Isaiah 40: Cyrus or John the Baptist?

0:02 Looking at our world from a theological perspective. This is the Theology Central podcast, making Theology Central. Good evening everyone. I know I'm interrupting. I know I'm interrupting the World Series. I'm interrupting college football. There's like a million things going on. I know I'm interrupting all of that. Most of you just look down on your device. You saw the notification. You're like, he's out of his mind. I'm watching the World Series. I'm watching the NBA, I'm watching the NHL, I'm watching college football. He's out of his mind. I'm not going to listen to another episode of the Theology Central podcast. Perfectly understood. It makes perfect sense. So you enjoy your sports whenever you get to this. Just no, you know you ignored me. But hey, that's okay. That's so I'm still here the broadcasting now. To be honest, I think I would rather be Well, the Yankees are currently losing, so I don't know if I want to be currently watching the World Series or not. But yeah, there's probably other things I would like to do. But I here, I am, and well we have to talk.

1:06 So are you ready? Good evening everyone. It is Saturday. Saturday is Key Saturday, October the twenty six, twenty twenty four. It is currently eight thirty one pm Central Time, and I am coming to you live from the Theology Central Studio located right here in Abilene, Texas. Now why is Saturday key? Well, because Saturday I do a lot of sermon prep and I've been doing a lot of work for tomorrow. We're going to we got Romans chapter four, and we're going to begin, I think, a very long journey through Isaiah chapter forty through Isaiah chapter fifty five. And the reason we're going to be doing all of this work is because it all started with a little game. Right, how long does it take a pastor to insert you and me? How long does it take a pastor to insert us into Isaiah chapter forty five? Three, Let's play a little game and find out. And it took less than forty seconds. And then we reviewed another sermon and it took well less than zero seconds because the tunitle of the sermon inserted us into Isaiah forty three. So I have been bothered by all the ways pastors handle Isaiah forty three. Then we went back to what sixteen seventy eight saw how John Bunyan handled Isaiah forty three in The Pilgrim's Progress, and well that started it. Like at that point, I was gone, right, I mean, I just started spiraling and spiraling. I'm like, Okay, we've got to figure this section out. So I could sit here

2:38 and just complain. I could play sermon after sermon after sermon after sermon and say this is crazy, this is crazy, this is crazy. Or I could try to do something more positive. And that's what we're going to do. Since Isaiah forty three falls into this section that goes from Isaiah forty to Isaiah fifty five, sometimes called the Book of Comfort, the Comfort section, well, then we're going to look at the entire section. Now we're going to take a little bit of criticism that we have offered, and instead of just focusing on being critical, we're going to try to build something much more positive, which is hopefully by the time it's over, you're going to understand Isaiah forty to Isaiah fifty five better than you ever have in your entire life. That's the goal. And we're going to be doing a lot of things. So I've already told you start work, start reading Isaiah forty to fifty five Isaiah chapter forty to Isaiah fifty five. Make it your Make it it's your new friend. Make it your new friend, make it your your your new companion. Become very close with it. Read it and read it, and read it and read it and reread it, and begin listening to as many sermons as you can on Isaiah forty to fifty five. Between reading it, listening to sermons, and then joining us in our study, I can promise you you're going to know more about it than people who go to seminary or Bible college. You're going to know more about it. So I'm going to do my very best because I'm just bothered. Look, I just I just don't understand pastors who are and Okay, maybe maybe

4:09 this is self serving, maybe this is selfish, maybe this is motivated by jealousy. I'll be willing to admit me I'm a sinner, like I've told you all the time. I'm just a center with a microphone. But I'm just gonna be honest with you. It bothers me greatly when I see these sermons, say on the sermon's two point oh app or some other platform, they'll have thousands upon thousands upon thousands of you know, downloads or hundreds or whatever the number is, and I'll be like, look at how many people listen to that. I'll see all the comments amazing, great, wonderful. And then you listen to it and you're like, what in the name of bubblegum did they do to the text of scripture? What they There's nothing great about that? Why do they? And then you'll notice that they'll be, you know, a pastor of some large church. You have two, three, four, five hundred people.

