Alright, if you'll take your
Bibles now and turn with me to Psalm 22. Psalm chapter 22, be looking
at verse 22 through 24. The affliction of the afflicted. I hope that you get, if you don't
get anything out of this tonight, I want you to know this. Your
salvation is dependent upon the affliction of the afflicted.
We're going to see who that is. We know that's Christ. Listen
to this here. The Scripture says, I will declare
thy name unto my brethren in the midst of the congregation
will I praise thee. You that fear the Lord, praise
him. All you seed of Jacob, glorify him. And fear him, all you seed
of Israel. Now this is the reason for the
glory, the reason for the praise, the message of the one speaking
and declaring it in the congregation is this. For he hath not despised
nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted, neither hath he
hid his face from him, but when he cried unto him, he heard him. He heard. Now as we read this
psalm of David, as we read all other prophecies and all other
psalms, we must be reminded that above all other things, this
psalm is speaking of Jesus Christ and His work as our Savior. Now we don't have to dig very
far into this psalm. You get to a psalm and you've
got to kind of dig to find out how this is speaking of Christ. But in this psalm, it is very
plainly revealed. Look at verse 1 of this psalm.
My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me? These are the very
words of our Lord Jesus Christ as He was suffering on Calvary
Street. Look at verses 7 and 8. And we
read of those who mocked him at Calvary. Look at this, verse
7, he says, All they that see me laugh me to scorn. They shoot out their lip and
shake their head, saying, He trusted in the Lord that he would
deliver him. Let him deliver him, seeing he
delighted in him. That's exactly what the mockers
said at Calvary. He trusted in God. Now then,
let us see if He'll come and deliver him. In verse 16, it
tells us that several hundred years before the Romans ever
perfected crucifixion, look at this in verse 16. He said, "...for dogs have compassed
Me, the assembly of the wicked have enclosed Me, They pierced
my hands and my feet. And then in verse 18, you can
see even the game, the gambling that took place at the foot of
the cross for His robe. Look at this in verse 18. They
part my garments among them and do cast lots for my vesture. And even so it is in this text,
the Lord Jesus Christ here is then declaring victory. We see
that this is speaking of the crucifixion of our Lord Jesus
Christ. The suffering of Christ is plainly
revealed in this text. You don't have to dig very far
to find it. There it is. But now in our text, what Christ
here is declaring is victory. Listen to what he says. I will,
even though I shall suffer, they shall pierce my feet, though
even God himself forsake me. Though they mock me, though they
laugh at me to scorn, listen, I will, I will declare thy name
unto my brethren. In the midst of the congregation
will I praise thee. He is declaring victory. Now
throughout this psalm, he is crying unto God for help, for
deliverance. Verse 2, he says, My God, I cry
day in the daytime. And thou hearest me not in the
night season, I am not silent. Verse 11, Be not far from me,
for the trouble is near, and there is none to help. Verse
19, Be not thou far from me, O Lord, O my strength, haste
thee to help me. Deliver my soul from the sword,
my darling, from the power of the dog. Save me from the lion's
mouth. He is crying constantly in this
psalm for help. He is crying out to God for help. And this is truly what took place
on Calvary Street. He was crying unto God for deliverance. But now in verse 22, we see his
confidence. His hope, his assurance that
after his death, that God Himself would deliver him. That even
though he should die, even though his soul should go to be with
God and his body should be put into the tomb, he had this confidence
that God will deliver him. God would deliver him from death. Even though he should die, he
was confident that he should speak again to the congregation. This is because God heard him. And he said this, I will declare
thy name unto my brethren. I will. So surely, now I know
this, reading that text, we could apply this to preachers, couldn't
we? Because that's what men of God
are called to do. We are called to declare unto
the brethren, declare unto the brethren what is written here.
