You can turn in your Bibles to Isaiah chapter 52. Our text this evening represents the last of Isaiah's four servant songs. To remind you quickly, in Isaiah 42, he's the promised servant. God demands, behold my servant and promises to send salvation through that chosen servant. And then in Isaiah 49, he's the successful servant who's going to save Israel as well as enlighten the Gentiles. But even there, in that second one, we started to get a hint of the painful ministry of Jesus. If you remember, there's that moment where he'll say, I've labored in vain. I've spent all this effort for nothing. In Isaiah 50, we saw him as the obedient servant. who hears God's voice and speaks God's words, ensures God's glory. But at the same time, in that third song, the curtain was pulled back a little bit more on that theme of suffering. He said, I gave my back to those who smite me, who strike me. I allowed them to rip out my beard. I didn't cover my face from humiliation or spitting. Now in this final servant song, The scene is just flung open wide. The pivotal point of human history is seen. with unimaginable clarity. The painful death of Jesus, God's son, is recorded in thorough detail and in theological depth. The story of this suffering servant is told so persuasively and precisely that it seems like you're reading from a New Testament gospel here in Isaiah. Now, Isaiah 53 should really begin at the last three verses of chapter 52. For what it's worth, I'll just give you a reminder. The text of scripture is inspired, but chapter and verse divisions are not. And occasionally, they're not helpful. And that's happening in this case. You can see, Isaiah 52 verse 13 starts with the same words the first servant song did, Behold My Servant. So let's read starting at chapter 52 verse 13 all the way through chapter 53. Behold My Servant will prosper. He will be high and lifted up and greatly exalted. Just as many were astonished at you, my people, so his appearance was marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men. Thus he will sprinkle many nations. Kings will shut their mouths on account of him. For what had not been told them, they will see, and what they had not heard, they will understand. Who has believed our message? To whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? He grew up before Him like a tender shoot and like a root out of parched ground. He has no stately form or majesty that we should look upon Him, nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him. He was despised and forsaken of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And like one from whom men hide their face, he was despised, and we did not esteem him. Surely our griefs he himself bore, and our sorrows he carried. Yet we ourselves esteemed him, stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was pierced through for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The chastising for our well-being fell upon Him, and by His scourging we are healed. All of us, like sheep, have gone astray. Each of us has turned to his own way, but the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him. He was oppressed and he was afflicted. Yet he did not open his mouth like a lamb that is led to slaughter and like a sheep that is silent before its shearers. So he did not open his mouth. By oppression and judgment, he was taken away. And as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living for the transgression of my people to whom the stroke was due? His grave was assigned with wicked men, yet he was with a rich man in his death, because he had done no violence, nor was there any deceit in his mouth. But the Lord was pleased to crush him, putting him to grief. If he would render himself as a guilt offering, he will see his offspring, and he will prolong his days, and the good pleasure of the Lord will prosper in his hand. As a result of the anguish of his soul, he will see it and be satisfied. By his knowledge, the righteous one, my servant, will justify the many, as he will bear their iniquities. Therefore I will allot him a portion with the great, and he will divide the booty with the strong, because he poured out himself to death and was numbered with the transgressors. Yet he himself bore the sin of many and interceded for their transgressions. Or interceded for the transgressors. I'm sorry, let's pray. Heavenly Father, Lord, we are thankful to be here tonight to fellowship with one another, to be in the company of your children in this congregation. And we ask, Lord, that you would please Bless the reading of your word and the proclamation of it. According to your promise, it will always accomplish your purpose. Ask Lord that you would give me the mental clarity and the physical strength to proclaim your word tonight and that you would forgive me of my failures. Please help us to see your son. For it's in his name we pray. Amen. I just, I want to draw your mind to the book of Acts. And you don't have to turn there because I'm fairly certain you know the story. Philip, a newly ordained deacon in the church at Jerusalem, was in the middle of a wildly successful evangelism tour up in Samaria, up north of Jerusalem. And just as it was getting really good, Philip was moved by the Holy Spirit of God to leave that work and to go down to a highway that's running south out of Jerusalem toward Gaza. And he wasn't even led to the new highway that the Romans had built, by the way. He was led to, for an as of yet unknown reason, to a lonely road. And