Ep. 057 Seeking the Messiah

Welcome to the Potter's House Salmon Arm podcast. We are a Bible-Believing Church located in

beautiful British Columbia, Canada. We are proudly part of the Christian Fellowship Ministries with

3,000 churches around the world. We are a church focused on world evangelism, discipleship, and

church planting. Here we will share recent sermons from P.H.S.A. Church and other sermons from

throughout our fellowship. I am Pastor David Bigford and I will be your host for this podcast.

I thank you for listening today and we hope these messages are a blessing to you and bring you closer

to God. Hello and welcome back to the Potter's House Salmon Arm podcast. My name is David Bigford.

I'm the pastor here in town and so you're more than welcome to come and visit us. We are hold

service at 1030 on Sundays just above the Bank of Montreal downtown Salmon Arm. So come on out

and see us in person. So the message I have put together today is Seeking the Messiah and this is

going to be looking into Isaiah chapter 52 and part of 52 and part of 53. And so if you're

Isaiah 52 · chapter mention

going to follow along with me today you can go ahead and grab your Bible and get ready as

we get ready to go. So why don't you know a lot of Jewish communities read Isaiah 53 in their

synagogue? So this is a question that came to mind from a young Obadiah when he was just living in

Ethiopia as a boy. He grew up hating Christians for the way they treated him because of his Jewish

religion. After his family fled to Israel he expected to build a new and beautiful life but

he suffered racial discrimination in Israel and the life he had dreamed of failed to materialize.

Eventually Obadiah decided he didn't believe in anything. Now this is something that we can

relate to a lot in any place that we live is that when you come to realize something that you

believed in wasn't exactly as you'd been taught and the young Obadiah had come to the same conclusion

with the life that he had been brought up in. So let's get right ahead to our scripture today

and let's go ahead and read we're gonna read Isaiah 52 verse 13 all the way through Isaiah 53

Isaiah 52:13 Isaiah 53:12

verse 12. So I apologize for the lengthy scripture but it'll make sense as we get going. So this

portion of scripture has a pre-hitting that says he was pierced for our transgression. Behold my

servant shall act wisely he shall be high and lifted up and shall be exalted as many were

astonished at you his appearance was so marred beyond human semblance in his form beyond that

of the children of mankind so shall he sprinkle many nations kings shall shut their mouths and

because of him for that which has not been told or has not been told them they see and that which

they have not heard they understand continuing into chapter 53 who has believed what he has

heard from us and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed for he grew up before him like a

young plant and like a root out of the ground and he had no form or majesty that we should look at

him and no beauty that we should desire him he was despised and rejected by men a man of sorrows

and acquainted with grief as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised and we esteemed

him not surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows yet we esteemed him stricken smitten

by God and our and the and afflicted but he was pierced for our transgressions he was crushed for

our iniquities upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace and with his wounds we are healed

all we alike sheep have gone astray we have turned everyone to his own way and the Lord has laid on

him the iniquity of all of us or of us all he was oppressed and he was afflicted yet he opened not

his mouth like a lamb that was led to slaughter and like a sheep that before its shears is silent

so he opened it not his mouth by oppression and judgment he was taken away and as for his this

generation as for his generation who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living

stricken for the transgressions of my people and they made his grave with the wicked and with a

rich man in his death although he had done no violence and there was no deceit in his mouth yet

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 and shall prolong his days the will the Lord shall prosper

in his hand out of the anguish of his soul and 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 many and he shall divide the spoil with the

strong because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors transgressors

yet he bore the sin of many and makes intercession for the transgressors let's pray dear Lord I pray

this word would penetrate the heart of man it would help people to come to a realization that

you are Christ you are Lord you are the Messiah and only through you can we have a chance for

salvation through grace in Jesus name we pray amen so in this book of Isaiah we have the announcement

of salvation this is dealing with God's atonement for Israel salvation is announced after the

anticipation is built up in the previous chapters of Isaiah 49 what you know 49 all the way up to

the where we started off in 52 this is the fourth and most famous of what is called the servant

songs the revelation from this section of scripture is that some of the most profound in all of the

