The sermon by Scott Brown, titled 'New Things Spring Forth From a Faithful Servant,' is based on Isaiah 42:10-25. It explores the themes of the faithful servant, the Lord Jesus Christ, and how new things emerge from His work. The sermon contrasts those who are spiritually aware and cry out for restoration with those who are blind and disobedient, highlighting the societal embrace of evil and the obliviousness to the danger it presents. It discusses the role of God's people in calling for restoration and the impact of God's law on society. The sermon emphasizes the transformative power of the gospel and the ongoing work of Christ as a 'man of war' removing obstacles and opening the eyes of the spiritually blind. It also addresses the consequences of rejecting God's law, leading to plundering and destruction, while the faithful are blessed and sing praises from the ends of the earth.

Tate's sermon text is Isaiah 42 verses 10 through 25. Sing to the Lord a new song and his praise from the ends of the earth. You who go down to the sea and all that is in it. You, coastlands, and you, inhabitants of them. Let the wilderness and its cities lift up their voice.

The villages that Kedar inhabits. Let the inhabitants of Selah sing. Let them shout from the top of the mountains. Let them give glory to the Lord and declare his praise in the coastlands. The Lord shall go forth like a mighty man.

He shall stir up his zeal like a man of war. He shall cry out, yes, shout aloud. He shall prevail against his enemies. I have held my peace a long time. I have been still and restrained myself.

Now I will cry like a woman in labor. I will pant and gasp at once. I will lay waste the mountains and hills and dry up all their vegetation. I will make the rivers coastlands and I will dry up the pools. I will bring the blind by a way they did not know.

I will lead them in paths they have not known. I will make darkness light before them and crooked places straight. These things I will do for them and not forsake them. They shall be turned back. They shall be greatly ashamed who trust in carved images, who say to the molded images, You are our gods.

Hear you deaf and look you blind that you may see who is blind but my servant or deaf as my messenger whom I send who is blind as he who is perfect and blind as the Lord's servant seeing many things but you do not observe opening the ears but he does not hear. The Lord is well pleased for his righteousness sake. He will exalt the law and make it honorable. But this is a people robbed and plundered. All of them are snared in holes and they are hidden in prison houses they are for prey and no one delivers for plunder and no one says restore who among you will give ear to this who will listen and hear for the time to come who gave Jacob for plunder and Israel to the robbers.

Was it not the Lord, he against whom we have sinned? For they would not walk in his ways, nor were they obedient to his law. Therefore he has poured on him the fury of his anger and the strength of battle. It has set him on fire all around yet he did not know and it burned him yet he did not take it to heart." Let's pray. Oh Father God we thank you for this passage of scripture that you've given us to consider today.

Lord, I pray for Mr Brown as he comes to preach Lord that he would speak your words father and that you would fill your put this place with your presence Lord, that we would be a people who hear and who see. Father, that you would grant us those things that we would see your Son exalted today. Amen. As we continue here in Isaiah chapter 42, we have the privilege again to look at the things that the servant of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, His Son who always loves to do the will of His Father who always says the things that His Father wants Him to say. We continue in this contemplation of the things that spring forth from a faithful servant, the Lord Jesus Christ.

And at the same time, you know, we live in a time where people seem to be so oblivious to the things that God says, but particularly so oblivious to their vulnerability, the way our society has embraced at such a rapid rate, evil, particularly in the last 40 years, the astonishing movements of our day that have caused an entire industry that has murdered millions and millions of people, the abortion industry, the great movements towards same-sex marriage, the things happening in entertainment, the things that have happened in the welfare state that has become our nation. All these things make people vulnerable to the wrath of God and yet the people seem to be clueless to the danger that they're in and They seem to be rushing like lemmings over the cliff. And at the same time, there are those who do see. They are aware of what is happening. They are aware of the servant of God.

They are aware of the Son of God and the things that he is saying. They are aware of the judgment of God and they're crying out. They're crying out restore, they're crying out, oh Lord turn us back and that's really the scene that you have here in this passage of scripture. You have both of these these streams moving at the same time, you have an insensible people being brutalized by the devil on the one hand. And then you have the people of God who are saying, no, restore.

And they are actually being restored. They're turning from their idols. And so, you know, during this time in history, we can know something for certain, and that is that the Lord Jesus Christ is working. He's always working. He's always ordering things after the counsel of his own will.

And as we continue in chapter 42, we remember that we're in the first of four prophetic servant songs in Isaiah. This is the very first of the servant songs and they're descriptions of the Messiah. They tell you about the Lord Jesus Christ. They explain to you who He is. If you haven't turned to Him, then here you'll find an explanation of what might happen to you if you do turn to him.

