750 years before our Savior came
into this world, the prophet Isaiah was inspired of God to
describe the sufferings of our blessed Savior in the 53rd chapter
of Isaiah. And I want us to look at that
portion of scripture tonight. If God the Spirit will enable
me to proclaim that which he's given me and taught me from this
portion of scripture, I'm certain I have a message that will be
profitable for your souls. If you don't know our Redeemer,
if you're yet without life and faith in our Savior, I urge you
to hear and hear well what I'm about to preach to you. We'll
begin reading in Isaiah chapter 52 and verse 13. Behold, my servant shall deal
prudent there. He shall be exalted and extolled
and be very high. As a result of what he accomplishes
as my servant, the Lord God says, I will exalt him, I'll extol
him, I'll make him higher than the heavens, give him power to
rule over all flesh, to give eternal life to as many as I've
given him. As many were astoned at thee,
his visage was so marred more than any man, and his form more
than the sons of men. So shall he sprinkle many nations. The king shall shut their mouths
at him, for that which had not been told them shall they see,
and that which they had not heard shall they consider. This one
who is my servant, In order that he be exalted and made very high,
he shall first suffer, suffer at the hands of men for the sake
of men by the hand of God and die. And as a result of what
he accomplishes, king shall bow before him and all knees and
every tongue shall bow to him and confess that he is Lord.
Isaiah 53 verse one. Who has believed our report? Your pastor has been here preaching
the gospel of God's free grace to you, giving you this report
for, I'm gonna guess, about 15 years. Is that close? A little over 12. Who in those
12 years has believed the report? I'll tell you who has. And I'll
tell you who will. To whom is the arm of the Lord
revealed? Those to whom God makes bare
his mighty arm and reveals his son believe the report. You are
all together in God's hands and at God's mercy. If God doesn't
reveal Christ to you, you'll never know him. If God doesn't
open your heart and give you life, you'll never have life.
If God doesn't graciously call you to believe on his son, you'll
never believe on his son. Verse two, for he shall grow
up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of dry ground,
he hath no form nor comeliness. And when we shall see him, there
is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected
of men. A man of sorrows and acquainted
with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces
from him. He was despised and we esteemed
him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows. Yet we did esteem him stricken,
smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace
was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep
have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his
own way, and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and he was afflicted,
yet he opened not his mouth. He is brought as a lamb to the
slaughter. And as his sheep before her shearers
is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth. He is taken from prison
and from judgment. And who shall declare his generation?
For he was cut off out of the land of the living. For the transgression
of my people was he stricken. And he made his grave with the
wicked and with the rich in his death. because he had done no
violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth, yet it pleased
the Lord to bruise him. Though he did no sin, though
he knew no sin, though he could not sin, he had done no violence,
no deceit in his mouth, yet it satisfied God in his infinite
wisdom and grace. In his everlasting mercy and
truth, in his absolute justice, it satisfied the Lord, the triune
Jehovah, to bruise him, to crush him to death. He hath put him
to grief. When thou shalt make his soul
an offering for sin, he shall see his seed. He shall prolong
his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his
hand. He shall see of the travail of
his soul and shall be satisfied. By his knowledge, by his knowledge
of why he came into this world, by his knowledge of all that
he accomplished while he was in this world, by his knowledge
shall my righteous servant justify many, for he shall bear their
iniquities. Therefore, therefore will I divide
him a portion with the grave. And he shall divide the spoil
with the straw, because he hath poured out his soul unto death,
and he was numbered with the transgressors, and bear the sin
of many, and made intercession for the transgressors." Oh, may God be pleased now to
show us something together of the sufferings of our Savior. That's my subject tonight. I
don't know what hell is or where hell is. But I know this. This book speaks of a place called hell. A horrid, horrid place of indescribable
wrath and judgment. A place where justice is forever
executed upon ungodly men. A place of torment, endless everlasting
torment, where men and women will forever suffer the wrath
of God in their bodies, in their hearts, and in their souls. Your heart, by nature, is enmity
against God. With your body as the instrument,
you display that enmity against God in relentless sin and rebellion. And your soul despises the fact
that God is. And because you sin against God,
body, heart, and soul, You shall suffer the wrath of God in hell
in your body, in your heart, and in your soul, unless God's
pleased to grant you grace and you believe on his Son, the Lord
Jesus Christ. I urge you then, believe on the
Son of God. Oh, God help you now to believe
his Son. Trust the Lord Jesus Christ.
