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Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

Talking Points, 1st Quarter 2021: Isaiah

Kameron DeVasher

Mark Howard

01 Crisis of Identity

Pastor Howard, we are now at the beginning of an entire new quarter.

I don't want to knock on wood and say it couldn't get worse, but, but certainly glad to be in the new year.

And as we were talking before and it's been a good lessons about education and witnessing all of good things we need but I'm glad to be back in a drawing directly from the Word of God.

Well I think the teachers are going to notice too as they're preparing lessons that it's, at least for me, it's easier to teach a lesson that's based specifically on Scripture versus a topical type thing.

So topics are good and they have text with them but this 1 is taking the book of Isaiah and drawing from it.

So I don't want to get too much into that, but I'm excited about this study for this quarter.

And this morning, we're going to start with obviously a word of prayer as we get started, and then we're going to do a quarter review, a quarterly overview before we dive into the specific popping points of this week's study.

So right now, let's just start with a word of prayer and then we'll get into our topic.

Heavenly Father, thank you so much for this opportunity to study from the Word of God.

Please, Lord, bless us today as you intended people to be blessed when it was originally written.

Help us to find the applications that you have for us in these last days and help us to learn the lessons of Scripture for we pray it in Jesus name.

All right, what are we talking about this entire quarter?

All right, well, we're talking about the book of Isaiah.

You get some of this in the introduction to the lesson and I looked at, in fact, just so that the teachers know what I've done for each 1 of the lessons is I've actually gone to the SDA Bible Commentary and I've read through their whole comment on the chapter that we're looking at.

Prior to this, I read the introduction to the book of Isaiah as well as reading some things on Wikipedia.

And a couple commentators I often refer to are Albert Barnes' commentary, which is an old commentary, is fairly reliable, as well as the Adam-Clark.

There's not as much attitude toward Adventism because the Adventist movement hadn't developed as far yet.

So some of the attacks on some of it, so I find them reliable but at any rate St.

Bible commentary is very helpful, but just a quick overview Obviously this quarters on the the book of Isaiah and in Isaiah chapter 1 in verse 1 it Introduces itself by saying The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah." So Judah and Jerusalem were the southern kingdom.

You still had the northern kingdom of Israel and Samaria area, but Isaiah also prophesied in reference to that which we're going to see.

But he was called during the ministry of these 4 kings, the reign of these 4 kings, Called to the prophetic office during the co-regency of King Jotham You'll find that in prophets and Kings 305 and this is in our outline notes that you can download at our website We'll put a little link on the screen there and then he served until he was martyred at the beginning of the reign of Manasseh, and that you find in Prophets and Kings 382.

It was the very 1, he was 1 of the first to fall, Ellen White says.

And so we don't have a specific exact time period because there's some uncertainties in there, but we know that his ministry spanned those 4 kings.

And in those 4 kings, there was a lot that happened.

Right, so his lifespan was not just those time frames, but there was a lot in that time frame, a lot of dynamics, the changing of kingdoms, all kinds of stuff.

Major issues that came into, for example, you have the Assyrian conquest of the kingdom of Israel and the scattering of the 10 tribes.

So 10 out of the 12 tribes were taken over during Isaiah.

I mean, from that point on, the 10 tribes often times referred to the lost tribes, whatever else.

And in addition, the Assyrian Empire then tried to come against the southern kingdom and destroy it and God intervened in a miraculous way Which is brought out in the book of Isaiah.

We're gonna come up to that in a later lesson Sure, but those were were were a couple huge events that happened during Isaiah's ministry So it's interesting to note that in the context of that Ellen White says in Prophets and Kings page 305 that the dangers from without, yes, like the whole Northern Kingdom being decimated were not so serious as the dangers from within.

In light of the prevailing, and this is not her comment now, this is my comment, in light of the prevailing apostasy that was going on that you read about in the book of Isaiah, Isaiah's mission seemed destined to failure.

