Isaiah 53:6

Introduction and Sermon Structure

0:01 It is indeed a great privilege for me to be with you, to worship, as well as to have the unspeakable privilege of ministering the Word of God in the presence of God in you, His gathered people. And I would be remiss if I did not bring you the sincere greetings of my own fellow elders and the flock of God in which I am privileged to labor at a monthly Saturday morning prayer meeting on the first Saturday of every month, which obviously was yesterday. They prayed with great fervency and earnestness at 8.30 in the morning, pleading with God that this would be a day of blessing in our life together.

0:45 And I know that this is a day of blessing in our life together. And I know that this is a day of blessing in our life together. I know their hearts are here with us, and I convey to you something of their love and gratitude for the opportunity to strengthen the links between churches that have a vision for the glory of God and the advancement of the biblical gospel in our generation. I'm additionally grateful for the opportunity that this visit is affording me to get to know your pastor in some other way other than by letter and by telephone.

1:15 And so... And so I am grateful to him and to the elders here for the invitation and the stewardship entrusted to me to minister the word.

1:24 Will you turn with me, please, to the 53rd chapter of Isaiah? Isaiah chapter 53.

1:32 And follow as I read what to many of you will be very familiar words.

1:38 May we seek to hear them as though we were hearing them for the first time. Isaiah 53. And I shall read...

1:46 The first six verses in your hearing.

1:58 Who has believed our message, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For he grew up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground. He has no form nor comeliness, and when we see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows.

2:26 And as one from whom men hide their face, he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities.

2:54 The chastisement of our peace was upon him. And with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned every one to his own way.

3:11 And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

3:18 Our attention this morning will be focused upon the last verse in this paragraph. The familiar words of Isaiah 53 and verse 6. And I have no reservation in preaching this text in the full scope of its application to all peoples in all circumstances at all times. For an inspired apostle by the name of Peter did precisely this at the end of the second chapter of his first letter.

3:51 When referring to Christians gathered into the church under the preaching of the new covenant, he could say, To them you were as sheep going astray, a direct reference to Isaiah 53, 6, but are now returned unto the shepherd and the bishop of your souls. So I will not pause to demonstrate from the context the validity of the manner in which I'm handling the text. I leave you with Peter's example, and I hide behind an apostle, and there I feel comfortable. Now as we look at the text, it's evident that it breaks down into two basic units of thought.

The Bad News: Humanity's Desperate Condition

4:34 The first two statements focus upon what we are and what we have done. All we, like sheep, have gone astray. We have turned every one to his own way. And I'm calling these two statements the bad news of our desperate condition.

4:56 And then the last statement in the text, turns from us to the activity of God, and we read, And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. And this segment of the text I'm entitling, The Good News of a Gracious Provision. So we're going to be occupied this morning with bad news and with good news. And those of you who are conscious of the structure of the book of Romans know that this is precisely, the framework within which the Apostle Paul expounds the gospel.

5:35 He no sooner announces in chapter 1, verses 16 and 17, the theme of that great epistle, namely, the gospel which is the power of God unto salvation, the gospel in which a righteousness of God is revealed, but that he launches into a lengthy announcement of the bad news of man's death, which is the desperate need for such a gospel. And all the way from Romans 1, 18 through to chapter 3 and verse 20, he announces bad news to the entire human race. And only when he has thoroughly announced the bad news, does he turn to a wonderful exposition of the good news of God's saving mercy in the Lord Jesus. So here in this text, we have the pattern by which God, Jesus, is the Savior, the Redeemer, and the Redeemer. So here in this text, we have the pattern by which God, Jesus, is the Savior, the Redeemer, and the Redeemer. and he generally draws people into the orbit of his own sin.

6:36 He Watching this down to the extent in which believe that We are real, of the bad condition, then and only disposes as Good news the announcement of his glorious provision in Jesus Christ. On one occasion, a certain preacher was bringing a series of sermons on the Ten Commandments, and he was opening up those Ten Words of Moses

7:11 ... for the full light, For the full light, in the case of their presence, their New Testament exposition. And after three or four weeks, some people began to get uncomfortable.

