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Isaiah chapter 53 and verse 4.
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. His broad as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers 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 doth 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 his 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 spoil with the strong, because he hath poured out his soul unto death.
And he was numbered with the transgressors, and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.
We know that the Lord Jesus was perfectly presented to Israel as their King and Messiah.
You've been enjoying him this weekend in this chapter. Is Lamb of God is that too?
Let in the fourth verse, and it says, Surely He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows, yet we did esteem him.
Not is as He presented himself to them, and He entered in to their griefs, and their sorrows, and the condition of the nation, and relieve them.
By the healing of the sick, by the giving of sight to the blind, by restoring life to the dead. And those were manifestations of who He was as given here in this chapter and others.
But they didn't honor him in it. They didn't accept him. They didn't esteem him. In fact, the very opposite. When he's on the cross, they look at him and as it were, as we would say today, well, he's getting what he has coming to him. That was their their attitude toward him, that God is putting his hand on him.
They mock him on the cross at the other end of his life and say, well, if you're really who you say you are, well, you just tell God and, you know, take you down off that cross. That would be not assuming him. And uh, yet the day will come in the future, still yet to come when he presents himself to them again, that they will have to go through the recognition of this chapter.
And, uh, say.
We we assumed him not he proved himself all that he is.
He bears more our griefs than He carried our sorrows. But.
He's the one that was wounded in the House of his friends.
In that regard, I, I'd like to read a couple of verses in the 106th Psalm because we spoke the other day, yesterday of the Lord Jesus being alone and the pathway of the Lord Jesus was the pathway of loneliness. Often you read of him alone and then in connection with the cross, we sometimes sing that hymn alone. He bare the cross alone. It's great to sustain. And then in connection with the remarks that Don has just made.
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And there are three birds that are used in the 102nd Psalm and connection as figures in connection with the Lord Jesus. And I believe it bears out just what we're saying. I'm going to read the seventh verse first of all, because it goes back to the comments we made yesterday where it says of the Lord Jesus to the figure I watch and I'm as a Sparrow alone upon the house top. You know, just to stop and consider the language here.
And to think of what it produces in our souls as we think of the Lord Jesus and the fulfillment of this verse, no doubt at the cross. Again, this whole pathway was a pathway of loneliness, but particularly the cross. He could say that all would forsake him and he would be alone. And yet he said, I am not alone, for the Father is with me. But now in connection with Dawn's remarks, back up to the sixth verse.
I am like a Pelican of the wilderness.
I am like an owl of the desert. You know, both those birds were unclean under the Levitical order, and yet they are used here in connection with the Lord Jesus. And I have pondered why they are used in that way. And I make this simple suggestion that that really is the way Israel treated the Lord Jesus, wasn't it? They treated him as unclean, they said, as it were. He's not fit for us, for our company, for our society.
And in the end, they took him outside the walls of Jerusalem and had him nailed to a Roman cross. They have. We esteemed him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But I want to make this comment because Don has alluded to it. And back in our chapter, this verse we began with is sometimes thought of in connection with the cross, but it's not in connection with the cross. And I think it'd be helpful just to read the context.
Of its quotation in the book of Matthew. Matthew chapter 8.
Matthew chapter 8 and you'll see it quoted here and it shows that it's not in connection with the cross. Don has already brought out what it is in connection with, but just to see this.
Matthew chapter 8 and verse 16 When the even was come, they brought unto him many that were possessed with devils, and he cast out the spirits with his word, and healed all that were sick. Now notice this, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet saying himself took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses. So here we have the verse quoted fulfilled in the Lord Jesus.
Feeling with those that he healed the effects that sin had brought into this world.
And as the Lord Jesus went about healing, and as he saw the offenders of sin, he felt it very, very keenly.
In fact, it's often been said, and rightly so, that the Lord Jesus in the years that he grew up in this world and then commenced and carried out his public ministry because of who he was, the holy, harmless, undefiled and separate from sinners. One, He never became used to sin and its effects. You know, we become callous and used to sin and its effects. My sister and my brother-in-law are both nurses and they work in hospitals and they work with.
Patients that go through some very desperate illnesses and so on. And, you know, you get used to it. You, you talk to my sister and husband, you know, they kind of get used to it and it kind of just rolls off them. And I think that's how you have to survive to some degree if you're going to work in a situation like that. A person who works in a nursing home, well, they get used to elderly people and the effects of the aging process and so on. Not only that, we go to school, we go to work, we hear.
Things, we see things every day that we kind of get used to it after a while if we're not careful. But the Lord Jesus never got used to sin and its effects. Why did he groan and weep at the grave of Lazarus? I believe it was more than just sympathy with those sisters. It was sympathy, but He groaned in spirit and was troubled as he felt very keenly in his soul, his holy soul, the effects that sin had brought in. And I suggest that that's really the thrust of what we have here in this verse.
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And when it's quoted here in Matthew as he heals the 6th and you know, often he touched them, Why did he touch the leper? Why did he put his hand on the eyes of the blind? He in a sense didn't have to, but he entered in to what that person was going through. He felt wisdom, the effects of sin, sin apart, of course, but in that way he bore their iniquities, that He bore their infirmities. He felt with them the effects of sin.
