Bible Study: January 17, 2024

To mention about the book of Isaiah, it is such a complete book. Take the time to just think about what we've learned and what we've talked about over 66 chapters in Isaiah. It is really astounding, the things that we've learned. There's so much that we could forget it. I did put together a PowerPoint. I thought about doing a quiz, but there's so many things in Isaiah that it would be difficult to pick out 50 questions and say remember those things. Instead, I put together a PowerPoint that will talk about the sections that we've talked in, remind us of some of the things, maybe some of the very interesting things. It's all interesting, but things that we talked about in Isaiah that we don't find in other books of the Bible that just even help us understand God more, understand His creation more, appreciate the coming of the Messiah more. Because in Isaiah, we have so many, so many facts and prophecies about the coming Messiah. You may recall that we talked about many of those as we went through them, even the location of where He was born.

Remember, we put up the maps. I went to think about putting that map up today, and I completely forgot about it until I'm talking about it now. Even the map of where Christ was born and how it talks about that in Isaiah that pinpoints the area that He would come from and the significance of that. So let me go ahead and put up this PowerPoint. As we go through it, if anything comes to mind that anyone wants to talk about and fill in the blanks or something that they remember, please feel free to just talk. If there's anything that you don't remember, we can spend some time talking about that. I've got all my notes to the book of Isaiah right here.

One of the nice things about living in the time we live in, even as you ever want to go back and hear about some of Isaiah again, it is all on the reportings chapter by chapter, chapter by chapter online as well. So let me pull this up if I can do that, and we will go ahead and get started.

Can you see that?

No, not yet.

No, can't see it. Okay, I mean, I've done something not right here then.

Well, how's my challenge, I guess, here tonight? Let me share screen.

Now, can you see that now?

I should have tried this before I went to it. Let me...

Does that show up on the screen?

No. I'm thinking no, because I can't see any faces off to the side like I normally can.

Let me see what I'm not doing correctly here.

Did you check your Zoom settings?

I'm not really sure what my Zoom settings are, but I think I did. I think I did. I'm hitting share screen.

Yeah, Mr. Shady, maybe if you clicked on the PowerPoint one first and then tick share after that. That might help.

After you click share screen, it should ask which one to click on. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. Okay.

I see that now. There should do it then. Okay.

Thank you. Thank you for that help. I didn't go all the way down with all the windows.

Many windows open. It didn't get all the way down to the bottom of it here. So okay. Let me go.

And let me begin the screen here.

What do you see? Do you see a little waiting room thing in the middle of the screen there, or do you just see the PowerPoint? We see the PowerPoint. Yes, the PowerPoint. So I say 1 to 5. Gotcha. Okay. There you go. Here we are. Okay.

Okay. Sorry about that. I'm going to have to do a little bit of practice on my sheer screens before we get started on another one of these. But anyway, let me just go through some of us. Some are here of the Bible studies on Isaiah. You'll remember that Isaiah.

We talked significantly about the kings that he prophesied under. Uzziah, Jotham, Ahem, and Hezekiah. They were all different people. Uzziah and Isaiah learned from each one of them. Uzziah was very, very strong in the Lord, very strong with God. As he got older at age, he became mighty in his own eyes, and he departed from God. Jotham, his son, was loyal to God the entire time of his life. He learned from his father. And then Ahaz is that king that was just completely resistant to God.

And we'll get to chapter 7 here about Ahaz. But God offered him, I'll give you any sign at all to show that I'm with you. And you remember Ahaz was like, basically, I'm not asking for anything. He just didn't want anything to do with God. And as a result of that, God gave the prophecy of the Messiah coming. And then Hezekiah, we know, we know about him. He was a generally good king who made some mistakes in his life as well.

But Isaiah prophesied during the time of about 740 to 686 B.C. Significantly, he was alive during the fall of Israel's Assyria. Now, remember some of the prophecies early on in the book that Isaiah talked about. Ahaz was very afraid of Assyria. And God said, you know, Assyria would bother them, but Assyria would never enter into Jerusalem.

But that Assyria would and that Judah would never fall to Assyria, which they never did. But Israel did fall to Assyria. Ahaz lived to see all those things come to pass. So we talked about some of the contemporary prophets that were alive when Isaiah was alive. And, you know, we went to some of those some of those minor prophets as we went through the book of Isaiah to show the similar things that God was inspiring those prophets to say.

Those contemporary prophets include Hosea, Amos, and Micah. And of course, later on, about a hundred years later, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel lived and were prophets to prophets to Judah and then and then to Israel as well. In Ezekiel's case, of course, all the prophecies are for then and for us now. You know, Isaiah, well, when you think back over it, it is just a very complete book.

It goes, it talks about things that predate the creation of the earth, takes us all the way into the future beyond the eighth day when the new heaven and new earth come are formed. The earth passes away. As we go through the 66 chapters, we learn so much about the past, the present, and the future. You'll remember that we related so many of those things to the book of Revelation. As God prophesied through Isaiah in this book, we could see almost the exact same things being prophesied with some of the blanks field, and as I say in the book of Revelation, again, just validating the Bible and showing it is the prophecy of God.

I don't know that Isaiah is the most often quoted book of the Old Testament in the New Testament. Certainly, Christ quoted from Isaiah. Peter did. Paul did. Again, validates what's in there as they use scriptures in Isaiah as they talked and as they preached to the New Testament book, the New Testament audience that they were speaking to.

Isaiah, among all the things, with the history, with the prophecy, with the dual prophecy, overall, it is a book of vision and a book of hope. In it, God, through it, will chide his people for not obeying him with their heart or not putting their heart into the calling. We'll see that even in chapter 1 as we get into that summary. But there's always hope, and God never forgets his people. He never forgets physical Israel where they are.

He called them his created people, and he, of course, never forgets us, those of us who he has called in this age that he has made a people as well.

Why is it not advancing here?

There we go. So, I've divided Isaiah up into certain sections that kind of speak to what the chapters in these sections are talking to. You'll remember as we began the book of Isaiah, when we began it, we actually looked at chapter 6 first, the calling of Isaiah. But the very first chapter of Isaiah introduces us to Isaiah and the kings that he served under. But it really is God giving a call to repentance to his people.

He's talking about how they pollute his Sabbath days. They do all these sacrifices, but their heart isn't in it. And you'll remember he says things like, you know, your Sabbath days I hate, your sacrifices I detest. It's not that he really tests them. The people are doing what he asked them to do, but what he detests is they're not giving him his heart. They're just going through the motion without really any thought to it and just thinking all they have to do is check a box and God's going to be happy.

But we know that that isn't what God is looking for. So, the first chapter is this call to repentance. As God chides the people then, he chides us. Because in chapter 1, he's talking about all these things, and we can reiterate everything that God says to us. In the middle of chapter 1, he talks about returning to him, coming and reasoning together with him, and that he will wipe, you know, that he'll forgive our sins and make us white as snow.

