The Savior of the World – part 4
Isaiah 42:1-25 (14-25)
March 3, 2024
By now I think we’ve all got a handle on the backdrop to the chapter.
We have God speaking to Gentiles
And offering them salvation through His Son.
#1 THE SAVIOR ANNOUNCED
Isaiah 42:1-4
Here God announces the Savior He has chosen to save the world.
• He is meek
• He is mild
• He is compassionate to sinners
#2 THE SAVIOR APPOINTED
Isaiah 42:5-9
There we learned that God is the author of salvation.
God initiated it all.
• He selected Christ
• He sent Christ
• He equipped Christ
• He laid our sins on Christ
• Through Christ He saved sinners
#3 THE SAVIOR ADORED
Isaiah 42:10-13
This is the expected response of God from sinners upon being saved.
We are called upon to worship and adore God our Savior.
• For He is the One who came and not only sought us, but who also slaughtered our enemy.
• He came as a warrior clothed in zeal and set us free from the bonds of the enemy who held us captive.
We respond to Him with a new song of praise.
Tonight we move forward yet again.
#4 THE SAVIOR ADVANCING
Isaiah 42:14-17
We are able here to see something again of the heart of God
And especially His desire and commitment to save sinners.
(14) “I have kept silent for a long time, I have kept still and restrained Myself. Now like a woman in labor I will groan, I will both gasp and pant.”
Here we come across yet another analogy.
In verses 1-4 we saw God’s Savior as meek and lowly and mild and gentle to sinners.
• We understood why.
• Sinners are broken and hopeless and we need a compassionate Savior.
In verses 10-13 we saw Him as a warrior breaking the oppressor’s arm.
• And we understood why there too.
• We were held captive by a mighty foe and we need a mighty warrior to deliver us from his grasp.
But now in verse 14
We get yet another analogy and this time it is of “a woman in labor”.
What do we do with this one?
In the verse itself we get some clue because we see a CONTRAST.
• The verse begins with God revealing that “I have kept silent for a long time, I have kept still and restrained Myself.”
• And then the contrast, but “Now like a woman in labor I will groan, I will gasp and pant.”
So the contrast is our first clue.
God was for a time silent, but now He is not.
God was for a time restrained, but now He is not.
• Now He is loud.
• Now He is vocal.
And God compares Himself to a woman in labor.
Many guys in here are dads and many of you were with your wife while she was in labor.
• Do any of you remember her being meek during that time?
• Do any of you remember telling her, “Honey, you’re being kind of loud you might want to tone it down”?
OF COURSE NOT!
What they are going through is extreme.
Yelling is allowed, screaming is allowed, barking orders is allowed.
And the simple illustration here is that
There was a time when God was perhaps silent and restrained
And mysterious regarding His desire, BUT NOT NOW.
Now, everyone is going to know what He wants.
• Now, He is going to shout His desires at the top of His lungs.
• Now, He is not to be denied.
He is “like a woman in labor”.
SCRIPTURE FURTHER HELPS us understand what is going on here.
In regard to Him having been “silent” or “restrained”,
Consider these texts.
Genesis 15:13-16 “God said to Abram, “Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, where they will be enslaved and oppressed four hundred years. “But I will also judge the nation whom they will serve, and afterward they will come out with many possessions. “As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you will be buried at a good old age. “Then in the fourth generation they will return here, for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet complete.”
• This was many years before God even sent Israel into Egypt
• And they would be there for 450 years before God would bring them out,
• And 40 more after that as Israel wondered in the wilderness,
• Before God would use them to judge the Amorite.
But even during Abraham’s day
God was already announcing the sin of the Amorite,
His displeasure with Amorite, and His certain judgment of the Amorite.
So for another half a millennium God is going to silently and patiently endure the Amorite without saying anything.
They are not pleasing, but they are allowed to exist.
• He will be “silent” with them.
• He will be “restrained” toward them.
That is to say that
Even though they are living in sin and utter rebellion against God, He is not demonstrably or actively
Confronting that sin or calling them out of it.
It’s wrong, God hates it, but He is silently enduring it.
You see it again with the prophet Ezekiel in Ezekiel 4.
