Now, I want you to take your
Bibles and turn with me to Isaiah 52. Our subject this morning is one
that demands our utmost attention and reverence. Our subject is the suffering
of Christ in the place of His people. There is a very horrible effect
that sin has had upon men. God's hatred of sin is beyond
anything we can imagine. He's holy. Absolutely holy. And the wages that are due to
our sin are indescribable. They're death,
but that eternal death is described as a worm that does not die. It's a death that knows no death. It's a never-ending eternal death. Now, if we're going to see the
horrible effect that sin has had upon men, If we're going
to see how God hates sin, if we're going to see the wages
that are due us for our sin, they are exhibited, these things
are exhibited nowhere else like they are as they are in the soul
suffering and bodily suffering of our Lord Jesus Christ. If
you try to go to the law to see your sin, you will be cast down
and you won't see any life there. If you try to look at yourself
to see your sin, you won't see it. You won't see it. You might be uneasy and convicted
about something you've done or what have you, but to really
see sin, we have to get to Christ at the cross and see what sin
does, what it does. Our text is going to be here
in Isaiah 52 and 53. I don't intend to go through
all these verses. I just want to point out a few
things to you from these two chapters. Now, this is concerning
the Lord Jesus Christ. He is God the Son, the Son of
God, the second person in the Trinity. And He is set forth
here in His mediatorial work as the substitute of his people,
as the sinner's substitute. And he set forth here as making
atonement for sin. To make atonement means at-one-ment. It means to whatever Christ did
here, he accomplished. He didn't just do something to
make it possible. He made his people at one with
God. That's what he did. And we see
here that he did this by the sacrifice of himself. Now, I
told you this is in the future tense, but it's done. It's done now. He's come. This
is all done now. Let's begin here in verse 13.
Behold, my servant shall deal prudently, wisely. He shall be exalted and extolled
and be very high. Now when you think of that, the
first thing that probably comes into your mind is Him coming
in great pomp and great splendor and being seen very highly when
He comes. Well, in order to redeem and
to save His people, the Son of God had to become a man. And He couldn't just be a man
born like every other man is born because every other man
that's conceived You and me and everybody sitting here, when
you were conceived in your mother's womb, that very seed from which
you were conceived made you a sinner. You were conceived in sin and
I was conceived in sin. That's why we come forth from
our mother's womb speaking lies as soon as we be born. What do
you think makes a child cry? What do you think makes children
know wrong from right without having to be taught it. They
know it. You don't have to teach a child
wrong. That child just knows it. Well,
he had to become a man born of a virgin because he's born of
the Spirit of God. He's holy. There's no sin. He
wasn't conceived in sin. He was that holy thing formed
in the womb of a virgin. And he came forth holy. perfect, spotless, the perfect,
spotless Lamb of God who came forth and He was put up, as it
were, for 30 years and did no sin, had no thought of sin, never
sinful thought entered into His mind or His heart. He did only
that which was right in the sight of God. And around 30 years old,
he entered into his public ministry and he ministered for three some
odd years. And the whole time he did, he
only did that which was right. He only did that which was good.
He only did that which was just. He's both God and man. He took
upon him the form of a servant. That's why he came. He came as
the form of a servant. That's why God says here, behold
my servant. Behold my servant. Now look at
verse 14. Notice how it begins with, as
many were, and then verse 15 says, so shall he. There's a
link here to these. As verse 14 is, so shall verse
15 be, in just the antithesis of verse
14, in just the opposite of verse 14, as many as were astonied
at thee. And he tells us somewhat why
his visage, his natural appearance, was so marred more than any man. And his form, the actual form
of his body, the size of his body, was marred more than the
sons of men. Now, so shall he sprinkle many
nations. This is how he is going to cleanse
his children. The kings shall shut their mouths
at him, for that which had not been told them shall they see,
and that which they had not heard shall they consider. As astonished as many were at
Christ, as astonished as many were at Christ, as marred as
his appearance, as marred as his body was disfigured, as deeply
and profoundly as our Savior suffered in direct proportion
to his depth of suffering, so is he highly exalted. He went as low as you can get. And He's now exalted as high
as you can get. Now that's so. If God gives us eyes to see it
this morning, He gives us hearts to believe, we see in our Savior's
suffering both the utter loathsome thing that our sin is, and at the same time we behold
the fullest pardon of those for whom He died. How can you see
those two things in one place? Well that's what we're going
to see here. That's where we see. We see the depths of sin
and we see the height of holiness and righteousness and judgment
and justice and goodness all in one place. And it's at Christ
on the cross. Now because He is both God and
man, His suffering unto death His suffering and righteous obedience
to His Father unto death accomplished the redemption of His people.
