By His Stripes

Sovereign Grace Family Church iconSovereign Grace Family Church

1 view

0 comments

00:01
I want to invite you to take out your Bible and turn with me to the 53rd chapter of the book of Isaiah.
00:24
We are continuing from last night, but if you weren't here last night, that's okay.
00:32
It's not as if it's a series that you have to have one to get the next.
00:36
But there's a theme, a thread, a crimson thread, if you will, that's running from last night's message all the way to Sunday morning's message.
00:46
And that thread is this, 1 Corinthians 2, verse 2, For I decided to know nothing among you except Christ and Him crucified.
00:54
So last night we looked at the beauty of expiation and Christ taking away our sins.
01:02
And tonight we're looking at the beauty of propitiation, the fact that He takes upon Himself our punishment.
01:07
And the beauty of that is immense and it's powerful and it's shown to us here in Isaiah 53.
01:13
So what we're going to do, we're going to read the entire chapter together.
01:19
Then we're going to focus in our attention at verse 5.
01:24
I do not have the time to give an exposition of the entire chapter.
01:30
It would take many weeks for me to open up all of the depth that is here.
01:35
And even then it would be impossible to plum its depths completely.
01:40
So we want to laser in our focus a bit and focus on one passage.
01:45
But to get the context of Isaiah and what he's saying in this passage, I think it's important that we read the whole chapter together.
01:52
As is our custom at Sovereign, I encourage you to stand.
01:55
We give honor and reverence to God's Word in doing so.
01:59
We'll read beginning at verse 1.
02:04
Who has believed what He has heard from us? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For He grew up before Him like a young plant and like a root out of dry ground.
02:19
He had no form or majesty that we should look at Him and no beauty that we should desire Him.
02:24
He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
02:31
And as one from whom men hid their faces, He was despised and we esteemed Him not.
02:40
Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted.
02:46
But He was wounded for our transgressions.
02:49
He was crushed for our iniquities.
02:51
Upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace.
02:54
And with His stripes we are healed.
02:59
All we like sheep have gone astray.
03:02
We have turned every one to his own way.
03:04
And the Lord has laid upon Him the iniquity of us all.
03:07
He was oppressed and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth, like a lamb that is led to the slaughter and like a sheep that before its shears is silent.
03:16
So He opened not His mouth.
03:20
By oppression and judgment He was taken away.
03:22
And as for His generation, who considered that He was cut off from the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of My people? And they made His grave with the wicked and with the rich man and his death, although He had done no violence and there was no deceit in His mouth.
03:38
Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush Him.
03:43
He has put Him to grief.
03:45
When His soul makes an offering for guilt, He shall see His offering.
03:48
He shall prolong His days.
03:50
The will of the Lord shall prosper in His hand.
03:53
Out of the anguish of His soul He shall see and be satisfied.
03:59
By His knowledge shall the righteous one, My servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and He shall bear their iniquities.
04:07
Therefore I will divide Him a portion with the many, and He shall divide the spoiled with the strong, because He poured out His soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors.
04:16
Yet He bore the sin of many and makes intercession for the transgressors.
04:24
Father in Heaven, I thank You for Your Word.
04:27
I thank You for the precious truths that are contained within it.
04:32
And I ask, O Lord, that You would, during this time, keep me faithful to the truth and keep me from error.
04:40
Pray also, Lord, that You would open the hearts of Your people to the truth.
04:45
And Lord, since there are always those among us who have not yet come to faith, I pray on their behalf now that You would open hearts to believe that we might see lives changed, that we might see souls converted.
05:00
For Lord, this is pleasing to You.
05:04
And Father, we also know it is a work that only You can do.
05:09
I do pray that I would decrease, as John said, and Christ would increase, and that He would be glorified in the preaching of Your Word.
05:19
And it's in His name we pray.
05:20
Amen.
05:23
Please be seated.
05:31
Years ago, when I was in seminary, Jennifer and I, she had an opportunity to take some classes with me, and while we were there, we took a class together on messianic prophecy.
05:46
And I admit that prior to the class, I honestly had not given much thought to that subject.
05:55
I was a relatively new believer.
05:58
I got saved when I was 19.
06:00
I preached my first sermon when I was 21.
