The response to the suffering servant Pt2

you We come again to our breakout
excursion into the book of Isaiah, this amazing and full prophecy
declaring the advent of God’s servant, the suffering servant,
the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ. As we reviewed last Lord’s Day,
Isaiah himself served as a prophet of God, ministering to the kingdom
of Judah. from 740 to 680 BC. And as a prophet of God, he brought
forth both admonitions and encouragements from God, but most notably, it
was his declaration of a promised Messiah. And because of that,
many have dubbed him the Messianic prophet. One referred to him
as the Apostle Paul of the New Testament. Truly a primary element
of Isaiah’s mission was to announce the coming of the Redeemer, one
who would enter into human history for righteousness sake, blessings,
and joy. Would God’s people please take
up their Bibles and turn to the book of Isaiah and specifically
to chapter 52, Isaiah chapter 52. Here in Isaiah, and specifically
Isaiah 52, we find ourselves really in the lead-in to one
of the most well-known and beloved chapters in the Bible, Isaiah
53. And as we saw last week, Isaiah
53 actually begins in Isaiah 52. From Isaiah 52, 13 to the
end of Isaiah 53, Isaiah is capturing the last of four songs, prophetic poetry
that heralds God’s servant, the promised Messiah. As we discovered
last week, there are four of these servant songs. In 42, chapter
42, verses one through nine, we saw the servant’s relationship
to the father, his relationship to the repentant, and his relationship
to the world. In chapter 49, the second song,
verses 1 through 13, we saw the servant’s assignment, what he
was called to do, and that is the redemption of sinners. And
then in chapter 50, verse 4, we saw the servant’s very definitive
suffering. But it’s the fourth song that
calls for our focus these several weeks because chapters 54 and
55 captured the response to the suffering servant. The fourth
song begins, as I said, in chapter 52, verse 13, and here Isaiah
is detailing the servant’s suffering. which is done for the sake of
those he would redeem. Let’s review this wonderful,
even if somber, ode to Christ our Savior, shall we? Isaiah
52, beginning in verse 13. Behold, my servant will prosper. He will be high and lifted up
and greatly exalted. Just as many were astonished
at you, my people, so his appearance was marred more than any man,
and his form more than the sons of men. The first thing that
Isaiah tells us is that of the servant’s astonishing reception,
that even though this lowly character was introduced into the world,
many received him. In Isaiah 53, beginning in verse
one, we see the servant’s astonishing rejection. zip down about halfway
through verse two, where we pick up and he says, he has no stately
form or majesty that we should look upon him, nor appearance
that we should be drawn, attracted to him. 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. So we see the servant’s astonishing
reception, his astounding rejection, and thirdly, we see the servant’s
amazing suffering. We see that in verses four through
six, and I’ll read those in their entirety. Surely our griefs he
himself bore and our sorrows he carried, yet we ourselves
esteemed him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted. But 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 to his
own way. But the Lord has caused the iniquity
of us all to fall on him. And the fourth portion of this
Detail of the servants suffering we find in verse 7. This is the
servants awful death He was oppressed and he was afflicted yet. He
did not open his mouth Like a lamb that is led to slaughter and
like a sheep that is silent before its shearers So he did not open
his mouth and the fifth and final section we find beginning in
verse 10 the the servants awesome sacrifice But the Lord was pleased
to crush him, putting him to grief. Jesus Christ suffered
on our behalf. In this familiar passage, Isaiah
captures the image of the suffering servant, Jesus, in his atonement
for sinners. It’s a literary portrait of Jesus
in the act of suffering for the sin of the world. This we must
observe is what was required of the Messiah in order to secure
our ransom from sin. Those verses are absolutely among
the most powerful and meaningful in all of the Bible. And as hearers,
we must respond to them appropriately. Every person who ever hears this
prophecy responds in some measure, indifference or rejection, curiosity,
even sympathy. Everyone does something with
this message. But what’s the appropriate response?
