I hope you all were able to make
up for that hour loss of sleep last night. I used to set all my clocks on
Saturday morning, but now with the cell phones and DVRs, you
can't do that. They set themselves. Next Sunday, Michael Etheridge will be bringing
the first hour study and Robert Horton will bring a message the
second hour. I will be with Donnie and Mary
and with Jim and Jane. And some other couples are going
to go down and visit the churches in Mexico. So we're going to
leave this coming Thursday and be back next week. So if the
Lord brings us to mind, I have covered your prayers. We're going
to be preaching a lot down there, especially Thursday, Friday,
Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. Let me begin the service with
this verse. A man, that's you and me, can
receive nothing, nothing, that's no thing, except it be given
him of the Lord. Now that's where we are right
now. Who maketh thee to differ? The Lord does. We can receive
nothing. No blessings from God, no light,
no salvation, no forgiveness of sin, except he be pleased
to give it. Now you know what that does for
you and me, doesn't it? Leaves us as mercy beggars. Oh
Lord, would you please give to me. Let's stand together. Tom's going to come lead us in
number Before our Scripture reading,
let us turn to Isaiah chapter 43. And that message was such a blessing to
me. Son of the Father, the Lord Jesus
Christ has done it all. And right here it just says,
verse 1, But now thus saith the Lord that created thee, O Jacob,
and he that formed thee, O Israel, a prince with God. Fear not,
for I have redeemed thee. I have called thee by thy name,
thou art mine. When thou passest through the
waters, I will be with thee, and through the rivers they shall
not overflow thee. When thou walkest through the
fire, they shall not be burned, neither shall the flame kindle
upon thee. Why is that? For I am the Lord
thy God, the Holy One, thy Savior. I gave Egypt for thy ransom,
and Ethiopia and Sheba for thee. Since thou wast precious in my
sight, thou hast been honorable, and I have loved thee. Therefore
will I give men for thee, and people for thy life. Fear not,
for I am with thee. bring thy seed from the east,
and gather thee from the west. I will say to the north, give
up, and to the south, keep not back. Bring thy sons from afore,
and my daughters from the end of the earth. Every one that
is called by my name, for I have created him for my glory, and
I have formed him, I have made him, bring forth the blind people
that have eyes and the deaf that have ears. Let all the nations
of the earth be gathered together and let the people be assembled. Who among them can declare this
and show us former things? Let them bring forth their witnesses
that they may be justified or let them hear and say it is truth."
And here's what he says to us. to us who believe. You are my
witnesses, saith the Lord, and my servant, whom I have chosen,
that you may know and believe me, and understand that I am
he. Before me there was no God formed,
neither shall there be after me. I, I, the Lord, this is the
great and glorious I am, the person of the Lord Jesus Christ,
And beside me, no Savior. Let us pray. Our great God and Savior, how
we do thank Thee, Lord. We see in ourselves the flesh
and the doubts and the fears that we have, and we see such
a great Savior who has loved us and given Himself for us.
Lord, may again we continue to hear and to see, and that you
might be pleased to cause us to go away rejoicing, saying,
Thou art my God. And we give you thanks in the
blessed name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. When we use the word substitute,
normally we mean something that is lesser than the original. A substitute in sports is a replacement
for the first string guy. A substitute in school would probably be nothing more
than a babysitter. a substitute teacher. Perhaps
you read a recipe and it says on there if
you don't have real butter you can substitute it with margarine. Or someone might use our broadcast
as a substitute for live worship. Normally, when we use the word
substitute, we mean something lesser, don't we? Well, just
turn that completely upside down. Because when we speak of the
Lord Jesus Christ being our substitute, and when we speak of substitutionary
atonement, we are certainly not speaking of something that's
lesser. We're talking about having one
who's able to stand before God in our place, to represent us
before God, to stand in our stead, one who is in and of himself
accepted before God. He is our substitute. Is he your substitute? Do you
need a substitute? Most folks don't. Most folks,
they might need a helper. They might need a supplement. They might admit that they need
someone to come alongside them and help them out a little bit. But a substitute? One who sits
you on the bench and takes your place? Will you turn with me in your
Bibles to Isaiah chapter 53. Isaiah 53. This chapter in God's
Word is all about the Lord Jesus Christ as the sinner's substitute. This is the passage that the
Ethiopian eunuch was reading from in Acts chapter 8, wasn't
it? When he asked Philip, doth the prophet speak of himself
or is he speaking of another? And beginning right there, where
the Ethiopian was reading, Philip preached unto him Jesus as the
sinner's substitute. concluded the previous hour with
the story of Barabbas. Barabbas is a glorious picture
of those who are held in chains, those who are held captive. Barabbas was a guilty man. He
was deserving of death. You understand that. This wasn't
an execution that was misplaced in any way, and he wasn't getting
more than he deserved. He knew that he deserved it. He had been caught, and it was
his time. But the Lord Jesus Christ substituted
him on that cross, didn't he? He went in his place. That's
what I need. I need a substitute before God.
