Goal of this Message Something Practical about God’s Word A Mind-Bender From God’s Word Something to Engage Our Heart Pray Hope for what people will leave with today after this message Getting Started: Have folks turn and get in groups. Each group come up with 1 fact about Isaiah. Share the facts that I’ve gathered myself.

Something Practical Facts about Isaiah A prophet Prophet of Judah Later stages of Israel’s History Prophet during these Kings: Uzziah Jotham Ahaz Hezekiah Lived 700+ years before Jesus was born Breakdown of Isaiah’s book (oversimplified) Key Theme: Judgment and Salvation Chapters 1-39: The Book of Judgment Chapters 40-66: The Book of Comfort Share with people my own storey about studying God’s word and my own struggle with trying to understand how best to read the bible, and how that grew and changed over time. From reading it as it was preached, 1 verse at a time, then trying to figure out what that one verse means to me and how I should apply it in my life, To reading, seeing it as an entire book, a single story that has many parts and section and working to figure out how things relate to one another. So for Isaiah – who was he? Go to chapter 1 vs. 1. It tells when Isaiah lived and that he was a prophet. Not too hard.

Something Practical Isaiah From the information about when Isaiah was a prophet and what kings he lived through, it’s a simple next step to stick him into a timeline. Putting it into a historical timeline helps to understand and also bring to light other thoughts and insights for me. Reminds me of watching the show Lost. It already jumps around a lot so that it’s easy to be confused. I started watching Season 4, went back to season 3, then finished with 5, 6, and 7. Boy, was I confused for a long time as to what was going on! But as I began to understand how people and events were INTER-RELATED, then things became more clear. BUT, for those of you who watched it, what’s a common question that you asked? Who is that and how are they related to the rest of the people and their stories? Same thing here. I won’t go into all the details as I’m still learning and discovering them myself, but learning and inquiring how is Isaiah inter-related in the bible to Israel, to Jesus and the rest of the people and stories in it.

Kings of Israel and Judah Saul, David, Solomon Israel Jeroboam, bad, 930-909 BC Nadab, bad, 909-908 BC Baasha, bad, 908-886 BC Elah, bad, 886-885 BC Zimri, bad, 885 BC Tibni, bad, 885-880 BC Omri bad, 885-874 BC Ahab, bad, 874-853 BC Ahaziah, bad, 853-852 BC Joram, bad, 852-841 BC Jehu, good (sort of), 841-814 BC Jehoahaz, bad, 814-798 BC Joash, bad, 798-782 BC Jeroboam II, bad, 793-753 BC Zechariah, bad, 753 BC Shallum, bad, 752 BC Menahem, bad, 752-742 BC Pekahiah, bad, 742-740 BC Pekah, bad, 752-732 BC Hoshea, bad, 732-722 BC Judah Rehoboam, bad, 933-916 BC Abijah, bad, 915-913 BC Asa, good, 912-872 BC Jehoshaphat, good, 874-850 BC Jehoram, bad, 850-843 BC Ahaziah, bad, 843 BC Athaliah, bad, 843-837 BC Joash, good, 843-803 BC Amaziah, good, 803-775 BC Uzziah, good, 787-735 BC Jotham, good, 749-734 BC Ahaz, bad, 741-726 BC Hezekiah, good, 726-697 BC Manasseh, bad, 697-642 BC Amon, bad, 641-640 BC Josiah, good, 639-608 BC Jehoahaz, bad, 608 BC Jehoiakim, bad, 608-597 BC Jehoiachin, bad, 597 BC Zedekiah, bad, 597-586 BC 463 Years Isaiah 90 Years So here’s another piece of info that is helpful in understanding what was going on during Isaiah’s time: Here’s a list of all the kings from Israel’s history and where they fit. Couple of things of note: Red are evil kings (says it right in the bible) Green are good kings He was a prophet through 90 years of Kings (that’s a lonnnnng time!) So you get a high level picture of Isaiah and how he relates to the kings.

