Welcome to the audio ministry of God-Centered Universe with Pastor Timothy Phan. The following sermon was preached at Genesis Family Church in Denver, Colorado. Please join us as we open the Bible and continue trembling joyfully at God's Word. O Sovereign Lord, Father, we hear your Son warning us, as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be when He comes. People were eating and drinking, marrying and being given in marriage, or as it was in the days of Sodom, so it will be when your Son comes. When people were eating and drinking, when they were planting and building, and all of a sudden the judgment came. You have warned us, Lord, that there would be two in the bed at night, and one would be taken, and the other left. And two in the field, and one taken, and the other left. Two grinding, and one taken, and the other left. Oh Lord, make us ready. Make the world ready. Father, there are so many lost people yet to repent, and there are so many around us who are not ready, even ones that we know and ones that we love dearly, and they are not ready. And if your Son were to come, they would be left. Lord, open their blind eyes, we pray. Give them ears to hear, we pray. Press upon them the urgency of the coming judgment and the urgency of the coming wrath. Lord, please don't allow your church, especially your church in this country, to go through Good Friday and Easter and do ceremonies about the cross and talk about the resurrection. but be dead to the real spirit of it and the real meaning of it. Lord, don't allow us to remember the cross without tears. Don't allow this sleeping church in America to talk about the cross without being cut to the heart and pierced to the heart with repentance. Lord, grant us your spirit, we pray, as we open Isaiah 53, your holy word, in Jesus' name. This morning we start with verses five through six of Isaiah chapter 53. This is the word of the Lord. But he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The chastisement for our peace was upon him. And by his wounds, we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way. and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. Let's further reading of God's holy word. God's servant is divine. In the 53rd chapter of the prophet Isaiah, the suffering servant is the divine servant. He is to be seen as being essentially God. God in essence. The servant is God in essence. That is to say, the unbelieving Jews are dead wrong here. They, the unbelieving Jews, falsely claim that the Hebrew Old Testament is their book and not ours. They make the false claim that Isaiah 53 is therefore their chapter and not ours. Then they blasphemously assert that the suffering servant in Isaiah chapter 53 refers not to some individual Messiah, some individual person, but rather metaphorically to the whole nation of Israel as a whole. And this is a lie. That's a lie. Isaiah 53 is indeed about an individual man, the individual person of the Messiah. But more than that, it's not just that this is about an individual Christ. More than that is the truth that this individual person of the Messiah also is to be seen as God himself. For if you remember just as Isaiah in chapter six in the throne room vision sees the Lord and describes the Lord as being high and lifted up. So too is the Messiah in chapter 53, the suffering servant in chapter 53, now described in the exact same language. He is high and lifted up, which means that as the Lord is glorified, so too is the suffering servant glorified. And as the Lord ought to be worshipped, so too ought the suffering servant of chapter 53, so too ought he to, ought he be worshipped. He ought to be worshipped. God is exclusively God. And at the same time, somehow, the suffering servant is exclusively God. But how then can he be pierced? If we read that rightly, this is talking about a divine Messiah. How can he be pierced? If he is to be worshipped as God, how can the prophet say that he is pierced? Can God be pierced? Will mortal man mortally wound the immortal God? Well, the prophet calls him, he does indeed call him pierced. This is what the prophet says, that he is pierced. The divine Messiah is pierced. Isaiah 53 verse 5, but he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. the chastisement for our peace was upon him and by his wounds we are healed." What does this mean? That he was pierced. It means that his body, his body was pierced. That's what it means. His body was pierced as with a sword. Ezekiel 21 14 here's here's the piercing verb Ezekiel 21 14 you therefore son of man prophesy and strike your hands together the third time let the sword do double damage it is the sword that pierces the sword that pierces the great men that penetrates deeply So it's the piercing of the body as with, like with a sword, the sword thrusts through. So this is what we see in Isaiah 53. We behold a suffering servant and a pierced servant. Dogs have surrounded him. The congregation of the wicked has enclosed him. They have pierced his hands and his feet. And moreover, this is coming from his own people. It's the Jews who have pierced him. so his heart is wounded and his heart is pierced within him yes it was the Romans the Romans pierced his heart with a spear but the Jews pierced his heart with their own hatred they hated their king and their God and so they pierced his heart he weeps for them they they gnashed their teeth at him and pierce him but he weeps He weeps for them. And therefore, they will not, Jesus says, they will not see me again until they say, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, and until they look upon the one whom they have pierced. They will not know him until they see the one whom they have