Next Level Isaiah (Part A)

Those devil theologians, they hate Isaiah's accuracy. They scoff at his authorship in these last 27 chapters because they don't want God's Word to be authentic. They do not want God's Word to have this much power. Because if God's Word is this much power, then they are accountable to the gods.

They try to cast doubts so that people won't believe. But for now, let's join Pastor Rick in the book of Isaiah Chapter 40 as he begins his message, Next Level Isaiah. So this evening, this Next Level Isaiah is the title and the subtitle is introducing Isaiah 40 through 66. There's so much here. I'm very excited. I was excited yesterday in the morning reading in preparation, reading through Isaiah 40.

Just, man, Lord, don't let me mess this up. The first 11 verses of this chapter, Chapter 40, are really like a prologue to the entire book of Isaiah. You could have taken these first 11 verses and put them up front. Because we have the comfort for God's people, the mind of God, what God wants, where He's going with everything. We have that the Word of God stands forever. We have Him as the shepherd of the flock.

And then, the last 20 verses of this section, we have just the awesomeness of God. That is the proper use of that word, awesome. Again, asking somebody, what time do you have? Two o'clock. Oh, awesome. That is not awesome.

That's two o'clock. God is awesome. And it comes out when Isaiah heats up. We're not going to get the whole chapter tonight. We'll hopefully get 11 verses. And we'll get the next section where he begins to talk about when God laid out the universe, he said, make it about that big.

Just trying to bring us into this presence of how large our God is. And the encouragements are emphatic for the Jewish people at this time in their history and what they were going to go through after the Assyrians. And to the millennial kingdom, for the New Testament church. That wasn't even a concept in the heads of anybody on earth.

So first, we have several things to discuss. The Assyrian Babylon thing, the author, and before we even get to the first verse. But we're moving now, Isaiah is in his address, away from the Assyrian menace. That dreadful threat that constantly hovered over the Jewish people throughout Isaiah's entire lifetime. Well, the Assyrians destroyed the north of Israel. Then, years later, they destroyed the northern kingdom, Samaria.

They invaded Judah, took captives galore, slaughtered people without number and mercy. And then they brought their armies to the very gates of Jerusalem, the Assyrians. Yet, just as the prophet steadfastly prophesied, Jerusalem would not fall to the Assyrians. But he did say it will fall to the Babylonians.

But it won't be in his lifetime. Babylon, we're a hundred years away from Babylon becoming the superpower. And then we're a hundred and seventy years away from the remnant coming back into the promised land. And Isaiah calls it all long before it happens.

And if you look at chapter 39, we're not going to read it but take the time. But verses 6 and 7, he just tells you that Babylon's coming back and they're going to take everything. And so, so accurate are his prophecies that, of course, liberal theologians, that means unbelieving people who try to attack the Bible.

And our pulpits and seminaries are infested with them. They challenge the authorship of Isaiah in these last 40, from chapter 40 to 66, these 27 chapters. They challenge that because they can't believe that one man could write these stern prophecies addressing the people in the region and the righteousness of God. And then with such detail, look ahead to the age of the Babylonians and beyond.

They can't be the same person because they have not faith. And these 27 chapters from 40 to 66, the end of the book, again, they're speaking to that captivity generation also. The people who aren't even born yet.

Their grandparents aren't born yet. And those are the ones that are really going to benefit from his prophecies as Jewish people. The church is, again, on another level. And he's going to speak to them about their repatriation, he's going to speak to them about their Messiah and the kingdom to come. And so sure was the prophet when he gave these prophecies that he spoke many of them as though they were already fact in the present tense. That's how clear.

I mean, what's the problem? If God can create the universe, surely he can tell the future, especially to his prophets. And so those devil theologians, they hate Isaiah's accuracy. And they scoff at his authorship in these last 27 chapters because they don't want God's word to be authentic. They do not want God's word to have this much power. Because if God's word has this much power, then they are accountable to the God of his word. They try to cast doubts so that people won't believe. And they also labor to take shame out of sin.

