Grace Chapel Bible Ministries
worship Call 1182 - 2024/11/17
[ Music ] >> There, now we're -- [ Inaudible ] >> Everybody want to say something? Somebody here? [ Inaudible ] >> Now we got to give it the coffee bag. [ Inaudible ] >> Imagine you have others. [ Inaudible ] >> It's tough being little. [ Inaudible ] >> Let me open a self prayer so we can get started on time and we're trying to figure out how to still work. We're playing it back. >> Yeah. Will we get out and go along? >> Yeah. >> Let me open prayer. >> I love you. >> God, I thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. The opportunity to be in your house for some of you praise you and honor you. God, just be with us. [ Music ] >> Tell us what you have to do with it. Do it. Love you. [ Inaudible ] [ Inaudible ] >> We got a thumb block. >> Yay. >> I love you. [ Inaudible ] >> I love you. >> I love you. >> I love you. [ Inaudible ] >> Yeah, I thought of you like that. Watching that game, I said, "I know y'all are screaming as bad as we are." >> So did they live? >> We won. With them 15 seconds ago. [ Inaudible ] >> Another for everyone. We want to say the prayer so we can get started. And then we immediately go into Gamecock football. [ Laughter ] >> All right, Rick. >> You don't know what that means. >> All right. We are in Isaiah 42. And so that means we are going to start out by reading in Matthew. >> Logical. >> The reason is, this is in chapter 42, the first of the four servant songs in Isaiah. And unfortunately, most people only know the servant songs from Matthew. And it isn't Matthew 12 that we will start reading. It's on the screen behind me. So y'all, I want you to follow along in Isaiah. And you're going to see the differences that we are going to point out here in Matthew. And to set out the scene, Jesus was aware of this and withdrew. Large crowds followed him and he healed them all. He warned them not to make him known so that what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled. And what you'll see on the screen, and in most Bibles, is they'll put it in bold and that's supposed to be a quote. Now, turn to chapter 42 of Isaiah. You're going to notice some problems. And what I'm going to do is I'm going to read it out of Matthew as it's written. And then we're going to go over to Isaiah and take a look at it. And it says, "Here's my servant whom I have chosen, my beloved, in whom I delight. I will put my spirit on him and he will proclaim justice to the nations." He will not argue or shout and no one will hear his voice in the streets. He will not break a bruised wreath and he will not put out a smoldering wick until he has led justice to victory. The nations will put their hope in his name. The problem is that's not a very good quote of Isaiah in 42. Close, but there's differences. And the reason why there are differences explains why Christ is coming twice. It is not a misquote of Isaiah. It's just that in Isaiah it is telling everything that's happening in the future. And from the perspective of what's happening in Matthew, Christ has already come once. And he's coming again. But what we need to look at is what is this prophecy in Isaiah and what time does it refer to? At what point is this servant being called 2000 years ago or sometime in the future? And how you land on that question makes you completely interpret this section wildly differently. So let's go over to Isaiah. And let's first start out with this is my servant. And let's ask ourselves who is this servant that he's talking about. And some of your Bibles you'll have the word capitalized, which means they've already made the decision for you. And they're saying this is God. It's not always capitalized and I'll remind you that in the... Yeah, I get that. It's just him. Okay, I just was afraid. Just ignore him. Just ignore him. Okay. He's just not going to make me. I can read. I've got a dad that wouldn't noise me some time to steal your pain. I can read. The problem with the Old Testament and New Testament is they didn't have capitalization. Capitalization is a modern translator's decision on what they want you to think when you're reading. Okay. And that's not a good idea. I want you to think for yourself. So, let's go back because context is everything. Last week we're reading chapter 41. And 41 it says something completely different. Let's go back and look. My mouse is deciding to have a bad battery. My apologies. Alright. 