40 Minutes In The Old Testament - Isaiah 44:9-28 (Episode 486)

Episode Date: November 20, 2025

An idol has never profited its worshipper. There is a point where God will give you what you want. And an unlikely redeemer is coming from the Lord. 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: Coming Home for Christmas: 1517 Advent Devotional Face to Face: A Novel of the Reformation by Amy Mantravadi 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 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. while you're over there make sure you check out everything else that 1517 is doing all the articles all of the academies buy some books sign up for some events do all that stuff also you know the year is running you know running down time is running out doing some year-end fundraising guys you know we gotta make sure that we can keep this thing going next year so now is a great time for you to give if you've been uh thinking about it waiting to do it now's

a great time to do it. Help us hit some goals. Just go over to 1517.org, find that donate link, and you can help, you know, keep all the stuff going forward, and we'd very much appreciate that. All right, Chad, we are in Isaiah 44. We got through the first eight or so verses. We got some good stuff about, in 44, about, you know, Israel being chosen by God, I mean, created and formed by god right uh just like called out of nothing into existence by god and and then of course if this is the if you were called into existence by god if he created you um this would mean that you belong to him and one thing he might not want you to do is to treat something else that you made as the thing that you belong to the thing that you serve

the thing that you worship it makes sense when you when you just kind of boil it down in 44 like this like i made you called you out of nothing formed you and somehow you're worshiping this other thing that you made so you see why that's a problem yeah it reminds me of uh paul in romans one saying therefore you have no excuse right this is this is not only theologically wrong It's simply irrational. Step back from it, look at it, and you'll realize, hey, this is dumb, what we're doing. And all that leads into verse 9 and following, which is, I suppose you might say it this way, if biblical satire was awarded medals, the gold medal would go to Isaiah 44, 9 and following, as far as especially satires concerning idolatry.

I mean, this is a famous section of Isaiah because he reduces it down to the level of just comical, the way that he describes the, I guess you might say, the stupidity of idolatry, just from a very objective point of view. So it's prose. It's not poetry. And I'll read it in parts. I'm going to start with 9 through 11. And then just really in verse 12, where he kind of gets down to the nitty-gritty of the satire itself. He starts out this way, though. All who fashion idols are nothing.

Now, in Hebrew, nothing is our Hebrew word tohu, with which Genesis 1-2 talks about that. So everything is tohu and vohu, so formless and void. So nothing, that's where this comes from. All who fashion idols, they're nothing or meaninglessness. And the things that they delight in do not profit. Their witnesses neither see nor know that they may be put to shame. Who fashions a god or cast an idol that is profitable for nothing? Behold, all his companions shall be put to shame, and the craftsmen are only human.

Let them all assemble. Let them stand forth. They shall be terrified. They shall be put to shame together. So this is kind of just introducing the subject. I mean, he's not kind of building up to his letting you know right away, this is dumb. These idols are nothing. Everybody who makes them is not going to profit from them.

In fact, the idols themselves are a shame. And what should happen is everyone who makes these idols should get together and stand there and look at it and actually be terrified. Realize this is a shameful act because all of this is not just pointless, but it's manifest, manifest evil. There's a bit of a between the lines kind of pun going on here, too, because the Hebrew word that's translated as shame is bosh. And on occasion, you'll have the substitution of bosh for a false god's name. So, for instance, Saul had a son whose name was Ish-baal, which means man of Baal. But some of the biblical texts change his name to Ish-bosh, man of shame. So Baal, of course, the name of that famous god, is substituted with shame.

So I think maybe part of that is what Isaiah is getting at here when he says they would be put to shame. So that's kind of him introducing the idea that he's going to run with once we get to verse 12. Yeah, I do like that it asks this question, which I think is a great question. Who fashions a god or casts an idol? Cast as in, like, you know, makes, right? Casts or makes an idol that is profitable for nothing. I like that he says, like, who would do that? And the answer is, oh, you.

You would do that. That's it. But it's kind of in the question is like, what kind of person would like fashion a god that can't do anything? Like, what kind of person does that? Oh, wait, my people, my people are the kind of people that do that. Yeah, it's quite the rhetorical punch. Yeah. Who would be so crazy as to do that?

Oh, I'm looking at them. Yeah, that would be you guys. You're the ones who are doing this. Yeah, it'd be like me asking my wife, like, what kind of wife? Has stuff arriving at my house almost every day from Amazon? Like, what kind of wife does that? Oh, wait. Oh, wait, it's my kind of wife.

