John Flavel said, what shall I say of Christ? The excelling glory of that object dazzles all apprehension, swallows up all expression. Friends, if you're not in Christ tonight, get in on this. Trust in Him. Believe on Him. Have you greeted Christ as your sure Redeemer? Young people, maybe your parents are godly and they've raised you up in godliness. Have you trusted in Him yourself and come to Him yourself with your sin as your Savior? Trust in Him. Well, tonight we'll be looking at the first of the Servant Songs in Isaiah, Isaiah chapter 42, reading verses 1 to 4. Please turn there with me, Isaiah 42. And that is found in page 765 in your Pew Bibles. The first of four servant songs looking at the glory of Christ. Previous chapter looking at idols and the futility of them and the camera suddenly pans to Christ and begins with that word behold. And here's what we read, Isaiah 42. Behold my servant whom I uphold, my chosen and whom my soul delights. I have put my spirit upon him. He will bring forth justice to the nations. He will not cry aloud or lift up his voice or make it heard in the street. A bruised reed he will not break and a faintly burning wick he will not quench. He will faithfully bring forth justice. He will not grow faint or be discouraged till he has established justice in the earth, and the coastlands wait for his law. Let's go to the Lord one more time in prayer together. Lord, we ask that your word would go forth in power, that we'd see Christ, be comforted, and know him for who he is. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen. So friends, Lord willing, This will be the first of four glimpses we get of Christ as servant in the book of Isaiah. You see these four sorts of glimpses of Christ as servant beginning in Isaiah 42 on to Isaiah 53. And that section of Isaiah is centered around Christ as suffering servant. The most important thing, the reason why we're going from From my preaching, John 17, Christ's prayer, the glimpses of Christ in the book of Isaiah as servant, is that the most important thing we can do as Christians is to read all this word, looking for Christ in all the scriptures. to get greater sights of Christ, to hear Christ preached, and to behold Him and cherish Him all the more. We don't want a vague idea or a sort of mystical piety of who Christ is. We want a concrete sight of Christ. And we're going to take Isaiah's commandment to behold that first word, behold my servant, and to look at Him. Friends, tonight we'll behold Christ as servant, And we'll look at these various things that Christ does, who He is, what His ministry will be, what He'll come to do in that last time, the eschaton. Here's the point of the passage, the point of the passage preached tonight. The point of the passage is this, look to God's chosen servant who deals gently with the sinfulness of his people and will tirelessly bring forth justice on the earth. I'll repeat that. The point of Isaiah 42, 1-4. is this, look to God's chosen servant who deals gently with the sinfulness of his people and will tirelessly bring forth justice on the earth. And here's how we're going to look at the text. Verse 1 is going to be that first part, look to God's chosen servant. Verses 2 to 3, that second part of the point, who deals gently with the sinfulness of his people. And then that third point will be found in verse 1, 3, and 4. And will tirelessly bring forth justice on the earth. So, first, we begin with a look to God's chosen servant. A little bit of background, as I said before, we're coming back from Isaiah 41, and in the end of Isaiah 41, Isaiah is, the Lord is chastising the people of Israel for trusting in idols, and He's showing them the uselessness of those idols, and His crushing of the nations who will trust in those idols. And like I said before, the camera pans suddenly to a behold, strong, emphatic behold to this servant. So we begin with the question, who is this servant? Now if you talk to any sort of scholars, even some evangelical pastors, unfortunately, they'll claim that this servant is Israel. It's not Christ, it's not any sort of Messiah figure, but it's the nation of Israel as a whole. And we can refute this, certainly not Israel as a whole, by looking at the other servant songs. But specifically, we look at two things that show us that this text is talking specifically about Christ. Number one, this passage is quoted in Matthew chapter 12, verses 15 to 21, and is said to be talking about the ministry of Christ in healing the sick and dealing mercifully and gently with sinners. We could say just from that passage alone that this is talking about Christ. Secondly, just look at the fourth verse. It says of this servant, he will not grow faint or be discouraged till he has established justice in the earth and the coastlands wait for his law. I don't think we'd say of a nation of people that there is a law that comes from them that the nations of the earth will wait for. This is certainly someone more than a group of people or some prophet. This has to be Christ. The coastlands, the far nations wait for Christ's law. We hasten on. What does this passage say about this servant? We're called to behold this glorious Christ, to see Him, to behold. And there's five things that the text says about this servant in that first verse, that chosen servant. Number one, he's a servant. Number two, he's upheld by God. Number three, he's chosen by