“Because the Sovereign LORD helps me, I will not be disgraced. Therefore have I set my face like flint, and I know I will not be put to shame,” Isaiah 50v7. In the proceeding verses we read, “the Sovereign LORD has given me an instructed tongue … the Sovereign LORD has opened my ears …” and then we come to “the Sovereign LORD helps me.”

This passage is regarded as one of the “servant songs” in Isaiah, and in the first instance it relates to the coming Messiah who was to be the servant of the LORD. Truly our Lord Jesus could say that he had an instructed tongue to sustain the weary, he had open ears to obey his heavenly Father, and he had the help of the Lord to see his mission through. Yet, also, we see in it and in Christ a measure of our own position in Christ: he gives us too an instructed tongue, so that by the Holy Spirit’s lead we may give words of encouragement to the weary; he gives us ears and hearts to hear his word and obey it rather than rebel; and he gives us his strength so that we may keep going as Christ did. The power is in the fact that these things come from the Sovereign LORD – the one who reigns and has all power and authority.

For Christ, his attitude and his position was vindicated in his resurrection from the dead, through which he was demonstrated to be both Lord and Christ. For us also, our steady obedience to God, with his help, will be vindicated ultimately at the resurrection when we stand before Christ. Therefore we set our faces like flint, enduring any temporary shame, knowing that it is the Lord we are serving and as Isaiah continues in verse 9 “It is the Sovereign Lord who helps me. Who is he who will condemn me?”

With love and blessing,

Roland