I'd like to turn to Isaiah 42.
Our friend Mr Hawker makes this statement
about Isaiah 42. He says we have A blessed sermon
indeed. God the Father is the preacher,
Christ the mediator is both text and sermon, and God the Holy
Ghost is opening and making application of the blessed contents to the
Church of Christ. Before we begin I do want to
draw your attention to one verse in particular. which is perhaps
the most difficult verse in the passage. Verse 19 says, Who is
blind but my servant, or deaf as my messenger that I sent?
Who is blind as he that is perfect, and blind as the Lord's servant? if the servant here spoken of
is the Lord Jesus Christ, and He certainly is throughout this
passage, then how is it that He is blind? How is it that He
is deaf? How is it that the Saviour who
is Himself God could be blind and deaf? I think you'll agree
that it is not easily understood. Let's start at verse 1 in chapter
42 and make our way there. These first three verses are
also quoted in Matthew 12. Our Lord Jesus is very evidently
the fulfilment of this very prophecy. He is the servant that this passage
speaks of. Verse 1 says, Behold my servant,
whom I uphold, mine elect, In whom my soul delighteth, I have
put my spirit upon him, he shall bring forth judgement to the
Gentiles. So the Lord God bids us to behold
his beloved son. Behold my servant. That's the
reason why we are here today, isn't it? To behold this one
whom God delights in. Christ the Mediator came as a
servant. Philippians tells us that, doesn't
it? Philippians tells us that he took on the form of a servant,
that he made himself with no reputation. He humbled himself
and became obedient to death. such is the manner in which the
Messiah was prophesied to come. And God says of him, here is
mine elect, God's elect one, elect in the
office of mediator between God and man. He is elect as that
one who has saved his people from their sins and he is elect
in whom God the Father placed all his trust to obtain eternal
redemption for them. 2. He shall not cry, nor lift
up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street. In all his
ministry he will never be found regretting or complaining of
his circumstances. Never will he speak in frustration. He shall not cry, nor lift up. A bruised groove shall he not
break, and the smoking flax shall he not quench. He shall bring
forth judgement unto truth. Our Saviour. is a tender and
compassionate Saviour. Angus was saying just a little
moment ago that He is gentle, a gentle Saviour. A Saviour knows
full well, doesn't He, our weakness and He knows our frailty. And
here in verse 4 is the truth to stand on with confidence.
He shall not fail, nor be discouraged till he has set judgment in the
earth. He shall not fail. It is impossible,
isn't it, that he should fail and to suggest that he could
fail is an insult to God of the highest magnitude. Everything
that he was commissioned to do he would complete without fail. He is Jehovah's servant, isn't
he? Whatever he wills to do shall be completed. He shall not fail. And the isles shall wait for
his Lord. The isles represent those in
the remote regions. The islands, those who are far
off, it represents the Gentiles. The Lord God will preserve them
and keep them until they have heard his Gospel. He will cause
them to wait. And here is the commission of
Almighty God to this one who is his servant who shall not
fail. He says in verse 5, Thus saith
God the Lord, he that created the heavens and stretched them
out, he that spread forth the earth and that which cometh out
of it, he that giveth breath unto the people upon it, and
spirit to them that walk therein. O the Lord, have called thee
in righteousness." God has called his servant, the Lord Jesus Christ,
in righteousness. He has called him in righteousness
to fulfil righteousness, to perform all righteousness, to bring everlasting
righteousness to his people. And he says, I will hold thine
hand and keep thee and give thee for a covenant of the people
The Father was ever present with our Lord Jesus. His mighty angels
ever ready with him. I will give thee for a covenant,
he says, all the blessings of God's grace to chosen sinners
are found in Christ himself, aren't they? The Lord Jesus Christ
himself is that covenant. He is our surety, our covenant
surety. I will give thee a light for
the Gentiles, Verse 7, to open the blind eyes to bring out the
prisoners from the prison and them that sit in darkness out
of the prison house. Blind eyes, eyes that are spiritually
blind, blind to their own condition before a holy God, blind to sinfulness
of sin, blind to the holiness of God, and blind to the need
of the Saviour. We have no idea how blind we
are until God opens our eyes, the eyes of our understanding.
