Transcript:

We will read in a number of places in the word of God, first of all in Isaiah chapter 50, then in 2 Corinthians 1 and 4, and then in Mark chapter 8. Isaiah 50, reading from the fourth verse. This is the third of the fourth servant songs. There is an escalating darkness that is beginning to envelop the mind and heart of the servant of the Lord, the promised Messiah and Savior. The Lord God hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary: he wakeneth morning by morning, he wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learned.

(01:08)

The Lord God hath opened mine ear, and I was not rebellious, neither turned away back. 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. For the Lord God will help me; therefore shall I not be confounded: therefore have I set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be ashamed. He is near that justifieth me; who will contend with me? Let us stand together: who is mine adversary? Let him come near to me. Behold, the Lord God will help me; who is he that shall condemn me?

(02:07):

Lo, they all shall wax old as a garment; the moth shall eat them up. Who is among you that feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of his servant, that walketh in darkness, and hath no light? Let him trust in the name of the Lord, and stay upon his God. Behold, all ye that kindle a fire, that compass yourselves about with sparks: walk in the light of your fire, and in the sparks that ye have kindled. This shall ye have of mine hand; ye shall lie down in sorrow.

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Then in 2 Corinthians, first of all, in chapter 1, reading in verse 8. For we would not, brethren, have you ignorant of our trouble which came to us in Asia, that we were pressed out of measure, above strength, insomuch that we despaired even of life: but we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead. Then in the Gospel of Mark, chapter 8, reading at verse 34. And when he had called the people unto him with his disciples also, he said unto them, "Whoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life will lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it.

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For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation; of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels." If someone were to come to your door this evening, you've returned from the conference, the doorbell rings and a neighbor is standing there. Clearly, he or she is distressed and they look at you and they say, "I know you are a Christian. Please can you tell me what must I know to be a follower of Jesus Christ?"

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I wonder if any of us would have the courage to say to them, "I can tell you exactly what you need to know. You need to be ready and willing to die." Jesus said, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me." We have heard those words so often that we have I think almost domesticated Jesus' words. We talk about people having crosses to bear. We're thinking about maybe a man who has a nagging wife, he's got a cross to bear, or a woman who has a pusillanimous husband or she has her cross to bear, or parents who have wayward children or they have their cross to bear. That is not what the Lord Jesus Christ is speaking about. His listeners would've known exactly what he meant.

(07:04):

They would know from the language he used that he was saying to them, if you are not ready and willing for my sake and for the gospels to be nailed to a Roman cross, considered the offscouring of the world, you cannot be my disciple. It's all or nothing. The Bible has many ways you will know to describe the life of saving faith in our savior Jesus Christ. It tells us that saving faith unites us to a risen, ascended, regnant savior. It tells us that in Jesus Christ, we have life in all its fullness. It tells us that because of Christ and through union with Christ, we are new creations. The old is passing away and the new is daily becoming. It tells us that because of Christ and united to Christ, we are eternally safe and secure.

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It tells us that we are caught up in Christ's triumphal procession and we could go on and on, couldn't we? These are glorious descriptors of every life that has been savingly united to Jesus Christ. This is not what the mature life of faith inherits. This is what saving faith at its weakest inherits, because we inherit Jesus Christ who is Himself the gospel. All of the blessings of God are found in Jesus Christ. It is in Christ that we are blessed with every spiritual blessing. One of the verses that most beautifully and evocatively presents those glorious descriptors to us is found in 2 Corinthians 2:14, words that you will all know I'm sure so well. "That we have been caught up," says Paul, "in Christ's triumphal procession. We are always," he says...

(09:50):

Now, notice the word. We are always being led in Christ's triumphal procession. Not some of the time, not most of the time, but every moment of every day, of every week, of every month, of every year, we are caught up in the cosmic triumph of our savior Jesus Christ. We are always being led in His triumphal procession. But then if you were to jump two chapters to 2 Corinthians 4 from verse 10 through verse 12, Paul says something very striking. He says, "Yes, we are always being led in Christ's triumphal procession, but at the same time, we are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake so that death works in us but life in you." Now, notice the juxtaposition of those two phrases.

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We are always being led in triumphal procession, but at the same time, synchronously, not sequentially, but synchronously, we are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake. The life of faith is synchronously at the same time a life that enjoys the glories of God in Jesus Christ and at the same time experiences the cost of being united to a savior whom this world despised and rejected. This is the life of faith. Here in Isaiah 50 at verse 10, we are given one of the most striking descriptions of the experience of a true believer that we find anywhere in the Bible. Who is among you that fears the Lord, that obeys the voice of His servant?

