The 53rd chapter of the prophecy
of Isaiah. Isaiah 53. We were in this passage
this past Wednesday evening, dealing primarily with verses
10, 11, and a little bit of time on verse
12. But this morning, the purpose
of coming to Isaiah 53 One of the most wonderful and
yet awful statements in all of Scripture concerning the suffering
and death of our Lord Jesus. This book has to be more than
the writings of men. It is the revelation of God Almighty. For a poor prophet of God over
700 years before Christ to pin such a detailed, clear,
and accurate account of the sufferings and death of our Lord Jesus Christ
not to be matched any place in our Bibles. But I want you to look at one
word in verse 11 before we read the passage. Religion in general, Baptists
in particular, make everything of the suffering
of the body of our Lord Jesus Christ. They know nothing about
his soul sufferings. The body compared to the soul
is no comparison at all. Sufferings that our Lord endured
in order to purchase our salvation were primarily in his soul, in
his soul. One thing made him cry out on
the cross, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Because
the father forsook his son in those three hours of darkness
on the cross. And before He ever went to the
cross, the soul sufferings had already begun. For in the garden
of Gethsemane He sweat great drops of blood, not perspiration,
blood. So in verse 11 it says, He shall
see of the travail. This is labor connected to birth. It is birth pains. He shall see
of the travail, not of body, but of his soul." Now when we read these statements,
don't get hung up on physical things. This is a spiritual passage
beyond our ability to know and understand. Beginning with verse 1, Who has believed our report? Paul in Romans 10 verse 14 and
John, the Apostle John in chapter 12 of his Gospel, both use this
expression and they both get it from Isaiah 53-1 having to
do with the report. A synonym for the word report. is the word gospel. Who has believed
our gospel? Now this is the prophet complaining
in Old Testament days of people not believing what God declares
concerning His Son. And he's pointing directly to
what is about to be before us in this chapter. Therefore, there's
only one answer to that question. Who believes the gospel report?
The question for you and me is, do I believe it? Do you believe
it? But here is the reason anyone believes it. Who has believed
our report and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? If God does not reveal to you
His saving arm, you will never believe and trust His Son and
you'll perish in your sins. Now that's just all there is
to it. This was true before Isaiah wrote these words, and it's been
true ever since, and it'll always be true. The gospel must be revealed. God must perform a miracle of
grace in our soul before we'll ever have anything to do with
the true Christ of Holy Scripture. Who has believed our report and
to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? For he shall grow up
before him, the Lord Jesus, shall grow up before his Father Jehovah
as a tender plant and as a root out of a dry ground. Nothing
was any drier nor more unpromising than the state of Israel when
our Lord Jesus is born to Mary in Bethlehem's manger. Yet, he
must Israel must still have a semblance of their own government because
Shiloh cannot come, Genesis 49.10, Shiloh cannot come unless that
is still the case. Still the case. But where's David? Been dead a long time. Israel
is in one of the sorriest states that could be imaginable for
them to be left in their own homeland. The Romans are their
rulers. Secondly, in verse 2, he has
no form nor comeliness. Religious people are hung up
on the outward appearance of Christ and the Bible is totally
silent on the subject. Any picture you see of Jesus
Christ is not a picture of the one we're reading about in this
chapter. That's an idol. And it's an idol in somebody's
imagination. They imagine. Why do we imagine? Because that's what we want Him
to look like. We want Him to be attractive
and beautiful. Why do people want that? Because
they have no other attraction. And if that's your attraction,
you don't have the real Christ, nor do I. No comeliness, no form
of beauty And when we shall see him, there's no beauty that we
should desire him. He is despised and rejected of
men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. We hid, as it were,
our faces from him. He was despised and we esteemed
or valued him not. Surely he has borne our griefs. carried our sorrows, yet we did
esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. We had no understanding why he's
on that tree. But he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities,
the chastisement of our peace, The suffering necessary for a
sinner to have peace with God was upon him, and with his stripes
we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray,
we've turned every one to his own way, and the Lord has laid
on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and he was afflicted,
yet he opened not his mouth, not so much as a word. He is brought as a lamb to the
slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb or silent,
so he opens not his mouth. He was taken from prison and
from judgment, and who shall declare his generation? For he
was cut off out of the land of the living. Why? For the transgression
of my people was he stricken." Christ is suffering on the tree
for every last one of God's people. That does not include the whole
human race. Verse 9. And he made his grave with the
wicked and with the rich in his death. Because he had done no
violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth. Yet, listen carefully,
yet it pleased the Lord, the Lord God Jehovah, to bruise the
Lord Jesus Christ. Now this is no sadistic pleasure. It pleased God because this was
the only means by which ungodly, God-hating sinners could possibly
be saved. It has to be by substitution.