He was a man so He could die. He was a man so He could suffer.
He was a man so He could obey. Because a man had... We're men. We're men and women. We're flesh
and blood. He came in flesh and blood so
that He could suffer, obey, and die. That's why He came into
this earth. That's why Christ Jesus was born
at Bethlehem, was to suffer, obey God, and die. But because
He is God, everything, all His obedience, all His suffering,
and His death had eternal, infinite worth. That means he infinitely
satisfied justice and brought in a righteousness for his people
that shall never diminish in the least. It's everlasting,
eternal righteousness. Now this is what we have to have
before we go any further. We are sinners. You are and I
am. We are sinners. We have got to
be made perfect to be accepted of God. Now, if we're conceived
in sin in our mother's womb, and we are, if we're conceived
in sin in our mother's womb, and we come forth soon as we
be born speaking lies, we've broken God's law before we ever
got started. In fact, we broke it in Adam,
the first representative. That's why that sinful nature
was passed on to us in natural generation. But we've got to
be made perfectly righteous. Now salvation means somebody
else does it. Salvation means somebody else
does the saving. Christ is that one who does the
saving of his people. Now, most of the problems with
sinners is we don't know our sin. We don't know what our sin
is. Let's look at what Christ endured
and see sin in our Savior's suffering. We're just going to have two
divisions really. We're going to see sin in his suffering in
three ways. We're going to see it in three
ways under this one heading. And then we're going to see what
he accomplished by that suffering. All right, now to understand
some degree of the depth of our iniquities, we must see in some
degree the depths of Christ's suffering, because Christ suffered
for sin. That's why he suffered. All right,
first of all, we see the sinful enmity. That enmity means hatred. It means just just utter hatred. We see the sinful enmity of natural
man's heart, the heart that we're born with into this world. We
see the sinful enmity of man's heart against God when we look
at how Christ was despised and we looked at how Christ was tortured
and how punishment and torture was inflicted upon Christ Jesus
at the hands of men, at the hands of men. And don't for a moment
think, well, that was way back there over 2,000 years ago. I
didn't have anything to do with that. If you aren't bowed to Christ
and believing on Him, you're doing it to Him every single
day. Every single day. Crucifying
Him anew every day. Alright, let's look at the wickedness
here. Verse 14 says, His visage was
marred, so marred, more than any man, and His form more than
the sons of men. Look down at verse 3. 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. Now the Lord Jesus Christ was
a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief all the days that
he was on this earth. He was born in a poor place. He was not born into a money. He was born into poverty
and he came forth that way because he chose how he would come forward.
He came forth that way. on purpose, not to have any form
or comeliness about him that would make men desire him. Not
that there was anything wrong with him in his body. He was
fairer than the children of men. He was made of God. There was no sin in him, no sin
at all, so that there was no blemish in him at all. There
was nothing about him that was uncomely at all. But through
the eyes of man, There was nothing about him that made us desire
him. There was nothing through the
eyes of sinful men that made men desire him whatsoever. Now
he came forth, and all those days he walked this earth, he
was despised, and he was rejected of men. The first time that he
opened up the scriptures in a synagogue, he opened up the scriptures and
he read, and the first message he read was that there were,
he said there were many widows in Sarepta, but the Lord only
went to one. He said, there was many lepers
and the Lord healed one. And when he said that, he closed
the book and he said, today this scripture is fulfilled in your
ears. And they wanted to take him up to the top of a hill and
throw him off the cliff right then. Because the message he
preached in his opening address to this world was, I didn't come
to save everybody. I came to save whom I will."
It's His discretion to do that. He owes us nothing. We've sinned
against God and He owes us nothing. He came to save whom He will.
