Isaiah 50:4-11
Let’s hear God’s word together.
Isaiah 50, beginning at verse four. The Lord God has given
me the tongue of those who are taught, that I may know how to
sustain with a word him who is weary. Morning by morning he
awakens. He awakens my ear to hear as
those who are taught. The Lord God has opened my ear
and I was not rebellious. I turned, not backward. I gave
my back to those who strike and my cheeks to those who pull out
the beard. I hid not my face from disgrace
and spitting, but the Lord God helps me. Therefore, I have not
been disgraced. Therefore, I have set my face
like a flint and I know that I shall not be put to shame.
He who vindicates me is near. Who will contend with me? Let
us stand together. Who is my adversary? Let him
come near to me. Behold, the Lord God helps me.
Who will declare me guilty? Behold, all of them will wear
out like a garment. The moth will eat them up. Who
among you fears the Lord and obeys the voice of his servant?
Let him who walks in darkness and has no light, trust in the
name of the Lord and rely on his God. Behold, all you who
kindle a fire, who equip yourselves with burning torches, walk by
the light of your fire and by the torches that you have kindled.
This you have from my hand. You shall lie down in torment. Amen. The word of the living
God. I love Andy Griffith’s definition
of a soliloquy when he talks about Shakespeare and he talks
about probably Hamlet’s to be or not to be. He says a soliloquy
is where you stand off by yourself, you look way off in the distance
and you talk to yourself. And then he goes on to say in
some areas you would be taken away. by the men in white coats
if you did that. But maybe you’ve studied enough
literature, you’ve studied enough Shakespeare and other forms of
plays and whatever, and so you understand a soliloquy to be
a first, was it a first person speech, a person talking by themselves,
about themselves, and it’s for the benefit of others, but it
sounds like they’re having a conversation with themselves something of
that nature. Well, that’s what Jesus is doing
in this passage. That’s what the servant is doing
in this third of the servant songs of the book of Isaiah. He is, he is giving a speech
about his life and about his ministry. Remember, well, you probably recognized
as this passage was read, you probably began to recognize some,
some new Testament, uh, things that popped out at you, uh, things
that he said in these couple of verses that made you think
of this event in Jesus life or that event in Jesus life. And
you would be right. Uh, this passage is best understood
in light of the new Testament, best understood in light of the
coming and the ministry of the Lord Jesus. Uh, in a sense, it
is like the Christological Psalms, maybe closest to Psalm 22 and
also Psalm 69. Some have probably properly referred
to this as a Gethsemane Psalm. You catch glimpses of Jesus’
utterings around his life, death, his passion, and his ministry
on our behalf as last week in Jerusalem. And so this message
from Jesus is to the weary ones. You may be weary, but in particular,
he’s speaking to the weary ones who are off in Babylon, off in
exile. They’re being chastised and chastened
for their former sins while they disobeyed God. And so they’ve
been in Babylon. And you can imagine whether it’s
your life now or their life then, after a while, after a bit of
God’s chastening, and remember the whole bit of picking daisies,
he loves me and he loves me not. They perhaps have been picking
daisies and under the weight of God’s rod and his heavy hand
of punishment, they have arrived at the thought, the conclusion,
God loves me not. And so the servant, the son of
God, the savior of the world, gives them reminders in this
passage, gives us reminders. that he loves us with an everlasting
love, even if we are perhaps making a trip to the woodshed,
spiritually speaking. So remember a couple issues they
have. They have a geographical issue.
They’re stuck a thousand miles away in Babylon. And then they
have a sin issue. The one issue is easily resolved
by the decree of Cyrus, who says, I’ll send you back. I’ll give
you all your stuff that was taken by Babylon. Now Cyrus, the Persian,
I’ll send you back. We’ll make a decree. We’ll give
you your money. We’ll give you the treasury of Jerusalem and
the temple. We’ll send you back and you’ll
rebuild and you’ll make a nice outpost of the Persian empire
for us. And, you know, you make them
happy. Let them have their religion. Let them rebuild their houses,
their cities, and their towns. All will go well for wicked King
Cyrus of Persia. But nevertheless, God is using
them to solve the geographical problem. And that’s the easy
one. It’s not that hard to rent a U-Haul, pack it up and drive
somewhere. I mean, maybe you get a flat tire or sit in traffic. But what is more difficult, or
maybe we should say is impossible, is what do you do with your sin?
