Two Journeys

As I begin this series in Ephesians, I want to share with you a special moment in my life. I was on a mission trip in Kenya in June 1986, ministering on a 10-week mission trip.  This was one of the turning points in my life. I was sitting on a bench waiting for a bus to come take me back to Nairobi. I asked a Kenyan brother who was also there when the bus would come. He said simply, “In the afternoon.” I remember thinking, “In the afternoon? What does that mean?” Being a typical, time-driven, Type-A American, I was there at 11:49 a.m., ready for the afternoon bus, which rolled in at 3:00 or 4:00 in the afternoon.

I had nothing except my little pocket Bible with me. After a while I got the sense that it was going to be a long wait. I didn’t know what to do. I had dabbled with scripture memorization but that day, I opened up to Ephesians and, beginning with Ephesians 1:1, memorized that book. “Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, to the saints in Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus.” That day, I began a journey of scripture memorization that has continued for 29 years. I have memorized many entire books and portions of books in those 29 years, but this one is special for me, being the first one. I have recited this book to myself more than any other — hundreds and hundreds of times, with some portions of it approaching 1000 times. This is a precious book to me. 

I want to commend the practice of Scripture memorization to all of you. The book of Ephesians is a great place to start. Those 155 verses address many deep doctrines that will take you a long time to ponder, as well as very practical issues of the Christian life. Today we begin a journey in one of the most astonishing books ever written in human history. If you think about it — 6 chapters, 155 verses — you may wonder, “How much could be in there?” It takes less than 15 minutes to recite the whole book but it covers the scope and magnitude of God’s working in this world in ways that no other book does. It has a high view over all of these things. Paul doesn’t write to specific situations in the Ephesian churches. He doesn’t address people by name or situations that he wants to try to solve. He is giving an amazing view of God’s overall plan and how it is lived out in life. Today I will give a grand overview of Ephesians 1-6.

A number of years ago, my son and I took a trip to the Grand Canyon. We had a breathtaking view of the whole thing from the South Rim.  I have never forgotten my first sight of it, after driving along higher and higher, parking and walking through some trees — and suddenly, there it was. We walked along the South Rim, on the foot path, taking in the expanse of this thing, The Grand Canyon. It was hard to imagine the scope and magnitude of it. Since we spent a few days there, we wanted to get more of an experience with the Grand Canyon.

We had a number of options. We chose a white water raft ride along the Colorado River. We spent 2/3 of the day looking at the walls of the canyon, stopping for lunch and then coming back. It was a great time, but there were other options available to us if we wanted to get to know the canyon a little better. For example, there was a hot air balloon ride for $300.00 per person per hour. We weren’t going to do that, but we could imagine coasting very slowly and silently at 400 feet up, with breathtaking views. Then there was the possibility of a small plane ride, 5000 feet up, at $450 per person per hour, but covering a much more vast area. There was a helicopter ride, 1000 feet lower than the small plane, able to hover and study certain aspects and different parts from that altitude. The price was not listed for the helicopter ride; we were call for quotes, so I figured that was not going to happen. Then there was the donkey ride down to the Colorado River with overnight camping.

This morning we will take the airplane ride. We are going to fly over the book of Ephesians at 5000 feet to look at some of the grand and glorious themes in this book. Next week we will begin our donkey ride, going verse by verse to look more carefully at aspects of this incredible book.

Let me begin with a quick overview of all of the book of Ephesians. I am going to break it into two main sections: Ephesians 1-3 and Ephesians 4-6. Ephesians 1-3 could be titled, “What God Has Done in Christ”. It is a picture of the saving work of God in Christ. Ephesians 4-6 could be titled, “What We Must Do in Christ”. It is more a picture of the Christian life and answers the question “How, then, shall we live?” given this great salvation.

The epistle begins with Paul’s standard greeting, Ephesians 1:1-2, which I’ve already quoted to you. He emphasizes his call as an apostle “by the will of God” and he writes to give God’s people grace through the epistle. 

God’s Eternal Purpose in Redemption: 1:3-14

In Ephesians 1:3-14, we have God’s eternal purpose in redemption. Paul, in these incredible 12 verses, traces out in astonishing terms God’s eternal salvation plan, beginning with election and predestination —“before the foundation of the world”; carried out by the redeeming work of Christ on the cross, the redemption by His blood; and then applied to the sealing work of the Holy Spirit. We see the Trinity at work, Father, Son and Spirit, which we will come back to later in this message.

In Ephesians 1:4-7, it says,“For He [God the Father] chose us in Him [that is, in Christ] before the creation of the world that we should be holy and blameless in His sight. In love, He predestined us to be adopted as His sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with His pleasure and will, to the praise of His glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the one He loves.” [Ephesians 1:7] “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace.”

I can’t help but stop there and make an appeal to any that are here, outside of Christ, who are lost. Perhaps you have been invited by someone and this is your first or second week here, and you know that you are not a Christian. Ephesians 1:7 speaks to you. It speaks of redemption through the blood of Christ. Christ shed His blood. Christ is God’s eternal Son who became incarnate by the power of the Holy Spirit, who lived a sinless life and who died on the cross in the place of sinners like you and me. He has worked a redemption through His shed blood. Ephesians 1:7: “…redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sin”. Oh, how we yearn for that, don’t we? We need forgiveness of sins, and it is available for us through faith in Christ.

Paul’s First Prayer for the Ephesians: To Know God’s Power: 1:15-23

Then Paul, having traced out the work of the Father, the Son and the Spirit, prays for the Ephesian Christians in Ephesians 1:15-23. This is the first of many prayers you see in Paul’s epistles and the first of two incredible prayers here in Ephesians.

Paul reveals his prayer life for them. He prays in verses 18-19 for them to know God better, that they would have a deeper knowledge of God and that they would also “know the hope to which he has called [them], the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for those who believe” so that they would know God better. This is my prayer for this sermon as well, that, as a result of this study in Ephesians, you will know God better, that you will have a deeper sense of the knowledge of God. Beyond that, for you who are Christians, that you would know the hope to which you are called, your heavenly hope, and how rich you are as Christians. You are infinitely wealthy in Christ. Also that you would have a sense of the immeasurable power that is at work in your life and in the world around you to get you to your heavenly inheritance. 

Paul is praying for you to know these things, and he says the power that is at work in your life is the same power that raised Jesus from the dead. That power raised Christ from the dead out of that tomb and ascended Him through the clouds, through the heavenly realms, up to the very highest place at the right hand of God. There He sits at the right hand of God. He is “far above all rule and authority, power and dominion and every title that can be given, not only in the present age, but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed Him to be head over everything for the Church which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills everything in every way.” That is Ephesians 1. Paul wants you to have a sense of that same power that raised Jesus to that lofty place, and a sense that Christ is ruling over heaven and earth for you, for your benefit. That power is at work in your life. It is breathtaking.

The Ephesians’ Journey from Dead in Sin to Raised in Christ: 2:1-10

In Chapter 2, Paul transitions to say, “Do you understand what your condition was? You also were dead.” “You were dead in your transgressions and sins in which you used to live.” He wants us to realize just how desperate the condition was. We were the living dead. We were biologically alive, but apart from Christ, we were spiritually dead. God has taken every Christian and raised him or her from the dead by the power of the gospel, by the power of the Spirit, by His grace. God has raised us up from the dead and now we are alive and we will live forever and ever by the sovereign power of God. We need to understand this grace. Paul celebrates grace in very familiar verses, probably the most famous in the epistle, Ephesians 2:8-9 (the first that I memorized a few years before I memorized the whole book): “For by grace, you have been saved through faith, and this not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not by works so that no one can boast.” We have this incredible grace at work in our lives, and God has raised us up that He might put that grace on display.

Now in Ephesians 2:10, we see that we have a glorious life of good works to live, and those good works are worth doing. Our good works, which God has “prepared in advance that we should walk in them”, are not done in vain. All of these good works are tending toward the end of God’s glory and the building of His Church. We have a role to play. Life is worth living for the Christian. How beautiful is that?

God’s Purpose in Jew-Gentile Unity: 2:11-22

Paul then talks about the mystery of God’s purpose in making Jew and Gentile Christians one in Christ. In Ephesians 2:11-22, Paul reveals this mysterious purpose, that Jewish believers in Christ and Gentile believers in Christ are now one in Him and that God has created in Christ one new humanity —“one new man out of the two” — no longer Jew or Gentile, but now Christian. We have an amazing unity in Christ. God has taken the barrier,“the dividing wall of hostility” between Jew and Gentile, and destroyed it, eradicated, it through the death of Jesus on the cross. Circumcision, dietary regulations and other laws that separated Jew from Gentile have been removed in Jesus. He has made Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians perfectly one. He is building us together into a structure, a kind of spiritual building. There is an architecture, a foundation that has been laid. There is this rising building, rising up through the workings of the body of Christ, rising up through the power of the Spirit, rising to become a holy temple in which God will dwell by His Spirit, eternally. This, the gospel of Jesus Christ, really is the only answer to racism and racial divisions and disharmony in the world.

Paul’s Ministry for the Gentiles: 3:1-13

In Ephesians 3:1-13, Paul talks about his own ministry as an apostle to the Gentiles. He is in prison for the Gospel, as he frequently was, and he writes to them about the administration of his ministry and what a special and unique individual he is. He says this not because he is arrogant or boastful, but because God has set him apart as apostle to the Gentiles. God has sent him to show His saving purpose to the Gentiles by revealing at last this mystery which, in ages past, stayed hidden in God, but has now been made known, as God intends Jews and Gentiles together in Christ to be one.

This is an incredible mystery but it has now come into time. There is a lavish bumper crop of Gentiles coming to faith in Jesus, and Paul, as an apostle to the Gentiles, is there at the dawning of that age to do ministry to bring them in, that they might have a sense of the magnitude of this work. Ephesians 3:6-7: “This mystery is that through the gospel, the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus.” He says in verse 13, “Don’t be discouraged because of my sufferings. Don’t be discouraged because I am in prison. It is not a shameful thing for me. I am not ashamed of this work. This is a glorious, mysterious thing that God is doing. My sufferings really are your glory. Because of my sufferings, this is how the gospel advances.” Ephesians 3:1-13.

Paul’s Second Prayer for the Ephesians: To Know Christ’s Love: 3:14-21

Now we come to what, for me, is the best part of whole book. I love the prayer that Paul prays in Ephesians 3:14-21. It is the kind of thing that moves me emotionally. It is the kind of thing that I pray for myself, for my family, for our church, frequently. In it, God speaks through the apostle Paul of a yearning and a desire that Paul has of a special work of grace in the heart of the Ephesian Christians. Look at verses 16-19. It says,“I pray that out of His glorious riches, He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power together with all the saints to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ” — I can’t hear those words without thinking about the Grand Canyon — “[that you would have a sense of the magnitude, the dimensions of Christ’s love for you. That you would have] power together with all the saints to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, [and that you would] know this love that surpasses knowledge.” It goes beyond cognitive knowledge. It goes into a whole different level of knowledge — that you would have an ever-expanding sense of Christ’s love for you so that you would “be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” 

Wow!  It is breathtaking — that you would “be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” I would say that this is not the common experience of most Christians. As a matter of fact, I would say that many Christians go their whole lives without really approaching the dimensions which Paul prays for here. My desire is that the ministry of the word and a regular beseeching on your part will lead to an incredible expansion of the work of the Spirit in your heart, that you would have a sense of just how much Jesus loves you — how dearly and deeply loved you are — and that you would be empowered by the Spirit to do those good works that He has for you to do (Ephesians 2:10). “Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we [could] ask or imagine, [to Him that is at work in you and in the church around the world], to Him be glory in the church … throughout all generations [now and forever].” Ephesians 1-3: that is the scope and magnitude of what God has done for us in Christ.

Living Out Our Unity in Christ by the Spirit: 4:1-6

Then Paul turns the corner in Ephesians 4-6, and says in effect, as Francis Schaeffer said, “How, then, shall we live?” “How shall we live in light of these incredible teachings?” He wants us to live out our unity in Christ. Ephesians 4:1-6 is how he starts. He talks about unity, the oneness that we have. Not merely Jew/Gentile, but every individual Christian with every other individual Christian and every individual local congregation with other local congregations and the worldwide work of unity of the Spirit. This unity is under constant assault. It is constantly barraged by the world, the flesh and the devil. We’ll get to that in a moment. But this unity is something that we have to defend and so he says in Ephesians 4, “Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one spirit — just as you were called to one hope when you were called — one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.” One, one, one, one, this work of unity which we have to defend and fight for. 

Working for Our Unity by the Gifts of the Spirit: 4:7-16

Then in verses 7-16, he talks about diversity. He has gone from unity to diversity. Verse 7 begins with the word “but”: “We have been talking about unity and I’m going to go in a different direction.” “But to each one of us, grace has been given as Christ apportioned it.” We have a sense of the special working of the Spirit in each individual Christian’s life, and so we come to the doctrine of spiritual gifts. The concept of spiritual gifts is clearly taught in Ephesians 4:7-16, that we have different gifts that God has given to us by the Spirit according to the measurement of Christ by the power of the Spirit — different gifts.“He gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God’s people for works of service.”

There are those works again (as in Ephesians 2:10) — “to prepare God’s people for works of service,” so that by those works of service, the body of Christ might be built up into full maturity in Christ. That means we have a role to play to get the body of Christ to the level of full maturity. You might be an evangelist, or a missionary. You might be a pastor or a teacher. You might be an administrator.  You might have the gift of giving or the gift of serving. You might have the gift of prayer or the gift of faith. You might have a variety of gifts. Those gifts are given to you by Christ through the Spirit for the building up of the body so that (verse 13) “we [will] all reach unity in the faith in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.” [Verses 15 and 16] “Speaking the truth in love we will in all things grow up into Him who is the Head, that is, Christ. From Him, the whole body joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love as each part does its work.” We have a role to play in the body of Christ; everyone does. We have a spiritual gift ministry that God has given to us to get the body of Christ to full maturity.

Protecting Our Unity by Fighting Sin by the Spirit: 4:17-5:21

Now we come back to what I mentioned before: We must protect our unity because it is under constant assault. In 4:17-5:21, Paul addresses the issues of the assault of the unity and what it is that divides Christians. The root of the issue is sin, and if we are going to be one as the Father and the Son intend, if we’re going to be one as the Father and the Son are themselves one, we are going to have to fight sin in every way. Paul begins by focusing on the mind: it all starts in how you think. He says in verses 17-24, “I tell you this and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts.” [Do you hear all of those mental/mind words?] “Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, with a continual lust for more. You, however, did not come to know Christ that way. Surely you heard of him and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. You were taught with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires, to be made new in the attitude of your minds and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.” That is the overarching battle we must have against sin. We must be a holy people, and it begins with how we think and what we love with our hearts and our minds. We must be pure.

In the next section, Paul goes back and forth between what we’ll call negative sanctification and positive sanctification. What we must not do or be and what we must do or be, back and forth; both of those are valid aspects of sanctification, of growth and of maturity. So he says that we must not lie; we must put off falsehood, but rather we must speak truth. Thieves must stop their stealing, but instead they “must work, doing something useful with [their] own hands so that [they] may have something to share with those in need. [We should not say unwholesome things, but rather we should speak what is useful for] building others up according to their needs. [We should not be sexually impure, but instead we should be holy with our bodies and our minds. We should not speak obscenity, but rather, we should speak words of thanksgiving. We should not live as children of darkness, but rather we should live as children of the light. We should not live a foolish life, but rather we should] find out what pleases the Lord [and do it. We should] not get drunk on wine which leads to debauchery, [but] instead [we should] be filled with the Spirit.” This is going to be a big theme in Ephesians, the Spirit-filled life: to be being filled with the Holy Spirit, to be empowered with the Spirit. Only by the Spirit can we defeat the world, the flesh and the devil.

Displaying Unity in Christian Marriage: 5:22-33

Beyond that Paul talks about significant roles in the body of Christ and how submission works in those roles. He says in verse 21, as a subset of the Spirit-filled life, “submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.” When I get to that, God willing, I will talk about how I believe that this is not teaching a universal mutual submission of every Christian to every other Christian, which would vacate the word submission of its meaning. Submission always has to do with recognition of God ordained authority. He is saying, “Category 1 is going to submit to Category 2 in the way I am about to describe to you. So this group is going to submit to this group, but this group — the one submitted to — should carry themselves in a certain way as Christians who have that authority.”

Paul goes through the marriage relationship, husband and wife. He goes through the parenting relationship, child and father, and he goes through the master and slave relationship, slave and master. It is always the one who is commanded to submit first (the wife, the children, the slave), and then the one who is receiving the submission, how they should carry themselves (the husband, the father, the master). Then immediately, Paul goes into the most important and most significant human relationship on earth, which is marriage. Christian marriages should be putting the unity of the gospel on display. So he says, “Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife just as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which He is the Savior.” [The husband is then told,] “Husbands love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her.” We get this beautiful picture of Christian marriage. If husbands and wives were living that out, what an incredible effect it would have on our church and on the nation.

Displaying Unity in Godly Submission: 6:1-9

Then Paul goes to the parenting relationship. Children are to submit to their parents, to obey them in everything. But fathers are not to “exasperate [their] children, [but rather] bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord”. The same thing with the master and slave relationship: first slaves are to submit to their masters, to obey them as if they were obeying Christ, not only when the master’s eye is on them, but all the time. Then, for their part, the masters should not dominate and be tyrannical and evil toward their slaves, but realize that they have a master too, and they are going to have to give him an account on judgement day.

Protecting Our Unity by Standing Firm Against the Devil: 6:10-18

Having presented the issues of unity, and struggling with sin, and key relationships, Paul then talks about the main, central attack on the church and on our unity. This is the work of Satan and his minions. Ephesians 6 is probably the clearest, most detailed teaching on spiritual warfare in the Bible. We are told to stand firm in the Lord because we have enemies. We have, as Peter called it, “an adversary, the devil.” Paul says in Ephesians 6 that “our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realm.” “So, stand firm and put on your spiritual armor.” He goes through the articles of spiritual armor; they are impenetrable, they are powerful: “the helmet of salvation, the breastplate of righteousness, the shield of faith, which is able to extinguish 100% of Satan’s flaming arrows. So we are thoroughly equipped. We have in our hand the sword of the Spirit with which we can make advances for the kingdom of God.” We can call down God’s sovereign power in prayer — some liken it to a walkie-talkie, calling down artillery fire on our enemies. We are going to “pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests … and keep on praying for all the saints.” 

Standing Together in Prayer: 6:19-24

Paul ends up by saying, “Stand together with me in prayer. Pray for my mission, pray for my work, pray that I would declare the gospel” “fearlessly, as I should. … Peace to the brothers, and love with faith from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace to all who love our Lord Jesus Christ with an undying love.”

So that is Ephesians 1-6. Now I want to draw out some main, significant themes. Pretend that we are not in the airplane anymore; we are now in the helicopter. We are going to hover for awhile to look at these main ideas, these themes.

The first is God’s ultimate end in all of this. Why is God doing all this? What is His purpose? I would say few, if any, books in the Bible, are so clear on what God’s ultimate end and purpose is, as is the book of Ephesians. God does everything “for the praise of His glory.” It is a simple answer coming to us three different times in Ephesians 1:3-14. Again and again we have this. God does everything for the praise of His glory or the praise of His glorious grace. Look at Ephesians 1:4-6: “In love He predestined us to be adopted as His sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with His pleasure and will, [here is this phrase, verse 6] to the praise of His glorious grace.” Or perhaps, to the praise of the glory of His grace. In other words, God predestined us for salvation before the world began, so that after world history had ended, we “might be for the praise of His glory” as revealed in His grace.

He says it again in Ephesians 1:11-12: “In Him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of Him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of His will, in order that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be for the praise of His glory.”

We have it again in verse 14.  In verses 13-14, Paul says of the Ephesians,“Having believed, you were marked in Him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession [here is that phrase again] to the praise of His glory.”

What is God’s Glory? How Will His Glory Be Praised?

What does that mean? What is God’s glory? God’s glory, I believe, is the radiant display of His attributes, of His nature, the shining brightness of His wisdom, His power, His love, His patience, His kindness, His wrath, His justice; there are various attributes. 

God wanted to put His own glory on display and He has done that in creation, but He does it even more in redemption. He does it even more in the salvation of the elect from every tribe and language and people and nation.  He shines through us and He will do so for all eternity.  He does everything for “the praise of His glory.”

Secondly, in order to achieve this end of the praise of His glory, God has worked out a meticulous plan. He has actually planned out everything, and I mean everything. Not just grand overarching themes, like in this sermon, but details — down to the tiniest detail. We will get a chance to look at that when we get to verses 11 and 12, but God has worked out His plan in great detail. He had a plan, clearly, in these verses that I just read: “He chose us in Him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless.” That is purpose language. He has a plan, and this plan is mentioned plainly in verse 11. It speaks of us having been “predestined according to the plan of Him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of His will.”  

The Final End of this Plan: Unity

Now what is the final end of this plan? What is He getting to? What is happening in history? Verses 9 and 10 answer the question very powerfully and well. Verse 9 says, “And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, [verse 10] to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment — to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ.” I picture God in perfect unity before He created the universe, before He created anything — perfect unity. Then He willed to create heaven and earth and he created them, saying, “Let there be light.” He did all this work in Genesis 1, and God pronounced everything “very good.” Creation and Creator were in perfect unity, perfect harmony.

But then sin entered the universe —  wickedness and evil entered the universe — and it behaved like a fragmentation grenade. It blew everything apart into bits, hurtling away from the true center. The disunity between the human race and God, vertically, has led to a disunity between human beings, one with another. From individual to individual, group to group, nation to nation, we see this every day on CNN or MSN or wherever you go. You see the evidence of this fragmentation and this brokenness. God is willing to reverse this and to bring everything back together under one head, Christ. This is His purpose in all of these things. He is going to bring together the elect and make them one. One new man, one new people, together, with no disunity at all. Central to that is the redemptive work of Christ. 

The third theme is how God’s plan is effected: by Christ, by the Spirit, by the gospel and by the gifts. These things are given to bring the plan about, so it will happen. He sent His Son, and in Christ we have redemption through His blood. God the Father made the plan. God the Son worked it out, paid for it in His blood. God the Spirit moves throughout all of the world, throughout all of history to apply the plan, the saving work of Jesus Christ to individual people and to groups. By Christ, by the Spirit, by the gospel message, as it says, “In Him you were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of Him who works out everything, conforming to the purpose of His will. … You heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were then marked with a seal.”  

The gospel is out there, the word of truth is out there, powerful. People are hearing it. By the Spirit, they are believing and they are marked, sealed with the Spirit. That is the unfolding of God’s plan that is applied by the Spirit. Spiritual gifts — given to and used by gifted individuals, human beings, Christians — are instrumental to that plan. Apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers take the work of God out to the ends of the earth. They settle in and they shepherd churches. They prepare the body of Christ to do those works of service and then the gifted Christians use their gifts and the whole building of Ephesians 2 or body of Ephesians 4 grows up to perfection and finality. That is what is happening. That is what is going on in the world today. 

Now God’s plan is put on display. It is a unity in the heart through holiness, it is a unity in the church, Jew and Gentile, together one. It is made one through the Spirit. It is a unity in marriage, in parenting and in the master/slave relationship as each group does what it needs to do. This unity is put on display perfectly and beautifully. That is God’s purpose of all of this. 

God’s plan is going to be opposed, as I’ve said, by the world, the flesh and the devil. We should not expect an easy ride.  It is going to be hard, but we are going to win. Isn’t that awesome? The church, the elect, will be saved and glorified and radiant with God’s glory for all eternity in heaven.

This is Ephesians 1-6. This is the book of Ephesians. Now, God willing, if He gives us time, we will get a chance to go through it verse by verse. If He doesn’t, we will get to see it with  our own eyes, the glory of God in heaven. Amen?

What applications can we take from this? 

Salvation History

Get a sense of the scope of salvation history through this. We will have a chance again next week and in subsequent weeks to see how meticulously God has put history together. This is not thrown together, but this has been meticulously planned. Get a sense of that and feel secure in that. Don’t feel like every time you watch the news or go onto a website which tells you some of the things that are happening like we are going off the rails or the wheels are falling off. No, this is exactly what we would expect to happen. This is the disunity and fragmentation that Satan has worked, but there is a secret power at work in the world called the Gospel, the power of the Spirit, that is changing everything. Be confident as you look at world history. Be confident that God knows exactly what He is doing. 

How God’s Commitment to His Own Glory Affects Us

And how should God’s commitment to His own glory affect us? Live for God’s glory. Away with your selfish plans. Away with living for your own glory. Away with living for you own purposes. Say, “God, what is your plan for me? What is your purpose for my life? How have you gifted me? How have You prepared me? What am I to do? How can I live for your glory?” It is such a powerful idea, isn’t it? Husbands and wives, say, “I want our marriage to be for the praise of God’s glory. How can we do that?” “I want our parenting to be for the praise of God’s glory. How can we have a household that will be for the praise of God’s glory? How can I do my employment? How can I be an employer or an employee for the praise of God’s glory and putting God on display?  How can I do that?” 

The Greatness of Christ

Thirdly, how can we see in Ephesians the greatness of Christ? I want to zero in on one thing. There are so many things about the greatness of Christ, but as Paul prays at the end of Ephesians 3, I will be praying for you every day, through this series, that “you would have power together will all the saints” to get the sense of the scope and magnitude of Christ’s love for you. You are greatly underestimating it right now. You are greatly underestimating, and I am too, how much Christ loves you and me. It will be unbelievably empowering and liberating for you to improve even by 10% the sense of the magnitude of Christ’s love for you. So I am going to be praying that you would have a sense together with all the saints of how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ. 

Unity

And what about unity? Pray for the unity of our church. Pray that our church would put on display supernatural unity. First of all, just two sinners getting along in Christ is supernatural. Amen? We are so selfish, wicked and carnal — that we could actually genuinely love each other from the heart is supernatural. I want to see racial reconciliation on display through this church. I want to see surprising unity. I want to see a unity that makes people, like in John 17, sit up and say, “What could have caused this? Only the Gospel.” Let’s see what God can do in a supernatural work of unity in FBC Durham, right here in this city. 

Satan’s Work vs. Our Work

Finally, how can you be exhorted to be about the Master’s business, covered with the armor of God, aware that Satan is opposing you? How can you be exhorted to be active in evangelism and missions? Satan is going to be attacking, especially the more we get fruitful here, but God has committed to us the ministry of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5). Ephesians makes very plain that only by putting on the spiritual armor of God with our feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace will we be able to make progress in the external journey of evangelism and missions. I would ask that you present yourself to God as ready to serve Him. Invite people to church. Talk to lost people about their faith and about the Gospel. Be instrumental. Then internally, within the walls of the church, use your spiritual gifts to build up the body of Christ until it reaches full maturity in Christ. 

Close with me in prayer, if you would. Father, we thank you for this very quick fly over we’ve had in Ephesians.  It has been rich.  I look forward, almost can’t wait, to get into the section next week in Ephesians 1. I pray that you would teach us, instruct us and prepare us, oh Lord, for that.  I pray that the things we’ve already learned now from Ephesians would be so ingrained in our hearts and our minds that we would want to live them out. Oh, God, I pray for your Christians that are here now. Fill us with the Holy Spirit of God. I pray that we would be Spirit-filled. And Lord, for lost people, one more time, I pray that they would not leave this place lost, but that they would see, by faith, Christ crucified for their sins, risen from the dead by the power of God, and that full forgiveness could be theirs if they will just trust in Him. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Andy Davis preaches an expository sermon on 1 Corinthians 15:50-58. The main subject of the sermon is the impossibility of death having victory of believers in Christ.

Take your Bibles, if you would, and look with me at 1 Corinthians 15. We heard Greg read the last section of this incredible chapter. And my purpose today is to give you a sense of the whole chapter but a culmination in these last nine verses: the taunt, the victory taunt over death, the sense of certitude that we have that some day, we will see death dead forever. So today, we celebrate the death of death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. We celebrate not only Christ's victory over the grave, but the fact that through faith in Christ, we ourselves individually will some day look in triumph over death; we will look in triumph at the grave. And as I prayed a moment ago based on Matthew 13, we will be in radiant resurrection bodies; we will shine like the sun in the kingdom of our Father, some day. 

And not only that, but we who are Christians, who really yearn to be faithful to the Lord, who want our lives to count for eternity, we’re told at the very end of this chapter, the final verse that you heard Greg read, verse 58, that because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, our labor in the Lord is not in vain. Everything that we do in service to Jesus Christ by faith will stand for eternity, will be radiantly glorious in the Kingdom of Heaven. Now, death has stood over us, mocking us, taunting us, and proclaiming that everything that we are, everything we do, everything that we love, everything we cherish is ultimately dust in the wind. Death has told us that everything is vanity, it is emptiness, worthlessness.

To some degree, the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes written by King Solomon, thousand years before Christ, seemed to agree with this hopeless verdict over our earthly lives — seemed to agree. Ecclesiastes 1:2-4 begins with these words, “‘Vanity of vanities,’ says the Preacher, ‘Vanity of vanities! All is vanity.’” That means emptiness, worthlessness, amounting to nothing. “‘What advantage does man have in all his work, which he does under the sun, a generation comes and then a generation goes, but what comes of it all.’ [The preacher asked, Solomon asked.]” Death stood over the wise man in Ecclesiastes, mocked everything he did. It mocked his pleasures and his projects alike. He enjoyed life for a while, but soon realized that death exposed as utter futility the temporary pleasures of this world, eating and drinking and being merry.

So this wise man turned to vast projects: he built flourishing gardens, architectural projects; he studied plant life and animal life and celestial movements, and he worked and labored and built and polished and just did great projects. The whole time that he was busy with these elaborate projects, one thought much dominated his mind: “Someday I'm going to die and I'm gonna give all of this that I have worked so hard on to someone else, I'm gonna hand all this over to someone else and he might be a fool, and he might squander everything I poured my life into and what would come of all of it then? What good is all of that?” So death taunted him and mocked him and said, “In effect, you're no better than a beast.” Ecclesiastes 3:19-20 says, “For the fate of the sons of men and the fate of beasts is the same. As one dies so dies the other; indeed, they all have the same breath and there is no advantage for man over beast, for all is vanity. All go to the same place. All came from the dust and all return to the dust.” 

So the wise man in Ecclesiastes came to this sorrowful conclusion: “[and] so” — because of all of this — “[and] so I hated life.” Why? Well, because of death, because death made everything a vanity, emptiness, worthlessness, dust in the wind. Now, such a gloomy outlook is actually very common in this world, but we're surprised to find it in the Bible, aren't we? But there is a key phrase that Solomon uses again and again in Ecclesiastes, this phrase “under the sun.” if you've read the Book of Ecclesiastes, you see it's in there 27 times, he says it: “under the sun, under the sun.” Such as this, Ecclesiastes 1:3: “What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun?” Or again, later in that first chapter, Ecclesiastes 1:14: “I have seen everything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind.” Ecclesiastes 2:11: “Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun.” Again, that same phrase, 27 times, “under the sun.”

Now I've meditated on it, and I've known about Ecclesiastes for a long time. It's a puzzling book, an important book, and I'm trying to understand its message. And I've come to the conclusion in light of the chapter we're studying today, 1 Corinthians 15, in light of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, I believe the phrase “under the sun” refers to life on planet earth if there is no resurrection from the dead. That's what it means. If there's no resurrection, then everything is vanity of vanities. Let us eat and drink and be merry for tomorrow we die and everything we've done is gone. Vanity of vanities. All is vanity. 

The remedy is found in the final verse of this chapter. Look again with me. You heard Greg read. But here's the remedy, 1 Corinthians 15:58: “Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not [What?] in vain.” You see that? It's not in vain. It's not vanity of vanities. It's not emptiness. There's something to it, something of eternal consequence. Because of Christ's resurrection from the dead, our lives in Christ are not vanity. They're not emptiness. They're not worthless. 

Christ's resurrection changes everything, dear friends, everything. Death, the former mocker, is now mocked in this text. The grave, which has stood mostly undefeated — Amen? — mostly undefeated with no apparent solution is finally defeated through Christ. Death has been swallowed up in victory. Where, O’ death, is your victory? Where, O’ death, is your sting? That's what we're here to celebrate today. Now, we actually gather every single week to celebrate the same thing. Amen? We're so excited, we don't just have one day a year, we celebrate this every Sunday, and indeed by the Spirit, every single day. Amen? But it's right for us to have a day to focus on this with joy and give glory to God for the resurrection of Jesus. So what I'm gonna do is just kinda walk through briefly. We’ve had three sermons already in 1 Corinthians 15. I wanna just give just an overview of the chapter and then finish up, you know, with these last nine verses. 

So we start with the fact of Christ's resurrection. That's what we're here about today, that's what we're here to celebrate, the fact of Christ's resurrection. Now, some Corinthians were questioning the resurrection. They’re to... Greek philosophy, one of the basic ideas of Greek philosophy was the wickedness or evil of the physical material world, and then the purity of the spirit or the mental world. And so some Greek philosophers were seeing that way and some of those ideas had infiltrated the Corinthians’ minds as well. And so they could not make any sense at all of the bodily resurrection from the dead. It made no sense. And so in verse 12, 1 Corinthians 15:12, it says, “But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?” So that's the problem we're seeking to address. The Corinthians, some of them were saying, “There is no resurrection, there can be no resurrection.” That's what he's addressing.

So he begins with his own proclamation of the gospel. He says, “Remember what happened when I came to Corinth. Remember the message I preached.” So we're at verseS 1-6. The fact of the Resurrection was central to the Gospel that he preached. Look at 1-6. “Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain. For what I received I [also] passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures…” [1 Corinthians 15:1-4] That’s the fundamental fact of Christ's life, death and resurrection, bodily resurrection, fundamental to the gospel that Paul preached. 

And the fact of Christ's resurrection is clearly reported in all the gospels. All over the world, these verses are being read and celebrated in many, many different languages, thousands of different languages. Such as this, John 20:19-20, “On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you!’ After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord.” Well, that's an eyewitness account of the bodily resurrection of Jesus, a historical account. 

Same thing in Luke 24:36-43 there, “Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, ‘Peace be with you.’ They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost. He said to them, ‘Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.’ When he had said this, he showed them his hands and feet. And while they still did not believe it because of joy…” I love that statement. If I'm not careful, I'm just gonna go off in that direction right now. Basically, that's the biblical version of “It's good to be true.” 

They didn't believe it because of joy. It’s like, “No, the world can't be that joyful. The news can't be that good.” Yes, it is too good not to be true. Amen? God is so filled with power, so filled with love, it's just too good not to be true, there's no way death can win. God won't let death win. .But that's the way they were thinking, “It's too good to be true.” “And while they still did not believe it because of joy and amazement, he asked them, "Do you have anything here to eat?’” I think that's an interesting moment there, and “They gave him a piece of broiled fish,” that's even more interesting, “and he took it and ate it in their presence.” Bodily resurrection. “I'm not a ghost.” 

The fact of the resurrection’s established in this chapter as well, verse 20, 1 Corinthians 15:20: “But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead.” Christ has indeed been raised from the dead. That's what we preach and that's what we believe. Now, this must be accepted by faith. Fundamentally, I would say faith in the Scriptures, faith in the Bible, faith in the book. If you don't get it from the book, you will never get it at all. It's really that simple. 

Now, I've been reading eyewitness accounts, eyewitnesses were there, they saw it, they wrote down what they saw, but then they died, they went to heaven. What we have left is their accounts written down in a book, and you will never believe in the resurrection of Jesus if you don't believe it from the Bible. It doesn't come from any other source. Now, Thomas, doubting Thomas, is a key example of this. He said, “Unless I see it, unless I touch it, unless I experience it with my own five senses, I will never believe it.” Now, Thomas was special in redemptive history, he was an apostle, and so he's given some advantages none of us will ever be given. So a week later, when the disciples were assembled again in the upper room and again the doors are locked, Jesus came and stood among them. Now, Thomas had said, “Unless I see it, I'll never believe.” Jesus heard what he said, and he goes right to Thomas. He said, PPut your finger here in my wounds, put your hand in my side, stop doubting and believe.” Thomas said that incredible confession [John 20:28], “My Lord and my God!” 

That's the confession we must make, you must make, for the salvation of your soul. You have to be able to look to Jesus and say, “My Lord and my God,” and also my Savior, my substitute, the one who died on the cross in my place. If you can make that confession, you'll be saved. My Lord and my God. And Jesus said to him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed. Blessed are all of those who have not seen and yet have believed.” That's a world of people right now. Amen? 24 time zones of people celebrating. Now I've never seen it but I believe it. And I know that Christ is risen from the dead. That's why we're here today, isn't it? That's what we're celebrating. We've not seen and yet we believe. On what basis? Basis of the book, basis of the Scripture, we... It's written here, we read it, we know it's true, that's it. 

