Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / August 23, 2015 | Route 66 - Isaiah

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August 23, 2015 | Route 66 - Isaiah · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_01: It winds from Chicago to LA More than two thousand miles all the way.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: Alright, alright, I'll go in and ask for directions.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: Boy.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: Get a load of this place.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: I can see the travel brochure now, a picturesque village full of Yankee charm.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: Backwater one horse berg, I call it.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, uh, good morning, sir.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, looks like it's gonna be a beautiful day.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, nice little town you got here.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_01: Which one?
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: Excuse me?
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_01: You mean this picturesque village full of Yankee charm or this one-horse backwater bird?
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: Uh yeah, uh, um I mean, uh you the owner of this place?
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: No, that'd be Joe.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_01: He's the fellow back there under that 57th Shivy.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_01: Oh.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_01: He's been there a spell though, so I figure he's having trouble with what he's doing, or he fell asleep again.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: Huh.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: I see.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: Well, uh, you lived here all your life?
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: Not yet.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, that's a good one.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna have to remember that one.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: Hey uh uh say, uh, you suppose you could help me with some with some directions?
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: That depends.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: Depends on what?
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: On where it is that you're headed.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: I suppose it does.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: Uh see the kids and the wife and I were headed up to.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: A map?
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, oh, a map.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: No, um I've got a GPS.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not partial to them newfangled things myself, but if you got that, you don't need my help.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, well, you see, uh, actually I do.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: You see, I I don't think uh my GPS is working quite right.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, appears good to me.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, well, it's not.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's really no help at all.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: You see, uh, right over here, that's where we're headed.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Paradise Mountain.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, a nice place.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: Ah, you've been there.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: Oh.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: But I got a friend lives up that way.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_01: Oh.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: Expect I'll be going to see him by and by.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: Uh nice.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: Uh anyway, uh this this road right here, this is the road that I think we should take.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, that that is my kind of road right there.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's straight, it's wide, it's uh express all the way, you know.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, that surely is a good road alright.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: Straight, wide express all the way.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_01: Trouble is uh that their road don't go to Paradise Mountain.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: Well, no, but uh, you know, I I I figure we could uh find some sort of connecting road or something.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: Ain't none.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: Never has been.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: But look, never will be, I reckon.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_01: Sorry, you got to follow the map if you want to get to where you want to go.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_01: Now then uh Route 66, that's the road you want to take.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: Uh oh, oh, uh uh get your kicks on Route 66, but that's a song or something?
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: Uh yeah.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: By the way, as I was saying, Route 66, that's the road you want.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: I tried that road.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's a two-lane, it it winds all over the place, up and down, back up, back down.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: You can't even pass because you can't see what's coming.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: I just I could not figure out where I was going on that road at all.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_01: Well, did you follow all the instructions this electronic doodad give you?
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_01: They didn't make any sense.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: One time it said turn right, we got lost.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_01: Uh-huh.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: Did you turn right?
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: Nope.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: Didn't seem like the right way to me.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_01: Well, uh, turn I'm not one to tell a fellow what to do, you understand?
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: But it appears to me a body can't expect to get to where he wants to go if he don't follow his map or pay any mind to what it is he's told.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_01: Now, Route 66 is the way he ought to go.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but look, I mean, there's gotta be 60 some odd towns along this route.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: 66 if you count this one.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: See, and that's that's it exactly.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: When you get to a small town, you gotta slow way down.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: And then your wife, she's gotta stop at all the little shops, right?
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: And then, if you see a McDonald's, you can forget about trying to stick to any kind of schedule.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's ridiculous.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I didn't figure you was in a hurry.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm not in a hurry.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, not really.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: But, you know, I I want to get where I'm going fast.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_01: Getting there, they say, is half the fun.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_01: Getting there in one piece is better.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: Besides, these uh picturesque old villages, they got a lot to offer.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_01: But you gotta stop in them to find out what it is.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you take my advice, Route 66 is the way you ought to go.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I guess so.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_01: It's just that that route just seems so hard.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: I never said it was the easy way, just the best way.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_01: And to get to where you want to go, that's the only way.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but I I mean I think I could go the route.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: Sign, sign.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_01: You just follow the map here and obey all the instructions this little electronic doodad gives you, and you'll get there.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_01: You think so?
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: Never knew a body who didn't.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: Long as he followed the map and obeyed the instructions.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: Sounds like my wife's getting impatient again.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, I must be going back to wake up Joe anyway.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_01: His wife will be wanting him home for lunch pretty soon.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, uh uh, thanks for the advice.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, don't thank me.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_01: Just passing along some advice I wants to have.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, by the by, Tiz.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_01: Huh?
