Take your Bible. Turn, please,
to Isaiah chapter 53. Now, I intend to read all 12 verses,
and in fact, I'm going to back up in the previous chapter and
pick up three others. verses to add to the twelve in
this one. But my ultimate goal this morning
is to deal with verse 11. I title this, The Travail, T-R-A-V-A-I-L, just
like a woman travails in birth. the travail of the Redeemer's
soul, not his body, his soul. Sure, the Lord Jesus suffered
physically, but not more than others have
suffered. But everything hinges on that
word soul. The travail of the Redeemer's
soul. Now may we pray. Lord, we have before us this
morning an open Bible We beg, for only you can do this. We can read this Bible until
our eyes fall out and it be to no avail. We can hear it read
and taught and preached and printed and published. But Lord, that
doesn't do real sinners any good. If you do not show us ourselves
and how desperately, desperately we need the Christ of the Bible, which present-day Christianity
has all but expunged from anything that is being taught and preached
in today's church. Lord, we bless you. We thank
you that you have providentially ordered and ordained that we
are to still meet in this building, in this place, and that we covenant
with you that by your strength and grace to us in Christ, our
message shall always be and ever be Christ and Him crucified. Help us this morning. to tell
the truth about what's in this book, because today's religion
has left it altogether. We beg for your mercy through
the merit and blood and righteousness of our precious Savior, the Lord
Jesus. Amen. Let's begin in chapter
52 at verse 13. Jehovah God is speaking now of
Christ whom He calls His servant. Behold, My servant shall deal
prudently He shall be exalted and extolled and be very high."
And many were astonished at him. His visage, his outward appearance
was so marred more than any man. And his form, his bodily form,
more than the sons of men. Now those are two Wonderful and
yet awful statements. But look what the result is in
verse 15. So shall he sprinkle, speaking
of Christ, so shall he sprinkle many nations. 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." And now, Isaiah 53. Now, if you have a chronology in your Bible, it's
a form of dating to tell us approximately when this prophecy was uttered
by Isaiah. Mine is at the very top of my
reference system, but some reference Bibles don't have it and some
do. But anyway, it appears at Isaiah 53, the year 712 B.C. This is over 700 years before
the Lord Jesus actually came into this world in Bethlehem
through the womb of Mary. And for this man of God, by the
name of Isaiah, to have written such language as we are about
to read, is incredible. There is only one explanation.
God revealed this to him, and he faithfully recorded it, and
now we are the recipients of such a precious, precious chapter
of Holy Scripture. Verse 1. Isaiah begins chapter 53 with
two questions. Now listen carefully. The first
question is, who has believed our report? Isaiah is complaining,
who's believing my preaching? Who's believed my gospel? And the second question in verse
1 is the answer to the first one. And to whom is the arm,
the power, the saving power of the triune God? To whom has the
arm of the Lord been revealed? Been what? Revealed. Now, you may not know this. I
live most of my life, maybe not most of it, I'm on the other
side of that I guess about now, but I forget how old I am, you
know, and it's convenient just to think of. It's only been a
few years ago since I was a teenager, a young adult, but that ain't
quite the case. I used to be in the same shape, thinking there's
nothing supernatural about this book. If I just apply myself,
read some commentaries, Think on what I've read, I'll understand
it. And I preached a gospel that
I understood. But it wasn't the gospel of Christ.
It was the gospel of my imagination. And most of us in this room were
brought up in Baptist religion or whatever. That name doesn't
mean anything anymore, so it doesn't matter what the name
of it was, it's what did they teach us. The truth? The kind that can only be understood
by revelation? Or one that a person with pretty
good smarts can outdo the other? To whom is the arm of the Lord
revealed? Now, Isaiah begins to describe
for us the Lord Jesus Christ. Never seen him, mind you. Never talked to him. Miraculously, he came to possess
this knowledge. Started in chapter 6 of his prophecy. Alright, verse 2. Speaking of our Lord Jesus Christ. who came into this world to do
what? To die for honest to goodness real sinners. To pay a ransom for our release
from the bondage and slavery of sin and of the devil. For he shall grow up before him
as a tender plant. Do you realize that when a baby
is born, how little it takes to end that life just like that? He shall grow up before Him.
