Bible Survey - Isaiah 40-66

When we went through the book of Isaiah some years back, here were some things that we brought out. There have been quite a number of archaeological and historical findings that connect up things in the book of Isaiah. with history, so it's not just some dreams and schemes of man. Here, for example, there were four kings that Isaiah dealt with, and one was King Uzziah. King Uzziah was, by the way, Isaiah's uncle. So Isaiah was not only a prophet, but he was part of the royal family.

The signet ring of King Jopham, that is the signet ring. When you have a seal or a signet ring, the signet ring is also used like a seal. Now you have a seal impression. gets produced when they use the seal or a signet ring there's a seal impression of King Ahaz has been found and then the last King, King Hezekiah here's a seal impression actually more than a hundred seal impressions from King Hezekiah have been found closer to 200 by now and the reason why so many is Hezekiah was very thorough in trying to make preparations throughout Judah in all the cities. And so he had special jars made with his seal on so that they would have siege water and rations and things of that sort. So that's why there's, they say, over a hundred getting closer, they keep finding them, getting closer to 200 by now. seal impressions from King Hezekiah. Here is another one.

A burial plaque was found on the Mount of Olives, located directly across from the Temple Mount. And this one says, here are the bones of Isaiah, Isaiah's uncle. Bones of Isaiah, king of Judah, were brought. Do not open. so then here's Isaiah archaeology continues we have Hezekiah's broad wall is mentioned in 2nd Chronicles 2nd Kings and the book of Isaiah so three places there in the Bible it's brought forward and there it is that's that's the wall it's been identified Hezekiah made a number of preparations throughout Judah and in Jerusalem specifically in order to prepare for defending the country and actually rebelling against the Assyrians.

And this was another one of his preparations, aside from those water jugs with his seal on it. So there's the wall. He also, in order that Jerusalem would keep its water supply, had a tunnel constructed. And this is that tunnel, recorded again in 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles. to defend against the anticipated siege of Jerusalem by Sennacherib. So that tunnel proceeds from, let's see if I got this here. There's the spring of Gihon and the Now there's three names for where it is at the bottom One is the pool of Silom that most of us have probably heard of because of it being in the Gospel of John Actually mentioned twice, but it had a previous name under Nehemiah and another name under Isaiah so the name of this pool at the bottom of the tunnel kept changing and Here's the spring of Gihon, which is the source. That's the place where Solomon was anointed as king.

And what they did between is very interesting. See how circuitous and random a route they took? They didn't go straight. And it's not really known why was the random route taken. We don't really know. But this was a new technology development and it happened this way. Ordinarily what would be done with some sort of a random route like this or a broken route is they didn't have the technology like we have today to survey something like that and so what typically they would do is have shafts at the turn points vertical shafts at each of the turn points this is the first one that didn't have a vertical shaft at each of the turn points so somehow, and we don't know how somehow they were able to come from each end and meet even with the circuitous route that they had. So here is what ordinarily would have been the case, is put a vertical shaft at each of the turn points. Yes? Yeah, let me back up.

You see what happens, the tunnel is all within the city. So I've got a cross section so you can see the tunnel. So the tunnel was all within the city and the Assyrians couldn't get to it. So the city was built out. Built out over the top of it. Yeah. So really an amazing defense structure and a breakthrough in terms of technology. To this day we don't know how they did it. But they did.

So here is the water source, the spring of Gihon that he was wanting to protect and keep entirely within the city. So here it tells how Solomon was anointed king next to the spring in 2nd Kings. then in 2nd Chronicles records that it was the water from this spring that Hezekiah protected by having this tunnel all within the city. Yes? So was this tunnel a pipeline for water? Yes. It's filled with water then? Yes. Oh yeah. Yeah. And you can go in it now. We'll talk about it some more.

Multiple lines of evidence indicate that the tunnel was begun from both ends and the crews met in the middle at this location. And where they met, one of the workers inscribed the account of them meeting together inside the tunnel. So that's the record. It's a little hard to see some of it, so that's what the item to the right is. And then here's the Siloam inscription. And you've got this all on your handout, so I won't go through the detail on it. But they described how they met, and that was in the wall there.

