Words vs Methods: Isaiah 50:7 Pt 2

0:02 Looking at our world from a theological perspective. This is the Theology Central podcast making Theology Central. Good morning everyone. It is Sunday, April sixth, twenty twenty five. It is currently eleven twenty eight am Central Time, and I'm coming to you live from the Theology Central studio located right here in Abilene, Texas. It's been a little confusing for about twenty minutes trying to figure out what I should do in this episode, but I think I've made the right decision here. We are going to go back to what I did earlier this morning and go back to our review of this sermon on Isaiah, chapter fifty, verse seven. Let me put this all back together. It all started so innocently. Oh it was so innocent, right.

0:55 I'm on YouTube and I see a video that the church is starving people to death, and I'm like, whoa, I've been saying that forever. And the thumbnail artwork showed someone holding a plate of chicken nuggets, and it basically was like, here's all these people starving in the church, and all the church offers people our chicken nuggets. So I'm like, oh, this is going to fit perfectly. So I start listening. It's an interview with a pastor of a very very very very very very very very famous church, a church that has about twelve thousand people attending every week, a church that brings in thirty million dollars a year. And he was like, I'm not like those other megachurch pastors. I teach the Bible expository preaching. We dig in meet not just entertaining, not watered down ted talks, but we dig in. And I'm like, okay, great. So then I went looked up the church's website, started looking and like what just happened here? Everything was everything I don't even know what, I don't even know what to call it.

1:57 Everything was completely opposite to everything. So I wanted to use this as a case study. Right, how pastors sell what the church is using one kind of language because they know that's what the people want to hear. The church is about the Bible. The church is about teaching the churches, about equipping saints, not entertaining them. Say all the right words, but the reality is when the people actually walk into the building, they don't want what they say they want. They really want a little bit of entertainment, They want fun, They want motivational speeches, and so you got to then give them that. So that's what we've been talking. So we took this, We review the interview, we went through the entire church website, we look at the church's finances, and then we started reviewing the sermon.

2:46 The sermon is on Isaiah chapter fifty, verse seven. We've already spent over an hour reviewing. The thing's already been a dramatic train wreck. Right. He gives a quote supposedly from Augustine that's not from Augustine because Augusta never said anything. He gives supposedly a quote from C. S. Lewis, and he says it's from this book, but it's not even actually from that book. There's just all kinds of problems. It's supposedly the text is Isaiah chapter fifty. He's made the entire thing about us us us us us. And finally we're right at the point where he's getting ready to quote Isaiah chapter fifty, verse seven, and he's going to begin I guess what he refers to as expositional preaching on Isaiah chapter fifty verse seven. What happens here is an absolute it's a travesty. I have no words for it, but we're just going to listen to it, and we're gonna we'll interrupt and go there. And I know I'm kind of going through that kind of review of everything quickly, but I mean, you can go back and listen. This is like, I mean, we've done for almost four hours of work on this. This is like moving on to our number five. So I don't have time to review four hours of basically work. But please go back and listen. But here we go. We're gonna just jump into the middle of this sermon. There's no easy transition. I always say I always hate the part twos to sermon reviews because it feels like you're walking up to the edge of the pool and just jumping in.

4:12 There's no easing into it. But I did back it up, so I'm just gonna let him talk. He basically basically, if I want to summarize what it is so far as hey guys, then it's it's because he preached this on January the fifth, twenty twenty five. Hey guys, it's a new year, and we have to be motivated. We can't just want change. We just can't hope for change. We have to do it, and we can do it if we will put forth some effort and we'll get some dedication. And we need change this year. We need to be the instrument of change kind of concept, right, And basically it's a motivational speech to get you ready for a new year. What has that got to do with Isaiah chapter fifty, verse seven, Absolutely nothing, because Isaiah chapter fifty is in a what's known as the Book of Comfort or the Book of Consolation, and it's words to people and Babylonian captivity has nothing to do with you your new year goals at your New year resolution, has nothing to do with any of that. So it's the whole thing is just bizarre. But he's getting ready to get to Isaiah chapter fifty, and I think we go from bizarre to I don't even know what you call it, and you can draw your own conclusions. Here we go that we.

5:18 Would develop kind of this kind of coin, this term like a spiritual grit that I'm going to be surefooted even in the face of adversity and whatever may come. And so our message series that we're kicking off today, it's gonna be an a week series. It's based off a single verse. In the Old Testament Book of Isaiah, where the Old Testament prophet Isaiah says these really powerful words. He says, and I think he was doing a little bit of meditation of his own. Now just remember that I lost my mind last time, because the way he's reading this is like, hey, Isaiah was doing some meditating on his own. And then Isaiah said this, for the Lord God will help me. Therefore shall eye not be confounded. Therefore have I set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be ashamed.

6:07 He's saying that. Isaiah is like almost saying that up to himself. This is a servants song, ladies and gentlemen, this is a servant song. We talked about this in the last review. We just talked about this in the last hour that we did on Isaiah forty two. The servant songs, you have to identify the servant. The servant here is not Isaiah. Most would say this servant song here is referring to Jesus. So somehow he just takes a servant song that's about Jesus, somehow flipped it turns it to now Isaiah speaking about himself, and he's now going to flip it again and make it about you and me in our new Year's resolutions. I guess this is insane. What is happening here? Okay, this is just crazy. But here we go, Here we go.

