The following message is brought to you by Capital City Baptist Church of Port Moresby. We exist to bring glory to God by knowing Christ and making Him known. If you would like to visit our church, we hold multiple services on Sunday mornings, starting at 9 a.m. We are located between Montecare Wharf and Edi Town. Pickups are available 7009-1000. The book of the prophet Isaiah will be reading from verse 9 in chapter 52 through the entire 53rd chapter. Isaiah 52 verse 9. The prophet wrote, break forth into joy, sing together ye waste places of Jerusalem, for the Lord hath comforted his people, he hath redeemed Jerusalem. The Lord hath made bare his holy arm in the eyes of all the nations, and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God. Depart ye, depart ye, go ye out from thence. Touch no unclean thing. Go ye out of the midst of her. Be ye clean that bear the vessels of the Lord. For ye shall not go out with haste nor by flight, for the Lord will go before you, and the God of Israel shall be a rear reward. Behold, my servant shall deal prudently. He shall be exalted and extolled, and be very high. As many were astonished at thee, his visage was so marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men. So shall he sprinkle many nations. The kings shall shut their mouths at him. That which had not been told them shall they see, and that which they had not heard shall they consider. 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 a shearer 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 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 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 has poured out his soul unto death and he was numbered with the transgressors and he bear the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors. Thank the Lord for his word and especially this rich passage. I trust you have your Bibles already open this morning to Isaiah chapter 52. For the next several weeks, I'd like to spend some time looking at the book of Isaiah, and especially in light of the crucifixion and the cross, resurrection of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. If you would have your Bibles at Isaiah 52, but I'll also make a note, if you have a couple of pieces of paper, we'll also be looking at Luke 22 and John 18. So if you have a piece of paper, you might drop it into Luke 22 and another one at John 18. We'll be there. in a little while. Isaiah wrote this prophecy 700 years before the birth of Christ and the question has been repeated since then, of whom was Isaiah speaking? Jesus himself makes it clear in the book of Mark chapter 10 and verse 45, Jesus said this, for even the son of man came not to be ministered unto but to minister and to give his life a ransom For many, Jesus makes a reference to Isaiah 53, I am the servant that God will send. And then throughout the rest of the New Testament, the authors of the New Testament quote back to this very passage. Peter, in 1 Peter 2.24, he writes of Jesus. who with his stripes we are healed, healed, a direct quote out of this passage. And perhaps you remember from Acts chapter 8, you might remember the Ethiopian eunuch who was on his way back to Ethiopia after having been at worship at the Passover in Jerusalem. And on his way, he's reading from Isaiah's prophecy and his question as Philip meets him, his question, Is Isaiah speaking of himself or is he speaking of another man? And Philip, beginning at the beginning of the word of God, the beginning of the scriptures, walked through the scriptures and pointed that this would be Jesus Christ himself. And so as we see Isaiah 52, know that this is not Isaiah speaking of someone else. It is not him speaking of himself. He is speaking only of one. That is the Messiah. That's the Lord Jesus. So as we see throughout Isaiah 52 and 53, know that this was written well before the birth of Christ, but everything in it points at Jesus himself. And Jesus Christ was marred above what any man would ever do, and his name would be exalted above every name, so that in the name of Jesus, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is the Lord. I think that the best comparison that we have in recent memory would be what we've seen over the last three weeks. As you look around us at what the period of mourning has been like since the passing of the late Grand Chief, we've watched as house cry after house cry And as even all of the processions and what we saw a week ago today, and then the funeral and the house cry and how many thousands of people watched live as his coffin was buried. And I think of how much we esteem our late Grand Chief here. And yet think in terms of Jesus Christ, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, and how much glory will be pronounced upon His name throughout eternity. As we look at, oh, look at how much this has impacted our cultural setting, look at how much His name is going to be revealed and His name will be glorified in the many years that will come through eternity, the ages that will come. I want to draw your attention to Isaiah 52. I'll read our passage for today. is from verse number 9 down to chapter 53 and verse number 5. Let me just draw your attention to those specific verses. For the next two weeks we will then continue on from verse 6 and go further. But let me just draw your attention. Isaiah 52 verse 9, break forth into joy, sing together you waste places of Jerusalem. For the Lord has comforted his people, he has redeemed Jerusalem. The Lord hath made