If you have your Bible, please turn with me to Isaiah 42. Last month, we began our journey into the second, literary half of Isaiah, chapters 40-66. If you recall, I said that Isaiah 40-66, or Second Isaiah, is the New Covenant in prophecy. The three Persons of the Holy Trinity are clearly revealed in Second Isaiah. All the important themes of the New Testament are prophetically declared in these 27 chapters. Yet their ultimate fulfillment in the life of Christ was hidden from the Jewish leaders who couldn’t understand how Messiah could both suffer death and be a triumphant conqueror who would break the nations “with a rod of iron”, as it says in Psalm 2. They didn’t comprehend that Messiah would have two comings to earth: first as a little baby in Bethlehem, and at the culmination of the ages as King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

We looked at the opening chapter, forty, of this great, unified prophecy. From the beginning, Isaiah 40 speaks of comfort and cleansing our iniquity – works of the Holy Spirit. It then speaks of clearing the way of the LORD in the wilderness, where the glory of the LORD will be seen. John the Baptist based his message on the Coming of Messiah from this passage and asserted that He would baptize people with the Holy Spirit and with fire.

The Holy Spirit in Isaiah 40 is the “breath” of the LORD who withers the works of man not dedicated to God. People are transient like grass, but “the word of our God stands forever.” Indeed, the Spirit of God is infinite in understanding and power – compared to Him all the nations on earth are “a drop in the bucket” or like dust on the scales of divine justice. He brings good news to God’s afflicted and afflicts those who persecute or pillage God’s people.

Finally the Holy Spirit is the one who provides strength to the weary, to those who feel that God has ignored their plight. Isaiah 40 concludes: “Yet those who wait for the Lord will gain new strength; they will mount up with wings like eagles, they will run and not get tired, they will walk and not become weary.”

In Isaiah 42, the focus shifts back to the second Person of the Trinity, the Messiah, who is the focus of Second Isaiah’s four Servant Songs – in Isaiah 42, 49, 50 and the end of ch.52 and 53. I strongly encourage you to read and meditate upon these four Servant Songs, which grasp the majesty of Messiah’s redemptive work to bring in God’s New Covenant for all humanity.

Before we look at Isaiah 42, I want to alert you to an incorrect interpretation of these four Servant Songs that is strongly held within Judaism and by modern theologians who don’t believe these prophecies were fulfilled in the life of Jesus of Nazareth. This interpretation applies these Servant Songs metaphorically to the people of Israel as God’s chosen people, and fudges over statements that contradict this interpretation by ascribing woolly-headed mysticism to whoever this unknown “Isaiah” might be. By obscuring both the prophet and His prophetic anointing by God, the evidentiary weight of these songs is greatly diminished. But in reply, Jesus not only fulfilled the intent of these prophecies, but the movement He started, the universal Church, has carried His life and message to the ends of the earth – exactly what the four Servant Songs affirm He’d do!

Now let’s look at Isaiah 42, v.1: “Behold, My Servant, whom I uphold; My chosen one in whom My soul delights. I have put My Spirit upon Him; He will bring forth justice to the nations.” This Servant is set apart from other servants, or from Israel as God’s servant, by this initial description, which declare Messiah’s approval by God, His anointing with God’s Spirit, and His advancement of justice to the nations.

First, we see Messiah’s approval by God. To God, He is “My chosen one” – not one of many; and One in whom God’s soul delights. This description was literally fulfilled at the outset of Jesus’ ministry when He was baptized in the Jordan River. John the Baptist saw the Holy Spirit descending upon Jesus like a dove, and God spoke from heaven saying, “This is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.” So God declared His delight in Jesus even as He was anointing Him with the fulness of His Spirit, empowering Him as the greatest of Israel’s prophets under the Old Covenant.

Isaiah could not have applied this standard of delight to anyone else but Messiah. Much of Isaiah’s prophecy was a denunciation of Israel’s idolatry and apostasy. But God delighted in Christ because He was holy; and this One had loved the Father from eternity past.

Second, we see Messiah’s anointing with the Holy Spirit. God puts His Spirit upon Him. This anointing never occurred to all Israel; therefore Israel, as God’s servant can’t be the object of this verse. The anointing of God’s Chosen Servant by His Spirit is what sets Messiah apart from all others. He is “the Anointed One” for that is what Messiah means. As we noted in an earlier message, concerning Isaiah 11, Messiah is anointed with what has been called the seven spirits of God: the Spirit of the LORD, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD. While God anointed other prophets with the Spirit, to this One John said, “He gives the Spirit without measure.”

