This is the transcript of Restitutio episode 631: Unto Us a Child Is Born with Sean Finnegan

This transcript was auto-generated and only approximates the contents of this episode.

Audio file
631 Unto Us a Child Is Born.mp3

Transcript

00:00
Hey there, I'm Sean Finnegan and you are listening to Restitudio, a podcast that seeks to recover authentic Christianity and live it out today.

00:11
Who is the child Isaiah prophesied about in the famous line, for unto us a child is born?

00:18
Although most Christians see this as a reference to Jesus, we should first ask what this meant to Isaiah and his original audience 7 centuries before Christ.

00:28
When we do, we see that this prophecy was actually about deliverance from the Assyrian Empire and an unprecedented, miraculous military victory.

00:36
Even so, Jesus also fulfilled aspects of this prophecy in his ministry, and I believe he will fulfill the rest when he comes again.

00:44
Here now is episode 631, Unto Us a Child is Born.

00:57
Yesterday afternoon, I got to attend a performance of Hindel's Messiah.

01:02
If you like choral music, you'll probably like it.

01:06
What's so cool about the Messiah is that every single lyric comes straight out of the Bible.

01:12
I love that.

01:14
The first part of it, they sing about all these prophecies, all this expectations, and

01:21
The one that really sticks out, in my opinion at least, is Isaiah 9.

01:26
There's 2 movements of Isaiah 9.

01:29
There's an aria which does Isaiah 9 verse 2, and then there's a very well-known chorus that does Isaiah 9, 6.

01:37
And so I thought it would be cool to cover those this morning as we're considering the birth of Christ and see what you think.

01:46
I think it'll be encouraging to you to think about Jesus in this way.

01:50
Isaiah chapter 9, verse 1, I'd like to read the seven verses to you and then go back through it.

01:58
Isaiah 9, 1 says, but there will be no gloom for those who were in anguish.

02:03
In the former time he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the latter time he will make glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations.

02:15
The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.

02:18
Those who lived in a land of deep darkness, on them light has shined.

02:24
You have multiplied exaltation.

02:27
You have increased its joy.

02:29
They rejoice before you as with the joy at the harvest.

02:32
as people exult when dividing the plunder.

02:35
Verse 4, for the yoke of their burden and the bar across their shoulders, the rod of their oppressor, you have broken as on the day of Midian.

02:46
For all the boots of the tramping warriors and all the garments rolled in blood shall be burned as fuel for the fire.

02:53
Verse 6, for a child has been born for us, a son given to us,

02:58
Authority rests upon his shoulders, and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

03:06
Great will be his authority, and there will be endless peace for the throne of David and his kingdom.

03:13
He will establish and uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time onward and forevermore.

03:20
The zeal of Yahweh of hosts will do this.

03:24
Kind of a lengthy reading, but

03:26
It begins, I just want to focus on the beginning of it, begins with gloom and anguish and darkness.

03:33
This is not a happy time when Isaiah is prophesying.

03:38
Once again, verse 1 says, there will be no gloom for those who were in anguish.

03:43
In the former time, he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the latter time, he will make glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations, or Gentiles.

03:54
So the land of Zebulun and Naphtali refers to the northern kingdom of Israel.

03:59
God brought this land into contempt.

04:01
They were walking in the shadow of death.

04:04
It was a very bleak time when Isaiah prophesied.

04:08
Now when we interpret the Bible, we must always ask two questions.

04:13
The first question is, what did this mean to them?

04:16
And then the second question, what does this mean to us?

04:20
And so I want to start with the first question and focus our attention there until we really understand what was happening then.

04:27
What was going on in Isaiah's time?

04:30
What was he talking about originally?

04:32
And then ask the second question, which is, how does this relate to us today?

04:37
So

04:39
When Isaiah was a boy growing up, well, there were two kingdoms.

04:43
The kingdom in the south is the kingdom of Judah, and then the kingdom in the north is the kingdom of Israel.

04:49
So Israel itself had been split into two nations by this time, by the time of Isaiah.

04:55
So you have Israel in the north and Judah in the south.

04:57
Isaiah's in the south.

04:58
He's relatively safe.

05:00
But in the north, there's a lot of political chaos.

05:03
There was a king named Menahem, and Menahem was

05:08
staring at this huge empire that was just gobbling up territory called the Assyrian Empire.

05:14
And it was advancing and growing bigger and bigger.

05:16
And the Assyrians were starting to threaten Israel in the north.

05:20
And so King Menahem decided to pay off Assyria.

05:25
He decided to pay them money so they wouldn't invade.

05:30
Hey, why invade us?

05:31
We'll just give you money.

05:33
And so he gave them an immense amount of money.

05:36
I calculated it based on today's rate for silver, because he paid them in silver.

05:40
About $67 million is what he paid them in today's money.

05:45
Now this is even more impressive when we realize how small of a country Israel was.

05:49
It's not even all of Israel, it's just the northern half.

05:52
And they were able to raise $67 million and pay off the Assyrians.

05:56
But the problem with paying off a bully is that they eventually come back for more, don't they?

06:02
It doesn't really work for a long-term strategy, but it worked out for Menahem and he died.

06:08
His son became king in his place, but his son only lasted a couple of years.

06:12
He was taken out by his captain who grabbed 50 guys, started a conspiracy, attacked the capital and killed the king and put himself in the place.

06:21
And that was a guy named Pika.

06:23
And he wasn't playing peek-a-boo, this guy.

06:27
He was a shrewd and capable leader.

06:31
And so Pika looked around and he said, what?

06:35
I don't really like Judah in the South.

06:37
I want to go fight against them.

06:38
I don't care if they're like technically related to us.

06:41
You know, let's take out Judah.

06:44
And so he struck up an alliance with the nation known as Aram.

06:49
And he said, all right, so you and us, we'll be together and we'll attack Judah.

