There is an altogether different kind of intimacy
here.
It's the kind of intimacy which you envisage
when one person is opening his or her
heart to another.
And that's really what we have here.
The servant is now speaking.
He's addressing us across the centuries, even as
he addressed those who first received this great
book from the hand of the prophet Isaiah.
He is explaining how he would, in the
fullness of the time, become the embodiment of
the servant referred to here.
He's giving us the inside story.
And so we have here an indication of
the way in which, humanly speaking, the Son
of God would become man, and having become
man, as man, become the servant supreme and
fulfill the several ministries indicated by these passages
and, of course, much, much else.
In the course of his earthly life and
through his death upon the cross.
Now, would you like to turn with me
then?
You'll need your eyes on these passages tonight.
You'll find it useful to keep your Bible
open.
Let's look, first of all, at the way
in which the servant describes his calling.
Now, I would like you to note the
second part of verse four here.
So and so and so and so, that
I may know how to sustain with a
word him that is weary.
Or, if you have the New International Version,
to know the word that sustains the weary.
Now, of course, I hardly need to say
that this is but one aspect of the
servant's total ministry, but that is the one
that is uppermost here.
And he crystallizes it in this way.
Looking ahead, as it were, across the centuries,
the servant of the Lord, the pre-incarnate
Lord Jesus Christ, foresees the work that the
Father has given him to do.
And here, he describes it in terms of
having the right word to sustain, to bear
up, to keep from falling and disintegrating someone
who is desperately in need.
Something very human about this, isn't there not?
Is there not?
Look at this envisaged ministry.
To know the word that sustains the weary.
The servant's ministry is to be addressed to
those who are described here as weary.
Now, that word, weariness, is in a sense
quite a simple one, though it refers to
weariness in its extreme, extremely felt
power or pressure.
We might even speak of it as exhaustion.
We might speak of it as someone who
has come to wits end corner.
Someone who has come to a place mentally,
emotionally, spiritually, where he or she simply does
not know which way to turn or what
to do.
And the servant here describes his ministry as
having the right word to sustain.
Which means, first of all, to bring new
life to the weary, to counter the influence
that is going on which takes him down,
to bring him up again, and then in
renewing him with life and with hope, to
sustain him that the weary may go back
and get about his master's business, even as
the servant himself is about his master's business.
A word that sustains the weary.
I wonder whether there is someone here tonight
who is living on wits end road.
You don't always judge people by their clothes,
do you?
If you can be wearing a very nice
suit of clothes, then your heart may be
sagging and your spirit may be broken.
There could very well be someone here tonight
for whom this word was literally meant, and
meant just now.
Just think of it.
God in eternity planned that his son should
become the servant for the purpose of outworking
our redemption.
And part of the training of the eternal
son of God was that he should have
the very right word to give to you,
to bring you back to life and sustain
you in life and send you on your
way to serve the God who sent forth
the servant in the first place.
He turns the world upside down, rather the
right side up.
The envisaged ministry, then, in simple words, in
the appointed means, that I may sustain with
a word, with a word, with a word.
Just a word.
God does so much by a mere word.
He spake and it was done.
Let there be and there was.
In the beginning was the word, says John,
and oh my, what emerged, simply because of
the fact that that word was spoken, that
I may sustain with a word him that
is weary.
Will you forgive me tonight for indulging in
something that I don't think I normally do
it unless I'm very forgetful.
Sometimes we do get forgetful.
Most of us have some experience in life
which taught us some lesson or other.
Sometimes it's within the family circle, sometimes it's
beyond.
But when we come to think of certain
principles, we always almost instinctively go back there.
Do you have certain experiences like that?
Whenever I think of sustaining the weary, my
mind always goes back to one experience.
It's a simple one, but to me it
was exceedingly precious and I think it's well
worth repeating.
I was brought up, as I've said more
than once, on a farm.
This afternoon, I guess I was around five
or six at the time, my grandfather wanted
to go to the neighboring town in a
horse and buggy and he took me with
him.
It was market day.
