Isaiah 6:11-13

b. THE CONSEQUENCES

TEXT: Isaiah 6:11-13

11

Then said I, Lord, how long? and he answered, Until cities be waste without inhabitant, and houses without men, and the land become utterly waste,

12

and Jehovah have removed men far away, and the forsaken places be many in the midst of the land.

13 And if there be yet a tenth in it, it also shall in turn be eaten up: as a terebinth, and as an oak whose stock remaineth, when they are failed; so the holy seed is the stock thereof

QUERIES

a.

Why did Isaiah ask how long?

b.

Why did God use a tenth to speak of those remaining?

c.

What is the holy seed?

PARAPHRASE

Then I said, Lord, how long will it be before they are ready to listen? And he replied, Not until their cities are destroyed. and without a person left. and the whole country is an Utter wasteland. And they are all taken away, and all the land of Israel lies deserted! Yet a tenth. a remnant. will survive; and though Israel is invaded again and again and destroyed, yet Israel will be like a tree cut down, whose stump still lives to grow again.

COMMENTS

Isaiah 6:11-12 HOW LONG: This was a natural reaction. If his ministry was to be fraught with such apparent failure, how long would the Lord expect him to preach to deaf ears? Even Jesus indicated that the time comes when God's messenger should refrain from giving that which is holy to the dogs and casting pearls before swine. God's answer is that the prophet is to preach until the captivity takes everyone away and there are no more people to whom to preach. For Israel, the northern kingdom, that would be only twenty years hence. For Judah approximately 136 years. Isaiah, of course, would not be alive when Judah was exiled, but his prophecy would live on in written form,

Isaiah 6:13 A HOLY SEED SAVED: this will be the result of Isaiah's faithful persistence. Whatever or whomever is salvaged from apostacy by the ministry of Isaiah will be purged again by some form of testing (probably the captivity). Tenth is what we would call a round number. A figure of speech to indicate a small percentage of return for his preaching. But even that will undergo further purging. God is interested primarily in quality. When the message of God's truth is preached without compromise quality will be the result. But when the messenger of God is inordinately concerned with quantity, there is a tendency to compromise the message. God demands that His messengers be faithful to the message and He will see to the quantity (numbers). Our success in the eyes of God is not judged on the basis of numbers.

There will be a small number of people turned back to the Lord through Isaiah's ministry and they will form the faithful remnant, This faithful remnant will continue through the captivity and pass on from generation to generation a faithfulness to the Lord and a hope in His promises. These generations will succeed one another in walking in the way of the Lord through 700 years until one of them, a virgin by the name of Mary of the tribe of Judah, will surrender herself to become the handmaiden of the Lord and give birth to the Incarnate Son of God. These generations will succeed one another until some of them become the nucleus of the Kingdom of God (the church).

God's judgment would not result in annihilation of the people. Here is expressed the Messianic potentialities of the people of God. They will continue to exist (a remnant of them) till Shiloh comes (Cf. Genesis 49:10). The scepter shall not depart from Judah; nor the rulers staff from between his feet, until Shiloh come. This prophecy was fulfilled in an amazing way. There never was a ruler of the Jews not from the tribe of Judah until Herod the Great who was King of the Jews when Jesus was born. Herod was an Idumean by birth and not even a Jew. The Christ is Shiloh and when He came the scepter had departed from Judah. He came and established the rule of the royal family forever! Now we see why the tenth had to be purged again! The Messiah must have a faithful, sanctified remnant through which to come!

QUIZ

1.

What was God's answer to Isaiah's How long?

2.

Why did God indicate that the tenth would be purged again?

3.

What was the result of the purging?

4.

Who is Shiloh and when was He to come into the world?