Early Detection Alerts (Part A)

Yahweh has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. Paul really draws that out in 2 Corinthians, at the end of chapter 5. Reconciliation from God with sinners. Well, you would think with verses like this that talk about the coming of Messiah and His sufferings, that when Jesus did come and suffer, that all of Israel would have repented.

Many did, most did not. 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 50 with today's edition of Cross-Reference Radio. Isaiah chapter 50. What we have here is another layer of God's pre-announced anointed one, the Messiah, along with additional identifying features. This is the kind of prophecy that should have served as an early detection alert for everyone when Christ finally showed up.

I mean, the phenomenal things that accompanied Him, that drew attention to Him, satisfying the prophecies. Even after the cross, I mean, you would, you have to put yourself there and say, what would I have done? Would I have caught the message?

Would I have been honest enough to admit what I was looking at? Acts chapter 2, after the church was born, Peter's preaching, and he says, Him, speaking of Christ, being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified and put to death. They knew what he was talking about. Some came in late to the kingdom, some never did.

It's the same story today. In Acts chapter 8, we find Philip, one of the evangelists, those that just were able to preach Christ and lead people to Him, that gift of evangelism. We find him sent out to the desert in Judea, and there was an Ethiopian riding on a chariot reading scripture. And we read in Acts chapter 8, sitting in his chariot, he was reading Isaiah the prophet. And we're told what he was reading. It continues in Isaiah chapter 8, and there in verse 29, the spirit said to Philip, go near and overtake his chariot. So Philip ran to him and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah and said, do you understand what you're reading? Because you know, a lot of people think just because they get high grades in school or whatever it is, they just know the Bible also.

Big mistake. It's not true of anybody. What causes a human being to know what the scripture is saying and to apply it is the Holy Spirit, dependent upon God. At no point do we say to God, I got it from here. Well, it continues, and he said, how can I unless someone guides me? And he asked Philip to come up and sit with him, honest enough to say, I don't know what I'm reading.

I'm liking it for some strange reason, but I don't know what it's saying. The place in the scripture which he read was this, it says in Acts chapter 8. He was led as a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb before its shearer, he is silent, so he opened not his mouth. In his humiliation, his justice was taken away, and who will declare his generation? For his life is taken from the earth.

In other words, they killed him. Then the eunuch answered Philip and said, I ask you, of whom does this prophet say this, of himself or of another man? And then Philip opened his mouth and beginning in that, in this scripture, preached Jesus to him. This is exciting because you come here to this chapter in Isaiah and you say, how do I know when we get to the messianic part, how do I know that Isaiah is not talking about himself? That question is just answered here by Philip when the Ethiopian asked, I ask you, of whom does the prophet say this, of himself or some other man?

The language is superlative. It just does not apply randomly to anyone, not all of it. Bits and pieces, there may be some application, but not the package. That is reserved for Christ. Isaiah, earlier in his prophecies before chapter 50 where we are this evening, he gave hints of opposition towards the ministry of Messiah. In the previous chapter in verse 2, Isaiah 49 verse 2, 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.

Already indications of conflict, those are weapons of war. This is the third round introducing this Messiah since chapter 40. He says in Isaiah 50 verse 6, we didn't get to yet, I have made my back to those who struck me and my cheeks to those who plucked out the beard.

I did not hide my face from shame and spitting. So the suffering is intensifying in the prophet's revelation. Then by the time we get to chapters 52 and 53, we are told not only about the intensity of his sufferings, but why it was necessary. Isaiah 52 verse 14, his visage was marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men. When we get to that verse about the visage being marred, I'm going to probably irritate some of you who have emotional theology, but we'll have to wait till we get there.

That kind of cliffhanger. But coming back to Isaiah, the necessity of Messiah's suffering, Isaiah 53 verse 6, all we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned every one to his own way, and Yahweh has laid on him the iniquity of us all. And Paul really draws that out in 2 Corinthians at the end of chapter 5, reconciliation from God with sinners. Well, you would think with verses like this that talk about the coming of Messiah and his sufferings, that when Jesus did come and suffer, that all of Israel would have repented.