That's what it is. I have an ongoing joke with Stacy because a package will show up on her doorstep, and she'll act shocked. She's like, what is that? It's the same, dude, same. I didn't order anything. And then she'll open it. She's like, oh, yeah, I forgot I ordered this. It's never – guys, don't think that I'm out here just having tons of things.

It's all like cheap stuff. It's like, oh, some candles. Oh, like just some dish towels, whatever. Yeah, she always acts like shocked that there's – she's like – because I'll be like, what is this? She'll be like, I don't know. Did you order something? I'll be like, you know what? I've never ordered anything in my entire life, and I've been surprised when it shows up.

oh so yeah i have to say this just because it's funny my nephew one time he had a package delivered to his work and it was like an hour away from where he lived and the ups guy's like i think i recognize your your last name i deliver a lot of stuff to your house 60 miles away and he knew who this guy was so yeah alright so what kind of people

that's the kind of people that's who does this alright so let's get to the real satire stuff verse 12 I'm going to go ahead and read and I don't know I guess I can read this whole thing because it just kind of goes all together

so he's going to start out by talking about the ironsmith so the ironsmith he takes a cutting tool and he works it over the coals he fashions it with hammers and works it with his strong arm i always picture kind of a blacksmith doing this right he becomes hungry and his strength fails he drinks no water and is faint so the god maker is tired that's what's going on here oh man i can sit down from making his god for making it out yeah so that's the uh That's the blacksmith, the ironsmith. Now he's going to talk about a carpenter.

The carpenter, he stretches a line, he marks it with a pencil. He shapes it with planes and marks it with a compass. He shapes it into the figure of a man, with the beauty of a man, to dwell in a house. So he's made this, you know, anthropomorphic image after using all his tools. He cuts down cedars, or he chooses a cypress tree or an oak. he lets it grow strong among the trees of the forest he plants a cedar and the rain nourishes it so all this you know picking out trees letting trees grows or planting trees all the good is human endeavor and of course rain from god the true god is nourishing this tree that grows

okay you're following the argument verse 15 says then it becomes fuel for a man he takes part of it and warms himself he kindles a fire and bakes bread also he makes a god and worships it he makes it an idol and falls down before it verse 16 half of it he burns in the fire over the half he eats meat he roasted and is satisfied and he warms himself and says ah i'm warm i have seen the fire and the rest of it he makes into a god his idol and falls down to it and worships it he prays to it and says deliver me for you are my god this is like i said this is the this is the the gold medal for satire goes to isaiah in this this particular section and there's I mean, there's no great mysteries here that need to be explained, right?

There's no great, there's no confusion with what's going on. Basically, every idol never rises above this kind of base level. They're all man-made. You got a guy, he's picking out a tree or letting a tree grow or planting a tree and letting it get bigger. And then he takes his axe and he cuts it down. And like, you know, I don't have it this half. I'm going to chop up, make a fire. warm myself, make some breakfast, be happy about my food and my fire, I'm warm now.

The other half, I'm going to make into an idol, and then I'm going to fall down, and I'm going to worship it and say, you are my, deliver me, for you are my God. You can picture the whole thing. And this cutting satire is basically intended to, not even necessarily from a deep theological perspective, But just from almost kind of a human logical perspective saying, hey, do you not realize how crazy and wrong this is just from this brief description? Yeah, I mean, I'm reminded of when Aaron makes the golden calf and he had this insane excuse of like, I mean, I just threw a bunch of gold in there and out popped a calf. It's crazy. That's what happened.

I don't know what to tell you. These guys also, you think of like this carpenter or whatever, he chops down a tree and he starts like carving. He's like, yeah, man, I chopped down this tree. I started just whittling away. Turns out there was a god in there. Found him. It's just the dumbest thing in the world. Yeah.

I came across this quote from Horace, the Roman poet. I mean, this is satire too. but it's uh it's this god who's talking and the god says once i used to be an oak tree a craftsman however preferred i should be a god so i mean even he's kind of getting at the same thing like well i was a tree at one time but then i guess i somebody decided i should be a god and so that's what i they removed all the excess and here i am here here i am yeah so yeah the idols and they never rise above something that's man-made. They never rise above the fact that they're made out of stuff, right?