Well, if I can just say this, brother, isn't it wonderful that the Lord Jesus feels what we're going through this afternoon too? He feels that with us. He walked here in this world, He felt the effects of sin, He groaned and wept at the grave of Lazarus. And he feels with us He sometimes sing, and though ascended, feels afresh what every member bears.
How often when the blessed Lord?
Saw one who was in need of difficulty.
It says of him that, uh, he had compassion upon them.
And they just noticed in there in Matthew chapter 8.
All that, I'm sorry, Matthew Chapter 9 and verse 36.
But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them because they painted and were scattered abroad as sheep, having no separate laws. Just one example, but you know, I think compassion.
Is seeing somebody in their need.
And having pity.
On that particular individual and also having an earnest desire to seek to help that one in your need. It involves feeling with that one. I believe in their particular need. And I think that's nice how you bring this out that you know, in the case of of Lazarus, it speaks of how the Lord, he was troubled, but the margin says he troubled himself. In other words, he didn't have to.
Enter into the feelings that those that.
We're sorrowing over their loved ones, but he chose to do that.
And I think it's beautiful to contemplate.
The humanity Christ, how He enters into our particular situations with human feelings as well as that which is designed. He has the power to deal with it.
That's beautiful, Wally and John 11 and, uh, it's gonna like to read, uh, the footnote, Mr. Darby as he comments on that first 33 where it says he was.
Groaned in the spirit and was troubled, he says. Here it is inward feeling in spirit, produced by.
Deep pain caused by seeing the power of death over the human spirit. There was so far indignation that there was deep antagonism to the power of evil and sin and death. It may be the groans is the best word.
But just think, as he walked through this world and saw things, he was the creator.
He made us to live. He didn't make us to die. Why do we die? Because.
Of sin that has come in, that's not the way he meant it to be. And if he walked through and saw the devastation that scented wrought, it weighed on his hymn. He felt it. And that's what we have in this chapter, Isaiah 53 and verse four. I think that is really important to see the distinction.
Some people say that there's four is what is true of the cross. You mentioned that, Jim, that it's not the cross there, it's his life. He bore those things. He felt them in that. I don't think it's proper to say that the Lord was ever sick, but he bore their infirmities.
He bore their griefs and carried their sorrows. He felt it in himself.
But he was never sick himself because that was the workings of of sin in the sinful flesh. And the Lord did not have sinful flesh. It was fully humanity in connection with him. I think that's very important people.
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He mistakenly say that all Christians should be.
Should have no disease today, and if you have disease, it's a lack of faith. That is wrong teaching. This is not the cross. This is during the life of the Lord. Jesus felt those things. I think it's good to be clear about that.
And it's helpful to go back and read the songs and that connection isn't it, because the songs give us the innermost feelings and breathings of the Lord Jesus.
As he walked through this world in the path of faith and service, and to see how he felt things and felt things so very keenly, and to see too how he felt the rejection of those he had come to bless. Reproach hath broken mine heart. And the physical sufferings too, and all those things, they're brought up. You have the circumstances of his life and work in the Gospel.
But you'll never have your heart strings tugged in the way you will unless you go back to the songs and read those innermost breathing again. The 40th Psalm, the 22nd Psalm, the 69th Psalm, the 102nd Psalm, and other places in the Psalms where the innermost feelings and breathings are brought out. Just like to make this other comment too before we pass on in connection with what Don said as to the nation.
And their estimation of the Lord Jesus, because it's beautiful in contrast.
To see the thief on the cross, when he turned to the Lord, what did he say to the other malefactor on the other side of the Lord Jesus? He said, we justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds. And then he exonerated the Lord Jesus. He said, But this man has done nothing amiss. What a complete contrast in estimation to those who sat down and watched him suffer, those who passed by and reviled him.
Those who said, if thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross, save thyself and others, and he saved others himself he cannot save, and so on. That was their estimation. But the thief on the cross, he got things in the proper perspective, realized that he was in the place of condemnation, but that there was a perfect man hanging beside him who didn't deserve what he was getting though the nation at large.
This is what they attributed to him and felt, as you say, was getting his just dessert. Well, that's the way of blessing. But I I just think it's a beautiful contrast.
We speak of suffering for Christ and we are identified with His name. Perhaps when someone is given a gospel tract to take a small illustration, and it's rejected because of what it is, and in that way we suffer for Him if we are identified with His name.
But there is another kind of suffering connected with the Lord that we can enter into is brought out in Scripture and is connected with this first four and that is suffering with.
Price we have had before us here in this first, how He suffered in the presence of the results of sin and the creation, and in His soul there was suffering connected with it, as He saw, as Jim has already said, what took place with Lazarus and the grief and the sorrow upon others, as well as the very fact that Lazarus had died.
Brought suffering into the soul of Himself. And in the measure in which we buy our life, eternal life, the life of Christ, in the measure in which we enter into these things, that can be said that we suffer with Christ when we too feel what sin has brought into this creation, and we feel it is in our measure as He felt it.
