This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Suffering Servant” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, November 16, 1986.

Tonight our scripture reading is, first of all, from Genesis chapter 21, and we’ll be looking also at Psalms and then at Isaiah. So we’ll start in Genesis with the twenty-first chapter. We’re going to look at the first three verses and then move on. Then the Lord took note of Sarah, as he had said, and the Lord did for Sarah what he had promised. So Sarah conceived and bore a son to Abraham in his old age, at the appointed time of which God had spoken to him. Abraham called the name of his son who was born to him, whom Sarah bore to him, Isaac.” When the Lord brought back the captive ones of Zion, we were like those who dream.

Then our mouth was filled with laughter and our tongue with joyful shouting. Then they said among the nations, the Lord has done great things for them. The Lord has done great things for us. We are glad. Restore our captivity, O Lord, as the streams in the south. Those who sow in tears shall reap with joyful shouting.

He who goes to and fro weeping, carrying his bag of seed, shall indeed come again with a shout of joy. bringing his sheaves with him. And then Isaiah chapter fifty-one. The first three verses, certainly we could be moving on in chapter fifty-one And truly, the various sections of this chapter say virtually the same thing as you go through each section. But once more, we will look at verses one through three.

Listen to me. You who pursue righteousness, who seek the Lord, look to the rock from which you were and to the quarry from which you were dug. Look to Abraham, your father, and to Sarah, who gave birth to you in pain. When he was one, I called him. Then I blessed him and multiplied him. Indeed, the Lord will comfort Zion. He will comfort all her waste places and her wilderness he will make like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the Lord. Joy and gladness will be found in her thanksgiving and sound of a melody.

That indeed, our Father, we would empty ourselves of all that stands in the way of our God. Lord, we have died with Christ, and in him been crucified to this world. And Lord, we are alive now to live for you and unto you. Lord, may this all be found in us, and may the truth of your word stand plainly above us, beneath us, about us, and in us. For Jesus’ sake, amen.

We should all be convinced by now that the intent of the Lord in Isaiah 40-66 is this, comfort. Comfort to the people of God. In fact, as this section begins, chapter 40, verse 1, those words are spoken, and we do well to underline them as we move through the entirety of this portion of scripture. Don’t grow weary of hearing The Lord say to you, to his people, comfort, O comfort my people, speak kindly to Jerusalem and call out to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity has been removed, that she has received of the Lord’s hand double for all her sins. comfort.

That intention, by the Lord, rises high enough to overshadow, I do not say contradict, it rises high enough to overshadow even the Lord’s indictment of his people. It rises high enough to overshadow the Lord’s judgment upon his people. They may well be woeing in pitiful lack of faith which is becoming, because of the severity of their distress, remember the times, Sennacherib sweeping across the land, the prospect of Babylon announced to you in chapter thirty-nine, immediately before you launch into this message on comfort. But here The people may well be wallowing pitifully in their lack of faith, which is becoming, because of the severity of their distress, an open, in some cases even concealed, hostility towards the Lord.

Remember, then, as much as you might the opening of the entirety of this segment of the prophecy with Isaiah 40 verse 1, Isaiah 49 verse 14, but Zion said, the Lord has forsaken me, the Lord has forgotten me, and that an expression of her own unbelief and the rising hostility within her to her circumstances. But the Lord is promising salvation, and salvation is promised in such a way that it overrules the judgments that spoil Israel. Israel can produce no document certifying a divorce from the Lord. She can produce no document that can serve as a bill of sale, ushering her into permanent enslavement. She, you see, can produce none of these things. Note the first verse of chapter fifty.

And although, although no one understands No one understands this about the Lord’s disposition towards Israel. Although there is no one within Israel herself that understands the Lord’s dealings towards Israel, the Lord has in fact provided one who does comprehend, namely his servant. That servant, you see, is described in the servant song of chapter fifty, verses four through nine. This servant, while innocent, endures distress completely, and I might say perfectly. completely and perfectly committing his cause to the Lord, expecting deliverance from him alone. And in this, now you see, the servant who is described for you there, in verses four through nine of chapter fifty, contrasts the response, the religious disposition of Israel in her distress. Israel, in her distress, turns on the Lord. The servant in his distress turns to the Lord.

Now, with regard to the tone of the Lord’s message We may think that the sincere, steady tone of this message of comfort is interrupted by what we find towards the end of that fiftieth chapter in verses ten and eleven. If you take stock of that tenth verse, you may well detect in it a sarcastic twist. the Lord himself, being a bit sarcastic. But then, if indeed there is that sarcastic twist to verse 10, what of the terrifying images of verse 11? We find there, you see, the descriptions of fire torment. and judgment. We may well think, then, that the sincere, steady tone of the Lord’s message of comfort is interrupted by what we find in these two verses.

