40 Minutes In The Old Testament - Isaiah 39:1-40:9 (Episode 479)

Episode Date: September 23, 2025

Hezekiah acts foolishly with the Babylonians. Isaiah has a hard word for the king that is not taken that way. And comfort is spoken to the people in the form of a promise. Have a listen. Show Notes: Support 1517 Podcast Network 1517 Podcasts 1517 on Youtube 1517 Podcast Network on Apple Podcasts 1517 Events Schedule 1517 Academy - Free Theological Education What's New from 1517: Untamed Prayers: 365 Daily Devotions on Christ in the Book of Psalms by Chad Bird Remembering Your Baptism: A 40-Day Devotional by Kathryn Morales Sinner Saint by Luke Kjolhaug The Impossible Prize: A Theology of Addiction by Donavan Riley More from the hosts: Daniel Emery Price Chad Bird

Welcome to another episode of 40 Minutes in the Old Testament. 40 Minutes in the Old Testament is a 1517 Podcast Network podcast. You can go to 1517.org slash podcast and check out all the other podcasts that are living over there. And wow, you're over there, of course. Check out everything else that 1517 is doing, all those academies, books. You ordered Chad's book on the Psalms yet? If you haven't done that, man, pause what you're doing. Go to the show notes, click the link, get that ordered, then resume, of course, as we go through Isaiah.

And where we're at in Isaiah is chapter 39. Hezekiah was real sick, and God said, I don't think you're going to make it. And so Hezekiah had to talk to Isaiah a little bit and had a prayer. It wasn't a great prayer, but God said, I'm going to give you 15 more years. How about that? That's what I'm going to do. And then Hezekiah has a great kind of prayer, song, poem, whatever it is, in response to that. And then we ended with this weird little detail about how exactly it is that God would make Hezekiah better. yeah he had a boil issue and so get some fig cake uh you got went to the store grabbed a fig newton

stuck those on those boils and there you go god working through means and hezekiah has recovered and that is that is where we ended that's gotta be one of the strangest details yeah next time i have a boil i know i'm getting a fig cake yeah absolutely going on to the walmart uh bakery section. All right. So yeah, I think I mentioned in the last episode that 38 and 39 are set up as contrast of each other, because we're going to see two different sides of Hezekiah. So in chapter 38, we see the Hezekiah who's, he's sick and he prays to God. He sings a song of thanksgiving. And then in 39, we're going to see Hezekiah, he's recovered and now he's going to mess up big time. He's going to invite some Babylonian ambassadors into his house, and he's

just basically going to show them all his stuff. And then Isaiah has a word for him concerning what's going to happen to all his stuff. And then in one of the most disappointing responses in the Bible, we'll see what he says at the end. It's a pretty selfish statement on the part of of Hezekiah. I think I'm just going to read the whole chapter, which sounds like a lot. It's eight verses. This is a very, very short chapter. At that time, Merodach Baladon, the son of Baladon, king of Babylon, sent envoys with letters. Don't forget that detail. Sent letters and a present to Hezekiah because he had heard he was sick and had recovered. And Hezekiah welcomed them gladly. And he showed them his treasure house, the silver, the gold, the spices, the precious oil, his whole armory.

All that was found in his storehouses must have given them quite the tour, right? In fact, there was nothing in his house or in all his realm that Hezekiah didn't show them. So that's what happens first. Isaiah, the prophet, came to King Hezekiah and he's got a couple of questions. He says, what do these men say? And from where did they come to you? Hezekiah said, they come to me from a far country, from Babylon. One commentator said, it's almost like he's kind of proud of himself.

