I want you to turn back with
me to Isaiah 53. I'm not trying to sensationalize this morning. I simply want to try and make
a point. But I've entitled this message, Who Killed Jesus of Nazareth? And if we examine the record, We can say that a number of persons
and parties conspired in and carried out the death of Jesus
of Nazareth. Certainly, we would have to say
that those Roman soldiers that actually drove the nails in His
hands and feet who thrust the spear in his side, surely we'd
have to say that they had a part in his death. But then when you think about
it, you'd also have to add the fact that the Roman government,
especially under the leadership of Pontius Pilate, said He washed
His hands of the matter. He had a sure part, and they
had a part in the death of Jesus. And then according to the Scriptures,
the Jewish leaders, especially the high priest at the time,
and the Pharisees and the scribes, Those seeking to keep themselves
looking good, they conspired and have bloody hands with regard
to the death of the Lord Jesus. And then you'd have to say that
that Jewish nation, especially as they were there at Jerusalem. They were the ones who said,
we will not have this man to rule over us. And so with their
shouts and their taunts and their agreement, with their full consent,
they had a part in the death of Jesus. And then if you look
at the Scripture as a whole, You'd have to say that all of
our race, all of Adam's race, had a hand, though maybe not
directly, indirectly, to the dying of the Lord Jesus Christ. When Peter stood up on the day
of Pentecost, he reminded those who heard him of this very thing."
I've always imagined what boldness, what courage it took to stand
on that occasion after that very recent act and say, You have
taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain Him." And
then not long after that, to follow up with that in Acts chapter
4 and say, For of a truth against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou
hast anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles
and the people of Israel, they were gathered together." When
you look at all that are mentioned in that group of individuals
involved in this death of Jesus of Nazareth, these people who
in almost every point could never agree with each other, but rather
hated and despised each other. They gathered together and they
were in complete agreement in the dying of Jesus of Nazareth. They did what they wanted to
do. And their acts were all done
with malice, with a forethought, with hatred, with sin, and they
all come before God with regard to this act as guilty. They will be held accountable
apart from God's grace. But all those things being said,
and all those things being true, We ought to make no mistake about
it. The first cause was God Himself. God Himself. And if we didn't know that for
any other reason, what Paul states in just one verse of Scripture
would surely, if we had any thought about it at all, would surely
confirm this. Because he describes God's purpose
in Christ saying this, in whom also we have obtained an inheritance,
being predestinated according to the purpose of him who works
all things after the counsel of his own will." That doesn't
leave any room for anything else. He works all things after the
counsel of His own will, and that has never been more true
than it is in the death of Jesus of Nazareth. And this is what
the prophet is moved by the Spirit of God here in Isaiah 53. I remember reading an old writer
many years ago, and this is what he said. He said, it is as if
Isaiah is standing at the foot of the cross. That is, there
is not a clear Reference, prophecy, whatever we would call it, concerning
the dying of the Lord Jesus Christ, any more so in all the Old Testament
than what we read here in Isaiah 53. And notice what he says in
that tenth verse here in Isaiah 53. He says, "...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
hands." That is an amazing phrase in that verse. It pleased the
Lord. It pleased Jehovah to bruise
him. And that is the same bruising,
that is the same prophecy that God Himself made when He being
what some old writers called the Proto-Evangel, that is the
first one to herald the gospel of Christ. He said that the serpent
would bruise the woman's seed. But in that, he would crush the
serpent's head. It pleased the Lord to bruise
him. Hold your place here and turn
back over to Acts chapter 2, where we quoted in part some
of the verses that are found there. But I want us to look
at what Peter says in its entirety. Acts chapter 2, beginning in
verse 22, He says, ye men of Israel, hear
these words. You see, so as to not mistake
just exactly who it was that he was talking about. Not to
use some generic phrase or name that would just be absorbed in
that Jewish mind and forgotten. He says, Jesus of Nazareth, a
man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs
which God did by Him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves know. You know who I'm talking about,
and you know what He did, And both of those things stand as
