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Isaiah 53:4-6
Saying that, I'd like to speak to you this morning on our Divine Substitute. Our Divine Substitute. So we're going to look into this wonderful, wonderful subject this morning from the book of Isaiah chapter 53.
So please turn with me and your Bibles to the prophecy, or the gospel as some said, of Isaiah chapter 53. This is no doubt one of the most beloved chapters in the entirety of the Word of God, the Bible.
Old Testament scholar Kyle Yates says of Isaiah chapter 52 and 53, he says,. These five matchless stanzas of the fourth servant poem are the Mount Everest of the Messianic prophecy. Warren Wiersbe, in his wonderful way, says of Isaiah 53, like Mount Everest, Isaiah 53 stands out in beauty and grandeur, but only because it reveals Jesus Christ and takes us to Mount Calvary.
When D .L. Moody was asked to conduct his first mission in London in 1874, union meetings were comparatively new, the committee asked him to explain his methods. Everything went smoothly until one member asked Moody, What was his creed?
What is his creed? D .L. Moody calmly replied, My creed is already in print. A member seized a piece of paper and a pencil very quickly and asked, Where could it be found? Moody says it is found in the 53rd chapter of Isaiah.
Praise God. Hear the word of the living God. I'm reading this morning from the New King James Version. And I'd like to begin, even though we will not look at all these verses, I'd like to begin with verse 1 and read through verse 6.
Hear God's word. Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of dry ground. He has no form or comeliness.
And when we see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from him. He was despised and we did not esteem him.
Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. And the chastisement of our peace was upon him.
And by his stripes we are healed. All we, like sheep, have gone astray. We have turned every one to his own way. And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. Please bow with me in prayer as we seek our Lord's blessing within this hour of worship as we hear his word.
Our Father and our great God, our Lord and our Master, Creator of the ends of the earth, Lord and King,.
Savior,.
Lord, we thank you. And with reverence, Lord, in our hearts, before your word, Lord, we bow in your presence now, seeking your face to shine upon us as we open your word. Lord, we are a desperate people in need of grace, help, and time of need.
And Lord, the only place to find this is before the throne of grace. So, Father, we thank you for the access that has been made through the Lord Jesus Christ by reconciling us to yourself through his precious blood, by the work, by the great work of redemption he has accomplished.
And now the Holy Spirit applies this to our hearts. Oh, Father, as we look into your word this morning, we pray. This is far beyond the intellect. This is more than just information. We bow before you, Lord, recognizing there's nothing that we can comprehend spiritually, can see by the eyes of faith or hear by faith, of all the great riches and beauty that is found in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Lord, we were reminded that this is not just of the letter, but of the Spirit. Lord, I pray that you would now lay hold of us, kindle our hearts with your light and heat through your word. And as the psalmist says, open our eyes, oh Lord, that we may see wondrous things from your law.
And Father, I would pray, most important for each and every one of us this morning,.
That we would see Jesus.
Hide this preacher, Lord, behind the cross. Lord, that we may see Jesus Christ and him crucified, the Lamb of God, the Lord of glory, and that each and every one of us will be able to say after the doxology when we leave this place, that the Lord has met with us and we have tasted and seen that the Lord is good and we ask this for your honor and glory in Jesus' name.
Amen.
To this awesome, wonderful chapter in Isaiah chapter 53, it is extremely important to get a clear picture of the historical setting and overview of what has taken place and what has happened and what has emerged up to this point in the second half of the prophecy of Isaiah.
So to understand what is taking place here, I would like to give you a very brief overview. There is much more that could be said in this, so I am trying to tie this in since we have communion today to consolidate as much as I possibly can, but to give you a wide overview as we approach this wonderful chapter, this Mount Everest, as Warren Wiersbe says, well said, of Isaiah 53.
So let me begin by saying this, if you read Isaiah chapter 13, beginning with chapter 13 to at least chapter 34 in your devotional time, it basically contains a series of the prophecies primarily focusing on the coming judgment.
Judgment and destruction of Babylon and other nations as well as the eventual restoration of God's people. You see much of this in those earlier chapters in the first half of Isaiah. Then these chapters describe the day of the Lord's wrath, the destruction of Babylon and the subsequent desolation of the land.
