Isaiah Bible Study Series: Background to the Book of Isaiah

Let's begin by asking a very basic question. What is the purpose of Bible prophecy? What is the purpose of Bible prophecy? Most people don't really understand the answer to that very basic question. People want to know who's going to do what, when, and where all of these things are going to happen. Now, that sort of material is important, and there's chapter after chapter after chapter in the Bible talking about those sorts of things. But really, that's kind of missing the point when we're looking at the purpose of Bible prophecy. People focusing on those details can miss out on the most important aspect of Bible prophecy, and that is the why. That is the why. Why do people do the things they do? And why does God do the things He does in response to that? Now, the answer to the question I've just asked, what is the purpose of Bible prophecy, is this. This is one of the big things. If you're taking down notes, you like to do that just so you can pay better attention. This next sentence is one of the most important sentences of the whole sermon today. The overall purpose of Bible prophecy is to encourage us to change our lives and to help us see the things we must do to be closer to God. That is the overall purpose of Bible prophecy, to encourage us to change our lives and help us see where we need to draw closer to God. You know, brethren, we are going to be devoting significant time to this study of the book of Isaiah. God willing, health permitting, we will march through this. It's going to take me two and a half years, three years, doing this maybe once a month. It's going to take a long time. We're going to devote significant time to this, and if it was just a matter of knowing peoples and places and things, then I don't know if all that time would be warranted. But as we saw with the book of Daniel, there is a great deal of Christian living in the book of Isaiah. And as we're going through the book of Isaiah, I would really encourage you, as we're going through this verse by verse, area by area, chapter by chapter, and so forth, to be asking yourself, how does this relate to me as a Christian in today's world? Now, one of the things I'm going to be trying to do as we cover this material is to ask questions that would help you frame the material along those lines. Now, there's an example in Scripture that proves the point I just made, that the overall purpose of Bible prophecy is to encourage us to change our lives, become more like our Father. The example, ironically, deals with a prophecy that didn't come to pass. I would like you to turn to the book of Jonah, the minor prophets.

Book of Jonah. We've got Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, then Jonah, and the minor prophets. Okay, Jonah chapter 1 and in verse 2, arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it, for their wickedness has come up before me. So God gave his prophet Jonah a message, and the need is obvious. The people of Nineveh need to make changes. They need to repent. Today, brethren, God's ministers, God's people, have a message.

The message you hear every Sabbath and services, whether it be through sermonettes, split sermons, or sermons, there's a message that is given to you every Sabbath. As you converse with one another and fellowship with one another, you give personal messages to one another. And, of course, the whole idea is the reason we gather together as a group of people is so that we can draw closer to God.

You know, I have a letter that I send to prospective members, and we have a lady and her son who just recently contacted me in the Chicago area. She has been watching our, looking at our website, reading our literature, listening to sermons, listening to, watching videos of our sermons, and, you know, she understands about the Sabbath and the Holy Days, and, but, you know, she, for economic reasons, she was not able to make it to services. Well, now she's moved to a place where she can now get to services much more easily. But you know, when I, when people contact me, I send them a letter, an introduction to the local church.

I let them know a little bit about myself, who's, you know, the pastor, and I let them know a little bit about the congregation. I do that with this church as well, and also the Chicago Church. I let them know what these services are like. So people, when they come in, they know how most people are going to dress. You know, if, in the world, people sometimes will come on blue jeans and this and that and the other. Well, they come in a place like this, and we all have our suits and nice dresses and things like that.

They're gonna feel out of place. We don't want people to feel out of place. Let them know, you know, how people dress, you know, how many songs we have, what the songs are based on, how long services are going to be. But one of the things that always make mention about Chicago and Beloit is that we are a group of people from different backgrounds, ethnic groups, and so on and so forth. But we have come together because we want to read God's Word and apply it to our lives.

And that's what we see here in verse 2. We see people who need very desperately to start applying the principles of godly living to their lives. Now, let's, you know, you know the story of Jonah, what all he went through. We're gonna skip all of that. Go to chapter 3. Jonah chapter 3 verse 4. And Jonah began to enter the city on the first day's walk, and he cried out and said, yet forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown.