Many did, most did not. So now we look at this 50th chapter. The first three verses are about the rebellious heart of the people, and then we'll get back to Messiah. Verse 1, thus says Yahweh, where is the certificate of your mother's divorce, whom I have put away? Or which of my creditors is it whom I have sold you?

For your iniquities you have sold yourselves, and for your transgression your mother has been put away. So this is a rhetorical question. It's a question that is not looking for an answer.

The question is giving the answer. It indicates the absence of divorce. He's saying there is no divorce. Where's the certificate?

Show me. Therefore, God is reassuring his people that he has not abandoned them, not permanently. He has withdrawn from time to time because of their iniquity, but he denies that he has broken off the covenant relationship that he has established with them as a people. And so Isaiah says, God speaking through him, don't blame God for this estrangement that you're talking about, because they were saying in chapter 49 how God has abandoned them. Verse 14 of Isaiah 49, Zion said Yahweh has forsaken me and my Lord has forgotten me. Yeah, well there's more to the story.

There's the truth to the story. In this image of husband and wife relationship, this unity that God is using throughout Scripture as metaphor for his relationship with his people, Isaiah speaks about it, Jeremiah speaks about it, Hosea, Ezekiel, we get it in the New Testament. Yahweh is joined to Israel since Sinai, Mount Sinai, even before the prophecies of course, but that's when the covenant was established in Exodus 19 and 20. They violated that covenant by playing the harlot and worshiping other gods, the idols. Jeremiah chapter 2, for of old I have broken your yoke and burst your bonds and you said I will not transgress when on every high hill and under every tree you lay down playing the harlot.

They were totally into idolatry, they were lying to God, lying to God's people, lying to God's prophets, just making up things about God, thinking they were getting away with it. God did not forsake his people, though they were unfaithful to him. Again Jeremiah chapter 3, return old backsliding children says Yahweh, for I am married to you, I will take you one from a city and two from a family and I will bring you to Zion, reaffirming his commitment that if there was any guilt of unfaithfulness it was on the side of people, not God. And so what we're getting out of this, we're learning about the character of God Almighty into the New Testament. That's the purpose of quoting the scriptures, it's saying here that God is telling us something about himself and his relationship to people. 2 Corinthians in the New Testament, Paul says I am jealous for you with godly jealousy, for I have betrothed you to one husband that I may present you a chaste virgin to Christ.

So the work continued and it does continue to this day. And Christianity, well many Christians, it's just you know the Bible's just not enough for them. They think it has to be supplemented and they attach to it all sorts of wacky things that don't come from scripture and contradict and are contrary to the Bible.

And when you point it out you have confrontation. So on account of their persistent backsliding, God put Israel away, the northern kingdom, Judah's sister. God had given the northern kingdom a bill of divorce, that was the non-dividic kingdom. They were not a kingdom that received the promises as did David for Judah. And he disowned the northern kingdom, the Assyrians came took all the people away and that was it and that kingdom is not coming back.

Judah is in contrast to that. So the surviving Jews were wrong to suppose themselves cast off. Now in the law concerning marriage in Deuteronomy 24, Moses covered this for the Jewish people.

He left a lot of questions but he also gave some pretty clear answers to other areas concerning this topic, this very unpleasant topic. The certificate of divorce, when it was given, the former marriage was broken and it could not be restored and that woman was free to remarry. But she was not free to remarry the husband.

If he, you know, he went on to get married and come back, okay let's try it again. And that's pretty much what happened with the northern kingdom. God divorced them, they were gone, they could not come back. But the Davidic kingdom remained.