Not one who in any way is lesser than me. Oh, no. No, one that
is infinitely greater than I am. One who is able to stand in the
presence of God and not be condemned. One that God, as the scripture
tells us here in Isaiah 53, is satisfied with. One who has pleased Him. One
that God Almighty can say, this is my beloved Son. In Him, I'm
well pleased. You want acceptance before God
Almighty? Find yourself, not in your own
righteousness, but find yourself in Him. How do I get in Him? Well, faith comes by hearing,
and hearing comes by the Word of God. When the person of the
Lord Jesus Christ is declared from God's Word as our substitute,
then sinners find themselves irresistibly drawn to Him. Irresistibly
drawn to Him. Having no righteousness of their
own. As a kid, I always used to love to play with magnets.
You put two magnets together, and you put the same pole, whether
it be the negative or positive pole, together, and what do those
magnets do? They repel one another, don't
they? You can't stick two magnets together if you put the positive
side to the positive side. There's no way to stick them
together. You flip one over and it's irresistibly
drawn to the other, isn't it? If we're going to be found in
Christ, we're going to have to be drawn from His positive side
to our negative side. And what we'll find is we'll
be irresistibly drawn. If we present any of our righteousness
as the hope of our standing before God, we'll not have a substitute. will not have a substitute. We need a substitute like Barabbas
had. We need one who will recommend
us to God. We need one who will stand in
our stead. We need one who will satisfy
the demands of God's law. We need one that will put away
the wrath of God's judgment all by himself. without any assistance
on our part. Now that's a substitute. Do you have a substitute before
God? Do you need a substitute? Are
you continuing to cry out to the Lord Jesus Christ to be your
substitute before God? You have your Bibles open to
Isaiah chapter 53. I've got six brief points I want
to make about the Lord Jesus Christ being our substitute. Verse 1 begins with, Who hath
believed our report? I told you all the previous hour
I was watching some religious broadcast on TV with thousands
of people sitting in the auditorium eating garbage as if it was good
food. And I thought, what are they
getting out of this? The guy might have been speaking
a foreign language. He wasn't saying anything. There
was no substance whatsoever to the message that he was preaching.
And the people were just sitting there, and they were shaking
their head and smiling. And I'm thinking, who has believed
our report? Why don't thousands believe the
gospel? The answer to that question is
in the same verse, isn't it? Here's the answer to the question,
and to whom, and this really isn't a question, it's rather
a statement, Who's believed our report? Those to whom the arm
of the Lord has been revealed. Revealed. If you're going to
have the Lord Jesus Christ as your substitute, He's going to
have to reveal Himself to you. And He reveals Himself through
the preaching of the Gospel. And to everyone to whom He's
been revealed. Oh, they fall before Him, don't
they? You don't become a sinner until
the Lord's pleased to show you what being sinless really is. Who's believed, I report? Those
to whom the Lord Jesus Christ has been revealed. They've been
made to be sinners. They've been made to be sinners. Let me just say this briefly
about being a sinner. I asked a question Wednesday
night, and I got to thinking about it after I asked it, and
I thought, you know, that's probably not a really good question to
ask. I asked the question, what sin have you ever quit committing?
You remember that? And the truth is, there's nothing
that we haven't quit doing. But that question might lead
someone to think that sin has only to do with actions and thoughts. And it's much deeper than that.
It's much deeper than that. Sin's not just the bad thoughts
you have. Sin's not just the bad things
you do. Sin is what you are by nature. The best definition I
know in the word of God for sin is all have sinned and come short
of the glory of God. Now let me ask you this, what
in your life falls short of the glory of God? That's sin. That's sin. The frustration that every believer
experiences is that he can't see the Lord in the fullness
of His glory. He can't be made like Him. He's conflicted with this inability
to be perfectly holy in His experience. He knows he is, in faith in Christ,
in the person of his substitute, he's perfect. But he wants to
be perfect in his experience. And nothing about him is perfect.
Why? Because he's a sinner. Sin's not just the bad thoughts
you have, and it's not just the things you do. Sin's what you
are. It's your inability to be perfect
before God. It's everything about you. And
you won't see that until you know that there is one. There
is one who is gloriously holy and gloriously perfect. Who is
the fullness of the Godhead. He didn't just have no trouble
with his thoughts and his actions. His nature was holy. He wasn't
born after the manner of sinful flesh like we are. His Father wasn't Adam like we
are. He's pure and holy and undefiled
and separate from sinners. He's not like us in any way.
