Sermon Tone Analysis

Isaiah 1 & 2

Good evening church!

It has been a blast meeting together as Growth Groups in our homes over the past few months, but it is nice to gather as a whole as well and fellowship together.

It is my hope that as we continue to grow together, that our digging deeper into the Scriptures does not end when we are not in session.

No, I’m not going to put out questions for all of our church services, but when we gather, or when you gather on your own, may the things that the Lord is taking us through as a church in the Scriptures, still be on your hearts and minds, and in your conversations.

I know we shared in communion together on a Sunday morning a while back, but it always had been our practice to share together the first Wednesday night of the month, so we want to do that this evening, so if the guys can pass out the elements.

And as a reminder, to our growth group leaders, you guys can still share communion together in your groups when we aren’t meeting together here midweek, if you have any questions about that, just ask.

I think tonight, where we began our evening with an agape feast, or love feast, in our modern age called a pot-luck supper, and I don’t like that nearly as much.

Pot luck means bring a pot or something to share if you want, and you’ll be lucky if there’s enough to go around.

Now in the beginning days of this church, I used to encourage people to come, bring something if you could, if not just show up, because there is always more than enough, because it was true.

And then enthusiasm died down, and the amount of food died down, which means the number of families participating declined, and if we are being honest in our church assessment, our love died down.

Nicole and I started trying to supplement the meal every week and spend a couple of hours before the service cooking back in the kitchen, and I don’t know still if it was loving the church or enabling complacency, or maybe even apathy towards one another.

That is why I like the idea of an agape feast much better, its more Biblical.

I’m preparing enough food for myself, or my family, and maybe something extra to share, or if I see that there isn’t enough, I know that if I personally give up my portion, my family will still eat, at the one that came without because they have not, can still eat and be loved by this church.

So burgers and dogs this week on the church, and we’ll do it the first Wednesday of the month until we resume Growth Groups, and we will have Agape feasts on the rest of the Wednesdays, and we will see what kind of love we can stir up around here.

Does that make sense?

In light of that encouragement/rebuke I think the passage in 1 Corinthians for our communion service is just perfect.

I will read it all the way through, I’ll pray, and then we will all partake together.

Communion

Paul begins addressing the church in Corinth:

"17 Now in giving these instructions I do not praise you, since you come together not for the better but for the worse.

18 For first of all, when you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you, and in part I believe it.

19 For there must also be factions among you, that those who are approved may be recognized among you.

20 Therefore when you come together in one place, it is not to eat the Lord's Supper.

Paul is saying, I don’t know or care what you are calling the gathering that you are doing, but your conduct alone says it’s not to eat the Lord’s supper, not really....He continues....

21 For in eating, each one takes his own supper ahead of others; and one is hungry and another is drunk.

Each one is not just looking out for number one, but they are eating and drinking to excess at the expense of others, like a pot luck, not an agape feast…He says,

22 What!

Do you not have houses to eat and drink in?

Or do you despise the church of God and shame those who have nothing?

What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you in this?

I do not praise you.

Paul says it’s like you guys are going to a Brazilian steak house, or an all you can eat buffet and are starving yourselves before you go so you can further take advantage!

He says eat at home, drink at home rather than be a self serving glutton.

A love feast puts others first, like Jesus did, like Jesus does.

And now he says,

23 For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you: that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which He was betrayed took bread; 24 and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, "Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me." 25 In the same manner He also took the cup after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in My blood.

This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me." 26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death till He comes."

- 1 Corinthians 11:17-26 NKJV

Lord give us this heart of Jesus in all that we say and in all that we do.

Help us to learn to love each other better.

Thank you for your sacrifice that makes that possible, that makes salvation possible, we love you Jesus, please bless our time together in your Word, and to remember that you are the Word, it’s in your name we pray, Amen.

Let’s eat together, let’s drink together.

For those of you trying to do the math here.

Maybe you have noticed that there are 66 chapters in the book of Isaiah and you know we have about 3 weeks of summer here in Maine total, and wonder how in the world are we going to do that, we are not!

Even if you go by what the calendar calls summer, we can’t make that and truly do this book justice, so we will just pick away at it until we finish, or the Lord returns.

Both are good options.

We may tackle portions of it on Sunday mornings as we get into fall and resume Growth Groups and alternate back and forth.

I mentioned that there are 66 chapters in this book, that is one of the reasons, some refer to the Scroll of Isaiah as a miniature Bible.

Not because it is so long, but because there are 66 books in the Bible.

39 in the Old Testament and 27 in the new testament.

This book is not Chronological, meaning everything doesn’t go in by earliest date to oldest like you would think of if you were plotting it out on a chronology chart or timeline.

You need to remember it was written in a different time or age, in a different culture, and as far as literature was concerned, thought were expressed differently.

Meaning if I were to ask you for your summer plans or after the fact asked what you did.