06:53
So the king of Aram and the king of Israel attacked Judah.

06:56
The guy down

06:58
In Judah, his name is Ahaz.

07:00
He's the king at the time.

07:01
And so you know what Ahaz does?

07:04
He sends money to the king of Assyria and says to the king of Assyria, why don't you attack Aram in Israel?

07:13
I'll give you this money, you attack them, and everybody's happy.

07:19
So that's what happened.

07:20
The king of Assyria said, all right, well, you didn't really have to pay me, but I'll do it.

07:24
So he attacks and he conquers Damascus, which is the capital of Aram.

07:28
And then he attacks Israel in the north.

07:32
And we read about this.

07:33
I've got a little quote for you in 2 Kings 1529.

07:38
It says, in the days of King Pika of Israel, King Tiglath-Pileser of Assyria came and captured Ejan, Ebilbeth-Maakah, Janoah,

07:49
Kedesh, Hazor, Gilead, and Galilee, and all the land of Naphtali, and he carried the people captive to Israel.

07:58
Now, Isaiah was a young adult when Pekah first took the reign of the king, and Isaiah had started his ministry prophesying during the reign of Pekah.

08:10
And so Isaiah is prophesying and he's prophesying to all different kinds of situations.

08:16
And this is the biggest news of the day.

08:19
I mean, this is an unprecedented event.

08:21
The Assyrian Empire has just invaded Israel in the north.

08:25
They have captured the northern part of Israel, what we call Naphtali and Zebulun, the tribes that had settled up there.

08:34
And this was just so traumatizing because the Assyrians were not

08:39
benevolent overlords.

08:41
They were really traumatizing in their tactics.

08:46
So for example, obviously anyone invading any land would be a traumatizing event, but not just killing any resistors and burning down any fortresses, but sometimes they would burn down whole cities.

08:59
And another thing that they would do is public executions.

09:02
So they would publicly execute people by impaling them for everyone to see.

09:08
And then something else they did was they deported people.

09:11
They would take all of the leaders, all the government type people, and all the skilled workers, and they would send them away hundreds of miles to serve in another part of the kingdom.

09:23
And that would cut out the leadership from the land so they would less be able to organize because their most capable people are gone.

09:32
And they're less able to build because their skilled laborers are gone.

09:37
And then they tax them heavily, which brings about poverty.

09:42
And then last of all, they had this really, really barbaric policy of mutilation, where they would amputate limbs.

09:51
And I don't need to go into great detail on this, but you can use your imagination.

09:55
Sometimes they would even cut off someone's nose and send that person back to their ancestral people as a warning.

10:02
This is what happens if you rebel.

10:04
And so just really, really traumatic, dark time that northern Israel went through.

10:10
And so Isaiah was about 30 years old when this whole thing happened with Tiglath-Pileser, the king of Assyria.

10:16
And this is probably the darkness that he's speaking about in Isaiah chapter 9.

10:22
Once again, Isaiah 9.1 says, there will be no gloom for those who were in anguish.

10:26
In the former time, he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali.

10:31
But in the latter time, he will make glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan and Galilee of the nations.

10:37
The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.

10:40
Those who lived in a land of deep darkness, on them, light has shined.

10:46
So now we understand the darkness, how dark the darkness was that these people had gone through, and how Isaiah prophesies to them that these people are going to see light.

10:59
And then he goes on, verse three, you have multiplied exaltation, you have increased its joy.

11:04
They rejoice before you as with joy at the harvest, as people exult when dividing plunder.

11:10
So he uses 2 images to talk about joy, that this land that is so traumatized and so upset and so

11:16
just hopelessly defeated by this empire, would have a day where they see light again.

11:21
They will have a day when the joy will be like the joy of harvest.

11:25
When you are harvesting your crops in an agricultural world, that's the time for party, that's the time for excitement, that's the time for generosity.

11:34
And then the other figure he uses is when you divide the spoil.

11:38
So that's when you have a military victory, you get to keep all the stuff that you capture.

11:43
And the soldiers get to divide it all up.

11:45
They're like, oh, I want that.

11:46
No, I'll take that.

11:47
And this is a time of great rejoicing for a military victory.

11:51
He says, that's what it's going to be like when this deliverance comes.

11:55
And then in verse 4,

11:57
It says, for the yoke of their burden and the bar across their shoulders, the rod of their oppressor, you have broken as on the day of Midian.

12:05
For all the boots of the tramping warriors and all the garments rolled in blood shall be burned as fuel for the fire.

12:11
So Isaiah is prophesying a great reversal.

12:15
Isaiah is a realist.

12:16
He's not a delusional person.

12:19
He's not saying, oh, it's fine.

12:21
He knows it's not fine.

12:23
These people have been through a horrible ordeal, and there's more bad stuff to come.

12:28
But he's also prophesying that after that, there will be a great light.

12:33
After that, there will be joy again.

12:35
After that, there will be a breaking of the yoke of their oppressor, like the day of Midian.

12:43
And so when you look in the Bible, you say, well, okay, what's the day of Midian?

12:46
What's that referring to?

12:48
we read that it refers to Gideon.

12:52
And in his time, the empire, well, I wouldn't say an empire, but like the bully was Midian, the Midians, and they were coming over and they were oppressing Israel.

13:02
It says in Judges 6, Judges 6, verse 3, for whenever the Israelites put in seed, the Midianites and the Amalekites and the people of the East would come up against them,

13:13
They would encamp against them and destroy the produce of the land as far as the neighborhood of Gaza and leave no sustenance in Israel, nor any sheep or ox or donkey, for they and their livestock would come up and they would even bring their tents as thick as locusts, neither they nor their camels could be counted.

13:32
So they wasted the land as they came in.

13:35
Thus, Israel was greatly impoverished because of Midian, and the Israelites cried out to Yahweh for help.