bare his holy arm in the eyes of all the nations, and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God. What a great missionary verse. All the ends of the earth will see the salvation of our God. Depart ye, go ye out from thence, touch no unclean thing. Go ye out of the midst of her, but be clean that bear the vessels of the Lord. shall not go out with haste, nor go by flight, for the Lord will go before you, and the God of Israel will be your rear reward. Behold, my servant shall deal prudently. He shall be exalted and extolled, and be very high. Remember, My servant is Jesus. My servant will deal prudently. As many as are astonished at Thee, His visage was so marred more than any man, and His form more than the sons of men, so shall He sprinkle many nations. The kings shall shut their mouths at Him, for that which had not been told them shall they see, and that which they had not heard shall they consider. Key questions, 53 and verse 1. Who has believed our report? And to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? 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. I want to draw your attention to verse number one, the two key questions that I see right in the middle of the passage, the two key questions, and it could almost seem like a literary device for him to write this way, but I think he's trying to draw our attention into a very key point. So let me show it to you. Verse number one. Who has believed our report? That's the first question. Who has believed our report? And the answer, very simply, is Nobody. Man does not naturally come to God and say, oh, how magnificent you are. Instead, as we saw last week, man will continually make himself look good. Who has believed our report? Nobody. We don't naturally come to God and declare how great He is. Instead, we come trying to declare our own righteousness. Go up to Bethany. That's an eight hour grueling hike. Nothing but rocks everywhere. There's no shade to be had. Up the eight hour hike to Bethany and he sleeps in Bethany. Now here's the one that I want to just bring out because John 11 and John 12 bring it out. You might remember in Bethany he stayed in the house of Martha who also had a sister named Mary and a brother named Lazarus. And you might remember that Lazarus had gotten sick. Now we don't know for sure exactly what trip it was that Jesus had raised Lazarus from the dead, but I tend to feel like it was on this trip, and I'll tell you why. Because there were so many people in Jerusalem that wanted to come and see. John 12 says, so many people wanted to come and see this man who had been dead and was now alive. It was so many people that when those people were coming out, the chief priests were getting angry, they were trying to kill Jesus, but they also said, we need to kill that Lazarus guy. You want to talk about poor guy being in the wrong place at the wrong time, right? Here's a guy, I was dead, I got rose again, and now they want to kill me because I rose again. Celebrate with me that I rose again, right? And here's Jesus showing His power over death. Friend, the Lord Jesus has power over death. He raised Himself from the dead. He raised Lazarus from the dead. And 1 Corinthians 15 says that there's coming a day when He will raise the dead in Christ as well. gives us a glimpse that week of his power over death. And then the following day, he rode a donkey into the eastern gate of Jerusalem. And that day he showed us that he had power over all the kingdoms of the earth. Historians tell us that as many as 250,000 people were in that crowd as they went into the eastern gate. Can you just imagine? 250,000 people. Scriptures tell us that they made a large shout as they laid their clothing on the ground, the palm branches they put them on the ground so that the donkey would walk so much So they honored him so much so that they did not want the donkey to even get his feet dirty as he came into the city. And here's Jesus. And you might remember the passage said that Jesus was crying. He was weeping while he rode the donkey. As he rides in, his cry was, Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you kill the prophets. He knew that he also would be one that was headed that way. And in that moment, He could have called the angels from heaven and in that moment he could have wiped out Rome's influence, but instead he showed that he would take over in a very different way, showing his display of his power over religion. You might remember also that he cleansed the temples, overturning the tables, Here he has power over kingdoms, power over religion. He had power over the mundane. I don't know if you remember this story. There was Jesus in that week. He sends John and Peter. He told John and Peter, you remember this? He said, John and Peter, I want you to go and get a room for us. Historians tell us there's 2.7 million people in that city at that time. This is mind boggling. That's three times the number of people we have in our city, Port Moresby. And they're all crammed into a walled city. And everybody is going to celebrate the Passover. You think about how hard it would be to find a single room to meet with your disciples. And here Jesus says, Peter and John, I want you to go into the city and you're going to get us a room. If I'm John, I'm thinking in this moment, hang on a second, how am I ever going to find a room because it is too late. We should have taken care of this six months ago. But now here I am at the last second and I don't know if you remember