In Peter's first epistle, he informs us that the Old Testament prophets testified beforehand of the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow. 1 Peter 1 verse 11, searching what or what manner of time the spirit of Christ which was in them did signify when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow and nowhere in the Old Testament is that principle more apparent than here in Isaiah chapter 53 because throughout this passage there is a constant witness to Jesus Christ. C. H. Spurgeon once said that from every town, village and hamlet in England there is a road to London. And then he went on to say, from every text and scripture, there is a road to the metropolis of the scripture that is Christ, and the road from Isaiah 53 to Christ as a very direct one. Indeed. Now, last night, we considered what this passage had to say about the person of Christ. And this evening, we're going to look primarily at his sufferings. And I want to consider four questions. which I hope will help us understand what Isaiah predicted 700 years before the coming of Christ. First of all, who caused Christ to suffer? Who caused Christ to suffer? The New Testament mentions several parties who were involved in causing Christ to suffer. Firstly, there was Judas, who betrayed him. Then there was the Sanhedrin, who delivered him up out of envy. Pilate played a part too, he give the command, take you him and crucify him. And of course Roman soldiers were also in on the act because they actively crucified him. The motley mob around the cross cried out his blood be upon us and upon our children. And of course, our sins also put him there, because the New Testament says Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures. So there were many parties involved in causing Christ to suffer. However, in this particular prophecy, Isaiah hones in on two parties in particular, who were instrumental in putting Christ on the tree. And those two parties were the father and us. Who caused Christ to suffer? Notice the threefold emphasis here on the Father as the ultimate cause of Christ's sufferings. In verse 4b, we're told he was smitten of God and afflicted. In verse 6b, we're told that the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. And then in verse 10a, we're told again, yet it pleased the Lord. You see, friends, mysteriously behind all human involvement present here, the father was punishing his own son with a penalty, sin deserved, so that he might be just and the justifier of those who believe in Jesus. Or to draw upon the language of Zechariah, the father in love awakened the sword of divine justice against his shepherd and the man who is his fellow, so that wretched people such as us might be saved. This was the eternal plan of God. Acts 2.23 says Christ was delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God. And of course the most famous verse in the Bible elaborates on this. Who caused Christ to suffer? For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him should not perish. but have everlasting life. And it's important to maintain a biblical balance here. We must never put so much emphasis on the father's wrath being poured out at Calvary. And that's very evident from the scripture. We must not put so much emphasis on that that we forget at the same time that it was also the father who took the initiative in love to avert his own wrath. Tavius Winslow once asked the question, who delivered up Jesus to die? And here is the brief answer he gave. He said, ultimately, it was not Judas for money. Ultimately, it was not Pilate for fear. It was not the Jews for envy, although all of these things were true. It was the Father for love. Who caused Christ to suffer? The Father. Put him in the tree according to his determinate counsel. and foreknowledge. But the other emphasis that is found in this chapter is this, it was also our sin that put him there. The old Negro spirit, if I can use that language nowadays, were you there when they crucified my Lord? Yes, friends, we were there. He was wounded for our transgressions. That word could be rendered rebellion. It's the same word as is used in Isaiah 1 verse 2, I have nourished and brought up children and they have rebelled against me. Friends, we're rebels by nature. God has every reason to expect obedience from us because he created us. But instead of obeying him, we rebel. And by nature, we shoot the fist at him. We refuse to submit. And we often have the same attitude as the man in the parable. We will not have this man rule over us. It was our rebellion that put him on the tree. Our iniquities, Plato, part two. Here's a different word for sin. In verse 5b, he was bruised for our iniquities. That word describes our want of integrity and rectitude. God made man upright, but he has sought out many inventions. Instead of being straight, we are bent and slippery and distorted and misshapen. Sometimes you can buy misshapen biscuits for virtually nothing because they haven't turned out