Transcription
We looked at last time that the book of Isaiah is actually eight different scrolls. That chapters 1-12 are judgments that are given to Judah and Jerusalem. And that includes the story of Maher-shalal-hash-baz. His name means "the faster I grow, the faster the northern kingdom loses." Okay. And he is the second son of Isaiah. We think by a woman who is his second wife. His first wife died. His second wife is known as the prophetess in chapter 8. All we know is that Isaiah is a really good guy, but he's really bad at picking names for kids. He has only two kids, and the first one's called Shear-jashub. It means "a remnant shall return." The second one's Maher-shalal-hash-baz, who has to be 14 before he can write his name because he can't possibly have learned to spell it that early.
The point is that that, um, Isaiah, in that first part, tells a story about God sending Immanuel. And the Immanuel of the story is Maher-shalal-hash-baz. All right.
The second block is nations that affected Jerusalem and Judah. We're going somewhere with this because we're going to be in 49 in just a minute. But nations that affected Judah and the judgment that falls on them in 13 to 23. The third scroll is a very cool blow-up-everything apocalypse. It's a mini-Revelation. Blow up the Earth. And that is not how you spell apocalypse. Whoever spelled that. The northern kingdom then falls. And during the time of 28 to 35, there is the story of the northern kingdom falling. And then a very special historic interlude from 36 to 39, which is the story of Sennacherib surrounding Jerusalem and Hezekiah falling on his face before God and begging God to get him out of it. And God does. He comes through in a big way. And it's a very fantastic story. We're going to spend some time with that.
40 to 48 is all right, all right, I've had to now deal with your sin. The northern kingdom is going into exile. So what God does is he says, "Can I give you some words of comfort? I'm going to bring you back. It's not over. It's just begun in a new way." I want you to go into exile, but I'm going to actually bring you back. Remember that the 10 lost tribes are not lost. Jerusalem grows 10 times its size in the next seven years. And as a result, we know that many of them move south. Some of them were scattered into exile and into slavery. And the story of the comfort for them, remember, "Comfort, O, comfort, O my people. Behold, your God." That's the beginning of that section.
The part I want to look at is 49 to 55. So I'm going to ask you to do something that's going to be very difficult. But I want you to stay with me through a five-point long-winded sermon that we're going to run through 49 to 55. It's a fun one. It actually is a very cool sermon. And, um, it's actually called the sermon of the Servant of Yahweh. The servant, servant of Jehovah, or for our terminology, Evad Yahweh. Evad is servant. You see Obadiah, servant of Yah. Okay. These are the Psalms, or the songs, or the sermon, or the oracle, if I can say it that way, that go from 49 to 55. I promise you, if you stay with the detail, I'm going to fly right through this. But if you stay with the details, two things are going to happen. This is the most definite, beautiful picture of Messiah from 750 years before Messiah was on the planet. This is an incredible story told way in advance of it. That's one of the things I want you to know. I'm not going to spend a lot of time with a lot of cute stories. I'm just going to walk you through the passage.
But the second thing that I want you to understand is when you grab hold of the Servant of Yahweh oracle of Isaiah, you get a real flavor for what his preaching was really like. You'll get a sense of being there with him. I want you to put yourself out on a Judean hillside. I want you to sit under an olive tree. You're better off under a fig tree. They smell better and they have bigger leaves. But sit under an olive tree because there's a lot more of those. Find a rock, sit down. And up comes a balding prophet who's a little shorter than me with a larger nose. And he's going to begin to preach to you.
And in chapter 49, he opens with a prologue. The prologue is, "I want to explain to you how God called me to be your messenger." 49:1, "Listen to me, O islands. Pay attention." Why does he say that? Because people are spread out on the hillside and they look like they're scattered. "Pay attention, you people from afar." And he says, "I want you to listen, everybody." But he's also using imagery for people who are flung around the world. "The Lord called me from the womb. From the body of my mother, he named me. He has made my mouth like a sharp sword. In the shadow of his hand, he concealed me. And he has made me also a select arrow. He has hidden me in his quiver."
Here, there are two servants in the picture. Remember I told you about double bounces in the Bible? Often there is a shadow and then there is a fulfillment. This is both Isaiah and Messiah. He's one is a type of the other. By the way, when we use typology, you need to know something. The primary type is always Jesus. That does. It's not always Jesus, but it's always if it's refers to Jesus. Everybody else is second. In other words, you don't say it's primarily Isaiah, but also Jesus. No, no, no, no, no. One's a man and one is God in human skin. So it's primarily Messiah, and it bounces backward to be Isaiah as well. Does that make sense? It's a question of honor here.