4:59 They've got resources, they've got money, they've got this, they've got that, And I'm like, why is that? What is popular? And I know that that's a little self serving. I'm just gonna be honest with you, but it can become discouraging. I'm like, look, so I guess to be in order to be a popular preacher, what I do is I just make stuff up about the text and then people love it. So I just got to figure out what the people want make it up because no one really cares if what's being said about the text is accurate. I know that sounds very critical, very cynical, but that's the feeling I get sometimes I look at these sermons. I'm like, wait, that's got that many downloads. Everybody thinks it's a wonderful. It's an absolute travesty to the text.

5:43 So I mean, when you go to Isaiah forty three and insert us into the text, I'm sorry, ladies and gentlemen, that's a problem because we don't belong in Isaiah forty three, in fact, the entire section. So we earlier today we reviewed and started reviewing another sound Our sermon. And the reason we did so as well, because it's a sermon where the text is Isaiah chapter forty. In fact, the beginning of the sermon, they read the entire chapter. But the entire chapter or the entire sermon is about the election of twenty sixteen, And I'm like, wait, so Isaiah forty in fact, he read all of Isaiah forty and then immediately started talking about the elections presidential elections in the United States of America. Now, to be fair, he did get to Isaiah forty and he did start working on it, but it started getting very confusing, and he made some very good points. He made some very good points.

6:41 I don't want to be all critical, but then it kind of just started bothering me. All right, So Isaiah chapter forty, let me just just remind you of a couple of things, because I think it's very important, all right, the section, and because we kind of stumbled upon this reality in the last broadcast, right And I'm going to make a big deal about this tomorrow if I get to it in the first hour. But I think this is very important because it's like I was, it was, how can I state it was? It was confusing because depending on which source I was reading, it didn't do a very good job of offering clarification. So let me offer the clarification. Right when you look at Isaiah forty to chapter Isaiah chapter forty to Isaiah chapter fifty five, we see that as a section. It's an entire section, all right, And this section offers comfort, hope, and assurance to the people of Israel during the Babylonian exile. All right, So you could say, Isaiah forty to fifty five, it's to offer comfort, it's to offer I mean, how do I have this written down? Comfort, hope, and assurance to the people of Israel during the Babylonian exile? So you could and then if you read that, you could think, okay, so then God gives these words to Isaiah, and Isaiah's to deliver this to the people when they're in exile. Right, That's how you could possibly just read. And a lot of the commentaries kind of stated that way here here,

8:13 and even in the sermon we heard, it was God gave these words to Isaiah, and Isaiah was to bring them to the people. Now. To be fair, he did draw a distinction that this was prior to the exile, but he didn't really explain. And some of the commentaries are like, this is this is the message of God to Isaiah to the people in exile. Well, that's that's all a little misleading and a little confusing. And here's the reason why, all right, this is very important. It is important to recognize that this message Isaiah forty to fifty five, very important, all right, was given to Isaiah and written down long before the exile actually occurred. These words were given into Isaiah way before the exile occurs.

9:03 Isaiah does not deliver this message to the people in exile. In fact, this happens depending if we look at this correctly, it looks like over one hundred years, meaning the people at the time who hear this message, are dead before the exile begins. Isaiah is dead before the exile begins. So everyone, So these are words too, These are prophetic words of comfort, of hope, of assurance, but they're not necessarily for the people at the time. All right, if we try to break this down, understand Isaiah's ministry. Isaiah was a prophet in Judah during the latter half of the eighth century around seven forty to seven hundred BC. During Isaiah's time, the dominant threat to Israel and Judah came from the Assyrian Empire, which conquered the Northern Kingdom of Israel and seven twenty two BC. So the Northern Kingdom would have been conquered during Isaiah's ministry, right, Judah under the reign of King Hezekiah. Yeah, okay, yeah, yeah, that would be correct. I want to make sure I was getting that right, sir. Okay. Judah under the reign of King Hezekiah survived the Assyrian threat, but Judas's future was still uncertain. Isaiah lived during the reign of several kings of Judah, and his prophecies addressed the current threats of Assyria and Judas's own unfaithfulness. However, Isaiah also looked ahead to a future events, including the rise of Babylon as the next great empire prophecy of the Babylonian exile.

