WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:06.000 We start a new series tonight from the book of Isaiah on the servant songs. 00:00:06.000 --> 00:00:12.160 That's Isaiah chapter is 42 to 55 and most commentators will divide the book of 00:00:12.160 --> 00:00:17.120 Isaiah into two or three parts but the first two parts are always chapter 1 to 00:00:17.120 --> 00:00:22.879 37 which is often called the book of the king and then chapter 38 to 55 which is 00:00:22.879 --> 00:00:27.600 often called the book of the servant and in the middle of the book of the 00:00:27.600 --> 00:00:32.320 servant are these songs. They're called servant songs because they 00:00:32.320 --> 00:00:43.079 are songs. They are precise, beautiful Hebrew poetry. They were likely sung and 00:00:43.079 --> 00:00:48.480 the church has always recognized since the beginning that these songs are 00:00:48.480 --> 00:00:54.960 prophecies about Jesus Christ, about the Messiah to come and what that means is 00:00:54.960 --> 00:00:58.399 that the servant songs in the series we're gonna do in the lead up to 00:00:58.399 --> 00:01:06.719 Christmas is a Christology which is a study of Jesus Christ, a deep 00:01:06.719 --> 00:01:17.359 study of Jesus Christ. This is inspired holy poetry about Jesus and that means 00:01:17.359 --> 00:01:24.640 in the series we are really standing on holy ground here and so up to Christmas 00:01:24.640 --> 00:01:30.519 we're gonna look at this Christology in song if you will and when you look at a 00:01:30.519 --> 00:01:34.480 Christology in song there's really one main purpose, one main application and 00:01:34.480 --> 00:01:39.879 that's come and worship with me as we walk through it. Come and think about 00:01:39.879 --> 00:01:45.480 Jesus and worship with me as we think about this text. So let's dive right in. 00:01:45.480 --> 00:01:50.480 We're gonna do four things. We're gonna ask why a servant. We're gonna look at 00:01:50.480 --> 00:02:00.040 the servant king, the problem of justice in the unbrewed yet crushed. So first, why 00:02:00.040 --> 00:02:04.760 a servant and really what I'm asking here is why the servant songs in the 00:02:04.760 --> 00:02:09.800 book of Isaiah. We're just thinking about the context for the whole series. 00:02:09.800 --> 00:02:14.560 We're setting up the context here for the whole series very briefly. We're 00:02:14.560 --> 00:02:18.400 reading songs here about the Messiah that were prophecies that were given 00:02:18.400 --> 00:02:26.680 around 700 BC. That was a long time ago by the way and at the time Israel was 00:02:26.680 --> 00:02:32.640 threatened by Assyria, the nation of Israel, the people of God, had been broken 00:02:32.640 --> 00:02:37.200 into two kingdoms. One in the north which was called Israel and one in the 00:02:37.200 --> 00:02:41.640 south which was called Judah and in the north there was an enemy to the north 00:02:41.640 --> 00:02:46.879 called Assyria and Assyria was threatening the northern kingdom and 00:02:46.879 --> 00:02:51.479 the whole book of Isaiah is really prophecies and talking about what's 00:02:51.479 --> 00:02:55.120 about to happen in the northern kingdom and in fact it does happen during the 00:02:55.120 --> 00:03:00.519 time of Isaiah's life and 722 Assyria finally overruns the northern kingdom of 00:03:00.519 --> 00:03:05.439 Israel and captures Samaria, its capital that had been established by Ahab and 00:03:05.439 --> 00:03:10.120 Jezebel. But when we get to the book of the servant which is the second part, the 00:03:10.120 --> 00:03:15.000 part that we're in, the issue is different. Isaiah is talking to the 00:03:15.000 --> 00:03:22.319 southern kingdom, to Judah and basically Judah had gone on some dates with Babylon 00:03:22.319 --> 00:03:27.919 in order to protect them from Assyria. They had started kind of flirting with 00:03:27.919 --> 00:03:32.000 Babylon a little bit hoping that Babylon in the end would protect them from any 00:03:32.000 --> 00:03:37.080 big foes that would come their way and destroy them and so what happens in the 00:03:37.080 --> 00:03:43.240 book of the servant at the beginning is Isaiah comes and tells the king Hezekiah 00:03:43.240 --> 00:03:50.000 that because he had gone on dates with Babylon that one day the kingdom of 00:03:50.000 --> 00:03:55.040 Judah itself would be crushed by Babylon. Babylon would come and take it 00:03:55.040 --> 00:03:59.320 because they had not trusted in God and so he says this actually in chapter 39 00:03:59.320 --> 00:04:05.360 verse 5, Isaiah says to Hezekiah, hear the word of the Lord of hosts, behold the 00:04:05.360 --> 00:04:09.680 days are coming