All right, brethren, good morning.
Let's turn in our Bibles to Isaiah 53. We've been looking at this chapter
just a few verses at a time, phrase by phrase. And take it
for granted sometimes that everybody knows the things that that has
taken you years to be taught. But this whole chapter is concerning
the Lord Jesus, the entire chapter. And we know that. In Acts 8,
the Ethiopian eunuch was riding in his chariot, reading from
the scripture. And it says he was reading from
this passage. And he asked Philip, who does
this speak about? Is it the prophet speaking or
is he speaking about somebody else? And Philip said he's preaching
Christ. He's speaking of Christ and he
preached the gospel to him. So this whole chapter is dealing
with the Lord Jesus Christ. And so it's good to look at each
verse here. Now last time we looked at verse
seven, said he was oppressed and he
was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth. He brought as
a lamb to the slaughter and as a sheep before her shearers is
dumb, so he openeth not his mouth. And then we pick up today, we're
just gonna look at verses eight and nine. He was 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. Now these verses are a little
more difficult. I've looked at every translation.
I rarely do that, but I stick with the King James translation
because I do believe it is the best. But I looked at other translations
just because I wanted to see what they said, how they translated
these two verses. And I looked throughout scripture,
comparing scripture with scripture. I read every commentary I could
find. And almost nobody agrees on what these verses mean. Now, when it comes to the scriptures,
You've heard me preach long enough to know that I'm dogmatic when
it comes to the things clearly revealed. I'm going to declare
without any hesitation that God elected a people to save in Christ
before the world was created because scripture is abundantly
clear that that's so. Ephesians 1 verses 3 through
6 tell us He blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly
places according as he chose us in Christ before the foundation
of the world. I'm gonna preach that that's
who Christ laid down his life for, because that is who he died
for. He said, I lay down my life for
the sheep. And the reason I'm gonna declare
that is because one, the scripture declared it throughout, but two,
it's about him getting the glory. and getting all the glory. And
he accomplished justifying everybody he laid down his life for. He
accomplished redeeming every one of his people. So I'll preach
that with dogmatism. And the fact that we have to
be born again of the spirit of God, we cannot do that ourselves.
I will preach that clearly, boldly, because our Lord said to Nicodemus,
he said, accept a man be born of the water of the word, through
the preaching of the word and of the Holy Spirit, he cannot
enter the kingdom of God. He can't even know Christ. First
Corinthians 2 tells us, the carnal man receiveth not the things
of God, their foolishness to him, neither can he know them.
And I know that's a fact because I was spiritually blind at one
time and spiritually dead and could not understand the scripture
and didn't want to know the scripture. And it takes God to give you
a new heart and a new will and faith to believe. But when it
comes to scriptures like this, come to verses that are difficult
to understand, what we do is we look at them in light of all
the scripture. We know what the scripture says
in verses that are clear, and we discern these verses by those
scriptures that are clear. We declare what the book says
throughout. Now I'm telling you this to help
you as you study the word, to help you when you come to verses
that are difficult to understand, to help you understand them.
Always compare scripture with scripture. And I'll show you
what I mean. I've titled this Dogmatism in
Unclear Verses. Being laughed at, my title. But
we're just gonna go verse by verse, and I'm gonna show phrase
by phrase, I'm gonna show you what I mean. Verse eight, he
was taken from prison and from judgment. Now, I like how honest
the King James translators were because when it didn't affect
the truth of the gospel, when it was a verse like this that
it's a little unclear, if there was an alternate translation,
they put it in the margin and let you know that this could
mean something else. Most modern translations don't
do that. If you see an italicized word
in the King James, it means the translators put it there. It
was not in the original. But they italicized it to let
you know, we put this word here to try to make it read easier.
