He has been restrained, but never has he been indifferent. I think it's a vital part of your theology to understand, you know, why is there suffering? Why is there misery?
Why is there death and wars and all these horrible things? God is not indifferent to these things. If he were, there would be no judgment because he wouldn't care.
But he is restrained, and his restraint is often a misunderstood method of his grace. This is Cross-Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the book of Isaiah.
Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross-Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. But for now, let's join Pastor Rick in the book of Isaiah chapter 42 with today's edition of Cross-Reference Radio. At this point in Isaiah 42, burst out into this song celebrating this faithful servant of God. As the Lord shall go forth like a mighty man, he shall stir up his zeal like a man of war. He shall cry out, yes, shout aloud. He shall prevail against his enemies. This is the same God that earlier he said a bruised reed he will not break, a smoking flax he will not quench.
He's very gentle. He's waiting for things to play out. However, the time comes when he acts, and his enemies will not prevail. And so now verse 14, I have held my peace a long time.
I have been still and restrained myself. Now I will cry like a woman in labor. I will pant and gasp at once. Verse 15, I will lay waste the mountains and hills and dry up all their vegetation. I will make the rivers coastlands.
I will dry up the pools. I will bring the blind by the way they did not know. I will lead them in the paths that they have not known. I will make darkness light before them and crooked places straight.
These things I will do for them and not forsake them. So now he's talking about his people. The obstacles are going to be removed by the unfailing servant. And by the time the Jews are released from Babylon, they'll appreciate that God's going to make a way for them. But this is far more reaching than just those coming back to Judah after 70 years of captivity. And verse 10 of Isaiah 42, Sing to the Lord a new song and his praise from the ends of the earth, you who go down to the sea and all that is in it, you coastlands and you inhabitants of them. And so again, this section is an outburst of joy that God is going to act on behalf of his people. He's declaring his methods of grace.
He has been restrained, but never has he been indifferent. I think it's a vital part of your theology to understand, you know, why is there suffering? Why is there misery?
Why is there death and wars and all these horrible things? God is not indifferent to these things. If he were, there would be no judgment because he wouldn't care. But he is restrained. And his restraint is often a misunderstood method of his grace. We don't know what God is. What's he supposed to do?
Print out a newsletter for every day to tell you what's going on globally with people and how things work? God doesn't like the situation either, but he's going to see it through and he makes that clear to us. He created man in his own image, a free-thinking individual.
And he will populate eternity with people who love him sight unseen, by faith. And nothing's going to stop that. And so he restrains himself until he reaches that point where he says, okay, it's time to act. I've held my peace law a long time, he says here in verse 14. I've held my peace a long time. I've been still and restrained. I've restrained myself. That's going to end.
Just not yet. Even when the rapture comes, it will still be not yet in its final fulfillment. The time comes when God can do no more to restrain or the time comes when it is not necessary to restrain because it won't change anything.
It's pointless. And then he acts. One of the great lessons from Sodom and Gomorrah is God restrained himself. For however, how long, many decades or centuries, Sodom was festering and he goes to Abraham and he says, I want this on record. That's why we have the story of him dialoguing with Abraham over Sodom and Gomorrah. Now, Abraham's not more merciful than God, but God wanted to put this out in the open. I want to reach the people in Sodom and Gomorrah, but they are irretrievable. I've restrained myself long enough and now I'm going to act.
However, if there is anybody there that's willing to come out, then I will spare them. And that's precisely what happened. Well, many.
Four. And actually Lot gives us an example of a Christian who lives in the midst of a decadent culture and lost his thrust so that when he tells the truth, they laugh at him. They don't thank him seriously. He shouldn't have been there in the first place, but he was there. And the Bible says Lot was a righteous man. But he made mistakes and they're recorded and we know Christians that live like Lot.
They live too close to where they should never have gone. Anyway, God, he will act. Verse 17, they shall be turned back, they shall be greatly ashamed, who trust in carved images, who say to the molded images, you are our God. It always comes back to God's relationship with man and truth about God and lies about everything else. Always. Before I became a Christian, one of the arguments that I presented was, do you think God really just wants us to be so into him? Yeah. Why not?
