Isaiah 52-53

If you were to ask me what you wore last week to church, I probably could not tell you. However, if you were to ask me what a particular person 25 years in a little town of Arkansas wore, I could still tell you to this day. His name was Vern. Prior to a circumstance 25 years ago I had never seen Vern in my life, and after this particular event I never saw him again. I was traveling with my family in our white conversion van through the windy roads of Arkansas on our way to Kansas City . All of a sudden the van decided to stop working, and we had to pull over to the side of the road. Prior to this my parents were in a situation where the van had overheated. They had left the vehicle and were walking along side the road to get help when a man pulled over to give them help. Dad referred to the helper as an angel due the unusual circumstances in which God helped them. So when the van stalled this time, my brother chimed in and said: “Where is your angel now.?” My dad led us in praying together for God’s help. Just as we finished praying a vehicle pulled up right beside us. He walked up to our window and asked if we needed any help. We knew we needed help, but we did not know what the problem was. This man, Vern, knew enough about vehicles to figure out that our fuel pump was bad. He then drove my dad to the nearest town, bought the part himself, and came back and repaired the van. We then proceeded on to Kansas City without any other problems.

Actually, I don’t remember the clothing he wore that day, and if he was still living today, I probably could not pick his face out of a crowd. But I do remember that Vern showed up in work clothes. Vern could have been wearing nice clothes and still been wearing work clothes, because his attitude was one of a willingness to put aside his needs and help someone else.

Had I met Vern under other circumstances in Arkansas, I don’t think I would have been rude, but I would not have seen him as significant, nor would I remember him today. He would be insignificant because I would not see the need of His role.

When God shows up on the scene of a needy world, He shows up in work clothes (As a Servant). However, this clothing is so unbecoming, that people view Him as insignificant. The problem is not God’s servant, it is ours. We don’t see how desperately we need one who comes in the work clothes, nor do we see the true work and identity of this Servant.

I think we would be best to look at this passage with prayerful heart that God show us the identity and ways of His servant, expose the ways in which we insignificantly view Him, and continue His servant’s work in our heart.

The Servant’s humble work brings about exaltation (52:13-15)

Isaiah 52:13–15 NKJV

Behold, My Servant shall deal prudently; He shall be exalted and extolled and be very high. Just as many were astonished at you, So His visage was marred more than any man, And His form more than the sons of men; So shall He sprinkle many nations. Kings shall shut their mouths at Him; For what had not been told them they shall see, And what they had not heard they shall consider.

The Servant is not casual and uncertain. He knows the end He is going to bring about, and He is able to wisely and effectively carry it out.

He will not be stopped by the most humbling means for accomplishing His work.

He works for the benefit of all people without appreciation. He works for their supreme benefit (Sprinkling nations) when they have no clue of the benefit that He is bringing to them

People are astonished. There is no foreseeable way that humility can lead to exaltation.

The Servant works in unattractive ways (53:1-3)

Isaiah 53:1-3

Isaiah 53:1–3 NKJV

Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant, And as a root out of dry ground. He has no form or comeliness; And when we see Him, There is no beauty that we should desire Him. He is despised and rejected by men, A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.

The Servant’s work is met with unbelief. Used by Paul in Romans 10:16

The only way that one will understand the servant’s work is through revelation.

The people did not believe Him because He was unattractive (regular family, not the mighty arm of God, no outward attractiveness

He faced the same afflictions and losses of living in a broken world.

You would think that a world would welcome one who is like them and understands them. They are all right with a loving Jesus, miracle working Jesus, but they don’t want a Jesus whose message makes a claim on their lives.

Matthew 13:55–57 NKJV

Is this not the carpenter’s son? Is not His mother called Mary? And His brothers James, Joses, Simon, and Judas? And His sisters, are they not all with us? Where then did this Man get all these things?” So they were offended at Him. But Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his own country and in his own house.”

Application: Attraction to people because of popularity. Despising of weakness not seeing that out these situations God brings about life. We don’t see ourselves as blind.

The servant works as a substitute to make sons out of rebels (53:4-6)

Isaiah 53:4-6

Isaiah 53:4–6 NKJV

Surely He has borne our griefs And carried our sorrows; Yet we esteemed Him stricken, Smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned, every one, to his own way; And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.

Substitution is seen in the wording of “he” vs “we” and “born” and “carried” God laid our iniquity on Him

Man thought that his suffering was due to his sin condition. He was paying for things that He did.

