Before they spring forth I proclaim them to you. (Isaiah 42:8-9).

And the events that are going to take place. (Isaiah 44:6-7).

But the prophet who shall speak a word presumptuously in My name which I have not commanded him to speak, or which he shall speak in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die. (Deuteronomy 18:20).

And of the temple, ‘Your foundation will be laid.’" (Isaiah 44:24-28).

Though you have not known Me. (Isaiah 45:1-4).

Son of man, because Tyre has said concerning Jerusalem, "Aha, the gateway of the peoples is broken; it has opened to me. I shall be filled, now that she is laid waste," 3 therefore, thus says the Lord God, "Behold, I am against you, O Tyre, and I will bring up many nations against you, as the sea brings up its waves." (Ezekiel 26:2-3).

Nor will their eye pity children. (Isaiah 13:17-18).

And her days will not be prolonged. (Isaiah 13:19-22).

This promise is fulfilled in two parts. The immediate fulfillment will be in the person of Solomon. He will be the seed who will build a house in the name of the Lord. It will be Solomon who constructs the temple of God in Jerusalem. Solomon will found the Davidic dynasty.

But the ultimate fulfillment of this prophecy is seen in Jesus.

The first part of verse 14 ("I will be a father to him and he will be a son to Me") is quoted twice in the New Testament.

Immanu-el stands out in contrast to the other children in that there is no father mentioned. Even the mother is not named except to refer to her as "the virgin." In this regard, Immanu-el and the Royal Child of chapter 9 are seen to be similar. The sign is that a young maiden shall be with child. She shall have a son. He will be called Immanuel. But the prophecy does not end here. It goes on to tell what the sign will signify. The sign has been given for a specific localized reason.

The sign was not to end with the birth of Immanuel. It was only to begin there. The rest of the sign was that the child would grow and develop into a young boy. Before that boy had reached the age of being able to tell the difference between right and wrong, the kings of both Aram and Israel would die.

This prophecy has a double fulfillment. On the one hand, it had an immediate application in that a young maiden living in Isaiah’s day had a child and before that child was eating solid food, two specific kings were uprooted.

I believe that the sign of Immanuel was given as a partial fulfillment in the days of Ahaz. This is seen in the following chapter where Immanuel himself is addressed (Isaiah 8:8). But that is not the end of the story. Even though his name was Immanuel and expressed the truth that God was working in the lives of His people, there remained a further and more complete fulfillment.

That fulfillment is seen in the person of Jesus. Matthew 1:22-23 presents to us the truth that Jesus is the ultimate fulfillment of the Immanuel. He is God with us.

It is no mistake that Isaiah used the specific word that he did. The Hebrew word Almah (translated "virgin") technically means a "young maiden." Every time it is used in the Old Testament, it describes a young unmarried damsel.

What is it about the virgin birth of Christ that is so important?

Zebulun and Naphtali were beautiful lands with a major problem. The problem is that they were the buffer zone between Israel and the hostile forces to the north. Every time the Assyrians came down, the first place through which they would come were Zebulun and Naphtali.

By the days of Jesus, this region had come to have a high Gentile population. It would be known as "Galilee of the Gentiles." This would give rise to a proverb: "Can anything good come out of Galilee?"

This is the place where God chose to send His Son.

I mentioned earlier that there is a "son motif" running through the pages of Isaiah. It begins in Isaiah 7 with the virgin-born son named Immanuel. Throughout chapter 8 we read of Isaiah giving names to his children that had prophetic significance. Now we come the final promise of a Son.

Isaiah 52:13 to the end of Isaiah 53 is set forth in the form of a chiasm. It is a parallel that begins and ends of the same note. The important point of this parallel is see in that which is at the pivotal point.

Notice that the aspect of suffering is the central and pivotal point of the passage. But before we read of the suffering of the Servant, we are first guaranteed of the exaltation of the Servant. He will prosper. This is the same message as is found in the book of Revelation. Jesus Wins!

What sort of image would come to mind if you suddenly heard one day that God was coming to town?

Every movie that I’ve ever seen depicting Jesus presents Him as a tall, good-looking man. You’ve known people like that. The movie star stereotype.

We have this idea that we want Jesus to be pretty. But this passage says that He wasn’t that way.

That says something comforting to us.

We tend to believe that if you are strong and good-looking and smart, then Jesus must love you more. We watch a Christian athlete wins a race and he crosses the finish line and says that they owe it all to Jesus and we think that Jesus must love him.

And then some little scrawny fellow who couldn’t run around the block thinks, "Jesus must not love me very much."

Television and magazines always lift up the beautiful people. Jesus would have been overlooked by them. He had no form or beauty. You remember that the next time you pass by someone who is not pretty. If you take a second look, you might find that Jesus is there.

Verse 13 begins with a command. It is to BEHOLD! God is commanding us that we should come and look and examine the One whom He has chosen to become His Servant.

Verse 14 points to the sufferings of the Messiah that preceded the cross:

We learn in the gospels how the Roman soldiers beat Jesus, first blindfolding Him and then hitting Him in the face as they mocked Him and called upon Him to prophesy and to name the identity of the attacker. There is coming a day when we will stand before Him as our judge and He will indeed name each one of us, calling us to account.

Isaiah goes on to tell us that the Messiah would be rejected and misunderstood in His ministry.