Then in chapter 35 has a break in it. There is a break. Then there is a historical section in chapter 36 through chapter 39 for the most part of Isaiah. It's been about judgment as you have read, judgment of the surrounding nations, Israel and Judah.
But also there is a word of judgment to Judah specifically and Israel, a word of impending threat, first of all to say Assyria and then to Babylon. Then in chapter 40 the mood changes. God speaks specifically about His servant.
At first He is talking about Israel being His servant, the people that He has called. God is a covenant keeping God, but unfortunately and sadly to say tragically that Israel failed to keep God's covenant.
They broke God's covenant, rebelled against His laws and fell into idolatry and rebelled against God's word. His people that was called to be the servant, but as we know and as you read in Isaiah, she fails, she fails miserably.
But this does not shake God or His throne. God has always had a plan and a true servant as we will see. Then as you read towards chapters 44 to 45, another servant seems to appear. Now His name is Cyrus, the king of Persia, and one who will bring back Israel at least to a degree.
For what purpose? Well, the purpose was for the purpose of the people of God to return from Babylon and come back to Jerusalem to rebuild the city and the temple, but there was a serious problem. Cyrus was a pagan, and as we discover that is the one thing that is to get God's people out of Babylon and quite another thing to get Babylon out of God's people.
It's still the same today, isn't it? Nothing's changed. It's one thing to get the people of God out of the place of idolatry in which they were enslaved, but it's also another thing to get idolatry out of the hearts of God's people.
So another servant is needed altogether to accomplish this, and he must be a sufficient servant, a servant of the Lord Yahweh, and this is who we behold as we approach Isaiah 52 and 53. He is known as the suffering servant of the Lord, the one who is spoken in these four servant songs.
They're broken up in four stanzas from Isaiah 52 -13 to Isaiah 53 -12 is the very last of the memorial of the four messianic servant songs. The other three are found in Isaiah 40 -9, Isaiah 49 -13, and then third, Isaiah 50 -4 -11, and then the last and final is here in Isaiah 52 -13 -53 -12.
So it's like a great finality. This fourth servant song speaks of none other than the Lord Jesus Christ, our Lord, Savior, Messiah, Redeemer, the Mediator, the Divine Substitute, our suffering servant.
It's so wonderful. It's probably one chapter that is more detailed. There's many messianic psalms, prophecies, but if you really want to see a detailed description of the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, Isaiah 53 is the chapter.
No doubt in these twelve verses we see Christ suffering, the suffering servant. One New Testament scholar says that no other passage from the Old Testament, speaking of Isaiah 53, was as important to the New Testament church as Isaiah chapter 53.
Actually, the New Testament quotes eight of its verses in fulfillment of Jesus Christ and His first coming, His life, His death, His resurrection, His ascension, from this great prophecy. Incredible. And by the way, as I minister this to your hearts this morning, in just a few verses it's going to be our meditation this morning, but I highly recommend you to look deep into this chapter and study it in your devotional time.
It will transform your life. Not only to memorize it, but to meditate upon it, verse by verse. But there's no way this preacher this morning is going to do justice to this. No way. We'll scratch the surface and we'll get some gems and glean upon the Christ of God, but I tell you, to truly do justice to it, I cannot.
So I pray that the Spirit of God would apply all this to our hearts as we go through this and gaze and look at the cross and behold the Lamb of God this morning. So we see it in the New Testament as a very important book.
Even when the Apostle Peter preaches on the day of Pentecost, it is this chapter, Isaiah 53, that forms the foundation of his sermon, which he speaks to the people of Jesus Christ. Crucified. Christ crucified.
Buried. Resurrected. Even the deacon Philip, full of the Spirit of God, preached Jesus to the Ethiopian from this great prophecy. And the Ethiopian said, I don't have no one to explain this to me. And then he preached Jesus to them.
Praise God. So Christ Jesus, the Mediator, arising out of Israel as the suffering servant from Isaiah the prophet, so wonderfully speaks. Church Father Polycarp, who was disciple of the Apostle John, called Isaiah 53 the golden passion of the Old Testament.
