“The Lord God has given Me the tongue of those who are instructed to know how to sustain the weary with a word. He awakens Me each morning; He awakens My ear to listen like those being instructed. The Lord God has opened My ear, and I was not rebellious; I did not turn back. I gave My back to those who beat Me, and My cheeks to those who tore out My beard. I did not hide My face from scorn and spitting. The Lord God will help Me; therefore I have not been humiliated; therefore I have set My face like flint, and I know I will not be put to shame. The One who vindicates Me is near; who will contend with Me? Let us confront each other. Who has a case against Me? Let him come near Me! In truth, the Lord God will help Me; who will condemn Me? Indeed, all of them will wear out like a garment; a moth will devour them. Who among you fears the Lord, listening to the voice of His Servant? Who among you walks in darkness, and has no light? Let him trust in the name of Yahweh; let him lean on his God. Look, all you who kindle a fire, who encircle yourselves with firebrands; walk in the light of your fire and in the firebrands you have lit! This is what you’ll get from My hand: you will lie down in a place of torment.” (Isaiah 50:4-11 HCSB)
God has made us to communicate. One of the first things a newborn baby does is to fill its lungs with its first breath and then respond with loud protest. A baby is communicating from their very first breath and that pattern continues throughout life. Even in our loneliness, we communicate. Our own thoughts and reflections are expressed in our thoughts through self communication. I don’t know about you, but I even tend to argue with myself. More on that thought, later.
In this week’s focal passage, Isaiah 50:4-11, we encounter the LORD’s Servant who is instructed by His continuous communication with God and then teaches these things to those who follow Him. As you can see in verse 4, God has given His Servant the tongue (speech/words) of one who has been instructed by God’s Word. Because of what the Servant has learned from God, He’s able “to sustain the weary with a word.”
But you really need to notice how the Servant of the LORD receives this instruction from God. “He awakens Me each morning; He awakens My ear to listen like those being instructed.” Each morning the Servant is awakened to hear the Word of God. God is communicating His will to His Servant through the spoken word, through the communication they share each morning. If this is good for the Servant of God, it is absolutely necessary for those of us who follow Him. We need to awaken each morning and spend time being instructed by the Word of God.
As you’ll recall, the intent of hearing the word of God is to respond in complete and absolute obedience to His word. To truly hear Him is more than just to have the sounds vibrate in our ears and be converted by our brains into understandable speech. It means that we actually hear what God is saying and we respond in obedience to His words. Disobedience is simply the refusal to truly hear God. As God said earlier in our study: “Keep listening, but do not understand… deafen their ears… otherwise they might hear with their ears, understand with their minds, turn back, and be healed.” (Is. 6:9)
You see, the Servant not only awakened to God’s word, heard Him speaking each morning but “the LORD God opened My ear, and I was not rebellious; I did not turn back [in disobedience].” There’s a stark contrast being made in these verses. It is the contrast between the disobedience and lack of faith that is exhibited by the people of God living in exile and the absolute obedience of God’s Servant. The people claimed to hear, to know and trust God’s Word, but their lives did NOT demonstrate it in their actions. They claimed faith in God, but did not live in obedience to God and His word. And those two things ALWAYS go together – faith and obedience, as clearly demonstrated by the righteous Servant.
This is often where confusion and misunderstanding regarding the Christian faith arises. Does obedience and adherence to religious ritual produce salvation and faith or does saving faith produce obedience and a holy life. Let me be very clear on this, obedience is the result of faith and not the other way around. In fact, it is not even possible to be obedient without faith (see Heb. 11:6, Rom. 8:7).
Now that might surprise a few of you because of the confusion over this issue of salvation and faith. We often think that doing good things offsets the bad things we do and that results in the favor of God and a “spot in heaven.” But according to scripture, “…you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift — not from works, so that no one can boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9 HCSB) Salvation is “not from yourselves” because we would boast in it.
Clearly, salvation and a place in heaven is by God’s grace and comes through faith. But faith is not something we “work up” through our own efforts. Faith [or trust in God] is not the result of your efforts, knowledge or goodness but is the result of God’s righteousness and His work of redemption. As we discussed last week, faith is taking God at His word and believing what He has done and what He promises to do. You have faith in someone who is faithful, true to their word, keeps their promises and sticks with you through thick and thin. Faith in God who does what He has promised to do…
And that brings us to a vital part of Isaiah’s Servant Song: “I gave My back to those who beat Me, and My cheeks to those who tore out My beard. I did not hide My face from scorn and spitting.” This is where the will of God and His work of redemption gets difficult. It’s difficult because it takes us into areas where we’re not only reluctant but often just unwilling to go – into the realm of suffering as a necessary part of God’s will.
Wait! God’s will includes suffering?