Yeah, these guys, they came from a long way just to see me, this far off country. Isaiah responds, what have they seen in your house? And Hezekiah answered him, they've seen all that's in my house. There's nothing in my storehouses that I didn't show them. And then we have finally Isaiah's response to Hezekiah. Hear the word of the Lord of hosts. Behold, the days are coming when all that is in your house and that which your fathers have stored up till this day

shall be carried to Babylon. Nothing shall be left, says the Lord. And some of your own sons who will come from you, whom you will father, shall be taken away and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon. Okay, Dan, just imagine you've heard this, right? So what's your response going to be? hezekiah said to isaiah the word of the lord that you have spoken is good

because he thought there would be peace and security in my days that is awful hezekiah does not come across in this eight verses as like the brightest bulb okay um he comes across not just looking like it's not that he comes across looking evil even though that last sentence is kind of evil uh but he comes across just looking foolish yeah just kind of naive right politically naive yeah just because even when uh you know when isaiah's like what all do they see like he's not catching on it doesn't seem it's just like oh man i mean that what didn't they see uh the grand tour yeah all the rooms all the storehouses yeah that's like that's that is wild um that that you would do that and

yeah and and the fact that the way this hey they came from this far country man i gotta tell you um like you just seem gullible man very very gullible yeah i i we talked about this last time that this is kind of out of sequence out of historical sequence so this is before the Assyrians attack. This is before they surround the city. They send their ambassadors, the Rav Shikah and all of that. And the reason we know that is because after that happened or while that was happening, Hezekiah had to empty out all the storehouse. He had to pay these guys off to begin with, and they still came and surrounded the city. So this is before this is happening. So historically what seems to be going on is the Babylonians,

we know that Merodoc Baladon, who's also known as Baradoc Baladon, his name could start with an M, could start with a B, same guy. He had a long history of rebelling against the Assyrians. So he's the, he's kind of a minor player on the world scene at this point. The Assyrians are still top dog, but he's been rebelling against them with some, with some other tribes. So he's wanting, He's looking for an opportunity to gather around him some allies so that he can use them in his ongoing quest to basically knock the Assyrians off the pedestal and take their place, right? So what's he doing here? Well, he sent ambassadors to not just give a present to Hezekiah, kind of a glad you're better, here's some balloons, but with letters. That's why I pointed that out.

And these letters, no doubt, based upon what Hezekiah did, these letters must have basically said, hey, I'm Merodot Baladon, these are my guys, we would love to enter into negotiations with you so that we can team up against the Assyrian king. But we need to know that you're capable of, on your part, providing some funds and some men and all that kind of stuff. So Hezekiah responds by saying, well, let me show you guys what I got. Look at this storehouse, look at this armory, look at all my realm. I've got all this going for me. In other words, what Hezekiah is doing is basically the opposite of what he did in chapter 38. In chapter 38, he did what was right. He turned to the Lord.

He trusted in the word that God gave him through the prophet. He sang a song of praise. he's doing what God called all the kings of Israel to do, to trust in him, to lean upon him, and not to put their faith in some sort of political salvation. Now he's flipping and he's doing the exact opposite here in chapter 39. And he's given a stern word. Well, all that stuff you showed these guys, well, they're going to take it in a couple of generations back to Babylon. And then he's got this response at the end. Well, hey, at least everything's going to be hunky-dory in my days.

And it's going to be my grandsons who have to deal with the fruit of what I have done today. Yeah, really deal with it. Like be eunuchs? Yeah. Yeah. That's rough. That's rough. Super rough.

Yeah. Yeah, this statement at the end is, I mean, Hezekiah is, you know, we would say one of the better kings but um even the good kings man they have their moments and maybe even maybe he just like you know hezekiah has looked looked down through history and um doesn't believe that good kings are coming after him or like he's like man this thing is on like a short timeline here yeah i mean maybe he's just relieved like okay well i guess it's not going to happen on my on my watch but it is definitely good he might he might have already just been like dude there's no stop because he kind of did get that um that is sort of god's

word to like the good kings is like hey thanks for trying but it's a little too it's like not it's too late too late yeah yeah josiah will be you know something similar will be said to josiah to uh not about you know his sons but the fact that it's too late you know it's it's great you You know, you're doing good work. You're a good king. But look at all the history that's gone before you. And yeah, the people are, no matter what Josiah did, he's not going to change the hearts and minds of all the Israelites.

