I am pleased to announce to you the release of my new book “A Sword On the Land; the muslim world in Bible Prophecy”! I expanded on the series I did here on the blog, about the same subject. If you want this book in digital form, Here is the Link:
I would really appreciate it if you could do reviews of this book for Amazon and spread the word about it any way you can, as I believe it would be an invaluable evangelistic tool. The hard copy of this book should be available soon.
Francis Shaeffer , a noted christian theologian and philosopher, wrote a book about abortion and the culture of death,in 1979. He co-authored it with C. Everett Koop, who was later to become the surgeon general of the United States .The book was called Whatever Happened To The Human Race ?.
The book warned us of the horrible cultural consequences to come as a result of the rejection of the Christian consensus, in favor of a humanistic relativism. Ideas have consequences .
Shaeffer cautioned us that our culture was merely coasting on a christian memory, enjoying the residual trappings of the christian culture, though long having abandoned Christ himself.
Concepts which have enriched western civilisation such as the sanctity of life, the dignity of the individual, a civil society, justice based on fixed principles came directly out of the christianity that the west embraced for a thousand and a half years. He warned that in the the jettisoning of our christian consensus, these concepts also cannot survive, having lost their basis.
In our time, humanism has replaced Christianity as the consensus of the west. This has had many results, not the least of which is to change people’s view of themselves and their attitudes toward other human beings. Here is how the change came about. Having rejected God, humanistic scientists, philosophers and professors began to teach that only what can be mathematically measured is real and that all reality is like a machine. Man is only one part of the larger cosmic machine. Man is more complicated than the machines people make, but is still a machine, nevertheless.
(Francis A. Schaeffer and C. Everett Koop, Whatever Happened to the Human Race?, Ch. 1)
I have been thinking about Schaeffer and his warning, in the light of the horrifying revelation that came out of Philadelphia recently. A late term abortionist, Kermit Gosnell is being charged with 8 counts of murder for botched abortions that resulted in the death of a mother.
from a Life News.com article
Pennsylvania-based abortion practitioner Kermit Gosnell, who is responsible for killing a woman in a botched legal abortion last November, has been charged with murder.
Gosnell was the focus of FBI raids last year and his medical license was suspended and his abortion facility, Women’s Medical Society Clinic, was closed down. Authorities found filthy and deplorable conditions along with a collection of aborted babies dating back 30 years.
Now, District Attorney Seth Williams is expected to detail charges today that he will file against Gosnell, the 69-year-old abortion center owner who killed Karnamay Mongar in a failed abortion. Gosnell was arrested and charged with eight counts or murder in the deaths of Mongar and seven infants allegedly killed with scissors after their birth. The arrest came affecter a grand jury investigation.
Practitioner charged with Murder
Where do such monsters among us come from? How is it that they are ever given a liscense to practice “medicine” and how do such cesspools evade public exposure? Schaeffer warned us long ago,
..because the Christian consensus has been put aside, we are faced today with a flood of personal cruelty. As we have noted, the Christian consensus gave great freedoms without leading to chaos — because society in general functioned within the values given in the Bible, especially the unique value of human life. Now that humanism has taken over, the former freedoms run riot, and individuals, acting on what they are taught, increasingly practice their cruelties without restraint. And why shouldn’t they? If the modern humanistic view of man is correct and man is only a product of chance in a universe that has no ultimate values, why should an individual refrain from being cruel to another person, if that person seems to be standing in his or her way?
(Francis A. Schaeffer and C. Everett Koop, Whatever Happened to the Human Race?,Ch. 1)
Gosnell is the current face of the culture of death, the logical outcome of the cultural upheavals of the 1950′s and 60′s. The callous disregard for human life, the merciless and inhumane treatment of baby and mother, the bloody scissors and the misnamed “Woman’s Health clinic” which was literally a septic mess, are the logical conclusion of the world view that gave us abortion.