a witness against you. But notice this next phrase,
Him being delivered by the determinate counsel and for knowledge of
God. In other words, this is what
precedes the very thing that He charges them with, which when
He says, you have taken and by wicked hands have crucified and
slain, He said it was by the determinate
counsel. The predetermined counsel, purpose,
foreordained purpose of God. Him being delivered by the determinate
counsel and foreknowledge of God. You've taken Him and by
wicked hands crucified and slain Him. You could not ever have
done such, were it not according to the will and purpose of God. Alright? Turn over in Acts chapter
4, where we quoted part of those verses. Acts chapter 4. And look down in verse 25, where
he's talking here about something that David had foretold. He said, "...who by the mouth
of thy servant David hath said, Why did the heathen rage, and
the people imagine vain things?" What men plan, what men purpose
to do, what men do in order to accomplish their will and their
way, especially as it pertains to God, it is simply them imagining
something that cannot happen. They imagine vain things. As a matter of fact, everything
about the so-called free will of man is just simply the imagining
of man of vain things. He cannot, in time, alter what
God had determined before time. He cannot undo what God purposed
to do and accomplish by anything He does in time. But everything
He does carries out over all the will and the purpose of God. And Peter is going to make that
very clear here. He says, "...the kings of the
earth stood up, And the rulers were gathered together, as I
said, these who hated and despised each other, they were gathered
together against the Lord and against His Christ. They thought they were doing
something for Jehovah. But in doing what they did against
His Christ, they were doing it against God over all. against thy holy child Jesus,
whom thou hast anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with
the Gentiles and the people of Israel, were gathered together,
for to do whatsoever Thy hand and Thy counsel determined before
to be done." When they all gathered together, as people like to say,
in one accord, when they did exactly what they in malice and
hatred against God determined to do, they simply did what His
hand and His counsel determined before to be done. It was God as the first cause. And this is what Paul says when
he writes in Romans 3, talking about the very death and suffering
and bleeding of Christ, he says, "...whom God hath set forth."
Romans 3.25. whom God hath 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." Who set him forth? Who determined
him to be this? To do this? God set him forth,
not simply to be an example or something like that, but to be
the propitiation, the sacrifice for the sins of his people. And
then in Romans 8, he says this. He reminds us of this again and
again. He says of this fact that He
will surely, freely give us all things. But what is the basis
of that? What assures us of that? He says,
"...he that spared not his own son, but delivered Him up for
us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? He who spared not His own Son,
but delivered Him up for us all." And then if you turn over, if
you can find it quickly there in the book of Zechariah, In
Zechariah chapter 13, what is said concerning the shepherd
who is this fountain that will be opened up for sins, listen
to what he says in Zechariah chapter 13 and verse 7. And he's talking about Christ
being wounded, and it says that He was wounded in the house of
His friends. But listen to what happens. In
verse 7, it says, "...awake, O sword," this is God's sword,
"...awake, O sword, against my shepherd." Now can you imagine
that? God is calling forth the execution
of His justice against him who is the Lord's shepherd. And against the man that is my
fellow, saith the Lord of hosts, smite the shepherd, and the sheep
shall be scattered, and I will turn my hands upon the little
ones." Something that he determines to do to the shepherd in justice
will be the grounds upon which he blesses these he calls these
little ones. Now there is no question about
it that God Himself is the first cause of the death of Jesus of
Nazareth. But how could we ever investigate
or seek to know the truth about who it is that killed Jesus of
Nazareth without also inquiring as to why? You see, the mystery
of it all deepens when we find out who the first cause of this
man's death is. And the mystery is beyond anything
that we could ever figure out ourselves or come up with. And it is all because God's ways
are not our ways. I don't know if we'll ever learn
that in this world or not, but it is a fact. His ways are not
our ways. But when we read in Scripture
as to why He did this, He had already given us this very scenario
in a type through a man by the name of Joseph. Do you remember
Joseph? Joseph is a picture and type
in so many ways of the Lord Jesus Christ. He's betrayed by his
brothers. He's cast into a pit to die. He's pulled out and sold into
