All right, turn back to Isaiah 53
now. Isaiah 53. Let's read verses 10 through
12 again. All three verses. Verses 10 through
12. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise
him, he hath put him to grief. When
thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see 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 and shall be satisfied. And by his knowledge shall my
righteous servant justify many, for he shall bear their iniquity. Therefore will I divide him a
portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the
strong, because he hath poured out his soul unto death, and
he was numbered with the transgressors, and he bare the sin of many and
made intercession for the transgressors. You, I hope, clearly see that
this is speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ, Christ crucified, who Christ is and what he did
at Calvary. I hope you see that clearly. ask you, what do you see at Calvary
when you think of Christ dying on that cross? What do you see? What do you—why did that happen? Well, what we see at Calvary,
number one, is the holiness of God. Not the love of God, although
we do. But that's not the first thing
we see, because it says that God bruised him. God put him to grief. God made his soul an offering
for sin. The first thing we see is the
holiness of God. God hates sin. We see at Calvary when Christ
was crucified, we see the depravity of man. We see the utter depravity
and wickedness of man. Man is not a good and noble creature,
no sir. And nowhere do you see the true
nature of man than like you see it at Calvary.
Man finally got his hands on God, and they killed him. They hated
him, every one of them. Yes, we did. It says we. Man hates God. He hates holiness. Holiness walked this planet,
and men despised it because he exposed them. And so they killed
him. We see at Calvary, we see the
justice of God, the absolute, strict justice of God. He said,
shall surely die. And God made him his soul in
offering sin. You see, the justice of God.
Sinful man must die. Sinful man must die. Our Lord
said that. God is first of just God. Right? He said, Now look unto me, and
be ye saved, all the ends of the earth. For I am God, and
there is none else. And he said, I'm a just God.
I'm going to punish sin, he said. I will punish sin, every one. Someday he's going to burn up
this whole planet with people on it. People who had not been justified
by this just God, by this holy God. People who are found with
their sins upon them. He's going to burn them up. Fable? No. God's Word. But nowhere do we see that more
clearly than Calvary, when the Son of God was there and was
found to be a sinner, made sin, not for us, and God killed him. It's the justice of God. God
killed him. You see that? It pleased the
Lord. We see the mercy of God at Calvary. See the mercy of
God. Nowhere do we see the mercy of
God more clearly than in Calvary. Christ wasn't doing that for
himself. He was doing that for you and me, if you're a believer. We sing a song of, I should have been crucified.
They said, Christ got what I deserved. It says the chastisement of our
peace was laid on him. The weapon that I deserve from
God, the death I deserve from God, Christ took it. We see the
mercy of God more at Calvary than anywhere else. God spared
not his own son in order to spare us. What mercy? Would you do
that for me with your child? So then, would you take that
only son, that only son whom you love, your only begotten
son, your well-beloved, and kill him for me? No. God did. No, God didn't do it for good
people. He didn't do it for a righteous.
For a good man, some would die. For a righteous, some would scarcely
die. But God commended his love, his
mercy, his grace toward us. And then while we were yet sinners,
Barabbases. Thiefs on the crop. Nowhere do
we see the mercy of God more than in Calvary. And the love
of God? Greater love hath no man than
this. I love you, brother. Prove it. He laid down his life. Isn't
that the ultimate sacrifice of love? to take somebody's place. Nowhere is the love of God seen
more clearly. The grace of God doing everything. Christ did everything for thirty-three
years, thirty-three and a half years, did everything for us,
suffered everything for us, gave everything to us. We did nothing. Nowhere would you see that grace
more clearly than at Calvary, Him imputing His righteousness
and Him taking our sin. And at Calvary we see, we see
at Calvary salvation by Jesus Christ alone. We see, nowhere more clearly
do you see salvation of the Lord. When our salvation was accomplished,
it was by that one man, Jesus Christ. When he walked that hill,
the dog off this hill, bearing much more than the cross on his
back, bearing the sins of the world, his people, alone. And then when they nailed him
to that cross and hung him up in that tree alone, he had by
himself purged our sins. He by himself. This is God's
Lamb who by himself. Salvation is of the Lord. Nowhere
do we see it more clearly than right there. Now, if I were to
quit right now, you've never heard a better message. Well, verse 10, and I want to
get to this I want to get to verse 11. Verse 10 says it pleased
the Lord to bruise him. Now you know it did not please
God to put his son through pain and suffering. Why did it say, why does it say
it pleased the Lord to bruise him? Because the pleasure of
God, the scripture says, it pleased God to make you his people. So
it was in God's good will and God's good pleasure to save us,
and the only way he could do that was to bruise his son. God took no pleasure in his son's
death, but it's in God's will and purpose and good pleasure
of saving a people that he bruised his son. He put him to grief.