If you take the italicized word out, usually it helps more than
with it in. But they at least let you know
they did that. And they did this with the marginal
reading. The margin reads, he was taken away by distress and
judgment. So it's saying wicked hands took
our Lord. Men, wicked men took our Lord
violently under distressing conditions, under distressing circumstances,
and we know that's true from scripture. We can look at other
scripture. No, that's true. We know that's true. I'm not
saying dogmatically that's what the verse said, but I know it's
true because that's what all the other scripture says. You
get what I'm saying? We've seen in scripture how men treated
him. He declared it right here in this chapter. It says up in
verse three, he's despised and rejected of men. A man of sorrows
and acquainted with grief, we hid as it were our faces from
him. He was despised and we esteemed him not. He said in Psalm 22,
12, he said, many bulls have come past me. Strong bulls of
Bashan have beset me round about. They gaped upon me with their
mouths as a ravening and roaring lion. He was taken under false
pretense, and the judgment was an unjust judgment. He was taken by distress, and
the judgment was unjust. They sought false witnesses against
him. And that wasn't just the Jews
that did that. It was the Romans that did it,
too. The Gentiles did. It was totally, it was a kangaroo
court. And it was all just politics. But here's what to get from that
concerning me and you. That's what fallen man is. That's what we are by nature
as we come into this world. And don't forget, these were
the highest leaders in religion. And that's what the best religion
is, unless you've been born of God and taught the truth of the
scriptures. The best religion of a man is
just a self-righteous, holier-than-thou attitude, and it's so bad that
when God came in human flesh, the only life there is, the only
hope of salvation, we crucified him and said, get him out of
here so we can go on playing religion. Now that is the nature
of every sinner God saves. And here's the good news. The
other day we saw from Romans 5 Christ didn't come to save
the righteous. He came to save the ungodly.
He laid down his life for sinners. So you're gonna have to take
your place right there as saying, that's a picture of me. That's
an illustration of what I am. These men that took him by violence
and unjust judgment and crucified the Lord of glory, that's me.
That's who I am by nature. And that's what the Spirit of
teaches. We're the sinner. We need the Savior. And now secondly,
I want you to see also we see Christ glorified. Because in
Acts 8 over there, when the Spirit, Luke wrote Acts 8, and the Spirit
gave him this word, and this is how he said it to the Ethiopian,
quoting this verse, Acts 8 in verse 33, he said, Verse 32, he quoted the verse
before in Isaiah 53, he said, he was led as a sheep to the
slaughter like a lamb done before his shearer, so he opened not
his mouth. In his humiliation, his judgment was taken away.
Now, our Lord Jesus Christ is God. He's equal with the Father,
but the Son of God came down and made himself of no reputation,
took the form of a servant to represent all God's people to
save us. He did that. And so he humbled
himself. His humiliation was him humbling
himself. And our Lord Jesus Christ could
have stopped all of this anytime he wanted to, because he's God.
When they came to arrest him, they said, we come looking for
Jesus. And he said, I am. And when he said it, they fell
backwards. And this whole big army of soldiers
fell backward. He could have stopped this at
any time. But he let them do everything that was going on
because he purposed it. God the Father and the Son of
God purposed it before the world was made. Look at Acts 2. I'll
show you this. Acts 2. We probably won't even get through
a couple of these phrases at this rate, but that's all right.
Acts 2. Acts 2 and look at verse 23 Him Being delivered by the determinate
counsel and foreknowledge of God You have taken and by wicked
hands have crucified and slain See God determined this beforehand. God is sovereign. He rules everything
in heaven and earth and he determined that his son would come, and
his son would represent his people, and his son would be slain on
a cross, and he used wicked hands to put him there. Look at Acts
4, and look at verse 27. Of a truth against thy holy child
Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate,
with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, were gathered together
for to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before
to be done. Men were doing just what they
wanted to do. It was in their heart to slay
him, and they did what they wanted to do. But they only did it because
God permitted them to do it. He just took the restraint off
and let men do what was in their heart. Look at Psalm 76, look
at verse 10. I want you to get this right
here now. It'll help you and me right here.