pierced. So, right here in the middle of Isaiah 53, then, we find ourselves standing directly in front of the cross. That's where we find ourselves. The prophet directs us to look with tears upon the servant who has been pierced for our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities. And yet, of course, vast multitudes of people around the world cannot see this. They can read Isaiah 53, vast multitudes of people can read Isaiah 53 and yet they cannot see this they cannot see the cross their hearts are made dull their ears are made heavy and they have shut their eyes so that they cannot see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand and with their hearts lest they would turn and be healed but they cannot those that cannot see what they ought to see in Isaiah 53 cannot be healed they cannot be healed Yet by grace through faith we can see this. By the grace of the gospel our eyes have been enlightened to see the servant who is pierced for our transgressions and therefore we can, we can be healed. They who cannot see him rightly cannot be healed. But we who by the illumination of the Holy Spirit can see the cross in Isaiah chapter 53 can be healed. We can be healed. If we can see His pierced hands, pierced feet, and pierced side, and if we can look upon those things rightly through the eyes of repentance, then we can be healed. We can actually be healed. Isaiah 53, verse 5 again, But He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities, the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His wounds we are healed. We can be healed. So whom do we see when we look upon the cross? Upon whom do we gaze when we gaze up at the cross? What we ought to see, what we ought to see is the pierced servant who through his piercings has the power to heal us. That's what we ought to see. He is the God, this is the God who heals his people. He heals. Psalm 103 verse 3 says, the Lord is He who forgives all your iniquities, who heals all your diseases. This is the God whom we should see on the cross. Jesus came healing the sick, the blind and the lame, but He also came to heal us, we who were very sick in our sins. For God is the one who does it. God is the one who strikes sinners with sickness. God does that. He wounds transgressors on account of their transgressions. God does it. And at the same time, however, He also desires to heal those whom He has struck. He slays and He makes alive. He wounds and He heals. This is the will of God. Job 5.18, For He bruises but he binds up he wounds but his hands heal and also Isaiah 1922 and the Lord will strike Egypt he will strike and heal it they will return to the Lord and he will be entreated by them and heal them and again Isaiah 57 verses 17 through 19, speaking of Israel this time. I will heal him." Speaking then on behalf of all mankind, our sins are great, and so our sicknesses are great. In our rebellion against God, we have heaped up iniquity upon iniquity against God, against Him. And therefore, our wounds and our sicknesses are severe. so much so that they can seem at times to be incurable. And yet, for those who are pierced to the heart with repentance, for those who fear God and repent, God is able to heal even the most seemingly incurable of wounds. Jeremiah 30 verse 12, for thus says the Lord, your affliction is incurable. Your wound is severe. But then, Jeremiah 30, verse 17, for I will restore health to you and heal you of your wounds. Seems incurable, but I will heal. And also, Hosea chapter 6, verse 1, come and let us return to the Lord. For he has torn, but he will heal us. He has stricken, but he will bind us up. So God wounds and God heals. He makes sick. and He heals sickness. Due to our rebellious sins as a wicked humanity, He plagues us with disease. And yet, due to His grace and compassion towards sinful men, He's willing to remove our plagues and to heal our sicknesses. But then, of course, the question is, and this has many doctrinal implications for how you understand where the church how the church should view the Holy Spirit the question is how Does God heal heal us? How does he do this? in the very opening chapter of the book of Isaiah Does not God describe Israel as? being so sick So wounded by her sins that that she her body is unable to heal itself and The body of Israel cannot heal itself. It seems incurable. Isaiah 1, 5-6. Why should you be stricken again? You revolt more and more. The whole head is sick and the whole heart faints. From the sole of the foot even to the head there is no soundness in it but wounds and bruises and putrefying sores. They have not been closed or bound up or soothed with ointment. How then can Israel be healed? How does God heal Israel? And moreover, if I look at the disgusting nature of my own sins and see the sicknesses of body and sicknesses of soul that have resulted from my sins, how can I possibly ever expect to be healed if my sins are so disgustingly full of sores and sicknesses. How can I ever be healed? How does God heal the sick sin of humanity? Well, again, Isaiah 55.3 says, but he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The chastisement for our peace was upon him and by his wounds. That's the how. By His wounds we are healed. Christ died on the tree of Calvary so that His wounds could be our healing. It's the wounds that bring the healing. He suffered for our health. He was plagued with death so that we could be raised to life. 1 Peter 2.24, "...who himself bore our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness by whose wounds you were healed." So, oh precious listener, are you healthy or are you sick? It is not the healthy who need a physician. but the sick. The problem with the