No more than Hezekiah was going to do that. Just because you have a great king doesn't mean you have a great kingdom. It doesn't mean that all the people who are in the kingdom are all of a sudden going to give up on their idolatry and quit frequenting the high places and begin trusting in God. That's a generational thing. You've got to have like six Josiahs or six Hezekiahs in a row

if that's going to happen. Well, it tells you this. And you never had that. It tells you this, which is a good thing for you to know. That, I mean, you just can't legislate faith. I mean, you can't sign it into law. It doesn't work like that. you can but it's not it doesn't work uh you can imagine that everyone be all right guys like

from now from now on like we don't believe in any of these false gods like we only have one god well that's that's just not how it works man like i mean you can you can you can outlaw idolatry all you want uh but that's not the same as faith no you can hang the ten commandments up wherever you want to it's it's the same nothing wrong with commandments nothing wrong with you know the the prohibition of worshiping false gods but prohibitions aren't going to do anything they didn't prohibit they're not going to create anything yeah and a lot of times they're just going to lead to further rebellion on the part of sinners. Yeah, so that's a short chapter, chapter 39, but that's all that's there. And that wraps up our little aside into some prose,

into some historical prose. And we've talked about all of these things, or most of these things, anyway, when we covered 1 and 2 Kings. But there were some things that were new there, like the whole psalm or song of Hezekiah. That's not included in the King's literature. So there was some new material there. So if you think, man, that history is pretty fascinating. Well, if you haven't listened to 2 Kings, well, here you go. There's your chance. Go back and jump in there. But as for us, well, we're going to jump right back into some poetry, beginning with Isaiah 40. And this is a major, major transition within the book of Isaiah. In fact, depending on which commentary or which book or which scholar you're reading, sometimes you will, you'll turn to Isaiah

40. Some commentaries, in fact, will take you through chapter 1 through 39. The second volume might be chapter 40 through 65 or 40 through 55, because beginning, I don't know when this started, a couple centuries ago, there were scholars of a liberal leaning bent who began to call this section, beginning with chapter 40, as second Isaiah. And they don't mean the second phase of Isaiah's ministry. They mean that the original Isaiah, the one we meet back in chapter 6, well, he wrote the first 39 chapters. And then later, you had another guy come along, And he picked up where the real Isaiah dropped off, and he began writing chapter 40 and following. And he's called the second Isaiah.

And then there's even some who say, well, yeah, actually, you know what? There was a third guy beginning with chapter 56 who came along, and he added even more material. And we're going to call him third Isaiah. So three Isaiahs. And the reason they hold to this is basically because there is material in chapter 40 and following, which is looking ahead to the Babylonian exile, or even to Persians. And they'll say, well, there's no way that Isaiah could have known that. My favorite argument when people are doing textual criticism and stuff is when a prophet knows something that he couldn't have possibly known, so therefore you decide, well, we've got to date this differently, and you're like, I don't think you know what a prophet is. Yeah, you're talking about circular reasoning, too. You're deciding beforehand, well, prophets evidently obviously can't know the future, and therefore if they speak of something in the future, then it must have been written not in the future, but in that time that's pretending to be the future, but actually is the present for the writer, or the past.

well yeah that's kind of like saying like um you know jesus didn't rise from the dead because people don't rise from the dead and it's like well yeah especially if you remove the accounts of people rising from the dead yeah i mean like people don't do it people don't catch fish if you remove every instance of people catching fish. Now do they? What are you talking about? You can't work it like that. Part of the thing that's amazing about the book of Isaiah or any of the prophets is them knowing things that they couldn't have possibly known. That's the whole thing, man. Yeah, that's why they're called prophets, right? And how do they know this? Because God told them. It's real simple. Yeah, so the whole reasoning behind

