As the children pointed out, I say that to shame you, we have been in Isaiah. I won't ask the adults what book we have been in the last few Sundays, but the children remember Isaiah chapter 53. Isaiah chapter 53. We started our study back in Isaiah, actually 52, in verse 13, where the actual passage begins, and we are working our way then through the bulk of chapter 53. It is a most amazing prophecy, and I have chosen, because of the clarity and the precise nature of this prophecy, to title it The Gospel According to Isaiah. It is literally a depiction of the sufferings of Jesus Christ, of the doctrine of substitutionary atonement, couched in Old Testament prophetic language. I have always been a real fan of Handel's Messiah. Barry got me a new copy. And I have really enjoyed listening to that. I highly recommend it to you if you're not familiar with it. But there are three parts to the Messiah, part one, part two, and part three. And part two deals with the sufferings of Christ, His death and His resurrection and ascension to glory. And what is so interesting to me about the Messiah, and I guess one of the things that so captivates my attention, is that the libretto handle use, and I mean by that the text that he used to set to music, was supplied to him by an English preacher. And I don't know, I don't remember the man's name, but I'll say one thing. He did an amazing job of supplying the composer handle with this text, and it's all drawn out of Scripture. And what the most interesting thing is, and Barry, you may check me out, but I think with the exception of the first chorus in the second part and the last chorus in the second part, All the rest of the material that describes, basically, the sufferings of Christ is all taken from the Old Testament. In other words, the man who supplied him with the text to portray the suffering, death, and resurrection of Christ felt no compulsion to use New Testament text to do that. He instead went to the Old Testament and showed how Christ, in His death, burial, and resurrection, indeed fulfilled the prophets and met much of the text of Part 2 of Handel's Messiah. comes from the 53rd chapter. of the book of Isaiah to nobody's surprise, I'm sure. Let me again give you the sort of breakdown, the outline that I have been using. And again, I explain that I have chosen to outline it not as is usually done, but I've outlined it according to who is speaking. It is almost as if the prophet Isaiah is moved into the background and he is listening to a conversation going on. The first one who speaks in Isaiah 52 and verse 13, 14, and 15 is God Almighty Himself. He speaks, drawing attention to this one He calls His servant. And He describes the fact that His servant will deal prudently and successfully, that he will be high and be exalted, although it will be after a time of humiliation. Then in chapter 53 and verse 1, we have another group that speaks, Lord, who hath believed our report, and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? It is clear that it is no longer God who is speaking, and you may remember back that I tried to lay out what I feel like is an airtight case, that the ones who are saying these things are the primitive preachers of the gospel. These first ones who went out to the Jewish nation and to the surrounding areas proclaiming this gospel, and this is their complaint. Lord, why is it that so few believe your report? The report of salvation in and through this suffering righteous servant that you have sent into the world. Why so few believe? Starting in then chapter 53 and verse 2, and lasting down through verse 10, certainly the longest section, and that's what we're dealing with part of that today. Another group speaks. These explain. The ones in verse 1 are complaining. Why is it that so few believe? These who are speaking now in verse 2 are explaining why it was that they did not at the first believe, but why they now and what it is about Christ that now they believe. All right, and then the very end, chapter 53, verse 11 and 12, God once again speaks, simply adding His affirmative attestation to the truthfulness of what has been uttered and to the ultimate success of His righteous servant's work. So that, in a nutshell, is the outline. Last week, we began with this more lengthy part, verse 2 through 10, dealing with the statement of these And we would suppose Jewish converts. At least it is spoken from the standpoint of those who actually saw Christ in the flesh. Notice they say in verse 2, that when we shall see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him. And put all of that in the past tense. It makes the whole thing more intelligible. When we saw Him, there was no beauty in Him that we should desire Him. This is spoken from the standpoint of those who actually saw Christ in the flesh. They are explaining why it was. that they did not receive Christ at first. They were put off, as they explained, by the humbleness, the lowliness of His origins. He came in humility. He came in poverty. He came in lowliness. He came to town accompanied by the very lowest classes of people, and that simply disturbed them. They, in a sense, had no use for Him. He was just a very ordinary man. But they go on to explain that not only were they not attracted to him, they were repulsed by him. It speaks of one as you would turn your face away from, that you would seek to avoid, that he comes into town and you cross the street to get out of his