Let's turn in our Bibles, brethren,
to Isaiah 53. Today, we as a family of born-again
believers will be remembering our Lord Jesus Christ at His
table. The Lord said, the broken, unleavened
bread is to remind us of His broken body that was broken for
you, He said. the wine made from the grape
being crushed in a wine press is to remind us of his shed blood,
which is the New Testament in his blood. He said, this do in
remembrance of me, he said. And then in Hebrews 12 we're
told that whenever we're running this race of faith and the weights
and the besetting sin begins to turn our focus to ourselves
and to our sins and to our troubles, we're told to lay those things
aside and to turn our focus to Christ and to consider His suffering
until our suffering becomes insignificant. He said, consider him that endured
such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest you be
wearied and faint in your minds, for you have not resisted unto
blood, striving against sin. Therefore, this morning, I want
us to look at Isaiah 53. We're going to look at verses
3 through 5. We're going to begin reading in verse 3 after the
semicolon. It says, Isaiah 53, 3, right
after the semicolon there, it says, A man of sorrows. That's our subject. Christ Jesus,
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 are healed. While the Lord Jesus walked this
earth, he suffered. He was a man of sorrows acquainted
with grief. It's incomparably inconceivable
for us to enter in to just how great Christ's suffering really
was. We just can't really do it. Sorrows
here means pain. That's what it means. And grief
means bodily sickness, or in Christ's case, being touched
with the feeling of our infirmities. He was a man of sorrows. A man of sorrows. He was acquainted
with grief. That means his life was a constant,
never-ending pain and suffering. It means he was a, his constant
companions. It means his familiar acquaintance
was pain and infirmities. All his life, his life was one
continued series of sorrow and grief. Why did he suffer? Why did Christ have to suffer?
He had to suffer, the scripture says. It behooved him by whom
are all things and through whom are all things in bringing many
sons unto glory to make the captain of their salvation perfect through
suffering. So why did he have to suffer?
Well, the first reason that Christ had to suffer is that he might
offer the things necessary to God to make reconciliation for
his people as the high priest. That was the first reason he
suffered. The scripture tells us, though he were a son, yet
learned he obedience by the things which he suffered. It means this. It means though he were a son,
yet he took the form of a servant. He humbled himself, took the
form of a servant, and he became obedient even until the death
of the cross. And then it says, and being made
perfect, that is, having perfected obedience as the representative
and head of his people, he became the author of eternal salvation
unto all them that obey him. He got the job done. He made
reconciliation to God for his people. And then the second reason
Christ suffered was in that he himself hath suffered being tempted,
he's able to succor them that are tempted. He's able to help
you and me, believer, when we're tempted because He's been there
and He suffered it. And the scripture says, We have
not a high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of
our infirmities, but was in all points tempted like as we are,
yet he never sinned. He was without sin. So we come
boldly to His throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and
find grace to help in time of need. Now that's the two-fold
purpose of why He suffered. Now, what was the cause of his
suffering? What actually made Christ to
suffer? Well, his suffering included bodily pain. There's no doubt
about that. But his suffering includes so much more than bodily
pain. So much more than what men inflicted
upon his body when they hung him on a tree. There's been many
martyrs who died who suffered cruel death and scourgings and
mockings and all things like that. His suffering was much
deeper than that. Without any man touching Him
whatsoever, Christ said, My soul is exceeding sorrowful even unto
death. His was a soul sorrow. It was
a heart sorrow. It was a sorrow in the inner
man. Now what caused that? Well to
begin with, Christ was made a man and he was made flesh and he
was touched in our human nature. He took all the natural sinless
infirmities of our flesh. His human nature was subject
to hunger, thirst, weariness, just like we are. Everything
you experience, Christ experienced. He was a real man. God came in
human flesh. And He encountered all the sorrow
and pain that accompanies all our temptations, all the temptations
we face. He basically experienced everything
that sin causes, yet without sin in this life. He was tempted
in all points like as we are, and all the pain and all the
suffering that those infirmities and temptations cause us, that's
what he felt. That's what he felt. Now, you
and I, because we feel sorrows and we feel pain, because we
feel the infirmities and we have the pain from it and all that,
we sorrow. When we see somebody else suffering
that, it causes us pain. And it's even worse when it's
your child, when it's the one you love, your dearest loved
one. It's even worse. But because we're sinful, even
that sympathetic sorrow and pain we have is so calloused. It's not a true, full sympathy
of sorrow and pain. But Christ, touched with the
feeling of our infirmities, had a sympathy with men under affliction
that was perfect. And it caused Him to be touched
with a perfectly full sorrow and grief. So being touched with
the feeling of our infirmities, this caused pain and suffering
in him. And then having a perfect sorrow
and a perfect pain in sympathy to others caused pain and suffering
to him. You remember at Lazarus' tomb?