Gosnell has not emerged out of a vacuum, there are many who deserve credit for this amoral monster. Start with Roe versus Wade, an activist supreme court, The Democratic party which has made infanticide one of it’s planks, Playboy magazine and the sexual revolution, the “pro-choice movement”, Hollywood with it’s glamorization of immorality and its championing of abortion and a host of other constituencies which have devalued the sanctity of life in our nation for forty plus years .
We in America have recently passed the 53 million mark of American abortions, it is fitting that our Holy God has seen fit at this juncture to expose Gosnell. It is as if He is still warning us of what we have become and of the certainty of judgement to fall on us.
Gosnell is just the tip of the iceberg, there are and will be others plying their trade among us, preying on the ignorant, the unprotected and worse of all, the most innocent and vulnerable of all, the unborn.
Jesus warned us, of the ultimate consequences of harming little ones, not only to Monsters like Gosnell, but to the cultures that spawn them.
At the same time came the disciples unto Jesus, saying, Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?And Jesus called a little child unto him, and set him in the midst of them,And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven.And whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me.(Matthew 18:1-5)
We have rejected our Judeo Christian Heritage and are now eating the bitter fruit of it,Kermitt Gosnell is the visible face of this rejection of God. As God said in Proverbs 8, in the person of the Wisdom of God,
“All they that hate me love death” (Proverbs 8:36)
And Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard: And he drank of the wine, and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent. And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without. And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were backward, and they saw not their father’s nakedness. And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him. And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren. And he said, Blessed be the Lord God of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant. God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant. And Noah lived after the flood three hundred and fifty years.(Genesis 9:20-28)
Like a new Adam, Noah stepped off of the Ak into a new “heavens and earth”. All of us who live in the post flood world, descend from Noah, so in that way also He is a type of Adam. As All of humanity was “in Adam” in the garden, so all post flood humanity were in THe ark, in Noah or his three sons.
We come now to the account of the “fall” of the new Adam, this time brought about not by forbidden fruit, but by drink.
Noah drank wine, and in his excess he passed out naked within his own tent. This unfortunate incident proved to be a test of the character of Noah’s three sons. What do you do when you discover ‘the nakedness’ of someone set over you?
Ham drew attention to it, calling his brothers into the tent to behold their father in this state of humiliation. Shem and Japheth wanted to preserve their father’s dignity, refusing to behold their father in such a state.
We have to look at the biblical view of what nakedness means, in order to truly understand this story. In Divine revelation, Clothing has a practical function, but also it has to do with the concept of dignity, honor and authority. Thus, the exposure of someone’s nakedness has to with the diminishment and even the possible removal of respect and honor.
Ham didn’t necessarrily do anything sexual to his father, but the desire he demonstrated for his brothers to see the spectacle of the nakedness of their own father, reveals a resentful desire to see his Father’s honor diminished. It was an atempt to “take the old man down a few notches” in the esteem of his brothers. In other words it was an expression of rebellion, and resentment at his Father’s authority.
When Shem and Japheth did the opposite of Ham, not only were they honoring Noah their Father, by refusing to entertain a degraded image of Him, they were honoring the God of their father as well.
Likewise Ham’s act of rebellion, seeking to show his father in a diminished light, revealed a heart that was already defecting from the God of Noah. The phrase “Ham… told his brothers”, literally means “Told his brothers with delight”. He assumed that they also would find some kind of pleasure in the degraded expose of their father also.
When Noah woke out of his drunken stupor, he soon realized, “What his younger son had done to him”.
The ensuing prophecy, was directed first to Ham, (although spoken to Ham’s son Canaan),then Shen and Japheth.
Why was the curse directed to Canaan? He didn’t say “Cursed be Canaan”, but “Cursed is Canaan”. It is not a deterministic prophecy, but a prophetic observation. Noah could see by the Spirit of prophecy, that the perverse streak of rebellion revealed in Ham, was already rapidly progressing in Canaan, and would ultimately consume his descendants.
