Resolving Failures (Part A)

You're never going to have the incarnate Christ speak apart from being with the Father.

Here He is complaining about failure. This is the voice of Messiah now, telling us His work is not easy. You know, no one can save everyone. God walking on the earth could not save everyone because He wouldn't force them to be saved.

He would not violate their free will. 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 tuned 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 49 with today's edition of Cross-Reference Radio. Isaiah chapter 49, resolving failures, problem solving of the Lord. So God in this chapter again notifies His people that He is very mindful of the Gentiles, that it's not all about Israel, though Israel made it all about Israel. And it's something that the New Testament just doesn't let go, that God is about people and that there are dispensations, there are periods of time where God does something this way before the flood and then after the flood and then the patriarchs and then the laws given and then the day of the prophets and now we're in the age of the church and still to come is the great tribulation period, the kingdom age and these are dispensations. And the Lord has been preparing His people through the scriptures, through the prophets and that's what we're getting. The servant of the Lord in Isaiah is mostly talking about this Messiah that they were to expect who has become our Christ. He has come and He teaches clearly about in the Old Testament and New Testament what He's all about and He's going to say at the beginning of this section that the Gentiles that are way out there, far off, He's after them and He wants to use His people to get them but His people will fail.

They will forfeit that position and He'll have to take over for them. So the Lord Jesus took over the responsibilities of Israel when it came to bearing the light of God's scripture and that is the way it is till this day. The church will eventually be removed and then witnessing will take place once again through the Jewish people and both Jews and Gentiles will be saved and persecuted. So, looking now at verse 1, remembering that the Christ is the perfect fulfillment of all Israel failed to be, it says, listen, O coastlands, to me and take heed, you peoples from afar. Yahweh has called me from the womb, from the matrix of my mother.

He has made mention of my name. So the servant speaks here himself and of course it is Christ and we'll talk about that a little bit but these coastlands here are those areas in Gentile territories that are connected to trade routes from Israel and then from the Gentile territories throughout the world. The roads leading to distant nations, the farthest regions of the earth and not only did goods go back and forth, import, export, but so did information, news, bad and good alike. The New Testament church, we find Paul, it's recorded that he used all the roads he could get on to bring the word of God and those Romans, they built those roads, the Anation way, the Appian way, I mean they were just road builders and Paul, he knew that and it facilitated bringing the gospel to the Gentiles. And so here, God is saying the coastlands, the Gentiles, they're on my radar and I want you to listen to me. He says take heed, listen, O coastlands to me and take heed. Well how would the coastlands, how would the Gentiles ever get the word of Isaiah?

Somebody would have to use those roads and those shipping routes and they would, they did not. The Jews again really did not do it and so he says listen, essentially he's saying listen, O earth, listen to me, take heed you peoples from afar. This is again, Messiah is now speaking and it would have been the voice of Israel, but as I mentioned, they forfeited their role as light bearer. The church now has that role, but Israel remains the people of God as a people and they will be restored. Just right now, they're not bearing the light.

There's no light coming out of Judaism for anyone. So Mark chapter 16 verse 15, we all should know this verse, Jesus speaking to his apostles after the resurrection, go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. Now he doesn't mean beetles and you know moths and things like that.

Certainly not snakes because they don't have ears. So it's just a very easy one to prove. Of course he's saying everybody created people and the Lord has called me from the womb. Now Isaiah writes this some 700 years before the virgin birth.

That's what he's talking about. We're about 1200 years out of Egypt for the Jews and in all that time, you know, they had work to do of course, but he's announcing the virgin birth as we know it now. From the matrix of my mother, he has made me made mention of my name. Well, that's literal, literal, not metaphorical and especially true of Jesus Christ. There have been others, a few others that have been named before their birth.

John the Baptist is certainly one that comes to mind, but of course Christ is the primary. Verse two now, and he has made my mouth like a sharp sword. In the shadow of his hand, he has hidden me and made me a polished shaft. In his quiver, he has hidden me.