when all that is in your house and that which your fathers have 00:04:09.680 --> 00:04:14.000 stored up till this day will be carried away to Babylon. Nothing will be left 00:04:14.000 --> 00:04:17.959 as the Lord and some of your own sons who will come from you whom you will 00:04:17.959 --> 00:04:22.680 father shall be taken away and they will be eunuchs in the palace of the king of 00:04:22.680 --> 00:04:29.720 Babylon. And so the great commentator on Isaiah, Alec Matier, he's probably got the 00:04:29.720 --> 00:04:34.480 best commentary out there on Isaiah. He said that the question then for 200 years 00:04:34.480 --> 00:04:40.480 until they finally escaped from Babylon was this, does Judah's, the southern 00:04:40.480 --> 00:04:46.720 kingdom's, Judah's fall to Babylon mean the end of the Lord's people? Have the 00:04:46.720 --> 00:04:53.680 people sin to a point where all is lost, where Israel will be squelched, its flame 00:04:53.680 --> 00:05:00.120 will go out. And in the book of Isaiah, Israel, Judah, Jerusalem even, the city is 00:05:00.120 --> 00:05:04.879 always connected with the rest of the world. In other words, the fate of that 00:05:04.879 --> 00:05:09.759 city, Jerusalem, is the fate of the world. This is where salvation will happen or 00:05:09.759 --> 00:05:14.040 it will not happen in the book of Isaiah. And whatever happens to Jerusalem is 00:05:14.040 --> 00:05:19.399 what will happen to all peoples, all nations. And so the question is, a 00:05:19.399 --> 00:05:23.160 question for the whole world, is there any hope, can anyone be redeemed if God's 00:05:23.160 --> 00:05:28.360 people are just a smoldering candle in the midst of another nation, another 00:05:28.360 --> 00:05:36.160 foreign power about to be squelched? What is God's answer? The servant songs. 00:05:36.160 --> 00:05:42.120 Starting in Isaiah chapter 40, as soon as Isaiah says to them, Babylon's gonna 00:05:42.120 --> 00:05:47.080 take you and gonna crush you for your sins. The very next chapter, the first 00:05:47.080 --> 00:05:53.800 word, Isaiah 40 verse 1, if you have a Bible you can look at it, comfort, comfort 00:05:53.800 --> 00:06:00.360 my people, says your God, speak tenderly to Jerusalem and cry to her that her 00:06:00.360 --> 00:06:07.120 warfare is ended. A prophecy saying there will be salvation, there will be hope. 00:06:07.120 --> 00:06:13.519 So that's the context, that's why this is here. It's a prophecy, an 00:06:13.519 --> 00:06:19.439 answer to what looks like the end of the world, the end of the hope of Messiah. 00:06:19.439 --> 00:06:27.920 So secondly, the servant king. This is about the identity of the person we read 00:06:27.920 --> 00:06:33.639 about in chapter 42. The specific answer to the question, is there hope for the 00:06:33.639 --> 00:06:39.680 world if Israel is about to go into exile, is answered in chapter 42 with the 00:06:39.680 --> 00:06:44.439 introduction of the servant. And this is a prophecy, it's about something that's 00:06:44.439 --> 00:06:50.759 gonna take place in the future. This happens in the 600 and 700 BC, but 00:06:50.759 --> 00:06:56.160 you see in verse 9, it's a prophecy. Behold, the former things have come to pass 00:06:56.160 --> 00:07:01.439 and new things I now declare to you. Before they spring forth, I tell you of 00:07:01.439 --> 00:07:07.920 them. This is the prophecy of the servant, and the servant is God's answer to this 00:07:07.920 --> 00:07:14.680 problem. Now, New Testament commentators will tell you that in the New 00:07:14.680 --> 00:07:23.160 Testament there are 27 direct quotations of the servant songs of Isaiah 42 to 55 00:07:23.160 --> 00:07:30.639 or 53. And even more than that, they were pretty confident that there are 85 00:07:30.639 --> 00:07:37.720 other direct illusions to a text in the servant songs in the New Testament. So 00:07:37.720 --> 00:07:43.480 over a hundred times the New Testament makes use of these hymns about a 00:07:43.480 --> 00:07:48.720 Messiah. And so for that reason, theologians for centuries have been 00:07:48.720 --> 00:07:57.240 saying that these poems actually tell us something about the Christ that 00:07:57.240 --> 00:08:01.400 the Gospels doesn't even tell us. That actually after you read your New 00:08:01.400 --> 00:08:07.240 Testament, you can come back to Isaiah 42 to 53 and learn new things about 00:08:07.240 --> 00:08:13.079 Jesus that aren't in the New Testament. And so you can come here and get a 00:08:13.079 --> 00:08:19.360 Christology in song. And what else could it be but a song? How else could God have 00:08:19.360 --> 00:08:29.879 written it but a poem? So the first lesson, the first