Through His Spirit-anointed ministry, Messiah advances justice; it says, “He will bring forth justice to the nations.” This mission of advancing justice would be something radically new for Israel, even though glimpses of its promise had been affirmed in Israel’s sacred history. IN Genesis, God declared five times to the three patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, that in their seed all the families or peoples of the earth would be blessed. Yet nearly a thousand years later, in Isaiah’s time, these grand prophecies had not been fulfilled. Again in the Psalms of the 10^th and 11^th centuries BC, we see glimpses of Messiah’s mission to bring justice or salvation to the Gentiles, the non-Israelite nations. Psalm 67 confidently declares,

God be gracious to us and bless us, and cause His face to shine upon us— Selah. ² That Your way may be known on the earth, Your salvation among all nations.³ Let the peoples praise You, O God; let all the peoples praise You.⁴ Let the nations be glad and sing for joy; for You will judge the peoples with uprightness and guide the nations on the earth. Selah. ⁵ Let the peoples praise You, O God; let all the peoples praise You. ⁶ The earth has yielded its produce; God, our God, blesses us. ⁷ God blesses us, that all the ends of the earth may fear Him.

The Psalmist prophetically asserts divine justice and guidance coming to the nations, bringing about salvation, joyful praise and reverence for God to the ends of the earth. Isaiah 42 picks up this theme. Again, Psalm 72, a royal Psalm connects God’s anointed king with justice and concludes with a Messianic prophecy:

Give the king Your judgments, O God, and Your righteousness to the king’s son. ² May he judge Your people with righteousness and Your afflicted with justice…. now jumping to v.11-14: And let all kings bow down before him, all nations serve him. ₁₂ For he will deliver the needy when he cries for help, the afflicted also, and him who has no helper. ¹³ He will have compassion on the poor and needy, and the lives of the needy he will save. ¹⁴ He will rescue their life from oppression and violence, and their blood will be precious in his sight…and then in v.17: May his name endure forever; may his name increase as long as the sun shines; And let men bless themselves by him; let all nations call him blessed.

What we see is the Psalmist’s connection of the Righteous King and King’s Son with dominion over the nations, justice, mercy for the poor and afflicted and rescue from oppression and violence. This was the hope for divinely-instituted justice that the 10^th century writers envisioned for David’s kingdom but was never fulfilled while it stood. Now Isaiah saw its fulfillment in a promised descendant of David who would be the heir of his kingdom, but ironically would appear as a servant, rather than as lord.

Looking again at Isaiah 42, the prophet describes not the majesty of God’s Servant but His meekness and humility. Reading on in vv.2-4, “He will not cry out or raise His voice, nor make His voice heard in the street. ³ “A bruised reed He will not break and a dimly burning wick He will not extinguish; He will faithfully bring forth justice. ⁴ “He will not be disheartened or crushed until He has established justice in the earth; and the coastlands will wait expectantly for His law.”

In these verses we see a strange juxtaposition between outward meekness and justice, which in the ancient world normally came through force. By contrast, God’s Servant would be outwardly quiet and unassuming, and gentle to the weak, whom Isaiah describes symbolically as bruised reeds with dimly burning wicks. Yet this One strangely still manages to “faithfully bring forth justice.” Where on earth did gentle and unassuming leaders ever establish the rule of law or justice? Nowhere! But this unique Servant would do so, Isaiah said.

I love the description of the Servant’s gentleness and kindness. Was there ever a time when you felt bruised and vulnerable, or when you were rejected and dejected? Then you know what it feels like to be “a bruised reed.”

I recall the morning of January 30, 2011, when a friend and volunteer called to tell me that my chapel officer, Jayme Biendl, had been murdered in the WSRU Chapel the evening before. Nobody in the prison had called me, even though I was the staff person that worked alongside her at least 4 days a week. Immediately I felt the cold anger directed against that chapel, and me who was associated with it. And just the night before I had been singing a spiritual warfare song against the devil at the very time she was being strangled to death. I could feel Satan laughing at me in my presumption; and I felt like a bruised reed.

In that spiritually and literally cold and wet winter of 2011, I struggled to keep my faith alive. I learned that the Christians at WSR had planned consecutive days of prayer and fasting for revival that were scheduled to begin on Sunday, January 30^th. That was snuffed out as the prison went on lockdown for five weeks while a comprehensive federal and DOC review of prison procedures took place. All this time the chapel, and later, about 80% of the Christian programs were shut down.

