Answers Bible Curriculum: Lesson 9 - Messianic Prophecies

Lord, we're so grateful to be here today, just to, to study your word this This letter of love that you have given to us, Lord, we You have the words of eternal life. Where else shall we go? you have not just given us a dead book that we can read and find out information, but it's through your word and through prayer as we engage the Holy Spirit that We have this relationship with you. We pray that this morning that we would be like Mary sitting at your feet, hearing, your instruction.

this is the one thing that we need, and so we come to you this morning in Christ's name. Amen. One of the things that the Lord's been really impressing upon me lately is all the different places in the Bible where it talks about the one thing. and one of those places is in Luke chapter 17, that scene where Mary is just sitting at the feet of Christ.

Martha's up doing good things, right? She's trying to get the meal prepared and all that. Go to the Lord, says, Lord, why don't you make my sister come help me? She's just sitting around.

It was Jesus say, Martha, Martha, you're worried and distracted about many things, but there is one thing that is needed, and Mary has chosen that good thing, will not be taken from her. So if you think about it, there's all kinds of things that are vying for our attention, but Jesus says, there's one domino that will help other dominoes fall over, and that is our regular feeding upon Christ Himself through his word. And if we can just keep that in mind, I don't know about you, but I can get so overwhelmed with all of the things that I need to do, both in my personal life, my relationship with my family, work, everything else.

But if I can just focus it down to like, what's the one thing that if I don't get anything else accomplished today, what's the one thing And it's my relationship with Christ, that has to be the one, the first domino.

And that will actually help with all these other things that the Lord does want us to do and is calling us to do, but we keep him first. So we're gonna be talking this morning, again about in Isaiah, one of the questions we'll try to answer is why wasn't Jesus named Emmanuel? he's named Jesus, and yet it was prophesized that he would be called Emmanuel. And so we're gonna talk a little bit about that.

as we move into our material, our scripture verse that your children are memorizing, and you may memorize with them as well, is Isaiah 53:6. We'll be talking about this verse specifically today. We're actually in chapter 9, Messianic prophecies. We'll be moving into God's warning of Judah next week.

So let's do a little bit of review here. Remember, we're in a period of Israel's history called the divided kingdom. We have Israel in the north, Judah in the south. God is sending prophets both north and south to warn his people, right?

of coming judgment. And like we looked at last week, some of these prophecies, you get the feeling that there's, these prophets are schizophrenic. They're talking about God's judgment, and then all of a sudden they're reminding the people of God's love and His everlasting favor. There's like what's going on in the moment, and then also the prophet is looking hundreds of years into the future.

And, and then what we see what Dan pointed out a few weeks ago is that the religion and history of Israel are fundamentally prophetic and should be viewed as a revelation, not merely as recounting of events. We're definitely gonna see that today. As God has revealed to us Israel's history in the pages of scripture, it's not just so we can say, wow, that's some really neat history. It's so that we can learn about what God is revealing to us about himself, about his plan, his program, and so on.

So last week, we studied Micah's prophecies in chapter 5, verses 1 to 9. And, chapter 7, 18 to 20. what prophecies did we see in chapter 5? Anybody recall?

What we saw there. Say it again. Yeah, we saw the Messiah and so a prophecy of the coming of the Messiah. In what particular aspect of the Messiah?

Did we see, am I recall, yeah, so Bethlehem, and we know there's two Bethlehems, we had to distinguish. It's Bethlehem Ephratha, right down in the south, not the other Bethlehem, and anything else you guys remember from the prophecy. OK, he's eternal. So this Messiah will be eternal.

He's from Bethlehem. Two other ideas. What? Say it again.

Yes, he's gonna be like a shepherd. So he will come like a shepherd to his sheep. And then one other, yeah, Tim. Yes, so he's from Judah, the tribe of Judah, but he's gonna reign over Israel, which at the current time, the time that this was written would seem strange because there was a division between Israel and Judah.

And so we have those prophecies. So, yeah, great. What do you guys remember about chapter 7? What prophecy or prophecies and promises did we see in chapter 7?

Of Micah, yeah, Joe. Yeah. Who is a God like you? Right.

Forgiving sins, pardon iniquities. What is he gonna take? What is Yeah. So he's going to trample them underfoot and then hurl them into the depths of the sea, not just onto the shores, right?

Into the depths of the sea. and then there's a promise right there at the end of of his covenant keeping with Israel and with Jacob. And so, so in Micah, you have these prophecies of doom that's coming down upon. Israel, but then these reminders of God's restoration.

So this morning, we're gonna see same time period, really, much overlap between Isaiah and Micah. And so let's turn to Isaiah chapter 7. We're gonna look at A couple of key prophecies. Starting in chapter 7.

