06 How the Servant Stayed Obedient When Everyone Turned Against Him (Isaiah 50:4-11)

Speaker: Thank you for downloading the Wednesday in the Word podcast. I'm Krisan Marotta. We are looking at Isaiah chapter 50, verses 4 through 11 today. It is the 6th o'clock in our series on the Servant Songs from the Old Testament book of Isaiah. You can find the lecture notes for today's talk on our website at wednesdayintheword.com slash servant songs 6. Thanks so much for joining us. Today we're looking at the third servant song. It's a little different than the ones we've looked at so far in that the servant isn't identified up front. It's not until we get to verse 10 that the servant is named. And verse 10 is actually a response to the song. But we know that this section is about the servant because of the content. The content eliminates all the other options because no one else can fulfill the message of this song. He's going to emphasize the way the servant will suffer and the obedience that provokes that suffering, and that kind of obedience is true of no one but the servant. To review, when Isaiah wrote these words, the northern kingdom was already in exile, and the southern kingdom of Judah was about to go into exile, but he is writing as if the exile has already happened. So he's not primarily addressing his contemporaries, he's addressing those who will be in exile. And it would have been very easy for the exiles to fall into despair. As the exile went on and on year after year, it would be very tempting to start thinking that either God is unwilling to keep his promises or he's unable to keep his promises. Or maybe they've gone too far. Maybe they've rebelled in such a way that they have forfeited the promises and God has abandoned them. Isaiah has said throughout the book that the exile is a result of their rebellion and their sinfulness, and that it is God's way of disciplining them for that rebellion. He has emphasized that yes, this discipline may hurt, but it's not going to destroy them. It will redeem them and teach them, and God has a purpose for it. But you can see how they would start to think that the discipline is just too severe, that the exile has gone on too long, and so something else must be going on. Maybe God's not powerful after all, maybe he doesn't have the ability to free them from exile, maybe he doesn't want to free them from exile, maybe he's abandoned them, and so they begin to lose hope as they get discouraged. And that discouragement, the rebellion that caused the exile, and then their discouragement is contrasted with the obedience and the faithfulness of the servant. In chapter 49, in the previous servant song, we saw the Lord confirm the servant's task. He was told that he would regather the nation of Israel, but that task was too small a task for him, and God will call a people from every tribe and every nation. And God talks about how, though he was initially despised and rejected, eventually he is going to be worshipped. In response, he says, Then shout for joy, O heavens, rejoice, O earth, break forth into joyful shoutings, O mountains. This is 49, 13, for the Lord has comforted his people and will have compassion on his afflicted. And then he goes on in the end of chapter 49 to talk about how he will bring people back to the land in such numbers that it will be as if Jerusalem is too crowded, that people will complain there's no room. So he heaps his promise upon promise to reassure them that he is still faithful to his covenant promises. And that's the chief contrast in this song. So you recall that Zion is a hilltop of Jerusalem where the Tremple Mount is located, and that metaphorically, Zion usually stands for the nation of Israel or the people of God. And so at the end of chapter 49, we saw Zion complain, say, But God has forgotten me. They remain unresponsive, and then in chapter 50, that unresponsiveness is going to be contrasted with the servant. Zion had every reason to trust the Lord, and yet they do not trust. On the other hand, the servant's ear is opened, he obeys and responds. Zion remains unbelieving and despairing, while the servant responds with confidence and faith. So we get this contrast between the servant who is the new Israel and Zion, who is the old Israel who failed, while the servant will conquer. We want to look at the first three verses of chapter fifty just to set up this contrast. These three verses are addressed to the people of Judah. This is Isaiah fifty verses one through three. Thus says the Lord, Where is the certificate of divorce by which I sent your mother away? Or to whom of my creditors did I sell you? Behold, you were sold for your iniquities, and for your transgressions your mother was sent away. Why was there no man when I came? When I called, why was there none to answer? Is my hand so short that it cannot ransom, or have I no power to deliver? Behold, I dry up the sea with my rebuke, I make the rivers a wilderness, their fish stink for lack of water, and die of thirst. I clothe the heavens with blackness and make sackcloth their covering. The Lord is addressing a question from the people of Judah. Presumably the question is, why did you send us into exile? Why are we suffering through this? Why is this going on so long? And the Lord insists, the fault's not mine. The fault is not his. He kept his end