10:29 This would be future, though a babylon had not yet risen to power during Isaiah's lifetime. Isaiah first saw the Babylonian captivity that would occur in the future as a result of Judas ongoing rebellion against God. Isaiah thirty nine six through seven. Isaiah specifically prophesied that the Babylonians would come and take away everything from Jerusalem, including members of the royal family. This foreshadowed the Babylonian conquests of Jerusalem and five eighty six BC and the exile that followed. The Babylonian exile was God's judgment on Judah for its continued idolatry and disobedience to the Covenant. This judgment came over one hundred years after Isaiah's death. All Right, So these are words of comfort, but they're not They are words of comfort that for a situation that's over one hundred years away. Right, that's very very important. Okay, So the way the sermon we heard today was kind of like well, Isaiah was to take these words to the people and offer them comfort. They're still in their sin, they're still in their rebellion, and their rebellion is going to lead them to seventy years of exile and Babylon.

11:44 So it was very like he did not clean it up at all. In fact, if you're just sitting in the pew, you may have been all discombobulated and confused. And in fact, if you go back and listen to my review, I even got a little confused. And not only because of the sermon. I was looking at more. I was looking at my study Bible, was looking at commentaries, and the way even they described it was, Hey, these are the words to those in exile. But they did not stop to go. However, when these words were given, it was still one hundred years before they went into exile. Right, So Isaiah forty through fifty five, which was a message of comfort and restoration, was written before the exile. Isaiah forty through fifty five was likely written during Isaiah's lifetime around the eighth century BC, well before the Babylonian exile occurred.

12:31 These chapters contained prophecies meant to comfort Israel in the future when they would be in Babylonian exile. In this section, God speaks words of comfort to the exiled Israelites. Now he does, but he does so one hundred years before it happens. You have to understand that. Now again, here's what happens. If your entire sermon is about you, me, the election you, then you don't make time for this kind of information because you're so wanting to shove us into it, all right, so that the timing of this is important. So here we go Isaiah, Chapter forty, Verse one, Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. Now the way these people are going to be comforted is this prophetic comfort. Now, this is the message that's going to bring comfort to the people when they are in exile.

13:26 Now are what are these words of comfort? Verse two, speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem. Now when it says, be a comfort my people, this is not you, this is not me. This is not about the election of twenty sixteen, the election of twenty twenty, the election of twenty twenty four, or any other election. These are words to the people and Babylonian exile. Those are the people who need comforted. These words of comfort are for them. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem. I mean, you're getting the idea. My people is Israel, Jerusalem, You're getting the idea. Cry under her that her war fair is accomplished, her warfare is accomplished, her suffering, her exile, her captivity. It's all come to an end, right, that her iniquity is pardoned, that all of the suffering has come to an end. And remember, many times future events are spoken in past tense. Now that the message today that we were reviewing did acknowledge that, and that was very good and worth the entire sermon.

14:26 But hey, your sins have been pardoned, for she hath received of the Lord, for she that is Israel Judah. They have received of the Lord a hand double of all her sins. Now there's much disagreement on the double part. Did they receive double? But the main thing is they have suffered, They have suffered, they have suffered. They have paid for their sins by their suffering, by the destruction of the temple, captivity, death, slave, all the things that have happened to them, it has all been accomplished God, that God has put them in the captivity, and now it has come to end. End. Now in the sermon that we were listening to today. The pastor then made a kind of a startling comment, are you ready? How did this happen? And so how did this happen? Which would be how did this happen? How did what happen?

