Let's open our Bibles again to
Isaiah chapter 52. I know we looked at this whole
chapter last week, beginning in verse 13 of chapter 52 through
Isaiah chapter 53. We looked at all those verses
in one sitting as our confession of faith. But I wanted to come
back and look at a few of these verses a little more closely
this evening and see this subject, the title of the message. is
the suffering of Christ. I want us to see something of
the suffering of Christ before we observe our Lord's table.
Now, most people in our society would say that they are familiar
with the suffering of Christ at the cross through the time
period that we've just come through. You can't help but see something
about it on TV or hearing people talk about it. Men have preached
about Christ at the cross. for years and years and years
and years. Some of it true, some of it false. Nowadays, there's
movies made about the crucifixion. There's documentaries made. I
watched one last week, a documentary on the suffering of Christ, how
they recreated it with dummies and things to see the damage
it would cause to a person's body. What happened to our Lord
as he was crucified. Documentary, I watched that.
Many people know the mechanics of crucifixion, but my question
is this, do we know the suffering of Christ? And that's what I pray God will
teach us tonight, the suffering of Christ. Now, first, I want
us to look at the physical suffering of Christ. Isaiah 52, verse 14,
as many as were astonished at this, His visage was so marred
more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men. Now
people at the time our Lord lived were very used to seeing criminals
suffer and die on a cross. That was Rome's form of capital
punishment. And those Romans knew what they
were doing. They had crucifixion down to
a fine art, a science. They studied it. They knew how
and where to beat a person with the whips. They knew just how
to position a person's body on the cross. They knew how and
where to drive the nails into their body to affix them to that
cross so that the maximum amount of pain would be suffered that
would bring about the slowest possible death. They studied
this and they were very good at it. The Romans also understood
this. that the purpose of capital punishment
is to deter future crime. That's the purpose of capital
punishment. So when they crucified a criminal, they did it very,
very publicly. And then they left the dead body
on the cross to rot as a warning to all. This is what happens
to you if you commit these certain serious crimes. One time there
was an insurrection arose against the Roman government, several
thousand. former slaves, as I understand
it, rose up in rebellion, and Rome crushed that rebellion.
And they took 6,000 of those rebels and crucified them at
one time, just all along the Appian Way, both sides of the
road leading to Rome. You couldn't go to Rome without
being warned, don't you rise up against the government. I
mean, what are they, 6,000 people at one time. So people of that
day were used to seeing suffering on a cross. Yet Isaiah correctly
prophesies that these same people who are used to seeing a crucifixion,
when they see the Lord Jesus suffering at Calvary, they'll
be astonished. They'll see him and be speechless
because his suffering is so much greater than what they're used
to seeing. Now, why was that? Well, you know, the whole world,
the whole world of men joined in to cause the suffering of
Christ. The Jews got first crack at it. Look at Matthew chapter
26. The Jews who had plotted and desired this for some time,
they took the first crack at the Lord Jesus. Matthew chapter
26, we'll begin reading in verse 63. But Jesus held his peace, and
the high priest answered and said unto him, I adjure thee
by the living God that thou tell us whether thou be the Christ,
the Son of God. Jesus saith unto him, thou hast
said, nevertheless I say unto you hereafter, shall you see
the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of power and coming
in the clouds of heaven? Then the high priest rent his
clothes, saying, he has spoken blasphemy. What further need
have we of witnesses? Behold, now you've heard his
blasphemy. What think ye? And they answered and said, He's
guilty of death. Then did they spit in his face
and buffeted him. Others smote him with the palms
of their hands, saying, Prophesy unto us, thou Christ. Who is
he that smote thee? Now you see what's going on here.
There's a man whose hands are tied behind his back and men
are beating him, beating him in the face, beating him in the
other different parts of the body. He's blindfolded and they
just smite him with their fist and say, all right, prophet,
you know, you can see who is it that hit you. And you know, that verse is the
extent that is recorded of his suffering there at the hand of
the Jews. But I want to tell you, it lasted all night long.
They didn't turn him over to Pilate till the next morning.
