Isaiah [Part 11] - Israel’s Task & the Messiah

Read the transcript below, or watch a video of the teaching by Joseph Shulam.

Shalom! In chapter 41 of Isaiah, we are first introduced to the servant of the Lord, and the characteristics of the servant of the Lord were listed. Now we are in chapter 44. Here is the first time that the servant character of Isaiah is identified in verse 1:

So, the servant of the Lord in Isaiah chapters 42, 43, and 44 is Israel—Jacob, Israel—the nation, the people of Israel are the servant of the Lord here, not an individual. God is addressing them and says:

Now, this term "Yeshurun" appears for the first time in what's called the second Song of Moses, from Deuteronomy 32:15, and again in Deuteronomy 33:5 and 26. It's a rare name. "Yeshurun" in Hebrew means upright, just, somebody who goes straight, who is straight in his relationship with God and in his relationship with men. The Lord declares here that He made Jacob, He made Israel, He made Yeshurun, and He formed him from the womb, and He is there to help Jacob and Yeshurun to do His service. Again:

He already in chapter 43 said that He is filling His servant with His Spirit. This Spirit is not like the modern charismatic Spirit of speaking in tongues and prophecy; this Spirit is the Spirit that gives Israel, gives Jacob the power to rule, the power to win wars, the power to establish God's Kingdom—a political, spiritual power from God.

So, this text here in chapter 44 of Isaiah makes it very clear who this servant is: It's Jacob, it's Israel, it's those that identify themselves as belonging to the Lord. It's very important because there comes a switch further down in Isaiah. Like in chapter 49, there is a switch because Israel, Jacob—the collective of Jacob, the nation—fails God, fails the mission. The mission was already in chapter 42 and chapter 43 to be a light to the nations. God's election of Israel, God's election of Abraham from the very beginning, was to be a blessing to all the nations—not just a blessing to ourselves, but a blessing to the world—based on the calling that God gave to Moses to make the people of Israel a nation of holy priesthood. The whole nation as a holy priesthood—for what? To serve the rest of mankind, to be the ushers of the knowledge and the relationship and the holiness of God in the world. The prophet Isaiah now is repeating the same idea with different words.

Israel was not elected to beat our breast and say, "You have elected us, You have chosen us from among all the nations." It's not because we're blonde, blue-eyed, tall Swedes; it's because we are Israel, because we are the descendants of Jacob, because God has chosen Abraham, our forefather, to be a blessing to all the nations of the world. And that is our commission. It's our commission; that's what we were chosen for—not to boast of ourselves. The message that we need to share with the world is addressed by Isaiah in the same chapter right after he nails down our identity as Israel, as Jacob's descendants, commissioned for a specific task.

And the task comes in verse 6 of chapter 44:

When we come to the New Testament and talk about Yeshua, about Him saying, "I am the Alpha and the Omega," He is actually associating Himself with this very text in Isaiah 44:6. "I am the First and I am the Last" means "I am the Alpha and I'm the Omega, I am the Aleph and I'm the Tav" in the Hebrew alphabet.

Says the prophet in the name of God.

In other words, the commission of the servant of God—which is Israel, Jacob, and Jacob's descendants—is one. To declare, honor, and proclaim that God is One. "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is One." In the New Testament, 13 times we are told by Yeshua Himself and by the apostles that there is one God, one God. The text that is most important and informative, in my opinion, is 1 Corinthians 8:6. This is our commission. The world around us is idolatrous; they don't recognize the Creator who created the heavens and the earth, the sun and the moon, and the stars, and who controls all of this universe. One God.

Yes, Yeshua is divine, and He is the Son of God, and we accept His divinity. But the Father is still the head over Yeshua. That's not my words; those are the words of the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 11. "Christ the Messiah has a head over Him—the Father. And the Messiah, Christ, is the head over us, the men, and we are the head over the women, our wives." Yes, there is a hierarchy and there is equality at the same time. A hard concept for people in the West to understand is that there is equality between us and the Messiah, Yeshua. There is equality between us and our wives, and there is equality between the Father and the Son. Yet, at the same time, there is hierarchy. This concept is going to repeat itself in Isaiah and in all the prophets in many different forms. We are just now entering into this material in Isaiah.

