His Death Foretold - Part A

For this Galilean to go to a Roman cross, be lifted up, and die a shameful death. Remember, the Jewish scripture says it's a curse to be hung on a tree. And Paul the Apostle will say, the cross is a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Greeks.

I mean, think of it, no other religion has at its heart the humiliation of its God. Today on Connect with Skip Heiting, Pastor Skip shares how Jesus' death accomplished precisely what God said it would when he spoke through the prophet Isaiah centuries before. But first, here's a resource that brings you powerful teaching from some truly inspiring pastors.

As we approach the end of the year, here's a special resource package we have developed to say thanks for your support. Over four decades of ministry, Pastor Skip has been able to invite some excellent speakers to fill his pulpit. We want you to hear some of these memorable messages from teachers such as Josh McDowell. God said, I want you to be able in the 21st century and open your scriptures and have a confidence, thus saith the Lord, it has not been lost. Also a part of this pulpit package, Dr. David Jeremiah. Jesus Christ shines in the world today by his reflection in the lives of his followers. Nobody's going to see Jesus if they don't see Jesus in us. If you can make an end of year donation of $100 or more to support this program, you will receive this pulpit package of 10 excellent messages on CD or by download. You will want to hear what Joel Rosenberg said about remarkable conversions in the Middle East. That's the kind of door that when you pray, Lord, I'd love to go build a friendship in the name of Jesus with a king and with a Muslim president.

Apparently God says yes to some of these prayers. The pulpit package containing 10 different speakers giving full length messages to request your copy. Go to connectwithskip.com or by calling 1-800-922-1888. That is connectwithskip.com or call 1-800-922-1888.

Okay. We're going to be in Isaiah 52 today as Skip begins his teaching. Did you know that Mark Twain predicted his own death? In 1909, Mark Twain said a strange thing, sort of as a joke. He said the next time that Halley's Comet makes a near pass to the earth that he will go out with it. Well, you probably know that Halley's Comet doesn't show up all that often.

Once every 76 years it makes its pass by the earth. So on April the 20th 1910, Halley's Comet appeared and the very next day Mark Twain died of a heart attack. It's an amazing coincidence.

It's an unusual circumstance. Then there's a story of a man named William Thomas Steed, a journalist who wrote a fictional piece about an ocean liner sailing from England to New York and having an accident and sinking, the passengers sinking because there weren't enough lifeboats in his story. And then he said in that little story, that fictional piece, he made a prediction saying ocean liners being sent out to sea are not a good thing because there's not enough lifeboats on them. Then he wrote another article sometime after that about another ocean liner colliding into an iceberg and sinking. Two years after he wrote that article, the Titanic sailing from England to New York hit an iceberg and 1,500 passengers lost their lives. What is most unusual about the story is one of the passengers aboard that ship was William Thomas Steed. An amazing circumstance.

But now I want to turn from an amazing coincidence and an unusual circumstance to divine providence. The death of Jesus Christ was foretold. Yes, he foretold his own death on a few different occasions, but more than that, 700 years before he was even born, Isaiah the prophet predicted his virgin birth, his sinless life, as well as his atoning death. So the prophets, they announced it in advance. His death was predicted. But though his death was predicted, it was not expected.

Though the prophets underscored his death, the people didn't understand his death when it happened. Yeah, they knew their prophecies. They were well aware of the predictions of Isaiah the prophet. He says he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Prince of Peace, Everlasting Father.

The government will be on his shoulders. They knew all that. But you see, when the prophets looked ahead into the future and saw the coming of the Messiah, it was like seeing a mountain peak when you drive across the country and you see it in the distance. And it's easy to miss from a distance.

