Isaiah [Part 8] - Prepare the Way of the Lord

Read the transcript below, or watch a video of the teaching by Joseph Shulam.

Shalom. The last lesson that I gave on the book of Isaiah was on chapter 7 of the book of Isaiah. Now, I'm skipping a long way, actually, to chapter 40 of Isaiah, but I'm going to start with chapter 39, verse 5, as a background to what we skipped. According to modern scholarship, the scholars say that there are at least two Isaiahs. First of all, I don't believe there are two Isaiahs; I believe there's only one writer of Isaiah who writes the beginning of his prophetic message about Israel, about the present situation that Israel is living in, in the land of Israel, in Jerusalem, in the temple, in the royal houses, in the Near East politics. Of course, he is writing these things about the present situation with the style and with the vocabulary and with the interest that the local politics of the Middle East required. From chapter 40, the style changes, and the style changes because the topic changes. The style changes not because there's another writer, but because the topic demands a totally new paradigm. When I write a letter to my wife or to my children, my style is very different than when I write a letter to somebody that lives in Papua New Guinea, that I've never met and I've never been there. But I have brothers and sisters there, and I teach them through Zoom. A change of style does not necessarily demand a change in the writer. Circumstances of the writer are dictated not only by his hand and his style of writing but also by the topic, by the subject, by the theme that he is writing, that demands a change in vocabulary and in style. That's why I believe there is only one Isaiah. I studied Bible at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem with great, wonderful professors. Some of the professors invented what is called the “lore criticism” and not a little bit of the “high criticism,” but some of them believed that there were more than one Isaiah, and others didn't. I choose, because I honor and respect the Holy Spirit that gave us the word of God from Genesis to Revelation, to believe that Isaiah, the son of Amoz, is the writer from chapter 1 to chapter 66.

Now, why is there a change of style? Let me give you the background from the last verses of chapter 39 starting in verse 5. I am going to read them in English:

Interesting response of Hezekiah to the harsh words of Isaiah that actually start from chapter 8, 9 of Isaiah and end now in chapter 39, verse 8. And suddenly we come to Isaiah chapter 40, verse 1, and you will immediately notice that the topic changes, the style changes, the vocabulary changes, and the whole concept of what a prophet in Israel in those turbulent days of Hezekiah has to say in the name of God.

Now, just a little note in between this. In the 1800s, the second half of the 1800s, archaeologists, actually British officers that were, as a hobby, archaeologists, found an inscription in a tunnel that was full of water. That's called Hezekiah's Tunnel. We read about Hezekiah's Tunnel in the book of Second Chronicles. We are told that Hezekiah brought the waters of the Gihon Spring, which is outside the walls of Jerusalem, into the walls of Jerusalem by digging this tunnel that is about 600, a little more than 600 meters long. It's very long. And just recently, in the last few months, the second half of that inscription with the name of Hezekiah as the architect and the builder of this tunnel was discovered in the same tunnel. It was missed before; it was covered before, and now it has been discovered and we have the text of it. But that's another subject for another lesson.

Chapter 40, verse 1 of Isaiah: very, very famous words. Handel, that wrote “The Messiah,” uses these words:

Very strong words. In fact, when I read them, I get goosebumps all over my body. Isaiah is speaking to who? To the Gentiles, to the nations. He is putting the burden on the nations to comfort Jerusalem, to comfort Israel. He's already talking about what is going to happen after the end of the exile, and maybe even as far forward as our own day in Jerusalem, Israel, a Jewish state, a city controlled by Jews for the first time in more than a thousand years—nearly two thousand years—from 70 A.D., when the Romans burned and sacked Jerusalem and destroyed the temple, until 1967. Jerusalem was never one day in the hands of a Jewish political state, a Jewish political entity. It was under the Romans and under the Byzantines and under the Crusaders and then under the Ottoman Turks and then under the Palestinian Arabs and under the British Mandate. And finally, miraculously, a state of Israel came into existence in 1948, and until 1967, Jerusalem was still in the hands of the Jordanians. Only when a Jewish army of a Jewish state, the only Jewish state in the world, promises that were given to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and Moses and King David were fulfilled in that one day, June 6th, 1967.

I was here in Jerusalem at that time. I was in the army. I wasn’t a combatant because I was blind in my left eye from a childhood incident, but I was in the headquarters, a gopher, as they say. Whatever they wanted to do, I was asked to go get it or do something or be a messenger boy or a cleaning boy. Whatever it was, I did. But I was there in the 67 War. And now I read Isaiah that calls the world to say, “Comfort, comfort" - comfort who? My people, God’s people, and it’s a command; it’s not a request. “Thus says God, speak comfort to Jerusalem and cry out to her, for God has ended her warfare and she paid doubly for all of her sins.” Yep, the voice of one crying in the wilderness, verse 3 of Isaiah 40:

Remember John the Baptist, the older cousin of Yeshua, of Jesus? He took this prophecy literally. He wasn’t the only one, by the way. We know about the Essene sect that started around 200 B.C. and ended with the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. John the Baptist was in connection with them somehow because of the material that is parallel between the two. And no doubt Paul knew about them and their doctrines and their teachings, and he knew about their customs. It’s clear through his letters that he had at least visited there and had some connection with the Essenes. But John the Baptist took this verse, “Speak comfort to Jerusalem,” and the verse, “The voice crying in the wilderness.” John the Baptist saw himself as that voice crying in the wilderness, fulfilling this prophecy, preparing the way of the Lord, making straight a highway in the desert. That’s where he spent his ministry.