Trees or whatever the material might be. Precious metals, like the case of the golden calf or stone. Whatever it is, the world is full of these. And I think maybe at least those of us who live in Western cultures, it's kind of hard for us to wrap our mind around the plethora of idols and by idols i'm not talking about more abstract things you know like we talk about today with power and sex and money i'm talking about like actual statues that would have just permeated the ancient world yeah so let's say you uh you're paul's traveling companion and you're going to all of these uh these roman

cities on your your missionary journeys everywhere you look i mean he talked about this explicitly when he mentioned when he was in athens about all the altars and the gods and whatnot but every city was just full not just of one or two or three or four gods but multitudes roman gods greek gods egyptian gods emperor worship you know or the emperor himself had his own had his own cult so yeah this stuff of course isaiah's not living then he's living way back in uh the eighth century but it was the same it was the same there uh idols were just as prevalent today as screens are you know everywhere you look there's a screen well everywhere you would have looked in the ancient world you would have seen idols just was part of part of the culture that's why

things like this from isaiah and israel's monotheism in general always made them seem Like they were the weird people because they didn't have any statues, and they worship one god. The thing that's really absurd about idols, especially when you're talking about like legit – not just idolatry, which we all engage in, but an actual idol, is that idols are doubly created. And what I mean by that is that – okay, so I am created by God. See how that works? Like, man is created by God. So, like, so you're a creature. Idols are doubly created because man creates them out of something God created.

And so, like, they're so far removed from being anything divine. It's more created than even you, right? So, like, God creates you. You create an idol. This thing is doubly removed from God. It's not even close. Yes. Well, well put. And that's a great, that's a great lead in then to verse 18. So you might be saying to yourself, well, I don't understand. Why would anybody be so deluded as to engage in this, these kinds of actions? Verse 18 and following is going to tell us.

They know not, nor do they discern. For he has, talking about God, God has shut their eyes so that they cannot see. And their hearts so that they cannot understand. No one considers, nor is there knowledge or discernment to say, half of it I burned in the fire. I also bake bread on its coals. I roasted meat and have eaten and shall I make the rest of it an abomination shall I fall down before a block of wood and then he wraps this up by saying he feeds on ashes which is a great way of my missus we just taught all the trees in the fire so those ashes uh from the part of the tree

you didn't make into a god that's your food you he feeds on ashes a deluded heart has led him astray and he cannot deliver himself or say is there not a lie in my right hand i was thinking dan when i this didn't strike me until this morning when i was looking over this this would have been a great bondage of the will text at our recent conference in san diego oh man this is like this is straight out of bondage uh bondage of the will here these guys are they're blind uh Their hearts can't understand, they can't know or discern that they have a deluded heart. They can't deliver themselves, can't even say, there's a lie in my right hand. They're so in bondage to sin that even the ability to realize they're in bondage to sin is taken away from them.

Imagine walking around, toting around your God in your right hand. People would be like, what you got there? It's like, I'm just taking my God for a walk. You're so deluded and bound that you don't realize the absurdity of what's happening here. Like, oh, yeah, you're just carrying your God around, huh? Yeah, like Rachel, stealing God, sitting on him. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I do think it's important to point out here about eyes being shut so they can't see and their hearts they can't understand. And that shows up a lot in the Scriptures. We've already seen it in Isaiah 6, right? After God calls Isaiah and says, Who will go? Whom shall I send? Isaiah says, you know, me, me, I'll do it. And then God tells him, here's what you're going to do.

You're going to preach to these people with blind eyes and deaf ears and hardened hearts. And all that kind of stuff shows up all over the Scriptures. I mean, I'm thinking in particular about the New Testament here, when Jesus in Matthew 13 talks about why he speaks in parables, right? And Paul uses the same kind of language. You see it showing up in John, too. And it all goes back to prophets like Isaiah. And the basic idea is that, and I've said this many times on the podcast, quoting from G.K. Beale, that we resemble what we revere, right? We're going to look like whatever we're worshiping, and the false gods all have eyes but cannot see, and ears but cannot hear, and feet but cannot walk. uh so idolaters then resemble what they they worship so they have eyes but they don't see

and they have ears but they don't but they don't hear they resemble what they revere and this is basically to use the language of romans one god is like handing people over to to their sin with a result that they're just like just like the idols so that's background old testament background in a New Testament talk about blinded eyes and unhearing ears and non-understanding hearts. Well, this is the way this works, is that we are created in the image of God, and our God hears.

