alright this morning's message will be taken from Isaiah chapter 50 Isaiah chapter 50 we are slowly moving through Isaiah and learning a great deal from it I pray and I have learned a great deal and if this sermon series hasn't been any good for you I apologize but it has been good for me and in the long run that'll probably be good for you one way or another so In Isaiah chapter 50 we find another of what we call the servant songs. And the last time we looked in Isaiah chapter 49 and we saw the servant's call. And we saw that God had planned from the very beginning to send Jesus to fulfill the mission of Israel by bringing blessings to the whole world. That's the servant's call. his mission. And then we see after that in Isaiah chapter 49 I want to discuss the intervening material between then and now that we see and the Lord has a conversation with Zion or Jerusalem and her children. now sometimes you hear that the people of god referred to as the daughters daughters of jerusalem as the daughters of zion or something of that nature but this this idea of zion jerusalem he is addressing his people uh... be they that faithful people of israel or be them the faithful people of the church almost makes no difference in the material we're covering And he's saying he's going to bring more comfort to them by restoring them by the people being a covenant for all peoples, a blessing to all the nations, therefore, setting prisoners free and whatnot. And in chapter 49, verse 14, you see that the people express some kind of doubt. They're kind of wondering about this and not exactly understanding what's being said. But Zion said, and the Lord speaks for them, as he has this addressed to them, the Lord has forsaken me, my Lord has forgotten me. More of a clue that this was intended for that time when the people of Israel, or Judah rather, in Jerusalem were in exile in Babylon. That they would pick this up and they would say, yeah, that's exactly how I feel. I feel like the Lord's forsaken us, I feel like he's forgotten us. And then he begins to speak some more, and he uses a couple of illustrations. Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. And he continues to bring forth more encouragements, but the basic encouragement is this. You know, I'll keep watching, and I will keep helping, and I will make these things happen, and therefore you keep watching and see it happen as I do it. I'll multiply you, I'll bring in all the nations. And then there's an emphatic promise that he will do so. So the Lord's flow of logic, his argument in this part of Isaiah, is in the past several chapters, really since chapter 40, it's a topic that comes up again and again, is basically this. The Lord is saying, I have the power, I have the integrity, and I have the will to do what I want to do, and it will be done. And so it's a very strong and encouraging message, which is why chapter 40 begins with the word comfort repeated. And then we get to Isaiah chapter 50, and it opens with a bit of uncertainty, as if the reader is still not believing that God can or will do what he's promising to say. And look what it says here. It says, thus says the Lord, where is your mother's certificate of divorce? with which I sent her away." So in the context, who's the mother? The mother is Jerusalem. The children that he's addressing are the faithful of Israel. And he's saying, where is your mother's certificate of divorce with which I sent her away? Or which of my creditors is it to whom I've sold you? Behold, for your iniquities you were sold, and for your transgressions your mother's was sent away. Why, when I came, Was there no man? Why, when I called, was there no one to answer? Is my hand shortened that it cannot redeem, or have I no power to deliver? Behold, by my rebuke I dry up the sea. I make the rivers a desert. Their fish stink for lack of water and die of thirst. I clothe the heavens with blackness and make sackcloth their covering. And so in verse one, two different illustrations are given here. First of all, where's your mother's certificate of divorce? There isn't one. And you'll say, wait a minute, I thought God used language about divorce concerning Israel and their unfaithfulness and their breaking of the covenant. He only used the language of divorce concerning the northern kingdom. And he calls that the sister of Judah. And he says, I gave your sister a certificate of divorce. She's gone. And they never did come back, really. Now, people of the various tribes and things all ended up coming back, all became part of the church and things. But as a nation, no, they were gone, they were done for. It's only really Judah that became resettled after the exile. You realize that's why it's called the Jewish nation? It's because it's just Judah that really came back. And so he says, where's your certificate of divorce? In other words, the answer is there's not one. He never gave up on them. He never called them divorce. He never totally sent them away. And then he asked the second question of which of my creditors is it to whom I have sold you. In those days, if you had such an insurmountable debt that you could not meet it, you could sell your children into indentured servitude to someone