God. Fourth, he's delighted in by God. And fifth, he has the Spirit poured out on him. Let's begin with that first point, a servant. So this one, as we said, Jesus, who's clearly more than a man, more than a prophet, remember the law comes out from him, the coastlines wait for his law, is given the term servant by God. This Christ is commissioned by Yahweh, by the Father, to perform a task on his behalf. Now on the one hand, this puts Christ in a line of servants throughout the Scriptures. This puts Him in the line of figures like David, whom God calls His servant. Moses, whom God says is His servant, and the prophets. They're all defined as servants of God, sent out by God. Yet this servant, is the fulfiller, the one servant to which all those servants pointed, the one greater than David, Moses, and the prophets. They were all servants. He is the servant sent out by God to commission, or commissioned by God to bring out his task. He's the one commissioned, as this text says over and over and over again, to bring justice on the earth. He's commissioned, as verses 2 and 3 say, to deal tenderly with God's people. He's commissioned and set apart, as Isaiah 53 tells us, to bear the sins of His people. It's a high title to be the servant of God to fulfill this task. There's a second thing we can see in this title, servant, and that's humility, the humility of this title. The law comes forth from Him. He's something more than man. He's the one who sent out all those previous servants, and now he's the one being sent by God. Our mind should harken back to Philippians 2.7. What does Philippians 2.7 say about Christ? That Christ emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. Christ, though rich, became poor for our sakes, went low to execute God's task. He pleased not himself, as Romans 15, 3 tells us, but did the will of his heavenly Father, took on the form of a servant to bear our sins, to bring justice to the world, to deal tenderly with us. So friends, is Christ as servant is not only to be delighted in, but it's to be applied personally to all our hearts. It's an invitation to see this high and exalted one who brought himself low, servant to accomplish God's task. It's an invitation to imitation. Every time we see the scriptures displaying Christ's loneliness, Christ bringing himself down to be sent as a servant, we ought to hearken our minds back to that exhortation of Philippians 2, to let the mind of Christ be among us, seeking no personal exaltation. but rather seeking each other's interests in the church, and seeking to do the will of God, and caring for one another, seeking others' interests, lifting up each other from lowliness, and seeking to do all God's will in lowliness and humility. The next ones we'll go through quickly. Second, Jesus is the servant chosen by God. He's not just a servant, but one that God delegated and chose from before the foundations of the world to accomplish all God's task. You read that in 1 Peter 1.20, Christ was foreknown before the foundation of the world to be this servant, this sin-bearing servant, this justice-bringing servant that chapter 42 is talking about. Servanthood's not an afterthought with God. It originated before the foundations of the world, and God determined to make Christ that servant by choice. Third, that God upholds Christ in His humanity. God, day by day, upheld Christ in His flesh, woke Him up, used Him mightily, and fourth, gave His Spirit to Him in the flesh. This is proof of Christ's incarnation, this one from whom the law would proceed would also be given the Spirit of God to accomplish all God's task. Look back to Christ's ministry in his humanity. He performed miracles in the power of the Holy Spirit. He healed in that power. He even rejoiced when he realized that God would reveal the wisdom of God to babes. It says that Christ rejoiced in the Holy Spirit. All of these things, even him offering himself up on the cross as the priest, offering himself as a sacrifice to God, done in the power of the Holy Spirit. And the last sort of thing that we can see about this chosen servant is this. that He's the one in whom God the Father takes deepest satisfaction and delight. Look at that, my chosen in whom my soul delights. We've talked about this in John 17, that previous sermon series. The Father is drawn to the Son of God for all eternity, loving Him, drawn to Him in His beauty. fellowship, eternal fellowship, between the Father and the Son, existing exchange of love and intimacy before the worlds began, between God the Father and God the Son. We read that, didn't we, in John 17, 24, that God loved the Son before the foundations of the world. And this breaks forth in the life of the Son of God on the earth, does it not? Specifically in Christ's baptism. He's baptized, the Spirit descends upon Him. You see that Spirit given to Him part of Isaiah 41. And then the Father, it's almost like He can't hold it back, says, this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. Jesus in the bosom of the Father from all of eternity. And Jesus the object of the Father's love and satisfaction and delight. The Father lifts up this Son as one worthy of love and adoration and intimacy from Him. Friends, ought we not to take a cue from God the Father's delight in the Son of God? Think about it this way. Before I was a Christian and somewhat now. I was fascinated and have been fascinated by the arts, so be it