lesson from 42, is that the 00:08:29.879 --> 00:08:35.879 Messiah's identity is a paradox, a paradox, a juxtaposition. It's two things 00:08:35.879 --> 00:08:40.240 that come together that don't even really make sense when you look at them 00:08:40.240 --> 00:08:45.799 closely. So if you looked on at verse 1, he says, Behold my servant whom I uphold 00:08:45.799 --> 00:08:52.000 my chosen and whom my soul delights. Behold my servant. So he's a servant. This 00:08:52.000 --> 00:08:59.159 is a Hebrew word ebid. And ebid, servant is a nicer term for it. It's 00:08:59.159 --> 00:09:04.679 the word slave. So he says, Behold my slave. And this is specifically a word 00:09:04.679 --> 00:09:11.000 that typically refers to household slaves. So one that would be a servant in 00:09:11.000 --> 00:09:14.919 somebody's household serving their family, working for them, managing their 00:09:14.919 --> 00:09:23.479 business, things like that. But then verse 1 again, I put my spirit upon him. He 00:09:23.479 --> 00:09:32.479 will bring forth justice to the nations. So the slave will bring justice to all 00:09:32.480 --> 00:09:39.440 the nations or to the whole world. Now bringing justice to the nations, that's 00:09:39.440 --> 00:09:47.960 the work of a king. There have been very few servants or slaves in history that 00:09:47.960 --> 00:09:53.480 have brought justice to kingdoms. This is the language of the triumphant, of a 00:09:53.480 --> 00:10:00.480 triumphant king. So what we're saying is the identity of the servant is that he 00:10:00.480 --> 00:10:06.759 is both a servant and a king. That the servant songs begin by saying, We're 00:10:06.759 --> 00:10:12.720 looking for a servant king, a grand juxtaposition, a paradox of two things 00:10:12.720 --> 00:10:18.639 that don't go together. I will send a slave and he will do the kingly 00:10:18.639 --> 00:10:24.120 work of bringing justice to the nations. And we're not told how he's gonna do it, 00:10:24.120 --> 00:10:28.440 but we're told how he's not gonna do it. And this in the next couple verses, and 00:10:28.440 --> 00:10:34.760 this really continues the paradox, if you look at verse 2 and 3, this is 00:10:34.760 --> 00:10:39.680 poetry, this is a song. And in Hebrew, there's often a literary device called 00:10:39.680 --> 00:10:44.160 parallelism. And so this is a, both of these verses are cases of parallelism, 00:10:44.160 --> 00:10:49.320 I'll explain that. Verse 2, this is how he will not bring justice to the nations. 00:10:49.320 --> 00:10:55.640 He will not cry aloud or lift up his voice or make it heard in the streets. He 00:10:55.639 --> 00:11:00.679 will not cry aloud, lift up his voice or make it heard. That's three ways of 00:11:00.679 --> 00:11:07.319 saying the same thing that's called parallelism. And what this is talking 00:11:07.319 --> 00:11:14.080 about is that normally if a king came and conquered a people group, if Babylon 00:11:14.080 --> 00:11:21.039 comes and conquers Israel, the king rides on his noble steed, his great white 00:11:21.039 --> 00:11:27.079 horse through the middle of the city. And he makes his name known. He cries out 00:11:27.079 --> 00:11:32.519 and proclaims who he is, the conqueror, the one who has come and defeated his 00:11:32.519 --> 00:11:37.839 people and brought a new age, a new kingdom, any king in the ancient 00:11:37.839 --> 00:11:44.159 areas that goes and brings justice to a nation, the first order of business is to 00:11:44.159 --> 00:11:48.919 desecrate all the old statues and put new statues in that have their face and 00:11:48.919 --> 00:11:54.159 name on it. And so it's to proclaim their name in the public square in the 00:11:54.159 --> 00:12:03.559 streets. We're looking for a servant who does not self-proclaim in the streets, 00:12:03.559 --> 00:12:10.799 who does not go into the public square and make his name known. A servant who is 00:12:10.799 --> 00:12:18.679 quiet, who is humble, who does not write in to save the day on a valiant steed. 00:12:18.679 --> 00:12:24.879 We're looking for a servant king that is completely paradoxical, that does not 00:12:24.879 --> 00:12:28.879 come in and conquer kingdoms in any normal sense of the word. And then 00:12:28.879 --> 00:12:33.000 secondly, the second thing in verse 3, it tells us that he does not do, and here's 00:12:33.000 --> 00:12:40.239 another case of parallelism, verse 3, a bruised reed he will not break and a 00:12:40.239 --> 00:12:45.679 faintly burning wick he will not quench. Now that's two ways of saying the exact 00:12:45.679 --> 00:12:52.959 same thing. A bruised reed he will not break. What's a bruised reed? A bruise in 00:12:52.959 --> 00:12:58.039 this passage is not something that's black and blue. It's not a contusion, 00:12:58.039 --> 00:13:03.319 it's not getting punched and swelling or anything like that. Bruised, in other 00:13:03.319 --> 00:13:07.959 words for bruised, is bent. And a reed, the specific Hebrew word here for reed is 00:13:07.959 --> 00:13:15.359 actually a grain stalk. And so it's literally saying a bent grain stalk, he 00:13:15.360 --> 00:13:21.000 will not break off. Now a bent grain stalk, what's a grain stalk? A grain stalk 00:13:21.000 --> 00:13:25.680 is a crop that's supposed to give you grain, it's supposed to give you produce. 