the way the baker intended. Friends, we're all misshapen, we're distorted, we're twisted. were a horrible caricature of what Adam was in the garden before the fall. Our transgressions, our rebellion put him there. Our inequities put him there. Our waywardness also put him there. Verse six, all we like sheep have gone astray. We've turned everyone to his own way. Christ suffered so that he might forgive and rectify our perpetual tendency to go astray. The Lord is a great shepherd of his sheep, and believers are the sheep of his pasture, but by nature we don't submit to him. Instead, we are prone to wander because of sin in our lives. I was brought up in a little village called Gordon in County Tyrone, and it's close to a forest park, and I had to travel 10 miles every day to school by bus. And there were frequently sheep along the road, and they would come out in front of the bus, and the bus would have to stop. You never knew where you were going to find them. They wandered all over the place. That's what we are like by nature. We wander. And the way we wander is often intensely individualistic. We've turned each one to his own way. We've all got besetting sins, haven't we? You may sin in one way and I may sin in another way, but we're all tending, have this tendency to go astray. And in our day and age, we've plumbed new depths in the way in which people can sin. Someone over here says, I'm a woman, when he's really a man, or someone says, I'm non-binary. What a tragic world we live in. But we're all guilty. to a greater or lesser degree, aren't we? We're all like sheep who wander. There is none that seeks after God. And things have got to change if we're ever going to go to heaven. And here's what must happen to us if we're to profit from Christ's death. You were a sheep going astray, but now you return to the shepherd and bishop of your souls. We have to turn to the Lord Jesus Christ, haven't we? Otherwise, we will remain twisted and bent. and God will condemn us forever in hell if we die in that state. Who caused Christ to suffer? Many parties caused him to suffer, but the two primary ones that are emphasised here in this passage are the Father in love delivered him up, and secondly, Christ died for our sins. Who caused Christ to suffer? I'm going to ask secondly, how did Christ suffer? And this passage mentions many ways in which he suffered. First of all, he suffered physically when they crucified him. Verse 5c refers to the stripes he received at the hands of the Romans. With his stripes, we are healed. The Jews limited the number of stripes a prisoner could receive to 40. lest the prisoner die in the process, but the Romans knew no such limitation, and consequently Christ endured a whipping that in and of itself often ended the lives of others. The end of chapter 52 says his face was more marred than any man, and that's a reference to the abuse that Christ received in Caiaphas's court and Herod's court and at the hands of the Roman soldiers. They basically reduced his face to pulp so that he was unrecognisable. Verse five predicts how he would be wounded or pierced. He was wounded. He was, for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities. This means that his body was crushed and broken in unimaginable ways. Christ suffered all these things at the hands of his fellow men. He suffered physically. And there's a particular phrase in verse eight which reminds us of the violence of it all. We're told there, He was cut off out of the land of the living. Eliminated. Daniel 9 said Messiah should be cut off. What a sad commentary on human nature. When God appeared on earth, what did they do? They eliminated him. They cut him off. They removed him. They didn't want him around any longer. And they did it in the most violent way imaginable. because crucifixion was a repulsive way to die. Cicero, the Roman general, said, the mere mention of the word cross is unworthy of a Roman citizen or a free man. This is part of the sufferings of Christ. He suffered physically. He also suffered ignominiously. In verse 12b, we're told that they crucified him alongside two thieves. This is what they thought of him. This is the company they put him in. Now, in a sense, this is a summary of Christ's life. This man's eaten with publicans and sinners. He was prepared to talk to the down-and-outs and the nobodies. But these words have a particular reference to his death, of course, because he was crucified between two thieves. Be thinking of that, God willing, tomorrow evening. One was saved that none might despair. One was lost that none might presume. You often judge someone by the company they keep. and the company that those who crucified our Lord deemed him to be worthy of was this, they put him alongside these sinners. This was a mark of their contempt for him. Birds of a feather flocked together, they thought, so they crucified him along these two malefactors. Though little did they know that they were fulfilling the words of prophecy. Because