The Mind Bender Mind Benders: Like the image above. You try to get your mind around it, but your mind and eyes have a hard time trying to reconcile the above image. I like Time Travel movies that make your brain twist up, like: Terminator and Time after Time where the person going back into time is his own grand father Back to the Future where he meets his own relatives Have everyone close their eyes and read through Isaiah 53 Who is Isaiah talking about? We would say, Jesus, of course. But put yourself in the shoes of someone who lived during Isaiah’s time. Pretend you are a Israelite – if we were alive during the day when Isaiah was prophesying, who would we think He was talking about? If you were Isaiah, do you think even you yourself would know who you were talking about? Hmmmmmmm…

The Mind Bender Isaiah 53: an uncannily accurate prophecy of Jesus' death and resurrection It’s written in the PAST tense. Isaiah is speaking in the past tense. Why would God have Him say these words to them, this prophecy to them in the past tense? It was written at least 700 years prior to Christ being born. And yet, now, since it is in fact written in the past tense, we easily see that it was written for us. We know that this was written before There’s only a few ways to reconcile this: It’s a work of fiction and was all written at the same time, like Lord of the Rings. But we know it is a part of History (the Dead Sea Scrolls). It was written AFTER Jesus was born, to match his death (again, proven to be false). Jesus death was done to match the words written 700 years before It’s an incredible prophecy written by God, a prophecy that not only foretells of Christ in such perfect detail, both physically and spiritually, but also one written in the past tense – making no sense to those being told the prophecy, but perfect complete sense for those of us living after the prophecy was fulfilled.

Engaging our Hearts  5 But he was pierced for our transgressions,  he was crushed for our iniquities;  the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,  and by his wounds we are healed.  6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray,   each of us has turned to his own way;   and the LORD has laid on him   the iniquity of us all. “Each of us has turned to his own way” It doesn’t say, each of us has turned to an evil way Or Each of us has turned to the devils or Satan’s way It says, that each of us has turned to his or her own way. This is key for me because it tells helped me understand the magnitude of my sin: doing life MY WAY. There was a time when I used to think “Boy, I haven’t sinned in a while” it’s been months! But then I would and feel guilty, and then I would be thankful that Christ’s blood covered my sin. Another time, I was talking with a group of friends, and we were sharing with one another how we were doing spiritually, and all of us came to the conclusion that we weren’t following God, but we weren’t doing evil either. We were just living life. But then we asked the question, “can we really be neutral?” Not following God, but also not sinning? We can’t be “neutral” – Jesus tells us this in Matthew 12:30 “He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters.  It’s a function of our human falleness – the struggle we face to go our own way, to choose our own way. Jesus’ prayer indicates how we feel, AND how we should respond. Even Jesus battled his own humanity, but came to the right and Godly action: “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.“ Luke 22:42 There is no neutral. (LUKEWARM)

Engaging our Hearts There is no “Neutral” Jesus tells us: “He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters.”  Matthew 12:30 “Each of us has turned to his own way” It doesn’t say, each of us has turned to an evil way Or Each of us has turned to the devils or Satan’s way It says, that each of us has turned to his or her own way. This is key for me because it tells helped me understand the magnitude of my sin: doing life MY WAY. There was a time when I used to think “Boy, I haven’t sinned in a while” it’s been months! But then I would and feel guilty, and then I would be thankful that Christ’s blood covered my sin. Another time, I was talking with a group of friends, and we were sharing with one another how we were doing spiritually, and all of us came to the conclusion that we weren’t following God, but we weren’t doing evil either. We were just living life. But then we asked the question, “can we really be neutral?” Not following God, but also not sinning? We can’t be “neutral” – Jesus tells us this in Matthew 12:30 “He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters.  It’s a function of our human falleness – the struggle we face to go our own way, to choose our own way. Jesus’ prayer indicates how we feel, AND how we should respond. Even Jesus battled his own humanity, but came to the right and Godly action: “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.“ Luke 22:42 There is no neutral. (LUKEWARM)

Engaging our Hearts We all, like sheep, have gone astray,  each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. This is a key truth that I would like all of us to walk away with today, because how we view ourselves in regards to sin changes the way we respond in our lives. When we have a correct view of the magnitude of what Jesus did and our own sin, then out of our lives come a heart change that we all need. Here’s a story that illustrates this truth in action. Share the story of Jimmy and his grandfather So this week I would like to challenge you to think and say this verse to yourself while your at work, out shopping, out playing, working out, whatever. Repeat it in your heart and look all around yourself as you do, and know that Jesus died to save us all – you, and all the people around you. Close in prayer.