“It was the will of the LORD to crush him;
he has put him to grief;
when his soul makes an offering for guilt,
he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days;
the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.
Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied;
by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant,
make many to be accounted righteous,
and he shall bear their iniquities.
Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many,
and he shall divide the spoil with the strong,
because he poured out his soul to death
and was numbered with the transgressors;
yet he bore the sin of many,
and makes intercession for the transgressors.”
We have sinned. We have each offended Holy God. Mankind is lost, deserving of being forever cast away from His love and from His goodness. The court prophet, Isaiah, stated the issue in this way,
“All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have turned—every one—to his own way;
and the LORD has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.”
[ISAIAH 53:6]
“We have turned—every one—to his own way!” What a damning indictment of the race.
Paul pens the sweeping formal accusation that exposes each of us when he draws together the summation of the condition of all mankind, writing,
“There is no one righteous, not even one,
there is no one who understands,
there is no one who seeks God.
All have turned away,
together they have become worthless;
there is no one who shows kindness, not even one.”
“Their throats are open graves,
they deceive with their tongues,
the poison of asps is under their lips.”
“Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.”
“Their feet are swift to shed blood,
ruin and misery are in their paths,
and the way of peace they have not known.”
“There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
[ROMANS 3:10-18 NET BIBLE, 2nd ED.]
Using the words penned by various writers of the Poetic Literature of the Bible, the Apostle is emphasising the exact situation Isaiah was confronting. It will be impossible to correct the situation hanging over the head of all within the race if we cannot diagnose our condition. And Paul is simply drawing together multiple sources to demonstrate that our sinful condition is not something mentioned occasionally by the Word of God, our justifiable condemnation is a feature! God is presenting the great need of all mankind in order to provide the remedy we so desperately need. And Isaiah is taking the same tack in order to reveal the cure for sin.
After pronouncing the dark condemnation of the race, Isaiah penned a statement of hope for all mankind, promising,
“It was the will of the LORD to crush him;
he has put him to grief;
when his soul makes an offering for guilt,
he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days;
the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.
Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied;
by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant,
make many to be accounted righteous,
and he shall bear their iniquities.
Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many,
and he shall divide the spoil with the strong,
because he poured out his soul to death
and was numbered with the transgressors;
yet he bore the sin of many,
and makes intercession for the transgressors.”
[ISAIAH 53:10-12]
And what he has written causes me to wonder, “Is it enough?” Is the determination by the LORD to crush His servant sufficient to set me free of my deserved condemnation? When the LORD makes His servant an offering for sin, will that be enough to free me from my sin? Is it possible that I, to say nothing of all mankind, can be freed from the threat of God’s wrath? That is what we must explore in this message today.
IT WAS THE WILL OF THE LORD — Reading the text, it is easy to overlook little words. Notice that the tenth verse begins with a conjunction, “yet.” Here are the opening words of the text: “Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush Him” [ISAIAH 53:7a]. The conjunction serves in this instance as a means of informing readers that what follows is based on what has previously been written. We cannot understand what is being said if we ignore the earlier information that was provided.
Writing of the work the Servant of the Lord would accomplish [see ISAIAH 52:13], Isaiah stuns us, revealing that this person would possess neither majestic presence, outstanding beauty, nor anything that would compel anyone to be in awe. The Prophet continues by saying of this One that people would despise Him, and based on His outward appearance, people would reject Him. The majority of mankind would turn from this One because it would be impossible to esteem Him [see ISAIAH 53:2-3]! The One Whom Isaiah describes would be associated with pain, He would be someone well acquainted with grief. Therefore, people would turn from Him to avoid being associated with Him or even admitting they know Him. By implication, those who would affiliate with Him would be on the receiving end of pain and grief.
It seems a conundrum to see Isaiah write,
“Surely he has borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed him stricken,
smitten by God, and afflicted.”
[ISAIAH 53:4]
The servant of the LORD, this One who was so unassuming, so plain and pedestrian in His presence, this One who was rejected by most people, was sent to “bear our grief” and to “[carry] our sorrows.” His work would in some way free us from griefs and sorrows that we deserved. The Court Prophet informs reader that this One Who is coming would accomplish this admittedly great work by suffering in our place. He would experience rejection, pain, and sorrow because of us! We deserved to be pierced; we warranted judgement that would crush us. And because this One would take our place, we would have peace rather than the crushing judgement that we deserved [see ISAIAH 53:5].
Then, in what assuredly qualifies as one of the greatest verses speaking of God’s salvation, the Prophet of God writes,
“All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have turned—every one—to his own way;
and the LORD has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.”
