In two weeks, God willing, in our morning services, we hope to begin a series from the Old Testament on the lives of Isaac and Jacob. And this evening I would like to begin another series from the Old Testament, a series of messages from one of the richest of all the passages in the Old Testament, from the 53rd chapter of the book of the prophet Isaiah. Some of you who have been here for some time will remember, I hope, that nine years ago we did look at this chapter before. I've thought about it often since. I hope my thought has matured. I hope I understand it a little bit better then than I did now. And I anticipate that God will bless us over these next weeks as we study this rich passage. And I would like to read it to you now. We'll be reading it often over the next weeks and months. The theme of all our studies will be under the title, Behold My Servant. The passage begins at chapter 52, verse 13. Let us turn to that portion of the Word of God. Isaiah chapter 52, verse 13. We read to the end of chapter 53. See, my servant will act wisely or will prosper. He will be raised and lifted up and highly exalted. Just as there were many who were appalled at you, his appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any man, and his form marred beyond human likeness. So will he sprinkle many nations, and kings will shut their mouths because of him, For what they were not told, they will see, and what they have not heard, they will understand. Who has believed our message, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces, he was despised and we esteemed him not. Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows. Yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray. Each of us has turned to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth. He was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, So he did not open his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away, or perhaps from prison and judgment he was taken away. And who can speak of his descendants? For he was cut off from the land of the living. For the transgression of my people he was stricken. He was assigned a grave with the wicked and with the rich in his death. Though he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth. Yet it was the Lord's will to crush him and cause him to suffer. And when you make his life a guilt offering, he will see his offspring and prolong his days. and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand. After the suffering of his soul he will see and be satisfied. Or perhaps he will see the result of the suffering of his soul and be satisfied. By his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many and he will bear their iniquities. Therefore, I will give him a portion among the great, and he will divide the spoils with the strong, because he poured out his life unto death and was numbered with the transgressors. For he bore the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors. Amen. May God bless the reading and the preaching of his word to us all. Old Testament, to the book of the prophet Isaiah, to the 13th verse of chapter 52, to this great servant passage, one of the most famous, one of the best known and best loved passages of the Old Testament, a passage that has been greatly used in many of the lives of God's people. A friend of mine who's now a minister in the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America was brought up in New York in the Jewish faith, and he was taught to reject Christianity as blasphemy of the God of Israel. When he was traveling in Europe, he heard someone reading this passage. And he turned on him in anger and said, don't read your Christian New Testament to me. And the man said, I'm not reading the New Testament. I'm reading your own sacred book. And it was when he turned and saw that there in the prophets, the prophets of Israel, there was what one of the greatest of the prophets had written. It was this passage which made him a Christian. He said, the Messiah is here. He has been here all the time. I never saw him. This last summer, our family had a considerable privilege of spending a holiday in Austria. And much of the time we spent in the Austrian Alps, surrounded by scenery which was quite breathtaking. surrounded by lofty snow-capped mountains, by views stretching over many miles of valleys and rivers and forests, peaks and glaciers, and it was all around us. And day after day we were stunned by the magnificence of what we had seen. Did we take it all in? No, we didn't take it all in. There was too much to take in. Do we remember everything we saw? No, we don't remember everything we saw. And we didn't see everything. There was too much to see. But we're glad we went. And we saw a great deal. And what we saw made an impression on us. And what we were unable to remember has left an impression upon us of majesty and beauty and greatness. And when I come into this passage, I feel as if I'm going back into the Austrian Alps. We're surrounded here by great peaks of God's truth, by magnificence and marvel and complexity and glory. And as often as we come to this passage, we never exhaust it. We never see all that there is to be seen in it. It is too awesome. It is too rich. And wherever we look, there is something new to