world today, the real problem with the world today, not what the politicians say, but the real problem with the world today is that the people of the world think that they are healthy, when in truth they are extremely sick. Ask a worldly man at the, he's pumping weights at the local athletic club. Ask him, are you healthy or are you sick? And of course, he will be so upset, he won't even want to answer you. He'll just show off his muscles. And ask a worldly scholar at a local university, is your intellect, go up to the scholar on the CU Boulder campus. Ask him, are you intellectually healthy or is your intellect sick? And he'll take the opportunity to start boasting about all of his mental powers in order to seek to convince you that his mind is extremely robust and brawny and fit. But the truth is that both men, strong man at the athletic club or the scholar on the university campus, both men are dangerously sick. That's the truth. They boast of their strong physical strength and their strong intellectual health, but inside, Their souls are deathly ill with idolatrous sin." Here's where all true gospel proclamation begins. It begins with God, the creator of the heavens and the earth, who is glorious, and then it moves to sinful man who is desperately sick. The true gospel does not flatter sinful man. Rather, it says to him, with all the threatening force of true love, You are sick. You are so sick as to be on the verge of everlasting death. Oh, proud sinner, you are not a good person. Your soul is sick with sin. You are dead to God in your sins. Up until now, you have thought of yourself as a righteous person, but the truth is that you have been wicked. If you're honest with yourself, you have been wicked. Your rebellion against God's holy commandments has been wicked, and it has made you so spiritually sick as to be on the verge not only of physical death, because you could die at any moment, but on the verge of the second death, which is the death of eternal conscious misery in hell. This is where true gospel proclamation begins. and yet it is not what most Americans believe about the gospel. For most Americans, most Americans have heard a false version of the gospel. They have heard the prosperity preachers say that the gospel has come to grant us physical health and physical prosperity in this mortal flesh. That's what most Americans have heard. These false teachers preach a positivity gospel, a Norman Vincent Peale gospel, which is a toothless gospel where the Lion of Judah has no bite and the Lamb of God has no wrath. They prefer, these false teachers prefer to speak of sin as a state of ignorance concerning the power of positive thinking. You just don't know how to think positively enough. Rather than following the biblical line and talking about the true God-hating, Christ-cursing plague of guilty humanity that sin really is. That's what sin really is. So if we want to do it rightly, biblically, here and here only then is the true love of God that is revealed in the true gospel. Here it is. It is that love that comes to God's own wicked, seditious, rebellious enemies through the wounds of Christ. That's true love. That is, we were God's enemies assaulting God and seeking to dethrone God in our own sinful pride. We joined the ranks of God's enemies in seeking to assassinate God, crucify God, so that we could become our own gods. And therefore, God in his justice struck us with the sicknesses and wounds of our sins. Yet, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. He healed us by his wounds. This is the true love of the gospel. This is true gospel power. This is divine power. For, if you think about it, does not blood typically stain white clothing? How then can this blood of Christ actually wash stained clothing and make it white again? It takes divine power. What kind of blood washes without staining? And also, do not wounds typically make a man sick? Do not infections come from wounds? How then can these wounds of Christ actually heal a sick man? What kind of wounds heal instead of making sick? This is divine gospel power. So we come then by faith alone. We have nothing else. We come by faith. We look upon his wounds and by his wounds we are healed. We see our sin-produced sicknesses in his wounds. We watch his wounds absorb our own guilt. You see the filthiness of your sins exposed before a holy God, and then you see those sins absorbed in the wounds of Christ. And so we weep. We weep tears of repentance. We look up at the cross and we say, this is what it costs to forgive our sins. This is what is required to heal our sicknesses. The spotless, sinless Lamb of God must be pierced for our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities and by His wounds we are healed. And therefore, we repent of our sins and we weep at the sight of His wounds. What is the true gospel? When we look upon the cross, what should we see? Well, firstly, we ought to see these wounds that heal, these amazing wounds that heal. In this life, Christ's physical wounds heal our spiritual sicknesses. And in the life to come, Christ's wounds shall heal our bodies too. in the life to come. Sometimes in this present life, miraculously to bear testimony to the gospel, but not, many times not so. In the life to come, though, yes, Christ's wounds in the life to come shall heal our physical bodies too through resurrection unto immortality. These are the wounds that heal. And then secondly, when we stand before the cross, we ought to see the substitutionary Lamb of God. He's not only a lamb. Christ is not only a lamb. He is a substitutionary lamb. This is substitutionary atonement. The substitutionary lamb. Because we're sheep. This is substitutionary