Isaiah 53 5 just one verse tonight,
and we'll just look at every word in it And pray the Lord will be gracious
to show us the meaning of every word in this verse But 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. If you had to pick one verse
in the Bible, that'd be a good one, wouldn't it? I'm glad we
don't have to pick just one. This whole book says that. That
whole book right there. And every book ever written that
was according to this book says that. Or it ain't according to
this book. Thank God for our substitute. Let's pray. Our gracious Lord and Father,
thank you. for your precious word. Thank you for your son and what
he did for us, who he is to us. If we had any idea, Lord, what
we read, we wouldn't even be able to talk.
So show us just enough to forget the foolishness and
cares of this wretched world. And for once in our life, may
be Lord honor and worship the Son of God. If it's never happened before,
may he be worshiped tonight. Lord bless your sheep, feed them,
meet in deed and drink in deed. In Christ's precious name we
ask it. Amen. The word for, just that one word,
that's the title of the message tonight. For. It signifies at least four things. Motive. Purpose. Position. and cause. We might ask the question, what
did you do that for? What did you do that for? What
was it for? And in asking that, what would
we be asking? What motivated you to do that?
Why'd you do that? We might ask this, and I'm sure
all of us have at one time or another, what's it all for? What's
it for? That's asking, what's the purpose
of it? What's the point? And we might say this. I'm sure
we've all said this at one time or another and heard it. I'll
do this for you. I want to do this for you. That's position. That's taking
another's position or place. Instead of you having to do it,
I'm going to do it for you. I'm going to take your place. Now think about these in regard
to our Savior's work on Calvary. When our Lord Jesus said to His
disciples in Luke 22.19, listen to this carefully, He took bread
and gave thanks and break it and gave it unto them saying,
This is my body which is given for you. This do in remembrance of me. Remember that I did this for
you. Likewise also the cup after supper
saying this cup is the new covenant in my blood which is shed for
you. And although the other two meanings
that we've seen already, we're going to look at a fourth one,
but all of the meanings of the word for can be applied to that
verse. But the Lord seems to be emphasizing
here the motive for him shedding his precious blood. I did it
for you. That's why I did it. It's shed
for you. That seems clearly what he's
saying to me. Why'd you do that for you? He calls it a gift there in verse
19. I Gave he gave it unto them and said this is my body which
is given Why do you give a gift? What's the purpose of it I Give it for you. This says
because I love you And I want you to benefit from this I give
it to you And what a gift What a gift. What an unspeakable gift.
It's life. The gift of life. The gift of
forgiveness. Justification. To be not guilty
before God. Redemption. Salvation. For you. For you. He said, I give this for you.
Now, in emphasizing what our Lord's purpose was in giving
Himself, His motive, for you. Now, His purpose. Paul wrote
to Titus in Titus 2.13. I should have you turn to these,
but I don't want to. This may be Sometimes it's if
you do better, turn and turn. If you don't, if you'd rather
just listen, then listen. But listen to Titus 2.13, looking
for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great
God in our Savior Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us. Now the next phrase tells me
this is the purpose. That word for signifies purpose
here. Look at it. That he might redeem
us from all iniquity. His motive. He loved us. He did it for us. His purpose in doing it was what? that he might redeem us from
all iniquity and purify unto himself a peculiar people, sell
us a good word. That's why he died. What'd you
do it for? The purpose of it. To save a
people. You reckon he did that? He said
he did now. Either he saved his people at
Calvary or he's a fraud. Because he said it's done. Now
consider position or in the place of, for you, in the stead of
you. It's in our stead, our place
or position that He did all that He did. And certainly, let me
have you turn to this one. This is a good one to look at
with me. It's the meaning in Hebrews 9.24 now. Position, place,
in place of. Hebrews 9.24, look at this now. So you begin to see from the
Scripture these different senses of the word for, and they're
all beautiful, they're all wonderful. And every one of them apply to
our text. Every one of them. Hebrews 9.24, Christ is not entered into the
holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the
true, but in the heaven itself, the holy place. That just looked
like a holy place because of the gold, and certainly it was
in the sense that, as he said to Moses, you're standing on
holy ground. Why? Because the Lord Jesus is there, and that
holy place, the Lord of glory would appear above the mercy
seat there, and it was holy in that sense, but it was a figure
of the true holy place, the very presence of God in glory. And
Christ appeared there into heaven itself now to appear in the presence
of God for. He took my position there. I
can't go there. I can't go into the presence
of God. He did it for me. He took my place. He stood there as me, as my representative,
as my high priest. Now to appear in the presence
of God for us, nor yet that he should offer himself often as
the high priest entereth into the holy place every year with
the blood of others. That high priest went in there
representing a people. He was there in the position
of all of the people of Israel. And so Christ stood in the position,
in the stead of every one of His sheep, all of His elect,
His spiritual Israel, in the very presence of God. And why
did He do that? Well, he didn't go as other high
priests every year with the blood of others, for then must he have
suffered often since the foundation of the world. But now, once in
the end of the world, hath he appeared to put away sin by the
sacrifice of himself. He came into the very presence
of God himself in glory with the blood, not of others, his
own precious blood. sacrificed for my sin, and He
stood there for me." You see position there? In the stead
of. We didn't have anything to offer
God. What am I going to go and offer God? He had to go for me. He did it for us. He appeared
before God for us and offered His own precious blood for us.