known unto God are all his works from the foundation of the world, he suffered physically, he suffered ignominiously, but he also suffered spiritually, of course. If the physical sufferings of our Lord were terrible, his spiritual sufferings were unimaginable. Look how that is brought out in the passage. Verse 10, be when thou shalt make a soul an offering for sin. And again, in verse three, we're told he bear the sin of many. There's far more to the cross than what Christ endured at the hands of men. what he endured at the hands of the father was something altogether different. He became a sin offering. And yet the amazing thing is this, the father never loved the son more than at the very moment he punished him for sin. Therefore does my father love me, Christ said, because I lay down my life. Now I'm not going to attempt to explain our Lord's spiritual suffering. We'll look at it a little bit more tomorrow as we consider the cry of abandonment. But this was, The central part of his suffering, the sufferings of his soul, were the soul of his sufferings. He suffered in his spirit. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? What words? Who can fathom that? He suffered physically. He suffered ignominiously. He suffered spiritually. But he also suffered voluntarily. Twice in verse seven we're told, that our Lord opened not his mouth. Here is purposeful activity. He opened not his mouth. Christ could have spoken up, he could have retaliated, and that would have been a natural response, especially since the authorities treated him so unjustly, but he chose to remain silent. He voluntarily endured all that they did to him. Alex Mathura in his commentary said this, he went to his death with a calmness reflecting not an ignorant, but a submitted mind. You see, we lose a sense of the glory of the cross if we don't realize that our Lord willingly, voluntarily endured all these sufferings. Verse, he has poured out his soul unto death. Here is activity. We're talking about something Christ did. You see, you would be mistaken if you understood the cross solely in terms of what happened to Christ. Now, I know certain things did happen to him, so there was one sense in which he was passive, but we must remember that behind all that happened to him, he purposely faced it all and went through with it all because that was what the Father required of him. In other words, he was gloriously active. throughout all his sufferings. He offered his life, his whole self, his thoughts, his feelings, and his actions, and submerged them totally into the Father's will, even though he knew that it meant being consumed on the altar for our sins. Here's something for you to think about. Our Lord was gloriously active and sovereign in his own death. Nothing happened to him without him arranging it and submitting to it according to the will of the Father. Listen to the emphasis in John chapter 10. Verses 17 and 18. Therefore doth my Father love me because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father. You see, obedience is not true obedience unless it is absolutely voluntarily. and Christ voluntarily submitted to everything. He could say, the Son of God loved me and gave himself for me. He was gloriously active. And if you want to read more about that, read Hugh Martin's wonderful book on the atonement, where he summarizes it like this in one place. He says, his dying was his grandest doing. He was gloriously active. Yes, things happened to him, but he was sovereign over them all. His dying was his grandest doing. He suffered physically, ignominiously, spiritually, voluntarily, and he also suffered vicariously. Verse 5, 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. This is the language of substitution. he took upon him the penalty that sinners deserve, so that those who believe in him might be free from suffering. And this is emphasised throughout the passage as one of the prominent notes in this chapter. And if these words don't take substitutionary curse bearing, then words can have no meaning at all. I know in recent times, people have denied that and talked about cosmic child abuse and such nonsense. That's a complete fallacy and blasphemous. No ingenuity can ever get around the fact that our Lord endured sin on behalf of others, so that they might be saved. What Luther called the great exchange. Lord Jesus, you are my righteousness. I am your sin. You took on me what was mine, yet you set on me what was yours. You became what you were not, that I might become what I was not. What an amazing thing. And it is because of this that all who trust in Christ can now say words such as the following. Death and curse were in our cup, O Christ, it was full for thee. But thou hast drained the last dark drop, it is empty now for me. That bitter cup, love, drank it up, now blessings draft for me. How did Christ suffer? 