literature or visual arts. I used to be super into movies, classical music, which is still a passion. And as a young man, the way I kind of figured out what to listen to and what to read was by reading critics, literary critics, music critics. They'd lift up a certain composer. They'd say, avoid this writer. By listening to them I kind of had this path to enjoying the arts and I started to delight in the things that these critics upheld and sort of avoid the things and see the flaws of the things that the critics, the works of art the critics kind of put aside. Friend, the Father is setting up Jesus Christ to you and to the world as one worthy of delight and worthy of satisfaction. Ought we not, Christians, to look at the Father declaring His delight in the Son and from eternity past drawing near to the Son in loving fellowship? Ought we not to imitate that God of the universe in delighting ourselves in the Son of God? I was reading recently Edwards talking about feasting on Christ and basically what he's saying is let your appetite and your boundaries know no bounds in delighting in Jesus Christ and feeding on Him. Delight in Him, be ravished by Him without any sort of limits. Feed yourself on Him regularly. And friends, if you've stopped delighting yourself in Christ, imitating the Father and his being drawn to the Son of God for all eternity, it's a sure sign of future compromising. If you're not delighting yourself in this God, you'll inevitably delight yourself in weaker and lesser pleasures. So the exhortation tonight would be, Get your heart satisfied in Christ, the one whom the Father, the greatest of all, delights Himself in. Everything will go awry when we stop seeing Christ as worthy of delights and delighting ourselves in Him. So tonight, if you've grown dry or weary or just estranged from fellowship and communion with Christ, confess it to Him. Tell Him. Ask Him and tell Him that you desire to fellowship on Him and delight in Him more than anything else. So this servant of God, the delighted in servant, the endued with the Holy Spirit servant, the upheld servant, the one chosen by God, this is that servant. And we hasten on to point two. He's the one who deals gently with the sinfulness of his people. Verses two and three, he will not cry aloud or lift up his voice or make it heard in the street. Bruised reed he will not break and a faintly burning wick he will not quench for he will faithfully bring forth justice. So we see the servant and now the nature of his ministry. What's his ministry like? How does this servant execute his servanthood? Let's just take it verse by verse here. First in verse two, we see these phrases, he will not cry aloud or lift up his voice. What's meant by that is two things. Christ himself will not seek a self-celebrating ministry, one that calls attention to himself unduly and promotes himself pridefully. But secondly, he won't have a domineering or condemnation-laden ministry. His kind of ministry is not one, and we could see this in the Gospels, that takes weak and broken sinners and shouts them down and corners them and domineers over them and makes them feel worthless in and of themselves with no hope. We see that in The revelation of his heart in Matthew 11, 28 to 29, he calls those who are weary, heavy laden, to come to him, to take his yoke and his burden upon them. An easy yoke, a light burden. Even the tenor of his teaching, we read it in the scripture reading today. His excreation of the lawyers for loading the people with burdens too hard to bear. He was angry with them for burdening people with harder and harder burdens. Look all throughout the Gospels and Jesus' dealings with the weak. John 4, the Samaritan woman. He's bold. He's confrontational. But he's not domineering. It's not a condemnation-laced speech. He's gentle with her. He offers her everlasting and living waters. Even the adulterous woman, gentle. Kind, he did not shout at any of these, though they could have been condemned, and it would have been just. He dealt with them most gently, most tenderly, did not raise his voice with the broken, did not shriek in self-promotion. With caught sinners, when the spotlight is on them, he was ever gentle, ever kind, ever merciful. A further description of the ministry of the servant is the fact that he will not break a bruised reed, and a faintly burning wick he will not quench. Friends, how does the servant bring forth the justice that's repeated all throughout the text, the center of the text, that justice? How does he bring it forth? How does he bring forth salvation? It's necessary to talk about the imagery of these two things, the reed and the faintly burning link, just to kind of put some handles on those images. What is a reed? A thin, frail plant, easily bent by the wind, or cracked by animals stepping over it, or even men trying to get to their destination, easily just snapping over it by stepping over it. It's thin and frail, easily bent, easily bruised, easily broken. Or that second image, a faintly burning wick, a source of light which is slowly dying away. The fire is dying out. Barely any light is coming out. In fact, there's more smoke than light. It's dying away slowly. So two things. First, we can see this imagery in the immediate context talking about the exiled Israelites. Israelites were faithless towards God. God sent them away into exile. And they were away from their land. They were