Isaiah (Part 4) - Behold, My Servant — Ron Bailey

Please turn to Isaiah 42, it's been a wonderful thing for me just to see how God integrates things and how he synchronizes things, it's almost God's hallmark, he works all things together, he synchronizes things so wonderfully.

And the pattern of the ministry as it's been coming from the different brothers has really been a tremendous encouragement to me. Just to know that God is linking it all together. And all kinds of other help come as well, I had one gracious brother who offered to interpret for me into English.

He was impressed with my pronunciation of Hebrew names, but didn't know what I meant by words like foot and book. I'll just read a few verses from Isaiah 42. And the smoking flasks shall he not quench.

He shall bring forth judgment unto truth. He shall not fail, nor be discouraged, till he have set judgment in the earth, and the isles shall wait for his law. That passage really goes farther on, but I just want to pause there and go farther back into the Old Testament to the book of Deuteronomy.

Israel’s Covenant Renewal on the Edge of the Promised Land

And if you'll turn please to Deuteronomy chapter 8, I think it is, yes, Deuteronomy chapter 8. And if I can just remind you of the context of the book of Deuteronomy. The people of God, the people of Israel, had been denied access to the promised land because of their unbelief.

And God had taken them in a kind of a circuit throughout the wilderness for a period of 40 years. And then it comes to this point in the chronology of things when the people have come back to the land that God has promised to them.

And they are poised, ready to enter into the inheritance that God has promised for them. And Moses gathers them all together and he reminds them of the covenant and, if you read it carefully, almost reenacts it.

And joins others into it who are not originally part of it. If you read the book of Deuteronomy you'll find that. He actually says that what is happening is that a covenant is being established which isn't just the same as the one that was with their fathers.

But it's now for you as well, he says, you who are listening, who are hearing. During those wilderness wanderings it seems that maybe other peoples were added to them. This is always a surprise for people when they hear this.

But if you read, for example, the book of Numbers, you'll discover that at least 32 ,000 Midianite virgins were added to the people of Israel. So, they come together to the edges of this promised land and Moses repeats to them the terms of the covenant.

The understanding that is the basis of their relationship with God. And they're going to be joined into it. And this is why it's called Deuteronomy. Deutero means second and nomos as law. So, Deuteronomy really means the second giving of the law.

And they come to, as I say, the edges of the promised land. And it's a wonderful book to read, the book of Deuteronomy, because it's not just a straightforward account of what has happened in the past.

It's an account of what has happened in the past plus the consequence of Moses' meditations and contemplations. Forty years have passed in which he has digested some of the lessons that God has taught them.

And God speaks to them again as they're about to go in. And this is chapter 8. I'm going to read from three different chapters. And there won't be an exact order, but there is an order in which I'm going to read some verses.

This is chapter 8. All the commandments which I command thee this day shalt ye observe to do, that ye may live and multiply and go in and possess the land which Jehovah swore unto your fathers. And thou shalt remember, notice the continuation of plurals and singulars.

I mentioned this yesterday. There are times when God regards his people just as one corporate person, as though it's one person. And that one person carries upon his two shoulders the responsibility that God has given to them as the nation.

Sometimes he's referring to individuals, and the individuals have their individual responses to make to God. But God joins them together and they become one people. And God views them as one people. Now this is very strange to our Western ears.

Because most of Western civilization is really based on Greek ideas. And one of the main Greek ideas was democracy and the individual. It didn't work for them either. That's in case people here are putting a lot of trust in democracy.

But it emphasized the individual. It emphasized the individual and his rights and his responsibilities, these kind of things. If you go in the other direction, not west but towards the east, you begin to get much more of a sense of belonging.

A sense of being all together in something. You needn't put your finger in, but we will come back to Deuteronomy chapter 8. I just want to turn to Hebrews briefly. And not to go into any detail of anything, but just to touch on an illustration that is used by the writer to the Hebrews.

Which sits very uncomfortably sometimes on Western minds when they read it. Because they can't quite get a hold of what's going on in this. This is Hebrews chapter 7. He's speaking about Melchizedek. Remarkable character, Melchizedek.