a man named Jesus and hung him on the cross, but Peter preached
at Pentecost. He said, you did what your wicked
hands, what you wanted to do. You did what you wanted to do.
Men did what they wanted to do. It's what the free
will of man will do with God. That's what Pilate asked them.
What will you do with Jesus? What will you do? with Jesus. Preachers are still asking people
that. What will you do? This is what man will do every
time with the true Christ of Scripture, him killing. Don't
like him. We will not have, we will not
have this man reign over us. We will not have him say he's
God. We will not say his righteousness
is the only righteousness. We will not have him tell us,
without him we can do nothing. We will not have this man, and
so we will reject him. But they did what God determined
before to be done. He must be offered. Ought not
Christ to have suffered? Yes, he must, in order to bear
the evil will in order to bear the sin of that evil will. And
we all had it. By nature, we all had it. We
all rejected him, not interested. But God put him to grief. God
made his soul an offering. Well, when he sees that, verse
10, I like this, he shall see his seed. When he made Christ's
soul an offering for sin, What's he seeing? What's God seeing? When he saw Christ hanging there,
what did he see? He saw people coming out of his
wounded side. His seed. Yeah, the children
of the promise are accounted for the seed. You see? And were there children of promise?
Huh? He said, if I be lifted up, I'll
draw all men. All men? All the men that God
gave him. I'll draw them. If I be lifted
up, I'll bear their iniquities. If I be lifted up, I'll draw,
I'll send my Holy Spirit to round them up. I'll draw them. Yeah,
God will see his seed. Read on. And he shall prolong
his days, both the seed and the seed of the seed. Eternal life
is what that's talking about. And the pleasure of the Lord
shall prosper. in his hand. The pleasure of
the Lord shall prosper in his hand. It pleased the Lord to
make you his people. All right, how is that going
to be accomplished by one man, by Jesus Christ? Well, the angels,
when he first appeared, they announced it, the absolute certainty of who this is and why he came
and what he was going to do and the fact that he will do it. Salvation of God's people is
a certainty. This world can have this uncertain
salvation of a God who's done all he can do. I'll take the
one, the only one there is, the only one in which God has done
all that there can be done and actually did it. Christ himself, in order to make
us his people, God's people, Christ himself had to impute
a righteousness, establish it, impute it, bear their sins, and it says,
the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. This was
written a long time before Christ actually was crucified, but he
sounds like it's a certain date. that he's actually going to get,
he's actually going to save his people. Yeah, that's what the
angel said when he first appeared. Even as a baby, he shall save
his people from their sin. That's why he's called Jesus.
