Turn back to Isaiah chapter 50. Isaiah 50. The first thing that our Lord
does is He gives a challenge. And I want us to realize that
the one speaking in this chapter is the Lord Jesus Christ. Spurgeon
called Him Jehovah Jesus. He's the one speaking here. Now
he says, where is the bill of your mother's divorcement? Produce the papers that say,
I divorced her. Produce the papers, is what he's
saying. To which of my creditors have I sold you? In other words,
to whom am I in debt? Who am I indebted to so much
that I have sold you to them?" The root of the problem is not
with our Lord. The root of the problem is always
with us. Always with us. Your iniquities
and your transgressions have separated you from your God.
That's our problem. Our iniquities, our sins. Like
Gomer. When she left Hosea, she went
back to her hoardings. That's what she did. She went
back to her old way of life. We have no one to blame but ourselves. We are our worst enemies. I realize
that. I realize I am my worst problem.
There's nobody else. Nobody else is my worst problem.
I am. I am. We are the cause of our own troubles,
and that's because of our sins. Sin brings nothing but trouble,
trouble, trouble. And sin, as it says here, separates
from God. When Adam fell in the garden,
he was cast out. And when he was cast out, we
were cast out. Sin separated us from God. Christ is the one
who came and brought us back to God. brought his people back
to God. And he said, wherefore when I
came, was there no man? When Christ came in mercy, no
one wanted it. No one was seeking mercy. I wasn't
seeking mercy when the Lord came to me. I was going over to mom
and dad's to eat supper. That's what I was doing. I was
going over there to eat. Dad said, that man's preaching
the gospel. I said, now listen, I heard the gospel. He said, why was there no man
to receive me when I came? I'll tell you why. No one wanted
him. No one wanted him. You know, people don't want,
now listen, people do not want mercy. They want to go to heaven. They want to go to heaven. A
place, it's a retirement home. That's the way it comes across,
it's a retirement home. Don't you want to go to heaven? I heard this at a funeral a few
years ago. This man had died. Of course, that's a funeral. That's why you go to funerals.
He had died. Mr. Obvious here. But anyway,
at the funeral, the man talks about how much this man loved
to play golf and fish. And he said, right now I know
he's in heaven fishing and he's gonna play around the golf. That's
how the world sees it. They see heaven as this retreat. I don't wanna be saved to go
to heaven, I wanna be saved from my sins and be made one with
God Almighty. That's what salvation is. It's
to be made one with God. I was separated in Adam, But
in Christ, I'm made one. Read John 17, our Lord's intercessory
prayer, and note how many times that he says that we may be one,
that they may be one as we are one. It's that oneness, it's
that union with God again in Christ, that's salvation. I'll
tell you what heaven is, it's wherever Christ is. That's heaven. Paradise is being with God. It's being with God. That's what
it is. Christ came into this world,
and the world, it says, the world knew Him not. He came to His
own people, and they wouldn't have anything to do with Him.
They turned thumbs down on Him. They wanted nothing to do with
Him. The Old Testament says someone's coming, and when He came, They
said, crucify, crucify. That's what they said. That's
the reception he got. You would think, you would think
that when the creator of heaven and earth, when he came into
this world, that his creation would be happy, that the human
race would rejoice, but instead they despised and rejected him.
That's the reception he got when he came into this world. That's
the reception God Almighty got from his creation of man. And then he says, and when I
called, was there none to answer? He called to the marriage feast
and all were too busy. Some said, I bought a piece of
land. I got to go see it. I'm married. I've got a wife.
They had one excuse after another. He called to the marriage feast.
He said this, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I have gathered
you together as a hen doth gather her brood, and you would not.
You would not. He called by the gospel, but
none would have it except, except those he made willing in the
day of his power. They are the ones who will have
it, and no one else. No one else. If you left this,
if the gospel, if salvation is left up to the free will of man,
not one person on this earth will be saved. Not one. If God
does not make us willing, we'll never come to Him. We'll never
believe on Him. We'll never want anything to
do with Him. God's got to change my will. And the only way He
does that is by giving me a new nature, because that old nature
will never love Jesus Christ. Never. Now he says in verse 2, he's
saying, am I the problem? Is God the problem? Is my hand
shortened that it cannot save? Is that the problem? Or have
I no power to deliver? Am I the problem? Adam said he
was. Adam said, the woman you gave me. If you hadn't given
me that woman, I wouldn't be in this situation. That's what
he said. He blamed God. The woman you
gave me is the reason why this happened. It's amazing how he felt that
it was gone. He was gone. We believe in total depravity.
