Last week we studied a BIG book- Isaiah! I think that was the most work we have ever had in a week, but it was great! The main idea of the whole book is that the Israelites needed to trust God for both their physical and their spiritual salvation. There is a contrast in the book between the King of Ahaz who is given the option of trusting God for deliverence from his enemies, but because of pride chooses not to. And then there is Hezekiah who also is confronted with the same choice and in humility he relies on God. The book is really one huge contrast between those who trust God in humility and those who refuse to acknowledge God in their pride. There are these amazing restoration passages and prophesies of a coming Servant. Here are a few that encouraged me this past week:
Why do you say O Jacob, and speak O Israel,
"My way is hidden from the Lord, and my right is disregarded by my God"?
Have you not known, Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary;
his understanding is unsearchable.
He gives power to the faint and strengthens the powerless.
Even youths will faint and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted;
but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength,
they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary,
they shall walk and not faint. (Isaiah 40:27-31)
Another one that is so cool is the detailed description of what the ‘Servant’ will do written 650 years before Jesus:
He was despised and rejected by others; a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity;
and as one from whom others hide their faces he was despised and we held him of no account.
Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases;
yet we accounted him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted.
But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray; we have all turned to our own way,
and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. (Isaiah 53:3-6)
Teaching Adventures 