see. And yet, it's good to go into the mountains. even though they overwhelm us and make us feel our littleness, because we do see much that is wonderful. And we have an impression made upon us of much that is wonderful that we haven't yet seen, but that we will see one day. May the Spirit of God help us as we come to these great verses of Scripture. We're going to be studying this passage in some detail. I think it deserves it. We're going to spend a number of weeks on it. Perhaps, I'm not sure yet how long we'll spend. Probably longer than I would tell you now. At least 10 or 12 weeks. Perhaps a little bit more. So we can afford to ease ourselves in slowly. And I want to think with you this evening about just the first three words of the passage. See, my servant. And what I want to do is to ease ourselves into our study this evening by trying to take time at the beginning to understand the context of this passage. I hope you won't find that tedious or unnecessary. You may think, why do we need to waste time doing that? Why can we not just plunge straight into the actual words of Scripture? I think it is worthwhile pausing and looking at the context. That's important in any sphere. It's important in human behavior to know the context. You can't understand human behavior until you know the context. Supposing I told you that I had seen a woman this week shouting at a little child at the top of her voice with her face contorted with emotion. You might think what an unpleasant woman to lose her temper shouting and frightening a little child like that. But if I were to say that the child was just about to step out into heavy traffic, well then that would change the context. And you would begin to think, well, she was right to shout at the child. And it wasn't an angry act, it was a loving act. We need to understand the context. And I want to say something first about the general context, and then about the immediate context, and then to look just for a short time at these opening words. First of all, the general context. It doesn't take a genius to work out that this passage is part of the prophecy of Isaiah. Isaiah prophesied in Jerusalem, the capital of the southern kingdom of Judah, in the 8th century before our Lord. He prophesied from somewhere around 740 B.C., 740 B.C., and he prophesied for just over 40 years until perhaps just after 700 B.C. So this is a very, very ancient document indeed. Isaiah preached during the years when the northern kingdom, Israel, you remember that God's people have been divided into two kingdoms. Some of you boys and girls will learn that in your catechism if you haven't learned it yet. The kingdom was divided into two parts, Israel and Judah, and the northern kingdom was Israel. And during these years, Israel was in a final state of collapse. It was melting down. It was sinking into destruction. And while Isaiah was prophesying, it was indeed captured by the great, or conquered by the great empire of Assyria. And Isaiah lived in the smaller southern kingdom, and they could see their northern neighbor being judged and collapsing. But Isaiah, because he was a prophet, knew that the southern kingdom too, Judah, was also guilty before God. She also had broken God's law, and she too was going to be judged, and God's people would suffer great trials. And especially from chapter 40 onwards of this book, and it is all one book written by one prophet. From chapter 40 onwards, Isaiah is writing about this disaster which he sees coming to Judah. And it is so vivid to him that he writes as if it had already taken place. It is so certain. He speaks as if it had already happened. and the disaster was going to be captivity and exile in Babylon. So it's a message of judgment. But it's also a message of great hope. For the great good news is that the Lord will save his people. That, in fact, is what Isaiah's name means. The Lord will save. He will save his people from their miserable captivity and their exile. And he will do it through a mysterious figure who's going to come. And this figure is described by the prophet as the Anointed One. the Messiah. He's also described as the servant of the Lord. And this Messiah, this servant, is going to deliver the people of God from their exile in Babylon. And Isaiah has a lot to say about this servant of the Lord. And there are, in particular, four main servant passages. Those of you who are taking notes might like to read them and look at them later. Chapter 42, verses 1 to 9. Chapter 49, verses 1 to 7. Chapter 50, verses 4 to 9. And then this passage, 52.13 to 53.12, this is the last and the greatest of the great servant passages, God's Savior. That's the passage we're going to be studying. So that's the general context of the passage. Let me say a word about the immediate context. If you look at your Bibles, the passage is divided into five sections, each of three verses in our English Bibles. You perhaps know that there only have been verses in our Bibles for the past 500 years or so. Before that, there were no verses in the Bible. For most of the history of the Bible, there have been no verses marked in the Bible. But, for the purposes of convenience, we can say that this passage is divided into five sections of three verses. Verses 13 to 15, and then in chapter 