Sprinkling is a word used of priests in the temple, or in the tabernacle, who would atone for sin. Jesus, Messiah, Servant 2.0, will do the work, a priestly work of atonement, that will sprinkle not just Israel, but many nations, God's desire to reach the world. The prophet Isaiah delivered many warnings to God's people, but God also used him to encourage the Israelites and remind them of his promises. Connect with Skip Heitzig today, as he shares about the hope that God gave to Israel through Isaiah, and you'll learn what these messages of comfort mean for you today. Then, stay tuned after the message, as Skip and his wife Lenya share how you can be a part of sharing God's comfort with children around the world. One of the things we say is we like to provide normalcy. You know, the sooner you can get someone impacted by terror doing something that's normal they've done before, whether it's soccer or homework or music, that it helps them recover from a traumatic event. So, that's why we continue to take every opportunity to share the love of Jesus and raise funds for children.
Thank you, Lenya. Be sure to stay with us after today's message to hear the full discussion. Right now, we want to tell you about a resource that shows you how the truth of Jesus' resurrection transforms your life. It's pretty obvious that this world is filled with imperfect people, and that's on purpose. God is into restoring human beings.
You know, he could make perfect people and then populate heaven with perfect people, but he doesn't do that. He takes people who are dinged up, who've been beat up, bruised by time, damaged by sin, and he does a full resto job on them. Complete restoration. Celebrate the joy and beauty of redemption with The Morning That Changed Everything with Skip Heitzig. This DVD collection of six hope-filled Easter weekend messages is our thanks to you when you give $35 or more today to help connect more people to God's Word and the redeeming love of Jesus Christ. Restoration is based on redemption, and redemption is tied to resurrection.
To give, call 800-922-1888 or give online securely at connectwithskip.com slash offer. Now, as we join Skip Heitzig for today's teaching, we're in the book of Isaiah. So look at chapter 41 verse 8, and I'll tie a few threads together. But you, Israel, are my servant. Hold that thought. Jacob, whom I have chosen.
Hold that thought. The descendants of Abraham, my friend. You, whom I have taken from the ends of the earth and called from its farthest regions and said to you, you are my servant. I have chosen you, and I have not cast you away.
Okay. In the book of Isaiah, there are three different servants. Primarily two, but there are three mentioned. Actually four, if you were to count a guy by the name of Cyrus mentioned in chapter 44 and 45.
I'll get to him in a minute. David is called the servant of the Lord in chapter 37. Israel here is called the servant of the Lord and then servant 2.0. He, a singular person, is mentioned, and that is Jesus, God's ideal servant. Go down to chapter 42 verse 1. Behold my servant whom I uphold, my elect one.
One. An individual will be spoken about. In whom my soul delights, I have put my spirit upon him, and he will bring forth justice to the Gentiles.
That's the whole world. He will not cry out, nor raise his voice, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street. A bruised reed he will not break, a smoking flax he will not quench. He will bring forth justice for truth. He will not fail, nor be discouraged, until he has established justice in the earth, and the coastlands shall wait for him.
Ah, this is the ideal servant. There are four servant songs in the book of Isaiah. Isaiah chapter 42, Isaiah chapter 49, Isaiah chapter 50, and Isaiah chapter end of 52 and all of chapter 53.
Those are the four servant songs. Two main servants, Israel and Messiah. The servant that failed, the servant who will never fail.
Now notice what it says. He will not cry out or raise his voice, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street. A bruised reed he will not break, a smoking flax he will not quench. This speaks of the gentle manner of Jesus. Remember the New Testament calls him meek and lowly? So it says, a bruised reed he will not break. What does that mean? Well, you know what a reed is, right?
Those marshlands, those kind of wispy things that are blown by the wind out in the marshlands. Those wind blown, fragile, weak bull rushes that are unstable, he won't break. In other words, Jesus' personality will not be so type A that he just bowls people over. He won't break a bruised reed. He won't put out a smoking flax.
A flax is a wick, a dimly lit lamp wick that is about to go out. Jesus will supply oil for the lamp, power. That's the idea behind this metaphor. He will fan the weak person into the flame of strength. Remember when Jesus met the woman caught in adultery? And how he treated her? Compared to how the leaders of Israel treated her? Now they were right, of course.
