Isaiah 53. I read a story once
about a person who was under deep concern and conviction about
his sins, troubled about his relationship with the Lord. He
was afraid to die. So one day, taking the Bible
in his hand, he said this, Eternal life is to be found somewhere
in this book. I know it's there. And if it's
there, I believe I can find it. Because I intend to read every
word in this book. to see if God has a saving message
for me. So he began with Genesis chapter
1, and he read the book of Genesis, he read the book of Exodus, he
read Leviticus, he read Numbers, he read Deuteronomy, he read
all the writings of Moses, and though salvation is there beautifully
typified beautifully symbolized, he couldn't find it. He couldn't
see it. He then read the histories of
the kings and the kingdom of Judah and the kingdom of Israel.
He read the Psalms but found no relief. Still that deep concern
and that deep conviction. Finally he came to this book
of Isaiah and he began reading the book of Isaiah and he read
chapter one 2 and right on through, almost finishing the entire book,
he came to Isaiah 53, where we're reading this morning. And he
read verse 3. He is despised and rejected of
men, 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. Surely He hath borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows. Yet we did esteem Him stricken,
smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace
was upon Him, with his stripes we're healed. All we like sheep
have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his
own way, and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all."
And he cried, I've found it. I've found the way of salvation. I've found the way of life. Here
is the healing that I need. It is in my substitute, Christ
Jesus, bearing my sins and my iniquity and suffering for me. My friends, you have in that
story the three necessary things for conversion. There are three
absolutely essential things for conversion. Without any one of
these, it's impossible for a man to be converted. Number one,
you have a seeking center. There will be no rest until there's
a burden. There will be no grace until
there is revealed and recognized guilt. There will be no forgiveness
where there is no sin. There can be no peace where there's
no warfare. So the first essential thing,
the first necessary thing for conversion, for a reconciliation
between God and man, is that that man has to recognize that
he's a sinner. Christ said the Son of Man has
come to seek and to save the lost. He said, I will have mercy
and not sacrifice. I am come not to call the righteous,
but sinners to repentance. So that's the first necessary
thing for conversion. If you're here this morning and
you're thinking of salvation, you're thinking of eternal life,
you're thinking of conversion, the very first thing that is
necessary is that you must recognize your sin. The second thing that
is absolutely necessary, which we have in this story that I
just related to you, we have the seeking sinner. We have the
concern convicted sinner. The second thing you must have,
without which there can be no conversion, there can be no life,
and that is the Word of God. The Scripture says, Faith cometh
by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. The Word of God
is the cause of faith. We cannot speak where God is
silent. God must offer pardon, or we
presume If the word of God does not give us hope, we can have
no hope. If the word of God does not set
forth a way of life, we cannot hope for life. The word of God
is absolutely essential for the conversion of a soul. The Scripture
says, "...of his own will beget he us through the word of truth."
Paul said, "...I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. It is
the power of God unto salvation." The third necessary and essential
thing for conversion is this. We have, first of all, the seeking
sinner. A man will not be found until
he's lost. A man will not be raised until
he's dead. A man will not be clothed until
he's naked. A man will not be saved and forgiven
of sin until he recognizes that sin. If we confess our sins,
he's faithful and just to forgive us. He that hideth his sins,
he that covereth his sins, shall not prosper, but whosoever confesseth
and forsaketh his sin shall find mercy." The second necessary
thing is the Word of God, and the third is the substitutionary
work of Jesus Christ, the Savior, in his sacrificial work. Without
the shedding of blood, there is no remission. We're not redeemed with corruptible
things such as silver and gold from our vain conversation received
by tradition from our fathers, but with the precious blood of
Christ. Without Christ's blood, there
is no remission. Turn with me to the book of Acts.
