, Israel's lack of covenant loyalty and the eschatological promise of covenant loyalty. Ezekiel, the theme was this, Israel's loss of God's presence and the eschatological promise of his spirit. We might put the theme of Isaiah like this. It's on the front of your sheet there. Israel's rejection of God's kingship and the eschatological promise of his universal kingdom. If you look at the name of Isaiah, essentially it means Yahweh is salvation. So that may even be a shorter way to look at a theme that we look and see in the book of Isaiah. Now go ahead and open your Bibles and look in chapter 1. of Isaiah, the first four verses of chapters one and two both focus like two different introductions to the book of Isaiah. Okay, each really representing a different side of the whole book. So let's start by looking at chapter one, verses one through four. The vision of Isaiah, the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah. Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth, for the Lord has spoken. Children, have I reared 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, and they are utterly estranged." Okay, so let's compare that We'll compare that with chapter 2 verses 1 through 4 in a moment. But in verse 2, we really have the beginning of an oracle. And it's an oracle for all the earth to hear. So first question, thinking about those principles, what is the context? What's the context? Who is Isaiah prophesying to? What does it say? Judah. Yep, Judah. It says, concerning Judah. Now we remember, Judah is the southern kingdom that's divided from Israel, and that lasted a little bit longer than Israel did, the northern kingdom. And they each had their own prophets. Most of them were prophesying to Judah, probably just because they were around longer. But this is a vision of Isaiah concerning Judah. and Jerusalem. Okay, what's Jerusalem and Judah? What's the relationship? Jerusalem is the capital, basically. It's the capital of Judah. Isaiah's words are dateable to the reign of those three kings that he mentioned. Okay, what kind of oracle begins in verse 2? Is it an oracle of salvation, judgment, or something else? Yeah, much more an oracle of judgment, okay? What's the literary form being used? Is it proverb? Is it poetry? Is it narrative? Okay, in this case, poetry, okay? You can usually tell that by the way it's kind of bracketed out in your Bibles. And probably if we could all read Hebrew, it'd probably sound a little more like poetry, but alas, here we are. Now, is Isaiah looking backward, or is he looking forward? Is he focused more on foretelling, forth telling, or foretelling, right? That's the question there. What do you all think? Foretelling? Foretelling, with a bit of foretelling too, because he's looking backward, he's recalling what was said in the Pentateuch. He refers to the Lord rearing Israel as children, but it's acknowledging that they have forsaken them. And then there's, of course, a promise of what will come as well. But much more, I think, focused on the forth-telling side of that tension. Go and look at chapter two, and we're gonna read what may feel like a little bit of a different type of introduction. So this is two, and we're gonna read all the way through verse four again, okay? So let's think about one, now let's read chapter two. The word of Isaiah the son of Amoz concerning Judah and Jerusalem. It shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established as the highest of the mountains. and shall be lifted up above the hills, and all the nations shall flow to it. And many people shall come and say, come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways, and that we may walk in his paths. For out of Zion shall go the law and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He shall judge between the nations, and he shall decide disputes for many peoples. and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nations shall not lift up sword against nation, and neither shall they learn war any more." Okay, so let's think about those same questions. What's the context? Okay, is it the same? It is. He's still prophesying to the same Judah, Jerusalem. What kind of oracle begins in verse 2? Is it one primarily of judgment? or primarily of salvation? Salvation and promise, right? That's exactly right. Okay, the form, still using poetry to communicate this message. Is he looking backward or forward? Much more forward, that's a time of hope. Okay, the Jerusalem that's mentioned in chapter one felt maybe gritty and historical, and Jerusalem mentioned here feels almost otherworldly. They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks." Okay, what is that saying? There's no longer any war, there's no, you know, death in that way. Now the biblical scholar's term for this is eschatological, pertaining to the end times, and even Isaiah uses the term last days quite a bit throughout the book, when God brings history to a close. So we need to be asking these questions when we turn to prophecy. And in fact, I'm going to structure really the rest of our time in the book of Isaiah today and also two weeks from now when we finish around three of those interpretive principles that we've listed above. So that'll be fun for us to work through. So let's look at principle number one. This is really the first one on that seven tips. And this we are now turning to the top. of your next page. And we're really just going to get through principle one today, and then we'll finish two weeks from now. So, know the structure. That's the big point of number one. So these two passages that we just looked at are really like, they're like a good springboard into the structure of the book of Isaiah. The structure of a book is like a roadmap, and it helps you know where you are at any time. Okay? Which is especially helpful in the prophets. In a sense, these two passages represent the two halves of Isaiah. Chapter 1 and chapter 2, those two introductions we read, they kind of represent the two halves of the book of Isaiah. Throughout the book, particularly prominent in chapters 1 through 39, There are oracles of woe and judgment concerning the historical Jerusalem. Now I say predominant because we even just read some that weren't just that. There's going to be some oracles of salvation sprinkled throughout. But predominantly chapters 1 through 39 are more concerned with pending judgment on not just Israel but other nations as well. much more forth-telling, right? Chapters 1-39 are spoken by an 8th century prophet, being Isaiah, and they're directly aimed at his 8th century audience. He points to their particular sins, he points to the imminent invasion of Assyria. Chapters 1-39 sound a lot like the first verses of chapter 1. Now, as we shift into the second half, as I provide this overview, the whole book portrays God's plan. This is from the ESV Study Bible. The whole book portrays God's plan for Judah as a story that is headed somewhere. Namely, toward the coming of the final heir of David who will bring light to the