Let's open our Bibles, please, to Isaiah chapter 53. This is one of the best chapters that I would think in the whole Bible, really, and especially in the book of Isaiah. Prophetically of Christ, over 80-some times there are references, not direct references, but quotes or whatever from the book of Isaiah in the New Testament of this 53rd chapter. over 80-something times, and there are seven definite references, direct references, to the substitutionary death of Christ on the cross. And we find those given. I gave you those references last week, and if any of you want those references, I won't take time to repeat the verses right now, but if you want those references, I can give them to you. But now we'll get into expounding it. We got down to the first verse in our last lesson. So, let's open our Bibles to Isaiah 53, if you will, and look at verse 1. Verse 1 says, Who hath believed our report, and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? Now, when it says, Who hath believed our report, we're talking about Christ's claim to Messiahship, and He was rejected as He hung on the cross. They didn't believe Him, and His message was rejected, the message of His death. being an effective sacrifice for our sins, we find in the book of 1 Corinthians, let's see, 1 Corinthians chapter 1, I believe it is, 1 Corinthians chapter 1, in verse 23, it says this, but we preach Christ crucified unto the Jews a stumbling block and unto the Greeks foolishness. So his message was rejected. It was foolishness. It was a stumbling block to the Jews and to the Greeks it was foolishness. Actually, there are three things about Christ that were rejected. His words and His works and His person. His words were rejected. What He did was rejected. And the very person of Christ was rejected. In fact, you'll find in verse one, it says, Who hath believed our report? That means His doctrine or His teachings or His word. And so who would believe that? They were rejected. And then his works, to whom is the arm of the Lord. The arm of the Lord speaks of his works and of his power revealed. And then it says, for he shall grow up before him as a tender plant. We begin to deal with his person. And the person of Christ was rejected. So we find that he was rejected in various ways. The Bible says he's despised and rejected of men in verse 3. So we find that Jesus is the one that is referred to here. By the way, in this first verse, in John 12, verse 38, when his word was spoken, let me read it for you. Let's read verse 37, 38. It says, But though he had done so many miracles before them, yet they believed not on him, that the saying of Esaias the prophet might be fulfilled. The miracles that he had done. that the saying of the prophet Esaias might be fulfilled, which he spake, Lord, who hath believed thy report, and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? So he's talking about not only his words, but his works. And Jesus refers to Isaiah's prophecy here in John 12, verse 38, but 37 sets up the context for you. Who hath believed our report? We find that he came to his own and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name. It says in verse 2, For he shall grow up before God as a tender plant, or as a little bush, you might say, 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. As a tender plant, this should remind us of the shoot of David. In Isaiah 11, verse 1, it says this, And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem, or shoot, of David, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. So he was of the seed of David, according to the flesh. But he's seen as one that just grows up in a desert place, as a root out of dry ground. And he has no form nor comeliness. Can you imagine a plant, not like a big, beautiful tree, a blue spruce, we'll call it, or some lofty cedars of Lebanon, or if we wanted to really use an illustration that most of us would be familiar with, the redwoods in California, most of us have seen at least pictures of them, or some lofty, beautiful trees, but not like that, as a little root out of dry ground out here in a desert A place where there is just sand and rocks and dirt and no vegetation around. That is what Jesus was like. In other words, what we see is that the New Testament tells us virtually nothing about the physical appearance of the Lord Jesus. We are not told about the physical appearance of Christ. Now, we do see a vision of Him glorified in Revelation chapter 1. But rather, they tend to emphasize the moral beauty. of Christ, the moral beauty of his character. And he was apparently not very striking in appearance. And we need to keep this point in mind because his physical appearance would not lead anyone to recognize who he was. But such recognition would take a spiritual discernment to recognize who Jesus was. He was just like other men. In fact, he has no form nor comeliness. And when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He was ordinary among men. And maybe when it states it this way, a little less than ordinary as far as physical appearance, unless you could see the divine side of it and the glory of God coming from the inside out. I've known people in my life that To the human eye, you might think them knew a lady in Mount