This went on all night long. And then the Romans took their
turn. Both Jew and Gentile joined together
in this. Look over a page of Matthew 27
verse 26. This is after our Lord had had
his conversation with Pilate. In verse 26, then released he,
Pilate, released he Brabus unto them. And when he discouraged
Jesus, he delivered him to be crucified. Now here's a man,
Pilate, knows is innocent. He knows he is. He knows that
he's just been handed over to him for jealousy of the Jews.
And not only did he deliver him to be crucified, before he did
that, he scourged him. He had him beaten with a whip,
a cat of nine tails that frequently would kill someone, cause their
organs to fall out of their back, the way the body was so beaten
from this. This is what he did to a man
he knew was innocent. Read on, verse 27. Then the soldiers of
the governor took Jesus into the common hall and gathered
unto Him the whole band of soldiers. And they stripped Him. And they
put on Him a scarlet robe. That's probably just an old blanket
or rug or something they had laying on the floor, some old
dirty blanket or rug. And they threw that over His
back that had just been beaten, that bare back, like ground beef. They just threw that old rug
on His back. And when they had plaited a crown
of thorns, they put it upon his head, they shoved it down in
his head. They put a reed in his right hand to mock him, like
that was his scepter. And they bowed the knee before
him and mocked him, saying, Hail, King of the Jews. And they spit
upon him. And they took the reed and they
smote him on the head with it. And after that, they had mocked
him. They took that robe off him, they ripped it off his back. You know that was painful. They
ripped it off of his back. They put his old raiment on him
and led him away to crucify him. And as they came out, they found
a man of Cyrene, Simon by name. Him they compelled to bear his
cross. Now normally, the victim of the crucifixion would carry
his own cross. And this kind of makes sense
of what I saw in this documentary I watched. The beam that went
straight up and down, that was set in the ground. And it always
stayed there. And then the victim carried that
crossbeam. That was what was on it. And
then they would lift that crossbeam up and set it down on the pole
that was always there. And normally what they did is
they strapped that crossbeam to the victim and made him carry
it through town. And people would mock him and
make fun of him, throw stuff at him and stuff. It was all
part of the shaming of the criminal, you know, the public spectacle
that was made of don't do these crimes. But our Lord had been
so badly abused already, he couldn't carry that cross beam. So they
compelled this fellow Simon to carry it for him. Read on verse
33. And when they are coming to a
place called Golgotha, that is to say a place of the skull,
you know, when they crucified a person and they let that body
rot and finally it fell off or whatever, you know, they just
covered it with just a little bit of dirt and for long, the
bones would stick up out of the ground. That's where they took
our Lord to crucify him. And they gave him vinegar to
drink, mingled with gall. And we tasted thereof, he would
not drink. They gave him that vinegar mixed
with gall because they had the idea that that would prolong
the victim's life and hence prolong his agony. They wanted the Lord
to suffer a long time. Verse 35, and they crucified
him. They laid his body down and they
nailed him to that cross. They crucified him. They parted
his garments, casting lots that it might be fulfilled, which
are spoken by the prophet. They parted my garments among
them and upon my vesture did they cast lots. Now what that
tells us there is they nailed him to a cross and hung him there
naked without a strip of clothes on. And sitting down, they watched
him there. Now they sat down to enjoy the
show. And when people passing by, coming to Jerusalem for the
Passover, saw the Savior suffering and dying on that tree, they
just couldn't believe it. They'd never seen anyone suffer
like this before. They couldn't believe the carnage
that they witnessed. The Lord Jesus didn't even look
like a man hanging on that tree. He just looked like a piece of
meat you got from the slaughterhouse, because that's what it happened
to. He was slaughtered. Christ himself said in Psalm
22, I'm a worm and no man. He didn't even look like a man
hanging there. Now you and I can't imagine the physical suffering
that our Savior was enduring. Hours of excruciating pain. Every part of his precious body
was wounded and bruised and cut. They say that every inch of his
body, his skin, his outer body, every inch of it was bruised
or bloodied or lacerated. You couldn't put your finger
on a spot that wasn't wounded. That's how he suffered. And to
make it worse, they made fun of him while he suffered. There
he hung in all that agony and he's naked. and they want to
make him suffer more, they make him suffer emotionally. Look
at verse 39. And they that pass by reviled
him, wagging their heads and saying, Thou that destroyest
the temple and buildest it in three days, save thyself. If
thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross. Likewise
also the chief priests mocking him, with the scribes and elders
said, He saved others, himself he cannot save. If he be the
king of Israel, Let him now come down from the cross, and we'll
believe him. He trusted in God, where's his
God now? God's forsaken him. Let him deliver
him now for having, for he said, I'm the son of God. And the thieves
also, these two vile, guilty men, crucified on either side
of him, cast the same in his teeth. Now that's suffering,
that emotional suffering is real. You know, Peter, was completely
unafraid to die for his master. Completely unafraid. But boy
Peter couldn't stand the thought of a teenage girl making fun
of him. And our Lord endured them mocking him, making fun
of him for those hours. Now there he suffers. And we
still haven't touched his real suffering. We still haven't touched
the suffering of his soul. We'll get to that in just a minute.
