Intro to Isaiah and chapters 1-6

The book of Isaiah was written by the prophet Isaiah. He ministered in Israel and Judah. After Israel was taken over by the Assyrians, he continued to minister only in Judah. He was the prophet during the reign of 4 different kings. 

The name Isaiah means Salvation of the Lord. It is a perfect name for him, because as you will see, He speaks a lot about Jesus, even though Jesus wouldn't even be born for another 700 years. 

The book of Isaiah and the book of Jeremiah are the two longest books in the bible. He has a lot to say about the poor and the people who are being controlled by evil judges and the government. He also talks a lot about the holiness of God. Do you know what the word holy means? It means set apart. So God is set apart from any other idol that the people worshipped. He is the only true God. When He asks us to be holy, just as He is holy, (1 Peter 1:16) He wants us to be set apart for Him. To obey Him and trust Him and not act like everyone else.

Isaiah was a faithful and bold prophet of God. He spoke very specifically about Jesus, the coming Messiah and about His justice, His promises to Israel, His life and death, and His majesty. Isaiah also told of God’s judgment on The Israelites as they continued to turn from Him. However, Isaiah understood not only God’s judgment but also His salvation, mercy, grace, and compassion. He told of these things and confirmed God’s promise that His people would not be completely destroyed.

In Chapter 2, Isaiah tells the Israelites how He chose them and had a perfect plan for them, but that they turned from Him and worshipped idols. God mentions how prideful the Israelites were 10 times in this chapter, so pride is one of their main sins. God says that he "Opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble." (1 Peter 5:5) He warned the people through Isaiah that judgement for their acts of prideful disobedience was coming. 

Chapter 3 is more about judgement, specifically Jerusalem. And how God himself will make sure that they have no food and water. This may seem a bit harsh, but when we turn from God, He will "take away" anything that will keep us from Him. The Israelites were so self reliant, that they thought they didn't need God anymore. We can get that way sometimes. When we get comfortable because we live in a house, we have clothes to wear and food everyday, we can think to ourselves. "I'm doing pretty good on my own." 

In Chapter 4 God, speaking through Isaiah, Gives hope to the Israelite survivors. He mentions the "Branch of the Lord", which means Jesus. Jesus is the Great Hope. He ends chapter four saying that He will be a refuge and a shelter from the storm and rain. "He is our refuge and our shelter" (Psalm 92:1)

Chapter 5 begins with a story about a vineyard. The vineyard is Israel, and Isaiah tells how God cleared a way for the Israelites. Then they turned from Him. God is reminding the people that He chose them and He worked everything together for their sake. But now He tells of more judgement because they turned from Him. 

Chapter 6 takes a turn and Isaiah tells about a day when he saw the Lord sitting on a throne. H was surrounded by angels who kept praising God saying "Holy, Holy, Holy Lord of hosts. The earth is full of your glory!" The earth shook and Isaiah trembled. "I am not worthy to even be here here! I am a sinner! How can I, a man of unclean lips be here before the King of Kings?" Then one of the angels took a hot coal and touched it to Isaiah's lips and declared him cleansed of his sins. Then God asked Isaiah, "who shall I send to the kings with my message?" Isaiah responded. "Send me Lord!". God wants to use us.  Timothy 2:21 says if we are cleansed from our sins and keep ourselves pure, then we can be useful tools in His hands. Wouldn't that be amazing to be used by God! 

Next Time, Isaiah goes before the kings.

The Fall of Judah (2Kings 24 &25) and Ezra

 After Josiah, The next 4 kings were bad. (They didn't do right in the eyes of the Lord)  The kings led the people of Judah away from the Lord. They broke the covenant that God had made with them, which meant that their land would become desolate and the people would be scattered, just as it had happened to Israel 136 years earlier when they were taken over by the Assyrians. The four "bad" kings were Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin and Zedekiah. During the third king's reign, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, surrounded Jerusalem. He went into the temple and carried out most of the gold and silver that was in there. He also took many of the officials and the king as captives. The people of Judah had one last chance to turn back to God, but the next king, Zedekiah, continued to turn his back on God. 

 God is the God of 2nd 3rd 4th and so on chances. Don't ever feel like you've crossed the line of forgiveness and that you can't come back to God. Just confess it to God (which means that you agree with Him that is was wrong) and repent. (Which means turning away from the wrong doing and turning back to God)

King Nebuchadnezzar and his troops continued to surround Jerusalem for the next eleven years. The food ran out and all the people fled. As they were fleeing, King Zedekiah was captured. Then Some of the Babylonians went into Jerusalem and destroyed walls of the city and burnt the temple of God to the ground. They took what few Jews that remained back to Babylon and made them servants and slaves. With all the people gone, the wall torn down and the temple destroyed, the message that the Lord had given through the prophet Jeremiah came to pass. 'The land laid desolate for 70 years.' During the seventy years, the Babylonian empire was taken over by Persia.  .... That concludes the book of 2Kings.
 The next two books of the Bible are 1Chronicles and 2 Chronicles. These two books are recounts of the two Kings books. They begin with the first King of Israel, King Saul, then David's life is recalled with a few more details and finally King Solomon.  After King Solomon died,  2Chronicles  tells of how Israel split into the north kingdom, (Israel) and the south kingdom, (Judah). Finally the fall of Israel and the fall of Judah were covered. So we will pick up our story seventy years after the fall of Judah in the book of Ezra.

