Isaiah 42

Father in heaven, we thank You so much for giving us the opportunity tonight to get into the Word, to dig into the Scriptures. And Lord, we're finding our study in Isaiah to be such a wonderful, such a powerful, such an insightful study as we learn so much more about the prophetic element of Messiah both first and second coming. And, we've just been learning so much, Lord, about Your heart toward Your people. And Lord, as we get into the, these next studies, and particularly the study of chapter 42 today, we just really pray that Your Holy Spirit would move upon our hearts to hear Your voice, to respond Lord God in faith and to grow in the grace and knowledge of what You are saying to the church, what You're saying to individual believers, and what You're saying about the nation of Israel. We ask You to be with us. We ask You to fill our hearts. We ask You to teach us from Your Word. And we ask all these things in Jesus' mighty name. Amen. Amen. Well, if you don't have your Bible open yet, please open it up to the 42nd chapter of Isaiah. And we're only going to get through one chapter of Isaiah tonight, which is kind of odd. We've been getting through at least two, if not more. But I felt like this particular chapter has quite a bit to say. But even more, the next chapter has, I think, more to say. I think you're going to find Isaiah chapter 43 particularly rich and particularly challenging. And I wanted to give it a night of its own. A study of its own. Therefore, chapter 42 is because of that, getting a study of its own as well. Chapter 42 of Isaiah is essentially made up of 3 sections. And some of the Bibles that you're reading may actually divide up these sections for you with headings, which, by the way, are not part of the Word of God. They're just put in there by the translators. But there are essentially three separate messages, although they have a lot to do with one another in this chapter.

The first section is contained in verses 1 through 9, and it speaks of the first coming of Messiah, although there are some emphases that lay claim to even some aspects of his second coming very briefly. But what we're going to find here in actually in chapter 42 of Isaiah is the first of what we call four servant songs. The songs about the servant of the Lord. And I'm going to remind you that these words, these prophecies, these songs, if you will, here in Isaiah, were written 700 years before the first coming of Jesus Christ, when he arrived as a baby in Bethlehem. You're also going to find in the, in this chapter that the subject of justice is going to play a very large role. Justice. It's something that is a little bit wanting right now in our nation. And we're going to see that justice is a very big part of God's kingdom and God's prophetic program. So, as we understand more about the mission of Messiah, we see how, we will see in this chapter how justice plays a huge role in that. Let's begin in verse one of chapter 42. It begins this way, saying,

Now I'm going to have you stop right there, because there are some things that we need to see. The Lord begins to speak of His servant. And the word servant, if you have a different translation than the one I'm reading from, which is the ESV. For example, the New King James (NKJV) Bible, your word for servant is capitalized. I believe it also is in the New American Standard Bible. And the reason it's capitalized is that the translators wanted to help you to understand that, in this case, the Servant of the Lord is the Messiah. Now you need to understand something else. The word, servant doesn't always apply to the Messiah. There is going to come a time here in the next few chapters when the word servant is going to apply to king Cyrus, who hasn't even been born yet, and won't be born for another 150 years. And the Lord will call him, my servant. There are other places, in fact, later on in this very chapter, where God is going to use the word, servant. And it's going to apply to the nation of Israel as a whole. How, well, you say, well, how do we know? How do we know who He's referring to? Because the word servant is the same in the Hebrew in all those instances. Well, we know because of the context of the passage. In other words, what's happening in the passage. And as we look at the context in this first section of Isaiah 42, the context clearly is the coming of the Anointed One, the Messiah of the Lord. You'll notice that he refers to this servant as the one “whom I uphold.” The word in the Hebrew literally means to hold fast, or if you will, literally to grip fast. And he goes on to say, of this one, he is “my chosen,...” The New King James Bible renders this as, my elect. And once again, it capitalizes the word, Elect, “My Elect One.” He goes on to say, “in whom my soul delights;” This is an interesting statement because what we're reading is, we're reading God the Father speaking about God the Son. And He says, concerning the Son “in (him) whom my soul delights.” Twice in Matthew's gospel account we get to hear the voice of the Father speaking from heaven about the Son. And twice we hear the voice of the Father saying, “This is my son with whom I am well pleased.” (Matthew 3:17) And so there is a very special relationship, a very special love relationship between the Father and the Son. And Jesus expressed both the Father's love for Himself and His love for the Father. I want to show you a couple of passages from the gospel of John. The first is in John chapter 17 and verse 24. And this is Jesus praying, saying,