And then when he hung on the cross, he himself said it. He
said, it's finished. It is finished. Isaiah, God said he shall prosper. It shall prosper in his hand. Salvation is not in our hands. But it was all in his hands,
our salvation, and he got the job done. He prospered. Read
on. He shall see of the travail of
his soul, and shall be satisfied. Christ, you see, was in a sense
our mother. He's everything. He's our father,
our mother, our brother. But Christ, as a woman in travail,
Scripture speaks of this much. As a woman in travail, giving
birth to a child, she, the husband doesn't marry her. The woman
bears that seed, does she not? In her womb, a long time, nine
months. And then finally, through an
excruciatingly painful, difficult trial, sometimes a long time
in labor, gives birth. Water, blood, gushes forth, but
a child, a living, new thing comes forth from her womb. And
she, upon seeing that beautiful child, the fruit of her labor,
The fruit of her wound, the fruit of her pain and her suffering
and her sorrow is satisfied. And she would endure it again.
Would you go through, Deborah, what you went through for that
girl right there, for Jennifer, again? Would you do it? Was it
easy? And so it was tough. Would you do it, Mindy? Twenty-four
hours. Mindy, when she had been in labor,
twenty-three hours, and the doctors came and the monitor and all
that said, it won't be long now, doctor. I said, well, how long?
He said, an hour, maybe an hour. And I said to Mindy, I thought
it was good news. I said, honey, only one more hour. She said,
one more hour. I can't take it another
hour. You ladies know what I'm talking about, don't you? That's
what she's talking about. I don't know. Huh? One more. I can't take it
another hour. Would you do it again? Would
you take it 24 more hours for her? She's worth it. Huh? I'm satisfied. Real satisfied. Satisfied. Satisfied. It says in Hebrews 12, I love
that passage, it says, who for the joy that was set before him
endured the cross, despised the shame, that is, thought nothing
of it, hung naked. Nothing more humiliating and
degrading, is it not? That's what we deserve. All things
are naked before God, so he hung naked. But he did it for us,
so we won't have to hang naked. His labor? Thirty-three years. A man of sorrows acquainted with
grief for thirty-three years. But he saw the travail of his
soul and satisfied. Our Lord did not give birth to
one dead child. Huh? He did not give birth to
one stillborn. One malformed. Not one retarded,
not one handicapped child. Every one of them are complete. Had no need of nothing. I'll give you a good illustration
of this. I've given it to you before. You see, Christ could
not be satisfied if he laid down his life for someone who was
not saved in the end. Could he? If there's someone
for whom Christ died in hell right now, how could he be satisfied? If there's someone whom God loves,
he could not save, and they're perishing right now, how could
he be satisfied? Could you? Men say God loves everyone without
exception, that all men are his children. Would you be satisfied? Could you be satisfied if one
of your children perished? That's absurd, isn't it? It's
absurd. I was, one time when my daughter
was a very young girl, had a swimming pool party at the YMCA in Roanoke,
and several of her friends were invited. There were about eight
or nine little girls, including my own. And my wife
and I were the only adults there. We were in charge of watching
over nine little girls in that pool. And none of them could
swim very well, you know. And I'll just be honest with
you, deep water and so forth, there's nothing I'm more paranoid
of as far as children are concerned. People, I could not enjoy myself
that evening. I was watching, I was constantly,
for how long that lasted, lost a long time, probably did an
hour or two, but to me it was an eternity. I was counting heads. One, two, three, four, five,
six, seven, eight. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. One, two, three, four,
five, six, seven, eight. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. One, two, three, four, five,
six, seven, eight. One, two, three, four, five,
six, seven, eight. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. One, two, three, four, five,
six, seven, eight. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. One, two, three, four,
five, six, seven, eight. One, two, three, four, five,
six, seven, eight. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. One, two, three, four,
five, six, seven, eight. One, two, three, four, five,
six Could I face the parents and say, well, eight out of nine
isn't bad? Huh? You'll be satisfied. Scripture
says when he presents the sons of God, when they're manifest
to the Father someday, when he brings the sons to glory. When
our captain is coming to him to bring many sons to glory,
and when he brings them to glory, what's he going to say? What's
he going to say? He's going to say to the Father,
Behold, I and the children which thou hast given me, every one
of them, not one lost, none of them shall perish, I said. And
they didn't. Here they are, satisfied. Huh? Why? Why is it that way? To the praise
of the glory of the captain of our salvation, of our Redeemer,
our Savior. You see, he gets the glory. Jesus
doesn't get any glory by dying for everybody and some of them
lost. That doesn't give him glory. That doesn't give him glory. That takes away his glory. He's
only fully glorified when he saves everybody he died for. This is more than doctrine generic.
