Let's just read this. Pastor Greg Elmquist, Grace Gospel Church in Apopka,
Florida. When God raises up a messenger,
He's going to preach the message that God has sent. We've heard it. And I look forward
to hearing it again. I'm convinced we'll hear it again. To hear of Him. As I've told
the people here, Greg, just tell me one more time what God's done
for me. Don't tell me what I'm supposed
to do for Him. What am I going to do for Him? He said, without me, you can
do nothing. The Greg Yukon. I want to thank your pastor for
trusting me with this pulpit. And it's a it's a very, very
high and humbling privilege and trust that you've given to me,
Marvin, and I thank you for it and pray the Lord will will keep
us. And I want to thank you for receiving
me and my wife so warmly. I was telling somebody yesterday
that, you know, oftentimes we we pray prayers and we we have
to say, Lord, if it be your will for you, we ask for this or that.
And we don't always know what God's will is. And sometimes
he answers with a no. But. When the Lord Jesus Christ
prays a prayer, it's always answered because he prays according to
the will of God perfectly every time. And in John, chapter 17,
he prayed. Father, I pray that they be one.
Even as I am with thee. And we've experienced the answer
of that prayer this weekend and that Many of you we've met for
the first time, and yet there's a bond, there's a fellowship
in Christ that we've enjoyed together as a result of our Lord's
work of grace in our hearts, and we're thankful for that.
And I ask you, if you will, to turn with me in your Bibles to
a very familiar passage of Scripture, and I hope that it's not so familiar
that we'll not listen afresh and anew. Isaiah chapter 53.
Isaiah chapter 53. And I want to introduce this
message by making a very clear and. Concise. Non apologetic statement, and
that is that you and I are in need of a substitute to stand
before God as our representative satisfying the demands of God's
law and justice. We're in need of a substitute
to satisfy the law and the justice of a holy God. If we have any
hope of acceptance before him. Isaiah chapter 53. Isaiah chapter
53 declares the truth of who the Lord Jesus Christ is as our
substitute who satisfied and that's the title of the message
substitution and satisfaction. Substitution and satisfaction.
And if the Lord is pleased to teach us what those two words
mean in light of the gospel and the person and work of the Lord
Jesus Christ, then all will be well. All will be well if we
know that we have a substitute that satisfies God. The first nine verses of this
chapter deal with substitution. And the last three verses of
this chapter deal with satisfaction, and we're just going to take
it one verse at a time and hope that the Lord will reveal to
us the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. I like what Robert Hawker says
about this chapter, and I think a word that needs to be said
at the outset for those of us who have read it so often and
heard it preached from frequently. He said, my soul, ponder well
this blessed, this glorious, this divine chapter and do not
dismiss it until the Lord hath both taught thee the most gracious
things contained in it. Well, there's so much in this
chapter, he says, and when dismissing it from by present review, dismiss
it, but for a short season. And let thy frequent Return to
it in solemn meditation, testify how very precious every part
and portion of it is to the esteem of Christ. The prophet Isaiah. Over 700
years prior to the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, penned
these words under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. No more clear
and glorious description of the person and work of Christ for
sinners can be found anywhere in the scriptures. Had Isaiah
physically been at the arrest and the crucifixion of Christ,
he could have not more accurately portrayed the sufferings or more
fully disclosed the work of Christ for sinners. This is the passage of Scripture
in Isaiah 53 that that Ethiopian was reading from in Acts, the
eighth chapter, when the Lord sent Philip to meet him there
on the road to Gaza, you remember. And the Ethiopian asked Philip,
he said. He said, tell me, was the prophet
speaking of himself or was he speaking of another man? And
the scripture goes on to say that Philip, beginning with this
text, preached unto him Jesus. I love that story in Luke chapter
24. Where those disciples are. Walking
home. In great discouragement. After
the crucifixion and Christ after actually is after the resurrection,
because you remember the Lord Jesus met them on the way. And He said to them ought not
Christ have suffered these things and to enter into his glory.
And beginning with Moses and the Psalms and the prophets.