Now that's what God requires. That's what God requires. Do
you need a substitute? Has God made you to be a sinner? Sin is much, much more than the
things you feel guilty about. It's a whole lot worse than that. You are complete in Him. That's my only hope. And one day, one day I'll be
delivered completely from the very presence of sin. Who has believed our report?
I'll tell you who's believed it. Who's believed that they
are in need of a substitute? The one to whom the arm of the
Lord has been revealed. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
strong right arm of God. And if he's been pleased to reveal
himself to you as the sinless one, then you are left with only
one conclusion, and that is that everything about me is sinful. I need a substitute. I need one
to stand in my stead. I need to find one that I can
find acceptance before God in. For he shall grow up the Lord
Jesus Christ. Notice how many times the pronoun
he and him is used in this passage of scripture. It's all about
Christ. For He, the Lord Jesus Christ, has grown up before Him,
God the Father, as a tender plant and as a root out of dry ground. He hath no former comeliness
than when we see Him, that there is no beauty that we should desire
Him. We didn't have the eyes to see Him for who He was. We
didn't see His beauty. We didn't see His glory. No man
sought after Him at any time. But that's who He was. before
God you notice this verse says he grew up before him he grew
up among men and men just thought he was just another man but God
saw him differently he is despised and rejected of
men of men a man of sorrows acquainted with grief and we hid as it were
our faces from him he was despised and we esteemed him not Why did we esteem him not? Because
we thought that there was some shred of righteousness in us. You go down to, I know I've made
this statement recently, but I'm going to say it again. You
go down to the prison, you find the most godless, shameless criminal
that you can find. I mean the guy who is just, has
no conscience almost. And you talk to him long enough
and he's gonna have some righteousness. There's something he hadn't done.
But there's somebody that's worse than him. He's got some righteousness.
Do you have any? Do you have any righteousness?
Don't forget the magnet. If you've got any righteousness
at all, you're going to repel the Lord Jesus Christ. We esteemed him not. Why? Because we thought our righteousness
was enough. We thought we had something that
would recommend us to God. We thought we didn't need a complete
substitute, maybe just a supplement. Maybe somebody just to help us
out a little bit. Look at verse 4. He hath borne our griefs. He's a bearing substitute. He bore our griefs. He carried
our sorrows. That word griefs means sickness
and that word sorrow means pain. And he's not talking about a
physical malady. Those are temporal. Those things
go away. Eventually all sicknesses will
go away. The day you die, you're not going
to be sick anymore, I promise. This is talking about our sin,
isn't it? He bore the sickness of our sin in His body, on the
tree. He bore it and He felt the pain
of it. We don't feel the pain of our
sin. We're so accustomed to sin. We're just accustomed to it,
aren't we? I mean, if we do something really bad, our conscience bothers
us, and we're ashamed. But we can just live with ourselves,
day in and day out, with all the sin that we have, and not
be bothered by it. Isn't that true? We're just really
not bothered by it. You know, I like what one preacher
said, the thing that bothers me about my sin is how little
it bothers me. Isn't that true? That wasn't
true with the Lord Jesus Christ. Oh no. The thing that we are
least bothered by was a weight so great on His shoulders that
He bore the pain of it. The pain of that sin was the
rejection of God the Father. That was the pain of it. When
he said, Father, if there be any way this cup can pass from
me, oh, drinking from the bitter dregs of the cup of God's wrath
and suffering separation from the Father because of sin, that's
the bearing substitute. He bore our sins. And what did he say in Matthew
chapter 11? Come unto me, all ye that labor. There's plenty
of folks laboring. Religion's full of folks laboring.
laboring to be better, laboring to do good, laboring to figure
out some way or something that I can do or abstain from that
will recommend me to God. But here's what happens when
the Lord is pleased to reveal himself. Come unto me all you
that labor and are heavy burdened. Not many folks there. Not many
folks so overwhelmed with the weight of their sin that they
cannot deliver themselves. Come unto me all ye that labor
and are heavy burdened. I'll give you rest. My yoke is
easy, my burden is light. Come, learn of me. Learn of me. Learn what I've done for you.
That's what you need. You need a sin-bearing substitute,
one that can bear the full weight of your sin for you. I love what Cain said. God cursed
Cain and said, you're going to be a fugitive and a vagabond
upon the earth. And you're going to work the
soil and it's not going to produce any fruit. You feel that way?
