Well, I want to turn you to Isaiah
53, so we've got this far through our studies in the book of Isaiah
53. Chapter 53, so well-known, so
central to the message of the Scripture, and I've called this
message, An Offering for Sin. That's a phrase in verse 10,
when you shall make his soul an offering for sin, an offering
for sin. You might say, the world around
would say, what's that got to do with me? What on earth has
that got to do with me? But you know, everyone instinctively
knows there is a God. You say, no they don't, they
say they're atheists. Oh, no, no, no. Everyone instinctively
knows there is a God. They do. Because when they really
come down to it, even the so-called cleverest scientists, when it
comes down to it, they cannot give you a solitary, reasonable
explanation of how life started, of how life continues, of all
the different forms. They just cannot do it. There
is a God. There is a God. But that's not
enough just to know that there's a God, just to look around and
say, yes, all right, I acknowledge that there is a God. You see,
if the Holy Spirit of God, by His grace, by His grace, has
revealed something of the holiness of the true God to you, then
that's a transforming thing. The Holy Spirit comes and to
His people, to the ones, the multitude chosen in Christ before
the foundation of the world, He comes by His grace and opens
the eyes of the blind and reveals something in degrees of the holiness
of God. And as we see if that is happening,
if God is revealing something, has revealed something of the
holiness of God, we sense the corruption of sin that is in
us. Oh, he's a nice person. Oh, he's
such a nice person. Well, compared with others, yes,
maybe we are, but do you know that all of us, without exception,
to our very core, against the standard of the perfect purity
and holiness of God, are nothing other than corruption and sin.
When we put what we are up against the contrast of the absolute
perfection of God, His holiness, His majesty, we're nothing other
than the corruption of sin. And sin cries out for retribution. It cries out for a penalty to
be paid. There is a need for retribution. Something has to be done. It
just cannot be left. In this universe, which is God's
universe, He is over all. Sin deserves punishment. Sin demands punishment. The justice
of God demands the punishment of sin. There is a debt to pay. You read the book of Job. We
think Job is the oldest book in the Bible. Go back before
the Psalms and a couple of books before that and you'll come to
the book of Job, 42 chapters of it. And it's the dialogue,
mostly, most of it is the dialogue between Job and those comforters
that were supposed to be his friends, but they were, as Job
said, miserable comforters because they brought nothing other than
condemnation to him. And the dialogue of the book
of Job is about this very thing. What's to be done? We're sinners. We're all sinners and God is
holy and how are we to be right with God? How, as Job himself
said, how should a man be just with God? How are we going to
be justified by God? We who are sinners to the core
and God who is holy, how are we going to be reconciled? How
are we going to be justified? You see, we're all without exception. People are moral, sentient, by
which I mean thinking, we think, we think, you watch. Animals. I remember seeing a
program years ago where an American rancher and it was time to get
some more beef for the freezer for the winter. And he just goes
out with his rifle into the field and there's a herd of his beef
cattle there and he just picks one of them and he shoots it
in the head and it drops down dead and the others just look
as if to say, oh, what's that about? Because they're not sentient
beings. They're animals, whereas man is made in the image of God,
and we're sentient beings. And not only that, God's Word
tells us that we have immortal souls. We have souls which go
on living when this body of flesh has died. But this immortal soul
dwells in flesh that is incapable of pleasing God. We're descendants
of Adam, who fell in the Garden of Eden. We have his nature,
his sinful nature, by birth. When David the Psalmist said
in Psalm 51, in sin did my mother conceive me. He didn't mean she
was an immoral woman. What he meant was that in the
very act of conception there, his sinful nature was put into
his being because he was the son of a man and a woman, and
from Adam all have sinned and come short of the glory of God,
with one exception, the Lord Jesus Christ, who was the Son
of God, born of a virgin, The Bible's message is the Gospel,
you see. The Bible's message is the Gospel
to moral, sentient, immortal souls. The Bible's message is
the Gospel, and what is the Gospel? It is the message of how God
makes satisfaction to his own justice for the sin of a multitude
that he has loved and chosen chosen before the beginning of
time, and redeemed, redeemed, purchased, paid the price for,
to qualify them for eternity. To qualify them, to make them
fit, to make them accepted in eternity, to make them those
who are able, rightly, to be accepted in the perfection of
God's eternity. And if you know it, if you know
this Gospel, then it's only by divine revelation. That is so
important to get. It is only. It is not because
you're cleverer than others. It's not because you're good
at philosophy and you've worked out the options and you've determined,
well, I think I'll go along this route. No, not a bit, not a bit.