because we are sheep. Isaiah 53 6, all we like sheep. Like sheep. have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all." So in the true gospel, we are like sheep. We have gone astray from God's holy paths. We have wandered away from righteousness and into the filth of our own sins. And this, this is not light or silly. This is deadly. We're not talking here about silly sheep who accidentally get lost. We all, like sheep, have gone astray. It's not that kind of a thing. We're rather talking about rebellious sheep who disobey their shepherd, leave his fold, and wander astray into the den of ravenous wolves. It's deadly. Proverbs 21, 16 says, a man who wanders, who goes astray, we, like sheep, have gone astray, a man who goes astray from the way of understanding will rest in the assembly the dead so this is this is deadly why do sheep go astray well in the biblical metaphor they love sin and so they choose leaders who will lead them astray into sin if they want to pick a leader they'll pick a leader who will lead them astray why because they love the sin Isaiah 9 16 for the leaders of this people lead them astray and those who are led by them are destroyed but why because they want it that's what they wanted Again, why did the sheep go astray? Well, it's not because they are naive, innocent sheep who simply lack greater educational opportunities. To the contrary, they love the voice of the false prophets who lead them astray. They love the chanting of the false prophets who say, peace, peace, when there is no peace. They love lies instead of truth, and so those lies that they love lead them astray. They consult idols rather than God. for the spirit of harlotry leads them astray as they commit adultery against their God. Sinners are like lost sheep. They're deeply guilty in their sins, and we all, like sheep, have gone astray, each one to his own way. This is how Psalm 119 puts it. Psalm 119, verse 176, I have gone astray like a lost sheep. Seek your servant, for I do not forget your commandments." And remember that this is deadly. This is not innocent sheep play. Rather, this is wretched rebellion against the shepherd that lands the lost sheep in the hunting grounds of hungry lions. The wages of sin is death. For God said to Adam, in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die. So this is deadly. Someone then has to die. In the true gospel, someone has to die. A lamb must be put to death. The jealous wrath of the shepherd demands the death of the rebellious sheep. Yet he also loves the sheep with a gracious and compassionate love. So what does the righteous shepherd do? He provides a substitutionary sacrifice for the sheep. He allows a blameless, spotless lamb to die in the stead of the rebellious sheep. And so you have this gospel of the substitutionary lamb being given for the forgiveness of sins even laced throughout the books of Moses. We have Abraham preparing to sacrifice Isaac, getting ready to bring the son, his only begotten son, as the sacrifice to God. And then we have Isaac looking up at his father and asking his father, saying, look, the fire and the wood, but where's the lamb for the burnt offering? And we have Abraham replying to his son and saying, my son, God will provide for himself the lamb for the burnt offering. It'll be a substitutionary lamb. We also have in the books of Moses the Passover lamb. which was a substitutionary lamb. During the Exodus, the angel of death went and struck down all the firstborn, but the firstborn of Israel are spared. Why? Because the blood of the substitutionary lamb is on the doorposts of the houses of the Israelites. The lamb was a sacrificial substitute for their own firstborn son. We all like sheep have gone astray, we all deserve death, yet God is our good shepherd who is willing to suffer on behalf of his own wayward sheep. So what then does God do? He provides a lamb, a lamb of God. to die in our place. John 1.29 The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. We all like sheep have gone astray. We must die. Someone has to die. How then can we be saved? We are saved according to 1 Peter 1.19 with the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. So when we stand before the cross, when we look upon the cross, we as sheep should see what we ought to see is the substitutionary Lamb who died for our sins. So one more time, Isaiah 53, 6-7, all we like sheep. So you got to get that we are sheep. we like sheep have gone astray we have turned everyone to his own way and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all he was oppressed and he was afflicted yet he opened not his mouth he was led as a lamb so now you got the connection we are sheep he's a lamb to the slaughter and as a sheep he becomes a sheep before it sure is a silence so he opened not his mouth only a sheep can die in the stead of other sheep Only a spotless, unblemished lamb can substitute for other rebellious lambs. In the same way, only a human can die a substitutionary death in the place of other humans. Therefore, Jesus became flesh and made his dwelling among us. So what we're saying is the doctrine of Christ, the doctrine of Christ is no trifling matter. Our very salvation depends upon it. For if Christ is not fully God, and thus uncreated and eternal in His sinless person, if Christ is not, if He's not that, if He's not fully God, then His blood lacks the worth and the value to pay for our sins. At the same time, if Christ is not fully man, if He's not fully human, then he cannot properly substitute for sinful men. He can't die as a substitute. Only a true incarnate sheep can die in the stead of other sheep. Therefore Christ must be fully God and fully man or else none