Loading summary
Transcript20 lines
- [00:00]
A
Hey, Bible nerds.
- [00:01]
B
This is Dr. Manny Arango and I'm your host for the Bible department podcast. Powered by Arma.
- [00:06]
A
This podcast follows a Bible reading plan.
- [00:09]
B
We created to help you read the entire Bible in a year.
- [00:13]
A
You can head to the show notes.
- [00:14]
B
Or thebibledepartment.com to download our reading plan.
- [00:18]
A
And join the journey.
- [00:26]
B
Let's be honest, a lot of us are still treating digital ministry like it's a backup plan from 2020. But discipleship isn't just happening on Sundays anymore. People need gospel centered connection every day of the week. And if you're stuck juggling five different platforms, one for giving, another for sermons, something else for events, it's no wonder engagement feels off. That's not ministry. That's a mess. Subsplash changes that one platform. Everything you need, media, giving, events, messaging, your app, your website built specifically for churches. No hacks, no workarounds, just clarity and simplicity. Because every day you wait, families scroll past your sermons, new guests click away from clunky sites, and real people miss real moments with Jesus. Don't waste another summer stuck in digital survival mode. Use it to get ahead, simplify, upgrade, get back to what matters. Head to subsplash.combible-dept and schedule a free no pressure demo. And let this be the summer your church gets focused and fully equipped.
- [01:48]
A
Family. Welcome to day 205. We are in the book of Isaiah. We're gonna cover chapters 49, 50 and 51. So three chapters of biblical text to get through today. And hey, if you've done the reading, everything that I'm gonna say to you is gonna make perfect sense. If you have not done the reading, go ahead, stop the video, pause the audio and actually do the reading. Isaiah, chapter 49 to 51. I have fallen in love with the book of Isaiah just by studying and reading it. I've fallen in love with it by teaching through this daily, through this daily Bible reading plan. So there's a lot of context that I want to give you. And then I'm going to give you three nerdy nuggets and I'm always going to leave you off with a timeless truth. So we kind of got a lot of context, a good amount of context today, maybe a little bit more than normal. So buckle up, okay? Because we are going to get a courtroom scene, a law court scene in Isaiah, chapter 50. And you may be thinking to yourself, why? Why are we about to have a courtroom scene? Actually, I probably should have introduced this idea earlier. And if you're someone who loves to write notes you can write this down. There are eight. Eight courtroom scenes in the book of Isaiah. Eight. So we're going to talk about those courtroom scenes, and then we're really going to talk through why. Why do they exist? What is the link between biblical prophets and a courtroom? What is the link here? What is. What does the courtroom scene have to do with biblical prophets? So Isaiah, chapter 1, verse 2 to verse 31 is a law court scene. It's a courtroom scene. Okay, so the book of Isaiah actually starts with a courtroom scene. Isaiah, chapter 3, verse 13 to 15 is a courtroom scene. So there's some key elements. Accusation, evidence of sin, judgment, and an invitation to repentance. So an example verse from chapter one would be, hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth, for the Lord has spoken. Children I have reared and brought up, but they have rebelled against me. Okay, so this is like classic courtroom language. All right? In Isaiah, chapter 3, verse 13 to 15, the Lord judges, elders and leaders. Okay, the example verse would be, the Lord has taken his place to contend. He stands to judge peoples. Okay, the third one is going to be Isaiah, chapter 5, verses 1 through 7. This is gonna be a song of the vineyard. And the example verse here is, what more was there to do for my vineyard that I did that I have not done in it? When I looked for it to yield grapes, why did it yield wild grapes? So evidence, okay? Yahweh's presenting evidence for his case against the people of Israel. Then we don't get any more in the first section of the book. And then Isaiah, chapter 41, we're going to get what's going to be called the trial of the nations. The example verse here is going to be present your case, says the Lord. Bring your proofs, says the king of Jacob. Isaiah, chapter 41, verse 21. You can hear that, right? Bring your proofs. Okay, present your case. This is classic courtroom language. In Isaiah, chapter 41. Then this is going to happen again In Isaiah, chapter 43, verses 8 to 13 is our fifth example of this is Israel as God's witness. And the example