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There is a time in the future when Israel will look at Jesus Christ and say, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. They will recognize their Messiah. That's what Zechariah wrote about. That's when they look on the one they've pierced and mourn for him as an only son. And a fountain of cleansing is open to them. That's their future salvation.
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Welcome to Grace to you, the Bible teaching ministry of John MacArthur. I'm your host, Phil Johnson. In the lyrics of one of his hymns, Isaac Watts writes that even when death and the powers of hell throw all their rage and malice at Christians, God's people remain safe, for Christ displays superior power and guardian grace. Well, you're going to get a sense of that glorious power and grace today as John MacArthur shows you how God preserves not only Christians, but also the nation of Israel and what, what that means for believers today. The title of John's study, the Gospel According to God. And now turn to Isaiah 53 and follow along with John MacArthur.
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It is always helpful to me to get altitude when I'm looking at a passage. The higher above the passage I get, the further the range of what I see. And I even love to get 40,000ft above the passage. And I can look down and see everything from Genesis to Revelation and then eventually kind of get down out of that altitude and put the landing wheels down and arrive at the given passage that we're looking at. That's what we're going to do. I want to get some altitude here for you. And then we'll eventually put our wheels down in a little while at Isaiah 53 and wrap up our understanding of verses 4 through 6. But I want to start from a much wider perspective. The history of the Jewish people is the most remarkable ethnic history in the history of the world. It is a long and amazing saga of survival from their point of view. To think that there are still Jews in the world, and 14 or 15 million of them at that, is to understand that they have survived when all odds were against that survival. Nobody here has ever met a Hivite, a Jebusite, a Perizzite, an Amorite, or any other ITE from the Old Testament, because they're long gone. But we actually have Israelites sitting here today, and there are many of them around the world, and they are that pure strain of Jews that has gone down through the history of the Old Testament and the New Testament right through until today. From their viewpoint, it is a great story of survival. However, from God's viewpoint, it is an even more amazing story of preservation. God has protected and preserved them providentially, that is, by ordering the circumstances for their survival. But on a number of occasions, he has also protected them miraculously, suspending the normal course of time, history and the way things operate in the world for their protection, such as parting the sea so they could walk across on dry land when leaving Egypt. So under the providence of God, where he orders the circumstances, and under the miracle power of God, where he suspends nature, God has made sure that the Jews are not extinct. Now this is remarkable. First of all, because they are a small group of people. They are a small group of people. They are an exceptional people by all measure. As concerns humanity, they are the noblest of human beings. They are a very exceptional people. But they have been chosen by God for his own purposes. They are not what they are because they have earned it. They are not what they are because they have gained it. They are what they are because God decided it would be that way. And they have been chosen by God to be blessed as a nation and through them to bless the world. Because they have been chosen by God for purposes yet unfulfilled. They are the target of the enemies of God. They are the target of Satan, the archenemy of God. They are the target of demons, the co conspirators and purveyors of supernatural wickedness in the world. They are the target of men, humans, who are under the power of the kingdom of darkness. There have been repeated efforts on a demonic and human level to eliminate the Jews throughout history. Unsuccessful. But they are the particular target of the forces of hell and the humans that serve those forces in order to thwart the final purposes of God. Unsuccessful efforts, I might add. But when you think back about their history, you understand this is a small group of people living in a very vulnerable place in the Middle east, surrounded by all kinds of pagan powers who throughout all their history wanted to obliterate them. They have survived so many times, they could have gone out of existence. A famine during the time of Jacob and his sons could have taken them. They could have literally disappeared from starvation. But God didn't let that happen. God deposited one of the sons of Jacob by betrayal in the midst of Egypt and gave him all the power to disperse food. And they knew it was available because of a dream that Joseph had. You remember, Egypt was ready for the famine and could provide food for other nations that might have perished without them. God planted Joseph, made him an interpreter of dreams, had him prepare Egypt for famine, and thus saved Jacob or Israel. And when the brothers of Joseph came down to try to get some food from the stores of Egypt, it could have been that Joseph was so angry and so full of vengeance because they had betrayed him and sold him into slavery that he might have decided to kill his brothers. But God didn't let that happen either. God worked through the compassion and the forgiveness and the heart of Joseph to spare his brothers and thus perpetuate the family. That family stayed in Egypt, grew from one little family, Jacob and his family, to Several million people, 2 million people in the land of Goshen. 