I'm just gonna read one verse
of scripture, then I'm gonna go somewhere else. Well, let me go ahead. I'll go
ahead and turn there. It's actually probably more than
one verse, thinking about it. Go to Revelations, excuse me,
Romans, chapter three. This is not where I'm preaching
from, but I wanna read this because it deals with what I am going
to preach. Romans 3 verse 24, being justified
freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ
Jesus, whom God has set forth to be a propitiation through
faith in his blood to declare his righteousness for the remission
of sins that are passed through the forbearance of God. to declare,
I say at this time, his righteousness, that he might be just and the
justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. And I'm just gonna
stop right there. I wanna, I want, I'm gonna try,
endeavor to preach the gospel today. I wanna preach Christ
today. Now, I want that every time I'm
here. But with Walter had been preaching
in Romans 1, it got me to thinking. And an article that I'd read
from another preacher got me to thinking. And so here we are. My title, Paul, is The Gospel
in Isaiah, Isaiah 53 to be specific. And in Isaiah 53, I see the gospel
of God, The gospel of Christ, the salvation of God is in Isaiah
53. And I think it was written around
some 700 years before Jesus Christ came into the world, but it is
clearly a prophecy of the Messiah to come, of Jesus Christ. Now, the thing I read in this
article that struck me, this fellow wrote that the true gospel
The gospel of Christ will do two things that a false gospel
can never ever do. True salvation and the true gospel
takes into account two facts. God will not change and man cannot
change. And I got to thinking about that
and I like that. Because every false gospel you've
ever heard requires a change in God and a change in man. And
man cannot change. And God will not lay aside even
the smallest teeny tiny little bit of his holiness. And that's what every false gospel
has to have. Let me make sure I turn this
thing on. Okay, I did. Some false gospels require God
to somehow lessen, reduce his holiness, his requirement of
a holiness from you. That's the way they preach. Trust
me, you'll hear it if you're listening for it. He says, be
ye holy, for I am holy. And you know what he means when
he says that. He means be ye holy, for I am holy. He means
what he said, and he said what he meant. Now other gospels may require
that a man produce a righteousness acceptable to God. Now most false
gospels, to be honest, to be truthful, they meet somewhere
in the middle. They wanna bring God down a little
bit and wanna bring man up a little bit. And say hey, we can get
close. That's not God. That's not the
scripture. And that is not salvation. And it's not good news either.
It's not the gospel. They think God becomes less strict
and man may be able to produce a token holiness. Now that's
my word, not theirs. A token righteousness. But that's
what it is. You do the best you can with
what you got. Well, that's not good enough
for God. That's not good enough. It's not even close to good enough
because man cannot, in and of himself, do anything good. Not in the true meaning of the
word, good. Christ said it. None is good
except God, except God. You understand, man producing
some token righteousness and God becoming less strict is not
good news. It's not the gospel. What is
it? It's a diminishing of God's holiness
and an exaltation of man's corrupt righteousness. Man has a righteousness,
but it's filthy rags. In God's sight, you might be
the best person this world has ever seen. You might be the most
wonderful, you feed the poor, you give all, you do all these
things, but that's not good enough for God. Because God sees your
heart. And the heart is desperately
wicked. It's deceitful above all things. Paul said, what you're doing
is not submitting yourselves to the righteousness of God,
which is in Jesus Christ. There is a righteousness, it's
just not yours. There's a righteousness, but
it's not yours. There's a holiness, and it's
not yours. The true gospel is of God's design. The gospel of God, it's called
the gospel of his dear son. It's called the gospel of Christ. What's that mean? Well, it means
the gospel is not a Baptist gospel. The gospel is not, wait a minute,
a reformed gospel. No, uh-uh. The gospel never needed
to be reformed. That's our problem. And we don't
need to be reformed, we need to be regenerated. But anyhow,
it's not a reformed gospel, it's not a Catholic gospel, it's not
a Methodist gospel, it's not a Pentecostal gospel. The gospel
is a divine gospel. It's the gospel of God, designed,
purposed, revealed, and given by the power of God. And the power of God is Jesus
Christ. As it is written, to the Jews
he's a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness, but unto
the called, oh, Jew and Gentile, Jew and Gentile, Christ, the
power of God. and Christ, the wisdom of God. And Paul, would you do me a favor
here? I forgot my water. I'm sorry, folks, this medicine
they got me on gives me dry mouth when I talk, but Christ, the
power of God, and Christ, the wisdom of God. And I believe
the true gospel is written here, thank you very much, in Isaiah
53. And not only written here in
Isaiah 53, it is written clearly in Isaiah 53. If you have eyes
to see and a heart to understand. Because the gospel is the good
news of Jesus Christ. And the gospel in Isaiah will
answer this question. How can God be just and justify? How can God be just, holy, righteous,
and the one who justifies, the justifier? So I just wanna read
this for just a few seconds here. Isaiah 53, verse one, who hath
believed our report, and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?
