Isaiah's Vision of the Cross — Keith Malcomson

Isaiah 52–53 and the Suffering Servant

And I want to read all of this. I want you to listen by the Holy Spirit, because as we read it, it's so powerful. I can barely touch on it tonight. I'm only going to take you to the most essential things, but I want to tell you this chapter you need to spend time in.

Isaiah 52 and verse 13. Behold, my servant shall deal prudently. He shall be exalted and extolled and be very high. As many were astonished at thee, his visage was so marred, more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men.

So shall he sprinkle many nations. The kings shall shut their mouths at him, for that which had not been told them shall they see. And that which they had not heard shall they consider. Then reading from Isaiah 53, this is all one singular prophecy.

Verse one, who had believed our report? And to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant and as a root out of a dry ground. He has no form nor comeliness.

And when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid as it were our faces from him. He was despised and we esteemed him not.

Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon him.

And with his stripes, we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way. And the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth.

He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter and as a sheep before her shears is dumb. So he openeth not his mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment. And who shall declare his generation? For he was cut off out of the land of the living.

For the transgression of my people was he stricken. And he made his grave with the wicked and with the rich in his death. Because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him.

He hath put him to grief. When thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see a seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. He shall see of the travail of his soul and shall be satisfied.

By his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many, for he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoiled with the strong. Because he had poured out his soul unto death, and he was numbered with the transgressors, and he bared the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.

Let's pray here tonight as we come to the word of God. And we do wanna see the Lord Jesus Christ tonight. Father, I do pray, open the eyes of our understanding that we might behold wondrous things out of your law.

Father, I pray, reveal your son, make him so clear tonight. Make him to be presented, make him to be proclaimed in a way that warms our hearts, that challenges us. Lord God, you can save us, you can justify us tonight.

Lord God, you can redeem sinners even in this gathering tonight. Lord God, there's power in the preaching of the cross. And Lord God, we believe that, that your Holy Spirit bears witness with real life-changing power.

And we ask for that tonight, that your name might be glorified, that you would be exalted, that the Holy Spirit would do honor to the Lamb of God tonight in Jesus' mighty name. Amen, amen. My message tonight is Isaiah's vision of the cross.

Isaiah's vision of the cross. We started with Isaiah 52, reading those last verses because they are connected to Isaiah 53. What you have here is 15 amazing verses, remarkable verses about Jesus Christ, God's son.

As we've already said, when you look at the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit spends 4 ,000 years, remarkably, through men of God, prophets, kings of Israel, speaking very clearly through prophecies, types, shadows, teachings, ritual in the house of God, using all of this to prepare God's people for a day when God's son died at a place called Calvary.

The entire Old Testament is a commentary preparing you to bring you to the cross, to a life-changing experience. It is utterly remarkable. When we come to the book of Isaiah, there are four songs that are written here.

I'm only gonna deal with the fourth song. Isaiah gives four prophetic songs about a person called the servant, and I'm only dealing with the last one. These songs of the servant go from Isaiah 42 all the way through to Isaiah chapter 53.

It is a prophetic message about one called the servant, in fact, God's servant. Beginning with Isaiah 42, it seems to be that he's speaking about Israel. At times in these passages, he actually very clearly talks about Israel, my servant, and talks about Jacob as well.

So Israel sometimes is called God's servant, and it's prophesied here. But very quickly, you begin to realize it can't just be a nation. It can't be God's entire people. It's speaking about one singular person.

And when you get to Isaiah 53, it is very clear it's not talking about Israel. In fact, the servant is contrasted with Israel, with the entire nation. This is someone doing something towards the entire nation, and his name is the servant.

We're gonna look at this tonight very clearly and see what the Holy Spirit has to say in a very clear way. You see, this is a vital chapter for the Jew. The Jew was given Isaiah 53, and this servant, the Jews, all through millennia, through many generations, believed that Isaiah 53 was a prophecy about their coming Messiah.

And they could see he was a suffering Messiah. All through the generations, Jews believed that until about 1 ,000 years ago. Then they began to teach and to change it. Do you know now in synagogues, they don't read Isaiah 53.

It began to drop off over the past 1 ,000 years. Do you know why it is so dangerous to their beliefs? Because it's so explicit. Just this morning, I brought up the testimony of a Jewish man being evangelized for the very first time.

And a Christian came to him and read Isaiah 53. And this Jew was so shocked, he said, no, no, I can't read your Bible. And he says, oh no, I'm reading your Bible from your Bible. And he says, let me check that.

