We turn once again this evening to Isaiah chapter 53. Isaiah 53. 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 nor comeliness, and when we shall see him there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and we hid as it were our faces from him. He was despised and we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon him, 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 dumb, 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 stricken. 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 grieve. 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." As we continue our series in this chapter, I call your attention this evening to verses 5 and 6 of Isaiah 53. 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. Beloved in the Lord Jesus Christ, the first four verses of this chapter set before us an amazing revelation. How completely contrary to our earthly expectation is the portrait of our Redeemer that Isaiah sets before us in Isaiah 53. He beholds The arm of the Lord, the one who is to deliver his people from the bondage of death, but the portrait of that one is so contrary to all expectation. The coming of the Savior is not a coming in power and glory, but as a root out of a dry ground. His appearance leaves no impression of majesty and beauty. No earthly form or comeliness that would attract people to him. Men do not ascribe to him honor and glory. Instead, they despise him. They don't put their trust in him. They reject him. His proper name, as we saw last week, becomes Man of Sorrow. Grief is his constant companion. That's the portrait of the Savior. Should such a man be our Savior? That's the question men ask in amazement and disbelief. Should such be our Savior who comes from Nazareth? And as this suffering servant of Jehovah, later hangs on the cross, pouring out his life, men cry out, himself he cannot save. And should he save us? You see, beloved, when you and I are asked to describe a savior, one who will lead us out of our enemy's enslavement of us, How would we describe such a man? Certainly, our description would be entirely different from the one set before us here. This arm of the Lord, as he's referred to, is no pretty sight. And even as Isaiah preached, as he proclaimed Israel's salvation by the arm of Jehovah, He found the vast majority of those who heard his word would not hear him. They rejected the word of the Lord, the gospel of salvation. And Isaiah proclaims, who hath believed our report? To whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? Who puts his trust in such a Savior? Who will embrace such a gospel that's so undesirable to the thoughts of the natural mind? And the answer is this, only He to whom the arm of the Lord has revealed Him. It's only when God reveals Himself to me, reveals to me personally, Himself as my Savior, when I believe the preaching that sets forth this man of sorrows as my savior and redeemer. It's only by that revelation, worked by God himself. But that also means that only they will embrace the gospel who are spiritually and personally acquainted with their own sin and misery. If I walk in pride, imagining that I'm able to be saved by what I do, and I'm able to save myself, if I stand with unbended knee and heart before the Lord of Lords and King of Kings, refusing to humble myself before him, glorying in my own religious life, in the righteousness of my religious works, if I refuse to confess my great and many sins, there is no mercy for me whatsoever. And the same is true for you. Those who refuse to acknowledge the abomination of their sins, Hide their face from this man of sorrow. Isaiah holds before us here a bruised Redeemer. But He was wounded for our transgression. He was bruised for our iniquity. 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 has laid on him the iniquity of us all. That must be our confession. And then, as we gaze upon our bruised Redeemer, we shall be comforted And I proclaim that gospel this evening under the theme, Our Bruised Redeemer. We notice, first of all, an astounding suffering. Secondly, endured for our sakes. And finally, bearing precious fruit. This fifth verse sets forth the astounding suffering that our Redeemer suffered. And the history of that suffering is set forth by multiple expressions in order that the seriousness of that suffering might be fastened in our minds. The text speaks of wounds, of bruises, of chastisement and stripes. What vivid expressions of our Savior's suffering. He was wounded. And the word speaks of being thrust through with a spear. And certainly when you examine the life of our Savior, the suffering servant of Jehovah, you find one who is wounded, who was pierced even to his soul. We spoke about that in connection with verses three and four, for example, when we consider that grief of soul that Jesus experienced because of his sharp consciousness of the sinfulness of sin. When his people sinned, they pierced his very soul. because he knew that he would have to bear the wrath of God for their sin. That was one form of many wounds that he bore. He suffered in our present. He suffered at the betrayal of his disciple, Judas Iscariot. Jesus speaks, or David, rather, speaks as the type of Christ when he lifts up his song of sorrow, speaking of that wound to his soul, as we sang earlier from Psalms 55, and I refer now specifically to verses 12 through 14. For it was not an enemy that reproached me, then I could have borne it. Neither was it he that hated me that did magnify himself against me. Then I would have hid myself from him, but it was thou, a man mine equal, my guide, my acquaintance. We took sweet counsel together and walked unto the house of God in company. How deep was that wound that Jesus suffered by the betrayal of his own disciples. But still more, he was forsaken by