Christ Jesus' glory is at stake. More than doctrine. We're not
arguing Calvinism here. The glory of the Son of God is
at stake. We're not splitting theological
hairs when we insist upon particular redemption. We're insisting upon the glory
of Jesus Christ. We're insisting upon the glory
of God's will and purpose. We're insisting upon the power
of the sovereign God to save his people. We're insisting upon
the the veracity of God's word. What he said, he means, and he
did it. He said, I've spoken it, I'll
bring it to pass. With them, by them, he shall
be satisfied. Like that Stephen Parks? Should
I holler louder? I'm going to apologize for it.
Somebody, somebody needs to tell this generation. He shall see
his seed. The travail of his soul shall
be satisfied. Now, here's what I wanted to
get to. Verse 11. This is good. I thought about
this for three weeks, I guess. This one phrase, by his knowledge
shall my righteous servant justify many. For he shall bear their iniquity.
By his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many. Justification. This is a word,
I know it's a big word. But it's a Bible word. It's God's
word. Justification. Justified. It's used many, many times through
the Scriptures. Stay with me, all right? This
whole book is about justification. This whole book, justification,
let me tell you very quickly what just—you turn to Romans
3, all right? You be turning to Romans 3. Very
quickly, very simply. Justification is to be made righteous,
to be made free from guilt, free from sin. It's to be declared
by God innocent. More than that, holy, righteous,
unblameable, unreprovable, accepted, as holy, as pure as God. Justification, just as if I had. Never sin. Justification. And it must be so. That's what
this book is about. It's not some shallow thing that
men are talking about. Well, God loves you. No. God is holy. God is just. Man is sinful. This is a deep
question. How can God be just and justify? How can he be claimed as more
of a woman? Huh? We must be. It shall be perfect
to be accepted. God is holy, God is just. Scripture
says this, listen, the righteous Lord loveth righteousness. He wouldn't be a holy God if
he loved anything less than perfect righteousness, right? How the
holy God, the scripture says, in his holy temple, his holy
angels around him, It says holy word, holy Bible, holy temple,
holy swan, holy ram, everything is holy, holy, holy with the
God of the Bible. And we must be holy just to that. Chapter 3 of Romans, look at
this. Oh, where do I start and stop? Verse 19 says, We know that what
thingssoever the law saith, it saith to them that are under
the law. Why? Why was a law written? To show
us how to live. Read it. That every mouth may
be stopped, and all the world may become guilty. By the laws
of knowledge of sin, verse 20 said. Now, the deeds of the law,
no flesh can be justified. For by the law is the knowledge
of sin. If anybody really looked at the law, Paul said, you that
desire to be under the law, if anyone did and really took a
look at it, they'd realize it's impossible. With man, it's impossible. Man can't keep the law. Because
the law demands perfection in thought. Read on. But now, verse twenty-one, the
righteousness of God, the holiness of God, without the law, that
is, without us keeping it, is manifest. It's made clear. It's
revealed, being witnessed by the law. Even the law tells us,
you can't keep me. And Moses, who wrote it, says,
you need a law keeper, and the prophet. Even, now here it is,
22, here it is, the righteousness of God, which is by faith of
Jesus Christ. Stay with me, people. The righteousness
of God, holiness of God, which is by faith, not in, not in,
but the faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that
believe. There must be a believer, yes.
But that's because they're in Christ. There's no difference. All have sinned and come short
of the glory. Verse 24, and here it is, being
justified freely by his grace. That is, God just declared it.