“Father, I desire that they (in referring to His disciples) also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me (look at this) because you loved me before the foundation of the world.” And then also in John chapter 14, we read this:

“...I do as the Father has commanded me, (Jesus speaking here) so that the world may know that I love the Father.” In these two passages in John's gospel account, we see Jesus expressing both the Father's love for Him and His love for the Father. This plays very beautifully into this statement here from Isaiah chapter 42, where the Lord speaks of Messiah, the Chosen One, the one who His “soul delights in.” Now next, the Father says of the Son, if you look with me. He says, “I have put my Spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations.” This is the first reference that we have here in Isaiah 42 concerning justice. But you'll notice that it is not mentioned here about justice to the nation of Israel. It is mentioned as justice for the nations, and that speaks of the Gentile nations. But in order to bring that justice, God says here regarding the Son, “I have put my Spirit upon him.” Now, the language of the Old Testament is very similar to the language of the New (New Testament) when it refers to the coming of the Spirit to empower. Remember, when the Spirit comes, on or, upon. The Bible is always speaking about empowering, enabling. The Spirit came, upon the disciples when they were baptized in the Holy Spirit. The Spirit came, upon Peter and John when they spoke to the Sanhedrin. The Spirit came, upon Paul when he spoke powerfully to the Roman officials and so forth. So, it happens repeatedly, but the Spirit comes upon to empower. The Lord speaks here of the empowering of the Son through the Spirit to bring justice. We'll talk more about justice in just a moment. But then His ministry in verse 2 is characterized in the following words. Notice verse 2 with me. It says, “He will not cry aloud or lift up his voice or make it heard in the street;” Now, this is an interesting statement regarding the first coming of Jesus Christ. And it doesn't necessarily mean that Jesus would not cry out in any way. This is simply a statement that is given to us prophetically in Isaiah to speak of the meek nature of Messiah. And particularly related to his introduction to Jewish society and how He came into Jewish society.

It frankly wasn't with a bang. Even when Jesus was born, angels appeared to shepherds out in a field. Jesus wasn't born in a palace. He was born in a barn and laid in a manger. And in His ministry, it started slowly and it built up over time. And so that's what this section of verse 2 is really saying about Messiah. That He will come meekly. He will come slowly. He will come with gentleness in His approach. He doesn't come with a sword. Jesus even said during His earthly ministry the first time that the Son has not been brought, or did not come to earth to judge at this time, He came to save. (John 3:17) And so this speaks of that. How gentle is the coming of the Lord in His first coming? Well, it tells us. It actually describes how gentle in verse 3. It says, “a bruised reed he will not break,” Now, you guys probably know that a reed is a tall, slender, plant like thing that grows in marshes. And it speaks here of a bruised reed. And this is a reed that's been knocked over by an animal or a person or something like... even the wind. And it's hanging down and it's ready to break off at any moment. It's not going to happen through the Messiah. It says, “a bruised reed he will not break,...” And that speaks of His coming, which will be gentle. Gentle. He will operate with extreme kindness. And then this is repeated using a second word picture saying, “and a faintly burning wick he will not quench;” And this speaks of a candle. Have you ever seen a candle where the wax has melted so up so far up on the wick that there's really very little wick left extended up above the melting wax? And there's, so there's very little flame. In fact, there's just a wisp of a flame that remains on that candle. Most people would go ahead and just blow it out and do something with the candle to try to make it so it's useful again. He says, it says here in this second word picture that the coming of Messiah would be so tender, so kindly, that even those who are in the most vulnerable of situations, those who are the most powerless, would not be upset. Would not be overturned. Would not be troubled by the coming of Messiah. It's really a very interesting and kind of beautiful picture of His first coming.

