Well good evening everyone and welcome to my forty ninth episode. Tonight, I want to talk to you about why I prefer podcasting over making videos. I also want to examine Isaiah chapter nine. I want to be clear that I’m not comparing podcasting to making videos – I actually think that they are two different products entirely. I think some forms of information transfer work optimally in the form of podcasts. Other forms of information transfer work optimally in videos. For someone like me, it has been beneficial for me to focus on one domain instead of trying to be successful in both domains. Using this focus, I am able to bring you a polished and clear podcast episode once per week.

Now I want to talk a little bit about why podcasting is important and what benefits can come from following one. Podcasting is like a Gutenberg revolution. This is because podcasting has allowed masses of people to discover what was previously frozen time. By way of analogy consider eBay. When eBay emerged, people all over the world were able to sell items in their household that previously did not have a market. Before eBay, your market included anyone in your geographical area. After eBay, your market became the whole world. This allowed people to turn items around the house that you might think of as frozen capital into money. Podcasting does the same thing with your time. You can take a podcast anywhere and all you have to do is listen to it. This means you can enjoy a podcast while you are doing housework, sitting in traffic, or experiencing a slow night at work. This creates what is called found time. It’s all of the time you would have spent doing nothing but waiting for the moment you could put on a video or read a book. Podcasting is different from reading because reading requires your visual attention. There are many moments throughout your day when you can’t give your visual attention to anything other than the tasks at hand. Watching videos is the same way. With videos, you usually need an internet connection and a device with a screen, as well as adequate time to sit down and give the video your visual attention.

If you don’t subscribe to a podcast already, I highly recommend that you try to work one into your life. I can’t really express the impact of filling some of that previously frozen time with good teaching. It will add a whole different dimension to your thinking and your ability to navigate effectively in your life. It’s a little bit like when you have an important conversation with a person in your life. You leave that conversation a changed person in some way. Your thinking and your understanding has changed. This communication is similar to the effect you can enjoy from listening to a good podcast regularly.

So those are my main reasons for choosing podcasting as my means of getting information out into the world. I just want to take a moment to say that I like videos and I enjoy making them when I do make them. And in some instances, videos are able to do a superior job in accomplishing what you are trying to achieve. Whether or not you produce a podcast or a video is largely dependent on your needs and goals. Okay, so now that we’ve covered that topic, I want to move on to our study of Isaiah chapter nine. As we go through this chapter, I’d like you to keep the following three questions in your mind:

1. Are you burdened by your Christianity? Why?
2. Is there a right way to fail at something?
3. How can we preserve our relationships during a judgment?

Now I’m going to read the chapter to you in its entirety. Please enjoy.

Isaiah 9 New Living Translation (NLT)

Hope in the Messiah

9 [a]Nevertheless, that time of darkness and despair will not go on forever. The land of Zebulun and Naphtali will be humbled, but there will be a time in the future when Galilee of the Gentiles, which lies along the road that runs between the Jordan and the sea, will be filled with glory.

2 [b]The people who walk in darkness
will see a great light.
For those who live in a land of deep darkness,[c]
a light will shine.
3 You will enlarge the nation of Israel,
and its people will rejoice.
They will rejoice before you
as people rejoice at the harvest
and like warriors dividing the plunder.
4 For you will break the yoke of their slavery
and lift the heavy burden from their shoulders.
You will break the oppressor’s rod,
just as you did when you destroyed the army of Midian.
5 The boots of the warrior
and the uniforms bloodstained by war
will all be burned.
They will be fuel for the fire.

6 For a child is born to us,
a son is given to us.
The government will rest on his shoulders.
And he will be called:
Wonderful Counselor,[d] Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
7 His government and its peace
will never end.
He will rule with fairness and justice from the throne of his ancestor David
for all eternity.
The passionate commitment of the Lord of Heaven’s Armies
will make this happen!

The Lord’s Anger against Israel

8 The Lord has spoken out against Jacob;
his judgment has fallen upon Israel.
9 And the people of Israel[e] and Samaria,
who spoke with such pride and arrogance,
will soon know it.
10 They said, “We will replace the broken bricks of our ruins with finished stone,
and replant the felled sycamore-fig trees with cedars.”

