
The Prophet with a Sixty Year Career!
Royal
Isaiah might have been about twenty years old when he began to ask these questions about greed in the face of starving children, the destruction of the environment, the emptiness of religion, and the absence of good and godly leaders.
Born to a father named Amoz (not the famous prophet) his parents named him “God is salvation,” very similar to the name of Joshua, or Jesus.
Tradition says his father Amoz was brother to king Amaziah of Judah. That would have made Isaiah King Uzziah’s cousin, which would explain Isaiah’s easy access to the royal court, and his insider’s knowledge of the politics of his day, and the international situation. He may have even grown up in the palace and overheard conversations about world affairs.
Think of all the eavesdropping he may have done! God had perfectly placed him.
Priest
His ministry began in 740 BC, while he was worshiping in the temple, grieving the death of his cousin, King Amaziah, and worrying about what was going on in his own country, as well as the world. As he was praying, God called Isaiah to cleansing and to preaching.
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From the blog
Isaiah 58: Dorian Gray Religion
The key is in the phrase “as if” in verse 2. The people may have had authentic religious fervor, but it was religion they loved, not God.
#DorianGray #Piety #Isaiah58
Keep readingIsaiah 57: Rest In Peace
The righteous were defined both by their hearts and their habits—because of their love for God and God’s word, their lives reflected God’s righteousness.
#Isaiah67 #RIP #RestInPeace #NoRestfortheWicked
Keep readingIsaiah 56: The Eunuch and Foreigner
If you are feeling like an outsider, or someone who is too damaged to be loved by God, this passage is God’s personal word to you. #Isaiah56 #Eunuch #CleansingtheTemple
Keep readingIsaiah 55: Regeneration
We are both thinking and feeling creatures. It is not enough to know the truth. You and I must experience it.
#Isaiah55 #BreadofLife #MyThoughtsAreaHigher #Regeneration
Keep readingIsaiah 54: Shout for Joy!
When we give ourselves whole-heartedly to the Lord, we will discover God enlivens us in the deepest places of our hearts, souls, and spirits.
#Isaiah54 #ShoutForJoy #BarrenWoman #RejectedWife #StormTossedCity
Keep readingIsaiah 53: The Servant’s Satisfaction
Jesus would fulfill the plan of redemption and share the wealth of glory, joy, life and power with His own when He rose up into heaven and sent His Spirit to be with them, and us today. #Isaiah53 #FourthServantSong #SufferingServant
Keep readingIsaiah 53: “Like a Lamb Led to Slaughter”
Jesus allowed Himself to be humiliated because there was an eternal purpose in it. The humbling of Jesus was the humbling of God, the death of Jesus is, in a certain sense, the death of God, the resurrection of Jesus could only happen because He is God. #Isaiah53 #LikeaLamb
Keep readingIsaiah: “By His Stripes”
The doctrine of substitution states salvation is accomplished only through Christ’s sacrifice of Himself on our behalf, and sanctification is accomplished through our sacrifice of ourselves to Jesus that we may live through Him. #Isaiah53 #LambofGod
Keep readingIsaiah 53: Man of Sorrows
The Man of Sorrows, acquainted with grief is God the Son, Jesus Christ, the one we can trust as confidante and friend, as well as Lord and Savior. #Isaiah53 #FourthServantSong #ManofSorrows
Keep readingIsaiah 52: The Fourth Servant Song
The only way for guilt to be removed is for something definite to happen, a definite cleansing by a power strong enough to tackle the stain of sin, by the only One Who understands and can bring about real justice and true mercy. #Isaiah52 #ServantSong
Keep readingIsaiah 52: Beautiful Are The Feet
God knows every story, and God’s timing is perfect for every person. You and I are too finite to fully grasp the magnitude of this truth. But we are able to at least trust God with it. #Isaiah52 #BeautifulAreTheFeet
Keep readingIsaiah 51: God As Ally Allays All Fear
Fear of people and our current circumstances, fear of what the future might hold, fear borne out of past pain can grow so large it pushes aside our fear of the Lord. That is part of what was happening with Isaiah’s audience. #Isaiah51 #JudeanExile
Keep readingIsaiah 50: The Obedient Servant
The third Servant Song describes Messiah as one who trusts and relies completely on God, and knows with conviction that He will be vindicated.