7:20 The light of God's holy law was beginning to expose some of the cobwebs and spider's webs in their hearts. And one pious individual came to the preacher and said, Pastor, we've had nothing but the funders of Sinai for three or four or five weeks. Don't you think it's about time we had a little taste of the winsomeness of Calvary? Well, this wise pastor turned to this would-be critic and said, Sir, until you have trembled before the funders of Sinai, you will nothing of the winsomeness of Calvary. In other words, he understood that until the bad news of God's controversy with us is understood, the good news of the gospel will be despised. And so we come to the text this morning seeking to open up these two units of thought that are given to us by the inspiration of the Spirit through the prophet Isaiah. And as he describes and gives to us the bad news of man's desperate condition, it is obvious that he does so in two ways. First of all, by setting before us a striking comparison.

Like Sheep Gone Astray: Severed Attachment to God

8:43 Like sheep. We have a simile, a striking comparison. And then he drops all figures of speech and makes a simple assertion in the second statement, we have turned every one of us to his own way. First of all, then, what is our desperate condition under the figure of this striking comparison? Aligning himself with all humanity, the prophet declares that like a vast flock of sheep that has lost its shepherd, all of us. Now, what was in the prophet's mind when he made this striking comparison? What was involved in this indictment of all humanity as a flock of sheep that has gone astray? Well, surely from our understanding of the word of God, and remember, you must never interpret the shepherd images from modern shepherding.

9:47 Some well-meaning but very trashy books have been written trying to pour into biblical concepts of shepherd imagery, that which is taken from a current Judean hillside. Scripture is its own infallible interpreter. And when the prophet used this imagery, he was using it to set forth at least two realities of our desperate condition. When sheep leave the side of the shepherd, at least two things happen in their relationship to the shepherd.

10:24 Their attachment to the person of the shepherd is severed, and their submission to the government of the shepherd is overthrown. It is only when the flock of sheep remains in proximity to the shepherd that there is that communion, that reciprocal interaction between the shepherd and the shepherd.

10:47 between the shepherd and his sheep, and it is only when they remain in that attachment to his person that they are under the protection and direction of his government. And in using this imagery to set forth the bad news of our desperate condition, Isaiah is telling us that we, without exception, like a vast flock of sheep, we have left the living God as the object of our supreme love and devotion. We have left the living God. We have severed our attachment from him as the object of our supreme love and our devotion. Well, you say, what's so significant with that? And my answer is this. That which sets man apart from all, all the rest of God's created beings, angels and seraphim and cherubim accepted, is that man was made with the capacity to enjoy delightful facing with the God who made him.

12:06 No matter how contented the cow may be, or cudd under a tree in Eden, that cow can never moo her praises to God, nor express desire for communion, nor desire for communion with God. All it takes is this inglorious capacity to enter in to conscious, joyful, delightful communion with the God who made him. And the whole climate of Eden was a climate that we may rightly describe as delightful, open-faced communion between God the Creator and man the creature. There is not the slightest suggestion, as we read Genesis 1 and 2, There is not the slightest suggestion, as we read Genesis 1 and 2, There is not the slightest suggestion, as we read Genesis 1 and 2, that Adam and Eve felt the least bit uncomfortable in the presence of God. There is not the slightest hint that God was a stranger to them. Those opening chapters show us man and woman coming from the hand of God, and in open-faced communion receiving directives from God, and reciprocating to God in loving obedience.

13:25 There wasn't that nervousness and that uneasiness There wasn't that nervousness and that uneasiness that we sense if in a given group of our friends at work or at school or in another social situation we introduce the name of God and immediately we sense that the air becomes tense. I mean, you just don't talk about God except in church and other religious places. That's fine, but there's this innate sense that men feel uneasy in the very mentioning of the name of God. But none of that uneasiness, in the very mentioning of the name of God, But none of that uneasiness, in the very mentioning of the name of God, characterized Adam and Eve.

14:00 But the great tragedy of sin is seen in Genesis chapter 3 that when Adam, in willful disobedience to the precept of God, following the lead of Eve, who according to the Scripture was utterly deceived, but Adam's disobedience was open-faced, blatant, high-handed rebellion, no sooner does man sin, but there is immediately manifested in his relationship to God this aversion to communion with Him. Reading from Genesis 3 and verse 7, And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons. And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. And the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.

15:06 I think it's one of the most tragic verses in all of the Bible. The creature made to know God, made to hold loving communion with God, made with that capacity to reciprocate love towards God and to receive it from Him, now hear the voice of the Lord God, are to run and to hide from Him. And at that point, according to the Scriptures, the entire in our and the manifestation of that is that each one of us, as we come into our own individual existence, we come into an existence that finds within the prophet's description, all we have left as the object, as the object of our supreme love and our devotion. The first and greatest commandment, according to our Lord in Matthew 22, verses 37 and 38, is to love God with all the mind and with all the soul. That is the first and greatest commandment.