He came to save the widows of His choosing and the lepers of
His choosing. He came to save those who are
without husband and left destitute, without any way to make a living,
without any way to provide for themselves, shut up in their
homes, with the lights darkened and dimmed and all the house
creaking and everything about them frightful and fearful and
scaring them so that they rise up in the night time afraid of
evil and they lie down with evil on their hearts and constantly
when they move through the house they're shaken by their members
and their eyes are dimmed and they can't see and they can't
do anything to provide for themselves. That's a picture of what a widow
is. That's what you and I are in our sin. He came forth to
save those who are lepers, those that have a loathsome disease
in our body called sin that causes us to be full of bruises and
wounds and putrefying sores from head to foot that haven't been
bound up or mollified with ointment. He came to save us from that,
and that's what we are. We get all dressed up, put our
fig leaves on, and it doesn't look like that's what we look
like. But that's how we look like in the sight of God. That's
exactly what we look like in His sight. And all the days that
He walked this earth, He was despised and rejected. And all
the days that you and I came forth, all these many years later,
and all the years that we were in our rebellion, we despised
Him and rejected Him too. You who believe on Him now, we
despised and rejected Him. Well, we see this enmity most
in the cruel torture that man inflicted upon him. This scripture
is dealing primarily, not with his life as he walked this earth,
but what happened to him in the time leading up to the cross
and on the cross. That's what this scripture is
dealing with. Let's look at Matthew 27. Hold your place there. Isaiah 53, we'll come back. Let's go to Matthew Now, what
we're looking at here is what you are and what I am if God
leaves us to ourselves. This is what we are. This is
the enmity that is in my heart and your heart if God left us
to ourselves. This is the carnal, natural heart. It says here, verse 27, then
the soldiers, Matthew 27, 27. Matthew 27, 27. Then the soldiers
of the governor took Jesus unto the common hall and gathered
unto him the whole band of soldiers. And this is some point, somewhere
in here, Pilate, Pilate scourged him to try to gain the sympathy
of the Jews who wanted to kill him. He scourged him. Now, scourging
under Jewish law was you couldn't give more than 40, you couldn't
give 40 stripes. You couldn't give that many.
You had to save one. 39 was the limit. But Roman law
didn't have such a limit. And he was scourged by the hands
of Romans. And that scourging involved taking
a whip with chunks of bone all woven into the whip and whipping
them. whipping him. And this they did
to him first. They did this to him first. All
over. I'm quite sure that by this his
visage was marred and his bodily form was marred by that, by the
infliction that was put upon him by man's hand. And this is
the prince of life, the scripture says. This is God manifest in
the flesh. This is the Messiah come. This is Christ, the bread of
life, the manna come down from heaven for the salvation of sinners. And this is what we did to him.
And then after that, it says they took him, the whole band
of soldiers, verse 28, and they stripped him. and put on him
a scarlet robe. And when they had plaited a crown
of thorns, they put it upon his head, and a reed in his right
hand, and they bowed the knee before him, and mocked him, saying,
Hail, King of the Jews." They make him out to be a mock king
here, with a crown of thorns and a reed in his hand, and they
mock him. And they spit upon him. They
spit upon him. You know where all this is coming
from? All of this is outward acts of sin, but all of this
is the heart, the natural heart of man towards God Almighty.
That's what this is. These outward actings are just
the outward fruits of what the heart is. This is the heart.
This is the heart of man. Verse 31, and after that they
had mocked him, they took the robe off from him and put his
own raiment on him and led him away to crucify him. And when
they were come into a place called Golgotha, that is to say a place
of the skull, this was a place out on a hill where they crucified
criminals or killed criminals. Verse 34, when they brought him
to that place, they gave him vinegar to drink mingled with
gall. And when he had tasted thereof,
he would not drink. And then they crucified him.