You might say, well in June I enjoyed the back flies and the rain, then the mosquitoes and ticks, early July I did the Muddy Mainer and started seeing the deer flies something fierce, got baptized at the church picnic near the end of July, I enjoyed our three weeks of heat in August, then got my plow ready for winter.

If you asked someone in this culture it might be.

I got baptized, or I went to the Whoopee Pie festival!

Priority of events might cause something to be recorded first before other things that proceeded that event chronologically.

Being a book of Prophecy, I think that is all the more reason not to fly through this as we don’t want to jumble a bunch of things out of order.

Remember that prophecy is not just for-telling things that are yet to occur.

It is very much that, as we will see the destruction of the northern kingdom of Isreal is prophesied in this book, the restoration of Israel is prophesied in this book, it contains several Messianic prophecies, or stuff about Jesus before the incarnation, before He was born on this earth.

Such as the announcement of His coming, the virgin birth, His sacrificial death, Christologically or concerning Christ specifically, check out this verse…Isaiah 9:6

Who is that talking about?

Who’s the only one that could be talking about?

So there is for-telling in this book of prophecy, but also what is called forth-telling prophecy.

I think that’s easier to understand if we turn that word forth-telling around and call it telling forth, because that is also what Isaiah does in this book.

Tells forth the heart and mind of God in a way that others were not gifted to do.

The Old Testament prophets were gifted and given the ministry of telling forth the heart and mind of God as God supernaturally revealed it to them.

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that the chronological timeline that covered the ministry of Isaiah extended from around 740 BC to about 690 BC.

And that that portion of the history of Israel and Judah in the Scriptures is found in 2 Kings 15-21 and in 2 Chronicles 26-33 you guys should be reading that, to help you better understand our Wednesday evening study as there is enough in the book itself to be going over.

Can I tell you something that I think is just awesome?

And further confirmation God is the one that is in control and planning things around here?

I won’t ask how many of you are doing the chronological Bible readings that are posted every morning at 6 am on our Facebook page because that’s a lot of work.

But, in this church that teaches through the Bible in almost 11 years, we’ve finally made it to Isaiah, and in a church that has never done a Chronological reading through the Bible together, guess where our reading has us this Friday? 2 Chronicles chapter 26, and on Saturday, the book of Isaiah chapters 1-4!

I see that as miraculous!

I also see it as confirmation for some of you that haven’t jumped on board, that maybe, just maybe it is part of God’s plan for this church and now is the time to start if you haven’t yet.

This is how we’re going to do this book.

I’m always going to prepare too much and we are just going to go as far as we go.

If I’m not here on a Wednesday night, my plan is to have whoever is filling in for me to start with the verse that follows where I left off.

Again, part of that is my belief that it is the Lord who has orchestrated our church to be in this place at this time.

So, The first verse again tells us Isaiah 1:1

That it was in the days of Uzziah, Jotham Ahaz, and Hezekiah, and many believe partially into the reign of Manasseh.

I say that, because the Bible doesn’t record for us that manner of his death, nor does the primary Jewish historical sources such as Josephus tell us, but Jewish tradition holds that he was sawn in two at the orders of King Manasseh, but we can’t be dogmatic about that, because we simply don’t know, or I should say, I don’t know.

We do have a passage in the book of Hebrews 11:37

That speaks of the death of some of the prophets that many believe is reference to the death of Isaiah.

Don’t know for sure.

I mentioned the book being a like a mini Bible, I know I’m taking a long time on this intro, but it is for a purpose.

Your Bible’s are broke up into 4 major sections, the first 5 books, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy are what?

They make up the books of the law.

After that from Joshua all the way to Esther are the historical books, then we have the books of poetry - Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Solomon, and then the major and minor prophets from Hosea to Malachi.

Those aren’t major and minor by their importance, just their size.

The remaining 27 books make up the New Testament.

For centuries scholars have divided up the Book of Isaiah into several sections.

I don’t like to do that because much of their reasoning comes from the changes of writing style and subject that we see in this book, so there is the assumption by many that it wasn’t all written by Isaiah.

Not just because of the linguistic changes, but because of the accuracy of the prophecy.

Some say that there was one Isaiah who wrote the beginning, and another after the time of Jesus because no one could be that accurate in their prophecy, God could.

For me a couple of things that settle the issue for me simply without much scholarship.

In John chapter 12:37-40 John quotes directly from both Isaiah chapter 6 and Isaiah 53 and says the word of Isaiah the prophet, not prophets, and makes no distinction about the sections of the book.

And Jesus in Mark 7 quotes from Isaiah 29 and in Matthew 12 he quotes from Isaiah 42 the second section of the book and Jesus attributes it to the same Isaiah and if I’m going to trust Jesus with my eternity, I’m going to trust Him with this.

I will acknowledge a major change in the book and you’ll see the 1st 39 chapters talk heavily about the sin and failure of the people of Isreal and Judah, it deals with the law and government, and then in chapter 40 there is a major transition and it is about comfort and love and salvation of the people, it is about Jesus.