Mes: enero 2021

The Problem With Idolatry (Isa. 40:19, 20)

Idolatry destroys a unique, intimate relationship with God by replacing
Him with something else (Exod. 20:4, 5; Isa. 42:8). So, prophets
refer to idolatry as spiritual “adultery” (Jer. 3:6–9, Ezek. 16:15–19).

Read Isaiah 41:29. How does Isaiah characterize idols? How do you understand what he is saying there about them? Why is that so accurate a depiction of any idol, no matter what it is?
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Ancient idolaters believed they worshiped powerful divine beings
through images or symbols of them. Worship of an idol representing
another god breaks the first commandment: “You shall have no other
gods before me” (Exod. 20:3, NRSV). But if an idol is intended to represent the true God, as the golden calf was (Exod. 32:4, 5), the Lord
rejects it as a likeness of Himself, for nobody knows how to depict Him (Deut. 4:15–19), and nothing can represent His incomparable glory and greatness. Thus, an idol itself functions as another god, and worshiping it breaks the first and second commandments.
God’s people don’t need idols, because they have His real Shekinah
presence with them in His sanctuary. To worship an idol is to replace
and, therefore, deny His real presence.

What kinds of idolatry do we face as a church today? Does idolatry appear in more subtle forms in the church today? If so, how?
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“Many who bear the name of Christians are serving other gods
besides the Lord. Our Creator demands our supreme devotion, our
first allegiance. Anything which tends to abate our love for God,
or to interfere with the service due Him, becomes thereby an idol.”
—Ellen G. White Comments, The SDA Bible Commentary, vol. 2,
pp. 1011, 1012.
We know from ancient writings that idolatry was attractive, because
it was about materialism. Using modes of worship people could relate
to, idolaters honored forces they believed could give them fertility and
prosperity. It was self-help religion. Sound familiar?
Just before the Lord comes again, with His way prepared by the
roadwork of a final Elijah message of reconciliation (Malachi 4), the
choice will be the same as in the days of Isaiah: Will you worship the
Creator, or will you worship something else (Revelation 13, 14). For in
the end, we always worship something.

Further Thought: Read Ellen G. White, “Behold Your God!” in Prophets and Kings, pp. 311–321.

“In Isaiah’s day the spiritual understanding of mankind was dark
through misapprehension of God. Long had Satan sought to lead men
to look upon their Creator as the author of sin and suffering and death.
Those whom he had thus deceived, imagined that God was hard and
exacting. They regarded Him as watching to denounce and condemn,
unwilling to receive the sinner so long as there was a legal excuse for
not helping him. The law of love by which heaven is ruled had been
misrepresented by the archdeceiver as a restriction upon men’s happiness, a burdensome yoke from which they should be glad to escape. He declared that its precepts could not be obeyed and that the penalties of transgression were bestowed arbitrarily.”—Ellen G. White, Prophets and Kings, p. 311.

Discussion Questions:
 Summarize in your own words the message of Isaiah 40:12–31.
Write it using modern images, such as modern scientific discoveries
that show even more graphically the awesome power of our
God. Share your summary with the class.
 How does Isaiah’s description of the permanence of God’s
Word versus the fragile transience of human life (Isa. 40:6–8)
speak to your fear of death? How does it relate to your hope of
resurrection? (Job 19:25–27, Dan. 12:2, 1 Cor. 15:51–57, 1 Thess.
4:13–18.)
 By taking Isaiah 40:12–31 to heart, how could one be cured of
pride and arrogance? Summary: Through Isaiah, God brought comfort to those who had been suffering. Their time of trouble had ended, and God was returning to them. Rather than being discouraged and confu

Read for This Week’s Study: Isa. 36:1, Isa. 36:2–20, Isa. 36:21–37:20, Isa. 37:21–38, Isaiah 38, Isaiah 39.

Memory Text: “ ‘O Lord of hosts, God of Israel, the One who dwells between the cherubim, You are God, You alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth’ ” (Isaiah 37:16, NKJV).

A gaunt man walks barefoot with his two sons. Another family has loaded all their belongings onto an oxcart pulled by emaciated oxen. A man leads the oxen while two women sit on the cart. Less fortunate people have no cart, so they carry their possessions on their shoulders.
“Soldiers are everywhere. A battering ram smashes into the city gate. Archers on top of the ram shoot at defenders on the walls. Hectic carnage reigns supreme.

“Fast forward. A king sits grandly on his throne, receiving booty and captives. Some captives approach him with hands upraised, pleading for mercy. Others kneel or crouch. Descriptions of these scenes with the king begin with these words: ‘Sennacherib, king of the world, king of Assyria’ and continue with such expressions as ‘sat in a nēmedu-throne and the booty of the city Lachish passed in review before him.’ ”—John Malcolm Russell, The Writing on the Wall (Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns, 1999), pp. 137, 138.

