Alright, brethren, let's go to
Isaiah 53. In Isaiah 53, Sunday, I started looking at verses 8
and 9, and a little ways into the message I just started preaching,
and I completely left my notes, so I want to go back and pick
up and preach the rest of these verses. We were looking at these
phrases in this verse, They're not easily understood. No commentary agrees on what
they mean. And even translations don't agree.
Look, I was trying to show us Sunday that when we look at a
verse like this, when we don't clearly know what each verse
means, we have a pretty good idea. But we know what all the
scripture says. No scriptures of any private
interpretation. God gave the word to men. They wrote it. And we look at
scripture and compare scripture with scripture to understand
each phrase. And though we may not even be
able to say what this particular phrase dogmatically be able to
say, that's what it means, we know what all the scripture says.
And so we can glean enough from it to understand the general
intent and we know what the gospel is. But when you come to verses
like that, here's the touchstone. First of all, what gives God
all the glory? He must get all the glory in
whatever we're looking at. Secondly, what exalts Christ
as the one way of salvation? And what shuts us up as sinners,
completely and totally in need of God's grace and salvation
in Christ? That's the touchstone of knowing
what any verse of scripture says. and we base everything on what
the whole volume of the book says. Let's read these two verses
together. Let me read a couple of verses
leading up to it. Let's begin in verse six. All
we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his
own way, and the Lord has 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 a sheep before
her shearers is done, so he openeth not his mouth. He was taken from
prison and from judgment. Or as the margin says, he was
taken away by distress and 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. Let's read the
next verse, next few verses. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise
him. 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 shall my righteous
servant justify many, for he shall bear their iniquities.
Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall
divide the spoil with the strong, because he hath poured out his
soul unto death, and he was numbered with the transgressors, and he
bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors. Now, Sunday we saw in verse eight,
we'll review a little bit, he was taken from prison and from
judgment. The translators put in the margin,
he was taken away by distress and by judgment. We know he was
captured and put under afflicting circumstances, and it was unjust
judgment of men. Everything about verse eight
is declaring the sin of men that crucified him. Wicked hands took
our Lord violently, and it was just unjust judgment. The court,
Jew and Gentile, was unjust. And then we saw in his, Acts
8.33 says, in his humiliation, His judgment was taken away.
When you think of his humiliation, remember Christ humbled himself.
He's God and he came down and became a man. So he permitted
everything that was taking place. He could have stopped it at any
time, but they were doing what God determined before to be done.
And then after our substitute satisfied justice, another thing
we need to remember is God, the Father and the Son of God, raising
himself, He raised himself from the prison of the grave and from
man's unjust judgment. God vindicated him, raised him
again for our justification. But here's where we're gonna
start today. We began looking at this next phrase, verse eight,
who shall declare his generation? We considered his divine generation
and his human generation. The Lord Jesus is the God man,
he's God in man. That's his divine generation,
his human generation. And then we touched on his eternal
generation. He didn't stay in that grave,
he came out. He's eternally alive at God's
right hand, ever living to intercede for his people. And because he
lives, we live. Because he's there interceding,
all his people are gonna be brought to hear the gospel, gonna be
given the spirit, born again, and will be kept, preserved,
through this word. Scripture says, if we be dead
with Christ, we believe we shall also live with him. Knowing that
Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more, death has
no more dominion over him. He permitted it to have dominion
over him at one time, but no more. For in that he died, he
died unto sin once, but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God.
Likewise reckon ye also yourselves, To be dead, as really dead as
Christ died, God says to every sanctified child of God, you
reckon yourself to be just that dead. You impute what God imputes. He says you died in Christ. Your
old man of sin died in Christ. You reckon that to be so. Impute
that to be so. And you're alive in Christ at
God's right hand. That's God's word to us. That's
his eternal generation. And we live because he lives.
that Christ has a spiritual generation. It's called His seed, those He
saves. Go with me to Genesis 13. Here's His spiritual generation. Genesis 13, 16. This was His promise to Abraham.
We've seen over and over in the New Testament how many times
He said He fulfilled salvation because He promised Abraham.