Acts, the eighth chapter. Now, we have the same three necessary
things fulfilled here in the conversion of the Ethiopian in
Acts chapter 8. What I'm saying is this. In order
for there to be salvation, there's got to be three things present. Number one, a seeking sinner,
a hungry sinner, a needy sinner, a lost sinner, a helpless sinner,
a hopeless sinner. There's got to be a sinner. Secondly,
there's got to be the Word of God. If we have not God's promise,
then we presume If we have not God's word that He will show
mercy, that He will give mercy, then we presume when we say that
we have mercy. God's got to promise it. We've
got to have something upon which to base our faith. You've got
to have a reason for faith. Let every man be able to give
a reason for the hope that's in him, and our reason is what
God says. He hath said so that we may boldly
say, The Lord is my keeper, my helper. the shade upon my right
hand. He will not leave me nor forsake
me." And I know that. He said so. So you've got to
have the Word of God. You can't say, I'm saved because
I feel saved. I'm saved because the preacher
told me. The preacher has no authority
to pronounce forgiveness The Church has no authority to announce
reconciliation, only the one to whom we reconcile, that's
God, and that we have his Word. Now the third thing is the sacrificial
work of Christ. Now look at Acts chapter 8. First
we have the seeking sinner, here in verse 27. And this man arose
and went, Philip, and behold, a man of Ethiopia, a eunuch of
great authority under Kendese, Kendese, queen of the Ethiopians. He had charge of all her treasure. He had come to Jerusalem for
to worship. Here was a seeking sinner. Now
this man was an alien from Israel. He was not an Israelite, he was
an Ethiopian. He was not one of the covenant
Jews, he was an Ethiopian, but he had concern. He was troubled
about his soul. He had gone to Jerusalem for
the special feast days, the special holy days, to worship. Now, there's
the seeking sinner. Now, verse 28. He was returning
home, and he was sitting in his chariot reading Isaiah, or Isaiah
the prophet. There you have the Word of God.
He was sitting there reading the Word of God. And he was reading
the same scripture I read to you this morning, Isaiah 53.
And the Spirit said to Philip, You go near and join yourself
to this chariot. And Philip ran further to him,
and heard him read the prophet Isaiah, and said to the Ethiopian,
Do you understand what you read? And he said, How can I? Except
some man should guide me. And he desired Philip that he
would come up and sit with him. And the place in the Scripture
which he read was this, he led as a sheep to the slaughter.
as a lamb done before her shearer, so he opened not his mouth."
That's Isaiah 53, just what I read. In his humiliation his judgment
was taken away. Who shall declare his generation?
His life is taken from the earth. And the eunuch said unto Philip,
I pray thee, of whom speaketh the prophet? Of himself or some
other man? Who's he talking about? Who is
this one who was wounded for our transgressions, who was bruised
for our iniquities? Who is this one upon whom the
chastisement of our peace fell? Who is this one by whose stripes
we're healed? Who's he talking about? And Philip
began at the same scripture, he opened his mouth and began
at the same scripture, and preached unto him the Lord Jesus Christ
in his sacrificial substitutionary work. You've got to have that.
And the scripture says this man was converted. They came to a
certain body of water, and he stopped his chariots, and he
turned to Philip, and he said, Here is water, what doth hinder
me to be baptized? And Philip said, if you believe
that Jesus is the Christ, you may. Now let's look at Isaiah
53 again. Do we have here this morning
a seeking center? A seeking center, whether you're
ten years old, or fifteen, or twenty, or thirty, or forty,
or fifty, or sixty. Do we have here this morning
a seeking center? Well, we have this. We have,
if you are a seeking center, we have the Word of God. This
is God's work. And then I'm going to bring you
a message on the sacrificial, substitutionary work of Christ.