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_01: Beautiful day.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: Huh?
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: Uh honey?
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: Honey, I think I got it all figured out now.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_02: Good morning.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_02: Great drama.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_02: One of Steve Larson's specials, but how about how about the stage, huh?
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_02: You know, um bunch of this stuff comes from uh Marvin Space, although gotta give credit to the Harley dealer for letting us borrow that 50s Harley.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_02: So, wow.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_02: We're having a good time.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_02: If you're just visiting today, if you're just passing through, this is your first Sunday.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_02: We're on a series through the Bible.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_02: 66 books in the Bible, so we're calling it Route 66.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_02: We've just finished three weeks off-road, and we're getting back on the road.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, we finished the first third uh of the journey, and now we're headed into the second third, and it begins uh with the book of Isaiah, which is if you have an Old Testament, open your Bible like in the middle, you'll get to Psalms, then go to the right.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_02: Actually, if you open it right in the middle, you might actually hit Isaiah, which is actually the biggest book word-wise in the entire Bible.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_02: So um, if you go a third of the way on Route 66 from Chicago down through to LA, that'll be 800 miles, and that puts you in western Oklahoma, and you're going, oh my, a lot of desert ahead.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_02: And that's the way people feel when they're reading through the Bible and they get to Isaiah.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_02: They go, oh, one, two, three, four, five, I have seventeen more books, all of them prophetic books, to get out of the Old Testament and to get into the Gospels.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_02: Seventeen books.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_02: I've just hit the desert, you know.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_02: And yet I've got to tell you that Isaiah, uh, I love this desert, so-called, but Isaiah especially, how can I convey to you?
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_02: I just feel under the heat.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_02: I feel under the gun, because I I need to somehow convey to you what I know I can't.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_02: The majesty, the glory, the dignity, the content of the greatest book in the Old Testament, I submit to you, Isaiah.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_02: It corresponds to the book of Romans in the New Testament, which by the way begins the final third of Route 66.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_02: And I feel like, okay, if I could just give them a taste.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_02: I feel like that missionary who was captured by cannibals, he and his buddy, you know, and and and the cannibals, you know, put the pot on the fire and the water and it's boiling.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_02: And so just as they're about to cast them into the pot, the missionary turns to his buddy and he says, Well, look at it this way, at least they'll get a taste of religion.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_02: Ha ha ha.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_02: Well, that's my goal this morning.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_02: I just sort of want to give you a taste, because my goal would be that somehow you would fall in love this morning with this incredible book so much that you might, on your own, just start reading.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe just, I would recommend you read the the final third, you know, half of the book, starting at chapter 40.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_02: In fact, take your study sheet, if you would.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_02: I've tried to put in words, some of my respect for this book.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_02: It's uh reading under the other overview.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_02: Route 66 now climbs its loftiest peak in the Old Testament.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_02: Isaiah is the Mount Everest of Hebrew prophecy.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_02: In fact, we can survey the whole highway from here, for Isaiah is like a miniature Bible.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_02: Its first 39 chapters, corresponding to the 39 books of the Old Testament, are full of judgment.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_02: Isaiah's Judah sinned, nations around her have sinned, the whole world has sinned.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_02: The holy God can't permit rebellion to go unpunished forever, judgment must come.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_02: But the final 27 chapters, corresponding to the 27 books of the New Testament, are full of hope.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_02: God will send his servant Messiah as our Savior to bear a cross, and then God will send him as our sovereign to wear a crown.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_02: The Lord brings salvation, is what Isaiah's name means, and salvation is one of his favorite words because of the brilliance of his poetry and the depth of his theology, Isaiah has been called the Shakespeare and the Saint Paul of the Old Testament.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_02: Only the book of Psalms.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_02: It's quoted more often in the New Testament.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_02: Intellectual, bold, yet tender, Isaiah was consulted regularly by Israel's kings for over 40 years.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_02: Sometime you should take a long vacation here.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_02: Alright, so we're getting into this book, and I've entitled it with, I mean, just a really simple title, God Saves Sinners.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_02: Happens to be the same title that a friend of mine entitled his commentary on Isaiah, God Saves Sinners.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_02: Both this book and Romans, two arguably the two greatest books in the entire Bible, it could be titled God Saves Sinners.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_02: So in a way it's a simple message, but it hides just the most exquisite language, the most beautiful lyrical poetry, the deepest thoughts, the most, and in order to help you sort of glimpse that, I thought, okay, I'm feeling under the heat.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_02: Don't want to blow it.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_02: You know, when you get to Genesis, Psalms, Isaiah, Romans, and Revelation, you're going, oh dear, how do I get to this book in 30 minutes without God being mad at me for, you know, you know, you know, not doing a good enough job.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_02: Well, what I thought I'm gonna do here for Isaiah, I'm gonna remind you for just a couple minutes of all of the great verses in this book that you know.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_02: Okay?