15:27 How did the Babylonian exile come to an end? And how were all of these wonderful things? Your warfare is ended, you've been forgiven and you have received of the Lord's hand double for all your sins. How does this all come to an end? How is this all fulfilled? How does this all happen? And then he made the startling comment because God comes to the earth, wait what And the pastor jumps from the five hundred BC timeframe to well, the time of christ incarnation, and you're like, wait, wait, wait, wait, So Christ's incarnation is like five hundred years away. Christ's coming to earth did not bring about the Babylonian exile coming to an end. In fact, it's completely separate. So what he does He starts spiritualizing this, your warfare, your your sins are a part. This is all spiritual and this is all fulfilled in Christ. He starts spiritualizing it, and you're like, wait a minute. If we put this in any kind of historical context, you can't point to Christ as the one that fulfills the fixes the Babylonian captivity.

16:33 That's not. That's not the way it happened. So I was baffled by that. Now, the reason he did that is because of verses three through five. Because if you look at Isaiah forty three through five, you read the voice of him that crieth in the wilderness. Prepare ye. The way of the Lord makes straight, and the desert a highway for our God. Now you know that these verses are referenced in the New Testament, and they are applied to John the Baptist. So that's why he said, hey, how is this fulfilled? There? But wait a minute. Sometimes in the Old Testament a prophecy may have an immediate context, and then it is used in a future context when the Gospel writers use this, when this is cided of John the Baptist, now wait a minute, that obviously is now utilizing it in a completely separate textual and historical context.

17:35 But your job as a good Bible student is like, wait a minute, what does this have to do for Look, Verses three through five has to have something to do with the people who are in Babylonian captivity, because these are words of comfort to them, not words of comfort for people living five hundred years later. This is primarily for the people living in Babylonian exile. What are the words of comfort there? What is this have anything to do with Well, we're gonna talk about that. But what we're gonna do is gonna go back to the sermon and just pick it back up. Now he's kind of right in the middle explaining Isaiah forty two. He's doing a little bit of spiritualizing, right, He's already entered. He's already inserted Christ and the Isaiah forty two. He's already basically he's taken the phrase my people, and it's gone way beyond Israel. He's already doing a lot of things with the text. Now, just remember the volume is a little lower on this. I was going to go ahead and fix it, but I had it queued up and ready to go, and if I went and fixed it, then I would have to download it, then upload it, then artificially increase the volume, then download it, then upload it again, and then I would have lost the place I had saved, and I had to go back and listen and try to find a place to start it.

18:49 So I hope it's okay. I didn't hear any emails complaining too much about the volume in the first one. But so here we go. We're going to go back a little bit, and what we're gonna do is we're waiting for him to say. He's going to say something along these lines, how does this occur? How does this happen? And just remember he's taking a historical situation, the Babylonian captivity of Judah. He's going to ask, how is this, how does this come to an end? How is this accomplished? How what is the solution to it? And then he's going to just jump five hundred years into the future and say, because of Christ, that just logically completely falls apart.

19:31 So let's just see how this plays out, because I'm just baffled by this. And then I'm going to offer you what I think. I think there's a solution. I think I think there's a All right, let's just see what happens. And he says, now Jerusalem, Israel has received abundant judgment from the Lord's hand for all of her sins. She has suffered enough for her sin, though she's not suffered as much as she deserved. And so even though this severe judgment would come through the Babylonians and others, for hundreds of years before Christ, they were becoming a time in which God says, that's enough. Now people deserve to be punished far more, but there will be a satisfaction in their place. Now, how is this going to happen?

20:29 How is this comfort, this cessation of warfare and misery, this forgiveness of iniquity, this ending of judgment? How is it going to come? Verses three through five tell. Us, Now he says, how is it going to end? How is it gonna How is this going to be accomplished? Now, when you say how this is going to come to end, how it's going to be accomplished, you have to be speaking of the Babylonian exile, which came to an end seventy years after began, way before Christ comes comes to earth. Look, before Christ comes to earth, not only have they come out of Babblon exile. Not only have they rebuilt the Temple, they've now gone back under some form of captivity, because they're under the heel of Rome. So all of that has occurred, a lot of other things have occurred before Christ comes onto the scene. So he's like, it's basically like, hey guys, you're in a really bad state, but just wait, Christ is gonna come and fix Well no, no, no, not not the historical setting. Christ is not coming to fix.

