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‘Do not be afraid; you will not be put to shame.
    Do not fear disgrace; you will not be humiliated.
You will forget the shame of your youth
    and remember no more the reproach of your widowhood.
⁵ For your Maker is your husband –
    the Lord Almighty is his name –
the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer;
    he is called the God of all the earth.
⁶ The Lord will call you back
    as if you were a wife deserted and distressed in spirit –
a wife who married young,
    only to be rejected,’ says your God.
⁷ ‘For a brief moment I abandoned you,
    but with deep compassion I will bring you back.
⁸ In a surge of anger
    I hid my face from you for a moment,
but with everlasting kindness
    I will have compassion on you,’
    says the Lord your Redeemer.

There are times in the Christian life when we may feel deserted by God, and as a result we are ”distressed in spirit”. At times it may indeed appear ”as if” we are abandoned. But the truth is we are not. The Lord remains the faithful Husband of His bride, the church.

So, in the face of all contrary negative emotions, let us affirm the truth of Scripture:

‘…God has said,

”Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” ‘ (From Hebs 13:5).

‘God says it, I believe it, that settles it.’

‘Enlarge the place of your tent,
    stretch your tent curtains wide,
    do not hold back;
lengthen your cords,
    strengthen your stakes.

I remember reading a book by a well known Christian author, and his counsel was, ‘Every day, read in the Bible as far as something ‘hits’ you, and then carry that with you all through the day.’ Of course, it is not the only approach to Bible reading (and it’s not my own pattern), but I thought it had merit: take the text God has impressed on you into the day. Meditate on it. Turn it into prayer. Perhaps share it with others as the Lord leads you.

Just the other day, as I was re-reading Isaiah 54, and seeking to translate it into prayer, I was hit by the words: ”do not hold back”. They resonate with me at the moment, and I simply want to ask the question, ‘Is there any area in your life where you are aware of ‘holding back’? God is speaking to you, and you know it. But possibly fear, or some other reason, is causing you to drag your heels.

You know, and I know (but let’s remind ourselves) that if God is in it, we need not fear it, and He will ‘give the growth’ as we step out in obedience.

Something else ‘struck’ me in my Bible reading this morning. In 1 Sam 19, Jonathon is speaking up for his beloved friend David, in the presence of his hostile father Saul. In verse 5 he says:

”He took his life in his own hands when he killed the Philistine. The LORD won a great victory for all Israel, and you saw it and were glad.’

Note: there was something brave David had to do, but look what God did!

”…do not hold back”

PRAYER: Thank you Lord that you graciously speak to us. Please give me the faith and courage to obey.

Do not be afraid; you will not be put to shame.
    Do not fear disgrace; you will not be humiliated.
You will forget the shame of your youth
    and remember no more the reproach of your widowhood.
⁵ For your Maker is your husband –
    the Lord Almighty is his name –
the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer;
    he is called the God of all the earth.
⁶ The Lord will call you back
    as if you were a wife deserted and distressed in spirit –
a wife who married young,
    only to be rejected,’ says your God.
⁷ ‘For a brief moment I abandoned you,
    but with deep compassion I will bring you back.
⁸ In a surge of anger
    I hid my face from you for a moment,
but with everlasting kindness
    I will have compassion on you,’
    says the Lord your Redeemer.

‘With reference to the LORD as Israel’s Maker, husband and Redeemer in verses 4-8 the focus shifts to the Sinai covenant. In her youth Israel had suffered the shame of slavery in Egypt; in her maturity she was to suffer the disgrace of widowhood in Babylon. But as the LORD took her to be his bride, entering into a covenant with her at Mount Sinai, so he would take her again and renew his relationship with her. He would not cease to be her husband and Redeemer. The Sinai covenant would stand.’ Barry Webb, p.216.

I have highlighted in bold, in the text ’emotional’ words, and reading it prompts me to pray:

Lord, we bring to you all those who are feeling shame and disgrace, fear and distress. We lift to you those feeling the pain of abandonment and rejection. Cause them to turn to you, and find in in you ‘deep compassion’ and ‘everlasting kindness’. Call them back to yourself, Lord, and they will return if you turn them. May they (we) know for sure that through the blood of Christ’s Cross there is lasting peace (v.10).

