Early Detection Alerts (Part B)

He tells me, ask, seek, knock.

Ask and it will be given to you according to his purposes. You know, the British would say, I don't know about nowadays, but it was a time when the crown was everything to them. They would say, according to the dictates of the king. Well, isn't Christ the king?

Should I not as a believer outshine them in my service to my monarch, Jesus Christ? 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. And now here's Pastor Rick in Isaiah chapter 50 with today's edition of Cross Reference Radio. 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 the time he ministered, but it serves all ages. It continues in verse 2, in my hand, 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 and 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's still demonstrating that the same God who spoke in the days of Moses, in the days of Isaiah, in 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 can impress us.

This is still alive and well today. 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, 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 didn't put my dollar in there.

No way. And 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, you can't be smart unless we tell you. 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 it still goes on. There are people that say, well, what seminary did you go to? And if you tell them you were homeschooled by your father in heaven, they 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. And we'll talk about that as we go through this. But continuing in verse four, he says, again, Messiah is talking about himself so that we could identify him, as Philip did with the Ethiopian, that I should know how to speak a word in season to the weary. Well, Christ was totally in touch with human need, and he still is. One of the problems is our carnality wants to be, you know, relieved of the problem, rescued from the problem, and not just, you know, built up in the midst of the problem.

We had the whole problem to go away, but that's not how it usually works. So he's not aloof. He's able to identify Hebrews chapter 4, for we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was at all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.

So he's way above us. And then he says, come unto me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I'll give you rest. But you're still going to have to carry that burden.

I'll give you a little rest. I remember, you know, you go on force marches in the military, you walk from, you're supposed to walk as far west until west turns to east. Anyway, so there would be a break, you know, you walk ten miles, okay, take a break. Well, you knew you still had to get up and walk again. It's like, man, can't they, you got trucks. I've seen them.

Use them. Anyway, with Christ is a similar thing, right? He says, okay, you got to take a little break, but you got to finish. I have finished the race. I've kept the faith. Finally, there's laid up for me the crown of righteousness. He awakens my ear to hear as the learned.

Well, that's what they charged him. How did he learn these things? And so he stood amongst the rabbis in Jerusalem at 12 years old. And we read in Luke chapter 2, and all who heard him were astonished at his understanding and answers. Well, Isaiah said this was going to happen. That's what we're reading about here in Isaiah 50 verse 4, that he has the ear of the learned.

But it comes from the Lord. They were unaware that he was a carpenter's son. Of course, Joseph wasn't his father, but he was under his care.

And he was in the house of a carpenter, and by that definition, he was the carpenter's son. That's how society would have treated him. Verse 5, the Lord Yahweh has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious, nor did I turn away. How many students become rebellious, especially when they think they know more than the teacher?

No, sometimes they may. But in contrast to the close-minded, resistant people of Isaiah's day, the Messiah is not going to be rebellious. Isaiah 48 verse 8, surely you did not hear, surely you did not know, surely from long ago your ear was not opened, for I knew that you would deal very treacherously and were called a transgressor from the womb. So that characterized the people in Isaiah's day, in contrast to a Messiah who has a teachable spirit before us.

He doesn't even need to. He's sovereign, but he puts on humanity for our sake. He suffers for our sake, and he rises again for us. So there are some that look at this verse and say, well, when it says he's opened my ear, some commentators say, well, that's the bondservant having his ear lobe pierced when he becomes a willing servant, but I think that's a stretch. And you've got to watch that because there are parts of Scripture that have similarities, but that's not what's being spoken of.

And I don't believe that is the case. And just continuing back to verse 5, in other words, I don't think he's talking about putting the ear to be pierced to demonstrate he is a servant. It fits, but I don't think that's what Isaiah is talking about.

And I'm not the only one. Anyway, nor did I turn away, ever facing, ever facing the will of God, even facing certain death he did not turn away, not my will but your, we know that story. It should spook us a little bit when we feel like we are entitled that God owes us something. Again, I hit the prosperity teachers who just want to claim it and think that they're entitled now. That is not biblical.