But I want us to see how man willed to make the Son of God
suffer. But you know what? Now they made
him suffer. But they could not make him suffer
not one second longer than he willed. It was their will. He suffered a long time. But
when he willed, he gave up the ghost. No man could take his
life from him. He laid it down when he willed.
He laid it down when he had accomplished what he went to the cross to
do. You see, even in his dying agony, the Lord Jesus was the
one who is in control of the whole proceeding. He's the one
who's in control. And he gave up the ghost when
his mission was accomplished. But the wrath of man is not done.
The wrath of man against the Savior was so great, they couldn't
be satisfied with his death. Even after the Lord gave up the
ghost and he died, They weren't satisfied. They want to abuse
his body more. You know the story there in John
19, the Pharisees went to Pilate and said, oh, it's our high holy
day. We can't have these bodies hanging up here. You better break
their legs so they die. We can get rid of them, you know.
Well, that Roman soldier went out to break their legs. He break
the legs of the two others, but that man in the middle, he was
already dead. No need to break his legs. But
that soldier just had to get one more shot in and he pierced
his side with his spear and out flowed blood and water. Now both
Jew and Gentile, the whole world, you and me, took part in the
crucifixion of Christ. And we did it joyfully because
man hates God. That's why we did it. And this
was their best chance to show it, to inflict as much physical
suffering on the Lord Jesus as they could. Here's my second
point. Why? Why did Christ have to suffer
so greatly? Why were the people so astonished
at his suffering? Well, the answer is simple. It's
because the Lord Jesus Christ was suffering as a sacrifice
for sin. He willingly went to suffer as
the sacrifice for the sin of His people. You see, the greatest
suffering of Christ was His soul suffering. As great as those
physical sufferings were, and believe me, I'm not making light
of them, but as great as those physical sufferings were, that's
not His greatest suffering. His greatest suffering didn't
come at the hands of man. His greatest suffering came at
the hands of His Father. when his father afflicted his
soul for sin. But back in our text, Isaiah
53 verse 10. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruising. He hath put him to grief when
thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin. Why did the father make
the soul of his son to be an offering for sin? Why would the
father afflict the soul of his son so much? Well, it's because
Christ had been made guilty. He'd been made guilty of the
sin of his people. When it says here that you have
made his soul an offering for sin, that phrase offering for
sin literally means guiltiness, sin. You've made him sin. You've made him guiltiness. And
the father in absolute justice afflicted the soul of his son
justice. He gave him exactly what he deserved
for that sin. He gave him pure justice, pure
wrath with no hint of mercy or love. Not only was man pouring
out our hatred upon God on the body of the Lord Jesus, the father
was pouring out his holy hatred against sin on the soul of Christ. And I just think somehow Men
got a glimpse of that soul suffering when they saw the body of the
Savior. You know, sometimes you see someone
and you can tell they're suffering emotionally. You can see it on
them physically, can't you? I think that's what they, they
got a hint of that and seeing the Lord suffer. And they were
astonished. There'd never been suffering
like it. But now we get to some good news for sinners. In this
dark hour of man's hatred and God's wrath against sin, God's
mercy and grace and love for sinners is being put on display
for everyone to see. You see, Christ is suffering
here as a substitute for his people. Look at verse four of
Isaiah chapter 53. 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
were healed. That man on the middle cross,
he wasn't suffering for sin he committed. No, he knew no sin. He did no sin. But he was suffering
for the sin of somebody else. He's suffering for the sin of
His people. God made the sin of all of God's elect to meet
in one place. He just concentrated it all to
meet on the Lord Jesus Christ. It was all made to meet on Him.