And it was a Hebrew Bible, Isaiah 53. And he said, there must be some mistake here. He was a Jew who had never read Isaiah 53. And he says, but this is what you preach. This is what you believe. He was utterly shocked.

This eventually led to that man getting born again, saved, washed in the blood of the lamb. Isaiah 53 absolutely rocked him. One reading of Isaiah 53. I'm gonna assure you, there has to be a terrible blindness on the Jews in order to read Isaiah 53 and not to see who it's about.

Doesn't the Bible talk many times that Israel presently is in a state of blindness? There's only a few, a remnant, who actually see the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ. They are still in blindness. It's not a natural blindness.

2 ,000 years ago, they were blinded that the gospel would go to the Gentiles. There's an entire chapter, Romans chapter 11 in the New Testament explaining how the Jews are abnormally, strangely blind.

It's not natural. But the Bible also talks of a day when as an entire nation, this blindness will be removed. And the Bible says, they shall look upon the one whom they pierced, and they'll begin to weep and groan and to cry out.

What a blindness that men cannot see Jesus Christ in this hour. When you come to the book of Isaiah, it was written 700 years before the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. And Isaiah, he's actually called by many, the fifth gospel, even though he's in the Old Testament.

It is such a remarkable book, and chapters like 53 are so remarkable. You have to call it a gospel. It is so explicit. It is so detailed. It is so accurate. It is so powerful that what else can you do than call it the gospel message before it's time?

But when you go to Isaiah, you read much about the Messiah, or one called the servant. You read about his person, who he is, what he is like. You read about his work and ministry. You read about his coming reign upon the earth.

You even read in Isaiah about his virgin birth, his deity, he's Emmanuel, God with us. You read all about his humanity, his perfect righteousness, and that he brings it as a gift for sinners. You read all of this and much more, but also in Isaiah, you read about his suffering.

This servant is not only one who'll reign over all nations, he's actually one who's going to suffer, and that's what Isaiah reveals. Isaiah is quoted or referred to in our New Testament about 85 times, 85 times.

Referred to are little sentences taken and used in our New Testament. Seven times in the New Testament, Isaiah 53 is directly and clearly quoted in the New Testament by the apostles. All four gospels look back to Isaiah and build upon it.

Penal Substitution and the Truth of the Cross

But I wanna tell you, Isaiah 53 is one of the most powerful and dynamic chapters in the Bible. Our entire series has been a stand against those who attack. The truth of the cross, that Jesus Christ died for sinners, and that he died in your place, and that he bore your sin, and that he carried them far off.

You'd say, but that's my gospel, my convictions. No one would attack that. All across the church today, teachers, prophets, apostles, scholars are rising up everywhere. Here starting to say, well, we don't really believe that.

That gets me very angry. And so I take you to Isaiah 53 here tonight. It says in Isaiah 52 and 13, at the start of this prophecy, behold my servant. Notice what God is saying here. Behold my servant. Then he gives an entire prophecy.

This word behold means to take a prolonged, hard, staring look at my servant. That's what Isaiah 53 is. You need to stand still, and you need to set your eyes on the vision here, and you need to stare very carefully.

Don't take your eyes off it. I've got several things for you here about this servant that I want to deal with. I want to destroy the lies of false teachers who deny penal substitution. And we've dealt with that.

We've dealt with the enemies. I told you two weeks ago, even Don Francisco is denying the shedding of the blood, denying penal substitution. Many other leaders are rising who once believed in the real gospel.

They've departed from it. This is a dangerous hour. And so when I preach a very simple elementary message, don't go glaze-eyed. Don't zoom out and say, I know this. You don't realize what you're dealing with.

Spirits of deception. We're living in the most dangerous hour of all history, and you haven't seen deception. Deception's about to get released in our world in a way that you can't even fathom. If you're not grounded in the truth, if you're not grounded in the bleeding lamb, in the atonement, if you don't hold fast to the truth, you're in sinking sand.

In such a dangerous place. I've got several things, and I'm not gonna get to deal with everything. I'm just giving you the key points here of this chapter. It is so fundamental. Number one, this is my first point about this servant.

The Servant Suffers in the Place of Others

He suffers for others. It might seem very basic here, but here's a prophecy 700 years before Christ, given by Isaiah, prophesying of this servant who's gonna come. He is gonna suffer for others. If anyone tries to tell you, Christ did not suffer for us in our place, you need to take them to Isaiah 53, and this is only one place.

