The Deaf Servant

Please turn your Bible to Isaiah chapter 42. We are continuing in Isaiah 42 here. When you have that, go ahead and stand for the reading of God's Word. I'll begin in verse 18. Isaiah 42, beginning in verse 18.

His ears are open, but he does not hear. But this is a people plundered and looted. They are, all of them, trapped in holes and hidden in prisons. They have become plunder with none to rescue, spoil with none to say restore.

Who among you will give ear to this, will attend and listen for the time to come? Who gave up Jacob to the looter and Israel to the plunderer? Was it not the Lord against whom we have sinned and whose ways they would not walk and whose laws they would not obey?

He poured on him the heat of his anger and the might of battle. It set him on fire all around, but he did not understand. It burned him up, but he did not take it to heart.

Amen.

You may be seated.

Blindness and Deafness in Isaiah and Matthew 13

Dear Heavenly Father, we ask that you would open our eyes, that you would open our ears, that we would not be deaf and blind, but that we would be a hearing and seeing people who are receptive to your Word.

In Jesus' name, amen. This notion of deafness and blindness, of course, have been a theme throughout all of Isaiah. Back even in the commissioning of Isaiah, passage that is quoted throughout the New Testament, Isaiah is told that he is to go and to say to the people this.

Keep on hearing, but do not understand. Keep on seeing, but do not perceive. God tells him, Throughout this whole book, we have seen the blindness of God's people, and not only the blindness of God's people, but in particular, Isaiah's function as a prophet to give the Word of God, not in order that their eyes may be opened, but in order that their eyes would be blinded.

This morning in God's providence, we are looking at Matthew 13, where Jesus explains the parable of the sower, and he also tells his disciples why he does not explain it to everyone, but rather speaks in parables so frequently.

He speaks in parables because to them it has been given to know the secret to the kingdom of heaven, but not to others to know. And what does he say there? He quotes that very commission to Isaiah, that this is to fulfill these words that were given to Isaiah, that seeing, they would not see, and hearing, they would not hear.

Hearts of this people are dull. And so even Jesus' words, not just Isaiah's, but even Jesus' words had a prophetic function, not just of opening eyes, though he opened many people's eyes, not just of opening ears, though he opened many people's ears, but of blinding and of making them deaf.

So it is here in this passage that we see once again that theme of the deaf and the blind, and in particular, that none are as blind as a servant. There are many blind throughout the world. In fact, most people are spiritually blind.

But there is no one as blind as the one who has repeatedly received the word of God to the end of further blindness. No one is quite as blind as that one. Hear you deaf, and look you blind, that you may see.

Of course, in this previous passage, spoke of the coming future where, in verse 16, and I will lead the blind in a way that they do not know, in paths that they have not known, I will guide them. I will turn the darkness before them into light, the rough places into level ground.

So there is a promise that God will open the eyes of the blind. And he tells them, hear you deaf, and look you blind, that you may see. But, but despite that, that statement that fulfills this thing that will happen in the future, he observes in verse 19, who is blind but my servant, or deaf as my messenger whom I send?

There is none blinder than the servant of the Lord. This is Israel who has heard God's prophecies repeatedly. In fact, nowhere else had God given his word the way he gave it to Israel. And he gave that word to Israel, and what is the result?

Not that they are better seeing than any other nation, rather that they are blinder than every other nation. Who is as deaf as the messenger whom I send? Who is as blind as my dedicated one, or blind as the servant of the Lord?

He sees many things, but does not observe them. His ears are open, but he does not hear. This is one who has a particular task to be the servant of the Lord. Israel is supposed to serve God. How are they supposed to serve God?

By following his laws. How do they have his laws? By hearing the word of the Lord. And this one who is supposed to know the word of the Lord, who is supposed to be open to it, receptive to it, seeing, hearing, is the blindest of all.

It says, who is as deaf as the messenger whom I send? This is Israel's other function, to proclaim that word to others. Now, we know that in the New Testament there is a great commission that was not given in Israel, and so the anticipation of the gospel going out to the nations was not exactly the same as it is now in the New Testament.