He took our place before God as the man. the man that God
could be and was well pleased with. He offered his precious
blood for us as the one sacrifice for sin that God could and did
accept in our place. The wages of my sin was death,
but he died for me, instead of me, and offered that precious
blood, offered his own soul a sacrifice, the scripture says. for my sin. He died the just for. There it is again, in the place
of, the unjust. Instead of the unjust. We're
not going to die. Why? Because He died for me.
That He might bring us to God. In our text, we also have a fourth
meaning of the word for, and it's just simply this, because
of, the reason. Now this is similar to purpose.
But think about the difference between an overriding purpose,
a premeditated purpose, a premeditated goal, a set goal
in mind that governs everything that's done. But this here signifies
the direct immediate cause. There's a purpose, but then there's
also an immediate cause. He was bruised and he was pierced. He was wounded, that word means
pierced. He said that you shall look upon
him you've pierced. He was pierced through and he
was bruised or crushed for our iniquities because of my iniquities. Now not only was his purpose
to do that, but the reason, the general and grand purpose for
which Christ was pierced and crushed was to save us, to redeem
unto himself a people as we read there. But the reason he bore
God's wrath in that moment, the immediate cause of God pouring
hell out on his son was my sin. Now we see that in our text,
don't we? You see the difference between purpose and cause. There are secondary causes within
that overriding purpose. And we see that in the text.
Why was he wounded and bruised? Because of my sin, that's why.
Because of my sin. My transgressions and my iniquities,
as it's stated in the verse. The answer to that awful question. My God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me?" The answer to that is in our
text, isn't it? Sin. Our iniquities. Not his. Ours. The sin of all of the elect of
God. And there's no question whatsoever
now about the definition of the word our and we in our text. That's all that he died for,
and who are they? All that you've given me, he
said to the Father. All that you've given me. I'm here to
pray for them, to intercede for them, to go to Calvary for them. I'm here to prepare a place for
them. I'm here for them. We. Us. Our. God's elect. The sheep of Christ. The sin
of all of the elect of God. If you have any doubt about who
Christ did what He did for, read John 17 again, and really the
whole New Testament. Now He did not represent intercede
for or redeem the world. He specifically stated that in
that prayer in John 17, and that's His high priestly prayer. That's
the high priest coming before God Almighty with somewhat to
offer. The hour has come. And the first
thing that happens is the incense goes upon the altar of incense,
and the smoke of that sweet smell flows throughout all of the holy
place. That's the prayers of Christ, represented by that incense. Well, in John 17 is that prayer. The substance which cast that
shadow. And he's praying for his sheep,
and he says, I'm not praying for this world. I'm praying for
the ones you gave me. Now, instead of arguing with
that and being offended by that, you know what that makes me want
to do? Lord, I want to be one of yours. How does that happen? I want to be one of yours. He did all of that for those
that the Father gave Him in the eternal covenant of grace. Now, what He did had an immediate
and definite result. We see that in our text, don't
we? The word griefs there in verse
4 in the context has a one word
definition in Strong's Concordance where
the Hebrew in this case in the Old Testament is mostly Hebrew
and in the New Testament is mostly Greek, if not all Greek. But the word griefs there in
Strong's Concordance where those original Hebrew words are defined
has one, a lot of times there are several different definitions,
not here. There's one word and one definition, sickness, sickness. Sin is a disease. It infects
the, it's our nature and so it's like a physical disease in the
sense that it permeates the whole body. The whole body is affected
by it. Our feet are swift to shed blood.