Now remember, we'd come back.
It was about a seven-mile journey.
We'd come out to the town about two
miles and the old horse was nicely trotting
along and she stopped suddenly like that, almost
catapulted both of us into midair.
And we couldn't see anything.
Why on earth should the horse stop?
But horses are sometimes more sensible than men.
My grandfather said to me, I don't know
what the reason for this is, but there's
something wrong somewhere.
And the horse didn't move any further, just
stopped.
My grandfather got out of the buggy and
there in the long grass that was growing
by the side of the road, we turned
off the main highway to a second or
third class country road, there was an old
man lying in the tall grass and he
was fast asleep.
The old horse had seen him and stood
just like that.
My grandfather knelt over the old boy and
shook him and said, What's the matter with
you, man?
And he opened his two eyes and looked
up.
Didn't say anything.
But it was evident that he was overcome
with a heat.
It was a sultry day, terribly sultry summer's
day and he had a very big overcoat
on and he had two big packs that
he was carrying.
Now, my grandfather on the farm had an
unusual place that he kept for tramps.
It had been built especially for this and
they would come in the evening and they
would have a free meal and they would
sleep overnight and they had a free breakfast
and then they would go.
And anyone was allowed to come, come and
go.
So having shaken this old fellow out of
his slumber, my grandfather said, Where are you
going to?
What are you doing here?
He said, I'm going to a farm called
Martell.
I'm going to a man called Llewellyn, he
said, and I believe that he'll give me
a night's rest.
Well, says my grandfather, I've got good news
for you.
I am Llewellyn and I'm going home to
Martell.
And this buggy and horse will carry you
as well as it'll carry me.
Come on, man, he says, come into the
buggy.
The old man was almost in a dream,
but he stood on his feet.
He needed some help.
I was told to squat in the corner
of the buggy and then he got up
and he sat in the seat where I
had sat and there we were for a
little while.
My grandfather was talking to him.
We got going and then suddenly, my grandfather
did something as he very often did, he
said, man, you're a bit of a mug,
aren't you?
I wondered what was coming next and wondered
how the old man would take it.
Well, he says, what do you mean?
Look at you, he said.
Here you are in my buggy, carrying an
old pack on your back with another heavy
burden on your knees and that big, thick
coat, wearing it on this hot, sultry day.
Man, he says, get rid of your burdens.
The buggy will carry your burdens as well
as carry you.
Oh, he said.
And we took his coat off.
I can remember it now as if it
were yesterday.
We took his coat off.
And we took the two old bags that
he was carrying, put them on the floor
of the buggy and here he was without
his overcoat, without his bags, trying to relax
a little.
And we saw the dawn of a smile.
But this is what I'm getting at.
We'd come within half a mile of home.
We were on the brow of a hill.
We needed to go down to the valley
and up the other side and to the
farm.
They'd been silent for some time and, of
course, I was silent all the time.
But they'd been silent.
Nothing much had been said.
And then my grandfather said, you see that
place over there?
Yes, he said.
Well, that's the farm, he says.
That's where we're going to.
We'll be there in less than ten minutes.
And let me tell you, he said, it's
baking day.
And my wife has been baking.
And I tell you, he said, when my
wife has been baking, there'll be something waiting
us when we get home.
And whatever's there for me, he says, you'll
have a share.
You know, I saw the old man opening
his mouth and he really smiled.
And I've never forgotten it.
Oh, to have a word for the weary!
It's infinitesimally small and unworthy of comparison with
what we have here.
But, my friends, this is the principle.
Our Lord Jesus stood on the squares, on
the highways and the byways of the day
and he called to men, come unto me,
all you who labor and are heavy laden,
and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you and learn of
me, for I am meek and lowly in
heart and you shall find rest for your
souls.
And here in this Old Testament passage, the
servant of the Lord is anticipating those days
and he's sharing from the vantage point of
long ago, he's sharing from the vantage point
of that early hour in history, how he
would be trained to perform this amazing task
of bringing life to the weary.