Otherwise, you will spend eternity in hell. A place of separation. Separation from God and light
and truth and good. A place of separation from everything
you can desire. A place of complete isolation. untold multitudes suffering the
wrath of God with you in hell, but utterly isolated and alone,
you will suffer the unmitigated wrath of God. A place of fire. People like to debate and argue,
are the fires of hell real? The fires of hell are more real
than any fire you have ever imagined. Physical fire, such as you might
see in a steel mill. Physical fire, such as you might
see in an erupting volcano, are just a picture of the fire of
hell that's unquenchable, by which men and women will forever
suffer the wrath of God Almighty. Hell, a place of darkness. utter darkness, a place of torment,
indescribable torment, from which there is no escape except Jesus
Christ, our refuge. And I know this, in order to
redeem and save his people, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of
God, was required to suffer all the hell of God's wrath. to the full satisfaction of his
infinite justice in his body, in his heart, and in his soul. Now these are things I will not
make any pretense of being able to explain. These are things
all indescribably above my ability to comprehend or yours. But these
are things revealed to us in Holy Scripture with such plainness
and such dominance that they're things God intends for us to
constantly have on our hearts and in our minds. Our Lord Jesus,
in order to save his people, came into this world in human
flesh. He assumed to himself our nature
and became one of us. The Word was made flesh and dwelt
among us. And we beheld His glory, the
glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace
and truth. This One who became one of us
never ceased to be God. There's not a mingling of godhood
and manhood. He is fully God and fully man. But God became one of us. That's indescribably more than
we can begin to comprehend. He became one of us for this
reason. In order for a man to satisfy
all the demands of God on the behalf of fallen men, that man
must be without sin, born of a virgin, the woman's perfect
seed. But it's not enough to be a perfect
man. That man must himself be God. Jesus Christ is that man. God in the flesh. God in our
nature. The God man. The man who is God. This man is a man with a body
like yours. And a heart like yours. and a
soul like yours, in which he suffered all the fury of God's
wrath until God said, that's enough. Until God said, that's enough.
I require no more. And because he is God, all that
he did is of infinite worth, of infinite value, of infinite
efficacy, so that everything he intended to accomplish in
his death, he fully accomplished, and nothing was left to chance. I was speaking to a preacher
friend who came to the services Friday night, Brother Terry Worthen,
down in Canton, Georgia, and we were chatting. Terry's like
me, been around a while. He's, I think he said he was
77 years old now. Been Pastor at Canton for a long,
long time. And I've known him for better than 40 years. And
I said, Terry, he was asking about the situation in Europe.
I said, sadly, there are lots of folks there, like here, who
claim to believe the gospel of God's grace, but they're running
as fast as they can away from the declaration of Christ's particular
effectual redemption, limited atonement. And I said, I'll tell
you what, buddy, I can tolerate a lot. And I bend over backwards
with others, but I draw the line here. To deny the infinite worth,
the infinite efficacy of Christ's shed blood at Calvary is to deny
the totality of the gospel. Jesus Christ came into the world
to redeem and save his people. Either He redeemed them and saved
them, or He's a failure. And He who is a failure is not
God our Savior. He came here to put away sin
by the sacrifice of himself. Either he put it away or he is
a failure. And he who is a failure is worth
nothing to our souls. He came here to make an end to
transgression, to bring in everlasting righteousness for somebody. He
came here to redeem somebody from the wrath of God. And either
those for whom he suffered and died are redeemed forever from
the wrath of God or his blood, his death, his life, his person
is not worth spit. Now that's as plain as I make
it. And I intended to use exactly the words I used. Either Jesus
Christ is an effectual savior or is no savior. Either his blood
is effectual blood or it's worthless blood. Either his righteousness
is effectual righteousness. I mean by that, his blood, his
power, his grace, his righteousness, effectually saves every sinner
for whom he lived and died. Either that's so, or this book
is a myth and your faith is foolishness and you may as well go ahead
and do whatever you want to, there's no hope for your soul.
