I want you to turn to Isaiah chapter 53. And of course, if you know anything about the Bible, if you've been a Christian any length of time, you know this chapter. You know that this chapter is a great messianic chapter. In fact, I was talking to a man who was a converted Jew. He was actually working with an organization called Jews for Jesus. And he was doing a presentation of Christ in the Passover. Some of you may have seen that presentation in the past. But he told us that when he was raised in a religious Jewish home, now I don't know this to be true or not, but this is what he said, when he was raised in this religious Jewish home, that they could read all the Old Testament, of course they didn't receive the New Testament, they could read all the Old Testament except Isaiah 53. They would not allow, they discouraged them from reading Isaiah 53. And I know why, because it's too clear. Who hath believed our report? And to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant and as a root out of a dry ground. He hath no form or comeliness, and we shall And when we shall see Him, there's no beauty that we should desire Him. This is not a fleshly thing. This is not something we will come to by our senses. There's nothing that we could see or hear of Him that would cause us to desire Him. In fact, 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, afflicted, but he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are 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. He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is done, so he openeth not his mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment, and who shall declare his generation? For he was cut off out of the land of the living. For the transgression of my people was he strickened. And he made his grave with the wicked and with the rich in his death, because he had done no violence, neither was there any deceit in his mouth, yet it pleased the Lord God Jehovah to bruise him. He hath put him to grief. When thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed. He shall prolong His days. And the pleasure of the Lord God of Israel shall prosper in His hand. He shall see of the travail of His soul. and shall be satisfied. By his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many, for he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore, will I divide him a portion with the great. And he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he hath poured out his soul unto death. And he was numbered with the transgressors, and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors. If we could sum up this passage, we could say he suffered. He was a suffering servant. He didn't suffer for his sin, for his transgression, for he was righteous and perfect altogether. But he suffered as a servant. And if the Bible did not teach this, how ostentatious would it be for us to claim such a thing? How could we stand and sing such a song as, he looked upon him and pardoned me? the wicked, the unrighteous, the sinner, the hater of God, the lover of self and pleasure. He looked on the righteous one, the holy one. the one who was His beloved Son. Rarely does God break into this earth and to this earthly existence with His voice, but on that day when He was well-pleased by Christ, He broke open the heavens and thundered with the voice of God, this is my beloved Son. and whom I am well pleased. And when Peter would try to equate Moses and Elijah with Christ, the Lord again broke in and said, this is my beloved son. Here ye, him, both the law and the prophets are submitted to him. It's all about him. And we are audacious enough to claim that he stood in our stead? We could never do that. It would be the height of arrogance. It would be the depth of blasphemy for any of us to claim such a thing if the word of God did not reveal it. Who hath believed this report? And to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? Do you believe? Servant. And our suffering is not worthy to be compared to His. There's no language, no multiplied languages, no vocabulary, no words for us to demonstrate to you and to explain to you the depth of such suffering. Here's what the great commentator Matthew Henry said, the two great things which the Spirit of Christ in the Old Testament prophets testified beforehand were, number one, the suffering of Christ, and number two, the glory that should follow this suffering. The Apostle Peter says to us, searching what or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify when it testified beforehand the suffering of Christ and the glory that should follow Him. And that which Christ Himself when He expounded Moses and all the prophets on the road to Emmaus to these men whose eyes were holding, that they did not know Him. They did not know the resurrected Christ. Though they thought they knew the Christ before His crucifixion, but now they're walking with the resurrected Christ and they do not see Him. They cannot recognize Him. And He walks with them and He expounds Moses and all the prophets and He shows them the direction and the scope of all of this, that Christ should suffer, that he should enter into his glory. Then he said unto them, O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken. Ought not Christ to have suffered these things? And to enter into his glory, and beginning at Moses, and all the prophets he expounded unto them, all the scriptures that, the scriptures, all the scriptures, the things concerning himself. When I was in seminary, in New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, I had an Old Testament professor that said there were two things that he hated in the world more than anything. Number one, a Calvinist. And number two, anybody that would preach Christ out of the Old Testament. Oh my, oh my. Jesus preached himself out of the Old Testament. How blind must you be, a seminary professor, giving his whole life to the teaching of students, and blind, just as blind, my friend, as these two disciples on the way, on the road to Emmaus, and here is Christ, and they did not know Him. but he knew himself. But nowhere in the Old Testament and all of it are these two things so fully prophesied as here in this chapter, out of which many passages are quoted with application to Christ in the New Testament. So we see, first of all in this text, the certainty of this suffering. But