Turn back with me again this
morning to that 8th chapter of the book of Acts. Acts chapter
8, where we looked last time, and I'll read a few verses again,
beginning in verse 29. Then the Spirit said unto Philip,
Go near, and join thyself to this chariot, And Philip ran
thither to him, and heard him read the prophet Isaiah, and
said, Do you understand what you're reading? And he said,
How can I, except some man should guide me? And he desired Philip
that he would come up and sit with him. The place of the scripture
which he read was this. He was led as a sheep to the
slaughter, and like a lamb dumb before his shearer, so opened
he not his mouth. In his humiliation, his judgment
was taken away, And who shall declare his generation? For his life is taken from the
earth.' And the eunuch answered Philip and said, I pray thee,
of whom speaketh the prophet this? Of himself or of some other
man?" Then Philip opened his mouth and began at the same scripture
and preached unto him Jesus." Now, last time I tried to show
you the necessity, not only from this passage but from others,
of our having an understanding. This was the question that Philip
asked the eunuch. He said, do you understand what
you're reading? And I tried to show you how it
is that this is what God does by His Spirit through His Word,
through His gospel, John says, he gives to us an understanding
that we may know Him that is true. And this understanding
that I'm talking about, that the Scripture speaks of here,
as this text bears out, this understanding has to do with
Christ and most especially It has to do with the death of Christ. Let me read you just a few verses
that I quoted in part last time. And that is, when Christ was
raised from the dead and revealed himself to those disciples, and
Luke says, "...then opened he their understanding, that they
might understand the Scriptures." What does this understanding
the Scriptures involve? Well, the next statement is this,
And he said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it behooved
Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission
of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning
at Jerusalem." In other words, this understanding that we must
have and that God alone can give of the Scriptures has to do with
Christ and especially of the death of Jesus Christ. And this is exactly what the
Spirit of God does when he sends Philip here to this eunuch far
away in the desert, and he from this passage of Scripture, it
says, preaches unto him Jesus. But he does not preach to him
some mystical Jesus, some generic Jesus, But he speaks of Jesus
as he is set forth in the Scriptures, even the Old Testament Scriptures. And the very passage that this
man is reading, and from which Philip preaches unto him the
Lord Jesus Christ, is a passage in Isaiah chapter 53. Turn back over in your Bibles
to Isaiah and that 53rd chapter, because this man was reading
what is called by Isaiah a report, or as it is actually a hearing,
or something that is heard, or a doctrine that is proclaimed. As a matter of fact, this is
the same thing that Paul makes reference to in Romans 10 when
he says, "...but they have not all obeyed the gospel." This
report has to do with, or is, the gospel. He says, "...but
they have not all obeyed the gospel." For Isaiah said, Lord,
who hath believed our report?" In other words, it appears that
in the light of the great mass of humanity, There are few that
actually hear, and this is a hearing with understanding, this gospel,
this message that God sets forth concerning Christ. And it is concerning, as I said,
the death of Jesus Christ, that is, who died, Why did he die
and what did he actually accomplish in his death? If you remember
when Paul wrote to the Corinthians, he said to them, I delivered
unto you first of all that which I also myself received. What was that, Paul? He said
how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures. So the message concerning Christ
and how He died for our sins is the message of the Old Testament
as well as of the New Testament, because here is the Old Testament
spoken of in Acts 8, and Paul is making reference to those
Old Testament Scriptures in 1 Corinthians 15. The message is always about
Christ crucified. And here is this prophet Isaiah,
a long time before Christ came, and a long time before he was
actually crucified, and he is speaking in great plainness concerning
the Messiah, the Christ, and his death, and he speaks several
things as to why it is a necessity. He says, first of all, that Christ's
death would be a necessity. It would be absolutely vital
and the most important event and work of all eternity because
of the condition of those that He came to save. And you see, if we are not given
by God, some understanding of our condition, if we are not
brought by His Word and by His Spirit to see something of the
state and condition that we are in as sinners, we'll never understand
anything about what kind of a Savior Christ is. All through Isaiah,
and all through the Old Testament, and all through the New Testament,
he describes those that he comes to save as transgressors. as being, as they are here, full
of iniquity, as being sinners, as being helpless and hopeless
in themselves, as being spiritually dead. Dead. Now you stop and think of this. You and I are simply sick. If we get a bruise or a scrape