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_02: You know these verses already, you've heard them.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_02: Just sit and let these verses soak into you, maybe recite some of them with me.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_02: Isaiah 6, famous chapter.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_02: In the year that King Isaiah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_02: Do you remember that?
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_02: And we sing this song: holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_02: All the earth is filled with his glory.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_02: Some of you listening to me this morning did sing this song this morning in worship.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_02: And then I heard this is still in Isaiah 6, the famous missionary verse.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_02: Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send and who will go for us?
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_02: And I said, What?
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_02: Here am I, Hinaini, send me.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_02: You've heard of Isaiah 7, 14.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_02: Therefore the Lord Himself shall give you a sign.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_02: Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Emmanuel.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_02: That's what the angel said in the New Testament.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_02: It was the prediction, finally fulfilled 700 years later.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_02: We've heard this verse at Christmas, for unto us a child is born.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_02: Say it with me.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_02: Unto us a son is given, and the government will be upon his shoulder, and his name will be called Wonderful Counsel, Almighty God, everlasting Father, Prince of Peace, Isaiah 9, 6.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_02: And you've got to love Isaiah 11, sort of the millennium, the kingdom passage.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_02: The wolf will live with a lamb, the leopard will lie down with a goat, the calf and young lion will be together, and a child will lead him.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_02: An infant will play beside a cobra's pit, a toddler will put his hand into a snake's den.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_02: None will harm or destroy another, for the land will be as full of the knowledge of the Lord as the sea is filled with water.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_02: You can't tell me that isn't great literature.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_02: That's just beautifully expressed.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_02: And we sing Isaiah 12, too.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_02: Behold, God is my salvation, I will trust and not be afraid, for the Lord my God is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation, right?
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe I the only one who say.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_02: And then one of my favorite verses when there's a little anxiety is you will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed or fixed on you because he trusts in you.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_02: Beautiful verse.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_02: We get to Isaiah 40, verse 8.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_02: The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of God stands forever.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_02: And Isaiah 40, 31, you love this verse.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_02: Say it with me, but they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_02: They shall mount up with wings as eagles, they shall run and not be weary, and they shall walk and not faint.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_02: And a great verse for you, whenever you're scared or fearful in the dark or whatever, is this one in Isaiah 41, 10.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_02: Fear not, for I am with you.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_02: Be not dismayed, for I am your God.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_02: I will strengthen you.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, I'll help you.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_02: I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_02: And then, of course, uh the famous verse, the most famous prophecy in the Bible.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_02: Seven hundred years before the Messiah came, we had this so specific this prediction, but he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_02: The punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_02: Isaiah 53, 5.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_02: And you know Isaiah 53, 6.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_02: Say it with me.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_02: All we like sheep have gone astray.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_02: We have turned every one to his own way, and the Lord has laid upon him the iniquity of us all.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_02: Isaiah 55, 6, as we move toward the end of the book, seek the Lord while he may be found.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_02: Call upon him while he is near.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_02: Isaiah 55.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_02: And then closing the book, Isaiah 65, this prediction of a new world, for behold, I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former shall not be remembered, nor even come into mind.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_02: So what I've done is I have divided the book, and I think you have to, into two parts, chapters 1 through 39, chapters 40 to 66.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_02: And I've got to tell you that chapters 1 through 39 is judgment.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_02: It is God saying, you know, I have to judge rebellious man.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_02: Holy God.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_02: Notice because he's holy, and that's that's probably his number one greatest attribute.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_02: The first attribute you must speak, say about God, he's holy, meaning he's holy or completely different from us, and he's also holy or completely free from sin, pure.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_02: And because he's holy, he must judge rebellious man.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_02: It's not just that we're disobedient, it's that we're actually rebellious, who proudly, our rebellion comes from pride, proudly, absolutely refuses to do what?