You think it's one peak, but when you drive up to the mountain itself, you discover it's not one, but it could be two, three, four, or a whole range of mountains. And so when they saw the coming of the Messiah, they saw him coming, and they saw him ruling, and they saw him reigning. What they did not see at the time of Jesus Christ, and the reason they missed him as the Messiah by and large, is they didn't understand that there's a difference between the first peak of Jesus' first coming and the second peak of his second coming. They didn't see the valley that was between the first and second coming, and that was the valley of his death on the cross, his resurrection from the dead, his ascension into heaven, and time passing for God to collect people called the church off the earth before he would come again to rule and reign. And so that's why when Jesus came, many of them were confused because he wasn't called wonderful counselor. They didn't say, hey, mighty God, everlasting Father, Prince of Peace, over here.

The government was not on his shoulder at that time. They were not expecting the Messiah to suffer. They were expecting him to rule and to reign, even though Isaiah and the book of Psalms and others predicted in advance the suffering of the Messiah, as you are about to see here in Isaiah chapter 52 and 53. But what you need to know, because people still ask me this, why didn't people of Jesus' time understand that this was their Messiah? Because there was no room in their thinking for a suffering, dying Savior Messiah.

They wanted a sympathetic Messiah, somebody who would sympathize with their problems, their issues, their plight, their oppression, and come to rescue them from the oppression of Rome and others. We're in Isaiah chapter 52 and 53. Actually, Isaiah chapter 53 should begin in Isaiah chapter 52 verse 13. That's where the beginning of the passage is at. And what we're dealing with here is the fourth of four servant songs.

There are four what are called servant songs in the book of Isaiah, where God announces his ideal servant. And it's a reference of the coming Messiah. What's amazing here is you see the detailed nature of prophetic Scripture, where you have in advance details of his suffering on the cross that were impossible to know beforehand, unless it was by divine revelation.

It would have been possible to arrange. In this section, you have the substitutionary death of Jesus, his burial, his resurrection, his saving of sinners, and his intercession for sinners while he himself is suffering, all placed in this section. It is so important that it's quoted by Matthew in the New Testament, by John in the New Testament, by Peter in the New Testament. And if you know your Bible, you know in Acts chapter 8, the Ethiopian eunuch was reading Isaiah 53 when Philip joined his chariot to him and led him to Christ using this passage. So what we have here is Isaiah tells us four elements all regarding the death of Jesus Christ. We begin with the anticipation for his death, and really that is the entire passage.

It's all looking forward and anticipating the one who would come and die. Let's begin in Isaiah 52 verse 13. Behold, my servant shall deal prudently. He shall be exalted and extolled and be very high. Just as many were astonished at you, so his visage, that is his facial features, was marred more than any man and his form more than the sons of men.

And so he shall sprinkle many nations. Kings shall shut their mouths at him, for what they had not been told them they shall see, and what they had not heard they shall consider. Now what you need to know is that most Jewish people, most rabbis, do not consider this to be a messianic passage. They do not see this at all as being fulfilled in Jesus Christ, right?

You would understand that that would be, even though to us it seems so obvious, and it does seem obvious. This passage has been called the torture chamber of the rabbis because it is so obviously referring to what Jesus Christ would do in fulfillment. But rather, most Jewish rabbis will be quick to say this passage, Isaiah 52 and 53, is not a description of Jesus Christ, but rather of the nation of Israel. The nation of Israel. One author says Isaiah 53 describes the history of the Jews despised by the world, persecuted by the crusaders and the Spanish inquisitors and the Nazis.

These verses do not point to a messiah, but there's a problem with that thinking. Actually, there are two problems. I can think of more, but we don't have time. There are two problems with that thinking. The first is a contextual problem. The second is a historical problem.

Let me explain. I said there are four servant songs. Isaiah 42, Isaiah 49, Isaiah 50, and Isaiah chapter 52 and 53.

This section is the fourth. There are four servant songs. It is a description not of Israel, but of the ideal servant of the Lord. And I know that because in Isaiah chapter 49, God speaks to His servant about His servant Israel.

So they're not one and the same. He's talking to somebody about the other, and God isn't schizophrenic. So He's speaking to His servant, His ideal servant, about His servant Israel who is called in the book of Isaiah the blind servant and the deaf servant. So that's the contextual problem with that interpretation.