The question with which we’re left at the end of chapter 53
is, how must we respond to this declaration? What is our response
to the suffering Savior? Chapters 54 and 55, This is what
Isaiah presents. It’s our response to the suffering
Savior, and Isaiah here presents the ideal response. As we began
last week, we saw that Isaiah outlines four elements to this
response, and it’s detailed over the course of these two chapters. In 54, 1 through 6, which passage
we looked at last week, that an appropriate response to the
suffering servant produces joy in redemption. In verses 7 through
17, which verses we’ll consider this morning, an appropriate
response to the suffering servant provides assurance in reconciliation. In chapter 55, the first five
verses, an appropriate response to the suffering servant centers
on an appeal to faith. And then finally, rounding out
this consideration, verses 6 through 13 of chapter 55, an appropriate
response to the suffering servant assures sinners of forgiveness. We began our consideration of
the proper response last Sunday, we consider those first six verses
of chapter 54, that it produces joy and redemption. And just
by way of review, for those who weren’t here, the first portion
of that is that, pardon me, an exhortation
to praise for God’s redemption. Here, he addresses a fallen world,
which he likens to a barren and lonesome woman, but surprisingly,
he exhorts this woman to shout for joy, to break forth into
joyful shouting. It’s a metaphor of the advance
of God’s grace in salvation, especially to the Gentile world,
what we now understand as Christ’s church. As I explained last week,
Israel had largely rejected their Messiah. He came to his own,
John says, and those who were his own did not receive him,
John 1 11. Only a small portion believed
in Jesus, but the Gentile response, in contrast, was overwhelming.
We not only read about it in our psalm today, Psalm 67, but
we also sang about it several times in our hymns. The Gentile
response in contrast to the Jewish nation was overwhelming. That’s
where the exponential growth came from in the church. And
so the response of which Isaiah speaks in these chapters is primarily
from the Gentile response to the gospel. So we’re exhorted
to praise God for his provision. Secondly, there’s an exhortation
to preparedness for the immensity of God’s blessing. In verses
two and three, Isaiah inserts a new illustration. that the
church is going to need a bigger tent, basically, because as Isaiah
declares in verse 3, entire nations, even desolate cities, will be
caught up in the spread of the gospel. The response to Christ
And the growth of the church is going to be exponential. Enlarge
the place of your tent, Isaiah says. And then the third exhortation
that he provides is an exhortation to confidence in God’s promise. As a result, the Messiah, the
Messiah’s people, rather, are no longer to fear. They’re no
longer to languish in shame or humility. The Savior has come.
And he’s the same one who created us. He’s the sovereign Lord over
all. He’s the God of the scriptures.
He’s the Holy One of Israel. In his care, we have nothing
to fear. Well, that brings us to the second
element in a proper response to the Savior. And that we begin
to see in verse seven of chapter 54, all the way down through
17. A lengthy passage, just bear with me. Isaiah 54, seven through
17. For a brief moment, I forsook
you. But with great compassion, I
will gather you in an outburst of anger. I hid my face from
you for a moment, but with everlasting loving kindness, I will have
compassion on you, says the Lord, your redeemer. For this is like
the days of Noah to me when I swore that the waters of Noah would
not flood the earth again. So I have sworn that I will not
be angry with you, nor will I rebuke you. For the mountains may be
removed and the hills may shake, but my loving kindness will not
be removed from you. And my covenant of peace will
not be shaken, says the Lord who has compassion on you. Oh,
afflicted one, storm-tossed and not comforted, behold, I will
set your stones in antimony. and your foundations I will lay
in sapphires. Moreover, I will make your battlements
of rubies and your gates of crystal and your entire wall precious
stones. All your sons will be taught
of the Lord and the well-being of your sons will be great. In
righteousness, you will be established. You will be far from oppression.
You will not fear and from terror for it will not come near you.
If anyone fiercely assails you, it will not be from me. Whoever
assails you will fall because of you. Behold, I myself have
created the smith who blows the fire of coals and brings out
a weapon for its work, and I have created the destroyer to ruin.