When you see this in our Savior, you see that he submitted to
this and that he could have stopped this at any time, but he submitted
to it because he's bringing glory to his name and saving his people. So when you're in a situation
as a child of God and something is going really bad toward you
and people are doing something, speaking evil, whatever they're
doing to you, just remember, this would not be happening.
except that God is bringing glory to his name and he's doing it
for the good of his people. That's so, and I'll show you
right here in this verse, Psalm 76, 10. Listen to this. Surely
the wrath of man shall praise thee, and the remainder of wrath
shalt thou restrain. If wrath of man comes about,
men do some wickedness in this earth like they did to our Savior,
it's because it's bringing glory to God's name. And there's a
whole lot more wickedness that men could do, but God restrains
it if it does not bring glory to his name. So when you're suffering
under any kind of affliction at the hands of men, you just
trust the Lord because it's only happening because God's bringing
glory to his name and it's gonna end up for your good. Go to 1
Peter 1. I'll show you what the scriptures
tell us to do. 1 Peter 1. I feel for folks that don't know
the Lord and do not know that He is sovereign, ruling all things,
because the things we were talking about, Jeff, the craziness going
on in the world right now, I don't even know how people get through
life just thinking it's luck and chance. The greatest comfort
there is is to know God is ruling everything, and He's doing it
for His glory and the good of His people. When you know that,
you can be settled, and know everything's fine. Whatever's
coming your way, even when it's going totally against you. Look
here now, 1 Peter 1, look at verse, I'm sorry, I think it's 2 Peter
1. Oh. Oh, maybe it is 1 Peter 1. Maybe
I just totally don't even know where I'm at this morning. 1 Peter 2, 1 Peter chapter 2. Speaking of the Lord Jesus, it
says, verse 21, even here unto where you called, because Christ
also suffered for us, leaving us an example that you should
follow his steps. Now he's gonna quote from Isaiah
53. He said, who did no sin, Neither
was Gile found in his mouth, who when he was reviled, reviled
not again. When he suffered, he threatened
not, but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously. You hold your place there, we'll
come back. But that's what Christ did, that's
why he didn't open his mouth. His judgment was taken away,
he was being oppressed, But he knew this was all foreordained
of God, and he committed it to the Father. He came to save his
people, he agreed to do this, and that's what he was doing.
All right, another thing about this verse, so when you suffer,
you commit your cause to Christ. Another thing about this verse, we can see the faithfulness of
God in this phrase. And we know this is true from
scripture. Because read it this way, verse 8, Isaiah 53, 8. After
he had laid down his life and was buried, he was taken from
man's distressing hands, from man's oppressing hand, and he
was taken from the prison of the grave, he was taken from
man's unjust judgment, and exalted to God's right hand. Now that's
true of this phrase too. Romans 1.4 says he was declared
the son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness by
the resurrection of the dead. Romans 4.25 says he was delivered
for our offenses and raised again for our justification. Go back
to Isaiah 50. Here's why Christ bore the whole
thing, because he had entered covenant with the Father before
the world was made to save his people. And the father had promised
him that when he had declared God just and he had justified
his people, God would raise him. And Isaiah 50 verse 7, this is
the Lord Jesus speaking. He said, the Lord God will help
me. Well, look at, to show you it's
him speaking, look at verse 5. He said, the Lord God hath opened
mine ear and I was not rebellious, neither turned away back. I gave
my back to the smiters. and my cheeks to them that plucked
off the hair. I hid not my face from shame
and spitting, because the Lord God will help me. Therefore shall
I not be confounded. Therefore I have set my face
like a flint, and I know that I shall not be ashamed. He is
near that justifies me. Who will contend with me? Let
us stand together. Who is my adversary? Let him
come near to me. Behold, the Lord God will help
me. Who is he that shall condemn me? Lo, they shall all wax old
as a garment, and the moss shall eat them up. That's the perfect
faith of the Savior. If you and me were in that situation
and we're being condemned by men and we haven't done anything,
He was just and righteous. We would try to defend ourselves,
we would try to revile back and say something back to the person
or whatever. But He didn't. And He didn't
even do this in His heart. Perfect faithfulness. That's
the faithfulness that we gotta have to be saved. and it's his
perfect faithfulness. He trusted the Father perfectly,
and that's the righteousness by which God will accept his
people. That's what truth, God-given faith, when he gives you faith,
we're trusting the Lord Jesus Christ served the Father perfectly
on my behalf. That's what faith's trusting.
