I'd like for you to take your
Bibles now and put a marker in a couple of places. Of course, our text is from John
chapter 18. This is where our lesson is from. And we're talking about the sufferings
of Christ. He enters into this garden. our sins and iniquities are pressed
heavy upon him. But if you will also turn over
to Isaiah chapter 53, that's where the most of my comments
are going to come from this morning on this subject of his suffering. Now to me, John chapter 18 is
kind of like the opening scenes of a great play. It's as though everyone knows
his place. Everyone's taken his proper position. Knows the words that he's supposed
to speak. And actually, if you get down
to it, what's about to take place here has been played out perpetually
from the dawn of creation. This whole thing was demonstrated
in the Garden of Eden. And then it was repetitiously
pictured and typed and figured and demonstrated throughout the
Old Testament. And it was actually accomplished
in the coming of Christ. That lamb has been brought into
the garden before the reconciled of God, and there his death made
imminent. He revealed to them as their
righteousness and their sin atoning substitute. When Adam and Eve
were driven from the garden, when they left that garden, they
left it ruined in nature. And they left it in shame, in
the shame of the person. And they left it dishonored by
their actions. And when Christ re-enters the
garden, which is where He's where he's at here in John chapter
18, crosses that brook kidron into that garden. He assumes
Adam's place in the garden exactly where Adam walked out. Just exactly
ruined, dishonored, shamed. And God sets a guard on that
door to keep the way of that garden open. What takes place
in this hour was not what I'm trying to teach you this morning. It's what's about to take place
in this hour. It does not take place by just
the events, just a few events that led up to this hour. But
this is God's purpose. This has always been God's purpose. It's been God's purpose from
eternity that this take place. This hour was the hour appointed
to Christ before the world was. And it's what creation's all
about. It's what providence is all about. And no honest reader
of the scriptures. And I say to you, read the scriptures. I don't want to be as the pope
as those as the old Catholics were years ago and the Papists
were that didn't want you to read the scriptures. I exhort
you to read the scriptures. I recommend that you read the
scriptures. It's a lot easier for me to preach
to you if you have a head knowledge of what this book says, a lot
easier. But what takes place in this
hour was not determined by a few events, but this has always been
God's purpose, and it's now being set in motion. And I don't believe
any honest reader of the Scriptures can come away with any doubt.
If you read Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, if you'll just read
those four books, no honest reader can come away with any doubt
as to God's hand in everything that attended Jesus of Nazareth's
birth, life, death, and resurrection. No honest reader. You cannot
come away and not see God's hand in all that he did. Everything
that he did. One of my favorite quotes from
the Scriptures, which I use pretty often, is found in Hebrews 10,
verse 7, where he says, where the Holy Ghost points out to
us this. He said, Lo, I come, I come in
the volume of the book. Now, there was no book except
for the Old Testament. But in the volume of the Old Testament,
it's written of me, I come to do thy will, O God. And to deny
this, to be ignorant of this, is to have an ungodly veil over
your face that blinds you from the majesty and glory of what's
taken place. You don't see it. Why don't you
see it? Because of this veil. This veil's been hung over your
face. And this veil is what constitutes
the lost estate of man. You can just... I was talking
with a young preacher yesterday. We talked for about two hours.
And I said, you can just pile up scriptures around a person. Just pile them up. Just start
in Genesis and Exodus. You just go all the way through
the scriptures. And just pile them up, one right after the
other. One illustration, one picture, one demonstration, all
the way through. All the way through. And he'll
still stand there and shake his head. Shake his head. That's what constitutes that
lost estate of man. And upon those who chose to judge
him and evaluate him by their traditional understanding and
religious teachings, a veil existed. And in 2 Corinthians 4.14, it
says, unto this day, remaineth this veil, now listen, untaken
away in the reading of the Old Testament. It's still there.
It's still there. They still do not see Christ.