as he stood by that lonely, seldom used road, soon a chariot started to wind its way down the highway, and over the sound of its rattling wheels, Philip could hear there is a man in the chariot who is reading out loud. Luke tells us that the Holy Spirit said to Philip, go catch that chariot. And doubtless, Philip had some expectation that he would preach the gospel of Jesus to the man inside. And in the chariot was the Ethiopian eunuch who was reading from the Old Testament. And Philip asked, do you understand what you're reading? And the man answered, how can I understand except someone guides me? And this is what Acts 8, starting at verse 31 says. He invited Philip to come up and sit with him. Now the passage which he read was this. He was led as a sheep to slaughter, and as a lamb before its shearer is silent, so He did not open His mouth. In humiliation His judgment was taken away, and who will relate His generation? For His life is removed from the earth." I can only imagine that Philip was grinning on the inside when the Ethiopian eunuch read that portion of Isaiah 53 and then asked, please tell me, of whom does this prophet say this? Of himself or of someone else? And the scripture tells us that then Philip opened his mouth and beginning from that scripture, he preached Jesus to him. Jesus is who this is about. Isaiah 53. has been called the high point of Old Testament prophecy. Over 700 years before the birth of Jesus, he is described here as God's suffering servant. And the text begins in chapter 52, verse 13, with the very same exclamation from the voice of God as the first servant song started, behold my servant, look at him. But I give you an idea of the basic structure here, the voice. of the final three verses in Isaiah 52 is the voice of God the Father. He is who is speaking, calling on Isaiah and on us to behold, to look at this servant of God who will be exalted. It also explains why he'll be exalted. He's going to, in verse 14, suffer so greatly that he won't even be recognizable. But in the next verse, the whole world, many nations will know of him. They'll finally see the salvation of God, which they had never seen before. Then, as it moves into chapter 53, the song continues, but the voice changes. It's the prophet Isaiah himself who is speaking. And it's clear, he has obeyed the command of God. God who said, look at my servant, behold my servant. And Isaiah has obeyed that, and he has received, for lack of a better explanation, a vision, some understanding of the suffering servant, and he is just drowning in the implications of what he's seen. This is a vast simplification of Isaiah's words, but essentially he asks, why doesn't anybody believe the message of God's servant? Why would we think that he is nothing special? He's despised and he's rejected and we consider him to be nothing. But the truth is, he's our everything. We've wandered from God, but our griefs, our sorrow, our transgressions, our iniquities, our sin was all put on him instead. And you can see this suffering servant of God suffering silently. You can go through this chapter and you can see not only the crucifixion of Jesus, but the burial of Jesus. And Isaiah describes how God crushed his own servant, his own son. He suffered to be an offering for sin. And yet that death and that burial is not the end of the servant story. Somehow he's going to go on living. He's gonna go on, Isaiah says, glorifying God. In the final two verses of chapter 53, Yahweh himself begins to speak again, reassuring the readers that all the suffering is not in vain. The servant will be satisfied when that suffering brings many to righteousness. Y'all, I can't overstate the importance of this chapter. You would be hard-pressed to come up with any chapter of the Old Testament that carries a greater message, a more, in a sense, a more clear message of the Gospel of Jesus than Isaiah 53. entire books have been written about this one chapter. It's just like this well of truth that we could draw from over and over. So you get the idea that we're not going to say everything there is to be said about this chapter tonight. If Tom was preaching this, he'd be here for weeks. And then he would actually get to chapter 53. And rightly so. And you can be here and not exhaust the truths here. So I just wanna stress to you, what we're doing is like, the best way I could describe is it's like you're getting in an airplane and flying over the text and I'm pointing down there. You see some of those things, but you're not seeing the details, okay? But we're gonna try to sort of bring out the basics of this whole servant song. Starting in chapter 52, verse 13, this song, it is wonderfully balanced. If you have a paragraph Bible, it's probably showing you that this breaks down into five equal stanzas of three verses each. The first section is the last three verses of chapter 52. And we'll label that the servant's success. One of the interesting things is that this song begins at the end. It does not unfold in chronological order. If you can wrap your mind around this, 700 years before Jesus was even born, God starts with the end of the story, making the conclusion the introduction. He begins with the ultimate triumph of Jesus, his exaltation, his majesty, his success. Verse 13 in chapter 52, Behold, My servant will prosper. He will be high and lifted up and greatly exalted. Just as many were astonished at You, My people, so His appearance was marred more than any man in His form, more than the sons of