How? Through the redemption that's
in Christ Jesus. Justified freely by his grace. through the redemption that's
in Jesus Christ. Romans 8 says, Who shall lay
anything to the charge of God's elect? Why? How? Are we innocent? Justified? Because we did something? Because we know? Because it's God that justifies. God said, Justify. Two men walked
in the temple. Remember? Pharisee and a publican. One of the finest men that ever
lived, one of the worst. Two men walked in the temple.
Moral man, wicked man. Moral man stands up, here I am,
I thank you, I've done this, I've done that, I've never done
that, I'm not like that fellow. Thank you. The Lord said, condemned. But that's a man in his best
state. condemned. The worst man who
ever lived stood up and said, have mercy, justify. How can you do that? Because
I'm God. I declare who's justified. But
now it's through the redemption that's in Christ. We were justified
when God said it. You know, before the war began,
when God had Stan Anderson's name in his heart and his mind,
he said, He's justified. When God said... But in time, Stan was born in
time. Something's got to be done about
those actual sins. Christ came, made of woman, made
under the law, made of flesh. He had to condemn flesh, the
sin in the flesh, did he not? Christ was made all the actual
sins of Stan Anderson, and hung on that cross. Who is he to condemn
it? Christ died. Stan's justified. Why? He has
no sin. Oh, no he doesn't. They were
all laid on Christ. Christ took them all. Stan's
without sin. He's justified. But there's another
scripture saying we're justified by faith. We must believe. He
that believeth is baptized shall be saved, shall be justified,
declared innocent. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
and thou shalt be saved. There's a point in time when
the Holy Spirit came through the preaching of the gospel and
Stan heard it. He heard not an offer, not a plea, not a begging,
but he heard of how it's God that justifies He heard of how
it's Christ that died, and then the Holy Spirit said, You do
believe this, don't you, Stan? He said, I sure do. Justified
by faith, but it's not of himself. It's a gift of God. God gets all the glory. Get this
tape and send it out. We're dealing with something
here. The whole counsel of God Justification. We don't have anything to do
with it. Justified by his grace through
the redemption that's in Christ Jesus. All right? Now, the law,
he said, by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify
many. His knowledge. Here's what I
want to get at very, very quickly. I've got five more minutes. By
his knowledge. Whose knowledge? Christ knowledge. Christ knowledge. Here's a few
things which God, Christ knows and must be known in order to
justify me. All right? By his knowledge shall
he justify me. Number one, he knows God. Stay with me. I hope this, I
think this will be a blessing, all right? He knows God. You
know, God only deals with men. He'll only deal with human beings
through one person. There's one mediator between
God and man, the man Christ Jesus. One person. God deals with human
beings through one person, Jesus Christ. Right? I cannot go to
God by myself. I don't know God. Who is this
that darkeneth counsel? Who is this that comes into my
presence? Who is this? But now, who shall ascend to
this holy hill? Huh? He that hath clean hands
and a pure heart. Well, who can do that? Well,
there's somebody walking in. Here he comes. Psalm 24 says,
here he comes. Well, who is it? It's the King
of Glory. It's the Son of God. It's a man,
all right. But it's Christ, the God-man.
the representative to go between the umpire, the basement, and
we're in him, following him. He knows God. We can come to
God only by him. Let me give you this illustration.
I've preached a while, now I'm going to tell you something. True story. Back in the Civil
War, There was a soldier sitting outside of the White House, a
Union soldier, sitting on the curb, weeping. He needed to get
home. Something happened at home, and
he wanted so badly to get home, his dying father or something. And he was weeping. He wanted
to see, and the only one who could really give him a leave
of absence was President Abraham Lincoln. True story. You see
on the curb weeping and a little child, a young boy was walking
by and overheard him weeping and said, Sir, soldier, what's
wrong? He said, I need to get home.