And there's no reason why, if those three necessary, essential
things are brought together, a seeking center, the Word of
God, and the substitutionary work of Christ, there's no reason
why you could not be, and would not be, delivered from your sins
and brought to a knowledge of Christ in this hour. My text
will be Isaiah 53, 5, the last line, and with his stripes we're
healed. Now, my friends, God treats sin
as a disease. He talks about our being healed. He treats sin as a disease. It's a disease which began in
the Garden of Eden. When God created man, man did
not have this disease of sin. The Word of God tells us that
He created man holy and upright, but man sought out many inventions. Man didn't have this disease
when God made him. This disease came into man in
the garden. Turn to Romans 5, verse 12. Listen to what God's Word says
about it. In Romans 5, verse 12, Wherefore,
wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world. The man
was here before the sin, and the sin entered into this world
by man, and death by sin. So death passed upon all men,
for that all have sinned. In the garden man received the
fatal blow. In the Garden, man became diseased. He was not diseased to begin
with. God created man in His own image, without sin. But sin came and took the crown
from his head. Sin came and took the light from
his mind. Sin came and took the joy from
his heart. Sin came and separated him from
God. The disease of sin came upon
this human race in the Garden of Also, sin is a disease which
affects the whole man. Turn to Isaiah chapter 1. Sin
is a disease that affects the whole man. This cancer of sin
has affected every part. There isn't a part of man, listen
to what the scripture says, Isaiah 1, 6, from the sole of the foot
even to the head. There's no soundness in it. nothing
but wounds and bruises and putrefying sores that have not been closed,
neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment from the sole of
your feet to the very crown of your head. There is nowhere in
the flesh any good thing, any soundness. This disease of sin
that came upon the human race in the Garden of Eden as a result
of Adam's transgression and Adam's rebellion, this disease of sin
has affected, has touched the entire man. Take his eyes, for example. The
Scripture says, "...having eyes full of adultery." Men cannot
cease from sin. Consider his thoughts. God says,
My thoughts are not your thoughts. As the heavens are high above
the earth, so are my thoughts higher than your thoughts. His
ears, his death. Having ears, they cannot hear. His Scripture says the poison
of snakes is under his lips, his throat an open sepulchre,
his tongue, with their tongues they have used deceit, his heart. The heart is deceitful above
all things, and desperately wicked. Who can know it? His will. You
will not come to me that you might have life. His affections,
they are without natural affections. His feet, swift to shed blood,
his flesh, in the flesh dwelleth no good thing." Man's not a dying
creature, he's a spiritually dead creature. He's separated
from God, he's alienated from God, he's thoroughly corrupted.
This disease of sin that came upon man as a result of Adam's
fall has thoroughly corrupted the human race from the sole
of the feet to the top of the head. And there's no part of
man that is without sin. And then, turn to Genesis 5,
and here's a scripture that I've looked at over and over and over
again. The scripture says in Genesis
5, 3, that this disease of sin is passed on from father to son,
from father to daughter. There is not born into this world
ever one son of Adam without sin. In Genesis 5, verse 3, And
Adam lived a hundred and thirty years, and begat a son, and here's
the key, in his own likeness, after his image. When God created Adam, put him
in the garden, He created him in his likeness, holy, in his
image without sin. After Adam fell and begat the
first son, that son was begotten in Adam's likeness, fallen after
Adam's image, sinful and diseased. Who can bring a clean thing out
of an unclean? In sin my mother conceived me. I was shapen in iniquity. I was brought forth from the
womb, speaking lies, this disease of sin that came upon the human
race in the garden, that has affected every part of man according
to God's work, and is passed on from father to son and father
to daughter, and is not born into this world one person who
is not tainted by that sinful nature. The Scripture says, if
we say we have no sins, We deceive ourselves. It says if we say
we have no S-I-N, sin, we make God a liar. Now, I know there
are people who say that a child is born innocent and it becomes
a sinner. Well, let me tell you this. The
Word of God doesn't teach that, and then if you're an honest
person, your experience doesn't teach that. You don't have to
teach a child a lie. He's born knowing how to lie.