behind this classification of second and third Isaiah is basically a denial of the fact that God actually talks to these people and tells them what is going to happen. And, you know, they were writing not just for their generation, they were writing for a generation which is to come. And even what they spoke to their generation about future events was still comforting to them, because it means that God is the one who is providentially ordering history and is going to rescue his people. And it wasn't as if it was comfortless to them to know what God was going to do in the future, any more than it's like comfortless for us to know that Christ is going to return again. Well, of course that's of comfort to us. Yeah. So anyway, if you come across any

reference to second or third Isaiah, that's what is being talked about. Needless to say, based upon everything Dan and I have said, we do not accept that. We believe that there was a a first Isaiah and an only Isaiah. And he wrote all 65 chapters of the book that bears his name. So that being said, yes, we are entering into a second part of Isaiah's book. And we're leaving behind the historical section, and we're jumping right back into some poetry. And we're going to hear a lot in these coming chapters about God's, basically his universal plan of salvation. That's going to be a focus upon. We've seen that already. It's not like the first part of Isaiah is lacking that, but it's going to become a major theme. That God has a plan, a saving plan, that isn't

just for Judah, but it's for all peoples, for the Gentiles as well as the Israelites. And this plan is going to center around the work of his servant. And we're going to see the servant songs that are coming up in Isaiah as well. In fact, very, very soon we'll come into contact with those. And of course, this will reach its high point in Isaiah, the latter part of Isaiah 52, and then in Isaiah 53, where you have the suffering servant. So this is all going to be a manifestation of the glory of God, the saving work of God, which isn't just for Israel, but it is for all the nations. And there's going to be also woven into this the theme of a cosmopolitan Exodus, where God is going to bring all people home to himself. There'll be plenty of law and

judgment that's woven into this, as you would expect, but that's going to be a major focus of the chapters that are coming up. So we start out here with a passage I think that's probably very familiar to a lot of people. I think this is, if you're in a church that celebrates the liturgical seasons. I think this is an Advent theme that we hear quite a bit. So I'll just read the first two verses to start out here. Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly. In the Hebrew that is literally speak to the heart, which is commonly what a lover will do to the beloved. So it's what Boaz did to Ruth. It's what God constantly does to Israel. Sometimes it's spoken to those that you just care about, like David to his servants.

So speak to the heart or speak tenderly to Jerusalem and cry to her. I think that verb kara could also even be translated as proclaim. So cry out in proclamation. Preach, we might say. Cry to her or preach to her. And here's the sermon. That her warfare is ended. Her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the Lord's hand double for all her sins. Let me just point out a couple things that are pretty rich here. So first of all, that word for warfare, it's, so if you've heard the word Sabaoth, like the Lord God Sabaoth, that's a plural of this word, which is Saba. It can mean like warfare, but it can also just kind of include any kind of a fixed period of service or hardship. I think the ESV even has a footnote here which

says hardship is another translation of that. So it's the hardship, the servitude, the pain, the warfare, the turmoil, all that stuff connected with the fact that she has sins, she has rebellions. And then one more thing about the Hebrew, and that is this word pardoned. That's a fine translation, but the word itself is connected to God's pleasure at receiving a sacrifice, like the pleasing aroma. So it's kind of an unusual use of the verb, but it's probably something like has been atoned for, or it's pardoned because it's been atoned for, because it's been expiated. That's kind of the resonance of this word. So there's been a pardoning of iniquity. Why? Because there's been a sacrifice, a sacrifice that was pleasing to God. In fact,

a sacrifice that was so great that the sinners receive from the Lord's hand double for all their sins. They don't receive just forgiveness, but it's like a doubling, almost like forgiveness and then righteousness that is given to you as a result of this atoning sacrifice yeah this might be like where you get the idea of you gain more in christ than you lost in adam right where it's like yeah yeah twice as much yeah yeah yeah it's such a man it's such a beautiful such a beautiful image here you know comfort comfort like a with simeon in the temple he's waiting for what for the consolation, consolation of Israel. Yeah, he's waiting for that comfort which is to come. It's a doubling, comfort, comfort, my people, says your God, which is a perfect follow-up