What is he like? What does he do? And it's all here in these servant songs. There are descriptions of the Messiah and his effect on people. Now Our focus this morning is verses 10 to the end of the chapter, but I would like you to look at verse 9 because verse 9 really helps us to understand what the rest of this chapter is all about.

Verse 9 says, behold, the former things have come to pass, and new things I declare, before they spring forth I tell you of them." Here Isaiah the prophet is making it clear that there are things that are going to come as a result of the work of the Messiah. These are the things. From verses 10 to the end of the chapter we find a disclosure of these new things that God is going to do. And this is a prophetic statement that declares what the Lord Jesus Christ will be doing in the world. And there are two things, just to give you a thumbnail sketch of it.

First, there is Christ, the faithful and obedient servant, and his servants who hear his voice and they're turned around. That's the first thing that you'll see during this time. The second is there's Judah, The deaf servant, the blind servant, hardened and will not turn. Those are the two things that you see in this passage of scripture. God is holding the hand of one servant and he gives the other up to the plunderers and he causes calamity.

And I think one of the things that we should be pondering as we go through this passage of scripture is that There are people in this period that are being prophesied of who do not say restore. And no one is calling for restoration. And This should help us to understand something about our role in the world today. That while there are few who would rise up and cry out restore, this is the job of the true church of Jesus Christ. To cry out to restore.

Who's crying out to God for a need for reformation, who will argue for the ways of God, for the church, for the home, for the state, who will cry out restore, who will Call us back to come under the beautiful counsels of God and find ourselves being healed. But the problem is, as it's prophesied here, vast numbers of people, they do not see the problem. They're clueless. They do not see what has happened. They're insensible.

They're running around looking for another religious experience and that's what's happening in Judah. But in contrast, you see the gift of the Son of God and what happens to those who turn away from their idols. And you see the pain as well. This passage makes so clear why there's so much pain in the world and what God will finally do about it. You see the people who are plundered and who are burned.

You see the pain that happens. And Isaiah tells you exactly why there's so much pain in this world. We'll get to that in just a few minutes here. But these verses bring us the new things that spring forth from the presence of a faithful servant in the world. And the first thing that you see, I've identified that there are four, The first thing that you see is that there is a remnant singing from the ends of the earth That's verses 10 through 12 and then at the same time number two you see the Lord is working he's working like a man of war in verses 13 through 15 and Then thirdly you see the blind They're turning in verses 16 through 17.

And then lastly, fourth, the disobedient are plundered and they're burning, Verses 18 through 25. And so that's the basic structure of this passage of Scripture. So let's look at the first thing that will spring forth as a result of the beautiful work of the Son of God. The servants are singing. That's verses 10 and 12.

There are those who would rise up from the ends of the earth and they would be glorifying God. We've just seen in the previous section where God is glorifying His Son. He's telling how wonderful His Son is. Now you have His servants, they're doing the very same thing. They are also praising the Son of God.

They're singing to him. These are the new songs of the bruised reeds. That's who's singing. It's the people who've been bruised. It's the people whose wicks were just flickering and they were not put out because of the mercy of God.

It's these bruised reeds who are singing. And it's a new song. Now if you read the commentaries of the exclusive psalminists, they will say These are not brand new songs, these are songs of the Psalms. As one commentator said, this is not just the song of any Tom, Dick and Harry at any time in history. But then there are those who say, no, these are the beautiful songs that come out of the church from one generation to the next.

That's what I think it is. But this idea of a new song appears many times in Scripture. We were told by our teacher on Tuesday morning that there are nine references to the singing of a new song in the Bible. And they're beautiful. Psalm 33, Psalm 149, Psalm 40, Psalm 96, Psalm 144, Psalm 98.

All of these new songs that are referred to in Scripture have a great theme. It's the mercy of God toward sinners, His mighty power to rescue people who've been trapped in their sins and they they just can't see how they can get out they just can't see at all and yet God comes and he rescues and that's the the focus of these songs these new songs that are referred to in these Psalms that I just referenced, they sing of the infinite mercy, the mighty deliverance and the absolute unstoppable judgment of God and how at the same time God reaches down into the raging waters and he lifts out those whom he would choose. And so you have these people who are singing and where are they singing? Well they're singing all over the place. They're singing from the ends of the earth.

In other words, you have this picture of people, they're singing all over the world. What the Son of God has done is he's launched a whole movement of singing. And people go throughout the world, and that's what they do. Christians sing. That's what they do when they get together.

And that's why wherever you go in the world, you'll find Christians, they're singing. And Notice how Isaiah frames this. The singing begins on the far outskirts. It begins from the ends of the earth, from the furthest and then to the closest, you know, into the coastlands, and then into the places that are closer to Isaiah the author from Kadar and the places that are closer. And so it's the picture from the very outskirts of the world all the way down to Judah itself.

