Yesterday we started looking at Romans 8:28 and saw two things, “And we know” and "that for those who love God,” but this morning let’s turn to the next phrase “All things.”

“All things.” What things? Some things? The good things? The holy things? No, he specifically says, “all things.” Piper said that includes the painful and the pleasurable. Let’s trace Paul’s use of that phrase, “All things.”

Romans 11:36, “For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.”

Ephesians 1:11-12, “In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory.”

Look at the things that follow this passage in Romans 8:31-34 and 35-39. Verse 32, “how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?”

1 Corinthians 3:21-23, “So let no one boast in men. For all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.”

And then Romans 5:3-5, “Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”

So notice what he has said—all things belong to Him, are from Him, through Him and to Him. He works all things according to the counsel of His will which leads to glory, He graciously gives us all things, and all things are ours in Christ and that includes life, death, present, and future, and then Romans 5 makes so much more sense when we understand it in light of 8:28. All things! Good and bad…

“Work together for good.” Notice he didn’t say all things were good—there are terrible things that happen to us and to those around us—they are not good, but God is able to work them for good. What good is he talking about? If we go to verses 29-30 we can see the good in context of what he is saying…, “For those whom He foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, in order that He might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom He predestined eh also called, and those whom He called He also justified, and those whom He justified He also glorified.” Three specific things he speaks of that are good—1) we are conformed to the image of His Son. God uses the good and bad to conform us to the image of Jesus. If we could just grasp this it would help us in difficulty. To know that this will somehow make us more like Jesus will lead us to trust God in the midst of heartache.

The 2) thing he speaks in terms of working it for good is found in the phrase “firstborn among many brothers,” we will see this in the next few weeks, but he means God is using all things to lead us to exalt Him and to hold Him preeminent.

Finally, 3), He is working all things for good in terms of glory. God is using all the events of your life to prepare you for glory.

I’ll be in Tanzania all week and I would appreciate your prayers as I travel and spend time with a pastor there. I’m not sure that I will be able to post these on FB after today, so if you are reading from there, consider hitting the subscribe button at the bottom and you’ll get it by email every morning. This week I’ll be posting on Mon, Wed, and Fri. If I can post any reflections from Tanzania I will.

I thought it might be good to spend some time in Romans 8:28 this week,

“And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose.”

Let’s break it down phrase by phrase.

“And we know…” It is interesting to read this within the context of the verses you studied last week. In verse 26 we find, “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.” So, there we find something we do not know, but here we find something we can know with absolute certainty. If we sum it up, we can say we can know with certainty that our entire lives are in God’s hands.

Let me encourage you to get this verse down deep into the core of your belief system. You and I need to know what Paul is about to say so that when difficulty comes we can fall back on these words. If we wait until the trouble or sufferings come we will find ourselves struggling to learn it, but if we catch on to this now we can find victory even in the midst of trial.

“…that for those who love God.” What Paul is about to say isn’t true of everyone—it is true of Christians. It is interesting that Paul chose to use those phrase—he only uses the phrase “love God”three other times in his writing, but if we take a look at them we might understand better what he is saying here.

1 Corinthians 2:9-10, “But, as it is written, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him”—these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.”

1 Corinthians 8:3, “But if anyone loves God, he is known by God…”

1 Corinthians 16:22, “If anyone has no love for the Lord, let him be accursed. Our Lord, come!”

When you read these verses, you come to understand that when Paul speaks of those who “love God,” he is talking about those who are Christians. It isn’t that some followers of Jesus love God and some don’t—if you are a follower of Jesus you’ll love God.

Think about what he has said in this chapter—in 8:7 he speaks of those who are in the flesh and says they are hostile to God, in 8:8 he says they cannot please God, in 8:15 he speaks of our being adoptedby God and able to cry out to Him calling Him Abba! Father!, and when you come to 8:18 Paul says he considers the sufferings of this present time to not be worth the glory that is to be revealed to us…how can he say that unless we love God?

We will pick up with the next phrase tomorrow.

A few weeks ago I finished preaching through 2 Timothy and I’ve been preaching through some of the Psalms. Last Sunday I was preaching through Psalm 28 and I quoted CS Lewis,

“I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation. It is not out of compliment that lovers keep on telling one another how beautiful they are; the delight is incomplete till it is expressed.

It is frustrating to have discovered a new author and not to be able to tell anyone how good he is; to come suddenly, at the turn of the road, upon some mountain valley of unexpected grandeur and then to have to keep silent because the people with you care for it no more than for a tin can in the ditch; to hear a good joke and find no one to share it with. . . . The Scotch catechism says that ‘man’s chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.’ But we shall then know that these are the same thing. Fully to enjoy is to glorify. In commanding us to glorify Him, God is inviting us to enjoy Him.”

So, we bring our experience of beauty to its full experience by sharing it with others. We grow in sharing and in others sharing with us. In the telling others about the God we love, we bring Him more glory, but we also grow in our love for Him!

The picture above was my view this past Saturday morning. Camp Sumatanga is a place where I often find myself when I have time to be alone. Saturday was special. I had time, there was no one there, and the weather was perfect. I just sat, read through some psalms, and worshipped.

It was wonderful, this introvert needed the time of refueling, but I felt the need to share it. I was experiencing glory and beauty and didn’t want to keep it to myself. I want to simply suggest something…if you find that you are growing stagnant, maybe you are doing all the right things, but still you feel dry…it could be that you are not sharing the experience with anyone. To share it, to get others to enjoy with us, it to fully experience it!

We’ve walked through Isaiah 53 and this week I’ve backed up to where I should have started in Isaiah 52:13-15. So far we’ve look at verses 13 and 14, but let’s close by looking at the rest of verse 15,

“Kings shall shut their mouths because of him; for that which has not been told them they shall see, and that which they have not heard they understand.”

Here we find the Amazing Return of the King. Some differ as to whom the writer is referring in this passage—it could be that Isaiah is looking forward to the Jews who would reject Jesus as their Messiah and this is a further reference to their astonishment over His crucifixion, but I am inclined to see this as a look forward to Jesus’ return. There is coming a day when Jesus will come back and every knee will bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue will confess Him as Lord.

When He comes everyone will be speechless because there will be nothing to say—the things we value on earth will melt away in the presence of His Glory. The ones we look up to as being great will seem pitifully small when you see the King of kings and the Lord of lords. Gentile and Jew, Christian and Muslim, man and woman, believer and atheist will be overwhelmed at the glory of the returning King. Money, fame, power, and popularity will no longer matter because you will be in the presence of the Famous One—the Omnipotent One, the Creator of heaven and earth.

At the moment we stand before God we will either stand on our own merit or we will stand in the merit of Christ. For those who stand in their own merit there will be those who thought Jesus was just a way to God, some will think He was just a good teacher, some will think Hewas just an outdated figure in history and they will be forever be reminded of their eternal mistake. Others will know that He was who He said He was, but they never bothered to respond or they were just too busy or they were just indifferent. Can you imagine the moment when life is gone and eternity is before you? The only thing that will matter at that moment is what you have done with Jesus.

For those who stand before God in Christ John says we have an advocate with the Father. There on Judgment Day Jesus will plead on our behalf and He will plead for justice. Justice because there is no double jeopardy with God—He will not hold anyone accountable to the sin for which Jesus has paid. For those of us who have bowed the knee to Jesus. For those of us to whom the arm of the Lord has been revealed we will spend an eternity rejoicing in the salvation of our Lord. For us, the moment of Jesus’ return or the moment of our death is not something to dread—it is the great moment for which we long. The reason is we will not face God still in our sin—we will stand before God with PAID IN FULL stamped across every single sin.

