A lot to unpack here.
Verse 7, regarding setting ones’ face like flint is truly a declaration of faith and courage. It illustrates that when we trust in God’s help, we can face any challenge with unwavering determination and a confident expectation of not being defeated or disgraced.
This also is often interpreted as a prophesy about Jesus Christ, who, despite facing immense suffering and humiliation, remained steadfast in His mission, knowing that God would ultimately vindicate Him, according to Isaiah’s prophetic explanations of this entire chapter.
This portion of Isaiah 50: 4-7 contains the third Servant Song, wherein the prophet Isaiah speaks of the suffering of the Messiah. He goes on to express his complete confidence in God, no matter what he sees or hears. His declaration is something we all can learn from.
Isaiah 50:7, regarding setting your face like flint, was a word given to me from a preacher back in 2006. This was just prior to beginning the LIFE HOUSE church that was birthed because of this word from the Lord spoken to me about my “confidence” to preach the Gospel and make disciples of men. This mandate also included “equipping the saints for the work of the ministry.” This preacher I speak of began working with me in prison ministry back in 2005, and we began a 16-year relationship before he went to Heaven in 2021.
Setting our face like flint means many things. Number One: We will not shrink back from our mission to serve the Lord Jesus. Never. No matter what comes our way. No quitting or backsliding or giving up. Jesus never gave up on us, and we do not have the right to quit if we are truly born again in the Spirit. “What is our alternative?” Go back into the world and live like we did prior to meeting Christ? I do not think so. If we do, even temporarily, we are really saying, “I just do not think the Blood of Jesus shed for me was quite good enough.”
Well, His shed Blood is more than sufficient. It was and is powerful to set the captive free.
I have been setting my face like flint from the day I was saved in prison back in 1977. This is an automatic response for every inmate, in the physical realm, to protect oneself and to be resolute in fighting to stay alive in prison. Does not matter if you are a Christian or not. If you hesitate, procrastinate, or even give one glimpse of weakness, your life in prison will no longer belong to you. You can, and will be abused, used, and ground up like powder in a strong wind. Blown away for eternity.
That is prison. “But what about life outside of prison?” I will get to that soon.
Flint, a very hard, dark rock, is used figuratively in the Bible to express hardness, as in the firmness of horses’ hoofs (Isaiah 5:28), and the toughness of an impossible task that requires unwavering determination on our part.
Ezekiel 3: 8-9, “Behold, I have made your face strong against their faces, and your forehead strong against their foreheads. Like adamant stone, harder than flint, I have made your forehead; do not be afraid of them, nor be dismayed at their looks, though they are a rebellious house.”
Reminds me of my first day in prison, prior to working in the cotton fields.
Unbeknownst to me at the time, I entered the dayroom with around fifty inmates.
My first learning lesson was about to happen to me. Not out of total ignorance, as I was enlightened in the County Jail prior to prison about the games played in prison. I was still fried from all the drugs I had done, so I only remember this following incident because it relates to this message. I have been given back my full memory now so here we go.
I walk into the day room and sit on a wooden bench towards the back. There are young men like me, (all of us between 18-22 years old) talking loudly and many playing dominoes. The bulk of these men are those who have been here for long periods of time and knew all the rules and the nature of extortion games.
I am sitting all alone with absolutely no understanding fully of my prison sentence, much less the cotton fields that awaited me the next morning. I am a miserable human being and could care less about anyone around me.
I am 20 years old, and a younger inmate sat down on the same bench near me, but not too close. I guess I radiated a spirit of “psycho”, and he temporarily kept his distance from me. Finally, after a few minutes, he spoke to me.
“Hey man, are you from Dallas County? I hear that you turned state's evidence against one of my homeboys here, and for $10.00 a week, I can offer you protection.”
(Turning state’s evidence, or “ratting” or “snitching” on someone in jail or prison is an instant death sentence.)
I listened to what he said, and then I responded, “If you do not move away from me in the next 5 seconds, I will pull out your eyeballs and...” (Can’t mention my other words, which are not appropriate.)
He left me alone.
I sat for a while and decided I did not like what was playing on the television which was hanging on a steel rack, extended from the ceiling with chains. I walked up slowly to the television. I changed the channel.
When I woke up, there were the three gorillas who had been sitting on the front row, standing over me. My nose was broken, and my jaw swollen. I had been knocked unconscious by one of them, and was told, “Don’t you ever do that again boy.”
