The Past and Future

 What if you had the ability to know the future...? Not just a really good educated guess - not in some sort of vague, cryptic Nostradamus sort of way - but the power to know that something would occur with 100% absolute certainty? Who's going to win the next Super Bowl? Who's going to win the next election? What investments will rise in the next ten years? Will we ever find conclusive evidence of Bigfoot?

Knowing the future could be pretty awesome, but it could also be very depressing. Maybe there might be some things about which you don't want to know... Would you really want to know if you were going to suffer some sort of awful death...? Would you want to know that 'one thing' about which you were hoping and dreaming - would never happen...? Would some of that maybe 'steal your joy of living' now, if you knew the future?

I want to look this morning at a man who did know the future. There were individuals written about in the Bible to whom God gave special knowledge and visions. They were called 'seers' or prophets. For whatever reason, God chose these individuals to receive special messages or even to hear God's voice directly. Some played relatively minor roles in various stories while others' prophecies toppled nations and even spoke of the future Hope of the world!

I want to briefly look at...

I. Who is Isaiah?

Isaiah lived somewhere around 700 years before Jesus was born. He served God as a prophet for about 60 years in Judah when the Kingdom was divided into Israel and Judah. By his own admission, Isaiah stated that he was, "a man of unclean lips". He wasn't a perfect man; but God chose to call Isaiah for His purposes. And Isaiah accepted this high calling.

Over the years, God revealed His much larger plans to Isaiah. Some of Isaiah's prophecies were concerning the immediate fate of his people and the nations around him. But he was also given the privilege of seeing the coming Messiah. He knew of Jesus before Jesus came as a baby. And even though, as a Jewish man under the Jewish Law of the Old Covenant - he clearly saw God's coming grace! He was given special visions that many other prophets were not.

Since we don't have time to read all 66 chapters of the book of Isaiah - I figured I'd give an overview of the beginning to give us a handle on Isaiah's message where he shared with...

A. God's complaint and warning

Isaiah wasn't the first prophet - God had spoken through various prophets before. The people knew that God's true prophets spoke God's Words accurately. You couldn't even be considered a true prophet unless every prophecy you proclaimed came true, 100%. If a prophet ever spoke anything that was proven false - the people were actually commanded to stone them to death as a false prophet. That's how seriously God protected His Words.

So Isaiah's role was extremely important - and he told God's people this in Isaiah 1:1-6 (NIV)...

The vision concerning Judah and Jerusalem that Isaiah son of Amoz saw during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, kings of Judah. (2) Hear, O heavens! Listen, O earth! For the LORD has spoken: "I reared children and brought them up, but they have rebelled against me. (3) The ox knows his master, the donkey his owner's manger, but Israel does not know, my people do not understand."

(4) Ah, sinful nation, a people loaded with guilt, a brood of evildoers, children given to corruption! They have forsaken the LORD; they have spurned the Holy One of Israel and turned their backs on him. (5) Why should you be beaten anymore? Why do you persist in rebellion? Your whole head is injured, your whole heart afflicted. (6) From the sole of your foot to the top of your head there is no soundness - only wounds and welts and open sores, not cleansed or bandaged or soothed with oil.

God is detailing how His chosen people had rejected Him. He describes how wounded they were - physically and spiritually. You can hear the concern, the love in his voice. It's like He's saying, 'Why do you keep chasing after false gods and allowing other nations to abuse you when you know better? Why would you choose suffering when you could come back to Me and I will bless you?'

Then there's a passage where God goes on to say, at this point in their rebellion - He's become so tired of their empty religion, and because of their willingness to embrace evil - He won't even listen to their prayers anymore. Then we see this in Isaiah 1:19-20 (NIV)...

If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the best from the land; (20) but if you resist and rebel, you will be devoured by the sword." For the mouth of the LORD has spoken.

God was pleading for His children to return to the safety of His blessings. Then God listed all of their sins - their idol worship and thievery and sexual perversion, and finally says, 'Enough!' - and He spells out His judgment against them. In chapter 3, He says, "the LORD Almighty, is about to take from Jerusalem and Judah both supply and support: all supplies of food and all supplies of water, the hero and warrior, the judge and prophet, the soothsayer and elder..." He explains the consequence of their actions - and what will happen to them without His help.

And even as God explains how terrible this will be for them as their enemies overtake them, without His help - in chapter 4, God throws out a lifeline of hope. Isaiah wrote of the coming 'Branch of the Lord" - referring to the coming Messiah! And when the Messiah was revealed to him, Isaiah had to have been excited by this hope! But then, here comes the problem of fully knowing the future. That knowledge put a damper on the excitement when combined with the prediction of the people's future rejection of God and His ways.

Isaiah 5:1-7 (NIV)

I will sing for the one I love a song about his vineyard: My loved one had a vineyard on a fertile hillside. (2) He dug it up and cleared it of stones and planted it with the choicest vines. He built a watchtower in it and cut out a winepress as well. Then he looked for a crop of good grapes, but it yielded only bad fruit. (3) "Now you dwellers in Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard.

(4) What more could have been done for my vineyard than I have done for it? When I looked for good grapes, why did it yield only bad? (5) Now I will tell you what I am going to do to my vineyard: I will take away its hedge, and it will be destroyed; I will break down its wall, and it will be trampled. (6) I will make it a wasteland, neither pruned nor cultivated, and briers and thorns will grow there. I will command the clouds not to rain on it."

(7) The vineyard of the LORD Almighty is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are the garden of his delight. And he looked for justice, but saw bloodshed; for righteousness, but heard cries of distress.

And then if we continue on in this section...

Isaiah 5:20-24 (NIV)

Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. (21) Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and clever in their own sight. (22) Woe to those who are heroes at drinking wine and champions at mixing drinks, (23) who acquit the guilty for a bribe, but deny justice to the innocent.