Our law says she deserves to die. And they picked up stones. Jesus brought the woman to himself and says, Hey, you guys, you who are without sin cast the first stone. Then he said to the woman, where are your accusers? Where are those who condemn you? And she said, sir, I have none. And he said, neither do I condemn you. That's not breaking that wispy little bulrush or putting out her flame.
That's fanning it. Neither do I condemn the sin no more. That's Jesus' personality.
Okay, quickly. Chapter 44 and 45 are predictions about the circumstances upon which the captives who will be in Babylon will eventually return to Jerusalem. So notice a couple things. Chapter 44, verse 28. Who says of Cyrus, he is my shepherd. Cyrus won't be born for another couple hundred years when this is written. So his name is mentioned before he's born by a couple centuries.
That should raise interest. Who says of Cyrus, he is my shepherd. He shall perform all my pleasure, saying to Jerusalem, you shall be built, and to the temple, your foundation shall be laid.
Why would this be good news? Because the Babylonians put pressure on Israel, brought them into captivity, made them slaves, but eventually the Medo-Persian Empire would overtake the Babylonian Empire. Its ruler would be Cyrus. He will let the Jews go back home. So God says, he's my servant. He's my ambassador.
He's my shepherd. Now keep in mind, when this was written, Jerusalem hadn't fallen. Jerusalem was still standing.
The temple was in place. But this presupposes Jerusalem will be destroyed, the temple will be destroyed, the people will be taken captive, and then they'll come back and it'll be rebuilt. Go to chapter 45, verse 1. Thus says the Lord to his anointed. The word anointed in Hebrew is Mashiach. We would translate it literally, Messiah. Thus says the Lord to his Messiah, to Cyrus, this is a pagan king he's writing about, whose right hand I have held to subdue nations before him. Altogether, he conquered 46 different nations.
I don't have time to chase that down. And loose the armor of the kings, to open before him the double doors so that the gates will not be shut, I will go before you and make the crooked places straight, I will break in pieces the gates of bronze, and I will cut the bars of iron. I will give you the treasures of darkness and hidden riches of secret places that you may know that I, the Lord, who call you by name, am the God of Israel. For Jacob, my servant's sake, and Israel, my elect, I have even called you by your name, Cyrus.
I have named you, though you have not known me. The walls of Babylon would be, from Isaiah's prophetic perspective, now they're long gone, but would be 311 feet tall, 87 feet thick, covering a circumference, we are told in a couple of different accounts, of 60 miles around the city. Huge guard stations every so many feet. The Euphrates River running right through town. Big bronze gates that would close and a grate at the bottom that would let the river pass underneath. We are told that King Cyrus took the city of Babylon by diverting the Euphrates River upstream so that it got lower and lower and lower, up to the height of a man's thigh, enabling the Persian army to go underneath the gates and break them open. And Cyrus became the ruler of the known world, prophesied in detail by Isaiah, and history says, Herodotus, the historian tells us, that's how it fell. Chapter 46 through 48 is about the fall of Babylon.
Now I want to read an account to you. Here is God mentioning Cyrus, saying that he's going to let the Jews go back, telling them to rebuild their temple, which he will do. Josephus, ever heard his name?
Yes, Josephus, the Jewish historian, gives us this account. Now Cyrus learned this, that is, that he would command the building of the Jewish temple. By reading the book that Isaiah left of his own prophecies 210 years before. Somebody showed him the prophecy of Isaiah with his name in it. Josephus goes on, These things Isaiah foretold 140 years before the temple was destroyed, when Cyrus therefore had read them and had admitted their divine character in impulse and emulation seized him to do what was written therein. So according to Josephus, somebody showed him, Hey dude, your name's here.
It was written here before you were born. And he goes, wow. And he did what Isaiah predicted he would do.
Okay. Servant 1.0 failed. Servant 2.0, Messiah is predicted.
The surprising thing is how God's perfect servant, Servant 2.0, Jesus the Messiah, will bring salvation. According to Isaiah chapter 52 and 53, he will be rejected. He will suffer.
He'll be sentenced to death. On behalf of his own people, he will die in atoning death for their sin. And that is the fourth and most important, the last of those four servant songs. Isaiah chapter 52, beginning in verse 13, all the way down to chapter 53 verse 12. This servant song is quoted by Matthew, Mark, Luke, John in the book of Acts, Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, 1 Timothy, Titus, Hebrews, 1 Peter and 1 John. That's how important this song, chapter 53 of Isaiah is.