This is the whole matter of missions. People from the ends of the earth are praising God. They've been sent to the ends of the earth to praise God. Where every tongue and tribe and nation sing. And what do they sing?

They sing of the mercies of God. They sing of how good this servant, this Savior is. And it's interesting too that when you find here Isaiah speaks it from the outermost parts of the earth down to the innermost, in the New Testament you find a different sequence. It's from Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, to the outermost parts of the earth. Well, it's the same thing, only in reverse.

This speaks of the great missionary heart of God to send people to the ends of the earth and what will they do? They will be singing, they'll be spreading the praises of God throughout the whole earth And it may include going down to the ships from Judah to take the gospel out to the coastlands, to the Gentile nations. In verses 11 and 12 you see more definition of it. Let the wilderness and its cities lift up their voice. The villages that Kedar inhabits, the inhabitants of Sila sing.

Let them shout from the top of the mountains. Let them give glory to the Lord and declare his praise in the coastlands. You know, you can't miss the graphic nature of this language. He speaks of the wilderness. This is figurative language.

He's talking about spiritual wastelands. He's talking about people going into the most profane, ungodly, uncouth, the most violent, the most barbarous people. And they go in and they sing, and they sing of how good the Lord Jesus Christ is. They go to the poorest, the most foolish places, the richest cities of the world, the most highly populous places in the world, and the most desolate. You know, Christians have always had an impulse to go to these places.

And it's because of this. This is what the Son of God does in the hearts of those who love Him. They're not content just to keep the message right next to them. They want to spread it throughout the whole earth. Here he calls out, Kedar.

These are Ishmael's sons, as you see in Genesis 25, verses 13 and 14. Through Christ, Kedar, there will be the praises of God in the great thrones of Islam, around the mosques in the places of the great Islamic cities. There will be the praises of God. He mentions Sila, this is Edom, possibly the city of Petra, rejected by some but saved by God. God steps into the disobedience and the failures of Edom and enters into these narratives and he injects the power of the gospel.

And he saves even from the poorest to the richest, to the most profane, to the most erudite and sophisticated. He sends out his singers throughout the whole earth. That's who we are. We're the singers and we send the singers out to the ends of the earth. You know, we've, in our church over the last few years, we've tried to send people to different continents.

We've sent people to the continent of Africa to be involved in evangelizing and strengthening the churches there. It's such a blessing to have a church in a place. This is what happens in churches. Strengthening churches is so critical. We've been to the continent of South America in order to do the very same thing, to sing the praises of God, to say how good is His Word, to speak of how marvelous are His ways, and really to cry out, restore, restore.

We've been sending people into the world to say restore and we pray that God will just continue to do that for us in Three weeks we'll be sending three men to Nigeria. And they'll be doing one thing. They'll be doing this very thing. They'll be singing and they'll be saying restore, restore. They'll be bringing a true gospel.

And they'll be bringing the doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture and they'll be saying conform yourself to Scripture. Put yourself under the authority of God. God alone, He's your only hope. That's what they'll be saying there when they go to Joss, Nigeria. And they're going to a place, a spiritual wasteland.

They're going to a place where the prosperity false gospel has been proclaimed and has gripped the hearts of the people and it's really destroying them. They're just like the people that are mentioned in this passage of scripture later on. They're being plundered, they're being burned. They have only one hope and that is that someone would come and sing, and they would speak of how good this Savior is. You know, I view very much of the work that we're about together, and I am around this nation through the NCFIC.

Our whole work is really to cry out restore. Restore to what? Restore a church to scripture and Scripture alone. Restore a family to Scripture alone. These two pivotal institutions, it's so needed today that there be voices crying out saying, restore, restore, return to the biblical pattern, Put yourself under the authority of God.

It's your only safety. Rest in the shadow of his wings. Listen to him, not this raging culture that's perverting and harming and debilitating the whole population. You know, our work as a church is to cry out, restore. I'm so grateful for the help of this church in this work, even in America, to cry out and restore.

And that's what's happening here. You have this remnant people, they're singing to the ends of the earth. This is why Isaiah says in chapter 60, arise shine for your light has come for the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. For behold the darkness shall cover the earth the deep darkness the people But the Lord will arise over you and his glory will be seen among you The Gentiles shall come to your light and kings to the brightness of your rising Hey pray for these men as they go to Nigeria in three weeks. Pray that the glory of the Lord would be upon them and the Gentiles would come to their light.

