As a young man, Isaiah started to hear God and began to speak prophetically. He also decided to record some of these prophecies in written form. After a few years of faithfully delivering God's word, he was given a vision in the Temple in which he was commissioned by God as a prophet to the nation. From then on, he received a mixture of warnings and promises, many of which he recorded in what became the longest prophetic book in the Bible. He was the man of God chosen to work with King Hezekiah of Judah when Jerusalem was besieged by the Assyrians. He was able to assure the King correctly that the city would not fall, so it was safe to hold out against the enemy army. He delivered to Hezekiah the message that God was going to extend his life by 15 years, but also that Judah would eventually fall to the Babylonians, who were at that point not even much of a force to be reckoned with.
Isaiah prophesied over perhaps 60 years, during which his ability to hear God developed, as did his writing style. The latter part of his book, in particular, contains some of the most exquisitely composed prophetic poetry in the Bible. He excelled in delivering stinging judgments from God to Judah and the surrounding nations, as well as bringing much needed divine words of comfort to his countrymen. He was a great and versatile prophet, a skilled writer and a gifted poet.
Isaiah is, though, perhaps most often remembered as the prophet who was entrusted with some of the most intimate and accurate foretellings of Jesus as the Messiah, who would not be born for another 700 years. He predicted the virgin birth of Immanuel (God with us), and that the Messiah would be born into King David's family line, work in Galilee and have someone prepare the way for his arrival. Isaiah also spoke about Jesus' rejection by his people, that he would be spat upon and beaten, the horrors of his suffering on the cross and that that would be to take upon himself our sins and sicknesses as our substitute. He knew that the Messiah's voluntary death would be for our reconciliation with God, leading to the salvation of many people, and that he would die with sinners and be buried with the rich. Isaiah also prophesied about Jesus' ministry during his lifetime: that he would be filled with the Holy Spirit, heal the blind, lame, deaf, and sick, raise the dead, lift up the brokenhearted and be visited by Gentiles. He added that Jesus would ultimately be exalted and become the judge over the Earth.
This was a man who was trusted by God so much that he was willing to relate to him some of the finer points and purposes of the birth, life and death of his son; God entrusted such intimate detail to few other Old Testament prophets. Isaiah was faithful to record this incredibly accurately, even though he could have had only a vague idea of what a lot of it meant, being someone brought up under the Jewish Law rather than the grace revealed fully in the New Testament. Yet it didn't stop there, since he went on to prophesy about the end of the world as well. Let us learn from this amazing man that God our Father is willing to share his life with us in astounding depth if we allow ourselves to get to know him properly.
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