verse here is chapter 43, verse 10 says, you are my witnesses, declares the Lord and my servant whom I have chosen. The only place witnesses would need to be is in a courtroom during a legal proceeding. So this is legal language. Next, we've got for our sixth example, Isaiah, chapter 44. This is a lawsuit against idols. And in verse seven of Isaiah 44, it's going to say, who then is like me? Let him proclaim it. Let him declare and set it before me. So set the evidence before me. Okay. Is there another God that is like me? No. Okay. There are no idols that could come into this courtroom and even contend that they are anything like me or better than me or equal to me. But I would love to hear the claim and I would love to see the evidence. You can hear the sarcasm in Yahweh's voice and in Isaiah's voice. And then the text for the day for today is actually our seventh example. And this is Isaiah, chapter 50. Isaiah, chapter 50, verse one to three. And this is God's divorce lawsuit against Israel. Example verse would be verse one. Thus says the Lord. Where's your mother's certificate of divorce with which I sent her away? So a certificate of divorce is a legal document. So again, it's just courtroom language. And Then last, number eight, Isaiah, number 58, verse 114, an indictment of false fasting. Okay? And then in verse 6 of Isaiah 58, we get an example verse. Is not this the fast that I choose to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke? Okay? So wickedness could also be translated as injustice. And if something is unjust, we need to go to court and we need to have a judge settle it, because judges judge justly. Okay? So those are all the examples of courtroom language. Now, why in the world does courtroom language even appear? Obviously, in today's reading, we have Isaiah, chapter 50, and Isaiah, chapter 50 is one of the eight examples where there's courtroom language in the book of Isaiah. So why in the world does this even occur? And I'm going to explain exactly why this occurs. Okay? So if you go back to deuteronomy, deuteronomy, chapter 13, deuteronomy, chapter 18, you'll actually begin to see the official office of the prophet. Now, here's something you need to remember, that Israel functioned as a theocracy, okay? In the same way that the United States of America is a democracy. And that democracy has certain offices, right? It has a judicial branch. It has an executive branch. It has. Then it has a representative branch, right? So Congress in the Senate, Congress, House of Representatives. And then you have the office of the President of the United States of America. And then you have the judicial branch, okay? The Supreme Court, okay? Those three branches of the democracy create checks and balances. Well, there are three offices of God's theocracy. And those three offices are the prophet, the priest, and the king. The prophet, the priest, and the king, okay? So when people say, well, Jesus is prophet, priest, and king, Those aren't just three things that people are picking up at. No, Jesus represents all three official offices of God's theocratic system of governance. So what people need to know is that if there's a hierarchy, it is definitely a triangle with priest and king. King's a little higher than priests, so it's a lopsided triangle. But prophet is up at the top. Okay, you need a prophet to even go make a king. It's the prophet that anoints the king. So the prophet has a couple of jobs. First one, prophets anoint kings, which means on the org chart, prophets outrank kings. And so prophets represent God to the people, priests represent the people to God. And then kings are actually supposed to be the role model. They're supposed to live out Torah in such a way that it models for the rest of the people how to live out Torah. They're supposed to be faithful to Yahweh. They're supposed to be, you know, the. The model disciple family. The wait is over.
- [09:57]
B
My brand new book, Crushing Chaos, is out now and available everywhere.
- [10:03]
A
Books are sold. Literally. Today I walked into a Barnes and.
- [10:08]
B
Noble and I signed a bunch of.
- [10:10]
A
Copies at a physical location. So you can grab this book at.
- [10:14]
B
A physical Barnes and Noble or you.
- [10:16]
A
Can go to a Books a Million.
- [10:17]
B
Or Amazon or anywhere books are sold and grab a copy. If you enjoy reading the Bible from an ancient perspective, if you understand that the beauty of scripture is actually knowing it in context, then you'll love this book. And if there's any chaos in your personal life, I think that reading the Bible from an ancient perspective can actually help to crush the chaos in your life. I think this book is going to.
