WALKING IN HIS FOOTSTEPS
Text: Isaiah 50:4- 9
Isaiah 50:4-9 "The LORD God has given me a learned tongue, so that I may know how to sustain the weary with words. And morning after morning he wakens, and he wakens my ear to listen like those who are being taught. (5) My Lord GOD has opened my ears, and I did not rebel; I did not shrink back. (6) I gave my back to those who beat me and my cheeks to those who pulled out my beard. I did not turn away my face from insults and spitting. (7) For the Lord GOD helps me, so I won't be disgraced. Therefore I've made my face like flint, and I know that I won't be put to shame. (8) The one who vindicates me is near. Who, then, will bring a charge against me? Let's face each other! Who has a case against me? Let him confront me! (9) See! It is the Lord GOD who will help me. Who is it that will declare me guilty? See! They will all wear out like a garment; moths will eat them up.
“Great Aunt Lucy was losing her hearing. A specialist suggested an operation to improve he hearing. But, she promptly vetoed the idea, by saying: “I’m ninety-four years old and I’ve heard enough”. (Michael Hodgin. 1001 Humorous Illustrations For Public Speaking. Grand Rapids, Zondervan, 1994, p. 176). Though we laugh at that, it can be eye opening to the fact that regardless of age we have selected hearing. Just ask wives about their husbands, parents about their children or our Heavenly Father about our own selective hearing.
This is one of the four servant songs (Isaiah 42:1-9; 49:1 - 13; Isaiah 50:4 - 11 and Isaiah 52:13-53:12) which show the Messiah to be God’s meek and gentle servant. (https://www.gotquestions.org/Servent-songs.html).
God spoke of being pleased in Jesus Christ His only begotten son at His baptism and again at Jesus’s transfiguration experience when God said, “This is my beloved Son, Keep listening to Him (Matthew 3: 17, and Matthew 17: 5). The reason that we should listen is because no one else in all of history can speak the life giving words (John 6:68) that can cleanse us (John 15:3). Jesus Christ the living Word---God’s Word made flesh giving to us the words of life through His learned tongue to help us from our weariness. Jesus was also given the ability to know how it is that we listen and obey or ignore and rebel (Isaiah 50:4- 5).
Today we will talk about hearing and heaven.
HEARING
What does the message of this servant song from Isaiah tell us?
1) Message and messenger: It tells us that Jesus is both the message and the messenger. Through His prayer life, Jesus was always seeking time to pray in solitude with God the Father (see Luke 5:16 &Luke 6:12) who would “awaken His ear to listen with life giving words that would sustain the weary and how the weary would hear them” (Isaiah 50:4).
> God knew when we were being knit together in our mother’s womb (Psalm 139:13).
> God knew the plans God laid out for with a future and a hope (Jeremiah 29:11) and how God chose us in Jesus [through our union with Christ (GNB)] before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless (Ephesians 1:4).
> God even knows our name (John 10:3); knows our frame and remembers that we are dust (Genesis 3:19; Psalm 103:14), the numbers of hairs on our heads (Matthew 10:30).
> Through Christ God wants to teach us how short our life is, so that we may become wise (Psalm 90:12) because the day which we do not know will come when we will die and face God’s judgment (Hebrews 9:27).
> That is why in the fullness of time God sent His Son (Galatinas 4:7) Jesus to die on a cross to save us (John 3:16) because God is not willing that anyone should perish but that all should repent (II Peter 3:9).
> All of these things explain why God designed the message of the Gospel to come through the messenger of His only begotten Son Jesus Christ to reach the lost, the last, the least and the weary.
2) Consider the seven reminders from the Gospel of John… He spake none other words than those given Him by the Father. Compare the (sic) seven [eight] times this was asserted by Messiah (John_7:16; _8:28, 8:46, _8:47; 12:49;14:10,14:24; 17:8). (The Companion Bible. E. W. Bullinger).
A) Message and messenger: John 7:16 So Jesus answered them, “My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me (ESV).