And Isaiah's, ministry is. Again, it's, we're talking about about 700 years before Christ. we're overlapping Ahaz and Jotham and. Hezekiah But let's start, we're gonna start in verse 10.

I'm reading from a New King James. And let's read to down to 17. Moreover, the Lord spoke again to Ahaz saying, ask a sign for yourself from the Lord, your God. Ask it either in the depth or in the height above.

So look for a, let me, I'll give you a sign on earth or a sign up in the skies. But he has said, I will not ask, nor will I test the Lord. Then he said, here now, oh house of David, is it a small thing for you to weary men with your, or, or, but will you weary my God also? Therefore, the Lord Himself will give you a sign.

Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son. And shall call his name Emmanuel. Curds and honey he shall eat that he may know to refuse the evil and choose the good. For before the child shall know to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land that you dread.

Will be forsaken by both her kings. The Lord will bring the king of Assyria upon you and your people and your father's house, days that have not come since the days of Ephraim departed from Judah. So you have this prophecy that's given by, Isaiah and the prophecy is directed to whom? Yes, you have Ahaz and then just the house of David in general.

So definitely, Ahaz as the representative of the house of David or these kings of Judah. And when, whenever you're hearing the name David, what covenant comes to mind? Obviously, the, Davidic covenant. and so the Lord says, hey, ask for a sign.

Ahaz says, no, I'm, I'm not gonna ask for a sign. I don't want to test the Lord. By the way that the Lord responds, Isaiah responds, Being prompted from the Lord, almost seems like there's a false humility going on here because the response is not overly polite, right? And so he does give a sign, and the sign is stated in verse 14, the Lord Himself will give you a sign, behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall you shall call his name.

Emmanuel And so there's a, a number of things going on here. So, by all indications, if we're just reading this sign within its context, again, who is the sign being given to you? Ahaz. In the previous paragraph, that, starting in, in the beginning of chapter 7, Ahaz is being warned that there's this conglomerate of kings, including a king of Ephraim who's representing the 10 tribes of Israel, that they're about ready to come down and attack him.

And, and he's worried about this attack from these two kings in particular. And in the previous section, the Lord basically says, these two smokestacks are not gonna make it. You don't have to worry about them attacking you. Here's the sign I'm gonna give.

It's, there's gonna be a son that's born. And this will be a sign to you that you will not be dominated by these two kings. However, Assyria is coming down, and Assyria is the one you need to worry about because they will wipe you out. So it's not, I don't know how comforting that would be to you.

It's like, don't worry, these two kings won't make it, but I'm bringing somebody else down, Sennacherib, and, and these other guys. So eventually, they're going to, to take you out. So in the meantime, you've got this prophecy. So did this come to pass before Israel was overthrown?

So there's this idea of the son that's going to be born. It seems like the sun is going to be born in the near future. in fact, look over at 83. It says in chapter 8, verse 3, then I, that's speaking of Isaiah.

went to the prophetess, and she conceived and bore a son. Then the Lord said to me, call his name Baer, Shallal Ha Hashbaz, for before the child shall have knowledge to cry, my father, my mother, the riches of Damascus, and the spoil of Samaria will be taken away before the king Assyria. So these two kings that are coming to attack Ahaz, they will be dominated before the child is able to say mama and dada. And, and so Isaiah has a child through through his wife.

And that is in fulfillment of this sign. And. And the name that this child is given is Speed to the spoil, if you translate it, or Hasten the booty. So the, so how would you like to be named?, something like.

Hey, it'd be like the equivalent of everything's gonna be taken away from us. So you have a child, let's say you have a nice house, and you have two cars, and, and you have this child and you name them, everything's going to the taxman. Hey, everything that's going to the taxman, come over here. Hey, taxi, come over here.

That's the name of this child is Hasten to the booty that eventually, these two kings will be destroyed. But they'll be destroyed by Assyria and so it's a, it's, it's, they're being, actually, the real analogy is that the boy is a sign that these two kings will be carried away and all of their spoil will be taken away by Assyria. So, what problems do you see this raises? It, does it, does it appear that there was a, a near fulfillment of this prophecy in Isaiah 7:14?

That there was a fulfill some fulfillment in the time of Isaiah and Ahaz. Yeah, it seems pretty plain, right? was every aspect of this prophecy fulfilled? What do you guys think?

What would be some things that seem like they're left undone? Was Isaiah's wife a virgin when she conceived? No, it clearly says that Isaiah had relations with the prophetess, and she conceived. is there any overlap or semblance where you could somehow say that this son in some way was called Emmanuel or God with us?

it's speed to the booty, right? Hasten the booty. So it's just not, there doesn't seem to be an overlap with his name in Emmanuel, knowing like how ancient Jewish people would name their children, sometimes it's like, the, probably the closest equivalent that we could grasp is like Native Americans might, they might name one of, one of their children Running Spring, right? Or Running Bear or something like that.

