Isaiah 53. There's much to do this season
of the year concerning our Lord's birth. But His birth would be of no
importance if it weren't for His death. His life would be of no importance
without his death. His being despised and rejected
of men would mean nothing apart from his death. And his death would mean nothing
if he hadn't accomplished all that he had intended to accomplish
and it hadn't been pleasing to his father. This chapter speaks more completely
of our Lord and Savior than any chapter in the book. Ed Elmore told me that we ought
to take our shoes off when we read this chapter. We're on holy
ground. I wanted to comment on a verse. I was going to comment on verse
2. It says, is our Lord and Savior Jesus
Christ, the Son of God. He shall grow up before Him,
God the Father, as a tender plant and as a root from the house
of David, lineage of David, a root out of dry ground. He was a virgin
born. But it didn't know where to stop.
So I won't comment. Brother Henry Mahan said that
the chapter break in this book at this point is, he thought it would have been
better to have broke the chapter at verse 13 of chapter 52. He thinks that chapter 53, the
first verse should have been Verse 13 of 52. So we're going
to start reading there. He says, Behold my servant. Isn't
that what God told Satan? Behold my servant. Consider my
servant. Observe him. Take a good look
at him. Consider my servant, the son
of my love, the apple of my eye. Behold my servant. shall deal
prudently, he shall be exalted and extolled, and be very high. As many were astonished at thee,
his vision was so marred more than any man, and his form more
than the sons of men. So shall he sprinkle, or startle,
or purify 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. Who hath believed our report,
and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? For he shall grow
up before him as a tender plant, as a root out of dry ground.
He hath no form nor comeliness, and 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. And we
hid, as it were, our faces from him. He was despised, and we
esteemed him not. Surely he hath 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. He was bruised for our iniquities.
The chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes
we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray.
We have turned every one to his own way, and the Lord have laid
on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and he was afflicted,
yet he opened not his mouth, He is brought as a lamb to the
slaughter, and as a sheep before her shears his dung, so he opened
not his mouth. 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 transgressions
of my people was he stricken. And he made his grave with the
wicked, and with the rich in his debt, because he had done
no violence, and neither was there deceit in his mouth. 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 the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied. By his knowledge shall my righteous
servant justify many, for he shall bear their iniquities.
Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall
divide the spoiled with the strong, because he hath poured out his
soul unto death. And he was numbered with the
transgressors, and he bared the sin of many, and made intercession
for the transgressors. This is His holy name. Let's
pray. Our God and our Father, the Father of our Lord and Savior,
Jesus Christ, Lord, it's unto Thee that we come this night
seeking to worship and honor Thee. We come seeking Thy face. Oh,
that You'd be pleased to use our pastor to reveal Thy Son
unto us. Show us His beauty, show us His
kingdom, show us His majesty. Oh, that we would consider Him
and we'd behold Him. We'd honor and magnify His name. Enable us to put away the cares
of the day. Concentrate on him. Observe him,
see him, behold our Savior. Continue to bless this congregation. Have mercy upon us. Grow us in
the grace and knowledge of our Savior. Bless us as we meet and
attempt to worship. For it's in Christ's name I pray.
Amen. If you have your Bibles and you
will, turn with me to Isaiah 61. Isaiah 61. One verse of scripture, Isaiah
61.10. Isaiah 61.10. The prophet says here, Isaiah,
we could say ourselves, I will greatly rejoice in the Lord.
My soul shall be joyful in my God. For he hath clothed me with
the garments of salvation, he hath covered me with the robe
of righteousness, as a bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments,
and as a bride adorneth herself with her jewels. There's not
a lot in this world to rejoice in. We don't find a whole lot
to rejoice in. And the things that we do rejoice
in always has to do with our spiritual blessings. And so that's
what the man is saying here, and that's what he says, I will
greatly rejoice in the Lord. My soul shall be joyful in my
God. And I want you to know here,
he says, I will greatly rejoice in the Lord. Then he says in
the next line, my soul shall be joyful in my God. And that means doubled. I will and I shall. It's doubled
if we're rejoicing in His God. That means it's firm, it's fixed,
it's steadfast. I will, will greatly rejoice
in the Lord. My soul shall be joyful in my
God. His heart is full, His soul is
fixed, it's firm, it's steadfast in this business of rejoicing
in God. And of all the things that we
cannot rejoice in in this world, this is one place. We can't sometimes
rejoice in our trials. We can't rejoice in the things
that goes on in our lives. But we can always rejoice in
our God. We can always do that. And He
done it, what it means is it's full hearted. I will rejoice. Didn't say that. I will rejoice. But He says I will greatly rejoice. And why would he say he would
greatly rejoice? Well, because God is great. He is a great God. He's worthy
of great praise. He's worthy to be greatly rejoiced
in. I mean, look how great He is.