Such rebellion would only lead to servitude,”A servant of servants shall He be…”. It is important to note that this is not the so called curse on the negro race, (There is no such thing) for Ham had sons, Phut,Mizraim, Cush, and Canaan, who was the youngest son, and the only one in Ham’s family who was cursed.
To Shem Noah prophesied “Blessed be the Lord God of Shem“. The Semitic people would be the custodians of the knowledge and name of God, for He literally uses the covenant name “Blessed be Jahweh, the Elohim of Shem…”. Shem knew the Lord by covenant.
It is interesting that the three major, monotheistic religions which have strongly influenced the world, come from the Semitic people. Judaism and Christianity of course, and the dostortion of those two, Mohammedism.
But Noah repeats the earlier curse, “And Canaan shall be His servant”, which at the time of the writing of Genesis, was in process of fulfilment. The Canaanites had subdued the land given to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, building cities and clearing fields which Israel was soon to inhabit.
To Japheth the Word of the Lord comes as a pun, for Japheth means expander. “God shall expand the expander…”. The Japhetic nations would explore, colonize, and spread out across the earth, both geographically and intellecually. The entire western Hemishere was discovered, colonized and developed by the sons of Japheth.
But Japheth would “Dwell in the tents of Shem”, that is his people would be largely impacted by the revelation given to Shem, and thus share in the spirituality of Shem, worshipping his God,appropriating his blessings, and as it turns out, allowing the book of revelation of Shem’s God, the bible to affect his civilization. To this day we speak of our Judeo Christian western culture.
The order of thes sons of Noah, in the prophecy is telling. Ham isn’t mentioned at all, his son Canaan is. Then Shem and finally Japheth. The Divine record will tell us that the earliest World empires were Hamitic, including Egypt. Then for a brief time Shem’s descenants built world dominating cvilizations such as the Sumerians and Babylonians.
But at the end, the world is dominated largely by Japheth’s children.From Persia, to Greece to Rome and the West.
The book of Acts has three individual conversion stories, showing the universality of the gospel. In Acts 8 a son of Ham comes to saving faith in Jesus, the Ethiopian eunich. In Acts 9 we hear the story of Saul of Tarsus a Jew,(Semite). Finally we read of the conversion of Cornelius in Acts 10, a roman son of Japheth. Jesus died for all of us sons of Adam!
There is much about this mysterious chapter I do not yet grasp, and admittedly this telling leaves as many questions as it does answers, but we can’t force scripture, we can only wait to recieve fuller revelation.
Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.(Isaiah 53:4-6)
We have been looking at the 4th Servant Song from the book of the prophet Isaiah.It seems that the Song is divided into three parts; 1) Introduction,(Is 52:13-15), 2) The Penitential confession of the Nation of Israel, (Is 53:1-9), and finally 3), the Benefits that the Servant gained, (Is 53:10-12).
We are in the middle section, which is written in the form of a sorrowful confession by the nation, which has been made to acknowledge their complete failure to understand the nature of the Servant and his divinely appointed task.
At the end of time, in the day of the LORD’s intervention into human affairs, Israel will come to realize that Jesus, “the man the nation abhorred…despised and rejected”, is none less than the long-awaited Messiah, sent by God to save them.
One of the things they will suddenly see, when finally the veil is lifted from their eyes, is that the sufferings of Jesus, were vicarious sufferings, and that Jesus was carrying out a priestly role in his life and Passion at the hands of gentiles and Jews.
Thus the fourth verse could literally be rendered,
“Verily they were our griefs ( or sicknesses) which He bore,and our sorrows ( or pains) with which He burdened himself…”
The word nasa, to bear is a technical Levitical term used of the sacrifices, for example of the “scapegoat” offering, from Leviticus 16
And Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat, and shall send him away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness: And the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited: and he shall let go the goat in the wilderness.(Leviticus 16:21-22)
The idea is that the sacrifice takes upon itself the sins, or takes responsibility or bears the penalty of, the sins of the worshippers. The fourth Servant Song is teaching that the true anti-type to the scapegoat offering is the Messiah himself. On the day that God opens Israel’s eyes, they shall see it and confess to it with sorrow and love.
