If you would, now open your Bibles
with me to the book of Genesis, chapter 35. Genesis, chapter 35. Our text begins in verse 16 of Genesis,
chapter 35. And they journeyed from Bethel,
and there was but a little way to come to Ephrata, and Rachel
travailed, and she had hard labor. And it came to pass when she
was in hard labor, that the midwife said unto her, fear not, thou
shalt have this son also. And it came to pass as her soul
was in departing, for she died, that she called his name Benoni,
but his father called him Benjamin. And Rachel died and was buried
in the way to Ephrata, which is Bethlehem. And Jacob set a
pillar upon her grave, that is the pillar of Rachel's grave,
unto this day. We'll end our reading there.
Let's bow before our Lord together in prayer. Our Father, we humbly come into
thy courts this evening. We come humbly, we come empty-handed. Father, we come before you as
mercy beggars, desiring to hear a word from thee. Father, I pray
in this hour that you would Speak to my heart that you would open
my lips, enable me to, in clear and simple terms, preach Christ
and Him crucified. And Father, be with your people
as we hear. Oh, how we pray that you would not let us let your
word fall to the ground, but that we, by thy mercy and by
thy grace, hear and believe and lay hold upon our Lord Jesus
Christ. Father, how we thank you for
such a savior to declare. How we thank you that you've
given us the gospel of your dear son to preach to sinners. Father,
I pray that you'd cause us to find our hope and confidence,
a sure rest and trusting in Christ our savior, that he's all it
takes. He's all that is required of
our souls. Father, we thank you for sending
your darling son to accomplish something so wonderful for such
wretched sinners as we are. Father, we thank you. And how
we pray for a spirit and an attitude of worship this evening. Certainly,
you are to be worshiped. Father, we thank you for this
place that you've given us and how you've blessed your word
here. And Father, I pray you continue to bless your word.
to call out your sheep. You continue to comfort, feed,
and edify your sheep. Don't leave us alone now, we
pray. Father, we pray for those who are away from us and traveling,
that you give them traveling mercies. We pray for the sick
and afflicted. Father, those that you brought
in the time of heavy trial, deep waters. We pray that you'd be
with them in a mighty and special way. It's our prayer, Father,
it would please thee that you deliver him. All these things
we ask and we give thanks in that name which is above every
name, the name of Christ our Savior, amen. Now I've titled the message this
evening, The Son of Sorrow and Joy. I want us to see a picture
of Christ in Jacob's last son, Benjamin. Now these verses that
we just read, Rachel's giving birth, to her, the last son of
Jacob, and she died in childbirth. Now, you know this was a hard,
hard trial for Jacob. I mean, you know how it is when
you have a pregnant mother and she's in that ninth month. I
mean, everybody's expecting a happy arrival of this new baby. Everybody's
expecting to bounce this baby on their knee, you know. You
know Rachel was looking forward to it. Oh, how she prayed for
this boy, this child, and she was looking forward to it. And
then Rachel, the wife that Jacob loved most, died in childbirth. Now that was a hard, hard thing
for Jacob to endure. Just a few days ago, Jacob left
Bethel, where God blessed Jacob. He promised to be with him and
to bless him. And here a couple days later, this hard, hard trial,
the loss of his beloved wife. And you, all of this, is the
result of Adam's fall. This is exactly what the Lord
told Eve. He said, I'll greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception. In sorrow, thou shalt bring forth
children. And that's exactly what Rachel
experienced as she was dying from this very, very hard labor.