6:50 He goes because the sovereign Lord, that word sovereign just means he is in control. He helps me. I will not be disgraced the four I have here. It is set my face like flint. Flint is another word for stone. It means that I'm fixed. I'm not gonna be like blown around by the waves of change. My eyes are fixed upon becoming more and more like Christ. And I know that all that effort, I will not be put to shame. And that's what this eight week series is all about. And actually, what I want you to know is I've laid out all the message series for twenty twenty five. And the way I lay out a message series is kind of like a menu, like what does our church body need to what nutrients do we need to kind of carry us through and really kind of the mega theme for twenty twenty five is preparing us to follow God wherever he may lead.

7:51 Now, all of this is just ridiculous. Isaiah fifty seven has nothing to do with any of this. The whole concept of laying out sermon series like a menu to see what nutrients the people need. The nutrients people need is the word of God. It is milk and meat. So open up the text and preach the actual text and stop making it about the people. The text is not about the people. The text is about what the text says. Oh, the whole thing here is just crazy. And even his little sovereignty that just means God is in control. There's about a million issues when you deal with God's sovereignty. But of course we're not going to get into the theiological implications of God's sovereignty. No, we're not going to get into that. We're not actually going to deal with the text. This whole thing is crazy, right. Basically, he quotes Isaiah chapter fifty, verse seven. I'm gonna read it from a different translation because the sovereign Lord helps me.

8:43 I will not be disgraced. Therefore I have said my face like a flint, determined to do his will, and I know I will not be put to shame. He then used, So when he does he quotes that, then he uses this line to launch into a motivational appeal for consistency, resilience, and daily discipline, applying the phrase set my face like flint to mean be resolute in your habits, push through difficulty, don't be derailed by emotion, and stay faithful even when you don't see results. This is basically how he frames the entire sermon. The idea of being set like flint becomes simply a metaphor for spiritual consistency over time. He doesn't identify who's actually speaking here. He doesn't talk about the context. This thing is a disaster.

9:30 In fact, I think we could go on to say what this is what's missing. There is no exegesis of the text itself, and we're going to listen to more. There's no exegesis of the text. None, none, zero, none. The context of Isaiah fifty has never explained, not even briefly. The pastor never identifies the speaker of verse seven as the servant of the Lord who speaks through Isaiah fifty four through nine. He offers no reference to verse four through six, which describes the servants suffering obedience and humiliation. No connection is made to the suffering silence and submission of this servant and the face of injustice. No mention of the Messianic significance. Isaiah fifty seven is one of the servants songs in Isaiah, traditionally and historically understood by the Church as a prophecy about Christ, the suffering servant who obeys the Father unto shame, suffering, and vindication. The phrase set my face like flint appears to be a prophetic preview of Christ's resolute journey towards the Cross, echoed in Luke nine point fifty one, where Jesus sets his face to go to Jerusalem. None of this is acknowledged.

10:36 Christ is never identified as the fulfillment of the verse. Now, I know, I just gave away the plot, but I don't even know what I don't even know what is going on here. So well, let's just see how this unfold. I could say a million more things, but I just well, okay, let's just go. Let's just I don't know what to say. And if you've been in our church over the last year, you've heard me talk about this a lot, about like the Great awakenings and and the fifth grade awakening, you know it could happen this year because every fifty years is when God has sparked one and that would be twenty twenty five.

11:17 Just remember everything he's saying about every fifth year, that's when God does a great awakening. That is there's no historic I don't even know what he's talking. This is like numerological superstition. There's no historical evidence for this. We talked about this and the last and the and the review before when I when I was reviewing part of this. There is this just completely. He says that dogmatically, there's it's not true. You can look at the dating of the Great Awakening. There's gap, major gaps between it. Not every five years. It's none of it makes any sense. It's not even true biblically, it's not true Historically, it's not it's just not. I okay, it's okay, I'm just gonna be calm because I'm losing my mind.

12:08 Okay, all right. But and none of it has anything to do with Isah chapter fifty verse seven. And we don't, like, you know, speculate that God might do that. We do anticipate it, and we anticipate God, would you please bring revival and would you please bring awakening? And it could happen. It seems like things are kind of getting set up where that could happen. What I want you to know is that if that does happen, we can expect resistance because the enemy isn't just gonna roll over. And so if God is going to bring revival, and if he is going to bring awakening, then that means like right now, you need to get your feet set right right now, you need to recognize that there's going to be resistance. There's going to be battle, and I want to prepare you for the battle that I know you're already facing, isn't it?

12:58 At times it feels like life is a battle. But where's that? Just me? You guys are kind of doing. Like the eight o'clock You're just kind of looking at me, all right, So I got I think that seventeen degree weather has gotten into your soul, a right, So I just need to kind of warm you up here, right, don't leave me alone up here? I think at times it feels like we're all in a battle. You ever feel like you're fighting for your marriage, like just tooth and nail. You ever feel like you're fighting for your kids? Ever feel like you're just fighting for your own emotional health and sanity, You're fighting for your relationship with God. It's because you are. You're in a spiritual battle, not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities and powers of darkness in the evil realm. And I want you to like the The worst than actually being in a battle is being in a battle and you don't know it.

13:43 And I want you to actually know it. And I want you to be. Sure footed, and I want your faces to be fixed like flint. That we are going to be a people that don't try to dodge adversity, but we try to live well in the face of adversity. And so this eight week. Series is really about moving. I want to move you and me from I hope to I declare. I he's just ripping that phrase so far out of context. That phrase has nothing to do with you, has nothing to do with me. I want to move from I hope to I declare because I guess if you declare something, then of course that's going to happen. Are we getting ready to go straight up word faith? Here? Declare it and it will happen.