16:35 What is the greatest sin any man, any woman, any boy, any girl can commit upon the face of the earth? Is it not to break the greatest commandment? This commandment, then the first is to from His creatures. And God nothing less from His creatures.

17:17 If they are to be judged as righteous in His sight, on the basis of their own performance and works. And the prophet with a realism that cannot be debated, as he views himself as part of the entire human race says, like a vast flock of sheep have gone astray. We have left the side of the shepherd. We have abandoned God, supreme object of our love and our devotion.

Like Sheep Gone Astray: Rebellion Against God's Law

17:53 But as surely as the sheep leaving the shepherd, leaves the place of commune and attachment to the shepherd. He also leaves the place where the government of the shepherd is exercised over him. And under this striking comparison then the prophet is reminding us that we as a great flock of sheep have rebelled against the law of God as the governing standard of our thought and of our conduct. We have not only from God Himself as the object of devotion and love.

18:34 We have rebelled against His law as the governing standard of thought and of conduct. In Genesis chapter 1 we not only discover and Genesis chapter 2 that man was made with this capacity to know and to hold loving communion with God. But we discover that man was made to find his way of blessedness in strict conformity to the will of God upon his heart and in the specific precepts that God spoke into his ear. When we turn to Genesis 1 no sooner does the text tell us that God created man in image in the image of God created he them male and female created he them God said unto them replenish the earth, subdue it. God makes man. God blesses man and then God the function in God's world. There's no sitting down at a negotiating table.

19:48 There's no sitting down to bargain with God. There's no sitting down to have as it were some kind of an open table, a forum by which man and God will the best way for man to function in God's world. The whole climate Eden is not only the climate of open faced communion but it is the climate of joyful in chapter 2 where the text tells us that the Lord took the man put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it and the Lord God commanded the man saying he did not set him down in the garden and then say now since I would never want to do anything to impinge upon the full expression of your individuality I'd like you to come to me with five or six options as to how you think you could best glorify me in this surrounding and in this environment. God does no such thing. God puts the man in the garden. God assigns his tasks.

20:59 God that's the very perimeters of man's existing blessedness and says if you step over the blessedness will cease. Of all the trees of the garden you may freely eat but of the tree that is in the midst of the garden you shall not eat of it for in the day that you eat die. What is God saying? God is saying Adam all of what you are as Christians as a creature made in my image made to hold communion with me will continue and the moment in all reality of what that word in scripture and we know story through one man's sin entered into the world and death upon all men for that all we come into our own will exist the prophet's description is accurate

22:25 from the dawning of consciousness there is manifested in each one of us not only the fact that our hearts are set supremely upon God and his person as the object of love and devotion but that our hearts are set in opposition to his law and to his rule over us. I have only one of my three birds left in the nest I have a 24 year old son who is married a 21 year old daughter who is married and a 20 year old who is hoping to be within a year or so and of the many things that I had to teach my children it's amazing I never never had to teach them how to pout how to say no how to be manipulative how to take advantage of one another had to teach them how to tie their shoes had to teach them manners tried to teach my son how to keep his room clean I tried I didn't say I succeeded but I never had to sit down with them and say now look when mom and dad give you a directive you don't particularly like this is how you say no you form your lips this way no never had to do it to teach his child to say no how to pull up no

23:54 why not because they have a received raised it like a great flock of sheep has gone astray has left the living God that rebellion against God in terms of submission to his holy law that law which says children obey your parents honor your father and your mother and when we bring our lives to the standard of God's moral law we have to confess that it's evident that Isaiah's description is indeed not an overstatement all which sheep have gone astray but then he leaves the imagery of the straying flock and he moves the second statement to a simple assertion by which he sets for our desperate condition and here's his simple assertion we have turned one to his own way having described humanity in the generic in the mass as one great flock of sheep as a wise preacher he's concerned lest some should simply stand back

Each to His Own Way: Principled Self-Will

25:23 and objectify that description and say oh yes all of humanity has gone astray like a great flock of sheep very true and not feel it in their own consciences in their own felt religious awareness what their individual personal condition is and so he drops the imagery and now he speaks in a very pointed individual manner and says we won to what we have turned to he did not say idolatry of the grosser forms we have all turned to lechery and to drunkenness and to blasphemy to insensitivity to the poor and to the needy he doesn't say that it would not be true it was not true then it's not true today but he does say that this is the common denominator of every individual man, woman, boy or girl of Adam's race we have turned one of us to him we have committed ourselves