Yet, all the same, they are supposed to be God's representatives to the world, demonstrating what is true by their following the law. And yet, these people who are supposed to share that word of God are the deafest of all the messengers, deafest of all those who would hear.

They are deafer than the ones that they are supposed to give the word to. Who is blind as my dedicated one? People of God, the Israelites, they are dedicated, they are in covenant with the Lord, as it says in some translations, or in peace with the Lord.

Through that means of his covenant, their eyes are supposed to be open, they are supposed to abide by his law. Because he is their God who has brought them out of the land of Egypt, they are particularly supposed to follow in his ways.

Yet, they are blinder than any other people. So he calls them deaf, he calls them blind, he calls them blind again, then deaf again, then blind again, then blind again. Repeatedly, he speaks of their blindness, speaks of their deafness.

The people, because of their blindness and their deafness, will go into the land of Babylon. They will be made prisoners in that land. Now, there is this prophecy that they will be brought back out, that he will make them see.

But, as it stands, because of their great blindness, they will go off into the land of Babylon, they will be taken captive, because the Lord will not be mocked. Speaks here in this passage, and also talks about who is as blind as the servant of the Lord.

This is fascinating because this is the Lord speaking in this previous passage. And yet, see, he says, my dedicated one, but then says, the servant of the Lord. One of two things is happening there. Either Isaiah is transitioning to speaking as himself in the middle of the sentence, which is unlikely, even though he does speak as himself in the next few verses.

Or, this is God referring to God. This is the Lord referring to the Lord. Evidence of the Trinity there. Who is as blind as my dedicated one, or blind as a servant of the Lord? This lets you know the means by which God will save.

He will save, not just by being some Unitarian God that cannot save, but being one who is able to send his own servant, who is able to send the Word of God himself, in order to open eyes. This is the way that salvation will happen.

Hardness of Heart Under the Word

Just taking a step back and considering these truths, that the Word makes many blind rather than making them see. And on top of that, those who have been repeatedly exposed to the Word, to the effect of it making them blind, are the blindest of all.

Consider Jeremiah 6, verse 10. You want to remember that. We just read Isaiah 6, 10 in that commission. Jeremiah 6, 10 says something similar. To whom shall I speak and give warning that they may hear?

Behold, their ears are uncircumcised. They cannot listen. Behold, the Word of the Lord is to them an object of scorn. They take no pleasure in it. Speaking of the people of God here who are supposed to receive his Word, they're supposed to be a circumcised people, a people who are holy and set apart in their body.

Yet their hearts are not circumcised, their ears are not circumcised, and so they do not receive the Word of the Lord. That Word, rather than opening their eyes, closes them further and further. And perhaps you know this to be true.

Perhaps you've seen those people in your life who have repeatedly received the Word only to the effect of it making them blinder and blinder, making them harder and harder to the Word of God. You see the example of Pharaoh?

What happens as God speaks to him, God shows him his miracles? He grows harder and harder and harder, ten times over. The different categories of people here who have rejected God's Word, and by rejecting it, grow harder to it.

First, we have directly here the Israelites. The Israelites have not been responsive to God's Word. As I said, they will go off into Babylon. There, when he takes them into their lowest state, just as it's said in the commission, how long was this supposed to happen until?

Until cities lie waste without inhabitants, and houses without people, and the land is desolate. They will, under their desolation, repent and turn to the Lord, and he will open their eyes and they will return.

Yet, this is not the ultimate answer to all of this, because as we see in Jesus' own time, the Jewish people that were around him were blind. They were hardened to the truth. Many opened their eyes, but not most.

Many, but not most. It is that way to this day. Even to this day, those people who have been exposed to the Word, especially those people who have been exposed to it in a Jewish context that explicitly reject Jesus, have increasingly grown heart of heart.

Some statistics. One statistic.

Six percent of the people who have been raised Muslim have converted to Christianity. Six percent of the people raised Muslim have converted to Christianity, according to peer research from last year.