Jesus Christ our Lord shall see of the travail of his soul and
shall be satisfied. You know what that means? That
means the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ shall never be discovered
a miscarriage. There's some people in this world
God will save because he purposed to save them, because Christ
died to save them, because he sits in glory today and reigns
over all flesh to save them, because it is the will of the
triune God to save them. How does he do so? Through the
sufferings, the accomplishment of Jesus Christ in his sufferings
and in his death. Now let's look at these three
aspects of our Savior's sufferings with great brevity. And I will
do so with great brevity on purpose because I want to say little
and I pray God will be pleased to say much. First, look at chapter
52 and verse 14. As the Lord God begins to describe
his servant and the sufferings of his body, Many were astoned at thee. Astoned at thee. Modern translations translate
that astonished or astounded. Astoned is a better translation. It's an old English word. It
has the idea of turning to stone. Men beheld him in his agony as
they beheld just his physical agony as they beheld just what
he endured as a man in the flesh, seeing only what the eye of flesh
can see. And it's such a shocking picture. I just turned to stone. I can't describe this. I've never
seen anything like this. People have, Pictures, supposedly
pictures of Christ. If you still have any, I suggest
you burn them. They're just pieces of idolatry.
But they're always misrepresenting the Savior. I've never seen one
yet that came close to representing what this book describes our
Savior to be. If you could find an artist who could paint a picture
of our Savior when he was burying our sin in his body on the tree,
You wouldn't want it hanging over your dining room table.
You wouldn't want it hanging in a church building. It's horrible,
shocking to behold. His visage was so marred more
than any man. I used to work at a hospital
in Springfield, Missouri when I was in school out there. I
was a janitor. I didn't do anything. I had to
clean floors and scrub places up after the messes that were
left. But I saw some marred faces. I saw some marred faces. I saw
folks who had been burned head to foot after pouring gasoline
on them, marred. I saw folks whose faces were
eaten away, just literally eaten away with cancer. His visage
was so marred, more than any man, his form. So mutilated,
more than any man. When you read of what our Lord
endured at the hands of men, It's hard to imagine that any
man could inflict upon another mortal such barbaric cruelty. And harder still to imagine that
any man could endure the cruelty our Lord endured while he endured
such agony. And when we realize that the
one who suffered on that day of all days was and is the immaculate
Holy Son of God in human flesh. I'm astonished. I'm astonished. Ever remember the sufferer that
Isaiah describes is God-man, man-God. No mere animal sacrifice
could put away sin. No angelic substitute could put
away sin, and certainly nothing that you do can make atonement
for sin. Only the holy, innocent man,
Christ Jesus, who is God, could put away our sins. People had
the idea that our Lord Jesus somehow sort of died because
he couldn't help it. He died because the Jews wouldn't
let him be their king. He died because he was the helpless
victim of circumstances. Don't ever imagine such. When
you read about the suffering of our Redeemer, understand that
he did not die as the helpless victim of circumstances. He died
as the God of circumstances. Everything done at Calvary was
done according to his will and his purpose for the saving of
his people, even as he suffered the wrath of God. It is he who
gave strength to the soldier to nail him to the tree. It is
he who made the tree from which the cross was made upon which
he hung. It is he who gave power to men
to put him to death upon the cursed tree as a vile base criminal
with their wicked hands, doing only what the determinate counsel
and foreknowledge of the one hanging on the tree had ordained
before the world began. Jesus Christ is Lord of all,
even in his death. And yet, what he suffered, oh,
what he suffered, no tongue can describe. I know that religious
folks like to talk about the physical sufferings of our Lord
and stir people up passionately and emotionally and get them
to start acting religious from those things, feeling sorry for
poor Jesus. Our Lord Jesus would not have
us do that, and that is not my purpose. He said, weep not for
me, but weep for yourself and for your children. But we are
not to neglect that which others abuse. You read through the book
of God and you find that a great deal of effort is made, and very
much is written in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, here in Isaiah,
in the Psalms, Psalm 22 particularly, about that which our Lord Jesus
suffered in his flesh, in his body, as he hung on the tree.
Our Savior, the last night before he was crucified, sat down with
his disciples and established the Lord's table. It begins in John 13, and the
Lord has washed his disciples' feet, and he passed the bread
and the wine to Judas, just as he did to Peter. Passed the bread and wine to
Judas, just as he did to Peter. He said, the one who dips He's
bread and sock with me. He's gonna betray me and Judas
Just got up and walked away and he went out and made arrangements
to betray the Son of God for 30 pieces of silver and While
he was gone, our master gave his last discourse I'm fairly
confident that we only have a summary of it but it begins in John chapter
14 and goes through the end of chapter 16 and I urge you at
your leisure to sit down and patiently read those three chapters
at one time and hear our Savior's last words to his disciples. Then in John 17, our Savior made
his great high priestly prayer where he made intercession to
the Father for his disciples who were then his disciples.
and for you and I, who are now his disciples, and all who would
ever be his disciples. And our Lord's disciples heard
his prayer, his intercessions, and he said, I've told you all
these things, but sorrows filled your hearts. He said, let not
your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also
in me. In my Father's house are many
mansions. If it weren't so, I would have told you. I'm going to prepare
a place for you. If I go and prepare a place for
you, I will come again and receive you to myself that you may also
be there. Believe me now. I know what I'm
doing. Trust me. Put your souls in my hand. Rest
your heart on me. Believe me and be comforted."