men. Thus He will sprinkle many nations. Kings will shut their mouths on account of Him. For what had not been told them, they will see, and what they had not heard, they will understand. The opening phrase, behold, my servant will prosper is very easy to apply to Jesus. He's going to succeed. The wording here in Hebrew suggests the idea of succeeding as a result of wise behavior. And so this verse gets translated different ways depending on which version you pick up. It says, my servant shall deal prudently. My servant shall act wisely. My servant will be successful. successful, he will prosper. All of those are carrying this idea of success based on wisdom, success based on prudence. Wise and prudent behavior of this servant ensures his successful outcome. And this applies so well to Jesus. Never has a man been more wise, more discreet, more thoughtful, more prudent than Jesus. This is the conclusion that is offered as the introduction from the opening words. Remember where this is going. Don't forget these opening words. There's soon going to be some depths of despair to endure, but God who knows the end from the beginning has told us the end at the beginning. Success is certain. The victory is in hands. In fact, God says the servant, he will be high and lifted up and greatly exalted. There's your first three point message. Isaiah knows these words. This is not the first time Isaiah has recorded these words. He's used these very words before, back in Isaiah chapter six, when he was called to be a prophet. If you remember from Isaiah six, in the year that King Uzziah died, I saw also the Lord on the throne, high and lifted up, or high and lofty, exalted. King Uzziah may have died, but the high king of heaven is still on the throne, and Isaiah saw him. In chapter 12 of John's gospel, we're even told with absolute assurance that Jesus is the sovereign Lord who Isaiah saw when he saw the Lord on the throne, high, lofty, exalted. So now Yahweh uses these exact same words telling Isaiah, you remember what you saw. Don't forget it. Because as this vision unfolds, these desperate scenes that you're gonna see, don't forget where it's going, no matter how bad it seems like things get. Don't forget that this servant is high, he's lofty, he's exalted, he is that very Lord of Glory that you saw on the throne, and he's not going to be dethroned. As Brother Tom noted, the Apostle Paul uses this same kind of language. Picking up where Tom left off when he was reading before the sermon in Philippians 2, verse 9, for this reason, God has also highly exalted Him, and given Him a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Isaiah here is offering some fantastic New Testament theology. But just like the Apostle Paul knows the end of history's story that Jesus will be exalted and every knee is going to bow to him, Isaiah also records God's promise here that the suffering servant will be exalted. That's where this is going and we can't forget that. In fact, think just about how much Isaiah and Paul are on the same page. What did Paul write just before that in Philippians? Jesus, who is God, did not consider that glory to be a thing to be grasped at, but emptied himself, taking on the form of a servant, humbled himself in obedience to death, even to the death of the cross, and because of that, God has highly exalted him. Being this suffering servant is the chosen pathway to Christ's eternal exaltation. Now God the Father in our text assures Isaiah that the humiliation of the cross ends with the exaltation of Christ. We read in the Gospels how Jesus was praying in the peaceful silence of Gethsemane when his friend Judas led a horde of soldiers to arrest him, and he allowed himself to be taken. He allowed himself to be shamefully mistreated. He was beaten during three separate Jewish trials. tortured by the Roman soldiers, tied down and scourged, his beard ripped out from his face, the crown of thorns pounded into his head, ultimately affixed to a cross with nails hammered through his hands and feet. Nowhere in the Gospels does a writer attempt to tell us exactly what that looked like. But even 700 years before it happened, the picture of this suffering of God's perfect suffering servant is burned into the mind of God 700 years before it happens. Listen as verse 14 describes this astonishing sight. His appearance was marred more than any man and his form more than the sons of men. the appearance of Jesus was disfigured by the torture that he endured. So that he no, not just that he no longer looked like himself, but what this is saying is for more than the sons of men, is that he no longer even looked human. Why would he endure such abuse? Well, because in verse 15, that's how he's going to sprinkle many nations. The word sprinkle there is the same word used of the sacrifices and the atonement offerings in the Law of Moses. But instead of this blood being sprinkled on the mercy seat, or on the altar, or on a priest to make them holy, it is sprinkled on many nations, Isaiah says, and the application of Jesus' blood makes them holy. Verse 15 goes on to say, the king shall shut their mouths on account of him. The kings and the rulers of this world who have, some of whom have lifted themselves up in pride, some of whom have boldly promoted themselves, even some who have used the name of God as a tool for their own personal glory, they're going to, the way we would say it today, they're going to shut up. They've never seen him for who he was and they wouldn't listen