You don't have to teach a child to be selfish. Do you teach your
children to be selfish? And yet the first words they
learn are, I, me, and mine. They're spoiled, they're selfish,
they're covetous, they're envious. A child is filled with hatred
for that which it dislikes, That's because it's born with that nature. And then it's a disease that
is incurable. The soul that sinneth shall surely
die. That's what the Word of God says.
Can the Ethiopian change his skin? This is what Jeremiah cried. Can the Ethiopian change his
skin? Can the leper change his thoughts? Neither can you do good that
are accustomed to doing evil. The disciples came to the Lord
one day, and they said, Lord, who can be saved? And the Lord
Jesus Christ replied, and you don't ever forget this text,
with men it is impossible. It's impossible for a man to
hate what he loves by nature. It's impossible for a man to
love what he hates by nature. It's impossible for a man to
change this evil nature and make a holy nature thereof. It's impossible. But here's the second point in
my message from Isaiah 53, with his stripes we're healed. So
God treats this sin as a disease, a disease that came in the Garden
of Eden, a disease that affected the whole of man, the whole nature
The whole nature of man was perverted and twisted and warped. And it's
passed on from father to son and father to daughter. And it's
a disease that's incurable by human effort and by human strength
and by human device. It's incurable. But the Word
of God says there's a healing to be found. It says here's something
about being healed. It says with His stripes we're
healed. with his stripes. We'll hear
there's healing to be found. There's healing for this disease.
Now, man's chief problem. Turn to John 5, 43. This, I believe, is the chief
problem of mankind, religious and otherwise. I believe man's
chief problem is this. He listens to the wrong voice. Every time we get in any kind
of difficulty or trouble, it's because we listen to the wrong
voice. We listen not to the voice of
God, but to the voice of evil. We listen not to the voice of
right, but the voice of wrong. Look at John 5, verse 43. Christ said, I am come in my
Father's name, and you receive me not. I have a message, he
said, but you won't listen to me. I have something to say,
but you won't listen to me. And I come with a message from
the Father, but you won't listen to me. But if another come in
his own name, him you will receive." That's our whole problem. Adam
and Eve, they listened to the wrong voice. They listen not
to the voice of God. God says, don't eat the tree
and live. Satan said, you shall not surely
die. God knows in the day you eat
of this tree, your eyes will be opened and you'll be like
God. And they listen to the wrong voice. Men listen to their own voices. The scripture says, every man
did that which was right in his own eyes. Don't you? Don't you
confess today that rather than listening to God, you often listen
to yourself? There's a way that seemeth right
unto man. It seems right. He's sincere
in it. It seems right to him. And he
listens to his own voice, and the Scripture says that way ends
in death and destruction. Men listen to the voice of their
seared consciences. We be not born of fornication. That's what they said to the
Lord Jesus, the preacher preaching men are born in sin. We be not
born of fornication. That's what your conscience is
telling you. God's Word's telling you you're
born in sin. You're telling yourself you're
not. God's Word is telling you that this disease of sin came
from the garden through your father and has affected you even
as an infant, and your conscience, your seared conscience, your
twisted conscience, your evil will says, No! It's not so. You're listening to the wrong
voice. Men listened to the voice of
their works. Why, Lord, we preached in your
name, and cast out devils in your name, and we've done many
wonderful works in your name. That's the voice of my works.
And I listened to them. Men listened to the voices of
other men. Christ said, False Christ shall
arise, drawing away many, and they will, if possible, deceive
even the elect. Men listened to the voices of
men. Men listen to the voices of the
church. Man-made religious, self-styled
priests and false messiahs can rise up and come preaching, and
men listen to them and follow them, just like blind sheep. It's time, my friend, to listen
to the Word of God. It's time to see what God says. the Bereans. They heard the Apostle
preach, and the Scripture says, they searched the Scriptures
to see if these things be so. Any honest, God-called, Christ-honoring
preacher will tell you, don't believe one thing because he
tells you. You find it in God's You base
your faith, your cause of faith, your foundation of faith, your
reason for faith on this Word, in Christ. He's the object of
faith, but this is the cause of faith. This is the foundation
of faith. God says you're born in sin,
why won't you believe it? God says by the deeds of the
law shall no flesh be justified, why won't you believe it? God
says, through the works of the flesh, no man will be redeemed.
