Most commentators apply today’s Text to Israel, the nation.

But I see far more in Isaiah’s words. I believe the Prophet is looking far into the future (as far as his lifetime was concerned) and seeing none other than the coming Messiah!

The Lord Jesus!

Let me show you. “Listen, O isles, unto me; and hearken, ye people, from far; The LORD hath called me from the womb; from the bowels of my mother hath he made mention of my name. And he hath made my mouth like a sharp sword; in the shadow of his hand hath he hid me, and made me a polished shaft; in his quiver hath he hid me.” Isaiah 49:1-2, today’s Text.

Note the imperative verb “listen,” in Hebrew “shama,” meaning “hear this and do something about it, obey my voice!”

I believe we here have Jesus (prophetically) saying: “The LORD (God the Father) hath called me from the womb; from the bowels of my mother hath he made mention of my name.” The Virgin Birth! Our Lord being named prior to His Birth as well! (Matthew 1:21 … “She shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins.”)

Jesus (by His Father) was fashioned “like a sharp sword!” (Two edged, as the living Word of God?)

Jesus too (by His Father) groomed to be a “polished shaft!” (An arrow to be shot at an enemy, God’s Enemy!)

Yes, Jesus is God’s WEAPON!

Against the devil, Satan!

Against sin!

Against death!

Against the grave!

Wow!

Jesus, God’s Sword for close combat!

Jesus, God’s Arrow for long range combat!

Jesus, our great Victor!

Now I do realize that the next verse (Isaiah 49:3) calls this Servant … “Thou art my servant, O ISRAEL, in whom I will be glorified.” But I contend that Jesus is the True Israel (meaning one “ruled or “princed” by God) of all history!

Jesus is the Culmination of God’s Plan!

He is the Purpose for which the nation was created, born!

I am sitting here at a computer keyboard in a North Carolina motel room … amazed!

Amazed at my Saviour!

Both Sword and Shaft!

Also, gloriously …“My Shepherd!”

Amen!

— Dr. Mike Bagwell

Romans 8:37 … “In all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.” Through Jesus, God’s perfect Sword and Arrow!

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Our Text today …

“GO ye forth of Babylon, FLEE ye from the Chaldeans, with a voice of singing DECLARE ye, TELL this, UTTER it even to the end of the earth; SAY ye, The LORD hath redeemed his servant Jacob.” Isaiah 48:20

One verse … six imperative verbs (six in English, five in Hebrew) … all being commands from the Lord!

Go! (In Hebrew “yatzsa” meaning “to exit.”)

Flee! (Spelled “barach” and meaning “to hurry away, to go through, to make haste.”)

Declare! (Interesting, “nagad” actually means “to make something very conspicuous, to expound” it!”

Tell! (Meaning “to report” something, “to sound it out” … “shama” in Hebrew.)

Utter! (Again “yatzsa,” translated “proceed” 16 times in the Old Testament!)

Say! (The common “amar,” used 5308 times in the King James Version, simply meaning “to answer.”)

And all are words of “safety, protection, even deliverance!”

God giving the (stubborn) Jews (read the whole chapter, Isaiah 48) good news!About their upcoming deliverance from Babylon! Their arch-enemy! (At least in Isaiah’s day … and yet again in the future according to Revelation chapters 17 and 18. The final fall of Babylon!)

And WHO will effect, bring about this great deliverance?

The LORD, Jehovah God!

He is Israel’s “goel,” Hebrew for “Kinsman Redeemer!” (He is the kind, powerful, competent Boaz to Israel’s poor Ruth!)

Wow!

What a verse!

Be sure it will be read and studied thousands upon thousands of times in the coming period of Tribulation the Jews will yet face. Studied and claimed diligently!

And here’s another great thing …

This Same Lord is my Redeemer too!

And yours … if you are saved!

As I have ended so many of these recent Isaiah Lessons …

Hallelujah!

— Dr. Mike Bagwell

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Paul’s great Maxim comes to mind this morning! “But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.” Romans 5:20

Isaiah chapter 48 clearly illustrates this Principle. Its 22 verses discuss both Israel’s sin (Judah’s actually.) Then in juxtaposition, God’s amazing Grace!