I will declare thy name unto my brethren. Is this what we
do? We declare His name unto the brethren. We preach the gospel. We preach the name of the Lord
unto our brethren. But these are not the words of His saints,
but rather simply they are the words of Christ. Christ Himself
says this, I will declare thy name among the brethren, in the
midst of the congregation. Now we know these are the words
of Christ. We know these are the words of Christ simply not
because of what all that went before, but because the Apostle
Paul in Hebrews simply and plainly declares that these are the words
of Christ. Go to Hebrews chapter 2. Hebrews chapter 2, and look at
verse 9. Paul here says, We see Jesus,
who was made a little lower than the angels. He was made a servant. He was made human flesh so as
to be our representative. He was made flesh for this purpose,
for the suffering of death. crowned with glory and honor,
that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man. You
know that's not every man without exception, but every type, every
nation of man. All of his elect. For it became
him for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in
bringing many sons to glory. To make the captain of their
salvation perfect through suffering. For both he that sanctifyeth
and they who are sanctified are all of one. For which cause he
is not ashamed to call them brethren, saying this, I will declare thy
name unto my brethren in the midst of the church will I sing
praise unto thee. Now you see that, but these words
are not intended to be toward the saints. The text here is
speaking of Christ, and Christ says this, I will, personally,
personally, I will declare thy name unto the church, unto my
brethren. Now behold this, in that text
we just read, The captain of our salvation, Jesus Christ,
was sent to die so that He should bring many sons to glory. That
by His perfect offering, He should make their salvation perfect. That He should make His elect
perfect. This is why He came into the
world. That by His one offering, Paul says in Hebrews 10 that
they are perfected forever. By His one offering, Christ perfected
His saints forever. Them that are sanctified. This
word sanctified, we know that it means set apart. One that
is set apart for the service and the worship of God. One that
is made holy and acceptable unto God. Now you remember in the
Old Testament that furniture was sanctified. The priests were
sanctified. The worshippers were said to
be sanctified through a ceremony. They had a ritual and they were
said to be sanctified. But they were not made holy by
that service. They were not made holy by those
offerings. Those things were only a picture,
a title. They were not made holy by the
blood of bulls and goats. They can never take away sin.
They can never make a man sanctified. But see, it is God that sanctifies. It is God that sanctifies. It
is God that sets a man apart for His worship. It is God alone
that makes us holy. He makes us meet to be partakers
of the inheritance of the saints in life. And so these chosen
sons of God then are called in the Scriptures, the elect. They
are made holy. Listen, for He that sanctified,
and they who are sanctified are all of one. God sanctified us
in setting us apart in election. But the Son has made us holy
by His offering. The Son has sanctified us. This
night, if you believe in Christ, I want you to embrace this, that
He has sanctified you. He has made you holy by His perfect
offering. His perfect offering. You're
sanctified. Therefore, all who are sanctified
and made holy by the sufferings of Christ, which holiness comes
in the experience of grace, doesn't it? Before you were born again,
you had no idea of your sanctification. You thought sanctification was
something you do. You and I thought it was something that we had
to have part in, that we should work and earn that sanctification. When God came in the experience
of grace, we realized we had no hope of sanctifying ourselves. But in the new work of grace,
in the new birth of the Holy Spirit, we are given a holy nature
so as that we should believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Today, I declare unto you the
Gospel of Christ. I preach the sufferings of Christ,
that He died, that He rose again from the dead. I declare that
unto you. You are my brethren. You are
my brethren. If you have been set apart by
God in the new birth and believe on Christ, you are my brethren.
And I declare unto you the name of the Lord. I declare His gospel. I desire to do this faithfully.
I desire to do this with all my heart. That God would use
this. But I know this. I have no power
to give you faith. I have no power to strengthen
you, to encourage you. I have no power to quicken you
from death to life. I also know that all who are
without Christ cannot come to Him. They have no power in themselves. I cannot cause you to come to
Christ, and by nature you have no power in yourselves to come
to Christ. You have no will to come to Christ, even because you cannot understand
this gospel in your heart. In fact, those who are outside
of Christ believe what I am saying is foolishness. To them that
perish, the gospel is foolishness. Now why would they say that?