Here is the area downstream at the end of it. The steps to the Pool of Siloam were exposed by an excavation in a sewer project this month, ten years ago. And so that was shown. Shown here are the steps of the Pool of Shilla, written of in Nehemiah 3.15 and 12.37. So that's its previous name.

Then, here is Hezekiah's wall and fortifications. In prayer to God to preserve Jerusalem, the six-sided Assyrian prison tells us about Sennacherib's spin on, among other things, his military encounter with Judah's king, Hezekiah. Sennacherib told on this cylinder how he went to this city and defeated it, and this city and defeated it, and this city and defeated it, But when he came to Jerusalem and King Hezekiah, he said, I shut up Hezekiah like a bird in a cage. But he didn't defeat it. So that was his way of putting spin on it and giving an account that sounded favorable. The reality is he went away having lost 185,000 troops. He went home and two of his sons killed him. So it was bad. It turned out bad.

But nonetheless, he got this cylinder out, and that's in the British Museum, which I went and saw like five years ago. Then there are the famously intriguing Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947. Was that 67 years ago? 1947 was when they found the first one. They continued to find more on into the 1950s. On into even like the late 1950s, they were still finding more of these Dead Sea Scrolls. So they'd look in caves and find them in varying degrees of preservation.

Here's Isaiah 9-7, there will be no end of the increase of his government or peace on the throne of David and over his kingdom. So there it is right there. Oh, excuse me. 22 different manuscripts in varying degrees of preservation. And when I say varying, I mean varying. Some of them are in great shape, just like that one you see there where it's in great shape and you can read it. Others of it are so decayed and corrupted and corroded that it takes special technology to be able to read it.

Okay, and this we had on last week's handout, and I'll go over in a minute why that's valuable and important. Okay, let's go into your handout, and I need to make one correction on the footer. It says Isaiah chapters 1-39 should be 40-66. I didn't complete editing that. Okay, so we'll go through the handout here.

One of the things that Al brought up first off is those who look upon the Bible as simply the work of man will frequently break Isaiah into two parts. And so you'll have the second part, chapters 40 through 66, called Second Isaiah or Deutero-Isaiah. And they look at it as, because it's of a different character and because of the predictive prophecies in it, they look at that as written by someone else and attached to what was originally written by Isaiah. There are a number of reasons, and we won't go over all of them, why Isaiah should be looked at as a unit.

And one of those is what you see right here on the screen, and that is this echo pattern only makes sense if it's looked at as one author, one unit. And so that's only one reason here. Some people also, and we'll go over this, some people because of the predictive prophecies also look at the second part. as being a separate book. So let's look at the, pardon?

They say that there is no such thing as prophecy to the future and therefore it must have been written after. Yes, that's right. And in other words, if you assume there can't be such a thing as predictive prophecy, then what you will have to do, because in fact things are apparently predicted, is assume that those were written after the fact. Yes. Yes, yes.

Same thing with Daniel. The assumption is made, there's no such thing as predicted prophecy, and therefore you draw your conclusions about when it was written based on that, regardless of any other facts. Alright, let's look at the very last paragraph there. Isaiah uses double words and repetition of words in both parts, first 39 chapters and the last ones, last 27 chapters.

And he uses Fallen, Fallen in Isaiah 21.9, Ariel in Isaiah 29.1, Comfort, Comfort in Isaiah 40, and here we're starting into the second section, and Awake, Awake in Isaiah 51.9 and 52.1, and Peace, Peace in Isaiah 57.19. So that pattern of double words is carried over across the two sections, unbroken. And so that was one item. Let's take a look here on the second page.

Isaiah 11.6 has, and the wolf will dwell with the lamb.

And Isaiah 65.25 has, and the wolf and the lamb will graze together. That wolf and lamb together pattern doesn't occur anywhere else in scripture.

