Milo

MAY 25

Reading 145

GOD’S SERVANT Isaiah 49–53

“It is too small a thing for you to be My servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring My salvation to the ends of the earth” (Isa. 49:6).The portrait of Jesus found in these chapters of Isaiah is unmistakable. The description of His vicarious suffering is one of Scripture’s clearest explanations of the meaning of Jesus’ death.

Overview

The commission of the failed servant nation (49:1–4) is taken up by an Individual who will redeem and restore Israel (vv. 5–26). Equipped by Yahweh, this Servant will rely fully on the Lord (50:1–11). God will redeem Israel, as He cared for her in the past (51:1–52:12). But this will be accomplished only by the Suffering Servant’s death (v. 13–53:12).

Understanding the Text

“I have labored to no purpose” Isa. 49:4.

The image in Hebrew is striking, if somewhat indelicate. As God’s servant Israel is compared to a distended and supposedly pregnant woman. She struggles in labor, but instead of a child, produces nothing but gas! What an image of futility. God chose Israel, intending to display His splendor through her. Israel had failed completely in her role as a servant. Yet, as Isaiah developed the servant theme, we see that even so God will display His splendor in His Old Testament people. That splendor will not be seen in what they have done, but in what the Lord has done for them! It’s the same with you and me. Our efforts to earn salvation are useless. Yet God has chosen to display His splendor and beauty in us. His splendor is not seen in what we do, but what God does for us in Jesus Christ. “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast?” Isa. 49:5–26 The Servant of God will redeem Israel, and also will lead Gentiles to submit to the Lord. While the emphasis in Isaiah 1–35 is on judgment, here the emphasis is clearly on the deep love God feels for both Gentile and Jew. Through His servant God will give the gift of salvation to all. Love has caused God to engrave His plans for the redeemed on the very “palms of My hands” (49:16). This reference may not be to the nail prints Jesus bears today in His hands. Yet what a reminder. God was willing to pay the price of His deep love. We sense that love as we read Isaiah’s words: Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you (Isa. 49:15). “The Sovereign Lord helps me” Isa. 50:1–11. According to Isaiah, one thing alone would enable God’s Servant to succeed where Israel failed. Where Israel rebelled, this Servant would be totally obedient. The words of this passage awaken a deeper appreciation of Jesus and the life He lived on earth. He committed Himself to help His fellowman by obeying God completely. Only by relying on the Lord—by opening His ears and not being rebellious—was He able to win our salvation. Isaiah’s major passages dealing with the Servant of the Lord are called Servant Songs. They speak primarily of Jesus and the life He lived here on earth. But they apply quite directly to you and me. We who have been redeemed are called to be God’s servants, as Jesus was (cf. Matt. 20:26–28). This passage tells us much about our own servant lifestyle. We are to sustain the weary (v. 4a). To do this we must listen closely to the Lord (v. 4b), and obey rather than rebel against what He says (v. 5). The path of obedience is difficult, often exposing us to ridicule and even persecution (v. 6a). But we, like Jesus, must remain committed, and trust the Lord to vindicate us in the end (vv. 7–8). “Look to Abraham, your father” Isa. 51:1–52:12. The past is always intended to give us comfort. We can look back on times of pain, and on tragedy. But we can also find evidence of God’s love. History is in fact designed to give God’s people hope when things seem most desperate. Isaiah paused in his look ahead to the day of God’s Servant, to direct the thoughts of his hearers back to their roots. The saints (51:1) were urged to remember Abraham. God kept His promise to Abraham and from one childless man He produced a vast people (v. 2). Surely the Lord will “comfort Zion and will look with compassion on all her ruins.” You and I have roots too. Ours grip that historic moment when Christ died, only to be raised again. God who promised Jesus’ resurrection, and who has kept His promise to give us new life in Him, will surely bless us as well. Christians do debate the meaning of the promises in Old Testament books like Isaiah. Are they intended literally, to be fulfilled in the Jewish people when Christ returns? Or are they intended spiritually, images of the blessings that are ours now in our Lord? Whatever our interpretation, we can agree on the application of passages like this one. What God has done in the past—His utter faithfulness to His promises—gives us hope for tomorrow. Joy is destined for Zion’s people, and when the Lord returns they will: Burst into songs of joy together, you ruins of Jerusalem, for the Lord has comforted His people, He has redeemed Jerusalem (Isa. 52:9). For ancient Jew and modern Christian both, “How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, ’Your God reigns!’ ” (Isa. 52:7) “He was crushed for our iniquities” Isa. 52:13–53:12. Just how clear is it that these verses speak of Jesus Christ? When I was in the Navy one of my friends was a Jewish sailor named Gershom Magin. I remember one day asking him to listen to me read a passage of Scripture, and challenging him to tell me if it was from the Old Testament or New Testament, and who it was about. I then read Isaiah 53. Immediately Magin said, “That’s in the New Testament. And it’s about Jesus.” Gershom couldn’t believe it when I showed him that the passage was in the Old Testament, and that it was written about Israel’s Messiah. The description was just too powerful and too clear for there to be any doubt that the prophet is speaking about the Saviour, dying on a cross some 700 years after his own time.

