Trust Brings Strength: Isaiah 40:27-31
Dennis Mennella
Old Testament Survey 2015
7/6/2015
Outline of Text
I. God’s Power (v. 27)
II. Questions (v. 28)
a. Reaffirmation (v. 28)
b. Everlasting (v. 28)
c. Unlimited
III. Strengthening (v. 29)
IV. Endurance (v. 30)
V. Trust (v. 31)
a. Renewal (v. 31)
b. Strength to those who Trust (v. 31)
Isaiah 40:27-31: Trust Brings Strength The book of Isaiah is written from the point of view of speaker to his own people as Jacob-Israel. Isaiah reassures the people of Judah that God is ready to bring them home and how uplifting he is. He begins by comforting them and telling them about the faithfulness, goodness and power of God. That God is capable of renewing
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(Eusebius, 200)
Verse 28: “Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable.”
The verse starts with the re-questioning of two important and obvious, questions. After the first question, Isaiah takes the time to remind the people that God did make the world and everything in it. He tells them how the nations rise and fall at God’s command. Isaiah then uses the questions to tell the people what they should already know about the nature of God, though they might not remember. “Everlasting God” means that God is enduring, how he has existed throughout the ages. He has not just come and gone. He always is. “Of the ends of the earth” refers to its limits. It refers to how God is the creator of the parts of the earth and the secrets of the earth that we know, as well as the creator of those parts and secrets we do not know. Isaiah wants his readers to remember that God made it all. Sometimes people tend to re-create God in their own image. Here, Isaiah wants his readers to understand that God is not faced by the same limits as we are. First, he wants them to know that God is not limited by physical fatigue as humans are. God never gets tired. Second, he wants them to know that God’s understanding and knowledge is unlimited
Introduction: We see a book that was often quoted by Jesus and the apostles. A book that was written nearly 700 years before Christ was born. In the Six Chapter of the book of Isaiah, Isaiah gives us a record of his sacred call to the office of Prophet. His calling comes in a time of crisis in the nation. He begins by telling us that it was the year when King Uzziah had died. A king that had reign for over 50 years. Is in that time when God appear to Isaiah, he says (Verse 1) He has a vision. I saw (didn’t hear or read) The Lord sitting upon a throne high and lifted up and His robe filled the temple. The image and the symbolic significance of what Isaiah sees upon here, is the outfit of The King like no other (status symbols).
Jesus encourages the people to search the words of isaiah and the other prophets and encourages them to ponder and ask the lord to help understand them. He also tells about how his servant Samuel the Lamanite helped with his words concerning the resurrection and Jesus asks Nephi to add them to the records.
The prophet Isaiah played an important role in the development and expression of Judaism as a dynamic, living religion through the impact of his works. The impact of Isaiah is evident in both the development and expression of Judaism both in his time and in modern society, as his teachings, for the Jewish people, prove to be relevant to the times. Considered among Jews as one of the greatest prophets, Isaiah has contributed to and affected the life of adherents in the Jewish faith through his political and religious influence, his prophetic messages concerning
Isaiah prophesized that people should obey and trust in the Lord. God trusted that Isaiah would inform people that He was with them and that His love endures forever. In Isaiah Chapter 65-66, god revealed himself to simmers. He said they would be judged both for good and evil. God just wanted the people to be obedient. “As a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you.” God is admirable because He once again was giving people another chance. “As the new heavens and the new earth that I make will endure before me, declares the Lord, “so will your name and descendents endure.” Isaiah 66:22. God is to be admired in that in Isaiah 7:14 and 9:6. God prophesized though Isaiah about the birth of a boy who would be great. God through Isaiah offers future hope for the nation of Israel. Jesus would be the difference between light and darkness, life and death. Anyone who offers hope of a better future is a person who we would look up to and respect and that is God. God is always admirable in everything that I have known him to do. He protects us as we are his children. He is hard on us sometimes, but is always loving towards us. God is to be respected because he wanted his people to be obedient and live holy. He judged but he has never given up and always gives us chances to repent. We are his creation, though a work in progress. God has a plan for us and just tries
Isaiah came during a pivotal time in history. The world was changing rapidly and life was on the edge of prosperity and ruin, as it is today. In this uncertain time Isaiah was called by God to deliver a message of warning, comfort, and deliverance. Christians view the prophecies of Isaiah as a projection of the coming of Jesus Christ. Isaiah spoke of divine judgment and the promises of God through the Prince of Peace. Isaiah’s message of the future King was very meticulous. He describes how Christ will come, Christ’s character and Christ’s purpose. In this paper I will dissect Isaiah’s prophecies in the Old Testament and reference them to the events of Christ in the New Testament.