53, and you should have it in paragraphs in your Bible. Verses 1 to 3, 4 to 6, 7 to 9, and 10 to 12, five sections. Each section is longer than the previous one, at least in Hebrew. Not necessarily in English, but in Hebrew, each section is longer. And the opening line of each section gives its subject. The opening line is the title of the section. So if you want to know what the section is about, you just need to look at the opening line of each section. Let me read them for you. The first section, Behold, my servant will prosper. Section two, Who has believed our message? Section three, surely he took up our infirmities. Section four, he was oppressed and he was afflicted. Section five, yet it was the Lord's will to crush him. And those sentences, those phrases give the theme of the section. So that's an easy way to approach this great servant passage. The five sections, increasing in length, coming to a climax, the intensity increasing. And there are two main themes right throughout the whole passage. And these are the themes of suffering on the one hand and glory on the other. or if you like, the cross and the crown. And the prophet moves backwards and forwards. He deals with the cross, then he moves to the crown, and then back to the cross again, and then he finishes at the end with the crown. And these verses 13 to 15, of chapter 52. Unfortunately, they're often overlooked, and people begin to read the passage at the beginning of chapter 53, which is a pity, because here is the overture to the whole passage. Here, all the themes are contained. And I think I'll spend longer on these three verses than I will on some of the other sections, because they give us an idea of the whole. Behold, my servant." Who is this servant? Who is this Messiah? Well, we don't need to guess, because Isaiah tells us. The servant, in the first place, is a human being, a future king, whose name is going to be Cyrus. And this king is going to deliver the people of God from their captivity. And this actually happened about 200 years after Isaiah had died. So he's looking into the distant future. And Cyrus will restore God's people from their exile in Babylon. And there are many detailed references to this historical figure. And astonishingly, he is even named by Isaiah, who's prophesying of something that's going to happen two centuries later. For example, in chapter 44, verse 28 following. The Lord says of Cyrus, he is my shepherd and will accomplish all that I please. He will save Jerusalem, let it be rebuilt. And of the temple, let its foundations be laid. This is what the Lord says to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I take hold of. So this heathen king, who's yet to be born, but who is named here, this heathen king, is God's servant, God's Messiah, God's deliverer. This is the servant of the Lord. But you see, because Isaiah is a prophet of God. And because he's being inspired by God, he also speaks on a deeper level in this prophecy. He speaks of a greater judgment than the exile. He speaks of a greater slavery than the slavery in Babylon. He speaks of the slavery of sin. He speaks of a greater deliverance He speaks of a greater Messiah, a greater servant. And this servant of the Lord, the true, the final servant of the Lord, is the Lord Jesus Christ. And we have inspired warrant for saying that. It is not just a guess. Perhaps you remember the wonderful story of the Ethiopian eunuch. recorded in Acts 8, verses 34 and 35. He's riding along in the desert. He's reading the Jewish scriptures. The passage he's reading is what we know as Isaiah 53, verses 7 and 8. And as he reads, Philip, the Christian evangelist, comes alongside him. The Ethiopian nobleman says to Philip, tell me please, Who is the prophet talking about? Himself or someone else? Then Philip began with that very passage of scripture and told him the good news about Jesus. Who is the prophet talking about? Philip told him about Jesus. So the ultimate, the true servant of the Lord is Jesus of Nazareth. Let's then come for the remainder of our time, having introduced our passage, to look for a few moments at this very arresting beginning. It's a word that we thought about in our service this morning, the word behold. It's an exclamation. It's a call to give attention. It's a favorite word of Isaiah. He uses it often. And I think in this context, in this great, awesome passage, with its grandeur and magnificence, I think I do prefer the rather old-fashioned translation, Behold. I think it gives something to the passage which the modern translation, equally accurate, see, but for me there's something in behold which pulls my attention and fits into the passage. Here is something impressive, something significant, something unusual. Behold, says God, my servant. Here's the one I want you to see, to fix your attention on, to gaze on. Now why should we look at the servant? Why should we think about the servant? In these verses, the prophet gives four amazing reasons. And this evening, we shall look at the first of those reasons very briefly. We should see the servant, we should behold the servant, firstly because of his identity. Because of his identity. Who is he? And I want to suggest three aspects of his identity. He is someone introduced by God. He is someone