So here's what he says. "I want to tell you about the call of the spokesman." Next to verses one and two, just write "Call of the Spokesman." And the call is, God called me to be a special arrow in his quiver that he's going to fire to do something. And then he says in verses three and four that God told me to tell you about an unfaithful servant. So you can put next to verses three and four, "Unfaithful Servant." And he said, "God said to me, 'You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will show my glory.' But I said, 'I have toiled in vain. I have spent my strength for nothing in vanity. Yet surely the justice due to me is with the Lord, and my reward is with my God.'"
Isaiah says, "I got called to come to you to tell you that God loves you, that you are special people, and that here's what he says: I invested a lot in you, and boy, did you guys blow it." And I don't think you're going to like me saying that. He says, "So my reward comes from God, not from you." Why? Because I think he was probably going to get his paycheck cut and his preaching assignment changed as soon as he came out and told them they blew it. The reality is, how many times have you seen that in the prophets? We've studied over and over, "The Lord says, 'I planted a vineyard. I tilled it, and you guys gave me rotten fruit.'" So God is the speaker. Isaiah heard from God and passed the message about, "I, uh, uh, Israel supposed to be my servant, but they're a failed servant." Watch the word "servant" because the servant will sometimes be Isaiah, sometimes it will be Israel, sometimes it will be Messiah. And keeping the servant straight is the reason my Jewish friends can't obviously understand that Jesus is in the prophecy because they slide over and see the wrong servant.
Okay, follow in verses 5 to 7. Isaiah becomes an echo of the Savior. This is Isaiah speaking, but I want you to hear Jesus's voice behind him. "Now," says the Lord, "who formed me from the womb to be his servant to bring Jacob back to him so that Israel might be gathered to him. For I am honored in the sight of the Lord, and my God is my strength." He says, "Is it too small a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the preserved ones of Israel? I will also make you a light of the nations so that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth." Thus says the Lord, the Redeemer of Israel, its Holy One, "To the despised one, to the one abhorred by the nation, to the servant of the rulers. Kings will see and arise. Princes will bow down because of you, because of the Lord who is faithful, the Holy One of Israel, who has chosen you."
Okay, do you see? He says, on one level, "I'm Isaiah, and I was told to speak the true words of God." And those true words are about your coming salvation. Shift away from that. Now listen to the voice of Jesus, because he says, "I am going to deliver you. I will be the one who will become the light to the nations. I will be the Redeemer of Israel and the Holy One. Kings and princes are going to bow down before me." You should be hearing, "Every knee shall bow, every tongue will confess." It's in the background there. So Isaiah's both claiming that he's bringing the message of salvation, and God is using his voice to speak the voice of the Messiah who's going to come.
Did you notice there that the one who's the Redeemer of Israel in verse 7 is also Israel's Holy One? Did you notice in your text, is yours capitalized? Is Holy One capitalized? So in the text, this is a Messianic prophecy. Messiah is going to come. He's not only going to be the Redeemer, but he's also going to be Israel's Holy One, which is a title used and reserved for the Most High God. If you were to look at the scroll carefully, if you were to consider what it's saying, 700 years before Messiah came, God had prophesied that God would put on human skin. So Isaiah proclaimed salvation, but the Redeemer will receive the worship.
And now I want you to go to the first of our five points. Point number one. And we're going to do a five-point sermon. And that sounds really daunting. It's really not. I'm going to blow through it pretty quickly. Point number one will be: The Servant Redeemer is going to gather the people and make a new covenant with them. That's fast. The Servant Redeemer is going to gather his people and make a new covenant with them. That starts in verse 8 and it goes all the way down till it's done, till all the way down to verse, uh, 49:26. That's the end of the chapter. Okay.
So in chapter 49, he starts with Point number one. I'm going to give you a five-point sermon. Point number one is the Servant Redeemer. Who's that? Jesus. Will gather the people and make a new covenant with them. For the words "new covenant," always look for Isaiah 59, Jeremiah 31. Those two places where God promises to make a new covenant with Israel. That's not like the covenant that their fathers had, that they broke. But the new covenant ends with God writing his law on their hearts, not on tablets of stone. "I'm going to change who you are. I'm going to be your God. You're going to be my people. We're going to walk together."
