Isaiah 49:7-26
Amen. Turn to Isaiah 49 and we
are going to look at verse seven and then eight through 13. I
know it says through 26, but I’ve chickened out. So Isaiah 49, seven through 13,
seven or seven stands alone in a sense. Remember, um, we’re
in the second servant song last week. The servant gave a little
fuss. I’ve labored in vain. I’ve spent
my strength for nothing in vanity. My right is with the Lord and
my recompense is with God. And so now we get the answer
that God, the father gives to God, the son, the king to the
servant. And so here God’s word, Isaiah 49, beginning at seven. Thus says the Lord, the redeemer
of Israel and his holy one, to one deeply despised, abhorred
by the nation, the servant of rulers. Kings shall see and arise,
princes, and they shall prostrate themselves because of the Lord
who is faithful, the Holy One of Israel who has chosen you. Thus says the Lord in a time
of favor, I have answered you in a day of salvation, I have
helped you. I will keep you and give you as a covenant to the
people, to establish the land, to apportion the desolate heritages,
saying to the prisoners, come out. To those who are in darkness,
appear. They shall feed along the ways.
On all bare heights shall be their pasture. They shall not
hunger or thirst, neither scorching wind nor sun shall strike them,
for he who has pity on them will lead them, and by springs of
water will guide them. And I will make all my mountains
a road, and my highways shall be raised up. Behold, these shall
come from afar, and behold, these from the north and from the west,
and these from the land of Syene. Sing for joy, O heavens, and
exult, O earth. Break forth, O mountains, into
singing, for the Lord has comforted his people and will have compassion
on his afflicted. Amen. This is God’s gracious
word. Remember last week we talked
about how when you come to a word, particularly in the Old Testament,
you got to think in your mind, how is this word used here? Remember
servant. Sometimes Israel, the nation
is called a servant. Now it’s the son of God. It’s
Jesus who’s called the servant. Then you’ve got the whole, my
son, Israel as a nation is called my son. but then Jesus is called
my son. And then you have, uh, things,
um, uh, prophecies like out of Egypt, I’ve called my son. Uh,
I’ve had a disobedient son. Now I’ve got an obedient one.
And so it brought us to remember, it brought us to reminder that
Jesus is the faithful servant. Israel is the unfaithful one.
Jesus is the faithful son. And Israel is the unfaithful
son. And that whole picture comes
into focus when we see Judah and Jerusalem destroyed. We see
Israel carried off into Babylon by exile and into Assyria by
exile. And so you get these big pictures,
these big themes that come to pass. And tonight you get more. You’re going to see echoes of
the exodus from Egypt. You’re going to see exodus of
the conquest of the promised land, and you’re going to see
little echoes or shadows of Psalm 23, the Lord is my shepherd. He leads me beside still waters. So God’s deliverance, God’s provision
for Israel is all through this passage. And remember, this passage
is an answer to the servant of Yahweh. Now we think of Jesus
never complaining. He took his lumps, he did his
duty, and not a word came from his mouth. And so this is a bit
strange to read Isaiah 49, one through six and think, Hmm, Jesus,
the perfect one, is complaining. But at any rate, that’s what
we get, and now we have the response of Yahweh to his servant. The
response of Yahweh to his cast down and heavy-hearted and weary
son, the servant. And he’s gonna tell him, your
distress will soon end, the tides will shift, and you will no longer
be dismissed or treated like the help. things are going to
be different. Kings will recognize you and
they will bow down to you. So remember, a big picture in
Isaiah is God wants his name known to the ends of the earth.
We think of that as worldwide salvation. How did he initiate
letting his name be made known to the ends of the earth? Well,
first it was through Adam in the garden. Be fruitful, multiply,
fill the earth with godly offspring. Well, sin came And the world
was mostly filled with the offspring of Cain, so much so that God
repented or was sorry that he had made man on the face of the
earth. And so he found favor and Noah found favor in his eyes.
And through one man with his sons, he saved a godly line who
would ultimately fill the earth with righteous people. Remember
after the ark. Go out from the ark, be fruitful, multiply, fill
the earth. Remember the great commission,
go into all the world, make disciples. So this be fruitful, multiply
and fill the earth with godly offspring who will spread the
glory of God has always been a theme. It gets just bigger
and bigger. Now Jesus is coming on the scene
to help make that happen. And so worldwide salvation is
the big deal. Now, The way God was working
out that worldwide salvation at the time of Israel was he
put that little bitty nation on a little bitty spot of land
and they built up Jerusalem. They built up not only the temple
and the palace, but during David and Solomon’s time, people came
in looking at that nation that was a light to the world and
saying, whatever you’re drinking, whatever you’re having, that’s
what I want. It seems good. And so nations could come to
Israel. They could put their faith in
God like Rahab did, or perhaps Ruth or other outsiders. Well, what’s the problem? Israel
stopped listening to God. They dismissed God wholesale.