He appears 2 ,000 years before Christ, very briefly in the history of Abraham. Then there's no mention of him for another 1 ,000 years when David speaks of him very briefly in a psalm. And then you come another 1 ,000 years farther on into the book of Hebrews and there are virtually three chapters about him.

So he's an interesting person. And it speaks of Melchizedek here. And what the writer to the Hebrews is doing is he is showing the way in which the new covenant is superior to the old covenant. Right the way through the letter to the Hebrews you've got this reference to better, better.

It's a better covenant based upon better promises. He's a better mediator, it's a better hope. It's all better. It's a contrast with the old against the new. And one of the things that the writer to the Hebrews wants to express is that the priesthood of Jesus Christ is better than the priesthood of Aaron and the descendants of Levi.

And he does this by touching upon this mysterious character of Melchizedek. And the reason that Melchizedek is chosen in this way is because in the whole of the Bible there is only one man who was both a priest and a king at the same time.

With his own people God split the two things very definitely. The descendants of Judah would be the kings. The descendants of Levi, one part of the family of it, would be the priests. The two were never to come together.

They had separate responsibilities. There were some kings who would have liked to have been priests and paid the penalty for it. Uzziah was one of those. But God had taught them over hundreds of years that these two functions were quite separate until you come to begin to speak about the Lord Jesus.

And he says his priesthood is of the kind of priesthood of Melchizedek. He is both a king and a priest. And then he's going to show how that kind of priesthood has to be better than the priesthood that comes through the line of Levi.

And this is what he says. Chapter 1. For this Melchizedek, king of Salem, there he is, he's a king, priest of the Most High God, there he's a priest, who met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him, to whom also Abraham gave a tenth part of all, being, first being by interpretation, king of righteousness, and after that also king of Salem, which is king of peace.

Without father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but made like unto the Son of God, abides a priest continually. Now consider how great this man was, unto whom even the patriarch Abraham gave the tenth of the spoils.

And verily, they that are of the sons of Levi, who receive priesthood, have a commandment to take tithes of the people according to the law, that is, of their brethren, though they come out of the loins of Abraham.

But he whose descent is not counted from them, received tithes of Abraham, and blessed him that had the promises. And without all contradiction, the less is blessed of the better. That's one of the key words of Hebrews, better.

And here men that die receive tithes, but there he receives them, of whom it is witnessed that he liveth. And as I may so say, Levi also, who received tithes, paid tithes in Abraham. For he was yet in the loins of his father when Melchizedek met him.

If therefore perfection were by the Levitical priesthood, for under it the people received the law, what further need was there that another priest should rise after the order of Melchizedek, and not be called after the order of Aaron?

For the priesthood being changed, that is made of necessity, a change also of the law. Do you understand that? It's a strange bit of reasoning to Western ears, because the writer is saying, you can tell, he says, that the priesthood of Melchizedek is greater than the priesthood of Aaron.

And the reason for that is, he says, during the priesthood of Aaron, their priests received tithes. The priests were, in a special sense, the servant of God, and they received tithes. So during the time of Aaron's priesthood, the priests received tithes.

So they're pretty important. But he goes on to say, the priesthood of Aaron, the people of Aaron, actually they prayed tithes too. And you say, well, who do they pay tithes to? And he says, well, they paid tithes to Melchizedek.

Because they were in the loins of Abraham, when Abraham paid tithes to Melchizedek. You see, there is a corporate sense. They're all in this together. They're all part of one thing. Abraham paid tithes, and because Abraham paid tithes, Levi, who was in him, was paying tithes to Melchizedek.

Is that strange? If you're going to be honest, it's probably strange to most of us. It's strange because we have been taught from earliest days this strict sense of personal responsibility, personal identity.

I, me, mine. But if you go farther to the east, there's much more a sense of being in something together. And me being responsible for my father's debts. And in some circles, of course, being responsible for worship at my father's shrine.

It's kept together in a much more collective sense. Well, let's go back to Deuteronomy now. Deuteronomy chapter 8. We do need this book to orientate us, because the western way of thinking is not God's way of thinking.