Why would they say it's foolishness? Because they have no need. They
have no necessity of it. The natural man receiveth not
the things of the Spirit of God. their foolishness unto him, neither
can he know them." I love the way the Scripture
is plain. Its language is plain, isn't
it? Men have to complicate to you that perish this gospel's
foolishness. You don't want it. You don't
have any part in it. Christ and His death. Christ
and His resurrection. Christ and His ascension. Christ
and His return. You have no interest in the things
of God. Why? Because you are spiritually
discerned. Spiritually judged. Spiritually
condemned. Spiritually dead. I do not understand
why men despise this truth. But they do. Our Lord spoke to those people
in Matthew 13. He spoke to them in parables.
And the disciples, they were confused. They said, Lord, why
don't you talk to them plainly? Why are you speaking to them
in parables? And this is what Christ said.
He said, because it is given to you, given to you to know
the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but to them it is not You who believe, why is it that
you rejoice in hearing the name of Christ declared? Why do you
rejoice in hearing of His death, of His burial, of His resurrection,
His ascension, His victory, His coming, His keeping? Why are you rejoicing in these
things? Because it is given to you. Why do your friends, your brethren,
your brothers and sisters and children, why do they not desire
these things? Because as of yet, it is not
given to them. These things are a mystery. Now, if you are a sinner, if
you will ever see the kingdom of God, if you will ever know
and believe on the Jesus Christ, listen, you must be born from
above. I can declare this gospel until
I am blue in the face, but it will not... I can be as plain
as I possibly can. You can be cognitively aware
of all of the words that I'm speaking. You can academically
set them in order, and you can understand them. But you cannot
make it effectual to your soul. I cannot make it effectual to
your soul, and you cannot make it effectual to your soul. Unless
you are born from above, unless you are quickened by the Spirit
of God to live. John says this, as many as received
Him. Have you received Him? To them
gave He the right. Only to them gave He the right
to become the sons of God, which even to them that believe on
His name. That's what it is to receive Him. It is to believe
on His name. But how is it that you have believed
and others have not? How is it you have received and
others have not? Which were born. Now he's not
talking of your physical birth. As a matter of fact, that's the
first thing he cancels out. Which were born, not of blood.
I'm not talking about a physical birth. Those Christians who have
Christian children, do not make them Christian children just
because their parents are Christian. You're not born again based on
blood, nor of the will of the flesh. No man can will himself
to be born again. Every Armenian church should
just close. They should just close their
doors because of that Scripture. It is not of him that willeth,
or him that runneth, but God that showeth mercy. Go close
your doors. Free will works religion is a joke. It's a mockery. It's a blasphemy against the
Word of God. Which were born not of the will
of the flesh. You were born again and you were
born by your free will. You're not born. You're not born
of God. You're not born again. Nor of
the will of man. I cannot will your birth. Every Catholic church is closed
down now. Because that's their hope, is in some man willing
their salvation. Not in the will of man. But whose
will? By whose will were you born again? By whose will have you received
Christ? By the will of God. So do you believe on Christ?
Have you heard of His suffering? Have you heard of His perfect
redemption? Have you confessed the vileness
of your nature, the hopelessness of your contributions to salvation? Have you fled to Christ for refuge? Have you laid hold on Christ
as all your hope and only offering to please God? To us who believe,
We who believe. This is because Christ has declared
His gospel to us. That text is fulfilled. He says,
I will declare unto my brethren the name of the Lord. And the
day you heard it, who said it? Who spoke it to your heart? The
preacher was speaking, but it really wasn't him talking to
you. It was Christ declaring His Word to you, even as He promised
to do. I will declare Thy Name unto
my brethren. I will declare it. Jesus said, the day is coming
and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of
God, and they that hear shall live. When you were born again,
whose voice did you hear? You heard His voice declare the
Word unto you. When Brother J.D. Farmer first
came to our church, he is now with the Lord, but when he first
came to our church, that very night, he came after I preached. Preached from John 10. I preached
that Christ is our Shepherd, and that His sheep will hear
His voice. And that night he said, I heard my Shepherd's voice.
