Today’s passage: Isaiah 59

Helpful thoughts:

• The Israelites are being rebuked for wanting to receive “positive” responses and judgments without truly pursuing justice.  They were fine with decisions as long as it went the way they wanted…even if what they wanted was unjust.
  • They were praying to God and expecting Him to act according to their crooked standards while rejecting His lordship.
• When unjust man strives for resolution in his own efforts and values, man will only find more injustice, more darkness, more gloom.
• Justice and righteousness would not come from mankind, so God brought it to us Himself, through the Redeemer, Jesus Christ.

Questions to consider:

1. What is happening in the heart of people when God is the one at fault and we are the ones who determine how things should go?  Does God err?  Does He act unjustly?  Can anyone truly find fault in Him?
2. Whose ways gets the world into the messes we find ourselves dealing with?  Whose ways are going to resolve these problems?  Whose ways are going to make them worse?  Whose ways are you trusting in?
3. God the Son put on this armor (Verse 17) to fend off unrighteousness and to bring salvation.  How does the Apostle Paul call us to do the same (Ephesians 6:10-20)?

Today’s passage: Isaiah 58

Helpful thoughts:

• Verse 2 is written to show the perspective of Israel.  As far as they could tell, they were doing everything right and pursuing God, when they weren’t.  Then they blamed God for not acting in accordance with their desires.
• God desires repentance and righteous obedience, not empty man-centered and designed religious exercise.
• Truly delighting in the Lord is a fruit of honoring His commands and His day, which produces more obedience and more joy.

Questions to consider:

1. Is it possible to go to church, to speak in a very Christian-like way, to be very spiritual and to NOT be truly following Christ or under His lordship?  How does this happen?  How would a person have to view religion in order for this to be a possibility?
2. When can we know that repentance has genuinely occurred?  Is it evidenced through religious observances, words or through a change in our actions?  How does God describe repentance and godliness in this chapter?
3. What are your favorite things to do on the Lord’s Day?  How will our pleasures and delights change (Our objects of affection) the more we honor the Lord on His day?

Today’s passage: Isaiah 57

Helpful thoughts:

• God rebukes Israel for their sinful sexual appetite and the slaughter of their children (Verse 5).
  • Israel did those things in the name of idolatry.
  • Modern western civilization does it in the name of humanism (Today’s form of idolatry).
    • Looking at the numbers I found, if people identifying as “Evangelical Protestants” would stop getting abortions, about 3,500 lives would be saved every year in our state alone.
• We sin when we fear/reverence someone or something else over God.
• It is right for all of God’s people to have a contrite and lowly spirit.  We are saved by grace.  Revival comes from Him.  Israel will be blessed because God has willed it, not because they want it or because they want Him…they don’t.

Questions to consider:

1. What is life after physical death compared to in verses 1-2?
2. How will the world, and even some who identify as part of the church continue to respond to God and His truth (Verse 4)?  How can this give us temptation to fear?  Who must we fear and why?
3. How does the truth of the Gospel produce a proper humility in us?  How does that humility and our healthy fear of God change the way we interact with the calamity of this world?

Today’s passage: Isaiah 56

Helpful thoughts:

• What the Lord gives to His people is better than anything this world can offer.  The way the world values things and the way the world tries to ascribe value to people will not define you.
• Those who hold fast to God’s covenant are those who desire to please Him and follow His commands (Verses 4 and 6).
  • See Ephesians 2:8-10.
• Verses 9-12 are a rebuke against the leaders and prophets in Israel who preferred the comforts of this life to righteousness.  As long as everything seemed easy and normal, they had no further thought or desire for God.
  • This is a stark contrast to the foreigners (Us!), the eunuchs, and the outcasts (Exiles) of Israel whom God has promised to receive.

Questions to consider:

1. Compare the last verses of Isaiah 56 with the first two verses of Isaiah 55.  Do lost people think they’re thirst is not being quenched?  Why is it such a gift to become aware of our great need?
2. What is the covenant to which we hold fast (1 Corinthians 11:25-26)?  What makes foreigners like us become the children of God?
3. What emotion does God promise us and where will we experience it to so high a degree (Verse 7)?  How should this promise guide our desires and actions today?

Today’s passage: Isaiah 55

Helpful thoughts:

• The greatest need every single soul on the face of the earth has is the need of repentance and reconciliation with God.
  • Christian, God has given this to you!
• Christians will not find satisfaction elsewhere after they are saved.
  • The lost never find it.  The saved must remember the Spring from which their satisfaction comes!
• God’s word will accomplish every single thing He intends for it to accomplish.

Questions to consider:

1. What takes up the most “real estate” in your mind?  What do you think about the most?  What do you spend the most time reading about, watching, etc.?  Is it leaving you thirsty or does it satisfy?
2. If it seems like the world around us is desperate for satisfaction (Which they are), what is the only thing that will bring them satisfaction?
3. What does the future hold for those who have put their faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior?  Who will be faithful and powerful enough to bring it about?

Today’s passage: Isaiah 54

Helpful thoughts:

• The grace of God and the life He gives eternally to His people will remove all reason for shame and reproach from the past.
• The “covenant of peace” in verse 10 is also referred to as the Covenant of Grace or as the New Covenant.  This is the covenant purchased by the blood of Jesus.  It has already been sealed and it can never be annulled (Verse 9).
• In the Kingdom, there will be those who fight against Israel and against God, but they will never succeed.