So once again, the prophet here, in Jonah's case, he's giving them a dire warning. And brethren, as you and I also know, our hearts and minds have been open to God's truth. Now, for these people, if they didn't repent, they were gonna lose their lives physically. If you and I don't repent, as members of the church who've been called and chosen and had been faithful, if we start walking in an unfaithful way, we can lose everything. I mean eternal life, everything. And so it's important that we listen to the message, that we evaluate prophecy properly. Now, if ever there was a city that deserved punishment, it was Nineveh. They were known in history as being a very brutal people.

Nineveh was the capital of a very powerful empire, and again, very, very brutal. Chapter 3, notice how they respond. Verse 5. So the people of Nineveh believed God, proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth from the greatest to the least of them. And the word came to the king of Nineveh, and he rose from his throne and laid aside his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. And he caused it to be proclaimed and published throughout the Nineveh by the decree of the king and the noble, saying, Let neither man nor beast, heard nor flock, taste anything.

Do not let them eat or drink water, but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily to God, yes, let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands. And who can tell if God will turn and relent and turn away from his fierce anger so he may not perish?

Now that is the essence of what God wants for prophecy, for people to hear the message of God to respond properly to God and to repent. Verse 10. Then God saw their works, that they turned there from their evil way, and God relented from the disaster he said he would bring upon them, and he did not do it. Now were the people of Nineveh just really good actors? No. God can see the hearts. God looked at their hearts and saw they meant it.

Now unfortunately for them, this wasn't long-lived. But at this point in time, at this point in time, they truly were repentant. They truly were remorseful. So we want to learn from this two things to follow this example, but secondly, to have our repentance last the rest of our life. The rest of our life. So this is a very good example of what prophecy is to help us with.

And again, as we go through the book of Isaiah, we're going to be seeing some things in very short order as we start getting into the first few chapters as to how we should look at that in terms of our walk with God.

Let's take a look at Ezekiel chapter 33. As I may mention, as we go through a book of Isaiah, we'll be touching base with all sorts of different prophecies all throughout the Old and New Testaments. But here in Ezekiel chapter 33, there's something else we wanted to note as we're thinking about the background to the book of Isaiah. Ezekiel chapter 33 and verse 11.

Say to them, As I live, says the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn, turn from your evil ways, for why should you die, O house of Israel? Why should you die? So here again, as we go through the book of Isaiah, remember where God's thinking is on all of this. How does it relate to us? What lessons spiritually are there for us? How can we improve and change our lives before God? Let's go to Isaiah chapter 55. You know, God warned the ancient nations of Israel and Judah repeatedly, and there was a consistent message that God gave to those two nations. And it's a consistent message that Jesus Christ and the apostles have given to us. It's consistent from one end of the Bible to another. We find it here in Isaiah chapter 55 and verse 6. Seek the Lord while he may be found, and call upon him while he is near. Isaiah 55 verse 6. Seek the Lord while he may be found. You are sitting, I am standing, in Sabbath services. We have found the true Church of God. We understand where God is, where God is working. There's no excuse for any of us in this room. None. And because of where we are now seated, because of what God has done in our lives, each of us as individuals, God is near to us. And so the question is for all of us, what are we going to do about that? What are we going to do about that? So as we see various things unfolding in the world, we'll be going through again very, very shortly as we get into the first chapters of Isaiah. Last couple of Sabbaths ago when I was giving a message about Isaiah's chapter three and four in Chicago, it just struck me, especially chapter three of Isaiah. It just sounded so much like it was being ripped every verse out of today's news. And if I had the time, I would have every verse gone through and pulled out a newspaper headline, but I just didn't have the time for that. But you can do that. I mean, as we go through it, it's just amazing, it's astounding what you're seeing in Isaiah, which is happening. You know, we get from proclaiming what's going to be happening in this nation for generations now. And now it's happening.

