(Through The Bible) – Book of Isaiah (Pt.2): Zac Poonen (Transcript)

Full text of Zac Poonen’s teaching on ‘Book of Isaiah’ (Part 2) which is part of the popular series called Through The Bible.

Listen to the MP3 Audio here:

TRANSCRIPT:

Zac Poonen – Bible Teacher

Turn to Isaiah now, to the second section of Isaiah, which begins at CHAPTER 40.

Now, you would have noticed in a number of books that we have been studying, there are certain parts that I have spent more time over, and certain other parts where I just give you the reference, say a few words and move on. Now, this is not because those other portions are unimportant, but to me it’s like teaching you to, or let’s say if I were to teach a small child, how to make a jigsaw puzzle, and if a jigsaw puzzle has got a hundred pieces, the child has probably never made a jigsaw puzzle before, like many of you have probably not seriously studied the Scriptures before.

So, what you do is you tell the child, okay, this is where you put, this is where you put, this is where you put, and show them the picture, and put a few pieces, and then leave the other seventy-five pieces for the child to do on its own, and there’s something exciting about the child completing that jigsaw puzzle on its own, instead of you doing the whole thing for it.

So, that’s what I’m doing. Just putting a few pieces here and there, and saying, now you complete the puzzle, and make the picture yourself, and there’s something exciting, because that will drive you to the Holy Spirit.

I’ve always sought in my ministry not to explain everything to people in such a way that they don’t need to go to God anymore, they’ve just got to come to me. God is very jealous. He’s a jealous husband who does not want me to rob His bride. A lot of preachers rob the bride of Christ and get married to them themselves.

So, we don’t want to do that. We want you to be united to Christ, your bridegroom, and the Holy Spirit is very jealous that you should have a personal relationship with Him, that you listen to Him, and so my duty is only to give you a little appetizer, and to give you a foretaste, and a little taste rather, of what wonderful riches are in this book, in whichever book you go to, it’s there. And to show you some of the hidden treasures here and there, so that you can go to it more in yourself, and find out a lot more that can thrill your heart in the years to come.

I’m still excited when I study the Scriptures today. We now come to CHAPTER 40. I told you this is like the New Testament portion of Isaiah. A lot of prophecies here about New Covenant life. It begins with CHAPTER 40, verse 3 to 5.

Again, I won’t have time to go into detail, but I can give you these verses, you write them down, and see what I’ve done is given you some of the most important verses in the book of Isaiah, in the last study. Here are some of the most important verses in the New Covenant section.

ISAIAH CHAPTER 40

First of all, verses 3 to 7 speaks about — 3 to 5 speaks about the ministry of John the Baptist. It’s significant that this section of Isaiah begins with how the New Covenant begins — New Testament begins.

‘A voice of one crying in the wilderness, saying “Clear the way for the Lord in the wilderness, make smooth the desert…,” and the way this applies to us is, Jesus is coming back a second time, like He came the first time, and like there was a John the Baptist who prepared people for the coming of the Lord. Today, you and I are the John the Baptist, the church is John the Baptist, to prepare people for the second coming of the Lord.

So our message is essentially the same as John the Baptist’s: to prepare people for the coming of the Lord. What is that? Verse 4, ‘the valley must be lifted up.’ There’s no place for you to sit down in the valley discouraged, depressed, saying ‘I’m good for nothing; I’m useless.’ Don’t keep saying that forever. You’ve got to be lifted up, be encouraged, God has accepted you. That’s the message we preach. No need to live in the dumps in the valleys. You’re a child of God, you’re a son of the King, you’re a daughter of the King. Be lifted up.

Secondly, verse 4: the mountains must be brought low. All the pride that is in you must be brought down. And the rough ground must become a plain. That means there are a lot of rough areas in your life. They have to be smoothened out and you’ve got to be gracious and gentle.

And then if you read the corresponding passage in LUKE CHAPTER 3, where this is quoted, he says ‘the crooked will become straight.’ So there are crooked things in our life. Lack of righteousness in money matters. All those crooked things must be straight.

These four things are mentioned: Valleys lifted up, mountains brought down, rough places made smooth, and crooked made straight.

AND THEN WHAT WILL HAPPEN? ‘Then the glory of the Lord will be revealed in your flesh.’ (Isa 40:5) In your flesh, people will see the glory of Jesus Christ. And that is the way we prepare people for the coming of the Lord. And that’s the message we proclaim.

‘The mouth of the Lord has spoken it, and all flesh will see the salvation of the Lord in us also.’

And then this verse Isa 40:6-7 is quoted in 1 Peter 1, verse 24 and 25: ‘All flesh is like grass.’ Please remember that. I said earlier that all flesh is like dust, which has got breath in it. Remember also that all flesh is like grass, and all the honor of men is like the flower of the grass. All the honor that you can get in the world from people. It’s only like the small teeny weeny flower that grows on some grass.

‘The grass withers, the flower fades, when the breath of the Lord blows upon it…’ And Peter says, ‘But the word of the Lord endures forever.’

So those who have lived by the principles of God’s word will remain when all the glory of man one day is wiped out. You must always keep that in mind. Everything I see around me is all going to perish one day. If I live by the word of God, I’ll have something eternal.

Isa 40 Verse 10 and 11 speaks about the coming of the Lord. The Lord will come. His reward is with Him.

And like a shepherd, He will take care of His flock. He will carry the lambs in His bosom. (verse 11) Beautiful verse.

Verse 12 to 17 speaks about the power of God and the control He has over the whole universe. How He created everything from nothing.

And this verse, verse 13, is the verse that’s quoted in 1 Corinthians 2:16: ‘Who has taught the Holy Spirit, or as His counselor has informed Him?’ No. And it goes on to speak about (verse 17) all the nations of the earth, as being nothing before Him. They’re all regarded as less than nothing and meaningless.