00:13:25.680 --> 00:13:30.919 And when there's a bruised reed, that means that the stalk has been bent. And 00:13:30.919 --> 00:13:37.200 as a result, two things happen. One, it can't produce any grain. It's useless 00:13:37.200 --> 00:13:42.720 for its purpose. But also, it's on the brink of death. It's at the point of 00:13:42.720 --> 00:13:48.240 extinction. And so the second thing, it says in verse 3, a faintly burning wick 00:13:48.240 --> 00:13:52.960 he will not quench. It means the exact same thing. You can picture faintly 00:13:52.960 --> 00:13:59.040 burning wick. You have them in your houses. The fire is about to go out. 00:13:59.040 --> 00:14:04.040 And the candle, it's just down to the dregs, the very last moments. It's on the 00:14:04.040 --> 00:14:08.120 brink of extinction. It's usefulness is about to be spent in the same way that a 00:14:08.120 --> 00:14:15.620 bent reed no longer can produce grain. It can't stay alive anymore. Now in the 00:14:15.620 --> 00:14:21.440 context, that means that the servant king is the type of king that doesn't come 00:14:21.440 --> 00:14:28.320 in to a kingdom and squelch out weak peoples. Exactly what happened to 00:14:28.320 --> 00:14:32.360 Israel by the hands of Babylon, that when they're in the land, when they're in 00:14:32.360 --> 00:14:37.100 exile, they are faintly burning. They are weak people and they come in and they 00:14:37.100 --> 00:14:40.960 get squelched out by other conquerors on the verge of extinction. And he's saying 00:14:40.960 --> 00:14:46.480 the servant king will not do that, but more deeply, it means that the servant is 00:14:46.480 --> 00:14:58.000 one who is out for the fragile. He's a man who's going to be for the bruised in 00:14:58.000 --> 00:15:05.759 the broken, for the faintly burning wicks of this world, the people who are 00:15:05.759 --> 00:15:12.360 barely holding on. He's a man for the lowly. He's a servant king, a 00:15:12.360 --> 00:15:18.039 slave king. He's a low man himself and he won't come into this world and break 00:15:18.039 --> 00:15:27.720 those who are on the brink of extinction. So no king in existence, not then or now, 00:15:27.720 --> 00:15:36.560 had ever, has ever brought justice to the nations. Nobody's done that. Justice has 00:15:36.560 --> 00:15:40.759 not been brought to all the nations, to the whole world. And at the very same 00:15:40.759 --> 00:15:47.519 time, no king has ever come into this world and truly cared about the lowliest 00:15:47.519 --> 00:15:53.759 of the low. The bruised, the fragile, the broken, those who are on the point of 00:15:53.759 --> 00:16:00.840 extinction. And so the point here is that the identity of who this, all of 00:16:00.840 --> 00:16:07.840 these songs are about is a paradox. He's a servant king. In the New Testament, 00:16:07.840 --> 00:16:15.600 Matthew chapter 3 and Luke 3, 700 years following this, there's a scene at a 00:16:15.600 --> 00:16:25.519 river and the spirit comes down upon a man and the father speaks from heaven and 00:16:25.519 --> 00:16:33.279 says, this is my son, the beloved, with whom I'm well pleased. Now, New Testament 00:16:33.279 --> 00:16:41.040 commentators will tell you that in this moment, God the father is quoting. He's 00:16:41.040 --> 00:16:45.560 quoting in the first part, this is my son, the beloved from Psalm chapter 2. 