the second thing we see is the cause. What is the cause of this suffering? Well, first of all, it is the wretchedness of man, the wretchedness of human beings, the sinfulness that we are born with, the stain of Adam that is upon our soul. And we add to our condemnation, as soon as we are capable to make moral choices, we add to our soul further condemnation. And we are, my friend, by nature, as human beings, doubly damned by God. You see, he was wounded. for our transgression. And maybe we should make it even more personal for my transgression. Often we can talk about them out there, but my friend, this verse is speaking to us in here. My transgression. What language can I borrow to thank Thee, dearest friend, for this Thy dying sorrow, Thy mercy without end? Mine was the transgression, but Thine the mortal. pain, wounded for my transgression, bruised for my iniquities. He took the punishment, the chastisement of my peace that was upon him and with his stripes I am healed. But the second thing that is the cause of the suffering, and we must not ever stop with man. I don't even care if you're condemning man thoroughly and if you're making a picture of him, even as the Bible does, that he is one that is locked into the course of this world. deceived by the prince of the power of the air, this spirit, this one that has a spirit that works disobedience in his heart and in his mind, and this one who is given to the lust of the flesh and the lust of life, and those who are deceived by this spirit that works in the children of disobedience. That's never enough. That is not the gospel. That is introduction to the gospel. That's beginning of the gospel. But we never stop with man. We must see the next cause of this suffering, and that is the righteousness of God. God, who is a righteous one, you see. He has put Christ up as a propitiation for our sin. that he might be just and the justifier of them that believe. He's a moral God. He's a holy God. And so he's not going to just dismiss sin. His name has been marred. His honor has been sinned against by every thought and deed and word that you ever spoke in the flesh and that you ever thought in the flesh and any deed you ever did in the flesh. I'm telling you, they were an offense to God. Even the prayers of the wicked are sin. But He is righteous. And in His righteousness, there was this covenant between the Father and the Son. The Father said to the Son, in the eternal councils of glory, we get to see it a little bit as God just pulls back the curtain and allows us to look into it in the 17th chapter of John. I'll give you a people. And the son said to the father, and I will go. And I will bleed and die. I will pay. for their transgressions and iniquities. Beat me in their stead, that you might, O Lord, Father of glory, that you might be righteous. So what is the character of such suffering? Well, it's in the humiliation of Christ. He was humiliated. First of all, the humiliation was in His incarnation. He humbled Himself. You know the passage in Philippians 2. He was in the form of God, but he didn't think it's something to grasp or hold on to, but he made himself no reputation and took upon him the form of a servant. The word there is doulos, the form of a slave. And he was made in the likeness of men. And being found in the fashion as a man, he humbled himself. The whole incarnation, the whole act of incarnation is humiliation. They mocked him and laughed at him. and accused of being a sinner and a blasphemer these wicked men these one these ones who would we keep hands to ensure you can be delivered by the tournament council for knowledge of And at 12 years old, when he's in the temple, he's astounding them. He is confounding them. He's explaining mysteries to them that they could not ever, ever attain unto if he had not spoken to them. And he's 12 years old. The lawgiver is now explaining the law to these doctors and lawyers. much greater than they ever could hope to be. They set themselves against Him. They treated Him as a sinner. They despised Him and rejected Him. Look, sometimes we think that when God lifted us up and held us in His arms. That it was like us holding a newborn baby with a sweet disposition and a lovely countenance. But my friend, that is not what God picked up. That is not what the Father picked up in Christ. You know what He picked up? He picked up a pocket full of pus that were shouting vectives at Him and scratching and biting and fighting against Him. What humiliation. But the second idea of humiliation is His intercession on the cross. Here's what the writer of Hebrews tells us. That indeed, for the joy set before Him, He endured the cross, despising the shame. Despising? For they hung Him on a cross naked and mocked Him. And hear the words of Christ from the cross, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. interceding. The Apostle Paul writes to the church at Corinth in 2 Corinthians. For he was made, that is Christ, God made him sin for us, this one who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God and Him. Not only this humiliation, but this flows right into the second character of the suffering, the horror of the cross. The horror of it. Sometimes I think we pass over that. Sometimes I think that we don't understand the depth of what was going on there. In fact, I heard a debate. I heard Doug Wilson trying to have a conversation with some students at the University of Indiana, and he was very gracious and very kind to them, and they were coming at him with all the force they could muster. And one guy stood up. I was particularly appalled by this particular thing. One guy stood up and said, well, what, big deal, the cross? Big deal. He knew he was going to be raised from the dead. So I mean, what do you mean he died? I mean, come on. Oh, what depths of ignorance. The cross, my friend, was a horror. It was a horror, first of all, because for the first time in existence, the Father turned on His Son. And it pleased Him. It pleased the Father. What language! It pleased the Father. Even though there was no deceit in His mouth. Even though He did no violence. Yet, it pleased the Lord. bruise Him. He took the rod of His wrath and He beat Him. One blow after another blow. My friend, look what was there on the cross. The horror of it. It was three hours in length. Three hours. Can you imagine being nailed to a tree