 Good morning, everyone. Welcome to today's session. We're going to study on the book of the major prophets starting with prophet Isaiah. Our recording has been started. So, even before we could begin with our class, can I request one of us to please lead us in prayer? Can I request Leah Lama or Anita or Aradna, anyone can lead us in prayer. Okay, Sid, please go ahead. Father, we come to the throne of grace. Thank you for this day, Lord. You have given us short as the first day of the week and we are going to learn about the prophets a lot and their prophecies a lot. The book we are going to start a lot, made this learning and not made the prophets a lot. Whatever we are going to learn there will be a blessing and we are adding to the knowledge of Christ in our life. So, thank you for this day, Lord. You have given us. Thank you for all the blessings you have given us and the time we are going to spend learning about the prophet and prophecies, Lord. In Jesus' name, you pray Amen. Amen. I'll just present a PowerPoint presentation for the class. I hope everyone can see this presentation. Okay. So, in Old Testament, we have 39 books out of which we studied on the book of Torah or the Pentateuch. There is the first five books of the Old Testament. And then later, we moved on to the book of history where we had, we studied, we studied on the 12 books of the history. And then from there, we moved on to the wisdom and the poetry books, which is five from the book of Job to song of songs. And now we are starting with the five major prophets book, starting with Isaiah. And then we will move on to Jeremiah, Lamentation, Ezekiel and Daniel, after which we will be covering the minor prophet books, which are 12 books from the book of Hosea till Malachi. So, with this, we will move on to the book of Isaiah. Yeah. So, the book of Isaiah compromising 66 chapters and is one of the most profound theological and the literary expressive works in the Bible, which is compiled over a period of two centuries, like later half of the eighth century and also the later half of the sixth century BC. So, the book of Isaiah is generally divided by the scholars into three major sections, which are called the first Isaiah. Let me move on to the next slide. The first Isaiah that is from chapter one to 39. And then it is called as the Deutero. Isaiah covers from chapter 40 to 55 and Trito Isaiah chapters 56 to 66. Well, the first Isaiah, which covers from chapter one to 39, they believe, you know, the scholars say that it is written by Isaiah himself. Well, the Deutero Isaiah from 40 to 55 and Trito Isaiah from 56 to 66. They believe to be written by the disciples of Isaiah from the school of prophets. Well, all this were written, believed to be written in Judah. And we look at his personal life, little bit about Isaiah's personal life. There's very little information given about Isaiah that he was married to women. The prophetess, which has been mentioned in Isaiah chapter eight verse three, and she bore two sons. Isaiah has two sons, which is also listed in Isaiah chapter seven verse three and Isaiah chapter eight verse three. And according to the Jewish tradition, or in Old Testament, it is known as the Hebrew tradition, Isaiah was martyred by the wicked king Manasseh, who placed him in the hallowed trunk of a carrot tree and was sown into two. And many believe the book of Hebrews in the New Testament in Hebrew chapter 11 verse 37, where in the list of heroes of faith, he says, sown ascender, where it refers to the prophet of Isaiah. Well, Isaiah was also a Hebrew poet, a prophet who was believed to have lived about 700 years before Christ birth. He was also born in Jerusalem, and he was said to have found his calling as a prophet when he saw a vision in the year of King Uzziah. Okay, one second, somebody has logged in, I'll just admit them. Yeah, so Isaiah prophesied the coming of the Messiah, Jesus Christ, and he spoke on God's behalf to the leaders of Jerusalem and Judah. He spoke first of all on the message of God's judgment. And later, he warned Israel corrupt leaders that their rebellion against the covenant with God would come at a cost. And that God was going to use the great empires of Assyria. And after them, Babylon would judge Israel, sorry, yeah, judge Jerusalem, if they persisted in the idolatry and into their sin nature. But that announcement combined also with the message of hope in the later part. So as I talk about the judgment, as I talk about the judgment, the way Isaiah put it across and later the hope, it also talks about in the book of Isaiah, if you see how the books have been arranged, the first 39 books of the Old Testament, which is talking about the judgment and immorality and the idolatry of men, you know, it compares, we can compare that to the 39 books of the Old Testament. And later, the remaining 27 chapters in the book of Isaiah gives a message of hope. And we can compare that to the 27 books of the New Testament, where the Messiah is coming as a savior and sovereign Lord to bear a cross and to wear a crown on himself. So here the complete, the total 66 chapters of Isaiah is been compared with the books of the Old Testament and also with the books of the New Testament. We also see that Isaiah believed deeply that God would one day fulfill all of his covenant promise that he would send a king from David's line to establish God's