THIS IS NOT FAKE NEWS (2)

Open Bibles to Isaiah 53:1

Isaiah 53:1 NASB95

1 Who has believed our message? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?

INTRODUCTION

In the survey taken in early 1991, interviewees were asked, "Do you agree strongly, agree somewhat, disagree somewhat, or disagree strongly with the following statement: There is no such thing as absolute truth; different people can define truth in conflicting ways and still be correct." Only 28% of the respondents expressed strong belief in "absolute truth," and more surprisingly, only 23 percent of born-again or evangelical Christians accepted this idea! What a telling revelation! If more than 75 percent of the followers of Christ say nothing can be known for certain, does this indicate, as it seems, that they are not convinced that Jesus existed, that He is who He claimed to be, that His Word is authentic, that God created the heavens and earth, or that eternal life awaits the believer? That's what the findings appear to mean. If there is no absolute truth, then by definition nothing can be said to be absolutely true. To the majority, apparently, it's all relative. Nothing is certain. Might be. Might not be. Who knows for sure? Take your guess and hope for the best!

This problem of uncertainty is complicated by the insistence that nothing we hear is true. Elizabeth Geitz says, “Every morning the same words scream out of my news feed and bleed onto the screen. “Fake News! That’s Fake News!” In a few short years, the phrase “Fake News” has earned a place in widely read dictionaries, educational games have been created about it, and legitimate news articles have been written about it. But Fake News is not new. Fake news started in a garden with a conversation between a woman and a snake.

The woman believed the serpent’s claim that God had given her some bad information (fake news) . The result of believing the lie is humanity is still in a ball of Confusion.

A Ball of Confusion... NOT KNOWING WHAT TO BELIEVE

What do you need in confusion?

CONTEXT OF THE TEXT

What people of God of Antiquity needed in their ball of confusion was the same thing that we need our present ball. That something is consolation. A message of hope and salvation.

The Eerdmans Bible Dictionary revealed that chs. 40–55 of Isaiah are “Commonly known as the Book of Consolation.”, They offer comfort to the exiles, promising God’s imminent salvation and the restoration of Israel.

This grand scheme is the theme of my consolation today because it was achieved by the suffering and death of a Savior.

This verse begins with two questions asked by a believing group of Israelites who have understood and accepted what the Lord revealed to them about the Servant. In earlier chapters Isaiah pointed out that many Israelites were deaf, blind, and failed to believe what God said ISAIAH 6:9–10; 7:9; 29:9–10; 42:18–19; 43:8; 48:4–8; 56:10),

Isaiah 6:9–10 (ESV)

9 And he said, “Go, and say to this people: “ ‘Keep on hearing, but do not understand; keep on seeing, but do not perceive.’ 10 Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and blind their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.”

but the Lord promised that in the future he would remove their blindness and they would trust in him (also discussed in Isaiah 29:18; 32:3–4; 35:5; 42:7, 16).

Isaiah 29:18 ESV

18 In that day the deaf shall hear the words of a book, and out of their gloom and darkness the eyes of the blind shall see.

SERMONIC CLAIM

I want to argue that the gospel of Jesus Christ is not Fake News.

Text: Isaiah 53:1

Isaiah 53:1 ESV

1 Who has believed what he has heard from us? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?

The gospel of Jesus Christ is not fake news because

IT IS A CERTAIN REALITY

Evidence: Hebrews 11:1

Hebrews 11:1 KJV 1900

1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

This is news by those who now understand what God is doing. The first rhetorical questions are marked by the interrogative “who” (mî), but they also function somewhat like an astonished exclamation. If the verb is used modally, 348 then the first question is asking: “Who would believe our report?” The question is not primarily asking how many people have believed what “we” have reported about the Servant; rather, it is communicating the fact that their report contains some astonishing factors that would be hard for anyone to believe. Belief and trust are always at the heart of every person’s relationship to God, but sometimes God reveals things that are hard for people to accept.

So, some make the decision to write it off as fake news. But what I am interested in finding out today is who has believed

WHO HAS BELIEVED

Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (116 אָמַן)

This very important concept in biblical doctrine gives clear evidence of the biblical meaning of “faith” in contradistinction to the many popular concepts of the term. At the heart of the meaning of the root is the idea of certainty. And this is borne out by the NT definition of faith found in Heb 11:1.

see Heb 11:1

Hebrews 11:1 KJV 1900

1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

The basic root idea is firmness or certainty. In the Hebrew it expresses the basic concept of support and is used in the sense of the strong arms of the parent supporting the helpless infant. The constancy involved in the verbal idea is further seen in that it occurs here only as a participle (expressing continuance). The idea of support is also seen in II Kgs 18:16, where it refers to pillars of support.In the Hebrew causative, it basically means “to cause to be certain, sure” or “to be certain about,” “to be assured.” In this sense the word is the biblical word for “to believe” and shows that biblical faith is an assurance, a certainty, in contrast with modern concepts of faith as something possible, hopefully true, but not certain.

If you should happen to fall into the uncertain crowd today, I rose to tell you that the gospel of Jesus Christ is not fake because

The Message Lives On

OUR REPORT

The second question inquires about what group of people received God’s revelation about the arm of the Lord. This question probably implies that most people have not heard about God’s revelation and that some who have heard about the Servant have not understood the meaning of God’s message. God revealed the “arm of the Lord,”349 his miraculous saving power, to the “us” (the Israelites) who have believed what God has said. These are the ones who are now giving the report in 53:2–12. They are sharing what they understand in order to convince more people to believe what God has revealed to them about the Servant.

It is not only their report it is also our report that people call unbelievable foolishness because it is hard to believe.

HE HAS A MIGHTY ARM

THE ARM OF THE LORD REVEALED

strength ⇔ arm n. — strength understood in terms of an arm; perhaps with an emphasis on the physical or fighting nature of the strength.

CONCLUSION

WHOSE REPORT DO YOU BELIEVE?

A New York evening paper on Saturday, May 21, 1927, the date of Lindbergh’s flight, contained on one of the inside pages an elaborate demonstration by some expert showing that Lindbergh could not make his goal. But the first page of that paper, printed later, had flung across the top of it in gigantic letters the news that Lindbergh had arrived.

Geitz, Elizabeth. 2019. Spiritual Truth in the Age of Fake News. Eugene, Oregon: Resource Publications.

Tan, Paul Lee. 1996. Encyclopedia of 7700 Illustrations: Signs of the Times. Garland, TX: Bible Communications, Inc.