all his disciples. Boys and girls, we speak of bullying today. You know what that is. You know how serious that is? Bullying is a form of persecution, of murder. Do you defend one who's being murdered in that way? When you see one that's being murdered by the tongue, do you defend that person? Jesus' disciples forsook Him. They didn't defend Him. and that added to his suffering. We look for true friends to stand with us in a time of sorrow and struggle. But when Jesus faced his darkest moment, he did so alone, wounded deeply by his closest friends. had to listen to the cries of those calling for his destruction. Crucify him! Crucify him! Pierced his soul. Not only were those wounds experienced by him psychologically in his soul, he had to fulfill the picture literally. He would indeed be pierced with a spear. First, there was that piercing of His hands and feet by those long nails, those spikes with which they nailed Him to the cross. In fulfillment of Psalm 22 verse 16, the suffering servant of Jehovah said, they pierced my hands and my feet. And finally, when all his suffering had been experienced and he passed through that deepest valley of death, they pierced even his lifeless body with the spear thrust into his side. But that astounding suffering is also signified by the expression which speaks of the Redeemer being bruised. Now, a superficial bruise such as you get sometimes on the surface of your skin may not seem like much. Touching it might bring some discomfort, but nothing serious. But have you ever suffered a deep bruise, a bone bruise? Then you realize a bruise can be very, very painful. and the bruises that our Lord suffered were painful indeed. In fact, although the words are different in the Hebrew text, that he was bruised brings back the memory of what we were told in the very first gospel account, Genesis 3 verse 15. When God proclaimed to the serpent, and thou shalt bruise, the heel of the promised seed. That promised seed is the one set before us here in Isaiah 53. And I understand that bruising to refer to the sufferings that caused His heart to be very heavy and His soul exceeding sorrowful even unto death. His being bruised was no light matter. Because the bruises that he would experience would actually lead him into death. As a bruise heals, so Jesus would arise the victor. But the text continues to speak of an astounding suffering which Jesus would bear as the consequence of sin. Because it's also stated that chastisement was upon him. You understand chastisement to be the consequence of sin. How grievous, therefore, for our Redeemer to bear chastisement. He was the sinless, spotless Lamb of God. He didn't deserve chastisement. He was from eternity the perfect one. And even in his suffering, he committed no evil. He stood in the place of sinners, giving himself as the payment for their offenses, and he bore the chastisements that belonged to you and me. That chastisement was severe. It was the suffering of the eternal wrath of the infinitely holy God. And as if those three expressions, wounds, bruises, chastisements, were not vividly enough describing his suffering, the text also calls attention to his suffering of stripes. Now stripes are something that we are quite unfamiliar with in our lenient society. But in some Southeast Asian countries, Singapore being one of them, they're not quick to fill their jail. If someone is guilty of what we might consider a minor crime, he's going to be fined and he's going to be sentenced to stripes. You know what stripes are, boys and girls? That's the execution of judgment rendered by a professional with a whip. And when one receives those stripes, by that whipping, his back is laid open to such a degree there will be scars left behind as a reminder of his crime and the punishment he had to pay for his crime. Those are stripes. Jesus bore stripes. And he bore them literally. And he bore them for our sakes. Our Redeemer, we are told, was bruised for our sakes. He was wounded for our transgression. He was bruised for our iniquities. The text speaks of our sin. There's no escaping that bitter truth. You and I are sinners. And verse 6 magnifies that truth with this confession, 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. Now the Bible often uses comparisons to set forth certain realities and here in this text you and I are compared to sheep. and more particularly to straying sheep. That figure is used to show a striking picture of the danger of our state and our inability to care for ourselves. Sheep that wander outside their shepherd's care are exposed to destruction. They are easy prey for wolves and other wild beasts. They're not able to provide for themselves, they're not able to find their way back to safety. If they are not sought out by the shepherd, they will perish. And that's the comparison of sheep to you and to me. But you know, comparisons in the Bible very often fall short. The comparison here goes as far as I've described. But sheep, you understand, can't be blamed. If they were rational creatures who had willfully and obstinately renounced their shepherd's protection and guidance, they would certainly be blamable. And if such wandering sheep had voluntarily and willfully chosen to plunge themselves into danger by bad-mouthing their shepherd and thinking themselves higher than he, surely then they would be responsible for their destruction. But sheep are animals. They're not rational, moral creatures. And that's where the figure falls short, because you and I, on the other hand, are rational, moral creatures, and that means we're far worse off than those sheep. Your wandering in mine is rebellion against God. For we have turned everyone to his own way. We say of a person that that person has turned to his own way when he refuses all advice, all instruction, and