I chose to believe that somehow God was in this situation for a greater good, and not just to teach me a hard lesson about the dangers of a prison or spiritual warfare. I nurtured the hope that God would bring a corresponding glory into the prison in response to what I perceived to be a satanic counterattack against the work of God that the Christians who served and dwelt in WSR were striving to achieve. My hope in those early months was like a dimly burning wick that my Lord would “faithfully bring forth justice” against his arch-enemy for the blasphemy of that murder on the altar of worship. Jesus ensured it was never snuffed out. Now that dimly burning wick of hope has turned into a Holy Spirit furnace within me. And in the coming years I expect Jesus to release within these gates the Holy Ghost and fire like never before.

Almost every day in prison, I softly sing a song I composed over 30 years ago based on Psalm 24:7-10. It goes like this:

Lift up your heads, O gates, and lift them up O ancient doors
That the King of Glory may come in, Jesus Christ the King of Kings
Who is the King of Glory? The Lord, strong and mighty
Mighty in battle, He is the King of Glory.

Lift up your heads, O gates, and lift them up O ancient doors
That the King of Glory may come in, Jesus Christ the King of Kings
Who is the King of Glory? The Lord of Hosts, the Lord of heaven’s armies

He is the King of Glory, Jesus the King of Glory
He is the King of Glory, Jesus the King of Glory

24:7 is shorthand for my hope that Jesus Christ will lift up the gates of this prison and establish His presence as the King of Glory. It is the Holy Spirit who will bring this about, and this series on the Holy Spirit is an active expression waiting on the Lord in accordance with Psalm 27:14 declare, “Wait for the LORD, be strong and let your heart take courage. Yes, wait for the LORD!

Toward the end of 2016, I realized that seven years from 2017, in the year ’24, I would turn 70 years old. And I believed that this could be a milepost for 24:7 – that in that timeframe God would unleash a Spirit-led revival in this prison that would spill over into Monroe and beyond, just as a godly, prophetic intercessor, Marilyn Pearson told me years before.

Isaiah repeated and amplified the promise to faithfully bring forth justice in v.4, saying that the Servant would not “be disheartened or crushed until He has established justice in the earth.” How strange! The Assyrian kings of Isaiah’s time disheartened and crushed their neighbors into submission. By contrast, this meek Servant would not be disheartened or crushed by His adversaries, but still manage to bring justice throughout the earth. Isaiah must have been astounded by the paradox of His words; but he faithfully recorded what God showed him in visions, even if he couldn’t grasp how this would be accomplished. He simply concluded that “the coastlands will wait expectantly for His law.”

Somehow distant peoples would long for a message or mission of divine justice that would satisfy their deepest longings for a new law of living. What Isaiah sensed would envision would come from this Spirit-anointed Servant was fulfilled perfectly under the New Covenant. Paul’s majestic eighth chapter of Romans expresses Messiah’s new “law” this way: “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus; for the law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.”

The Servant’s new law would transcend worldly politics to establish a higher law, rescuing humanity from a much deeper dilemma – bondage to sin and death, and certain condemnation under God’s holy law. This is the new law that Isaiah sensed the coastlands were waiting, hoping, longing for – something that would set them free within and bring them into communion with God in a way they never believed they could before! The Servant promised a domination-free order for the world.

Let’s look at the rest of Isaiah’s first Servant Song. Reading from v. 5: Thus says God the Lord, Who created the heavens and stretched them out, Who spread out the earth and its offspring, Who gives breath to the people on it and spirit to those who walk in it, ⁶ “I am the Lord, I have called You in righteousness, I will also hold You by the hand and watch over You, and I will appoint You as a covenant to the people, as a light to the nations, ⁷ to open blind eyes, to bring out prisoners from the dungeon and those who dwell in darkness from the prison.” This Servant brings justice to the people of earth who have “breath” and “spirit.” Because He is “called in righteousness” – unstained by sin – He is a covenant and light to the people of earth; and He opens blind eyes and brings people out of bondage to darkness.

This prophecy describes Jesus’ ministry of salvation brilliantly. Jesus opened blind eyes, literally and spiritually, and delivered hundreds of people for demonic bondage. He then brought all of us out of the dungeon of sin and certain condemnation to hell after death through His own death and resurrection. He literally became the Covenant for humanity by being both our guilt offering on the cross, and the High Priest who offered up His blood in heaven to seal His covenant before He rose from the dead. Astounding!

Verses 8 and 9 add a coda to this Servant Song introducing Messiah’s redemptive work of justice. ⁸ “I am the Lord, that is My name; I will not give My glory to another, Nor My praise to graven images. ⁹ “Behold, the former things have come to pass, now I declare new things; before they spring forth I proclaim them to you.” Indeed, this Spirit-anointed Servant’s astounding work was something new to Israel and to the world.