Neither is the eastern way of thinking, for that matter. But God's way of thinking is different to anyone else's way of thinking. And what we have in this book is the expression of the way in which God thinks and declares his thoughts.

There's a little word that's used quite often in the Old Testament and in the New Testament, and I love it. It's the word therefore. Because therefore means this next statement is the next logical step to the one that we've just taken.

That's what the word therefore is there for. That's what Dennis Clark used to say. Whenever you see the word therefore in the scripture, you should always endeavor to discover what it's there for. It's always the next step.

If you can cast your mind far enough back to days when you were sitting in school and doing maths, there was a little sign which was three dots and a triangle, which meant therefore. And it meant if you were falling through some algebraic problem or some geometrical thing, it meant that this statement that you are now making is the next logical step from the one that you've just taken.

Well, God is logical too. It's not human logic, but it is a step-by-step reasonableness in the way that God works. And as you read the scriptures, and just notice those therefores, you'll begin to see something of God's logic, the way in which God works.

And it's very different to the way in which men work. Okay, back to Deuteronomy chapter 18. This is Moses speaking to the people. All the commandments which I command thee this day shall ye observe to do, that ye may live, and multiply, and go in, and possess the land which the Lord sware unto your fathers.

And thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep his commandments or no.

And he humbled thee, and allowed thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know, that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only. But by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live.

This little phrase here, these few sentences, in which Moses tells us something more. The years in the wilderness were not just punishment. They were not just punishment. In any case, all God's punishments are remedial.

They're always as a result of his love, whom he loves, he rebukes, and chastens. God actually said to his people Israel, it's recorded in the prophecy of Amos, he said, you alone have I known of all the nations of the earth.

That's why I will punish you for all your sins, said God said. Part of his training, part of his chastening, and his bringing up of his people. So this time that they spent in the wilderness, as well as being a punishment for their unbelief, was more constructive than that, it was positive.

God was doing something during these 40 years. Verse 2, thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee these 40 years in the wilderness. We sometimes refer to the wilderness wanderings, and I think the scripture does on occasion, but you mustn't think of aimless wanderings.

These were led wanderings. He led them in the wilderness. They weren't lost in the wilderness. They were being led specifically stage by stage. God was ordering things, and this was the purpose of his ordering, to humble thee, and to prove thee.

That's to say to put people to the test. Sometimes the Bible uses this word prove in a way that we use it, but perhaps don't think of using it very often. If you have a piece of gold or something, it is taken to an essayist, someone who tests it and checks it, and if he gives it his approval, it is proved.

That's part of the meaning of the word prove in the New Testament. It has built into it the idea of a testing which has taken place, in order that approval might be given. So this time of being led in the wilderness, these 40 years, was for a purpose.

It was so that a testing could take place, and this is how it's expressed, to humble thee, and to prove, as to say to test with a view of approving, to prove thee to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep the commandments or no.

And during those 40 years, Moses says, this is what happened, and he humbled thee, and allowed thee to hunger, and fed thee with manner which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know, that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live.

I'm sure that latter verse, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord, will be familiar to you. Let's go to Deuteronomy chapter 6. Now these are the commandments, the statutes and the judgments, which the Lord your God commanded to teach you, that you might do them in the land whither ye go to possess it.

That thou mightest fear the Lord thy God, to keep all his statutes and his commandments, which I command thee, thou and thy son. Can you see that thou and thy son is actually part of the thee? Does that sound very complicated?

You'll need to look at this in the authorized version. Look at it in verse 2. I command thee, and then he explains who he means by thee. When he says thee, he means thou and thy son. In other words, when he says thee, he means you.

But he's all gathered it together into one. I'm sorry if this archaic English grammar is a bit strange. Which I command thee, thou and thy son, and thy son's son, that's three generations, all thee, all the days of thy life, and that thy days may be prolonged.

Hear, therefore, O Israel, and observe to do it, that it may be well with thee, and that ye may increase mightily, as the Lord God of thy fathers hath promised thee, in the land that flows with milk and honey.

Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord, and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. And these words which I command thee this day shall be in thine heart, and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.

And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates, that shall be when the Lord thy God shall have brought thee into the land, which he sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give thee great and godly cities which thou buildest not, and houses full of all good things which thou fillest not, and wells digged which thou diggest not, vineyards and olive trees which thou plantest not.

When thou shalt have eaten and be full, then beware, lest thou forget the Lord which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage. For thou shalt fear the Lord thy God, and serve him.

And swear by his name. Let me put another word instead of fear. It's really part of the same thing, and we'll say more about it in a moment too. Verse 13. Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and serve him, and shalt swear by his name.

Let's read on. Ye shall not go after other gods, of the gods of the people which are round about you. For the Lord thy God is a jealous God among you. Lest the anger of the Lord thy God be kindled against thee, and destroy thee from off the face of the earth.

Ye shall not tempt the Lord your God, as ye tempted him in Massa. Now I'm not going to read any more, but I want, if you will, just to make a mental note of verse 13. Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and serve him.

And verse 16. You shall not tempt the Lord your God. And I have also asked you to keep a mental note of that part that says, It is written that man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.

What I want us to notice, if we will, is that these three verses all come from the same section of Scripture. Don't worry about the fact that they have now been broken down into chapters. Moses did not deliver Deuteronomy in chapters and in verses.

That's at most an accidental thing. There's an old legend that the first person who put the Bible into chapters and verses did is a horseback. And every time his horse stumbled, he started a new chapter.

No, every time he stumbled, he started a new verse. And every time he fell off it, he started a new chapter. And there are times when you look at the chapter divisions in the Bible and you think there may be some truth in this kind of story.

Well, Deuteronomy was not divided up into chapters. It was one whole thing. This is one discourse of Moses speaking at one point in the time. So, in the one discourse that Moses gives, you have these three sentences.

Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. Thou shalt not tempt the Lord your God. Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and serve Him. They all come from the same piece of Scripture.

I hope you know where they all come together again, but we'll look at it in a minute if you don't. Now let's turn to Deuteronomy chapter 11. This is still the same discourse, all the same time. Let's read from verse 7.

Chapter 11 and verse 7. If we had the time, I would love to read the whole of Deuteronomy because it really would set the scene for what I want to say next. But I'm trying to take some representative parts of the book of Deuteronomy just to give the atmosphere and the feeling for it.

Verse 7 of chapter 11. But your eyes have seen all the great acts of the Lord which he did. Therefore shall ye keep all the commandments which I command you this day, in order that you may be strong and go in and possess the land whether ye go to possess it.

If you are, I'm sorry to keep breaking into the readings, but if you are ever doing any kind of study about Joshua and the time when it came for the people to possess their possessions, it might interest you to know that the word possess is used more in Deuteronomy than it is in the book of Joshua.

The whole purpose of this book was to, or of this period of time, was to express to the people of Israel the terms under which they would be able to possess the land. The only way they would be able to possess the land is if they were rightly related to God.

If they were keeping his commandments. If they were keeping his commandments, God guaranteed that they would possess the land. And as a consequence of their possessing the land, they would dispossess the people who were already in possession of the land.

And I'm using this kind of language purposely because I want us to try and make some connections. The land of Canaan was a possessed land. It wasn't an empty land waiting for some people to come and settle in it.

It was a possessed land. The land was people-possessed. I hope you understand what I'm trying to say. The land was people-possessed. And God was raising up this people of his to exorcise the land of Canaan.

To cast out the people who already possessed it. So that it could come under God's law and genuinely become God's land. At the time when they came to the borders, it wasn't God's land. It wasn't under God's law and God's rule.

The people who were going to bring it under God's authority had to be themselves people who were under God's authority. They had to be. It isn't an optional extra. The only way you can possess this land, God says to this people, is if you are rightly related to me.

If you're keeping my commandments. If you're walking before me. If you're living and breathing the things that I've spoken to you. It's the only way you will bring this land under the authority that is ultimately my authority.

