Comfort My People: The Prophecies Of Isaiah, Day 158

Comfort My People:
The Prophecies Of Isaiah

Day 158

The Lord has been promising return for the exiles, along with a glorious future that culminates in the Messiah reigning from the throne of David. The captive people will someday read Isaiah's words in a foreign land and wonder how the Lord will accomplish their release, much less the remainder of the prophecies. But their return to Zion is essential to all that will follow afterwards, and it is the first fruits of the bountiful harvest to come.

Bible scholar Barry G. Webb, in his book The Message Of Isaiah, has this to say regarding Chapter 55, "There are decisions to be made. There is a banquet spread, but the guests must come. There is pardon available, but the wicked person must forsake his own way and seek the Lord while He may be found. No one need be an outsider, but neither will anyone be forced to enter, and the invitation to do so will not be extended indefinitely. In the end, the vision of Isaiah has a very sharp evangelistic edge to it."

In this next paragraph Isaiah reminds me of the preachers I've heard all the way back to my childhood, men who have entreated sinners to come to the Lord, who have urged the lost to do what we found Christ urging the world to do in yesterday's passage, "Come to Me and live." Isaiah prophesied during the reign of four kings and he is nearing the end of his ministry as we near the end of his book. He was likely well into his eighties when King Hezekiah died and Hezekiah's son, the wicked Manasseh, had him put to death. But I picture him preaching today's message standing as tall and firm as an old soldier of God can. He may be going out of this world soon, but he's going out with his boots on. "Seek the Lord while He may be found; call on Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake their ways and the unrighteous their thoughts. Let them turn to the Lord, and He will have mercy on them, and to our God, and He will freely pardon." (Isaiah 55:7) 

Isaiah has had some sharp words for the people during his ministry, but these have concentrated mainly on their sinful way of living. He does not preach hell fire and brimstone; we don't really get a clear picture of this type of imagery in the Old Testament. But Isaiah does present God as Judge to a wayward people, a holy and righteous Judge whose laws have been broken and disregarded, a Judge before whom all will stand and give an account. Remember how he cried out, "Woe to me! I am ruined!", when faced with a vision of the Lord in the temple? Isaiah feels a burden for the lost to turn them toward the Lord, for if they do not turn they will see this Judge face to face someday and cry, "Woe to me! I am ruined!" 

But Isaiah does more than paint the portrait of a righteous Judge; he also paints the portrait of a loving Creator who desires to do us good. "He will have mercy on them...He will freely pardon." This may have been the most puzzling part of all the prophecies of Isaiah which were so difficult to understand before they came to pass. How can a holy God pardon sin? How can we enter His presence without paying a price to redeem ourselves? And what price could ever be enough? It was all so much to take in: the sweeping scope of Isaiah's visions, the promise of freedom and return to the land, the glorious future ahead in which all nations will be drawn to Israel and to her God, the contradiction (in human thinking) of a Suffering Servant who is also the Redeemer of mankind and the eternal King. After seeing their city and their temple burn, after being dragged in chains against their will to a foreign land, believing they would never lay eyes on Jerusalem again, all these things must have appeared impossible. How many times have your circumstances and my circumstances appeared impossible? Yet God doesn't look on our troubles with the feeble eyes of man. He created everything; can He not also make a path through the deep waters? Can He not speak one word and cause the mountains in our way to move?

God has compassion on the confusion of the people. Like a loving father whose child is trying to grasp something a bit too advanced just yet for his age, I imagine Him patting the people comfortingly as He says, "'For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are My ways your ways,' declares the Lord. 'As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.'" (Isaiah 55:8-9) He says, "That's alright. I know you can't understand it now. I'm asking you to trust Me anyway." As children we didn't always understand what our parents were doing, but we trusted that they had our best interests at heart. We didn't know exactly how they were going to fix things for us, but we believed they would. This is all the Lord asks of us: the simple faith of a child.

The song in the link below was a great comfort to me in troubled times, when I had to hand it all over to my Father, trusting He could do something that I couldn't do myself. My circumstances were too big for me. Like a small child, there was nothing I could do but take my problems to my Daddy.

In Better Hands

Comfort My People: The Prophecies Of Isaiah, Day 157

Comfort My People:
The Prophecies Of Isaiah

Day 157

Chapter 54 concluded by telling Zion of her heritage in the Lord, and today we find that this same heritage belongs to all who join themselves to Him. He makes the invitation to all, to "whosoever will", to those who recognize in their souls a thirst for something more than this world offers.

"Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost." (Isaiah 55:1) Salvation is free, to us. It cost Christ a great deal, but He charges us no price of entry. In Him we have free access to all that will satisfy our deepest needs. The waters mentioned here, along with the wine and milk, are symbolic. Water is a basic necessity for the body but in the Scriptures it also stands for the pouring out of the Holy Spirit. Wine was a luxury item, particularly if it was of especially high quality. It could also be used for a variety of medicinal purposes such as a disinfectant for wounds. This symbolizes Christ giving us His very best and of His ability to heal our wounds. Milk contains the fat and protein to satisfy hunger and it suggests a sense of fullness and contentment. 

"Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to Me, and eat what is good, and you will delight in the richest of fare." (Isaiah 55:2) I've spent myself on things that don't satisfy, and I bet at one time or another you have too. I've sold myself into slavery to that which will never quench my thirst or fill up my belly or heal my wounds. The Lord says, "listen, listen" in the kindly but urgent tone of voice a parent or teacher might use to calm a child and get his or her attention. I think He says it this way because we are so busy running to and fro, attempting to fulfill our needs ourselves, working ourselves to the bone, tossing and turning all night with worry, when all along the banquet is spread for us and it is free. He says, "Stop trying to meet your spiritual needs in human strength. Remember who you are and the heritage that is yours! I paid a high price to buy you back from slavery to sin and you must not put yourself back under the yoke. You are children of the King! Come to My table where I offer you something the world never can."