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So he's speaking of someone who not only confesses the servant of the Lord, the promised Messiah and Savior, who fears the Lord that is who walks in holy believing reverence before Him, who obeys the voice of His servant, who walks in darkness and has no light. Utter darkness, no light, not a pinprick in the cosmos, darkness everywhere you look out and then no light. Unless you have been there in some measure, you cannot begin to imagine what that must be like. I would guess all of us here this morning for whom Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior and King, we have all known seasons, maybe even lengthy seasons of darkness and trial and trouble. The heavens are as brass. Our hearts are cold. We're enigmas to ourselves.

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We struggle through a day and it's a triumph just to get through the day. We, all of us, in some measure know that experience, but I wonder how many of us know what it is to all the lights to go out, for all the lights to go out. Bear with me for a moment or two as we try to unpack exactly what the prophet is saying to us. Some very fine scholars actually think that we need to translate the Hebrew just a little differently to capture the essence of what Isaiah is saying to us. They think that we should read the passage thus, who among you that fears the Lord, that obeys the voice of his servant, who walks in darkness and has no light.

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They argue, and I think they can argue cogently, that it's the servant who has no light, that God's believing people are called to live with and to follow after one for whom all the lights had gone out. I think that makes sense actually. That's the truth, of course, and we'll come to that, which is embedded in the word of God, because the Lord Jesus Christ more than anyone else who ever walked in this Earth knew what it was to have all the lights to go out. But I still think that the text reads most naturally the way we have it in our various English versions. Who is among you? He's speaking to the community of faith, to the remnant of faith. Who is among you that fears the Lord? That's one of the great descriptors of authentic saving faith in the Bible, to fear the Lord.

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It's not an old covenant descriptor. It's a Biblical descriptor of authentic, genuine faith. Who among you who reverence and honor and bow down and hold in awe the Lord Yahweh? Because of that, who obeys the voice of his servant whose lives are shaped and styled and directed by the word of the servant of the Lord, but who walk in darkness and who have no light? Trust in the name of the Lord and stay upon your God. Let me take a step back and consider the context with you, which I think will illuminate precisely what the prophet is saying to us. If you know the context of these latter chapters of Isaiah, God's covenant people are facing the unimaginable prospect of exile from the land.

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Now, we read about this and we hear about it, but we can hardly begin to appreciate the mental, emotional, spiritual anguish and devastation that that prospect had for God's covenant people, His visible church on earth, to be exiled from the land. But aren't all of God's promises embedded in the land? Actually no. One of the favorite texts I have that I think about often is in Romans 4:12 and 13, where Paul tells us that Abraham, the great exemplar of believing trust in God, was the heir of the cosmos, not of a tiny little bit of real estate in the Middle East. He was the heir of the cosmos. But for these old covenant people, the very thought that they could be exiled from the land was just utterly devastating.

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But Isaiah's telling them again and again and again, that because of their willful, persistent, deliberate rejection of God, God's word, God's grace, His love, what God had promised He would do back in Deuteronomy 28, for example, Leviticus 26, what God said He would do if they persisted in willful rebellion would come to pass. He would uproot them from the land. He would cast them off. What He promised 700 years before through Moses is a reality that's now about to engulf this covenant people of God. The darkness of rejection, the darkness of exile is about to be their portion in life. So in verses 4 through 9, we have this third servant song.

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If you know the servant songs at all, Isaiah 42:1-4, and then in 49:1-9, and then in these verses in Isaiah 50, then climactically, in Isaiah 52:12 through to the end of 53, you will know that there is an atmosphere of escalating darkness that is engulfing the servant of the Lord. You see it in chapter 42 at verse 4. He shall not fail nor be discouraged, till he have set judgment in the earth: and the isles shall wait for his law. What does it mean he will not fail nor be discouraged? It's the beginnings of this awareness that the servant of the Lord is going to face controversy, hostility, and worse. Then in 49 verse 4, the darkness continues its escalation. Then I said, I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength for nought, and in vain.

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He is the servant and he's discovering that because of his faithfulness to the Lord and his faithfulness to the commission entrusted to him by the Lord, his soul is being overwhelmed with discouragement, with sinless perplexity. This servant is not going to effortlessly cruise his way to glory. Then you have in this third servant song in chapter 50, the Lord God opened my ear. I was not rebellious, I turned not back. I gave my back to the smiters, my cheeks to them who plucked off the hair. I hid not my face from shame and spitting.