14:33 Declare good things, and good things will happen. Declare blessing and you good blessing. Declare health, then you get health, declare good things, Declare that you can dunk a basketball and magically you can. Is that where it's going? I don't know. At this point, I have no idea. I can just speculate because I don't know where this is going. I mean, I'm just sitting here looking like this. This is the person who we listen to an entire interview who talked about expositional preaching and that he preaches the meat and he doesn't do water down to We had talks that are just motivational, and then. I'm looking at this and I'm like Isaiah chapter fifty verse seven, Isaiah chapter fifty verse seven. And look, even if I just open up my study Bible, the third Servant Song consists of reflection by the servant and the prophets addressed to the being and unbelieving Israel in verses ten through eleven. This prophecy was fulfilled and the suffering of Jesus Christ. That took me three seconds just looking at the notes in my Bible. But this is what you get in a church.

15:52 That brings in thirty million dollars so that people can get preaching like this. And if you break it down, he does about fifty two sermons in a year. It's about four hundred thousand dollars per sermon. Man, for four hundred thousand dollars, I could break Isaiah chapter fifty down. I could break it down fifteen different ways for you. Okay, exegetically, topically, theologically, devotionally, just make up stuff like he's doing. I mean, I guess, for four hundred thousand dollars, I'll give you whatever you want in Isaiah chapter fifty, I'll just I'll just make up stuff and I'll do like and I said it just one sermon I'll give you. I'll give you one hundred for four hundred thousand dollars, I'll give you a discount like man, Okay, here we go.

16:48 I declare these this is gonna be the kind of person that I'm gonna be in twenty twenty five, good or bad, blessings or curses. Like I declare, this is kind of person I'm gonna be. And so I just want to kind of tease out like where we're headed just the first four weeks of this eight week series. I'll tell you what we're gonna talk about today in just a minute. Next week, we're going to talk about facing temptation, and so it's like we're going to be a people that are going to fight temptation, not give into it. The week after that, I want to be the kind of person that handles criticism. Well, hello, I think all of us need that, right, Like how do we handle criticism in good and godly ways? And then the week after that, we're going to talk about like how do we move on from refusing to stay offended? Being offended is a fact of life, Staying offended is a choice, and some of us have chosen to stay offended.

17:43 And so that's just the next few weeks. We're gonna have so much fun. Today, here's where we're going. I'll, I mean, the people seem to love this. I'm still seeing here going. What has it got to do with Isaiah Edepter fifty. I have no idea. I don't even know why Isaiah fifty is even read here other than I guess he likes that phrase. I set my face like a flint, But he didn't even identify who the eye is. I set my face like a flint. I now becomes me and you, But the eye is not you or me. It's not even Isaiah. Okay, I'm gonna go just I think I don't know what to do here. I'm just gonna I don't know if we're even gonna finish this, because at this point I think I'm just I think we're just gonna I may do just a quick exegetical work through Isaiah fifty is what I may do. I just may do. I may just go and PROMPTU and just show you how, like you know, for less than four hundred thousand dollars, I can give you an exegetical study of Isaiah fifty and PROMPTU. I think maybe I'm going to do that.

19:04 I want to talk about consistency today. I want to be the kind of person that is consistent. And so if we were, and here's why, if we were to identify and if I were to identify some of the primary things that have kept me from becoming who God has ordained me to be and from doing what God plans for me to be, a lack of consistency would likely be the culprit. Like honestly, it's at times like I'm not sharing with you brand new information. I'm just trying to remind you of information that you already know. You just need to apply. Now, remember this is supposedly he does expository preaching. He's not like all the other megachurch pastors. He doesn't give you just motivational speeches. And now all of a sudden, this is turning into a sermon on consistency from Isaiah fifty.

19:55 He's not even mentioned Judah, he's not mentioned, Israel mentioned, Babylon, Babylonian captivity, Cyrus, servants songs, Jesus, it's you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you. A passage that could be about what Jesus did for you now becomes about what you are supposed to do because you need to be consistent. So now a passage that could be possibly identified as gospel is being completely flipped on its head and turned into law about you being consistent. And that's American evangelicalism.

20:38 Consistently Because a lot of our lives are filled with lots of stops and starts. So if you've ever been stuck, which. We all have, if you've ever hit a wall, which we all have, if you've ever thought, you know, why am I not where I am in life? I thought I would be by the age of twenty, by the age of thirty, by the age of forty, and so on. Likely it was a lack of consistency. It's not that you didn't know what to do. You knew what to do, you. Just weren't doing it consistently. That was likely the culprit and listen man. That is true in all four areas of that I just mentioned. That is certainly true in our spiritual walk, but it's also true in our relationships, our physical and emotional.

21:20 Health, and in our finances. Inconsistency is one of the greatest detriments to transformation and change in those four categories. When I was in college, I remember reading this book by Eugene Peterson, And if that name sounds familiar to you, it's because he was the one who did the message paraphrase. And a lesser known book of his, which was highly influential in my formative years, was this book Behind Me. It was titled A long Obedience in the same direction. Doesn't that just sound so inspiring? Like we don't want to hear that, do we? We want to hear like a short obedience, you know, in.