God says you're suffering with him. You're you're with him in that character of suffering. It's a real privilege, brother. And but as Jim says, umm, it's so easy to get the opposite direction. And that is how do I get out of suffering? We're, we're so inclined, even when someone is sick, immediately the first thought in us is Lord make them well, it isn't always his will or his purpose to do so.
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And sometimes the Lord brings a person into suffering with a purpose of glorifying himself in it.
His promise is to be with Him in the suffering, and that is to bear it with them. And it sometimes, may the Lord help us, not always to just say Lord remove the suffering, but a deeper work of God in the soul really is to get into that suffering as the Lord did, in the sense of feeling it and feeling it in the person and what they're passing through. And in that we suffer with Him, and we look forward to the day of glory.
When the suffering is passed, but God's ways are often today accomplished in suffering and they were accomplished in the Lord Jesus in this suffering that he passed through in that today when he sympathizes with you and I as a great high priest. And as we see in Hebrews chapter 2, the fitness for his present work was that what she suffered in his life and including, of course, the cross, but not only the cross. It was what he passed through and suffering here that has made him a compassionate and perfect high priest for us before God.
And so we too can enter into that and in our manager, not high priest, but we can have compassion with one another.
We have Romans in Romans 8 suffering with them and I think it's helpful to see it there, which you mentioned, and just read a few verses there in Romans 8 and verse 17.
If children were children of God, then heirs heirs of God and joint heirs of Christ.
If so, be that we suffer with Him, that we may be also glorified together, there it is, suffering with Him. And if you have that new life in Christ, you're gonna feel it that this world is so terribly out of order. We think we mentioned the other day, we look around and see the suffering of humanity, the hunger, the children dying of starvation.
Sickness because of lack of treatment. Bombs going on, blowing people up.
That should make us grow on breadth. We have a nature that sees that that is not what God had in mind. So you have in the verses following about the whole creation, groaning and traveling in pain. I sometimes say the there's a difference between groaning and complaining. Complaining is not right for a believer in the Lord Jesus.
But groaning is proper. What is groaning?
Bronine is the simple recognition of the fact that things are not what God had in mind for His creation, and they're going to be in the coming day.
Liberated from the ******* of corruption, and brought into the liberty of the glory of the children of God.
Wonderful to think about in the millennial day that the whole creation is going to be liberated.
Oh, in a different world, this is gonna be. I don't think we have any concept.
I would guess, given what we have in scripture about the millennial age, the leaves of the tree of Life, or for the healing of the nation.
I don't think there will be a need of hospitals or pharmacies or doctors because he's gonna heal. The nation's wonderful to think about and the animal creation and the.
Plant creation too, that has been so effective. Everything is out of whack and out of order. Who can put it straight today? There's nobody can put it straight. It's that way and all we can do.
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Is growing and in that sense, like you say, Don, we suffer with him, we see it and we should feel it. And if you are a real believer in the Lord Jesus, you will feel it and that is suffering with it.
Well, there were greater and deeper sufferings that we can't go into.
So if he goes on the profit to say to us, he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities.
Uh, Lord Jesus perfectly entered into the condition of the nation of Israel. He was baptized.
By John suffer all righteousness and taking his place with them and their place as a nation out of order before God, but that wasn't going to do it completely. We had to go on and take the judgment of God. So it is for us. We can bear with humanity. We can suffer with Christ in that way, but there's the suffering of Christ that he alone.
And we have the privilege of becoming worshippers of himself.
Wonder if this person and the praise of his work.
So you would say done that verse five is more the suffering or sin from the hands of God that.
Took place in those three hours of darkness.
That's how you understand it. I think that it says our inequities and our trespasses, they've made them his own. He says prophetically, my sins are not hidden. That is when the Lord Jesus bears our sins, bore our sins.
He literally took them in responsibility upon himself to the full extent that he could say of himself, my sins are not his.
And so when he took mysense and the responsibility of himself to deal with God about them, he calls them his own. We look at them and we say, my sins were collectively our sins, our transgressions. And he takes them, and he says their mind, and he bears them in our place.
As only he could, none other could be the savior but He.
There's a him, perhaps we sing that perhaps expresses it so well, our, our sins, our guilt and love combined, confessed and borne by thee. And so it kind of bears out, doesn't it, what Don has has said. I think we used to think when we were young people, He took my sins and my sorrows and he made them his very own. He bore the burden to Calvary and suffered and died alone.
I'd like to just say too, in that connection there were in John's gospel where you have various hours mentioned, there are two different hours in connection with this suffering. In fact, it might be helpful to look at that because.
It distinguishes between what we've already, what we've had in our fourth verse, and then what he goes on to speak of in the fifth verse of our chapter.
First of all in John Chapter 7.
And verse 30 Then they sought to take him, but no man laid hands on him.