Well, look what He promised him. This is the Lord Jesus promising
Abraham. Genesis 13, 16. I will make thy
seed, that word is there, is plural, it means offspring. I'll
make thy seed as the dust of the earth. so that if a man can
number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered. Now you think of that, brethren.
Think of how many people the Lord has throughout the generations. He has a spiritual people and
has never lost one and will never lose one. He said, if you can
number the dust of the earth, then you can number my children.
Genesis 15, five. He said, he brought him forth
abroad and said, look now toward heaven. Tell the stars if thou
be able to number them. And he said unto him, so shall
thy seed be. He has a people innumerable like the stars that
are all saved by his grace. And he said this, he said, all
that the Father gives me shall come to me. And him that cometh
to me I will in no wise cast out. A multitude. People get upset about the doctrine
of election. It was by God choosing a people
by grace. Had He not chosen us, it would
have been over when we sinned in Adam. Because we justly became
guilty. But because He did choose a people
by grace, there is going to be a multitude with God in glory. It's all created in Christ's
righteousness, Christ's holiness, all saved by the Lord Jesus.
But this phrase in Isaiah 53, we'll go back there, it certainly
refers to the wicked. And let me just say it to you
this way, this is what it would mean. Who shall declare his generation? It means the generation in which
he was at that time, these people around him, his contemporaries,
they inflicted all this upon him and it's saying, is declaring
they are an unjust, wicked generation. We know from Scripture, Scripture
said it was a treacherous, wicked people. A generation of barbarians,
a self-righteous and a self-sanctifying generation. What you see on Calvary's
Cross is the result of man-made religion. What you see on Calvary's
Cross is the result of men who think they can make themselves
righteous by keeping the law, and righteous and holy by their
works, the end result is what you see on the cross. Thinking
they were holier than God in human flesh. But now here's something
we need to remember. When we start looking back, ever
so many years, people start debating over who crucified Christ. Was
it the Jews, the Gentiles? And they get in this argument.
And here's the thing. When we start talking about how
wicked that generation was and how wicked that people were that
nailed the prince of life to the cross, the danger is to start
thinking we're better than they are. No. That is us. That is who we are. In our flesh,
in our sin nature, that is who we are. And really, the generation
we're talking about here is His people. His people that he's
laying down his life for were wicked, treacherous, barbarous
people. That's me and you by nature,
brethren. The danger is we start thinking we're better than another
generation when we start seeing some wicked thing they did. Rather
than that, just look at them and say, I'm looking in a mirror. That's me if left to myself.
As a believer right now, if God took his hand off of us and left
us to do what we would, Everything that was in their heart is in
your heart and mind by nature, in our wicked, sinful flesh.
We would do anything under the sun if God let us. That's what
we are. That's how badly we need the
Lord to keep us, don't let us fall away, keep us trusting Him
because we're sinners, brethren, sinners, sinners by nature. All
right, let's look at this next phrase. for he was cut off, Isaiah 53a,
for he was cut off out of the land of the living, for the transgression
of my people was he stricken. Now again, if we're looking just
at the people there, this is showing the wickedness of the
men in that generation. That wicked generation cut him
off out of the land of the living. Peter stood up that day and he
said, you killed the prince of life. You desired, they desired
a another prisoner, a murderer, to be freed so they could kill
the Lord Jesus. Cut him off out of the land of
the living. Some say this is what it would mean, it was the
transgression of political Israel, who Isaiah calls here my people,
because he's an Israelite, he's saying it's for the transgression
of my people, It was their transgression striking him and killing him.
That's why he was cut off, because of this barbarous, evil, wicked
people. But it wasn't just the children of Israel, it was Gentiles
too. But here's the thing, it was
me and you. It was his people he was dying
for. It was because of our sin that
he was cut off. It's certainly transgression
to reject Christ. And that's what they did there
and that's a wicked thing to reject Christ. If a sinner rejects
Christ, there's no more salvation. When the Lord Jesus walked this
earth and he preached the gospel to them face to face, that shows
you we gotta be born again of God because there is the prophet
of God preaching and men wouldn't believe him. There is the king
of glory, men wouldn't bow their knee. There's the great high
priest. Men wouldn't come begging for
mercy. That's how badly we need to be born again and taught.