Now that brings me to the next matter.
The servant reveals his training for such a
calling.
I find this very exhilarating and very helpful.
It opens a door into the life of
our Lord Jesus Christ that is not often
opened.
It tells us something about what went on
during those first 30 years that we speak
of as the silent years of Jesus.
Now the question that is answered in the
next few verses is this.
How did the servant of Jehovah qualify to
engage in such a gigantic task as is
here envisaged?
Well now, look, and all that I want
to say is right here.
First of all, he was given a tongue
to speak.
Look at the first part of verse 4.
The Lord God, says the servant, has given
me the tongue of those who are taught
in order that I may know how to
sustain with a word him that is weary.
How could Jesus Christ qualify in the fullness
of the time to be able to teach
men and give them the very message they
need to sustain them and bring new life
to them?
Well, here is the answer seen from the
human point of view.
God gave him the tongue to speak the
message with.
The servant's first reference in this biographical passage
then is to the divine gift of the
tongue given him for his task.
Now there are tongues and tongues.
We know something about the confusion of tongues.
We know a lot about long tongues and
barbed tongues and other kinds of tongues.
Tongues that rage wildly when they should be
quiet and some tongues that are far too
quiet when they should be moving a little.
This is a distinguished tongue that we read
of in our text.
It is the tongue of the taught.
The tongue of the learned.
The tongue that knows when it should speak,
what it should say, or when it should
be silent.
The tongue of the learned.
It is the tongue literally of disciples.
Not necessarily the clever tongue, but the knowing
tongue.
Emphasis is never here upon cleverness, but upon
knowledge.
Knowledge and cleverness are not quite the same
thing.
A tongue gifted to communicate what the servant
will have first received from God and learned
in order to impart.
The tongue of the taught is to be
distinguished from every other.
It doesn't necessarily make more noise.
It doesn't necessarily speak more or oftener.
But it speaks effectually to lift the burdens
from the souls and from the bodies of
man.
We had an English journalist whom I admired
so much in my young days.
I once heard him say, or rather pose
the question, and in so doing giving the
answer, How do you measure the power of
words?
I know of only one answer, he said.
By the burdens they lift.
Do your words lift men's burdens or add
to them?
Do your words bring confusion or do they
take men and women out of the prison
cell into the liberty and the life that
God gives in Christ?
Now the donor of the servant's gift is
the Lord God.
Here the servant uses a double epithet in
order to refer to God because there is
here a worshipful spirit.
He may be the eternal son of God,
but when he thinks of God the Father,
he does so with adoration and with worship.
Averni Jehovah, he says, he gives me the
tongue of the learned.
It's no wonder then that men were amazed
at the servant's words when he eventually appeared
on the scene of history.
Let's just take one or two examples and
let them speak to us of the way
in which these words of the prophet were
ultimately fulfilled.
Now I'm only referring to these.
We read at the end of Matthew chapter
7 verses 28 and 29 how when our
Lord had finished preaching the sermon on the
mount, they were amazed at him because he
spoke as one having authority and not as
the scribes or the Pharisees.
They saw, they felt, they heard in him
a word that was authoritative.
Now if you want to understand what that
means, if you want an illustration of what
that means, you have it in the next
chapter, Matthew 8 and verse 8.
You remember how the centurion made for Jesus
because his servant was ill and he bade
Jesus, Lord, my servant is at the point
of death, can you please come and help
me?
Then for me to telescope many things into
a simple statement, he turns to Jesus and
he says, I'm not really asking you to
come under my roof because I'm not worthy
of that, but he says, speak the word
only and my servant will be all right.
Have you got it?
Anyone come to you like that?
You speak the word only, you don't need
to come near.
You have authority, your word is a word
of power.
Speak the word only, that's enough.
Or take Luke 4, 22.
All spoke well of him and wondered at
the gracious words which proceeded out of his
mouth and they said, is not this Joseph's
son?
Or come again to John chapter 3 and
verse 34, for he whom God has sent
utters the words of God, for it is
not by measure that God gives the spirit
to him.
