Isaiah 19

Chapter 19. The Servant of the Lord(Part 1) Here is my servant, whom I uphold,my chosen one in whom I delight;I will put my Spirit on himand he will bring justice to the nations.He will not shout or cry out,or raise his voice in the streets.A bruised reed he will not break,and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out.In faithfulness he will bring forth justice;he will not faker or be discouragedtill he establishes justice on earth.In his law the islands will put their hope.(Isaiah 42:1-4)This expression, “the servant of the Lord,” is a sort of keynote to a large portion of the prophecies of Isaiah. The phrase is used in three senses. First, it is applied to Israel, the servant of the Lord. We find it so used in Isaiah 41:8, and other passages, “you, O Israel, my servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen, you descendants of Abraham my friend.” But Israel failed to fulfill his great trust as the servant of the Lord and was put aside and the Lord Jesus Christ now becomes the Servant of the Lord. So the expression is used in the present text. So again in Isaiah 49:3, Isaiah 52:13, Isaiah 53:11, etc. Then the plural form is used and in several passages toward the end of the prophecy we find, “The servants of the Lord” spoken of. The reference here is the people of God individually who, as members of Christ and fellow servants of the great Minister of the covenant follow in His steps of service. So we find it in Isaiah 54:17, Isaiah 65:13, etc. It is to the second application of this term that our attention is now called. Section I—The Great ServantGod wanted someone to represent Him in the world. He had given to mankind a revelation of His will and it was necessary that someone should fulfill it. God’s law could not be left a broken and dishonored memorial of man’s disobedience like some splendid architectural plan which no one could be found to transform into an actual edifice. His honor and glory demanded that someone should fulfill it and render unto heaven a devotion and service which man had failed to give. It was for this purpose that Israel had her high calling, and yet Israel utterly failed to keep her own law. At last one Man was found who could render unto heaven the obedience due to the authority of God. “Here I am, I have come,” was his cry, “I desire to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart” (Psalms 40:7-8). At every step of His earthly life, the supreme business of Jesus was to do His Father’s will, and He was able to say, “I always do what pleases him” (John 8:29). The one supreme purpose of His life was to glorify the Father and finish the work He had given Him to do. And at last He could say, as He handed over His accomplished task, “I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do” (John 17:4). Among the types of Moses, there was a beautiful ceremony by which a Hebrew slave, when his term of service had expired and he had the option to go free, was permitted, if he preferred, to resume the yoke of bondage and continue a slave by his own choice. Perhaps his wife and children were slaves and he did not want to leave them in bondage. Perhaps he loved his master better than his liberty and did not want to go free, and so he was permitted to say, “I love my master, I love my wife and children, I will not go out free.” And then this ceremony was performed. His ear was pierced and he was nailed to the doorpost of his master’s house by his ear in token of voluntary subjection and servitude. This beautiful type has been applied to Christ in one of the prophetic Psalms where the Messiah is represented as saying, Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but my ears you have pierced; burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not require. Then I said, “Here I am, I have come— it is written about me in the scroll. I desire to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart.” (Psalms 40:6-8) This is a picture of Christ as the Servant. He might have retained His liberty and remained in heaven. But He loved His Father, He loved His Bride, the Church, He loved His lost children here, and He gave up His liberty. As the apostle expresses in Galatians, “When the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons” (Galatians 4:4). He fulfilled our tasks. He paid our debts. He offered to God the righteousness which we had failed to give and of His finished work the Father could say, “It pleased the Lord for the sake of his righteousness to make his law great and glorious” (Isaiah 42:21). But there was another purpose which Israel failed to serve as the Lord’s servant, and that was to be God’s messenger to the world, the light of the Gentiles and the revealer of God’s holiness and grace to the children of men. Instead of this, Israel sank, through their sins, to a condition that the prophets describe as even worse than the heathen. God had to humble them before their enemies and send them into shameful captivity under the Gentile nations. This glorious ministry has been committed unto the divine Servant and so we read in this passage, I, the Lord, have called you in righteousness; I will take hold of your hand. I will keep you and will make you to be a covenant for the people and a light for the Gentiles, to open eyes that are blind, to free captives from prison and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness. I am the Lord; that is my name! I will not give my glory to another or my praise to idols. (Isaiah 42:6-8) In these respects, we are called likewise to be servants of the Lord, to represent Him by our lives and by our testimony as the messengers of His Word to all mankind. The apostles loved to call themselves the servants of the Lord. Christ taught His disciples that the highest honor was in the lowliest service. “Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whosoever wants to be first must be your slave” (Matthew 20:26-27). Oh, that we might be able to say, of our High Priest, “Whose I am and Whom I serve” (Acts 27:23). Section II—The Servant’s Acceptance"Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight" (Isaiah 42:1). God’s heart had been disappointed in the race. There had come up to Him from this sinful world the stench of human vileness, and age after age He had sought for some one that could bring the sacrifices of a sweet smelling