to what we just talked about. You know, chapter 39, there's a coming Babylonian exile, and that Babylonian exile, it happens. The people, everything that Hezekiah showed to those envoys from Babylon, that was carried away. And not just the stuff, but the people. So you got this coming exile. There's the broader exile of sin and death, captivity to the devil. And God just like breaks in on that. And he says, I'm going to give you comfort. I'm going to give you consolation. I'm going to declare an end to your strife and your warfare and your suffering and your servitude because, as we'll learn as this goes on, my servant is going to bear your iniquities. He's going to pay the penalty. He's going to give

himself as a sacrifice for those, a pleasing sacrifice. And as a result of that, not only am I going to pardon your sins, but I'm going to double my mercy by giving you also my peace and my righteousness, and all those things that you can never get on your own. So that's the first two verses. Then another very well-known section, because we see this quoted in all four of the Gospels. I'll read three through five. A voice cries. This is our word that could also be translated preach or proclaim.

A voice cries, in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord. Make straight in the desert a highway for our God Every valley shall be lifted up And every mountain and hill be made low The uneven ground shall become level And the rough places a plain And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed And all flesh shall see it together

For the mouth of the Lord has spoken Well, there you go. There's your mission to John the Baptist, right? Hey, who's going to do this? Yeah, I wonder who. Yeah, that's quoted in Matthew 3, Mark 1, Luke 3, John 1. Every single one of them rushed to this verse when they're describing the ministry of John the Baptist. Kind of as an interesting, curious side note, this verse was also kind of the theme verse for the Dead Sea community at Qumran.

They thought that that's why they went out there. So in their own writings, they quote Isaiah 40. They're in the wilderness, and they're getting ready for the Lord. So they move away from society, separate themselves from the temple in Jerusalem, establish a little sect out there in the wilderness, and they thought that they were preparing the way for the Lord by moving out there. but uh yeah it was another guy actually pretty close to them that was doing that work and that was john the baptist and what he's doing is basically making sure there's no obstructions is there a valley there fill it up is there a mountain or a hill there we'll boat bulldoze it we're gonna we're gonna do what they do today when they make highways right we're gonna drill through mountains we're gonna build everything up we're gonna make this as level and as smooth as possible. Why? Because God's showing up. So we're preparing a way, the way of the Lord.

We're making this highway for our God because he's coming and we want to make sure that everything is ready for him. He's coming. He's going to reveal his glory and all flesh shall see it together. So these kind of passages in the Old Testament are, of course, they're helpful in lots of different ways, but one way they're helpful is a way of demonstrating that when you take what the Gospels do with this, where they quote it in reference to John, and then you look at it in its Old Testament context, you see, oh, who's coming? The Lord, our God. The glory of the Lord is coming. Well, you look in the Gospels, whose way is John preparing? Of course, he's preparing the way for Jesus. Therefore, who is Jesus? He is the Lord, right? He is our God. He's the glory of

the Lord revealed. So this is why I think when it becomes so helpful when you're talking about the identity of Jesus and his divinity, to look at the Old Testament background and see how these This happens all over the place, how Old Testament passages, which are an explicit reference to Yahweh, are then applied explicitly to Jesus. So yeah, he is the servant of the Lord, but he also is the – he's God of God, light of light, true God, a true God, Yahweh in the flesh. Yeah, I mean, and one of the things that John is doing is, I think it's safe to say that at the time of the arrival of Jesus, the way to God, so if you were to try to figure out how would one get to God, that way was anything but like straight and easy, right? You're like, hey, it's just a straight shot, man. Just head out, just take this highway, and you're like, it's right there. No, it's like they had made this a very difficult thing.