Yesterday we stopped at three words in Isaiah 52:14-15. Let’s look at three words—astonished, marred, and sprinkle.

The word astonished speaks of their reaction to Jesus while He was on the earth. They didn’t look at Jesus and ask, “Is this the Son of God,” rather, He was so beaten that they were more likely to ask, “Is this human?” (Ortlund) Have you ever seen someone who had been sick for a while and had so changed since the last time you saw them that you were astonished? I remember walking into a hospital room one time to see someone I hadn’t seen in a long time—they were sleeping, but I walked out and went to the nurse’s desk to make sure it was them—sickness had totally changed their appearance. I was astonished and that is how many viewed Jesus because of the next word.

“His appearance was so marred, beyond human semblance, and his form beyond that of the children of mankind…” One commentator said, “His degradation was the deepest possible, so His glorification would be the loftiest kind!” We will spend a lot more time on the marring of Jesus’ body in the next few weeks, but think of what the flogging and the beating and the crucifixion did to His body. Today, instead of looking at the actual marring, I want to ask why He did it. The next word helps us understand they question of why.

“So shall he sprinkle many nations…” The phrases of 14 and 15 are connected with two little words, “as” and “so.” As many were astonished so shall he sprinkle…with those two words the writer connects the crucifixion of Jesus with the result of the crucifixion. As repulsive as He was so was His effectiveness and power in redeeming us. The word “sprinkle” takes us back to the OT priest.

The priest would sprinkle blood on the veil, on the side of the altar, and on the Mercy Seat. They would sprinkle water for cleansing and oil for anointing. I think a great picture for us in found in Leviticus 14—the LORD spoke to Moses and told him that when a leprous person came before the priest on the day of his cleansing he would take two clean birds, cedarwood, scarlet yarn, and hyssop to the priest. The priest would kill one bird and mix its blood in fresh water and dip the rest of the things in the water and then he would sprinkle it on the man seven times and then let the live bird fly free and pronounce the man clean.

The leper who had been banished from his family would be restored to the community—we need to see this because when Isaiah says Jesus would sprinkle many nations he is talking about how Jesus would justify an ungodly people. Without the shedding of blood there can be no forgiveness of sin so Jesus was marred beyond recognition so that He could sprinkle us with His blood and restore us to His community. You and I were ungodly—we were spiritual lepers—outside of the camp and under the wrath of God, but Jesus was our substitute and He has set us free. He is the Promised Servant and He is the Crucified Savior.

We’ve studied Isaiah 53 for a few weeks, but let’s back up and look at Isaiah 52:13-15.

“Behold, my servant shall act wisely; he shall be high and lifted up, and shall be exalted. 14 As many were astonished at you—his appearance was so marred, beyond human semblance, and his form beyond that of the children of mankind—15 so shall he sprinkle many nations. Kings shall shut their mouths because of him, for that which has not been told them they see, and that which they have not heard they understand.”

The prophet Isaiah ministered in Judah during the reign of five kings—the first king of his ministry was Uzziah and the last was Hezekiah’s son Manasseh. Uzziah and Hezekiah were for the most part good kings, but Manasseh was called the wickedest of all the kings and tradition tells us that he killed Isaiah by sawing him in half. During Isaiah’s days Israel, the Northern Kingdom, was destroyed by Assyria and Babylon was on the rise.

Isaiah prophesied of a coming King and a coming Servant and on this side of the cross we know that Jesus fulfilled both positions. As we come to 52:13 and chapter 53 we come to the most Gospel centered passage in the Old Testament. Isaiah has been wrestling with the question—How will a holy God forgive and rescue a people whom He has charged with rebellion? In other words, how will God justify the ungodly? That is the question for the ages isn’t it? How can a holy God justify the ungodly?

700 years before Jesus walked on the earth God opened Isaiah’s eyes to see the heart of what we now know of as the Gospel. Isaiah 52:13-53:12 bleeds with God’s grace and it shouts to us a central theme—it is the theme of SUBSTITUTION. God would send Someone who would bear our griefs and carry our sorrows. God would send Someone who would be wounded for our transgressions, and crushed for our iniquities and upon whom would be the chastisement that brings us peace. This is the One upon whom God would lay the iniquity of us all—this is the lamb led to the slaughter—this is the One whom it would please the LORD to crush and put to grief so that we might be forgiven and that we might be made righteous.

The first thing we see is the Promised Servant in verse 13,

“Behold, my servant shall act wisely; he shall be high and lifted up, and shall be exalted.”

This is the same servant spoken of in chapter 42—this is the one of whom God said, “Behold my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my Spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations…” But notice what He says about the chosen Servant—He will act wisely, He will be high and lifted up, and he shall be exalted.

“Behold, my servant shall act wisely.” This speaks of what the Servant would accomplish. The wording is simple—it means He will know and do the right thing in order to accomplish His purpose. He will not fail—He will complete what He has set out to do. It is interesting that in Luke 22:35-38 Jesus speaks of the Scripture being fulfilled in Him. In verse 37 He says, “For I tell you that the Scripture must be fulfilled in me: ‘And he was numbered with the transgressors.’ For what is written about me has its fulfillment.” Jesus wasn’t just talking about being crucified between two thieves, but He was pointing us back to Isaiah 53 where in some form or fashion the writer tells that Jesus would be numbered with the transgressors 20 times—he says that specifically in verse 12. Jesus tells us clearly that Isaiah 53 was about Him and He knew what He had come to do. That is why when Philip found the Ethiopian Eunuch reading Isaiah 53 and he asked, “About whom does the prophet say this,” Luke said, “Beginning with this Scripture, he told him the good news about Jesus.”

Isaiah 53 is called the torture chamber of rabbis and I am told (can’t prove it) that they omit this chapter from the synagogue reading because it is so obviously a reference to Jesus, but notice the rest of verse 13—notice what else it says about Jesus. “He shall be high and lifted up and shall be exalted.” This speaks of the Servant’s Identity.

The phrase “high and lifted up” is only used 3 times in the Bible—let’s take a look, Isaiah 6:1, “In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the LORD sitting on a throne, high and lifted up…” Isaiah 57:15, “For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy…” There is also a reference in 33:10 that comes close, “Now I will arise, says the LORD, now I will lift myself up; now I will be exalted.” In chapter 2 the Lord tells us that He will humble the exaltation of man, but He will exalt Himself. So when look at how the words “High and Lifted Up,” and “Exalted” we have to know that the servant is none other than God. Last week we talked about the divinity of Jesus and here we see it spoken of 700 years before He walked the earth. God promised to send His servant and told us that He would know what he was supposed to do and that He would accomplish it and He told us that this Servant would be God.

Verse 13 tells us of the Promised Servant, but verse 14-15a introduces us to the Crucified Savior. “As many were astonished at you—his appearance and his form beyond that of the children of mankind—so shall he sprinkle many nations…” Let’s look at three words—astonished, marred, and sprinkle…tomorrow!

But for now, as we approach Advent, let’s remember that Jesus’ coming was spoken of very clearly in the Prophets…it was planned and it was accomplished.

As we’ve studied Isaiah 53 we’ve seen the delight of the Father and the Atonement of the Son, but let’s look at one more thing—the reward given to Jesus.

We see it woven throughout these three verses—first in verse 10, “…when his soul makes an offering for guilt he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.”