to the gospel message, but these kings will see him exalted as the king of kings in sovereign majesty. Now before moving on to the next section, I just want to make one hopefully quick note on the translation here. The translators of the NASB have added the words in verse 14, my people, and you can see them there in italics. They've added them in an attempt for clarity, but I'm not at all certain that it does help. I try not to present myself as smarter than the translators because I know that I'm not. But it attempts to preserve. What they're doing there is attempting to preserve a contrast in verse 14 to say, just like many were astonished, or the word is appalled, at my people Israel, so they'll also be astonished at my servant. And that would make good sense. But it ignores the fact that the you there, as many as were astonished at you, is in fact a masculine singular. It is talking about an individual man. It is not talking about the nation of Israel. So the addition, in my opinion, is it's basically a solution that's looking for a problem. The more clear way to read this is that verse 14 is a contrast with verse 15. Verse 14 explains the astonishing, the literally appalling bloody appearance of the servant, but verse 15 shows that blood is effective for the cleansing of many nations. Or maybe I could say it this way. Just like many are going to be appalled at the servant's appearance, many are also going to be saved by the servant's sacrifice. That understanding has the benefit of also fitting with the main point of that section, the servant's success. The success of Jesus is assured. The second section is the servant scorned. The first three verses of chapter 53. Who's believed our message? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For he grew up before him like a tender shoot, like a root out of parched ground. He has no stately form or majesty that we should look upon him, nor appearance that we should be attracted to him. He was despised and forsaken of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And like one from whom men hid their face, he was despised, and we did not esteem him." You can hear the heart of the prophet in the first two questions in verse 1. Who has believed our message? Is anybody listening to the gospel of Christ? To whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? The arm of the Lord is a reference to God's saving power. For example, the nation, when it was brought out of Egypt, they were saved by the stretched out arm of the Lord. So it's asking, who's seen God's saving power? And both of those are essentially rhetorical questions. Isaiah is not trying to say that there are none who have heard the message and there's none who have seen God's saving power. But just a relatively few have. Certainly not those who Isaiah was preaching to had seen it or experienced it. The majesty and the message of this servant, though he's going to be highly exalted by the Lord, he is widely rejected here on earth. Part of that rejection is based on the unlikely beginnings of the Messiah. Verse 2 describes him as a tender shoot or a young plant that grows up out of dry ground. You don't expect a tree or a flower to sprout up out of parched, uncultivated soil. Similarly, they didn't expect God's servant and Messiah to grow up in Nazareth, to be raised as a low-born child of a modest couple in a backwater village, parents so poor that they couldn't even afford the prescribed sacrifice when they brought him to present him in the temple as an infant. And we might think, well, yeah, well, that's how he started, but he grew, he became this impressive figure. Well, maybe, but in what sense was he impressive? What did Jesus look like? Almost assuredly, nothing like the pictures in your head or on your TV screen. The end of verse 2 explains the servant doesn't have an impressive or majestic appearance. He didn't look imposing. There wasn't anything about his appearance that would draw people to him. There's no stately form, no majesty, nothing that would have been visually appealing. Had you been alive during the earthly ministry of Jesus, it is highly unlikely that any of us would have been able to pick him out of a lineup. In fact, it seems like those who could see Jesus for what He looked like are the ones who had the hardest time seeing Him for who He is. And when you think of those who recognized Him, wasn't He recognized as majestic by a leper that came bowing down and wouldn't even raise his head up to look at Him? Wasn't it a blind man on the roadside who started shouting out for the glorious mercy of the Son of David? Isaiah seems to be saying that since no one would hear the message and since no one would look at Jesus and be impressed, instead they looked at him, Isaiah says, and they found him as despicable, contemptible, repulsive. He was despised, rejected, forsaken, disrespected, a man of sorrows, literally a man of pain is what that means. Well acquainted with grief and suffering. And they didn't sing about this man of sorrows and end it with, hallelujah, what a savior. They were content to just hold him in scorn. And that scorn has continued until this present day as generations have mocked the name of Jesus and refused to obey the inviting command of the gospel message. We learned in the third servant song that Jesus didn't hide His face from the humiliation and from the spitting. But now in the fourth servant song, look who is hiding their face in verse 3. Jesus is held with such low regard that even in the moment of His sorrow and pain, Isaiah says, we hid our faces from Him, not considering Him even worth looking at. It's very possible that some of y'all are doing the same thing even now. As the gospel message is preached to you, you hide your hearts from it, deem it to be unworthy of your attention, and this is just an inconvenient time to truly look at the message of Jesus, because I've got all this other stuff that I want to do first. In doing so, you have included yourself in those who Isaiah describes as scorning Jesus. And so you need to listen closely to the next section, because it is a matter of eternal consequences for you. The next section is the servant's suffering, verses four through six. Surely our griefs he himself bore and our sorrows he carried. Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was pierced through for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, and by His scourging we are healed. All of us, like sheep, have gone astray. Each of us has turned to his own way. But the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him. The reason I encourage all those who have scorned or who are scorning the message of the servant to listen closely. As these verses explain exactly why we shouldn't turn our faces away from Jesus. to see the connection, and this is Isaiah's connection. Look at how Isaiah transfers words from verse three and brings them down into verse four, right? In verse three, we did not esteem him at all, but in verse four, now we do esteem him. We just esteem him stricken, smitten of God. In verse three, he's a man of sorrows. In verse four, what happens to those sorrows? It's, oh, it's our sorrows that he carried. And verse 3, He's acquainted with grief or suffering. And verse 4, He's born our grief, our suffering. Literally, the word there is sickness. That is the sickness of mankind has been placed on Him. And then we dare say, well, look at how sick He is. Why should we care that He is despised, rejected, sorrowful, and suffering? Why does it matter what we think of Him? Well, Isaiah's answer to that is, well, it matters what you thought of him, what you think of him, because he was thinking of us. I know that many of you are content to ignore the message because I was there to my own shame. I ignored the message of Jesus for years, but I later learned that the suffering and shame of Jesus that I tried to put out of my mind, when Jesus suffered that shame, I was on his mind. Listen to these words. It was our griefs he bore, our sorrows he carried. He was pierced through or wounded for our transgressions. The very words of crucifixion being used there. He was pierced, his hands and his feet, a spear through his side. He was crushed for our iniquities. The chastening of our well-being, or the King James Version says the chastisement of our peace. The idea is the punishment that brought us peace was laid on Him. By His scourging, we are healed. Listen, Isaiah intends for us to understand there is a price tag that comes with sin. He says in verse six, we're all like straying sheep. We're separated from the shepherd of our souls who leads and feeds and cares for us. But don't imagine his description there of wandering sheep, like you wandered away accidentally and got lost. Like, well, you meant to follow, but I wanted, and all of a sudden, oh, I'm lost. I don't know where I am. We're lost because we prefer our own path to that of our Creator. We are willfully rebellious. We are purposefully sinful. And that sin carries a price tag. Isaiah said this isn't an accident. He doesn't just say we've all like sheep gone astray. He says every one of us has turned to his own way. We are astray because we've picked a path that is different than what God has purposed for us. And when that price tag has to be paid, who's going to pay the price? It's not a price that Jesus owed. Although Isaiah says, many esteemed him to be stricken smitten of God and afflicted. That is, there are those who would say, well, if he's suffering, it's because he deserved it. The smitten there is a reference to being struck down or being scourged. Some would say, well, God must have been holding the whip because Jesus had committed sin. And there's a part of that sentence that's true. God is sovereign. He didn't lose control. He not only oversaw the suffering of Jesus, God was in more control than the Jewish council and the Roman soldiers and Pontius Pilate all put together. But it wasn't because Jesus had sinned. It was because we've sinned. I want you to see something interesting in the way Isaiah words this. Many times, there are words that we would call collective plurals. For example, if I talked about your sin, I've got two collective plurals there. Am I talking about yours, like Tom's, yours? Or am I talking about all of yours? And am I talking about a sin or am I talking about sin in a collective sense as all your sins? Isaiah uses several words here that can be collective plurals, but he consistently makes them actual plural words. Look at verses four and five. He could have said our grief was born by him as well as our sorrow. Instead, Isaiah intensifies it by using the word griefs and sorrows. And then in verse five, transgressions and iniquities. You need to know through faith in Him, Jesus did not just take some of your sin. He took all of your sin. The sins of every believer throughout history, every sin they committed in the past or would commit in the future, were essentially kept in reserve. They were held