21:29 That was the whole problem in the first place. Right when they when Christ showed up and they thought he was the Missagah, they thought he's gonna fix our problem. He's gonna get rid, He's gonna get rid of all of our enemies, right that that's what they were expecting to happen at that point in time, right, Okay, so so this is just weird, right, but just watch what he does here, and then we're gonna We're gonna I'm just I just oh. Sometimes I get so baffled by the handling of God's I really do. I just don't understand sometimes, But maybe I miss something. So we're going to listen to a little bit and then let him put it together. And then I'm going to offer a well, probably obviously, as I always do, I completely well, I hate to say it, I was gonna say, I'm going to offer a completely unique perspective. But there's nothing unique about what I'm about to offer. What I'm about to offer is simply an explanation that's based off the historical and textual context that's there. Really isn't anything unique about it.

22:31 But for some weird reason, now that is radical. And what are you talking about? Yeah, because I don't play church, because I'm so sick and tired of how churches handled the word of God. But all right, here we go. A voice is calling, clear the way for the Lord in the wilderness. Make smooth in the desert, a high way of our God. For our God. Let every valley be lifted up and every mountain, and he'll be made low. Let the rough ground become a plain, and the rugged terrain abroad valley. Then the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all flesh will see it together. For the mouth of the Lord has spoken, how's all this coming?

23:12 Are going to happen? God's going to come to Earth. That's how it's going to happen. Prepare a way for God, the creator of the universe, is going to come to Jerusalem. And that's how He's going to comfort and forgive of of herse hands. Into warfare and in his anger, God's coming to Jerusalem. Now the minute you take this and you jump to that you left. Then how did they come out of Babylonian captivity? Are you saying that these words of comfort, because this is what you're saying, hey, these words of comfort are for the people in Babylonian exile. And then the words are, hey, guys, sorry, I'm not coming to comfort you. I'm going to come and comfort people five hundred years after you. You're out of luck, just forget you, you just drop dead. Like that makes no sense. Then these would not be words of comfort to those in Babylonian exile. These would be words of comfort to those under the boot of Rome. Or you say, these have nothing to do with any of that, and then just turn it all spiritual and just spiritualize it all, which is why everyone tends to do like who cares about what was actually going Let's just turn it into whatever we want. That makes no that makes no sense, all right, But let him let him explain it, and then we're

24:43 gonna do a little bit of work here. We're gonna do a little bit of work here right now. Whenever we start working on just make sure. You know, I'll have to go through some of this relatively quick. I'll go through this some of this relatively quick, so you but you will hear. You are gonna hear some levels of some amount of rep petition as we work through Isaiah forty through fifty five, especially when we insert sermon reviews. Now we're kind of kicking off this entire study with a sermon review. So the sermon review. Sometimes it's gonna give you a preview of what I'm gonna cover. Sometimes it's gonna be repeating what has already been covered. But repetition is the key to learning. So you're gonna hear it. Sometimes medi just straight teaching it. Sometimes you're gonna hear me repeating it when I'm doing a review. But it's gonna help. So right now, you should already understand. You already already probably now know more about Isaiah forty through fifty five. They're probably more Christian than most Christians who go to your church. You understand now the timing. You're already understanding how people spiritualize it. You're hopefully already getting a good amount of understanding. But let's let's take this part. Man, Yeah verses three through five. Okay, this is just this is just crazy, the way He is putting this together.

25:55 And nothing can stopping. Everybody in and outside Jerusalem will throw up hindrances, There'll be all kinds of obstacles. But God will clear the way. He'll make smooth in the desert a highway for himself. Every valley will be lifted up, every mountain will be made low, the rough ground. Made a plain, the rugged terrain of broad valley. Nothing is going to keep God from revealing his glory in Jerusalem, and all flesh will see it. Now you remember reading any of these words of the New Testaments. You remember how the Gospel according to Mark begins, for instance, and various.