The Son of God shall grow up before God His Father as a tender
plant and as a root out of a dry ground. He has no form nor comeliness. And when we shall see Him, there's
no beauty, no outward physical beauty that we should desire
Him. Well, what about all the pictures of some character that's
supposed to be Jesus? He looks pretty handsome to me.
And I tell you the truth, it ain't even close to what He looked
like. Not any whatsoever. If you have such a picture and
you cherish it, you are an idolater. And if I am doing the same, I
am too. When we shall see Him, there
is no beauty that we should desire Him. He is despised and rejected
of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. We hid,
as it were, our faces from Him. He was despised, and we esteemed
or valued Him not. Surely! Yeah, but we just got
through saying we didn't want anything to do with Him, and
now we read, Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows,
yet we did esteem Him stricken smitten of God and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions. Now how do we figure out who
this our person is? Now there are several indicators
in this one chapter. I hope just if I can get that
far and just briefly mention it, I think you'll understand
me better. The Bible has a lot of us's and
a lot of ours. Oh, you are. So I'm going to
put that on hold and just not deal with it every place I meet
it. All right, verse 5. But he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities,
the chastisement of our peace, the punishment, the pain, the
agony. The expense to give a sinner
peace with God is endured on the cross. And with His stripes,
we are healed. Now, today's church is worried
about the healing of the body. They don't give a damn about
the healing of the soul. And that's the truth. And I meant to say that word.
I want to wake you up. Because if you don't know that,
You don't know anything. Churches have got more gyms and
exercise equipment, but what about the soul? There ain't but
one remedy for a sinner whose soul is so sinful, and that's
the Redeemer and his prevail of soul. Verse 6, all we like
sheep have gone astray. We've turned everyone to his
own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. Oh, preacher, look at that. He's
talking about everybody in the world. Just stick it out. Give me a few more verses, and
I think I can definitely show you that ain't the case. But
hey, everybody's born believing that, and so was I. Verse 7, he was oppressed and
he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth. He is brought
as a lamb to the slaughter and as sheep before her shearers
is dumb, so he opens not his mouth. Not even a word of complaint. He was taken from prison. And
from judgment, if you can call that justice and judgment that
he received. But it was meant to be. Pilate
couldn't stop it. He was cut off. Where did I stop? Goodness. Let's start verse 8. He was taken from prison and
from judgment. And who shall declare his generation? For he was cut off out of the
land of the living for the transgression of my people." Uh-oh. For my people, he was stricken. You actually think there could
be a limitation on the persons whom Christ has redeemed? Yes,
but only because it was the covenant purpose of God the Father, God
the Son, and God the Holy Ghost in old eternity. It has nothing
to do with the ability of Christ to save, or the power of His
blood to save. But for us to say that He died
for people that shall never be His, and there will actually
be people in Hell, And if I read the Bible right, a whole bunch
of people, and yet Christ shed blood, did
not keep them out of hell, then his blood ain't no good. What he thought he was doing,
he wasn't doing. But then you discover, he didn't
die for everybody he never meant to. God gave him a people in
old eternity. They're called God's elect. And
He put them in the hands of Christ, that He would come into this
world and live a perfect life for them and produce a perfect
righteousness for them and shed His blood on Calvary's tree and
be raised again from the dead and ascended back to glory. He was cut off, end of verse
8, out of the land of the living For the transgression of my people
was he stricken." Now if you ask me, are you one of his people?
