Thank you, Susanna. That song
is about satisfaction and substitution. Jesus, God's son, took my place. And that's what I want to speak
to you about this morning from the book of Isaiah. If you would
go with me back to the book of Isaiah in the Old Testament,
go to chapter 53. Isaiah chapter 53. I ask Brother Joe, if he would read
that portion of scripture from the book of Acts. And I'm sure many of you are
familiar with that story. Philip was a wonderful evangelist. And he was busy preaching in
a place called Samaria. And God was blessing his ministry. Many people were being converted
by the grace of God. But all of a sudden, the Lord
had a special mission for him out in the desert. And so he
took Philip out in the desert to minister to one man. Remind you of the scripture that
says, how shall they hear without a preacher. This man had been
to Jerusalem. He was an Ethiopian. And he had
perhaps gone to some of the feasts and things of that nature in
Jerusalem, but he couldn't find any satisfaction for his soul. God gave him a thirst for the
Word of God. God gave him this mysterious
inward hunger to know the God of the Bible. And he went to
Jerusalem, but he didn't get anything there. It wasn't in
the purpose of God for him to come up against the gospel then. So he was going back home, riding
in his chariot, While he was at Jerusalem, he had most likely
purchased at least, maybe not all of the book of Isaiah, but
at least part of the book of Isaiah. And he was reading as
he rode along in his chariot. And he was reading from Isaiah
chapter 53. But he couldn't understand what
he was reading. You know, we all read. We have
several young people here this morning read books. We teach
our children to read, and that's certainly a good thing. And we talked to our granddaughter
in Japan this morning. She had just come back from the
library researching reading. Reading's a good thing, and you
want to understand what it is you're reading. Otherwise, it's
not doing you a lot of good, is it? If you read, you don't
have comprehension, you don't perceive, you don't understand
the words that you're reading. It's just not doing you much
good. You've got to understand. And so, here's this man reading,
and he's reading a parchment. It's rolled up, and he unrolled
it, and he's reading from Isaiah 53. And as he was reading, the Spirit
of God brought Philip to him. I don't know how Philip got there,
but the Lord got him there. The Lord puts His men in places
where He's going to use them. And Philip got there, and he
came along the chariot, and he said, do you understand what you're
reading? commanded the chariot to be stopped. And you can just kind of imagine
he gives the order to the driver, stop the chariot. So he stops
the chariot. And he said, what did you say?
And Philip said, I said, do you understand what you're reading? He looked at him and he kind
of shook his head. And he said, how can I? How can
I except some man guide me? I need to be guided. I need some
direction. I need understanding. I just,
I can't understand this. This man Isaiah, who's he talking
about? Is he talking about himself? Or is he talking about what this
man said? Some other man. And Philip began
the very same Very same scripture, Isaiah chapter 53. He preached
to him the Lord Jesus. Now, I want to go right back
to this scripture that the eunuch was reading, Isaiah chapter 53. And I want to preach to you the
Lord Jesus. To many of you, this is a chapter
you're very familiar with. You've read it. many, many times,
and you've heard it preached from, from this very pulpit,
many, many times as well. But I want it to be fresh for
you. I want the Spirit of God to guide you and give you understanding,
even as I desire Him to guide me and give me understanding. All this passage of Scripture
is about the Lord Jesus Christ. It's like the gospel in the Old
Testament. I think of Isaiah as being an
evangelist himself. He's like Philip. He was an evangelist
and he preached the gospel of the grace of God in Christ Jesus. And Isaiah is speaking to us
of the great Savior and He speaks of Him and He speaks of His work
as though it were already finished. That's what's amazing about this
Scripture. It's as though it's already happened and this was
what, 750 years before Christ Jesus was born. It's a mysterious passage, but
it isn't mysterious to the degree that we don't understand who
he's writing about. Isaiah is writing about the Son
of God. He's writing about the Lord Jesus. Now, understand this. If you
want to really grasp this passage of Scripture, I agree with others
that chapter 53 probably should have begun back in chapter 52
and verse 13. Because Isaiah is writing to
us about this one who he calls the servant of God. Now this
is what we believe. If any of you If you want to
know what this preacher believes, what this preacher preaches,
if you want to know what 13th Street Baptist Church, what we
believe, what we preach, what we hold forth, if you want to
know what is our creed, here it is. Isaiah chapter 53. And I just want to, as it were,
just kind of take you by the hand and lead you through these
verses. First of all, look at chapter
52 and verse 13. Behold My servant. This is God
speaking. It's Jehovah. Would you not hear
God speak? Would you not hear your Creator?