Well, there's a reference for that in John. Chapter 12. John chapter 12, just before
I get too far into it. Verse 37, but though he had done
so many miracles before them, yet they believed not on him. You understand, Christ performing
miracles didn't save anyone. That's not salvation. Seeing
a miracle. That's not salvation. But though he had done many miracles
before them, yet they believed not on him, that the saying of
Isaiah, the prophet might be fulfilled, which he spake, Lord,
who hath believed our report? Ah, here. And to whom hath the
arm of the Lord been revealed? Therefore, They could not believe. You know what that means? They
could not believe. That's what it means. That Isaiah
said again, he hath blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts
that they should not see with their eyes nor understand with
their heart and be converted and I should heal them. These
things said Isaiah when He saw His glory. Oh my. And spake of Him. You understand,
you see God's glory, you're gonna speak of Him. You're gonna speak. Oh, you might say, woe is me,
I'm a man undone, I'm a man of unclean lips, like Isaiah said.
But you're gonna see Him, you're gonna write it down. You're gonna
speak it. Oh, I like that, I do. Oh my. But who says, who hath believed
our report, and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? Now
what do we also know about the gospel? If our gospel be hid,
it is hid to those that are lost. Whom the God of this world hath
blinded their minds. Why? That they could not receive
it. The gospel What we preach is
a wonderful, glorious miracle of God, that the truth of God
is preached in this world. Jesus Christ said that. He told
John the Baptist's disciples, go back and tell him, the dead
are raised, the lepers are healed. Oh my, all these wonderful things.
And then he said, and the gospel is preached unto the poor. Right
in the name of all those miracles that he was doing. And those
miracles that he had been doing No, but to the poor the gospel
is preached. And if it's revealed, oh my,
better things are happening. Better things are happening.
For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant and as a root
out of dry ground. This is verse two. He hath no
form nor comeliness when we should 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. Not only disliked,
despised. And we esteemed him not. But he's gonna grow up. This
is a prophecy of the Messiah, Jesus Christ. The Messiah's coming,
this book has been saying it since the beginning. The seed
of woman is coming. The seed of Abraham is coming.
And here's Isaiah saying, yes, he's coming. But he shall grow
up. What? The Messiah, the Holy One
of Israel, the Redeemer, has to grow up. How in the world
is that possible? There's only one way. God manifests
in the flesh. He took upon himself the form
of a servant. And it says that he shall have
no comeliness. No comeliness. No form, no comeliness
that we should desire him. What does it mean? He looked
like a man. I remember hearing Mahan saying
it one time years ago, and I think Earl said the same thing. He
didn't come in the form of unfallen Adam. He didn't come as that
perfect man that God had created, upright. No, he came, what? In the likeness. Not in sinful
flesh, but he came in the likeness of sinful flesh. Why? Because
he's gonna have no beauty that we should desire him. Nobody
was gonna follow Christ because of his looks. That's what it
meant. We see him, there's no beauty. That's true today. Despite the
goofy pictures people put on their walls. Nobody knows what
Jesus Christ looked like. All I know is I'm pretty sure
he didn't look like those guys in those pictures. Because that
was a pretty man. And Jesus Christ was not a pretty
man. And to be honest, Those guys
in the pictures look like Caucasians. They don't look Jewish. No, nothing,
I'm not trying to throw off on the Jews, trust me. Jesus Christ
was a Jew. Wait a minute, stop right now.
Jesus Christ is a Jew. Jesus Christ is not American.
I know America wants to claim him, but they don't have no claim
on him. He's got a claim on them if there's
any claim to be found. When we see him, there's no beauty
that we men should desire him. And not only that, we hid our
faces from him. We looked away. Turned down. We didn't want to see him. We
didn't want him to see us. That's more telling than most
people will realize. We didn't want him to see us.
Why? He was despised. I said he wasn't just disliked.
He wasn't just avoided. When they saw him, they despised
him. They despised him. And we did not esteem him. Oh my. Here it is, God manifests
in the flesh. Walking on the earth. And they
thought he was crazy. They thought he was dangerous. And he was. Oh my, yes. Well, I'm gonna tell you something.
If you ever meet Jesus Christ, that's the most dangerous person
you'll ever meet. Because like that, you don't even have to
do that. You know? Just one stray thought. But God doesn't have stray thoughts.