This series of pictures, which once adorned the walls of Sennacherib’s “Palace Without a Rival,” are now in the British Museum, and what a story they have to tell about the plight of God’s professed people!

Strings Attached (Isa. 36:1)

What happened to Judah? (2 Kings 18:13, 2 Chron. 32:1, Isa. 36:1.)
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When faithless Ahaz died and his faithful son Hezekiah succeeded
him, Hezekiah inherited a kingdom that had lost full independence.
Having purchased Assyrian aid against the alliance of Syria and northern Israel, Judah was forced to continue paying “protection money” in the form of tribute to Assyria (see 2 Chron. 28:16–21).

When the Assyrian king Sargon II died on a distant battlefield and was succeeded by Sennacherib in 705 b.c., Assyria appeared vulnerable. Evidence from Assyrian and biblical texts reveals that Hezekiah seized this opportunity to rebel (see 2 Kings 18:7), taking aggressive action as the ringleader of an anti-Assyrian revolt among the small nations in his region.

Unfortunately for him, Hezekiah had underestimated the resilience
of Assyria’s might. In 701 b.c., when Sennacherib had subdued other
parts of his empire, he lashed out against Syria-Palestine with devastating force and ravaged Judah.

How did Hezekiah prepare for a confrontation with Assyria? (2 Chron.32:1–8.)
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When Hezekiah saw that Sennacherib intended to take Jerusalem,
the capital city, he made extensive preparations for a confrontation with Assyria. He strengthened his fortifications, further equipped and organized his army, and increased the security of Jerusalem’s water supply (see also 2 Kings 20:20, 2 Chron. 32:30). The remarkable Siloam water tunnel, commemorated by an inscription telling how it was constructed, almost certainly dates to Hezekiah’s preparation for a potential siege.

Just as important as military and organizational leadership, Hezekiah
provided spiritual leadership as he sought to boost the morale of his people at this frightening time. “But the king of Judah had determined to do his part in preparing to resist the enemy; and, having accomplished all that human ingenuity and energy could do, he had assembled his forces and had exhorted them to be of good courage.”—Ellen G. White, Prophets and Kings, p. 351.

If Hezekiah trusted the Lord so much, why did he put forth so
much effort on his own? Did his works negate his faith? See
Philippians 2:12, 13 on cooperating with God, who provides the
power that is truly effective.

Propaganda (Isa. 36:2–20)

The rulers of Assyria were not only brutal but they also were intelligent. Their goal was wealth and power, not simply destruction (compare Isa. 10:13, 14). Why use resources to take a city by force if you can persuade its inhabitants to surrender? So, while he was engaged in the siege of Lachish, Sennacherib sent his rabshakeh, a kind of high officer, to take Jerusalem by propaganda.

What arguments did the rabshakeh use to intimidate Judah? (Isa.
36:2–20, see also 2 Kings 18:17–35, 2 Chron. 32:9–19.)
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The rabshakeh made some rather powerful arguments. You cannot
trust Egypt to help you because she is weak and unreliable. You cannot
depend on the Lord to help you because Hezekiah has offended
Him by removing His high places and altars throughout Judah, telling
the people to worship at one altar in Jerusalem. In fact, the Lord is on
Assyria’s side and told Sennacherib to destroy Judah. You don’t even
have enough trained men to handle 2,000 horses.

To avoid a siege in which you have nothing to eat and drink, give
up now and you will be treated well. Hezekiah cannot save you, and
because the gods of all the other countries conquered by Assyria have
not saved them, you can be sure that your God will not save you, either.

Was the rabshakeh telling the truth?

Because there was much truth in what he was saying, his arguments
were persuasive. Backing him up were two unspoken arguments. First,
he had just come from Lachish, only 30 miles away, where the Assyrians were showing what happened to a strongly fortified city that dared resist them. Second, he had a powerful contingent of the Assyrian army with him (Isa. 36:2). Knowing the fate of armies and cities elsewhere (including Samaria, the capital of northern Israel: 2 Kings 18:9, 10) that had succumbed to Assyria, no Judahite would have reason to doubt that from a human point of view Jerusalem was doomed (compare Isa.10:8–11). The rabshakeh also was right in saying that Hezekiah had destroyed various places of sacrifice in order to centralize worship at the temple in Jerusalem (2 Kings 18:4, 2 Chron. 31:1).

But had this reform offended the Lord, who was the only hope His people had left? Would He, and could He, save them? It was up to God to answer this question! Have you ever been in a similar situation, where, from a human standpoint, all seemed lost? What was your only recourse? If willing, be prepared to share with your class that experience, how you coped, and the ultimate outcome.

