Hey my friends, it's Matt. This is the 10-minute Bible hour podcast, and this is our third and final sidetreck day into the book of Isaiah. John the Baptist sent us down this road. He was getting pestered about who he is. Like, what prophecy are you fulfilling? And he pointed the people who wondered this toward Isaiah with a verbal hint. He quoted something from Isaiah chapter 40 specifically. So I thought, well, we probably shouldn't blow right past that. If John the Baptist was being asked how this all fits together with the Jesus thing, with the story and all of that stuff, and he's like, well, if you want to know, go look at Isaiah hint hint. Then we should probably take the hint and go look at Isaiah. So we did that a bunch two days ago. We did that a bunch more last time around. And today we'll finish looking at some of the big important prophecies about Jesus, the Messiah, that occur in the book of Isaiah. And then we'll take stock of it all, and then we'll move forward in the text of John next time around. Okay, I'm gonna have Jeff play some music, and we're gonna pick up right where we left off. So in Isaiah 9, we get all that you know super Christmassy stuff about a child is born, a son is given, wonderful counselor, mighty God, and all of this stuff. And but he's gonna reign on the throne of David forever. But you know, a question that people would have had back then is well, how can he reign on the throne of David? The throne is gone, it's in ruin, it's defeated. But then you turn the page again, one page over. Here's another prediction of the future, not a Tony Romo pattern recognition prediction, but a God-given revelation of what God is doing redemptively. And it goes like this Isaiah 11:1, a shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse, from his roots a branch will bear fruit, the spirit of the Lord will rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and of power, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord, and he will delight in the fear of the Lord. He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes or decide by what he hears with his ears, but with righteousness, he will judge the needy with justice, he will give decisions for the poor of the earth. He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, with the breath of his lips, he will slay the wicked, righteousness will be his belt, and faithfulness the sash around his waist. There's a ton more in Isaiah 11. You can go and read that, you should go and read that, but for the sake of time, let's flip a few more pages over to Isaiah 28. This one here happens in the middle of a denunciation of a rival people group, but here we get just a little glimpse into what the Messiah's role and work is going to look like in the future as God's redemptive plan unfolds, Isaiah 28, 16. So this is what the sovereign Lord says. See, I lay a stone in Zion, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone for a sure foundation. The one who trusts will never be dismayed. Now, like at this point, I might be reeling these verses off, and some of you who've been around church for a long time are going, ah, that's where that is. Ah, we got a song about that one. We sing the song. I didn't know that was Isaiah. That's right. Oh, I've heard that about Jesus. Uh, that gets quoted maybe in Matthew or something. I know there are others of you here who, for the last two days, you're like, man, this is drinking from the fire hose. This is a lot. I don't know all this imagery. I don't know what all of these things mean. My friends, it is awesome that you are here. It is awesome that if you are encountering this stuff for the first time, welcome. This business I'm giving you, this crash course on Isaiah's prophecies about the Messiah that John the Baptist was alluding to in John 1. This, this is rich, thick, creamy Bible, center cut Christianity. It's super important stuff. And the fact that it was called 700 years in advance just makes it that much awesomer. So if you're not catching every one of these references, don't be discouraged. Just stay with me for the rest of today, and this will hopefully serve as a good launching point for you to someday go and tear into these big, intimidating books of the Old Testament for yourself at some point. Here's another one that's going to be really familiar to people who've been around it for a long time and hopefully awesome for those of you who are hearing it for the first time. Isaiah 42, starting in verse 1. Here is my servant whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight. I will put my spirit on him, and he will bring justice to the nations. He will not shout or cry out or raise his voice in the streets. A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out, in faithfulness he will bring forth justice. He will not falter or be discouraged till he establishes justice on earth. In his law the islands will put their hope. All of that is pointing toward how Jesus is going to conduct himself. So you can put that one in the back of your head and compare what we see in John to those predictions. I just want to sit here all day and read you stuff from Isaiah, but I'm going to do two more, and then I think the point will be illustrated. This is a big one. Isaiah 53, starting in verse 1. Who has believed our message, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? He grew up before him like a tender shoot and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces, he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows. Yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him and afflicted, but he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all like sheep have gone astray. Each of us is turned to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth. He was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away, and who can speak of his descendants, for he was cut off from the land of the living, for the transgression of my people he was stricken. He was assigned a grave with the wicked and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth. Yet it was the Lord's will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the Lord makes his life a guilt offering, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand. After the suffering of his soul we will see the light of life and be satisfied by his