just follows his own ideas and imaginations even though that way lead to destruction. And yet the text says that of you and me. We have turned everyone to His own way. Ecclesiastes 7 verse 29 summarizes that truth that's revealed throughout Scripture and all of history when it says, God hath made man upright, but they sought out many inventions. We sought to go our own way. We didn't want God's way. God appointed a way for our safety, a pleasant path in which we would find rest for our souls, and we said, we will not walk therein. Sin deprived us of safety and fellowship with with the living God, and though the pathway chosen will differ to some degree depending on circumstances and inclination, they all lead in the same direction and involve essentially the same wickedness. Every one of us, forsaking God, turned to a vain idea whispered in our minds by Satan You shall be as God. And making that lie our own, we and everyone says in his heart by nature, I'm a God in my own right. Everything exists for me. I make my own way. By nature, we're totally consumed with self. We're self-centered and self-absorbed in our depravity. With self we begin, with self we end in all our thoughts. We choose out our own way, not by what's right before God, but what's right, what's in it for me. That's the way of going astray that's common to every one of us. But still more, there's also a way of sin to each of us that is our own. In our own individual way, and that according to our own inclinations and the sinfulness of our flesh, we walk in sin. From moment to moment. You have a game in your house that has a little hourglass with sand in it? You flip that thing over, it's a timer. You flip it over and the sand bleeds through that little opening in the glass. Our iniquities are like that. They just keep coming and pile up until we have a mountain of death. iniquities that rise and cry out for our damnation. And that's true of every one of us. That's true of every person from the beginning of history until now. And though God calls, we close our ears. That's our natural response. We read through the Bible, we see that God sent his messengers repeatedly to proclaim his gospel and they mocked his messengers and rejected his word and kept going their own way. That's the context of all history and of this prophecy of Isaiah even when we consider the first verse of this chapter. Although there are a thousand ways that lead to destruction, there's only one way that leads to Christ, that leads to God, that leads to salvation. And that is the way of life, the Redeemer sent by God, Jesus Christ the righteous. He alone is the way, the truth, and the light. Though a man be outwardly ungodly and pagan, or openly religious and have not Christ, he's a wandering sheep whose end is destruction. We read in Mark 16 verse 16, he that believeth not shall be damned. And in Hebrews 12 verse 14, Without holiness, no man shall see the Lord. And this is our confession, who humbly submit to the teaching of Scripture and to God's judgment of us, and we look in awe now upon our bruised Redeemer. For surely, He who deserved the name Good Shepherd, who freely laid down His life where such sheep as we is alone our salvation. Apart from Him, there is no salvation. Look at the misery that surrounds us. Men and women without Christ. Look at the misery that afflicts us when we aren't living in that consciousness. It's horrible. Absolutely horrible. Exposed every hour to the stroke of death, which would immediately plunge us into the pit from which there's no redemption. And against that dark background, this text sets forth the most blessed truth. This text sounds forth the gospel. the trumpet blast of the gospel, the music that is sweet to the ears of all who believe. Because here we see the suffering servant of Jehovah, our Savior, who redeems us from all our iniquities. And when this text shines upon the rest of Scripture, we find ourselves with Christ in the great family of the redeemed. blameless and holy before God. We see ourselves one body with Christ, united by a living faith, recipients of the love of God. We see ourselves described in 1 Peter 2 as a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a peculiar people, holy nation. formed by God to show forth the praises of him who hath called us out of darkness into his marvelous light. We find ourselves described by Jesus in John 10 as sheep, but now as sheep that know him, that hear his voice, that follow him. And why? Because He laid down His life for His sheep. And they are those who were given Him by the Father. All those beautiful truths of the Gospel have their basis in the words of the Gospel here in Isaiah 53 verses 5 and 6. For Jesus Christ, the suffering servant of Jehovah bore that astounding suffering for our sakes and in our place. It had to be that way or there could be no salvation. Sin demands the punishment of the righteous and holy God. The God of absolute perfection and holiness cannot overlook that which opposes Him. He cannot shrug off the evil as if it were meaningless or as if it would simply go away. He always maintains His own glory. To forsake Him, therefore, to rebel against Him must immediately result in misery and wrath. And the gospel proclaims that Jesus took upon himself that misery and wrath in order that we might be saved. In order that he would free us. He took upon himself the guilt of our sins. He took our punishment. He assumed our responsibility. And he did so not merely to make reconciliation possible, but to actually pay for those sins, to block them out, and to reconcile to the living God, all whom the Father had given him from before the foundation of the world. Was there a single sin of ours that Jesus did not bear? That Jesus was so broken in body and soul was because the wrath of