Let's look at Isaiah 53. We'll
just read. one through five because we won't
get too far tonight. Who hath believed our report,
and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? For he shall grow
up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground. He hath no form nor comeliness,
and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire
him. 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. Surely he hath borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows. Yet we did esteem him stricken,
smitten of God, and afflicted. 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're healed. You know, I've read books on
theology bigger than the Bible in volume, but the Word of God
says so much more in so little language. The doctrine of substitution,
how much has been written People talk about the immutability
of God. They can ramble on for a thousand
pages on the immutability of God. You know what the immutability
of God is? He said, I am the Lord, I change not. There it
is. What else do you need to know? Honestly, would you rather read
that or would you rather hear God? If God says to my heart,
if He teaches me who He is, then He don't change. And all that
that means, And here on substitution, here is substitution. He was
wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised. He was crushed
for our iniquities. And he accomplished something.
Because he was, I'm healed. I'm completely healed. Well,
let's pray and ask the Lord to teach us. Gracious Father, thank
you for your precious word. Lord, don't ever let these things
become mundane and taken for granted to us. May we come hungry,
Lord, to your table. You've promised that those who
hunger and thirst after you will be filled. We've come tonight
to be filled by your grace. Here we are. I pray that we would
feed upon him who is meat indeed and drink indeed and find strength and courage
and comfort and peace and all of our hope and rest in him,
in his name, amen. Who hath believed, I report. Now we looked at chapter 52 with
an eye to chapter 53 and now we've got to remember chapter
52 now because what report is he talking about? Well this harkens
back to verse 8 of chapter 52. Thy watchman shall lift up the
voice. With the voice together they
shall sing for they shall see eye to eye when the Lord shall
bring again Zion. Break forth into joy, seeing
together you waste places of Jerusalem, for the Lord hath
comforted his people. He hath redeemed Israel. That's what we're lifting up
our voice about. His redemption. He's taken care
of his people. The Lord hath made bare his holy
arm. His power has been manifest. He has exerted his power, the
power of God, unto salvation. Unto the Greeks foolishness,
and unto the Jews a stumbling block, but to them which are
called Christ, the arm of God, the power of God, and the wisdom
of God. All the ends of the earth are
fixing to see something now. God's going to do something about
our sin. The salvation of our God. The watchmen now have made their
report. They're tasked with watching
for the souls of men. They've brought tidings from
the wall. They have news that's got to be heard. It's vital.
The chapter 52 starts off by saying, wake up. There's something
you've got to see. News that has to be heard. But
now this question is asked. When the news is brought, news
of eternal consequence, the question must be asked, who believes it?
Who has believed it? When you see the response to
it, man's response to God's word, you have to ask, who has believed? Men's response largely is to
despise and reject the message as they despise and reject the
one who is the message. As we've just read. We see that
in the language in verse 3 of chapter 53. They despise him
and so they despise the report of him. And so the watchman says,
who hath believed? Is there anybody? The question
is raised, is there anybody that believes what we're saying? Did
you hear what we said? Does anybody hear God? He's God's Messiah now that we're
talking about. His feet are beautiful. His salvation
is the thing that we publish. Salvation. Is anybody interested
in that? It says in verse 7 of 52, He
reigns. In verse 9, He comforts, He redeems. These are things worth hearing
about. These are things that must be heard about. And will
everybody wag their heads and mock? Most will. This world may see no beauty
in him, but what about you? Do you hear the report that God
has given? He hath redeemed. He is victorious. He hath obtained eternal redemption
for all. for whom He bled. And listen,
He's exalted, it said in 52. He's exalted and extolled and
He's very high. So you think about all of these
things that have been reported. He was obedient unto death as
the righteousness of His people, even the death of the cross as
the sin offering of His people. And now He's given a name which
is above every name. He's exalted and extolled and
very high. That's what we saw in chapter
52. He is love. He is mercy. He is grace and
salvation. Now think about this now. He's redeemed. He's comforted.
There's a people that He loves. And He's longsuffering and tender
and He taught His disciples. He was so patient with them.
And they were a lot smarter than me. How many times did He have
to say to them, How come you don't have any faith? Don't you know me? But He's kind
and long-suffering with us. He comforts us in our ignorance
and stupidity. And He's kind to remind us of
His love and mercy. He hath redeemed. He hath saved. Will you despise free grace? He is effectual. He's victorious. He's conquering. He's invincible.