Pleasant one time. To the human eye, she was not beautiful at all, and rather not good looking in appearance, but her demeanor and her kindness and her sweetness caused you never to even notice that part of her. Because she had inward beauty that was just Christian love and concern, and you pay very little attention to the fact that she didn't look like everyone else in many respects, and I could describe, but I won't go into that part of it. But anyway, we find that as far as Christ's beauty, His real beauty was a spiritual discernment of His person. And that's why the Bible says that on the Mount of Transfiguration, that he was transfigured before Peter, James, and John. And his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light. And he had real spiritual inward beauty coming outside. And they could see his beauty that stemmed from within him, and not just on the outside of him. Now, you and I, we like to put on the good looks on the outside if we can, but Jesus wanted to He showed forth the Father. He showed forth the glory of God. We beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. And so the things about Jesus were different than other men. And Isaiah describes Him here. For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant, as a root out of dry ground. He hath no form nor comeliness. And when we shall see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him. Now then, in verse 3, he is despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. We know he is rejected by his own, was he not? And to be rejected by one's community was a social death for a Jew. That was the worst thing. If the own people would not receive them, it was just like social death, separation from the rest of the community. And indeed, Jesus was not received by his own, was he? The Bible says he came unto his own and his own received him not. He is despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. He knew something about the sorrows and the grief. He was intimately familiar with grief. He was intimately familiar with grief really means literally disease or sickness. And he knew something about it because he was around it all the time. But it's also figurative for expression of all kinds of troubles as well. We know what sickness is and how grief is. We know what other kinds of troubles are. But Jesus knew more about those because the Bible tells us that he went about doing good, healing all that were oppressed of the devil. He was very familiar with these things. A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And it says, And we hid, as it were, our faces from him. We, refers to all humanity, we hid, as it were, our faces from Him. He was despised and we esteemed Him not. We did not count Him to be who He was. He was despised and we esteemed Him not. We didn't recognize that though He was despised, yet He was the only begotten Son of God. He was God manifest in the flesh. He is despised and rejected of men. You know, everything of God's creation accepted Christ but men. Everything. He held his hand out, and the winds and the waves would be obedient to his will. He could get on an unbroken colt and ride in gloriously to Jerusalem. Everything bowed before him but rebellious man. I was thinking of when Stephen was preaching to the Jews. He preached a sermon about the Old Testament, and he preached and pointed to Christ. And then when Stephen came down, he says, Now, can you imagine? He came to these priests and all of these people that were in the scribes and the Pharisees, and he abruptly said, You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, you do always resist the Holy Ghost. Can you imagine the effect that took on them? I imagine it was quite a change, wasn't it? And then they stoned him to death. Because they knew it. They were guilty of everything that he said. But rebellion and pride keeps men from repentance. And they will not repent and turn to God. And so, he is despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. Someone says, I know something about grief and sorrows. Jesus knew something about it. He was well acquainted with it. He well understood the grief of mankind. Intimately familiar with it. Notice this, in verse 4, Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows. He took upon himself our grief, our sickness, and carried our sorrows. Yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. In other words, men counted him as an outcast of God, and that God had afflicted and smitten him. When men looked upon Christ, remember it says, let him deliver him now if he will have him when he was hanging on the cross. In other words, they figured that he was under God's judgment and therefore he was suffering this untimely death and crucifixion on the cross. Just because you see someone in a terrible state or a terrible situation in life doesn't mean that God's hand of judgment is upon them. That doesn't mean that. Sometimes there are all kinds of sins, sins we suffer for because we bring it upon ourselves and other sins that are just there naturally. While some sickness is directly the result of sin, other sicknesses are not the result of any particular sin. Let me give you two references to explain this. Turn in John chapter 5 and John chapter 9. You