else. Now, it's not like the kind of horrible slavery we had in this part of the world so many years ago, but nevertheless, it was indentured servitude, and it could be for a period of time, it could be an indefinite length of time, but nevertheless, this was a way some people would have to settle their debts. And by him asking the question, he's saying, Where have I sold you? Like God owes anybody. Like God would have some kind of a debt to anyone that he would have to sell his very own children in order to pay it. That's not how he operates. So he asks these two questions, which is very clearly just argumentative, saying, look, it's not like I divorced you. It's not like I've given you up. It's for your iniquities you were sold, and for your transgressions your mother was sent away. So it was because of sin, it was all because of sin. And if it looks like you're divorced, if it looks like you're sold into slavery, it's because of the sin. And the idea is, this is temporary. And so that's the context that we come up to because despite all that the Lord says, the people of Israel are gonna feel like, hey, he's forgotten about us, it's no good, it's all over for us. And he's making the point very emphatically, no. And then starting in verse four, the servant speaks again. And the servant is going to speak of his qualifications and his duty and his ability in order to bring about the things that God wants him to bring about. and listen to the encouragement that this has, both for them and for us. The servant says, the Lord God has given me the tongue of those who are taught, that I may know how to sustain with a word him who is weary. Morning by morning, he awakens. He awakens my ear to hear as those who are taught. The Lord has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious. I turned not backward. I gave my back to those who strike, and my cheeks to those who pull out the beard. I hid not my face from disgrace and spitting. But the Lord God helps me. Therefore I have not been disgraced. Therefore I have set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame. He who vindicates me is near. Who will contend with me? Let us stand up together. Who is my adversary? Let him come near to me. Behold, the Lord God helps me. Who will declare me guilty? Behold, all of them will wear out like a garment. The moth will eat them up. Let's pray. Father God, we praise you for bringing us together. We thank you for this text of scripture. Lord, I pray that you will lend us understanding of these things. We praise you for the word that you sent. We praise you for the work of the apostles to make the New Testament by which we shine a light on all these things in the old. Lord, we thank you and we praise you for your word. Have it accomplish what you sent it for today. In Jesus' name, amen. Okay, so Let's take a look at the beginning here and we'll see something very fascinating. We'll see first of all that the point I want to make today is this. We can trust and obey Jesus Christ because he is perfectly obedient and persevering with the help of God. And that's what we'll find in the text today. And the first thing I want to point out is I want to take this as an anatomy of the servant. And in fact, you could retitle this, perhaps, The Anatomy of a Perfect Servant. It might be an amusing title for this sermon. But it's not the one I chose, so deal with that. So Isaiah chapter 50 verse 4, look what it says here. Lord God has given me the tongue of those who are taught, that I may know how to sustain with the word him who is weary. So it has mention of a tongue, then it has mention of an ear, and these things are related. These things are related very closely and they're related in this way. What qualifies someone to teach? Well, what qualifies someone to teach is someone that has learned. You cannot learn something from someone that they themselves have not learned. And so here we have the chief qualification, really, for someone who's going to teach, for someone who's worthy to be listened to, is the fact that that person has been taught. And isn't that an interesting situation for us? If there's any other revelation that's given to us, as Paul says in Romans chapter one, that everything that we can know about God should be readily available and noticeable from what's out here in creation and everything else, how much knowledge does a child have when he is born? Very little. Basic instincts of food and whatnot. But as far as reasoning, as far as data, as far as intelligence and things, those things are all developed over time. And so every single thing that you know, you were taught. And you say, well, I'm real clever. I'm a clever one. I'm mostly self-taught. I just read books. OK, dummy, where'd the book come from? Because if you really think about it, it doesn't matter where you get the information. It's coming from another human being or directly from God himself, which would be the case of the Bible. And so for one to be taught, that is the chief qualification for one who's going to in turn teach. So therefore he has an ear to hear and he has a tongue to speak. The person most qualified to speak and most worthy to be heard is the one who most intently, therefore, listens