“Sing, barren woman,
    you who never bore a child;
burst into song, shout for joy,
    you who were never in labor;
because more are the children of the desolate woman
    than of her who has a husband,”
says the Lord.
² “Enlarge the place of your tent,
    stretch your tent curtains wide,
    do not hold back;
lengthen your cords,
    strengthen your stakes.
³ For you will spread out to the right and to the left;
    your descendants will dispossess nations
    and settle in their desolate cities.

Here is a repeated theme in the Bible: a barren woman made fertile by God’s power. It happened to individuals, but here it speaks of what is going to happen to little, exiled Israel.

I see in these verses:

• Supernatural births (1);
• Spectacular growth (2,3a);
• Stunning conquest (3b).

In ‘The Message’ version, this chapter is headed: ‘Spread out! Think big!’ The first three verses read:

 “Sing, barren woman, who has never had a baby.
    Fill the air with song, you who’ve never experienced childbirth!
You’re ending up with far more children
    than all those childbearing women.” God says so!
“Clear lots of ground for your tents!
    Make your tents large. Spread out! Think big!
Use plenty of rope,
    drive the tent pegs deep.
You’re going to need lots of elbow room
    for your growing family.
You’re going to take over whole nations;
    you’re going to resettle abandoned cities.

Barry Webb helps us to see this part of Isaiah in context:

‘Isaiah…conceived of the ideal future for which he and all God’s faithful people longed in terms of a covenant of peace that would be the culmination of all that was promised in the covenants that had marked Israel’s history from the very beginning…Just as in chapter 53 the atoning death of the Servant is already viewed from the divine perspective as already accomplished, so here in chapters 54 and 55 it is assumed as the basis of a new covenant of peace which will be the fulfilment of all previous covenants.’ ‘Isaiah’, p.215.

Verses 1-3 call to mind the Abrahamic covenant (see 51:1-3/Gen.12:1-3). Just as God overcame Sarah’s biological barrenness, so he would deal with Israel’s ‘barrenness’ during the exile. As Abraham received God’s promises when he was a tent-dweller in a foreign land, so his descendants are to stand on those promises as they live in a strange land.

Here is encouragement for us all: we may stand on God’s promises because He stands by them.

PRAYER: Lord, please give us ‘children’, and many of them.

See, my servant will act wisely;
    he will be raised and lifted up and highly exalted.
¹⁴ Just as there were many who were appalled at him–
    his appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any human being
    and his form marred beyond human likeness –
¹⁵ so he will sprinkle many nations,
    and kings will shut their mouths because of him.
For what they were not told, they will see,
    and what they have not heard, they will understand.

Who has believed our message
    and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
² He grew up before him like a tender shoot,
    and like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
    nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
³ He was despised and rejected by mankind,
    a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
    he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.

⁴ Surely he took up our pain
    and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
    stricken by him, and afflicted.
⁵ But he was pierced for our transgressions,
    he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
    and by his wounds we are healed.
⁶ We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
    each of us has turned to our own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
    the iniquity of us all.

⁷ He was oppressed and afflicted,
    yet he did not open his mouth;
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,
    and as a sheep before its shearers is silent,
    so he did not open his mouth.
⁸ By oppression and judgment he was taken away.
    Yet who of his generation protested?
For he was cut off from the land of the living;
    for the transgression of my people he was punished.
⁹ He was assigned a grave with the wicked,
    and with the rich in his death,
though he had done no violence,
    nor was any deceit in his mouth.

¹⁰ Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer,
    and though the Lord makes his life an offering for sin,
he will see his offspring and prolong his days,
    and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand.
¹¹ After he has suffered,
    he will see the light of life and be satisfied;
by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many,
    and he will bear their iniquities.
¹² Therefore I will give him a portion among the great,
    and he will divide the spoils with the strong,
because he poured out his life unto death,
    and was numbered with the transgressors.
For he bore the sin of many,
    and made intercession for the transgressors.

One of the most esteemed Bible teachers in my denomination lived in Leeds during his retirement. He was just down the road from Boston Spa where I lived and pastored a church. So I invited him to come and speak for us regularly, and what a privilege it was to sit under his ministry. He was such a kind and gracious man, and his life was always an even finer sermon than any of the great messages he brought.

