Isaiah (God's salvation), the son of Amoz (not the prophet Amos) served Judah and Jerusalem as a prophet in the days of Kings Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah in the Kingdom of Judah, and Kings Pekah, and Hosea, ruling in the Northern Kingdom of Israel. Contemporary prophets were Micah, Hosea and Oded.
Isaiah writes in his book in chapter 49 about his birth: "Listen to me, O coast lands; Hearken you peoples from afar. The Lord called me from the womb, from the body of my mother He named my name. He made my mouth like a sharp sword (Word of God), He hid me in the shadow of his hand;
He made me a polished arrow, He hid me away in his quiver." 49:1-2
Isaiah was commissioning by God in a vision to do the work of speaking to the people of Judah and Jerusalem about God's coming judgments. He was told in advance that the nation will refuse to take heed. God said that this situation would continue until the nation would come to ruin, and that only a "Tenth," a "Holy Seed," would be left like the stump of a massive tree.
The first occurrence of the word "prophet" in the Scriptures refers to Abraham. The first identified as a "Hebrew." Like Abel, Enoch, and Noah, he was a man of faith. But the first to be mentioned with the expression "put faith in God" is Abraham, that is the reason why he is called "the father of all those having faith." This man of unusual faith walked with God and was in constant communication with him by means of visions and dreams.
When the Son of God, Jesus, and his disciples referred to Abraham, they did it more than 70 times in their conversations and writings. In Jesus' illustration of the rich man and Lazarus, he referred to the prophet Abraham, the father of all those having faith, in a symbolic sense. When his opponents, the people who refused to take heed, boasted that they were the offspring of Abraham, Jesus was quick to point out their hypocrisy saying: "If you are Abraham's children, do the works of Abraham."
The apostle Paul said that it is not fleshy descents that counts, but rather, having the faith like that of Abraham that enables one to be declared righteous. Paul also identified the true seed of Abraham as Christ, along with those who belong to Christ as "heirs with reference to a promise."Abraham's two women, Sarah and Hagar, were actually making a symbolic drama illustrating God's two covenants, the one with Abraham and the one with Jesus.
In Galatians 4 we find the reason: ...So with us; when we were children, we were slaves to "elemental spirits of the universe." But when the time had fully come, God sent forth His Son, born of a womb of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. ... So through God you are not longer a slave but a son, and if a son then an heir. Formerly, when you did not know God, you were in bondage to "beings that by nature are no gods;" but now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the 'weak and beggarly elemental spirits, whose slaves you want to be once more? ....
When Sarah died at Hebron at the age of 127, it was necessary for Abraham to purchase a burial plot, for indeed he was only a temporary resident owning no land in Canaan, so he bought a field with its cave at Machpelah near Mamre from the sons of Heth. The second covenant was an expectation and God instructed Abraham to so.
When 4 allied kings, headed by Mesopotamian King Chedorlaomer (chief of the elemental spirits of the universe), were successful in crushing a revolt if five Canaanites (slaves to them) kings, Sodom and Gomorrah were sacked and Lot was taken captive together with all his property. Abraham, upon learning of this, quickly mustered 318 of "his trained (universal) household servants," made a force march in hot pursuit Northward to beyond the spiritual Damascus, and with God's help, defeated a far superior force. As Abraham was returning from this great "victory" a "priest of the "Most High God,"
Melchizedek, who was also the king of Salem, came out and blessed him, and Abraham, in turn, "gave him a Tenth of everything."
We now understand that God's plan about the salvation of His People is true. We are requested to be strong in the Lord and in the power of His Might. We need to wear the whole armor of God, that we might be able to stand against the wiles of the devil (elemental spirits of the universe). For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.
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