The words of the Lord are pure words, as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times. Thou shalt keep them, O Lord, thou shalt preserve them from this generation forever. For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth in bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth. It shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it. Welcome to another program with Truths to Live By, a ministry of Harriman Baptist Tabernacle in Harriman, Tennessee. You're listening to Brother Benjamin Cooley. I pray we would be a blessing to you today. O sinner, bow down with the Lord of sin, come to the cross, come to the cross. In Christ's redemption new life within, come and be justified. Justify, justify, justify wholly through Christ. The cross is the fountain for every need. Come and be justified. With our Bibles open to the book of Isaiah, chapter number 53, we want to take a short break from our study in 1 Corinthians and close the year with a look at our Savior and His suffering upon the tree. Isaiah 53, we'll begin reading with verse number 9, after a word of prayer. Father, we thank you, Lord, for your loving kindness. Thank you for the grace of God, the mercy of God. Thank you for the justification that we have through the work and person of our Lord Jesus Christ. I plead His blood, and I pray in His name, and because of His merit. O God, help us in this day and hour to be faithful to the word of the Lord, and then to the Lord of that word. Help us to hold high the blood-stained banner, Stay with the old King James Bible, God's word for English-speaking people. Help me as I preach, in Jesus' name. Amen and Amen. Isaiah 53, and the prophet here writes and he says of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Verse 9, And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, Because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth. Yet it pleased the Lord 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 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. We can think of our Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, We can trace His life upon this earth by going to the trough, that feeding trough, that manger where He was laid at His birth. We can go through His life. As a young man, we see Him in the temple. teaching, and stumping the doctors of the law with his learned questions. We can trace his talks throughout his adult ministry. For example, Nicodemus, You Must Be Born Again, The Woman at the Well, Where She Cried of Our Lord, Come See a Man, Which Told Me All Things Ever I Did, Is Not This the Christ? We can go from his talks On to the tree of Calvary. Many received Him, but many more rejected Him, and thus they crucified the Lord of glory. We move from Calvary. He's buried. We come to the tomb. He's not there. He is alive. He is risen. Then on to the Mount of Olives for His ascension. Here we see triumph, and this same Jesus will so come again in like manner, and both now and forevermore. We see Him upon His throne. The throne of glory is in His eternal destiny. But for now, I want you to consider this tree of suffering and death, the cross of Calvary, where Christ was nailed and He was crucified. He was slaughtered for the sins. of the whole world. Isaiah said that God put him to grief. Yes, it even pleased the Lord to bruise Jesus. Our Savior, God's Son, was bruised by His Father upon the tree He had taken of the cup. He had willingly, voluntarily accepted the will of His Father to go to the cross to be the sacrifice for our sins, and His soul was made there an offering for sin. I want us to notice now the travail of His soul upon this tree. We think of the tree of Calvary and its bitter experience. This experience is vividly portrayed in Psalms number 22. Here we find a prophecy of the crucifixion several hundred years before our Lord placed the sole of his foot upon our earth. The psalm reads in verse 1, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so far from helping me? and from the words of my roaring." We see the bitter experience in the anguish of the soul of our Lord and Savior. He cries from the cross in verses 1 through 5 of Psalm number 22. He cries because God is distant. We continue in verse 2, Oh my God, I cry in the daytime, but Thou hearest not. and in the night season, and am not silent." God is distant. He is far from helping Christ. He is far from hearing Christ. Notice verse 1, we read the word far. Notice verse 11, we read the word, be not far from me. Verse 19, but be not thou far from me, O Lord. O my strength, haste thee to help me! He cries in despair, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? He has lost all sight of hope, for God has abandoned His Son and deserted Him to suffer for our sins. He cries out in distress, Why art thou so far from helping me? He has lost all sight of help. He cries in the daytime, verse 2. He cries in the night season, verse 2. We flip over to Matthew 27, and at noontime, in the sixth hour, when the sun is to be climbing, and in its climax and hottest point of the day, from twelve to three, the midday sun goes black. God turned out the lights on the world when Jesus Christ was crucified. Why? Why must this be? Because God could not bear this world, I believe, to see His Son be made their very sins. In those three hours upon the cross, there's a transaction takes place between God the Father, and God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, and we see Jesus being made the sin of the world according to 2 Corinthians 5 and verse 21. He hath made him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. Christ cried because God was distant. God was far from helping him. Christ was suffering our hell, our place and punishment. We go on through those verses. In verses 2, we see God is silent and so Christ is crying. And he cries as well in verses 3 through 5 because God is holy. God is completely and entirely free from sin, yet Christ cried from the cross. But then in verse 6 he says, But I am a worm and no man, a reproach of men and despise of the people, This worm spoken of here in the days of David, he was speaking of a worm that was harvested and it would be crushed to obtain and produce a red dye for the clothes that would be made a different color. And so the darling Son of God was no man, but just a worm, suffered for our sins. He was crushed under great severity because of God's wrath. He was crushed under great shame because of our sins. And with His crushing upon the cross, the blood of God's dear Son was produced. which blood stands now to change the garments of the sinner, and make him or her whiter than snow. But then there is constancy of Christ upon the cross. In verses 7 through 11, He is derided by men, verses 7 and 8, but He is still dependent upon God, verses 9, 10, and 11. He cries out, but thou art he that took me out of the womb. Thou didst make me hope when I was upon my mother's breast. I was cast upon thee from the womb. Thou art my God from my mother's belly. Be not far from me, for trouble is near, for there is none to help." We come all the way down to verse 22, and Christ says, I will declare thy name unto My brethren, in the midst of the congregation will I praise thee. Between verses 21 and 22, there has been a resurrection. Christ is alive. He is God's champion. He took your sin. He took my sin. Thus we can proclaim the gospel message that Christ died for the sins of the whole world, that He was buried, and that He rose again. And if men will repent toward God and believe on Jesus Christ the Lord, then they can be saved or delivered from death and hell and everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone. Do you know Him today? He stands ready to save a sinner like you. We thank you for making this ministry a part of your day. And in closing, we want to point you to the words of our Lord in Matthew chapter 4 and verse 4. He answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. And truly, it is written. God's word, every word, presents us with truths to live by. You've been listening to Brother Benjamin Cooley. Please send all correspondence to Truths to Live By, P.O. Box 575, Harriman, Tennessee, 37748. Or you can email us at bmarkcooley at gmail.com. And finally, brethren, pray for us. you