Will you open your Bibles with
me to Isaiah chapter 53, please? Isaiah 53. This, of course, is that passage
of Scripture that the Ethiopian eunuch was reading from. when
the Lord sent Philip to preach Christ to him. And you remember
Philip asked the Ethiopian, he said, understandest what thou
readest? And most people in that eunuch's position would have
said, who are you? Of course I understand. But he said, how can I except
a man should guide me? This is the means that the Lord
has ordained for teaching his people, is to have one sinner
tell another sinner about the Savior. One beggar telling another
beggar about where to find bread. And what a humbling experience
it is for all of us. And so Philip got up in the chariot,
and the Ethiopian said, does the prophet speak of himself? Or is he speaking of another?
And beginning there, Philip preached unto him Jesus. This whole book
is about our Lord, but Isaiah 53 is so glorious. It is so glorious. I love the passage where the
Lord says that the father saw the travail of his soul and was
satisfied. You know, the natural way of
thinking is that if I'm sorry enough for my sin, God will forgive
me. That's the way we are with one
another. If you offend me, I expect you to be sorry for it. And if
I'm convinced that you really are, then I forgive you, and
vice versa. The problem with that is that
we cannot be sorry enough for our sin. But the Lord Jesus Christ
bore our iniquity, and he felt the full weight of guilt and
shame for our sin. And the Father looked at him
and saw the travail of his soul and was satisfied. God is satisfied
with the work of the Lord Jesus Christ and the sorrow that he
experienced for our sin. Notice in verse 4, Surely he hath bore our griefs
and carried our sorrows. Yet we did esteem him stricken
and smitten of God and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions. That's the title of this message.
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. The wounds of the Lord Jesus
Christ on Calvary's cross The scripture speaks of five wounds
that he experienced in his body as he bore our sins in his body
upon the tree. The first wound that he experienced
was the flogging of the cat of nine tails on his back. The second
wound that he experienced was the plaiting of that crown of
thorns and the beating of it into his brow. The third wound
that's spoken of in the scriptures are the piercing of his hands
and the fourth, the piercing of his feet. And the fifth wound
that the Lord Jesus Christ has spoken of experiencing in his
body was that sword in his side that pierced his heart. Why? Did God purpose for Christ to
experience wounds in those specific places? That's the question for this
message. In Zechariah chapter 11, the
Lord said that when He pours out on the house of David and
on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, His Holy Spirit that it will
be a spirit of grace and supplication, and his people will look upon
him whom they have pierced, and mourn after him as one mourneth
after his own son." And then in the next verse it says, and
each of them, each of them will mourn after him individually. The meaning of that, of course,
is that the wounds of the Lord Jesus Christ manifest the punishment
that God required for our sins. And our sins are, well, in Revelation
1, verse 7, every eye shall see Him, and they that pierced Him
shall mourn for Him. And so these wounds that the
Lord experienced on Calvary's cross say something to us about
our sin. Acts chapter 2, when Peter preached
at the day of Pentecost, He said, him being delivered by the determinate
counsel and foreknowledge of God, you have taken and by your
wicked hands you have crucified him and slain him. My hope is that the Lord will
enable each of us to identify ourselves with the wounds that
Christ experienced on Calvary's cross, and to believe that if
we individually were the only ones that needed to be saved,
that everything that the Lord Jesus Christ went through for
his whole church would be necessary for each individual believer.
