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Isaiah: Book of Good News!
What is it? Oh, Antiques Roadshow. That's probably the majority of you who have watched it. I don't watch it religiously. Some people do, it's like anytime it's on, but I have happened to come across it a few times.
Usually, when I see it on the guide, I just go right on by, I'm looking for something else and don't pay attention to it. But sometimes I say, I wonder what's going on in that. So, I turn it on. Once I do that, it's really fascinating and I've often wondered, why don't I watch that more because it is such an interesting show.
Those of you who watched it, you know the premise. People come, they travel all over the place and go to these different venues and they let people know plenty of time ahead of time that they're coming.
There's actually a screening process that people have to go through in order to be on there. But the people that come to the venue, they're bringing something with them that they want to know the value of it.
How much is this worth? What's interesting, of course, is they show you the item and they tell you all about the item. Of course, what everybody wants to know is, but what's it worth? Well, what's it worth, right?
Sometimes, when they hear what it's worth, you can see the person crestfallen. They were hoping it would be really worth something. But of course, the most exciting ones are the things where I bought this thing at a yard sale for $30 and then they find out it's worth like $35 ,000 or something like that.
They say, wow, I had no idea. That phrase, I had no idea, is probably the most common phrase. You wonder, are they told to say that? It's repeated so many times. But let's hypothetically suppose, it's totally hypothetical.
Let's hypothetically suppose that someone actually had in their possession the actual physical wooden cross of Christ and it was verified to be such. They haul this thing in to Antiques Roadshow and they're able to demonstrate that this is indeed the very cross of Christ.
What kind of value do you think that they would place on that? What do you think they would claim it to be worth? How many millions of dollars? Got to wonder, right? Well, in Isaiah 49, where we're going to be focusing our attention this morning in Isaiah, we discover what the cross of Jesus is worth.
But before we get there, we want to do the bird's eye view of chapters 49 through most of 52. We're going to come back to chapter 49 and look at it in detail, so we'll pass over the summary that's on your handout.
But in chapter 50, the people are in exile. Remember, Isaiah is speaking to God's people in 200 years in the future, as they're in a Babylonian exile. He's addressing them and he clarifies that the reason for the exile was not because God was weak and he couldn't deal with their attack.
Brings that out in verses 2 and 3, especially in look in the middle of verse 2, is my hand shortened at all that it cannot redeem or have I no power to deliver? Of course, he does. So that's not the problem.
What is the problem? Why are they in exile? It's because of their sin. So, for example, in verse 1, he says, at the end of the verse, he says, for your iniquities, you have sold yourselves, and for your transgressions, your mother has been put away.
So the reason for the exile was Judah's sin. And also in this chapter, in contrast to the nation of Israel, which we're going to see in a little bit, is the servant of the Lord, the servant, ultimately Jesus, has faithfully conveyed the message that has been given to him by the Lord, even though doing so has brought great abuse.
So, for example, verse 4, he says, the Lord God has given me the tongue of the learned that I should know how to speak a word in season to him who is weary. He wakens me morning by morning. He wakens my ear to hear as the learned.
And the servant takes what he hears and faithfully communicates that. The first 16 verses of chapter 51 begin with Isaiah calling God's people to remember the rock from which they were hewn, see at the end of verse 1.
And then in verses 2 and 3, and he clarifies, that rock from which you have been hewn is Abraham. And he says, look to Abraham, your father, and remember how God has faithfully fulfilled the promise to Abraham.
Says at the end of verse 2, I called him alone and blessed him and increased him. So he's speaking specifically about that blessing of posterity, and that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars in the sky, if he could count them, and that has happened, that has occurred.
There has been an innumerable number of descendants that have come from Abraham. And so God's been faithful to fulfill his promise. Verses 4 through 8, the prophet emphasizes that God's salvation will last forever.