She's experiencing this sorrow. That's why she named the baby
Benoni. And that name means the son of
my sorrow. She gave birth to him and these
sorrow, the travail and sorrow of birth. But now before we go
on looking at Benjamin, there's something I want us to notice
here. Let me find my, where it is here. In verse 18, it says, and it
came to pass as her soul was in departing, for she died. Moses writes that Rachel's soul
departed, that Rachel's body died. But Rachel's soul departed. Rachel's soul went somewhere
else. And I point this out for our
comfort, for the comfort of those of you who have loved ones who
died believing in Christ. Their bodies have died. I mean,
their bodies died, we buried them, we had a funeral, we had
a memorial service for them. But don't you forget this, their
souls are living. They're living. You know, there's
no such thing as soul sleep. If you ever run across people
teaching this, it's soul sleep, where when someone dies, both
their body and their soul are asleep in the grave until Christ
returns and raises them. Now, that's not so. That's not
so at all. You know, Scripture says when
the Lord returns, He's going to bring those with Him who are
there now. Their souls are there now. Our souls never die. Our souls depart the body when
the body dies. And for the believer, That is
a wonderful moment when the soul departs the body to go be with
the Lord. Have you ever been with someone
when they drew their last breath? I have. And I've seen that happen
with a believer. I'm just kind of awestruck. There,
this body is dead. And this one I knew, this one
I love, they're not there anymore. They're with the Lord. The body's
warm. To be absent from the body is
to be present with the Lord. And the reason that the souls
of believers depart and go be with the Lord is because of what
the Lord Jesus Christ has accomplished for them. And that's what Benjamin,
with his two names, pictures, Now Rachel named this baby Benoni,
the son of my sorrow. Now how would you like to go
through life hung with that name, the son of my sorrow? The writers
think Jacob changed his name to Benjamin, which means the
son of the right hand. They think Jacob changed his
name because Jacob didn't want to be, every time he saw this
beloved child, he didn't want to be reminded of Rachel's sorrow
and death, and he didn't want everybody else to be reminded
of that, So he changed his name to the son of the right hand. This is the son, this is what
that name means, who has the place of honor and status. This is the last of Jacob's sons,
it's the only one, he's the only son, only child born in the land
of promise. He got a place of honor and status.
Now at this time, Jacob was an older man. An older man, learned
by experience, tend to enjoy babies more. That's why grandfathers
tend to enjoy their babies more. Jacob's not so busy scratching
out a living. He's just not so busy, he don't
have time to do anything. His family's provided for now.
Things are a little settled. And he's older, he's got time
to spend with his baby. Jacob is old enough now to know
the brevity of life. It's passing by so quickly, and
he's able to take some time to enjoy this baby. And at the same
time, he's got this joy at the same time he's heartbroken in
this great trial. Jacob's heart was absolutely
just shredded when he lost Rachel. And both of Rachel's sons, Joseph
and Benjamin, They're both very good pictures of Christ. In a
few weeks, we'll look at Jacob's life in some detail. But tonight,
I want to see how Benjamin, with his two names, is a picture of
Christ our Savior. Benjamin is both the son of sorrow
and the son of power, the son of joy. Even in his very birth,
the place of his birth, he's a picture of Christ. He's born
just about a half mile outside of Bethlehem. or some years later,
the savior will be born. In Benjamin's two names, they're
a picture of Christ, who's the man of sorrows, and he's also
the son at the father's right hand, isn't he? And if the Lord
Jesus Christ is gonna be the savior of sinners, he's got to
be both. He's got to be the man of sorrows,
and he's got to be the son at the father's right hand. So first,
let's look at the man of sorrows. Look over at Isaiah chapter 53.
You might wanna mark this. We'll refer back to it often
in the rest of the message. Christ, the man of sorrows. Isaiah
53 verse three. 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. Now the word sorrows, Isaiah
uses here, means physical and mental pain. And the word acquainted,
he's acquainted with sorrows. It means he's caused to know
these sorrows. And the word grief there is sicknesses.
Picture of our sin, sicknesses. Now the son of God became flesh. He took on him flesh and he became
a real man. And as a man, he was caused to
know. He was caused to learn every
kind of sorrow and grief that there is. He had mental sorrow. Verse two says, for he should
grow up before him as a tender plant, as a root out of a dry
ground. He hath no form nor comeliness.
And when we should see him, there's no beauty that we should desire
him. From what we gather in reading scripture, the Savior was not
a physically attractive man. Now let's face it, this is just
a fact of life. Physically beautiful people have
a lot of advantages in this life, they really do. Our Lord did
not have that advantage. If anybody came to our Lord,
it had to be for spiritual reasons. Not because of any physical beauty,
nothing in the flesh was drawn to him, it's for spiritual reasons. There's no physical beauty about
our Savior that made people flock to Him. You know, you see these
idolatrous paintings, and you know, the Lord's six foot six
and got this glow around His head, and He's just this, you
know, hunk of a man, everybody else is small. That's not the
way it was. People were not drawn to Him
because of His physical beauty. And He lived such a hard physical
life. When He was about 30, people
thought He was near 50. They said, well, you're not yet
50, but they thought he was close because he just, he'd lived such
a difficult life. And that made people avoid him,
just turn their face from him. And now there's sorrow in that.
