Isaiah 1

 

1 The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, that he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah. 2 Hear, O heavens, and listen, O earth: for the LORD has spoken, I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me. 3 The ox knows his owner, and the ass his master's crib: but Israel does not know, my people do not consider. 4 Ah sinful nation, a people loaded with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters: they have forsaken the LORD, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel to anger, they have gone away backward. 5 Why will you be beaten more? You revolt more and more: the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. 6 From the sole of the foot to the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and rotting sores: they have not been closed or bound up or soothed with ointment. 7 Your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire: your land, foreigners devour it in your presence, and it is desolate, overthrown by strangers. 8 And the daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city.

 

  • We bring judgment on ourselves by rebelling against God.
  • Jeremiah 2:19 Your own wickedness will correct you, and your back-sliding will reprove you: know therefore and see that it is an evil and bitter thing, that you have forsaken the LORD your God, and that my fear is not in you, says the Lord GOD of hosts.

 

9 Unless the LORD of hosts had left us a very small remnant, we would be like Sodom, and we would be like Gomorrah.10 Hear the word of the LORD, you rulers of Sodom; listen to the law of our God, you people of Gomorrah. 11 What (good) is the multitude of your sacrifices to me? asks the LORD: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of great he goats.

 

  • 1 Samuel 15:22 And Samuel said, Does the Lord have as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams.

 

12 When you come to appear before me, who has required this at your hand, to trample my courts? 13 Bring no more empty offerings; incense is an abomination to me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot endure; it is iniquity, the festival.

 

  • Grave and solemn ritual without knowledge of/ or love for God is empty. He says stop.

 

14 My soul hates your new moons and your appointed feasts: they are a burden to me; I am weary of bearing them. 15 And when you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you: yes, when you make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood. 16 Wash, make yourselves clean; put away the evil of your doings from before my eyes; stop doing evil; 17 Learn to do good; seek justice, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow.

 

The Lord will bless and make white as snow those who turn back to Him


18 Come now, and let us reason together, says the LORD: though your sins are as scarlet, they will be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they will be like wool.19 If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the good of the land: 20 But if you refuse and rebel, you will be devoured with the sword: for the mouth of the LORD has spoken it.

 

  • It is evil to take away the abundance from those God blesses to give to the disobedient.

 

21 How the faithful city has become a harlot! It was full of judgment; righteousness lodged in it; but now murderers. 22 Your silver is become scum, your wine mixed with water: 23 Your princes are rebellious, and companions of thieves: every one loves bribes and follows after rewards: they do not judge the fatherless, neither does the cause of the widow come to them. 24 Therefore says the Lord, the LORD of hosts, the mighty One of Israel, Ah, I will ease myself of my adversaries, and avenge myself of my enemies: 25 And I will turn my hand upon you, and according to pureness purge away your dross, and take away all your tin: 26 And I will restore your judges as at the first, and your counselors as at the beginning: afterward you will be called, The city of righteousness, the faithful city. 27 Zion will be redeemed with judgment, and her repentant ones with righteousness. 28 And the transgressors  and the sinners will be destroyed together, and those that forsake the LORD will be consumed. 29 For they will be ashamed of the oaks which you have desired, and you will be embarrassed for the gardens that you have chosen. 30 For you will be as an oak whose leaf fades, and as a garden that has no water. And the strong man will become like kindling, and his word like a spark, and they will both burn together, and none will quench them.


  • Our Lord died that we not be consumed by His holiness because we are sinful.
  • If we refuse His gift of salvation there is nothing He can do.
  • The beauty of God’s creation (gardens) is not to be an object of worship.
  • People also make the same mistake about beautiful churches.
  • The building isn’t God and isn’t to be worshipped or served.

 

 

                                               Isaiah 2

 

The glory of His Majesty

 

1 The word that Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. 2 And it will come to pass in the last days that the mountain of the LORD's house will be established in the top of the mountains, and will be exalted above the hills; and all nations will flow into it. 3 And many people say, Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion will go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.

 

  • Isaiah 40:4 Every valley will be exalted, and every mountain and hill will be made low: and the crooked will be made straight, and the rough places plain:

 

4 And he will judge between the nations, and will rebuke many people: and they will beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks: nation will not lift up sword against nation, neither will they learn war any more. 5 O house of Jacob, come, and let us walk in the light of the LORD.

 

  • Matthew25:31-35 When the Son of man will come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then will he sit upon the throne of his glory…
  • Psalm 119:105 Your word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.