See that at the end of verse 8, he says, but my righteousness will be forever, and my salvation from generation to generation. Why? How so? That salvation will last forever because, in verses 9 through 16, the ancient monsters have been destroyed, have been defeated.
What ancient monsters? Look at verse 9, in the middle of the verse, it says, are you not the arm that cut Rahab apart and wounded the serpent? Or perhaps Leviathan, this ancient sea monster, whether literal or figurative.
But the point is that God has indeed defeated these ancient monsters. Rahab, the name Rahab there, it's not Rahab the harlot, Rahab is Egypt. Let me show you this so you don't think I'm just pulling this out of the air.
Back in chapter 30, verse 7, says, for the Egyptians shall help in vain and to no purpose. Therefore, I have called her Rahab Hem Shabbat. I have a little marginal note in my Bible, it takes you down to verse 7, footnote number 1, and it says, that means, Rahab Hem Shabbat means Rahab sits idle.
Rahab meaning Egypt. So Egypt and the Leviathan, the serpent, perhaps that's a reference to Satan and his angels. Tim Chester remarks, he says, Egypt or Rahab is the ancient oppressor nation perceived as a monster of mythic evil, slain by the power of God.
All right, so God's salvation is forever. And then our section this morning that we're considering in Isaiah 51, verse 17, through chapter 52, verse 12, two times, Isaiah doubly calls God's people to wake up.
See this in verse 17, awake, awake, he says. And in chapter 52, verse 1, awake, awake, calls God's people to wake up, all right? And in chapter 51, verses 17 through 20, he says, God's people, Judah specifically, has received judgment from God.
So look at verse 17, he says, stand up, O Jerusalem, you who have drunk at the hand of the Lord the cup of his fury. You have drunk the dregs of the cup of trembling and drained it out, all right? So Judah has received this judgment from God expressed in the form of the cup of his fury.
But look at verse 22, and the Lord says, I'm going to take that cup away from you. Thus says your Lord, the Lord and your God, who pleads the cause of his people. Here's what he says, see, I have taken out of your hand the cup of trembling, the dregs of the cup of my fury, you shall drink it no longer.
Well, let's think about that, that cup of the fury of the Lord and the Lord taking it out of the hands of the people whom he is judging. When did that happen? When did he do that? Well, again, Isaiah is prophesying to people in the Babylonian exile.
And there is a partial fulfillment of this. And this, by the way, this often happens in especially Old Testament prophecy. We see it in Old Testament prophetic writing, where there is the prophet makes his declaration and there's sort of a telescopic view of the fulfillment of that prophecy.
And what I mean by that is, it's like when you look through binoculars or a telescope at a distant mountain range, you'll see a mountain, you can see the whole mountain right in front of you. You can see the whole mountain right in front of you.
But then in the background, you see just the peaks of other mountains. And a lot of this Old Testament prophecy, you're seeing a mountain in front of you where there is an initial fulfillment. But the prophet is also looking forward to some mountain peaks beyond that, where you see just the peaks, the tips of the mountains.
You don't see everything in between. You don't get a full understanding of how all that's going to happen. But you do see some indications of an even future application of this prophetic message. And that's the case here.
So this removal of the cup of trembling and the fury of the Lord, initially and partially is fulfilled at the end of the Babylonian exile, the Babylonian captivity, when the people of Judah are free to go.
Anybody who wants to go back to Jerusalem is able to do so. But that can't be the total fulfillment of that, right? Because for the next few hundred years, even after the return to the land of promise, the nation is still not a nation.
Yes, Jewish people are there, but the nation is still not a nation. And their attempts to become one are met with being crushed. The Romans came and crushed them. There were some other things in between there and so forth.
But even at the time of Christ, the people are living in the fear of the oppression of the Romans. So there's a fuller fulfillment of this. And the fuller fulfillment, the ultimate fulfillment is, of course, the Lord Jesus Himself.
Because remember in Mark chapter 10, you had James and John, the sons of Zebedee, they come to Jesus and they say to Him, we want you to do for us whatever we ask. And He said, what do you want me to do?