That is every Christian’s calling and grace. #Isaiah50 #ObedientFaith #ServantSong
Keep readingIsaiah 50: The Third Servant Song
This is the third Servant Song, and the Servant is Messiah Jesus. Only the Servant would believe that God will keep God’s promises in the covenants God made with God’s people. Only Jesus believed these covenants fully. #Isaiah50 #SufferingServant
Keep readingIsaiah 49: Engraved on God’s Hands
What does it mean that God’s love for us us is more intense and enduring than even that of a nursing mother’s love for her baby?
Or, what does it mean for us to be engraved on the hands of God? #Isaiah49 #EngravedonGodsHands
Keep readingIsaiah 49: Eternal Jubilee
The background for this part of Isaiah 49 is the Sabbath years, and the Jubilee that God wrote into the law for ancient Israel. #Isaiah49 #YearofJubilee #TimeofGods Favor
Keep readingIsaiah 49: The Servant’s Mysteries
In Isaiah’s second Servant Song, two mysteries when solved reveal the identity of Isaiah’s prophetic oracle.
#Isaiah49 #ServantSong #SecondServantSong
Keep readingIsaiah 48: Made In God’s Image
The first half of this chapter is about real and fake, truth and lies, life and death.
The second half addresses God’s longing for the people of God to enjoy God, and to enjoy God’s blessing. #Isaiah48 #MadeinGodsImage
Keep readingIsaiah 48: Mere Gods or Almighty God?
This passage has several famous quotes in it–“My glory I will not give to another” is just one. In it, Isaiah relates a prophecy with a double meaning, the near-term fulfillment just a shadow of the far-term conclusion. #Isaiah48 #CyrustheGreat
Keep readingIsaiah 47: mene, tekel, and parsin
Isaiah’s prophecy was fulfilled before Daniel’s very eyes, who was called in from retirement to explain God’s handwriting upon the wall of Belshazzar’s dining room. #BelshazzarsFeast #MeneTekelParsin #MeneTekelUpharsin #FallofBabylon
Keep readingIsaiah 46: Incomparable God
Have you ever caught yourself saying, “Well, that is just life?”
It is what it is.
I say it a lot, but after reading today’s passage, I have been weighing that phrase a little bit more thoughtfully. #Isaiah46 #Marduk #Dagon
Keep readingIsaiah 45: Mature View of God
God’s words of reassurance and promise were for the people of God, for the Judahites who had been taken captive and sent into exile.
But God opens up God’s appeal to all people in every nation. #Isaiah45 #MatureViewofGod
Keep readingIsaiah 45: A Hope, and a Future
It can feel empowering to feel like you and I are entitled to better treatment, but we can never know the whole story, it is simply too vast. #Isaiah45 #PotterandtheClay #HopeandaFuture
Keep readingIsaiah 45: The Nature of Prophecy
Sometimes, in scripture, it seems as though God responds with compassion and answers to questions. Other times, it seems God responds with a rebuke. Why?
Keep readingIsaiah 45: Cyrus Fulfilled Prophecy
God is never defeated or thwarted by what happens in the real world. The Lord is actually able to work through everything to move forward with God’s plan, and all events have one ultimate goal of redemption and restoration.
Keep readingIsaiah 45: Cyrus the Great
The Bible does not offer superficial answers to these questions. The Bible does not offer catchy slogans or rhyming word art. The Bible instead pushes us to a mature view of Who God really is, so that we can put our trust in the God of reality, the God Who actually exists.
Keep readingIsaiah 44: Sheer Madness
They are mindless, the prophet wrote, utterly without a clear thought in their heads. Otherwise, how in the world could they look at this perfectly good log, get so much good use out of it – thanks be to God who provided that log – then worship what’s left of it?!
Keep readingIsaiah 43: Behold, I Do a New Thing
After making a way to restoration and new life, after pouring rivers of refreshment and revival into the sere desert of their circumstances … there is no praise, there is no lifting of heads. You have been weary of Me, God said.