The scripture says, when Jesus therefore saw her weeping and
the Jews also weeping which came with her, he groaned in the Spirit. He groaned in the Spirit and
was troubled. And Jesus wept. He wept. When the Lord brought a miracle,
when He worked a miracle, He entered into the spiritual suffering,
the spiritual infirmity, the spiritual sorrow and pain of
that person He was healing. He entered into it. There was
a divine sympathy that entered into the depth of that need. The scripture says, in all their
afflictions, He was afflicted. In all their afflictions, He
was afflicted. You think of how many people
came to our Savior to be healed. All at one time, all day long,
constantly, they were coming to Him to be healed. and he was
afflicted with our afflictions perfectly. You know, a physician,
an earthly physician, he may work all day long and see 30,
you know, however many people, but he's banking off of that. He's getting paid big time. Christ wasn't getting paid. And
it was causing Christ the feeling deeper and more true than those
people that were actually suffering that he was healing. You imagine
just one after another, after another, after another, after
another. And the more they hear it, the
more they come. The more they hear it, the more they come.
And he's sitting there healing them, healing them, healing them.
And entering into what they're feeling in his own heart. And
then furthermore, his sorrows and griefs were in part due to
the fact that he was a perfect holy soul dwelling in constant
contact with unholy sinners. You think of a man that's perfect,
holy, righteous, dwelling in the midst of a people who's ungodly
and unrighteous and everything he hates? This is... Scripture
says sin is an abomination to God. And this is God. This is the God-man in human
flesh. He's on every side. It must have
been like the touch of fire to Him. And then there was the fact that
He had taken part of flesh and He was in a kindred human relationship
to Abraham's seed. This was like his family. This was his family. God's elect
true spiritual Israel, Abraham's true spiritual seed was his family.
And yet, while he dwelt among us, who was his true family that
he came to save, the imagination of the thoughts and intents of
our hearts were only evil continually. And he knew it. And he knew our
thoughts. He knew what we were thinking
while we dwelt there with him. Occasionally, you know, we hear
of a member of the human race that commits an act that's so
evil that we feel sick to our stomach. An act that's so vulgar
and so evil that we think, how could one of us do something
that vulgar and that evil to another one of us? Well, imagine
if that one of us was your neighbor. Your next door neighbor. Or if
it was your son or daughter. Christ was with us. He became
a man and He came with us. And He came to His family who
were in our flesh, vulgar and evil and committing every kind
of lewd act. And He endured such a contradiction
of sinners against Himself. He constantly, while He dwelt
in the midst of us, He had the sense of men's guilt, and their
degradation, and their misery, and their base ingratitude, and
their hatred toward God, and their hatred toward one another,
always bowing down hard upon His pure human soul with unspeakable
sorrow and shame constantly. This is my Son. This is my brother. This is mine, right here, that's
doing this horrible, evil thing. That's what he had to deal with
when he walked this earth. But to our Lord Jesus, the most
painful thing of all, while being the Holy One of God, was to be
falsely accused by men. To be treated as if he was the
chief of sinners. Have you ever been accused falsely
You know, you're trying to do something for your brother, for
your sister, somebody that's needy, and you're accused of
doing just the opposite. You're trying to do something
good for them. You mean it for their good. Your heart is sincere
toward God and toward them. And yet, you're accused of something
just the opposite. It feels horrible. It feels horrible
to be treated like a hypocrite. It feels horrible to be treated
as a criminal when you meant it for good. That's a terrible,
terrible feeling. Well, Christ was accused of being
a sinner. He was accused of being a traitor.