or a cold or something like that, we can just simply run down to
the quick med clinic and get some help. If we are having some
greater problem, we may have to go to the ER and get some
more serious help. If we find out there or somewhere
that we have a more serious problem, we may have to go to a regional
medical center. You see, whatever our need is,
whatever our sickness or disease or difficulty is, that determines
what kind of help we need. But if we are, as Scripture says,
in our spiritual state, D-E-A-D, If we are dead in trespasses
and sins, then the kind of help that we need is far beyond our
own ability to give or above all the ability of any other
sinner to give. We have got to have help of a
divine kind. We've got to have somebody who
gives life. We've got to have one who can
do more than administer a simple medicine. We've got to have one
who can raise us up to spiritual life. And here we are in Scripture,
being judicially or legally dead from the fall, being spiritually
dead to God, dying daily physically, and being bound for eternal death,
as the Scripture says, we have to have a Savior and a Deliverer
of a unique kind. Do we understand this? And that's
what's lacking with us. That's what we don't want to
understand. That's what the flesh defies
and rebels against, any notion that we cannot do something to
better ourselves or make ourselves acceptable and pleasing unto
God. And God has to give us an understanding
of how desperate our case is, how dead in sins we are, how
lost and unable to come to God that we are. You see, he says,
the carnal mind is enmity against God. He describes us as being
alienated in our minds, as being rebels against God, as acting
as enemies of God, and so desperate is our case. Listen to what Isaiah
uses to describe us. He said, the proof of our absolute
lost, helpless estate is this. Our blindness is this. Look at what it says in verse
2, "...for he shall grow up before Him, as a tender plant and as
a root out of dry ground, and when we shall see Him, there
is no beauty that we should desire Him." Now listen to what he's
saying. He's saying that our blindness
is such, our deadness, our spiritual lifelessness is such that when
the King of glory When the Son of God walked on this earth in
human flesh, men looked at Him, eyed Him, watched Him, and they
saw no beauty in Him that they should desire." And here we are,
a bunch of sinners living 2,000 plus years later, and have the
privilege of hearing about the Lord of glory. have this privilege
of hearing about this only One who can save us from our sins,
who can preserve us from the hell that we justly deserve,
who can deliver us out of our bondage of sin. Here we are hearing
spoken of in the gospel the One that God describes as being altogether
lovely. We're not interested. We're not
interested. Oh, we're busy people. We're
working people. We're active people. We're happy
people. But we're lost people. Absolutely. That is, we saw, as he says,
no worth or no value in His glorious perfections. We esteemed Him
not. Listen to verse 3. Not. What does that mean, we
esteemed Him not? We count Him as worth nothing. And until God opens our understanding
to see that He is the One who, especially as far as we sinners
are concerned, that He is everything, we'll count Him for nothing.
We esteemed Him not. We're looking for a happy Savior. We're looking for a happy Jesus
that will make us happy. We're looking for one who will
give us health and wealth and prosperity and do all these things. And the reason why we're looking
for such a Christ is because we're dead. Spiritually dead. even refused to bow to his sovereign
lordship." He said he's despised. "...and would not by nature come
to him that we might have life, we hid as it were our faces from
him, just like our father Adam." Do you remember Adam? The Bible
says that God gave Adam all the trees in the garden to be a blessing
to him and for him to dress and rule over and all these things.
But when Adam and Eve sinned and fell in the garden and rebelled
against God, rather than thanking God and praising God for these
very things that God gave them, they went and hid themselves
in them. People have been doing that ever
since. Oh, the Lord has blessed me, we say. Yeah, and that's
what you do. You run and hide from Him in
the very blessings such as work or family or whatever it is,
and all these things that are counted as blessings. But what
do we do in our ignorance and in our rebellion? We run and
hide in them. Hide from who? Hide from God.
Our condemnation before God's divine justice demands that we
as sinners die. And he says, the soul that sinned
shall surely die, because that's what the wages of sin are, and
we must die. And if He's to save us, He must
die in our place. Absolutely vital. You're not
in such a state that He could just wave a magic wand from heaven,
and you'd be safe and sound. We're not in such a condition
that all He'd have to do is come down to this earth and teach
us a few things, or come down to this earth and show Himself
to us. No, He had to come down to this earth and die. And here He is hanging on that
cross, suffering and dying for sinners, and men and women walked
by Him, they looked at Him, they mocked Him, they despised Him,
and they're still doing that. That's what Isaiah says. We despised
Him. We despised Him so much that
the Scripture says that we take and we make a Jesus of our own.