But it occurs once in the first part of Isaiah and once in the second part of Isaiah. Seven other such word patterns occur in both sections of Isaiah and no other similar patterns anywhere in scripture. Nineteen different phrases occur in both halves of Isaiah but nowhere else in scripture or in some cases nowhere else in the Old Testament. 28 times in Isaiah there is a pattern in both parts of thesis and antithesis. In other words, a situation is spelled out in one way in the first half and another way in the second half.

Example, you will be like a garden that has no water, Isaiah 1.30, but in the second part in Isaiah 58 11, you will be like a watered garden. See that thesis and antithesis carried across both sections. There are 28 occurrences of that, where something is stated one way in the first part and then answered, stated the opposite, in the second part.

The name of God as the Holy One of Israel is found 30 times in the Old Testament. 25 of those are in Isaiah. So it's predominantly an Isaiah term, the Holy One of Israel, and almost evenly in both parts of Isaiah, that is like 12 in one and 13 in another section. So almost evenly between the two. The evidence that Isaiah was written by one author is substantial. Craig Davis in Dating the Old Testament gathers together over 40 pages of evidence for the unity of Isaiah.

Alright, so now let's look at the predictive prophecies that causes some folks to stumble. Isaiah chapter 47, Babylon is prophesied against and warned that it would fall many decades before Babylon even came to power. Okay, so if you don't believe in predictive prophecy that God can foretell the future, here is the downfall of Babylon predicted before Babylon is even in power. Decades before Babylon is even in power. From chapters 40 through 48, God distinguishes himself from the pagan idols in that he knows and declares the future. And we'll take a look at some of those things. Chapters 40 through 66 also have some awesome predictive prophecy.

Here's another one Isaiah 44 28 and 45 1 those are just two verses that I've quoted below here It is I who says of Cyrus. He is my shepherd and he will perform all my desire He declares of Jerusalem She will be built and of the temple your foundation will be laid thus says the Lord to Cyrus his anointed and whom I have taken by the right hand to subdue nations before him, and to loose the loins of kings to open doors before him, so that gates will not be shut." Now, here's Isaiah writing this in the second half about Cyrus the Persian. so he's writing at very latest around 680 BC probably earlier prophesied about Cyrus who reigned 59 to 530 BC who was the emperor of Persia more than a century of time later and two empires later it would be Cyrus who would send the Israelites back to Jerusalem to reconstruct what the Babylonians had destroyed Isn't it a strange thing that Cyrus, the emperor Cyrus of the Persians had a religion in which one of the key doctrinal beliefs was you don't take people away from their homeland. Isn't that amazing?

So that's how God's going to get the Jews back to their homeland. Here's Cyrus who's furious furious with the Babylonians for having taken the Jews to Babylon. So he says, I'll send letters and give you money and everything to get you back. And that's because a key doctrinal statement in his religion was you don't take people from their homeland. Yes? Wasn't there previous times when Jews were sent back. This wasn't the first time. This was the first time. Under Cyrus. Yeah, under Cyrus. Darius did something like that. Darius was later. Oh, he's later. Yeah, Darius was later. Okay, here's Isaiah 52, 13 through 53, 12. This is the suffering Messiah. While we could take much more time to study this passage, some key points that come out are 1. Substitutionary death for our sins.

2. Burial.

3. Resurrection.

4. God rewards and elevates the Messiah who has suffered. So those key things here. And it also says that it must be believed in order to have the substitutionary death be applied. Isaiah made the prophecy about seven centuries before the events of Christ's first coming. The Ethiopian eunuch asked Philip about this passage in Acts chapter 8, and Peter quoted from it in 1 Peter 2.24. So the book of Isaiah contains quite a bit of prophecy regarding yet future tribulation period and the restoration and conditions during the coming millennial kingdom, including Isaiah 40-66. A number of the prophets, including Isaiah, say that Israel will be regathered as a nation.

That's extraordinary. That's extraordinary. If you think about it, a few thousand years ago, two brothers were born. Twins. Jacob and Esau. The descendants of Esau have faded into oblivion. They are not an identifiable people. The descendants of Jacob, there are millions of them, right? And now after having not had a country for 19 centuries, they have been for over 60 years now, a country.