And that's the way a lot of Jewish children were named, and so, Emmanuel, God with us, does it have any overlap with hasten the booty? I, I, I'm not seeing it. So there seems to be some fulfillment, but not total fulfillment. And so, and this is one of the interpretive issues of prophecy.

I, I think later, I, I've got some slides later, I'll show you that. Prophecy frequently will have what we call an already not yet aspect to it. It's just very common. in, in Ezekiel, there's this reference to the king of Tyre, and as you're reading about it, it clearly refers to the historical king of Tyre, but the further you get into the context, you realize we're not just talking here about the king of Tyre, we are talking about the devil.

And so, there is a historical king of Tire that, that takes some of the attributes there in Ezekiel, but then the prophet goes well beyond that and begins to talk about Lucifer. And it's just part of the genre of prophecy that many times the prophet will talk about something that is historically ready to occur and then almost as if they're looking across the mountaintops, they'll look way out into the future at something that has not yet happened. And this is one of the things that kinda can give us the feeling that the prophets are schizophrenic when we're reading them is we're just like, what's going on here?

And so one of the things that helps us.

Is when we look over. To, Matthew, let's, let's turn to Matthew now. Matthew 1:18. When we look at the New Testament, And we began to read.

Are. Old Testament through the lens of the New Testament, we get. a picture of what the far fulfillment was meant to be. Let me say one little word of note before we look at Matthew, and that is the word virgin in Isaiah 7:14 in the Hebrew, there's an interpretive issue there.

Does anybody know what that issue is? Yes, the word itself can be ambiguous. The Hebrew word can refer and many times does refer to a virgin, but it can also just refer to an unmarried woman. And so, some say, like, oh, hey, Isaiah 8:3 completely fulfills this prophecy because that word in 7:14, should not be understood as a virgin, it should be understood as just a young maiden who's unmarried.

Isaiah had relations with his wife. She was, perhaps they were newly married, he had relations, she has, she bears a child that fulfills 7:14. The problem with that is, what, what scholars try to, or Bible teachers try to figure out is, OK, should this be understood as a virgin or should it be understood as just a young maiden. is you have a, a Greek translation of the Old Testament called the Septuagint.

Raise your hand if you've heard of the Septuagint. OK. So the Septuagint was actually what most Jews were using at the time of Christ. And so it's a Greek translation of the Old Testament.

So it's not a Christian translation. This isn't just a bunch of Christians that got together and said, let's get a translation together of our Old Testament. This was a Jewish translation. Of the Old Testament for Jewish people who now lived in the Roman Empire and didn't know any Hebrew, didn't know any Aramaic, they only knew Greek.

So how's a good Jewish person gonna read their Old Testament when they only know Greek? Well, they translated it into Greek, and that became known as the Septuagint. In the Septuagint, the word that is translated is unambiguous. It clearly says virgin.

So everybody at the time of Christ, any Jews that would have been reading Isaiah Isaiah 7:14 in their good Sep Julient version or hearing it read in synagogue would have heard the word virgin without any ambiguity. Does that make sense? And so what that tells you is, is that the Jewish people themselves, at least, in the centuries leading up to Christ, their understanding of that ambiguous ambiguous Hebrew word was that it should be understood as virgin. Not only that, but when you get to the New Testament, which obviously we believe is the inspired interpreter of the Old Testament, We come to 118 and following.

So let's read in our Bibles, Matthew 1:18 and following. Now, the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows, after his mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Spirit. OK. So she is pregnant, but she's still a virgin, kinda like, in Star Wars.

Right? The midi-chlorians move within the mother of Darth Vader. Wait, what's Darth Vader's name when he's a little guy, Anakin? So, of course, where George Lucas gets this whole thing, right?

From the Bible. And so then Joseph, her husband, being a just man and not wanting to make her a public example was mine to put her away secretly. So he had the right in Jewish law to divorce her if she was found to not be a virgin in their betrothal period. And so he wanted to do that secretly, didn't want to shame her.

But while he thought about these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, Joseph, son of David, here's the Davidic covenant again, do not be afraid to take to you, marry, your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. So she hasn't committed adultery. she has, what she's actually conceived as a virgin in a miraculous way. Verse 21, and she will bring forth a son, and you shall call his name what?

Jesus, for he will save His people from their sins. A little interesting side note, you shall call his name Jesus, which means Jehovah saves. You shall call him Jehovah saves, for he will save His people from their sins. In other words, Jesus is Jehovah.