want two references? John 5 and John 9. John 5, verse 14 says, now this is after he healed the man at the pool of Bethesda. He said, listen, Afterward Jesus findeth him in the temple, and said unto him, Behold, thou art made whole, sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee. So possibly he was referring to this man having brought upon himself some of his suffering, though he was delivered by grace. But he says, Sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon thee. And in John chapter 9, the blind man, his disciples ask concerning the blind man. Well, let's read verses one through three. It says, As Jesus and as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth. And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man or his parents, that he was born blind? Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sin, nor his parents. Now, he didn't mean that either one of them were not born sinners, but not any particular sin that they had done that brought about this man's blindness. It wasn't because his parents were wicked people and had done some terrible sin that they had a child born blind. And it wasn't certainly because of this child, his sin, that he was still in such a blind condition. So that's what he was referring to. He didn't mean that we're not all born sinners. We all are born sinners. But neither hath this man sin, nor his parents, but that the works of God should be made manifest in him. So he's referring to a sickness that was not brought about directly by their sins, or the blind person's sins. That wasn't the cause of it. It was one of those things of nature that we don't understand, and Jesus says you can't blame His parents, and you can't blame Him for it. Now, that will take away some of this judgmental attitude of some of us, won't it? When we say, well, you know, that person's got this because... We don't know the because. We may think we know it. I imagine as Job's three friends looked at him, and we can go back and look at the record, they said, Job, you must have done some terrible sin. And he really hadn't. But they said, Job, says, you know, God doesn't permit anyone to suffer like you've suffered unless they've just done something awful. And so they have the voice of legalism and the voice of tradition, said, I've seen this happen before, tradition. Then the legalism says, you know, you had it coming. And all kinds of voices were speaking to his three friends, and all of them were wrong. Because God said they were wrong at the end of it. He says, you have misjudged Job. You didn't know what you were talking about. And if you'll ask Job to pray for you, I'll forgive you. So Job prayed for his three friends. But he's the one that was suffering. So don't ever get this judgmental attitude in your mind about what happens to people. Oh boy, what'd you do wrong? I was in the bank one day and a friend of ours, Sharon will know who it is, and my back was hurting, you know, after I had my back hurt. What'd you do? What have you done? I said, well, I hurt my back. That's what I've done. Like some terrible thing. Well, I hope that it gets better. It is better. Thank the Lord for that. And a lot of my other problems. But these, you know, folks go around, they just got this idea. They've got this judgmental attitude about them, about, you know, well, now, what did so-and-so do that brought this about? And I realize there are consequences to everything that we do and you do, too. that every man has a responsibility. But here we find it says, Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God. By the way, Matthew takes this verse to show that he considered the healing ministry of Jesus as a fulfillment of this aspect, of this verse. Him bearing our griefs and sorrows. Look at Matthew 8, verse 17, if you will. Matthew 8, verse 17. OK, let's read verse 16 and 17. It says, When the evening was come, they brought unto him many that were possessed with devils, and he cast out the spirits with his word, and healed all that were sick. See that? Now look at verse 17. That it might be fulfilled. Now Jesus' healing ministry, and this is a very important point. That it might be fulfilled, that means filled full, that means completed, which was spoken by Esaias the prophet saying, himself took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses. In other words, he took upon himself our grief and our sorrows. And Matthew, the Holy Spirit says in Matthew that he considered this the fulfillment of what Isaiah was speaking about. Let me give you another little thought concerning some claim to healing. Some people claim, especially the Charismatics, that healing is in the atonement and in the sacrifice of Christ, just like forgiveness of sins or salvation. In other words, they claim that because Jesus died on the cross and He suffered for our sins, that He also suffered for our sicknesses in the same sense, and therefore We can claim healing from anything that we have because of Christ's death. The Bible teaches us that we can come to God in prayer and ask in prayer forgiveness of our sins. We can ask him to heal our bodies. But let me put something before you. Suppose. that you have a sickness, and you ask God to deliver you from that sickness, and He doesn't