Because his hour was not yet come. And in the 8th chapter we have a similar statement. But you notice here in connection with this hour of suffering, it's in regard to man laying hands on him. Because there was an hour coming when he was going to suffer like he had not suffered before at the hands of man. And we know the circumstances surrounding the trial of the Lord Jesus and then finally taking him out and nailing him to a Roman cross. And so there was an hour of suffering when man did lay hands on him.
It wasn't at this point in the 7th and 8th chapters of John, but it was coming. But there's another hour in connection with his suffering that's brought out in the 12Th chapter. There's little distinction made here that's very important.
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In John's gospel, you don't get his agony in the garden in keeping with the character of the gospel, but you do get this, this verse, the 27th verse of John chapter 12. He says, now is my soul troubles, and what shall I say?
Father saved me from this hour, but for this cause came I unto this hour. Now the hour here, I suggest, is not so much the hour of His suffering at the hand of man, but it was the hour of His suffering at the hand of God. Father save me from this hour. And when he bowed in the garden in his agony, as we get in some of the other Gospels, what was it that caused Him to bow in such agony?
And the sweat, as it were, great drops of blood falling down to the ground, was it not the anticipation of that hour when He would suffer at the hand of God the Father, when our sins would be laid on His blessed head, When He would bear our sins in His own body on the tree? And so there were the physical sufferings of the Lord. There's that which He felt in His pathway. There was that which He suffered at the hand of man, when they laid hands and took Him from the garden.
To pilots, Judgment Hall, and back and forth that night from one to another, and so on. There were those physical sufferings he felt as they stretched his hands and his feet on a Roman cross and nailed him there. But there was something even greater than that. Brethren, perhaps we in a little way enter into those physical sufferings. I like the way the one hymn writer put. But none of the ransomed ever knew how deep were the waters crossed, or how dark was the night the Lord passed through.
Ere he found the sheep that was lost. What was the hymn writer referring to? Not the physical suffering, but those atoning suffering. How deep the sorrow, who can tell which was for us to endure? So I think it's helpful to separate these two things because as we said yesterday, the physical sufferings of Christ, as awful as they were, they never atone for one sin. But what it was when he felt those strikes.
In those hours of dust, when he was wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our initiatives, when the chastised limit are pieces of condiment with his stripes clear heels. Rather. You'll never enter into that, I suggest, for all eternity. Perhaps we'll have a little deeper appreciation and understanding in the coming day. But will we ever really enter into those atoning sufferings, brethren, Those atoning sufferings as we consider them for eternity?
They're gonna bring forth fresh bursts of praise and worship from our hearts, but I don't think we'll ever enter into the depth of this country. And I think that's why God closed the scene in Darkness is too awful to humanizing.
It's the person that sustains the work, and his person is beyond our comprehension.
That is, suppose Adam but never sinned and had children, and one of his children had sinned. Could Adam then, because he had no sin of his own? We sometimes say, well, I can't die for you, and you can't die for me, because I I've got my own sins and you have yours. But suppose Adam had never sinned, but one of his children had sinned. Could Adam have offered himself to God as a sacrifice for his child? The answer is no, he could not.
Adam and his condition had no sense of what sin was, and as such he could not bear it. It wasn't the Lord Jesus, and only the Lord Jesus as the divine person become man.
Understands what the offense of sin is through holy God and only He fully comprehends the awfulness of the disobedience of the creature to His Creator, and it has.
Fully entering into it that he can take the place that he did and bear it. But that's why in picture form in in umm, Exodus 12.
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It it's a lamb D lamb because there was only one in Genesis 22. It is umm God shall provide for himself a lamb because.
The Lamb could not be found from mankind, even if mankind there were those in mankind who had not sinned, they would not have been ones who could have borne the atonement work. It's only in his person that that he could do it and did and it's unique and it's it's something that is holy, that causes results in that we can never.
Fully comprehend the depth through which you passed. It's beyond us as creatures to know. But it was Him as a man that did it, and his person as being able to sustain it. And why? It says, for example, in the anticipation of it, that it was beyond the human, as it were. And so the angels of God, even in the garden, are there to sustain the vessel.
From which the work is to take place, because the vessel was a human vessel, it was a body prepared for him. But even the the the thought of it was so beyond us that just the vessel that in which the atonement was to be made needed the strengthening support of angels to to hold it, even though it was the very body in which in which was manifested.
Uh, the fullness of the Godhead, as we have in Colossians one the cross or the work of the cross is a.
Matter that as we contemplate it, it helps us to see the greatness of His person, and it's that which makes us worship Him.
We can thank Him forever for removing our sins, but as we see as person in the work for God first of all, and then for us, it's what makes us worship Him and will worship Him as we enter more into it as we're in His presence.
I've enjoyed doing the.
Thought that you have the cry of abandonment in Matthew and Mark.
And the three hours of tardiness are mentioned in Luke's gospel that there is no cry there.
And one of the commentators.
Vomiting on it makes this statement and I thoroughly enjoyed it, he says. There in Luke's gospel is where you have him as a perfect man.
And he in the perfection of his humanity, in the garden there, as in no other gospel, he sweats, as it were, great drops of blood falling down to the ground. This comment is made, that as a completely holy man, to contemplate the thought of contact with sin.