06:02
Went to seminary shortly thereafter.
06:03
So I had not really devoted a lot of time as a believer into diving into the Word.
06:08
So much of what I learned was in school when I went to seminary, and these godly men taught me the Bible, and I was so grateful to them.
06:15
And one of the classes, like I said, we sat in messianic prophecy.
06:17
I remember just going home every night after class, and Jennifer and I would just be so excited about what we had learned about the Lord Jesus Christ and how He had been prophesied so clearly and so powerfully in the Old Testament text.
06:34
And the one that amazed me so, and she and I just would look at each other in class with mouths wide open when we had to us from the professor, I believe it was Dr.
06:45
Sanford Cruz, that was teaching, and he said, he would say, he would go through Isaiah 53 line by line by line and just show Jesus.
06:56
And it's like as one scholar said, it's so vivid in detail that one would think almost that Isaiah was standing at the foot of the cross when he wrote this.
07:06
And yet he wrote it 700 years before the events of the cross.
07:15
And as I said earlier, time will not allow me to give a proper exposition of this chapter.
07:22
So we're going to focus on verse 5.
07:24
We're going to focus on just this short passage.
07:27
But He was pierced for our transgressions.
07:30
He was crushed for our iniquities.
07:34
Upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace.
07:39
And with His wounds, we are healed.
07:45
And through this passage, what I hope that we see is the goodness of Good Friday.
07:51
Because that's what today is called.
07:53
I saw a little, a nice, I don't remember if you know the comic strip BC, that was put together by a Christian man.
08:01
And oftentimes there were Christian overtones in the comic.
08:04
And this morning I posted one to our account.
08:07
And it was this.
08:08
A man was sitting there and he was saying, why do they call it Good Friday when your Messiah was killed on this day? And he said, well imagine you, and this is a cartoon strip.
08:18
He said, imagine you had to be nailed to a tree.
08:22
And someone came and stood in the way and had them nail Him instead of you.
08:28
How would you feel about that? He said, well I'd feel pretty good.
08:30
He said, well there it is.
08:34
There it is.
08:35
And I thought, boy, what a great little encapsulation.
08:40
Why do we call it good? Because someone took from me what I deserved.
08:47
And so that's the beauty of all of this.
08:50
And if you don't get anything else from tonight, that's what's good about tonight.
08:54
And that's what we're going to study here in Isaiah's text.
08:58
Now as my custom in preaching, I want to eliminate misunderstandings also.
09:04
Because there are two big misunderstandings about this passage that I want to spend some time with.
09:10
And I do this a lot.
09:11
My outlines are not super creative, but an outline I usually use is, what does it not mean and what does it mean? Two points, right? What does it not mean and what does it mean? So that's what we're going to do tonight.
09:24
Because we're going to start with the question, what does it not mean? When we look at Isaiah 53, when we look at this passage, what does it not mean? Well, the first thing it doesn't mean is what the Jews of today think that it means.
09:38
Because the modern Orthodox Jews look at this passage, and they will tell you that this is a reference to national Israel.
09:50
As I mentioned, this text is powerful and it points to Jesus Christ.
09:57
And oftentimes, you know, you read it to a Jew, it's so obvious to you that it references Jesus Christ.
10:04
It's like, how can you not see Jesus? You know, this is like He's standing at the foot of the cross.
10:07
How can you not see this? But the Orthodox Jew, remember, has denied that Jesus is the Messiah.
10:15
They have denied that He is the One, the Holy One, the Promised One of the Old Covenant.
10:20
So they have to find another way.
10:21
Even in this most obvious passage, they have to find another way to interpret it.
10:28
So the Jew demands that the suffering servant here in Isaiah 53 is not Jesus Christ, but is Israel who is the servant of God.
10:39
And they make their case by arguing that there are places in Isaiah where Israel is called the servant of God.
10:47
And something we need to immediately understand is that is true.
10:50
There are some places in Isaiah where Israel is called the servant of God.
10:54
However, in this particular passage, the servant who is spoken of is given a very distinct set of characteristics which do not and cannot be applied to Israel.
11:08
This text raises several questions which would preclude it from being applied to Israel.
11:14
Was the nation of Israel ever sinless? No.
11:20
Has the nation of Israel ever atoned for the sins of anyone else? No.