to God. And this is chief among the reasons of why the servant can be trusted, why this servant can be listened to, why it is that the people of Israel should put their trust in this servant that God is going to send. Because the servant is going to be taught by God. He's going to listen with an open ear in contrast to them. Because remember the Lord said, why was it when I called no one answered? But he's calling and the servant answers. and the servant has an ear to hear. The Lord opens that ear. The servant is not rebellious, but he listens and therefore has a tongue that deserves all the listening ears. John explains well the situation like this. If we go to John chapter 12, Lord Jesus says, For I have not spoken on my own authority, but the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment, what to say and what to speak. He even talks about it as he encourages his disciples on the night he was going to be taken and crucified. He says, do you believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you, I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works. that he is appealing to the Father's authority. And look how he prays to God in John chapter 17. John chapter 17 is something that should be read over and over and meditated upon frequently. He prays to the Father in the presence of his disciples, for I have given them the words that you gave me and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you and they have believed. that you sent me." See, the key to faith is the hearing of the truth. And he brings that to the disciples and he told them and they believed him. Guess who's not with them in this scene? Judas. Something to think about. Paul also affirms this great truth. Listen to how he puts it in Colossians 2.3. He says, in him, that is in Christ, are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. All the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden in Christ. And he says it this way in 1 Corinthians 1.24, to those who are called both Jews and Greeks, the gospel is Christ, the power of God, and the wisdom of God. So the gospel and the Christ are wisdom and power. Those are important things to think about. Look how Luke reveals this, and Luke did very good at showing people's reaction to the knowledge of the Lord Jesus and the learning of the Lord Jesus. When he was about 12 years old, it says after three days that they kind of lost track of him after visiting Jerusalem, and they go searching for him, and after three days they found him in the temple sitting among the teachers listening to them and asking them questions. You see what he's doing? He's listening, asking him questions. And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers. He was already at 12 years of age, hearing and speaking. And many people have the false impression of this union of the divine eternal nature and the human nature together, and they think that he was born with all the knowledge. Now, raise your hand if you, be real honest, raise your hand if a school was a little bit of a thorn in the side for you. Okay, a little bit of pain and suffering. Does it not say in the book of Hebrews that Christ was made perfect through his suffering? So to me, that tells me he went to school. He had to learn as we learn. The difference is, without having the sin nature imparted to him from the flesh, from the Father descended from Adam, that he did not receive, all that hinders us. And through this divine determination that he has, beginning to end through his ministry, he learned it all. Isn't that amazing to think about? He learned. You notice he didn't really start his ministry until he was about 30 years of age. Yeah, that was a Jewish tradition, kind of. But nevertheless, what was he doing for 30 years? He was learning. And he was learning well, because at 12 years of age, they're amazed at his answers. And so here we have this great revelation in the book of Luke, and in the reaction of the people to him, they're amazed at him. And in chapter 4, all spoke well of him after he starts his ministry, and marveled at the gracious words that were coming from his mouth. And so they were amazed at his teaching, and in chapter 21, he encourages his disciples, and he passes this on. Because he says to them, I will give you a mouth and wisdom which none of your adversaries will be able to withstand or contradict. That's a promise to disciples. And then he takes two of those disciples after he arose and they were disparaged and kind of let down and they were leaving Jerusalem and walking away after he told the disciples, wait here. And he's walking away and they're walking away and he gives them a lesson on all the scriptures and what they said about what they do they turned around and went back to Jerusalem to be with the rest of And so that's amazing. How can the Lord give such a promise as he has given that he would grant to us a mouth of wisdom that the adversaries cannot withstand or contradict because he himself, the servant of God, has done it. And it stands here in contrast to Israel when he says, why when I came there was no man, when I called there was no one to answer. And the servant, he says, Lord, God has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious. I