22:02 Whatever direction I want to go. That's kind of what we want to. Hear, and honestly, like my spiritual growth would not be described at times, there are seasons of my life when it has not been a long obedience in the same direction. If I'm being honest, it's been a momentary obedience when I felt like it in. All sorts of directions. And I go like, why am. I not changing? And I love the subtitle of the book, it's discipleship in an instant society, which means that your discipleship, which is once again that's just a fancy word for looking more and more like Jesus in your life. Why wouldn't he just preach the sermon and say, I'm not going to have a text today because I'm going to base this sermon on this book by Eugene Peterson.

22:46 But you're going to go to Isaiah fifty verse seven and rip a verse, rip a phrase so far out of context, and rob these people of actually hearing a sermon on the actual text that you gave them. So these people are going to leave clueless about Isaiah fifty for seven. And if these people go and they're actually using Isaiah fifty seven as some motivational slogan they put on their refrigerator, and they tell other people about Isaiah fifty seven, saying that you're literally robbing people of what the passage is actually about. All right, So we'll get back to him in a minute, because at this point we're not missing anything, all right. So the and the I gave that, I kind of pretended that we went to this church on a Sunday to listen to this.

23:29 So let's pretend that we were in this church and we're listening, and I'm likes, guys, guys, come here, come here, and we all get up and we walk out and we go find an empty I mean it's I mean it's a huge church. Obviously, we go find an empty classroom because obviously no one's studying, and we and we go sit down and like, okay, guys, let's work on. Let's work on Isaiah chapter fifty. Now, if you don't know anything about Isaiah fifty, it seems to continue the themes of comfort, confrontation, and covenant that run through chapters forty through fifty five, right, Because there's comfort, there's confrontation about idolatry. And I know a lot of this because you know, we've been doing exegetical work on Isaiah forty through fifty five, And obviously the concept of covenant runs throughout because it's about people who are in covenant with God who are in Babylonian captivity. So comfort, confrontation and covenant is a theme that runs all the way through and Isaiah fifty is going to continue that theme and it runs all and this on these ideas, comfort confrontation and covenant runs all the way through fifty five. Chapters forty nine and through fifty three seem to highlight the role of the servant of the Lord. Now we would have to identify, is the servant of the Lord in forty nine through fifty three different than the servant of the Lord, say in Isaiah forty two, which we argue that the servant in Isaiah forty two is actually Cyrus, So we think that in forty nine through fifty three, this is forty nine through fifty three, is probably a different servant. So the servant of the Lord is a

25:02 unique figure who seems to bring salvation through obedience and suffering. So the servant of the Lord in forty nine through fifty three, if it is true that this is a servant who brings salvation through suffering and obedience. Then it's not about you having obedience and a long obedience. In the same direction, it's not about you having consistency. It's not about you trying. It's not about you setting new goals. It's about what he did for you, not what you are supposed to do. So literally, a passage that could possibly be about the gospel, he just flipped around and turned it into law. That is evil. That's not This is not just a difference of an opinion. That's evil because when and pastors do it all the time, gospel based passages, they turn into law. They make it about you, you you you, you, you do th. And this entire thing is about a servant in Isaiah fifty, and he's made it all about you doing better and doing more and being consistent and being more obedient and forgetting what this servant supposedly was doing for us. And Isaiah fifty one through three, Oh, I know, is this crazy. Oh we're gonna do something really weird. We're going to actually go back and read the context. I mean, he didn't even bother to do that. Maybe we should do that.

26:23 Isaiah fifty. Thus saith the Lord, where is the bill of your mother's divorcement, whom I have put away? Or which of my creditors it is to whom I have sold you? Behold? For your I have sold you? Behold for your iniquities? Have ye sold yourselves? And for your transgressions? Is your mother put away? WHOA? Something bad is going on here? Wherefore I, when I came, where's there no man? When I called? Where's there none to answer? Is my hand shortened at all? That it cannot redeem? Or that I have no power to deliver? Behold at my rebuke. I dry up the sea, I make the rivers a wilderness. Their fish stinketh because there is no water, and dieth for thirst. I clothe the heavens with blackness, and I make sackcloth they're covering. Oh well, we got some strong words of rebuke and judgment and fifty verses one through three for some weird reason, that don't show up in this sermon that's based on Isaiah fifty verse seven. All right, But in Isaiah fifty one through three, God seems to be addressing Israel's complaint about abandonment.

27:36 All right, Thus, saith the Lord, where is the bill of divorcement? It goes so Israel seems to be they have some complaint, probably in their captivity in babbelon captivity, feeling like that they have been abandoned, and God's addressing this. I mean, Judea has been there. I mean, they're gonna be there totally for seventy years. I know that these words are given to them before they even actually go. We can get into whole discussion about that. I mean, I know we're getting into all of the hermoneutical issues, and this is weird. We don't do this in church. I know some of you are like, I want to go back out there. I want to go listen to him because it's motivational, and it sounds this sounds too academic and sounds like seminary. I'm gonna go sit out there. Well you go sit with them, Okay, you go with them, But if you're going to understand this, God is addressing Israel because Israel seems to have made some complaints about we've been abandoned.

28:23 Where have you been? And Isaiah fifty verse four, the Lord God hath given me the tongue of the learned. All of a sudden, this is a radical change. Thus saith the Lord he's speaking, he is talking to it appears Israel. And then all of a sudden, in verse four, someone says, the Lord God hath given me the tongue of the learn, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary. He wakeneth morning by morning. He wakeneth my ear to hear as he as the learned. The Lord hath opened my ear, and I was not rebellious. Well wait a minute, that doesn't sound like Israel. Who is this person talking? Where did this person come from?