How great is His power. He said, I've heard once, yea,
twice, that all power belongeth unto thee. He is great in His
wisdom. The wisdom that it took for God
to take sinners like ourselves, sinners, black in sin, dark in
sin, dead in sin, depraved from the top of our head to the sole
of our foot, not a sound spot in us, outside of us, no way,
no way, no how. And the wisdom it took that God
would make a way to come into this world and save us from our
sins and do it justly and do it honorably and do it righteously. and stay just and holy and righteous
as if he had never ever saved a sinner, and he'd done it all
through himself coming into this world as a man. And as that man,
being the wisdom of God, he did everything that God required.
Oh, the wisdom of God. And I'll tell you how you can
know the gospel. Do you see the wisdom of God in Jesus Christ? There's how you know you know
the gospel. Do you see the wisdom of God in Jesus Christ? Justice
says, oh, I cannot let the sinner go. Truth said, oh, I will not
let him go unless I be upheld. Wrath said, I must punish that
sinner. And yet, God in Christ, the blessed
Son of God, He stepped in. And He said, I'll satisfy your
justice. I'll endure your wrath. I'll
uphold your truth and I'll manifest your grace and your love. And
all at the same time, I'll take all the debts of all your people
and lay them all your debts on me. Lay all their iniquity on
me. Wound me for their transgressions. And then you'll be just to punish
me. And you'll be just in saving
them because their sins have been punished, your wrath has
been expended, your truth's been upheld, your mercy's been together
in this blessed grace. And oh, the wisdom of God in
our Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, the wisdom of God. It just
astonishes me, the wisdom that God. And here's another thing
about the wisdom of God. Not only did He save us justly,
and upheld his own honor and glory, but he keeps us saved
justly. The old writers used to say we're
as much saved by the justice of God as we are by the grace
of God. Now you figure that out. We as much saved by God's justice. God was just as if he had no
mercy. And then yet he comes to us and
shows us mercy as if he had no justice. And yet they both meet
together. Where at? In his blessed Son.
Oh, the wisdom of God. No wonder he said Christ is made
unto us. The wisdom, the righteousness,
the sanctification and the redemption. Everything God has for us is
in His blessed Son. No wonder He said, I'll greatly
rejoice in my God, because He's a great God. Whoa, He's great
in grace, great in love. We're with the great love that
He loved us. How then can we do anything less than to rejoice
greatly in our God? And look what he says here, he
said, I'm not only great rejoicing my God, but he says, my soul
shall be joyful in my God. My soul. My soul. And what he says, my soul, he
said, my truest and my best self. That's the truest and best self
we are, is our souls. And my soul shall be joyful in
my God. Not just my life, not just my
song. And with my life and with my
song, I'll do what I can. But what I can't say and what
I can't say, my soul shall feel. Sometimes we can't say anything,
sometimes we can't say, but our soul should certainly feel and
oh how it feels. God, how it feels and rejoices
in the Lord. How it feels, the Spirit of God. How it feels, the Gospel. How
it feels, the love of God. How it feels, and we can't sing
it, the way we want to. We can't tell it, the way we
want to. But boy, we can sure feel it,
in our soul. In our souls, now listen, our
souls is our truest and best self. That's the part that God
deals with in this world. our souls. And I tell you what,
this is altogether spiritual. He says, I'll greatly rejoice
in the Lord. I'll be joyful in my God. That's
a spiritual act. Those are spiritual things. Those
are things we do from our spirit to our God who is spirit. Now
we go through this life and we joy in children. Oh, how we joy
in children. Joy in our grandchildren, joy
in our great-grandchildren, joy in our children. We joy in our
wives. Joy in our wives and their beauty
and their commitment and their faith and their love. We joy
in our wives. Joy in our friends. Oh, to have
friends, it causes joy. I've done this several times
over the years. I'd go through the church and I'd go by pews.
We're by sets. I go by pews. And as I think
about people by pew, by pew, by pew, I've said in my office,
I've done this a good day time. And I began to think, you know,
about each individual in the church. And you know what my
heart would do? Take off like that. It'd get joyful, you know. Oh, but even this joy that we
have in our childrens and our wives and our friends, it's limited. It's limited and it's necessarily
so. But oh my, you see the joy in
the creatures, that can be dangerous. It may even lead us away from
the Creator. To joy in the creature. To joy
in self. To joy in self. Oh my, that's
just fiction. That's foolish. To joy in ourselves. but to greatly rejoice in the
Lord, where your soul shall find joy in God." Now that's a great
subject to rejoice in. That's a great, great subject
to rejoice in, to rejoice in the Lord. The best thing, the
best thing that could have ever happened for us, for us, is for
God to be who He is and what He is. Huh? And since we know
Him and rejoice in Him, greatly rejoice in the Lord, and be joyful
of our souls in God, because we greatly rejoice in Him and
have joy in Him, would you change anything about Him? Would you
change anything at all about God the way He is? Would you make him any different
than the way he is right now? That's why you greatly rejoice
in him. That's why you find joy in him.