Will you despise a salvation that's achieved? That you don't
have anything that you need to add to? And there's nothing you
can do to take away from it? Will you despise that? That's
what we saw in chapter 52. Will you reject successful Love? And listen, He's high and lofty.
He is exalted, sovereign, and glorious. Will you mock the one
that sits on the throne? Is that going to be your response?
As we see, most men will. Will you deride your God? Have
you nothing but contempt for the one that will do with you
what He will? Maybe the world needs to look
again at Isaiah chapter 52 and rethink this whole thing. Maybe
they haven't heard. Maybe they don't want to hear. But I'm going to preach it again
anyway. By God's grace. And peradventure God will grant
us faith and repentance to the acknowledging of the truth if
we ever see who He is and what He's done. Who hath believed? Well, if we're
going to answer that question we have to ask another one. To
whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? Who is it that believes the message?
Who will bow instead of bowing up? Whose heart will break and
not harden? Who's gonna love and not despise
the Lord of glory? Who will cry for mercy rather
than mock his name? Those to whom the power of God,
the arm of the Lord is revealed. You remember Paul said they have
a form of godliness, but they deny the power. The arm of the
Lord is not revealed to them. Those to whom the power of God
unto salvation, the gospel, comes in power, in the revealing power
of his voice. When he says to Thomas, be not
faithless, but believing. That's the one who said, let
there be light. And there was light. And so what's Thomas'
response? He's high And look at look at
his hands. Look what he's done. Look what
he's accomplished Look at his precious blood. He's my Lord
And he's my God Our Lord said in John 6 44 no
man can come to me except the Father which it sent me and draw
him and I will raise him up at the last day. Have you ever heard
about a Have you ever thought about that and thought, well
how does God draw sinners? Is He just some mysterious, you
just hear you are coming to God and you don't really know why?
No. He acts upon the heart. You know how He draws? This is
what our text is talking about. You know how He draws you to
the Savior? He just shows Him to you. He
just reveals Him. I was talking to somebody one
time about This irresistible call, this revealing, this God
revealing His Son and drawing sinners to Himself. The irresistible
call. He's got to reveal, and you're
not coming unless He draws you. And He said, well, your Christ
doesn't sound very desirable if God has to drag you to Him.
And I said, oh no, it ain't like that. You don't understand. He's
altogether lovely. All He's got to do is just show
Him to me. And here I come. He is revealed. If you ever see
Him, you'll come to Him. In John 6.65 He said,
Therefore said I unto you that no man can come unto Me except
it were given unto him. of my father. You know what he
gives you that brings you to his son? Faith. Who hath believed. Faith to see who he is and what
he did. Here in our text is how God gives
the ability to come. He gives faith. He reveals Christ
and gives faith to believe the report concerning Him, to believe
on His Son, to believe His word and His sheep hear His voice
and they follow Him. They follow Him. And again, what
is the message? What is the gist of our report?
The next word in the text. For He. He. Who hath believed our report? To whom is the arm of the Lord
revealed? Who is the arm of the Lord? What is our report? He! He shall grow up before him as
a tender plant and as a root out of a dry ground. He hath
no form nor comeliness and when we shall see him there is no
beauty that we should desire him. This whole chapter now shows
us why Paul said in 1st Corinthians 2-2, I determined not to know
anything among you save he and what he did. He bore our griefs. He carried
our sorrows. He healed us. He justified us
before God. He pleased his father. He did
that which was necessary so that God would be completely satisfied in this matter of our sin. You
see, the essence of the question in verse 1 is, who hath believed
on him? Who hath believed on him? It's not who's a superlapsarian
and who's an infralapsarian. Nobody cares. Our message is Him. Who is the
arm of the Lord? What is the power of God unto
salvation? You could say that our message
is Him and what He did. But think about this. What He
did is what He did because it's Him that did it. So it's just Him, isn't it? You
can't separate what He did from Him. What he did is just the verb
form of who he is. Who is he? He's God. What's God? God is love, for example. He's
love. Well, what do you mean? Show
me that. Herein is love. You know where we're headed with
that? The definition of love is Christ crucified. Hearing
His love, not that we love God, but that He loved us and sent
His Son to be my sin offering. There's the verb. That's just
the verb, form of love. It's Him. It's Him. And that's just one of His attributes.