Old Testament is a vindication of the servant it is made so clear and so true it lays out and

and defines our understanding of the Messiah so as a reader it promises that God will redeem his

people with a mighty arm found in Isaiah 50 51 and 52 and as you read this it's it's reasonable

to expect that that redemption would come with a great display of overwhelming power but the

careful reader of the previous servant songs should also have picked up some hints that the

servant would not fit the mold of the traditional action hero rather in this passage Isaiah

filled out this the the full fuller picture of what the servant will be he provides more detail

about his work his character and what kind of a nature he will have God's greatest power is

evident in his ability to return love and forgiveness when he's receiving hatred and injustice

and he doesn't come to crush his opposition but rather to save and Isaiah 53 we see the

great atonement chapter being fulfilled in the Old Testament it teaches us that Jesus Christ bore

our sicknesses and sins on that fateful day on Calvary we learned that through this prophecy

Isaiah of Isaiah that these events would not unfold for hundreds of years at time after the

hundreds of years of time until you know Isaiah had passed Isaiah marveled at the message that

the Lord had revealed to him and that he believes the Israelites were declared to to the world as

light of nations it was it was unbelievable to him so amazed with the prophet that the Lord you

know to reel this to him so that when the when the Lord would bear his arm to save humankind and

Isaiah 51 52 and 63 that manifestation of strength was not at all impressive we might say that when

God rolled up his sleeve the arm that he exposed was not the powerful arm of a of a superhero or a

weightlifter but a very ordinary looking human and Jesus Christ nevertheless that arm would

prove to be stronger than any other arm the arm of the Lord appears as a person distinct from the

Lord himself namely our Lord and Savior the servant of the Lord Jesus Christ it's brings me

to my first point as we look at Isaiah's servant songs the chief question that has to be asked is

invariably you know we were going to be thinking about this is we're gonna have to question or

ask did he do the work he was sent to do did the servant do what he came to do there's no

doubt that our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ understood and undertook his father's will as

his days on the earth drew to a close he prayed to his father and John 17 for I glorified you on

earth having accomplished the work that you gave me to do Isaiah's servant song provides us with a

a fuller view but almost panorama or panoramic view of what the Messiah was there was no hesitancy

on the part of Isaiah to assure that the reader of the servants successful service he begins

by proclaiming the Messiah in triumph linking this victory to his wise or prudent actions

Jeremiah later watched the collapse of the Jewish society and when he prophesied of the wise reign

of the Messiah he said this in Jeremiah 23 5 through 6 behold the days are coming declares Lord

when I will raise up for David a righteous branch and he shall reign as king and deal wisely and

shall execute justice and righteousness in the land and his day Judah will be saved in Israel will

dwell securely and this is the name by which he will be called the Lord is our righteousness

his greatness would be bound up and ascribed to him Yahweh the Kenu the Lord our righteousness

and I probably slaughtered that you want the spelling you could you can under you could

probably spell Yahweh yourself and the other word is TZ ID KENU and of course that would be

phonetically Hebrew and not so it'd be different there but his wise course of action would bring

salvation to his people the first servant song is found in Isaiah 42 its verses 1 through 9 and

and I won't read the whole thing but it talks about the Lord's chosen servant in verse 1 behold

my servant whom I've uphold my chosen and whom my soul delights I have put my spirit upon him and

he will bring forth justice to the nation and contrast all of the other idol worshipping nations

around God presents his servant as the only hope of the nations this is later cited in Matthew in

the gospel in 12 in Matthew 12 18 through 21 and then we find the second servant song in 49 verses

1 through 3 where it talks about the servant of Lord it's going to restore Israel and save the

nations this song clarifies that the servant is distinct from Israel but is also called Israel so

here we see the servant stands as a representative of the whole nation of Israel and Isaiah 49 3 it

says and he said to me you are my servant Israel in whom I will be glorified so this shows us why

it is correct to believe that the servant is a messianic figure it's part of the Davidic covenant

as a as David's heir represents and embodies the people as a whole it's also shows that he'll have

an expansive rule which is going to include the Gentiles and then also that the later prophets

are going to describe an heir of David and especially the Messiah as a servant so these

all summed up with other books of the God of the of the Bible and it's a very powerful thing to

again fill out this picture of our Lord Jesus and how he is a fulfillment of so much of the Old