slavery, taken down into Egypt. And the way that his life goes
all the way down almost to a certain point is a way in which he gets
put down farther and farther and farther and farther. And
then one day, he faces his brothers. He faces his brothers, those
who when they find out who he is, And it reminds them of what
they did to Him and what they deserve to have done now to them. He makes an amazing statement. He said, but as for you, you
thought evil against me. There's no doubt about it. You
thought evil against me. You planned evil against me. You perpetrated evil against
me. But God meant it unto good. To bring to pass, as it is this
day, to save much people alive. God, Joseph says, took the evil
that you intended and accomplished, and though you did it, meaning
evil, God did it for good, used it for good to accomplish a purpose,
to save much people alive. Lest you forget, it was Joseph
who was raised up to the throne of Egypt, because he told the
Pharaoh exactly what God said was going to come to pass, and
he led all the gathering of those fields and crops through those
plentish years. And when the famine came, it
says Joseph opened the storehouses. They meant it for evil. But God
uses evil even for good. And what we have in the dying
of Jesus Christ is God using the greatest wickedness of men. I mean the greatest wickedness
of men. When the creature lifts his hand
to slay the Creator who stands perfect before him in human flesh. God used the greatest wickedness
of men to accomplish the greatest good. He did it to be gracious to a
people in Christ. He did every bit of it. He purposed every detail of it
in order to accomplish, according to His sovereign will, the salvation
of His people. And that means that the crucifixion
of Jesus of Nazareth was not something that surprised God. It wasn't something that caused
him to have to hurriedly develop a contingency plan. It was the
will and predetermined plan and purpose of God. It was His good
pleasure. And Paul reminds us of this if
we have any ears to hear what he says. He says, writing to
Timothy, he says, God saved us. He's talking to believers. He
says, God saved us and called us with an holy calling. Somebody says, wait, Paul, you
got that backwards. Don't you mean He called us and
if we answer, He saved us? No, it says He saved us and then
He called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but
according to His own purpose and grace. His own purpose. Man by nature does not like that
word as it pertains to God. But there is no salvation, there
is no hope for a sinner, there is no rescue and deliverance
apart from God's purpose which He joins together inseparably
with His grace. His own purpose and grace which
was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began. Now you can rest on something
you did in time if you want to. You can try to find some hope
in what you quit doing or something like that if you want to, but
God's salvation is, always has been, and always will be on purpose. He saves according to his own
good pleasure. And He was bruised. He's not
leaving us, Isaiah isn't. He's not leaving us to wonder
who it is that He's bruised for, who He died for, who He suffered
for. It says that it was for the good
of those who are described in verse 10 as His seed. He shall see His seed. Now every person Every man and
woman, let's just say every man who sought to father a child
and have a posterity, they don't know if they will or not. And
even if the children are born, they don't know if they'll live,
or see them to maturity, or see them to safety, or prosperity,
or anything like that. But that's not the case with
this one. He shall see His seat." All His
seat. And that's just simply another
name given to us in the Scriptures that tell us of that people that
He describes in some places as His elect. That's a scary one,
isn't it? You know why men hate that word
elect or election? It immediately moves the choice
out of the hands and wills of men and women and puts it where
it's always been to start with, in the hands of God. They're
His seed. They're His elect. It is the
church that He purchased with His own blood. It is His bride. It is these that he brings to
believe. It is these whosoever shall call
on the name of the Lord. Somebody says, well, I'll tell
you what I believe, preacher. I believe in the whosoever gospel. There's no such thing. Because
in that place, in Romans 10, that is so often quoted, that
the prophet is talking about, they are described as his seed,
where they are described by this phrase that distinguishes whosoever. Whosoever shall call upon the
name of the Lord. Now what does that mean? Somebody said, well, you just
invoke the name of Jesus, or call out the name of Jesus, or
say, Lord, save me, or something like that. I knew a drunk that
used to walk down the white line in the front of my house, just
barely could walk. He was so drunk. And he would
call the name of Jesus out again and again and again and again. Is that what he's talking about?