God could not save me, could not save you, apart from everything
that Christ experienced. He suffered once the just for
the unjust in order that he might bring us to God. The first wound
that we see our Lord experiencing in his body is the flogging of
those Roman soldiers. We cannot imagine what that experience
would have been like. Many, many men died from being
flogged. The Romans had a law that you
could not flog a man more than 40 times, but that was only for
the Romans. And so to be sure that they didn't
violate the law, they would only flog him 39 times. But if it
was a Jew, they didn't worry about the count. The sharpened
piece of bones on the end of those leather strips would have
cut into his flesh to his bones. And why was the Lord? Why was he flogged? Why did he
suffer those stripes on his back? Well, that's where our sin manifests
itself, isn't it? Did not the Apostle Paul say,
who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I've got
a dead man on my back. Thanks be to God. Through Christ
Jesus, I am free. Therefore, there is no more condemnation
to them that are in Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
one who said, come unto me, all you that labor and are heavy
burdened. We have the labor of sin, but
we also have the labor of law. The pressure of the law that
condemns us because of our sin is the burden that we cannot
bear. It's not just the burden of sin, it's the burden of the
law. It's the burden of what God requires for sin. And that law is what the Lord
Jesus Christ bore in His body, on His back. The law, like those taskmasters
in Egypt, is a harsh slave master. And just like the children of
Israel were flogged by those taskmasters in Egypt in an attempt
to satisfy the demands of the law, the Lord Jesus Christ suffered
the flogging of that punishment. in order to satisfy God's demands
for the law. It wasn't just his life of righteousness
that satisfied the demands of law. Philippians chapter 3 says
that he was obedient even unto death, even the death of the
cross. And so the death of the Lord Jesus Christ and what he
suffered on Calvary's cross was his righteous obedience to the
Father and was completely necessary in order to satisfy God's demands,
in order for God to say, I saw the travail of his soul and I
was satisfied. Don't you love that story of
Samson, the strong man, who is clearly a picture of the Lord
Jesus Christ. Samson going down into the Philistine
city. And the scripture says that he
took the two gates from off the city with their hinges. And he
put them on his back, and he carried them away, and he exposed
the enemies to the children of Israel. And the Lord Jesus Christ,
when he asked the disciples, he said, he said, whom do men
say that I am? And Peter, remember, said, well,
some say that thou art John the Baptist, and some say that thou
art Elijah, one of the prophets. Whom do you say that I am? What
Peter said, thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And
the Lord said, Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jonah. Flesh and blood
didn't reveal that to you. You didn't come to that on your
own. My Father, which is in heaven, has made it known unto you who
I am. And upon that rock, the confession you just made. I'm
going to build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail
against it." The Lord Jesus Christ came into this world, just like
Samson, to take the gates of hell and carry them on his back.
And through his flogging, he exposed those who are held captive. He said, I've led captivity captive. I've gone into the very pit of
hell, and I've captured my children, my people. who were held hostage
by Satan, and I've delivered them by the stripes that are
on my back." He is that strong man. And so we can say, that
wretched man, he's dead. He's been put to death. The second wound that our Lord
experienced for our sin is the mocking of those Roman soldiers
in plaiting a crown of thorns, laying them on his head, and
then taking a stick and driving them into the scalp of his head
until the blood flowed. Why? Why was he wounded there? Why was he wounded there? We
think, well, he was the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, and
they, though mocking him, were actually testifying of who he
is. Turn with me to Isaiah chapter
1. Isaiah chapter 1. Look at verse
two. Hear, O Israel, and give ear,
O earth, for the Lord hath spoken. I have nourished and brought
up children, and they have rebelled against me. The ox knoweth his
owner, and the ass his master's crib, but Israel doth not know,
my people doth not consider. How did David say it in the Psalms? He said, I am but a beast. And that's how we are before
God. We will not be brought into submission. A sinful nation,
a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children
that are corruptors. They have forsaken the Lord.
They have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger. They are
all gone away backwards. Why should you be stricken anymore?
Will you revolt more? You will revolt more and more.
The whole head is sick. The whole head is sick and the
whole heart faint. There's the reason why he was
stricken in his head. Because that's where our problem
is, isn't it? God requires us to love Him with all of our heart,
all of our mind, and all of our soul, all of the time. And the
truth is that you and I have never been able to love God with
all of our mind and all of our heart and all of our soul, not
one single time. The Lord Jesus Christ, the only
one that never had a sick head. You and I are sick in the head.
We're not capable of having a holy thought. We rejoice when we hear
the things that are true. We rejoice in thinking about
the Lord, but our thoughts are not His thoughts. We're just not capable. The scripture says that man looks
at the outward appearance. God's looking at the heart. He
knows that every imagination of the thoughts of man are only
evil and that continually. So when God looks at our thoughts,
He's not satisfied. He's not pleased. The Lord Jesus
Christ, as the sinner's substitute, as the sin-bearer on Calvary's
cross, had to be wounded in His head because that's where our
sin is. Our sin is... Well, what do we think? We think that God's all together
as ourselves, don't we? We come into this world imagining
a God in our thoughts that is nothing more than an idol. And
the Lord Jesus Christ had to be wounded in his head. You remember the story of Naaman,
who was a leper, and he was the king of the army. I mean, he
was the commander of the army of Syria. And he had heard from
his wife's handmaid that there was a prophet down in Israel
that could heal him of his leprosy. And so he packed up his entourage
and his gifts, and he went down to visit Elijah, and found the
prophet in a little town called Dothan, and went to the prophet's
house. And the prophet would not so
much as even come out to the door. He sent his servant out
to the door. And he told the servant what to tell Naaman. He said, you go down to the river,
Jordan, and you wash yourself seven times in the river. And
Naaman, the scripture says, was wroth. He was angry. And he said, I thought the prophet
would come out, and that he would wave his hands, and that he would
pronounce God's blessings upon me. And that was Naaman's problem,
wasn't it? He thought. God's ways are not
our ways. His thoughts are not our thoughts.