You don't even need to go into the New Testament. It is very clear. The servant who is distinct from God's people in Isaiah 53. Notice this carefully. God's people are not the servant. The servant is distinct all through this chapter from God's people.

He suffers in their place. He is their substitute. He has taken their place. God's people are utterly distinct from him. In fact, in these 15 verses, you can go through and count 21 times where there's distinct mentions of him being separate from them.

21 times in 15 verses, there is him, then there is them. They are not the same. Listen to what it says in just a couple of these verses. Surely, verse four, surely he hath borne our grace. That's a distinction.

Listen to the title of this first point. He suffers for others. Heretics are rising up and saying, no, he didn't suffer for us. You need to understand this, that liars, teachers, prophets in the church are rising up and saying, he didn't do that.

Yes, he died on the cross for sin and they're changing the message. But I want you to be clear in this. There's he and there's our grace. He hath borne our grace and carried our sorrows. Yet we did esteem him stricken.

Then verse five, but he was wounded for our transgressions. I know it's very basic, but you've got damnable teachings coming in and denying us. Do you realize how distinct that he suffers for the sins of an entire people in this chapter?

He is wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon him and with his stripes, we are healed. Again, just go through verse 11 and 12 and you'll see that there's a separation between God's people and between this servant.

This servant stands alone, utterly distinct. And you know what? He's gonna suffer for the entire people. He suffers in their place. He is a substitute. He is actually going to take their place and begin to suffer, not just because men are naturally sinful or at the hands of sinful men, but because of their sins.

Let me make this personal. This servant mentioned in Isaiah 53, prophesied by Isaiah, he suffers for you, for your sins. He is suffering for you. His suffering is personally for you as an individual. It's not something general.

It's very specific. When he suffers on the cross, it's you that is involved with that. You're connected for that. Why is he suffering on the cross? Because of you here in this room. Don't make it generally sinners in the world.

It was for you that he's suffering. Did he have to suffer? Yes. If there's any hope for you, any hope at all. If he didn't suffer for others, then there's no hope for those others. And so here you have this first vital point, very simple point.

He suffers for others, not for himself, not as the result generally of men being sinful and hating him because he's righteous, not because that he's actually suffering specifically for you, even though you live 2 ,000 years later.

2 ,000 years, you didn't even live then when this prophecy was given or when the prophecy is fulfilled. But you know, within this chapter, it says that when it's being fulfilled, he looks down through time and he sees you very specifically through the corridors of time.

He actually, on the cross, sees you, beholds you, and you are that spiritual seed. But that's the first point. He suffers for others. Secondly, he suffers for the sins of his people. He doesn't just suffer for them.

The Servant Bears the Sins of His People

That's obvious in this chapter. There's them and him, and he's suffering for them. But secondly, he suffers for the sin of his people. Look at verse five again. But he was wounded. Why was Jesus wounded on the cross?

Why were there nails? Why was there a pierced side? Why was there a crown of thorns? Why was there a whip back? Why did his beard get plucked? His hair get pulled out? Why was he wounded? There's a reason.

You've got to understand this. I am teaching you the ABCs of the cross. Forgive me if you think I'm teaching you to suck eggs, but I'm telling you, in a dangerous hour, I've got to spell it out. I've got to say any man who denies that Jesus on the cross was wounded, what does it say?

He was wounded for our transgressions. Why was he suffering on the cross? For your personal transgressions. Notice that word transgressions. Do you know what it means? It means rebellion or to revolt against authority.

It means an expansion where you go, I just want my space. I want some liberty. I want some freedom. I'm feeling hemmed in here. Do you know what that is? That is at the very heart of a rebel, a revolt against God's authority.

It's too narrow. This teaching is too narrow. The way is too narrow. Do you know what that is? That is transgression. It means a breaking away from. So we see transgressors are actually rebels against God.

He was wounded for rebels. Those who are trying to break away from God, who wanted freedom and liberty to sin. They wanted to run and fulfill the lust of flesh. What happened? He's wounded for rebels.

You know what rebels are like? They take their fist and they shake it in the face of God. And they go, I'll do it my way. It's not your will be done. It's my will be done. That's at the heart of a rebel.

I know the way I can choose. I know the decisions I can make. I do whatever I feel's right. Then you're a rebel. You're a rebel against God. If you don't subject yourself to authority, if you're not one submitted to God or submitted to his word, you know what you are?