But there's a second one. Historically, the Jewish people, including the Jewish rabbis, have looked at Isaiah 52 and 53 as being messianic. In the Jewish writings, the Talmud from 500 BC to 200 BC, they always looked at Isaiah 53 in those writings as referring to their Messiah. It wasn't until the 11th century AD that a prominent rabbi named Rashi started interpreting this as being a reference to the nation of Israel because of the obvious embarrassment. It looked just so much like it could be fulfilled in Jesus. But one of the oldest translations of the Hebrew manuscripts into Aramaic from Hebrew called the Targums, first to second century BC, translates Isaiah 52, 13 this way.

Listen. Behold, my servant Messiah shall deal prudently. To them, it was so obvious they just put the word Messiah in there because they wanted their readers to know this is a reference to the coming Messiah. A prominent rabbi, Rabbi Akiba, said, King Messiah wounded for our transgressions.

Notice what it says of him. Behold, my servant shall deal prudently. He shall be exalted and extolled and be very high.

What could that be a reference to? Well, it could refer to his resurrection, his ascension, and his glorification in heaven at the right hand of the Father, yes. Paul the Apostle in Philippians 2 said God has highly exalted him and given him the name which is above every name that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow and every tongue will confess. Or it could refer to, and this is what I believe it refers to, his death. His death on the cross when he would be lifted up off the ground and placed on a Roman cross. Listen to what Jesus said in John 12. He said, if I be lifted up from the earth I will draw all men to myself. And just so we wouldn't be left guessing as to what he meant, John immediately says, this he spoke signifying the kind of death he was going to die.

Notice what he will do when that happens. So he will sprinkle many nations. That's a Hebrew word that refers to the ceremonial cleansing like in the Old Testament when the priest would dip the hyssop in the blood and sprinkle the people for atonement. And it's fascinating it says he will sprinkle many nations. Now we're dealing with the Jewish Messiah but it does not say, well when he comes he's only coming for the Jewish people. He's going to sprinkle the Jewish nation.

It's all about Jewish nationalism. No, for God so loved the world that he's going to come and sprinkle many nations. So it's amazing really that historically and contextually the passage refers to the Messiah and yet when Jesus came to his own, his own received him not. He was rejected. They saw the mountain peak but they didn't see the valley in between the two mountain peaks, the valley of Messiah's death.

But we're seeing as we sort of retrofitted after the fact, we're able to see now the reason why he came. This servant will come to die for sins. It's been imagined by one author that after Jesus was born in Bethlehem, Mary could have prayed this prayer over her son. Rest well tiny hands for though you belong to a king, you will touch no satin, you will own no gold, you will grab no pen, you will guide no brush.

No, your tiny hands are reserved for works more precious. They aren't destined to hold a scepter or away from a palace balcony but they are reserved instead for a Roman spike that will staple them to a Roman cross. No wonder then the text that we just read says, and kings shall shut their mouths at him. For a suffering servant to occupy after that a throne was unheard of. But the whole passage is the anticipation for his death. But as we work our way through, we have a second element and that is the abandonment at his death.

Isaiah 53 verse 1, who has believed our report and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? He shall grow up before him as a tender plant, as a root out of dry ground. He has no form or comeliness and when we see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He's 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. He will be abandoned by unbelief, says this prophet. Who has believed our report?

He asked. To whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? You know, when Jesus came, he had followers, but not many believed the report. We know he had 12 apostles, but after three years of ministry, do you remember how many authentic believers, authentic followers were in that upper room after Jesus rose from the dead and ascended?

How many? How big was the church? 120 people.

It's pretty small. 120 people. You say, no, come on, he had lots of followers. He was thronged by people. So many people came to see and to hear him. You're right, they did, but they weren't all authentic believers. There were very, very few in that large crowd. You say, wait a minute, after all those miracles?