"Give ear and come to Me; listen, that you may live. I will make an everlasting covenant with you, My faithful love promised to David." (Isaiah 55:3) How simple the gospel is! "Come to Me and you will live." While we were yet in sin, we were like a man hanging by his fingertips on the edge of a cliff, with death imminent. But Christ stretched out His hand to us and we took hold of it and He pulled us to safety. There was no initiation to complete, no special rituals or chants to learn, no levels or degrees to achieve before we could reach Him, no fees to pay or offerings to bring, no human works that had to be "good enough" for Him to find us acceptable. He simply said, "Come to Me and you will live". 

The Lord promises us the same faithful love He gave to David, a man with whom He made an everlasting covenant. David is not a shining example of how to be a godly man. He made several missteps during his years in exile and he committed some horrific sins after he became king. But God still loved David and heard his prayer when he said, "Have mercy on me, O God, according to Your unfailing love; according to Your great compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin." (Psalm 51:1-2) David came to the Lord not because he thought he deserved forgiveness, but because he knew the Lord's love was unfailing and His compassion was great. This is the mercy God promises to us.

"See, I have made him a witness to the peoples, a ruler and commander of the peoples." (Isaiah 55:4) The Lord uses David, the witness, both literally and figuratively. The man David was made a witness to the peoples because of his heart for the Lord, and he ruled and commanded according to the laws of God. He faltered at times in his behavior, but he was quick to repent and turn from sins when convicted of them. The use of the name David also stands for the Messiah, the King of kings, who will come from his line and rule from his throne forever. There can be no greater witness to the love and mercy of God than our Redeemer, who Himself is "the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of His being". (Hebrews 1:2) 

"Surely you will summon nations you know not, and nations you do not know will come running to you, because of the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, for He has endowed you with splendor." (Isaiah 55:5) When Isaiah preached this message, no nations were running to Israel or Judah to do them good. The only ones running to them were those intent on spoiling and destroying. But when the other "David" appears, the Lord Jesus Christ, He will draw men and women of other nations into friendship with Zion. This was fulfilled in part when "He came to that which was His own, but His own did not receive Him". (John 1:11) Christ came to His own nation but when He was largely rejected there, the gospel went out to the Gentiles, who gladly received Him. But His own, the Jews, are in no way cast aside and rejected by Him. The Apostle Paul, in Romans 11, explains to us that a day is coming in which "all Israel will be saved". We may not fully understand how this is going to come about, but we can understand why, "They are loved on account of the patriarchs, for God's gifts and His call are irrevocable". (Romans 11:28b-29) God made promises to men like Abraham and David that He will not break. The fulfillment of these promises does not depend upon the righteousness of man but upon the faithfulness of a righteous God. 

And if God's gift and calling are irrevocable to Israel, they are irrevocable to us who are in Christ. He will not disown us or renounce our citizenship in heaven or remove our place card from His table. He said, "Come to Me and live", and we came. He will in no wise cast us out. (John 6:37)

Comfort My People: The Prophecies Of Isaiah, Day 156

Comfort My People:
The Prophecies Of Isaiah

Day 156

The Lord has been promising a glorious future for Zion and He will never take His word back. He uses the example of the covenant He made with Noah as proof that He will never change His mind, "To Me this is like the days of Noah, when I swore that the waters of Noah would never again cover the earth. So now I have sworn not to be angry with you, never to rebuke you again." (Isaiah 54:9)

The Lord set the rainbow in the sky to remind Noah every time it rained that He would never again destroy the earth with a flood. He has kept that promise. The earth sometimes experiences regional flooding but never again has the world stood submerged in water. His covenant with Zion is equally as binding as the covenant with Noah. 

Yesterday the Lord compared His people to an unfaithful wife with whom He separated temporarily but whom He never stopped loving. Now He has taken her back and forgiven her. Her mistakes will never be flung in her face. He will not bring them up. "I have sworn not to be angry with you, never to rebuke you again." When we have truly forgiven, the anger fades away. God is able to look upon these once wayward people only in love, with no desire to harp on past infidelities.

The Lord's covenant is so unbreakable that even if the earth itself crumbles and falls apart, His love will remain, "Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet My unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor My covenant of peace be removed,' says the Lord, who has compassion on you." (Isaiah 54:10) Bible scholar J. Alec Motyer explains verse 10 like this, "For Noah, a stable ordinance of creation became the guarantee of peace with God, but Isaiah goes further: even should creation lose its stable permanence with mountains shaking and hills tottering, there is a covenant that cannot totter. The Servant bore the punishment that made peace and now that peace is a covenanted reality, more steadfast than the cosmic fabric and rooted in the divine compassion." (from Isaiah, pg 341)

"Afflicted city, lashed by storms and not comforted, I will rebuild you with stones of turquoise, your foundations with lapis lazuli. I will make your battlements of rubies, your gates of sparkling jewels, and all your walls of precious stones." (Isaiah 54:11-12) About a century later, the people will study the words of Isaiah while they are captives in Babylon. Jerusalem will be an "afflicted city", razed to the ground with the temple burned. But God presents a beautiful picture of restoration and redemption. Something beautiful will rise from the ashes. Jerusalem will someday be, not only the capitol of Israel, but the capitol of the world. In Revelation 21:18-20 we find a description of the New Jerusalem, "The wall was made of jasper, and the city of pure gold, as pure as glass. The foundations of the city walls were decorated with every kind of precious stone. The first foundation was jasper, the second sapphire, the third agate, the fourth emerald, the fifth onyx, the sixth ruby, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth turquoise, the eleventh jacinth, and the twelfth amethyst." In our times we value gold and gemstones, but the riches that God bestows on us are so great that in comparison the gold and costly jewels are nothing but building materials. God is promising His very best to those who trust Him.