We do evil with both hands earnestly. Our tongue is set on fire of
hell. Everything about us is affected. Like leprosy. It's
pictured by leprosy. A horrible incurable. And by
the way, under Jewish law, a legal matter, if you had leprosy, you're
banished from the commonwealth of Israel. From the presence
of God's people. You can't even be one of God's
people. You're gone. You're out of it. And that's our condition by nature
before God. Sickness he bore our disease
and it's important that we see this because of the last part
of verse 5 When he did what he did when he bore our griefs and
our sorrows and when he was crushed for my iniquity when he was pierced
For my transgressions, what was the result of that? I'm not sick
anymore I'm healed I'm healed He took my sickness, he bore
it, and I am healed." Every word of this text, isn't it just glorious? Remember the woman with the issue
of blood when she pressed through that crowd of people and she
said in her heart, if I can just touch the hem of his garment,
I'll be made whole. Well, you think about that now
in contrast to what her life was before. Going to one doctor,
scraping up enough money, can you imagine that? You're dying
and you know it, you feel it. And you're looking for somebody
to help, and you can't hardly afford it, and you scrape up
and you spend everything you have, and you go to the doctor.
And it doesn't just not help, it makes you worry. They're probably
giving her something horrible. Some of the so-called cures of
times past were just the opposite, weren't they? And that's what
it sounds like. And that's the spiritual picture,
isn't it? A false gospel is not just worthless.
It's way worse than that. It's deadly. She just got closer
to death every time she went to the doctor. And now, somehow,
by God's grace, she understands, if I can just touch the hem of
his garment, I won't be sick anymore. You
ever think about that? I wish I wasn't sick. Who shall
save me from the body of this death? And so she pressed through that
crowd and she touched the hem of his robe and he said, Virtue,
who touched me? Somebody touched me. Virtue has
gone out of me. And we know where that Virtue
went because she was made whole from that very hour, from that
very moment. We know that the virtue that
went out of Him went into her. Where did her sickness go? It
went out of her. I'm pretty sure I know where
it went. I know from the Word of God. Listen to Matthew 8.16.
It says, When the evening was come, they brought unto Him many
that were possessed with devils, He cast out the spirits with
his word and healed all that were sick. How did he do that? That's interesting. He'd healed
all that were sick How does that work? That it might be fulfilled
which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet saying himself took Our infirmities and bear our
sicknesses. He didn't just make them go away.
He took them. He took them. And that's just
the physical fulfillment of that prophecy. The spiritual fulfillment
is our text in all of the scripture. By his stripes, when he was crushed
in my place, I was healed. He took my sin, my sorrow, my
grief, my guilt, my shame. He took it all upon himself into
his own body and died there under the wrath of God. And the direct,
definite result of that is I'm not sick anymore. I still feel the pains of the
sin of this wretched body, but not for long. Not for long. Isaiah is saying that this is
what happened on Calvary when He was pierced and crushed for
our transgressions and iniquities. That was Him taking our sickness. He bore our griefs, and the result
is He took it away. He took them away. Now how can
that be? We see that it was successful.
We see in the verse there, it was accomplished. We're healed.
He didn't just give us some medicine and say, go home. He healed us.
It's over. When he died on Calvary, it was
done. It was successful. The purpose
for which this was done is fulfilled. But how? And why? How can He
do that? Who is He that can do that? Why
did it work? God can't just forgive sin and
forget about it just because somebody died for somebody else's
sins unless... We have the answer to that in
our text too. The reason it was successful.
He. Him. His. We were healed with His stripes
because they were His stripes. That's why. That's why it worked.