Jesus is God. Like, I have a whole sermon just on that one verse, demonstrating the humanity and full deity of Christ. Then verse 22, so all this was done that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken. By the Lord through the prophet, which prophet Isaiah, saying, behold, the virgin shall be with child and bear a son, and they shall call his name, what Emmanuel, which is translated God with us.

Then Joseph, being roused from sleep, did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him, took to him his wife, and did not know her till she had brought forth her firstborn son, and he called his name Jesus. So this answers that first question for us, is the New Testament, and the New Testament is written originally in which language? Greek. So the, the New Testament uses an unambiguous term for virgin as a translation of the Old Testament.

They're, it's just picking it right out of the Septuagint. And so both from the Septuagint and from the New Testament perspective, it should be understood as virgin, virgin. And so what we have here in Isaiah 7:14 is this concept of near and far fulfillment, or already and not yet. God had made a prom or he had given a sign to Ahaz that there's gonna be a child that will be born, and it just so happens that Hebrew has that built-in ambiguity within the term.

There's a partial fulfillment in Isaiah having a child, and that child before it could say mom or dad, these two kings that were threatening Ahaz were wiped out. but that's not the complete fulfillment. To get the full fulfillment of the virgin birth and, in the Emmanual aspect, we have to look hundreds of years into the future, 700 years to be exact, to be able to get the far fulfillment. It's a very common concept.

In the Old Testament, even like prophecies like the. What is it? The person who stands in the temple in the. prophecy of Daniel.

Why am I forgetting the term? the, the guy who goes, yeah, the abomination of desolation. There is a near fulfillment of that. Antiochus Epiphanes, right, does something very similar to that, but he doesn't fulfill all of it.

And so we're still looking forward to someday when the Anti-Christ will fulfill the, the full aspect of the Daniel prophecy. Any questions? Yeah, Joe. The virgin or a virgin.

Yeah, I don't know, I'd have to look that up. Does anybody know? Is there an issue with the, the or the A, the definite article? Back to 7:14.

I'm not really sure. I can look that up, check it out. Sometimes it's, I know like Hebrew is less precise than Greek, and sometimes the definite articles aren't there, but a definite idea is meant. And so.

I'd have to, but I'd have to look it up. that Oh yeah, yeah, sometimes, and that happens in the other chapter we're gonna look at too. yeah, there's just, there's problems with that on both accounts is for them to talk about the virgin and then Ahaz is the one that's receiving, and you've got this division of Israel. How is it that the people that are attacking him, Israel, are, is the one that's referred to as the virgin?

I don't know, it's just, that would just be weird. Yep. Oh yeah. That that seems God Yeah Right.

That's great. Yeah. So, Daniel's bringing up the whole issue of Emmanuel. Why isn't Jesus called Emmanuel?

Again, it seems to be more of a role term rather than necessarily the surname. And so that's a very common practice in the Old Testament, you have several different things that the Messiah was to be called Wonderful, Counselor, Almighty God, Prince of Peace, so Emmanuel, so which one of those were to be his surname? Well, the angel reveals it, God with Jesus, Jehovah saves, and you can see an overlap between Jehovah saves, he's coming to be with us. So God with us is more of a reference to probably to his God in the flesh, his incarnation.

So I was trying to think, I was thinking about that, that we all have our kids. They all have like their surnames that we gave them when they were born, but we've got all kinds of other names that sometimes develop based upon their character, right? So, I'm just trying to think of my son Joshua. One of his nicknames has been Little Fish.

just having to do with some connection to fishing and some movie that we saw. there's Howie, Howard, Scooter, Grandpa calls him Scooter cause he was always riding around on a scooter. sometimes we refer to him as Joshua Howard Berry. And sometimes I refer to him as, or when I'm speaking to his mother, your son.

So, there's lots of different, Anna, there's Annie, Anna Banana. Sam calls her Nana. Chunkers from when she was little, toddler. So don't go sharing that with her.

I used to call her the little DVD breaker and she hated that. Cause when she was real little, she messed around with our DVD player and broke it and I was just like goofing around with her, but she really took that in, like, she's like, she did not like that, that I called her the little DVD breaker. And then Samuel, for whatever reason, he's got a million nicknames, it's like Samuel, Sammy. We call him Mowgli, because he runs around the house in his underwear and he looks exactly like Mowgli.

We call him naked, Snoopy, Captain Underpants. Little Man, Bud, Snoop, Spider-Man, Schmoozle, just all kinds of. Little things. He will actually like, see this corner right here?

He'll scale a corner like that in our house. He'll just scale up and then hang there until I look at him, so I can see that he's looking like Spider-Man, and then he'll scale down it again. He's a little freakish child actually. we were out like, he, he decided, this is just for free.