Ezekiel 4:4-8 “As for you, lie down on your left side and lay the iniquity of the house of Israel on it; you shall bear their iniquity for the number of days that you lie on it. “For I have assigned you a number of days corresponding to the years of their iniquity, three hundred and ninety days; thus you shall bear the iniquity of the house of Israel. “When you have completed these, you shall lie down a second time, but on your right side and bear the iniquity of the house of Judah; I have assigned it to you for forty days, a day for each year. “Then you shall set your face toward the siege of Jerusalem with your arm bared and prophesy against it. “Now behold, I will put ropes on you so that you cannot turn from one side to the other until you have completed the days of your siege.”
There God tells Ezekiel to lay down on his left side,
• Presumably facing north for the northern kingdom
• God will tie him there so that for 390 days (1 for each year)
• He will just sort of have to passively “bear the iniquity of the house of Israel”
And then when that is finished he will flop over,
Facing the southern kingdom and do it again for another 40 days.
Again the point is that for 430 years God passively endured their sin.
It was displeasing, He was angry, but He was simply bearing it.
OR TAKE THE DAYS OF NOAH.
• God was so angry that He had decided to judge the world by flood.
• But it would be another 100 years while Noah built the boat before God would actively judge.
• So there again was 100 years of relative silence and patience on the part of God.
And God, now speaking to these Gentiles says,
“That is how I’ve been with you.”
But now, He is speaking forcefully and loudly and will not be denied.
Now He is screaming “like a woman in labor.”
Now He is making His voice heard from on high.
And we see it as EVANGELISTIC ZEAL on the part of God.
Paul used similar language to the Galatians saying:
Galatians 4:19 “My children, with whom I am again in labor until Christ is formed in you—”
• Paul explains his demonstrative tone to the Gentiles as though he were again in labor with them.
• He is not to be denied.
We think of him speaking to the Corinthians:
2 Corinthians 5:18-21 “Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”
• There he is begging and pleading with them to come to Christ.
So you understand what is being said here.
There was a time when God sort of passively bore your sin,
Not in a saving sense as Jesus bore it,
But in a tolerance sense meaning He didn’t immediately judge.
Consider the Psalmist.
Psalms 50:21 “These things you have done and I kept silence; You thought that I was just like you; I will reprove you and state the case in order before your eyes.”
• Israel sinned and God kept silent and they took that as approval.
• WRONG, it was simply momentary tolerance as He waited to judge.
It is what God is currently doing with the tares
As He patiently waits for all the wheat to be redeemed.
Don’t confuse His silence or restraint with approval.
But in any case here we see God announcing to the nations that He had previously been silent but NOW He is actively calling them to salvation.
Now He is boldly and loudly proclaiming to the coastlands
That they should leave their idolatry and He will save them.
• He has a gentle Savior.
• He has a warrior Savior.
• And He will save them.
• Now is the time to trust in Him.
And God here begins to give MOTIVATION AS TO WHY they should now listen and trust Him.
1) Namely because judgment is coming.
(15) “I will lay waste the mountains and hills and wither all their vegetation; I will make the rivers into coastlands And dry up the ponds.”
That is an analogy of judgment.
It speaks of a coming day in which God will lay waste this entire world.
There is coming a day when God will terrorize this entire world.
And so today He is calling loudly to sinners to come to His Savior.
Today He is Jonah, “Yet forty days and Nineveh will be destroyed!”
• Today He is screaming out to sinners!
• Today He is passionately waiving His arms!
• Today He is active in His call!
We seem Him as the Savior Jesus
Determined to travel from village to village to continue to preach the gospel to all people.
We see Him as Paul telling Titus:
Titus 2:15 “These things speak and exhort and reprove with all authority. Let no one disregard you.”
It is the famous Spurgeon quote:
“If sinners be damned, at least let them leap to Hell over our dead bodies. And if they perish, let them perish with our arms wrapped about their knees, imploring them to stay. If Hell must be filled, let it be filled in the teeth of our exertions, and let not one go unwarned and unprayed for.”
That is what God is doing here.
He is actively and passionately calling to sinners like a woman in labor,
That they might escape the coming judgment and be saved.
And can we pause here and take a que regarding evangelism training?
• How badly do we want sinners saved?
• How badly do we want them to leave their sin?
• How badly do we want them to come to faith in Christ?
