Advice From A Super Senior #2

I am just going to preface this blog by admitting that I love pretty much any series in the old testament. My favorite sermon series by Gil was a few years back titled “Christmas through the Old Testament”. So when it came time to pick a new book for our upperclassmen guys group I pounced at the opportunity to go through one of the major prophets. We’re only three weeks in, but I’m going to leave you with the three hardest hitting nuggets that I've found so far.

If you read the first few chapters of Isaiah you’re going to notice a constant theme, and that is punishment. A lot of the OT contains stories about the “fear of God” and a “vengeful God,” but in reality this is God’s way of pointing his people back to their covenant with him. In one of the commentaries RJ lent me the author wrote, “Yahweh exposes Israel's sin so that Israel may be induced to repent, to turn back to covenant obedience. Yahweh does not simply harangue or complain; Yahweh warns so that he can eventually forgive a repenting people.” This is a beautiful picture of God’s character as it points to the promise of future redemption, not some empty punishment coming down on spiteful people.

The next nugget that struck me was Isaiah's willingness to be used by the Lord. In Isaiah's vision of the throne room of the Lord, he laments that he is unclean yet in the presence of the Lord, he is redeemed. In chapter 6 you see Isaiah transform from  “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips” to begging the Lord to be sent on his behalf. The Lord asks “Whom shall I send and who will go for us?”. Isaiah’s response is simple, yet powerful, “Here I am! Send me.” When the seraphim placed the coal on Isaiah’s unclean lips, he was redeemed. His guilt was taken away, and his sin was atoned for. While every believer does not have the exact moving experience that Isaiah had we are all called to the same mission: being sent to share the Gospel and make the name of the Lord known.

Finally, we arrived last week at chapter 7. Chapter 7 is crucial as we see the promise of Christ, the ultimate source of redemption. Seeing the story of Christ so clearly laid out here, and then later on in Isaiah 53,  just points to the broader picture that the Bible is clearly woven together. Knowing the book of Isaiah was written over 700 years before the birth of Christ points clearly to a grand design.

Although we are only three weeks into our study of Isaiah, I am encouraged by what the Lord has revealed to me so far. God was working through these prophets just as he worked through the writers of the new testament and just as he is working through us today. Willing servants will be used by God for his glory.