There he was in person. A lot of people saw him face
to face. A lot of people heard him preach with these ears. That
won't save. It wouldn't even save if it was
Christ himself doing the preaching. It takes the Spirit of God to
give us a new heart. But to reject Christ, to have
this gospel preached, and to hear it, and to say, nope, and
just willfully reject the Gospel? Listen to what Scripture says.
Hebrews 10, let's go there. That's the unpardonable sin,
to reject Christ. Depart this world rejecting Christ. There's no pardon because there's
no other way a man can be saved but Christ. Reject the one way
of salvation and there is no other. There is no other salvation.
Look here, Hebrews 10.24. Let us consider one another to
provoke unto love and to good works, Hebrews 10, 24. Let us
consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works,
not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as the
manner of some is, but exhorting one another, and so much the
more, as you see the day approaching, For if we sin willfully, after
that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth
no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful looking for
of judgment and fiery indignation which shall devour the adversaries. What is this, if we sin willfully? Isn't the majority of your sin
willful sin? Sin you know about is. We do
it willingly. There's a lot of sin we're ignorant
of, but the sin we're conscious of, we do it willingly. So, it
doesn't mean that. It means willfully hardening
our heart against Christ, rejecting Christ, refusing to hear the
gospel, refusing to assemble with His people, refusing Christ,
rejecting Christ. Now, we all did that. That doesn't
mean God can't save a man that does that. We all did that. God
saved us by His grace. But if a man goes on and departs
this world having rejected Christ, there is no more salvation. That's the unpardonable sin.
God has saved you. Think of that, brethren. Every
other sin God will pardon. Now you think about, there is
some wicked sin. Scripture shows his people having
committed murder, adultery, incest. I mean, there's some wickedness
in this book that his people did and he saved them. But there's
one sin God will not pardon, and that's rejecting his son
and meeting God adamant that we will not have Christ. How
do you know that's what he said? Look at the next verse, Hebrews
10, 28. He that despised Moses' law died without mercy under
two or three witnesses. Of how much sore punishment,
suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy who hath trodden underfoot
the Son of God? That's exactly what the unpardonable
sin is. Tread underfoot the Son of God,
and have counted the blood of the covenant wherewith he was
sanctified, an unholy thing, and is done despite unto the
Spirit of grace. For we know him that hath said,
Vengeance belongeth to me, I will recompense, saith the Lord. And
again, the Lord shall judge his people. It's a fearful thing
to fall into the hands of the living God. What does this mean
if count the blood of the covenant wherewith he was sanctified an
unholy thing? Well, for the man that claimed
to have believed the gospel, he professed he was sanctified
by the blood of Christ. That's what everyone that truly
professes Christ said. We were separated, sanctified
only by the blood of the Lord Jesus. We didn't do it, he did
it. But the man that professes that then rejects him and departs. He was never really sanctified
with the blood of Christ, because you can't depart if you are.
He proves He never was. But Christ was sanctified by
that blood. Christ's own blood declared Him holy and righteous. But any man that can do that,
do despite the Spirit of grace, was never saved by the Spirit
of grace. But that's the unpardonable sin. Look back at Hebrews 2,
look at 3, Hebrews 2, 3. How shall we escape if we neglect
so great salvation, which at the first began to be spoken
by the Lord and was confirmed to us by them that heard him,
God also bearing witness with different miracles and gifts
of the Holy Ghost according to his own will. Look at Hebrews
12, look at verse 25, Hebrews 12, 25. See the Hebrews, he's
writing the letter Jewish believers, and they had
all their lives been under the law, and they were being tempted
to depart from Christ and go back under the law, or to mix
law and grace, which is to reject Christ. And so the Hebrew writers
repeating this to them, Hebrews 12, 25, see that you refuse not
him that speaketh, For if they escape not who refused him that
spake on earth, much more shall not we escape if we turn away
from him that speaketh from heaven. Whose voice then shook the earth,
but now he hath promised, saying, yet once more I shake not the
earth only, but also heaven. This once more signifying the
removing of those things that are shaken as of things that
are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain. You see, When's He speaking? How am I going to reject Him
that's speaking? When's He speaking from heaven? Every single time
this gospel is preached, the Lord Jesus is speaking from heaven.