That not only was the nation apostate but very rebellious and not really willing to listen But God had promised to Isaiah in the call that he would save a remnant In other words, somebody's going to respond to this It's gonna be worthwhile And then Ellen White does comment in Prophets and Kings, page 308, that this might be brought about, this saving of the remnant, the messages of warning and entreaty were to be delivered to a rebellious nation.

And Thus it was that Isaiah entered upon his work.

So Isaiah's living in this time as a special messenger of the Lord for this particular moment.

Of course, there's going to be application, right?

But from without, they're being pressured and even overtaken by foreign nations.

From within, they're rotting with sin and immorality and all kinds of problems.

And in that particular context, the Lord raised up Isaiah to, with a specific intention, to preserve a remnant out of that mess.

And establish God's people going through.

And that's just a very quick overview that leads us into, I think that rolls well into our first talking point, so that will, we'll roll that out a little bit, we'll explain that a little bit.

Well on that point I wanted to highlight something in that we talked about too in the teacher's edition of the quarterly.

Now, 1 of the reasons I like the teacher's edition of the quarterly is because it does this trick right here.

I just got my loose leaf, but I didn't get it when we got these in.

But the standard 1, of course, doesn't do that at all.

And I have had conversations with some of the people in the know at the GC about fixing that.

So anyway, but in addition to having a different binding, it has different resources inside of it, right?

And so while we're putting together this particular resource of talking points videos and these outlines that are here, the teacher this time, or the contributor, I should say, Elder Gane, Professor Gane, I should say, did an overview, and you can find this on page 13 of the Teacher's Edition, where he kind of gives that historical contextualization.

But then he goes and he says, these are the 3 points that I was trying to cover in this week's lesson.

Now, basically, he did his own version of Talking Points, which is fine.

If you want to use the teacher's guide as a resource, please do.

The purpose of these Talking Points videos isn't to take over the Sabbath School lesson or to take over your local Sabbath School program.

Or to even be the only talking points that can be used.

It's an aid to help teachers and Sabbath school members to have a better local Sabbath school experience.

But if you want to use that, that's an option there as well.

So, but I do think it's interesting that whether it's our talking points or theirs, he goes out of his way to say, I know there's 7 days of lessons, but there's only 3 main points.

And I thought that was an interesting thing.

It's like, when I was writing this, I was trying to convey these points, but I broke it down into 7 parts.

In light of what we've already talked about, I can't imagine that it wasn't the case that he was thinking, you know, I only had 3 points and they're making me put it into 7 days.

So again, the seven-day construct is fine for daily study, but the overarching themes can be identified in other ways.

All right, but let's get into the 3 talking points that you'll find on our outline here.

Our 3 talking points are number 1, Isaiah's message is a message for our time.

I think this is, I think it's easy for us living in the times that we are to say, well this is interesting Isaiah, but shouldn't we be studying Daniel, Revelation, when we did Daniel and the story of Nego?

Or that was just for the bare, interesting history.

Right, or the signs of the times, or something more prophetic, or whatever, and I think you're gonna be surprised how clearly Isaiah speaks to our time.

So number 1, Isaiah's message is a message for our time.

We're gonna look at some reasons for that.

Number 2, our second talking point is that formalism is not true religion.

There's a lot of formalism in Isaiah outlined and in God's church throughout history.

02 Crisis of Leadership

We are now in the second lesson of our first quarter of this new year.

Isaiah is the book of the Bible we're focusing in on, and we've already had a fantastic study last week, and this week looks to be no different.

In fact, Very important themes are brought out that we would do well to heed, I would imagine, in our day.

So, Mark, why don't you start us off with a word of prayer and then give us the bird's eye view of where we're headed this week.

Heavenly Father, we are thankful for your word and the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth, to give us understanding in spiritual things.

We pray for the Spirit's guidance today as we study this lesson.

We pray, Lord, you'd help us to make a practical application on our lives that would help us to become more closely committed to you and to the work that you've given us to do, we ask and pray these things in Jesus' name.

All right, so these are obviously, We're kind of chronologically going through here.

So it gives us a little give us a little context here.