(24) Therefore, as tongues of fire lick up straw and as dry grass sinks down in the flames, so their roots will decay and their flowers blow away like dust; for they have rejected the law of the LORD Almighty and spurned the word of the Holy One of Israel.

So back then, God's people ignored all of God's warnings. He promised to remove His protection from them, and they were left to deal with...

B. The consequence

And because they rejected God - God allowed Israel and Judah to be invaded by the Assyrians. And later in Isaiah's writings we see this in Isaiah 29:13-14 (NIV)...

The Lord says: "These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men. (14) Therefore once more I will astound these people with wonder upon wonder; the wisdom of the wise will perish, the intelligence of the intelligent will vanish."

And this is not 'astound' in a good way... People were slaughtered, taken captive, cities and fields were destroyed - just like Isaiah predicted. Everything that God promised, everything that Isaiah recorded came true. So why did I give this long summary of a section of a book that's almost 3,000 years old? I think it's important to ask...

II. What can we learn?

It's extremely wise to learn lessons from the past. That's one of the reasons God gave us the history of His people in the Bible. I understand their circumstances were very different from ours. We don't live in a theocracy with God as the head of our government like the nations of Israel and Judah. But truth is truth. And if we choose to ignore the lessons - what is it they say, 'You can't fix stupid'?

The prophecies in Isaiah were specifically about Israel and Judah. They had a special covenant relationship with God - they were under the Old Covenant and we are under the New. But despite the differences - we both serve the same God. God has the exact same character now as He did then. And yes, there were differences - but let's look at perhaps the similarities in...

A. Our culture

For anyone, speaking as a prophet - it's not really a great job. Back then, the prophets had to tell people a lot of things they really didn't want to hear. They were not always overly popular with their audience. In fact, tradition suggests that Isaiah was martyred, sawn in two because he prophesied that 'bad things' would happen. It was sort of a 'shoot the messenger' kind of job. But can we see a parallel between this passage we just read about the people back then and our current culture...?

Isaiah 29:13 (NIV)

The Lord says: "These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men."

According to the latest study from George Barna, 67% of adults with pre-teen children said they are Christians - in the general sense. But once that term was defined, basically asking if they actually believe what the Bible teaches, only 1 in 50 held an orthodox belief about God, the Bible, and truth. Barna said, "Millions of parents are clearly confused about what they believe... In their efforts to shape their children, they can only give what they have." And their findings only saw marginal differences in the beliefs of Christian parents versus non-Christian parents on many current social issues.

Why is that? There's a continuing move to view the responsibility to raise and educate 'our kids' as a community responsibility - even a government responsibility. Preacher Voddie Baucham wrote, "We cannot continue to send our children to Caesar for their education and be surprised when they come home as Romans."

These are our kids, our grandkids - given to us by God. It is our responsibility to teach them God's Word and it's truths - the world will not! But the world is more than willing to teach them their values and false truths. For instance, Apple has recently released their new 'pregnant man' emoji - something that's not possible. And this is not me crying 'persecution', that's not really persecution, but I'm simply speaking truth. And it's that kind of 'truth' that would see me labeled as 'hateful' by many in the world.

Does this passage we read previously sound familiar...

Isaiah 5:20-24 (NIV)

Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. (21) Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and clever in their own sight. (22) Woe to those who are heroes at drinking wine and champions at mixing drinks, (23) who acquit the guilty for a bribe, but deny justice to the innocent.

God created man - male and female. A woman is 'an adult human female'. It's crazy to think that's now a controversial statement. God ordained marriage as between a man and a woman. Those who speak those truths today are called out as evil.

That phrase, 'deny justice to the innocent' is translated in the New American Standard Bible as 'take away the rights of the ones who are in the right'. If I think about who is the most innocent - I'd have to say the unborn. In our culture - many are denied the very right to live. - But just by speaking out on truths like that - that's the kind of speech than many want banned as 'hate speech' today.

We have people in our government who want to decide what speech is truth and which speech is dangerous. Years back, the Roman government determined any talk about a risen Messiah was a crime... 'Now you're talking politics' - no..., I'm talking about truth. I'm not attacking anyone, but responding to things in our culture that go against God's truth. And it's quite clear that it's not always popular - even among some believers.

Many of the exact complaints that God had against His people back then - they're the same things which our culture champions and celebrates today. So what can we learn? You don't have to be a rocket scientist to see...

B. The application

In the book of Isaiah - God didn't spare His chosen people from punishment and persecution by their enemies when they rejected Him. Why would he treat us as a nation any differently if we reject Him and His ways? I know that we're under grace because Jesus has come as our Messiah. But do we take that 'grace' for granted? Have we ignored God's holiness and His righteousness? Do we stand for truth - or do we conform to the world because our convictions may not be as firm as they should be?

The role of Bible-believing, church-attending parents and grandparents is so vitally important for the next generation.

Back to that survey from George Barna I referenced earlier... "Among the Christian parents surveyed, only a slim majority of them, 56%, agreed that they will be in God's presence in Heaven because they trusted in Jesus Christ. One out of four admitted they go through an entire week without worshipping God, which is surely being seen by their own kids." "According to God's plan for the family", Barna says, "it is the parents' responsibility to shape the faith of their children as they approach adulthood." He concluded, "If ever there was a time when our nation was desperate for a grassroots spiritual revival led by the remnant in the pews who still revere God, Jesus Christ, the Bible, and truth-now is that time."

So What?

We do know one thing about the future - Jesus will return. He has promised that, and we know - what God says He will do - He will do! Make your relationship with God a priority now. Spend time with Him in prayer and in worship! Allow Him to change you and make you more like Jesus so that you can stand firm on His Word! And then pass that solid faith onto the next generation!