And here's what he says in 49, beginning in verse 8: "Thus says the Lord, 'In a favorable time, we think that might be a jubilee year. In a favorable time, I have answered you. And in the day of salvation, I have helped you. I will keep you and give you a covenant of the people to make them inherit the desolate heritages.'" Here's what he says: "I am going to not only redeem people, I'm going to gather them back to a land, and I'm going to redeem a land." See, the covenant of God with Israel isn't just salvation for their heart. And when I say that, I don't mean to slight salvation of the heart. That's pretty cool. You change your eternal destiny. I think that's really great. But God promised that they would get borders of a land they've never gotten. And God promised they'd get a, a, uh, king on the throne of David who would give absolute justice. That's not happened. And God promised that he would be in Jerusalem, and that the nations would flow in and out of there and receive just rewards and hear justice from the one who sits on that throne. That's never happened.
So your choices are: Do we spiritualize that, which is what much of the church does? And then all of a sudden, what God says when he says Israel's church. But if you do that, you mess up the story of the Bible. Remember the story of the Bible? It's two marriages. The Father marries Israel because of her whoredom, spiritually harlotry. He divorces her for a time, but not till they have a son. The son is told to make a bride of many nations. We are engaged to him, waiting for a trumpet call to a wedding feast. We go to that trumpet call, and God's the Father's eyes turn back to his bride, Israel, that has been estranged. And after a time of tribulation, when her back is to the sea and they cannot escape, and they are surrounded on every side, and finally conclude that there is no lover that loves them like the Lord. Through the clouds comes one with "King of Kings and Lord of Lords" written on his thigh. And Zechariah 12-4, "They look on him whom they have pierced." And Romans 10:11, "All Israel at that moment is saved because they see him and they identify him and they accept him as Savior."
Now, those that scenario is two marriages, not one. When you make Israel and the church the same, you mess up the entire story of the Bible. Other than that, you're doing great. So here's what he says. His promise to Israel is about a land. Keep your eyes on the news. People who have never been anywhere in the Middle East know all about what's going on in Jerusalem today. And one of the reasons I believe in a literal understanding of the Bible is because prophetically we see it rolling out in very literal terms. We see a world that hates a group of people in a place called Israel, and they don't even know them.
Now take a look at verse 9. And let me give you one of the points of his sermon. The Servant Redeemer is going to gather the people. Here's what he says: "The covenant will include a message to restore the land." Look at verse 9: "Saying to those who are bound, 'Go forth.' To those who are in darkness, 'Show yourselves.' Along the roads they will feed, and then their pastures. They will be on bare heights." He says, "And when I come, I'm going to make a covenant for the people and I'm going to settle it so that it's peaceful. So you don't have to hide in caves. You can walk out on bare landscape and everybody can see you."
Now, that doesn't mean a lot to you, but it's meant a lot to me. I've been through two wars in Israel, and I'm going to tell you, there's a lot of the time you're hiding in holes and sitting in bomb shelters because you can't walk outside. He says, "My covenant will be to restore the land in such a way that you will be able to walk around and not be afraid that somebody's going to shoot at you. You don't have to build a wall so they're not going to shoot at you." And then it says in verse 10, "The covenant will include God's guidance and his renewed provision." "You will not hunger or thirst, nor will the scorching heat or the sun strike them down. For he who has compassion on them will lead them and guide them to the springs of water. I will make all my mountains a road, and my highways will be raised up."
You can't appreciate this until you're in the land. Everything, everything, everything is uphill or downhill from where you are. There's no flat space hardly in the whole country. He says, "I'm going to level out the playing field, and I'm going to guide you to all the resources and keep you." Okay? Because that's my commitment. So God is saying, "I'm going to create a covenant. I'm going to draw you there, and I'm going to make the resources available, and I'm going to actually grow a nation out of rock and make you able to transport goods around."
In verse 12, it says, "The covenant will cause people from everywhere to pay attention to the people of God." Look what he says: "Behold, these will come from afar, and lo, these will come from the North and from the West and from the land of Sinim." That's actually the term for Asia today. It's the word for the Chinese in modern Hebrew, but it's the word for Asians. He says, "I'm going to bring the whole world. They're all going to pay attention to you." There's going to be people living in little villages of Asia, and they're going to know about Jerusalem. Can you imagine that? People in Asia would know about Jerusalem? Of course you can. But could Isaiah? Of course not.