Or again, the officers came back to the
chief priests and Pharisees who had sent them
to arrest Jesus and they came back without
the prisoner.
And the chief priests and the scribes and
the Pharisees were a little bit upset and
the officers answered, no man ever spake like
this man.
We couldn't dream of it, we couldn't lay
our hands on this, we couldn't put this
man under arrest, no man ever spake like
this man.
Or let him say it himself, it's the
capstone to the whole.
In Matthew 24, 35, heaven and earth, he
says, will pass away.
We know it, don't we?
The vaults of heaven will melt one day
like a scroll on fire.
Heaven and earth will pass away, but my
word will not pass away.
You and I will meet the word of
the servant of the Lord in eternity and
we'll be judged by it, we'll be raised
from the dead by it if we get
there.
And we'll be sustained by it, or we'll
be judged by it.
The servant was first of all given a
tongue to speak.
Now look at the second point that is
mentioned here.
The servant was given a ear to hear.
I want to say hallelujah at this point.
It's too simple for us sophisticated people, isn't
it?
Look at the second part of verse 4
and the first part of verse 5.
Morning by morning he awakens me.
He awakens my ear to hear as those
who are taught.
The Lord God has opened my ear.
Now remember the question we're dealing with.
How is the servant of Jehovah going to
be capacitated to speak the word that lifts
the burdens from the heavy hearted?
How is he going to get that word?
One, he's going to be given the tongue,
the tongue to speak it with power.
That he can say the right thing in
the right way to the person's concern.
Objects of God's favor.
He's having the gift of tongue, of a
tongue.
The second thing is this.
He was given a ear to hear.
Here indeed is the inside story of how
the servant became qualified as man in order
to declare the burden lifting word of God
to weary mankind.
And that story is one of a disciplined
daily discipleship.
Take just one glimpse at what is said.
Morning by morning he, that is God, awakens
me.
Such a human touch.
What he's saying is this you see.
That morning by morning during those first thirty
years of his ministry in his incarnation.
The Heavenly Father would wake him up, would
sound Reveille.
And say, son it's time to get up.
But not only did his Heavenly Father wake
him up and sound Reveille.
He said, I'm also going to wake your
ear up so that you can hear what
I've got to tell you.
See it's one thing to be physically mobile
and physically alive speaking in a general sense.
It's still another thing to have the ear
open to the word of God.
Now we're all here physically tonight.
Of course we are.
But you know there may still be someone
within these four walls in Knox tonight whose
heart, whose ear is closed.
Whose ear is dull of hearing.
Not awake, not alert.
And even though God was to thunder his
voice very near to you, you wouldn't move.
You're deaf.
There is a verse in the epistle of
James which literally probably means taking out the
wax from the ear.
All these metaphors of scripture.
Sometimes we become so full of wax that
spiritually as well as physically we are incapable
of receiving the word that is coming to
us.
And to change the metaphor it falls like
water on a duck's back.
Says the servant, my father is going to
sound rebelling morning by morning.
And not only that, he's not only going
to wake me up, but he's going to
wake my ear up so that I'll be
able to hear.
Notice, as one who is learning.
As one who is learning and applying the
lessons.
So that as I grow in stature before
God and before men, I shall be able
to speak the word that brings life to
the dead and hope to the weary.
Yet you notice that this is a long
progressive experience.
I get a little bit upset when some
young people after they've only been converted for
two or three weeks or two or three
months think that they've got everything they need
to know in order to minister to a
world such as ours.
With all its vast complexities and needs and
problems as if they've got everything.
And Jesus of Nazareth spent thirty years listening.
Don't you grumble at your five, six, seven,
ten years, my friend.
If Jesus of Nazareth needed thirty years to
exercise three years of public ministry, you and
I need a good little time too.
Morning by morning with a ear open to
hear.
Now this is a remarkable statement.
And of course when we take a leap
now on into the New Testament, we can
see exactly how this happened in the life
of our Lord Jesus.