400 years it took for that nation to develop. At the end of that period of time, plagues hit Egypt. Those plagues had devastating, deadly effects on the Egyptians. They well could have also affected the children of Israel had God not made sure that they did not. The killing of the firstborn could have devastated the Jews. Had God not stepped in and provided a way that the firstborn could be saved. By putting the the blood from the sacrificial lamb on the doorpost in the lintel, Pharaoh could have massacred the escaping Jews in mass. And that's what he attempted to do when he chased them. Had not God opened the sea, let them through and then drowned Pharaoh's entire army when the sea collapsed on them, they could have disappeared from history. In the 40 years they wandered in the wilderness, they complained, they rebelled, they sinned violently against God, and a whole generation died, their corpses drying out in the desert. But there was a remnant of them under the leadership of Joshua that made it into the promised land. When they entered Canaan, they could have been destroyed again because they were entering a land, and they were a meager group of people, and they were facing formidable pagan enemies who didn't want to give up their land and their property. They could have been destroyed by any number of the enemies that occupied the land of Canaan, which they were to conquer. But God made sure that that didn't happen. It was sort of metaphorically demonstrated in the fact that a massive Goliath was slain by a shepherd boy with a stone and a slingshot. That is how it was. Israel was like a shepherd with a slingshot against a massive giant in the land of Canaan. But God made sure that they survived. It isn't just a story of human survival. It's a story of divine preservation. When they got in the land and they settled in the land, and they were scattered around the land and divided into sections by tribe, you know what happened? They got caught up in idolatry. They got caught up in apostasy, they got caught up in the worship of false gods. And then they were caught up in immorality. And then their religion became superficial and hypocritical. They began to be absorbed into the pagan culture. And they could have literally disappeared by melting into the nations. But God made sure that didn't happen. They could have been lost forever by intermarriage with pagans and their ethnicity dissipated. And when the kingdom split, 10 tribes went to the north and established what became known as Israel. And two tribes stayed in the south, Judah and Benjamin, which became known as Judah in the subsequent years. There was not one good king in the north. They were so rebellious and so evil that God brought judgment on them. And the assyrians came in 722 B.C. and sacked the northern kingdom and took captive all that they didn't kill. And those people never ever returned. They disappeared into the melting pot of the nations. They completely faded out of existence, which left the two tribes in the south and people from the other 10 who had migrated south before the northern kingdom was destroyed. And so there were people from every tribe now in the south. But then the Babylonians came around the year 600 and they sacked Jerusalem and massacred people. Those who didn't get killed, they were hauled off to Babylon where they were to be mingled into the Chaldean culture. People like Daniel and his three friends were given names that weren't their own names. They were given names that connected them with the Chaldean Babylonian gods. And then they were to be trained in the culture. That could have spelled the end. The whole of the people of God in Babylon could have literally been absorbed by intermarriage and mixed religion and lost forever to human history. But it didn't happen. They were never absorbed into Chaldean culture. Seventy years later, a massive remnant of them came back and they reestablished their land. That's how their history went. A king arose in Persia. His name was Xerxes, would be the Greek way to say it. His other name, perhaps the one you know him by, Ahasuerus. He reigned in persia from about 486 to 465 and the Jews were still there intact. In Persia, however, there was an effort at genocide led by a man named Haman who wanted to exterminate the Jews. And you remember the story because the story is told in the book of Esther how that God used Esther in the kingdom for just such a time as that, to save the Jewish people from genocide in the land of Persia. And God had to order the providences so that the king, who had a beauty contest, selected Esther as the winner of the beauty contest. She became his wife and her favor with him saved her people. Every year there's a feast that the Jews hold. It's called the festival of Purim. P U R I M It is a non biblical feast. It's not recorded in scripture. It's like Hanukkah, which is the other of the Jewish feasts. It's not in scripture. Purim is a celebration of their survival. It's a celebration of Esther and the survival of the Jewish people. Then came the Greek power and Antiochus Epiphanes attacked and slaughtered the Jews. Then came the Romans in 70 AD and massacred hundreds of thousands by any count of Jews. Destroyed Jerusalem, destroyed the temple, and then went into about a thousand towns and villages in subsequent years in the land of Israel and massacred people. It went on after 70 A.D. the story of their survival is an astonishing story of divine protection from the year 250 A.D. let's go from there to 1933. Just summing it up, you can check this history. It's all chronicled very, very well. Jews in various places. We're talking mostly in Europe, but in and around Europe, it would stretch into the Middle east and into Africa. Jews in various places and times were attacked, expelled from cities, expelled from countries, forced to convert on the threat of death, enslaved, outlawed, massacred, had their property confiscated, were forced to wear identifying badges so they could be alienated socially, put through inquisitions that were deadly. On a number of occasions they were burned alive. That's from 250 to 1933. And then you pick it up in 1938 to 1945 and you have the Holocaust under Hitler and multiple millions of Jews are slaughtered. And today they are the direct object of all the accumulated hate of the Islamic world that wants to obliterate them, remove them from the planet. So when you talk about the survival of the Jews, you're talking about something that is really astonishing. And it is more than a testimony to their will to survive. It is a testimony to God's preservation. That is the only explanation. They are a small people. They are not a powerful people. They have gained some powerful weapons in the modern era, but throughout their history, they were a small and beleaguered and somewhat weak people, militarily speaking. Yes, they've had a strong will to live, but that's not an explanation. The explanation is the purpose of God. Why have they survived as an ethnic people until today and the Answer is because God has not yet fulfilled his promise to Abraham and his promise to David and his promise to the prophets to bless Israel with salvation and make Israel a blessing to the world. That will not happen until they put their trust in Jesus Christ as a nation. And that will happen in the future. We've looked at it. Zechariah 12:10. They'll look on the one they've pierced, mourn for him as an only son, and a fountain of cleansing will be opened to them. They will be saved, and then through them the world will be blessed when the Lord brings His kingdom. Zechariah 12 to 14 the future salvation of Israel is a promise in the Old Testament as well as a promise in the New Testament. In the 11th chapter of Romans, very, very important chapter, the Apostle Paul is talking about this very issue. He says, I do not want you brethren to be uninformed of this mystery so that you will not be wise in your own estimation, that a partial hardening has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. That's the church. When the fullness of the Gentiles comes in, in other words, when all the elect in the church are gathered together, when that is complete, then all Israel will be saved. And Paul says, just as it is written. And then quotes from Isaiah, the deliverer will come from Zion. He will remove ungodliness from Jacob. This is my covenant with them when I take away their sins. That's from Isaiah 59. So Paul says, there's coming a time that the church will be complete, and then when that is complete, will come the salvation of Israel. That's God's covenant with them. They are preserved for a future salvation. They need to be saved so that they can be blessed. Because that was the promise of God in Genesis 12 and repeated again and again to Abraham, not only so that they can be saved and blessed by salvation, but that through them the world will be blessed when they are saved. The Messiah comes, sets up his kingdom, reigns in Jerusalem over Israel and the world. World. Israel becomes the most powerful and influential nation in the world, and they are an influence for peace and righteousness. They will not only be blessed, they will bless the world. That's the promise of God, and it hasn't changed. And that's why they're still around. Now there's another powerful reality to consider. You're talking about a nation that in and of itself is vulnerable and weak. And you're talking about a nation that is beleaguered by attacks from hell and humanity. But you're also talking about something else that has to be brought into this. And it is simply this. Not only have they survived the hatred of the forces of hell and survived the hatred of the forces of humanity, but at the same time, listen, they have been under divine judgment. I mean, that's three strikes. They have been under divine judgment. This goes way back to Deuteronomy, back to the writing of Moses. When they got on the edge of the land, ready to go into the land. God said this to them. You obey me and you'll be blessed. Remember that. Deuteronomy 27:28. You obey me, I'll bless you.
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You.
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You disobey me, I'll curse you. And God spelled out the blessings and spelled out the cursings and you can go back and read them. And that's their history. They disobeyed God. They continue to do that. They are a cursed people. They are under God's judgment. So God is preserving the very people that he is judging. He's done that all along. He started judging them way back in the Old Testament and he's been judging them all the way through human history at the same time preserving them under that judgment. Israel's judgment continues today. The judgment of Jewish people continues today because they rejected Christ. First Corinthians 16:22 says, if any man doesn't love the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be cursed. They are cursed for their disobedience through past history. But they're doubly cursed because they've rejected Jesus Christ. When you look at Israel today, you're seeing a nation that has not yet experienced the blessing of God. It is an apostate nation. It is a Christ rejecting ethnicity. Religion is not godly. They claim to worship the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. They do not. They cannot because you cannot honor the Father unless you honor the Son. They are disloyal. They are disobedient to God. They are the enemies of the gospel. Romans 11:28 says they are the enemies of the Gospel. They deny the Trinity. Jewish people deny the deity of Christ. They deny the true teaching of the Old Testament and they deny the whole New Testament Testament. That is not a formula for blessing. They reject their Messiah. They believe Christians are blasphemers because we worship a man who himself was a blasphemer. In their view, they follow the lie of salvation by works and human effort and self righteousness. And so they are a cursed people right now under judgment, but at the same time being preserved by God. If you suggested that a nation that weak and that small and that ancient would still be around. Just history alone would tell you that's a nonsensical idea. Then if you added the component of the fact that there has been set against them such massive supernatural and natural powers, there would be no possibility of their existence. And then if you throw in the fact that God has been for millennia heaping judgment on them, you would assume that their survival was utterly impossible. But there they are, and God has preserved them to save them in the end as a nation. In Luke chapter 13 and the end of the chapter, our Lord looks at Jerusalem, sort of the city that stands for the whole of the nation. And he says this. O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, verse 34, Luke 13. The city that kills the prophets and stones those sent to her. They were about to kill him. How often I wanted to gather your children together, just as a hen gathers her brood under her wings. And you wouldn't have it. Behold, your house is left to you desolate. That house is still desolate. The Jewish people are desolate. They have no relationship to God. Now there are believing Jews who have come to faith in Christ that make up the church, Jew and Gentile. But I'm talking about the nation itself, the people. But he says this to them in Luke 13:35. I say to you, you will not see me until the time comes when you say, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. There is a time in the future when Israel will look at Jesus Christ and say, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. They will recognize their Messiah. That's what Zechariah wrote about. That's when they look on the one they've pierced and mourn for him as an only son. And a fountain of cleansing is open to them. That's their future salvation.