11:25
Has the nation of Israel ever suffered willingly, without protestation, voluntarily? No.
11:32
No, I'll answer no.
11:35
Has the nation of Israel ever died, ceased to be? No.
11:42
Even in her times where she was narrowed down because of persecution, there was always what? A remnant.
11:48
There's never died as a nation.
11:52
These are all characteristics of the suffering servant in this passage.
11:55
And thus, Israel as a nation simply does not qualify.
12:01
Furthermore, historically, we see that even Jewish people have seen this passage as referring to the Messiah.
12:07
I want to read to you a quote.
12:09
It's a rather lengthy quote, but I pray that you can hang with me for a moment.
12:13
This is from a group called Jews for Jesus.
12:15
This is a Messianic Jewish community.
12:17
And they look at some of the ancient literature, which involves how the rabbis saw Isaiah 53.
12:25
Now, this is prior to the coming of Christ, or right shortly thereafter.
12:28
This is what it says.
12:29
It says, Our ancient commentators, with one accord, noted that the context, that of Isaiah 53, clearly speaks of God's anointed one, the Messiah.
12:40
The Aramaic translation of this chapter, ascribed to Rabbi Jonathan Ben Uzziel, a disciple of Hillel, who lived early in the second century, begins with the simple and worthy words, Behold, my servant Messiah shall prosper.
12:56
He shall be high and increase and be exceedingly strong, as the house of Israel looked to him through many days, because their countenance was darkened among the peoples, and their complexions beyond the sons of men.
13:08
We find the same interpretation in the Babylonian Talmud.
13:12
The Messiah, what is his name? The rabbis say, the leprous one.
13:15
Those of the house, the rabbis say, the sick one.
13:18
As it is said, surely he has borne our sicknesses.
13:21
Of course, a reference to Isaiah 53.
13:23
Similarly, in the Midrash Rabbah, it is an explanation in Ruth, chapter 2, verse 14.
13:28
He is speaking of the king Messiah.
13:30
Come hither, draw near to the throne, and dip thy morsel in the vinegar.
13:34
This refers to the chastisements.
13:36
As it is said, but he was wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities.
13:41
Now, that might be hard to understand.
13:43
What they're saying is the rabbis of old saw this passage and said, here's the Messiah.
13:48
Now, why is it that the modern Jew doesn't see the Messiah? Because it's so obviously a reference to Jesus Christ.
13:57
So, because it can't be, because they have that presupposition that it's not, they have to find something else to point it to.
14:06
And so they say, well, it can't be Jesus.
14:08
It must be Israel.
14:10
It can't be the Messiah, because if it is, that means Jesus is the Messiah.
14:13
And it can't be that.
14:16
So, we'll point it to someone else who, something else, the nation of Israel, to which it can't possibly apply.
14:26
The idea that this passage refers to the nation and not Messiah is relatively a recent one.
14:32
And disagrees with the way it was interpreted by many, if not all, of the ancient rabbis.
14:38
So, that's the first thing.
14:39
It's not a reference to Israel.
14:42
It's a reference to Messiah.
14:45
The second thing it's not, is it is not, and this is going to seem like a hard shift.
14:52
I'm going to go from talking to Orthodox Jews to Word Faith Heretics, so be careful.
14:55
We're taking a hard right turn.
14:58
But stay with me.
14:59
Because it's not a reference to what the Jews say that it's a reference to them, to the nation.
15:05
But here's another place where this passage is often misunderstood.
15:10
The Word Faith movement has grabbed this passage and has applied it to everything, except what it was meant to be applied to.
15:22
In fact, you know that in the Christian vernacular, certain words and phrases have snuck in.
15:29
There are those who will say, by His stripes we are healed.
15:33
And they'll apply that to every type of healing imaginable, as a reference to divine sanction of name it and claim it.
15:45
In fact, I know people.
15:47
I've been in prayer circles with people where we're all holding hands and praying.
15:52
And inevitably, someone will say, by His stripes, heal such and so and whatnot.
15:58
It'll be something about some type of physical sickness.
16:02
Here's two quotes.
16:03
Colin Urquhart, I think I'm saying his name correctly.
16:06
This is a Word Faith teacher.
