Isaiah 64-66 Reading Isaiah 65
Imagine everyone of us is now on a plane
If I told you at some point soon you’ll have to jump out of the plane & you’re handed a parachute,
would you take the parachute?
It might not sound as silly as I said it
For some people that’s what they think looking to God for the life I live now and the life still to come feels like
Listen in to this Skit Guys Clip The Parachute[1] (4min11sec)
Tommy from The Skit Guys, makes the jump between our lives now the afterlife to come and where we see Jesus in all of that
The surprise of God is that he gets us looking to the future
There’s a whole new world
Not everyone wants the parachute
not everyone wants to join
just as now we reach the end of the book of Isaiah all 66 chapters
how would you sum it up
what’s the destination we’re left in view
put Isaiah into the times that were happening then
Sennacherib the Assyrian
Invaded Israel swept away three quarters of the people
Captured city after city, besieged Jerusalem
With King Hezekiah holding out
The town was saved
God’s people had their moment of glory
It would have felt like vindication
God’s people rescued from the evil Assyrians
Deliverance
A reprieve short lived
People went on to run at life just like they had before the invasion and siege
People fell back into the same ruts and forgot the call of God to a daily life of faith and hope
Captivity was coming. The Babylonians under King Nebuchadnezzar were going to sweep the remnant of God’s people away
The temple of Jerusalem was going to be destroyed
Once in captivity there will be a time
when the exiles will return home
Not every family will return
The future was feeling more unknown and less uncertain than ever before
So Isaiah ends his letter with
words of hope alongside words of warning
22 “As the new heavens and the new earth that I make will endure before me,” declares the LORD, “so will your name and descendants endure. 23 From one New Moon to another and from one Sabbath to another, all mankind will come and bow down before me,” says the LORD. 24 “And they will go out and look on the dead bodies of those who rebelled against me; the worms that eat them will not die, the fire that burns them will not be quenched, and they will be loathsome to all mankind.” (Isaiah 66:22-24)
are those words comforting or chilling for you
jump now into our times today
if you were asked by someone
the Easter story of Jesus is that a happy story or a sad story
is it comforting or chilling?
what would you say
in one sense Easter is the happiest story ever told
sin defeated, new creation promised, life gets a new perspective
Jesus paid it all
Yet Easter is also one of the saddest stories we ever read
Cowardly disciples
Corrupt political and religious leaders
Human ingenuity in prolonged painful death
I’m not sure if Chapters 65 -66 of Isaiah
are happy or sad endings either
It’s what Isaiah gets us into view
He directs our gaze to see
Life is all about the world of God’s plans for the future
As we read in Isaiah 65:1-3
55:1 “I revealed myself to those who did not ask for me; I was found by those who did not seek me. To a nation that did not call on my name, I said, ‘Here am I, here am I.’ 2 All day long I have held out my hands to an obstinate people, who walk in ways not good, pursuing their own imaginations— 3 a people who continually provoke me to my very face,
in spite of all they had seen
how God had saved them,
made clear it was he who was saving them,
for all the blessings they have experienced
life continues to go as if nothing was special about God
they were living willful careless lives indifferent to God