Why don't you believe it? God says, redemption, salvation
in His Son. Why don't you believe it? This
is eternal life. If they might know thee, the
only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent, why don't
you believe it? I like what Peter said, out there
fishing all night, hadn't caught a thing. Not a thing. He was a wise fisherman, too.
He made his living fishing ever since he was a little lad. He
was out there fishing, now a man in his late forties. He knew
that lake. He knew every spot. He knew where
the schools of fish hung out. He knew all about it. He knew
the depths. He knew the bait. He knew what kind of net. He
knew all about it, but he hadn't caught a thing. The Lord Jesus
stood on the shore, and he said, Have you caught anything?" And
he said, Nothing. He said, Cast your nets on the
right side of the ship. And Peter said, Lord, we've been
fishing here all night, and we haven't taken anything. Nevertheless,
at your word I let down the net. And that's all I'm preaching
to you this morning. I'm preaching this, my seeking
sinner friend. You might have strived as a lad
with a Christian mother and daddy to find salvation. You might
have strived as a Sunday school pupil to make a decision. They
might have had a revival, and you walked out, and you rededicated,
and you've gone to the mourner's bench, you've gone through the
baptismal pools, you've read the Bible, you've done all these
things. Will you say with the Apostle Peter, Lord, I've caught
all mine, I've caught nothing. Nevertheless, it's your word. I take your word. I base my hope
and confidence on your word, whatever you say in your word.
You know, Paul said to Timothy, From a child thou hast known
the holy scriptures that are able to make thee wise unto salvation. Now, here's the last part, Isaiah
53. By his stripes we're healed. This is the way we're healed.
By the substitutionary death of another, Christ took our place.
Here I am, and here are my sins. There are very many. They're
very black. They're very heavy. They've separated me from God.
The Lord Jesus Christ came down into this world. He had no sin.
He was the sinless Savior. He was made in the likeness of
human flesh. He took on himself a human body.
He became a man, the Lord of glory. And the Father laid on
him my sins, all of them. And Christ, under the load and
weight and guilt of my sin, went to the cross. And there the law
of God and the justice of God and the wrath of God and the
debt of sin, it was all paid. for it fell on him. And the Scripture
says God has separated our sins from us as far as the east is
from the west, to remember them no more. The Scripture says that
Christ died for our sins, and God, because Christ paid for
them, has put them away, just exactly as if I go in a store
down here where you owe a great debt, and I say, how much does
Don owe? They say $175. I say, here's
the money, mark it, paid in full, and they cannot collect from
him because I paid the debt. He's totally free. He's delivered
from the penalty of the debt, from the curse of the debt, from
the collection of the debt. They cannot, absolutely cannot,
receive from Him what I've already paid. And He's a free man. And
here you have it in Isaiah 53. In the first three verses it
tells us, Our Lord shall grow up, verse 2, as a tender plant. He was made in the likeness of
human nature. And as a root out of dry ground,
he came from a country, he came from a nation that was all but
written off, the nation of Israel. They were under the bondage of
the Roman government. There wasn't anything to Israel.
Can any good come out of Nazareth? We know who you are, you're a
carpenter. We know who your brothers and sisters are. We know who
your daddy was, Joseph. You can't amount to anything.