I won't charge you guys for this. We, we do this wrestling game on their bed sometimes called Jesus give me strength, where I'm like, I'm the bad wrestler guy and I'm about ready to pin him. And then he says, Jesus, give me strength, and he's able to throw me off. And I try to tempt him to say things like, candy, give me strength, video games, give me strength, whatever.

And then, and then he's always saying, Jesus, give me strength. So he's, I come home one day and he's all, Dad, I got a great idea. We need to play that game on the trampoline. And so I'm like, OK, I'm 49 years old, let's, let's go for it.

And so I'm out there trying to, trying to get him. And he's like doing full-on side flips in the air without his hands touching. Just like, I can't even demonstrate. what I'm talking about side cartwheels where you don't touch.

And I'm just like, how am I gonna get this kid down, man?. Anyway, so we just have all these, these little things. I just see the Lord looking down at his sec, the sec, his son, the 2nd person, the trainee. He says, my, my nickname for you is God with us.

God with us, we're gonna, you're gonna go and you're gonna be with the people of God that I'm redeeming. I'm gonna grant them to you as a love gift, and you're not gonna lose any one of them. And Jesus says, all that the Father has given to me will come to me. And so there's this inter-rinitarian interchange there.

In the, in the whole work of redemption. So, yeah, let's, so let's with that, let's turn to Isaiah, just an amazing chapter. Isaiah 52, we'll be looking at the latter half of 52. And this is, actually the 4th of 4 servant songs that we have.

In Isaiah. There's several different what we call servant songs that point to Christ. In fact, if you turn back. A couple chapters to chapter 50.

I was spending some time on this, In chapter 50 verse 6, it says, 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. 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. This is a clear prophecy pointing to that suffering servant, and I'm, I'm just very interested in the term set my face like a flint.

What does that mean? there's, there's a lot of flint rock in the Israel area, Mesopotamian area at this time, and flint rock could be used for different things, but one was, of course, to start fires, right? like hit the flint rock, create sparks. And so, the idea is almost, if you think of it in a very literal sense, he's just talking about being hit and his beard being plucked out.

It's like, I am gonna take the sparks off of my face and not turn away. I'm gonna set my face like a flint. I'm gonna take it on the chin, what might be an idiom that we use, I'm gonna take it on the chin, or I'm not gonna cave in, I'm not gonna back down, all those Tom Petty song, idioms that you wanna talk about. just, we're just gonna press forward.

And when you think forward to the New Testament, the writer of Hebrews says, for the joy set before him, he went and endured the same. he just, there's a place in the book of Luke, right in the middle of the book where it says, and Jesus set his face towards Jerusalem, and there's this relentless march towards his own death. And where he's just like, there is nothing that will deter me from going to the cross, accomplishing what had been established from all of eternity past, and I'm going to get mine.

I'm gonna get my kids.

And I don't know, just the more I was thinking about that yesterday, I was just really encouraging to think, there's a lot of times where I set my mind to a task and before I know it, I'm off on 3 other things. Jesus sets his mind to this task and he gets it done. He would not be deterred. And, and it's encouragement to us, one to realize that he's done that for us, but also set an example for us to keep our eyes fixed on Christ, this race that's set before us, not to get deterred to the left, to the right.

God, give me grace to keep our eyes on you. Let's look at this final servant song. They're in, we're looking at 52 verse 13, and we'll run through. And make some comments, and then we're gonna connect it a little bit to the New Testament and then we'll be done.

But it says, behold, my servants shall deal prudently in verse 13, he shall be exalted and extolled and be very high. Just as many were astonished at you, so his visage or his face was marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men. So shall he sprinkle many nations. Kings shall shut their mouths at him.

And for what had not been told them, they shall see and what they had not heard, they shall consider. So here, this forward-looking, whoever this person is, the suffering servant, their face is marred, their body is marred. They are sprinkling many nations, sprinkling is a reference to Leviticus of being sprinkled over with for the sin. Then verse 1, chapter 53, who's believed our report and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?

For he shall go up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of dry ground. You think of a tinder plant, we're not talking about this mighty huge oak tree or some sequoia. It's like you, you go up on these sequoias, you're just like, oh man, massive, impressive. No, when Jesus or when the suffering servant shows up, the Messiah, it'll be like some little shoot coming out of dry ground.

It doesn't, it doesn't look impressive, doesn't look like this could really grow into anything. In fact, the, the next section there, he has no form or comeliness and we see him, there's no beauty that we should desire him. The Hebrew is difficult here. There's lots of different synonyms that are used in different translations.

The big idea is he doesn't show up with pomp and circumstance where we automatically identify him as the king of the universe. he shows up, he walks in the back door of the church, and you don't, you don't really know. There's nothing special about the way he looks or dresses. He doesn't show up in some suit and tie with an earpiece in his ear or followed by his entourage.