We know that. It's all over Scripture that God hears, and God sees. This is also all over Scripture. He has eyes that see and ears that hear. um not and so do you uh this is partially because you were created in the image of god well when you have a god that is not that god you sort of become um you almost think about like uh smiegel when he gets the ring and then becomes a golem uh this is kind of what god lets you do

is that these things that you have that are like God, they start to grow dim. You start to go deaf and you start to go blind because he's now letting you sort of evolve into the image of the God that you have created now, which is a mute, blind, deaf God. Yeah, yeah, that's perfect. Yeah, I like the analogy with Gollum, too.

All the false gods become my precious, right? Yeah, and you just become something very different than what you were supposed to be. Yeah. So it's not as if God, when people hear about blinded eyes and deaf ears, it's not like, yeah, God just woke up one day and is like, I'm going to blind some people and make some people deaf. He's not a capricious deity who engages in that. But he's basically saying, all right, well, you have your false gods.

That's exactly what you're going to be like. I'm going to hand you over to that. Well, worshiping a false god, persisting in that is like—you've got to understand that God will take credit even for allowing you to do things. now like we don't really get to do that uh so if something happens i don't have like i'm not i don't have complete control over everything that happens all the time like so uh if i don't stop something for happening that doesn't mean that i could take uh sort of credit or blame for it like i'm i probably didn't have the power to stop it uh sometimes with god so if if you're going to worship these idols it's more akin to you like taking a knife and cutting your eyes out uh he's

constantly slapping that knife out of your hand like all the time uh until he doesn't and when he doesn't he says and that's why i have like so who's really doing it well he's not stopping you from doing it right like eventually he gives you what you want and if you really want to gouge your eye out with that thing at some point he might just let you yeah and that's what's happened to oh people in isaiah's day jesus day our day of course this is the history of idolatry and inhumanity yeah the turning up someone over to something is just like god's stepping out of the way but mostly what god's doing is like step he's balaam's ass in the middle of the road is mostly what's happening and then eventually he just doesn't send the donkey and that's that's

turning you over yeah yeah getting what uh getting what you want your will being done yeah okay so the satire is over so what is god or what is god through isaiah going to say going to say next well what he's going to say next is basically don't forget these things i need you to remember exactly everything that i have said that's the way verse 21 starts out remember these things oh jacob so i'll read the next uh three verses 21 through 23 and then we'll be at a different section. So remember these things, O Jacob and Israel, for you are my servant. I formed you. You are my servant. O Israel, you will not be forgotten by me. I have blotted out your transgressions like a cloud and your sins like mist. Return to me, for I have redeemed you.

Sing, O heavens, for the Lord has done it. Shout, O depths of the earth. Break forth into singing, O mountains, O forest, and every tree in it. I love the inclusion of trees, praising God, since they're misused by idolaters to make false gods. So the trees are singing. For the Lord has redeemed Jacob and will be glorified in Israel. The very end of 21, it's kind of a surprising way that he puts this. I would have expected him to say,

remember these things though jacob and then to the very end to say oh israel do not forget these things right that would have been a nice parallelism and that would have been fine i mean there'd be nothing wrong with saying that but he switches things around he says remember these things though jacob oh israel you will not be forgotten by me which is a beautiful gospel twist, because will we forget? Oh, yeah. Yeah, Israel forgot. We forgot. But we will not be forgotten by God. It's a beautiful thing when God says, remember this, I won't forget you. Right. This is the most important thing. Remember me, and I know that you will not, but remember that I won't forget you. When you do forget me, I'll come back around,

and then I'll remind you again that, oh yeah, I did forget you, but when you say you don't forget me, you actually don't. That's good stuff. Yeah, always before him. And then, well, there are things he does forget, or even better than that, he blots them out, and those are our transgressions. This is the same Hebrew word we have twice in Psalm 51

about God blotting out our transgressions, or I think you could probably translate this as wiping them away, but you get the idea. They're wiped away, they're blotted out so that they are no more. A bit of a mixed metaphor. He says, I blotted out your transgressions like a cloud and your sins like mist.