And then the story continues. We piece it together with Matthew,
Mark, and Luke. The soldiers came led by Judas
to arrest the Savior in the garden. Judas ran up and kissed him and
And they arrested him like a common criminal. And he was arraigned
before Annas, and then Caiaphas, and then before the Sanhedrin.
And then the Lord was taken by the Roman soldiers to Pontius
Pilate. And Pilate sent him to Herod,
the ruler of Galilee. And Herod sent him back to Pilate.
And the two men who had been arch enemies became friends.
They were agreed on this thing. At last, Pilate condemned the
Son of God to be crucified. And he gave him into the hands
of the Roman soldiers to do with him as they would, preparing
for crucifixion. And this is how the book of God
describes what Pilate did. If there's ever anything written
in the word of God to forever prohibit any rational man worshiping
his own will, this is it. Pilate delivered Jesus to their
will. You read those words in Luke's
gospel, and everything that follows that, until our Lord cried, it
is finished, and bowed his head and gave up the ghost, portrays,
Tommy, what you would do with the Son of God if you could,
by nature. And what that little fella would
do with him if he could, by nature. This is the display of man's
will. If man could get his hands on
God, he would put him to death upon the cursed tree with all
the agony and shame and vileness and horrid, disgusting, barbaric
cruelty he possibly could. The soldiers took the Savior
and they stripped him. And they mocked him, and they
beat him, and they slapped him, and they spit in his face, and
they put a purple rag on his back, and a crown of thorns on
his head, and a reed scepter in his hand, and mockingly bowed
down and said, Hail, King of the Jews! And then they placed
the cross on his back and led him on that infamous parade through
the streets of Jerusalem. And to that last they came to
Calvary's Hill. And there a place was prepared,
a socket in the ground, I suppose about three feet deep. And they stretched him out and
nailed him to a piece of wood. And picked it up and dropped
him in that socket. Oh, the pain. What pain must have wracked his
body. There he hung, burning with fever
until he cries, I thirst. And they come to give him some
gall and vinegar to drink to prolong his life, to stupefy
his agony somewhat. And the Lord Jesus, when he tasted
it, would not drink thereof. He would not be stupefied and
he would not allow anyone to take his life except at the appointed
hour when he would give up his life, not by the hand of men
or the will of men, but by his own hand and by his own will.
Now look at Isaiah 53 and verse three. All that he suffered in his body. But here Isaiah speaks of the
sufferings of his heart. He is despised and rejected a
man. A man of sorrows and acquainted
with grief. Despise, what a word. We use words casually that we
don't really mean. You might hear me say, I hate
spinach. Well, I really don't. Fact is,
I've hardly ever tasted it and don't ever intend to, but I don't
hate it. It's just, that's a casual use
of a word far too strong. But we don't commonly use the
word despise. Despise. That is to look upon
something or someone as a despicable thing. Our Lord Jesus was looked
upon by men as a despicable thing all his life long. All his life long. His own kinsmen
had no idea who he was. And when push came to shove,
they said, yeah, he's lost his mind. He's a madman. He doesn't
need to be walking the streets. His own kinsmen. He was rejected
of men. Rejected everywhere he went. Rejected by his own near kinsmen. Rejected by those who lived around
him. Rejected by those who heard him preach. Despised and rejected
of men. We hid, as it were, our faces
from him. He was despised, and we esteemed
him not. He was despised, and we looked
upon him as being worthy of being despised. And pastor, you and
I would still despise him, and we would still esteem him not,
had he not come and sought us out by his grace and revealed
himself to us in his glory and in his grace. He was all his
life a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. What on earth is he talking about? You and I experienced some pain. some sorrow, physical, mental,
emotional. We experience things, sickness,
and things that wrap your body with pain, things that just seem
to turn your life upside down. And we all feel very sorry for
ourselves at such times. And we seek sympathy from others
because we do. But we tend to overly stress
those things that we experience in this life. I say that for
this reason. The Apostle Paul, 2 Corinthians
chapter 4, I believe it is, he begins to describe the things
he suffered as a man. From the day God saved him to
the day he left this world, that man Paul suffered for what he
believed and preached. I mean, he was stoned, he was
beaten, He was left for dead, he was imprisoned, he was abused,
he was maligned, all through his life, wherever he went. And when he gets done with that,
this is how he describes it. Our light's afflictions, which
are but for a moment. Sammy, you've been going through
some difficult times. I just heard Charlie going through some
difficult times. That's just for a moment. That's just for
a moment. I can't find a piece of paper
up here. This would be better. That heavy. Our featherweight
affliction. Well, are you making fun of what
I've been doing? You making fun of it? Oh, no.