He had no form, no comeliness, no beauty. He was despised and
rejected of men, a man of sorrows, that he might be identified with
the lowest of the low, with the outcast, with the nobodies. Christ was born in this world
as a nobody, that he might be identified with nobodies. There's
nobody in this world that cannot be identified with Christ because
he was tested and tried in all points as we are. He knew sorrow
and suffering and hunger and thirst and weariness and pain
and nakedness and cold and dirt and all these things. He knew
it. He knew what it meant to be without. He had not one friend
left on this earth. He had not a place to lay his
head. He owned not a car or a house or a or a field or a lot, he
had nothing but a robe on his back, and they took that away
from him and crucified him naked. There never has lived on this
earth one sinner that cannot be identified with Jesus Christ. That's what those first three
verses mean. A man of sorrows, acquainted
with all grief. And then in verse 4 through 6
you have the suffering Savior. He was wounded for our transgression,
bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace
was laid on Him. He paid the debt. Jesus paid
it all. All the debt I owed, sin, leptor,
crimson stain, He washed it as white as snow. He paid it in
full. Now, if you want to listen to preachers
that tell you that Christ made the down payment and you meet
the installments, you go right ahead. That's your privilege. God's word doesn't say that.
If you want to listen to preachers who say, Christ did all he can
do, now it's up to you, you go right ahead. But that's not what
the Bible teaches. The Bible teaches for every believer,
for every trusting sinner, for every soul that receives him
as Lord and Savior, he paid our debt with his stripes, we're
healed. Healed. And then verse 7, you
have the silent Savior. He opened not his mouth. That
is, he assumed the guilt and did not rebel. He was not driven
to the cross. He took it up willingly. That's
what's wrong with this horrible, blasphemous program Jesus Christ
Superstar. Anybody who knows anything about
God, anything about salvation, anything about the Bible, has
rejected it in its entirety. And when a man says that Jesus
Christ, superstar, is a good play, he's revealing, number
one, his total ignorance of God's Word, number two, his total ignorance
of the character and person and work of Jesus Christ, and he's
revealing he's a total and lost individual. And I challenge you
to meet me after the service and question me on that. Jesus
Christ Superstar was a man who didn't know where he came from,
what he came to do, or where he was going. This Christ of
the Bible knew who he was and why he came and where he was
going and what he came to do, and nobody drove him to the cross.
He went there willingly. He was born crucified. He spoke
of his death in his first miracle, in Cana of Galilee, when he said,
Mine hour is not yet come. And then when he prayed in the
Garden of Gethsemane, he said, Father, the hour is here. Glorify
thy Son, that thy Son may glorify thee. Christ was not driven to the
cross. He went there willingly. Willingly. No man takes my life from me. He said, I lay it down. that
I might take it up again." And then you have in verse 9, the
sinless Savior. He made his grave with a wicked,
that is, he died between two thieves. He was buried with a
rich in his death, that is, he buried a rich man, Joseph of
Arimathea's grave. Though he had done no violence,
no sin, and no deceit was in his mouth, he was sinless, he
was godless, he was God. And I'll tell you another thing,
and we'd better get straightened out in this generation. I'm warning
every one of us. We have more respect for our
large brothers than we have for God Almighty, because we call
our large brothers most worshipful master, and we call God a superstar. We call our large brothers, I
see it in the paper all the time, these fellows in their funny
hats. And underneath it will have the most high potentate.
There's only one high potentate. The Scripture says that's God.
And you don't ascribe reverent and potentate and holy to any
individual on this earth. That's God's name. God's name. But we call God the man upstairs. That's how big your God is. When
you refer to Him as the good Lord and the man upstairs and
somebody up there, you reveal your total ignorance of who He
is. He is the gracious, living, eternal, omnipotent God of heaven
and earth that's worthy of reverence and fear and respect and worship
of all His creatures, enough to be referred to in some off-the-cuff
comment, the man upstairs. Somebody up there likes me. you
reveal your ignorance of who he is. We have here the sinless
Savior, the Lord of glory, and then in the next two verses you
have the satisfied Savior. Listen to this. Let God's Word
speak. It pleased the Lord to bruise
him. My friends, you listen to me.
