Page 133 - Isaiah Student Worktext

Study Section 19: Chapters 65 - 66

19.1 Connect

We come to our last lesson in Isaiah. Just as there are 66 books in the Bible, there are 66 chapters in
Isaiah. After working our way through this incredible book of prophecy, we arrive at the end.
And in a very fitting end to Isaiah’s word, the last chapters deal with the eternal destiny of the
righteous and the wicked, new heavens and new earth, New Jerusalem.

There has been much about false worship, false gods, throughout, but also God’s redemptive
power has been highlighted throughout. There are the negative pronouncements of judgment
to come, yet always accompanied with the call to repentance and salvation from that judgment based
on God’s mercy and love.

19.2 Objectives

1. The student should be able to explain that God puts Himself gloriously on display in redeeming
Gentiles, judging the wicked, and creating a new heaven and new earth.

2. The student should be able to describe how God divides the human race into two categories:
true versus false worshipers. It describes plainly the heart and behavior of both, as well as their eternal
destinies: heaven and hell.

19.3 Chapter 65 - Main Idea: God puts Himself gloriously on display in redeeming Gentiles,
judging the wicked, and creating a new heaven and new earth.

V. 1 ‘I was sought by those who did not ask for Me. This literally means ‘I allowed Myself to be
sought’. Even those who don’t know they are seeking are looking for God. This was addressed
primarily to the Gentiles.

God continually cries out ‘Here I am.’…His works declare His glory.

‘I ran from Him as fast as my sinful legs would carry me, and He took out after me and ran me down’.

V. 2-3 Now He addresses the Jews…a rebellious people. That is truly the theme of the prophets of the
OT…a period of obedience, a period of slipping away, a period of rebellion, a period of punishment, a
period of repentance and the cycle started over.

Regardless of the rebellion, God never ceases to stretch out His hands, even when His beloved children
provoke Him to anger.

‘Sacrifice in the gardens…on altars of brick’. The Babylonians offered sacrifices to their false gods on
brick or tile roofs of the houses.

V. 4-5 Simply more indication of the disobedience…spending nights in the tombs would have made them
unclean. Eating swine’s flesh, likewise…and yet they felt like they were ‘holier than you’.

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