They're an identifiable people. Here's one example. One in every five Nobel Prizes has been awarded to a Jew. Extraordinary. Not just a known people, an identifiable people, but an extraordinary people. This is evidence of God having them as their chosen people and he will fulfill his promises to them. Yes?

Is this a promise to a bloodline or a promise to those that convert to a spiritual? Essentially, it's a promise to a bloodline, isn't it? The Jews, interestingly, while you can convert to Judaism, they don't actually encourage it. The rabbis traditionally will challenge someone who says that they want to be a Jew. In other words, they'll mildly oppose it. Is this really what you want to do? Also, a conversion to Judaism doesn't get them into being recognized as a Jew for ten generations. So you can convert and they'll allow you in, but in terms of full recognition, it's going to be ten generations.

It is from the Old Testament. Yes, yeah, yeah. Now, so you see the Jews are a miraculously preserved and selected people. Jacob's brother Esau didn't get the same treatment. We don't We don't really recognize any of Esau's descendants, but we certainly recognize Jacob's descendants. Okay, let's take a look at what you have here. This is a chart in the middle of page three that we showed last week, and it's just so we get the picture. We've got the first coming, and then the second coming.

Intervening between those is the Church Age, and then the Tribulation period, the seven-year Tribulation period. We have the Millennial Kingdom. It's only in Revelation chapter Revelation chapter 20 that you have it identified as a thousand years long that's why we say the millennial kingdom six times it's identified as being a thousand years long if you go to the Orthodox Jews what they will say is the earth will experience seven years of horrific times at the end of which the Messiah will come and reign for a long long time And the Jewish name for the Antichrist is Armilus. So they have a lot of this in sync with what we're teaching here. It's just that they see the Messiah coming for the first time. It's like I talked to a rabbi here over, probably a dozen years ago, locally, an Orthodox rabbi, and he says, when the Messiah comes, we will ask him, is this your first or your second time?

So anyway, that's the picture at the end of the Millennial Kingdom is then the New Heavens, New Earth and Eternity. Okay, so Isaiah has lots of prediction about the Tribulation period and lots of prediction about the people and especially the conditions during the Tribulation, excuse me, during the Millennial Kingdom. Lots of prophecy about that including the wolf will lie down with the lamb. By the way, it's not the lion and the lamb. That sounds nice from English because they both start with L, but it's the wolf and the lamb. Yes?

What date did you say that they figured Jesus was born? The latest that Jesus would have been born would have been about January of 4 B.C. Yeah, 4 B.C., and it's because Herod died mid-March, and some people put a specific day on it. Herod died mid-March of 4 BC. So based on the record of his health and that sort of thing, his ability to interact as he did with the wise men would have put it at about 4 BC. Some people will have the wise men visiting sometime after Jesus was born, but I don't think that's necessary. It talks about because he went to the house instead of the inn. The only thing is every house just about had an inn at Cataluma. And so it could have been one in the same, the very same house.

Okay, so here we have the Son of God, Jesus Christ, the Messiah. Here is Isaiah 41.4, and I, the Lord, and when it says in the New American Standard, Lord with capital H, that means Yahweh, okay? Sometimes called Jehovah, although Yahweh is, I think, more correct. I am the first and with the last, I am He. And by the way, that I am He in the Greek Old Testament is Ego Emi, okay? I, I am. Isaiah 44, 6-8, thus says the Lord, again Yahweh, the King of Israel, and who's that? Who's the King of Israel? Yeah, the Messiah. Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel.

So what does that say? Is Christ deity? Yes, it does say that. And His Redeemer. and the Lord of hosts. I am the first and I am the last and there is no God besides me. Okay, so let's test this. Mormonism says that if you follow their path, you will eventually become a God.

Right? Like God. And you get your own planet and your own harem and all that stuff. What's that? Jesus was the elder brother and he followed his way. Yes. Right, we become gods too. So, beside me there is no God. What does that tell you? Yeah, not happening. Okay? There is no God besides me. Who is like me, let him proclaim and declare it. Yes, let him recount it to me in order.