Here was it, just last week, as a result of some of the things our current president is doing and saying. The president of France said, well, you know, we need to, and of course, to my way of thinking, my way of thinking, of the president of France, when he was uttering the things he was saying, I thought, how dare you talk about how you need to develop a European army to protect yourself from America? Seems to me they were really happy to have us in World War I and World War II. But after the president of France spoke, then a day or so after, Merkel from Germany said, yes, we need a European army. Now, it's one thing for the French to say that, but when the Germans start talking about a European army, that sends shivers up my spine, because we know what Bible prophecy has to tell. Now, we're away from some things, but then that's looking at things through a man's eyes. We know that God can move very quickly when he wants to. So the characters, I think, are being assembled on the stage brother, and we need to be astute and aware of what's happening. And again, not just because of what's happening on the outside, we want to be aware of what's happening to us on the inside spiritually. Okay? So that's one of the purposes of Bible prophecy. We're going to talk about more of that a little bit later in the sermon. At this point, I want to ask, what's a prophet? What is a prophet? What's a... you know, if we put an ad in the paper, you know, God doesn't do that sort of thing, but if there was an ad in the paper for hiring a prophet, what is God looking for in terms of a prophet? Well, let's take a look at Deuteronomy chapter 18. We have some idea of the purpose of a prophecy, but what is a prophet? What does he do? Deuteronomy chapter 18, verses 16 through 18. Deuteronomy 18, verse 16. According to all you desire to the Lord your God in Horeb in the day of the assembly, saying, let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God, nor let me see this great fire any more, lest I die. So people were just scared of the presence of God. And that's not a bad thing. That was a good thing. Verse 17. And the Lord said to me, what they have spoken is good. I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brethren, and I'll put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. Now this is obviously a reference later on to Jesus Christ, but it also shows a principle here that I asked, what is a prophet? What is his job? A prophet is a man or a woman, they're prophetesses, an individual who God uses to communicate with people. A prophet or a prophetess, they are conduit from God to the people. If you would, let's turn to Malachi chapter 2.

Malachi chapter 2.

Malachi chapter 2 and verse 7. For the lips of a priest should keep knowledge, and people should seek the law from his mouth. For he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts. So here we see the idea, the concept, that a priest, we're looking at specifically a priest here, not a prophet, but a priest, should be conveying the word of God to the people. And if the priest fails to do his job, the backup is the prophet. Both of them are to do the same thing. Teach the word of God. I'm not going to turn to this, I'll give it to you. You can put this in your notes. Amos chapter 3 and verse 7. I'll read it for you. Amos 3-7. Surely the Lord God does nothing unless he reveals a secret to his servants, the prophets. So a prophet proclaims the truth of God to the people. Not always God's people. We saw that in the book of Jonah. There are other books in the Bible that talk, you know, messages being sent to other peoples. Now, how do we know a true prophet from a false prophet? The Bible gives us two different things to look for. And again, how is this important to us? Well, scriptures show that at the end of the age, and that may include us, there's going to be an antichrist. And the Bible talks about how, if we're not careful, members of God's church could be deceived. So we need to know. How do we determine whether someone is a man of God, woman of God, or not when it comes to being a prophet or a prophetess or, you know, a minister, a true minister of the gospel? Let's go back to Deuteronomy chapter 18. Two basic things here. God gives us His instruction.