- [10:44]
A
Be a New York Times bestseller. I really do.
- [10:46]
B
I think we wrote a good one. I think you should get a copy today. All right, back to the episode.
- [10:54]
A
All right, so the prophet has four jobs. Number one, the prophet anoints kings. Number two, the prophet holds the nation accountable to the Torah, to the. To the covenant of Deuteronomy. Number three, prophets stand in Yahweh's royal court, which means that when Isaiah gets called into the ministry, he gets caught up to Yahweh's royal court. So there's a courtroom in the heavens. And Isaiah is now a part of the divine council. So the reason he can say with authority what God is saying is because he's hearing the voice of Yahweh, because he's getting caught up to the royal court. And since the prophet is actually a human member of the divine council of Heaven's royal court, Then that means, number four, the prophet's job is to provide legal representation for Yahweh here on earth. So when the people have sinned against yahweh, it is 100% Isaiah's job eight times in the book of Isaiah to say, ah, God's got a legal dispute against you. And remember, the number one complaint of the people that are in exile is, I don't think we deserve to be here. This is unjust. Job is gonna have a lot of this courtroom language as well, which means that we're gonna get the view of the courtroom of heaven. God's gonna say no. You can run the security cameras. Look at what happened up in my courtroom. Since Job wants to bring a charge against me, okay, I will defend myself. And I've got witnesses. So this is courtroom language. And the reason that the prophet is going to use courtroom language in his poetry or his prophecy is because the prophet is Yahweh's legal representation here on the earth. So eight times in the book of Isaiah, Isaiah is going to be charged to represent Yahweh as Yahweh's legal representation. Okay? So hopefully that explanation of the prophet as legal representation for Yahweh helps to explain why we have eight. Okay, Eight courtroom scenes in the book of Isaiah and why we have one right here, here in today's reading. So that's context that I think we need to be able to interpret some of this stuff well, or at least to answer the question, why is it here? Okay, next, I got three nerdy nuggets for you. Okay, first nerdy nugget is that we're gonna get the second servant song. This is Isaiah, chapter 49, and it's gonna be verses one through six. Okay, Isaiah, chapter 49, verses one through six. And I'll read it. Okay, this is the second servant song that we're gonna get in the book of Isaiah. Listen to me, you islands. Hear this, you distant nations. Before I was born, the Lord called me. Okay, so whoever this servant is, is gonna be called before birth. From my mother's womb, he has spoken my name. He made my mouth like a sharpened sword. In the shadow of his hand he hid me. He made me into a polished arrow and concealed me in his quiver. He said to me, you are my servant Israel, in whom I will display my splendor. Verse 4. But I said, I have labored in vain. I've spent my strength for nothing at all. Yet what is due me is in the Lord's hand. And My reward is with my God. Verse 5. And now the Lord says, he who formed me in the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob back to him and gather Israel to himself. For I am honored in the eyes of the Lord and my God has been my strength. He says, is it too small a thing for you to be my servant? To restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept, I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth. This is a servant song. This is the second servant song that we have in the book of Isaiah. There's a couple things that I want to highlight about this servant song. Number one, the servant of Yahweh will be the true Israel in order to redeem the true Israel. So let's talk about what is the true Israel. Because Israel fails to actually be what God called Israel to be, which is to be a light to the nations, which is to be a model to all the other nations. Israel keeps failing to actually be Israel. Okay? When God calls Abraham, he says, through you, all the nations of the earth are gonna be blessed. But all the nations of the earth are not blessed in the Old Testament because Israel fails to be Israel. Okay? So now there has to be a servant that's gonna come along to be what Israel cannot be. Matthew is gonna pick up on this hardcore. The Book of Matthew. For Matthew, Jesus is the true Israel. This is why Jesus life literally models everything that Israel is supposed to do. So I'll give you six examples that are just from the book of Matthew, being called out of Egypt. This is Matthew 2, 14, 15, going through the waters and tempted in the