Wednesday, August 30 2023
Contributor: Adewale Abiona INTRODUCTION Chapter 41 God's care for His people Israel in raising up Cyrus to be their deliverer. 2 Things From This Chapter B. He encourages his faithful ones to trust in him, with an assurance that he would make them victorious and bring about a happy change of their affairs (v. 10-20; 25-29). Isaiah 41:1-9 Remember Daniel’s Prayer for His People in Daniel 9:1-3. It was the first year of the reign of Darius the Mede, the son of Ahasuerus, who became king of the Babylonians.2During the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, learned from reading the word of the LORD, as revealed to Jeremiah the prophet, that Jerusalem must lie desolate for seventy years.[3 So I turned to the Lord God and pleaded with him in prayer and fasting. I also wore rough burlap and sprinkled myself with ashes. (Jeremiah 25:11-12, 29:10) “If my people who are called by my name….” Verses 1 - 9 The fear of the greatness both of Abraham that was a convert from idolatry, and of the people of Israel drive them to their old gods for protection, but also made new ones, Deu. 32:17. So He had not yet cast them away, though they had often provoked him, and therefore he would not now abandon them. What God has done for his people, and what he has further engaged to do, should encourage them to always trust in him.
God will raise him up in righteousness (so it may be read, in chapter. 45:13), will call him to his foot, make what use of him He pleases, and make him victorious over the nations that oppose his coming to the crown, and give him success in all his wars; and he shall be a type of Christ, who is righteousness itself, the Lord our righteousness, whom God will, in the fullness of time, raise up and make victorious over the powers of darkness; so that he shall spoil them and make a show of them openly. Verses 10-20
Verses 14-16
Verses 21-24 Verses 25-29
Cyrus by his father was a Mede, by his mother a Persian; and his army consisted of Medes, whose country lay north, and Persians, whose country lay east, from Babylon. God will raise him up to great power, and he shall come against Babylon with ends of his own to serve. 2 Chronicles 36:22-23 CHAPTER 42 - GOD'S SOLUTION TO THE EMPTINESS IN THE GENTILE NATIONS Isaiah 42:1 "Behold, My Servant, whom I uphold; My chosen one in whom My soul delights. I have put My Spirit upon Him; He will bring forth justice to the nations." 'Behold' means to look intently, to fix your gaze. It also means to consider and to perceive. This is what whole Christian life is really based around this 'Beholding'. The Christian life begins with this looking unto Jesus. It's what John the Baptist said when he first saw Jesus - 'Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. But the Christian life doesn't just begin there. Every aspect of coming into what God has for us is a new beholding of His Son - the Servant, the Messiah. The New Testament says that we are changed as we behold in a mirror the glory of the Lord. So as we look at the glory of Jesus Christ through His nature and character, who He was then and who He is now and who He is in us, well that is how we are actually changed. The world is looking for answers but unfortunately in many wrong and different directions. But only a few are following God's command to 'Behold His Servant'. Now if we were to Behold Jesus Christ we would see someone totally unique... someone who came to do the will Isaiah 42:2 "He will not cry out or raise His voice, Nor make His voice heard in the street." Now this is not saying that He was not going to speak! We know that Jesus did. He did go around teaching, instructing, and helping people. What this is trying to bring out is that He was the ultimate non-showman! In contrast to the Pharisees, Jesus Christ did not need to be noticed, or recognised. He never put on a show! Matthew 12:15-21 'But Jesus, aware of this, withdrew from there. Many followed Him, and He healed them all, and warned them not to tell who He was. This was to fulfill what was spoken through Isaiah the prophet: "BEHOLD, MY SERVANT WHOM I HAVE CHOSEN; MY BELOVED IN WHOM MY SOUL is WELL-PLEASED; I WILL PUT MY SPIRIT UPON HIM, AND HE SHALL PROCLAIM JUSTICE TO THE GENTILES. "HE WILL NOT QUARREL, NOR CRY OUT; NOR WILL ANYONE HEAR HIS VOICE IN THE STREETS. "A BATTERED REED HE WILL NOT BREAK OFF, AND A SMOLDERING WICK HE WILL NOT PUT OUT, UNTIL HE LEADS JUSTICE TO VICTORY. "AND IN HIS NAME THE GENTILES WILL HOPE." So Matthew quoted the passage that we are looking at today - Isaiah 42:1-4. So firstly he knew that this passage was about Jesus. But he also knew that it was fulfilled in the fact that Jesus warned people to actually not say who He was! He was not there to be a showman, to whip up a crowd or anything like that. He never, ever drew attention to Himself, put