And so you do see, I mean, obviously the religious leaders, the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the chief priests, like John is not really talking to them. He's not really trying to recruit them to be baptized. in fact whenever they show up i mean he's like hey uh who warned you yeah they get tongue lashing don't they you know yeah uh who yeah who told you you brood of vipers yeah i got it i don't got anything for you guys uh but but that is the leveling right uh that you can see even in the ministry of john i mean so you know jesus is constantly picking fights with the scribes and Pharisees and the Sadducees, all this stuff. But it wasn't like John hadn't set that precedent

before him. He certainly had. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Jesus, if anything, just picks up that baton from John, right? And to mix metaphors, pokes the bear with it. He's doing the same thing that John did. So what's amazing is not, to me, is not that John got arrested and beheaded. when he did it said he lasted as long as he did and what's amazing is not that jesus got arrested and crucified but that he made it three years before before they did this and the reason is the same i mean you get the providence of god of course but um why didn't these religious leaders take john out too many people why didn't they take jesus out sooner too many people like he He just had too many people that were saying, hmm, this might be the one.

And I mean, you read about John, and I don't know, you don't get the numbers, but it sounds like a lot of people. I mean, it is droves of people going out to wilderness, and there's one thing the religious leaders like. It's like, well, we like being in the favor of the people. And so, of course, this is all God's providence, but God will even use something like, I'll just make you too popular to kill. Yeah, yeah. Even after, you know, even after John has been killed, you know, they're still scared of the people's adherence to John, because when Jesus says, oh, yeah, I'll answer your question as soon as you tell me whether John was from God or not, they're like, what are we going to say? This is a total – I know we're way off here, but hey, this passage has to do with John the Baptist, so maybe not. I think too that because he was killed by the Romans, in the people's minds now, John is like a straight-up martyr.

And so they really – what are you going to do? Are you going to sit there and say John wasn't a prophet in front of all the people? He's probably been lionized like crazy now. It's like, yeah, the oppressive Roman rulers beheaded a prophet. And so, yeah, I don't think there were less people holding John in high esteem after he dies at the hands of Herod. In fact, I think this is confirmation of just how popular John was among the common people. So fast forward decades, and you have Josephus writing his history. And who does he include in his history?

He includes a section about John the Baptist. And this is, I know for people who have looked into this, there is a part of Josephus' testimony where it seems like later Christian scribes who've copied it in the section where he talks about Jesus, they have added some material. But I think also most Josephus scholars would argue that the basic material that's there about Jesus was original with Josephus. And also he wrote about John the Baptist. And he spoke of him positively.

This is Josephus, you know, who was a traitor to the Romans. He went over to the Romans. But when he's writing the Jewish history, he's actually talking positively about John. And this is post-70 AD. I mean, this is over 40 years after what happened to John. So I think that was so enmeshed in the memory of the Jewish people of the first century that it yeah it's testimony the fact that john made a lasting impact uh by his by means of his i guess prophetic popularity back then yeah and and i mean he was and this is how this works man

um you you can just practically um if you're uh i don't know if you're like a singer and you're like the the height of your popularity um then you get to the mountaintop and then you start to go down and that's how it works well there's some people that die in some plane crash or get assassinated or something like that and they get taken out at like the the height of their popular and that they are cemented as legend at that point this is what happens to john i mean john gets taken out uh he doesn't he says hey you must increase i must decrease but he doesn't get a lot of like time to decrease yeah yeah that's right yeah he uh he got the mountaintop and uh that's when they took him out basically so in the popular imagination that is that's where he stayed which

is i mean uh great to another way another way of saying as jesus said among those born of women no one has been born who's greater than john the baptist yeah yeah yeah taken out at his height too like he didn't grow old none of that like i mean it was like yeah he's he's sort of cemented as that guy yeah and here we are still talking about him right yeah and i think i mean like you could think about even like modern people think about like presidents right uh so you probably would struggle to list off we have you know every president we've ever had i would there's no way sometimes a name sometimes someone will name a president i'm like are you sure that's the president because he's just so obscure right yeah and you know i can