You are a terrible rebel against God. I've met multitudes, vast multitudes in my lifetime. They're very nice folk. They say, I'm a good person and I wouldn't harm anyone. And I just try to do my best and I love everyone.

And they believe their own propaganda. They really do believe this. You know, the only problem is they're rebels against God. They're rebels against his word. They don't love his word. They're not submitted to what he says.

They do their own will. But they say, I'm a really nice guy. You're a transgressor. You're a rebel. Sounds very nice when you say you're a transgressor. You're just a sinner. No, you're an absolute rebel against the things of God.

So when this servant is suffering on the cross, he's suffering in the place of others. He's suffering for others, but he's also suffering for their sins or the sins of his people. He's wounded for our, notice that word, our.

Who's the our? I'm part of that. I hope you're part of that tonight. He's wounded for our transgressions. Do you know what you're trans, I'm a rebel by nature. I can remember even in a backslidden state that night, I shook my fist at God, said, I love you.

Oh, it was said very nicely. Lord, you haven't done me any wrong and I love you. And I'm very grateful, but I just want to be one of the guys and just want to go out and get drunk tonight. And I took my Bible, put the bomb in my bag and said, Lord, I hope you understand.

That was pure rebellion against a dying, suffering Lord Jesus Christ. And I shook my fist in his face. You know how he got me back? It was finally two of my mates stand in front of me in a helicopter crash to bring me to my senses.

Oh, the way of the wicked is hard. I want to tell you, don't you think, oh, the way of a Christian's hard. The Bible says the way of the wicked, the rebel, it's a hard way. You think the way of sin is nice.

No, it's not. It's a hard way. It's a harsh way against you. And so it says here, he was bruised for our iniquities, not only our transgressions, but our iniquities. The word iniquities means depravity.

It means to walk in a crooked way, to be perverted, to bend everything. You know, that's what sin does to every area of your life. It twists everything. It'll twist your mind, your emotions, your thoughts, your decisions, your speech, your actions, your marriage, your family relationships, your church relationship, your work relationships.

I want to tell you, iniquities pervert everything. They're perverted. They twist everything. Nothing is straight anymore. It says in verse six, the iniquities of a soul. Look at this servant. He suffers for the transgressions and the iniquities of a soul.

And it says something else here in verse five. The chastisement of our peace was upon him. Now notice that word chastisement. It means the discipline, the correction, the chastening. Because of your sin, what sort of chastening is transgression gonna bring upon you?

Our iniquities, our rebellion against God. What sort of chastening? The word chastening means discipline, the rod of correction. The discipline you deserve for that. Do you know what it says? The chastening of our peace, or in other words, of our wellbeing fell upon him.

It came upon him. The rod didn't fall upon you for your sins. If it really did, you'd be in serious trouble, I want to tell you. So look at him suffering in the place for your transgressions. Do you realize tonight that your sins, someone suffered for them?

You think your sins were just forgiven? No, they were not. You think God just said, I'm gonna let you off the hook. No, you are not. Every sin you commit falls upon the one called the servant. He bears the brunt of it.

Someone is gonna pay the price of your iniquities, of your transgressions. Someone is gonna have to take the chastening for what you do. You don't get off scot-free. No one gets off scot-free. But do you know what this servant, it says he actually suffers for the sins of his people.

Physical Disfigurement and the Piercing of the Servant

The third thing, his suffering involves a physical disfigurement. His suffering for your sins involves a physical disfigurement. Look at verse 14. As many, sorry, chapter 52, verse 14. As many as were astonied, and that word astonied means utterly astonished, shocked, utterly amazed, dumbfounded.

That's what it literally means. As many as were astonied at thee. In other words, by gazing on you or seeing you, his visage was so marred more than any man and his form more than the sons of men. That term marred means to be disfigured.

This servant was literally visibly disfigured in his body. So when you looked upon him, when he actually suffered for your sins, when your sins were suffered for by him, his body was so disfigured you couldn't recognize him.

Is that even a man? A mother couldn't naturally recognize him by merely looking. You know, I read the story of Brother Yun in China and he was so badly beaten to a pulp by the Chinese police and soldiers authorities.

And they left him. Then they went and brought his wife in and said, that's not him, that's not my husband. He was so badly beaten that it took a time until he spoke. She could not, she would not accept that that was her husband.