way, lest you have to speak to him, lest you have to even look at him. They utterly despised and rejected him. They go on to say in verse 4 that there was much in Him that they should have realized and should have brought them to a very different conclusion about Jesus Christ. For after all, His healing ministry, which I believe is what is being mentioned in verse 4, for the word grief there literally in the Hebrew means illnesses, sicknesses. He bore or He carried away our illnesses. He carried our sorrows, sorrows, mental afflictions. In the Gospel according to Matthew, Matthew in verse 8, Chapter 8, I'm sorry, says that this verse was fulfilled in the healing ministry of Jesus Christ. And so it is that these converts are saying we should have looked on Him differently. There was much about Him. Look at His compassion. Look at His mercy that should have brought us to a different conclusion. But, as that verse ends, we esteemed him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. We believe that it was God who had brought his sufferings upon him, that he was suffering, and he was suffering greatly, and he must have been suffering for great sins. Sins that were unknown to us, but known to God, and he was being chastised and punished because of those sins. Well, that in a sense is as far as we have gotten in our study, and today we go on starting in, well, let's get a running jump. Start in chapter 53 verse 1. Let's read, and we'll read down through verse 7. Who hath believed our report, and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? Now that's the statement of the early gospel preachers. Now the reply. Here's the explanation. And I'm going to read it in the past tense. It actually should be that way. One of the problems you'll notice in verse 2 and 3, you'll find verbs in the past, present, and future tense. And that makes it difficult to understand. That's one of the problems translating most literally from one language into another. It really should be understood. I'm not just saying this to make it more readable to understand. It really should be to be a true translation of the Hebrew all put in the past tense. I'm going to read it that way. He grew up. before him like a tender plant, like a root out of dry ground. He had no form nor comeliness, and when we saw him there was no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows, 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. And then today our text, 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. Oh, 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 done, so he opened not his mouth. In verse 5, these Jewish converts. And may I say simply that what these people are doing is simply giving their testimony. What we would say, standing up and giving your testimony, that's what these people are doing. This is what they're explaining. They're describing how once they had absolutely no regard, no use for Jesus Christ. They esteemed Him not, as the Scripture puts it. They looked upon Him as worthless. We saw Him suffering and we thought by that, that He must be suffering for great, although unknown to us, sins. We esteemed Him stricken, smitten of God, that God was getting Him. But, and here is what we call repentance, a change of mind, a change of heart. But, now we'll see Him differently. Now we look on him and his sufferings in a new and different light. Notice now that they describe his sufferings in great detail and they give us now another explanation, another point of view for why it was that he was suffering so. Notice first of all that they speak of the violent nature of his sufferings. He was wounded. For our transgressions, you know, we hear somebody got wounded. We generally don't get too disturbed. But the word here in the Hebrew is the, it's fatally wounded. A violent action, literally to be pierced on the battlefield, to be run through. He was, what would be the word? Perforated. Pierced. for our transgression. The word bruised in the Hebrew means crushed. Crushed. Crushed. Crushed for our iniquities. Very clearly, the weight of the judgment that was upon Him was of a bruising, crushing nature. Shall we look at a sister prophecy for a moment? Turn to Psalm 22 where we see also the agony of the cross described couched in Old Testament prophetic language. Let's let this describe that piercing, that bruising. Again, I remind you, this is written a thousand years before the cross. And yet, David in Psalm 22, what else is he describing, pray tell, if it is not the cross? Psalm 22 verse Oh, twelve, many bulls have compassed me, strong bulls of Basham have beset me round. They gaped upon me with their mouths like a ravening and a roaring lion. I am poured out like water, all my bones are out of joint, my heart is like wax, it is melted in the midst of my bowels. My strength is dried up like a potsherd, my tongue cleaveth to my jaws, and thou hast brought me into the dust of death. For dogs have encompassed me, the assembly of the wicked have enclosed me, they pierced my hands and my feet." And there again, he was wounded, pierced for our transgression, he was bruised, crushed for our iniquities. Not only are these sufferings described by the violence that was involved, but also the fact that they are described as vicarious sufferings. I know that's not a word that we go around employing very often, but to say that they are vicarious sufferings means they are substitutionary sufferings. The Pope, for