Total depravity happened when Adam fell. It all happened at
once. He didn't gradually become more
sin. No, it was over with right there. It was over with right
there. Is my hand withered? Remember
the Lord said, told that man with a withered hand, stick out
your hand. He did and it was made whole. And he said, is my
hand withered? Is that the problem? Is the sinner
in the state he's in through lack of power in Christ to save,
is that the problem? Did Adam fall because Christ's
power was not able to keep him from falling? Is that the problem? Absolutely not. Not. And our Lord proves it here.
He's going to give us a display of His power. Now He's going
to say, now behold, lest you think the problem is with me,
and my hand is withered, and I don't have the power to save,
and that you're in the mess you're in because of me, and my lack
of power. Now behold, and pay attention
to this. Behold, at my rebuke, he didn't build a dam. At his
rebuke, he dried up the seed. At his rebuke, he told the seed
apart, and it parted. He said, at my rebuke, I made
the rivers a wilderness. It became a desert. That which
was so flourishing and green and plush is now a desert. He said, I dried it up and I
dried it up at my rebuke. God's power is demonstrated in
the earth every day. Whenever you and I see something
happen in this world like that tsunami that happened a few years
ago in Japan, that's God. I'm telling you, that's God. It's written in the Psalms, come
behold the works of the Lord, what desolations he hath made
in the earth, the Grand Canyon. God made that. Now God's a God
of means, but now God did that. We need to begin to talk like
the Old Testament prophets and people talked. Job said, by the
breath of God, frost is given. We need to attribute these things
to God. At His word, God parted the sea,
dried up Jordan for His ransom to pass over. Never think, never
think, let us never think for a moment that my situation, your
situation, is due to a lack of power in God. It's never, never. Now He directs our attention
to the heavens. He says in verse 3, I clothe the heavens with
blackness, and I make sackcloth their covering. Brethren, that's power. That's
power. Turn over to Revelation chapter
6. Revelation chapter 6. Look in verse 12. And the eye beheld when He had
opened the sixth seal, and lo, there was a great earthquake,
and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became
as blood. Christ has the power. Now listen,
I can go over here and flip a switch here and flip a switch over there,
and I can turn the lights out in this house. The Lord Jesus
Christ can turn the lights out in heaven. That's what he's saying. I have the power to turn the
lights out in heaven. But back over in Exodus 10, verse
21, when Moses is talking to Pharaoh and he's giving those
plagues, he gives a plague of darkness, and it says it was
a darkness that could be felt. That could be felt, that dark. Our Lord is able to block out
the sun, if He will. Remember when our Lord died on
the cross? Darkness filled the land for three hours. For three hours, the Lord, the
very one hanging on the cross, turned the lights out. He said, now you want to talk
about power? He said, you want to talk about power? At my rebuke,
I dried up the sea, I turned the wilderness into a desert,
and I can turn out the lights in heaven. Now, what's the problem now?
Is it you or me? Is it you or me? God said, I
tell you the problem, it's your sins. Boy, if we can ever realize
and understand that our problem is sin, and that there is a remedy
for it. There is a fountain filled with
blood that flows from Emmanuel's veins. There's a fountain. And now our
Lord has been speaking, He's been speaking as God, as God
of heaven and earth. Now He's gonna speak as a man,
as the servant. He says, the Lord, in verse 4,
the Lord hath given me the tongue of the learned. This is Christ
the prophet. If we come to know anything of
God, the Father, we're going to know Him through Jesus Christ.
Or no other way. No other way. No man knoweth
the Father save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will
reveal Him. That's what the Word of God says.
Christ said, as I hear, I speak. Every word He spoke, Every word that came from His
mouth, He said, is what I've heard. It's given to me by the
Father. Christ never spoke independently
of the Father. Never. Now the best teacher,
listen, the best teacher is the one who has learned the lesson
that he or she is teaching. That's the best teacher. The
one who's learned the lesson. That's our teaching. That's how He could speak, as
He said, a word in season to the weary. That's how He can
speak to the weary soul, is because He's been there. Tempted, tried
in all points as we are, yet without sin. He can speak a word
in season because He's the God of all comfort and the God of
all grace. That's who He is. That's who Jesus Christ is. And
our Lord experienced His own lesson. He said, take my yoke upon you
and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart. You shall
find rest to your soul. He's both teacher and lesson. That's who He is. He's the teacher
and He's the lesson. And He says here in verse 4,
He wakeneth, the Father wakeneth morning by morning. He wakeneth
mine ear to hear as to learn. God was His teacher as a man. Now listen, this is the realness
of His manhood. As a man, He had to learn everything
like you and I learn. And He learned it quickly. I
don't learn quickly because of sin. That's the reason you and
I don't learn quickly. That's the reason why we forget
by the time we get out the door. It's sin. It's sin. But Christ
knew no sin. And He learned early. He learned
quickly. God the Father was His teacher,
and none teaches like God. I tell you what, if God takes
in hand to teach you, you're gonna learn. God's not going
to try to teach you anything. God's not going to try to teach
me anything. God's going to teach me. And I promise you, when He
teaches me, I'm going to learn the lesson. Now, I may not graduate
out of the first grade for about four or five years, but, you know, I may be there a while.