Men reject Him for their own will, their own works, their
own whatever. There's no more forgiveness of
sin. Christ said, I am the way. The way. I am the way. I am the
truth. I am the life. No man cometh
to the Father but by Me. He that believeth on the Son
hath everlasting life, and he that believeth not the Son shall
not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him. There's none
other name given among men whereby we must be saved. So to reject
Christ, there is no hope for anybody that rejects him. But
that's what we see at Calvary's Cross. Now, the next word here, though,
I want you to see is our gospel. This is substitution. Sinners
are saved by substitution. God is declaring this. This is
the word of God. And he says in Hebrews, I mean
Isaiah 53, Isaiah 53 in verse eight, he was cut off out of
the land of the living for the transgression of my people was
he stricken. Brethren, is it just an amazing
thing to you when you consider what sinners we are what weak
believers we are at our very best state, just weak as water. Our very best worship is just so tainted with sin and just
our minds wandering and all the things that we are, you know.
And yet, God calls us my people. God calls us my people. They're
my people. Those are my people. Carolyn,
when you go to North Carolina and you're out there on that
farm, you can look around and say, these are my people. When
we're with brethren, we look around at one another and say,
these are my people. God looks at all his people that he chose
from eternity and says, those are my people. Think about that. Oh. God satisfied his own justice
toward his people. He sent his son, and in our Lord
Jesus, God was satisfying his own justice for us, satisfying
the justice for my people. It was for their transgression
that he was cut off. You see, we can look at the wicked
hands that did this, and you could say, well, was it Jews,
was it Gentiles, and all these different things. Here's the
fact of the matter. If you believe Christ, if He's
given you heart to believe Him, it was your transgression that
cut Him off. And it was my transgression that
cut Him off. The Lord laid on Him the iniquity
of all His people. And it was for our transgression.
When you look at all that wickedness that was being done to Him, all
that affliction and oppression and whipping and spitting and
cussing and all that was going on toward Him. That's what we
are in our hearts. That's what we are. That's the
personification of us. And that's the transgression
for which he was stricken and smitten and cut off. Our transgression. I read that Leviticus 16 to you. Now go back there again. Let's
look at it again. He's the scapegoat. You ever
wonder where that term came from? People say the scapegoat. Here's where it came from. We
have a scapegoat. His name is Christ Jesus, the
Son of God. Leviticus 16, verse 10. It took more than one goat to
picture Christ, but we're just looking at the scapegoat. Leviticus
16, 10. The Lord said, the goat on which
the lot fell to be the scapegoat shall be presented alive before
the Lord to make an atonement with him and to let him go for
a scapegoat into the wilderness. Christ came to make atonement
for the sin of his people and to take our sins away. And Aaron
shall bring the bullock of the sin offering, I'm sorry, skip
down to verse 21. And Aaron shall lay both his
hands upon the head of the live goat and confess over him all
the iniquities of the children of Israel. All their iniquities,
but just the iniquities of the children of Israel. It wasn't
for the Philistines, it wasn't for the Amorites, it wasn't for
all the ites lived around them. It was for Israel. And our Lord
laid on him the iniquity of us all. Who's the us all? My people,
God said. The elect, the children, the
spiritual children of Israel. But all our sins were laid on
Him. He left none out. He laid all
our sins on Christ. That was a picture, what the
high priest was doing there. That was a ceremonial picture.
But what Christ bore is the express image. That's what Hebrews 1
said. He's the express image. He bore
it. God made Him send for us. Look
here. and all their transgressions
and all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat, and
shall send him away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness,
and the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities, until
a land not inhabited, and he shall let go of the goat in the
wilderness. A land not inhabited. Now go to Jeremiah 50. That's
what the grave is, a land not inhabited. Our Lord Jesus bore all the sin
of all God's people, the Israel of God, the true Israel of God,
and he bore those sins away. He took them away, never to be
brought up again. So here's what God says, Jeremiah
50 and verse 20. Jeremiah 50 verse 20, in those
days, And in that time, saith the Lord, the iniquity of Israel
shall be sought for, and there shall be none. And the sins of Judah, and they
shall not be found, for I will pardon them, I reserve. Christ put away the sin of Israel. He really put our sins away,
brethren. Now, we have sin in us, and we
see sin in us, and we can't help but see it, thankfully by God's
grace, when we would do good, evil's present with us. But God
laid all the sin of his elect on Christ, and Christ so thoroughly
put them away, that the all-knowing, all-seeing God of justice, who
judges right, and only judges right, seizes people righteous
in Christ, and does not see any sin, because legally, righteously,
before God's law, we don't have any sin, brethren. Christ put
it all away. He justified us. Numbers 23,
21 says this. He hath not beheld iniquity in
Jacob, neither hath he seen perverseness in Israel. The Lord his God is
with him, and the shadow of a king is among them. God does not see
sin in his people, not to condemn us. Christ blotted them out.
