Isaiah 52 -57

Click HERE to read the passage.

Today's five chapters are brief, but they are also some of the best chapters of the Bible!  

Imagine if you will if our first president, George Washington, prophesied of future events describing in detail how that during the years of 2020 to 2022, America and the world would suffer from a pandemic called Covid-19, where schools will close, people will be forced to wear masks, most businesses will shut down with many large ones going out of business, how inflation would surge, and that Russia would invade Ukraine.  We'd be shocked wouldn't we?

Well, with God, prophesy is nothing!  In fact, God has already seen the entire expanse of time in minute detail. God, before time began, wrote His entire plan out in written form. In fact, an angel informs Daniel (Daniel 10:21) that everything that has happened on earth and will happen is written in the Book of Truth. No wonder God's servants, like Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel and many of the God's prophets could recite future events with pinpoint accuracy.  God, in His sovereignty, has already written the future! 

It's no wonder that Isaiah, some 700 years BEFORE Jesus is born, prophesies IN GREAT DETAIL the horrible suffering He will endure as He takes our sin upon Himself and is crucified on a cruel cross. 

In fact, let's take a look at these five short chapters and see ALL that Isaiah says about Jesus, the soon coming King!

About His Person and Crucifixion:

-  He will be brutally beaten to the point of complete disfiguration!  (52:13-14)

-  He was a average person with no particular outstanding features that would cause attraction! (53:2)

-  He was often despised and rejected by others, in fact most of the audience He preached to ended up turning their back on Him and gave no real care for His brutal beating and crucifixion!  (53:3)

-  He often felt the deep pain of sorrow and grief due to our sins which weighed so heavily upon Him! (53:3-4)

-  Many Israelites thought His crucifixion was a justly deserved punishment from God due to His own sinfulness! (53:4)  The religious leaders thought He was arrogant and blasphemous for thinking He was God's Son. The people, although they loved His miracles, were unsure of Him as their Messiah.  

-  What no one really realized was that He purposefully allowed Himself to be cruelly beaten, tortured, whipped and crucified so that He could fulfill His mission and have our sins forgiven, be healed from our sinfulness, and find eternal peace!  (53:5)   Remember what Jesus told Peter in Matthew 26:52-54, "Put away your sword,” Jesus told him. “Those who use the sword will die by the sword. Don’t you realize that I could ask my Father for thousands[g] of angels to protect us, and he would send them instantly? But if I did, how would the Scriptures be fulfilled that describe what must happen now?”

-  In silence, Jesus allowed Himself to be sentenced to death! He had to! Otherwise, how could we have been saved? (52:8)

-  He was buried in a borrowed grave offered by a rich man!  (52:9)  Remember in Matthew 27:57 it says, "As evening approached, Joseph, a rich man from Arimathea who had become a follower of Jesus, went to Pilate and asked for Jesus’ body. And Pilate issued an order to release it to him. Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a long sheet of clean linen cloth. He placed it in his own new tomb, which had been carved out of the rock."

I find it interesting that God, the Father, shares His promise to His Son that while it would appear He accomplished nothing, He will in fact be satisfied due to the many who will become heirs of salvation!

In Chapter 54, Isaiah prophesies of the day when Jesus will rule in Jerusalem stating "You will live under a government that is just and fair."  And, in verse 17, "But in that coming day, no weapon turned against you will succeed."  Once again, God encourages His people with a wonderful treasure trove of hope!

Chapter 55 is God's plea to the world to come and drink freely of all that God offers!  He also tells us that we, as believers, will "command the nations."  We learn in the New Testament that we will rule and reign with Him for 1000 years, but what does that rule look like?  Well...we will be in a place of leadership where the world will stand in reverence to us knowing that we belong to Jesus - the King!

I love how God opens up and invites us to understand something that seems elusive to all of us - how God thinks!  Notice what He says in 55:8-9, "My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the Lord. “And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts."  

How often do we try to make God think like us humans, or at least expect Him to?  How can we expect an Eternal God, the Creator to think as low as we think. Our thinking is so shallow and finite! We understand and know so little compared to all that's in our world, our solar system, our galaxy, and within our universe. Yet God understands and knows it all.

Chapter 56 probably came as a SUPER SHOCK to the nation of Israel!  Twice God says in this fascinating chapter that His blessings are for the Gentiles (non-Jews) too! The Jews hated Gentiles. They despised them completely. And yet, in spite of all that God says here in this chapter about His love for the Gentiles, as well as the rest of the Old Testament, it's sad that the religious leaders of Jesus' day scorned the Gentiles and corrupted the Jewish people against them!  Note 56:3, 6.

There's a couple of verses in Chapter 57 that really jump out at me!  Notice these 2 powerful and insightful verses:

-  57:1-2 -"Good people pass away; the godly often die before their time. But no one seems to care or wonder why. No one seems to understand that God is protecting them from the evil to come. For those who follow godly paths will rest in peace when they die."

In other words, many Godly people die early in life. However, from God's perspective, He is amazed that no one seems to understand that perhaps one of the reasons why it happens is because of His desire to spare them from the pain and evil of this world.  We often cry and shake our fist at God for taking our son or daughter to Heaven while in their prime, but God can't understand why we never consider it as an act of His love, grace, and mercy!  Isn't that interesting?!

- 57:15 - "The high and lofty one who lives in eternity, the Holy One, says this: “I live in the high and holy place with those whose spirits are contrite and humble."

If you want to be the kind of person God loves to live with, it's right here in this verse!  He loves living with those people whose hearts are contrite and humble!  What about you?  Are you the kind of person God is wanting to live with?