What's funny, when I was in the ninth grade, I went to school
with a guy. He had a full beard. He had a
full beard. You know, for years I thought,
man, that's cool. I did, I thought that was cool. Then after finally
I grew up, I realized he probably should have been out three years
earlier. It wasn't so cool. Some of those things get stuck
in here. But anyway, our Lord, He said,
He wakeneth me morning by morning. Every morning, the Father was
His teacher. All thy children, and I tell
you what, ever since, all thy children shall be taught of God.
God's our teacher too, our Father, our Teacher. Whether we realize
it or not, every day, everything we go through, God's teaching
us. We may not realize who the Teacher is at that moment, but
He's teaching us. He's bringing us to a knowledge of Him in Christ. And then, listen, God was His
teacher, and He was an obedient student. An obedient servant. I was not rebellious. My brother,
my oldest brother, man, he skipped school every day, had a heartbeat.
My dad gave him a whip and said, don't you do it again, and he
did it the next day. Dad caught him, he said, I'm just gonna
give up on you. But our Lord was an obedient
student. He was a learner. He was not
rebellious. He said, I was not rebellious.
He submitted to the instructions of His Father. He learned of
His sufferings. Listen. Our Lord, as a man, learned
of His sufferings. He was taught by His Father,
our Heavenly Father. He was taught what He was going
to have to go through. What He was going to have to suffer.
He learned. He's the Messiah. As a man, he
learned that. He learned that. As God, he knew
it. As man, he had to learn it. He
grew in wisdom, it says, and in stature. Christ was a willing servant,
a willing Savior. He was willing to suffer and
die for sinners. He was not rebellious. He did
not flinch at this. He did not turn back. When he
was taught this, he said, Father, Thy will be done. Not my will,
but Thy will be done. Christ loved His Father, and
He loved to do His will, which included suffering. It included
being made sin. It included dying. It included
being made what I am, sin. And he didn't turn back from
it. He was not rebellious. In fact, he says, I gave my back
to the smiters. This shows us his manhood. Scripture
says a body has now prepared me, a body to suffer and die
in, a body to offer as a sacrifice. I gave my back. They didn't take
it. When they came to the garden
of Gethsemane to get our Lord, I don't want to say take our
Lord, they came to get Him because God had purposed it. And He said,
He identified Himself. I am. And you know what they
did? They fell backwards. They fell backwards on the ground. the God of heaven and earth,
the Lord Jesus Christ had to give His enemies the strength
and the courage to get up off the ground and take Him and finish
the job. Isn't that amazing? He had to
give them the strength and the courage to get up, come over
here, take me, and finish this thing. That's what He had to
do. I gave my backs to the smiters,
they didn't take it, I gave it to them. His back, I want you
to know this, a body has now prepared me. His back was made
for smiting. That's the purpose of his back.
Every body part he had had a purpose. And his back was made for smiting. I gave my back to the smiters.
By his stripes, we are healed. If he doesn't get those stripes,
that smiting, we're not healed. He's gotta go through every bit
of suffering that I've gotta go through, or would have to
go through. It is cheap for them to pluck off the hair. Can you
imagine somebody grabbing you by the face and ripping your
beard out? I mean, I've had a, you know,
I had a beard when the boys were little, and they're just babies,
and they'd grab ahold of it, and you just wanted to drop them. It hurt. It hurt. They grabbed him by
the face and just ripped it out. That is how much hatred the human
race has for God. That's how much hatred we had
for God. And he said, his cheek for them
that pluck off the hair. There's no way for Jesus Christ
to save any sinner without suffering what that sinner ought to suffer.
The hatred of men, the justice of God. And listen, I hid not my face
from shame and spitting. How shameful was it to be stripped
naked? I'd hate to be stripped naked and be put out public. You know, they got him. You see
these pictures they do. They got him wearing a loincloth.
No, he was stripped naked. He was bare. He was naked as
Adam in the garden. What was it that Adam said? When
God came, he was afraid. And he was ashamed. Why? Why? Because I was naked. And they stripped our Lord naked.
They took everything, because that's the way we are before
God. You and I stand before God stripped naked. Not one thing
do we have to cover any part of us. Nothing. And he said,
I hid not my face from shame. And they spit in his face. He knew what he had to suffer.