But in the very next chapter of Isaiah then, he talks of the millennial scene of going up to the mountain of the Lord, of the people in that day actually seeking God's will, looking to go to him, learning about his way of life and those things. So, we move right from, here's the state of the nation today, here's the state of my people, they're just not doing what God asked them to do.

They're not doing what what God asks them to do, not giving him their heart. And then the very next chapter in Isaiah 2, it's like in those days, after Christ returns, people will. They'll be flowing to Jerusalem. They'll be looking for the word of God. It'll be the things that people seek, because they come to understand that God's way is the only way to peace. God's way is the only way to happiness. If you're looking for joy, if you're looking for being settled and established, if you're looking for not being anxious, if you're looking for surety in life and tying yourself to a rock, the only way is God.

It's never to anything in the world. It's always to God. And so chapter 2 reminds us of that. People will, and will be part of that, is people go up to the mountain of the Lord. And we're part of that, and we see the people embracing God's way. In chapter 3 and chapter 4, go along the same thing.

And then in chapter 5, we talked about God's vineyard. And God kind of wraps up this section of it by saying, I've done everything perfect in this vineyard that I planted. And you remember in chapter 5, he gives all the elements of planting a vineyard that should be successful. Plant it on a hill. Sun is able to come to it. You dig up the dirt around it.

You prune it. You prune the grapes. You have a watchtower where you can watch what's going in to protect the grapes as they grow. You have the people who can stop the grapes and turn it into wine. So you have a very, very successful vineyard. You might remember this picture.

You know, this is kind of an artist's depiction of what a vineyard would have looked like in those days. And you might remember us talking about how in the New Testament time, we talk about God is building a house in us individually and collectively. And in that house, it's built upon the foundation of God. And collectively, we all learn to work together and become one. And that God supplies what we need. Ephesians 4, 16 says, what every joint supplies. When we all work together, we can accomplish the will of God.

We can preach the gospel. We can take care of congregations. We can help people grow and develop in the way that God wants to with the fruits of the Spirit and all working together. And the vineyard is kind of the Old Testament picturing that of everyone working together. You know, we have the people in the watchtower there. We have the people attending to the plants. We have the people stomping the grapes. Every single person in the vineyard had a part in making it complete and whole.

Now, when God talks about vineyards, and He talks about vineyards in the New Testament as well, we learn so many lessons from what the successful operation of something physical like that is to produce a successful outcome. And that we all work together. We all work together. Not one of the people in that picture is any more important than any of the others.

It's God who grows the grapes. We do the work that He does, that He has us do, and He produces the outcomes that He wants to provide.

So that was the first five chapters as we set the tone there for the book of Isaiah. Then in the next six or seven chapters, you know, we read about Isaiah's commission, and then we have prophecies concerning Assyria, and it should say the Messiah as well, because in those chapters we have many of the prophecies of the Messiah. But in Isaiah 6, you'll remember how Isaiah was called, and he was a willing recipient of God's call. And God said, well, who will I send? Who will I send out with this message to my people? And Isaiah said, you know, I'll go.

And he goes, I remember he asks, well, how long? How long does the message have to be preached? And in verse 11, you know, God says, until the cities are laid waste and without inhabitant, the houses are without a man, and the land is utterly desolate. And that never happened in ancient Israel, ancient Israel.

But one day that will happen in Israel. And it tells us that the message of Isaiah is as much a message for us today as it was for the people that Isaiah spoke to alive back when he was alive in the 700s BC. Isaiah 6 also talks about a remnant of Israel. God promises that his people Israel will never completely be obliterated from the earth. There will always be a remnant. And in chapter 6 he tells us that the remnant will be 10%.

It's pretty harrowing when you think about the 90% of the punishment that comes on people because we just don't learn to obey God and believe that what he says, if you will just follow what I say and do what I say and trust in me, all these blessings will endure to you. But as humans, people go off and do their own thing, think they know better, they forget God.

But he says ultimately Israel will continue, will always survive, there will always be a remnant of Israel on earth. And then later on in the book we talk much about Christ bringing Israel back to the promised land after he returns. So chapter 7, I think, you know, chapter 7 and on through chapter 11 and 12 are just fascinating, chapters to read. They tell us so much. I spoke of, and again, I can't see if anyone's got their hand up. I can't see any hands, so please, if you have a comment or you want to share something, just start talking, because I can't see raised hands for something when I'm in the share screen but chapter 7 is just this chapter where the king has, as I mentioned, and he just, you know, even though his father Jotham was very loyal to God and very true to him and never doubted, and we look at Jotham and he lived his life in deference to God in all of his life, but then his son turned out to be just completely opposite, as is sometimes the case.

He just simply resisted God at every turn. God tried to reach him. Like I said in chapter 7, God says, basically, I'll give you any sign. You just name the sign that you want, Ahaz, that will show that I am going to be with your people, with you and your people. And Ahaz basically says, I'm not doing it. I'm not doing it. I won't. I won't ask. And he couches, and says, I'm not going to test God, but he really just, I don't even want to know what the sign is.

So in response to that, God gives the sign of the virgin birth, and that there will be the Messiah born of a virgin, and that that will be the ultimate sign that he is with his people and have not forgotten them. Now along the path in chapters 7 to 12, God does give several other prophecies, including those about Assyria, who Ahaz seems to be inordinately afraid of. And Assyria, if you remember, was just this cruel and fierce nation that apparently all the world was afraid of. They were just, they were just, they were just terrible.

But they came in. They just obliterated people. History says they were some of the most cruel and brutal people that ever ever lived on earth, and that the means of torture, that the device, just boggle the mind, that they could do those things to just create the pain that they would put people through. Certainly an element of Satan working through them because they took delight in that terror and that fear that they would put in people. But Ahaz was afraid of them, and God did tell him they will never enter Jerusalem. Assyria did taunt them. They never did enter Jerusalem. As I said before, they never did conquer Judah. And God promised they wouldn't conquer Judah. They didn't. They did conquer Israel. They did conquer Israel in 722 BC. So everything that God had foretold came to pass exactly the way that God said. Now, you will remember that as you go through Isaiah, you don't see all the details that I have just talked about with Ahaz. You see several of them in Isaiah 7, but you have to go back and look at the accounts of Ahaz in 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles to fill in the blanks and get the whole picture of what Ahaz did. In chapter 7 of Isaiah, we find the element of Ahaz's life where God says, I will give you any sign you want. We don't see that in the Kings or the Chronicles. But we do learn in the Kings that Ahaz did everything to stop the Word of God. He boarded up the house of God.