the story Jesus told Peter and John said walk into the city and you'll see a man carrying a water jug. Now that's worth paying attention to by the way the ladies were the ones that were carrying water jugs so I don't know maybe this guy's wife just died and he's carrying a jug for himself. And here goes the guy walking down the street, and he's got the water jug on his head. And Jesus says, that guy, follow him. Not go talk to him, follow him. And he's going to take you to a house, and when you get to the house, ask the guy who owns that house if we can have the upper room. And he'll say yes. Like, you want to talk about knowing the end from the beginning, right? And Jesus shows he has power over the mundane. As he says, just go in the city, and there's going to be a dude walking down the street He has power over everything. So please don't for one single moment think that somehow the Romans tricked Him and the chief priests got one over on Him and somehow He slipped up and that's how they crucified Him. Oh no, He's in control of everything and He put it on display in that final week. So one day after another, I'm going to do another miracle and another miracle so that no man will ever be able to question, I am in control of all things. And in that way, the Lord displayed His holy arm and said, let me show you my might and my power. Nothing happens to God by chance. Nothing happens by mistake. Instead, He intentionally shows off His own arm. Look at verse 11 with me. Isaiah chapter 52 verse 11. Depart ye, He says, depart ye, go you out from thence, touch no unclean thing, go you out of the midst of her, be you clean that bear the vessels of the Lord, You shall not go out with haste nor by flight for the Lord will go before you and the God of Israel shall be your rear reward Behold my servant shall deal prudently he shall be exalted and extolled and he shall be very high now verse 14 as Many were astonished at thee His visage was so marred more than any man in his form more than the sons of men and I see here as God puts on a display on that night, the night before His crucifixion, this is a night that shows His agony. The depths that He went to as He showed the display of His power and the depths to which He went to in order to carry our sins. He left from the upper room after having met with His disciples, had the Last Supper. He takes them to the Garden of Gethsemane. And I don't know if you've ever thought about the connection as Jesus goes to a garden to take on himself the sin of the world, the very sin that began, Romans chapter 5 says, that began with a man in a garden. And Adam began in a garden and he fell and Jesus went to a garden and he took the sins of mankind. Jesus came in and he asked his disciples to pray with him. If you have your Bibles, look over at Luke chapter 22 I'd like to point this portion out from Luke 22. I want you to see the wording that Luke gives us. Verse number 41, As Christ prayed, the disciples slept. Jesus woke them, tried to draw their attention to the seriousness of the moment, and yet their flesh was weak. Luke chapter 22 and verse 41, Jesus was withdrawn from them about a stone's cast, and he kneeled down and prayed, saying, Father, if Thou be willing, remove this cup from me, nevertheless not my will, but Thine be done." In these words, we get just a glimpse of what the Savior endured when He went to the cross. Here's Jesus. I believe to the point of being overwhelmed as he asks God, God would you please, if there's any other way, can we please do it a different way? Let this cup pass from me. Authors have written on what that cup was. The cup was filled with the wrath of God upon the sin of all the world. I think of those sins that have been heaping up and the wrath of God that has heaped up from the very beginning. Think of this for just a moment. Jesus never sinned. And for the one who is holy to take upon Him the sin of the world, this is devastating. Friend, this is horrific for Him to take upon Himself the sin. And there He sees the cup and, Father, if it be Your will, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done." And as I think of the sin that has been there heaped up from the beginning, yes, Adam, rebellion, hiding, blame shifting, but then as God has chosen His own people, Israel, I think of all of the sins that were heaped up from the people of Israel. From the very beginning, as they were drawn out in the Exodus, yes, they're only three days into the wilderness, and they're three days into the wilderness, what are they doing? They're complaining back at God. Oh God, we had things really well back in Egypt. Do you realize they were slaves in Egypt and yet they want to complain about their freedom? God gives them manna. Angels' food. And they complain about how all we ever have to eat is this manna. Bitterness towards God. Their sin continues to heap up to the point of while Moses is on the mountain, they're at the foot of the mountain. taking the earrings off of their own ears, gathering it together so that Aaron, Aaron, the high priest, Aaron, can melt them all down and make them a golden calf that they can worship instead of paying attention to the God who's creating thunder and lightning on the mountain right behind him. This is the sins. Yea, even all the way to Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you killed the prophets, and you will kill the one who's coming in riding on the donkey, son of man. I think of the sins of the Gentiles, for if the sins of the Jews