Proof number one, Deuteronomy chapter 18 verses 20 through 22. And again, I'll send this all to you. You'll have this in print. Deuteronomy 18 verses 20 through 22. But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die. Pause here for a second. This shows how important it is for people to truly have a calling from God. And we've got thousands upon thousands of people who have lived and died and are living today who presume to talk on God's behalf, and yet God has not called them. Verse 21. And if you say in your heart, how shall we know the word which the Lord has not spoken? Verse 22. When a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the things does not happen or come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord has not spoken, that prophet has spoken presumptuously, you shall not be afraid of him. So, test number one is what he says is it come to pass? Well, he or she says, is it coming to pass? Okay, now, if it comes to pass, is that the only test? No, that's one of the tests. Then you go to test number two. Deuteronomy chapter 13. Deuteronomy chapter 13 verses 1 through 4. Test number two. Verse 1. If there arises among you a prophet or a dreamer of dreams and gives you a sign or wonder, and the sign or the wonder comes to pass, of which he spoke to you, saying, let us go after other God which you have not known and let us serve them. So, the prophecy came to pass, and yet there is a turnoff here. Go off on to a off on a tangent. Verse 3. You shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams, for the Lord your God is testing you to know whether you love the Lord your God with all of your heart and with all of your soul. You shall walk after the Lord your God and fear Him and keep His commandments and obey His voice. You shall serve Him and hold fast to Him. So, proof number two is, are they teaching God's way? Not just as something coming to pass. You know, you've got the situation in Acts chapter, I think 16, where there was a young girl following Paul and his retinue and she was proclaiming things that were true and yet she was demon-possessed. She wasn't somebody of God. She had a demon. Demons can foretell future events. So, foretelling an event is one thing, but then what is the message that comes along with that? Let's go back to the book of Isaiah chapter 8.

I'm on page two of my notes and I've got nine pages of notes, so who knows how much of this we'll get through today, but I'm not going to spend more than this one sermon on this because we do need to get going. Isaiah chapter 8, and again, you'll get all this written for me, Isaiah chapter 8 verses 19 and 20. And when they say to you, seek those who are mediums and wizards who whisper and mutter. Should not a people seek their God? Should they seek the dead on behalf of the living? Got a lot of that going on today, don't we? To the law and to the testimony. If they do not speak according to this word is because there is no light in them. So here we see where there are people who are in the dark side there in verse 19. And they have certain abilities. Don't be don't be seduced by that. If they don't teach the truth of God and you know the truth of God, don't be seduced because somebody can tell foretell future events. It's got to be able to foretell future events and also teach teach the truth of God. Now going into another section there, there are three Hebrew words for prophet. And these words help us to understand what a prophet is. The three Hebrew words, nabi and abi, or navy. I know maybe prophets are nabi, I don't know. Navy means announcer. Announcer. And roa, roeh, means seer. Announce and see. Hosa also means seer. H-O-Z-E-H. Again, you'll get this in writing. So the three Hebrew words for prophet mean announcer or seer. In the Greek, the word is profutes, which means one who speaks with inspiration. One who speaks with inspiration. In other words, inspiration by the hand of God. So a prophet declares what God is wanting to do and what God is going to do, making his will known in advance or telling something before it happens. People many times say prophecy is history written in advance. Sometimes prophecies are conditional, as we saw with Jonah and Nineveh's fall, which didn't happen because they repented, at least at that time. And sometimes prophecy may be based upon cause and effect. Cause and effect. We see that in Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28, the blessings and cursings chapters. So to this point, where have we been? We've seen what one of the purposes, the main purpose of prophecy is to have us draw closer to God. We've asked the question, what is a prophet? What does a prophet do? How do we know a true one from a false one? But let's take a look at and drill down a little more deeply as to more of the purposes of prophecy. More of the purposes. And again, as we go through these, you're going to see Christian living themes. Letter A, I'll letter these. Letter A, another purpose of prophecy is to help build faith. To help build faith. Let's go to Isaiah chapter 45.

Isaiah 45 verses 4 through 6.

Chapter 46 of Isaiah.