The One who made you, the One who provides for you daily. He
provides for all the animals. He provides for the birds in
the air and the foxes and the ravens and the lions and all
of the animals of the world. He provides for all the people
throughout the world. He provides for you. We read
that in Him we live and breathe and we have our being. Now would
you not listen to God? Would you not listen to your
Maker? And your Maker, here's what He
says, Behold My servant. Look to My servant. Consider My servant. Who is this
servant? the Lord Jesus Christ. Well,
I thought He's equal with God. How can He be the servant of
God? He made Himself of no reputation. He took upon Himself the form
of a servant. He's the servant of God. He came
to serve Jehovah. Listen, Adam didn't serve Him
perfectly. We don't serve Him perfectly.
We're a bunch of sinful people. God demands perfect service. And our Lord Jesus, He came as
the servant of Jehovah. He's equal to God in every way. He's divine. He's deity. He's God of very God. He said,
I am, when they came to arrest Him. He said, I am. Who are you
looking for? They said, Jesus of Nazareth.
He said, I am. And the very power of His words
knocked them all down. I am. He's the one who spoke
to Moses out of the bush that burned and wasn't consumed. When
Moses said, you tell me to go and lead Israel out of Egyptian
bondage? Who shall I say has sent me?
And the voice out of the bush said, tell them I am, that I
am has sent you. That's who Christ Jesus is and
that's who God is who's speaking to him and Christ Jesus is the
savior. He is himself the great I am
who came down from heaven to be the servant of Jehovah. He's
the perfect servant. In chapter 53, He's called the
righteous servant. He says, Behold, my servant shall
deal, He says, prudently. He'll deal wisely. He'll give
wisdom about the things of God. And the Lord's got to give us
wisdom. He's got to make us wise unto salvation. He should deal
prudently. But also, as it says over, if
you have a In the center column it says, or prosper. Whatever he does will prosper. Now we fail at a lot of things. We begin some kind of project,
something we set out to do and we fail. We're not successful. Either we don't finish it or
we mess it up and certainly we can never do anything to perfection.
But our Lord Jesus, He came to to save His people from their
sins and He'd be successful. He's prosperous. God's eternal
purpose in the hands of Christ Jesus can be nothing but prosperous
because of who He is. It says He shall be exalted and
extolled. He shall be on what basis? On the basis of finishing the
work of salvation God sent Him to do. Now He was already extolled. He was already exalted because
He's God over all, blessed forever. He is the eternal God. But He came down here. He stooped
down here, born in a manger 2,000 years ago, grew up, and then
He died. He suffered, bled, and died in
the stead of sinners as our substitute to satisfy the justice of God. And on the basis of doing the
work of saving His people from their iniquities, transgressions,
and sins, God has exalted Him. God has extolled it very high,
very high, higher than the highest. In fact, God said to his son,
when he came back to glory, he said here at my right hand, till
I make you enemies, you footstool. Look at verse 14, chapter 52,
as many as, as many were astonished at thee, astonished. And to say
astonished isn't even good enough. It's as many as were stupefied. absolutely dumbfounded. This is the most wonderful thing,
the most mysterious thing, the most miraculous thing that God
of Heaven, that He had come down here. It's just utterly amazing. Utterly amazing. And watch it. His visage, the visage of our
Lord Jesus was so marred More than any man. Can you imagine
what they did to the body of the Lord Jesus Christ? She just
sang, I should have been crucified. I should have suffered and died.