29:07 All? Right? These are like I don't know. This is far more interesting than a motivational speech on being really committed in twenty twenty five. But okay, And verses four through nine, the servant of the Lord speaks, and the first person describing his obedience and suffering. So we kind of have a structure here for verses one through nine. Verses one through three, we kind of have a divine challenge, right. The speaker seems to be God, and the focus seems to be a rebuke of Israel and what they have done and their unbelief. Four through nine seems to be a servant song, and the servant songs are critical in Isaiah forty through fifty five. The speaker here appears to be the servant from what we can tell, all right, the focus here is obedience self and trust in God. Hey, hey, I'm going There's going to be suffering, but I'm going to be obedient and maybe vindicated or something positive is going to come from this. All right. So if we look at verses one through three, we have yahways or God's challenge we I mean, it says, thus saith the Lord all caps, so Shahweh Jehovah. Okay Jehovah. And we can get into that whole discussion. But we have God's challenge to Israel. And if we read it, thus saith the Lord, where is your mother's certificate of divorce with which I sent her away? Or which of my creditors

30:37 is to whom I've sold you behold? For your iniquities you were sold and for your transgressions your mother was sent away. This seems to be rhetorical questions exposing the falseness of Israel's complaint. You wo'd have to go back to chapter forty nine. I don't have time to build this completely. I'm doing this and PROMPTU right, so you would have to go back to forty nine because I get Israel has made some complaints about we've been abandoned, and I can understand they would they would feel that way, So God's addressing it. God did not divorce Israel or sell them due to a lack of care. There is no certificate and no creditor. Instead, their suffering is due to their own iniquity. Israel's exile is not divine abandonment.

31:23 It's a result of their covenant breaking sin. Remember they're in a specific covenant Deuteronomy twenty eight, twenty nine thirty. If you do good, you get this. If you do bad, you suffer. Suffer, suffer, suffer, suffer. What do we learn about this that not only does Israel, none of us will ever fulfill a covenant that's based on lawkeeping, because we cannot keep the law. If you want to make it about us Verse two, Why when I came was there no man? Why when I called there was no one to answer? Is my hand shortened that it can not to redeem or I have no power to deliver?

32:03 God came to say, but Israel was unresponsive. Is my hand shortened? It's an anthropomorphic way of saying God is not limited, all right, because I speaking of God in human form, human you know, has a hand, having a hand, that type of thing. These questions are designed to rebuke Israel's unbelief. It's not here to really speak of God's inability. God is not powerless, Israel is faithless. The real issue is not divine weakness, but Israel's human their hard heart. I think let's say it that way, all right, That's what's happening here. Then verse three, I clothe the heavens with blackness and my sack cloth. They're coverings. This seems to speak of God's God's authority, cosmic authority. We could say he darkens to heavens, like an allusion to judgment, maybe from like Exodus ten. Sackcloth's obviously is a metaphor for mourning and calamity. God rebukes Israel for misinterpreting, for misinterpreting their suffering. They were not forsaken, they were being disciplined.

33:05 Yet God is still able to redeem. Hey, don't see yourself as being forsaken. Understand you're being judged, and understand that I have the ability to redeem you and to deliver you. I think that's a good way of summarizing verses one through three. Now, all of a sudden, what happens in verses four through nine. The servant speaks Here the voice shifts. We're no longer hearing from God directly, but from the servant of the Lord in the first person. This is the third Servant's song, following four Isaiah forty two and Isaiah forty nine. The Lord God has given me the tongue of those who are taught, that I may know how to sustain with a word him who is weary. Now we can get into a major discussion and who this servant is. See, that's the real issue here.

33:57 How do we identify this servant? And our options are are do we identify the servant as being Israel? Well, that makes no sense because Israel's just rebuked in the verses before, so we already know that's not plausible. Doesn't even make sense, is it Cyrus? Which, of course Cyrus serving as a servant we believe in forty two because he is the servant of the Lord, chosen by God to deliver the people, even though he's blind death and doesn't know what's going on, because he's a pagan. All right, so does that apply to Isaiah fifty. See, that's where the real exegetical work needs to take place. But hey, and this sermon we're listening to, none of this is even being discussed, but hey, it's worth you know, four hundred thousand dollars. I guess, all right.

34:39 So, but the servant here speaks verse four, the Lord has given me the tongue of those who are taught, that I may know how to sustain with him a word him who is weary, the tongue of the learn, a disciplined, in instructed speaker. I think that's a way to understand this purpose to comfort the weary, A direct tie to Isaiah forty one through two. Isaiah forty, verse thirty one. All right, the Lord has given me the tongue of those who were taught, that I may know how to sustain with the word him who was weary. This servant is there to comfort those who are weary. You see where I kind of want to go a little bit here with Cyrus a little bit. Maybe the servant does not speak from personal brilliance, but from divine instruction.