Of course He succeeded. Think about this now. What He
did. It's just who He is. Of course
he successfully redeemed all that he died for. Look who he
is. If you don't understand that,
if you think that Christ died for everybody and then just some
just, you know, come around to avail themselves of that and
exercise their free will, you know, and they come and this
and that. If you don't understand and know and believe that everybody
Christ shed his blood for, is redeemed by that blood. Then
you don't need a big diatribe on substitution and redemption
and how all that works. You just need to know who he
is. You just need to know him. That's all you need to understand.
If you know who he is, of course, if he died in order to redeem
somebody, they're redeemed. Of course he saves everybody
he loves. Look who he is. Of course the salvation of sinners
is not a crap shoot. It's an accomplished work because
salvation's of the Lord. Of course he shall see of the
travail of his soul and be satisfied. Have you seen him? Of course we preach Christ crucified
because though unto the Jews he's a stumbling block and though
unto the Greeks he's foolishness by nature, unto them which are
called, whether Jew or Greek, he's the power of God. And he's the wisdom of God. He shall grow up. This is the hardest thing I Thought
this was gonna preach itself. I was wrong How can I even talk
he shall grow up? God's gonna grow up That's enough right there to
boggle our little minds forever my mind may just be boggled from
now on I He shall grow up. The infinite,
immutable, ancient of days shall grow up. Luke 2.52, and Jesus increased
in wisdom. What? In stature, in favor with God
and man. Our message, our report, is a
message of salvation. And salvation is a person. And
that person, in order to save us, had to become us. I'm just going to tell you what
I can about this. He had to become us, yet without
sin. Yet without sin. Hebrews 2.17,
wherefore in all things it behooved him to be made 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 the people. You see, this thing of Christ
becoming a man, becoming, being bone of our bone and flesh of
our flesh, born of a virgin, born of a woman, made under the
law that he might redeem them that are under the law. This
is not just some little point of doctrine that we talk. This
is our salvation. If he's not going to be able
to make reconciliation for my sins, unless he comes and lives
for me and dies for me. And when I say for me, I mean
as me. A representative is just that. He represents me in his life,
in everything that he did, everything that he thought, everything that
he said as a man, everything up to and including his death
at Calvary. And He's seated now as me on
the right hand of the Father. We're already seated, Paul said.
Why? Because our Lord is there. In Him, we're there. I can't explain it, but I know
from God's Word that He was and is God. And as God, He does not
change. But as a man, He must be born
into this world and grow up if He's going to save me. That's
what he's got to do. That's just as simple as we can
say it. And look, it says, now he shall
grow up before Him. This is important now. Man sinned and man has to atone
for sin. So he got to grow up. He got to be born. He's got to
be a tender plant. He's got to be a little baby.
He's got to become me yet without sin. And listen, man has sinned
and man has to atone for sin and that's something that man
has to do for God. Man has to atone for sin and
he does that to God. Christ's precious blood, when
He made His soul an offering for sin, that's an offering unto
God. He grew up before Him and lived before Him and died before
Him. It's not an offer to men, it's
an offering to God. That's something done for God
first, and it's for me in the sense that I get, you know, I
benefit from it. But God is the one that has to
be satisfied for sin. Atonement is atonement. We need
atonement with God because we're enmity by nature with God. We
need atonement. And he made that atonement with
his precious blood. His blood. He grew up before God the Father. Now, I need a sin offering, but
for God, in the sense that God must be satisfied, his soul was
made an offering unto God, unto God's justice, unto his law,
his righteousness and holiness must be satisfied in this matter
of saving me. He's got to save me in a way
that's consistent with his justice and holiness. That's what it's
going to talk about later in this chapter where he says, he
shall see of the travail of his soul. God, the father is going
to see what Christ did and accomplished and performed and the offering
that he made of his own soul for my sin. And he's going to
say, that's enough. That's enough. I can be just
and justify that wretched worm. that I've loved before he was
ever born. He lived perfectly and righteously
before God. Men didn't think much of him,
but it doesn't much matter what men think about him. My salvation
is what God thinks about him. My eternal security hinges upon
what God thinks about His Son, not what He thinks about me and
myself, what He thinks of His Son and me and Him. So Him growing
up before God, that has a lot to do with me, but it's between
the Father and the Son. He represented His people before
God. All that He did and said and
even thought was primarily and preeminently before God. Subject
to the scrutiny. You think about that. If God puts you under his scrutiny
for one second, how are you going to measure up? Pick any second
in your life. Pick the best one. Your shining,
most glorious moment of your whole life. If God looks at you
for that one second, he got to put you in hell. He shall grow up before Him.