When you find in Scripture what it means to call upon the name
of the Lord and go back to the first use of it as it comes down
to us through the whole Old Testament, it has to do with approaching
God and worshiping God and seeking to be accepted by God on the
basis of a God-provided and God-appointed way of sacrifice. It says, Abraham built an altar
and called upon the name of the Lord. This one Isaac, he built
an altar, he called upon the name of the Lord. He acknowledged,
they all acknowledged that this was the one way, the God-ordained
way, an appointed way of salvation, and that through that one that
He had appointed and provided the sacrifice and Savior, the
Lord Jesus Christ. It was to assure and accomplish
the salvation of some sinners He chose from Adam's race and
gave to Christ. They're His seed. They were His
sheep. If you notice in Scripture, they're
His sheep even before He went to the cross. They're the Lord's
people even before He's stricken. He comes and he suffers, and
the Lord bruises him, kills him, brings him to death, sheds his
blood for them. And the psalmist said, a seed
shall serve him. How can you be so sure of that?
If it's the way men say it is today, you know, God's done everything
He can do. Now it's up to you. God's offering
this if you'll accept it. God wants to do this for you
if you'll let Him. How could He say, a seed shall
serve Him? Because He determined that they
would. A seed shall serve Him. It shall be accounted to the
Lord for a generation. Somebody always says, well, God
looked down and He saw what was going to happen. You better believe
He did. But He looked down and He saw
what was going to happen because He had already determined what
was going to happen. You ever read in the Bible where
it says, and it came to pass? What does that mean? It means
it came to pass Because God ordained it to come to pass. He works
all things after the counsel of His own will. It came to pass,
and you can count on this, Brother Richardson used to say, it always
will. It will. A seed is going to serve
Him. Because He is appointed to do
everything necessary to assure that, the chief of which is to
die in their place. In John 12, He told us this,
He said, "'Barely, barely, I say unto you, except a corn of wheat
fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone.'" You can take
a grain of corn. You can hold it in your hand.
You can put it in a bottle. You can mount it in a frame,
on a wall, whatever you do. The next time you come back to
it, it's going to be one grain of corn. But if you put it in that ground
like so many are doing right now, that's a picture of death. But when after that death, after
that grain of corn is put into the ground and dies and goes
through that transition that we all know a little bit about,
out of that death, out of that grain falling into the ground,
comes up this stalk of corn and there's not one grain of corn
on it. I mean, that is unless I plant
it. But normally there's more ears of corn, And on that ear,
hundreds of grains of corn. That's the death of Christ. He
was talking about His own death. He was talking about dying for
the seed. As a matter of fact, in Hebrews,
it's quoted as the Messiah from the Old Testament. He says in
Hebrews 2, and again, I will put my trust in Him, and again,
behold, I and the children which God hath given me. Do you know
Christ had children? Did you know Christ Himself is
described there in Isaiah? as being not only wonderful the
Counselor, the mighty God, but the everlasting Father. He's got a seed. And they were
given to Him before the world began. The Father chose them
in Him, gave them to Him, made Him responsible for everything
necessary to save them, to make them righteous before God. Everything. Let me read you a couple of verses
in Ephesians 1. In Ephesians 1, Paul writes and he says in Ephesians
1 and verse 5, He says, "...having predestinated us unto the adoption
of children by Jesus Christ to Himself according to the good
pleasure of His will." You mean those who are the children
of God, they're the children of God based on something He
did, not what they did? That's it. He predetermined them
to be conformed to the image of His Son. He determined them
to be His children according to the good pleasure of His will. The good pleasure. Even when
Moses had to remind those Israelites as to why, as a nation of people,
they had enjoyed the blessings that had been given them. He
said, it pleased the Lord to make you His people. And all
these preachers in our day are preaching to please the people. But if we preach the gospel,
we've got to preach the pleasure of God. What pleases Him? Well, the pleasure of the Lord
is in Christ. He's pleased with all in Christ.
