Isaiah 50
Isaiah • Sermon • Submitted
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Ok; so turn to Isaiah 50 as we continue into the Holy of Holies of Isaiah. Of course it is here that Isaiah prophesies regarding the suffering and death of the Messiah for the Sins of the world. Keep in mind this was written 700 years prior to Jesus’ birth.
Isaiah 50 beginning at verse 1
1 Thus says the LORD:
“Where is the certificate of your mother’s divorce,
Whom I have put away?
Or which of My creditors is it to whom I have sold you?
For your iniquities you have sold yourselves,
And for your transgressions your mother has been put away.
2 Why, when I came, was there no man?
Why, when I called, was there none to answer?
Is My hand shortened at all that it cannot redeem?
Or have I no power to deliver?
Indeed with My rebuke I dry up the sea,
I make the rivers a wilderness;
Their fish stink because there is no water,
And die of thirst.
3 I clothe the heavens with blackness,
And I make sackcloth their covering.”
Here Isaiah is continuing the thought of in Chapter 49, that God has forgotten them.
14 But Zion said, “The LORD has forsaken me,
And my Lord has forgotten me.”
The thought of Judah at that time was that they were like children of a divorced mother with no father to provide for them. That were sold into slavery because the could not pay their debts.
But God answers and says, “I haven’t sold you, but you have sold yourselves because of your iniquities.
Why, when I came, was there no man: Seeing that Zion’s troubles come from their own disobedience, where is the man who will stand up for Israel? Who will contend their case before God?
Or, there may be another sense: “Here the Lord compares Himself to a man and father of a household who is treated shamefully by his own wife and children. When he came home, there was no one to welcome him and when he called, no one answered him. Hence, He who had the right to all their respect was treated as one without any rights.” (Bultema)
In Verse 2 when he says, Is My hand shortened at all that it cannot redeem? Or have I no power to deliver?
He is speaking rhetorically. God could deliver us from any situation at any time. Power is never a problem with God. The problem is us.
Some see the last line of verse 3 I clothe the heavens with blackness, And I make sackcloth their covering.”
as a reference to the crucifixion of Christ when the sky became dark.
44 Now it was about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour.
Here Isaiah foresees the day to day life of Christ as a man.
4 “The Lord GOD has given Me
The tongue of the learned,
That I should know how to speak
A word in season to him who is weary.
The Pharisees were always trying to trip Him up with their “gotcha” questions. But in perfect wisdom and poise he would answer.
This speaks to us as well. Are we prepared to speak a word in season to the weary? I hope we are all becoming more and more familiar with God’s word..
He awakens Me morning by morning,
He awakens My ear
To hear as the learned.
Here speaking of His fellowship with the Father.
5 The Lord GOD has opened My ear;
And I was not rebellious,
Nor did I turn away.
This is a great verse in regard to His obedience to the Fathers will. When servant was working for his master, according to Hebrew law, he would serve 6 years and would then be set free. But if he loved His master he could become a “bond servant” (Greek is doulos) and serve for the rest of his life. This was commemorated by going to the doorpost and have a “awl” puncture his ear. So here, we Jesus, allowing the Father to, “ opened My ear;” and was not rebellious, Nor did I turn away.
Now Isaiah, at verse 6, begins to unveil what the Messiah would go through.
6 I gave My back to those who struck Me,
And My cheeks to those who plucked out the beard;
I did not hide My face from shame and spitting.
7 “For the Lord GOD will help Me;
Therefore I will not be disgraced;
Therefore I have set My face like a flint,
And I know that I will not be ashamed.
Notice here that Jesus, “Gave His back” willingly to those beating Him. He obediently endured this horrible torture for your sake and mine.
1 Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
“His back” here speaks of the Roman scourging He received.