introduced by God. Look, says God, my servant. Now we're used to people calling on us to look at things. Children call on us to look at things. Look, they say, look, look at this, look at this. The sad thing is that the children don't have any discrimination or common sense, and if you look at everything that a child wants you to look at, you'll end up either exhausted or with a nervous breakdown, because the child has a sense of wonder, and everything is wonderful. From a milk bottle to a sunset, it's all wonderful. Look, they say. That's what advertisers say. Look at this, look at this. But we know that they've ulterior motives. They want to sell us something. So here the command comes again, look, who is introducing this person to us? Who's calling us to think about him? Look, my servant. The speaker is God Almighty. The servant is someone introduced by God himself. The creator is speaking to his creatures. The king is speaking to his subjects. This is a message from heaven to earth. This is the majestic voice of God, my friend, to you. And your God is commanding you to behold his servant, to see him, and think about him, and reflect on who he is, and ultimately to believe on him. And this is not a voice which we can disregard. We were singing Psalm 29, the mighty voice of God, which shakes the earth, which fells the forest, which splits the mountains, which divides the floods. The message has just gone out to Saddam Hussein from the United Nations. And that message is supposed to be backed by the will of all the nations on the earth. It is an authoritative message. Hussain may find the bombs in American planes more authoritative than any message from the UN, but it's supposed to be an authoritative message. Here is an authoritative message. This is not a human suggestion. This is a summons from the Lord himself. God himself introduces his servant to you and to me. God brings him before you. God summons you to see him, to look at him. He is someone introduced by God. Secondly, he is someone appointed by God. Someone appointed by God. He's not only introduced by God, but he is connected with God in the closest possible way. God says he is my servant. Now there is a sense in which God has many servants. There's a sense in which every atom in the universe serves God. God uses many things and people to accomplish his purposes. The wicked are God's servants. They don't realize they are. They don't want to be. But in spite of themselves, they are God's servants, and they often accomplish what God wants done. Cyrus, for example, there's no evidence at all that he was in any way a godly man. Read the uninspired historians. Cyrus was a wicked man. Cyrus was a devious, corrupt, oriental ruler. But God could describe him as my servant because God was overruling and directing. And it's a most comforting thought for the people of God. to reflect that God is sovereign, and God is in control, and all these forces of evil are in his hands, being overruled by him for his glory. But that's not what he means here. Behold, my servant. Here is the servant. Here is the servant par excellence, the servant above all other. the whole focus of God on this servant, a servant appointed for a special, unique task. And if sometime you read the whole of Isaiah at one sitting, and it's something I would recommend, you will see that since the beginning of chapter 42, the expectation has been building and building and building. In chapter 42, God says, Behold my servant whom I uphold. And again and again, we see God bringing in his servant. In chapter 51, especially in 52, and it's clear here that the prophet is not speaking about Cyrus. The prophet is not speaking about the return from exile. He's speaking about something far grander and greater. Listen to what the servant will do. The Lord will comfort Zion The heavens will vanish like smoke, the earth will wear out like a garment, but my salvation will last forever. My righteousness will never fail. The ransom of the Lord will return. They will enter Zion with singing. Everlasting joy will crown their heads. Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away. When the Lord returns to Zion, they will see it with their own eyes. The Lord will lay bare his holy arm in the sight of all nations and all ends of the earth. will see the salvation of our God. That's what the servant's going to do. That's not exile from Babylon. That's salvation. All the ends of the earth will see the salvation of God. This is the task of the servant. Here is the one in whom all the promises are going to be fulfilled. Here is God's anointed Savior. Here is the one who's going to heal the world. Here's the one who's going to restore the fallen cosmos, should we not behold him. Is he not worth thinking about? Is he not worth focusing on? Here's the one who's going to bring everlasting joy. and life that never ends to lost sinners. This is his identity. Yet people say, I have no time for Jesus Christ. I can't be bothered thinking about him. I have more important things to think about. Nothing is more important. Nothing can be more important than this servant who has come to carry out this amazing program of God. Someone appointed by God to bring salvation to the earth. Someone introduced by God. Someone appointed by God. And