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_02: To surrender, to wave a white flag of surrender before God.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_02: And not surrender to him by trying to obey all these commands to go to heaven, but to surrender to him by trusting him, by believing him.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_02: That's chapters one through 39.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_02: You should have it on the back of your study sheet, and the first of the two points underneath it in chapters one through 39 is man is arrogant, he rebels against God.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_02: I was gonna put man is proud, but do you know if you Google the word proud or pride today, you won't find anything negative about it, page after page, picture after picture, pride is a good thing.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, there's rainbows everywhere, there's all kinds of we're proud of and be proud of and so forth.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_02: And that word has sort of been whitewashed, so it's only a good thing.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_02: But it's funny, if you take the synonym arrogant and you Google that, it's all bad.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_02: So I thought, okay, gotta use the word arrogant.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_02: Man is arrogant, he rebels against God.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_02: Now, uh I'm quoting chapter one because here's what's nice for a preacher is that though you have 66 chapters of Isaiah, the four-part message of Isaiah is also summarized in the first chapter 1, 1 through 2, 4 of Isaiah.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_02: So I get to sort of focus there.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm gonna do that.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_02: One, chapter 1, verse 2.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_02: Listen, heavens, pay attention, earth.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_02: Okay?
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_02: This is this is the attorney calling the courtroom to order, calling uh both, you know, heavens and earth.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_02: Listen, for the Lord has spoken, we're gonna put Israel on trial.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_02: I have raised children and I've brought them up, but they have rebelled against me.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_02: The word for sin in this book, there's four main words for sin in the Old Testament, it uses the word rebellion.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_02: Rebellion.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_02: When my uh when I was working on this yesterday, my six-year-old grandson ran in, came over to Judah, peered over my shoulder, he watched me on this slide, he goes, Papa, what does rebel?
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_02: What does rebel mean?
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_02: And I thought about it, I because I thought I said, okay, like you know how we when you're downstairs and your mommy calls down the stairs and says, Come up now for supper?
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_02: And you know how you tend not to?
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_02: You want to play one more game or stay a little bit longer?
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_02: And he said, Yeah.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_02: I said, that's that's disobeying, but it's not really rebelling.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_02: Have you ever, though, have you ever, if she said, I want you to come up now for supper, and you said no, that I said is rebelling.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_02: I said, that's when you deliberately defy when your mommy says yes and you say no, or when your daddy says no and you say yes, that's what rebelling is.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_02: And in this book, 30 times, instead of using the word sin, the author likes to say, from heaven's viewpoint, friends, what you're doing is actually rebelling against me.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_02: And there again, we have a problem because if you Google the word rebel today, it's a positive word.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, we all rooted, right, for the rebel alliance in Star Wars.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_02: And we admire rebels at times.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_02: You know, we admire the Boston Tea Party casting the tea over the side.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_02: We were rebels, you know, against the tyrants back in 1776.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_02: But the fact, and maybe some of you lived in Missouri and and your ancestors fought for General Robert E.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_02: Lee, and you were rebels in the Civil War.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_02: But but but most of the time, when there are God-ordained authorities like dads and moms and God himself, then rebellion.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_02: Rebellion is a bad thing.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_02: And we talk about rebellious children, we talk about rebellious teens, and every parent knows that there is something ugly about this, and God says in Isaiah, your sins against me look to heaven as though you're raising your fists against me and refusing my rule over your life, and I can't stand that.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_02: Now, this becomes the theme over and over again.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_02: Chapter 1, verse 5, they've rebelled against me, my children.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_02: Verse, verse, or verse, that's verse 2.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_02: Verse 5, why do you keep on rebelling?
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_02: Notice.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_02: Verse 20, your rulers are rebels.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_02: Verse 23.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_02: Rebels will be destroyed, chapter 3.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_02: Earth's rebellion weighs it down.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_02: Woe to the rebellious children, chapter 30.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_02: Return to the one you've rebelled against, chapter 31.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_02: And I love 36.5.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_02: What are you now relying on?
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_02: What are you relying on that you've rebelled against me?
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_02: And you say, hold on, that's a little strong for the way I treat God.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I'm not exactly that way.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_02: I'm pretty innocent, comparatively.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_02: I say, really?
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_02: Really?
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_02: Do you remember the absolute murderous rage that rose up inside you when someone else was selected over you for a position for which you were more qualified?
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_02: Do you know that?
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um that you keep hidden in the back of the cloud of the bitterness that you have a hard time letting go against your brother.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_02: You know that impatience that you feel even with helpless grandma.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_02: Or flipping it.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_02: Do you know the the way that you try to manipulate your children at times?
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_02: You know how how you rationalize everything that you do?