They crucified him. They took nails and they drove
nails through his hands and through his feet. And they then took
the big piece of lumber that he was nailed to, the big tree
he was nailed to, and they raised it up and they dropped it down
into a hole in the ground. And he just hung there on that
hole in the ground. to drown in the fluid of his
flesh and what have you there. That was their purpose. That's
not how he died. He was in control of everything
going on here. He's willingly suffering this. He's willingly
doing it. But you see the sin that we are
in our heart. And then they parted his garments,
casting lots. that it might be fulfilled which
was spoken by the prophet. They parted my garments among
them, and upon my vesture did they cast lots." They didn't
know that's why they were doing it, but they did it. They fulfilled
scriptures. In fact, everything that was
done here was a fulfillment of the scriptures. Everything that
was done here was by wicked hands, but it was all according to the
will and purpose of God. And then they, sitting down,
they watched him there. Does that remind you of something
else? You remember Job? Job's friends came to him and
they just sat down and watched him. Sat there and just looked
at him. Job's eat up with leprosy. They just sat there and watched
him. And set up over his head his accusation written, This
is Jesus, the King of the Jews. Then were there two thieves crucified
with him, one on the right hand and another on the left. And
they that passed by reviled him. They reviled him. Those two that
were sitting there weren't getting much attention. All the attention
was on this one in the middle. They reviled him, wagging their
heads and saying, Thou that destroyest the temple and buildest it in
three days, save thyself. And when He said, I will destroy
this temple and you destroy this temple, I'll raise it again in
three days, He was talking about His own body. He was talking
about what He was fulfilling right here. They thought He was
talking about an earthly temple. They said, if thou be the Son
of God, come down from the cross. Can you imagine? These folks
know now that He is the Son of God. They know now He is the
Son of God. Can you imagine saying that to
God? If thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross." Likewise,
also the chief priests mocking him with the scribes and elders
said, he saved others, himself he cannot save. And that's the
truth. That is the truth. They didn't
mean it to be the truth, but that is the truth. He is saving
others by what he's doing. by bearing their sin in His own
body on that tree. And because He is saving others,
He cannot save Himself. That's why He's willingly bearing
what He's bearing. Alright, they said, if He be
the King of Israel, let Him now come down from the cross and
we will believe Him. He trusted in God, let Him deliver
Him now, if He'll have Him. For He said, I am the Son of
God. Verse 44, the thieves also which were crucified with him
cast the same in his teeth. Now if it wasn't bad enough to
see the enmity of the natural heart in men who are standing
on the ground free to walk around and do whatever, now we see it
in men who are sitting there about to die themselves hanging
up on a cross beside him and they're doing the same thing
to him. Now this is the black, desperate condition of the human
heart as we're born into this world. This is what we did to
God. This is what we did to God. Now, Christ suffered every bit
of this willingly. He said, I gave my back to the
spiders and my cheek to those who plucked off the hair. All
right, so we see first of all, now let me give you a scripture.
Look at Romans 8. Let me give you a scripture just
to show you another place in the scripture. This is what the
case is with a man. Romans 8. Look at verse 7. The carnal mind is enmity against
God. Do you see that? The carnal mind
is enmity against God. It's not subject to the law of
God, neither indeed can be. That means not subject to not
one word God says. Not much less the Ten Commandments,
not subject to those, but certainly not subject to any word God says. Can't subject ourselves to God
and bow down. Proof of it is shown right here
in what we just saw, what our Savior endured. Because He said,
I'm God, come to save my people from their sin. And this is what
man did to it. All right, now, secondly, let's
go back to our text now. Now we see the horrors of sin
and what our Savior suffered in His own body. What He suffered in His own body.
This is a different heading. This is still suffering Savior,
but we're looking at the second thing here that reveals what
sin, how horrendous sin is. Alright, look at verse 4. It
says, He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Now that word griefs and sorrows
there means sicknesses, it means infirmities, it means Matthew says this scripture is
fulfilled when he came to Peter's house and he laid his hands on
Peter's mother-in-law and he healed her of a fever that she
had. And then they brought unto him many that were sick and lame
and he healed them and cast out devils out of them. That it might
be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet saying
himself, this is how Matthew works, himself took our infirmities
and bear our sicknesses. You remember Thursday night we
saw the Lord heal that man that was paralyzed. And He said, I've
done this that you may know that the Son of God has power on earth
to forgive sin. And he said they thought he blasphemed
because they said only God can forgive sin. And he said, but
that you may know that I have power on earth to forgive sin.
He said to that paralyzed man, take up your bed and walk. And
he did. He arose at his command and walked. the Lord did take away sickness,
and He did take away disease, and He did take away infirmities,
and He did cast out devils while He was here. But all of that
was to show what He was doing right here that Isaiah is speaking
of. Isaiah is talking about not those
miracles that He performed. Isaiah is talking about what
He bore on the cross. Isaiah is talking about Him taking
the sin of His people upon himself. That's what causes the disease.
That's what causes the infirmities and the sicknesses and the things
we have is the sin itself. And he took, it's not disease
that Christ put away by his atonement. That's not what he put away.