You know what Cain said? He said, my punishment is more
than I can bear. Have you been able to say that? My punishment, what I deserve,
is more than I can bear. I need one who's able. to bear the weight of my griefs
and my sorrows. Surely he hath borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows. I love what the scripture describes
Aaron as our high priest and he's got this ephod on and on
one shoulder is six stones and each of the stones have the names
of one of the tribes of Israel. On the other shoulder is six
more stones and each of those stones has engraved in it the
tribes of one of the of the children of Israel. And the scripture
says that he bore on his shoulders the names of the children of
Israel. Now that's what I need. I need
a high priest, one who is able to bear my name before God. And he's done just that. For
you can be sure that all Israel will be saved. Not one of the
144,000 will be lost. 12 times 12,000, 12 gates, 12
single pearls. Oh, and we're speaking figuratively,
you know that. Every one of God's elect are
gonna be saved. Every one of them. Look at verse
five. He was wounded for our transgressions
and he was bruised for our iniquities. That word wounded means that
he was slayed. He was put to death. Not that
he just suffered a minor bruise, but that God put him to death. He was The penalty of sin is
death. The wages of sin is death. In
the day that you eat of this fruit you shall surely die. God's
not satisfied with anything less than death for the penalty of
sin. Now I need a substitute. Death
means separation from God. You understand that. It's not
just physical death. Don't worry about physical death.
That will come and go. That's going to be relatively
quick and easy. Now we worry about physical death,
don't we? Oh no, there's a spiritual death. There's a second death. There's a separation from God
that's going to last for all eternity. I need a substitute. I need one who was, how does
it say? Wounded for my transgressions,
bruised for my iniquity. I need a lamb. A lamb that was
slain by God before the foundation of the world. A lamb, as John
saw, standing in the midst of the elders. A lamb as it had
been slain. Now that's what John saw when
he saw the Lord Jesus Christ in glory. The whole church was
surrounded around that Lamb as it had been slain. You know for
all eternity we're going to be looking at the wounds of the
Lamb of God and knowing that that's how we got here. Now I
don't understand how we're going to be able to glory in that without
any memory of our sin, but we are. And we're going to know
that the only reason that we're in the presence of God is because
of that Lamb and the wounds that He suffered on our behalf. Do
you need a substitute? Do you need a substitute? Greater love hath no man than
this, that he lay down his life for his friends. That's what
he did. No man took his life from him.
Go back with me to our text. Look at verse 6. Well, the end of verse 5 says,
And the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes
we are healed. We are healed. When the Lord
Jesus Christ bowed his head on Calvary's cross and said, It
is finished. All that was necessary to satisfy
the demands of God's justice for the sins of His people was
done. We are healed. Healing's not
something you've got to do or you've got to try to figure out
how to get. It's done. It's done. All we like sheep have gone astray,
we have turned everyone to his own way, and the Lord hath laid
on him the iniquity of us all." This substitute is a God-punished
substitute. It pleased the Lord to bruise
him. It was God the Father that put
the Lord Jesus Christ to death. It was God Almighty that drew
the sword of His justice and sheathed it into the heart of
His own dear Son. It was God who shed His blood
on Calvary's cross. What Abraham said to Isaac, God
will provide Himself a sacrifice. And that's exactly what he did.
God did the providing. It was himself that he provided
and it was to himself. God was doing business with God
on Calvary's cross. Working out substitution. Do
you need a substitute? God made him who knew no sin. sin for us that we might be made
the righteousness of God in Him. God the Father and God the Son
accomplished what they set out to accomplish and that was the
work of substitution. And that's what Isaiah is talking
about. And the Ethiopian said, is he talking about himself?
Is he talking about another? No, he's talking about the Messiah.
He's talking about that one that was just crucified. You just
left Jerusalem, you remember? And don't you know the stories
were going around? About this one who had claimed
to be the Christ, who had gone to Calvary's cross, and the masses
believed him to be an imposter. He's gone. And Philip was able
to say, oh no, that was the Christ. He's risen. He's risen. Look at verse 7. He was oppressed and he was afflicted,
yet he opened not his mouth. He's a silent substitute. He went as a lamb before his
shearers, and he opened not his mouth. Why not? Why not? Because he was going to satisfy
the demands of God's justice. He was going as our substitute.