He says, we want you to give us the places of authority and positions of honor when you come into your kingdom, one of us on the right, one of us on the left. And Jesus responds to them in this way. He says, you don't know what you've asked.
He says, are you able to drink the cup that I drink? They think they are. He says, well, yeah, we can drink the cup that you drink. Are they able to drink the cup? What is that cup? We find out in the Garden of Gethsemane, don't we?
As Jesus is facing the cross in 24 hours, and He's praying in the Garden of Gethsemane, and He prays to the Father and says, if it is possible, take this cup from me. What is that cup? The outpouring of God's wrath upon the sins of those for whom Christ is dying on that cross in the next day.
And it is the full fury of the wrath of God that Christ is taking upon Himself as the cup is poured out. So it is ultimately fulfilled, this promise that God is going to take the cup away. It's fulfilled in Jesus because God in having Christ drink that cup and drain it down, He takes it away from those who are redeemed from God's people.
As we continue on here in chapter 52, in verses 1 to 6, and then at the end of the last couple verses in this section, verses 11 and 12, when that cup is taken away, God's people will then be able to awake from their captivity.
So verses 11 and 12, Depart, depart, go out from there, touch no unclean thing. Get out of the midst of her, be clean, you who bear the vessels of the Lord. For you shall not go out with haste, nor go by flight.
For the Lord will go before you, and the God of Israel will be your rear guard. It's talking about that new exodus, right? Has an initial fulfillment, deliverance from the Babylonian captivity, and an ultimate fulfillment.
In verses 7 to 10, these three verses or four verses that sandwich between that section, notice how it begins with the proclamation that the proclaiming of salvation, the declaration that proclaiming salvation is a beautiful thing to do.
How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who proclaims peace. Well, if you recall, that verse here from Isaiah 52, 7, is quoted by Paul in Romans 10, 15. And that's in that context of, you know, Paul talking about his care for his own people.
In Romans 9, 10, 11, in chapter 10, verse 15, Paul quotes this verse to say that it has always been God's intention, always been God's intention for, quote, all the ends of the earth to see the salvation of our God.
All right? So that is a beautiful thing when the salvation of our God is proclaimed to all the ends of the earth. All right, now let's go back to chapter 49. In chapter 49, Isaiah reveals what the cross of Jesus is worth, and he does so by introducing us to the servant of the Lord.
Who is this servant? Who is this servant? We have him mentioned in verse 5, the Lord says, who formed me from the womb to be his servant. All right, who is this servant? On the one hand, this servant of the Lord is Israel.
Now, he's identified as such in verse 3, he said to me, you are my servant, O Israel. You are my servant, O Israel. Now, you go back to verse 1, and in verse 1, you see reference to this divine election where God in his grace chose this people, Israel, to be his servant.
So he says, listen, O coastlands, to me, and take heed, you peoples from afar. The Lord has called me from the womb, from the matrix of my mother, he has made mention of my name. Now, hang on, there's going to be a fuller application of this, and you're already ahead of me, I'm sure, but initially, at least, this servant that he's talking about is Israel, and this servant is created to serve God.
Verse 5, now the Lord says, who formed me from the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob back to him so that Israel is gathered to him. The servant of the Lord is created to serve God, and what is his task?
What is the task of this servant of the Lord? His task is to live under God's law, I'm talking about Old Testament Israel now, to live under God's law in such a way that the nations would know that it's a good thing to know God.
The nations would see that, and there's passages in Deuteronomy and so forth we could look at, I don't want to take the time to do that this morning, but this is their task, this is what God wants Israel as a nation to do, to show forth the blessings and benefits of knowing God and living under God's law.
Their task is to walk in the light of the Lord. Look back at Isaiah 2, all the way back to the beginning of the book, Isaiah 2 and verses 2 through 5. Notice particularly verse 5, O house of Jacob, come and let us walk in the light of the Lord.