He declared unto them those things concerning himself. Surely the
Lord opened to them Isaiah chapter 53. And after he had broken bread
in their home you remember That's what we're doing right now. We're
breaking the bread of life, opening the word of God and praying that
the spirit of God will do for us what he did for them. For
they declared, did not our hearts burn within us as he opened up
the scriptures to us on the way? They saw the Lord Jesus Christ
as he opened up to them the meaning of Isaiah, chapter 53. They saw their need for a substitute. And they saw how it was that
the Lord Jesus Christ had satisfied the demands of all God's law
and all God's justice. Here it is, Isaiah chapter 53
begins with this question, who hath believed our report And
the second part of this question is actually an answer to the
first part of the question to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed. The truth of the gospel of substitution
and satisfaction comes by divine revelation and only by divine
revelation. This is not something that we
can come to understand in the wisdom of man. It's something
that the Lord has to teach us. Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona. Flesh and blood is not revealed
this unto you, but my Father, which is in heaven. Unto you
it is given to believe on Him. We come into this world spiritually
blind. We come into this world depraved,
unable to understand or to see or to believe the things of God.
And unless he reveals them to us, unless the strong right arm
of the Lord, that's the Lord Jesus Christ, you see that in
verse one, the arm of the Lord is a reference to Christ himself.
To whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? He must be revealed
for the natural man received, if not the spirit. The things
of the spirit, they are foolishness unto him, neither can he know
them. Neither can he know them. They
are spiritually discerned. God must open our eyes. He must
speak truth to our hearts. He must teach us. Paul said in first Corinthians,
after that, in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew
not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching. To
save them that believe. The Lord you know you if you
go to school and study any subject. You will study the most advanced. Discoveries of that particular
subject except for the subject of philosophy. If you go to school
and study philosophy you will study The same man that have
been studied for the last 2000 years. The Lord raised up a man
by the name of Aristotle, another man by the name of Plato, and
one by the name of Socrates 300 years before the coming of the
Lord Jesus Christ. And those men in the wisdom of
man were given all the knowledge that man could possibly achieve
when it comes to the meaning of life. And the Lord comes on the scene
and he says after that in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom
knew not God. Man cannot achieve in his own
wisdom the understanding of salvation, he cannot achieve in his own
wisdom who God is or how it is that God remits sin or what the
real purpose of life is. Apart from the intervention of
the Holy Spirit. We cannot know. Who has believed
our report and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? Those that he's pleased to make
himself known to. Oh, this is where the this is
where the truth of the gospel must begin. Because only as we
come to realize, by God's grace, our total inability Will we fall
before Him and beg for mercy? Here's what's revealed when the
Lord is pleased to make Himself known. Look at verse 2. For He,
speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ, shall grow up before Him as a
tender plant and as a root out of dry ground. He hath no form
nor comeliness, and when we shall see Him, there is no beauty that
we should desire Him. No one admired the Lord Jesus
Christ, but the Father. He grew up before the Father
as a tender plant, as a root out of dry ground. He had no
form or beauty in him that we should behold him or esteem him
highly. And apart from the Lord making
him precious to us, we won't esteem him. Look at verse three. He is despised and rejected of
men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it
were, our faces from Him. He was despised and we esteemed
Him not. Turn with me in your Bibles to
Psalm 22. Psalm 22 at verse 6. Here's the Lord Jesus Christ.
Speaking of himself on Calvary's cross as the center substitute,
he said, 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. I
am a worm. A reproach of men despised Of
the people, this is what God required that the Lord Jesus
Christ become for us as our substitute. Despised and rejected of men,
turn back with me to our text, a man of sorrows acquainted with
grief. When the Lord prayed in the garden
father, if there be any way this cup can pass from me, let it
be nevertheless. Not my will, but I be done. He wasn't speaking of the agony
of the physical. Pain of crucifixion, he was speaking
of that cup of sin that he would drink from the bitter dregs. Of God's wrath that he would
consume on Calvary's cross. That's what he was speaking of,
and that's the grief that he was acquainted with when he became
sin and the father took out his sword of justice and plunged
it into the heart of his own son in order to satisfy the demands
of his law. He says in verse four, surely,
surely with certainty, with certainty, he satisfied all the justice
of God. Surely he hath borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows. Yet, we did esteem him stricken
and smitten of God and afflicted. He in his own self bore our sins
in his body on that tree. We had no understanding of what
he was doing. He was wounded for our transgressions.
He was bruised for our iniquities. And the chastisement of our peace
was upon him. And with his stripes, we are,
we are completely healed and made whole. All we like sheep. 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. 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. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise
him. He hath put him to grief. When
thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed,
he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall
prosper in his hand. He shall see of the travail of
his soul, and shall be satisfied. By his knowledge shall my righteous
servant justify many, for he shall bear their iniquities.
Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall
divide the spoiled with the strong, because he hath poured out his
soul unto death. And he was numbered with the
transgressors, and he bared the sin of many, and made intercession
for the transgressors." I pray God be pleased to bless
His Word. Let's stand together.