This book speaks repeatedly of a place
called hell. In fact, our Lord Jesus Christ
spoke more frequently about hell and judgment and eternal damnation
than he did any other subject while he walked on this earth. Hell, a place of everlasting
torment that no tongue can describe, no mind can imagine. Hell is
described as a place where there is fire, that can't be quenched, but fire different from any kind
of fire we've ever imagined, because this fire is in a place
of darkness, outer darkness, where there's
no light, just darkness. Just darkness. Darkness of separation
from God and good and everything pleasant. Hell is a place, a real place,
where the worm dies not and the fire is not quenched. The conscience
is keenly awakened, always gnawing and screaming
and never eased where you spend forever by yourself in isolation
with untold multitudes. How can that be? There'll be
no companions, no friends, no one to love and no one to be
loved. An indescribable multitude of
lost humanity in darkness and fire all alone with fully awakened
conscience. fully aware that you fully deserve
God's wrath. With your body, you spent your
life fighting God, trespassing his law, violating his word,
disobeying the gospel, In your heart, your life is ruled
and motivated by one great core value, enmity against God. That's the only thing makes you
do what you do. You hate God. You hate God. Did you hear me? You hate God. That's your heart. That's your heart. Not me, preacher. You're a liar and you don't know
yourself. Everything that makes you what
you are. Everything that motivates you. Everything that governs you.
Everything that moves you in this world is your heart hatred
of God and everything God is. So that the very core of your
being with your soul, you sin against God from the moment of
your birth to the moment of your death. In heart, with your body,
and with your soul, you live in enmity against God. And so
in hell, if you die without Christ, if you die as
you came into this world and as you have lived, if you die
with no atonement and no righteousness acceptable to God, the atonement,
the righteousness of His own darling Son. If you die without
Christ in hell, you will forever suffer the indescribable, horrible,
furious torments of God's wrath. in your body and in your heart
and in your soul. And in order to redeem and save
sinners like you and me, in order to redeem and save his people
from their sins, In order to take us from the fallen ruins
of humanity and bring us at last into the glorious liberty of
the sons of God, God's darling son, our Lord Jesus Christ, suffered
all hell as our substitute. He suffered all the fury of God's
unmitigated wrath at one time in one day to put sin away. Jesus Christ, God's darling son,
endured all the wrath of God as our substitute. And it's described
for us here in Isaiah chapter 53. Isaiah 53 reads more like a history
than a prophecy. It was written 750 years before
our Lord Jesus came into this world. And yet it's written and
described with such accuracy that which transpired upon Calvary
that you would think you were reading one of the gospel narratives,
reading the writings of one who was there and observed everything
that took place. How can you explain that? Isaiah
was one of those holy men of old who spoke as he was moved
by God the Holy Spirit. There's no explanation for the
existence of what we read just a few moments ago in Isaiah chapter
53. There's no explanation for that
except for the fact that this book is inspired by God Almighty. Isaiah wrote his word of prophecy
nearly a millennium before it came to pass. And yet he wrote
with the precise accuracy of an eyewitness describing that
which would take place. Here Isaiah speaks to us plainly
of the sufferings of our Lord Jesus Christ. And that's my subject. May God, the Holy Spirit, enable
me to deliver the message. Isaiah describes our Lord's sufferings
in his body, in his heart, and in his soul. We've read the text. Let me call
your attention to just two or three highlights. Look at verse
14 of Isaiah 52. As many were astonished at his
visage, The modern word is astonished. Astonied better implies the meaning
of the word. Folks looked at him and were
so shocked that the picture just almost turns them to stone. No emotion can express the horror
that must have been beheld. were astonished at his visage. His visage was so marred more
than any man. Nobody ever saw a man look like
this man, beaten, mutilated, covered with blood, mingled with
the spit of men. passed by wagging their heads
and laughed and cleared their throats and spit on him, all matted in his beard, bruised, his form, his lacerated back
hanging on that tree, more than the sons of men was
barred. With those words, Isaiah describes
for us by divine inspiration the physical bodily sufferings
of our Redeemer. Psalm 22 tells us the language, the words that
transpired, the conversation our Lord Jesus had in his prayer,
in his intercession as he hung upon the cross bearing our sins
in his own body on the tree and described something of the things
that he suffered. So I find the same thing in Isaiah
40 or in Psalm 40 and in Psalm 69. He describes for us here
the prophet does our Lord's physical bodily sufferings. I realize
that these days many approach the idea of our Lord's bodily
sufferings either with a feel sorry for Jesus attitude or the
idea that somehow we ought not even think about those things.