But this, of course, is not true. You see, as is evident from the prophecy The Lord stands out in front of all of his words, and he knows the certainty and the reality of all that of which he speaks. He knows, therefore, the futility and the senselessness of Israel’s attitude. The people in their unbelief, and as well in the covering up of that unbelief through hypocrisy, have given themselves over to foolishness.

Therefore the Lord, who loves them, goads them, by making fun of them in verse ten. Who among you fears the Lord, obeys the voice of his servant, and then the twist, that walks in darkness and has no light? Then the Let him trust in the name of the Lord and rely on his God, just as the servant does. The Lord also shocks his people with a message of impending judgment in verse 11.

I’ve described it to you already. It’s as if you are privy to some kind of pagan exercise, in which people surrounding a fire then surround themselves with fire, making for themselves belts of fire, thus giving themselves over to self-immolation. It is, I believe, the most horrifying picture of the fires of hell presented in the Old Testament. You cannot think about it without your flesh crawling.

But now you move on, you see, into chapter 51. and note the tone. There follows here, as if in exception, a section of the prophecy that is as much overlaid with urgency as it is with comfort. The Lord, as it were, take stock of the language, is grabbing hold of Israel’s lapels. Nothing less is in view here than an image of the Lord as one passionately driven. It is nothing less than his great love, truly, his passion for his own. for his people that impelled him.

Listen to me, he said. Verse one. Pay attention to me, verse four. Listen to me, verse seven. The Lord literally shouted into the face of his people. Preachers are always to be controlled, I hear. But note, the choice of the language is magnificent. You see what is going on here, calling to mind those things that have been said formally. The plea by the Lord at this point rounds out Israel’s healing problem. Remember chapter 50, verse 2? We’ve already noted the first verse of that chapter. Move on to the second. Remember what is said there?

The Lord’s question, specifically, when I called Why did no one answer? Because, you see, no one was listening. No one heard. No one answers because no one hears. And no one hears take in now what is being said against the background of that fourteenth verse in forty-nine. No one hears because they all are so self-centeredly and so self-pityingly wrapped up in their own present current distress, privation, and suffering. and therefore they are deaf to the Lord’s voice.

The Lord has forsaken me. The Lord has forgotten me. Why should I listen for him or to him? But what is it, precisely, that the Lord is saying when he grabs hold passionately of Israel’s lapels and shouts into her face? What is it that the Lord says?

Actually, you may be surprised. So given what we find in verses 10 and 11 at the end of chapter 50, you might well have expected a message of unparalleled judgment. But what appears? Not a message of judgment melting us with horror. Rather, the overwhelming concern in this communication of love from God is comfort and promised blessing, certain blessing. If we are reading it aright, Although the sweet of the whole has been comfort, given the sentiments of the Lord at the end of that fiftieth chapter, we are starved. So unexpected is what we hear.

After that eleventh verse in the fiftieth chapter, we would expect the Lord to capitalize on the point that he is made. For how better to shake Israel by lapels than with vivid and multiple descriptions of fiery torment? Not that that isn’t an appropriate tool that the Lord often uses. But here, at this point, here things are quite different.

Remember now, as you feel your way through the Lord’s words, it is the Lord who stands at and beyond the end of all things. And this Lord sees more at the end than the judgment. In fact, his heart is set upon that which is other than judgment. He sees blessedness, and he sees eternity’s glory.

He dwells in eternity’s glory, and he speaks from it. in Israel’s present circumstances. However, the people cannot, no, they will not see in faith beyond their distress and take the Lord at his word concerning realities that they do not perceive. Yet Truly, as blessedness in glory lies beyond the final judgment, so the salvation of the Lord lies beyond the siege of Sennacherib, the devastation of the northern tribes, and the Babylonian captives. It is therefore with this sort of urgency that the Lord lays full of Israel’s lapels and shouts in her face.

He strains to awaken her, not with pictures of judgment, but with pictures of glory. Don’t you see what you’re doing? In the midst of it, there is an effervescence about the Lord, as He speaks of that which surrounds Him, inborn. He speaks of that which He knows, for He is there. And the promises that He speaks of are certain and sure, as sure as His own existence. And in the midst of that blessedness, that environment of glory, the effervescence, he bubbles over in his argumentation, he bubbles over with glee. That should infect all who hear what he says.

So it is. the sarcastic tone of the 10th verse of chapter 15, the word of impending judgment of that 11th verse, those verses themselves submerged in the song of incomparable delight. That takes thought of how the Lord in his passion with urgency develops, makes his argument.