Shaken but Not Forsaken (Isa. 36:21–37:20)

How did the clever oratory of the rabshakeh affect Hezekiah and his officials? (2 Kings 18:37–19:4, Isa. 36:21–37:4.)
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Shaken to the core and mourning in distress, Hezekiah turned to
God, humbly seeking the intercession of Isaiah, the very prophet whose counsel his father had ignored.

How did God encourage Hezekiah? (Isa. 37:5–7.)
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The message was brief, but it was enough. God was on the side of His
people. Isaiah predicted that Sennacherib would hear a rumor that would distract him from his attack on Judah. This was immediately fulfilled.

Temporarily frustrated, but by no means giving up for long, Sennacherib sent Hezekiah a threatening message: “ ‘Do not let your God on whom you rely deceive you by promising that Jerusalem will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria. . . . Have the gods of the nations delivered them?’ ” (Isa. 37:10, 12, NRSV; see also 2 Chron. 32:17).

This time Hezekiah went straight to the temple and spread the message
out before the Lord of hosts, “ ‘enthroned above the cherubim’ ”
(Isa. 37:14–16, NRSV).

How did Hezekiah’s prayer identify what was at stake in Jerusalem’s crisis? (Isa. 37:15–20.)
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Sennacherib had pointedly attacked Hezekiah’s strongest defense:
faith in his God. Rather than buckling under, Hezekiah appealed to God to demonstrate who He is, “ ‘so that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you alone are the Lord’ ” (Isa. 37:20, NRSV).

Read prayerfully Hezekiah’s prayer (Isa. 37:15–20). What aspects
about God does he focus on? What principle do we see in this
prayer that can give us encouragement and strength to stay faithful
in our own personal crises?

The Rest of the Story (Isa. 37:21–38)

According to Sennacherib, as reported in his annals, he took fortysix
fortified towns, besieged Jerusalem, and made Hezekiah the
Jew “a prisoner in Jerusalem, his royal residence, like a bird in a
cage.”—James B. Pritchard, editor, Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1969), p. 288. But in spite of his penchant for propaganda as an extension of his monumental ego, neither in text nor in pictures does he claim to have taken Jerusalem. From a human point of view, this omission is amazing, given the inexorable power of Sennacherib and the fact that Hezekiah led a revolt against him. Rebels against Assyria had short life expectancies and gruesome deaths.

Scholars acknowledge that even if we did not have the biblical record,
we would be compelled to admit that a miracle must have taken place.
The fact that Sennacherib lined the walls of his “Palace Without a
Rival” with reliefs (carved pictures) vividly depicting his successful
siege of Lachish appears to be due to his need for a face-saving device.
But for the grace of God, these pictures would have shown Jerusalem
instead! Sennacherib did not tell the rest of the story, but the Bible does.

What is the rest of the story? (Isa. 37:21–37.)
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In response to Hezekiah’s prayer of total faith, God sent him a message of total assurance for Judah that boils over with molten fury against the proud Assyrian king who had dared to defy the divine King of kings (Isa. 37:23). Then God promptly fulfilled His promise to defend Jerusalem (2 Kings 19:35–37; 2 Chron. 32:21, 22; Isa. 37:36–38).

A big crisis calls for a big miracle, and big it was. The body count was
high: 185,000. So, Sennacherib had no choice but to go home, where
he met his own death (compare Isaiah’s prediction in Isa. 37:7–38).
“The God of the Hebrews had prevailed over the proud Assyrian. The
honor of Jehovah was vindicated in the eyes of the surrounding nations. In Jerusalem the hearts of the people were filled with holy joy.”—Ellen G. White, Prophets and Kings, p. 361. Also, if Sennacherib had conquered Jerusalem, he would have deported the population in such a way that Judah would have lost its identity, as northern Israel did. From one perspective, then, there would have been no Jewish people to whom the Messiah could be born. Their story would have ended right there. But God kept hope alive.

What do you say to someone who, not yet believing in the Bible
or the God of the Bible, asks this question: Was it fair that these
Assyrian soldiers, who just happened to be born where they were,
should die en masse like this? How do you, personally, understand
the Lord’s actions here?

In Sickness and in Wealth (Isaiah 38, 39)

The events of Isaiah 38 and 39 (2 Kings 20) took place very close to
the time God delivered Hezekiah from Sennacherib, even though the
deliverance, as depicted in Isaiah 37 (see also 2 Kings 19) had not yet
occurred. Indeed, Isaiah 38:5, 6 and 2 Kings 20:6 show that they still
faced the Assyrian threat.

“Satan was determined to bring about both the death of Hezekiah
and the fall of Jerusalem, reasoning no doubt that if Hezekiah were
out of the way, his efforts at reform would cease and the fall of
Jerusalem could be the more readily accomplished.”—The SDA Bible
Commentary, vol. 4, p. 240.