There’s nothing that is real. There’s nothing that we can do
with our sin. Only Christ can come and wash it away. And so
that’s the reason for the servant songs. So the geographical issue
and the sin issue. A couple of things pop up in
this passage. These are about the life of Jesus.
And so we want to have two responses. One is we want to look at the
life of Jesus and say, wow, thank you, Christ, and put our faith
in those things which he has done for us and bring us great
benefit. But there is a side to this where
we look at Jesus And we imitate what is imitatable, at least
insofar as we must do these things. Now, I’ve been hearing a lot
about Christianity and liberalism in Sunday school. A lot of times
the mainliners or the liberals, they reduce Jesus down to a really
good example that you ought to follow when you’re able. And
yes, there’s some truth to that, but they make that the main thing.
The big thing for us is we want to look to Jesus and lay hold
of what he has done for us, because we could never do it ourselves.
But yes, there are some things in his life and ministry that
are imitatable. Well, the first thing we want to see in verses
four and five, Jesus comes for the weary. Jesus comes for the
weary and says, the Lord God has given me the tongue. of those
who are taught, that I may know how to sustain with a word him
who is weary.” And so Jesus is saying here, I’m a disciple of
my father, my father disciples me, I listen, you people didn’t,
but I listen, and when I bump into people who need an encouraging
word, I am able to give them one. We know the Proverbs, we
know experience an apt word, a word aptly spoken or fitly
spoken is a wonderful thing. When someone gives us a word
in season and we are fainting or we are perhaps all turned
around and discombobulated, that word can help us. And we see
in life, we see in Jesus’ ministry, people that are weary and need
rest and Jesus offering that. Well, the people in Babylon were
unsure. They were at a loss for their
assurance of salvation, picking daisies. They arrived at the
last petal and pulled it. He loves me not. They were deep
in Babylon and they were fainting. And so they needed preaching. They needed encouragement. And
when Jesus came into Israel, his life and ministry was to
the weary. And all that he had heard from
the father, He gave and taught. Remember the famous synagogue
at Galilee speech where Jesus comes in and the reading for
the day is from Isaiah and it talked about Jesus and he reads
it and he goes, by the way, that’s about me. He does the young people
mic drop, right? And walks out and they’re like,
Whoa, he teaches with authority. There was something there. They
were amazed. People throughout his ministry
sought help and health and healing. And when he spoke, they received
it. And so Jesus comes to the weary. And so morning by morning, he
goes on to say in the rest of verse four, he awakens, he awakens
my ear to hear as those who are taught. The Lord has opened my
ear. I was not rebellious. Turn not backwards. Unlike Israel,
unlike the wicked servant Israel, Christ, the good servant, tunes
in to the word of God and he speaks it. Well, in the case
of his temptation with Satan, he tells Satan to buzz off, leave
me alone, quit tempting me. And that’s helpful there. But
he also gives the words of God. You know, we come up with a lot
of cliches in our day. Thoughts and prayers. I don’t
know how many of people’s thoughts I really want. I wouldn’t want
mine. And I do want your prayers. But
we say dumb little things, don’t we? Can I say that? They’re just
kind of trite thoughts and prayers when really we should say the
Lord be with you. Right? We should say, instead of thoughts
and prayers, how about I pray with you now? I’ve never been
turned down, I don’t think, when I’m offered to pray. In fact,
when we get to the end of the shorter catechism and a few weeks
into the Lord’s prayer, it’s going to say that we should pray
with and for others. But we say little goofy things.
We say things like, well, You know, God, God didn’t want this
to happen, right? We say, well, it’s too bad. It’s tragic. Wish, wish God had
done something different. We say all kinds of little trite
things, but that’s not the way Jesus did. Remember he spoke
into tragedy. Lord, why did the, why was this
man born blind? Was it his sin or his parents
sin? Why did the tower fall on all these people? And what does
God or what does Jesus always say? He gives the ultimate answer.
He gives the biblical answer. And so when we’re looking to
Jesus for rest and for apt words, we find them in the scriptures.