Scottish preacher Herbert Lockyer, great man of God,.
He said this,.
Every verse from Isaiah 53 seems to drip with ruby blood of our Redeemer. The powerful English preacher C .H. Spurgeon preached on Christ wounded for our transgressions from Isaiah 53. Verse 3 says, quote, Spurgeon says, I have lost the power to doubt Him when I see those wounds.
Hallelujah.
He said, without doubt, the most profoundest thoughts of the Old Testament revelation are to be found in this section. End quote. What else can we do but bow before the Redeemer, before the Lord Jesus Christ, and before God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and praise Him for this man of sorrows, for bearing our iniquity and our sin.
It's a sobering thing, isn't it? We recognize who it really was who died on this cross. Familiar with suffering and able to comfort us in the sufferings. The Savior of the world would bear all of our sins on that cross.
For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
That great verse.
Scripture says the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.
Staggering.
Jesus, our Passover, as Paul said, John, the prophet, the forerunner of Christ, says, Behold the Lamb of God. And here in this chapter, the prophet Isaiah, he says, a lamb led to the slaughter. Hallelujah, what a Savior.
No wonder Philip Bliss wrote that wonderful hymn, Man of Sorrows, what a name for the Son of God who came, ruined sinners to reclaim. Hallelujah, what a Savior. So here in the 53rd chapter of Isaiah, it is holy, the spotless Son of God, the Son of Man, the sufferings death of our suffering servant, the Lord Jesus Christ that is set before our eyes to worship Him and to love Him, to thank Him for the great cost to redeem us.
Not just that He would be despised and rejected and oppressed and afflicted, but led as a lamb to the slaughter without opening His mouth. How convicting is that? He was cut off from the land of the living, but that He would be willing, He would willingly go to the cross in His great love for His people.
Set His face like a flint, Isaiah says. He was unmoved. He endured the cross for the joy that was set before Him, for the glory of God the Father. And now God the Father has exalted Him and has given Him a name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, every tongue shall confess that He is Lord to the glory of God the Father.
Hallelujah. Wonderful. By the cross we come to the kingdom. We're humbled by the Spirit of the living God and this is where we see our salvation. And this is where salvation is accomplished by the man of sorrows who died upon the cross.
This is where we come to be an heir of God and join heirs with Jesus Christ, our substitute, our mediator. So basically this morning I'd just like to give just a few verses for us to look into as we come to the Lord's table.
And I'd like to focus on verse 4 to verse 6. We won't get through all this but I only have, usually I have at least three points to an outline. We're just going to look at one. But this is the heart of the gospel, the heart of the gospel in this chapter 53.
We look at these verses from the perspective of our sin, our great need for a mediator, a substitute. Basically three stanzas as I mentioned in this servant's song. The first stanza is an exaltation of the suffering of Christ which is found in verse 1 and 2.
Second, there is the rejection of the despised servant in verse 3. And then third, the substitution of the punished suffering servant in verse 4 to verse 6. And that's what I'd like for us to look and to observe this morning is our sin, our great need for a mediator.
Our sin, our great need for a mediator, a divine substitute. Verse 4 says this, Surely, surely, He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we esteem Him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted.
Consider our text before us. Surely, He, He has borne our griefs. I'd like for you to notice the emphasis in the passage in this word, He. He. You see this in the book of Colossians. You see this in the Pauline epistles where Jesus is exalted and Paul the Apostle says it is He who is above all things.
He is our all in all. For it is He, the Lord Jesus Christ who has borne our griefs, carried our sorrows for our salvation to be accomplished.
We needed He, Jesus.
Only He, Jesus Christ to do the work of deliverance for us, to make us whole. That's what salvation is, is to make us whole, to redeem us, to save us to the uttermost. And what a Savior we have. What a Savior we have.
Beloved, no believer has ever delivered himself from the damnation of hell and from the wrath of God and from sin. We needed Jesus to do that. And without Him there is no salvation. For He is our salvation.