Now remember, this is the first coming of the Lord we're talking about. It is not that way in His second coming. The Bible says, in His second coming, He comes as a conquering hero. He comes as a warrior. He comes with a sword. He comes riding on the white horse. He comes with the hosts of heaven along with Him with the trumpet sound. It's going to be a very different second advent. But in this first one, prophetically, it speaks of the gentleness. And we do see that played out in the gospel accounts. Now the prophecy goes on here to describe Messiah. It says here, “he will faithfully bring forth justice.” I want you to notice this because this is the second instance where justice is spoken of as it relates to the coming of Messiah. And I believe that this has a dual meaning personally. Because Jesus brings justice in different ways. Certainly, the one way that Jesus is going to establish justice, and I mean real justice, is when He establishes His throne upon the earth. When He is ruling and reigning during the Millennial Kingdom, He's going to do what mankind desires but cannot fully achieve. And that is bring true, real, and lasting justice to the earth. And we know that is something that our Lord and our Savior will accomplish when He rules on the earth at His second coming. And this is where I told you before, there's this hint of His second coming. But in His first coming, there is still an expression of Him bringing forth justice. And I believe it's a very powerful way that He advanced God's justice. And it was by satisfying God's justice. Jesus Christ came to this earth and satisfied God's justice. And this is actually spoken about in Paul's letter to the Romans. I'll put this on the screen so you can see it. Romans chapter 3, beginning at verse 24 says,

...Christ Jesus whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, (and the word propitiation means to take away wrath or to remove wrath) to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.” Now, this is an incredible Bible passage. But what it's saying in Romans is that Jesus, by bearing our penalty, satisfied God's justice. Now, people will write me from time to time and ask me, how are people forgiven under the old covenant? How did that happen? We know that in the new covenant, we're forgiven by putting our faith in the finished work of Jesus on the cross. Well, how were they forgiven under the old covenant? Well, people were truly forgiven under the old covenant when they confessed their sin, when they repented, and when they put their faith in God. People were forgiven in the old, under the old covenant, really, in the same way. They were just looking toward the sacrifice of Jesus, where you and I are looking back at that sacrifice. Here's the point though. Under the old covenant, the penalty for sin was never paid. The Bible says, in fact, we read it here in Romans, that in God's forbearance, He left those former sins passed over. And that literally means, unpunished. In other words, prior to the cross, the sin of man was left unpunished. Well, God can't leave sins unpunished for long, because if He were to do that, He would be unjust. And God cannot be unjust. We can. Human beings can be unjust. We see it all the time. God cannot be so. If He were unjust, He would not be God. Therefore, He sent His Son to satisfy His justice. When Jesus bore our sin on the cross, His death, because He bore our penalty, the penalty we deserved, the justice of God was satisfied in the person of Jesus Christ. And that, because remember, that justice demand a payment. Do you remember what Paul wrote elsewhere in Romans? The wages of sin is death.

It cannot be otherwise so someone had to die. Somebody had to die. But God sent His Son, not just to show that He is just, but also to be the justifier. The one who fulfilled, satisfied the justice of God through His own death and bearing our penalty on the cross. So, Jesus brought forth justice by meeting the demands of God's justice.

Finally, it says of Messiah in verse 4: “He will not grow faint or be discouraged till he has established justice in the earth;" (This is the third reference to justice. And it goes on to say,) "and the coastlands (and that's a reference to, once again, the nations of the Gentiles.) wait for his law.” The New American Standard Bible (NASB) says, they “wait expectantly for His law.” And this speaks of the nations during that time of Christ's second coming, longing for the justice and the law of the Lord. Another reference here to how Jesus will rule and reign in the Millennial Kingdom. We've looked at these first 4 verses. And the question might reasonably come up in some people's mind, "what is it about the context of these verses that absolutely tells me that we're talking here about Jesus, that Jesus is the servant? Because it doesn't actually use His name here. And it is simply the word, servant, which can apply to other people so how do we know? How do we know it's talking about Jesus? Well, again, as we look carefully at the context of the verses, the things that we hear about this servant doing, saying, being, where He is the one who brings forth justice to the world. And the nations wait, the nations of the world long for His justice. We see this as speaking of Messiah. But beyond that contextual understanding, Matthew quoted this very passage in Isaiah chapter 42, and he applied it to Jesus. Let me show you this on the screen from Matthew chapter 42. It says, Matthew 12:15-21 (ESV) “Jesus, aware of this, withdrew from there. And many followed him, and he healed them all and ordered them not to make him known. This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah: 'Behold, my servant whom I have chosen, my beloved with whom my soul is well pleased. I will put my Spirit upon him, and he will proclaim justice to the Gentiles. He will not quarrel or cry aloud, nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets; a bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not quench, until he brings justice to victory; and in his name the Gentiles will hope.” “Jesus, aware of this, withdrew from there. And many followed him, and he healed them all and ordered them not to make him known. This was (now look at this) to fulfill (Matthew writes) what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah: 'Behold, my servant whom I have chosen, my beloved with whom my soul is well pleased. I will put my Spirit upon him, and he will proclaim justice to the