Our Lord's physical sufferings are not described in the scriptures
in order to get us to pity poor little Jesus who suffered such
things at the hands of men because he couldn't do any better. Our
Lord Jesus passed by women who were weeping for him as he was
carrying his cross on his lacerated back to be crucified. And he
said to them, weep not for me, but for yourselves. Our Lord
Jesus was not the victim of circumstances. He is God of the circumstances. He would not have us pity him,
but at the same time, his physical sufferings, his bodily sufferings
are described in great detail by all four gospel writers described
in great detail in both the Psalms and in the Old Testament prophets
and elsewhere in the scriptures because God would have us aware
of what our Lord suffered for us. This one who suffered, remember,
is himself the God-man. A man who is God. We just sang Isaac Watt's great
hymn. Alas, and did my savior bleed
and did my sovereign die? He devote that sacred head for
such a worm as I. We got to the third verse. Our
hymn book and almost all modern hymn books, in fact, all of them
that I'm aware of, have altered Watt's words, altered just one
word. Well might the sun in darkness
hide and shut his glories in when Christ the mighty maker
died for man the creature's sin. That's not how Watts wrote to
him. Bobby Watts wrote it this way. Well might the sun in darkness
hide and shut his glories in when God the mighty maker died
for man the creature's sin. But pastor, God couldn't die.
You're right. He couldn't. But the God-man
did. And that one who died in our
stead is himself God. And so we're told that God purchased
the church with his own blood. None could satisfy the justice
of God but a man who is himself God Almighty. not a God, not
a representative of God, not only, as he is described in Philippians
2, one who is equal with God, but him who is himself God our
Savior. No animal sacrifice would do.
No angelic sacrifice would do. Those are but animal sacrifices
were but typical of him. An angelic sacrifice could such
be made would be but a mere finite sacrifice. The sacrifice of a
good man would not do. The one who dies in our stead
and accomplishes redemption for us must be a man, a man with
no sin, virgin-born son of God, but this man must himself be
God. God. You've heard the yit-yak
in the debate this week about this fellow running for president.
Is a Mormon a Christian? Well, of course not. Of course
not. That's like asking, is a papist
a Christian? Of course not. Do they call themselves
so? I don't, I have met very few
people in the world who don't call themselves such. Christian. Mormonism teaches that Christ
is a God, like God, equal to God, but not God. If Jesus Christ
is not God, you're yet in your sins and there is no sacrifice
for sin. And to worship him is to play
games with your soul and everybody around you. If he's not God to
worship him is, but to use him as a social gathering point and
nothing else. Jesus Christ is God. The word was made flesh and dwelt
among us. You see he. who is the God-man brought in
a righteousness of infinite worth. He who is the God-man brought
in a sacrifice of infinite worth. He who is the God-man with one
tremendous draft of love drank damnation dry. When he died,
God said, That's enough. But don't forget,
he was a real man. And what he suffered as a man,
he felt as a man. They arrested him in Gethsemane.
Take him to Annas, the high priest, and then to Caiaphas, and back
to Annas, and then to Pilate. And Pilate sends him to Herod.