Verse 9 of Ephesians 1, "...having made known unto us the mystery
of His will according to His good pleasure which He hath purposed
in Himself." God's purpose of salvation is all in Himself. It originates with God the Father. He purposed it in Himself. He
chose a people. He predestinated all things,
especially concerning them and their salvation. It's in Him. It's in His Son. It's in Christ
Jesus. All in Christ Jesus. And even
that work by which we're brought to believe on Him is in Him. Jonah wasn't kidding when he
said salvation is of the Lord. It's of the Lord. And when our
Lord stood before those Pharisees, and they said what they wanted
to say, and they mocked Him, and they questioned Him, and
they tried to trap Him, and all these kinds of things, He didn't
get all upset. He said, All that the Father
giveth me shall come to me. And when they come to Me, I will
in no wise cast them out. I'll never, never, never cast
them away. This is the Father's will who
has sent Me, that all that He's given Me, I'll lose none of them,
but I'll raise them up at the last day. This is the will of
Him that sent Me, that all these that seeth the Son and believes
on Him, They'll have eternal life. They'll never perish. But in order to do this good,
in order to show this grace, the sins of this people had to
be dealt with. Divine justice, being inflexible
as it is, pertain to them just like it does everyone else. There's
one thing in our day that this society in which we're a part
of, they don't seem to be able to see it all, is the justice
of God. They say, well, God is merciful
and God is loving. Well, He is. But you do know
that He's a just God, a holy God, a righteous God. He not only is holy in Himself,
what He does He has to do right or He ceases to be God. He's
the same One that said, the soul that sins shall surely die. He didn't change that. And the
glory is that His purpose Both satisfies His justice and demonstrates
His grace and mercy. You see, this pleasure has to
do with the satisfaction of that justice. The pleasure of the
Lord. The satisfaction of God as He
is. I know this is shocking to some
people, but the immutable, unchangeable God, self-sufficient in Himself,
having need of nothing, He will not change to save you. He won't change to save me. And
thank God in His Son He didn't have to. He didn't have to. This has to do with the satisfaction
of His justice against their sin. And that's the other side
of the coin when He speaks in Ezekiel concerning those who
He doesn't save, who do not trust Christ. He says, "...you say
unto them, As I live, saith the Lord, I have no pleasure in the
death of the wicked." That doesn't simply mean that God doesn't
delight in some way to be vindictive like we are. It means His justice in the matter
of their sins, outside of Christ, will never be satisfied. That's why eternity in hell,
never ending, is the way it is. Because their sins are never
satisfied. Justice is never put at rest
in the matter of their sin. It's like being put in a prison
because of a debt you don't have anything to pay the debt with.
If they let you out, you wouldn't have anything to pay it with.