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_02: You go, Jim, I'm how do you know me so well?
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_02: I don't.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_02: I just sat there and thought, okay, what am I like?
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_02: And I wrote it down.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, that's actually what I did.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, and and you know, that's the way we are.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_02: But we tend to relabel our rebellion.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_02: So the world does that, doesn't it?
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_02: So that uh adultery becomes an affair.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_02: Or we relabel pornography as adult programming.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_02: Or we relabel sin as a mistake.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_02: Or we then rationalize it entirely.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_02: And God says, no, I'm I'm letting you know something.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_02: You can't get any farther in this book, you can't get any farther in your life until you learn to call that sin what it really is in my sight.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_02: And I and I call it rebellion, absolute rebellion.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_02: And it's not only deliberate and conscious, the next verse reminds us that it's absolutely senseless.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_02: The ox knows its owner.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_02: The donkey, its master's feeding trough, but Israel doesn't know, my people don't understand.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_02: You know how we talk about people, he's as dumb as an ox.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_02: God says, you know, yeah, you're as dumb as an ox.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_02: You're as dumb as an ass when it comes to rebelling against me.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_02: Why would you ever do that?
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_02: Don't you remember back when my son came and he was there in the manger?
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, you had all of those brilliant, educated Jewish, religious type leaders, and they knew that the Messiah was there, that the Messiah was coming, but they couldn't be bothered, even though they were five miles away in Jerusalem, couldn't be bothered to get up and come down to the cave, but the oxes and the ass were there.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_02: That's how senseless your sin is.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_02: And not only is it conscious and senseless, it's absolutely horrendous.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_02: And in one of the great, you know, characterizations of depravity in the Bible, oh sinful nation, and read yourself into this, oh sinful Jim, I read this week, weighed down with iniquity, brood of evildoers, depraved children, they've abandoned the Lord, they've despised the Holy One of Israel, they've turned their backs on him.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_02: In medical slang, once in a while you'll hear the word horrenderoma to describe like a golf ball-sized cancer, you know, that can't be operated on.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_02: It's a horrenderoma.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_02: Well, that's how God looks at your sin and mine.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_02: It's like almost inoperable.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_02: It's just, it's a horrendous thing.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_02: You go, really?
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_02: It's that bad?
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_02: I say, yeah, it's that bad.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_02: And you know what?
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_02: We used to know that.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_02: We used to know that we're really that way.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_02: The darkest book I ever had to read in high school was Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness story about, you know, the somebody going down into the heart of Africa.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you start reading, you think that's it.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_02: It's Africa's the dark continent, going to the heart of darkness, and then you realize that the brilliant author Joseph Conrad, and there's there was a movie with Orson Wells, but you realize in both the movie and the book by the end of it that the heart of darkness for Joseph Conrad is not Africa.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_02: The heart of darkness is the guy's own heart.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_02: And as he lays dying at the end of the book, he cries out, looking at his own heart, the horror, the horror.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_02: And God says, that's exactly right.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_02: That's what your heart is like.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_02: You're not a sinner because you're you sin, you've sinned.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_02: You're a sinner because that's what your heart is like.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_02: There's something inside you that refuses and rebels against God.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_02: And you used to know that.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_02: Lord of the Flies by William Golding captured it perfectly.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_02: A group, a band of uh English choir boys gets lost and stranded on an island without anything to help them, without any end, so as a result, they have to do everything by themselves, and gradually they degenerate into pagan savages.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_02: The veneer of civilization wears off these well-raised English boys and they degenerate and they become murderers and so forth.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_02: It's just, it's unbelievable.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_02: Lord of the flies, as you probably know, is the translation of the word Beelzebub, meaning Satan, and it's no wonder then that he puts in his book the boys are going, you know, as they're horrified, some of them horrified themselves at the killings that they're slaughtering.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe there's a beast.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_02: Well, maybe it's only us.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_02: And G.K.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_02: Chesterton, the English journalist, caught this beautifully a hundred years ago when he read the article in the Times of London entitled What's Wrong with the World, and he wrote him back this sentence regarding your article, What's Wrong with the World?
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_02: I am.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_02: Yours truly, G.K.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_02: Chesterton.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_02: And until you get to the place where you look at the world and you say, What's wrong with the world?
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_02: What's wrong with the world is I'm wrong with the world.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_02: There's a heart, a dark heart inside me, a heart of darkness, the horror of it.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_02: Until you do that, you'll never become right with God.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_02: And the psychology of it in chapters 1 through 39 is it all comes from one attitude, and it's called pride.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_02: That's the reason we refuse to submit to God and trust.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_02: It's human pride.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_02: Human pride that compares us with each other and then rebels against God.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_02: Didn't you love the poll that came out a few years ago that asked Americans two questions?