All his thoughts are full of purpose and planning and perfection. Oh my. But this is the natural
man's reaction to God manifest in the flesh. We didn't esteem
him, we hid our faces from him, and we despised him. He wasn't a pretty man, he wasn't
a handsome man. Yes, he was a man, but there
was nothing, absolutely nothing, naturally attractive to men. And he is the Lamb of God. prophesied by Isaiah. Oh my. He was prophesied to Isaiah. This is the word of the Lord
given by Isaiah, as told to Isaiah. He went in, in Isaiah chapter
six, and saw the Lord, high and lifted up, sitting on his throne,
surrounded by angels, And yet, here in Isaiah 53, he says, he's
of no reputation, he's despised and rejected of men, a man of
sorrow, acquainted with grief, and we hid our faces from him
and esteemed him not. Oh my. You understand, Jesus
Christ, as he walked upon this earth, did not look like the
Messiah. What? did not look like what
they thought the Messiah would look like. But here it is in
Isaiah 53, exactly what he was gonna look like. You're not gonna
like him just by looking at him. You know, he was not winning
converts by the force of his personality. They have a word
for that now. Well, two words, personality
cult. No, Jesus Christ was not winning
converts by his charisma. You understand, now it's true,
it's very true. There was something that came
back to, never a man spoke like this man. And that's true, that
is true. Those soldiers were right. He
speaks as one having authority. Well there's a reason for that.
He did have authority. Oh my, yeah. He spoke as one
having authority, but he didn't win disciples by the force and
power of his speech. Matter of fact, he preached one
message and thousands went back and walked no more with him. They went backwards. Back to
where they were before. You know why? they were happier
where they were before. They didn't want to hear what
he had to say when he said, unless it's given to you of my father,
you'll never come to him. He was despised and rejected
of men. He came to his own, the Jews,
and they would not and they did not receive him. Those in authority
hated and feared him, they loved darkness rather than the light,
they tried to kill him, they tried to stop him, and they could
not. They could not. Why? Because when they tried it, his
hour had not yet come. He was here with a purpose. He
was here, now this is a hard thing to grasp hold of, and I'm
gonna get to the good news in a minute, but this is good news
too. He was here to be despised and rejected of men. That's why
he came. You know how I know that? It
happened. It happened. You understand,
Jesus Christ was and is the purpose of God. In salvation, in redemption. in justification, in everything
having to do with salvation. So if he was despised and rejected
of men, that's part of the plan. He was a man of sorrows and acquainted
with grief, and we hid our faces from him. That's part of the
plan. And surely, here we go, he hath
borne our griefs, oh my, and carried our sorrows. Yet we did
esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. And you know what? That's the
plan too. Oh, you know, God's simple plan
of salvation. Yeah, right. It's only simple
on your end. It is the most amazing, glorious,
graceful thing that this world has ever seen is in the salvation
that's in Christ. He's borne our griefs, carried
our sorrows, and here's the thing, we didn't know it. We didn't
know it. They didn't know it. Isaiah knew
it and wrote about it. Oh my. Those alive at the time
didn't know it, even with what Jesus said to them. His disciples
thought he was dead and gone when he died. Matter of fact, he did this. He bore our griefs,
carried our sorrows, Well, we thought he was dead
and gone. Well, they thought he was dead and gone. And after his resurrection, and
this is after he met in the upper room, what did Peter and the
boys say? I'm going fishing. I'm going
fishing. And that's what they went to. But the Lord Jesus Christ knew
where they were the whole time. And he went and found them and
he told Peter, feed my sheep. Feed my sheep. You've got something
to do. Oh my. Jesus knew what they were,
what they were doing, and Jesus Christ helped them. I like that. But here's the thing. When we
knew it not, he was wounded for our transgressions. Isn't that
what it says? Verse five, 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. Are healed, oh. All we like sheep
have gone astray and we have turned everyone to his own way. And the Lord hath laid on him
the iniquity of us all. Who hath believed our report?
Well, when we knew it not, he was wounded for our transgressions,
I said it. But also, when we knew it not,
he was bruised for our iniquities. When we knew it not, he was chastised
for our peace. And when we knew it not, this
is the glorious thing, I'm going to tell you, when we knew it
not, by his stripes, we are healed. We were healed because he was
only striped once. He was only wounded once. He
was only bruised once. And he was only chastised for
our peace once. Now folks, that's the gospel. That's good news. That's good
news. That's good news. You want some
more? Verse 10. Yet it pleased the
Lord to bruise him. To bruise him. He hath put him
to grief. When thou shalt make his soul
an offering for sin, he shall, he shall, he shall see his seed. Oh my. prolong his days, and, this is
a glorious thing, the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in
his hand, not in your hand. You can't do anything with the
pleasure of the Lord. Oh, and you can't make it prosper
or not prosper. Oh, but he can. And what's this?