He was accused of every manner of evil. You know, when He died,
when He went to the cross and laid down His life, when He finished
laying down His life, quite possibly there was not a single person
on this earth that believed He was who He said He was. His disciples
all doubted him. After that, they said, remember
on the road to Emmaus, they were saying, we thought this was going
to be the Messiah. Then there was the shame he suffered.
The shame he suffered. Shame hurts worse than bodily
pain. Shame hurts worse than bodily
pain. Shame was thrust upon Christ in every form throughout his
life. Every way, shame. From His being
laid in a manger in a cow staple, to Him being the carpenter's
son, to Him being uneducated, to all of the shame. But the worst of all was the
curse of the cross. The Scripture says, Christ who
is the author and finisher of faith, for the joy that was set
before Him, He endured the cross, despising the shame. despising
the shame. Have we ever despised sin? Do
you think we've ever despised the shame of sin? Not hardly. Not like what our Savior... He
despised it. He despised the shame of sin. Now you add to all of this the
constant tempting of the devil. Constantly. We read of him tempting
him in the wilderness. We read of him tempting him in
the garden of Gethsemane. But the devil was constantly
trying to tempt him. You and me have a limit. There's
only so much that we can take and we can handle. And the evil
that we see and the sights and the words and all the things
around us, they turn our stomach or they turn us to join in with
it. One of the two. But not only
in that wilderness, not only in Gethsemane, but through every
step he took, the devil was constantly bombarding Christ with evil. Constantly. Bringing it up before
him. Constantly. He moved wicked religious
men. Look at Luke 11. Don't you see
this? Luke 11. He moved religious wicked men
to use every means imaginable to attempt to cause Christ to
lose his temper. Satan did that. The wiles of
the devil. Look at Luke 11. Luke 11. Verse 53. And as he said these
things unto them, Christ, he was preaching the truth to them,
and the scribes and the Pharisees began to urge him vehemently
and to provoke him to speak of many things. You start preaching
the gospel to somebody and all of a sudden, man, they start
just urging you and speaking with anger and they're talking
about things that don't even matter. Things that are just
coming out of left field where you say, what in the world is
this about? And it says, this is what they
were doing, 54. They were laying wait for him and seeking to catch
something out of his mouth that they might accuse him. If they
could accuse him of something, they could justify themselves
before everybody for not believing him. I've experienced just a
little taste of this. A little taste of this. I had
a man one time tell me, just the most vehement, most anger,
it was just a horrible tone this man took. And he said, you know
all those pastors that you love, and he named them. And he said,
they mean absolutely nothing to me. Just vehemently urging and trying
to provoke me to say something. To accuse me. By God's grace
I held my tongue. But I sinned in my heart. I can
tell you that. I sinned in my heart. But Christ
didn't. Christ didn't. When they came
to him like that, he didn't give in to Satan's wiles. And then
again, Not only did he use Christ's enemies, he used his dear disciple. He used Peter. Remember Peter
heard that the Lord was trying to comfort his disciples and
provide for them and love them up until the end and he was telling
them, I'm going to this cross and I'm going to be betrayed
and I'm going to suffer now. You fixing to see something?
And Peter said, No, no, Lord, don't go to Jerusalem. They'll
crucify you there. Don't go there. I don't want
you going to the cross and suffering. Now his disciple just didn't
want to see his master suffer. But Christ knew that was the
wiles of the devil. He knew who it was behind that
that was provoking Peter to say this. And Peter in his mind thought
what he was saying was the right thing. But Christ turned to him
and he said, Get behind me Satan. He knew who it was. He knew who
was doing this. And then look back at our text
in Isaiah 53. Threw it off. Even those elect children that
He came to save, while they were lost in their sin, verse 3 says,
we hid, as it were, our faces from Him. He was despised and
we esteemed Him not. Even those who did believe, when
He was despised and hung on that tree, took off, left Him, left
Him there. He was mocked about the humbleness
of his birth. The educated scribes and Pharisees
reproached him as the carpenter's son who had never learned. The
wealthy Pharisees derided him. He was called mad. He was called
a gluttonous man. He was called a wine-bibber.