This was written hundreds of years before Christ died. Hundreds
of years. Psalms 22 that describes the
whole scene at Calvary, even gives the words that Christ said,
the plucking of the beard, the casting of lots for his garment,
the death between two thieves, the betrayal of Judas, the thirty
pieces of silver, all in the Old Testament, hundreds of years
before Christ ever died, ever came to this earth. And here
Isaiah 53, that talks about his bear and his sacrifice hundreds
of years before he came, he wrote it. His death was no accident. It
pleased the Lord to bruise him. It was God who put him to death
and put him to grief. He used the wicked hands of responsible,
accountable creatures who did what they wanted to do, and in
doing what they wanted to do, did what God willed to do. You
with wicked hands have crucified the Lord of glory, but you carried
out the determinate counsel and full knowledge of God. God put
him to grief. God made his soul an offering
for sin, not just his body, but his soul. Christ's sufferings
were not confined to his flesh, he suffered in soul. Because
when sinners go to hell, they go their body and soul. And it says, he shall see his
seed. Who are his seed? Those who will
believe. Those who will receive him. those
who will be brought to him, those who will be saved. He shall see
his seed, his spiritual seed, his redeemed seed. He shall prolong
his day, and the pleasure of the Lord. What is the pleasure
of the Lord? It's God's purpose, and God's
purpose is to save, and that good pleasure is going to prosper
in his hand. My Heavenly Father gave His Son
a job to do. He gave Him a task to perform.
He gave Him a mission to complete. And when He came into this world,
He accomplished that mission. He fulfilled that task, and He
did that job. And the purpose of the Father
prospered in His hand." Look at the next line, "...and he
shall see the travail of his soul, and be satisfied." I don't
want to scare you, but I'm telling you this. that the Christ, the
Jesus that's being preached today, that came down here and died
on the cross, and he's sitting up there in heaven wondering
if anybody will let him save him, that's not the Christ of
the Bible. That Jesus that came down here
and died on the cross and made an effort, and he's up there
pacing the floor of glory, wondering if his kingdom will be inhabited,
wondering if his table will be filled, wondering if his Mansions
will be occupied, wondering if somebody will lay them in their
hearts. That's not the Christ of the Bible. The Word of God
says, he shall see the travail of his soul, travail of his birth
pains, and shall be satisfied. When a mother goes through her
nine months of suffering, carrying a child, she goes to the hospital.
And she goes through the labor of delivery, that's travail,
travail of the body. And those hours are accomplished,
and then she's taken to a room, and a few moments later a nurse
brings her a little infant and puts it in her arms. And she
sees the travail of her body, and she's satisfied. She's happy. It's all been worth it all. She's
perfectly content. My Lord went through the travail
of soul. He gave his soul. He went through
the death valley of soul agony and soul suffering to bring forth
children. into the kingdom of God, and
he has no miscarriages. He gives birth to no dead children. Every one for whom he suffered
will be laid in his bosom, and he shall present them faultless.
And when he was hanging on that cross, he saw the travail of
his soul, the birth pains and agony of his soul. He was satisfied."
That's what's said. Satisfied. There you have it,
the seeking sinner. Here you are, the Word of God.
Don't listen to the wrong voice now, listen to God. And there
you have it, the suffering Savior who paid our debt, who satisfied
God's law, who pleased God's justice, who went to the cost
and paid the debt in full. Now how does it become yours?
Believe on Him. Receive Him. Trust Him. He that believeth on the Son
hath life. Our Father, take the word, the
powerful, sin-revealing word of God, that word that reveals
our guilt and our inability and our shame, that word that makes
known to us our only refuge, our hope, Christ the Lord. That
word that reveals the suffering Savior who made the perfect sacrifice
to put away the guilt of all who believe, an effectual work
that can never be erased. Our hope and confidence can be
in Him, bring sinners to trust Him, to believe on Him. For we
ask it in His name and for His glory. Amen.