Still do not. Which veil is done away in Christ. Now there's five great things
which unfold in the garden. This morning I just want to consider
one. And that is the full and willing
submission made before God concerning His sufferings and His death. Now, when He came into the world,
Hebrews 10, 5, He says, sacrifice an offering thou wouldest not,
but a body hast thou prepared Me. He came as a body, a representative
body. He came in a body that would
be touched and could be touched with the feelings of our infirmities,
a body to become one with His people, a body to represent them,
a body to be offered up in their place, a body to be raised from
the dead, exalted and accepted of God. Jesus of Nazareth is
declared in the New Testament to be the promised seed of the
woman from the very first promise in the garden all the way through
to Malachi. He is the Christ. He is the Christ. He's the ark of preservation,
the ark of the New Testament, the prophet whom the Lord would
send to Israel, the priest after the order of Melchizedek, the
king of which David was but just a forerunner. He set forth in
a thousand pictures and metaphors and allegories and shadows and
types and figures and set forth of God, declared of God as a
propitiation for sins through the redemption that he accomplished
to declare the righteousness of God and his justification
of guilty sinners. He sent of God to save. Now why
go through all this? Why take all this time that I'm
taking this morning to show you this? Because this world is totally
ignorant of why he came and who he is. They just take him up
from the manger, that's as far back as they can go with their
knowledge of Christ, is to the manger. He appeared in the manger
And he came in this world and he stood as an example to men
and he went to the cross to make it possible for men to be saved.
This book doesn't have anything in this world to say about any
of those things. Did you know that? This book
knows nothing of a man whose beginning was in the manger at
Bethlehem. His beginning is from eternity. In the beginning was the Word.
Ain't that what it says? And the Word was with God and
the Word was God. All things were made by Him.
He didn't just appear. He appeared to us in the manger,
but He appeared before God in eternity, equal with God. And He sent of God to save. That's
what it says, isn't it? Thou shalt call His name Jesus,
for He shall save His people from their sin. Well, if he was
sent to save, did he save? You see what I'm saying? This
is why he wasn't sent to make it possible for you to be saved.
He was sent to save. Did he accomplish what he was
sent to do? He was sent of God to save. He was sent of God to
preach. He was sent of God to set the
captives free. Are they free? He was sent of
God to reconcile. Did He reconcile? He was sent
of God to bear away our sins. Has He borne them away? You see
what I'm saying? Sent of God to honor and uphold
all that God trusted to His character. Sent of God to satisfy divine
justice. Sent of God to glorify His great
name. And now at the end of His days
on this earth, He crosses over that little brook, Kidron, or
cedron as it's called in the New Testament. That brook of
pollution and here in the garden begins to have the full weight
of our sin and guilt laid upon his shoulders. And this is what
Paul tells the Corinthians in his second letter, chapter 5,
verse 21. That is the heart of this reconciliation,
this ministry of reconciliation to which we're sent into this
world to preach. Here's the basis of it. 2 Corinthians
5.21, For He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin,
that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. Now here in Isaiah
53, He gives us 12 things that concern this garden and the cross
to which our Lord is about to ascend. In Isaiah 53, 4, He starts
out this way, He hath borne our grief. Now this is something
that's layered. The Word of God is layered. You
go back to the beginning and there's a layer, and then there's
another layer over that, and another layer over that, and
another layer over that. And each time, God peels away
a layer. And you can see deeper and clearer
into what it is that He's accomplishing. And this declaration, He hath
borne our grief, it has to do with languishing. There are some animals who, when
they lose their mate, they just languish. They're listless. They're just worthless. They
just give up. Like a dove, a dove mates for
life. It has to do with languishing.
In all our afflictions, it said he was afflicted. And in heaven
now as our intercessor, he can be touched, made sensible with
the feelings of our infirmities. And how can that be? How can
that be except as he bore our grief and carried us on? There's
no other way. How could He identify with that
languishing that we do under the convincing power of God's
Spirit? How could He identify with those
things except He experienced them Himself? He hath borne our griefs. That's what it says. Our griefs. You know, oft times I tell people
that are seeking the Lord, I just don't feel like I repent like
I ought to. He bore your grace. He bore your grace. He repented
as you ought to repent. You'll never repent like you
ought to repent, but He did. He did. And then secondly, it
says, He carried our sorrow. Now this, the old writers described
it this way, as a porter carries the heavy burden. He's got this
pack, you see these guys over in Africa going out on safari
and you look behind them and here's these people behind them
and they got all this big load up on their back and they're
carrying, they're packing these things back into the jungle.
He carried our sorrows. As a porter carries the heavy
burden upon his back, even so our great representative carried
our sorrows. Carried them. Packed them. Bore
the full weight of the load. All of the sorrows which sin
hath brought upon the sinner. Are you acquainted with those?