Had he opened his mouth, a legion of angels would have come and
delivered him. And we wouldn't have a substitute. We wouldn't
be saved. God charged to him the sins of
his people and he was guilty in that regard. He was guilty
before God. And so he opened not his mouth. He had no defense. He went in
complete submission. David said in Psalm 51, The sacrifices
of God are a broken spirit and a contrite heart, O God, thou
wilt not despise." Now I want God to give me a broken spirit
and contrite heart, but you know who that refers to first and
foremost? The Lord Jesus Christ. And God
did not despise the offering that he made. Why? Because he
went with a broken spirit and a contrite heart. He opened not
his mouth. He was a silent, a silent substitute. When I kept silent, Psalm 32
says, when I kept silent, my bones waxed old through my roaring
all the day long. And you read that Psalm and it's
about the Lord Jesus Christ as our substitute. Look at verse 10. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise
him. He made him, he hath put him
to grief when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin. Now I don't understand that. I don't
understand fully the mystery of iniquity. I don't understand
how it is that God has made Him sin for us that knew no sin. That we might be made the righteousness
of God in Him. But I believe it. I believe it. And I know that in order for
the Lord Jesus Christ to be our substitute, He had to be made
sin. Made sin. Whatever all that means. God charged him. God looked upon
him and saw him bearing our sin and was forced by his holy justice
to forsake him. That's why the Lord said, my
God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Because he was made sin. Turn with me to Psalm 38. Oh, that we could better appreciate, that we could be more thoroughly
convinced of what the Lord Jesus Christ
did as our substitute. Like I said before, we're so
accustomed to sin, we're so little bothered by it, for him to be
made sin. Look at Psalm 38 verse 2. For
thine arrows stick fast in me and thy hand presseth me sore. There is no soundness in my flesh
because of thine anger. Neither is there any rest in
my bones because of my sin. My sin. The sinless one. bore in his body the sins of
his people. They were not just pasted on
to him. They were imputed to him. They
were charged to his account. And now he owns them as his own.
And he says that the anger of God is against him because of
his sin. What greater love! That He would
take your sin and make them His own and then suffer the wrath
of God in order to satisfy divine justice? That's substitution. Now that's what you need. That's
what I need. We need that kind of substitute. For mine iniquities are gone
over my head as a heavy burden, they are too heavy for me. My
wounds stink and are corrupt because of my foolishness." Now
David's speaking, but he's speaking prophetically, clearly in this
whole psalm about the Lord Jesus Christ. What's our passage say in Isaiah
53? God made His soul an offering
for sin. What a glorious substitute. And
finally, look back with me at our text. We not only have a bearing substitute,
we not only have a crushed substitute, a God-punished substitute, a
silent substitute, a sin-made substitute, but we have a rewarded
substitute. God rewarded him. Look at verse
11. He, the Father, God Almighty
shall see the travail of his soul. You remember when Abraham
put Hagar and Ishmael out and they were in the wilderness and
Hagar was convinced that they were going to die there and the
Lord provided for them and she said, Jehovah Rapha, God sees. And he does. He sees everything,
doesn't he? Well, he saw the travail of his
son and he was satisfied. He was satisfied. Look, he shall
see the travail of his soul and be satisfied. He rewarded him with, this is
my beloved son and him I'm well pleased. He rewarded him with
his satisfaction. He rewarded him with justification. Look what he says. By his knowledge
shall my righteous servant justify many. God the Father rewarded
the Lord Jesus Christ with his satisfaction. He rewarded the
Lord Jesus Christ with justification. All that you laid your life down
for are justified. They're without sin. Without
sin. Perfect in my sight. And he rewarded
them with the spoils of war. You go to battle against another
nation, you take the spoils, you take the things that you...
Well, what are the spoils of the battle that the Lord Jesus
Christ fought? Look. Look at verse 12. Therefore,
God says, I'm going to reward him. I'm going to 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 the word substitute is not
used anywhere in the Word of God. But neither is the word depravity. And yet, we understand what that
word means. Neither is the word trinity. But we understand that God the
Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are three persons
in the one triune God. A glorious trinity. The word
deity is not used anywhere in the Word of God, but we know
that the Lord Jesus Christ is the fullness of the Godhead bodily.
Imputed righteousness is not found anywhere in the Word of
God, but we know that the only hope we have to be accepted before
God is that God would charge to our count the righteousness
of the Lord Jesus Christ. The word sovereignty is not used
in the Word of God. But what a glorious truth it
communicates when we think about our God reigning over the armies
of heaven and the inhabitants of the earth and being sovereign
to do whatsoever He wills. The word substitution itself is not a biblical term,
but what it communicates is very biblical. Do you need a substitute? Do you have a substitute? This is the only substitute,
the one we just read about in Isaiah 53, he's the only substitute
that God's satisfied with. Without him, you'll stand before
God on your own and be found wanting. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father, we thank
Thee for giving Thine only begotten Son as our substitute. We pray that
You would enable us now to find our hope in Him, for we ask it
in His name. Amen.