Thank God. That's my Redeemer. That's my
substitute. That's my representative. That's me standing before God
in Him and perfectly satisfying God in every way. Subject to
the scrutiny and judgment of God, He was made under the law
before God that He might redeem them that are under the law before
God. And before God is another matter
now than before us. We see no beauty in Him. Not
by nature. But God did. Oh, we rejected Him. But God said, I'll have Him. I'm well pleased with Him. And
this is salvation. This is my salvation. Him. Him
growing up. Him growing up before God for
me. Now in order for me to be saved,
I must by faith see His beauty. He's going to have to be beautiful
to me too. But first, He's got to be beautiful to God. First. Foremost. I must by faith see His beauty
and be well pleased with Him too. But before that, God must
see what I didn't see in Him. He shall grow up before him.
And look, as a tender plant, you can see we're not gonna get
far than that in Isaiah 53. That's fine with me. I wanna
look at every word of this. As long as God'll show us his
son in every word, then I want that word to be the only word
until we see what God has for us. And then we'll go to the
next word by his grace. As a tender plant, Now clearly
a metaphor here. He's compared to a plant, a tree. But he didn't start out as a
tree. He started out as just a little tiny sprout, a little
sprig, a tender sprig. Have you ever think about this
much? I don't think about it that much
because it just blows my mind. But God was a little baby. When you can explain that to
me, then I'll let you preach the wrath from Nedo, because
I can't explain it. God was a little baby. You know
why? Again, because I was a little
baby. That's why. That's why God was
a little baby, because I was. He lived as me right from the
start. And some say, you know, that
as a baby he didn't even cry. That he never cried as a baby.
You know, I don't know if that's true or not, but I know this.
Whatever cry of mine as a baby had any sin in it, any selfishness
or deception, and it may well have. I know this, he didn't
cry that cry. If there is a baby's cry that
is innocent and pure, he cried that one. I know that. He was me from the very start,
yet without sin. He was me before God. Perfect,
holy, spotless me, right from the beginning. Now you think
about this, if you think maybe I've gone too far for saying
He was me, you tell me how God's going to save me any other way.
How's God going to save me any other way? He came as me, He
lived as me, and He died as me, as my righteousness, my sin offering,
my acceptance with God, my everything. Or God can't save me. Now he was like me yet without
sin. He was me yet without sin. He
was born of a virgin because I was born of sinful man. He grew in favor with God because
I grew up wild and rebellious just like you did. I grew up a liar just like you
did. He in whose mouth was no guile. He spoke for me. And you know
why he had to speak for me? Because the poison of asps is
under my lips. His tongue was set on fire of
heaven because my tongue is set on fire of hell. He did always
those things that pleased his father because I have never done
anything ever that pleased God. He did all that as me. That's
the me God's going to save. The me that's in Him. He was obedient unto death. Even
the death of the cross because the wages of my sin is death. Born in a manger. He'll grow
up before Him as a tender plant. Born in a manger. No room made
for Him in the end. No fanfare. You know, if they'd
have known who he was, you think about that. You reckon they could
have found a room for him. That's our problem now. We just
don't know him. We just don't know him. Only a few wise men even cared
that he had come. But some were looking for him.
A few were looking for him. Simeon, it says, he was looking
for the consolation of Israel in Luke chapter 2. And when he
looked into the face of that tender plant, an eight day old
baby, he said to God, I see your salvation. Do you? Do I? When you look at him as
a baby, do you see just an infinite or do you see the infinite one?