13:42
I mean, this was a very, very hard time for Israel, 4 centuries before Christ, when we're talking about Midian coming into the land and doing something kind of similar to what Assyria was doing in Isaiah's time.

13:55
When you live in a world where there are not grocery stores or refrigeration and shipping from places that can grow all year round,

14:05
Agriculture is a big deal.

14:06
And if every time you plant and you grow something, a horde of foreigners comes in and eats all your crops, you have a major problem.

14:16
This went on year by year for seven years.

14:18
The people cried out to God and God decided to act.

14:21
And what did God do?

14:23
Did he send a plague to Midian?

14:26
No.

14:28
Did he have the commander have a heart attack?

14:32
No.

14:33
Did he snap his fingers and half of the minions disappeared in a moment?

14:37
No, that's in the movies.

14:40
No, what he did was he found a guy, a guy named Gideon.

14:44
And Gideon's over there threshing his wheat.

14:45
He's actually in a hideout.

14:46
He's in a wine press, which is not where you thresh your wheat typically.

14:49
It's where you thresh your grapes, or not thresh, squish them.

14:53
You step on them with your bare feet to make wine.

14:56
But he's in there and he's threshing his wheat kind of in a hideout.

15:00
And he's doing that because if the Midianites see him threshing his wheat, they'll just take his wheat.

15:05
So he's kind of like hiding out, doing his farm duties,

15:08
And an angel comes to Gideon and says, you're the mighty one of the Lord.

15:13
You're going to save everybody.

15:15
And Gideon is just like, what are you talking?

15:17
Like, I'm just a guy.

15:20
I'm just a guy.

15:20
I don't know what you're talking about.

15:21
And so God works with him through the angel and then through other circumstances.

15:25
We're not going to read all about it this morning.

15:27
But eventually God gets Gideon to a point where he believes he can win a fight with the Midianites.

15:33
And so Gideon gathers up an army and he does really well.

15:36
He gets together 32,000 people, 32,000 men to fight against Midian, which is very impressive.

15:45
But like the problem is that Midian has 135,000.

15:51
So 32,000 is not going to be enough.

15:55
Each Israelite would have to kill 4 Midianites to win.

16:00
Is that reasonable?

16:01
No, that not at all from a military tactical point of view.

16:04
You really want to have the same number as the other guys or more, right?

16:08
You don't want to have one-fourth of their size.

16:12
And so God was pretty uncomfortable with that number.

16:17
It's funny, we read in Judges 7, 2, it says, the Lord or Yahweh said to Gideon, the troops with you are too many.

16:24
for me to give the Midianites into their hands.

16:27
Israel would only take the credit away from me, saying, my own hand has delivered me.

16:32
Now therefore proclaim this in the hearing of the troops.

16:36
Whoever is fearful and trembling, let him return home.

16:38
Thus Gideon sifted them out.

16:40
22,000 returned and 10,000 remained.

16:44
All right, so now we've got 10,000 guys and they're going to go up against an army that's 135,000.

16:50
Now each guy has to kill 13 1/2 Midianites.

16:54
in order for them to win.

16:55
And God says, Gideon, no offense, but there's still just the slightest chance that you guys might think you won because you're so great.

17:07
Let's get rid of some more guys.

17:09
And so God whittles the army down to 300, 300 guys.

17:15
And now each one of those 300 would have to kill 450 Midianites in order for them to win.

17:22
It's a totally, everyone can agree, that's totally impossible.

17:25
Even if you just lined up 450 guys, you'd probably wear yourself out before you even got to the end of them, much less if they're fighting back.

17:33
God says, all right, we can do this now.

17:36
And this is Gideon's 300.

17:38
This is the original 300.

17:40
Okay.

17:41
And they grab a clay pitcher and a ram's horn and a torch.

17:45
and they surround the Midianite camp in the middle of the night.

17:48
There's 135,000 Midianites in their tents, and these 300 line the ridge around the camp of the Midianites, and they blow their trumpets, and they smash their clay pitchers, and they lift up their lit torches, and they shout, a sword for Yahweh and for Gideon! And of course, it's the middle of the night, so the Midianites, they can't really see that well.

18:11
There's chaos,

18:14
They're like, we're under attack.

18:15
And they all grab their swords and they start killing each other because they thought the Israelites had come into the camp.

18:22
And the Israelites were just actually outside the camp, holding their torches and blowing trumpets and shouting.

18:28
And the Midianites start killing themselves in huge numbers.

18:32
And then they start to flee and Gideon grabs some people.

18:38
I thought this was pretty interesting.

18:40
He grabs people from Naphtali, Asher, and Manasseh, and they pursue the Midianite army and they destroy the Midianite army.

18:50
So back in Isaiah, when it says in Isaiah 9.4, for the yoke of the burden and the bar across their shoulders, the rod of their oppressor, you have broken as on the day of Midian, we're talking about a miraculous deliverance prophesied for a situation that seems hopeless.

19:07
And that's how God likes to do it.

19:10
It seems like he's nervous when Israel has a big military in the Bible.

19:16
There's actually a provision in, I think it's Deuteronomy 17, where God says the king should not multiply horses.

19:22
King should not multiply, you know, like they should always have faith and trust in God.

19:29
Isaiah is prophesying a great military victory, which is why in verse 5 it talks about all the shoe wear and uniforms of the soldiers that are bloody, but they're being used to light fires.

19:40
Then we get to our main verse, verse 6.

19:43
It says, For a child has been born for us, a son given to us, authority rests upon his shoulders, and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

19:55
Great will be his authority and there shall be endless peace for the throne of David and his kingdom.

20:00
He will establish it and uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time onward and forevermore.

20:05
The zeal of Yahweh of hosts will do this.

20:07
So I want you to start by noticing in verse 6 the past tense.

20:12
Translations tend to be a little funny with this.