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Can you imagine the understanding of the servant of the Lord, our Savior, Jesus Christ whose humanity was not omniscient and who day by day began to experience in an escalating manner what it would mean for him to be the unyielding better than Adam servant of the Lord? He would not cruise to glory. He would face unimaginable anguishes and struggles and hostilities and harm. Of course, the darkness reaches its omega point in chapter 53, where we find the servant having laid upon him the iniquity of us all.

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The point that is being highlighted here in Isaiah 50:10 is that the experience of the servant will be the experiences of those who will obey the voice of the servant, that the prototypical servant of the Lord will have the template of His holy, faithful, believing, obedient humanity laid across the lives of His people and the darknesses that He experienced will be their experience, because the Holy Spirit has come in their union with Him to overlay upon their lives that principial template of what it means to believe God when all the lights go out. Remember Jesus' words, if the world hates me, it will hate you also. Do you know why the world hates you and will oppose you? Not because you or me or Joel or Paul or Anthony or anyone is anything.

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It's because the world hates Jesus Christ, hates the one who is the light of the world, hates the only begotten of the Father who is full of grace and truth. The light came into the world and the world loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. I want to make two very basic points from these words. The first, very obviously, the experience of darkness belongs natively to the life of faith. Now, darkness, spiritual darkness may come to us because of our sin and rebellion. We know that, but here, the darkness has come to those who fear the Lord and who obey the voice of His servant. The darkness has come not because they've been recalcitrant, not because they've been unbelieving or disobedient.

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The very reverse, it has come to them because like the servant of the Lord, they have feared the Lord and obeyed His voice. Darkness may come to you because you are seeking to live faithfully and obediently before God. When I was a very young Christian, I met some older Christians who began to encourage me to believe that it was possible to escape from the troubles and perplexities and failures of life and enter a higher life. Some of them called it the second blessing. You could imagine for a young Christian with no background in anything, this was an immediate attraction. Who doesn't want to escape to a higher life? We need to learn, they said, to leave behind us the wretched man of Romans seven and enter into the high land of Romans eight.

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Well, in the Lord's kindness, I quickly realized how foreign, how antithetical to the word of God was that kind of teaching. Some of you will know the name Alexander White. He was a renowned Scottish Presbyterian, end of the 19th, beginning of the 20th century. Alexander White had a deal with his local bookseller and the deal was this, that the bookseller would send him every new commentary on Paul's letter to the Romans. But there was a proviso that if Alexander White didn't like what they said in Romans seven, he would send it back without paying. The first thing he would do, the first thing Alexander White would do with every new commentary, he'd turn to Romans 7:14-25.

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If any of them said, "This is not the experience of a seasoned child of God," he closed the book and sent it back. Brothers and sisters, the holiest, purest, most God trusting man who ever walked this earth suffered disappointment, affliction, sadness, and heartache. When you read through the gospels, we have a propensity I think to read the gospels flatly. I think when Paul says to Timothy, "Give careful attention, prosecho, give careful attention to the public reading of scripture," he's saying something very profound. We've to learn to read the word of God within the contours and landscapes of the spirituality of the word of God. When we read passages like the Savior saying, "How long must I remain with you?", there is a mountain of emotion in those words.

(29:37):

The Lord is expressing His sinless frustration with the fallenness of this world, with the inability of His even closest disciples to understand what He was saying to them. Do you not yet understand? We read those words so easily, but they're betraying a heart that is breaking. You see, our Lord Jesus Christ was made perfect through suffering. At every stage of His life, He exhibited the perfection of that maturated stage of life. He wasn't excused the maturated processes of spiritual growth. He grew in wisdom and in favor with God and with man. Now that doesn't mean He was moving from imperfection to perfection. It means that He was as perfect in the womb as an embryo in the womb could be.

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He was as perfect at one as a one-year-old could be. He was as perfect at five as a five-year-old could be. He was not excused the maturated processes. He grew in wisdom and in favor with God and with man. His humanity, as we were hearing two evenings ago, His humanity was a genuine, authentic humanity. He was made like unto us in every way apart from sin. He even came in the likeness of sinful flesh. He looked like a sinner, but He wasn't. But in His sinless humanity, He experienced an escalating darkness as He tremblingly made his way to the cross. That's why Gethsemane is such a signal passage in the gospels. Like Paul, I am always reading in the gospels. When I was younger, folk would say, "Start preaching the gospels because they're easier to preach than the epistles."