They began to worship other gods. They began to go after idols.
Their hearts turned astray. Prophet after prophet, king after
king, warning after warning, didn’t take. And so now God is
going to send his servant and remember his servant really is
twofold. They have a geographical problem
and Cyrus is going to take care of that. Cyrus the Persian is
going to issue a decree, go back to the promised land. Here’s
all your stuff that we ripped off from the temple or that the
Babylonians ripped off because Babylonians are no more, the
Persians took all their spoil. So Cyrus, the Persian, is gonna
send them back. He’ll solve the geographical
problem, but only Jesus can solve the heart issue. And so we get
the servant who can solve the heart issue. So just think of
a simple question as we approach this passage. What can wash away
your sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
What can I do to keep covenant with God and live? And the answer
is nothing. You can’t wash away your sins
and you can’t keep covenant. So you need one who can wash
away your sins, that’s Jesus. And you need one who can keep
covenant on your behalf. And isn’t that the blend of the
doctrine of justification? God sees me just as if I’ve never
sinned and just as if I have always obeyed. So his covenant
keeping and his covenant redemption are both ours by faith. So a
couple things we’ll think about just in the next few minutes.
One is the servant is going to be told, lift up your head, you
know, quit drooping. It’s going to be fine. The second thing
is it’s a time of favor. That’s what was echoed in second
Corinthians five and six. Then there’s going to be a march
to Zion. And then my usual favorite way to put it, saved people sing. So first let’s think in verse
seven about the servant needs to lift up his head. So the servant
is cast down and I always think of Andy Griffith reading Ichabod
Crane to Opie. It was the very night in which
Ichabod was heavy hearted and crestfallen. That’s the night
all the women get paraded in by Barney so that Andy can get
a husband. And so they read that part of
the story and then the doorbell keeps ringing. So it was the
very night in which the servant of God was heavy hearted and
crestfallen. And so he gets a speech from
the king, from God, the father, to lift up your head. And in
verse seven, it says, thus says Yahweh, thus says the Redeemer
of Israel, thus says the Holy One. So you got three great titles,
Yahweh, Redeemer, and Holy One. And it’s addressed to the deeply
despised one. It’s addressed to the one abhorred
by the nation, his own people. And it’s to the one who is the
servant of rulers, or you might say the help, right? This echoes in the next servant
song, Isaiah 53. He was despised and rejected
by men. What was he that we would look
on him, I believe Isaiah says. And so you’ve got the suffering
servant, the servant of Yahweh, Head hanging down because his
ratings are low. People are burning his dealerships. But the thing he has to remember,
the thing we have to remember is we don’t serve people who
judge us. Remember Paul a couple times
says, what is it to me what you think of me? My aim is to please
God. And so when we get low ratings
as servants of God, now if we deserve low ratings, we should
probably take our lumps. But we need to remember we are
Yahweh’s servant and not the servant of the people. I remember
a fellow when I was in seminary as another pastor, and he always
gave his advice, solicit it or not. And he said, I remember
he said something like this, the pastor is not the help. That’s
what he said, and I never figured out what he meant by that. But
you can see very quickly here, I do jiggle toilet handles. You just need to do it sometimes,
right? You’re the one in the church building. But the suffering servant
here is facing great hardship. His own nation, his own people
don’t listen to him, they don’t love him, they don’t revere him.
And God is saying, hey, you’re my servant. I’ve chosen you. I’ve delighted in you. And yes,
they despise you. Yes, they abhor you. But one
day, they’re all gonna figure out who you are, what you are,
and even the kings of the earth will rise up and they will bow
down before you. I don’t know if y’all noticed,
but when I was reading verse seven and got to they shall prostrate
themselves, I have a really hard time with that because my whole
life, everybody I’ve heard of gets prostate cancer, right? And it’s prostate cancer. So
y’all probably heard me hesitate and I was thinking which is it?
I don’t know. I’ve been so messed up by people but There’s a part
of the body that gets cancer, but this is the bow down, right? This is the fall before. And
Jesus will be adored by kings. He will be honored by those in
the earth. Even Israel will one day come
to adore him. It’s all about the change. So
how do you change the attitude of the servant? You give them
hope. It’s not always gonna be this
way. I think of Daniel, remember Daniel went off into the land
of Babylon and he gets picked to be the best and brightest.