16:07
He said, when Jesus stood bearing the lashes from the Roman soldiers, all our physical pain and sickness were being heaped upon Him.
16:13
It is as if one lash was for cancer, another for bone disease, another for heart disease, and so on.
16:19
Everything that causes physical pain was laid at Jesus' feet, and the nails were driven into His hands and feet.
16:26
So it's all about physical sickness.
16:28
It's all about physical healing.
16:30
And every lash was some other type of disease.
16:33
Gloria Copeland, that great bastion of wisdom, says, The Bible uses sarcasm, so don't get mad at me.
16:44
Jesus bore your sicknesses and carried your diseases at the same time and in the same manner that He bore your sins.
16:50
This is her argument.
16:52
So the sickness that's referred to in Isaiah 53, according to Gloria Copeland, is our physical sicknesses.
16:58
And here's how that plays out.
17:00
This is why this hurts me so.
17:03
Because they will tell a person very clearly and very emphatically that if you are sick, that if you have a disease, that if you have a problem, an infirmity, it's your fault.
17:14
Because your faith is not strong enough.
17:16
You have not claimed the stripes of Jesus.
17:19
You have not pleaded the blood of Jesus strong enough.
17:21
It's your fault.
17:23
Such is nonsense.
17:26
And that's why I felt it necessary to bring this part out.
17:33
Justin Peters does a series called Clouds Without Water.
17:37
It's a reference to Jude, who talks about the false teachers being clouds without water.
17:41
I recommend it to your listening because he addresses the false teachers.
17:46
And this particular passage comes up quite a bit in their claimant theology.
17:53
Their name it and claim it theology.
17:58
Beloved, their teaching turns this passage on its head.
18:01
There is no, and I hope I didn't hurt anybody's feelings.
18:04
How many of you speak? I'm straight, right here.
18:07
There is no promise of absolute divine healing for all believers for all time.
18:13
But there is a promise that we will suffer with Christ.
18:16
And that means sometimes we will suffer sickness.
18:18
And you know what? We are going to die one day.
18:25
I remember years ago, I was reading the book Charismatic Chaos by John MacArthur, which talks about a lot of these false teachers.
18:33
And I did something that I don't recommend anybody ever do.
18:37
I went to Amazon and read the comments on the book.
18:42
And so I went to Amazon, read the comments on the book, and this one pastor, preacher, teacher, word-faith guy, had really just blasted MacArthur for being so unfair to the word-faith guys.
18:51
And I thought, you know, well hey, this guy, he believes in divine healing, believes in miracles.
18:56
I want to hear what he has to say.
18:58
I want to interact with him.
18:59
So I sent him a message.
19:00
I was able to find his information.
19:03
I was able to send him a message.
19:04
Lo and behold, his wife messages me back.
19:08
She said, I'm sorry, my husband is not answering correspondence right now.
19:11
He is very ill.
19:15
Now, I'm not glorifying in his illness.
19:19
But I must say, there's irony there.
19:24
Here is a man who claims this power of divine healing, but yet he can't respond to my email because he himself is very ill.
19:35
I love it.
19:36
It's bad theology.
19:38
It produces bad methodology.
19:40
It produces incorrect doxology.
19:42
It kills the church.
19:46
So let's first understand that's not what Isaiah is talking about, and let's now go to what he is talking about.
19:56
Let's look now at what does this text mean.
19:58
This text is very clearly a prophecy about the work of Messiah.
20:07
And I must admit that this week I read a new understanding of it that I never read before from Dr.
20:14
John MacArthur.
20:14
And while he certainly believes that this is not going to be anything new in the sense of it's not about Jesus or something, but he addressed an even deeper thought that I never thought about.
20:27
And again, I'm still working through it in my mind, but I want to share it with you because I think it's an interesting way of reading the text.
20:31
He said it's not so much a prophecy about Jesus' coming, it's a prophecy about how one day when Isaiah will look back at the fact that Jesus has come, they'll look back at what they did and realize.
20:42
So it's more of a prophecy of their recognition of what they missed.
20:46
That's a thought.
20:47
I mean, if you go back and read it in the past tense, everything here is in the past tense.
20:50
You know, who has believed what they heard from us and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? He grew up like a young plant, like a root out of dry ground.
20:56
He had no former majesty that we should look at him.