Keep readingIsaiah 42: Blind and Deaf, Blessed and Beloved
After speaking of God’s Covenant Servant, Isaiah now turned to a different kind of servant. servant. First, the prophet described what was wrong
Keep readingIsaiah 42: The First Servant Song
Have you ever heard of “fool’s gold”? Its real name is pyrite. Like pyrite, idols are a fool’s god. They may appear impressive, but they have none of the divine properties of God. They cannot deliver. #ServantSong #Isaiah42
Keep readingIsaiah 41: An Exposé
People gravitate towards whatever it is we think is reliable, that will take care of us, that will give us some sense of confidence and meaning, that will make us feel happy. Idols feel real because we can see them. But, much more importantly, we think we can make them do what we need.
Keep readingIsaiah 41: Three, Three, and Three
The Lord turned to God’s people and gave them three exhortations, three promises, and three reasons to believe.
The physical promises of land and prosperity were to a specific people, the descendants of Abraham, Israel. From this perspective, God is keeping these promises to this day, as miraculously, Israel is once again a nation located…
Keep readingIsaiah 41: God’s Elect
The pith of this teaching on election explains that God is sovereign, God controls and guides all events for God’s glory and for the good of God’s people.
Keep readingIsaiah 41: A Conqueror From the East
Who directs world events?
Who has that power?
Is it the nations themselves?
Is it politics, economics, and diplomacy?
Is it the power of each of the nations’ local deities?
Did anybody, in fact, see these world events even coming?
Do things “just happen,” or is God at work?
Are we part of a larger…
Keep readingIsaiah 40: Encouragement of God
Isaiah’s prophecy has been the source of comfort and courage to the heavy-hearted for thousands of years. This is God’s reassurance that the Lord still loves God’s own, that God is still our God, and we who have put our hope and trust in the Lord are God’s people.
Keep readingIsaiah 40: Incomparable God
In order to true up the people’s understanding of spiritual reality (which is not defined by physical appearances), Isaiah began to describe God from the proper perspective.
Keep readingIsaiah: A Second Chance
Their only consolation came through this word from God to them, through Isaiah’s ancient prophecy.
Keep readingIsaiah 40: God’s Enabling Grace
Knowing earthly glory does not last gives you and me the greater perspective that only eternal things are worth investing our hearts in. So we ask ourselves: What priorities might need to change in order to reflect a more eternal perspective?
Keep readingIsaiah 40: The King is Coming!
If you listened to the recitative in yesterday’s post, “Comfort Ye My People,” then you will instantly recognize today’s passage.
Keep readingIsaiah 40: The Comfort of God’s Grace
This passage was made famous by George Frideric Handel’s Messiah, “Comfort Ye My People,” the second piece heard in Part I. In this recitative, God gives comfort and promises salvation.
Keep readingIsaiah 40: God’s Comfort
God has not abandoned you, Isaiah was saying. Your best days are still ahead. Because of God’s grace He is coming to save you; your hope doesn’t need to depend on your ability, but rests completely on God and His love for you.
Keep readingIsaiah: Overview of Chapter 40-66
Chapter 39 marks the endpoint to the first historical era represented in Isaiah. Remember, this is a complex book recording the events of ancient Judah (and Israel) over the span of one hundred and fifty years.
Keep readingIsaiah 39: Flattery Got Them Everywhere
Assyria used weapons and threats, but that failed. The Babylonian’s subtle use of flattery and gifts worked because Hezekiah failed to take their matter to the Lord.
Keep readingIsaiah 38: God Turned Back Time
There is a spiritual maxim, here. God will present us with the same kind of trouble again and again.
Keep readingIsaiah 37: A Poison Pen and Powerful Prayer
Sennacherib put on the pressure with his poison pen. Hezekiah prayed desperately, and God came through powerfully.
Keep readingIsaiah 36: Crisis of Faith
King Hezekiah was one of only 8 good kings of Judah, who initiated much needed religious and civil reform, and turned to the Lord in time of grave crises.
Keep readingIsaiah 35: The Song of the Redeemed
Isaiah’s closing message to all the oracles he had delivered on God’s behalf was a revelation concerning destiny—either the path of redemption or the path of reckoning, for there is no middle ground.