41. It is talking about the coast and the islands and who's going to stir up. And it will come down and it will say... Where is it? Verse 8. You, Israel, my servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen. The rest of the chapter talks about Israel and Jacob. And we talked about last week the difference between why he is calling him Israel in one place and Jacob in another. When he was chosen his name was Jacob. When he started to serve he became Israel. That is comparable to the Christian prior to being born again and after being born again. And this concept of being chosen and being a servant was talked about and we went over this in chapter 41 in great detail. And that's who he is referencing in chapter 42. This is a reference to the state of Israel. It's also a reference to Christ. They're both right. You are also a servant. You're also chosen. And we talked about the words chosen people a lot. I was asking dad on the way and caused us to miss our turn coming over here so we had to do a quick turnaround because we get lost in our discussion sometimes. The question is what were the Jews chosen to do? This is one of those words that we talk about a lot like baptism. Faith chosen people. But what were they chosen for? They weren't just chosen to sit around and do nothing. They were chosen to serve. That's why they're servants. Now in the concept of a Christian it's very easy. What is a Christian supposed to do? Matthew 28, 1920. Well it's in actually all four gospels and in Acts as the great commission. And we're told repeatedly to go and make disciples. You only make disciples by being a disciple and learning enough so that you can go and proclaim the gospel and make others and do basically the first commandment that God gave us to be fruitful and multiply, make more Christians, do it over and over and over again. Now these aren't Christians back then. What were they supposed to do? What was a Jew chosen to do? How was a Jew to serve? And that's not a question that we often go over. You don't see a lot of Jews evangelizing people. They don't go out and actively say hey become a Jew. They do enforce laws. They are the keeper of the laws. And they were chosen to be obedient and to serve and to be obedient servants of the Lord. And you have a lot of commandments to do that. And in chapter 42 it tells us one other commandment that they were given. It says I strengthen him. This is my chosen one and I delight in him. I have put my spirit on him. He will bring justice to the nations. No. In Matthew it tells us that this is referencing to Christ. Let me ask you this. At what point when Christ was on earth 2000 years ago did he bring justice to the nations? He did. But he will and he will in revelation. Very end up. Now let's go back and look at what it says in Isaiah. It says he's going to bring justice to the nations. That means it's going to be a completed action. Justice will be done. Now look up at your screen and see what it says in verse 18. He will proclaim justice to the nation. Yeah, when he's here the first time on earth. He's going to say what he's going to do and he's going to tell you what's going to happen at the end of revelation. He's going to tell you the justice that's going to be coming. It's up to us to be able to listen to it, be able to proclaim it and to tell others because Jesus is coming again where he will bring justice to all the nations. That's why Matthew is different than Isaiah. It is everything that happens in the future, but part of this has already occurred when Matthew's happened. And he said part of this was done and we're going to proclaim it. And we're going to read a little bit later on where he is going to complete the action and bring that justice to all the nations. It is a different two step process, but the problem is from the Jewish standpoint they're reading this and saying where is the justice to all the nations? They didn't get the memo. They didn't get revelation when they were crucifying Christ. They didn't know about this second part, but they did know Isaiah and they were wanting to know where's the justice because they're seeing wrong with the foot on their neck. They're seeing an unjust government. It is the same argument that we have with people today when they say how can God let so many bad things happen? How can he let the government do this? Every four years we will have half of the nation upset about whatever happens in the election. How can they let this government go on? Whatever side wins, you're going to have half the people upset about it and thinking they didn't get justice. Just like they did back then. But what we should not do is what many people have done and say that Matthew misquotes Isaiah therefore don't believe it. We have to start with the principle that scripture is scripture and is in error. One of the things that we have is a bedrock foundation. And it's a very easy explanation as to why it's different. Because it hasn't all occurred yet. Part of it did. And this is an answer to those individuals that said that's not my Messiah because he didn't bring the justice. It's a reminder that it will be coming. What would that be like? What would what be like? Just bringing a justice. That's that's the end of Revelation last several chapters. After the thousand years of peace after that reign where we have judgment not only on the individual to the nations themselves. It's what everybody considers to be the scary section of Revelation which is in fact the glorious sections of Revelation. Where God fulfills