You were preaching, but I heard my Shepherd's voice. When Lazarus was raised from
the dead, whose voice did he hear? He heard Christ's voice. And when you were raised from
the dead, whose voice did you hear? You heard his voice declare
unto you the gospel. Remember that illustration in
Ezekiel when that infant that was polluted in his own blood,
the infant that was laid out in his own blood, his mother
was an evil woman, his father was a wicked sinner. And he was
cast out, he was a bastard, cast out, left to die. What a picture
of us. We were polluted in our own blood,
cast out, left to die. And he said, when I passed by
you, it was a time of love. And when I saw you polluted in
your own blood, I said unto you, live. I said unto you, live. and you lived. This is the experience
of everyone who is saved by the grace of God. We have heard Him
declare the name of the Lord unto us. We have heard His voice. Therefore, we are the sons of
God who have received Him. We are now heirs and join heirs
with Christ. And all our praise is to God. We give all the glory for this
salvation belongs to God, doesn't it? Is there anything you hold
as your own in this salvation? Is there anything that you've
done? Is there anything or any merit that belongs to you? Not
if you're born of God. No. Look what He says in our
text. He says, I'll declare thy name
unto my brethren in the midst of the congregation while I praise
thee. You that fear the Lord. What? Praise Him. You that reverence
Him. What does His people do when
they hear His voice? They reverence God. They praise
Him. Glorify Him, you seed of Jacob. Glorify Him. Is that not what
we do? We glorify Him. We reverence
Him, all you seed of Israel. Now, false religion of this age
do not fear or reverence God, but reserve some glory for themselves. And such people wrongly suppose
that salvation is by their righteousness, by their obedience, or by their
will. But all such men seek to rob
God of His glory. But we who have heard His voice
do not. We do not desire to rob God of
His glory. We desire to give glory, all
the glory to God. All the glory to God. We who
are sinners by nature, rebels by choice, we confess that in
our flesh willeth no good thing. And so then we seek to give glory
to God even as our text declares. Our Savior speaks to our heart.
We fear God. We praise Him. We glorify Him. Now then, look in the text and
see the cause of this great salvation. Jesus Christ is going to declare
the name, and now He's going to fully expound to us the cause
of our salvation. The grounds by which sinners
are made sons of God. It is not a product of our works
or will, but rather the doing and dying of Christ alone. Look at verse 24, 4. He hath not despised nor abhorred
the affliction of the afflicted. The object of the praise and
glory of Israel is the Lord, who is worthy of it by His very
nature. But there is greater cause and
greater reason for the saints to praise God than just His holy
nature. Now listen, the angels praise
His holy nature, do they not? Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty,
day and night, constantly they praise His holiness. But we who
are His children have something higher, something more glorious
to praise Him for. And that is declared here because,
this is the cause of our praise, because he hath not abhorred
or despised the affliction of the afflicted. Now who is this
one afflicted? What is his affliction? Now we confess that the saints
are afflicted. You who believe, you are afflicted, aren't you?
We are often in great pain and suffering and sorrow. We are
afflicted, we are weak in this flesh with all types of sicknesses. We are afflicted by the world.
We are afflicted by Satan. We are afflicted constantly with
the warfare of our flesh. We are constantly in affliction. But we also confess this, that
no amount of our affliction could save us. Matter of fact, we surely with
all the affliction that we have received in this body, is not nearly the affliction
we deserve. We confess that. that none of
our affliction, none of our pain, none of our affliction can make
us acceptable to God. I remember reading this a long
time ago. There was a woman that was hooked
on drugs, and she was really religious. And while she was
on drugs, she believed God told her to pluck out her eyeballs.
And she literally did it. She was trying to be accepted
based on her suffering, based on her affliction. She thought
her affliction would please God. That's an extreme case, but that's
exactly what false religion does. They cause themselves suffering.
in order to be accepted with God. And that's not how a person
is accepted. God does not demand of us an
offering of carnal sacrifices. Why? Because they can never remove
sin. Sacrifices of the law. They were
perpetually offered day and night. And Paul says this in Hebrews
10, In verse 1, he says, "...the law having a shadow of good things
to come, and not the very image of the things, could never, with
those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually, make
the comers thereunto perfect." He said those sacrifices, it
was not possible. It was not possible by the blood
of bulls and goats to remove sin. Therefore, God does not desire
your best. You understand that? God does
not want your best. God does not desire your best
efforts, your best offerings of the flesh, no matter how painful,
no matter how much it costs you. God does not require these things.