It's by divine revelation. You look at the record of saints
down the ages. Think of the Apostle Paul. The
man who was Saul of Tarsus, a religious Pharisee, a religious zealot,
heading for Damascus to destroy those who had been shown this
faith and believed the truth of the Gospel of Grace. He didn't
logically work out the Gospel. He didn't decide and change his
mind to follow Jesus. It was by divine revelation.
God came to him. and showed him the truth of the
gospel. And it's only by divine revelation that any of us knows
the truth of this gospel of grace, which is the message of God.
How should a man be just with God? How can we be right with
God? We who are sinners and deserving condemnation, deserving punishment
for our sin, how can we be right with God? And this message of
the gospel that's in the Scriptures, without divine revelation, without
the Holy Spirit coming and revealing it, it is, as Paul says to the
Corinthians, in 1 Corinthians chapter 1 and verse 24, he says,
to those whose logic is the wisdom of this world, this message of
gospel redemption is foolishness. Foolishness, isn't it? Look all
around at those that you know who do not believe, and the message
of the gospel is foolishness to them. And to those who are
religious, I don't care what sort of religion it is, what
all the different brands of Christianity and all the other world religions,
all the religions that say, you get right with God by what you
do, you become a better person, you abide by this code of conduct,
and you will be made right with God. To them, This Gospel of
Scripture is a stumbling block, a stumbling block. But unto them,
as Paul goes on to say, and to them which are called, how are
we called? We're called by divine revelation. To them who are called, both
Jews and Greeks, this Gospel is the Gospel of Christ, who
is the power of God and the wisdom of God. the power of God and
the wisdom of God. And that message is nowhere clearer
than in Isaiah chapter 53. And I want to focus on verse
10 this morning. 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, he shall see his seed,
he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall
prosper in his hand. The first point to establish,
beyond any doubt, is that sin deserves punishment. Sin deserves
punishment. Sin, that offence against the
justice and holiness of God who is our Creator and Sustainer,
the Giver of life, sin deserves punishment. Most people sense
There are some whose conscience is so seared that their sense
of right and wrong is severely damaged. But most people sense
that we're not free to do anything that we want. Most people sense
and know and feel that the restraint of law is good for all of us. You know, the fact that there's
a law that says people cannot speed down the lane outside our
house at 100 miles an hour. Because why? Because there's
a good chance that people will get killed, and that's not good.
So we have a law, and we enforce the law, and we... bring penalties
against those who break the law. Transgression of the law, breaking
the law, must be punished. I think most people would agree
with that. And you can see it when big public cases come into
the news, where some horrendous crime has been committed, and
we see that it goes unpunished. And most people are outraged
when crime goes unpunished. Or when somebody is tried and
found guilty, And people feel that the sentence, the punishment
meted out by the courts, by the judges, is deemed too lenient
for the offence. They think, look at what So-and-so
gets away with, and then this offence, which is horrendous,
gets such a light punishment. You know, so many people feel
this about murder and about that sort of violence, you know, where
the murderer gets the equivalent of a slap on the wrist, and in
many cases less than 10 years inside a prison, and then they're
free again. And they say their loved one
who was murdered, that was it, their life was over. People get
outraged by this, when they feel that things are unjust. Now the
universe in which we live, the world in which we live, this
is God's universe. He is supremely holy. The One who created and sustains
all things, the One who gives life, is supremely holy. He dwells, it says, in unapproachable
light. He is absolute moral perfection. God, what is the definition of
good and evil? God is the very definition, He's
the very standard of holiness. But we are all sinful. Ever since Adam rebelled, all
people are by nature sin. That's our nature, is sin. And we constantly commit sin.