"All your children will be taught by the Lord, and great will be their peace. In righteousness you will be established: tyranny will be far from you; you will have nothing to fear. Terror will be far removed; it will not come near you. If anyone does attack you, it will not be My doing; whoever attacks you will surrender to you." (Isaiah 54:13-15) Some of the materials I studied state that the literal translation of verse 13 is "all of your children will be disciples of the Lord". When the Lord Jesus walked the earth, some of Zion's children were His disciples. After He died and rose again, many more of Zion's children became His disciples. But there is a day in the future in which all of Zion's children will be His disciples. 

When Isaiah gave these prophecies, the northern kingdom of Israel had been taken captive by Assyria, and he was predicting captivity in Babylon for the southern kingdom of Judah. Isaiah, along with all the other prophets, clearly stated that these calamities were a result of sin. But God has promised that a day is coming in which He will never allow Zion to be conquered again, because as He said in verse 9, He will never be angry with her again. As He said in verse 13, all her children will be His disciples, therefore Zion will no longer be the wayward wife we studied yesterday, but she will be faithful and true to the One who calls Himself "Faithful and True". (Revelation 9:11) All those who have hated her in the past will now be joined with her in worship of the one true God. Those who surrender to her in verse 15 are not people who have been beaten down, conquered, and forced to kneel. But they are people who have seen the light, who desert their positions in the enemy camp and join themselves with the people of God. It's a surrender to righteousness, an acknowledgment of the God of Israel, and a joyful abandonment of self in favor of pouring out adulation on the Lord alone.

The Lord can make the promise of peace forevermore because He created all things and is in control of all things. "See, it is I who created the blacksmith who fans the coals into flame and forges a weapon fit for its work. And it is I who have created the destroyer to wreak havoc." (Isaiah 54:16) 

One of my favorite verses concludes Chapter 54, "No weapon forged against you will prevail, and you will refute every tongue that accuses you. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and this is their vindication from Me,' declares the Lord." (Isaiah 54:17) We will have enemies in this world and they will forge weapons against us. Plus we have an enemy who hates our very souls, and he will forge weapons against us. But if our trust is in the Lord, He will take these weapons and change them from instruments that hurt into instruments that help. What Joseph said to his brothers, we can say to our enemies, "You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good." (Genesis 50:20a) Our human enemies may temporarily gloat over the harm done to us, and Satan may think he has us beaten, but God just continues His miraculous work of turning swords into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks. The sword our enemy intended to pierce us with becomes, in the Lord's hand, a plow that breaks up the stony ground of our hearts. The spear our enemy used to thrust us through becomes a pruning hook that snips off our dead and unfruitful parts so that we become even more fruitful. And through all these things our Lord continues the most miraculous work of all: conforming us into the image of His Son. Because we are in Christ, we will stand before our Judge someday and be able to refute every tongue that accuses us. Mankind will not be able to lay any charge against us, nor will Satan be able to prove any iniquity in us. And on that day, God the Father will vindicate us. He will declare us holy and righteous and not guilty for the sake of His Son. This is our heritage! This is our precious possession! Jesus wrote us into His will and when the proper time comes, we will inherit every blessing.

Our worship song link for today is below.

There Will Be A Day

Comfort My People: The Prophecies Of Isaiah, Day 155

Comfort My People:
The Prophecies Of Isaiah

Day 155

Chapter 54 is one of rejoicing and is full of promises for God's people. Author and scholar Barry G. Webb says, "Just as in Chapter 53 the atoning death of the Servant is already viewed from the divine perspective as already accomplished, so here in chapters 54 and 55 it is assumed as the basis of a new covenant of peace which will be the fulfillment of all previous covenants." (from The Message Of Isaiah, pg 215) God speaks of things which will come to pass as if they have already happened. As the Apostle Paul said, He is the God "who gives life to the dead and calls into being things that were not". (Romans 4:17) When God speaks a word, whether it's going to be fulfilled today or three thousand years in the future, it's as good as done. The peace He promises Israel is theirs, though it may be a long time in coming.

"Sing, barren woman, you who never bore a child; burst into song, shout for joy, you who were never in labor; because more are the children of the desolate woman than of her who has a husband,' says the Lord." (Isaiah 54:1) The barren woman here symbolizes the people of Zion. How barren and unfruitful they must have felt when they were forcibly taken captive to a foreign land while their own nation lay in ruins. How hopeless everything must have seemed. In ancient times women were looked down upon for being barren. It was assumed these women must be sinners and that God was punishing them by making them childless. A barren woman had to deal with the pitying looks of her friends and neighbors. Worse yet, she had to deal with those who looked on her with outright condemnation in their eyes, believing her to be an ungodly person. There would be those who would whisper behind her back, "If she was a good woman, God would have blessed her with children. She must have so much sin in her life that God is punishing her." While in exile, God's people were tormented by these same attitudes from their captors and from the nations around them who had been enemies of Israel and Judah. They laughed at them and said, "Where is your God now? He's abandoned you! You are such horrible people that He doesn't love you anymore. He is through with you as a nation." 

