Who issues the call here in verse 8? This is not something Isaiah takes on himself. Jesus, in His glory, issues the call. To go on behalf of God to sinful men demands courage, zeal, love, wisdom, and knowledge. All these things are needed. But only Christ can so equip that man. So He does. When first faced with the

Isaiah is stunned and terrified in response to this glorious vision. Imagine if someone led you along blindfolded to the very edge of a cliff. They took off your blindfold and suddenly you could see where you were. How frightening! Isaiah, in a manner of speaking, has had the blindfold taken away, and he sees his place. He's a man

We now look at what appears to be Isaiah's calling to be a prophet. What does Isaiah see? He sees Jehovah, high and lifted up on his throne. In John 12:41, John says that Isaiah here sees Jesus. Jesus is Jehovah, He is the God-man. Where is it that this vision happens? It is in the temple. The temple is

We see here what is to come upon the vineyard, what is to come upon Judah and Jerusalem. We start out as the fire devours the stubble. Nothing stands before the flame. The judgment is further lined out in a picture of another kind of plant, perhaps a grapevine. It is rotten at the root, and it dies off. The

Drunkenness, yes, is condemned again in these verses, and it is condemned throughout Scripture. But there is a deeper thing here still. These aren't ordinary people drinking and drinking to excess. These are the leaders in the community, these are the magistrates. In the Bible, God calls men into positions of rule, power, authority, responsibility, and duty. They are put

Now we come to the fifth of these bad fruit. Those that are so wise in their own eyes, who flatter themselves about their own intelligence and cleverness and wisdom. They weren't around merely in Isaiah's time. They're around even today. You can find them all over the place. You find a lot of them in academia, you find them

In the Bible, both in the Old and New Testament, we frequently see good and evil compared to light and darkness. Just as light brings life, joy, sight, familiarity and safety, that which is good does the same thing. On the other hand, what does darkness bring? Well, since the fall anyway, darkness brings death. It brings blindness, it brings

The word 'woe' means sadness, crying, and screaming. This is what comes to the bad fruit described in these verses. Today we look at the bad fruit of those who reverse reality. Woe to those who call evil good. Evil means that which is bad, which is wicked. These nasty people say that what are truly good things are really

When reproved, this bad fruit of defiant bravado comes out even more strongly. One might think that the people who have fallen away and their leaders would be getting a little nervous, would be getting a little anxious, a little edgy, but you'd be wrong. That's not what's happening. Instead, like a defiant child, they dare God to do anything

We're looking at the third kind of bad fruit that Jehovah receives from his vineyard, as we see in the first seven verses of this chapter. When threatened with God's judgment, the wicked of Judah and Jerusalem go on to sin with more enthusiasm and defy God to do anything about it. If the people turn, if they have faith