The northern kingdom was assimilated into Assyria but David's covenant from 2 Samuel chapter 7 remains unconditional. And what I'm trying to point out to you is the Jews were crying that God had forsaken them but God had baked into his word all sorts of illustration and parables and metaphor to assure them that if there was any guilt that was on their side and we as Christians should know about these kinds of things because God continues to illustrate, to give parables, to give straight, flat-out lessons. Various ways God trying to assure his people of his trustworthiness which then we are supposed to engage the lost and ensure them that God's word is trustworthy. That there are sections in scripture that have to be talked about and wrestled with but overall we get the point. And there's nothing wrong with digging deeper into scripture if you're going to use it for the glory of God. May I be useful to God and a blessing to others.

That's what I would like out of my life. And so he is going to restore Judah. He says here in verse one, or which of my creditors is it to whom I have sold you? Now he's really mocking the mockers because God is saying, you know I can't owe. You know I'm not indebted to anyone.

So why are you going around thinking that somehow I'm the guilty one, that I'm not fulfilling my end of the covenant or that I owe you something. God has not sold his people but by their sins they have sold themselves. I agree. You know Pastor Chuck used to say he believed that God didn't send anybody to hell. He just supported their decision to go there, to be separated from him.

And I agree with that. I mean what does it take to go to hell? To reject the gospel.

That's what really, it's all it really takes. When we come up in Romans chapter 3 we'll talk about those who've not yet heard the gospel and will discover that God is just in his decisions and he doesn't cheat. He's not unfair. He is righteous. He is faithful to his word even when we are faithful. If you belong to God, 2 Timothy 2.

We're getting past this Old Testament section and then we're going to get to this Old Testament section about the New Testament in just a few moments. But the faithfulness of God, 2 Timothy. If we are faithless, he remains faithful. He cannot deny himself.

What does that look like? Well maybe you've done something you're having a hard time forgiving yourself. But God has forgiven you. He is faithful.

Even if you're troubled and stumble and you know, Lord I'm sorry but I just feel so bad. God will leave you to feel bad and work it out but he's moving forward. He's going to be faithful. He is faithful to chasten those whom he loves. He will also judge whom those against him but those whom he said to the church at Laodicea, the church that was characterized as one that nauseated God. As many as I love, I rebuke and chase and therefore be zealous and repent. He's saying you messed up Laodicea but there's a door open.

You can still fix this. You just need to repent. He is also faithful to forgive when we repent and confess. 1 John.

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Verse 2. Why when I came was there no man? Why when I called was there none to answer?

Is my hand shortened at all that it cannot redeem or have I no power to deliver? Indeed with my rebuke I dry up the sea. I make the rivers a wilderness.

Their fish stink because there is no water and die of thirst. So he says why can't you just believe me? Why could he not find a believer amongst his people that would trust him, especially after all the miracles he had performed in their history?

There's an interesting section in numbers. This is when Moses and the people were out of Egypt. They were a free people now but they were in the wilderness and they were leaving Mount Sinai where the law was given and they were moving deeper into the wilderness on their way to the promised land before the spies were sent in.

And Moses' father-in-law Jethro, who has called by three different names, probably titles and things like that in addition to a name, but Jethro, Ruel also, he was with them and Moses wanted his father-in-law to stay with them. You know the desert. You can be our eyes for us. As the Lord leads us you can tell us what we can expect from you know the terrain and things like that. And he says this to him, Moses speaking to his father-in-law, we are setting out for the place of which Yahweh said I will give it to you. Come with us and we will treat you well for Yahweh has promised good things to Israel.

That's right. God laid out I'm going to do this for you. I'm going to do that for you. I just have one thing I need you to do. Obey me. Don't go following fake gods.

