Isaiah, the prophet who pronounced the Messiah speaks to us now

Isaiah, the prophet who pronounced the Messiah speaks to us now

As we examine the early years of this prophet we can read between the lines and see the 20th and 21st centuries are following the way of the collapse of the northern kingdom of Israel.  As I began studying this fall of that part of Israel I could see our nation collapsing as history is repeating itself again.

“Ah!  Sinful nation, people laden with wickedness, evil race, corrupt children!  They have forsaken the Lord, spurned the Holy One of Israel, apostatized.”  (Is. 1: 4).

How long before the nations of our modern world confront goodness and corrupt the morals  God entrusted humanity with as the good steward to his creation?  When the prophecies written over 700 years ago appear as prose for that era without looking to God’s warning we certainly are sliding into oblivion.  

“What care I for the number of your sacrifices?”  Says the Lord .”I have had enough of whole-burnt rams and fat of fatlings; In the blood of calves, lambs and goats I find no pleasure.”  (Is. 1: 11).

Take a look at Revelation:  “The opening of the Seven Seals”  and the sign of the four horsemen.  Beware the fourth rider on a pale green horse.   “Its rider was named Death, and Hades accompanied him.”  (Rv. 6: 8).  

A future of God’s wrath without belief in the Incarnation paints a bleak vision of the failure of humanity.  From everlasting man has continued to follow his own path of pleasure, wealth, and evil intent upon those who seek righteousness and are under the power of evil men.  

When we the children of God, brothers of Jesus Christ who died-rose for our salvation, are trampled over because of our beliefs will rise and look with sorrow upon those souls burning in hell who refused God’s promise of forgiveness.

Every prophecy is for those of us living with trust in his Word and we cannot discard the teaching which is in the present tense of life.  Old and New Testaments belong together as one text of God bringing a mercy upon his creation and his creatures he loves.  

Perhaps the text of Isaiah promoting Immanuel and his rule says it all;  “But a shoot shall sprout from the stump of Jesse, and from his roots a bud shall blossom.  The spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him; a spirit of wisdom and understanding, a spirit of counsel and of strength, a spirit of knowledge and of fear of the Lord, and his delight shall be the fear of the Lord.”  (Is.11: 1-3).

Ralph B. Hathaway