[ISAIAH 53:6]
Even seven hundred fifty years before the crucifixion of the Christ, He is the Son of God, God’s prophet made the dark observation of the condition that characterises the entirety of humanity—mankind is corrupt. We may have begun well, but we quickly moved away from the way in which the Creator called us to go.
You will recall how the Creator looked over all He had made and declared it to be good. We read, “God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good” [GENESIS 1:31a]. Immediately following this statement of the perfection of all that the Lord had made, the divine text states, “Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them” [GENESIS 2:1]. The heavens and the earth, all creation, was in readiness for man to tend. The man and the woman whom God had made were given the charge to tend the earth.
However, there was one proscription that God delivered to the man. The LORD had planted a beautiful garden in which every kind of tree grew, both trees denoted for their beauty and trees that would produce fruits for the enjoyment of the first pair. God placed the man and the woman in the garden to tend what God had prepared, warning the man, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” [GENESIS 2:16-17].
You know the rest of the story. The woman was seduced by the wicked one who had taken the form of a serpent. She did eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The man, who was right there with her [see GENESIS 3:6], chose to eat some of the fruit that she offered him. Immediately, the sentence God had pronounced before the sin ever occurred, was imposed. The eyes of each of them were opened, and they knew they were naked. They attempted to hide their sin by making clothing from fig leaves. However, there was no way they could hide their condition, for they were now dying. God warned, “Dying you will die” [literal translation of the final words of GENESIS 2:17], and now the sentence of which God had warned had been invoked. From this point on, all mankind would be born under sentence of death. Sin had been introduced into the race, and henceforth the creation would be in bondage to corruption, groaning as it were in the pains of childbirth [see ROMANS 8:19-22].
Confronted by the Creator, the man and the woman, together with the serpent received the formal pronouncement of judgement. However, even as He pronounced the sentence, God tempered the sentence for mankind by announcing a statement of hope. The Lord GOD, speaking to the serpent, said,
“Because you have done this,
cursed are you above all livestock
and above all beasts of the field;
on your belly you shall go,
and dust you shall eat
all the days of your life.
I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and her offspring;
he shall bruise your head,
and you shall bruise his heel.”
[GENESIS 3:14-15]
Though the serpent would wound the offspring of the woman, that One would crush the serpent. The final statement spoken to the serpent must surely have seemed enigmatic to the man and the woman at the time they heard what God said, but in the ensuing years, those who walked with the Lord GOD would ponder what was said and they would see within His sentence a germ of hope. For a brief period, the serpent appeared to have won, that he had somehow ruined God’s perfect work; however, God would triumph at last. For the LORD would at some point in the future be sending One whom the LORD identified as the offspring of the woman, and this One would in some way that was yet unseen attack the serpent, striking him on his head. Though the serpent would injure this One, the effort of evil would be crushed by this promised deliverer.
The sacrifice of the Son of God was neither an accident nor a botched effort to reverse the fall of our first parents. Adam and Eve did sin, plunging creation into ruin. Before ever the heavens and the earth were formed, God planned and prepared for the sacrifice of His own Son. Writing the saints of the diaspora, we witness the Apostle to the Jews writing, “If you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God” [1 PETER 1:17-21].
Did you catch what Peter said concerning the Christ? Under the guidance of the Spirit of the Lord, Peter informs us that the sacrifice of the Son of God was planned “before the foundation of the world!” God provided for salvation before man’s creation! Let me make that more personal still: God made provision for you to be saved—forgiven all your sin and made righteous—before He even created this world. God knew man would rebel, and before the dark deed was performed, God made provision to redeem us. No one can complain that it is God’s fault if they are not saved! If we are not saved, the fault rests on us. If we are still sinful people, we are responsible for our condition.
And that allows us to take up the prophecy delivered in our text. God was providing for man’s redemption; God was making a way for man to be delivered from the death in which he was condemned to live. Death is not a cessation, as we are prone to imagine; death is a separation. Physical death is separation of the soul and the spirit from the body. The body is no longer animated, no longer capable of reacting to stimulate, no longer energised and able to carry out the functions we think of as associated with life. Spiritual death is separation of the soul from God Who gives us life.
“Yet”—despite the Servant Isaiah reveals bearing our griefs, carrying our sorrow, being pierced because of our transgressions, and crushed because of our iniquities, this was the result of the will of the LORD. The sacrifice of God’s Servant, Whom we know to be His own Son, was a deliberate feature. The earlier readers of Isaiah’s prophecy were flummoxed, left confused and astonished as they read these words. They could not understand how the LORD could allow such an obvious injustice to occur. And how could God bring any good out of such evident unfairness?