Oh, but they couldn't have been more wrong! The troubles that came upon the twelve tribes of Israel were a result of their idolatry, but God was by no means finished with them. Like several miraculous births we find in the Bible, where babies are born to barren women and even to women past the age of childbearing, God is going to call into being things that are not. The God who said, "Let there be light," and created the universe can speak to a dead womb and create a child or He can speak to a dead and defeated nation and make it rise again. Zion is depicted here as a desolate woman (without a husband and protector) while she is in exile, but a day is coming when the captives will return and the descendants of this formerly desolate woman will be many. "Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent curtains wide, do not hold back; lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes. For you will spread out to the right and to the left; your descendants will dispossess nations and settle in their desolate cities." (Isaiah 54:2-3) 

"Do not be afraid; you will not be put to shame. Do not fear disgrace; you will not be humiliated. You will forget the shame of your youth and remember no more the reproach of your widowhood." (Isaiah 54:4) Zion was like a woman widowed and left alone in the world but such a great future lies ahead that she will forget the days of mourning.

"For your Maker is your husband---the Lord Almighty is His name---the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer; He is called the God of all the earth." (Isaiah 54:4) In calling Himself "the Lord Almighty", God reminds the people that He is the "Lord Of Hosts", or to put it another way, the "God Of Angel Armies". He has command over all things in heaven and on earth. Most women, even in our day and age, hope to make a good match in marriage. Even though we are capable of supporting ourselves, we want a man who does his share in providing for the household and in protecting his wife and children. How much more can the Lord Almighty, the God of all the armies of heaven, do for us? Zion may once have felt like a rejected woman, but she has a Husband who loves her and wants to provide for her far more than any mortal man can. She need not look around her for world leaders to make things right, and she must not turn to idols, but she has to turn back to the One who loves her with an everlasting and sacrificial love.

"The Lord will call you back as if you were a wife deserted and distressed in spirit---a wife who married young, only to be rejected,' says your God. 'For a brief moment I abandoned you, but with deep compassion I will bring you back. In a surge of anger I hid My face from you for a moment, but with everlasting kindness I will have compassion on you,' says the Lord your Redeemer." (Isaiah 54:6-8) The Lord put this wife away for her infidelity, which the law allowed. The Lord Jesus, when asked about legitimate grounds for divorce, declared that the only legitimate reason for a man to divorce his wife was for unfaithfulness. (Matthew 19:9) The Lord had a right to put his wife away for her unfaithfulness but He also had the right to take her back. She had not remarried. She was desolate and barren in a foreign land. He was free to bring her back home to live with Him. 

The Lord instructed the prophet Hosea to marry a promiscuous woman so he could better understand the position the Lord was in. "Like an adulterous wife this land is guilty of unfaithfulness to the Lord." (Hosea 1:2b) So Hosea married a wayward woman named Gomer and had a family with her, but she abandoned the family to go live with another man. The Lord then instructed Hosea to go after her, though she was as much an adulteress as the people of the nation. Hosea had to pay quite a large price to persuade her lover to relinquish her: six ounces of silver and four hundred and thirty pounds of barley. Then he said no words of condemnation to her, but made what sounds much like a wedding vow to her, "You are to live with me and be faithful to me, and I am going to live with you and be faithful to you." (Hosea 3:3) This displays to us the love of God. He had the right to give Zion a bill of divorce and send her away and never speak to her again, but He loved her too much! He went after her and redeemed her. No price was too high to pay to get her back. In Hosea 2 the Lord speaks of how He will abandon her for a time because of her unfaithfulness, but then He says, "Therefore I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the wilderness and speak tenderly to her. There I will give her back her vineyards, and will make the Valley of Achor a door of hope. There she will respond as in the days of her youth, as in the day she came up out of Egypt." (Hosea 2:14-15) 

We have all been unfaithful to the Lord, going our own way, doing what pleased us instead of what pleased the Lord. Yet He woos us anyway. Yet He still comes after us. Yet He paid the highest price imaginable to redeem us. And now, redeemed by the blood of Christ, the Lord says to us, "You will live with Me forever and be faithful to Me, and I will live forever with you and be faithful to you."

Comfort My People: The Prophecies Of Isaiah, Day 154

Comfort My People:

The Prophecies Of Isaiah
Day 154

Today we will be studying the second half of Chapter 53 in which Isaiah foretells the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. We concluded yesterday with Isaiah affirming that this Suffering Servant suffered for our sins, not for His own. "We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all." (Isaiah 53:6)

Because we had all gone astray like wayward sheep, Christ was as silent before His accusers as a sheep, and He became the Lamb of God whose sacrificial death made atonement for our sins. "He was oppressed and afflicted, yet He did not open His mouth; He was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so He did not open His mouth." (Isaiah 53:7) When the chief priests accused Jesus of many blasphemous and false things in the presence of Pontius Pilate, Jesus did not argue with them or offer any defense. "So again Pilate asked Him, 'Aren't you going to answer? See how many things they are accusing you of.' But Jesus still made no reply, and Pilate was amazed." (Mark 15:4-5) 

Innocent people always claim innocence and guilty people usually claim innocence. No matter how much evidence is stacked against them, even most murderers will enter a plea of "not guilty". So Pilate was amazed that any man would not put on a defense, especially when Pilate himself believed Jesus was innocent. Pilate was a shrewd man who saw through to what was in the chief priests' hearts and he knew "it was out of self-interest that they had handed Jesus over to him". (Matthew 27:18) The KJV translates this verse in an even more revealing way, "For he knew that for envy they had delivered Him." These men were envious of Jesus, of His authoritative way of teaching and of the huge crowds who followed Him and hung on His every word. They felt threatened by Him, for up til now the people counted on the chief priests and teachers of the law to tell them what to do (poor examples though they were) and now this Man's teachings were preferred over theirs. 

