That Which Cannot Fail
“Behold My Servant, whom I uphold; Mine Elect, in whom My soul delighteth; I have put My Spirit upon Him: He shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles. He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause His voice to be heard in the street. A bruised reed shall He not break, and the smoking flax shall He not quench: He shall bring forth judgment unto truth. He shall not fail nor be discouraged, till He have set judgment in the earth: and the isles shall wait for His law.” Isaiah42:1-4
Jesus came to bring justice to an unjust world. He came to bring righteousness to an evil world. When Jesus came into the world, He was born in relative obscurity. Very few people knew who He was, and those few included Mary, His mother, Joseph, His earthly father, the shepherds who were urged by angels to go visit Him in the manger, a devout man named Simeon, a prophetess named Anna, and some wise men from the East. At the time of Jesus’ birth, I don’t think that these folks realized the full impact of this miraculous event that had taken place in a little town called Bethlehem.
When Jesus grew to manhood and began His earthly ministry, He did not begin in a loud, boisterous, attention-grabbing way. He began very gently and quietly. He didn’t “toot His own horn” so to speak. Verse 3 tells us that He will not break the bruised reed nor quench the smoking flax, but will bring truth and justice to bear upon the oppressed. The bruised reed represents those who are weak because of the damage that Satan has inflicted upon them. Jesus did not come to knock them down even further, but came to lift them up, give them hope, and lead them to repentance so that they could have an abundant life in Him. The smoking flax represents those who are weakened by their own sin. Flax was used to make wicks for candles. Jesus sees these wicks (weakened souls) which have almost gone out as souls worth redeeming. He doesn’t extinguish the tiny spark, but breathes new life into it so that it becomes a burning flame for His glory.
Jesus came to bring truth to a lying world and justice to an evil one. Back in the 1950s, in the television series Superman, the man known as Clark Kent, alias Superman, was to bring “truth, justice, and the American way” to mankind. However, Superman was merely a comic book hero who had no real power to do anything except entertain. The idea of a Superman does show, though, that people have a deep down sense of what is right and what is wrong and the desire to see justice done. But without the Lord, there is no real truth and justice. Even though many are aware of the standards that God has set forth, they are powerless to meet those standards on their own because of the sinful nature with which people come into the world. There has only been one God/Man who is able to meet God’s standards fully, and it is only in and through Him that truth and justice can prevail.
We don’t have to worry about Jesus giving up on us. He knows He can’t fail because He is depending on His Father to see Him through. That is the kind of faith that we should have. Jesus doesn’t even get discouraged. Just think at what we could accomplish for the Lord if we didn’t get discouraged. Satan likes to throw roadblocks in front of us to try and keep us from our mission. He wants us to think negatively, to give up and not even try. There was much to discourage Jesus in His mission, but He kept His eyes on His Father for strength and encouragement. Matthew Henry in his commentary wrote of Jesus: “Though He meets with hard service and much opposition, and foresees how ungrateful the world will be, yet He goes on with His part of the work, till He is able to say, ‘It is finished'”. Through His ministry, His death on the cross, and His resurrection, Jesus provided all that was necessary for truth and justice to prevail. He has left His church here to be the conduit by which people could learn about Him and how to be like Him. Thus it is up to all of us who follow Christ to be those conduits of His love and mercy as we help each other out in these difficult days.