Oh, how the Savior suffered in His body. From all the wounds
inflicted on Him by men. From the beatings that He took. And they pulled out his beard,
and then they put a thorn crown brow on his head, and the blood
just gushed down. You know how when you cut your
face, how your blood vessels are so close to the skin? The
blood just gushed out of his head. And then they laid Him
on a cross, and nailed His hands to a cross, and His feet nailed
to a cross. Then hoisted that up, His visage
was marred more than any man, and His form more than the sons
of men. They had beaten Him till His
back looked like Pharaoh's. This is the Son of God. This
is our Savior. So why did He endure that kind
of treatment? Well, He did it for us. And I
tell you, as we go through this, you'll see it wasn't just what
men did to Him physically, it's what God did to His soul. By
His stripes, His stripes on His soul were healed. You see, our
Lord Jesus, when He entered into this world, He received a body
and a soul. He was a real man. He is still
a real man. And that real man suffered. The
reason He had to be a man was because man got us into this
mess in the first place. It's going to take a perfect
man to get us out of it. It'll have to take a man who
is equal with God in every way, but yet a man who's like us,
who can be touched with the feelings of our infirmities. It's just
one who qualifies as the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, as a result
of his death, verse 15, so he shall sprinkle many nations. What does that mean? Sprinkle
with his blood. Sprinkle with his blood. And the kings of the earth, they'll
shut their mouths at Him. In fact, someday every knee is
gonna bow and every tongue's gonna confess that He's the Lord
and every mouth shall be shut regarding man's own thoughts
about his own, his goodness, his own righteousness. Mouth's
gonna be shut. For that which had not been told,
then they shall see. I think about those kings that
came who followed the star toward the Lord Jesus where He was going
to be born, and they followed His star. We've come to worship
the King. Things that they hadn't heard,
they would see. That which they had not heard,
they would consider. Now we get into chapter 53, who
hath believed our report? Who hath believed our report?
Who hath believed our record? This, we have a good report.
I have a good report to give you this morning. You know, when
every so often, quarterly or maybe monthly, the CEO perhaps
of a company will gather all the leaders together and say,
I have a report to give you. And sometimes it's a good report,
and sometimes they say, earnings are down this quarter or this
month, and there's things we need to do. I'm going to give
you an accurate report. Well, I'm going to give you an
accurate report. But it's a good report. In fact,
it's the best report that could ever be given. Because this report
regards the Son of God. It's about the Savior. It's about
a Savior for folks like us. It's about how He came from heaven
and lived and died to redeem a people, to put away sin, to
bring in everlasting righteousness for all those God gave Him in
the covenant of grace. It's a good report for people
who are sinful because the report says, come unto Christ Jesus
for life, for salvation, for forgiveness. It's a good report.
Who hath believed our report? It's a good doctrine, it's a
good report. But Isaiah speaks as though nobody's
believing this report. Nobody's believing the record.
And he says, to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? And this
is what's necessary before we will believe the arm of the Lord
has got to be revealed to us. That's the power of God. God's
got to reveal the truth to us. It's like those men on the road
to Emmaus. The Lord opened up their hearts
and gave them understanding so that they would see and know
who He was. And that's what God has to do
for us. He has to, as it were, come alongside
of us and give us understanding and give us knowledge. He really
gives us life. That's what He does. And he makes
us to understand that the work of redemption, that great work
of satisfying God, of removing all the sinfulness of all of
his people, it's a work that's already been done. It was done
2,000 years ago at the cross. Revelation. The arm of the Lord's
gotta be revealed to us. And then he begins to speak again
about this servant of God in verse two. Remember, this is
about He. It's about He. The gospel is
about a person and His work. For He shall grow up amazing,
utterly astounding. No wonder He used that word back
there in chapter 52 and verse 14. Astonished. Just dumbfounded. Utterly amazed, he, this servant
of God, this one who's equal with God, this one who is the
great I Am, he shall grow up, grow up, behold him in a manger,
a little baby. And he grew up. The scripture
says he grew in stature and in wisdom. He grew up, watch it,
he grew up before Him. that is before God. Before God. I want you to know that God sees
and knows everything about you. He watches everything that you
do. You're under his magnifying glass. And our Lord Jesus, when
he is in this world as our representative, because that's who he was, he
was a representative of his people, he grew up under the watchful
eye of Jehovah, of God. He shall grow up before Him,
before God. God's watching Him, God's inspecting
Him. Do you remember back, and I'm
sure you do, in Exodus chapter 12, when God gave instructions
about the Passover? And you know, the Lord's gonna,
He's gonna redeem His people out of Egyptian bondage. And
He said, each of you, take a lamb of the first year, a male, in
the strength of his days. Put it up four days. Watch it. Inspect it. Make sure it's okay.