There's sorrow in that. The Lord knew the sorrow of being
rejected by people that he knew. It says there in verse three,
we hid as it were our faces from him. He was despised and we esteemed
him not, despised and rejected of men. People in the Lord rejected,
or people in the flesh rejected our Lord for so many reasons,
because of his physical appearance. They rejected him because of
his upbringing. Well, this man, he's just a carpenter, and he's
a poor one at that. What does he know? He's not been
to any of our schools. They rejected him because of
where he grew up. He grew up in Nazareth. Can any
good thing come out of Nazareth? I mean, just the simple fact
of where he grew up, people said, that's reason enough not to listen
to him. People rejected him. Now there's sorrow being rejected
like that, isn't there? And people rejected our Lord
because they hated his doctrine. Man by nature hates the message
of salvation by grace. The only message this flesh can
love is salvation by our words. by our merit, by something that
we can do. Darn it. Our Lord preached salvation by
grace, didn't he? Salvation, it's all in him. It's
not in the laws. It's not in the ceremonies. It's
not in knowing the scriptures, having them memorized. Salvation
is by God's grace. It's all in him, who he is, what
he's accomplished for his people. And men ain't anything for it.
There's not a preacher worth his salt having experienced at
least a little bit of that. And I can tell you, I would not
change my message a hair's breadth in order to get more people to
like me. Wouldn't do it. By God's grace,
it wouldn't do it. But it still causes sorrow when somebody hates
you for what you preach. It causes you sorrow when somebody
hates you for telling them the truth. Now, men experience that. Think what that felt like to
the Lord of Glory. Come to tell men the truth. the truth that
would save their souls, the truth that would give life to their
dead souls, and they rejected him and hated him for telling
them the truth. Our Lord suffered the physical pain of hunger and
thirst and homelessness. It's just astounding. The one
who owns the cattle on a thousand hills hungered. The one who created
water, man can't figure out how to create, we know it's made
of H2O, but we don't know how to create it, You sure can't
make it rain. People can see the clouds and
do rain dances all they want. The one who created water and
the one who makes it rain, thirsted. You think of that. The king of
heaven, who provides for all flesh, who gives even the fox's
dens to go home to at night, had no place to lay his head.
He suffered all of those things because the people he came to
save suffer all those things. that he came being identified
with them. And then that suffering pales
in comparison to how he suffered for the sin of his people. Look
at verse four. 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. He was tormented
for our transgression. He was bruised for our iniquities.
The chastisement of our peace was upon him. Oh, how he suffered
for sin. Christ the Savior suffered everything
that sin is, with the exception of committing. He suffered every
emotion, and he has suffered every effect of sin. And he willingly
suffered. I read that passage there in
Matthew, But Lord is praying against him and he told the disciples,
he said, arise, the one who betrays me has come, let's go meet him.
He went willingly, didn't he? He suffered all of that willingly
because the only way his people could be saved is if he suffers
all of the effect of their sin for them. He must suffer it and
put the sin of his people away or they'll never be saved. Now that's hard for you and me
to understand, to really be able to grasp the depth of this suffering.
We're sinners. Sin's all we know. We don't know
anything but sin. So we cannot imagine the suffering
that our Savior's soul and mind went through when the Holy Son
of God was made sinner. Oh, how He suffered. Hold your
place there, look back at Psalm chapter 40. The Savior never committed any
sin at all. Please understand that. I don't
know why people think anybody says that. I don't know anybody
says that. The Lord never committed any sin. But I tell you this,
He was made sin for His people. He sure felt the guilt of it.