He will. He has, he does, and he will. He shall see the travail of his
soul and shall be satisfied. The gospel's good news. He's
satisfied. No, I don't worry about you being
satisfied because I know human beings. He's satisfied. Oh, I like that. And by his knowledge
shall my righteous servant justify, not everybody, many. Many, what? This is why. He shall bear their,
who's the their? The many, iniquities. People wanna tell you Jesus Christ
died for everybody? They're lying. And at best, they're
wrong. They're misguided, they've been
mistold, they never study, and they don't read, and they don't
comprehend what they read, and God's left them in ignorance.
Because if our gospel's hid, it's hidden to those that are
lost. They may have a false gospel, but the true gospel may be hid.
But here it is. By his knowledge, not by your
knowledge of him, by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify
many, for he shall bear their iniquity. What's the basis of
the justification? Not you and what you do with
it. It's his knowledge. by his knowledge. Why? For he shall bear their iniquities. That many and that there are
the exact same people. And guess what? Their iniquities
have been born. And that's the good news. That's
the gospel. You know? Oh my. Ah, I like that. It pleased the
Lord to bruise him. and the pleasure of the Lord
shall prosper in his hands. His hands. Because why? He's
the Messiah. Jesus Christ the righteous. And
he's seen the travail of his soul, he's satisfied. God has
seen the travail of his soul and God is satisfied. You understand? Oh, by his knowledge my righteous
servant justify many. You know what that makes us?
That makes us sons and daughters of God. And I learned something
today on my way up here. It just hit me while Henry Manning,
he just quoted it. It just hit me when he said it. He talked about you shall be
the sons and daughters of God. You know what's better than that?
The part of the verse he quoted before that. God speaking. shall be a father to you. To you, to you. You understand,
it's great being a son and daughter of God. Son or a daughter of
God. But I'm gonna tell you what,
it's even better. He's gonna be a father to us. He's gonna
be a father to his people. And you understand what a father
does? A true good father, a heavenly father, he's gonna raise you
right. and he's gonna raise you whether
you like it or not. Oh, we can be rebellious children.
You know, that esteeming him stricken stuff sometimes doesn't
end with that because I still got an evil heart of unbelief
in here. Behold, don't worry, I'm gonna
be a father to you. I'm gonna be a father to you,
I'm gonna be a father to you, I'm gonna be a father to you,
I'm gonna be a father to you. If you are my child, you're gonna
be sons and daughters. I wanna say this, like my dad
used to say to me, whether you like it or not, I'm your dad. Because sometimes you'd get mad
at your parents. I want another set. Never got
one, but you know, kids are stupid. I mean, I've been one, I'm still
stupid at times. But here's the thing, he's your
father, he's your father. Oh my, I like that, I do, I do,
I like that. Jesus Christ has. And I wanna say, past tense,
has justified, past tense, many, many, many. How? By his perfect substitutionary
sacrifice and offering to God. It pleased the Lord to bruise
him, why? Because the Lord had planned
this all along. And he knew the results. Oh,
by his knowledge shall my righteous servant, he came in the form
of a servant, how about that? By his knowledge shall my righteous
servant justify many. Why? For he shall bear their
iniquities. And I'm gonna tell you right
here, right now, Jesus Christ bore, also past tense, their
iniquities. Whoever those people are, We
have a tendency around here to call them the elect. Those who
were chosen in Christ from before the foundation of the world.
That's for free, no extra charge. God shall remember their iniquities
no more. You know why? Christ bore them. Christ paid for them. Justice
and a just God is satisfying. A just God is satisfied. The
holy Lord, God almighty, creator of heaven and earth, is satisfied
with the sacrifice of his son. Jesus Christ bore them, and here's
the thing, they are no more. They are no more. You understand? Once the punishment is fulfilled,
once your sentence is done, that crime's over with. It's paid. You've paid your debt to society.
Now, you may still be a rotten, stinking criminal, or you may
be a wonderful, upright person. It doesn't really matter. But
that crime's gone. That punishment's paid. They
can't say, no, we probably need to put you back in jail for a
little longer. Not if the sentence is paid in full. And Jesus Christ
bore in his body on the tree all of our sins, all of our iniquities. and all of our transgressions.
And they, those transgressions, those iniquities, those sins
are no more. None. Because everything he bore
is no more. That's why I read Romans 34,
being justified freely by his grace, through the redemption
that is in Christ Jesus, whom God has set forth to be a propitiation,
through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness, not
mine, not yours, not anybody else's, his righteousness, what? For the remission of sins that
are past. through the forbearance of God.