What's better? If you know who God is, you want to be into God. And of course, the person that I said that to had no verbal answer. They just looked at me and that look of love, like you poor pathetic thing. And just let God take it from there and here I am. Verse 17, again, they shall be turned back, it comes down. This is an abrupt contrast between God delivering his people in grace, taking them out of darkness, removing the obstacles to pools, the rivers and things. And then he comes back to what every generation of the Jews, of the righteous have had to deal with and that is idolatry, Cain made religion. We'll come back to Cain because there's a lot more to say about him until even this day, idol lovers remain and they increase in shameless behavior. It's only shameless because God says it's shameless. Paul says, I wouldn't have done sin until God pointed out.
I thought coveness would have been fine with me. So God said, thou shalt not covet. Well, what's the consequence of coveting?
Taking what belongs to another that is not rightfully yours. And it starts with a thought and then it ends up in an action and it may not happen every day. It doesn't have to.
It happens enough. So in contrast to the unfailing servant of verses one through 16, now verse 17 here, he's beginning to introduce the servant that is disobedient, that does fail in their religion. Now comes failed religion. Speaking of Israel's routine rejection of their God. And it is, you know, with some people, it's just routine to disrespect God. Verse 18, hear you deaf and look you blind that you may see.
Well, that's right to the point. So again, verses 18 now through 25. This is Israel.
We'll name him in verse 19. Who is blind but my servant, not talking about the righteous servant of the previous verses. This is the nation of Israel, who were repeatedly chastened over centuries by multiple prophets for their aberrant spiritual behavior, their failed religion. And here are four voices of the Hebrew prophets targeting the recidivism, the repeated drift to wrong or stampede to wrong. It's a good word, recidivism. I don't want to be guilty of it.
It is, you know, that it essentially is repeating poor behavior willfully. Isaiah chapter one, the ox knows its owner, the donkey, its master's crib, but Israel does not know. My people do not consider God as saying, you know, something, you're dumb as an ox, or actually dumber. The ox can figure it out.
That's what the language Isaiah is using in his attempt to appeal to his generation. What's wrong with you people? Oxes know where they belong. How come you don't know where you belong? Alas, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a brood of evildoers, children who are corruptors.
Pause there. Oh, that's pretty mean. Is it true?
Is it true? Is that culture that he lived in a sinful nation? Yeah, because they had the idols, the false religions, a people laden with iniquity, and he lays it out what they were doing to the poor people, what they were doing to people who they could take advantage of.
Idolatry brings immorality every time. He continues brood of evildoers, this nest of evildoers, children who are corruptors. They have forsaken Yahweh. They have provoked to anger the Holy One of Israel. They have turned away backward. And yet Isaiah goes on to try to reach them.
He's from chapter 40 to 66. He's trying to undo the corruption. There are armies in the world such as, let's just say, the Sudanese army.
They can't grow. It's impossible because the corruption is so thick, any assistance given to them will be taken away by the corrupt politicians and their own people. You give them fuel, they'll sell it, the corruption. And they're not the only country. There are many countries like this.
One of the—I've been talking about China these last few—communist China these last few weeks. The corruption, why the city is falling apart, why the water won't drain from the city, why do they have fake fire hydrants? The corruption. So corruption is a big thing.
It hurts people. Jeremiah rings in, he says, For my people have committed two evils. They have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewn for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water, and any water they hold is stagnant anyway.
So they've opted out of the flowing springs of God. Jesus said, He who believes in me as the Scriptures have said, out of him will flow living water. Tying that in, that's a dynamic link to Jeremiah, who came along 500 years before Christ was born. Christ has always been. He is the Yahweh of the Old Testament.
He knows everything Jeremiah said because he's the author and finisher of our faith. So there Jeremiah says, You've chucked God for these statues. You've given up the springs for these broken cisterns that can't hold water. They're not wells.