The means by which the Lord was going to cleanse Naaman and save
him was a humbling means. But that's the way we are. We're not able to have the thoughts
that God has. And so David said in Psalm 139,
Thou hast searched me and known me, And thou hast known my thoughts
from afar off. God knows every thought that
goes through our mind, every imagination, every vain thought,
every fleshly thought. He knows every one of them. But
here's the good news. The Lord Jesus Christ was wounded
in his head. in order to satisfy the demands
of God's holy justice for our evil thoughts. God was pleased
with his thoughts and he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace
was upon him and by his stripes we are healed. Psalm 10 verse
4 The scripture says of the wicked
that God is not in his thoughts. I know the thoughts that I have
for you, the Lord says, thoughts of good and not of evil, that
I might bring you to your expected end. Psalm 94 verse 11, the Lord knoweth
the thoughts of man that they are vanity. He knows our thoughts. Oh, he's pleased with every thought
that the Lord Jesus Christ had. And he was suffered that wound
in his head. to satisfy God's justice for
our thoughts. Not only was he wounded in his
back and on his head, but the scripture says that he was wounded
in his hands. Now you know what hands are symbolic
of in the scriptures. Who shall stand in thy holy presence? Them that have clean hands and
a pure heart. The truth is that everything
that you and I have ever put our hands to, we have defiled. There's only one man who's holy,
harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners. There's only one
man who was able to touch sinners, and not be defiled, and touch
God, and not be judged. the Lord Jesus Christ. Don't
you love it when he would touch a leper? And in the touching
of a leper, just like that death man, when he touched his ears
and touched his tongue, his hands were pure, harmless. Who can
stand in God's presence? He that has pure hands. What
do our hands do? I noticed that Angus and Lisa
have a fig tree in their yard. We have a fig tree in our yard.
Now, there weren't many leaves on your fig tree, but the fig
tree in my yard, the leaves on that fig tree, I can take a leaf
and put it up to my hand. It looks just like my hand. It's
almost identical to, I mean, matches my hand almost perfectly,
the size and everything. Five pieces to it. And I thought,
isn't that amazing that the Lord would design that fig leaf? What
is it that Adam tried to cover his nakedness with? Did he not
sew together fig leaves? Isn't that what we do? We use
the works of our hands to try to cover up, to try to atone
for our own sins, not knowing that the very works that we're
performing with our hands are actually sinful in themselves.
And to think that we're atoning for anything only is adding more
guilt. The Lord Jesus Christ was wounded
in his hands. What did Cain bring to the Lord?
The fruit of his hands, didn't he? Oh, he had worked hard in
that garden. He brought the best fruit that
he could produce. And the Lord and the scripture
says, and God had no respect for Cain's offering. Why? Because
it was something he did with his hands. What did Abel bring? Oh, he brought a blood sacrifice,
didn't he? What did God say was going to happen as a result of
sin? That the land was going to produce, they were going to
labor by the sweat of their brow with their hands and it would
produce nothing but thorns and thistles. And that's all we are
able to produce with our hands, is thorns and thistles. And yet
man is deceived in thinking that he can bring something that he's
made with his hands to God to earn favor with the Holy God.
The Lord Jesus Christ was wounded in his hands. Noah's father called him Noah
because the word Noah, is Noah still here? The name Noah translated
means rest. That's what it means. And here's
what Noah's father said when he named him Noah. He said, he
will comfort us concerning the work and toil of our hands because
of the ground that the Lord has cursed. What a picture of Christ
Noah is. He comforts us. He gives us rest. Why? Because the works of His
hands God was pleased with. He bore our iniquities in His
body on that tree. You remember when Jacob went
to his father Isaac, deceiving his father in order to get the
blessing? And he deceived his father because he
pretended to be Esau. And you remember what Isaac said?
Isaac said, the voice is the voice of Jacob. But Jacob had
taken hair and put it on his arm and on his hands. And Isaac said, but the hands
are the hands of Esau. And it was the hands of Esau
that convinced him that Jacob was Esau. And he blessed him. What a picture. The voice. The voice is the voice of a man.
But the hands are the hands of my son. And the blessings come
because we have the hands of Christ wounded on Calvary's cross. You remember when the prophet
prophesied the death of Jezebel and she was thrown out of the
window and the dogs did eat her body and the scripture says that
the only thing left of the body of Jezebel were her feet and
her hands. A testimony against her of the
uncleanness of her condition. We have the hands of the Lord
Jesus Christ wounded for our iniquities. Who shall stand in his presence?