Herod sends him back to Pilate. Pilate and Herod said nothing,
this man's done nothing wrong, he's an innocent man. Herod's
wife said it had nothing to do with this just man, but Pilate
being a weak-kneed politician like most are, delivered Jesus
to the will of the Jews and said, all right, we'll kill him. And
he gave him into the hands of barbaric Roman soldiers who took
him aside and plaited a crown of thorns and stripped him naked
and shoved a crown of thorns in his head. And they put a purple
robe around his shoulders and a reed in his hand and they took
the reed and beat him in the face and said, who hit you? King of the Jews. And they laughed
at him and mocked him and beat him and spit on him. And they
took a cat of nine tails and beat him nearly to death until
his back looked like a plowed field. And then put him across
on his back and made that infamous parade through the streets of
Jerusalem. It took him up to Calvary. Not
a pretty scene. If you could have been there
and seen what transpired as it's described in this book, just
as words describe it, not with a physical eye, just as words
describe it, you wouldn't want a picture of it anywhere. It
was Jerusalem's garbage dump, where they take dead animals,
unclean things, people who died. and come up with a little dirt
till the stench went away, and you'd have skulls and bones sticking
out everywhere. And there they had dug a hole,
and they nailed him out on the cursed tree, stretched out his
hands and put nails through his hands and his feet. And then
they picked him up and dropped him into that socket. Oh, the pain. It must have going
through his body, and he hung there until the body was parched
and burned with fever, and he cried, I thirst. And Merle Hart, that was more
real and more painful than that which
any man has ever endured. anyone. And it's written so that we might
know something of the sufferings of his body. The excruciating
pain he endured. Let us never speak lightly of
the sufferings of our Savior in his body. But look at Isaiah
53 and verse 3. Here the prophet describes the
sufferings of his heart. He is despised and rejected. A man of sorrows. Not just a
man who experienced sorrows, 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. Our Lord Jesus was outcast by
men, betrayed by his friend, denied by his people, forsaken
by his companions, tortured and nailed to the cursed tree, but
he cried reproach. hath broken mine heart. The reproaches
of them that reproach thee are fallen upon me. Reproach hath
broken mine heart. And his heart was broken for
me. Now I want to know something
about that. I want to know him in the fellowship
of his sufferings. He was despised and rejected
of men. He came unto his own and his
own received him not. his own countrymen, his own family. He came to his own and his own
received him not. As long as they could benefit
from him, as long as they got some loaves and fishes, as long
as they saw some miracles perform, as long as he was doing these
things, they'd follow him and glad to have him around. Man,
he's, that's my buddy over there. That's my, you know, I'm his
second cousin. And then when his word began
to produce offense. And the gospel he preached began
to stir rebellion. And men began to want to take
him and put him to death. His own kinsmen said, he's insane. He's a madman. He's lost his
mind. Everybody's got one like that
in his family. We're just not proud of them. He lost his mind. He's a man of sorrow, acquainted with grief, tempted
in every point like as we are, yet without sin. Alan Kibbe,
whatever temptation, you experience, have experienced, or shall experience,
he has. Rex Bartley, whatever pain or
grief or sorrow you've ever felt, are feeling, or shall feel, he
did. Yet without sin. physical pain, physical suffering,
physical sickness, physical torture, emotional pain, emotional sorrow,
bereavement, the pain of seeing friends bereaved. The Lord Jesus
wept with Martha and Mary because not because he was feeling sorry
for Lazarus. Now, he was six and raised Lazarus
from the dead. He wept because his heart broke
with Mary and Martha, whose hearts broke. He wept with them. And now he's able to succor them
that are tempted. I love that word. I love it. It's an old English word we don't
use much. It means to help, but it means more than that. It means
to help with feelings. to help with feeling. Have you
ever watched someone try to pick someone up who was seriously
injured, and that person trying to pick him up is a big, strong,
robust young fella, apparently never had a broken bone, and
never knew what arthritis was like, and never had pain in his
hip, and he goes over and picks him up, and he can do it, just
pick him up strong. It's an older man or an older
woman who's had a few broken bones and had a hip replaced
and knows how the joints begin to ache and they go over and
gently try to pick them up without hurting them because they've
been there and they felt that. Larry Brown, when he picks you
up, he's been there and he's felt that. He's able to succor
them that are tempted, to help with feeling, to help with passion,
because he was tempted in all points like as we are, yet without
sin. He bore the slanders of men, betrayed by a dear friend, one
who kissed him on the cheek to betray him. forsaken by one of
his most loyal disciples, at last forsaken by all his disciples. When he was in Gethsemane, as
he anticipated being made sin for us, suffering the wrath of
God in our stead, he prayed, Father, if it be possible, let
this cup pass from me. Three times he prayed. The third
time, his heart crushed within him and his sweat dropped some
blood falling to the ground. And he says, Father, if it be
possible, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not my will,
thy will be done. And he was heard in that he feared. How could that be? I told you
this God is man. A real man. A man like you and
a man like me. It was a song of the drunkards
and the harlots. Despised. And we esteemed him
not. We hid, as it were, our faces
from him. You're doing that right now,
some of you. You're sitting there looking at me and listening to
me, anxious for me to shut up and all the while doing your
best to stick your ears and your fingers in your ears so you can't
hear anything I say. Oh, I pray God will force you
to hear what I'm talking about. We esteemed him not. And Brother Claus, we still would
esteem him not. had he not revealed himself to
us. Despised, we esteemed him not.