Matthew 8 says that the physical healings of Jesus were a fulfillment of Isaiah 53,
When the even was come, they brought unto him many that were possessed with devils: and he cast out the spirits with his word, and healed all that were sick: That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses.(Matthew 8:16-17)
It is true that sickness and disease are part of the curse, there would be none had man not sinned. The Messiah truly did come into the world and suffer to effect a complete salvation for those who worship him. This blood bought salvation shall ultimately be fully realized, for all of the affects of sin, pain, guilt, God estrangement, sickness, guilt, etc, will be done away. Surely He bore our griefs…
The Apostle Peter uses Isaiah 53 to proclaim this as well, when he reminded us that it was Jesus,
… Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.(I Peter 2:24)
The self incriminating confession of Israel’s blindness continues ;
(lit) “…But we regarded Him as stricken (Plagued),smitten of God and afflicted (bowed down under suffering)…”
The expressions, “Plagued”, “Smitten of God”, and “bowed down under suffering” all refer to the fate of one under the judgment of God for sins such as blasphemy.
We have already refered to the Talmudic epitaphs for Jesus; the Rabbis and Sages call him Jeshu ( May His name Be blotted out), the “Hanged one”,(cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree), a convicted magician, “the transgressor” who deserved such suffering and crushing.
But they will freely confess on that day that in their blindness they have only been terribly half right. This Servant of he LORD was indeed plagued, smitten and crushed by the LORD, but not for his own sins, for he did no sin, he never broke faith with God, but for all of ours!
It was for our transgressions that He was wounded(literally pierced through) …
Transgression is high-handed sin against God. God draws a line and forbids us to step over it, and we step right over it in defiance…because we won’t even have God rule us. But the Servant of the LORD was pierced through to death for our transgressions.
…He was bruised ( literally crushed) for our iniquities….
Our Iniquities, refer to our lawlessness. The Servant of the Lord was “crushed” under the wrath of God, for the lawlessness which estranged us from the Judge of all of the earth. This language of Him bearing our iniquities and our transgressions, cries out that the Servant is a vicarious substitute.
The sacrificial system ordained by God presupposes wrath and satisfaction by substitute. Torrents of blood flowed out of Jerusalem on feast days and even in the course of the daily temple services. There is nothing new to the Bible about substitution offerings, they have been around since the garden of Eden, when God killed an animal to clothe Adam and Eve.
There are those now, even within the confessing church, who question the justice of vicarious suffering, one Anglican Bishop going so far as to blasphemously suggest that Jesus suffering and dying in our place is some kind of “cosmic child abuse”.
The Cross: Cosmic Child Abuse Or Fitting?
But the reconciliation of man to God has as much to do with Righteousness as it does mercy. The Righteous God can only reconcile us in a Righteous way. The demands of the Law of God must be met; holiness and justice cry out for satisfaction.
At the end, when God opens her eyes, Israel will finally see and confess, that the one whom they had long rejected, was the Servant God appointed to make expiation* for them.
* To make right a wrong, to atone, to propitiate.
Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.(Jude 3-4)
Who will rise up for me against the evildoers? or who will stand up for me against the workers of iniquity? Unless the Lord had been my help, my soul had almost dwelt in silence.(Psalm 94:16-17)
This false doctrine greatly appealed to my vanity, but led myself, and the hundreds of thousands of other Christians into other extreme experiences; slaying in the spirit, various doubtful “spiritual warfare’ practices, dominionism, a plethora of “Prophets”, new apostles, miracle workers, an ecumenism which included accommodation with Roman Catholics, inner healing, “Theoephostic counseling” and a host of other fad spiritualities of the 1960′s-into the new millennium. The evangelical/pentecostal church was sinking in a sea of heresy.