They're puddles. And you don't even do a good job at that. Hosea rings in, My people are bent on backsliding from me. Though they call to the Most High, none of them exalt him. Well, no atheists in foxholes. People, I don't believe in God. Yeah, well, when that artillery starts landing around you, you're calling on God. And that's what Hosea is saying. My people, they're determined to be sinful. What do you do with this? Well, if the person has a contrite heart and calls out to God and seeks truth, God will come to them.
But if they don't do that, then you're stuck. If you start using your experiences in life to define God, you've just made for yourself an idol. Instead of receiving a revelation of God and making fresh experiences, Micah rings in. Micah, he says, Oh, my people, what have I done to you? And how have I wearied you? Testify against me. Tell me, what is it about me that you don't like that you love about the idols? Well, God knows. The idols let you do whatever you want.
After all, you made them. You want to do a certain sin? Make a God that honors that sin. The Greeks were notorious. They had a God for drunks. Speaking of which, Micah 2.11, he says, You know, you people would make a man who preached on drinking alcohol a pastor. I should read that, lest you don't believe me or question my interpretation, which I know you would never do. Not possible. Where we are? We have a, any of you watch Adam 12?
We have a 2.11 in progress here. Micah 2.11. If a man should walk in a false spirit and speak a lie, saying, I will prophesy to you of wine and drink, even he would be a prophet of this people. What kind of society of that? Well, we have it here.
They have their little multicolored flags, and they want to have churches still, and they want to be part of Christendom. That's leaven. That's toxic.
You have an Agent Orange in your salad. What about the New Testament church? Is she more faithful than ancient Israel? Well, listen to this verse, and you decide. 2 Timothy, chapter 4, from the New Testament. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers, and they will turn their ears away from the truth and be turned aside to fables. These are churchgoers he's talking to. He's not talking about idolaters outside of Christendom. He's talking to people who have lined up with Christians. And he's saying they're going to shop for the pastors they want, and the pastors are going to receive them.
All that. To suppress the truth, why bother with religion? Because man is incurably religious, and the atheist needs to know he is religious too. We won't come back to that, but apostate Christianity. Is apostate Christianity trying to outdo apostate Israel?
I think it is trying to catch up and not pass. It already has. There's no surprise. A woman who rides the beast in Revelation 17, 18, that is apostate Christendom. It's not only the Roman Catholic Church.
There will be elements of all the churches that will join in on that, but the true righteous will be gone, and new ones will be born again and slain. Israel's failure to hear and to see is a big deal to God, and that's why he puts it in print there in verse 18 and 19. Their inability to hear what God is saying and see what he is doing is a big deal to God, and it should be a big deal to us. They're blind to their own sins and deaf to the voice of God, and defiant.
There's the cherry on top. It is a crippling disability even in churches. People are so uptight and get their feelings hurt, and they major in the minors and miss the mission, and the devil plays them like a fiddle. Hopefully, if you've left a good church because of some little petty thing and you're in another good church, hopefully you've learned your lesson. I sometimes think when people leave a church under petty conditions that the angels want to say to them as they're leaving their church, get back in there.
You can't retreat, but they don't. It's not their role. We're to be led by the Spirit of God, and when your feelings start running the ship, you're going to be shipwrecked. The world has a saying for that, the tail wagging the dog.
You know how happy that tail is? Well, it is not good if it takes control of the dog. But much of Israel was not having any of this in Isaiah's day until this day and beyond, and same it is with the church. You're not going to hear this stuff about apostasy and idols and listening to God's word. They've baked God's word out of the church in many places.
Failed religion is expressed, again, in idolatry and immorality. You know, the Mormons. I remember years ago I was on a flight, and the person in front of me was a loud-mouthed man, and I could hear every word he was saying to the man next to him, and he said, You know, if I ever become religious, I'm going to be a Mormon, because they're just nice people. I don't dispute that many of them are nice people, but they're wrong people when it comes to God. And you can be nice as you want. What does it profit a man if he gains the world, loses his soul? It's not about being nice.
It's about being right. Right with God, which should produce this niceness. Anyway, is it nice to the, you know, ten wives that the guy's got and the kids that come out of that? Esau would have been a good neighbor to have. We never read about the God of Esau. Esau was, as natural men go, was a good guy. I've met many people that do not know Christ, did not know Christ, and were really nice people.