turned not backward. Boy, that's something that is, I hope, very encouraging to you. But let's go on, and let's understand this, and let's try to principalize this. True disciples listen. therefore can be listened to. To hear the Word of God and do it is the perfect summation of the ministry of Jesus Christ and a worthy definition for us as his disciples. So, we can trust and obey Jesus Christ because he's perfectly obedient. Now let's look at the next part that he is persevering here. I want to talk a little bit about the back and the cheeks. Another part of his anatomy is described here. And in the back and the cheeks, the servant suffers. Here we have very clearly in these verses, and I'll take you back to the scriptures here, that indeed the servant does suffer. In verse 6 it says this, I gave my back to those who strike and my cheeks to those who pull out the beard. And this is why some people add to the suffering of the cross and everything else, even though the New Testament doesn't mention it. They'll say, oh yeah, they pulled out Jesus' beard. Why? Because we've identified him as the servant. The New Testament has interpreted the servant songs as applying to him. We understand it and it plainly says this here. And he hid not his face from disgrace and spitting. So he endured this suffering. And to truly understand the suffering of Christ, we have to consider the divine attitudes towards sin and justice. Sin is an utterly different thing to God than it is to us. And it's something that we need to try to understand it from his perspective, because then and only then will we have the proper attitude about it in our lives. When we see this divine perspective of sin, we understand then the divine suffering in its perspective, because God has a perfect, righteous hatred of sin. The sin that brought all death and suffering and sickness into the world. He has a divine and perfect understanding of sin. We don't have that perspective because we frankly bathe in it all day and every night of our entire lives. And we don't understand the horror of it, the true sickness of it, the madness of it, because we cannot envision even a world without it. We can't imagine the world. We can't imagine Eden, as it were. We can't imagine a new heavens and a new earth because we live this side of it with sin all around us and even in us. But imagine that being your perfect desire for the humanity you made, which you looked at and you pronounced the world, once it had humanity, as very good. And you had them in a perfect relationship with you. And you had them in a perfect position. No sickness, no suffering, no death. And that was what you desired most for them. But then sin came in and wrecked it. How would you feel about that? Probably some righteous anger. Probably great sorrow and disappointment. Probably enough sorrow that at some point you would say, I regret even making them. You know, God says that in the Bible. Nevertheless, He didn't wipe us out. And here He is, God come in the flesh, not only immersed in the sin, not only witnessing it firsthand, but being victimized by it. being abused by his very own creation. And this is where the divine perspective of justice comes in. Because if anyone understands justice, it is God who made the universe and the laws of it. And the injustice of it in this servant suffering is this. If I suffer, I can kind of rationalize any suffering that comes upon me. Because I know that at some level I frankly deserve it. And you say, that's not nice to say. You don't deserve that. No, actually, I do. Because for me to even live and breathe is grace. My life and my breath and any good thing that ever happens to me is completely undeserved. And because of my sins, whatever bad should befall me, I have it come." But what about Jesus, who grew up perfectly fulfilling the law, perfectly obeying the Father, bringing people the words of life itself, showing them the way back, and presenting His body as a sacrifice for their sins, being rejected by His very own creation? That is the worst injustice that has ever happened in the history of the universe. Period. And so the suffering hurts all the more when it's a great injustice, because if somebody comes at you with an accusation or something, and what they say is at least partially true, it doesn't sting quite as bad as if what they said was completely wrong and fabricated. when it's completely wrong, and they come against us with an accusation, and they say things about us, and they treat us poorly, and we've done nothing wrong in this particular instance, we are heartbroken. And so Jesus, sped upon, given a crown of thorns, mocked and beaten and crucified, having deserved exactly none of it. His creatures that he made is creatures whose molecules he's holding together by the word of his power. Did you ever get that? That the Bible says that he holds everything together by the word of his power? As they beat him, he's holding their molecules together. That's an injustice that we can't even comprehend. and they hadn't acknowledged the plain evidence that he gave them. They tried him unjustly, and they crucified him. That's why when we come to the book of Matthew, chapter 26, verse 