verses 9 and 10. Isaiah 46 verses 9 and 10. It takes God to do that. And God does that. And one of the great purposes of prophecy is for us to build faith. It's one of the proofs of God. It's one of the proofs of God. Letter B, another purpose of prophecy, is a prophecy reveals the character of God. It shows how God does things. It helps us to get to know Him. The inner workings of His heart, His mind, where He's coming from, revealing His character. Isaiah chapter 43 verses 10 through 12. Isaiah 43. Verse 10. You are my witnesses of the Lord and my servant whom I have chosen, that you may know and believe me, that you may know and have faith, faith and belief, the same thing, and understand that I am He. Before Me there was no God formed, nor shall there be after Me. I, even I, am the Lord, and beside Me there is no Savior. I have declared and saved, I have proclaimed, and there is no foreign God among you. Therefore, you are my witnesses, says the Lord, that I am God. So God is revealing His character. He wants us to imitate Him. Let her see. Another purpose of Bible prophecy is to reveal God's plan. To reveal God's plan. Now we have gone through the book of Daniel. There are two major books that if you really want a solid background in Bible prophecy, you need to understand. I've taken you through the book of Daniel. In the book of Daniel, the other book is the book of Revelation. Daniel is very good talking about prophecy toward the beginning of the history of mankind. A lot at the very beginning. As you go closer to the end of the age, it really narrows down to very little in the book of Daniel about end-time prophecy. That's where the book of Revelation comes in. The book of Revelation has very little in the old days, but as you get closer to the end, it balloons up. So Daniel is big at the beginning of mankind's history and revelation at the end of mankind's history. You put them both together and you've got a very good understanding and framework of Bible prophecy. I have taken you through Daniel. You can go to the Chicago website and we have saved their verse-by-verse discussion on the book of Revelation from Bob Faye, Sr. That's available to you. I did the same thing when I was in Michigan. I don't know if we recorded those or not. I don't think that is available to you, but you've got Bob Faye. Mr. Faye, he was very famous. There were sermons he would go to two or three verses. I mean, bless his heart. He was very, very thorough, and that's all on the Chicago website. That's available to you. If you want to study that along with Isaiah, you'll have a really thorough understanding of God's plan. Letter D, another purpose for prophecy. Prophecy encourages us.

Prophecy encourages us. Do you need encouragement? Is there something happening in your life right now where you would like somebody to encourage you? I think there's something happening in everybody's life where we would like encouragement, right? We in the Chicago church, we've been fortunate that we've been asking you to be praying for little Samara Brock. A young lady, she just turned 13 back in March. There was a time where she got down to just within the last year, she got down into the low 40s in terms of her weight. Has three major issues taking place which have caused sub-issues in her health, all of which are very rare and the doctors don't know what to do with. But recently, one doctor finally found out, well, you know, we think it's this. And they performed a test here, I think the 5th of November, they found out we think it's that.

And so on the 8th, they performed a surgery on her. She came out of surgery and, you know, for that little girl, every time she would eat, it was very, very painful. You know, her stomach would just start really doing all sorts of things. It was just painful. And so that's why the weight loss, among other things. But she came out of that surgery and she wanted to eat. And she's been ever since. Now, she's not eating great quantities, you know, she's a little bitty thing.

But that family, and the Chicago church in particular, as they've watched that family go through this, need encouragement. We all need encouragement. And prophecy is there to encourage us. Let's go to Revelation, chapter 21. Keep your prayers up for Samara and her whole family. They are not out of the woods by any stretch. You know, when you've not been able to eat properly, and you're now 13, but this started back when she was 9, that has other effects on your body. And there are all sorts of things that need to happen for that little girl, for her to have any idea what it's like to be normal in terms of her health. But, you know, she's such a great example of faith. You know, you talk with her and she talks about what God has done for her, or God has intervened. She doesn't complain or have pity, at least not around me, not around people I know. Doesn't have the little pity parties. I mean, she's just 13 years old now. And what she's gone through, she's such a tremendous example. And she receives cards from us here in Beloit, and she receives cards from all over the world. But in terms of encouraging, let's take a look at encouraging prophecy here, Revelation 21, verse 1. Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no more sea.

Now, where are we here in prophecy? Where we're at here in prophecy is we've gone through the, you know, our age today. We have gone through the millennium. We've gone through what we call the eighth day or the last great day period, the Great Right Throne Judgment period. There are no evil people. All of us are spirit beings at this point. And so the idea is that we have a very encouraging future to look toward. And I don't know about you, but when I'm going through horrendous times in my life, I keep on thinking, well, the worst that can happen is I die. And after I die, the next thing I'm going to know is God's kingdom. And that's encouraging. Not going to know this veil of tears, not going to know this physical life. You know, I'm not that old. My kids think I'm ancient. But I remember so clearly how many times I heard old when I was growing up and coming up in my 20s and whatever, how people would say, boy, I wish I could turn back the hands of time.