The gospel is not a timid message, nor is it an optional one.
We are not called to be silent or restrained,
We are called to take this gospel to the very ends of the earth.
Isaiah was told earlier:
Isaiah 40:9 “Get yourself up on a high mountain, O Zion, bearer of good news, Lift up your voice mightily, O Jerusalem, bearer of good news; Lift it up, do not fear. Say to the cities of Judah, “Here is your God!”
That is evangelism.
Judgment is coming and men must know it.
But God is not only preaching a coming judgment,
2) He is also preaching a certain salvation.
(16) “I will lead the blind by a way they do not know, In paths they do not know I will guide them. I will make darkness into light before them And rugged places into plains. These are the things I will do, And I will not leave them undone.”
As sure is there a judgment for all sinners who do not repent…
THERE IS A SALVATION FOR ALL WHO DO.
• God will open the eyes of the blind.
• God will lead them to salvation.
• God will transfer them from the domain of darkness into the kingdom of His beloved Son.
He says, “These are the things I will do, And I will not leave them undone.”
It is a promise of God to the nations that
If they will repent and trust in Him He will definitely save them.
This is a valid promise to every man and every woman.
• We do believe in election.
• We do believe in a particular atonement.
• But we also know that the offer of salvation is a real and valid offer to everyone
we preach it to.
Romans 10:13 “for “WHOEVER WILL CALL ON THE NAME OF THE LORD WILL BE SAVED.”
And we take that promise with us to the world.
And we go with the confidence that all whom the Father has given to Christ will come to Christ.
John 6:37 “All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out.”
And here in Isaiah we read:
(17) “They will be turned back and be utterly put to shame, Who trust in idols, Who say to molten images, “You are our gods.”
The Savior will be victorious.
He will save those He came to save.
• They will be broken over their idolatry.
• They will be broken over their sin.
• They will lave their idols and their false gods.
• And He will save them.
THIS IS THE MINISTRY AND MESSAGE OF GOD.
It was certainly the ministry and message of Christ.
God didn’t send Christ into the world
To be passive about saving sinners.
He didn’t build a little center and stay seated in it all day just waiting for someone inquisitive to come by and ask what He was doing.
• He went in search of sinners.
• He sent in search of lost sheep.
• He sent out His disciples to go find those sheep.
• He sent them out in pairs, He sent out the 70.
And before He left this world He commissioned His church:
Matthew 28:18-10 “And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
It is a call to active duty.
It is a call to determined service.
It is a call to get up, speak up,
And proclaim the gospel like a woman in labor!
This world is in danger of the judgment of God.
They have wrongly mistaken God’s silence and restraint as approval.
• They need to be told that God has not changed His mind about sin.
• They need to be told that judgment is closer now than it has ever been.
• They need to be told that there is a Savior.
• They need to be told that He will save them if they will repent and believe.
• They need to be told that He will set them free from their sin, deliver them from their oppressor, and save them from the wrath to come.
This is what God is doing.
HE IS ACTIVELY SAVING THE WORLD!
HIS SAVIOR IS ADVANCING!
• His kingdom is growing from that small mustard seed to the premiere kingdom of all the world.
• His kingdom is spreading like leaven until the entire lump is completely leavened.
“He has sounded forth the trumped that shall never sound retreat; He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment seat; O be swift, my soul, to answer Him; be jubilant, my feet! Our God is marching on.”
That is what you see here.
Now, if the chapter were to stop here
We would find a very nice and neat conclusion to the point.
God desires to save the nations.
God desires to save the Gentiles.
1. We see Him announcing His Savior.
2. We see Him appointing His Savior.
3. We see Him calling for the adoration of His Savior.
4. We see Him with this final loud and vocal invitation to come and submit to the
advance of His Savior.
In many ways, in our minds, this is the conclusion of the chapter.
• God has confronted Gentile sinners in their idolatry.
• He has called them to repentance and salvation.
• He has promised to save them with the Savior He has appointed and sent.
That’s a nice and neat gospel message all wrapped up right there.
BUT GOD ISN’T FINISHED.
#5 THE SAVIOR ADMONISHING
Isaiah 42:18-25
What in the world do we have here?
All of a sudden God quits addressing Gentiles
And instead He turns and addresses His people Israel.