That they would see the light, you know, like bugs do in the middle of the summertime, they just gravitate toward the light. That that would happen when we go out into the world. This is, I believe, fulfilled in Romans 15, verses 9 through 11, where we read, now I say that Jesus Christ has become a servant to the circumcision for the truth of God to confirm the promises made to the fathers and that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy. For it is written, I will confess you among the Gentiles and sing to your name. And again he says, rejoice, oh Gentiles, with his people.

And again, praise the Lord, all you Gentiles, laud him, all you peoples. This has to do with the singers who love the Sun the servant of God and they sing throughout the whole earth and And their light shines and people come to their light. You know, I was reading this week Paul Washer's Heart Cry magazine. And in his, in his lead article in the magazine, he told a story about C.T. Studd.

And C.T. Studd was an English missionary in China and other places. But at one point before he went to the mission field, an atheist was mocking him. And it was this mocking that led him to the mission field among other things and he went to China and India and Africa but here are the this atheists words that helped put CT Stud on the mission field. If Christ was God and died for me, there is nothing that would be too much to do for him.

Remember, these are the words of an atheist. If I believed with conviction what millions say they believed, that the knowledge and the practice of religion was everything to me. I would throw from me, like a weight, every worldly pleasure. I would esteem every worldly consideration as insanity, and every worldly thought as vanity. My faith would be my first thought in the morning and my last image before I fall asleep.

Remember this is an atheist speaking saying if this is really true This is what I would do. I would work only for the cause, think only in eternity, and esteem every soul, one for heaven, as the greatest value, even if it meant a life of suffering. No earthly consequence would detain me or quiet my lips. The joys of the world or its sorrows would not even occupy a single moment of my thoughts. I would focus only on eternity and the immortal souls that are around me and destined for eternal misery.

I would go to the world and preach in season and out of season, and my text would be, what does it benefit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul? And this is why you find a remnant singing from the ends of the earth. It is because they know the Son of God and they love the work of his hands and they take it to the ends of the earth and they will not rest and they will spend everything in order to say restore restore restore and then they'll sing it for all eternity that's what we learn in Revelation chapter 5 and they sang a new song saying, you are worthy, you are worthy for you are slain, you have redeemed us to God by your blood out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation. So this song that begins in the heart of the converted sinner is sung all throughout his life in the world and then finally he sings it before the throne of God for all eternity. Christians are singers for all eternity And what do they sing?

They sing about the delightfulness of his son. That's one new thing that springs forth from a faithful servant. The remnant sings to the ends of the earth well here's a second thing the Lord works like a man of war verses 13 through 15 this these these verses speak of the Lord as the man of war and it speaks about how passionately how forcefully God describes Himself toward His work for His people. In verse 13 we read, The Lord shall go forth like a mighty man, He shall stir up His zeal like a man of war. He shall cry out, yes, shout aloud.

He shall prevail against his enemies. One thing you can guarantee that will be taking place on the earth during this time after the Son of God has come, is that God will be stirring up trouble in the world. He brings the Word, His own Word, to those who hate His law. He's pulling down strongholds. He's like a man of war.

He's a warrior. And there are five ways that he goes about his business. Now, you'll just look carefully at them. They're in verse 13. First of all, he goes forth like a mighty man.

He has a confidence. Second, he has zeal like a man of war. Third, he shall cry out. Fourth, he shall shout aloud. Fifth, he shall prevail against his enemies.

Here you find God coming into the world. He's bringing up evil as a result of his law. People do not want his government. They do not want the government resting upon his shoulders, but his government will. All the governments of the world will rest upon his shoulders and he's laboring God is a God who works.

God is always working. The Lord Jesus Christ said, I'm working and my father is also always working. And this is the heart of a Christian in his time in this world, to be working, to be laboring for the kingdom of heaven. This is why Paul said in Galatians 4, 19, he spoke about his passionate labor for his people. He says, my little children, for whom I labor in birth again until Christ is formed in you.

He speaks of his laboring like the labor that takes place in birth, the birth pangs, the trouble and the sorrow that finally comes when a baby is getting ready to be born. This is the kind of laboring that God does, and He's fighting to rescue the perishing. This is the way that we ought to be toward the perishing. And then in verse 14, we see that his restraint has ended. He says, I have held my peace for a long time.

I have been still and restrained myself. Now I will cry like a woman in labor. I will pant and gasp at once." And so he's speaking of the battle he's engaging in. And you see his restraint in the past. He says, I've held my peace for a long time.

I've been still and restrained myself. You know, God orders his work in the world by his own passion. And what he's saying here is that there's a rising passion that he has. And I believe he's speaking of the time of the new covenant, but he's most likely talking about perhaps any time that he decides to make a big change in the world. But there are times when God restrains his voice.