'Cause we're not gonna get to go to the empty tomb, we're not gonna get to touch the grave clothes, we just read and believe. We have to accept it by faith. Same thing happened earlier in John 20:6-9. Very same thing happened with John. Remember how he goes into the empty tomb and he sees the evidence, physical evidence, of the resurrection, sees the grave clothes there, the head covering folded by itself, the stone removed, sees all the evidence, it's all clear to him. And it says plainly, “He saw and believed.” [And then parentheses] (They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.)” Why did John put that in? He was talking about himself, “I'm on a more solid foundation now, much more solid than being in the cave, much more solid than actually touching the linen grave clothes, I'm in a much more solid foundation. I see it in Scripture, Christ had to rise from the dead.” Same thing for Paul. He saw Jesus glorified on the road to Damascus, but that wasn't the foundation. It’s, “He died for our sins according to the Scripture, and that he was buried, and he was raised on the third day according to the Scripture.” That's the basis of our faith.

So, fundamental, “…if you confess with your mouth,” [Romans 10], if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,” similar to Thomas, “My Lord and my God,” “and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” Saved from what? Saved from your sins, saved from Hell, saved from condemnation on Judgment Day, you'll be completely saved. You'll be welcomed like a son or daughter into the presence of Almighty God and you'll be sat down at a banqueting table and you'll feast in heaven. Sinner though you are. Same thing with me. That's all you have to do. Just confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord. Believe in your heart this message of Easter, this resurrection.

Well, let's make a link now to our resurrection. Can I say honestly, what good would it be for us if Christ rose from the dead, but we won't? What good would this message be if we don't take part, if we don't participate? It's no good. I mean, God's already exalted and high and lifted up and does great things already. He’s glorious and majestic. He’s already done amazing, incredible things in creation and all that.

If Christ just entered the world and defeated death for his own glory and ascended to heaven and said, “None of you will eat of this feast, I'm just showing you what I can do.” What good would it be for us? What good would it be for us? Just like in Normandy in 1944, it'd be no good if you were a collaborator with the Nazis, that the Allies were coming to liberate your region. And we were all collaborators with Satan, and God coming back is no good news for us if we can't be saved. 

But this is the glory of the whole message of the resurrection. This is what Jesus said, John 14:19, “Because I live, you also will live.” I'm gonna give the fruit of my victory to you by faith. He says [John 11:25-26], “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.  Do you believe this?” I'm just asking, guest, friend, visitor, do you believe that Jesus is the resurrection and the life? Oh, trust in him. Trust in him. Don’t leave this place unconverted. But trust in him.

And in our chapter today, look at verse 20 again, “But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.” Do you see that? Firstfruit. Jesus is just the first of a vast number of resurrected people, we are the harvest.  And again, in verse 23, “Christ, the firstfruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him.” So we celebrate on Easter Sunday, because we believe that Christ's resurrection has guaranteed our own. We believe that Christ has destroyed death for us! he's destroyed death for us. He's given us the victory.

Now, what is the nature of our resurrection? Paul addresses questions we all have about this doctrine, verse 35, “But someone may ask, ‘How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?’” We have deep practical questions about this. We wanna know the physical details. How could it be, we might ask. And Paul begins by rebuking their curiosity at one level, verse 36. He says, “How foolish!” It is foolish for us, given the greatness of God, to assume that the body cannot be raised. That’s foolish, and to ask unbelieving rhetorical questions based on it, on it like, "Well, what kind of body will they have and how could that actually be?" Those kind of questions are coming from a disposition of foolishness. Like Jesus said to the Sadducees who didn't believe in the resurrection, "You're in error, because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God."

How foolish is it of you to not believe in the power of God! The God who created the universe with a word can raise the dead — he can do it! So don't be foolish and think he can't. Now, some people say, "If I can't reason out the physical details, if I don't see how it could be, I won't believe it." So, say like, "What about a body that's totally incinerated in a jet plane crash, like happened in Germany, what happens when there's nothing left. How could a body like that be raised?" You say, “If I can't reason it out, I won't believe it.” And some of the attributes or aspects of the resurrection body may be mysterious to us — we can't reason them out, we don't understand.

Now, God has chosen to reveal some of those details to us here, but not all of them. We don't need them all, we just need this. It’s enough. So Paul gives us a glorious series of statements that give us enough of a sense of the resurrection body, what kind of body we'll have. 

First, there's that issue of continuity. It's like a seed in its relationship to the final mature plant. Something is sown and something comes from that. We will be raised. There's no disconnect. There's a connection. So there's continuity. We will be raised from the grave, we'll be raised from the dead. But then there's contrast, 42-44, “So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.” It's a series of magnificent contrasts with the present physical body — perishable versus imperishable, dishonor versus glory, weakness versus power, natural versus spiritual.

So this present mortal body is sown like a seed in the earth, in death, in the grave. We're taken from dust and in Adam, to dust we must return as a curse for our sin as humans. So it's sown a perishable seed. We know that as soon as death comes, there is decay, the body smells. As Martha said, “There's gonna be a bad odor for Lazarus has been there for four days.” So that's... It's sown... It's perishable. And it's sown in dishonor. There's a sense of shame surrounding the funeral and death.  And it's the very picture of weakness. It’s sown in weakness. The body is weak. It’s subject to fatigue and illness and ultimately death. And it's a physical body, meaning it's constrained by the natural laws of the universe that we're so familiar with in this present age. It's a natural body. 

By contrast, it is raised imperishable, no decay, no death at all in the resurrection body. It’s gonna be as vigorous after 10,000 years as it was the first day we have it. It's imperishable. And it's glorious. I've already quoted it twice, I never get tired of it. “Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father.” [Matthew 13:43] We’re gonna be radiantly glorious. You’re going to shine and you will be glorious and it'll be with Christ's glory, but you're going to shine with it like Moses, his face shining coming down off the mountain, only your whole body, forever.

And it will be powerful. Now, don't get delusions of grandeur here. Don’t think, “I'm gonna be Superman, like I'm from planet Krypton and I'm coming to earth, and watch, oh earthlings, what I can do." Well, everybody there will have a resurrection body, so… But it will be powerful — it will never get weary, there'll be no need for sleep, no fatigue, no illness. It will be able to do everything that God intended a human body to do. Maybe some additional tricks, like when Jesus passed through walls and then disappeared from people's sight and things like... I don't know, I don't know. And that's... Maybe we could do the fourth pairing where it says it's sown a natural body, raised a spiritual body. I've never been able to figure that out. What's a spiritual body? But we're gonna have one, whatever it is, and you'll have eternity, to figure it out. But that's what we're getting. How awesome is that?

Now we speak of the necessity of our resurrection. Paul's final point is the bodily resurrection must take place. Not just that it will take place or it may take place — no, it must take place. Look at verse 50: “I declare to you, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.” It is of the essential nature of both us in our humanity and God in his divine power that this resurrection must take place. Human beings were created by God to be both spiritual and physical. He created us to have a body, He intended us to have a body. You can know that, because you have one. Amen? Just meditate… the deep things that come from the pulpit, isn't it amazing? How do I know that God wants me to have a body? Because you have one. Alright? God intended for you to have a body, and He will not be the loser in that in the end. Death isn't going to win on that intention. So you must be raised from the dead, child of God. You must spend eternity physical. 

For us to be truly human in heaven, we must have bodies, but those bodies cannot be the present corruptible bodies; they would never make it. They couldn't be. And so corruption, decay and death — woven into the very fabric of the present order of things — that must be defeated. We begin dying, in one sense, the moment we're born. Cells die and are replaced, and as time goes on, replaced imperfectly. And I don't understand all the processes of aging, but I know it's happening around us; I know it's happening in me. Now, if we spend eternity in these corruptible bodies, it would be excruciating torture. Paul says our present bodies are perishable and they're corruptible, therefore they are not fit for eternity. Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. We must be transformed. Our bodily resurrection, then, is an absolute necessity for us to live eternally and fully human with a holy God as He intended. God's not gonna spend eternity with decaying corruptible bodies either, and so we must be transformed. This is not an option. This is a necessity.

What about the timing of our resurrection? When is it going to happen? Well look at verses 51-53. “Listen, [he says], I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed — in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality.” Must happen.

So now let's speak of the mystery. Here’s the mystery: not all of us will die. We will not all die. That's a mystery. I know it says in Hebrews 9:27, “It is appointed to us to die once and after that face judgment.”But there is an exception, a grand and glorious exception. It's the final generation of Christians who live on the earth. They will be alive in their mortal bodies when Jesus returns. Life will be going on as it always has, just like “…in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark…” [so] it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.” [Matthew 24:38-39] Life will be going on and Jesus is going to return.

And we will all be changed. We're not all going to sleep — means die — but we will all be changed. What does that mean? First of all, what is the "we" here? The "we" is Christians, dear friends. It’s Christians. He's not talking about humans here, the human race. He’s talking about believers. We will be transformed and get resurrection bodies, we who have believed in Christ while there was time to do it, while today was the day of salvation. So again, I appeal to you as a visitor, be sure that you're included, now by faith, so that you will be included in this transformation . We — we — will not all sleep, but we will all be changed. That's Christians.

Well, how will it happen? He says, "In a flash, in the twinkling of an eye." Bang! Like that, just like that. The Greek is interesting here. It's like an undivisible unit of time, like an atom... That's what atom means, uncuttable. So basically, it's like a time, an amount of time, so brief it couldn't be cut. Like we would say, a split second, blink of an eye. So this is no process, there's no P90X here, guys. Isn't that great? There's no training regimen. There’s no pills to take, there's no surgery, thank God there's no weights to lift, there's no stairs... stair stepping to do. All that's over, and you will be instantaneously, in the twinkling of an eye glorified. Glorified, now the internal, the soul is glorified at death, but they don't have their resurrection bodies yet. Those that are final generation get both at the same time, internal glorification and external all at once, in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye. 

When? At the last trumpet. When's that? Second coming of Christ. This is taught again and again and again. Multiple verses talk about this: “For the trumpet will sound, [verse 52 and] the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.” Look earlier in the chapter. Look at 1 Corinthians 15:22-24, “…as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. But each in his own turn: Christ, the firstfruits; then [look at this], when he comes, those who belong to him. Then the end will come.”

So it's at the second coming of Christ, that's when the resurrection happens. And elsewhere, Matthew 24:30-31, “At that time the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and all the nations of the earth will mourn. They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky, with power and great glory. And he will send his angels… [listen to this] …with a loud trumpet call…” There’s the trumpet again. “…and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other.” They're gonna gather up the elect for this transformation.

Again, 1 Thessalonians 4, “For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.” That's the rapture. That's the second coming of Christ. That’s when it happens.

The trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised. Both those who died over centuries of church history — the redeemed waiting up in heaven now for their resurrection bodies — that's when they get them and they get them first, and then we who are still alive and are left. We get them at the same time, meet the Lord in the air as he's descending from heaven down to the earth to bring judgment and to transform the universe. Amen. Don't ask me about the millennium. I don't wanna answer today. Okay? But at any rate, at the second coming of Christ, clearly taught again and again, that's when this happens.

What then of the triumph of the resurrection? Look at verses 54-55, “When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: ‘Death has been swallowed up in victory.’ ‘Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?’”  These words, they're just filled with triumph. Do you not see it? It's awesome. For all of human history, death has seemingly reigned undefeated and even undefeatable by medical science or by black arts or by meditation or by meticulous care. Doesn't matter. Death just seems undefeatable. Death is the final enemy. And a bitter enemy it has been. Death was born an enemy, death plunders like an enemy, death is a universal enemy, death is a mocking enemy, death is a sudden enemy. This great powerful foe, more than we can handle unless we have a Savior, and we shall all be trampled under death's boot forever, if we didn't have a Savior. The agony that death has caused is incalculable. How many grief-stricken parents had buried children, and they've asked God, “Why does this enemy death seem to defeat you? You're the God of life. I don't understand this.”

So death seems to stand and mock God and mock his word, as though God's word has failed. How many wailing wives have walked over the battlefield knowing their husband fought in that battle in the Middle Ages or whatever, and there they find him and he's dead on the ground, and they just start wailing. How many shocked children have never forgotten discovering their dead parents in the house. How many times have rescue workers pulled corpses from piles of rubble after the earthquake was finished. How many people have slipped into eternity from the ICU, when medical science could do no more for them. Death has visited kings' palaces and mud hovels, makes no distinction between them. It’s stricken Olympic athletes in their prime, in the prime of life; weak and sickly people too. It's robbed infants from the cradle and extremely old people who could barely move. In all of this, death has stood like a dominating tyrant, a victor, seemingly unbeatable, mocking everything we did, everything we loved, everything we hope for in life. 

But in Christ, the tables are turned. Amen? Well, this is the thing we celebrate... Diana Lisle just told me that the kindergarteners were talking about this very thing, and she promised the pastor would explain these words, “Where O death is your victory, where O death is your sting?” So, the pressure is on now. Okay, kindergarteners, what does this mean? When you're at a young age, you may not understand death, but know this — Christ has defeated death. I asked Daphne right before I came up here, I said, “What does it mean to you — ‘Where O death is your victory?’” And she said, "It means Christ has defeated death." That's what it means. It means death isn't gonna win in the end. That’s what it means. “Where, O now is all your vaunted power, O death, what's become of all your weapons?” 

And then I love where it says, “Death is swallowed up in victory.” Christ didn't just eke out a one-point victory over death at the buzzer. I mean, he dominated death. Well, in what way? Well just look at him — he is radiant, glorious at the right hand of Almighty God. That’s how far death is below him, but that's not even what I think it means here when it says, “Death is swallowed up in victory.” 

The whole chapter has been about our resurrection, and so when there's a multitude greater than anyone could count and they're in resurrection bodies, every bit as glorious as Jesus's, then we'll understand what this word means: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.” It's not a small victory over death. We will someday watch God crush Satan under our feet, and death itself will die, and it'll be over. We’ll watch death thrown into the lake of fire, and then this saying will come true: “Where, O death is your victory now? Where, O death is your sting? You are dead, and Jesus has done that.”

Now, he explains in Verse 56, where death got its existence and power. “The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.” “…sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin…” [Romans 5:12] “…the wages of sin is death.” [Romans 6:23] That’s where it came from. Every single one of us has violated the law of God. We are all violators of the law of God; we are transgressors. The law of God, the Ten Commandments, the tenth Commandment, “You shall not covet.” We are all coveters. We have lusts and desires that are illicit in our hearts, and we have given into them, and we have defiled our souls with them, and we deserve to die. But Christ died in our place the death we deserve, that we might have eternal life. That's where this whole death came from. “But thanks be to God! [verse 57] He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Death in one sense should have defeated us, but it won't, because Christ is our substitute and he died in our place. Oh, trust in him, believe in him. You don't need to go anywhere, or do anything. Just, as you sit in the pew, just picture Christ crucified and say, "He died for my sins; he’s my substitute." And then picture the empty tomb and picture him with his hands and feet and all that, and say, "He rose from the dead for my justification, for my glorification. Christ is my Savior."

So what is the application we take from all of this? Verse 58's the application. Look at it. “Therefore…” Because of all this, 57 verses on the resurrection, because of all this, “… dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.” He's talking to Christians about the life they're living now in the body before the resurrection happens, and he's telling you your life matters. It actually matters. The things you do matter, from the smallest to the greatest, from the giving of the cup of cold water to a disciple, or the throwing of two copper coins in the offering, to doing of dishes or eating and drinking or whatever you do for the glory of God, all the way up to laying down your life as a martyr on the mission field, and everything in between. 

All of that labor that you do for Christ has eternal consequences, and it will shine forever with you in heaven. So it's an interesting conclusion: Because of all of this (57 verses of Christ and our resurrection) he says, "Get busy and work hard." He says, "Stand firm, there is a tidal wave of attack coming at you from the world of flesh and the devil. Stand firm, and don't be discouraged, don't be depressed, don't be downcast. Stand firm in your faith. Don't let anything move you." The flood is coming. You picture like one of those towns near the Mississippi, when the Mississippi overflowed its banks, and they hear that the flood's coming and they throw up a few barriers and some sand bags and… but it's nowhere near enough and it's just swept away. Don't be like that. No, stand firm in your faith. 

And actually he turns it around: Always be abounding in the work of the Lord. You be the flood; you go take territory from Satan; you go be filled with the Spirit and share the gospel. Hey, here's a great thing for you members of FBC: Invite someone to church next week. We’ll be here, God willing. Alright? We'll be doing this. We'll celebrate the resurrection next week. We'll say… bring them next week. 

Let's be abounding in evangelism, abounding in prayer, abounding in financial generosity, abounding in mercy ministry, abounding in laying down our lives for one another and for the lost. Let's let nothing move us or discourage us, because Christ is risen. You know what that means? Our resurrection is absolutely guaranteed. Nothing can stop it.

Close with me in prayer. Father, we thank you for the things that we have learned. We thank you for the Gospel. Thank you, oh Lord, for all that are here today, that were invited, that need you, oh Lord. Bring them to faith, even now, and Lord, thank you for us who have been Christians for some time now. Give us strength and courage and power through the Holy Spirit to live abounding, faithful lives for the glory of God. We pray in Jesus name. Amen.

So, how do we minister to those that are suffering and struggling in this world. How do we minister to those that are facing the problem of pain and suffering? And I think as we look at the church in the West, the American church, we would have to say this is one of the great weaknesses that we face, all of us. The church in the West, the American church, in particular, is not good at grappling with pain and suffering, so said Paul Brand in his incredible book, "Fearfully and Wonderfully Made," a book I would commend to you. But many unbelievers might have even grown up in the church, but now as adults are living lives of unbelief, and they say plainly that they can't believe in a God who would allow such astonishing human suffering in this world like the Holocaust in World War II or random violence of terrorists who slaughter innocent people for religious or political or personal reasons. Others say it's because of a specific beloved person that they prayed for and they asked that God would heal them or spare them in some way, and they died. Might be a mother, a grandfather or a close friend, and despite the prayers of many and specifically their own prayers, they just...the person died, and now that's the root of their rejection of God. “Why didn't God answer my prayers,” comes the anguish cry. God abandoned me, so I abandoned him.

Well, the problem with pain and suffering and death for many people is the greatest challenge to biblical faith and believing in the God of the Bible, the all-powerful, the sovereign, loving, gracious and compassionate King rules over every little thing whose eye is on the sparrow and even birds don't fall to the ground apart from His sovereign will. They have a hard time reconciling such a picture of God with the sin and suffering and death they see in the world, the wretchedness of the human race, the foul ways in which so many die. The personal, the very personal rejection that people feel when God doesn't answer their prayers is simply too much to bear. Now, CS Lewis wrote about this issue, the issue of pain and suffering in a classic treatise entitled "The Problem of Pain," he wrote it in 1940. He addressed there a God who is both good and all powerful and who also allows people to suffer pain and death, and he said this, "We can ignore even pleasure, but pain insists upon being attended to." God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, but He shouts to us in our pains. It is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world. Well, that's what he wrote in 1940, but 20 years later CS Lewis went through the greatest trial of his life, and that was the death of his wife to cancer, Joy Davidson. His grief was just overwhelming to him, stunningly deep, very real and personal. And he put his thoughts and reflections into a book entitled "A Grief Observed," which he published under a pseudonym. Now it's available under his name, but when it was first published, it was published under a pseudonym. And he wrote, "Nothing is more certain in all the Earth that I cannot go anywhere on this Earth or anywhere in the universe to find her. She is dead. She's gone and there's nothing I can do about that." He also wrote this, "Meanwhile, where is God? This is one of the most disquieting symptoms, when you're happy, so happy that you actually have no sense of needing him, if you then turn to Him with praise, you'll be welcomed with open arms, but go to him when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, the sound of bolting and double bolting inside, and after that, silence. You may as well turn away." That's CS Lewis in "A Grief Observed." That sounds like a man in deep suffering, wrestling with pain at levels few of us can articulate as powerful as Lewis did in that booklet.

Now, Dr. Brand in his book, "Fearfully and Wonderfully Made," cited this to open the question of how we can best minister to those that are facing that level of acute pain and suffering or even to ourselves if we're going through it as well. He acknowledged the deep problem of what to say. What do you say in the hospital room? What do you say in the ICU, when you go to visit? Brand related the story of a young couple that he knew, John and Claudia Claxton, they were newlyweds in their '20s, they were just beginning a happy life together, but then suddenly Claudia was diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease, cancer of the lymph glands and she was given only a 50% chance to live and that only after radical surgery and painfully invasive treatments of various types. She underwent radiation therapy that aged her, caused her hair to drop out, left her completely listless, weak. She was nauseous almost all the time, but the Christians that sought to minister to Claudia in the midst of her sufferings in most cases did, it seems, more harm than good. The first man that came to her was a deacon in her church and he felt, and saying this to Claudia, he felt that God does everything for a reason and that God was trying to teach her something and that surely there was something in her life that was displeasing to God, some sin, and that she just needed to find what that was, that causal root sin and confess it and God would heal her. Later a woman from her church that she barely knew came, now this woman considered it an ongoing ministry that she had to the sick and dying, this was her personal calling in life. She didn't know Claudia well, but she came and she brought flowers and she sang hymns. She read some happy Psalms about rivers flowing in the deserts and deserts blooming and mountains clapping their hands and things like that, and whenever Claudia tried to change the subject and talk about her cancer, the woman immediately changed it to something more happy and positive. And her strategy was to combat the suffering with cheer and good will, but that woman only visited once and soon after she was gone, any cheerful mood faded away as quickly as the flowers that she brought.

Another woman came who was a faithful follower of television healers, Faith Healers. Uh-oh. Well, this woman came, and she was enraged at what the deacon had said and said, "Actually, it's never God's will that we ever be suffering in any way at all, that all suffering comes from the devil and that she needs to muster up enough faith to claim her healing and that God would heal her." Well, after she left, Claudia tried, but she didn't know how you do that. How do you muster up faith? Faith seemed to be slippery and like a cloud or something like that, and so it really didn't seem possible for that, and she was actually more depressed than ever after this woman left. Then, a very spiritually mature woman in the Church brought along some books about learning to praise God in any and every situation. She said, "Claudia, you need to come to the place where you can say to the Lord, 'God, I love you for making me suffer like this. It is your will and I know you know what's best for me and I praise you for bringing me into this trial, I praise you in all things. And including this, I will give you thanks.'" After this woman left, though, Claudia's mind was filled with grotesque images of God, like some powerful troll that stood by the road and seized people and pick them up and squeeze them until they finally gave thanks for the squeezing and then he'd set them down. And she said, "This is just completely damaging, it's repulsive" and her faith was actually draining.

Then her pastor came, and talked to her and said that God had chosen her somewhat like a spiritual athlete and that her faith was being put on display, and that if she was able to overcome this suffering and grief that other Christians would watch and be strengthened by her example. So, she should think of herself like an Olympic athlete and all of the trials and the pain somewhat like hurdles in front of her, and once she had crossed all these hurdles, she could come into like the victory stand of a gold medal of having been faithful in the trial and others would be strengthened by her example. But after he left, she wondered why she'd been chosen for this event, and she wasn't thrilled with the idea of her own faith being put on display.

Well, what do we say, then? Do we go? Do we visit and when we get there, what do we actually say? Or what do we say to ourselves when we're going through this? All of these contradictory forms of counsel show how actually incredibly difficult it is to know what to say to somebody going through intense suffering. In one sense, the whole book of Job is written to address this problem, some would say, "Do what Job's friends did it first, go and don't say anything at all," and that's when they were at their best. But once they started to talk, it didn't end for 25 chapters, and very little of what was said was helpful. Now, that could be us and we don't wanna slam them too much because we mean to help but when we get there, we don't know what to say. Well, I would say that there is probably no chapter I would commend for your consideration as vigorously for this moment as 1 Corinthians 15. I don't say that that's the only chapter, Romans 8 is very encouraging. There are so many, but 1 Corinthians 15 with its teaching, not only on Christ's resurrection, but on our final glorious resurrection. I would commend it to you as the home base, the centerpiece of counsel that we would give to ourselves and to others in facing sin and death and suffering.

So, over the next four weeks, beginning this week, we're going to be looking in depth at 1 Corinthians 15 leading up to Easter Sunday. We're gonna look this morning at this first section and then God willing, Rick Lesh will preach next week, Andy Winn the week after and then I'll finish on Easter Sunday, God willing. And our goal is to heighten in each of you, the awesome power, the sense of the victory of Christ over death. His resurrection victory and how He means to give that to each one of us who trust in Him. Our goal is to heighten that in you, to prepare you to face some of the most profound trials any of us will ever face in our lives. Now, the immediate reason in 1 Corinthians 15 for this chapter even being written, if you look at verse 12, it says there, "If it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say there is no resurrection from the dead?" So apparently, there were some Corinthian Christians who were saying there's no such thing as a bodily resurrection, so Paul writes this whole chapter to refute that. And it comes out in, I think in four sections for us this week, we're gonna look at the historical fact of Christ's resurrection as central to the Gospel.

Next week, not trying to steal any thunder, but Rick will handle from verses 12-34, and that is the certainty of our resurrection as proven by connection with Christ's resurrection. So, our resurrection is certain because Christ is raised from the dead, and Rick will say as God leads in that section, and then Andy will look at, in verses 35-49, the nature of the resurrection body among other things. And that's gonna be an incredibly encouraging study. And then I'll finish up with the timing and the implications of our bodily resurrection at the end, verses 50-58.

And in all of this we're coming to consider a simple question. As Job put it in, Job 14:14, "If a man dies, will he live again?" That's what's in front of us here. How can a body that's been destroyed by worms or destroyed by microbes or burned up in fire or bloated and dissolved in water or consumed by predators or any of the other things that happens to our physical bodies after death, how can that body, how can a dead body rise again? Now, the idea seemed preposterous to Greek philosophers around Corinth, the city of Corinth, especially in Athens. You remember when Paul went to preach in Athens, he went to Mars Hill and there he was disputing with some Epicurean and stoic philosophers, and it says in Acts 17:32, when they heard Paul preached on the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered, utter disdain for this idea. To them, it was foolishness. Their basic premise was to reject the body, the physical body is essentially corrupt, and to go completely for a spiritual, or pure idea, spirit kind of thing, a dualism there in which the body is corrupt and evil.

But the more you read the Bible, the more you understand the inexorable force of God's sovereign will and the fact that God never makes mistakes, ever. The more you see that God does everything for a purpose, and He gave us human beings bodies for a reason. Can you imagine God waving the white flag on the whole body thing and saying, "Yeah, that didn't really work out, did it? Tell you what, let's spend eternity as disembodied spirits and just forget all that body thing that we went through?” I can't imagine that. God's not going to admit failure there, he's going to redeem the body, and we're gonna spend eternity in resurrection bodies and that's going to be glorious. And may I say to you, the fact of Christ's resurrection and of your resurrection and Him through faith in Him is infinitely greater than anything that you're facing in your life right now, good or bad. It's bigger than any triumph you have received, it's bigger than any tragedy you're going through, this is so much greater and bigger than anything any of us are facing. God means for us to have physical bodies; he intends it. We know that from creation, we know that from Christ's incarnation; we know that from Christ's miracles which were attending to the sick, dying and dead human body; we know that from his bodily resurrection from the dead and from this teaching that we will be raised as well, God intends this. Philosophers thought they knew best. Matter is evil and spirit is good, but that's not true. In Christ, God has answered everything, and it begins in verses 1-11 with the basic fact of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, which answers all questions once and for all.

So we're gonna say in verse 1 and 2, also in verse 11, the resurrection of Christ, the historical fact of the resurrection of Christ from the dead is foundational to the Gospel we preach. Look at verse 1 and 2, it says, "Now brothers, I want to remind you of the Gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. Now by this Gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preach to you, otherwise, you have believed in vain."

Now, as we said some Corinthians were asserting that there is no such thing as a bodily resurrection from the dead, there's no such thing as a resurrection. Paul remedies this by reminding them of the Gospel that he preached to them in their city in Corinth. "Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the Gospel," he says.

Now, this points to the need all of us has for... Have for constant reminders of the Gospel, we're never going to outgrow it, you're never gonna get to the point where you graduate beyond needing to hear the Gospel. Reminders of the Gospel. We need to understand that there's a process of salvation that we're going through here, and the Bible uses time orientation works, words like, we have been saved and we are being saved and we will be saved. So, we have been saved in the past, that looks back to our justification. By faith in Christ, our sins are forgiven, we are adopted as sons and daughters of the living God. Given the indwelling spirit as a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance. All that happens in an instant justification.

So, we can speak in past tense like Ephesians 2:8 and 9 does, "For by grace, you have been saved through faith." That's past tense. This verse, verse 2, "By this Gospel, you are being saved." There are other verses that give a sense of the ongoing present work of salvation. 1 Corinthians 1 speaks in this way. We are being saved in sanctification. On growing development, ongoing development of growth in Christ. And then finally, we are going to be saved at the end of the world. We're gonna be saved on Judgment Day, we're gonna be saved on that day when God is consigning people to eternity in hell. We will be delivered from that on that day. Romans 5:9 says, "Since we have now been justified by His blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through Him." It's a future salvation. Past, present, future – the Gospel does it all. The Gospel does it all. We need to hear this Gospel message. It's an ongoing work of salvation and we need to drink it up, we need to stay close to it, we must continue to hear of Christ crucified, buried, and resurrected.

So, Paul reminds them of the very same Gospel message he first preached to them, he says, which they first believed, on which they have, he says, taken their stand, it's where their souls are standing on. This is their standing in grace. We don't need a new Gospel, we don't need an enhanced Gospel, we need the same Gospel, and we need to be reminded of it, and we need to continue to believe in that same Gospel.

It's not enough to start believing the Gospel, but then later stop believing the Gospel and think that you're going to go to heaven. That is not true. Look at verse 2 again, "By this Gospel, you are saved if... " Now, does that word if bother you? I don't want any ifs. No ifs, no conditions, just by this Gospel you're saved. Period. Well, there are many of those type of statements and assertions in the Bible by this Gospel, you're saved, period, but there are also some if verses as well. There's one here, there's one in Colossians, and it always has to do with perseverance. It's not enough to begin the Christian life, we have to see it through to the end. We have to continue to believe this gospel, you have to keep going on. So, Paul is effectively issuing a warning here. Now we need to have a renewing of our faith by continual feeding on the Gospel, we need to continue to believe in it. Hebrews 2:1, the author there says, "We must pay more careful attention therefore to what we have heard so that we do not drift away." Drift away. Almost certainly, I'm speaking to some people right now that are in the process of drifting away. I don't know exactly who you are, but I fear it, I'm concerned about it. The elders, we watch over it and we pray about it all the time, who is giving indications of drifting away? But the remedy in Hebrews 2:1 is, pay more careful attention to what you've heard, and what is that? The gospel. If you're drifting away, then get back to the Gospel, back to Christ crucified, Christ resurrected, justification by faith alone so that you don't drift away. Now, in the sovereignty of God, I want you to know if you've been genuinely justified by faith, you're never gonna drift away. Never. But the way by which He will keep you close is this very same thing, you're gonna keep on hearing and believing the Gospel. That's how he's gonna do it. And you most certainly will. So, Paul's point here is, he preached the Gospel of Christ crucified and resurrected when he first came, nothing's changed. It's not a new gospel message here. The resurrection of Christ was essential to the Gospel he preached, and whether he preached it or someone else preached it, verse 11, it doesn't matter, that is the gospel they heard and they believed.

Now in Verses 3-4, he asserts that this resurrection of Christ, the resurrection of Christ was according to the scriptures. Paul gives this beautiful statement of verse 3 and 4, "For what I received, I passed on to you as a first importance, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day, according to the Scriptures."

So this gospel, Paul says, is something I received and I just passed it on to you. I just picture the apostles like table waiters that get from the master chef, this beautiful, just delicious, aromatic meal and their job is just deliver it to the table. And Paul is in effect saying that, I received this gospel, I passed it on to you. I didn't make it up, he says in Galatians, I wasn't taught it by any man.

This is something God crafted in the heavenly realm before the foundation of the world, this gospel message, and that's what we receive, what I received, I passed it on to you, he says. And he says, that is the first important, it's top priority, this gospel message. Nothing's more important than these doctrinal ideas. This is the glowing center of what God is saying to a world in its sin. This is the center of what he's talking to us about. The power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes, he says in Romans 1:16. Now the Bible is filled with many fascinating doctrines, isn't it? There's so many fascinating doctrines, like the doctrine of election and predestination, which God willing we'll get to very soon in Ephesians 1. It’s fascinating, people, whether they agree with it or not, it's fascinating and endless discussions about it. So also the doctrine of the calling of the nation of Israel to be God's treasured possession, and what went on in the past, what's going on now and what the future of all that, fascinating. People spend endless time talking about it, the concept, all the concepts of end time teaching, people are fascinated about it, about the anti-Christ and the abomination of desolation, all the things that come with the end time teaching and it is fascinating. Theology textbooks are filled with doctrines about angels and demons and other practical things in the Christian life, about prayer and marriage and parenting and money and all of those things. 

All of those things, however, are of less importance than this, the Gospel message. This is of first importance, the top priority, the most important thing a church can do is preach the Gospel, a pastor can do is preach the Gospel, it's a top priority.

Now we come to the basic historical facts of the Gospel, Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures. The scripture, the Old Testament, that was what Paul meant by according to the Scriptures, the Old Testament taught very plainly, substitutionary atonement. Christ died in our place. He died under the wrath of God. He died the death we deserved for our sins. In Adam, we all die a death penalty, we came into Adam's sin and we came into death. Because of Adam's sin, death entered the world, that's why there is even the need for a resurrection, it's because of Adam and his sin. Death entered world through Adam's sin and each of us dies because in him we sin and most of us die because like him we sin. You know, we sin in the same pattern as Adam who received commands from God and didn't do it, disobeyed. And we violate our conscience, and we commit active transgression against God and we sin and we die. The wages of sin is death. We deserve eternal death for our sins, but Christ came to pay the penalty for our sin. He came to pay the death penalty, Christ died for our sins. And he says according to the scriptures. Well, do you, FBC, have any idea of some scriptures that might have taught substitutionary atonement, any Old Testament passages, in particular that might have been very helpful for teaching substitutionary atonement, please say that you know some scriptures that have to do with substitutionary atonement?

If not, let me remind you. Remind You. Isaiah 53:5-6, "He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities, the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him, and by His wounds we are healed. We all like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way, and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity, the sins, the transgressions of us all." That's substitutionary atonement. So, Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures and that he was buried. Now, Paul doesn't say, according to the scriptures, but he could have. We know that Christ's burial in a rich man's tomb was also predicted in Isaiah 53, wasn't it? He was with the rich in his death. He says very plainly, with the rich in His death, and so he was given a grave with a rich man. Now, the mention of the burial here, I think stress is the physical nature of the death and the resurrection, like saying, dead and buried. It's just very physical. His body died, his body was buried, his body was raised up. It's very physical here.

So, the emphasis on the burial is actually pretty important. And frankly, the empty tomb was one of the greatest physical evidences of the resurrection, the bodily resurrection of Jesus from the dead, the empty tomb. It doesn't just go away, the idea of the empty tomb. The fact is that it's... Everyone knows that within a month and a half of Jesus dying, his followers, were in downtown Jerusalem preaching that He had risen from the dead and they had seen it with their own eyes, meaning the tomb was empty. You can't get away from the empty tomb. Now, Jesus' Jewish enemies tried to stop the resurrection by posting a guard, remember that? And the guard was there, but they didn't stop anything, they just became witnesses to the resurrection. You can't stop God from doing what He wants to do. And so they come to there... The Roman soldiers come and they say, what are we gonna do? And we're in trouble, and he said, well, I'll tell you what, we'll pay you money, and you are to say that the disciples came during the night while we were sleeping and they stole the body. And if this report gets to Pilate, the Governor will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble. So they took the money and that was the story that circulated. Makes no sense. So, you were a Roman guard posted somewhere and you fell asleep. Why am I talking to you? You should be dead. [chuckle] That tomb was empty, and it gives clear historical evidence to the resurrection from the dead, and it says, "He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures." The resurrection was intrinsic to the Gospel message that Paul was proclaiming all over the world, and it is what sets Christianity apart from every other religion in the world, the bodily resurrection of Christ from the dead. Now, he was raised from the dead according to the scriptures. Again, you can go to Isaiah 53. It's almost like one-stop shopping for everything Paul's saying here. You can go to a lot of other places, but in Isaiah 53, clearly, the suffering servant died. He died.