We make one that we don't despise by nature. We make one that appeals
to our flesh. We make one that fits in with
our schedule. We make one that does this and
that and the other, and does everything that we want Him to
do, and not what we need to have done for us as sinners. You see,
we must be saved. We must be saved. Here's a person in the midst
of all that wreckage and rumble of the earthquake, buried down
underneath all the rubble and stuff that has fallen in on them. They have struggled, they have
stretched, they have tried, but they can't get out. They must
be saved. Do you understand that? We must
be saved. He said there's none other name
given under heaven, given among men, whereby we must be saved. And this is not only because
of the condition that we're in, but He must come and He must
die because it is vital to the purpose and the will and the
decree of God. Look at what it says in verse
10. It says, "...Yet it pleased the Lord, Now, you've got a will,
and I've got a will, and we've got purposes for sure, and we're
trying to fulfill our purposes, but we may not, probably won't
do it. But God's purpose has to be fulfilled. And if his purpose
is to be fulfilled, if his will is to be done on earth as it
is in heaven, then the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, has to
take on human flesh and has to come into this world and die
because this is the pleasure or the will and purpose of God. He says in Isaiah 46, He is that
God declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times
the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand,
and I will do all My pleasure. Daniel, when he was given this
prophecy concerning the Messiah, right in the midst of this, it
says that Messiah shall be cut off. He's going to have to die. And we have all these sacrifices,
all these offerings, all these types from the skins that were
given to cover Adam and Eve in their nakedness in the garden
after the fall, the result of an innocent victim dying in the
matter of their sin. We have all these types and shadows
pointing to it, just like Peter says, being delivered by the
determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, you have taken and by
wicked hands have crucified and slain." He said it is a necessity. It is a necessity because of
our condition, it is a necessity because it's the will and purpose
of God's grace, and it's a necessity, absolutely vital, because of
the character of God. He says in Isaiah 45 and verse
21, he says, "...tell ye, and bring them near, yea, let them
take counsel together, who hath declared this from ancient time,
who hath told it from that time, have not I the Lord, and there
is no God else beside me?" Just one God. Well, what kind are
you? A just God and a Savior, there
is none beside me. You see, if He is a just God,
And you see, that's a great thing that people do not understand,
that we'll never understand unless God reveals this to us and teaches
us this, that He must act towards us just like He does everybody
else, just like He does in everything else, in strict justice. Isn't it amazing how the very
thing that we hate in people on the earth, we think that it's
a good thing with God. You say, what are you talking
about? I'm talking about if somebody does injustice to someone. If the judge at the courthouse
turns an obvious criminal loose, we cry, injustice, injustice. But if God turned you or me loose,
criminals as we are in ourselves against His throne, violators
of His justice, rebels against His throne, all of eternity would
cry out, injustice, injustice. Christ had to come because without
the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins, and any
salvation that he has wrought, he has wrought in Christ, that
he might honor himself and show himself at the same time to be
a just God and a Savior." How? Through the death of Christ.
Do you understand that? that when Christ died on that
cross, He is actually before God's justice, paying the debt
of sin, suffering the just for the unjust, actually satisfying
and honoring the justice of God in the sins of those He saves. He's not just taken by wicked
hands and crucified and slain, though he was surely doing that.