And then there's a call to repent. There's a time of awakening. And God is in control of these times and these seasons and you know he has restrained himself But in this time, the time of his servant, he will be like a man of war, and his voice will change, and he'll cry out to the ends of the earth in the same way that his servants are crying out. You know, we wonder why God delays. Why does God delay?

He does it for his own glory. You know, we can think of this in terms of what seems to us his delay in rescuing people, maybe rescuing yourself. Maybe you've been crying out to God. You're saying why has not God opened my heart? Why has he delayed or you might have a friend and you don't know why God has delayed?

Why would why would God hold back and yet? We urgently pray for these things, but God God is patient and he works out his plan. You know the people of God are going to spend 70 years in captivity after that they're going to be 400 years between Malachi and the last prophet of the Old Testament and John the Baptist, the first prophet of the New Testament. But here you find there are two images. He's a man of war and a woman in labor.

You can't find you can't find two more contrasting things. God says He's like this. He's like a man of war, but He's also like a woman, a woman in labor specifically. And He will cry like a woman in labor. He will gasp and pant.

And it's a picture of birth. And it's a picture that comes from a reality that every woman who's had a baby here understands. But he's speaking figuratively of a new birth, how a mother endures the pains in order to fulfill the love that she has for her child. There's an outcry, there's a climactic moment, and there's waiting, and then God acts, and He moves, and there's a new birth. But it comes after tremendous struggle and panting and crying out and Then God speaks for himself in verse 15 And he speaks of how he will do this.

He says, I will lay waste the mountains and hills and dry up all vegetation. I will make the rivers coastlands. I will dry up the pools. Is this literal or figurative language? I'll answer that question.

It's figurative prophetic language. He's not talking about literal mountains and literal hills and literal vegetation and rivers and coastlands. This is imagery. This is the imagery of obstacles. In other words, God will clear away all obstacles.

The mountains are obstacles, the hills are obstacles, the vegetation, the growth around you know causes it to be difficult to make your way you know through a heavily vegetated area. The rivers and the coastlines these are barriers, pools are barriers to making your way. But God is going to to remove all the obstacles. There's nothing that can stand in the way of the work of God. That's what will happen during this period.

God is prophesying that this will happen, that God will remove the obstacles miraculously. The political leaders will not have any power. He raises up and he throws down kings and governors. John Gill says that he's probably referring to every obstacle to their conversion. Every obstacle being dried up like the waters.

All the hills being brought low. Everything being made right in order to save the sinner But not only not only are the remnants singing and not only is the Lord working like a man of war But thirdly the blind are turning Verses 16 and 17. This is such a beautiful section here, these two verses. He opens the eyes of the blind. Verse 16 says, I will bring the blind by a way they did not know.

I will lead them in paths they have not known. The blind can be very comfortable in the place they know, but they are not comfortable in the place they do not know. And God is going to take them by the hand to a place they do not know, a place they've never been before. He says, I will make darkness light before them and crooked places straight. These things I will do for them and not forsake them.

And so in the previous verses, you know, God has explained how nothing can stand in the way of his work. And now he goes further and he says, you know, not only will God remove the external obstacles, He will also help the blind. Nothing can prevent God's rescue. He will open their eyes. The blind are an impossible situation.

But God will do something that they could not do for themselves, and He takes them somewhere. It says He leads them, He brings them, He causes the light to shine, and he makes the crooked places straight. He will not forsake them. You know in earlier in this chapter in verse 7 in 42 7 we already saw how the Lord Jesus Christ will deliver the blind to open blind eyes to bring out prisoners from the prison those who sit in darkness from the prison house now I I believe this is fulfilled at various times in various ways since Isaiah delivered this prophecy. You know, when does this happen?

I think it describes specific moments in history, but at the same time, It describes the work of God generally, and it explains what happens when God moves upon someone's life. And yes, there are historical markers that this can clearly be related to. Like I want to suggest that it's fulfilled in the return of the exiles from Babylon. It is also fulfilled in the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ and how he healed so many blind. He did that in order to graphically demonstrate that he has power over blindness.

Spiritual blindness is worse than physical blindness. And if he can heal physical blindness, which is such an astonishment to us, he can also heal your spiritual blindness. I think it's also fulfilled in the carrying out of the Great Commission that takes place in the spreading of the gospel to the Gentiles throughout the whole earth, this whole matter of singing throughout the whole earth. And so he opens these eyes of the blind and he takes the blind somewhere. He takes them to his kingdom.

And then in verse 17, he turns back the blind who are also idolaters. They shall be turned back. They shall be greatly ashamed who trust in carved images, who say to the molded images, you are our gods." This is a miraculous transformation in a person's life where he was serving other gods. He actually was serving carved and molded images. And something happened, something changed in his heart and he began to be ashamed of his idols.