00:16:45.559 --> 00:16:52.359 And in the second part, the one with whom I am well pleased, that's a quote in 00:16:52.359 --> 00:16:59.479 Matthew and Luke's Gospel from the Greek translation of the Old Testament that 00:16:59.479 --> 00:17:02.639 was translated about a hundred years before Jesus was born. It's called 00:17:02.639 --> 00:17:10.480 the Septuagint. But Matthew and Luke are quoting from Isaiah 42 verse 1 from 00:17:10.480 --> 00:17:17.160 the Septuagint where it says, this is the one, this is the son in whom my soul 00:17:17.160 --> 00:17:26.279 delights. And so Matthew and Luke are saying, Bible readers, beware, wake up if 00:17:26.279 --> 00:17:32.559 you've read your Old Testament. Bible readers, beware this boy, this young 00:17:32.559 --> 00:17:42.519 man from what's been called Nowhereville, Nazareth, the Poe Dunctown. This is the 00:17:42.519 --> 00:17:51.000 servant king. This is the fulfillment of Isaiah 42 to 53. And let me just say 00:17:51.000 --> 00:17:56.799 that it is critical, one of the keys to understanding the Gospels and unlocking 00:17:56.799 --> 00:18:00.639 some of the passages in the Gospels and really grasping what their meaning is 00:18:00.640 --> 00:18:07.759 actually to have the idea of the servant king, the paradox in your mind. It's one 00:18:07.759 --> 00:18:12.120 of the concepts that John uses throughout the whole of his Gospel is the 00:18:12.120 --> 00:18:19.320 paradox of the servant king, the crucified God, the grand paradox of all of 00:18:19.320 --> 00:18:27.520 existence. Jesus at the point of starting his ministry, he was baptized by an 00:18:27.519 --> 00:18:33.359 enemy of the state, John the Baptist, and he was the man, the boy from Nowhere, 00:18:33.359 --> 00:18:41.160 with no fame, no name, and this is what Donald MacLeod says about it. Behold the 00:18:41.160 --> 00:18:48.079 king. His appearance was nothing to look at. In John chapter 8 he was thought to 00:18:48.079 --> 00:18:56.920 be 50 years old at scarcely 30. He was poor beyond our imagining, owning nothing 00:18:56.920 --> 00:19:02.080 but the clothes that he stood in. He was homeless without a pillow for his head. 00:19:02.080 --> 00:19:07.000 He was oppressed by the crowds. He was often exhausted as when he laid down his 00:19:07.000 --> 00:19:12.960 head to the world in a tiny fishing boat. He was misunderstood by his family, the 00:19:12.960 --> 00:19:17.400 whole of his life. They feared that he was insane. He was stalked by the 00:19:17.400 --> 00:19:22.759 Pharisees with undisguised hostility. His whole life followed a pattern of 00:19:22.759 --> 00:19:28.599 rejection. Rejection in his own country, rejection in his own city, Nazareth, 00:19:28.599 --> 00:19:33.619 rejection by the religious establishment, rejection by public opinion. He was 00:19:33.619 --> 00:19:39.640 rejected at the court and at last he was rejected by his friends. Behold the 00:19:39.640 --> 00:19:46.440 king of the world. This is not a normal king that we're reading about here in 00:19:46.440 --> 00:19:51.879 Isaiah 42. So thirdly, the problem of justice. Very briefly. 00:19:51.880 --> 00:19:55.800 Now the passage doesn't only tell us about the identity of the servant king but 00:19:55.800 --> 00:20:00.800 also about his task. You'll see it in verse 1 again at the end. He will bring 00:20:00.800 --> 00:20:05.560 forth justice to the nations. That's a big job, bringing forth justice to the 00:20:05.560 --> 00:20:09.520 nations. It says in verse 4, he will do it faithfully. He'll be upheld by the 00:20:09.520 --> 00:20:18.640 spirit. Justice. It's the Hebrew word mishpot and what is it? What is justice? 00:20:18.640 --> 00:20:22.560 It's one of those words that we use all the time in popular discourse and never 00:20:22.560 --> 00:20:26.920 actually know what it means probably. Justice. And the most common way that it 00:20:26.920 --> 00:20:32.200 gets used today I think is when people refer to social justice. So we talk about 00:20:32.200 --> 00:20:38.280 in the modern 21st century world doing things that are socially just or doing 00:20:38.280 --> 00:20:43.040 social justice. And what you basically mean when you say the phrase social 00:20:43.039 --> 00:20:49.519 justice is going out into society and making wrongs into rights. Making 00:20:49.519 --> 00:20:56.159 contexts that are broken or bruised into good context. And you do that in all 00:20:56.159 --> 00:21:00.440 sorts of ways. The government does that through punishment. So we we call this 00:21:00.440 --> 00:21:03.920 rectifying justice when we go into situations and make them right by 00:21:03.920 --> 00:21:08.399 punishment. Government changes through philanthropy. There's all sorts of ways 00:21:08.399 --> 00:21:12.680 that people do social justice. But generally we call this rectifying 00:21:12.680 --> 00:21:17.960 justice. It's putting things that are wrong to right again. And one of the 00:21:17.960 --> 00:21:24.000 great examples of course is when the Allied powers decided to go to war 00:21:24.000 --> 00:21:31.880 against Germany in World War II they felt that they were just in doing it by 00:21:31.880 --> 00:21:36.519 the definition of rectifying justice. That they were going to make something 00:21:36.519 --> 00:21:42.160 that was very wrong right again. That is the wrongs of the National