Six percent. That's Islam. Something that's very contrary to Christianity, something very, you would think, especially hardened to the Word of God. Guess what that is for Judaism? Same people raised in Judaism.

How many people have converted to Christianity? Two percent. Only a third of Islam. You would think people who are exposed to the Old Testament over and over and over, that that would make them softer and softer and softer to the truth of God.

And yet, Muslims who are never exposed to that Word convert at three times the rate. Is that not confirming what Isaiah has said here? This is not just true for Jews. This is true for those who are raised as Christians as well.

Many people grow up sitting in pews, hearing the Word of God, ignoring it, rejecting it, only to the effect of it making them harder and harder. I grew up in the Bible Belt. I know what it's like to speak to many people who think that they're a Christian, or either those who think that they're a Christian but have not truly received the Word, or those who have rejected Christianity upon hearing the Word of God repeatedly.

There are not harder people that exist on the planet. They are especially hard. These are the people who were raised up in the church with the task of being the servant of the Lord, with being the messenger who is supposed to be sent to the people, in a more extreme way than we have even here in Isaiah, because they had been given the Great Commission.

They have been told to go out and to baptize and make disciples of all nations. And yet there is not a people as deaf as the one who has been raised in the church to the effect of rejecting the Word repeatedly throughout the course of their life.

They are a people who are supposed to be dedicated, who are supposed to be in covenant with the Lord, and yet any kind of offering of a covenant is to no effect because the people are not at true peace with the Lord.

This is what this literally says, the one who is at peace with me. You can imagine it in air quotes. They are not a people at peace with the Lord. There is no one quite hardened like that. Now I will say, in addition to this, that there is a special way that you can imagine this applying to the one who has been converted, whose heart is soft to the Word, but still rejects certain truths.

You, Christian, though you have submitted to the Lord Jesus Christ, though you have responded to His Word and submitted to Him, are there not certain passages that you have glossed over so many times that your sense of understanding of them, you thinking that you already know them, makes it harder for you to see what's really there so that you cannot slow down and understand and see it?

You know how often it's the case that you see something and then for the first time in a long time you realize that something new is there. Now maybe that was just because there's always treasures in the Word, you can always dig deeper, but many times it's because you have treated the Word lightly because you're so used to hearing certain passages that you're just gliding over it and you're not taking it seriously.

Take the Word of God seriously. You have a responsibility every time you hear the Word of God to hear it seriously because it only has one of two effects. It either softens you like wax, like the sun softens wax, or it hardens you like the sun hardens clay.

It only has one of those two effects every time you hear the Word of God. If you're hearing the Word of God proclaimed to you right now and you are either resistant to it or inattentive to it, it is having the effect of hardening the heart.

Even as a believer, this is true to some degree. Or if you are listening right now and you are attentive and you are submissive to the Word of God, it is having the effect of softening you, of transforming you, conforming you, making you more like Christ.

These are the only two outcomes that can come from the Word of God. Just to give a few examples of ways even Christians can be resistant to the Word of God because they've heard it so many times. This is often true in practice, especially for those who are deep into doctrine.

If you have spent a lot of time in doctrine but not applied it to your life, that is a very good example of someone who has repeatedly received the Word of God but then not submitted to it as they ought and then their life is not changed by it as it must be.

There are many people who are very deep in doctrine but then when it comes to applying such things to their marriage, when it comes to applying such things to the way they would interact with others, when someone confronts them with their sin, they're very resistant, very offended, self-righteous.

What is that except for the hardness of heart that comes particularly from studying God's Word in a way that is not truly submissive to it but rather only to the effect of hardening? No doubt the Pharisees and the Jews were frequently reading God's Word.

This is what they were known for, for so frequently reading God's Word,.

But to what effect?

You see, those Jews in Thessalonica rejected Paul and his Word. These are people who are studying the Word of God all the time but not with a submission to it. Acts 17 .11 says, now these Jews, the ones in Berea, were more noble than the Jews in Thessalonica for they received the Word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so.

