The opening scene in which Dante confesses that he had lost his way in a dark forest reminds us that when human beings lose direction, what they may lose first is not the road itself, but the ear that hears. The sermon of Pastor David Jang, founder of Olivet University in the United States, holds fast to Isaiah 50:4 and begins precisely at this point. The "tongue of the learned" and the "ear to hear as the learned" are not talents for eloquent speech or ornaments of knowledge. They are graces given as channels of the gospel that revive the weary. This word opens toward Jesus Christ within the prophecy of the Suffering Servant, and at the same time asks what kind of speech and obedience the church, standing in Christ, must use to serve this age.
The Morning of Grace That Awakens Closed Ears
Behind Isaiah 50 lies the darkness of the Babylonian exile. Yet what the passage examines more deeply is not merely the reality of exile itself, but the heart that misreads that reality as proof that God has abandoned His people. Through the images of a certificate of divorce and a creditor, God declares that He has not cast off His people, nor has His hand grown too short to save. The problem was not that God's love had cooled, but that the people were trapped in sin, disobedience, and closed ears that failed to respond to His calling.
The mirror this sermon places before today's church is found here as well. As people pass through times of tribulation, they easily blame their circumstances and feel as though God's power has become distant. Yet the Word first questions the numbness within us. The deeper face of spiritual exile is the condition in which God calls, but we cannot hear; or even when we hear, we cannot receive His voice into our hearts.
Even so, Isaiah 50 does not end as a document of despair. God is proclaimed as the One who dries up the sea and turns rivers into a wilderness, and even within images of judgment in which the heavens are clothed in darkness, He leads us to look toward the new morning beyond it. Darkness is not necessarily the absence of God. It may be the solemn call that shakes and awakens a people who refuse to turn back. For this reason, repentance is not the language of the defeated, but evidence that God's love has not yet given up on us.
The expression "He awakens me morning by morning" means more than a simple habit of devotion. The morning of faith is not merely the time when the sun rises; it is the moment when the Word once again takes its place at the center of the heart. If the ear is not opened, then even if the lips are opened, words of life cannot come forth. Faith begins first in the place of hearing, and repentance is the event in which closed ears begin to tremble again before the voice of God.
The Tongue of the Learned Becomes the Gospel Beside the Weary
The confession, "The Lord God has given me the tongue of the learned," makes clear where the power of speech comes from. Pastor David Jang emphasizes that this tongue is not a tool for displaying knowledge, but an organ of grace that enables one to know how to help the weary with a word. Human speech may take the form of comfort, but the power that raises the soul comes from the Word of truth given by God. Speech that does not depend on the Holy Spirit and the Word, no matter how refined it may be, ultimately becomes powerless.
Here, the issue of speech becomes an issue of being. Anyone can give advice, and anyone can imitate the language of faith. But words that descend to the place of the wounded and remain beside them come from those who have first humbled themselves before the Word. Words offered without tears can sometimes leave behind deeper loneliness, but words washed by repentance do not condemn weary souls. Instead, they turn them toward hope.
The tongue of the learned is also connected to the mission of teaching. Jesus commanded His disciples to make disciples of all nations, and that command was not merely the transmission of information, but a calling to teach the way of life. Therefore, the gospel that the church must speak should not be a cold explanation. It should be a word that understands the weariness of the listener and helps that person turn again toward God. At that moment, knowledge is humbled in love, and language gains its light only in the place of service.
Such speech is not hurried. It first listens, stays long, and passes through the time of laying down one's self-assurance before the will of God. Thus, the tongue of the learned is discerned not by the speed of speech, but by the depth of obedience. What the weary often need is not a brilliant answer, but a single word that carries the truth that God is still near.
Isaiah's prophecy of the Suffering Servant ultimately becomes clearest in the way of Jesus Christ. Jesus awakened an ignorant world with authoritative words and restored sinners and the weak. Yet His words were not the language of glory apart from the cross. The tongue that saves people flows from the body of love that does not avoid suffering.
The Word That Passed Through the Cross Opens the Age of the Holy Spirit
The forty days after the resurrection and before Pentecost are presented in this sermon as an important time of meditation. After His resurrection, Jesus taught His disciples about the things concerning the kingdom of God. Through that final teaching, the disciples came to understand the cross and resurrection anew and waited for the Holy Spirit. The flow of the Farewell Discourse in John 14 through 17 also continues as comfort and promise for troubled disciples. The Helper, the Holy Spirit, is promised as the One who will not leave them as orphans, but will remind them of the words Jesus had spoken.