Has God ever made you conscious of those things, those sorrows?
Have you ever looked back over your life and seen that everything
you ever did was sin? Have you ever seen yourself the
quitter? I'm going to bore today. I'm
going to follow the Lord. You don't make it 30 minutes.
Sorrow. Sorrow. As you look back over
all those missed opportunities and all of the things that you
could have did and didn't. All of those things that you
wanted to do and couldn't. And all you see back there is
sorrow. Sorrow. Sorrow. He carried our
sorrows. He carried them. All the sorrows
which sin brought upon the sinner. He who bears our sins in his
own body on the tree. must also bear the sorrow associated
with the sins. I can't enter into that. I can't
begin to enter into that. I just know that it's so. And
then thirdly, he says this. He was wounded for our transgressions. He was wounded of God. He was
wounded of men. And he was wounded of the devil
because of our transgressions. Christ was wounded in our stead. He was wounded in our place and
wounded for our sins. He was wounded that we might
not be wounded. Think about it. He took your place. Can you even... I looked at this
for the longest time. I just, I cannot conceive I can
conceive of a man standing before a taskmaster or standing before
whatever they call them who punish the prisoners with the whip and
the man's hand drawn back and lashing out at his back, but
I cannot imagine standing before God with the sword in his hand. The sword in his hand. Can you?
He was wounded for our transgressions that we might not be wounded.
Fourthly, he was bruised for our iniquities. Now, this word bruise in the
original, it means to pound, to pound, to just pound. That's what it means. He was
pounded for our iniquities. And the sense in which this was
taught is this. The old high priest, when he
went in beyond the veil, he was required to take two things with
him. He was required to pick up those hot coals, and he was
required in his hand to have a spice, a sweet-smelling spice,
and it says of that spice that it was beaten fine. Beaten fine. They took it, and they took the
mallet, and they beat it, and they beat it, and they beat it,
and they beat it until it was fine, like fine flour. And he
took that blood, and he went in beyond that veil. And with
those coals, he set them down there, and he threw that beaten
spice, he threw that on those coals, and it rose up to God
a sweet-smelling savor. And that's what's in the sacrifice
of Christ. That's what makes it sweet before
God. He was beaten, the chastisement of our peace. Beaten. And then there was another
sense in which this was set forth was when the children of Israel
were out in the wilderness and the manna rained down from heaven,
they took that manna and they beat it. They beat it into a
mortar like a dough and they baked it for bread. This was
the bread. He is our bread. Pounded like
the man of old into a mortar for the breaking of bread. And the God of glory could not
justly, He could not justly pound His Son, except His Son willingly. And that's what I'm trying to
point out to you. Willingly take our sins upon His back and take
them to His account. And God beat him. He pounded
him into our breath. Then, fifthly, it says, the chastisement
of our peace was upon him. Chastisement has to do with correction,
what we're taught in the Scripture. The correction due our sins was
upon him. And actually, the word peace
in this verse here in Isaiah is plural. It's pieces. Pieces. Peace here and peace hereafter
and peace within and peace without and peace in our own consciences
and peace that passes all understanding. Peace with God. He made peace by the blood of
His cross. And then sixthly, Isaiah 53,
5. It says, by His stripes we are
healed. The word stripe here is It's
not just a red welt, you know. I know they don't do that to
children anymore. But my mom used to take a little
switch. And we were out there playing with them little shorts
on, and boy, she'd come up with that switch and just strike them
legs. There'd be little red welts on
them legs, and you knew not to do it again. She meant business. Well, this is not talking about
little red welts. This is talking about deep gashes. Deep gashes. in his flesh from a lash. And you remember from our different
studies that a lash was a wimp with several strands on it, and
on the ends of them were pieces of metal fastened in glass. And when they striped your back
with those, they had it down to a science, 30 lashes, you
were a dead man. 30. That's the most you could
do. And to beat the apostles, 29
saved one. In seeing his stripes as mine,
seeing his suffering in my stead, he heals my sin sick soul. I see those stripes satisfying
God's justice. And then seeing those stripes,
I'm also healed because he brings me to despise my sin. When you
see what sin, what the result of sin is, you begin to despise
it. to despise it. All right, here's
number seven. He said, He laid on him the iniquity
of us all. The words laid on him mean to
fall foul upon him. I'll see if I can illustrate
that. One of the instances is under the, in the Old Testament,
Saul's servant, Doeg, you remember the man's name, he commanded
him to fall upon the priests. And the rest of them said, no,
we're not going to do it. But Doeg did. He pulled that
sword out, and he come down, and he fell foul upon them. That's what this is talking about.