This is the work of God. He turns back the idolaters and I this flows from the previous verse the blind eyes are opened and what happens you see your idols and you turn you're ashamed of your idols and you see how foolish you are. You know, we have already run across a number of occasions where Isaiah says, you'll be ashamed of your idols, you'll hate them, you'll despise them, you want to throw them to the ground. You'll see how ridiculous you were to have any affection for these things. And here, this is a picture of a person.

Their eyes are open. They come to their senses, and they see their idolatry. There's nothing more helpful to the human soul than to see the idolatry that's there so that you can turn away from it. So you see these new things that are springing forth from this faithful servant. There's a remnant singing throughout the earth, The Lord is working like a man of war, and the blind are turning." And now we come to the final section of this passage, the disobedient are plundered, verses 18 through 25.

And now that after the prophet has comforted the people of God regarding his love toward them by opening up their eyes, by showing them their idols, and by giving them a superior servant, he now turns to a different kind of servant, an obstinate, hardened servant. And There are five parts to the appeal to the hardened. The first begins in verse 18. Hear you deaf and look you blind that you may see. This is a summons to the deaf and the blind to see that they would that they would see the light that they would hear the joyful sound and then there are two questions that are asked of them in verse 19, who is blind but my servant, or death as my messenger whom I send?

Who is blind as he who is perfect, and blind as the Lord's servant? Now in verse 19, we come to a really critical interpretive verse because up to now we've only been talking about the servant of God, the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the servant in whom the Lord delights in, and he rescues the blind. He has such a beneficial work in the world. But now we come to a different kind of servant.

And This is the servant, God's people of Judah. In the Bible you'll find many people called servant, and there are always different kinds of servants. There are faithful servants and there are unfaithful servants. And here he uses blindness in a completely different way. It was used about people's eyes who were blinded but they're opened, but now he uses this word blindness for those that are helpless and morally insensitive.

And they're completely hardened. Their eyes are shut. Instead of being healed of their blindness, they only sink deeper into their darkness. They continue in the spiral of their ignorance and in their rejection of God. This is the reality that is being prophesied of by the Lord Jesus Christ here in Isaiah.

That the things to come will include those who sing, those whose eyes are healed and their ears are open and then at the same time There will be those who will be hardened. Those are the two kinds of people on the earth And this is being prophesied here in this passages of Scripture The Lord Jesus Christ told us that there are only two ways The Lord Jesus Christ told us that there are only two ways. The Lord Jesus Christ told us there are only two paths. That there are only two kinds of people. And now, this is prophesied in this passage of scripture.

And this is a fulfillment really of Isaiah 6 and 9 where the God has already revealed to Isaiah that he will go and tell this people keep on hearing but do not understand keep on seeing but do not perceive make the heart of this people dull and their ears heavy and shut their eyes let less they see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and return and be healed This is a prophecy of the hardened who will not turn in the world. Matthew chapter 13 also speaks of this as a fulfillment of it. The Lord Jesus said, therefore I speak to them in parables because seeing they do not see and hearing they do not hear nor do they understand And in them the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled, saying, Hearing you will hear, and shall not understand, and seeing you will see, and not perceive. For the hearts of this people have grown dull, their ears hard of hearing, their eyes have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears." And he's quoting Isaiah chapter six. And Israel has become very much like the Gentile world.

Their hearts are hardened. If you go to Romans chapter 2 verses 17 through 21, you'll see how this is exactly fulfilled in the Jews that the apostle Paul was speaking of. They were hardened, and yet they pretended they were a guide to the blind and light to those in darkness, an instructor of the foolish. But actually, they were blind and hardened themselves. In fact, in verse 19 here in chapter 42, they think they're perfect.

They say, who is blind as he who is perfect and blind as the Lord's servant? They think they're perfect. They think they have everything right, But they're like the rich young ruler. They feel like they've kept the whole law, but their hearts were far from him. That's the hardness that he's speaking of here.

Matthew chapter 11 speaks of this, particularly verses 13 on down to verse 25. But this is a picture of a people who are hardened, hardened to the core. And it says what they experience in verse 21, The Lord is well pleased for his righteousness sake he will exalt the law and make it honorable So in the midst of these hardened people God is going to do something. He's going to exalt the law This is one reason why you do not want to hate the law of God in the 21st century. God is going to exalt His law in the days of the New Covenant.

And you should also exalt His law in the days of the New Covenant, in the way that the Lord Jesus Christ does. The Apostle Paul said the law is holy, just, and good, and we should see it in the same way. But the whole mission of Israel was to exalt the law. They were the chief keepers of the law and proclaimers of the law, we learn from the Word of God that the law, obedience to it beautifies everything. Like Paul said to Timothy, the law is good if one uses it lawfully.