And, you know, we’re gonna juice him up with some steak and ale,
something like that. And the best and the brightest
are gonna be the best and brightest in Babylon. And Daniel says,
hold on a minute, I gotta eat veggies. And then there’s the
whole bow down to the tower when you hear the music and he says,
I’m gonna pray to my own God. And so there’s the lion’s den
and there’s all the rest. And what happens to the king
when he sees Daniel stick with his God’s plan? Well, he aims
to please the father, and the father honors him. And so what
does the king say? He says, this Daniel’s God is
a lone God, and he should be served. And so we ought to remember
that in the midst of maybe a period of being a servant, cast down,
heavy hearted, crestfallen, we serve God. And others are gonna
say, hmm, there’s something about this person. Even one day, maybe
people, maybe they won’t prostrate. Did I get that right before you?
But you get the idea. God has a way of turning the
tables. He has a way of turning the tide. He has a way of lifting
up our heads. And so that’s what verse seven
shows us. King shall see and arise and all this because the
Lord who is faithful all this because our God is faithful Well,
then the second thing is a time of favor and this is what Paul
was speaking of in 2nd Corinthians chapter There’s a stretch where
God is open, God is saving, God is relenting his judgment and
his wrath, and he’s offering hope, he’s offering salvation,
he’s offering a way. And of course, we know that way
is through faith in Jesus and his finished work. And you have
to go in the arc of safety while the door is still open. So this
time of favor, verses eight and nine, zeroes in on the time where
Babylon has fulfilled their time in exile. They were in Babylon
about 70 years. That was enough time for the
land of Israel to lie fallow for all the Sabbath years that
Israel had skipped. And what happens after every
70th year? Well, on Wednesday nights, we’ve
been digging through the Pentateuch, we’ve been digging through the
Old Covenant, and every 70 year is the year of Jubilee. That’s
when the land goes back to the original owners. That’s when
all debts are paid and the people can hit reset. And so that’s the time of favor
here. Covenant keeping Yahweh is going
to give favor to his people who’ve been in exile. Their punishment
has run the course. He’s gonna get their geographical
problem taken care of by Cyrus. But the servant is going to take
care of their heart problem. Well, first of all, you got the
servant who’s cast down and heavy hearted, and he’s heard the servant’s
cry, and he says to his servant, there’s a time of favor. So that
time of favor is to the servant, but also to Israel as a nation. And notice what he says, in a
time of favor, I’ve answered you. God always hears our cry. In a time of salvation, I have
helped you. I will keep you. We like that
keep word. And I will give you as a covenant
to the people. And now look at the salvation. A covenant of people to establish
the land, to apportion the desolate heritages, saying to the prisoners,
come out, and to those who are in darkness, appear. So when
God makes a covenant, when he makes a promise, when he swears
an oath, he swears it by his own name because there is no
other name in heaven or earth by which he can swear. So he
swears it by himself, and he promised to give Abraham, an
offspring, was it grapes and green kids, give them offspring
and give them a land and to give them a heritage. He promises
David a king on the throne forever. He promises all these things.
And no matter what his people do in wickedness or unrighteousness,
he’s going to keep that covenant, but he’s going to make a payment
for the sin, right? And so the servant is going to
keep covenant on behalf of the people. And you get echoes in
this little stretch of the original promise of the land. You get
echoes of Joshua, I think it’s 14 of them. making their entrance,
their conquest in the land. And all the tribes, all 12 of
them, get their apportionments. They get their boundaries. Maybe five, six years ago, we
went through Joshua and sounded like going down to the surveyor’s
office and opening up those big drawers and pulling out the plats
and reading, you know, from this point fence. And from that point
there, there was something about rocks and who used to live there
and who got run off. That was Joshua 14. And why was
that so important? It was because God was keeping
his promise, his covenant promise to Israel. And we might think
of this as God has promised to go ahead of us into heaven and
prepare a place for us. Remember, Jesus says, let not
your hearts be troubled. In my father’s house are many rooms,
many mansions. If I go there and prepare a place,
I will return and take you to be there where I am. Be with
me. You see all those covenant promises,
covenant blessings just roll over and over in the Bible. You
read your Bible, you see it’s not that complicated. God loves
and God keeps and God rescues, God redeems. So the people in
this time of favor need God’s blessing. They need his blessing
through Cyrus to bring them home. But most importantly, they need
a change of heart. They need a change of raiment,
a change of clothing. They need to give up their filthy
rags for the righteous robes of Christ. They need a heart
change. They need regeneration. And so
all that comes in this time of favor. And how does Paul use
this passage? Well, he tells the stinky Corinthians who are
rotten church people, he says, Jesus is offering salvation.