Now, what's interesting is that the covenant will be a reason for great celebration. That's why verse 13 says, "Shout for joy, O heavens! Rejoice, O Earth! Break forth into joyful shouting, O mountains! For the Lord has comforted his people and will have compassion on his afflicted." He says, "I will take generations of Jews that have suffered, and I'm going to bring you back, gather you into the land, and give you a place where you can walk out in the sunshine, and I'm going to give you the provisions, and the whole world's going to see you, and they're going to understand I keep my word," says the Lord.
It's interesting because in verses 14-16, it says the people will see that God didn't forget them, even though they suffered along the way. They suffered in a Holocaust. They'll suffer again in a tribulation. But it says, "But Zion said, 'The Lord has forsaken me. The Lord has forgotten me.'" The Lord says, "Can a woman forget her nursing child and have no compassion on the son of her womb?" Look at verse 16. Look, one of the most beautiful verses in the scriptures: "Behold, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands. Your walls are continually before me. I'm paying attention."
And then he said the people will see a rebuilding of their ancient homeland as God starts to re-adorn it. That's what 17 and 18 is about. "Your builders hurry. Your destroyers and devastators will depart from you. Lift up your eyes. Look around. All of them gather together. They come to you." "As I live," declares the Lord, "you will surely put them on as jewels and bind them as a bride." And not only that, look what's going to happen. As your building projects get going, as I re-gather the Jewish people back to their homeland, it says the people are going to burst at the seams from their once desolate homeland. And it says in verse 19, "Your waste and desolate places and your destroyed land, surely now will be too cramped for all the inhabitants." "I'm going to bring so many people back on this and that landscape, you're going to go, 'How are we going to fit these people? How are we possibly going to fit them?'" And verse 21 says, "Then you will say in your heart, 'Who raised all these kids?'" Boy, never mind. You have to be a parent to really get this. "How many am I feeding tonight anyway?" That's what that's what it says.
Look at verse 22. It says, "Messiah will lift up his hands, and the nations around the world will bow before God's people to worship their God." Look what the Bible says. "Because your your your nation is in here." It says this: "Thus says the Lord God, 'Behold, I will lift up my hand to the nations and set my standard to the peoples, and they will bring your sons in their bosom, and your daughters will be carried on their shoulders.'" It literally says the nations of the world at some point will start to help these Jews get back to their land. And then it says, "Kings will be your guardians, princesses your nurses. They will bow down to you with their faces to the earth and lick the dust of your feet. And you will know that I am the Lord. Those who hopefully wait for me will not be put to shame."
"Can the prey be taken from the mighty man?" he says. "Listen, if you ever saw a big strong guy go out there, kill a deer, put there, he's dragging it along. You're not going to go up there and try to steal his deer. He'll beat you." He says, "Let me tell you something. When I say I'm going to take care of my kids, I will go out and get them, and I will bring them back, and I am stronger than anybody who's coming at me." Amen. So he says in verse 25, at the end, he says, "For I will contend with the one who contends with you, and I will save your sons. I will feed your oppressors their own flesh." Look at the end of the sentence. "All flesh will know that I, the Lord, am your Savior and your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob."
So the first point is that Redeemer is going to come. He's going to set up a new covenant. It's going to be exciting. The world is going to see it. And at the end of it, as they stand in the kingdom age, they will stand back and behold an Israel that has their king and a God who kept his word, write down to the last detail. Now, that didn't happen yet. Jesus came, but that didn't happen. The longer picture of the kingdom is the first point.
The second point, by the way, is only a few verses. Point number two: The Heavenly Father has a legal case that needs to be satisfied first. This is verses 1 to 3 of chapter 50. I keep referring to this divorce, and we talked about it in Hosea, but you see it here as well. The Heavenly Father has a legal case against his wife. This is what it says: "Thus says the Lord, 'Where is the certificate of divorce by which I have sent away your mother?'" Who's he talking to? Talking to the son that is of the mother that was divorced. Okay, okay. See, he's looking. He says, "Where is the certificate of divorce by which I sent your mother away? Or to whom my creditors did I sell you? Behold, you were sold for your iniquities, and your transgressions, and your mother was sent away." He literally says to the son, "You've been sold off for the sin of your mother." Now think about that. The son, the Messiah, is sold off. What's the price, by the way? 30 pieces of silver. The price of a slave.