How do we commit sin? In the things that we think.
We think sin, we speak sin, we commit sin in the acts that we
do. We're incapable in this flesh
of conformance to God's demands for perfection. And not just
perfection most of the time, but perfection all of the time.
Cursed is everyone who continues not in all things written in
the book of the law to do them, without fail, every minute of
every day. And God says, this is what God
says, by His Spirit, in His Word, God says, it's in Jeremiah 44
verse 4, God says that sin is that abominable thing that I
hate. That abominable thing that I
hate. The person Being the character
of God is implacably intolerant of sin. Sin must be punished. He said to Adam in the garden,
you can do whatever you want, you can enjoy all of this, but
there's one tree. Whatever that really was, literally,
I don't know. But nevertheless, God laid down
a line. You must not cross this line.
In the day that you cross this line, in the day that you eat
of this forbidden tree, in the day that you eat of it, you shall
surely die. The soul that sins, says Ezekiel,
it shall die. Death, eternal death. Not just
the death of this body, but an eternal death. An eternal separation
from God who is holy. If sin, if any sin, however great
or however small, any sin, were to go unpunished, then God would
have to change in His nature, because God must punish sin. God must demand a penalty for
sin, and He would be unjust. His kingdom, His heaven, will
not tolerate the merest trace of sin. Oh, I ever hope that
I will go to heaven, say many, many people. I hope that I will
go to heaven. Do you know this? That as you
are in your sins, you will not go to heaven. You will not. I'll tell you why. Revelation
21, verse 27. All the glories of heaven portrayed
in Revelation 21, but in verse 27, don't forget this. There
shall in no wise enter into it anything that defileth. Neither
whatsoever worketh abomination or maketh a lie. All sin, your
sin, my sin, disqualifies us from God's kingdom of righteousness
and peace. And we're condemned by nature
in this flesh under the justice of God, condemned to separation
from God forever in eternity when we die. And what's that
called? The Bible calls it hell. Oh, don't like talking about
that these days. Well, the scriptures haven't
changed and they talk about it. So here's the question. We've
established sin deserves punishment. How can anyone be saved from
that fate? from that hell. There's a debt
owed to divine justice, and that debt must be paid if we're not
to go to hell. There's a ransom price to be
paid for release from the condemnation that sin demands, and that ransom
must be found But listen, listen, listen. Gospel, good news, good
news. Job 33 verse 24. Then He, God,
then God, is gracious unto Him. Who? The sinner. God is gracious
to the sinner and says, what does God say to the sinner? Deliver
him, the sinner, from going down to the pit of hell. Why? For I have found a ransom. God says He has found a ransom. for sin. He has found the price
to pay to justify the sinner. That's what he says. Now here's
the next point. It is divine grace alone that
supplies the ransom. Divine grace alone supplies it. You see, Religion, all religion,
Christian of every variety, all the other religions, think that
by what they do they can make atonement, they can make it better,
they can make themselves better, they can qualify themselves in
the eyes of God. Oh, I'm not so bad, I've done
my bit, I'm trying my best. But do you know, we're utterly
incapable. And God will not accept it. We're
bankrupt. The currency that's needed to
pay the ransom price, we're bankrupt of the necessary currency. Top
lady's hymn gets it dead right. You'll know it. Not the labors
of my hands, not the things, not the labors of my hands can
fulfill thy laws demands. It doesn't matter what I try
to do. Not the labors of my hands can fulfill thy laws demands.