deliver you of that sickness, and you say, well, it's included in His death on the cross, and I'm not delivered of that sickness. All right, come right around. Suppose you ask God to save your soul. That's provided for on the cross. And how can you know that your soul is saved then? You see what I mean? If the same thing is included in His death on the cross, And you've asked Him to heal your sickness, and it just doesn't happen. How do you know when you ask Him to save your soul that that has happened? He guaranteed the forgiveness of our sins on the cross, but He did not guarantee every healing of our body. Though we come to Him in prayer and ask Him to heal our bodies, and we know it is God that does heal our bodies. And that's something you need to get straight in your minds, because otherwise, You could be in doubt every time that you had a sickness if God didn't deliver you, whether you had any salvation or not. You see where I'm coming from? Because you say, well, I asked God to heal my body and He didn't do it. Well, by the same token, you ask God to save your soul. How do you know He did that? You know He did that because He promised it in His death on the cross. But he did not guarantee the healing of everything of your body on the cross of Calvary. And that's where people say that you're healing of all your sicknesses in the atonement, and charismatics especially believe that. But suppose that he doesn't heal some sicknesses. We know some. that we've prayed for, and they prayed earnestly about, and they died with their cancers and various other things, and there was just as much prayers offered up for their bodily healing as you might say anything. And can we say that those people then, by virtue of the fact that their body wasn't healed, that their soul wasn't saved? You would have to if you put it in the same category as atonement on the cross. You would have to, you'd say, well, you know, they prayed for the healing and they didn't get it. So I'm sure when they prayed for their salvation, that didn't happen either. If they were both equally qualified to be taken care of on the cross of Calvary. And that's where you have to come to if you actually believe that kind of teaching. So this verse of scripture that we just referred to. In Matthew 8, verse 17, Matthew considered it as a fulfillment when Jesus was healing those around about Him, and they brought many and He healed all that were sick. Matthew considered this a fulfillment of what Isaiah was speaking about, that He took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses because of Christ's healing ministry when He was upon this earth. And he says this was fulfilled. And I say it's very important. Some of you may not think I'm making too much of it, but I will say this, when it comes right down to it, and you see folks that you prayed for, and I know folks today that I've been called upon to pray for, and many of you have, that we know they have terminal cancer. We know they're going to die. And this one lady, by the way, that Brother Hawkes prayed for a little bit ago, the doctor has given her a month or so. And she's been suffering for several years, but it's about the time now. Just like Bill Sturman, who just passed away. He's had it for a long time. Various other ones that's had cancer, that have terminally ill diseases, and especially cancer. It's one of the worst. But the thing about it is, you cannot categorize those things and try to justify that by what we've been talking about, by the atonement of Christ. The whole chapter of Isaiah deals with the atonement of Christ, His atoning work. Look at verse 4 again. Surely He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. That's the way men looked upon Him. Well, they misjudged Him. They may misjudge others that are afflicted too, right? Do you know the devil tries to afflict people and causes Christian people more trouble than you would imagine? I know a lot of good, godly people, men and women, that have suffered terribly. I had a lady in a church in Mount Pleasant one time, and she had a very bad kidney disease that was incurable. In spite of the pain she was in nearly all the time, when we were without a pianist, she'd come and she'd play the piano. And I know others that suffer a great deal when they're sick and hurting, and they go ahead and minister and serve God. Always gracious, always kind. Brother Joyce says, I can't come to church every Sunday, but I can minister to the whole world right here from my living room. She prayed all the time. She didn't have a whole lot of money, but they were pretty well off. She could share a little bit with missionaries all over the world. She did, and she spread it out. Spread it out to others. Wonderful lady. Tell you another story, if you don't mind. Her husband, when she joined the church, the name was Mrs. Clarkson. And anyway, when she joined the church, she came down the aisle and joined the church. Mount Pleasant Baptist Church. And she says, and her husband was with her that morning. And he was a big old stalwart kind of, he was a revenuer. He would work for the He worked for the federal government, going out and finding the moonshiners, and so on and so forth. And he did a good job of it. But anyway, he's