Sermon Tone Analysis

I am enjoying reading through the bible in a year with my family, using our church family’s reading plan.

Currently, we have been reading a lot in Isaiah.

This has lined up well with our series, Understanding Prophecy.

Isaiah’s book of prophecy is the largest book by a single prophet in the Old Testament.

He wrote during the reigns of several kings of Judah, from about 740 to 680 BC.

Isaiah and his book are good examples of what we talked about when we first talked about what a prophet is, and what prophecy is.

We said...

A Prophet is a person given a revelation to pass on / proclaim to others.

Isaiah was given messages from God. God revealed things to Isaiah so he would pass them on to the people of Israel.

The things that God revealed to them are the prophecies.

We said that...

Prophecy is a message from God meant to edify, comfort, encourage, or exhort/warn.

Isaiah’s book includes many exhortations about current conditions during the reigns of those kings, including idolatry and unjust rulers and judges.

He decries the people forsaking the Lord, and predicts punishment at the hands of the surrounding nations, which did come to pass.

He edifies, or builds up those who do walk with the Lord, like King Hezekiah.

He encourages them to continue to follow the Lord and look to Him alone for salvation.

He gives comfort and encouragement to those who did follow the Lord, like King Hezekiah when Sennacherib surrounded Jerusalem.

Whatever God’s message was, Isaiah received the message from God, and then passed it on.

Some of what Isaiah passed on was pointing out present conditions.

Some of it talked about what God had done in the past.

And, some of it revealed what God was going to do in the near future, and the far-off future.

God told Hezekiah, through Isaiah, to not fear Sennacherib because God was going to wipe out his army and that Sennacherib would return home and be cut down by the sword.

What God said through Isaiah, came true .

Isaiah passed on to Hezekiah, at a later time, that God would allow Babylon to conquer Judah, which happened years later in 586 BC.

Some would not find that remarkable because Babylon was a rising power in the days of Isaiah.

However, later, Isaiah passed on that God chose Cyrus to defeat Babylon, and to tell the Jews to return to rebuild Jerusalem and the temple.

This is remarkable because Cyrus was a ruler of the Persian Empire which defeated Babylon nearly 100 years after Isaiah lived!

God called him by name, and he did exactly what God said!

He told the Jews to return to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple.

Again, studying prophecy, especially those portions that are foretelling the future which has already come true should truly stir our hearts to believe all of what God has revealed.

What other God has foretold future events that happen exactly as He says, even down to the name of the man!

Of course, what is really encouraging to us as Christians are the many passages that talk about Jesus, the Redeemer, the Messiah, the Savior who came to give light to those who were not Jews.

The one who came to give sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, mobility to the lame!

The One who came as a suffering servant to bear our sins, so we could be reconciled to God!

So many wonderful prophecies in Isaiah!

If you have not been doing the read through the bible in a year, start now.

Read through Isaiah and continue on for the rest of the year!

Study prophecy—God’s revelation—given to us to give us exhortation, edification, comfort and courage!

Study to know we can trust all that God says will happen just as He says it will.

Study to know the encouragement of what is still yet to come!

And, that is what we are doing today.

Today we are talking about ...

The Hope of the Resurrection!

Prophecy was not given by God in a complete revelation all at once.

Instead, God has revealed different aspects of what He is going to do to different men/prophets, at different times.

God revealed to them what God felt was important at the time.

To get a full picture of what is yet to come, we need to understand certain concepts that are revealed in scripture, keeping in mind the whole of what God revealed.

Then, at a later time, we will try to draw it all together into one cohesive picture.

One of the concepts we need to understand is that of the Resurrections.

As we understand this topic, we will find hope, and we will find encouragement.

That is why today’s message is titled, Hope of the Resurrection.

Why study this concept?

God has revealed that in the future, there will be resurrections.

Because there are different resurrections that God has revealed, if we are not careful, we can be confused and mix them up.

So today, we want to begin clearing up the Resurrections God has revealed, and find the Hope that we can receive because of the resurrections.

To help us be clear, I want us to keep in mind the following:

Differentiating Resurrections:

Is the resurrection Spiritual or Physical?

Who is resurrected?

When is this resurrection?

What is the outcome of this resurrection?

What those resurrections are, who is a part of the resurrection, when they take place, and the outcome of those resurrections are important to understand if we are to find the encouragement that God intended to give us through revealing what is coming regarding resurrections.

First, I want to look at the Spiritual Resurrection.

The Spiritual Resurrection

Ever since Adam and Eve, the first man and woman God created, chose to disobey God and do what they wanted, all mankind has been separated from God by sin.

Sin is anything we think, say or do that is contrary to God’s holy, perfect standard.

We all think, say and do things that are wrong according to God.

That separates us from Him, or as the Bible puts it, makes us spiritually dead.

We do not have a spiritual connection with our Creator and God.

Another way God puts it, is that our hearts, which were made to love and worship the Lord, love and worship ourselves, and our desires.

This separation from God is the source of all pain, suffering, misery, and physical death in the world.

God does not want us to be separated from Him.

He promises to give a new heart to His people when they return to Him.

I hope you notice that getting a new heart is not up to the person to do.

We cannot perform this spiritual heart surgery on ourselves anymore than a physical heart doctor could perform his own heart transplant.

It just cannot be done.

In each of these passages, it is God who is the one that gives the new heart.

It is not because of the great efforts of the people.

It is God at work in anyone who will repent!

As my family was doing the read through the Bible, I thought God gave a great example of this spiritual resurrection—a return to spiritual connection with God—in Israel, during the time Isaiah was a prophet, during the reign of Hezekiah.

Example: Hezekiah

To understand this example, we need to know the background.

Israel was broken into 2 nations after Solomon’s reign.

Israel to the North had 10 of the tribes.

Judah to the South had 2 tribes.

Israel was evil, with king after king that would not follow the Lord.

Judah had some good, and some bad kings.

Ahaz, was a bad king.

He was bad.

And he didn’t stop there.

Later, he went to Damascus, saw an altar to a false God there, sent the plans back to Judah, and had the priests make one like it to replace the altar at the temple.

Then, he took the original altar, removed parts of it, and used it for himself.

It is further recorded like this...

Ahaz was one of the worst kings of Judah.

He led the nation to walk away from the Lord.

However, his son Hezekiah became the next king.

Hezekiah was good!

He had the priests restore the temple, and purify it so it could and would be used to worship the Lord alone.

He goes on to tell them that their fathers were evil and did wrong, so the Lord was angry with them and allowing their enemies to conquer them.

But now,