Yeah, I mean, you get the idea. Clouds and mist are ephemeral, right? They're here and then they're gone. So the idea is once I blotted out your transgressions, they disappear as quickly as a cloud or a mist disappears so that it has no substance. It's gone. And then he closes verse 22 with saying, return to me for I have redeemed you. We could translate return as repent to me. It's just this idea of your changing direction, right? The Hebrew word shuv which is the hebrew word for repent so come back you're going that direction not a good

direction to go so turn around return to me and i love how he ends it because he doesn't say for i will redeem you i have redeemed you so we return when we repent or when we return we always go back to the god who already has redeemed us even before going astray even before we needed to turn he had already accomplished the act of redemption. And so we repent, we return, or more correctly, God brings us back, he repents us. And when he does, he brings us to himself, not saying, I might redeem you, or I will redeem you in the future, or we'll see, I'll make a decision as to whether I'll redeem you or not, but it's an established fact. So we always go back in repentance to the God who has done everything for us to make us one with himself, and therefore

we repent not to a God who is angry with us, but to the God who is compassionate in a redemptive way toward us. Well, you know, I mean, I've said this probably too many times, but I'll say it again um yeah repentance is not turning from your sin to some virtue uh it's turning with your sin to the one who can do something about it who's promised to do something about it that's what it is right so yes yeah this is great because you have this hey i have blotted out your transgressions and you're simply so this is like past tense like i have done this i have redeemed you Like, you could take that sin, and yes, I want you to turn, but you could bring that. I'm the only one that knows how to get rid of that, right?

So bring that over here. It does belong to me, after all. Like, I redeemed you. Like, all that stuff belongs to me. And so that's what repentance is, man. Repentance is turning with your sin to the God who's redeemed you, and He knows what to do with it. Yeah, yeah. He's the, as we've discussed before with false gods, the problem with false gods, one of the problems, but the main problem, we might say, or at least top of the list, near top of the list, is they can't forgive.

No, no. It's like you can take your sins to pick an idol of your choice. They have no mechanism for forgiveness. The only one who can forgive is the one true God. and that's why you have multiple occasions where the Old Testament we're talking about the false gods who cannot deliver you, who cannot save

cannot forgive they'll take and they'll take and they'll take but they can't give you anything all they do is demand things from you can't give you the things that God himself only can give that's why the judgment

is always for idolatry because at some point If you want to keep taking your sins to these false gods, well, they just start piling up. And then you have a real God who really judges sin. And since you've not brought those sins to him so they can be taken care of, now you're just stuck with them. And that's how it goes. Yeah. Not something you want to be stuck with.

No. And also, you get the real impression, because God means for you to get this impression, that this is all so unnecessary, where it's like, but I've done all these things. I mean, just turn to me, you know, bring your sins to me. We don't have to do any of this. This is all so, so, whatever it is, you know, getting carted off into exile. It's all so unnecessary. We don't have to do any of this.

You just bring your sins to me. I'll take care of them. I'll be your God. You'll be my people. That's it. There's so much unnecessary suffering going on here when Christ is standing there being like, I've already suffered for all this. Why? Why is it necessary that you bring all this pain and suffering upon you and your people?

Yeah, it's the insanity of the human condition, for sure. So 24 is going to introduce a new section. It's not the end of the chapter. The end of the chapter is at verse 28. But this really is a new section because it's leading up to the dropping of a name that in Isaiah's day must have been quite a mystery to them because this is 150 years before a Persian ruler by the name of Cyrus is going to appear on the historical scene. But this is a lead up to that. So I'm going to go and read 24 through 28. then as i do listen to all the who's who does this and who does that thus says the lord your

redeemer who formed you from the womb i am the lord who made all things who alone stretched out the heavens who spread out the earth by myself who frustrates the signs of liars and makes fools of diviners who turns wise men back and makes their knowledge foolish who confirms the word of his servant, and fulfills the counsel of his messengers, who says of Jerusalem, she shall be inhabited, and of the cities of Judah, they shall be rebuilt, and I will raise up their ruins, who says to the deep, be dry, I will dry up your rivers, who says of Cyrus, he is my shepherd, and he shall fulfill all my purpose, saying of Jerusalem, she shall be built, and of the temple, your foundation shall be laid. So about, I don't know, a dozen who's in there, all God describing

exactly what he's done, who he is, what he does in a destructive sort of way, what he does in a constructive sort of way. And then that all leads up to this introduction of Cyrus's name. We'll hear more about him when we get into the next chapter. But God starts out here with using the beautiful image of a redeemer. That means he's our next of kin. Yeah. Like you kind of have a double familial reference here because he's our next of kin. And he's also the one who formed you from the womb. It's just like, yeah, I've been with you a long time. You know, like when you were in the womb just that itty itty bitty baby uh i formed you and then i brought you to birth watch you grow up and i'm taking care of you i'm bailing you out um you're you're next of kin