20:14
There are some translations that we use the present tense and some translations that we use the future tense.

20:20
So the phrase is, for unto us a child is born, right?

20:25
sort of like the old English-y way to say it.

20:28
But it's actually in the Hebrew, it's past tense, for a child has been born for us or to us.

20:34
Christians, we want this to refer to Jesus.

20:37
Okay, so sometimes we get so zealous, be like, oh, that's Jesus, it's gotta be Jesus, that we say, okay, well, let's make it a future tense.

20:45
Well, if it's a past tense, then just let it be a past tense.

20:49
Again, we're still on question #1 is,

20:52
What did this prophecy mean to them?

20:54
What was Isaiah talking about?

20:56
I don't think Isaiah was originally talking about us doing Christmas in the 21st century in America, right?

21:04
Like what he's talking about his people and his time.

21:07
We'll get to us in the 21st century in America.

21:10
But first, let's just think about Isaiah.

21:12
Isaiah is talking to people 7 centuries before Christ.

21:17
and he is prophesying first and foremost to them about a child who has already been born in Isaiah's time.

21:26
This child is going to somehow be involved with a light dawning in verse 2, exaltation and joy in verse 3, the broken yoke in verse 4, and the surplus of bloody military uniforms in verse 5.

21:42
In fact, verse 6 is quite military as well.

21:47
And again, this is a translation issue.

21:49
You see a lot of translations using the same old-fashioned language that we're all accustomed to hearing for this verse.

21:56
But that's not necessarily the best way to read it.

21:59
The word wonderful, like in the phrase wonderful counselor, the word wonderful means miracle.

22:04
So it's a miraculous counselor.

22:06
But the word counselor has nothing to do with psychology.

22:10
The word counselor is talking about strategy.

22:13
A strategist.

22:14
He's a miraculous strategist.

22:17
And then when it says mighty God, what that really means, the word mighty there, almost everywhere else is translated, it's translated warrior, the warrior God.

22:25
And then when it says prince of peace, the word prince, sar, it can be prince, but it also is more commonly translated as a commander, a ruler, an official, not necessarily the son of a king.

22:38
So I think Isaiah 9.6 is actually about military victory in the time of Isaiah.

22:45
And

22:46
So I prefer the translation, miraculous strategist, warrior God, everlasting father, commander of peace.

22:54
And I'm not going to go into all the reasons why I think that and all the Hebrew and everything with you this morning.

22:59
I've already lost half of you so far.

23:01
So I'd rather not lose the other half before I finish.

23:06
But there is a presentation on YouTube if you want to get to the nitty gritty of how the Hebrew works on this.

23:13
The point is, this is a name for the child.

23:17
People get weirded out by how long the name is.

23:20
Yes, it is a long name.

23:22
But in Isaiah 7, there was a sentence name for a child.

23:27
In Isaiah chapter 8, there was a sentence name for a child.

23:29
In Isaiah chapter 9, there's a sentence name for a child.

23:32
In Isaiah 7, the child's name is called God is with us.

23:36
In chapter 8, the child's name is speedy to the prey, quick to the plunder.

23:41
And then in Isaiah 9, the kid's name is Miraculous Strategist, Warrior God, Everlasting Father, Commander of Peace, right?

23:50
So each of these sentence names in Isaiah 7 and Isaiah 8 and in Isaiah 9 gets longer than the last one.

23:58
So that is kind of unusual.

24:00
But these are not the actual name the kid is going to go by.

24:05
These are what we call theophoric names.

24:07
Theophoric names are names that

24:10
incorporate God in them in some way.

24:13
So there were different kinds of names.

24:15
There were descriptive names, and then there were theophoric names.

24:18
If you had a theophoric name, the name was not about you.

24:22
The name was about the God your parents believed in.

24:26
So Hezekiah, his name means Yahweh is my strength.

24:32
Nobody thought Hezekiah was God.

24:34
Nobody thought like Hezekiah was like a strong Yahweh, all right?

24:38
No, the name means something about God.

24:41
Isaiah, Yah is salvation.

24:43
Elijah, for example, Yah is my God, or Eliab, the Father is my God.

24:47
This is how theophoric names work.

24:50
John Golden Gate writes about this in his Isaiah commentary.

24:53
He says, so he has that complicated name.

24:56
I love it when super nerds make jokes like that.

25:00
So he's got that complicated name, you know?

25:03
And then he quotes the name, an extraordinary counselor is the warrior God, the everlasting father is an officer for well-being.

25:09
Like earlier names in Isaiah, God is with us, remains will return, plunder hurries, loot rushes.

25:15
The name is a sentence.

25:17
None of these names are the person's everyday name, as when the New Testament says that Jesus will be called Emmanuel, God is with us.

25:25
without meaning this expression is Jesus' name.

25:28
Rather, the person somehow stands for whatever the name says.

25:34
God gives him a sign of the truth of the expression attached to him.

25:39
The names don't mean that the person is God with us, or is the remains, or is the plunder.

25:44
And likewise, this name doesn't mean that the child is what the name says.

25:47
Rather, he is a sign and guarantee of it.

25:51
It's as if he goes around bearing a billboard with that message and with the reminder that God has commissioned the billboard.

25:58
So the child that was born in Isaiah's time had this really complicated name, and the name meant not what the child was going to do, but what God was going to do.

26:08
And so the birth of the child signified the significance of the victory God was going to bring to his people.

26:16
He'll have authority on his shoulders, and then it talks about the child will have authority on his shoulders, and his name will signify God, the warrior God, is going to bring victory.

26:27
All right, so let's fast forward some time into the future.

26:30
I told you Isaiah was around 30 years old when Tiglath-Pileser came and conquered the northern part of Israel.

26:36
Seven years after that, Shalmaneser conquered Samaria and northern Israel.

26:41
And after Samaria Falls, which was the capital city, basically Israel and the north never recovered.