And salvation is of the Lord. He, Jesus Christ, has saved us by His precious blood. And His blood is precious. He, Jesus, accomplished this as He died as our substitute on the cross of Calvary. Surely He has borne our griefs.
He has borne our sorrows. Notice the plurality of the pronouns.
Our, our, our.
God punished His suffering servant as our substitute who paid the penalty for our sins to give us peace. He is the Prince of Peace. He is that peace. It's through Christ. The question arises, what really happened on the cross?
I cannot answer that to the full extent. There's so much that did happen. And there's so much there that, beloved, once we even get to heaven in a glorified body and state and mind, we'll still be glorifying Him and praising Him throughout all eternity of what really happened at the cross.
But Isaiah 53 actually helps us in somewhat through the revelation of God's Word to see what happened there at the cross. Jesus bore the full weight of our sins. The word born, born, gives us the picture of the mighty Samson in Scripture.
It makes me think of Samson who picked up the gates of Gaza and carried them to the top of the mountain in Judges 16, 1 -3. By the Spirit of God. Samson couldn't have done it without the Spirit of God.
The Spirit of God came upon him, and in the power of God, he just yanked up the gates, which no mortal man could, and he just ran up the hill, up the mountain. But, beloved, there's one that's greater than Samson here.
Jesus Christ, our suffering servant, in great humility, who is mightier than Samson, carried our sins upon Himself up Golgotha's hill, Calvary's mountain, to a cruel cross, and carried our sins in full upon His back.
The Apostle Peter says in 1 Peter 2 -24, who Himself bore our sins in His own body, on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness. By whose stripes, another translation says, by whose wounds you were healed.
Also, keep in mind here that this applies not only for the Lord's death and healing, which is soul healing, specifically, but also in His life, the healing ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ, that He made people whole.
And we've seen this in John chapter 5, as He healed the lame man. And also, this is why the Apostle Paul says that we are also saved by His life. We are saved by His death, but we are also saved by His life.
Chapter and verse is Romans 5 -10, Paul says this, for if when we were enemies, can you imagine being an enemy of God? But we were. Were enemies. Past tense. Aren't you glad you're saved from the wrath to come?
Through the blood of Jesus Christ. We were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son. But Paul says much more. Much more. Having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. His life.
He lives not only His perfect life that He fulfilled the law, and we have now His righteousness applied to us by faith, imputed to us by faith alone, but it's the life He continues to live. It's the life of Christ.
Christ in you, the hope of glory. Jesus carried the sins, our sins, upon Himself. In other words, the Lord Jesus Christ has lifted them up from our spiritual backs by faith in Him and put them upon His own back and carried them for us because of our iniquity.
And He took the wrath of God. He took the full punishment of God because of our sins. I think of this often when I'm tempted to sin. You know, the greatest thing that you could think of in the moment of temptation is the cross of Christ.
And you look at how horrible our sin is before God. We really don't see it like God sees it, but we need to think about this. How horrible our sins are before a holy God. That it took His Son all the way to a cross and take the full punishment of God the Father's wrath upon Himself from the smallest sin to the largest.
The language of caring, bearing, bearing, born comes from the sacrificial system laid out in the Leviticus chapter 16. Leviticus 16 is all about the atonement. Very quickly, look at Leviticus 16. I have a few verses I'd like to read there.
We don't have time to go through the whole chapter, but in your devotional time, this whole chapter is beautiful. It begins by saying, Now the Lord spoke to Moses after the death of the two sons of Aaron when they offered profane fire, strange fire, before the Lord and died.
And the Lord said to Moses, Tell Aaron your brother not to come at just any time into the holy place inside the veil before the mercy seat which is on the ark, lest he die. Very serious thing. For I will appear in the cloud above the mercy seat.
This is God speaking. God gives instruction,. Thus Aaron shall come into the holy place with the blood of a young bull as a sin offering and as a ram as a burn offering. And he shall put the holy linen tunic and the linen trousers on his body.
This is the priest. And he shall be girded with the linen sash and with the linen turban and he shall be attired. These are the holy garments. Therefore he shall wash his body in water and put them on.