i'm the lord uh who uh well esv has made all things and you can translate that that way i love the hebrew which you could translate as i am the lord who does everything yeah that's it yeah you get you get in the back of that translation i do everything uh i was out here all by myself stretching out the heavens that's that's what i was here was no one else around that's what i was doing yeah it's such a great summary of genesis one i the lord did everything i did it all nothing i didn't have any i didn't need helpers i wasn't consulting folks i did all this did it sola right sola yes sola and then uh he he's not very happy with people he calls liars that's probably a pretty good translation of the of that uh badim in hebrew

it's uh like the people of idle talk i suppose you could translate it to but liars is a good fit here so the liars the diviners you know those who are trying to determine the will of the gods by all kinds of manipulation of everything from liquids in a goblet to inspecting the livers of sacrificial animals or kidneys or looking at the flight of birds, all that kind of stuff. They were the diviners. Well, God makes a fool of them, the wise men. So all these people who claim to be speaking for God or claiming to discern God's will apart from his word, God makes fools of all of them. But, you know, his servants, his counselors, his messengers, he's going to confirm their word because they're the one who are speaking his word. And he says to Jerusalem and to all the cities of Judah, you're going to be rebuilt.

You're going to be inhabited. All the ruins are going to be restructured. And then he uses the Exodus language of saying to the deep, be dry and drying up the rivers. Of course, this is hearkening back to Exodus 14. And then, having said all of this, that I'm the Lord and creator, I frustrate liars, I confirm the speakers of truth, I'm going to rebuild Jerusalem and Judea, and how am I going to do this? Well, I've got a shepherd in mind. Of course, shepherd is a regal title from the ancient world. I've got a shepherd, his name is Cyrus And he is going to fulfill my purpose

Because by means of him I'm going to bring about the rebuilding of Jerusalem And the founding of the temple Like I said, this is 150 years before Cyrus comes along And that's one of the reasons It's kind of a side note That's one of the reasons you'll hear frequent arguments That the first part of Isaiah was written by

An actual 8th century guy named Isaiah But once you get past that, then you have, quote, second Isaiah, who was a much later figure who lived during the Babylonian exile toward the end and who saw what was happening with the Persians and Cyrus. And so he couched all this as if it were prophetic, even though he's actually describing events that were transpiring before his eyes, which we already talked about. We reject that there is a second Isaiah. If you believe in God, if you believe that God works miracles, certainly you believe that God is able to give to prophets things like the name of a ruler who's going to exist in the future. And this isn't the only time this happens in the Bible. I mean, Josiah's name is predicted long before there was ever a Josiah. When Paul has a vision, he's told that there's a guy by the name of Ananias who's going to take care of him.

This is not an isolated biblical incident where God is able to name drop someone who is long time in the future or that someone has at that point never even met. Hey, listen, it's real convenient to make the argument that, listen, we know that nobody knows the future. If you remove all the historical examples of people knowing the future, see how this works? Yeah. that's the same thing as saying like we know that people don't rise from the dead because no one's ever rose from the dead as you reject all accounts of anyone ever having risen from the dead well yeah i mean like if you get rid of like every account of it happening then sure yeah it's uh i mean we kind of laugh but man this happens all the time all the time with

All the time. I mean, this is out there. I mean, not just on the internet and social media, but this has been around since the time of the Enlightenment, right? Well, we know he couldn't have known that. Well, yeah, there's no example. Does anyone know in the future if every time it happens, you reject it and say that it couldn't have happened? Yeah, you bury every example where it does happen and then say, oh, it's never happened. you're destroying all the witnesses yes this is not a fair trial when you execute all the witnesses

before they can get to the stand to testify yeah absolutely so anyway this is we're at the end of our time but this is where Isaiah is going to spend the next two or three chapters talking about what God is going to do for Israel

and the means whereby he's going to do this and as we'll see next time Somehow, he's already forecasting that some Israelites are not going to be very happy about this. What do you mean you're using a pagan king to accomplish this? What in the world are you doing, God? How dare God use a pagan king to save a bunch of idolaters? Yeah.

God will have a response to them as well in the next chapter, but we'll have to get to that next time. All right, sounds good. I'll see you then, Chad. See you then. We'll see you next time.