Well, he's prepared to deal with sin. The sword first appears in the Garden of Eden after the fall of man there in Genesis chapter three and it's being handled by a cherubim to keep Adam and Eve away from the tree of life. The sword always means conflict.

It's not a gardening tool. You don't work on your car with a sword. Man, I wish I had a sword.

I could fix this. Jesus said, think not I came to bring peace, but a sword. There's going to be conflict. In Revelation 1, when John introduces the revelation of Jesus Christ, he mentions how Christ approached him and he writes Revelation 1, out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword. Of course, this is picked up throughout the scriptures. So the instruments mentioned here in verse two are weapons, not building or gardening tools.

They are weapons. Israel had been unresponsive and Messiah is going to do battle with them for not continuing with their assignment to bring light to the Gentiles and amongst other things. The primary in this chapter is the Gentiles, but the Jews are going to be first in that order and that picks up New Testament too.

I'll come to that. So the sword is a weapon that is used close enough to see the color of your opponent's eyes. You got to get close if you're going to preach the gospel. I'm not a fan of handing out tracts and thinking, oh people are going to take that home and give their life to Christ. Maybe in this country, maybe in other countries, but here I've never heard of anyone saying I came to Christ by reading a tract. Now there may be somebody, but I prefer, and I get this from scripture, I think the way to save souls is to get up close to them.

People that are in your life to be able to make eye contact. This, you know, distance evangelism, it's not the primary way of reaching lost souls. And so the sword, but there's a difference between the sword and the arrow, which is that polished shaft in his quiver. That's a long range weapon, distant weapon. And, you know, this Messiah that he is speaking of is going to call on resources that are necessary to engage his people with scripture, with conflict.

The servant he will conquer by the power of his word. Now the Hebrew word for mouth is often used idiomatically by the Jewish writers for the edge of a sword. The words cut deep, the play on words is often there. And the power of speech is often an offensive weapon that offends. I mean, you can say, as we all know, you say the wrong words, you offend somebody and if you're not right, then you are the problem.

But if you are right and it's delivery, then hopefully the other person will consider the cut. That's how conviction works. Somebody says something, they've got you.

You're guilty. You're convinced that they are right in what they're saying and you have to take steps to fix this. That's how people come to Christ. Hosea 6-5, therefore I have hewn them by the prophets. I have slain them by the words of my mouth. Just not maliciously. You're not trying to hurt anybody. You're trying to save through truth. And, you know, the old saying, if the truth hurts, well, what is the alternative?

Start lying to you so you don't get hurt. Well, we have whole churches that do that. They may not come right out and lie, but they suppress the truth. They hold back what needs to be said and might as well say you're lying now by keeping back what Christ wants to say to his people. Because there really is, the pulpit preaching is a unique feature of the church, of the synagogues, the assembly, because of what the Holy Spirit does with it. Not because you have a man standing behind a pulpit, but because you have the Holy Spirit standing in front of the man.

That's how it works. Anyway, this New Testament, our New Testament, of course, uses the image of the word of God as a superior weapon as a sword. The word of God cuts to the division of the soul and the spirit. And made me a polished shaft, he says here in verse two.

That's a bright arrow he's talking about. Jesus being distinct and outstanding and no common weapon is found associated with him. So there we have, we condense it, the pen is mightier than the sword, or the word is mightier than the sword. In the shadow of his hand he has hidden me. Secret and secure timings of God. John chapter 10.

My father who has given them to me is greater than all and no one is able to snatch them out of my father's hand. So this is the hand of Messiah. We know that he is, of course, Jesus of the New Testament and that so close with the father there's, he's part of the Godhead. Verse three. And he said to me, you are my servant, O Israel, in whom I will be glorified. See this is kind of confusing but looking at the context it all comes together. It's confusing maybe just, you know, on the surface. But the father speaks to the Messiah now who is to come and not the nation Israel.