We find them in church. We find them among fellow Christians,
but also our best. Speaking into other people’s
lives would be to give them the word of God. Now, we don’t want
to be those that that thump them over the head with the Bible.
But nevertheless, it is good to speak the word to others and
their ears perk up, their heart feels weightless. And perhaps
that is the way it is with you. So the servant is able to speak
to the weary. And so ask the Lord to open your
ears to the word of God. Maybe you’re not in the habit
of turning to the word first. Y’all know my little saying,
and I say it because it’s true with me. The second you turn
on noise every morning, it’s over. And so the longer you can
make it with getting to the word before you get to the noise of
the world, the better off you will be. But God’s words are
for the weary. The second thing that pops up
in this passage is we see in Jesus our surety. That’s a good salvation word. And we see an example. And you
find that in verses five and six, the Lord opened my ear.
I was not rebellious. I turned not backwards. What
did Jesus say a bunch? Not my will, but yours be done. And then he says, I gave my back
to those who strike and my cheeks to those who pluck out the beard.
I hid not my face from disgrace and from spitting. Jesus did
whatever it took to please God. He took the good, he took the
bad, and he took the ugly. He prayed there in Gethsemane,
if it be your will, Lord, take this cup from me, but not my
will, but yours be done. He knew deep down the cup was
coming. He knew deep down there would be spitting and striking
and name calling and crowns of thorns and mocking and reviling. He knew that even in the indignity
of hanging on the cross, he would have not only thieves beside
him mocking, but he would have even the priest, the leaders,
the Romans, all striking at him, speaking at him and plucking
at his beard. And so it’s good to remember
that Jesus, the true Israel, Jesus, the true servant, Jesus,
the sinless savior, who made a sacrifice for our sins, he
endured all these things. And we remember the way of the
master is also the way of the servant. I read a little website
a couple nights a week, and it tells funny things that American
prosperity Christians are doing. And the thing I read a couple
days ago was how one TV preacher gifted another TV preacher a
Bentley convertible. It’s pretty good. I run in the
wrong circles. You know, the preacher circles I run in, they
don’t even pick up the tab. Well, a Bentley convertible. I mean, that’s something. I’d sell it and pay off my mortgage
is probably what I would do. I wouldn’t want to be seen in
that thing, but sell it to one of these NFL draftees. That’s
what you do with that. But the way of the master is
the way of the servant. We live in a world that says
a minister ought to live a grand life. But we read a Bible that
says as ministers and followers of Jesus, it will not be a grand
life. And so Jesus, our surety, Jesus,
our example, he endured all kinds of things. You could say he faced
it all. He had the powers of hell come at him and the temptation
in the wilderness. He had all the powers of the
seed of the serpent come at him when Herod sought to take his
life as a baby boy. He had the demons that possessed
the people he encountered. He had the angry mobs. He had
the stones picked up. He had, of course, it ended up
being the Roman authorities, the Jewish authorities and the
mobs against him. But the faithful and true servant
was faithful and true all the way to the end. And so we may
face some things in our lives and we can look to Jesus and
say, we’re in good company. We can look to Jesus and say,
sure, glad you stuck with it. Because if Jesus failed the mission,
then we would not have righteousness or hope or standing. And so there’s
a bit of encouragement in this for us to be faithful and true. When the going gets tough, you
know, nowadays people quit. When the going gets tough, people
walk. When the going gets tough, people you know, they take a
emotional day. Is that what it is? Uh, emotional
health day. Okay, fine. Not make fun of,
but you know, I grew up, I grew up maybe second, third generation
where you just stuck it out. You just stick it out. And if
you’re out of gas, you figure out how to run on fumes. Uh,
but that’s not the way, uh, that’s not the generation now, but Jesus
gave, gives us a great example as our surety, uh, as our example. to please God and to endure all
kinds of things. You get the picture. I gave my
back to those who strike my cheek, to those who pull out the beard.
I didn’t hide my face. What does Jesus tell us to do?
If someone strikes you on the cheek, then turn the other one.