He put everything into storage. He pretty much locked up the doors of the house of God. When Hezekiah became king, then he opened up the doors again. They began to look at the book of the law again, something that Ahaz didn't do at all. So as you go through chapters 7 through 12, you see these prophecies and you see them fulfilled. And of course, in Isaiah 8, 9, and 10 and 11, you see the promises of the Messiah. Isaiah 9, verse 6, tells us, a child is born into you. He will have the Spirit of God, and it defines what the Spirit of God is. It'll be on his shoulder. In Isaiah 11, it talks about him being the king, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace, and all those things about Christ. So in this section, we do find many of the prophecies of the Messiah. The commentaries say there are 300-some prophecies of the coming of Messiah, every single one of which was fulfilled in the birth of Christ to get into the New Testament.

It wouldn't be a bad exercise for someone sometime to just go through and list every single one of those prophecies that are there and then tie them to the New Testament, maybe in a very good Bible study, very good Bible study for someone to do, and just one of those absolute proofs of the Bible as every single part of the Bible is a proof that it is God's Word because no man could have put all of this together. Let me see. In Isaiah 11, I have there, we begin to see the promise that God will bring Israel back to its promised land. It comes after the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. Then in Isaiah 10, we begin to talk about dual prophecies. We talked about Assyria a little bit, and we talked about how in the latter days, when Israel falls, it may well be Assyria again.

That brings about the downfall of modern-day Israel. We talked about some of that dual prophecy and showed how the Bible specifically says that because of the references in Isaiah to such things as in that day and speaking of a time beyond the time that Isaiah lived and any history of Israel prior to the time it went into captivity. In fact, one of the things we looked at from the UCG Bible commentary and from other secular sources as well is, where did the Assyrians go? They were eventually conquered by the Babylonians. It was Babylon that eventually conquered Judah, but they were conquered by the Babylonians. Where did the Assyrians go?

Remember we talked about that and where even secular history says the Assyrians migrated to, because in those days when someone was conquered, they didn't usually stay in the land they were in. They were transported to someplace else, or if they escaped, they escaped up, in this case, up into the north. The very last part of that slide there talks about what Smith's classical dictionary states. It says, there can be no doubt that they migrated into Europe from the Caucasus and the countries around the Black and Caspian Seas. Indeed, a significant portion of the Germanic people of Central Europe today appear to be descended from the Assyrians of old. When we think of modern-day Assyria, sometimes with what's going on in the Middle East today, you'll hear the term Assyria because that was where it was located in the Middle East. Also, the Church has recognized, especially going back decades, that the actual people of the Assyrians, the descendants of the Assyrians, migrated up into Europe. Our part was commonly believed the Germanic people today. What does that mean? What does that mean for prophecy? Just something to be aware of as we look at what happened in Isaiah and what the future holds as we look at the concept of the duality of prophecy there in Isaiah. Mr. Caggy? Yes, sir.

It's interesting, too, that when Assyria took all the Israelites and replaced them with some of their people, that as the Israelites went into Assyria in those areas, they became a part of the party and empire as they progressed to their areas where they were transported. Yeah, it's very interesting. Even watching the migration of Israel after they were released, and they went into the same caucus area, the Black Sea area, and then migrated over into Europe, the whole movement of peoples at that time is just a really interesting study. Then its effect on prophecy, on what we know about prophecy today and where ancient peoples are located today. We put up many maps, if you recall, in the early chapters of Isaiah because there's many cities that we talked about. We put up a series of maps because in order to understand Isaiah and to really get a picture of what's going on as you move through the various chapters here, it's very good to see where the places are. We talked about the Babylon out to the east. We have Samaria, which was the capital of Israel. We talked about Moab, and we get into chapter 15 and 16 of Isaiah. Moab and Edom and Mount Seir and Petra are significant. We talk about the Philistines. We talk about Tyre and amazing prophecy and Tyre, Ethiopia. When we get into the next section of chapters, it has prophecies about all these nations and all these areas that surround Judah and Israel, if we recall. So when you see the map, you kind of see what God is talking about, and especially as he'll talk about a movement from one city to another to get a visual of where it is. Now, this is just one map. If you ever want to look at maps, all you have to do is go on Google and put in map of Isaiah, whatever chapter you're in, and you'll find a plethora of schematics there on what the map in Isaiah's time is. So you can find that on the internet. So chapters 13 to 23 is the next section, and it talks about all of these prophecies, and it talks about the burden against these various areas.

We talked about Babylon. Babylon, in chapter 13, they were an enemy of Israel, but also very significant in the Bible. There's an awfully lot of things we learn about Babylon and Nebuchadnezzar and how Babylon fell and how Isaiah talks about that when we get into Cyrus, and God naming Cyrus ahead of time. But in chapters 13 and 21, it's the prophecies against Babylon. In chapter 21, we have that famous prophetic verse, Babylon is fallen, is fallen.

And Babylon certainly did fall in ancient times to Cyrus and Darius and the Medes and Persians at that time. But then it's also prophesied. We talk about the future fall of Babylon as well. When we look at spiritual Babylon and the system of Babylon that exists at the end time before Jesus Christ returns. And God has some pretty direct prophecies about Babylon, if you will, that it will never be inhabited again. It'll be a place where these animals live and whatever. And when you look at Babylon where it is today, it is covered by water. It's reported that Sodom Hussein in Iraq tried. He really wanted to rebuild Babylon. He could never accomplish it. He was able to build some cities, or not some cities, some buildings away from Babylon, but not on the site of Babylon. God said it wouldn't be inhabited again, and it wasn't.

We talked significantly about Babylon and talked about those prophecies and the prophecies in Revelation 18 about the system of Babylon that exists at the end time and how it will be fallen. And God says the same thing will be the fate of that system. Isaiah 14 talks about Lucifer, ties it into Babylon and the evil of that location. But it speaks of Satan at that time. Between Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28, we learn much about Satan, his beginning, how he resisted God, how he rejected God, and what God's pronouncements about him have been. Isaiah 15 and 16, it's a prophecy against Moab. And you'll remember when we were talking about Moab, we talked about Petra, we talked about Mount Seir, we talked about God's castouts, and how he would protect his people in that day. And we didn't draw any conclusions of what all that meant, but we did talk about it in chapters 15 and 16 pretty extensively and looked at verses that are in Isaiah as well as other places that indicate that God has his place, that he will have his people, that he will protect from the dangers of what's going on around him at that time. We tied it into Daniel 11 that says at the time of the end when the king of the north marches through the king of the south, the land of Jordan would be spared at that time. We talked about some of those. We just used the terms that God used, his castouts. He will, you know, verse 4, I'm looking after that, be on chapter 16, let my castouts dwell with you, O may Moab, be a shelter to them from the face of the spoiler, or the extortioner is at hand, etc., etc. So we talked about those things, whatever God means by castouts, you know, he does have this place prepared. We do remember, ultimately, that the people of Moab are wiped out. But it goes back to that map that we talked about again, because in chapters in 15 and 16, God does talk about cities. There is a progression of cities that go down from Israel through Moab, down to the river Ar, I think it is, and down to Aror, and then finally into Seir. I'll get, I think I have a map. Well, let me see if I have a map of that. I think I put a map of that in. Yeah, this is the map that pretty much takes us through the route that God talks about in Isaiah 16. And this is exactly the map we used on the Bible study that night. That little red dot down there is that river we're talking about, that God specifically talks about in those as He's mapping out where the cast-outs will be and where He's going to have them be. So, oops, I want to go back. Okay, let's go back to here for a moment, then we'll get on to Tyre.

