After the ponderous load that has been precipitated
onto you through these past four meetings, you
will no doubt be relieved when I say
my message this evening is a very simple
one.
I trust not less important and vital, but
quite simple.
And it is from these chapters which we
have read, Isaiah 61 and Luke 4.
Before we can really come to the point
to derive the real value and meaning of
these chapters put together, we have to take
note of this, and the significance of this,
that the Lord Jesus did lift out of
the prophecies of Isaiah this section and apply
it to himself.
That is far more significant than it looks
to be at a glance because of the
historic setting of the words in the Old
Testament in the prophecies of Isaiah.
Because undoubtedly these words in Isaiah's prophecies had
a bearing upon or took their force from
the situation which obtained at that time.
It was what existed then that gave rise
to and point to these words.
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me
because this and that, so and so.
And that the Lord Jesus should have taken
those words right out of that context, applied
them to himself, implies, I mean, that he
gave them another context.
I don't mean the context of himself, although
that was true, but another, shall we say,
historic context.
You may not grasp what I'm getting at,
but you will, I think, in a few
minutes.
These words of the prophet Isaiah, which, in
his own mind, perhaps did not exclusively relate
to the coming Messiah, may have done in
a secondary way, but he was himself in
this.
The prophet, the Lord's servant at that time,
he was proclaiming to the people these things,
saying as to them at that time in
their condition, the Spirit of the Lord is
upon me because the Lord hath anointed me
to preach good tidings unto the poor and
so on.
It's probable that, as I have said, in
a secondary way, behind, he knew another was
coming, he had the messianic idea, but for
him, at the moment, it was contemporary.
It was for that time.
It was because Israel was in, actually in,
all these conditions to which he was speaking.
Now, while that was true in the case
of the Lord Jesus and in the time
of the Lord Jesus, that was quite true,
there is this extra factor.
The Lord Jesus was not making this a
prophecy of something in the future.
The Lord Jesus was saying, today is this
fulfilled.
Today is this fulfilled.
And it was not literally fulfilled for Israel
that day, nor has it been ever since.
Not literally.
Israel has never come into the good of
this prophecy in any earthly sense.
They're still outside, and yet Jesus said about
it, this prophecy, today it's fulfilled.
And he was constantly talking like that, about
today, about now.
He said to the woman of Samaria, Woman,
believe me, the hour cometh, and now is,
when neither in this mountain, nor at Jerusalem
shall men worship the Father.
And now is.
Now is.
This is strange.
Well, I wonder if you grasp the import
of that.
If this prophecy, with all its terms, is
now in fulfillment, you cannot make a literal
thing of it.
You've got to make a spiritual thing of
it.
It is fulfilled today, but it's fulfilled in
a spiritual way, and not in a temporal
way.
That's the setting of being, and it's very
impressive, and very important to recognize that as
you come to what the prophecy holds.
Jesus took it to himself and said, Today.
How, today.
And that, of course, is the present interpretation
of this.
Now, there he was, standing in the synagogue
in Nazareth, in the personal fulfillment of all
the prophecies concerning becoming servant of Jehovah.
All these prophecies were in course of fulfillment
in himself, and he stood there as the
servant of the Lord, prefigured by Isaiah.
And what we have then here, simply, is
the manifold ministry of the servant of the
Lord.
How manifold, or many-sided, is this servanthood,
is this service to God and to man.
When you have said that, you're ready to
look at at least some of the aspects
of this manifold servant ministry of the Lord
Jesus.
And then remember that it is transferred to
the church to be his ministry in and
through the church, that what is true of
him in these respects is intended by the
same anointing spirit to be true of the
church, whether that be universal or local, the
whole or the part.
This is the manifold ministry which the anointing
spirit gives, or desires to give and fulfill,
not only in the Christ, but in and
through the church.
Now that may have sounded not so simple,
but the rest is quite simple.
The servant then is here presented to us
in various ways.
First of all, the servant as a preacher,
Spirit of the Lord is upon me because
the Lord hath anointed me to preach.
The word really is herald.
The Lord hath anointed me to herald, to
make a proclamation.
Full force of what is here is that,
to make a proclamation.
And when you go on to see what
it is, what is contained in the proclamation,
you find that there are three things.
First of all, a proclamation of good news
to the poor.
Good news, the word gospel in the New
Testament is just that as you know, to
herald, proclaim, preach, tell forth, announce
good news to the poor.
What does that mean?