20:58
You know, it's sort of a looking back thing.
21:01
So is this a prophecy about what Israel will one day, when they recognize who they missed and look back at him? You know, I thought that was a very intriguing way of reading the passage.
21:10
But either way, we know this.
21:12
The passage specifically is referring to the work of Jesus Christ in the atonement.
21:17
And whether or not it's simply a prophecy or whether it is, as MacArthur said, it's a prophecy of someone looking back at what has happened, here's the key that we need to understand.
21:27
This is about taking two warring parties and bringing them back together.
21:36
We often don't think of the work of the cross that way, but that's what reconciliation is.
21:41
And we've been entrusted with the ministry of reconciliation.
21:45
Right? 2 Corinthians 5.
21:48
And so what we have here is we have atonement.
21:50
And that word atonement is an interesting word.
21:53
It's English.
21:55
It's 16th century English.
21:57
And it denotes unity.
21:59
It denotes reconciliation.
22:01
It actually does come from the phrase at-one-ment.
22:06
That's where atonement comes from.
22:08
Two that are separated become at one.
22:10
And so the two that are becoming at one, that is making an at-one-ment or an atonement.
22:15
It's literally, if you take the number one and make it a verb, one-ing someone or one-ing two people.
22:23
I know you like how I make up words, but that's what's happening.
22:27
You're taking two and one-ing them.
22:31
That's what atonement is.
22:34
In the simplest terms, it's bringing unity.
22:39
Adunamentum in the Latin is atonement.
22:42
It means to one, two who are separated.
22:47
And in our last session, we talked about Christ bearing our sin.
22:52
We talked about the fact that He takes away our sin.
22:54
John the Baptist saw Jesus come and he said, Behold the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world.
22:59
He takes it away.
23:00
He bears it.
23:03
But in this passage, we see, going a step further, Christ not only bears the sin, but He suffers for it.
23:16
And this is where the foundation of our faith really lies.
23:22
Because if all God did was take away our sin and He never punished it, then God would be acting in an unjust way because there would be a penalty that needed to be paid that wasn't paid.
23:36
And God is holy and He cannot overlook sin because He's just.
23:44
Were He to overlook sin, He would be violating His own nature.
23:51
And as I've said many times, you've all heard this illustration before.
23:54
It would be like a judge looking at a rapist and saying, I know you're a rapist and I know you've done this horrible deed, but please go free.
24:01
Every one of us would demand that judge be taken down from the bench.
24:05
We would stand with signs saying unjust.
24:09
And yet, what do people say? Well, when I face God, I'll just say I'm sorry.
24:13
He's going to forgive me because God is forgiving.
24:16
Well, God is forgiving.
24:18
But He does not forgive in an unjust way.
24:22
God is perfectly and wholly just.
24:27
And He demands penalty for sin because sin is a breach of the law.
24:32
And because sin is a breach of the law, it demands punishment.
24:36
And when we walk through verse 5, we're going to finally now get to verse 5, we see how the satisfaction, that's what perpetuation means, by the way, to appease or to satisfy.
24:46
We're going to see how the satisfaction took place.
24:50
You'll see there the personal pronouns, our, us, we.
24:56
It says He was pierced for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities.
25:05
He brought us peace and we are healed.
25:10
You see, He's undergoing suffering so that another person doesn't have to.
25:19
He's paying a penalty that He didn't deserve or that He didn't incur for someone else who did.
25:27
And what healing is in view? I spent some time kind of going against the word faith people earlier in the sermon, but now let's actually address.
25:35
He says here, by His wounds, or in the King James, His stripes, we are healed.
25:41
What is the healing that's in view here? Well, 1 Peter tells us.
25:45
We don't have to wonder.
25:47
We don't have to think about it.
25:48
We don't have to kind of come up with it.
25:49
Turn to 1 Peter 2 and He'll tell you what is in view.
25:53
1 Peter 2, 24.
26:03
1 Peter 2 and verse 24 tells us, He Himself bore our, what? Sins in His body on the tree that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.
26:24
By His wounds, what? We have been healed.
26:28
So what does Peter do? He looks at Isaiah 53.
26:31
He says, By His wounds we have been healed.
26:33
And He uses that passage and He explains.