It has to be. It pleased the Lord to bruise
him. He has put him to grief. The Father has put the Son to
grief. When you shall make his soul,
here's that word again that we saw in verse 11. This bruising
and putting Christ to grief, God declaring himself pleased
with what's taking place has everything to do with this statement.
When you shall make his soul an offering for sin. The soul of our Lord Jesus Christ
is the offering for sin. Then you have a string of glorious
statements made concerning Christ, and the word shall. He shall
see his seed. He shall prolong his days. That is, he cannot remain dead.
He must be raised from the dead. And the pleasure of the Lord
shall prosper in his hand. All God planned to do, Christ
did. All God planned to save, Christ
saved. Period. No exceptions whatsoever. Verse 11, He shall see of the
travail of his soul and shall be satisfied. Men may not be
pleased with what Christ did on the cross, but he seems to
be perfectly satisfied. By his knowledge shall my righteous
servant justify many, for he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore will I divide him a
portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoiled with
the strong. Because he has poured out his
soul unto death. There's that soul. His soul unto
death. He was numbered with the transgressors
and he bare the sin of many. It does not say all. Many. But don't you fret any. It's more many than men can count.
It's an innumerable number. comparable to the sands of the
seashore and the stars in the heavens. He bare the sin of many
and made intercession, intercessory prayer for the transgressors." Alright, I didn't want to take
that much time for remarks, but it just didn't seem to be any
other way. Now last Sunday, I tried to answer the question,
what is it to preach the gospel? Paul said in 1 Corinthians 9,
16, woe is me if I preach not the gospel. It is then absolutely
necessary for a preacher to preach the gospel of Christ, but we
cannot preach what we do not know. any more than we can come
back from where we've never been. To preach this gospel, you must
know it by experience first. You can't teach it intellectually.
This is not a classroom. This is the worship of God who's
declared by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. So this morning, I want to go
a step further. from where we were last week. We talked about
what is necessary to preach the gospel. It's to preach the truth
about God, the truth about ourselves, the truth about Christ, and the
truth about salvation. Now this morning, I'd like to
try to show you five things, but I cannot deal with all of
these things this morning, so I shall primarily deal with only
the first one. It is impossible to preach that
man is both totally and partially depraved. You know the Bible
does speak of a thing called the fall of man. We fell in Adam,
our federal head and representative in the garden. When Adam sinned,
God promised in the day that he ate that forbidden fruit,
you will surely die. Adam died spiritually that very
moment. And He's passed that spiritual
death down to all the human race. For as long as God sees fit for
this human race to exist on the face of this earth, this curse,
this spiritual death will be passed on to all men. It doesn't
matter who your parents are, how wonderful and great they
are, or some kinfolk way on back, or in the present. These things
have nothing to do with this. Man is born spiritually dead,
completely dead. In himself, he's absolutely hopeless. And you cannot preach to people
that they still have some innate human abilities that enables
them to do things that will impress God and somehow get Him to deal
favorably with them. If what we've read in Isaiah
53 does not do the trick, God cannot possibly be enticed to
have anything to do with us. But if when our Lord went to
the tree, he went there in the room place instead of every last
one of God's people that were given to Christ in the covenant
of grace, then those people, my friend, shall be saved. No
other possibility whatsoever. Second thing is this. It's impossible
to preach. that election is both conditional
and unconditional. Almost everybody in our generation
that even will admit to believing that the Bible teaches election,
they simply dismiss it by one little trick. They say that God
looked ahead of time to see what I would do, and when he saw that
I would choose him and cooperate with him, then he elected me.