instance, claims to be the vicar of God on the earth. He is the substitute, the representative. That is his claim. of God on the earth. To be a vicar is to be someone's representative or substitute. When we say that Christ's sufferings were vicarious, same root, we simply mean that they are substitutionary in their nature. Now notice that these people who are speaking are saying, now we see his sufferings in a different light. Now it's not that we were completely wrong. We thought he was suffering for great though unknown sins, and sure enough he was. We thought it was God's judgment that was upon him, and sure enough, it was. But what we didn't know, it was our sins that had placed him there. It was judgment. The crushing weight of judgment that fell upon him was for our iniquities. It was my sin that put him there. Here, clearly, is seen what will be further developed in the New Testament as the doctrine of substitutionary atonement. My friend, if these words don't teach substitutionary atonement, words can't teach substitutionary atonement. I mean, it's as clear as it can possibly be. Words cannot say it if these words do not say it. I want you to remember that we have pointed out how absolutely essential it is that Christ Jesus fulfill Old Testament prophecy. It fulfills that which was said about Him. Christ Himself says those things. These things must be fulfilled. The things said about me at one point, He says, must have a fulfillment. They must be fulfilled. We've pointed out that importance back there at the very beginning of our study when we pointed out that Christ was rejected by the Jewish people. And that seems to be a terrible thing for Christianity to overcome. I mean, how are you going to convince anybody that you're the Messiah? I mean, you're going to go out in the Gentile world and preach a Jewish Messiah to Gentiles, when his own people, the people who were best prepared to know if he was the Messiah or not, the people who had been taught what to expect, when his own people, the people who actually saw him, said, no, he's not the Messiah. We don't believe this is the Messiah. But you expect Gentiles who never saw him to believe on him? At the first, that seems to be a very detrimental thing for Christianity, except for this one point, little old minor thing, that the prophets all prophesied that he would be rejected of his own people. If a Messiah comes along and the Jews believe on him, you can be sure he's not it. For the prophet said he would be rejected of his own people and would suffer at the hands of his own people. So it didn't matter who Jesus was or how great he did or what he was or what he did. If he was not rejected by his own people, then he could not have been the Messiah. Case closed. Now we've pointed that out as far as the actions and the events in the life of Christ. But I want to show you that it is just as true as far as the meaning of the actions and the events. of Christ's life. In other words, Isaiah here is clearly saying that the coming Messiah, this servant of Jehovah, will be one who suffers. Well, there's a lot of people who have suffered, but what is peculiar is that this clearly teaches that he will not be suffering for his own sins, not for his own follies, not accidentally, not because of bad circumstances. He will suffer by the will of God for the sins of His people. When you turn to the pages of the New Testament, is there an agreement with those statements? Does the New Testament teach another kind of atonement? I mean, there are people today who reject the whole notion of substitutionary atonement. They say, no, He didn't die for people's sins on the cross. He sort of died like a guru, came into Jerusalem. Circumstances got out of control and He sort of died a martyr. testifying of his beliefs and so forth, much like Joseph Smith and the Mormons, that type of thing. But my point is, no, when you turn to the pages of the New Testament, there is a perfect correspondence between what is taught here in Isaiah and what is taught there. Paul begins his explanation of the Gospel, Christ died for our sins according to the Scripture. Peter says, who He bore our sins in His own body. Every one of the New Testament writers concur that exactly the kind of death that Isaiah is depicting here was the kind of death that Jesus fulfilled in the New Testament. So His sufferings are violent. His sufferings are vicarious, substitutionary. but His sufferings are effectual. Isaiah does not speak of a Christ that goes to the cross and does His best to save folks. You'll notice the phrase, the chastisement of our peace was upon Him. Literally, the words mean the chastisement for our peace, the chastisement that brought about our peace. was upon Him. In other words, this was not that Christ was going to the cross and He was going to do what He could to try to make peace between you and God, and then when you come along, you're going to have to do the rest. What Isaiah is saying is, no, the things that happened to Him, the judgment that fell upon Him, the end of it was that it brought peace to us. He says the same thing in the next phrase, by his stripes we are healed. His stripes were not medicine to put on our wounds, his stripes were that which did away with the wound. In fact, Peter quotes this in 1 Peter 2, puts it all in the past tense, by whose stripes we were healed. This is not an attempt to heal us up. This is not just medicine that somehow you're going to have to