The Father made His Son sin for His people. Now, He didn't make
Him a sinner. Don't get into that foolishness.
He made Him sin. He made His Son a mass of sin. All of the sin of God's elect.
And in justice, the Father smote Him for it. The Father afflicted
the soul of His Son as our substitute because He hates sin. He's holy.
Why did Christ have to suffer so much? Because He's the sinner's
substitute. The suffering of Christ was so
great because it's so concentrated. He took all of the punishment. He took all of the wrath that
an untold, uncountable number of sinners deserved and suffered
it all at one time. It was astonishing. Every one,
each individual one of His elect deserve an eternity in hell for
their sin. Yet Christ suffered all that
hell. For all those people in a matter of three hours, all
his suffering was astonishing. Christ, our substitute, bore
all the sin and all the punishment his people deserve. He took our
griefs and bore them away by becoming acquainted with our
griefs. You know how he became acquainted
with our griefs? He made them his and he suffered for them. Christ was the man of sorrows
and he carried the sorrows of the sin of his people away. You
know how he became a man of sorrows? He took the sorrows of his people
and made them his. That's how. And he was wounded. He was tormented for the transgression
of his people because he made the transgression his and he
suffered for it. Christ died as the sinner substitute. Isaiah says he was bruised for
our iniquities, for somebody in particular, his people. I
told you a minute ago that many people think there was not a
spot on the skin, on the body of our Lord Jesus that was not
bruised or lacerated or spilling blood. And I think they're right. And I'll tell you why I think
that. Because Christ is the sinner's substitute. Want to see a picture
of you and me? Look back at Isaiah chapter 1. Isaiah 1 verse 4. Ah sinful nation,
a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children
that are corruptors. They forsaken the Lord. They've
provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger and they're gone away
backward. Now you and I are laden with iniquity. But if Christ
is going to be our substitute, he's going to have to suffer
that burden. He's going to have to be laden with our iniquities.
And when he's punished for it, people will be astonished. You
and I have provoked the Holy One of Israel to anger. We've
just provoked him. We've stoked his anger. If Christ
is going to be our substitute, he's going to have to bear that
anger. He's going to have to suffer it. And when he does,
people will be astonished. Now look at verse 5. Why should
you be stricken anymore? You'll just revolt more and more.
The whole head is sick. The whole heart is faint. From
the sole of the foot, even under the head, there's no soundness
in it, but wounds and bruises and putrefying sores. They've
not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified. with ointment. Now that's us. That's the way
we are by nature. Every inch of us is covered with
sin inside and out from the sole of the foot to the top of the
head. Sin has made every inch of us
covered with this disgusting disease, wounds and bruises and
putrefying sores that go from the sole of my foot all the way
up to the tip top of my head. That's my disease. Covered with
it. Well, is there any way I can
be healed? Is there any way? Oh sinner, yes there is. There's
a way. There's one way. It's by his stripes. By the stripes
of the substitute. The body of the Lord Jesus was
covered with wounds and bruises and putrefying sores. His whole
body, even his heel was bruised. I've told you this before, when
a person would be crucified, often what would happen is they'd
suffocate. They'd just hang there and their body would just keep
stretching out and stretching out and they couldn't breathe.
And their feet nailed to that cross, they'd push up on those
nails and try to get a breath. They'd slump back down. And every
time they pushed up, and every time they slumped back down,
their heel, were rubbed against the beam of that cross. And by
the time they died, their heel was bruised. Just exactly what God promised
Satan would happen. At Calvary, Savior's heel was
bruised as he crushed Satan's head. He was covered with wounds
and bruises and putrefying sores because he suffered as the substitute
for his people. He traded places with them. He traded our sin for His righteousness. He traded our sin sickness for
His health. And by His stripes, by His astonishing
suffering, we're healed. And that brings me to my third
point. What happened because Christ suffered so much? What
are the results of Christ's suffering? Well, very simple. He saved his
people from their sin. He died, so they must have everlasting
life. Look at verse 11 of Isaiah 53. 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 iniquity. Christ
died as a substitute for his people. He took their sin away
from them and paid for it with His own blood. And in exchange,
He gave them His righteousness. He made them perfectly righteous.