All these things tormented his heart. And yet, even when his
heart broke with reproach and shame, his heart was upon us. Turn back to Psalm 69. Let me
show you this. Let me show you this, Psalm 69. This whole psalm is all about
our Redeemer, His sacrifice for us. When you read the psalm,
read it as spoken by Him. He's the one speaking. Save me, O God, for the waters
are come up into my soul. I sink in deep mire where there's
no standing, can't get a foothold. I'm coming to deep waters where
the floods overflow me. I'm weary of my crying, my thirst,
my throat is dried, my eyes fail while I wait for my God. They
that hate me without a cause are more than the hairs in my
head. Remember, our Savior said, this talk about me. They that
would destroy me, be my enemies wrongfully, without any reason,
are mighty. Then I restored that which I
took not away. Now watch this. Oh God, thou
knowest my foolishness, and my sins are not hid from thee. Verse
six. Let not them that wait on thee,
O Lord God of hosts, be ashamed for my sake. Lord, don't let
Peter and James and John be ashamed for me. Don't let Bob and Mark
and Larry be ashamed for me. Let not them that wait on thee
be ashamed for my sake. Let not those that seek thee
be confounded for my sake, O God of Israel, because for thy sake
I have borne reproach. Shame hath covered my face. I've
become a stranger to my brethren and an alien unto my mother's
children. for the zeal of thine house hath eaten me up, and the
reproaches of them that reproach thee are fallen upon me. Verse
11, I made sackcloth also my garment, and I became a proverb
to them. They that sit in the gate speak
against me, and I was the song of the drunkards. Verse 14, deliver
me out of the mire Let me not sink. Let me be delivered from
them that hate me and out of the deep waters. Let not the
water flood overflow me, neither let the deep swallow me up. Let
not the pit shut her mouth upon me. Hear me, O Lord, for thy
loving kindness is good. Turn unto me according to the
multitude of thy tender mercies and hide not thy face from thy
servant, for I'm in trouble. hear me speedily, draw nigh unto
my soul, and redeem it, deliver me out of mine, out of, because
of mine enemies. Thou hast known my reproach. What? My reproach? Did he make my reproach his? And my shame? thou shalt forget thy shame,
he said. How come? Because he took my
shame, my dishonor, my dishonor. No child was ever more dishonorable
than the one talking to you. No son more dishonorable than
the one standing here. No man more dishonorable than
the one preaching to you. But no more. No more. No more. God says my
name is honorable. Now come. Cause he took my dishonor. My adversaries are before thee. Reproach hath broken mine heart. I'm full of heaviness. But there's more. Look back in
Isaiah 53, verse 10. the sufferings of his body to some measure I can understand
and explain the sufferings of his heart to some measure I can
I can begin to grasp and talk about but here Isaiah talks about
the sufferings of his soul it pleased the Lord to bruise
him. That word please means satisfied. 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. 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. This book talks about sin offering,
and I can understand that. This book talks about the Passover
lamb, Sacrificed every year from the night in Egypt to the day
that the Israelites were at last cast off as a nation under law
required by God to be sacrificed every year. I understand that. I understand that. I can even
understand something about the wonders of our Lord's mysterious
incarnation. He says in Hebrews chapter 10
called sacrifices would never please God blood Sacrifices could
never take away sin animal sacrifices were just typical Reminders of
sin every day and every morning every evening every month every
year until Christ should come Reminders of sin and reminders
that we must have a sacrifice Then at the appointed time when
he came into this world, he said a body has thou prepared me Oh
God And God took up residency and no God took up union with
no God became a man. All that we are and I can grasp
something of that God stepped into humanity. God stepped into
our nature. God stepped into time that he
might suffer and die as our substitute. But here, the scripture speaks
about our Lord Jesus' soul being made an offering for sin. The
Lord Jesus Christ, God's darling son, was made to be an offering
for sin. That word translated sin offering. Implies much more than merely
the imputation of sin to our Savior Our sins were not just
pasted upon our Redeemer and him treated as though he were
made sin But rather as the Apostle writes by divine inspiration
Translating for us Isaiah 53 10. He says that he Hath made
him sin for us who knew no sin that
we might be made the righteousness of God in him. Sin offering might
be translated. You have made him an offense. You have made him sin. That's what Isaiah is talking
about. Christ Jesus made sin for us. Guiltiness, a curse. For it is written, cursed is
everyone that hangeth on a tree. You see that one hanging on the
tree? was made a curse for us. When our savior was most perfectly
obedient to God, the triune God, as our representative, his father
forsook him. And he cried, my God, my God,
why hast thou forsaken me? When he was made sin for us. And then the prophet tells us,
he, God the Father, shall see of the travail of his soul and
shall be satisfied. The Lord God Almighty looks upon
the sacrifice of his darling son when he made sin for us. And God says, that's enough.