He's personifying Messiah as Israel. Now this is not uncommon even amongst us. If you are, when I served on ship in the Marines on a Navy ship, when the captain of the ship left the ship, they would announce the name of the ship is leaving. So I, for instance, one of the ships I sailed on was the Inchon. And when the captain would leave the ship, you know, you'd be down below deck shining your shoes and the announcement would be piped in. The Inchon departing, meaning the captain's leaving the ship.

And when he would come back, Inchon arriving. Why didn't they just say hey the captain's leaving the boat? Because the ship is his. He is the personification of that ship. He's master and commander of that ship.

Not like the old British Navy so much but he still got a lot of juice. And so here we have a personification, Messiah as Israel. Because Israel failed to do what they were called to do, he assumes the task. The descendants of Jacob, they are called out in verses 5 and 6. They're singled out as by the patriarch Jacob and that gives us our distinction. You have Israel being Messiah in verse 3 but he's talking to the people of Israel when we get to verse 5. And so that will clarify it for us.

So Messiah is called Israel in this verse by Isaiah because of the failure of Israel and his mission field incidentally is Israel first before he gets to the world. Looking at verse 4, I hope I'm not losing you on this stuff. It makes perfect sense to me.

It's like, let's see if we can get it moving a little bit for you. Then I said, I have labored in vain. I have spent my strength for nothing and in vain.

Yet surely my just reward is with Yahweh and my work with my God. You're never going to have the incarnate Christ speak apart from being with the Father. Here he is complaining about failure. This is the voice of Messiah now.

Telling us that his work is not easy. No one can save everyone. God walking on the earth could not save everyone because he wouldn't force them to be saved.

He would not violate their free will. Here what we have in verse 4 is internal dialogue out loud. It is the humanity of Christ in dialogue with the Father being published for us. Christ is just sort of saying, you have dialogue with God, don't you?

I do too. You sometimes tell about that dialogue with God. Well, I'm telling you about this one. God identifies with all who serve that when you serve, if you serve hard enough, you'll come to a place where you complain to God and say, I have sown much and I have reaped little. You are saying to God, I put a lot more into this than what I thought I'd get out of it. Now, God will bring that up with those in the book of Haggai, but in that case, they were more self-centered than God-centered and they were being rebuked. But here, it is a fact that he said, I have labored in vain. But it's a surface failure because did Christ succeed? Was he pleased with the outcome of his ministry on earth, which began at the creation?

Yes, he was and we know that because when we get to Isaiah 53, that talks about how he was rejected and abused. It says, he shall see the labor of his soul and be satisfied. Isaiah 53, 11, by his knowledge, my righteous servant shall justify many for he shall bear their iniquities. Now, would you like to bear somebody else's iniquities?

Especially a stranger. Ultimately, God will get it done. Believers are gained and will be gained. Unbelievers, they will be removed. At some point in a pastor's ministry, they're going to encounter this intruder of the sense of failure. Elijah did. I'm the only one left.

Now they want to kill me. Jeremiah, every chapter of Jeremiah, man, he faced so much junk. Jeremiah 9, 2, you know, he just, if I had a place, I could just go away.

He wanted to just, I should read it. It's so good. Well, it might not be good to you because you might be guilty of something, right? Who's not, right? Isaiah, Jeremiah 9, 2. Anybody else's heart on fire for Jeremiah?

Maybe it's Elvira that your heart is on fire for. But anyway, Jeremiah 9, 2. Oh, that I had in the wilderness a lodging place for travelers that I might leave my people and go from them, for they are all adulterers, an assembly of treacherous men. Well, there were people trying to kill him to just take him off the earth.

But, you know, he just, the sense of failure and just, I just want to get away. Of course, Paul had to face these things. Paul writes about it. Be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain. Now he's writing that to Christians. It's not at a pastor's conference. It applies to pastors, but it's all of us because we do get weary in the work.

