I titled this, WHO HATH BELIEVED OUR REPORT? ISAIAH
OPENS WITH THE SEARCH AND THE CALL FOR FAITH. THERE IS NO COMMANDMENT TO KEEP,
BUT A MESSAGE TO BELIEVE. THE GOSPEL MESSAGE IS WHAT HE'S
TALKING ABOUT. To believe the REPORT that he
is speaking of here, the MESSAGE, is to believe the LORD, is to
believe HIM. He IS the MESSAGE, it's to believe
HIM. It's not just believing some
FACTS, it's believing the Lord Jesus Christ, it's believing
ON HIM, and it's BELIEVING HIM. Abraham believed GOD. He didn't believe in a GOD, he
believed GOD, he believed what God said to him. Now there's two things that are
very clear in the Old Testament. God has made them very clear,
and that's the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should
follow. Turn over to Luke chapter 24.
In Luke 24, let me find this, I think it's verse 25. Then in verse 25, Then he said
unto them, O fools, and slow of heart, to believe all that
the prophets have spoken, ought not Christ, who hath suffered
these things, and to enter into his glory, and beginning at Moses,
and all the prophets, he expounded unto them, and all the scriptures,
the things concerning him? Wouldn t you have liked to have
heard that? He just took them right through
the Old Testament, pictures and types and all the way through
it. He expounded it to them and He
opened their understanding, no doubt. But it's very clear in
the Old Testament that Christ must suffer and then enter into
His glory. You see, Israel was looking for
a Messiah who was already glorified, who came in His glory. BUT HE
HAS TO COME FIRST TO SUFFER, AND THEN THE GLORY, THE CROSS,
THEN THE CROWN. Now, He says here in verse 1,
WHO HATH BELIEVED OUR REPORT? And if you'll note here, He says,
OUR REPORT. This is not a one-man report.
This is the report that's been going on since the fall. Since
God spoke of the seed of the woman, this report has been going
on, and you can take You can take a book after book after
book in the Old Testament, and it's about the Lord Jesus Christ.
It's the report of this message, the gospel. And as he's saying
here, Who hath believed our report? We have one message. We have
one gospel, as Paul wrote to the Galatians in chapter one,
there's only one gospel. It's our report, one message.
And it's the message of every prophet and every preacher whom
God has called. It's a message of grace to the
guilty. It's a message of mercy. It's a message of justification.
It's a message of how God can be a just God and a Savior. It's
the same message. When God calls a man to be a
preacher, he's going to have the same message Moses had, and
Jeremiah, and all those prophets. All those prophets spoke of him.
He's going to have the same message. Now there are many so-called
gospels being preached, but there's only one. There's only one that's
of God. There's not many versions of
the gospel. That's why people think we're
so dogmatic, but we are. We are as dogmatic as the Word
of God is. Paul said if anyone, any man
or angel comes preaching another gospel, you know what he says?
Let him be accursed, let him go to hell, let him perish under
the wrath of God if he comes preaching another gospel. Who hath believed our report,
and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? Revealed means
this, to make a secret thing known. It comes by revelation. You can't
know this. Listen to this scripture in Matthew
11, 25. At that time Jesus answered and
said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because
thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent and hast
revealed them unto babes. Are there any babes here tonight?
Yeah, there is. And the Lord has revealed the
gospel to you. He revealed Himself to you. He's hidden from the
wise and prudent, those Pharisees, those scribes who studied the
scriptures and the Lord stood right in front of them of whom
the scriptures are written about. He stood there and as Isaiah,
he matched the picture that Isaiah drew there in Isaiah 53. He matched
it, but they couldn't see. Those two wives were the wrong
good. You see, the report has to do
with the arm of the Lord. It has to do with a real living
person, the Lord Jesus Christ. The arm of the Lord is Christ.
He is the power of God, the scripture says, unto salvation. He's the
power of God to save. He's the power of God to justify.
He's the power of God to pardon. He's the power of God to bring
us into His presence SPOTLESS. He's the power of God. Apart
from Him, nobody's going to be saved. Nobody. And those who believe the report
are the ones to whom the arm of the Lord is revealed. They're
the only ones who do believe the report. Nobody else does.