The battle, the cosmic battle, I would say, is between the God who is our Father, whom we have the privilege of calling Him Abba, Father. Jews and Gentiles, black and white, and yellow and red—all the races of mankind have that privilege, through Yeshua HaMashiach, our Lord and Savior, to call the Creator in a very personal and the deepest personal meaning there is: Father, Abba. However, the problem is that the idolatry inspired and introduced by the other side—by Satan—to the world is watering down that relationship, and the prophet Isaiah knows it. In verse 9 of chapter 44, he says,

—(from the same tree that he used to make fire to become warm during the winter)

It's a strong text about idolatry, but it's a strong text about idolatry that Israel, that was chosen by God, that stood at the foot of Mount Sinai and saw the mountains shake and heard the voice of the Lord speak out His Commandments—Israel that crossed the sea on dry land, Israel that ate manna for 39 years plus in the wilderness of Sinai, Israel that drank from the rock—that Israel is now falling into idolatry. That Israel now has lost its compass, its direction. And the prophet is very clear. Verse 19 of chapter 44: "And no one considers in his heart, nor is there knowledge nor understanding to say, 'I have burned half of it in the fire. Yes, I have also baked bread on the coals from that tree. I have eaten that meat that was roasted on the fire that came from that cedar tree or oak tree. And from the rest of it, I am making an idol, an abomination!' Don't we have any sense?" The prophet—that’s what the prophet is saying to the people of Israel of his time, the 8th century BC—Folks, don’t we have any sense? We use a part of that tree to make fire and cook our food; the other part we make an idol out of it and we worship it? We worship this block of wood?The prophet says, "We deceive our own hearts. We turn aside from the mighty Creator of the universe to bow down and worship idols—man-made, handmade idols."

Now, God turns to Jacob again, the servant Jacob. It's very important for me to stress this area: that the servant in these chapters is the nation. But in chapter 49, the servant becomes an individual because the nation failed in its mission. Remember verse 21, chapter 44:

'I will not forget you,' God says to Israel.

God’s crying to Israel in the 8th century BC.

This is a very important text. The Lord has redeemed. He's not talking about something that already happened on earth with the people of Israel; it’s something that has happened already in heaven. Because the people in the days of Isaiah, the people of Israel that are called the servants of the Lord, have fallen into deep sin—the sin of idolatry, yes. But in heaven, God has already accomplished that salvation. God has already planned, and in His mind, in the Spirit, He’s already executed. As the writer of the Book of Revelation, John, writes, "The Lamb of God was slain before the foundation of the earth", before the sun was placed in the universe and the earth and the planets went around the sun. The Lamb of God, the plan of salvation, Yeshua, was already in the mind of God, accomplished already and was already offered as a sacrifice for our transgression.

Verse 24:

All the idol-worshiping priests, magicians—they all go mad when they encounter the Lord in His might and in His righteousness. And all their knowledge of all these idol-worshipers and magicians and priests of Baal and priests of idolatry—they all fail. I am the one, God says,

Isaiah, after chapter 40, is talking to the people that are in exile, and he’s telling them they’re going to go back home. You will be rebuilding the land, the cities, the vineyards, the fields. The temple will be rebuilt, yes. And he calls Cyrus, the King of Persia, that returns the exiles from Babylon to the land of Israel in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah, 'My servant'. And he promises that he would subdue the nations and loose the armor of the kings to be opened before him—the double doors so that the gates will not be ever shut down—talking about the temple in Jerusalem.

I’m kind of still a stranger to you because you don’t want to know Me, God says this to His servant Israel.

And He’s building a case that in chapter 49 of Isaiah, He will say, "Okay, you guys failed. You have failed your mission; you have failed Me as your God and as your Father. Now I will take one individual to represent you all—one individual that all the things that you didn’t accomplish will be accomplished through that individual." And the next lesson will start from chapter 49, in which He repeats the call to Israel to be a light to the nations—not only a light for ourselves as Israelites, as Jews, but a light to the whole world. And there’s only one Jew that represents all of Israel, that was born in Bethlehem the way the prophet predicted, that was crucified by the Romans in Jerusalem, and who has ascended to heaven and is sitting at the right hand of God. That servant of the Lord, the ultimate servant of the Lord, the one individual that accomplishes all the tasks that Israel was called to do and failed.

Yes, we’re going to jump several chapters, important chapters, but we can’t do every chapter in the book of Isaiah. 66 chapters, 66 weeks—it would take just Isaiah alone, will take more than a year. So, I’m going to ask you to read from chapter 44 to chapter 49, and we’re going to, in the next teaching, jump to chapter 49, in which God switches from the collective Israel to one individual that represents all of Israel. Just like in the Olympics, one runner that gets the gold medal represents the whole nation. The same way God says, "Okay, as a collective, you have failed. I’ve had to punish you; I’ve had to bring you back from exile, and then promise to send you back to exile for your failure." And God did it, but that one individual God is still using to change the hearts, the minds, the lives of people all around the world. His name is Yeshua, in Greek Jesus, and Him Isaiah will proclaim, describe, and predict until the last chapter of Isaiah, in which the Gentiles together with the Israelites will serve God in Jerusalem, in the house of God, as equals—priests in God's house—in the Messianic era.