 

6 Therefore you have forsaken your people, the house of Jacob, because they are filled with influence from the east, and are fortune-tellers like the Philistines, and they make deals with the children of foreigners. 7 Their land is full of silver and gold, neither is there any end of their treasures; their land is full of horses, neither is there any end of their chariots: 8 Their land is full of idols; they worship the work of their own hands, that which their own fingers have made:

 

  • God forsook them because they followed the ways of others and not Him.
  • All other religions are inspired and empowered by devils.
  • Devils, demons, and false gods didn’t create us in their image or give us life and sustain our life.
  • They will be destroyed along with those who follow them.
  • Psalm 37:4 Delight yourself in the LORD; and he will give you the desires of your heart.
  • Revelation 20:10 And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and will be tormented day and night forever and ever.
  • Revelation 20:15 And who ever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.
  • Psalm 96:5 For all the gods of the nations are idols: but the LORD made the heavens.

 

9 And the common man bows down, and the great man humbles himself: therefore do not forgive them. 10 Enter into the rock, and hide yourself in the dust, for fear of the LORD, and for the glory of his majesty.

 

  • The beauties and splendors of earth are just a hint of the majesty of God.
  • Ezekiel 1:26 And above the firmament that was over their heads was the likeness of a throne, appearing like a sapphire stone: and on throne was the likeness of a man above upon it. 27 And I saw as the color of amber, as the appearance of fire round about within it, from the appearance of his loins upward, and from the appearance of his loins downward, I saw the appearance of fire, and it had brightness around it. 28 Like the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud in the day of rain was the appearance of the brightness around it. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the LORD.
  • Hebrews 10:31 It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

 

The Lord alone will be exalted forever

 

11 The proud look of man will be humbled, and the loftiness of men will be bowed down, and the LORD alone will be exalted in that day. 12 For the day of the LORD of hosts will be upon every one that is proud and lofty, and upon every one that is lifted up; and he will be brought low: 13 And on all the cedars of Lebanon, that are high and lifted up, and on all the oaks of Bashan, 14 And on all the high mountains, and on all the hills that are lifted up, 15 And on every high tower, and on every fenced wall, 16 And on all the ships of Tarshish, and on all pleasant pictures/pictures of desire. 17 And the pride of man will be bowed down, and the loftiness of men will be made low: and the LORD alone will be exalted in that day. 18 And he will utterly abolish the idols. 19 And they will go into the holes of the rocks, and into the caves of the earth, for fear of the LORD, and for the glory of his majesty, when he arises to shake terribly the earth.

 

  • Revelation 16:18-19 And there were voices, and thunders, and lightnings; and there was a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great. 19 And the great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell: and great Babylon came in remembrance before God, to give to her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath.

 

20 In that day a man will cast away his idols of silver, and his idols of gold, that each one made for himself to worship, to the moles and to the bats; 21 To go into the clefts of the rocks, and into the tops of the ragged rocks, for fear of the LORD, and for the glory of his majesty, when he arises to shake terribly the earth. 22 Stop regarding man, whose breath is in his nostrils, for of what account is he?

 

  • Man cannot make a breath of air or a blade of grass. Why listen to them?
  • God made everything and gives man breath.
  • Job 12:10 In whose hand is the soul of every living thing, and the breath of all mankind.

 

                                                Isaiah 3

 

God sends famine to bring men back to Himself because He is life

 

1 For behold, the Lord, the LORD of armies takes away from Jerusalem and from Judah the support and the staff, the whole support of bread, and the whole support of water, 2 The mighty man and the warrior, the judge and the prophet, and the diviner and the elder, 3 The captain of fifty and the honorable man, the counselor and the skillful artisan, and the eloquent orator/ man of excellent appearance. 4 And I will make children their princes, and babes will rule over them. 5 And the people will be oppressed, every one by another and every one by his neighbor: the child will behave himself proudly against the elderly and the low against the honorable. 6 A man will take hold of his brother of his fathers house, saying, You have clothing, be our ruler, and let this ruin be under your hand: 7 In that day he will swear, saying, I will not be a healer/binder up; for in my house is no bread or clothing: do not make me a ruler of the people.

 

  • Man’s choices had brought ruin.
  • God is longsuffering and only wants our good (2 Peter 3:9).
  • The people were God’s people, His light to the world. Yet they were leading into darkness by their ways.
  • The spiritual food they were to give to the world wasn’t being given out by them.
  • So, to wake them up, He took away the physical sustenance.


8 For Jerusalem is ruined, and Judah has fallen: because their tongue and their doings are against the LORD, to rebel against His glorious presence. 9 The expression of their faces witnesses against them; and they declare their sin as Sodom, they do not hide it. Cries of grief to their soul! For they have rewarded evil unto themselves.10 Say to the righteous, that it will be well with him: for they will eat the fruit of their doings. 11 Cries of grief to the wicked! It will be evil with him: for the reward of his hands will be done to him.

 

  • Galatians 6:7-8 Do not be deceived. God is not mocked for whatever a man sows that is what he will reap. For he that sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption; but he that sows to the Spirit will reap life everlasting from the Spirit.