come along and apply to the wound. But in the stripes of Jesus, healing is effected and secured. Now, that is precisely why I believe in what we call limited atonement. And I try not to just be ornery for the sake of being ornery. I know I'm being ornery, but I try not to be ornery for the sake of being ornery. I just don't like to go out and just pick fights with people over things. But the reason that I hold that this is such a dear doctrine is not just because I like to argue over how many Christ died for. That's not the point. It's the nature of His death. Did it accomplish anything? If His stripes healed those for whom He died, then the only ones for whom He died are the ones that get healed. The ones whose sins are removed are the ones that He must have died for. And so it is, my friend, that I believe that this is important. Let me put it to you this way. Is it important to you that our Lord was born in Bethlehem instead of Nazareth? Is that an important point to you? You say, well, I don't know why that's so important. What difference does it make whether you believe in Jesus, whether you believe He's born in Bethlehem or Nazareth? Oh, maybe a little old thing with you, my friend, but it's not a little old thing with me because the prophet said that he would be born in Bethlehem. He's not born in Bethlehem. He's not the Messiah. Case closed. My friend Isaiah said that he would die a death, and a death that wouldn't just attempt to do something, just wouldn't give the potential of salvation, but a death that would heal, a death that would bring about peace between God and man. My friend, the atonement that the Armenians preach is not the fulfillment of this prophecy. That's why what we call limited atonement is so important. Because it is the very kind of atonement that the prophets prophesied of. Not of a Jesus who would come and do His best, but a Jesus who would stand and die at the cross, representing His people, and in His death He would save them. That it was a saving thing that He did. And you say, well, why can't it be that the other way? My friend, if He died for everybody, if everybody doesn't go to heaven, Then he's died for somebody and his stripes didn't heal him. Oh well. You turn to the book of Hebrews. I was going to have you turn over there. We don't have time. Excuse me. I'm getting hot. Turn over to the book of Hebrews. No, don't do it later. Follow the thought through the book of Hebrews. Follow the statements that the writer makes concerning the death of Christ and what it did. And ask yourself the question, does the writer present the death of Christ as just potentially, in other words, did all Christ do at the cross is give men the possibility of being saved? Or did He save them? Ask yourself that question reading those passages. Fair enough? You read them. You tell me what you conclude. But let's go on. In verse 6, the writer now gives us a beautiful, oh, it's beautiful to me, beautiful illustration. of the doctrine that he is teaching. There are many terms for this thing we call sin. The word sin is a term for this thing we call sin. The word sin means to miss the mark. Here's the standard. You miss it. You fall short of it. There's another word, iniquity. Iniquity in the Greek is literally lawlessness. Anomia is the term. Lawlessness. Another word, to trespass. Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. Trespass is the idea of falling upon someone to injure them. It speaks of the damage that you have done to someone in sin. So there's many, many different terms that is used to describe this thing called sin. But here in verse 6, we find an illustration of the word that was used in verse 5. He was wounded, pierced, run through, perforated for our transgressions. The idea of a transgression is stepping over a boundary. Stepping across a line. Like here is the line that God has drawn about us through His law and says, don't step over that line. To transgress is to step over it. To break out of the bounds that God Himself has put around us. And that's what's being illustrated here in verse 6 where He says in this wonderful figure, all we like sheep. have gone astray. We got loose. We stepped over the line. We got out of the pasture that God had demarcated for us. Growing up, this ornery, stubborn bunch of sheep that I raised, one thing about them, you knew immediately if there was a hole anywhere in the fence. Sometimes after a big rain we have these gaps that went down through the creeks and they'd get washed out. But you always knew it because as soon as one of those sheep found the hole in the fence, the whole flock went through it. Sheep do certain things as a group. And one of the things they do as a group is get out. They get out of the pasture as a whole flock. About this time of year, when they're looking around, the grass still isn't quite green enough, and everything out there looks great, it's just amazing how quickly, once one of them finds a way of escape, they all go transgress outside the boundaries. But once out, they scatter in a million directions, all over the place. They turned, as our writer says, each to his own. Oh, isn't that just like us? We all went astray. We all rebelled. We all have that old self-will. We want my way, not God's way. We don't want to stay in. We don't want this constraint that God has built around us. We want to break out. And we all broke out together, as a flock, as a group. We all went astray. But once we go