He was standing there. He was standing there when he
heard the crowd saying, we want a murderer released to us. We want a criminal released to
us and crucify this one. He was standing there when they
said that. When the whole crowds were chanting that around the
city. The Roman soldiers treated him like savages, he was crucified
between thieves, and he was regarded as the worst of the thieves.
Even when he hung on that cross, he was mocked. Psalm 22. Let's look there. Psalm 22. This
is what he said. Psalm 22. Look at verse 6. And hold your
place in Psalm 22. I'm going to come back here.
But look here. Psalm 22 and verse 6. He said, I am a worm and no man,
a reproach of men, and despise to the people. All they that
see me laugh me to scorn. They shoot out the lip, they
shake the head, they say he trusted on the Lord that he deliver him.
Let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him. Brethren, when
you think of this, you think of all these ways he was a man
of sorrows and acquainted with grief. As you think about these
things, you think about the constant, never-ending anguish of mind
that this had to have caused on our Savior. 24 hours a day. 24 hours a day. You know the
stress of the presidency. You watch them go in the White
House and they're all young looking and hairs all bright, whatever
color it is, and they come out of there and they look like they've
been put through the wringer and their hair is white when
they come out of there. And that's just a few short years just being
the president. Well brethren, he was only around
30 years old and you know what they said to him at one time?
They said, you're not yet 50 years old. You ever wonder why
they said that? Why did they say you're not yet
50? He wasn't but around 30. All of this had to have taken
some toll on His earthly body. It takes its toll on ours. And if you think, well, our Savior,
He was pure and holy, it couldn't have had an effect on His fleshly
body. Brethren, He sweat blood. His body sweat blood. When he
said the flesh is weak, he was talking about the flesh he was
inhabiting. He experienced the weakness of
the flesh. He sweat blood. That doesn't distract from the
fact he's all powerful holy God in that flesh. It just declares
the truth that the flesh is weak. It is. But then this brings us
to something that's worse than anything he suffered. anything
he suffered. Above all these other ways that
he was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, the worst of it was
that he bore the sorrows and griefs of his people. Look at
verse 4. It says, look at Isaiah 53 and
look at verse 3. It says he's a man of sorrows
and acquainted with grief. And look at verse 4. Surely he
hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. our griefs and carried
our sorrows. Now we have a fulfillment of
this in Matthew and in the Gospels. When he cast out devils and healed
all manner of sickness. In Matthew's Gospel, when Christ
bore the griefs away, when he bore those griefs away, it meant
only that he removed bodily sickness. That's what it meant. By his
miraculous power. That's what it meant. And then
in the same place when Christ carried our sorrows, it meant
He carried the pain and the anguish of mine from off those sufferers
when He took away those bodily sicknesses. He took their sorrow
off of them because He healed them. But when Christ, as He
fulfilled that in a temporal way, in a physical way, He bore
sorrows and He bore afflictions in His own mind in his own mind
because he knew he faced a far greater eternal spiritual fulfillment
of that prophecy of which Isaiah speaks here. The whole time,
when he says, he hath borne our griefs, in the context, Isaiah
goes further to say Christ bore the disease of the soul. He bore
the sin of his people. Look at verse 5, our transgressions. our iniquities. That's what he
bore, our transgressions, our iniquities. Look at verse 6.
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,
of his elect people. The Apostle Peter quotes from
verses 3 and 5, and he says, who his own self bear our sins
in his own body on the tree. The Apostle Paul says, he hath
made him to be sin for us, who know no sin. Now when Isaiah
says Christ carried our sorrows, he goes further than physical.
He goes further than temporal. He's talking about the inner
pain, the anguish of bearing the stroke of bearing those sins
and of bearing the stroke of divine justice against those
iniquities. Look here again in verse 5. It
says, he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised
for our iniquities. You see, He bore our iniquities. They were laid on Him in our
transgressions. And He was wounded for our transgressions and bruised
for our iniquities. You think on this, brethren,
each time, each time that Christ healed somebody of bodily sickness,
each time, It had to heighten that anguish in his own mind
because he was reminded that he'd have to go to the cross
to put away the root cause, the sin of his people, which causes
bodily sickness. He would have to go to the cross
to do that. And all along the way, he knew the hour was approaching
the whole time. In Luke 12.50 he said, I have
a baptism to be baptized with and how am I straight until it
be accomplished? Christ was baptized. He was immersed
in shame. He was immersed in divine judgment. He was immersed when He treadeth
the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. He
was immersed in the judgment of God. And He said, How am I
straight until it be accomplished? These words express the trouble.