And he shall take them from the congregation of the children of Israel, two kids of a goat as the goats of a sin offering and a one ram as a burn offering. And Aaron shall offer the bull as a sin offering, as in it is for himself, and make atonement for himself for his house.
And he shall take the two goats and present them before the Lord at the door of the tabernacle of meeting. Then Aaron shall cast lots for the two goats, one lot for the Lord and the other for the scapegoat.
And Aaron shall bring the goat on which the Lord's lot fell and offer it as a sin offering. Verse 10,. But the goat on which the lot fell to be the scapegoat shall be presented alive before the Lord to make an atonement upon it and to let it go as the scapegoat into the wilderness.
That scapegoat is a type of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Literally, a zeal or a scapegoat. A scapegoat.
A type of Christ picture as the substitutionary bearing and complete removal of sin in which the Lord would accomplish through Christ once and for all. And that's why you had the book of Hebrews that explains, that wonderful writer by the Spirit, explains this chapter by chapter, technically almost in every single chapter, we see better covenant, better.
Everything is better in Christ.
Better.
It's fulfilled in Christ. Jesus, the Son of Man, the Son of God, in Matthew 20, 28, says not to be served, but to serve and give His life as a ransom for many. That's why Jesus came. To seek and save the lost, the Lamb of God who would take away the sin of the world, which John the Baptist said in John 1, 29.
Galatians 1, 4, and 5, who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from this evil age according to the will of God and Father, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. Jesus also became a curse for us.
He not only bore the curse, He became a curse. And He became a curse to reverse the curse. Galatians 3, 13, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us, for it is written, Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree.
Then a little bit from Hebrews, as I mentioned earlier, but Hebrews chapter 9. I'd like to read a few verses here. Verse 16 to 22 basically speaks of the mediator's death necessary. But I'd like to read beginning at verse 23 to verse 28, greatness of Christ's sacrifice.
Therefore, the writer of Hebrews says, it was necessary that the copies of the things in heavens, and the heavens should be purified with these, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these.
All points to Christ. Verse 24,. For Christ has not entered the holy places made with hands, which are the copies of the true, but into the heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us. Not that He should offer Himself often, as the high priest enters the most holy place every year with the blood of another.
But He, He, there's the He, then would have to have suffered often since the foundation of the world. But now, once at the end of the ages, He has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.
And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this to judgment, so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many, to those who eagerly wait for Him, He will appear a second time, apart from sin for salvation.
And there we have the blessed hope of the Lord Jesus Christ. Speaks of His first coming as He came to deal with sin, the next time He would deal with men in sin. When Jesus bore the sins upon Himself, the verbs Isaiah referred to, our griefs, our sorrows, the text is past tense, but they also predict happenings of the future Isaiah's time, known as, as MacArthur mentions, prophetic perfects, prophetic perfects, in the Hebrew language, here, elsewhere, in the servant's song.
And how do we know this? If we go to Isaiah 53, notice how it ties in to the end of the chapter, in verse 11 and verse 12. For He shall see the labor, speaking of Christ, of His soul, and be satisfied by His knowledge,.
My righteous servant shall justify many, for He shall bear their iniquities. There it is. Verse 12,. Therefore I will divide Him a portion with the great, and He shall divide the spoil with the strong, because He poured out His soul unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors, and here it is, and He bore the sin of many, He bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.
Aren't you glad He made intercession?
And every intercession that our Lord Jesus makes, and that He has made, has been answered by God the Father. Because the Lord Jesus Christ is the one who pleased the Father completely and perfectly. Verse 4, Surely He has borne our griefs, carried our sorrows, that means pains, the griefs means sickness, that could be a future chance that so many people applies His death that He took our sickness there, well He took our soul sickness, mainly to redeem our souls, but the sickness in which we are under now, all of us, is the curse, Jesus reversed the curse, but it's not in its fullness yet, it will be in its, to come when Christ comes, the second time.
We esteemed Him, reckoned Him, stricken, smitten by God, afflicted. Look at the word stricken, stricken. Yet we esteemed Him, reckoned Him stricken. You know what that basically means? To strike violently.
The Father struck Christ violently, just not the physical stricken from the Roman soldiers and the people, but the Father. It says actually in verse 10, yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him, to crush Him.