No, no. I wouldn't do that for the world. I hurt with you. But
compared with what our Redeemer suffered for us. The man of sorrows and acquainted
with grief. who suffered the intense fury
of God Almighty in his body. That man, that man who suffered
the intense fury of God in his heart. He was a man of sorrows
and acquainted with grief. And that which we suffer in this
world by the hand of God and the will of God for our soul's
good is our light affliction. which is but for a moment, and
work for us a far more exceeding and eternal way to glory." Our
Lord Jesus endured trials and temptations,
slanders from men, his disciples full of unbelief. We get upset
with folks as preachers. I do. I won't speak for your
pastor. I get upset with folks. I preach to folks and they'll
come ask you something. Didn't you hear anything I said?
Doesn't anybody pay any attention to what I'm saying? Our Lord
preached to folks for three and a half years. And when he got
done, they didn't understand half of what he said. They didn't believe what he said
concerning his death and resurrection. They were just like they were
blind and deaf and dumb. Mary Magdalene is the only one
in the whole bunch who did. One time the Lord Jesus came
walking across the water. Here is God the Son in human
flesh walking across the water and those disciples who had been
under his instruction day and night all this time, they thought
they saw a ghost. His disciples were full of unbelief
like you and me. Our Lord Jesus was moved with
compassion upon the souls of men, who he said, oh, Jerusalem,
Jerusalem, how oft would I have gathered your children together
as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings, and you would
not. And he was moved with compassion. What a word, what a word. Our Lord saw his friend, Martha,
and his friend, Mary, standing at Lazarus' tomb, brokenhearted
and weeping. And he wept, brokenhearted, for
their sake. Our Lord walked on this earth
and knew all the sorrows that you and I know in this world,
acquainted with all the grief that you and I are acquainted
with, and much more, in anticipation of what he would suffer at Calvary.
In Gethsemane's garden, we see him falling on his face before
his father three times, saying the same thing from the depth
of his heart. Father, if it be possible, let
this cup pass from me. Father, if it be possible, let
this cup pass from me. I have no question at all, he
was not asking to escape the cross. He was not asking that
he may escape dying in our stead. He created the world so that
he might hang upon that tree. He created the world and ruled
the world up to this moment to bring it to pass that he should
die in our room instead. But his holy soul, the only man
who ever walked on this earth, who knew what sin is, is that
man who knew no sin. And he anticipates being made
sin for us. And when he did, his heart broke
within him, so that the third time, he sweat as it were, great
drops of blood fall into the ground, and he said, Father,
oh my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless,
not my will, Thy will be done. Our Lord became the song of drunkards
and harlots, covered with spit, hanging upon the tree. And then
Peter denied Him and cursed and denied Him. And then all the
disciples denied Him. We hid, as it were, our faces
from Him. He was despised and rejected
of men. And we esteemed him not. We cared
nothing for him. All these things tormented our
Savior's heart. You can read about them in the
40th Psalm and in the 69th Psalm. Let me refer you to a little
bit. You don't need to turn to Psalm 69, but hear this. While our
Lord was suffering all the wrath of God for us, his heart was
on us. He said, Father, don't let my
people be ashamed for my sake. Don't let my people be ashamed
for what they see in me. Listen to this. They that hate
me without cause are more than the hairs of mine head. I restored
that which I took not away. Oh God, you know my foolishness
and my sins are not hid from thee. Because for thy sake I
bore reproach, shame hath covered my face. The reproaches of them
that reproach thee are fallen upon me. I've come into trouble. Hear me speedily, draw nigh to
my soul, and redeem it, and deliver me, the cause of mine enemies.
Thou hast known my reproach, my shame, my dishonor. Mine adversaries
are all before you. Reproach hath broken mine heart.