They express the distress that Christ was in when He apprehended
bearing our shame and suffering, when He thought about it. You
know, it's like somebody, like an enemy comes upon you. and
you're surrounded. Say you walk in the street coming
home or something and all of a sudden a gang comes up and
they surround you and they besiege you and you see this evil all
about you and this pain you're about to suffer. It's that anguish
of that. Or it's like a woman who's about
to be in travail with a child and she's thinking about it and
she just wants to get it over with. She just wants to see it
accomplished and see it done. and it's causing anguish of her
mind and her soul. And then those words also signify
that He desired to have it accomplished. He wanted to glorify His Father. He wanted to put the sin away
of His people. He wanted to make His people
righteous. He wanted to have God declared to be just. He wanted
God to be declared to be the justifier. He wanted to bring
in that everlasting righteousness. He wanted to see His people made
one through the Spirit being washed by His blood in their
conscience. He wanted that to be accomplished. Above everything
else, when he groaned at Lazarus' tomb, when he groaned there,
he knew it was groaning because he knew what a mighty price he
would pay to raise Lazarus from that grave. It cost him to work
those miracles. It cost him. As to our approach,
he resisted and he strove against sin all the more. against sin
and Satan's evil temptations trying to turn him from his work,
against the weakness and doubting of his own disciples who tried
to turn him from his work, and most of all Christ resisted as
he experienced the weakness of his own flesh as his soul trouble
increased. I want you to listen to this.
Have you ever considered the progression of soul trouble that
Christ experienced? When he was approaching that
great battle in the Garden of Gethsemane, He said, Now is my
soul troubled. What shall I say? Father, save
me from this hour, but for this cause came I unto this hour.
And then in the garden, Matthew 26, 37 says, He took with him
Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be sorrowful and
very heavy. Then saith he unto them, My soul
is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death. Tear ye here and
watch with me. And a little later it says, being
in an agony, being in an agony, he prayed more earnestly and
his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to
the ground. That when he told his disciples,
watch and pray that you enter not into temptation. The spirit
indeed is willing but the flesh is weak. He knew what he was
talking about. That's what he was experiencing.
His flesh was ready. He was saying, not my will but
thy will be done, Father. But his capillaries was busting.
His flesh was sweating blood. He was striving against sin so
much. I think the death that he was
praying for to be delivered from was the death of dying in that
garden before he could even get to the cross. I don't think it
was the cross. I think it was the death of just
perishing right there. His spirit was willing, but his
flesh was weak. Because our flesh is weak. The
flesh is weak. It's dust. That's what it is.
But you know what our all-powerful Savior humbled Himself to teach
us? By humbling Himself, this one
whose God could... He could at any moment summons
twelve legions of angels, He said. But this one whose God,
all-powerful, humbled Himself to teach you and me, His weak
disciples, to look out of ourselves to Him like He looked out of
Himself to the Father. That's what He taught us. who
in the days of his flesh, when he offered up prayers and supplication
with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save
him from death, he was heard in that he feared. An angel appeared unto him strengthening
him. and having perfect obedience,
having perfected it, even unto the death of the cross, He became
the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey Him.
And what does He tell us to do? He says, now, you don't have
any strength in yourself. He says, without Me you can do
nothing. He says, so when you come into temptation and trial
and suffering, whatever it is, He says, look away from that,
turn away from that, and look out of yourself and look to Me.
That's what He says. That's what He did in the garden.
Because He's our righteousness. He's our justification. He's
our sanctification. He's our redemption. He's our
strength. He's our power. He's the shield
and defender. He's the rock. He's the refuge.
He's the one who's going to save us from ourselves and from all
our enemies, brethren. He is. The first Adam was proven
unfaithful in a garden. The last Adam was proven faithful
in a garden. And how many more powers and
principalities was Christ contending with than Adam was contending
with? And Scripture says, And having
spoiled principalities and powers, He made a show of them openly,
triumphing over them in it. That's what He did. How so? How
did He triumph over His enemies? He must have wielded a sword
and power and great power and force and overcome them. Nope.