for three hours? having your side, having the spear hit your side to such a degree, a hunk of muscle fell away, exposing his heart. The lacerated back against this unpolished, unsanded piece of wood, And if that were not enough, the father pulling the rod of his wrath and beating him. The horror of hell and all the torments of it The black, the blackness of it. People are afraid of the dark. They need light around them. Some people cannot even sleep unless there's a light. And they in that day will be in horrible darkness, even as the Lord was. And not only that, But he's alone. The Lord had never in his all his existence been alone. Jesus had never been alone, but now he's alone and we know he's alone because he cries out in this pathetic cry of Matthew 2746. Eli, Eli. Lama. Suboxone, why have you forsaken me? He's paying for an eternity of hell in three hours, multiplied by the elect. with blow after blow, so horrible in its demonstrations that the sun, against its nature, the inanimate star of our solar system, against its nature, refused to shine on it. And blow after blow, eternity after eternity, horror after horror, until immortality. He died. The Bible says, He laid down his life for us, but the word there, life, is not by us, and it is not zoe, it is psyche. He poured out his soul. He died. What mystery. How beyond our depth. And we shall spend eternity, those of us that shall come before God, And we shall spend all eternity with ever increased ability to understand the wonders of God and the glory of God. And though we shall have multiplied abilities and we shall have eternity to do it, we will never exhaust the inexhaustible glory of God in this thing called the crucifixion. Heaven will be about an investigation of the work of God. We will investigate creation. We will go to the backside of the furthest star that is in this ever-expanding universe to see the glory of Christ. But we shall see it, my friend, no clearer than in this moment, when we shall, with renewed ability, put our mind completely engaged into what wonder is this? And the consequences of this suffering? Well, let me say that there are immediate consequences, there are infinite consequences, and there are eternal consequences. Now, I could preach a sermon on each one of them. But just let me give them to you immediately. He was delivered for our offenses, but raised for our justification. My friend, when he was raised, we were justified. Immediate. And not only that, but Peter stands up at Pentecost and he begins to explain What happened, you see, him being delivered by the determined counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye by wicked hands took and slew the Son of Glory, but death could not hold him, for God loosed the bonds of death and he was received into glory, raised from the grave. Peter says, now this is that, that Joel the prophet prophesied, and shall come to pass in those days, the last days, saith the Lord, I'll pour out my spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall See visions, and your old men shall dream dreams, and all my servants, literally all my slaves and all my female slaves, I will pour out in those days of my spirit, and they shall prophesy, and I will show wonders in heaven, wonders in the heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath, and blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke, and the sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon into blood before that great and notable day of the Lord comes. And then if you're thinking that he's talking about the end time, No, he is standing there in Jerusalem that day saying, this is that. See it fulfilled before you. He could have stopped before he started talking about all of this apocalyptic language about wonders in heavens and signs in the earth and blood and fire and vapor of smoke and sun darkened and moon turned to blood. He could have stopped, but he didn't stop. This is that. before the great and notable day of the Lord come. And when the great and notable day of the Lord come, verse 21 says, it shall come to pass that whosoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. That's the great and notable day. Do you remember that great and notable day that you experienced? Do you remember that day when you called upon the name of the Lord? Do you remember seeing Christ bleeding and dying for you? Do you remember that you said to Him, just as I am, without one plea, but while I've got one plea, that Thy blood was shed for me, and that Thou didst bid me come to Thee. O Lamb of God, I come. My faith has found a resting place, not in device nor creed. I serve the ever-living One. His wounds for me shall plead. I have no other argument. I need no other plea. It is enough that Jesus died and that he died for me. Have you seen it? In that look, it's salvation. As he is lifted up as the serpent in the wilderness, that look, that look, not labor, but look, is salvation, a me. From the moment Jesus Christ was raised from the dead and preachers began to preach, sons of God were converted to Christ and placed in the church and it has not ceased to this very second and maybe in here this night, the voice of the Spirit will call one more to Christ. And then it's infinite. I just will say that Hebrews 7, 25 says that God has saved them to the uttermost, to the uttermost. He saved you to the uttermost. The word there is pan. Panteles. Pan means all. Telos means complete or perfect. It's all. He saved you to perfection. It's infinite. No matter how much he poured us out upon you, it's undiminished. There's room at the cross for you. Though millions have come, there's room for one. There's room. at the cross for you, for you. And then it's eternal. Paul writes to the church at Thessalonica, and so shall we ever be with the Lord. What a servant. What a saint. Hallelujah. What a safe. Let's pray. Father, would you? Implant this in our hearts and minds and soul. And father, we know this that once a man or a woman or a child comes to Christ, they never stop coming. Once you save one. Oh Christ, you never stop saving. Thank you. Save. Friend. For loving us so. And glorify your name among us. As sinners see. Salvation. And the. Thank you for our time. Bless this church. Bless her pastor or elders. And every member and be. With those so God that need you this day. And bring sinners to Christ, we pray. I'm in.