There's no way that, to really detect that this is somebody special. He just looks like just a very normal human being. I don't know if you guys have ever met like a a superstar in a more natural setting where they're, they don't have all their makeup and clothes on. Have anybody ever met somebody who's just, and they just look like a normal person?

I remember being at, I forget the name of the restaurant. I was out, I did a wedding and then we went to some restaurant. And one of the actors from Saturday Night Live was there having lunch with somebody, and they just looked like a normal person. I don't know what I was expecting, but he was unshaven.

And just had some jeans and a t-shirt and I was like. Yeah, he doesn't look all that impressive. And then a couple of years back, I went to a, a Christian faith night at Dodger Stadium. And saw Kershaw come out and give his testimony.

You guys know Clayton Kershaw? And so I'm sitting there, I'm looking up at this guy. I'm like, without his uniform on, I'm like, he looks like one of the kids in our youth group. I'm like, this guy, he just looks like a little kid.

And he really, back then, he was, he was just a young, I don't know how old he is now, but back then he was a young 20 year old. And, and I think, the, the impression that you get here is that Jesus shows up and there's just nothing that would really make him look like. this is a standout superstar. No, he's just a normal guy.

Anybody ever remember Dave Eckstein, David Eckstein with the Angels? First time I saw him on the field, he was standing next to Troy Glass. I thought like some little bat boy was out on the field. And then I was at game 6, doing security with Kumi, and I was, so I'm sitting there and Eckstein walks by and I'm like, hey, good job, Eckstein.

And he turned around as if he was about ready to see one of his friends. And for just a split second, he looked at me like I was one of his buddies, and then he was like, oh, and then he walked away. He saw the yellow jacket. He's like, oh, who's, who's this guy?

But he just looked like a normal guy, he was just like, just a normal. And so that's, and so that's the feeling that you get that Jesus just looks like this normal person. And then verse 3, he is despised and rejected by men. Man of sorrows.

Again, some of the, the Hebrew terms here, they can get translated a few different ways, but man of sorrows acquainted with grief, and we hid as it were, our faces from him. He was despised and we did not esteem him. So, speaking of the rejection, when Isaiah's saying the we, there seems to be, there's rejection. Israel rejects their Messiah.

Even the disciples run away from the Messiah. Surely he has borne our griefs in verse 4, carried our sorrows, we have seemed him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted. This is just very odd terminology. It's very New Testament terminology to think of this person who's being smitten or struck by God and afflicted.

Verse 5, but he was wounded for what? For our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement for our peace was upon him, and by his stripes we are healed.

Again, this is a very New Testament in its orientation. It's hard to believe that this is written 700 years before Christ shows up on the scene. And it's virtually impossible to make whoever this person is to make them, this be Israel. Some, some, Jewish scholars want to say that the suffering servant here is Israel.

So you're telling me that Israel, who is at, at this point in history in absolute rebellion against God, and they're sacrificing to Babylon, God has promised judgment upon them, but somehow Israel is gonna come and innocently suffer for Israel's sins. There just seems to be a divergence. Whoever, whoever he is, it's not connected with us, right? He does this for us.

It's not, he does this for him, it's he does this for us. And so there has to be a difference between the people that are receiving the benefits of the sacrifice and the person who's making the sacrifice. Does that make sense? And for years, the The Jew, before Christ came, there was divergent opinions because this was very mysterious.

But one of the opinions in church history was the Messiah would come and die for the people. and so. And so verse 6, and all we like sheep have gone astray, we've turned everyone to his own way. The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

Again, whoever him is, it's different from us all, right? He's laid on him the iniquity of us. He was oppressed and he was afflicted. Yet what was his response?

He opened not his mouth, he was led as a lamb to the slaughter and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. And we see that, that directly fulfilled the New Testament. Jesus is going to the cross, he's being assaulted and made fun of, and he's just marching to the cross. He set his face like a flint, he's not responding in in like manner.

I don't know if any of you been on a farm to see what sheep do before they get slaughtered. I haven't seen sheep, but has anybody heard a hog, yell before they're getting slaughtered? Oh my goodness. I was down in Mexico on a mission trip and they were this huge, like several 100 pound hog.

They were getting him and he was gonna be slaughtered and they were gonna have a big celebration. And the hog, the way it yells, it reverberates off your body. It would shake the windows. we've only got a few windows in here, but it would rattle the windows at your home.

That thing is just yelling. But sheep, they, when they know that they're gonna be slaughtered, it gets eerily quiet, if, from what shepherds say. And so here, Jesus, he knows that he's gonna die, and he's staying quiet. He's just marching towards what had been ordained from all of eternity.