We have to guard against being weary of the work. You don't want to get to the place where you say, I'm sick and tired of it. I've had it. Well, you can do that before the Lord.

You just don't want to do that in front of people. And maybe I can focus that a little bit. He says, yet surely my just reward is with the Lord. So ministry, Christ pains in ministry.

He was pained by ministry, but he was not disillusioned. And so there is a strong, the strong voice of the pastor in the pulpit. Spirit's upon him.

He knows everything he is saying. He's trying to back it all up with Scripture. But then if the strong voice is in the pulpit, there's that stressed voice in prayer. And that's where he tells God all the things that are bugging him.

And usually it's a pretty big stack, but he doesn't finish because he gets sick and tired after he just gets to the first two. This isn't going well. So I think it is one of the beautiful things about prayer is that we can say we can tell God anything and know that once we're finished with that, he expects us to get up and go get back to work. I like that under the terms of this world. I wouldn't want that in heaven.

It wouldn't be my first choice. But I like that I have that freedom that I don't have to feel like I have to try to hide something from God, which is silly. He's omnipotent. You can't hide anything from God. It's like a one year old playing hide and seek.

It's just like, you can't do that. You have to wait until they get to be 12 and go to Jerusalem. Three days later they found the Lord anyway. And my work, he continues verse four, and my work with my God.

So he remained steadfast, resolved in spite of failures. John chapter eight, he who sent me is with me. The father has not left me alone for I always do those things that please him. That is something that we are to shoot for, to always please God. I like it. It's been said, God is easily pleased but he's never satisfied.

I believe that's true. And it's encouraging in its own strange way. Verse five, and now Yahweh says, who formed me from the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob back to him so that Israel is gathered to him. For I shall be glorious in the eyes of Yahweh and my God shall be my strength. And so, here you have, again, the Lord speaking about his relationship with the father, the Jews that are on his heart. Yahweh is answering him. I know, it seems like it's almost schizophrenic. You have the Messiah speaking, who is part of the Godhead. And then you have the father speaking.

And which one is at what point? And if you follow the usage of the pronouns and the work that is being done, then you can keep up with it. The servant of the Lord is marked here as distinct from the nation Israel. Here you have the servant to bring Jacob.

That distinction is clear. In Mark 13, he writes, he will send his angels to gather together his elect from the four winds and from the farthest part of the earth to the farthest part of heaven. And so the Lord is always aggressive, looking to reach souls. And if souls aren't saved, it's not because the Lord is not at work, it's because the people are nonresponsive. Our Lord could not minister to the Gentiles until he first ministered to the Jews. And that's what's being said here in verses 5 and 6, and we find that in the Gospels. Christ says, go to the lost sheep of Israel and stay away from those Gentiles.

Not because he didn't want to reach them, because the timing was off and it would have been a complete flop. When we get to the book of Acts, we see just how difficult it is and what is involved and how you have to have the understanding of Scripture to be able to make a case for this Messiah long announced arriving and fulfilling the prophecies that he did. The Bible is a Jewish book, and the first believers and apostles were Jews. Gentiles would not have heard the Gospel without God using the Jewish people. And if God had anything to say for most of, for the Bible's history, he said it to a Jew in the Hebrew language. And that didn't change until Pentecost came, and it was a gradual change. In Romans chapter 11, Paul is trying to tell the Gentiles, don't be throwing the Jewish people under the bus.

You have a lot to be grateful for. The Scripture knowledge that you're getting, where the stuff is coming from, don't write them off. God's not finished with them as a people. Again, as an individual, you know, the wicked are the wicked, whether they're, regardless of their ethnicity.

Verse 6, indeed he says, it is too small a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore and preserve the preserved ones of Israel. I will also give you as a light to the Gentiles that you should be my salvation to the ends of the earth. Well, that's pretty clear, it seems.

He's just saying, listen, you're not going to waste who you are on just one people. You will be sent to everyone. 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.