Let’s glance first at Judah’s stubborn ways, elucidated in verses 1-5. They … “swear by the name of the LORD, and make mention of the God of Israel, but not in truth, nor in righteousness.” No longer are they a people of “truth” or “righteousness!” (That disobedience is exactly what brought on the Babylonian Captivity!)

There’s more: “Thou art obstinate, and thy neck is an iron sinew, and thy brow brass.” Hard-headed! And so hard-hearted too!

Wow!

But then, suddenly, in verse 9 God thunders: “For my name’s sake will I defer mine anger, and for my praise will I refrain for thee, that I cut thee not off.”

Grace!

By verse 17 the blessings have multiplied exponentially! “Thus saith the LORD, thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel; I am the LORD thy God which teacheth thee to profit, which leadeth thee by the way that thou shouldest go.”

Thrilling!

Then God laments, grieves over the past sins of Judah! “O that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments! then had thy peace been as a river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea.” Verse 18, what touching Pathos!

Then, as if some in Judah still would NOT repent … “There is no peace, saith the LORD, unto the wicked.” The chapter’s last verse, number 22.

As if … refuse God’s Grace, and assuredly, fierce judgment awaits!

I’ll say more about this fascinating chapter tomorrow, the Lord willing. But it is arranged beautifully!

The horrid darkness of sin … set in contradistinction to … the glorious Brightness (Brilliance)  of God’s Grace, Mercy and Love!

Hallelujah!

— Dr. Mike Bagwell

We all might take a minute this morning, and thank God for His Grace in our lives, a Gift from Him indeed!

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Listen to Babylon (as a nation) talk, a prime example of vanity and pride for sure: “Thou that sayest in thine heart, I am, and (there is) none else beside me.” Isaiah 47:8 (Yes, God knows what’s in our hearts, our very thoughts and aspirations!)

Now look two verses later, still in Isaiah 47, and still quoting boasting Babylon. “For thou hast trusted in thy wickedness: thou hast said, None seeth me. Thy wisdom and thy knowledge, it hath perverted thee; and thou hast said in thine heart, I am, and none else beside me.”

What an indictment! (Babylon believes: “Nobody sees me. I can sin with impunity!” Forgetting verses like: “The eyes of the LORD are in every place, beholding the evil and the good.” Proverbs 15:3)

Then (verse 10) she once again boasts: “I am, and none beside me.”

Talk about an exaggerated sense of self. This may even be self-worship! And notice that first clause: “I am!” (That’s God’s Domain! Remember Jesus’ great “I AM” Statements?)

God hates such pride! In fact, it is at the “top” of His “most despicable sins” list! See Proverbs 6:16-19 for proof.

Now … having said that … I’d like to point your attention back to Isaiah 45 for just a minute.

Listen to God speak, Isaiah 45:5. “I am the LORD, and there is none else, there is no God beside me.” (Did you read that?)

Then glance at the very next verse, Isaiah 45:6 … “That they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside me. I am the LORD, and there is none else.”

God used of Himself the same vocabulary (“I AM, AND THER IS NONE ELSE”) as did reprobate Babylon of her inflated self!

Babylon just equated herself with Almighty God!

This is sheer “humanism,” man exalting man!

“This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be LOVERS OF THEIR OWN SELVES, covetous, boasters ….” 2 Timothy 3:1-2

And you know what scares me?

Many in our Country feel and act and talk the same way!

Displacing God … with self!

And, just as God has judged Babylon, so will He judge vain American!

Isaiah had earlier preached this: “For the day of the LORD of hosts shall be upon every one that is PROUD and LOFTY, and upon every one that is LIFTED UP; and he shall be brought LOW.” Isaiah 2:12

Let me close today by illustrating the opposite attitude, humbleness of mind … quoting John the Baptist. “He (Jesus) must increase, but I must decrease.” John 3:30

Idolatry is wrong!

Whether one worships a block of chiseled stone, a piece of carved wood, or some human being! Including oneself!

“Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” Exodus 20:3, thus saith the Lord.

— Dr. Mike Bagwell

Lord today we pray that: “From the rising of the sun unto the going down of the same the LORD’S name will be praised.” Psalm 113:3

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Paul used the clause, though in a pejorative sense, in 2 Timothy 3:7. “Ever learning ….”

But what the Apostle meant negatively … I find true in my life positively … when it comes to the study of Isaiah, that massive 66 Chapter Block of Scripture heading the Old Testament’s Major Prophets.

“Ever learning!”

Indeed, “ever learning.”

I must have really been quite “uninformed” concerning this astounding Section of my Bible. (Paul again … “I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren.”)

Yes, earlier this morning, as I prepared to write this “Isaiah 47” Lesson … I again “learned and learned and learned!”

I remembered how Isaiah railed against the wicked Kingdom of Babylon back in his 13th and 14 chapters! “And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees’ excellency, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah.” (Isaiah 13:19) A Classic Jeremiad!

Then again in Isaiah chapter 21! “And, behold, here cometh a chariot of men, with a couple of horsemen. And he answered and said, Babylon is fallen, is fallen; and all the graven images of her gods he hath broken unto the ground.” Just verse 9, but crystal clear!

But I did not know that Isaiah 47 (our Chapter for today and tomorrow) would return to the theme of Babylon’s destruction!

Lines like: “Come down, and sit in the dust, O virgin daughter of Babylon, sit on the ground: there is no throne, O daughter of the Chaldeans: for thou shalt no more be called tender and delicate.” And this is just verse 1, quite “to the point!”

Sounds like “doomsday” for Babylon. “Thy nakedness shall be uncovered, yea, thy shame shall be seen: I will take vengeance, and I will not meet thee as a man. As for our Redeemer, the LORD of hosts is his name, the Holy One of Israel.” Verses 3-4, where the “nudity” clauses describe how defeated captives (in ancient warfare) were stripped and marched long distances to some foreign land! Looks here like God Himself is the Attacker, Holy Aggressor!

But WHY this trauma, this tragedy against Babylon? Most often, when God judges … He makes the “charges” or “crimes” well known. Their atrocities were perpetrated against Israel! “I (God) was wroth with my people (the Jews), I have polluted (pierced) mine inheritance, and given them into thine (Babylon’s) hand: THOU DIDST SHEW THEM NO MERCY; upon the ancient (again, the Jews) THOU HAST VERY HEAVILY LAID THY YOKE. 7 And thou saidst, I shall be a lady for ever: so that thou didst not lay these things to thy heart, neither didst remember the latter end of it.” Verses 6-7, note the emphases please, the capitalized lines.

Anti-Semitism to the core, hatred for God’s specially created people, the “apple of His Eye!” To all the world’s Jew haters, to this very moment … the Bible still warns: “He that toucheth you (Israel) toucheth the apple of his (God’s) eye.” Zechariah 2:8

Babylon DID NOT LAY THESE THINGS TO HEART! She DID NOT REMEMBER THE “LATTER END” OF JEW HATRED!

So Babylon, as of April 3, 2019, is no more!

And should she ever be (literally) rebuilt … she will yet again by the Power of God be destroyed!

Written to a Nation, which America (the United States) still is, though maybe “loosely so” nowadays … “Behold, ye have sinned against the LORD: and be sure your sin will find you out.” Numbers 32:23, Babylon was the world-power of her day!

Psalm 9:17 sadly preaches here too. “The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the NATIONS that forget God.”

I have one more thing to say … with the second half of Isaiah 47 looming as tomorrow’s Lesson … “God bless the Jews!”

Read Genesis 12:1-3 when you have time.

Also … “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: they shall prosper that love thee.” Psalm 122:6

— Dr. Mike Bagwell

Modern day “Babylons” (more nations who passionately hate the State of Israel) are now preparing to decimate that little Country! They too, will meet “DEATH” at the Hand of God!

In a few weeks I am to preach at a “Jewish Conference” … for a Missions Ministry trying to bring these precious people to Jesus! Pray for these upcoming Services please.

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