You know, we talked about Ethiopia and those prophecies as well. I mean, we went through every single chapter. I'm not just highlighting some of the things here. You remember we talked about Ethiopia and kind of Ethiopia being a unique place on earth even today. And as we talked about that, you know, we talked about how Ethiopians show up in other places in the Bible, certainly in the book of Acts.

You know, Philip comes upon the Ethiopian eunuch who is reading the book of Isaiah and says, you know, how can I understand the book of Isaiah? So, Philip works with him on that to open his understanding.

We have, you know, Ethiopia, you know, the queen of Sheba being fascinated with King Solomon and the riches of Israel and the things that she says about that and some of the legends that are there about Ethiopia. Two things that are just interesting about Ethiopia, whether they ever amount to anything or not in the future.

As we hear about Ethiopia, it's kind of one of those nations that's there. It's had a troubled past in some place, but it's been kind of like an isolated nation on earth. If you recall, we said Ethiopia was only one of two African nations that has never been colonized, the other one being Liberia, I believe it is, but it's never been colonized. And it's almost like it's been protected if for some reason no one has ever gone in there and tried to uncover any of the anything that Ethiopia has.

It's just kind of like it's been protected there in a way and people have stayed out. The other unique thing about Ethiopia is they don't follow the same calendar the rest of us do. They are in a different year, in a different month, they operate under their entirely different system. It's not the biblical calendar, but a difficult calendar altogether.

So in the world, they're kind of a unique nation. When you read through the prophecies of Ethiopia and see the significance of them and some of the things that we've read in the Bible, it just makes you pause and think about the unique nature of that. Some of the legends that are out there about Ethiopia, only God knows if they're true. We'll find out when Christ returns and probably not before then.

I think one of the fascinating, they're all fascinating. Everything God does is fascinating. It is only of Him, and man can't duplicate it. But certainly Tyre, the prophecy against Tyre, we talked about that. You'll recall that even in the other books of the kings, it would talk about how the king was going to go in, Nebuchadnezzar, and he was going to just level Tyre. He was just going to level all the houses in Tyre, and he was going to take all that land, and he was going to build an island out to the little island of Tyre, and that that was going to be a fixture there.

As we read that back in the book of the kings, I guess it was, it was like, how did they even do that when you see the magnitude of what the moving land and dirt from one area to another would be? They didn't have any of the modern machinery that we have today, but indeed they did it. The landscape of Tyre has forever changed because of that. So we see, you know, in the map to the left there, you have where old Tyre is, and then Alexander actually is the one who built this causeway out to the island of what they call New Tyre.

And so, you know, you have this this permanent fixture that's just been altered, that has altered the landscape there, altered the borders of that whole area, and to the map to the right, you see that.

That's an overhead of even today. This happened thousands of years ago, and then here today you see that that whole structure devised by what the Bible specifically said. The houses would be raised, the land would be moved, there would be a, it would be built out to New Tyre, and that would become, that would become that, and old Tyre would just be ruins. And that's exactly exactly what has happened. There's no one that can look at what has Tyre and look at the Bible, see what's happened, see the altered landscape that was prophesied to happen and has happened and is there today that could say that that is anyone but God.

You couldn't say it's anything but God, because it is certainly something that he devised, and he made happen. Again, just a tremendous fulfilled prophecy. Okay, so chapters 24 to 27, there are like four chapters in there. In that, you notice down there, they're more talking about the time before the return of Jesus Christ as you look at these four chapters. We see the term in that day in there in chapter 25. In Isaiah 24, we read things about like the earth mourns and fades away, it will fall and not rise again. As we went through these chapters, we moved into the book of Revelation and some other prophecies that even Christ and Peter reported and talked about those things and how Isaiah has talked about those. Here it is in the New Testament, showing us in more detail. The verbiage that's there clearly talks about the time of peace that is coming when Jesus Christ returns. He will deliver the people from everyone that they have been subjected to and everything like that. I know this was way back a couple chapters, but in regards to the Jews fleeing and the people being protected, the verse where our Lord says in Matthew, where he says, those who are in Judea are to flee into the mountains. I was just looking that's in what's that? Matthew 24. Right. Verse 16. I was looking at the map of Jordan and it's very mountainous to Israel's east. Very mountainous that area, so it shows that yes, because the command here is, let them flee to the mountains. The whole Bible fits together. When you look at all those things and you operate like we have been for the last 66 chapters in Isaiah, you can just see it all fits together with the rest of the Bible. In Isaiah 25, remember we talked about waiting for God, just waiting for him. Even though humanly we always want things to happen very quickly, we learn to wait for God. We wait through trials. We wait and endure for him because we have faith and we expect that we know that what he says is going to happen. It'll happen in his time. We see some of those verses in 25 and 26 that are supposed to be encouraging and instructional to us. Of course, chapter 26 and verse 3 are verses that come to mind that should be all the time, but when we're having any kind of trouble or anxiety, you will keep him in perfect peace to his mind and stay on you. Think about Jesus Christ, everything that he went through, his agony leading up to his death on that Passover day back in his life. He kept his mind always on God, always on the vision of what he's there for. And that's what you and I have to learn to do, too. No matter whatever confronts us, we wait for him. We believe in him. We expect in him, and we keep our eyes on him knowing that what we're going through is exactly what he intends for us to go through when we become stronger as a result. So those are those three chapters. In Isaiah 27, remember we talked about Leviathan. He's one of those legendary creatures of the Bible. We showed that we're talking about Satan there, and of course at the end of that chapter we see God having the triumph over Leviathan. 28 to 35. These are millennial chapters as well, but they're also warning chapters.

Isaiah 30 is just we should always remember Isaiah 30. There's the key things that happen in Isaiah 30 that we should always remember. For you, you and me who God has called as firstfruits, provided we continue to follow God and allow him to mold us and develop us into who he wants us to be. We'll be the people that when we're working with people and teaching them God's way, and as they make mistakes or begin to have wrong thoughts, we'll be the ones tapping them on the shoulder, saying, this is the way. Walk you in it. That's a very encouraging verse when you look at chapter 30 and what God has planned. Then the suddenness and prophecy. In the same chapter later on, when you get past that, God talks about prophecy and how he works suddenly.

