All right, brethren, let's go
to Isaiah chapter 53. Isaiah 53, verse 7. Speaking of our Lord, it says,
He was oppressed and He was afflicted. Yet he opened not his mouth. He's brought as a lamb to the
slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth
not his mouth. I've titled this A Sermon of
Silence. He was oppressed and he was afflicted,
yet he opened not His mouth. He's brought as a lamb to the
slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so He openeth
not His mouth." Our Savior preached a sermon
by His silence as He suffered. He preached a sermon as he suffered
oppression and affliction. We behold here his perfect faith
and obedience to the Father by which he made his people righteous.
He was oppressed and he was afflicted. Oppressed means to be pressed
upon hard, to be pressed down hard. This is the fallen nature
of every sinner. We oppressed the one who came
to relieve his people of the burden that oppressed us. We
oppressed the one who came to take the burden off of his people. In fact, we oppressed him because
he declared he's the only one who could take that burden off.
The burden of our sin, the burden of our condemnation. He declared
he's the only one that could relieve his people of that burden
and remove that burden from his people. And it couldn't be done
any other way, not by any man, not by any sinner, not by anything
we did. And for that reason, Religious
men oppressed him and afflicted him. Because by declaring that,
he's declaring that all our religious deeds are sin. If we're looking
to our religious deeds to save us, we're going to perish. because
they're all sin, apart from Him. We can't even put any confidence
in our prayers. The only reason God hears our
prayers is because of Christ, who is our high priest with the
Father. He is our advocate and our righteousness,
whereby God receives even when we come to Him in prayer. All
our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. But because he declared
the truth of the gospel, he was oppressed. We did it. You and I did it. You ever seen
dogs who snarl and you can see their teeth and they're gnashing
with their teeth and snarling and growling with their teeth?
That's what we did to Christ. That's what we did to our Savior,
hurling accusations against Him. We said this, back up in verse
3. It says, he's despised and rejected
of men. A man of sorrows, acquainted
with grief. We hid it as it were our faces
from him. He was despised and we esteemed
him not. Surely he borne our griefs and
carried our sorrows. Yet, here's what we said. We
esteemed him stricken and smitten of God and afflicted. I had a
pastor, the Lord took his wife home when she was in her 40s. Would you be surprised? There
was a lot of men, not a lot, but there were some religious
men who accused him and said it was because of his sin. God's
afflicting you because of your sin. That's what we did to Christ.
You and I conceived in sin. He was the holy thing in the
womb. We come forth from our mother's womb speaking lies.
He came forth speaking the truth of the gospel. We have every
thought of the imagination of our hearts, only evil continually. Our Lord Jesus Christ never thought
anything but pure and holy thoughts. And yet, religious man, oppressed
him, and accused him. Afflicted means to be humbled,
to be brought low, made to bow. Now our Lord willingly submitted
to all of this. He willingly humbled himself
to submit to all this. But we not only would not bow
to him, We attempted to humble the king of kings and make him
bow to us. The religion of the Pharisees
was to glory in what they constrained men to do. They would oppress
and oppress and oppress until men just gave up and did what
they pressed them into doing. And our Lord bore that oppression
and they bore that affliction, men trying to make Him bow and
bow to what He would have them to do so they could glory in
what they constrained Him to do. And our Lord wouldn't submit
to them. And it infuriated them. It infuriated
us. So we afflicted Him. We attempted
to exalt ourselves by forcing him down lower than us with our
accusations. We can't rise higher, so the
only thing we could do is try to force him lower, force others
lower. We oppressed and we afflicted
him. We poured contempt upon Christ and all his offices. Of his kingly office, we crowned
him with thorns. We put a purple robe on him,
we bowed the knee and mocked and said, hell, king of the Jews. Of his office, his prophet, we
blindfolded him and we said, prophesy to us, tell us who it