Not diseased or anything. And then you kill that lamb. Kill it! Shed his blood! Shed his blood! That's our Lord Jesus. That's
a picture of our Lord Jesus growing up before God. It's like Moses
told those people, put that lamb up four days and keep an eye
on it. Now watch it carefully. Inspect that lamb. There better
not be anything wrong with that lamb. Because you see, our Savior
has to be perfect. He's got to be without spot.
He's got to be without blemish. Not just before us, but before God. because He's
a sacrifice provided by God and a sacrifice for God. Because
as we often say, God had to do something for Himself before
He could do something for us. He had to satisfy His own law
and justice that demanded death for sin. Somebody's got to die
for my sins. It's either going to be me or a very suitable substitute,
one that's suitable, qualified before God, enter into the picture
of Christ Jesus. So He grows up before Him as
a tender plant, just a small babe, as a root out of dry ground,
and He doesn't have any form or comeliness. Nobody took notice of him when
he was born. You see, he wasn't born into
a family of wealth, but a family of poverty. He wasn't born to a virgin who
was the daughter of an aristocrat or a wealthy, significant person
in Israel. Born to just a poor Jewish maiden. He has no form nor comeliness. He wasn't born in a palace. He was born in a stable. There
was no room for Him. There was no room for Him in
the inn. And you know, as far as the natural man is concerned,
there's no room for him in this world. We don't have room for
Jesus of Nazareth. We don't need Him. We don't want
Him. No comeliness. And He says when
we shall see Him, there's no beauty that we should desire
Him. There was nothing about the outward person of Christ
Jesus that would make anybody think that, wow, this is the
Messiah. Now, of course, He did the miracles
and all of those things, but just His outward appearance,
because He was. in appearance like any other
man. No beauty that we would desire
in Him. In fact, He says in verse 3, He's despised and rejected
a man. Can you imagine that? The Lord
of glory, He enters into this world and He's despised? He's
despised. You know why He was despised?
Because he put his finger right on the issue at hand, which was
salvation by grace. And those people that he dealt
with believed in salvation by their own righteousness. They
despised him. They said, we're good people.
We keep the law. We're not sinners. Christ Jesus
said, I came not to call the Righteous, but sinners to salvation. And they said, we're not sinners.
And they said, this man, he's a friend of publicans and sinners.
Look at the folks he hangs with. And anybody could have drawn
near to Christ Jesus. Any sinner. People that we wouldn't
want to have anything to do with. There was something about the
Savior. He was so approachable. Even the lowest of society could
walk up to Him and converse with Him. He was full of mercy and
full of grace. Wouldn't God be that way? You
see, He came to save sinful people. And don't ever look down on anybody
else in this world because we're all the scum of the earth. We're all worms of the dust.
Our Christ Jesus came to save sinful people. I was talking
about a good report. This is what the Apostle Paul
says. This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation
that Christ Jesus, He came into the world to save sinners of
whom I am chief. Sinners! Are you a sinner? One hymn writer said a sinner
is a sacred thing. The Holy Ghost has made him so. It's a blessed day when God shows
us we're sinners. We're not good people, we're
bad people. We're wicked people, we're corrupt
people. We're corrupt before God. And
we've got to have the righteousness of Jesus Christ or we gonna perish. And God's gotta show us that.
God's gotta show us that. He's despised and rejected a
man, a man of sorrows. A man of sorrows and acquainted
with grief. Our Lord Jesus speaks in the
book of Lamentations chapter 1. He says, you who pass by,
behold me and see. Have you ever seen sorrow like
this? Ever seen agony like this? In
your minds, hide your hearts. See Christ Jesus hanging on the
cross, dying in the stead of sinners to satisfy divine justice. And I ask you, have you ever
seen sorrow like that? He sorrowed all the days of His
life. He bore our sins and our sorrows. He was acquainted with grief.
