Flight ISA02 - Part B

Wherever you work or whoever your family is, however they don't like what your belief in Jesus is, however they might mock you or marginalize you, they'll do that until they're in trouble.

When they're in trouble, they'll be looking for you. The prophet Isaiah often stood alone in obeying God's word and commands, but he didn't let that sway him from his faith. Today on Connect with Skip Heitzig, Skip gives you a glimpse into Isaiah's life of ministry that will inspire you to keep living boldly for the Lord. But first, we want to share about where you can hear even more uplifting teachings from Skip. Catch my program, Connect with Skip Heitzig, on the Hillsong Channel on Saturdays at 4.30pm Mountain Time or watch it on TBN on Sundays at 5.30am Eastern.

Remember to check your local listings. Now, we're in the book of Isaiah as we dive into the teaching with Skip Heitzig. When Jesus came to this earth, what he essentially did is give to us a preview of coming attractions.

It was a trailer for the movie that's coming. He healed people, people who were deaf, people who were blind, people who were lame, people who had diseases, even dead people he raised up. All of what he did was a preview of what the kingdom age will be like. What we call the millennial kingdom, a thousand years and we'll get back to that at the end of this book of plenty and abundance upon the earth. If you're God's child, the best is yet to come. We say that, but think about that.

You know where you're going and what you're going to see? There's not going to be hospitals or wheelchairs. There won't be funerals. There won't be broken homes. There won't be broken bodies.

There won't be broken hearts. There won't be darkness blind people will see and, and the best and no hell. If you're a child of God, the best is yet to come. Paul said in Romans eight, I consider the sufferings of this present age.

You can't even compare to the glories that will be revealed in us. Here is the prophet predicting what is going to come one day upon the earth in terms of restoration. So he weaves the bad news and the good news. By the time we get to chapter 36, 37, 38, and 39, it's sort of back to the bad news in a sense, but really good news for Israel. The bad news is Assyria, the nation that took over the northern kingdom and is threatening the southern kingdom is in the cross hairs, God's cross hairs, the cross hairs of judgment, especially the leader of that nation by the name of Sennacherib. Don't name your kid that.

He'll never forgive you. Sennacherib is mentioned and you should know that those four chapters that I mentioned, 36, 37, 38, and 39 are almost, but not quite, but almost word for word the same as 2 Kings chapters 18 through 20. Look at a few of these verses.

Chapter 36 verse 1. It came to pass in the 14th year of King Hezekiah that King Sennacherib, the king of Assyria, came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and took them. So they took the northern kingdom, the 10 tribes of Israel.

Now they're moving south and they are threatening to take over the southern kingdom, those two tribes left called the nation of Judah and the city of Jerusalem. The king that is sitting on the throne is King Hezekiah. You probably know his name. He was one of the good kings. He was a great guy. A scroll of the law was found. This king, King Hezekiah, commanded that that scroll be read, that the word of God be obeyed. He commanded the temple be restored. He commanded the worship of God be restored. But he did fail as a king. He did a lot of good things, mostly good, but he did fail and that is he stripped the temple treasury. We're not told that here, but we are told that at 2 Kings 18.

He took the silver and gold from God's house, the temple, removed it and tried to pay off Sennacherib, that Assyrian king, by giving him a huge amount of money saying, dude, we'll be your servants. Please don't hurt us. Please don't take us captive.

Please don't do to us what you did to the guys up north. Here's a bunch of money from our God's temple. It didn't work. He paid him the money. The king kept advancing, sent one of his field generals called the Rab Shakeh down to threaten Judah, threaten Jerusalem, that God, that he was going to, that the Assyrians were going to overturn them.

And so the terms are total surrender or death. That takes us to chapter 37 verse one. So it was when King Hezekiah heard it, that he tore his clothes, covered himself with sackcloth, went into the house of the Lord. Now the first person he's looking for is the prophet, Isaiah. Let me tell you something about being a man or woman of God.

Wherever you work or whoever your family is, however they don't like what your belief in Jesus is, however they might mock you or marginalize you, they'll do that until they're in trouble. When they're in trouble, they'll be looking for you. Where is she?