Was terrible to him, and he shrunk from it, and he prayed, and he said, Father, thou be willing, let this cup pass from me. Is there any other way that can be done? And the fact that he shrunk from that show the holiness of his character.
But then and the perfection of his humanity completely submitted to the will of God, he said, not my will that thine be done when the time comes.
For the abandonment.
In that gospel, there's no cry because he's so fully submitted to the will of God to go through it.
Fairly enjoyed that time. And brethren, it's true we'll never understand that. Sometimes we understand a little bit about physical suffering.
And but you were mentioning about it, Jim, I agree that there's nothing that compares with the suffering of those three hours of darkness, but I don't believe we crossed very well.
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The awful gruesomeness of Roman crucifixion. It was those Roman soldiers were practiced in cruelty.
In every possible way. And we sat in a nice meeting room. Brethren, we sit on comfortable seats.
We have nice air conditioning taking care of us and.
We don't for us be a helpfulness to even the physical suffering. And then there was the sufferings of his soul, the reproach that broke his heart. It's another aspect of suffering, the suffering of those three hours of darkness. I like to put it this way. And then it helped me, rather than the first three hours he suffered.
From the hands of man.
For righteousness sake.
The last three hours, the hours of darkness.
He suffered for sin from the hands of God.
And that by far is the most powerful, but it will never fully be able to grasp. But we can look at it from afar, brethren, like the Ark, when it was going to cross the Jordan River, the children of Israel had to be 2000 cubits away.
It wasn't something that they could witness very close and when we look at the cross, that's the way we look at it from a distance.
And it makes us worship and praise.
Like to make this comment connection with what's been said about the gospels?
And I suggest brother may not reason about it.
We we missed something important to our souls, in keeping with what Bob just said.
Mark presents him to us as a perfect servant. Very first verse of the Bible, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, tells us to be lost. All the gospels tell us that he is the man Christ Jesus, and we know him, the Son of God. But each gospel has its own way of presenting it, and we need to keep them where they are, not mix them.
Where we will get in?
Off the holy ground, Mark presents him as a perfect service.
And when he goes and he does the work of the servant.
And he's in it. It was proper for the servants to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
When he is presented in Luke.
He is presented as demand, the perfect man.
Who bears the judgment with God dealing with him, and the expressions concerning him are in keeping with that.
But John's Gospel is the Father and the Son, and we need to leave John's Gospel as we see it.
In Genesis 22.
Where you have Abraham the father, saying to the others, abide here by the ***.
Well, I in the last go Yonder to worship, and John's gospel takes the Father and the Son together.
And so it says there and they went, both of them together, and that togetherness is never broken, never seen in any other way.
Than that in the presentation of the work in the Gospel of John.
And as the consequences has already been said, it's the Father and the Son who go Yonder to worship, and in that we do not.
Enter in to what took place and so there is no expressions of suffering from in it. There is no expressions of the human suffering that we associate with the other gospels because it is beyond it is it is something that.
The Father and the Son together worship and the Sons offering of himself.
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To the Father and the character of Leviticus, Chapter one.
And the burnt offering is what is presented and it's special to God, it's special to the sun. It's almost, I would want to say, a family secret between them because it's beyond us to fully understand or know what it meant to the Father or to the Son to undertake that transgression. I mean that transaction, not transgression.
But to undertake that move?
So he simply says in John's Gospel, the cup which my father has given me, shall I not drink it just like to say too, in connection with the Lord Jesus ability to be the sin bearer that is illustrated very beautiful beautifully in the brass that was used in the Old Testament in connection with various things that alter that is such a beautiful picture of the cross is the brave and altar.
We find when Israel thinned and was bitten by the serpent, that the remedy was to put a serpent of brass on the pole and all that looked were saved and so on. It's very remarkable if you trace through the Old Testament that there are 7 references to the fact that the broadly weight, either the weight or the cost of the brass, couldn't be found out. Seven references to the fact that it could not be found out.
Because the brass, brass and Scripture speaks of endurance, and it speaks of righteous judgment, and in connection with the work of Calvary, the work of atonement. It speaks to us of the ability of the Lord Jesus to endure the wrath of God against sin because of who He wants. Only a divine person, only God's beloved Son, the one who took on him, holy humanity.
Is the only one that could have the ability to endure or bear our sins in his own body on the tree. But that weight and that cost of the brass in the Old Testament could never be found out. And it's remarkable because all the other commodities in connection with the Tabernacle in the wilderness, the temple built later under the direction of Solomon, even when they came back in the days of Ezra and those ones.
When they came back from Babylon, everything else was carefully weighed and measured and recorded, but that which spoke to the heart of God, of the ability of the Lord Jesus to endure the judgment of God against Him. God made sure that seven times is carefully recorded that it could never be found out.
Brother, I have a question next Wednesday. Little powers of darkness.
So umm again question umm, do we have the only thing we have?
Is those that kind of darkness?
It's a year to $30. When it was first we tried Eli. Eli, Madam Sebastian.