26:48
Their people were deported and they were

26:52
brought out, and a lot of times you hear people refer to them as the lost 10 tribes of Israel.

26:58
This is when they were so-called lost.

27:00
They were exported into captivity of the Assyrian Empire.

27:05
During Isaiah's whole life, he saw the empire of Assyria grow stronger and stronger.

27:11
This was the threat.

27:12
Now Isaiah's down here in the south in Judah.

27:15
He's relatively safe.

27:16
But once the buffer kingdom to the north, the kingdom of Israel falls, guess what?

27:23
The Assyrians are saying, well, shoot, why don't I just take the next one too?

27:27
And that's where Isaiah is living, the kingdom of Judah.

27:31
When he was about 60 years old,

27:33
The new Assyrian king, Sennacherib, invaded Judah, and he conquered 46 villages and towns and cities, making his way down to the capital of Jerusalem.

27:46
And then the unthinkable happened.

27:48
The Assyrian Empire began to threaten Jerusalem itself, where God's temple was.

27:56
Now, from Isaiah's perspective, this was the end of the world.

28:02
this is just end game type stuff.

28:04
Like Israel's already gone, Judah is almost completely lost.

28:08
All we have is everyone holding out in this one fortress city called Jerusalem with big walls, but like Assyria has dealt with cities bigger than Jerusalem before, like Damascus.

28:20
So this is just an emergency situation, but Isaiah has already prophesied about a child who had been born.

28:30
that would signal a victory that God would bring.

28:32
And Isaiah knew that child had become the king in Jerusalem, and that child...

28:40
was now a man who was serving Yahweh, unlike so many other kings.

28:44
He was serving Yahweh with his whole heart.

28:46
We read about this.

28:47
It says in 2 Kings 18, verse 5, he relied on Yahweh, the God of Israel, so that there was no one like him among all the kings of Judah after him or among those who were before him.

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For he held fast to Yahweh.

29:03
He did not depart from following him, but kept the commandments that Yahweh had commanded Moses.

29:10
Yahweh was with him.

29:11
Wherever he went, he prospered.

29:13
He rebelled against the king of Assyria and would not serve him.

29:17
So the king of Assyria said, fine, you won't serve me?

29:19
I'm going to just attack you and take what I want.

29:22
And so the whole military of Assyria came.

29:26
And when Hezekiah, the king that we've been talking about, heard about this, he did exactly the right thing.

29:34
He didn't pay off any bribes to any other nations to attack.

29:37
He didn't do any kind of

29:39
fancy political maneuvering.

29:41
You know what he did?

29:42
He tore his clothes, he put on sackcloth, and he went to the temple.

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And he said, God, please help.

29:48
And he said, I know there's a prophet called Isaiah.

29:50
He's older now, but he's been prophesying all these years.

29:54
Even before I was born, this man was prophesying.

29:57
And go get Isaiah.

29:59
Tell him it's the end of the world.

30:02
We need a miracle.

30:05
And so that's what happened.

30:06
They went and they fetched Isaiah.

30:08
And this is what Isaiah said, 2 Kings 1932.

30:12
Therefore, thus says Yahweh.

30:15
This is Isaiah speaking.

30:17
Thus says Yahweh concerning the king of Assyria.

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He shall not come into this city.

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Shoot an arrow here, come before it with a shield, or cast up a siege ramp against it.

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By the way that he came, by the same he shall return.

30:36
He shall not come into this city, says Yahweh.

30:40
For I will defend this city to save it for my own sake and for the sake of my servant David.

30:48
Just incredible words.

30:50
Incredible words.

30:52
You have an army of over 100,000, maybe even 200,000 strong, coming against your city.

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You've got no way to fight them off.

31:03
There's no plan.

31:05
Actually, there was one plan.

31:06
I'll just mention it very quickly here, because it's really cool.

31:11
The one thing that they did, Hezekiah did, to ensure that they could survive if they were attacked, is they dug a tunnel.

31:19
And I don't think this is mentioned in the Bible, but we have it archaeologically.

31:24
Like I've stood in the tunnel.

31:25
I've walked through the tunnel.

31:26
And it's called Hezekiah's Tunnel.

31:28
And what Hezekiah did was he had this group of guys cutting through solid stone under the city of Jerusalem to get to a spring outside the city.

31:37
And he had the other guys outside the city cutting through stone.

31:41
They were digging both ends of the tunnel at the same time so that the city could have water even if they were surrounded.

31:47
Because if you don't have water, you die, right?

31:50
It's just a few days, maybe a week, and you run out of supplies.

31:54
And what's so crazy is that if you actually go to Hezekiah's tunnel, which you can go to today, you could walk through it.

31:58
There's still water running through it.

31:59
It's like knee high.

32:01
You'll see that where they met together, they were just off by like a hair.

32:05
And you can see where the pick marks go from this way to this way and where they come together.

32:12
And it's just like, how did they do that?

32:13
How did they figure out, like you're digging underground, how did you figure out where to meet?

32:18
I figured they would just kind of get off track a little bit somewhere.

32:22
But they didn't.

32:23
They were able to meet and he was able to bring water into the city.

32:26
So we actually had archaeological evidence of the kind of distress they were in to say, all right, let's dig through solid rock to get some water in here for a significant distance.

32:39
That's the kind of pressure they were under.

32:40
But Isaiah prophesied, Isaiah prophesied and said, they will not enter into, they're not going to shoot an arrow in here.

32:49
Then God did the incredible, an unprecedented miracle, a miracle so big it changed the course of world history.

32:57
We read about it in chapter 19, verse 35.

32:59
The next verse, it says, that very night the angel of Yahweh set out and struck down 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians.

33:08
When morning dawned, they were all dead bodies.

33:12
Then King Sennacherib of Assyria left, went home, and lived at Nineveh.