67, as they're getting ready to crucify him, they spit in his face, they struck him, and some slapped him, saying, prophesy to us, you Christ, who is it that struck you? And as we see in the next chapter, chapter 27, verse 30, Hael, king of the Jews, and they spit on him and took the reed and struck him on the head. Some people see this as potentially pointing back here to where we are in Isaiah chapter 50. that this might be a hint of the suffering that we're talking about here. There may be allusions there to chapter 50, but it's strongly connected, isn't it, to Isaiah 52 and 53, where it actually explains the various abuses that he was taking. But let me ask you a question, and let me put you in the hot seat for a minute and force you to think about this, because you've got to. Why did the Jewish people not see the suffering of the Messiah? Not even the disciples, not even the closest ones to him. He had said to them plainly several times, we're going up to Jerusalem. They're going to hand me over. They're going to crucify me. And it's like they weren't getting it, because they had nowhere near their conception of the Messiah that was going to come as one that would suffer. It didn't make any sense to them. Why didn't they see that? When we look into the Old Testament, we see it plainly. And I'll tell you this, if you ever get into a discussion about this with a Jewish person, they could well say this to you, and I'd be interested in your response. They can say to you, no one verse in any place of the Old Testament speaks of the Messiah suffering. Let me repeat that. No one verse in any one place in the Old Testament speaks of the Messiah suffering. And they would technically be correct. How can that be? How can that be when Peter comes along and shortly after Pentecost, this is what he's preaching in Acts chapter three, he says, what God foretold by the mouth of all the prophets that his Christ would suffer, see the word Christ there, that's the word Messiah, his Christ would suffer, he thus fulfilled. Well, notice he says this, he says all the prophets, all the prophets say this. But yet, you scour the Old Testament, you will not find the word Messiah connected with suffering. Is that a problem for you? The problem is how we read scripture. You might raise your hand and say, no, no, no, Isaiah 53 is very, very clear that the Messiah is going to suffer. It actually describes it in detail. And you'll say, no, no, no, Psalm 22 speaks of the crucifixion in detail. Details of things that weren't common in the days that David wrote it is found in there. And this is clearly about Jesus. Yeah, but you won't find the word Messiah there. You won't find the word Messiah in Isaiah 53. It's not connected with the suffering. We don't find the word Messiah here in Isaiah chapter 50. Matter of fact, the word Messiah in that form only occurs twice in the book of Isaiah, once in Isaiah chapter 45, verse one, where it speaks of Cyrus, the Persian king. And the verb form of the word occurs one time in Isaiah chapter 61, scripture that Jesus read concerning himself. But you notice it says nothing here of suffering. The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord has anointed me. There's the word, okay? To bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to captives in the opening of the prison to those who are bound, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. And he leaves off there and rolls it up and says, this is fulfilled in me. Notice no mention of suffering. It's the only time in the book of Isaiah that any form of the word Messiah is even associated with him. You can't say this proclaims him the Messiah because this word and its verb form is used of all kinds of people So have I put you on the precipice are you concerned are you worried about this what if someone challenges you on the point of See, the problem is in the way that we view Scripture, in the way we think as Western people, having come through the Industrial Revolution and an age of so-called sciences, we're not reading the Scriptures properly. You have to see the Old Testament as presenting to us a mosaic of Jesus Christ. That is, little pixels, little pieces here and there that you have to stand back from and view together. We used to have an impressionist painting hanging in our house. And we always hung it somewhere where you could see it from a distance. Because close up, you're like, this is just nonsense. But when you backed up and looked at it, you saw the scene. And it was some of some buildings and some boats in the distance and people walking and stuff. But you couldn't see that if you were too close to it. And this is what we do. We go verse by verse. We say, well, look at this verse. No, that's not it. Look over here at this verse. That's not it. And instead what we're supposed to do is we're supposed to collect all those things together, find out their connections, how they fit together, and then stand back away from it and look at it and see the picture of the Messiah who clearly suffered. We have to take all the imagery into account that makes this messianic mosaic, this profile of the Messiah. Him as Messiah, yes, that word, but also king, also David, also son of