being disciplined for their idolatry and their faithlessness. And this is no doubt how those Israelites sent into exile would have felt. They would have felt abandoned by God because of their sin. Their failure and their compromise would have been ever before them. They would have seen themselves as a reed bruised, a wick with its fire faintly burning, almost dying away, so dim. But secondarily, because of its use in Matthew 12, And because of that principle of spiritual strugglers and this verse, this is obviously applied to the spiritually weak, the sin weary, the defeated. This was true of Jesus' ministry as found in Matthew chapter 12, 15 to 21. And Christian, this applies to you directly. This is you when you've sinned. This is you when you've been compromising. a faintly, dimly burning wick. The life has gone almost out of you. It's almost dead. Is there even any life? Christian, think, what are you like when you've sinned or when you're coming out of a season of compromise? Maybe you're there. You've done it again. You've sinned again. Your heart is heavy. There's a felt drooping within you. Like a reed bent from a strong wind. It feels like you've placed several 50 pound dumbbells on your heart. A fire that once burned tangibly and brightly is now reduced to a flicker. Is life even there? You feel totally dead. Passion for Christ, happiness in him, zeal for him is a distant memory. And there's shame, such shame. You want to run away, you want to hide from Christ. You've let down Christ yet again. Maybe it's the same sin you've been committing regularly. Maybe it's something you've struggled with for a while and you chastise yourself. How could you be so stubborn, so heartless? And that weight, that bent reed feeling within, that dying light feeling within is all the more powerful because Jesus has given you so much, showed you so much of himself, and yet you still have let him down. In that moment, Christian, what is Jesus' heart towards his sinning people? How does Jesus deal with us when we've just sinned against him? Friends, a bruised reed. He will not break. And a faintly burning wick, he will not quench. The faintest, weakest light, he won't extinguish. The most bruised, weak reed, he will not snap in half. Now I, believe it or not, hate using academic jargon. I hate it. But this is an example of something called litotes. Litotes is this, I'll give you an example. If you say something to your friend and your friend says to you, well you're not wrong, they're not just saying you're not wrong, they're saying you're correct. When God says to his people, I will never leave you nor forsake you, it's not just saying that he won't leave them, he's saying positively that he'll be with them, his presence will be with his people. And in this text, The servant is not just going to not break a bruised reed and not quench a smoldering wick. He will repair and mend that bruised reed. He will repair and put oil on and trim that dimly burning wick. Jesus will not only not break the bruised wreath, he will mend it. He will not only not quench the faintly burning wick, but will repair it and make sure it burns all the brighter for him. So what is Jesus' heart towards us when we've sinned, Christian, when you've sinned? No matter how dim the light of our devotion, he will never quench it. He will never extinguish it. He will always repair, always trim, always mend. This is the opposite of something we see in Isaiah 41, 21. Isaiah talks about a king from the north that will come and step on and shatter the nations. Christ is the opposite. Will he snap us? Will he crush us when we failed him? This would be the thing to do that makes most sense, to get rid of a reed. This thin thing that's gonna break anyways, just get rid of it. That would be the thing that makes most sense. But no, he'll mend that bruised reed. Friend, in your eyes, is Jesus sort of like an ambitious heavenly CEO or a heavenly divine policeman waiting to either give you your job report and show that you're wanting in your performance and then to readily fire you or to see the smallest infraction or large infraction and to immediately get rid of you? Is that the way you think of Christ? That's not him. He took all those failings, all those fallings, and bore it in His body on the tree, past, present, and future, that we might approach Him and might know His dealing with us as a gentle, tender, mending Savior. We're utterly useless. We bruise. We become dim. But Christ, out of deep, abiding, steadfast love, will never extinguish or despise the weakest light. Has that been true of you? Can you recall times of compromise? Maybe you're in it now. A weak time of suffering, struggling with sin. Think about all your low points previously. Has Christ not brought you out of compromise? Has he not taken the fire that you've brought low every time and kindly put oil on it? brought the fire out more clearly, taken that bruised reed that you've broken yourself and mended it, mended it, mended it. I think of a scriptural picture, a perfect picture of one zealous, then a bruised reed, and then restored. And it's an obvious, obvious illustration. It's Peter. Peter starts out zealous. He's confident. He makes a right confession about Christ being the son of the living God. He's zealous and says that he would be with Christ, would not let him die? What happens? Christ in the midst of zealousness, with that burning fire, denies, Peter rather, denies Jesus Christ. A Christian, whatever your struggle is, I'm assuming that most of us have not denied Jesus Christ with our lips this week. You've not said, I don't know Christ. Peter did. Peter denied Christ. What does Christ do with this denying, bruised, dimly burning Peter? 