This is probably one of THE most misunderstood aspects of Biblical faith. But it is also one of the most real and honest aspects of Biblical faith. Notice the stark contrast of the Servant’s statement: “I was not rebellious; I did not turn back. I gave My back to those who beat Me.” Instead of turning back in disobedience, He turned [and offered] His back to those who wanted to beat Him. Instead of turning back in disobedience, He “turned” His back in obedience to God’s will and offered it to those who sought to beat Him.
We often see suffering as a sign of God’s judgment and disfavor. However, we live in a broken, sinful world that was created good but now suffers under the reality of sin’s curse. Many false religious leaders and cults try and remove the reality of suffering, struggle, and pain from the truth of God’s Word. But God has the ability to redeem our suffering and use our struggle to achieve His purpose and plan. He does that here with His Suffering Servant, but He also does the same in you and me. Not as a means of redeeming us, but for the purpose of perfecting us and our walk of faith.
Notice how the Servant responds to the shock that God’s will could involving suffering: “The LORD God will help Me; therefore I have NOT [emphasis added] been humiliated; therefore I have set My face like flint, and I KNOW [emphasis added] I will not be put to shame.” God anticipates that the people will struggle with this difficult issue of faith, so He addresses it directly. How could this Servant be God’s righteous Son and still suffer at the hands of men. How could God allow His righteous, obedient Servant to be humiliated and shamed like this? Surely this can’t be God’s will! Righteous, obedient servants don’t suffer like that, only disobedient sinners suffer like that.
Ah, there it is… that gross misunderstanding of suffering and God’s will. Only the disobedient suffer, struggle and doubt that the pain is a part of God’s purpose. But Job, one of the oldest books in the Old Testament, tells us clearly that this is not true. Job didn’t suffer under Satan’s attacks because he was bad but because he was good. God uses the suffering as a means of refining and strengthening Job’s faith.
In a similar way, Isaiah makes it abundantly clear that the suffering of God’s Servant is not intended to demonstrate His sinfulness but His righteousness. The Servant responds, “I know I will not be put to shame. The One who vindicates Me is near [with me]; who will contend with Me?” He is adamant that God will vindicate Him and will not allow Him to be put to shame. How? Well, we have the advantage of 20/20 hindsight. The bodily resurrection of Jesus, the Suffering Servant, is the epitome of vindication and is a clear demonstration of Jesus’ righteousness and God’s pleasure with His absolute obedience.
“Instead He emptied Himself by assuming the form of a slave, taking on the likeness of men. And when He had come as a man in His external form, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death — even to death on a cross.” (Philippians 2:7-8 HCSB)
That’s precisely where this next section takes us, the undeniable holiness, righteousness and obedience of the Servant. He asks for anyone who wants to contend with Him, anyone who has a case against Him to come near and present themselves. Paul actually takes these same verses (Is. 50:8-9) and quotes them like this: “Who can bring an accusation against God’s elect? God is the One who justifies. Who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is the One who died, but even more, has been raised; He also is at the right hand of God and intercedes for us.” (Romans 8:33-34 HCSB)
Maybe you’re not catching the implication in those words. If so, let me be a bit more direct. God has declared Jesus righteous, declared His sacrificial death redemptive and validated all of this through His resurrection. Now we are able to stand justified before God in Christ, covered by His blood and justified by His righteousness. He took our punishment, died in our place. As that old song says, “There is power, power, wonder working power in the precious blood of the Lamb.”
God has done what we could only hope for in a way we could never have expected. He has done everything necessary to redeem us and restore us to fellowship with Him. His Suffering Servant has “turned” His back to take our beating, turned His cheeks to those who would tear out His beard, and His face to those who would spit on Him. Can you imagine, spitting in the face of God and His plan of redemption. The Righteous Servant is determined to do the will of God even though it includes suffering, pain and humiliation.
Finally, we reach the core lesson in these verses: Will we fear the LORD, listen to the voice of His Servant and walk through life’s darkness trusting God to faithfully lead the way? Or will we kindle a fire, light our own torches, and walk the dark path of life in the light of our own fire – our own way? Will we walk the path of life using our own light or His light? Will we walk following our own wisdom or will we walk in His wisdom? Ultimately, that’s the real question in life we must all answer: Will we live life our way or God’s way?
While Isaiah doesn’t tell us the results of living life God’s way, he implies it is the opposite of living life our own way. If we walk this path using our own light and our own knowledge and understanding of life then we lie down in a place of torment. However, if we listen to the voice of His Servant, trust in the name of Yahweh while leaning on Him and His understanding then we will lie down in a place of peace, joy and rest.
So, are your plans for your life bringing you the things your soul really desires? I told you at the beginning of this study that I often argue with myself. I can almost hear the argument going on in your mind, right now. The self-justifying and excuses we offer up when life doesn’t look like our dreams. If you want to know the wholeness that God promises for you then you need to learn to listen to Him, walk with Him by faith through the darkness… towards the light of His fulfilled promise for you.
Hilltop Baptist Church - Shawnee, OK 