 

God sues bad leaders in the court of heaven

 

12 O my people, their oppressors are children and women rule over them. O my people, those who lead you cause you to err, and destroy the way of your paths. 13 The LORD stands up to plead, and stands to judge the people. 14 The LORD will enter into judgment with the elders and princes of His people: for you have eaten up the vineyard; the spoil of the poor is in your houses.

 

  • Remember Ezekiel’s vision of God on the universe on His sapphire throne, the fiery amber form of a man radiating rainbows.
  • Imagine standing before Him being sued for exploiting His people.
  • Matthew 21:33-41 is the parable of the vineyard.
  • The world is God’s vineyard (Isaiah 5). Love toward Him is the wine (Deuteronomy 6:5, Matthew 22:37) or fruit that God desires from His vineyard.
  • His leaders have been wolves instead of shepherds (Ezekiel 34).

 

15 What do you mean crushing my people to pieces, and grinding the faces of the poor? Asks the Lord GOD of hosts. 16 Moreover the LORD says, Because the daughters of Zion are proud, and walk with stretched out necks and seductive/ogling eyes, walking and mincing as they go, and making a tinkling with their feet: 17 Therefore the LORD will strike the crown of the head of the daughters of Zion with a scab, and the LORD will make naked their secret parts.

 

  • With no thought for their Maker, these women focused their lives on their outward appearance. Instead of the beauty of a peaceful, satisfied spirit focused on God they have hungry eyes searching for fulfillment. The end result of this is seen in Genesis 19 and Judges 19.
  • 1 Peter 3:3-5Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of braiding the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel; 4 But let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is of great price in the sight of God. 5 In this way in the ancient times the holy women also, who trusted in God, adorned themselves, being in subjection unto their own husbands:

 

18 In that day the Lord will take away the beauty of their anklets, headbands, and crescent ornaments, 19.The dangling earrings and bracelets, and veils, 20 The hats, and the leg ornaments, the sashes, the perfume boxes, and the amulets, 21 The rings, and nose jewels, 22.The party clothes, the shawls, the coats and money purses, 23 the mirrors and fine linen, the hoods and veils. 24 And it will come to pass that instead of sweet smell there will be a stink; and instead of a girdle, a rope; and instead of well set hair, baldness; and instead fine clothes, sackcloth; and branding instead of beauty. 25 Your men will fall by the sword, and your mighty in the war. 26 And her gates will lament and mourn; and she being empty/cleansed/desolate will sit on the ground.

 

 

                                              Isaiah 4

 

The eternal LORD makes us His and stays with us forever

 

1 And in that day seven women will take hold of one man saying, We will eat our own bread, and wear our own apparel: only let us be called by your name, to take away our reproach. 2 In that day the branch of the LORD will be splendid and glorious, and the fruit of the earth will be excellent and beautiful for those that have survived of Israel.

 

  • Ezekiel saw God on His sapphire throne high above all. He was the form of a man, fiery amber radiating rainbows (Ezekiel 1:26-28). Revelation 4 describes the same.
  • Jeremiah 33:15In those days, and at that time, I will cause the Branch of righteousness to grow up unto David; and he will execute judgment and righteousness in the land.
  • Revelation 22:4And they will see his face; and his name will be in their foreheads.

 

His presence makes us holy

 

3 And it will happen, that he that is left in Zion, and he that remains in Jerusalem, will be called holy, every one that is written among the living in Jerusalem: 4 When the Lord has washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and has purged the bloodshed/guilt of murder of Jerusalem from its midst by the spirit of judgment, and by the spirit of burning.

 

  • The people in Jerusalem were solving their problems by killing others rather than seeking the Lord.
  • Isaiah 1:18Come now, and let us reason together, says the LORD: though your sins are as scarlet, they will be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they will be as wool.

 

He will place His presence on every dwelling

 

5 Then the LORD will create on every dwelling place of mount Zion and on her assemblies, a cloud and smoke by day, and the shining of a flaming fire by night: for on all the glory will be a covering. 6 And there will be a tabernacle for shade in the daytime from the heat, and for a place of shelter and refuge from storm and from rain.

 

  • The word ‘refuge’ means hiding place.
  • The cloud and fire was the presence of the Lord.
  • Numbers 9:15-23 And on the day that the tabernacle was reared up the cloud covered the tabernacle, that is, the tent of the testimony: and at evening there was on the tabernacle the appearance of fire, until the morning.
  • Psalm 90:1 LORD, you have been our dwelling place in all generations.
  • Psalm 23:6 Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.

 

 

 

 

SUMMARY: Isaiah 1-4

 

  • The Lord will bless and make white as snow those who turn back to Him
  • The glory of His Majesty
  • The Lord alone will be exalted forever
  • God sends famine to bring men back to Himself because He is life
  • God sues bad leaders in the court of heaven
  • The eternal LORD makes us His and stays with us forever
  • He will place His presence on every dwelling