You can't believe on someone you don't know. And He's got
to reveal Himself for us to know Him. WE ARE NOT EDUCATED INTO
THE KINGDOM OF GOD, WE ARE BORN INTO THE KINGDOM OF GOD, AND
ALL THY CHILDREN SHALL BE TAUGHT OF GOD. EVERYONE WHOM GOD SAVES,
HE TEACHES THEM, HE TAKES THEM INTO HIS HAND AND HE TEACHES
THEM. And you know who the lesson is?
CHRIST. Take my yoke upon you and learn
of me. He says, Learn of me. HE'S THE POWER OF GOD, HE'S THE
ARM OF GOD, AND HE'S THE ONE WHOM THE LORD REVEALS WHENEVER
A SINNER IS SAVED. SALVATION DOESN'T COME BY OUR
FLESHLY RELATIONSHIPS TO THE RELIGIOUS. YOU KNOW, THE JEWS
SAID THIS, WE'D BE ABRAHAM SEED. I MEAN, IT'S LIKE, THIS IS AUTOMATIC.
LIKE, WE HIT THE LOTTERY. WE'RE ABRAHAM SEED. Well, Paul
said in Romans, They are not all Israel, which are Israel. They're not. We're not children
of God by fleshly relationships, by the will of man, not by blood. But by the mercy and grace of
God, He put us in His Son and made Him our substitute, made
Him our sacrifice, our high priest, made Him our everything, our
all in all, our all in all. Now, in verse 2, after Isaiah
says, Who hath believed our report, and to whom is the arm of the
Lord revealed? In verse 2, he starts revealing. The Lord does
through him, revealing this person. The arm of the Lord here in chapter
52, it's the servant spoken of, the servant of the Lord. It's
the arm of the Lord, the servant of the Lord, the seed of woman,
it's the Lord Jesus Christ is who He's speaking of. For He,
the arm of the Lord, THE SERVANT SPOKEN OF IN CHAPTER 52, HE SHALL
GROW UP BEFORE HIM. He's going to grow up before
God. He's going to be examined of God. You know, he grew up
before the Lord, the Lord Jesus Christ. As a man, he grew up.
He grew in wisdom and stature. He grew up before God. If anyone,
if anyone would have detected A HINT OF SIN, IT WOULD HAVE
BEEN HIM, IT WOULD HAVE BEEN GOD. HE GREW UP BEFORE HIM AND
HE SAID THIS IS MY BELOVED SON WHOM I AM WELL PLEASED, I DON'T
SEE A SPOT OR A BLEMISH IN HIM. THIS IS MY LAMB, THERE IS NO
SPOT OR BLEMISH IN HIM. HE SHALL GROW UP BEFORE HIM AS
A TENDER PLANT, AS A ROOT OUT OF DRY GROUND, HE HATH NO FORM
OR COMELINESS, AND WHEN WE SHALL SEE HIM THERE IS NO BEAUTY THAT
WE SHOULD DESIRE HIM. HERE WE HAVE HIS INCARNATION,
HIS EARLY LIFE. HE COMES AS A TENDER PLANT, THAT'S
A BABY. IS THERE ANYTHING MORE TENDER
AND HELPLESS AS A BABY? THIS IS HOW THE MESSIAH IS COMING.
THIS IS HOW THE SERVANT, SPOKEN OF IN CHAPTER 52, THIS IS HOW
HE'S COMING, AS A TENDER PLANT. A plant that can be bruised,
a plant that can die. We've got to have one that can
die to take our place, but a tender plant. You know, I thought of
this. I thought Adam, Adam could not
identify with his children in their childhood, could he? He
was never a child. He was created a fully mature
man, but not so our Lord. He came as a babe and he grew
up through every phase of life. In every phase of life, he was
obedient. As a child to his parents, as
a teenager, he was obedient to the civil magistrate, he was
obedient in every step of the way. Never one time, can you
imagine that? Never one time in all his life
growing up, I mean, No sin, no sin, not even a thought of sin,
not even a thought of doing anything wrong, not even a thought of
getting even with his teenage cohorts that was around. He's just a tender plant and
he grew up, and listen, as a root out of dry ground, you ever see
a root out of dry ground, what it looks like? It looks like
the ground, it's dry, you know, it's just like the ground that
it's in. dry, crusty, like a root out
of dry ground. Some say this represents the
house of David, and it was pretty much all but forgotten at that
time. He had no former comeliness,
and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire
him. No beauty that we should desire
him. I imagine the first Adam as well
as Eve would have been stunning to look at, don't you? I think they would have been.