This is how you should respond to the Word of God. You shouldn't just read it, take some things from it. You should be eagerly going to it in order to be fed. This is the bread of life. Jesus Christ has given us Himself in His Word in order that we might feed on Him.

Man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God. When you hear the Word of God, you should come with an attitude that desires to receive it fully, that desires to submit to it, that is prayerfully eager to get the life from it, knowing that it is not the words of men.

This is how Paul speaks to the Thessalonians even, the good ones that received his Word in the book of Thessalonians. He says that he thanks God that they received his Word not as words from men but as what it truly is, as the Word of God.

Even now as you are hearing it, you should understand that what is being proclaimed to you is not just ordinary words of man but inasmuch as I am telling you what Isaiah has told us, him being a prophet of God, it is the Word of God and it should be submitted to.

You are to come receptively receiving or else what will be the effect? You will be hardened to the Word of God. To give you another example, when I go and tell people about what the Bible says about money and ministry, something that I have studied a lot about, care a lot about, want people to put into practice, I have found as much if not more reception from those who are less doctrinally inclined in particular because they have not grown in such a hardened way to it.

Now, studying doctrine is good. Don't hear me as saying anything along the lines of you need more practice and less doctrine because I would never say such things. You need more doctrine. You always need more doctrine.

But there is a kind of person who self-righteously thinks that he has arrived because he has spent so much time in it without the submission that is necessary to receive it rightly. If you are learning the doctrine of Scripture without submitting to it and it changing your ways, it changing your thoughts, your words, your actions, then you are only hardening yourself to receive those other truths that you must receive.

And this is what I find of many people. They are not thinking about these things in a way that is really eager to submit to the Word of God but in a way that has barriers up in place that are even formed by the Word of God in the sense of them thinking that they already know it because it has only had the effect of hardening them further and further.

Isaiah 42 verse 18 said, To hear you deaf and look you blind that you may see. This is the answer to all of it. God opens ears. He opens eyes. After He took the people into Babylon, He will wake them up to their sins.

They repent. They turn from their sins. And He brings them back into the land of Canaan. Now ultimately, they grow hardened in their hearts once again and when Jesus comes, He gives them the Gospel and yet very few receive it.

Paul preaches to them the Gospel and at the very end of Acts, what does he say? You remember from last week's reading. Go to this people. He says, The Holy Spirit was right in saying to your fathers through Isaiah the prophet, Go to this people and say, You will indeed hear but never understand and you will indeed see but never perceive for this people's heart has grown dull and with their eyes they can barely hear and their eyes they have closed.

He is citing Isaiah's commission. So the people repented. They turned from their sins but then as that generation died off and the next generation came, there's a hardness of heart that led ultimately to Paul quoting these words of Isaiah and so he brought the Gospel to the Gentiles to those who would be more eager to receive it because they had not been hardened particularly by their continual rejection of the Word of God.

The Word is a dangerous thing. It is a dangerous thing. It is a wonderful thing and a dangerous thing. It is like fire. You can be burned by fire. You can be warmed and cook with fire. You shouldn't remove fire from your life.

Obviously fire is a good thing but if you handle it without a seriousness about your life you will burn your house down and this is what many have done as they have come to the Word of God but not receptive to it, not submissive to it.

So examine your own life. Consider for yourself whether or not you have been in the habit of being receptive to the Word of God. Are you like those Jews in Thessalonica who did not receive the Word with all eagerness?

Are you like the Bereans who examined the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so? Did you sit there just hearing the Word go over you? Are you eager to know these truths? Even now if this is something new to you these things that I am saying this is worth looking into.

Go look at Isaiah 6. Go look here in Isaiah 42. Look at how Jesus cites it. Look at how Paul cites this first. Look at the other citations of Isaiah 6 that exist in the New Testament and see if these things are true.

Come to this with a real eagerness. Come to the service prayerfully.

Do you all pray.

Before you come to the worship of God? Do you come well-rested? Do you come eager to receive that Word? Do not show up without a readiness to handle fire the way it is to be handled, to receive the Word with all eagerness.