Gentiles. Israel was created for this very purpose, and it will require that God's people be purified, and those members whose lives display that mission. So that's where this is going, it's headed somewhere. Beginning in chapter 40 and continuing through the end of Isaiah, something changes. Hopefully as you read this you'll see this. Isaiah doesn't address the present historical Jerusalem, he's addressing some future version of it. It sounds much more like the verses that we find in chapter two, those first four verses in chapter two we just read. At face value, he's addressing the Jerusalem, which in a century's time would be an exile in Babylon. But remember what we said about multiple horizons or multiple tiers of fulfillment. Really, Isaiah seems to be describing an eschatological Jerusalem, because we know that Jerusalem will come out of exile, right? They will come out of their Babylonian exile, but that's not the final fulfillment of what's going to be spoken of in the book of Isaiah. There's something greater, something otherworldly, that Isaiah seems to be describing. So the language that he uses in these chapters, especially the final 10, is much too dramatic and too grandiose to be simply referring to a small band of Israelites who would return from exile in the 5th and 6th century BC. Okay, remember swords in the plowshares, that kind of language. There's talk of God's glory being revealed and God creating a new heavens and a new earth. And it envisions life really on a whole different kind of plane. This is a kind of eschatological Jerusalem. And yes, it's comprised of a remnant of Israel, right? But it doesn't appear just to be tied only to ethnic Jews, okay? Everyone who's there is united to God. So though there are oracles of salvation in the first half of the book, they really do abound in the second half. That explains that shift, and hopefully as you read, you'll see that. So that's the biggest division in the book of Isaiah. The first 39 chapters, broadly speaking, focus on historical Jerusalem and its failed kings, while chapters 40 through 66, broadly speaking, focus on an eschatological Jerusalem and another character who, at first glance, doesn't really seem too much or sound too much like a king, but he truly is. thinking about all the texts that talk about what he suffered, right? He was pierced for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities, these types of prophecies. You may read that and not see King in that, but we know based on what's revealed to us in the New Testament that he is, and that's exactly what that is for. So on the back of the handout, I've already made reference to it, but there is a outline there for you as you read through it. I'm not gonna take the time to go over it now, but it is there for you just to provide you some structure as you look through the book. But what I will say about this is that across the 66 chapters, a dramatic change happens to Jerusalem. Okay, in chapter one, Isaiah says of Jerusalem, how the faithful city has become a whore. Okay, that's chapter one, verse 21. But by the end of the book, he anticipates her presentation as a bride, okay, in whom the Lord, as 62 verse 4 through 5 says, will take delight. So this is that theme of restoration that our friend back here mentioned. She moves from harlotry to holiness, from whore to bride. Okay, that's the shift that we see in the book of Isaiah. And it's a remarkable thing. So in a sense, that's the beginning and the end of the plot. Where Isaiah is at the time of them receiving this word, and where it's all headed. And it shows up in the structure of the whole book. So in a sense, I know that I kind of spoiled the ending for you, but what we'll see next week, not next week, but the week after, is how this transformation happens. Okay, that brings us to a second principle for reading the book, which we'll look at next time, which are those themes, those main themes. And we'll find plenty of stuff there to challenge ourself and to apply, as Jessica was saying, to apply to ourselves in appropriate ways. That'll be the focus of next time. So come back, not next week, but the week after. You're gonna hear me say that a few more times today. So any questions? Yes ma'am. That's right. The structure, yeah. Right. That is a wonderful question. I do not know. But that's fascinating, isn't it? So I like that. When you think of different outlines, there's a lot of different ways you can outline a book. There's not an inspired outline, right? But that is very interesting that you point that out, that the first 39 chapters, that is interesting. So we'll think about that for a few years and see what comes of that. I didn't notice that, maybe it's coincidental, maybe it's providential. What is a coincidence anyways, right? So hope it's helpful to you. I use the ESV study Bible a lot and I do find their outlines very helpful. So I would encourage you to get that resource if you don't have it. But any good quality study Bible is gonna have some helpful stuff for you. Any other questions? Alright, I want to leave you with a famous quote from, this is from Augustine, and it's regarding the incarnation of our Lord, which is so abundantly revealed in the book of Isaiah. Okay, so let's leave with this, and if you think about, you know, those comments that I made about a sign as high as heaven and as deep as Sheol, okay, This is some of the stuff that I think that as you think about this time that we're moving into, that should be very much on our minds. And it really should move us to awe, should move us to worship, should move us to appreciate the Lord. So this is Augustine writing in the fourth or fifth century, I think fourth century. All right, here it says, this is what it says, he through whom time was made, was made in time. And he, older by eternity than the world itself, was younger in age than many of his servants in the world. He who made man was made man. He was given existence by a mother whom he brought into existence. He was carried in hands which he formed. He nursed at breasts which he filled. He cried like a babe in the manger in speechless infancy, this word without which human eloquence is speechless. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for this time in the book of Isaiah and just really anticipating the content that we'll look at in a few weeks from now. Father, hopefully just even thinking about the way that you're going to restore your people. And we know, Lord, that we are even now thinking intently about the incarnation of the Son, the only begotten of the Father. full of grace and truth. And Father, I pray that as we think about that, and as we think about the full revelation of how you have brought about this salvation for your people through him, I pray that we would just be moved to worship, to glorify you, and Father, to live our lives in a way that brings you much glory and makes much of him. So thank you for this time. Be with us as we continue our day of worship. In Christ's name we pray, amen.