kingdom. And we also see that in 2 Samuel chapter 7, that he would lead Israel in obedience of the law of the covenant made at Mount Sinai. The law that was given to Moses, we see that in Exodus 19 and all of this was so that God's blessing and salvation would flow outward to all of the nations to whom God had promised to Abraham. And it's this hope that compelled Isaiah to speak out the corruption, the idolatry of Israel in his day to warn them, to ask the people to repent and come back. And later he delivers a message of hope to the people who have received who can hope for the Messiah. I'm sorry. With this, we will move on to the notes as well. Before we could move on to the notes, I just project this slide. Here we see the same thing. Whatever I just explained from chapter 1 to 66, we see that the first books are compared to the Old Testament, which talks about the day of the Lord, the judgment. And later 27 books are being compared with the New Testament, where it talks about the messianic and also about the hope that we have with the coming Messiah. And also, the first 36 books, the prophecies were directly written by Isaiah. And later, from chapter 37 to 66, we see his disciples, where the prophets from his school wrote, compiled it together. The scholars believe that way. With this, we will move on to our notes. I'll just stop presenting this and we can directly go to our notes. We just saw the background. We saw this. The authors, we know, Isaiah is also known as Saint Paul of the Old Testament. The New Testament quotes from all parts of the book were crediting to Isaiah from many passages. We see that in the book of John, quotes from Isaiah 6, chapter 6, verse 9 to 10. And also we see some of the quotes from the book of Matthew, chapter 3 and 4. And also from the book of Romans, we see the quotes from the book of Isaiah. And they are the quotations from the second part of Isaiah by the other Old Testament prophets who wrote prior to the exile and the situation Christian traditional views are only one, Isaiah. We see that and Isaiah as a man, he was a writer, he wrote history that reigns from among the four kings from Uzziah, Ahas. And he was also a statesman, patriot denouncing all foreign alliance. And he was a reformer like Noah preached righteousness and exposed the formalism as a poor substitute for spirituality. He was also a major prophet, teacher and a theologian during his time. And Isaiah has been called as the prince of the Old Testament prophets, the great messianic prophet, the fifth evangelist after Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. He's been recognized as the fifth evangelist who talks about the messiah and the prophet of redemption, the evangelical prophet, Saint Paul of the Old Testament, the gospel according to Isaiah after Matthew, Mark and Luke and John's gospel, the prophet of the sons as he speaks more of messiah than any other prophet. And well, the purpose of this book is to show that Judah has a form of godliness, yet it is corrupt, immoral and social and political. So he is warning them to come out of the idolatry and the very purpose of this and also he gives a great promise of messiah delivering a message of hope to the Israel. And there's some additional information that has been mentioned in the book of Isaiah with with law of course from the New Testament. And there is a detailed background. I would encourage each of us to please go through it. There's some unique features in the comparison with the other books of the Bible with this as an outline. Okay, so we will get back to our notes. So we will turn to our Bible from chapter one to 12. The main section focuses on Isaiah's vision of judgment and hope for Jerusalem. And it begins as Isaiah accuses the city leaders of the covenant rebellion and idolatry injustice. And God says he's going to judge the city by sending a nation to conquer Israel. And Isaiah says that this will be like a purifying fire that burns away all that worthless in Israel in order to create a new Jerusalem that's populated by a remnant that has repented and turned back to God. And we also see that Isaiah, what happened? So we also see that Isaiah says that when God's kingdom will come that all the nation will come to the temple in Jerusalem and learn of God's justice, bringing about the age of universal peace and harmony. Now it's this basic storyline of the old Jerusalem purifying judgment into the new Jerusalem. This is going to get repeated over and over throughout the book getting filled in with, you know, in increasing detail so that at the center of the section in Israel's grand vision of God sitting is on the throne in the temple and the surrounded by this heavenly creatures that are shouting that God is holy, holy, holy. And Isaiah suddenly realizes just how corrupt that he and his people Israel are. And he certainly, and he knows like, you know, this sin and this unholiness will be destroyed. And he prays, he seeks God for God's holiness. And he says that we are not holy. And when he asked God to cleanse, so God's holiness in the form of this burning cold comes and burns him, but not destroying him. It burns his lips, but not destroying him, but rather it purifies him from his sin. And as Isaiah ponders the strange experience that God commissions him in a vision with this very difficult task to keep announcing the coming judgment. But