How can One of whom it was said that He would be cut from the land of the living and given a grave see his offspring and prolong his days? The first reward we see in this passage is the resurrection of Jesus! Isaiah spoke of One who would be killed and buried seeing and living—750 years before Jesus walked the earth the prophet saw His resurrection.

Second, in verse 11 we see the satisfaction of Jesus.

“Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied.”

How does Jesus view His work? From the cross He said, “It is finished.” He paid the price and is now satisfied. Jesus doesn’t look back at the cross with regret—He is fully satisfied with it because He did what He set out to do. The writer of Hebrews said it this way, “Who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising its shame…” The one thing Jesus did not have before the cross was us—the will of the Father and the redemption of His children was the joy that was set before Jesus and He is now full of joy because He made the necessary atonement.

Jesus told us that “there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” The one thing I know about the angles in heaven is that their eyes are on the Throne so if they are rejoicing over the sinner who repents you rest assured of this—they are doing nothing more than reflecting the joy of the One who sits on the Throne and is full of the satisfaction of Redemption Accomplished!

Verse 12 closes out with the full statement of the reward of Jesus. Verse 12 carries with it the image of the battlefield where the victorious general returns with the spoil. We saw this in 2 Corinthians 2:14, “But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere.” The first stanza said, “Kings shall shut their mouths because of him…” Isaiah had already said in chapter 9, “For unto us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end on the throne of David and over his kingdom…” This will be done and is being done.

After discussing the cross Paul said, “Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is LORD, to the glory of God the Father.” The writer of Hebrews said of Jesus, “He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.”

Jesus voluntarily poured out his soul to death, Jesus identified with sinners by being numbered with them, and Jesus bore the sin of many and made intercession for them even as He is now making intercession for us. He bore the sin of many, He made many righteous, and He will share the spoil of His victory with many. You and I, those who have come to Him as our substitute, will share in the spoil of His victory and will be with Him for an eternity. Why? Why should we enjoy the glory of heaven when so many others who have rejected him will spend an eternity in hell? It is because of one thing and one thing only—the grace of God. I don’t understand it, but I know this I’ll keep talking about it until the day I die because you and I have no hope apart from it.

Isaiah 53 is a song of substitution, it is a song of atonement, it is a song of grace, and it is a song of victory. Jesus accomplished what He set out to do. God isn’t satisfied by what we do, but He is more than satisfied by what Jesus did. Our ultimate satisfaction should be in what Jesus did for us in His death, burial, and resurrection. The true measure of who you are is found in what delights your soul—if it isn’t Jesus something is dreadfully wrong.

As we consider the atonement found in Isaiah 53:10-12, let’s consider four things about it.

First, He had the knowledge of the need and of what needed to be done.

“…by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous.” Justification is possible because of what the Servant knew and experienced. He knew the need and He knew what needed to be done. This ties in with the first stanza, “Behold, my servant shall act wisely…” Jesus knew what needed to be done, but atonement goes beyond knowledge.

Second, we see His righteousness.

“…by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant.” You and I can know the need, but we can’t do anything about it because even our goodness is like filthy rags. The best we do always comes up short because we have “sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” Righteousness isn’t something we are born with, it isn’t something we earn, and it isn’t something we can accomplish—righteousness is something that is imputed to us. “God made him who knew no sin to be sin so that we might become the righteousness of God.” Jesus was righteous—He was sinless and therefore He was able to do something about our sin.

Third, he was appointed.

“…by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant.” Jesus was the Suffering Servant of Isaiah’s prophecy. He was appointed to atone for our sin.

Fourth, he was our substitute.

“…make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities.” Jesus accomplished the atonement—he paid the price for our sin and therefore God was able to count us as righteous. He bore our iniquities.

So here is the atonement in a nutshell, someone had to know what needed to be done, someone had to be able to do it because he would have to be righteous, and that righteous one had to be willing to be our substitute. Jesus was the lamb who was led to the slaughter so that we could be righteous before God. God put Him to grief so that He could bear our griefs; God crushed Him so that He could carry our sorrows; and God put our sin upon Him so that He could take up the sin, bear the wrath that we deserved, and carry it away. That is the grace of God.

The cross lays a shadow upon the entire OT. Every single sacrifice, every single drop of blood, every single life taken from the animals pointed to the cross of Jesus Christ. Verse 10 says, “When his soul makes an offering for guilt.” Jesus became out guilt offering. When you sinned in the OT you would have to take a spotless animal to the priest—you would lay your hands on that animal signifying that it was a substitute for you and then the priest would sacrifice it and its blood would cover your sin. God took our sin and laid His hands upon Jesus and Jesus became our guilt offering. The spotless lamb was our sacrifice. Jesus’ death satisfied the need of a sinful people and of a holy God.

As I’ve thought about Isaiah 53, I was remembering a time when I heard a statement from a preacher…it really haunted me and haunts me still. He was talking about grace and he said that he didn’t understand it—he couldn’t understand why God would love him. I was with him—I don’t understand how a holy God could love me. I know my sin and I know my unworthiness and I have always found God’s grace to be amazing. I was with the preacher up to that point and then he said something that grieved me to the core of my being—I just can’t get over what he said. He said he didn’t understand grace and then he said, “That’s why I don’t mess with grace.” I was stunned—what do we have if we don’t have grace? I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt, but nothing he said in the rest of the sermon led me to believe that I had heard him wrong—I have to tell you I feel sorry most of all for his people because they are being robbed of the source of our salvation and the source of our relationship with a holy God.

As we turn to the last stanza of Isaiah’s song (53:10-12) we come again to the most Gospel centered passage in the OT. Isaiah is wrestling with a question that you and I must answer—how can a holy God have a relationship with sinful people? Job asked that question…in the midst of his suffering he said, “Truly I know that it is so: But how can a man be in the right before God?” (9:2). We have seen the answer to that question throughout this song, but we specifically saw it in verses 4-6—we saw that we were sinners, that we deserved punishment, and that God punished Jesus in our place. That last thought is developed further in this stanza.

The first thing we see in verse 10 is the delight of God.

“Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him; he has put him to grief.” I think the KJV and NASB say it better, “But the LORD was pleased to crush him.” It delighted Him to do it because the death of Jesus was not a human plot—it was a divine strategy that was planned before time began. God made us knowing that He would have to redeem us and He also knew that the only means of redemption was substitution. The heart of God is revealed in this passage—He was pleased to crush His Son and to put Him to grief. He willingly paid the cost so that we could see His glory, so that we could be forgiven, and so that we could worship Him.

It pleased the Father to crush Him—”crush” is the same word we saw in verse 5. It speaks of being torn apart and being mangled. The first stanza of this song spoke of the Servant’s appearance being marred beyond human semblance and his form beyond that of the children of mankind. I cannot stress it enough that this goes beyond what man did to Jesus—we need to see that the Jews didn’t kill Jesus, the Romans didn’t kill Jesus, Pilate didn’t kill Jesus, we didn’t kill Jesus—God the Father killed Him. The Father crushed Him and put Him to grief because He treated Him as our substitute.

God gave Jesus the wrath we deserved.

“For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die—but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

That is the grace of God! God crushed Jesus and that saves us from the wrath of God and reconciles us. I am going to come back to the second half of verse 10 in a moment, but let’s move down to verse 11 and be reminded of the means by which God reconciles us.

“Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities.”

Here we find The Atonement. In fact one commentator said, “Isaiah 53:11 is one of the fullest statements of atonement theology ever penned.” Let’s save the first statement for the next point, but look at the next three lines tomorrow and see what was required and involved in the atonement of Jesus.