And who believes that? Who believes that? Who believes
that God was a baby? Who hath believed that? To whom
is that revealed? Who has faith to see God's salvation
in a little child? And as a root out of a dry ground,
oh now think about this. You see the tender plant, you
see the little baby in this metaphor of him being a plant, of him
growing up before God as a tree or a plant. Not only did he start
out like any plant does, born as a little baby, but as a root out of dry ground. Now what he
is, this is saying in that same metaphorical language of him
being a tender plant, this says that he was life in a place that
otherwise there was no life. A dry ground. How are you going
to get anything to take root? Now it doesn't say it was relatively
dry. It doesn't say it was you know
drier than it had been or than it would be. It was dry. where there's no moisture, where
there's no water. There ain't no root. I guarantee
you that. There ain't no life. But He is
the life. He is the life. Now this still speaks of His
infancy because a root is the beginning of a tree or a plant.
But the dry ground speaks. It tells us about who he is because
a root can't spring from a dry ground. It's impossible. There
must be water for a root to spring forth in natural terms, but he's
not just natural man. And this is our first glimmer
of that. He's a tender plant, but let me tell you something.
He's life. He's life. All other roots depend
upon God. in order for them to take form.
God's gonna have to send something that we don't have in ourselves,
right? All other roots, in order to take root and to live, God's
got to send you some water, or then some sunshine and some oxygen
and some nutrients. You depend on God, but He is
God. That's what this is saying. He
doesn't need water from this earthly ecosystem because he
himself is the water of life. He doesn't derive life from favorable
outside factors because he is life. He is born of a woman because
it behooved him to be made like me and you, but he is spiritual
life where there is no spiritual life. There were no other plants
growing where he sprung up. This is dry ground. There ain't
but one. All was spiritual death, a complete
wasteland where there couldn't even be any life. And yet he
sprung up in that desolate environment and brought life with him, himself
being the life. In him was life, John said in
chapter one. And the life was the light of
men. Who hath believed? There's no
light to believe, but He is the light. But we're in darkness. God, who commended the light
to shine out of darkness, might just shine in your heart. And
if He does, you'll see His glory. And you're not going to see it
anywhere else, but in His Son, in the face of Jesus Christ. He's the one by whom we see.
the light by whom we see and he's the one we have to see.
He's the one who gives life and he is the way, the truth and
the life. Well, he hath no form nor comeliness. He's not, you know I looked into
this quite a bit and the thought being conveyed here, the truth
being conveyed here by language and we we all we have is the
English language or if you know some other language you may it's
going to be the same thing though isn't it. You got to depend on
words and your understanding of those words and what this
is saying is this he's not noticeable as a tender plant. The little
sprigs you know they're coming up. Did you take notice of them
this morning on your way in? Now, if that was your tomato
plant, you might go out there and go, is it coming up yet?
Oh, yeah, there it is. It's ain't even that tall, but
one of these days it's going to have tomato. But we don't care anything
about him. He's not ours. We don't care.
We're not looking for any. We're not looking for him. We
don't care by nature. As a tender plant and as a root,
he's beneath the notice of men. He didn't attract people the
way that some do because of qualities that attract people, you know,
whatever, personality or they're smart or whatever it is, just
beautiful. It doesn't necessarily mean that
he was physically ugly. David, who pictures Christ, was
a handsome man and others who did were, but David was passed
over as king, even by his own family, good looks or not. He
was passed over there's our Savior right there. That's what this
is saying passed over Men have their interests and
things which attract them and get their notice and attention
and he ain't one of them That's what it's saying he was just passed over he did
not fit man's description of God or anything that we care
about and when we shall see him when he grew up the language
says really that we didn't even see him. We didn't even notice
him. We didn't even know who he was
or care. But now we see him because think
about this. He was not recognized as the
godless Pharisees were. They were well respected. They
were highly esteemed of men. Our chapter says he was esteemed
not. though they were godless and
he was God they were highly esteemed of men and he was not esteemed
at all but even though in a sense we
don't see him we don't even see him we shall see him everybody's
gonna see him because even though he's not
who we like or want or would even notice his power his authority
are undeniable Even those who didn't see him said nobody ever
spoke like this man did. He spoke with authority and not
as the scraps. So even those who didn't see
him saw him. This thing wasn't done in a corner.
He opened the eyes of the blind. That'll get people's attention.