26:38 Other the Gospels. It's talking about John the Baptist and the Lord Jesus Christ, God incarnate God in human flesh. He tells John the Baptist, I want you, through the preaching of repentance, and through the baptism of repentance, to prepare the way for God to. Come to Palestine. And of course he did. And God was the Lord Jesus Christ was God in human flesh. And notice the words in the last part of verse five, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken, this is certain to happen. It's guaranteed to happen. The God himself has spoken this to Isaiah. This is not simply Isaiah's opinion. This is not simply Isaiah's words. This is the inherent word of Almighty God speaking through Isaiah the message in verse one, he commanded him to preach about the Lord Jesus Christ. So how does apostasy come to an end? How does the judgment of God come to an end? How did turning their backs on God and God's judgment come to an end in ancient Israel?

27:51 Through God coming to earth in the Lord Jesus Christ and doing everything that was necessary to save his people. From their wath. There is absolutely no doubt that it would happen. There's absolutely no doubt from our perspective that it did happen. Now in verses six through. Eight, ladies and gentlemen, that is the most confusing, confounding. So so, when Jesus came, all of apostasy and all of that, all the sin stopped from Israel? No it didn't. So like, now you're what is happening here? All right? So, ladies and gentlemen, let me fix this for you. Okay, comfort ye, comfort ye? My people? Who are the people?

28:38 These are the people in Babylonian captivity. Right, you can go back to Isaiah thirty nine. You can start putting this together. And what's going to happen, all right, because the Babylonians are gonna come, They're gonna take them, and they're gonna be in captivity for seventy years. They're gonna need comforted during that time. Right, We're already we can. We can go back and put all of this together. So what is the what is these says? Your warfare is accomplished. So the time of suffering, the time of pain, and the time of exile, it has been accomplished. It's spoken of as a past tense, right because it has been because it's all going to come to an end. Your iniquity is pardon. Hey, you've been suffering for these seventy years because of your iniquity, but it has been pardoned.

29:21 You have received of the Lord's hand double for all her sins. You have suffered abundantly for everything that you have done, and you have paid and a sense for your sins. Almost everyone understands it that way. So all of a sudden. In verse three, we see the voice of him that cries in the wilderness. Prepare you the way of Lord makes straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley should be exalted, every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and in the rough place plain, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together. For the mouth of the Lord has spoken it. Something is going to happen. Something's going to come, that God is going to come and well do something that's going to bring them great amount of comfort. So let's now put this in its historical context.

30:07 I know you're like, but there's a cross reference in the New Testament. Yes, how the New Testament utilizes it is very worthy of study and is of great importance. But how this is being utilized within its historical context should be the goal if you're actually a Bible student of the text. Now, if you just want to make a sermon, forget the original recipients and just make it about whatever you want. But if you care about the text, you got to care about the original recipients, all right, So here we go. Isaiah forty opens a new section of the Book of Isaiah, which is This section is forty chapter forty to fifty five. This is often called the Book of Comfort or Consolation, written in the context of Israel's exile and Babylon, though the exile had not yet happened during isaiah lifetime. Isaiah forty three through five is a part of a large message of hope and restoration given to Israel, a people who would soon face exile and would need assurance of God's future deliverance and restoration. Historically, these verses, if I can speak correctly, point forward to a time when Israel would be in captivity in Babylon, which would occur in five eighty six BC, and God's promise of their eventual return to Jerusalem. Isaiah's writing in the eighth century BC, long before the Babylonian captivity, but his message is prophetic, addressing a future generation of Israelites who would experience the consequences of their rebellion and who

31:38 would long for deliverance. So there's the context. You don't jump to John the Baptist, you don't jump to Jesus, you don't jump to any of that. This is the context. So the textual context and meaning. A voice cries in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord, makes straight in the desert, a highway for our God. The voice here is likely that of a prophetic figure or God's messenger, announcing the coming of God's deliverance. The wilderness and desert symbolize the spiritual barrenness of Israel's exile and the literal geographic distance between Babylon, where the Israelites would be exiled, and Jerusalem, their home. The preparation of a highway presents the removal of obstacles to make way for God's coming to redeem and restore his people. The highway as a metaphor for God leading his people out of exile back to the land, similar to the exodus from Egypt. Every valley should be lifted up, every mountain and heel made low.