were many, the sins of the Gentiles were much more. As some would worship Baal and Ashtaroth, some of them would sacrifice their children on altars, some wicked kings would plunder other nations, and some would just take advantage of their own people. not having had a representation of God Almighty among them. Instead, they've followed after their own fleshly lusts and built up their own kingdoms. And it's not just those Gentiles of that day, but even you and I today do the very same thing. I think also of the sin of the principalities and powers. If we think that we have people among us who are in tune with the spiritual world, Jesus Christ was 100% in tune with the spiritual world. For He would walk into a synagogue, and in the synagogue recognize that one man was possessed of a demon, and Jesus would cast out the demon of one person in the midst of that congregation. I can just imagine when He walked into a room, He knew what was going on. And I can just imagine as He walked to the Garden of Gethsemane, I can only imagine what The vileness of Satan and all of his demons must have been going on outside of the eyes of the disciples. For the disciples come to the garden and take a nap. And yet Jesus saw every bit of it. All the way from the very first sins of Lucifer, Isaiah 14, Ezekiel 28, I will exalt myself Above God. From that sin all the way until the last one when God will cast him forever into the lake of fire. That one too, those sins also heaped into the cup. And there's God's wrath abiding upon the sin. All the sin of all the world. And Jesus is going to take that upon Himself. Oh, can we take a moment and feel the depths of His agony in the garden. And yet, God did not leave him there hopeless. Look again, Luke 22. Look down at verse number 43. I love this verse. There appeared an angel unto him from heaven strengthening him. I too think this was overwhelming. There's Jesus broken as He never sinned, never not a single one sinned, never thought a wicked thought. He's perfect and yet He sees, I'm going to take upon Myself the sin of the world. I'm going to pay the price, the sacrifice that it costs to appease God's wrath. I'm going to make man right with God in this. There's no other way. I see Him broken, and in this moment it says that God sent Him an angel that would minister to Him. And by the way, this is the last time that an angel would help Him. and yet he had at his disposal all of the angels of God. The multitude. You remember that in the moment when the soldiers came? We'll get to that in a minute. But when the soldiers came, do you remember? Peter pulls out his sword and whacks off Malchus' ear. Do you remember that? And Jesus says, hang on, guys. If I wanted to, I could call down twelve legions of angels. A legion is 6,000. I could call down 12 legions. That's 72,000 angels. And I won't take the time to show it to you, but 2 Kings chapter 19 and verse 35 says that one angel in one night killed 135,000 soldiers. So if one can do that, times it by 72, good night, good gracious. These guys have got no hope whatsoever. And Jesus has that at His disposal. Again, I can only imagine, as Jesus can see what Satan and his demons are scheming and planning, He can also see how much His own angels are on standby. And He says, Guys, hang on. Hold off. This is not the day. For I will drink of the wrath of God. And then look at verse number 44. And being in an agony, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling to the ground." I don't know where we get this picture, but for some reason we get this picture that Jesus is there praying Yes, we might even say, yes, he even sweat so much that it was great drops of blood. But somehow it's as if we get in our mind that he stood up from praying, wiped his brow, and continued on. Friend, do you realize if you've got blood coming out of your sweat pores, your clothes are going to be stained. So before the very moment of the betrayal kiss, already he's begun to shed his blood for the sin of man. And here's our Savior taking on the name that's shown in Isaiah 53. You can come back and see it, Isaiah 53. In verse number three, he's despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. Our Savior says to Peter, put away that sword. He says to Michael, hold back the angels. And He went on our behalf. And in that moment, drinking of the cup, the Creator gave Himself over to the creation. He made the very threads that they used to make a rope to tie Him up. And He gave them the very breath with which they would, say, crucify Him. He who said, let there be light, was now walking in the darkness. Please see that the arm of the Lord was being revealed that night in the midst of his agony. Isaiah chapter 52, look at verse 15, we'll see the third revelation. In a trial, he will declare his purpose. 