On the Cross God fulfilled His word, he accomplished what He set out to do. But what did Jesus do? He made actual atonement for our sin. I would suggest, He didn’t make “potential” atonement, but “actual” atonement. Isaiah 53 had a huge impact on Peter. He wrote about in 1 Peter 2:21-25,

“For to this you have been called, because Jesus Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.”

Who was Jesus? He was God. What did He do? He suffered and died for your sins. Now, for the third question, Why does it matter? It matters because He made atonement for you so that you could die to sin and erase all that stands between you and God, and so that you could for the first time in your life—live in righteousness. Jesus makes all the difference and the One who was led like a lamb to the slaughter is now the Shepherd and Overseer of your soul…

On any given Sunday morning, we come to the Table and we remember the Lamb who was slain, but we also remember that John saw the Lamb standing, as though it has been slain, with seven horns and with seven eyes, which are the spirits of God sent out into all the earth…and this same Lamb is the One to whom the elders are singing a new song saying,

“Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth.”

So at the Table we remember what He has done and we wait in anticipation for what He is going to so soon and until that time we follow Him as our Shepherd.

Yesterday we started looking at the illegal trials of Jesus…Annas, Caiaphas, but we today we pick up with Pilate. They can’t sentence Jesus to death, but Pilate can. Pilate is the Roman in charge and he is on a short leash—Caesar has chastised him for not being able to keep the Jews in line and you can tell three things about Pilate:

(1) He believes Jesus is innocent (38, 19:4 and 6) and

(2) you can tell he wants nothing to do with Jesus—he was warned by his wife to leave him alone and he tries to do it over and over again—he sends Him to Herod, He gives the crowd a choice between Jesus and Barabbas, and finally in verse 38 he says, “I find no fault in him.”

The (3) final thing you see is he is a coward. He found no fault, but the Jews hold Caesar over him and he delivers Jesus, an innocent man, over to be crucified to save his job and his own neck. Jewish law was violated and Roman law was manipulated and Jesus was led away just like Isaiah said he would be—“By oppression and judgment he was taken away.”

The next line leads us to the next point—, remember this week we’ve looked at the spiritual and physical agony of Jesus, we’ve looked at the response of Jesus, but here we see the execution of Jesus.

“And as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people?”

Not one person bothered to stop and ask why Jesus was being crucified. Not when He lived out Isaiah 53, not when He quoted Psalm 22 which described the scene going on around Him—they completely disregarded Him and refused to ask—“Could this be the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53?” They simply watched, called out for His crucifixion, asked for His blood to be on their heads, and mocked Him as he was “cut off out of the land of the living.”

The word “cut off” has an unbroken record of violence in the Bible—literally it speaks of being hacked and killed. No one noticed, but there is a reason for that. You and I will never see the value of the Cross until we first see our own sin. The moment that, by God’s grace, we see our sin and know that we need a Redeemer is the moment we will treasure the Cross above all other things—that is the moment Jesus will become more precious than silver, more costly than gold, and more beautiful than diamonds and nothing, absolutely nothing, will compare with Him.

The final verse speaks of (e) the burial of Jesus. “And they made his grave with the wicked.” It is amazing to see the detail of prophecy—he was assigned a grave with the wicked—Rome would crucify a man and then as a final act of humiliation they would throw the body into a common grave. There was a common grave with Jesus and the two thieves’ name on it, but Isaiah said, “and with a rich man in his death.” What do we find in the Gospels? A rich man by the name of Joseph of Arimathea—up to that time a secret disciple—went to Pilate and asked for His body and placed him in the grave he had dug for himself.

Pilate, no doubt, agreed as a slap in the face of the Jews, but what Pilate didn’t understand was that every single event of Jesus death, burial, and eventual resurrection was predetermined by God and foretold by Isaiah and many others in the pages of the OT. On the Cross, as horrible as it was, God fulfilled His Word. Tomorrow we will continue to see what He did there on the Cross as He suffered and died.

Yesterday we turned to Isaiah 53:7-9 with this question in mind, “What did Jesus do?” Last week we saw the first six verses tell us who He was, but what did He do? I shared with you the spiritual agony and physical agony of Jesus. We often focus on the physical, but I’m not sure we adequately give thought to the spiritual agony He experienced the entire time He walked this earth.

We also saw the response of Jesus, “He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth.” When we are abused verbally what do we want to do? We want to fight back, but Jesus didn’t do that.

When He was insulted and abused with words—he didn’t respond in the flesh. He did not revile in return when He was accused by the religious leaders, not when the guards spit on Him, not when they mocked Him—not before Herod, not before Pilate, and not before the religious leaders. He opened not His mouth because He knew why He was there—He knew that this was the reason He came to the earth!

They put the cross on his back and forced Him to carry it—a lamb being led to slaughter—he speaks to the daughters of Jerusalem, but never utters a word as they strip Him, never utters a word as they nail His hands, never utters a word as they nail His feet, never utters a word as they mock Him as He hangs on the cross, never utters a word as the two men on either side mock Him, and then for the first time He speaks from the cross and He says, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” His next words are to the thief who had been mocking Him, “Today you will be with me in paradise.” Then He speaks to take care of His mother. Then He cries the cry of mystery, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”

He suffered, He was reviled, He was threatened and yet He never reacted in the flesh. Lambs are led to the slaughter and the shearer not knowing what is going on—they just go uncomprehendingly, but Jesus knew what was going on and still He went. “Amazing love—how can it be that Thou my God would die for me!” What did Jesus do? He suffered and died for us.

Before we move to verses 8 and 9 I want to invite you to turn over to John 18. Let me set the scene—Jesus has shared the Passover with the disciples, washed their feet, sang with them, gone to the garden and he has been betrayed by Judas. You come to 18:12 and you see the first of several illegal trials—He is taken to the house of Annas—Annas is the father in law of the High Priest, but he is the real power in Jerusalem. He is over the temple sales and he hates Jesus. They try him, but they have to take him to Caiaphas to have him executed. Caiaphas is the High Priest appointed by Rome and he is the one who said, “It is better for you that one man should die for the people, not that the whole nation should perish.” Let me just say it this way—Jesus is not going to get a fair trial—the outcome is already determined by two very powerful men and they hate Him—that is the outcome on the fleshly level, but on a Spiritual level it was determined long before time began!

At Caiaphas’ home Jesus is tried illegally—first, Jewish law demanded that trials were to be in the day, second, the High Priest was not to speak—he carried too much power and influence, and third, the person on trial was not to be questioned—the case was to be based on the evidence of witnesses. Finally, the trial and sentence was not to be on the same day. They break all of this. They find Jesus guilty and sentence Him to death, but they cannot carry out the deed so they take him to Pilate. Let’s look at him tomorrow.

Let’s continue studying Isaiah 53 and look at verses 7-9. A while back I sat down for lunch with a friend. The waitress had already served the food and when she came by to ask us if we needed anything we began to talk to her about church. It wasn’t long before she sat down next to me and listened as my friend asked her three questions—1) Who was Jesus?

2) What did He do?

3) Why does that matter?

She had no difficulty answering the first two, but she struggled with the third. Isaiah lived 700+ years before Jesus walked the earth and yet he tells us who Jesus was, he tells us what Jesus did, and he tells us why it matters.

We come to the fourth of a five stanza poem and it is here that Isaiah tells us of the final events of Jesus’ life. It is almost as if Isaiah was standing in the crowd watching Jesus’ trial, watching Jesus’ crucifixion, and watching Jesus’ burial. 750 years before Jesus walked the earth Isaiah perfectly describes the events of Good Friday.