Because there's lots of things I'd change in myself, wouldn't
you Bruce? But I'm afraid it's too late for me. I'm too old
and too set in my ways. As the old timers said, I'm too
old and too sought in my ways. You know, I'm past help, I believe.
I'm past changing my ways, I think. Unless the Lord changes them.
But I would not change God in any way, shape, form, or fashion.
I wouldn't change Him in my mind. I wouldn't change Him in my heart.
I wouldn't change Him in His Word. I wouldn't change in how
He deals with anything in this world. I wouldn't change how
He deals with me. I wouldn't change how He deals
with you. I wouldn't change anything about Him. in any way. If it meant that none of, if
I had to change him one smidgen to get all my children saved, then my children had to be lost.
If that's what it took to change God. No wonder Isaiah said, I'll greatly
rejoice in the Lord. I'll be joyful in my God. And
think of any person Think of any person in the Blessed Trinity.
Think of any person in the Trinity. You think of the Father. Think of the Father. The Father
who loved us with an everlasting love. The Father who separated
us from our mother's womb. The Father who said, I called
you by name. The Father who said, I knew you
when you was formed in your mother's belly. I knew you. You think
of the Father. How can you not greatly rejoice
when you understand He's the Father? Our Lord Jesus says,
My Father Himself loves you. To be chosen of God, to be loved
of God, to be kept of God, the Father, and what about the Son? Oh my, what about the Son? The Lord Jesus Christ. The one
that he read about in Isaiah 53, started in 52. I agree with
him. I think that when you deal with
Isaiah 53, you got to start in Isaiah 52. My servant, my servant,
my righteous servant, he's going to deal prudently, he's going
to deal wisely, he's going to deal justly, he's going to deal
in the most blessed way. And in fact it tells us about
our Lord Jesus Christ Himself. He says there ain't nobody, nobody
can come to the Father unless He comes to me. And Bruce and
I was talking about the other day about how He called us His
people, His chosen, the ones given to Him, and how His Father
loved us, and our Lord Jesus Christ Himself. Himself said, I'm going to come
and get you so you can be with me where I am. And no wonder
Paul says that He loved me and gave Himself for me. Unto Him
that loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood. Oh, the Son. Should we not greatly
rejoice in the Son? Was our soul be joyful in the
Son? What about the Holy Spirit? You know how come we know the
hope while we rejoice greatly in the Trinity? The Holy Spirit. He's the one that brought us
to Christ. He's the one that taught us of Christ. He's the
one that taught us the Gospel. He's the one who came and gave
us knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the one who brought
us to faith. He's the one who sprinkled our
blood, our souls with the blood of Christ, the Holy Spirit. Our Lord said, I won't leave
you comfortless, I'll send another comforter, even the Spirit. So
when the Holy Spirit's with us, it's Christ with us. When the
Father's with us, it's Christ with us. And when it's the Christ
with us, it's the Father with us. We have all three of them.
No wonder He says, My soul shall greatly rejoice in the Lord.
Be joyful in God. And if God is kind, Just kind. Just kind. Just good. That's
a great thing. That's a great thing. Those of
you here who don't know God don't know Christ. If Christ is kind
to you, if God is kind to you, that's a great thing. If God
even thinks of you, that's a great thing. Just thinks of you. That's a great thing. If God
blesses you, that's a great thing. Oh, what a great thing that is.
But if He, if He loves you, chose you, set His affection on you,
set His will on you, His purpose on you, that's joy unspeakable
and full of glory. All for Him to be kind, that's
a great thing. That's a great thing. But all
for Him, for Him to love us. You know I can't be good enough
to get God to love me and I can't be bad enough to stop Him from
loving me. You know why He did it? According to the good pleasure
of His will. If God does anything for anybody,
it's according to the good pleasure of His will. No wonder He said,
I'll greatly rejoice in the Lord. And look what David said, well,
look what he said here in this verse. This great rejoicing is now. He said, I will greatly rejoice. It's right now, it's immediate.