11 But the Lord will bring Rezin’s enemies against Israel
and stir up all their foes.
12 The Syrians[f] from the east and the Philistines from the west
will bare their fangs and devour Israel.
But even then the Lord’s anger will not be satisfied.
His fist is still poised to strike.

13 For after all this punishment, the people will still not repent.
They will not seek the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.
14 Therefore, in a single day the Lord will destroy both the head and the tail,
the noble palm branch and the lowly reed.
15 The leaders of Israel are the head,
and the lying prophets are the tail.
16 For the leaders of the people have misled them.
They have led them down the path of destruction.
17 That is why the Lord takes no pleasure in the young men
and shows no mercy even to the widows and orphans.
For they are all wicked hypocrites,
and they all speak foolishness.
But even then the Lord’s anger will not be satisfied.
His fist is still poised to strike.

18 This wickedness is like a brushfire.
It burns not only briers and thorns
but also sets the forests ablaze.
Its burning sends up clouds of smoke.
19 The land will be blackened
by the fury of the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.
The people will be fuel for the fire,
and no one will spare even his own brother.
20 They will attack their neighbor on the right
but will still be hungry.
They will devour their neighbor on the left
but will not be satisfied.
In the end they will even eat their own children.[g]
21 Manasseh will feed on Ephraim,
Ephraim will feed on Manasseh,
and both will devour Judah.
But even then the Lord’s anger will not be satisfied.
His fist is still poised to strike.

Okay, so beginning in verse one we see the finitude of darkness and despair. Whatever hardship you are going through, you can be certain that God will bring you out of it if you trust in him. The land of Zebulun and Naphtali being humbled describes a very difficult process for these people, but God would bring an even greater light out of that darkness when Jesus came and Galilee was filled with his glory. Romans 8:28 says, “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” For the child of God, darkness and despair are only temporary.

In these first seven verses we see a description of Christ’s future ministry. This passage of Isaiah is actually quoted in Matthew 4:15-16. The territories of Zebulun and Naphtali represent the northern kingdom as a whole. These were the same territories where Jesus grew up and often ministered; this is why they would see “a great light.” In John 1:9, the apostle John refers to Christ as the “true light.” And in John 8:12 Jesus refers to himself as “the light of the world.” Notice in verse two how it says, “The people who walk in darkness will see a great light.” I just want to add here that no one is ever beyond the healing power of Jesus Christ. If you’re still breathing, it’s not too late for you. There is nothing you could have done in your past that reaches beyond the grace and mercy of Jesus. There is no place on earth that is dark enough or evil enough to shut out the light of God.

In verse four we read, “For you will break the yoke of their slavery and lift the heavy burden from their shoulders. You will break the oppressor’s rod, just as you did when you destroyed the army of Midian. The idea here is that these people were enslaved by their sin. And that brings us to our first question: Are you burdened by your Christianity? Why? Many people discuss Christianity as if it is like slavery to God. That’s not the right way of thinking about it. Christ is who sets you free from your bondage to sin. In John 8:31 we read, “So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, ‘If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” In the West, there’s so much focus on freedom and personal rights that many people have forgotten the necessity of responsibility and voluntary limitation. Let me explain. You are like a train. As a train, you could desperately want to be set down on open ground and be free to roam wherever you desire. But all that will happen is you will get stuck in the mud. You can’t go anywhere without the railroad tracks. Human life is the same way. You actually cannot move in any direction unless you first specify an aim. When you specify an aim, you automatically rule out many things that are not relevant to your aim. That is what it means to take on voluntary limitation. On the other side of the coin, if you refuse to commit to anything then you will end up going nowhere. You will get stuck in a pit – and the sense of meaning will drain from your life. So when Christ frees you from the bondage of sin, it’s partially because he gives you someone to aim up toward – namely himself. This gives you God’s prescribed set of limitations which are one of the keys to moving forward into a rich and meaningful life.

In verse six we see four different names attributed to Jesus. He is called “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace.” These names provide such amazing insight into God’s character. He is called wonderful counselor because he is the one we should turn to when we need advice about the trials – and the successes – of this world. We can turn to God for advice by reading and meditating on his word as well as through prayer. He is called Mighty God because he is the creator of the universe and is sovereign over all of it. Try as we might, we will never be able to defy God and succeed in that effort. He is called Everlasting Father because he is with us no matter where we go and he will never leave us. We can take refuge in him and be sure that he will save us and bring us into his presence at the end of our lives. He is called Prince of Peace because his judgment is perfect. This world has never known perfect justice and will never know perfect justice until Christ establishes his reign. Humanity has been dogged by war ever since the dawn of time, but we can be certain that the world will finally know perfect peace when all of creation is abiding by God’s precepts.