When it said, he laid on him the iniquity of us all. Listen
to this. The pains of hell, Christ said,
took hold on me. God caused them to run upon His
Son, to rush upon Him, to fall foul upon Him. He said, Awake,
O sword, against the man who is my fellow. And our iniquities
didn't just fall upon Him, but God caused them to fall upon
Him. That's what He's saying here. He laid on Him. God laid
these things upon Him. If He is to be their Savior,
He must then be their surety. And if He is their surety, the
sword of God's justice must fall foul upon Him. The just for the
unjust. All right, here's number 8. Isaiah
53, verse 8. It says He was cut off. cut off
out of the land of the living for the transgression of my people,
he was smitten." Whatever death is, and I honestly believe we
know very little about it. I know what I read. That's all
I know. You just experience death one
time. But whatever death is, our Lord
suffered this death because of our sins. He was cut off separated
from God. And all the damned and devils
in hell can never know this torment because none of them ever knew
our Lord as He did. We're falling creatures. Falling
creatures. and except by new birth and except
by those things imparted to us and imputed to us and those things
which He makes known unto us, we have no idea about what this
relationship is. Evil men that one day will spend
eternity in hell will spend eternity in hell never knowing exactly
what He knew in the garden. He knew what to be separated
from God was because He was God. He was God. And all that God
knew, He knew in a human body. All that fullness of the Godhead
dwelt in Him. He knew God's love and His grace
and His peace and His merciful heart and His abundant kindness
and gentleness. He knew His person and fellowship.
He knew His words of assurance and approval. And He who was
life was cut off from it, taken out of the realm of the living. And as a man separated from everything
that defines life, he was cut off. And that word cut off, that
term, that phrase in the original carries a sense of being snatched
away, just grabbed, snatched away, snuffed out like a candle. I remember years ago we used
to go out to Grayson, Kentucky and there was a series of caves. It's a little state park out
there and you can go out and some of these caves they've been
through and determined that they're safe and they'll let you go in
and you can walk around and go through these things. But we
were about a quarter of a mile back underneath that mountain
in this cave. And I was back there with some young fellas
and like young fellas do, one of them took the flashlight and
turned it out. And you couldn't see anything. And he just sat
there. He didn't make a sound. He made
us all believe he left. He had the only light. We were
a quarter of a mile back under that mountain. And there we sat
in the dark. And, you know, in a dark room
in the house, if you sit there for a few minutes, your eyes
will focus and you can't see. You don't see anything. After
30 minutes, you don't see anything back in this place. John said, in him was life, and
the life was the light of men. When the holy justice found our
sins upon Christ, he was cut off. All light snuffed out. Gone. Gone. Separated out of the land of
the living. All right, number nine. And with
each revelation, The prophet of God, by the Holy Spirit, he
draws closer and closer to the heart of the substitutionary
work. And here he tells us, it pleased the Lord to bruise him.
He hath put him to grief. The death of Christ and his holy
sufferings were not the last resort of God, born out of some
unforeseen circumstance or chance, but by the eternal purpose and
will of God. And here he manifests his glory
in the redemption of a people for the glory of His name. And
what God has declared to us in these last days by His Son, He
declares by the brightness of the Father's glory, the express
image of His person. And He declares it by His Son
upholding all things and demonstrating to us when He by Himself purged
us from our sins and sat down at the right hand of God. And
this He did because God appointed Him heir of all things. He predestinated
us, predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus
Christ to Himself. He made known to us the mystery
of His will according to the good pleasure which He purposed
in Himself. Even to the gathering of all
things unto Himself in Christ that were purposed of Him. Even
our election, predestination, justification, calling, because
the God of glory worketh all things, Paul said, after the
counsel of His own will. It pleased the Lord, that's what
he's talking about here, to bruise Him. Pleased the Lord. This was in unison with the will
and purpose of God to bruise Him. Pleased Him. And I ought
to be able to find here just an absolute fountain of hope,
just bubbling up with hope. He didn't go to the cross reluctant. He didn't go to the cross forced
by circumstance. But for the joy, he said, that
was set before him, he endured the cross. He endured the cross. He despised the shame. And now
he sits victorious at the right hand of God. It pleased the Lord
to bruise him. Pleased Him. Perfect unison with
His will. You must bruise Him because He
alone can endure the bruising. Nobody else could endure it.