He sure did. Look at Psalm 40, verse 12. For
innumerable evils have compassed me about. Mine iniquities have
taken hold upon me so that I am not able to look up. They're
more than the hairs of mine head, therefore, my heart faileth me. Now the Savior didn't say this
iniquity I'm suffering for, it's the iniquity of my people. He
calls it mine iniquity. He says it's his. And those iniquities
that are his, they how they became his. The Father made him sin. He made him sin for his people.
The Lord is just not bearing the sin, of someone else. He's
not just paying the debt somebody else owes. If that was all he
was doing, there'd be no guilt in that, would there? There'd
be no guilt. Actually, there'd be praise in
that. I mean, if you go down to the bank and you pay off a
loan for someone, they've got a debt, you go down and pay it.
You don't walk into that bank feeling guilty, do you? It's
your right not to check to pay off their debt. You don't feel
guilty. You don't have anything to be guilty about. Our Lord
did not feel good about himself because he was simply paying
the debt that somebody else owed. He said, this is mine iniquity.
And the guilt of it was so bad, he said, I'm not able to look
up. I'm not able to look my father in the eye. Because the guilt,
oh, what a horrible feeling that guilt is. Our Savior also suffered
the shame of sin. He hung naked between heaven
and earth for all to see. I mean, you think of the humiliation
he suffered. It would be bad enough hanging
there naked in such physical pain and agony, being mocked
by people. But what was far worse than that
is he hung on the cross naked before his father. When the father
made his son sin for his people, He stripped righteousness from
His Son. And our Savior suffered spiritual
nakedness before His Father. The shame, the shame that the
Holy Son of God felt in enduring that. The physical sufferings of our
Lord. We can talk about them, but we really can't imagine,
really. None of us ever suffered physically
like that. But you know what he suffered that was far worse
than that? Son of God suffered his father pouring out all of
his wrath against sin upon him. Look back at Isaiah 53 verse
10. 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 I didn't please
the father in some sort of enjoyment of seeing his son suffer. It
pleased his holiness. It pleased his justice. When
the son of God was made sin for his people, his father dealt
with him in strict justice. You and I would not do that to
our children. We're not holy. The father is. and it pleased
his holiness to torture the soul of his son, to make his soul
an offering for sin. In his holy justice, the father
poured out all of his anger, not mixed with any mercy, not
mixed with any sense of love or pity. He poured out all of
his anger, all of his hatred against sin upon his son and
he held nothing back. He made His soul an offering
for sin. The Father gave the Son everything
sin deserves. And Christ our Savior suffered
it. He suffered it. Until all of that infinite amount
of sin, all of the sin of all of God's elect, this infinite
mountain of sin, Christ the Savior suffered until that sin was gone. Put away by his precious blood. And when the price was paid,
the transaction was complete. Then and only then did he give
up the ghost and die. He only died because the price
had been paid. Now he's got to satisfy the law's
last demand. There must be death for sin. The price has been paid by his
great suffering. Hold your place there again.
Look over at Lamentations. chapter one. I feel almost foolish and inadequate
to talk about the sufferings of our Savior. We don't know,
we don't have language, but I know this, there's never been such
great suffering before or after. Look here at Lamentations 1,
verse 12. Is it nothing to you, all ye
that pass by? Behold and see if there be any
sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me wherewith the
Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger. From
above hath he sent fire into my bones, and it prevailed against
them. He hath spread a net from my
feet. He hath turned me back. He hath made me desolate and
faint all the day. the yoke of my transgressions.
He didn't say the yoke of the transgressions of my people,
did he? It is our sin. It is our transgression. It is
our iniquity, but he says it's the yoke of my transgression
is bound by his hand. They're wreathed and come up
upon my neck. He has made my strength to fall. The Lord has
delivered me into their hands from whom I'm not able to rise
up. The Lord has trodden underfoot
all my mighty men in the midst of He hath called an assembly
against me to crush my young men. The Lord hath trodden the
virgin, the daughter of Judah, as in a winepress. For these
things I weep. Mine eye runneth down with water,
because the comforter that should relieve my soul is far from me. My children are desolate, because
the enemy prevailed. The suffering of our saviors. It can't be told. But this is
what he must suffer. This is what he must endure.
He must be the man of sorrow. Songwriter said, man of sorrows,
what a name for the son of God who came. Truly, the Lord Jesus
Christ is called the man of sorrows because of the great suffering
that he must endure to save his elect. Now the price is paid. The sacrifice has been offered.