All of a sudden, everything that he has prophesied comes about. It's not that it's just all of a sudden. What he's reminding us is that we will just kind of lull ourselves to sleep. We'll just get used to what's going on in life, like the bulging wall he talks about in chapter 30. We get used to the wall just bulging a little more and bulging a little more. Then one day, it just bursts forth and floods the room. It's like, how did that happen so quickly? Well, it didn't. We just weren't paying attention to it. It's kind of just reminiscent or, I guess, a reminder of the world we live in today as we watch things continually come about in the world. We're instantaneously, you know, or maybe right when we hear about it, we're just kind of like, whoa, how could that happen? How could anyone think that? How could a government do that? How could people think that that lifestyle isn't all beneficial or benefiting to anyone? We get alarmed at first, but then we kind of get used to it. We get used to society the way it is. We don't sense how it's moving closer and closer to the destruction and the end time that it is. When it finally happens, if we're not awake and if we're not paying attention, we too could be taken by surprise, like the world will be when these things completely fall apart. So God is warning us, you know, in chapter 30, just like Christ does in Luke 21, keep your eyes open. Keep your eyes open and know what's going on so that you aren't taken by surprise when the world falls apart because it is moving in that direction all along the way. Of course, you know, God continually warns us as we are in end times and the dangers that can befall us if we don't stay close to him and keep our eyes open, a warning against complacency. So we find another warning against complacency in Isaiah 32, much like the one we saw in the first five chapters there in the book of Isaiah, and he warns us, don't become lazy, don't become lackadaisical, just don't get used to things. Stay on fire, keep the zeal up, keep the energy up, stay close to him. And of course, we compared that to Revelation 3 of the church in Laodicea and the complacency that is demonstrated in that church as well as Amos 6. Amos was a prophet to Israel, and he talks to Israel in that time frame as well. He's gotten too lazy. You've gotten too complacent. You're just going on in life, and you're not paying attention to what's going on around you. Isaiah 33 and 34 talk about the second coming of Christ, talks about, you know, views his words like, your eyes will see him, talks about the host of heaven being dissolved, and of course, Isaiah 35 in this series of chapters here is the classic millennial chapter, right? The desert shall blossom like a rose, the lame will leap like a deer, the blind will see, the mute will speak, talks about the highway to heaven on which—not the highway to heaven, the highway on which God will bring his outcasts, physical Israel, back to the Promised Land, and the highway that he'll have there as he paints the picture for us of the kingdom. So we have these inset chapters there that are very, very hopeful to us, very prophetic, and very much give a vision of the time ahead. And then we have these four chapters, Isaiah 36-39, about Hezekiah. We spend some time talking about Hezekiah because he was overall, you know, a king we can learn a lot from. He demonstrated faith in God, where his father, Ahaz, demonstrated no faith in God and resisted and shut down the work of God, if you will.

Hezekiah opened it all up. He opened up the book of the law. You remember that they observed a Passover at that time. They got the book of the law out. They looked and saw everything they needed to do. They went through all the rituals that they needed to do in order to get prepared for Passover. It was a wonderful Passover. We learned, as we look back into 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles, Hezekiah did that. The faith that he had in God, the singleness of heart that God commended Hezekiah for having as he sought God with all his heart as everything went through. We remember the time when Hezekiah was confronted with Sennacherib of Assyria, who challenged and taunted Judah. He said, don't pay attention to your God. Don't listen to what Hezekiah has to say.

Who has ever been able to stand against mighty Assyria? All that rhetoric and all that talk.

Hezekiah just told his people, just be still. Be still. Be still and trust in God. He gave a magnificent prayer as he laid that letter out before God and said, I don't even know what to do. We are completely in your hands on this. You can just feel the faith. This is a good example for us as we read through Hezekiah. He made mistakes in his life, too. He had faith in God. And God did send an illness on him. Hezekiah asked for more time. God granted him an extra 15 years.

But then at the end of chapter 39, we read that he opened up the treasuries and a sort of pride to the enemies around to show them the treasures that God had given them. And God chided him for that. Of course, remember the miracle of the sundial, too. One of the things that was just the sign of the sundial. And God said, I'll give you a sign. It was like, let the sundial go backwards, which is a physical impossibility. And indeed, it happened.

I think I recall this. I might be remembering something. I think the sundial we talked about even was invented, if that's the proper word, during the time of King Ahaz. So it was there at that time. And then God used it as a sign of his power in stopping the rotation of the earth and actually turning it backwards to add that then sundial turned backwards. So that says Achaia.

Those are really the last historical parts of Isaiah that we talked about. Isaiah, you know, we moved into Isaiah 40. And the commentaries will even say that Isaiah 40 and the next few chapters are just chapters of comfort. And indeed, that's what they are.

You know, we've seen the captivity that Israel would go through. We understand what Judah was going to go through as they were taken captive. And the times of trouble that would be leading up for God's people because of their disobedience all up until the time of Christ's return. And when he returned, he would bring comfort. And that's chapter 40, verse 1, is that comfort?

Yes, comfort, my people. And that's what God does. When he returns to earth, when Christ returns to earth, he will bring comfort. I mean, he will work with the people. He will heal up their wounds. I'm getting a little bit of my head to myself because, you know, he talks about that in chapter 61, which is a tremendous chapter of hope as well. But in these chapters, these eight and nine chapters of Isaiah 40 to 48, we talked about all these things.

God showed how he is in control. He reminds the people that the reason that they go through what they do is because they turned from him. In there, you know, there's even scientific scriptures that are in there on God in verse 22, chapter 40, sitting above the circle of the earth. And some will talk about, you know, mankind didn't understand that the earth was a circle or sphere until many, many, many years after creation.

Yet in the book of Isaiah, you know, there it is in verse 22. If people would just look into the book, you know, God gives so many of the scientific facts that man pats himself on the back for discovering years later. But we talked about things like the coastlands. And when God talks about the coastlands, we talked about how modern-day Israel inhabits lands that have significant coastlands. When you look at America and Britain and New Zealand and Australia and Canada, you have lands that have significant coastlands. And there's a blessing and a benefit to having those coastlands as part of your territory.

And when God talks about the coastlands, in most cases there, it's like he is speaking to a people that have been scattered around the world, but they inhabit these places that have the tremendous blessings of the terrain that they live in. Isaiah 41, I think I have a slide on it. I don't know. We'll take the time to do that again. I'll just remind you, in Isaiah 41, you know, as God is talking about his people, he calls him Jacob, and he says, Fear not, you worm Jacob.