He's dying because of the determinate counsel and foreordained purpose
of God. Because in order to save his
people from their sins, he has to satisfy God in the matter
of that sin. Isaiah also shows us this. He
says that the death of Christ was absolutely 100% voluntary. Look down in verse
7. 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 shears is done, so He opened
not His mouth." Did they with all their wills crucify Christ? Oh yes. But what He does and
what happens to Him happens because in His great strength, He voluntarily,
lays down His life for His people. I don't know how many people
there are on the face of this earth right now who know something
of the dying of Jesus Christ. They imagine that He was helpless,
that it was done against His will when He was taken and crucified
and hung on that cross. They imagine that that was just
another crime amongst crimes. No. He said, I'm the Good Shepherd,
and the Good Shepherd gives His life for the sheep. He said,
the Good Shepherd lays down His life for the sheep. Hereby perceive we the love of
God, because He laid down His life for us. Peter said, this is the saying,
the gospel message that's worthy of all acceptation, that Christ
Jesus came into this world to save sinners in the only way
we could be saved, for Him to give His life for the sheep. Pilate could do nothing to Him
except what He willed. Not what Pilate will. And when
he hung on that cross, he was alive, he was in full control
of all his faculties, until that time and that hour when it says
that he cried out with a loud, strong voice and yielded up the
ghost like a lamb. before shears is done, He didn't
open up His mouth. And then Isaiah shows us this
also. He shows us in all of this what
we find all throughout the Scriptures, and that is that the Lord Jesus
Christ, in His death, He died as a substitute. He died a vicarious
death. What is a vicarious death? Well, the word vicar, means one
who serves as a substitute. And sad it is to say that the
Pope is so erroneously called the vicar of Christ, the substitute
of Christ. Can you imagine that? Listen
to what he says here in verse 4. Now, this is long before Christ
came, long before He died, and this is what the Spirit of God
is directing the prophet Isaiah to write concerning the Christ.
He says, "...surely He hath borne..." Do you know what that means? Carried. Surely he hath borne
our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we did esteem him stricken,
smitten of God, and afflicted. Man imagined that the reason
why Christ is being treated this way and crucified this way is
because of what He did, because of His great sin, because He's
a great criminal. Oh no! He's dying in the place
of somebody else. He's bearing our griefs. He's carrying our sorrows. Verse 5, "...but He was wounded
full." What does that word, for, mean? It means in the place of,
or because of, or instead of. 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. Not, we will be. With His stripes,
we are healed. I told you, He voluntarily gives
His life. But He says, for the sheep. He voluntarily lays down His
life for the sheep. Greater love hath no man than
this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." The Son
of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister and to
give His life a ransom for many. You remember what a ransom is?
It's a consideration that's paid or demanded for the redemption
of a captured person. It's a particular price that's
paid for particular people. Christ said, for this is my blood
of the New Testament, which is shed for many, for the remission
of sins." Do we understand that this is a definite price paid
for a definite people? This is a definite death which
is died in the place of a definite people. I don't know of any,
I don't know whether you would call it principle or doctrine
or concept or whatever you might call it, in all of Scripture,
that if understood, would bring such amazing revelation and joy
and peace to a sinner if they get this understanding that Christ
died for them in their place actually, finally, fully, And
that's our salvation. You see, to understand this is
to understand that if Christ died in my place, if He suffered
for my sins in my place, then I don't have to. Then I won't
ever. I mean, this is the reality of
it. And this is the whole message
of Scripture. But God commended His love toward
us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. He hath made Him to be sent for
us that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. He gave Himself for our sins
that He might deliver us from this present evil world. He loved
the church and gave himself for it. He gave himself for us that
he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify unto himself a peculiar
people zealous of good works. His own self, bear our sins in
His own body on the tree that we, being dead to sins, should
live unto righteousness, by whose stripes ye are healed." You were
healed. That's Peter quoting the very
thing that Isaiah is talking about here and talking about
Christ and His death. Do we understand that? That's
what Isaiah is talking about. That's what we find in Genesis
or any of the books like Hosea, any of the Old Testament books,
and surely in every New Testament books, there's an old hymn that
has a line in it. And the hymn writer says, payment?