name like the ones in my lifetime and a little bit before that and i can name the first you know couple whatever but you could take someone like here's a president though that i was not alive for but if you say jfk i didn't know everybody knows who that is like and um and i don't i'm not like as familiar with the presidents before him maybe not even as familiar with the presidents after him until they start to impact me in the life, you know, in the presence that I've been alive under. I wasn't alive for JFK, but, but why is that? Why does everyone, I mean, shoot, dude, that's not even his name. Uh, that's like, that's just three letters, just initials, everybody, but everyone knows who you're talking about. Why? Cause he got taken out like at,

at the height of, uh, of what he was, what he was. And so, yeah, that's all I have to say. Um, And John, I think, he was that bulldozer that was taking out those mountains. He was the one that was filling up the valleys. This was his whole job. Yeah, and suffered as a result of it. But that's what God sent him to do. Okay, so we're through five verses. We've got about five minutes left here, so we can cover a little bit more.

Let me read 6 through 8. We have another voice. We've got three voices here. So a voice, a voice, and then we'll have another voice in verse 9. So a voice says, cry. And I said, what shall I cry? Well, here's another sermon. Here's what he is to preach.

All flesh is grass. And all its, well, I'll just read the ESV. I'll explain the word behind it in a minute. All its beauty is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades. when the breath of the Lord blows on it, that's our word ruach, which could also be translated as spirit, when the breath or spirit of the Lord blows on it, surely the people are grass. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.

So just a couple things about this word that's translated as beauty. The word behind that is actually chesed so our word for covenant loyalty steadfast love loving kindness you know all those ways that we try and capture in english chesed i think what's going on here though is probably the the element of that word that has to do with loyalty and fidelity i guess you could translate it as love too is is being used here i don't know why they translate it as beauty. I would translate it something like, you know, all flesh's loyalty or fidelity or love. What's it like? It's like a flower of the field, which the breath of the Lord blows on it and it is no more. The whole purpose of this section, six through eight, is to demonstrate

the fact that when you're talking about humanity, flesh, which is metaphorically referred to as grass or flowers here. When you're talking about humanity, everything that we do, everything we say in comparison to God, well, we're nothing. I mean, this is, of course, a common biblical metaphor. You see it all over the Psalms and other prophetic literature too, talking about the impermanency of humanity. We're just here today and gone tomorrow. We're like dust or, you know, the uh what's the image i'm looking for uh the chaff that that the wind blows away so here are the images of a grass or flower so if that's who we are then what does stick around well that's the way he ends this he says the the word of our god will stand forever by the way if you ever come

across we're talking about jfk earlier you ever come across uh these initials vdma that's where this comes from so that is uh the vdma comes from verbum this is a latin latin phrase verbum domini monet in aeternum which means the word of the lord endures forever so that's actually it's taken from first peter 125 but first peter 125 is quoting this verse from isaiah so it became kind of a Reformation slogan, V-D-M-A, the word of the Lord endures forever. And that's where they get that from. And of course, it's a fitting way of kind of summing up what the message of the church is. People come and go, people's promises come and go, people's fidelity is fickle. But if you want something that is going to last forever, remain steadfast, something you can always,

Always trust that it's the word of our God. And isn't it kind of interesting that you have a passage here that is, of course, talking about John the Baptist, who is sort of the last, like the final prophet before, you know, you have like the prophet and Jesus. So he's like the last, capital P, speaking the word of the Lord, prophet, greatest man who ever lived, according to Jesus. And he's a flesh and blood man. And, of course, he will die. But his words won't, because they're the words of the Lord, right? And so we were just talking about some of his words. He's out there crying in the wilderness to make straight the paths of God.

Well, those have endured all this time later, even though, of course, as we just discussed, he did not. Yeah, that's great. Yeah, his word remains, his preaching remains. We hear it, well, it's in the scriptures. We hear it preached all the time, still from pulpits today. Yeah, so he's flesh and blood. He passed. He's with our Lord.

But his words remain resounding still today. Yeah, because they're God's words. Because they're God's words, yes. Yep. All right, well, we're at our 40-minute mark. That's a good place to end. Yeah. All right, well, we'll pick it up with verse 9 next time.

I'll see you then, Chad. See you then.