 The book of Ezra picks up where 2 Kings left off. Babylon had fallen to the Persians and in the first year of Persian King Cyrus' rule, God touched his heart. The king made a proclamation that all the Jews that were in the land could return to Jerusalem and rebuild the temple. The king also personally brought out valuable items that King Nebuchadnezzar had taken from the temple. Then he ordered that every single item that was taken from the temple be given to the Jews so that they could return them once the temple was rebuilt. Ezra chapter 2 covers a list of all the Jewish exiles that were returning to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple. Chapter 3 describes the first phase of the rebuilding, which was the altar, and then the beginning of the temple rebuild. In Chapter 4, the Jews face opposition when a new king is in charge. The Jews had to put the rebuilding of the temple on hold until the next king, Darius, became ruler of the Persian empire. He reviewed the decree of King Cyrus, and allowed the Jews to resume the rebuilding of the temple. With all the opposition to the rebuilding, it took over 40 years to complete, then Ezra the prophet returned to Jerusalem with many of the Jewish exiles. Chapter 8 of the book of Ezra gives family names of the returning exiles. Ezra made sacrifices in the temple and the people confessed their sins.


Sometimes God touches peoples hearts to fulfill His purposes. Sometimes He touches our hearts too. When God puts something on your heart it is called a burden. He wants you to act. But He won't force you to do anything. If we follow Jesus, we will have burdens placed on our hearts. God may want to bless someone through your actions. And guess what? Then we get blessed too! 

Good and Bad Kings in Israel and Judah...... and King Josiah (2 Kings 8-23)

  Since Israel split in two after King Solomon died (1 Kings 11 and 12), the two kingdoms, Israel in the north and Judah in the south, there were many kings. Every single king in Israel was bad, and most of the kings in Judah were bad, with a couple of good ones sprinkled in. What do I mean by good and bad. The Bible answers this question. Bad king: He did what was evil in the Lord's sight. example..... 2 Kings15:9  Good King: He did what what pleasing in the Lord's sight. example .....2 Kings 15:3  The king had a lot of responsibility, including leading the people according to God's law. When the king went away from the Lord..... the whole country did the same. When the king followed the Lord.... the whole country did the same.
  Many years before this, God told Moses. "If you sin, I will scatter you among the nations." Well since Israel was led by one bad king after another, God finally did what He said He would do. In 2 Kings chapter 17, God swept the Israelites from the land. Assyria attacked Israel, set up their own kings, and sent many of the Israelites out of the land. God had warned them over and over, but the Israelites refused to turn back to Him. Since Judah was led by a good king every few years, God held off scattering them.... for now.
  At the end of 2 Kings 21, we meet the new king of Judah, Amon. He was a bad king, however, he only reigned for 2 years because a few of his servants killed him. So the people made Amon's son king. His name was Josiah and he was a good king. But the amazing thing was his age. How old do you think Josiah was when he became king? He was 8 years old! Some of you reading this are probably older than that right now! The Bible says that Josiah did not turn to the left or the right when it came to following God's law (2 Kings 22:2). Then when he was 26 years old, Josiah had a plan to restore the Temple of the Lord. The temple had been neglected for many years because the people just didn't care about the things of the Lord.

  A high priest named Hilkaih supervised the work. One day he noticed a scroll that was rolled up and stuck in the wall. Hilkaih knew what it was right away. It was The Word Of The Lord! He sent one of the men to go read the scroll to the king.
   When the king heard what was written on the scroll, he became very, distressed. The scroll said, "If you sin, I will destroy the city and I will scatter you among the nations." Right away King Josiah called the High priest. "Go to the temple and pray to God for me and for all the people of Judah."
  In those days, the high priest had direct access to God, Now through Jesus, we can go directly to God in Jesus' name. Josiah not only prayed for himself and guidance, he also prayed for all the people of Judah. What a great example for us! 
 When Hilkaih the high priest returned after praying in the temple, he had this message from God for Josiah. "When you heard what I said in the scroll about destroying the city and scattering the people , you were very distressed and filled with repentance. I have heard your prayers and I will not bring judgement on Judah while you are still alive.
  Josiah called all the leaders, all the priests and all the people of Judah together. He read the whole scroll to everyone. Josiah pledged to follow the entire scroll with his whole heart soul and mind. When the people heard what was written and Josiah's pledge, they pledged as well.
  Right away Josiah ordered that anything to do with idols and false gods be destroyed. He traveled to entire land looking for anything that went against God and destroyed it. Then the land of Judah celebrated the Passover, just as the scrolls had stated.
                                                                               
        We are so blessed to have the Bible. All of God's Word in one book!  The more we read His Word, the more our hearts and minds are transformed. Then we will have a desire to remove all ungodly things from our lives, just as Josiah cleared Judah of the ungodly things. Being good, as we saw earlier, is doing things that are pleasing in God's sight. The Bible speaks to our hearts in such a way, that we know what is pleasing to the Lord.  (Heb 11:6) (Rom 12:1) (1 Thes 2:4) (Phil 4:18)