In the first stanza we saw the answer to the first question—who was Jesus—He was God, but today we see what Jesus did. He suffered and He died for our sin. Last week I told you that each verse built upon the previous verse and that is certainly true in verses 6 and 7. In verse 6 he compares us to the sheep that have gone astray, but here he compares Jesus to the lamb that is led to the slaughter. Look at the detail of Isaiah—“He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth…” Once again the prophet uses words of violence. The word oppressed speaks of being under an overwhelming weight—of being crushed and treated harshly. It is the same word used in Exodus for the Egyptian taskmasters…Jesus was physically and spiritually brutalized.

You see the (a) spiritual agony in the Garden where Matthew and Mark tell us, “And going a little farther he fell on his face…” and Luke tells us that he literally was in such agony that he sweated drops of blood as he fell to the ground. You see the spiritual agony at its highest point when He cries out, “My God, My God why have you forsaken me?”

You also see (b) the physical agony as he is hit, beaten with rods, scourged, crowned with a crown of thorns, and crucified. Jesus was oppressed beyond our imaginations, but Isaiah said he was also “afflicted.” This takes oppression just a little further—He was punished so severely that he literally was bowed to the ground and not able to get up. Think of Jesus carrying His cross and being so physically weak that He falls to the ground—the Romans made Simon carry His cross for Him. He was oppressed and he was afflicted, but how did He respond?

You also see (c) the response of Jesus. “Yet he opened not his mouth.” Think of that! You and I can hardly suffer one single misspoken word without defending ourselves, but Jesus, the Perfect One, suffered and never once defended Himself. The only time Jesus ever spoke in response to the accusations of the religious leaders was to keep mistruth from being spoken. The times that He did speak only infuriated the religious leaders all the more.

Jesus went like a “lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,” and even then He did not open His mouth. Jesus did what was right and yet He suffered like no one has ever suffered. The One who never sinned suffered more than anyone has ever suffered and He did it for us.

That’s what Jesus did! Worship Him!!

In Isaiah 53:4-6 we have seen two things…first, we have all sinned; second, sin must be punished; but today I get to share the good news of the Gospel, God punished Jesus in our place.

That leads us to the third point, God punished Jesus in our place.

Notice the pronouns of our passage—He has born our griefs and carried our sorrows.

He was wounded for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities.

Upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace. With His stripes we are healed. The LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.

If you had lived in Jesus’ day and happened to come to Jerusalem the day Jesus was crucified—you would have been more likely would not have seen Him as God. First, He was nailed to a cross between two terrible men. That alone would have caused you to think that He was one of them. Second, He was beaten beyond recognition—that would have led you to think he was worse than them. Third, if you were a Jew you would know that anyone hanging on a tree was cursed—surely this man was cursed by God. The words, “Yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted” are violent words. It is as if Isaiah is saying—we saw him there and God Himself struck Him violently.

But mere appearances rarely tell the whole story. You see Isaiah said, “Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows…” These words when used together mean the Suffering Servant took up our sin, placed them upon Himself, and carried them away. Jesus became our sin bearer. He was punished in our place. This is how we are forgiven—this is the means by which our sin is atoned. There is no other way.

Verses 4-6 speak of Jesus’ sufferings—we can take five adjectives to describe it.

First, they were severe. He was wounded—a better word is the word pierced. He was crushed—the word literally means to be torn apart—to be mangled. He was scourged—by His stripes…His suffering was severe.

Second, they were diverse—he suffered physically, but he also suffered emotionally—He was betrayed, He was denied, He was deserted by His friends, and He was mocked by those who just days earlier had shouted Hosanna at His coming. He also suffered spiritually—“My God, My God, why have you forsaken me.”

Third, His sufferings were fatal. “Like a lamb that is led to the slaughter.”

Fourth, his sufferings were punishment—“the chastisement.” God punished Jesus in our place. He bore the punishment that we deserved.

Fifth, his sufferings were substitutionary. Jesus said He would give up his life as a ransom for many. He stood in our place.

Look at the end of verse 6, “And the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” The LORD struck Him violently. Albert Martin said you and I will never truly understand the Cross until we get beyond what man did to Him. We often think of what the Romans did or of what the Jews did or of what we did to Jesus on the cross, but to get to the heart of the Cross you and I must go deeper—we must go to the invisible realm where the Father laid our iniquity on His Son and was pleased to put Him to grief so that our sin could be atoned.

Neither the Jews nor the Romans were in charge of the events of the crucifixion—those events had been planned before time began and nothing would stand in the way. In the Garden when Jesus said, “I am He” the guards fell to the ground—do you think they could have taken Him if He did not allow it? The One who spoke the world into existence with legions of angels at his beck and call—do you think the Romans could have nailed the nails if He had not allowed it? Jesus told Pilate, “You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given to you from above.” Jesus was in total control of the events.

There was a moment on the cross when everything went dark—most believe that was the moment God poured our His wrath on His Son and Jesus paid the price—the curtain of the temple was torn in two and Jesus said gave up His spirit and died. They didn’t take His life—He was the creator of life. They didn’t take it—He gave it.

Why did He endure such suffering? Why did He do it? The love of the Father secured our Atonement and there was no other way. You see there had to be someone who could identifywith sinners, there had to be someone who could meet the requirements of God, and there had to be someone who would be willing to be our substitute…that One was God who became a man and identified with our suffering, He met the requirements because He was perfect, and He stood in our place and took bore our sin. How could you not worship Him?

Perhaps the greatest expression of worship outside of the Word of God is Handel’s Messiah. Handle composed it in 23 days…I read that in those 23 days he hardly ate. People would bring him food and come back hours later and find it untouched. He just sat there at the piano composing as if he were inspired by God. One of his friends dropped by to see him and found him putting the words of verse 4 to music and there he was seated at his piano weeping into his hand, “Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.”

He bore our griefs and carried our sorrows and gave us His joy.

He was wounded for our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities and He gave us forgiveness.

He was punished in our place and brought us peace—He made peace between those who were at war.

He was striped so that we could be healed. His physical stripes brought us spiritual healing.

I gave you five points about Jesus’ suffering, but let me give you one more—His suffering was successful! Jesus accomplished what He set out to do! Jesus atoned for sin upon the cross by taking our iniquity and by giving us His righteousness. Hallelujah, What a Savior!

Yesterday was our first look at Isaiah 53:4-6 we saw the gospel truth that Paul affirms in Romans, we have all sinned. Today, let’s look at the second point, sin must be punished. You and I have strayed from God—we were made to delight in God and we were made to desire Him above all other things, but sin turns our eyes off of God and onto self. We were made in the image of God, but that image was marred when Adam and Eve fell—it was so marred that Paul said, “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.”

We make light of sin—we change the words to make it look better, but God never makes light of sin. When Adam and Eve committed sin against Him—He removed them from the Garden. The people of Noah’s day grew so wicked that when the LORD looked upon them he found that “The wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” He sent a flood to wipe them all from the face of the earth. When Sodom’s wickedness grew God sent fire from heaven. When Israel continued in wickedness God sent Babylon and when they continued in sin even after He brought them back, He sent the Romans to utterly destroy their city and their temple. God hates sin and the Bible says the wages of sin is death. It must be punished—there is no greater evidence of the fact that sin must be punished than in the reality of a place called hell and in the fulfillment of this passage—the Cross of Jesus Christ. If you want to see the love of God—look to the Cross. If you want to see the wrath of God—look to the Cross.

