Good morning. Let's open this
morning's service with hymn number 21. It's been a while since we've
sung this. I know we all love this hymn.
So let's stand together. Number 21 from the Spiral hymn
book. Number 21. God the Father and the Son and
the Spirit, three in one, in eternal ages past, made a covenant
sure and fast. God my Father chose His own in
the person of His Son, and ordained that I should be one with Him
eternally. God the Son agreed to come in
the flesh to bring me home. He would keep God's holy law
and retrieve me from the fall. Christ in love so willingly stood
as my great surety. For my price he offered blood
to appease the wrath of God. God the Spirit, heavenly dove,
promised to come down in love, bringing life and peace and grace
to the chosen, purchased race. He seeks the lost, heals the
lame, and He brings us to the Lamb. By his mighty sovereign
call, God's elect are gathered all. This poor sinner is secure,
for God's covenant will endure. It is sealed by God's own word,
? By his spirit and his blood ? Blessed holy covenant God ?
I am yours by ties of blood ? Ties of grace and ties of love ? Hold
me to my God above Please be seated. Good morning. Ties of grace and ties of love
hold me to my God above. What a blessing. Zechariah chapter 13, if you'd
like to open your Bibles there with me. Let's go. To the Lord in prayer
and ask his blessings on our time together. Our blessed, glorious. Merciful
and gracious Heavenly Father. We are thankful. For your ties
of grace. And your ties of love. That bind
us to you. Lord, we confess to you this
morning that we left ourselves would be prone to wonder. Prone
to leave the God that we love. How thankful we are that your
spirit. Is faithful. And persistent. To keep us. Keep us coming, keep us looking,
keep us believing. Lord, once again this morning
we are in need of that. We need for you to send your
spirit in power. We need for you to give us eyes
to see and ears to hear and hearts to believe. Lord, enable us to
set our affections on things above where thy dear son, the
Lord Jesus Christ, is seated at the right hand of the majesty
on high. We're so prone to set our affections
on the things of this earth. Lord, for Christ's sake, we pray
that you would forgive us. Forgive us for our worldliness. Might we? Be able to rest in
knowing that all our sin. Has been put away by the accomplished
work of thy dear son. For it's in his name we ask it.
Amen. Zechariah chapter 13, and we're
going to take these two verses sort of in reversed order. The
first hour I want us to look at verse 6, and the second hour
we're going to consider verse 1. The title of this message
is, What Are These Wounds? What Are These wounds, that's
the question that's asked in verse 6 and one shall say unto
him. What are these wounds in thy
hands? Then he shall answer. Sorry. Those with which. I was wounded. In the house. Of my friends. Someone has said that the only
man made thing. That there will be in heaven.
The only man made thing that there will be in heaven. Is the
wounds? That we gave. To the Lord Jesus
Christ. On his body. What are these wounds? What are these ones? Isaiah chapter
53 says that he was wounded for our transgressions. He was wounded in the house of
his friends. He came unto his own and his
own received him not. Israel was his chosen people.
And he came in love. And. The scripture says that
they by their wicked hands crucified and slain the Son of God. When
they were convicted by the Spirit of God of what they did, they
cried smitten to their hearts when they asked Peter and the
other disciples on the day of Pentecost, men of Israel, what
shall we do? What shall we do? Look what we've
done. We've wounded. our Savior when he came to the
house of his friends. And what did Peter say? Believe,
believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. Believe
and be baptized every one of you. Look to him, look to those
wounds that you caused and know that he did it for you. You remember
when the Lord was. On the way to Calvary. Carrying
his cross and the scripture says that there was a group of women
that were weeping and crying for him and he said to them,
don't weep for me. We talk about the wounds of the
Lord Jesus Christ. We're not trying to inspire men
to feel sorry for God. The Lord said, don't feel sorry
for me. Don't weep for me. I didn't do this so that you
could feel sorry for me. I did this out of love for you.
He said weep for yourself and for your children for judgments
coming. The wounds on the Lord Jesus
Christ remind us of his love for us. He received a flogging
by the Roman soldiers with a cat of nine tails on his back until
it had been cut to the bone and ripped to shreds. Why was he
wounded in that particular place first? First, that was his first
wound. Why was he wounded there first?