It was into that time and situation, that our faithful LORD began to raise up into prominence defenders of the true faith, “once and for all delivered to the saints”, such as Dave Hunt.
My first exposure to Dave Hunt was after he wrote the book , “The Seduction Of Christianity” in the mid 1980s. In it, he quoted the words of false teachers, for all to see and to compare for themselves. For those of us who were awakening to the danger we were in, but couldn’t quite work out why, Dave’s books were invaluable.
What struck my wife and I was the utter spite and vitriol that the leaders we once followed, directed towards Dave for questioning their teachings, naming names and using their own words to make the case. These were people who had constantly preached “unconditional love”, but who heaped reproach upon Hunt for daring to question them!
With love, and quiet dignity Dave would respond respectfully , to those who charged him with being a Pharisee, a “divider” or a “Legalist” in the various radio interviews and debates He engaged in.
The really big “Faith Teachers” refused to so much as debate Dave, in fact they warned people not to read his books, lest they “hinder your anointing”. But quietly and steadily Dave challenged we in the christian world to all be Bereans, that is to honor the Word of God above personalities,, and to check everything out with the Word, without respect of persons.
Brother Hunt reminded all of us that it isn’t about personalities, big names or ministries, rather it is all about the Word of God, Jesus, fearing God, choosing heaven over this world, and Truth.
Dave put into words what many of us knew but couldn’t articulate. He really had a gift for clear thought, combined with a profound reverence for God’s Word. He would often stop in the middle of a message, as he was rustling through the stacks of notes he had stuffed into his worn Bible, exclaiming, “Oh how I love this Book! It is a marvel! A wonder! There is no other Book like the Bible!”.
Another memory I would share was the time, fairly recently, when Dave agreed to debate three different unbelievers, in one weekend. An Atheist, a Hindu, and a Muslim. The format for the Muslim debate was a pulpit set between two chairs, with each debater instructed to sit and wait while the other spoke at the pulpit. Dave’s age, and the fact that he had just had an operation to replace a hip, caused him to have to wince in pain every time it was his turn to get up and speak.
But speak He did. In love, sincerity, and in devastating logic he made the case for the truth of Jesus Christ, the Lord and Saviour, the only way, truth and the Life. Though his outer man was perishing, The truth and Love of the Holy Spirit shone through!
Dave Hunt warned us all. What a watchman! Like Jeremiah , Isaiah and Ezekiel, He told us well in advance what was happening to the church, but how few heeded? Now when his warnings are coming to pass, and the supposed “Revivals” prophesied by the “new prophets” have failed to materialize, and instead the opposite happened(decline), will anyone admit that he was right?
No doubt, his passing will hardly be noticed among many of the Pentecostal, Evangelical, Extreme Calvinist, Charismatic believers which he labored so long to warn, of the apostasy, the false ecumenism, of the “Strong Delusion” of 2 Thesallonians 2, and of the validity of Bible prophecy. His labor is over, though through his books, “he being dead, yet speaks”.
The righteous perisheth, and no man layeth it to heart: and merciful menare taken away, none considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come.(Isaiah 57:1)
But God knows, and so also does the vast remnant of God’s people who did listen to Dave, that a faithful witness and a true servant of God has passed on from us, into a better place.
We beseech you, Oh Lord, to raise up other watchman, in the character of brother Hunt, for this perishing generation.
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Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.(Isaiah 53:1-3)
It is the climax of human history, the apocalypse, the very end of the world. The Jewish people are surrounded on all sides by armies who have amassed themselves together to wipe them out! Israel’s enemies have never been so seemingly close to achieving their goal .
Suddenly something happens which is totally unexpected, Israel’s God reveals himself . The embattled nation dimly recognizes Him as the one whom they had once shunned and pierced. It is now evident that the Messiah/Saviour who has come to them in their most desperate hour, bears the marks of crucifixion!
The nation of Israel reels. It was Him all along? The Nazarene? Jesus ? Everything they thought they knew of their own history, scripture, and law has been upended. In the darkest hour, the 2500 year old prophecy of Zechariah is fulfilled, “They shall look upon ME whom they have pierced and they shall mourn as for an only Son…”.