And He gets just as loud and direct to them.
• God turns to Israel and calls them “deaf” and “blind”
“Hear, you deaf! And look, you blind, that you may see.”
And all of a sudden we realize what God was doing.
This whole time we thought He was preaching to Gentiles only.
We thought it was just about those coastlands or nations.
• God was talking about their idolatry…
• God was talking about their sin…
• God was talking about their impending judgment…
And Israel was just sort of sitting over to the side,
Giving Him some distant “Amens” and “That’s right”.
“That’s right God, tell them! That’s right God, they’re sinners. That’s right God tell them about that idolatry and the coming judgment. Tell them they better repent or else.”
And in Paul Washer fashion God here spins around to them and says, “I don’t know why you’re clapping, I’m talking about you!”
Can you seriously not see your sin here too?
Can you seriously not see the same problems in your life?
If you can’t, you’re even more blind than I initially thought.
(19) “Who is blind but My servant, Or so deaf as My messenger whom I send? Who is so blind as he that is at peace with Me, Or so blind as the servant of the LORD?”
It is God’s way of saying, “I have never seen a more thick headed, undiscerning people than My people are.”
I confront sin in others, sin they are living in,
And they can’t seem to realize that I’m speaking to them too.
(20) “You have seen many things, but you do not observe them; You ears are open, but none hears.”
You sat through this entire sermon and never once wondered if I could be talking to you at all.
You seriously thought this was only about the Gentile nations.
YOU ARE BLIND!
And in fact, your blindness is worse than the Gentiles because you have had and ignored more truth than have ever received.
(21-22) “The LORD was pleased for His righteousness’ sake To make the law great and glorious. But this is a people plundered and despoiled; All of them are trapped in caves, Or are hidden away in prisons; They have become a prey with none to deliver them, And a spoil, with none to say, “Give them back!”
All they have had was general revelation (conscience and creation)
• But you actually had My Law.
• You have ignored way more than they have.
The whole time I’ve been offering them freedom from bondage
It is as though you have failed to recognize that
YOU ARE IN BONDAGE TOO!
• You are also “trapped in caves”
• You are also “hidden away in prisons”
• You also “have become a prey with none to deliver”
• You also are “a spoil, with none to say, ‘Give them back!’”
How can you be so blind and deaf?
It is the equivalent of Jesus constantly looking to Israel and saying, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”
• It is no wonder Jesus said to those same Jews that if the miracles He had worked in Capernaum had been done in Tyre and Sidon they would have repented.
AND SO NOW THE INVITATION IS GIVEN TO ISRAEL TOO:
(23-25) “Who among you will give ear to this? Who will give heed and listen hereafter? Who gave Jacob up for spoil, and Israel to plunderers? Was it not the LORD, against whom we have sinned, And in whose ways they were not willing to walk, And whose law they did not obey? So He poured out on him the heat of His anger And the fierceness of battle; And it set him aflame all around, Yet he did not recognize it; And it burned him, but he paid no attention.”
EARLIER God asked the nations who is sending Cyrus on you?
• And God said it is Me!
• And you should repent and trust in Me.
NOW God asks Israel a question.
“Who gave Jacob up for spoil, and Israel to plunderers?”
In other words, who sent you to Babylon in the first place?
• I DID!
“Was it not the LORD”
Why did He send you here?
Because you “have sinned”
• You have failed to obey His Law.
Even though He was silent and restrained about it for many years
THAT DID NOT MEAN HE APPROVED.
It is time for you also to repent!
• It is time for you also to look to His Savior!
• Open your eyes and see your sin!
• Open your ears and hear God’s saving call!
God is once again screaming like a woman in labor
Calling YOU to salvation!
Now, here is yet another place where we love the Bible.
I love how singularly focused the Bible can be.
• Isaiah 42 is an awesome chapter that at first appears just to be a rebuke of the nations and call for them to be saved
• But ends up being a call to the religious hypocrite as well.
TURN TO: ROMANS 1
If you are coming on Wednesday nights you are pretty familiar with Romans 1.
We see God announcing His wrath on the godless pagan of the world.
• This past week we saw their idolatry in verses 18-25
• Next week we’ll see homosexuality in verses 26-27
• Then we’ll see their depravity in verses 28-32
It is some of the most direct language of judgment in Scripture.