because of Israel has reached a point of no return as warnings are going to have a serious effect on hardening of people if they don't repent. At the same time, Isaiah is trusting on God's plan that Israel is going to is comparing it to a chopped tree. Like if the tree is chopped and left like the stump in a field and itself is scorched, burnt, but all of that burning, God says that this stump is a holy seed that will survive into the future. And it is a small sign of hope that who or what is that holy seed? So the stump has been compared with that holy seed and now we may think who is this holy seed? The rest of the section will give us that answer. Who is this holy seed? Where we will talk about it in the later section. Well, Isaiah confronts a has a descendant of a king of from the David's line. Just give me a minute, please. He has was a descendant of king and the king of Jerusalem and he announced his downfall because God said that his great empire of Assyria will first chop Israel down and devastate the land. But there is a hope because of God's promise to David that he is going to send a new king named Emmanuel, which means God with us and Emmanuel kingdom is going to set God's people free from this violent oppressive empire. And also Isaiah describes that the coming king as a small shoot or a new growth that will emerge from that stump that was cut off that is from the David's family. It's this king that is known as the holy seed, which has been stated in chapter six in this book of Isaiah. And the king is going to be empowered by God's spirit to rule over a new Jerusalem and bring justice for the poor and all the nations will look to this messianic king for guidance and his king will transform his kingdom will transform all the creations and bringing peace with this. We will move on. We will move on to the next chapter. We see that Isaiah saw another empire rising after Assyria, that is Babylon would also attack Jerusalem and actually succeed in destroying it completely along with the temple and we see that from chapter 13 to 27 where he says that with the large collection of poems he explores God's judgment over Israel. Like a year we learn about the fall of Babylon and Israel's neighbor and we also see that Isaiah could see that a very serious world power would one day be replaced by the empire of Babylon, nation even more destructive and arrogant. And Babylon's king claimed that they were higher than all other gods and so God was to bring Babylon down because of the pride that they carried within them and not only Babylon but Isaiah also goes on to list Israel's neighbors accusing them all of the same kind of pride and injustice and here we see that Isaiah predicts their ultimate ruin but he remembers for God's judgment is never the final word for Israel or the nations. With this we will move on to chapter 24 to 27. Here we see again a list of poems that tells us a tale of two cities their lofty that has exalted itself above God and they corrupt nature and unjust which you know which stirred God's anger and this city is an rebellious in in nature and it described with the language that's all bored from Isaiah's earlier description of Jerusalem and then later Assyrian and then later Babylon which is all put together. Well now this city is destined for ruin and one day is going to be replaced by the new Jerusalem where God will reign as a king over the redeemed humanity from all the nations and there's no more death no more suffering and here Isaiah is also portraying a message pointing far beyond his own day it was a message for all who are waiting for God to bring a justice on this violent oppressive kingdoms and kings and also the injustice with the with the injustice nature of people and to bring the kingdom of justice and peace and healing love among all the people around them they are looking forward for that messianic king to reign and the following section in chapter 26 to 38 we see Isaiah is predicting that the Assyrian armies come and try to attack the city and so Ezekiah humbles himself before God and he prays for divine deliverance and the city is miraculously saved by overnight but Ezekiah rises and immediately followed by his own fall also as he hosted a delegation from the Babylon and he tried to impress them by showing everything whatever he had the position israel's treasury he showed them the temple the palace everything to the Babylon kings and it clearly made an effort for them you know or he thought he can impress them with political alliance and protection but then later it turns to be his own fall and Isaiah hears about this and he confronts Ezekiah for his foolishness he predicts that his partner will one day betray him and return as an enemy to conquer Jerusalem and we know that in second kings chapter 24 and 25 that Isaiah was right what happened to Ezekiah was Babylon plundered Jerusalem and it destroyed everything and it brought Israel temple and the kingdom into ruins over a hundred years later this happened yeah and we see Isaiah also warns of his divine judgment which led he shows to be a true prophet because all that e-prophesy was fulfilled and remember the purpose of God's judgment to purify Jerusalem and bring the holy seed that is the messianic kingdom over all the nation and it's that hope that gets explored in the next check section that is from chapter 40 onwards we see the first main