Again, we see how God hates sin, so much that He has put Him to grief. And the scripture says, when you make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand.
This striking violently actually comes, it's a violent word, like it's used in Exodus 11 .1, of the plagues that God struck upon Egypt. Exodus 11 .1 says, and the Lord said to Moses, I will bring one more plague on Pharaoh and on Egypt.
Afterward, He will let you go from here. When He lets you go, He will surely drive you out of here altogether. And God struck, He violently struck Egypt with the plagues, and that's the way God, He struck and crushed the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross because of our sin.
The word smitten, it actually means basically to beat someone to death. And the word afflicted here is a general word, it means to be humiliated. Christ humbled Himself to the point of death, even to the death of the cross, as it says in Philippians.
To be degraded, to be destroyed. So we thought that when Jesus was being crushed, and smashed and crushed and beaten, degraded and humiliated, that this was God doing it because He was a blasphemer?
No.
By the eyes of faith, we see now and know that by the Spirit of God, and through the revelation of Scripture, that these griefs and all these sorrows were ours. It was ours. Christ took our place on the cross as the substitute.
Surely our griefs He Himself bore, our sorrows He carried, we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, afflicted. We thought that God was punishing Him for His blasphemy? No. We thought it was the people that was putting Him to death?
No, this is God's Lamb. God has ordained Him as the Lamb before the foundation of the world. Now we know by the eyes of faith and Scripture, He was pierced through for our transgressions. Pierced through, He's crushed for our iniquities, chastened for our well-being, surged, scourged for our healing.
Complete reversal of the estimate concerning Christ. Christ reversed everything. Verse 5, He was wounded, pierced through. He was pierced through for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities, crushed.
He was crushed. The chastisement of our peace was upon Him with or by His stripes. The blows, that means the blows that cut in.
We are healed.
Christ took the blows. All the words in this verse is loaded and filled with such words of substitution. Jesus made our sins to be His very own. Suffering servant, the sinless, spotless Son of God, Son of Man, taken of our place in which we so earnestly deserved.
The great has changed, right? 2 Corinthians 5 .21, For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. Oh, that great verse. I submit to you that every time when you bring people to the gospel, the saving gospel of Jesus Christ, after presenting the holiness of God and the law of God, and take them to the cross, I would suggest go to this verse.
Christ made Him, God made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. That's the gospel. That's the heart of the gospel. In 15 Greek words. Imputation, substitution.
The early church father, One of the early church fathers said it like this, of 2 Corinthians 5 .21, God allowed His Son to suffer like a condemned sinner so that we might be delivered from the penalty of our sins.
This is God's righteousness, that we are not justified by works. For then they would have to be perfect, which is impossible, but by grace, in which case all our sin is removed. Because of Jesus. Praise His name.
Look at verse 6. All we like sheep have gone astray. We, we have turned everyone to His own way. The Lord has laid, or calls to lay on Him, the iniquity of us all. In application, I like to quickly, always bring us to a verdict.
And it's always the case, because we can never hear this enough. And as a minister and a servant of the church here, I will be held accountable. But I'm telling you, it's a very serious matter of eternal death and eternal life.
The question is this. Who will pay the penalty of divine wrath for your sins? Who will pay the divine, the penalty of divine wrath for your sins? There's only two options there. Only two. There's not three.
And this is what we need to tell people, and this is what I like to tell you. And if you don't know the Lord Jesus Christ, this is serious. Eternity is before your eyes. Eternity is before my eyes. The only two options are these.
Number one, the first is, you pay the penalty for your own sins. Scripture I lay on is Ezekiel 18. I go to Ezekiel 18, 20. The soul that sins shall die. That's talking about eternal death, just not physical death.
The son shall not bear the guilt of the father. The father bear the guilt of the son. The righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself. As Romans 6, 23 says, for the wages of sin is death.
Eternal death.
But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
That's the good news.
But to understand the good news, we must understand the bad news. To understand God's great love and mercy, we must also see God's justice and holiness. The penalty for our sin is divine wrath. No question about it.