That is an admission of guilt by itself. I haven't traveled to any of the larger cities in this country in a while. And I'm very happy about that, except for my living room. I watch things on YouTube, all sorts of goofy things like road rage and what truckers have to, just everything. The idiots at work is one of the, always one to cheer you up. Anyway, I get a look at what's happening in these cities. I like one of them is a lot of fire department stuff. And you get to see the cities. And they have these crosswalks painted with these perverted rainbow colors.

They have a whole building, I just saw today, a skyscraper with these colors. They want the shame out of sin, so that you can sin without shame because, after all, they're getting rid of the idea of being accountable to an absolute God. Well, those theologians who challenge the authorship of Isaiah are doing the same thing. The apostle John, and he's not the only one, but he attributed the first section of Isaiah, let's say it's chapter 6, when he wrote about the Lord's teachings and life, he said, Isaiah the prophet said, quoting chapter 6.

Later, he'll quote Isaiah 53 and say, Isaiah said. So clearly, the apostle John believed that the prophet Isaiah wrote both sections, the first 39 chapters of Isaiah and then the last 27 chapters of Isaiah. And he did not call into question the authorship of Isaiah. And I would rather believe the apostle John than anybody amongst the people. Some 200 years before the birth of Christ, the Jews had a writing called Sirach.

And in that writing, the author attributed both sections, not trying to, just quoting those sections as being written by Isaiah the prophet. Christianity depends on facts. That's why we're careful to adhere to the truth and not, you know, become superstitious or goofy and start, you know, making prophecies that we can't back up because Christianity depends on facts. And it cannot be, Christianity cannot be ethically and morally true and at the same time historically false. In other words, you can't have a man writing about holiness and morality and lying about who wrote what at the same time.

Saying that, you know, I'm going to add this to Isaiah, but I'm not going to say that I did this because I'm going to deceive the people so that they'll believe what I'm saying thinking it's Isaiah. Well, that kind of person is not going to write moral things. He's not going to write holy things. He's not going to write predictive prophecy.

That comes true. And this is, of course, this is reasoning from the scriptures. So questioning the authorship of Isaiah is not even honest scholarship. This is important because you may come across somebody who's been influenced by these people in your travels, attempts to discredit the entire Bible by casting this shadow of doubt.

That's what the serpent did to Eve in the garden and look where it got us. It is a very serious thing. It is not a trivial thing. And don't think that, well, I don't think that. Well, don't think that others don't.

And do not think that others will not use it or be used by Satan to do the work of Satan. This is an effort, again, to escape truth. They lie about God's prophets and his apostles.

They do it with Daniel also. He couldn't have written those things. It had to have been written after the events.

How convenient to charge the righteous men with being deceptive. Anyway, passing now from authorship to these last 27 chapters, which are a microcosm of the Bible, in the sense that I'm going to lay out to you. The book of Isaiah can be called a Bible in miniature as it is outlined, as it's set up for us. There are 66 chapters in the book of Isaiah, and you have 66, and we have 66 writings in our Bible. Prophecies, books, and letters making up the scripture. The 39 chapters of the first part of Isaiah can be compared more closely with the Old Testament 39 books. There are 39 Old Testament books, and those 39 chapters of Isaiah really in style speak of the law and judgment and righteousness. Nothing wrong with that, but when you compare it to the next 27 chapters, there is a stark contrast. It loses none of its authenticity.

It loses none of its strength of the law. It brings in grace that's not found as it is in, it's not found in the earlier section as it is in the latter section. So he emphasizes God's law and judgment and sin in the first 39 chapters of Isaiah matching the Old Testament. The 27 chapters of the second part of Isaiah do seem to easily parallel the books of the New Testament, and they weren't even trying. This is not something Isaiah was trying to do, nor those who had come centuries later and gave us chapter divisions.

They weren't trying to do this. It worked out that way. It emerged. These 27 last chapters of Isaiah, they emphasized the Messiah. I mean, just the 53rd chapter is just dedicated to the suffering Messiah.