26:35
He gives us, say, an inspired commentary.
26:38
This is Holy Spirit inspired writ that we get on this passage.
26:42
What does it mean by His wounds that we are healed? It means our sins have been placed upon Him and He's been punished for them.
26:49
That's what it means.
26:51
That's the healing.
26:52
You see, the healing that we have been given through Christ is the healing of the damage which was done by sin.
27:03
In this suffering that Christ underwent, the broken relationship between God and His people was restored.
27:21
On Sunday, I'm going to mention this, but I know some of you won't be here, so I'm going to tell you now.
27:25
Some people will say, Our sin separates us from God.
27:29
And that is true.
27:30
In fact, we have in our little karate club that we do, we have a little statement of the gospel that we do.
27:35
G-O-S-P-E-L, God created us in His image.
27:37
Our sin separates us from God.
27:38
Sin cannot be repaid by good works.
27:40
It's paying the price for sin.
27:41
Jesus died and rose again.
27:42
Everyone who trusts in Him alone will have life forever.
27:44
Life forever is with Jesus in heaven.
27:45
It's an acrostic.
27:46
It spells gospel.
27:47
It's very easy to remember and we teach it to children.
27:50
But one thing that I've become more and more convicted about is our sin does more than separate us from God.
27:56
Our sin puts us at war with God.
28:00
And it's not just that our relationship is separated, as somehow maybe a child lost in the mall has been separated from his parent.
28:08
Because that's what we think about separation.
28:10
You know, maybe the child's lost in the mall, the parent's desperately trying to find him.
28:13
That's what we think of as separation.
28:14
No, it's more than that.
28:15
The child has taken a knife to the throat of his parent.
28:18
It's a different relationship.
28:20
The child hates the parent.
28:24
It's war.
28:28
Not just separation.
28:30
It's enmity, the scripture says.
28:33
Enmity.
28:34
It's war.
28:35
But now, Romans 5.1.
28:40
Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have...
28:48
That's what propitiation does.
28:51
It satisfies the anger of the father.
28:54
It removes the guilt of the child.
28:57
And it restores the relationship.
29:02
That's the heart of the gospel.
29:05
God is bound by His nature to punish sin.
29:08
And we're all worthy of that punishment.
29:10
Christ steps in Himself.
29:11
The undefied, sinless Lamb of God.
29:13
And takes the punishment for us.
29:15
And the relationship which was broken in sin is now healed.
29:19
Because of the grace and mercy of God the Father.
29:25
And through Jesus Christ our Savior.
29:29
And that's why Isaiah would say, It pleased God to crush Him.
29:38
Why did it please God? Did God get His satisfaction from inflicting pain on His Son? Some people who don't believe in substitutionary atonement.
29:48
Those who would deny the gospel.
29:49
Say that this is a terrible doctrine.
29:51
Because it makes God into a cosmic child abuser.
29:54
Oh, I've heard it all.
29:57
It's shameful.
29:59
No, it didn't please God simply to lash Christ.
30:03
It pleased God that His justice and grace together would be put on display.
30:10
This is why it says in Romans 3.
30:13
It was to show His righteousness at this present time.
30:17
So that He might be both just and the justifier.
30:23
Of him who believes in the Lord Jesus Christ.
30:25
And you see that's the key.
30:27
God gets to remain perfectly holy.
30:29
Perfectly just.
30:30
And He gets to demonstrate grace and justify the ungodly.
30:34
And in both demonstrations He shows the full orb majesty of who He is.
30:43
Martin Luther.
30:44
Great reformer.
30:47
He said this.
30:49
He said every Christian should be able to recite Isaiah 53.
30:58
Go.
31:00
He said every Christian should be able to recite Isaiah 53.
31:04
And while I might not enforce such a requirement on you all.
31:10
I will say this.
31:11
You should become intimately familiar with this passage.
31:16
It has been called the fifth gospel.
31:20
Because in it is contained the beauty of the atoning work of Christ.
31:25
Some 700 years prior to the writing of the other four gospels.
31:28
So you could call it the first of five.
31:34
It contains one of the clearest presentations of substitutionary atonement in the Bible.
31:39
It is quoted eight times in the New Testament as a testimony to the work of Christ.
31:44
And it contains the very heart of what we mean when we say we believe the gospel of Jesus Christ.
31:57
I want to share a story as I begin to work my way to a close.
32:04
A woman by the name of Alila stood on a beach.
32:13
I must admit I didn't want to tell this.
32:15
When I first read this story I was thinking of this.
32:18
I went to my wife and I read it to her.
32:19
I said is this too much? Alila stood on the beach and she had her baby.
32:28
Six months old.
32:30
And she stood there crying.
32:34
And by the way my wife said no.
32:35
She said say it.
32:36
In case you're wondering.
32:40
Stood on the beach.
32:41
Baby in her arms.
32:43
And she looked out at the water.
32:47
And she stepped feet in.
32:49
Went up to her ankles.
32:50
Went up to her knees.
32:51
Went up to her hips.
32:52
Finally to her waist.
32:55
And she was crying.
32:57
Tears flowing down her face.
32:58
She was breaking in her heart everywhere.
33:05
And finally in a moment of sheer just brokenness.
33:14
She throws her baby.
33:25
Later a missionary came to where she was.
33:31
And she told him the story.
33:33
And he in tears.
33:34
Why? Why? Why would you do that? She said the problems in my home are too many.
33:46
My sins are too heavy.
33:50
So I offered the best I had to the goddess of the Ganges.
33:56
My first born son.
34:01
Every year millions of people flock to Hardwar.
34:07
The Indian city.
34:10
To bathe in the river Ganges.
34:14
Multitudes coming.
34:16
Believing that they will somehow wash their sins away.
34:22
Like Alila.
34:24
Believing that there is something that they can do.
34:28
To atone for their sins.
34:33
That's why the gospel is so important.
34:38
Because 2000 years ago.
34:39
God's wrath was satisfied in Christ.
34:42
For all who believe on Him.
34:44
We can do nothing.
34:46
We can offer nothing.
34:49
Not even our first born would be enough.
34:56
God has made His offering.
35:00
God has given to us His only begotten.
35:06
He has not called us to atone for ourselves.
35:11
He has called us to believe and trust in the atonement.
35:17
Made by His Son.
35:20
I want to end with a poem by John Hust.
35:24
Another great reformer.
35:28
Jesus Christ our blessed Savior.
35:30
Turned away God's wrath forever.
35:33
By His better grief and woe.
35:35
He saved us from the evil foe.
35:38
Christ has come.
35:40
All ye that labor and receive My grace and favor.
35:45
They who feel no want nor ill.
35:47
Need no physician's help nor skill.
35:50
As His pledge of love undying.
35:53
He this precious food supplying.
35:56
Gives His body with the bread and with the wine.
35:59
The blood He shed.
36:01
Praise the Father.
36:03
Who from heaven unto us such food hath given.
36:06
And to mend what we have done.
36:09
Gave unto death His only Son.
36:14
If thy heart this truth professes.
36:17
And thy mouth thy sin confesses.
36:20
His dear guest thou here shalt be.
36:24
And Christ Himself shall banquet thee.
36:31
Beloved let's pray.
36:32
Father.
36:37
Nothing in our hands we bring.
36:41
Only to the cross we claim.
36:44
We cannot atone for ourselves.
36:47
Nothing we have ever done.
36:49
No work we have ever done.
36:50
Can pay even for one of our sins.
36:53
Which are copious.
36:56
So Father.
37:00
We trust in Christ alone.
37:04
We trust in His work alone.
37:09
And Father if there are those among us.
37:11
And certainly there must be.
37:13
Who are trying to trust in something of themselves.
37:16
If they are trying to trust in some goodness that they have.
37:19
Some work that they have done.
37:21
Some offering that they have made.
37:24
Lord break their heart under the weight of their sin.
37:27
That they might know that there is no salvation.
37:31
For there is no other name under heaven given by men.
37:34
Other than the name of Jesus Christ.
37:36
By which we must be saved.
37:37
Lord break their hearts.
37:41
And Lord break all of our hearts.
37:43
For pride does not exist in the unbeliever alone.
37:47
But it makes its way into the life of the believer.
37:51
Father break our pride.
37:54
Make it so.
37:57
That we fall at the feet of the cross.
38:00
And trust in Christ alone.
38:05
And it's in His name we pray.
38:11
Beloved.