Weekly Bulletin

 

 

 

 

Those who watch much American television know that during the summer months, most networks offer little new programming while the actors and production studios take a long break to rest or pursue other interests.  Instead, the networks broadcast reruns of the highest-rated episodes of their most popular series.  That keeps fans interested and looking forward to new episodes and programs in the fall.  Many evenings when we don’t have meetings to attend, Pam and I have the TV on while we work on writing or other tasks we didn’t get finished during the day.  Much of the time we’re more focused on our work than on the TV, but there are a few dramatic series we enjoy and pay more attention to.  During rerun season, an episode of one of those will begin, and one of us will ask the other, “have we already seen this?”  When I’m the one asking Pam that question, her reply is often, “yeah, I remember sleeping through this one.”  I don’t remember story details, and Pam can’t stay awake.  And so we go back to our work projects.

 

I thought of that this past week as I studied the first twenty-one chapters of the Book of Isaiah in the Through the Bible schedule.  Much of what Isaiah wrote there for the people of Judah sounds like a rerun of the prophetic writings of Amos and Hosea to the people of Israel in the previous week’s readings.  There are reasons for that.  The early years of Isaiah’s ministry in Judah (740-700 BC) occurred at about the same time Amos and Hosea were prophesying in the northern kingdom (760-730 BC).  It is likely they had some contact with each other and held similar concerns for the Hebrew people and the region.  Although the dates, places, and names in their writings may differ, the prophets clearly shared a deep understanding of the unchanging principles of God’s desires for his people.  They each sensed the Lord’s broken heart caused by his people’s failure to fulfill his covenants with them —  the one with Abraham (to bless “all the peoples on earth” through them, Genesis 12:3), and the one with Moses (Exodus 20-23) describing the people he freed them to become when they resettled the Promised Land after their Egyptian bondage.  The prophets each identified violations of those covenants, warned of the consequences of disobeying the spiritual principles they express, and urged the Hebrews to repent and return to their loving, forgiving Lord by renewed faithfulness to those principles.  It was Isaiah’s privilege to announce that God was sending them new assistance, the Messiah, for that work of spiritual renewal.

 

Isaiah (which means “the Lord saves”) was born in Jerusalem in approximately 765 BC to an upper class family.  That meant that Isaiah received more education, training, and understanding of the world than most Hebrews of his time did, making him a valuable counselor to King Hezekiah and Judah’s other leaders.  The scriptures indicate that he was married and had two sons.  Isaiah was called by God to prophetic ministry in Judah in 740 BC at age 25, a few years before Assyria began its conquest of Israel.  He is considered the greatest of the writing prophets, and he was quoted more times by New Testament writers than was any of the other Old Testament prophets.  One scholar wrote in Exploring the Old Testament that Isaiah conducted his prophetic ministry to Judah in much the same manner and spirit as Hosea carried out his in Israel — never downplaying the destructive consequences of sin, but consistently stressing God’s provision of rescue, forgiveness, and renewal if people would accept it.  Another writer stated that Isaiah “spent his days trying to help other people to know and see God as he did, to hate sin as he hated it,” and to be as devoted as he was to being a blessing from the Lord to others. 

 

What Isaiah Watched From Jerusalem     From 753 BC to 734 BC, the northern kingdom of Israel was in utter chaos.  During those years, they had at least six different kings, none of whom were deemed righteous, two of whom reigned less than a year before being assassinated by their successors, and only one of whom died nonviolently.  In 742 BC, the king of Assyria invaded Israel and extorted riches from wealthy Israelites.  The Assyrians returned in 732 BC, laying waste to much of northern Palestine and leaving only the immediate surroundings of Samaria under Israel’s control.  About seven years later, Samaria itself came under attack, and the Assyrians besieged the city for the next three years.  In 722 BC, Samaria fell to the Assyrians, most of its residents were forced into exile, and the territory of Israel was occupied by thousands of non-Hebrew captives the Assyrians had conquered elsewhere.
             Isaiah would have been familiar with the prophecies of Amos and Hosea which spelled out the causes of Israel’s downfall.  It could be said that it reached clear back to King Solomon’s failure fully to obey God’s Law when he put his trust in military and economic power rather than in Yahweh, and when he worshiped the idols of his hundreds of non-Hebrew wives.  Those failures contributed to the division of Israel into two kingdoms and set the ungodly example followed by the kings of Israel in Samaria.  Amos and Hosea named idol worship, insincere religion, and stubborn spiritual deafness to the prophets’ pleas as major causes of Israel’s demise.  They also wrote of the people’s moral degeneracy as a major factor, citing as examples drunkenness, revelry, lewdness, adultery, corruption and greed in officials and businesses, meaningless extravagance, and mistreatment or ignoring of the poor and marginalized.