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_02: Number one, do you think you're going to heaven?
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_02: Number two, do you think your neighbors are going to heaven?
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_02: You know where this is going.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_02: 80% of Americans said, Yeah, I'm pretty sure I'm going to heaven.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_02: About 20% of them thought their neighbors were going to heaven.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, because we compare ourselves with each other and we're pretty sure we're a lot better than the people around us.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_02: It's that same pride that says, I really don't need God.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_02: And God just blasts pride.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_02: In chapter 2, for instance, he has a die of a day in store for all the proud and lofty, for all that's exalted.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_02: The arrogance of man is going to be brought low.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_02: Human pride will be humbled.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_02: The Lord alone will be exalted in that day.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_02: And when he gets to the end of the book, he says, listen, the high and exalted one who lives forever, whose name is holy, says this.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_02: I live in a high and holy place and with the oppressed and lowly in heart.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_02: I have two homes.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_02: I have two home addresses.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_02: Number one, you've never been to, it's so up there, it's so high, it's at the very top.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_02: It's just way up.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_02: That's where I live.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_02: But I also live somewhere else.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_02: Those of you who are down in the gutter, who see yourselves as you really are, as unrepentant rebels against me, I'm down there with you if you're humble.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_02: So we're arrogant.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_02: We rebel against God.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_02: And we are like the little girl, to be honest.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_02: You probably heard, maybe you haven't heard the story, of the five-year-old girl, and it was going to be a family reunion, and she and her mother had plotted.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_02: She had a real good singer.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_02: Mom said, Okay, all the aunts and uncles are all coming in.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_02: I'd like you to sing.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_02: You have a great voice.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, mommy, I will.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_02: So here comes time, and the mother goes to her daughter and she says, puts her arm around her and says, Honey, is it time for you to sing?
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_02: And she says, No.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_02: And her mother's thinking of all the hours they spend in practicing and says, What would you like to sing, honey?
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_02: And her daughter says, Nothing.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_02: Well, she's got her arm around her and she's squeezing a little tighter and tighter, you know, just to let her know.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_02: You know, now she slides her hand down to a soft place, puts a couple, you know, inches in between her fingers, starts to pinch, and says, Honey, how about singing that song we practiced?
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_02: And her daughter says, No.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_02: So the mother takes her and marches her up to her own bedroom, the master bedroom upstairs, and says, Why don't you stay in here for 10 minutes, then I'll come back and get you, and we'll think about this again.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_02: Mother comes back in 10 minutes, opens the door, and says to her daughter, how are you doing?
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_02: And her daughter says, Good.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_02: Really?
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_02: I've spit on all your clothes, and I've spit on your shoes, and I've spit on the wall, and I've spit on the carpet.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_02: What are you doing now?
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_02: I'm just waiting for more spit.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_02: And that attitude of waiting for more spit is the attitude that as heaven looks down, that's the attitude it sees in us who rebel, who refuse to wave the white flag of surrender before God's call for us to humble ourselves and trust Him.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_02: And that's the attitude that He says, I have no choice.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_02: I have no choice, but I have to punish sin.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_02: Chapter 1, 5 through 9, he says, listen, I've been giving you guys spankings.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_02: I've been punishing you because I have no choice, but why do you keep wanting more beatings?
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_02: Why do you keep on rebelling?
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_02: Your whole head's hurt, your whole heart's sick, sole of the foot, even to your head, no spot is uninjured.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_02: You have wounds, welts, festering, stores, sores.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, your land's desolate, your cities are burned with fire, foreigners devour your fields before your very eyes.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_02: Daughter Zion, that is Jerusalem, is abandoned like a shelter in a vineyard, like a shack in a cucumber field.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_02: I love that line.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_02: Like a shack in a cucumber field.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_02: Like a besieged city.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_02: If the Lord of hosts hadn't left us a few survivors, we would be like Sodom.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_02: We would resemble Gomorrah.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_02: I've got a punishment.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_02: I have no choice.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_02: I simply have to.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_02: And you say, well, why?
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_02: Can't you just go, I forgive you, like we do?