You better take it. And then he says of himself, And his other
apostles were not going to hinder anybody from getting it. Apparently
what’s going on there in Corinth is these bands of teachers that
would go around and they boast about, oh, I’m a great teacher.
Don’t you love me? It’s probably like TBN or something. You know,
I have a jet and you don’t. Well, here’s a little stubby,
ugly, beaten Paul. And they’re saying, what do you
make of him? He’s nothing. And he says, we don’t make anything
of ourselves. We just make much of Jesus. And so now is the time
of salvation. And so to the Corinthians, he
says, quit looking for all the flashy stuff. It’s simple. It’s about Christ. It’s not about
the band of traveling servants and their watches and jets, that
sort of thing. So it’s a time of favor. Don’t
let the day of salvation pass. Seek the Lord while he may be
found. Call on him while he was near. The next little thing that
pops up is a march to Zion. And that’s at the end of nine.
and goes through 12. And just listen to the language.
They shall feed along the ways. On the bare heights shall be
their pasture. They shall not hunger or thirst, neither scorching
wind nor sun will strike them. For he who has pity on them will
lead them, and by springs of water will guide them. I will
make all my mountains a road. My highways shall be raised up.
Behold, these shall come from afar. Behold, from the south,
the west, and even those from the land of Zion. You get echoes
of Psalm 23. You get echoes of the Exodus.
You get echoes of the wilderness years. I don’t know if it’s the
case now. Jay probably remembers this as
a police officer. It was really cool to hang out at Rego Mart
back in the day. You remember that? Everybody
in high school parked up at Rego Mart on Friday night. And I remember
I made my pilgrimage to Rego Mart. And the song life is a
highway was really popular. Life is a highway. I want to
ride it. Um, and, and I think of that, uh, biblically life
as a pilgrimage, right? Pilgrims progress. We’re aliens,
we’re strangers, we are sojourners. Our tent pegs aren’t driven too
deep because God may call us to pull up stakes and go to the
heavenly city very soon. So life is a highway, life is
a pilgrimage. There’s echoes of Psalm 23, there’s echoes of
the march from Egypt through the wilderness into the promised
land. But also think of what is said in the New Testament,
we who were far off, We who were aliens and strangers and exiles,
we have been brought near by the blood of Jesus. And so how
do we get to Zion? How do we get to the heavenly
city? It’s only through the blood of Jesus Christ. And that leads
us to the last thing, and that’s my usual saved people sing. Verse
13 says, sing for joy. It’s got a little creation here. Sing for joy, O heavens. Exult,
O earth. Break forth, O mountains, into singing, for the Lord has
comforted his people. and will have compassion on his
afflicted. You jump to the end of the Bible to Revelation 21
and 22. And what does God say? There’s
no more pain. There’s no more suffering, no
more sin, sickness, sorrow. The dwelling place of God is
with man. I will be their God. They will be my people. You got
the city, you got its walls. And it’s a perfect square, it’s
beautiful, streets of gold, trees of life, rivers of life, all
the rest. And who stays outside the gates? Who stays outside
the walls? It’s those who didn’t trust Jesus,
it’s the wicked. But who gets inside in the arms
of God Almighty in His presence? It’s those who put their faith,
their hope and trust. And so we speak of deliverance,
we speak of God’s comfort and His compassion on the afflicted.
And like Miriam and Moses, when they crossed the Red Sea on dry
land, and then the sea came back, swallowed Pharaoh and his armies,
we sing unto the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously, the
horse and rider thrown into the sea. But then we come to church,
and we got church songs. And what do saved people do?
They sing. And here’s what we need to land
on and think about tonight is this. How often do you think
about how sinful you are how undeserving you are of God’s
grace and mercy, and how rich and wonderful is the gift of
Jesus. That’s something we ought to think on. We will think on
it forever, but we ought not let the things of this earth
crowd that from our minds. We who were far off had been
brought near by the blood of Jesus and how sweet and special
that is. Let’s do pray. Lord, we give you thanks for
loving us with an everlasting love, for being patient with
us when we are We’re thick-headed, we’re stiff-necked, we’re bone-headed.
We thank you that by your grace, by your spirit, you open our
eyes to see our sin. You cause us to tremble at your
threatenings. You give us the grace to embrace
your promises. And now as servants with new
hearts, we want to yield our lives to the new obedience that
is ours to live in Jesus Christ. Hear us and help us as we make
our prayer now. In Christ’s great name, amen.