Gentiles. He will not quarrel or cry aloud, nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets; a bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not quench, until he brings justice to victory; and in his name (the Gentiles will have or excuse me) the Gentiles will hope.” Matthew quotes these verses in their entirety and applies this to Jesus saying, “this was to fulfill.” In His first coming, Jesus fulfilled these verses. Now He begins in this next verse 5, the Lord begins by describing Himself. He says it this way, “Thus says God, the Lord,” Notice the name that is used there. The tetragrammaton, Yahweh. It is literally translated, thus says God, YAHWEH, “who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and what comes from it, who gives breath to the people on it: and spirit to those who walk in it:” Now He has, all He's done in that first verse there is He's just described Himself and introduced Himself as the One who is speaking. Now in verse 6, He gives you the message. This is what He is speaking. And He's speaking it to His Son, the coming Messiah. “I am (Yahweh) the Lord; I have called you in righteousness; I will take you by the hand and keep you; I will give you as a covenant for the people, a light for the nations, 7 to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness.” Here's the Father speaking of the Son. And speaking of the ministry that is given to Him, to open the eyes of the blind, to bring those who are incarcerated in darkness. Not necessarily speaking at all of any kind of physical incarceration, but rather slavery bondage to sin. Now, if you find that these words are somewhat similar to something you remember from the New Testament, they are. They're very similar to the words that were actually spoken by the man Simeon, who was there when Joseph and Mary brought Jesus, the baby Jesus, into the temple just after He was born. I want to show you this passage from Luke chapter 2, beginning at verse 25. Check this out:

Honestly, one of the most beautiful New Testament declarations of the ministry of Messiah given in the Gospels. What, how beautiful is that? Now, verses 8 and 9 finish out this first section. “I am the LORD; (I am YAHWEH, God says) that is my name; my glory I give to no other, nor my praise to carved idols. 9 Behold, the former things have come to pass, (In other words, the things that were spoken have been brought to fruition) and new things I now declare; (In other words, God says, now I speak of things to come) before they spring forth I tell you of them.”

And so this first section, verses 1 through 9, ends with a reminder that YAHWEH is sovereign, that He shares His glory and sovereignty with no other, and certainly not to carved idols. In verse 9, He reminds us that He knows all things before they come to pass, and He declares them to us as they spring forth. And the reason God can do this is, because God is not limited by the passage or the confines of time. He can freely speak of events which are in the future as if they already happened. Now the second section of this chapter encompasses verses 10 through 17. This is a call to the nations to praise the Lord as He comes in His glory as a mighty warrior to judge. And so now we see the opposite of the coming in meekness. We see the Lord now coming in righteousness and judgment and glory and with a great cry. And you'll notice as we go through this, that it reads very much like a Psalm because it is a call to praise. And what we're going to see in this section is what the Lord will do when He comes to earth a second time. This time frame, the time frame of God's prophetic calendar is the very end of the great Tribulation when Jesus returns to the earth and then establishes His kingdom in what we call the Millennial Kingdom. Let's read through it. Verse 10:

11

Now the mention of Kedar and Sela means that Arab voices are being encouraged to join in this song of praise. Verse 12:

I want you to notice now again, here's the difference between the meek Messiah who comes, who is not, who does not cry out in the streets. But here we have the coming of the Lord crying out, shouting aloud. This is a very different coming of Messiah. Verse 14:

(That's the judgment part of His coming.) But then we read in verse 16, look at this:

And this is not just people who are physically blind, this is spiritually blind. The Lord is saying, when I come, I will open their eyes. And I will lead them on paths that they couldn't see before because of their spiritual blindness. He says,