God hates sin that much, but He laid that sin, our sin, upon Christ. That's clear. Divine wrath and eternal hell. I want you to think about that. That's a sobering thing. As we read earlier, it is appointed for once men to die, and after this to judgment.
We all have an appointment date. And the only thing that will cover us from the wrath of God will be the mercy that's found in Jesus Christ. I'm telling you, in hell right now, the eternal punishment is very real.
Scripture says Jesus our Lord said it Himself. He says broad is the way. Broad is the gate. Narrow is the way. There's a broad gate. There's a narrow gate. He says in that broad gate, many go in that path.
Many. Proverbs says there's a way that seems right unto man, but the end thereof is death. In hell, eternal punishment. In hell, under the wrath of God's holiness, His hatred toward that sin, His hatred towards the sinning sinner.
Just not, like R .C. Sproul says, it's just not that God is punishing the sin, but He punishes the sinner. This is God's holy justice, and which we deserve. Someone said it like this, said the question, I don't know why God hated Esau.
Really, that's not the question. The question is, I don't know why He loved Jacob. Why did God love us? That's beyond our comprehension, but we know that God's love is so great in that He died for us.
He demonstrated that love upon the cross. The first option, like I said, you would have to pay for that penalty without Jesus Christ, that penalty of the sin, your sin. Or, the other option is, second option, which is the great news and the glorious good news and the glad tidings, Jesus Christ, the perfect substitutionary Lamb of God, provided by God the Father, John 3, 16, who has already been sacrificed, paid your and my sin debt on the cross.
It's a wonderful song. You don't hear it sung often. It's a gospel song. Jesus paid a debt He did not owe, and I owed a debt I could not pay. I needed someone to wash my sin away. Who else is going to do it?
He did it.
It's finished.
Now we're to place our faith all on the Lord Jesus Christ, trust in Him and what He has accomplished. And this is what the Lord Jesus Christ has done for us by dying on the cross. Have you come to Him?
Have you believed in Him? Have you trusted in Him? Have you recognized the reason why He died on the cross? And that the sins of the awful sins that are ours, He took upon Himself our sin. We have committed the sin are no longer our own, but it's been transmitted to Him.
He has carried them, now are reckoned upon Him, belonging to the Lord Jesus Christ, and therefore we come to repentance and believe in the gospel. That's the gospel. It's simple enough for a child to grasp, and it should be.
Let me give you a clear picture of this wonderful gospel, and as I conclude this, by one of my favorite Puritans, in which we heard at the fire conference about wonderful Puritan John Bunyan from his classic allegory, Pilgrim's Progress.
It was said about when he wrote this in jail, in prison, he spent 13 years roughly in prison. The first half of it was written, then he got out of jail, and then he was put back in jail, and he wrote the second part.
And if you know, if you read Pilgrim's Progress, it's broken up in two parts. He finished that second part while he went back to prison the second time. And in this particular section I'd like to bring your attention to is actually in the middle of the book, and some people, actually even Charles Spurgeon, I learned this by hearing this from Derek Thompson, and Presbyterian minister, but he did a good job on bringing that, which of course, that was one positive point.
But Spurgeon even criticized and wondered, why did Bunyan take so long in coming to the point where he comes to the cross and that burden on his back rolls away as he sees the cross? But as Bunyan himself struggled personally, and most of us do struggle with that, don't we?
Our security in Christ. And I think that security is tampered with because of our remaining sin. Well, Pilgrim's Progress is one of the great allegories. Spurgeon read it over a hundred times. Here in the third stage, it's called, in part one, John Bunyan writes and he says this, and I'm going to quote Bunyan here.
I saw in my dream that the highway Christian traveled was enclosed by a wall on both sides. The wall was called Salvation, Isaiah 26 .1. I'm going to read the Scriptures. In that day, this song will be sung in the land of Judah.
We have a strong city. God will appoint salvation for the walls and the boards. And then he says Christian ran with great difficulty because of the burden. He ran until he came to a peak where a cross stood.
A little below in the bottom was a tomb,.
And then when Christian reached the cross,.
His burden became loose. Fell from his back and tumbled into the tomb.