And that's why hell is eternal. And the sin of men against God
can only be put away by the death and the sacrifice of a perfect
man. Now, he has to be a unique man. That's why all of Isaiah 53 is
about him. That's why all the Old Testament's
about him. That's why all the New Testament's
about him. That's why every true gospel
sermon is about him. Because there's just been but
one. If you look back in verse 10
in our text, it says, "...yet it pleased the Lord to bruise
him. He hath put him to grief, when thou shalt make his soul
an offering for sin." Now to me, that interprets a lot of
other places in Scripture. And one of those places is 2
Corinthians 5.21. For He, that is God, hath made
Him to be sin for us who knew no sin. He's a sinless sacrifice. A sinner cannot die for a sinner. What is required in the place
of the one who sins, if he's set free, is the death of a perfect
man. Sinless man. He made his soul
an offering for sin. Not sin itself. He didn't have
to become a sinner to be the Savior. If he became the sinner,
he couldn't be the Savior. But he was made an offering for
sin. A sacrifice. He offered one sacrifice
for sins forever. He has by one offering perfected
His people forever. Because His death is a substitutionary
death. He dies in our place. He hath
made Him to be sin for us, this One who knew no sin, that we
might be made the righteousness of God in Him." Paul says in
Galatians 3, Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law,
being made a curse for us. I'm sure glad he didn't leave
it there, because somebody would be saying, well, he actually
had to be cursed or become a literal curse for us. What does he mean
he's made a curse for us? He has to die as one who's cursed. It says that he being made a
curse for us, for it is written, cursed is everyone that hangeth
on a tree. Is that not His death? He had to die for us. He had
to bear our sins in His body. Look back there where Joe read
in Isaiah 53 and verse 4. The prophet says, and this book
is to his people, Surely He hath borne our griefs, That word is
just an old English word that has to do with carrying, bearing
the responsibility. He bore our sins in His own body
on the tree. Surely He hath borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows, yet we did esteem Him stricken, smitten
of God, and afflicted." We thought at first that He was being dealt
with by God in this way because of something He did. No. But
He was wounded for our transgressions. And He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace
was upon Him, and with His stripes we are healed." Not we will be
healed. Not even when He goes to the
cross we'll be healed. So sure, so certain was His work
and the accomplishment of it, and the impossibility of any
stopping it or thwarting it, Isaiah could say, in that old
day, by His stripes, we are healed. I don't know about you, but I
like that. We're healed. He's not talking about us claiming
some physical healing. Just read the New Testament. See how many New Testament believers
suffered, and Paul had sicknesses, and every other believer. But our souls, our spiritual
selves, we are healed by His stripes. We are healed. He was
oppressed. Well, he says, all we like sheep
have gone astray. We've turned everyone to his
own way. And the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. Now, I don't find anywhere in
this book in the Old Testament where you can find a better definition
for imputation than that. The Lord hath laid on him. 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 shearers is
done, so He openeth not His mouth. He was taken from prison and
from judgment, and who shall declare His generation?" You know who will declare His
generation? He will. God will. For he was cut off
out of the land of the living, for the transgression of my people
was he stricken." An old preacher said, If there wasn't but that
one verse in all the Bible to show how totally wrong universal
redemption is, that one would be enough. God says, for the
transgression of My people, was He stricken. Was He stricken. The Lord Jesus
is bearing the sins of His people that God had imputed to Him because
He had purpose not to impute their sins to them. You mean
to tell me that God never intended to charge or impute the sins
of His people to them? That's right. Blessed is the
man to whom the Lord will not impute iniquity. You say, well, when did he decide
to do that? Well, since all of his purpose
of salvation in Jesus Christ kind of centers around that very
thing, Joe, I'd have to say it must have been in old eternity,
hadn't it? Could it be that God... Now, you can't even get your
name in the paper. You couldn't get an audience
with the President if your life depended on it. I know you think
you're important, but in all reality, in the whole scheme
of things, you're like a speck of sand on that beach. And yet the infinite God, looking
down into eternity, determining your being, determining who you'd
be and what you'd be and where you'd be and all these things. He looked down from eternity
and out of His sovereign will of love and grace, He purposed
to show mercy on you and to not charge you with your sins. That's amazing. That's what he did to his people. And he charged them to his son.
And he came into this world and he did actually suffer as their
surety. I know there's a song that says
he paid a debt he didn't know. That's not true. He didn't know
it for himself. But He did owe that debt. Why?