You know, this is about a payment, what a ransom is. That's what
redemption is about, a payment. That's what Paul's talking about
when he says to those Corinthian believers, you are bought with
a price. This old hymn writer said, payment
God cannot twice demand. First at my bleeding surety's
hand and then again at mine. Why? Because he's a just God. Christ paid my debt, I don't
owe it. And then this is something else
we need to understand. Isaiah says this, I'm sure that
Philip could have set this forth to this Ethiopian eunuch from
Isaiah 53 far, far better than I'm setting it forth for you
this day. But it's the same. Isaiah assured
everyone who'd ever read him, everyone that Read the prophecy
of Isaiah. He assured this man riding in
this chariot that Christ would be absolutely, totally victorious. Here is a head of a body. Here is Christ who is described
as the vanguard of a troop of soldiers. Here is Christ who
is described as a king of a people. And every prophet says, he's
going to be victorious. As a matter of fact, the last
book of this Bible, the book of Revelation, if you wanted
to kind of sum it up in a few words, you could just simply
say that all through this book of Revelation is this message,
that in all times, in all situations, against every enemy of Christ
and His people, Christ triumphs. and all his people triumph in
him." Look at what it says in verse 10. "'Yet it pleased the
Lord to bruise him.'" The pleasure, the purpose of God is bound up
in the death of Christ. "'He hath put him to grief. When thou shalt make his soul
an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, his people.'" In
other words, Where most people have their seed through their
living, He has His seed through His dying. Hold your thought
right there. Look back down here in verse
8. He was taken from prison and
from judgment. Who shall declare His generation? For He was cut off out of the
land of the living. If He's dead, How is he going
to have a people? Because he has his people through
his death. For the transgression of my people
was he stricken. So, 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 the purpose, the will of God, especially
as it pertains to the salvation of his elect, the pleasure of
the Lord shall prosper in his hand. He shall see of the travail
of his soul and shall be satisfied, and by his knowledge, Not just
by our knowledge of Him, but by His knowledge shall my righteous
servant justify many, declare them righteous." How? Because He's going to bear their
iniquities. He's going to be made sin for
them, and they're going to be made the righteousness of God.
You can't fail. Absolutely positive. Impossible
for it not to happen. "'He shall not,' Isaiah says
in another place, "'fail nor be discouraged till he hath set
judgment in the earth, and the owl shall wait for his law.'"
He'll bring the sheep of His foe, every one of them. It says,
"...neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by His own blood
He entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal
redemption for us." You could just go on and on and on. He did not, and He shall not
fail. You understand that? He didn't
come on a trial and error mission. He didn't come in order to make
something available for everybody. He came to save a people. He
came to save some sinners who will be brought to understand
that they cannot save themselves, that they do not deserve to be
saved, that God would not have one thing that they ever have
or could do. They need to be saved. and that
this is what Christ has come and done for them. He's come
into this world in order to do that which is necessary to save
them which was to die for their sins. That's the price of our
sins – death. And that in love, Christ came
and voluntarily laid down His life, suffered in our place,
paid that debt, satisfied God on every hand, made us accepted
in Himself, so that not one He died for is ever going to perish.
Turn over to Jeremiah chapter 9. I'll close. Jeremiah 9. This is what He did. This is
what He did for some people. And God's going to give them
an understanding of this. They're going to rejoice. They're
going to rest in this. They're going to, for the first
time, when He enables them to believe it, they're going to
find peace. Jeremiah chapter 9, verse 23,
Thus saith the Lord, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom,
neither let the mighty man glory in his might. Let not the rich
man glory in his riches, but let him that glorieth glory in
this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord,
which exercise lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness in
the earth. For in these things I delight,
saith the Lord." Now, where are you going to find lovingkindness,
justice, and righteousness? In one. In Christ crucified. Now when he talks about us having
to understand, that does not mean you and I understand everything.
But there are some things we do understand. We understand
in a measure who's on that cross. God. God in flesh. We understand why He has to be
there. That's because in order to save
us, He has to come to satisfy justice by dying in our place
for our sins. We understand in a measure how
He got there. He sent of God. He comes willingly
and voluntarily and lays down His life. We understand in a
measure what He actually accomplishes there. He actually saves us from
our sins. We don't glory in a relic. or
a symbol of the cross. We glory in the Christ who was
crucified on that cross and what He actually accomplished. The psalmist said, for God is
the King of all the earth. Thing ye praises with understanding. With understanding. God help
us by giving us this understanding that we might know Him who died
that we might know why He had to die to save us, that we might
know what He actually accomplished, the fact that His death is our
life. Father, this day we give You
thanks and praise and pray that You would take Your Word, not
my feeble words, but take Your Word, what You have said about
Your Son, what you have said about us, what you have said
about what He's accomplished, and give us this understanding.
May we understand what we have read, and that we might see that
it is all concerning, as Philip preached to the eunuch, the Lord
Jesus Christ and Him crucified. We pray that you save your people
to the glory and praise of your name. Because we ask it in that
name that's above every name, the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.