I require no more. And when God said that's enough,
When God said that's enough, this is what he's saying, Oscar
Bailey, to you. Fury is not in me. Fury is not in me. That's his
language. Fury is not in me. That's enough. Look here. Please look here. Listen to me. Listen to me now.
Will you listen to me? When God made his son sin for
me. He buried the sword of his justice
in his son. And he says, fury is not in me. And now God in heaven has no
reason ever to be angry with me. Oh brother John, you can't say
that. Let me try it another way. Blessed is the man to whom the
Lord will not impute sin. God in heaven has no reason ever
to be angry with me. How can you say that? Christ
put away my sin. But that's talking about our
future sins. They were all future when he died. He put them away. Past, present, and future. You mean, Brother Dodd, God won't
get even with me for my sins? I mean, God has gotten even with
you if you're his. He said, that's enough. He shall see the travail of his
soul. God, our Savior, the Son of God,
shall see of the travail of his soul and shall be satisfied. He shall see his seed. Every one of them. Who shall
serve him? Who shall declare his generation?
The psalmist said a generation shall serve him, a seed shall
serve him. This one who dies as our substitute,
cut off in the midst of his years, he shall have a seed, they shall
serve him. He shall see of the travail of
his soul and shall be satisfied. He shall see his seed. Every
one of them forgiven, justified, sanctified, and glorified. He shall see of the travail of
his soul and shall be satisfied. and the sinners for whom he died,
they too shall see of the travail of this soul and shall be satisfied." Does your conscience torment
you with guilt, with the knowledge of your sin? Knowing what you
are, go ahead and try to think about dying and go to sleep if
you want to. I dare you. When you go to bed
at night, you try to think about meeting God in judgment and then
go to bed laughing. I dare you. I dare you. Oh, brother John, I prefer not
to think about those things. Soon you're going to have to think
about them. I prefer it be right now. You're going to meet God
in judgment. I can't do that. I can't do that. Oh God, not yet. Not yet. I've been there, Lindsay. I know
exactly what that is. Told me they're scared to death.
Scared to death. Terrified of God. Until at last, God showed me that which satisfies
Him. And I saw Him, who is God the
Son, hanging on the tree, bearing my sin in His own body. And my conscience says, that's
enough. Bless God, God can't require
more than that. That's enough! Christ died. I recall hearing years ago, missionary,
served in India all his life. An old man came home, was preaching,
and he talked about mission work, and he said before he left home,
one day he was walking out in the area in India, nobody else around,
just him and some folks with him, and they heard off in the
distance A faint, faint, raspy voice, somebody in trouble. And so they made their way to
where the voice was and they, he said, I saw the most pitiful
sight I've ever seen in my life. I saw a leper, an old man who
was a leper who'd been taken out here and left in the middle
of nowhere to die. And he's there with crusted over
sores His nose about gone, and his nubs where his fingers were,
and he's there sitting on his knees, crying as loud as he can,
help me. Help me. Somebody please help
me. I never felt so helpless. But
I thought to myself, if somehow, I'd go over there and put my
mouth on his mouth and suck in all his corruption and breathe into him all my strength
and health. That's what Christ did for me. He took in all my corruption
and all my death, and made it His, and gave me all His righteousness,
and life, and strength, and makes it mine. Oh, may He do that for
you. Amen.