In the fourth Servant Song, Isaiah predicts the heartfelt confession that the prodigal son nation of Israel, long estranged from her God, will make at that point in time ;
…he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.(Isaiah 53:1-3)
He is despised and rejected of men;…When men don’t ignore Him, they usually scorn or hate him, rejecting Him virulently. To this day, they often refuse to give any credence to Him, and loathe the implications of his life and ministry. Somehow they sense instinctively that this man reveals the very secrets of their own hearts, therefore they hate and shun him.
There is something about Him that brings out in men either an instinctive abhorrence , or an attraction, as it is written, “He came unto His own and His own received him not… but as many as received him…”. He does not and cannot ‘fit in’ with the Age, He is always separate, isolated, the outsider.
…a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief…This is a man completely familiar with the human condition. He knows by experience what sorrow and grief , weakness and limitation are all about. The Messiah entered into our human dilemma, experiencing death in all of its toxic forms.
…and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not…What is it about him that causes so many to turn away? To be tempted to be ashamed to even so much as associate with Him? Why does he have to promise reward for those who will confess him before their own generation?
We confess that there was a time for all of us, (the believing community of the Servant), that we couldn’t look at Him, we turned away from him in shame and horror. Was it that our own age so hated Him, and we didn’t want to share in His reproach ?
Is it a sad, misguided allegiance with the rest of the world that “despises and rejects” Him whom God has sent? Could it be that we know deeply that His suffering is a testimony to our own sinfulness, weakness, and rebellion ? Does He not evoke the deepest wells of God hatred in the hearts of Adam’s proud sons and daughters?
So we have all turned away our faces from Him at one time or anther. We have laughed at him, taking out own seat with the rest of the scorners who cynically mock him in our own age. Our estimation of Him has been faulty, we didn’t see anything special in Him, nothing to regard or be in awe of.
But all that tells us is that our own faculties of judgment are so utterly corrupt, and that sin has made us all hopelessly bankrupt, morally and spiritually, unable to see truth, Beauty and genuine Holiness and goodness, when it is presented to us.He, the Servant, is rejected of men, but precious to God.
The Jewish nation has had many figures in her history, many noble and more than a few ignoble. But far and away the one figure in Jewish history who has invoked the most intense despite, and loathing among them , has been Jesus of Nazareth.
I quote the Hebrew Christian author of the last century, David Baron;
“No person in the history of the Jews has provoked such deep-seated abhorrence, as He who came only to bless them and on the cross prayed for them,”Father forgive them, they know not what they have done…”…Their hatred of Him was intense and mysterious…All through the centuries no name has provoked such intense abhorrence among the Jews as Jesus…I have known personally most amiable, and as men, lovable characters among the Jews; but immediately the name “Jesus” was mentioned, a change came over their countenances, and they would fall into a passion of anger….How often it has been my lot to witness some of my people almost mad with rage – clenching their fists, gnashing their teeth, and spitting on the ground at the very mention of that name which to the believer is “As an ointment poured fourth”….Israel’s atitude to our Lord Jesus may be gathered also from their literature. In the filthy legends about him in the Talmud and more modern productions, the very names by which he is called are blasphemous. The precious name Yeshua has been changed to Yeshu,(an acronym meaning ‘May his name and memory be blotted out’)…He is often styled “the Transgressor” and another frequently used term, “Tolui( “the hanged One”) which is equivalent to “the accursed one”.( Baron, The Servant of Jehovah)
But the Jewish people are a microcosm of the entire Human race, their unbelief and rejection of their own Messiah is a type of all of our own bitterness towards God. How did we come to love Jesus, whom we once would have crucified? He revealed himself to us in grace and Mercy, as He will soon to his own original chosen people! Hallelujah!
Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.(Isaiah 53:1-3)
We have been looking at the 4th Servant Song of Isaiah, the first part of which is God’s introduction to the one whom He designates as “My Servant”,in the beautiful yet mysterious words of Isaiah 52:13-15,
Behold, my servant shall deal prudently, he shall be exalted and extolled, and be very high. As many were astonied at thee; his visage was so marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men: So shall he sprinkle many nations; the kings shall shut their mouths at him: for that which had not been told them shall they see; and that which they had not heard shall they consider.
We come now to the second part of the prophecy, which is the penitential confession of the nation of Israel. It occurs at the end of the tribulation, when the chosen nation will be brought face to face with the realization that the one they had rejected and pierced, was and is their Saviour and Messiah.
And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem. And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn.(Zechariah 12:10)
The whole tone of this prophecy is that of heartfelt remorse, godly sorrow and a bitter sense of regret, as the Nation is caused to ”look on Me, (The LORD) whom they have pierced and mourn as for Him as for an only Son…”, in that last day when God grants his long estranged people, a complete and lasting repentance.
Who has believed our message? And to whom is the Arm of the LORD revealed?
The implied answers to these questions is, “few if any at all…” have believed in the message of a lowly Servant who has bought full salvation for God’s people, through his own suffering and death.
Those who do believe in the message, do so only because of a gift of revelation, “Flesh and blood didn’t reveal this to (them), but the Father in heaven”, has shown them that hidden in the spectacle of the defeated, crucified servant, derelicted of all friends, lovers and even God himself, is all of the power and wisdom of God.
The “Arm of the Lord”, is personified and appealed to directly earlier in the prophecy of Isaiah, for it is a metaphor for God in His mighty power.
Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord; awake, as in the ancient days, in the generations of old. Art thou not it that hath cut Rahab, and wounded the dragon? Art thou not it which hath dried the sea, the waters of the great deep; that hath made the depths of the sea a way for the ransomed to pass over? (Isaiah 51:9-10)
Israel wanted to see the power of God, or as Paul put it “the Jews seek after a sign”
For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom:(I Cor 1:18)
But for the most part, the nation couldn’t perceive the power of God in the figure of the suffering, Servant. He wasn’t what they considered to be “powerful”, he didn’t fit the ideal that they held of the Messiah. They had misread the prophecies, so they rejected Him , as the confession that they will soon make affirms,
For He grew up before Him as a tender plant- The servant’s development was in lowliness and obscurity. Slowly and quietly, without fanfare,He lives before God, and among an enslaved and humiliated nation. He is born in Bethlehem, but raised in Nazareth, literally “Shootsville”.
A tender plant is a frail shoot, a “sucker” coming out of a trunk or branch, merely a twig that normally would be pruned.
By contrast, Isaiah had earlier predicted that the Messiah would be as a vigorous shoot out of the stump of the felled house of Jesse, and would become an “Ensign” for all to see and seek God thereby,
And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord…And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the people; to it shall the Gentiles seek: and his rest shall be glorious.”(Isaiah 11:1-2,10)
But that is a prediction of the Messiah as revealed in glory.
Here in Isaiah 53, Israel confesses that all they could see of Jesus of Nazareth, was one as a root out of dry ground, that is an unlikely growth, in an unpromising environment.
Israel in the first century had certainly become “dry ground“spiritually speaking. The Priesthood had become corrupt, rationalistic and self-serving. The people of Israel were defeated and occupied by a pagan power, Rome, and there hadn’t been a prophet, nor a “Son of David” upon the throne for more than four centuries. No one expected anything of the tiny shoot, (Netzer) from Nazareth.
He has no form or comeliness, there is no beauty that we should desire Him…
The confession of the nation will acknowledge that there was nothing in Jesus, of the greatness, charisma , power and beauty that they had expected to see in the Messiah. Jews were looking for something else, The same is true for all men. It is only possible to see the beauty hidden in Jesus the Messiah, when one is allowed to see the desperate need for salvation from sin and it’s power and consequences.
to be continued…