was that smote you. And of his high priestly office,
we reviled him and said, he claimed he saved others, himself he cannot
save. We did this as we nailed the
Prince of Life to the cross. That's our nature. That's what
our carnal religion is. It comes from our nature. That's our nature. Not was, it
is. It's with us, still with us. If we're born of God and have
a new nature, it's still with us. And this is the carnal religion
we constantly have to fight against that's still with us. John Trapp said, our iniquities
were the weapons, and ourselves the traitors that put to death
the Lord of life. Judas and the Jews were but our
workmen. This should draw dreary tears
from us. And when the spirit makes us
behold Christ crucified, That's when we see our sin, that's when
we see our depravity, and it does draw tears from us. He said,
they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall
mourn for him as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be
in bitterness for him as one that is in bitterness for his
firstborn. This is what our Lord works in
the heart of his people. And as our Lord bore this, as
He was bearing this oppression and this affliction, unlike anything
anybody else bore, yet He opened not His mouth. Yet He opened not His mouth. Matthew 27, 12, it says, when
he was accused of the chief priests and elders, he answered nothing. Then said Pilate unto him, Hearest
thou not how many things they witness against thee? And he
answered him to never a word, insomuch that the governor marveled
greatly. He was sinless. Not a single accusation against
him was true. Most every accusation against
us is true. We can deny that, but we're lying. We can't justify ourselves. We
can't exalt ourselves. We can't say, well, I haven't
done that. Yes, you have. You have done it. I know it. You know it. We have sinned. If we haven't done it in the
act, we've done it in thought. But he was innocent. He was without
sin. He knew no sin. But the Lord had made him bear the
sin of his people. None of the accusations men were
making were true, but the Lord made him bear the sin of his
people. We're guilty sinners in ourselves,
and we're quick to defend ourselves. He was innocent, and yet he opened
not his mouth. His silence declares his holy,
faithful, obedient heart toward the Father. He was suffering the greatest
reproach, the greatest oppression, the greatest affliction any man
ever suffered. Suffering at the hands of men,
and yet when he was reviled, he reviled not again. Listen
now, not even in his heart, not even in his heart, When He suffered,
He threatened not. He committed it Himself to Him
that judgeth righteously. He committed everything to Him
that judges righteously. That's His perfect faith. That's
His perfect obedience to the Father. He committed it all to
the Father. He said, I could summon more
than twelve legions of angels. Now think about it, if you had
the power to do that, and you're suffering what he was suffering,
what would you have done? I don't even have to think about
that. Because I'm not the perfect faithfulness
God demands. He is. That's why he had to come. That's why he had to come. By silence, by committing it
all to the Father, Christ was triumphing over His enemies and
ours, rather than defending Himself and letting His enemies triumph
over Him and us. But this oppression and this
affliction was even worse. He's brought as a lamb before
the slaughter. And He truly is the lamb. He
is the Lamb. He's brought as a Lamb before
the slaughter, it says. The worst of His oppression,
the worst of His affliction was bearing the sin and curse of
His people. That was the worst of what He
was bearing, this heavy, heavy load He was bearing. He's the
spotless Lamb of God. He is the spotless Lamb. He is
brought as a Lamb before the slaughter. He's the one pictured
in all the Old Covenant sacrifices. They had to take a lamb. They
had to raise this lamb. They had to be acquainted with
this lamb. That's why it was such an offense
when they just started stopping by the quick stop and picking
up a lamb and bringing it to the temple. The people in the
little booth selling lambs so they didn't have to give any
thought to it. They could just go in and buy one real quick and conveniently
offer a lamb. They had to raise this lamb up.
This lamb had to be part of the family. And they had to go through
that lamb and look him over and make sure there wasn't even a
hair that was out a different color. No blemish in him anywhere
whatsoever. If he was, he couldn't be offered.