Jesus had the right to assert His innocence. His "not guilty" plea would have been righteous and true. But think back to how many times His answers had stumped His accusers in the past. There came a point when the chief priests and teachers of the law dared not ask Him any more questions because they always came off looking hateful and foolish. If Jesus had put on any defense at all, He ran the risk of persuading Pilate (who already wanted to set Him free) not to listen to the charges. Under Roman rule the Jews could not put anyone to death even if the person committed a crime worthy of death. Such a case had to be brought before a Roman judge, which is why Jesus ended up at Pilate's palace. Pilate had complete authority to reject any and all charges and to set Jesus free. This is what he wanted to do, but he could find no way to do it. Jesus refused to put on a defense and no witnesses came forward on His behalf. The priests cried out louder and louder against Him as the morning progressed and Pilate feared a riot would break out while he was in town, thus bringing down on his own head severe censure from the Roman government. Passover was always a stressful time for Pilate when he was sent to Jerusalem, with hundreds upon hundreds of  pilgrims pouring into town from far and wide, and he had to be on the alert at all times for any hint of insurrection. This must not happen on his watch. But Jesus spoke not a word on His own behalf and I believe it's because if He had, His words would have been so powerful and true that Pilate would have set him free despite how much trouble the priests caused or how much they stirred up the people. 

"By oppression and judgment He was taken away. Yet who of His generation protested?" (Isaiah 53:8a) Jesus refused to put on a defense but we would naturally expect others to step forward and say things like, "This Man healed me of blindness! He can't possibly be wicked or else He would not have such power. These charges against Him are false." Or, "Jesus brought our young daughter back from the dead! You must set Him free. He is a righteous man of God just as Elijah and Elisha were. They both brought a child back from the dead like this Man, and nobody accused them of blasphemy. Jesus isn't guilty either." Or, "I was there when He fed thousands of people with a few loaves and fishes! Could an ungodly man do this? He's innocent!" But no, there's no record that anyone said a single word on His behalf. Even His closest friends, the disciples, didn't appear as witnesses for the defense. Judas had already betrayed Him. Peter had already denied Him three times. They all fled the garden when He was arrested. So who of His generation protested this farce of a trial? Nobody!

"For He was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people He was punished." (Isaiah 53:8b) Jesus stood before Pilate and before His accusers without anyone speaking up for Him. And this is the position we would have found ourselves in as we stand before God someday. Without Christ, as we face Almighty God knowing we are guilty of many sins, there would have been no one to step forward and speak up for us. But in Christ we have a mighty Defender! Like the most brilliant and talented defense lawyer ever, He will step forward and say to the Judge, "Yes, Your Honor, I know she is guilty of many transgressions, but she made Me her personal Lord and Savior one day. So now every mistake she ever made is paid for, covered by My blood, and she cannot be charged with anything." The Judge will bang down His gavel and say, "Not guilty! Because you have accepted what My Son did for you, I have cast your sins behind My back, never to be thought of again. Enter into the joys of the Lord, good and faithful servant." This is never to be an excuse for sinful living after we come to Christ, for a high price was paid to rescue us from the debt of our sin. When we sin against the Lord after coming to Christ we must always remember the wounds He suffered because of our waywardness. The Lord is faithful to forgive us when we repent and confess, but salvation is never a license to sin. 

"He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in His death, though He had done no violence, nor was any deceit in His mouth." (Isaiah 53:9) This prophecy must have been puzzling until it was fulfilled on the day of the crucifixion. In our times we know that the rich sometimes get rich by being wicked, but in Old Testament times people considered wealth a blessing from the Lord and evidence of righteous living. Material blessings were thought to be a reward for doing right. So in Isaiah's day, how could the Suffering Servant be assigned a grave with both the wicked and the rich? Here we find the fulfillment of the prophecy about the wicked, "Two rebels were crucified with Him, one on His right and one on His left." (Matthew 27:38) These men have often been referred to as thieves, but the Roman government didn't waste time and manpower to crucify thieves. The word "rebel" is a better translation, because the Roman government did indeed crucify those who were considered enemies of the state. Rebelling against the government would earn a person the death sentence: a public and very excruciating death sentence on a cross. This type of execution sent a message to the Jews that anyone accused of sedition against Rome might well find himself in the same position. Jesus died with transgressors because in every way He identified Himself with mankind. He suffered the same fate as those who had committed sins worthy of death. And we have all committed sins worthy of death, for sin itself brings death. Jesus did not shrink back from the very worst of sinners or from the most agonizing of deaths so that we could experience His very best.

The salvation Jesus offers is for the poorest of the poor, the richest of the rich, and everyone in between. He also made His grave among the wealthy, "Joseph of Arimathea, a prominent member of the Council, who was himself waiting for the kingdom of God, went boldly to Pilate and asked for Jesus' body...So Joseph bought some linen cloth, took down the body, wrapped it in the linen, and placed it in a tomb cut out of rock. Then he rolled a stone against the entrance of the tomb." (Mark 15:43,46) Matthew's gospel tells us that Joseph was "a rich man", (Matthew 27:56) and that the tomb he placed the Lord in was "his own new tomb". (Matthew 27:60) So we find here the fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecy. Jesus was with the rich in His death, for Joseph was a rich man and no doubt his tomb was in a cemetery only the wealthy could afford to be buried in. During the short time Jesus' body lay in the tomb, He was in the company of the rich.