This is pure dishonesty. It's God taking credit for what
God didn't do. So you can't preach unconditional
election, that every condition of salvation must be done by
whom? Our Lord Jesus Christ. Every if, every and, and every
but lies squarely on His shoulder. If God gave us the most insignificant
thing that we could possibly imagine to do in order to save
us, I promise you we could not do it. If he said for this hour between
11 and 12 o'clock on August the 23rd of 2009, if you'll keep
my law perfectly for that one hour, I'll save you." We'd all be lost. You couldn't do it. You cannot
do it. You mean you can sit here in
your mind and not wonder? My soul, it's a wonder it doesn't
keep on going. I mean, it just, it's unreal. When divine things are at stake,
when the Word of God is being read, when glorious hymns that
declare the gospel so plainly are being sung, We don't even
look at the words, we just mouth them automatically. Thirdly, it is impossible to
talk about God's redeeming grace as being both limited and unlimited. Everybody and his brother believes
that Christ died for everybody. And yet, most folks admit multitudes
will be in hell. You mean Christ died for them
and they still went to hell? Then his death ain't worth a
flip. It's worthless. It's a mockery. Oh, no. Christ died for his people. I
showed you that when we read Isaiah 53. And the Bible is full
of language such as this that insist upon the fact. When our
Lord died on the tree, he paid the sin debt for all of his people. And to say that Christ died for
all men, yet some men must pay for their sins anyway by suffering
in hell, this makes God a monster. God is holy and righteous and
just. Fourthly, the grace of God in
the new birth Cannot be both irresistible and resistible. People say, well, God won't violate
your will. You show me that in the Bible.
It ain't in there. If He doesn't violate our will,
we will never be saved. But you can't preach both sides
of that coin. It's one or the other. Number five. Perseverance of the saints cannot
be preached as being certain and uncertain. Which is it? It's certain. The Bible talks
about we're kept by the power of God unto salvation, ready
to be revealed at the last time. This book nowhere charges you
with keeping yourself. Oh, my soul, no. God doesn't
give us the wherewithal to keep ourselves believing, seeking
and serving and worshiping Him. We ain't going to continue. But
I'm telling you that all true believers continue. They never
quit. They might hit a detour. They
might go backwards for a while. I'm sure if we were honest with
ourselves, we've all been right there. But the whole tendency of their
life is to keep following. seeking. That's just how it is. You can't preach opposites. We
must be plain on these things. All right, the first thing, I'm
going to have to really hurry. If you'll turn. Now, I noticed all these guys
that teach the Bible class and I'm the worst. We say now, we're
not going to do much turning. So I got five points, so I'm
going to try to limit it to one scripture. for each one. I wish
I didn't do that, but I've already said it, so I'll do it. Okay,
turn to Ephesians chapter 2. But I want you to understand
that these statements are found in, oh, who knows how many places
in our Bibles. Alright, Ephesians chapter 2. Go past Romans and 1st and 2nd
Corinthians Galatians, and you'll be square on to Ephesians. Chapter 2, verses 1 through 3. Here's what we're looking for.
Here's the first thing. This seems almost trite to make
this statement, but it is one of the most glorious statements
found on the pages of our Bible. If you'll quit reading, I'll
tell you what it is. I shouldn't have told you what the verses
were. Salvation is of the Lord. If I remember right, that statement
is found in our Bibles three times. But one of the best places
to read it is in the second chapter of the book of Jonah in the ninth
verse. Jonah is in the belly of the
great fish, whale or whatever it is. It makes no difference
to me what you call it. And when these words in his heart were said to God
in a single brief moment of confession of God-given faith, saving faith,
he blurted out these words, salvation is of the Lord. And as one old
preacher put it, that free will whale immediately vomited Jonah
out of his mouth onto the beach. Just those words. Those words say everything. Salvation
is of the Lord. Five simple little words. Here
they are in Ephesians chapter 2, verses 1 through 3. referring to the Ephesian believers. You has he quickened? You has God quickened? That word
means to be made alive. Now listen, spiritually, we're
already alive physically. Spiritually, you has he quickened? Who has God quickened in His
grace and mercy in Christ? Who were dead? in trespasses
and sins. Now obviously that can't be talking
about physical death. It is spiritual death, which
is infinitely worse than physical death. To the believer, physical
death is nothing but the door to heaven. Wherein, in times past, in trespasses
and sins that is, in times past, You walk according to the course
of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air. That's the devil. We were following
him. Every son and daughter of Adam
do until Christ sets them free. The spirit that now works, that
is, that is still working in the children of disobedience.