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God has preserved and will always preserve his people, Israel. A simple yet profound reminder from John MacArthur's lesson today, part of his current series here on Grace to youo, titled the Gospel According to God. Now, John once said that when he first preached this series from Isaiah, he discovered new shades of meaning about the gospel. In studio, I asked him whether he was surprised that after spending decades looking carefully at Jesus life and work, he found fresh truth about Jesus from the Old Testament. Here's what John said.
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Not at all. I think the depth of Scripture is virtually inexhaustible. And I think the more scripture you know and the more you study and the more theology you know, the more you bring to Scripture. It's like all that I know makes my shovel bigger when I dig into this passage. Wow. I mean, it's going deeper. I'm not using a hand thing like you'd plant a plant in a garden. I go to a passage with a bulldozer. That huge, wide bulldozer is essentially the symbol of all that I have learned through all these years about the Scriptures. So you bring such a huge shovel to this text that you scoop down deeper. So as I've done this years in years, going back to the Word of God. Back to the Word of God, every time I go back to a familiar passage, I bring more ability to dig deeper.
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Now, I love that imagery of a bulldozer and digging deep. And I get what you're saying there. But it also seems to me that the longer you preach, preach, the more you look at passages meticulously. So you may dig it up with a bulldozer, but you go through it with tweezers.
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No, that's good. Yeah, I fine comb everything. And my style, as you know, I ask questions of the text. And the more I know, the more questions I have. So I take a text and I just start asking questions. What does this mean? Well, if it means that, what about this. Well, if it means that, what about this verse that seems to say something different? Or what about about this verse that seems to add to that? And if I say it means this, what does that do to this other doctrine or this other text? I just ask endless questions. What do the words mean? What does the grammar mean? How am I to understand it? And my study process is simply coming to the end of questions. When I've come to the end of the questions, I say, okay, I think I understand this passage. Then I put a sermon together.
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And that's certainly a helpful process for all of us to follow as we study God's word and friend. If you would like help answering, answering the questions you might have about Isaiah 53, that's the basis for our current radio study. Let me remind you about John's book called the Gospel according to God. It shows you how the prophecies in that amazing chapter, prophecies that foretold the Messiah, were fulfilled perfectly 700 years later by the Lord Jesus Christ. Get your copy of the Gospel According to God when you get in touch today. To order, call us at 855grace. You can also purchase the Gospel According to God from our website, gty.org the cost is $13.50 and shipping is free. Again, to dig deep into the amazing prophecies in Isaiah 53, which Christ fulfilled centuries later. Get your copy of the Gospel According to God, call 855grace or go to gty.org and while you're at the website, take advantage of all of the free Bible study tools there. I would especially encourage you to check out the Grace to youo blog. Look for the series of articles titled the Theology of the Thief. It looks at the man who came to saving faith while being executed next to Christ. His repentance teaches us much about God's willingness to save even the worst of sinners. You can read the Theology of the thief@gty.org that's our web address. One more time gty.org now for the entire Grace to YOU staff. I'm Phil Johnson. Remember to watch Grace to you television this Sunday on DirecTV, channel 378. That's NRB TV and be back tomorrow as John MacArthur shows you God's mercy and love for sinners from a perspective you may never have considered. It's another 30 minutes of unleashing God's truth one verse at a time on Grace to you.