Well, you remember when he did come and
he gathered his disciples, the nucleus of the
new nation and the new kingdom, took them
apart, he opened his mouth and taught them
saying, blessed are the poor in spirit, for
theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Now we are back for our setting in
Isaiah, where historically Israel had lost the kingdom.
This is the book, as you know, that
sees them driven out, carried away from Jerusalem
and their land into far off Babylon with
their kingdom lost.
A people without a kingdom.
All that that meant to Israel on this
earth, for it was everything to them, what
they were raised up for, that in which
all their interests and their possessions and their
hopes were centered.
The kings have been slain or taken captive,
their kingdom is gone.
Jesus steps in to that situation and says
to these poor, strict, bereft people, blessed are
the poor in spirit, theirs is not
even the recovery or restoration of an earthly
kingdom, but the kingdom of heaven.
So much greater kingdom, so much more glorious
kingdom, so much more enduring kingdom, the kingdom
of the heavens.
That's good news, to help proclaim that there's
another kingdom to be given to those who
have the strict stock of everything here on
this earth, in which their life and their
hopes were centered.
There's another kingdom.
Spirit has anointed me to say that.
To say that.
That's the good news of the herald.
It is the good news of a kingdom
offered far transcending the highest glory and the
fullest wealth of the old earthly kingdom of
Israel.
You probably know how much these gospels in
the New Testament have about the kingdom of
heaven.
You might say that in one sense they
are mainly about the kingdom of heaven.
It's offered to those who have lost everything
here, of this world's kingdom.
Second thing that the herald announces or proclaims
is the year of jubilee.
That is not stated in those words exactly,
but to anyone who cares to look into
it, they will find that that is what
is in the thought and what lies behind
the words here.
It's the year of grace here translated, the
acceptable year of the Lord.
It's the year of grace of the Lord.
And that particular year in the Jewish history,
the 70th year was the year of jubilee.
Most of you know, but for the sake
of those who don't, let me say what
the year of jubilee was.
During all that period up to the 70th
year, if anybody got into debt, for instance,
well, their house could be taken in lieu
of payment, or their property, or their sons,
or themselves.
Anything that they had and even themselves could
legally be taken, put against their debt.
Then there were all those who were in
bondage, even in slavery, in servitude, over against
the indebtedness of either a family, or a
business, or anything else.
That there was a law made by God
in Israel, that the 70th year, the 50th
year, the 50th year was the year when
all debts had to be cancelled, all such
confiscated properties, all people had to be released,
and all that had been during that time
taken in lieu of payment was to be
given back.
And early, early, with the dawn of the
first day of the 50th year, the trumpet
was sounded, the trumpet of jubilee sounded forth
over the land, and every slave left free,
and everyone who was holding anything on any
body had to return it or them.
The year of jubilee, the year of grace
over against law.
That was the historic side of things.
Now Jesus takes that up, and he says,
in this new dispensation, not one year, but
the whole dispensation is the dispensation of grace.
With me is the trumpet of jubilee, which
will run right on to the end of
the age.
With me is the heralding, the announcement, I
am the one who sounds the trumpet of
jubilee.
All the slaves must be released.
All that is in bondage must be let
go.
All that has been forfeited must be restored.
Your inheritance, your rights, are returned in the
year of grace.
Now you see, that is capable of a
lot of time being taken.
But I think it's quite simple and quite
clear, no doubt about it, that what was
true in Israel historically and literally is quite
true of the race, mankind.
There is no doubt about it that you
and I by nature are all in bondage.
We are all slaves.
We have all, as Paul puts it, been
sold under sin, and we have lost our
inheritance.
Adam forfeited our inheritance, and we lost everything
that God meant us to have by Adam's
sin.
We've lost it all.
Wonderful liberty, the wonderful inheritance, it's all gone.
You don't doubt that.
And we are in a state of lost
good and spiritual bondage.
The great herald has come to proclaim the
acceptable year of the Lord, the year of
grace.
That is the year of release and of
restoration, the year of jubilee.
That is what this servant does.
And dear friends, that is the herald ministry
that is committed to us here tonight as
servants of the Lord, as heralds by the
Holy Spirit.
We can proclaim this.
All that you have lost in Adam is
restored in Christ.
All the bondage in which you are serving
and laboring in sin and to Satan is
canceled out in Christ, and your liberty is
offered.
The year of jubilee, all restored.
That has been lost.
But notice here in Isaiah, the herald proclaims
the day of vengeance, the day of vengeance
of our God.