When in fact we did the sinning and he experience the suffering consequences.

Man’s ways our described as rebellious, foolish, shortsighted.

God want to take willfull, wandering sheep and bring them to a restored relationship with Him.

There was once a bridge which spanned a large river. During most of the day the bridge sat with its length running up and down the river paralleled with the banks, allowing ships to pass thru freely on both sides of the bridge. But at certain times each day, a train would come along and the bridge would be turned sideways across the river, allowing a train to cross it.

A switchman sat in a small shack on one side of the river where he operated the controls to turn the bridge and lock it into place as the train crossed. One evening as the switchman was waiting for the last train of the day to come, he looked off into the distance thru the dimming twilight and caught sight of the trainlights. He stepped to the control and waited until the train was within a prescribed distance when he was to turn the bridge. He turned the bridge into position, but, to his horror, he found the locking control did not work. If the bridge was not securely in position it would wobble back and forth at the ends when the train came onto it, causing the train to jump the track and go crashing into the river. This would be a passenger train with many people aboard. He left the bridge turned across the river, and hurried across the bridge to the other side of the river where there was a lever switch he could hold to operate the lock manually. He would have to hold the lever back firmly as the train crossed. He could hear the rumble of the train now, and he took hold of the lever and leaned backward to apply his weight to it, locking the bridge. He kept applying the pressure to keep the mechanism locked. Many lives depended on this man’s strength.

Then, coming across the bridge from the direction of his control shack, he heard a sound that made his blood run cold. “Daddy, where are you?” His four-year-old son was crossing the bridge to look for him. His first impulse was to cry out to the child, “Run! Run!” But the train was too close; the tiny legs would never make it across the bridge in time. The man almost left his lever to run and snatch up his son and carry him to safety. But he realized that he could not get back to the lever. Either the people on the train or his little son must die. He took a moment to make his decision.

The train sped safely and swiftly on its way, and no one aboard was even aware of the tiny broken body thrown mercilessly into the river by the onrushing train. Nor were they aware of the pitiful figure of the sobbing man, still clinging tightly to the locking lever long after the train had passed. They did not see him walking home more slowly than he had ever walked: to tell his wife how their son had brutally died.

Read more: http://www.inspirationalarchive.com/113/the-bridge-keeper/#ixzz5hAO3k9Pj

Application: We view the servant’s work lightly because we don’t see our sin as that bad. We easily believe that closeness to Him is a condition of misery and one that upsets they joys that we want.

The servant works voluntarily (53:7-9)

Isaiah 53:7–9 NKJV

He was oppressed and He was afflicted, Yet He opened not His mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, And as a sheep before its shearers is silent, So He opened not His mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment, And who will declare His generation? For He was cut off from the land of the living; For the transgressions of My people He was stricken. And they made His grave with the wicked— But with the rich at His death, Because He had done no violence, Nor was any deceit in His mouth.

The servant does not resist because He knows what He is accomplishing. The wandering sheep go away, the submissibe sheep pays the price. This was distinct from the OT sacrifice of the sheep.

He was innocent though condemned. His innocence was complete inwardly and outwardly

Application: Do we view the Servant’s work in our life as something that He is coerced to do. Do we think that God is casual in his work?

The Servant works successfully

Isaiah 53:10–12 NKJV

Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief. When You make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, And the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand. He shall see the labor of His soul, and be satisfied. By His knowledge My righteous Servant shall justify many, For He shall bear their iniquities. Therefore I will divide Him a portion with the great, And He shall divide the spoil with the strong, Because He poured out His soul unto death, And He was numbered with the transgressors, And He bore the sin of many, And made intercession for the transgressors.

God’s perfect plan was executed by the Son. God is not coerced to do this.

God makes the full provision

He will have many descendants

The Servant is satisfied. He knew he acted according to God’s plan

The Servant stayed fit for the task

Perfect substitution, perfect sin-bearing brings a perfect righteousness

* The Servant is thus a go-between, interposing between two parties, not as a barrier but as a bridge. In verse 6, the Lord put his Servant in between, using him as a means of disposing of that (our iniquity) which alienated him from us. Here the Servant comes voluntarily to stand with us so that when he had borne our sin he might bring us to God.

Application: Hopeless situations are not the end

YOur sin is not insignficant

Don’t live for shorsighted goals

Put on work clothes to be God’s servant in other’s lives

Philippians 2:1–5 NKJV

Therefore if there is any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and mercy, fulfill my joy by being like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others. Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus,