Isaiah 53 (Pastor Josiah Shipley)

Whitten Baptist Church

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Now, I want you to pay attention. It wasn't anything in Israel, it wasn't their military size, it wasn't the type of people they were talking about.

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Two weeks ago, I was privileged to preach here, and I preached on sexual immorality, the such were over such are, and I reminded all of us, myself included, of something that I know for some of us wasn't pleasant to your ears, but hopefully to your spirit you heard it, that the scripture speaks of those who were such things and no longer are.

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And if you still are, you are of those who are not in the kingdom of God. And I don't want to be any more straightforward than the

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Bible is. That's what the Bible speaks of when we talked about 1 Corinthians last time. But 1 Corinthians went on to say, for those who are trusting in Jesus that they were washed, they were sanctified, and they were justified in the name of the

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Lord Jesus and the Spirit of our God. So we're going to talk a little bit more about how that justification was brought about.

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And I noticed when Lowell put the video of that sermon from two weeks ago, that it was 47 minutes long, in an effort to not be as long -winded as Pastor Jeff is.

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I'm going to try to keep that shorter today. So let's get to work. I am actually in chapter 52 of 13, which should actually be part of chapter 53.

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Remember, chapters were added in the 1400s, verses were added in the 1500s.

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Those are arbitrary just to help us find. They are not original to the text. Everyone should understand that by this point, right?

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I mean, I know, I doubt we still have people in this room that still think the Bible was originally written in English, but I hope at this point you recognize that the format is something we added later.

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And I'm glad we did. It helps us find the verses and all that stuff, right? It would be hard to find this part of Isaiah if it didn't have a number 53 beside it.

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But understand that the sovereign word of God are the words themselves. And we start in 52, 13.

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Behold, my servant will act wisely. He will be high and lifted up and will be exalted.

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As many were astonished at you, his appearance was so marred beyond human siblings and his form beyond that of the children of mankind.

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In 53, beginning in verse 3, he was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.

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And as one from whom men hide their faces, he was despised and we esteemed him not.

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Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted, the irony, verse 5.

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But he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities.

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And upon him was the punishment that brought us peace. And by his wounds, we are healed.

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What you have here in Isaiah 53 is called the prophetic past. The book of Isaiah was written 700 years before Jesus Christ was born.

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700 years before Jesus was born. You note that we are speaking of the crucifixion in the past tense.

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If that is not evidence of a sovereign God, I don't know what is. He can speak of something that in time will not happen for seven centuries as if it's already happened.

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That's the power of God. You see, right now, if you were to get on Wikipedia and look up the scroll of Isaiah, you know, that too, if you were to look up the book of Isaiah, what they will tell you is this, that it had to be written by two or three different writers and they will say that chapters 1 through 39 were written sometime before Jesus and everything after that was written after Jesus because it contains things written about future events that could not have been known by the writer.

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Listen to that presupposition. They are presupposing there can be no God because there is no alternative.

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You see, we have copies of the book of Isaiah that predate Jesus and yet the conclusion of the unbeliever is that that must be a forgery because it contains knowledge of things that he could not have known about.

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That is a presupposition. That is someone assuming an outcome they already want to be true, not because of an intellectual issue because remember, ladies and gentlemen, including for several of you in this room who

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I just made eye contact with, an unbeliever, the difference between you and them is not a head problem.

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It's not a matter of intellect. It's not a matter of evidence. It's a heart problem.

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That's what it is. It is a matter of bowing the knee before the sovereign creator who gets to dictate what we do with our lives.

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But verse 13 actually starts off in the future tense. Behold, my servant,

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I'm in chapter 52, my servant shall act wisely. He will be high and lifted up and be exalted.

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While the gospel of John speaks of Jesus being lifted up on the cross, that's not what's in view here.

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This is when he's lifted up in exaltation. You see, one day,

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Jesus Christ will finally get the recognition and the credit and the honor that is due him.

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You see, it's been delayed for a time, but one day, Jesus will receive the fame and the honor and the worship and the privilege that is due him because of two things, who he is and as a reward from the

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Father for what he did. You see, Jesus took on the role of the suffering servant.

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Remember, Messiah is not Jesus's, Jesus's? Jesus's last name.

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Is that how you do that? All right. It's not Jesus's last name. Christ, Messiah is a title.

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It means the anointed one, the chosen one. Hey, Brother Tim. How we feeling,

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Brother? Good man. I love him. I apologize. I just,

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I just Pastor Jeffed, didn't I? Sorry about that. Yeah, but I love

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Tim, so I kind of helped him. So Christ was this.

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God said, I will send somebody, somebody in the form of a human being to take on the punishment of my people.

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And Jesus, the divine, eternal son of God, took on that role. Christ is the role he took on.

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Messiah is the role he took on. What Isaiah 53 is, is a depiction of Jesus Christ, the son, humiliating himself, and I mean that in the real sense, humbling himself to take on a role for his people.

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And the Father rewards him for that role. Giving him the most famous name that has ever existed.

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And one day it won't just be a name. But every knee on heaven and earth, spiritual, physical, hell doesn't matter, will be bowing.

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And every tongue will be screaming allegiance to Jesus Christ as God. That's what will be happening.

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He will be high and lifted up. Verse 14, as many of you are astonished, his appearance was so marred beyond human sibilance and his form beyond that of the children of man.

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I just want to just stop for one moment, and I want you to keep this in mind, but if you would just entertain me, go to Mark 15 just for a moment.

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For I fear in Mark 15, I fear many of us have heard the account of the crucifixion so often.

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I fear many of us have actually never read it in the Bible. So instead of just hearing about the crucifixion,

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I would like to just read this. And it is a long passage, so I apologize for reading the

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Sovereign Word of God in church service, so I'm going to read that now. And that was sarcasm.

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And follow along with me, I'm in Mark 15. Now Matthew draws out the crucifixion over like three chapters.

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Mark does it all right here. This is a brutal text to read if you've never read this. Let's start in verse 4 of Mark 15.

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Pilate asked him again, have you no answer to make? See how many charges they bring against you.

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Jesus made no further answer, just like Isaiah said he wouldn't. So that Pilate was amazed.

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I'm down in verse 12. Pilate again said to the crowd, then what shall

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I do with this man you call the king of the Jews? And they cried out, crucify him. Verse 14,

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Pilate said to them, why? What evil has he done? But they shouted all the more, crucify him.

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So Pilate, wishing to satisfy the crowd, released for them

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Barabbas and having scourged Jesus, he delivered him to be crucified. Do you know the term people pleaser?

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People pleaser is a biblical term and it's a sin. Do you know that? No, you didn't.

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Some of you, yeah. People pleaser is a sin. It's where you love the praise of men more than the praise of God.

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That's what a people pleaser is. Pilate, wishing to satisfy the crowd, not be just, wishing to satisfy the crowd, delivers

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Jesus over to be scourged. Let me explain that for you. They use in Latin what's called a phlegm.

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It is where we get the English word filet, like when you cut up an animal, when you cut a piece of meat, because that is what this whip did.

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A wooden handle with leather strips, with bone or metal attached on the end, that would slice open the flesh.

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Some prisoners died from that part, from the scourging. You understand? And from that, that was round one.

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Jesus was scourged. When Paul speaks of this, it was 39 whips, 39.

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With that whip, with the bone and the metal fragments ripping into the skin and then being yanked off.

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And then he was delivered to be crucified. Notice when Pilate asked, what wrong has he done?

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They didn't answer that. You know what they say in Matthew? It adds the rest of it. He said this,

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Pilate said, if I do this, I'm innocent of his blood. Do you remember their answer? His blood be on us and our children.

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40 years later, they will be butchered by the Romans taking over Jerusalem.

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Ladies and gentlemen, your sin affects far more than just you. Do not be deceived. Do not be deceived.

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Affects far more than just you. Keep reading, it says this.

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In the soldiers, I'm in verse 16, and the soldiers led away inside the palace, that is the governor's headquarters.

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They called together a whole battalion. They clothed him in a purple cloak and twisted together a crown of thorns.

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And they put it on him and they began to salute him. Hail, King of the Jews. You hear the mockery?

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They were striking his head with the reed and spitting on him and kneeling down and paying homage to him.

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When they had mocked him, by the way, Mark doesn't add it, they put the cloak over his head and then they punched him and then said, prophesy a prophet who hits you.

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They led him out to crucify him. I am in verse 26, the inscription of the charge against him read,

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King of the Jews. And with him, they crucified two robbers, one on his right and one on his left.

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Maybe you've been taught that one was kind to Jesus and the other was not. That's actually not true.

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They both mocked Jesus. One repented in the end, the other didn't. And those who passed by derided him, verse 29, wagging their heads at him, saying, aha, you who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself and come down from the cross.

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So the chief priest and the scribes, that's those in the church, mocked him and said to one another, he saved others.

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But he can't save himself. Let the Christ, the

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King of Israel, come down from the cross that we may see and believe. Those who crucified with him also reviled him.

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Moving down to verse 34, and at the ninth hour, that's about 3 PM, Jesus cried with a loud voice,

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Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani, which means, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

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Some of the bystanders hearing it said, behold, he's calling to Elijah. Obviously, Eloi sounds like Elijah.

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They thought he was calling to Elijah. Verse 37, Jesus uttered a loud cry and breathed his last, and the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom.

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If you are familiar with the parallel accounts, you know what he said in that last cry.

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Remember, what did he say? It is finished. Tetelestai, it is finished.

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It is finished. And at his death, that veil was torn in two from top to bottom.

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You see, that veil, that curtain, is what separated the presence of God from the presence of man.

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You see, one dude was allowed in that room, one day a year, for one job, and he got out, because it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of an angry

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God, and you are not allowed into his presence. And see, what that one dude would do, the high priest, he would first get right with Jesus himself.

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Then he would go in to the Holy of Holies and make a sacrifice on behalf of the people.

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See, he would take two goats, and one he would kill, and sprinkle all the utensils with his blood.

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He would dip his hand in his blood and take his hand and put it on the head of the other goat, and the other lamb, and pray that the sins of the people would be symbolically imputed to that goat, which would be taken out in the wilderness and never seen again.

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And here we have the teaching of the Bible of propitiation and expiation.

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Propitiation is taking on the wrath of God. That's what that first lamb did. But expiation is then him removing the sin, guilt, and taking it away forever.

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And that's what we're about to read as we finish in Isaiah 53. And in Isaiah 53, leaving off in verse 5, we read this.

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But he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. Did you know how, maybe you don't, most of the time, the cause of death in a crucifixion is suffocation.

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So when you're nailed to the tree, which by the way, was not as sanded or pristine as what you see here.

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When you're nailed, they put one nail between both your feet, and then two through your wrist, where you're sagging.

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So to breathe, you gotta push off that nail that's on the bottom, catch your breath, and then release and sag again, you understand?

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When someone, sometimes this took days. For Jesus, it took six hours, cuz he got whipped beforehand.

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Well, when someone just became so exhausted they could no longer do the pull -up to lift themselves, they just suffocated, and that's how people die.

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To speed it up, a lot of times they would break their legs so that you couldn't push off that nail that was through your feet.

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So you couldn't push off, and you would suffocate faster. That's what Roman crucifixion was. And they were not the only ones.

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Other cultures had done it before them. They just kind of made it their own. He was crushed for our iniquities.

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Upon him was the punishment, the chastisement that brought us peace. And by his wounds, we are healed.

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That's a substitutionary atonement. Jesus does not wish away sin.

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See, he is a just God. And the Bible says every single scale will be balanced.

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Every sin will be paid for, every one of them. Somebody will be paying for the sins we have committed.

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And it will either be Jesus or it will be you. Those are the only options because we live in the world of a just God.

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We marred his image. You see, he made us perfect. We were made in his image, which means many things.

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But apart from our makeup and our trichotomy, it also means that we, unlike the rest of creation, have the ability to know him intimately and love him deeply, like the rest of creation can't.

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We alone, of all creation, can know him intimately and love him deeply.

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Well, that image, that relationship was marred, clouded by our sin.

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There wasn't the fellowship there was before because of our sin. Well, as we read in 52 .14,

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when Jesus became man, his image was so marred. His semblance of man was so disfigured, he couldn't even be recognized as a human being on that cross.

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He wasn't even recognized as a human being. By his wounds, we are healed.

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Skip down to verse nine, I'm sorry, verse six, I apologize, verse six. All we like sheep have gone astray.

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We have turned every one of us, these next four words, to his own way.

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And Yahweh has laid upon him the iniquity of us all. This right here,

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I think those four words are the key to the gospel that is missing maybe in our churches today.

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We've all turned to our own way. People still think,

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I fear maybe some of us in this room, but I don't know how. People still think, right now, if you were to be asked, are you a good person?

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They would say, well, I'm pretty good. It's not like I'm worshiping Satan. The mark of having gone astray, the mark of needing a savior, the mark of being condemned by a holy

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God, is not worshiping Satan, or being a murderer, or being an addict, or anything like that.

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What's it say right here? Everyone read it, look down. To his own way.

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If you want to be condemned, if you want to be condemned, if this describes you, an eternity in hell awaits, do you turn to your own way?

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That shocks people because they don't realize the depravity of man. To their own way.

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Do you understand the Bible speaks about Ephesians chapter 2? It says, prior to salvation, we walked according to the ways of this world.

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According to the ways of Satan. Satan did not have you on a leash. You did whatever your heart's desire was.

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And your heart's desire is only wicked continually, the Bible says. The Bible says the heart is desperately wicked and incurable.

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Who can understand it? That's what Jeremiah chapter 17 says. Turning to your own way.

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You see, we know the words, we just don't recognize it here. Trust in the

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Lord with all your heart. What's the opposite of trusting the Lord with all your heart? What's it say? Lean not what?

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On your own understanding. That's the opposite of trusting God, ladies and gentlemen, is leaning on your own understanding.

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If you have an attitude of I'm a good person, or I'm just going to do me, or I try my best to be a moral person, you have turned to your own way.

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You have turned to your own way. Thank you for all the amens to that. And I'm looking at some of you dead in the eye, because this is you.

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And I fear not for your membership in the church, I fear for your soul. Have turned to your own way.

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Verse 9, they made his grave with the wicked. We just read about the thieves he was crucified with.

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We didn't read far enough, but we have a prophecy of Joseph of Arimathea here. And a rich man at his death.

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You all remember Joseph gave up his tomb for Jesus to be buried.

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Although he had done no violence and there was no deceit found in his mouth. Jesus, when he was accused, gave no defense of himself.

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Not one. Why? Why? Verse 10, because it was the will of Yahweh to crush him and to put him to grief.

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That's why. Who killed Jesus? Not the Jews, not the Romans, not your sin.

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We sing it. Your sin did not hold him there. That's not true.

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My sin held him there. No it didn't. He said himself to Peter, I could utter the words and 10 ,000 angels would come and kill every one of you.

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I can do whatever I want, I'm God. Yahweh, God, killed the

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Son of God. It was the will of Yahweh to crush him severely.

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He has put him to grief. When his soul makes an offering for guilt, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of Yahweh will prosper in his hand.

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When he makes an offering for guilt, when he makes a guilt offering. You see, maybe if you're not that familiar with the book of Leviticus, the job of a priest, a pastor, was basically a full -time butcher.

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That's what he did. His job, I'm serious, his job was to make offerings for sin for himself and on behalf of the people.

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And there were all types of sin offerings and guilt offerings that would symbolically appease

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God's wrath for a time. See, the Bible says in previous times, he's passed over former sins, but now he commands all men everywhere to repent.

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See, it appeased his wrath for a time, but all it did was kick the can down the road because the sin was not paid for.

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The sin was not paid for. It was just an I -O -U for another day.

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When the Bible says Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, we finally have an offering for guilt.

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We finally have an offering for guilt. And I want you to notice in verse 6, it said, Yahweh has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

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And then I ask this, if he's laid on Jesus, the iniquity of us all, why is anyone in hell?

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More on that in verse 10, verse 11, excuse me. His soul makes an offering for guilt.

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If you hear me say nothing else today, I want you to hear this. Hebrews chapter 10, verse 14, should be memorized by every single person in this room.

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And if you just had a thought, I can't do that, I'm not gonna do that, take it up with God. But that verse right there has meant more to my heart than probably any other verse in the

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Bible. Hebrews chapter 10, verse 14, it says this, for by one offering, he has perfected forever those who are being sanctified.

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The book of Leviticus is one of the longest books in the Bible, and it is a book telling the priest how to make sacrifices for sin.

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It is a very long and grueling book to read. It is the reason why most of you never finish reading the

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Bible in a year. The idea of one offering, taking away sin forever, was foreign to the mind before Jesus.

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For by one offering, he has perfected forever, wait for it, those who are being sanctified.

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Now what's that little ing mean? The reason why

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I have full assurance of my salvation is not because I'm a perfect dude. It's because I can look at every one of you in the eye, lie detector test, polygraph right here, and say genuinely,

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I am more sanctified now than I was five years ago. And I'm not talking about before salvation, after salvation,

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I'm talking about right now. I can see the process of me being sanctified.

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That process is all the evidence I need, because that does not happen without Jesus. Someone doesn't get more holy on their own, more set apart.

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The reason why I can look at you and smile and say, I know what would happen to me if I would die right now is because not that I'm perfect,

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I'm being sanctified. I am less of a coward, I am less selfish,

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I am less ungrateful than I was two years ago. For by one offering, he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.

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Do you not see that? You get credit for the perfection of Jesus on the front end.

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And he changes you on the back end. You're getting credit on the front end for something that he is gonna work in you for the rest of your life.

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It's the most unfair business deal in the history of the planet. He fronts the righteousness,

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I'm serious, he does. He fronts the righteousness and conforms you to that image over a long period of time, of which you never reach in entirety until he brings you to his home.

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That's bad business. It's called love. His soul made an offering for guilt one time.

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For by one offering, he's perfected forever those who are being sanctified. Verse 11, out of the anguish of his soul, he shall see, now we move back to the present,

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I mean the future tense. He will see and be satisfied, and by his knowledge, the righteous one, my servant, will make many accounted righteous.

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In verse six, he laid on him the iniquity of us all. In verse 11, he makes many be accounted righteous.

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Keep reading. And he shall bear their iniquities. He will bear their iniquities.

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Therefore, I will divide him a portion with the many, and he'll divide the spoil with the strong because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors, and he bore the sin of many and makes intercession for the transgressors.

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That last line, just a total side note, he makes intercession for the transgressors.

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A few weeks ago, I was talking to a young man over at the gym, and I said, after telling him the gospel, isn't that great news?

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That salvation is obtained not by you doing anything, but simply by a bowing of your will to Jesus.

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And he said to me, no, that's not good news. Who is your God to tell me that I'm sinful and need a savior?

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That is someone who is not yet close to the kingdom. The only type of people

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Jesus has ever died for is transgressors. Jesus only ever died for the ungodly.

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That's what Romans 5 says. For God demonstrates his own love toward us that while we were still sinners,

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Christ died for us. The reason why so many people reject the

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Savior is they reject that they need a Savior. Who is that God?

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What is that book to tell me what is right and wrong? As we discussed two weeks ago, the attitude of some, and I fear maybe some in this room, is that God needs to step off his little throne and get back where he belongs in second place and bow his will to yours.

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Now, if you think, well, I've never said that. If you've turned to your own way, yes, you have.

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Make it say something and don't. I'll wait. Now, if that be the case then, we all, when confronted with that message, have two options.

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Conform to him or make him conform to you. The second one is a figment of your imagination.

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The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. The Bible says that he's the propitiation, the wrath bearer, not only for our sins, but the sins of the whole world.

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Jesus Christ took on the wrath of the Father for the sins of the whole planet, past, present, and future.

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And yet, it says he only bears the sin of many.

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You see, those two goats, the sin, the propitiation, the bearer of wrath was placed in that first one and it was killed.

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But then the guilt was removed from the second goat. See, this is propitiation and expiation.

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Jesus is the propitiation for every human being on planet Earth. But he does not expiate the sin of every human being on the planet.

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That is reserved for believers only. You see, he is the wrath bearer for the sin of every human being who has ever existed.

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But he only removes the guilt for those who believe. What's it say? He makes many to be what?

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Accounted righteous. Declared innocent.

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Some of us are lulled to sleep in thinking that condemnation and judgment and the declaration of righteous or unrighteous happens when you die.

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You are a fool. You are a fool. Turn with me, if you will, and we're almost done, to John chapter 3.

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And we're almost done. We're going to finish here. Yeah, chapter 3 is after chapter 2 in most of your

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Bibles. Verse 36.

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Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life. But whoever doesn't obey the

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Son will not see life. The wrath of God, what's the next word? Remains on him.

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Ladies and gentlemen, do you not see the biblical message? God's wrath is not imputed to you when you die.

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It's on you now. You are under the wrath of God right now. Right this second.

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Whoever doesn't obey the Son, which, by the way, is proof of true belief.

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That's why it's used interchangeably here. Whoever believes, whoever does not obey, because obedience is a necessary fruit of true belief so that John can use them interchangeably.

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Belief, obey. Whoever doesn't obey will not see life, for the wrath of God remains on him.

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While Jesus took on the punishment of wrath from God the

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Father, He did not remove the guilt from everyone. That is for those who believe. That is expiation.

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Read with me in verse 16. For God so loved the world,

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He gave His only Son. Why did He give His only Son? That whoever believes.

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Hey, read that again. God so loved the world, He gave His only Son, Hinnah, so that whoever believes.

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This is why Jesus died. For whoever believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life.

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For God didn't send the Son into the world to condemn the world, because the world was already condemned, but that the world might be saved through Him.

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You know why it need to be saved? Because it was already in need of a Savior, because it was already condemned. Already.

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The Son didn't come to condemn. Condemnation already was there. Whoever, verse 18, believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only

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Son of God. And this is the judgment. Light has come into the world, and people love darkness rather than light, because the works were evil.

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For everyone who does wicked things hates the light, and does not come to the light, lest his works be exposed.

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Whoever does what is true comes to the light, so it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.

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Whoever does not believe is condemned already. Ladies and gentlemen, in this room right now are 150 people who from birth have been condemned to hell.

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And yet, and yet, whoever calls on the name of Yahweh will be saved.

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Not calls on the name of Yahweh and. Anything after that word and is heresy.

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Whoever calls on the name of Yahweh. See, but here's the kicker. It has to be the

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Yahweh, the God, the Lord of the Bible, not the one you made up. God has the right to reveal himself however he sees fit.

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You don't get to change him and then claim that you're worshiping him. Yes or no? Whoever calls on the name of the

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Lord will be saved. And here's what's amazing. When that happens, as we just read, he makes them accounted righteous.

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And I know we did this two weeks ago, but some of you still don't get it. So I'm going to say it again and not apologize for repeating myself.

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If God merely forgave you of your sin, you would still not go to heaven. And that's normally as far as our gospel presentation goes.

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Guys, that is like having a debt of a million dollars and being forgiven of a debt. You still have zero dollars.

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You just don't owe now. You're still broke. He doesn't just take on your sin punishment.

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He removes your guilt and then gives you credit for his perfect life lived on earth.

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That 35 years of him walking around obeying God, he gives you credit for that.

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So that he gets credit for your bull crap and you get credit for his obedience.

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That's imputation. And he gives you credit for that on the front end and then works it in you for the rest of your life, which is why the writer of Hebrews can declare, for by one offering, he has perfected for all time.

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You know, if the verse stopped there, I might think, but I'm not perfect. Cindy, are you perfect?

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Carol McGee is pretty close. No? Not perfect. Lisa, are you perfect? Aisha, are you?

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Right, yeah. Kwame's perfect. Kwame. You've only been a member for one week.

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You've got to be perfect. OK. For by one offering, he's perfected forever.

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Those who are being sanctified. If you can't be encouraged by that, you might want to check your