It's not a statement question.
That's going to react.
That's a, uh, record that's given to us, Nelson. I sometimes think of it this way. I trust it's right.
At all through those three hours as the judgment was falling on him and all this fury, there is no complaint from that center cross.
Silence. Complete silence. He suffers.
All that judgment for sin.
But there's an awful moment at the end.
When God turns his face from them, it's the God that was his strength to stay, and he cries in the total anguish of his soul. My God, my God, why don't forsake me?
00:50:06
Like Don says, it's holy ground, brother, and as best we leave it as scripture, as closely as scripture puts it, just to take it that way.
We consider the terrible destiny of those who die in their sins.
They're going to experience eternal performance in the Lake of fire, where there's weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.
We cannot enter into this with our finite minds. I believe it. It boggles the mind to consider eternal punishment torment.
But we can rejoice.
Knowing that this punishment is passed for the believer.
Because the Lord Jesus, he was wounded in my transgression. He was bruised from my liberties. I think it's important to make it personal. I believe that during those three dark hours, the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Exhausted.
If I can use that word, the judgment that you and I we would experience for eternity in the lake of fire, and not just for you and me, but for all the redeemed Old Testament as well as New Testament.
The judgment that was due to the redeemed has been now compressed into three hours. Can we enter into this? The Lord Jesus suffered that.
And that's why I believe in the lamentations we read there. Is it nothing to you, all you that passed by? Behold, and see if there'd be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, wherewith the Lord has afflicted me in the day of His fierce anger.
You know, it's good, I believe, to think about those hours.
Those three car dollars.
No, there's been a movie produced called The Passion.
And I've never seen the movie, but I know many have been affected by it, coming out weeping as they looked at what the Lord Jesus endured the suffer.
But I believe it depicts what endures the hands of damage, the physical stuff.
Is there anything said in there or showed about what happened during the three dark hours?
You know what can be compared to what he suffered during those hours of darkness?
Yet I believe.
Missing in that particular video, you know, that's where he suffered for sin, just for the young child that he might bring us to God.
What we have in verse five and six is substitution. I think that's whether, Robert, you mentioned that it's how many times in these verses you say 10 times. I could just point them out if you like.
Verse five, The first one is, he was wounded for our transgressions. The second time is he was bruised for power iniquities. The third one is that the chastisement of our peace was upon him. The 4th one, and with his stripes we are healed. And then verse six, the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.
And then the 6th one, in verse eight, 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 he was stricken. And then the 7th one, verse 10. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him. He hath put him to grief, when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin.
And then the 8th one is, uh, at the end of verse 11, he shall bear their iniquities. And then the 9th one, he hath poured out his soul unto death, and he was numbered with the transgressors. The 10th one, he bare the sin of many.
00:55:18
That's helpful. I would like to make a comment on the fact that there are sometimes.
Two, uh, words that we have in Scripture that are put together and to understand them is very helpful. One is propitiation and the other is substitution, which you're talking about is substitution and God accepted.
What Jesus did as a substitute for us.
And in substitution we say Christ died for us. My father-in-law used to make a comment that I found a little bit strange when I heard it first, but I think it's true. You said Christ died for God. That's propitiation, and that is important too.
Because.
Sin had put in question God's holy character, and propitiation was that part of the work of Christ which fully vindicates God's righteous character. And if God was going to come forth and forgive sin, that must be done. Not only is the Lord Jesus a substitute for us, but.
Christ died for God and you have that word used in first John chapter 2 and verse.
Umm, maybe we better read it.
It's verse 2.
The end of verse one. He speaks of Jesus Christ the righteous.
And he verse two is the propitiation for.
Our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world or for the whole world. He is the propitiation for the whole world.
And I see that many times people don't clearly understand the work of Christ as far as propitiation is concerned.
Price work on the cross has propitiated God as to the sins of the whole world. We can say to the whole world God is satisfied with the work of the Lord Jesus. You can come now as a guilty, repentant Sinner received forgiveness of sin. That's propitiation and in propitiation it's the sins. It's the question of the whole world. Christ died for all. That's propitiation.
But when we come to substitution, it never says in connection with substitution that Christ died for the sins of the whole world. Notice what you read in the end of this chapter 53 and verse 12.
As it says in other places.
Ye bare the sin of many.
So often I hear gospel preaching and they say Christ died for the sins of the whole world. You're talking about substitution. That is not correct according to scripture. If you're talking about propitiation, yes, He died for the whole world and God has propitiated as to the question of sin so that he has not compromised in his character as he comes out to forgive the repentance Sinner.
That was tremendously important in the great debt of atonement. In Leviticus chapter 16, there were two goats chosen. One was for the Lord and one was for the people.
The first goat was killed and his blood was taken within the veil and sprinkled on the mercy seat. That's propitiation. God is satisfied with the work of the Lord Jesus.
But then the high priest came out, and he placed his head, his hands on the head of that second goat, and he confessed the sins of the people on the head of that second goat. And that second goat, which is a figure of substitution, was taken out into a land uninhabited and let go. Those two parts of the work of Christ are very important. They were both.
