I’ve learned that really Isaiah chapters 2 through 5 present a single Sermon from the Prophet. Unbroken Holy Spirit inspired preaching! (Although here we are going to study this elongated Message a chapter at a time.) Isaiah, a Man of God … with a burden for his Nation! A Seer with enough boldness to declaim sin, in all its ugliness! (Yes, in olden days a “Prophet” was also called a “Seer.” (1st Samuel 9:9 … “For he that is now called a Prophet was beforetime called a Seer.”)

But specifically (and importantly), here are two things I didn’t mention in the Lesson on the coming glorious “Millennium,” described in Isaiah 2:1-4, written two mornings ago …

First, an indictment of the nation’s sins!

Do not skip this paragraph please, it being so typically Isaianic. “Therefore thou hast forsaken thy people the house of Jacob, because they be replenished from the east, and are soothsayers like the Philistines, and they please themselves in the children of strangers. Their land also is full of silver and gold, neither is there any end of their treasures; their land is also full of horses, neither is there any end of their chariots: their land also is full of idols; they worship the work of their own hands, that which their own fingers have made: and the mean man boweth down, and the great man humbleth himself: therefore forgive them not.” Isaiah 2:6-9, a pretty good synopsis of the degraded social life of Judah in Isaiah’s day, at least until Hezekiah’s attempt at revival occurred.

The “east” … the heathen God-defying nations surrounding Judah!

Notice too their keen obsession with money, “silver and gold.”

“Horses and chariots,” a misplaced trust in military prowess, rather than the Protecting Hand of Almighty God! God had long ago forbidden Israel to “collect” horses. “But he (Israel’s King) shall not multiply horses to himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt, to the end that he should multiply horses: forasmuch as the LORD hath said unto you, Ye shall henceforth return no more that way.” Deuteronomy 17:16

And prolific  “idols,” a cleat violation of the Ten Commandments, at least twofold!

Wow!

Now secondly … in chapter 2 verses 10-22, a description of the coming dreadful time of Judgment that was to befall Israel. Still is coming, in some major ways.

This (partially) happened when Judah fell to the Babylonians. But it will be completely fulfilled in the coming days of world-wide Tribulation. A horrible time generally known as “the day of the Lord.” (In fact, this exact phrase appears in verse 12, King James Version.)

Things like …

“And the idols he shall utterly abolish (God having destroyed them). And they (the rebellious people) shall go into the holes of the rocks, and into the caves of the earth, for fear of the LORD, and for the glory of his majesty, when he ariseth to shake terribly the earth. In that day a man shall cast his idols of silver, and his idols of gold, which they made each one for himself to worship, to the moles and to the bats; to go into the clefts of the rocks, and into the tops of the ragged rocks, for fear of the LORD, and for the glory of his majesty, when he ariseth to shake terribly the earth.” Isaiah 2:18-21, panic as God pours out His Wrath!

This picturesque passage is virtually quoted by John the Apostle on the Isle of Patmos, describing the tribulation! (Quoted 800 years later!) “And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains; and said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb: for the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?” Revelation 6:15-17

Isaiah, every bit as up-to-date as Revelation!

Again I say, Wow!

— Dr. Mike Bagwell

Tomorrow morning, the Lord willing, we shall study some in Isaiah chapter 3. What a Prophet, what a Book, what a Bible, what a wondrous God!