Keep readingIsaiah 34: The Fires of Hell
How do we deal with our dismay over what seems like a brutal and bloodthirsty characterization of the same Lord Who later claims to love the whole earth?
Keep readingIsaiah 34: Day of Reckoning
It is as though God will hit the rewind button and bring all of creation back to its starting point.
Keep readingIsaiah 34: Destiny of Redemption
Now, the prophet was going to wrap up these twenty chapters between 13 and 33 with two summary chapters.
Keep readingIsaiah 33: Sennacherib’s Duplicity
The way to receive from the Lord is to open our minds, hearts, spirits, and hands and then put to use by faith what the Lord gives.
Keep readingRevelation 8: Contest of the Gods
There is one last correlation that almost certainly would have come to mind for John’s audience—the Exodus.
Keep readingIsaiah 32: Shalom
All of us have experienced being in the desert places. Perhaps that is where you are right now. What act of repentance is God calling of you in order to make you ready for the outpouring of God’s Spirit in your desert place to bring back life?
Keep readingIsaiah 31: When the Chips Are Down
Our real crisis is always going to be about faith, about being more impressed with human plans, human ingenuity, and human control rather than God’s wisdom, God’s character, God’s promises, and God’s will.
Keep readingIsaiah 30: Commitment of Faith
In order to understand what faith is, you and I have to actually use it. A person does not really have faith until that person lives it out, boots on the ground, real life, real dilemmas, real crises.
Keep readingIsaiah 29: Saving Faith
This was the strange way God was going to inspire their faith, and often, it is the strange way God brings you and me back to center as well.
Keep readingIsaiah 28: Six Slinky Chapters
The following six chapters, Isaiah 28-33, are like a Slinky, or an eagle in the updraft. In a series of sermons, Isaiah gives a woe, then a promise and call to faith, then he wheels back to the woe, and again to a promise and call to faith.
Keep readingIsaiah 27: And The Trumpet Shall Sound!
On That Day, all evil will be scoured from the universe by the cleansing action of God’s wrath, Isaiah 27:1.
On That Day, the whole world will be filled with the good fruit of God’s people, Isaiah 27:2.
Keep readingIsaiah 26: The Dead Shall Rise
Perhaps praying about the two paths drew Isaiah’s mind to the kings of Israel and Judah, for they represented those paths—the road of righteousness and the way of the wicked.
Keep readingIsaiah 26: A Steadfast Mind
As Isaiah continued to gaze into the far future, he saw a strong city that stood in contrast to the ruined city he had seen in his previous vision.
Keep readingIsaiah 25: Contrasting Mountains
To say that “one day the hand of the Lord will rest on this mountain,” meant much. This mountain was the emblem of all that is good and holy, all that is right.
Keep readingIsaiah 25: When Tears Are Wiped Away
Jesus also spoke a number of times of a celebratory feast to be enjoyed with God.
Keep readingIsaiah 25: Paeon of Praise
After delivering emotionally traumatic oracles of God’s coming judgment against the nations, Isaiah took time to refresh his spirit in worship. “O Lord, You are my God,” Isaiah began, as his inner gaze rested on the glory of the Lord.
Keep readingIsaiah 24: “Millennium”
The last three verses of Isaiah’s far-future prophecy carry several compelling similarities to the last three chapters of John’s Revelation.
Keep readingIsaiah 24: Not “But,” And
As Isaiah watched God’s devastating judgment, he saw that a remnant would be spared because they would put their faith in God.
Keep readingIsaiah 24: The Lye of Sin
The Lord’s deliverance would be severe mercy in the storm of God’s wrath, destroying all that is wrong, and leaving only what is good, pure, and right.
Keep readingIsaiah 24: The Day of the Lord
So, what happens when everything is stripped away?
Either way, all that will be left is the majesty and glory of God.
Keep readingIsaiah 23: An Oracle To Phoenicia
God is sovereign over all earth, all nations are held accountable to the Lord. It is God’s prerogative to judge the nations, but because the Lord is compassionate it is God’s desire to rescue. There is a tension between these two truths.
