Before Billy Graham there was Billy Sunday. People used to marvel at how a Presbyterian minister with a fourth-grade education could get so worked up about the love of God that when he preached, he would literally rip his clothes. And yet, men of intellect and privilege would hang on his every word. They’d follow him around going from meeting to meeting listening to his words and studying his mannerisms, trying to find the secret of his passion. (They did the same thing with Billy Graham and many concluded it was his eyes!)
But to understand the passion of Billy Sunday you have to go back to a time four months before his birth. Billy was born in 1892, four months after his father was killed in the Civil War. When he was six, his mother took him and his 8-year-old brother to spend the night at a hotel. The next morning when she woke them up, she had tears in her eyes. Billy asked her, “What’s wrong, Mama?” His mother replied, “I can’t afford to raise you ‘cause I’ve got no money, so I’m sending you to Glenwood to the veteran’s orphanage.” And with that she put a ticket into their hands and put them on the train, never to see them again.
When the conductor came around to collect the tickets he said, “These tickets don’t go as far as Glenwood. I’m going to have to put you off the train.” Billy pleaded with him, “Don’t do it Mister. We’ve got no money ‘cause we’ve got no daddy. He was killed in the war.” To which the conductor said, “I fought in the war, too. Ain’t nobody gonna put you off this train.” So he let them ride all the way to Glenwood. And when they arrived he took both boys by the hand and walked them all the way to the orphanage. For the next ten years he was the only person to ever come and visit them.
When Billy Sunday came to know Christ, you know what he said? He said, “I now have someone who will hold my hand and never let go.” To understand Billy Sunday and his passion for Christ you have to know the scars.
It’s something like that when you come to much of the prophetic literature of the Scriptures. One of the great fallacies today is the notion that the prophets of Scripture were men who stood outside the judgment of God. They didn’t. They all occupied the same context as the ones to whom they spoke.
So this Sunday we come again to the prophecy of Isaiah, Chapter 14. Just like Ezekiel 28, Isaiah is speaking within a particular historic context, and yet his words apply to other times and other contexts.
For instance, in Isaiah 14 the prophet is speaking about God’s judgment to come on Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon. The funny thing is that Isaiah was speaking 200 years before God brought judgment on Nebuchadnezzar. Moreover, like Ezekiel, Isaiah is repeating words of God that were addressed to Lucifer before the beginning of time. In fact, as we will see on Sunday, time as we know it begins in Genesis 1:2 after the fall of Lucifer and will end when God carries out His sentence against him. Time is then, like a parenthesis between eternity past and eternity future. It is only a fraction of God’s plan.
This week, therefore, we are going to dig more deeply into two texts: Isaiah 14:3-20 and II Peter 1:1-11 and take a closer look at Lucifer’s rebellious will. Here we will see:
1. The Setting of Isaiah’s words in verses 3 & 4
2. The Strategy of Lucifer in verses 13 & 14
3. God’s Solution in II Peter 1:1
4. The Significance in II Peter 1:11
In preparation for Sunday you may wish to consider the following:
1. What is meant by the term “sequential revelation” when applied to prophecy?
2. What parallels can be drawn between Nebuchadnezzar (see Daniel) and Lucifer?
3. What grounds are there for applying God’s word to the King of Babylon to Lucifer and his fall in eternity past?
4. What do you make of Lucifer’s five “I wills” in verses 13 & 14?
5. How are they distinguished from one another?
6. What can you discover about Lucifer’s will in the name he uses for God in verse 14?
7. How is Jesus the remedy to Lucifer’s ruinous strategy?
8. How comfortable are you with saying that Jesus is not only the second Adam, but the second Lucifer?
9. How does time fit into God’s plan regarding Lucifer’s challenge?
10. How is communion related to all of this?
See you Sunday as we gather around His table on this World Communion Sunday!
