The two biggest influential Prophets during the times of the kings...

• Isaiah
• Jeremiah

• They were appointed to remind kings, priests, and people of their obligations to God and people.
• The prophets of Israel were individuals called by God to bring the people back to God.

• No writings
• The important early prophets (Samuel, Elijah, Elisha) did not leave behind any writings that have been preserved.
• They advised the king, and if necessary opposed him (Elijah and Ahab!).
• Left writings
• But it is the later, writing prophets who stand out most clearly as the voice of God in the face of the people's disobedience.
• These 'bigger' prophets, address not only the king but also the nation as a whole.

• Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel

• Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi.

• Northern fall - prophets were Joel, Jonah, Amos, hosea, Isaiah, Micah
• Southern fall - prophets were Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Obadiah, Nahum, habakkuk, Sephaniah.
• Restoration - Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi
• also the time of Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther

• Israel - Amos, Hosea
• Nineveh - Jonah, Nahum
• Babylon - Daniel
• Captives in Babylon - Ezekiel
• Edom - Obadiah
• Judah - Joel, Isaiah, Micah, Jeremiah, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi.

• 1.  To try to save the nation from its Idolatry and Wickedness
• 2.  Failing in this, to announce the nation will be destroyed.
• 3.  But not completely destroyed.  A Remnant will be saved.
• 4.  Out of this remnant will come a Person who will bring All Nations to God.
• 5.  That Person will be a Great Man who will one day arise in the family of David.  The Prophets called him "THE BRANCH."  The family tree of David, once the most powerful family in the world, cut down, in the days of the Prophets, to rule a kingdom that was disappearing, the family would have a come-back. Out of the family stock would come a Branch who will become King of Kings.

• The time of the Prophets was approximately 400 years (800-400 B.C.).
• The central event was the destruction of Jerusalem.
• The fall of jerusalem was the time of the greatest Prophetic activity, trying to prevent it, or explain it.
• Though God himself brought on the destruction of Jerusalem, humanly speaking, He did all he could do to avert it.
• Failing to save the Unholy Holy City, the Prophets literally glow with Divine explanations and assurances that the collapse of God's nation does NOT mean the end of God's plans; that, after a period of punishment, there would be a Restoration, and, for God's people, a Glorious Future.

• Idolatry

• The most persistent thought in the entire OT is this: Jehovah, the God of the Hebrew nation, eventually is going to become the God of All nations.
• The successive generations of OT writers pass from the general to the particular in describing the detail and manner of that accomplishment.
• But the remainder through the NT had to take place - and that with an interruption through Paul to bring in the Gentiles, and then the Tribulation - finally the restoration!
• The whole story of Christ and the spread of Christianity over the earth is pictured in the OT, in outline and detail.

We can't do it in one session, so we will try to just touch on Isaiah today ... Read about him for yourself in detail!

Messianic Prophet

• ...because he was so thoroughly convinced with the idea that his nation was to be a Messianic Nation to the world; that is, a nation through whom one day a great and wonderful blessing would come from God to all nations
• He was continually dreaming of the day when that great and wonderful work would be done.
• John 12:41 mentions that Isaiah 'saw his glory, and spake of him."

• For 150 years before the days of Isaiah, the Assyrian Empire had been expanding. As early as 840 B.C. Israel, under Jehu, had begun to pay tribute to Assyria.  While Isaiah was yet a young man, Assyrian carried away all of north Israel.  13 years later, Samaria fell, and the rest of Israel was carried away.  Then, a few years later, the Assyrians came on unto Judah, destroyed 46 walled cities, and carried away 200,000 captives.
• Finally, when Isaiah was an old man, the Assyrians were stopped before the walls of Jerusalem by an angel of God. Thus, Isaiah's whole life was spent under the shadow of threatening Assyrian power, and he himself witnessed the ruin of his entire nation at their hands, EXCEPT Jerusalem.

• The deliverance of Jerusalem from the Assyrians.
• It was through his prayer and by his advice to king Hezekiah, and by the direct miraculous intervention of God, that the dread Assyrian army was discomfited before the walls of Jerusalem.

• 66 Books
• Chapters 1-39 deal with God's promise of Judgment
• Chapters 40-66 deal with God's promise of Salvation
• The first section deals with woe!
• The second section deals with comfort!

• 7:14 - Christ's virgin birth
• 40:3-5 - John the Baptist
• 9:1-2 - His ministry in Galilee
• 9:6-7 - His deity and eternal throne
• 11:2; 50:4; 61:1-3 - His preaching and miracles