From the time Adm and Eve sinned, man understood that to approach God would require blood. You may be familiar with the words of the writer of the Hebrew Letter, “Under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins” [HEBREWS 9:22].
The death of a sacrifice is not something people just imagined; when our first parents sinned, disobeying the charge they had received from their Creator, the Lord GOD did not permit them to grope about in their fallen condition, wildly attempting to cover their nakedness. God clothed them with the skins of an animal. In the account of what was taking place after their fall, we read, “The LORD God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them” [GENESIS 3:21]. By this act, the man and the woman knew that the effects of their sin extended to the whole of creation. For the first time physical death entered into the world as animals were killed to provide clothing.
Therefore, we read in the text,
“It was the will of the LORD to crush him;
he has put him to grief;
when his soul makes an offering for guilt,
he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days;
the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.”
[ISAIAH 53:10]
And reading these words, we understand that the sacrifice of the Son of God was deliberate. He gave His life so that we might live. He tasted death for all so that all would have a way to escape eternal death. He took upon Himself all the perversity, all the wickedness, all the sin that contaminates us so that we could be declared pure and righteous before the Father. Is it enough? Is there more that we must do?
HE SHALL SEE AND BE SATISFIED — When the prophet said, “He shall see His offspring,” the words must surely have seemed enigmatic to those first readers. For over seven hundred fifty years, what was written would have made little sense to those reading the prophecy. How could one whom the LORD crushed, one who poured out his soul to death, ever hope to see His offspring, let alone prolong His days? It made no sense.
Apparently, God’s promise makes no sense for many people even in this day. Various Christian sects and cults come up with the strangest concepts despite professing to believe that the sacrifice of Christ Jesus is sufficient to save. We know that some religions claim that we must believe and then hold on tightly or we will be lost again. It is as though the doubts that plague mankind are greater than the power of Christ to save. These deluded souls hold to this outlandish thought despite the warning God gives when His servant writes, “It is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt” [HEBREWS 6:4-6].
To question God’s ability to save despite our frailties is to deny the multiplied promises God has given. For instance, this same writer encourages us of Christ’s ability to keep us, when he writes, “[Christ] is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them” [HEBREWS 7:25]. That seems quite definite.
This writer is not finished with this issue, for he writes in a very short while, “Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own, for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him” [HEBREWS 9:24-28]. What is written is but anticipation of what follows.
Drawing this missive to a conclusion, the writer encourages readers to honour God, admonishing us, “Let brotherly love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. Remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them, and those who are mistreated, since you also are in the body. Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous. Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have” [HEBREWS 13:1-5a]. Then, the writer delivers the reason we are to live holy lives that honour the Living God when he cites a promise delivered to Joshua, “He has said, ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you’” [HEBREWS 13:5b].
The promise given by the writer of the Letter to Hebrew Christians is but an iteration of the promise Jesus delivered immediately before He was carried into the Glory. Remember how the Master charged us, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” [MATTHEW 28:19-20]. Yes, we who follow the Risen Saviour are charged with the responsibility to serve Him, and we do so in the knowledge that He is with us always. He will be with His beloved people until that day when this age shall end and the New Age of His return for us becomes a reality.
All that I have cited to this point gains weight in giving confidence to us who follow the Risen Lord of Glory when we witness His words delivered to religious interlocutors who questioned who He was and what He was doing. Let me direct your attention to an incident that is recorded in John’s Gospel. I begin reading the account as given in the tenth chapter of John. “At that time the Feast of Dedication took place at Jerusalem. It was winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple, in the colonnade of Solomon. So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, ‘How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.’ Jesus answered them, ‘I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father’s name bear witness about me, but you do not believe because you are not among my sheep. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one’” [JOHN 10:22-30].
Could the promise of security in Christ be stated any more strongly? Work your way through the affirmations of eternal security given in the face of such hostility:
• “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.”
• Let me make this promise stronger: “I give them eternal life, and they will never perish.” Perhaps that is questionable for you.
• How does this sound? “No one will snatch them out of my hand.”
• Well, let’s make this even more certain: “My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.”
• Then, in the pièce de résistance, Jesus attests, “I and the Father are one.”
If I can depend upon the Father’s promise, then I can rely upon the promise of Jesus, because Jesus is God, one with the Father.
