Reading:
Isaiah 50:4-9
This passage in Isa. 50
needs to be read closely in connection with chapter 49,
and indeed recognised as to its setting in the whole of
the section of the prophecies. The position is that of
Israel's rebelliously going backward in spite of all the
Lord's speaking to them through His prophets. They
refused to open their ear to the Lord. The result? - they
were, as this chapter puts it at the beginning, divorced
by the Lord. They were cut off and committed to captivity;
and then in these chapters up to 53, the Servant of the
Lord in His redemptive work is so fully and wonderfully
brought into view, and it is concerning Him that these
words are spoken. They give to us some little suggestion
of how the people are served unto their salvation. We
have, first, sin and its consequences, and then the
Redeemer-Servant and the cost of redemption. "I
gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that
plucked off the hair, I hid not my face from shame and
spitting" - words which were literally
fulfilled in the case of the Lord Jesus. Then His
vindication is referred to in verses 7-9. "The
Lord Jehovah will help me; therefore have I not been
confounded: therefore have I set my face like a flint,
and I know that I shall not be put to shame. He is near
that justifieth me; who will contend with me..."
and so on. It is the Lord Himself speaking in the
presence of His Cross, and looking with confidence to the
issue of His sufferings, His vindication in resurrection;
and because of all that - the confidence that He had in
God, and His willingness to pay the price of their
salvation - He brings this word of hope: "The
Lord God hath given me the tongue of them that are
taught, that I may know how to sustain with words him
that is weary." That is the word of hope to a
people without hope in a very desperate situation, "to
sustain with words him that is weary" - a
ministry of hope through the Cross in the resurrection,
in the vindication, of the suffering Servant.
Then He simply
indicates that that ministry of hope, of re-assurance,
that word of life and salvation, that changing of the
darkness to light, is because of the opposite attitude on
His part to that which brought about the darkness and the
death. They turned back rebelliously and closed their ear
to the word of the Lord. He turned toward God obediently
and opened His ear; that is He listened, He took note, He
received the word of the Lord. Pre-eminently this applies
to the Lord Jesus, but in principle of course it applies
to us, and the whole thing is now brought to rest upon
this - a daily life governed by an ear opened to the
Lord. "He wakeneth morning by morning, he
wakeneth mine ear to hear as they that are taught." It
is rather remarkable that the Lord Jesus should be saying
that He is as a disciple, as a learner, as one who is
taught. It shows how completely, while being out from God
and the Creator of all things, He is in the flesh
dependent utterly upon God for everything, receiving from
the Father His daily direction and instruction. What a
picture of self-emptying! How fully His words were true -
"The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he
seeth the Father doing" (John 5:19) - a daily
dependence upon the Father for everything, and a
receiving of everything from the Father. Well, of course,
we know how true that is of ourselves, but it is very
wonderful that His ministry of hope depended upon, and
sprang out of, His waiting morning by morning to hear
what the Father had to say to Him, to teach Him, to tell
Him for His ministry.
It again brings a
tremendous emphasis upon the place of the ear. We have
seen something of how important the ear is in the life of
the child of God, and here it comes back again in this
very beautiful passage. If we are going to bring some
hope into a hopeless situation, to sustain with words him
that is weary, him that is ready to faint, we have to be
in very close touch with the Lord: we must get everything
from Him, we must have an ear opened. This does not mean
simply a readiness to hear what He says, but in this
case, as contrary to Israel, it means an eager readiness
to do what is heard. And so, with an ear opened and
responsive, a ministry of value to others arises. Before
you are through that chapter, you come to those wonderful
words which exhort those who walk in darkness and have no
light to stay themselves upon their God, and if you put
that as a part of the prophecy and make it apply to the
Lord Jesus, as undoubtedly it does, it is a very
wonderful thing - walking in darkness and having no
light, and yet day by day in touch with the Lord so that
you can help others. Well, that is simply what it amounts
to. Others are going to be helped, sustained, given hope,
by those who live daily in touch with the Lord, and I
think that it does suggest something as to the place of
the early morning quiet time, the ear opened morning by
morning. I think sometimes we use that quiet time almost
exclusively for talking to the Lord. I wonder if there is
not also part of it to be used in listening to the Lord. "...morning
by morning, he wakeneth my ear", the
result, others helped, a ministry of re-assurance and
hope.