It is incredible. The New Testament section of Isaiah, this 40th chapter, it opens with the ministry of John the Baptist without naming him. John the Baptist is going to come along and say, that was me, Isaiah was talking about. Jesus is going to come, that was John the Baptist Isaiah was talking about.

It's phenomenal. Nobody can write like this because Shakespeare, in all of his creativity, Mark Twain and all of his wit, they could not sit down and put something like this together. Even with the modern day computers, MIT geniuses, you know, they cannot come up with what we have in the scripture. The other side against it or it sides against them, but the Bible will have the last word. And so this New Testament section, as I mentioned, opening with the ministry of John the Baptist, it closes, Isaiah 66, well, Isaiah 65 and 66, closes with the new heavens and new earth. Isaiah 65 verse 17, Isaiah 66 22 talks about a new heaven and new earth. That's the New Testament. Your Revelation chapter 21 and 22, they close with the new heavens and a new earth. In between that closing and that coming of John the Baptist and Messiah, in between that, the material is dominated by Christ, the Savior King. So you have chapter 40 introducing, you know, the voice of one crying in the wilderness. And then before you get to the end of the new heavens and new earth, you've got all this information about the coming Messiah in the millennial age and his kingdom.

There's other things in it too, but these are dominant features and they're going to bless us a lot. One of the reasons why Isaiah is such a loved book, by Jew and Christian alike. And so as I mentioned though, the chapter divisions in Isaiah are not part of the original inspired text.

The comparisons, they're inescapable. If you know anything about his writings, you just can't miss them. And so as we go through these 27 chapters from 40 to 66, we'll see the application to the Jews near the end of their Babylonian captivity, but more so overshadowing that will be the prophecies concerning the coming king.

Now this 40 through 66 is also easily divided into three parts. From chapter 40 to 48, the emphasis is upon the awesomeness of God the Father, the awesomeness of God. Now there is this emitting, this release of a Godhead Trinitarian structure to it. And so you have the Father being emphasized by just, you know, God, God.

Of course we see in that Yahweh and we know Yahweh is Christ. Isaiah 48 verse 22 closes that section with this. There is no peace, says Yahweh, for the wicked. That's how that first section that emphasizes God's awesomeness closes. The second section, Isaiah 49 through 57, that then begins to, is dominated by this exaltation of the grace of God in the Son, the suffering servant.

That section also closes with the same words, a little different, slightly, very slight. Isaiah 57, 21 is the last verse of that second section that emphasizes the Messiah, the Son. There is no peace, says my God, for the wicked. And then the third section, the third section from Isaiah 58 to the end, chapter 66, it begins explaining the glory of God in the future kingdom, emphasizing the work of the Holy Spirit. Well, the first two are kind of easy, you know, with Isaiah 53, as I mentioned, and in this chapter, the speaking of God overall. But what about the Spirit? You mean the Holy Spirit is emphasized in Isaiah in these last chapters from 58 to 66?

Well, I'll quote two of them, well, three. Isaiah 59, when the enemy comes in like a flood, the Spirit of Yahweh will lift up a standard against him. Isaiah 61, 1, we know this one, Jesus applied it to himself, the Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor. Isaiah 63, 10, but they rebelled and grieved his Holy Spirit.

You can't think this stuff up. This is why this is one of the most comforting Old Testament books, especially this section 40 through 66. So rather than further outlining much of what is coming, we'll just go through it together, but I do want to read some of these New Testament verses about these Old Testament prophets. Jesus said, blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears for they hear, for surely I say to you that many prophets and righteous men desire to see what you see and did not see it, and to hear what you hear and did not hear it. And he's telling the New Testament church, where the church is still not even born yet, as much more is coming, he's telling the believers that by seeing Christ, you're going to see a lot more than what the prophets saw, and you're going to better understand the things they wrote about. Peter said of his salvation, the prophets have inquired and searched carefully, who prophesied of the grace that would come to you.