Socialist 00:21:42.160 --> 00:21:47.840 Party, the atrocities against the Jews. Or in the south where I'm from in 00:21:47.840 --> 00:21:53.640 Mississippi. Another great example in history of rectifying justice is when 00:21:53.640 --> 00:21:59.320 the government finally changed the laws that said that African Americans can't 00:21:59.320 --> 00:22:04.480 eat with a white person in the same restaurant. Or sit in the back of a 00:22:04.480 --> 00:22:08.519 sit in the bus in the same seat as a white person could sit. That's a great 00:22:08.519 --> 00:22:14.440 example of rectifying justice. It's making wrong context into rights. Now the 00:22:14.440 --> 00:22:20.559 Bible and justice. The Bible often speaks of rectifying justice and even this 00:22:20.559 --> 00:22:25.440 word here is used sometimes for that type of justice. But here I think there's a 00:22:25.440 --> 00:22:29.879 different sense of justice and it's what the philosopher is often called primary 00:22:29.879 --> 00:22:37.720 justice. The servant will bring primary justice. What's primary justice? Primary 00:22:37.720 --> 00:22:44.799 justice is a situation where all is good. It's a context that doesn't need 00:22:44.799 --> 00:22:50.880 rectifying justice because it's already just. In other words the other word that 00:22:50.880 --> 00:22:58.600 the Bible uses for it is shalom, peace, well-being. It's a context in which the 00:22:58.600 --> 00:23:03.600 true, the good, and the beautiful are already reigning. And so there's no need 00:23:03.600 --> 00:23:07.640 for punishment. There's no need for any rectifying justice or social justice for 00:23:07.640 --> 00:23:11.480 government to do anything like it. And this is the type of justice that's being 00:23:11.480 --> 00:23:16.880 talked about in Isaiah 42. Now how do we know? Well if you look at verse 4, he 00:23:16.880 --> 00:23:20.320 will not grow faint. He will not be discouraged till he has established 00:23:20.320 --> 00:23:29.320 justice in the earth. Now when it says he until he has established justice in 00:23:29.320 --> 00:23:35.480 the earth, literally there, it's a little word in the earth, it literally says on 00:23:35.480 --> 00:23:41.920 the whole ground. He will not stop until he has established justice for the 00:23:41.920 --> 00:23:49.480 ground, for the ground. What does that mean? And what Isaiah is doing here is 00:23:49.480 --> 00:23:57.440 he's drawing actually from Genesis chapter 3, the curse. Genesis chapter 3 00:23:57.440 --> 00:24:06.080 verse 17, God turns to Adam, the man, and he says, because you have eaten of the 00:24:06.080 --> 00:24:13.759 forbidden tree, cursed is the ground because of you. Thorns and thistles will 00:24:13.759 --> 00:24:17.320 grow up before you. In pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life. And 00:24:17.320 --> 00:24:23.759 theologians call this the curse of the ground. And the curse of the ground means 00:24:23.759 --> 00:24:28.039 this, that everything that human beings try to do in life, the natural order of 00:24:28.039 --> 00:24:34.079 things fights back against them. That no relationship can truly work in a 00:24:34.079 --> 00:24:43.200 perfectly just way. That there can be no shalom, no primary justice in this world 00:24:43.200 --> 00:24:50.879 except in little glimpses. That rectifying justice will always exist, that 00:24:50.880 --> 00:24:55.280 there will always need to be punishment, as long as the curse of the ground 00:24:55.280 --> 00:25:01.440 exists, that our work will be thwarted, that our work will never be perfect, that 00:25:01.440 --> 00:25:05.480 it will always get messed up, that every relationship you enter into will come 00:25:05.480 --> 00:25:11.880 underneath the curse of the ground. And here it's saying that the servant has 00:25:11.880 --> 00:25:20.520 come to bring justice on the ground. What does that mean? He's come to break the 00:25:20.519 --> 00:25:24.519 curse. He's come to break the curse of the ground. He's coming to break the 00:25:24.519 --> 00:25:29.160 curse of the ground. Salvation is being cast here in the mission of justice for 00:25:29.160 --> 00:25:38.799 the whole cosmos. It's big. It's not small. It's huge. And in Matthew chapter 12, 00:25:38.799 --> 00:25:43.200 just to end this point and then we'll close very briefly, in Matthew chapter 12, 00:25:43.200 --> 00:25:47.799 Jesus is walking with his disciples and he's going through Galilee and he's 00:25:47.799 --> 00:25:51.639 healing all sorts of people. And they're coming to him, the sick, the fragile, the 00:25:51.639 --> 00:25:55.240 bruised and broken, and he's healing them. And then he's telling them, don't tell 00:25:55.240 --> 00:26:00.359 anybody. Keep it a secret. Don't tell people what I've been doing. And then 00:26:00.359 --> 00:26:08.759 Matthew quotes Isaiah 42 and says, this was to fulfill the prophecy that he would 00:26:08.759 --> 00:26:13.879 come and not break the bruised reeds, that he would not cry out in the streets. 