desert for 40 days is Matthew 3, 16, the anointed servant of Yahweh. Matthew 12, 17, 21, being a prophet like Moses. Okay, Matthew chapter 5, 7. So the sermon on the Mount. Matthew is really framing Jesus as a new Moses, as a new leader, giving the law, giving God's instruction from a mountain, suffering exile while on the cross. This is why Jesus is going to say, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Because Matthew wants to paint Jesus suffering on the cross as an exile and then resurrection as restoration from exile, which is Matthew, chapter 28, verse 18. So Matthew sees Jesus as the true Israel. And what is the true Israel supposed to do? Create a true Israel. And Paul is going to pick up on this huge. He's going to say things to the Galatians, to the Romans, like, is a true Israelite someone who's Just circumcised in the flesh? Or is it someone who's been circumcised in their heart? What does it mean to be a true Israelite? Is it just ethnicity? Is it just what happens by birth? Or is it someone who has been saved by faith because the righteous will live by faith? This is Paul's entire argument, that the true Israel will create a true Israel. I hope that's not too confusing. But Israel failed to actually be what God intended Israel to be. So they need a servant who's Jesus to come along to actually be the true Israel, for Israel to then create a true Israel, which AKA is the church. So this is a massive theme and it is found in this servant song, this second servant song. This is clear that Paul and Barnabas are gonna see Jesus as this because they're gonna quote this exact passage of scripture. They're gonna quote this second Servant song in Acts chapter 13. Okay, I'll read Acts chapter 13, verse 46 to 48 to you. Then Paul and Barnabas answered them boldly. We had to speak the word of God to you first. We're talking to Jews. Since you reject it and do not consider yourselves worthy of eternal life. We now turn to the Gentiles, for this is what the Lord has commanded us. And they're going to quote the book of Isaiah. I have made you a like for the Gentiles that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth. When the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and honored the word of the Lord. And all who were appointed for eternal life believed so. Jesus is the true Israel. And that's verse six, by the way. So Isaiah chapter 49, verse six says, I will also make you a light for the Gentiles and that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth. This is the last verse of the second servant song. And what does it mean to be a true Israel? It means to open up your borders for the Gentiles. That's the whole mission. When God called Abraham in the beginning, it wasn't just so that the Jewish people could be blessed. It wasn't just for Israel. Israel has never existed for Israel. Israel has existed for. For the world, for the nations, for the pagans, for the Gentiles. But instead of existing for the Gentiles, Israel has acted like the Gentiles. Therefore, God says, let me send a true Israelite who can model what it means to actually be Israel. And that servant which will be the true Israel, will then create a people which will be a true Israel, and that true Israel will draw the Gentiles so that all the nations of the earth can be blessed. All right, that is a breakdown of the second servant song. That's huge. Okay, this. This idea of these servant songs helping us to understand the identity of Jesus. This is why people look at the book of Isaiah as the fifth gospel, because there's all these breadcrumbs about the identity and about the vocation, the work and the ministry of Jesus right here in the book of Isaiah. All right, two more nerdy nuggets for you. Is Isaiah, chapter 50, verse one. Okay, Isaiah, chapter 50, verse one. There's gonna be a certificate of divorce. Now, I've heard this preached, and essentially I've heard people say divorce is fine. Cause even God's divorced. I don't think that's what the scriptures are saying, but we'll see. Let's read it for ourselves. Isaiah 51. Where is your mother's certificate of divorce? With which I sent her away? Or to which of my creditors did I sell you? Question mark? Because of your sin, you were sold. Because of your transgressions, your mother was sent away. Okay, this is the verse. Chapter 50, verse 1. And here's the conclusion. It's a rhetorical question, and the answer is, there is no certificate of divorce. Israel cannot produce a certificate of divorce. And in the ancient world, a divorce was not final until a woman was given a certificate of divorce. So essentially, what Yahweh is saying is, yeah, I've wanted to divorce you, definitely. You've been a terrible bride. But the final straw would