What he put away by his atonement for his people is the sin that
causes those infirmities and diseases and sickness and fever
and so on. He put that sin away. Now understand
we're born, the believers born anew by the Spirit of God so
that He's created in righteousness and true holiness within. Now
the body of death is still this body of death. We still have
sin in our members. That's all we are in our flesh
is sin. So we still get sick and we still die in this flesh. But that new man created in righteousness
goes to be with the Lord immediately when we die. It's perfect. Nothing
else is going to be done to it. It's righteous and holy to be
accepted of God, the inward man. And because he thoroughly purged
his people of our sins, bearing our sin in His own body on the
tree, He has the power to speak and our bodies be raised and
recreated in a glorified fashion like unto His body. Our foul
body changed like unto His body. And in that new creation, there
is no sin, there is no sickness, there is no sorrow, there are
no griefs, it's put away. And all of this was done by Him
bearing the sin of His people and His own body on the tree. Now, be sure you get this, 2
Corinthians 5.21 tells us, He hath made Him sin for us. who knew no sin. Christ knew
no sin. He did no sin. He had no sin
in Him. He was the spotless Lamb of God. He knew no sin. But He made Him
sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God. There's
no sin in righteousness. There's no sickness in righteousness. So he bore this. Peter said,
who his own self bear our sins in his own body on the tree. That's what Isaiah is dealing
with here. This is what Isaiah is dealing with. Surely he hath
borne our griefs and carried our sorrows." The borne means
he bore them in his own body. Carried them has the implication
like the scapegoat, he carried them away. He took them away
so that they are no more for his people. Now you notice these
words though. As he's bearing this in his own
body on the tree, it says, yet, yet, we did esteem him stricken. Verse 4, we did esteem him stricken,
smitten of God, and afflicted. We consider him to be stricken
and smitten of God and afflicted. Now those words stricken and
smitten are expressions that's used in Scripture when God visited
a man with a severe and sudden sickness. Something that could
be seen, that you could see visually and say that man has visited,
God has visited that man in some, something and some uncommon wrath. That's what we think when we
look at sin. Not all disease and sickness
and things are because of sin, but because somebody has done
some sin or something. But that's what is associated
with these words. Let me give you an example. If
you want to turn here in 2 Kings 15.5. I want you to stay with
me on this. I want to be very careful on
this point, but I want you to get this. 2 Kings 15.5. You see, He's on the cross carrying
the sin, the grief, and the sorrow of His people. Yet, everybody
that walked around and saw Him said, He's been smitten of God. He's been stricken of God. He
has been afflicted by God. Alright, look, 2 Kings 15.5 says, Smote the king. See that word,
smote? It's the same word as smitten.
The Lord smote the king so that he was a leper until the day
of his death and dwelt in a several house. And Jotham, the king's
son, was over the house judging the people of the land. That's
Kenaziah. He tried to bypass the priest
and go in and offer sacrifice himself. And you can't get in
God's presence by bypassing Christ. And that's what there was a picture
of him doing. But God smote him. Job 1921. And I want you to hold your place
in Job. We're going to come right back here. Job 1921. It says here, Job said, have pity. He said, have pity upon me. O
ye my friends, for the hand of God hath touched me. Let me,
I want to read, let's read verse 20 there. My bone cleaveth to
my skin and to my flesh, and I am escaped with the skin of
my teeth. Have pity upon me, have pity
upon me, O ye my friends, for the hand of God hath touched
me. Why do you persecute me as God
and are not satisfied with my flesh? His friends had come to
Job and they were sitting there and they were looking at him
and they just kept throwing it in his teeth. They just kept
saying, you've done something. You've done something and God
is smiting you for this. You've done something yourself
and God is smiting you for this. He's afflicted you because you've
done something. Job had done nothing. God said
he's a perfect man, he escheweth evil, and he had done nothing. This was a beautiful picture,
though, of what Christ endured on the cross. It was a picture
of that. One writer compared the language
here in Isaiah 53, 4. He said, his visage being marred
in his form and this esteeming him stricken of God is very much
in comparison to the leprosy which Job bore and the treatment
he received from his friends when he bore it. Now, I don't
know what Christ, what happened when Christ bore the sin of his
people on the cross. But that centurion that was sitting
there and those soldiers that were set there to guard him while
he was hanging on that cross, they watched him like Job's friends
sat down and watched Job. And those that passed by looked
upon him. And in their estimation of things,
these onlookers saw in his visage and saw in his form being marred
They were so astonished at what took place. It caused them to
esteem that Christ was some kind of special object of divine wrath. They looked upon him and said,
he's done something to bring this on himself. There was something
that caused him to look at his, his visage and his form on that
cross and say something. And this was, This was not because
of any sin that he had done. This was not any sin of his own.