lastly, someone approved by God. Someone approved by God. The servant is not only introduced by God, The servant is not only appointed by God, I believe that he is someone whom God loves, whom God values, and I think we're warranted to hear, if we've sensitive ears, in this word, this Hebrew word, behold. I think we're warranted to hear a note of pride and pleasure. a note of pride and pleasure. Someone is an avid gardener. They've bought a new house where the garden is just a mess, a plot of weeds and stones, and they've labored at it for one or two years, day after day, hour after hour, and they've turned that garden into a paradise. And you come and you visit their house and they take you out the back door and they say to you, look, there's my garden. And you can hear in their voice a note of pleasure, a note of joy, a note of pride. They don't expect you to say, yes, my eyes are working correctly. I do understand that this is a garden. They expect you to say, it's beautiful, isn't it? Oh, it's really wonderful. You must have done an awful lot of work. There's a pride in it. Are these grandparents who go about with pictures of their grandchildren and if you slow down they'll put the picture out of their pocket and show you, oh did you ever see a little girl like that, isn't she a beautiful little... The Americans talk about grandma's brag bag. They actually have a term to use for the photographs that grandmothers take about with them. And they don't expect you to say, yes, I can see that that is a juvenile human being. They expect, oh, isn't she absolutely beautiful? Isn't he a lovely wee boy? There's admiration, there's pride, there's pleasure. And when God the Father says to us, look, look, my servant, do you not hear the joy in his voice, the love, the pride in his servant? and his pleasure in him, and his approval of his servant. It is with gladness that he calls us to summon Jesus Christ his servant. He is well pleased with this servant. He wants us all to look at him, and to love him, and to admire him, and to come to him, and to benefit from his great saving work. And this introduces us to something that I want to stress before I finish, because it's so important for us as evangelicals today. My dear friends, it's vital, it's vital to remember how important the Savior is to God the Father, and that he is the servant of God the Father. Because there is a danger among modern Christians It's not the danger of overemphasizing God the Son. We can never overemphasize God the Son. We can never overemphasize Jesus. We can never say too much about him. But there is a danger, I believe, of neglecting, of neglecting God the Father. That we're so wrapped up in the person of our Savior, that we forget, that we forget the place to be given to God the Father. Or even worse than that, I don't think this is an idea that anyone here holds, but I've heard it, I've heard it among evangelicals, the idea that it is the Son who persuades an angry Father to forgive us. that we have sinned and God is angry with us. But then the kind son comes to the angry father and he persuades the angry father to lay aside his anger. But the scripture is quite clear. God the father so loved the world. God the father so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. The Savior is the servant of God the Father. He's carrying out the Father's will. He's carrying out the Father's purpose. And ultimately, our praise and glory are due through the Son to God the Father. And in the studies that are to come, naturally, our Savior will be central. This passage is about him. But I want you to remember what I've done this evening. I have built a frame, and that frame is God the Father. And I want you to remember that in everything we say about the Savior, who is this Savior? Who is he? He's the Father's servant. He's doing the Father's will. He's carrying out the Father's purpose. Everything about him is totally God-centered. And it's a tremendous source of assurance to realize that the plan of salvation originated with the Father. And of course, he will accept what his son did on Calvary. For after all, it was his idea. It was his idea. Behold my servant. And by God's help, that is exactly what we intend to do in these coming weeks, to look and to look at the person whom God himself introduces, whom God has appointed, and whom God supremely approves. Amen. Let us bow in prayer. O God our Father, what a privilege is ours What a gracious invitation! Behold, my servant, you've called us to look on the one who is altogether lovely, the chief among ten thousand, our great and glorious Savior, full of goodness and purity, full of love and compassion. Lord, it is your will that we behold him, that we see him, that we observe who he is and what he has done. Father, we pray that in these weeks you will help us to see him, to see him with fresh eyes, with new clarity, in a new way. Not only to see him, but to trust him, to love him with all our hearts. O Lord, help us again to fall in love with our Savior. Awaken in us a longing to know more about Him, to see Him ever more clearly. Father, we pray that in this passage He may be set before us. We may see Him more as He is, and being able to see Him may be changed into His likeness. We pray it for his glory. Amen.