And that I understood that academically. But now I say, you know, it really would be kind of nice if I could take the knowledge and the wisdom I've got now, whatever wisdom, little wisdom I have, and if I can put that into a 20-year-old body and kind of live back, I'm sure I would make new mistakes. You know, you say, I won't make the old mistake. Well, maybe I won't make the old mistakes.

I'm sure I'd make new mistakes. But it is encouraging to know what God has in store for us. Verse 2, Then I, John, saw the holy city of the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adored for her husband. I heard with a loud voice from heaven, saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them. Now why can God dwell with men? Well, understanding the word men really means spirit beings. I don't know what the original Greek is there, but that's what we're talking about, we're spirit beings at this point. And they shall be his people. God himself will be with them and be their God. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.

You know, we have the euphemism, when people die, they passed away. Well, it's coming a time when death itself will pass away.

Those things are encouraging. Prophecy is there to encourage us as well.

And, letter E, prophecy is here to remind us to obey God.

How to live successfully. Again, you've got Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28, the blessings and cursings chapter. We want the blessings, but to reap those blessings, we've got to make decisions. And we've got to follow up on those decisions with solid action.

And as we make proper decisions, then we reap good consequences, good fruits. If we make bad decisions, then what we find, and you found this true in your life, as you and I make bad decisions, the decisions that come down the road after that, you have fewer good options.

Because you've gone down a wrong path. It's like, you know, I don't know about you, but there have been a few times in my life when I've been lost driving around. I think, well, you know, and I just don't have a good sense of direction. I rely upon Mary for that. Typically, if I say, well, I think I should turn to the right, that's exactly the wrong way to turn.

And I find myself going down these different rat holes and, you know, finally I say, okay, enough's enough. Either I'll ask Mary, okay, what next? And she's sitting there patiently. Or I pull out my GPS. But that's true of life. You make a bad choice. You make a wrong turn.

And then what do you have? You find more wrong turns ahead of you. We've got to watch out for that.

Okay. I'll skip them. I've got two more of these points. I'm going to skip those. You'll get it in writing. I want to cover something else. I want to talk a little bit more about the man Isaiah.

Okay. And again, you'll get all this in writing. Isaiah is referred to 13 times as the son of Amos, A-M-O-Z, 13 times. And that may suggest that his father was a man of some stature, some prominence. According to the Jewish rabbinic tradition, Amos, Isaiah's father, was a brother of Judas King Amaziah.

So Isaiah had royal blood coursing through his veins. Isaiah was first cousin to King Uzziah.

So Isaiah, who lived in the Jerusalem area, knew the palace, walked through the palace, played in the palace as a young kid, and grew up in that kind of environment.

He would have been familiar as he grew and as he took classes and was educated.

He would have been very familiar with international relations, affairs of state.

When you think about Isaiah brethren, you know that Paul was a man of letters. Paul was a very well-educated man. Paul was educated at the feet of Gamaliel today. Gamaliel would be kind of like a Supreme Court justice. When you think of Isaiah, think of an Old Testament Paul.

His writings, Isaiah's writing the book of Isaiah, there are scholars who call Isaiah the Shakespeare of the Old Testament because his writings from a poetic point of view, from a stylistic point of view, are some of the best written verse in all of literature. Even people who don't believe in the Bible would read Isaiah and say, you know, this is really good stuff. He really knows how to write.

Well, he knows how to write because God was crafting his background. God was giving him the tools, just like God gave Mr. Herbert Armstrong various tools to do the work.

God put Isaiah in places that helped him to be a very well-educated person.

And in many ways, some people have referred to Isaiah as the ambassador of the Most High because he was so familiar with the palace, most so familiar with government, so familiar with ruling classes. He had access to the king, and as we see in chapter 7 and verse and chapter 37, chapter 7 and chapter 37, he had access to the king. He was a counselor to the king.