No. Oh, well, I'll be zealous. Could
my zeal no respite? No. Could I be so zealous? Could
my tears of grief and repentance forever flow? All of it for sin
could not atone. Thou, God, you must save, and
you alone. So if we can't do it, and God
is to have a people qualified for heaven, how is it to be done? How is it to be done that God
will have a people qualified for heaven? Now when it comes
to debts being paid, Let's say I owe Michael £100 and he'd rather
like me to pay him that £100. He knows. He lent me it in good
faith and he really would like me to pay him that £100. I haven't
got £100. I really haven't got £100. And Stephen says, he comes
up and he gets £100 out of his wallet and he gives it to Michael
and that's it. Now, does Michael say, I can't
accept this £100 because it didn't come from you? No, he doesn't
say that. He's perfectly happy. The debt's been cleared. There's
no argument about it. Money debts, we all believe,
can be paid by a substitute, don't we? We're perfectly happy.
Perfectly happy. Money debts can be paid by a
substitute. But it isn't so with penal debts. It isn't so If I murder somebody,
and the law says I must go, I think the law should say that I should
hang from a rope for doing it, but never mind, we're where we
are. The law says I should go to prison for life, so-called
life, which ends up not being anything like life. But anyway,
the law says this. Stephen can't walk up and say,
oh, I'll go to prison for life for him. Our justice system won't
allow it. Why won't it allow it? Because
our justice system won't allow it. But, If the sovereign, if
the rule, if the authority decrees it, then it is acceptable for
a substitute to pay the sin debt. The sovereign God has decreed
that a fitting substitute can pay the sin debt of another,
that a fitting substitute can pay the sin debt of what God
calls His people. His people, His elect, His multitude,
chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world. God has pictured
it throughout the Old Testament. I'm just going to turn your attention
to Leviticus chapter 3 and chapter 4 for a moment. This idea of
a substitute bearing the penalty in the place of the one who is
really guilty. In chapter 3 of Leviticus, and
verse 1 it says, and if his oblation be, this is bringing a sacrifice
of a peace offering, if he offer it of the herd, it's an animal,
whether it be male or female, he shall offer it without blemish,
it must be perfect, and he shall, listen, this is the key thing,
he shall lay his hand upon the head of his offering, and kill
it at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation. The laying
of the hand on the head of the offering is symbolical of transferring
that guilt, that debt, from the one bringing the offering to
the sacrifice, to the one who is the victim of the sacrifice.
And it says it again in verse 8, he shall lay his hand upon
the head of his offering. It says it again in verse 13,
he shall lay his hand upon the head of it and kill it before
the tabernacle of the congregation. In chapter 4 and verse 4 it says
he shall lay, he shall bring the bullock to the door of the
tabernacle of the congregation before the Lord and he shall
lay his hand upon the bullock's head and kill the bullock before
the Lord. And these animals, you look in,
as we did in verse 1, and then again in verse 6, and then again
in chapter 4, verse 3, they must be without blemish, they must
be perfect. What are they picturing? What
are they speaking of? The animals themselves, we know
that they could not really be the substitute, but they spoke
of the one alone who can. He's the one that God bids us
look to in chapter 52 of Isaiah and verse 13, Behold my servant. behold my servant. Look at him,
look at my servant, he's the one. It pictures the servant
of God, Christ alone. Who is Christ? Who is Christ? Who is he? He is infinite God. As Wesley's hymn says, contracted
to the span of a man. God contracted, The infinite
God contracted to the span of a man, to that baby born at Bethlehem. For in him, says Paul, in him,
this man that walked this earth, this man who, as chapter 53 tells
us of Isaiah, there's no beauty that we should desire him. He
is a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. His face, his visage
was marred more than any man. and His form more than the sons
of men, how He was treated when He was crucified. This one, this
God contracted to a span, in Him, says Paul, dwelt the fullness
of the Godhead bodily. Do you understand that? I certainly
don't. But the Word of God, the Holy
Spirit declares it, so I believe it. I believe it. God dwelling
the fullness of God dwelling bodily in Christ. And he was
without blemish and without spot. They couldn't bring any accusation
against him. He had no sin. Which of us? Let him that is without sin cast
the first stone and they all, these Pharisees, these holy men,
got up and walked out because they knew that they were sinners.