And here's what it says, verse 2: "Why was there no man when I came? When I called, why was there none to answer? Is my hand so short that I cannot ransom? Have I no power to deliver? Behold, I dry up the sea with my rebuke; I make rivers a wilderness. Their fish stink for lack of water and die of thirst. I clothe the heavens with blackness and make sackcloth their covering." He says, "I have a legal case against Israel, and I want to know how come nobody's answering the phone when I call." And all he tells us is that the son is going to be ransomed for the sin of the mother.
Now, third point of my five points. This one's in chapter 50:4 and it goes to chapter 50, verse 11, end of the chapter. Okay, chapter 50:4 to the end of the chapter. Here's my third point: Redeemer. The Redeemer Servant will bring about the reconciliation. God is going to be redeemed to his estranged wife, and the Redeemer is going to do the reconciliation. Jesus will play marriage counselor to put back together Israel and God. That's what I'm saying. Now, where is that? Well, look at verses 4 and 5, because it says the Redeemer Servant will come and follow the father's every single direction. Look at the description of Jesus here: "The Lord God has given me the tongue of disciples that I may know how to sustain the weary one with a word. He awakens me morning by morning; he awakens my ear to listen as a disciple. The Lord God has opened my ear, and I will not, uh, I was not disobedient, nor did I turn back." This is a description of as I came, as Messiah. Jesus says, "I listen to everything the Father told me to do." Look for the number of times in the Gospels Jesus said, "I'm only doing this because my Father told me to do it," and "I do what my Father says." That comes right out of Isaiah.
Now, in verse 6, he says, "The second thing: I'm going to give my own body to make this reconciliation happen." Look at the detail here: "I gave my back to those who lashed me, and my cheeks to those who ripped my beard out. I did not cover my face from humiliation and their spittle." If you look at the Hebrew, he says very obviously, "I'm giving my body to make this reconciliation happen." Verse 7 begins with, "By the way, this is how I got through it. I kept my face looking at God." By the way, would you make a note here? The way you get through temptation and trouble is keep your eyes on the Lord. Look at him. Look what Jesus says: "For the Lord God helps me; therefore I am not disgraced. Therefore I have set my face like flint, and I know that I will not be ashamed. He who vindicates me is near. Who will contend with me? Let us stand up to each other. Who has a case against me? Let him draw near to me. Behold, the Lord God helps me. Who is he who can condemn me? Behold, they will all wear out like a garment; the moths will eat them." Jesus said, "The way I kept it together is I kept my eyes on my Father, and he kept making me know that I was doing the right thing. It didn't matter that the whole earth was against me. It didn't matter that the leadership was spitting on me or beating me, because I kept my eyes on the Father, and that's how I know I was doing right."
Now look at verse 10. "The Redeemer Servant also knows some are going to follow his example." It says, "Who is among you that fears the Lord, that obeys the voice of his servant, that walks in darkness and has no light? Let him trust in the name of the Lord and rely on his God." He says, "Listen, when I was getting beaten, I was trusting God. If you get beaten, trust God. Watch what I did." Jesus says. Then in verse 11, he says, "Some of you are not going to. Some are going to rebel and reject the Father's hand." It says, "Behold, all you who kindle a fire, who encircle yourself with firebrands, walk in the light of your fire and among the brands that you've set ablaze. This you will have from my hand: you will lie down in torment." Listen, he says, "Reject me because your end is torment, not just lostness." Note the word "torment." Jesus was not embarrassed to say, "Hell awaits those who reject me." By the way, neither was his Father, because truth is truth. And the one time you really want to tell the truth is when somebody's facing the end and they're facing it with peril. Don't, don't give them a song and dance. Tell them the truth.
Okay, now we get to the fourth point of our five points. This isn't so painful, is it? In 51, the fourth point goes from 51:1 all the way to 52:12. 51:1 to 52:12. Now, it's a fast one, so hang on. The point that he's going to make is simply this: The Redeemer Servant, the Messiah, calls all Israel to come to him. This is the gospel to the Jew. Jew in the tribulation. This is their gospel track. This is what it looks like. This is when the world is turning its back on you and beating you. This is what my call is to you. Verse 1: "Listen to me, you who pursue righteousness, who seek the Lord. Look to the rock from which you were hewn, and the quarry to which you were dug. Look to Abraham your father, to Sarah who gave you birth in pain. When he was but one I called him and I blessed him and multiplied him." This is how you know that the people he's talking to are Jewish. He's saying, "Look at your own family. Look at the hard rock grounds you were cut out of." God never called Israel because they were soft or easy. That's not the way he worked.