all of his promises and in his words brings justice. And what one of Satan's greatest triumphs has been and one of the tools that he wields most effectively is making us scared of God's justice. Making us scared of God's righteousness. Revelation shouldn't be scary. It should be the ultimate culmination of God's promise which is his righteousness and his justice. We can't see any of that unless you know he's coming again. So 42 where it says I have put my spirit on him and then a man where it says I will. That's the differences they argue about? Well not look at Isaiah. He will bring justice. Right. Versus he will just proclaim it. He'll talk about it. Okay. Okay. And so here in Isaiah it's talking about Revelation. Isaiah is only seeing the future. Right. Right. Does not mention one way or the other where Christ is coming once or twice. Okay. He's just saying this is what's going to happen in the future. There is a servant that's coming. Matthew is. Matthew at this time when Matthew's written Christ is already crucified. Okay. And this is a snapshot in his time and he's quoting or not quoting he's paraphrasing Isaiah. And the claim is he only did half of it. He hasn't done all of it. Right. Okay. Because they know that there's a time coming. Right. The writer of Matthew knows that there's a second part. Yeah because Isaiah neither had happened. None of it happened in Isaiah. So all he's doing is looking for and saying this is what it is. And someone in Isaiah's time there's no need to differentiate between the two. When Christ has already come and you need him to explain why Christ did not fulfill everything in Isaiah. Right. You need to point out some obvious truth. That's really amazing. They wrote this. Right. And now here's the problem. Now look at your Bible. Your Bible says that's a quote out of Isaiah. That's not a quote out of Isaiah. Why do they treat it as a quote? They shouldn't. That's not a quote out of the Septuagint, out of the Vulgate, out of the Hebrew, nothing. They just put it there and say trust me bro, it's a quote. And it's not. And so what people do is they look at it and they compare it and say my Bible is lying to them. Instead of there's a way to explain this and say that's not a quote, it is a paraphrase. And this is why. Can it also be, oh no, allusion? Same thing. And revelation. Yeah. It all moves to it, but it doesn't directly. Well, some of it is a direct quote. And then some of them, they've changed certain words. And they've only changed certain words in interpretation of intent, whether he is proclaiming it or whether he's fulfilling the action. The rest of it is a quote, except for the very end, which is a completely made up sentence. And it does make sense for the, because we do it when we're teaching, that there's times when we paraphrate, oh, okay, it's in the Bible, but we, in there and we will have words off. It's not direct quote, but we're. Absolutely. Absolutely. And we may not know the chapter verse by quite, quite honestly, but we know the verses. And you're going to have sections here where they're saying it's out of 42, but it's out of 61. And, you know, the problem is people in 2000 years ago really knew their Bible. And they could just say the things and they're not concerned with whether it's Isaiah 42 or 61, because it's just the scroll of Isaiah. But our modern Bible tries to narrow it down and sometimes they make a mistake. This is one of those sections where they've made a mistake and should fix it, but they don't. And there's three different versions of the CSV. And one of them, my servant, both words are capitalized and one of them servant is capitalized and in the latest one neither of them are capitalized. So they're fighting about this all the time. For no apparent good reason. Richard and I are always complaining it to me. I capitalized he and he does when it's referencing Jesus. So everyone will know, but what if I'm wrong when I'm doing one of those? I have pushed that all. We'll go on this tangent. You do it as a measure of respect. Yes. So why? But why? Why is that respectful? I don't know. I guess I thought it is. But let's say that this is a reference not only to Jacob and Israel of the Old Testament and Christ. By capitalizing it, I'm making them think it's only Christ period. I get it. I get what you're saying. And so now I have led someone astray by my attempt to be respectful when the original text was written without capitalization. Yes. See, we didn't know that. We didn't know that. But remember that this was meant to be read aloud and understood by people listening. And even in the Greek there's no capitalization, there's no periods, there's nothing. So we would have failed. You really would. We didn't capitalize. So it's in our brain and capitalized. And what it does is it makes us lazy readers. But we don't know Greek. Our baby lives, maybe. When we really aren't listening. Well, if you see it capitalized, then oh, with that team. And you're not saying, could