Searching what or what manner of time? The Spirit of Christ who was in them. Did you catch the deity of Christ there? The Spirit of Christ, Jesus, was in the Old Testament prophets. That just refutes everything the Jehovah Witnesses believe. The Mormons are just ridiculous.

You just refute them with common sense. But anyway, the Spirit of Christ who was in them was indicating when he testified beforehand, the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow. To them it was revealed, not to themselves, but to us, they were ministering the things which now have been reported to you through those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit, sent from heaven, things which angels desire to look in. Peter just had, you know, we had talked so much about Paul and rightfully so, but Peter was right there with him. You look at Peter's writings, they're not, boy, they're not as good as Paul.

Well, they're grammatically in the Greek they may not be, but far as content, they lack nothing. They are God's word. 2 Peter 1 verse 19, And so we have the prophetic word confirmed, which you do well to heed as a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts, knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. I don't know, these are fantastic verses. Okay, one more, Luke chapter 1, this is the father of John the Baptist, Zacharias. It says in Luke chapter 1 verse 70, as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets, who have been since the world began, he's saying there's no unbroken witness of righteousness, from the days of Abel, who was a preacher of righteousness, all the way to Malachi, and then from Malachi forward. There has always been a witness of God in some form. Well, now we come to the first verse, having looked at the authorship of this verse, the microcosm style of these last 27 chapters, also the transition from the Assyrian to the Babylonian front that the Jews will face. So he starts off this next session with, Comfort, yes, comfort my people, says your God.

The translators have rightfully inserted usually an exclamation there. I've been waiting to teach from this section again for a long time. What pastor does not want to comfort the congregation from the word of God? But it's not that simple. It's more complex than that, because there are dangerous behaviors lurking, looking to attach themselves to us, and therefore, to fight these things, the Holy Spirit is the one that guides the pastor, even commands, if he's listening. Otherwise, a man will tend to go in the path of least resistance, and he will bury his head in the sand when it comes to the unpleasant sections, which may be perceived as unpleasant sections of Scripture, and try to grow a crowd instead of a church. You want to grow a crowd, you just keep speaking nice things. You just tell people what they want.

You tickle their ears, you tell them what they want to hear. You want to do the work of God? You preach precept upon precept, line upon line. You don't hold back, but then you don't look to be brutal, but you cannot censor the word of God. I quoted this Sunday, Lamentations 2.14. Here's Jeremiah weeping over, lamenting over the disaster of Jerusalem that he tried so hard to stop that he was persecuted severely for trying to stop. And he writes, he says to the people that brought this on themselves, Your prophets have seen for you false and deceptive visions. They have not uncovered your iniquity to bring back your captives, but have envisioned for you false prophecies and delusions.

They told the people what they wanted to hear. They let the flesh rule. You know, you read it, well, I want to always speak comfort and love to God's people.

Well, you can't do that from a human approach. Humans are sinners. We have to depend on the Holy Spirit and be guided into all truth through this relationship with God, which will come out when God says, well, he says it here, comfort, yes, comfort, my people. That's an interesting and yet critical insertion by the Lord. How much do you think, let me put it this way, do you think, without calling out, Elijah, the great prophet who called fire down on troops or Malachi, do you think they wanted to just comfort the people? Of course they did. But they had to deal with the beast.

They had to deal with the monster of unchecked sin. Thanks for tuning in to Cross Reference Radio today. Cross Reference Radio is a ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville in Virginia. If you'd like to learn more about this ministry, we invite you to visit our website, crossreferenceradio.com.

You'll find a number of teachings from Pastor Rick available there. We also encourage you to subscribe to our podcast. When you subscribe, you'll be notified of new editions of Cross Reference Radio. Just search for Cross Reference Radio on your favorite podcast app. You can also follow the links at crossreferenceradio.com. We're glad we were able to spend time with you today. Tune in next time to continue learning from the book of Isaiah with Pastor Rick, right here on Cross Reference Radio.