So, I can do nothing to make myself acceptable to the Father, nor can I do anything to contribute to my salvation. The work Christ has performed at Calvary is sufficient, and it is complete. And yet, there are religions purporting to be Christian that imagine that we must in some way pay for our fallen, sinful nature. One major religion emphasises the necessity of paying for our brokenness by passing into an intermediate state where we will suffer for a period as a form of expunging our sin nature. This religion teaches adherents that they can perform certain acts as a form of prepayment to lessen the time they will spend suffering for their own sinful nature.
Are these religious leaders ignorant of the promises of God! Are they unaware that the Apostle of Love has written, “If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin” [1 JOHN 1:7]. If the blood of Jesus the Son of God cleanses us from all sin, who would dare imagine that we must suffer beyond this life in order to purge ourselves of sin? Why would anyone think they must do anything beyond believe the promise of the Saviour?
At other times, the leaders of this religion teach that giving money to the religious institutions will serve to lessen the suffering of loved ones that have already died. Have they never read the words penned by the Apostle? “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death” [ROMANS 8:1-2]. Amen!
In our text, the Spirit of God testifies,
“Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied;
by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant,
make many to be accounted righteous,
and he shall bear their iniquities.”
[ISAIAH 53:11]
I’m not able to describe what the Son of God endured as He took my punishment. It would be horrible enough to take my punishment of separation from the Father, but Jesus took upon Himself the sin of all mankind, suffering separation from the Father. None of us can explain what transpired in those dark moments when the Eternal Son was separated from the Eternal Father. We hear His cry of anguish when the Saviour cried out, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?”—“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
Hearing that heartbroken cry, we are left to wonder what is taking place. No mere mortal can ever comprehend the torment our Saviour experienced to free us from our brokenness, but each of us can rejoice in the knowledge that the death of Christ the Lord forever frees us from the need of such judgement, just as the resurrection of our Lord has forever assured us that we can be forgiven and stand without fear in the presence of God the Father. There is unspeakable pain for Him as He yielded up His life, but there is unimaginable life, incomprehensible joy for us if we accept His sacrifice in our place.
Knowing that He was appointed to surrender His life, the Saviour sees the work He performed through offering His life as a sacrifice and He rejoices in the knowledge that He makes many righteous because He has borne their iniquity. The final cry of the Saviour as He hung on the cross is a cry of triumph. His work was done, and He cried out, “It is finished!”
All that was left was to take with Him as He into the Glory those who had died before that sacrifice, those who were awaiting the deliverance the LORD had promised. The Apostle speaks of this when he writes, “There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call—one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift. Therefore it says,
‘When he ascended on high he led a host of captives,
and he gave gifts to men.’
(In saying, ‘He ascended,’ what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower regions, the earth? He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things)” [EPHESIANS 4:4-10].
The One Who gave His life as a sacrifice for fallen mankind, descended into Paradise, emptying that dark abode of the saved who were awaiting release before the Cross before leading the redeemed of God with Him as He then ascended into the Glory. What we witness in the pages of the New Testament is incomprehensible, but it is a truth that can be experienced by each one. I cannot understand what Christ experienced, nor can I fully grasp how He accomplished this marvellous work; but I have experienced the result of what Jesus has done, and each one who hears me at this hour can experience the redeeming power of the Living, Reigning Son of God.
HE BORE THE SIN OF MANY — There is so much taking place in this final verse of our text: the Servant of the LORD is said to have poured out His soul to death; the Righteous Servant was numbered with the transgressors; He bore the sin of many and He makes intercession for the transgressors. Throughout the words Isaiah has recorded are continual statements of hope meant to encourage those who look to the LORD God for deliverance. Throughout the text, there is a theme of intense suffering for the Righteous One, but in His suffering is the means of hope for the entirety of mankind.
This twelfth verse begins with a Hebrew expression that is treated as an adverb. We translate the Hebrew into our English word, “therefore.” The old adage holds true, “Whenever you see a ‘therefore,’ ask what it is there for.” The adverb is telling us that we are about to read of the consequences that follow from what has been presented earlier. We understand, then, that the suffering of the Righteous Servant has secured freedom for many, allowing the suffering One to be satisfied with His work of presenting His life as a sacrifice. Now comes a truly astonishing revelation when Isaiah write,
“Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many,
and he shall divide the spoil with the strong.”
[ISAIAH 53:12a]
We understand that we are reading a prophecy of the work of Messiah as He presents His life as a sacrifice for sinful man. We understand that we are seeing a divine revelation of what will be done for broken humanity at the coming of the Anointed One. It is a divine statement that the Messiah would be born for one great purpose, and that would be to give His life as a sacrifice for sin.