One writer said that Isaiah was from a distinguished Jewish family as evidenced by his impressive vocabulary and writing style. It has been said of Isaiah that no other prophet has written with such majestic eloquence. The writings of Isaiah are largely in Hebrew poetic form.

These writings stand unsurpassed as a literary gem in the poetic beauty, power, and versatility.

So that's very high praise in terms of him as an individual.

Now, Isaiah grew up in one of the greatest reigns of one of the great kings of Judah, Uzziah.

Other than David and Solomon, Uzziah's reign was one of the richest, wealthiest reigns of any of the kings of Judah. So this is primarily the time when he was growing up. It was a time of guns and butter. You go back to your old, those of us who remember Lyndon Johnson. There are a few of us who remember, I guess. He talked about the great society having a strong military, having a strong economy. Well, that was very true when Isaiah was growing up as a kid. Isaiah was married.

His wife was called a prophetess. Now, we don't know whether that meant she was also a prophet, a female prophet, or if that just simply meant she was married to one. The Bible doesn't clarify, so we can't go any further than that. He had at least two sons, and they are named in the book. We'll go through that. We'll see that. So he was a married man, a family man.

And we see in Hebrews 11, verse 37, that there was somebody in the Old Testament that was sawn in two by King Manasseh. We believe that someone was Isaiah. We believe that was Isaiah.

The first six chapters of the book of Isaiah, if that's all we ever had, the first six chapters talk about Isaiah's calling, God calling him, and those first six chapters could stand as one of the minor prophets, if that's all we had. So again, we're going to be going through that very, very shortly. Isaiah began his work, well, well, in 740 BC, the King Uzziah died. There had been relatively a good bit of peace in the kingdom to that point.

But 20 years from this point, 20 years from this point, Israel is going to go into captivity.

Isaiah is going to watch that. Now, he primarily lived in Jerusalem. His primary message was to Judah, and yet he also had discussions about Israel. So in Isaiah's life, he saw the northern kingdom go into captivity by the Assyrians. And you know, the interesting thing about Isaiah, when he was talking about Judah, he was talking, telling them that if they weren't careful, they were going to follow and have the same fate as Israel. And yet, when Isaiah was teaching and preaching and prophesying, he said, it's not the Assyrians who took the northern tribes captive that are going to deal with us. It's Babylon.

And at a time, Isaiah was saying that Babylon was not a big power yet.

So again, as we think about the work we're doing today, we talk about a United States of Europe.

We talk about a power that's going to be on the scene. It's not on the scene now, not the way it's going to be as the Bible talks about. So we're kind of like Isaiah.

We're talking about a power that's going to come and take our peoples into national captivity.

And yet, Babylon wasn't that powerful of an empire when Isaiah started writing.

So again, we'll see a number of things like that as we go through the book.

What kind of man was Isaiah?

Isaiah was a man in touch with God, obviously.

When you read his prophecy, you will discover that he saw God for who God was, loved God, and sought to bring the nation back to God.

In your notes, you might want to jot down John 12, verses 37 through 41.

This is not in my notes here, so if you want to jot that down and put that in your notes when you get them, I put this down later on so it's not in the notes I'll be sending you.

Another thing about Isaiah, who's a man who loved his nation. Not only did he love his God, he loved his nation. The phrase, my people, is used 26 times in the book of Isaiah.

My people. Now, why is that important? Because in the rest of the Old Testament, that phrase is only used five other times.

In Isaiah, it's used 26 times, and the rest of the Old Testament is used five times.

So he was a man who loved his nation. And again, in your notes, and this is not in what I'm going to be sending you, but in your notes, Paul talked about the same love for his nation in Romans chapter 9, verses 1 through 3. Romans 9, 1 through 3. Paul said, you know, if he could be accursed for his nation, not be in the kingdom of God, but his nation would be saved, he would be okay with that. Now, that's a lot of love.

As we go through the book, we're going to see that Isaiah was a man who hated false religion.

False religion, 2 Corinthians chapter 7, verse 11.

A courageous man. He denounced kings. He denounced priests.

You know, in your notes, you might want to jot down Isaiah chapters 58 and 59, where it talks about, cry aloud, spare not, tell my people their sins. So he did that.