00:26:13.880 --> 00:26:19.600 If the sick came to him, he would heal them. And then when they went to 00:26:19.600 --> 00:26:23.760 leave, he would tell them, don't tell anybody. Don't go make my name big. I'm a 00:26:23.760 --> 00:26:28.880 humble servant. We call it the messianic secret. But even more, there's another 00:26:28.880 --> 00:26:33.680 sense there that he fulfills Isaiah 42 and that's that Jesus miracles healing 00:26:33.680 --> 00:26:38.680 the sick, raising people up from the dead, making fishermen whose work was 00:26:38.680 --> 00:26:42.760 thwarted, who couldn't catch fish, into people who do catch fish, fixing their 00:26:42.759 --> 00:26:49.119 work. This was to fulfill his work as being the one who would end the curse 00:26:49.119 --> 00:26:54.240 of the ground, who would stop all things pushing back against us. Jesus miracles, 00:26:54.240 --> 00:27:00.759 in other words, their glimpses of what it might be like to live in a world of 00:27:00.759 --> 00:27:07.559 primary justice, a world that doesn't need rectifying justice, a world without 00:27:07.559 --> 00:27:17.079 broken reeds, bruised reeds. Okay, finally, the unbrews but crushed very briefly. 00:27:18.359 --> 00:27:23.919 Seven hundred years before the Messiah, we know to expect a servant king. We know 00:27:23.919 --> 00:27:28.079 that this is critical for understanding who the Messiah would be. We know that 00:27:28.079 --> 00:27:34.119 he's paradoxical. We know his mission, which is primary justice, shalom, peace, 00:27:34.119 --> 00:27:41.319 the end of the curse. Is it too early to quote Christmas hymns? I don't think so. 00:27:41.319 --> 00:27:48.879 Far as the curse is found, he comes to make the blessings flow, far as the curse 00:27:48.879 --> 00:27:56.759 is found. That's what we know so far. But how? How is he going to do it? And this 00:27:56.759 --> 00:28:04.359 passage doesn't tell us, actually. We have to wait, especially to the thunderbolt 00:28:04.359 --> 00:28:10.359 of Isaiah 53. But it does tell us one thing about how he will do it, and that's 00:28:10.359 --> 00:28:18.200 in verse 4, that he will be faithful, that he will do it, that it can't be 00:28:18.200 --> 00:28:23.839 quenched, it can't be stopped. He says he will not grow faint or be discouraged 00:28:23.839 --> 00:28:28.240 till he has established justice in all the earth and the coastlands wait for his 00:28:28.240 --> 00:28:34.639 law. And so that's all we know about how. But wait, there's more. There's always 00:28:34.639 --> 00:28:39.279 more. There's more here. If you look closely, actually, at verse 4, there's 00:28:39.279 --> 00:28:46.599 something else there. When he says in verse 4, he will not grow faint or be 00:28:46.599 --> 00:28:53.799 discouraged. Literally, that's an exact parallel of the same two verbs that 00:28:53.799 --> 00:28:59.799 he used in verse 3. Verse 3 says this, a bruised reed he will not break, and a 00:28:59.799 --> 00:29:05.440 faintly burning wick he will not quench out. Now, if you have one of these 00:29:05.440 --> 00:29:11.039 Bibles, you can see in the footnote 3 there that it says, or be discouraged, 00:29:11.039 --> 00:29:16.240 there's a footnote, and it says, or literally bruised. And so this is what 00:29:16.240 --> 00:29:20.599 it says, a bruised reed he will not break, a faintly burning wick he will not 00:29:20.599 --> 00:29:26.119 quench. He will not faintly burn. He will not be bruised. You see? It's repeating 00:29:26.119 --> 00:29:30.919 the exact same ideas. So he won't come in and break bruised reeds. He won't come 00:29:30.919 --> 00:29:35.959 in and put out people that are barely holding on by a thread, and he will 00:29:35.959 --> 00:29:41.799 never become like that. In other words, he can't be bruised like them, bent 00:29:41.799 --> 00:29:47.119 away from his purpose like Israel had been. He's unstoppable. He can't be 00:29:47.119 --> 00:29:51.959 stopped. He can't be thwarted. He was unlike them, and that's why he came 00:29:51.959 --> 00:30:00.919 for them. But the first place that this word bruised, this verb appears in the 00:30:00.919 --> 00:30:08.639 Bible, same word, is also in Genesis chapter 3. And in Genesis chapter 3 00:30:08.639 --> 00:30:15.879 15, after cursing Adam in the ground, God turns to the serpent, the one who 00:30:15.880 --> 