No weapon that is formed against you will prosper, and every tongue
that accuses you in judgment you will condemn. This is the
heritage of the servants of the Lord. And their vindication is
from me, declares the Lord. And so beginning in verse seven,
coursing all the way down through verse 17, the prophet falls silent
all of a sudden and the Redeemer himself speaks. He is identified
as such three times in this section, verse eight, your Redeemer, verse
10 and 17, the Lord. He now is the one addressing
his fledgling church. And the purpose for which he
communicates here is a fourfold assurance in reconciliation. The Lord has enacted a peace
treaty that will not be severed. Those who place their faith in
Christ should be absolutely confident in their standing with Almighty
God. And so we enter into our second
consideration. The response to the suffering
servant not only produces joy in redemption, but it provides
assurance in reconciliation. And the first of these is an
assurance of mercy. We find it in verses seven and
eight. The first assurance of four that the Lord provides is
that of God’s abundant mercy. Those who take refuge in the
suffering servant will enjoy the fullness of God’s mercy.
This, of course, is in contrast to everything that led up to
their being reconciled to God through Christ, because there
was that period of darkness. that season of fearfulness and
hopelessness where they were caught up, it seemed inescapably,
in sin. There was that season and seemingly
it was an endless period of guilt and shame and godlessness. You know that season. They felt, we felt, as we all
feel before we are saved, that if there is a God, He’s tuned
us out. He’s not available to us. Or
as Isaiah quotes here, He’s forsaken us. He’s turned His back upon
us, abandoning us to our sin. That’s how we felt. It seemed
as if God had completely abandoned us, as if either if he exists
at all, we’re excluded from his attention. We have no relationship
with him. He’s a thought, an idea, a concept,
but nothing more. This is the picture that the
Redeemer presents in verse seven. He says, for a brief moment I
forsook you. This is the condition we were
in when he found us. We were forsaken. In our sinful
state, we were at enmity with God, estranged from him. And
as the Apostle Paul says in Ephesians 2.12, we had no hope. We were without God. And he just lets us simmer in
that wretched mindset. for a season. We cannot miss this. Look at
verse eight. In an outburst of anger, I hid
my face from you for a moment. The Lord acknowledges that this
condition of hopelessness in which we find ourselves as unbelievers
is because of an outburst of his anger. The word outburst,
we think of in human terms as someone losing their temper.
Not so with God. The word is frequently used in
the Old Testament to refer to a torrential flood, an overwhelming wall of water.
It was a wave of His wrath that we experienced, not the fullness
of it. No wonder we felt hopeless and
forsaken, because in a very real sense, we were. He left us to
ourselves and that soon became the only thing real to us. An
empty, miserable gloom. He hid his face from us in anger. But God’s forsaking of us was
not random. It wasn’t capricious. It was
for good reason. It was for good cause. It was
because of our sin. It was because of a slender portion
of God’s justifiable wrath against sin and sinners. His anger towards
us was just. But then suddenly, God’s overwhelming
mercy breaks through. This estrangement was not intended
to be a permanent condition. It was, as the Lord says here,
for a moment. What seemed like an eternity
of despair to us was, for God, a moment. When we can look back
on our dreadful condition before Christ, it will appear then to
us as a fleeting moment of time. We remember it. We remember the
sentiments of it, the feelings that we had, the loneliness,
the hopelessness. But we see it as a brief moment
now. After a brief moment of scorn,
God responds with mercy. Once God moves, that long season
of hopelessness is gone, forgotten. This promise too is reiterated
twice in these two verses. Listen to this, the latter half
of verse seven, with great compassion, I will gather you. And the latter
half of verse eight, with everlasting loving kindness, I will have
compassion on you. God in his mercy bestows his
loving kindness to us. It is God that draws sinners
to himself. When God begins to move in a
sinner’s heart, we come to see our sin for what it is. We come
to see our need of a savior and we cry out in wretched shame. And because he’s the one drawing
us, God responds. He responds in mercy. He is behind
every conversion, drawing us to himself through the finished
work of his son, Jesus Christ. We finally see Christ for who
he is, a loving, merciful Savior who has already paid for our
ransom on the cross. What a joy, what a sacrifice,
what mercy. And that shame and guilt and
hopelessness is just gone. As if it never existed. It was in the face of eternity
as if it never was. And so the first. Of all of these
assurances is that when we place our faith in the suffering servant,
our Lord Jesus Christ, we are assured of God’s mercy. Secondly. When we place our faith in the
Lord Jesus Christ for salvation, we have an assurance of peace.