If somebody asks for your tunic, give them the cloak also. He
talks about how we should turn the other cheek and endure hardship
for his sake. So we have the surety and example. How about the resolve of Jesus,
the resoluteness of Jesus? It’s clear to us in 7 and 8. The Lord God helps me. I haven’t been disgraced. Therefore, I have set my face
like a flint. Probably your minds are thinking
towards Jerusalem, because that’s what Jesus says in Luke 9 and
Matthew 16. And he says, I know that I shall
not be put to shame, for he who vindicates me is near. And he goes on to say, who will
contend with me? Who’s going to take me to court?
Let us stand together. Who’s my adversary? Let him come near
to me. And so we have a picture of Jesus,
the one whose mission was to seek and save the lost. Perhaps
you remember back at Christmas time and New Year’s when we looked
at all the themes around the covenant. And we looked at the
covenant of works where God requires perfect and perpetual obedience
to his law in order to be righteous. Well, Adam, it was possible for
him to have perfect and perpetual obedience to God. He could have
done that. He didn’t. He was tempted and
tried and he faltered and failed. And Eve also with him who gave
him the fruit. And so his covenant of works
failed and he earned the wages of sin, which is death. But Jesus
comes and he fulfills the covenant of works. So in Adam we die,
but in Christ we live. In Adam we disobey, but in Christ
we obey. And so in the covenant of works,
God requires perfect and perpetual obedience to his law. We can’t
achieve that because we’re born with Adam’s sin nature, but we
can achieve it by putting faith in Jesus. He sees us as if we’ve
never sinned every time we broke the law. It’s pardoned. He sees
us also as if we always obeyed, like Jesus. He perfectly and
perpetually obeyed God. And so that’s the covenant of
works. With the covenant of grace, God determined an eternity past
to save sinners to himself through his son, the Lord Jesus. And
remember that pact of redemption, that covenant of redemption,
where an eternity passed, God the Father, God the Son, God
the Holy Spirit, in their divine boardroom, He said, what will
bring us the most glory? It’s to make a world to permit
sin and to go save sinners through Jesus. And so Jesus’ covenant
of redemption, Jesus’ pact of salvation, his mission was to
seek and save the lost. And aren’t we glad he set his
face like a flint towards Jerusalem? His path, his way, his resolve
was there. And so he actively obeyed God. He actively fulfilled all righteousness. But he also took on the scorn
and the pain and the suffering of the cross. And so when we
face setbacks and we face opposition, we can look to a Savior who did
not quit. I don’t know how much you’ve
thought of Jesus life and ministry. I know some of you have seen
the passion and some of those other things. We read about the
emotional life of our Lord Jesus. We read about, you know, the
sweating droplets of blood, the thrombosis, the sweating through
his veins of blood. And we’ve never been pushed to
that before. Maybe we’ve sweated paying some
bills or we’ve prayed over a sick child or we’ve wondered what
to do when you know, everything was stripped from us or taken
from us. Perhaps we have been there, but we have never faced
the cup of wrath. And for sure, we’ve never faced the Roman whips
or the injustice, the worst kind of this life, but that’s what
Jesus faced. And he was resolute. He went
to the cross. And this was an intense battle.
We remember the promise that God made to Eve, your seed, Jesus,
and your seed, he said to Satan, We’ll keep fighting each other.
There’s the seed of Herod. There’s the Philistine, the giant.
There’s, you know, the curse of Balaam we looked at a couple
of Wednesday nights ago. There’s all these things that
are against God and his people. It gets very intense. And yet
Jesus carries on. And we think of missionaries
and biographies, think, Oh, Elizabeth Elliot, she could have just gone
back to Wheaton. But no, she went to the Alcas.
You think of missionaries and others who have just continued
and carry on. And maybe it’s they’re stubborn.
Maybe they’re just nuts or stoic of some sort. But Jesus was resolute. And we look to that and say,
aren’t we glad he was because that’s what achieved our salvation.
But perhaps we could have a little stick-to-itiveness in our Christian
life as well. Well, the fourth thing that pops
up, In verses eight and nine, we read, he who vindicates me
is near. We’re going to see that Jesus
is able to stand. Who will contend with me? So
he goes to trial. Let us stand up together. And so Jesus stands. He stands in the strength of
the Lord. Like he tells us to do in Ephesians
chapter six, with the whole armor of God, we stand strong in the
might or the strength of the Lord. Who will contend with me?