it be both? Right. And what it does is it puts us in the same situation as the early Jews. Oh, well Messiah means he comes once, comes once only. It can only be this. So if he doesn't do everything, let's kill him. That's a lazy reader. Well, now we've come to a situation where it's like, you got to capitalize it. You got to do this. Well, what happens if that's not it? What happens if this servant has two meanings? Right. By making that servant only Jesus, now it doesn't apply to you. Let's go over this. Are you chosen by God? Yeah. Are you a servant or a slave? Yes. Do you have a mission to fulfill? Yes. How does this not also apply to you? I get it. So by making those decisions as a translator out of respect, we've completely stripped the meaning that the Holy Spirit put in the text. And that's something that the translator should never do. We should give the text as it is and let the readers decide what they need to do with it. If that means we are expecting more of the readers, so be it. What I don't want to do is spoon feed it to someone. It's my same gripe that I have about the Ten Commandments. We don't need to dumb it down and put honor with our father and mother, period. We need to continue on because that's a very long paragraph in the Ten Commandments. And when we strip it down, we have now made for lazy reading. And we've taken out the interpretations of sins of the father that transgresses down to third and fourth generations. And those are things that we need to be careful of in how we disciple people. The little tract of saying, "Say this prayer and you'll be saved, send me a hundred dollars." Dumbs down the gospel to a point that now they have no need to go to the Bible. You've given them the bullet points. That's not making a disciple. What we have to do is teach them to read. And part of that is saying you're going to have to learn whether the "he" in your mind should be capitalized or not. Whether or not this servant is talking about Christ, you, or the Old Testament, or all three. Definitely need to read it. Just like my Venezuelan girls reading that Spanish Bible now. And she will see in the Spanish thing. Okay, when I want to read it in Spanish, it says one thing in English. Now they can mean the same thing, but I got to do some gymnastics to get there. Yeah. Because she's made an assumption in one of the two languages that may be wrong. Yeah. Yeah. But it's definitely important because she quotes Scripture now at me, which I love. Absolutely. Yeah. And one of the things that also this is a good section on is when you're reading Matthew and it says this is a quote out of Isaiah, go check it. Because it may not be a quote. They've made a decision here that's wrong. The translators agree that it's wrong, but because it's traditionally said to be a quote, they leave it. Well, it's kind of like you said, don't read the commentary, you know, to get what verse says because it's someone's opinion. If you want to read the commentary, great. Don't stop it reading the comment. And certainly don't start first with the commentary and then go to the Bible. I don't know if that's a pen page of yours, but that's definitely one of mine where they only read the commentary and skip the Bible entirely. No, it's not the quote. Yeah. That's good about the inductive studies that I did, as I've told you. Yeah. But the author says do not. Yeah. But in all honesty. Don't let that form your opinion. And I love one of her things, which she'll say if there's a quote, go back and read it. Yeah. That's it. But in most cases, and I'm even guilty of it, I'll look at it and say, okay, that's a quote and I don't go back and don't. And I don't go back and double check it always. Yeah. I don't go back and look. I don't always go back and look at the context where sometimes the quotes that are given is as important to know the context three and four chapters before and after the quote as it is the actual quote itself. I can quote you one line out of the Star Spangled Banner. But you'll think about the entire song and that entire song will have meaning not just the one part that I've quoted to you. And that is something that all of these quotes are important as well. And we need to make sure that we go back and look at them. And this one just illustrates a point of, hey, there's more to the story here. And this illustrates the difference between a Jew that made the right decision and caught in the Messiah and one that was lazy and said, but you didn't do this. It's sort of like, but what have you done for me lately? They were expecting one thing got something else, so they hung him up. We have done a whopping one verse. Yeah, it is a good one. Yeah. All right, verse two out of Isaiah in 42. He will not cry out or shout or make his voice heard in the streets. You have the exact same in Matthew to a point. The same just is given. But one of the things that I want to point out, we're not going to get to it this week, but I'm going to just