It is necessary or else its effect will be the opposite. The sun softens wax, but it hardens clay. Do not be hardened under the Word. And keep this in mind as you go and you talk to others and as you share the Word with them it will be to the effect of either their further hardening or their further softening.

But also know this that God has been glorified in particular ways through such hardenings. His Word has gone forward to those who have not been hardened by His Word so that they would receive the Gospel and that glorifies Him.

But there are also those that He brings to the lowest depths until every city has been destroyed as it says in Isaiah 6 and then they would turn and be healed. And He has been glorified in that particular way too just as the people would return from Babylon.

So when you interact with people and they are especially hardened to the Word this is not to say that you should always kick the dust off your feet even though that is appropriate at times. Sometimes God will be particularly glorified in the salvation of the one who is especially hardened.

And as you look back at your own salvation maybe you see that of yourself. I know many of us here grew up in church situations where we were fairly numb to the Word because we had heard it our whole lives and did not take it seriously.

And then sometime.

During our maybe early adulthood maybe middle adulthood maybe even late adulthood it finally clicks in and sets in and God glorifies Himself in a particular way of taking us to that darkest hour and drawing us out of it.

So know that there is still hope. There is still hope for the one who has been hardened by the Word of God though that hardening is a very real thing. Share the Word with all eagerness knowing that it will have its appropriate effect.

It never returns void. If it hardens someone that is to the glory of God. If it softens someone that is to the glory of God. And ultimately all this happens through Jesus Christ.

The Perfect Servant Who Sees and Hears

It says,.

Who is blind but my servant or deaf as my messenger whom I send? What is the hope for a blind messenger for a deaf servant? Is it not the perfect servant of the Lord standing in our place? In verse 1, Behold my servant whom I uphold.

This is speaking of Jesus. My chosen in whom my soul delights. I have put my spirit upon him. He will bring forth justice to the nations. He will not cry aloud or lift up his voice or make it heard in the street.

A bruised reed he will not break. And a faintly burning wick he will not quench. He will faithfully bring forth justice and his righteousness. He will not grow faint or be discouraged till he has established justice in the earth and the coastlands wait for his law.

What is the hope for the blind servant, the servant that cannot see? What is the hope for the messenger who is deaf? It is the messenger who is not deaf. It is the messenger who can see. It is Jesus Christ himself.

Though he gave his words in Matthew 13, in parables, so that some people's hearts would be hardened, afterwards, with his disciples in private, he spoke to them, explaining the meaning so that they could understand the secrets of the kingdom of heaven.

So he will speak to you. If you turn to him, he will speak to you and explain to you the secrets of the kingdom of heaven. Because he is the perfect servant of God. He has been sacrificed in place of those who are evil servants, in place of those who are deaf and blind, and so that they may be forgiven.

And he has lived perfectly righteous so that they might have his righteousness, so that they might have his eyesight, so that they might have his ears, so that they might not be blind and deaf, but see and hear, having what 1 Corinthians 2 calls the mind of Christ.

He has died and raised again so that we might have his spirit. Having his mind, how do you become the servant who sees and the messenger who hears? By having the servant who sees and the messenger who hears.

Having his mind by his spirit, he gives it generously.

To all who ask,.

All who ask for his spirit receive. Ask for his spirit today. Whether you don't know the Lord and you need that spirit for the first time, ask today. Or whether you are one who has obeyed the gospel, but there are areas of your life where you have not submitted because there are areas of his word that you have rejected or not heeded the way you ought and you have just glided over them.

Ask him today for his spirit that you might have his mind and you might be like him, the servant who sees, the messenger who hears.

Amen.

Dear Heavenly Father, we are people who do not see as we ought, we do not hear as we ought, but we thank you for the spirit of Jesus Christ, his mind, by which we might know the truth and by which we might not only see, but proclaim to the nations the goodness of the law of God.

We ask that by your gospel we would see more, we would hear more, and particularly that we would see Christ and that we would hear his good news and that it would be a bond to our souls. In Jesus' name, amen.