26:48 to a path of principled self-will indulgence as the rule of life in the language of 2 Corinthians 5 in verse 15 we each one live to self that's the simple fact that's the ugly fact that's the horrible fact and that's the very essence of sin who were made business blessedness we were made a path of loving obedience to the living God in the orbit of attachment to his person

27:58 we should glorify and yet the problem there is none who can contradict him that all of us each one of us has turned unto his own that means a life of openness even our own present decadent society to put him behind bars for others it means a life of respectable cultured social sensitivity uprightness community concern but when you ask yourself what is the common denominator between that pathetic wreck of humanity the hooker who plies down to his knight if you ask what is the common denominator between her refined woman who's president of the local art club who attends her church regularly who does this that and the other what's the common denominator here it is

God's View of Humanity's Sin

29:19 of pleasing circumstantial the common denominator is this commitment for the conclusion of this message please turn your tape to side two and the prophet says that's bad news we've gone astray like a flock of sheep we have turned each one of us to his own way and before we leave that statement of the bad news this question must be addressed how does God view this vast flock of sheep who have left him as the object of supreme love and devotion how does he view this vast flock of sheep that has left his law as the governing principle of thought and conduct how does he view all those individuals who are doing of their own perspective thinking their own thoughts about reality does God view it with the indulgence of the person who sees a bunch of boys cutting up and says oh well you know boys will be boys does God if I may speak in that kind of spatial imagery does God look down

30:47 from heaven and smile indulgently and say oh well men will be men you know human beings and weakness will simply be human beings we must be indulgent no my friend the word of God is very clear that God does not look with that kind of indulgence upon the race of mankind that has gone astray like a vast flock of sheep within which each one has turned to his own way and again all we need do is turn to those early chapters of Genesis where the whole framework of God's attitude and disposition is clearly revealed he comes to Adam and Eve yes with a message of mercy but also with a purpose of banishment and the scripture tells us that God's rights have been violated his justice has been offended his holiness insulted and to stand up in cover and God came to solve the problem and to gain mandatory righteousness in the temple it is the temple which gave birth to Lamb of God and to show people at the altar that they were being comforted in the temple because lives through sprinkling of honey still be un угnog daily but that has not been done until it comes

32:13 and though tu never get to the temple that even is dank in heaven Now that's reality. For whatever man has done to God, God cannot cease to be God. He's God. He demands supreme allegiance from the creature.

32:40 Accommodate his own character to man's sinful weakness. In the language of Paul, let never be so. God forbid. Will God, who will by no means clear the guilty, who is of purer eyes than to look upon iniquity, will he say, well, poor helpless man has gotten himself into such a mess and he can't get himself out and I'll have to accommodate my standards of righteousness and justice to poor sinful man?

33:15 No. The opening verses of Romans again are clear. The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. Paul is bold.

33:32 Don't say that we are by nature children of wrath. That is justly the righteous, pure, holy,

33:43 that we have dared cast him off and turn to our own. That, I say, is bad news.

The Good News: God's Gracious Provision

33:55 But that's the realism within which the salvation of God in Jesus Christ is revealed to us. Before we leave this point, I would press the question on your conscience this morning. And would God that I could just take each one of you, and box you up in a cubicle so you'd know I'm not speaking to anyone else, and ask you this simple question. Where, by what means, did God bring you to see that what Isaiah describes is true of you?

34:31 Where, by what means, did God either jolt you, for he said, I have not come to call but sinners to repent. And it is true. I have come by the word to that station of the validity of the prophet's words as they impinge upon us personally that we will ever find the gospel to be what it is, good news. So we hasten then to look at the last part of the text, having considered the bad news of our desperate condition. Now the prophet turns from us, and the focus is upon us. Not what we are or we have done, but upon that which God has done, and the Lord, the Jehovah,

35:53 the great eternal covenant-keeping God, has laid on him the iniquity of us all. Now in this statement of a gracious provision, notice two things. First of all, the author of this provision. For the first time, the Lord is mentioned here in Isaiah 53.

36:17 Though his activity is assumed in the previous context, here for the first time, his activity is explicitly mentioned. And it is the Lord himself who is the author of this gracious provision. Divine initiative is stamped on the face of the provision made for sinners as revealed in the Bible. One of the best tests for any religious system is to ask this question, who takes the initiative to meet man's need?