That's why it was successful now. Somebody can't just die
in the place of somebody else and that be accepted. It's the
person that sinned. He's got to suffer, but our substitute
was our substitute in such a way that He died in our place. And
because of who He is, God was satisfied with the sacrifice
that the Lord Jesus Christ offered in my place. Now, turn with me
to 1 Samuel 25. I'm going to be brief tonight,
but I want us to look at this passage right here. Again, we saw this not too terribly
long ago. We're in 2 Samuel now. But in
1 Samuel, toward the end of our study in chapter 25, we read
this story. It's a beautiful Gospel story. And Samuel died and all the Israelites
were gathered together and lamented him and buried him in his house.
And Ramah and David arose and went down to the wilderness of
Paran. And there was a man in Maon whose
possessions were in Carmel and the man was very great and he
had three thousand sheep and a thousand goats and he was shearing
his sheep in Carmel. Now the name of the man was Nabal.
His name means fool. And the name of his wife was
Abigail, and she was a woman of good understanding and of
a beautiful countenance. But the man was churlish and
evil in his doings, and he was of the house of Caleb. And David
heard in the wilderness that Nabal did shear his sheep. And David sent out ten young
men, and David said unto the young men, Get you up to Carmel,
and go to Nabal, and greet him in my name. And thus shall you
say to him, that liveth in prosperity, peace be both to thee, and peace
to thine house, and peace unto all that thou hast. Now I have
heard that thou hast shearers now, thy shepherds, which were
with us, we heard them not, neither was their aunt missing unto them,
all the while they were in Carmel. and thy young men, and they ask
thy young men, and they will show thee. Wherefore let the
young men find favor in thine eyes, for we come in a good day. Give, I pray thee, whatsoever
cometh to thine hand, and to thy servants, and to thy son
David. And when David's young men came
and spake to Nabal, according to all those words, in the name
of David, it says that twice now, in my name go to this man. It says they went in the name
of David, And then when they said what
He told them to say, they shut up. They ceased. I hope I can
do that. When I say what God's given me
to say, time to shut up. I don't want to add anything
or take anything away. And they will answer David's
servants, verse 10, and say, Who is David and who is the son
of Jesse? There be many servants nowadays
that break away every man from his master, Shall I then take
my bread and my water and my flesh that I have killed for
my shares and give it unto men whom I know not whence they be?
He's a liar. He knew exactly who David was. He knew what was going on here.
So David's young men turned their way and went again and came and
told him all those sayings. And David said unto his men,
gird ye on every man his sword. And they girded on every man
his sword, and David also girded on his sword. And there went
up after David about four hundred men and two hundred abode by
the stuff. But one of the young men told Abigail, Nabal's wife,
saying, Behold, David sent messengers out of the wilderness to salute
our master. and He railed on them. But the men were very good
unto us, and we were not hurt, neither missed we anything, as
long as we were conversant with them when we were in the fields.
They were a wall unto us both by night and day, all the while
we were with them, keeping the sheep." There's just one fool
in this story. And guess who it is? It's you. It's me. Now therefore know and
consider what thou wilt do for evil is determined against our
master and against all his household For he is such a son of Belial
that a man cannot speak to him a son of the devil Boy, that's
us, isn't it? And then Abigail made haste and
took two hundred loaves, and two bottles of wine, and five
sheep ready dressed, and five measures of parched corn, and
a hundred clusters of raisins, and two hundred cakes of figs,
and laid them on asses. And she said unto her servants,
Go on before me. Behold, I come after you. But
she told not her husband Nabal. And it was so, as she rode on
the ass, that she came down by the covert of the hill. And behold,
David and his men came down against her, and she met them. She didn't
tell Mabel about it. You know, the fool is being interceded
for and saved. His life is being saved and he
don't even know about it. That's us. And the Lord saved
us without even, he didn't consult us. Salvation is not up to you. It's not a decision. You may,
he saved me before I even knew it. And then he told me about
it one day. Verse 21, Now David had said,
Surely in vain have I kept all that this fellow hath in the
wilderness, so that nothing was missed of all that pertained
unto him, and he hath requited me evil for good. It just keeps
defining us, doesn't it? You just keep talking about me. In spite of the good done to
me, I'm still a wretch. So and more also do God unto
the enemies of David, if I leave of all that pertain to him by
the morning light, any that pisseth against the wall." He's going