Would you look at verses nine and 10? For this is like the days of
Noah to me when I swore that the waters of Noah would not
flood the earth again. So I have sworn to you that I
will not be angry with you, nor will I rebuke you. This mercy
of God has its effects. and perhaps chief among them
is peace, peace with God. It’s the fruit of reconciliation
with God. God has reconciled us to himself
through Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. And in order to underscore
the unchangeableness of his promise, God here cites as an example
of his trustworthiness, his divine arrangement, his covenant with
Noah. just as he promised to Noah that
he would not flood the earth again. And he ratified that covenant
with a sign, a rainbow. So he affirms that his promise
to those who place their faith in Jesus Christ are absolutely
sure, safe, secure, bound to enjoy the full results of a peace
treaty signed by the very blood of Jesus Christ. I have sworn,
the Lord says, that I will not be angry with you. God will not
rekindle his former anger for our sin. He will not rekindle
his anger against Christ’s church, just as God kept his promise
that he made to Noah, so he will keep his promise made to believers. They will never again have to
answer for or need atonement for their sin. Never. God’s gracious attitude toward
repentant sinners is just as he showed to Noah. An attitude
of gracious confirmation, an undying promise to uphold his
mercy, an absolute promise of sustained peace. Just as God
sent that great flood once and appointed Noah with the mission
of the ark once. So Christ, having satisfied the
demand of payment at the cross, God will not go back on that
promise. Never. The Apostle Peter said
it this way, Christ also died for sins once for all. The just for the unjust so that
he might bring us to God. Jesus Christ has paid the debt
in full. It’s covered. It’s finished. The war with God is over. There
is now only peace. And if that illustration were
not enough, God offers yet another in verse 10. For the mountains
may be removed and the hills may shake, but my loving kindness
will not be removed from you. My covenant of peace will not
be shaken. He adds this dramatic illustration
to which we can immediately relate here in Colorado, the unfathomable
idea of relocating the mountains. What is more solid and permanent
than a mountain? Look to the West and there they
are. Seemingly they’ve always been there since creation, immovable,
steadfast, fixed. And God says here that it would
be easier to brush aside the mountains, to pick them up and
move them to say Nebraska, than to have him brush aside his perpetual
declaration of peace. In other words, it’s not gonna
happen. God is not gonna forget his peace treaty with his people.