So now they're with Moses. And Moses begins to say these things. In verse 8. This is another factor. The only way once the people of Israel had possessed their land that they could hold on to it was if they were rightly related to God.

And if they lost their right relationship to God they would lose their possession of this land. And they did do. Constantly. It was always because the vertical relation had been broken. And that worked its way out in the horizontal relationships being broken.

The covenant was in two dimensions. It was vertical, that's to say, between God and man. And it was horizontal between men and men. And usually the signs that it had broken down on the vertical were seen in the horizontal.

I'm sorry if that sounds a bit kind of technical. But what it simply means is this. That if you are rightly related to your brothers and sisters if things are right there it's usually a good indication that things are right in the other dimension.

And if things are wrong in that dimension don't fool yourself, says John in his letter into thinking that things are right in the other dimension. Don't you dare say that you love God if you don't love the people in whom God's life already is.

Don't you dare say this relationship, the vertical relationship, is right if the horizontal relationship is wrong. The only way they could hold on to their possession is if they were rightly related to God.

Verse 9, that you may prolong your days in the land which the Lord sware to your fathers to give unto them and to their seed a land that flows with milk and honey. For the land whither thou goest in to possess it is not as the land of Egypt from whence ye came out where thou sowest thy seed and waterest it with thy foot as a garden of herbs.

But the land whither ye go to possess it is a land of hills and valleys and drinketh water of the rain of heaven a land which the Lord thy God careth for. The eyes of the Lord thy God are always upon it from the beginning of the year even unto the end of the year.

And it shall come to pass if ye shall hearken diligently unto my commandments which I command you this day to love the Lord your God and to serve him put that connection together again love and serve him to love and serve him with all your heart and with all your soul that I will give you the rain of your land in his due season the first rain and the latter rain that thou mayest gather in thy corn and thy wine and thine oil and I will send grass in thy fields for thy cattle that thou mayest eat and be full.

Take heed to yourselves that your heart be not deceived and ye turn aside and serve other gods. Can I just remind any who may not have been here previously this people have been a servant nation they have been the servants of Pharaoh in a foreign land and God has said let my people go so that they can serve me.

They are going to come into the land so that they can be God's servants under God's authority expressing, exercising God's will in the land that he has brought them to and he says you be careful that you don't serve other gods.

Don't come under any other bondages any other lords any other gods. Verse 16. Take heed to yourself that your heart be not deceived and ye turn aside and serve other gods and worship them and then the Lord's wrath be kindled against you and he shut up the heaven that there be no rain and that the land yield not her fruit and lest ye perish quickly from off the good land that is with you.

Therefore shall ye lay up these words in your heart and in your soul and bind them for a sign upon your hand that they may be as frontlets between your eyes and ye shall teach them your children speaking of them when thou sittest in thy house and when thou walkest by the way and when thou liest down and when thou risest up he keeps on repeating this.

In other words that every possible time in the day they were to be contemplating the things of God they were to be conscious that they were not their own but that they belonged to somebody else and the land that they were living in.

They were there as tenants on a strict tenant agreement and the agreement was that they were in right relationship with God and if they broke their tenancy they would lose their land. Verse 20. And thou shalt write them and upon thy gates that your days may be multiplied.

And the days of your children in the land which the Lord sware unto your fathers to give them as the days of heaven upon earth. Isn't that an amazing statement. This was God's full intention with the people of Israel to bring them his servants into this land and under his authorities to subdue it and bring it into perfect order into the way that God wanted it to be.

And the consequence of that God said it would be like heaven upon earth. It would be heaven's rule upon earth. It would be God's will in heaven done upon the earth. They would have been as the days of heaven upon earth.

This was God's intention. This was the willingness of God's heart. He provided for his people all things necessary for them to accomplish this. He wasn't pretending with them. He wasn't going through a charade.

He was offering them a genuine destiny a genuine purpose providing for them all that they needed. As long as they would walk in his way and in right relationship with him it would be accomplished. You can understand again can't you why the Lord Jesus should look upon Jerusalem and weep and say how often Jerusalem how often again and again and again.