Got him sawed in half, but he did that.

Some dates for the book. Let's go back to Isaiah chapter 1. I'll go to Isaiah chapter 1.

You know, I made a mistake a few moments ago.

I talked about how the phrase my people has used 26 times in his book. That is true.

But when I was talking about how there's only five other times when something is made mentioned, the phrase is the Holy One of Israel.

That's used 25 times in the book, the Holy One of Israel. And that's the phrase that only used five times.

I got ahead of myself a little bit. The Holy One of Israel.

That's used 25 times in Isaiah, five times in the rest of the Old Testament.

My people has used 26 times, but again, no comment about how many times it's used in the rest of the book. So that amendment. Isaiah chapter 1, verse 1. 1. The vision of Isaiah, the son of Amos, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah. Now these are the kings. This gives us a dating for Isaiah. 1. Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.

So the dates of these kings run from 783 B.C., 783 to 690 B.C. 2. Isaiah himself lived from 760 B.C. to 680 B.C.

And we believe he probably wrote from the years 742 to 700, beginning about age 18. 742 to 700 is when he began to write and started writing through those years. 8. Isaiah was contemporary with Amos and Hosea, Jonah and Micah.

Contemporary with Amos and Hosea, Jonah and Micah. I said he did live around Jerusalem and so forth.

One last thing I want to cover. I'm skipping some of my notes here for time's sake.

But again, you're going to get all this in writing.

There are scholars that say that one man didn't write this whole book.

And that's a big thing in scholarship, so I think I should at least make mention of this.

There is what they call a proto-Isaiah, and some scholars say that's one guy who wrote chapters 1 through 39. There is what is known as Deuterot Isaiah, a second guy. And the claim is that this second individual wrote chapters 40 through 55. And then there is a supposedly a third guy who called the Tritot Isaiah, writing chapters 56 through 66. Now, you can believe that if you want, or you can believe God's Word.

I think I know what you're going to believe. Let's take a look at those three sections that people say were written by three different guys. Let's see what the Bible says as to who wrote those three sections of Scripture. Let's go to Romans chapter 9.

We're just going to be in Romans chapter 9 and Romans chapter 10.

Romans chapter 9.

Romans chapter 9 verse 29. And as Isaiah said before, unless the Lord of Saboth had left us a seed, we should have become like Sodom, we would have been made like Gomorrah.

Now, Isaiah here, the Bible says, Isaiah wrote this. One of the quotations here is from Isaiah chapter 1. That would be the proto Isaiah. Okay, so far so good. Let's turn to chapter 10 of Romans. Romans chapter 10 verse 16. But have they not all obeyed the gospel? For Isaiah says, Lord, who has believed our report? Now, here we see where the Bible clearly says Isaiah said.

And they're quoting from Isaiah chapter 53 verse 1, which is Deuteronomy Isaiah. The Bible says Isaiah wrote that section of Scripture. Okay. Romans chapter 10 and verse 20.

But Isaiah is very bold and says, I was found by those who did not seek me, I was made manifest to those who did not ask for me. And that's a quotation from Isaiah chapter 65 verse 1. Trito, Isaiah. So in Romans chapters 9 and 10, we've got quotations from the book of Isaiah.

Those quotations cover the three areas where people says there had to be three different guys.

Well, the Bible says it was Isaiah. It doesn't say it was three different guys. So it was Isaiah. Now, why do people want to think that only three different people wrote this?

Because the prophecy is so accurate. Just like with Daniel. People didn't want to believe Daniel could be written by one fellow. People, scholars would say, well, you know, Daniel had to come after all that took place. He was not writing prophecy. He was writing history.

Well, I know you well enough to know what you believe. You believe God's Word. You believe the Bible. Now, not all scholars believe in three Isaiahs. Some scholars believe in only two Isaiahs.

We believe in one Isaiah. And let's see, I had a note here about this.

The Dead Sea Scrolls include a complete scroll of Isaiah, copied by the Essenes during the second century AD, showing they believed it was one book with one author.