36:53 Is it man or is it God? Does the arrow start in heaven and move down to heaven, or does it start with man and move up to heaven? And here we are pointed to the divine initiative. The author of this provision is none other than Jehovah, that one who is the eternal, eternally existent one, who in covenant love and mercy comes to man's rescue.

37:20 And what is the method of his provision? If Jehovah is the author, notice his method. And Jehovah has laid, or literally made to light, or may strike upon him the iniquity of us all. The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

37:47 Now who is the him? To whom does this pronoun refer? Well, if you let your eyes drift backward through the passage, you'll find that you end up in verse 13 of chapter 52, where the one who is referred to is called the servant of Jehovah. Behold the servant,

38:13 and then the one in focus through the remainder of this section is the servant of Jehovah, Jehovah incarnate, Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. Now, precise in the method of provision, make that provision through the servant of Jehovah. Well, he does so by what can only be described as substitutionary sin-bearing. It is by the substitutionary sin-bearing the servant of Jehovah is made for us in our need.

The Method of Provision: Substitutionary Sin-Bearing

38:53 It is this servant of Jehovah, upon whom God sins to strike. Look at the language of verse 5. He was wounded, literally pierced for our transgressions. He was bruised, literally crushed, broken in pieces, shattered for our iniquities.

39:19 What is the prophet speaking about? He's bringing us into what is the heart of the message of the gospel, a message articulated in such passages as 2 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians 5, 21 and Galatians 3, 13 in the New Testament in which we are told that God has made Him to be sin for us, that He has redeemed us from the curse of the law being made a curse for us. And it's essential if we're to understand the message of the cross that we get beyond the contemplation of those things which so often fill our minds when we read our Bible, particularly when we read the gospel records. The true significance of the cross is not to be found in any horizontal relationship that surrounds the cross.

40:16 The Bible describes many of those relationships. The jeering, bloodthirsty mob, the calloused soldiers,

40:27 the disciples crippled with cowardice and fleeing in the hour of trial, the scribes, Pharisees, pouring out their malignant envy and their horrible blasphemies. But you see, the true significance of the cross is not in what these people did to our Lord, nor is the true significance found in the horrible physical sufferings that He underwent when He hung upon that cross. The shame of nakedness, the dehydration, disjointed limbs, all of those realities, but the significance of the cross, is to be found behind the veil of that which human eyes can see in human relationships and is to be found in what God the Father did to God the Son. It is to be found in the soldier's activity, in the mob's activity, but in Jehovah's activity in relationship to the servant of Jehovah. And that's the great emphasis of Isaiah's exposition of the gospel. And that's the great emphasis of Isaiah's exposition of the gospel.

41:39 And that's the great emphasis of Isaiah's exposition of the work of Christ. And here we are told as we are informed in the rest of Scripture that when our Lord hung upon that cross, it was not the treatment of men that caused His agony. It was not even the disappointing cowardice of the disciples, but it was that which His own Holy Father did when He made iniquities, that is, their guilt and their deserved punishment to strike upon Him. And in the language of Romans 8 in verse 32, He that spared not His own Son.

42:24 Did He not spare Him?

42:29 The thing from which He did was that which is described in the book of the Revelation as the wrath of God in the cup of His fury.

42:44 That's why it takes Golgoth to interpret Gethsemane. For ye, I read that mysterious interaction of Gethsemane and found somehow was shrouded in beyond all measure of mystery. What was there that focused in this cup which when our Lord faced it caused Him to stagger, to sweat as it were a great draught of blood, to crowd in agony? Oh, my Father, if it be possible, let this in consolation of His disciples find again focusing upon the cup of which caused Him to die. My soul is exceeding to think about the lips of our Lord Jesus Christ. And when it was put to His lips according to the Prolentary

44:13 and He drank and He drank and He drank and He drank until drinkings of His holy cried my why never of Jehovah then went abandon His obedient pinnacle when according to Philippians He was obedient to death even the death of the Christ. and in the full tivity and volun up of Himself

45:27 be the reciprocity He drank against my iniquities in quake what made Him recoil be God. He drank and He drank until the cup was empty and then He cried in triumph. The modern translations notwithstanding a servant was committed to do. Dear friends, that's good news. That's good news.

The Glory of God in Salvation

46:35 That God has made a way of salvation that in no way has one justness and justice and equity implemented a way of salvation constant with all attributes yet reverently but it needs to be said in this man-centered age if the only way God was to the glory paved a way that makes the fullest display of all His act. Where is justice then at Calvary when the innocent bearings of others is crossed beneath the cross. And Jehovah

47:51 to show will justify sinners only in the way of satisfying His justice in the death of the appointed substitute. Where is holiness? Where is love? Where is wisdom more fully displayed?