Testament scriptures all of the Old Testament scripture in regards to the messianic scriptures

of course so then the third servant song is found in Isaiah 50 4 through 9 this song focuses on the

servant as a rejected prophet now we get a little bit more interesting because we're building up to

the culmination of this of Isaiah 53 but here we see the servant being rejected his willingness to

suffer being you know obvious and apparent confident that God is going to help him and

that he's going to rule finally it's a confirmation that as he suffers it's not because he is guilty

but because others are guilty we are guilty you are guilty I am guilty and he is here to cover

that guilt he is our righteousness this very is the very heart of all of the Gospels because of

his successful ministry as the servant of the Lord he has become our righteousness our holiness

and our redemption and that resonates with first Corinthians 130 the gospel tells us in whom we

can trust and brings God's life-changing power the Messiah's victory comes from this vindication

he declared that he would and and that he would not be disgraced but rather honored in the eyes

of his God so this brings me to the next point which is behold my servant Isaiah and we get back

to our story of Obadiah one day some men approached him and he began to ask him questions about the

Messiah and when they started using the word Yeshua the Hebrew word for Jesus he realized that

they were Christians and became enraged he never expected anyone in Israel to talk about Jesus but

the conversation about the Messiah prompted him to think about what he did believe soon afterward

we're walking down a street in Nazareth Obadiah saw an advertisement that asked why don't you read

Isaiah 53 in the synagogue Isaiah 52 13 through 15 is the first five stanzas each with three verses

which together compromise the largest climactic section of the servant it is set appropriately

at the center of Isaiah's book of consolation a massive two-volume compilation of the ancient

modern rabbignik thought or yeah on this portion of Isaiah by Jewish orthodoxy fails to reach any

firm decision regarding the identity of the servant

Rashi a prolific expositor of the highly regarded 11th century French Jewish or

a high a prolific exhibition exposition or sorry my it's getting late in the day here when recording

this and I'm not even going to cut that out you guys can see me flail a little bit with my words

just for fun so this Jewish scholar consistently maintained that Isaiah's servant was the nation

of Israel a position that the venerable you know that may omids believed was untenable so as one

reads the opinions of these well-meaning scholars it's like a breath of fresh air to study an event

which involved a first century believer named Philip and a foreigner who had been worshiping

in Jerusalem we get this picture in the in the gospel you know in the gospel of acts

Luke tells us that Philip approached the chariot of an Ethiopian eunuch who after the the ancient

fashion was reading aloud the scriptures Philip asked him if he understood what he was reading

in Acts 830 the man responded how can I unless someone explains it to me the text in question

was Isaiah 53 7 through 8 and it's concerned in and is concerning the sufferings of the servant

comparing him to a lamb who had been unjustly slaughtered so the eunuch asked Philip tell me

please who is the prophet speaking about himself or someone else then Philip began with a very

passage of scripture and told him the good news about Jesus so the straightforward account in

Acts should make us aware of how very you know dependent we are upon God's help his revelation

if we're going to interpret his word accurately although the Jewish community has traditionally

thought of this final servant song in messianic terms how wonderful would it be in that day when

the multitudes of Israel accept the scripture's reliable witness through such men such as Luke and

Philip regardless the fact remains that the final song's 15 verses fit none other so well as the

messiah Jesus Christ as he was revealed in the first century Palestine if they do not refer to

Jesus we do not have the remotest idea of whom Isaiah was speaking we recall that in the 40th

chapter Isaiah began his God-given message of comfort assuring the people and their sin had

been paid for and their hard service ended he spoke words of hope the heart of downcast nation

God would pass through the devastated wastelands of their lives restoring the bruised and fallen

even transforming them into a highway for the manifestation of his presence in the world

the sure foundation for every aspect of God's consolation is the well-developed subject of this

final song the unparalleled honor bestowed upon him marks both the beginning and the conclusion

of the fourth song commenting on the 13th verse the a Talmudic midrash says that Isaiah's servant

he shall be exalted above Abraham lifted up above Moses and be higher than the ministering angels

that interpretation reveals a sensitivity to the sequential character of the

of the conjunctions one event event flowing logically on the heels of another raised and

lifted up and highly exalted if we view the prophecy through the lens of history it's not as far

it's not a far reach to see the anticipated glory bursting forth in Jesus resurrection

his ascension and the fact that he was he's being seated at the right at the father's right hand

right at the father's right hand through the ultimate ultimate triumph of calvary God's light

and peace will be manifest to the nations so as we you know have seen having announced the servant's

glorification we are immediately returned to the school of suffering and confronted again with one

who even though he was despised did not hide himself from beatings shame and spitting and the

picture becomes even more graphic his appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any man has

formed marred beyond human likeness Isaiah uses the word shaman which conveys an image so horrifying

that the people who see him are left speechless this is the reality of our of our Lord Jesus Christ

this brings me to my final point which is finding Jesus and Isaiah I recommend you read Isaiah get

a good study Bible that gives you better correlation between old and new but read Isaiah because it's

such a powerful thing for a Christian to read because of the story of Jesus Christ that we know