be me writing your certificate of divorce. Remember, the context of this chunk of Isaiah is that people are in exile, and so they're wondering, has God left us? Has he forsaken us? Has he divorced us? And actually, this is God saying, if I divorced you, where's your certificate of divorce? And you can't produce one. You don't have one. Which means I'm still the God who's with you. I've never left you. I've never forsaken you. I'm a faithful husband. And I'm a faithful husband even when you are an unfaithful bride. Last nerdy nugget is that Yahweh's a dragon slayer. Come on. Isaiah, chapter 51. You know I love a dragon. Isaiah, chapter 51, verse 9. I love talking about dragons in the Bible. Awake. Awake. Arm of the Lord. Clothe yourself with strength. Awake. As in the days gone by, as in generations of old. Was it not you who Cut Rahab to pieces. Rahab is a sea monster, a sea dragon. Was it not you who cut Rahab to pieces? Who pierced that monster through? Was it not you who dried up the sea? This is talking about God rescuing his people out of Egypt through the Red Sea. So whereas we would just think about the event literally, like, oh, yeah, God split the sea so that the people could walk through. Isaiah is saying, well, there was more happening. There was actually a spiritual element to what was happening. There was spiritual warfare overlaid on top of what was happening in the natural. Was it not you who dried up to sea the waters of the great sea? Who made a road in the depths of the sea so that the redeemed might cross over? Those the Lord has rescued will return. They will enter Zion with singing. So he's saying, whoa, I killed chaos before, I'll kill chaos again. I crushed chaos before, I'll crush chaos again. And now the Exodus out of Egypt becomes the prototype for what God is gonna do in this new generation who needs to be rescued out not of Egypt, but out of Babylon and brought back into the land. Okay, those are all the nerdy nuggets I've got for you. You may not realize that Rahab is a sea dragon or a sea monster, but the event explained in the book of Exodus as the killing of Pharaoh or the. The drowning of Pharaoh and the passing through the Red Sea on dry ground, we would just think about that in natural terms. But God says, actually, I see Pharaoh as a dragon. And while there was a natural element happening, there was spiritual warfare in the heavens. And I killed Rahab, the dragon that represents Pharaoh. In the same way that I crushed chaos before, I'll do it again. All right, let's get into our timeless truth, Thomas. Truth is actually really, really easy. Number one, Yahweh is still a faithful husband and still the true Israel. Jesus is a faithful husband even when we're unfaithful, he's faithful. Even when we don't seek him, he seeks after us. Even when we forget about him, he never forgets about us. This is not a 5050 relationship. This is a 991 relationship. This is not a relationship where you and God meet halfway. He is faithful when we are unfaithful, he is consistent when we are inconsistent. He is a God who can be trusted even when we cannot be trusted. And he is the true Israel in the same way that Israel needed a model. Jesus is a true Christian. Like, he is the model for what it means to be a Christ follower because he's the Christ. So not only is he the true Israel, which means he is the prototype, the archetype for what it means to be Israel, he is also the prototype, the archetype for what it means to be a Christian. So not only is Jesus the faithful husband that Isaiah proclaims him to be, but he is still the faithful husband that Isaiah proclaims him to be. And not only was he the true Israel that Isaiah proclaims him to be, but he still is. These are timeless truths, and these are new elements, new depths, new caveats so that we can worship Jesus for who he really is. I love getting to know more and more and more of the identity of Jesus, even in the Old Testament, the Hebrew Scriptures, because like Jesus says, all of the scriptures point to him. And so Isaiah definitely does that. All right, I'll see you tomorrow. All right, tomorrow we've got day 206. We're gonna pick up in Isaiah chapter 52 and we're gonna study Isaiah chapter 52 to 55. I'm so proud of you, especially if you're on a street. I'll see you right here tomorrow as we continue our trek to the Book of Isaiah. Love you. Peace.
- [26:09]
B
Thanks so much for joining us on the Bible Department podcast. You can find us online and learn more about the show at thebibledepartment.com and on Instagram hebible department. If you enjoyed this episode and want to dive deeper into the Bible, you can get free access to our library of courses@thebibledepartment.com we'll see you back here tomorrow.