astray, we all turn to our own way. The wickedness I pursue is not necessarily the same wickedness you pursue. We've all got our little individual developments of wickedness. Some people, you know, go down this path to destruction, some down that path. Isn't that just like us? That's the figure of speech. or the picture, the metaphor that Isaiah is setting before us, that that's what we've done. Also, the sheep getting loose are absolutely unmindful of the danger that's out there. They don't understand that there's a reason why they're supposed to stay in the pasture. I look up and there they are out on that railroad trestle. Unmindful of the fact that a train's going to come along in a little while and kill a bunch of them if they're standing up there. They're unmindful of the danger out there on the highway down there. That cars coming around that curve are going to clobber them if they don't get out of the way. Unmindful of the fact that there are dogs and coyotes and every other kind of predator out there just waiting to sink his chops into their lamb chops. All they can see is, I want out. My friend, that is the nature of our sin. We just want loose. We want to break free, unmindful of the calamity, unmindful of the consequences of that action. And you can sort of picture in your mind as I could see my sheep breaking out of the pasture and it's like all of a sudden this is the greatest thing that ever happened. They're skipping and prancing and you know, here they go over the hill and they're seeing a big weed over here and they head for it and run. Just having a great time. Happy as they can be. And never thinking of the consequence of their action. But there are consequences. And that is what Isaiah says after he has depicted this scene of this block of sheep getting loose and scattering in a multitude of directions. There are consequences. But the consequences, the iniquity, the Lord hath laid on Him. I'm just out there having a big time. Never dreamed what I was doing, never dreamed the indignity of sin, the wrath from God that was its just due and desert. And instead of that calamity and that consequence coming upon me, the Lord has laid it on Him. With John chapter 10, Jesus in John had always spoken of these people that God had given Him. And yes, a definite people that God would give Him. John chapter 6, "...all that the Father giveth Me shall come to Me." A people that God gave Him to save. In John 10, He speaks of that people as His sheep. Now you say, well, everybody is His sheep. Hey, He came to save everybody. Not so fast. Read a little deeper in John 10, and you'll hear Him say to some Jews, Ye are not my sheep. That's why you don't believe, he says, because you are not my sheep. My sheep hear my voice. I know them, they follow me, and I give unto them eternal life. But remember the passage in John 10 as he talks about the fact that the hireling, when the danger comes, please, because these aren't his sheep, He's just paid to get out there, and he's certainly not being paid minimum wage. He's not going to lay down his life for the sheep. But he says, the one whose the sheep are, the one to whom the sheep belong, the good shepherd, he'll lay down his life for the sheep. Do you see the picture that Isaiah is painting? The sheep have broken loose, they're scattered, and now the wolves are closing in. But instead of the consequence falling upon the head of the sheep, they have fallen on the head of Christ. The statement, the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all, conjures up, at least in my mind, the picture of the high priest or the one who offered sacrifice laying his hands and confessing his sin over the head of the sacrifice. It's a very beautiful picture. I'm just afraid it's not correct. The reason it's not correct is that this really doesn't mean laid. The word here means to meet and to meet violently. It's a violent word, and I wish we had the time to trace it down and show you all the ins and outs. But the Old Testament word to fall on a man, and that meant to fall on him, to kill him, is what this word is. You remember, oh, Samson. At one point, the Philistines came against Israel and said, boys, y'all either turn him over or we're going to annihilate you all. So Samson, you remember, came to the Israelites and said, okay, I'll let you tie me up, but you've got to promise me that you won't fall on me. To fall on someone was to jump on them and kill them. A little later, in the days of King Saul, King Saul found out that the priest unwittingly, unknowingly, had helped David escape, gave him the showbread to eat, went down there with his soldiers and said, okay, guys, follow those priests. He didn't mean for them to go over there and jump on them like a football tackler, you know. What he meant was go over there and kill them. Well, they wouldn't move. They said, oh, not me. And finally, there was this old Edomite, and he said, I'll do it, and he went over and killed them. He fell upon, the Scripture says, all the priests. Do you know the figure of speech that I'm talking about? You familiar with that? One other case, Adonijah, Solomon's older brother, tried to sort of did some dirty hijinks right at the beginning of Solomon's reign, and Solomon said, okay, buddy, that's it. Told his soldiers to go down and fall on him. Joab, when he heard about it, ran into the temple, grabbed hold of the horns of the altar. They said, where's Joab? They said, well, he's in there