48:09 The cross becomes nothing less than the theater in which God has made the most of all attributes ever to be made upon the face of the earth. And that's good news. Good news that we sheep who've gone astray we see who've turned to our own we who have incurred wrath and just anger of God because of our commitment to a life of selfishness God has conceived a way whereby His controversy against us can be resolved without in any way diminishing the glory of all of His glorious attributes. No wonder the scripture tells us Christ is the wisdom of God, as well as the power of God. And if we have by enablement of the Spirit even begun to see but the slightest fringes of the ways of God in this glorious provision, then surely certain responses ought to be forthcoming from our hearts. In closing, let me just articulate several of them.

Responses to the Gospel: Sin's Heinousness and God's Love

49:24 If we have understood and felt the inward reality of the bad news of what we are, have understood and felt something of the pressure upon our spirits of the glory of the good news, then surely these following things are true. First of all, how inconceivably heinous such a situation as we find in this passage. Do you see the logic? What must sin be?

50:04 Do you see that Jehovah is prepared on the servant of Jehovah? To object his son to the vials of his own rhymes. You who nor suppose it rightly hear the measure of sin's demerit,

50:51 that nothing less than you ever talk about a little sin, a white lie, a little pride, a little indulgence, a little envy, a little resentment, a little unfreeze. Look at every single light of the suffering servant of Jehovah and see it in its native ugliness, and mourn and flee from that sin and seek pardon in the way of God's appointment. Furthermore, how inconceivably glorious must be the love of God to sinners to secure a righteous salvation at such cost to himself. Do you see it?

51:36 What it cost God the Son, God the Spirit, for it was the Spirit who upheld the Son in all of that activity of pouring unto death. It was the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit who upheld the Son in all of that activity of pouring unto death. It was the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit who upheld the Son in all of that activity of pouring unto death. It was the Father's love that sent him.

51:54 Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us!

Responses to the Gospel: Compelling Motives and Certain Judgment

52:00 How inconceivable is the measure of that love! And thirdly, how inescapably compelling are the motives to love and serve such a God when we embrace his glorious provision. What more powerful motive can hold us in its grasp than to stand before and it for me that you would allow you the piercing cry of your beloved son lord jesus were you so thirsty for my salvation that you would willingly undergo then sure so amazing so divine

52:57 demands yes shall have my life my all and thirdly and finally how inescapably certain must be the judgment of god on those who despise this provision this provision for sinners in the servant of jehovah is adequate for all is offered freely to gospel none are excluded exclude themselves their unbelief their impenitence and i leave you with this note if almighty god did not spare venting of his fury when his son you was the sin bearer. What will he do with you if you come to judgment, laid in with the guilt of your own sin? If the son of God, by the fury, what will happen to you, my friend? No wonder the scripture says, when he comes forth to judgment, they will cry for rocks and mountains to fall

54:16 upon them and to hide them. From whom? From the face of him that sits upon the throne. And, strange phrase, the wrath of the what? Of the Lamb. The Lamb who before his shearers was dumb.

54:35 The Lamb, not his mouth. The Lamb who was all meekness and submissiveness. In his dying come forth with the Lamb. Seek the Lord. Call upon him what is near. Let the wicked forsake his way.

55:05 The unrighteous man his thoughts. And let him return unto the Lord, for he will have mercy upon him. And to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. God willing, that text, Isaiah 55, 6 and 7, will seek to open up and apply tonight as God's fuller answer to the question, in the light of the bad news and in the light of the good news, what am I, a sinner, to do? God's answer is in those who are not. Those words. But, oh, I entreat you here and now, with no assurance that neither you nor I will be here tonight, be spared to turn again. You seek the Lord now in the way of repentance and faith and flee to him who welcomes sinners as sinners and delights to show mercy. Let us pray.

55:58 Oh, eternal and glorious and ever-blessed God, we stand amazed. We stand amazed before the revelation of your grace and mercy in the gospel. And we pray that the Holy Spirit will take our efforts to set forth your dear Son against the backdrop of our dire need and make effectual to the salvation of many your own holy word. And we who are your people in the fresh contemplation of what it cost you, to procure our salvation. Oh, Lord, may we love you as we've never loved you before. May we cling to you as we've never clung before. May we serve you with a resolute obedience that we have never known before.

56:57 Hear our prayer and seal your word to our hearts for your own name's sake and for the good of our own. Amen.