It says, they made His grave with the wicked. You don't need a grave unless you're dead. He died, he was deprived from life. But listen to what it says, "He made his grave with the wicked and with rich in his death, yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him, and he's put him to grief, and when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring and prolong his days." So, he's gonna prolong his days after his death, that's called resurrection. The will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. And in Isaiah 53:11, "Out of the anguish of His soul, He shall see and be satisfied." That's resurrection or even better, Psalm 16, which they quoted in the day of Pentecost. David said a thousand years before Christ was born. He said, "You will not abandon me to the grave, nor will you let your Holy One see decay." David wrote that not about himself, because he died and his body did decay, but he wrote it about the Messiah, that He would be buried, but would not decay, He would die, and God would not abandon Him to the grave, but would raise him up.

Now, it says Christ died and was... According to Scripture, He was buried and was raised from the dead on the third day, according to scripture. The third day, we wouldn't have any idea, except that Jesus told us it was similar to Jonah, and it says, "It was the sign of Jonah, for as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a large fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the Earth." And that one Jesus told us. So, by summary, the resurrection of Christ from the dead was according to scripture. This is not some innovation of Paul's. The Scriptures pre-date all of the Greek philosophers whose writings are cited. The Hebrew Scriptures predate Plato and Aristotle and Socrates and all of those philosophers that were mocking the resurrection.

But not only that, the resurrection of Christ was verified by eye witnesses. Look at Verses 5 and following, “and that he appeared to Peter and then to the Twelve, and after that he appeared to more than five hundred people. Five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to the Apostles, and last of all, he appeared to me also as to one abnormally born.”

Well, listen, these eyewitness accounts move this matter beyond any reasonable doubt. The testimony of two or three witnesses is sufficient in the Old Testament to establish any issue, though here we have the clear testimony of over 500 witnesses, 500. Now, he begins with Peter, the chief of the apostles, the apostle to the Jews. Now, I think Paul singles him out because of his role in the church. He was the foremost apostle that Jesus chose, the leader of the Twelve. Now, Paul was considered the least of the apostles, they were criticizing him, attacking him, mocking him, minimizing his ministry, somewhat like he's a minor league apostle, but the major league apostles, those who were in Jerusalem and all that, he said, alright, well, let's start with the major league apostles, and they saw the resurrection. And so, He appeared to Peter and Peter testified to it personally and publicly on the day of Pentecost. It says in Acts 2:32, "God has raised this Jesus to life and we are all witnesses of the fact." And then to the Twelve, he says.

The Twelve were the inner ring of Jesus' select apostles, they were chosen to be witnesses of his life and death, but especially of His resurrection. And I think this ultimately points to the clear proof in the upper room. What would you give to have been there in the upper room? And the doors were locked for fear of the Jews, as John tells us. And suddenly Jesus comes and stands in their midst, and Luke 24 says, "While they were still talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, 'Peace be with you.' And they were startled and frightened thinking they saw a ghost. And he said to them, 'Why are you troubled?' Why do doubts rise up in your minds? Look at my hands and my feet, it is I myself, touch me and see. A ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see I have.' And when He had said this, He showed them His hands and feet, and they still did not believe it because of joy and amazement. He asked them, ‘Do you have anything here to eat?’ And they gave him a piece of boiled fish and he took it and ate it in their presence.” So, He appeared to the Twelve and gave convincing proofs that He had risen from the dead. And then all of these other eyewitnesses as well, verse 6-7, “after that, He appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time. Most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. And then He appeared to James and to all the apostles,” etcetera. This is the only mention in the New Testament of the 500 eyewitnesses, the only one. We don't have it in Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John, we just have it here. But it's pretty amazing when you think about it.

I like to picture the trial, the court trial wherein these 500 witnesses are summoned to give their testimony, how long would you give each one? Let's give them 12 minutes, alright? Just to make the math turn out well. 12 minutes, 500, that works out to 100 hours of eyewitness testimony. That's two weeks at 12 minutes each. And these are different people from different walks of life, testifying that they had seen Jesus risen from the dead. Now, he says some of them have fallen asleep, meaning they died, and by this, he's cutting off the idea that if you die, you're lost forever. Some first century people were teaching that. They were thinking that the return of Christ was imminent, immediate, and if any died they must not have been Christians. He said, no, no, no, some of those eyewitnesses have fallen asleep, but most of them are still alive. And he appeared to James, the brother of Jesus, and then to the other apostles and all of these eyewitnesses.

And then he mentions himself, last of all, and He says, "The resurrection of Christ transformed my life and empowered me to minister for the glory of God." Verse 8, "Last of all, he appeared to me also as to one abnormally born", he puts it. It's a strange phrase, a strange word, Like a miscarriage or premature birth, something like that. Someone born out of sequence, out of the normal sequence of things. Probably picking up, I mean, with this issue of deformity, picking up on the mockery, I think, of His body and His presence. You know, they said of him that, in 2 Corinthians 10, "His letters are weighty and forceful, but in person he is unimpressive and his speaking amounts to nothing."

The word “Paulos” is, I think Latin name, means small, like a dwarf. So, you get the picture of a very unimpressive, twisted, small individual who is almost a little bit repulsive to look at. He says, "Okay, that's me, I was born like a miscarriage, untimely and not in the ordinary way, but I also was an eyewitness of Christ's resurrection. And it was not in the ordinary way, I got a foretaste of the glory that will be when Jesus returns in the clouds and everyone will see Him with their own eyes and all nations will mourn because of Him, but God was gracious to me. And instead of me, mourning, I was saved by that heavenly glory." The account in Acts 9, "As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from Heaven flashed around him, and he fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, 'Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?' 'Who are you, Lord?' Saul asked. 'I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.' 'Now get up and go into the city and you'll be told what you must do.'" Well, that was his salvation, but it was also the beginning of his ministry, it was the beginning of his hard work.

In Verse 9, he says, "I am the least of the apostles, and I don't even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God." He never forgot the wretchedness of his life of rebellion against Christ, never forgot it. How he willingly consented to the death of Stephen and held the garments of those who were murdering him. And how immediately after that, he began to destroy the church. Paul began to destroy the church. Going from house to house, he dragged off, picture that in your mind, men and women, and put them in prison to be executed. He calls himself in 1 Timothy a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man. You know what's interesting, if you look at 1 Corinthians 3:17, it says, "If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him, for God's temple is sacred and you are that temple." So, you just take the word temple out and put the word church in there. Anyone who destroys God's church, God will destroy him. He's jealous and protective over his church. Paul was that person. And instead of being destroyed, he got saved and drawn into a ministry, not of destroying the church, but of building it up, and he never forgot his wretchedness and the grace God showed him on the road to Damascus, it changed him forever and it unleashed him. 

Look at verse 10, "By the grace of God, I am what I am and His grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me." What an incredible statement that is. Couldn't we all say that? "By the grace of God, I am what I am." I think you ought to say it more than you do. I am a Christian. That's what I am, I'm a Christian, above all other things. More than a husband, more than a pastor, more than a father, more than any of my roles, I am a Christian, and by the grace of God, I am that. “By the grace of God, I am what I am.” And then He says, beyond that, His grace to me was not without effect. I worked harder than all of them. This is not an arrogant statement, it's just a true statement, he's not boasting about himself, not at all. 

Now, here we have an amazing and mysterious balance between the sovereign energy of God and the corresponding labor of Christians. The sovereign energy of God and the corresponding labor of Christians. Doesn't he say in 1 John, "We love because He first loved us"? Well, I think this text would say, "Yes, we work, why? Because He first worked in us." By the grace of God, He's working in me powerfully, and that grace is effective. It gives me energy. It gives me drive. He's gonna end up, at the end of this Chapter in Verse 58, by saying, because of the resurrection, we should work hard. Look at verse 58, "Therefore my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain." The grace of God is there like an indescribable irresistible force in the people of God, in the Church of God to accomplish the works of God in this world. So just go to God and say, "God pour out your grace on me and make me, unleash me, make me a hard worker for you, willing to suffer."

Alright, what applications can we take from these 11 verses?

Well, of course, first and foremost, come to Christ. If you're outside, if you're on the outside, if you've been a blasphemer and a sinner, if you have been corrupt and you see not only bodily corruption in yourself as you age and have illnesses and all that, but you see, spiritual corruption, you are a violator of the law of God, flee to Christ. Trust in Christ. This is the gospel, it's plainly proclaimed to you this morning, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures and that he was buried and He was raised on the third day according to scriptures. All you need to do is trust in him and your sins will be forgiven. Now, if you've done that, you did it a week ago, a month ago, a year ago, a decade ago, a half a century ago, it doesn't matter. 

Go back again and again to the Gospel. Drink this gospel. Remind yourself of this gospel. Say to yourself, "This Gospel is more important than anything else I know. It is a first importance in my life. Feed your soul on the Gospel of Christ crucified and resurrected. Remind yourself that your sins have been atoned for by Christ's death, not by your own works, but by faith in Christ. And that he is raised to new life, and so you can live a new life in Christ. Just go over the basic facts of the gospel.

And then thirdly, labor for Christ. Labor, I mean, sustained labor for him. Find your spiritual gift ministry. What is it? What do you do? I don't consider attendance at church a labor for Christ. I think that's where you get fed and encouraged and strengthened, but your labor for Christ is your spiritual gift ministry and your ministry to lost people through evangelism and your ministry of the poor and needy through mercy ministry. What pattern of ministry is there in your life? And are you laboring? Are you working hard at it? I do not assume that every Christian labors at a ministry. And so, labor at whatever ministry was assigned to you, and if you don't know what that is, then ask the elders or ask a spiritual mentor or some friends that can help you identify your spiritual gift ministry and do it. Labor for it. And just know that it's going to be effective. Whatever you do, verse 58, "Whatever you do, your labor in the Lord will never be in vain. Everything you do will be for His glory."

Fourthly, understand God intended for you to have a body and you will have one for all eternity. He didn't make a mistake given you a body, and you're going to spend eternity... If you're a Christian, you're gonna spend eternity in a glorious resurrection body. Now, Andy's gonna have the pleasure of talking about the details of what that body will be like, and I'm actually a little jealous, but I'm looking forward to hearing that sermon, I would love to talk about it. It is a beautiful set of four couplets that we get to talk about. It's just beautiful. You are going to be in a powerful glorified body, not subject to decay for all eternity. Rejoice in that, look forward to that.

So therefore, fifthly, suffer well, suffer well. If you're called on to suffer, and all of us are, suffer like a Christian who's going to be spending eternity in a resurrection body. Don't cling to life in this physical body, don't cling to it. Trust in Him so that God can put your faith on display on a pedestal. Suffer well. And as you go to minister tenderly and gently to others that are suffering, help them to suffer well, don't merely say, "Suffer well.” Don't do that. But with gentleness give them these truths. "Someday we'll be in a resurrection body. How glorious will that be?" Let's live for God. Let's go to verse 58, "And our labor in the Lord is not in vain, our suffering is not in vain." Point them to the cross, and to resurrection.

And finally, if we can, let's be faithful in evangelism this week. Let's find some people to talk about who don't know Christ and who need Him

Close with me in prayer. Lord, we thank you for the time we've had to celebrate today, to sing, to listen to the children singing. We thank you for the joy we see on their faces O Lord. Give us a child-like joy again, almost like we're rediscovering the Gospel for the first time. Help us, O Lord, to be renewed in our faith, help us to be renewed in our joy, that our sins are forgiven and that Christ has risen, and help us, O Lord, to do our pattern of ministry that you've called on us to do. And I pray now for any lost people, outsiders, that they would even now call on the name of the Lord Jesus and find forgiveness of sins, in His name I pray, amen.

Pastor Andy Davis preaches a verse-by-verse expository sermon on Isaiah 55:10-13. The main subject of the sermon is the sufficiency of and joy found in God's word.

Well, before I get going, let me just tell you where we're heading in terms of the preaching ministry of the church. This is my last sermon in Isaiah for a while. I hope if God opens the door, if God makes you willing to return because there's still good things in Isaiah 56 through 66, and God may well lead us back. And I would like that, I would love that, but this is it for Isaiah for now, for the foreseeable future. Next week, we're going to begin a four-week series in 1 Corinthians 15, focused on the resurrection leading right up to Easter of course, and I'll preach two of those four sermons culminating Easter Sunday in a look at 1 Corinthians 15. It's going to be a marvelous time. And then I will be God willing, going to Ephesians and starting in that book. So I'm looking forward very much to that. So that's where we're heading. So again, and not in any way saying there's not more wonderful things in Isaiah, there is, but I'm just eager to get on to some other things as well. So.

Just by way of introduction, this morning, let's just get some context of where we've been in Isaiah, Isaiah 53-55, is just an incredible, beautiful section of Scripture. There's so much in there. And we saw in Isaiah 53, probably the most significant and clearest predictive prophecy of Christ there is in the Old Testament. Very, very powerful and clear and how we saw in Isaiah 53, without a doubt how the Lord through Isaiah, seven centuries before Jesus was born, clearly predicted the substitutionary atonement of Jesus Christ. How he died in our place as a sacrifice for sins and how he by his work on the cross justifies all who believe in him. And that is so plainly seen in Isaiah 53. So plainly seen in words like this, Isaiah 53:5-6, "He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities, the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds, we are healed. We all like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all." This is the Gospel message, this is the center piece of the Gospel. Christ the Son of God died in our place and was buried in a rich man's tomb and was raised to new life and will spend eternity looking on his spiritual descendants and rejoicing in them. Isaiah 53.

And then we saw in Isaiah 54, so beautifully how this Gospel message, this work of the suffering servant, of Christ on the cross, is going to go worldwide it's going to go to the ends of the earth, the Gospel is going to spread out to the ends of the Earth, and as a result, Zion, the city of God, the people of God, the tent of God, so to speak, is going to have to get really, really big. It's going to get really big. And so we saw in Isaiah 54:2-3, God speaking to Zion, "Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent curtains wide, do not hold back, lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes, for you will spread out to the right and to the left and your descendants will dis-possess nations and settle in their desolate cities." Isaiah 54. Missions. It's going to get really, really big. So then in Isaiah 55, we come to this incredible chapter. This is our third week in Isaiah 55. And here we have the invitation of Almighty God to the banquet, the banqueting table of salvation in Christ. So, two weeks ago in verses 1-5 of Isaiah 55, we spoke of this incredible banquet this feast of salvation to which Almighty God is calling us sinners. And we saw the liquids that were served there, water and milk and wine. Water, the symbol of eternal life. How if we don't get it we'll die. And where we're parched and then we drink this water, this living water, which is Christ and we will live forever.

And then milk the picture of spiritual nourishment how we get all the nutrients that we need, at this banqueting table. Everything that we'll need for life and godliness I given us through this banqueting table, through Christ. And then wine in the Bible a symbol of just joyful celebration. The desire we all have to just cut loose and be free in joy. And how through the ministry of the Spirit not getting drunk with wine, which leads to debauchery, but instead, filled with the Spirit, we sing and worship, and rejoice. And that's what God is calling us sinners to do. We are invited to this feast, we who are thirsty. Look at verse 1-3. "Come all you who are thirsty, come to the waters, and you who have no money, come buy and eat. Come buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why spend money on what is not bread and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me and eat what is good and your soul will delight in the richest of fair. Give ear and come to me, hear me that your soul may live."

So God is calling on sinners who have nothing to offer, who have no money with which they can buy anything or who have resources but who are wasting, squandering their resources on what does not satisfy. Who are living for things that do not, that will never satisfy. He calls on sinners to this banqueting table. And last week in verses 6-9, we saw the way by which we respond to this incredible invitation. And how these verses 6-9 call on us to respond with urgency to this invitation, to respond with brokenness and repentance over our sins. Look at verses 6 and 7, "Seek the Lord while he may be found, call on him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the evil man, his thoughts, let him turn to the Lord and he will have mercy on him and to our God for he will abundantly, freely pardon." And so the time is now we saw that last week. Today is the day of salvation. There's a window of opportunity, there's a door opened on the Ark, but it's going to close sometime.

And when God decides it's over, it's over, but today is the day of salvation. And so, we should seek the Lord while he may be found, while there's still an opportunity, there's an urgency to this. And we should forsake our evil ways and our wicked thoughts and we should turn to God in repentance, and brokenness and find salvation in Christ. And if we do this, he will freely, completely, richly pardon us for all our sins. The very King that we have spent years rebelling against, violating his laws, transgressing his commands, this very King is willing to forgive us and to sit at banquet table with us in Christ. And why should we repent, why should we turn away from our wicked ways and our evil thoughts? Because God the King is different from us, he says, "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are my ways your ways declares the Lord. As the heavens are higher than the Earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." So how is he different? Well we saw last week in two ways. First of all, he's just different in holiness. The call has gone to the wicked to turn away from his wicked ways and his evil thoughts. And so he says, "For my ways are not your ways, and my thoughts not your thoughts." So, he's different from us in that we're wicked and evil and he's not.

He's infinitely pure and holy, as the heavens are higher than the earth. So much higher is he than us in holiness and purity. He is perfect light and in him there is no darkness at all. So we should repent because he's so different from us. That's the first logical connection in holiness. But looking a little more deeply, more immediately. If you look at the link between verse 7 and 8, we saw this last time, he says, "Let him turn to the Lord…for he will freely pardon. For my ways are not your ways and my thoughts are not your thoughts…" So the immediate link there is mercy and forgiveness. God is inviting us to come to him in repentance and brokenness over sin, because he forgives in ways we can scarcely imagine. He is just so lavish in his forgiveness. He's so good at it. He's so really, really good at forgiveness, he loves to forgive. A picture of that, as we've said, Luke 15, and Daniel alluded, the father of the prodigal son, what a beautiful, beautiful picture of God that is.

Remember how Jesus said, "But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him. The son said to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.'  But the father said to his servants, 'Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let's have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.' So they began to celebrate." That is just how good God is at forgiveness, how lavishly willing he is to forgive and to have a feast with us when we genuinely repent of our wicked ways. I think these two themes are so vital. We can't choose the one or the other. We should repent because God's perfectly holy and his ways are not our ways. And we should be pure, and we're not, and so we need to repent because God is, God is light, and in him, there's no darkness at all.

I've often said, I think there are two images of God we must keep together all the time in our minds. And the first comes from Hebrews 12. "Our God is a consuming fire." And the second image is the father of the prodigal son running down the driveway and embracing his repentant son with tears. And people tend to emphasize the one or the other. We just can't. You just have to have both up in your mind all the time. God is holy and pure and hates sin. And God is merciful and loving and loves sinners and welcomes them. And you gotta have both. And so that's what I think the link between verse 6 and 7, and then verse 8, and 9 gives us the picture of both and not one or the other.

Now, Isaiah 55, picks right up where we left off, this lofty God who sits enthroned above the circle of the Earth, whose ways are not our ways and whose thoughts are not our thoughts, who yearns to call us in from the cold of sin to a warm, rich, well, lavishly appointed banquet, is sending forth this powerful force to bring about what he wants, which is a full banqueting hall. He wants his tables filled with people. And so he's sending forth a sovereign power to make it happen and that is His Word. His effective sovereign Word, he sends it out into the world to make certain that his eternal banqueting hall is filled with people.

Look at verses 10-13, "As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, so is my Word that goes out from my mouth. It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it." That's what he's saying, he's sending forth His Word. And he has a purpose in all of this, and we're going to look at God's purpose, we're going to look at God's purpose for His Word and how he wants it to be as effective as the rain verses 10 through 11. God's purpose for us is to rescue us and give us joy and peace in Verse 12. God's purpose for creation is triumphant deliverance from the curse, verses 12-13. And God's ultimate purpose for himself is everlasting glory in all of this, verse 13.

So let's begin with God's purpose for his Word. And so, we're looking this morning at God's irresistible force, his words, sent forth from Heaven to compel the elect to come to the feast of salvation in Christ. Verses 10-11, "As the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return to it without watering the earth, making it bud and flourish so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my Word that comes out from my mouth. It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it." So God rolls out the power here. The irresistible force by which this feast is going to be well populated. Now, the attendees to the feast are locked up in Satan's dark dungeon, they're locked up in chains there. Verse 7 makes this plain, "Let the wicked forsake his way and the evil man his thoughts." So Satan holds his prisoners in check, holds them in prisons of wickedness and sin and they need to be rescued, they need to be delivered from the wickedness of their hearts. Colossians 1:13 says, "He has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us over into the kingdom of his beloved son."

Later in that same chapter, Colossians 1 he says, "Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior." Think about those words. Minds. Behavior. So reverse it, behavior, mind. "Let the wicked forsake his way", that's behavior. "And the evil man his thoughts," that's his thinking patterns. It's the same thing in Colossians 1. "You were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds as displayed by your wicked behavior." That's what he's saying. And so, we're locked up, we're in chains, we can't get out, we can't set ourselves free. So how do such people get delivered, how do they get rescued from their own wicked ways, and their evil thoughts? Only by God's sovereign Word, it's the only thing that will do it. Verse 11. "So is my Word that goes out from my mouth." So God focuses on his Word. The same power by which He created the physical universe.

It says in Psalm 33:6, "By the Word of the Lord were the heavens made. Their starry host by the breath of his mouth." So that's how God made the universe, you know in Genesis 1:3. "God said, Let there be light and there was light." And throughout Genesis 1, God said let this happen, and it happened, let that happen. By the Word of God, we have creation.

God Likens His Word to Rain and Snow

So God then likens his Word to rain and snow. Verse 10, "As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, so is my Word that goes forth from my mouth." So he's trying to help us to understand how his Word acts in the world. The heavenly origin, it starts from God, it starts in his mind and it goes forth from his mouth. So you got this movement from heaven down to earth, that's the movement here. So God's Word starts in his mind goes out of his mouth and comes down heaven to earth like the rain. So if God doesn't initiate salvation, not one of us will ever be saved, it all starts with God. All life depends on rain for its continued existence. God gives the rain that sustains both plant and animal life. Rain is an amazing gift from God. It really is.

Job 5:8-10, Job said this. "As for me I would seek God, and I would place my because before God who does great and unsearchable things. Wonders without number. He gives rain on the Earth and sends water on the fields." Well, think about that. Job 5 calls rain a great and unsearchable thing that God does. Some time ago I read a meditation on this by John Piper which I thought was amazing, helpful. He said this.

Is rain a great and unsearchable wonder wrought by God? Picture yourself as a farmer in the Near East, far from any lake or stream. A few wells keep the family and animals supplied with water. But if the crops are to grow and the family is to be fed from month to month, water has to come on the fields from another source. From where?

Well, the sky. The sky? Water will come out of the clear blue sky? Well, not exactly. Water will have to be carried in the sky from the Mediterranean Sea, over several hundred miles and then be poured out from the sky onto the fields. Carried? How much does it weigh? Well, if one inch of rain falls on one square mile of farmland during the night, that would be 27,878,400 cubic feet of water, which is 206,300,160 gallons, which is 1,650,501,280 pounds of water.

That's heavy. So how does it get up in the sky and stay up there if it's so heavy? Well, it gets up there by evaporation. Really? That's a nice word. What's it mean? It means that the water sort of stops being water for a while so it can go up and not down. I see. Then how does it get down? Well, condensation happens. What's that? The water starts becoming water again by gathering around little dust particles between .00001 and .0001 centimeters wide. That's small.

What about the salt? Salt? Yes, the Mediterranean Sea is salt water. That would kill the crops. What about the salt? Well, the salt has to be taken out. Oh. So the sky picks up a billion pounds of water from the sea and takes out the salt and then carries it for three hundred miles and then dumps it on the farm?

Well it doesn't dump it. If it dumped a billion pounds of water on the farm, the wheat would be crushed. So the sky dribbles the billion pounds water down in little drops. And they have to be big enough to fall for one mile or so without evaporating, and small enough to keep from crushing the wheat stalks.

How do all these microscopic specks of water that weigh a billion pounds get heavy enough to fall (if that's the way to ask the question)? Well, it's called coalescence. What's that? It means the specks of water start bumping into each other and join up and get bigger. And when they are big enough, they fall. Just like that? Well, not exactly, because they would just bounce off each other instead of joining up, if there were no electric field present. What? Never mind. Take my word for it.

I think, instead, I will just take Job's word for it. I still don't see why drops ever get to the ground, because if they start falling as soon as they are heavier than air, they would be too small not to evaporate on the way down, but if they wait to come down, what holds them up till they are big enough not to evaporate? Yes, I am sure there is a name for that too. But I am satisfied now that, by any name, this is a great and unsearchable thing that God has done.  – John Piper

God's gift of rain is a gift of life. It's a clear display of his power and his goodness. Job 36:27 and following says, "He draws up the drops of water which distill as rain down to the streams. The clouds pour down their moisture and abundant showers fall on mankind. Who can understand how he spreads out the clouds, how he thunders from his pavilion. See how he scatters his lightning about him bathing the depths of the sea. This is the way he governs the nations and provides food in abundance." Matthew 5:45, Jesus said, "He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous." I just would submit to you as a Christian whenever it precipitates, you should set aside time and thank God for it. Thank God for it.

Non-Christians aren't going to do it. "Although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him." It's your job when it rains to thank him for it, because he is sustaining your life. But rain makes a round trip doesn't it? As we've seen, a round trip. The verse highlights the circularity, a round-trip of rain, it comes down in showers, goes back up in evaporation, it's a big circle. But before it goes back up, he says it accomplishes the reason why God sent it.

God’s Word Accomplishes His Purposes

So is God's Word coming from his mouth. It goes out and then comes back having achieved the purpose. So God's purpose in rain and snow, he says, "As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth making it bud, and flourish, so, it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater." So God sends rain for a good purpose, it enriches the Earth, it waters the Earth, it makes it, it says bud and flourish. So, the plants soak in this rainwater and they produce buds.

And if you thought the whole rain thing was complicated, how the water produces buds in plants is vastly more complicated, but God does this. Now, the buds eventually become beautiful fragrant flowers or succulent fruit or growing vegetation and within the fruit, then you have seed for the sower, it says, so that the whole thing can continue going on. This is a whole system of agriculture that God has figured out to keep us alive. Everything's ready, the genetic code of the flowers and the fruits and the grains are ready, the root systems in place, all that's needed is rain. Rain. And God sends it. So life, the rest of life, animal life, depends on the plants staying alive and the plants depend on rain and the rain comes when God sends it. That's what this text is saying. Well, now, let's look at the analogy with the Word. "So is my Word that goes out from my mouth, it will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it." So the Word has a round trip too. It goes out from his mouth, through the ministry of the Holy Spirit to the apostles and prophets who wrote it down. Long time ago.

And then by the Spirit, he moves evangelists and missionaries, and pastors, and teachers, to deliver the Word to His people, so that they hear it. He's sending out his Word in this way. And then it goes back to God in praise and honor and glory where he gets credit for what he's done and worshiped, ultimately worshiped, that's the harvest. And so Romans 1:36, has this whole thing summarized. "For from him and through him", and I like to say back to him, "are all things." You see the circularity of it. From him, through him, they're sustained and then back to him they go, are all things. To him be the glory forever. And he says, 100% of the time, the Word achieves the reason, the purpose for which he sent it. Now, here's where it gets pretty troublesome. Here's where it gets difficult. He says it doesn't return to God empty, it doesn't return, some translations say void, a failure. You can't imagine the Word of God personified coming back and saying to the Father, "I'm sorry I couldn't do what you sent me to do, I tried, but it just didn't work."

You know who the Word of God personified is, don't you, it's Jesus. Can you imagine Jesus, the Word, coming back to heaven saying, I couldn't do what you sent me to do. I can't imagine that. So God's sovereign Word trumps every card in the human deck, it trumps all of man's will and man's power and man's purpose and man's plans. As Isaiah 14:26-27 said, "This is the plan determined for the whole world, this is the hand stretched out over all nations. For the Lord Almighty has purposed and who can thwart him. His hand is stretched out and who can turn it back." Same is true of the Word, God's Word wins, every time it wins. Always. Well, in order to make sense of this as we see actually what happens when the Word is preached, when the Gospel is preached, when sermons are preached, when we see actually what happens, we might be troubled by the statement of 100% achievement. So we have to look a little deeper to see what God's purposes might be.

And I think God has both a purpose for the elect, and a purpose for the non-elect. And this is meat and not everyone has teeth to chew it, but it's just how the Bible reveals it. We have to understand. God's purpose for the elect is salvation, eternal salvation, and his Word always achieves it, it never fails to bring in one of those that God chose from before the foundation of the world. They 100% get saved and no one gets lost. And so when God sends forth the Gospel in his good time, in his purpose, in his ways at the right time, in the fullness of time, for that individual, they repent and believe. And he doesn't lose any of them. But he also has a purpose for the non-elect, what the Scripture calls a reprobate. And his purpose for them is to harden them. And so the Word goes out, and actually has a hardening effect on some people. They hear the Gospel and their hearts are harder toward God and they're more angry at God and more hostile toward God and they've been hardened by it.

This is the absolute sovereignty of God. It's central. Without it we'll not make sense of this 100% success rate for the Word. Hundred percent of the elect will repent and come to Christ. John 6:37, "All that the Father gives me will come to me." And 100% of the non-elect will be hardened into judgment. As it says in Romans 9:18, "Therefore God has mercy on whom he wills to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wills to harden." This happens every time the Gospel of Jesus Christ is preached. Some hear and repent and come to salvation through faith in Christ. Others hear the exact same message, and their hearts are hardened and they're more hostile and they refuse to come. The Apostle Paul talked about this in 2 Corinthians 2:15-16, he's talking about his ministry in evangelism and missions. He says, "We", we the evangelists, we the missionaries, "We are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. To the one we are the smell of death and to the other we are the fragrance of life." Exact same message, sometimes the fragrance of life and sometimes the stench of death. So God's Word accomplishes everything he sends it to do. It will not return to him empty.

So, sometime you may go out as an evangelist and share faithfully the Gospel and use good illustrations and answer whatever questions come up and the person refuses to believe. And if in the end you find out... Now we don't know, they might be elect and coming to faith in Christ a year from now, two years from now. We're always full of good hope, always. But if in the end, it turns out they were goats, they were weeds and not wheat etcetera, you didn't waste your time there, you were sent by God to go share a message that had a hardening effect and that was what God intended.

Now we are always yearning, aren't we, always and should be yearning for salvation. We go out with joy, and led forth with peace to see people saved and that's what we yearn for. So we see in verse 12, God's purpose for us, the elect, his children, and that is rescue, joy and peace. "You'll go out in joy and be led forth in peace, the mountains and the hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands. And instead of the thorn bush will grow the pine tree, and instead of briers, the myrtle will grow."

So for the believers, God's purpose is astonishingly sweet. First, he speaks of rescue. You will go out, he says. You'll be led forth. This is Exodus language, do you hear it? They're going out from their slavery. We could see it in terms of the post-exile, go out from bondage and Babylon. You're going to go out from slavery. You're going to go out from sin, you're going to be led forth. You're going to go out from Babylon, and go back to the Promised Land. You're going to go out, earlier, go out from slavery in Egypt, you're going to go live in a beautiful land flowing with milk and honey. You're going to go out from sin from Satan's kingdom. I'm going to break the chains of wickedness and sin and death. I'm going to set you free. I'm going to set you free from death. I'm going to speak your name when you're in the grave and you're going to come out with joy into resurrection. You're going to go out of the grave into a resurrection body and into a resurrected world and you're going to see the beauty and rejoice. You're going to go out with joy and be led forth in peace. And we see the joy, the Gospel comes, you're going to go out with joy, you're going to be filled with elation through the Holy Spirit, your hearts are going to be filled with joy. Foretaste now through the ministry of the Word through the Holy Spirit we get a down payment of joy, the fruit of the Spirit is joy.

But then on that resurrection day, what kind of joy will you have when you're free from death, mourning, crying, and pain, for ever. And you're going to be led forth with peace. Peace is a right relationship with God. Having been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. And a feeling, a sense of peacefulness in the hear. Again, the gift of the fruit of the Holy Spirit. The peace of God, which transcends all understanding, guarding your heart and your mind in Christ Jesus. Yes, but how great will be your peace in Heaven? Can we even imagine what that peacefulness will feel like in heaven, when there are no more enemies, when all of it is done and we are free forever. No more enemies to torment us and to torture us. Sin and Satan, the world and the flesh, the devil, done. And then death, it says in 1 Corinthians 15, the final enemy, we'll talk about that in due time, in the next few weeks. 1 Corinthians 15, death has been destroyed, death has died and we're free from it, and great will be our joy and our peace and we'll celebrate.

We see in verse 12 and 13 also, God's purpose for creation. And this is triumphant deliverance from the curse. Look what it says, "You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands. Instead of the thornbush will grow the pine tree, and instead of briers the myrtle will grow." Friend, salvation is primarily in the Bible focused on what it does for human beings. It's the center piece of his saving work, but it's not all that he's doing, it's not all the saving work of God. What do I mean by that? Well, you know that in Adam, when Adam sinned, as a result of Adam's sin, God cursed the earth. There's a link between Adam and the ground from which he was taken. So God cursed the earth, because of Adam's sin. Remember in Genesis 3:17-19 to Adam he said, "Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, 'you must not eat of it', cursed is the ground because of you. Do you hear those words? "Cursed is the ground because of you, through painful toil you'll eat of it all the days of your life." Listen, "it will produce thorns and thistles for you."

Now, the thorns and thistles represent God's curse on the Earth. It represents crop failure, you see that? I mean you didn't intend thorns and thistles and that's what you got. All your labor produced vanity and emptiness, you didn't get what you thought you would get. It's disappointment, crop failure. So whatever reason, locusts, an early frost, and hail storms, and drought and blights and mildew and all of that. Hurricanes destroys the crops. But the agony goes beyond just thorns and thistles. That's just a symbol of all the convulsions of the earth that have been going on since Adam's sin. I'm talking about earthquakes and tsunamis and hurricanes and mud slides and tornadoes and all of those natural disasters that just take tens of thousands of human lives. Therefore, in Christ, the curse is removed, and that's symbolized by the fact that when Jesus died, he had a crown of thorns woven together by the Roman soldiers in mockery. But I think in direct symbolic fulfillment of how in Christ, or literally through the blood of Christ, the curse is removed. So here, these thorns are put on his scalp, and then they took a rod and smashed it into his head into his scalp, and they just cut in and just blood starts streaming down his face and that blood removes the curse, it removes the thorns and thistles from the earth.

And so we have very plainly said for us in Romans 8, the extent of this saving work on ecology, on nature, on the Earth. It says in Romans 8:19-23, "The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God be revealed. For the creation was subjected to futility. Not by its own choice, but by the will of him who subjected it in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. Now, we know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time, Not only so, but we ourselves who have the first fruits of the Spirit, we groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies." Do you hear that? The physical earth, the creation, is waiting for us to get our resurrection bodies. It's waiting for us to receive our full adoption as sons, in the language of Romans 8. It's waiting for our resurrection. And with that, a new Earth is going to come and it's going to be lavishly beautiful.

And in that new world, we're going to go out... I imagine at that point, going out means going out of the New Jerusalem into the New Heaven and the New Earth, and just exploring it and we're going to go out in that new world with joy, and be led forth in peace. And the mountains and the hills are going to burst into song before us. I don't know if they're literally going to sing. That'd be kind of cool. Kind of like mall music or something. I don't know whether it's just worship songs." Where's that coming from?" "I think it's the hills." "The hills are alive", that's terrible, that's really bad. But that just the singing that comes, that's not my gift. We'll let Daniel close us in song in a minute or two. But it's just going to be a happy, rich, full world free from decay and bondage. There's some things I will be glad to never see again. But there's some other things that I would love to see perfected. You know what I'm talking about? You go to some of these national parks, Acadia, the Grand Canyon, the Rocky Mountains, just the colors, the sounds. The rolling grassy hills of South Dakota, seen similar in Western China. The spectacular Alps mountains. The beauty of it. Just picture in your mind the most beautiful scenes of nature you've ever seen, and we're not going to kiss it goodbye, we're going to get to live in it, only perfected, better. Not radically different, like some weird sci-fi kind of world, but the world we know, but just free from bondage to decay.

And the world, the physical creation is waiting for us to finish getting saved. Us being the elect, waiting for the elect to come to faith in Christ and come into our resurrection body, so it can be liberated from bondage to decay. And it's going to happen. That's God's purpose.

And God's purpose for himself in all of this is everlasting glory. Look at verse 13. This is... By the way, people question, "Are we talking about the millennium, here?" Like Isaiah 11, the wolf will lie down with the lamb, and the calf and the lion, the yearling together and all that, and they say this is the millennium. Look, can I just tell you simply, I don't know about the millennium, but 1000 years is not long enough. It's not long enough.