Because that lamb pictured the spotless, holy, perfect Son of
God. He had to be perfect. We can't
be accepted of God unless we're perfect. The lamb had to be spotless. And he's spotless. And then they took that lamb,
they led him up to the holy place where they're going to offer
him to the door, and then all the sins of the children of Israel
were put on that lamb in tithes. The priest put his hand on the
head of the lamb and it was a picture of all the sins of the children
of Israel being transferred to the lamb. Our Lord Jesus Christ
wasn't a picture, it wasn't a type. He was made sin for us. Christ really is the spotless
lamb, really was the only one fit to bear this suffering and
He is the one who really bore the sin of his people. And then
that lamb, once he's ceremonially typically bearing the sin of
his people, then they took a knife and they cut his throat and let
him bleed out. They slaughtered him. And when
our Lord Jesus Christ took the sin of his people on himself,
God used these wicked, self-righteous, God-hating, holier-than-thou
people to nail Him to the tree. But that was God putting Him
on that tree. And it was for the sins of you who know Him
and for our transgressions that He was suffering. Listen to verse
5. 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. All we like sheep
have gone astray. We've turned everyone to his
own way, and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. Verse 8 says, For the transgression
of my people was he stricken. He bore the weight of that oppressing,
afflicting load for men. They were constantly, constantly
oppressing him, constantly afflicting him. If he had lived in our day,
these Pharisees would have been going around with their camera
trying to film him so they could use that to show people and justify
themselves for not believing on him. They'd have been scouring
his emails and scouring his All this social media trying to find
something they could use to say, see there, we told you, that's
what he is. Why? Why would they do that? To justify something? Justify not bowing to him. And yet he bore that, that, that
that we have done, that that we've been guilty of so many
times, and plus all the rest of our sin. That's what he was
bearing in his body on the tree. This is an amazing substitution
right here, that the one who's being oppressed and afflicted
and accused of what he's absolutely totally innocent of, is bearing
the sin. of our oppressing and our afflicting, as well as all our other sin,
He's bearing it all. As a lamb before her shearers
is dumb, so He opened not His mouth. Our Lord's silence declares that
He's perfect wisdom. Just like a man's much speaking
and, you know, just like the Pharisees oppressing and afflicting
proved they had no wisdom, Christ's silence proved he is perfect
wisdom. He that hath knowledge spareth
his words, and a man of understanding is of an excellent spirit. And
Christ's silence here, under the greatest suffering ever,
shows he is perfect wisdom. In Christ are hid all the treasures
of wisdom and knowledge. Look at verse 11. By his knowledge
shall my righteous servant justify many, for he shall bear their
iniquities. And as our text is saying, he
bore them in perfect silence. What's that silence declaring?
It's declaring it was a must that he offer his soul unto God
in the obedience of perfect faith from a holy heart. It was a necessary
thing. Look at verse 10. It says, 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. His silence declares that while
he bore all the sins of his people, That God, our Father, had laid
upon him, that God had made him, and while they really became
his sin, it was just as necessary that he be perfectly faithful
to God with a perfectly holy heart, with no sin whatsoever
of his own. And that's what he was doing.
Though he bore our spots in his own body on a tree, yet in his
soul, through the eternal Spirit, he offered himself without spot
to God. Christ also has once suffered
for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God,
being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit.
What else does his silence declare? It declares he fulfilled the
will of God in perfection. God willed everything he bore.
And Christ bore it all exactly according to God's will. This
was all the will of God. And He's bearing this because
it's the will of God. And He came to fulfill the will
of the Father. And by His silence, He's declaring
what I said this morning from Isaiah 50. He's declaring, I
gave my back to the smiters. Here's why. The Lord God will
help me. He's near that justifies me.
Who is He that shall condemn me? That's what our Savior was
saying by His silence. He was trusting the Father in
perfect faith. His obedience of faith from a
perfect holy heart was as necessary to fulfilling the law as bearing
our sins in stripes and His own body on a tree. Just as necessary. And because He was bearing our
sin and our curse, He could not, he would not open his mouth. Because he's bearing the sins
of his people, he would not and he could not open his mouth to
defend himself, not at all. His silence declares he justified
God for justly making him a curse because our sins became his. His silence was faith in his
father, working by love for God and his brethren. His silence
was him justifying his people, making us righteous by bearing
the stripes we deserve. He is the scapegoat who bore
our sin, and he is the fit man who took them away so that God
says, I'll remember them no more. There's no record of them anymore. That's why he didn't open his
mouth. The Spirit of God teaches every believer to bear the trial
that God sends with joy and with patience, knowing that the trying
of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect
work, that you may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.