From the time that I established the ancient nation. By the way, what's the ancient nation? Israel. The ancient nation is Israel. Here's the pattern you'll find in the Bible. The nation, or in some other descriptive words, the ancient nation. The nation is Israel. The nations are the Gentiles. The nations are the Gentiles. The nation is Israel.

Jesus' title when he comes again will be King of kings and lord of lords but that will be over the gentile nations because over Israel he will be the king of Israel so they are different identities let them declare to them the things that are coming and the events that are going to take place do not tremble and do not be afraid So I'm the first and the last, right? So let's take a look at the next, yes. It's interesting there, I can't cite the other references, I read it recently, where God challenged the people of Israel. Can your idols tell you what's coming up? Yeah. And tell you about the future? They said no, they don't, they're I'm the only one who can tell you the things that are going to come up.

Besides this passage in Isaiah, there are other references. Isaiah 40-48 include multiple references and so I've just drawn from some of those. You're correct, Al. Now, this passage has a challenge to the Mormons and it's also got a challenge to Jehovah's Witnesses. Fourth page, have I, excuse me, have I not long since announced it to you and declared it and you are my witnesses.

That is the theme verse for the Jehovah's Witnesses. Who is he writing to? Is he writing to Jehovah's Witnesses? Who is this book written to? To the Jews at that point in time, right? Not Jehovah's Witnesses. So this passage is, when looked at correctly, is a challenge to the Mormons and it's a challenge to the Jehovah's Witnesses. That's their theme verse. Is there any God beside me? And of course, there's the challenge of the Mormons again. Or is there any other rock? Christ is what? The rock, right?

1 Corinthians chapter 10. I know of none. Isaiah 48.12.

Listen to me, O Jacob, even Israel. Here's a Hebrew poetic pattern. Listen to me, O Jacob, that's Jacob's other name was Israel, okay? And so he's looking at the descendants, even Israel, whom I called. I am he, I am the first, I am also the last. And by the way, this one in the Greek Old Testament is Ego Emi, Ego Emi, okay? Which is used repeatedly in the Gospel of John as a statement of Christ's deity.

That's right. I am, I am. And the first place that shows up in the Greek Old Testament is when Moses talks to the angel of the Lord in the burning bush. And one of the things we've said here in this elective is the angel of the Lord is the pre-incarnate Son of God. So here is a statement of the deity of Christ that is very clear. Yes?

God beside me is a testament to the Mormons? It is an affront to them. Affront. How is that? What is it in their belief set? If you were to convert to Mormonism and follow as a faithful Mormon and get married in the temple then you can become God and you get your own planet and your own harem and all that and you get to birth spirit babies forever. Are they saying that because of that psalm? The psalm, there is that one psalm, one of the eight, that says that you are gods, but it is smoking. That's right. Yes. And we don't have time to go into that, but yes, there is that, and of course they'll point to that. They don't like to point to this one.

But now we look also after multiple statements of I am the first and I am the last and it's God speaking, right? Then we go to the book of Revelation which the first chapter has this in verses 17 through and it should be 17 and 18 When I saw him I fell at his feet like a dead man He placed his right hand on me saying do not be afraid I am the first and the last and the living one and I was dead and behold I'm alive forevermore. I have the keys of death and Hades Okay And who's speaking who's Jesus? Okay, the resurrected Glorified Christ, okay. Yes So when he says he has the keys of death and Hades He's basically saying he has the keys to life. That's right.

Revelation 2.8, the next chapter. And to the angel of the church of Smyrna write, the first and the last who was dead and has come to life says this. The pattern in chapters 2 and 3 of Revelation is to take the description of Christ from chapter 1 and spread it out among the seven churches. So that's why it repeats that part here, the first and the last, who is dead and has come to life.