33:17
I guess that's what you do when you lose your army.

33:19
You go home and you live there.

33:22
As he was worshiping in the house of his god Nisrach, his sons Adrimelech and Sherazer killed him with the sword and they escaped into the land of Ararat.

33:31
His son Esarhaddon succeeded him.

33:35
There was a new king and this new king no longer had a massive army ready to attack Israel and to attack Judah and to attack Jerusalem.

33:45
God brought the victory.

33:48
Once Assyria's army was decimated, the whole entire empire began to decline.

33:55
And it wasn't long before the entire empire fell.

33:58
And wouldn't you know it, was a century that Hezekiah bought for his people before another threat came along.

34:05
A century where you don't have to worry about an empire attacking.

34:10
The next one would be the Babylonians a long time after.

34:14
And so when this huge miracle happened and the angel killed all these soldiers, suddenly the yoke of the oppressor was broken.

34:23
Even in the north, a light had dawned.

34:26
Even in the north, there was rejoicing.

34:28
What do you mean the Assyrian army is dead?

34:31
Yeah, they're gone.

34:32
Nobody can really kind of explain it, but I don't think they're going to be bothering us anymore.

34:38
I bet there was a lot of rejoicing that day.

34:40
So yeah, I believe Hezekiah was the original fulfillment of the prophecy in Isaiah 9 that we read about.

34:46
But when I began, I said, there are two questions, not just what does this mean to them, but also what does this mean to us?

34:55
And so let's answer the second question.

34:58
How does this prophecy apply to us?

35:00
I know what you're thinking.

35:03
Jesus.

35:04
All right, yeah, that's a, yeah.

35:06
Agree.

35:08
The answer is going to be Jesus.

35:10
But how?

35:11
Well, Jesus is the ultimate son of David, just like Hezekiah was a son of David.

35:17
Jesus is actually descended from that same lineage.

35:20
He is also the ultimate son of David.

35:24
He will have authority resting on his shoulders.

35:26
That's actually why he has the title Messiah or Christ.

35:29
It means it's a title of authority.

35:31
It's not a religious title at all.

35:33
It's a title of somebody who is the king, somebody who's anointed by God.

35:38
He will bring military victory on God's behalf and usher in an age of endless peace.

35:42
Jesus is going to do all these things that are prophesied in Isaiah 9 as well.

35:48
And he's going to do all these things when he returns.

35:51
However,

35:52
We might want to ask the question, but what about when he came the first time?

35:57
And there's this scripture that's just so cool in Matthew chapter 4.

36:01
I'm just going to put it up on the screen for you.

36:03
But when Jesus began his ministry,

36:06
He didn't begin his ministry conspiring, like, how do I deal with the darkness that's here in our time, the Roman Empire?

36:13
How do I deal with that?

36:14
I know, let's kill Caesar.

36:15
No, he doesn't do that.

36:16
Instead, what Jesus does is he goes to that very same land that Isaiah prophesied about, the land of Zebulun and Naphtali, the land in the north, the land that's in the darkness, the land where the Gentiles are strong, and he starts to bring the light

36:33
to that darkness.

36:34
We read in Matthew 4, it says, now when Jesus heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew to Galilee.

36:40
He left Nazareth and made his home in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, so that what had been spoken through the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled.

36:53
Land of Zebulun, land of Naphtali, on the road by the sea across the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles, the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light.

37:03
And those who sat in the region and shadow of death, light has dawned.

37:07
From that time, Jesus began to proclaim, repent, for the kingdom of heaven has drawn near.

37:14
So what did Jesus do?

37:16
Jesus is enacting prophecy.

37:20
This is the very region that Isaiah had prophesied about.

37:23
And in Isaiah's day, that region had seen a great victory when the military was defeated by a miraculous strategy that only God could come up with.

37:33
Hey, let's send an angel.

37:35
And this same land is now dominated by the Roman Empire.

37:38
They have this terrible guy in charge named Herod Antipas.

37:42
He's taxing everybody and the people are chafing under the corrupt government of the Roman Empire.

37:48
And where does Jesus go?

37:49
Jesus goes to that very same region and he says, you know what?

37:53
Let's bring light to these people.

37:55
Let's bring light to these people.

37:57
And where Jesus went, there was a bubble of the kingdom.

38:00
Jesus claims to be the Messiah.

38:02
He claims to be the one that is going to bring all the greatest promises to fulfillment.

38:07
And so what does he do?

38:09
If he encounters a blind person, he gives that person sight.

38:13
If he encounters somebody who is lame, he helps them to walk again.

38:17
If he encounters somebody that has a demon, he casts it out.

38:23
So Jesus is already doing kingdom stuff in his ministry as a testimony to the fact that he is the true and better Hezekiah.

38:33
And so Jesus is bringing this message about the kingdom, this message about God's plan to restore and to redeem and to bring wholeness starting in that same region.

38:43
He does not start his ministry in the capital city of Rome.

38:47
He doesn't go to the metropolis of Ephesus, and he doesn't even go to where the temple is in Jerusalem.

38:51
He starts in these podunk region that has been conquered over and over and over again so that he can fulfill this prophecy of Isaiah chapter 9.

39:02
And so as Jesus does that, he testifies to who he is.

39:08
He is the one who is going to bring ultimate victory.

39:13
And here's the thing, Hezekiah, let's be honest, Hezekiah didn't really do much.

39:19
Like if you really read it, like, okay, he tore his clothes, he put on sackcloth, I can't say I've ever done that.

39:25
So he's got me there, but you know, he has some wardrobe activities, and then he fasted, he prays, and he asked God for help.

39:33
Like, that's it.

39:35
That's really all Hezekiah did.

39:37
And God brought this incredible victory.

39:40
And so we can say because of Hezekiah's faithfulness,

39:42
God has brought the victory.