Why? Because of this, all our righteousnesses
are His filthy rags. Therefore, all your sacrificing,
all your offering is covered in sin. God does not ask you
of those things because they're not acceptable. Romans 3 and verse 24, all have
sinned and come short. I don't care what you offer,
what your affliction is, it will not, it comes short. It always
comes short. Somebody illustrated, he said,
you had all the best swimmers get on California's coast and
take off to Hawaii. Some of them might make it a
mile, some might make it two, some might make it ten, some
might make it a hundred. But you know what? All drown.
Doesn't matter. Your efforts are not acceptable. Your affliction, the affliction
of you will not save you. So the psalm, in this psalm we
know this, that the affliction of the afflicted here is Christ.
God hath not abhorred or despised the afflictions of Christ. That psalm begins, as we read
earlier, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Now the
Son of God, consider his person, he is one with the Father. one
with the Spirit, one in will, one in power, one in glory, one
in honor. The Son of God has all the divine
attributes, yet the purpose and work of the Father in election
was that He should save His people. That He should make them holy.
You know this very well in Ephesians 1. According as God has chosen
us in Christ before the foundation of the world, that we should
be holy. That's the purpose of God the
Father. That we should be without blame. He predestinated us to
become the sons, to be the sons of God. But how should this take
place? How should sinners be made holy? How should sinners be made the
sons of God? By Jesus Christ. It was always by Jesus Christ. Seeing the elect by nature were
depraved, despised, in order for them to be holy, what must
happen to their sins? It must be removed from them.
In order for you and me to be accepted, God must have removed
our sin from us. He must. Matter of fact, that
was His promise, wasn't it? In Psalm 103, He said this, As
far as the east is from the west, so far hath He removed our sin
from us. In that beautiful passage in
Jeremiah, Jeremiah 50 and verse 20, listen again to this. In
those days and in that time, saith the Lord, the iniquity
of Israel shall be sought for, and there shall be none. The sins of Judah and they shall
not be found, because I will pardon them whom I reserve. Therefore Jesus came in the flesh. He was made a man to represent
His people. Thus the Scripture declares that
His obedience, His obedience obtained righteousness for us. His obedience. The Scripture says even the righteousness
of God which is by the faith of Jesus Christ. Christ came to obey the law of
God in order to merit faith. And that this righteousness of
God, this righteousness of God merited by the faith of Christ
should be unto all and upon all them that believe. That it should
be both imputed to and imparted to all them that believe. That righteousness of God. Go
over there to Romans 3. Go to Romans 3. Look at that. With me. Romans 3, and you can see that
in verse 22. It says, "...by the faith of
Jesus Christ unto all and upon all." That unto and upon means
in and on, imparted to and imputed to all them that believe. There's no difference. For we
all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. If God is willing to charge Christ's
righteousness to us, what about our sin? What happened to our sin? We
all have sinned. and come short of the glory of
God. How then can we be made the righteousness of God? Look at that in verse 23. We
all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Here's how.
Being justified freely. How were you justified? Freely.
What did you do? Nothing. Why did God justify you? I don't
know. Ask Him. His grace. His grace. He justified us freely. That's
the only way a sinner can be justified. Freely. There's no
merit in the sinner. And this is how through the redemption
that is in Christ. In other words, God didn't arbitrarily
just forgive you. We do that, don't we? Without
payment, we forgive. Why? Because we probably did
something worse. And so yeah, I can forgive you. Now if I haven't
done anything worse, it's kind of hard for me to forgive you,
right? If you do something really bad to me and I haven't done
anything that bad, then it's harder for me. But that's not it. God
can't arbitrarily justify you. It must be just. So it must be
through the redemption that is in Christ. Justice demands payment. And so then Christ was to come
forth, not only to obtain our righteousness, but to redeem
us, whom God has sent forth to be the propitiation, the payment
price, payment price, through faith in His blood. to
declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are
passed through the forbearance of God, to declare, I say at
this time, his righteousness, that he might be just and the
justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. So then we are redeemed. Sin must be atoned, and only
atoned by sacrifice. Therefore we enter into our text
again, the affliction of the afflicted. Why was Christ afflicted? He was afflicted for our sin. He was afflicted by the justice
of God in the stead of His people. And you see that word propitiation
there? I couldn't help but think of this. Do you realize that
Christ, in the Old Testament, there were pictures of this.