When John the Baptist was in prison he sent two of his disciples
to the Lord Jesus and he asked, are there he that should come
or do we look for another? Jesus answered and said unto
him, Go and show John again those things which ye do hear and see.
The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers
are cleansed, and the deaf hear. The dead are raised up, and the
poor have the gospel preached to them. Such are the works of
our Messiah. all performed to the glory of
the Father. His glory is paramount isn't
it? His glory must be known. In verse 8 he says, I am the
Lord, that is my name, and my glory will I not give to another,
neither my praise to graven images. Behold the former things have
come to pass. Everything in the past that God
recorded in the scriptures for us has come to pass. Everything
has come to pass. Everything he said he would do
has come to pass exactly as he said he would. And new things
do I declare before they spring forth. I tell you of them. This
very passage describes in fine detail the personal work of our
Lord Jesus Christ. It was written 700 years before
His Incarnation, before He was born. We have the privilege,
don't we, of looking back, looking back to the fulfilment of it.
and our knowledge of Him causes us to sing His praises. Verse
10 Sing unto the Lord a new song, and His praise from the end of
the earth, ye that go down to the sea, and all that is therein,
the isles and the inhabitants thereof. Let the wilderness and
the cities thereof lift up their voice. The villages that Kedar
doth inhabit, let the inhabitants of the rock, seeing weapon, shout
from the tops of the mountains. We love to sing that. Kim Davey,
Rock of Ages, cleft for me. Long ago the Lord God placed
His people in that rock for their safe keeping. We are inhabitants
of the rock. We are inhabitants of the rock.
The Lord God placed us in Christ. Verse 12, Let them give glory
unto the Lord and declare his praise in the islands. The Lord
shall go forth as a mighty man. He shall stir up jealousy like
a man of war. He shall cry, Yea, roar! He shall
prevail against his enemies. I have long held my peace. I
have been still and refrained myself. Now will I cry like a
travailing woman. I will destroy and devour at
once. I will make waste, mountains
and hills, and dry out all their herbs, and I will make the rivers
islands, and I will dry out the pools." That's God talking about
His activities and the salvation of His people. In the salvation
of His people the Law of God will make sure that every refuge
of lies will be taken away. Verse 16, And I will bring the
blind by a way they knew not, I will bring you by the way of
grace and mercy. I will bring you in the way of
righteousness. We would never have known the
grace and mercy and righteousness of God had He not brought us
that way. I will lead them in paths that
they have not known. I will make darkness light before
them and crooked things straight. I will take away your confusion.
I will cause you to see my hand and my work. I will cause you
to look to my servant. These things, he says, will I
do unto them and not forsake them. They shall be turned back. They shall be greatly ashamed
that trust in graven images that say to the molten images, ye
are our gods." After hearing the Gospel of grace? Were we not ashamed of the filthy
rags that we once held so dear, of the false idols and the gods
that we once esteemed? Were we not ashamed? Once we
were both deaf and blind, yet the Lord has made us to hear
and see. Hear ye deaf and look ye blind,
that ye may see. None of us can see the truth
of God. None of us can savingly hear
the Gospel. None of us can see salvation. None of us can hear or see anything
spiritual until the Lord enables us, until He causes us to look
to Christ for everything, until He causes us to see His servant
And here now the Lord God is speaking of this servant, the
Lord Jesus Christ is his messenger. Who is blind but my servant,
or deaf as my messenger that I sent? Who is blind as he that
is perfect, and blind as the Lord's servant? Our brother Don
Porto gave an excellent message called The Blind and Deaf Saviour.