And, you know, people a lot of times say, You worm Jacob, you're just like a lowly creature. But that's that word tola this area. Remember we talked about the crimson worm and the significance of it. Now, I got this slide next, but we're not going to have time to go through all that. But how that relates back, that word tola, the crimson worm in chapter 41 verse 14, relates back to chapter 1 verse 18, where God talks about, you know, your sins may be like scarlet, but I will make you white as snow.

And the whole crimson worm is the unique creation that it is. And then it relates back to Psalm 22 verse 6, as well, when it's talking about Christ as a worm. And you can see the beauty and the symbolism in that that you would never know if you didn't have Hebrew, you know, the incordances that show what the Hebrew words are, and then look and see what do those words mean?

What does that tola mean? It's not just earthworm, it's the specific type of worm that it is. And in this series of chapter, God talks over and over again about the foolishness of idols. We talked about how it's like Jesus Christ talking to the people of that day, like these idols, these idols that you worship, do you realize how foolish they were?

I mean, you would make them out of stone, you would make them out of wood, and then you bow down, you would bow down and kneel, kneel to them. You know, it reminds me when we were in the Philippines and and Manik from Bangladesh was there, and he was talking about how he came into the church, how he began to, because he has a Hindu background. And he said, you know, his parents were Hindu, and they his dad would make idols.

He would actually carve the idols out, they would set it up in their house, and then they would bow down, they would bow down and pray to it. He remembers thinking this is such a silly thing. You're making this thing, we're bowing down to it.

How can that be a god? And you can see God working in his mind, and that's what led him to start thinking, well, that can't be a god. And as I read through this, where God keeps talking about, you bow down to these things that you're making. You take the same piece of wood and make a god an idol out of it, and yet you burn the other for firewood, or you bake your food over it. It makes no sense. And that is exactly how he began to think. There's more to it. That can't be the god.

That can't be what's holding us together and providing for us. And that's what led him eventually. And then he found something on the internet at UCG that got his attention, and that's what led him to coming into the church and being baptized. And now he's got that group of 30 that meets at his house as he teaches them. So many things in there in that series of chapter. Brother Shavey. Yes, sir.

You know, of recent, we've had a recent doctrine, not doctrine, but I don't know this ally, about flat pattern. Oh, yes. While we were just reading in chapter 40, God graciously showed me, as simple as it is, because they say the circle is a dome. Meaning in that quote, the dome. No, a dome is only half of a circle. Right. So it can't be what it refers to, because it was a circle, as well as a circuit, a complete circle. A complete circle of the earth, yes. Yes. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. That the whole flat earth thing is just incredible to me that people can believe in it.

But yeah, but one day they'll understand. I actually talked to someone not too long ago that was leaning toward that, and I pointed Isaiah 40 22 to him, and he had to pause, and luckily, you know, or I shouldn't say luckily, I mean, to his credit, he said, I'm going to have to go home and think about that. And I thought, well, yeah, think about it hard, because that's in the Bible, and it doesn't say, you know, the flat earth, the plane of the earth that talks about the circle of the earth. So yeah, the argument online is that the bone that's a bone, and you see when the rockets go off, it's created the bone because they can't break through the bone.

Yes, it's all right. Some of the people, you know, what they think of that is that that has been a hoax from the first time a rocket went up in the 60s that this has been a whole hoax. I mean, you've read those things, right? You think, really, you think this was a well orchestrated global event just to fool everyone that these pictures we see of the earth are just a fabrication? And for what purpose? What is the purpose that that would happen? And no one can really answer that. So this is just the thing I was talking about. I mean, you can go on online.

Review about the storm. Yeah, yes, go ahead. I'm sorry. I'm sorry to interrupt you, Mr. Shaby, but what was that verse that that he gave Isaiah 40? What? Isaiah 40 verse 22.

22. There must be there must be the wrong one there. Let me make sure I'm I don't see if 22. I'm sorry, I'm in Psalms. Oh, yeah. Okay, never mind. There you go. Isaiah 40. Thank you.

Okay, next 10 chapters. Isaiah 49 to 59. Talk about Christ's return.

You know, I should have mentioned that prior one, too, is where he names Cyrus by name. And that is significant because there are so many commentaries that try to explain that away and say, well, Isaiah must have been written after Cyrus. No way. All the manuscripts, all the dating, everything.

It was God specifically naming Cyrus as the one who would have that would allow Judah to go back and rebuild that temple. So in Isaiah 49 to 59, it talks about the Messiah. It talks about his majesty. It talks about what he is going to do. It talks about him being a light to the Gentiles. As it talks about the Savior, describes about him, we come on chapter 53, which is the chapter that we read at Passover every year that talks about he's been bruised, he suffered for us, it pleased God, and that verbiage that's in there, that happened because it was part of the plan. Jesus Christ did what it was determined before the foundation of the earth that he would do, that we might have our sins forgiven and that we might have the salvation we do.

So as you read through 49, 50, 51, 52, leading up to chapter 53, you see the natural thing as God is describing. Here is the Messiah. Here is what he will do, and in his life he fulfilled those scriptures in Isaiah 53 just perfectly. Isaiah 54, your children will be taught by him. Speaking of the future time after Jesus Christ returns, Isaiah 55, all you who thirst come often. The Feast of Tabernacles, that's related to John 7, 37. Then we get into chapters 57, 58, and 59 that are quite instructive. Chapter 58 tells us, cry aloud, spare not, tell my people their sin at the house of Jacob, or tell my people their transgression at the house of Jacob, their sin. Something the church must do. We're talking about that more and more at the home office and how we have to clearly and strongly come out and say what it is that is going on and letting Israel know the sin therein. That's in addition to preaching the gospel in all nations, which is another thing that we're focusing on and preparing here.

You know, the very many ways that the world communicates with each other these days.