39:45
Okay, well, what about Jesus?

39:47
When we look at Jesus, Hezekiah was able to save the people from this terrible, greedy empire, right?

39:55
With Jesus, he goes into hand-to-hand combat with not the puppets, but the ones pulling the strings for the puppets.

40:04
He goes face to face with the devil for his temptations even when he first starts his ministry.

40:11
He defeats the devil in a one-on-one combat.

40:15
like, what?

40:17
we haven't seen anything like that since Adam and Eve, and we didn't even go 3 rounds there.

40:21
We just got beat with the first punch.

40:24
And so then Jesus is just casting out demons left to right throughout his ministry.

40:29
He is defeating the root cause that's behind the greed of empire.

40:34
Sin itself.

40:36
So Jesus is cutting these things at the root, not cutting the flower off the Assyrian Empire or the, who was after them, the Babylonians, or then after them was the Greeks, or no, the Persians, and then after them was the Greeks, and then after them was the Romans, right?

40:50
So you have all these different empires.

40:51
Jesus is pulling, he's cutting the root itself, the root of sin and Satan, really.

40:58
And Jesus is doing all that in his ministry.

41:02
And he will do the rest when he comes.

41:04
He will set up the throne of David and authority will rest upon his shoulders.

41:10
He will bring justice and righteousness from this time forward and forevermore.

41:16
Hezekiah brought it and it lasted for a really long time.

41:18
But when Jesus brings it, it's going to last forever.

41:24
This all started with a prophecy 7 centuries before Christ, a prophecy about a child who was born, a child who would rescue the people from their oppression.

41:32
Well, Jesus is the true and better Hezekiah who rescues us from the oppression of sin and death.

41:39
Whereas Hezekiah trusted in God to deliver him, resulting in a miracle.

41:44
Jesus trusted in God to deliver him, resulting in a miracle.

41:49
Hezekiah's miracle decimated the military power of the time.

41:53
Jesus's miracle decimated the power behind all military greed.

41:58
The power of sin and death and Satan.

42:01
Whereas Hezekiah

42:01
Hezekiah was the right man at the right time to lead his people, Jesus is the right man for all time to lead all the people.

42:09
Not just the Jews, but the Jews and the Gentiles.

42:13
Whereas Hezekiah brought salvation for his people for a time, Jesus brings eternal salvation for all who believe for all time.

42:23
Jesus is the true and better child that was born.

42:27
Though astounding in its time, what Hezekiah accomplished

42:30
pales in comparison to Jesus's accomplishment on the cross.

42:36
What a beautiful truth to celebrate, wouldn't you say?

42:38
A child has been born.

42:41
A son has been given and the government will rest upon his shoulders.

42:45
What is that government ultimately?

42:47
Not just the kingdom of Judah in the time before Christ, 7 centuries or 6 centuries before Christ.

42:54
No, The kingdom of God, the ultimate government where all nations are going to serve and obey the Son of Man.

43:02
That's the ultimate fulfillment of this prophecy.

43:06
What a beautiful truth to celebrate for us this morning, don't you think?

43:13
that brings this message to a close.

43:15
What did you think?

43:15
Come on over to restitudio.org and find episode 631, Unto Us, a Child is Born, and leave your questions and comments and feedback there.

43:25
On episode 621, How Will God Raise the Dead with Scott Sperling, Plug wrote in saying, when Jesus was raised, he seemed to have had the same actual body, complete with wounds from his crucifixion.

43:39
Scars wouldn't be in one's DNA as they are environmental effects and not genetic ones.

43:46
Memories are also not in DNA.

43:48
So we are more than DNA for sure.

43:52
Well, thanks for that observation.

43:53
It is certainly the case that DNA does not, so far as I know at least, contain any information about scars or other things that happen to the body.

44:06
I would say that generally that those sorts of effects on the body would not be preferred in the resurrection, right?

44:14
I think Jesus was in a class of his own in that he needed to demonstrate body continuity so that the disciples believed he was raised from the dead, whereas the rest of us will not have such a burden in the resurrection.

44:28
Since we will ourselves be resurrected, we won't be so surprised that other people also are resurrected.

44:35
And so I think this was a one-off to give Jesus these scars.

44:39
I don't know if he still has these scars to this day or would have them forever or not, but these are, in a sense, markers of his victory on the cross on behalf of humanity.

44:52
So I don't think we're going to see those sorts of things in the rest of the resurrected in the last day.

44:58
A number of folks have been writing in on Spotify comments, and one of those

45:05
was somebody named Dynamic who says, if Trinitarians are idolaters, then would the majority of Christians throughout history not enter the kingdom per 1st Corinthians 6?

45:18
The verse that

45:20
dynamic is referring to is 1 Corinthians 6, 9, which says, or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?

45:27
Do not be deceived, neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, and so on, it goes from there, will inherit the kingdom of God.

45:35
So idolaters is in a list of different sin categories of people that won't inherit the kingdom of God.

45:41
I would actually add to that

45:43
Dynamic, another verse from Revelation 21, verse 8, which says, but as for the cowardly, the faithless, the polluted, the murderers, the sexually immoral, the sorcerers, the idolaters, and all liars, their place will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.

45:59
So we have multiple scriptures that indicate that idolaters are not going to receive eternal life.

46:06
I suppose the question really is regarding

46:09
whether or not worshiping Jesus as God counts as idolatry or not.

46:15
And this is a hard question, and a lot of biblical Unitarians have different perspectives on it.

46:20
I personally am not sure what God is going to do.

46:24
I think if you're treating Jesus as if he's God in the same sense as the Father is God, then technically, yes, that is idolatry.

46:34
Then technically, yes, that is idolatry.

46:36
But that doesn't necessarily mean that God won't show mercy to these people if they did it in an honest heart without exposure to other options.

46:46
I'm really glad that I'm not in charge of judging all of humankind and trying to figure out where those lines should be.