The propitiation, it really brings to mind the mercy seat. You remember
in the great day of atonement when that priest was going, he
was to sacrifice that animal. He was to bring the blood in
and sprinkle it on top of the mercy seat. Don't you see that
Christ is the priest who offered Himself? Do you not see Christ
is the offering? Do you not see Christ is the
altar? He's everything, isn't He? He
is the whole of our salvation. His affliction is how God can
be just and justify the ungodly. Therefore, we praise Him. We
glorify Him because God hath not abhorred the affliction of
Christ. God hath not despised His offering. Think of Cain. You remember when
Cain brought his offering? God had no respect for the offering
of Cain. But when Abel brought that blood,
God had respect. Because this is the offering
He's respecting. It is the offering of Christ's
affliction. The affliction of the afflicted
is not despised. We are only justified before
God. For our sins were passed from
us, imputed to Christ upon the tree. And this is why God forsook
him. Go to 1 Corinthians chapter 5.
1 Corinthians chapter 5. 1 Corinthians chapter 5 verse 19
declares to us plainly the transaction of grace. This transaction of
the afflicted. To wit, Paul says, God was in
Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their
trespasses to them. You remember, that was His covenant
of grace. He said, I will not remember
their sins and iniquities anymore. That's the covenant. He's not
willing to impute your sins to you. And He committed to us the word
of reconciliation. And now we are ambassadors for
Christ as though God did beseech you by us. We pray you. We pray
you in Christ's name. Be you reconciled to God. Pastor,
on what grounds can I be reconciled to God? I have no merit to be
reconciled to God. If God is not willing to impute
my sins, where are my sins going to go? How can God be just and
still justify me? For God hath made Him to be sin
for us, whom knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness
of God in him." You see now the grounds of your justification
is the affliction of the afflicted, the affliction Justice of God
could not be just to forgive us without payment. But as Romans
tells us, Paul, Christ being made a propitiation for our sins. And in order for God to be just
and the justifier of the ungodly, Christ Himself must be made sin
for us. He must be forsaken of God. He
must be afflicted. Justice must be satisfied. or none of us could be made the
righteousness of God. None of us could have been reconciled
apart from this. So much was our sins made His
own. In Romans 6, 69 and verse 5,
He says, Oh God, thou knowest my foolishness. And my sin is not hid from me. You suppose God pretended? You
suppose God's justice looked at Christ just pretending? Well, I know He's really not
guilty, but I'm just going to punish Him anyway. Oh, it's a
mystical transaction. I know this. He was the most
holy and impeccable Savior. He had no sin in Himself. He
did no sin, felt no sin, thought no sin as He suffered on Calvary's
tree. And yet God made Him sin. for us. I can't explain that. I don't
dare try. I just know this, He bore my
sin in His own body on the tree. And God poured out His wrath
unmixed with mercy upon Christ. Christ says in our text, you
go back to the text and you look at verse I believe it's 14, verse
6, he says, I am a worm and no man. This is Christ speaking. How could he say that of himself?
Because he bore our sin in his own body on the cross. Behold
the affliction of the sinless Son of God, and yet he was our sins were made to bear upon
him. Scripture says the chastisement
of our peace was upon him and by his stripes we are healed.
See then the affliction of the afflicted, Christ was for our
sins. It was at this hour the Son of
God suffered the full measure of God's justice in our stead.