Obadiah had wondered as well

he decided to ask several rabbis why the chapter is disregarded in the synagogues

but every person every person he asked every rabbi asked they refused to explain it

since he couldn't get an answer from the rabbis Obadiah decided to ask some Christians about the

chapter they explained the Christian belief that Isaiah 53 is a prophecy of Jesus Christ the Messiah

and before parting they invited Obadiah to a Christian conference so what do they tell

Obadiah what kind of what kind of things was he were they able to explain to him and show

him the relevance and the connectedness of the old and the new testament

I believe they would have talked to him about his exaltation in 52 13 and how that lines up with

what we know in Philippians 2 9 and Hebrews 1 3 or his disfigurement in verse 14 and how that's

depicted in Mark 15 15 his rejection by the people of Israel and Isaiah 53

and how that's depicted in John 12 the burdens that he had to bear in 53 4 and how that's

represented in Matthew 8 as well as in first Peter 2 and of course the sacrifice of our Messiah's

blood in Isaiah 53 5 and how that's talked about and represented in Romans 3 and first Peter

but then we would move on to the fact that he died for sinners which can be looked at

in second Corinthians 5 Hebrews 9 how his death was voluntary in John 10 and John 19 his burial

the justifying nature of his work his death with sinners his sharing his spoils so at the conference

Obadiah reluctantly went forward during an invitation for prayer as a pastor prayed for

him Obadiah sensed the Lord telling him Yeshua is Messiah Yeshua is the Savior

experiencing a deep peace in that moment he placed his faith in Jesus Christ

today Obadiah serves as a pastor he has been persecuted repeatedly even attacked once while

preaching in his church or telling others about the Messiah who changed his life

still he has a strong desire to see more members of the Ethiopian community join God's kingdom

he requests for prayer for protect prayers for protection for more gospel workers and that his

church will clearly demonstrate God's love to Ethiopian Jews who have lost hope so as we come

to a close the story being fulfilled is that we find ourselves with the Jewish Ethiopian

coming to the revelation that is in Isaiah 53 and seeing how how improbably it lines up with the

with the story of Jesus Christ and then we see the most important thing happen we see the Holy

Spirit intervene into his life and we see a radical conversion take place in Obadiah's life

and he's a preacher today and he's believer today because of the power of logos the power of the

word of God the power of these messianic portions of scripture in Isaiah and all the Old Testament

and how they direct us you know straight as an arrow to Jesus our Lord and Savior and we see

the power of the word of God in Isaiah 53 and we see the power of the word of God in Isaiah 53

and we see what the power of the word spread through that Sunday ministry to our life as a

Lord and Savior for站 on that stage for man see what power of the word will occus us to those

who want to cloves차ness you know to all as the nation we must focus on what we are doing

You want to give Jesus your life. You can do that and I'd like you to signify with an uplifted hand

even though I can't see you, God knows your heart. And so if you rose your hand I want you to just

understand that you can be a child of God. And all it takes is for you to repent of your sin and

accept Him as your Lord and Savior. If you don't know what that means, it's very simple. It's just

dear Lord I know that I'm a sinner but I know you sent your son Jesus who died for my sins and rose

from the grave. I repent of my sin and accept Him as my Lord and Savior. It's a pretty simple thing.

Amen. And with that I would love it if you took the next step. The next step is to find a Bible

believing church. If you live in salmon arm come to church. Come and be challenged to live a life

for Christ. Come and you know partner with us as we build a work of God here in salmon arm.

If you need a Bible we'll get you a Bible but you should be reading the word of God. You should be

praying and crying out to your Creator and thanking your Savior. And then you can go ahead and with

that radical change in your life you're gonna you're it's gonna be impossible for you to not tell people

about Jesus Christ. Because if you truly give Him your heart He will radically change you.

And you'll be like Obadiah. It'll be impossible for you not to go and share the message

of the cross. So with that I just want to thank you for listening today.

And I'm gonna let you go and I can't wait for you to come back next time. God bless.