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I don't think so. I feel out of my depth more than anywhere in the Bible in the gospels, because we find our Lord Jesus Christ traversing himself the valley of the shadow of death and not doing it effortlessly. Do you think it was effortless for the Son of God in our frail flesh, addicted to so many wretchedness as Calvin so dramatically puts it? Do you think it was effortless for the Son of God to resist the devil? He sweat in the garden as it were great drops of blood.

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He who himself walked through the valley of the shadow of death leads His own people not just to green pastures but in His good purposes through the valley of the shadow of death, because just as He was made perfect through suffering and there was no other way for Him to be made perfect, but through suffering as it was with the master. So it will be with those united to the master. Some of you will know, I hope, that the name Amy Carmichael. I remember years ago reading her poem Hast Thou No Scar. How many of you know that poem Has Thou No Scar? It's a remarkable poem. You remember how she ministered in Dohnavur in Southern India?

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She wrote this poem Has Thou No Scar. Hast thou no scar on hand, or foot, or side? I hear thee sung as mighty in the land. Hast thou no scar? Yet as the Master shall the servant be, and pierced are the feet that follow Me. But thine are whole. Can he have followed far who has no wound nor scar? When Paul wrote, "Let no man trouble me, I bear in my body the marks of Jesus Christ," he was saying precisely that. My very body is a testimony to my faithfulness. I have known darkness and death. What we need to understand and the Bible wants to impress this on us again and again and again, that the life of faith is never simply even and always sweet.

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It's punctuated with times of trial and trouble and darkness, but in the midst of all, God is weaving His bright designs just as He did with His own son who is the prototypical man of faith. Calvin uses a very striking phrase when he speaks of the new covenant ministry of the Holy Spirit as a ministry of replication. He comes to replicate in us what He first etched into the holy humanity of the Son of God. Brothers and sisters, when I pray, Lord make me more like my savior, we need to know what we are asking. We need to know what we are asking, because if the Lord takes us at our word, who knows what He might be pleased to do? You want to be more like my Son? Well, let me lead you through the maturated processes of suffering that made Him the man that He was and that He became.

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So darkness is natively part of the life of faith, but then secondly, this darkness that is natively part of the life of faith may be utterly, completely, and pervasively dark. That's what Isaiah is highlighting here, who is among you that fears the Lord, that obeys the voice of His servant, that walks in darkness? We say, "Yes, I have some sense of what that means," and who has no light? No light. I had a friend who's now in glory who once said to me, "Ian, I used to admire the lampposts in Glasgow because they had light." There was a time in his life when darkness just engulfed his whole being and he envy. Can you imagine envying the streetlamps of Glasgow, because they had light. No light, not a pinprick of encouragement. All that you have, all that you have is yourself and God.

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We'll come to it more in a moment, but what's the antidote? Let him who walks in darkness and has no light trust in the name of the Lord. You see, we belong to a savior for whom all the lights went out on Calvary's cross. The hours of darkness were sacramental of the darkness that overwhelmed and engulfed every aspect of our Savior's mind and heart. There was darkness without, there was darkness within. That's why the cry, "Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani? My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" I've preached in that text relatively recently and I've preached it a number of times, but maybe for the first time, I thought, "I don't know how to preach this text."

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I don't know where the accent lies. Is it my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Or is it my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Or is it my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Or is it my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Or is it my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Or is it, which I now tend to think it is, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Am I not the son that you love? At my baptism, did you not reign the heavens and say, "This is my beloved son"? On the Mount of Transfiguration when I was transfigured before my disciples with Moses and Elijah, did you not reign the heavens again and come down in the glory cloud and say, "This is my son"?

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You can almost feel the emotive of, I dare use the language, the emotive heart of God as He placards to the cosmos His delight in His son, but now where is the Father? He can't even say, "My father, my father, forsaken me. Am I not the son you love? Have I not come from the glory?" His forsakenness was not imagined. It was real, but my brothers and sisters, this is where the comfort of the gospel takes us, because the Savior is one who knows darkness in its fullest extent. Because of that, He's able to help us in our darkness. You'll know these words. We've heard them this conference, Hebrews 2:17. Wherefore it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God.