01:00:23
Tremendously.
Uh, fulfilled in the work of the Lord Jesus on the Christ.
Let's Psalm 69.
Oh, then I restored that because I took not away.
There.
There's a distinction to the in the order of the Scriptures and we need to recognize that. And so here in Isaiah 53 or 52 at the end of 52 That was read to us yesterday, it says in verse 13, Behold, my servant shall deal prudently. He shall be exalted and extolled and be very high. God has approved of that man. And then a little bit later in verse 15, so shall he sprinkle many nations or astonished many nations.
The king 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. So God's man is exonerated. He's exalted, He's glorified, He appears, He comes at the appearing, and the world recognizes that this one has accomplished God's purposes, and in perfect obedience and humility.
Has been that land of God, and now is exalted.
And then our part next in verse five, as it was brought out in verse 4, three leads his work among his people, his life for us and his life for his people among his own. But here in verse five, it's his work of substitution. And so it's our part next, not our part first, his part first. He's exalted. And so it's.
The thought is being brought forward correctly that.
It's God's part first. The Lord Jesus died for God's heart as it were, that he might be exonerated as to the question of sin. And so in chapter 6 of Isaiah it says in verse 8 then also I heard the voice of the Lord saying, whom shall I send and who will go for us? It's God's part first. Then said, I hear my send me. And so it's wonderful to be able to enjoy this in our own souls.
As to the, as how the children of Israel, those that are the remnant and, uh, come through the tribulation period and recognize the Lord Jesus as their Messiah, they'll say, but he was wounded for our transgressions. They're going to recognize his work and it was on their behalf, but they'll recognize his glory. They'll exalt him Wonderful for us to recognize an exalted as we did this morning, I believe.
We announced to ourselves and to this world that he's God's man. He's risen. He's glorified.
So those that, uh, are going to speak these words.
Are restored Jewish lemon and each and every one of them are saved to enjoy blessings here on earth. But we can apply.
What they will enjoy, to our own case, that's why we're here this afternoon taking up this portion.
But I think in verse 6.
Where it speaks about the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of assault. We're talking simply, or shall I say only about believe.
Because they're the ones that are speaking these words. It's not that the Lord poured the sins of the whole population that ever lived. You know, it tells us to Hebrews 9. I believe it is that Christ was once often prepared the sins of many, just as we have here in the last verse. We bear the sin of many. Not all are going to be received at all, are going to be saved. It's only those who have faith.
If he had been a substitute for every sin of all the world, God would not be able justly.
To put the center in health that would not be just. And so those that go to hell go there because of their own sins. They refuse what Jesus did on the cross, and they will suffer for their own sins and hell forever.
01:05:16
I'd like to turn to.
Zachariah, Chapter 12.
Saccharide chapter 12 gives us the these people that were speaking about the last few minutes and following the remnant of Israel's faith, those who will be able to speak these words that we have in Isaiah and truth and.
Just read a little bit here in Zechariah as well. He says there's 10.
Umm, And I will pour upon the House of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of grace and of supplications, and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced. And they shall mourn for him as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him as one is in bitterness for his first born. They go through the process of repentance.
So do we. We don't start out seeing beauty in.
We are All Souls individually.
He's a man.
But God brings us to that place in our souls where we see ourselves as God sees us. We're like Job, who said I heard of thee by the hearing of the year, but now mine I see it thee. And what did it produce in them as a result? After he really saw himself as as God saw him, he said, I abhor myself and repent and dust and ashes. So these people in a particular way will.
Look upon him whom they pierced, and they'll say we did that.
We, they will take upon themselves. They weren't living at that time, of course, when it actually happened, but they recognized the human art and their own hearts in it, and they recognized the responsibility collectively as a nation of people. And they see them and they mourn. They they're in bitterness of spirit and they see the wounds in his hands because he is restored to them privately in this fear before he seemed to the world publicly.
In his power and glory. And so it says in verse 11. In that day there should be a great morning in Jerusalem, as the morning has had in ribbon in the valley of Magiddon. And the land shall mourn. Every family apart. The family of the House of David apart and their wives apart. The family of the House of Nathan apart, their wives apart. It isn't simply national, but it's individual. It gets down to the family. You and I might be part of families who have been Christian families for generations. Doesn't work.
But that doesn't save us.
God has no grandchildren. Every one of us has to come as a first born child, as a child in God's family. We don't get there because of our dad or mom or grandparents. And so it says every family apart, their wives apart, the family that Nathan apart, their wives apart.
And so on to the end of the chapter, all the families that remain, every family apart and lives apart. And they will say we he was wounded for our transgressions. They look upon the wounds in his hands and they recognize at that point.
We didn't just put in the debt.
But at that same point in time in which we he was wounded in the House of his friends, his friends, his friends, his family, Israel.
He he says he bore our transgression, He took our flight before God in the work of repentance, and salvation will have its full work in the souls of these ones who are awakened to their needs. They won't be people that have ever heard the gospel in our day, but they will then go through their period of learning to know who He is and to accept Him as the Messiah who was atoned for them.