savor. At last on Jordan’s banks, there stood a man to whom He could say, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17). God’s face shone with a light so bright that it broke through the opening heavens, and for a moment shed its glory upon the earth beneath. It is because of that acceptance that we are justified and accepted now. “He has made us accepted in the beloved” (Ephesians 1:6), is the measure of our standing as justified believers in the sight of God. Literally, the verse means “accepted in the Son of His love,” and it conveys the force that we are accepted just as He and loved the same as He. Not only so, our sanctification comes through Him. In His sublime prayer in John 17, He thus prays concerning the Father’s love “that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them” (John 17:26). He asks His Father to love us just as He loves the Son. The reason: He is so in us Himself that our personality disappears from view and it is only the Christ in us that the Father sees and loves. So we can pass out of our own self-consciousness and into this blessed Christ-consciousness, and although feeling utterly unworthy in our own name we can ever by the righteousness of Jesus Christ our perfect sacrifice, know that this is true: So dear, so very dear to God, More dear I cannot be; The love wherewith He loves His Son, That love He has for me. Section III—The Servant’s Anointing"I will put my Spirit on him" (Isaiah 42:1). The Father endued Him for His work by the anointing of the Holy Spirit. That Spirit He shares with us, and in Him we claim the same anointing for the same service. We are not asked to render unto Him our service at our own charges, but it is said of our ministry that we are “created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Ephesians 2:10). The gifts of power, wisdom, faith and supernatural efficiency prescribed for the church in the 12th chapter of First Corinthians are called charismata, that is, abilities “bestowed” upon us, not talents original with us. Even love itself, the greatest of all the graces, is a gift and not a virtue. It is Christ’s love shed abroad in our hearts and flowing out to others from Him. Beloved, are we anointed for service? Are we faithful servants and are we walking in the light of the blessed “Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness” (Matthew 25:21)? Section IV—The Servant’s Meekness"He will not shout or cry out, or raise his voice in the streets" (Isaiah 42:2). The first element in the training of a good servant is discipline, subjection, self-suppression and self-restraint. How beautifully we behold this in the meek and lowly Christ! “I am among you as one who serves” (Luke 22:27). In this age of loud and noisy people, when even Christian work is blazoned, advertised and flaunted before the eyes of the multitude, how restful to turn to this picture of Him who is our great Example of service. The Hebrew word here literally means loud and screamy. He was not loud and screamy, but His Spirit was very chastened and self-suppressed. We get a little conception of how the Deity within Him was pressing out for expression in that scene in the temple when He was 12 years old and when His heart gave utterance to that deep cry, “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?” (Luke 2:49). And yet He went back for 18 years to the quiet drudgery of the workbench at Nazareth and held within that bursting heart that longing to glorify His Father and save and help His fellow men. At length the devil came to Him to His highest longings, and whispered, “Now is your chance to reveal yourself and glorify your Father by a stupendous miracle. Cast yourself down from the pinnacle of the temple, throw yourself upon the protecting arms of omnipotence, let the people see who you are.” But He only said, “Away from me, Satan!” (Matthew 4:10). “Do not put the Lord your God to the test” (Luke 4:12). Yet again the adversary tried to tempt Him to accept a throne among the kingdoms of the world, and all the glory, urging no doubt, not His selfish ambition and personal glory so much as the opportunity it would give Him to be a blessing to the world and alleviate the miseries of mankind. But again He refused the tempting offer and went forth on His path of lowly suffering. During His earthly ministry how often we find Him giving up His rights. Just before Matthew quotes this passage from our text he tells us that,… the Pharisees went out and plotted how they might kill Jesus. Aware of this, Jesus withdrew from that place. Many followed him, and he healed all their sick, warning them not to tell who he was. This was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah: “Here is my servant whom I have chosen, the one I love, in whom I delight; I will put my Spirit on him, and he will proclaim justice to the nations. He will not quarrel or cry out; no one will hear his voice in the streets.” (Matthew 12:14-19) A little later, they tried to take Him by force and make Him a king, but He gently took Himself out of their hands. The Samaritans refused to receive Him and the ardent disciples insisted that He should call down fire from heaven and consume them, but He quietly answered, “Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of” (Luke 9:55); and He went to another village. To the very close of His earthly ministry, we see the spirit of self-restraint. In the judgment hall, He answered not a word. Even after His resurrection, His appearances to the disciples were of the most simple and quiet character. All the glory which He had won by His great redemption He kept in reserve, giving to His followers rather than assuming to Himself the victories of Pentecost. He is waiting for the reward of His sufferings until the end of the age while He still ministers in sympathy and tenderness to His suffering church. He is content to be the rejected Nazarene and let the present age have its day, while He is slowly gathering in from the lowly children of sin the members of His body and His Bride. Oh, that our service were more like His, hidden “in the shadow of His hand” (Isaiah 49:2) with less of self and more of Christ and with that “hiding of His power” which is the very triumph of power divine. The power which today controls the tremendous machinery of our age was hidden deep in the bowels of the earth thousands