I say, I don't know. But has God revealed to you the
gospel of his Son? Has he revealed his grace to
you? Given you a love for Christ? Verse 9, And he made his grave
with the wicked, referring to the two thieves that were crucified
on either side of him. And with the rich in his death,
because he was put in a new tomb, never occupied before, that had
been built into the side of a rock, and Joseph of Arimathea claimed
the body of Christ and took him to that tomb that belonged to
him, and he is supposedly a wealthy man. At least, this makes us
think so anyway, and I think that's the case. He made his grave, in verse 9,
with the wicked and with the rich in his death, because he
had done no violence. Neither was any deceit in his
mouth. Yet it pleased the Lord, the
Lord God Jehovah, to bruise the Lord Jesus Christ. And this is
not a sadistic bruising. It is God's, the Holy Trinity's
eternal purpose that this is how it must be. And that's how
it is. And it's still moving exactly
the same way this very hour. What God has purposed for the
day is taking place, any place on this globe or universe for
that matter. Oh, preacher, you can't mean
that. There's too much bad stuff going on. Let me tell you one
thing. There's a lot of mean things
that people do. But if you want to know what
the sin of all sin is, why don't you blaspheme God? Why don't
you say His Son ain't nothing at all. We don't need his blood, we don't
need his righteousness, we don't need his grace. That, my friend, is a zillion times worse than
cussing and swearing and killing and robbing banks and all the
rest of it put together. What I'm trying to tell you is
that God rules this world. Every day since he made it until
he brings her to an end. I don't know when that is. I
don't have a clue. And neither does anybody else. It pleased the Lord, verse 10,
to bruise him. He's put him to grief. When? When you shall make his soul.
His what? His soul. An offering for sin. Ah, I know the body was included,
but that ain't where it's at. And he shall see his seed. You've
got two verses here in 10 and 11, and you've got the word shall
seven times. These are not statements with
doubt attached to it, or ifs put in front of it, or anything
else. to change its meaning and its
intention. You shall make his soul an offering
for sin. He shall see his seed. Now, this
is not wheat or oats or barley or anything like that. This is
people. People. He shall see his seed. He shall
prolong his days. Oh yes, he died, but it wasn't
for long. He died on purpose. 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. Now, try to let that phrase,
the travail of his soul, just sort of weigh on your mind for
the next hundred years, but starting today, what is this soul suffering
of Christ? He shall see of the travail of
his soul and be satisfied. Now, I don't know where you've
been in religion, but I'll tell you where I've been. We tell people
that God's trying to save you and you won't let him. Surely you've heard that. I know
you have. I don't have to ask you. I know
you have. Some of you younger kids who've never been anyplace
but here, you may not have, but he shall see of the travail of
his soul and shall be satisfied by his knowledge Shall my righteous
servant justify many?" The Lord Jesus was fully cognizant from
the time of His birth till the time of His ascension to glory.
He knows exactly what He's done, and He knows exactly what it
will do. And unlike ourselves, when He
runs into people here, there, and everywhere, we don't have
a clue. whom his sheep are, but he knows
them. And that ain't the half of it.
He knows them by name. Yeah, you heard me right. By
name. Everything God does is on purpose. By his knowledge, my righteous
servant shall justify many, for he shall bear everybody's iniquities, their
iniquities, iniquity that belongs to a certain group of persons,
albeit the number of those persons we are not able to count. He shall bear their iniquities. So if you tell people Christ
died for them, you're not privy to that knowledge. You and I
can't know that. We can't even know He died for
me until a work of grace is performed in our soul. Yeah, but don't
I have to do something? Yes, indeed, and we do a fine
job of it. You do the sinning, and Christ
will do the saving. Verse 12, finally, "...therefore
will I divide him a portion with the great, he shall divide the
spoil with the strong, because he has poured out his soul unto
death, and he was numbered with the transgressors." Oh my, here's
another statement, "...and he bare the sin of everybody." No,
it says many. Thank God they are many. and made intercession for the
transgressors. Let's see what we can do with
this 11th verse and this statement. He shall see of the travail of
his soul and be satisfied. Physical suffering is nothing to sneeze at. It's a tough road to hoe. I know
that. I've not experienced very much
of it in my life, but there may be some between here and the
end. I don't know. But physical sufferings cannot
forgive nor remove sin. It is the whole purpose of God
becoming incarnate as a man It is the whole purpose of that
to provide a Redeemer for God's people who have fallen into sin,
dead, already dead in trespasses and sins. Alright, I don't think I can
do but just a couple of these, but if you'll turn to, put a
marker at Isaiah 53, if you'll turn to I've got to think of the name
of the book. It's the first one in the Bible. Let's see, that's
Genesis chapter 3 that I'm after. When Adam Eve ate for the forbidden fruit
first, and then Adam with his eyes wide open. Eve was deceived
by the devil. Adam took of that food. Whatever it was does not make
any difference. That's got nothing to do with
the message. And he fell. That is, he fell from righteousness
to being a sinner. and the head thereafter of a
sinful race. And that's how we come into the
world already determined that we're sinners. We're born sinners. So the curses that God pronounced
upon Adam and Eve are outlined in the third chapter of the book
of Genesis. And I'm going to pick up the
reading at verse 16, and I plan to read through verse 19. Unto
the woman, he said, I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your
conception. In sorrow shall you bring forth
children, and your desire shall be to your husband." Now, men,
don't get too excited about this, and he shall rule over you. And unto Adam he said, because
you have hearkened unto the voice of your wife, and have taken
of the tree which I commanded you, saying, You shall not eat
of it. Cursed is the ground. Here is the curse. Cursed is
the ground for your sake. In sorrow shall you eat of it
all the days of your life. Thorns also and thistles shall
it bring forth to you, and you shall eat the herb of the field.