There are some passages of scripture in which
the experience of our Lord in this respect
needs to be recognized behind his incisive word
to people.
He spoke the word that he had heard.
Jesus didn't speak of himself.
Let me refer to some scriptures.
It's far better.
Take a verse like John 3 verse 34
for example.
He whom God has sent, the servant, he
whom God has sent utters the words of
God.
John 5 verse 30, turn over the page.
I can do nothing of my own authority,
says the incarnate Lord Jesus Christ.
As I hear, I judge.
Oh, that's beautiful, you know.
How do you judge the woman of Sica
as well?
How do you know how to speak to
her?
How do you know what to say and
what not to say?
How do you know how to behave?
Well, I don't do anything of myself, he
says, but I hear.
His word was told.
I hear.
And as I hear, I judge.
How do you know what to say to
Nicodemus?
How do you know what to say to
the other people?
Well, I don't do anything of myself, but
as I hear, I judge.
I am the father of working together.
My father worked at Hitherto and I worked.
I am the father of one.
And out of that deep communion with the
father, with the attuned ear, he receives the
words and he declares what he has given.
I have given them thy word, he said
in this great, high, priestly prayer in John
17 at the very end.
What you have given me, I have given
to them.
Well, didn't the father give him many words
in the plural?
Yes, he did.
But all the words made one word and
one message.
And Jesus said, I've given it to them.
I've heard it.
I could quote many scriptures that deal with
the same thing, but let me hurry on.
This is a very, very wonderful passage of
scripture.
Now, will you notice the first words of
verse 5?
I have understood them as referring back to
what we have been just saying now.
But they could equally refer, on the other
hand, to that which is to come.
And they might, perhaps they ought to be
linked with what is to come in verse
5 and verse 6 and verse 7.
We have understood them as having, and have
interpreted them as if they referred to the
passage which we have just concluded.
But now let me take the other possibility.
And let me say what I want to
on the basis of that supposition.
There are those who take the view that
right here in verse 5, we have a
cross-link and a connection with what we
also discover in Psalm 40 verses 6 to
8.
Now, I'll read Psalm 40 verses 6 to
8 to you, and then I'll come back
to something there in order to show the
link.
Sacrifice and offering thou dost not desire, but
thou hast given me an open ear.
This is the RSV.
An open ear.
Burnt offering and sin offering thou hast not
required.
Then I said, Lo, I come, in the
roll of the book it is written of
me.
I delight to do thy will, O my
God.
Thy law is within my heart.
We're speaking about the same person.
We're speaking about the Messiah, the Son of
God, the servant of Jehovah of the passages
in Isaiah.
Alright.
But now, it may be noted in the
margin of your Bible, I don't know, or
at the footnote somewhere, that you can translate
the second line, which I read in this
way, but thou hast given me an open
ear.
That more literally should be interpreted, but thou
hast dug for me an open ear.
Or the reference at the bottom of the
page in the NIV has something else.
But my ears you have pierced.
You say this is all too mysterious to
me.
What on earth are you saying?
What do these things refer to?
Well, the Hebrew is a little bit uncertain.
And there are many Bible scholars who believe
that the reference there is to something that
you encounter in Exodus 21.
In verses 5 and 6 in Exodus 21.
If a slave did not want to be
released from his Jewish master, the first sabbatical
year after he had been taken slave, he
could go to his master, his owner, the
Jew, whoever he was, and he could call
the priests together, and together they would listen
to his statement, that he wants to serve
his master as long as he lives.
He's got a wife, he's got children, he
doesn't want to leave his master, he wants
to be a slave forever.
And this is the custom.
They would take him to the door post
or to the door, and he would put
his face to the side of the door,
and the priest or someone would bore an
awl through his ear.
And the hole through his ear would symbolically
signify that he was his master's servant forever.
Now is that what we have in this
passage in Isaiah?
Does it say that the servant will be
loyal and he will be prepared to suffer
because he has, as it were, submitted in
that way to the father's demand and has
made him the father's slave for anything?
Well, one thing is quite clear.