God is holy and His holiness demands that we be holy. The moment He ignores sin, the moment He allows sin to just wash under the throne of Judgment is the moment God would cease to be holy and thereby He would cease to be God. No, His holiness demands that He punish sin because it is Cosmic Treason.

A while back I heard an Anglican Bishop say, “The first step on the road to heaven is to know that we by nature are on the road to hell.”If you know that you are a sinner there is hope because that means God has revealed that to you.If you know that you are on the road to hell there is hope because that means that, by God’s grace, you might be given eyes to see the solution to your dilemma. What is the solution? How can a sinful person be justified? I’ll share that tomorrow.

We turn again to Isaiah 53—the most Gospel centered passage in the OT. Isaiah’s poem begins in 52:13 and continues through 53:12 and all 15 verses literally bleed with grace. It is here that we see the Suffering Servant promised 700 years before Jesus walked the earth. Every single verse with the exception of verse 2 is either quoted by the Jesus or the NT writers in reference to Jesus. This is the song of substitution describing how sinners can be made right with a holy God. The song has five stanzas and the one that they all point to is our stanza for the next few days—verses 4-6.

Every verse builds upon the other—each word carries with it the echo of the word before and all 15 verses of this song point out three things that I want us to study for the next three days.

First, we are sinners. Paul said it this way, “For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” In Isaiah we see the theme repeated over and over again—

● transgressions and iniquities in verse 5,

● gone astray and turned in verse 6,

● transgressions mentioned again in verse 8,

● wicked in verse 9,

●guilt in verse 10, iniquities in verse 11, and

● transgressors and sin in verse 12. We are sinners and we are guilty and we are cut off from God.

The word transgression speaks of willful rebellion—of revolt. We like Adam and Eve have all willfully revolted against our Maker and we have all committed Cosmic Treason. The word iniquity speaks of perversion,

we have perverted God’s gifts and used them for our own glory;

we have perverted God’s Word and made it all about our happiness;

we have even perverted the worship of God by worshiping the created things rather than the Creator.

Verse 6 says, “All we like sheep have gone astray…” that is, every man and every woman that has ever been born has gone astray, but we can’t just get lost in the flock. WE can’t say, “Well that is just humans being human…” No, Isaiah goes on to say, “…we have turned—every one—to his own way.” There is not one person in this room who has not willfully rebelled against God and the moment you did that three things happened.

We find those three things in the Garden when Adam and Eve sinned against God. God made them and as the Creator He has the right to tell us what to do. Every man made religion is an attempt to throw off God’s expectations and to create our own way, but we can’t escape the fact—God made us and has the right to tell us what to do and how to live. The moment Adam and Eve sinned they (1) died spiritually. That is why Paul said we are “dead in our sins.” A person outside of Jesus is spiritually dead. (2) they began to die physically. We die physically because of sin, but sin did one more thing to Adam and Eve—just as it did to us, (3) they were separated from God. The moment Adam and Eve sinned they died spiritually, they began to die physically, and they were separated from God and because of their sin every son of Adam and every daughter of Eve is born spiritually dead, they are born moving toward physical death, and they are separated from God. That is the plight of every single human—the great question Isaiah wrestles with and the question Paul wrestles with in Romans is how can sinful people be brought back into a relationship with a holy God? That leads us to our second point…we will look at that tomorrow.

As we come to Isaiah 53 we saw yesterday that they saw Jesus as nothing and unfortunately many today see Him as nothing today. So how did we come to see things differently? How do we see the picture within the picture? That’s the second question of verse 1, “And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?” This question implies not a statement of shock—it implies a statement of Grace!

“The arm of the LORD” is God himself. It is the power of God that stretches out and delivers. We see it throughout the book of Isaiah. God has promised to deliver and now in our chapter He is telling them that their deliverance will come in the Person of Jesus Christ.

God has revealed Himself to us in His Word and through the Person of Jesus. If you have believed in Jesus Christ it is because God has revealed Him to you. If He had not revealed Him—you would still reject Him. If you think you were smart enough or good enough to figure the Gospel out you are sadly mistaken. Many saw Jesus, many today still hear of Him and read His words, but they reject Him and that is because you cannot believe Him without the revelation of God.

His hand moves in and through your life and suddenly as if it reaches up and slaps you across the face you know what the preacher is saying is true. You’ve read the verse a hundred times, you heard the story more times than you could count—your mom, your SS Teacher, the preacher plead with you and urged you to come to Jesus, but you were just sitting there staring at a picture and you couldn’t see what they saw, but then one day it became clear—you saw your sin, you saw His grace, you knew you needed Him and you called out for salvation. You didn’t do anything different—you just suddenly saw what they had been seeing all along. Why did you see it? Why did you suddenly see Him for who He is? It was the grace of God—He revealed it to you.

It was grace that led God to create us knowing that we would reject Him.

It was grace that led God to redeem us knowing that He would have to reveal Himself to us before we would ever believe.

It was grace that led God to send His Son to live among us and to die for us knowing that every fiber of our being would be opposed to Him.

It was grace that led God to speak life to you when you were dead in your sin.

It was grace that led God to adopt you.

It is because of grace that God loved you before you were born, before you had done one single thing good or bad—God determined in eternity past to love you and to save you and that my friend is nothing but grace.

It is the amazing grace of God that we that we who were blind now see, that we who were lost are now found, and that we who were without God and without hope and under wrath are now in God with hope and counted righteous in Christ.

It is all grace and nothing but grace. Are you His child? I think a great measurement for us is simply this—are you overwhelmed by His grace? I am not sure a man or woman can be saved and not be overwhelmed by the grace of God who did Isaiah 53….

Botticelli, “Adoration of the Magi”

Yesterday we started looking at Isaiah 53 and considering why Jesus came to the earth. Let’s continue, He grew up as “a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground.” The One who spoke trees and earth into existence—the One who made it all out of nothing became earthly in His appearance. He just looked like one of us. “He had no form or majesty that we should look at him and no beauty that we should desire him.” This speaks of His outward impression. The One who enjoyed the complete adoration and worship of the angels entered this world, which He made, and took upon Himself a form that did not cause you to take a second glance.

If you were to walk by Jesus in a crowd you probably wouldn’t stop and take notice. He wasn’t the kind of man who would adorn the covers of our magazines. He wouldn’t be voted among the most beautiful. You would expect there to be a “majesty” about Him, but Philippians says “he made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.”

“He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised…” This speaks of the human reception of Him. Notice He was despised—Isaiah says that twice, and He was rejected. He was rejected by the religious leaders—they thought He was a heretic. He was rejected by His family—they came to get Him because they thought He was out of His mind. He was rejected by the people of His day and He is still for the most part rejected by the people of our day. He worked miracles and they wanted more signs. He taught them and they misunderstood Him. He finally hung on a cross for them and they mocked Him. While most people would not be so brazen as to say it their view of Jesus is like that expressed by Kathy Griffin who upon winning an Emmy in 2007 said something along the lines of many people get up and thank Jesus for their award, but “This award has nothing to do with Jesus” and she gave credit to herself. He is still despised, and rejected.

When He speaks of Jesus being a “man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” he isn’t talking about His own sorrow or His own grief—he is talking about the fact that Jesus would take upon Himself our sorrow and our grief. This is laid for us in verse 4, but we will get to that next week.