This is the task of the servant, Israel, to walk in the light of the Lord. Why? Verses 2 and 3, it shall come to pass in the days that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established on the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills, and all nations shall flow to it.
Many people shall come and say, come and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us His ways, and we shall walk in His paths. For out of Zion shall go forth the law and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
All right, so as Isaiah is speaking of this future purpose, he is actually reiterating what the purpose for Israel has been all along, to walk in the light of the Lord so that the nations might see, and the nations might be drawn to the God of Israel.
In other words, to summarize it this way, the point is that the people of Israel were to attract the nations to God by their righteous living, but Isaiah is writing to God's people, looking forward again to God's people who are in the Babylonian captivity.
So what has happened? Well, Tim Chester explains, he says, quote, instead of attracting the nations to the ways of the Lord, Israel has been attracted to the ways of the nations, right? And instead of honoring His name among the nations, she has profaned His name.
And if you just think from the standpoint of a 30 ,000-foot overview of the history of Israel, that's exactly what has happened. They have taken on the gods of the other nations and become more and more like those nations, and it's just the opposite of the way it should be, which leads back in Isaiah 49 verse 4 to the conclusion that these years and years of nation building have come to nothing.
Verse 4, then I said, the servant, right, the servant of the Lord, which is Israel, then I said, I have labored in vain. I have spent my strength for nothing and in vain. Well, why is that? Because as Isaiah is writing and as the people in the Babylonian captivity read what Isaiah had written 200 years earlier, as they read that, as they read this book, the land of Israel lies desolate.
The king of Israel is in captivity and the temple is in ruins. In other words, Israel has failed as the servant of the Lord. On one hand, that servant of the Lord is the nation of Israel, but on the other hand, the servant is someone else, someone who, as verse 5 begins, will bring Israel back to God.
And now the Lord says, who formed me from the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob back to him so that Israel is gathered to him. And he, this servant who is someone else, we see at the end of verse 6, will be the light.
He will be the light that Israel was supposed to be. He says at the end of verse 6, I will also give you as a light to the Gentiles that you should be my salvation to the ends of the earth. So this servant of the Lord, who is supposed to be, which Israel was supposed to, you know, function in such capacity and do these things, failed miserably.
There is another servant who is going to fulfill that responsibility. And that servant is then honored. Remember what Jesus said in John 8 verse 12. He says, I am the light of the world. Israel was supposed to be and failed.
Jesus said, I am the light of the world. What makes him different, Jesus? What makes him different than the failed servant, Israel? Let's notice some things. Here in verse 3, one of the things is that he, Jesus, the servant of the Lord, displays God's glory.
He said to me, you are my servant, O Israel, in whom I will be glorified, in whom I will be glorified. And you know, John 1 14, right? We beheld, the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
And in Hebrews 1 verse 3, we read that the Son, speaking of Jesus, is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of His being. Israel couldn't do that. This servant of the Lord does it perfectly, displays the glory of God.
Again, let me quote Tim Chester. He says, if you want to know what God is like, look at Jesus. It's in Jesus that we see the true holiness, grace, wisdom, justice, compassion, power, and love of God. And what we see is splendid, for He displays God's splendor.
God's honor has been brought into question by the failure of Israel. Because remember the typical pagan thinking about the gods. You claim to have this God as your God, O Israel. How is it that your God couldn't deliver you?
How is it that you have been totally decimated? How is it that your God's place of worship is in utter ruin and lies in rubble in a heap? It must not be much of a God. That's the conclusion of the nations.
But the servant of God will restore God's reputation. He displays God's glory. Second way He differs is that He receives God's reward. He receives God's reward. The end of verse 5, He says, for I shall be glorious in the eyes of the Lord, and my God shall be my strength.
That I shall be glorious could be translated, I am honored in the eyes of the Lord. What is this servant worth? What reward does his obedience merit? In the first place, the first part of his reward is that God rewards him with a restored Israel.