He did it. He went to the cross, bore my
sin, bore my curse, and justified me, and while he did it, He faithfully
trusted the Father that when he had finished the work, the
Father would raise him and sit him at his right hand as the
Father declared and promised. So when you're in that situation,
not only do you trust Christ for all your salvation, for your
righteousness, your holiness, your wisdom, your redemption,
everything we need, Christ is. Not only are we trusting for
all things, but when you're in a situation like this, look what
he says for you to do. In verse 50, who is among you
that feareth the Lord? Isaiah 50, verse 10, I'm sorry,
Isaiah 50, verse 10. Who's among you that feareth
the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of his servant, that obeys Christ,
that walketh in darkness and hath no light? You come into
a dark providence and your situation around you is just dark and you
can't see light, you don't know how you gonna get through it.
Let him trust in the name of the Lord and stay upon his God. That's what Christ did. And he's
telling you now, you do what I did. That's what we just read
1 Peter 1. He said, commit it to him that
judges righteously. That's what he did. He committed
his case to the Father. Now you commit your case to Christ. All right, we'll try to take
one more phrase here. Go back to Isaiah 53 and verse
eight. It says, and who shall declare
his generation? It says he was taken from prison
and from judgment, and who shall declare his generation? And when
you look at a verse like this, here's the touchstone to understand
every phrase and every word of scripture. Here's the touchstone.
Number one, what gives God the glory? What gives him all the
glory and all the praise? That's the number one thing.
What gives him the glory? What declares his righteousness? That's how you're gonna discern
the scripture. That's the key to discerning all the word of
God. What gives the glory to God? What declares he is the
righteousness of his people? And here's the second thing.
What puts the sinner in the dust? What shuts our mouths and declares
we're guilty sinners and we need Christ to save and we can't contribute
to salvation? Those are the two things to look
at, because that's what the scripture's given for, to declare, you and
me are the sinner who need Christ to save us. And the second is,
he is the savior, he gets all the glory, he finished the work. He is the one. Now look, who
shall declare his generation? I went through these commentaries,
I read these different ones, and somebody wrote, they said,
it can't mean his divine generation. Why can't it mean his divine
generation? Whether that's what that verse
means or not, here's what I know the scriptures declare. The scriptures
declare that his name is Emmanuel, which is interpreted God with
us. He's God, that's what I'm saying
by divine generation. He's God in human flesh. The
scripture says that throughout. He's the son of God, equal with
the father. The redemption he accomplished
for his people's eternal, because he's eternal God. He's the God-man
mediator. All God and all man in one person,
brought together in one person. Therefore, he brings God and
his fallen sinful people together in him. He's the mediator, the
go-between between us and God. Some said, it can't refer to
his human generation. Well, I just declared to you,
he is man. His scripture says that clearly.
After the flesh, he's the son of David. It says, and this is
a very vital distinction, the scripture says, He's the son,
he's the child born, and he's the son given. According to the
flesh, he came forth from the womb of a virgin. But he's God,
the son of God that was given for his people. What's the importance
of him being born of a virgin? Why was he born of a virgin? Because everybody born of a man,
we get our nature from our father. It's passed on to us in conception. That's what scripture, Isaiah
Psalm 51 says, we were conceived in sin. That means when at conception,
what is created in the womb is a sinner. That's all of us. So
Christ had to be holy in the womb because if God's gonna receive
you and me, we have to be perfect to be accepted. We're not talking
about you just do your best and God will receive you if you just
give it your best shot. God's holy, and we have to be
holy to be accepted of God. That means from the moment of
conception, we had to be holy, and Christ is that holy man.
And not only that, he came to be the first Adam. God arranged it this way, and
this is all found in Romans 5, beginning in verse 12. I'm just
gonna give you the cliff notes. Romans 5.12 says, By one man
sin entered the world, and death by sin. And so death passed upon
all men, for that all have sinned. God set Adam up as the head of
the whole human race. Everybody in the human race came
from Adam. And when Adam sinned, all his
people were in him, and so we did what our representative head
did. Our legal head sinned, and we sinned in him. That's how
God sees it. And so then we were born from
him, generation after generation, so we came forth, born of Adam's
corruption, so we're sinners by nature. So we're guilty before
the law, and we're sinners in ourselves. Well, here's the good
news. Adam in that headship was a type
of the Lord Jesus. He pictured Christ because before
the world was made, God chose the Son of God to come forth
as the last Adam to represent everyone that God chose and trusted
him to save. So Christ Jesus was holy in the
womb and came forth representing everybody that he shall save.
That's who he represented. and God looked only to his son,
the last Adam. And so, yes, we declare his human
generation. He is, in divine, he's God, and
as human, he's man, and so he represented his people. Listen,
when you come before God, you're either gonna be found in Adam,
being guilty, and being guilty in yourselves, and Romans 5 tells
us clearly, And we're not just gonna be condemned for Adam's
sin, we've sinned, that's all we've done. So we're gonna be
guilty if we meet God without Christ. But Christ not only put
away that transgression Adam committed, he put away all the
sins of his people. He answered, that's what he's
bearing, he's bearing The sin of his people, look back there
at Isaiah 53, look at verse six. All we like sheep have gone astray,
we've turned everyone to his own way, and the Lord has laid
on him the iniquity of us all. Christ was bearing the iniquity
of all his people, and because he bore that iniquity, God made
him bear the curse. He was condemned. That's what
the cross was, God condemning his son. God pouring out divine
justice on his son. That's how holy God is. He won't
clear the guilty. When sin was found on his son,
he wouldn't clear his son. He poured out judgment on his
son. But when Christ's pride is finished,
he declared he put away all the sin for everybody he represented. He finished it. He finished it. And because we're dead in sins
by nature, and we're spiritually ignorant by nature, and we can't
know God by nature. Now, let me show you this. Go
with me to 1 Corinthians. I don't want you to take my word
for it. 1 Corinthians 2. 1 Corinthians 2. Look at verse 11, here's a simple
illustration. What man, 1 Corinthians 2, 11,
what man knoweth the things of a man save the spirit of man
which is in him? In other words, you can't know
what I'm thinking unless I tell you what I'm thinking. You can't
know it unless I reveal it to you. I know what I'm thinking,
but you can't know it unless I reveal it to you. Well, he
says here, Even so, the things of God knoweth no man but the
Spirit of God." He knows what he purposed. He knows his purpose
and who he shall save. But look, now, we, he's speaking,
he's writing this, the letter says, to believers, to those
he's given discernment. He said, we have received not
the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God, that
we might know the things that are freely given to us of God,
which things also we speak, we preach, not in the words which
man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth, comparing
spiritual things with spiritual, comparing scripture to scripture,
seeing what God has written in His Word. But the natural man
receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, neither can he
know them, for they're foolishness to him. That means he hears this
gospel preached, he'll hear a word like this saying, you can't know
the things of God unless the Spirit reveals it to you, and
he'll say, I don't believe that. That's what it means. He'll say,
I don't believe that. I can believe when I get ready. Why hadn't
you? You hadn't. If that's a man's
attitude, he hadn't believed. Why not? Because these things
are foolishness to a man till God teaches him. Neither can
he know them because they are spiritually discerned. That's
what Christ, that's why he told Nicodemus. Nicodemus is in religion
and he thinks Everything he's done in religion that he knows
God and he knows the scriptures and he came to the Lord saying
now we know You're a man come from God. No man can do what
you do unless the Spirit be with him and Christ turned around
to him and he essentially said to Nicodemus you don't know me
and you can't know me He said unless a man's born again of
the Spirit of God He cannot see the kingdom You can't see the
king, you can't know Christ as a king unless you're born again.