Look at verse 13, "This will be for the Lord's renown…" For what? "An everlasting sign which will not be destroyed." That sounds like eternity to me. An eternally blessed world, not a millennium, a thousand years, but eternally blessed. Now the millennium may be well a robust foretaste of it. And I think that's what it is. But God's purpose for himself is to give himself glory. "This will be for the Lord's renown, for his fame. Kings conquering kings build monuments to themselves. Arrogant people build monuments to themselves. Think about the citizens of Babel who said, "Come, let's build a tower that will reach up to the heavens so we can make a name for ourselves." Or I think Saul did that too, remember in 1 Samuel 15. "Saul has gone to Carmel, there he set up a monument in his own honor." Oh boy, that's bad. Absalom did it too. Absalom went and set up in the King's Valley a monument to himself. Alexander The Great is probably the worst of this. Alexander the Great founded city after city, after he conquered the ancient Near East, as many as 70 cities, but at least 20 he named after himself, such as Alexandria. One after the next, the most famous is in Egypt, but there are lots of them at least 20 Alexandrias. That's sick.

But God, it's not, it's completely right for God to do this to make a name for himself, an everlasting renown monument that will never be cut off. What is it, though? What will be for the Lord's renown? Salvation. His children coming into their resurrection bodies, the world coming into its full glory. This, all of this will be for the Lord's renown, for an everlasting memorial that will never be cut off. So everywhere we look, in the New Heaven and the New Earth, and the New Jerusalem, we'll see the glory of God radiating and we'll say "To God be the glory for this salvation."

So application as well. This is the final sermon in Isaiah for a while and the sweet invitation in this chapter, we should hear one more time. Come all you who are thirsty, come to the waters. And you who have no money, come buy and eat without money, without price, come buy Salvation. Price has been paid already. Look to Christ crucified and resurrected. Trust in Him for the forgiveness of your sins. Don't miss this banquet. And you believers who should be embracing, robustly embracing evangelism, start here. I want you, the lost person, I want you to be at the banquet table with me, I want to tell you how you can get there. There's a yearning that we have for lost people to be saved. A yearning we have that they would come into the joy that we've found in Christ, forgiveness of sins. So, let's flee to Christ now while there's still time. And let's see there's an urgency in all of this to believe. This is the day of salvation, this is the time we have. We don't know how much longer we'll be alive, we don't know when the door of our lives will shut and we don't know when the door of all human history will end, when it's going to close. So we have to seek the Lord while He may be found and call on him. While he is near.

And we Christians, we need to live an ongoing life of repentance and faith. We need to see where our ways are wicked and our thoughts are evil. And we can't imagine saying, We have no wicked ways and no evil thoughts, it's just not true. We sin every day. Every day. There's not a single day that goes by that I don't violate in some way, a law of God. I don't love him with all my heart or love my neighbor as myself. And just... The Christian life is one of continual repentance and going to God, whose ways are not our ways, and thoughts are not our thoughts.

Fourthly, let's understand the sovereign power of God's Word. Let's have full confidence that this Word is enough to build a healthy church. This Word is enough. We don't need techniques, gizmos, we don't need anything else, we need this Word. This is the center-piece of what the elders want to do to build a healthy church in this community, it's the center-piece. Everything we do, all of the songs that we sing, the counseling we do, the strategies we have for reaching, all of it is based on our confidence that the Word will not return empty. This is what we trust in, we put all of our eggs in this one basket. We're confident that the Word will have its purpose and so therefore, we trust it and we tremble before it. We say, "God work in us and in this community."

Fifth, I want you to let the hope of this chapter, fill you with present joy. Just read these things and be happy now. Be filled with joy and peace now. The Holy Spirit is the foretaste, the down payment, let's go and get a stipend check from our incredible inheritance and let's feed on it now and be happy now, and joyful, now. Let's be so imbued with hope that non-Christians want to know, "What is it you have that I don't have?" And let's minister that hope to each other. So many in our church are suffering the curse of disease and pain and death and that's a hard race to run friends, that's a hard race to run. You may have forgotten about so and so who was diagnosed with cancer, like 18 months ago or six months ago, whatever. They haven't forgotten. They fight it every single day, and sometimes their knees get weak and their arms get weak and they need brothers and sisters to stand alongside them and strengthen them.

Take these ideas and feed them to our brothers and sisters. And one final thing, evangelism and missions. Look again at verse 11 and 12. "So is my Word that goes out from my mouth, it will not return to me empty, but will achieve what I desire, accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it. You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace." I really believe the home base of this is our deliverance from sin. But isn't it okay to think of this in terms of evangelism and missions? We'll go out into the lost world as evangelists with joy. And we're going to be led forth by the Holy Spirit with peace. And creation is going to be really excited about our mission. And just... We can almost hear as a foretaste the mountains and the hills clapping and rejoicing as we go out to share the Gospel. Because this is the very thing that's going to liberate them from the bondage to decay. And so let's be bold in evangelism. We've got four weeks till Easter, and then as many weeks as God wants to give us after. Evangelism works both sides of Easter. Just so you know. I know you know that. Anyway, let's just go out with joy and be led forth with peace and find lost people who need this kind of joy and forgiveness. Close with me in prayer.

Pastor Andy Davis preaches a verse-by-verse expository sermon on Isaiah 55:6-9. The main subject of the sermon is seeking the Lord while He may be found.

Amen. So, we're right in the middle of Isaiah 55. And so, last week, we had proclaim for us the greatest invitation in history. We are urged every one of us, to come. In Isaiah 55:1-3, "Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters. And you who have no money, come, buy and eat, come buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why spend your money on what is not bread and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me and eat what is good and your soul will delight in the richest of fare. Give ear and come to me; hear me, that your soul may live." This incredible invitation from Almighty God, an invitation to sit with him at an eternal, a spiritual banqueting table. And to drink water that our souls may live and to drink milk that our souls may be nourished thereby. And to drink spiritual wine that we may be filled with joy, the elation, the fullness of life. And God reasons with us from this text, pleading with us to accept his invitation. Calls to poor people who have no money and to rich people who are wasting their effort and their money on things that don't satisfy. And he pleads with us to listen to him and eat and to drink what is good and be delighted in fatness and richness of fare. The best of all there is in the universe.

He pleads with us to listen that our souls may live. This eternal banquet is Christ. We're invited in under a covenant that God has made with Christ, the son of David. Verse three and four in that text, it says, "I will make an everlasting covenant with you, my faithful love promised to David. Behold I have made him a witness to the peoples, a leader and commander of the peoples." This is the new covenant in the blood of Jesus, the Savior of the world. And he will spread a banqueting table in heaven, and he is inviting people now, from every nation on earth to come and sit with him at that banqueting table. Now, the question that comes up in our minds as we listen to this invitation is, how do we RSVP? What do we do to say yes? How do we tell the Lord of the banquet that we're in, we want to come?

And that's what this text that we're looking at this morning, this portion of Isaiah 55, answers for us. How do we answer this summons from the King? In verse six, we're told, "Seek the Lord while he may be found and call on him while he is near."

The Universal Call to Sinners: Seek the Lord

This is a universal call to sinners to seek the Lord. But what does it mean to seek the Lord?  Well, seeking has to do with yearning, with desire, with something that you don't have, but you want. It's a focus, a focus of your life. Seeking him, wanting him, yearning for the Lord. You may be lost, you may be on the outside of Christ and you know it. You know that you're not a Christian, you know that you've never given your life to Christ, you're on the outside looking in, but you sense that there's something wonderful. Spiritually, perhaps you can smell the fragrant aroma coming from this banqueting table. And you know that people are already partaking and they're already enjoying themselves, and you're on the outside looking in, you're not included yet. And you want it but you don't know how, you don't know the Lord and you realize you want to come in. And this call is to you to seek the Lord while he may be found. Saved people, been Christians for years maybe, or weeks, months, doesn't matter, you know that you're saved, you know you're a Christian, your sins are forgiven through faith in Christ. But the Lord is calling you upward. He's calling you higher, to a closer relationship with him. You know that you're not done seeking the Lord, you still need to seek him. In Matthew, chapter six, the Lord reasons with us, as we are anxious people seeking earthly things and living for them.

He says, "So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well." All of us are susceptible to this, to seek earthly things and live for them. So, the way a hungry person seeks food, the way a man dying of thirst seeks water, the way a cold, shivering, person seeks a warm coat, so we are to seek Christ, so we are to seek God, so we are to seek first his kingdom and his righteousness. And seeking starts in the heart. Now, Hebrew poetry is set apart in its structure. We do rhyme, generally, rhythm and rhyme, in English poetry, but in Hebrew, it's frequently ideas that are lined up parallel, like parallel tracks. It's the same thing, slightly differently, but similarly. And you get that in verse 6, "Seek the Lord while he may be found. Call on him while he is near." Do you see the rhythm, the parallelism there between the two? And it helps us as you look at the second track, to understand what the first is. "Seek the Lord" is equal to call on him. It's not exactly the same, but there's a yearning in the heart for the Lord and it results in crying out to the Lord, calling on him.

And then, "while he may be found" equals while he is near. They're very similar, if not identical. So then, to seek the Lord means to call on him. Simply put, we're talking about prayer here, crying out to God in your distress. Like a drowning person calls for help from a lifeguard, you call out, you know that you're drowning. And if Jesus doesn't reach out and save you, you'll be lost in that forever. And so, you call out. Or like a desperate mother whose child has taken a serious injury and is bleeding, calling 911. "I've got to have immediate medical attention for my child." Calling out for help. Now, people struggle with prayer. You may feel that you need more theological training to pray better, you need to be theologically insightful, especially trained, you maybe need to go to seminary to pray. Some of you may feel that you need special words or polished prayer. You need to pray just precisely so, just the right words. And if you can't do that, then you can't pray. But in reality, all God wants us to do is to cry out to him in whatever is captivating our heart, just speak our heart's desire to him and tell him what's in our heart. When I'm evangelizing somebody and they have come to the point where they say, "I'm in, I want this, what do I do?"

I don't generally feed them what's known as the sinner's prayer at that moment. I'm basically testing how well I've done in evangelism at that point, how well have I explained these matters. So, I don't feed them a prayer, I say, "What do you want?" "What do you mean what I want? We've been talking about all of these things, God's law, heaven and hell, and all this, I'm a sinner." "Okay, good, you got it. What do you want?" "Well, I don't want to go to hell." "Is that all?" "Well, I'd like to go to heaven." "Is that all?" "No, more." "Alright, well, don't tell me. I'm just the messenger, I'm the evangelist. Tell God, he can give you everything." "So I do it right now?" "Mm-hmm, right now." And then, in halting words, in whatever words are in their heart, they say, "God I want your forgiveness. I want to go to heaven, I don't want to go to hell." And they just speak whatever is in their heart. They're seeking the Lord while he may be found, calling on him while he is near. That's what's going on there. Like in Psalm 50, verse 15. It says, "Call on me in the day of trouble. I will rescue you and you will honor me."

It's a really beautiful rhythm there. "You're in trouble. Alright, call on me, I can do something about it. I can save you. You call on me in the day of trouble and I'll rescue you. And then, you can spend eternity glorifying me for doing it." Psalm 50, verse 15. It's clearly stated in the Book of Romans, what to do. Romans 10:13, "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." The word "Lord" there means Jesus. Calling on Jesus, incarnate to the Virgin Mary, lived a sinless life, did amazing miracles, walked on water, fed the 5,000, healed the man that was born blind, raised Lazarus from the dead on the fourth day. This Jesus, this amazing person who died on the cross in our place, our substitute, died under the wrath of God. And God raised him up on the third day. This Jesus, call on him. Call on the name of the Lord and you will be saved. It's that simple. As it said earlier, in Romans 10, "If you confess with your mouth, Jesus is Lord, believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with the heart that you confess, or the mouth that you confess, and are saved with the heart that you believe and are justified." So, it's a combination between the heart and the mouth.

The Urgency of This Command

Now, note the urgency of this command. There's an urgency here. Do you see it? "Seek the Lord while he may be found. Call on him while he is near." What do these words mean? It means there's an implied threat here. He's not always going to be found like this. He's not always going to be near like he is right now. And you're saying, "Well wait a minute now, God's timeless, right? Isn't he eternal? He never changes. Isn't he going to be around tomorrow? Maybe he's going to be around in a year. The Bible says he's eternal. Maybe he'll be around in 10 million years." Yes, but you won't.  And there's an implied window of opportunity here for us. And yes, God is timeless and eternal, but he sets apart certain times in which he will act in a special way. I think it's very similar to the holy ground of Moses and the burning bush. You remember that? God's omnipresent, right? He's everywhere. I've said this before. Omnipresent, he's not like an AM radio station in which it's stronger here and weaker there, weak under bridges, weaker between mountains, but better in other places. Some of you know what AM radio is, alright? Others don't. But there used to be this radio, and that's all there was and all that, and that's how it was. And it was stronger or weaker signals.

No, God isn't like that. God is equally everywhere all the time. Yes, but still he said to Moses, when Moses saw this burning bush, remember? And he drew aside to look and it was amazing and it was this... The bush was burning but wasn't burned up, it wasn't being consumed, and he was attracted. And as he comes over, he hears this voice, "Moses, Moses," calling from the bush. "Here I am," Moses said. And then, the angel of the Lord spoke out of the bush saying, "Do not come any closer." And then he said, "Take off your sandals, for the place where you're standing is holy ground." Holy ground. I would contend it probably wasn't holy ground the next day. I would say it's certainly not holy ground now. You could probably have the GPS longitude and latitude, triangulate and stand there, but it's not holy ground anymore. But it was Holy ground that day. It was an opportunity to encounter the living God. And so it is here. God is opening for us in the middle of our lives, in space and time, an opportunity to encounter him, to have an encounter with him. But he's not promising it will be there forever. Actually, he's implying it won't. There'll come a time when God will not be found. There'll come a time when he is not near. The ultimate end of that is hell. For those that are suffering in hell, God will not be found by them.

God's not near to them, not relationally. There's no rescue, there's no deliverance. The opportunity for them has passed. It was a narrow window, and they didn't take advantage of it. And God isn't found by the damned in hell, he's not near to them. The time has passed for that. But we are still alive, we're still here, and you're here today. God brought you through the elements, through the storm and the wind and the rain and the freezing and all that, and brought you here today. And you are here to have an encounter with the living God.

How Does God Draw Near?

How does God draw near? How is he near? How is he found by us here? Well, he draws near in his Word, by means of the Word. Later next week, God willing, Isaiah 55, 10 and 11, go ahead and look at these verses. "As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth, making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth. It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it."

So, when God sends forth his Word, he is near there. That's how God is near, and that's how he is found, by means of his Word. Again, Deuteronomy 30, God says this to Israel... "Now, what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach. It's not up in the heavens so that you have to ask, 'Who will ascend into heaven to get it and proclaim it, so that we may obey it?' Nor is it beyond the sea so that you have to ask, 'Who will cross the sea to get it and proclaim it to us, so we may obey it?' No, the Word is very near you. It is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you may obey it." God draws near to us by his Word, it's very near to us. Paul quotes this is Romans 10. He says, "The word is near you; it's in your and in your heart. That is the word of faith, [the Gospel] we are proclaiming: that if you confess with your mouth, 'Jesus is Lord,' and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." So, God draws near to us by the proclamation of his Word. As we hear what he says through the Bible, we understand that he's near, close, he's speaking directly to our hearts.

But even more so, as the Word testifies to his Son, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. God draws near to us by means of Jesus, by means of Jesus, in the incarnation. We're told the Word became flesh and tabernacle to dwell with us. He lived with us, and we saw his glory. When Jesus was born, in Matthew chapter one, that Isaiah prophecy, "The virgin will be with child," was fulfilled. "The virgin will be with child, will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel," which means "God with us, God near to us." God has drawn near in Jesus. And by his Spirit, also, God draws near by his Spirit. The Holy Spirit's work in this world is to take the message of Jesus in the Word of God and press it home to the hearts of lost people, and to also save people. He ministers Christ to people. Now, he delivers Jesus right to us. The Holy Spirit does that.

Today is the Day of Salvation

And so, while the Gospel is being clearly proclaimed and Christ is proclaimed as Savior for sinners, the Holy Spirit is moving. That's the time to respond. That's when God is near. That's when he may be found by us. And so, we are told in Scripture, today is the day of salvation. This is what we have. Today, you have today, right now. It's what you have. It says in Isaiah 49, also 2 Corinthians 6, this is what the Lord says, "In the time of my favor, I will answer you, and in the day of salvation, I will help you."

Paul says, "I tell you now is the time of God's favor, now is the day of salvation." Now, today. Now, we don't know that all of these elements will be in place tomorrow, we don't, we don't know that. We can't assume that we'll be even alive tomorrow. Do you know for certain that you're even going to be alive tomorrow? Do you know that? Says in James, "We ought to say if the Lord wills, we will live." I don't know if the Lord wills that I'll be alive tomorrow. I don't know. I'm not being dramatic, I've learned the way of the world and people can die suddenly. Could be me. So, furthermore, even if you are alive tomorrow, if you hear the Gospel preach plainly and clearly today and you reject it, do you know that you'll be different tomorrow because of it, as a result? Yeah, your heart will be a little harder now. You'll be in a different place because you heard plainly and rejected the Gospel. So, we have in Hebrews 3 this warning, really. Hebrews 3:7-8. "So, as the Holy Spirit says: Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts." That's for everybody. For me, for everybody. If you hear him speaking, by the Word, he's speaking, the Holy Spirit is speaking Christ to you, by the Word, do not harden your heart.

And the first word there in that quote, Psalm 95, is "Today." So, the author to Hebrews picks up on that in the next chapter, in Hebrews 4:7, he says, "God again set a certain day," he set it, "calling it today." So, that's what you have. You have today. Not tomorrow, you'll never get there. You'll never get... It's never tomorrow, have you noticed that? Tomorrow is always tomorrow. What you have always in your life is today. So, today, if you hear his voice, don't harden your hearts. Day after day, or we could say today after today after today after today, God is at work in the world. He is drawing near to sinners by the Word, he's drawing near by his Son, by the Spirit. There will come a time when this day of amnesty, this day of God's favor, this day of salvation will end. It will come to an end. For you individually, it will come to an end when you die. For the world, it will come to an end when Christ returns. It's very much like the flood. Jesus likened it to the flood. "As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man."

It was in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage right up to the day that Noah entered the Ark, and they had no idea what was coming until the flood came, and swept them all away. That's how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. Well, you know what happened in Genesis 7, when Noah and his sons and their wives, and Noah's wife got on the ark and they were all there, everything on board all of the food and provision the animals, everything ready, everything done, God shut the door, shut the door. If you're in, you're in, if you're out, you're out. And if you're out, you die.

And so we have an open door now, we have an opportunity, we have a day of salvation we have a Word of amnesty from the king it's made available to us now and we are told to seek the Lord while he may be found, and call on him while he is near and then it says in verse 7, "Let the wicked forsake his way and the evil man his thoughts let him turn to the Lord and he will have mercy on him and to our God for he will freely pardon." So how do we RSVP, we call on the name of the Lord and we repent, repent of our wickedness and our sins that's what we do? We cannot enjoy the feast of fellowship with God unless we're willing to forsake the sins that have separated us from God, John Piper gives this illustration, he said this:

"If you call out to God, "O God, I need you, help me!" one of the very first things that will happen in answer to that prayer is that God will awaken your conscience to something in your life that needs to be forsaken. If God answers your call in that way and you refuse to forsake what your conscience condemns, then you cease to seek God, and your words become empty. You can't seek God where he is not found, in sin.

It would be like a man who leaves his wife, moves into his own apartment, has a regular sexual affair alongside his marriage, and then gets on the phone and "calls" his wife and "seeks" his wife. And she says, "Have you forsaken this woman?" And he says, "No, I can't." Then she will rightly say, "Then you are not seeking me. Your call is empty. You will seek me and find me as your wife when you forsake her and all others for me alone, just like you vowed!"

Seeking the Lord means forsaking the ways and the thoughts that are displeasing and dishonoring to him. You can't seek him where his is not found—in sin."

 It's an analogy, so seeking the Lord means forsaking things that offend him that he hates, forsaking the wickedness and the evil of our thoughts in our lives. We are to forsake our evil ways our wicked ways and our evil thoughts and we are to turn to the Lord. This is the essence of repentance.

A Call to the Wicked and to the Evil

It's a call to the wicked and to the evil to forsake their way and their thoughts, the natural mind, is wickedness. It's hostile to God, it says in Romans 8, the mind of the flesh, the mind of the natural man hates God, it does not submit to God's law, indeed it cannot. So this wicked thinking leads to wicked living. It's a direct connection between your thoughts and your ways how you think is how you live. And so it says in Ephesians 4, "so I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do in the futility of their thinking, they're darkened in their understanding, and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to the hardening of their hearts" Do you hear all the mental words there? There's ignorance and darkened minds and hardened hearts it's a way of thinking that leads inevitably to a way of living. And we are called on to forsake, that. To turn our backs on wicked thinking and evil living. Now, I think it's helpful, if we just get specific here, if we talk about what we're... What does this mean wicked thoughts, evil lies?

What are we talking about? Well, the law of God is given to describe this. I could talk about the 10 Commandments here, but there are actually numbers of verses, passages or scripture that list out in detail sins, the sin list. So one good and extensive and detailed sin list is at the end of Romans Chapter 1, and there it says, in verse 29, through 31, "They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity, they're full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They're gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful. They invent ways of doing evil, they disobey their parents, they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless." So that's a sin list... So just look at it, look at it carefully, you'll know what God says is wicked and evil right there.

For example, greed, it talks about greed in that list. That means you never have enough, you always want more, more food, more wine, more fun, more money, more always more, greedy, that's sin and then there's envy, that's being jealous of other things that people have, other people have things and you want them, and you're jealous, you're burning in your heart when someone else gets promoted or praised or honored or else someone else gets to buy a nice car or lives in a nice house, or has something you want and you're envious in your heart over it.

Mentions murder. Most of us overwhelming majority of us never actually take someone out of this world through murder. But Jesus said that if you're even angry in your heart towards someone else, it's like you've murdered them in your heart. It's the same heart state. And then lust. It mentions lust in the same way, if you lust sexually after another person. It's as though we've committed adultery in our hearts. We live in a lust craze, the lust, sex saturated age. With the internet and pornography, the kinds of things that are there, it's just evil, and we are to forsake it. And then, it mentioned strife that's arguing conflicts fighting the constant irritation in relationships that makes our world, our companies, our families, our government just unlivable strife. Then there's deceit it mentions lying and falsehood, just being untruthful. And then there's malice, which is deep-seated hatred bitterness unforgiveness for past sins you just will not forgive you're bitter, gossip and slander. That's using your tongue to assassinate the character of someone else, God hating it mentions in your heart you're set against God, resisting him, don't want to hear his word, don't enjoy worshipping with his people, just God-hating.

Insolence, arrogance and boastfulness are all pride words. It all has to do with disrespect for God-ordained authority, a murmuring attitude toward a policeman that might pull you over, or someone who tells you where to go or where to stand. This is an insolent, arrogant attitude, or a negative... You're murmuring against your boss. And then, it talks about inventing evil. This is people who take their creativity and they use it to devise evil things. I wonder, who writes those software viruses that make our lives miserable? Who would do that? Who would sit at home and craft a virus to make everyone's life miserable? They don't even get money for it, why do they do it? It's just inventing evil. And then, disobedience to parents. Of course, that's not you. Or should I talk to your parents about how things actually were? This sin list probes our hearts and God says, "Let the evil man forsake his thoughts and the wicked man his ways. Let him turn away from wickedness to the Lord." That's the essence of repentance.

And then, he says,  "'For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,' declares the LORD. 'As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.'" Now, I want to draw out two connections in context. Two. One of them has to do with God's holiness and the other has to do with God's mercy. We need to hear both. And the connection is in the word "For" that begins the Word, verse eight. "For my thoughts are not your thoughts." First, God's holiness. We should repent because God's ways are different than our ways and his thoughts are different than our thoughts, they're just different. God thinks differently than we do. He loves different things than we love. He just says they're different, but then he goes beyond it. He says, "Actually, they're higher. My ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts are higher than your thoughts." This has to do with God's purity, his holiness, his infinite separation from evil. First John 1:5 says, "This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light and in him there's no darkness at all."

God's ways are different than our ways, his thoughts are different than our thoughts, so we need to repent. Because we were created in his image and we were created to be like him, and we're not like him. And so, we need to repent. And the measure, the gap is infinite. The Hubble space telescope has taught us how big outer space is, bigger than we thought. Really, really big. And God made this infinite cosmos to humble us, I think put us in our place. "As the Heavens are higher than the Earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts higher than your thoughts." God is just thinking at a different level than the rest of us are. It's just staggering. It's amazing. So, what's the most incredible mental achievement you've ever heard of in your life? I heard about some geek  who memorized Pi to 200, 500, or 1000 decimals. What do you need that for? But somebody does that kind of thing. Alright, now, some of you are saying, "Now, I know what you do and you're a geek too, and you have your own habits." Don't... Alright, don't start with me, okay? I understand what you're saying. But the most amazing mental achievement I've ever heard about... I've never heard of a higher one than this.

It was a chess grandmaster named Miguel Najdorf, who was Polish born but lived in Argentina. He was a chess champion. 1947, in Sao Paulo, Brazil, he played 45 chess matches simultaneously. He had 45, they're sat in a big rectangle, and he walked from board to board. Board number one, two, three, four, five... And played all these sequentially, but all at the same time, all of them going... Blindfolded friends, blindfolded. He had the positions of 45 different chess matches going on in his head, to some of them 50 or 60 moves. I once tried to do that with a chess computer. It occurred to me that I needed the plastic pieces and the computer didn't, so I tried to play one game with no pieces. I got six moves in and made an illegal move. Something was in the way. I had forgotten the knight was there or something like that. This guy, not only did he not make illegal moves, he won 40 of those 45 games. That's the most incredible mental thing I've ever heard in my life. Do you realize how much smarter than God... Smarter than that man God is? He made Miguel Najdorf's brain. And not only that, he is orchestrating the lives of seven billion people, human beings, every day of their lives, to achieve his inscrutable, eternal purposes.

"Oh, the depths of the riches, the wisdom, and the knowledge of God. How unsearchable his judgments and his paths beyond tracing out. who has known the mind of the Lord?" It's just higher than ours. So, we need to repent because God is holy and high and lifted up. That's the connection, because of the words, "my ways and my thoughts." Ways and thoughts brings us back to verse seven. But I like the immediate connection, actually, even more. It says, "Let the wicked forsake his way and the evil man his thoughts. Let him turn to the Lord and he will have mercy on him. And to our God and he will abundantly pardon…" For my ways are not your ways. Do you see the immediate connection is one of grace and mercy? What is God saying? He's saying, "I forgive better than you do. I forgive more totally than you do. I forgive comprehensively. You hold grudges, you are bitter, you still remember, years later, things that were said, slights that were made, insults. And you say you forgive them, but you really haven't." We don't forgive very well. God's not like us. He takes our sins and throws, as Micah says... Micah 7, in the depths of the sea. Also Psalm 103:12, "As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us." God is excellent at forgiving.

Picture in your mind the father of the prodigal son. Remember that his son had squandered half of his estate and now he wants to come back and have a job, because he's got no where else to go. And there, the father of the prodigal son, just filled with compassion, runs to meet the son and hugs him and embraces him, and the son can barely get his confession out. "Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you..." And the father says,  "'Quick, Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let's have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.' So they began to celebrate." God is excellent at forgiveness. He's really, really good at it. He actually delights in forgiving. He will abundantly, richly pardon, verse seven says. "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways."

Now, we cannot meet these conditions, we cannot repent, we cannot turn unaided. God must take out the heart of stone and he must give us the heart of flesh, he must make Christ crucified and resurrected obvious. He must tell you and make it plain that your sins deserve death and there's this big debt, but Jesus paid it all. He paid it all. Isaiah 53:5, "he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities, the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed." The Holy Spirit makes that obvious. And you cry out to him and you say, "I want that forgiveness." he makes that clear in your heart and your mind. So, lost people. Oh, I hope and pray you're not still lost after the last 40 minutes. I hope and pray that you have in your heart been crying out to God, and saying, "I don't want to be left out, I don't want to be on the outside. I don't want to be condemned. I want to sit at the banquet table with Jesus, let me in. I want that." Seek the Lord now while he may be found, don't assume you'll ever feel this way again, don't assume it. If you harden your heart now, you don't know that he'll be found by you tomorrow. Come to Christ.

But I'm saying the same thing to you saved people, too, you're not done seeking the Lord while he may be found. You're not done calling on him while he is near. We get thirsty in life, we get thirsty and we are idolatrous, we tend to go after other things that don't satisfy. It's for us too. So every single day, meet with the Lord, satisfy your soul in him every day, read the promises of Scripture and the accounts of Christ's life, every day, find joy in these promises, every day, get yourself in a happy state in Christ, every day seek the Lord, seek Christ while he may be found. And if you find yourself in life restless as a Christian, moving from one experience to the next, one dashed hope to the next, then find your delight in Christ and in his kingdom.

And if I might recommend, make your quiet time the first thing to you every day. Now, that probably will be first thing chronologically though, I don't want to be legalistic about it, but I just think it's good to say to God, you are my top priority every day, to say that to him. It's not legalistic to seek the Lord while he may be found. Let me tell you a struggle that I've had in the last year or so. I follow a pattern of Bible reading called every day in the Word, and I use a book to do it until about a year or two ago, and I found a website that gave me the same stuff and that way when I travel, I don't have to write down what all the verses are etcetera. And so I just go to this website and I use my iPad Air to do it. The problem is that when I turn on my iPad, it goes to whatever website I was on last night. Usually sports, I love sports. And so there it is, last night's game with a story. Actually, lots of stories connected with that. Many. And the internet, the web. Next thing I know I'm surfing. And metaphorically, spiritually, there's Jesus sitting in the chair waiting for me, when I stop swimming in the world and finally get around him.

And the Bible says God's a jealous God, and he actually may not be found by me after an hour of searching, he may not. He may actually be distant at that point. My heart a little harder and not ready to seek him. And so the Lord, I just... I hear this in my head just about every morning, the text I'm preaching on right now. Seek the Lord while he may be found, call on him while he is near. Yes, Lord. Or again in Matthew 6, seek first his kingdom. Oh, well, Lord, that just means it's a top priority, right? I don't know, for you it means first thing.

Now, if you're not a morning person, either one of two things, become a morning person, or just make sure you have a good quiet time, every day. Seek the Lord while he may be found, and repent of all known sin. Forsake your evil ways and your thoughts. Let the Lord do a work. Confess your sins to him. We had a time earlier, Jared led us in a time of confession. Do that every day. And stand amazed at how high God's thoughts are and how amazing is his mind. Be stunned at that. Say, "Lord, your ways are higher than my ways. Your thoughts are higher than my thoughts." Don't expect to understand everything God is doing. And then finally, look forward to the day when you who now have the mind of Christ will think just like Jesus. Isn’t that beautiful? You will have as pure thoughts and as lofty thoughts and as perfect thoughts as Jesus. You'll be done with corruption forever. Yearn for that day. Close with me in prayer.

Pastor Andy Davis preaches a verse-by-verse expository sermon on Isaiah 55:1-5. The main subject of the sermon is spending time doing things that benefit God's kingdom and satisfy our souls.

So in March of 2010, there was an auction for a hand-written invitation by Charles II, to a personal friend to attend his coronation as King of England. It was written in 1660, the coronation was to happen in 1661. Now, 11 years earlier, Charles's father had been executed and he, Charles, had fled the country and now England wanted him back as their monarch. And Charles wrote a hand-written note to Lord Sandys, his personal friend, to invite him to the coronation. I don't know what the hand-written note went for, how costly it was, but I would submit to you that the invitation that we have in Isaiah 55 is far more costly, and it's to a far greater coronation and a far greater banquet than anything that happened when Charles II was reinstituted to the throne in England. You are invited, all of you, and me too, all of us invited by the King of the universe to the wedding banquet of the lamb.

We get to sit a table with Jesus and feast with him and his people for all eternity. You are hereby invited. And today, my joyful task is to make clear that invitation to you and to do everything I can to persuade you to take it. To do everything in my power to persuade you to not be foolish and to disregard this invitation and to walk away as those did in the parable that Jesus told of the king who wanted to prepare a wedding banquet for his son, and sent out messengers to invite the people to come, but they refused to come. And one said, "I'm too busy with my business." Somebody else said, "I have just bought a yoke of oxen," and others just had no interest at all. And so it has been for 2000 years. The invitation to come to the wedding banquet of the lamb has been spreading to the ends of the earth and many, many have heeded it, and have come to Christ. And so you are hereby invited.

Look at the words in verses 1-3 right away, "Come all you who are thirsty, come to the waters, and you who have no money, come buy and eat, come buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why spend your money on, what is not bread and your labor on what does not satisfy. Listen, listen to me and eat what is good and your soul will delight in the richest of fare." We'll just stop there. What is the context of this invitation? Where does Isaiah 55 sit in this flow of thought in the Book of Isaiah? Well, we could pick up at Isaiah 53, as Rick was talking about, in the majesty of God, of God's Son, and the atoning work of Jesus Christ. The greatest chapter of prophecy in the Bible. And there we learn that Christ is our substitutionary atonement.

There, Jesus, we learn, died in our place as our substitute for our sins. In Isaiah 53:4-6, it says, "Surely he [Christ Jesus] took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him and afflicted, but he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities, the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds, we are healed. We all like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all." That, dear friends, is the glowing center of the gospel, substitutionary atonement. Jesus dying in our place, we the sinners, he, the righteous one.

We deserve to die physically and eternally in hell, and yet Christ came and died in our place and took the wrath that we deserve, so that all of us who by simple faith in Christ have looked to him as our substitute, as our atoning sacrifice, are forgiven. Set free from guilt, made new, as we heard from Maxwell. And how in Isaiah 53, his atoning death is clearly predicted that he would die. In Isaiah 53:8, he was cut off from the land of the living. "And for the transgression of my people, he was stricken, he was assigned a grave with the wicked and with the rich in his death though he had done no violence nor was any deceit in his mouth."

But not only does Isaiah 53 clearly predict Christ's substitutionary death, it also predicts his resurrection from the dead. The cross and the empty tomb, both clearly predicted in Isaiah 53. It says in verse 10 of that chapter, "Though the Lord makes his life a guilt offering, he will see his offspring as children and prolong his days, and the will of the Lord will flourish, will prosper in his hand, and after the suffering of his soul, he will see the light of life and be satisfied. And by his knowledge, my righteous servant will justify many."

So this incredible gospel of Jesus Christ, so clearly written out for us by Isaiah the prophet seven centuries before Jesus was even born, is the joyful message of salvation that's going to go forth to the ends of the earth, to the ends of the earth. People in distant lands, kings will hear about him and rise up and they will fall down on their faces and by faith they will worship him. Christ is the Savior, Christ, this Gospel message, going forth to the ends of the earth is the message, I think, of Isaiah 54, the grand missionary enterprise of the church. A tent enlarged, many people included, Isaiah 54:2-3, where Zion is told, "Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent curtains wide, do not hold back, lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes, for you will spread out to the right and to the left and your descendants will dispossess nations and settle in their desolate cities."

And so, the expansion of Zion, the expansion of the people of God, it's going to be really, really big. We talked about that last time, remember William Carey's deathless sermon, at the beginning, the dawning of Protestant missions and the advancement of the gospel to the ends of the earth, as William Carey was soon to go to India and many others would follow after him. Adoniram and Ann Judson going to Burma, and many other missionaries taking this invitation to the ends of the earth.

And now we come to this invitation in which Christ is calling to sinners to come and to feast on him. And so, look, at verses 1-3, "Come all you who are thirsty, come to the waters, and you who have no money, come buy and eat. Come buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why spend money on what is not bread and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me and eat what is good in your soul will delight in the richest of fare. Give ear and come to me, hear me, that your soul may live." Now, in this text, we have two different types of people invited immediately. The gospel invitation understands the different condition that people find themselves in.

Not everyone experiences the same things in life, but everyone is needy, truly, deeply needy. Just some people know that they're needy and others don't seem to know it as much. So first we have invited the thirsty and the destitute. These are people with nothing to offer, and they know it. And then second, the self-sufficient, but dissatisfied strivers. People who have resources, they have options, they're trying things, but they're never satisfied.