35:20 Jesus and Matthew eleven e goes this come to me all who are weary. All right, So if you want to try to connect it there, I don't think we should, But okay, verse five we could go with I mean we could, I mean we could go a lot of different directions. Verse five. The Lord God has opened my ear, and I will not and I was not rebellious. I turn not backward. Now this is where being Cyrus wet to. We'd be careful. If it's Cyrus, then we could go, Well, God opened his ear in a sense to he's going to do exactly what God says, and he wasn't rebellious to what God tells Cyrus to do, which is to release the people from captivity. So again I'm going to you know, this is the exegetical work is we would have to try to see how this fits to Cyrus.

36:04 These people in this church probably don't even know who Cyrus is, and they're not even hearing about him, because this pastor doesn't even bother to handle this text in any meaningful way. But this has nothing to do with these people. This is nothing about people doing more. This is about the servant doing something for the people. Unlike Israel, this figure is obedient, obedient at least to what he's called to do. The language equis echoes psalm forty maybe, and what we could talk about something in Hebrews. Yeah, all right, I got to decide what I'm gonna say because I can't turn this into a full blown exposition.

36:44 But okay, Israel has closed ears and hard hearts. The servant listens and obeys whoever the servant is. He listens and obeys because he's going to do something for the people who are weary. They're weary because they feel like they've been abandoned. They're weary because they're under divine judgment. The servant is going to bring comfort to that weariness. Well, historically we know who brings comfort to their weariness. Cyrus comes walking in and lets the people go. All right, So, but it's what's being done for the people. It's not this is hey, guys, you need to work harder. This is not about them working harder. Verse six. I gave my back to those who strike, and my cheeks to those who pull out the beard. I hid not my face from disgrace and spitting. Now, this really takes a jump.

37:38 This really takes a jump. This seems to sound like voluntary suffering. It definitely seems to talk about humiliation, physical abuse, and shameful treatment. This clearly seems to be pointing to what Jesus suffered in Matthew twenty six and Mark fourteen. This does not seem to be disciplinary suffering. Now I think there may be see in the first part Israel, you're suffering discipline, you're suffering judgment. This seems to be suffering for a different purpose, to do something for those who are weary. We could call this redemptive suffering. This is willing and purposeful verse seven. But the Lord God helps me. Therefore have I not been disgraced? Therefore I have set my face like a flint. Set my face like a flint, firm resolve, unshaken by opposition. This seems to be fulfilled in Luke nine, where Jesus set his face to go to Jerusalem. The servant is sustained by confidence in God's vindication, not public opinion. I have set my face like a flint. This is not about you, This is not about me. This is about the servant.

38:52 And if the servant is Jesus, this is Jesus setting his face like flint to do redemptive suffering for you. How does this get turned into a sermon about you working harder and you being more obedient? So this would be a gospel passage showing you what Jesus did for you, if we say the servant is Jesus, or at the very least, it's a servant's song about what Cyrus is doing for the people in Babylonian captivity. And this is where it kind of falls apart, because does he suffer like I don't know if there's any way to connect that to Cyrus. But see, these are the hermonoutical questions that should be asked. But no, no, we get a sermon about, hey, guys, you can do better. Hey guys, you can work harder. Hey guys, you can do more.

39:34 You can do more. You're just gotta be more committed. Don't just say you want, don't say I hope you can do it. Like you're in a cycle class and the guy's trying to motivate you to cycle for three miles. Verse eight. He who vindicates me is near, who will contend with me? Let us stand up together? Who is my adversary? Let him come near? Now this seems to be like a legal language WI contend adversary stand up seems to be like courtroom metaphors, which Isaiah has used courtroom metaphors when it talked about basically God versus the idols of Babylon. The servant is confident in his justification before God. All right, so we could get into we could, I could go some other places with that, but I won't currently verse nine, Behold the Lord God helps me, who will declare me guilty. Behold, all of them will wear out like a garment. The moth will eat them up.

40:28 The servant's enemies will perish like moth eaten clothes. This is a vindication is basically guaranteed, not because the servant is bold, but because God is faithful. All right. This seems to be a prophetic portrait of Christ, obedient, suffering yet vindicated. His resolved and suffering comfort for the weary and vindication by God are central to the Gospel. We are not the servant. We are the weary in need of a servant's word and saving work. Now, if we put it in its context, if we put it in the context, Israel is in judgment. Now Israel may be sent back to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple. But what they need is to be redeemed, They need to be saved.

41:20 They need a servant who will suffer God's wrath for them so they no longer have to endure God's wrath on them. And that is the suffering servant, who I think we'll see later on in this. So there is a quick exegetical work on Isaiah fifty one through nine. There we go, and I just want you to see how evil what has taken place. He's taken us a verse about what the servant is doing for someone else, either for Israel or for us, and he's turning into guys, you need to be committed, You need consistency, You need to do this, you need to do that. How utterly messed up is this? Now? Ssh, we're gonna go back into the sanctuary. Okay, we just we just had our own little Bible study, all right, But hey, I mean, the reason we give all this money to this church, you know, thirty million dollars, is so that we can get these four hundred thousand dollars sermons. Because they're so expository and so full of spiritual meat.

42:30 It cannot be microwaved. It doesn't happen with one sermon. It doesn't happen with just attending church one time. It doesn't happen with just going through rooted one time. It doesn't happen. You cannot microwave it. It's more like our crock pot. Rooted is one of the small groups you can join so that you can get connected to God. And you can join that group for forty dollars. They have a small group that you can join to get you rooted, get you grounded into faith, and it's only forty dollars to join. The church has a four million dollar surplus, or they did in what twenty twenty three, the last financial records, I was able to see four million dollars.