Because He stood as the surety of His seed from old eternity,
which means He, in the very beginning, pledged to take all responsibility
of their sins upon Himself. So that's what He's doing on
the cross. The surety is paying the debt He owes because He's
our surety. The Lord's people have been saved
for a long time. Before we ever fell in Adam,
we're saved in Christ. That's just the way it is. That's
how God assures He gets all the glory out of it. But did He actually suffer, satisfy,
pay, endure, all that was required in His death. If you listen to
His Word, for almost 2,000 years, echoing
through these portals of time, His voice still rings. When on that cross He cries out,
My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me? Why would God ever
forsake a perfect, holy man when He had charged that man with
our sins? And now being of purer eyes than
to behold iniquity, He turns His head away. You know that
this is symbolic language because God's everywhere. But He does
it for us. He says that for us. He turns
His head away because He cannot look upon His Son, who's hanging
there as the substitute for His seed, who are a bunch of sinners. Christ Jesus came into the world
to save sinners, Paul said, of whom I am chief. If God, in human flesh, cries
out to God the Father, it isn't for the Father to know. It's
to give that information to us. That He is truly and did truly
bear all our sins away, pay all that debt, suffer all that eternal
agony and punishment on the cross. Isaiah tells us that the evidence
of this satisfaction is in the fact of His resurrection. He shall prolong His days. He'll raise Him from the dead.
He'll lift Him up, just like the priests that came out of
the tabernacle are given evidence the sacrifice is accepted. The debt's paid. The surety has
satisfied, carried forth the pleasure of God. He's raised Him and He now reigns
and intercedes. But may the Lord help us to know
the meaning of that last phrase. I want you to look at it. The pleasure of the Lord. That
means all the purpose of God. All the will of God. And most
especially as it pertains to salvation, because that's who
he's talking about here, the Messiah, the Savior. The pleasure
of the Lord shall prosper in His hand. Not our hands. Not with the help of our hands.
As a matter of fact, before we actually had hands, the pleasure
of the Lord prospers in His hand. And no man can pluck them out
of His hand. Our Father God put Him to death
for sinners. For those He describes as the
ungodly, the lost. For these sheep who will hear
His voice and follow Him. Those who will be brought to
trust in Christ alone. Those whose only good is in this
Jesus. All these who will be found pleading
only His blood, His righteousness alone as their salvation." That
word pleasure also has a thought of gladness and rejoicing. And amazingly, that's what God
says He does over His people in Christ. He said, I'll rejoice
over you. I'll rejoice over you. How could
God ever rejoice over me? I don't have a day goes by rejoicing
myself in Christ through His death. And because this good He has brought to pass for us
through the death of the Lord Jesus Christ, we can know something
else. And that is found in Romans chapter
8 and verse 28. And we know that all things work
together for good. You know, wait a minute. All that time I wasted in my
life living for myself, living in the most blatant sin and wickedness. All that time I spent in a false
religion. All that time I spent just ignoring
God. All these things. I can see how
maybe after the Lord saves you that it might be that way. No.
All things. about every one of His people.
He has been working together for good to them that love God,
to them that are called according to His purpose, His pleasure. Now here's Joseph's brethren.
They had been down there doing all they did No telling from
the time they sold Joseph into slavery to go into Egypt. How
many times do you reckon they had to lie over that again? Oh
yeah, our brother, he was killed by a wild beast. And yet they're standing before
him now. They're about to starve to death. There is a famine all
over the land. And guess who the benefactors
are going to be? His sorry, low-down, lying, murdering
brothers. That's us. That's grace. That's God using great evil to
do good. And that's His glory. That's
the glory of His grace. You know, it's a wonderful day when He brings His people to
be pleased with what He's pleased with. Are you pleased with what
God's pleased with? He's pleased with salvation being
all by His grace through the death of His Son. I'm pleased with that. I'm very
pleased with that. Father, this day we give thanks
to You and glory to You through our great High Priest and Mediator
and Savior, the Lord our Righteousness. We're so thankful that You had a purpose and pleasure
of grace to us, and so thankful that it prospered in the hands
of our Substitute and our Savior, the Lord Jesus. We're thankful
that in your great wisdom, you took this great wickedness of
men and used it for good. We thank you and pray your blessings
and forgiveness and that you receive our thanks in His name.
Amen.