The sacrifice has died. Now that brings us to his second
name, Christ, the son of the right hand. Christ, our savior,
suffered as no one has ever suffered. And now that's over and he'll
never suffer again. Now he's exalted. Look back in
Isaiah 53 verse 10. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise
him. hath put him to grief, and thou shalt make his soul an offering
for sin. He shall see his seed, he shall
prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in
his hand. He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall
be satisfied. By his knowledge shall my righteous
servant justify many, for he shall bear their iniquities."
Now for a brief moment, Rachel saw the fruit of her travail,
didn't she? She saw that baby boy, Benoni,
the son of her sorrow. And then she died. And she never
had the opportunity to enjoy that precious baby like you know
she planned on doing. And we know why that happens.
Death happens as a result of sin, doesn't it? And that is
just, it's such a sad thing to think about, that a mother would
die in childbirth or the baby would die in childbirth and there's
such sadness when you just expect this glorious event, you know.
But now you listen to me. That will never, never happen
to Christ our Savior. He will never suffer in vain
for anyone. He'll never travail in birth
pains in vain for anybody. The Lord Jesus Christ will never
suffer and die and put the sin of some poor sinner away and
then never enjoy seeing them have eternal life and enjoying
them being with him forever where he is that they may behold his
glory. That will never happen. The Savior will always enjoy
life with his people, always. He died in their place, so they
can never die. They can never be stillborn. They must have eternal life because
Christ already died for their sin. He took away the only reason
for death, which is sin. So they can never die. He suffered
everything that sin is and all the consequences of sin for his
people. So they'll never suffer it. I
talked a minute ago about Christ suffering the guilt of sin. We
suffered that for his people. So they never will. He took all
of the guilt of his people away when he put their sin away. There
is absolutely nothing for the believer to feel guilty about.
Not before God. Because Christ took our sin away.
And there's no reason for the father to condemn his people.
Because Christ made him not guilty. He bore their guilt and made
them not guilty. So if you trust Christ, there's
absolutely no reason for you to fear death and then standing
in the presence of God after. None. Christ made you not guilty. The Lord Jesus suffered all the
shame of sin so that his people will never stand before God ashamed. And you know why? They have nothing
to be ashamed of. They have nothing to be ashamed
of. The debt of their sin has been paid. When Jan and I bought our first
house, the only house we ever bought. We bought our house.
We went down to the bank and we got a loan. It was a local
bank. They didn't sell loans and stuff
like they do now. I was pretty thankful that the
man was giving us a mortgage, because I just thought, I mean,
you know, on paper this don't look too hot. I mean, we're going
to pay this back, but on paper this don't look too hot. And
he told me, he said, you know, we're a local bank, you know.
And he said, when you just see people out in the community and
you see people at the grocery store and things, you want to
have your debts paid. So you're not ashamed to see
them, you know. And I thought, I guess that makes good sense.
You know, we saw that man several times in Kroger's after that.
And I was always so glad our mortgage had been paid on time. I didn't have anything to feel
guilty about because the debt had been paid. At least that
installment had been paid on time. God's elect have nothing
to be ashamed of. Eric, the debt's paid. We don't appear before God owing
him a debt we can't pay. We don't appear before God naked.
We've been clothed in the absolute best robe, the robe of Christ's
righteousness. He made his people to be the
very righteousness of God in him. Christ suffered and died
for his people. And here's the result. Verse
five of Isaiah 53. He was wounded for our transgressions.
He's bruised for our iniquities. I know he called those his transgressions
and his iniquities, but I don't ever forget I'm the one that
committed them. I'm the one that committed them. The chastisement
of our peace was upon him, all how he suffered. And here's the
result of his suffering. And with his stripes, we are
healed. Healed. There's no effect of
sin can harm God's people. And the point of all that is
this, what Brother Henry always used to say, the death of Christ
is effectual. It got the job done. The suffering
and death of Christ redeemed, healed, saved. Everyone he intended
to save, everyone for whom he died is completely saved from
all of their sin and they can never die. The same justice of
God that demanded Christ die when he was made sin, also demands
you live if Christ died for you, because the debt has been paid.