of the covenant. They were punished for their own sins and their transgressions. So why did the divorce happen? Because they were sinful, and if they call for the divorce certificate, it will bear witness to the fact that the Lord is the faithful party. Had the creditor come forward, the creditor can testify that the people were sold to him because of their own transgressions. Then when the Lord called to them, they didn't listen. When he called to them to come and repent, no one answered. When he spoke to them through a prophet, no one responded, no one turned back to him. So they went into exile because they've refused to respond to God, and now in exile they have lost hope and despair that God will redeem them. He says, Do you think I couldn't solve this problem? Is my arm too short to redeem? Do you think I have no power to deliver? And then he uses this language in verse 2 that's reminiscent of the Exodus. In the Exodus, he ransomed the people from slavery in Egypt by parting the waters of the Red Sea so they could walk over on dry ground. And I think all that language about the fish stinking is to remind them of the Exodus, because this was an abundant display of the Lord's ability to redeem and to save his people. So they have no cause to think he can't deal with the problem. These images he uses of divorce and slavery hit on the question we've been talking about all term. Have they gone too far? Have they committed a sin or rebelled in such a way that God will no longer redeem them? Have they finally forfeited God's promises? Because both divorce and slavery terminate the relationship. And in a divorce, you could see Israel thinking, well, God just doesn't love us anymore, or he's failed to love us, and in the slavery metaphor, they could accuse God of being unable to save them. And yet the implication in these three verses is no, this the fault is not mine. I have done, I the Lord have done everything that needs to be done. The problem is Zion, the people, remained unresponsive. They remained sinful and rebellious. So they were sold and divorced for their sins. And yet when he came to redeem them, when he called through his prophets, no one listened, and no one responded except the servant. That's the contrast that's going to be set up here as we go into 50 verse 4. So in contrast to the first three verses of chapter 50, where no one listens, no one waits for the Lord, in the rest of the passage we see there is one who listens, there is one who learns, there is one who obeys the will of God and does not rebel, and he obeys at all costs and rests in confident faith in the Lord. If you ask the question, is this song true of Israel or any other individual? The answer has to be no. But it is true of the servant. No other individual, no other nation, no other person obeyed the way he did. No one suffered for obedience. We suffer for our sins, but by contrast, the servant's going to suffer because of obedience. Who else can say with confidence that no charges against him will stand? And yet that is true of the servant. That's one of the ways we know that this is a song about the servant. Okay, so let's look at the passage itself. This song focuses, I think, on how the servant was prepared for the ministry and how the Lord stands with him in all his adversity and trials. And as we go through this passage, just to explain it, I'm going to be using a metaphor of a school. The school's not really in the passage, it's just an easy way for me to try to explain how I think these verses relate and what's going on. So the first section we're going to look at are verses four through six, and they're the goals and the requirement of the school. So verse four begins The Lord God has given me the tongue of disciples that I may know how to sustain the weary with a word. He awakens me morning by morning. He awakens my ear to listen as a disciple. So the goal of the school is to learn to speak, to learn to speak well and wisely. And of course the contrast with Zion is immediate. The last thing we heard Zion speak was a complaint. That was back in 4914. But Zion said, The Lord has forsaken me, and the Lord has forgotten me. So Zion is the weary one, the one who's afraid to trust God, the one who's not been listening to the promises of comfort and redemption that have been repeated throughout this section. And then in contrast, the servant knows how to comfort. The servant's ear has been awakened and listens morning after morning so that he knows the word of the Lord and thus can offer real comfort. So the goal of the servant's education, to use my school metaphor, is to learn to speak. The Lord has given me the tongue of the learned one, or the disciple. Literally, it's the tongue of those who are taught. Jesus brought forth this new kingdom not through war, not through a revolution or conquering armies, but by effectively speaking God's word. And as we saw in the last song, God's word has the power to penetrate and persuade. The word learned one is a form of the word to learn or the word disciple. It just simply means one who learns. The word Talmud also comes from it. And this word carries the idea of learning through sheer repetition. You just repeat and learn and listen over and over again until you're accustomed to it. It becomes part of you. It's second nature. And it struck me that one