You have the fasting, the proper fast that God looks at that he will answer when we are looking at ourselves and how he corrects us. And of course, you have the keeping the Sabbath holy and not finding your own pleasure on the Sabbath day. And then, of course, in chapter 59, quite a telling chapter talks about how sin separates us from God. It talks about the cockatriceg. I talked about that in a sermon once and how people aren't... you never would take this legendary creature that is this little, you know, kind of fire breathing, poisonous, deadly thing that comes out of saying you would never willingly hatch that egg because you can never put it back in again. And yet, in today's world, we are unhatching all sorts of cockatrice eggs that are opening up dangers that are going to bring, you know, death to the world around us. And then, the last six chapters... Mr. Shaby. Yes, ma'am. So, going back to 58, Isaiah 58, where God says, you know, lift up your voice and tell my people their sins, of course, Isaiah 58 13, to me, locks in how to keep the Sabbath holy. You go back to Genesis 2 and verse 2 through 3, God Himself rests around the seventh day, thereby He blessed it and sanctified it for holy use. And the two biggest sins of Israel and Judah were idolatry-keeping and Sabbath-breaking. So, I think Isaiah, when he talks about Isaiah 13, I think that's very, very important that we don't just overread it. Because basically, Isaiah 13, He's saying, basically, keep your foot, take your foot off of my Sabbath day. Don't do your own pleasure. Don't do your own ways. Don't find your own pleasure. Don't speak your own words. And he says to call God's holy day a delight, holy, honorable, and honor Him. And so, we should be having more reverence, I believe, for the Sabbath day than what we do. There's so many other scriptures in the Bible that lock in the point of keeping God's Sabbath holy. I've been a baptized member for over 51 years, and during the course of time, I've eaten out many times on the Sabbath day, in holy days with different brethren and congregations of the churches of God. And I can tell you from experience, most of the time, except for a brief comment that was a good sermon, or five to ten minutes about God, the rest of the time, we were speaking our own words about our jobs, hobbies, projects, finding our own pleasure in ways, and not keeping God as our focal point of topic. And I realize that even if we have church brethren in our homes, our conversations can stray as well, speaking our own thoughts. But we should strive to obey God. We must redirect our conversation and thoughts on God and honor Him, delighting in Him on His holy day. And I just want to point out that after Matthew 24, I think I mentioned this before, the very next chapter, two very important examples, in Matthew 25, the Ten Virgins. So basically, you're talking about the whole church, they're called at once, Ten Virgins. Five are only pleasing to God, five are not. And it goes on down to the talents, the talents given to the one man, five, two, and then one. Well, that man that had the one talent, he wasn't doing anything but sitting in church. He wasn't going home, he wasn't studying, he wasn't developing, he was just taking what the church told him to believe. He wasn't checking for himself, like the Bereans. He didn't go through and check. So as far as I'm concerned, that's a warning. Chapter 25 is a warning to us. It's not just the Laodicean era. I'm Philadelphia, but it doesn't matter where you are, when you came into the church. You could be Laodicean anywhere down the road. But to me, it is better to err on the side of caution than to lose out and have God our Father say to us, I never knew you.

50% of the church is going to hear that. I agree with everything you said. We need to pay more attention to the Sabbath day. We've been talking about it more. We talk about the whole concept of holy, and you're exactly right. If you turn away your foot from the Sabbath, we don't do our will on the Sabbath. We do God's will. Everything you said, Debbie, is absolutely true. We as a church need to understand that more and value that 24-hour period that God gave us by seeking him, doing his will, and doing his will, and leaving, like you said, to leave our words behind at the things that interest us and talk about it well. I totally agree with you. As we move toward the end of the book of Isaiah, it's interesting that God puts that in there. He talks about fasting, a spiritual tool that probably is largely still misunderstood by many of us. Every time we fast, we learn something more about it, how God wants us to fast. Heaping the Sabbath day is an important to him. As we move into the last six chapters of Isaiah, we find all the very hopeful chapters that lead up into Isaiah 66. We learn about the fulfillment of the Holy Days. Jesus Christ has come.

He is there for the Gentiles and for all of people. In Isaiah 61, he fulfills the promise of his Second Coming. In Luke 4, we talked about how his First Coming was doing when he sat down in Luke 4 after he read those first few verses of Isaiah 61 and said, today this is fulfilled in your eyes. Then in chapter 61, as you go through the rest of it, what he's going to do at his Second Coming. We won't go through all those. We talk about Jerusalem being a city of peace.

He talks about the Day of the Lord. We talked about millennial periods of time. It's clear that we're talking about the eighth day or the last great day, whatever you call it, when we get into chapter 65 and some of the conversations that we've had there. Then in chapter 66, God basically said, this is the one to whom I will look, the one who is humble, contrite, and a word we should all spend a little bit of time thinking about. Humble and contrite and trembles at God's word. When we look at God's word, how does it affect us? Do we understand as the very creator of heaven and earth and the universe that has these words to us? Do they rivet us? Do they scream at us the way we need to live? Then, of course, after God talks about all these wonderful things, but even talks about the signs or the traits of the people who won't be part of that kingdom. In chapter 24, he leaves it with a very stern warning, you know, here's this lake of fire and the corpse of those who transgressed against God. As a reminder to us, stay close to God and do His will.

So that's the 66 chapters of Isaiah in a nutshell. I hope that's maybe conjured up some thoughts and memories of some of the things that we talked about along the way. Like I said, I can post that PowerPoint somewhere if anyone wants to look at it. And certainly, every single Bible study is online there. If there's a chapter that you missed or something that we talked about that you don't remember, you can go back and listen to. And certainly, even as you do that later, if you have questions later on, bring them up. Bring them up and we can talk about them. So let me leave it at that for any comments. And then I got one polling question I want to ask for tonight before everyone leaves. Hi, Mr. Shabey. Peter here. Hi. Thank you for that. What you said at the beginning about the Book of Isaiah, past, present and future. And you've probably heard this comment on the Book of Isaiah. People refer to it as the Little Bible.

Yes. You know, because it covers everything there. You know, yeah.

It is because it covers so much. I know there's another book that covers as much as Isaiah does.

They say that about Hebrews, too. That Hebrews is a significant book. And we did a Bible study on that back a year or two ago. So that's another. Well, they're all significant books. They all are invaluable. Mr. Shabey. Yes, sir. Hi, Bud Bailey. Very, very interesting and a lot of people are getting a review. And it stirs up a lot of memories and questions. And I'm wondering, are you going to make this available for us that we can get it online?

This is the PowerPoint? The PowerPoint? Yeah, I can post it. I mean, we can get it posted under the post. I'll have to get with Dave Permar. I'm not sure how to do that. But I'll ask him to post it under that Home Office Congregation website. Not Cincinnati East, but Home Office will post it there for anyone who wants it. Or if you want me to email it to me, just send me an email. Well, we can. Pardon? We do get the entire Bible study by going to the UCG website. And I've got a lot of spaces in my notes, and I want to fill them in. So yes, if you don't send it to us, I'll go there and pick it up at the sermons. It won't be there. I'll tell you what, I've got your email address. I'll email it to you. So you have it. So you have it. But where it will be posted is under the posts at the Home Office Congregation, whatever location they call that.

They've changed the way that the URLs are on it anymore, so it's a little more confusing to find it. But if you go to Home Office Congregation, you'll see if they're under the posts.

Okay, one more thing.

Go ahead. Yes, go ahead, Ben. One more thing. One of these suggestions, I'm sure we're going to have more than one.

He's got somebody else on there. Yeah, I can't finish, Cheryl.

Okay, hold on. Go ahead, bud.