That's how He justified them. Justified as being made without
sin. Christ made His people without sin because He took it from them.
And then He put it away through the sacrifice of Himself. And
everyone for whom Christ died will have eternal life. They
have to. That's what Isaiah means when
he says Christ will see the travail of his soul. He went through
all these birth pains, the birth pains of his soul to give birth
to other souls. And he'll be satisfied. What
that means is the result of his travail will be a live birth
every time. There'll be no stillborn babies,
no babies who die. There's no need for a NICU in
God's kingdom. Every baby is a perfectly healthy
baby. They're alive and well, they
cannot die. You know why? Their substitute
already did, so they can't die. You know when a mother goes through
travail, birth pains, she gives birth to a child just like his
daddy. That child is born from the seed
of his father, so he's going to have the nature of his father.
And when a child of God is born, a physical body's not born. Back
in our mother's womb, he's born again. A soul is born. A new man is born, a spirit.
The soul of Christ suffered and he's gonna give birth to more
souls, not bodies. And those souls will be just
like their father. They're holy and they're without
sin. That new man is born cannot sin
because he's born from the seed of his father who's holy and
can't sin. So get a hold of your seat. A believer says, God gave
me a new nature. I've got a new nature that cannot
sin. Impossible for it to sin. That's a bold statement. Well,
yeah, but not really. Not if I'm born of God, it's
not. It's just so. A believer says, I can never
be punished for my sin. That's a bold statement. Now,
if you say that, you're going to have people sinning all they
want. That's too bold. No, it's not. Now, if Christ
justified me, it's not. There is therefore now no condemnation
to them which are in Christ Jesus, because you already suffered
it. Who should lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It's
impossible. Because it's God that justifies
it. Now those believers, they live in a state of spiritual
civil war. That perfect soul is born into
a perfectly sinful body. And that old man and that new
man are going to fight forever. Because they're opposites. The
old man, he can't be made righteous. He can't be made good. He can't
be improved. And the new man can't be made
sinful. So they'll always fight. They'll always war. But one day,
that spiritual warfare is going to be over. And that new man,
that old man is going to die. We're going to put the body in
the ground and the new man is going to be free. He can be free
to go be with the Lord. And in glory, they're going to
be given a perfect body that matches the perfect soul. And
when they all get there, you know what they'll say? Every
one of them, they'll say, It's the preaching of Christ that
Christ crucified, Christ lifted up on the cross that drew me
to him. In John 12, 32, the Savior said, if I be lifted up from
the earth, I'll draw all unto me. I'll draw all my people unto
me. It's the preaching of the cross,
the preaching of what God accomplished at the cross, the death of the
substitute that draws sinners to Christ. And you know Isaiah
is saying that exact same thing. Isaiah 52 verse 14, as many as
were astonished at thee. Now that word astonished, it
does mean astonished, amazed. But it also means devastated
and destroyed. See this substitute is a very
personal matter. And when I see Christ suffering
for my sin. When I see Him bearing my iniquity,
when I see Him suffering for my transgression, then my heart's
going to be broken. When I see Christ taking my sin
and giving me His righteousness, I'm devastated. My heart is broken. And I come to Him seeking forgiveness. I come to Him in love and thanksgiving. I come to Him seeking to worship
Him because He suffered and died as my substitute, taking away
my sin, taking away the punishment and condemnation of my sin and
giving me His life, giving me His righteousness. And that's
exactly what we're going to confess when we take this table. When
we remember our Lord as we take this table, that's what we're
confessing. When the men hand out the bread, I take a piece
of bread. What I'm saying before God and
before all of you, all these witnesses, I'm saying the body
of Christ was broken, was beaten and bruised and broken because
he was punished for my sin. I know he was punished for yours.
But when I take the bread, I'm saying he suffered for me. His body was broken for me. And
when I take that wine, what I'm saying before God and before
all of you is that the blood of Christ was shed to pay for
my sin. He was made sin for me. He bore
my sin and paid for it with his blood. Now, if your only hope
of forgiveness, if your only hope of life, if your only hope
of righteousness is Christ suffered and he died for you, bearing
your sin, bearing your punishment to give you life, then you take
this table and you remember Him, remember the suffering of Christ
for you. All right, Wayne, you may distribute
the bread.