My Father’s Eyes

One Year Bible (Sep. 11)

Isaiah 8:1-9:21

My Father’s Eyes

“And on that day when we will pay for all the deeds, we have done. Good and bad they’ll all be had to see by everyone. And when you’re called to stand and tell just what you saw in me. More than anything I know I want your words to be… She had her Father’s Eyes.”

(Father’s Eyes, Amy Grant)

My daughter’s name is Chelsea, and she is an amazing young lady filled with mystery, love, and angelic tendencies. Since she has been a wee little girl she would come to church while I was on stage practicing with the worship team. She would ALWAYS and I mean ALWAYS… GALLUP into the room with her hands raised and voice joining in. I would watch smiles come over the worship team members’ faces… They saw what I saw which was that “we couldn’t begin to see what she saw”. She just glowed!

I have often wondered if she is an “angel unaware” gracing our presence, but I could write a book on that topic…

One day she said to me, “I have my Father’s eyes”, but she wasn’t talking about her earthly dad. Sometimes she has the ability to make chills run up and down my spine. It’s her superpower, she gets that from “her DAD”.

She went through a REALLY rough patch for about a year and had multiple surgeries. After one of those surgeries, they called me to come into the recovery room. To my surprise, she was already awake when I arrived. I asked her if she was nervous when I wasn’t there and she said, “No, I knew you would come.” Then I asked her how the surgery was and if she was afraid. Once again she said, “No” and then she said, “God held me and told me I was HIS child.” The nurse heard her simple little voice stating this in the way that only she can do…Tingles and tears… We are changed because of her amazing childlike faith.

Everyone that heard the words from Isaiah were shaking their heads as well. How in the world could this man see the things that he saw and speak of words that he knew nothing about?

He had encountered the DAYBREAK and that light would shine in him throughout his entire life. They call the book of Isaiah “The Fifth Gospel” because he speaks much of the coming Messiah, only he is not actually there with Jesus like the others. He sees glimpses of the future through the visions that God gives to him. Does he really even begin to know the depth of the visions? He knows his sovereign God in a way that none before him had ever encountered as he went directly into HIS throneroom and lived to tell about that and the “coal”...

How can we know which of Isaiah’s words were prophecies for that particular time and which apply to the time of the Messiah?

You will find theologians and other interpreters of scripture that certainly disagree, but there is one way to figure it out. Follow the bread crumbs…What I mean by that is to follow THE WORD of God because IT is THE LIVING BREAD. We just interpret scripture in light of other scripture.

So, let’s take a look at Isaiah through New Testament eyes. Isaiah 1:9 says, “If the LORD of Heaven’s Armies had not spared a few of us, we would have been wiped out like Sodom, destroyed like Gomorrah.” In Romans 9:29 we see that the Apostle Paul quotes the words of Isaiah and attributes his words to Isaiah. So, we know they are connected and important.

Yesterday’s passage found in Isaiah 7:14 has often been read at Christmas services and may have sounded quite familiar to you, “The Lord himself will give you the sign. Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son and will call him Immanuel (which means ‘God is with us.’)

Were you confused when you read this passage in context?

In context, it is dealing with the present situation going on in the land of Judah. Is this passage referring to Isaiah’s son that would be born? Scholars disagree over the word translated there as virgin also and some translate it as being a ‘young woman’.

Matthew 1:23 spells these words out for us, “Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son. They shall call his name Immanuel;” which is, begging interpreted, “God with us.”

Have you noticed how much of the Old Testament deals with their everyday life but there is a hidden message in the situation pointing us to the Messiah? Abraham and Isaac, Esther and the saving of the Jewish nation, and on and on and on… Even when Jesus told parables He was pointing the people to “hidden meanings’ that only “those who had eyes could see”.

“My Beloved’s Vineyard”... Ahhh, Isaiah certainly had eyes that truly saw his Father!

Another amazing and well-known passage that you may have heard is found in Isaiah 9:1-2. It is also found in Matthew 4:15-16, “In the land of Zebulun and of Naphtali, beside the sea, beyond the Jordan River, in Galilee where so many Gentiles live, the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light. And for those who lived in the land where death casts its shadow, a light has shined.”

Do you know that Isaiah was quoted sixty-six times in the New Testament? God was speaking, but only a small remnant was listening and turning their eyes to see the LIVING GOD.

What about us today; do we have our Father’s Eyes?