The Thirsty and Destitute

So first, the thirsty, and destitute, "Come all you who are thirsty, come to the waters, and you who have no money, come buy and eat. Come buy wine and milk without money and without cost." God is inviting deeply thirsty people who are dying, they're withering in life, but they have no resources whatsoever and they know it, they know it.

They look at their lives, and it looks like a field of dead weeds, like a corn field in late November, dead stalks swaying in a freezing wind. And there's this picture of barrenness, there's nothing there, and they know it. Life has dashed all your hopes and dreams, everything you've tried to bring meaning to life has ended up fruitless. You're depressed, you're discouraged, your soul feels like you're crawling through the Sahara Desert and if you don't get to water soon you will surely die and you know it. But you have no resources whatsoever, you're poor, you're needy. You have nothing to offer the Lord, you're not in any bargaining position, you have no ace in the hole, you've reached the end of your life and you have nothing in your hands you can trade, nothing at all.

The text says you're exactly the person the Lord is calling. You're exactly the one Christ came to save. You are the spiritual beggar of Matthew 5:3, at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, "Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." There in Matthew 5:3, the word "poor" means beggar, somebody who has literally nothing. And blessed are you, happy are you, deeply, richly, happy are you if you're a beggar with nothing to offer, because yours is the kingdom of heaven. And Jesus is standing before your soul right now with his arms stretched open wide, saying, "Come all you who have nothing to offer, all you poor beggars, you come to me." That's the first category of people that are invited in our text.

Second... the Self-Sufficient but Dissatisfied Strivers

Secondly, we have self-sufficient, but dissatisfied strivers. Verse 2, "Why spend money on what is not bread and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me and eat what is good and your soul will delight in the richest of fare." Perhaps very few of you may feel in the first category. You actually may think of such a desperate person who has nothing left to live for as a loser. You may actually, in some ways, feel superior to that person, you still have options, you still have resources. Well, verse 2 is for you.

You have money to spend and you're spending it, you're buying things. You have energy by which you are laboring and you're spending it, you're working, you're achieving things, you're working every day to better your lives. You're working in some ways to improve your souls, your spiritual conditions, but the text calls on you to be honest about all this. You're spending your money on what does not satisfy and you're achieving, you're earning, you're working and you're accomplishing, but honestly, nothing satisfies.

John Piper put it this way:

“He is still spending and still working, dreaming, chasing, searching, experimenting—different job, different city, different car, different house, different wife, new computer, new boat, new books, new bike, new grill, new season tickets, new diet, new looks—there's still a lot of looking around left in this person. But still no pot at the end of the rainbow. No fountain of youth. And every triumph peters out. The applause fades. The boat is boring. The style passes. Everything new gets old and the options get fewer and fewer.

When you are honest, you know there is a canyon of need and longing on the inside no matter how self-sufficient you look on the outside. And God knows even better than you. He has you in mind when he says, 'Why do you spend your money for bread which is no-bread, and labor for dreams that do not satisfy?'"

Well, everyone that's here today fits in one of those two categories if you're apart from Christ. Either you're totally destitute and no hope at all or you've been striving, you're filled with resources, dissatisfied. The question is, do you know it's not satisfying? Do you know that the next thing you're going to try isn't going to work for you? Well, these are the people that the Lord is inviting right now.

But what is he offering? What benefits does he pour out on you if you should come? Well, he's portraying a feast here, and he begins with the beverages, he's offering some beverages to us, so this is the drink service of heaven.

The text spreads out an amazing banquet for our souls and in verse 1, it speaks first of three beverages, and each beverage represent something different that the Lord wants to do for you. "Come all you who are thirsty, come to the waters, and you who have no money, come buy and eat, come buy wine and milk without money and without cost." Now, verse 2 implies food that is truly richly, deeply satisfying where nothing else ever has before. So here, verse 2 is the feast of food, "Why spend money on what is not bread and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me and eat what is good and your soul will delight in the richest of fare."

It moves on to food in verse 2. Let's focus first on the beverages. First water and then I'll reverse the order, then milk and then wine. Water brings life, water brings life, water represents life. "Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters." Without water, we cannot live, we will die. Recently I read the book and then watched the movie Unbroken. Some of you have seen it or read the book about Louis Zamperini, he's the Olympic distance runner, World War II bombardier and B-24 bomber. He crashed in the Pacific and survived the crash with two of his fellow airmen.

And the three floated in a raft eventually, Louis floated for 47 days out in the Pacific Ocean. They had to fend off multiple shark attacks, they were strafed by a Japanese plane, but by far the greatest imminent threat to their lives was thirst, thirst. They were surrounded constantly by water, but none of it could be drunk, none of it, it was all salt water. It would have been deadly to them to drink it. They were in imminent danger of dying from thirst, until a rainstorm came and saved their lives, their very lives, and they did everything they could to drink from it and to save up water for the future. And that rainstorm saved their lives.

So, Isiah 55 invites people who are spiritually dying to come to Christ and receive the life-giving water that he alone can give. I don't think you can read this verse without thinking about Jesus' encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well, of course. Jesus had to go through Samaria, and there he encounters at high noon, a woman, a Samaritan woman who comes to draw water, and there's this Jewish man waiting for her. And he initiates contact with her, which shocked her. He said, "Give me a drink," and she said, "'How is it that you a Jewish man ask me for a drink since I'm a Samaritan woman?' Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. Jesus answered her, 'If you knew the gift of God and who it is who asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.' 'Sir,' the woman said, 'You have nothing to draw with and the well is deep.'" I'm always amazed at how pragmatic the mind of a woman is. They just know how things work. And as I perceive, I've been here lots of times and you have no chance of getting me anything. "'Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?' And Jesus answered, 'Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water that I give him will become within him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.'" I hear that in Isaiah 55:1.

I do, Jesus is standing before us offering to become for us spiritual water, a well of water from which we can drink any time, and it will well up to eternal life. We will drink and we will live, and not just temporarily, we will live eternally. Jesus is offering that to us.

Milk that Gives Nourishment

Secondly, he speaks of milk and I think the image here is of nourishment, of nutrition. "Come all you who are thirsty, come to the waters, and you who have no money, come buy and eat, come buy wine and milk without money, without cost." So, I'm going to reverse the order and talk about the milk first. Milk is different than wine... Different than water, sorry, and then it refers to nourishments, to nutrients. You think how a nursing baby gets everything that that baby needs from the mother's milk.

All the incredible vitamins and nutrients, everything needed for life. So God is calling on us to come to him day after day for the milk that we need for health and strength, and this I believe is directly linked to the word of God. The ministry of the Word of God to your souls, 1 Peter 2: 2-3, it says, "Like newborn babies crave pure spiritual milk," or some translations, "The pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you've tasted that the Lord is good."

So that's the richness of the image of milk and it's a rich image of flourishing really, like the promise land was spoken of as a land flowing with what? Milk and honey. So, there's this rich image of everything you'll need for vitality and flourishing and growth for your soul. Thirdly, we have this image of wine and there, the image I think is of joy, of celebration, of vitality in rejoicing and celebration. Now, we're aware in our world of the danger of drunkenness, and though Christians have been rightly concerned about the damage that alcohol has done to the lives of so many, yet any Bible reader knows that wine usually is spoken of in the Bible as a symbol of joy and celebration, rich blessing of God. So we have in Psalm 104 verse 15, God lavishly gives "wine that gladdens the heart of man, oil to make his face shine and bread that sustains his heart."

John Piper says this:

"Wine corresponds to the need for exhilaration. We want to live and not die. We want to be strong and stable instead of weak and wavering. But that is not all we need in life. No matter how stoic, unemotional, phlegmatic, laid-back, or poker-faced we may seem to others, there is a child inside of every one of us that God made for exhilaration—for shouting and singing and dancing and playing and skipping and running and jumping and laughing.”

That's as exuberant as I'm going to get in this sermon, right there. But we were made to celebrate, we're made to rejoice. The joy of celebration. What makes a feast a time of delight? This is why I believe Jesus changed the water into an abundance of high quality wine at the wedding at Cana in galley. Now, many, I think rightly see the fulfillment of this as the gift of the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit has come to give us that joy in life, that celebration, that exhilaration. And so, wine and the Spirit are linked in Ephesians five, where it says, "Don't get drunk with wine which leads to debauchery, instead be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making music in your hearts to the Lord, and always giving thanks for everything to God the Father in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ."

Acts 13:52, "The disciples were filled with joy and the Holy Spirit," or Galatians 5:22 simply, "The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace," etcetera. So, that's what wine means, to me, the joy and exhilaration of celebration of singing and shouting and dancing and we are going to in some very holy way, cut loose when we're in the wedding banquet of the lamb. We're going to cut loose and there won't be any debauchery or drunkenness, or any of that, they'll just be unbridled joy when we see the bridegroom. It also mentions bread that satisfies and a feast for all eternity. He says, "Why spend money on what is not bread and your labor and what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me." And it says in the KJV, "Let your soul delight itself in fatness," fatness, fatness being a good thing.

The verse speaks of the bounty of the best possible foods. It challenges us not to eat bread that doesn't satisfy, to find true bread that does satisfy. And it goes beyond bread to talk about a banquet with the richest of fare, the best possible meats, perfectly cooked. I don't know what kind of cooks they have up there in Heaven, getting ready for our resurrection body banquets, but they know what they're doing and it's going to be really, really fine. But this is a metaphor also for the deep rich satisfaction that comes from walking with God.

Your soul will be delighted with this. We can't help but go back to Christ again, first to his body, being given as bread for our souls, given on the cross, it says in John 6:35, "Then Jesus declared, 'I am the bread of life, he who comes to me will never go hungry and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.'" And again in that same chapter, "I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. This bread is my flesh which I will give for the life of the world." So Jesus' body dead on the cross, completely pays for all of our sins in the sight of Almighty God and we're going to feed on that eternally, forever.

We're going to partake, feed and live forever, on that. But it goes beyond to the richest of fare and that is just such an image of a well-laden table, a banquet table, just spread out and beautiful. And that language was already used earlier in Isaiah 25:6-8, magnificent passage there, Isaiah 25 and it says, "On this mountain, the Lord Almighty will prepare a feast of rich foods for all peoples, a banquet of aged wine. The best of meats and the finest of wines. On this mountain, he will destroy the shroud that covers all nations, the sheet that unfolds all peoples. He will swallow up death forever." That's the banquet, the resurrection is the banquet.

Knowing that death has died, death has been thrown in the lake of fire, we'll sit at the banquet table there in the kingdom and know that it will never end. Our friendships will never end, death is gone forever. The faces we're seeing there at that time we'll see them forever. And we'll feast in the kingdom forever and how sweet will it be, the best of meats and the finest of wine.

So how do we receive these gifts? There's a series of commands in these verses, 12 in all, listen to them. "All you who are thirsty, come to the waters." That's number one. "And who has no money come," number two, "Buy," number three, "And eat," number four. "Come," number five, "Buy wine and milk," number six, "Without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that what is not bread and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Harken diligently to me," number seven, and, "Eat what is good," number eight, "And delight yourselves in fatness," number nine. "Incline your ear," number 10, "And come to me," number 11, "Hear," number 12, "That your soul may live." 12 commands here.

We're not just supposed to listen and lay back here, we're commanded to do something. And you can take those 12 and group them into a sequence, like this, "Come, buy, eat, and enjoy." That's what we're told here. Come, buy, eat and enjoy.

We're not to be passive here, we must obey this amazingly rich and generous invitation. We must do what it says, we must come to Christ and not turn away in unbelief. Now we come to the mystery of buying something without any money. How do you do that? How do you buy with no money? Actually, there are a lot of Americans that do that all the time, so maybe it's not so much of a mystery, I don't know. It does happen from time to time, but I'm going to stick with a theological question and not the practical economic question.

How do we do this, how do we buy something? Well, first the idea isn't that this thing isn't expensive. Oh, it's expensive, it's infinitely expensive. You can't measure how costly this is. But it's already been paid for in advance. You get to the boutique you get to the shop, you find out, it's got your name on it, and it's already been paid for. 1 Peter:1, 18-19 it says, "For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect." That's how it was paid for. It's already paid in blood. So what do you have to give? Whatever you have to give, God already gave it to you.

Has he given you ears? Then listen and use them. Has he given you faith? Because faith is a gift of God. Ephesians2:8-9, has he given you faith? Then exercise it. Has he given you a heart to see your wickedness and your sinfulness in the light of God's law? Then repent. He's granted you repentance, then repent. You must do what He has given you to do. He's given you ears, then listen, like he says, often, in his parables. He's given you faith then believe in Jesus. He's given you a heart to repent, then repent that's what you have to do.

And this free gift cannot be purchased, only received, without money, without cost. He's very clear about this. Charles Spurgeon, preaching a sermon on justification by grace from Romans 3, there it says, "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely, by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus." So, he's zeroing in on this... Spurgeon said this:

"Christ is willing to take your rags, and give you his righteousness, to be yours forever. 'Okay, fine... but how do I obtain it?' Someone asks. 'Must I be a holy man for many years, and then get it?' Listen! 'Freely by his grace;' 'freely,' because there is no price to be paid for it; 'By his grace,' because it is not of our deservings. 'But,' you say, 'I have been praying, and I do not think God will forgive me, unless I do something to deserve it.' I tell you, friend, if you bring in any of your deservings, you shall never have it. God gives away his justification freely; if you bring anything to pay for it, he will throw it in your face, and will not give his justification to you. He gives it away freely. Evangelists Rowland Hill once went preaching at a fair; he noticed the merchants selling their wares by auction; so Rowland said, 'I am going to hold an auction too, to sell wine and milk, without money and without price. My friends over there,' said he 'find a great difficulty to get you up to their price; my difficulty is to bring you down to mine.' So it is with men. If I could preach justification to be bought by you for a gold coin each, who would go out of the place without being justified? If I could preach justification to you by walking a hundred miles, would we not begin the journey tomorrow morning, every one of us? If I were to preach justification which would consist in whippings and torture, there are very few here who would not whip themselves, and that severely too. But when it is freely, freely, freely, men turn away. 'What! am I to have it for nothing at all, without doing anything?' Yes, friend, you are to have it for nothing, or else not at all; it is 'freely.'”

Well, what is the reality behind all this imagery? Well the reality is the kingdom of Christ. This is all rich imagery is what it is, wine, milk, water, bread, richest of fare and all. What's really going on here? What's really going on is there is a kingdom, an invisible spiritual kingdom that will someday come and that kingdom is the kingdom of Christ. Look at verses three through five, "I will make an everlasting covenant with you, my faithful love promise to David. Behold I have made him a witness to the people's, a leader and commander of the people. Surely you will summon nations you know not and nations that do not know you will hasten to you because of the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, for he has endowed you with splendor." Friends, Jesus is everything here, everything.

Jesus is the drink. Jesus is the food of this eternal feast of joy. Jesus is the water that saves our dying souls, and gives them eternal life. Jesus is the milk that nourishes our souls and gives them strength and health and vitality. Jesus is the wine that causes us to be exhilarated with joy for all eternity. Jesus is the bread that we feed on and live before the judgment seat of God. Jesus is the feast that will be spread for all eternity because of the empty tomb. So the text ends, I think, with a clear connection to Jesus.

In case we missed it, in case we weren't sure. He mentions an everlasting covenant with, you, plural, all of us, he's speaking to all of us who obey the 12 commands of verses one and two, to all Christians, he is drawing us individually and collectively into the new covenant made with David, the faithful love promise to David. This is the clear connection to Christ. Now, the covenant made with Moses was a covenant that brought death. It was a covenant of law and judgment and it said, "Do this and you will live." But we couldn't do it, and so, we died.

But the new covenant made with Jesus is a covenant of life and glory. You remember how David wanted to build a house for the Lord, you remember that? He said, "Here I am in a palace of cedar, and there, the Ark of the Covenant is in a tent. Let's see if I can build a big palace for it." And Nathan the prophet, God told David through Nathan the prophet, "When your days are over and you rest with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, who will come from your own body, and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever." Who is this son of David, who will build a house for God, forever? It's none other than Jesus Christ. Matthew 1:1, "A record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David." It's the first thing we learn about Jesus in the New Testament, He is the fulfillment of the Davidic covenant. He is the one that God is talking about here in these verses.

He is the one, He is the son of David who is going to sit on the throne. And if we come to the waters, we who have no money, and if we come and buy and eat, and if we come and buy wine and milk, without money and without price, and if we listen diligently to him and if we eat what is good and if we delight ourselves in fatness, and if we incline our ear and come to him and if we hear that our souls may live, we will enter a kingdom on the throne of which Jesus will sit forever and ever. That's what's promised to us here.

And Christ is a witness to the nations, it's told us here. He's a witness to it, He came to testify to the truth. He said to Pontius Pilate, "Everyone on the side of the truth listens to me," and so he was a faithful witness to Pilate. So Christ is calling all of the nations to listen to Him as He testifies to the truth. Jesus is the witness to the nations, and he's also the leader and commander of the peoples. But like, well, they don't acknowledge his authority. It doesn't matter, it doesn't matter. All authority in heaven and earth has already been given to Jesus, he sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, the whole world is his.

Now, His people, Christians, understand His Kingdom, and enter it by faith, and delight in it, by faith, the rest of the world doesn't. But he's going to come some time, and every eye will see Him. All the nations of the Earth will look on him, it says in Revelation 1, and they'll mourn because of Him. We are called on in verse five to witness to the nations. He says, "Surely you'll summon nations you know not, and nations that do not know you will hasten to you because of the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel for he has endowed you with splendor." We're called on to take this message to our near neighbors and to distant nations, it's missions again, in verse five.

We're called on to be a mouthpiece. So this invitation I've been given, someone has to give it. I've been giving it here. Now you are called then... We are called then to go and invite people out in the streets and in the hedgerows and byways, and out in the villages and out in the workplaces, and invite them to this banquet. That's our job. He is a witness to us, we are now his witnesses on his behalf, it's what we're called on to do.

So what applications can we take from this? Well, if you came in here lost, you came in here outside of Christ, this was for you. I was speaking plainly and directly to you. Do you know that you're a spiritual beggar, you have nothing to offer, then come to the waters, and buy without money and without cost. And if you've been striving and striving to find forgiveness and salvation, and something satisfying to you, striving to find it and you're coming up empty, give up that fruitless search and come to Christ. But you know, Christians the same is for you, the same thing that you first did the first moment you really believed and called in the name of the Lord and you were justified, the text is calling you to do it some more. Do it now, do it now. You're not exempt, "I became a Christian years ago. I don't need to come to the waters. I was a Christian, I've been Christian for 15 years. I don't need to come by and eat, I don't need to feast. I'm good, I'm satisfied. Actually, I'm kind of hungry physically. Oh, let's go eat."

It's like, God is testifying to you right now, your physical hunger, and in some, it's extreme, I know, hang in there, alright? The physical hunger is pointing to a deeper spiritual hunger in your life. Are you feeding your souls? Are you delighting in the richest of fare or are you living for things that don't matter? And so your soul is shriveling and it's withering, and there's not much fruit in your lives because you're not much different than your worldly non-Christian co-workers, and neighbors. You're living for the same kind of stuff. Then come to the waters.

Why do you spend yourself, oh Christian person, on what doesn't satisfy? Why do you spend yourself on hobbies and pleasures, and foods, and vacations, and possessions, and Netflix. Why spend yourself on things that do not satisfy? They're going to leave you empty. Can I just ask you, how much time do you spend alone in the Word of God daily? What's your average time in the Word? What are your quiet times like? Are you coming to the waters and drinking? Are you drinking the water, and the milk and the wine? Are you feeding on the bread of life? What's going on with you?

I fear that many Christians are so gloomy and worldly because they're not obeying this simple command, they're not listening to Christ, beckoning before their souls and calling them to the waters and to the wine and the milk and the bread. So feed your soul in Christ and linger till you're happy in Jesus. Stay there till you're fed. And finally, Christ is a witness to the people and we're called on to do the same. We're called on, you're surrounded by people who are dying spiritually. Have a heart. Have compassion on them, have a conversation with one of them tomorrow at work or at the college campus, or a neighbor. Say, "I heard a sermon and the text is just amazing, Isaiah 55, can I read it to you?" "Yeah, okay." And then you just read verse one, and two, and say, "Are you thirsty? I mean do you ever feel thirsty spiritually?" Have that conversation, see where it leads. Close with me in prayer.

Andy Davis preaches a verse-by-verse expository sermon on Isaiah 54:1-7. The main subject of the sermon is the expanding influence of the kingdom of God

When I was in seminary, one of the things they taught us when it comes to every passage of scripture is this phrase that we never forgot, that is context is king, but what that means is every passage of the Bible must be interpreted in context. We need to understand the context. So that would be the immediate linguistic context of the nouns and verbs and the sentence flow, and the paragraphs of that immediate chapter, and then stepping back a little bit bigger, how does that chapter fit into the overall flow of that particular book? We also want to ask questions of Israel's history, where... Especially in the Old Testament, where was Israel in its history, what was going on with the people of God, and at that point that the Scripture was written and what insights do we gain from that? So we can understand it. And then there's the picture of the whole biblical history and how does the New Testament give us any insights on this passage? For example, does a New Testament quote this passage? Does it use it in some way? Are there's some insights that we can gain from that? And then finally church history as we look at how Christians have understood the passage over time.

How have other Christians used it? Have there been famous sermons that have been preached from this passage or insights? And has God used it in an amazing way? And it's amazing, as we come to Isaiah 54, how vital questions of context are.

I want to start with just church history. This text, Isaiah 54, was the basis of one of the most famous and influential sermons in church history. On Wednesday, May 30th, 1792 at Friar Lane Baptist Chapel in Nottingham, England, William Carey put an incredible challenge into what came to be known as the Deathless Sermon, one of the most influential sermons in history. He, earlier that year, had written a little pamphlet, 1792, entitled: An Inquiry into the Obligations of Christians to Use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens.

What that meant was he was arguing that Christians need to figure out how to reach the lost, to the ends of the earth, and he was arguing against a view of the sovereignty of God that was so pervasive, that if God wanted to convert those heathen, he could do that on his own without us. And he's saying, "No, God is going to use us." And it was really, in many ways, the beginning of the modern Protestant missions movement, but this particular sermon was amazingly influential, and he preached it from Isaiah 54, 2-3, "Enlarge the place of your tent. Stretch your tent curtains wide, do not hold back. Lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes, for you will spread out to the right and the left and your descendants will dispossess nations and settle in their desolate cities."

He preached it to a group of Baptist, fellow Baptists who were interested in missions, as he was, and he said that this text referred to the spread of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and the building of the church of Jesus Christ through missions. He said the image of a once-barren woman, now giving birth to more children than she can count is a picture of the growth of the people of God. And the tent had to be enlarged, he said, because so many people would become sons and daughters of Abraham, through the spread of the gospel, that they wouldn't have room for him. And the whole sermon was boiled into two very famous applications. Number one, expect great things from God, and number two, attempt great things for God. Now, I'm not likely to do any better than William Carey did from Isaiah 54, but those are great applications. The slogan became a byword for the modern missionary movement. We should expect great things from God and missions. We should believe that God is going to do great things, that we need to have a big, expansive mindset. Enlarge the tent, get it ready, big things are happening. We ought to expect God to do great things.

And then, secondly, we should be involved ourselves. We should attempt great things for God when it comes to missions. Well, as a result of that Deathless Sermon, the Baptist Missionary Society was formed, and that was a society that would support Carey as he would soon go to Serampore, India to preach the Gospel and to begin an incredible work of missions there in India.

Now, how in the world did William Carey come to the conclusion that Isaiah 54:2-3 was talking about missions, talking about the church of Jesus Christ and the spread of the Gospel? It's an Old Testament prophecy and language that any Jew would have recognized as referring to Zion. Now, a bit of a disclaimer here, the word Zion doesn't appear in Isaiah 54, but it appears in Isaiah 52. And I think he's definitely... Isaiah's definitely predicting or prophesying about Zion. And that's the way I'm going to understand it. But how an Old Testament Jew would have said, this is about Zion, Jerusalem, the rebuilding of the city, and all that, the Jewish national capital, what right did William Carey have to think Isaiah 54 was talking about missions?

That brings me to the second question of context. And if you'd be willing, put your finger here, or whatever you do with your smartphone, or whatever you do for the Bible, and go over to Galatians chapter 4. For me, the interpretive key to Isaiah 54 is Galatians 4. You won't understand Isaiah 54 if you don't understand how the Apostle Paul quotes Isaiah 54 in Galatians 4. Remember that, in Galatians, some false teachers known as the Judaizers had come to Galatia, a gentile city, where Paul had planted a gentile church through faith in Christ. They were telling those gentile converts to Christ that unless they became Jews through circumcision and through the obedience to the laws of Moses, they could not be saved. They'd go to hell.

There were false teachers. And Paul wrote the whole Book of Galatians to refute that false doctrine and to teach justification by faith in Christ alone. You don't have to become a Jew, you don't have to be circumcised and keep the dietary laws, and all that. And he warned against these false teachers, these Judaizers. He assured these gentile converts to Christ they're already children of Abraham through faith in Jesus, they're already in the family of God. And then, in Galatians 4, he pulls out this amazing analogy or parable or allegory, or something like that, from the Old Testament story of Abraham and his wife Sarah, and their slave woman, Hagar. And you know that story from the Book of Genesis. And Paul just argues, by analogy, by allegory, or something like that, concerning what God is doing among the Gentiles.

Look what he says in Galatians 4:22-28, this is vital, we're not going to understand Isaiah 54, if we don't get this, I think. And in verse 22 of Galatians 4 it says, "It is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave woman and the other by the free woman. Now, his son by the slave woman was born in the ordinary way, but his son by the free woman was born as a result of the promise. Now, these things may be taken figuratively, for the women represent two covenants. One covenant is from Mount Sinai and bears children who are to be slaves. This is Hagar." Here's a key statement, Galatians 4:25, "Now Hagar stands for Mount Sinai in Arabia, and corresponds to the present City of Jerusalem because she is in slavery with her children. But the Jerusalem that is above is free and she is our mother. As it is written, 'Be glad, O barren woman who bears no children, break forth and cry aloud, you who have no labor pains, because more are the children of the desolate woman than of her who has a husband.'" That's Isaiah 54:1. "Now, you brothers, like Isaac, are children of the promise."

So, like Isaiah 54, Paul uses two metaphors, a woman giving birth and a city being built. He uses these two metaphors that are also found in Isaiah 54. We see these two coming together in Galatians 4:26, "The Jerusalem that's above is free and she is our mother." So that's strange, a city that's a mother, but that image is coming right from Isaiah 54, a city that's a mother. And that mother gives birth to supernatural children, not born in the ordinary way, but born by the power of God. Born by the power of the Spirit, not by the law, not by good works, not by obedience and self-effort, but born by the gospel, by the Spirit, by grace.

Every convert to Christ then is a child or a citizen, let's say, of the Jerusalem that's above this heavenly Zion, we could use that language, this heavenly Jerusalem. So the spread of the Gospel to the unreached people groups of the ends of the earth is a direct fulfillment of Isaiah 54:1, according to Paul. So Carey was right. It is about missions. It's about Gentiles coming to faith in Christ. Paul contrasts the present city of Jerusalem, the earthly, physical city in Palestine, that you can get a plane ticket to and fly to and land at, that physical city. They couldn't do all those things back then. You know what I'm talking about. Okay? But they could have traveled there, you could touch it, you could see it. That corresponded to Mount Sinai and to Hagar and to children born in slavery. That's what Paul says in Galatians 4.

But the Jerusalem that's above the new Jerusalem is our city, it's our home, it's our mother. It gives birth to children, all of that. And I would contend it's growing, it's getting bigger and bigger. The architect's plan is being fulfilled, and stones are getting put in place, and it's getting more and more glorious in every generation, every day, I would say. Every day, a little more glory is added to the heavenly Jerusalem, and how is that? By evangelism and by missions, by people coming to faith in Christ. And there is this heavenly Jerusalem that the Apostle John writes about in Revelation 21, in language that comes from Isaiah 54:13, from this very same chapter about this radiant city with walls and jewels and rubies, and all this beautiful stuff. That image just comes right from Isaiah 54. It says heavenly, heavenly Jerusalem.

And we are all like living stones quarried from Satan's dark kingdom, and transported, and put into these spiritual walls, and it's just rising and becoming glorious and beautiful, and it's a majestic story. So, if you're a Christian, you're already put in the walls of the New Jerusalem by faith in Christ. You're already there, you're already a living stone in that wall, and you'll never leave, you'll be protected and safe and secure, and it's just a glorious place. But not only are you a living stone, you're also called on to go on a commando raid mission with some of your brothers and sisters, go over to Satan's dark walls and get some more living stones out, because the city is not done yet, and that's awesome. Find your place in that story.

Alright. Thirdly, biblical historical context in the Old Testament for the Jews, for Israel, how would they have understood this? How would they have understood what's going on in Isaiah 54? Well, Isaiah 54 has in view the physical city of Jerusalem and its exile to Babylon, and the rebuilding of it. The disgrace of the exile is the backdrop for much of the chapter. You won't understand this chapter if you don't know why the exile happened, and the disgrace and the humiliation that was on Zion, the earthly city, because of the sins of the Jews. And so, in verses 1-5, Zion, though not mention, but that's who we have in mind here, Jerusalem, the city of God is pictured as a barren woman who never bore children for God. But now, by the grace of God, she's transformed, and she becomes an amazingly fruitful woman who has tons of children more than she knows where to put them all.

That's verse 1-5. Then, in verses 6-10, Zion is pictured as a rejected wife who's sent away in disgrace from her husband, but now she's called back, and she's restored to him in an eternal covenant of peace and security. And then, in verses 11-17, Zion is pictured as a destroyed city, but now rebuilt in beauty and security, with her enemies held at bay by the sovereign hand of God. So that's how the chapter unfolds here, God is promising here to rebuild Jerusalem and bring her exiles back. But as we've seen, again and again, the prophecies of restoration after the exile are much too glorious, they're much too grand to just be talking about the rebuilding of a physical city that would later get destroyed again by the Romans.

It's too glorious for that, too big, bigger things are happening, but that physical side was important, it was important to God's redemptive plan. So the work of Ezra and Nehemiah in rebuilding the temple, and the wall, and all that was important, even though someday all of that would get destroyed again, still important. So that's what he's saying, physical Jerusalem then is a type, a shadow, a picture, a prophecy of the New Jerusalem that's coming, and that type, that pattern was important, and it had to be rebuilt.

Fourth question of context. You're like, "Are you ever going to begin the sermon?" This is part of the sermon. Alright? This is all helpful. Alright? But the fourth question of context is where is this chapter in Isaiah, where are we in the unfolding story of Isaiah. And we're in a glorious place. We're in a absolutely majestically beautiful place. Isaiah 52:1 says, "Awake, awake, O Zion, clothe yourself with strength. Put on your garments of splendor, or Jerusalem." And then verse 3 of that same chapter, 52:3 says Zion will be redeemed. What does that mean? Bought back, bought out of slavery. Her punishment is paid for, it's been paid. How has it been paid? Isaiah 53, dear friends. Isaiah 53 is how it gets paid, that's how she gets redeemed. There's going to come one, a servant of the Lord, who will pay Zion price, pay her penalty, and who will die, as we've been seeing for three weeks, a glorious journey in Isaiah 53, of the Redeemer of Christ, who would come seven centuries later and pay the price for Zion, pay the price for the redemption. "He was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray. Each of us has turned to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all." And then it is written, "It was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer…" and then to rise... Raise him up from the dead. That's the payment price, that's the redemption in blood, in Jesus' blood. Now we go back to Zion, back to Zion, this glorious city, and big things are coming. Now that Jesus has come, and now that he's died, and now that he's risen again, and now he's ascended to heaven, get ready for some big things. It's going to get really, really big. Zion is going to get huge and glorious. That's the context.

And then, in chapter 55, which we'll go, God-willing, next time, we get this beautiful gospel invitation, "Come, all of you that are thirsty, come to the waters, and you who have no money, come buy and eat without money and without cost. Why spend yourselves on what doesn't satisfy in your labor, on what is not bread?" …Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare." So that's where we're at here in Isaiah 54, a majestic picture of this heavenly Zion getting re... Getting built by the spread of the gospel, and this invitation coming to people to come, and to listen, and to believe.

Alright. So let's look at the chapter in detail in verses 1-5, Zion, there, pictured as a formerly-barren woman, but now supernaturally fruitful, "Sing, O barren woman. You who never bore a child, burst into song. Shout for joy, you who are never in labor, because more are the children of the desolate woman than of her who has a husband, says the Lord. Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent curtains. Why, do not hold back, lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes, for you will spread out to the right and to the left, your descendants will dispossess nations and settle in their desolate cities."

So we get here, at the beginning of the chapter, a series of sharp, joyful commands from a gracious God. God is going to do an amazing change, he'll work an amazing change for Zion, the children of God, the bride of Christ, the City of God. Whatever image we want to use here. The sovereign God is the dynamic actor here, he is the awesome change agent, and so he speaks powerful commands to Zion, and he tells her to sing, "Sing, O barren woman…" You're going to bear supernatural children. Zion, the city where God chose to put his name, and his glory cloud squandered their rich, spiritual heritage, wasted it. They wasted and squandered all of their rich spiritual blessings. They were spiritually-barren through idolatry and through their sins.

They didn't lead the surrounding Gentile peoples to a faith in the living God. They weren't a light for the Gentiles at that point, they failed in that mission. Instead, they were corrupted by the Gentile nations that surrounded them, they became idolaters just like them, and so they were spiritually barren. This Zion, this woman was spiritually barren, not bearing fruit for God. But now, that Christ has come, and now that Christ has died, and risen, the formally-barren lineage of Abraham and Sarah can bear children for the living God, so sing, and celebrate, and worship God for the streams of children that are going to be coming into this city, just celebrate, praise God.

Enlarge Your Tent! Get Ready for Tons of Children!

And enlarge your tent, get ready for lots of children. Get ready for lots of children. Look at verse 2, "Enlarge the place of your tent, and stretch your tent curtains wide. Do not hold back, lengthen your cords, and strengthen your stakes." So the tent image harkens back to the patriarchal era, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, they lived in tents in Palestine, they traveled about in tents.

And if you're a barren couple, you need only a small tent, but if you're going to have a child, you might need a little bit bigger tent, and if you're going to have twins, you need an even bigger tent. Well, we're not talking twins here. I don't know what the word is for millions and millions and millions and millions of children, but we need a really, really expansive vision here, a really big tent with strong cords and strong stakes, and there's just... Big things are coming.

Well, how many? Well, it's going to be massive, it's going to be massive. Matter of fact, we need the whole Bible, and then church history to tell us just how big this is going to get. Revelation 7:9 says, "After this, I looked, and there before was a multitude from every tribe, language, and people, and nation, a multitude so great, no one could count them. Standing in front of the throne and the Lamb and saying, 'Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb.'" In the world today, statistics say they are over 2 billion who would identify themselves, nominally, as Christians. We know that, in some countries of the world, maybe dominated by Roman Catholicism or Orthodoxy, there might be a dead nominal list of people who had claimed to be Christians because they're not atheists or Muslims, etcetera, but they're not... We wouldn't find them to be born again.

Recent years, missiologists have coined an expression, Great Commission Christians. We used to use the word evangelicals, people who know that you need to be born again, who know and understand the gospel of justification by faith alone, and they've trusted Christ. Missiologists tell us there are somewhere between 550 and 750 million of them in the world today, alive today. Now, we know, again, even, of them, maybe only a percentage of them, a high percentage but a percentage would be genuinely born again, but still half a billion to three quarters of a billion alive today.

"Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent curtains wide…" and get big... It's going to get big, really big. And that's just the ones that are walking the earth today. What about all of those that have lived before us, who have died and gone on to be with the Lord. And he's not the God of the dead, but of the living, they are alive, they're up in the new Jerusalem now and they're glorious now. They're waiting for their resurrection bodies, but... They're absent from the body, but they're present with the Lord, they count too. How many tens of millions up there, we have no idea, this is huge. So even if you took that half a billion to three quarters of a billion number, and you tried to fit them in the physical city of Jerusalem, you're going to have a hard time.

Imagine the Jerusalem airport, imagine trying to get a hotel. Joseph and Mary had a hard time. You won't get a hotel. The most densely-populated city on the face of the Earth right now is Manila, 111,000 people per square mile. We're talking about 100 times as densely-populated if we all descended on physical Jerusalem, so we're not going there. Just go about your business, live your lives in your community. We don't need to go to a physical Jerusalem because the time for that is over. After the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, Zion, the city of God is heavenly and constantly expanding through missions for 20 centuries, and it's huge.