In the sweat of your face shall you eat bread till you return
unto the ground, for out of it were you taken, for dust you
are, and unto dust we all are going to return." Therefore, these curses that
God pronounced on Adam and Eve have now become distinct acts
of suffering to the precious Lord Jesus Christ himself, taking
it from the very head of our race. Our Lord came to take away
both sin as well as the curse. Then if you'll go back to Isaiah
53 for just a moment, looking at the third verse this time, In regard now to Adam, Isaiah
53, verse 3, he is despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows
and acquainted with grief. We hid, as it were, our faces
from him, for he was despised and we esteemed him not. Now, one other scripture to finish
this point. If you don't want to turn, I
won't mind, but if you want to turn, I'm going to 1 Corinthians
15, but I can't wait for you because some of you like to go to sleep,
we'll get to 12 o'clock. In 1 Corinthians 15, beginning
at verse 45, we have one of the clearest statements in our Bible
on this subject. It reads, and so it is written,
the first man Adam was made a living soul. Catch that word now, soul. The last Adam. Adam in the garden
is the first Adam. Well, who's the last Adam? None
other than our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. And he's made a
life-quickening spirit. He speaks to a man and he raises
him from the dead. He speaks to another man and
he converts his soul. Remember these terms. Adam in the garden is Adam The
first Adam, the first one. And our Lord Jesus is the last
one. There is naught but two. Now
quickly, here's what's so important about this. Everybody in here has got more
brain than I do. I was going to tell you, if you were smarter
than the rest of us, you might pay closer attention. But this
is important. Why? Because God purposed. to create a world and put a people
on it. And His purpose that these people
on this globe, at least some of them, not all of them, He
will redeem. And that this will put His purpose
of grace in Christ before this whole universe forever and ever
and ever. It is a way of exploiting his
grace into the eyes of all men, even those who perish. Therefore, in Adam, God finds
us guilty. Why? Because Adam is our federal
head and he is our representative. He is also called the first man
and our Lord is called the second man. You'll find, I think, both
of those right here in this passage. Then on the other hand, here's
why it's important. If we fall by representation
and federal headship, then we can legitimately, honestly, and
justly be raised from spiritual death to spiritual life by representation
and by federal headship. If God uses this means to find
us guilty, He uses the same means in Christ to find us with no
guilt at all. None at all. Alright, let's read
this right quick. I got ahead of myself. Verse
46, Howbeit, that was not first which is spiritual, but that
which is natural, and afterwards that which is spiritual. Here's
those other two people, the first man and the second man. The first
man is of the earth earthy, and the second man is the Lord from
heaven. As is the earthy, such are they
also that are earthy, and as is the heavenly, such are they
also that are heavenly." You cannot give to your children
when they are conceived or when they are born, you cannot give
to them the life of God in the soul. Verse 49. And as we have borne
the image of the earthy, and we sure do, we bear it quite
well, it's quite revealing, is it not? We shall also bear the
image of the heavenly. Now this I say, brethren, that
flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, neither does
corruption inherit incorruption. I shouldn't have read that last
verse, it didn't pertain to what I was trying to get across, but
that's okay, I guess. I've got one other scripture
for you if you're interested. I'm going to Jeremiah chapter 30. Now we speak about the woman's
travail, her birth pains. Just as our Lord did for Adam,
he does for Eve. And here's a glorious statement
tucked away in Jeremiah chapter 30 and verses 6 and 7. Let's
read them. Ask you now and see whether a
man What? A man does travail with child. I don't know how much Jeremiah
knew when he wrote that down. I sometimes wonder if he said,
what on earth can this mean? But see, we're looking at it
from the New Testament. It's altogether different. We