So we have the two aspects in our sixth verse of our chapter, that is.
The collective aspect of national repentance for Israel and then the individual, all we like sheep have gone astray. That's the collective side of things. But then the language changes and says we have turned everyone to his own way. It comes right down to an individual aspect of things. And so as what we see in the 12Th chapter of the of Zechariah, there you have those two things.
01:10:23
And that's individual repentance has always been the way of blessing, hasn't it? You know, it's easy for us for, for a person to say, well, all have sinned. And I think even if we were to go out on the streets of Mayfield tonight and ask people if man is a Sinner, I think if people are honest with themselves, they'll say, yes, man has done wrong things, he's a Sinner. But it's quite another matter to bring it down to an individual aspect of things.
And that's why when we present the gospel, we seek to impress upon souls the need for individual repentance, not just to recognize that the human race has fallen and that all are like sheep going astray, but that we've turned everyone to his, to his own, his own way. And even in our Christian lives, I don't want to go beyond this verse, but even in our Christian lives, that's the way of blessing too. You know, sometimes there's failure comes in even collectively amongst the people of God.
And it's good to get on our faces collectively, maybe in a local assembly. We fall on our faces collectively when failure has come in. But the real path of blessing and restoration is when we individually recognize our part in the failure and the sin, and there's an individual work of repentance in each soul. And so it will be for the remnant in a coming day. Yes, they'll be the as Dawn says, they'll be the collective side of things.
But there must before there's real true blessing and the Lord can really come in on this for their for their peace and for their their blessing. There has to be that individual recognition to.
They will not minimize it.
I say that because.
The most general aspect is all of send. We can narrow it down and just take ourselves in this room and say we extend. We take it as Jim says, one step further. I ascend, but make a full stop when you say it. Don't put any butts after. Don't say I have seen but.
Umm, the examples, they're, they're very, very serious examples in Scripture.
King Saul said I have sinned, but he didn't repent. He immediately went on with his bot, which was Samuel. Honor me now, therefore before the people.
Uh, Judith said. I have sinned. He went that far, but he didn't repent.
He only felt it in the consequences of the loss to himself, not in what he had done to the Lord Jesus and in the loss to himself. It caused him to go out and hang in the snow, but there wasn't any repentance towards God in it. And so these ones will not stop short.
They'll be in bitterness of soul that takes the repentance, takes the responsibility of what I have done. I don't say I made a mistake or some such euphemism, say I've sinned. And in fact, in the Old Testament, in cases where a sacrifice was to be offered, they not only had to say I have sinned, but they had to say what it was. Of course, we could not confess all our sins, but in an individual way.
If you have or I have offended someone, sinned against them in a personal way, when we go to say we're sorry, it is important to say I sinned against you by doing whatever it was I did. There's something more humbling and important to not just even say I sinned or I did wrong towards you, but what really brings the soul down as it needs to be brought down is to say I lied against you.
Or I did this or that, and specifically specific in the sin, the acknowledgement of what the sin is. And so in this case of Israel, they'll be very specific. They recognize the wounds in His hands and they take the responsibility for having to put them there.
01:15:02
In Luke 15 it tells us that there's joy in the presence of the angels of God over one Sinner that's saved, no?
It says over one Sinner that repents.
Thing to go emphasis is on repentance, and I believe in the case of the prodigal there was true repentance.
Hi, this is Jim.
Against seven, against eight, it was reality there and you see the result there.
Young man brought in some places.
Just unspeakable favor during the father's house got the best rolled on. Bring on his fingers, shoes on his feet.
The fatty cat is killed. There's a celebration.
Repentance is a change of attitude is a change of mind, willingness to.
Say that God is right and I'm wrong.
Taking sides with God against oneself.
I'd like to thank Wally. That was when he was sitting there with the figures, that prodigal son that that repentance came. There was a change in his thinking.
And he thought not about getting away from his father, and he thought about his father's house.
And then he got up and he went back.
As conversion.
So important, it's very important. It's repentance.
So many people that say oh God forgive me, do not repent and they just want to go on with their sin.
But there is no salvation apart from repentance.
So King Saul said I have sinned, and his next words are Honor me now.
The prodigal son said I have sinned against heaven. He took it even higher. And then his next words are, I am not worthy. And that was his true place within himself. Having said that, he thought what he could ask for was make me now as one of thy hired servants. But having properly repented, then he found out the father's heart. There was no attitude in the father. I'm going to make you a hired servant and put you in your place that you deserve for what you did, No.
The Father's heart was bring forth the best Rd. but it's important to see that the Father allowed him to say I am no more worthy because it was a necessary part of the son's repentance. Having said that, he cuts him off and he doesn't say make me now is one of the higher servants. The Father says this is my son. So God would say to us, hi beloved, you from eternity.
I want you to be one of my children. God doesn't need any more hired service. What He wants is sons that can sit down at His table and enjoy fellowship with Him.
Pascal and my God.
Bless all my things were on the day.
By Almighty.