one of those macho guys, you know. She says, I want to join the church. And says, my husband wants to join the church, too. And I said, OK, Mr. Clarkson, you come on down, too, if you want to join the church. And she'd always been joining the church for him, you know. And him standing back there. And they accept them both as members, because she had stated that both of them wanted to join the church and move their membership. I said, OK, if you want to join the church, come on down and stand here with her. Well, he just hesitated a moment. Finally, he walked on down the aisle and stood there. I went down and greeted him and so on. And anyway, we proved their membership because they were a member of Baptist Church in Greenville, I believe, Texas. And so anyway, some of you are familiar with that country. After the service was over, she'd come over and she'd say, Brother Joyce, that's the best thing that ever happened to him. You know every church has been accepting him on me coming down for him. This is the only church that never accepted him that way. And she was so glad that he finally had to walk that aisle. Of course, I don't know what he did the first time when he was saved and all. I'm sure that some way or another he managed to get baptized because he was a Baptist. They were both Baptists. She really was proud of that. But what I'm saying is the suffering that people go through. And she was sick and suffering most all the time. And yet she was a very gracious, loving person. Now look at verse 5. But he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquity. And the chastisement of our peace was upon him. Now look. He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquity. This implies bodily injury, and not just mental sorrow. It refers to the Messiah's fierce hands and feet and side. And he accepted this torture, not for himself, but for our sins. He bore the punishment that made possible our peace. Notice, the chastisement of our peace was upon him. The Bible says that having made peace by the blood of his cross, this is Colossians chapter 1 and verse 20. So he made peace by the blood of his cross, and the chastisement of our peace was upon him. If he had not suffered as he did for our peace, our spiritual peace with God, we couldn't have peace. And in the book of Colossians, and we already quoted it, Paul said, 1 verse 20, he said that he has made peace for us, having made peace by the blood of his cross. And so the peace that we have was made on the cross by Jesus. You say, I have peace with God. Well, you have peace with God because you have believed on what Jesus did for you on the cross. And it says, therefore, being justified by faith, faith in what he did, we have peace with God. So you receive that peace by faith. But he made it on the cross. You didn't make it. We talk about and we use terms and it's very reasonable to use these terms when we see a man dying to say, have you made your peace with God? And we use it kind of loosely because, in other words, we're saying we want him to get right with God. But actually, he doesn't have to make peace with God. God made that peace and all he has to do is accept it and then he'll have that peace with God. So that's what we're really talking about is him accepting that peace, isn't it? But as far as the The real matter of the fact is, Christ made it and we accept it. And we need to, I don't know, sometimes we get very technical about these things, but really, we need to study the Bible in a technical way and see that that's exactly what He did. Because the Bible says here, the chastisement of our peace was upon Him. And had not He been chastened for our peace, and with His stripes we are healed. And by the way, the healing here refers to the forgiveness of sins, not to the healing of the body. Look at this, and this is another verse that the ones that the Charismatics, as I said before, get there. With his stripes, we're healed. They say, well, with his stripes, we're healed. Look in First Peter, chapter one. No, chapter two, First Peter, chapter two. Verse 24 and 25. and see what it refers to. Here is where Peter refers to it. It says, Who is own self, Christ, bear our sins in his own body on the tree, that we being dead to sins should live unto righteousness, by whose stripes ye were healed, for ye were as sheep going astray, but are now returned unto the shepherd and bishop of your souls. So you can see the context shows that it is a spiritual healing, that it refers to the forgiveness of our sins, that we were like straying sheep in a spiritual way. And it says that we being dead to sin should live in the righteousness by whose stripes you were healed. And it says, for you were, in other words, spiritual salvation, spiritual healing. For you were a sheep going astray, but are now returning to the shepherd and bishop of your souls. In the next verse, in Isaiah, it says all we like. You have Isaiah, and we'll get back to it quickly and make the connection. Verse 6 says, All we like sheep have gone astray. Peter picks up on the same thing. You were like sheep going astray. We have turned everyone to his own way. It speaks of our going away from God. And the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. That's why our