He was without sin. But look at the very next verse,
Isaiah 53, 5. But he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bearing the bruise of
his people. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace
was upon Him. Look at the end of verse 6. The
Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all. You see these words
wounded and bruised and chastisement? Those wounds and those bruises
were real. It means profaned, it means defiled,
it means broken, it means crushed. There was a lot that men did
to Him at their hands, but something our Lord bore, when He bore the
sin of His people in His own body, there was something that
they didn't do, that they looked upon and said, this man's been
smitten of God. Gil said Job was a type of Christ
Turn over to Job 16. He said Job was a type of Christ
in his sorrows and his sufferings. Perhaps we shall not find in
any part of this book things expressed in the language in
which they are expressed more similar and to be accommodated
to the case and sorrows and sufferings of Christ than in this context.
Look at John 16 verse 8. Job is grieving here. I want
you to see what he says in John 16.8. He says, now, I'm sorry,
look at verse 6. Though I speak, my grief is not
assuaged. Though I forbear, what am I eased? He was bearing the grief of his
people. This is what Christ was bearing.
But now he hath made me weary. Thou hast made desolate all my
company. They're gone. He's treading the
winepress of God's fury alone. And thou hast filled me with
wrinkles, which is a witness against me. And my leanness rising
up in me beareth witness to my face. That's his visage. That's his form. Look at Psalm
22. Psalm 22. I'm sorry, before you
turn to Psalm 22, let me show you something. Look over at Ephesians
5. Ephesians 5. He said, You fill me with wrinkles.
Look over at Ephesians 5. The Lord said, As many were astounded
at Him, His visage was so marred more than any other man, and
His form more than the sons of men, so shall He cleanse many
nations. Why did Christ die? Look at Ephesians
5.26. Why was He bearing this wrath? Verse 26 says that He might sanctify
and cleanse His church. He gave Himself for it, that
He might sanctify and cleanse it. The Lord says that's what's
going to be the effect, the fruit of Him marred like this is He's
going to cleanse it. With the washing of water by
the Word that He might present it to Himself, a glorious church,
not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should
be holy and without blemish. Look at Psalm 22. Psalm 22. Verse 14. He says, I am poured
out like water and 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 pot shirt, and my tongue cleaveth to my
jaws, and thou hast brought me into the dust of death. Look
over at Psalm 32. The scripture says in Isaiah
43 that he opened not his mouth. He didn't say anything. He bore
this. He opened not his mouth. The whole time this was going
on. Look at Psalm 32 verse 3. When I kept silence, my bones
waxed old through my roaring all day long. For day and night
thy hand was heavy upon me. My moisture is turned into the
drought of summer. I acknowledge my sin unto thee,
and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my
transgression unto the Lord, and thou forgavest me of my sin. Look over to Psalm 102, look
at verse 3. The Scriptures tell us that the
Lord hid his face from him. He hid his face from him. And
he says here in verse 2, Hide not thy face from me in the day
when I am in trouble. Incline thine ear unto me in
the day when I call. Answer me speedily. Now watch
this. For my days are consumed like
smoke. You know how fast smoke gets
consumed? Rapidly. What are we doing? What is sin
making us do in our bodies every day? It's making us age. It's
just going by like this. In three hours on the cross,
he's enduring the sin of his people in his own body on that
tree. My days are consumed like smoke and my bones are burned
as a hearth. My heart is smitten and withered
like grass so that I forget to eat my bread. My reason of the
voice of my groaning, my bones cleave to my skin. I'm like a
pelican of the wilderness. I'm like an owl of the desert.
I watch in them as a sparrow alone upon the housetop. My enemies
reproach me all the day, and they that are mad against me
are sworn against me. For I've eaten ashes like bread
and mingled my drink with weeping. Because of thine indignation
and thy wrath, for thou hast lifted me up and cast me down."
Do you see Christ in this? Do you see that he was burying
the sin of his people in his own body on the tree? And I don't know exactly what
he was suffering there. I don't know what that looked
like. I don't know what it appeared.