Did she come to work today? I need her to pray for me, man. I'm in trouble. When you are singularly following God, people will mock you.

You will stand alone. But when people are suffering, they will seek you out. This king is in trouble and he's looking for that man who stood against the crowd, the prophet Isaiah.

Then he sent, verse two, Eliakim, who is over the household, sheep of the scribe, the elders of the priest, covered with sackcloth, to Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amos, and they said to him, Thus says Hezekiah, This day is a day of trouble and rebuke and blasphemy, for the children have come to birth, but there is no strength to bring them forth. In other words, we are in deep distress. We're in trouble. Help! Uncle!

What do we do? I love verse six, Isaiah said to them, Thus you shall say to your master, Thus says the Lord, Don't be afraid of the words which you have heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me. Surely I will send a spirit upon them, and he will hear a rumor and return to his own land, and I will cause him to fall by the sword of his own land. In other words, the king, Sennacherib, who is flexing his muscles and threatening to kill you and overtake you, something's going to happen.

He's going to hear of something and he's going to go scampering back home to fix the problem. That's exactly what happened. He retreated, the army stayed in place, but, watch this, go down to verse 36, Then the angel of the Lord went out and killed in the camp of the Assyrians one hundred and eighty-five thousand. With God, one is a majority. You might have a huge army, but when God is on your side and you seek out the prophet.

And when the people arose early in the morning, there were the corpses all dead. Do any of you remember back in the 1990s that TV show called Touched by an Angel? Well this is the Old Testament equivalent called Punched by an Angel. This is what one angel can do. One angel can do this. A hundred and eighty-five thousand people against one angel. Now do you understand the power when Jesus said in the Garden of Gethsemanes, Peter put your sword away, don't you know that I could call for twelve legions of angels? Can you imagine the devastation? One angel, one hundred and eighty-five thousand. Now, historical secular records record a great decimation of the Assyrian army, though they don't give the exact amount, but they said it was a numerous amount.

Here, the scripture tells us a hundred and eighty-five thousand. So the sun rose the next day, they looked out on the fields and saw the corpses of their enemies that they feared. So ding-dong, the witch is dead, right?

It's all good at this point. Chapter 38, Hezekiah the king gets sick. He gets so bummed out that he's sick and he begs for his life, so the prophet says, okay your life is going to be extended. Really wasn't the best thing that could happen because in chapter 39, Babylonians come, not Assyrians, a different enemy. The Babylonian empire in the east is a growing and they send envoys to Jerusalem, and so King Hezekiah gives them a grand tour of the temple, the treasury, how much money and gold and silver he has, just gives him a grand tour of everything in Jerusalem.

Bad move. It would be like taking the Iranians and the North Koreans and the Russians to show them all of our bomb silos and all of our strategic air command sites in America while they're taking the notes and marking it on their map. So the Babylonian envoys would be the ones who would come back and destroy that very temple. And so chapter 39, the first part of the book ends with the prediction of the fall of Jerusalem to King Hezekiah. You think King Hezekiah would say, oh no, I'm so sorry, I did the wrong thing.

No. He says, well, at least it won't happen while I'm alive. Now the prophet says, your kids and grandkids are going to suffer and he goes, well, at least it won't happen while I'm around.

I mean just very self-centered. You kind of get a little insight into this godly king's heart. Now the second part of the book we want to move through and that is chapters 40 through 66.

This is the consolation part. After afflicting the comfortable, chapter 1 through 39, Isaiah now comforts the afflicted, chapters 40 through 66. Verse 1 of chapter 40, comfort is the first word. Comfort, yes, comfort, my people, says your God. The prophet just got through saying, whoa, whoa, whoa. Now he's going, wow, wow, wow.

It's all good. Yes, there is judgment that is spoken about in the second part, but the overshadowing theme is this first verse. Comfort, yes, comfort, my people. Speak, verse 2, speak comfort to Jerusalem and cry out to her that her warfare has ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, for she received from the Lord's hand double for all her sins.

The voice of one crying in the wilderness, does that sound familiar? Prepare the way of the Lord. Make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted, every mountain and hill brought low.