See then, believer, our God justifies us freely by His grace. He justifies
us because of the offering of His Son. And what is God's verdict? When Christ suffered for our
sin, when He had endured the full measure of God's wrath for
our sin, what was the verdict? What did justice say when He
had sat when he had completely paid. Christ tells us, it is
finished. God has not abhorred or despised
the affliction. This is our hope, friends. This
is our hope that God is completely satisfied with Christ's offering. This is the message Christ declares
among the brethren. He has not abhorred the affliction
of the afflicted. Though I have been afflicted,
God hath not abhorred my affliction. In fact, God is satisfied, completely
satisfied with the afflictions of Christ. Go to Isaiah chapter
53. Isaiah chapter 53 and look at verse
10. You want to know what's pleasing
to God? Anybody want to know what's pleasing to God? Look
at this. It pleased the Lord. This is
what pleased the Lord. It pleased the Lord to bruise
him. It pleased the Lord that he put
him to grief. When thou shalt make his soul
an offering for sin. It pleased the Lord to make his
soul an offering for sin. And when he shall do it, he shall
see of his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of
the Lord shall prosper in his hand. He shall see of the travail
of his soul and shall be..." What? What is it? Satisfied. Now is God satisfied? In what is God pleased? In what
is God satisfied? in the offering of his Son. Only in the affliction of the
afflicted is God satisfied. He shall see of the betrayal
of his soul and be satisfied. By his knowledge shall my righteous
servant justify many, for he shall bear their iniquities. Do you know this gospel of the
affliction of the afflicted? You know that God is pleased
to crush him, to bruise him, to put him to grief. Why? Because he was the only one who
could bear our iniquity. He is the only one who God could
satisfy the justice of God for his people. Do you not see the promise of
God that he shall see his seed? When he saw Christ die, he saw
me die. You see that? My representative
died. I died in him. What thing could
justice have to say to me? I'm already dead. I've already
died when my substitute died. Justice was satisfied with him,
therefore justice shall be satisfied with me. Therefore, Christ is
now risen from the dead and seated upon the throne of God, and His
will shall be accomplished." Go back to your text. Look at
this real quick and we'll close. "...He hath not abhorred the
affliction of the afflicted, neither has He hid His face from
Him. But when He cried, He heard Him." He heard Him! Isn't that
wonderful? All this text, He's crying for
help. Deliver me, deliver me, deliver me. And after His death,
what did God do? God delivered Him from the grave.
God heard Him. How do we know that God is satisfied?
Because that tomb is empty. How do I know my sin is gone?
Because the grave could not hold Him any longer. There was no
sin to hold Him. And just as Christ let Him loose,
and Christ rose again from the dead, and is seated on the throne
of God. And what is He doing? Listen
to what Christ said He would do in John 17. He said, Father, thou hast come
glorified thy Son. Did he hear him? Is Christ glorified? Right now, is Christ glorified?
Yes. For this purpose, that the Son
may also glorify thee, as thou hast given him power over all
flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast
given him. Look at verse 25. He says this, My praise shall be of thee in
the great congregation, and I will pay my vows before them that
fear him. What are his vows? It's that,
that he should give eternal life to as many as the Lord has given
him. His vow. He is going to accomplish
his vow. Why? God hath not abhorred the
affliction of the afflicted. In fact, God is completely satisfied
with the offering of Christ forever. And so right now, what Christ
is doing on the throne is He is declaring the name of the
Lord among the congregation. He is speaking to His children. He is comforting them. He is
keeping them. He is feeding them. Have you heard His voice? What
is He declaring? God is satisfied. Stop working. Stop trying. You ever hear somebody
say, I'm trying to be a good Christian? Forget that. Trying? Believe on Christ. Stop trying. God's satisfied with Christ. Oh, that we should praise Him,
that we should glorify Him. for his perfect salvation. God hath not afforded the affliction
of the afflicted. I'm so thankful, aren't you,
that God heard him? That's my hope. Let's stand and be dismissed
in prayer. Our Father, I pray that you would
bless the message that you would speak to your people. That Christ
should speak the word through the Spirit. They might find rest
and comfort I pray that you would magnify Christ, that you would
give him glory and praise, that his work should be declared among
the nations, that you should call out your people and save
them and bless them and bring them in, that they might be comforted
by this same message. I ask you to do it in Christ's
name, for Christ's glory. Amen.