See that there in verse 5. His purpose, bring Jacob back to Him so that Israel is gathered to Him. But that isn't enough. God's reward for this faithful servant is far more. Look at it in verse 6. Indeed, He says, it is 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.
This is too small of a reward. I will also give you as a light to the Gentiles that you should be my salvation to the ends of the earth. The cross deserves more than simply the restored people of Israel.
The cross deserves the Gentiles to the ends of the earth. So He receives God's reward. A third difference is that He, this servant, fulfills this passage. This servant carried out fully the servant's work.
Remember Philippians chapter 2 verse 7, this very wonderful and descriptive passage regarding Christ's servanthood, says that Jesus made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a servant, bond slave, and becoming in the likeness of men.
And what did He do? Being found in the appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death. What kind of death? Even the death of the cross. Even the death of the cross. So Jesus, the servant, was obedient even unto a cross death, and that obedience merits a great reward.
At the end of verse 4, here in chapter 49, He says, "...yet surely my just reward is with the Lord, and my work with my God.". The servant says, I'm going to be amply, suitably rewarded by God. The sham judgment that the world rendered upon Jesus on crucifixion day, right?
He's guilty of death. Crucify Him, crucify Him, take Him away. And they crucified Him. The sham judgment said He is worthy of death as an evildoer. But the judgment of God rectifies all that and gives Him a just reward.
And it is a great reward. And what is that reward? Well, back in Philippians chapter 2, it is universal exaltation. Therefore, God has highly exalted Him and given Him a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow.
His reward is universal exaltation and a global people. A global people. At the name of Jesus, every knee should bow. Of those in heaven, those on earth, and those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.
One of the other prophets, Daniel, he speaks of this global people as the servant's reward. In Daniel 7, verses 13 and 14, Daniel says, I was watching in the night visions, and behold, one like the Son of Man, coming with the clouds of heaven.
He came to the ancient of days, and they brought Him near before Him. Then to Him, to this Son of Man, was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples and nations and languages should serve Him.
His dominion is an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away, and His kingdom the one which shall not be destroyed. People from every tribe and tongue and nation will be His people. We read of that in the book of Revelation.
Now, compare that with what we think of as the last words of Jesus before the Ascension, Matthew 28, verses 18 to 19. What did He say? Go to the house of Israel and bring all the wayward from the house of Israel back to Me.
Right? Is that what He said? All authority is given unto Me. Then He said, what? Go where? Go into all the world. Go into all the world and make disciples of all the world. So, Matthew 28, verses 18 to 19, 19 to 20, these closing verses, this great commission that Jesus gives to His disciples, we ask the question, why missions?
Why missions? And the answer is to gather nations to worship Israel. This is the task. This is the reward that is given to the servant, the nations of the world. Well, the rest of chapter 49, back in Isaiah, we've met the servant and his reward.
We get some insight into what his cross is worth, but now in the rest of this chapter, we meet the servant's children. We meet the servant's children. So, verses 1 to 7 establish that the obedience of the servant Jesus merits the nations as a reward.
Verses 8 to 26 describe how Jesus will receive His reward. Now, a little background. You see in verse 8 that the covenant expands as it's renewed in Jesus. Look at verse 8. He says, in an acceptable time, I have heard you, and in the day of salvation, I have helped you.
I will preserve you and give you as a covenant to the people to restore the earth, to cause them to inherit the desolate heritages. So, in Christ, salvation reaches the ends of the earth. And that new exodus that is, again, initially fulfilled in the deliverance from the Babylonian captivity and is ultimately filled in the promise of a new humanity that make up people of God from every nation, which is why you and I are where we are this morning, because this has become a reality.
People from every nation are brought into this covenant. In Christ, salvation reaches the ends of the earth. Now, I want you to notice that this chapter, 49, the whole chapter is addressed to Gentiles.