You know what we did? We hid our faces from Him. He
was despised and we didn't even esteem Him. In verse 4, Isaiah says, surely
He had borne our griefs, He carried our sorrows. See, this is substitution. He died for us. He died for us. But even though He did that,
we esteemed Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. People
said, well, He's getting all this because He blasphemed God,
because He said He is the Son of God. Well, why was he wounded then? Why did he die? Look at verse
five. But he was wounded for our transgressions. That's why he suffered. For our
transgressions. I read it this way. He was wounded
for my transgressions. Oh, that kind of puts a different
light on it. You read it that way. He was
wounded for my transgressions. He was bruised. All those bruises
on His body. And men bruised His body and
God bruised His soul. He was bruised for my iniquities. And all the punishment, all the
chastisement of my peace, so that I'd have peace with God,
is on Him. because he made our peace by
the blood of his cross, and with his stripes we're healed. See,
sin's an awful disease. Only way it can be healed is
by his stripes. In verse six he says, all we like sheep have
gone astray. We're the Lord's sheep and we
all went astray. We go our own way. It's what
He says. We've turned everyone to His
own way. And our way is always the broad
way that leads to destruction. Man's got lots of different ways
that he turns to in order to be accepted with God. Well, I'll
turn to the baptistry way. Wrong way. I'll start doing better. Wrong way. You watch when you're riding
down the highway sometime, you come to an intersection, you'll
see over on that other side, there'll be a big sign, red sign
that says, wrong way. You know what that means? It
ain't the right way. Don't go that way. If you go
the wrong way, you're going to have a collision. And I'm telling
you, this is a matter of salvation. You go the wrong way, You're
going to have a collision, and it's with God. You're going to
collide with God. Because God says there's one
way. There's one way to me. Christ Jesus said, I am the way,
the truth, and the life. No man cometh to God but by me. Right way. There's a right way. And you come the right way to
God, and you'll find opened arms of grace and mercy to receive
you. But you come the wrong way. You come by way of your making. You're gonna run head on into
God. A holy God. And a just God. All we like sheep have gone astray,
we've turned everyone to his own way. This is what the Lord's
done. He laid on him. He made to meet
on him the iniquity of us all. Now this one upon whose head
our iniquities were made to meet, he was oppressed, he was distressed,
and he was afflicted, but he never opened his mouth. He's
brought as a lamb to the slaughter. Ah, this is what the Ethiopian
was reading, you see. He's brought as a lamb to the
slaughter. He's God's lamb. John the Baptist said, behold
the lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. He's God's
lamb. He's brought as a lamb to the
slaughter as a sheep before her shearers is dumb so be openeth
not his mouth." I tell you, our Lord Jesus Christ, He got a good
shearing. Oh yeah, at the hands of justice.
And God put Him to death so we'd have a good coat. So we'd have
a good robe. It's a robe of His own righteousness. Our Lord Jesus, He was shorn! He was the sheep that was sheared! And we wear the robe of His righteousness. And He never opened His mouth, never opened His mouth. Voluntary
sacrifice, that's what He was. Willing, He was taken from prison,
from the grave, and from judgment. Who shall declare His generation?
His everlasting generation, He's the eternal God. The generation
of those for whom He died, that's His seed. He shall see His seed,
as it says later on, shall be satisfied. Who shall declare
His generation? But He was cut off out of the
land of the living. Why was He cut off out of the
land of the living? That we might live. He died that
we might live. And God says, for the transgression
of my people, God says, I've got a people more numerous than
the stars in the sky. A multitude which no man can
number for the transgression of my people. That's why he was
smitten. That's the reason. Why did Jesus
of Nazareth walk on this earth? He was from a part of Israel
that was despised, Galilee. He was from a village in Galilee
that people said nothing good can come out of there. Nazareth,
why did he come down here to endure all the verbal insults
that he did and then to suffer, bleed, and die? He came for God's
people. That's why he came. For my people. Verse 9, he made his grave with
the rich or with the wicked. Who did he die between? Two thieves. And they put him in the middle
because they said he's the greatest felon of all. Of these three
men, the greatest criminal is the one in the middle. That's
what they thought of Jesus Christ. And He was with the rich in His
death, buried in a rich man's tomb. Borrowed that tomb because
He wouldn't need it long. Because he had done no violence,
neither any deceit in his mouth. Verse 10, yet it pleased God.