on a show or tried to entertain or please the masses. He was there solely to do the will of God. Full stop! The man who comes to do the will of God doesn't have to resort to fleshly efforts to please the crowd. Jesus gave the Word that God the Father had placed on His heart and He did not ever try to please the crowd. But look at what we have got today... the surveying of non-Christians to see if the church service is right for them. It's just a load of nonsense. Let's go back to the book of Isaiah and look at verse 3. Isaiah 42:3 "A bruised reed He will not break And a dimly burning wick He will not extinguish; He will faithfully bring forth justice. Another reason why that this Servant was unique is the type of people that He ministered to. Verse three speaks about 'bruised reeds and smouldering wicks'. Jesus Christ did not come just looking for perfect reeds. He came looking for those who knew of their need for Him. Nor did He come looking for those that were already burning brightly. [6] What this marvellous passage in Isaiah 42 is telling us that a lot of us are like broken and bruised reeds or we are like a dimly burning wick that is just giving of a tiny bit of smoke and a little bit of light... but Jesus isn't going to extinguish us or throw us away! This world is actually leaving more and more people battered and bruised and with little light. All of us feel this way at times. Maybe you do today? There are some problems in this life that Isaiah 42:4 "He will not be disheartened or crushed Until He has established justice in the earth; And the coastlands will wait expectantly for His law." This verse says that He will not be disheartened or crushed. It is the same Hebrew word that is in verse 3 where it is translated 'bruised'. It basically means, cracked, broken, bruised, crushed, or discouraged. What it is saying is that there will never, ever come a time when Jesus Christ says, 'I have had it with you, you've blown it too many times'. There will never, ever come a time when Jesus will just give up. He will not be disheartened, or crushed until He has established justice in this earth. Praise the Lord that this is His ministry as our High Priest as well. He will ever intercede for us. This is the one who has said that He will never leave or forsake us. That's God's servant, that's the One who God asks us to behold. And God is in the business of restoring damaged reeds so that we can make some pretty good music again. The Bible says that we 'have this treasure in earthen vessels so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be from God and not from us.' So yes, that means that we will be battered from time to time. We will be bruised; we will be cracked but that is actually God's will. Why? So that something of God's character, something of God's life can come forth through our life. CONCLUSION God examined the philosophies of the nations and is presenting a case against the Gentile nations. What God was doing in this whole chapter is surveying the entire religious and spiritual thought and actions of these Gentile nations and He was seeing if there was any merit to it. Basically, God's assessment of the best that these nations could offer - It's wind and its emptiness! And if God were to survey the Gentile nations today what would He find? He would find the New Age, He'd find atheism, He would find evolution, materialism, humanism... and He would say they are simply chasing after the wind and emptiness - and nothing to it! There is nothing that can help the soul of man in any of that... ultimately it is simply emptiness. So that's the background.. Jesus Christ is God's absolute unique 100% Servant. He is unique in His commitment. He is unique in His compassion. Has wasn't attracted to people who looked like they had life working just as they had planned. He wasn't attracted to the perfect looking reeds down by the river side. What attracted Him to those that He ministered to and spent time with. They were battered reeds and smouldering wicks... many of whom society had totally given up on! But praise God that He is also unique in His endurance. Jesus Christ will not give up, He will not back down, He will not change plans, He will not be discouraged until He has established justice in this earth. And that is what He will do. That is what we long for. That is what we hope for. There is a day coming when this earth is going to be transformed by the coming again of the Messiah and the setting up of His Kingdom where justice will reign from one end of the earth to the other. That is the hope that we have and that is what we look for... but until that day we need to behold the Servant of God. We need to behold Jesus Christ. We need to behold His character. We need to turn our eyes and look into His face and to see who He is in us and through us. Amen. |