scroll down just a little bit. Scroll down. Hey, I have a mighty finger that just rolls like this. All right. Read 13. We always say that the servant is the Messiah. And it said that he's not going to argue or shout. No one will hear his voice. But look at 13. The Lord advances like a warrior. He stirs up his zeal like a soldier. And he does what? The Lord shouts, roars aloud and prevails over his enemies. That's quite different than he's not going to let anybody hear him, isn't it? So how can both be true? And God still be the servant and the Lord? Once the first time it came, it sucked a ton. It came the first time. He didn't have to shout. He didn't have to scream. He wasn't the warrior. What was he? He was the hippie. Peace, love and happiness. Jesus, they came. What happens the second time? Oh, he's the warrior that's going to be coming shouting and roaring aloud and prevailing over all of his enemies. This is a detail of both of those times. The Bible doesn't contradict it themselves. And contrary to what the Jews say, this is not proof that Jesus is not God. This just describes two events. And it explains why in Matthew it says that he didn't want people to talk about him and he withdrew. Because why? Because he was being quiet. He wasn't roaring. He wasn't being that warrior that was going to come out in verse 13. Their difference is because they're two different events. And that's one thing that we have to look at in terms of interpreting Scripture, especially when it's written in Hebrew. Timing is not always A, B, C, D and E in Hebrew. They will talk about events and the time shifts. You've seen movies where they do flashbacks where you get a lot of that in some of the Hebrew. Don't expect just because something happens in verse 2 that it happened before verse 3 and verse 5 happens after that. You have to pay attention and you have to actually look at it and understand what it's saying. And this is clearly describing the two roles that Christ is performing. And it also lets us know that there are times where you are still fighting the fight, but you don't have to do it being loud and boisterous and yelling and screaming at the top of your lungs. Why do we know that? It tells us that God's going to strengthen us. We're his chosen one. He delights in us and he's put his spirit upon us so that we will be able to bring justice to the nations there in verse 1. Alright, I'm going to go through a whopping two more verses and then I'm going to call it a day. Alright, verse 3. He will not break a bruised reed and he will not put out a smoldering wick. He will faithfully bring justice. I don't know about y'all, but I don't use the term bruised reed often. But I do have a lot of wilted plants because I have a black thumb. The image here is of plants that are damaged. And this servant isn't going to just cut them off. He's going to give them a chance to come back. If there's a chance that they will be able to be revived, he's going to give them that chance. What's about this smoldering wick? We've all seen candles that flicker. They're about to go out because the wicks bad and there's too much wax and it's just nasty. But if it's got a chance of roaring back to life, he's not going to put it out. If there's hope, he's going to let it continue. That was the first time until the final judge. And let's look at it. When Christ comes, what did he do? He came to save us and he's given us an opportunity. And we're part of that in making disciples and telling the story so that others can believe so that they can have faith, so that they can be born again, so that they can endure and persevere and fight the good fight and become saved. So he will not break over his reed. All right. Let's set up plants about to die. It's just nasty. He's not going to go over there and prune it. If there's a chance it's coming back. Christ, if he didn't come back at that time and say, "I know I can see in the future. You're just not going to make it. I'm just going to go ahead and kill you now. You're worthless. You've got hope until you die. He's not going to prune your nail. He's not going to prune all the nations now. He could have stopped. Let's be honest. He could have stopped with Noah and said, "I'm going to be done with it. I'm going to prune everything out, but there was hope." Let it continue. That was that bruised reed. As long as there's hope, he'll continue. Until he has led everything to victory until justice is given to all the nations. And then verse 4. He will not grow weak or be discouraged until he has established justice on earth. The coasts and islands will wait for his instruction. That is completely absent at a Matthew. Why? And this one's clear because he died on the cross. He's not going to go weak or be discouraged because he's still fighting the fight for us now because he rose again. But imagine from a Jews perspective, he died. He became real weak. That's not the story of Matthew. Because Matthew continues and lets us know that he's