Well pace of things Chronologically is a little bit loose just from a standpoint of we started last week in Isaiah 1 and we're in Isaiah 6 this week and we'll backtrack a little bit.

Gaine jumped to Isaiah 6 because this is so really it's a foundational piece of Isaiah's ministry.

It's kind of a thematic beginning of the whole thing, isn't it?

Yeah, and of course it talks about a crisis of leadership.

It was a crisis in the history of israel during or shortly after the death of azaiah king azaiah we talked about how the Isaiah's ministry spanned the reigns of azaiah his son Jotham and then Ahaz and then Hezekiah.

And so the first of those kings didn't reign very long in Isaiah's ministry before he passed off the scene.

And Isaiah was a faithful king for much of his ministry and a very loved king in Israel.

And then toward the end of his reign, he actually had tried to offer incense in the temple or to take the role of a priest and was stricken with leprosy for the remainder of his life.

So, I mean, you know, when you have confidence in a leader, especially when a leader is a good leader That can be a little bit of shake-up And then we talked about the times that Israel was going through where you had the rise of the Assyrian power And so all of this stuff is going on.

Yeah, and it was at this time that King Uzziah dies So it launches Israel into this crisis of leadership.

Obviously, you know, when you have a, it's different when you have a, for example, even in the Adventist church or in the United States, you have, I could say, elections don't always go as smooth as you thought.

Why don't you dive into politics real quick?

But the idea is that, you know, it's different when a leader, there's a process to get a new leader, that's different than when a leader dies.

And suddenly you're like, hey, where are we going to get a leader from?

So they're in this situation, like our leader died and we've got, of course, you know, you have the sons and people of the tribe of Judah, those of that lineage that have replaced, it's not, you know, there's a little bit of a process, But there was a crisis of leadership.

Well, plus there's a crisis of leadership and there's the external pressures going on out in the world around them, right?

So there's a, it's not just any old change of leadership.

There is a particular pressure right now to look to someone.

We got to, there was some trouble there, right?

Anyway, so this is the setting that we find ourselves in and we're looking at that death of Isaiah and the immediate effect of that on on the nation of Judah so Israel and Judah And so our 3 talking points are number 1, don't put your trust in princes.

And that's drawing the language of the Psalms, we'll see that in a moment.

And that's drawing also from Sabbath and Sunday's lesson.

And then key point number, talking point number 2 is God's glory is our motivation for mission.

We see this taking place actually in the ministry of Isaiah and you talk about Isaiah and Isaiah and you said, what do you want to talk about?

And that I think spans Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday's lesson and then finally our last talking point is that grieving the spirit is our choice, not God's choice.

We talk a little bit about grieving the Holy Spirit, the unpardonable sin, and I think, because we've been doing this for a little while with our Sabbath school programs, but sometimes I think of the fact that, well, we covered this before.

We talked about the grieving of the spirit, and we talked about this, and we talked about that, and I forget, and I think I'm bringing this up for the sake of the teachers and the lessons that there will be things, you know, we're in a new quarterly but it's written by or the contributor is a different person.

So you may have the point, same point made again, but keep this in mind, you may have different people in your Sabbath school every week, too, who need to hear a lesson.

So sometimes we're tempted to think, well, we covered that, like, you know, 2 months ago.

But how many times do you go to, like, oh, I heard the 1 about Jesus already.

Like, there are exhaustive themes that could, repetition is learning and it deepens the impression.

So this is, these are important things to talk about.

So that third point is about grieving the spirit, the unpardonable sin, and it's our choice, not God's.

God doesn't choose to take the spirit away as much as we choose to have him taken away.

Okay, so let's go back to the first 1 then.

Now, that's a little bit, to me, that strikes me as, I mean, obviously we know that language from the Psalms, but like, isn't that the purpose of princes is to be the trusted person, right?

Isn't that their whole point and function?

Well, Psalm 146, verse 3, which is in our notes here, says, don't put your trust in princes, nor in a son of man, in whom there is no help.

Well, princes are established to, you know, leaders are there to trust.