How do we know that? It begins with a reference to the coastlands. It says, listen, O coastlands, to me. The coastlands speak of territory far, far away, far away. In verse 6, He says, I will give you as a light to the Gentiles.
In verse 12, He says, look, surely these come from afar. Look, those from the north and the west, and these from the land of Sinim. He's talking about Egypt. So, He's talking about people coming from all four corners of the world.
So, this chapter is addressed to the Gentiles. And the people who come, the people who are addressed here, are people who become His children. There's a repeated use of this idea of His children. In verse 15, can a woman forget her nursing child?
Verse 17, your sons shall make haste. Verse 20, the children you will have after you have lost the others. Verse 22, they shall bring your sons in their arms, and your daughters shall be carried on their shoulders.
In verse 25, I will save your children. Okay? So, He's talking here about the children. What do we learn about these children? First of all, very quickly here, the Lord will remember them. The Lord will remember His children.
The complaint of the people in verse 14 is, the Lord has forgotten me. The Lord has forgotten me. This is the cry of the Jews in exile. In the Babylonian captivity, the Lord has forgotten us. But this is also the cry of humanity, isn't it?
What do people say when a hurricane roars through some area like it did a and just levels homes and kills people and devastates things? What is one of the first things that people want to know? What is it?
Where's God? Where is God? Which is just another way of saying, God has forgotten us. God has forgotten us. Where is God? The Lord's response, though, in verses 15 to 18 is, I haven't forgotten you. I'm absolutely committed to my children.
Verses 15 and 16. Can a woman forget her nursing child? No. It's a rhetorical question. Absolutely not. He is absolutely committed to His children, and they, His children, will come to Him. They will come to Him.
Look at verses 17 and 18. Again, your sons shall make haste. Your destroyers and those who laid you waste shall go away from you. Lift up your eyes. Look around and see. All these gather together and come to you.
All of them come to you. God is absolutely committed to His people, and they absolutely will come to Him. Now, an application of this, especially as it relates to the servant, Jesus, Tim Chester makes this a very appropriate application.
He says, quote, we don't have to convert people. That's not our job. It's not your job. We don't have to convert people. God's chosen people will respond, He says, when they hear the gospel. Our responsibility, He goes on to say, all we do is proclaim the message.
That's our responsibility, to proclaim the message. The harvest is guaranteed. None of God's chosen people gets left behind. This is what God is saying. This is what He's saying. I will not forget My people.
I will not forget My children. They will make haste. They will gather together and come to You, My servant. So the Lord will not forget His children. He remembers His children. I think I've already given you the rest of these.
The Lord will multiply His children in verses 19 and 21. And notice, there will be so many in this multiplying of His children, there'll be so many that the place is too small. Verse 19, the land of your destruction will even now be too small for the inhabitants.
So what's the solution? The land is too small. What's the solution? The new heaven and the new earth. You get to the end of the book of Isaiah, chapter 65, He promises the new heaven and the new earth, which really kind of dovetails very well in to the morning message today in 2 Peter.
In verse 21, He says, look, there's going to be so many that you don't even know where they all came from. Verse 21, you will say in your heart, who has begotten these for me since I have lost my children and am desolate, a captive and wandering to and fro?
And who has brought these up? There I was left alone, but these, where were they? Where did all these people come from? Where did all they come from? So many don't even know where they came from. In this era where the church is seemingly, the church in the West is in a state of decline, seems like this doesn't look like a reality.
Perhaps not right now, perhaps not in the West, but in time, the promise stands. The Lord will multiply His children. The rest of it you can follow along in your handout and figure it out, I think. The Lord will vindicate them, and the Lord will liberate His children.
Let's pray. Thank you, Father, for these great promises and connected to the work of the servant of the Lord. We thank you, Lord Jesus, for fulfilling that role of the servant, and in so doing, you have received and shall receive the bountiful reward, not only of honor and glory, but of a people, an innumerable host of people that have been won to you through your work on the cross.