He said in Isaiah 43, 25, I, even I am he that blotteth out
thy transgressions for mine own name's sake and will not remember
thy sin. He said, this is my covenant
unto them when I shall take away their sins. And he took them
away. As far as the east is from the
west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us. So
because he's put our sins away, You see your sin, I see mine,
and we know we sin. So how are we going to keep from
committing the unpardonable sin? How are we going to be made to
keep from departing from Christ and rejecting Christ and going
away into sin? Because the Lord, for Christ's
sake, because he's made us righteous, the Lord, rather than condemn
us for our sin, because we're justified, because we're righteous,
because he blotted out our sins and took them to a land not inhabited,
they are no more before God, that's so of all his people.
Therefore, the Lord will, he will send us the gospel and he'll
call us initially, regenerate us, give us faith to believe,
and just like he did that the first hour, he'll keep sending
the gospel three times a week, he sends it to you, Three times
in the week, He comes and renews you in your heart and speaks
peace to you, corrects you when you need to be corrected, keeps
you looking to Christ, trusting Christ, because that's what He
promised you to do. He said, He will turn again,
He will have compassion on us, He will subdue our iniquities,
and thou will cast all their sins to the depths of the sea.
He said, I'll be merciful to their unrighteousness, and that's
you as a believer. You got any unrighteousness?
have any unrighteous thoughts, unrighteous deeds, say anything
unrighteous, treat somebody unrighteous. We don't want to, but we do.
But he said, I will be merciful to their unrighteousness. And
for his condemnation, their sins and their iniquities will I remember
no more. I'll remember them no more, he
said. That's a merciful God, isn't it? I'll correct them,
I'll have compassion on them, I'll be merciful to their unrighteousness. and their sins and inequities
I'll remember no more. Correct them, but I never condemn
them. That's all for Christ's sake.
All right, back to Isaiah 53. I'm gonna stop here. I don't wanna rush through this,
because it's too good. There's just so much about the
Savior there, and if I try to rush through it, I'll rush. We'll come back and look at the
rest of it, maybe Sunday. All right, brethren, let's thank
the Lord. Father, we thank you for this amazing grace that you
call us your people, that you will be merciful to our unrighteousness,
and yet you will not remember our sins. You've put it away,
you blotted it out, and you will not remember it. Lord, we see we're the wicked,
we're the wicked hands, we're the wicked men that cut off our
Redeemer. We are the ones that did that.
Our sins put Him on that cross. Don't let us forget that, Lord.
Don't let us be lifted up in pride. Don't let us think ourselves
better than anybody in this world. And Lord, don't ever let us forget
that in Christ we're righteous. We live because He lives. And
we have no sin before You. Don't let us forget that, Lord.
Please, we beg You, keep that ever in our heart. Renew us with
that continually. And make us to know that toward
our brethren. Make us remember that when somebody
hurts our feelings or we get sideways with somebody, Lord.
Just keep us remembering. what You've done for us so that
for Your sake, for all that You've done for us, for Christ's sake,
we would be merciful to their unrighteousness like You've been
to ours. Forgive one another like You've forgiven us, Lord. Thank You for the Scriptures.
Thank You for these people. Thank You for brethren and for
the Word of God and for continually feeding us with this Gospel.
Be with our brethren that aren't here now. Lord, keep them and
bring them safely again to be with us again. We ask You to
do this for all Your people. Thank You for mercy, Lord, and
for Christ's sake. It's in His name we ask it. Amen.