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For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succour them that are tempted. It's in our darknesses that Satan tempts us most acutely. He has been there. He has been there and he's able to help us not because of His divine omniscience, but because of His human heart. There is a lamb in the midst of the throne bearing the marks of our redemption and it's out of those marks that He is able to minister grace to His suffering, struggling, and darkened people. He knows our frame. He remembers that we are dust. If we were to understand those words in the 103rd Psalm, rightly, we need to see them transcending the omniscience of God to the incarnation of the Son of God. He knows our frame because he shares our frame.

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There is dust on the throne of heaven, glorify dust on the throne of heaven, and that dust has tasted darkness to its ultimate degree and triumphed. He knows your darkness. He knows your frame. He remembers that we are dust. He is able to help us as the writer to the Hebrews, the end of chapter 4. Seeing we have a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession. For we have not a high priest who cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need. Are you in a time of need this morning?

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There is a man in heaven given by God to meet you in your time of need, who knows your humanity from within, who didn't cruise effortlessly to glory. He is able to help you. I sometimes think we underestimate, at least let me speak for myself. I underestimate greatly the triumph of simply getting through another day when all hell is raging against you, when the devil is a roaring lion, is looking to pounce and devour you, when his wiles and methods and stratagem are internally devised to turn you aside or to apostatize you. I sometimes think simply to get through another day and to lay our head in the pillow still standing in Christ is a triumph of the heavenly intercessor.

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I think in heaven's glory, we'll discover that simply getting through a day was a glorious triumph, but our time has really gone. But let me simply mention as we close the antidote to those who are walking in darkness and who have no light. It's very simple but very profound. Let him trust in the name of the Lord. The response of faith to the experience of darkness is simple but profound. Trust in the name of the Lord. Martyn Lloyd-Jones once said he could forgive a preacher anything as long as he gave him exalted thoughts of God. That's what we need in the church today. We need to be reacquainted with the godness of God. We need to be reminded Lord's day by Lord's day, especially in the opening prayer and in the opening praise.

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We need to be reminded who it is we have come to worship. Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised. The name of the Lord, of course, reflects all that He is essentially and attributively. His name is all that He is, the unchanging and unchangeable. I am the everlasting one, the one who has loved us in Christ with an everlasting love, who will never stop loving us, because He never began to love us. I have loved you with an everlasting love. Remember Jesus' disciples came to him and He said to them, "You know your great need, have faith in God." We think too much about faith and too little about God. We need to have God in His self-revelation unpacked for us and set before us.

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We need Lord's day by Lord's day and day by day in our own personal private readings to be reacquainted with the godness of God and to know that He is far as in Christ, because this name in which we are summoned to trust is the one who spared not His only son, but who delivered Him up for us all. You see, you never get beyond Calvary. You never get beyond the cross, because there, God has exegeted His glory. It's bewildering to the world that for Christian believers the glory of Almighty God was most seen in a garbage heap outside the city walls of Jerusalem. "May I never boast," says Paul, "except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ because their God's name was most exegeted for humanity to see."

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So Isaiah concludes by saying, there are two ways to live. We don't have time, but there are two ways to live. You can live by the light of your own fire, verse 11. You can construct your own pinpricks of light to help you navigate your way through the darkness of this life, but if you do that, the wrath of God rests upon you. There are two ways to live. We can trust in the name of the Lord or we can trust in ourselves. Jonathan Edwards would often say that heaven will be a world of revelations. I think part of what he meant was in heaven, we will no longer see through a glass darkly. We'll see face to face. God will make all things clear and plain. In an instant, perhaps in a moment, all that was perplexing, bewildering, confusing, even crushing will be banished in a moment of light emanating from God.

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Perhaps we won't be able to say anything. We will simply marvel, bow down, and worship. One day, the darkness will be no more and we shall be in that city bright, closed at its gates to sin, not that defileth shall ever enter it. We shall be in that city where the lamb will be the light of the new heavens and the new earth, and we will wander around, marveling, wondering, hardly able to take in all that has come to us. Because by God's grace, we refused to turn back when the darkness came and prove that there was indeed grace to help in time of need.

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Let us pray. Our blessed Father in heaven, our word seems so inadequate, so lacking, and yet you delight to hear your children come to you. We thank You that we have in the Lord Jesus Christ, a savior who has entered into the deepest extent of darkness and who is able therefore to help us in our darkness. Lord, grant us the grace in these darkening times to be faithful unto death that we may, by your grace, receive the crown of life, and we ask it in our savior's name. Amen.