52 and verse 15, so shall he sprinkle many nations. The kings shall shut their mouths at him. For that which had not been told them shall they see, and that which they had not heard shall they consider. Kings will shut their mouths. You know what? One thing doesn't happen for great leaders, they don't shut their mouths. And here the Scripture says, because of Jesus, kings will stand there with their mouths shut. They don't have anything to say in response. And you might remember, as he went to trial that night, two major trials, the minor one being him going to see Herod and Herod sending him right back. The two major trials were before Pilate and before the chief priests. They started with the chief priests. They tied him up in the garden. When they tied him up in the garden, Peter tried to defend him. Jesus told him to stop. Put your sword away. You live by the sword. You die by the sword. Put the sword away, Peter. They tied him up and he gave himself over. Oh yes, he could have called down. He could have displayed his power in a very different way. And yet, with this one, he was taking away the sin of the world. He was in battle against Satan. Not against man. He was doing it for man. He went to the trial. And this trial was as unjust as they come, for the verdict was already passed before they began. The chief priests, the Pharisees, the scribes hated Jesus. They saw Him as a threat. They thought that perhaps there was too much of a following, following after Jesus. The chief priest's words were, let one man die instead of the whole nation. And without him realizing it, he was placing a picture from the Old Testament, yes, one will die in the place of others. And here's Jesus, goes to the trial, and as Jesus comes into the trial, Chief priests begin to question him, one question after another, and yet he keeps his mouth closed. Isaiah 53 had written, As a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so opened he not his mouth. He kept his mouth closed throughout the trial. They get frustrated. They try all sorts of things. They blindfold him. They punch him. The paid-off corrupt soldiers, who should not have been there, and yet were there, would hit him and say, prophesy and tell us who it was that hit you. They spit in his face. Finally, they were frustrated. They had nothing else to be able to say to him. So they asked the one question that for them would be the determining question. They brought false witnesses who cannot even get their stories straight amongst themselves. And here, this is from Matthew 26. what the scriptures say in Matthew 26 and verse 63, but Jesus held his peace. And the high priest answered and said unto him, I adjure you by the living God. I can just see the vileness flowing out of his mouth. He's angry. He's at the top. I adjure you by the living God that thou tell us whether thou be the Christ, the Son of the God. Are you the Messiah? And in their minds, they thought, one day the Messiah will come, and when the Messiah comes, He will get rid of the Romans. There's no way that this Jesus can be the Messiah. That's what's in their mind. For this Jesus, they're going to kill Him. In their minds, if we can kill Him, we stop Him from being the Messiah. They don't understand this. They've not understood Isaiah 53. So they ask Him, Are you the Christ, the Son of God? And Jesus answers in verse 64, and here's what he says, Thou hast said. In other words, yes I am. Nevertheless, I say unto you, hereafter shall you see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of power and coming in the clouds of heaven. I am the Son of God, and there's a day you will see me coming back from heaven, conquering on the clouds of heaven. You got it right. I'll come back. Today I will lay my life down, but tomorrow I'll raise it back up. I can lay it down. No man takes it from me. I lay it down, and I will take it back up. And when I take it back up, I will rule and reign. I have a purpose. But for now, I'll give myself over. As the dawn began to break, they took him before Pilate. Pilate was the only one that had the right, legally, to put him to death. Oh, the chief priests already wanted him dead. They had already passed their own sentence, but they did not have the legal right to put him to death. In fact, if they had tried, Rome would have squashed them. Therefore, they went to Pilate and tried to accuse him before Pilate. And you might remember some of the things that Pilate said, I don't know what you guys are so angry about. This one has done nothing wrong. Pilate's question, one of the questions was, what has he done wrong that causes you to think that he should die? And their response was, do you think we would bring somebody to you that didn't deserve to die? That's a dumb answer. There's much better answers. His question was, what's the crime? You don't say, he's a criminal. You say, here's the crime. Pilate gives a trial there, and I want you to see his response. So again, hold your place in Isaiah 53, and look over to John 18, and you'll get to see the response that Jesus has here to Pilate, as Pilate has, yes, legal right to put him to death, but he does not have the physical power Remember, in this, all of this, the Lord is laying bare His holy arm. To whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? It's being revealed to all of us. And in this moment, it is not Pilate who has the ultimate power, it is God Almighty who has the ultimate power. It is Jesus Himself who will lay down His life and will take it back up. And yet, Pilate cannot wrap his mind around this. Pilate thinks, I'm the one that says you will die. That's just a formality. John chapter 18, look at verse number 33. Then Pilate entered into the judgment hole again and called Jesus and said unto him, Art thou the king of the Jews? I see and hear in this moment, I hear him mocking. I am the one, this is Pilate, I am the one who's in charge of this area. I'm the king. Are you the king? Can you see him mocking Jesus? I'm the one that's in control as he wears his robes and wears his crown. I'm the one that's in charge here. Jesus, do you want to try that? Are you the king? Maybe in this moment he can find something. And Jesus says to him in