Verse 8, he was taken from prison and from judgment, and whom will declare his generation, for he was cut off from the land of the living. So he, he dies. For the transgression of my people, he was stricken. Again, so here's Isaiah saying, for the transgression of my people, Isaiah's people at the very least is Judah in this setting, if not all of Israel, he was stricken.

for my people. And they made his grave with the wicked, but with the rich at his death. That's an amazing prophecy because, Jesus was hung between whom? To criminals.

So the intent, the original intent is that he would die with the thieves and be buried with them in shame. But then Joseph of Arimathea comes, asks for the body, he buys, he donates this, tomb, and so Jesus is actually buried in a rich man's tomb. because he did no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth. So whoever this person is, they are an innocent one.

There's no violence, there's no deceit. This clearly doesn't, cannot be speaking of Israel or Judah. Israel and Judah throughout their history are being spoken of, as a sinful people, as a people that God has grace on, but clearly not innocent. Verse 10, yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him or to crush him.

he was, he put him to grief. When you make a soul an offering for sin. he shall see his seed and shall prolong his days. So the suffering servant is made an offering, then it seems like the Lord looks at the seed.

So it seems like the idea is the seed now goes is buried into the ground. So death, right? So the, just like a seed goes into the ground, a person dies, goes into the ground as it were. But he shall prolong his days.

So the suffering servant goes into the ground like a seed, but his days will be prolonged. and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosperous hand. So many interpreters see resurrection here, seed in the ground, days prolonged. Verse 11, he shall see the labor of his soul and be satisfied.

There seems to be a reference here to propitiation. First John 2:2, looks at the suffering or labor of the soul of the servant, and the Lord is satisfied by his knowledge, my righteous servant shall justify many justification, for he shall bear their iniquity, substitution. Therefore, I will divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong. Because he poured out his soul unto death, and he was numbered with the transgressors.

He bore the sins of many and made intercession for the transgressors. So we have him bearing sins and then providing intercession. So there's a reference to the intercessory work. of Jesus Christ, which we know from a New Testament perspective, happens after his resurrection and ascension.

If you look back at verse 7 and 8, those are the verses that the Ethiopian eunuch was reading when Philip jumped up into his chariot, and he says, what are you reading? I'm, I'm reading these verses. It's Isaiah 7 and 8. He got, is, is this referring to, is the author referring to himself or to someone else?

And so then beginning at this verse, it says that Philip began to preach to him, Jesus and talk to him about the Lord. And then they're talking, who knows how long they go along, long enough to get to the subject of baptism, cause then the eunuchs, hey, what prevents me from being baptized? Nothing, let's do it. So they get baptized.

Notice the verbs that are in this chapter. Are these all future tense verbs? No, there's some future tense and there's a lot of stuff, at least in English, it has this past tense, right? in the Hebrew, we have this verb tense called the cow perfect.

And in, in prophetic works like this, interpreters, theologians, Bible scholars refer to this as the prophetic perfect. the perfect tense is almost in Hebrew, it's, at times, it can operate like, have any of you guys studied Greek? Raise your hand if you studied just a little bit of Greek. A few of you?

OK. So, like in Greek, you have like, there's a, one of the catch-all tenses is the heiress tense. It gets interpreted as the past, but a lot of times it just means the whole action viewed as, as a whole. And so the errors tense sometimes in the New Testament will pick up this prophetic sense of something that's already happened, like in Colossians 3, I think it is, it says that you are seated in the heavenlies with Christ.

Wait a second. Are we seated at Cornerstone, or are we seated in the heavenlies? The idea is, it's so certain that you are going to make it to heaven that we say you are seated in the heavens with Christ, unless it's like the Matrix and we've got some spirit, some up there that hasn't awakened yet, right? but no, I, I think it's more, it's this idea of the prophetic heiress, just like we have the prophetic prefect here in the Hebrew.

It's so these are things that are so certain to happen that Isaiah speaks of them as having already happened. Does that make sense? so it's almost like he's fast forwarding, you're getting a little future look in the movie and everything's already occurred. So, there's testimonies of Of people, people, from Judaism who have come to know the Lord, where somebody has sat down and read them this chapter, and ask them, hey, who's, what do you think about this?

What's this referring to? And they'll say, oh, what I know, this is talking about Jesus Christ. Well, did that this is written by Isaiah 700 years before Jesus was ever born? And the Lord has used chapters just like this to lead Jewish people to, to the Lord.

it's just amazing, amazing prophecy. let me make or just show you one little chart where this gets picked up. Peter clearly picks this up. In his discussion in chapter two of First Peter.

It's not in the same order, but when you look at what Peter's saying, he says, Christ suffered for believers, 53:5, he was wounded for our transgressions. Christ committed no sin or deceit. he did no violence or any deceit in his mouth. Verse 23, Christ did not return.