But it was more than what man's hand inflicted upon him. It was
the result of him being made sin for his people. When he said
to the leper, I will be thou clean, we underestimate how much
that cost him to say that, to be able to say that. He put away
sin. by taking all that sin and heaping
it upon Himself. And this is the result. His visage
and His form were marred more than any other man. I think something
happened to Christ's visual appearance and His form on that cross that
didn't happen to those two men on either side of Him. It didn't
happen to those, but there's three men hanging there, because
they weren't bearing the iniquity. The Lord had not laid on them
the iniquity of us all. He laid it on Him. And something
happened there. Look at Lamentations to your
right, Lamentations 3-4. I heard a friend preach on this
recently, and I began to look it up, read some commentaries
on it, and I found quite a few men say something about this.
But look at Lamentations 3. Let me get over there. Look at verse... It starts saying,
I am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of his wrath. Look
down at verse 4. My flesh and my skin hath he
made old, and he hath broken my bones. Look down at verse
6. He hath set me in dark places
as they that be dead of a long time. They've been dead a long
time. It's described, these scriptures describe it as, he said verse
Psalm 38 said, my loins are filled with a loathsome disease. There's
no soundness in my flesh. As many as were astonished at
him, his visage was so marred more than any man in his form,
more than the sons of men. That's something mysterious there
that He bore on that cross. But remember, brethren, just
the same as they esteemed Him stricken and smitten of God,
we did too. We esteemed Him smitten of God and afflicted. And if
He hadn't given us faith, we'd forever esteemed Him that way.
And men who sit here today and don't believe on Him esteem Him
that way still. The third thing I want you to
see, and I'll hurry here, we see the depth and darkness of
sin in the fact that God did not bend in His justice toward
Christ when He bore the sin of His people. He didn't bend at
all in justice. Verse 9, He said, For the transgression
of My people was He stricken, yet it pleased the Lord to bruise
Him. He hath put him to grief. Now this is that suffering that
he's enduring. And whatever effect it's having
on his physical body, it's more so on his soul. It's more so
in his inner being because he's suffering here. This is that
suffering that he, when he was going to Gethsemane, that made,
he said, it's made me exceeding sorrowful. This is that suffering
that made him to be very heavy, that made him to be in an agony.
that made him to sweat, as it were, great drops of blood falling
down to the ground and in anticipation of this. It was suffering beyond
the cruelty of man's hand. It was more than the betrayal
of his friend. It was more than the desertion
of his disciples. It was the bitter cup of having
a sin-hating God turn his face from him and leave him there. Awake, O sword! Do you remember when God cast
Adam out of the garden? He said, the ground's cursed
for your sake, Adam. He was made a curse for his people.
He said, in the sweat of your face, you're going to eat your
bread all your days. Christ, sweat as it were, great
drops of blood. He said, this ground's going
to bring forth briars and thorns unto you. That's all that men
brought forth to him. We despised him and rejected
him and esteemed him not. And he was made a curse for his
people. And he said, he put a sword there
guarding the tree of life so that Adam couldn't reach forth
his hand and take of the tree of life like he reached forth
his hand in disobedience and took of the tree of knowledge
of good and evil. For then he would live by the
will of his own hand and by the strength of his own power and
by what he had done. He would be able to say, well
I broke it, I fixed it. But there was a flaming sword
put there that guarded it, the sword that demanded justice,
the sword that demanded satisfaction. And God said in Zechariah 13,
7, Awake, O sword, against my shepherd and against the man
that is my fellow, saith the Lord of Hosts. And this is when
he cried out, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? And
he vindicated the suffering he was enduring because sin is a
horrendous thing to a holy, sin-hating God. And he said, but thou art
holy. That's why he suffered what he
suffered. You want to see how bad sin is? The cup of wine that we're about
to drink is the cup that symbolizes communion. Communion. the fellowship that we have in
Christ in his death, the fellowship of his sufferings that we have.