holding on to the horns of the altar. Solomon said, okay, you go fall upon him. Do you understand what I'm saying? To fall upon meant to fall on, to kill. And that's the word that is used here. It doesn't mean a little, very placid, calm thing, placing sin, but the sin, the calamity, the consequence fell on Him. Finally, in verse 7, what seems to be just a redundant restatement of the facts, He was oppressed, and he was afflicted is, in fact, I think the most beautiful statement in all of this that we're studying this morning. He was oppressed and he was afflicted. The word in the Hebrew for being oppressed is a word that literally means, in fact, the word he is not even there. It's supplied by the translators as a substantive. Literally, it's a neutral term. It was exacted. Or you could put it this way, exaction, an exaction was made. The word for oppressed is the very same one that the Egyptian taskmasters, you remember when they ruled over Israel and oppressed them? The word for taskmaster is this same word. It's the idea that you make an exaction of someone, in the case of the Egyptian taskmasters, They made the Israelites labor. They exacted, extracted, I guess we could say, labor, a price of labor from the Israelites. So it is that that is the meaning here, that there was an oppression, that is an exaction that was made. And then the next phrase, he was afflicted, means literally he submitted. He humbled himself. In other words, what this is doing in verse 7 is simply explaining what the consequence was that fell upon him in verse 6. The Lord has caused to fall on him the iniquity of us. Okay, what does that mean? It means that now there's an exaction. There is a price that is demanded of him. And he submitted. And he submitted, as their text says, without opening his mouth, without complaint, without saying, uh-uh, this is too rough. You got the wrong fella. Not a word of complaint. He submitted to it. You see, for there to be the expiation of sin, there must be the propitiation of the law. To expiate means to take away. To expiate sin, to take away our sin, one must propitiate The word propitiate means to satisfy, to make a payment to divine law that satisfies its claims. That's what's being mentioned. Christ is going to expiate our sins. He's going to take away our sins, as the book of Hebrews will say. He put away sins by the death of himself. I don't know how you potentially, possibly put away sin. The book of Hebrews just said he put away sin by the death of himself. But to do that, there's a price. the price of propitiation, of making satisfaction to divine justice. That's what's being spoken of here. That now that God has made our iniquity to fall upon Him, here's what that means. A price must now be paid and He humbly stooped, the word even means that, He stooped to pay that price. And He did it without complaint. He went silently, patiently. The two figures that is given of a lamb being led to the slaughter, the picture is the utter helplessness of the little lamb being led away to be slaughtered. Christ allowed Himself to be led like a little lamb, helpless to the slaughter. when in fact he was the Lord of glory, when in fact he could have called for twelve legions of angels, when in fact, and you read the account in John, it's almost humorous, they came to arrest him and they said, who are you looking for? We're looking for Jesus of Nazareth. And he says, I am! And they all fell to the ground. He had to stand around and wait for them to get up, compose themselves, and more or less went out and said, okay, here I am, go ahead and take me. He had to help them arrest him. Do you see the point? He wasn't hapless. He was anything but hapless. But he is led away to the slaughter like a hapless little lamb. He was like a sheep before her shearers is done. Surrenders passively into the hands of those who would afflict him. And like the shearer, begins to run those shears back and forth on the body of the sheep. And they began to strip Him of His clothing, of His raiment, of the wool. So it was that wicked men took Christ into their hands and they began to strip Him. To strip Him of His dignity as a man. To strip Him of His rights as a Jewish citizen. to strip him of his comfort as they beat him to a bloody pulp, to strip him of his clothing to humiliate him, and finally, to strip him even of his life. Oh, my friend, thank God for mercy. Thank God for grace. That when it came time to settle up, when it came time for the exaction, to be made. When it came time that God demanded a price, that there was one found who was both able and both willing to take our place and to offer that price. Because of who He is, because of what He is, His sufferings have an infinite worth. able to atone for the sins of a million rebellious worlds, because this is not mere man. This is God in the flesh. But regardless of your particular theory of who Christ died for, may I say that at least we're all agreed on this facet, that to those of you who refuse to believe on this Messiah, it will be to you as if he never died at all for sin, as if no payment were made at all. As far as your case is concerned, if you continue in unbelief with this one little difference, that your punishment shall be greatly increased because you heard, you heard the report, you heard of what God has done through His own Son of the salvation that He offers, and you turned up your nose at it. You not only sinned against law, you sinned