Yeah, glad you brought that up. Listen to this. John 12 tells us after Jesus healed multitudes, although he had done so many signs before them, they did not believe in him. That the word of Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled, which he spoke.

Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? Then for this Galilean to go to a Roman cross, be lifted up and die a shameful death, remember the Jewish scripture says, that's the name of the Lord, death. Remember the Jewish scripture says, it's a curse to be hung on a tree. And Paul the Apostle will say, the cross is a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Greeks.

I mean, think of it, no other religion has at its heart the humiliation of its God. He will be abandoned by unbelief and by unfruitfulness. In verse two, please notice, for he shall grow up before him as a tender plant and as 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. When Jesus came 2,000 years ago, the nation of Israel was hardened ground, barren ground. It wasn't as fruitful as God wanted it to be. In fact, you may remember Isaiah the prophet also had a pretty hefty prediction about the nation of Israel and Jesus and the other New Testament authors quoted it, related to it.

This is what it says in Isaiah 5. Now let me sing to my well-beloved a song of my beloved regarding his vineyard. My well-beloved had a vineyard on a very fruitful hill. He dug it out and he cleared out its stones and he planted the choicest vine within it and he expected it to bring forth fruit, good grapes, but instead it brought forth wild grapes. What will the owner of the vineyard do, asks Isaiah? He will take its hedge away.

It will be trampled down by others and burned to the ground. Then this is what it says, for the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel and the men of Judah are his pleasant plant. You see, by the time Jesus came to Judaism 2,000 years ago and the temple structure, the priesthood was already corrupted by the Sadducees. The truth had been trampled by the Pharisees. But in the midst of that fruitless nation, there was a root growing out of dry, hardened, parched ground. That was Jesus.

Just like the little green chute that comes out and pokes his little head out of the ground from a root. That's the idea of the passage. He would be the fruitful one in the midst of fruitlessness.

I'm going to jog your memory. When the patriarch Jacob was on his deathbed and he gathers all of his boys around him, 12 of them, which would be the 12 tribes of Israel. He goes to each son and he predicts something about their future and he comes to Judah. Jesus comes from the tribe of Judah. He comes to Judah and this is what he says, the scepter shall not depart from Judah nor a lawgiver from between his feet until Shiloh comes.

Strange thing to say. The scepter shall not depart from Judah nor a lawgiver from between his feet until Shiloh comes. The word Shiloh means the one to whom it belongs. Again, historically throughout the ages, the Jewish rabbis saw that as a prediction of the messiah coming from Judah. It's in their writings. Shiloh, the one to whom it belongs, the messiah.

And this is how they interpreted it. The scepter, the right to rule, the right of national tribal identity in Judah. That will not depart. We will have autonomy until Shiloh comes. When that's taken away, the messiah will come. So, 23 years before the trial of Jesus of Nazareth by Pontius Pilate, 23 years before that, the Romans came in and occupied the land of Judah and took away the right of capital punishment and their right to adjudicate using the law of Moses in their cases. And when that happened, one rabbi writes that the Sanhedrin, the Jewish rulers, paraded around Jerusalem with sackcloth and ashes.

And this is what they said in the lament. The scepter has departed from Judah, but the messiah has not come. What they were unaware of was that they were coming to Jerusalem. What they were aware of is that just north of them in that rugged town of Nazareth, there was a 10-year-old boy at that time, the apprentice of his stepfather, a carpenter, who would be coming soon on the scene to Jerusalem.

But at that point, just this young child, a little shoot, a little root out of dry ground in the midst of fruitless Israel would come home. That concludes Skip Heitzig's message from the series Jesus, Hope Foretold. Find the full message as well as books, booklets, and full teaching series at connectwithskip.com. Now, here's Skip to tell you how you can connect others with the truth of God's word with a gift to keep these messages you love going out around the world through Connect with Skip Heitzig. I believe the Bible has something to say about absolutely every experience in life.

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