When we place our faith in Jesus Christ, the suffering servant,
we have an assurance of God’s peace. There’s a third assurance. When we place our faith in the
suffering servant, our Lord Jesus Christ, not only do we have an
assurance of mercy, an assurance of peace, we have an assurance
of blessing. That’s the only way I can describe
verses 11 through 13. Oh, afflicted one, storm-tossed
and not comforted, behold, I will set your stones in antimony,
and your foundations I will lay in sapphires. Moreover, I will
make your battlements of rubies, and your gates of crystal, and
your entire wall of precious stones. All your sons will be
taught of the Lord, and the well-being of your sons will be great. The
Lord now, in his assurance to his people, points up the formerly
sad condition. Verse 11, look at it. Afflicted,
storm-tossed, comfortless, he calls them. It’s a picture of
a truly sad state. Afflicted just speaks generally
of hardship. A storm-toss provides details
of that trouble. We were, he says, like a great
vessel overwhelmed by the storm at sea and about to sink, just
like Jonah’s boat when he disobeyed the Lord, and all the while not
comforted, beyond comfort of any kind whatsoever. The Lord is describing a person
who has not had their sins covered by the Savior. But make no mistake,
this condition that he describes is dreadful in the extreme, the
worst possible. The affliction is not a physical
condition at all. It’s a deadly spiritual disease. It will take his life and demand
eternity in that condition. It’s the curse of the sin from
the fall of Adam and Eve. It’s a wretched condition, an
incurable condition outside of faith in Christ. We were dead
in our trespasses and sins, Paul says, and the disorder described
here as being tossed at sea is a description of our sorry estate. Utter chaos, constant disturbance,
utter hopelessness. To top it off, Outside of our
Savior, there is none to comfort us. No human compassion will
relieve our sense. We are in utter despair and almost,
and most of the time, we don’t even grasp the severity of our
wretched condition. You remember that. You didn’t
know how bad off you were until God opened your eyes to it. But
then immediately, Immediately following that dismal opening
line of verse 11 comes a promise from the Lord. And on the face of it, we don’t
even know what these verses mean, but it sure sounds good. And
timony? Most of us don’t even know what
that is. It’s a silvery, precious metal And then he adds to that
sapphires, rubies, crystal, precious stones. Now, immense creativity
has been applied in an effort to find significance in each
of those stones. And that isn’t necessary or helpful. These verses are not intended
to be a literal description. He’s referring to our, he’s not
referring rather to our heavenly crowns or to the streets of heaven. It’s not an image of a temple
or even of a particular church building. It’s a metaphor for
his grace upon his church as a whole. By way of an illustration,
God tells them that he is going to reverse their condition. Christ’s church will be magnificent
and it will reflect God’s glory. And he employs the image of a
construction project that he says soon will be awesome. Your house has been a virtual
wreck. It is in a wretched condition,
but that is all about to change. Jesus declared the same thing
in Matthew 16. I will build my church and the
gates of Hades will not overpower it. God has taken over the restoration
project and it will be thoroughly remodeled, no detail left untouched. There will literally be no stone
left unturned. And in verse 13, God rounds out
his description of the new and blessed condition of his church
In the end, it’s not about a building at all. It’s about a gathering
of converted sinners. Sons, he calls them. Christ’s
church. Look at verse 13. All your sons
will be taught of the Lord and the well-being of your sons will
be great. Our heritage. As Christians will
be perpetual until the day of the Lord, conversions will continue. The grace of instruction will
continue. Jesus quotes this very line in
John 645. They shall all be taught of God. Both there and here, God is speaking
of the blessings of discipleship. Instructions in the things of
God. God has gifted his church with
his word. and with teachers of that word
so that his people need not be ignorant of spiritual truth.
Grace. Instruction. The nurturing of
children and the things of God will continue. Sound doctrine
will continue. And that sound doctrine will
reside in the children of believers. Both the natural offspring of
children and new children of the Lord converted through the
gospel spiritual offspring. God says here that when we place
our faith in Christ, the suffering servant, we are assured. Of God’s
rich blessings. Fourth. In our response to the
suffering servant, where God is providing not only joy and
redemption, but assurance and reconciliation, we not only have
an assurance of mercy and peace and blessing, but fourthly, we
have an assurance of security. We find those in verses 14 through
17. In righteousness, you will be
established. You will be far from oppression.
You will not fear and from terror, for it will not come near you.