back by a merciful God who loved the world so much that He would send His own Son as the suffering servant. And when Jesus came and took the place of this suffering servant, it's like the ocean of wrath that was held back by God's mercy is then let go. And when Jesus went to the cross, the floodgates were opened. He was crushed under the weight of what we owe. When Jesus went to the cross, every one of those sins was laid on Him, and the same God who had shown mercy to us showed no mercy to His own Son, the suffering servant. Jesus absorbed the wrath of God for our sins so that He could, in the words of Isaiah, suffer the punishment that brings us peace. Paul describes this in 2 Corinthians 5.21 saying that God made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. Or as Isaiah says at the end of verse 6, the Lord caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him. Suffering servant. Jesus' suffering is called vicarious suffering, or substitutionary suffering, or simply said, He suffered in the place of others. We can have peace with God because every sin and offense that drove that wedge of separation between us as we were choosing our own path, that price has been paid in full by the shed blood of God's servant, Jesus. In the next section, verses seven through nine, you'll see the servant's submission. Because I have heard people speak of Jesus and say something like this. Well, he came and he did what he had to do. Yeah, that's not quite right. He did what he was willing to do. He came to do the will of the father, so he did what the father was willing for him to do. In John 10, he addresses all of us wandering sheep by calling himself the good shepherd and said the good shepherd gives his life for the sheep. But not to be misunderstood there, he goes on to say, no man can take it from me. I lay it down myself. And so now in vivid like gospel detail, Isaiah also includes the willing submission of Jesus, God's servant. Listen to verses 7-9. He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth. Like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that is silent before its shearer, so he did not open his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away. And as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living for the transgression of my people, to whom the stroke was due? His grave was assigned with wicked men, yet he was with a rich man in his death, because he had done no violence, neither was there any deceit in his mouth. In verses 7-9 it's I struggle with knowing exactly how God gave this message to Isaiah. We're not told. It seems as if this could be that Isaiah was given in a vision, essentially what appears to be a front row seat at crucifixion day. Because he records the process and the procession to the cross. He records the execution and even the burial of Jesus as if he's seeing it. And Isaiah carries the same words over again as he transfers to this new perspective. Right in verse 6, we're all like sinful, straying sheep. But in verse 7, Jesus is the one, lone, sacrificial sheep who silently submits to God's control. Verse 7 uses the word oppressed and verse 8 has the word oppression, but the root meaning in Hebrew is actually different in those words. The word for oppressed in verse 7 is literally a word meaning to be forced to work, to be pushed forward, made to bear the weight of the cross beamed which his hands would soon be nailed, though for all the beating and the torture that he endured. Even the Roman soldiers knew he would not be able to carry that weight all the way. But the word oppression in verse 8 means to be enclosed or to be restrained. The authorized version says he was taken from prison and judgment. You get the idea of restraint there. The idea, I think, points most naturally to him being unlawfully arrested and denied justice. The Sanhedrin council knew that it was breaking its own rules when they put Jesus on trial at nighttime, especially with so-called witnesses who could not testify anything but lies. And so they dragged him at sunrise to the temple to do what looked like an official trial, but was nothing more than a sentencing hearing. He was denied justice, is what Isaiah is describing here. And during all this abuse, he was silent. The only words that he spoke were to answer accusations against him respectfully. The Roman governor Pontius Pilate was so astounded that Jesus did not put up a defense against these false accusations that he even said to Jesus like, don't you know that I have the power to let you go and I have the power to crucify you? And Jesus simply said, you only have the power that's given to you from above. Any other man being crucified would have attempted escape. They would have writhed and squirmed. They would have asserted their own innocence, attempted to vindicate themselves, to be absolved of punishment, to be shown mercy. When all else failed, victims would resign themselves to their fate and start throwing curses and accusations against those who were hurting them. We know the two criminals that were led to Calvary with Jesus did exactly that thing. They even shouted curses and insults at Him. And yet our Savior was silent in the sense that even the few words that He did speak contained no protests, no attempts to be released, no effort to gain mercy. The bravery and courage of Jesus continued even as He was nailed to the cross and they offered Him sour wine mixed with gall, a drink that was designed to ease some of the suffering, but He