I think right now if we could see them in the original creation,
we would be stunned at their beauty and the way they just
moved, just beautiful. But when God became a man, the
one who made Adam, When Christ was made a man, He made Himself
nothing to behold. Nothing. And His wife was a complete
mess. The church, you. Aren't we a
mess? We are an absolute mess. And
yet we're His bride. We are His bride. But oh, I tell
you this, now He's altogether lovely. He's altogether lovely. And his wife is beautiful. He has made her
so. He has made her righteous. You
know, you're righteous in the Lord Jesus Christ, in the Lord
Jesus Christ. And one day here shortly, we're
going to get, we're going to see what that really is and what
it's like and what it looks like, the beauty of it. But listen here in verse 3. Here's
His reception. Now this is God Almighty. Jesus
Christ is God Almighty. You would think God Almighty
coming into His own creation, what would you expect? You'd expect to be received. But He's despised. You know,
for somebody to despise you, they have to hate you. They hate
you. It's contempt. They had contempt for him. I watched a marriage counselor
some years ago, some program I was watching. And he said,
you know, he said, when I have two couples sitting in front
of me, And I see that look of contempt out of one of them.
I know it's over. He said, I've never ever saved
a marriage where there was a look of contempt. Despised contempt. They held him in contempt and
rejected, thrown away. When you reject something, you
toss it aside. Rejected of men. A MAN OF SORROWS AND ACQUAINTED
WITH GRIEF. HIS LIFE WAS ONE OF SUFFERING.
See, this tells us of His life that He lived. Then we're going
to get to the Lord bruising Him. But on His way to the cross,
this is His life. He was acquainted with grief
and sorrow because they belonged to us. He's standing there with
Mary and Martha and He weeps at the grave of Lazarus. He feels
their pain. HE FEELS THEIR SORROW. WE HAVE
NOT A HIGH PRIEST WHO CANNOT BE TOUCHED WITH THE FEELING OF
OUR INFIRMITY, BUT WAS IN ALL POINTS TEMPTED AS WE ARE, YET
WITHOUT SIN. HE FEELS OUR PAIN. I CAN'T EXPLAIN
THAT. I CAN SYMPATHIZE WITH YOU, AND
YOU CAN SYMPATHIZE WITH ME, BUT I REALLY CAN'T FEEL YOUR PAIN. I CAN'T REALLY, IF I'VE EXPERIENCED
WHAT YOU'VE EXPERIENCED, I CAN GO A LITTLE FURTHER WITH YOU,
BUT TO REALLY, REALLY FEEL, HE CAN'T. He can. He was a man of sorrows and acquainted
with grief. It's like they were His daily
companions. They walked with Him. They walked
with Him. Our suffering is nothing compared
to His. It's not compared to His. Listen
to Paul in 2 Corinthians 4.17, For our light affliction You know, there's some of you
have been really afflicted and you at the time you were being
afflicted, you wouldn't call it light, would you? But it is. He took the heaviest part of
it. Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, it's just
a moment. You know how fast a moment is? It's already gone. That's how fast our life is.
It's a vapor. If our life is a vapor, our afflictions
are even faster than that. But for a moment, but they're
working for us, you know that? Afflictions are working for us.
They're working for us. They're like employees. They're
the Lord's employees. Afflictions are the Lord's employees.
They're working for us. They're conforming us to the
image of the Lord Jesus Christ, and half the time we fight it
all away, and yet He's making us just like His Son. HE IS CONFORMING
US TO THE ONE WE WANT TO BE CONFORMED TO, BUT WE COMPLAIN WHEN HE DOES
IT. IT IS JUST FOR A MOMENT, AND
IT IS WORKING FOR US, A FAR MORE EXCEEDING AND ETERNAL WEIGHT
OF GLORY. THESE ARE THINGS WE BELIEVE,
BUT WE HAVE TO WAIT UNTIL WE GET THERE TO SEE IT, AND TO EXPERIENCE
IT. BUT HE IS A MAN OF SORROWS AND
ACQUAINTED WITH GRIEF, AND WE HID, AND I LIKE THE WAY HE SAYS
THIS, HE DOESN'T SAY, AND YOU HID, I mean, Isaiah is a prophet here.