700 years beforehand, Isaiah tells us he suffered physically, ignominiously, spiritually, voluntarily, and vicariously. A third question. First of all, who caused Christ to suffer? The Father and us are the two emphases in this passage. How did Christ suffer? Thirdly, why did Christ suffer? What did he accomplish through his sufferings? Well, here are three emphases in the passage. First of all, he suffered so as to conquer his enemies. and our enemies. Verse 12a, therefore I will divide him a portion with the great and he shall divide the spoiled with the strong. This is the language of ancient warfare and it describes how a general would plunder for himself the so-called spoils of war after defeating his enemies. Paul drew on that imagery in Colossians 2 when he spoke of Christ spoiling principalities and powers and making a show of them openly. Apparently in those days a successful general would engage in a triumphal march with himself at the head of the procession. And he would ride along in a splendid chariot drawn by white horses with the kings and the mighty men who he had conquered chained to the chariot. What humiliation. Well, that's a picture of what Christ did to the devil. His victory over Satan. As alluded to in these words at the beginning of verse 12, Hugh Martin calls the cross a chariot of victory and triumph. Friends, we have great enemies. Sin, death, and the devil. Terrible enemies. Why did Christ die? That through death he might destroy him who had power over death. That is the devil. Behind the scenes, these are the enemies we face, and there are none greater than sin, death, and the devil. But remember, the mother of all battles has taken place, and Christ has conquered. and through faith in him that we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. Why did Christ suffer? He suffered so as to conquer our enemies. Another emphasis found in this chapter is this, he suffered so that he might be justified. Verse 11, see my righteous servant, by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many for he shall bear their iniquities. What does the term justify mean? Let me give you a brief illustration. When I was a student many years ago, at lunchtime, we used to watch a programme on television called Crown Court. You're going back 40-odd years. The climax of that programme was the moment the judge pronounced a verdict about the one in the dock. The person concerned was either condemned or justified. They were either punished or they were released. go and do as they please. Friends, one day we're going to stand in God's court, and what will the verdict be? The term justification is a judicial term, and it describes what God can do through Christ. The good news of the gospel is that there's no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. Through the knowledge of him, I know there's some dispute about what this phrase means, but I take it to mean through the knowledge of him, through knowing him, we are justified. and it's not just sufficient to know about him. We must know him personally. We must be convinced that there's a perfect correspondence between our need as sinners and what he has done for sinners. And we must then commit ourselves to him and receive and rest upon him. And once that happens, we're justified, being justified by faith, with peace, with God, through the Lord Jesus Christ. Friends, your works can never save you. Don't be so foolish as to think that. But here's the good news, there is a righteousness apart from the law manifested in the person and work of Christ, which is unto all and upon all that believe. And you have to rest upon him, and it's going to be well with your soul. What have you done with regard to Christ? Is this word mixed with faith in your heart as you hear it? Do you say in your soul, amen? That's what my hope is. It's only when we do that that we're justified. If that is our state, then we are blessed indeed. We may lack many things, but if we're justified, what a blessed state to be accepted in the beloved. Because you see, if we're justified, it's God that justifies. Who is he that can condemn? No enemy can ever condemn us. So our Lord, why did he suffer? He suffered to conquer all our enemies, sin, death, and the devil. He suffered so that we might be justified, stand in God's court, just as if we were perfectly righteous. There's more to it than just as if we hadn't sinned, just as if we were perfectly righteous. But then thirdly, he also suffered so that we might enjoy peace. As the eminence of verse five, the chastisement of our peace was upon him. And this word that is Found here is, of course, the grand Hebrew word shalom, and it speaks of completeness, soundness of mind, tranquility, contentment, complete satisfaction, not only as regards our relationship with God, but also as regards our relationship with our fellow men. If you possess shalom, then you enjoy such blessings as peace with God, the enjoyment of God's peace within them, peace which passes all understanding, and you also enjoy peace with your fellow men. And the only reason why we can enjoy this peace is because Christ endured the chastisement that our sins deserved so he might provide peace for us. So if you want to enjoy the sense of well-being, you must look to Jesus Christ alone. Paul expressed this beautifully in Ephesians 2 verse 14. He was speaking there in the context of both Jews and Gentiles, folk whom you know, were at loggerheads with one another. They were not only alienated from God by nature, they were alienated from one another too. And if you think that the alienation between Catholics and Protestants in my home country runs deep, it's nothing compared to what Jews and Gentiles experienced. And what is the solution to all these ruptured relations, our vertical relationship with God, our horizontal relationship with one another? Here it is, and it's expressed beautifully in Ephesians 2.14. He himself is our peace. Jesus is our peace. When Christ was born, a multitude of angels praised God with these words, glory to God in the highest, on earth peace, goodwill toward men. That's why Christ suffered, to conquer all our enemies. He suffered so that we might be justified. He suffered so that we might enjoy peace. And then lastly, what happened after Christ suffered? Because the apostle doesn't, or the prophet doesn't leave it at that. He goes on to speak of events that happened after Christ suffered. What about the sequel to this terrible event? Is that all the prophet has to say? Does his death mark the end? Or was there to be an altogether more glorious outcome to all of this? Now, as we look at this passage, it all seems so clear to us as we compare prophecy with scripture. But I wonder how many in Isaiah's day would really have understood what was being predicted here, because Isaiah predicted at least four further facts about the Messiah, which provide us with a more complete picture of who Christ is and what he's done. And Isaiah predicted, first of all, he predicted his burial. Verse 9a, he made his grave with the wicked and with the rich in his death. After Christ died, the early disciples were faced with an immediate problem they never expected. What was to happen to the body? The religious leaders wanted it disposed of quickly because the Sabbath was approaching. How hypocritical that was. There's no compunction about murdering an innocent man. but they didn't want the sight of him hanging on a tree on their Sabbath. So moral issues mattered very little to them. They didn't mind murdering him. But ceremonial matters, having the body hang on the Sabbath, bothered them a great deal, so they wanted rid of it. But time was of the essence, so what was to happen? Well, if no one intervened, Christ could easily have been buried in a common grave, probably along with the two other thieves. But true love didn't allow that to happen. And you know the expression, cometh the hour, cometh the man. Two men stepped out of the limelight, two men who weren't particularly conspicuous for their disposition towards Christ prior to that. And they stepped forward and met the need. And they approached Pilate and asked for permission to bury Christ. And that Roman governor was probably fed up with all the trouble that the religious leaders had embroiled him in, so he was glad to grant their request. And who knows, maybe it solved his conscience just a little, because after all, he had delivered an innocent man up to be murdered. And Joseph, Barometheus, provided a tomb. And there's a beautiful combination of the divine and human in his accent, aren't there? I doubt very much of when Joseph arranged for his own burial in the previous day that he had any thought in his mind at all of fulfilling prophecy, yet that is what happened. He acted freely, but God was sovereignly fulfilling what was predicted here. His burial, he made his grave with the wicked and with the rich in his death. Isaiah predicted his burial, but he also predicted his resurrection. Now the word isn't actually used in the passage, but it's plainly implied in several places throughout this chapter, verse 10c, he shall prolong his days. That's what the father was going to do. That's a reference to the fact that the father would show his good pleasure in the work of his son by raising him gloriously from the dead. And of course, from our completed revelation, we now know something even more striking. Because there's not only a sense in which the father raised Christ from the dead, there's a sense in which he raised himself from the dead, isn't there? That never happened before and never will again. I have power to lay it down. I have power to take it up again. This commandment have I received of my father. He said, for long as days the father would raise him from the dead, he shall see his seed. Christ would see men, women, boys, and girls, a whole multitude. come to faith in him, that would be impossible without a resurrection, wouldn't it? Yes, friend, one day in glory, Christ will rejoice over all his brethren, over every last one, and he will say to his Father, behold, I am the children