And verse 3 says that the Lord is going to restore the land and protect the nation. See, as Christians of a Gentile background, we only think about heaven. But as Jews, they think about the land in addition to their eternity because they're deeply rooted in the land. And so it says in verse 3: "Indeed, the Lord will comfort Zion; he will comfort all her waste places. Her wilderness he will make like Eden, her desert like the garden of the Lord. Joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and the sound of a melody." "Pay attention to me, O people; give ear to me, O my nation, for a law will go forth from me; I will set my justice for a light of the peoples. My righteousness is near; my salvation has gone forth, and my arms will judge all the peoples. The coastlands will wait for me, and for my arm they will wait expectantly."
You remember I told you that at the time of the millennial kingdom, the millennial kingdom is not just about a kingdom, it's about a king. It's about judgment. It's about righteousness. It's about applied biblical understanding by the one who sits on the throne of David at Zion. Verses 6 through 8, he makes this point: "Heaven and Earth are going to pass away, but my promise won't." He says, "Lift up your eyes to the sky; look to the Earth beneath. The sky will vanish like smoke." We sing this on Sunday morning. "And the Earth will wear out like a garment, and its inhabitants will die in like manner. But my salvation will be forever; my righteousness will not wane." "Listen to me, you who know righteousness, a people in whose heart is the law." Underline that. That's Jewish. "A people in whose heart is the law. Do not fear the reproach of men; do not be dismayed at their revilings. For the moth will eat them like a garment, and the grub will eat them like wool. My righteousness will be forever; my salvation to all generations." He said, "Listen, the Earth is going to pass away. The sun, moon, stars, that's temporary. My salvation isn't. When I tell you I'm going to do this, I'm going to do this, and I'm never going to undo this."
By the way, he makes the point in verses 9 and 10: "I possess the power to do this. I'm the one with the power to do it. Awake, awake! Put on strength, O arm of the Lord! Awake as in the days of old, the generations of long ago. Was it not you who cut Rahab in pieces, who pierced the dragon?" That's a story that I can't go into, but it's not the Rahab you're thinking of. It's a completely different person. "Was it not you who dried up the sea, the waters of the great deep, who made the depths of the sea a pathway for the redeemed to cross over?" He says, "Listen, I possess the power to split the sea and have people take a walk on it. They can choke on the dust of dry ground when Egyptians are chasing them, if that's what I so choose to do. I know how to save people." That's what he's trying to say.
In verses 11 to 16, he says, "God will re-gather the nation to their land, and no nation will stop him from doing what he set out to do." So verse 11: "The ransomed of the Lord will return." That's what I want you to underline. "So the ransomed of the Lord will return. Come with joyful shouting to Zion." Who comes back to Zion? Jews. It's that's it. It's not been a land for anybody else. "And everlasting joy will be on their heads; they will obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing will flee away." "I, even I, am he who comforts. Who are you that you are afraid of man who dies, and the son of man who is made like grass, that you have forgotten the Lord your Maker?"
Verse 14 says, "The exile will soon be set free." Verse 16 says, "I put my words in your mouth and have covered you with the shadow of my hand to establish the heavens, to found the earth, and to say to Zion, 'You are my people.'" God says, "Listen, I'm going to bring the nation, and nobody's going to stop me from doing it. I'm going to re-gather my people." Yes, I put them. But when I bring them back, I'll bring them back. And when I promise to do something, I can take 5,000 years. I don't work up a sweat. I am the Lord. Amen.
Verse 17 says that Jewish leadership will finally need to include the world will not love her, that they will find love in no other but God. Here's what he says, verse 17: "Rouse yourself, rouse yourself! Arise, O Jerusalem, you who have drunk from the Lord's hand the cup of his anger, the chalice of reeling you have drained from the dregs. There is none to guide her among all the sons she has borne, nor is there one to take her by the hand among all the sons she has reared." She's she's not going to find the solution to her need from any of her rabbis that have grown up in her ranks. Messiah will walk in the door, and they will know he is their answer, not the history and the volumes of all of the learning that has gone before. Their sons have nothing to offer because God's son has everything to offer.