It satisfied the Lord to bruise him. You know who put him to
grief? God did. That next day. He hath
put him to grief when thou shalt make his soul an offering for
sin. God made the soul of Christ Jesus
to be the offering for sin. Throughout the Old Testament,
always that which is emphasized is an offering for sin. Had to
have a sin offering. And listen, if God's going to
save us, if God's going to take us to heaven, if God's going
to receive us, He's got to have a sin offering that will satisfy
His own justice. And there wasn't but one that
would qualify for that. That's His only begotten Son. He shall see His seed. As He
died on that cross, He saw His seed. He saw His people. And I tell you, He prolonged
His days because He rose from the grave. And the pleasure of
the Lord, the purpose of God prospered in His hand. He shall
see the travail of His soul. His soul travailed. He shall
be satisfied. He went through birth pains. for us, satisfied. By his knowledge shall my righteous
servant, that's who he is. He's God's righteous servant.
He shall justify many. That's what he did when he died.
He justified many. That's why it says the last verse
of Romans chapter four, he was raised again because of our justification. He had justified us. He shall
bear their iniquities. Therefore, here's His exaltation. Will I divide him a portion with
the great? I tell you, God gave him a great
portion of people. All those in whose stead he died.
And He's going to divide the spoil with them. That is, He's
going to exalt them too. See, our Savior's been exalted
with everlasting glory. And I tell you, He's going to
exalt His people one of these days. We're going to leave this
world, and we're going to enter into glory. And we're going to
sit with Him and reign with Him, the Scripture says. And here's
the reason. Here are the reasons. Watch this.
Number one, because He had poured out His soul unto death. That's
why. You know why we're going to be
lifted up? You know why we're going to glory? You know why
we're going to be exalted by God? Because number one, our
Lord Jesus was numbered with the transgressors. He was accounted
and He was appointed to be among the transgressors. And number
two, He bared the sin of many. He'd bear our sin in His own
body on the tree. And number three, He made intercession
for transgressors. And you know what He said while
He was hanging on that cross? He said, Father, forgive them.
Isn't that amazing? Father, forgive them. Forgive
all them in whose stead I'm hanging on this cross. Father, forgive
them of all their transgressions, of all their iniquities, of all
their sinfulness. Forgive them! Forgive them. He made intercession for the
transgressors. And He still does. That's why
the hymn writer said, five bleeding wounds He bears, received on
Calvary. They pour, those effectual wounds,
they pour effectual prayers to God. They ever, he said, they
ever plead for me. Forgive them, oh forgive, they
cry. Forgive them, oh forgive, they
cry. Don't let that ransom sinner
die. Don't let that ransom sinner
die. And he still makes intercession
for us. And I'll tell you, we got somebody
praying for us even today. I want you to pray for me. I
got called last night. One of the ladies of our congregation,
having some physical problems, put her in the hospital. And her mother said, she didn't want
me to call you and ask you if you'd pray for her. And I said,
I'm praying for you. I'm praying for you. And I called
her this morning. She's going to have a heart catheterization
tomorrow. She's going to have a heart catheterization
tomorrow. And I said, I'm praying for you.
But there's somebody else that's praying for you. The Lord Jesus Christ. Aaron
come to see us yesterday. And I said, I'm praying for you.
But there's somebody else praying for you, Aaron. And he's watching
this morning, the Lord willing. Christ Jesus is praying for you.
And Doretha. Is somebody else praying for
you? Brother Cary? Is somebody else praying for
you? And all the sick ones here, and
the sick ones out there, and all of God's people, you who
are burdened with the troubles of life, those of you who are
the people of God, there's somebody praying for you. And I'm telling
you, He'll work all this out for you good. He'll see to it. He'll see to it. And all things
work together for your good in His glory. He's praying for you. He makes intercession for you.
Isn't that glorious? What a glorious chapter of Scripture. I just scratched the surface
of it this morning, but oh, what a magnificent Savior. And I compel
all of y'all to come to Him and believe Him. What a magnificent
Redeemer He is. God's faithful servant. That's
the substitution and satisfaction. That's what that chapter is all
about. Substitution and satisfaction.