whom you have given me. He predicted his resurrection. In fact, the verse 11a is particularly emphatic in reminding us how Christ's sufferings would end. A wonderful phrase, he shall see if the travel of his soul shall be satisfied. Isaiah predicted here that the outcome would be absolutely glorious, wouldn't it? These words could never have been fulfilled if Christ had remained under the power of death. Nor could they be true if Christ came to earth on a fool's errand, hoping that things would work out. No friends, there was nothing left to doubt at all. The final outcome was all arranged according to God's eternal plan. And when Christ came to earth, he accomplished absolutely everything that the triune God had planned he should accomplish. And at the end of time, he would be completely satisfied. And that's hinted at in these words, he shall see of the travel of his soul and shall be satisfied. Isaiah predicted his burial. He predicted his resurrection. He also predicted his exaltation at the end of chapter 52, verse 13b. He shall be exalted and extolled and be very high. And notice how that is linked to what is said earlier in the verse. Behold, my servant shall deal prudently. He shall be exalted and extolled. In other words, this reward of exaltation is not unrelated to the servant's prudent behavior. In fact, it's a consequence of it. Because Jesus did all that the Father wanted him to do, God has rewarded him for his obedience in this unique way. He has exalted him over everyone and everything, made him to behead over all things for the benefit of the church. Now, we're not talking here about the rule of Christ possessed by nature because he is the eternal son of God. Rather, we're talking about the reward the Father bestowed upon him as a consequence of his activity as a God-man. To summarize, we could say Christ received the crown because he endured the cross. If you want to read an extended commentary on that, turn to Philippians chapter two. John Murray described that humiliation as humiliation inimitable, humiliation unrepeated, humiliation unrepeatable, unique humiliation from highest glory to the depths. And then there's that little word wherefore. And that's the turning point. Wherefore, because of that, God also is highly exalted him, and given him a name that is above every name, the name that Jesus every knee should bow, things in heaven and things on to the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. As Rabbi Duncan said, the dust of the earth is in the throne of heaven. That's the reward the Father bestowed. upon the sun for humiliation. Friends, this is the way things presently are. You know, we look around us and we're often disturbed as what's happening in this world, but we must, by faith, remember that Christ is highly exalted. It may not appear that way, but that's the reality. That's the way things are. And then one day, faith will give way to sight, and the kingdoms of this world will become the kingdoms of our God and office Christ. He shall have dominion from sea to sea. and from the river unto the ends of the earth, Christ is exalted. But here's a challenge for us personally. Is Christ exalted in your heart? What do you think of him? Because this is the litmus test of whether or not you're a Christian. You see, God's people can speak of Christ as Thomas did, my Lord and my God. He was exalted in Thomas' heart, one there is above all others. well deserves the name of friend. I see your friend and your saviour. Have you bowed the knee to Christ? Can you say in your heart, as regards life, I can summarise it like this, not I, but Christ. It's no longer I that lives, but Christ that lives within me. That's what it means to be a Christian. And you have to make sure that that is true of you because The most shocking thing of all would be to die and to find that this exalted person is against you. Because friends, this exalted person can say, depart from me, I never knew you. Make sure Christ is exalted in your heart. What happened after Christ suffered? Isaiah predicts his burial, his resurrection, his exaltation. He also predicted his intercession. Verse 12, see, he made intercession for the transgressors. Now there's a sense in which this also happened before he died. The words were partly fulfilled as he hung on the cross. Remarkably, while the cup of his suffering was full, he thought of others, not himself, and he prayed, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. And that prayer brought salvation to 3,000 souls, didn't it? But that's only part of Christ's intercession, because how is salvation presently bestowed upon us? It is through Christ's intercession. He ever lives to make intercession for us. I haven't got time to elaborate on this now, but if you're familiar with the short of catechism, I'm sure most of you are, you will remember that there's two parts to priestly activity. There is the oblation and there's the intercession. Christ executes the office of a priest in his one