And there's no callousness of God in this. There's no cynicism of God in this. Although God knows everything that will happen although he knows the end from the beginning that does not. That gives him no defense against it.

It still impacts upon him as though he hadn't known it was going to happen. What I mean is his disappointments are genuine. They're not contrived because love always believes all things love always hopes all things love never is thinking they're going to mess this one up as well.

It's hopeless. That isn't the way love works and it isn't the way God worked. He constantly encouraged them rising up early and sending prophets to them. That was the way he expressed it on one occasion constantly again and again.

There's a poignant comment in the book of Ezekiel. Ezekiel was prophesying in Babylon when the people had lost their land for a period of 70 years. And during that time Ezekiel is expressing God's heart.

There's one point in it. I think it's in Ezekiel chapter 6 and God says this concerning the people. He says you've broken me with your whoring heart. That's incredible. I don't want us to be sympathetic towards God.

But what is happening in God when he expresses himself like this. You've broken me he says you see he didn't get used to their sin. He didn't become hardened to it. He isn't like human beings can be when and you know why they do it.

They keep themselves distanced from people because they know if they get too close they'll get hurt. Let me let me just share with you a very very simple principle that is at work right the way through the scripture and right the way through life.

And it's this that if you love someone you give to that person a terrible power to hurt you. If you love someone you give to that person a terrible power to hurt you. If you don't love them if you keep your distance from them if you harden your heart if you what's the opposite to enlarge.

If you cause your heart to shrink so that it doesn't keep on getting hurt you can save yourself a lot of harm. You can save yourself a lot of hurt. But you won't be like God anymore because his heart is enlarged.

And it doesn't matter how often the arrows come against him and how often people spit in his face and turn away from him. He still keeps coming all day long. He says I've stretched out my arms to a contradictory people all day long.

He says in Ezekiel you've broken me. And he wanted it to be as the days of heaven upon us. He wanted this people who were his people to worship him and serve him. They were to be the servant of the Lord.

Those who worshipped the true and living God and expressed the consequence of that worship in lives that were utterly surrendered to him lives that were not their own. Now let me just if I may just remind you again of what happened on the cross.

That was man's power to hurt God. And what that tells you more than anything else is the measure of God's love towards men. He loved men so much and as a consequence of loving them so much he put that deadly power into their hands that when the time came they could actually say away with him crucify him.

And if we're going to love one another we just have to keep on taking risks. And we just have to keep on getting hurt. There's no other way for it. Yes you can insulate yourself against a lot of hurt but you will never be the person God wants you to be.

If that's what you do. So Israel poised on the edges you know the point at which they entered in to the promised land. They entered into the promised land just opposite Jericho at a place called Gilgal.

They went across the river Jordan. And that was the place where ultimately.

They were to enter into the promised land. This was the place where Moses gave this discourse. When he said these things when he reminded them of their glorious destiny when he reminded them of what God was fully willing to do with them as long as they would stay in right relationship with him.

Jesus as the Faithful Servant in the Wilderness

Now let's go from the old to the new testament in our bible and look at Matthew chapter four. We'll take a verse or two from the end of chapter three. It tells us I think it's in John's gospel I'm not sure it tells us that John the Baptist conducted his baptisms in Bethabara beyond Jordan.

That means he was actually the wrong side of the river beyond Jordan. That's what it means. It means in that sense he was the other side of the land and I have often speculated and I don't know whether I shall ask him I shall have more important things to do.

I think when I get to heaven and asking John where exactly he was he did his baptising. But I have wondered whether when the people came to John they were baptised in the river Jordan and got out the other side of the river.

You see he was baptising beyond Jordan his congregation if you like the people he was speaking to were the other side of the river. Then they stepped into the river and I suppose the next row of people would move towards the river.

So I don't know where you can get out except the other side. And the river Jordan is not a deep and big river at certain points it's very easily easy to wade across it. Except the kind of time of course when the people of Israel came to the land of Jordan when it was the time of the barley harvest and then Israel Jordan floods all its banks at that time.