I'd encourage you to listen to it sometime if you can. and he
speaks of this verse, Who is blind but my servant, or deaf
as my messenger? While our Lord Jesus Christ,
God's servant, walked on this earth as our substitute and our
surety and as our representative, doing all the will of God on
our behalf for the accomplishment of eternal salvation, God's servant
was blind. He was blind and deaf to all
the obstacles before Him. He was blind and deaf to everything
that would hinder Him. Willfully and deliberately He
was blind and deaf to anything that would stand in the way of
the redemption of His people. He was blind and deaf to the
temptations of Satan to lure Him away from His work to save
our souls. Satan used all the things that
men desired, didn't he, to cause him to stumble, but he was blind
to those temptations. He was deaf to the words of Satan. His eyes saw them, didn't they,
and his ears heard them, but he was blind and deaf to them.
When he was to go to Jerusalem his disciples knew that the Jews
sought to kill him and they tried to persuade him not to go. They
pleaded with him. but he was blind to their influence. He was deaf to their concerns
because he knew what he must do. In just a few pages over
in Isaiah chapter 50 verse 6 we read, I gave my back
to the smiters and my cheeks to them that plucked off my hair,
I hid not my face from shame and spitting. For the Lord God
will help me, therefore shall I not be confounded. Therefore
have I set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be
ashamed. Such was the determination of
our Lord Jesus Christ. He set his face like flint, unbending,
unbending, hardened, inflexible. He had the determination to go
forth and do what he had to do. He set his face like flint. He was blind and deaf, wasn't
he, to all the horror that was to come. as he prepared to give
himself a ransom, a ransom for many. He would not be moved from
his path. Who is blind but my servant,
or deaf as my messenger that I sent? Now Lord Jesus Christ
is God's messenger. He is the messenger of the covenant.
He himself is God's covenant messenger. He is the Word of
God. He is the revelation of God. He is God's messenger but
he is deaf. He is deaf to the slanders that
were heaped upon him. Not once did he protest against
them. If you turn over in Isaiah 53
you know it well. Verse 7 He was oppressed and he was afflicted,
yet he opened not his mouth. He is brought as a lamb to the
slaughter, and as a sheep before his shearer is his dung, so he
opened not his mouth. He was deaf to the accusations
of those men that stood there at his mock trial. Deaf to all
the taunts and jeers as he hung upon that tree, he was deaf and
blind to the humiliation and the suffering that was to be
endured. How thankful ought we be, how
thankful ought we be that he was perfectly blind and perfectly
deaf to every instrument of Satan designed to cause him to fail. Who is blind but my servant or
deaf as my messenger that I sent? Who is blind as he that is perfect
and blind as the Lord's servant, he that is perfect? He perfected
forever, didn't He? Them that are sanctified, perfect
in all that He did. He was God's perfect servant
and blind in this way also. May we rejoice to know it is
so. He was blind to the sins of His
people. Verse 20 says, Seeing many things,
but thou observest not opening the ears, but he heareth not."
Remember when Noah got drunk after the flood and he was found
naked by his son Ham and he called his brothers Sham and Japheth. Sham and Japheth took a blanket
and they put it over their shoulders and they walked in backwards
and they covered their father's nakedness. covered their father's nakedness. They refused to observe it. It was a shameful thing. So our
Lord Jesus sees many things, doesn't he? Our sins are so plainly
evident, aren't they? But he is blind to them. He observeth
not and he heareth not. Our sins are so evident. but
he doesn't lay them to our charge. God doesn't lay them to our charge.
He sees, doesn't he? The Lord Jesus is the omniscient
God. He sees all things but he is blind to our sins. Blessed
is the man to whom the Lord does not impute sin. It's a wonderful
truth that we love to declare. God has never beheld iniquity
in his people. He hath not beheld iniquity in
Jacob, neither hath he seen perverseness in Israel. We declare ourselves
to be the chief of sinners, don't we? Our sins are so plainly in
view all the time, yet he observeth not. He is blind to all the evil
in us and all the evil we perform. Lord Jesus made atonement for
our sins. God laid them on His Son. God
saw them on His Son and God punished them in His Son and now and forever
those sins are gone. He put them away. He covered
them up. May the Lord bless this to us
today. We are going to sing number 29.