The crooked places shall be made straight and the rough places smooth. In all four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, John the Baptist is spoken of as saying these words, quoting the prophet Isaiah. John the Baptist, we call him the forerunner, not like the truck forerunner, but the ambassador would be a better term. He's Christ's ambassador. He comes first and announces the coming of Messiah in the New Testament. He quotes this verse. However, and this is really a good example, you know how we have near fulfillment and far fulfillment, right?

You know that principle well by now. I hope you're looking for it in the book of Isaiah. Even though John the Baptist quotes this, the verse itself does not have the forerunner of the Messiah as its primary idea or primary reference. The primary reference here is that Israel that will be in captivity in Babylon will need to go through that long expanse of wilderness that I told you about.

Remember I said I took that long taxi ride, 25 hours of that nothingness. They're going to take a 900 mile trek back from Babylon back to Jerusalem. And this is part of the hope, comfort, be comforted by the fact that God is going to make a way through the wilderness for you to return back from Babylon back to Jerusalem. Secondary reference, John the Baptist. The near is the template for something else. The principle is there, but the primary references to the return of the Jews from captivity.

Here's what's interesting. There's a prediction, not here but a lot of other places that they're going to return from Babylon. Babylon was just beginning to be the new kid on the block.

They weren't even a threat. But the prophet presupposes they will be a threat, they will grow, they will overshadow Assyria, they will take over Jerusalem, they will take Jerusalem captive. Thousands of people will go to Babylon and live and will one day return back to Jerusalem. That's part of the prophecy of Isaiah. Now, God's plan, this will set the stage for the rest of the book as we close. God's plan from the beginning is that Israel be a blessing to the world.

I want you to understand that principle. In Genesis 12, God spoke a promise to Abraham, you and your descendants are going to bless the world. So God intended that Israel be a light to the Gentiles and spread God's message of salvation to the nations.

Be a beacon of light for the nations. Share with the rest of the world the God, the true God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. That's what God wanted. He wanted Israel to be his servant.

They failed at that. Instead they wallowed in complacency, hypocrisy, idolatry and they even complained that God would be far from them and God was far from them. You see, when they would go into captivity, the Jews were so shaken by that at first that they thought God's abandoned us.

We're done. God has forgotten about us. So in the next few chapters, and we're not going to go through all of it, just going to highlight something. The next few chapters, God responds to their accusations as if it's a courtroom setting. I want you to look at one chapter 40 verse 27. Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel, my way is hidden from the Lord and my just claim is passed over by my God? Have you not known?

Have you not heard? The everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, neither faints nor is weary, His understanding unsearchable. He gives power to the weak and to those who have no might, He increases strength. Even the youth shall faint and be weary and the young man shall utterly fall. But those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint. Isaiah is speaking this to an audience 150 years away from him. They're not even born yet. He is speaking to a nation that will go into captivity and who will in captivity need to read this word of comfort and they will read it and they will return.

They will feel as if they're abandoned, they will feel powerless. So God's message to them is just wait, just wait, wait on the Lord, renew your strength, get the courage at that time and you'll have it. We love this verse, do we not?

We love it, we underline it, a lot of us have memorized it as one of our favorite verses, if not in the Bible, certainly in this book of Isaiah. Those that wait on the Lord will renew their strength even if your strength is failing. You know Christian, you are like a rechargeable battery.

You feel weak and worn out and depleted, okay, who doesn't? Now plug in to the Holy Spirit. Now get a recharge as the scripture says, be being filled with the Holy Spirit.

So that even if you're depleted, even if you're weak, even if you're at your wits end, you can be recharged, re-energized, plugged in and get a new power surge. And the way to plug in is to wait on the Lord. What does it mean to wait on the Lord?

Well you can look at it a couple of different ways. I'm just waiting on the Lord so I do nothing all day, I just twiddle my thumbs and cock my head heavenward hoping God will come down and do something. You could do that or think of waiting on the Lord. How many of you have ever worked in a restaurant? Okay, I did, I was a dishwasher then I was, I waited tables.

And when I was waiting tables and waiting on people, I was serving them. Can I help you? What can I do for you? Think of waiting on the Lord like that, stay busy. Look for opportunities to serve the Lord, to wait on him like he's your favorite customer.