Now let’s move forward a couple chapters to Isaiah 44 to see another work of the Spirit in the New Covenant age. Reading vv.1-5, “But now listen, O Jacob, My servant, and Israel, whom I have chosen: ² Thus says the Lord who made you and formed you from the womb, who will help you, ‘Do not fear, O Jacob My servant; and you Jeshurun whom I have chosen. ³ ‘For I will pour out water on the thirsty land and streams on the dry ground; I will pour out My Spirit on your offspring and My blessing on your descendants; ⁴ And they will spring up among the grass like poplars by streams of water.’ ⁵ “This one will say, ‘I am the Lord’s’; and that one will call on the name of Jacob; and another will write on his hand, ‘Belonging to the Lord,’ and will name Israel’s name with honor.”

In v.1 Jacob is referred to as God’s servant and His chosen people. You can understand, therefore, why the Servant in ch.42 was confused with Israel. But Messiah does represent all Israel, since He was the One who came to Abraham and Sarah to announce the birth of Isaac, and the One who wrestled all night with Jacob before changing his name to Israel. They are His people, and He is their eternal King. Messiah embodies all Israel within Himself – both the physical descendants of Jacob and his spiritual descendants through faith in Jesus.

God refers to Jacob as ““Yeshurun whom I have chosen.” Yeshurun is an honorific name for Israel meaning “straight” or “upright one.” It is only found elsewhere in Moses’ final song of blessing over the tribes of Israel. At the conclusion of Moses’ farewell song, Deut. 33:26-27, it says: ““There is none like the God of Jeshurun, Who rides the heavens to your help, and through the skies in His majesty. ²⁷ “The eternal God is a dwelling place, and underneath are the everlasting arms.” This same God promises through Isaiah to “pour out water on the thirsty land and streams on the dry ground; I will pour out My Spirit on your offspring and My blessing on your descendants.”

In conjunction with the Spirit-anointed Servant who brings justice to the nations, the Spirit promises to bring water to a parched land and His presence to Israel’s descendants. Clearly, water is a metaphor for spiritual refreshing, but Isaiah would have seen it both ways. Nothing was more precious to Israel than water that nurtured food crops and grass. As an agricultural people, Israel depended on rain. They had suffered periodic droughts: such as those described by the prophets Joel and Haggai. But none was worse than during the reign of wicked king Ahab, when God shut up the heavens in response to evil Queen Jezebel’s murderous campaign to annihilate the prophets and true religion of Yahweh. Drought and famine were understood as judgments of God against the idolatry that periodically ran rampant in the land.

Now, Isaiah prophesied a reversal of this phenomenon when the Spirit brought both spiritual and physical watering and renewal to the land. He recalled God’s great promise to Solomon in 2 Chronicles 7:13-14, “If I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or if I command the locust to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among My people, and My people, who are called by My name, humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”

When someone asked President Ronald Reagan what he believed America needed most, he quoted 2 Chronicles 7:14. Yes, God promises to pour out His Spirit on the spiritually dry and thirsty land; but God’s people must first humble themselves and pray, seek God’s face and turn from attitudes and actions that are wicked in God’s sight. Then we can confidently believe God is hearing our prayer, forgiving the sin that permeates our community and heal our land through a heaven-sent revival. This process of humbling returning to the Lord in prayer and repentance is always present in God’s chosen people – those called by His name – before a Holy Spirit outpouring occurs.

Vv.3-4 affirm the blessings of a Spirit outpouring on the believers’ posterity: “I will pour out My Spirit on your offspring and My blessing on your descendants; ⁴ And they will spring up among the grass Like poplars by streams of water.’ Nothing means more to a godly parent than to see your children receiving the Holy Spirit through faith in Jesus Christ. Isaiah 54:13 also says, “All your children shall be taught of the LORD and great shall be the peace of your children.” This the promise I claim for my posterity, don’t you?

Continuing the metaphor of Spirit watering, vv.4-5 say, “And they will spring up among the grass like poplars by streams of water.’ ⁵ This one will say, ‘I am the Lord’s; and that one will call on the name of Jacob; and another will write on his hand, ‘Belonging to the Lord,’ and will name Israel’s name with honor.”

When I was on active duty in Kuwait between 2006 and 2007, the base was covered with white sand, and there wasn’t a plant in sight. It was hot and sunny every day, but slowly started cooling down in autumn. In December 2006, we finally got some rain, and suddenly grass and wild flowers sprung up everywhere from the desert sands. When a Spirit-led revival occurs in the land, young people flock to God’s side. Their faith springs up like grass in the desert as the Spirit is poured upon their thirsty souls.