Keep readingIsaiah 21: Oracles Against Babylon, Edom, and Arabia
What God revealed to Isaiah was so horrifying it caused the prophet intense physical pain.
Keep readingIsaiah 19-20: An Oracle Against Egypt
he prophet Isaiah announced, there would be another cataclysmic contest between God and the gods of Egypt. Just as in the days of Exodus, God’s judgment of Egypt would be complete:
Keep readingIsaiah 18: An Oracle To Cush
Isaiah had now gone through all four compass points—Philistia to the west, Damascus to the north, Moab to the east and now Cush to south. In no quarter could Judah make a military alliance.
They could only look up to the Lord.
Keep readingIsaiah 17: An Oracle Against Damascus
After beginning with Moab to the south, the prophet Isaiah turned his gaze northwards to the alliance of Israel – called Ephraim in the text, the Northern Kingdom – and Damascus. Isaiah addressed them together, as they were allied in opposition to both Assyria and to Judah.
Keep readingIsaiah 15-16: An Oracle Against Moab
To find the rescue available to them, they would have to come to Jerusalem and acknowledge both God and God’s Messiah.
Keep readingIsaiah 14: Purposes of God
Refuge is found in God
God is the Mighty Sovereign of the universe, Creator, Sustainer, and the One Who holds all accountable to the Word and words of God.
Keep readingIsaiah 14: O Morning Star
Why would God judge Babylon with Assyria? Why would God bring the entire cosmos to a final Day of Judgment that will shake the earth and cause the heavens to shudder?
Why will God do all this?
Keep readingIsaiah 13: Shades of Babylon
At first glance, this oracle seems to encompass a final day of judgment and wrath that sweeps up the entire globe in an event still future to us today.
Yet, tucked into this far-reaching oracle are also mentions of Babylon, an empire long since crumbled into dust, with only the remnants of its grandeur ensconced…
Keep readingIsaiah 13: From Nimrod to Babylon
the next eleven chapters, starting here in chapter thirteen, are going to be about God’s judgement on other nations.
Keep readingIsaiah 12: Sanctification
When you and I believe in and look for the supernatural goodness in ourselves and in other believers that God has personally put there, as well as gently help each other back into the way when we notice that someone is off the path, we are living into sanctification.
Keep readingIsaiah 12: Joy
From the first patriarch, Abraham, to every person mentioned in the Hebrews Hall of Faith, to Peter, to Paul, to the apostle John and the Revelation given him by Christ, it is the reconciliation of all things in Christ that held their attention.
Keep readingIsaiah 11: Harmony in Community
After delivering the shudder-worthy oracles in chapter 10, God turned Isaiah’s eyes to the much farther future of Messiah’s reign.
Keep readingIsaiah 11: Righteousness and Peace
out of the stump of Jesse, the father of King David, against all likelihood, a new David would emerge. This would not be David’s successor, but rather the perfect David, the greater David, the one David himself called “my Lord” in one of his Psalms
Keep reading“Paul and The Language of Faith”
This is why I wanted to learn the Greek of the Bible. Because even something as seemingly simple as one word in Greek carries within it such a wealth of meaning, it is almost impossible to imagine how to bring that into the translated text.
Keep readingIsaiah 10: A Mighty Rescue
in the moment, round-eyed with anguish, we search for God’s presence, for our Lord is certainly with us, even in the thick of it, even in the darkest pit of it, the wracking pain of it.
Keep readingIsaiah 10: Discipline Versus Destruction
What lay ahead would be a devastating ordeal, yet God did not want God’s people to be afraid, for their crucible would soon pass, and those who harmed them would receive just judgment from God.
Keep readingIsaiah 10: The Remnant Returns Joyful
Our understanding of God is going to determine how we understand who we are, and what is happening in our lives.
Keep readingIsaiah 10: Assyria’s Arrogance Judged
God’s people needed reassurance, just as you and I need it today. They needed to know that God is sovereign over even catastrophic consequences the size of an invading army. They needed to know God still loved them, was with them, and was for them. They needed to know God has a plan, and the…
Keep readingIsaiah 9: The Ban
It is the lonely office of every anointed-by-God’s-Holy-Spirit prophet to speak the words God has given that prophet to say. As so often happened in the scriptures, the message from God’s lips was not received with much joy or enthusiasm by the ears of God’s people.