1 Corinthians 15, when he's raised from the dead, he meets with Peter one-on-one. He makes an individual appearance with Peter in the midst of his weakness. And then later on, in John 21, he restores him. He recommissions him. What happens after that? Peter's restored. His fire burns all the more brightly. He preaches at Pentecost. He's used mightily of God. Friends, look at that example of Peter, a denier of Christ. I know that you are not beyond hope in any of your sin, in any of your bruisings, in any of your compromise from Christ who will meet individually. The first thing he does when he is raised from the dead is meet with a compromiser and a denier. He won't shame you. Every temptation of running from the Savior because of shame from our sin is inexcusable. That's the root of Mariolatry. Going to Mary instead of Jesus because Jesus is upset with us. Or going to the saints because they can relate to us and Christ is angry. Catholics, in believing that, are believing a lie about Jesus. And when you and I are hesitant to approach Christ, we're believing a lie about his heart towards us. We're lying about who Christ is. So Christian, after you've sinned, you want to make the devils in hell gnash their teeth and the angels leap for joy? Go to Christ immediately with your sin. He loves to heal bruised and languishing Christians. He loves to heal you. He loves to repair you. He loves to mend you. Recount those previous times how He's brought you out of spiritual deadness, time after time, and go to Him. Maybe you're burning brightly now and you're not in a season of compromise. If that's you, praise God. Pray that God would use you to help the spiritually struggling in your midst. Use that burning fire to cause them to be a light for Christ, those who have a dim heart for Christ in the midst of sin. And remember this truth about Christ. Next time you fall into sin and are privy to weakness and discouragement, He will not break you. He'll mend you and will not extinguish that dim fire, but make it grow all the more greatly. Then apply this secondly to the church at large. The church herself may go through her periods where her effectiveness is seemingly dim. Her light burns dimly and yet Christ will never utterly abandon the church. The gates of hell will not prevail against the church despite her languishing, despite temporary periods of ineffectiveness. Christ will pour out His Spirit and use that church for His glory. You know, we think that previous revivals, you know, the church is doing relatively well, they're not as bad as us, and then God brings them from one degree of glory to the next. I challenge you to read about the history of the Great Awakening in England and Wales. Drunkenness is prevalent, sexual immorality is on the rise, illiteracy is everywhere, alcoholism, you name it. Crime is going unpunished. And in the midst of that, God takes a hold of his church, pours out his spirit upon her, uses her mightily in a way he did not since the acts of the apostles. But all of this sort of gentleness and description of this servant Savior is leading to something, and it's the core of this text. You notice that justice is repeated three times throughout this passage of Scripture. And that's because all of this is leading to this servant, deals gently with the sins of his people, bringing justice to the nations. And that's our third point, which we'll go over briefly. Number three, he will tirelessly bring forth justice on the earth. This is the thrust of this passage. Friends, when you see something repeated over and over and over again in scripture, notice that it's very, very important if it's being repeated in that way. And this is repeated three times throughout the whole chapter. Jesus will bring forth justice. Verse four, to the coastlands, the faraway nations will know the justice of Christ. And if you notice in the original languages in verse four, that he will not grow faint or be discouraged. That's a play on verse three. Though we grow bruised, though our lights grow dim, Christ will never be bruised with discouragement in accomplishing this task. His light will never grow dim in accomplishing justice in this world. So that's the comfort of comforts. Jesus, meek and gentle, but also immutable and strong and unchanging. Towards His mission, remember Isaiah 57, and even in the Gospels, Jesus sets His face like flint to Jerusalem to bear the sins of His people and to bring justice to the coastlands. Well, briefly, what is meant by this justice? Well, according to Isaiah 41, it's defined as the destruction of idolatry. of injustice, of sinfulness, and the coming of total salvation, justice, and goodness upon the earth at the coming of this servant. It's the coming, in short, of the kingdom of God. And the Jews would have pointed to Isaiah 42 as their kind of text along with many others of, yeah, the kingdom of God is coming and this is what it's going to look like. And this kingdom will have even the distant islands waiting and calling them to trust in the one who brings that law. And friends, how relevant is this for our time with war and famine and