But he had no sin of his own to pay for. He was a lamb without
blemish and without spot. No sin of his own to pay for,
but infinitely as God, able to bear the sins of a multitude
as their substitute. Look at him. Look at him portrayed
here. Look there. Behold my servant,
verse 13 of chapter 52. staggered at looking at him with
his face marred more than any man. But look who he is. He's
the one who is going to sprinkle many nations. What does that
mean? The picture again from the Old Testament of this priest
sprinkling the blood as a way of sanctifying, making holy the
things of the temple and the people. He, Christ, shall sprinkle
many nations. Not all without exception. Not
all people without exception, but people from many nations,
for God so loved the world of people of different races, that
He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him
should not perish, but have everlasting life. Look at him. Look at him in verse
2 of chapter 53. A tender plant, a root out of
a dry ground. There's nothing about him. He's
not walking around floating above the ground with a halo around
his head as the artists portray him. No formal comeliness. When we see him, there is no
beauty that we should desire him. He doesn't stand out as
different from any other men in physical appearance. And look
how men treated him, despised, rejected of men, a man of sorrows
and acquainted with grief. And we hid our, as it were, our
faces from him. He was despised, and we, I admit
it, esteemed him not as well. Look at him, look at him portrayed
here, him coming down from glory to this lowly place, bearing
the griefs of his people, bearing the punishment of his people,
verse 4, carrying the sorrows due from the offended law, the
offended justice of God. We esteemed him stricken, smitten
of God, and afflicted, but look, he was wounded. The punishment
that fell on him was for our transgressions. The transgressions
of who? Of his people, it will tell us
shortly. He was bruised for our whose? His people, as he will
tell us shortly. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement, the punishment
of our peace, to accomplish our peace, fell upon him. And with
his stripes with His stripes, the punishment He bore, we are
healed from our sin. We are healed from it. All we,
all we His people, all we like sheep have gone astray. As Ephesians
2 says, we are children of wrath even as others. Children of wrath,
all we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his
own way. And the Lord has laid on him
The iniquity of all us his sheep who have gone astray. We're his
sheep if we're chosen in him before the foundation of the
world. Who's his sheep? How do you know? You believe
him. You believe him. When the Holy Spirit comes and
reveals the gospel, you believe him. Look, as he lived this life,
he was oppressed and he was afflicted. When he went into the judgment
hall of Pontius Pilate with the Jewish Pharisees and the high
priest and all the rest of them, bringing false accusations against
him because they wanted to destroy this man who was turning upon
its head their world and their power and their position. When
he was under that accusation, he opened not his mouth. He didn't
fight and rail and object. He was brought as a dumb lamb
to the slaughter, as a sheep before her shearers is dumb,
so he opened not his mouth. He was taken from prison and
from judgment, from that capture that he was in. And who shall
declare his generation? He died. He was cut off out of
the land of the living. Why was he cut off out of the
land of the living? The soul that sins, it shall
die. For the transgression of my people was he stricken. The
sins of his people became his sin. In Psalm 69 and verse 31,
you can read all about it. Throughout that Psalm 69, there,
what is clearly the Lord Jesus Christ, in a prophetical way,
is crying out, my sins have overwhelmed me. He committed no sin. But
he was made sin, says 2 Corinthians 5, verse 21. He who knew no sin
was made sin, that his people might be made the righteousness
of God in him, and therefore qualified for heaven. He made
his grave. This was written nearly 800 years
before he came. He made his grave with the wicked, he was crucified
between two thieves, and with the rich in his death, and they
put him into the tomb of a rich man, Joseph of Arimathea. Because
he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth,
yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him. Is that not echoing what
Paul says in Philippians 2, you know, let this mind be in you
that was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God
thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but laid aside
that glory and humbled himself and was made in fashion as a
man and became, he humbled himself and came down to this earth and
took the form of a servant, behold my servant, and was obedient,
obedient to the will of God, to the point of death. Which
death? Even the death of the cross.