Scourging Practices
Scourging Practices
Flogging was a legal preliminary to every Roman execution, and only women and Roman senators or soldiers (except in cases of desertion) were exempt. The usual instrument was a short whip with several single or braided leather thongs of variable lengths, in which small iron balls or sharp pieces of sheep bones were tied at intervals. For scourging, the man was stripped of his clothing, and his hands were tied to an upright post. The back, buttocks, and legs were flogged either by two soldiers (lictors) or by one who alternated positions. The severity of the scourging depended on the disposition of the lictors and was intended to weaken the victim to a state just short of collapse or death. As the Roman soldiers repeatedly struck the victim’s back with full force, the iron balls would cause deep contusions, and the leather thongs and sheep bones would cut into the skin and subcutaneous tissues. Then, as the flogging continued, the lacerations would tear into the underlying skeletal muscles and produce quivering ribbons of bleeding flesh. Pain and blood loss generally set the stage for circulatory shock. The extent of blood loss may well have determined how long the victim would survive on the cross. After the scourging, the soldiers often taunted their victim.
If you have seen the Passion of the Christ you have an indelible picture of the brutality in your mind.
There is no specific mention in the gospels of those who plucked out the beard of Jesus as part of His pre-crucifixion suffering, but from this passage in Isaiah we know it happened. What terrible agony Jesus endured! It is even more than what the gospel writers explain to us! “We have before us the language of prophecy, but it is as accurate as though it had been written at the moment of the event. Isaiah might have been one of the Evangelists, so exactly does he describe what our Savior endured.” (Spurgeon)
“He suffered the deepest, for to pluck out the hair (of the beard) and to cover someone’s face with spit was, according to Near-Eastern concepts, the most humiliating suffering that could be inflicted upon a man.” (Bultema)
When Isaiah writes, Therefore I have set My face like a flint, this is speaking of the Messiah’s mental preparation to be beaten. A flint is used to make sparks to start a fire. You strike it with metal over and over.
We begin to have a greater understanding of sweating blood in the garden. He knowing all to well well what was about to take place.
We comtinue;
8 He is near who justifies Me;
Who will contend with Me?
Let us stand together.
Who is My adversary?
Let him come near Me.
9 Surely the Lord GOD will help Me;
Who is he who will condemn Me?
Indeed they will all grow old like a garment;
The moth will eat them up.
Here the Messiah, our Jesus, is speaking of His confidence in the Father. Verse 9 is the idea behind
31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?
10 “Who among you fears the LORD?
Who obeys the voice of His Servant?
Who walks in darkness
And has no light?
Let him trust in the name of the LORD
And rely upon his God.
This a message to us, Who obeys the voice of His Servant? If you are in darkness Trust in Jesus and rely upon Him.
Verse 11 is a warning to the idol worshippers and occultists, those who would offer false or profane fire.
11 Look, all you who kindle a fire,
Who encircle yourselves with sparks:
Walk in the light of your fire and in the sparks you have kindled—
This you shall have from My hand:
You shall lie down in torment.
Not the way to exit this life!
Chapter 51
In this chapter is comforting His discouraged people.
1 “Listen to Me, you who follow after righteousness,
You who seek the LORD:
Look to the rock from which you were hewn,
And to the hole of the pit from which you were dug.
2 Look to Abraham your father,
And to Sarah who bore you;
For I called him alone,
And blessed him and increased him.”
Where do you go when you are feeling down? Isaiah tells us to look to the history of our forefathers in faith. That’s one of the wonders of having the Word of God. That we can see and remember our roots, which is the rock from which you were hewn.
"the hole of the pit from which you were dug.” Speaks of our lives BC.
3 For the LORD will comfort Zion,
He will comfort all her waste places;
He will make her wilderness like Eden,
And her desert like the garden of the LORD;
Joy and gladness will be found in it,
Thanksgiving and the voice of melody.
4 “Listen to Me, My people;
And give ear to Me, O My nation:
For law will proceed from Me,
And I will make My justice rest
As a light of the peoples.
5 My righteousness is near,
My salvation has gone forth,
And My arms will judge the peoples;
The coastlands will wait upon Me,
And on My arm they will trust.