refused it because He was going to drink the cup of God's wrath to the last drop. And ultimately Isaiah describes the death of Jesus on the cross in verse 8 as He was cut off out of the land of the living. But it's again certain to make clear that he was innocent. He was killed, Isaiah says, for the transgression of my people to whom the stroke was due. It was killed for somebody else who deserved it. It was us who deserve the scourging and the nails. The plot of the religious leaders who hated Jesus even included trying to inflict insults on him after he was dead. The plan was apparently, according to Isaiah in verse nine, his grave was assigned with wicked men. Or really it's saying they assigned him a grave with the wicked. So no doubt the plan of the Jewish council was to have the body of Jesus unceremoniously tossed over the western wall of the city into the burning trash heap that was the valley of Hinnom below. This may well have been what happened to the bodies of the two thieves. That was the very normal procedure. But God intervened. Praise God that He intervened. Can you imagine a resurrection story where the disciples say, well, we went to the trash heap and we couldn't find the body? Instead, two other men came and took the body of Jesus. The first was a man, Nicodemus, who was introduced to us in John chapter 3, where Jesus tells him, you must be born again. And at some point in Nicodemus' life, it seems clear that he was. The other man who claimed Jesus' body was a rich man named Joseph of Arimathea. I have to understand, being buried in a tomb within or close around the city of Jerusalem was an honor for a Jewish man, an honor very few people could afford. Joseph of Arimathea had already decided he was not going to be buried in his hometown of Arimathea. Surely he had paid a hefty price for a private tomb that he could use for himself inside of this well-kept garden in the city of Jerusalem. But he apparently couldn't bear the thought of Jesus' body being defiled and destroyed. And thus, the body of this suffering servant was taken from the cross, wrapped in grave clothes, sealed in a tomb for a rich man. Verse 9 describes this. He was assigned a grave with the wicked, but his grave was with the rich in his death. And at that point, the Lord of Glory, who had done no violence, who had not once spoken deceitfully, was dead. The light of the world was extinguished. And were this the story of any lesser man, the story's done. It's over, there's nothing more to be said. Close the book, roll the credits, that's the end. No one listened, no one looked, no one cared, and no one could do anything now but cry anyway. But if you remember, that's why God began this servant song with the ending. It started with the conclusion, and now it's gonna conclude where it started. The final stanza is the servant's satisfaction. We're gonna read the first part of verse 10 and just consider it for a moment. It contains an essential fact that we must wrap our minds around if we're going to come close to fully comprehending the sacrificial death of Jesus for sinners. Verse 10 says, but the Lord was pleased to crush him putting him to grief if he would render himself as a guilt offering. Y'all, put your nose in your Bible for a second. Set your eyes on those words in verse 10. And let me ask you, who was responsible for the suffering and death of Jesus? I know there's a lot of different perspectives we could use to approach that, right? A good answer would be, well, I'm responsible for the suffering and death of Jesus. My sins are as if they were the very nails affixing Him to that cross. It was me. Another answer could be, well, it was the Jewish leadership that was responsible. They schemed against Him. They arrested Him. They falsely accused Him. They encouraged the crowd to insist on His crucifixion. We could even say the Romans were responsible. After all, Pontius Pilate did the condemning. Roman soldiers did the torturing. They swung the hammer into those nails. They're the ones who thrust the spear into his side. And realize, none of those answers would be wrong in and of themselves, but there is an essential and foundational truth supporting each of those that we have to understand. Isaiah says in verse 10, the Lord was pleased to crush him. Yahweh was pleased. He was pleased to crush Jesus. Look at verse 10. The Lord, Yahweh, was pleased to crush him. He, the Lord, has put him to this grief, to this suffering. The Lord accepted the sacrifice of Jesus as the guilt offering for sin. In this life, we will never entirely understand the suffering that Jesus endured for sinners. The physical abuse of his torture and crucifixion was horrific, but beyond that, unseen to the human eye, the meaning of verse 10 is essentially the very soul of Jesus has made the guilt offering, the atoning sacrifice for sin. That makes the death of Jesus unlike any other death. We would be tempted to think of some of the appalling deaths of Christian martyrs throughout history and think, well, okay, well, Jesus's death was like that. We comfort ourselves by saying, well, they were faithful to the end. They were following in the footsteps of Jesus. And y'all, I pray that none of us have to endure a martyr's death. I can tell you with confidence, though, they did not die like Jesus died. The death of a Christian martyr brings comfort. You read about them and they die singing, they expire just full of hope, God's grace being poured out on them, drawing them close, bringing them