DEVOTIONAL

Holy of Holies(Isa. 52:13–53:11)

There’s something awe-inspiring about holy places. Moses was told to take off his shoes; he was standing on holy ground. The Jerusalem temple was holy; only by passing the altar of sacrifice could one approach. And then, inside the temple, beyond its outer room, was the holiest place of all—the holy of holies. There only the high priest might go, and then only once a year, bearing the blood of a sacrifice offered for his own sin and for the sin of the people. No one rushes boldly, thoughtlessly, into any truly holy place. It is with just this same sense of awe that we must open the Old Testament to Isaiah 52:13–53:12. This is holy ground: the Great Architect’s blueprint of history’s ultimate holy of holies. Here we see with total clarity the plan and the purpose of God in Christ’s sufferings—and here we sense the anguish Jesus knew. Read the verses. See the Servant of God, so battered and disfigured He hardly seems human anymore. Live with Him as He is despised and rejected by men. Watch Him take up our iniquities and be pierced for our transgressions. See the blood flow as His life is crushed from Him, as from a sin offering. And realize that He chose this fate, that by His wounds we might be healed. Why did Jesus die? The answer is here, in the Old Testament’s holy of holies. He died to pay for our iniquities, that we might be saved. Reading these ancient words we can only bow our heads and worship. They bring us into the very presence of our God. They themselves have become holy ground.

Personal Application

Read this passage with reverence and awe.

Quotable

“The whole life of Christ was a continual passion; others die martyrs but Christ was born a martyr. He found a Golgotha even in Bethlehem, where He was born; for to His tenderness then the straws were almost as sharp as the thorns after, and the manger as uneasy at first as His cross at the last. His birth and His death were but one continual act, and His Christmas Day and His Good Friday are but the evening and morning of one and the same day.”—John Donne

Shining like stars!

I’m fascinated by my own feelings around this COVID-19 pandemic. Some of those feelings have been quite negative, even critical, so I’ve taken time to reflect and figure them out.

My biggest negative feeling (my feeling – not criticism) has been around how the church in the UK is responding; at least some of the parts I have seen of it so far…

I was at a church service last week and, suddenly, in the middle of the meeting, we were asked to stand, raise our hands, and pray for the nations of the world because of COVID-19. That’s great – there’s nothing wrong with that at all, but I was left feeling, “Why has it taken this virus to motivate us to pray for the nations like that; aren’t large parts of the body of Christ suffering around the world all time? In the face of the difficulties a lot of Christians face, isn’t this virus one of the least of their worries? Shouldn’t we be praying for them concertedly and regularly anyway?”

I was then at a prayer meeting and almost the whole time was dominated by thoughts of COVID-19. The prayers were good, Christ-centred, but the meeting left me thinking, “The media is dominated by this virus, why should our prayer meetings be dominated by it as well. Aren’t there many other things the Holy Spirit is leading us to pray about too?”

Of course, we should be sensible and wise. My view is that, as Christians, we should listen to the advice coming from the Government and abide by it, we should not be irresponsible, but shouldn’t we also be those who reveal a different nature to that of most people in this world? Amid this crisis, any crisis, shouldn’t we be those who are recognised as being free from fear, free from fear of this virus, even free of the fear of death? Shouldn’t we be the bearers of comfort, hope, compassion and practical service, always, but particularly during times of need and crisis? Shouldn’t we be the bearers of the Good News of Jesus Christ, all the time, but particularly when people may be a little more predisposed to hear it and receive it?

Our Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, said, “many more people should expect to lose loved ones amid a coronavirus outbreak in the UK”. Indeed, many have died around the world already. How does that, and the constant media reporting about this virus make us Christians feel, and do?