of years ago by the fire that consumed primeval forests and stored the coal mines of our mountains with the real material of all physical force. The mighty battleship, the swift Atlantic flyer, the trains that sweep across the myriad tracks of transportation are all moved by the coal mines of the mountains. So the force which God uses in the great process of the spiritual world comes forth from the hidden depths of lives where perhaps long ago the natural and the earthly were burned away by the fire of the Holy Spirit and God was starting up the power which today is leading some great revival or evangelizing some heathen land. God help us to learn the silent sources of spiritual power and the ministry of waiting as well as working. Section V—The Servant’s Gentleness"A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out" (Isaiah 42:3). We need not seek far in the story of His life to find the illustrations of this blessed portrait. Look at that crushed life which kneels weeping at His feet condemned by the Pharisees, condemned by her own sense of right, a broken reed. What is there left for a woman who has thus lost all? But listen to Him: “Neither do I condemn you. Go now and leave your life of sin” (John 8:11). Look again at the disciple that has denied and blasphemed Him. Alas, Peter, it does seem to be all over with you this time. The Master is going now to come back no more. Many a time have you blundered and He has been there to take you back again, but that is all over. Look, they are taking Him away, bound and fettered, and in a little while He will be crucified and dead. It is too late, Peter. But just at the last moment that loving, yearning face of Christ turns back and looks on Peter and that look was a volume. It said, “No, Peter, it is not over. I forgive you and I trust you still.” And Peter remembered and wept bitterly. But for that look He would not break the bruised reed, and from that hour Peter was bound to his Master with a love that could never die, and his restored life was given to comfort tempted ones. There is no life so crushed, there is no heart so discouraged but He has still some look of love, some word of cheer, some touch of victorious help. The smoldering wick refers rather to the feeble beginnings which others might think scarcely worth the trouble of treasuring, but He will take the feeblest beginning and fan the flame to a glorious fire. Look at that cowardly inquirer who comes sneaking in at the back door of the Master’s lodging at night. He is a member of the Jewish council. His name is Nicodemus; and were it known that he was here, it would be as much as his reputation is worth. Why does not the Lord disdain to meet him in this clandestine way? Why does He not say. “Nicodemus, I will have no followers that do not come out in the open and confess me without reserve.” Ah, no! Jesus is glad to see him. It is only a little smoke, but some day this man will stand up in that great council and defend the Master before His enemies. And so the Lord meets him and tells him the story of the new birth and the wondrous love of the Father in giving His only Son, and that man goes out with a new life that can never die. And Thomas, the doubting disciple, with scarcely faith enough to come to the meeting with his brethren; Thomas, the agnostic, demanding ocular demonstration and making his own terms of faith. “All right, Thomas you can come too. If you want to put your hand in the wound of the spear, you are welcome. It is the nearest way to my heart.” The Lord meets him on his own terms; but Thomas falls at his feet astonished, overwhelmed, ashamed, a thousand times convinced, crying, “My Lord and my God” (John 20:28). Are there any reading these lines who feel that they have but a weak will, a timid faith and a worthless life to bring to Christ? Bring what you have. Better come blundering to His feet than not at all. He will not quench the smoking flax; He will not break the bruised reed. Section VI—The Servant’s StrengthBut His gentleness is not weakness. Oh no! “He will not falter or be discouraged till he establishes justice on earth” (Isaiah 42:4). The words translated “falter” and “discouraged” are the same as translated just before “break” and “snuff out.” While He will not despise the weak, He is not weak. What a mighty evidence the prophet gives us of His glorious and victorious strength. There is nothing in ancient prophecy more sublime than this prophetic vision of what someone has called the passion of God, as it rises to its climax and as He comes forth to the world in His last manifestation to beat down his adversaries and bring in His kingdom. “The Lord will march out like a mighty man, like a warrior he will stir up his zeal; with a shout he will raise the battle cry and will triumph over his enemies” (Isaiah 42:13). And then, like a great spasm of inward conflict, He continues, For a long time I have kept silent, I have been quiet and held myself back. But now like a woman in childbirth, I cry out, I gasp and pant. I will lay waste the mountains and hills and dry up all their vegetation; I will turn rivers into islands and dry up the pools. I will lead the blind by ways they have not known, along unfamiliar paths I will guide them; I will turn the darkness into light before them and make the rough places smooth. These are the things I will do; I will not forsake them. (Isaiah 42:14-16) Space will not permit us to dwell on this sublime picture of the conflict of Christ and the passionate intensity with which we should be ready to enter into that conflict in the victories of faith and prayer. We are reading today of men of God who stand in front of a great religious movement whose very souls seem rent asunder in agonies of prayer as they plead for perishing souls, and we have also been told how the Holy Spirit has come in tidal waves of victory and blessing just through such spiritual conflicts and agonizing prayers. It is Gethsemane repeated in the body of Christ as once it was experienced by the Head. It is through His people the Master is to fight these final battles and win these millennial triumphs. Oh, that we might enter into His throbbing heart. Oh, that we might share the anguish of His love and the joy of His triumph. Oh, that each of us might say: Lord, kindle in this heart of mine The passion fire of love divine.