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_02: No.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_02: No, I can't do that because someone always pays.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_02: And as he talks about punishing sin, all of a sudden he stops for a moment in chapter five just to let you know his heart, and he starts crying.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_02: This is God.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_02: And he weeps, says, but I don't want to, it hurts me.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_02: And he stops and he sings the famous song of the vineyard.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_02: I want to sing a song about the one I love, a song about my loved one's vineyard, singing about Israel.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_02: And he says, I bought a vineyard, and then I worked so hard to get all the rocks out of the vineyard, and then I planted vines, and then I tended the vines, and I worked so hard for my people to make them to help them produce grapes, speaking about his people.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_02: And then the commentary is he expected it to yield good grapes, but it yielded worthless grapes.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_02: And then God cries out, So now judge between me and my vineyard.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_02: What more could I have done for my vineyard than I did?
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_02: It's like he's calling us in, saying, You figure it out.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, what more can I do?
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_02: I have no choice.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_02: I've got to knock down the vineyard, I've got to destroy it.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_02: I have to punish sin.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_02: And that's chapters 1 through 39.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_02: Not only 1 through 39, to everyone's surprise, the whole book that ends that way, ends that way.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_02: The very last verse of this book.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_02: In the context of talking about the joy of the new heavens and new earth, and people going to heaven and everything, and all of a sudden the last words are, okay, and the people who are going into the kingdom as they leave, they will see the dead bodies of the men who have rebelled against me, for their worm will never die, their fire will never go out, and they will be a horror to all mankind.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_02: Really?
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_02: Isaiah, Isaiah, wouldn't you like?
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_02: Can we edit this a little bit?
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_02: Wouldn't you like to end your book a little differently?
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_02: I love the comment from the best commentary on this book, John Oswald, a few years ago, professor at Asbury.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_02: And it's a great, I recommend it.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_02: It's about a 10,000 pages long, but you'll love it.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_02: It's good.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_02: And as he comments on this verse, he says this if we will come to God in submission and trust, all the treasures of heaven are ours.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_02: But if we will not, then the day will come when those who do trust him will see the destruction of us who persist in revolt.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_02: Thus the book ends on the same note with which it began.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_02: Surrendering to the Creator Redeemer in trust is the height of wisdom, or as rebellion against him is the height of folly.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_02: God must punish rebel.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_02: And then suddenly the scene changes.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_02: Chapter 39 ends, we open chapter 40, verse 1, and our first words are comfort, comfort my people, says your God.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_02: And we take this deep sigh of relief.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_02: We have come to the section of hope that after judgment, for there has to be judgment after judgment, holy God will save.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_02: Who will he save?
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_02: He'll save rebels who lay aside their pride and do what?
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_02: And surrender to him in trust.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_02: These are glorious chapters, amazing chapters.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_02: And they tell us two things.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_02: First, that God will deliver us rebels from our sin.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_02: Wow, by sending his servant the Messiah to die in our place.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_02: And you have the greatest prophecy in the Bible, 52, 13 to 53, 12, in which you have to understand who's speaking here.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_02: In prophecy, seven, looking 700 years down the road, he prophesies as though he's one of the Jewish people who stuck Christ on the cross and then seeing as he died and rose from the grave, then repented and came around and became one of the Christians, one of the believers, one of the first church people who looks back on what he did in crucifying Christ and says, Oh, well, listen, he didn't have, Jesus didn't have an impressive form or majesty that we should look at him.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_02: No appearance that we should desire him.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, he was despised and rejected by men.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_02: He was a man of suffering.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_02: He knew what sickness was.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_02: He was like somebody people turned away from.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_02: He was despised.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_02: We didn't value him.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_02: And yet we realize now he himself bore our sicknesses and he carried our pains, but we regarded him as stricken, struck down by God and afflicted.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_02: But he was pierced because of our transgressions.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_02: He was crushed because of our iniquities, punishment for our peace was on him, and we're healed by his wounds.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_02: You see, he delivering us by sending his servant to die in our place.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_02: What's that called?
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_02: That's called substitution.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_02: That's called dying in my place for my sin.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_02: That's the very heart of the gospel.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_02: You'll understand it if you if you remember the story of the two Chinese brothers who worked for their folks at the Chinese restaurant there in Hong Kong.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_02: And then walking home at night, the two brothers, the younger one, decided to play a prank on an old man who was lying by the side of the road, and the prank got bad.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_02: And the old man, it just turned tragic and he died.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_02: And then the sirens started up, and the older brother, seeing that his younger brother had blood on his shirt, forced his younger brother to trade shirts with them.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_02: So that when the police arrived, they looked and they saw the older brother and they arrested the older brother and they stuck him in prison and they tried him and they convicted him and they executed him and the younger brother for his entire entire life, looked back and knew that his older brother had died in his place.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_02: That's substitution.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_02: That's what the servant Messiah did in your place and my place when he died on the cross.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_02: We know what that's like.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_02: A few years ago, when that teacher and the four students died down in Jonesboro, Arkansas, when those when those two guys, you know, started blasting away with their weapons at that at that elementary school.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_02: The teacher who died, sixth-grade teacher.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_02: Why did she die?