But I believe the point the Bible's trying to get at is, especially from a Christian perspective, a good leader is only the front man for the true leader.

In other words, I've had the role of a leader, we're leaders right now in the conference office.

God forbid people be looking to me or to you.

We look to God and we want other people to look to God and when we teach we want them to look to God.

So I think the lesson is trying to say, and I think the case with Isaiah and other kings of Israel, I think the case with leaders today in our church or in the world.

There are cases where people will look to the person instead of looking to God.

Ancient Israel, well Moses, why do you lead us out into the wilderness?

Yeah, Moses is the 1 who brought the cloud and the pillar of fire and opened the sea.

And in fact that's what got Moses in trouble.

He's like, well you brought it to yourself, right?

So anyway, there's this idea of don't put your trust in princes and they had apparently become so confident or comfortable with their earthly leadership that they had lost sight of their heavenly sovereign.

And in just a little bit, the lesson gives a little bit of the setting.

I'm just jumping to point number 4 on Sunday's lesson at the bottom of the page.

It says, the death of Uzziah in about 740 BC marks a major crisis in the leadership of God's people.

The death of any absolute ruler makes his or her country vulnerable during a transition of power.

But Judah was in special danger because Tiglaspalaser III had ascended the throne of Assyria a few years before in 745 BC and immediately went on the war path which made his nation an invincible superpower that threatened the independent existence of all nations in the Near East.

In this time of crisis, God encouraged Isaiah by showing the prophet that he was still in control.

And we talked about this a little bit, you were pointing out the idea, and it brings it out here, the death of any absolute ruler.

Why in the world would Israel, God's people, have chosen an absolute ruler?

And so- Well, why they did it, I don't know, but in 1 Samuel 8, verse 7, it goes back to the history of this because it wasn't always the case that Israel had an earthly king.

They had judges, they had prophets and whatnot, but God had been their sovereign.

That was why he brought them to Mount Sinai, gave them his law, said, you will be my people, I will be your God.

But by the time you get to 1 Samuel chapter 8, and we're not going to get into history of all that, but basically the elders said, look, we're done with this system without an earthly king.

And God, I mean, in his infinite wisdom does not destroy them for their insolence.

He's like, all right, listen to what they're saying, give them, but warn them that this is what's going to happen.

If that, and lo and behold, as we now read in Isaiah, all the chaos and that comes from looking to, well, and if you notice it, every time a king comes up, the whole country takes on the personality and direction of the king, whether it's a good 1 or a bad 1, and here Uzziah was good, but then he was bad, now he's dead, what do we do?

And they'd lost sight of God himself as the sovereign, the king of kings, if you will.

And so God evidently in Isaiah 6 takes this opportunity, this leadership crisis, to redirect their attention.

That's what it appears to, and I think that's what the lesson is bringing out.

03 When Your World Is Falling Apart

I'm Cameron DeVasier and I'm Mark Howard and this is Talking Points.

Here we are on the third lesson of the first quarter of the New Year, Isaiah, and this time we're going to be diving into some more of the details of history from the time of Isaiah and the king of Judah at that time, and obviously going to look into that story particularly, but also drawing lessons for us today Absolutely.

So give us a little overview of where we're headed today mark Well, basically we're looking at the really the downfall of a has the king of Judah which we talked about Isaiah reigning first beginning with Uzziah and then his son Jotham and then his son Ahaz and finally Hezekiah.

We're with the reign of Ahaz and we're in Isaiah chapter 7 that our lesson builds on and again just drawing lessons from what led to Ahaz's downfall.

We're going to talk about that a little bit next week too, I believe.

Okay, well then, I tell you what, let's have a word of prayer.

Dedicate our time to the Lord, then you can walk us through the specifics of this week's lesson.

Heavenly Father, thank you for the opportunity to come together as your people and study these important themes and this particular passage in the book of Isaiah.

Lord, please guide us with your Holy Spirit as you've promised to do and lead us into all truth.