of the marks of greatness is not how much money we make or how impressive our titles are or how many letters follow our name or how well you throw a ball. The mark of greatness is how well you speak. God created the universe through speech. The devil used speech to deceive and bring about the fall, and our speech can tear people down or build people up. What we say or don't say has the power to encourage, to exhort, to rebuke, and to damage, and it's amazing how much damage we can do with our words. So the first thing the servant learned was to speak effectively, lovingly, and to sustain the weary one with a word. The Lord has given me the tongue of disciples that I may know how to sustain the weary one with a word. The goal of his education is to learn how to speak in such a way as to bring life, refreshing life to those who are struggling. He is able to see to the heart of the matter, listen with understanding, and then have the wisdom to give an appropriate response. And notice how Jesus fulfilled this. You could probably find hundreds of examples in the Gospels of Jesus tailoring his speech to the needs of his listeners. Here's a few I thought of. To the super religious Nicodemus, he spoke of the need of being born again and born from above. To the thirsty Samaritan woman, he spoke of living water. To a hungering crowd, he spoke of himself as the true bread of life. And each time he tailors his speech to meet the needs, to comfort, to sustain those who are weary. The goal of our speech is not to patronize people or give them path cliche answers, but to ask God for the wisdom for the right word at the right time to meet their needs. It's really tempting as a Bible teacher to just dust off your old notes and give the same talks over and over again. But I've learned that's a recipe for failure because it doesn't meet people where they're at. Some of my most humbling and humiliating experiences teaching have been when I walked in thinking I knew what to say without having considered the audience first. So the goal of the school is to learn to speak wisely and well, and the teacher of the school is the Lord. How do we learn the right words to say? Well, our teacher, like the servant's teacher, is the Lord. I remember being disappointed when I went to college in that regard, because I went to a school where we had these incredible professors who were Nobel laureates and many at the top of their fields, and here I was, one of 200 freshmen sitting in a lecture hall peering at them through binoculars practically. But the school of the servant is not like that. It is a one-to-one tutorial initiated by God Himself. He awakens me morning by morning, he awakens my ear to listen as a disciple. So God Himself teaches the servant morning by morning. And that is a metaphor, I think, for two ideas. Morning by morning means it's the first thing you do, thus it's your priority, and that it's something you do every day, it's continuous. So it's your daily first ongoing priority. Before the servant could speak effectively, he had to listen, and he had to learn to listen. So his role is like that of a prophet in that he speaks what he's hearing the Father say, and so his first and continuous priority was listening to the Father. Jesus himself confirms this in John 12, 49, 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. One of the commentators summed it up this way the tongue filled with the appropriate word for ministry is the product of the ear filled with the word of God. Now, what am I saying here? I know some of you are thinking there is no way I could possibly study the Bible every day. And I remember when my kids were little and they were toddlers and then they got to be school age, and we were driving them all over everywhere, and every minute seemed busy, and people would tell me things like this, and I would just inwardly groan and think, I can't do it. Not one more thing to add to my schedule. I couldn't even find time to take a shower, let alone study the Bible. There are seasons in your life when you will have to let other people feed you. I am not advocating that you grind out a quiet time every day just to say you've done it. Speaking from personal experience, I've been there, and when you study the Bible just to cross it off your list and say, good, done, check, you get nothing out of it. Going through the motions does not impress God, it's not going to gain you much in the end. Because what God wants is a heart that desires to know him and wants to learn from him. So when people come to me and say, you know, my quiet time, my own Bible study, it's just miserable. I'm not getting anything out of it. I say, don't do it. Because I'm confident of three things. First, if your heart's not in it, it's wasted time anyway. If you're just doing it to go through the motions, it's not doing anyone any good. Second, if you abandon it for long, you're going to start to miss it. You're going to start to dry up and long for the refreshing water of God's Word. In other words, God will change your heart so that when you come back, you'll start to learn something again. And then third, there are just some seasons in your life where other people will feed you and your personal Bible study won't. And that's okay. If you're in one of those times, take advantage of books, podcasts, sermons, whatever, small