Who he is, they don't care about that. But they love the spectacle. And they said in John 9, 32,
since the world began it was not heard that any opened the
eyes of one that was born blind. We're gonna be forced to see
him, aren't we? Who by nature we can't see, because
he's just undeniable. But look what it says next, there's
no beauty. And you know what that word is? Sight. So in effect it's saying we don't
see him, And even when we see him, we're
not going to see him. That's what it's saying. Even
when we're forced to acknowledge him, we're not going to know
who he is. Even when he stands right in
front of our face as he did, he stood toe-to-toe with those
Pharisees. He said, you're going to die in your sins. And here's
why. Because you hate me. He stood toe to toe with them
and they still didn't see him. You see why we ask this question?
To whom is God going to reveal his power? This all goes back to that doesn't
it to whom is the arm of the lord revealed because the only
way we're going to ever see him Who by nature we can't see and
even when we're forced to see we don't see the only way we're
going to see Is if he shows himself to us Luke 10 21 in that hour
jesus rejoiced in spirit and said i thank thee oh father Lord
of heaven and earth that thou hast hid these things from the
wise and prudent and has revealed them unto babes. Even so, father,
for so it seemed good in thy sight. It seemed good in God's sight
to put his son in my sight. Luke 10.22, All things are delivered
to me of my Father, and no man knoweth who the Son is, but the
Father. There's no beauty in Him that
we should desire, but God did. God, He's altogether lovely to
His Father. And nobody knows who the Father
is, but the Son. I'm so glad for this next word,
aren't you? To whom is the armor the Lord
revealed? Nobody! accept. Who believes? Who has believed our report?
Nobody. Who can see the beauty of this
one who is Lord and God? Only God and He to Whomsoever the Son will
reveal Him. Notice that it says we do not
desire him by nature We have no desire for him Unless God
reveals him as he is we have no desire For him in John 539
it says search the scriptures for in them you think you have
eternal life and And they are they which testify of me and
you will not come to me that you might have life. I looked
up that word will one time. You will not. And it doesn't
just mean you shall not. This is an exercising of the
will. Religion talks about you need
to just exercise your free will. We already have. We nailed God's
son to a cross. That's what our free will is.
He says you will not, it means you have no desire. You have
no desire to come to me. You desire not. He who is called
in Haggai 2.7 the desire of all nations will be undesirable to us unless
and until God shines his light on us. On the contrary now Not only
do we not see him and not care, we don't care. He's beneath our
notice. We've got no interest, no desire,
no beauty. Not only will we not see that
he's altogether lovely, but verse three, we're not going to look
into verse three much tonight because we're out of time already,
but listen to this. Not only do we not have any desire for
it, we hate him. It'd be bad enough if we just...
I mean, how blind do you have to be to not see His beauty? He who is altogether lovely. But it gets worse. We can't stand Him. Unless God reveals who He is,
there's no in-between now. Let's just close thinking about
that there's not any in-between. You either love Him or you utterly
despise him. Now people in religion they sing
oh how I love Jesus they don't know who they're singing about.
They're singing about the Jesus you see that's waiting on them
and catering to them and bows to their will. There's no such
thing. He's a figment of their imagination.
They don't love the Lord Jesus Christ. until unless and until
he just and again all he's got to do is turn on the light we either love him or despise
him and there's no in between and we know this don't we the
truth is so simple and we always come back to this if you do love
him You ought to know that. If you hear the truth about who
he is, we should be able to tell the difference between loving
somebody and hating somebody, right? Do you love him? You know why? Because he first
loved you. 1 John 4, 19. What do you see When you look upon Him, it says
when He was on the cross, they sat and watched Him there. Oh, every word of that. They
watched Him there. They watched Him there in the
hour of all hours. They watched Him there as He
hung upon that cross around which all of time and eternity revolves. They watched Him there. And what
did they see? What do you see? It doesn't matter
what they saw. Everybody sees him. Everybody
in this world now. But do they see him? Is he beautiful
to them? If there's no beauty in him for
you, you don't see him. It's that simple. By God's grace, when I see Him
there, I see what Isaiah wrote about. I see the Son of God taking
my place, making His own soul an offering for my sin. I see
Him bearing my sin, the guilt of my sin, the punishment for
my sin. And in doing that, justifying
my soul before God, healing me of every disease, So we say with him, thank you
God of heaven and earth for hiding these things from folks a whole lot smarter
than us and revealing them to a little baby like me who
wouldn't know anything without your grace. Let's pray.