00:30:26.440 brought evil into this world. And he says, the seed of the woman, a boy, a son, 00:30:26.440 --> 00:30:33.320 he will bruise your head, and you in the process will bruise his heel. Now when 00:30:33.320 --> 00:30:39.280 you read the two passages together, this is what it says, the servant, the 00:30:39.280 --> 00:30:43.680 servant king, the Messiah, he cannot be bruised, meaning he cannot be bent from 00:30:43.680 --> 00:30:47.920 his purpose. He cannot be stopped. He cannot be thwarted. He is faithful. Nothing 00:30:47.920 --> 00:30:58.640 can put him down. And he would go all the way to being bruised in order to 00:30:58.640 --> 00:31:03.519 complete his mission. When it says that the serpent will bite his heel, literally, 00:31:03.519 --> 00:31:08.039 I mean, just think about it. It's saying that what will happen to this boy, 00:31:08.039 --> 00:31:15.399 yeah, he will crush death. But in the process, a poisoned serpent will bite 00:31:15.399 --> 00:31:25.399 his heel, and he will be poisoned by evil itself. This man, the judge of all the 00:31:25.399 --> 00:31:32.039 nations, became the judge, the judged because of the sin of all the nations. 00:31:32.039 --> 00:31:39.359 This man, the bringer of justice, the shalom giver, he did it in the most 00:31:39.359 --> 00:31:46.639 paradoxical way by being crushed to pick up the language of Isaiah 53 to steal 00:31:46.639 --> 00:31:54.759 Derek's thunder from three weeks from now. He was crushed. One pastor says it 00:31:54.759 --> 00:32:02.400 like this, just to close. He fell under rectifying justice that our sin deserved 00:32:02.400 --> 00:32:10.400 so that he could deliver primary justice to the world. He will swallow up death 00:32:10.400 --> 00:32:17.079 forever, Isaiah 25, but only in the most paradoxical way by being swallowed by 00:32:17.079 --> 00:32:22.799 death for three days. This is the great paradox. He can't be stopped. He can't be 00:32:22.799 --> 00:32:30.960 bruised. He goes and gets bruised to deliver us into the presence of shalom, 00:32:30.960 --> 00:32:39.119 peace, true peace. Let me just quote close. This is literally the close. I've 00:32:39.119 --> 00:32:44.599 said it three times, but this is actually the close. Let me just close by saying, 00:32:44.599 --> 00:32:51.839 in the book of John, Jesus in John 17, the king's speech as we've called it here, 00:32:51.839 --> 00:32:57.240 is praying to God, the Father. He does something that happens all throughout 00:32:57.240 --> 00:33:05.240 the book of John. He prays and says, Lord, glorify me. My hour has come. In the 00:33:05.240 --> 00:33:13.159 book of John, the cross is consistently presented as a throne. He's talking about 00:33:13.159 --> 00:33:17.439 the cross there. Glorify me. Lift me up. That's why the language of he must be 00:33:17.440 --> 00:33:25.680 lifted up is royal language. He must be raised up onto the throne. That, the cross, 00:33:25.680 --> 00:33:32.820 the paradox of all of history, where the glory of the Lord was revealed, the 00:33:32.820 --> 00:33:43.279 criminal, the servant king. Martin Luther said it like this in 1535. He bore the 00:33:43.279 --> 00:33:48.160 person of a sinner and of a thief, and not of one, but of all sinners and 00:33:48.160 --> 00:33:53.440 thieves. And all the prophets, including Isaiah, saw this, that Christ was to 00:33:53.440 --> 00:33:58.519 become the greatest thief, the greatest murderer, adulterer, robber, desecrator, 00:33:58.519 --> 00:34:07.079 blasphemer that has ever been anywhere in all the world. And Donald MacLeod. Here, 00:34:07.079 --> 00:34:13.519 on the cross, he not only bears, but is, the sin of the world. And so here in 00:34:13.519 --> 00:34:19.840 solemn divine equity, the sword falls upon the king made criminal. 00:34:19.840 --> 00:34:30.319 As for us, the crucified God, the servant king, all we can say is, come, Lord Jesus. 00:34:30.320 --> 00:34:42.760 Let's pray. Father, we give thanks to you that the foolishness of, the wisdom of men 00:34:42.760 --> 00:34:48.559 is much more foolish than your foolishness. You set a paradox at the 00:34:48.559 --> 00:34:56.240 middle of history, the crucified God, the servant king. We just want to love Jesus 00:34:56.239 --> 00:35:01.079 tonight. So we ask that you would give us eyes of faith in this, this servant here. 00:35:01.079 --> 00:35:06.159 And especially if somebody's never believed on this one, that they would know 00:35:06.159 --> 00:35:11.399 that six to seven hundred years before he came to the world, you sang a song 00:35:11.400 --> 00:35:27.639 about him. And that's amazing. And so, open our hearts, Lord. We ask in Christ's name. Amen.