I will greatly rejoice. And yet it's also future. He
said, I will. I will. My soul shall. I will. That's right now. My
soul shall. That's yet future. Always future. Joyful. Look in Isaiah 46 with
me just a moment here. Isaiah 46. And look in verse
3. Oh my. I will greatly rejoice in the
Lord. That's right now. And my soul
shall. That's in the future. Right now
and future both. Look what the Lord says here
about us. Hearken unto me, O house of Jacob,
and all the remnant, all the remnant of the house of Israel. which
are borne by me from the belly, which are carried from the womb,
even to your old age I am he. Even to four hairs, that means
gray hairs, will I carry you. I have made and I will bear,
even I will carry and will deliver you. Is there a reason to rejoice?
You know what? Carried me from the womb. Carried me from the womb. And
he's still carrying me. And I'm getting older. Got plenty
of gray hair. I'm getting, you know, right
down to my old age. I'm going to carry you. Right
through your old age, I'm going to carry you. Huh? Oh, we don't
have a clue what condition we may get in before we leave here.
We don't. But I know one thing, He'll be
carrying us. He'll be carrying us. Let me
give you some reasons. Look what the reasons are in
this verse of Scripture, why He said, I'll greatly rejoice
in the Lord, while my soul shall be joyful in my God. Listen,
here's the reasons. For He hath clothed me with the
garments of salvation. He hath clothed me. He says to
Adam, you know, when Adam took that fruit. And he became naked. And he ran
off and made himself some aprons, him and Eve some aprons made
out of fig leaves. And God said, Adam, where are
you? Where are you? He said, I'm over here. I'm over
here in this bush. I'm over here. I'm here. I'm
here. Why are you hiding for? Because
I'm naked. But yet he had on these fig leaves. But he still
felt naked. And you know how, who clothed
him? The scripture says that he clothed
him with the animal skins. For an animal to be skinned,
and for an animal to have clothes and make clothes out of it, some
animal had to die. Blood had to be shed. Clothes
had to be made. And you know who did all of those
things? God did all those things. God
clothed him. God slew the animal. God shed
the blood. God clothed him. And beloved,
and he didn't have Adam's help. And when he said he clothed us,
he didn't have our help. Huh? Oh, listen, he said he clothed
us with the garments of salvation. What garments do we need? We've
got to have a helmet. We've got to have a shield of
faith. We've got to have shoes on our feet. We've got to have
a girdle around us, girdled with humility. Oh, it's like the prodigal when he
got home. Look what else it says here about him. He said, he hath
clothed me with the garments of salvation. without my help
he gave me repentance he gave me faith and then look what it
says here and he hath covered me with the robe of righteousness
covered me now you know when he says covered you I believe
that he means covered all over I mean the top of your head to
the sole of your foot but you know he said he covered us and
that's the way the prodigal when the prodigal got home you know
what he said you know the father said bring forth the best robe,
the best robe. And you know what he says? Now
hand it to him and let him put it on. You know, he's been gone.
He needs to learn how, he needs to learn to take care of himself.
No, the father says, put it on him. Go get shoes and put them
on his feet. And not only that, but put a
ring on his finger. Put the evidence of my love for
Him. Put the evidence of my affection for Him. Put the evidence of
my seal on His finger. And the robe of righteousness.
You know there's two places and I want you to see these. In Jeremiah
23. And you get Jeremiah 23, 6 and then Jeremiah 33. Jeremiah
23. Jeremiah 23 and Jeremiah 33. Now look in verse 6 of Jeremiah
23, and then we'll turn over to Jeremiah 33. But you get them
in your hand here, and let's look at these things. He said,
He'll close us with a robe of righteousness. And this righteousness
we have is our Lord Jesus Christ Himself. And I'll tell you something,
if you have Christ as your righteousness, you can never be any more righteous
at one time than you are at another. This idea that people can make
themselves more righteous than they can be. And I love that
song, Nearer My God to Thee, Nearer My God to Thee. I love
it. I really love it. But then there's another song
that says, Nearer I cannot be than in thy Son. who is holy
in thy Son. You cannot be nearer to God than
you can be in the Son of God. We're seated with Him in heavenly
places. We're sitting there in Him. We're
in Him. We have everything that He has is ours. Everything He
did, we did. Everything He accomplished, we
accomplished. And that righteousness that was His, He gave it to us. Gave it to us. It's ours. It's not something that God just
comes up and says, I'm going to stick it on you. I'm going to make it stick on
you. No, no. It says He covers us
with His righteousness. And look in Isaiah 23 and 6.
In His days, Judah shall be saved. Whose days? Christ's days. And
Israel shall dwell safely, and this is his name whereby he shall
be called the Lord our righteousness." You know how that's all capitalized?