Now let’s take a look at verses eight through ten:

The Lord has spoken out against Jacob; his judgment has fallen upon Israel. And the people of Israel and Samaria, who spoke with such pride and arrogance, will soon know it. They said, “We will replace the broken bricks of our ruins with finished stone, and replant the felled sycamore-fig trees with cedars.”

This brings me to my second question: Is there a right way to fail at something? It looks to me like these people tried to move on without God and when they failed, they didn’t stop to learn. They doubled-down on their efforts. I think failing presents us with an amazing opportunity to learn. But we will only be able to take advantage of that opportunity if we have humility. In fact, it is possible to be so proud that you become blind to the learning opportunity all together. You never see it. And that dooms you to repeat your failures over and over. There’s also something interesting about failure. People are terrified of it. Many people are so afraid to fail that they never commit to an aim to begin with. You see, the moment you specify your aim you also specify the conditions of your failure. But if you never specify an aim, then you can blame something or someone else instead of taking responsibility for your failure. Many people do this. They will establish some vague goal in their life without establishing a direction to start moving toward it. They have no aim. Then when they fail and things don’t go their way they cast blame on the system or on the world for being unfair to them and oppressing them. By this they attempt to absolve themselves of the responsibility for their own failure. All of that deceptive work is motivated by the fear of failing. I would say the right way to fail is to understand that failure isn’t necessarily bad. Failure represents a moment where you can find out where you went wrong and make adjustments to yourself. This means you will be less wrong in the future – and that will pay dividends.

So the people of Israel were haughty and proud in their failures. Instead of turning back to God they decided they would pursue their own way with even more zeal. They brought God’s judgment down upon themselves even harder – to the point where we pick up in verse twenty:

They will attack their neighbor on the right but will still be hungry. They will devour their neighbor on the left but will not be satisfied. In the end they will even eat their own children. Manasseh will feed on Ephraim, Ephraim will feed on Manasseh, and both will devour Judah. But even then the Lord’s anger will not be satisfied. His fist is still poised to strike.

So imagine your nation turns away from God. This is a description of the chaos that will ensue every time. This is a description of people turning on each other and attacking each other from the depths of their confusion. This is what happens when a nation pursues a Neo-Marxist ideology that is mixed with a anemic, relativistic moral code. People will kill each other to gain power. When your nation does not have a low resolution grand narrative of life upon which to unite under, then there is nothing left to do but fight for power. Without God, whoever wins the most power has the most legitimate worldview. And when you try to enforce equality of outcome by waging a war on competence – your cities burn and your people starve to death. Families and neighborhoods collapse and turn on each other. This is a description of the poisonous world without God.

That brings us to our third and final question: How can we preserve our relationships during a judgment? Let’s imagine the West doesn’t turn itself back toward sanity. Let’s imagine the craziness runs rampant until God steps in and levels judgment. If we are alive during that judgment, we need to be sure that our faith is strong and that our relationships with our families and neighbors are founded on love – not on gain. Examine the relationships in your life. How many of them are born from a value that you gain from the other person? How many of them are born from unconditional love? How many people in your life do you profess to love only because they can give you what you want and need? If you had nothing left to offer but your love, would your relationships survive that? If your answer is no, I would encourage you to start rebuilding these relationships on the proper foundation – faith in Jesus Christ and unconditional love. If you have relationships that are toxic and cannot be rebuilt, let them go. Make no mistake: if you cling to the wrong people instead of to God, you will drown in the chaos when it emerges. Faith, hope, and love are the eternal attributes of life and they are the attributes you must use to preserve your relationships during difficult times.

If you find this content valuable, feel free to share it and to use it in your own studies. If you’d like to support this podcast, you can do so at http://www.patreon.com/michaelhbaun. There is a link in the description. Your generosity goes a long way to promoting the growth of this enterprise and the cause of free speech. Thank you all for joining me this evening, and I will see you in the next episode.