God, also son of man, also the servant, also a prophet like Moses, also Israel itself. And we have to bring all those things together and back up from it and see how they properly fit together. And the question that you might have is a question that I myself had, why be so obscure about it? Why not just make it plain and specific in the prophecy? Why not have one chapter of the Old Testament dedicated precisely to where he will be born, what he will be named, all the things that he will do, who he will be descended from, all in one place, neatly spelled out? Why not do that? And the answer might surprise you, because God is hiding The information. Who's he hiding it from? He's hiding it from the evil one. The assignment of the Messiah, of Jesus, is to give himself as a sacrifice for sin. Very clear. But if that were very clear to Satan at the time that Jesus came, and he clearly identified him as the Messiah, great. Let's lock him up and make sure no one hurts him. Let's exile him from the land so he can't be crucified in Jerusalem. You know, let's do all these things to avoid it happening. Just exile him, lock him up, protect him, we'll be okay. But Satan comes into the scene, Jesus comes upon the scene, Satan's blind to what's actually going to happen. Because he's not like God. And so he's blind to what God has planned, and it's only in hindsight that we see, ah, God had this planned, it's clear, and he accomplished it from the very beginning. Look what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 2. He's speaking of the crucifixion of Christ, and he's speaking of the foolishness of the gospel. in the first couple chapters of First Corinthians here, and how foolish it is compared to the so-called wisdom of the world. And he has as part of this conversation, he says, among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers. of this age, who are doomed to pass away. But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory." I want to point out to you this word, rulers. He says, none of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified. the Lord of Glory. In other words, the way most people read this is they say, oh yeah, well, if the leaders obviously understood who Jesus was, they wouldn't have committed the sin of crucifying. That's not what he is saying. He's saying they would have avoided the crucifixion. If they really knew what it was all about, no, no, no, you can't let him be crucified. We'll lose this whole thing. And you'll say, well, what do the rulers have to do with this? See, your Western mind automatically thought, when I see the word rulers, I'm thinking presidents and kings and people who are in charge. That's not the word Paul is using. When a Jewish mind would read this or someone else in the first century in the church would read this, they would be thinking not just of earthly rulers. They would be thinking of spiritual entities. You say, that's crazy. How do we know that's true? Well, he uses the exact same word he used twice in this passage with regard to rulers here in Ephesians chapter 6. And he says, we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers. See how it's highlighted? Because I clicked on it in the other passage. against the rulers, against the authorities, against cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. You see how Paul is emphatically stating here that we're not concerned about the flesh and blood rulers, we're concerned about the spiritual ones. God hid the truth of the suffering Messiah in the scriptures in such a way Satan didn't see it coming and Satan got him on the cross and threw a party because he thought he won when in fact he had played right into the hands of the wise God who made all these things so and just to prove your point because you might be thinking I've never heard anyone preach that I think you're on thin ice there preacher what happened in Matthew chapter 2 When Herod heard about the place and timing of the birth of the Messiah, he went and sent and killed all the children that age, or at least tried to. What would make a human being do that? You look at that and you go, that is wickedness, that has got to be far beyond any human being to do, that you would go and you would kill innocent children like that. Is this not common in our world today? To kill the innocent? Systematically even? And maybe even celebrate it? Why? Because you want rule over your own life. But while he did that, you realize he wasn't protecting his own rule. He was enslaved to the ruler of this world as an unbeliever. This was spiritual. And this is why it is hidden. And I know that's a long digression, I know that's a long way to go to explain this to you, but no single text of Scripture connects Messiah to suffering. And so it becomes necessary, and yet it says it's necessary, that the Messiah should suffer. So to see the sufferings of the Messiah, we have to step back from the text, look at the big picture, all the various titles, descriptions, names, typology form for us. And this is why you can go to the book of Isaiah. You go to chapter 61, and it says, let's call in the servant anointed. I wonder if that's significant. And you cogitate on that a little bit, and then you start