Wait on the Lord, serve the Lord with whatever capacity you have in that limited sphere and he will renew your strength. You will mount up with wings as eagles. Okay, now I want to introduce another thought.

I just gave you a thought and I want to piggyback on it. God wanted Israel to be his servant. Israel failed to be God's servant, but God is still on a mission to save the world. So, God announces through the prophet Isaiah another servant, a better servant, servant 2.0.

The servant that will not fail, the servant that will do what Israel failed to do. Isaiah 43, God says, Behold, I'm doing a new thing. And part of the new thing he is doing is raising up a new servant, the Messiah.

We know him as Jesus. In chapter 42 of Isaiah, God says he will empower him by the Spirit. Many of the rest of the book, verses in the rest of the book talk about that will bring salvation to the world or offer salvation and then rule and reign from Jerusalem over the world. If we put some of these predictions together of servant 2.0, it sounds very much like what Isaiah predicted the Messiah to be in chapter 9 and chapter 11 of Isaiah. Be on the throne of his father David, rule the world, et cetera, bring peace, et cetera, because it is.

He's going back to that theme, but he's saying, Israel, you failed as my servant, but I got another servant coming. In chapter 41 verse 8, and I'll tie a few threads together, but you, Israel, are my servant. Hold that thought. Jacob whom I have chosen.

Hold that thought. The descendants of Abraham, my friend. You whom I have taken from the ends of the earth and called from its farthest regions and said to you, you are my servant. I have chosen you and I have not cast you away.

Okay. In the book of Isaiah, there are three different servants, primarily two, but there are three mentioned, actually four. If you were to count a guy by the name of Cyrus mentioned in chapter 44 and 45, I'll get to him in a minute. David is called the servant of the Lord in chapter 37. Israel here is called the servant of the Lord and then servant 2.0, a he, a singular person is mentioned, and that is Jesus, God's ideal servant. That's Skip Heitzig with a message from the series, The Bible from 30,000 Feet. Now we want to share about a special resource that helps you understand why Jesus' resurrection is so vital for your faith. The aftermath of 2020 has left so many of us wrestling with questions about the future and wondering what's next.

Here's Skip Heitzig. That's a question, by the way, that people ask anytime there is a catastrophe, any kind of catastrophic event causes people to ask the question, what's next? If there's a car accident that happens, well, what's next? I'm going to be able to walk after this. If a disease strikes someone, what's next? Am I going to be cured? If somebody we love dies, we ask, what's next?

Am I going to be able to go on? We want to help you live with confidence no matter what the future holds by sending you a powerful collection of Easter weekend messages from Skip Heitzig on the hope of the resurrection. If anything's possible, if the one who said he's going to die and rise again died and rose again, that means all of the promises Jesus ever made are possible and can come true. That's why it's called The Living Hope.

The Morning That Changed Everything with Skip Heitzig is a DVD collection of six life-changing Easter messages. And it's our thanks for your gift of $35 or more today to help connect more people to the living hope of Jesus Christ. To give online securely, visit connectwithskip.com slash offer or call 800-922-1888. Do you want to see lost souls brought out of the darkness of this world to encounter the light of Jesus?

Because that's what you'll make possible through your support today. Your gift helps bring thousands closer to Christ as you help them grow in God's Word so they can experience new life in Him. Give a gift now to share the good news of Jesus with more friends like you. Visit connectwithskip.com slash donate to give. That's connectwithskip.com slash donate. Or call 800-922-1888.

800-922-1888. Thank you. Tune in tomorrow as Skip Heitzig shares about the hope that God gave to Israel through Isaiah.

And you'll learn what these messages of comfort mean for you today. Sprinkling is a word used of priests in the temple or in the tabernacle who would atone for sin. Jesus Messiah servant 2.0 will do the work, a priestly work of atonement that will sprinkle not just Israel, but many nations. God's desire to reach the world. Make a connection. Make a connection at the foot of the crossing. Cast all burdens on His Word. Make a connection. Connection. Connect with Skip Heitzig is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never changing truth in ever changing times.