You Will Expand and Displace Nations

Verse 3, "You will expand and displace nations. You'll spread out to the right and to the left. Your descendants will dispossess nations, and settle in their desolate cities." Now, the idea of physical Israel in the time of Ezra and Nehemiah doing this, perhaps, you could say, in some sense, taking over the Promised Land, but it would never be the same again. They were doing it by permission of the Medo-Persian emperors, and they certainly weren't going to be displacing the Meads or the Persians. And after the Persians fell to Alexander the Great, they weren't going to be displacing the Greeks. And after the Greeks fell to Rome, they certainly weren't going to be displacing the Romans. So verse 3 is spiritual, friends. It's spiritual, it's about missions. You're going to expand and displace, I would say, the satanic ideologies and the false gods, and all that. And you're going to take over places spiritually. We're not looking to own property here, we're going to inherit the Earth, and so we move, we travel lightly. We're like aliens and strangers, we're living in tents in our minds, but this spreading out and displacing neighbors is not military, that's not a physical conquest, it's the gospel.

The time of disgrace is over, in verse 4. We're done being disgraced. Zion is done, "Do not be afraid," he says, "You will forget the shame of your youth and remember no more the reproach of your widowhood." Now, in ancient times, one of the greatest disgraces for a married woman was to be childless. Even worse would be to be sent away by your husband, to be rejected by your own husband, and sent away, a great disgrace. These are images of disgrace, of shame, of sin. Jerusalem was called a whore by Isaiah the prophet in chapter 1:21. The faithful city has become a harlot. Why? Because of their idolatry, they're running after false gods and goddesses, the corruption of their souls. And so Hosea has an image of an unfaithful wife that he's got to go marry, and that's a picture of God's marriage to Israel, and how unfaithful she is.

But now that Christ has come, and now that Christ has shed his blood and redeemed her and bought her back, the time for her shame and disgrace is over. Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame. The time for shame is done. The reason for the change is the sovereign grace of God. Look at verse 5, "You will forget the shame of your youth and remember no more the reproach of your widowhood. For your Maker is your husband-- the LORD Almighty is his name-- the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer; he is called the God of all the earth." That's why.

And so, in verses 5-10, we have Zion, a formally-rejected wife, now restored in covenant love. The Lord will call you back as if you are a wife, deserted and distressed in spirit, a wife who married young, only to be rejected, says your God. Verse 7, "For a brief moment, I abandoned you, but with deep compassion I will bring you back. In a surge of anger, I hid my face from you for a moment, but with everlasting kindness, I will have compassion on you, says the Lord your redeemer."

This is a marvelous section here. God's names overwhelm this section, your maker, your husband, the Lord Almighty, the Holy One of Israel, your redeemer, the God of all the earth, six different names or functions of God, and they represent God's work in our lives. God is our maker, he knit us together, step by step, in our mothers' wombs. And each of the people who are going to populate the New Jerusalem eternally, God crafted them in that way, in their mother's womb. He is our maker. And God is our husband. The image of Zion as the bride of Christ is powerful, every marriage a mysterious picture of Christ in the church, the New Jerusalem. The Lord Almighty, that's another image, it's Yahweh of Hosts, the Lord of Hosts. The Lord... The commander of the heavenly army, he's powerful. So the head of his heavenly armies, Lord almighty, Lord of hosts. And the Holy One of Israel, God is the holy one. God is light, and in him, there's no darkness at all. He is pure. He hates wickedness. He hates sin. That's why they went into exile. He is the Holy One of Israel, and he is your redeemer. He's the one who paid the price to buy you out of bondage, paid the price to buy you and liberate you from sin.

He is the God of all the earth. What does that mean? He's not a tribal deity. He's not Israel's little God, little Israel's little god, that's not what he is. He's the God of all the earth, he sits enthroned above the circle of the Earth and its people. All nations are like grasshoppers and like dust on the scales, and dropped from the bucket. They're like nothing compared to him. He is the God of all the earth. That's why you're going to spread out to the ends of the earth and take this message, because all nations belong to him. This is the God who is freeing his people from shame. Now, Zion was like a wife rejected by her husband and sent away into exile because of her spiritual adultery and her idolatry. God sent her away into exile in Babylon for her sin, she was disgraced, shamed for her defilement, but God did this, he says, for just a brief moment. Look at verse 7-8, "For a brief moment, I abandoned you, but with deep compassion, I will bring you back. In a surge of anger, I hid my face from you for a moment, but with everlasting kindness, I will have compassion on you, says the Lord your Redeemer."

So God, in some way, abandoned Israel. In some way, he hid his face from her in the exile. But he says it was just a brief time, it was just a short time. Yeah, 70 years. Just know that God doesn't measure time the way you and I do. We say, for a brief moment, that's all, short time, I hid my face from you in anger, in a surge of anger, he says. Now, God disciplines his people for their sins, even now, even still. And I just want to step aside for a moment and just apply this to you. You may be actually in the middle of a brief surge of anger from God to you. It's not wrath, but it's a fatherly chastisement for your sins. You have violated your conscience in some way. You know what's going on, and God is afflicting you in some way, you may have an illness, you may have a diagnosis. By the way, not every diagnosis is because of known sins, but some are.

James 5 makes it plain. If we've sinned, that may be why we're sick, and we need to confess that and ask forgiveness. So it may be, not in every case, but may be. Could be you're having some kind of financial reversal, could be you're having some kind of stress in your family, perhaps some issue at work, something's afflicting you. But note the brevity of this. For a brief moment, in a surge of anger, just for a moment, God will discipline you. I like what it says in Psalm 30:4-5, "Sing to the Lord, you saints of his. Praise his holy name, for his anger lasts only a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime. Weeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning." How sweet is that? So if you're under the chastising hand of God and you feel his rod on you, flee to him, embrace him, kiss the rod, kiss what he's doing, submit to it, learn your lesson, hate the sin that's caused it. If you don't know what it is, say, "Search me, O God, and know me, and show me what I'm doing wrong."

Ask him, ask him, and he'll show you. And then thoroughly repent of the sin, turn from it, and accept God's forgiveness and restoration, and just know this is just a brief time, and it'll pass. And that's a beautiful application. He says, "Just in a short time, I did this." Now, God is committed to bring Israel back and living as a faithful husband to her forever. He speaks of everlasting kindness and compassion in verse 8, as their Redeemer.

The Permanent Covenant

He speaks of a permanent covenant piece, and likens it to the days of Noah. Look at verse 9 and 10. "'To me, this is like the days of Noah, when I swore that the waters of Noah would never again cover the Earth. So now I sworn not to be angry with you, never to rebuke you again. Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet, my unfailing love for you will not be shaken, nor my covenant of peace be removed,' says the Lord who has compassion on you."

So, this is just like God appearing to Noah after the waters of the flood had abated, and then that beautiful rainbow sign up in the sky. This is a sign, a pledge from me to you, and to the whole earth, I will never again destroy the earth with the waters of the flood, as I have done here. Never again. And he's kept that promise. So he's saying same thing for you, after the discipline, after the judgment, never again, I will never take my covenant love from you. So God will bring Zion through all the misery of this world, and put her in a place of total security, where she will live as a bride to her heavenly husband and perfect security forever.

The love of Christ for the church is more permanent than the mountains, ponder that. Though the mountains and the hills be removed, I will never remove my love from you. The Bible actually reveals they will be removed, every mountain and hill Revelation 6, will be removed, they're all going away. They look so permanent, don't they? They just look solid and permanent. I've seen the Himalayas. I've seen the Alps. I've seen the Pyrenees. I've seen the Karakoram mountains. I've seen some awesome mountains. I've seen the Rockies. I'd like to see more mountains. I love mountains. They seem so permanent. They seem so lofty, and majestic. They're temporary. God's love for you in Christ is eternal, that's what he's saying in this text.

God will marry Zion and live as a husband to her forever. This marriage image, Revelation 21:2, "I saw the holy city of the New Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband." More on that in a moment. Isaiah 54 pictures the day when all anger from God will be gone, and we'll live in total covenant security as the bride of Christ.

Final section, verse 11-17, Zion, a formally-destroyed city, will be beautiful and secure. Verse 11 and 12, "O afflicted city, lashed by storms and not comforted, I will build you with stones of turquoise, your foundations with sapphires. I'll make your battlements of rubies, your gates of sparkling jewels, and all your walls of precious stones." So Jerusalem was an afflicted city, meaning humbled, poor, lowly, or debased. The city was said to be lashed by storms, and not comforted, referring to the attacks of wicked people, the persecutions and judgments that came from God on Jerusalem.

But then, as we expand it, talking about the heavenly Jerusalem, I think they go out to the afflictions and the tribulations and the troubles of God's people in this world until the glory comes. And there's afflictions and troubles and trials that are coming. God is committed to build this heavenly city, this heavenly Zion with costly stones, and lay... Adorn her foundations with sapphires, and her battlements, her pinnacles will be adorned with rubies, and her gates of sparkling jewels. It's going to be incredible beauty, incredible wealth. Exact same image as Revelation 10... Or Revelation 21, sorry, 10-14. Listen to this, Revelation 21, " And he carried me away in the Spirit to a mountain great and high, and showed me the Holy City, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God. It shone with the glory of God, and its brilliance was like that of a very precious jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal. It had a great, high wall with twelve gates, and with twelve angels at the gates. On the gates were written the names of the twelve tribes of Israel. There were three gates on the east, three on the north, three on the south and three on the west. The wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb."

So it represents the glories of the elect, the people of God, from Old Covenant, New Covenant, everyone there, glorious, radiant, shining with the glory of God. Ephesians 2 pictures the church like a living temple, being... Just rising up. A temple in which God lives and dwells by his spirit. And as I said, 1 Peter 2 pictures us like living stones, quarried out of Satan's dark kingdom and set in a wall to dwell forever. Living stones.

Isaiah 60 pictures the splendor of Zion, and the islands will look to God, and in the leaderships of Tarsus, bringing your sons from afar, with their silver and gold to the honor of the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, for he has endowed you with splendor, and foreigners will rebuild your walls, and their kings will serve you. And though, in anger, I struck you, in favor, I will show you compassion. Your gates will always stand open, they'll never be shut, day or night, so that men may bring you the wealth of the nations, their kings led in triumphal procession. And says there that Zion will be a place of knowledge of God and peace. Look at verse 13 and 14, "All your sons will be taught by the Lord and great will be your children's peace, and in righteousness, you will be established." These are the blessings of the Gospel. You're going to know God. They will all be taught by God, Jesus said.

No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, "Know the Lord," but they'll all know me, from the least of them to the greatest. We'll have an intimate knowledge of God in heaven, perfect doctrine. And we'll be glorious, and it'll be a place of perfect security, we'll be at peace with God, great will be your children's peace, and great will be our righteousness.

The New Jerusalem Will Be Completely Secure!

And this new Jerusalem will be completely secure, verses 15-17, "If anyone does attack you, it will not be my doing. Whoever attacks, he will surrender to you. Behold, it is I who created the blacksmith who fans the coals into flame, and forges a weapon fit for its work. And it is I who have created the destroyer to wreak havoc." Verse 17, "No weapon forged against you will prevail. And you'll refute every tongue that accuses you. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and this is their vindication from me, declares the Lord."

So if this is ultimately the church, Satan is concocting a whole bunch of weapons against you, as his church, concocting them every day. Flaming arrows to fire at us every day. God says they're all going to fail, all of them. You're going to make it through, you're going to be just fine. Actually, you going to be more than just fine. You're going to be radiantly glorious. No weapon forged against you will prevail. So this includes persecution by ISIS, persecution by secular governments, persecution by communist governments, and persecution by Islamic governments, and persecution by co-workers who aren't believers, and family members. No weapon forged against you will prevail. You're going to overcome, in all of these things, you're going to be more than a conqueror through him who loved us.

So applications, before we go to the Lord's Supper, just see the connection between Isaiah 53 and 54. Isaiah 53 speaks of Jesus who shed his blood on the cross for sinners like you and me. 54 speaks of a glorious city where such redeemed people will live forever. Come into that city now. Come into the kingdom now by repentance and faith in Christ. Flee to Christ while there's still time. Flee to Christ now. Today is the day of salvation. Look to Christ crucified, his blood shed on the cross, as for you, that you were the sheep going astray, and now the Lord has laid on Christ your iniquities, by faith, find forgiveness in Christ.

Secondly, just if you're a believer in Christ, embrace the missionary thrust of this chapter that William Carey found. I don't think I can do any better than this. Expect God to do great things through FBC. Expect them. Expect God to use this church to take the gospel to the ends of the Earth, expect it. And put your expectations in your prayer life. Pray great things for this church. Pray that we would do greater things than we've ever done up till now in missions and evangelism. Pray for that. And then attempt great things for God. I love that word, attempt. It's like, "Huh? That sounds kind of uncertain." It is uncertain. You don't know how it's going to turn out, just do something for Christ. Be bold, take risks, share the gospel, attempt great things, and let God use your attempts to build his kingdom.

Let's reach out right here in the Durham area. On Wednesday night, we talked about embracing a new pattern of ministry to unreached people groups right here in the Triangle region. They're right here. And we chose to embrace the Gujarati people from India, they're an unreached people group that live right here. If you want to do unreached people group ministry without getting on a plane, you can do that. That's awesome. We've already got internationals coming on Wednesday nights, and they're getting ministered to every week. Get involved in that. And let's... Walter Lee shared with us our Global Priority Fund, our Global Missions Fund, Great Commission Fund. We are seeing a spike of giving in that every December, and then it drops off to kind of zero the rest of the year, until the summer, and then some giving comes up in connection with short-term mission trips. What do you say we level that out... Well, make it high, but level, all the way across? January giving, February, March, April, May... Sacrificial giving to missions. Why not? Let's expect great things for God, and attempt great things for God.

And then, finally, find your security in this, no weapon forged against you will prevail. Satan is throwing flaming darts at us all the time, and we live in a world in which ISIS is beheading people. Isn't it cool to know that a former beheader of Christians can become a Christian? Isn't that awesome? Pray for that. Pray that God would use the blood of martyrs as seed for the church. Now the time has come for Lord's Supper. I'd like to invite the deacons to come. And one application, as I close the sermon part in prayer, is, as we partake in the Lord's Supper, to look on it as a foretaste of the feast that we're going to enjoy in the new Jerusalem. Let's close the sermon in prayer.

Andy Davis preaches a verse-by-verse expository sermon on Isaiah 53:10-12. The main subject of the sermon is Christ's substitutionary atonement.

Patrick Morley, in his book, The Man in the Mirror tells a heart-wrenching story about an ill-fated Alaskan fishing trip. Some fishermen went out on a small seaplane, and they found a secluded bay up there in Alaska and they had a great day pulling in salmon and they returned to their plane late that afternoon, but to their surprise, they found that the aircraft was high and dry because of the fluctuating tide. They had no choice then, but to wait until the morning when incoming tides would make their take-off possible.

The next morning, with the plane afloat, they started the engine, and took to the air, but within minutes, the plane fell back into the sea. What had happened was, there was a leak in one of the pontoons and unbeknownst to them, it had filled with water. And so, the plane crashed in the sea. The three adult fishermen survived the crash as did Mark, the 12-year-old son of one of the fishermen. After praying together, the four abandoned the sinking plane and began to swim towards the shore. They were fighting the whole way the cold waters, frigid waters, and a vicious riptide. Two of the men, strong swimmers made it to the shore barely and reached it exhausted, but as they turned, and looked back, they could see this one father cradling his 12-year-old son in his arms as they were swept out to sea. And it was pretty obvious what had happened, the father could have made it, but he could not leave his son to die and would rather die than watch his son die.

One of the most painful, heart-wrenching agonies a father can undergo is to bury a child or to watch a child die and there's nothing that they can do to save him or her. But in our text today, as we come to Isaiah 53 for the third time, we come to verse 10, in it is just about infinite mystery, something that we can barely be able to comprehend. Because if you look at the translation properly, it says, "It was the Lord's pleasure to crush Jesus and cause him to suffer." Something we can hardly imagine. A father who took delight in the torturous death of his own son. Can't understand it. Now, we could ask, is that really what the text is saying? Yes, that's what the text is saying.

A number of years ago, a chaplain in a prison was preaching a message and he asked again and again this probing question, "Who killed Jesus?" And it was one of those kind of Bible studies and messages where there were some give and take. So the prisoners volunteered some of the information, one of them said, "It was the Jews or maybe the Jewish leaders that killed Jesus. It was the Romans or Pontius Pilate killed Jesus. It was, it was Judas Iscariot that killed Jesus." And the pastor, the chaplain said, "You know, all that's true at one level, but ultimately it was his own father that killed him."

And the text he was looking at was Acts 2:23, it says there, Peter and the Pentecost sermon said that Jesus was "delivered over by God's set purpose and foreknowledge." his own father killed him, delivered over by his purpose. And the text we're looking at here, it says, that it was God's pleasure to do so. God was pleased to do this. To crush him and cause him to suffer." How can we understand these words? How can we understand a father who would take delight in the torturous death of his own Son? Why was it the pleasure of God to do this?

Well, we're going to answer that today in the text, but I can just say right away what the reason was, it was because of all the eternal glory that would come from that crushing and the incalculable joy that that crushing would win for you and me as children of the living God. It brought God pleasure to be exalted and glorified and magnified by that crushing and it brought God pleasure to save a multitude from all over the world by that crushing. In Isaiah 53, we have plainly, Jesus, the suffering servant cut off from the land of the living in Verse 8, and buried in Verse 9, assigned a grave with the wicked and with the rich in his death. But then we see just victory and triumph flowing in these verses, just the triumph of all of this.

In Verse 10, "He will see his offspring, his children, the fruit of his labors, prolong his days." In Verse 11 he will see the light of life, and he will be satisfied with what he's done. In Verse 11, again, "He will justify many and he will bear their iniquities." In verse 12, "He will divide the spoils with the strong." An incalculable, just river of blessings flowing from this crushing, this the single greatest act in all of history. Christ took on Satan's dark kingdom and defeated it. Christ took on the holy law of God, which was set against us and condemned us, and he satisfied its demands. Christ took on the dark realm of the grave and rose triumphant from it. Christ, the victor will receive the spoils for all eternity. We get to Verse 12, "Therefore, I will give him a portion among the great and he will divide the spoils with the strong."

Now, no chapter in the Bible so clearly predicts the spoils of that victory as Isaiah 53. But no chapter in the Bible, I think so clearly depicts the spoils as Revelation 5. And there in Revelation, you know that God the Father has the scroll, the title deed of the Earth sealed with seven seals, and no one is worthy to take the scroll or open it and then suddenly behold the lamb slain, the lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David, has triumphed, we're told. He is able to take that scroll and its seven seals and open it. And they sang a new song in that chapter, "And they sang a new song: 'You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation. You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God, and they will reign on the earth.' Then I looked and heard the voice of many angels, numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand. They encircled the throne and the living creatures and the elders.  In a loud voice they sang: 'Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise!' Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, singing: 'To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power, for ever and ever!'"

That's why, that's why it was the Lord's pleasure to crush him. A river of glory for God, and joy and satisfaction for us, the redeemed. So this now is the third sermon on this amazing prophecy. Isaiah 53 is the clearest chapter in the Bible. Old Testament or New Testament, on the central mechanism of our salvation, which is substitutionary atonement. The idea that our sin, our guilt, our wickedness can be transferred to a substitute, and his suffering death can completely atone for it all, that's the center piece of our salvation. This eternal gospel, this timeless message of salvation through a substitute sent by God was proclaimed with crystal clarity 700 years before Jesus was born.

So we've looked at this chapter now for over the last two weeks, and now by God's grace, we'll seek to finish our look at it. But we're going to spend eternity in heaven probing the details of all of this, won't we? And I can't wait. So let's review briefly where we've been already, broken to five sections, each of three verses long, beginning in Isaiah 52:13 through 15. Christ is presented in Verse 13 as, one, who'll be successful, he'll be raised and exalted, and highly lifted up. In Verse 14, and we're also told on the other hand, that he will be appalling to look at. He'll be disfigured so badly that he'll be barely recognizable as a human being. In Verse 15, the disfigurement of the servant of the Lord was the way by which he would sprinkle many nations. And we talked about that, that that sprinkling was an atoning blood poured out for us and we would be cleansed by it.

In Verse 15 also, this is the very one who would be proclaimed even to Kings and they'll shut their mouths because of him. The distant gentile kings will hear about him and they will believe. Isaiah 53:1-3, we see, this assertion in verse one that this is a message that must be proclaimed. A message that must be believed, but it's hard to believe. It's hard to accept and we'll never accept it, unless the arm of the Lord is revealed to us by God's sovereign grace, by the Holy Spirit. You'll never see Christ crucified and resurrected. You'll never understand it unless God reveals it to you by the Spirit.

In verse 1, he is the arm of the Lord, mighty to save. But yet verse 2, he's revealed also as human. He grew up before him so he's a human being. Grew up in the ordinary way and nothing that remarkable about his appearance, there was nothing in his appearance that we should worship him as God. Nothing in his appearance that would attract us. He was unattractive, unimpressive. Verse 3, he was despised and rejected. People horrified by his appearance and he was held in low esteem. People underestimated him.

In verses 4-6, we have the theological center of the Bible, substitutionary atonement, Christ takes up our pain. He carries our sin and he dies for it. He's pierced for our transgressions. He's crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds were healed. Verse 5, Jesus thus gives health to diseased people who are dying and peace to wicked rebels, formally at war with God. But he does this at the cost of his life. Pays his life for this. Verse 6, "We all like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned his own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all."

In verses 7-9, we see Christ innocent, but willing to be slaughtered. Christ, by his willingness to die in our place is able to atone for our sins. In some sense, this suffering man was exactly like the sheep led to the slaughter. But in a very significant way, different. He went meekly, but unlike the animal, he knew exactly where he was going, he knew exactly what was happening, he was laying down his life for us. No one was taking his life from him, no one could do that, he's God, but he laid down his life as an act of his will. So he's different than the animals in that regard. Completely innocent. There was no violence in his actions or wickedness in his speech. The full scriptural revelation is that Jesus was a perfect man. He was sinless, but he died in our place. The prophetic details of this cannot be swept away, they can't be ignored. Words like pierced in verse five, and the fact that he was buried in a rich man's tomb in Verse nine, these don't just go away, they can't be allegorized.

So how amazing is all of this? We're the sheep going constantly astray. We're the wicked rebels made sick by our sin and at war with God. Before all the nations, God bears his holy arm in the form of a frail, unimpressive human being, a Son whom we despised and rejected. This One carried our infinitely heavy load and he died under the infinitely fierce wrath of God and he was buried in a rich man's tomb, this same One rose from the dead, and now enjoys looking at his spiritual children day after day from every nation on Earth. How awesome is that, how beautiful is the gospel.

So now let's look at the verses that are still remaining before us, Verses 10 through 12. First, Verse 10, the pleasure of the Lord in crushing his Son. KJV says, "Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him. He has put him to grief." And again NAS has, "But the Lord was pleased to crush him, putting him to grief." Those two, the King James and the New American Standard tend to be the most accurate meticulous translations. And so they go right from the Hebrew over into the English with the word "pleased" or "pleasure".

Now, our God is a happy being. The Bible reveals this. He's always happy, continually happy. We're the miserable ones. He's the happy one, always. He's happy in heaven. The perfect joy of the Lord is in no way disturbed or troubled by the events of earth. He's happy in and of himself, and always has been, and he always will be.

Great verse on this, is 1 Timothy 1:11, it speaks there of "the glorious Gospel of the blessed God." Again that phrase, the blessed God is something we could just go right over but the word blessed just means happy deeply, richly, fully happy that's God. And so it's the good news of a happy God. John Piper translates the verse that way and it's a beautiful way. God delights perfectly in himself, he's happy being God and he perfectly delighted in his son from eternity past, he loves him with a love that cannot be measured. The Father delights in his rulership over heaven and earth. This is expressed in his sovereign will, expressed in detailed plans that he is pleased to make. And so, often verse 10 is translated, "it was the will of the Lord to crush him." NIV has that kind of language. So it was the will of the Lord, and that's fine, it's what the Lord pleased to do, what he was pleased to determine. It was the will of the Lord to crush him, and that's fine. Many other verses linked God's will with his happiness.

So Psalm 115:3, "Our God is in heaven, he does whatever pleases him." That's a great verse. Whatever he wants to do, he does, and who can stop him. Who can hold back his hand, who can question him. Whatever he pleases to do he does. And so often we have this language of it please the Lord to X and then something would come. So we could use this language. It pleased God to create heaven and earth. It pleased God to create the birds and the fish and the animals, and so there were birds and fish and animals. It pleased God to create man, male and female in his image, and so they were created. It pleased him to do it. He did it. And then it extends beyond into the redemptive plan of God as well. It pleased God to permit Satan's fall into wickedness and rebellion. It pleased the Lord to permit man Adam and Eve to follow Satan in that rebellion.

It pleased God to begin working a very complex amazing plan of salvation of redemptive history after that, which included the pleasure of God and choosing out a man, Abraham, and making certain promises to him. It pleased God to justify Abraham, though he was a sinner, though he was wicked because of his sins, it pleased him to justify him simply by faith, and it pleased God to unfold the history of the Jewish nation Abraham's descendants, physical descendants. It pleased God to allow them to go into Egypt during the time of famine. It pleased God to allow them to become slaves and it pleased God at the right time, through Moses, to bring them out with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. It pleased God to destroy Pharaoh's army through the Red Sea crossing.

We could use this language and the Bible does again and again, it pleased him. It even includes the exile as part of God's pleasure. In Deuteronomy 28, he warned them very plainly, the Jewish nation, right before they entered the Promised Land. "You must keep my covenant, if you don't, I will kick you out." And he puts it in this language, listen to Deuteronomy 28:63. Very interesting verse, "Just as it pleased the Lord to make you prosper and increase in number, so it'll please him to ruin and destroy you." Exact same verb. But it has to do with what God is willing, what he's determining to do.

Now, the will of the Lord sums up this verse as well. Look at Verse 10, "It was the Lord's will, [or pleasure] to crush him." And then at the end of the verse, "The will [or pleasure] of the Lord will prosper in Jesus's hand." So this is infinite mystery here. It pleased God to crush his son. How could we understand this, how can we understand the pleasure of God in the torturous death of his son?

Some have rejected substitutionary atonement, rejected this whole idea. They use language like heavenly child abuse. It's horrible, they don't understand what's going on here. I don't think for a moment that I can plumb the depths of this mystery. No earthly father has ever loved his son more than God the Father loves his perfect Son, Jesus. And never will. No doting Father, no matter how much you feel you love your children. You don't come up to one millionth of a percent of the Father's love for his son. You don't hold a candle to that raging inferno of God's love, the passionate love he has for his son, which he expressed twice in the Gospel of Matthew, once at his baptism, when a voice came from heaven saying, "This is my son, whom I love, with him I am well pleased." No words can capture it.

And Jesus lived a sinless life. He said this in John 8:29. "I always do what pleases him." John 14:31, this is Jesus speaking, "The world must learn that I love the Father and that I do exactly what the Father has commanded me." Learn in what way? By my death. I love my father and I'll do everything he's commanded me to do. Yet it was the pleasure of God the Father to crush such a son.

Understanding How He Was Crushed

Now, the Hebrew word "crush" here is well translated. The idea is of immense pressure brought to bear until at last, it's crushed. That's what the word is. You saw it earlier in verse 5 with a piercing verse. In verse 5, it says, "he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquity." Same thing. How do we understand the pleasure of the Lord in this? Well, I think the only way I can get my mind around it, is to understand the mind of the Father through the mind of the son. So, how did Jesus think about the cross? And that will give me a good indication of how the father, because I think the same. And you get that in Hebrews 12:2. Hebrews 12:2 is a great insight into the Lord's pleasure in this. Listen to Hebrews 12:2, "Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith, who for the joy set before him, endured the cross, despising its shame and sat down at the right hand of the Father."

So think of the Father, that way too. He's not a masochist delighting in the actual process of the crushing of his son on the cross, not at all. The father takes no delight or pleasure in the cross itself. He endured it, like Jesus did. How? For the joy and the glory that's set before him, he gets the glory, we get the joy. He gets joy too. And that's why it was worth it to him to endure this. I want you to remember the actual circumstances of Jesus' death. There were two amazing indicators of how the father was feeling at that time. If we can use that language. How is the father feeling about the crushing of his son? How about an eerie, supernatural darkness that came over that entire region of the world? I mean extended history tells us, as far as Rome. Day became night and then at the moment that Jesus dies, there's a tremendous earthquake, a rending of the rocks, that's what the father is feeling in pouring out his wrath on his own son.

So he endured the cross. Why? For the joy of what it would produce. Not the thing itself. No, he did it because it was the Father's good pleasure to give you, little flock, the kingdom. That's why, he wanted to give you a kingdom and he had to pay the price for it. And he could not bring sinners like you and me into Heaven without atoning for our sin first. The justice had to be paid... We had violated his law, and it was wrong for him to take us unatoned for in heaven, he had to do it. That's why.

Now in Verse 10 also, we have the fruit of Christ's labor, spiritual offspring. It says, "When you shall make his soul an offering for sin, he will see his offspring and prolong his days." So we have theme of substitution again, Jesus did not die for his own sins, he was not crushed for his own wickedness, "But God," it's literally second person there, "when you shall make his soul... " so that's God. God made his soul an offering for sin, God the father did, he did that so that we might live forever.

Since that is done, when that is done, because that is done, Jesus gets to see his offspring. He gets to see his seed. Had to pay the price, and once that was done, he could see his seed. There's a strong link then because of his substitutionary death, Jesus will see his offspring, his seed. If he had not died in their place, they would have been crushed by God's justice eternally in hell, but Jesus wins seed or children for God.

In the Old Testament, to see your descendants, to see your grandchildren and great-grandchildren, that was a great blessing, that's a blessed life, because children are blessing from the Lord, a heritage from God, that's a blessing. So, you remember at the end of... All of Job's crushing, and at the end of that, God... All of his children died, but God gave him more children and it says "After this, Job lived 140 years, he saw his children, and their children to the fourth generation." That's blessed to be able to see that and that's a clear mark of blessing.

Well, Jesus is going to see his spiritual sons and daughters, forever, to the nth generation. I don't know how many there are, but lots and lots and lots. Centuries and centuries of children flowing from this. We are his children, his spiritual children, not biological, spiritual. So it says in John 1:12-13, "But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God." Those are Jesus' offspring, and he'll see them forever.

Says in Hebrews 2:13, Jesus speaking, "Behold, I and the children God has given me." You see that, he's like presenting us to heaven, "Behold me, and all my children." And we come in through him. And it says in Hebrews 2 also, "Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity, so that by his death, he might destroy him who holds the power of death, that is the devil, and free those, who all their lives, are held in slavery by their fear of death."

Verse 10 also says that he will of the Lord will prosper in Christ's hand. Prosperity, richness, fruit. I get the picture of Jesus, like a skillful gardener and the father entrusts this amazingly complex deep-plan to him and said, "Do something with this." And he says, "Yes, father." And makes it flourish and he just makes it beautiful by his death. Skillful gardener and just all these fruits and vegetables and fragrant, fragrant aromas and beautiful flowers and just flowering in Jesus' hand.

Or another image would be of a skillful violinist let's say, and the father wrote some incredible music and hands it to his skillful son and says "Here, play this," and he plays it beautifully, he plays this music perfectly. The will of the Lord flourishing in Jesus' hand, the pleasure of God.

Now in verse 11, we have Christ's resurrection victory, "After the suffering of his soul, he will see the light of life and be satisfied by his knowledge. My righteous servant will justify many and he will bear their iniquities." So the death of Christ clearly established, an Isaiah 53, as we've seen, verse 8, "cut off from the land of the living." Sounds like death. Verse 9, "assigned a grave with the wicked". He's definitely dead, he's with the rich in his death, he's dead. But verse 11 makes it clear that he didn't stay dead "After the suffering of his soul…" Clearly referring to his death, "He will see." That's all it says literally, just he will see. The NIV helpfully, or unhelpfully adds "the light of life." I think it's just enough to know that after he's dead, he'll see something, which you can't do unless you're alive. So it speaks of the resurrection and all that you ever see is light anyway, so light of life is fine with me. So this is a clear testimony to the resurrection of Jesus Christ. After the suffering of his soul, he will be raised from the dead and see the offspring that are going to come.

We get clear doctrine, again, in Verse 11, of substitutionary atonement. "By his knowledge, my righteous servant will justify many and he will bear their iniquities." One scholar says, Verse 11 is one of the fullest statements of atonement theology ever penned, this one verse: "By his knowledge, my righteous servant will justify many and he will bear their iniquities." So the suffering servant, knows it, this knowledge he knows the needs to be met, he knows what must be done since he is righteous and my servant or God's servant, he is fully acceptable to God, to do this. He is appointed by him to satisfy his wrath. He identified himself personally with us and our sins, he accomplishes the atonement fully and perfectly once for all time. And so, we have double imputation here, our sin laid on him, and he dies, his righteousness laid on us and we live. 2 Corinthians 5:21, God "made him who had no sin, to be sin for us so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." That double exchange.

Verse 12, we see the eternal glory for Christ, substitutionary atonement, "Therefore, I will give him a portion among the great, and he will divide the spoils with the strong because he poured out his life unto death and because he was numbered with the transgressors, for he bore the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors." This a glorious summation of all of these 15 verses. Glorious, and it begins with the word "therefore", Christ gets what he deserves. Like in Philippians 2,"…being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death, even death on a cross, therefore, God exalted him to the highest place…" because he did this, he gets everything that's coming to him.

So also, as we've seen, Revelation 5, Jesus won the right to come and take the scroll from the right hand of the one who sat on the throne. He earned it, because he died because he won this victory, it's a triumph. And so he gets a portion with the strong. He's the greatest warrior in history, but his way of fighting is different than other warriors greater than Samson, greater than David, greater than any warrior, Jesus' warfare was of a different type. And he deserves the spoils for his victory, that's what the verse is saying, he deserves to be honored for it, he deserves to be worshipped. And what are the spoils of his victory? We are. He won us. If you're a Christian, you belong to another. You belong to your master, 1 Corinthians 6, "You are not your own; you were bought at a price." And so you are blood-bought, you're blood owned by a marvelous King and Master and so he gets the spoils, and we're it. A multitude greater than anyone could count, from every tribe, and language, people and nation bought with his blood and they belong to him.

Now we see also here a powerful link between Jesus' atoning work, his blood work, and his intercessory work. There's an indissoluble link between the two of them. Everyone that Jesus sheds his blood for, he prays for. And only them. And everyone he prays for, he sheds his blood for. And only them.

So verse 12, "He bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors." How comforting is it to you to know that Jesus is at the right hand of God and is interceding for you? Romans Chapter 8 says that he ever lives or always lives to make intercession for us. He has a permanent priesthood. And he's able to save us to the uttermost. Save us completely, because he's constantly praying for you. And what is he praying? Well we've seen this time and again, in Luke 22, remember?

Simon Peter saying, that even if all fall away on account of Jesus, he never would. Yeah, that before the hardest night of his life, the biggest fall he ever had into sin. The worst, most shameful night of his life and he didn't know it was about to hit him. And Jesus said, "Simon, Simon. Satan has demanded to sift all of you like wheat. But I've prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail." That's the intercession he's making for you, transgressors, that's the intercession he's making for me, that my faith in Jesus won't ever fail until I don't need it anymore. And when will I not need my faith anymore? When I see him with my own eyes, the day of faith will be over, and I will have finished my salvation journey. But I'm not done yet, I have a race to run, and it's a hard race. And I'm assaulted every moment by the world of flesh, and the devil, and he's not going to stop praying for me that my faith won't fail until I'm done with my race.

So what does he pray? He prays for our faith, that it won't fail. On what basis? On the basis of his shed blood. Think about the hymn Come, ye Sinners, Poor and Needy. It says this, "Lo the incarnate God ascended, pleads the merit of his blood." he's pleading on the basis of his blood to his Heavenly Father, for us. Or again in the hymn, Arise, My Soul Arise, is what the hymn writer put it, how he put it, "Five bleeding wounds he bears, received on Calvary. They pour effectual prayers, they strongly speak for me. Forgive him! Oh forgive they cry, nor let that ransomed sinner die." The Father hears him pray, his dear Anointed One, he cannot turn away the presence of his son, "His Spirit answers to the blood and tells me I am born of God."  So that's the nature of the intercessory prayer ministry going on, constantly for us.

So what application can we take for Isaiah 53? Well, I prayed many times and I continue to pray for any that are here that are outside the Gospel. Or walked in here. You know you're in a lost state. I'm pleading with you to come in while there's time. To come in while there's time. You have to deal with this chapter, it doesn't just go away.