And verse 19 says that Jerusalem has suffered from judgment, but God's now pulling her restoration. So it says in verse 19: "These two things have befallen you—who will mourn for you?—devastation and destruction, am and sword. How shall I comfort you?" Look at verse 20: "Your sons have fainted; they lie helpless at the head of the street like antelope in a net, full of the wrath of the Lord." Get down to verse 22: "Thus says the Lord, the Lord, even your God, who contends for his people: 'Behold, I have taken out of your hand the cup of reeling, the chalice of my anger. You will never drink it again.'" He says, "Yes, I'm going to take you through very, very hard times, and then I'm going to stop. And when I stop, I stop. It's done once and for all."
God promised to stop the world's judgment on Jerusalem. You have to understand how much the world is still going to hate Jerusalem. You have to understand that the UN is going to hate Jerusalem. You have to understand that the Hague is going to hate Jerusalem. Anti-Semitism is not something that died at Auschwitz. They're marching in the streets of Paris and saying, "Kill the Jewish people." The Iranian leader last week said, "Let us rid the Earth of the Jewish vermin." That was this week. This is not 1940. This is 2015. It's not getting less, it's getting more. And it's coming back for a vengeful ride.
And so he said, "I will put," verse 23, "into the hand of the tormentors who have said to you, 'Lie down, that we may walk over you.' You have even made your back like the ground and like the street for those who walk over it." Look at verse 1, chapter 52: "Awake, awake! Clothe yourself in strength, O Zion! Clothe yourself in beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city! For the uncircumcised and the unclean will no longer come into you. Shake yourself off from the dust; rise up, O captive Jerusalem! Loose yourself from the chains around your neck, O captive Daughter of Zion." The long night, he says, of the trampling is over.
In verse 3, chapter 52: "Thus says the Lord, 'You were sold for nothing, and you will be redeemed without money.'" Verse 4 says, "My people went down at the first into Egypt to reside there, and then Assyria oppressed them without cause." It's interesting because he goes on in verse 5 and says, "Now therefore, what do I have here, declares the Lord, seeing that my people have been taken away without cause? Again the Lord declares, 'Those who rule over them howl, and my name is continually blasphemed all day long. Therefore my people shall know my name. Therefore in that day, I am the one who is speaking here.'"
"I am." What a graphic symbol that Messiah will come. He'll stand right there. He'll look him in the eye and say, "Who's got a beef against me here? I am. Bring it. Say what you want to say. The armies of heaven have followed me. What do you have as a cause against me?" The good news is going to be brought. Verse 7 says, "How lovely on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who announce peace, happiness, salvation, and say to Zion, 'Your God reigns.'" The news is going to go around the earth that Messiah has come, and he is reigning from Zion. And if you want righteousness, it's right there. That's where you'll find it.
Verse 8 says, "In that good news, there's a restoration of the people to their place." Listen, "You watchmen, lift up your voices; they shout joyfully together, for they will see with their own eyes when the Lord restores Zion. Break forth, shout joyfully together, together you waste places of Jerusalem, for the Lord has comforted your people; he has redeemed Jerusalem." Look at the way the good news works. The good news brought the expectation to the world that God would again work with the Jewish people. It says, verse 10, "The Lord has bared his holy arm in the sight of all the nations, that all the ends of the earth may see the salvation of our God." "Depart, depart, go out from there; touch nothing unclean; go out from the midst of her; purify yourselves, you who carry the vessels of the Lord." But you will not go out in haste, nor will you go out as fugitives, for the Lord will go before you, and the Lord God of Israel will be your rear guard. He said, "It's coming a time when Messiah will call them back, and he will call them back not as fugitives. He will call them home, and they will keep their heads up and walk in and possess holy vessels and begin again to operate that kingdom."
The last point before we go. Fifth and final point. And it's from 52:13 all the way through the 53 story that we're going to end at 53:12. Here it is. This is the one you know. This is the part of the story that's probably more familiar than all the rest. But all of it was one sermon that Isaiah could preach. 52:13. Here's what he says. The fifth point is: Messiah will make reconciliation between the Jewish people, God, and the world. He's going to triangulate this. He's going to settle all the peace accounts. Messiah settles all peace accounts.
Verse 13: "Behold, my servant will prosper; he will be high and lifted up and greatly exalted." You know what it says? This says that the servant, he's about to tell you, this servant, he's about to describe for you in intricate detail, will one day be lifted up and highly exalted. One day, this servant, we're going to talk about in this next point of this message, one day this servant will be the one to whom everyone will bow, and he will be exalted by the Father.