Learning lesson. I could not eat for several days because my jaw was partially broken too, and my nose was not functioning enough to smell what I was eating. It was not like it was food that causes you to gain an appetite.
From that day forward, as my mind and senses began to come back to me, I realized something. I was indeed in a Maximum-Security Prison, and I had to deal with all that this environment brings. Insanity. Extortion, Rape, Murder and many other fear-factors attached to being in prison with all young men. Testosterone overload.
I had to set my face (and my mind and what was left of my wicked heart), like flint.
No wavering. No excuses. No hope of ever being normal again. At least this is how I thought without any feelings of remorse for my crimes or any compassion for other psychos like me.
Being steadfast in your beliefs is paramount to survival outside of prison too.
Life outside of prison can be like a prison to many people trying to work out their Salvation in Christ. We get discouraged and let down with broken promises and empty dreams at times in this Christian Walk. We are not immune from trials and temptations either. We must set our mind and our heart to the truth of God and His Word to survive and live free.
Jesus did not back out or run away from the Cross of Calvary. No enemy or accuser could deter Him from accomplishing His purpose. He had set His face like flint.
We are all setting our face to something. Like things that are not flint-rock-solid?
Examples are the cares of this world that Jesus warned us about. I do not want to be an enemy of God, nor do you.
How about lusting after your neighbor’s wife? Or keeping up with the Jones’s?
There are a multitude of things that are softer than flint. Wishy-washy Christianity? Going to church, but never being the church? Giving your tithes and doing that out of duty which disqualifies you as a cheerful giver. God allows grumpy people to fund the Gospel too. Cheerful means hilarious. I want to be that way in all that I give. Not just finances.
I get the fuel for my spiritual tractor by preaching in a local prison around 55 miles from home. I go there every Tuesday. This last Tuesday, the 29th of July, I was just about ready to begin my class, when a man approached me.
“Hey Joe, can I talk to you for a moment?”
I always make time for everyone, no matter the time limits in prison ministry in the chapel.
He stated, “I am bummed out a lot lately and feel depressed.”
He went on to tell me the story of how he was going to be given a smaller sentence through a plea-bargaining agreement from his attorney and his victim.
This man said to me, “I was going to get around 5 years, but at the last minute, the court system and my attorney came to a different agreement. “I got 40 years Joe.” He said with tears in his eyes.
“What am I to say to this man?”
I had a chance to pray for him and encouraged him to remember that the Christian life is a rollercoaster at best. Ups and downs, slow and fast, scary and joyful too. I went on to say to him that, despite the long sentence, Jesus will use your life. “Do you love Jesus, I asked him?” He answered me, “Yes, I do Joe, and I just want to stop thinking about the time I have to do and be happy as best as I can.”
I prayed for him.
Before he sat down, he asked me, “If you have time again in the future can I talk with you some more?”
Of course, you can, and I will always have a listening ear and a prayer for you, just like all the other men here if they want to talk or pray. I am here, not as a preacher, but as a servant of Jesus Christ.
Part of the Gospel, if not the main reason for the Gospel, is about being a good listener. Not just a speaker or teacher.
I marvel at a friend of mine who goes in with me regularly. He visits with the men, prays for some of them and always tries hard to remember their names. He is a thousand times better to remember men’s names than I am. It is a gift from God to him for sure. They sometimes sit next to him in the back and visit quietly as I minister from the pulpit. This is not a distraction to me, and it is needed for the sake of the men who come to talk with him. They need a listening ear that truly listens, not just a sermon. The teaching lesson I do is not as important as the one-on-one time this man of God spends with many of the men we visit.
Jesus said, “I needed clothes, and you clothed me, I was sick, and you looked after me, I was in prison, and you came to visit me.”
In verse 40 of Matthew 25 declares, And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to Me.’
I am grateful I get the privilege and honor to minster the Gospel. My friend who goes with me may not be a preacher or a teacher, but he is a man of God. Many men respect him, and they know that he will listen to them and offer advice and love from God and His Word. Visiting is more than showing up. Visiting men in prison is about showing up to love them, remember their names, and giving of their time to be a vessel of honor.
This entire chapter in Matthew is Jesus’ words. Fully. He had HIS face set like flint. He wanted to. He didn’t have to. He loved all of us. He still does.
Staying on track in the Christian life requires setting our faces like flint. The Apostle Paul teaches us to run the race with our eyes on the prize. (1st Corinthians 9: 24-27). Paul set his face like flint to finish his course:
“Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 3: 12-14.
Setting our face like flint. It is a rock. A very, very hard piece of granite-like stone.