His body was broken, bones were broken. He was terribly swollen. She couldn't identify him. That's nothing compared to Christ on the cross. You know, it said when people looked upon him, they were astonished, utterly shocked.

Can you imagine his mother Mary standing there, gazing on him, going, this is my son. I can't even recognize this child that I brought into this world. He is so, what does it say? Disfigured, actually disfigured.

I want you to hear this. His suffering for your sin involved physical disfiguring. It says in verse five that he was wounded for your transgressions, wounded. The word wounded there means to bore through.

It can also mean to pierce straight through. It's talking about a piercing, an extreme, excruciating, painful piercing. He was wounded, he was pierced for you, straight through for your sins. It was because of your sins that this happened with his body.

Listen to what it says in Psalm 22, 16. Also a prophecy about Jesus on the cross. It says the dogs have compassed me. The assembly of the wicked have enclosed me. They pierced my hands and my feet. In Psalm 22, you've got a prophecy how the servant, the Messiah, would actually be pierced.

You know, in the New Testament, it says in Luke 24 and 39, remember when he, in his resurrection body, and he comes back to the disciples, and he says, behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself.

Handle me and see, for his spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have. You know, when Christ comes back again, he's gonna hold forth his hands, and you will see the nail-pierced hands. What does the Bible say?

He was wounded. He was pierced for your transgressions. That's why all Israel, when they see the one who they pierced, they're gonna weep on that day. As a nation, when their eyes are open to go, he was our Messiah, he's Isaiah 53.

He's the one we rejected, we crucified. And yet here he is. He was pierced for our iniquities. Do you know Christ? He was pierced for your iniquities. It wasn't just Roman soldiers. It was your iniquities.

That's why he was wounded. That's why he was pierced. That's why he was nailed to a cross. No man took his life for him. He laid down his life. It was a willing thing. Do you realize none of us are righteous?

None of us would stand a chance if the servant had not been pierced upon the cross. You know, in the church, if we don't preach the cross, we're in great danger in the church. If we don't constantly preach the cross, that's why we have the Lord's table each Lord's day, is to bring you back to Calvary.

What did Jesus Christ do on the cross? Look at verse five again. It says, with his stripes, we are healed. We are healed. He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised. That word bruised means a terrible bruising of the entire body.

It means his body was swollen. It was impacted. It was hurting. It was in pain. It was in agony. He's wounded. He is bruised. He is pierced. For your sins, your sins has marred his body. His body marred on the cross beyond recognition.

It was for your sin. Your sin done that. That's what your sin done to the spotless lamb of God. And so it says, with his stripes, we are healed. You don't have healing without his striping. You wouldn't have anything from God or anything from Christ or anything from the cross if he had not been striped.

Again, that word striped in verse five. Striped, it's talking about the whipping of his back. It means to join or unite two or more things together, to heap them up one upon another. That's what striping means.

He was striped. He had so much heaped up. And you know what the word means in Isaiah? It's not talking about many stripes. It says basically there was one massive, large stripe. You couldn't identify different stripes.

All you can see is this one singular mass stripe. You know why he was striped? That you could be healed. If Christ had not suffered in his body, if his body had not been marred, see, that was the price.

That was the price. You wouldn't stand a chance. There's no healing for you, no salvation, no deliverance. For you to go free, someone is gonna have to pay your penalty, die in your place, suffer the consequence of your sin.

Someone is gonna have to take what's not gonna fall upon you. It says in Peter, Peter quotes us, 1 Peter 2 .24, who his own self bear our sins in his own body on the tree, that we being dead to sin should live unto righteousness by whose stripes ye were healed.

For we were a sheep going astray. You see, Peter knew this is the Lord Jesus Christ. He knew that this is a clear teaching of the cross, that the striping of the servant in Isaiah 53 is the Lord Jesus Christ.

And again, in the Greek, when Peter uses the same term, it means a mark of a blue, a stripe, a wound, a welt, a bruise, a wound caused by many, many blues. And so we see that Christ was terribly bruised.

He was whipped in his physical body. His body was literally marred. You know what it says in Isaiah 29 in verse three? The plowers plowed upon my back. They made long their furrows. That's an extraordinary thing that you have here.

Christ's back was like a plowed field. In Isaiah 50, verse five to seven, you can go and read it yourself. It talks about them plucking the beard. I wanna tell you, Isaiah is prophesying and preaching the gospel.