43:11 But if you want to join this group so that you can get rooted in your faith, it's only for the low low price of forty dollars. And it's developed over time and unfortunately through adversity, not around it. Second Peter, chapter one, verse six talks about being patient in Endurance James chapter. One, versus sixty eight. Let these words encourage you, says, do not waiver for a person with divided loyalty is as unsettled as a wave of the sea. That is blown and tossed by the wind. Do you know what he's actually done in this sermon. He's made you the suffering servant. Let's just keep listening.

44:00 Most people should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Their loyalty is divided between God and the world, and they are unstable in everything. That they do. And I would say that for a lot of us in the church in the West, this explains why there's no power. It's because we're living kind of divided lives between God and the world. It's like sort of like a syncretism. We've got one foot in and one foot out. And so because of that, we're not tapping into the help that's the word for the Holy Spirit helper that we all need, and we end up foregoing the power that God has made available to us. And we often just think, you know, man, change needs to come in one big decision.

44:44 You know, let me. Get like a running start, and I'm gonna jump into change. And then if we don't see it, then we get frustrated. So if change doesn't happen in one crucial conversation, if change doesn't take place in one counseling appointment, if change doesn't take place in one investment, one act of generosity, one killer vacation with the fam where I connect with my kids, instead of like consistent daily conversation, maybe just one church service, one sermon, series, one prayer. If the change that I'm looking for doesn't happen, then we maybe assume all kinds of things. Well, it didn't work. God doesn't care. I must have done something wrong, or our favorite option, we just blame other people. And we're oftentimes missing this equation right here. Take a picture of this with your phone.

45:31 Write it down. I think this is such a crucial thing for us to remember. Consistent that means regular and daily actionable. I can see it, I can measure it. Behaviors all right, that's more than good feelings and intentions. And this is really key over time. I'm not gonna give up. Even this is just self help. This is life coach one oh one, self help one O one. This has nothing to. Do with Isaiah fifty verse seven. I just gave the transcript of this sermon to AI. AI says the pastor in this sermon repeatedly applies Isaiah fifty seven and implicitly the broader context of Isaiah fifty four through eleven to the individual Christian, turning the Servant's words into a model or challenge for how we should suffer and persevere in adversity.

46:26 This is both hermeneutically and theologically problematic. The pastor makes Isaiah fifty seven about us modern believers, but claiming it represents the posture we should adopt at the start of a new year, setting our faces like flint to face adversity, remain consistent, and live with resolve. He says Isaiah may have been meditating when writing this, suggesting these are Isaiah's personal reflections rather than prophetic words of the servant of the Lord. He frames the verse as a motivational challenge to become more committed, more consistent, and more resilient, essentially a spiritualized version of a new year's resolution. Places Isaiah fifty seven as the thematic anchor of the entire self improvement sermon series. Set like a flint, centered on our behavior.

47:08 This is the textual and hermoneutical reality. This is one of the servants songs. As we've just discussed when I did my little exegetical breakdown. All right, the servant is not Isaiah. The servant is and then it goes through talking about the servant. I says, now here's the philological and logical errors Christ's centric misplacement. By placing the modern believer in the role of the servant, the sermon displaces Christ from the center of the text and imposes a burden of redemptive suffering and steadfast perfection on you and me. I want you to hear that again, by placing us in the role of the servant, because that's literally what this sermon does. The sermon displaces Christ from the center of the text and imposes a burden of redemption, of redemptive suffering on you and me. Basically that we have to be steadfast and perfect that's what worse supposed to do.

48:01 This not only confuses law and gospel, but invites moralism. You're supposed to be un You're supposed to be unwavering, unflinching, undiscourageable servant of God. You're basically like you're to be Jesus. I can't be Jesus. That's why Jesus has to do it for me. That's the whole point of We need the servant of God to redeem us and to save us, just like Israel needed someone to deliver and save them because they couldn't deliver and save themselves. Not only physically, they couldn't save themselves spiritually by keeping the law, just like we can't. Isaiah fifty seven isn't about summoning your personal resolve. It's about the obedient servants' confidence and divine vindication despite horrific suffering. It points forward to Jesus who said his face like flint, to go to Jerusalem and suffer for our salvation. Turning this into a motivational message is hermeneutically reckless, especially in a text about substitutionary o being, radience and suffering. The sermon calls us to be the servant who remains faithful despite suffering and rejection, an impossible and crushing standard that the servant himself fulfills on our behalf.

49:15 Ai says this is absolutely horrible teaching, not because it lacks passion or clarity, because it misrepresents the identity of the servant, replacing Christ with the Christian and turns redemptive suffering into a spiritual challenge. It's a classic example, maybe of a well intentioned, practical sermon but ends up obscuring the Gospel and replacing it with law heavy behavior centered spirituality. I want you to hear that Ai says, it's absolute horrible teaching. I did not say that. Ai did.

50:01 Man. When you see a passage that shows what God is doing for you or what God did for Israel, that doesn't turn into you do it, you do it, You do it. This is law for you to do, you to do, you to do. You need to be consistent. You need to be consistent. You've got to stop this microwave mentality. It's not gonna just get fixed and won this or won that. You gotta be consistent. You gotta be a better father. You gotta be a better husband. You gotta be a better wife. You gotta be a better this. You gotta be a better that. Just be consistent, Just do more. That is literally, literally what's wrong with the entire evangelical and industrial complex. I don't care if you've got big buildings, twelve thousand people and bring in thirty million dollars. You literally and single handedly obliterated the Gospel and replaced it with the law.