If anyone fiercely assails you, it will not be from me. Whoever
assails you will fall because of you. Behold, I myself have
created the smith who blows the fire of coals and brings out
a weapon for its work. I have created the destroyer
to ruin. No weapon that is formed against
you will prosper. And every tongue that accuses
you in judgment, you will condemn. This is the heritage of the servants
of the Lord. And their vindication is from
me, declares the Lord. The final assurance that the
Lord provides here is the assurance of the believer’s absolute security
in Christ. Note verse 14, where he tells
us that in righteousness you will be established. You see,
when a sinner places their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, their
salvation is absolutely secure. No one is able to snatch them
out of the Father’s hand. They will never lose that salvation
because they are established in Christ’s righteousness. You remember that righteousness
is the very thing we needed most. The lack or the absence of righteousness
is precisely what stood between us and a holy God. We would not
have been welcomed to come and stand in God’s presence in our
natural condition. But in Christ, God has provided
his righteousness. And by faith, we are bestowed
the full measure of that righteousness. And because of this, believers
in the suffering servant will never have their sin dredged
up again as an indictment against us. They can assuredly set their
sights on a certain eternity with God. When God says that we will be
established, he speaks of an absolute security in Christ.
We are absolutely secure, immovable, enduring. That we are established
in Christ’s righteousness is a foundational truth. Nothing
will shake the foundation that God has laid. Nothing will destroy
the relationship that he has established. Not all the forces
of mankind, nor even the devil himself. Look at what else God
provides in the second line of verse 14. Not only will Christ’s
church be established, they will not be conquered by the persecuting
forces of this world. You will be far from oppression,
from terror. Without doubt, the world hates
Christ’s church. The centuries of history tell
us of an ongoing tale of the attacks of the world upon the
church. Psalm 2, the kings of the earth
take their stand against the Lord and against his anointed,
that is Christ. If possible, the world would
crucify Jesus Christ every day if they could. Since they cannot, his church
is the target. But the oppression of terror
will not overcome her. Even if she’s attacked, the source
is not God himself. And no matter the source, it
cannot succeed in its goal of destroying Christ’s institution. God puts things into perspective
here in verse 16. Behold, I myself have created
the smith who blows the fire of coals, brings out weapon for
its work. I’ve created the destroyer to
ruin. God here declares his absolute
sovereignty over all things, not just generally over events
and trends and weather and earthquakes or the pulsating whims of nations,
but everything down to the very minutiae, not only the individual, but down to the very weapon that
some individual holds, whether it’s whether it’s a sword or
driving a tank or a cannon or even flying a jet. God is sovereign
even over the twice removed, distant and aloof manufacturer
of such weapons. God’s in control of all, every
last element. This is all comfortably well
in hand and it’s God’s hand. No one can make the slightest
move without his sovereign approval. And as a result of God’s exercise
of sovereign control, look at verse 17, no weapon that is formed
against you will prosper. These words address not only
our physical assaults, weapons formed against us, but verbal
as well. the accusatory language, this
accusatory tongue. These verses do not serve to
disregard the hundreds of thousands of Christian martyrs throughout
the centuries of the church. There have indeed been a great
many who have suffered through man-made weapons. Worse yet,
the slander directed at Christians in Christ’s church. Persecutions
will come. Evil speaking, slander, accusations
will come. Even martyrdom may come. But Christ’s church will not
be conquered by the pitiful earthly weapons that men create. Not only will the believer be
acquitted of any charges, the ultimate reversal, the counterfeit
of extreme proportions, pardon me, countersuit of his extreme
proportions, the accused becomes the accuser. And not merely the
accuser, but the avenger of these things. This is a promise that is carried
forth and expounded again, even in the New Testament. Would God’s
people turn to Romans chapter eight as we close? We have an absolute promise, an assurance of security. And
Paul echoes this same great truth in verse 31 and following of
Romans chapter eight, where he begins, what shall we
say to these things? If God is for us, who is against
us? He who did not spare his own
son but delivered him up for us all, how will he not also
freely give us all things? Who will bring a charge against
God’s elect? God is the one who justifies,
who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is he who died,
yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God,
who also intercedes for us. Who will separate us from the
love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress,
or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Just as it is written, for your
sake we are being put to death all day long. We were considered
as sheep to be slaughtered. But in all things we overwhelmingly
conquer through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither
death nor life, nor angels, nor principality, nor things present,
nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any
other created thing, will be able to separate us from the
love of God, which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Let’s go before
him in prayer.