Even before the latest strict measures the Government has announced I think many felt a sense of anxiety and concern for themselves. Even if it was unspoken, many people were thinking, “How will this affect me? Do I need to panic buy, even though I know it could cause others harm? Should I find a face mask and start wearing it? Do I avoid other people? Should I stop meeting with other Christians? What if I get infected? How serious will it be for me? Could I die?”

Those thoughts are all understandable and, rather than ignore them, we ought to each ask ourselves why we are, at times, thinking like that. “Why are those things running through my head? What’s at the root of all that, and what does it say about me? What does it say about my trust in God? What can I learn about myself from those responses so I might grow in spiritual maturity as a disciple of Jesus Christ?”

Death holds fear for many Christians, for some it is the ultimate fear and it really is one of the roots of many of the fears we experience. In the case of the virus, many of the lesser fears track back from the fear of dying. But as Christians that should not be so!

A friend and missionary partner just sent me a letter from a North Korean, inside of North Korea, who recently received one of their MP4 players containing an audio Bible. In the midst of this COVID-19 outbreak and poverty, he was greatly comforted, and made hopeful, by the Word of God. He said…

“I receive hope of living as I am praying. The virus situation in Pyongyang and Sinuiju is more serious than the border areas. I think we will all die from starvation or being infected. Both are deadly and cause despair, but after knowing Him, my fear has vanished. We truly thank you again.”

Last year, a close friend and long-term partner in Gospel ministry died, and I was asked to speak at his funeral service. There, with the family, I experienced deep grief, but it was one of the best days of my life. His wife, his sons, close friends, gave their tributes through tears of sorrow and joy. Because he was a true believer in Jesus Christ many of us were certain of his new whereabouts – far above our sense of loss was a level of rejoicing that he had made it, that he had got home! Right in the middle of that funeral service, the truth of the resurrection of the dead was almost physically tangible for us!

Last week, the wife of a dear friend and partner in ministry succumbed to cancer, in her mid-thirties. The same is true again; though we properly experience grief, we rejoice in the certainty she is at home with the Lord. Her death, though difficult to understand at such a young age, is not a defeat because God gives us victory over sin and death through our Lord Jesus Christ. Our earthly mind struggles to grasp that at times, but we can rejoice because death has no hold on us! The truth is our eternal life is just that – eternal!

In John’s gospel, chapter 11 and verses 25 to 26, Jesus said to Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in me will live, even after dying. Everyone who lives in me and believes in me will never ever die. Do you believe this?”

Well, do we? If we really do believe, we can bring any anxiety (1 Peter 5:7), fear, even the fear of death to God and really start to live our lives to the full (John 10:9-10), for all to see, and for all to benefit from!

As Christians, we declare the Word of God to be true! There are some great Bible verses we can recall which reinforce that declaration, for example: God’s Word is true; it is living and active; it is everlasting; it is settled forever in heaven; God watches over his Word to fulfil it; God’s Word always bears fruit; it will accomplish what he desires; it will achieve the purpose for which he sent it!

But it’s one thing to hear and declare God’s Word – it is another thing to do it – to live it out! James is clear on that isn’t he: “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says” (James 1:22-25).

So, in this time of crisis, free from fear, even free from the fear of death, what can we as faithful believers in Jesus Christ be doing?

I can’t direct you; you should decide for yourself how you will live, but here are some thoughts:

• James 1:2-8; 3:17-18 – Ask for wisdom and be wise! Above all, seek God’s wisdom in all things – he will give it to you freely if you do not doubt! He will show you how to act.
• Romans 12:12 – Don’t think as the world thinks – don’t behave like it! Don’t let the media lead you! The media is primarily there to sell media, not to inform you properly. It will almost always veer towards sensationalism and frequently breed fear and confusion. Yes, follow Government advice but let God’s Word dwell in you richly; be informed by it, both the written Word of God and the voice of God within you. Let it influence you far more than any other source!
• Roman 8:14 (but do read verses 9-17!) – Cultivate your relationship with God the Holy Spirit and seek to be led by him. As children of God we hear his voice, we can ‘see’ what he is doing, we can discern what he wants for us and what he wants us to do. Try and imagine what our neighbourhoods and communities could be like if we truly gave ourselves to being led by the Holy Spirit – much more than we already do.
• Mark 12:30-31 – Love God and those around you – serve them – do things for them! Peter reminds us to press on through every trouble, hardship or evil. Whether persecutions or pandemics, we can trust in the Lord, knowing, “It is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God’s will, than for doing evil” (1 Peter 3:17). Worry or anxiety is common to us all, but God says we can give that to him (1 Peter 5:7) and face troubles and threats with courage, leaning our full weight on him, and on each other (Galatians 6:2), to love and serve him and others well. What we do for others, the result of our ministry, the way we live our lives, can be like letters written to people by the Spirit of the living God, revealing his love and compassion through us! (2 Corinthians 3:3). So, we should love and help people whenever we can. Here are just a couple of things for you to consider:
  …Think about those who may be in need, not just yourself. Your movement may be limited but you can still text people, phone them, email them – whatever it takes – to find out if they are OK; as many people as you can, but especially your Christian brothers and sisters (Galatians 6:10), and ask how you can help them. I have already heard of some people buying food for their elderly neighbours, and of some people eating meals together across Skype! What a great idea – can you be as creative? Let’s make sure we are quick to serve and slow to hide.
  …Pray for the sick and do things for them. Throughout history, Christians have often shone out because they were willing to help the sick during plagues, pandemics, and persecutions. They loved people and weren’t afraid of death because they understood that “to live is Christ and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21). Rather than just asking “How do I stay healthy?” perhaps we should also ask “How can I help the sick?” If you shouldn’t visit, use technology to ‘be with’ people, praying for them, ensuring they know they are loved and cared for.
• 1 Peter 3:14-15; Mark 16:15-18; 2 Timothy 4:1-2; Matthew 9:37-38 – Seek out opportunities for the gospel – and share it! “When Jesus saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd” (Matthew 9:36). Though we should not be afraid of death, we should be deeply concerned about it for those who have not yet been reconciled to our Father God, through the Cross of Jesus Christ! Really – people will be dying – we should take their eternal salvation very seriously. So, pray earnestly – asking God to give you the compassion of Jesus Christ for the people around you. Ask him for opportunities to share the Good News of the Gospel with them by whatever means you can. I’ve sometimes heard soldiers returning from battle saying words like these, “Even atheists pray when the bullets are flying, when their lives are at real risk!” When fear assails people, when they grow anxious because they recognise a theoretical or real threat to life, they are often more open than ever to hear words of eternal life. And we have those words! Our testimonies, our stories of coming into a saving experience of Jesus Christ, our accounts of God’s faithfulness and help towards us through all the phases of our own lives, can really help people explore spiritual things and come through to meet with the author of life himself! So, rehearse your testimonies, your stories of God’s faithfulness, practice sharing them with your Christian friends so that, at every opportunity, you’ll be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have, with gentleness and respect (1 Peter 3:15).
• Acts 4:29-30; 1 Corinthians 12:21-27; Hebrews 13:3– Pray for the Body of Christ! As someone who has the privilege of travelling the world to be with Christians who are being persecuted for following Jesus, I couldn’t finish this letter without asking you to pray for them. Many of our Christian ‘family’ members will be impacted by COVID-19, but millions of them already suffer greater impact from forces who seek to do them regular and repeated harm. Great news then that Jesus Christ continues to build his church and nothing, not even the forces of evil, can prevail against it! (Matthew 16:18). Our team at Release International prays for persecuted Christians every day; this virus will not stop us from doing that and, at our prayer time this morning, we recalled Hebrews 13:3 and asked ourselves, “Can the circumstances we are experiencing because of COVID-19 help us to stand with our persecuted brothers and sisters in ever deeper ways?”. Yes – of course! If we end up being confined to our homes (with our comfort and digital connectivity) we can pray for those who are in prison with no comfort at all. If we can’t get all the provisions we are used to having, we can pray for those who are prevented from even having their daily bread! If we are separated from loved ones, we can pray for the families of those who have been imprisoned or martyred for their faith. If you want to know something more about the suffering, yet prevailing, church of Jesus Christ and how you can stand with them – you might take a look at this: Voice Magazine 109, January 2020. Make sure you scroll to the end of the magazine to find our Prayer Shield. Who knows, because of COVID-19 you may have more time on your hands than you are used to – what an opportunity for believing prayer! (Ephesians 6:18; 2 Chronicles 7:14.)

There’s much more I could write, but even if we only do the things written above we will shine like stars among our generations (Philippians 2:12-16); generations of people who need to be reconciled to God, and it is we who have been given that marvellous ministry of reconciliation, no-one else!

Paul Robinson – 17 March 2020