I have to say, when you ask about the overview, the lessons have been different this quarter in that their narratives Yes, they are.

Okay, Isaiah chapter 1, then Isaiah chapter 6, then Isaiah chapter 7 And so we're seeing this so it's a little less of a you know, the introduction is basically this is the historical piece we're going to be flowing through.

You know what else I've noticed in these lessons, Mark?

Is that there is less of the, alright, this 1 is coming from Sunday and Thursday, and this one's coming from Wednesday.

Because of the nature of this chronology and stuff, that the lesson is laid out in that.

So it's a lot more grouping of together of the sequential days, or at least closer.

Still drawing key points and talking points out of it, but you're right.

It tends to follow the flow of the lesson because it's a historical flow.

What are our- It can be pretty confusing if we...

In fact, prior to us rehearsing this, we had a couple things jumbled around in our notes.

And so it was out of chronological order.

It's better to stick with the chronology for our own thinking.

Alright, so what, boiling down all that we've covered in this week's lesson, the timeframe here, what are the lessons or the talking points we're gonna be looking at this week?

All right, our talking points this week, number 1 is the Lord is our strength.

Drawing from the fact that Ahaz forgot that lesson, And we're drawing that from Sunday and Monday.

And then point number 2 is believe God's prophets.

So, notice there's a little over flap also...

Overlap drawing from the nature of that chronology.

So Sunday and Monday is where we drew talking point number 1.

And then Monday and Tuesday goes into talking point number 2, believe God's prophets.

And then Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday led to talking point number 3, and that is God is with us.

Okay, and obviously we're gonna flesh things out a little bit more as we go along.

The beginning of the story and the lesson drawn out of it that the Lord is our strength.

Okay, and in this talking point, really we have the overview, the flow of the story.

You have, in fact, the Bible says there in Isaiah 7, verses 1 and 2, why don't you read that?

Sure, it says, now it came to pass in the days of Ahaz, the son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah, the king of Judah, that Rezin, king of Syria, and Pekah, the son of Ramaliah, king of Israel, went up to Jerusalem to make war against it, but could not prevail against it." And how far am I reading here?

And it was told to the house of David, saying, serious forces are deployed in Ephraim.

So his heart and the heart of his people were moved as the trees of the woods are moved with the wind.

OK, and the lesson comments on Sunday in the first paragraph.

The kingdoms of northern Israel, that is Ephraim, and Syria, Aram, ganged up on the smaller country of Judah to the south this happened when Judah was weakened by attacks from the Edomites and Philistines in the past Judah had fought against Israel But an alliance between Israel and Syria presented an overwhelming peril It appears Israel and Syria wanted to force Judah to participate with them in a coalition against the mighty power of Tiglath Belize or the third of Assyria We're also referred to pull king of Assyria and second Kings who continued to threaten them with his expanding Empire Israel and Syria had put aside their long-standing struggle against each other in view of a greater danger if they could conquer Judah and install a puppet ruler there they could use its resources and manpower.

So Ahaz is facing this coalition of Syria and Israel who are coming to attack him, take him off the throne, put a puppet ruler there.

So they could effectively rule in his place through this puppet leader and then join all their forces up against the threats.

So this is a bit of a convoluted situation but essentially Ahaz is sitting there with the threat of Assyria and the threat of Israel and and I'm sorry the Syrians yes coming together to take over and He's in a bit of a pickle if you will right and then and then Monday's lesson At the first paragraph tells us that you know in light of this obviously a has is weighing his political options And it tells us there while a has was weighing his political options to meet the threat from Israel and Syria, you know, what do I do?

Now the Bible goes on to tell us that he was thinking, well, why don't I just go to Assyria to Tiglath Pileser, who they're trying to overthrow.

Yeah, why don't we just team up with their enemy?

Get him on my side, because he's a stronger guy and he'll save me.

And honestly, politically, strategically speaking, from a worldly perspective, it's not a bad plan.

Like I got no chance against these guys who just want to use me against this guy, so why not make their enemy my friend?

But as the lesson says there, God knew some things he did not.

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