And so God is going to exalt the law, and he does it in various ways. One way is that he makes a people in the world who obey the law of God, and he makes a distinctive people. They live differently. They live according to a different law. They don't live according to the law of their culture that they live in.

They don't live according to the impulses of their heart. They live according to the law of God that was written in their heart that corresponds with the written law of God. They are a separate people. They are a treasure. The people of God are a treasure in the world because they keep the law of God.

It makes them very special. It makes them very important. They preserve society. And they actually keep the judgment from falling upon the world This is why Moses said in Deuteronomy 32 Set your hearts on all the words which I testify among you today Which you shall command your children and be careful to observe all the words of this law for it is not a feudal thing for you because it is your life and by this word you shall prolong your days in the land which you cross over the Jordan to possess There are many ways that God exalts his law in the world. One way is he has a law keeping people and he blesses those people.

The most blessed people in the world are the people that keep the law of God And he exalts his law in that way and by keeping his law, he makes you experience the blessings that God has designed for you. He sets you aright. He reorders your whole life. He begins from the heart up. He reorders the inclinations of your heart.

He refashions your emotions and your thoughts. He changes your actions, your relationships. That's why David said, oh how I love thy law. Because God exalts his law in those who keep it, because he always blesses those who keep it. And those who do not experience wounds and bruises and putrefying sores.

And as Moses said in Deuteronomy 28, 28, if you reject the law of God then you become deranged and There's no one who can save you and so he exalts his law And in verse 21 we learn why he exalts the law. Look at verse 21, you'll see why he's doing it. The Lord is well pleased for His righteousness' sake. God is proving His righteous judgments through His law-keeping people. He's pleased with His judgments.

He always does what is right. And he is well pleased with his righteous judgments in doing two things, in blessing his people who keep the law and hardening those who cannot. He is he's exalting His righteous judgments. He is pleased with them. He is pleased to bless His people.

And He is also pleased to rob the wicked in order to prove his righteous judgments. Ezekiel chapter 5 verses 13 and following speak of it. But he will exalt the law and make it honorable. When the law of God is rejected there are always consequences. And when you reject His word, you always get a broken person, you get a broken family, you get a broken church, and you get a broken state.

That's what happens when you reject the law of God. And that's why Isaiah speaks this very thing in verse 22. He speaks of the evidences of a people who have rejected the law of God verse 22 reads But this is a people robbed and plundered All of them are snared in holes and they are hidden in prison houses They are for prey and no one delivers, for plunder and no one says restore. This is what happens when you have a hard heart toward God. This is a picture of the unrepentant, wayward, deaf, blind people.

They were sent into captivity to Babylon and there was really no one there to help them. But There's a reason they're plundered. They have rejected the law of God, and no one says restore. The word that Isaiah uses here for restore, interestingly enough, is a very, very frequently used verb. It's the twelfth most frequently used verb in the Old Testament, and it appears a thousand and fifty times.

It appears most often in Jeremiah, second in Psalms, third in Genesis, fourth in Ezekiel and first and second Kings, and it occurs 51 times in Isaiah. And the theological dictionary of the Old Testament says that This word restore almost always causes for a physical motion of turning. To restore is to turn, to make a physical, real, tangible turn in your life to change. It's the work of the people of God to cry out restore, but how tragic it is when there are not voices who say restore. And it's most often used in the turning of the people of God in repentance by renouncing sin.

It's also used of people returning from the exile from Babylon. They're returning back to worship God in the place that they used to worship. And there are many ways that this word is used. I'll give you a couple of them just to give you a flavor of what it means to restore the whole range of this meaning here. It's translated in Joshua 24 for inclining your heart unto the Lord.

In Jeremiah 4, 4, it's used for circumcising yourselves to the Lord. In Jeremiah 4, 14, it's used for washing your heart. In Hosea 10, verse 12, it's used for breaking up your fallow ground. And it has to do with turning. It has to do with a physical motion.

And these verses should encourage us. We should be emboldened to cry out restore. We should not give up the work to restore. When you cry out restore, people hate you. Do not stop crying out restore.

The world needs a people who will cry out and suffer the consequences of saying restore. In other words, change. In other words, don't be like you've always been. In other words, don't have a family like you have now. Have a different one.

Have a different kind of church. Have a different kind of state. Have a different kind of life. Think differently. Act differently.

Dress differently. Do everything differently according to the word of God. Cry out, restore. This is such a pivotal and critical thing for the people of God. But yet, it's prophesied that there will be a season where people will not be crying out restore.

And I don't believe that that's an exclusive thing, but that there will be some who will cry out restore. And so Isaiah, He's identified why there's so much trouble, why there's so much trouble, because no one is crying out, restore. And then he turns to who. You can always look at the cultural forces around the pressures and the trends, and you can say who. You can look at the who behind the why, because the who always proceeds the why.