He laid everything down to the Father. set his face like a flint
and trusted his father and said, he'll justify me. And what does
he tell us to do? Don't wield the sword, submit
yourself to him, he'll save you. He'll do the saving. And then
came the cross itself, brethren. And I don't know what agonies
he suffered. Who knows what he suffered there in those hours
on that cross? And we foolish to even imagine
to pry into it. But look at verse 5. It just
tells us this. He was wounded for our transgression. Wounded means to pierce through,
to perforate, to break, to violate the honor of. And the margin
says, to torment. This was through and through,
brethren. It wasn't just in his body. This
was in his very anguish of mind and spirit. Verse 5 says, he
was bruised for our iniquities. Bruised means to beat and crush
like wheat is ground by a stone or in a mortar. This flower right
here that makes this bread, when we're down in North Carolina, there's a mill
down there and they take this wheat corn and they put it and
there's a big old stone right there. Big old stone. This is
an old timey mill. There's a big stone there and
there's a great big water wheel outside and it's coming down,
streams coming down from a big reservoir there and it turns
that wheel and it turns that stone and all of that corn that
Whatever they're making the flour of, it goes into that stone and
it just grinds it and crushes it to powder. That's how you
make bread. That's why Christ took the bread
and said, this bread is a picture of me. It's a picture of me.
Because he was bruised for our iniquities. Verse 5 says, the
chastisement of our peace was upon him. Right here, chastisement
doesn't mean fatherly correction. It means an act of vindicative
justice in wrath, taking vengeance on our sins, on our surety, whereby
divine wrath is appeased and justice is satisfied and peace
is made. And while Christ suffered that,
He cried out, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so far from helping
me and from the words of my roaring? And he justified God for doing
so. He said, But thou art holy, O
thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel. God was forsaken the
substitute of His people justly because He laid on Him the iniquity
of His people. That's all that I'm saying. That's
all my brethren are saying is when God poured out wrath on
the Savior, He did it justly. He laid on Him the iniquity of
His people. Righteousness is what He came
to declare and He did everything righteously. God forsook our
substitute that He might declare God is just. And God forsook
our substitute that God Himself might do the justifying. That's
what was taking place there. That's why Christ, after crying
out, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? He said, but
you're holy. That's why you've forsaken me.
You're holy. And why Christ bore all of this,
two very different things were taking place. Two very different
things were taking place. It was the same for Christ as
He walked this earth and as He bore the griefs and carried the
sorrows of the multitudes He healed. While He was doing that,
walking this earth and healing people and saving people. And
it was burdening Him down and it was causing His flesh to fail
and it was causing Him to be aged from the anguish and the
pain and the sorrow that He was entering into for His people.
While He was doing all that, just like when He was hanging
on that cross and the iniquity of His people was laid on Him.
And it altered him. It changed him. His visage was
marred more than any man. More than any man in history.
And it says, while that was going on, verse 4, we did esteem him
stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. These words, stricken,
smitten, and afflicted, means we esteemed him under divine
judgment from God for his own sin. I can just picture actually
meeting him on the street. Men walking along, they meet
him on the street, all this fame's going out about him healing people.
And as he meets people on the street, they would turn and go
the other way from him and whisper to their kids and say, you see
what that man looks like? He looks like that because God's
judged him. One translation reads, we esteemed
him to be a leper. We esteemed him to be a leper. But each word there, and then
on the cross they did the same thing. He said, I'm a worm. I'm
a worm. I'm a worm. I don't know what
all that entails. I don't know. I do not know.
