The Servant's Mission in the World, Isaiah 49:1-6, Sunday School Lesson for 1-23-11

ATTENTION:  Please note that this lesson, The Servant’s Mission in the World on Isaiah 49:1-6 is for the 1-23-11 ISSL.  You will find the 1-16-11 lesson, Reassurance for God’s People, directly beneath this message and on the right side.

Jed

The Servant’s Mission in the World

Isaiah 49:1-6

International Sunday School Lesson

January 23, 2011

Commentary

By

Jed Greenough

Isaiah 49:1-6 

The Servant of the LORD

 ¹ Listen to me, you islands;
   hear this, you distant nations:
Before I was born the LORD called me;
   from my birth he has made mention of my name.
² He made my mouth like a sharpened sword,
   in the shadow of his hand he hid me;
he made me into a polished arrow
   and concealed me in his quiver.
³ He said to me, “You are my servant,
   Israel, in whom I will display my splendor.”
⁴ But I said, “I have labored to no purpose;
   I have spent my strength in vain and for nothing.
Yet what is due me is in the LORD’s hand,
   and my reward is with my God.”

 ⁵ And now the LORD says—
   he who formed me in the womb to be his servant
to bring Jacob back to him
   and gather Israel to himself,
for I am honored in the eyes of the LORD
   and my God has been my strength—
⁶ he says:
“It is too small a thing for you to be my servant
   to restore the tribes of Jacob
   and bring back those of Israel I have kept.
I will also make you a light for the Gentiles,
   that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth.”

Isaiah, the great prophet of Israel, has been announcing the plans for redemption that God had in store for them albeit a century and a half later but nevertheless the prophecies were for them.  This one, however, if you will note, was for everyone but them, the islands, the distant nations—for us.

As we have mentioned in our previous studies, God called Cyrus long before he was born.  He announced to all of Israel living and those that were born in intervening years his name.

Similarly, in today’s passage, we see God announcing something that should have startled Israel in Isaiah’s day because Isaiah, their prophet was telling them something that wasn’t for them but for others.

They should have been perplexed that this servant is called Israel but clearly wasn’t them and this certainly fit handily with the idea of a hidden weapon, out of sight, concealed, all the more dangerous seeming because of being unseen.

The perplexity had to continue with the seeming lack of success that the servant professes to have attained, but ah that is the beauty of prophecy isn’t it?

Even now, after all we have seen and read concerning Christ we think we understand it, but do we?

Someone like me in preparing a lesson or simply in studying will think we have the meaning nailed and pass that interpretation on, but let me warn you.  There are prophecies whose interpretations might seem harmless and there are those that are anything but.  Those that deal with future fulfillments are the ones where the danger lies strongest because those are the ones that deal with the most trying times that man will ever live through.  But there is also danger in the others that seem harmless if the meaning is taught as an absolute and one after another they create a foundation in which each teaching must be believed in order to interpret the next eventually leading right on up to those that deal with future fulfillments.

So there is my caveat for you concerning prophecy and why I stress that my understanding is not absolute and therefore should not be taken as such.  As I write concerning the prophet Daniel in my site http://www.matthew24.com/ even though Daniel was gifted with the ability to understand dreams and visions of all kinds, he still did not understand those given him concerning the one that most refer to as the antichrist nor his time.

When I look at this prophecy I feel amusement and sorrow.  God is revealing a mystery but it still would not have been understood and in my opinion that is why it is speaking to everyone but Israel, He is hidden away like a mystery.

How could they have understood the Messiah being formed in a womb, born as they were?

They would not have understood that what they, Israel, did not display—God’s splendor, this servant, called Israel, could.

How would they understand that this servant seemingly labored in vain (or would) when He came because:

John 1:10-11 

 ¹⁰ He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. ¹¹ He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.

In the words of today’s passage, God said:

Isaiah 49:6 

 “It is too small a thing for you to be my servant
   to restore the tribes of Jacob
   and bring back those of Israel I have kept.
I will also make you a light for the Gentiles,
   that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth.”

John 1:12 

¹² Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—

For Discussion:

1. Discuss “mouth like a sharpened sword”.  See Isa 11:4; HE 4:12; Rev 1:16, 2:12, 16; 19:15, 21.
2. Do a concordance search on the word “mystery” and discuss as it relates to verse two.
3. Discuss verse 4’s statement “I have labored to no purpose; I have spent my strength in vain.
4. Discuss “It is too small a thing for you to be my servant, to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept.
5. Compare verse 6 and Luke 2:32, Acts 13:47, Acts 26:23
6. Do to the vagaries of search engine results from week to week, please bookmark this site.  Thanks!

(Join me next week for the International Sunday School Lesson for January 30, 2011, Healed by His Bruises, on Isaiah 53:4-6, 10-12)

Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 Biblica. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.