B) The fall guy: John 8:28 So Jesus said to them, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he, and that I do nothing on my own authority, but speak just as the Father taught me (ESV).
C) Vindication: John 8:46 Which one of you convicts me of sin? If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me? (ESV).
D) The hard-hearted versus the open-hearted: John 8:47 Whoever is of God hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God.” (ESV).
E) God’s Authority: John 12:49 For I have not spoken on my own authority, but the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment—what to say and what to speak.
F) Rejecting God’s authority: John 14:10 Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works. (ESV).
G) Contemptuous rebels: John 14:24 Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine but the Father's who sent me. (ESV).
H) The open-hearted John 17:8 For I have given them the words---the cleansing words (John 15:3) that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. (ESV).
3) The cleansing word: Those who have believed and received God’s word into their hearts have hidden God’s word in their hearts that they might not sin against God (Psalm 119:11). God’s Word always nurtures and strengthens us when our souls get “weary” (Psalm 119:28).
Who are those that are hard of hearing in the New Testament? How many of you answered the Pharisees? Well lets look at their flawed assessments. They really didn’t want to listen because they had “heard enough” .
1) Pharisees number one complaint: Jesus ate and associated with sinners.
2) Pharisees number one agenda: Their number one agenda was to discredit Jesus.
3) The Pharisees number one charge ---blasphemy: Since they failed to find an offense that would stick they conspired together until they could get Jesus on alleged blasphemy charge and use it as a justification for a death sentence (Matthew 26:59 -66).
Why are their assessments flawed in all three complaints we just mentioned?
1) Condemning God?: Surely the religious leaders of that day would not have condemned God right? Wrong! The answer is that they are not just condemning Jesus, they are condemning God the Father who gave Jesus every word to speak to every sinner! This why the scriptures say that when Jesus came to His own people they received Him not. This is also why Jesus said that He is the Way the truth and the life and that no one would be ever to enter heaven except through Him (John 14:6) because the words Jesus used to preach the Gospel were God’s own words. "The LORD God has given me a learned tongue, so that I may know how to sustain the weary with words. And morning after morning he wakens, and he wakens my ear to listen like those who are being taught (Isaiah 50:4).
2) God condemns the Pharisees: It is in Matthew 23 where God condemns the Pharisees because of the self exaltation, double standards, desire for the best seats, abusing their power to burden others, seeking public recognition. Then there are the seven woes (verse 1 -12).
1. They keep people out of God’s kingdom (13)
2. They make converts who become as misguided as them (15)
3. They make oaths that show their blindness about spiritual matters (22)
4. They practice detailed obedience while disobeying in important matters (23-24)
5. They look clean on the outside but are polluted in their inner lives (25-26)
6. They look righteous on the outside but are hypocrites on the inside (27-28)
7. They stand violently against God’s purposes and messengers (29-36) https://mwerickson.com/2022/04/04/the-woes-of-the-religiously-misguided/
We have to remember that God gave Jesus these words to speak to these sinners who like great Aunt Lucy thought she had heard enough! Did the Pharisees really think that they were above reproach and beyond conviction? Knowing what we know the scriptures tells us, how can anyone get into heaven without listening to Jesus and heeding His words?
HEAVEN
Do we ever condemn ourselves because we think we have”heard enough”? In Matthew 13:10 -16 Jesus tells us that He spoke in parables because the open-hearted would understand and the closed-hearted would resist.
Why is it so important for us to listen? How we listen determines where we are in our relationship with God.
1) Listen: According to the Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance The New Testament understanding was that to listen meant having two ears that listen and weigh things like scales meaning to heed. When we heed something, it means that we have taken it to heart. Do we receive God’s Word by faith or what we do in keeping the law [like the Pharisees seemed to practice] (Galatians 3:2 and 5)? Jesus said, “He who has ears [to hear], let him hear and heed My words” (Matthew 13:9 AMP).
2) Faith comes by hearing: It is worth noting that Paul who was a former Pharisee once said in Romans 10:13 -17 For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” (14) How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? (15) And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” (16) But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?” (17) So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ (ESV).
