Isaiah, Fashionably Late

In line with our innovative trend of discussing Come Follow Me Isaiah after you’ve already talked about it in church, when there is no one left to impress–

• The absence of prophets is a curse, and their presence is a blessing. Isaiah 30:9-11, Isaiah 28:7, Isaiah 29:9-14.  So much so that it is a Millennial promise that God will put us in a hard spot but with teachers to warn us when we are making mistakes.  Isaiah 30:19-21.

Is it a problem that we haven’t been rebuked much lately at General Conference?

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• A dearth of people is one of Isaiah’s prophecies of curses.  Isaiah 13:12, Isaiah 24:1-4.  Now being fulfilled in unexpected ways.

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• The view that sin is self-defeating and its own punishment seems pretty modern to me.  And, indeed, mostly Isaiah talks about the sinners getting punished by God.  But he puts forth the ‘modern’ view too.  Isaiah 26:10 — “Let favour be shewed to the wicked, yet will he not learn righteousness: in the land of uprightness will he deal unjustly, and will not behold the majesty of the Lord.”

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• Isaiah 22 ends in what seems like a Messianic vision–but the bit about  the nail in a sure place breaking off puzzles me.

And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will call my servant Eliakim the son of Hilkiah:

21 And I will clothe him with thy robe, and strengthen him with thy girdle, and I will commit thy government into his hand: and he shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to the house of Judah.

22 And the key of the house of David will I lay upon his shoulder; so he shall open, and none shall shut; and he shall shut, and none shall open.

23 And I will fasten him as a nail in a sure place; and he shall be for a glorious throne to his father’s house.

24 And they shall hang upon him all the glory of his father’s house, the offspring and the issue, all vessels of small quantity, from the vessels of cups, even to all the vessels of flagons.

25 In that day, saith the Lord of hosts, shall the nail that is fastened in the sure place be removed, and be cut down, and fall; and the burden that was upon it shall be cut off: for the Lord hath spoken it.

 

• I think this passage is saying that God gives each of us the treatment we need, but I’m not sure.  Isaiah 28:24-28

24 Doth the plowman plow all day to sow? doth he open and break the clods of his ground?25 When he hath made plain the face thereof, doth he not cast abroad the fitches, and scatter the cummin, and cast in the principal wheat and the appointed barley and the rie in their place?

26 For his God doth instruct him to discretion, and doth teach him.

27 For the fitches are not threshed with a threshing instrument, neither is a cart wheel turned about upon the cummin; but the fitches are beaten out with a staff, and the cummin with a rod.

28 Bread corn is bruised; because he will not ever be threshing it, nor break it with the wheel of his cart, nor bruise it with his horsemen.

29 This also cometh forth from the Lord of hosts, which is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in working.