To declare, I love it, to declare, why? Because it's good news.
It's good news, it's the gospel. To declare at this time, I say
at this time, his righteousness, not yours, not mine, not anybody
else's, because nobody else's righteousness matters. Everybody
else's righteousness, no matter who you are, you can be the Pope,
I don't mind. Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. It's filthy rags in God's sight. To declare at this time his righteousness
that he might be just and the justifier of him which believeth
in Jesus. Oh. Sons we are by God's election.
Who in Christ Jesus do believe? I like that. Now I do understand
where it says to declare his righteousness for the remissions
of sins that are past. And people get hung up on that.
Well, now you gotta take care of your sins now. No, you just
keep reading down to Romans 4, 8, and you'll say, blessed is
the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin. You understand, when Christ died
and bore your sins, you hadn't even been born yet. Your sins
hadn't been committed. So all of your sins back then
were future. And he knew what we were gonna
do. People try to limit God. You know why? Because we're limited. God doesn't have any limits.
The only thing God cannot do is what God says God cannot do.
He cannot change and he cannot tell a lie. The Lord will not impute sin
to anyone who is in his son. And that's just the long short
of it. And that's quoting David, also
Old Testament. Beloved, here's the thing. Now
are ye the sons of God. If you believe Christ, if you
know Christ, if he's brought you in, now are you the sons
of God. What's that mean? That means
now I'll be a father unto you. God said that. I said at the
beginning, the true gospel is a divine gospel. The gospel tells
us of the salvation of Christ Jesus is a divine salvation. In the true gospel, God does
not change because God doesn't change. And he's not required
to change or lessen his holiness or absolute justice against every
sin. He's the man for the punishment
of sin, was met and completed by His Son. Christ's perfect sacrifice and
offering completely satisfied the Holy Lord and here's the
point, no work was required by man for salvation. You want me to say that? I'll
say that again. No work is required by man for salvation. I don't care what anybody tells
you. If they tell you anything different, they're wrong. They
might be lying or they might just be deceived. Well, even
if they're deceived, I guess they're still lying, but it doesn't
matter. You can't help anybody that's deceived. God's gotta
help them. I've been there, done that. Let's
be clear though, the gospel of Christ, the gospel of Christ,
and the salvation of Christ will make a change in a man. But it
doesn't require that the man make the change in himself. Because
we can't. I can change myself for the better,
now changing for the worse, There ain't no problem with that. But
I can change myself for the better when the leopard learns how to
change his spots. That's the comparison. How you gonna fix your deceitful
wicked heart? Well, when the leopard learns
to change his spots, you can do it. And not until. You talk like people can't get
themselves saved. Well, I hope so. Man doesn't work for righteousness,
man receives righteousness. The righteousness of God in Jesus
Christ. What is it? Righteousness imparted
and righteousness imputed. And I like that you're right,
that's the way to say that. It's not imputed righteousness
and imparted righteousness. No, it's righteousness imparted
and righteousness imputed, and you wanna know why? Because it's
righteousness one. It's imputed and imparted. It's
imparted and imputed, but it's only one righteousness, the righteousness
of Jesus Christ. Oh, I like that, I do. And it's
given by Jesus Christ to every single one of his sheep when
he brings them in. Other sheep I have. What? Them
I must bring. You know why he must bring them
in? Because they won't come. They won't come until he finds
them. They won't come until he picks them up and puts them on
his shoulder and he carries them back and there's one fold and
one shepherd. There's one flock and one shepherd. And there's one body and one
head, Jesus Christ. And he is building his body the
way he wants it. You understand, man doesn't even
offer the sacrifice of Christ to God. He did that himself. And it's done. 2,000 years ago,
it's done. And you know what that is? That's
the gospel. That's good news. That's good
news. By his knowledge shall my righteous
servant justify many. And he has, for he has bore their
iniquities. That part's over. Redemption
is done. And he is saving his people,
calling them out by name when and where he sees fit. And bringing them in. What? to God the only wise, our savior
and our king. Let all the saints below the
skies their humble praises bring. Verse three says this, he will,
he will present his saints, I love this part, unblemished and complete. What? Before the glory of his
face with joy divinely great. I like that song. Heavenly Father,
thank you so much for your gospel, your son, our Lord Jesus Christ. He is the good news. And he has saved his people from
their sin and is calling them out. Help us, Lord, to walk as
if we know that. to walk as if we believe that,
to walk as if we expect to be in your presence unblemished
and complete. In Christ's name we pray, amen.