to kill everybody, every man. And when Abigail saw David, she
hasted and lighted her off the ass and fell before David on
her face and bowed herself to the ground and fell at his feet and said,
upon me, my Lord, upon me, let this iniquity be. And let thine
handmaid, I pray thee, speak in thine audience, and hear the
words of thine handmaid. Let not, my lord, I pray thee,
regard this man of Belial, even Nabal, for as his name is, so
is he. He's a fool. Nabal is his name,
and folly, foolishness, is with him. But I, thine handmaid, saw
not the young men of my lord, whom thou didst send. Now therefore,
my lord, as the lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, seeing
the lord hath withholding thee, from coming to shed blood and
from avenging thyself with thine own hand, now let thine enemies
and they that seek evil to my Lord be as nable. And now this
blessing, which thine handmaid hath brought unto my Lord, let
it even be given unto the young men that follow my Lord. I pray
thee, forgive the trespass of thine handmaid. For the Lord
will certainly make my Lord a sure house, because my Lord fighteth
the battles of thee, Lord. And evil hath not been found
in thee all thy days. Yet a man is risen to pursue
thee and to seek thy soul, but the soul of my Lord shall be
bound in the bundle of life with the Lord thy God, and the souls
of thine enemies, them shall he sling out of the middle of
a sling. It shall come to pass when the
Lord shall have done to my Lord according to all the good that
he had spoken concerning thee. and shall have appointed thee
ruler over Israel, that this shall be no grief unto thee,
nor offense of heart unto my Lord, either that thou hast shed
blood causeless, or that my Lord hath avenged Himself. But when
the Lord shall have dealt well with my Lord, then remember thine
handmaid." So in this story we have an offended king, we have a fool who offended him,
and we have an intercessor. We have someone to plead His
cause. And the way that she pleaded is so beautiful and so applicable
to our text. We already know which one is
us. The fool dishonored David, and that's the problem now. Remember,
he said, go in my name. And they went and told him everything
they told him in the name of David. He deliberately rejected
God's King. That's our problem. Our problem
is not that we like apples better than oranges. We defied the king
of glory. That's our problem. We dishonored
him and said we'll do what we want to do. I don't care much
what he wants me to do. I'm going to do what I want to
do. Tell Nabal that God's king sent
you. And that's why we have to go
to hell now, unless God has mercy on us. Because God's king came
and we hated him and opposed him and murdered him in our hearts. And Abigail the intercessor,
she had a couple of things going for her. She was really smart. And she was beautiful. And she interceded for the fool,
and she did so like this. She said, on me let this iniquity
be. And forgive the trespass of thine
handmaid. What a picture of our Lord. Now
everybody knew that Abigail hadn't done anything wrong. She hadn't
offended David. She hadn't done one thing to
make David angry. And everybody knows that about
Christ, right? We know that about him. He didn't know. There was
no guile in his mouth. He did no sin. He who knew no
sin was the one that was made sin. He knew no sin. David wasn't mad at Abigail at
all, but she owned the transgression as her own in order to save everybody. Everybody's going to die. He's
going to kill every man in that family now. But notice what made this work.
Why was David okay with that? Why didn't he just say, well,
nice try, Abigail, but I'm going to kill everybody anyway. Look at verse 35. So David received of her hand
that which she had brought him, and said unto her, Go up in peace
to thine house. See, I have hearkened to thy
voice and have accepted thy person." Why did it work? He. Him and
His. Because of the person that offered
it. Because of the person That was crushed in my place because
of who he is. I have accepted. Now that which
she offered was received and it was enough. But he didn't
say I've received your gift. I receive you. I've accepted
you. That's why I'm saved tonight. What Christ did is vital. Had
to be done for me. But I'm saved because of who
He is. The one that did it is my Savior. She offered it. It was enough.
And David agreed to do what she wanted because of who she was. Because she was wise and she
was beautiful. That's my Savior. That's my Savior. He's altogether lovely. And He
is the wisdom of God. She was everything that I'm not.
I'm a fool. And she was why I'm ugly in every
way. Ugly person. And she was beautiful. She was everything that Nabal
was not, and so the fool is spared. Who is He that condemneth? It
is Christ that died. We always come back to Him. God
accepted His person. He accepted the Lamb in my place. And that's what we see in those
words. He and His and Him. 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. Of course we're healed. They
were His stripes. And that's why. And so that verse
of scripture I had to give one reason for the hope that lies
within me. He was wounded. He. Let's pray.