Of course, you don't need to have it
point out that Jesus didn't go on to
that.
He stopped short of that.
He stopped short with the acceptable year, the
year of grace.
He didn't go further and say, and the
day of vengeance of our God.
When he reached that point, without saying that,
he closed the book.
Give it back to the attendants.
And said, this day and this scripture, as
far as I have read, as far as
I have read, the point at which I
have stopped is fulfilled, you'll hear.
And he didn't say, the day of vengeance.
But, when he finished his ministry on this
earth, he proclaimed the day of vengeance.
Oh, how, when his message had been given,
his life had been lived, his service fulfilled,
and they rejected, he said, woe unto you,
woe unto you, woe unto you.
He then did proclaim the day of vengeance.
But you see the point.
There is a day of grace in which
everything is offered.
In him, an opportunity is given for receiving
all that he offers, your liberty and your
inheritance.
But there is a terminal point for that
day when having refused and rejected another solemn
note comes in, the day of vengeance of
our God.
Day of vengeance is not the day of
grace.
It's the day of grace refused, grace despised.
It's true that the people in Christ's own
day sinned beyond the day of grace into
rejecting him and entered upon the day of
vengeance of God.
For us here tonight, the day of grace
still obtains.
You can have all that the herald offers,
but make no mistake about it, comes a
day when you, with persistent refusal of grace,
will find that you are confronted with the
day of vengeance.
These are the three things that the herald
proclaim.
That is the first aspect of the servant's
ministry.
The second, to comfort all that mourns in
Zion.
To comfort all that mourns in Zion.
Now, it's quite easy to see what Isaiah
meant by that.
You take what he meant as illustrative of
what Jesus meant in saving us.
What did Isaiah mean by those that mourn
in Zion?
Well, why do you mourn?
Why do you put on mourning?
Mourning relates to a funeral, doesn't it?
To death.
To a funeral.
The people of Zion in Isaiah's day, the
people of Zion were mourning the loss of
what Zion meant.
The funeral of the meaning of Zion.
Now, Zion was always a typical or symbolic
term for the highest glories and blessings of
Israel.
Theirs were the songs of Zion.
Theirs were the journeys to Zion.
They held Zion as the symbolic embodiment of
all the divine blessing and all the divine
presence.
Oh, Zion, in its days, its great days,
was the place of the glory.
The glory was there.
Now, the glory is gone from Zion.
All that Zion meant of ascendancy and victory
is gone because you know Zion came in
with a victory.
Came in with a victory.
When it was considered to be so impregnable
that the original holders just manned it with
their lame and their blinds and said, why,
our poorest stuff can beat anybody who tries
to take this.
Then the David challenged his warriors and said,
the one who takes the stronghold of Zion
shall be made my field marshal.
Joab did it.
Took it.
From that time it became the city of
the great king.
Became the center of the nation.
Symbolic of the great victory over the impregnable
place.
All that made Zion a very glorious thing
for Israel.
We can say very much about it.
But it's all gone.
The victory is gone.
The glory is gone.
And they are mourning over its loss and
over its condition.
Its condition.
What could the Lord Jesus mean?
So many centuries afterwards taking up these words
and saying, today, today is this fulfilled.
Zion is restored today.
Zion's glory is restored to you today.
All that is offered to you back again.
Today.
Mysterious.
Well, of course, our letter to the Hebrews
gives us the answer.
Ye are not come to Mount Zion, but
ye are come to Zion, city of the
living God, the heavenly Jerusalem.
There is a Zion, a heavenly Zion, a
heavenly city and a heavenly citizenship which is
glorious above all the glory of any earthly
city of Zion, which is mighty and impregnable
beyond the strength of anything that is round
you, that is an enduring city which will
never pass.
You are offered the citizenship of a heavenly
Zion.
You are offered that today.
Now you know, some of you, how much
scripture we could draw in from the New
Testament on that.
Our citizenship, says Paul, our citizenship is above
where Christ is, seated at the right hand
of God.
Our citizenship is in heaven from whence we
look for a Savior, Jesus Christ.
Our citizenship.
Today is this fulfilled by new birth from
above, birth from heaven by this same Holy
Spirit there is given to you not only
the citizenship but the franchise of heaven.
All the rights of heaven are offered to
you today in the good news of the
gospel to comfort all that mourn in Zion.
Is that a comfort to you?