groups. It's okay to be fed by others. So start wherever you at. If you don't have the desire to study, then pray for the desire. Now I know what you're saying. You're saying, oh, I can't do it. I haven't been to seminary. It's too hard. There's too much to learn. I just don't get it. You don't have to go to seminary, you don't have to know Greek. There's only one entrance requirement for the school, and that's listening. You have to be willing to listen. That's the entrance requirement for the school. Listening. He awakens me morning by morning. He awakens my ear to listen as a disciple. Desire's half the battle. The other half is being willing to listen. And if you're willing to listen, God will teach you. You don't have to be an intellectual giant, you don't have to be a scholar, you don't have to be a straight A student. The issue is not intellect, it's listening to the right teacher, and that starts with the word of the Lord. When I was in college, I attended Ray Stedman's church. Ray Stedman was the John Piper, Tim Keller of his day. He wrote about 30 books and he used to travel around with Billy Graham. He went home to be with the Lord several years ago. He was only in his 60s, but he left behind outlines of every book of the Bible and taped or written sermons of every book of the Bible. Every book, word by word, verse by verse, every book. And he didn't just know the outlines of the books, he knew every book. He taught verse by verse, chapter by chapter, start to finish. No wonder so many people sought his advice on so many topics. He listened to the right teacher. So the text has been written, the teacher's waiting, we simply need to jump in and listen. Now we get to the curriculum of the school. There is good news and bad news. The good news is there's only one class. The bad news is you're not going to like it. Because the curriculum of the school is being willing to face rejection. Look at five and six. The Lord God has opened my ear, and I was not disobedient, nor did I turn back. I gave my back to those who strike me, and my cheeks to those who pluck out the beard. I did not cover my face from humiliation and spitting. So in contrast to Zion, who is disciplined for her own sinfulness, as we saw in fifty verse two, we see the servants suffer because he is obedient. The curriculum he faced on earth was rejection. The rejection Jesus faced began with the leaders of nations, extended to his relatives and even to his brothers. This is Matthew three, twenty and twenty-one. Then he went home and the crowd gathered again so that they could not even eat, and when his family heard of it, they went out to seize him, for they were saying, He's out of his mind. So his family thinks he's crazy. And then this is John 7 2 through 5. Now the Jews' feast of Booth was at hand, so his brothers said to him, Leave here and go to Judea that your disciples may also see the works you're doing. For no one works in secret if he seeks to be known openly. If you do these things, show yourself to the world, for not even his brothers believed him. So they're mocking him, they're challenging to go show himself and show off his works, because they don't believe he can do it. And then perhaps the most extreme statement of his rejection is Matthew 8 20. And Jesus said to him, Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head. Jesus was willing to submit to rejection because he knew it was designed by God as part of the plan and part of his ministry. This is 55 and 6 again. Bruce Walkey writes of this to strike on the cheek and the face signifies that one is so defenseless that he cannot even protect his face from the blows of an enemy, and so is humiliated by him. The servant can't. And sustain the weary and encourage them because he himself has suffered. What we learn here is that part of the curriculum of learning to answer the weary one with a word is to face the rejections of others. How many times have you seen someone suffering and you try to encourage them and they say, Well, you don't know what it's like. You can't understand what I'm going through. You haven't been there. There's a point to that. Suffering teaches us, rejection teaches us. It teaches us our own limitations, our own sinfulness, and our own need for God. Rejection and suffering can crush the prideful barriers that keep us from trusting God. Why is it always easier to pray in the bad times? Why is it always easier to trust God when life is hard? Because we've realized we have nowhere else to turn. And more often than not, it's the suffering and the rejection that taught us that. It's the suffering that softens our heart and opens our ears to hear God, and that's part of the process of learning to sustain the weary with a word. Rejection is part of the course, so how do we live through it? Well, the same way the servant got through it. He learned that when rejection comes, the assets of God are open to him. So when earth's rivers run dry, the heavens are open. So look at seven through nine. He can get through this curriculum of rejection because he knows who God is, God is his help, and he knows who he is, he is God's servant. Humiliation is hard to take. When we face a situation where we suspect the possibility of humiliation, we just avoid it at all costs. But look at what God asked Jesus to do. He had to submit