verse 34, Jesus answered him, Sayeth this thing of thyself, or did others tell it thee of me? Did you come up with that on your own? Those are the words Jesus gave. Did you come up with that on your own? Or did somebody else say that to you? Pilate continues, verse 35, Pilate answered, am I a Jew? In other words, this is not my issue. I'm a Roman. I care about Roman stuff. I care about the law. I care about making sure that everything stays peaceful. I cannot have a rebellion in my area. I'm not a Jew, and so I don't keep up with who's what and what situations. We're in control. You guys are just peons. Thine own nation, he says, thine own nation and the chief priests have delivered thee unto me. What hast thou done? This is an honest moment. I think this is an honest moment where Pilate asked Jesus, what's going on? Tell me why? Why do they want you dead? Verse 36, Jesus answered, my kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight?" Something like maybe about five, six hours ago, Pilate, my servants would have fought and they tried. In fact, you'll probably hear about it as the day goes on because Malchus's ear got whacked off. And you'll hear about that one later on, but you'll also probably hear about the way that I reached down and picked it up and put it back on his head. Malchus can hear just fine, probably hear better than he did before. My servants would have fought if my kingdom was of this earth, but that's not the way that this kingdom works. My kingdom is not of this world, verse 36. If my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight that I should not be delivered to the Jews, but now is my kingdom not from hence. Pilate therefore said unto him, Art thou a king then? Same question and he asked it again. Now Jesus answers and he brings it to the point because in this trial he will declare his purpose. Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king. You got it right. To this end was I born and for this cause came I into the world that I should bear witness unto the truth. Everyone that is of the truth heareth my voice. I was born to be a king. And the mouths of kings will be stopped for they will see and they will hear things that they never imagined as Isaiah 52 says. So then that brings me into our conclusion and first few verses of chapter 53. We'll continue on next week with the crucifixion but I want us to see the questions and how our response is in chapter 52. So come back to Isaiah 53 and verse number 1. Who has believed our report? Nobody. Nobody believed. And to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? Everybody. Everybody got that display. Every nation on the earth gets that display. 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 in Him." That's verse 2. He's not beautiful to look upon. Not like Saul where he's a head and shoulders taller than everybody else. Not like Absalom with his beautiful looks or Samson with his flowing hair. There's nothing that we look on him and say, oh yes, that one looks like a great leader. No. There's nothing there that physically attracts us. He laid himself down. His visage was marred more than any man. He is going To a shameful place, the cross on our behalf. Verse 3, He is despised. And He's rejected of men. He's 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. We were so audacious that we would hide our faces and somehow claim ignorance of what He has done for us. Oh, don't ever think that you can hide from the grace of God and claim that you did not know. To whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? The only reason that anyone can ever say, I didn't get to see the arm of the Lord, is because you hid your own face. You don't get to claim ignorance with Him. Oh, see the Savior on the cross. That which to the world seems, oh, so shameful, but to those of us who are believers, we see the power of God being revealed. Oh friend, look on the cross. Surely, here's the beautiful part, verse four, surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. So before we look at the empty tomb, we have to look at the cross and see him display his power even as he goes to the grave. For he was wounded, verse five. for our transgressions. Think upon these things, brethren. It is our sin that caused Him to go to the cross. He is wounded for our transgressions, and He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and with His stripes we are healed. He brought healing for you and for me at the cross, to whom as the arm of the Lord revealed, It's shown for every single one of us. And it's shown in a place that you and I would normally think to be shameful. That's the cross. Today we've seen the trial. Next Sunday we'll see him on the cross. Father, I thank you for showing your arm to us. Thank you that Jesus took the sin of the world upon himself. Thank you that When we were enemies against God, you still loved us enough to send your Son. Yea, even before we fell, you planned at the foundation of the world to send Christ to the cross on our behalf. Far be it from us to ever think that we have what it takes to be right with God. It is not in our own strength that we come to you, but we come to you in your strength. So thank you for the cross. Thank you for sending Jesus. I pray that during these next few weeks, as we head towards Easter, I pray that these next few weeks we would ponder and appreciate the transgressions being laid on him. And with his stripes, we are healed. May your name be glorified in our lives, in Jesus' name, amen.