He's not looking at Israel and saying, you hid your face from
him. He said, we, we, I'm guilty. I'm guilty, you're guilty. We
turned our face from him. We turned our back on him. You
know, you don't turn your back on a king. You know how when
you're in the presence of a king, you go out of the room, you bow,
you back out. But when they stood in his presence,
they turned their back on him. He's nothing. He's nothing. We hid, as it were, our faces
from him. He was despised and we esteemed
him not. We made nothing out of him at
all. Zero. He's a zero. We made nothing out of him. But
here's the truth, Isaiah gives us the truth about His sufferings,
His sorrows, and His grief. Surely He bore our griefs and
carried our sorrows. He didn't just experience them,
He carried them and bore them. You know where He took them?
To the cross. He took him to the cross, that's
where he took him. All my sorrows and all my grief,
now listen, and all the sorrows and all the grief that you and
I would have experienced under the hell of God's wrath,
he carried that to the cross. He took it. He's the reason I'm
not in hell. Everybody in heaven, he's the
reason they're not in hell. Because he carried their griefs
and their sorrows and their sins and their transgressions. We'll
see this as we go on here. And listen, Surely, truly, he
bore our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we did esteem him
stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. Well, he was, but
not for the reasons they thought and not for the reasons we thought.
As he says here, we. I want to make sure I don't Go
through this and say, you, you, no, it's we, it's we. I'm included
here. Yet we did esteem him stricken,
smitten of God, and afflicted. Well, he was, and we'll see this
in a minute, but not for the reasons they charged him with.
But you notice here, you notice here in verse four and verse
five, our griefs, our sorrows, Our transgressions, our iniquities,
chastisement of our peace, they belong to someone. They belong to someone. When
Jesus Christ died, He died for someone. He didn't just die,
then see who showed up. He didn't just die, then throw
it out there and see who would take it. See who would accept
Him. He died, listen, it's our griefs,
it's our sorrows. Read this over and over and over,
those two verses. He was wounded, and that word
means pierced through. He was wounded for our transgressions.
He was bruised for our iniquities, inequities in moral behavior. The chastisement of our peace
was upon Him, and with His stripes we are healed. You know, Luther
used to whip himself like all those monks would do. They'd
whip, they'd take a whip and they'd whip, whip, whip until
their back was bleeding. That didn't, that doesn't do
anybody any good. By his stripes, we are healed. Every stroke was
putting away my sin. Every stroke, every stroke had
my name on it. Every stroke was for my sins. And not mine only, but the sins
of all those for whom the Lord died. And the whole elect of God, like
sheep, went astray. All, he said, all without exception,
without exception. All we like sheep. You notice
he never calls his sheep goats. He never refers to them as goats.
He said, all my sheep went astray. All be like sheep gone astray,
dumb sheep went astray, away from the correct path. None of
them would come unless they went astray and they would never come
back. They would never find their way
back until the shepherd goes out, unless the shepherd goes
out and gets them, puts them on his shoulders and brings them
home. You and I would not be here tonight.
I don't know where we'd be. We might be in one of these other
religious service carried on like whatever, but we're in or
somewhere we wouldn't be here. But he brought us here, hasn't
he? He brought us here. He's come out, he went after
us and brought us home, fetching grace as we looked at Sunday.
WE HAVE TURNED EVERYONE TO HIS OWN WAY. ALL OF THE LORD'S SHEEP
HAVE GONE THEIR OWN WAY OF REBELLION AND SINNING." We've all turned away from God.
None good, no, not one. That fits me. You know, that's
why when the Gospel is preached and things like that are brought
up from the Word of God, I can raise my hand and say, That's
me. That's me. None good, no, not one. That's
me. That doesn't offend me, it fits
me. Fits me. And the Lord, listen, now this
is such good news. All we like sheep have gone astray.
We have turned everyone to his own way. What would you do with
a bunch of people like that? What would you do? What if you
had a house full of kids that went their own way and had nothing
to do with you, spit in your face? Cuss you out. You know what he did? He took
all that and laid it on his son. And the Lord has laid on him. And this really, this really
blessed me today. It's kind of, you know, sometimes
you can read the scripture and it just jumps out in power to
you. This gave me so much comfort because I got a lot of iniquity.
I don't know about you, I got a lot of sin. I mean, it drips
off me. The Lord has laid on him. HE
TOOK IT OFF OF ME, HE TOOK IT OFF OF EVERY ONE OF HIS SHEEP,
HE TOOK EVERYTHING OFF OF THEM AND LAID IT ON HIM. HE LAID IT
UP ON ONE THAT'S MIGHTY. AND THE LORD HATH LAID ON HIM
THE INIQUITY OF US ALL, ALL AT THE SAME TIME. HE BORE ALL OUR
SINS, ALL AT THE SAME TIME. The LORD TOOK AWAY OUR WANDERING,
HE TOOK AWAY OUR SINNING, OUR REBELLION, AND HE LAID IT, GOD
THE FATHER LAID IT ON HIS LAMB! Go over to Leviticus chapter
5 later on and read the SIN OFFERING, HE LAID IT ON HIM! Nothing for us to do. He took
it off of me, put it on Him. He was made to be sinned for
us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of
God in Him. And we see in verse 7, His willingness
to suffer, His willingness to do this. He was oppressed and
afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth. Vicki and I watched a movie last
night. We've been watching some true
stories of World War II. And this man was captured by
the Japanese. And that young Japanese officer,
he beat that man mercilessly. I mean, they beat him. They just
took turns. And it went on like that for
a long time. And then America came in. The
troops came in and freed all of them. Well he, years later,
you know, he's just so angry. He's just fighting this and he
found out that man was alive. And he had to go back to Japan.
He went back to Japan with the purpose of killing him. He was
going to kill his persecutor. And that's all I'm going to tell
you about the movie. You want to watch it. But he was going to
kill him and he went over there and he put him in a cage. He
put that persecutor in a cage like the one he put him in. Our Lord is standing there being
persecuted, oppressed, afflicted, and you know what he's doing?
He opens not his mouth. When he was reviled, you know
what he did? He reviled not. I can't even imagine somebody
slapping me, spitting in my face, and plucking the hair out of
my beard, and not even having a remote feeling of I'm gonna
get you. Not even having a remote feeling
of that. That's our righteousness. His
perfection is our righteousness in every way. He opened not his
mouth, he brought the lamb to the slaughter, and the sheep
before his shears is done. And he repeats this for emphasis. So he opens not his mouth in
his own defense. He never defended himself. No
one suffered so willingly as Jesus Christ, and no one suffered
so quietly as the Lord Jesus Christ. No one. But I want to tell you this,
our Lord was silent, but not helpless. That's not a victim
standing there. That's not a helpless victim
standing there. He's controlling the whole thing going on. He's
standing there taking it, and He's standing there controlling
it. Then we see here in verse 8,
and I'll move on here quickly. He was taken from prison, He
was put in prison, then taken from prison, from judgment. Judgment
was taken away from Him, they lied on Him. Who shall declare
His generation? Who can declare the barbarity
of His generation? Who can declare that? AWAY WITH
HIM! AWAY WITH HIM! CRUCIFY HIM! CRUCIFY
HIM! WHY? I FIND NO FAULT IN HIM!
THAT DOES NOT MATTER! CRUCIFY HIM ANYWAY! WE DO NOT
LIKE HIM! WE HATE HIM! He was cut off out of the land
of the living for the transgression of my people. Do you believe the gospel? You're His people. Now listen,
you just like me, we've got a lot of transgressions. We've got
a lot of iniquity, a lot of sin. Where the transgression of my
people was, He's stricken. And God's not going to do that
twice. He's not going to strike His Son, and then me too, over
the same sins. That can't happen. That's unjust.