They that have clean hands, they that have a pure heart. Turn
to me to Acts chapter 17. Acts chapter 17. Paul is preaching in Athens, and he's preaching to them the
unknown God. They had all these statues of
all these gods, and just to cover all the bases, they had a statue
to the unknown God, and Paul said, that's the God I'm going
to preach to you, the one you don't know. And he preached Christ
to them. And look how he opens this message
in verse 24. God that made the world and all
things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth,
dwelleth not in temples made with hands, neither is worshipped
with men's hands, as though he needed anything, seeing he giveth
to all life and breath and all things. What are you gonna bring
to me? The Lord said in Psalm 50, if
I was hungry, I wouldn't tell you. What are you going to produce
with your hands that are going to earn you favor with me? Your hands are defiled. Everything
you touch with your hands. The Lord Jesus Christ's hands
were wounded because our hands were defiled. He was wounded for our iniquities. Not only was his back wounded,
his head, his hands, but also his feet. His feet. Oh, we've not been able to walk
a straight line since we were born, have we? Scripture says
our feet are swift to shed blood. We're like that crippled man
at the gate called beautiful. We can't not get in to worship
God because we're unable to stand. We can't stand on our feet. We're
like Mephibosheth, crippled from a fall and unable to walk, unable
to stand. The Lord Jesus Christ, every
foot, every step he made, Every step he made was in perfect obedience
to the Father. And he was wounded in his feet,
because our feet are so prone to wander. Our feet are so prone
to leave the God that we love. Our feet are so unable. All we
like sheep have gone astray, each unto his own way. The Lord washed the feet of the
disciples. Peter said, oh no, Lord, you're
not gonna wash my feet. And the Lord said, if I don't
wash your feet, you're gonna have no part with me. And Peter said,
oh, don't just wash my feet, wash me all over. And the Lord
said, oh no, Peter, you're already clean. You're clean by the word
that I've spoken unto you, but your feet are dirty. And every
step you take out there in that dirty, dusty world, you come
back with dirty feet. And we're constantly needing
to come to the Lord Jesus Christ to have our feet cleaned, aren't
we? Oh, our feet are defiled. We have feet of clay. You remember
the seraphim that are hovering over the throne of the Lord Jesus
Christ in Isaiah chapter 6? And the scripture says they had
six wings, and with two they covered their eyes. Why? Because
they were in the presence of Christ. John chapter 12 makes
it clear that the one that Isaiah saw in Isaiah chapter 6 was none
other than the Lord Jesus Christ, the one whose train filled the
temple. And the two, the seraphim, these
are holy angels. They had to cover their face
in the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. And then with two wings,
what did they do? They covered their feet. Why
did they cover their feet? Because they were creatures.
And they were standing, they were in the presence of the Creator. And their feet were unclean in
His presence. Now if that's true of the angels,
how much more true it is of you and me. Why was the Lord Jesus
Christ wounded in His feet? What a painful wound that would
have been. We can't imagine. I was thinking about some of
the wounds I've had in my life. I was in a hunting accident one
time, got shot in the chest with a shotgun, with buckshot, in
my chest. And then years later, I stepped
on a stingray and it stung me right in the plantar nerve of
the bottom of my foot. And that stingray was much, much
worse than getting shot in the chest with a shotgun. I mean,
it was just excruciating, the pain. And here I'm thinking about
the Lord just, it may have been the most painful of all the wounds
that He experienced, but it's our walk. Our walk is so, we
so stumble, and we so walk a crooked line, and the Lord had to suffer
that wound in His feet. How beautiful are the feet. of him that bringeth good tidings."
It's his feet, aren't they? His feet are undefiled. His feet
are perfect before God. When Moses stood before the Lord
Jesus Christ at the burning bush, what did God say? Moses, take
the shoes from off your feet, because the ground on which you
stand is holy ground. You've got to expose your creatureness
your defiled state in my presence. And you can't cover it up. Can't cover it up. And here's
the beauty. What we cover, God uncovers. And what we uncover, God covers.