section of 40 through 48 opens with the announcement of hope and comfort for Israel that people are told that Babylonian exile is over and Israel's sin has been dealt with and the new era is going to begin so that they would return back home to Jerusalem where God himself will bring his kingdom and all the nations will see the glory now we can we can ask a question like who was saying all this to us whose voice are we hearing in these words of hope well the prophet in these chapters is that somebody who's living after the exile in other words the time period described by Ezra and Nehemiah but Isaiah died in 150 years before any of that so what are we supposed to make this year it is the it is the prophets who were from his school who were there who who actually noted all Isaiah's prophecies and they saw the fulfillment started you know writing it started noting and you know recording it for later purpose for us so 200 years into the future that he's speaking to the future generation as if the exile has passed over and you know it gives a deliverance message of hope so here we see the prophets from the school have been recorded all that Isaiah has been said so in chapter 8 to 29 and then 30 we were told that Isaiah was rejected by the Israel leaders that he wrote and sealed up a scroll of his message of judgment and hope that he passed it on to his disciples as a witness for the days to come yeah so now the chapters are one to 30 line way designed to show the judgment talks about the prediction of judgment that was that they fulfilled in the exile and it also says that Isaiah was a true prophet now we are moving to the next section of the 27 chapters which is describing or giving us a hope talks about the Messiah and so after exile is over Isaiah's disciple have treasured his words so long and open up the scroll and began applying his words of hope to their own days so on this view the book of Isaiah consists of the first collection of Isaiah words as well the writings of his prophet a prophetic disciples and then and then we also see a view that end up everybody agrees that these chapters were announcing that the future hope has come so God is fulfilling Isaiah's prophetic promises and so the prophet gives us a hope that Israel will respond by becoming God's servant that is after experiencing God's justice and mercy through history that they will now begin to share with the nations who God truly is but that's not what's happening in Israel instead we are we are seeing the witness to the nation is actually we see actually they are complaining and accusing God here he says first that the exile to Babylon was not divine neglect rather it was divinely orchestrated as a judgment for israel sin and second we see that israel's uh it was for the israel's sake that God raised a persia to conquer Babylon so that they would come back fulfilling Isaiah's words so the right conclusion that we see that we see that israel would draw is that their god is a king of history not the idols of the nation so in fall of Babylon and the rays of persian king cyrus israel should see god's hand at work so it becomes a servant telling the nation who god is but the end of the trial in chapter 48 we find that israel is still as rebellion or hard hearted as they were before so they are now so god disqualifies them has a servant but god god's uh but god is still on his mission to bless the nation but we'll see how we will fulfill that so the prophet says one second some days a lot and i'll just admit them yeah so the prophet is saying god's going to do a new thing to solve this problem which moves into the next section from 149 to 55 so here we see the introduction to a figure who's called god's servant who's going to fulfill god's mission and do what israel has failed to do and god gives his servant the title israel and sends this person on a mission to first of all restore the people of israel back to their god but second to become god's light to the nation and here we are told that his servant is empowered by god's spirit to announce good news and to bring god's kingdom over all the nation it sounds just like the messianic king from chapter 9 and 11 but then we learn um we also see that in chapter 61 as we see that he's been empowered by god's spirit to announce the good news and we see that fulfillment being when jesus came on this earth when he started his ministry we see him go into the synagogue open the scroll of isiah and start from isiah 61 saying that the spirit of the lord is upon me he has anointed me to proclaim the good news to the poor we see the whole few of the verses been narrated by jesus himself and we see that has also been recorded in the book of look but then later we learn the surprising way of how this servant will bring god's kingdom that he is going to be rejected beaten and ultimately killed by his own people in reality as he's been accused and sentenced sentenced to death and he's also going to die on behalf of the sin of his own people so the prophet here we see that he's been prophesying completely on the messiah who is jesus who actually we can see the fulfillment of the prophecy which was been prophesied by isiah that time in the new testament and then after his death all of a sudden he also says about he also prophesies about his resurrection servant is just alive again and he hears that his death he provided a way to make