Keep readingIsaiah 9: The Wrath of God
Isaiah must have been gazing with such joy into the glory of that far away day of promise, and then lowered his eyes to the reality of what was going down around him
Keep readingIsaiah 8: Utter Darkness
Trying to control the future leads to anxiety, and trying to get around God leads to darkness.
Keep readingIsaiah 8: Sanctuary Versus Snare
Jerusalem. The city that should be the safest sanctuary will instead become the snare.
How?
All a matter of perspective. #GentleWaterorGreatRiver #SanctuaryorSnare #LightorDarkness
Keep readingIsaiah 8: The Truth Will Out
If you and I will trust God, the Lord will be with us through it all, upholding, sustaining, comforting, equipping, and finally, in the end, bring us home to God.
Keep readingIsaiah 7: The Lord Will Whistle
Because King Ahaz and his people had refused to trust God, a day of reckoning was scheduled on their calendar, and its date was In that day.
Keep readingIsaiah 7: Sign of the Virgin
. God would direct the Assyrian armies to bring judgment, one-by-one, to all three kings, and all three lands, for the same ill pervaded them all, the fatal illness of idolatry.
Keep readingIsaiah 7: Second Chances
Ahaz did not have faith in God, and so he was not going to be able to stand firm at all. He refused God’s promise, protection, and perspective. He turned in fear to what he really had faith in―an alliance with Assyria.
Keep readingIsaiah 7: Perspective
In the moment, circumstances seemed dire indeed, his people captured, his towns looted, his capital city nearly under siege. But the prophet Isaiah reassured King Ahaz that God was faithful.
Keep readingIsaiah 7: Fear
All of us deal with some kind of deep-seated fear. It helps to keep that in mind when reading Isaiah 7, for it concerns a king with deep-seated, and legitimate fear.
Keep readingIsaiah 6: Cross of the Believer
Just as the cost of Isaiah’s call would be high, so the Lord Jesus did not make His call to discipleship any easier. On the contrary, Jesus stressed the cost of following Him. Following Jesus means full obedience and the giving up of all other plans that a person might prefer to make for themself.
Keep readingIsaiah 6: Here Am I, Send Me!
Once Isaiah answered God’s call, the Lord revealed to him how hard it would be–it was a prophetic utterance that would be repeated many times by other Hebrew prophets as well as all four Gospel writers, and the Apostle Paul.
Keep readingIsaiah 6: A Burning Coal
The seraph touched my mouth with it and said, “Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out.” Isaiah 6:7 (NRSV)
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About Me
My passion for the Bible began when I was eight or nine years old, somewhere in there, when on occasion my dad would take me to synagogue, where he sang. I remember watching the men in synagogue pray the words of scripture, murmuring and weeping, lovingly touching and kissing the Torah, and I wished I could read what they were reading.
Imagine, then, my wonder when I was given a Bible of my own! Read more
Let’s hang out
[Image above: Isaiah, Scroll of the Book, in Jerusalem | By Dennis Jarvis – https://www.flickr.com/photos/archer10/34495817550/in/photolist-Uyh5K1-Uyh4Cm-dBtDNx-2e8wjwF-jBgdcY-jBdf7V-CTRdP4-jBeiWe-25ytcH7-jBdiN2-jBecPK-m9hV2p-m9iQF9-m9hUPa-m9hWxv-m9hVei-m9hWg8-CedVSC-2a4BwYk-dTzDmV-YPPzW4-jBeeKZ-nNJRxr-WHZagC-2FSY57-6wk8LM-6wk9je-2ccHtu3-6wk9Ti-dhmDhG-2ccHrN7-eiz5hM-6wk7XB-624ysP-628MMs-6TyrcW-bMJsPv-95dJdi-bMJtzk-bMJuhX-bMJvJZ-bMJwyt-dhmD95-dhmDfU-dhmDbS-dhmCJn-dhmCzc-dhmD7G-byPT43-BYk4yf, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=90588359%5D