It is filled with warnings of God’s wrath
Revealed on sinful people who suppress the truth.
And for centuries church people have loved to sit there in Romans 1
And just give “Amen” after “Amen”.
Like Israel in the first 17 verses of this chapter
• The religious folk just sit back with arms folded
• And a “holier than though” look at the world
• Knowing that they deserve the judgment that is promised.
And that is when Paul does the same thing that God did here in Isaiah 42.
(READ: Romans 2:1-6)
DO YOU SEE THE SIMILARITIES?
God looks at the religious crowd and asks:
As I was laying out the details about the sin of the pagan were you really unable to detect your sin in that at all?
• Were you unable to see ways in which you also have exchanged My glory for an image?
• Were you unable to see ways in which you also have exchanged the natural for the unnatural?
• Were you unable to see way sin which you also have exchanged true for a lie?
REALLY?
You couldn’t see yourself there at all?
But did you just think that since I have been silent about your sin for so long that I was somehow in approval of it?
(4-5) “Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance? But because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God,”
That is the same message isn’t it?
Funny how God has been speaking the same truth for thousands of years!
Paul goes on to reveal that
• The same judgment that is threatening the pagan
• Is also threatening the religious person
Only the religious person is in way more trouble
Because they actually had the words of God!
Listen to Paul confront that religious Jew at the end of the chapter.
(READ 17-24)
• Can you not see your sin as God confronts them?
• Can you not see the hypocrisy?
• Can you not see the same things in your life?
Your religion does not hide your heart from God.
And by the time we get into chapter 3
Paul does the same thing Isaiah did back in chapter 42.
(READ 3:9-18)
• We are both in trouble.
• The ignorant pagan and the educated religious person.
• THAT IS THE SAME MESSAGE!
And the SOLUTION is also the same!
(READ 3:21-26)
Jesus Christ is the Savior of the World!
• He is the Savior of the Jew first and also of the Greek.
• He is the Savior of Jew and Gentile alike.
• He is the world’s Savior!
• “there is no distinction”
• “all have sinned”
• And justification for all comes only through “the redemption which is in Christ Jesus”
Everyone needs Jesus!
Everyone needs Christ!
The filthy, immoral, carnal, idolatrous pagan needs Jesus!
So does the moral, clean, disciplined, religious person!
The world may wear their sin on their sleeve,
But many a religious person has concealed it in their heart.
But God sees both and God judges both.
Is it any wonder Jesus was so frustrated with His people who had ears but didn’t hear?
John 1:11 “He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him.”
And Jesus would all but preach Isaiah’s message to them.
(18-20) “Hear, you deaf! And look, you blind, that you may see. Who is blind but My servant, Or so deaf as My messenger whom I send? Who is so blind as he that is at peace with Me, Or so blind as the servant of the LORD? You have seen many things, but you do not observe them; Your ears are open, but none hears.”
In fact,
• He stood overlooking Jerusalem
• And wept for that city
• Saying how He longed to gather them like a hen gathers her chicks, but they were unwilling.
They just wouldn’t hear it.
• Convinced of their own innate goodness they saw no need for a Savior.
• And even when Rome burned their temple to the ground they still couldn’t see that it was the result of their sin.
Don’t let your religion participation fool you.
It certainly doesn’t fool God, He knows your heart.
And even when it may appear He is preaching to others,
He is talking to you!
Isaiah 42 is NOT some ancient passage just for the people of Isaiah’s day.
THIS IS A MESSAGE OF GOD TO US.
It is the same message that Paul preached in his day
AND THAT WAS FOR US TOO.
THE MESSAGE IS THAT EVERYONE NEEDS JESUS.
HE IS THE SAVIOR OF THE WORLD!
• Selected by God.
• Sent by God.
• Equipped by God.
• It was God who laid our sins upon Him.
• It is God who calls us to trust in Him with the promise that if we will, we will be
saved.
Don’t be blind and deaf.
• If you are in your sin and trapped in prison,
• Then confess that to Jesus and ask Him to save you.
• He opens the eyes of the blind.
• He opens the ears of the deaf.
• He delivers prisoners from the dungeon.
• He transfers sinners from darkness to His kingdom of light.
He saved others and He will save you.