Verse 1 is a rhetorical question. After all, this is a message that everyone ought to have believed. But the truth of the matter is that many have not believed the report of the prophet. Why not?

It is because of what we read in verse 2:

Jesus was not the stereotype of a heroic figure. He didn’t come across as a conquering king or a majestic ruler. He grew up as a simple carpenter. There was nothing about His appearing that would attract the natural man.

In these verses we go back and forth between the truth about the work of Jesus versus what people THOUGHT about Jesus. It is a contrast between reality versus delusion.

Unbelieving Israel looked at Jesus on the cross and said, "He got what He deserved." The truth is that He got what WE deserved. The death of Christ was substitutionary in nature. He died in our place.

This was graphically illustrated in the case of Barabbas. This man was a thief and a robber. He had been caught and tried for his crimes and sentenced to death. Seeking to pacify a hostile crowd, Pontius Pilate released Barabbas and crucified Jesus. The one who deserved to die was given life and the One who had done no wrong was sent to the cross. It was a cross that was meant for Barabbas.

Verse 6 widens the scope of the cross to show how it extends itself to all.

This is the same concept that Paul presents in Romans 5:12-18. It is the concept that all were under sin and that all sins were subsequently atoned.

Sheep are not known for their organizational skills. Left to themselves, they will wander and they will keep on wandering. We are like that. Left to ourselves, our tendency is to wander away from God. This is why we need a Savior.

In verses 4-8 we see a contrast between our need over against the Servant’s divine remedy for that need.

The innocent was punished in place of the guilty. The guilty as permitted to go free.

In verse 7 we move from the universal to the particular. The focus shifts from the many to the One as we come again to consider the rejection of the Servant.

The Messiah is likened to a lamb. That had special ramifications to the Jewish mind because when you spoke of a lamb to a Jew, you thought of more than wool or lambchops. The first think that would come to mind would be the idea of a SACRIFICE.

For hundreds of years now in the city in Jerusalem, the first thing that would happen in the morning in the Temple Courtyard is that a lamb would be slain. And for hundreds of years, the last thing that would happen before the sun went down is that another lamb would be slain. Thousands of lambs over hundreds of years. Always another lamb. Always another sacrifice.

They all pointed to the Lamb of God who would die on a rough-hewn cross as a sacrifice for sins. Do you remember what happened when Jesus died? His closing words: "It is finished." No more lambs. No more sacrifices. No more Temples.

And as if to give a divine signature from heaven, the veil in the Temple in Jerusalem was ripped from top to bottom. The way to God has been made open.

What is pointed out in this passage is the Silence of the Lamb:

This verse is chiastic in its outline and in reality should be seen as a part of the first line of verse 8 (the lesson here is that the verse divisions are helpful, but are not inspired).

The fact that Jesus did not open His mouth is all the more striking in that one of His titles is the Word. He came to communicate God to men. I love the comment of St Francis of Assisi, "Always preach the gospel, and when necessary use words." Jesus did that. He communicated the love of God both in His words and in His silence.

While verse 7 shows the Servant’s suffering and His response to that suffering, verse 8 shows the Servant’s death and the response of others to that death.

This is another rhetorical question. Who was it who recognized that the Messiah’s death was for the transgressions of others who were deserving of that death? The question is similar to that in verse 1. The answer is no one.

Who believed our report? No one did.

Who recognized that the Servant’s death was for the transgression of my people to whom the stroke was due? No one did.

Not only was the death of Jesus foretold, but also the people’s reaction to that death was also foretold. It was a reaction of unbelief. Even the disciples of Jesus did not immediately understand that His death was for their sake.

It is not that people are ignorant of the fact that Christ died. Nearly everyone knows that. But people have not truly considered that death and recognized and accepted and appropriated the implications of that death.

Have you? Certainly you are aware of the message of the Gospel; that Jesus died upon the cross for your sins and that He was buried and that He rose again from the dead. But have you appropriated the gospel in your own life? Have you trusted in Jesus as your Lord and as your Savior? Have you committed your life into His keeping? Have you entrusted yourself to Him?

To know only the facts of the gospel without faith is like knowing all about a cool glass of water and to remain thirsty. That is why the Lord’s Supper is such an excellent picture of our communion with Christ. It portrays that need to eat and drink and believe.

How could a man be both assigned with wicked men as well as with a rich man in his death because he had done no wrong himself? The mystery is unveiled in Jesus.

Jesus was judged and condemned to die the death of those who deserved death. He was crucified between two criminals who had done deeds worthy of death. Once they were dead, they would have been taken down and dumped unceremoniously into a common grave.

But something happened that hinted at the special meaning of the death of Christ. It was when a wealthy Jewish nobleman named Joseph of Arimathea took it upon himself to gain permission to give the body of Jesus a more appropriate burial.

There is a lesson here. It is that when the death of Christ was completed, also completed and finished was His humiliation. No longer would He be treated like a common criminal. Instead His body was taken with the greatest reverence and placed in a tomb that had never before been used. This pointed to His innocence.

Back in the first chapter of Isaiah, he pointed out that the Lord takes no pleasure in the sacrifices of wicked men: I take no pleasure in the blood of bulls, lambs, or goats (Isaiah 1:11).

Verse 10 makes a twofold reference to the pleasure of the Lord.