The Lord our righteousness. Who's our righteousness? The
Lord is our righteousness. Jehovah's a-kidding you. Now
that's each individual. He said, the Lord our righteousness. Now look over here in Jeremiah
33, 16. And it says almost the same thing.
In those days shall Judah be saved, and Jerusalem shall dwell
safely, and this is the name wherewith she shall be called.
Now who is she here? He's talking about the whole
church. Over there it's individuals. All of us are righteous. The
Lord is our righteousness. Over here he talks about she,
Jerusalem, heavenly Jerusalem. She, the church, shall be called
the Lord our righteousness. I mean everyone, the whole church
is righteous. She shall be called. And then
look what it says back over here in Isaiah 61. Let me give you
a couple of other things. What it says here. He says, Oh, I'm going to greatly
rejoice in the Lord. Oh, He's great. That's why we
do. My soul shall be joyful in my God. And the reason being,
He hath clothed me with the garments of salvation. He did it. If you had anything to do with
your salvation whatsoever, anything to do with it at all, you ain't
got any. I'm telling you that. If you
got one tiny thread of your garment of salvation made by your own
self, then you ain't got none at all. Anything. I don't care what it is. You
ain't got any at all. And that's the truth. He, he, he hath covered me. And he hath covered me with the
robe of righteousness. And look what it says. And as
a bridegroom, talking about our Lord Jesus now, as a bridegroom
he decketh himself with ornaments. this One who clothed us, this
One that we rejoice in, this One that we're joyful in, this
One that covered us with righteousness. He decketh Himself with ornaments.
What ornaments? Grace, mercy, love, compassion,
pity, power. Oh, and then He decketh Himself
with ornaments. Well, it says over here in the
margin, it says, decketh Himself as a priest. And that priest
got it, you know, it took a long time to put all his priestly
garments on. I mean, they had to start out,
and I mean, they put garment on top of garment upon top of
garment, and then they put a mitre on his head. I mean, he had a
long robe, and they had a bale and a pomegranate, and a bale
and a pomegranate, and they had to dress him, and oh, he was
beautiful. The garment he had was beautiful.
intricate weavings and all the purple and blue and all this
was royal blue and all the gold, real gold that was in it. They took gold and they readied
it down to where it was like a fine gold like you'd use it
for thread through a needle. And that's what they done. They
put all the stitching in it. It was in gold. He was decked
out, I tell you what, they just stood back in all this garment.
You read about it in Exodus. And he decked himself as a priest.
And our Lord Jesus Christ, He was the last, not only high priest, He's the
only one that's called the great high priest. And he decked himself
as our great high priest, bearing our names upon his breast, upon
his shoulders, and goes into the holiest of holies. And he
entered there with his own blood and came out with eternal redemption
for us. And then look what he says here
else about himself. And as a bride adorneth herself
with jewels. Oh my, he's a bridegroom and
then he decks himself just like he's a bride. Because, you know,
why does he do this? Because he regards us as his
beloveds. He said, I'm my beloveds, and
he is mine, one with him. And she adorned herself with
jewels. And those jewels that he, well,
it would be us that he had decked himself as a bride adorned. And
he decked us in his jewels. that He gave us. He adorned us
and made us beautiful. He called us His jewels. Oh,
what a blessed, blessed Savior. No wonder I greatly rejoice in
the Lord. My soul shall be joyful in the Lord. Because He hath
covered me with the garments of salvation. Covered me with
His righteousness. Oh, what a blessed thing to be
covered with His righteousness. Our Father, oh, our Father, in
the blessed name of the Lord Jesus Christ, thank you for allowing
us to meet here to worship, to give us a day to speak of you
and open your word and to call on you and to worship you and
acknowledge you in every way. And oh Lord, we don't find a
whole lot to rejoice to about in this world. So little that
we do have to rejoice in. But oh Lord, we can always and
we do always rejoice in you. Whatever happens, we can turn
and rejoice in our God. Rejoice greatly in him. And oh
Lord, thank you for teaching us about yourself. Making yourself
known to us. making yourself known to our
hearts, our minds, our wills, our understanding, our affections.
Thank you for giving us that nature that loves you, that wants
to be conformed to the image of your blessed son, that nature
that wants to honor you, that nature that wants to be true,
that nature that wants to magnify your blessed name. Lord, thank
you for that nature. God bless these dear saints of
God. Thank you for them. Thank you for the grace you've
given them, the love you've manifested towards them, the strength and
the power that you've kept them all these years. God bring glory
to yourself through this body of believers. We ask in Christ's
name. Amen. Amen.