I never saw the burden again. Christian was delighted. He spoke with a happy heart. He has given me rest through his sorrow and life by his death. He stood in wonder, and it was surprising that the side of the cross could lift his burden.
He looked and looked again until the springs that were in his head sent water down his cheeks. Based upon Zechariah 12 .10, it says,. I will pour on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of grace and supplication.
Then they will look on me whom they pierced. Yes, they will mourn for him as one who mourns for his only son and grieve for him as one grieves for his firstborn. He goes on to say,. Bunyan goes on to say,.
As he stood looking and weeping, three shining ones approached and greeted him,.
Peace!
The first said, Your sins are forgiven. Mark 2 .5, when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, Son, so warm, your sins are forgiven you. The second removed his filthy rags and dressed him in the rich clothing.
Zechariah 3 .4 says,. Then he answered and spoke to those who stood before him, saying, Take away the filthy garments from him. And to him he said, See, I removed your iniquity from you, and I will clothe you with rich robes.
Isn't this glorious? The third part of Mark is on his forehead. The third put, I'm sorry, the third part put a mark on his forehead. Ephesians 1 .13 .14, Paul says,. In him you also trusted after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, in whom also having believed, in whom also having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession to the praise of His glory.
And have gave him a seal. He told Christian, a seal roll. He told Christian to look at the roll as he ran to leave it at the celestial gate. Then the shining ones went their way, and Christian gave three leaps of joys, left singing,.
Thus far did I come loaded with my sin, nor could anything else ease, I'm sorry, the grief that I was in, till I came here, till I came here. What a place is this! Must here be the beginning of my bliss?
Must here be the burden fall from off my back? Must here the streams that bound it to me crack? And Bunyan ends this section by saying, Blessed cross, blessed cross, blessed sepulcher, blessed rather be the man that there was put to shame for me.
Hallelujah, what a Savior! He has done so much purchasing our salvation. Yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, he was struck down of God, afflicted, pierced through, wounded for our transgressions, bore our sins on his body on the tree.
For our guilt he gave us peace, from our bondage gave us release. Ryder says,. And with his stripes, with his stripes, and with his stripes our souls are healed. He was numbered among the transgressors, we esteemed him forsaken by God, and as our sacrifice he died, that the law be satisfied.
And all our sin, and all of our sin, and all of our sin was laid on him. I'm so glad he repeats that. Repetition is the mother of learning, right? He had wondered, I'm sorry, we had wondered, we all had wondered, we are wondering, far from the fold, the shepherd of the sheep.
Now listen to this,. But he sought us where we were, on the mountains bleak and bare, brought us home, brought us home, brought us safely home to God. This is what Jesus has done for us. He is our substitute, our divine substitute, the Lamb of God.
Let's pray. Our Father and our great God, Lord this is just so amazing, so divine, as Isaac Watts says, as we gaze upon the cross, thank you Father for the unspeakable gift. It's beyond words, beyond our language, so great, so wonderful, is the Lord Jesus Christ, of an infinite love, to save us from an infinite hell, your wrath.
Our sin bearer, thank you for our substitute, our Savior, our Lord, our King, who paid the ultimate price with His precious blood, for our salvation, took our place, took our punishment, Lord, took our sin, all the way to Calvary's cross.
Then even after that, as said it is finished, paid in full, took it far away and buried it, as far as the east from the west,.
Has removed it.
Now has dressed us in the righteousness of Himself, the righteousness of Christ, who is the righteous one, for none of us are righteous, because our righteousness is built in rags. Father, I would pray, if there's anyone here in our midst that does not know this victory that's in Christ, this wonderful salvation, I pray that today would be the day of salvation.
The day of visitation. Lord, we thank you. Thank you for this time, and thank you for all that Christ has done, has accepted us in the beloved, in all eternity in heaven, all because of His great cost, the price, and Father, it was you that has sent Him there, loved us with an everlasting love in that sense, all to the praise of the glory, because of our divine substitutes.
Now Lord, we just pray, bless our time now as we remember His sacrifice and sufferings on the cross, and as we partake in this supper, in Jesus' name, Amen.