The next passage before us speaks of our
Lord Jesus Christ as saying, The Lord God
has opened mine ears and I was not
rebellious.
I turned not backward.
I gave my back to the smiters and
my cheeks to those who pulled out the
beard.
I hid not my face from shame and
spitting.
That passage could very well, therefore, be an
introduction to what we're going to look at
next.
Let's look at verses 5 and 6.
The servant avows his dedication.
Whether that imagery comes in at this point
or not, the passage is clear.
Verses 5 and 6.
Now if the first part of verse 5
did not introduce the thought of the servant's
consecration in terms of willingness to be pierced
in order to manifest his total surrender to
his master, then the second part of the
verse very clearly brings us to that aspect
of the subject.
The servant of these passages, you see, is
not wholly qualified for his ministry by having
a tongue to speak.
Oh, it was important that he should be
the teacher supreme, the prophet supreme, and that
he should have the tongue to speak the
word of God.
Equally important was it that he should have
the ear attuned to receive the Father's word
in order to deliver it.
But he was not yet fully qualified for
his ministry.
He must learn perfection through suffering.
Here we have precisely what we have in
the epistle to the Hebrews.
He had to be perfected through sufferings in
order to qualify for his delicate and his
daring mission.
Now look at what we have before us.
The servant did not rebel.
He's been listening to the word.
Morning by morning he's been wakened up, and
his ear has been alerted to the Father's
voice, and he's been listening every day, and
the word has been coming, word line upon
line, teaching upon teaching, until he knows all
that the Father wants him to know and
wants him to communicate.
Now what?
I was not rebellious.
I turned not backwards, says the servant.
And this means, you see, that our Lord
Jesus was dedicated to do the servant's work
before he ever became man.
His dedication was not on the banks of
Jordan in the first place.
His dedication was in eternity.
Now this kind of thing is not always
the case with us men and women.
God calls us to his service, and he
endows us sometimes with a year to hear
his voice and a trained tongue to proclaim
it, but unfortunately many of us at that
point rebel.
That was the case with Jonah.
When God told Jonah, I want you to
go to that wicked city Nineveh and preach
repentance to it, and tell it that it's
going to be judged, Jonah said, not on
your life, I'm not going, and he took
a single ticket elsewhere on the ship.
The perusal of the biblical record will show
that even some who were later destined to
eminence in the service of God at one
point or another rebelled when the call came
to them first.
Certainly, if the word rebellion is too strong,
they were disinclined, and they did their very
best to get out of it.
I think of Moses, for example.
When you have time, you'll read again Moses,
Exodus chapter 4.
Just let me remind you of some of
the words there.
Moses said to the Lord, Oh my Lord,
I'm not eloquent, either heretofore or since thou
hast spoken to thy servant, but I am
slow of speech and tongue.
Then the Lord said to him, Who has
made man's mouth?
The Lord is a way of asking the
most baffling questions, isn't he?
Who made man's mouth, Moses?
What are you grumbling for?
If I'm the one who made man's mouth,
can I not make your mouth that it
can speak?
Who made him dumb or deaf or seeing
or blind?
Is it not I, the Lord?
Now therefore go, and I will be with
your mouth and teach you what you shall
speak.
But he added, Oh my Lord, God send,
I pray, some other person.
And you remember how it goes on.
Dear Moses wanted to turn back.
Find exactly the same with Jeremiah.
When the word of the Lord came to
Jeremiah, you'll find it in chapter 1, you'll
find it again in chapter 17, chapter 20.
In chapter 1, it's there very, very clear.
Jeremiah has the word of the Lord and
he's frightened.
He says, Lord, I'm but a na'ar,
which is a Hebrew for a stripling, a
teenager, and I've no experience, and I'm not
stable, and I haven't found my faith, and
I haven't found solidity and stability and meaning
in life in all its fullness.
Ah, you can't trust me.
I'm just a sapling.
And you know what the Lord tells him?
I've called you, he says, and I'm going
to put words in your mouth, and I'm
going to send you, and no one who
withstands you is going to have victory.
