This week’s message (April 26, Isa 11:6-9) considers the amazing promise of the wolf and the lamb dwelling together in peace. These verses are a promise of a return to the state of the Garden of Eden. We study both the links to Genesis and the NT explanation of this aspect of the Messianic kingdom.
This week’s message (April 19, Isa 11:2-5) focuses on the spiritual endowment of the promised King, which enables him to sense directly whether or not people fear the Lord (v. 3), thus avoiding the perils of superficial judgment and ensuring a rule of righteousness and truth.
This week’s message explores the relationship between the promotion of the Messiah as ruler over Israel and his resurrection from the dead.
This week’s study (April 5) on Isa 10:24-34 deals with the third of the three groups described last week, the people of Jerusalem. Unlike Israel, to be conquered by Assyria and promised only a remnant in vv. 20-23, Judah is assured that the Assyrian oppression will last only a very little while. The Assyrian’s southward march, which formed the basis of his boast in Isa 10:9-11, will continue to Nob hill, overlooking Jerusalem, but will advance no farther, and the nation that prided itself in hewing down its adversaries (Isa 37:24) will itself be cut clean by the Lord of Hosts.
This chorus from an old PPM song keeps coming to mind as I watch our leaders’ response to the current economic crisis and compare it to what we’ve been reading in Isaiah.
It’s been a while since I updated the blog links to the studies on Isaiah. (You can always get to the latest one from the link on the Cyber-Chapel homepage.) Here are the last three, with a brief synopsis of each.
The study for March 15 completed the analysis of the four stanzas of Isa 9:8-10:4, describing God’s past and future judgment against the northern kingdom. Arrogance, corrupt rule, fraternal strife, and social injustice must lead to divine wrath. The argument throughout this section corresponds to the “woe” and “therefore” sections of the interpretation of the Parable of the Vineyard in Isa 5:7-30. God means their misfortunes to capture their attention and draw them to the Lord, but they persist in their rebellion.
Isa 10:5-32, introduced in the study for March 22, corresponds to the description of coming the Assyrian invasion in Isa 5:17, 26-30. The section is an alternation between the Lord’s purposes for Assyria and the invader’s arrogant refusal to recognize that it is a tool in the Lord’s hand.
The study for March 29 looks beyond the horizon of Isa 5 to the future of the three main groups involved in the coming invasion. Assyria will be punished for its arrogance. A small remnant will return from the Northern Kingdom, consumed by the invader. Judah will be chastened to a lesser degree, but emerge largely unscathed.