The final thing Isaiah says about Jesus is that “he was despised and we esteemed him not.” This moves beyond our impression of Him and our reception of Him—this is the sum of the world’s view of Jesus. It is an accounting term—the majority of men and women of the past and present have reckoned the value of Jesus with the human eye and the human perspective and they have added it all up and come to the number ZERO. He is worth nothing in their estimation. The truth of the matter is sobering—human minds are so corrupted that every avenue they take to try to arrive at a proper estimation of Jesus comes to a dead end. This shows us just how sinful we are—this reveals our spiritual bankruptcy—God came to us and we saw Him as nothing.

How do you see Him? Is the all-glorious and most beautiful One? Keep looking at Isaiah 53 and see just how beautiful He becomes!!

I’ve been writing about the Psalms for a while, but let’s shift gears. As we get closer to Christmas…108 days!, I want to help us remember why He came and there is no better place for that than Isaiah 53.

Have you ever seen one of those pictures that you are supposed to stare into for a while and then you’ll see another image? I hate those pictures because I can never see what I am supposed to see. Not seeing it doesn’t bother me because I am not convinced there is really anything in there, but what really bothers me is that those of you who can see it can’t believe that I can’t see it. When I get around one of those pictures I feel persecuted…maybe ever discriminated against because I’m not in the “in-crowd” of those who can see the image!

With those pictures I’m on the outside looking in, but when it comes to seeing Jesus for who He is I can understand what those of you who can see the image feel—I see Him for who He is and I just can’t understand why other people can’t see it. As I read the Bible I just don’t understand why men and women can’t see that Jesus is the Beautiful One. I can’t understand why they can’t see that Jesus is God and that He is worthy of my unadulterated worship. It baffles me that anyone would not give it all to follow Him because I have seen Him in His glory and I have felt His love and I have experienced His grace and He is all to me.

The Bible isn’t like the picture at the top…it really isn’t about how I see it or how you see it…there is a focus, a meaning, and it all points to Jesus. As we come to Isaiah 53 we come to the most Gospel centered passage in the Old Testament. This chapter bleeds the Gospel and it bleeds the Grace of God. Every single verse in this chapter with the exception of verse 2 is quoted or referred to by either Jesus or the NT writers. When Jesus walked on the earth there always people who wondered who He was—when He told a woman that her sins were forgiven the Pharisees said, “Who is this, who even forgives sins?” When Herod heard of Jesus he said, “John I beheaded, but who is this about whom I hear such things?” When He spoke to a storm and calmed the wind and the waves the disciples asked, “Who then is this, that he commands even the winds and water, and they obey him?” When He rode into Jerusalem riding the colt the whole city was stirred up saying, “Who is this?” It is a great question—Who is Jesus?

The clear teaching of the New Testament is this…Jesus is God—He is high and lifted up and exalted. He came the first time in the Incarnation, but He is coming back and when He comes back every one will be astonished—there will be many who have not heard about Jesus because no one told them and yet when He comes they will be speechless. At the return of Jesus one thing will be certain—He is God and He is worthy of worship, but as we turn to chapter 53 we are confronted with two questions. The questions are questions, but the implied answer shouts out two facts to us.

First we see the question, “Who has believed what he has heard from us?” For those of us who have seen the glory of Jesus and worshiped Him the answer to this question is shocking. This is a statement of shock—not many people believe. Jesus said, “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.” Now make no mistake—the number that Jesus classifies as “few” is a number that John saw in Revelation and said no man could count. There will be many who will join Jesus in the new heaven and on the new earth, but that number is few when compared to the many that reject Him.

Why do they reject Him? Verses 2 and 3 answer that for us by giving us a verbal portrait of Jesus. Let’s run through the portrait and notice several things Isaiah says about Jesus.

First, “For he grew up before Him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground.” “He grew up before Him.” This speaks of the humility of His incarnation. Jesus enjoyed an eternal fellowship with God as the second member of the Godhead. Paul said He was in the very form God—He did not count equality with God as a thing to be grasped—it was His—He was God and yet He became a man and as a man He grew up before God. The God of glory stepped out of heaven and entered the womb of a virgin girl and was born. The One who holds the world in His hand became an infant dependent upon His creation to nurse Him and to change His diapers. He grew up before God as a man even though He was totally God.

We will continue to study this incredible chapter, but let me challenge you to ponder the Incarnation…JI Packer said, “It is here, in the thing that happened at the first Christmas, that the profoundest and most unfathomable depths of the Christian revelation lie. ‘The Word became flesh’ (John 1:14); God became man; the divine Son became a Jew; the Almighty appeared on earth as a helpless baby, unable to do more than lie and stare and wriggle and make noises…”. Why? why did He come and go through that? Isaiah 53 tells us.

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In Psalm 119 verse 54 we find, “Your statutes have been my songs in the house of my sojourning.” I love what Lig Duncan said, he said this verse gives us lyrics for our journey home. God has supplied the lyrics for our journey through life. We must not only hope in the word, live through the law, resolve to keep the law, meditate on the law, be governed by it, but we must also learn to sing the Word of God. The hymns, psalms, and spiritual songs are to be used by the people of God as they walk through life…especially in the midst of affliction.

Paul and Silas in prison singing praises to God. Bonhoeffer urged his students to sing. When he came to the states and found very little in terms of theology that moved him, but one thing that did move him was the Spirituals sung in the African American churches. He took them back to Germany with him and played them for his students.

Songs written and sung by a people in the midst of great affliction. We can learn from our African American brothers and sisters…they have suffered much and yet they sang and worshiped. Biblical people are a singing people.

The last thing we find in in the last two verses, “I remember your name in the night O LORD, and keep your law. This blessing has fallen to me, and I have kept your precepts.” We must obey the Word of God. We find the idea of meditation again, in the watches of the night, but we read it, study it, memorize it, and mediate upon it and it is all for naught if we don’t obey it.

Notice what he says—he is in affliction, but when he obeys God’s Word blessings fall upon him. There isn’t a word about being out of the affliction, but we must know we can know blessing in the affliction. Only in God can this be true, but we praise Him in the midst of it, we sing, we obey Him, and His comfort comes, His presence is felt, and we worship Him and we are blessed…even in the midst of sorrow and affliction.

Let me close with a little video. Many of you have seen it before, but Wintley Phipps is a pastor and Gospel Singer. He told the story of the black spirituals and then he talked about the most famous of the White Spirituals…the song, Amazing Grace. He said that the earliest renditions of the song list the words by John Newton and the music as unknown. Our hymnal attaches a name to it, but the earliest versions just list it as unknown. He said that he thought Amazing Grace was written by Newton to a West African Slave Chant that he would have heard as a slave trader. He said imagine slave at the bottom of the ship, in tight quarters, groaning out this chant…watch this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtCTkLaBc9Q

In Psalm 119:52, we find we must meditate on God’s Word. “When I think of your rules from of old, I take comfort, O LORD.” In verse 49 he asked God to remember, and now he is promising to remember. It is the same word, but the ESV tries to bring out the meaning of how to remember, “When I think of your rules.” This is meditation…it is what we find in verse 55, “I remember your name in the night, O LORD,” and verse 62, “At midnight I rise to praise you.”

When he was in the midst of affliction, when he couldn’t sleep, when he was awake in the day…he thought of God’s Word. He meditated on it. The reflection brought comfort to him even in the suffering.

It is amazing what will happen when we will simply take the time to memorize the Word, and then allow the Holy Spirit to bring those verses to our mind and as they come to the mind we just think, chew on it, and find comfort.

Then, in verse 53, we govern our life by the Word of God. “Hot indignation seizes me because of the wicked, who forsake your law.” We are tempted to get angry with other people’s sin and to treat our own with grace. We must deal severely with our own sin, but the Word of God must also dictate how we view the world.