God was upon Him. The consuming fire of that wrath burned itself out against the sins of all His people from the beginning to the end of the world. Beloved, the more we live this truth, not only talk about it, but live in the consciousness of it, the more we shall rejoice in the wonder work of the God of our salvation. Why should Jesus endure such suffering in our place? The answer is love. divine and unfathomable love. God loved us, I don't know why, before the foundation of the world. He loved you and me who now stand gazing upon that accursed tree in the sorrow of broken and contrite hearts. He loved us with a love that would shrink from nothing to glorify Himself in saving us. He chose us for that purpose. For a reason we can't comprehend, who can know the mind of the Lord? And what shall we say? Doesn't the potter have power over the clay to do with the same lump as he pleases? Making one vessel unto honor and another unto dishonor, Romans 9. And we stand in awe, and we don't talk back. He gave us. whom He had chosen. He gave us unto Christ, the head of His people, the mediator of His covenant. And upon that Redeemer, His only begotten Son, He poured out the vials of His wrath, because there was no other way in which the love of God could be spread over you and me. That's the text. That's the gospel. God's boundless love and our transgression. That's the explanation for this awful spectacle on Calvary's Hill. And this gospel, proclaimed already by prophecy in the Old Testament, radiates with the marvelous light of beauty and grace. How precious is this fruit of the suffering of our bruised Redeemer. In the words of the last part of verse 5, the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and with His stripes we are healed. We have peace with God. To have peace with God is to be one with Him, to be in harmony with Him, to enjoy His favor and His fellowship. and therefore to be at rest. By nature, without the cross, there's only conflict and unrest. That's what we see all around us. Sin separates from God. Sin only brings conflict and enmity, wrath and suffering. That's what sin brings. even to the home. Because sin not only makes God an enemy, it makes Him a severe punisher. And when the Lord opens our eyes and causes us to view ourselves in the light of His holiness and justice, That unrest overwhelms our soul with such a sorrow before God. It causes us to realize how true it is that the heart can have no rest until it rests in the living God, as Saint Augustine said. That's the only way you and I may experience peace. In Jesus Christ alone is peace. No, it doesn't mean we're perfect. Our experience is that of a great struggle against the old man of sin. But Christ has paid our debt and reconciled us unto God, making him our friend. He's not ashamed to be called our God. So that the testimony of Romans 5 verse 1 is our own experience, therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. And with His stripes we are healed. Whereas peace stresses the legal aspect of our relationship with God, the healing emphasizes the spiritual. We have need of this too, because not only are we guilty, but we are corrupt. And our corruption is a painful affliction that separates us from the living God. Our guilt and sin must not only be paid for, we must be sanctified. As He which has called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation. That too takes place because of and on the basis of the effective suffering of our Savior, Christ alone. His is the chastisement, ours is the peace. His are the stripes, ours the healing. What blessed comfort is ours for whom Christ died? There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh but after the spirit, Romans 8 verse 1. True, we might weep when we meditate upon the sufferings of our Redeemer. Astounding suffering He endured for our sake. By these great sufferings we are given to see the horrendous nature of our sin. And let's not overlook that cause of His suffering. After all, He calls us to confess our sin. And it's only that guilt-confessing, sin-forsaking faith that lays hold of Christ. But through our tears of sorrow for sin, let's not fail to see the precious fruit of salvation in this Savior sent from God. We still suffer and we still struggle with our sinful flesh. We're still, as it were, in a state of discipline. And for the growth of our faith and the mortification of the sin that still remains against our will in us, it's necessary that we pass through many tribulations. But those tribulations are not the tokens of God's wrath against the wicked. They are His fatherly chastisements, tokens of His love, designed to make us partakers of His holiness. And all the necessary at present. The time soon comes when all tears shall be wiped away from our eyes, and such chastisements will no longer be necessary, for we shall be made perfect, because we belong to Jesus, who purchased us with His precious blood, and who says, as I live, so ye shall live also. Listen to this confession of the believing church. He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. Is that your confession? Yours then is the blessedness of Calvary. The peace that passes all understanding. This is the source of all your love and gratitude and cheerful obedience to God. And yours is the promise that you shall be healed by those stripes until all that is of sin is taken away and you will be holy even as your Father which is in heaven is holy. How precious are the promises of God to us, all because of Jesus' work on Calvary. Amen. Heavenly Father, we are deeply humbled by Thy Word and grateful Thou hast given us to see our Savior, and we confess our sins before Thee, and are thankful that He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Father, look upon us in Him, in whose name we pray, amen.