"Yet it was the Lord's will to crush Him and cause Him to suffer, and though the Lord makes His life an offering for sin, He will see His offspring and prolong His days, and the will of the Lord will prosper in His hand." (Isaiah 53:10) When Isaiah described his calling to be a prophet, he says the Lord asked, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" And Isaiah's heart responded properly to the Lord as he replied, "Here am I. Send me!" (Isaiah 6:8) I like to think a similar conversation took place between God the Father and God the Son. God knew mankind would fall before He ever created the first cell of Adam's body from the dust of the ground. And if mankind fell, who would lift him up again? God the Son, unhesitatingly, volunteered Himself, "Here am I. Send Me!" 

The Lord Jesus had no offspring while He lived on this earth. But His children are so great in number that, when the Apostle John got a glimpse into heaven, he said no man could count them. Because Christ gave Himself for mankind, His offspring likely number in the billions by now, and who knows how many there will be when the time clock of this old world finally winds down? He had no children of His mortal body on the earth, but His sacrifice earned Him a family He will rejoice over for all eternity. This is why we are told He endured the cross "for the joy set before Him". (Hebrews 12:2) Like a mother who endures labor pains, knowing she will have a beautiful new child when her agony is over, so also the Lord Jesus endured the cross, knowing that the end result would be a beautiful, righteous, and redeemed family so large no mortal man could count them.

"After He has suffered, He will see the light of life and be satisfied; by His knowledge My righteous Servant will justify many, and He will bear their iniquities. Therefore I will give Him a portion among the great, and He will divide the spoils with the strong, because He poured out His life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. For He bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors." (Isaiah 53:11-12) The resurrection is found here in verse 11. After He has suffered, He will return to life. He will be satisfied with His work, for through it many will be justified and be made right with a holy God. Christ bore our iniquities and if we have trusted in Him, God the Father will not and cannot refuse us pardon. To refuse us pardon would be to refuse the sacrifice the Son made, and this is impossible. The Bible does not say the Servant will justify all, but that He will justify many, since there are those who will reject Him. But this need not happen. If you don't know the Lord Jesus Christ, His hand is outstretched to you. He can justify you. He can bear your iniquities. He can make intercession for you. Because of Him, you can stand before the Judge someday and hear Him say, "Not guilty!" And what better gift could there ever be? In this Christmas season, when we think a lot about gifts, let's not reject the greatest gift of all.

Below is our worship song link for today, based on Isaiah 53.

By His Wounds

Comfort My People: The Prophecies Of Isaiah, Day 153

Comfort My People:
The Prophecies Of Isaiah
Day 153

The suffering of the Servant comes into focus more clearly in Isaiah's prophetic vision of Christ. We learned yesterday that Jesus looked like an average man of His times, who blended in and was difficult to pick out of the crowd. It wasn't how He looked that set Him apart; it was what He did and said. And today we learn that, by the time Pilate's soldiers had beaten Him and nailed Him to the cross, His appearance was so shocking that people hid their faces from the sight. Terrible as the crucifixion was, we are going to do our best not to describe it in graphic terms as we discuss what Isaiah foresaw. Most of us have seen depictions of it in film and they are horrific to watch, even toned down as they are from what Jesus' experience was truly like. But I want to preserve, as much as possible, the dignity of the Servant who took our shame and disgrace and punishment. 

"He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces He was despised, and we held Him in low esteem." (Isaiah 53:3) Bible scholar Adam Clarke compares the hiding of the face to the requirement that a person stricken with leprosy must cover the lower half of the face. He is saying something like, "We looked on Him as we would have looked on a leper. We hid our faces at the sight of His injuries. We showed no compassion for His plight. We despised Him and held Him in low esteem as we would a contagious leper. None of us spoke up for Him when He stood accused. We let Him be sentenced to an excruciating death." 

Yesterday we talked about how all of us, at one time of another, have experienced some form of rejection. But I'd be willing to bet nobody has ever gasped and hidden their faces from us as they did at the sight of our Lord. There is nothing we can experience in this life that Jesus doesn't understand. He understands suffering and is familiar with pain: physically, mentally, and spiritually. Because of this the Scriptures assure us, "We do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses." (Hebrews 4:15a) If the Son of God had not become incarnate, taking on human flesh, then we might have been able to say, "But You don't understand! You can't possibly know how I feel!" But Jesus knows what it is to be weary, to be hungry and thirsty, to be betrayed by close friends, to have others talk about Him behind His back, to have mankind accuse Him to His face, to literally be spit on, to suffer the cruel beating of the Roman soldiers and then to die a slow death on the cross while His accusers stood and gloated over His fate. Jesus knows what it's like to be terminally ill, in the sense that He knew there would be no reprieve. He had to stare death in the eye as His dear mother, along with the Apostle John and several women of faith, wept desperate tears, hoping for a miracle. Worst of all, Jesus experienced being abandoned by the Father as He took on the sins of the world. Then while His body lay in the tomb, He battled the powers of death and the grave and then rose in victory on Sunday morning. Yes, Jesus knows exactly how we feel. There is no circumstance we will ever go through that He cannot sympathize with.