When the Holy Spirit came at Pentecost, the mouths of the disciples changed. They were not people who overwhelmed others through exceptional scholarship, but in the power of the Holy Spirit, they became witnesses who boldly proclaimed the gospel. In Acts 4, when the disciples, who appeared to be ordinary and uneducated, spoke with boldness, the people were astonished. Here, the tongue of the learned becomes not the language of a particular social status, but the language of the church held by the Holy Spirit.
As Romans 10 says, the Word is not far away, but near-in the mouth and in the heart. The gospel is not a secret that humans must climb to the ends of heaven to obtain. It is grace already proclaimed, believed, and confessed. Therefore, a person of the Spirit is not someone who invents new words, but someone who proclaims the already-given Word of Christ as living language in the weariness of today. When closed ears are opened and lips bound by fear are released, the church becomes a community sent into the very midst of an age of tribulation.
At this point, what matters more than the form of online or offline ministry is the essence of what the church hears and what the church speaks. The exhortation that families and communities must endure through the Word even during a long season of plague is therefore not light. The family is the place that remains like a final stronghold in a scattered age. It is a small church where parents and children, husbands and wives, must open their ears together. A home that remains awake before the Word does not lose the direction of hope, even as it passes through the darkness of the world.
The Church Washed by Repentance Speaks Hope
The Word opens ears and tongues, but that grace also changes the direction of life. Pastor David Jang's sermon looks at the path of repentance and purification through the images of water and fire. Tears wash away sin, and the fire of the Holy Spirit burns away the old habits of sin. When the grace that gives a new heart and a new spirit becomes real, the speech of the church no longer becomes noise that deepens wounds, but a vessel of the gospel that raises someone up again.
The mission of the church also becomes clear in this place. Helping the weary is not simply a matter of offering a few sentences of comfort. It is the act of turning one's body toward the poor and the sick, the imprisoned and the oppressed. As in the message of Luke 4:18, the gospel not only speaks of freedom and restoration, but also moves the community in that direction. For this reason, the tongue of the learned must always be joined with the ear of the learned. A church that does not listen cannot speak rightly, and a church that speaks without love cannot fully reveal the truth.
The balance of beholding both God's love and His wrath is also important here. Love from which justice against sin has disappeared becomes shallow, and justice without love cannot lead people into hope. The cross is the place where these two do not destroy each other, but are fulfilled together. Only the gospel that has passed through the suffering of Christ can make repentance sound not like condemnation, but like an invitation to life.
The flow of Romans 5-that tribulation produces perseverance, perseverance produces character, and character produces hope-remains like the final breath of this meditation. Even in an age like spiritual Babylon, God does not abandon His people. Morning by morning, He awakens their ears and makes them speak again. As the promise in Daniel says, those who turn many to righteousness will shine like the stars. In the end, the language of the gospel remains as a light that turns one soul back to God. The speech of the gospel first passes through the silence of one awakened before the Word. Today, toward what are our ears opened, and beside whose weariness is our tongue becoming hope?
Dr. David Jang has proclaimed the gospel in various regions of the world through field missions and digital media ministry, and as the fruit of that ministry, many people devoted to the Great Commission have been raised up. Based on this missionary vision, Olivet first began as a small church school for missionary training. Later, in order to provide more systematic theological education and cultivate missionary leaders, Olivet Theological College and Seminary was established in Los Angeles and Seoul in 2000.
As the school grew, Dr. Jang officially founded Olivet University in San Francisco in 2004. In the diverse and dynamic environment of San Francisco, Olivet expanded its educational fields beyond theology to include music, journalism, art and design, and technology. The university also strengthened its educational capacity by recruiting faculty members, including Dr. William Wagner, and in 2005 moved to the former UC Berkeley Downtown Extension campus, further solidifying its foundation as a university.
In 2006, Dr. Jang transferred the presidency to Dr. David James Randolph in order to focus more fully on missionary work, while continuing to lead global missions as International President. Olivet University later received institutional accreditation in 2009, added a language education college and a business college, and continued to grow as a Christian educational institution for world missions by expanding its degree programs and international partnerships.