Anyway, as a church, we often worked through Bible books and passages, and he would be happy to be given a text to address in his preparation. But I remember when we allocated to him Isaiah 53. When he got up to speak, it became obvious that he had never, in decades of ministry, expounded this chapter. Such was the reverence he felt for it. I’m sure he had often quoted it, and alluded to it, but he hadn’t approached it in the way we had asked him to. His very attitude was the sermon that day. I have never forgotten it, and I know others were also affected by it.

I have spent a lot of time, in the early months of this year, studying the fourth ‘Servant Song’, for various talks I’ve been doing. I am aware that there are depths here I have not begun to fathom. I feel the inadequacy of my words, and my unworthiness to write about it.

Perhaps the best we can do is to join our esteemed brother in ‘removing our shoes’ and marvelling at all we see around us on this ‘Holy ground’ of Isaiah 53.

PRAYER: ‘May I never lose the wonder, the wonder of the Cross.’

²⁶ Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, ‘Go south to the road – the desert road – that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.’ ²⁷ So he started out, and on his way he met an Ethiopian eunuch, an important official in charge of all the treasury of the Kandake (which means ‘queen of the Ethiopians’). This man had gone to Jerusalem to worship, ²⁸ and on his way home was sitting in his chariot reading the Book of Isaiah the prophet. ²⁹ The Spirit told Philip, ‘Go to that chariot and stay near it.’

³⁰ Then Philip ran up to the chariot and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet. ‘Do you understand what you are reading?’ Philip asked.

³¹ ‘How can I,’ he said, ‘unless someone explains it to me?’ So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.

³² This is the passage of Scripture the eunuch was reading:

‘He was led like a sheep to the slaughter,
    and as a lamb before its shearer is silent,
    so he did not open his mouth.
³³ In his humiliation he was deprived of justice.
    Who can speak of his descendants?
    For his life was taken from the earth.’

³⁴ The eunuch asked Philip, ‘Tell me, please, who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else?’ ³⁵ Then Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus.

³⁶ As they travelled along the road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, ‘Look, here is water. What can stand in the way of my being baptised?’ ³⁸ And he gave orders to stop the chariot. Then both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water and Philip baptised him. ³⁹ When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord suddenly took Philip away, and the eunuch did not see him again, but went on his way rejoicing. ⁴⁰ Philip, however, appeared at Azotus and travelled about, preaching the gospel in all the towns until he reached Caesarea.

This seems back to front, I know, but in writing about the fourth ‘Servant Song’ I have assumed that it is about Jesus: that He fulfilled this prophecy. This view is commonly held among Christians. Frankly, it seems obvious.

Warren Wiersbe says that the messianic interpretation of this passage (i.e. that it refers to the Messiah) was held by Jewish rabbis until the twelfth century. After that, Jewish scholars began to argue that it was about the sufferings of Israel. But Wiersbe asks two incisive questions re chapter 53: ‘…how could Israel die for the sins of Israel (v.8)? And who declared that Israel was innocent of sin and therefore had suffered unjustly (v.9)? No, the prophet wrote about an innocent individual, not a guilty nation. He made it crystal clear that this individual died for the sins of the guilty so that the guilty might go free.’ ‘Old Testament Commentary’, p.1191.

For me, Acts 8 is the clincher. Philip, an evangelist, was sent out to the desert to meet an Ethiopian official. This man was probably what they referred to in those times as a ‘God-fearer’: a Gentile who was drawn to Israel’s God and religion. So he had gone up to Jerusalem to worship, and on his way home, as Philip came alongside him, he was reading from Isaiah 53:7,8. The only way I can interpret this text is to say Philip told him it was about Jesus. It is a classic case of the New Testament interpreting the Old.

Only one Person in history fits this prophetic description exactly. The identification of Jesus with Isaiah’s suffering Servant was obvious to the Christian church from the beginning. Isaiah 53 is directly quoted, or alluded to, in the New Testament more frequently than other chapter in the Old.