No matter how moral, no matter how wonderful, no matter how
kind, no matter how nice, all men outside of Christ fit this
description. I either do now or I did when
God delivered me by His grace in Christ. And speaking of those
children of disobedience, among whom also we all had our conversation,
that is our manner of life, in times past, in the lust of our
flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind,
and were by nature the children of wrath even as others. That's our native state. That,
my friend, is a plain, easy to read, as far as words go, Statement
of the total depravity of man. Man is totally depraved. When
did we get in this shape? When Adam fell in the garden
when he sinned. And the curse was pronounced
upon him and all of his seed. And so hence, every person born
to Adam in all of his posterity down to the last baby to be born
At 1145 on Sunday morning, all of these persons are in this
state, in this state. All right, the second thing.
Let's talk for just a moment about election. And remember,
in the Bible there's only one kind of election. It is unconditional. Nothing is conditioned on us. Every condition is placed on
our Redeemer, our Lord, our Savior, every one of them. Well, I've put myself in a bind,
but I'm going to stick to it. John chapter 6. John chapter 6. And by the way,
hang on to John 6 and I'll come and refer to it again in a little
bit. I've got so many ink marks and
highlighter marks on John chapter 6 that it's hard to see the print. Oh my goodness. Let's look at
verses 37, 38, 39, and 40. And we're talking at the moment about what aspect of grace. God's
electing grace in Christ. That is God choosing for Himself
a people in Christ. All right, let's read it. John
6, 37. And our Lord is saying this to
some persons in John chapter 6 who are having trouble with
some of His statements and they were impressed the previous day
because they were some of the participants in the feeding of
the 5,000 on the other side of the Sea of Galilee. And to show
you how bright and theological they were, if you just glance
back to verse 15, it says, When Jesus therefore perceived that
they would come and take him by force, God has to take us by force in
order to save us, but they're going to take Jesus by force
and make Him be a king over them. Oh my goodness, they truly know
Him, don't they? That's a picture of me and you.
That's how ignorant we are by nature. Bless God in grace, we know better
now, but we didn't always know better. I swallowed hook, line, and sinker,
that little thing that goes like, if you don't open your heart's
door, Jesus will not come in. Oh my. He waits for you and me
to open it. He won't ever come in. Oh, let
me get to reading here. Y'all keep wanting me to speak
some more. Here it is, verse 37. All that the Father gives
me shall come to me. Boy, if that's not a positive
statement, I don't know what is. And Him that comes to me,
I'll in no wise, not ever, cast out. I mean, if you're His, you're
stuck. Hallelujah. Verse 38, For I came
down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of Him
that sent me. And now He's going to tell us
what that will is. Verse 39, And this is the Father's will
which has sent me, that of all which He has given me I should
lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day.
Every soul that God gave to Christ in the covenant, He here declares
that He will raise him up in the last day. He won't lose any. Let's read on. This is the will of Him that
sent me, that everyone which sees the Son and believes on
Him may have everlasting life, and I'll raise Him up at the
last day." Hang on to John 6. Let's go to the third matter.
Oh, let's see. Did you hang on to Isaiah 53?
If you did, I'll just refer to that and it will be familiar
to you. I should have reminded you to do that. I want to read
three verses out of this chapter. Here's the third thing. You cannot
preach redemption or the atonement out of both sides of your mouth.