himself to a kangaroo court where everything was rigged against him, where the goal of the court was not to administer justice, but to abuse and humiliate him and finally crucify him. How did Jesus get through that? How did he face that? He got through it by being grounded in knowing who God is and who he himself is. He knows that God is his help and he knows that he is God's servant. And I think we get through trials the same way. We have to know who God is and know who we are. At his trial, Jesus lost basically all his human support. The Sanhedrin turned against him, the Romans hated him, his fellow Jews were seeking his blood, and his disciples scattered in fear, and yet God was with him. 50 verse seven, for the Lord God helps me, therefore I am not disgraced, therefore I have set my face like flint, and I know that I will not be ashamed. That set my face like flint is a metaphor for resolute determination. We might say today, I just gr just grit your teeth and bear it, or you just face it down. It's that kind of determination. And notice the contrast here. In verse six he says he did not turn away from humiliation, and in seven he says, I am not humiliated. He's saying I will give myself to humiliation and spitting, knowing that ultimately God will vindicate me. I will not be humiliated ultimately. The servant understood that his sufferings were part of God's plan, and therefore he could submit to them fully. He says, And I know that I will not be ashamed. He knew that this suffering was not arbitrary, it's not random chance. His suffering has a purpose, it's part of a plan, and it has meaning. It comes from God and God is his help. The same powerful, wonderful God who measures the universe in the palm of his hand, who consulted no one when he created the universe and counted the stars. This is the God who's in control. He is too great to fail, and he will help his servant through it. There's a reason, a plan, and a purpose, and God will vindicate him. Okay nine. He who vindicates me is near. Who will contend with me? Let us stand up to each other. Who has a case against me? Let him draw near to me. Behold, the Lord God helps me. Who is he who condemns me? Behold, they all wear out like a garment, the moth will eat them. All these terms are legal terms. Vindicates is a legal term that means to bring in a legitimate, justified verdict of innocence. Contend is also a legal term for bringing a suit or bringing a lawsuit against someone. Near has the idea of being an advocate, who's on my side. It's not so much who is physically near me, but who is advocating for me, who is on my side. Let us stand up to each other is a metaphor for let's meet in court. So we might say, I'll see you in court. It's that kind of a metaphor, let us let's go to court and see who has a case against me. So the servant knows that the earthly court is not the final authority. Ultimately, it didn't matter what the earthly court did to him, what mattered was following the Lord and what the heavenly court ruled. The earthly court could only destroy his body, but the heavenly court could destroy his soul. He's not intimidated by his accusers, rather he's bold as he faces them. He invites them to draw near. Who will contend with me? Who has a case against him? Let him draw near to me. He faces them with confidence, knowing that the God who names and protects a hundred billion stars, the God who guarantees salvation, who's coming as a powerful judge, and who also gently leads his own people, that God will protect him. That God is on his side. That God is his advocate. So nothing can happen to him that is outside of God's plan, and he can face it because he is on the Father's side. And that is true of us as well. On earth the servant will receive no vindication, but he knows he will ultimately be vindicated in the resurrection, and God will judge his enemies. Behold, the Lord God helps me, verse 9, who is he who condemns me? Behold, they all wear out like a garment, the moth will eat them. So his accusers are compared to this, the internal transience of a garment that just wears out, a piece of fabric that just wears away over time, and it's helpless and can do nothing in the face of its natural predator, the moth. It just has no defense. So like a moth slowly destroys a garment in a process that's almost invisible to the naked eye, judgment is absolutely sure. Just as the garment has no defense and is helpless against the moth, so are those who condemn the servant. They will meet their judge. They will be put to shame ultimately. Thus, at his trial, Jesus was not concerned with his own defense. He was silenced. He wasn't trying to thwart his accusers, he didn't seek vengeance on those who wronged him, he didn't try to vindicate himself. He is free from shame and fear and humiliation because he knows God is going to vindicate him. What earthly contender could possibly succeed when the author and creator of the universe, the Holy One of Israel, is on his side. God asked him to walk this path so he will walk it knowing God is with him. So there are only two groups of people at this school, those who oppose the servant and those who follow him, and now we see an exhortation to both of them. First verse ten Who is among you that fears the Lord, that obeys the voice of his servant, that walks in darkness and has no