suffering of himself. Sacrifice to satisfy divine justice and to reconcile us to God, and in making continual intercession for us. And this was in the fulfillment of the Old Testament types. You can't separate these two activities. It's the link between accomplishment and application. In Old Testament times, the high priest not only offered sacrifices for sins, he also interceded for God's people. With regard to the anti-type, Christ not only has offered that once and for all sacrifice for sin, he also presently intercedes in heaven for us. He's there at this moment interceding for us. And those who call upon his name at this moment are saved. That's why we'll make it to the end, not because of anything in us. He ever lives to make intercession for us. The glorified spirits in heaven may be happier than us, but they're not more secure. Father always answers Christ's prayer. He ever lives to make intercession for us. If you're a Christian, this is the comfort you have. He says, I pray for them. I pray not for the world, but for those whom you've given me, for they are thine. This is what happened after Christ's sufferings. Friends, that's just a brief insight or a brief summary of the two major themes in this passage. 700 years in advance, Isaiah spoke of Christ's person and Christ's sufferings. And I want to end by showing you how God can use this passage. I want to end by speaking to you about a Jew who was also an atheist, and he was also a very clever gentleman because he possessed a PhD at this time. And I want to share with you what happened when someone read this passage to him for the first time. As a Jew, he'd never heard it before. You know, they claim to believe the Old Testament Scriptures. They don't know Isaiah 53. And this is what happened to a man who, I'm not sure about how all of this came about, but he found himself in Labrie, Switzerland, in Francis Schaeffer's headquarters, and he was staying there overnight. And someone read to him from Isaiah 53, and this is what happened. This is what he says. This is his own testimony. And incidentally, this man is a minister in the Reformed Presbyterian Church in America, Richard Gantz. He's recently retired, but this is how he was converted. And this is the power of God's word. It's sharper than any two-edged sword. He said, when we arrived at the address, we were greeted as though they were expecting us. We were invited to go in where we sat on the floor and listened to a lecture on theoretical physics and its relationship to Jesus Christ. I was a man with no sense of the holy. I believed myself to be a chance accumulation of molecules in a meaningless world. But I stayed at this place, Labrie, listening, talking, arguing, and mocking, until one day someone asked me, may I read to you something from the Bible? Go ahead, I said. He started to read. Behold, my servant will prosper. He will be high and lifted up. and greatly exalted, who has believed our message, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For he grew up before him like a tender shoot and like a root out of a part's ground. He has no stately form or majesty that we should look upon him, nor appearance that we should be attracted to him. He was despised and forsaken of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. I had heard those expressions, man of sorrows and acquainted with grace, before. And images of Renaissance paintings leapt to my mind. My piercingly brilliant Jewish mind understood what was happening. They were reading to me about Jesus. But I wasn't just an ordinary Jewish guy. I had a doctorate. I was cultured. I thought, do they know what they're doing, reading this stuff to a Jew? They weren't going to fool me with their rhetoric. And as I read about Jesus bearing our sins, anger rose within me. To me, trusting in Jesus was just a cheap way out of a long-term psychoanalysis. When they finished reading the chapter, they looked at me and asked, what do you think? I was keen to give them the benefit of my insights. And I responded without hesitation. Anyone who was there at the cross or whatever could have written that stuff. What does that prove? They handed me the Bible, and in the millisecond of receiving that Bible, my life was changed. I looked at the top of the page, and I read the name Isaiah. I felt as though someone had taken a sword and cut me to pieces. And when the man who read it told me that it was written 700 years before Jesus was born, I felt dead. And that incident, what went through my head was, why couldn't it be Krishna? Why couldn't it be Buddha? Why does it have to be him? And that incident, in my first encounter with Jesus, I knew that if he wrote history about himself on my Bible, and he was truly God, then I had to submit everything to him for the rest of my life. And that incident of confrontation, I knew that God demanded everything. And the beat of a heart, I was taken from death to life. Isn't it amazing the power of God's word? Hallelujah, what a savior. Amen.