51:00 Even when it gets hard, even when resistance comes, even when I lose my motivation I'm not going to give up now. It may not look real pretty today, but I'm going to keep moving forward. That equals real change. And oftentimes we are inconsistent. There's nothing like really actionable. It's just kind of ethereal. It's just kind of like emotional and there's no it ever gets translated into behavior, and we don't give it enough time, and we don't experience the transformation that Jesus. Died for us to have. Jesus died for me to be transformed. But the only way I'm going to be transformed if I am consistent and I do my part.

51:43 I've got to do it well. First of all, this seems to be saying that transformation comes by just coming up with a couple of plans and ideas. No, wait a minute, isn't the reason what hinders transformation? Isn't the reality of a sinful nature? Does a sinful nature go away? And does Christ transform us practically or does he transform us positionally? This thing is a philological, utter complete trainer. In fact, this is this is spiritually just I mean, I'm just gonna it's just pure evil, It's what this is. This is basically, you're transformed by what you. Jesus simply died so that you can be transformed. But the transformation is all up to you. But wait a minute, so I'm trying to wait, How do I transform myself when the issue is my sinful native This is a complete thing, this is pure for I don't even know what this is.

52:35 This is Pelagius would probably even be like, what is happening here? This is Pelagianism, full blown Plagianism. Basically, you're you can just be perfect by being the suffering servant. In Isaiah fifty seven, we don't need Jesus to be the suffering servant. We can be the suffering servant, and in our suffering we can be consistent and we can be obedient. We can be perfect because Jesus died so that we can be perfect. But hey, died so I can be perfect. But I gotta do it. So I don't really know what is death? Did? I don't know? James, Chapter two, verse seventeen. It says, so you see, faith by itself, it isn't enough until it produces good deeds.

53:19 It is dead and useless. And really, what we're after here is transformation. That's what we're after. And transformation happens when I do consistently what I used to do occasionally. And that's true in relationships, finances, health. Okay, this is self help. Do better, do better, do more, This is law, law, law, law. A passage about the suffering servant just turned into a passage about you doing more. You being consistent, do more, be consistent, do more of what you used to do. Just a little love. Do more, now, be consistent, do more, do more, do more, work harder, do more, do more. Law law, law, law, law, and Jesus just died so that you can be transformed. But you've got to do all the transforming yourself by doing more and more and more and more and more and more and more. Then you'll be transformed. So I don't know, Jesus what Jesus?

54:19 I give up? I give up? I do I just I really I don't. Know. I'm not going to finish it. There's no point in reviewing the rest of it. I mean, we see what's going to happen. You can go look this up yourself if you want. Let me go see if I can find the website. I think I'll close this thing, and I think I got it right here. You if you want it, here you go, and so let's get up, let's talk. We're just gonna walk out. We're gonna walk out in the middle of church. Come on, let's just leave. So where we're gonna go, I don't know. We're gonna find someplace in Indianapolis, Indiana to eat. Okay, all right, so here we go. You can go to tp dot org TPCC dot org look for the place about messages or explore messages, look for the one from January the fifth, and then you can listen to the entire series. Set your face like a flint. I think it's about you setting your face like a flint, even though Isaiah fifty to seven is nothing about you, and it possibly has something to do with Jesus who set his face like a flint so that he went to Jerusalem and died for you. But if it's not about what Jesus did for you, it's about what you can do so that you can just be a better person. This is what the church wants, moralism, law, expositional preaching, because that's supposedly what you're getting there TPCC dot org. Now again, the only reason I ended up at this church's website is

55:52 because I saw a video where the pastor was talking about how he's so different than everyone else, and how his preaching is so different, and how he his focus is on the meat and preaching and not starving people and not just giving them chicken nuggets, but doing expository preaching. That's why got me here. And then the first sermon we listened to, I don't know what that. I don't know what that is. Now, according to one email that I received, they also have another teaching minister pastor that supposedly is a good teacher. I have to go look for the name and then see if we can find one of their sermons, and then we will we will review it because if there's a good then we want to we want to review the good as well. Right, But the whole thing is is and I'll probably do an entire episode on this entire strategy where you say all of the again, you say all of these good words about what the church is and what the church is supposed to do and preaching and the authority of scripture and exposition, and then in practice, though you can't really do what you well, how you mark it, because if you do that in practice, you won't have ten thousand people and thirty million dollars. Now, there's exceptions that some churches can be more expositional and be successful, but I think in the long run, you're going to have to provide a whole lot of other stuff or the people won't come. I'm not saying always, there's always the exception to the rule. All right, we're speaking in general.

57:25 All right, But I'm going to stop because I have now been teaching for three and a half hours. About three and a half hours, I think I've been teaching so man, so hopefully we've accomplished something today. So I'm going to stop. I need food desperately, my head is pounding, and yeah, I hope we've accomplished something. But in the midst of all of that, you got a little bit of an exegetical work on Isaiah fifty. Please note that was that was impromptu exagetical work. Okay, when we get to Isaiah fifty, through our exegetical work of Isaiah forty through fifty five, then we may challenge that, we may come to different conclusions. I kept leaving that open because we will challenge the identity of the servant in Isaiah fifty.

58:12 We will challenge it to some level, because we have to at least consider all possibilities. I just know this, it's not Isaiah and it's definitely not you. God, bless