know it's talking about Christ. And if God wanted it to reveal
it to Jeremiah, he'd know it too, and maybe he did. I'm not
saying he did or didn't. Wherefore do I see every man
with his hands on his loin as a woman in labor, in travail? All faces are turned into paleness. Alas, for that day is great,
so that none is like it, It is even the time of Jacob's trouble,
but he shall be saved out of it." I'm telling you, that's
some wonderful, wonderful statements. One of the words in those two
verses, let's see, where's the word bear, B-E-A-R? Well, lordy, lordy. Well, I don't see it. I guess
it was in Isaiah 53, but I'll not pursue it now. All right, we come back to what
we started with, the travail of Christ's soul. I'm not denying that he suffered
bodily. But I'm fixing to read you, and
my wife doesn't like it when I read to you, but I'm going
to this morning. If I tried to write that much
stuff, it's about probably less than three quarters of a page,
I'd still be writing. I mean, it's just slow. I can't
do it anymore. When I found this article some
years ago now, I just was flabbergasted. I want
you to hear what this man says. He's talking about the soul sufferings
of Christ. What led Christ to exclaim on
the cross, My God, My God, why have you forsaken me? What made
him in the garden before the hand of man ever touched him?
sweat great drops of blood. That's more than physical agony. That's agony of soul. Far different
than the physical. What led him to say, my soul
is exceeding sorrowful unto death, while his sweat, as it were,
were great drops of blood falling to the ground. Some say the reason
that he spoke in such language as this is the thought of his
approaching crucifixion. And this man is going to tell
us why that cannot be so. And I think he is completely
right. Well, if that be the case, he says, what happens to the
preeminence of Christ's example? If other of his people even those
that are martyred. Many of them suffered far more
than our Lord suffered physically on the tree. Let me finish. We can fetch from history many
who had to endure more torture and more lingering agonies, and
yet they rejoiced in the prospect, left their prisons singing to
go to their death, kiss the instrument of their execution, whatever
it happened to be, and thank the executioner. Here's one he
mentions by name, and you can find it in Faulk's Book of Martyrs.
His name is Bradford. How did Bradford when informed
that he was to burn at the stake the following day in a place
called Smithfield, England? He fell on his knees. and praised
God for an honor that he had so long waited for. When a Catholic
priest said to a martyr by the name of Hooper, at the place of execution, I'm
truly sorry. Now the priest is the one putting
this man to death, you understand. He says, I'm truly sorry that
it's you that is here. The martyr replied, O man, keep
your sorrow to yourself, and mourn over your own wickedness. Now listen carefully. I am well
blessed by God to die for the sake of Christ. It is sweet to
my soul. Is then the servant above the
master, or the disciple above his Lord, here and will venture
to say, here alone, can be found a complete and satisfactory solution? These martyrs had Calvary before
them, being put to death. But not Gethsemane. They had to endure the cross, but not the curse. Our Lord endured the curse of
God against sin. They died by men, but not for
men. They died not to bear the sins
of many, not even to bear their own sins. Not one of their own sins, or
else they could not have stood the pressure and the weight of
such a death. And yet our Lord goes to the
grave with all the sins of all of his people of all time on
him. On him. But our Lord bore our sins in
His own body on the tree. The Lord laid on Him the iniquity
of us all. Surely He has borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows. The chastisement of our peace
was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed." Now, if we belong
to Him, praise God, it ain't nothing we did, I assure you. We did the sinning. And He did
the catching. If you don't believe that when
you get to glory, if you get there, ask the Samaritan woman
who appears in John 4 in our Bibles. She knew the Messiah was coming.
She's talking to Him, but she doesn't know Him. But I tell
you what, she knows Him now. Alright, 224. Thank you.