I'm full of heaviness. I looked for some to take pity,
but there was none. I looked for comforters, but
found none. All the while he suffers in our
stead. His heart breaks with compassion
for our souls. In his body, he suffered everything
that a man could suffer in his body. All the pains. He bare our sicknesses in his
body. Isn't it remarkable that God
uses that term? He bare our sicknesses. I take that to mean Every physical
malady and infirmity man can endure, he at one time endured. And he died with a broken heart. But there's more still. Look
at verse 10 of Isaiah 53. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise
him. He hath put him to grief. Put
him to grief. What a word. What a word. Put him to grief.
How is that? When thou shalt make his soul
an offering for sin. Now this is how God the Holy
Spirit translates that for us in 2 Corinthians 5 21. When he
who knew no sin was made sin for us. That's what Isaiah is
referring to. When thou shalt make his soul
sin, he shall see his sin. He shall
prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in
his hand. He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall
be satisfied. The Lord Jesus, God's Holy Son,
was made sin for us. Now I know many of you are aware
of all the yit-yak and controversy. Forget that stuff. It's meaningless. Just forget it. Pay no attention
to it. And hear what God says. He who knew no sin was made sin
for us. Sin was imputed to him because
he was made sin. He was punished for our sins
because he was made sin and being made sin for us so that he is
justly abandoned by his father on the tree. My God, my God,
why hast thou forsaken me? And he answers his own question.
Thou art of pure eyes than to behold iniquity. God turned his
back on his son because God in his holiness cannot look upon
iniquity. He who was made sin for us died
with the reproaches of them that reproached him made his with
a heart broken before God. his soul suffering all the fury
of God's wrath, so that the Lord God cried awake, O sword, against
the man that is my fellow, smite and slay the shepherd. And when
he did, the Lord Jesus took the sword and pulled it into his own soul.
and swallowed up the sword of divine justice. So that God speaks
to Jacob and says, fury is not in me. Fury is not in me. The Lord Jesus,
when he was made sin, suffered all the wrath of God in his soul. And when he did, God said, that's
enough. That's enough. Required no more. I required
no more and let me tell you what that means Our Savior was made seeing That
we might be made all that he is in all his glorious humanity
That we might be made the righteousness of God in him And he reaped the
reward, the just and righteous reward of our sin made his because
he stood guilty before God and his holy law with our sin made
his and justice cried, kill him. That's what he deserves. And
that's what he deserves. Now listen, he did so that we
who are his we for whom he lived and died might be made the righteousness
of God in him and justly receive all that he fully deserves in
his perfect obedience as the righteous man. Receive all the
blessedness of eternal life with God in heaven in Jesus Christ
the Lord. That means he shall see his seat,
all of them, redeemed and justified and sanctified and glorified.
He shall prolong his days. He's going to rise from the dead.
He'll live again. And the pleasure of the Lord
shall prosper in his hand. That is, he will do all God's
purpose. As our mediator ruling over all
things, he shall see of the travail of his soul and shall be satisfied. Every sinner for whom he suffered
and died shall be saved by God's grace, by the power and merit
of his blood, and knowing what he accomplished, my righteous
servant shall justify many. Because Christ was made sin for
me. Because Christ took in himself
all the fury of God's anger, wrath, and justice in his body,
in his heart, and in his soul. God, in all his glorious holiness,
righteousness, justice, and truth, never has a reason to be angry
with me. Never has a reason to frown upon
me. Never has a reason to be displeased
with me. Now let me ask you something. Why did he do it? For the joy
that was set before him. Well, where's the joy in all
this? For the joy set before him, he endured the cross, despising
the shame. What joy? What joy? In Jude,
verses 24 and 25, we read that soon, when God our Savior comes
again, makes all things new, and we're raised up from the
dead, and hell is cast into hell. The devil and death and hell
are cast into outer darkness. and all the saints of God have
gathered round the throne, the Lord Jesus shall, with exceeding
joy, shall present you faultless before
the presence of his glory with exceeding joy. Brian, do you trust the Savior?
Do you trust Him? If you trust Him, hear me my
brother, God never has reason to be angry with you, no matter
what. And you will never experience
God's wrath, anger, or judgment, but rather soon. You will stand before the Lord
God and he will look at you in all
the totality of your life and he will say, well done, thou
good and faithful servant. How can that be? Because I'm
one with Christ. Christ is mine, I'm his. He who has made sin for me has
made me the very righteousness of God in him. and shall reward
me forever accordingly." Oh, God help you now to believe His
Son and go home tonight rejoicing in the just mercy, goodness,
and grace of God heaped upon your soul through the merits
of our crucified Savior. Amen.