 

What Isaiah Saw In Jerusalem sadly did not differ all that much from what he had seen in the north.  Judah had several kings who were deemed “righteous,” but most of them had not removed the high places where local tribes’ idols were worshiped – suggesting to Judeans perhaps that compromise on God’s instructions was acceptable.  The authors of Exploring the Old Testament write that Bible scholars refer to Isaiah 1 as “the Great Arraignment” because it reads like a lawyer’s poetic listing of charges against the people of Judah — and most of Hosea’s descriptions (from the previous paragraph) of Israel’s poor spiritual condition are included.  As the Lord enabled Isaiah to see his people and their future through God’s eyes, the prophet realized that he had much work to do if the Judeans were to avoid Israel’s plight.  True to his calling, he wove into his prophecies the promise of God’s provision of a Savior who could teach and help them to walk in the Lord’s ways of peace (2:2-5).  Chapters 2, 3, and 5 continue with Isaiah’s warnings to people who refuse to return to God to serve him, while  Isaiah 4 describes the Branch of the Lord, the Messiah who was coming to protect and shelter his faithful.

 

Isaiah’s Call to Ministry      In Isaiah 6, the prophet describes his dramatic vision of God seated on eternity’s throne, surrounded and attended by heavenly creatures proclaiming his holiness and glory.  Isaiah was terrified that he would perish because of his sinfulness and the sinfulness of Judah.  In the vision, one of the creatures then came to him with a live coal, touched his mouth with it, and proclaimed him cleansed and forgiven.  Isaiah then heard God’s voice asking “Whom shall I send?  Who will go for us?”  The prophet promptly answered, “Here am I.  Send me!” (6:8)  The Lord then commissioned Isaiah to go appeal to the people of Judah and surrounding nations, despite the difficult assignment of remaining faithful to God through years of opposition and challenges ahead.  It would be 700 more years before his promised Messiah would finally be revealed.   To sustain the prophet through those difficult years, God showed him the vision in Isaiah 9:1-7 with much more detail of the Messiah’s arrival, the great light coming as a newborn to a people walking in the darkness of separation from God.  More encouragement was given to Isaiah in chapter 11 by the description of the Messiah as “a branch from Jesse,” the father of their beloved King David.  God assured Isaiah that the Messiah would lead Judah with his Spirit’s wisdom, power, righteousness, justice, compassion, and peace.  And although the NIV Bible labels many of the remaining paragraphs in Isaiah 13-21 as “prophecies against” the surrounding nations, I take those prophecies to indicate that God was concerned for those Gentiles and was preparing them also to respond one day to his loving invitation to “the life that is truly life.”

 

What Would Isaiah See Here Today?     Think for a moment about the spiritual conditions the prophet saw in Israel and in his own nation of Judah – worship of created things rather than their Creator, insincere rituals, hearts hardened against God, trust in human and economic power rather than the Lord, mistreatment of the poor and marginalized, and all those traits of moral degeneracy listed above.  Which ones of those are no longer in the evening news, no longer of spiritual concern for the followers of Jesus Christ?  Seeing his people through God’s eyes convinced Isaiah that he had much work to do if his people were to avoid the plight of the Israelites.  Someone once told me that “God has no grandchildren;” no one gets grandfathered in.  Every generation and every person must experience God’s transforming forgiveness and love.  I suspect Isaiah would tell us we too have much work to do.

 

Our Call to Ministry      Neither Pam nor I ever had a mysterious vision like Isaiah’s telling us to spend our lives doing what we do.  We just came to a point in our walk with Christ where we realized he had loved us enough to lead us to each other, despite our admission to being undeserving of that grace.  Because that was and is such a blessing, it made sense that we should try to acknowledge and honor his authority over every aspect of our lives.  I’d guess that most of us have had those experiences of sensing the Lord’s presence extra poignantly.  Realizing his presence and humbly acknowledging his undeserved love for us is, like with Isaiah, the first step towards receiving his leading to important ministries he has prepared for each of us to fulfill.  The second step is our readiness to answer “here am I, send me” when the calling is clear.  He wants to lead us all to meaningful, joyful lives.  Here are we, Lord; send us! 

 

 

 

 

 

1)  Based on Isaiah’s example, why is it important to learn to see other people “through God’s eyes”?

2)  What differences do you see between Jonah’s response to God’s call, and Isaiah’s?  How can we prepare to be ready?

3)  Why is humble acknowledgment of our unworthiness an important step in being led to ministry for Christ?

4)  Why do you think God had Isaiah prophesy against Gentile nations, if Christ planned one day to redeem them?

5)  What do you learn from Isaiah that blesses or challenges you most in your life of service to Christ?