It doesn't blow away like the dust, you have to deal with Isaiah 53. You have to deal with the fact that the Dead Sea scrolls say it's at least 2 1/2 centuries older than Jesus and that history tells us it's actually seven centuries older than Jesus and that it clearly speaks of one, a servant, who dies in the place of others to bear their sins and in that way, it makes sense of all of the animal sacrificial system, which other than that doesn't make any sense at all, frankly. I don't understand how modern Judaism understands the animal sacrificial system without the fulfillment in Christ. Doesn't make any sense to me. Made no sense because it's gone now.

But if Christ is the final sacrifice, it makes perfect sense. You have to deal with this, this isn't going to go away, and you've heard it now you're sitting here. We've been through all 12 verses of Isaiah 53 and then the three that preceded it. And someday you're going to have to give an account to God for what you've heard here. I'm asking, I'm pleading with you, flee to Christ now. Repent of your sins and trust in him, that you might be justified, counted righteous, forgiven by simple faith in Christ. Come to Christ.

Now, if you're already believer in Christ, you've been so for some time, maybe a long time. Can I just urge you to rejoice in the certainty of your salvation? Just be confident that you're going to be saved. You are continually going astray into sin, we all do that, all of us, like sheep do this. So just thank the Lord for suffering in your place, trust in him more and more to fully cure you of your wandering ways, present those wandering ways to him and say, "Cure me of this, you're my good shepherd. Cure me of my wandering ways." But know the whole time you're atoned for, you're forgiven of your wandering ways.

And believers, share this chapter with an unbeliever. It has converting power. I said that last week. I would love to hear if there are any stories of attempts that you made to share this with folks. Try again and try again next week, even when we're in Isaiah 54, God willing. Keep trying with Isaiah 53. It's awesome. Use it as a witnessing tool. Find a co-worker, a neighbor, a fellow student, a dorm mate, and ask if they'd be willing to go through this chapter with you. Explain how it's written seven centuries before Christ, go carefully through its message, emphasize the "we" part of our sin and the "he" part about what Christ has done, go through all that. And then urge them to repent and believe.

Now, to you who are suffering disease and pain, and you're fearful of death and you're Christians, meditate much on the resurrection body that Christ has won for you. Think about that a lot in the midst of your suffering, just rejoice in that. To those of you that are wrestling with besetting sin, I want you to picture in Isaiah 53, what your sin cost Jesus. Think about that. Think about what he went through because of your sins, the piercing and the crushing he went through, and learn to hate sin as much as the Father and the Son do. Hate it and fight it, while you know you're forgiven.

To those of you who feel unloved, lonely, forsaken, see in Isaiah 53, the greatest display of God's love you'll ever see. God demonstrates his love for you in this, while you're still sinners Christ died for you. This is a display of love, that the Father would do this, not sparing his own Son, but giving him up for you. To those of you that are bewildered by what God's doing in your life, you don't understand this adverse providence that's come. I don't know what it might be, but I know it's got to do with some suffering on your part and you don't know why God is crushing you. Understand, if you're being crushed, it's by God, and that he's pleased to do it. He is pleased to crush you and cause you to suffer. He's pleased to do that. Why? For the good, the joy that's going to come from it, from the joy that's going to come on the other side of these afflictions. This is not an accident what's happening to you. You just don't see it properly perhaps up till now. See it as directly from the hand of God for your ultimate good, if you're a Christian.

And then finally give Christ the spoils he deserves, which is yourself, give him yourself, present your body to him every moment as a living sacrifice. He earned it, he paid for it. You are his, give it to him. Close with me in prayer.

Andy Davis preaches a verse-by-verse expository sermon on Isaiah 53:4-9. The main subject of the sermon is Christ, the unblemished lamb, being sacrificed for His people.

So how would you define a miracle? If somebody were to ask you what is a miracle, what would you say? And one definition that, it's not a careful definition, but be anything that causes surprise or wonder or amazement that violates in some way the laws of nature and there's no natural explanation for it, and it gives evidence for the existence of God. Now, I would have to say that this book, this Bible, that I hold in my hand is by any definition you give of a miracle, is a miracle, is a miracle. Now why would I say that? It's because of the existence of specific predictive prophecy that violates the law of nature of the consecutive events of Monday, then Tuesday, then Wednesday, then Thursday and then 2012, 2013, 2014, the consecutive flow of evening and morning the first day, evening and morning the second day. We cannot know the future. Only God can know the future and as we come to Isaiah 53, we come to the greatest single predictive prophecy in the Bible. Now, how do we know that this was a prediction? Maybe given how specific Isaiah 53 is about Christ, maybe it was written after the fact. Well, it wasn't.

A few years ago, I had the privilege of going to see the Dead Sea Scrolls in Raleigh. Maybe some of you went as well. And as you look down at these little fragments and you understand some of the history of where the Dead Sea Scrolls came from, and it's just an amazing story. In 1947, a Bedouin tribe boy was looking the story goes for a stray goat I think his name was Muhammad and not the goat the boy. And he was looking for a stray goat. And there are these steep cliffs in the Qumran area, the West side of the Dead Sea, eight miles South of Jericho. And as he was looking, I don't know what this had to do with finding a goat but he threw a rock into a cave and as he did, he heard the sound of breaking pottery. And it intrigued him and he made a really amazing effort, to get to the cave because it's nestled on the side of a cliff and as he was in there, he found on the floor of the cave an amazing sight several large jars containing leather scrolls wrapped in linen cloth. And because some of those jars were tightly sealed. When they are opened the scrolls, inside were preserved in excellent condition, and he took the scrolls to a Muslim sheikh in nearby Bethlehem, the sheikh couldn't read them, sent them to a Syrian monk that he knew and eventually, the largest of the scrolls the Isaiah scroll was sold to a Muslim antique dealer.

The original price was 20 pounds, the dealer couldn't believe the scrolls were that old they settled on a sum of less than $30. Eventually they came into the hands of someone who understood the significance of them and because of a particular war that was going on in that region, soon they were brought across the ocean to New Jersey, amazingly. And at one point, I'm not saying anything negative about New Jersey, I need to be very careful, but just they were there.

And even more amazingly on a certain date in 1954, they were put on sale through a want ad or something like that in the Wall Street Journal. You can look this up, there's actually the ad, Dead Sea Scrolls on sale, etcetera, willing... I'm thinking, 1954, that would have been an incredible time to buy the Dead Sea Scrolls. Imagine if you owned the Dead Sea Scrolls, showing them to all your friends. It would be amazing. But they were bought by someone from... An Israeli who understood their significance, and brought back to Israel for the sum of $250,000. Now, the Isaiah scroll from the Qumran community is the most significant of all the Dead Sea Scrolls. Scholar William Albright dated the scroll at 125 BC. Now we know the significance of the letters BC. That's before Christ, a century-and-a-quarter before Jesus was born. This prediction that we're looking at today was clearly written. Now, since that time the carbon-14 dating on that, puts it even further back maybe as far back as 230 BC, almost two and a half centuries before Jesus was born, this predictive prophecy was written. Now, we know just big picture history, they were written long before that. Long before that, seven centuries before Christ was born. Now, that's amazing, it's incredible.

But the real miracle of all of this is none of that, the real miracle is this: How does salvation for sinners like you and me come from such a Holy God? Now, that's the real marvel in all of this. How can this thrice Holy God proclaimed in the Book of Isaiah, holy, holy, holy. The one whose eyes are too pure to look on evil, he cannot tolerate wrong. It says in first John 1, "God is light, and in him, there's no darkness at all." This God who gave the law at Sinai and who upholds it with all of his heart, how can a God like that, accept wicked sinners like you and me? If they just simply believe in the gospel message that I'm going to get to preach today, they can be justified, they can be made right in the sight of such a Holy God.

As it says in Romans 4:5, "However to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited him as righteousness." I mean what a phrase, what a, to some degree, what a scandal. A God who justifies, or declares for all time, not guilty, the wicked. As it says in Romans 5:6, "You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly." Now, this is absolutely astonishing. The normal way that people think or understand God is this: God punishes bad people and rewards good people. That's just what he does. But the Gospel says actually, that God declares wicked people to be innocent. God treats the wicked, the ungodly as though they were righteous. More than that, in the fuller teaching of the Bible, God actually adopts them as his sons and daughters, and takes them to live with him forever in his holy dwelling place in heaven. He does this to wicked people. Friends, that's a stunner. It's... Actually, it goes so far as to be seen as a scandal, if you see it one way. But if it were not so, every last one of us would be lost. We would all sink under the fiery wrath of his justice and we would all of us, every one of us be condemned eternally.

Isaiah 53 is the clearest chapter in the Bible on the central mechanism, if we could use that language. The central mechanism of our salvation. How it is that all of this happens? Substitutionary atonement. Substitutionary atonement. The idea that our sin, our guilt, our wickedness can be transferred from us to a substitute and his suffering and his death can completely atone for it all, all of our law-breaking. The eternal Gospel, this timeless message of salvation through a substitute sent by God was proclaimed with crystal clarity an amazing seven centuries before Jesus Christ was born, in the chapter we're going to look at for the second week today. Now last week, I laid out a five-part outline of this section of Scripture, this chapter, including Isaiah 52:13-15. Five sections, each of them three verses long, a total of 15 verses.

First, in Isaiah 52:13-15, we saw Christ repulsive but redemptive then exalted and glorified. In verses 1-3, we see Christ the arm of the Lord but human and despised. Now today, we're going to see in verses 4-6, Christ rejected but our atoning substitute. And then in verses 7-9, Christ innocent but willing to be slaughtered. And then next week, God willing, we're going to finish up with Christ crushed so we could be justified.

Now, as I've said, the central message of all this, of Isaiah 53 is substitutionary atonement. This is the central work of the One depicted here, the servant of the Lord, who we know is Jesus Christ, the servant of the Lord. Look at verse 11, it says, Isaiah 53:11 says, "By his knowledge, my righteous servant will justify many." Justification, the work of the servant of the Lord here is justification. What does that mean? It's the declaration by God, the Judge, that we are innocent, that we are not guilty, that we're righteous in his sight.

Now, the substitutionary aspect is unfolded very plainly in verses 4-6. Look at it, and we're going to be studying this today very carefully. But it says there, "Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. 5 But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. 6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all."

That is substitutionary atonement. The atonement comes from language like peace and healing and all of that. And the substitutionary aspect is what he did for us, how our sin and guilt was put on him. So also look at verse 8, "He was cut off from the land of the living. For the transgression of my people, he was punished." Again, substitution and atonement. And then in Verse 10, "It was the Lord's will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and the Lord makes his life an offering for sin." Again, substitutionary atonement.

The Possibility of a Transfer of Guilt (Leviticus 16)

Now, at the core of all of this is the very possibility of the transfer of guilt to the substitute and of righteousness from the substitute to us. The very possibility that that could even happen is openly questioned in our day as it has been questioned, how could it be? NT Wright, a British scholar, who was recently here at Duke came and many heard him speak, etcetera. He said this. He said, "If we use the language of the law court, it makes no sense, whatever, to say that the judge imputes, imparts, bequeaths, conveys or otherwise transfers his righteousness to either the plaintiff or the defendant." Do you hear that? Makes no sense to say that. "Righteousness is not an object, a substance or a gas which can be passed across the courtroom," so says NT Wright. But the transfer of guilt to the substitute is the essence of the animal sacrificial system that Jesus fulfilled.

And if you look at Leviticus 16, don't go there now, but just listen to what it says. In Leviticus 16:21, we have this moment which the high priest Aaron puts his hands on the head of a live goat. I'll just read it. Leviticus 16:21, "And Aaron, [the High Priest] "shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goat," and listen to this, "and confess over it all the iniquities of the people of Israel and all their transgressions, all their sins, and he shall put them on the head of the goat and send it away into the wilderness." Well, listen, if that's not a transfer of guilt symbolized, and I'll just say symbolized there, then what is it? It says it very plainly. He's putting the sins, he uses three different words, on the goat and sends the goat away.

Transfer of guilt is of the essence, of the animal sacrificial system that it can happen. The incredible good news of the gospel is that guilt can be transferred to a substitute and he dies what we deserve and his righteousness can be given to us and we can stand in that blameless-ness that perfect robe of righteousness for all eternity, that's the gospel dear friends, that's the good news I get to get up here and proclaim today and every week. And all of this happens by faith, by simple faith, not by works. We already heard the verse, the man who does not work, but trusts God, it's by faith, not by works.

If you look at verse one of Isaiah 53, it says, "Lord, who has believed our message," who has believed our message, "and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed." So here we have this language of faith, belief. There's a need for belief here, belief in a message, a specific verbal message, a verbally proclaimed message. And so this message is going to go out to the ends of the earth in Isaiah 52, at the end of the chapter to hear Joshua read. Kings are going to hear about this, they're going to hear just to the ends of the earth, all these different kings are going to hear what they haven't been told they're going to hear someday and they're going to shut their mouths because of him. So this message is going out in verse 1, who has believed our message. And Jesus doesn't appear to be a savior to us, there's nothing in his appearance there, no beauty or majesty to attract us to him. Nothing compelling in how he looked. So you have to see the savior of the world, differently than just with the eye, even if you'd lived at that time, you had to see him by faith, only by faith.

Lord, who has believed our message as you hear the message, proclaimed, you hear it with your ear you have to believe it with your heart and the verse, verse one implies that cannot happen unless God reveals it to you. Cannot happen unless God reveals it. And so this explains how you can have two people sitting side by side. They're both hearing the exact same message. One of them hears and believes and is saved the other one not. God has to reveal it to you even now, even today. You'll be able to listen to this whole sermon and walk out unconverted. It's possible, actually it happens all the time. But we have prayed that God would reveal his arm to you the arm of the Lord, the display of his power in Christ crucified and resurrected and so if it's revealed you will be saved.

And the last time we saw Christ exalted in the end, Isaiah 52:13, but first totally degraded beyond human appearance, and in his degradation in his just being totally crushed and abased, Isaiah 52:14, in that way. He's going to sprinkle many nations, sprinkling is the language of atonement, his blood will sprinkle them and they'll be atoned for. Isaiah 52:13-15 now, Christ simply grew up out of nothingness. He was a normal human being in appearance, nothing noteworthy, nothing in his appearance noteworthy. He wasn't unusually tall or unusually handsome or unusually glorious in just visually appearance. There's no glow around him like the angel the night that Jesus was born, except on the Mount of Transfiguration, that one time. So it's nothing in appearance, not at all. And he grew up like a tender root out of dry ground, meaning I think that's talking about Israel in general and it talks about the promise to David and the fact that Davidic line was just so humbled by the Gentile overlords and that the whole thing was... Seemed to have come to an end. And in Verse 3, "he was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering, like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised," thought little of, underestimated "and we esteemed him not," saying about the same thing twice.

So that brings us now to today's section, now look at verses 4-6, Christ rejected, but our atoning sacrifice. Verse 4, "Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet, we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him and afflicted." So Christ is characterized by amazing sorrows. We already seen that in 52:14, but they really were not his own. They weren't really his, they didn't, in some way, they didn't belong to him. The human eye if you'd lived back then, and seen all this seen his arrest, his beatings, flogging. Whole thing, carrying the cross, crucifixion, death. If you'd watched all that, you would've seen it... You wouldn't be able to see just by looking what's really going on, wouldn't be obvious to you. The people who watched Jesus go through all of that, his arrest, his floggings, his trial, all of that whole thing, and then his crucifixion and his death.

Most of them would have come to the wrong assumption. They would have seen that he was in some way a criminal, he was getting what he deserved, he was getting punished, he must have done something wrong. Even those who had hoped that he would have been the one who was redeeming Israel had hoped he was the Messiah, would have wondered now because of what's happened here, maybe we misread him, maybe there was some secret crime or some wickedness in him in some way. So the total repudiation by God here. And so, they would misunderstand, his bitterest enemies would have felt totally vindicated by his death. "See, he's not who he claimed to be. If you're the Son of God, come down off the cross and we'll believe in you," they said. It proved positive that he was a sinner, that God, he was under a curse, this was absolutely... This was an open and shut case, it was a slam dunk. If you die on a tree, you're under a curse, there's no way you could have a cursed Messiah. It's impossible. They would have misunderstood what was going on.

And you see how totally alone he was as he bore our sins, there he is out in front of us and there's this whole he, we analogy. He was going through this and that was our sins that he's bearing and so he's on his own here. He took up our infirmities, he carried our sorrows.  

Carrying Our Infirmities and Sorrows

Now you have to go back and understand who he was, the eternal Son of God, sitting on a throne of heavenly bliss of peace and joy and perfect order in his heavenly life, pre-incarnation. And he willingly entered an ocean of misery on earth. He willingly did that, knowing full well what was going to happen. Lepers whose skin was covered with bloody sores, paralyzed people whose legs lay limp and hadn't moved in years. People born blind, who had never seen color. Women bleeding for years and ceremonially unclean. Disease and death, demon possession, running a mock. And beyond that worse than all of that, of course, is the crushing burden of the guilty conscience of all these sinners that he came to save. Knowing the adultery, that you committed with your neighbor's wife or husband, nobody's ever discovered it yet, but you know, and you know God knows. And you're afraid of his wrath and his judgment and your conscience is defiled and polluted. And you know, no animal sacrifice can take that away and you deserve eternal condemnation because of your guilt and your sin, and it's just crushing. And that's the ocean of sin and disease and death that Jesus willingly just plunged into knowing full well some swamp of defilement that he dove head first into for us.

And these infirmities, and these sorrows that he took up were ours, they belonged to us. They were not his, but he took up our infirmities it says, and he carried our sorrows, picture kind of a physical lifting action here, this big heavy weight crushing us. And he comes alongside and just lifts it off of us. I really can't say these words without picturing him lifting the cross. This heavy wooden thing that he carried up the hill Golgotha, and he's just lifting this up. You think about the Old Testament, think about Samson. Remember that story about how he ripped up the city gates, bars, bolts, all of it and goes up to the top of some hill and throws the thing. I would love to have seen that. That would have been awesome. What a display of physical strength. Jesus is stronger than Samson. If you know what it is he lifted and carried, infinitely stronger than Samson. He took these up of, off of us. He lifted our burdens off of our guilty consciences.

The Cross Clearly Predicted and Explained

And the cross clearly predicted and explained here. Look at verse five. In one verse, really verse five, I think clearly predicts and explains the cross more than any other single verse in the Old Testament. "But he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed." I would just love if all of you would just memorize that verse. Each of its four parts, and cherish them for the rest of your lives. Just take up each phrase and look at it. Four words describe Jesus's death on the cross; pierced, crushed, punished, wounded. This is the suffering servant, this is... No way this could have been the Jewish nation as a whole or any other individual, no way. They stumble over the stumbling stone, they can't... They expected a triumphant world-conquering Messiah hero, and so Jesus will be more than they can possibly imagine. He will be.

But they didn't understand God's righteous wrath against them for their sins, all of us underestimates that, how angry God would be apart from Christ at us. We underestimate our sinfulness and so... Also the Jewish nation, the part that doesn't believe in Jesus, just doesn't understand how they needed not immediately a triumphant conqueror King Messiah, but a suffering servant Messiah to take care of their sins. We underestimate our sinfulness. Simply put, a death penalty had to be paid, had to be. God told Adam, "you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die." The serpent tempted in reference to that, you will not surely die, but it was true, God always speaks the truth. So the wages of sin, we're told, is death. Sin and death are linked, that's how death entered the world.

It says in Ezekiel, "The soul who sins will die." So death penalty had to be paid and Jesus paid the death penalty for his people, for our sins. And see the clear assertion in verse five, "he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities." It's talking about our sinfulness. We are transgressors, we've committed iniquity. We're at war with God and so we need to be brought to peace with him and we're his enemies, we're diseased, and dying, and we needed to be healed. That's the language coming from verse five, that's us. This pure substitution language, he and our, us. Now look at the mode of death clearly predicted here, pierced. These words just don't go away. They don't go away like the morning mist. They're words. They're specific words, they just don't disappear like the word sprinkled in the previous section. Sprinkle just doesn't go away. It's an interesting word. And this word pierced just stands there and testifies about how he would die.

And three different prophecies actually predict the piercing of Jesus. When you think about piercing, you think about a membrane like a wall or something like that, and something sharp, penetrating. Going through like that. That's what the word pierce means. Like pierced ears or different things. There's a piercing. There's a membrane. Something is piercing through. It's penetrating. So this word doesn't just disappear. We don't talk it away like it's some poetical metaphor or something like that. Three different prophecies talk about it. This one, in Isaiah 53, but it also have it in Psalm 22 and verse 16. "They have pierced my hands and my feet," David wrote 1000 BC. Wow. They have pierced my hands and my feet. Pierced. And then again in Zechariah 12 and verse 10, "They will look on me, the one they have pierced." Interestingly, three different Hebrew words behind that. Different but piercing all three times. And the amazing work is effective. He's pierced producing peace and healing. Peace with God. Look at the punishment that brought us peace was upon him. Oh, the joy of being able to just say this.

Romans 5:1, "Therefore since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Apart from Christ, God is at war with us and we with him. We are enemies, but through faith in Christ, we have peace. There's a holistic word here. The word in Hebrew is Shalom. It's a full rich peace here. Picture prosperity. Like sitting on your own vine and fig tree, and eating from it, and being happy like the harvest is in, and you're sitting on the front porch, drinking iced tea. I don't think they drank iced tea back then, but picture it now. There's just this complete feeling of health and peace, and success, and prosperity, and every good thing in life. That's Shalom. It's a full rich word. And by his piercing we get peace. That's what happens. By his wounds, also it says we're healed. There's that word healing, healing in body and soul. We're diseased. We're dying. All of us aging and dying. There's aches and pains and beyond that, there's tumors and diagnoses and PET scans and all kinds of things going on in this congregation. We're dying. And if the Lord doesn't return in our generation, we will all of us die. It's appointed to us to die. But by his wounds, we will ultimately be healed, completely healed.

Verse 5 Abused and Perverted by the Prosperity "gospel"

Now, I am not a prosperity gospel teacher. I'm not a health and wealth guy. This is their favorite verse I think. By his stripes we're healed, that kind of... The stripes. By his wounds we're healed. Friends the healing that Jesus intends is far greater than anything that we've ever seen here on Earth. It's far greater than that. Far better. It says in Revelation 21:4 that there will be no more death, or mourning, or crying, or pain. Why? Because the old order of things has passed away and everything's new. The prosperity gospel people have forgotten that part. We're still in the old order of things. Therefore there's still death, mourning, crying, and pain every day. But someday, after the resurrection all of you redeemed by the blood of Christ, you're going to be in resurrection bodies so glorious I can scarcely describe to you how good it's going to be. I can't, but Paul does in 1 Corinthians 15, verses 42 through 44. He says, "So will it be with the resurrection from the dead. The body that is sown is perishable. It is raised imperishable. It is sown in dishonor. It's raised in glory. It is sown in weakness. It is raised in power. It is sown a natural body. It is raised a spiritual body." Whatever that is.  That's the resurrection body. It's a spiritual body, and in it, you will spend eternity. "The righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom..." That's the healing Jesus bought by his wounds. Nothing less than that.

We, The Constantly Wandering Sheep Have Been Atoned For!

Now we, the constantly wandering sheep, we have been atoned for. Look at verse 6. A very... Probably the most famous verse in Isaiah. Perhaps, "Holy holy holy," may be close. But Isaiah 53:6, "We all like sheep have gone astray. Each of us has turned to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all." This constant wandering into wickedness has ever characterized God's sheep. It characterizes us still. You know, Robert Robinson wrote in 1757, a famous hymn, Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing. In that he says very famously, "Prone to wander Lord I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love." Any of you testify to that? Any of you be able to say, "That is me?" It is me. I am prone to wander like a sheep. And I want to be cured of it. I yearn to be cured of my wandering ways, my wandering mind, and wandering eyes, and wandering life. I don't want to leave the straight and narrow way. The way of holiness that Christ has laid out for us. He is the way and the truth in life. I don't want to do anything except what Christ would do. Think anything but what Christ would think. Love anything but what Christ would love. That's what I want, but I wander.

Romans 7 says we struggle with our sins, all the time. And this wandering, we do, we're following our own way. Notice that all we like sheep have turned. Each of us to his own way. We all want to be our own kings and queens. We want to define a good life for ourselves. Instead we ought to say, "Oh Lord, what is your will? What do you want me to do? You're the king." And this wandering was not innocent. It was not an accidental wandering. It's wandering into wickedness. Willful wandering we did. And God took all of that wandering and all the effects of it, and laid all of that on Jesus and killed him for it. Powerful. Powerful. Transfer of guilt. Now may I say to you in the face of such an eminent scholar as NT Wright and others that say that the transfer of guilt cannot happen, the transfer of righteousness cannot happen, can I give you three words in reference to that? The transfer of guilt is core of the gospel. Without it we have no gospel. The transfer of guilt is possible, essential and accomplished.

It's possible because God's the king and he says so end of story. And if he says, he can transfer guilt, then he can do it. That's the good thing about being king. King of kings and Lord and Lords. You can do that. Now, you might say, "What about justice?" Can I tell you God's commitment to justice is infinitely greater than you can possibly imagine. He killed his Son rather than letting us into heaven, un-atoned for. None of us can question his justice none of us. But he says the transfer of guilt is possible.

Secondly, the transfer of guilt is essential. Without it we go to hell, if we stand guilty before him on Judgment Day, we will go to hell, we'll be condemned. So the transfer of guilt must happen, it must, and thirdly, it has happened. We are proclaiming an accomplished fact. Jesus died. Right before he died, he said, "It is finished." What is finished? Transfer. It's done. I have died in the place of my sheep.

Now, in Verses seven through nine, we have Christ innocent, but willing to be slaughtered. "He was oppressed and afflicted yet he did not open his mouth. He was led like a lamb to the slaughter and as a sheep before it shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth." The focus here is on Christ's willingness to be slaughtered. His suffering is made plain again, he's oppressed and afflicted, this overpowering sense of Jesus being overpowered, humiliated, defiled like the Jews, when the Egyptians ruthlessly used them as slaves. So we see this in Jesus being beaten to a bloody pulp, spat upon, mocked with crowns of thorns, purple robe, led through the streets of Jerusalem to be screamed at by the crowd, stripped, nailed, lifted up, crucified in agony, he's oppressed and afflicted. The single greatest display of human injustice, in all of history, and yet amazingly, the greatest display of God's justice in all of history. That's how he put his justice on display.

Romans 3:25-26, "God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished. He did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus." He is both just, righteous, and he justifies sinners. Both. Why? Because of the cross. Yet, in all of this human injustice, Jesus didn't once open his mouth, isn't that amazing? He's up in front of the high priest, and he's not saying anything. The high priest stood up before them and said, "Are you not going to answer? What is this testimony these men are bringing against you?" But Jesus remained silent, gave no answer. Did the same thing in front of Pontius Pilate to the Governor's great amazement. He didn't say a word. Why? Well, he did this because he really was our substitute. He really was in that substitutionary sense guilty and he was acting like a guilty person should in that situation. Brought before the bar of God's justice there's not a single thing we can say to him. Nothing. It's all true. It's all true.

Job put it this way, in Job 9, "How can a mortal be righteous before God? Though one wished to dispute with him, he could not answer him one time out of a thousand." And you'd be wrong on that one. 999 of the accusations, you'll just say, "Guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty. Oh wait, about that one." "Alright. Let's talk about it. Guilty." And so there's nothing we can say. At the end of Job in Job 40, he says, "I put my hand on my mouth. There's nothing I can say. I repent in sack cloth and ashes. I'm a sinner." Jesus was acting that out by being silent and he went willingly to the cross, he knew what was going to happen, the sheep and the goats and the calves and all of those animals never knew what was going to happen to them. They're animals, they didn't know.

But Jesus knew exactly what was going to happen to him. Exactly. And he did all of this in Verse nine. "Though, he had done no violence nor was any deceit in his mouth." Jesus's sinless-ness must be upheld, he never committed any sin. Never. Now, his sinless-ness isn't openly taught here in Isaiah 53. It's hinted at but it's not openly asserted that he was just universally sinless. But what it does do in verse nine, it says, "Though, he had done no violence nor was any deceit in his mouth." All of this abuse seems to be disconnected from his life and his performance. So it implies his sinless-ness. But other verses openly teach it. You remember how the Passover lamb had to be without blemish, or defect? So Jesus was asserted as a lamb without blemish or defect in 1 Peter 1. And then in 1 Peter 2:22, it says, "he committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth." Christ's sinless-ness is essential for substitutionary atonement. If he'd been a sinner in any way, he would have been just suffering for his own sins, but instead he was suffering for ours, because he had no sin to suffer for.

How did he accomplish that? By being a mighty warrior, against Satan. Satan tempted him again and again, not just in the desert, but every day, you know how he left him and came back in an opportune time, I think it was like later that day. Day after day, he bore the temptation. You remember the story about Samson, killing 1000 Philistines, with the jaw bone of a donkey? Wow, how do you kill 1000 warriors with the jawbone of a donkey? Answer, one at a time. They are not... A jawbone of a donkey is not a weapon of mass destruction, it's a weapon of one at a time, destruction. Jesus is a greater warrior than Samson. He took all of Satan's temptations, and killed them all, all of them lay dead at his feet, his whole life. And that's awesome. And what's beautiful is we get to step into that perfect record of righteousness and be as righteous as that by imputation. It's amazing, we get to be seen as obedient as Jesus.

Christ’s Death Predicted

And he went willingly to the cross knowing all that would happen to him, he died for us. His death is predicted in verse eight and nine, "By oppression and judgment, he was taken away and who can speak of his descendants?" NIV says, "For he was cut off from the land of the living, for the transgression of my people, he was stricken. He was assigned a grave with the wicked and with the rich in his death." So Jesus didn't merely suffer torture, he wasn't merely pained, whatever, he died. Right here in the text he died. Look at verse eight, "He was cut off from the land of the living." What does that mean? It means he died. Poetical way of saying he died. Cut off from the land of the living, and it talks a moment later, about his grave. Who needs a grave? A dead person. So he definitely died in this text.

It also speaks technically in the Hebrew of how he went from arrest, to judgment, to death. Ordinarily, you go from arrest to judgment, back to prison for a time, and then from that, to death. They were in a rush to kill Jesus. So he goes literally from arrest, to judgment, to death, and that's what happened right here in this verse. Verse eight is mistranslated a little by the NIV. It says, not "who can speak of his descendants," but rather it's something like this, "As for his generation who considered that he was cut off from the land of the living." So people of his own time did not meditate upon his death properly. They didn't consider it properly. They didn't stop to think about it properly, they didn't ponder it appropriately. Friends, we're going to rectify that for all eternity. We get to ponder it appropriately for eternity, and get to consider it properly for all time.

Finally, we talk about his mysterious burial. It says in verse nine, "he was assigned a grave with the wicked and with the rich in his death though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth." Jesus was counted wicked as he died. But being counted wicked and dying with the wicked are two different things. So he actually, to fulfill this, had to die with other people. And so he did. He was in the middle and one was crucified on the right and the other at his left, fulfilling this detail. He died with the wicked, not just that he was considered wicked, but he was just... He died with them and therefore he would have been buried with them too. You understand that? Why would the Romans treat him any different than the other people that died? All three would have been buried in a common grave, right? They would have dug a common grave and thrown the three bodies in there and covered them with dirt, but that would have ruined the physical evidence of Jesus' resurrection that came when Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus came and treated him like a king and buried him like a king.

You know the story in John 19, how Joseph of Arimathea suddenly amazingly got courage of their faith, which they never had when Jesus was alive and doing miracles. But now that he's dead, they suddenly got courage, where? From the Holy Spirit because there was a prophecy that needed fulfilling. I don't even think they were aware or thinking about Isaiah 53, they just wanted to bury Jesus. And so they went and asked Pilate for Jesus' body and they took spices. 75 pounds worth, they buried him like a king. And they wrapped him up in these strips of linen and they get a very special tomb for him, a grave, a rich man's tomb. And they bury him there and it becomes the launching pad for the church of Jesus Christ. That empty tomb. Because on the first day, the Resurrection Day, they go and the stone has been rolled back and the women go and see.

And then John and Peter run to see the physical evidence. You remember the story in John 20? And John, the younger one gets there first and looks in but he's afraid to go in and he sees the strips of linen lying there and the head cloth folded up by itself. The things in like in a cocoon shape, I think, his body because it was sticky resin and all that. How do you get that out? Jesus just moved through it, out, and they were looking and then Peter just goes in and just, that's what he did. That's how he was. And he just went right in and he looks around and he went away wondering. But John, it says, "Saw and believed." So the physical evidence of the resurrection was the ground for John's faith in the resurrection. But then he says, in John 20:9, he "still did not understand from scripture that Christ had to rise from the dead." You know why he said that? Because we don't get to touch the grave clothes, do we? We don't get to go to the empty tomb. Don't believe whatever it says in Jerusalem. "No, it's right here, here's the empty tomb." It's like,  Maybe. But how can we ever know? What we get is we get this book. We get the book, and we get to read about the resurrection of Jesus and based on that we will be saved.

So what application can we take from all this? Well, first, just marvel that such a holy God could work such a salvation for sinners such as us. Just marvel at that. Marvel at that. The law abases us and crushes us and brings us to the cross where we are lifted up out of the mud and given a perfect righteousness and glory, that's not ours. It's Jesus' but we're given it for all eternity.

If you're a Christian, you are completely, totally forgiven of all of your sins, past, present, future based on what we studied today, based on Christ's death. Rejoice, swim in joy. As I've said before, be happier than you are right now. Even you happy people, be happier than you are. Rejoice, this conquers anything and everything you're facing in your life. It's bigger and better than anything you're facing. Rejoice, rejoice in this. And if I can just appeal to all of you believe in this message of substitutionary atonement, believe in it. Trust in it. It's true. It's our only hope. Are you feeling the weight of your guilt? Do you know yourself to be a sinner condemned by the law? Do you know that God in the law has made a way for our sins to be forgiven by substitutionary atonement? Do you know that? Not by animals, because the blood of bulls and goats can never take away sins, but by the blood of his only son, begotten son, Jesus Christ.

Do you see him in your mind's eye? Can you see him there dead on the cross though he was perfectly sinless? Ponder this, meditate on his death and cast all your guilt and sin on him by faith. He was treated as wicked so you could be treated as innocent. Now, before I said all that, I didn't say you who are lost and on the outside, I'm saying it to all of us. It's the same gospel until all eternity. It's for us too, us Christians. Been a Christian for five years, 50 years, five minutes, but I'm especially making an appeal to you who know yourself to be outsiders. You know you're lost. Please come in while there's time. Repent and trust in Christ, crucified and resurrected, and if I can just urge you, read this chapter again, read it line by line like you're taking in food.

Scripture is food for faith. Feed on this. Choose just one verse, choose verse five and just go over the four clauses and just read them and just feed on it. Feed on it. If your faith is anemic right now, it's probably because you're not in the word. Start with Isaiah 53 go back through it and read it and just thank Jesus, the line after... "I thank you lord. Thank you for dying for me. Thank you for your cross. Thank you that I have life. Thank you." So just do that. Fourthly, repent of your proneness to wander. Own it and repent of it. Say, "Lord, I am prone to wander. I don't want to wander. Would you please heal me? What a wretched man/woman I am. Rescue me from this body of death, fight the sin in me. I don't want to wander, I want to be holy, I want to repent of it." Meditate on the specific words of predictive prophecy. Pierced, rich, grave, sprinkle, these specific words don't go away. And then if I can urge you, just take this unbelievably awesome chapter and go share it with a non-Christian person. Do some workplace evangelism. "You wouldn't believe what I heard on Sunday." "What did you hear on Sunday?" "Isaiah 53. Are you aware of it?" "No, not that much?"

I had an awesome witnessing opportunity on Friday. I flew out to Chicago for just one day and flew back the same day. And airplane rides are awesome chances for me to witness. Where can they go, really? Where are they going to go? I try to respect that. I'm not obnoxious, but I really want to get in a conversation. So it was a couple, Kermit and Tammy, young married couple, and I try to strike up a conversation, but they weren't really talking to me much, talking to each other. And so I was sitting there and just like, "Oh, I can get some reading done," something like that. But this verse kept coming to my mind, "The wicked flee though no one pursues but the righteous are bold as a lion, the righteous are bold as a lion, the righteous are bold... " "I got it, Lord. I got it."