Well, I think some of us at least
do rejoice that our names are written in
heaven, that they are in the Lamb's book
of life, that we are born from above.
Whatever we have or do not have here
in this world we've got an eternal and
we belong to the New Jerusalem.
It means a lot to us to have
our citizenship in heaven and our names written
there.
Well, I said it's simple.
It's a simple message of the gospel.
Thirdly, the servant is presented in the capacity
of a liberator.
A herald, a comforter, a liberator to
proclaim liberty to the captives.
And now you notice the opening of the
prison to them that are bound.
And the words of the prison are in
italics meaning that they are not in the
original text.
And there is a marginal note if you
have a marginal reference Bible which says the
opening of the eyes of them that are
bound.
And Luke quotes it like that.
It's not clear and apparent in this translation
but in the original languages both the Hebrew
and the Greek it is quite clear that
this relates to eyes.
This kind of captivity is a different one
from that of the slave of whom we've
been speaking.
This kind of captivity is a different one
from that of the slave of whom we've
been speaking.
What is here being referred to and spoken
about is a captivity of blindness.
Captivity of blindness.
Now we this afternoon were back in chapter
six and the prophet's commission was close their
eyes.
Close their eyes.
That's a judgment.
Lest see they perceive.
This judgment of blindness has come.
Paul says the God of this age has
blinded the minds of the unbelieving.
This is a captivity.
A captivity of darkness.
A captivity of blindness.
A captivity of the closed eyes.
It is a captivity where they cannot see.
They cannot see.
You remember in John Bunyan's Holy War that
the great enemy in his siege of Mansoul
gave instructions that the burgomaster of the city,
Mr. Understanding should be put in a dark
dungeon where he could not see what was
going on.
Having the understanding darkened is the script.
If you have no sight, no understanding, you're
not able to see the Lord.
It's a terrible prison to be in.
The commission to the apostle Paul and his
conversion was to whom I send thee to
open their eyes that they may come from
darkness to light from the power of Satan
unto God.
The two things go together.
From darkness to light and from the power
of Satan unto God that they may receive
an inheritance.
The inheritance is the inheritance of people who
have had their eyes opened and who have
escaped the toils of the one who blinds
the understanding.
Well, this ministry of the servant is a
liberation from this blindness and darkness.
And in another part of Isaiah's prophecies about
the coming of the Lord Jesus, he puts
it this way, the people that sat in
darkness have seen a great light.
People that sat in darkness have seen a
great light.
How true that was of the Lord Jesus.
And here we are tonight in the good
of that.
We've seen the light.
We've seen a great light.
He has opened our blind eyes and what
a new world we've come into and to
possess.
Like that.
Dear friends, the Lord Jesus as the servant
truly did this.
And he said, Today, today, is this scripture
fulfilled.
And there were those who got their eyes
opened when he was here and he's been
doing it ever since.
But this ministry is transferred to his church.
Oh, sadly, sadly, we have to say that
the church has not done it too well.
That there is not the ministry of eye
-opening and revelation that there could be or
should be.
One of the effects of an anointed people
is that other people come into the light
and see.
They see.
They leap out of their imprisonment of darkness
and are able to see.
I see.
Well, let us come to the end.
The servant is the great transformer.
Here it is.
To give unto them a garland for ashes,
the oil of joy for mourning, garment of
praise for the spirit of heaviness.
What a change in situation, condition and outlook.
Why we could stay long on these things.
But there it is.
We simply sum it all up in this
one word.
The transformation.
The word itself carries its own meaning.
Passing from one form to another.
Transform.
Here is the one form.
Mourning.
Heaviness.
And no song.
No joy.
That is one condition.
Here is the other.
The oil of joy for mourning.
The garment of praise, a song for the
spirit of heaviness changed
over.
Well, it is true of the gospel.
It is true of what the Lord Jesus
has done and is doing.
Making this great transformation in lives.
Taking men and women from this one sad
and sorry state of things and putting them
into another where it is the oil of
joy in the place of mourning.
Garment of praise for the spirit, the transforming
ministry of the servant.
And that is committed to us.
Well, that is the message.
Again, behold my servant.
You want to know what servanthood is?
And what real service is?
Well, that is it.
Look at him.
And that is it.
May the Lord do two things.
Amongst us, bring those who are not in
the good of this good news into it.
Bring you into the values of this great
servanthood of the Lord Jesus.
And then for those of us who know
it, who are in the good of it,
may he make us servants of it much
more fruitfully and effectively.