What does the above quote tell us about how important good leadership is for God’s people?
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What sign does the Lord give Hezekiah to confirm his faith? (2 Kings 20:8–10, Isa. 38:6–8.)
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By rejecting signs offered by God (Isaiah 7), Ahaz had started the
course of events that led to trouble with Assyria. But now Hezekiah had asked for a sign (2 Kings 20:8); so, God strengthened him to meet the crisis his father had brought upon Judah. Indeed, reversing the shadow on the sundial of Ahaz was possible only through a miracle.
The Babylonians studied movements of heavenly bodies and recorded
them accurately. Thus, they would have noticed the sun’s strange behavior and wondered what it meant. The fact that King Merodach-baladan sent envoys at this time is no accident. The Babylonians had learned of the connection between Hezekiah’s recovery and the miraculous sign.

Now we know why God chose this particular sign. Just as He later used the star of Bethlehem to bring wise men from the East, He used a solar shift to bring messengers from Babylon. This was a unique opportunity for them to learn about the true God. Merodach-baladan spent his entire career trying to win lasting independence from Assyria.

He needed powerful allies, which explains his motivation for contacting Hezekiah. If the sun itself moved at Hezekiah’s request, what could he do to Assyria? How did Hezekiah lose an incredible opportunity to glorify God and point the Babylonians to Him? What was the result? (Isaiah 39.) Hezekiah, who should have been witnessing to them about the

Lord, pointed, instead, to his own “glory.” What is the lesson for us?

Further Thought: “Only by the direct interposition of God could
the shadow on the sundial be made to turn back ten degrees; and this
was to be the sign to Hezekiah that the Lord had heard his prayer.
Accordingly, ‘the prophet cried unto the Lord: and He brought the
shadow ten degrees backward, by which it had gone down in the dial of
Ahaz.’ Verses 8–11.”—Ellen G. White, Prophets and Kings, p. 342.
“The visit of these messengers from the ruler of a faraway land gave
Hezekiah an opportunity to extol the living God. How easy it would
have been for him to tell them of God, the upholder of all created
things, through whose favor his own life had been spared when all other hope had fled! . . .

“But pride and vanity took possession of Hezekiah’s heart, and in
self-exaltation he laid open to covetous eyes the treasures with which
God had enriched His people. The king ‘showed them the house of his
precious things, the silver, and the gold, and the spices, and the precious ointment, and all the house of his armor, and all that was found in his treasures: there was nothing in his house, nor in all his dominion, that Hezekiah showed them not.’ Isaiah 39:2. Not to glorify God did he do this, but to exalt himself in the eyes of the foreign princes.”—Pages 344, 345.

Discussion Questions:
 How is Satan like the Assyrian rabshakeh? Does he tell the
truth when he says that you have sinned (Zech. 3:1)? How does
God respond? (See Zech. 3:2–5.) What is our only hope against
these accusations? (Rom. 8:1.)
 Does Satan stop his accusations when you are forgiven? (See
Rev. 12:10.) After you are forgiven, when Satan goes on saying that
you belong to him because of your sin, what is the nature of his
accusation? (See Deut. 19:16–21: law of a lying, malicious witness.)
Summary: In response to the cry of a faithful king, God saved His
people and showed who He is: the omnipotent King of Israel who controls the destiny of earth; not only does He destroy those who attempt to destroy His people but He also provides opportunities for others, no matter how “Babylonian,” to become His people.

Read for This Week’s Study: Isaiah 13, Isa. 13:2–22, Isaiah 14, Isaiah 24–27.

Memory Text: “ ‘Behold, this is our God; we have waited for Him, and He will save us. This is the Lord; we have waited for Him; we will be glad and rejoice in His salvation’ ” (Isaiah 25:9, NKJV).

After a minister had preached a searching sermon on pride, a woman who had heard the sermon waited for him and told him that she was in much distress of mind, and that she would like to confess a great sin. The minister asked her what the sin was.
“She answered, ‘The sin of pride, for I sat for an hour before my mirror some days ago admiring my beauty.’
“ ‘Oh,’ responded the minister, ‘that was not a sin of pride—that was a sin of imagination!’ ”—C. E. Macartney, compiled by Paul Lee Tan, Encyclopedia of 7700 Illustrations: Signs of the Times, p. 1100.
Ever since sin was born in the heart of a mighty angel, pride has not respected the boundaries of reality (in angels or people). Nowhere is this problem seen worse than in those who harbor spiritual pride, a rather sorry trait in beings so corrupted that their salvation can be found only in the works of another in their behalf.
This week, among other things, we’ll take a look at the origin of pride and self-exaltation.