Yes? The word Angelos is translated sometimes messenger and sometimes angel. I believe in Revelation the first few chapters I believe it should be looked upon as a messenger what you have is a Roman military slash postal route that starts at Ephesus and goes clockwise through the cities and so you can imagine the messenger coming to the first city Ephesus and then going through sequentially clockwise along this Roman military postal route delivering this message to the seven churches actually the messenger to the church at you know and lists each one so that would imply a separate messenger for each church so the one who took one to Ephesus would then stay there, stop there because he's the messenger to the church at Ephesus the one who then went on to Smyrna and the others would stop there because they delivered the message how that might have been done is to bring the messengers from those churches so that by the time they get there and bring the scroll back or bring the the papyrus back by the time they stop there they would be back home essentially okay let's take a look at the last part Revelation 22 13 I am the Alpha and Omega the first and the last the beginning and the end the rabbis used to say similar to our A to Z They would say, they would use the terminology, I am the Aleph and the Toph. That's the first and the last letters in the Hebrew alphabet.

So what did John do? He took that statement here, God is the A to Z, right? We would say. We use that same thing in our culture. And he just put it in the Greek. I am the Alpha and the Omega. I'm the first and the last letter, right? And everything in between.

So when we say A to Z, we don't just mean A and Z, do we? We say A to Z, that means the whole thing. It also doesn't necessarily imply that there is a beginning in the usual sense. It's only saying, looking backward, as far as you want to go. A is this direction, and Z is...

Right. We talked last week about eternity past and eternity future. So that's really what it's talking about. Yes? Okay, so the beginning and the end. Okay, the beginning would be the creation of... He's the source, right? He's the source. He's the universe, right?

Yep. Okay, and the end then would be the end of this universe and the beginning of the Beginning of the new heavens and earth which will go on for eternity. So how does it say in Revelation, I'm still confused about the New World Order, but the end. So He causes the end? Yes. He created everything starting with let there be light, right? But then He brings things to an end. How? And where does it work? This is out of Revelation chapter 21, first verses there, where he says he rolls up this present world like a scroll. And 2 Peter also includes that. It says the elements will melt with a fervent heat. So that's after Satan's release.

Yes, right. And this whole world will be wound up and rolled away and gone. and it would be a new heavens and a new earth. Yes? One of the things is, this is written to human beings, and human beings, no matter how they try, can't really wrap their minds around infinity and eternity, things like that. It goes beyond a rational comprehension. So things in scripture are written in a framework That's right. That's right. That's right.

One of the analogies we've used before, I'll present it briefly, is that just as Jesus said before Abraham was born, I am, not I was, but I am. That God looks at time kind of like this pen. Here's the creation, and here's the winding up, as Stan was asking about, of the present universe. And God sees all time as present. That's why Jesus could say, before Abraham was born, not I was, but I am. He sees all times as in the present. That's God's viewpoint on time.

Yeah. I love the way he used, in that same passage, he talks about the fact God is not the God of the dead. Yes. Or the living. Yes. He speaks in the present tense. Yes. God is the God of Abraham. Yeah. Not that God was the God of Abraham. Yeah. He's still that God. Yes. It's a beautiful picture.

Now, the Jehovah's Witnesses particularly will deny the deity of Christ. What we've just seen from Isaiah and Revelation is, no, Christ is deity. He's the Ego Emi. And even the King of Israel and the Redeemer is the Lord. That's what you see there in Isaiah. And we see it referred to also and confirmed here when Jesus says three times in Revelation, I am the first and the last. So it's abundantly clear that Christ is deity.

Contrary to what those folks who come knocking on your door and handing things out because guilt tripped them into doing that. He's also saying that he's finite when he's saying that. And you're correct, but why do you say that? Because he's saying that he's the first and the last, so he has a beginning and an end. And just like Harvard's saying, all human beings who are finite have a beginning and an end. Now here's something, when he talks about, I'm the beginning and the end, it's not talking about him being finite, because he's talking about, this is before Christ was born.

As a man, he was born of Mary and then became man. Prior to that, he was the Son of God deity, but not man. What happened? We use this illustration. God sees all time as now, but what did he do? He volunteered to enter the time tunnel that we are in, to enter the time tunnel and to enter history and to become the one at that point who is both God and man and then he has a body a human body is a resurrected body that we will have as well that we will have as well so he entered history at that point in time through the Virgin Mary and the work of the Holy Spirit entering time So in that sense he volunteered to be a man and have limitations just like us and even to die for us.