32:33 The uneven ground should become level, and the rough places plain. This describes the dramatic transformation that will occur as God prepares to deliver his people. The leveling of valleys and mountains indicates that of barriers, physical and spiritual, that will be removed and preparation for God restoring Israel. The metaphor suggests that nothing will hinder God from rescuing his people from Babylon and bringing them back to Jerusalem. It symbolizes the ease with which God will act, making their return swift and sure, I mean that's what it's about. Hey, Hey, God, make the way playing. God is coming. He's gonna get rid of all of this, and you are gonna be brought back. This doesn't happen when Jesus shows up, because they've already been out of battling captivity, They've already built, rebuilt the Ta. This has got to be referring to something else. So I've got I got pages of notes here dealing with more on this. Okay, but I'm gonna skip down because I was like, I think I know who this is. I think I think I know who this is referring to in its historical context. So I did a little research, and I asked a very important question.

33:44 Could Isaiah forty three through five, in its historical context be pointing to Cyrus? See why r U s Here's what I found. Forty three through five and its historical context can be understood as pointing to Cyrus, the Persian king who would later act as God's chosen instrument to deliver Israel from Babylonian captivity. While the passage primarily focuses on God's divine action to bring his people back from exile, Cyrus is the historical figure who plays a significant role in the fulfillment of this promise. Cyrus the Great, the founder of the Persian Empire, conquered Babylon in five thirty nine BC and issued a decree allowing the Jewish exiles to return to their homeland and rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem, and this is recorded in Ezra chapter one, Versus one through four. Here's the one who comes. He's the one who prepares the way. He's the one who makes the path straight. And Isaiah forty four, twenty e eight and Isaiah forty five to one. Cyrus is explicitly mentioned as God's Anointed, a rare title for a non Israelite ruler chosen to fulfill God's purpose in restoring Israel. He is described as God's shepherd and anointed who will rebuild Jerusalem

35:18 and set the exiles free. Prepare ye the way of the Lord. In Isaiah forty three and the context of Israel's return from exile, the phrase prepare the way of the Lord can be seen symbolically referring to the path of deliverance that God would create using Cyrus as his instrument. Cyrus's decree to allow the exiles to return from home would be the practical means by which the way for God's people to return to Jerusalem was prepared. Makes straight in the desert a highway for our God Isaiah forty three. The image of a highway being prepared and the wilderness points to the removal of obstacles for Israel's return. In a sense, Cyrus is the human agent who paves the way for his for this highway by conquering Babylon and issuing a decree for the Jews to return. God uses Cyrus to clear the path and make the way for his people to return from Babylon, effective making a highway for them through the wilderness back to Jerusalem. Every valley should be lifted up, and every mountain and hill will be made low. The imagery emphasizes that God will flatten the obstacles that stand in the way for Israel's return.

36:22 Cyrus's conquest of Babylon represents one such obstacle being removed. His rise to power, and his actions would make the return of the exiles possible, fulfilling God's promise, the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all the flesh shall see it. In Isaiah's time, the glory of the Lord was often associated with God's intervention and history to save his people. The return of the exiles under Cyrus's decree would be seen as a manifestation of God's glory and faithfulness to his promise. Even though Sorrus himself may not have been aware of God's greater purpose, his action revealed God's glory as the one who controls nations and kings to fulfill his redemptive plans. Ladies and gentlemen, Isaiah forty three through five, in its historical context, is about Cyrus, the Persian king who prepared the way for and was the human instrument to bring his people out of Babylonian captivity and to comeback and rebuild Jerusalem rebuild the Temple, which was accomplished in history way before John the Baptist, way before Christ comes to Earth, way before the incarnation, way before Jesus comes into the Temple, way before any of that occurs. Now, the New Testament writers takes this and then applies it to something different. And we talked about this in our early study of the Book of Romans,

37:54 and we did an entire like, I don't know seven eight ten parts and how New Testament writers use Old Testament passages. They use them in a variety of ways. Sometimes it seems like sometimes they seem to use it in a way that has no it doesn't. They're using it in a way that seems to be completely different than the original context. But they can do so because they're doing so under the inspiration of God. That doesn't mean I can go do that, but they can. If the New Testament writer, under the inspiration of God wants to take these passages and then apply it to a different situation, in a different context, they have the right to do so. That doesn't mean we can. All right, they're doing it under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

38:35 But in the historical context, what hey, people be comforted? Be comforted? Why? Because Hey, this is all coming to an end. Your captivity is coming to an end, your suffering, your sins have been forgiven. You have you have suffered enough, you have you have in a sense received from God a double for all your sins, you have suffered. But there's going to come a voice in the wilderness. And this voice, and this ultimately points to someone well outside of Israel. Right, it's going to be a Persian king, and he's going to come and he's going to make the path straight.

39:16 How he's going to destroy the Babylonians. He's going to offer a decree the way he's going to be made, and then you're going to be able to come back. And God's glory will be revealed because God's glory will be revealed because God is in charge of the entire situation and can even use a Persian king to accomplish his purpose in his will. That's the comfort pointing to John the Baptist. Now, how does the John the Baptist part fit into the overall Well, that's a different story. I wanted you to simply see the actual historical context.

40:07 We just started a sermon that obliterated the historical context, ignored it, annihilated it, erased it, ripped it out. Did not even care the people living in Babylonian exile. If there's comfort for them, the comfort would have to happen for them. Right, It's of no comfort to say, hey, guys, you're all going to die. Nothing's coming to help you.

40:48 You're going to suffer. But five hundred years from now, something good's going to happen. Well, we're all going to be dead. But obviously something happened because they went from Babylonian captivity to coming out of babylon captivity to rebuilding Jerusalem, rebuilding the Temple. So something did happen. But don't say, well, you know how it happened. You know what made it happen, God come to earth. Did it happened before God showed up in the incarnation? That makes the nose, It destroys the text. All right, now you see why we're going to be studying this, why we're going to spend the time, why we're going to do this work, because time and time again, the Word of God is just Plato in the hands of people and just do whatever they want with it. Now, if you wanted to make your sermon about if you're going to quote this, a lot of people will quote this fast approaching Advent season, Christmas season, people will start, you know, wanting to quote this. You watch if your church quotes it and ask them how come when we quote this we don't deal with the fact that this would possibly be referring to Cyrus in its historical context. Why do we just rip it out of its context? Why do we do that? Who do we think we are? We're narcissistic textual hijackers. We want

42:25 it to be about us. We take the text, we hijack it, and then we fly it to wherever we want. Isaiah forty to fifty five, Isaiah chapter forty to Isaiah chapter fifty five. In this section, as we've seen in Isaiah forty three, what we're seeing in Isaiah forty so far, every sermon that we've even attempted to listen to in this section follows no rules except take the text to make it about everything other than the original context. Now, maybe the sermon we're listened to he will circle back and get more to back to the original context. But you can see what he did right there. He set up Hey, how does how is this accomplished? When Jesus he just immediately he skipped a five hundred year time span without even offering an explanation. I don't know what else to say. I want to do more, but we'll be talking about it over the next little while so, hey, please join us. Get your Bible ready. Isaiah forty to fifty five. Isaiah chapter forty to Isaiah, chapter fifty five.

43:46 Read it, read it, read it, read it, read it, read it, read it, read it, read it. Start listening to sermon after sermon after sermon, And all I can promise is, I don't know how quickly we can make it through it, but I'm hoping whenever we're done, and I I don't want to be, you know, stuck in it forever. So I want to make it, move it, you know, move through it at some form of a I think, at a decent rate of speed. What we're gonna hopefully do, though, is you're going to understand it better than you ever have. So there you go. Thanks for listening. Everyone, have a good Saturday night. Remember when you go to church tomorrow, don't be a narcissistic textual hijacker, and don't allow plato sermons to take the text just turn it into whatever they want to turn it into.

44:39 I'm not saying you make a scene. I'm not saying you be rude. I'm just saying you'd be aware of what's happening and then in your own mind you handle the text correctly. It's not necessarily your job to go create a scene and try to fix everyone, but it is your responsibility to ensure that you understand the word of God correctly. All right, thanks for listening Godlass