"Surely He took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered Him punished by God, stricken by Him, and afflicted." (Isaiah 53:4) In Old Testament times, people often had the attitude that dreadful circumstances only came upon those who harbored sin in their hearts. Remember how Job's friends accused him of secret sins? Job's friends believed he must have done something to bring his tragedies on himself, and this is how many viewed the Lord Jesus. Surely He couldn't be a righteous man if God didn't rescue Him! Surely a man who performed miracles and preached the word of God as no one had ever preached it before would have been spared the cross if He weren't a liar in claiming to be the Son of God! So as the onlookers watched, they believed in their hearts that justice had been done, that Pilate was correct in condemning Jesus to death, that the accusations of the chief priests must have been true or else God would have done something on Jesus' behalf. But it was our pain and suffering He bore on the cross, not His own. He was stricken and afflicted for our sins so that, if we would believe on Him, we would never experience God the Father turning His back on us, never have to face the punishment our sins deserve. Not only did Jesus bear our burden of sin on the cross, but He bears our daily burdens as we walk through this life, "Praise be to the Lord, to God our Savior, who daily bears our burdens." (Psalm 68:19)

Next we find what I think is one of the most beautiful verses in the Bible, "But He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on Him, and by His wounds we are healed." (Isaiah 53:5) Even if we had been beaten with many stripes for our sins, it would not save us. That would merely be the punishment we had earned, but there would be no redemption in it. But by His wounds we are healed of lives of sin and futility. As the Apostle Paul says in Romans 6:23, the wages of sin is death. A wage is something that has been earned, and we had earned death and eternal separation from the presence of God by our sins. But, as Paul also says, the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. A gift is not something we have earned. A gift is something someone freely offers us out of love and out of the goodness of their heart. We could not earn eternal life for ourselves but, in Christ, God is able to offer this free gift to us. 

The people of Isaiah's day must have struggled with the message of a Redeemer who would suffer. Isaiah may have struggled to understand it himself, although he had the faith to accept whatever the Lord told him, even when he didn't understand it. The people may have wondered why Isaiah was telling them all this, why they as God's chosen people needed a Redeemer. And this is the answer, "We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all." (Isaiah 53:6) Isaiah includes himself in the "all" who have gone astray. When he first received his commission from the Lord, he cried out, "Woe to me! I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty." (Isaiah 6:5) Isaiah could not fathom how God could take a man like him, whose mouth had uttered unclean things, and make him a prophet to the nation who could speak the word of the Lord. But redemption is a gift; it is not earned. If God had not offered us this gift, and if we did not accept it, we would all stand before Him at the judgment someday and cry, "Woe to me! I am ruined!" This is why the one Man took on the sins of all of us. The high priest Caiaphus unknowingly spoke words of prophecy when he said, "It is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish." (John 11:50) This is one time, maybe the only time, that God was in agreement with a man who scorned the Son. God too considered it better for us that one Man perish than that we all perish. This is why Jesus bore our griefs and carried our sorrows, why He took our stripes, why He was stricken and afflicted by God in our place. If He had not been willing to endure these things, we would be handed only the wages of our sins, not the free gift of salvation.

Some of the stripes the Lord took were for my own shameful sins and foolish mistakes. Some were for yours. If any of you have ever had children or even dearly loved pets, you know how helpless you feel when one of them is sick or hurt. You may have wished you could take their place. Well, this is exactly how God the Father felt when He saw how sick and hurt we were by our sins. But He actually had the power to take our place and, in the second person of the Trinity, the Lord Jesus Christ literally took our place. What an indescribable gift! It's more than my human mind can take in, that anyone could love us this much, that "while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us". (Romans 5:8) 

Below is a link to a beautiful worship song that goes well with today's passage.

Were You There When They Crucified My Lord?

Comfort My People: The Prophecies Of Isaiah, Day 152

Comfort My People:
The Prophecies Of Isaiah
Day 152

This morning we continue on in what I personally feel is the most important prophecy in the Old Testament. It concerns the suffering and eventual glory of the Servant: the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ. Isaiah foretells the crucifixion about seven hundred years before Jesus of Nazareth was even born, centuries before Rome ever ruled over Judea and perfected the terrible art of capital punishment by the cross. And we see in Isaiah's prophecy just why so many have been offended by the cross, by the idea that God would choose this method to save mankind, that a man beaten bloody and sentenced to death could set us free from lives of futility and shame. The prophet knew how narrowly some would view the idea that the Redeemer of Israel, and of the Gentiles as well, was hung on a tree, for Deuteronomy 21:23 declares that the one who is hanged on a tree is cursed of God. And indeed He was cursed, but cursed for our sake and in our place, "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: 'Cursed is everyone who is hung on a pole.'" (Galatians 3:13) If Christ had not taken our curse upon Himself, we would have had to bear it, and there would have been no remedy for our sins.

Isaiah realizes how difficult it may be to understand that the Suffering Servant is also the King of kings, "Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?" (Isaiah 53:2) I love the way The Message Bible translates this verse, "Who believes what we've heard and seen? Who would have thought God's saving power would look like this?" Who could ever have conceived such an idea, that the Deliverer would not deliver Himself? Who would have imagined God would choose such a method to make mankind right with Him? To those who rejected Christ in His own times and to those who have rejected Him in the many centuries since, this idea is offensive. It's offensive to them, first of all, to be told they have sinned against a holy God and need a Savior. And it's offensive to them that a Man who was arrested, charged with a crime against the Mosaic law that was worthy of death (claiming to be God), beaten and mocked, then executed by the government as a rebel against Rome, could possibly save anyone. This is the attitude of those who scorned Him as He hung on the cross, saying, "He saved others but He cannot save Himself! If He's the king of Israel, let Him come down from the cross, and we will believe." (Matthew 27:42) The fact is, Jesus could have saved Himself at any time. He could have spoken one word and obliterated from the face of the earth everyone who hated Him. He could have forcefully taken the nation back from Rome, declared Himself the king of Israel and the king of the whole earth, and He could have ruled unopposed forever. Jesus had a right to all those things, but if He had saved Himself, He could not have saved us. 