6 Lift up your eyes to the heavens,
And look on the earth beneath.
For the heavens will vanish away like smoke,
The earth will grow old like a garment,
And those who dwell in it will die in like manner;
But My salvation will be forever,
And My righteousness will not be abolished.
Everything in this material world will ultimately be destroyed. Our homes, our possessions, everything. Only our spirit will carry on. But My salvation will be forever,
And My righteousness will not be abolished. There are no second chances after this life.
7 “Listen to Me, you who know righteousness,
You people in whose heart is My law:
Do not fear the reproach of men,
Nor be afraid of their insults.
Jesus said,
28 And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.
8 For the moth will eat them up like a garment,
And the worm will eat them like wool;
But My righteousness will be forever,
And My salvation from generation to generation.”
9 Awake, awake, put on strength,
O arm of the LORD!
Awake as in the ancient days,
In the generations of old.
Are You not the arm that cut Rahab apart,
And wounded the serpent?
Rahab can mean, the harlot of Joshua, or Egypt, or the “proud one”. Serpent is referring to the “dragon” or “sea serpent” “leviathan.” We are not sure exactly what He is referring to here. My thought is that this regarding the war in heaven prior to Gen 1:2.
10 Are You not the One who dried up the sea,
The waters of the great deep;
That made the depths of the sea a road
For the redeemed to cross over?
11 So the ransomed of the LORD shall return,
And come to Zion with singing,
With everlasting joy on their heads.
They shall obtain joy and gladness;
Sorrow and sighing shall flee away.
12 “I, even I, am He who comforts you.
Who are you that you should be afraid
Of a man who will die,
And of the son of a man who will be made like grass?
13 And you forget the LORD your Maker,
Living in fear and forgetting the Lord are two sides of the same coin. They go together.
Who stretched out the heavens
And laid the foundations of the earth;
You have feared continually every day
Because of the fury of the oppressor,
When he has prepared to destroy.
And where is the fury of the oppressor?
14 The captive exile hastens, that he may be loosed,
That he should not die in the pit,
And that his bread should not fail.
15 But I am the LORD your God,
Who divided the sea whose waves roared—
The LORD of hosts is His name.
16 And I have put My words in your mouth;
I have covered you with the shadow of My hand,
That I may plant the heavens,
Lay the foundations of the earth,
And say to Zion, ‘You are My people.’ ”
Quite obviously we can’t see the spiritual world going on around us because God has shielded it from us with His hand. Just as He did with Moses in the cleft of the Mountain. For know we must see with eyes of faith!
We continue;
17 Awake, awake!
Stand up, O Jerusalem,
You who have drunk at the hand of the LORD
The cup of His fury;
You have drunk the dregs of the cup of trembling,
And drained it out.
The Jewish leaders said at the trial of Jesus;
25 And all the people answered and said, “His blood be on us and on our children.”
And truly they have paid a great price.
18 There is no one to guide her
Among all the sons she has brought forth;
Nor is there any who takes her by the hand
Among all the sons she has brought up.
19 These two things have come to you;
Who will be sorry for you?—
Desolation and destruction, famine and sword—
By whom will I comfort you?
20 Your sons have fainted,
They lie at the head of all the streets,
Like an antelope in a net;
They are full of the fury of the LORD,
The rebuke of your God.
21 Therefore please hear this, you afflicted,
And drunk but not with wine.
22 Thus says your Lord,
The LORD and your God,
Who pleads the cause of His people:
“See, I have taken out of your hand
The cup of trembling,
The dregs of the cup of My fury;
You shall no longer drink it.
23 But I will put it into the hand of those who afflict you,
Who have said to you,
‘Lie down, that we may walk over you.’
And you have laid your body like the ground,
And as the street, for those who walk over.”
Israel has paid a heavy price for their unbelief and the worst is yet to come with the Great Tribulation. But ultimately God will remove their “cup of trembling” and they will return to the Lord.