‘As trait after trait swings into focus and fulfilment, can we write any name under Isaiah’s portrait of the sublime Sufferer in Chapter 53 than Jesus of Nazareth? Dr. J. Sidlow Baxter.

Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer,
    and though the Lord makes his life an offering for sin,
he will see his offspring and prolong his days,
    and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand.
¹¹ After he has suffered,
    he will see the light of life and be satisfied;
by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many,
    and he will bear their iniquities.
¹² Therefore I will give him a portion among the great,
    and he will divide the spoils with the strong,
because he poured out his life unto death,
    and was numbered with the transgressors.
For he bore the sin of many,
    and made intercession for the transgressors.

Following on from the death of Jesus:

• There will be success: ”…the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand”(10c). An alternative reading of verse 11a says: ”He will see the fruit of his suffering and will be satisfied”;
• There will be greatness: ”Therefore I will give him a portion among the great…” (12a); ”Therefore I’ll reward him extravagantly-the best of everything, the highest honours…” The Message;
• There will be victory: ”…he will divide the spoils with the strong…” (12a); ”I will give him the honours of a victorious soldier” New Living Translation. The Messiah is pictured as a conquering Hero, returning from battle with the booty. There is no doubt that He is the winner. As I’ve said previously, this totally unanticipated and massive reversal of fortunes explains the consternation of 52:15: ”…kings will shut their mouths because of him…” No-one could foresee this outcome (except, of course, for prophets like Isaiah who did, and who wrote about it for our benefit).

It is an utterly breath-taking ending to a most remarkable prophetic passage. Who of us can truly express how wonderful this is. It surely will cause our hearts to burn.

Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer,
    and though the Lord makes his life an offering for sin,
he will see his offspring and prolong his days,
    and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand.
¹¹ After he has suffered,
    he will see the light of life and be satisfied;
by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many,
    and he will bear their iniquities.
¹² Therefore I will give him a portion among the great,
    and he will divide the spoils with the strong,
because he poured out his life unto death,
    and was numbered with the transgressors.

Verse 8 has told us that ”…he was cut off from the land of the living”. But that is not the end of the story. Yes, there was ‘Friday’, but ‘Sunday’ came along.

Following on from the death of Jesus:

• There will be life: ”…he will…prolong his days…”;”After he has suffered, he will see the light of life and be satisfied…”(11a).

He who was dead, and in the grave (9), will live (11).

In the sacrificial system of Israel the guilt offering ceased to exist – but not so with Jesus.

This is why He who died ‘in childbirth’ nevertheless gets to see His children. He is alive. He lives in ”the power of an indestructible life” Heb.7:16.

¹⁰ Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer,
    and though the Lord makes his life an offering for sin,
he will see his offspring and prolong his days,
    and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand.
¹¹ After he has suffered,
    he will see the light of life and be satisfied;
by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many,
    and he will bear their iniquities.
¹² Therefore I will give him a portion among the great,
    and he will divide the spoils with the strong,
because he poured out his life unto death,
    and was numbered with the transgressors.
For he bore the sin of many,
    and made intercession for the transgressors.

Following on from the death of Jesus:

• There will be converts: ”…he will see his offspring”(10b); ”…by his knowledge my servant will justify many..’(11); ”Out of that terrible travail of soul, he’ll see that it’s worth it and be glad he did it.” The Message.

In the King James Version of the Bible, Isaiah 53:11 reads:

 ”He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities”

‘Travail’ is a word associated with childbirth. David Pawson pointed out that if a mother dies in child birth, tragically, she does not see her child. In effect Jesus died ‘in child birth’ and yet sees all His children

Note that the ”many” in 52:14,15: ”Just as there were many who were appalled at him…so he will sprinkle many nations…” are echoed by ”…my righteous servant will justify many…For he bore the sin of many…” in 53:11,12. The story of church history is that there have been ”many” converts over the centuries, and we have every reason to believe for ”many” more. Yes, the gospel often meets with rejection (53:1-3), and we should not be surprised at this. But here is truth to hold in tension. While big numbers may reject Christ, massive numbers will also turn to Him.

”Through what he experienced, my righteous one, my servant,
    will make many “righteous ones,”
    as he himself carries the burden of their sins.” The Message.