persecution? The world presently ought to clearly see its need for this justice-giving Christ to come and bring his Torah and his law into the world. We're beset by war, persecution, the murdering of innocents, in war, in abortion, human trafficking, intense and painful poverty, starvation, racism, drug addiction, the power of pornography, domestic abuse, parents shirking their duties towards their children and abusiveness, sexual immorality, truth being controverted for a lie, political corruption, wicked conceptions of gender identity and sexuality, And friends, many of these sins, these types of sins have agreed, have rather existed since the fall. It's just other iterations of these sins. But friend, at the coming of this gentle Savior, we'll deal gently with the sins of His people, the chosen one of God. Every one of these evils will eventually melt away at Christ's powerful rule in His kingdom on the earth when He establishes justice upon the globe. This is a world The word is taken from the plan that God gave for the tabernacle. This is a world that is in perfect submission to God's plan. A world of perfect purity, justice, righteousness. Christ's Torah, the law from this servant, will be propagated, brought forth in all the earth. So my friend, if you're here and you think, yeah, I agree with that. The world now is really off and weird and things are just getting worse and worse. I wonder if you think that it's just something wrong with the world now, or there's something wrong with the world outside yourself, or if there's something fundamentally wrong with you and me. Is there a time of peace in history you'd like to go to? You take the French, the French Revolution, overthrowing a corrupt monarchy. What happens? Massacres propagated. The crimes of the British even. Stalin trying to bring a utopia, trying to bring his justice on the earth, leading to the killing of millions and millions. Even one man who observed the Nazi regime said one time, one must not understand Nazi hatred because it is anti-human and counter-human, a hatred that is not in us but outside man. And friend, the Christian doesn't believe that. The Christian looks to the Word of God which says we are fallen, we are wicked, we are bad and corrupt to our core. We look at history from Timur, the Mongols, the Assyrians, this past bloody century, this present bloody century. We find no hope except in Christ. So friend, we want to encourage you, we want to call upon you to look upon the world as saying something about you and I. That no matter what we try to do in propagating our own empires, our own way, our own justice upon the world, it'll be marked by all the things I talked about. Sin and injustice and murder. And the way to know God's perfect justice when Christ comes is to trust in the one who experienced the justice of God due for sinners' sin. Jesus Christ, the just one, experienced the justice of God that sinners deserved. Eternal separation in hell, the wrath of God being poured out. Christ bore it for sinners like you and sinners like me. from the solution and the way that you will not be excluded from that just reign of Christ on the earth is by trusting in the one who bore the justice of God for you. Come to him as you are tonight. Believe on him and be saved. We know that the only way to experience that justice is Christ coming down and ruling in justice. And the last application is this. Where do we see this rule of Christ today? Where can we see it in this world? Well, we see it in an already but not yet way in the church, where we proclaim as regenerate, born-again believers, Jesus is Lord. When the church engages in church discipline, When people who are in habitual sin, who name the name of Christ, and we have no confidence that they're true Christians, when we engage in church discipline, when its members trust in Christ, when the word of God is preached and obeyed, the world is given a preview of what that kingdom where Christ rules will look like. The church is where this is set forth for the world to see. Christ coming, and in those verses, not being discouraged, till he's established justice in the earth. Look to a time dwelling with your Savior where injustice will cease, perfect justice will be propagated, and we'll dwell with Christ in purity. To summarize, this chosen, beautiful Savior will not extinguish your faint-lighted devotion. You might be totally bruised. He will deal mercifully with you. Go to Him. Run to Him. Make the devils gnash their teeth. Make the angels leap for joy. Go to him in all your failure and all your discouragement. This is his heart towards you. He will not quench you. He will not extinguish or break you. And this gentle Savior, the center of this text, is moving towards ushering in total justice and righteousness on the earth. The Savior who has dealt with all our wanderings will then righteously rule over us in justice. Amen. Let's pray. Lord, we pray that the Word of God would be blessed. We thank you that the tender Savior who will not break a bruised reed or quench a dimly burning wick himself will not be bruised in establishing justice on the earth. We do not look to any political party for our salvation, or any man, or any empire, any country. We look to Christ and his propagation of justice on the earth in that last day. Even so, come Lord Jesus, Maranatha. We long for your coming. We pray all these things in Jesus' name, amen.