knowledge, my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities. Therefore I will give him a portion among the great, and he will divide the spoils with the strong, because he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors, for he bore the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors. This is beloved scripture from the Old Testament. It points straight at Jesus. If you're here for the first time and you've never been through one of the Gospels, and this is like your first time getting a sense of who Jesus is and how this story works, I would encourage you to read Isaiah 53 several times, put it in your mind, and then watch as the story in John unfolds. You'll feel all of these things that really, I mean, they sound bad, but the end is good in Isaiah 53. You will feel these things to take shape and to coagulate into this horrifying outcome of God's servant, of Jesus going to the cross. But there's salvation, there's redemption, there's life on the other side. I said I had one more verse, I'm going to read it to you. This is what Jesus was reading from in Luke chapter four, when he said, Today, you know, this is fulfilled in your hearing. Isaiah 61, 1. The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach the good news to the poor. He sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives, and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor and the day of vengeance of our God to comfort all those who mourn. Okay. I would like to think that these couple of days have been time well spent. I mean, you know, it's never a bad deal to spend a whole bunch of time looking at a whole bunch of Bible, but let's just reset it real quick. Why did we do this jaunt through the Messiah stuff in Isaiah? Well, one, I wanted you to see with your own eyes or hear with your own ears that the stuff that Isaiah was throwing down 700 years earlier was not just Tony Romo style pattern recognition and pattern prediction. This is legitimate. I mean, the story legitimately holds him out as having an encounter with the pre-incarnate Jesus. And then God in his fullness is opening this window to the future of God's redemptive plan and telling Isaiah, prophesy this stuff because it's going to come true. Well, then hundreds of years pass, and the religious leaders of the Jewish people, they get kicked around by different empires, crazy stuff goes down, calamities go down, but there isn't a resolution to this for 700 years. And then John the Baptist shows up in the middle of a bunch of other people who'd come out and said little Messiah things here and there. But John the Baptist, he looked different. He was a big enough deal that the religious leaders came out to meet him in John 1, and they want to know, who are you? Through the front door. You Christ? No. Are you Elijah? No. Are you the prophet? No. Well, tell us who you are. And I almost imagine kind of a little twinkle in the eye and a wry smile when John the Baptist goes right to quoting Isaiah. I'm just a voice. I'm the voice of one calling in the desert. Make straight the way for the Lord. Now the right response at that moment on the part of the religious leaders when they heard that should have been elation. Like the way Mary responded when she got told that the Lord is coming. Like Elizabeth, John the Baptist's mother, responded when she found out that these things were coming to pass. They should have been amped because what they've been looking for for their whole careers, their whole lives, and their fathers and grandfathers before them, they just, I mean, they just got to wink wink. Hey guys, this is happening. The redemptive plan is on. The shoot of Jesse, you know, that burned out stump that has no kings. Yeah, the king is coming. That is what he's hinting at by alluding to Isaiah. And maybe for you and me, you know, maybe we'd miss that. But these guys wouldn't have missed that. This is what they did. They knew these words like the back of their hand. They had Isaiah memorized. They knew exactly what he was doing. And I imagine that maybe they had some time to reflect, the religious leaders, and to step back and just think, okay, what's everything Isaiah predicted about the arrival of the Messiah and what it's supposed to look like? And somewhere in there, instead of being excited about that, they got off track and things go horribly wrong, and they don't go along with the prophet Isaiah. They, I guess, don't believe that John the Baptist is that voice of one calling out in the desert, make straight the way for the Lord, because eventually they completely reject everything that Isaiah prophesied. And in one of the wildest twists in the whole Bible, the very people who most cherish and love the writings of Isaiah play the role of the bad guys in the writings of Isaiah. They're the ones who end up leading the Messiah to the cross like a like a sheep on the way to be slain. These guys are probably frustrated because John the Baptist wasn't answering their question, in their opinion, but John the Baptist was answering their question, and he's giving them even more than what they were asking for. I am the voice. You guys know the prophet Isaiah. That means I'm paving the way for what is to come. Make straight the way for the Lord. In that moment, John the Baptist is inviting them into that making straight, but they're going to go ahead and take a pass on it. If somebody was going to be the promised Messiah who's going to come along and fix all the stuff and straighten everything out and defeat sin and death and solve the human problem, he was going to have to take, I mean, he's got to agree with Isaiah. He's got to fit with what Isaiah predicted. And Jesus is going to accomplish that. Jesus is not some upstart who's going to show up in John out of nowhere and be like, I just think I should be the Messiah now. There's thousands of years of planning and prophecy in the pipeline that all points to this moment. John the Baptist gets it. It's already starting to look like the religious leaders aren't going to get it. But here's the big question that John leaves with us. Are we going to get it when we read the story? Will we see that Jesus is the Messiah? Will we believe? And in believing, will we have life in his name? That's plenty for now. I'm Matt. This is the 10-minute Bible hour podcast. Let's do this again soon.