Verse 14 says, "But first he will be broken." "Just as many were astonished at you, my people, so his appearance was marred more than any man, and his form more than any of the sons of man. Thus he will sprinkle many nations. Kings will shut their mouths on account of him, for what had not been told them they will see, and what they had not heard they will understand." It says that Messiah will be broken so badly and marred so badly that those who really understand what he's been through will stand back in awe and be unable to speak. And part of the message that will spread to all the nations, including one called Florida, the United States, would be that this servant would be marred and beaten, wounded and torn up.
Verse 1 of chapter 53: "Then the message spreads: Who has believed our message? To whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?" He says, "What, what's that message? That message that the world is hearing. What is it?" Well, first, it's he came first without kingly form. Look at verse 2: "For he grew up before him like a tender shoot, like a root out of parched ground. He had no stately form or majesty that we should look on him; no appearance that we should be attracted to him." In other words, when Messiah came, he was to come, but there would be nobody saying, "Here he is, he's Messiah. Here he is, beautiful man. Look at the way he glows." You would barely notice him. He was tender and normal and like others.
And then he took punishment from men. How would you know him? You would know him by his marring and his punishment. Verse 3: "He was despised and forsaken of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and like one from whom men hide their face; he was despised, and we did not esteem him. Surely our griefs he himself bore, and our sorrows he carried; yet we ourselves esteemed him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted." So Messiah would come. He would not be special in his appearance until his appearance was so shockingly badly marred that it would get your attention.
And then it says in verses 5 to 7: "His punishment was for one purpose only: to pay for sin." "He was pierced through for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; the chastening for our well-being fell upon him, and by his scourging we are healed. All of us like sheep have gone astray; each of us has turned his own way; but the Lord has caused the iniquity of all of us to fall on him. He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; like a lamb that was led to slaughter, and like a sheep that is silent before its shearers, so he did not open his mouth." It doesn't mean Jesus didn't talk. It means he didn't say the one thing he could have said. He could have called down the armies of heaven and ended it all at any moment. That's what he didn't say.
And by the way, lest you be fooled, verse 8 says, "His punishment was utterly unjust." "By oppression and judgment he has taken away." And as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living for the transgression of my people, to whom the stroke was due? By the way, it goes on and says in verse 9 that he was killed with the wicked, but buried with the rich. His grave was assigned with wicked men, and yet he was with a rich man in his death. If you read that carefully in Hebrew, it says he was numbered to be killed among the wicked, but buried with the rich, because he had done no violence, nor was there any deceit in his mouth.
Verse 10 says, "His surrendered death provided judicial satisfaction from the Father." This is something that is very hard to stomach, but nevertheless essential to understand about God's nature. Jesus's death was for a judicial requirement. Righteousness could not be attained through any good work. Only a righteous one could take the place of the unrighteous. So it says, verse 10, "But the Lord was pleased to crush him, putting him to grief, if he would render himself as a guilt offering." In other words, God was satisfied. Don't look for the word "pleased" as "Oh, goodie." It's the word "he was satisfied" with the size and scope of the guilt offering of his son.
Verse 10 goes on and finishes that his death was not his end. See, the resurrection's already here. It says that he was a guilt offering, that he was crushed, but then it says, "He will see offspring; he will prolong his days, and the good pleasure of the Lord will prosper his hand." It's not God, it's the servant. So how is he crushed, but now he's seeing good days? How is he dead, and now he's seeing a life?
Verse 11: "As a result of the anguish of his soul, he will see it and be satisfied. By his knowledge, the righteous one, my servant, will justify the many, as he bears their iniquities." Never said he was going to save everybody. Just said he was going to save a lot of them, and that his death was going to pay for any of those who would believe. And then it says very, very clearly that the Redeemer will one day be exalted. This is how we leave the sermon. "Therefore I will allot him a portion with the great, and he will divide the booty with the strong, because he poured out himself to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he himself bore the sin of many and then interceded for the transgressors."
And this ends with this. This ends with the one that was crushed, the servant that was killed, is exalted. The one who died for the sin of others will, in fact, be given proudly by me, says the Father in Heaven, a great and magnificent exaltation because of what he did. He that descended, as is also he that ascended far above the heavens. He is the one that at his name every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that he is Lord. I give you the Servants of Yahweh and the best gospel track in the Hebrew scriptures.