The "arm of the Lord" normally indicates great power and might. Or "shock and awe", a term one of our former Presidents once used when speaking of America's military abilities. When Jesus hung in agony on the cross, it certainly didn't appear to the people as if the arm of the Lord was being revealed in Him. But this plan of salvation was formed by the God who says, "My strength is made perfect in weakness." (2 Corinthians 12:9) His powerful arm was being revealed in the shocking and awesome transaction that was taking place between God the Father and God the Son on behalf of sinful and pitiful mankind. In order to be mighty to save, Christ first had to be meek and lowly. In order to be King of kings and Lord of lords, Christ first had to be the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.

By the time Jesus was born, there had been no king of the tribe of Judah on the throne since the nation was conquered by Babylon. Israel was suffering under harsh Roman rule and under the burden of heavy taxes, forced to claim Caesar as their king. It must have seemed that the dream of being a sovereign nation was dead and that no descendant of David would ever rule from Jerusalem again. But in a little backwoods town in Galilee called Nazareth, in the home of a poor carpenter and his wife, a child grew up who was the heir to David's throne. He held the legal title to it (being descended from David on both His mother Mary's side and on His step-father Joseph's side) and the spiritual title to it, for God chooses and anoints whom He will. This is why Isaiah says, "He grew up before Him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground." (Isaiah 53:2a) Jesus grew up in the sight of God the Father like a fresh new shoot springing up out of an old root deep in the dry ground. There must have seemed no drier ground than Palestine in those days. The promise God made to David to preserve his throne forever must have felt like an old fable or fairy tale, or a dream that faded upon waking. But our God specializes in resurrections, in new beginnings, in calling forth things that are not as though they are. "A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit...In that day the Root of Jesse will stand as a banner for the peoples; the nations will rally to Him, and His resting place will be glorious." (Isaiah 11:1,10) "Once more a remnant of the kingdom of Judah will take root below and bear fruit above." (Isaiah 37:31) "The Root of Jesse will spring up, One who will arise to rule over the nations; in Him the Gentiles will hope." (Romans 15:12) No matter how dead and dry the royal line may have appeared, new life was going to be given to it. God was going to keep His promise to David. A Man would arise from David's line and of His kingdom there would be no end.

"He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to Him, nothing in His appearance that we should desire Him." (Isaiah 53:2b) Jesus did not have stunning good looks like King Saul or King David. At the sight of Him, people were not impressed and did not say to each other, "He would make a good king! See what a commanding presence He has, such good looks, such fine clothes, so much money!" I believe Jesus looked like any other first-century Jew of lower income status. As we know, on several occasions He managed to blend into the crowds and slip away from danger, so He must have been quite average in looks and stature and wardrobe. Judas even had to accompany the soldiers to the Garden of Gethsemane to point out which one Jesus was; this is how difficult it was to pick Him out of a lineup. Because there was nothing about His appearance to suggest He was the King of kings, as Jesus went about His public ministry, people asked, "Isn't this the carpenter's son? How can He claim to be God? We know His whole family! We know Joseph and Mary, along with all His brothers and sisters. He grew up in a pitiful little shack out in the boonies of Nazareth. How blasphemous that He should make Himself equal with God!" 

You may recall from our study of the kings that the people chose Saul on appearance alone. He was tall and well-built, standing a head above all the other men in the nation. He was so good-looking that men and women alike thought he'd make a fantastic impression while giving speeches, holding conferences with other kings, or riding about in a fine chariot. From the outside he was everything they thought a king should be. But on the inside he was a weak and troubled man, eventually descending into madness and becoming unfit to lead. And aren't we thankful that God looks on the heart and not on the outward appearance? Our fellow man may accept or reject us based on first impressions, but God judges us based on what's in our hearts. God chooses whom He will, and if we are willing to serve Him and be used by Him, He is going to allow us to take part in some surprising and wonderful things. 

Maybe we weren't always picked first by our fellow man based on our looks or talents. Maybe we were never picked first. I was a tall and underweight little girl with poor athletic coordination, so I know the shame of being the last one standing when kids were choosing up teams for softball. I ended up on whichever team got stuck with me. And the kids on that team usually said something like, "Aw, man! Not her!" But guess what? Jesus picked me first! And Jesus picked you first! We can all consider ourselves picked first because Jesus thought we were so beautiful and special and unique that each one of us was worth dying for.

It's funny but I never know what direction the blog is going to take each day. I know ahead of time what material we are studying, but I'm frequently surprised by the direction the Lord leads us. Somebody must need to hear this today. Maybe a person you loved said they didn't want to be in a relationship with you or didn't want to be married to you anymore. You might have been rejected by a close friend or a beloved family member. You may have been passed over at work and not given projects or positions that you worked hard for and deserved. Or you could have been that athletically or academically challenged kid that nobody wanted on their team. But Jesus looked straight at you and said, "I want this one! I want this one on my team and I'll do anything it takes! I would pick this one over and over and over again; no price would ever be too high to pay!" Jesus knows more than anyone what it feels like to be rejected and betrayed. When our fellow man scorns us and says, "I don't want this one," we can recall how the people Jesus worked and taught among cried out, "We don't want this man to be our king! Give us Barabbas instead! Give us anyone but Jesus!" 

We are smack-dab in the middle of the holiday season and it can be a sad and discouraging and lonely time, but Jesus wants you to know today that He will never be sorry He chose you. If you have chosen Him as well, someday He will present you proudly before the Father and all the holy angels, joyfully announcing, "This one is mine!" He loves you with an everlasting, unconditional love. You will always be first with Him.

Our worship song link for today is below. I believe it will be a blessing to you.

He Knows My Name