Isaiah is called the Messianic prophet because his prophetic references that speak of the life of Christ far outnumber any of the other Old Testament prophets. There are twenty-two direct references to the prophet Isaiah that are quoted in the New Testament and many other quotes, perhaps at least one hundred that also speak of the life and ministry of Jesus, the Christ. This next series will delve into the New Testament verses that are directly linked to Isaiah.
Next to Passover, Pentecost is the most important feast in the Old Testament that had a literal fulfillment in the New Testament. In the Jewish tradition, Pentecost represents the time, fifty days after the Jewish nation came out of Egypt and God met them at Mount Sinai where He gave the law to Moses and the people.
The end of the year, 2016, has just passed, and during December both Christmas and Hanukkah were celebrated during the same time frame. Christmas Eve and the first day of the Hanukkah celebration fell on the same day: two significant celebrations linking Judaism and Christianity. The two are linked together in one perfect Jewish man: Jesus Christ. In both of these celebrations, lights shine all over the world. Jesus proclaimed, “I am the light of the world. He who follows me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.” (John 8:12).
When Jesus came, it was for the purpose of fulfilling a “three-day” journey too. In Matthew 12:40, Jesus said, “For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” When Jesus went in to the temple in Jerusalem at the beginning of His public ministry, He said, “Destroy this temple, (speaking of the temple of his body) and in three days I will raise it up.” He did exactly that when He was resurrected on the third day after His crucifixion.
Even as our hearts are centered in our chest in our physical bodies, so our problem with sin is seen by God as being basically a heart issue. Ultimately, only God can change our hearts. In the case of Pharaoh, we are told that the Lord hardened his heart over and over again. Why would God harden someone’s heart? In this case, God hardened Pharaoh’s heart because God had a greater purpose planned. That purpose was that His people would be released from slavery so that they might return to the land promised to Abraham, the land of Canaan.
What brings joy to the heart of God?
Recently I made a trip to my ophthalmologist for a routine eye exam. After he had examined my eyes and had looked at the results of several eye tests, he began to tell me about one of his daughters. She had recently started high school and was really doing well. His daughter had begun singing as a child – singing so well that they had taken her for voice lessons. When her voice teacher heard her sing, she was very encouraging and said she had an exceptional voice and could really do well in a singing career. My eye doctor then continued to tell me about his daughter’s writing ability. She was taking a writing class and again her teacher said that she was very gifted in writing. When composing poetry she could write on the spur of the moment and she could powerfully engage her readers.
As this doctor shared with me regarding his daughter, his face lit up with a broad smile, which conveyed his delight in his child. The thought came to me, “When do we, as God’s children, bring joy to His heart? When does God’s face light up with delight over one of us?”
In the Old Testament
I believe that Noah along with all the other Old Testament saints experienced the joy of the Lord over their lives. I believe that God’s face lit up with joy when His people looked to Him in faith and received His promise of salvation in their lives. Hebrews chapter 11 records a long list of men and women from the Old Testament who acted in faith and pleased God. “Without faith it is impossible to please Him” (Hebrews 11:6). “By faith, Noah, being divinely warned of things not yet seen, moved with godly fear, prepared an ark for the saving of his household, by which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is according to faith” (Hebrews 11:7). Noah and his family had the divine favor and protection of God on their lives. God delighted in Noah because Noah had faith.
In the New Testament
Luke 10 recounts the story of when Jesus sent out His seventy disciples to participate and be a part of God’s harvest of souls. They went out proclaiming, “the kingdom of God has come near you” (verse 9). The seventy were amazed by all the things that God did through them. They returned with joy and said, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name.” The Lord then said that He saw, “Satan fall from heaven like lightening” (verse 18) and then in verse 20 Jesus said, “Nevertheless do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are recorded in heaven.”
Then the very next verse answers our question about God’s joy by stating, “At that very time He rejoiced greatly in the Holy Spirit, and said,
I praise You, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth that you have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and have revealed them to the saints. Yes, Father, for this way was well-pleasing in your sight.
So when does God’s face light up with joy? These verses tell us that when we act in faith, believing that Christ is our Redeemer, Savior and Friend, when we act in faith and see His miraculous work being accomplished in us and through us, His face lights up with joy. Then we also rejoice as a child of the King, Jesus.
Recently, I released a book entitled Somebody Call 9:11, The Power of Covenant in Times of Crisis which I co-authored with my friend Scott Stripling. I wrote this book after my devotional time on September 11, 2015 when I got the idea to look up each of the ninth chapter and eleventh verse scriptures in the Bible and see what they would reveal, if anything.
From that devotional, this book was born, and from the verses and principles studied while writing the book, this blog continues diving into themes of covenantal blessings linked from the Old Testament to the New Testament and ringing true for us today.