Every action must be judged within the context of God’s Word. Here it would seem the psalmist is reacting to flagrant, wanton, or brazen rejection of God’s law. You don’t have to look hard to find it in our own culture, but we have to be consistent.

The Word is our guide and we must see everything through its lens. It is amazing how we will ignore sin if the one doing it brings a profit to our account. It is amazing how we will ignore sin if the person doing it represents our team, our political party, or our family. Do you know what I mean?

I’ve mentioned this before, but the same church that was ready to hang one president over his marital infidelities will excuse another’s. One fan base will get worked up over the opposing coach’s actions on the sidelines and then excuse their coach when he did and said the same things. One person will be horrified at a young ladies’ actions and then excuse his own daughter who does the same thing. Jesus loved the sinner, but He hated sin and He especially hated the religious leader’s hypocrisy. The psalmist reacted to wicked’s forsaking of the law with hot indignation.

Henry Martyn was a missionary to India. When he saw the perversion of idolatry he said, “I could not bear to go on living if I thought my God’s law would always be so dishonored.” That’s the idea here. Surely, it was this attitude that drove Wilberforce as he fought against slavery and that should drive the church as we fight injustice.

In Psalm 119:49-56, we find that in affliction we must turn to His word and find hope and life...that was the subject of the last two posts, but today I turn your eyes to the psalmist’s third point, we must devote ourselves to His promises. Verse 51, “The insolent utterly deride me, but I do not turn away from your law.” He is resolved to follow God’s law.

Nehemiah was called by God to go to Jerusalem and rebuild the wall around Jerusalem. He met great opposition. So much so that they had to work on the wall with one person guarding and one person laying brick, constantly looking out for attack. The people would come and taunt them, deride them, but they kept working. In 4:14 he said to the people, “Do not be afraid of them. Remember the Lord, who is great and awesome, and fight for your brothers, your sons, your daughters, your wives, and your homes.” He kept their eyes on God. When they were nearing completion the leaders of the opposition came and tried to get him to meet with them, but he said, “I am doing a great work and I cannot come down.” He was resolute, and God did such a work that 6:15ff says, “So the wall was finished on the twenty-fifth day of the month, in fifty-two days. And when all our enemies heard of it all the nations around us were afraid and fell greatly in their own esteem, for they perceived that this work had been accomplished with the help of our God.”

We come to God’s Word and find His promises and His commands…we find His dos and don’ts and we do and we don’t…we resolve not to turn to left or the right…Listen to Deuteronomy 28:13-14, “And the Lord will make you the head and not the tail, and you shall only go up and not down, if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you today, being careful to do them, and if you do not turn aside from any of the words that I command you today, to the right hand or to the left, to go after other gods to serve them.” We must be devoted to living according to His promises.

What causes you to turn away from God’s Law? Are there things that consistently cause you to step out of obedience? Start there and let the Holy Spirit show you how to walk in God’s promises and learn to quit listing to the father of lies who says, “Did God really say?”

Yesterday we started looking at Psalm 119:46 and found the psalmist reminding God of His promises, but as we turn to verse 50 we see that we must find life in God’s promises. “This is my comfort in my affliction, that your promise gives me life.” God’s promises quicken us…they bring us to life in salvation. We were dead in our sin, but God called out of darkness into His light. If we are saved it is through His Word.

A great visual of this is Lazarus…he was dead, in the grave, with the stone over the tomb. Jesus had them roll away the stone, but he was still dead. He was dead until the word of Jesus came, “Lazarus, come forth.” At that moment he was alive. The same is true of us. We heard the Word preached or taught, we read it as we might have done a thousand times, but suddenly He calls us and what we’ve read and seen and heard before came alive. The Word of God gives us life in salvation, but not just salvation.

The word of God gives us life as we grow in our sanctification. In his affliction God’s promise gave him life. Do you remember what Peter said to Jesus in John 6? Jesus preached a hard message and many in the crowd left Him…Jesus turned and asked the disciples, “Do you want to go away as well?” Peter said, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.”

They heard Jesus and knew His words brought life. He said a little earlier, right before the crowd left Him, “Do you take offense at this? Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? It is the Spirit who gives life, the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.” He also said, “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.” He also said, “I am the bread of life.” Peter learned the lesson well, he said, “you have the words of life.” Do we know that life?

I found out early this morning that my favorite living author is no longer living. Wendell Berry was a poet, an activist, and an incredible storyteller. I thought I’d include a quote from one of my favorite books, Jayber Crow. (Thanks Russ Moore for the recommendation!) It was the first Berry book I bought and the only one I bought on Kindle, but in the book he had the main character say,

“Back there at the beginning, as I see now, my life was all time and almost no memory. Though I knew early of death, it still seemed to be something that happened only to other people, and I stood in an unending river of time that would go on making the same changes and the same returns forever. And now, nearing the end, I see that my life is almost entirely memory and very little time.”

I thought that was an incredible way of looking at death…early, we seem to have no memories, but lots of time, but then as we grow older our memories increase, and time seems to draw toward an end.

Berry then said something else,

“Toward the end of my life…I began to understand that whenever death happened, it happened to me. That is knowledge that takes a long time to wear in. Finally, it wears in. Finally, I realized and fully accepted that one day I would belong entirely to memory, and it would then not be my memory that I belonged to…”

Week after week, I stand and preach in a place full of memories…there are happy moments—dedications of babies, weddings, salvations, baptisms, and worship, but there are other moments…moments like funerals that come way too often.

Week after week I stand to preach and men and women move entirely to our memories.

We all escape into the memories of others, but that isn’t our end…Jesus takes us home to where time no longer matters, and memories somehow become realities. Where shadows come alive in the light of the One who is the light of the world. Where we gather in shadows, they now feast in the light.

I’m thankful for Wendell Berry and the impact he had on my thinking.
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I didn’t plan on going this far in Psalm 119, but let’s spend at least one more week in this great chapter. I read it this morning and was reminded again of how much of a work of art it really is. 22 sections of 8 verses and each section starts with a letter of the Hebrew alphabet. So, if we were to do the equivalent with our English alphabet it would be 8 verses all beginning with A, eight verses beginning with B, etc. As we come to verse 49 we come to the seventh stanza and all of the verses start with the Hebrew letter Zayin.

Verse 49 calls us to Hope in God’s promises, “Remember your word to your servant, in which you have made me hope.” According to Google, there are over 8,000 promises in the Bible. The overwhelming majority of them are God’s promises to us.

When we face affliction, we must turn to His word, find His promises and hope in Him. It is interesting that the psalmist is suffering, but this is the only direct prayer for help in this section…the rest of it is devoted to showing that he trusts God’s Word. He doesn’t even ask God to deliver him from the affliction…he just goes back to God’s promise and asks God to remember His promise.

Consider Jehoshaphat’s prayer…it is interesting is that 2 Chronicles 20 tells the story and the king stands before the people and said, “O LORD, God of our fathers, are you not God in heaven? You rule over all kingdoms of the nations. In your hand are power and might, so that none is able to withstand you. Did you not, our God, drive out the inhabitants of this land before your people Israel, and give it forever to the descendants of Abraham your friend?” He goes on to remind God of His promises to them and in doing so he is taking hope in God and God’s Word.

We must be students of the Word. We must hang on to His promises and when we are in trouble it helps to remind Him of His promise. It isn’t that God has forgotten and needs our reminder…our reminding God of His promises reminds us at the same time and builds our faith…that is the secret!