light? Let him trust in the name of the Lord and rely on his God. The first thing he does is refine the definition of a disciple. In the Old Testament, a Jew or a believer was one who feared the Lord, and true religion was fearing the Lord. Now he adds, Who among you that fears the Lord that obeys the voice of his servant? So we have this additional qualification, obeying the voice of his servant. You can't claim to fear the Lord anymore if you don't also obey the voice of his servant. At the Mount of Transfiguration, a voice from heaven said, This is Matthew 17, 5. He was still speaking when, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, This is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased. Listen to him. We now need to obey the voice of his servant. Those who walk in darkness and has no light. So it's clear he's talking about believers here, but the question is how does this describe believers? So we it's in parallel with those who fear the Lord and obey the voice of his servant, and then also walk in darkness and has no light. I think the idea here is that they recognize that they walk in darkness and they have no light in them themselves, in contrast to those who are in verse 11 who have a self-kindled light. So the metaphor is between those who model themselves on the servant and those who walk in self-sufficiency. So they fear the Lord, they obey the servant because they recognize that they are in darkness. That is, they are sinful and rebellion in and of themselves, and they have no light, they cannot make themselves righteous. So what do they do? They trust in the name of the Lord. And the name of the Lord means all that God has revealed himself to be. His name is a metaphor for who he is, everything he's told us about himself, everything that we know to be true of him. So in his name is kind of in his reputation, in his who he is, and everything that he's told himself to be. So when we say we trust in the name of Jesus, it's not in his physical name, it's that we trust in everything Jesus has been revealed to be. So trusting in God's name is similar, it's trusting in everything God has revealed himself to be and who he is. So if you find you have darkness, that is, you are sinful and rebellious and have a wicked heart, and you have no light, you can't make yourself righteous, what's the answer? Trust in the name of the Lord. He can solve that problem. Rely on him. But then there's also a warning to the accusers, verse 11, behold all you who kindle a fire, who encircle yourselves with firebrands, walk in the light of your fire, and among the brands you have set ablaze, this you will have for my hand, you will lie down in torment. So those who kindle a fire and provide themselves with fire brands is a contrast between those who walk in darkness and know they have no light. I think it's a metaphor for those who walk in self-reliance, those who walk in self-sufficiency. They make their own light, they kindle their own fire. Those who say, Well, life's dark, and I'm gonna make it better, I'm gonna I'm gonna rely on all my own resources to solve that. And they're doomed, they're going to be judged. So the metaphor is that they will find, they find darkness, so they find darkness in their souls, evil, wickedness, rebellion, sin, and they seek to make themselves light, to make their own light. So they try to be righteous on their own through their own self-effort. And God says, Well, that's exactly the kind of righteousness you'll get, your own, and it's not worth anything. You will lie down in torment, which I think is a metaphor for eternal death. So how do you end a passage like this? I think with verse 10, who is among you that fears the Lord, that obeys the voice of his servant, that walks in darkness and has no light, let him trust in the name of the Lord and rely on his God. Let him trust in the name of the Lord and rely on his God. Think about everything we've learned from Isaiah about who God is and who the servant is. In the second week, when we looked at chapter 40, we learned that there is comfort because our past has been dealt with, that grace is more than double our sins. In the third week, also in chapter 40, we learn that God is too great to fail and he cares for you by name. So this same God who counts the billions of stars and knows them each by name and measures the oceans in the palm of his hand, he is too great to fail, and he cares for you by name. In week four, when we looked at chapter 42, we learned that the servant's task was to bring true justice, that is, freedom from a sinful heart, and that he will succeed. And then last week in chapter 49, we see the servant had confidence that God was faithful to keep his promises, even though the outward circumstances looked bleak. So he knew that God had a bigger plan in mind for the servant, and we can have that same confidence. We don't know the scope and the extent of God's plan, but we can trust that he does, and we are part of it. And then today, trust in everything you know about God, and he will get you through the school of suffering. Our job is to just listen and obey.com. So feel free to browse for a topic or passage that you are really interested in. Our theme music is graciously provided by Rendy Coates of Heartcalf Music.org. I'm Krisan Marotta, and this is Wednesday in the Word.