By way of contrast from these lustrous servants
of the Lord, however, the servant of our
text was wholly dedicated to do his divine
master's work from the very outset.
He knew no rebellion in his heart.
I was not rebellious.
I turned not backward.
Then this, the servant of the Lord of
whom this passage speaks was destined voluntarily to
accept suffering and gross humiliation.
Verse 6, I gave my back to the
smiters and my cheeks to those who pulled
out the beard.
I hid not my face from shame and
spitting.
These words might well have been written by
a reporter covering some of the climactic events
in our Lord's earthly life.
Each strand in the predicted record of what
was then 700 years earlier was positively and
uniquely fulfilled in the life of the Lord
Jesus.
Jesus, the son of Mary, conceived of the
Holy Ghost.
What he heard from God he received.
What he received he obeyed and delivered, irrespective
of the cost.
Now it may well be that there are
others who have expressed some such loyalty in
some measure, but these prophecies only find their
fulfillment in toto and in spirit as well
as in truth in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Just take a look into the New Testament
briefly with me.
He gave his back to the smiters.
The giving of his back to the smiters
was fulfilled, for example, and I'm only taking
one illustration of this, when Jesus submitted to
the wholly unjust scourging of the Romans.
That was ordered by Pilate, despite the fact
that Pilate could find no fault in him.
I read in Mark 15 these words, Pilate
again said to them, then what shall we
do?
What shall I do with a man whom
you call the king of the Jews?
They cried out again, crucify him.
And Pilate said to them, why, what evil
has he done?
But they shouted all the more, crucify him.
So Pilate, wishing to satisfy the crowd, released
for them Barabbas, and having scourged Jesus, he
delivered him to be crucified.
I don't know whether you've ever read the
description of the Roman scourging.
The back was bared, and the object of
the humiliation was bent over a piece of
wood, as it were, over one of these
pews, with a bared back.
It was a soul-shattering, nerve-wracking, as
well as a physically mutilating experience.
If it took the normal course, and there
is nothing to suggest otherwise, then it could
be lethal.
Many scourged people died before the outrage was
complete.
Whilst others swooned, others were disbowled, and so
grievously mutilated by the multi-thonged whip that
was used, generally knotted and weighted with pieces
of metal or of bone, that they were
thereafter mentally unbalanced for life.
Scourging could also take the form of beating
with rods, as Paul tells us in 2
Corinthians 11.
My Lord Jesus Christ was scourged by Pilate
the Roman.
His back was bared.
He received the lashes.
Now, we Protestants do not stress the physical
stripes of our Lord as some others do,
but I think it is good for us
from time to time to be reminded of
the ignominy and the shame and the physical
anguish that my Lord undertook voluntarily for my
salvation and yours.
The stripes inflicted on the bent and the
bared back of the victim thus beaten were
deep and terrorizing in their effects.
The cruel treatment rendered many incapable of speech.
Many people were unable to speak thereafter.
As long as they lived, they could not
find words to speak because the body was
so sharp.
Jesus, however, as the servant of Jehovah, actually
and actively gave his back to the smiters.
Now, that's the emphasis of the New Testament.
Just as he could say, No man takes
my life from me, I lay it down
of my own.
He gave his back to the smiter.
Oh, they forced him, you say.
Well, it might have seemed as if they
did force him, for he was under arrest,
but he was willingly under arrest.
He was giving himself.
He wasn't fighting against it.
His will was to do the Father's will,
and therefore he yielded, he gave in, he
offered his back.
Come further.
He gave his cheeks to those who pulled
out the beard and his face to those
who spat at him.
I give my cheeks to those who pulled
out the beard.
I hid not my face from shame and
spitting.
The ancient Orientals had a great respect for
a beard.
Now, I don't want to talk about beards
tonight.
Not a subject.
But the beard was to the Orientals a
sign of freedom and respect.
I'm not sure what it's a sign of
in our modern world.
Perhaps some of you can tell me someday.