Because the greatest sin that you and I commit against God
is our attempts to bear the burden of our own sin. That's the greatest
sin that we commit. It's not the things that men
feel guilty about, the bad things that they do, the shameful things
that they don't want anybody to know about. It's the attempt
to rob God of his glory and rob Christ of his successful work
by bearing the burden of our own sins and trying to atone
for our own sins by our own works and our own righteousness. And
what the Lord say, all ye that are burdened and heavy laden,
Come, come unto me. Take my yoke upon you, for my
burden is light. I bore the weight of your sin
on my shoulders. They were crushing you. You could
not bear them, but I bore them. What are these wounds? These
are they which I was wounded of in the house of my friends. The weight of the cross was not
the wooden tree that our Lord bore on his shoulders as he walked
up Calvary's Hill. The weight of the cross was all
the sins that he bore in his body upon that tree when he satisfied
the demands of God's holy justice. That's the weight he bore. And
only his shoulders are able, only his back is able to bear
the burden of our sin. The scripture says in Isaiah
chapter six that the government shall be placed upon his shoulders. He bears the burden of everything
in this world. What are these wounds? Oh, those
are the wounds for which I was wounded in the house of my friends. Brethren, the Lord Jesus Christ,
He's the only one. He's the only one that can bear
the burden of our sin. And put them away. Away. Out of the sight of God. The Lord said I separate your
sin from you as far as the East is from the West. I remember
them no more. He bore the weight of our sin. To show us. His love for us. His love for the father. The second wound that our Lord
suffered was that of. That crown of thorns that was
pressed into his brow. Why was he wounded in that particular
place? Well, the scripture says that
our whole head is sick. Every single one of us are sick
in the head. We are. You and I have never,
ever one single time been capable of having a holy thought. Man
looks at the outward appearance, God looks at the heart. Every
thought, when God said, when God looked down from heaven in
Genesis chapter six and he saw all the men, every thought and
imagination of their hearts were only evil and that continually. Why was he wounded in his head? Because our heads are sick and
his head is pure and perfect. Oh, he said, my thoughts are
not your thoughts. Oh no. Every thought that our
savior had was a holy thought was a perfect thought. It could
be offered up to the father and be acceptable. Truth is when
you and I are broken, truly broken by the spirit of God and brought
to our knees in prayer, those thoughts and those prayers have
to be washed in the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ to be acceptable
to God. We can't even pray a prayer that's
acceptable apart from the wounds that he suffered. That's why
the scripture speaks of the Lord Jesus Christ in symbolic languages
having hair like wool. White like wool, his perfect
wisdom. And then another place that scripture
speaks of him as having a head of pure gold, pure gold. It speaks of his purity and of
his excellence. What are these wounds you say?
These are the wounds that I've received in the house of my friends. These are the wounds that I suffered
by the wrath of God in order to put away their sin. Our verse
actually identifies one particular part of his body, his hands.
What are these wounds in thy hands? The very first act of sin was
committed with a hand. When Eve held out that forbidden
fruit and Adam took it, how did he take it? He took it with his
hand. And everything that man's hand has touched ever since that
day, he has defiled. The Lord said, when you come
before me in worship and make an altar, don't put your hands
to it. Don't hew the stones. Don't chisel them out and make
them beautiful, because as soon as you touch it, you defile it.
That's what your hands do. And the Lord Jesus Christ was
wounded in his hands because his hands were undefiled, sinless,
pure, and perfect. His hands were able to touch
lepers and not be defiled. His hands were able to touch
the blind and give them eyes to see and touch the ears of
the deaf and give them ears to hear. He loosed the tongue with
his hands. Oh, what pure and perfect hands.
And yet those Roman soldiers took God's hammer and drove spikes
through his hands because he was bearing the iniquity of his
people. In his body. What are these wounds
you say? Again, let me remind you don't
feel sorry for God. He's not doing this to be fit
to be to be pitied. We're the ones that need to be
pitted. We're the ones that God needs to feel sorry for. We're
just a pitiful lot of sinners. These are the wounds. That I
received. In the house of my friends. He was wounded in his feet. Why?
Because the scripture says that our feet are swift to shed blood. We are feet take us in so many
different directions and so many places and in so many ways were
like that cripple that was seated at the gate called beautiful
outside the temple and they begging for alms. He couldn't go into
the temple because he was crippled. And what Peter and John say,
silver and gold have we none, but such as we have. What did
they have? They had the gospel. They had
the message of the one that was wounded for his transgressions. And they said, in the name of
Jesus of Nazareth, we command you to stand and walk. And he
stood. He stood and then he leaped.
And you know, the first thing he did, he went right through
that gate called beautiful and entered in to worship with God.
There's a gate called beautiful brethren. The cripple are not
gonna be allowed to go. But the one who was wounded in
his feet, he went in and with him, he took
all those. who like Mephibosheth were crippled
in both of their feet as a result of a fall. That's where we are. What are these wounds? These
are the wounds that I've been wounded with in the house of
my friends. The last wound that we hear of
is when that Roman soldier knew exactly which rib to go
between as a professional executioner and torturer. He knew exactly
which rib to go between when he thrust that Lance into our
Lord's side in order to pierce his heart. And he did and outflowed
water sanctification and blood justification. And the fountain
flowed, as we're gonna see in the next hour, the fountain flowed
from the side of the Lord Jesus Christ. Why? In his heart. Because
God says, our hearts are deceitful above all things, and desperately
wicked who can know them. Who can know them. And we say
about a man who's got a good heart, we're just comparing one
man to another man. But when you stand all by yourself
before a holy God, you will find yourself saying exactly what
Paul said, in me, in me, that is in my flesh dwelleth no good
thing. Oh, I need for his heart to be
pierced for me. I need for him to bear the iniquity
of my sin in the wounds of my heart. His side, holy, harmless,
undefiled, and separate from sinners, the scripture says,
is the Lord Jesus Christ, who had a perfect and pure heart
before God all the time. What are these wounds, you say?