against grace. You not only shook your fist in the face of an angry God, you spit in the face of a stooping God. And so, my friend, one day, if you continue in that unbelief, you will envy those who never heard the report, you would wish yourselves to be in their shoes than to hear it and not believe it. Whatever you may think of it now, one day you will think it a dreadful thing to trample the Son of God underfoot and to count His blood as a common, profane thing. So I gave a warning to you, if you're without Christ here today, oh, don't let these things be said in vain. Don't let the word of this great salvation slip away from you. But while it is yet day, come to this Savior. Come to this One who dies for sinners, dies for people like you. Lay hold of life that is in Him. But to you that are saved, let me close by simply saying this, are you suffering? And I would say very clearly that Christ's prominent point of His sufferings was not to suffer in order to leave us an example. Some people say that, that that's why He died, to give us an example of how we ought to live. No, that's not the primary purpose of His sufferings. But certainly, New Testament teaching does tell us, as a byproduct of His sufferings, that He did leave us an example of how we ought to suffer. without opening his mouth, without a word of complaint. Isn't it strange? Three times the Scripture marvels at his silence. Once before the Sanhedrin, once before Herod, once before Pilate, that they marvel that he opened not his mouth. When he could have spoken up and said, now wait a minute, I'm being falsely accused, you don't understand. When he could have hoped to somehow have lessened his sufferings, No, in fact, the only times that he opens his mouth is just, as it were, to answer their questions and to give them the basis of his own condemnation. Never does he attempt to extricate himself. He suffers. He commits the keeping of his soul to his God, and he suffers patiently and quietly. How about us? Quietly, you suffer? You know, we barely are able to keep our tongues under control when we're suffering for our own messes. When we're suffering for things that are the consequences of our own wicked actions, we can barely contain ourselves, let alone when we suffer as he was suffering for something that was not our fault, something that was the fault of others. In fact, Peter, you remember his little sermon on suffering there in his first epistle. says basically this, so you're able to patiently and quietly endure suffering when you're suffering for your own faults, big deal. So what? He says this is the suffering that pleases God when you're being falsely accused, when you're suffering for something that's not your fault, and you bear it patiently and quietly. That's what pleases God. That's the kind of suffering that glorifies Him. Why? Because that's the kind of suffering that Christ exhibited in His own life. Oh, you say, but I'm suffering terribly. You're suffering worse than Christ who was pierced for our transgression, crushed for our iniquities. You say, oh, but I'm suffering unjustly. I'm suffering for something that's not my fault. And Christ was suffering for that which was His fault. Oh, my friend, thank God. If you're a Christian and you're suffering today, Thank God that your sufferings are not the sufferings of penal justice. Not sufferings because the wrath of God is upon you. Thank God that whatever you might suffer in this life is instead for your instruction, for your correction, and for your edification as a Christian. Two kinds of beatings that go on in this world. One is the kinds of beatings that go on down in the dungeon, the torture chamber of some third world dictator. That's penal suffering. No escape from that dungeon should you fall into it from the stroke of God. But there's another kind of suffering. It's the suffering of the father giving his kid a spat, whipping him home because he's gone out of the way. That's what we suffer as Christians. Thank God it's the one kind and not the other. Were it not for Christ, there would be no such suffering as that. It would all be because of what our sin is due from the hand of a thrice holy God. Well, I trust that perhaps this has been of help to you today again in giving you some little insight into the sufferings of our Lord, into what He went through. And just remember, here who is speaking? Jewish converts who said once we saw Him We esteemed Him not. We despised Him. He revoked us. We were repulsed at Him. We saw Him suffering and we thought it was for His own sins, although we didn't know what it was. But now, but now we see the truth. It's my transgression, my iniquity that was laid upon Him. Let's pray. Father, we thank You for Jesus. Thank You. for the love that He exhibited to us there on that cross. Oh, Father, why would we complain? Oh, how could we when we hear of what a Savior has done for us? He who was higher than the heavens, worthy of all honor, laid it all aside in order to be humiliated, mocked, and put to scorn to fill the whips to feel the scourging. But, O Father, what a glorious thing that in the whips, in the stripes that were laid upon Him, we have healing. Indeed, Father, we were like sheep, stupid, helpless, self-willed, wanton, rebellious. We went astray. We turned, every one of us, to our own way. But praise be, You have laid on Him the iniquity of us all. Praise You. Your blessed name for Jesus Christ, we ask it in His name. Amen.