As it says in that hymn, from the highest throne in glory to
the cross of deepest woe. And why did he do it? To redeem
man. to redeem his people, to pay
the ransom price to the justice of God for their liberty from
condemnation, just condemnation. But he bore that penalty and
the sovereign has decreed that another can bear the penalty
of his people. The fitting substitute must be
a man. He had to become a man. God had
to become a man. So God so loved the world, a
world of His people, of different races, that He gave His only
begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish
but have everlasting life. Turn with me, if you will, to
Hebrews chapter 2. There are passages, all scripture
is profitable, but there are passages of scripture you should
really try and, if not to rote memory, the principles of them,
get them inside you. Hebrews chapter 2 verse 9, we
see Jesus, who was made a little lower, or for a little while
lower than the angels. Why? Why did Jesus, the Son of
God, God himself, the fullness of the Godhead body, why was
he made in this lowly human state of humility, it was so that he
might die, because it needed a man to die for the sin of man. God in the essence of His holiness
and His being could not die for man, but God became man so that
a man could die and pay the penalty that was due to man for the sin
of man. We see Him crowned with glory
and honor, that by the grace of God should taste death for
every man. Now a better translation of that
is that He might taste of every death. that he might taste of
the death due to every one of his people because it says in
verse 10 for it became him it was appropriate for whom are
all things and by whom are all things because all things are
by him he created all things for himself in bringing many
sons not all without exception, many sons to glory, to make the
captain of their salvation perfect, through sufferings, for both
he that sanctifies makes holy, and they who are made holy are
all of one. For this cause he is not ashamed
to call them brethren. Our God became man that he might
pay the penalty due to us, saying, I will declare thy name unto
my brethren." Christ has brethren, the people that God gave him
before the beginning of time. In the midst of the church, I
will sing praise unto thee, and look what he sings, again, I
will put my trust in him, and again, behold I, this is Christ
speaking, and the children This is His people, this is the us,
this is the our that we've been reading about in Isaiah 53. The
children which God has given me. Why? Because as much as the
children, the people He saved, are people in flesh and blood,
are partakers of flesh and blood, He, our God, our great God, Himself,
likewise, took part of the same flesh and blood, that through
death, His death, He might destroy him that had the power of death,
that is the devil. How does the devil have the power
of death? By keeping all men in the bondage of sin and of
corruption and under the just judgment of God. But he has destroyed
the devil by his death. He has rendered the devil impotent
by his death. And He delivers those who through
fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.
For verily He took not on Him the nature of angels, because
the angels didn't need redemption, but He took on Him the seed of
Abraham. Is that not the people who are
given the faith that Abraham was given, to believe that was
counted for righteousness to them? Wherefore in all things
it was necessary, it behoved him to be made like unto his
brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in all
things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins
of his people. Get that passage in your mind.
It's pictured throughout the Old Testament. Especially, you
know the account, and I'm not going to digress too much, but
of Abraham and Isaac, where Abraham is tested. Take your son, take
your only Isaac, take him and sacrifice him. And Abraham believes
God and obeys and thinks this is the one who is the promised
Messiah coming to be the substitute for his people. And Isaac says
as they're going on their way, I see the wood, I see the fire,
and here we are going to do this sacrifice, but where is the lamb
for a burnt offering? And Abraham says to his son,
God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering. And our
God has provided himself a lamb for a burnt offering. Our Passover
lamb is indeed sacrificed and thus the debt is discharged. Verse 10, it pleased the Lord
to bruise him. It pleased the Lord to bruise
him. Why did it please him for such a violent thing to happen?
Because it made satisfaction to the offended law of God. God
says in Ezekiel 33 verse 11 that he has no pleasure in the death of the wicked. Why?