reading, yeah, maybe this is the Messiah. Maybe this is the anointed one, and you read the other passages where this same servant is clearly speaking or clearly talked about, and you see he suffers. And he dies. And with the help of the New Testament, we can do that. Think about the ministry of Jesus as He's walking upon the earth. What does He keep telling people early in His ministry? My time has not yet come. Don't tell anyone about the miracle I did to you. Oh, you say I'm the Christ, the Son of the Living God. Great. Don't tell anybody. But then all of a sudden, late in His ministry, He goes up on Mount Hermon. And Mount Hermon was spiritually significant to a lot of people. In fact, mountaintops in general were. And on the way, they walked by Caesarea Philippi, where all these little shrines are to all these various gods. All there carved inside the rock. You can still go see it to this day. And they go up on the mountain, and what does he do? He is transformed before them, and he has Moses and Elijah right there to bear witness. You think that went unnoticed by the spiritual forces in the world? And then all of a sudden he's going straight to Jerusalem. And he goes to Jerusalem and he speaks to the leaders like he had never spoken to them before. He comes in on a donkey, clearly presenting himself as a king, allowing people to say all these messianic psalms about him and everything else. And then the leaders are like, that's it, that's the last straw, we're killing this guy. But don't do it on the holiday. What do they do? They crucify him on the holiday. who's really in charge. Jesus threw down the gauntlet. He marched right toward the cross. He challenged them to do it, and they did. And He won the victory for you and I. Did you know we would get that much out of a couple verses there in Isaiah? I mean, I really hope you did because I didn't expect it, and I was delighted when I did. And here we have, I gave my back to those who strike, my cheeks to those who pull out the beard. I hid not my face from disgrace and spitting. You see, he marched toward that. And that's why it says, the Lord God helps me. Therefore, I have not been disgraced. Therefore, I have set my face like a flint. What an interesting phrase. I've set my face like a flint. And I want you to picture what flint is used for, and what it's most commonly used for in our world, or was, up to really just a couple hundred years ago. Arrowheads. It is such a hard stone. And it can be sharpened to a very fine point. In the old world, they used flint as knives. And if you take a flint knife, you can snap it with your bare hands. But when you plunge that flint knife into something, it is going to penetrate all the way. It's going to be strong in that one direction. And that's why you make an arrowhead out of it. You can sharpen it to a very fine point and razor sharp edges. And when that thing is launching through the air and it's got that stick and the feathers to guide it straight and it hits its target, it is going to dive all the way into that target and hit its mark. He set his face like a flint. And in Luke chapter 9 verse 51, people see the same saying here, though without the imagery of Flint, it's very clear he set his face. It says, when the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. We can trust and obey Jesus Christ because he's perfectly obedient and persevering. with the help of God. And that's the last point I really want to point out here, is this help of God. This help of God, because of His great faithfulness, the servant can expect the help of God. And it is this very help that allows him to set his face like Flint. Did you notice how he set that up for you there? That in Isaiah chapter 50, verse 7, he said, the Lord God helps me. Therefore, I have set my face like Flint. because of the help of the Lord, because this is the Lord's mission, because this is the Lord's doing, he's able to set his face like Flint. The Lord is not going to fail. This should remind you of David and Goliath, and David being an early typology of the Christ who would come, the ultimate King who would come, that when he faced Goliath, his faith was not in his abilities and not in the stones that he picked up. His faith was in God, and it's so clear from the context that you read. His faith was that the Lord was going to accomplish and defeat the Goliath. The servant in previous chapters was identified as an arrow in the quiver, polished and true. He's described in the book of Isaiah as the hand of God. And when you think about the hand of God, you think of something that is connected and perfectly controlled. It's far even more descriptive than just being a servant because a servant is commanded and a servant hears the command and obeys the command, hopefully, but the hand itself. You ever just be helping your children with something and at some point you're just like, hold on, just move aside, let me do this one part. You know, and it's the hardest part, one of the hardest parts of being a parent is holding back and letting them do it, because you're like, with my own hand, I could do this like that. Well, he's the hand of God. He is the perfectly controlled, perfectly connected piece of God that has