people righteous that is to put them in a right relationship with god the restoration of human back to god we see the prophecy been fulfilled in the new testament and with this section concludes by describing the two ways people can respond to the servant some will respond with humility and turn from their sin and accept god servant did on the behalf the work that he did on the cross and these people are called the servants or the children of god and also the seed remember the holy seed that we spoke before in chapter 6 is the seed and these are the ones who will experience the blessings of the messianic kingdom but there are others who are called simply the wicked who rejects the servant that is rejects jesus and this teaching which brings us to the final section of this book from chapter 56 to 66 where the servant inherits god's kingdom and these chapters are beautifully designed as a designed and which brings together all of the themes of this book together at the very center and there are three beautiful points that describes how spirit empowered servant is announcing the good news of god's kingdom to the poor and he reaffirms all of the promises of hope from earlier in the book of the new Jerusalem which is inhabited by god servant will be the place from which god's justice and mercy and blessing will flow out to all the nation of the world and and which will surround the points and our two long long prayers of repentance have been recorded in these chapters where the servant confesses israel sin and they grieve over all the evil they see in the world and around them and they ask god to forgive them and that his kingdom would come here on earth as it is on heaven now on each side of these prayer are the collections of more poems that contrast the destiny of the servants with that the wicked who has been who persecuted them god is saying that he's going to bring justice to all who pollute his good world with their evil and selfishness and idolatry and it's going to remove them from his city forever but the servant but the servant those who are humble before god and who repent and their own evil they are forgiven and they will inherit the new jerusalem because they have repented and asked for forgiveness which we discover in an image for an entire renewed new creation will be in the new jerusalem and this brings us to the very outer frame of this part of the book in this renewed world of god's kingdom god's people from all the nations have been invited to come and join the servants of god's covenant family so that everyone would know that their creator and redeemer is the messiah is a servant so the book of isiah ends with a very grand vision of the fulfillment of all god's covenant promise through the suffering servant that god has created a covenant family of all the nations who are waiting with hope for god's justice and you know to bring that messiah through whom they will be delivered through whom they will be set free through whom they can see experience the peace and love of god so here we see god's kingdom finally come here on earth as it is in heaven and that's the very powerful hope that the book of isiah is actually declaring or or prophesying to the people of israel where there was a turmoil and a loss of hope but here in the last 27 chapters we see that isiah is giving us a message of hope giving them a promise that this is just not the end but then we have god's mercy and love on us that god will never cut off the promise that he made to david but then he will give us the messiah who will reign from david's line and he will be obedient until his death and he come and he prophesies over jesus and how we'll be birthed and how his life will be led and till his death and ascension and how we will redeem israel and set us back into the new generously new world with full of hope and love so this message just then stir the people of israel who were in exile or after the exile but then it also gives us a hope to us as we read the book of isiah we see the prophecy of isiah which has been fulfilled and it it also gives us a hope that as we are also waiting just like them for the second coming of jesus that with all hope we can wait because those prophecies will come true so that even though we die even we can believe that we will be we will live alive with jesus within the new jerusalem this is the hope of message with isiah delivered to the people in israel and today this book is also gives us stirs the same kind of hope to us that as we wait on the second coming of jesus with this i end with the book of isiah and i'll keep it open to our class to to share on on the book of isiah what personally you have learned from this book you can take this time to share your learnings open to class as you can share about what you learn from the book of isiah how it has impacted you i think as we already mentioned that there are quite a lot of prophecies which we can take for our personal lives as well um one of which which one of the prophecies which really encouraged me these days was chapter 32 was 18 isiah chapter 32 was 18 then my people will live in a peaceful habitation and in secure dwellings and in undisturbed resting places which i think we can declare it over our families and any relationship that is broken or any place where any houses which we feel like there are there is discomfort there is disturbances we can apply these