What are the consequences of listening to and following Jesus?
1) The triumphant entry: Consider Luke 19:38-42 They said, "How blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!" (39) Some of the Pharisees in the crowd told Jesus, "Teacher, tell your disciples to be quiet." (40) He replied, "I tell you, if they were quiet, the stones would cry out!" (41) When he came closer and saw the city, he began to grieve over it: (42) "If you had only known today what could have brought you peace! But now it is hidden from your sight (ESV). Who hid it from them? Satan because they allowed Satan to put blinders on their eyes that prevented them form seeing the truth (II Corinthians 4:7).
2) The prophecy in Isaiah 50: I gave my back to those who beat me and my cheeks to those who pulled out my beard. I did not turn away my face from insults and spitting. (7) For the Lord GOD helps me, so I won't be disgraced. Jesus was “humbling Himself even to the point of death on a cross (Philippians 2:8).
3) Prophecy of flogging: John 19:1 tells us that Pilate hand Jesus over to be flogged in the hopes that it would satisfy the angry mob. According to an article that was once published in the Journal of American Medicine, they described the historical details in the severity of flogging with a cat of nine tails which was a nine stranded whip with a nail, or a ball on the end. The victim was stripped naked and strapped to a pole with the hands tied at the top and the whole back exposed with the body being tied to the post so that they could not move as they were struck with the flagellum which was designed to rip flesh. Bill O’Reilly in his book Killing Jesus mentioned how the scourgers took great pride in administering the cat of nine tails aka flagellum and ripping the flesh so that the insides of the condemned could clearly by seen. Although Roman law was not limited to the Jews laws of 39 lashes (Deuteronomy 25:2). It has been suggested that more than 39 lashes could be lethal. The Romans usually like to put the finishing touches on the condemned to be crucified where they would finish out their last hours on a cross in great agony until they died. The crucified literally had to stand up to breath which exhausting them. To add insult to injury they would break their legs to make it excruciatingly next to impossible to breath.
4) The Mocking: Then there was the mocking of Jesus’s kingdom wit a crown of thorns they stuck in His scalp along with the purple robe. Matthew 26:68 his scoffers said, "Prophesy to us, you Messiah! Who hit you?" Matthew 27:29 adds a staff to their humiliation of Him. Mark 15:19 mentions how they struck Him on the head with that staff as they spit on Him and mocked Him by paying Him a fake homage.
Why did the Pharisees tells Jesus’s disciples to be quiet?
Was it because they thought the disciples talked too much? Was it because they thought that they were above reproach and beyond conviction when they were a brood of vipers? Was it because they were blind leaders who didn’t know that they were spiritually blind as they led others---- the least, the last and the lost into the ditch with them? What if we are the last witness for someone? What are the consequences if we don’t witness to others? Can we put that off till another day?
What will happen if we as modern day disciples keep quiet?
1)The itching ears of the lost: How many will be led astray because they had “itching ears” (2 Timothy 4:3)? How many won’t make it into heaven if we were the last but silent witnesses before it was someone’s last day? Matthew 10:32-33 says “If you openly and publicly acknowledge me, I will freely and openly acknowledge you before my heavenly Father. (33) But if you publicly deny that you know me, I will also deny you before my heavenly Father (TPT).
2) Worldly opposition: In Matthew 10:16 -42, Jesus mentioned that we would have opposition from unbelievers in our own families within and opposition from others without ‘leaders---magistrates, governors, kings. The Lord would give us the words we would need through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, much like God the Father, gave Jesus Christ His son the words He spoke. In Luke 6:22 Jesus said that others would hate us because we follow Jesus. In Matthew 10:32 -33 Jesus said, “Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven. (33) But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven” (KJV).
3) Pick up our crosses: Jesus calls us to pick up our crosses and follow in His footsteps: “And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me” (Matthew 10:38 ESV)! That means we must turn the other cheek, love our enemies and pray for them (Matthew 5: 43 - 48, Matthew 5:38 -39).
In the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