Lord, my feet are dirty. My feet cover them. Cover them
with the blood that came out of the feet of the Lord Jesus
Christ. When John saw the Lord Jesus
in Revelation, he said that His feet are like fine brass tried
in a furnace. In a furnace. Oh, His feet were
beautiful. His feet were perfect. And they
were wounded for our transgressions. And then the scripture makes
it clear that the Father has put all things in subjection
under his feet. And finally, He was wounded for
our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace
was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. After the Lord
Jesus Christ bowed His mighty head, after He gave permission
for His Spirit to depart. He's the only one that ever knew
how to die. He died a holy death. He bowed his head, he said, Father
into thy hands I commend my spirit. And he gave permission for his
spirit to depart. And then the soldiers came. And
those Roman soldiers knew exactly which ribs to go between with
that sword in order to pierce the heart of the Lord Jesus Christ. And out of that wound came water
and blood. The water symbolic of our cleansing. Sanctification is the water,
the cleansing of the water by the word of God. And then the
blood. The blood is a picture of our
redemption. our justification before God.
God said, when I see the blood, I'll pass by you. Our hearts,
the scripture says, are deceitful above all things, desperately
wicked. Who can know them? Who can know
them? David, the scripture says, was
a man after God's own heart. David's type of Christ. And you remember when Samuel went
to David's house and was looking for a king to replace Saul. And they paraded all of David's
brothers before the prophet. And the Lord made it clear to
the prophet and to Jesse, no, it's not that one, not that one.
And they were all stalwart young men. They were kingly looking. And then Samuel said to Jesse,
he said, will you have any more sons? Because I know this is
the family that God chose to choose the king out of. He said,
well, there's a little boy out in the yard, but you wouldn't
be much interested in him. Oh yeah, I am. And what'd God
say to David? Man looks at the outward appearance
and God looks at the heart. And God sees that every imagination
of your heart and my heart is wicked and deceitful. And God
saw that the heart of the Lord Jesus Christ was pure and perfect. And he had to be wounded in his
heart to put away the sins of our hearts. That's why he was
wounded there. So the Lord Jesus Christ takes
out the heart of stone, that cold, lifeless, hard heart of
unbelief, and he puts in a heart of flesh and he enables us to
love him and trust him in faith. The Word of God is a discerner
of the thoughts and the intents of the heart. How many times
we hear someone say of another person who commits some heinous
crime, well, they've got a good heart. They've got a good heart. No, they don't. No, they don't. And your heart's not good. Not
in God's standard of goodness. And my heart's not good. Oh,
but how good his heart was. How good his heart was. He was
wounded there to put away the sins of our hearts. Do you have
sins in your hands? Have sins in your feet? Have
sins in your head? Have the burden of sin and the
law on your back? Sins in your heart? He was wounded for our transgressions,
bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace
was upon Him. And by His stripes, don't miss
The next word, it's past tense. We are healed. You see, what the Lord Jesus
Christ accomplished on Calvary's cross was the putting away of
all those sins of all of God's people of all generations once
and for all by the sacrifice of himself. He's not waiting
for us to do something to make what he did work for us. It is
finished. It's done. What a Savior. Pastor. Indeed, what a saviour. I love
how that chapter finishes. It says, he was numbered with
the transgressors. He was numbered with the transgressors
and he bared the sin of many and made intercession for the
transgressors. Next words, sing, O Baron, sing. Let's sing, Norm. Thank you.
Number five. Amazing grace, how sweet the
sound that saved a wretch like me. ? Of who I see ? ? T'was grace
that taught my heart to fear ? ? And grace my fears relieved
? ? How precious did that grace appear
? Through many dangers, toils,
and snares, I have already come. This praise and glory save us
from will lead me home. The Lord has
promised to me this word I hope secures. He will ? As long as I live ? a life of joy and peace. The earth shall soon dissolve
like snow, the sun forever to shine. Here below will be forever mine. When we've been there ten thousand
years, bright shining as the sun, In God's grace, and when we first
begun What a saviour, what a saviour. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father,
we do pray that the words that you have spoken through your
servant this evening would be resting on our souls and cause
us to rest on our pillows tonight with sweet thoughts of your dear
and precious son and the glory of that finished work. We do
praise You, Heavenly Father, that He was the Lamb slain from
the foundation of the world and that He is a mighty, successful,
substitutionary Saviour for sinners like us. Heavenly Father, we
pray that these words would be caused by your spirit's work
in our lives to be words that you embed deeply in our hearts,
Heavenly Father, and that the evil one would not snatch them
away, that you would fulfil your promise to be the teacher of
your people. and that the Blessed Holy Spirit
would take the things of the Lord Jesus Christ and reveal
them to us and continue to do so, Heavenly Father, that we
might look to Him, look to Him always and look to Him alone.
Help us to rest tonight, give peace and blessing to our preacher
tomorrow, Heavenly Father, that we might come back refreshed.
and anxious to hear again sweet words about our Saviour. We pray
in Jesus' name and for His glory. Amen.