Let us stand together. Who is my adversary? Let him
come near to me. Behold the Lord. God helps me.
Who will declare me guilty? And I wrote a little note here
that says, not Pilate, Remember when Jesus stood before Pilate?
He says, I find nothing wrong. He symbolically washed his hands
of the situation. I find no wrong in this man. And yet you want to put him to
death. And so he walked away. Yet he made it into our creed,
didn’t he? He was crucified under Pontius Pilate. And so Jesus
stands. He stands on the day of his trial. Now I’ve got a little note here
that says, won’t they be surprised? And that comes on the third day
when he rises from the dead. And what are the religious and
Roman authorities doing? Oh my goodness. How did this
happen? I got to make up a story. Um, you know, it’s the grave
robbers, it was his disciples. They wanted to make us all think
he rose from the, from the dead. And so on the third day, won’t
they be surprised? But how about on the last day,
when every eye will see him, even those who reviled him. That
day is coming where Jesus will continue to stand. He will still
be vindicated. And that’s what God promises
to do. Pilate and the soldiers and the
thieves and the crowds and the entire Jewish nation that had
rejected him, the children of Israel, every eye will see when
God vindicates us. Also, if we persevere, what does
Jesus say when he writes the seven letters to the seven churches?
He usually gives a command, an encouragement to persevere, to
press on. And we are more than conquerors,
Paul writes, or as John writes in Revelation, we are over comers. And so what’s the challenge here?
The challenge is to look to Jesus. He’s the perfect servant. He’s
the true son of Israel. Everything God requires, the
father, the son does, and We stand in his righteousness,
not ours. Verse 11 gives us a command,
a warning. Behold all you who kindle a fire.
It’s kind of the idea of works, your fire. Who equip yourselves
with burning torches, go ahead, walk by the light of your fire,
not your faith. Go ahead and walk by the torches
you have kindled, not your faith. And he guarantees a result. This
is from my hand, you shall lie down in torment. There’s two
ways to live, right? We can live by faith or we can
live by works. Our works fail miserably, but
Jesus’ works that we receive by faith are perfect. So Babylon, Israel, life’s troubles. I don’t want to make this too
simple or oversimplify it, but wherever we find ourselves, we
look to the servant. We look to the Son. We look to
the Savior. Again, we do not have to pick
daisies because we know the words of the covenant, the promises
of the covenant, the permanence of the covenant. And we look
to Jesus and we look to him and him alone for our salvation.
I told you I was going to mention chapter 18 of the confession
and that fourth section, and you can find it on page 858 in
the back of your book. And this is a chapter on the assurance
of grace, the assurance of salvation. Remember that God commands us
to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. We are to
go after assurance. We are to grow in our assurance
and we are to get assurance. Now, assurance doesn’t come the
minute you get saved. I know the preacher tells you,
you sign the card, so you’re going to heaven, right? Assurance
ebbs and flows in the Christian life. And point four here is
a great explanation. It says, true believers may have
the assurance of their salvation in diverse ways, shaken, diminished,
and intermitted. Always think of wipers, windshield
wipers of intermittent. That’s when that comes out, you
know, sits a little bit, goes on. You don’t want your faith,
your assurance to be intermittent. And this happens by negligence
in the preserving of it, by falling into some special sin, which
wounded the conscience and grieveth the spirit, by some sudden or
vehement temptation, by God’s withdrawing the light of his
countenance and suffering, even such as fear him to walk in darkness
and have no light. It’s a scary thing to fall into
the hands of God, yet they are never utterly destitute of that
seat of God and the life of faith, that love of Christ and the brethren,
that sincerity of heart, that conscience of duty out of which
by the operation of the spirit, this assurance may in due time
be revived. And by the which in the meantime,
they are supported from utter despair.” Think on Jesus in absolute
utter despair, but who held him up? It was the power and the
grace and the promise of God that held him up. And that’s
the same that is ours by faith. Let’s go to God now in prayer.
Lord, we give you thanks for a window into the life of the
suffering servant. It’s also a window into our lives
for the way of the master is the way of the servant. So help
us to look to him for all we need for a life of faith, a life
of obedience. and a life full of hope, even
in hardships, we ask in the name of Christ our Savior. Amen.