You have no sin. And since the Lord Jesus accomplished
the mission that the Father sent him to do, he was the man of
sorrows. As the man of sorrows, he accomplished the mission.
Now he's exalted to the right hand of the Father. Look at Hebrews
chapter one. Hebrews chapter one. That right
hand, I looked that up this week, and it has several different
meanings. The first one is this. It's the place of honor. The
right hand is the place of honor. Well, the Lord Jesus Christ certainly
has earned all honor and all glory because he finished the
work that the Father sent him to do. Hebrews 1 verse 3. Who being the brightness of his
glory and express image of his person and upholding all things
by the word of his power, When he had by himself purged our
sins, he sat down on the right hand of the majesty on high. He sat down on the right hand,
the place of honor, because he earned it by his sufferings for
his people. The right hand also means the
place of status. Well, that's the fitting place.
for the man that the Father has given a name, which is above
every name. He ought to sit on the right
hand, the place of status. And then the right hand is the
place of the ruler. It's the place of all authority
and power. Well, that's a fitting place
for our Savior to sit. The Father has made him Lord
of all. The Father has given him power over all flesh that
he should give eternal life to as many as the Father has given
him. Look over at page of Hebrews 1 verse 13. He only said this
to the son. This is only the seat for the
son. This is not a rotating seat. Somebody sits here for a while
and somebody else sits here for a while. This is the seat of
the son. But to which of the angels said he at any time, sit
on my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool.
This is the seat of power and authority where our savior sits
ruling over all. to guarantee the salvation of
his people. Do you remember when Stephen
was dying as a martyr? They began to stone him. Do you
remember what he said in Acts 7 verse 55? He said, I see Christ
at the right hand of God. There he is. At the right hand
of God. Have you ever wondered what is
the Savior doing there now? Know what the man of sorrows
did. What is the man, the son, the father's right hand, what's
he doing? Well, I'm sure he's doing many, many, many things
that are far above my head, but there's two things I understand
and I know that he's doing. And the first one is this. Our
savior is at the right hand of his father, guaranteeing the
salvation of his people. Acts 2 verse 25 says this. For
David speaketh concerning him, I foresaw the Lord always before
my face, for he is on my right hand, that I should not be moved. Our Savior is at the right hand
of the Father, that his people shall not be moved. We cannot be moved away from
Christ and lose our salvation. Not if our Savior is on the right
hand of power. He's in the seat of all authority,
in the place of honor. We can't lose our salvation if
our Savior's at the Father's right hand. And the second thing
I know is this. Christ is at the right hand of
the Father, making intercession for his people. Romans 8, 34. Who is he that condemneth? It's
Christ that died, yea, rather that is risen again, who is even
where? At the right hand of God. who
also maketh intercession for us. And I've said so many times,
our Savior is making intercession for us without saying a word. He's not frantically pleading
with the Father to forgive that sin and overlook that sin. He
does it, makes intercession for His people without saying a word.
He sits at His Father's right hand in full view of the Father. and the scars in his body, in
his hand, in his feet, in his head, in his side, those scars
in his body that he received at Calvary's Cross, that's the
evidence. Sin's been put away because Christ
has suffered and made his people not guilty. Now, what a Savior
we have. I start all this by saying our
Savior must be both. He must be the man of sorrows.
and he must be the son at the father's right hand. Our savior
is the son at the father's right hand only because he accomplished
the salvation of his people as the man of sorrows, suffering
everything that our sin deserves. And he's sitting at the father's
right hand, and it's all over but the shouting. And right soon, We're going to
be with him where he is, shouting, because of what the man of sorrow
has accomplished. All right, let's bow together in prayer. Our Father, we thank you again
for such a savior that's completely atoned for the sin of his people,
made us the righteousness of God in him. Father, how we thank
you. Father, how I beg of you that his name would be glorified
and exalted through the preaching of your word this evening. I
give each one of us here this evening faith to see the Lord Jesus Christ
as everything that we need. To see Him in His glory. Cause
us to fall at His feet and worship Him. Of course, in His precious
name, for His sake and His glory we pray. Amen. Alright, Isaac.