Scripture even speaks of the fact that before the foundations of the world we were in God's mind. So there is a sense in which we have existed In God's mind, yeah. Well, here's Ephesians chapter 1, verse 4. He, the Father, chose us in Him, in Christ, before the foundations of the world. Before He said, let there be light. Yes, Randy?

It's important to understand that the time-space continuum, as we understand it, is a creation of God. Yes, the time-space continuum, that's a very good point. We shouldn't try to inject God into His creation. And this is where I would have an objection to open theism which says God doesn't know the future that he hasn't determined. No, God in the form of Christ stepped into history to be subject to this time tunnel for a time, right? But God is not subject to his creation which includes time. Remember going through all the physics formulas and whatnot And time was a factor in a lot of those things. It means it's a part of the creation. Even the formulas about light have a time element, right? Yes, right. Yes, yeah. Isn't it amazing to ponder Christ as a human being died on the cross. The spiritual aspect of Christ continued while he was on the cross to sustain the universe. And while he was in the tomb to sustain the universe. Men always want to have a full revelation. I want to know everything there is to know. And to comprehend it. There is always going to be a mystery.

His ways are higher than our ways. So all the things, whether called open theism or various other terms, where we try to say, well, God deliberately limits his power in this situation. We talk about free will versus God's sovereignty. And we get all kinds of discussions and books written.

And it still comes down to, we can't know all about God. I love the end of 1 Corinthians 13, where he said, Now we see in part and know in part, but then we shall know as we are known. 1 John 11, now are we the children of God and it does not yet appear what we shall. That's right. So there's just a lot yet to be revealed and sometimes God has to tell us, be patient, you're not ready for that yet.

Calvinism, Arminianism, and Opentheism all have one presupposition in common. They are more closely related than they will admit. And that presupposition is I as a human being can understand how God does things. That's the common presupposition in all three of those viewpoints. And they fight and squabble and argue amongst each other. But the bottom line is they all have that same common assumption that I can, within my human mind, comprehend how God does everything, and they don't believe my ways are higher than your ways. The truth is they all have that assumption in common, they just pin it on something different. Calvinism pins it on God is sovereign. Arminianism pins it on man's will. Opentheism pins it on God doesn't know the future. And God changes. Okay, we've run out of time here. Any last thoughts, questions, comments?

They boil down what they see in scripture to something that a human being can comprehend. They all do that. They're close brothers, if you will, because of that presupposition that I can reduce what I understand of God and the Bible down to something that a human being can comprehend. They all three hold that viewpoint. They only pin it on different things after that. also. If you wanted to throw them into the pot there as well. They take the scriptures they want to take for the Messiah and don't look at Isaiah 53 as referring to what the Messiah wrote in his book.

He ends up saying, well God changed his mind. Look at when Abraham asked, will you spare Sodom if I can find 20 or 10 or 5? God changed his mind. So You can get a presupposition that you think you know how God operates and then you interpret all your scripture according to your presupposition. So the Christians can do that to their own detriment. Oh yes.

The Essenes, the ones who were likely responsible for hiding the Dead Sea Scrolls, they believed in double predestination. just like the hardline Calvinists. And what they thought was God chose us, the Essenes. And the rest of them, those guys are all going to hell. And so they were the hardline Calvinists of their day.

And by the way, when Jesus said you can hate your enemy, that's an Essenes teaching. The Pharisees and the Sadducees didn't even teach that. But the Essenes did. You can hate your enemy. Why? Because God hasn't chosen them to be saved. God hates them too.

Okay, let's pray. Lord, we thank you for your word. We thank you for the insights that we can have from this tremendously masterful book. of Isaiah and we thank you that you inspired it and preserved it and brought it to us because you love us and care for us. We thank you so much for that. This book of Isaiah tells of the birth and the death, burial and resurrection and even the second coming of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.