come to do his will. So now we need to turn this upon ourselves and ask ourselves some questions. Why? Why should we listen and speak? Remember the tongue in the ear? Why should we listen to God and learn from God and learn all that we can and then turn around and speak that to others? And how? How can we face this in a world that's not interested in it, in a world that sometimes is hostile to it and puts in disgrace those who would call upon the name of the Lord and talk against the things in the culture? How then can we, like Christ, set our face like flint toward the mission that we're to be given? And it's found there in verse 7. The Lord God helps me. And he repeats it in verse 9. Behold, the Lord God helps me. This is how we can do it. It is the Lord who vindicates and the Lord who helps so we can stand. And you notice this argumentation here. The Lord God helps me. Who's going to declare me guilty? This idea is echoed in Romans chapter 8 by Paul, and I think he has this in mind as he's writing these things. Who shall bring any charge against the gods elect? It's God who justifies. If we're doing what God has told us to do, and we have been called by God to do it, well then who's going to bring any charge against us? Are earthly authorities going to charge us with wrongdoing? We serve an authority that's higher. I hope this is tremendously encouraging to you because we see that Jesus sets forth not just a description of himself here in Isaiah chapter 50, but an encouragement to us too. That if we will but hear and we will but speak, we can set our face like flint with the confidence that God is going to help us. We can trust and obey Jesus Christ because he is perfectly obedient. and persevering with the help of God. The verses that follow this are very interesting in Isaiah chapter 50 verses 10 and 11. It turns then upon the audience. You have this description of the servant, he speaks from his point of view and then he speaks to the audience and he says, who among you fears the Lord and obeys the voice of his servant? Let him who walks in darkness and has no light trust in the name of the Lord and rely on his God. Behold, all you who kindle a fire, who equip yourselves with burning torches, walk by the light of your own fire and by the torches that you have kindled. This you have from my hand. You shall lie down in torment." Trying to kindle your own light, trying to find your own way, I may have asked this last week. Why am I the guy that always seems to run into the people that have got some other thing worked out with God? They don't need my gospel because, oh, you know, I try my best and things worked out with God. Yeah, I read some things and, you know, I pray. And here's what the Lord says. You have my light or you have your own. And if you have your own, you have this to look forward to. You're going to lie down in torment. So which is it for you? Will you trust and obey the Lord Jesus Christ? Now this is a list of things to emulate that we've talked about. About the tongue and the ear, about the cheeks and putting up with persecution and things like that. But the ultimate question is, will you trust and obey? Because the last thing human beings need is another list of things to do. The last thing we need is another law. We saw the old law, and we saw we can't measure up to it. These are here in Isaiah chapter 50 to show you the quality of Jesus Christ and the absolute certainty of his success, the scope of his greatness, and the depth of his love for you. and His worthiness to be trusted for your salvation, to be trusted for your ongoing sanctification, to be trusted with your eternal life, and the trustworthiness to be obeyed, knowing that the obedience in Him might seem foolish, like Peter saying, you know, no, no, no, we've been out here all night, we haven't caught any fish, what do you mean cast the net over the side? But then Peter thought, And he goes, but because you say so, I'm going to do it. He had a miraculous catch. We can put our trust in him for all those things. And we can be encouraged that through that process, we will become like him because we are being conformed to the image of Christ. And he is working in us wonderful things. Let's pray. Father God, we thank you this day for your good servant. We pray, Lord, this day that we would see all these things and soak them in, that our ears would be opened for listening so that our tongue can speak. and firstly give you praises for the good and obedient servant that accomplished all that you sent him to do, the one that obeyed you perfectly, whose food it was to do your will. For the Lord Jesus Christ, we thank you and we praise you. And Lord, we pray that you would give us the faith to obey. And Lord, all of us today, we receive this in different places in our lives. Some need to trust you for the first time with your salvation. Some need to trust you for the next step that you're taking in their lives. Some need to trust you just to get through the day. And Lord, I pray that you'll be with them all and that you will open ears and that you will send your spirit to bring us to the image of your son, who is perfectly obedient, even to the cross. We thank you for this in Jesus name. Amen.