And I met many Christians equally as nice, and some not so nice. This is reality. This is sin.
This is the war that we are engaged in, and trying to put a bow on everything that's a lie is the wrong way to go. What is important to God, not what is important to me? And if you put those nice people with the wrong God under pressure, you're going to have problems that you didn't see coming. Well, it's sort of like a person with an accent. You know, if they live in a different place long enough, they may lose that accent until you excite them. Until you either get them angry or get them too happy, and that accent comes back out. That's what's in there.
And on a negative way, a person who may be polite and decent, if they have not the rule of God in their heart, you put them under enough pressure. Some of you may have heard of the Essex. I think it was out of Canada. I don't remember if it was British or Canadian. Anyway, the ship suffered, the shipwreck, and the survivors were in lifeboats, and they ate each other because that would be impossible.
But they did eat those who died and those who were dying. You know what? He's almost gone.
Clunk. And so you can look that up. A terrible story. I'm sure those were nice guys. They went on to be survivors. There were a few survivors. They went on to be neighbors. Good neighbors, from what I understand. But, you know, it's just like, man, that just illustrates a great big truth.
Well, let's come back to this. Verse 19, who is blind but my servant or deaf as my messenger whom I send? Who is blind as he who is perfect and blind as Yahweh's servant? So now this is God's national servant, Israel, in stark contrast to the messianic servant of the first 17 verses. Israel was supposed to serve Yahweh.
Instead, they tried to reshape and rebrand him. Leviticus chapter 25. This is from the quill of Moses. For the children of Israel are servants to me. They are my servants whom I brought out of the land of Egypt.
I am Yahweh your God. Unparalleled distinction. No one else is this distinction. Of all the peoples of the earth, it is a higher and better standard that they were called to. Thus, the law. Their wardrobe. The men weren't to wear women's clothing and the women weren't to wear men's clothing.
Other peoples of the earth did those kinds of things. Their dietary laws. The law. The moral code. The Ten Commandments. There were many distinctions made by God. We're supposed to be the same way.
Maybe not identical in form, but ultimately we are supposed to be a distinct people. How come you don't go to the bar with us? How come you don't do this?
How come you don't do that? Those are open doors to preach Christ. And I have found that many of those who do those things, they burn out on them and at some point wish they never did them. Not all of them. Some of them go to their graves, happy sinners, and that's a fact. Anyway, the way it says, who is blind as he who is perfect. Now that could be sarcasm, but I rather think it means that they were prepared, and I'll tell you why, I'll give you a scripture reference why I think that.
They were prepared for the work that they failed to do. And the church, she is perfect too. She has everything, without spot or wrinkle Christ says about the church, she has everything she needs to do her job in the midst of a fallen world. Which really irks Satan when the church does do their job, because we are to Satan a bunch of misfits, incompetent, carnal, sinful beings, and when we turn the other cheek and we plow forward and we preach Christ, hell has no remedy. Especially when we die at the stake, there's nothing hell can do against that stuff.
Israel did serve the Lord in the beginning as his instrument of judgment on the Canaanites. But they didn't endure. They did not persevere.
They failed to be his servants as instruments of light to the Gentiles. They have churches like this. They have churches that, you know, if you're not one of us, you're not saved. We're not giving you communion.
You have to be a member here to get this. I mean, it just, I mean, it may be some elements of sanity and particles of this, but overall the body of Christ is global. There is the universal church. Thanks for tuning in to Cross Reference Radio today. Cross Reference Radio is a ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville in Virginia. If you'd like to learn more about this ministry, we invite you to visit our website, crossreferenceradio.com.
You'll find a number of teachings from Pastor Rick available there. We also encourage you to subscribe to our podcast. When you subscribe, you'll be notified of new editions of Cross Reference Radio. Just search for Cross Reference Radio on your favorite podcast app. You can also follow the links at crossreferenceradio.com. We're glad we were able to spend time with you today. Tune in next time to continue learning from the book of Isaiah with Pastor Rick right here on Cross Reference Radio.