What are these wounds, we ask the Lord Jesus Christ. These
are they which I was wounded of in the house of my friends. What do we learn from these wounds? Well, we learned that the Lord
Jesus Christ suffered for us. He suffered for us. Crucifixion
was a public form of torture designed to strike fear in the
hearts of others. Men say, well, the death penalty
doesn't really deter crime. Well, if you executed it quick
enough and did it in this fashion public enough and cruel enough,
I guarantee you it would deter crime. That was the whole purpose
of it. Turn to me to Psalm 22. Psalm 22. By the time our criminals are
executed, Crime has long been forgotten. And the execution is done. Quietly
behind closed doors and no one sees it. Of course it wouldn't
deter crime. No criminals thinking that far
down the road. Here our Lord. Suffered this cruel public humiliation
and torture. the purpose of showing us what
God required for our sin to be put away. You have your Bibles open to
Psalm 22. Look at verse six. But I am a worm and no man, a
reproach of men, and despised of the people. All they that
see me laugh me to scorn. They shoot out their lip. They
shake their head, saying, he trusted on the Lord that he would
deliver him. Let him deliver him, seeing he
delighted in him. Now David wrote those words 1,000
years before those Pharisees stood there at the cross and
said, he saved others, let him save himself. If you'd be the
Messiah, come down. Come down. Why didn't he come
down? Why didn't he come down? Two reasons. His love and commitment
to his father and his love and commitment to his people. That's
why he didn't come down. He was fulfilling the requirements
that he had committed himself to in the covenant of grace before
the foundation of the world. He was satisfying all that he
had promised to the father. In the garden when he cried,
father, if there be any way that this cup can pass from me, let
it be nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done. There was
no other way. The die had been set. The commitment had been
made. The covenant was established
and the Lord Jesus Christ was offering himself, not to us,
not to us. God's not saying, oh, won't you
accept me? Won't you believe on me? Won't
you have my offer of salvation? He's not making an offer to us.
He's making an offer to God, to his father. And his father
saw the travail of his soul and the father was satisfied. The
Father accepted the offer that the Lord Jesus Christ made to
him. How do I know that it was made
on my behalf? Because I look upon him whom I have pierced
and I mourn after him as one mourneth for his only begotten.
I've got to have Christ. I've got to have what he did
for me. My hands are dirty, my feet are dirty, my heart's dirty,
my head's dirty. I can't, my back, I can't bear
the burden of my sin. I've got to have Christ, I've
got no other choice. Verse 9, but thou art he that
took me out of the womb. Thou didst make me hope when
I was upon my mother's breast. I was cast upon thee from the
wound. Thou art my God from my mother's
belly. Be not far from me, for trouble
is near, for there's none to help. There's none to help. The Lord Jesus Christ is crying
out to his father in the agony of bearing the burden of his
people's sin and drinking the dregs of that bitter cup of God's
wrath. And he's not, he's not crying
out to us to feel sorry for him or to let him have his way. He's
crying out to the father. Father, help me. Father, save
me. Father, reward me for my faithfulness
and rise me from the dead. Many bulls have come past me,
strong bulls of Bashan have set me about. They gaped upon me
with their mouths as a ravening and a roaring lion. I am poured
out like water and all my bones are out of joint. My heart is
like wax, it is melted in the midst of my bowels. My strength
is dried up like a potsherd and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws.