And then it says here, He made His grave. He made His grave. They didn't do it. I said he's
controlling the whole thing. It doesn't say THEY made his
grave, it says HE made his grave. He's doing this. He made his
grave with the wicked. He hung between these two thieves. They had him in the middle because
they believed him to be the worst of criminals, or at least one
didn't appear that way. And they were going to bury him
right there with the rest of those criminals they had done
over the years that they had crucified and killed. But that's
not going to happen. That's not going to happen. He made his grave with the wicked
and with the rich in his death. Joseph of Arimathea said, let
me have his body. He begged the body. Let me have
it. And they did. And he took it and put it in
his tomb. And it just struck me today,
let me read the rest of it. Because he had done no violence
to anybody, neither was any deceit in his mouth. This shows his
innocence all the way to the end. This shows that in his worst
hour, he still never had a thought of sin. But I tell you why he made his
grave with the rich in his death, Because when he died, he was
hung between those two thieves with the wicked. But when he
died, it was finished. Trouble's over with. Trouble's
over with. All his trouble stopped at the
grave. And now he's going to enter into
the riches he deserves. And he's going to be buried in
a rich man's grave. all that is mentioned above all
this that we've been going through acquainted with grief and sorrow
all this it's over it's over you know for the believer here
now for the believers you know that the second you and i die
all trouble is over with we'll never know trouble again never
be troubled again hard to imagine And then we see in verse 10,
now we see the hand of God in his sufferings. Yet it pleased
the Lord to bruise him, even though he had done no violence
and no deceit was in his mouth, he was innocent in and of himself. It pleased the Lord to bruise
him. This is God's doing. You see, Isaiah now is coming
down and it's like pulling back the curtain. You see, the curtain
at first was dealing with men and dealing with his life on
this earth and dealing with the way he was treated. Now it's
the curtains being pulled back. Now we're getting to see the
real picture. God's hand is in this. God is doing this. God's
doing this. It pleased the Lord to bruise
him. He, God, hath put him to grief. And that grief is far
different than the grief that men put him through. Men put
him through grief. You know, he'd grown in spirit.
But the grief that God's putting him through is His wrath for
our sins. He hath put him to grief when
thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin. You know, you and I,
we are a soul. Adam became a living soul. We
don't just have a soul, we ARE one. He poured out HIS SOUL. When thou shalt make HIS SOUL,
GOD made HIS SOUL an offering for sin. Not a victim, but an
offering. Listen to what Spurgeon said.
HIS WAS THE POURING OUT OF A WHOLE SOUL IN ALL THE PHASES OF SUFFERING
INTO WHICH PERFECT SOULS CAN PASS. HE FELT THE HORROR OF SIN
AS WE WHO HAVE SIN COULD NOT FEEL IT, AND THE SIGHT OF EVIL
AFFLICTED HIM MUCH MORE THAN IT DOES THE PUREST AMONG US."
He poured out His soul. But here's the results of this. He shall see His seed. He sees
His children, ones that haven't even been born yet. He sees them.
He sees them. It's a holy seed. He shall prolong
His days, eternal days. He'll die no more. He'll die
no more. And the pleasure of the Lord
will prosper in His hand. It's the Lord's pleasure to make you
His people and it's prospered in Christ's hand. as the gospel
goes forth. Children are born. He shall see
the travail of his soul. This has to do with the birth
pains like a woman has when she's giving birth. And I know giving
birth, I don't know it by experience, I know it's painful. I was in
the room where Vicki was giving birth and it's painful. Our Lord In bearing us children, bearing
his children, these are his birth pains. And it can't even be compared
to any other pain. But it's interesting though,
that whenever Isaiah here compares his pain, he does take the birth
pain of a woman. When he does, that's about as
close, I guess, as you can get to his pain, is the pain that
a woman has giving birth. He shall see the travail of his
soul, and he'll be satisfied. Do you think if any of them went
to hell, he'd be satisfied? No. By his knowledge, knowing
what he has done and who he has done it for, shall my righteous
servant justify many, for he shall bear their iniquities.
That is so clear, particular redemption, that's so clear.
He's going to justify many because He bore their iniquities. If
Christ bore my iniquities, I don't have to. And here's the close. In verse 12, Therefore, because
of all the above, will I divide him a portion with the great,
See, they made nothing of Him. God makes everything of Him.
Every knee is going to bow and every tongue is going to confess.
And He shall divide the spoiled with the strong. He's going to
divide it with us. He's made us strong in Him. Because
He hath poured out His soul unto death. He held nothing back.
I mean, poured it all out. He was numbered with the transgressors.
Would you and I be numbered with them? If there was a line here
of ladies, of virgins, prostitutes, ladies, which line would you
get in? If there was a line here of men, of murderers, and those
who've never killed anyone, never murdered anybody, which line
would you get into? He got in the line of the prostitutes and
the murderers. That's the line he got into.
That's the line the Pharisee says, we've never been sinners,
I ain't gonna get in that line. He got in line with them, transgressors. Put my name among those, put
my name among those prostitutes and murderers. I want to be in
the line he's in. And he bared the sin of many,
not all men and women, but many, and made intercession for the
transgressors, prayed for them. The Lord intercedes for us. Isn't
that good news? All right, we're going to take
the Lord's Table. Doug and Carl, you all come up and pass
it out.