I need to get home. I'm not deserting or anything. I just I need to get home. And
no one will let me go. And I believe if the president would
just hear me. I believe he'd let me go. And the soldier said, OK, well,
come on. I mean, the young boy said, OK,
soldier, come on. What? The little boy said, follow
me. And the little boy walked up
the steps of the White House, and there were two uniformed
soldiers guarding the door. And the boy walked up, and they
said, they just stood aside and he walked right in the front
door. And the soldier with him. And the soldier said, what's
going on here? He walked down the hall. Here were two other
soldiers standing there. And they saluted the young boy. Walked right on by. There's the
Oval Office. There's the highest power in
the world. They own the world. They can
do anything for this soldier. President of the United States.
There's the door. There's two more guards at that
door with guns. They stepped aside and put those
guns down, and that little boy opened that door and walked up
to the desk of the highest office on earth, the man, the president,
and said, Dad, somebody wants to see you. He'll only deal with one person,
Jesus Christ. But now he'll say, Oh, Brother
Henry, they've come to God. Father, justify this man. Okay, son. He knows God, you see, by his
knowledge. Father, I will that they be with
me where I am. Okay, they will. By his knowledge,
his knowledge of the law. He wrote it. I don't know it. People think they do. They don't.
He knows every jot and tittle. Why? He wrote it, Brother Henry.
He wrote it. We've got to keep the things
we don't know about. Don't we? He knew it. He kept it by his knowledge of
the law, by his knowledge of the enemy. This is good. We've got an enemy that accuses
us. Christ our captain. answered everything for us, as
he stood before the accuser of the brethren. And Satan still
accuses the brethren now. He's this, he's that. Christ
says, no, he's not. If you seek them, if you seek
me, you've got to let them go. You've got to go through me to
get to them, Christ says. He knows the enemy. He knows
me. By his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many. He knows me. By his knowledge
of me. He knows me better than I know
me. He knows what I need better than I know what I need. Huh?
Before I ask. You see, like a father knows
what the child does not. I was thinking the other day.
I was thinking, you know, I'll never know what my father knows. You know? Brother Kelly, he's
always 30 years ahead of me. He's always got 30 more years
experience than I do. It doesn't matter what. What
about when he dies? Then what will he know? He'll know it all. You understand? I'll never know as much as my
father knows. He's gaining in experience like I am. But he'll
always have more. As the father knows what the
child does not, and what we think we do, we don't. He does. He knows what's best. As the
father knows what's necessary for the child, the child doesn't
think we do, but we don't. He does. And the father will
do it, even though the child thinks, I wouldn't do it that
way, but he knows better. He knows. And as a father loves a child
more than himself, more than himself, very few children
would lay down their lives for their parents. There are very
few parents who would not lay down their lives for their children.
Is that right? No matter how bad they are. Huh? God did it for all of his children.
He knows them. As a father knows the consequences
of a child's actions, the future consequences, because of that
child's ignorance and actions, the father knows what to do. And he does it on behalf of the
child. As a father bears with all the
blame, pain, suffering of the child, if possible, he did it
by his knowledge. I thought that was pretty good.
Now, his knowledge. I just don't know. And I love
this, when Christ hung on that cross, and this was a statement
the Lord used to just break my old heart. He said, Father, forgive
them. They know not what they did.
They don't know what they're doing. They don't know the consequences
of what they have done and what they would do if I didn't prevent
it. They don't know what they need
to know, but I do. By his knowledge. He laid hold
of this by his knowledge. He knows. He knows. And therefore he did what was
necessary. And God says in verse twelve,
I'll divide him because he did this, and therefore I'll divide
him a portion of his name. Give him a name above every name. None other name, none other name,
the greatest name. And at his name every knee will
bow and every tongue confess he's Lord, to the glory of God
the Father. All right, let's sing in closing,
122. 122. Why? Why did they nail him to
Calvary's tree? Why? Because all my iniquities
were on him. Let's stand and sing. 122.