So conversation attempt number two. And so I plunged in and at that point, now Tammy and I, we had... We started having a conversation but I really wanted to pull her husband in. And so the three of us... And she said, "I was raised in a Baptist home" or a Baptist church, "very strict, hellfire and brimstone," and all this going on and about how horrible all that was. And now she's been wandering, just thinking, just searching, searching. Come to find out her husband at least claims to be a Christian, prays for her in her hearing every day at dinner time. Takes her to church, she'll go but she's just still struggling. It's a Baptist church that they go to, not Southern Baptist, but... And then it occurred to me, maybe this conversation might be an answer to his prayer. I don't know where he's at all. I don't know their story. But I spent the rest of our time talking another 45 minutes, doing Isaiah 53.

I said, "You know what I'm going to get to do on Sunday? I'm so excited." And she knows I'm a pastor. And she's like, "No, I hadn't really thought about that. No, I never heard that before. Really? Is that what it says?" It was awesome. And I got to even explain the wrath and judgment and hellfire and brimstone thing. Don't ever make a mistake of preaching the God other than the one in the Bible. He does have wrath against sin. But I explained it, I said, "he loves his universe and his people so much, he hates whatever attacks them, and he has an aggressive wrath against it and he wants to have it out and he sent Jesus to stand in the place of his own wrath." I got to explain all that. So if I could just commend some evangelism to you, take this chapter to someone and explain it to them this week, let's see what happens. Alright? Close with me in prayer.

Andy Davis preaches a verse-by-verse expository sermon on Isaiah 52:13-53:3. The main subject of the sermon is the incredible suffering Christ endures for His people.

So I don't know that I've been as excited to preach a sermon as I am right now. I am just crackling with energy and joy. I don't know how to say that, I've been feeling that all day. We come to just one of the great, great passages of Scripture in the Bible as we come Isaiah 53, and I'm just so thrilled to be able to do that. I'm praying that God would be able to just unleash this chapter in our hearts line by line as we contemplate it.

On March 15th, 1859, the greatest preacher in England during the 19th century, Charles Spurgeon, preached a sermon entitled Christ Precious to Sinners, and in that he told a story. The story went something like this:

"A young man had been preaching in the presence of a venerable divine, and after he had done he went to the old minister, and said, "What do you think of my sermon?" "A very poor sermon indeed," said he. "A poor sermon?" said the young man, "it took me a long time to study it." "Ay, no doubt of it." "Why, did you not think my explanation of the text a very good one?" "Oh, yes," said the old preacher, "very good indeed." "Well, then, why do you say it is a poor sermon? Didn't you think the metaphors were appropriate and the arguments conclusive?" "Yes, they were very good as far as that goes, but still it was a very poor sermon." "Will you tell me why you think it a poor sermon?" "Because," said he, "there was no Christ in it." "Well," said the young man, "Christ was not in the text; we are not to be preaching Christ always, we must preach what is in the text." So the old man said, "Don't you know young man that from every town, and every village, and every little hamlet in England, wherever it may be, there is a road to London?" "Yes," said the young man. "Ah!" said the old divine "and so form every text in Scripture, there is a road to the metropolis of the Scriptures, that is Christ. And my dear brother, your business in when you get to a text, to say, 'Now what is the road to Christ?' and then preach a sermon, running along the road towards the great metropolis—Christ. And," said he, "I have never yet found a text that had not got a road to Christ in it, and if I ever do find one that has not a road to Christ in it, I will make one; I will go over hedge and ditch but I would get at my Master, for the sermon cannot do any good unless there is a savour of Christ in it."

Well, I can testify, sometimes it actually is hard to find that road to Christ, but not today. Actually, I think there's an eight-lane super highway from Isaiah 53 to the great metropolis of Scripture that is Christ. There's not merely a savor of Christ, there is a Thanksgiving banquet from the kitchen, just the aromas are going to fill our hearts and our minds as we study this incredible chapter, Isaiah 53. 1 Corinthians 15 says that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures. It says there in verse 3 and 4, "For what I received, I passed on to you as of first importance. That Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised from the dead on the third day according to the Scriptures." It is vital for us as Christians to embrace the centrality of prophecy in our faith, when it comes to the life and the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Our salvation is based on the unshakable rock of fulfilled prophecy. Now this should not surprise us, as we've been going carefully chapter by chapter through the Book of Isaiah. We've seen this again and again, that God proclaims his unique ability to foretell the future. He's the only one that can do it. We've seen this in Isaiah 46, in verse 10. There God says, "I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say, 'My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please."

And then again in Isaiah 44, in verse 26, "The Lord carries out the words of his servants and fulfills the predictions of his messengers." No prophecy of Scripture is as important as this one. This was the central point of it all, this was why God raised up Abraham and from Abraham the Jewish nation. This was why God restored the Jewish nation back to the promised land after the exile to Babylon. This was the whole point of the Bible, this is it. Salvation for sinners to the ends of the earth. This is the whole point of it all.

In Isaiah 53, we come to the most brilliantly shining star in the cosmos of the written Word of God, predictive prophecy, the clearest prophecy of the death and resurrection of Jesus, of his substitutionary atonement for our sins.

Now after Christ had died and rose from the dead on the third day, he had the equivalent of a 40-day seminary with his apostles, and with his disciples concerning Scriptures testimony to him. They talked about other things, but especially that. It began with those two disciples on the road to Emmaus. You remember that whole encounter? And Jesus was, in some way, incognito to people who knew him well, but there's just mysteries around his resurrection and he's walking falls and step along with these two disciples who are downcast, they're depressed, they're discouraged as they're walking with the resurrected Christ. Isn't that us? We're depressed and discouraged when we ought not to be, and they're moaning and groaning and saying, "We had hoped that he was going to be the one who was going to redeem Israel," all those kind of thing. "And now our women have confused us because there's some report of an empty tomb and we can't make sense of any of it."

And Jesus says, "How foolish you are and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken. Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter into his glory? And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he showed them what was written in there about himself." Any chance you think he went to Isaiah 53? I think absolutely.

Or, again, think about Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch where the Holy Spirit told Philip, to run up to a chariot where there's this Ethiopian official, and he is reading a scroll of prophecy, happened to be Isaiah 53 and he can't make sense of it. And the Holy Spirit told him to go and stand and come alongside that Chariot. And the eunuch invited him in and he was reading this passage of Scripture, "He was led like a sheep to the slaughter and as a lamb before it's shearer is silence, so He did not open his mouth, and his humiliation, his judgment was taken away. Who will relate to His generation, for his life was removed from the earth."

The eunuch answered Philip and said, "Please tell me, of whom does the prophet say this? Of himself or of someone else?" Then Philip opened his mouth and beginning from this Scripture he preached Jesus to him.  

Isaiah 53 is about Jesus and no one else. There's never been any other fulfillment of these words. There was never an immediate fulfillment and then a later fulfillment, it's only ever been about Jesus of Nazareth.

Modern Tendency to Find Other Explanations

Now there's a modern tendency to find other explanations. Some will tell you that Isaiah 53 is about the sufferings of the Jewish nation, how the Jewish nation plays the role of the suffering servant in history, human history. Others ascribe Isaiah 53 to some individual, Isaiah himself or Jeremiah or another of the prophets or even strangers, some mysterious unknown person. No one knows who this individual is, but despite the fact that the text says this person is going to be very famous and the whole world will know about him. It doesn't make any sense.

First of all, can we just set aside, there is no way Isaiah 53 is talking about the Jewish nation. No way. Why would I say that? Well simply put, the chapter presents the suffering servant as clearly innocent, guiltless, blameless. Do you get the sense from Isaiah the prophet that he thinks the nation of Jews was innocent, guiltless and blameless? Not at all, from the very beginning of the book, chapter after chapter he's laying out the sins of his people. Even stranger, look at Isaiah 53:8, Isaiah 53:8 says, "For He," whoever we're talking about, the suffering servant, "Was cut off from the land of the living," he died, "For the transgression of my people, he was punished."

Well, wait a minute, okay, who are Isaiah's people? When he says, "My people," who would you think he's talking about? That verse makes no sense of the suffering servant as Israel. How can Israel die for the sins of Israel except in judgment and punishment, certainly not redemptively. Israel was looking for a redeemer, one who would pay the price, to rescue Israel from sin and Isaiah 53 says who paid the price for Israel's sin, and it is Jesus. So here we come to the Mount Everest of predictive prophecy, what is our strategy going to be for scaling it? First of all, we're not doing it in one sermon. I hope you know that. There's no chance, unless you want to be here for hours, which you don't, neither do I. I'll run out of energy.

But this week, what we're going to do is take a quick overview of the whole chapter. Division of the chapter into five sub-sections of three verses each. We're going to focus on the central doctrine of this chapter, which is the substitutionary atonement of Jesus Christ, the son of God, for us, for our sins, and that by faith in him, we are forgiven, we are justified. That's the central message, it's the gospel. We're going to go carefully today through, God willing, the first two sub-sections, and we're going to seek to apply those verses to our lives. Then over the next two weeks, God willing, we're going to go through the rest of the sub-sections and seek to apply them.

Now, if I can just say... And I'm not trying to throw anyone under the bus here, but Isaiah 52-53, is the worst chapter subdivision in the entire Bible. Okay, Isaiah 52 verses 13-15 should have been included in Isaiah 53. So I'm giving them the honorary status of Isaiah 53 today, is that okay? Can we just call them Isaiah 53, early version, something like that? Actually, John Calvin called it a dismemberment. I think that's pretty humorous. It's like you picture an arm lying on a sidewalk. So we're just going to roll right through from Isaiah 52 into 53 and treat it all as what it should have been, one chapter, agreed? Okay, we're going to do that.

Alright, now five sub-divisions of this section, first, Christ repulsive, but redemptive, then exalted. That's 52:13-15. Second sub-section will title this way, Christ the arm of the Lord, but human and despised," verses one through three. Third subsection, Christ rejected, but our atoning substitute, verses four through six. Fourth subsection, Christ innocent, but willing to be slaughtered, verses seven through nine. And then the final subsection, Christ crushed so we could be justified, verses 10 through 12.

So those are just some titles we could give to those. The central doctrine of Isaiah 53 is the substitutionary atonement. The idea that someone could die in our place, that sinners like us might be justified by faith in him. That's the central doctrine, really, of the whole Bible. So, let's go briefly over the... All these sub-sections.

First, Christ repulsive but redemptive then exiled, chapter 52:13-15. So Christ is presented as one who will be successful then raised up, lifted up, highly exalted, verse 13. Yet we're also told he's going to be appalling to look at, he's going to be so disfigured so badly that he will be barely recognizable as a human being.

Verse 14, but this disfigurement of the servant and the Lord is the way by which he's actually going to sprinkle many nations. We're going to talk about that. The word sprinkle we're going to discuss, but it means cleansing them from sin, making them pure in God's sight. This is the very one who's going to be proclaimed even to kings and they're going to shut their mouths because of him, because they're suddenly going to hear about him, they're going to hear this message, and they're going to believe in him, first subsection.

The second subsection, Christ the “Arm of the Lord,” But Human and Despised, verses 1-3. So the next two subsections trace out simply the biography of Jesus Christ, just trace out the events of his life. It begins with an assertion though, that the message must be believed, that the suffering servant must be revealed by God or you will never see him. I could preach a thousand sermons on Isaiah 53 and if God does not reveal Jesus to you, you'll never see him as glorious. You will not see him properly.

He is revealed here as the arm of the Lord, the mighty power of God for the salvation of sinners. He will work for the deliverance, and redemption and salvation of his people. But then he is portrayed as human, he grew up before the Lord out of dry ground, he's a root growing up in dry ground. So not only is he human, he is unimpressive, he is weak, he's unattractive, he has nothing in his appearance that would make people follow him, still less worship him as God. He is despised and rejected, despised means thought little of, and rejected effectively by the will of people, they will say, "No," to him. People will be horrified by his appearance, he'll be held in low esteem.

Verses 4-6, Christ rejected but he is our atoning substitute, this is the theological center of the Bible, this idea of substitutionary atonement. Christ takes up our pain, he dies for our sins. He was pierced for our transgressions, he's crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds, we are healed. Jesus thus gives health to diseased people, dying people. He gives health to them and life, and he gives peace to wicked rebels who are in rebellion against God, the King. And he does all of this at the cost of his own life. Verse six, "All we like sheep have gone astray," each of us has turned to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

Fourth sub-section, Christ is innocent, but willing to be slaughtered. Verses seven through nine, Isaiah unfolds a shocking truth and that is the ultimate... The limitation and ultimate end of the animal sacrificial system. The essence of sin was willfulness. We willingly rebelled, we were not forced to sin, we chose to sin. An animal cannot atone for that willful sin, because it has no choice but to die. But Christ by his willingness to die in our place is able to atone for our sins. So this suffering man was exactly like a sheep led to the slaughter, in that he died. The killers led and Jesus meekly followed. But unlike the sheep that were led to the slaughter, Jesus knew exactly where he was going. It says in John's gospel, "Jesus knowing all things that were about to happen to him went forth."

He's very well aware of what's happening, and he's willingly laying down his life. He's completely innocent, there's no violence in his actions, there's no wickedness in his speech, he was a perfect man, sinless, but dead in our place. The prophetic details here are significant. You have words like pierced, he dies by piercing. Not everyone has... Actually most people don't die by piercing, but Jesus did, he died by piercing. And it says he was buried in a rich man's tomb. That's not true of everyone. As a matter of fact, it's true of very few people in the world. Most people die as poor people because most people are poor.

But Jesus was pierced, and buried in a rich man's tomb. Christ finally in the fifth sub-section was crushed so we could be justified, verses 10 through 12. It was God's will to crush Him and cause Him to suffer. All of this was done according to an amazing, and eternal plan crafted by Almighty God from before the foundation of the world. It was God's pleasure to do this. God delighted, in a mysterious way delighted to crush His son and cause Him to suffer? Not because he loved his son suffering. No, not at all. But for the joy that was set before both of them, he endured that.

He was delighted in that suffering in terms of what it would produce. And His finished work, verse 11 says it all, Christ's resurrection completes our salvation and by his finished work many are justified, declared not guilty of their sins in God's sight. How amazing is all of this? That it was written seven centuries before Jesus was born. We're going to talk more next week about the miraculous aspect of this, so I'll just set that idea aside. We are the sheep constantly going astray are we not? We are the sheep.

We are the wicked rebels, we are the ones made sick by our sin, and we are the ones at war with God. And before all nations, God lays bare His holy arm in the form amazingly of his frail, unimpressive-looking son, whom we as a race despised and rejected. This one carried our infinitely heavy load. He died under the infinitely fierce wrath of God, He was buried uniquely in a rich man's tomb, this same one rose from the dead, and now enjoys looking at his spiritual offspring for all eternity, from every nation on Earth. That's Isaiah 53.

Alright, now let's look in details at the first two sub-sections. That's just an overview, we'll probably do it again next week. So Isaiah 52, as I've said is the beginning of 53, we'll start at verse 13 with the words, "Behold," most translations retain the word behold. And I love the word behold, "Behold my servant." So it's like Jesus just unveiled, like a curtain moving back, "Behold, my servant." This is the fourth of the servant songs in Isaiah. This is the fourth and last one. We've seen this idea, my servant before, this is the fourth. Isaiah 42:1-4 was the first one. It presented the servant and the Lord as one with a mission to the nations.

You remember that was the "Bruised reed he will not break, a smoldering wick he'll not snuff out"? He's the gentle King, who's going to go advance from victory to victory through gentleness, he's going to build a kingdom through gentleness. The first servant song Isaiah 42. The second was Isaiah 49, where it is told to Jesus by the father, "It's too small a thing for you to be my servant, to save the people of Israel. I'll make you a light for the Gentiles that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth." Isaiah 49 that was the second of the servant songs.

The third... By the way, in that second one, he's presented as someone who's going to have difficulties in advancing but he's going to overcome. It's going to be somewhat discouraging but he's going to overcome that.

Now Isaiah 50 versus four through nine, the third of the servant songs presents in great detail some of the sufferings this servant will have to go through. And there he speaks for himself, he speaks in the first person, and he speaks of his willingness to be abused for the will of the Lord, he didn't hide his face from mocking and spitting, he didn't stop people from shredding his back. Yet, in that text, no reason is given for this abuse.

Now, when we get to the fourth servant song now we get the reason, it's substitutionary atonement. He's dying for our sins, he's dying that we might be justified. And so all of it comes together. This is the fourth of the servant song. So Jesus is the servant of the Lord, he's a servant of God, he came down not to do his own will, but to do the will of him who sent him. He was the servant of God.

And we're told here right away in verse 13, "Behold, my Servant will prosper greatly; he shall rise, and be exalted, and be lifted up exceedingly." Just like Isaiah 42, this predicts the success of the servant. He's going to succeed, he's going to do very well. The Hebrew word translated prosper greatly here is often used of David or other heroes, whose success is in some way linked to their wisdom. So sometimes you get, "My servant will act wisely." You get sometimes that translation. It's prosperity through wisdom, success through wisdom, dealing prudently.

Because of his wisdom, he's going to be exalted to exceeding heights. Isaiah uses three verbs to talk about how highly exalted Jesus will be, he will raised and lifted up and highly exalted. It's just not enough. Any one word is just isn't enough for how exalted he's going to be. The text will describe and we're about to get into it, the great humiliation of Jesus. As a matter of fact, that's going to be most of the journey the rest of the way. How degraded, how appalling was his appearance. But he will not stay humiliated. In the end, he's going to be exalted and raised and lifted up. I can't help but think of Philippians 2:9-11: "Therefore, God exalted him to the highest place and gave Him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow, in heaven and earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God, the father."

I get that even in this, "My servant… will be raised and lifted up and highly exalted." No one is more highly exalted than Jesus Christ, and no one deserves it more. Because there was no one who was more humbled and humiliated, and degraded than Jesus. Jesus is at the right hand of Almighty God, right now with a 100 million angels worshipping him. With Seraphim, the burning ones covering their own faces, because he dwells in unapproachable light. That's how highly exalted Jesus is.

So, from this initial assertion of Jesus final victory and exaltation, the next many verses unlock, unfold, the lowliness, and degradation and humiliation of Jesus, and begins in verse 14. "Just as there were many who were astonished at you, his appearance was so marred beyond human semblance, and his form beyond that of the children of mankind."

So it's interesting he puts in the second person there, not every translation picks it up, but he addresses the servant. Like Isaiah can't stay out of it, he wants to talk to him or maybe God the Father. And here we have the watching world looking on in horror. Many who are astonished at Jesus, astonished at his appearance, it's disgusting, it's degrading. As a matter of fact, his appearance will be so completely degraded that it will get to the point where he's barely recognizable even as a human being.

The onlookers will not wonder, "Is this the servant?" They'll wonder, "Is this human? Is it even human?" Well, I think this is clearly fulfilled at the very end of Jesus' life when the flogging had shredded his back. The 39 lashes, and the beatings that he took around the face had puffed it up with horrible bruises and lacerations. What did his face look like? They smashed, they put that crown of thorns on him, and they smashed his head, the thorns into His scalp, and they beat him about the face and it must have been puffy and bruised and blood all over. It was repulsive.

Barely recognizable as human at that point. And he had nails that were pulverizing his hands, and his feet, and on the cross, he's making this disgusting convulsive effort to breathe, as he pushes up on the nails in His feet, so he can just gulp for breath and then sinks back down, and pushes back up and gulps for breath and sinks back down. It's like you can't even look at it. It's hard to describe it. Total physical degradation, like one from whom men hide their faces, nobody wants to see that.

In verse 15, we have the reason for this degradation and that is atonement. We're going to get it again and again. Isaiah is going to be so clear about all this. In verse 15, it says, "Even so" through that degradation, through the crushing of the servant, "Even so that is how he will sprinkle many nations." So there's a linking between verse 14 and 15. The crushing leads to the sprinkling, that's the way he will sprinkle the nations.

Now, what does this word, "Sprinkle," mean? How do we understand it? Again these specific words can't be explained away. Sprinkled, pierced, rich man's tomb. These things just don't go away, they don't line up with the nation of Israel at all. So how does he sprinkle many nations? Well, this is an atoning word, very important in the animal sacrificial system, very important in the Levitical priesthood. All things were cleansed by the shedding of blood, it says in the Book of Hebrews, and so you've got this blood being sprinkled all over the tabernacle, and sprinkled on every... Sprinkled on Aaron when he's in his in priestly vestments. It's sprinkled everywhere, it's just used to cleanse from sin. The implication is everything we touched is defiled with sin, and the only way to be cleanses by the atoning blood of the sacrifice, that's the clear image of the animal sacrificial system.

So in the book of Leviticus chapter 14 it talks about lepers, for example, how are they cleansed and made ceremonially clean? How does that happen? It says, "This shall be the law of the leprous person for the day of his cleansing. He shall be brought to the priest... and the priest shall sacrifice a bird and he shall sprinkle the blood seven times on the one to be cleansed of the leprous disease and he shall be pronounced clean." Same Hebrew word, sprinkled. We are spiritually lepers in the sight of God, repulsive, disgusting, defiled.

But the good news of the Gospel is that we can... We are made clean by the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus. By this sprinkling we are made cleansed, by this sprinkling we are atoned for. And who does it say that he's going to sprinkle here? Many nations. This one event in Jewish history, this one Jewish man is not the savior for the Jews, alone, but for the Gentiles too to the ends of the earth, many nations. So, we have in Revelation 5:9, so beautifully that image from Heaven and they're praising the lamb who is slain. It says, "You were slain, and with your blood you purchased men for God, from every tribe and language and people and nation."

So just putting it together, we could say the same thing. You were slain, and with your blood, you sprinkled men for God from every tribe, language, people, and nation. Next, it talks about the worship of kings. Kings are going to hear about this, they're going to hear about Jesus from missionaries and they will shut their mouth in astonishment about him. Look at verse 15, "Kings will shut their mouths because of him for what they were not told, they will see, and what they have not heard, they will understand."

Jesus is the glorious king of kings, even better, he's the savior of kings, Amen. He saves kings from their sins. Now, not many are wise, not many are influential, not many of noble birth, not many kings get saved, but some do. That's why in 1 Timothy 2, we should pray for kings and those in authority, because they actually might get saved. They actually might be saved. So I think about stories from missions history here I could just go on and on about the number of times messengers of the gospel, have come to a community and the first person they get dragged in front of is the king. And they have to make an account, they have to give a presentation to the king, and sometimes God gives grace to their king and they get saved, and with him the whole village, the whole community, it happens again and again. Look up the story of Columba with King Bridei of the Picts, great story. Columba, the king wouldn't let him in. He's forced to stay outside the city gates. So he sits there and prays for days and it's getting embarrassing. So finally, Bridei invites Columba in and he preaches the Gospel comes to faith in Christ. Awesome story. The Picts in Scotland. Again and again, kings are going to hear this thing, and they're going to see and understand through proclamation.

That brings us immediately to the next section verses one through three. Christ is the arm of the Lord, but he is human and despised. First of all, right away in verse one, we have this assertion that this message is hard to be believed but it must be believed. It's hard to believe this, it's hard to accept all this.

Look at verse one, "Lord, who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?" Again, we've got the clear idea here of a message, a report, words being delivered by messengers even to the ends of the earth. So, some report's going to go out. And we know from Romans 10:17, it says that faith comes by hearing the report of Christ. That's one translation. So faith comes when you hear this message proclaimed if God gives you the grace of faith. Then justification comes when faith has come. When you hear this message proclaimed and then God gives you repentance and faith, God sees the very repentance of faith, he just gave you and then He justifies you, forgives you, declares you not guilty of all your sins. That's how sinners are saved.

And notice it says, "Who has believed our message?" There's a plural there. Now, there are different ways to understand that plural. Let's start with a simple one. He's thinking about the nation of Israel. And so, the our would be God plus Isaiah. So it's almost like the prophet is saying back, "God who's going to believe this? Our message, the message you've entrusted to me, it's our message, who has believed our message?" And then after that the church is collective proclaim messages. This is our report, our message. Now this message is going to be very difficult to accept.

Very difficult to believe. Only as Christ is revealed, by God the Father, through the Spirit will anyone believe this message, look again in verse 1, "Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?" Unveiled, unveiled. We all have this veil in front of us and someone comes and preaches if God doesn't sovereignly pull the veil back from the eyes of your heart, you will never ever believe this. God must work on you or you won't believe this. So there's a joint effort, a cooperation here between the prophet representing human messengers, so missionaries, pastors, friends, co-workers, evangelists, our message and God revealing the arm of the Lord.

It's a complete cooperation, the message must be proclaimed by human messengers, plus revealed by the Spirit of God or you will not get saved. This is justification by faith alone, apart from works. Now, Christ is the arm of the Lord. This is the shocker. Christ is clearly human and we'll get into that more and more as we unfold the chapter, but he is called here the arm of the Lord. He is sent by God to save us in our wretchedness and sinfulness and disease and suffering in warfare and rebellion and death. He is the power of God for saving sinners like us, he's the arm of the Lord, the omnipotence of the Lord. He is it.

Now, we already had a mention of the arm of the Lord in Isaiah 52:10. Look back maybe just a couple of verses, and it says, Isaiah 52:10, "The Lord will lay bare his holy arm in the sight of all the nations and all the ends of the earth will see the salvation of our God." Well, the arm of the Lord is Jesus. He is God's power for salvation for sinners like us. And how delightful is that? But what we got was not some awesome display of omnipotence. You got Jesus, you got the one on... He's the lamb of God, what's a lamb like? You've got the Holy Spirit descending like a dove, and landing on him. This is a picture of a lamb with a dove on it. I'm thinking, gentleness.

I'm thinking someone who sinners feel attracted to and they're willing to come and be with and talk to and they feel confident telling their sins to him because they know that he's a friend for sinners. Children, I get the picture of children just climbing all over him and sitting in his lap, and he's putting his hands on them and praying for them, and they just love being with him. You can't fool kids, kids get scared easily, and they weren't scared of Jesus. And so how was he, this human being, the arm of the Lord, for the power of God in the world? But he was, gentle with sinners, but claiming to be God in the flesh, and this was the very stumbling block of Christ. The arm of the Lord had to be revealed or no one would see it.

He'll be human, definitely human, and that's something Jesus' enemies could not accept that he could be human and God. At one point, his enemies were picking up stones to kill him. And Jesus said, "I've shown you many good works from the Father, for which of these are you stoning me?" "We are not stoning you for any work, but for blasphemy because you a mere man, claim to be God." That's a stumbling block. How could a human be God? As a matter of fact, this is exactly what they nailed him on.

And his trial before the Jews... Before the high priest, they weren't getting anywhere with their false witnesses, they didn't have enough time to throw it together and do it well, and they did it very badly in the middle of the night. And the stories weren't corroborating, it was bad. So finally the high priest breaking every rule of Jewish jurisprudence directly addressed the accused and says, "Tell us under oath by the living God are you the Son of God." And Jesus answered, "I am." And the high priest shouted, "Blasphemy," and he tore his robs. That's what convicted him, that's what... It was for blasphemy that he was killed because He claimed to be God. Now without the arm of the Lord being revealed, you'll never see Jesus as God. Only by the Father's will, through the Spirit does this happen, like it happened to Simon Peter, at Caesarea Philippi, he said, "What about you…who do you say that I am?" Peter said, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." And then Jesus said, "Blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood but by my Father in Heaven." If the father doesn't reveal all this to you, you'll never see it, never. But you'll have to hear it like you're hearing it now and you've heard it now. I've said it probably seven times, I said the Gospel already probably seven times. I might say it seven more. You've heard though. Question is, has the arm on the Lord been revealed to you? That's the question. It says in 1 Corinthians 12:3, "No one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit," that's the only way it's going to happen.

Now, we have in verse 2, the unimpressive origin and appearance of Christ. Verse 2, "He grew up before Him like a tender shoot and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in His appearance that we should desire Him." So this brings us to the humanity of Christ. He sprang up out of the stump of the tree of Jesse, Isaiah 11. The Jewish nation was an enslaved people. They're dominated by Rome. No Davidic king had reined since the exile to Babylon. So it's just a sterile Jewish history, a sterile Jewish life at that point. No power, no strength, they're dominated enslaved people. The Davidic lineage is like an honorary title that meant nothing. Joseph was called "The Son of David," by the angel. It doesn't mean much he was a carpenter. It didn't get him much to be a son of David. So there's nothing there. He grew up like a tender shoot out of dry ground, nothing going on.

He was conceived supernaturally with a human mother Mary, but he had no human Father. God was his father, but he was born in the ordinary way, a very normal ordinary appearance into the world. Now, it was an unusual circumstance he's there in a barn I guess, a cave maybe where some animals were.

But other than some unusual things like the angel appearing and the star and all that, it just was a normal birth. He was fully human, he was born in the normal way. And if you'd been there it'd be like, "Yeah, this is God?" I'm sure Mary even wondered that. I mean, she knew what had happened in her body but just the wonder of it. It was just hard to accept because you just look like a normal baby. And then he grew up as babies do. And he was a toddler, Jesus, the toddler. It's hard to think of it but there he was. And it says in Luke 2:52, "And He grew in wisdom, and stature and favor with God and men." It means he just progressed in the normal way with one big difference. I know, you veteran parents, you know, the one big difference he never sinned. He never sinned. How would you like to be Jesus' younger brother?  "Why can't you be like your older brother? He's never caused us any trouble except that one time when he was 12 and he was behind in his father's house, but other than that that wasn't really his fault, that was us." So no sin.

But despite Gnostic Gospels and the weirdness there, he didn't do any miracles. His first miracle was the changing of the water into wine, wedding at Cana in Galilee. So you don't have... You just have a normal human growth and that's hard to accept that he was God. They struggled with this, "Isn't this the carpenter's son? Isn't his mother's name Mary? Aren't his brothers, James, Joseph, Simon and Judas?" They took offense at him. He had a human body, a true human body, all of its weakness. There was nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. Now, on the mountain of transfiguration he pulled back the veil just briefly, so Peter, James, and John could see the heavenly glory flowing through Jesus, radiant glory, but then he shut it down again.

Just in everyday life, he just looked like a normal human being. And I would say even within this humanity, there was nothing extraordinary about him. Like remember Saul, King Saul, he was a head taller than any of his other fellows. It was like, "Oh this guy he's going to be the king." There was nothing about that with Jesus, very average looking I think, like anybody else, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. If you lived back then, and you'd seen him even if you saw the miracles, even if you saw Lazarus raised from the dead, you wouldn't believe in him except that God revealed him to you, it's the only way. Scripture is clear about this.

None of his miracles, or words, or deeds, or any of it would have converted you unless the Father had revealed Christ to your heart. Jesus was designed to be ordinary-looking. He was not especially handsome or tall or powerfully built, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. Verse three, "He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces, he was despised and we held him in low-esteem." So far from being attracted to Jesus by looking at him, his own people, despised and rejected him.

Now, the word despise does not mean so much hated here, he was hated, but it meant they thought little of him, they underestimated Jesus. They put him lower than he really was. But beyond that they rejected him, they listened to his words, they saw his works, and they rejected him, "Not this man, but Barabbas," they said. They rejected him. He's also called here, a man of sorrows, an amazing title for the Son of God, the Lord of glory. Do you realize that Jesus is redeeming us to bring us into the presence of a perfectly 100% all the time Happy God? Isn't that awesome? We're going to a perfectly happy place. Psalm 16 says, "In your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore." That's who God is, he's a pleasure being all the time. And yet his son is called the man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering.

So he left all of that perfect joy behind to become a man of sorrows and well, well acquainted with pain. And by his perfect compassion, he felt acutely the miseries of the people he came to save. His heart's moved with compassion again, and again. He sucked miseries, out of life, the way a hiker sucks rattlesnake poison out of the bite in the leg of a friend who's dying. He sucked it out. People would come up and he would draw their misery and their sorrow and suffering and pain and grief and disease into himself, so that they could be healed and at peace and forgiven and restored. So he was a man of sorrows, and well-acquainted with suffering. His education in suffering, He learned obedience through what He suffered, his education in suffering reached its pinnacle at the cross, that's where he learned ultimate suffering there. He would die a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering like one from whom men hide their faces.

So what application can we take of these first two sub-sections? Well, begin with this, "Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?" Have you believed this message? Have you believed that this Jesus of Nazareth really is God? He really is glorious, up at the right hand of God? Have you believed that you are a sinner, that you are broken and crushed by your sin, that you need a savior, and Jesus is the only one there is? There is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved. Can I just plead with you, call on the name of the Lord to be saved. Don't leave here unconverted. Don't leave here lost. Plead with God to reveal Christ to you.

I've been praying for this, I've been praying for this moment that you would hear and believe, hear with faith. I have to believe there are people here listening to me, that are still on the outside looking in, they're lost, you're lost. And if you don't believe this report you will be condemned eternally, to hell. Jesus came to drink hell in for you so you wouldn't have to suffer it, trust in Jesus, please. Secondly, marvel at the miracle of Scripture. I'm going to talk more about this at the beginning of next week's sermon, but just marvel at this book, this book is a miracle. These words were 700 years, written 700 years before Jesus was born, marvel at it.

Thirdly, exalt Christ higher than you do. I'm talking to Christians now. He's still too low in your estimation, you still think too little of Jesus. In that sense, you still despise him, you don't esteem him properly, even as a Christian. And so I don't think there's anything wrong, everything right with you going to God and say, "Pour out your spirit on me so I'd have a greater estimation of Jesus than I ever did before. I just want to see the greatness of Christ. I want to be able to worship him better than I ever have in my life. I want to labor on my worship, my life of worship, I don't worship him, like I should, I honestly don't. And I want to."

Fourthly, meditate on Christ's immeasurable suffering for you in this chapter, meditate on it, think about his suffering. Think about what he went through for you. Never... If you're a Christian, or a child of God never, ever feel unloved again by God, ever, he has loved you with a perfect love by pouring out his wrath on his Son. He loves you. It's immeasurable. God demonstrates his own love for us in this while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Meditate on the sufferings of Christ. Now, I'm not saying as a medieval mystic would meditate on the five wounds of Jesus, and they did weird things with... I'm not saying all that, but just go over the words of Isaiah 53, and think about what he did for you, think about his piercing, think about the blood he shed for you, cling to it.

Meditate on that as a measurement of Christ's love for you. If you're going through suffering right now, whatever it may be, I don't know, there are all different types of suffering, but if you're going through suffering right now, and you're tempted to think God doesn't love you, see in the wounds of the cross, the way to stop that kind of thinking. Joseph Hart in his hymn, "Come ye sinners, poor and needy," put it in these words, "View him prostrate in the garden. On the ground your maker lies, on the bloody tree behold him. Sinner, will this not suffice? Isn't that enough for you?" Behold, him on the bloody tree by faith and ask... Hear Joseph Hart's question, "Sinner, will this not suffice? Is this enough?"

Is it enough for you? Is it enough for your guilty conscience? Is it enough for your extreme trial and your misery, your diagnosis? Is it enough for your future? Enough for your financial troubles? Is it enough to satisfy you? God loves you, the Christ loves you with a love that cannot be measured. Keep in mind that the Apostle John saw Jesus in heaven looking like a lamb that was slain. Jesus maintained the emblems of his suffering, and he will have for all eternity. Let a healthy meditation on the sufferings of Christ in Isaiah 53 calm you and assure you of God's love for you.

Fifth, Lord, who has believed our message? Feed your faith with this book. I'm speaking to Christians, feed on this. Be in the word every single day, don't miss a day. Feed your faith by... It doesn't just have to be Isaiah 53 but feed your faith with the word of God. If you are not seeing Christ in the eyes of your heart, like you should is because you're not in the Word. So get in the Word, feed on it. Six, do not judge the progress of Christ's Kingdom by mere appearance. It doesn't look like as glorious as it will be. Just like Jesus, you can't judge him by mere appearance, you can't judge the church by mere appearance either. The church is going to be awesome, it's going to be radiant and glorious. Right now, it looks down trodden, oppressed, small, insignificant, doesn't seem like much is happening, but don't be deceived just as Jesus cannot be seen by mere appearance, so also the work of Christ cannot.

And so therefore, pastors, elders, church leaders need to trust the clear proclamation of Christ crucified and resurrected to do the work of the ministry. We don't need gimmicks, we don't need... We don't need to measure by externals and all that. Let's trust that the proclamation of this message will build the church and don't judge by mere appearance. Seventh, feel the ministry of Christ as a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering and imitate him. We just want to be safe and secure and protected.

Jesus left security and protection and honor to become a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering. We're like, "Well, I'm glad he did it for me," but are you willing to do it for others? Are you willing to get out of your comfort zone and go become more familiar with suffering, than you've ever become before? So that you can suck the poison of sin and suffering out of people's lives by a clear ministry of the Word of God. Close with me in prayer.