It's to symbolize having communion with him and enjoying the blessings
of his grace that he accomplished through his blood, righteousness
and peace and pardon and atonement. Everything that a believer is
made a partaker of, communion with God Almighty in Christ. But his children, in order for
them to drink that cup of communion. Our head had to drink this bitter
cup dry. And he had to do this all by
himself. And in this utter darkness, the
sun wouldn't shine. The sun refused to shine. He
said, take my mother away from here. And they, as they were
leaving, they were walking away. And they looked back and saw
him. And the sun went dark in this
hour. In order for him to do that,
to make us drink of that cup, there could be no communion with
the Father for our substitute until he has suffered all the
consequences of sin to the full satisfaction of divine justice. And these whips fell not only
on his back, they fell upon his very being, upon his very soul,
his spirit. This was his father. This is
the one he'd been with from eternity. This is the one before whom he
was ever a delight. And now, God, who is of two pure
eyes to behold iniquity, turns his face from him. Now, if we
didn't see the depths of our sin in the enmity of our heart
in despising and rejecting Him, if we didn't see the enmity and
the horrible sin that we are in the torture from men's hands,
or in the very sufferings that this being made sin had upon
his own body, surely we'd see it right here. God spared not His own Son. When sin was found upon Him,
God spared not His own Son. That's how bad our sin is. That's
how bad my sin is. That's how bad your sin is. That
ought to melt our heart. Does that do anything for your
heart? Does that do anything for you that or without Christ,
does that do anything for you? They shall look upon me whom
they've pierced, and they shall mourn for him as one mourneth
for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him as one
that's in bitterness for his firstborn. Does this make you
mourn for him? And then we see the final wages
of sin right here, verse 8. He was cut off out of the land
of the living. death. He gave up the ghost. He willingly
gave up his spirit to the Father. No man took it from him. He gave
it up. But that's not where the good
ends. That's not where this good news ends. Look here at verse
10. Here's Christ's victory over
sin. Verse 10 says, When thou shalt make his soul an offering
for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days. God
saw his son And he delighted in, and he prolonged his days. And when he prolonged his days,
he prolonged all the days of all those for whom Christ died.
And the pleasure of the Lord prospered in his hand. He shall
see of the travail of his soul and be satisfied. He was satisfied. He's satisfied. God's satisfied. He's satisfied. By his knowledge,
my righteous servant has justified many. He's done it. And he'll
bear, because he bore their iniquities. Therefore, God said, I'll divide
him a portion with the great, and he'll divide the spoil with
the strong, because he poured out his soul unto death. And
he was numbered with the transgressors, and he bare the sin of many,
and he made intercession for the transgressors. He didn't
stay in that tomb. He didn't stay. If everything
else I've said to you today has been just too miraculous for
you to get your head around, let me give you one more thing.
He came out of the grave alive, came to his people and said,
Thomas, reach forth your hand here. Let's see. It's me. And not only that, He arose and
ascended to the Father, and they watched a man rise up, the God-man
rise up in glorified human nature and go into the presence of God.
You know what that is? That's a forerunner who's entered
into the presence of God for His people so that we know we
can enter into His presence because He bore this sin away for us.
He was delivered for our offenses, but He was raised again for our
justification. What did he do by that? What
did he do by that? Christ so fully satisfied the
justice of God, Christ suffering under death as a substitute of
his people, so fully completed the payment for the debt his
people owed to divine justice, that those for whom Christ died
as a substitute can no more be damned any more than Christ can
be damned again. Never. They can't. The honors
of God, the faithfulness of God, the integrity of God demand that
every soul for whom Christ died must be regenerated and shall
never die. They've died already. The way
you only pay the wages of sin once, his people have died already
when he died and we're alive forevermore. Alive forevermore. Well, some of them might say
to me, now what does this have to do with me? What's this mean
for me? Well, Let me ask you a question. Are you still hiding
your face from God? Are you still esteeming Him as
nothing? As absolutely nothing? Or do you believe Him? Do you
believe him? Has God given you faith so you
can cast your whole eternal well-being, all the hope of your eternal
future into this work that he accomplished at Calvary and say,
I believe he did what he said he did. I believe he did it.
With his stripes, we are healed, and I believe him. I'm healed.
If you can do that, it's because you've been made alive. If you
can do that, it's because He's drawn you. If you can do that,
it's because He died for you. If you can do that, because everyone
He died for is going to hear this news, and this is going
to happen. Somebody, at the point of hearing this, they're going
to stand up inside. They're going to stand up inside. A man's going to stand up inside
them and say, I'm alive! Forevermore! I have eternal life! And they're going to confess
Him. and say, I'm His. He bought me.
I'm His. There is therefore now no condemnation
to them which are in Christ. That's what He bore out here,
is condemnation. There's no more condemnation
for them which are in Christ Jesus. It's Christ that died. It's God that did the justifying,
that interceded for His people. Now, to you who do believe Him,
let me ask you this. In light of that, is there anything
too much for us to suffer for Christ? Is there anything, any sacrifice
too great for us to make for Him? Is there any devotion to
the Son of God that's too extreme, too fanatical? I'll leave you with that. Amen.