The reviling he received, he opened up his mouth. Christ bore our sins on the cross that we might be healed. Over in Isaiah, he bore our grief and was wounded for our transgressions. We all have gone away like sheep.

We all like sheep have gone astray. So, clearly, Peter had this chapter in his mind as he's writing about Christ. That'd be a very interesting study to follow up on, just to go look at first Peter and just kinda see the overlap. Between 1 Peter Let's just, end with just a couple applications here.

We already talked about the prophetic. Perfect, But I think one of the things that stands out to me, I don't know about you, is just The Lord, it's not like. It's not like the Lord is looking down upon human history and just reacting to each event without, a whole lot of information until it happens. he's just marching along, all of a sudden, Ahaz is gonna be attacked.

The Lord's like, oh, what am I gonna do? OK, we'll give a sign, we'll have a, a child be born. And then things are going along and Man, how these people are so rebellious. What are we gonna do to save these people?

I know, OK, Jesus, in the next few minutes, could you go down and be born as a virgin? And then we'll have you grow up and then we'll see how things go. Maybe you can set a really good example for them. So Jesus goes down to earth, he tries to be a good guy, tries to love everybody and set a good example, but nobody's following his example.

So then he's praying and the Lord says, oh, OK, plan B, let's have you die on the cross. And so you die on the cross, and then maybe that will set a good example for them. That's just not the way this whole thing works. This is, we're talking about God who is powerful, omniscient.

He's ordained this from eternity past. Jesus set his face like a flint way back in eternity past. And so, then creation happens and the fall happens. You have the angel of the Lord throughout the Old Testament, Jesus in preincarnate form, appearing to Abraham, appearing to Moses, wrestling with Jacob.

And here's Jesus marching through the Old Testament. And then is born Emmanuel, God amongst us. And just think of Christ, growing up, and what does he do when he goes to Jerusalem? Remember he gets, he, he hangs up back there and Mary's like worried, where, what are you doing?

Why, why, why weren't you with us? And what does he say to his mother? And didn't it's about my father's, I'm supposed to be about my father's business. this is a kid that's probably like 1112 years old, that's already like.

determined. I am here to do my father's business. And, and he grows up, and he goes and he begins to preach the gospel, begins to heal. He sets his face towards Jerusalem for the joy set before him, he goes to die.

This was never plan B. This was always plan A. And how, it's just amazing to me how God takes all of these details of history and decisions that people seem to be making independently. And he just brings it all down to the cross.

All these people who think that they are in absolute control of all the details of their lives, they fall backwards right into God's plan, including the devil. the devil is totally active, right, in this whole crucifixion thing. Who is it that filled the heart of Judas to go betray Christ? The devil.

And yet, the devil just has no idea what he's doing, that he's actually falling in line to God's plan, which all along was to get Christ to the cross, to die for the sins of the world, and to establish and to, and to rescue that remnant. What, just like we looked at last week, what God is this? Who is, who is a God like this? That forgives sin and transgression and has orchestrated such a salvation that he can bring all of these pieces together.

This, this is a God worthy of worship. and I just think we, we always have to keep in mind. That his ways are so much higher than our ways. If your God, if your view of God gets to a place where you feel like you can understand everything about him, and all of his movements, you got the wrong God.

But if you're looking at the Bible, and there's times where you're looking at how he accomplishes certain things and you're like, I don't know how he does that. How in the world can God bring Assyria down to judge Israel, then bring Judah down to judge Assyria, and then bring Persia in to judge Babylon, and to set this whole thing up to bring Jesus. To die for the sins of The world. In Jerusalem.

I don't know about you, it's just. Seems like every week I'm coming home after my Sunday school studies, I'm telling my wife, man, this is just crazy. This is just crazy, amazing what the Lord is. What the Lord is up to you Any final questions?

We've got I am + 2 minutes. So I'm gonna start owing you guys money. Anything? All right, I'll be up here if you guys wanna come chat or have something to talk.

Let's pray. Lord, we thank you so much for your, your plan and your wisdom when we look at just the book of Isaiah and how that you 700 years before Christ, you're talking about his birth and talking about his suffering and death and details. Of, of the sacrifice that would happen on the cross. we're just so overwhelmed with the idea that this was not some Plan B, but this is something that you had ordained, from before creation.

Thank you, Jesus, for just determining to accomplish our salvation and not letting anything deter you. We thank you, Lord, for your power over the devil, your power. Over people and over sin in the world. We thank you that you who have begun this good work in us will complete it until the day of Christ Jesus, until he comes in his kingdom.

Let us continue to set our eyes on you. Let us keep our eyes on the one thing, bowing at your being at your feet like Mary on a regular basis, and from that place, may you cause dominoes to fall. In Christ's name we pray. Amen.