promises and declare god's favor amen thank you thank you john anyone else who'd like to share your experience from the book of isiah yes please thank you so i say as even you were mentioning like there's a lot of comfort that promises that give us so much comfort and now for me there are lots of favorites in isiah one is especially isiah 4110 i think i had already mentioned it once like where god assures his presence with us and asks us not to be afraid do not fear from with you do not be dismayed for i'm your god i'll strengthen you and help you i'll uphold you with my righteous right hand so it's there has been you know our times in my life that this verse has really helped me get over you know difficulties that assurance of god's presence also these days here the waiting on the lord especially the words that says those who wait on the lord will renew their strength leave them on wings like eagles so those verses yeah we as you were mentioning also like the even though in the beginning we see the judgment but we see a god who cannot you know just leave his children by themselves like orphans even in isiah i think 49 there's a verse which says i have engraved you on the palm of my hands like even if your mother forgets you i'll not forget you so these are promises to the nation of israel but yeah yet it is promised to us individually as well individually as well yes yes yeah this reminds me about isiah 43 also individually when we read it it brings so much of comfort to us yes yes thank you thank you thank you so much yeah anyone else pastor yes i found the the book of israel to be one of the most profited books in the bible and they realized that most of the prophecies that go through the prophet israel were fulfilled in christ jesus it gives us the hope that whatever god has said concerning our lives will also be fulfilled in its due in its due time and i also realized that the people went into activity because of their own sin so you must not blame god for the predicament that comes to us as a result of our own willful sins you must humbly surrender to god and ask for his forgiveness so that he can restore us to our lost glory i also realized that god does not give up on his children he always wants to win the hearts of his children back to himself so through his prophets he speaks to us and he calls us to repentance similarly he is speaking through jesus christ in our in the new testament era calling us all back into repentance so that we will be restored to the lost glory of humanity these are the few thoughts i want to share from the book of israel thank you thank you thank you laisha thank you anyone else who'd like to add on to this book brother lubega brother subhashish yes first of all actually this book is a prophetic book and a long time before jesus actually came to this earth uh isai prophesized that uh jesus will be pierced for our translations and uh in isaac 53 verse 5 to 6 and it's really wonderful that god has uh revealed a huge word through isa long long time before and um we really thank god and that god opened the doors for our translations through jesus and and it's really amazing that how uh isa actually revealed and um really means so i praise god that how actually that time will be that people they uh they were with isa because these are the days we have many prophets and and it's really challenging for us to believe who is the real and who is the false prophets because sometimes they prophesize and happen sometimes they prophesize and and they maybe uh they denied okay maybe some other things but this is a really i really like i said the whatever the things actually god has uh spoken through him and it and it actually had happened and uh he said that uh with his wound we are healed and it happened that jesus actually because of his wound that we are healed many times we yeah thank you so much thank you thank you brother okay anyone would like to go share their experience or the worst that has been impacted in their life from the book of isaia if not we can dismiss with a word of prayer okay zellie would you like to dismiss us with a word of prayer you're still on mute elasha would you like to lead us in prayer i think there's some problem that zellies might thank you we are praying i want to thank you and bless your name for this great opportunity you have granted us all through the study of your way that we pray in the name of jesus that as we have discarded discovered from the book of isaia that your promises are yet and amen and surely they will come to pass at the right time we pray that lord all prophets is concerning the son of god jesus rise forth where fulfilled we pray that may you fulfill whatever that you have said concerning our lives in the name of jesus but we pray that lord whenever we are falling off your grace may your mercy continue to uphold as as you have held the people of isaia in your mighty arms we pray that lord oh god continue to guide us with your words speak to us each and every moment as you spoke through the prophet isaia when we are going astray lord speak to us by your spirit in jesus mighty name we thank you and we want to bless you for the lives of each and every person in this session in jesus mighty amen amen amen thank you god bless thank you in laisha thank you all for joining in today's session see you all tomorrow god bless have a wonderful day thank you god bless