Questions to consider:

1. On what basis is Israel’s (And our) past sins removed?  Why will we be free from our guilt and reproach?  (Verse 5)
2. The precious stones sound nice and all, but what other promises in this chapter are there that are of far greater value?
3. What do verses 16-17 teach us about God’s sovereignty and authority?  Is there anyone who is truly out from under His rule (Even if they desire to be or don’t even believe He exists)?

Today’s passage: Isaiah 53

Helpful thoughts:

• This prophecy concerning the Suffering Servant, Jesus Christ, began in Isaiah 52:13.
• This prophecy was written approximately 700 years before the birth of Christ.
• Jesus Christ was pierced for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities, chastised to bring us peace, wounded for our healing.
  • Our greatest “sickness” is not physical.  Jesus healed our greatest problem, our sin.  Sin brings eternal death, in Christ we have been eternally healed.
• Jesus was satisfied in His suffering because He saw in it our salvation.

Questions to consider:

1. How does this chapter help us to better understand the truth of Jesus dying in our place as our substitute?  What happened at the cross that took the penalty of our sin away and purchased our freedom?
2. Sometimes after reading this chapter we might thing, “How do people not understand…especially the Jewish people?”  How does John 3 help us to answer this question?  (See John 3:1-21, especially verses 8, 10, 19)
3. How does this fulfilled prophecy make your heart swell with joy and love for our Savior?  Why is it only right for us to highly esteem and obey the One who was despised and rejected?

Today’s passage: Isaiah 52

Helpful thoughts:

• Israel is told to expect the Lord to redeem it in such a way that no one can question who saved her.
  • They are to conduct themselves in a way that expects this resolution.
  • They are to be watching for the Lord’s return.
  • They are to be taking the good news of the Lord’s salvation and proclaiming it others.
    • All three of these are reiterated in the New Testament, for example:
      • Matthew 24:44
      • 1 Thessalonians 5:6-11
      • Romans 10:14-17
• Jesus was marred beyond human resemblance and what was unrecognizable to so many became a light to the Gentiles (Romans 15:21).

Questions to consider:

1. How does this passage help us to better understand what it means to be “ready” for the Lord’s return?  What should our lives look like in preparation for His coming?
2. Even in the darkest of times, when all hope seems lost, why is it right for the watchmen to remain alert and for our feet to continue to carry us to where we can proclaim the good news?  If Christ can and will return and make everything right when the world’s against Him, can He save your loved one, your neighbor, your child?
3. Where could you take the good news today?  What would it look like for our church to be ready for Christ’s return?

Today’s passage: Isaiah 51

Helpful thoughts:

• When we look back to Abraham, we shouldn’t be blown away by Abraham, we should be blown away by God.
  • Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, Daniel, Paul, Peter, etc. are not the heroes of the Bible.  God is the hero.
• The only reason anyone would long for the judgment of God is if someone else took the judgment they deserved in their place.  A substitutionary sacrifice was needed.  God set His justice for a light to the people in Jesus Christ.
• “Fear not the reproach of man, nor be dismayed at their revilings.”(Verse 7)
  • John 15:18-25
  • Christians should not be despised for the way they hold their views on worldly matters.
  • Christians will be despised for being like Jesus and sharing the good news of Jesus with others.
    • When regenerate people get upset with unregenerate people for not acting like regenerate people, they are acting like unregenerate people.
    • When regenerate people act like regenerate people, unregenerate people hear the gospel.
  • Our sufferings and persecutions are temporary, those who reject Christ will ultimately be the ones enduring the wrath of God.

Questions to consider:

1. If we only made it our goal to be like Abraham, even if we succeeded, what would we still need?  Was Abraham welcomed into Heaven based on his own righteousness?  (Romans 4:1-3)
2. Why do we tend to fear people and their opinions/responses more than fearing God?  Why do we tend to fear people more than we love them?  How should a Heaven-bound child of God treat a Hell-bound, blind, deaf, dead-in-their-trespasses human being?  Should we expect unsaved people to act like saved people or like unsaved people?  When we ever grow frustrated with them or fear them, are we considering their well-being or our own?
3. How could this mindset lead to repentance for the church, and for any of us individually?  How should this impact our social-media use?  Who might you know that you should go to and start rebuilding your reputation and relationship with in order to try to reach them for Christ?

Today’s passage: Isaiah 50

Helpful thoughts:

• The answer to the first question in verse 1 is this:  There is no certificate of divorce for Judah.  God is still joined to her and He will fulfill His covenant promises.
• Verses 4-11 are again from the voice of the Messiah.
• Jesus set his face like a flint to go to the cross (Luke 9:51).

Questions to consider:

1. If we ever feel as though God has failed to show Himself strong enough, by what standard (Or by whose standard) are we judging Him?  How did God prove or how has God proven Himself over and over to Israel? To us?
2. What is the reason and the means of Christ being presented a bride “in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish?” (Ephesians 5:27)
3. What is the natural condition of the bride?  What is she prone to do even after being set apart (After our conversion)?  What did it take to make us holy/to set us apart?  Whose doing will produce our perfection?