However, this is the astounding part of the revelation: many will share in what the Servant of God secures, and we are speaking of the work of Christ the Lord. This prophecy was provided centuries before He was born, and those who read were being told before the events would ever unfold that the Christ would share the benefit of His work with many.
Relatively speaking, we who follow Christ are not a majority in this fallen world. We have never constituted a majority. Before you begin to bemoan that fact, remember that it is minorities and not majorities that write history. That we who follow the Saviour are not, and never will be, a majority becomes evident when we hear Jesus teaching us, “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few” [MATTHEW 7:13-14]. Those rushing along the easy way, pushing toward destruction, are the majority. Those choosing to walk along the hard way as they travel to life are few.
At another point, Jesus taught His disciples, “Strive to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able. When once the master of the house has risen and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and to knock at the door, saying, ‘Lord, open to us,’ then he will answer you, ‘I do not know where you come from.’ Then you will begin to say, ‘We ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets.’ But he will say, ‘I tell you, I do not know where you come from. Depart from me, all you workers of evil!’ In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God but you yourselves cast out. And people will come from east and west, and from north and south, and recline at table in the kingdom of God. And behold, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last” [LUKE 13:24-30]. Quite evident from the words Jesus spoke at that time, many religious people will imagine that their religious devotions will move His heart, compelling Him to receive them. However, the Son of God will reject their efforts, for He has already received those who chose to identify with Him though doing so marked them as a minority.
We who follow the Christ constitute a great throng of people who will spend eternity in the presence of the Son of God. In Heaven, before the throne of God and at the Marriage Supper of the Lamb, is what is identified as “a great multitude.” The Revelator writes, “I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the roar of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, crying out,
‘Hallelujah!
For the Lord our God
the Almighty reigns.
Let us rejoice and exult
and give him the glory,
for the marriage of the Lamb has come,
and his Bride has made herself ready;
it was granted her to clothe herself
with fine linen, bright and pure’—
for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints” [REVELATION 19:6-8].
The Righteous Servant will ensure that all who follow Him will be rewarded. This is the promise given as the Apostle writes, “Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ” [COLOSSIANS 3:23-24].
The old man had endured hardship—sleepless nights, long journeys, beatings, imprisonment, extended periods with inadequate food, opposition from those openly opposed to the Gospel as well as opposition from false brothers. At last, he faced certain death, for the government leaders had ordered that he was to be executed. I can imagine that even as he wrote the words, he could hear the executioner sharpening the sword that would behead him. What would he write in this final missive to the young theologue who had shared so many of his travails? Would he bemoan his hardship? Would he rage against the unfairness of the situation? What would he write?
These are the words the old man wrote. “I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.
“For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing” [2 TIMOTHY 4:1-8].
His eyes were firmly fixed on what lay beyond this moment we call “now.” His eyes were focused on the reward that is promised for all who have loved the appearing of the Lord Christ. It is an update on the promise God delivered through Isaiah in our text.
We read in our text that the Anointed One would divide the spoil with the strong. What is written there should encourage every follower of the Christ. As one who follows the Son of God, you need to know that God sees you as one who is strong. And the prize our Saviour has secured is not something that He jealously seizes and guards as His alone, but He shares what He has purchased with His Own blood with each one who follows Him. You twice born saints of the Risen Saviour are strong in Him. You may think that you haven’t strength to continue on. The path is hard, and the opponents seem so numerous, and it seems so reasonable to give up; but you are strong, and because you have fixed your eyes on the Saviour, you keep on keeping on. You think of those who have trod this same path in the years now past, and you know that you can make the journey. It is as we read, “Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
“Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood” [HEBREWS 12:1-4].
Have I spoken to someone who is weary? Lift up your eyes, child of God, the Master has redeemed you and He gives you new strength. Has not our Saviour told us, “There will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and on the earth distress of nations in perplexity because of the roaring of the sea and the waves, people fainting with fear and with foreboding of what is coming on the world. For the powers of the heavens will be shaken. And then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to take place, straighten up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near” [LUKE 21:25-28].
Child of God, your Father is encouraging you, saying, “You know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. The night is far gone; the day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires” [ROMANS 13:11-14].
God’s Righteous Servant, Jesus God’s own Son, has fulfilled every promise. We who walk with the Risen Saviour testify with hearts filled with joy and deep gratitude, that what He has done is enough. Amen.
[1] Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2016. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