One more suggestion, and I'm sure we could have more than one. I would like to see us go through the life of Paul and his epistles. I think that is an astounding study.

Yeah, I agree with you. Since we don't know much about his life during the time of Christ, that's primarily what I wanted. It's one I'm sure that others could be coming about.

Well, we'll add that to it. That's what my polling question is about. What do people want to talk about? What book or whatever next? I've had a few suggestions, so I was going to put those up, and we'll add that one to it.

Mr. Chabie?

Yeah, Paul.

I'd like very much to go through Ezekiel.

That is one that's been recommended, so that's on my polling list.

Mr. Chabie?

Yes, Jeremy?

I would like to go through the book of Nehemiah.

Okay. Yep, I got your email, so I have that on my polling list as well. All right, thank you. I second Nehemiah.

Because we're going to do about the Sabbath, right?

Nehemiah 13 is a key chapter in that whole Sabbath discussion, so yes.

That's why I want to go through that, too.

Okay, let me pull the polling question up here. Now, I... Can I give you one thing first? Yes, a type of polling. After you've gotten a summary, you can do a poll and see where the lot falls. Yeah, can you guys see this Bible study poll?

Can I give you one thing first? I cannot see it. No.

I just wondered...

I picked up the study, I think, during Acts. Can you remind us which books that you have done? Because I think you did Revelation, but I wasn't part of that. Yeah.

Do you remember a few back that you have done already?

Yes, yes, I do. They're all posted at that home office site in the Sermons, right?

The only things that are listed in that home office site are all the Bible studies we've done in the past. I know we've done Acts, James, Revelation, Hebrews, and well, of course, Isaiah.

I think that's it. And Ephesians. We've done Ephesians as well.

Yeah, but they're there. I'll tell you what I will...

What's the easiest way to do this?

Um...

If you got a pen there, here's how you can find that home office location that has all the Bible studies and where the post will be of the PowerPoint. It is ucg.org slash congregations slash home-office.

Okay? ucg.org slash congregations slash home-office.

And that's where you'll find all those.

The sermons...

Let me see. You don't have to be... I think all those are posted publicly, so you don't have to be a member of that website to look at them.

You can be, but yeah, all the Bible studies are listed there. That's the only thing that they are. All the Bible studies that we've gone through, chapter by chapter.

Mr. Shaby? Yes, ma'am. Were you gonna talk to Dave Perm, Dave Permar, about trying to get the Bible studies separated? Yes, I am. I haven't done that yet, but I'm going to. Now that we've got Isaiah done, I'm gonna talk to them about having that separately posted under a Bible study link. That'll be cool. Yeah.

Thank you. So, okay. So, can anyone see this Bible study poll? Is that showing up on your...

No.

No.

Okay. Now is it? There it goes.

Now it's going. Okay.

So, here's what's been recommended as our next topic. We got the book of Romans has been recommended, Nehemiah, Hosea, Ezekiel. I threw in there the Sabbath paper, and then Bud has just mentioned something with the epistles of Paul or whatever. So, if you want to kind of just pick the one you want on there, we will look at that and see what most people want. Now, it doesn't mean we're all... How do you take it? Actually, I don't know that you say that. How do you do that?

You can't tap it.

Okay. Yeah, this is where... Okay.

I got the poll, but let me see. How do you actually use it? Okay. Who's used one of these polls before? I didn't even think to ask it that question. I just saw how to set it up. So, I think... I never seen one like this.

I use Zoom for work, but I don't use the poll, so I'm not on this one.

Mr. Shavey? Yes. I'm going to do one. Yeah, our local pastor here, he sent out surveys before...

If you like, I could CC him about it.

Yeah, I don't know what book or stuff here. Should we study next? I thought this was so that live, because I said you can do this live. You can't do that. What are you doing? Live. He's okay. Yeah. Is it in the settings, maybe, Mr. Shavey? Do what? I'm sorry.

This is Liz Mason. Hello. Is it maybe in the settings account, like on your...

Um, yeah. Oh, there it goes. There we go. There we go.

Yay! Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah, very nice. Whatever you do, it works.

I pressed Ezekiel.

There we go. I got a seven minutes.

Mr. Shavey, MAMIC's suggestion?

Yes.

Depending on how many want to go through which books, the shorter books would be the quicker ones, like Nehemiah, you know, and then save Ezekiel. Ezekiel, I would love to go through it, too, but maybe knock out the shorter ones and then get to the longer one.

Ezekiel is a given. We will be going through Ezekiel, whether it's absolutely next or right after that, you know, we'll see. But Ezekiel is another book that I don't think the church has ever gone through, like chapter by chapter, so we are going to do that because there is so much in it that applies to today as well that we need to know. So, yeah, right.

Thank you.

It's a hard choice.

It is.

I think we'll let everyone keep voting. I kind of see the trend, so. Thank you, Mr. Shavey.

Yes, yeah. Hello. This is Squids from Newfoundland. Yes. Hi.

How are you doing? Good. How are you?

Not too bad. I was just wondering if you can repeat that email you addressed that you said a little while ago about getting that PowerPoint up. Sure. Just to make sure we got it right. Okay. It's ucg.org.

Okay. Slash congregations slash home hyphen office.

The space in between the open is just home hyphen office.

Okay. That's where we went wrong.

Thank you very much. Very good. Okay. Okay. Tell you what we're going to do.

It's kind of what I suspected would happen.

Nehemiah is only 13 chapters long. And since there has been discussion on this about the Sabbath and there's so many other things in the book of Nehemiah that we can learn things from, why don't we do Nehemiah first and then we'll do Ezekiel right after that. Ezekiel's 48 chapters, I think it is. So that's going to take a while to go through. Does that sound okay to everyone?

Nehemiah and Ezekiel?

Yes. Mr.

Shavey? Sounds good. When we go to Nehemiah, because you have the Sabbath paper on there also, can that just be lumped in with that too? Yeah. Because that's why we started talking about all that? Yeah. Yes. And what part of your homework can be? We want to talk about that paper next week. We'll just get right into Nehemiah and give a little background on it. We'll go through it because there is a lot to learn from Nehemiah. He's a very good example for us living in this age today too because some of the trials he makes are what we face. But yeah, people can be reading that Sabbath paper as well. So when we get to Nehemiah 13, which is the crucial chapter, we'll be well armed with discussion points.

Okay, thank you.

Okay, then that's what we will do. Next week we will begin in Nehemiah. When we finish Nehemiah, we'll go to Ezekiel.

Okay? How was good? Good. Goodnight. Goodnight. Goodnight. Be here everyone next week. Thank you. Goodnight. Goodnight. Goodnight. Goodnight. Goodnight. Thank you. Thank you. Bye. Thank you. Bye. Goodnight. Goodnight. Take care, everyone. Great to be with you today. See you.