Welcome to the Daily Blade. The Word of God is described as the sword of the spirit, the primary spiritual weapon in the Christian's armor against the forces of evil. Your hosts are Joby Martin and Kyle Thompson, and they stand ready to equip men for the fight. Let's sharpen up.

All right, welcome to a new week of the Daily Blade. This week we're going to be looking at one of the most famous chapters in the entirety of the Bible, and that's Isaiah 53. But in order to understand exactly what we're going to learn about our Savior and Isaiah 53, we need to set the tone by bringing you up to speed with the first 52 chapters of the book of Isaiah. So in these 52

chapters, you know, these really actually help us understand why we even need a suffering savior

to begin with. So the prophet Isaiah wrote this in Jerusalem about 700 years before Christ,

and he wrote this during the reign of four kings of Judah. And during this time, Isaiah actually

watched the northern kingdom of Israel fall to the Assy Judah. And during this time, Isaiah actually watched the

northern kingdom of Israel fall to the Assyrians. And the people were doing a lot of different

religious activities at this time, to be sure, but they were spiritually corrupt. They were

spiritually bankrupt. So Isaiah watched his own people constantly stumble. He watched them engage in

idolatry. They were doing all kinds of injustice. And ultimately ultimately they were just acting in a tremendous amount of spiritual blindness. And under divine inspiration, he prophesied where all this was heading. So he actually describes the wickedness of Judah and Isaiah 1. We'll start in verse 2. Hear, oh, heavens and give ear. Oh, earth for the Lord lord has spoken children have i reared and brought up

but they have rebelled against me the ox knows its owner and the donkey its master's crib but israel does not know

my people do not understand ah sinful nation a people laden with iniquity offspring of evil doers

children who deal corruptly they they have forsaken the Lord.

They have despised the Holy One of Israel. They are utterly estranged. So Isaiah is not exactly being

subtle here. And if you read through the first 39 chapters of Isaiah, it reads like a prolonged

indictment would, right? So God is essentially making the case that his people are directly and

purposefully rebelling against him. They have forsaken the true God. They've forsaken Yahweh. They have

sought out other little G gods. They have exploited the poor. They have trusted in military alliances,

and they have forgotten about their covenant with the Lord. And God doesn't mess around. Judgment and exile are coming.

But we see a bit of a tone shift in chapter 40 of Isaiah. So I'll go ahead and read this starting with

verse one. Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem and cry to her

that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received

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