He makes mention of the rock and the quarry, not to leave you in a shroud as to who he is speaking He translates for you in the next verse, the rock is Abraham, the quarry is Sarah. What is the Lord doing here when he brings up Abraham and Sarah? And especially you see in that second verse when he makes mention of Sarah giving birth in pain. Underwater. In pain. Do you see it? The Lord is matching things up. The Lord is matching the patriarch and his wife. in their anguish with Israel in hers. And the message is plain.

As surely as the pain of Sarah and the distress and the trial to Abraham gives birth to the nation of promise, and that by the power of the Lord, so will deliverance and salvation of wise and tap in the restoration of the people and in the transformation of the present desert environment into one of matchless bliss the transformation will be staggered The description goes on in verse three.

What is coming is the garden of God. Patterned after the garden of Eden. And in that environment you see and why it is appropriate to raise the image of the garden at all. Appropriate indeed. Underscore that. because in the new environment, the garden of God, the curse will be removed and the wilderness will be displaced. and O, the singing.”

Note that the Lord here describes a periodic interruption of joy and gladness, thanksgiving, and melody. An occasional intrusion into the frame of our days, or that this intrusion will come in certain places and be found where formally it was. No. The Lord speaks from beyond judgment and distress.

From that region in which the melody, the delight, the joy, the gladness, the thanksgiving are perpetual and pervasive perfectly permeating everyone and everywhere. There is no interruption of it. And there is no place in this region where it is not found and where it is not heard. The trace of this joy, this delight.

Think of it for a minute. Will the Lord last? The Lord will last in utter joy when judgment is over and all of you are at home. The Lord will sing! He sings. In that same environment. And the trace of this, has it not already been found at the corners of Abraham’s mouth when he says, And is it not found upon the lips of Abraham’s children of and by faith when they sing.

When the Lord turned again the captivity of Zion, we were like them that dream. Then was our mouth filled with laughter, and our tongue was singing. Then said they among the heathen, The Lord has done great things for them. The Lord has done great things for us. of which we are glad, about which we laugh with joy. Nothing less than eternal grace and life is breaking forth here Still, we’re not done. So having moved into the first three verses of chapter 51, I haven’t said anything as yet about the service. Is it conceivable?

You take all of that language in the New Testament, where Paul speaks about the one, and then, through the one, many being cursed and broken, or through the one, many being blessed. Now you see here, in the ruminations of the Lord himself, communicated through Isaiah, mention of the one, who? Abraham. through whom many are blessed. You see, in the midst of this passage is made reference to Abraham, and specific things are said about him. We are told here that he was one when I called him. You see, obviously, now if we place this in the context of hearing and Israel’s hearing problem, this does stand one at the inception of Israel’s history as a nation who listened. Abraham was called and he heard, but he was one when called and when he listened. And through the call of the one who listened, the many were blessed.

But now, in Isaiah’s day, the many who were blessed don’t listen. They don’t believe the promise given by God through the one and their circumstance may well call out for God’s irremediable judgment upon them. But instead you find the promise of yet another one, the servant.

And note what is said of him in those glorious words, the Lord God, verse four of chapter fifty, has given me the tongue of disciples that I may know how to sustain the weary one with the word. Those ready to listen, those weary who know it. He awakens me, he’s the one who opens my eyes morning by morning. He awakens my ear to listen as a disciple, an obedient one. The Lord has opened my ear and I will not be disobedient. There is then one yet who steps forward into Israel’s deafness, who has the power to open the ears of those who cannot hear, and sovereignly does so.

In him there appears the promise of glory beyond. beyond all the gardens of this creation, beyond all the wastelands and wildernesses, beyond all the cities and estates. Faith in Him and by Him, a faith which is like unto His, defined by His own steadfastness. sustains every wearied one who knows and does not hear unless he has the ears of the one who has heard. By him and by him alone do you believe and endure.

What distress for you? Causing you to say, the Lord has forsaken me. The Lord has forgotten me. To you, the Lord speaks even better than he spoke through Isaiah through Israel. He speaks to you in Jesus Christ the Son of God who has gone to prepare a place for you and will come again to receive you to himself. There is the form, Lord, of the servant found in Abraham, the one by whom the many were blessed. But truly, Father Abraham looked forward to the day of Christ, and having seen it, he laughed. And with that mirth now, we would rejoice before him. For the fullness of the promises is secure in Christ, and our faith is measured by that determination with which we lay hold of our Christ, for the sake of blessings that never diminish nor fade away. hear us Lord as we look to you and receive even now that smile impressed upon the corner of our mouths we even now beginning to laugh as we shall do

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