Don't, you know, just listen to the commandments I just gave to you. This is so profound for the Lord Yahweh has promised good things to Israel and yet here he is centuries later he cannot find one to respond to him because they're out serving other gods. That's why he can't find somebody who's going to respond to him. He's targeting the wicked. There's a righteous remnant here that Isaiah is not talking to. He's addressing the majority who certainly seems to be the majority of apostates in Jerusalem and Judah at this at the time he ministered but it serves all ages. He continues in verse two, is my hand shortened at all that it cannot redeem or have I no power to deliver so he challenges his people to prove their assertions that he's abandoned in them that he can't do any more for them and yet he is faithful. But you know Judah will go into exile. There will be that separation and they will be restored and the Jews have had their scriptures. They have them to this very day.

What do they do with them? That is the question. What are they doing with their own scripture?

Have they just boiled it down to ritual to something that's sort of like a folk religion or is God real to them? Well he is real to the ones that come to their Messiah. As we pointed out there's no way somebody can come along now and prove be born in Bethlehem and prove the lineage of David to fulfill the criteria for Messiah.

That window is closed. So many Jews have seen that and have become Christians in the modern age. The mention of the fish here goes back to the first plague in Exodus when the water was turned into blood and the same thing happened.

The fish died and the river was unusable, Exodus 7. Now verse 3 of Isaiah 50, I clothe the heavens with blackness and I make sackcloth their coverings. God said let there be light but he can also say let there be darkness.

He can turn the lights off. He is sovereign. This incidentally was the ninth plague out of Egypt, the plague of darkness, and the tenth one was of course the plague of death. So Revelation 6 continues this thought there in Revelation 6. Now in Revelation 6 the great tribulation period has started. So in the first three chapters of Revelation you have the church age, the age of grace, then the scene shifts to heaven, and then it comes back to earth when Antichrist comes on the scene riding a white horse.

And speaking about the great tribulation, John reveals, I looked when he opened the sixth seal and behold there was a great earthquake and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair and the moon became like blood. And so God still demonstrating that the same God who spoke in the days of Moses and the days of Isaiah and the days of John will be the same God speaking in the end of the age. Now verse 4 shifts. Now we're going to come to the soliloquy of Messiah. In verse 4 the Lord Yahweh has given me the tongue of the learned that I should know how to speak a word in season to him who is weary. He awakens me morning by morning.

He awakens my ear to hear the learned. Well the Messiah is saying I'm going to be prepared when I get there. I will be made in heaven to use that language because of course Christ is self-existence from eternity past.

He is the eternal son. The source of his education if we can put it in human terms we might say are found in John chapter 15. In John 15 they were impressed with how much he knew about scripture but he didn't come through them.

And they weren't going to stand for that. If we don't make you then you can't be made. You cannot impress us unless we say you know you can impress us.

This is still alive and well today. You know the arrogance that goes with universities because so much good comes out of them. Every time you drive over a bridge for example you know that there's an engineer that's university trained to make that happen and we're grateful about that.

But then there's another element that goes with formal higher learning that is just right out of hell. And if I saw a cartoon that said it was a vending machine that said gullibility test and you would insert it said one dollar gullibility test and you insert the dollar but there was no exit for anything because nothing came out. You just lost your dollar if you were gullible. Now there are certain neighborhoods that if you had that machine you'd go broke. If you put that in the hood they know better. They're savvy enough to say I'm putting my dollar in there. No way.

And you you'd go broke. But if you wanted to be rich you just put that machine on universities on the campus of universities because so many of those mushmind young students are so gullible that they can't tell you what a male or female is anymore. And this is just this is out of hell. This isn't human. It's not human to behave this way.

It's demonic. Anyhow so in Christ's day there were those that felt well you can't be smart unless we tell you. So John 15 and the Jews marveled saying how does this man know letters having never studied? Well who said he never studied? Because he didn't come to study from you automatically. He can't know anything and this still goes on. There are people that say well what what seminary did you go to? And if you tell them you were homeschooled by your father in heaven they don't you don't like that one. It's sad but it's the way it is. Anyway the Lord subjected himself to his processes of righteous development.

Came as an infant as a newborn and he grew. 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.