Why do you tell dead sinners, spiritually dead sinners, why
tell them they can't believe? Why tell them this? Because this
is what the Lord told his preacher. In Ezekiel 37, he told Ezekiel,
he took him out to a valley full of dry bones, and he told him,
he said, this is a picture of my people right here, and he
said, Now you go tell these bones, live. And he said, and you tell
them what I'm gonna do for them. He said, you tell them, I'm gonna
send my spirit and I'm gonna quicken them and I'm gonna make
them alive and they're gonna live. And so Ezekiel preached
that. And he said, as I preached it,
the bones came together. And he said, now, the Lord said,
now pray and tell me, ask me to send the spirit He said, so
I prayed and the Lord sent the spirit and he declared to him,
all he preached to him was the works of God. He preached the
works of God. We're to declare sinners dead
in sins can't know God unless God gives them his spirit and
calls them. And then we're to declare how
it's God that does the work. It's Christ that came down and
represented his people and justified his people. It's God who sends
the gospel to them. It's Christ who prays the Father,
who sends the Spirit, and the Spirit enters in and regenerates
us and gives us new life, born of incorruptible seed. We were
born a first time corrupt, born of incorruptible seed by the
spirit of God, by the word through which the gospel is preached
to you. And given faith by God, by his grace, and that's how
we believe. And God said, and as you declare
them my works and what I do, I'll do the works. I'll send
my spirit and I'll give them life and they'll believe me.
That's why we preach this. I was talking to a preacher yesterday
and we were talking about how Scripture talks about God's people,
God making us upright. When we come into this world,
we're upside down. We got everything wrong. And
God, when he gives you a new heart, he sets you upright. He
makes you understand things are right. And we were talking about
the difference in true preaching, where the Lord has sent his preacher
and it's the Lord speaking through the word and preaching that is
just of man. And here's the difference. Everything
I've been telling you today, I've been starting with God.
God chose a people. God came to redeem a people.
God sends the gospel to his people. God regenerates his people. God
gives faith. It's all the work of God saving
his people. And then I go to a man and say,
now you believe him, you trust him, because it's through this
message that he brings you to trust him. But if you listen
to the world's preaching, that's not how the world preaches. The
world starts with man. And if truth be told, they exalt
man so, saying you can believe when you get ready. You can do
steps A, B, and C and make yourself be born again. And if you believe,
you make Christ blood effectual for you. And you keep yourself,
and you persevere by your strength in what you do. And really they
exalt man to where I was gonna say they work up to God, but
really they work down to God. Because they're making the sinner
to be the end all be all of whether or not he's saved. That's totally
different from how God's preacher preaches. Why do we preach differently? Because when God gives you a
new heart, He sets you upright, and he makes you see things as
they are. And you begin with God, and you work down to the
sinner. And until then, you're upside
down. You start with man, you exalt man, and the God of the
imagination is some little helpless God that can't save unless a
man lets him. That's not the God of this Bible.
That's not the God of this Bible. I pray the Lord today will bless
you, and teach you the truth. I'm not here to be your enemy.
I want you to be saved. I want the people that the Lord's
entrusted me to minister to, I'm going to have to go to God
and answer to God for these people. What did you teach them? Did
you tell them my truth? Did you declare to them my scripture?
And if a man doesn't believe and I've told him the scripture,
God says, Their blood's on their own hand. But if you didn't tell
them the truth, you didn't preach my word to them, he said, they're
gonna still perish, but their blood's gonna be on your hand.
That's serious. So I want you to know the truth. I want you to know my redeemer.
I want you to have hearts settled on him and know that he is salvation. That's why I preach what I preach.
I want him to get the glory and I wanna see see his people give
him the glory. And that's what his people want.
We'll just end here. We'll come back and look at the
rest of this another time. Lord, thank you for your word.
Thank you for the gospel. Lord, help us to see. Give us
hearts to understand. We need your spirit. We need your grace. Lord, we
need you and we pray you Be the teacher here this morning and
speak to our hearts and really instruct us and bring us to be
settled at Christ's feet, knowing he's the one thing needful. We
ask you forgive us our sins for his sake, and in his name we
pray, amen.