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_02: Because she dove in front of the girl in her class, the sixth-grade girl.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_02: She took the bullet for her, she died in her place.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_02: That substitution, you understand it, I understand it.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_02: It's what you need to understand is what Jesus did for you.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_02: It's what we needed.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_02: We needed, the problem was we needed a perfect substitute because one criminal can't die for another criminal, one rebel can't die for another rebel, one murderer can't die for another murderer.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_02: We all have to die for our own sin.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_02: We need somebody absolutely perfect who has never sinned to die in our place.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_02: And God says, I've got him.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_02: He's my servant.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_02: And the holy Son of God 2,000 years ago came down to earth, was born as a baby in Bethlehem, lived an absolutely perfect life.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_02: And then on the cross he hung and he died for our sin.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_02: We went astray like sheep.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_02: We turned to our own way.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_02: But the Lord punished him.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_02: What?
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_02: For the iniquity of us all.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_02: And like a lamb led to the slaughter, he didn't even open his mouth.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_02: And God's verdict is, okay?
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_02: I see that, and that will justify or declare righteous many, and he carries their iniquities.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_02: He submitted himself to death.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_02: Jesus, my son, the servant, was counted among the rebels, yet he bore the sin of many and interceded for the rebels.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_02: That's the gospel right there.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_02: God delivers rebels from their sin by sending his servant the Messiah to die in their place.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_02: And then he goes on in the last ten chapters to say, listen, it doesn't end there.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_02: I will deliver you from your enemies as well by one day bringing my glorious reign of peace on the earth.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_02: And so we have in the summary, chapters one and two, the words, in the last days, the mountain of the Lord's house will be established at the top of the mountains.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_02: It'll be raised above the hills.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_02: All nations will stream to it.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_02: They'll turn their swords into plows, their spears into pruning knives.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_02: Nations won't take up sword against other nations anymore.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_02: They'll never again train for war.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_02: For I'll create, chapter 65, a new heaven and a new earth.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_02: I'll create Jerusalem to be a joy, its people a delight.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_02: The sound of weeping and crying will no longer be heard in her.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_02: And the wolf and the lamb will feed together, the lion will eat straw like the ox.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_02: No one will do what is evil or destroy on my entire holy mountain.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_02: And in one of my favorite verses, and we're going to close in about three minutes with this song, I'd ask Jeremiah to please sing the song.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_02: Arise, shine.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_02: This is a cry to the servant Jesus.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_02: Arise, Jesus, shine forever, for your light has come.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_02: The glory of the Lord is rising on you.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_02: Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_02: Fill this land with your Father's glory.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_02: Blaze, Spirit blaze.
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_02: Set our hearts on fire.
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_02: And friends, I have just one question for you.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_02: One question from the book of Isaiah.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_02: Where are you on the ball diamond of Isaiah?
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_02: First base, sin rebellion.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_02: Second base, judgment, third base, salvation, fourth base, glory.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_02: We're not yet at glory.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_02: But come now and let us reason together, says the Lord.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_02: Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_02: Though they are red like crimson, they can be like wool.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_02: Move, if you would, off of first base.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_02: Allow Jesus to take your judgment on second base.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_02: Enjoy third base, that base of salvation.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_02: Will you bow your head with me for a moment?
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_02: I'm well aware that most of you, that many of you have trusted Christ as your Savior.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_02: You know this message, but I know that there are always people who wonder have I really wrestled truly with who I am and what Christ did for me?
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_02: So I want to ask you this question: Are you ready to trust Christ right now?
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_02: And if your answer is yes, here's one way that you can tell God in prayer what you're doing.
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_02: Simply whisper these words after me as I say them.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_02: Dear God, I come to you now.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_02: I know I am a sinner.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_02: Nothing I am or do makes me deserving of heaven.
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_02: I believe Jesus Christ, the perfect Son of God, died for me on a cross and rose again.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_02: Right now, I place my trust in Jesus Christ as my only way to heaven.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you for the free gift of everlasting life I have just received.
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_02: In Jesus' name I pray.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_02: Amen.