still fighting the fight. And it says the coasts and the islands will wait for their instruction. Don't know about you, but the nations are not sitting around waiting on God's instructions. They're doing anything to actually put that down. Take a look at what verse 21 of Matthew says. The nations will put their hope in his name. I'll put my cursor over that little quote and you can look in your Bibles. See where it says Isaiah 42 1 to 4. Says that's a quote out of Isaiah 42 1 to 4. I challenge you to find anywhere where it says the nations are putting their hope in the name of the servant. And verses 1 to 4 of Isaiah. There's nothing close to that. That's a cross-reference, absolutely. Not the quote is saying it's coming out of Isaiah 42 1 to 4. And there it says Isaiah says that's a lot better. Yeah. Saying it's a good job. So they're trying to say justice and hope is the same thing? No, I'm saying that that line is simply not in Isaiah at all. That is not a quote. This should not be said that it's a quote out of Isaiah. It's in the Bible. And there will be a time where the nations put their hope in his name. But that's at the end of the thousand years. That's at the end of Revelation. That is not quoting Isaiah. The translator has made a really bad mistake in saying this is a quote out of Isaiah. It's just the next line of the text. And it's saying what's going to happen. And we know about the thousand years of peace. Would we all agree that the thousand years of peaceful reign of Christ, we can say that the nations will finally put their hope in the name of Christ. Yes. Yeah. But if you don't think it's coming again, none of this makes sense. No. And this is one of those sections that is highly debated because translators have been making some serious assumptions and assertions over the last centuries that have simply just not been true. And it's bad because we take it at face value if it's in quotes, it's a quote. If it's bolded, it's a quote. If it says, it's a quote. And those choices have consequences. Please double check when you're reading. People make mistakes. Human beings made the modern translations. No one has ever said or without error. Right. Does the Bible say the nations will put their hope in his name? Absolutely 100%. It will happen. But don't go back and think that it's a quote out of Isaiah. You're going to come up with the interpretation that something's wrong with your book of Isaiah. And that's not the point. Isaiah doesn't have this. In fact, Isaiah is talking about a battle that's going on between the nations and God. That was what the entire chapter of 41 was about was the nations of the coasts and the islands fighting God because they were creating their false idols and their workmen and their craftsmen were coming up and creating these false idols. And they were putting their faith in that instead of God and God struck them down. That was what Isaiah 41 was about. The exact opposite of what it said is to be a quote. So what I want us to do is this is the first of the four servant sections. And the rest will get to in 50 and 53 and in 59. And they're summed up again in 61. So these are really important sections, these four servant poems. And I wanted to take a little bit of time to go over them because they're often quoted in the New Testament and they're often misattributed in the New Testament. When Christ is speaking, he will pick some lines out of this one and out of this one and out of this one and said, as Isaiah the prophet said, which is absolutely fair to do. Because the Isaiah prophet said those things. But where we mess up is saying, oh, well, he's only referencing this section. And what I want us to get comfortable with doing is saying when he's saying the prophet Isaiah said, you better be comfortable understanding the entirety of Isaiah. That's why we've taken so much time to go through Isaiah because it is the foundation upon which the New Testament relies, especially for its promises about the Messiah. So will the justice come? Absolutely. Is it here now? No, it's not. Look forward to it, though. I also look forward to a time where the translations can clean up some of their mistakes. And hopefully stuck capitalizing everything. By the way, that is also why I'm not a big fan of words in red. You can figure out if Christ said it. It doesn't have to be in red, and it doesn't mean the words in red are more important. Any questions that we've got? Y'all just want me to shut up and move on? I know when I have overstating my wealth. Thank y'all very much. God thank you. The study has to understand and fallacy of the Bible, which means we've got to look. Study it. We have to teach it so that you can understand. We've got to the Revenge of the Service in these things. [BLANK_AUDIO]
This lesson explores how God's promises, from the early days of Israel to the life of Jesus and the early church, showcase His unwavering faithfulness and the call for His people to be witnesses of that faithfulness.