And yet when we suffer, even A stump toe. We just can't hardly keep our
mouth shut. Can't hardly help but murmur. And let us be just transgressed
against a little bit. And we'll go around behind the
back and just talk and talk and talk and talk. We can't put any confidence in
our patients, but in Christ we see the one we can put all our
confidence in. He let patients have its perfect
work. He was perfect and entire, wanting
nothing. His finished work is perfect
and entire, wanting nothing. And His people are perfect and
entire in Him, lacking nothing. You are complete in Him. Because this is what He bore. Like rabid dogs gnashing their
teeth, we charged our sinless Savior. Just gnashing. But our substitute bore all the
sin and the curse of his people, and therefore he opened not his
mouth. He uttered seven faithful things from the cross, but he
never opened his mouth to defend himself or revile those that
were being used to do this. But at last he did open his mouth,
and he cried, It is finished. It's finished. He put away all the sin of all
his people. And now he promises that all
who trust him, that all who come to him confessing our sin to
him, he's faithful to forgive us. He's just to forgive us. to cleanse us from all unrighteousness
by His precious blood. That water continues to wash
us just like the blood. And true God-given faith in Christ,
the true faith that He's given declares we're justified, we're
righteous by His faith alone. That's what we see in him not
opening his mouth. The mystery is, it's his perfect
faith by which he justified his people. Knowing, Paul said in
Galatians 2, knowing that a man is not justified by the works
of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ. Even we have
believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the
faith of Christ and not by the works of the law. For by the
works of the law shall no flesh be justified." That means you
and I ought never sin. You and I ought never do any
of the things in the epistles that our Lord tells us we ought
not do. And the reason they're there
is because you do them. And we can stop pretending, but
that's why they're there. But God is not going to let His
child perish because He paid His own blood to redeem His people. And He will keep His people.
He will not let His people perish. And He'll condemn people that
condemn Him. He'll condemn them. He said, touch not mine anointing. He's not going to let that happen.
Sooner or later, he's going to bring that spirit down. These
Pharisees didn't have that spirit. That's why they incessantly,
they couldn't bow. They could not submit it to him. They kept running their mouth
in condemnation of Christ. His people will do that. You
will condemn others, but Christ will stop it. He will bring it
down. And we'll come down to the dust.
We're talking about being doers of the Word. God's people just
are. We just are. By His grace, by
His Spirit. But they're not trying to make
others conform to their image. They trust in Him. What does it mean to submit? Is that what the Pharisees were
doing? Charging our Lord with sin? They weren't submitting. Submitting is committing it to
him, trusting him. He's given us an example to follow
his steps. He did no sin. There was no guile found in his
mouth. When he was reviled, he didn't revile again. Can you honestly say you've not
done that? Anybody here can honestly say
you have not reviled again? When he suffered, he threatened
not. I have to hit my face in the
dust. If that's where it ends, I have
to hit my face in the dust. That's what the Lord's people
said. And the Pharisees said to him, yeah,
you do. Yeah, you do. And the Lord has to come and take his child. When we're in
that place, turn us to Christ. See our substitute who saved us and also left us
this example. See him there. with his mouth
shut. They were wagging their heads
at him. Wagging and wagging and wagging
their heads all the way to hell. He just kept his mouth shut. See, he was in a place where
he had to utterly depend on the Father to justify him. Do you
need Him to justify you? Or are you shot up to where you
cannot justify yourself because you're so guilty that you just
have to trust Him to justify you? When He does that, by His Spirit, You commit everything to Him. Commit it to Him. Because you
see, when you see Him and you see what He accomplished, you
realize He judges righteously. I can get it wrong. Did the Pharisees get it wrong?
Did they judge righteous judgment? They missed it, didn't they?
They missed the Righteous One. Their hearts were set on condemning
somebody. Their hearts were set on pushing
another down, so that made them a little bit taller. When you see Him, you're committed
to Him. You trust Him. And the thing is about it is
you do it not, you don't want anything. You want to see him
save everybody. You want to see him save the
ones that are nailing you to the cross. His own self bear our sins and
his own body on the tree so that now we're dead to sin. And we
should live unto righteousness by whose stripes you were healed. That means live unto him. Commit it to Him. Trust Him. Believe Him and follow Him. Keep your eye on Him. For you were a sheep going astray. Peter, know a little something
about that. I know a little something about
that. Do you know about that? But now, you are returned to the shepherd,
bishop of your souls. If I could reach my hand through
the door and open the door, I would. But I can't. The door's bolted. It's barred. It has been, and
I can't open it. But he can reach in and he can
open it. But it's going to take him turning
the heart to him to stop the oppressive affliction. When he breaks our heart, it just, your heart's just broken. You can't do anything in proud,
oppressive affliction when you're heartbroken. You just hit your
face. He's the shepherd and he's the
bishop of your soul. Commit all to him. He will judge
righteously for his people. Peter said, Humble yourselves,
therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you
in due time, casting all your care upon him, for he careth
for you. Let's remember him at our Lord's
table.