And thou has brought me into the dust of death. The Lord Jesus
Christ is praying to his father, he said, Father, you've done
this. It pleased God to bruise him. It was God satisfying his
holy justice when he put to grief his only darling son. Why did
he do it? His love for his church, love
for his people. That's the first cause. The first
cause of our salvation is the eternal love of God. I've loved
you with an everlasting love. And it's the love of Christ that
constraineth us, is it not? It's not the fear of wrath and
judgment. It's not the, that bringeth us
to repentance. It's the love of God that brings
us to repentance. You know, the fear of wrath and
the fear of justice and judgment for ourselves might reform our
behavior, but it's not going to save us. And the good news is, brethren,
there's no reason to fear the wrath of God if you look to Christ. It's been put away. It's been
appeased. The Lord Jesus Christ has become
our propitiation. There's no more wrath. There's
no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. He laid down his life for the
sheep. Scripture says he loved them to the end. To the bowing of his mighty head,
to the crying out, it is finished, father, into thy hands I commend
my spirit. He loved them. It's his love
for his people, his bride. Oh, he's a perfect husband. That's
why the scripture says husbands love your wives even as Christ
loved the church and gave himself for it. No wife can resist a
husband that gives himself for her. No wife can. And the church can't. Second thing we learn from these
wounds other than the sufferings of the Lord Jesus Christ for
his people is satisfaction. Satisfaction. Not only is God satisfied when
he looks upon the wounds of the Lord Jesus Christ, but God's
people are satisfied when they look upon the wounds of the Lord
Jesus Christ. I don't have, you know. The monk
over there in Israel that walks the Via Della Rosa on Easter
Sunday morning flogging himself is not the only man in the world
trying to atone for his own sins. Everybody in the world tries
to atone for their own sins. Everybody's trying to make up
for their sins. Everybody's trying to appease
God. And it doesn't work. It doesn't
work. There's only one that satisfied
what God required. What are these wounds you say?
They are the wounds that I suffered in the house of my friends and
for my friends. For my friends. Thomas wasn't satisfied with
the report that Jesus had risen from the dead. He wasn't satisfied.
Unless I can put my finger into the wounds of his hands and thrust
my hand into his side, I will not believe. And when Thomas
saw the Lord Jesus Christ just a few days later who entered
into that room while the door was shut, what did he do? He saw the wounds. What are these wounds? They are
the wounds that I suffered in the house of my friends and Thomas
fell at the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ and cried, my Lord
and my God. The priest of Baal on Mount Carmel,
the scripture says, cut themselves and shed blood in an attempt
to atone for their sins and call on Baal to come. What did Elijah
do? He mocked them. He mocked them. Cut yourself some more. Cry louder. And then what did Elijah do for
the fire to fall from heaven? He prayed. He did. God of glory, prove yourself. And the fire fell and consumed
the altar and the sacrifice. You see, it's not by works of
righteousness which we have done, but it's according to his mercy
that he has saved us through the washing of regeneration and
the renewing of the Holy Ghost. We cannot atone for our sins.
What are these wounds? They are the wounds that I suffered
in the house of my friends for their atonement. for their atonement. And it's the only thing that
God's satisfied with. Successful salvation. Hebrews
chapter 9 says the priest went in alone once a year into that
holies of holies. And here's the scripture, and
not without blood. Not without blood. That priest
would never dare go into the holies of holies without blood. He went in with blood and he
put it on the mercy seat. Once again, God overlooked. They
weren't put away yet. They weren't put away. They weren't
put away until the Lamb of God that was without spot came and
shed His precious blood by His wounds, by His stripes. We are healed. We are healed. And when the Lord Jesus Christ
went in, the scripture says that Christ by his own blood went
in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption
for us. Notice that, listen to God. Listen
to God. Having obtained eternal redemption
for us. He didn't make an offering of
blood in hopes that he would obtain eternal redemption for
those that would believe he obtained eternal redemption for his people.
He actually successfully accomplished their salvation. What are these
wounds? They are the wounds that I've
suffered in the house of my friends. And these wounds also tell us
brethren in closing. That our God sympathizes. With
the wounds that we suffer. In this life. Turn to me to Hebrews
chapter 2. You've never experienced a wound. Like his wounds. And you've never
experienced a wound that he wasn't wounded with you. He walks with his people through
the valley of the shadow of death, and that's not just a reference
to the moment in which we leave this world. This whole life is
the valley of the shadow of death. thy rod and thy staff, they do
comfort me. Hebrews chapter two, look at
verse 16. For verily, he took not on the
nature of angels, but he took on him the seed of Abraham. Wherefore,
in all things, it behooved him to be make like unto his brethren,
that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things
pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of his people. For
in that he himself also suffered, being tempted, he is able. And that's the word sucker is
an old English word that means to help with compassion, to help
with compassion. He is able to help with great
compassion, them that are tempted. Turn over just a page to Hebrews
chapter four. Verse 15, for we have not a high
priest which cannot be touched with the feelings of our infirmities,
but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore. If everything
that we've said is true, let us therefore run. Let us come. Let us flee boldly, confidently. Confident in what? Confident
in that his wounds satisfied and successfully secured everything
that God required from my salvation. What are these wounds? They are
the wounds that I suffered in the house of my friends, that
they might come boldly to the throne of grace. to obtain mercy
and find grace to help in their time of need. Do you have a need? Oh, our Savior is able, he's
able. Our Heavenly Father, we pray
that your sweet Holy Spirit would give us the faith to believe
all that you've said. We ask it in Christ name. Amen. Thank you.