Much of Isaiah’s messages to the Kings are in the form of political instruction. Isaiah first important message as a prophet comes during the time of King Ahaz. At this time Assyria has grown very strong. The North Kingdom is already vassal. Thus, the north and Aram are planning a rebellion. They threaten Ahaz by telling him to join the rebellion or they will invade the south kingdom. Isaiah’s message is to stay out of the conflict and trust God. Ahaz however, calls Assyria to aid him and uses treasures from the temple in order to bribe the Assyrians (Brubacher, Meta). In the end, Assyria crushes the rebellion saving the south but making them vassal in the process. The next king, Hezekiah inherits a vassal nation. He is most known for his rebellion against Assyria. Isaiah tells him to stay out of the revolt as the lord will take of the situation. Hezekiah believes he will have a chance since a new ruler recently took the throne and decides to join the rebellion. In theory, this mentally would have made sense. The time of a new king taking the throne is the best time to rebel. His disregard for the message
Beowulf begins with a history of the great Danish King Scyld (whose funeral is described in the Prologue). King Hrothgar, Scyld's great-grandson, is well loved by his people and successful in war. He builds a lavish hall, called Heorot, to house his vast army, and when the hall is finished, the Danish warriors gather under its roof to celebrate.
Isaiah's commission begins with Isaiah protesting that he is not worthy to see the Lord. He recognizes that he has seen the Lord and worries about the consequences to him because of this sight. "Woe to me!" I cried. "I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips,and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty" (Isaiah 6:5). Likewise, Jeremiah protests that he is not worthy after the Lord appoints him as a prophet. Jeremiah says, "Alas, Sovereign LORD," I said, "I do not know how to speak; I am too young" (Jeremiah 1:6). These two quotes reveal that both Isaiah and Jeremiah did not believe that they were worthy of seeing the Lord and being His prophet.
In the early morning hours of April 15, 1912 over two thousand crew and passengers were awoken to the ghastly scraping of ice upon the Titanic’s hull. As the dying ship slowly descended beneath the waves and into the deep cold waters of the North Atlantic, the culprit of this gruesome scene was apparent. This was the work of the gigantic mountain of ice protruding from the dark waters. But ultimately what caused the destruction of the “Unsinkable Ship” and took the lives of fifteen hundred innocent souls was not the formidable ice face that arose from the freezing waters, but instead the unseen structure twice its size that lurked beneath the surface. Ernest Hemingway does the same thing to his readers that the iceberg did to the titanic. In Hemingway’s writing it is undeniably what lies beneath the surface, what remains unsaid, that truly shakes the reader to their core.
Although there are many likenesses in the books of Isaiah and Micah, there are also differences as well. Comparing the prophets themselves, reveal that although they preached during the same time period in history, and their messages had similarities, they were not always in agreement of the end result (Tullock & McEntire, 2012). From Micah’s perspective in the first chapters of the book of Micah, he did not foresee a future for Jerusalem (Tullock & McEntire, 2012). He proclaimed that due to the sins of the leaders of Jerusalem, the city was doomed to fall and that trees would grow where houses stand (Tullock & McEntire, 2012). Contrary to this, Isaiah’s message was that Jerusalem would not be taken by the armies of Sennacherib (Tullock
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Many scholars have noticed the sinicization of the Manchus; however, besides hairstyle and the way of dressing, cultural influence of the Manchus on Han ethnic group have not attracted enough attention. Head flattening is a custom originated from Manchuria and Korean peninsula, and it was recorded several times by official historian to inform the readers about its peculiarity. At the end of the Qing Dynasty, head shape became one of the body features for the soldiers to single out the Manchus from other groups of people during the Taiping Rebellion and the Uprising of Wuchang. A decade after the 1911 Revolution, some residents in Beijing also noticed the soldiers from the Northeast had a skull shape different from theirs. These cases suggest
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