It has been called the torture chamber of the rabbis, because it is so blatantly predictive about what Jesus would do. Verse 13 of chapter 52, Behold, my servant will deal prudently. He will be exalted, extolled, be very high, just as many as were astonished at you, so his visage was marred more than any man and his form more than the sons of men. Chapter 15, so he will sprinkle many nations.
Please notice the many nations. Kings will shut their mouths at him, for what had not been told them, they shall see, and what they had not heard, they shall consider. Sprinkling is a word used of priests in the temple or in the tabernacle who would atone for sin. Jesus Messiah, servant 2.0, will do the work, a priestly work of atonement that will sprinkle not just Israel, but many nations.
God's desire to reach the world. Chapter 53 verse 1, Who has believed our report? To whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For he will grow before him like a tender plant, a root out of dry ground. He has no form or comeliness. When we see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows acquainted with grief, and we hid as it were our faces from him.
He was despised and we did not esteem him. Surely he has borne our griefs, carried our sorrows, yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted. But he was wounded, literally pierced for our transgressions.
He was bruised, literally crushed 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 everyone to his own way and the Lord laid on him the iniquity of us all. This summed up by Isaiah as if he were looking at the cross almost giving us a clearer, better perspective than any of the gospel writers. The suffering of the Messiah gives to us what theologians call, you might want to write this down, the vicarious atonement, one of the cardinal doctrines of Christianity. The vicarious atonement, or the substitutionary death of Jesus.
He died in our place. The perfect sacrifice took our sin so that we could be the righteousness of God in him. 2 Corinthians 5.21 When I first heard the gospel and I understood it as an 18 year old young man, just turning 18, 17 turning 18, by Billy Graham on a television show, I remember what I thought. I thought, okay, God is going to give me his righteousness and he is going to take on his son my sin. And my first thought is God is getting a bad deal. Which he is.
But I'm getting a killer deal. Which I was. And all in all that was sufficient for me to become his children. So God thought it was a good enough deal to do all that to make you his kid.
That's love. That's vicarious atonement. Well, that is the suffering and dying servant, but then suddenly in verse 11 of this chapter, the servant is alive again, just sort of out of nowhere. Verse 11 says he will see the labor of his soul and be satisfied.
This is after he died. So it implies resurrection. Chapters 54 and 55 is a joyful song, a song of salvation.
Chapter 56 and 57 is a rebuke to those who don't accept the servant's salvation. Now the last two chapters, see how we're going to finish the whole book of Isaiah? The last two chapters is the blessing of a new creation that is a new heaven and a new earth and the birth of a brand new nation. Chapter 65 verse 17, For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth. Not just a new earth, new heavens and earth. Heaven has been polluted by Satan. God is going to recreate heaven and earth.
Peter also announced this. I create new heavens and a new earth. The former shall not be remembered nor come to mind. Go down to verse 25. The wolf and the lamb shall feed together. The lion shall eat straw like the ox.
A herbivorous behavior. The dust shall be the serpent's food. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountains says the Lord. This is the kingdom age again. The kingdom age, according to Revelation chapter 20, the millennial kingdom, Revelation 20 says several times it will last for 1000 years.
According to the Gallup organization, one of the most searching questions people have of almost any generation in recent times is this question. Will there ever be lasting world peace? Because by looking around, it sure seems the answer is no.
But the answer we know is yes. But it will not happen anytime soon. It will happen only when servant 2.0 returns 2.0. Comes back again to rule and reign with those who have been cleansed with sin. When he does, then Isaiah chapter 2 verse 4 will be fulfilled. They will beat their swords, implements of war, into plowshares, implements of farming and health and longevity.
And their spears into pruning hooks. The nation will not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore. Those words are over the United Nations. But it has never yet been fulfilled. It is a longing for Messiah to come and establish His messianic kingdom. Okay, chapter 66 verse 22, eight seconds left. For the new heavens and the new earth, which I make shall remain before me, says the Lord. So shall your descendants and your name remain, and it shall come to pass that from one new moon to another month by month, from one sabbath to another week by week, all flesh, all flesh, people from all over the world will come to worship before me, says the Lord. So, the nutshell view once again through servant 2.0, through the suffering servant, God creates a covenant family from all nations. He will rule over an earthly kingdom for a thousand years followed by an eternal kingdom forever and ever.