to comfort. The death of Jesus is different because he became sin for us. He was forsaken by the father alone and in agony, the wrath of God being poured out on him. God himself, the active agent in bringing suffering and death to his son. And Isaiah says not only that, but it pleased the Lord to do this. Isaiah does not mean that God gleefully enjoyed it. What he's saying is it was the will of God. It satisfied God to crush the suffering servant in the place of sinners. This is what it means that God so loved you that he gave his only son to die in your place so that through believing in him you can have everlasting life. But that's not the end of the story or even the end of verse 10 or this chapter. The rest of verse 10, we see the same Father God who was responsible for the suffering and death of Jesus is also responsible for the resurrection and exaltation of Jesus. Look at the end of verse 10. He will see his offspring. He will prolong his days. And the good pleasure of the Lord will prosper in his hand. What contrasting thoughts those are in verse 10. A man who never married or had children is going to see his offspring? A man who verse 9 describes as dead and buried is going to have prolonged days? A man to whom it is said it was the Lord's pleasure to crush him. Now it says it's the Lord's good pleasure that is sure to prosper in his hand. The very servant who suffered wrath at the Lord's hand will now have the Lord's glory placed in his hands for safekeeping. Now Isaiah does not use the word resurrection here. But that is the only explanation that makes sense of statements like this. Otherwise, how could it be said that a servant is going to go on pleasing God, have prolonged days added to his life that he'll see his family? Jesus rose from that dark tomb, defeating death for all who believe. We strayed as sheep, but we will return as children through the work of Yahweh's servant Jesus. The final two verses of this stanza, God speaks again. God's voice comes back in in verse 11. He assures Isaiah and us, the reader, that Jesus would not be disappointed with the suffering when he sees the result. In verse 11, as the result of the anguish of his soul, he will see it and be satisfied. By his knowledge, the righteous one, my servant, will justify many, as he will bear their iniquities. Therefore I will allot him a portion with the great, and he will divide the booty, or the spoil, with the strong. because he poured out himself to death and was numbered with the transgressors, yet he himself bore the sin of many and interceded for the transgressors." Jesus will see what he has accomplished and be satisfied. Listen, one thing I want you to understand when you read Isaiah 53, when you read of all that Jesus endured for us, it ought to break our hearts. But as it breaks our hearts, there's one thing that we can glory in, that when Jesus endured all that suffering, there is no disappointment in his heart about it. Verses 11 and 12 contain some of the most compelling arguments for the idea of particular redemption, that all for whom Jesus died will be saved. You look at verse 11, the righteous servant will justify the many, for he will bear their iniquities. In verse 12, there will be a portion allotted to him. He bore the sin of many. The idea that Jesus is now at the right hand of the Father and just, you know, wringing His hands, hoping and desperately that His sacrificial death might save a few more. That is insulting to the sovereignty of God and the suffering of the servants. The father was not pleased to crush his son just hoping that it might save sinners. The son is not satisfied because he sees that, well, a few have believed and I guess that's enough. The sacrifice of Jesus accomplished exactly what it was intended to accomplish. The way the writer of Hebrews describes it in Hebrews 12.2 is he calls Jesus the author and finisher of our faith, the beginning and the end of it. He says of Jesus who, for the joy set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. And listen, my dear friends, when he sat down, he was satisfied with what he had accomplished. Don't let anyone say to you the nonsense that Jesus did all that he can do. He called Jesus did everything that needed done. God himself says in verses 11 and 12 that Jesus bore their iniquities. He poured out his soul. He bore their sins. He made intercession for them. And look at verse 11. By his knowledge, the righteous one, my servant, will justify the many. Not just a generic many, but the many. There's a definite article there. Specific many people. by the knowledge of Him, by knowing Him, putting your confidence and trust in Him, you can be justified because He suffered for your sins in your place. Y'all, do you know Him tonight? I don't mean do you know about Him, or do you know who He is? What I'm asking is do you have knowledge of Jesus, knowing that you are one of these straying sheep, knowing that your sin was laid on Him, knowing that every lash of the whip on His back and every hammer stroke beating nails through His hands and feet, every moment of scorn and every second of shame that tortured His soul, bore that in your place. And he was satisfied to have done it. That kind of knowledge is saving faith. That kind of knowledge reconciles you to God. That kind of knowledge tells you to turn away from your sins, be baptized as a proclamation of your love and devotion to Jesus, and know that you are a disciple of this suffering servant of God. Thanks for your attention.