That's greed in the name of Christ. You know what I can claim? I can claim Jesus is my Lord.

That's what I can claim. And if he is my Lord, then it is his will that I must be subject to. And if I know what his will is, then I'm to act on it. If I don't know, then I am to seek it. He tells me, ask, seek, knock.

Ask and it will be given to you according to his purposes. You know, the British would say, I don't know about nowadays, but it was a time when the crown was everything to them. They would say, according to the dictates of the king. Well, isn't Christ the king? Should I not as a believer outshine them in my service to my monarch, Jesus Christ? Everything from the time we open our eyes in the morning till the time we close them at night is supposed to be, our life is supposed to be subject to the dictates of the king. But we got this flesh that says, well, yeah, we'll see about that. And that is the war we find ourselves in. And it's full out conflict. So Jesus, he spoke openly about his obedience to the father when he walked the earth. Just a couple of places.

Well, more than a couple. John 519, John 536, John 638, John 716, John 729, John 12, 4950. Why only am I reading from John? Because John is the one, his gospel is the one that was saying to the people when the Gnostics were coming up and saying Christ was not, you know, the son of God and they were challenging the reality of his humanity and the reality of his sovereignty. John took that to task and he wrote the gospel of John to say he is every bit divine and he is every bit real. And in his letters, they continue that, that he whom we have handled, we've touched, we've seen with our eyes, he's not the ghost or a phantom. He was real and he talks about God walking amongst us. He presents Christ as God the Son as a human being with all power but holding it in check, restraining himself. And that's why I'm quoting John. And so we come down to verse six is again Messiah giving us a heads up on what's coming. He's giving, he's alerting us. I gave 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. He wasn't claiming freedom, he was claiming obedience. John chapter 12 verse 27, now my soul is troubled and what shall I say? Father save me from this hour but for this purpose I've come to this hour. This is why I'm here, to die for the sins of the guilty. Isaiah 53, 52, 53, I'm fulfilling these. Psalm 22, I am fulfilling these things. Just turn to the scriptures you'll see it which many refused to do. Luke 22 verse 63, now the men who held Jesus mocked him and beat him.

Why? What did he ever do to any of them? What could he have done to all of them? I gave my back to those who struck me, the beatings, the 40 lashes minus one. My cheeks to those who plucked out the beard.

I did not hide my face from the shame and the spitting. You know, anyway, he plucked out the beard in submission to the cross. He endured on behalf of us. Matthew 27, they spat on him and took the reed and struck him on the head. Later Matthew would say they also struck him with their hands because he moved from one judgment, one court to another court before one judge, you know, is Pilate, is Annas, is Caiaphas and he was being abused all the time. The marring of his visage wasn't so much human, his physical visage, it was who he was, the essence of who he is, the son of God. How could he let this happen to him? Love, for us.

There are a lot of things that we know about God from the Bible and there's a whole lot of things we don't know that we will know when we get to heaven. Well, spitting of course is a global sign of contempt and anger and hatred, disrespect. It's still practice and so I saw in in China, communists run China, communism is a religion that pretends to be a political entity.

It acts as one from time to time but it is a religion and they won't tolerate other religions. So there's footage of these people in hating each other, spitting at each other because if they fight the laws aren't very tolerant and they don't want to go to jail. So what's the next best thing? Well, pool noodles would be one.

You could use those without worrying about bludgeoning the other guy but they go to spitting on each other. You can see the hatred on them. I'm just saying, this has been around a long time. There's a lot of hatred for this Jesus of ours then and there's a lot of hatred for him now. Hebrews 12, Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross despising the shame. He didn't like it any more than anybody else.

Yeah, he took it. How many, you know, do you have a thin skin as a Christian? You like a hemophiliac if you get poked just a little bit, you bleed too much? I hope I'm not that way.

I know my flesh is and I hope my spirit just stays above these things. Here's an example of bitterness not getting past it. When I die, I'm leaving a list of people who I don't want to come to my funeral. I mean, it's just like, why?