46:54
My personal philosophy, and this is just what I kind of have settled on myself, is that I should assume

47:02
that this is that serious of an issue, that someone who actively prays to Jesus, worships Jesus as the creator God and so forth, that this person is in peril, that this person is deceived to a degree that it's possible to be excluded from eternal life.

47:23
So yes, I think for myself, I just assume that that's the case.

47:29
But then at the same time, I hope that these people will be shown mercy, especially if they haven't had any chance to consider alternatives.

47:41
So yeah, I basically assume the worst so that I don't get complacent and say, oh, it doesn't matter.

47:46
You can believe whatever you want.

47:49
And there are a lot of people who say that, but I'm not one of them.

47:53
For example, what about Mormons?

47:57
Mormons believe in Jesus, but they also add a lot of new ideas that Jesus was originally a human being and he was really righteous and he got promoted to a god level where he could create his own universe.

48:12
And then if you're really good, you can become a god and create your own planets or something like that.

48:18
Yeah, I mean, what about Muslims?

48:20
Muslims believe in Jesus.

48:22
They even believe that he's God's prophet and that he's the Messiah.

48:26
but they don't believe that he died for their sins.

48:28
Or what about Jews?

48:29
Jews believe that Jesus died, but that he is not the Messiah and did not die for their sins, right?

48:36
So look, there are good, honest-hearted, quality, loving, self-sacrificially, altruistic people in any one of these camps.

48:48
And I think we have to just assume that God's going to hold the line of scripture

48:54
and say that, if you are, if you don't have Jesus, you're not going to be saved at this point.

49:00
obviously before Jesus came, the rules were different because you couldn't believe in Jesus until Jesus came, right?

49:08
But as it is now, then it is, there's no other name given among men whereby we must be saved.

49:14
And that's what the Bible says.

49:15
So that's what I'm going to stick with.

49:17
And if God wants to show everybody mercy on the day of judgment, I am certainly not going to stand in his way or complain.

49:23
I could tell you this, that if you hold the alternative position, which says, oh, everybody's going to be saved so long as you have positive feelings towards Jesus, then that is a very demotivating belief.

49:35
And you're going to end up saying, well, I never need to tell anybody about this because it doesn't really matter for salvation.

49:41
So I just know myself and I don't want to give myself a free pass and just say, oh, it doesn't matter and go with the flow and do what's easy if that's not the way the Bible reads.

49:52
The way the Bible reads, God cares an incredible amount about his exclusive worship.

49:58
And yes, he has honored the son in unprecedented ways, lifting him up to his right hand, exalting him to the title of Messiah, conferring upon him the authority over the nations in the age to come and authority over the church in this age.

50:16
Absolutely.

50:17
So I don't want to diminish Jesus in any way and recognize him in his proper place as the most exalted human being of all human history, both now and forevermore.

50:28
So hopefully that answered your question.

50:30
I'm not really sure I did or not, but thanks for writing in.

50:34
on Spotify Dynamic.

50:36
Someone named Marcus Kokus, if I'm saying that correctly, says, it seems that I have found my people at last.

50:43
He's commenting in on episode 88.

50:46
So that's from years ago.

50:48
Restorationist Manifesto.

50:50
He says, it seems that I have found my people at last.

50:52
Thank you, Brother Sean, for encouraging my heart with this hope for restoration and God bless you.

50:59
This is such a great comment.

51:00
Thank you so much, Marcus, for writing in and for saying this.

51:04
The Restorationist Manifesto, I think, is in some ways the most important thing I ever wrote or ever spoke on.

51:11
And that actually goes back to 2017 when I did that presentation at a theological conference down in Georgia.

51:23
This is something that for the last eight years I have wanted to expand upon.

51:27
It was just a 45-minute presentation and a fairly short paper

51:32
that was really just trying to nail down what are the principles, what is the methodology of restoring authentic Christianity?

51:40
What are the assumptions and what are some of the pitfalls that we can avoid as we attempt to do this?

51:48
I really have always wanted to do this, but I'm so excited that next month I'm finally going to be expanding that restorationist manifesto into an entire class.

51:57
I'm calling it restorationist theology.

52:00
And this is a class on method.

52:03
It's a class on restorationism and it's a class on method.

52:06
So it's the sort of thing that's going to explain why restorationism.

52:11
Well, what is restorationism?

52:13
Why should we have restorationism?

52:15
And then how to do it.

52:17
And I think it will be helpful for lots of people in all kinds of different Christian groups, denominations, and with different doctrinal packages

52:29
because I'm not really talking about what to believe.

52:31
I'm talking about how to evaluate your beliefs and what you need to know in order to do that well.

52:39
And in particular, I am assuming that you have access to AI for this class.

52:45
I believe that AI is a total game changer for those of us who want to do research and those of us who want to know truth.

52:55
And AI is an incredible shortcut.

52:57
It has

52:58
some significant shortcomings as it is right now, but it is getting better month by month, not even year by year, month by month it is getting better.

53:07
And I hope it continues to get better so that we are able to get better access to the information that's out there.

53:15
And so I'm going to be talking a lot about how to use AI in the process of developing your theology and what the limitations are for that, as well as how to use it profitably and be able to check it to see

53:28
what's going on.

53:29
So stay tuned for that, everybody.

53:31
If you have not yet heard the Restorationist Manifesto, it's right on restitudio.org on the homepage.

53:37
You just scroll down.

53:38
There's a YouTube, there's a full-length paper, and there's also a podcast, Podcast 88, as I just mentioned.

53:46
So take a look or a listen to that and see what you think.

53:50
Well, that's going to be it for today.

53:51
Thanks, everybody, for tuning in.

53:53
If you'd like to support us, you can do that at restitudio.org.

53:58
I'll catch you next week, and remember, the truth has nothing to fear.