Today’s millennials are living in a spiritual desert. It is a time like that prophesied by Amos (8:11) to Israel of relative abundance, but also of glaring injustice. “Behold, days are coming,” declares the Lord God, “when I will send a famine on the land, not a famine for bread or a thirst for water, but rather for hearing the words of the Lord.” I believe today’s youth are seeking for a cause that will inspire them to believe in something greater than material ambition, but are only seeing competition to get a secure professional job. Their souls are parched and famished for divine inspiration, but they need a sure reason to believe that Christ’s gospel really is the power of God for salvation. They need a Holy Spirit empowered proclamation of God’s word with signs and wonders following. One miracle can do more to convince skeptical young people than a hundred sermons.

While you are here at MCC, you have the opportunity to press in with your fellow Christian inmates to believe for a greater manifestation of God’s Spirit. When you affirm in your words and deeds before others ‘I am the Lord’s’ and holding Jesus’ name with honor you are sowing seeds of revival to those around you. It doesn’t matter whether you bold or quiet, what inmates around you want to see is sincerity and integrity. These speak louder than mere words; they back up your words.

Finally, I want to look at Isaiah 48:12-16. Listen to Me, O Jacob, even Israel whom I called; I am He, I am the first, I am also the last. ¹³ Surely My hand founded the earth, and My right hand spread out the heavens; when I call to them, they stand together. ¹⁴ Assemble, all of you, and listen! Who among them has declared these things? The Lord loves him; he will carry out His good pleasure on Babylon, and His arm will be against the Chaldeans. ¹⁵ I, even I, have spoken; indeed I have called him, I have brought him, and He will make his ways successful. ¹⁶ Come near to Me, listen to this: From the first I have not spoken in secret, from the time it took place, I was there. And now the Lord God has sent Me, and His Spirit.”

This is a prophecy against Babylon, the empire that was destined to conquer Jerusalem and take Judah’s people captive for seventy years. But it may also be a prophecy against Babylon the Great revealed in Revelation 17 as “the mother of harlots and of the abominations of the earth.” Babylon in prophecy, then, is any system that takes people captive and seduces them away from faith in the living God. This could also be a prophecy of an end-times “Babylon” or antichrist political system that holds sway right before the return of Christ. Why do I see these future applications of this prophecy?

The answer is in verse 16. The subject of this verse is not Isaiah the prophet, but Messiah the King. He says to us, “Come near to Me, listen to this.” He was there in the beginning and is also in the future, referring to Babylon’s conquest and judgment – centuries in the future – as past tense: “From the time it took place, I was there.” Then Messiah says, “And now the Lord God has sent Me, and His Spirit.” Notice there are three Persons in that last phrase, the Lord God, Yahweh, who is God the Father; Me, referring to Messiah, and His Spirit – the Holy Spirit.

Jesus taught what v.16 affirms – that the Holy Spirit is the Promise of the Father and proceeds from the Father. [Here’s a nice numerical coincidence: Isaiah 48:16 clearly points to the Holy Trinity, the God who is Three-in-One; and 48 is three times 16.] That all three Persons of the Godhead are referred to in this passage suggests that Messiah has already appeared and manifested His authority in the earth. Jesus did this right before His ascension into heaven when He told His disciples, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. ¹⁹ Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, ²⁰ teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

So the same prophecy that declared that the Lord’s arm would be against the Chaldeans because of His love for Israel was prophetically a type of a far greater fulfillment of overthrowing Satan’s dominion in the earth through the spread of the gospel, culminating in the Return of Christ to rule the earth.

We see in these three passages of Isaiah 42, 44 and 48 the Spirit’s role in three great works of God – Anointing God’s chosen Servant, the Messiah, pouring out on the thirsty ground of human souls and bringing refreshing, and bringing judgment against Babylon, a biblical type for every idolatrous political, social and religious system that opposes or represses the gospel. All of these works are the fruit of Christ’s unbreakable New Covenant with the living God. It is unbreakable because He is the Author, the atoning sacrifice, and the mediating High Priest of His covenant. The Holy Spirit is the divine Agent who enacts the covenant in the earth, drawing people to Christ, sealing them by His indwelling presence and empowering them for service.

Is this the Spirit you want empowering your life? He wants to fill you today and turn you into a little “anointed one” who is empowered to be Christ’s witness in the earth. Let us pray.