It is either limited or it is unlimited. The two will not mix. They just can't mix. They're opposites. When you go
to mix one, you lose one. It can't be done. All right,
verse 8. Speaking of our Savior, Isaiah
53.8, He was taken from prison and from judgment, and who shall
declare his generation, for he was cut off out of the land of
the living. For the transgression of my people
was he stricken." For whom did our Lord die? It
says, for the transgression of my people, God's people. Now
if you know anything at all about the Bible, everybody's not God's
child. I know most people believe they
are, but I'm telling you the book says no. Some people are
actually children of the devil, and I can prove that from the
book. Listen, every child of God before
he's converted is a slave of the devil, but he ain't never
been the devil's child. The Bible speaks of the sheep
being on Christ's right hand and the goats on the left, and
there's never been a case of a goat becoming a sheep. Now
there's been plenty of cases, in fact most cases, in which
the sheep acted like goats, but they weren't really goats. All right, two more verses, Isaiah
53. Verses 10 and 11 again. Yet it
pleased the Lord to bruise him. He has put him to grief. When
you shall 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. Our Savior in verse 11, he shall
see of the travail, the labor of his soul and shall be satisfied
By his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify all mankind. Nope. It says justify many. For whoever he justifies, he
shall bear their iniquities. Their iniquities. All right,
the fourth thing. When we talk about the new birth,
we talk about the grace of God in regeneration or the new birth. Grace is spoken of in two opposite
ways. One declares that God's grace
can be resisted by us, and it can to a point. But the other
declares that God's grace ultimately is irresistible. There's a character in the New
Testament of our Bibles by the name of the Apostle Paul. When
we first have record of him, if I remember right, the very
first mention of him in our Bibles is the opening statement in Acts
chapter 8. Stephen has just finished preaching
his sermon in Acts chapter 7. And Paul is standing there with
a bunch of other people, many of whom I'm positive he recruited
to be there because they're going to put that fellow to death.
They're going to stone Stephen to death. Paul actually holds
the garments of the people that finally did take Stephen's life
completely. He died right on the spot. But
Paul heard that sermon. God burned it in his soul, and
it's only a short, brief period of time later, I think a matter
of maybe a week or two weeks or so, that he's got a new commission
from the priest. in Jerusalem and he's headed
to Damascus to put more Christians in jail and to kill them if he
can, put them to death. On that road, Christ met that
man. We call it crossing our paths
with the gospel. Christ unhorsed him, put him
in the dirt, a beggar for free, sovereign grace and mercy. You can read it in Acts chapter
8. And he gives another account in chapter 22 and another one
in chapter 26 in the book of Acts. This man knows something
about this irresistible grace of God. Alright, let me see. I'm just going to quote this
one for you if I can get it to come. Psalm 65 verse 4 says,
blessed is the man whom God chooses and causes to approach unto Him. That's how God saves sinners.
It's by irresistible grace. Psalm 110, verse 3, the Father
is telling His Son, the Lord Jesus, Your people shall be willing
in the day of Your power. That's irresistible grace. But
did you hang on to John 6? All right. I've got two verses
in John 6 that we'll look at in this one regard. And when
I finish this, hang on to the book of John and we'll go to
chapter 10 for just a moment. Verses 44 and 45 in John chapter
6. Now here's one of the clearest, simplest,
and humanly speaking, easiest to
understand statements anywhere concerning irresistible grace.
Verse 44, you've got to look at words when you read. No man
can, not will, no man can come to me. Nobody can come to Christ
except the Father which has sent me draw him. A divine, irresistible
drawing, irresistible grace. I'll raise him up at the last
day. Here's what that divine drawing is, verse 45. It is written in the prophets,
they shall be all taught of God. Every man therefore that has
heard and has learned of the Father does what? Comes to Christ. So this teaching is not hit and
miss. Everybody that God chooses to teach come to Christ without
exception. It's called irresistible grace.
Alright, the fifth thing is the perseverance of the saints. John chapter 10 John chapter 10, verses 27 and 28. Now all of
John 10 is about the shepherd and the sheep. So the Lord's
people, we're affixing to read about, are called sheep, but
it's talking about people. All right, verse 27. hear my voice." That goes back
to irresistible grace. He doesn't say they ought to
or they should or some of them will. He says, my sheep hear
my voice and I know them and they follow me and I give unto
them eternal life. Now you know, you really know
this. Eternal life is not really eternal life unless it lasts
forever, is it? Then if you can lose it, it ain't
eternal life. Case closed. I give unto them
eternal life, and if that's not enough, and they shall never
perish, and neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.
Now that looks like they're safe to me. I don't know what else
you can call it. God's people continue to believe, to love,
and to worship the Lord Jesus. Now when you take those five
things together, it forms an acrostic. The T in total depravity, the
U in unconditional election, the L in limited atonement, the
I in irresistible grace, and the P in perseverance spells
one word. T-U-L-I-P. Tulip. That, my friend, is the
gospel because salvation is of the Lord. Hallelujah. That's where it's always been,
and that's where it always will be.