He knew exactly everything that was gonna happen
to him. Nothing took him by surprise. And here's one of the reasons
why he was able to do this. Verse seven, for the Lord God
will help me. Brother, this is our confidence in everything
we do. Whatever we go through, the Lord God will help me. That's
faith. Now listen, I can say the Lord
God will help me, and before I get out the door here, I'll
start having doubts. When the Lord said the Lord God
will help me, he never doubted it for a second. Not even a glimmer
of a doubt crossed his mind that God would not help him. This should always be our strength
and confidence, that the Lord God will help me. But listen,
as a man, the Lord Jesus Christ trusted His Father perfectly.
I want you to get this. His faith, His perfect faith,
His perfect faithfulness is our righteousness. That's our righteousness. Christ knew He would suffer shame,
yet He would not be ashamed in the end. And He wouldn't be ashamed
of a group of people like us. He took our shame away. He took
it all away. He put it all away. And here's
His resolve. And this is the kind of resolve
we ought to have. But He says, for the Lord God
will help me, and because of that, I have set my face like
a flint. You remember it says over in
the Gospel, He set His face like a flint to go to Jerusalem? Well,
over here in Isaiah 50, He said, I set my face like a flint. I'm
going to get this done. I'm going to finish this work.
And nothing is going to stop me from doing it. Nothing is
going to stop me from doing it. Determined to get the job done.
I have no doubt that one of the
reasons you and I fail so much is because of lack of determination.
There is no lack of determination in Christ to redeem His people
from their sins. And then here's another reason
for his resolve. He is near that justifies me.
The Father was always with him through his whole time of humiliation. He said, the Father's with me.
He's near me. Didn't our Lord say, I will never
leave you nor forsake you? He said, He's near me that justifies
me. Who can contend with me? Who
can contend with me? You know, in one place, let me
see if I can find that Scripture here. Who is among you that fears Him? No, that's not it. Okay, verse 8. He is near that
justifies me. Who's going to contend with me?
What do I have to be afraid of? Who do I have to be afraid of?
That's what Christ said. Who do I have to be afraid of?
Who's going to stand me down? Who's going to contend with me?
Who can condemn me? Let us stand together. Let us
stand together before God. Now listen, who's my adversary?
Let him step in the ring. That's what he's saying. Who's my adversary? Who's going
to contend with me? Step in the ring. He knew he was not going to fail.
It says over in Isaiah 42, my servant shall not fail. He knew
he would not fail. When he read Isaiah 42 growing
up, he knew that applied to him. He knew that. He knew when he
read Isaiah 50, he knew that applied to him. When he read the Old Testament,
and he read of the Passover lamb, The tabernacle. He knew all that
applied to him. God taught him. Who is he that will contend with
me? The Lord will help me, and He's near that justifies me.
Everyone's going to wax old like a garment, but his years shall
not fail. And now our Lord turns and speaks
to this church, and I'm gonna close. Who is among you that
fears the Lord, capital L-O-R-D, Jehovah, Jehovah, the one who
exists by himself? that obeyeth the voice of His
servant, that walks in darkness and hath no light." If you've
been taught that you were born in sin, that you have no spiritual
life, and you know you need mercy, and Christ is your only hope,
and you look to Him, He says, now if you're walking in darkness,
right now if you're going through something and you're just like,
I don't understand. I don't understand what's going
on. I can't see. Lord, what's going
on? He says, when that happens, here's
what you do. Let him trust, in verse 10, let
him trust in the name of the Lord. What does a name do? A name reveals a person. In the Scriptures, we are given
several names that belong to God. Jehovah Jireh, Jehovah said
Canoe. There are several names. It would
do us well to learn His names. Because we'll learn who He is.
Name reveals a person. It reveals a person. And what
He says here is, let him trust in the name of the Lord. I don't
know what's going on. I may not know what's going on.
I know I don't know what's going on. God knows all things. He
knows. He sent it. He can do no wrong. It's for
my good and His glory. Now when you and I at times are
walking in darkness, just do this. Trust Him. Just trust Him. Trust in the name of the Lord.
That would be the title for it. Trust in the name of the Lord. But all you, now He says here,
but every one of you, that all ye that kindle a fire, and you
compass yourself about with sparks, that is your own sparks and your
own fire, you know, you stand by the fire and you warm yourself
that you built. And you walk in your own light.
The Lord said, if the light in you be darkness, how great is
that darkness. but you walk in your own light
and in your own sparks that you've kindled, this shall you have
in my hand. You're gonna lie down in sorrow. You're gonna
perish. Christ said, I am the light. I am the life. I am the way. Now, if you try any other way,
you're gonna perish. But if you have any understanding of sin
and your need of righteousness, Christ says, come to me. And
I'll give you rest. I'll give you rest. All right.