I believe it's more than we enter into for sure. But look at this,
each word in verse 4 corresponds with each word in verse 5. Each
word in verse 4 corresponds with each word in verse 5. And it
declares it was not for his own sins, but for the sins of his
people. Verse 4 says, we did esteem him stricken of God. Verse
5 says, but he was wounded for our transgressions. Verse 4 says,
we esteemed him smitten of God. Verse 5 says, but he was bruised
for our iniquities. Verse 4 says, We esteemed him
afflicted of God. Verse 5 says, But the chastisement
of our peace was upon him. And yet while that was the esteem
of men, while that was what men were saying about him, this is
what was happening in the heart of Christ. Look back at Psalm
22. This was what was happening in Christ's own heart. The heart of him who is faithful
and true. Verse 9. But thou art he that
took me out of the womb. Thou didst make me hope when
I was upon my mother's breast. I was cast upon thee from the
womb. Thou art my God from my mother's belly. Be not far from
me, for trouble is near, for there's none to help. Look at
verse 14. I'm poured out like water, all my bones are out of
joint, my heart is like wax, it's melted in the midst of my
bowels, my strength is dried up like a potsherd, my tongue
cleaveth to my jaws, and thou hast brought me into the dust
of death. For dogs have come past me, the
assembly of the wicked have enclosed me, they pierced my hands and
my feet, I may tell all my bones, they look and stare upon me,
they part my garments among them, and cast lights upon my vesture,
but be not thou. Far from me, O Lord, O my strength,
haste Thee to help me and deliver my soul from the sword, my darling,
from the power of the dog. Save me from the lion's mouth,
for Thou hast heard me from the horns of the unicorns. And again,
when he offered up prayers and supplications, he was heard because
he feared God. That's just so amazing to me,
brethren, that while our Lord hung there forsaken of God, forsaken
of His brethren, while He hung there bearing the iniquity of
His people, while He hung there being wounded and smitten and
stricken of God for our iniquities, for our transgressions, while
He endured that, at the same time, He was faithful and true
in His heart to God. You see, I don't know how to
word it, I don't know how to say it, I just keep trying to
say it, but there's something in the fulfillment of the law,
that love that is the fulfillment of the law, it has to do with
bearing the sins of your brethren, for God and for your brethren,
and remaining faithful at the same time. Never turning away,
but remaining faithful. And there's only one who's done
that to the satisfaction of Holy God, and that's the Lord Jesus
Christ. That's why He is the end of the
law for righteousness to us. That's why Scripture says He
is the author and finisher of our faith. Our faith is so feeble,
our faith is so insignificant we ought not even talk about
it. Our faith is laying hold of a mighty faith, though. It's
laying hold of one who's faithful, faithful, faithful, who loved
me and gave himself for me. The life I now live, I don't
live it by my faithfulness. I live it by the faith of the
Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. See what I'm
saying? It's all of Him. All of Him.
And so he cried, it's finished. The work's finished. And three
days later, God said, yes, it is finished. And He proved it
by bringing him out of that grave. because the work was finished.
Look at verse 5. With his stripes we are healed. We are healed. We are healed. Hebrews 9.26 says, Now once in
the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the
sacrifice of himself. That's what he did. Peter said,
Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree that
we being dead to sins. should live unto righteousness
by whose, that righteousness is a person, by whose stripes
you were healed. You were healed. Brethren, we're
dead to sin. We're dead to sin. We're dead
to it. God says you're dead to it. God
says you're dead. You're dead. And now you're alive
with God in Christ and you live unto righteousness. You live
unto Christ. Christ has entered into heaven itself to appear
in the presence of God for us. And to them that look for Him,
He's going to appear the second time without sin unto salvation. He came the first time to take
our sin, to put away that sin, and He's done that. When He comes
back the second time, He's coming in great glory, in great victory,
in great reigning power, and He's coming without sin, because
He's already put the sin away. He's already put it away. Brethren,
we're sinners. We haven't resisted. We haven't
strove against sin and to blood. Christ spent His whole life resisting. His whole life striving against
sin. And Christ strove till He sweat great drops of blood. And
now by the blood of His cross, Christ has fulfilled the law.
He's put away sin. He's conquered death for us.
He's quickened to life and given faith in Christ. We were sheep
going astray. Now you're returning to the shepherd
and bishop of your souls. So now, brethren, live unto Him
who is our righteousness, by whose stripes you're healed.
Draw near to Him for help. He knows what you're feeling.
He knows what you feel. He knows it better than I do.
He knows it better than you do. Be assured that He'll never let
us go. And now, Come to this table and
do this in remembrance of Him. Remembrance of Him. He said,
as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you do show
the Lord's death till He come. Amen. Rob, will you pass that to me?