He must bruise Him because He alone is willing to be bruised.
And He must bruise Him because He alone was appointed to it.
All right, here's the tenth line. when thou shalt make his soul
an offering for sin." Now, what I see in studying the
scriptures is that it's ever the deceitful motive of Satan
to separate sin from the sinner. And I could fill up a catalog
with the times that religious men and women in conversations
with me have said, God loves the sinner and hates his sin. That's ever the deceitful way
of Satan. He's always trying to separate
sin from the sinner. But this is not the language
of Scripture. You can't find it in here anywhere. This is
something that deceived men make up to say because it sounds good. It's not the language of Scripture.
Listen, here's how Scripture describes this thing. God hates
all the workers of iniquity. That's what it says. Our sins have separated between
us and our God. Depart from me, you workers of
iniquity. I never knew you. And I've learned
this in studying the Scriptures that whatever possesses the man
becomes the man. If the man is possessed of sin,
He becomes the sinner. That's why he sins. He doesn't
become a sinner when he sins. He sins because he is the sinner. What possesses him is what he
becomes. And God does not save men by
separating men from their sins. That's the whole idea behind
this thing of reformation. We've got to get out here and
get these people out of the world and get them separated and get
them wearing a certain kind of clothes and this and that. We're
going to get them separated from their sins. God doesn't save
men by separating men from their sins. He saves men by killing
the sinner. That's how He saves them. The
soul that sinneth shall surely die. No way out of it. Cursed
is every man that continueth not in all things written in
the book of the law to do them. God saves sinners by imputing
their trespasses to a substitute. And there he dies. The sinner
dies before the holy justice of God. Isn't that the text I read to
you a while ago in 2 Corinthians? He made sin for us who knew no
sin. When the lamb was selected from
the flock and set apart from the rest, it was as a substitutionary
sacrifice. His death was imminent. He was
going to die. He was going to die. All right, number 11. By His knowledge shall my righteous
servant justify me. His knowledge. The Lord Jesus
Christ did what He did with full knowledge of what He was doing.
He knew exactly. I come to do Thy will, O God."
He knew what He was doing. He knew His appointments. He
knew God's will and purpose. He knew those for whom He came.
He knew what He must suffer. He knew the results of His suffering.
He knew the rewards of His suffering. He knew the end from the beginning.
He knew what He did would glorify the name of God. And He prays
that way, and He preaches that way, and He walks that way. And
He speaks that way to us in His Word. And all who are justified
receive this justification by faith, knowing what He knew. He said, I counted you as my
friends because I tell you what I come to do. Here's the second part of that
phrase, shall my servant. Christ came to serve the Father. and to accomplish His will. And
then He tells us that He's going to justify many. Now, this whole sentence might
read clearer this way, My righteous servant shall work justification
or work righteousness for many. Now, When he says, the old hard shells, they say
that God justifies, but they don't believe in the means to
accomplish the end of the work. The only justification that scripture
declares is the free justification of grace through that propitiatory
sacrifice. These sufferings were absolutely
necessary, necessary as the means. And justification is an accomplished
work of Christ. And it's in full harmony with
the righteousness of God. And any gospel that does not
set forth God as just in his justification of believers is
another gospel. It's another gospel. And this
righteous justification is what speaks peace to the guilty soul. That's how we're justified by
faith. God takes that holy justification
And he imputes it to you through faith. So what's going on in
the garden is the full and heavy burden of the guilt of sin being
pressed upon his mind and heart, the holy terror of an angry God. And he alone, he alone, I'm telling
you, he alone understood those things. Never. He tells us over
in Hebrew, nobody else ever resisted sin under blood. Nobody. Nobody. But he does. And he does because
of these 12 things. He knew. He knew what was being
laid upon him. Thank you.