We see here in these verses, the coming of the Lord is going to be, in the second coming, a time of judgment for some, and a time of healing and restoration, and the opening of their eyes to others. And then the final remark of this section, verse 17, says,

Now the final section here of Isaiah chapter 42 says, well... Let me just set this up a little bit before we start reading. The reason I need to set up is because this is where we're going to run into the word, servant once again. But this time the context is going to tell us that this is not speaking of Messiah. This is speaking of the entire nation of Israel. In fact, that will be revealed very clearly as we get into these verses. In fact, He will refer to whom He is speaking in these verses as Jacob, which of course, is another name for Israel. God gave, renamed Jacob, Israel. So... and these verses are not very complimentary. It begins in verse 18 saying this:

Now, remember, earlier the Lord had spoken to the blind among the Gentiles and so forth. And now he speaks to the blind among his servants. He says they're also deaf. In fact, He asks in verse 19:

It's pretty incredible, isn't it? When you read these verses about the nation of Israel. And again, I trust you'll see as we get into this, that, this is talking of the nation of Israel. The incredible thing here is that Israel, the very ones who were given a revelation of God that other nations were never given, they are the ones who understood His glory, His goodness, His righteousness, in ways that other nations were not shown. And yet, these are the very ones who He refers to as blind and deaf to it all. It is truly incredible. Spiritual blindness. Spiritual deafness. God says in verse 21:

Wow! Israel was so privileged to have received the glorious Law of God, and yet because they refused to obey it, and walk it out, it says here, He now refers to them as “...a people plundered and looted; ...trapped in holes...hidden in prisons;” no one to come to their rescue. Pretty desperate description of God's people at that time. Is it not? It also reminds us of the condition of mankind today. The condition of our world today. You know spiritually speaking the people who have rejected God and rejected His word, they are the same. They are a people plundered. They are a people looted. They are a people who are trapped in holes and in darkness. The darkness of prison cells and there is no one to rescue them save that of Jesus Christ himself. But they refused to be rescued. They refused to open their eyes today, just as the people of Israel did back during the time of Isaiah. And so God asks in verse 23:

God says here, I did this. He says, so he begins with the question, "who did this? Who gave Israel over, to be plundered and looted?" He said, It was Me. I did it. But I did it as a form of discipline and warning. Did they listen? Look at verse 25:

Israel, we're being told here, did not respond to the Lord's discipline even though it came in great hardship. He speaks of it coming as the heat of anger, the difficulty and the might of battle. Armies came against them, conquered Israel. But instead of repenting, they didn't take the Lord's discipline to heart. And you know, that reminds us that, just because we go through hard times doesn't mean we learn from them. People like to say that when you go through difficult seasons that it builds character. Well, the truth of the matter is, it doesn't necessarily build character. It builds character for those who learn, who grow from those experiences. And, in the context of God's disciplinary hand in our lives, who recognize that discipline of the Lord, and respond to God in repentance and renewal and restoration. There is a passage from the book of Hebrews, that I would like to end here with. And it's from the 12th chapter and I'd like to have you look at it with me. It goes like this:

Hebrews 12:6-11 (ESV)

That's an important reminder. The difficulty of discipline, the difficulty of hardship in life... and by the way, we're to consider all hardship as discipline. To whom does it benefit? The one who has been trained by it. And that basically speaks of the person who opens their heart to the Lord, who does not get become bitter or angry or shake their fist at God, why are you letting this happen? But instead comes to Him and says, Lord, I humble myself knowing that I deserve much more than this, were it not for the blood of Jesus Christ who takes away my sin. And so this, whatever it may be, I ask You to teach me much. I ask You to fill me with understanding. I ask You to give me insight into life from the difficulty in which I now find myself. The apostle Paul wrote and said, that he had become convinced that the hardships, challenges, and difficulties of this life were a bump in the road compared to the surpassing greatness of the glory of God that we would share with Him in His presence. That's quite an attitude, quite a perspective, isn't it? We need to learn from everything we go through. We need to grow. We need to understand what the Lord is doing, but it doesn't happen quickly. It happens as we wait on the Lord, as we trust in Him, put our hope in Him.