It will have a capital city called New Jerusalem. If you're ever wondering, because some people ask this question, I know you talk about a millennium. I don't know if I believe in an actual thousand year reign of Christ on the earth. I think that's all a metaphor for something else.
Okay, you can believe whatever you want. Just prepare to be surprised when you actually enjoy the thousand year millennial kingdom on the earth because I can't wait. I'm going to have fun. I can't wait for Tucumcari and Albuquerque to look like Kauai.
I'll sign up for that. In fact, I'd like to be just like over Kauai during the millennial kingdom if it's okay. But anyway, here's why we need a millennium. The earth has been cursed ever since the fall to redeem creation from the curse that has fallen by sin and will fall in spades during the great tribulation period.
The millennium will answer. The prayer we have always prayed, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. We're still praying that. It's not happening.
It will happen then. God will answer that prayer in totality. Number two, to fulfill God's promise to Israel. Remember, God made a two-fold promise to the nation of Israel. They will rule over a literal physical kingdom with Messiah in charge, Israel at the top of the heap, and over an eternal kingdom. The millennium is part A, the eternal state.
Revelation 21 and 22 is part B. That concludes Skip Heitzig's message from his series, The Bible from 30,000 Feet. Now, here's Skip and Lenya as they share how you can be a part of sharing God's comfort with children around the world.
The prophet Isaiah really painted the picture well of Jesus' suffering on the cross and how that demonstrates his amazing love for us. Well, Lenya, you've been working for years now to share the wonderful news of the gospel with kids all around the world and to help them in their time of need as they experience the horrors of terrorism. Can you share about the special work that you do through Reload Love? First of all, it is astounding to me that you can say years. Yeah. Because we're going on our sixth year of doing Reload Love, which just finds, it's just hard for me to believe that, first of all, that terrorism is so rampant.
Pervasive everywhere. Yeah, that it's a tragedy. But I'm grateful that God loves the broken, the hurt, the wounded, and especially children. So, last month, we did our annual Love Bomb fundraiser and we really highlighted Nigeria. For those of you who don't know, Boko Haram is a terrorist organization that really has blown through Nigeria. And just before the Love Bomb weekend, we learned that one of the youth leaders in the soccer program we helped support lost his brother to terrorists. So, this is real and it's important and it hits close to home for so many people.
Our hearts break every time we get reports like this. And imagine if this young man didn't have the soccer club and a discipleship group to support him through the devastating tragedy. And this is a Christian-run soccer group.
So, that one of the things we say is we like to provide normalcy. The sooner you can get someone impacted by terror doing something that's normal they've done before, whether it's soccer or homework or music, that it helps them recover from a traumatic event. So, that's why we continue to take every opportunity to share the love of Jesus and raise funds for children who have been impacted by terror.
So, if you'd love to continue to support us, you can just go to reloadlove.com and donate. Linda, off the top of your head, do you know how many countries now that you have impacted? I mean, at first it was just Burma, I think, wouldn't it?
Yes. And then, or Myanmar. And then after that it went to Thailand. Myanmar and Thailand and then Jordan and Iraq. And you brought some things to Lebanon.
And we've done things in the Sudanese area, Nigeria. Wow. Yeah. All around the world. And in local reservations, Indian reservations here. So, it really is a ministry impacting globally. Absolutely.
Cambodia. I mean, if I start trying to recall all of them. Praise the Lord. So, reloadlove.com. Thank you, Skip and Lenya. The Bible is full of God's amazing promises. And since He is faithful, you can be sure He will carry out those promises. We want to continue sharing the promises of Scripture with you and others through this program. And you can help make that possible through your generous gift today. So, please call now to give and help keep these teachings coming to you and many others around the world. 800-922-1888.
Again, that's 800-922-1888. Or visit connectwithskip.com slash donate. Connectwithskip.com slash donate.
Thank you. Tune in tomorrow as Skip Heiseck introduces you to the prophet Jeremiah. Sharing a comforting message about God's care and concern over your life. Make a connection. Make a connection at the foot of the crossing. Cast all burdens on His word. Make a connection. Connection. Connect with Skip Heiseck is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never-changing truth in ever-changing times.
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