But in ancient society, to pluck out the
beard or to cut it or shave it
against the will of someone was really something
terrible.
It was the gravest possible insult next to
spitting in that face.
Spitting was a token of equal contempt, if
not greater contempt, and was only done when
it was desired grievously to humiliate someone, even
to the utmost degree.
But notice, and this is where I come
back, a servant of our text has been
listening to his father.
He's got the word.
He's got the tongue to speak it.
Now he must suffer in order that that
word, like the ointment in the alabaster box,
should be, as it were, broken and bathe
the world with healing ointment.
And he gives his back to the smiters
and his cheeks and his beard to the
ruffians.
It was literally fulfilled.
Read Matthew 27, verses 27 to 30.
I don't need to go through it.
And they spat upon him.
And they took the reed and they struck
him on the head and so forth.
Now we must not use these references to
the physical miseries of our Lord in order
to create a merely natural sympathy.
What I want you to notice is the
spiritual behind this.
It's the fact that the servant from eternity
was determined to be qualified to become our
Savior.
That is, qualified as a man among men,
as the eternal Son of God become incarnate,
to qualify himself to receive the word, to
declare the word, and with the word to
do what was necessary to lift the burden
from sin, cursed humanity, that he should utter
the mighty word, Go in peace.
Your sins are forgiven you.
There's more here in my text, but I
shall not go any further tonight.
When you have time, just read forward into
verses 7 and 8, and 9 particularly, and
you will see that on the basis of
his experience, the servant has convictions emerging.
Convictions relating to that which is past and
that which is future.
And he says among the only thing that
I want to say to close with, because
the Lord God is with me and is
close at hand to help me, I will
set my face like flint, irrespective of my
foes.
When we come to Luke chapter 9 and
verse 51, we are told that when they
tried to dissuade him from going to the
cross, and going to Jerusalem, and going into
the very heartland of his enemies, he would
set his face like flint to go to
Jerusalem.
Neither friend nor foe could stop him.
On he went.
The servant supreme.
Oh, for the servant spirit in our hearts.
You know, there are many things we need.
And as we meditate upon a theme like
this, one thing we need, again let me
repeat it, is we need the spirit of
worship and admiration.
We need to be able to stand back
and look at this as if we're from
a distance, and be able to adore and
magnify our Lord.
My friends, I hope there is something of
that spirit in our hearts tonight.
That when you leave this place, you don't
shake it off, but you go and praise
him and bless him, and pour out your
heart's gratitude at his throne as the one
who was willing to die in your stead.
There's something else to which I've already referred.
Oh, we need to catch something of the
spirit of the servant.
We need, too, to be listening for the
morning-by-morning conversation with our Father.
Or it may be evening-by-evening, I
don't know, but it must be there.
The day must be punctuated with it.
There must be a time when we hear
him speak to us, especially, of course, now
that he has given us his word, through
his word, by his spirit, communicating with us,
and directing us, and preparing us, and strengthening
us.
When we go out and speak the word
to the weary, burdens are slapped, passions are
broken, Satan's tyranny vanishes, and the kingdom of
God is extended.
Oh, may God make us a community of
servants of the servant, to the glory of
his name.
Amen.
Let us pray.
Most gracious God, our Father, thank you for
bringing those along to this service tonight for
whom you had prepared this word from the
book of the prophet Isaiah.
You know our need.
You know our individual needs, our needs as
families, husbands and wives, parents and children, or
single people, single parents in some cases.
You know our needs in the sphere where
we are found every day, working and toiling.
And you know all our problems, remembering that
the servant Savior has gone ahead of us
and has suffered and not been rebellious.
Give us of his spirit.
Oh, mighty God, flood these hearts of ours
and fill them to overflowing with a spirit
of grace that will enable us to hear.
And when we've heard, to believe.
And as we believe, to obey.
And as we obey, to sustain with the
word him that is weary.
Remember the weary ones in our families, in
our neighborhoods, in our spheres of toil, in
this congregation, everywhere.
And make us the vehicles of your mercy
to all such through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.