sins are forgiven. He has made peace for us and our sins are forgiven because God has what? Laid on him, the word laid on means imputed to Christ, the iniquity of us all. This verse starts out, the first all, you have Isaiah 53 verse 6. The first all is the all of condemnation, and the last all is the all of salvation. It starts with all and ends with all. You see that? It starts with all, ends with all. All we, like sheep have gone astray, we, that means all of us, have turned everyone to his own way, and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. That's our salvation. So we're all straying sheep. We've gone everyone to his own way, sinful way. The Lord has made to meet on Christ, laid upon Christ, imputed to Christ the iniquity of us all. And if all of our sins and all of our iniquities are imputed to Christ and he died for our sins on the cross, then through his death, we have what? Forgiveness of sins. And that's what the verse is referring to. His forgiveness of sin. The Bible says, and that repentance, listen carefully, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. And so the forgiveness of sins is the important thing that Isaiah is pointing to through Christ's sufferings. He made peace through Christ's death on the cross. God having laid on him. made to meet on him the iniquity of us all, we have forgiveness of sins. I think this is very important that I illustrate this. You know, when it says, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all, it means, and we've already said it, he made to meet on him. But how did he do that? Just like the priest, the high priest, In the Old Testament, when the sacrifice for sin was offered, what did he do? He placed his hands upon the head in the book of Leviticus, on the head of that goat, and he confessed over the head of that goat all the sins and all the iniquities of all the children of Israel. All of them. And so he was imputing, he was placing, he was laying upon that goat in a substitutionary way, He was making to meet on that goat all the sins and all the iniquities of all the children of Israel. And he was taken away. There was one goat that was killed and the blood was shed. That shows one side of Christ's sacrifice. But this goat was taken away into a wilderness. You've heard me say it many times. Into a wilderness and let go. He was taken away by the hand of a qualified or fit man, it says. Qualified man. And he was let go in the wilderness so that he would never be found anymore. And the picture is that these two goats in Leviticus on the day of atonement picture Christ's death on the cross and his resurrection and his complete sacrifice. First of all, Jesus died and he shed his blood. One goat was killed and the blood was shed. The other one was taken away and let go in the wilderness. So this indicates that through Christ's shed blood, that our sins are removed and taken away so that they will never be found again, because the Lord hath laid on Him, imputed to Him, all of our sins, so that if we were to try to find our sins, we'd have to go back and try to find all about Christ's death on the cross. We'd have to try to go and search out what it accomplished, and we can't do that. It accomplished more than we'll ever know. So in His death on the cross, that's why John says, Behold, the Lamb of God that taketh away, he means beareth away, into a land unknown, the sin of the world. And that's what Jesus did for us. Someone says, well, where are your sins? They're gone. Can you find them? No. I don't know where they are. God's taken them away. They're in a land of forgetfulness. His blood made atonement for them. I know that. But then He took them away so I couldn't find them. So I don't know where my sins are. It says, as far as the east is from the west, so far have they removed our transgressions from us. The Bible says that He has blotted them out as a thick cloud. The Bible says that they are buried in the depths of the sea. And God says, their sins, listen carefully, and iniquities will I remember no more. I don't know where they are. I've forgotten them too. I'm not even going to remember. God says, see, God can have the power to not remember. You know, you and I remember from time to time various things about what we've done, don't we? We say, well, I remember I did this or that, and it wasn't good, or whatever. And we can dig all the skeletons out of the closet if we want to. But God says, I'm going to cover them, and I'm going to take them away into the land, and I'm going to not remember them anymore. And you and I torment ourselves with our past. God says it's under the blood. And we torment ourselves with it, don't we? Say, well, you know, one time in my life I was this mean and I did certain things. And we go back and Paul tells us to forget those things that are behind. Look forward to the things that are before. And press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. And if we do look to the past, we only look there to be constructive to ourselves and use it to try to help ourselves Be better persons and live a better Christian life. We're not going to have time to finish this, but I think we'll pick up with verse six in our next lesson. We thank you for your patience and your kind attention.