Why is there so much brokenness? Why? Well, he asks a historical question about who, in verse 23, who among you will give ear to this, who will listen and hear for the time to come. The who are those who reject the servant. They continue in their obstinance.

They will not hear. They will not listen. That's who. The reason for the pain is because there are those who do not turn. And then you see verses 24 and 25 further detail about this condition.

Who gave Jacob for plunder and Israel to the robbers? Was it not the Lord? He against whom we have sinned, for they would not walk in his ways, nor were they obedient to his law. That's the key. They would not walk in his ways.

They were not obedient to his law. But notice in the first part of verse 24, It speaks of how this happened. It was God who did it. God gave Jacob for plunder and Israel to the robbers. Was it not the Lord?

It was God who did that. God glorifies himself in the pain of this world. He shows his wisdom and he actually creates spectacles in the world so that you could look at them and you could see how they are harmed. You can see the destruction in their life. He does this for his own glory.

You see pain in this world. You see those who've been robbed. You've seen those have been plundered. They're there. They're there as lights to you, to show you the goodness of God.

It says that God has done it. You know, men are so proud that they can't fathom the idea of God bringing chastisements to people like this. Through nature, through political movements, and through evil people, men are so self-serving and they're so self-congratulating, they cannot conceive that God would bring all these destabilizing things into their lives to hurt them and perhaps in order if it's his will to bring them to repentance and dependence on God or to bring the onlookers who see the pain and the plundering and they look at it and it takes their breath away and they turn to the Lord. He does it for his own glory. God brings all of these external causes.

And then in verse 25 we see how God deals harshly with the hardened wicked. Verse 25, therefore he has poured on him the fury of his anger and the strength of battle. It has set him on fire all around, Yet he did not know, and it burned him. Yet he did not take it to heart. Like a flood of waters, God judges.

God will destroy. God will persecute. He will harm the wicked. He does this for His own glory. Why is there so much pain in the world?

One reason is that God is glorifying Himself to show his people the distinction between those who see and those who can't see, those who are being fed and those who are being plundered, so that you would see this dramatic difference. And he will pour his fury and his anger out upon them. He will strike them. And it says, it burned him, yet he did not take it to heart. But that's not the end of the story.

Because if you just go to the next, the first verse in the next chapter are the words, but now, but now. And we'll get to that next week. And what Isaiah is telling us is that the people of God who delight in the servant of God, the Son of God, They will not be burned. They will not be plundered. They will not stay blind.

They will not stay deaf. No. God will come and he will bless them. But there will be those, those other servants who will be plundered and they will be blind, they will stay blind and they will stay deaf. And so Isaiah is bringing to us these two kinds of servants, and there are really only two.

There are only two kinds of people in the world. There are those who have their eyes open, and they long for heaven, and they sing, and they want to go to the ends of the earth. And then you have the blind, and all they can think about is themselves. They are locked in the prison of their own world and their own affections and they will not be delivered. And perhaps though If God is merciful and he raises up singers to go throughout the world, that there would be more who would hear the songs and they would see the contrast and they would know how good God is and they would see how abusive the devil is and they would turn away from their idols, and they would come to him.

Well, so these are the new things that spring forth from the faithful servant. The remnant is singing, the Lord is working, the blind are turning, and the disobedient are burning and plundered. The two servants. Let me close with this. While God calls many his servants, Abraham is called the servant, Moses, David, Isaiah, the prophets, the nation, Jabez, Nebuchadnezzar, Daniel, Cyrus, Zerubbabel, believers, the apostle Paul, Epaphras, all of these are called servants.

But there is one ideal servant. He is the servant that's the center of this passage of Scripture, the servant in whom the Lord delights. And he fulfills everything for what a faithful servant ought to be. And if you love the Lord Jesus Christ, you're called by His name, and you love to sing, here's what you need to know. There is a servant who is the perfect servant, and he makes up for all of your lack in service.

His perfect service replaced your imperfect service. This is a picture of the gospel of Jesus Christ. He is the covenant. He's the servant you want to be. He is the servant who has replaced your poor servanthood.

This is the love of God in Jesus Christ. And this is why in the very first verse in chapter 42 the Lord says this is my servant in whom my soul delights. He's the servant who God delights in and he brings such a delight to the world. Would you pray with me? Lord we thank you for your servant who does these marvelous things in the world.

Thank you Father for prophesying, for telling us what life would be like, that there would be the insensible who do not see, and there would be those who cry out restore, and there would be those who would be enlightened by your grace. Lord, we praise you for your mercy. Amen.