They don't want to give them the satisfaction. So, you know, things like that, got to watch out for it. So that's why I'm not going to die. I'm just going to stay around, spite them.

Anyway, coming back to this, I think Christians are the only ones that can actually say, when I die, if I die, because of the whole rapture thing. Anyhow, verse seven, for the Lord God will help me. Therefore, I will not be disgraced.

Therefore, I have set my face like a flint and I know that I will not be ashamed. Yeah, by righteous standards, all that's true. The world has their standards, but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise. What the world defines foolish, not God. God says, what I'm telling you is not foolish. They're going to think it is, to the Greeks, foolishness.

To the Jews, a stumbling block. But to God is spot on. And so, you know, we have to make sure we do not let Satan write our dictionaries and encyclopedias. We are the learned of the Lord. That's why he's given us a pretty thick book. This is like, you know, one page won't work for you.

You're going to need a lot of them. Well, verse seven, Christ always chose to act as God the Son become flesh when he walked the earth. Not now. He's been glorified. He's returned largely to who he is. If he were to absolutely return to the Father, we would sort of just be very confused. But it really helps that God has become closer to us.

He is, and through Christ, the Incarnation brought Yahweh closer to us so we could learn so much more that we would not have had had he remained sort of, you know, removed in heaven. So that's why Jesus said, He who has seen me has seen the Father. What a profound statement. Nobody could say that. No angel could say that without blaspheming.

Well, again, he chose to act as God the Son become flesh, not in his inherent omnipotence, keeping himself under the guidance and control of the Holy Spirit voluntarily. That's what he's telling us in Isaiah. He said, when I come and I behave this way, you understand that I gave you an alert. I announced this. This is how I'm going to do it.

To help you identify me and I help you know what's going on and learn some things about how you're to behave also. He is the second Adam, the last. Adam, you know, failed to be the obedient being he was created to be. But Christ is the one that did not fail. He lived by faith as we're called to live. And he did not use his divinity, but he defaulted to the Godhead. And so he read in John 8, and he who sent me is with me.

The Father has not left me alone, for I always do those things that please him. Living dependent upon the power of the Spirit, Luke chapter 2. Then he went down with them and came to Nazareth.

This is after the incident in the Jerusalem temple when he was 12 years old, and was subject to them. But his mother kept all these things in her heart. So Mary, when she's telling Luke, because Luke, he researched his book, the Gospel of Luke, and he tells us that right at the beginning. He looked deep into these things, interviewing people, and talking to Mary. Mary said to him, look, there were so many things about Christ growing up that all you could do is just file it to memory. It was unlike anybody and anything. He was not making pigeons out of mud pies or something like that, like some of the crazy heresies teach.

But he was just this stellar person. And she, what could she do? She couldn't explain it.

I mean, they're pretty upset they get back to Jerusalem after three days. Maybe you've had a child that has gone missing from you, and you know, you're agonizing, and when you see them, you're like, you want to take your belt off. You don't, hopefully you don't, but you're like, where were you? Why would you do that to me?

Am I the only one who's ever had these kind of feelings? I said, I couldn't get to a phone, Dad. I was trying to.

Oh, okay. So anyhow, so Mary and Joseph, you know, they were pretty upset. And so he submits to them, and Luke puts that in his writing, teaches us about Christ, and it continues. He says, and Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men. So he submitted himself to the development processes that we go through. He grew in stature and wisdom, dependent on the Holy Spirit.

At any time, he could have stopped that. That's one of the things when he says, I can call 12 legions down right now. But he subjected himself to these things under the guidance of the Holy Spirit to teach us how we are to conduct ourselves. Luke chapter 4, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. What's the first thing Christ points out with anointing? Preaching. Telling the truth about God, based on revelation from God. He doesn't say, he has anointed me to do interpretive dance.

They had something like that in Judges, remember? The women came out with their dancing, and the men clobbered them and took them as wives. One of the goofiest stories in the Bible. So anyway, and as some of you mentioned, but I like interpretive dance.

Well, you shouldn't. Not in 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.