It's a remarkable, explicit preaching of the cross in Isaiah 53. He doesn't miss the mark. You see, here is a servant suffering for others, an entire people of God, suffering for their sins, their personal sins, actual sins.

And you know what? He, his body is marred, absolutely marred, head to toe in order to do that. Number four, the benefits that he brings by suffering. Again, it says in verse five, the chastisement of our peace was upon him and with his stripes, we are healed.

Peace, Healing, and the Benefits of the Cross

Our peace comes at a great price. You don't get peace with God without the chastisement falling upon the servant. You don't get spiritual healing from your sins unless Christ is striped in your place.

I'll go as far as to say, if you don't believe Christ was striped for you, you have no spiritual healing. You're yet in your sins. If you want to deny that the chastisement fell upon him, you don't have peace tonight with God.

You have no peace with God. If you don't believe that he was chastened in your place and punished in your place and suffered and was marred in your place, and that was because of your personal sin, not someone else's sin, your personal sin, then you're still in your sin.

You don't even believe this. You haven't heard the gospel. And so this fourth point, the benefits that get brought by the suffering. Verse four, surely he has borne our grace and he has carried our sorrows.

What happened on the cross when this servant was being marred beyond recognition? What was he actually doing on the cross? So it was for your sin that he was suffering, but what was he doing? It says he bore our grace.

He carried our sorrows. Notice those two words. He's boring or bearing and he's carrying what is yours. You didn't even exist. You haven't even sinned yet. And yet on the cross, 2000 years ago, when you weren't even a thought, or an imagination, there is one who is actually bearing something that belongs personally to you in this lifetime that you've only experienced since you lived.

He is bearing your grace. Do you know what? Your grace and your sorrows, you've only had them in this lifetime. They're enough to destroy you. People in this world are demented in their minds. Being driven crazy.

That's why they turn to drugs and drink and suicide. Don't tell me this generation isn't mad. This generation are killing themselves. They're out of their heads. They're mad. Don't tell me Christians are mad.

I've got my sanity here tonight. I love the Lord Jesus Christ with all of my heart. This world of ours is going crazy. It's going mad. It's out of order. And you know what? It's getting to a climax now where they're trying to teach our kids all over this world.

We are gonna penalize you. We're gonna punish you in courts of law. We're gonna punish you in the schools or in your job. If you don't call a little boy or girl, don't tell me this world isn't going crazy.

But look at this one on the cross. This one being marred. He is carrying the grace and the burdens and the cares. He's actually carrying them. This word to born, he is born our grace. You know what it means?

It means to lift up, to accept as his own, your grace. The things that are breaking you and destroying you and driving you crazy. Do you know Christ carried them? Do you know if you're demented tonight, you can actually look on the man of Calvary and go, I believe that he carried my grace.

He actually bore them. What did he do? He accepted them as his own. The word means to carry away far. It means that he literally took them and carried them himself on his own shoulder. He took the weight of them, the burden of them, the responsibility.

He wanted to take your grace. It also says that he carried your sorrows. Who wants to be in sorrows here tonight? Who wants to be so sorrowful in heart and mind that it eventually drives you into hell one day?

Do you know what this marred man of Calvary done? The word to carry means to carry or bear a heavy burden, very explicit, a burden that crushes you, a burden that's overwhelming. You know, the burden of sin is like that.

The burden of sin will drive you eventually into hell one day. That's what sin does. It's a heavy, overwhelming burden. That's why people hide in drugs and drink and sex and a thousand other things. Don't tell me they're happy.

They're trying to find a way of escape. They can't face reality. That's why they get drunk. That's why a man is driven into alcohol addiction. You know what? He can't handle life with his own sanity. So he tries to get relief from that.

I wanna tell you the best relief, go to Calvary. There's one who carries the heavy load. And it says here, this man being marred because of your sin and actually suffering on the cross is carrying the heavy weight or the punishment or the chastisement.

It says in verse 11, he shall bear their iniquities. Iniquities. He is carrying the heavy weight of their iniquities. You know, your sin is very, very heavy on your conscience, on your mind, on your memory.

It keeps popping up. Either he carries it or you carry it. It's a very heavy load. Do you know all of us have got born again when we said, it's too much for me. It's a heavy load. You know, as a kid, I loved Pilgrim's Progress and the little pictures of Pilgrim he finally gets to the cross and you see him kneeling at the cross and his great large burden on his back.