He was born outside of Jerusalem in a village called En Karem, the spring of the vineyard in English. It still exists; it’s a famous place. We have several brothers and sisters who live in that village in the vicinity of Jerusalem, a little bit west of Jerusalem, west-southwest of Jerusalem. So, John the Baptist sees himself as the one that is called by God as a voice crying in the wilderness:

For who? For our God. It’s very interesting—the pronouns in the Bible are very important and most theologians, and scholars, and pastors ignore them. He didn’t say, “Prepare a highway for the church, for the Baptists, for the Pentecostals, for the Catholics, for the Greek Orthodox.” Prepare a highway in the desert for who? For our God. For us and our God. Yes, non-Jews, whether in Korea, Japan, China, Brazil, United States, Philippines, and all over the world, that have given their life to God, to which God? To the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to Yeshua, to which Yeshua? To the king of the Jews. They were grafted in to the same olive tree that its roots are the Messiah and the tree is Israel from Romans chapter 11. And what is going to happen when this happens? Every mountain, every hill shall be brought low. There will be, in my opinion, this is not speaking of a physical earthquake, although it can be. We’re living on the biggest fault in the world, the fault, the Asia-Africa fault that starts in Asia and finishes in Lake Victoria in Africa. The Jordan River is a part of that fault, so it could be an earthquake. But I think he’s talking about a social earthquake because he’s talking about people. He’s using the mountains as a parable, that people that were high will be brought down low, and the people who are low, humble, the poor, the "Evionim" in the language of Isaiah will be brought high. And yes, that’s what happened. What’s happened in the first century, and it’s happening all the time. God raises up the heroes of the faith and brings down the proud and the ungodly and the crooks, whether they’re pastors or prime ministers. In Israel, the crooks pay for it. They’re trying to get by with it, but they won’t. We’ve had presidents, ministers of finance, ministers of health in jail.

So the mountains will be brought low, and the valleys will be exalted, and the crooked highways—those that say, like we had some immigrations that came from some countries that are saying: In the diaspora—we were not going straight; we were going like that, but now we’ve arrived at our own country, the country of Israel. We promise you we’re going to go straight now. So that’s the situation.

Wow! This text speaks to me so much about today. You visit Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa, any of the major cities, construction is in every corner. Highways are laid like ribbons on a Christmas present. Yes, mountains are moved to make new neighborhoods in Jerusalem. I see them from my balcony. So yes, the words of God in Isaiah 40 are relevant in the past but even more relevant today because we are seeing some of these things happen. We are seeing Gentiles, Christians from all over the world, come to Jerusalem to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles, just like Zechariah the prophet predicted. This is nothing to sneeze about, folks. This is a new reality, a spiritual reality that happened in heaven, and it’s descending the influence down to earth now as we speak.

This couldn’t have been written by somebody that didn’t know that one day there would be television and people all over the world shall see the glory of the Lord revealed. God allows technology to develop because he’s preparing the world for texts like this. Again, I’m reading it: verse 5:

The only way they could do that is from television, from the electronic inventions of the 20th century and the 21st century. Of course, we in Jerusalem are going to see it not on television; we’re going to see it in reality. We’re going to see the cloud descend from heaven and the Son of Man descending to Mount Zion. I’ll see it from my porch, 20 kilometers away from Mount Zion. But I’m repeating verse 5:

Thank God for electronics and for television.

(gospel—the word gospel is a word invented from the Celtic, which comes from the Germanic background. God’s Spiel means God’s revelation, God’s play in the sense of a theatrical play—yeah, revelation here. So here is the word gospel. Good tidings, is "b'sora tova" which is in Christian language good tidings, good gospel.)

In other words, he is predicting the return of the Divine to Jerusalem with rewards.

All these questions all the way to the end of the chapter are speaking of two things, and I have to summarize this chapter. Please read it; pay attention to the questions and look at the answers that Isaiah the prophet is giving. Isaiah says, “All you people in the world think that you’re great. You look at little Israel and you say, ‘Well, there’s nothing. The Jews are scattered; they’re nothing; they’re a drop in the bucket.’” Isaiah the prophet says, “Hey, these big empires with nuclear weapons, rich, wealthy, ruling the world—not God’s world, but the world—with their money that is made from paper, with their manufacturing that they didn’t invent, with their corruption that they invented, God said they’re nothing. They’re like a puff of smoke that today is here, and in a minute, the wind of God blows, and it’s no longer here. Israel is here, and it’s always been here, and they’ve always been the chosen people of God, and God has never rejected them.”

That’s what Isaiah 40 is telling us. Yes, he has punished us severely. Yes, we were thrown out of our land in a diaspora, the 2000 years away from Jerusalem. But God has never rejected us. In Jeremiah chapter 31, verses 35 to 37, he says, As long as the sun shines in the daytime and the moon and the stars at night, God has not rejected Israel. If you don’t see the sun anymore by day and the moon and the stars by night, then God has rejected Israel. But as long as there is a sun that shines in the morning, sets at night, and the moon and the stars at night, it’s a revelation that God has never rejected Israel.” And that all these prophecies are being fulfilled—not are going to be fulfilled, but are being fulfilled—in front of our eyes almost every day. Just turn on the news.