Because although they get their just dessert, it never satisfies. It never gives the pleasure of
satisfied divine justice. But the death of Christ pleased
the Lord, because it made satisfaction to the offended justice of God. It talks about later in the verse,
the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. It's this
same thing. He shall see, verse 11, the travail,
the work of his soul, and shall be satisfied. The work that Christ
did in being made sin, and bearing the penalty for it, and redeeming
his people from the curse of the law by being made a curse
for them, that has produced satisfaction. God is satisfied. There's nothing
more to do, there's nothing more to say. Who shall bring any charge
against God's elect? Christ has died. For the people
of God's sovereign choice, for the elect, look at it in verse
8, for the transgression of my people was he stricken. Verse
11, he shall see the travail of his soul and so shall my righteous
servant justify many, for he shall bear their iniquities.
Verse 12, he bear the sin of many. The sin debt for these
people that are the people of God, which is a multitude we
know from elsewhere in scripture that no man can number of every
tribe and tongue and kindred, The sin debt is discharged, for
Christ has paid it to the absolute full. He has finished His work.
It is accomplished. He was a perfect, fitting substitute
and sacrifice. And the work He has done as He
cried out on the cross, it is finished. The justice of God
demands no more of those people who are His people, who know
they're His people by faith. Now it says, In verse 10, when
thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed,
he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall
prosper in his hand. When thou shalt make his soul
an offering for sin. Let's be clear, this is not a
work, you making something. This is not a work we do to earn
favor with God. but it does show that belief
of the truth is not just mental assent and then get on with life. Oh yes, I agree with that, we've
settled that score, now let's move on and get on with the things
that really matter to us day by day. No. This, I think, this
making his soul an offering for sin is speaking of the daily
walk, the walk of faith, the life of faith, a life of communion
with God. A life of walking step by step. You know as it says of Enoch,
Enoch walked with God. Intimate fellowship with his
God. This is what it is, this is the
life of faith. It's not just mentally, yes I
agree that those things are right, the debt is paid, okay right,
let me get on with my life now. No, no, daily, when you shall
make his soul an offering for sin, it's something that you
make every day. I'm not saying it's a work that
you do that does anything for you, but it's active faith. It's a work in that sense. It's
a daily, minute-by-minute consciousness, in all that we do, of redemption
accomplished and finished by Christ for me. It's personal. It's living faith. Living faith. This is what I long for each
day, when we pray, when we have our reading together, I increase,
oh that today I might know what it is to walk with the living
God, to be conscious of the presence of God, to be conscious that
I walk in the sight of the living God. He's accomplished all that
was necessary to make satisfaction. And I daily, daily, remember
a few weeks ago, eat His flesh and drink His blood. Not literally,
not cannibalism, but feed on Him by faith. It's not something
that I mentally agree to and then park and move on. No, I
daily eat His flesh and drink His blood because He was given
for me. That was given for me. This is
so despised and dismissed by the unbelieving world. He was
despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted
with grief. Yet to you who believe, you know what Peter says, 1 Peter
chapter 2 verse 7, unto you who believe therefore, He is precious. He is precious. What does that
mean? He is of inestimable value. Stephen alluded to it in his
prayer earlier. Against all the other things,
it's not wrong to have things. God's always given his people
things to enjoy. It's not wrong to have things,
it's wrong to. covetously aspire to merely things,
but compared with things in this world, to the believer, the Lord
Jesus Christ is precious, of inestimable value, worthy of
utter devotion, worthy of your service. You are bought with
a price. He's paid the price. You are bought with it. He's
worthy of your praise. What's all this? Read the last
few Psalms. We read them this morning. He's
worthy of praise. Why? Because He is worthy. He
is God. Praise Him in your heart, in
your being, in everything you seek to do. It's as vital to
me as my daily food, my daily drink, the air that I breathe.
Is this glorious suffering servant precious to you? I pray that
he might be. Amen.