can be saved. So think then upon the goodness of God our shepherd, Jesus Christ our shepherd became a sheep for us. The shepherd becomes a sheep. He offered himself as an innocent spotless lamb as the substitutionary sacrifice for our sins. He was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. This is substitutionary. The sinless shepherd condescended to suffer the infinite pains of the cross for the sake of his own rebellious wayward sheep. So how worthy then is the blood of Christ? As a lamb, he was slaughtered for us. Therefore, as the lamb who was slain, he shall be worshipped by us who believe for all the days of eternity. And to the degree How great will be the worship of the Lamb in heaven? Well, to the degree that His substitutionary slaughter for us was excruciatingly painful and unfathomably painful, to that same degree will His eternal glory be praised at the great wedding feast of the Lamb. However much He suffered is however much He shall be praised at the wedding feast of the Lamb. So, O Christian, do you see Him dying on the cross in your place? Do you behold him suffering for your own sins, putting himself on the cross in your stead? The suffering servant is the pierced servant. He's pierced through. We're standing therefore right in front of the cross in Isaiah 53. We're looking right at the cross. So what should we see? Well, we should gaze upwards at the cross and we should see firstly these wounds that heal, these powerful divine wounds that heal. And then secondly, we should see this substitutionary lamb. When we see him, we ought to see the substitutionary nature of the atonement. He's the lamb slain from the foundation of the world for our sins. And then lastly, when we look upon the cross at Isaiah 53, we also ought to hear something. We see the wounds that heal, we see the substitutionary lamb, but we also ought to hear something. Namely, we should hear the innocent silence of the lamb. Unlike the violent, deceitful mouths of the wicked, who are also called the rich by the prophet, the mouth of Christ He is both innocent and silent. He is silent. Isaiah 53, 7 through 9, He was oppressed and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth. Silence. He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shears, is silent. So we need to hear the silence of Isaiah 53. Is silent, so he opened not his mouth. He was taken by oppression and by judgment, and who will declare his generation? For he was cut off from the land of the living. For the transgressions of my people he was stricken, and they made his grave with the wicked, that is, with the rich at his death, although he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth." So you notice here the contrast that the prophetic poetry puts between Christ and the rich. In Christ's mouth, in his mouth, there is neither violence nor deceit. No violence, no deceit. Yet in the mouth of the wicked, which the prophet identifies with the rich, he calls the wicked the rich, there is both violence and deceit. So in the mouth of Christ, no violence, no deceit. In the mouth of the wicked rich, violence and deceit. Micah 6.12, for her rich men are full of violence, there's the violence, her inhabitants have spoken lies and their tongue is deceitful, there's the deceit, in their In Christ's mouth, no violence, no deceit. In the mouth of the wicked rich, violence and deceit. Now, not all rich people are wicked. Let's get the logical syllogism right. Not all rich people are wicked, for William Wilberforce was rich, and yet he gave his riches away to all of those great causes of the kingdom of heaven that he was operating in. Still, however, most rich people are wicked. That's the biblical way of saying it. Most rich people are wicked, which is why the prophet identifies the wicked with the rich. This is how John Calvin says it. He's talking about Isaiah's poetry in Isaiah 53. Calvin says, quote, by the terms wicked men and rich men, the same thing, in my opinion, is denoted, which is he's saying the prophet says the wicked are the rich. This is why Jesus says, but woe to you who are rich. This is also why James says, come now you rich, weep and howl for your miseries that are coming upon you. It is typically the rich who murder the righteous. It is most often the rich in whose mouths are found violence and deceit. What then? Is America now being asked to choose between two very wicked, rich people? Is not the one Satan's trump card? Is he not filthy rich? And when I say filthy, I mean his money. His money comes from his ownership of whorehouses and he flaunts his adulteries. he tramples upon the holiness of marriage and is not the other Satan's new Jezebel is she not filthy rich herself since her personal riches are filled with the blood money of abortion such that she has grown rich on sexual immorality, rich on birth control, and even richer on the selling of millions upon millions upon millions of pre-born children to the slaughterhouses of Planned Parenthood. When we look upon the cross, We must see the wounds that heal. We must see the substitutionary lamb upon the cross, but we also need to hear something. We must hear the innocent silence of the lamb. Isaiah 53 7, he was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth. He was led as a lamb to the slaughter and as a sheep before its shearers is silent. So he opened not his mouth. Jesus is not like Job in that Job opened his mouth to defend his own innocence, but Jesus opened not his mouth. Jesus gives no defense. Instead, Jesus is the suffering servant, and in his suffering, he does not open his mouth. Psalm 38, 11 through 13, my loved ones and my friends stand aloof from my plague, and my relatives stand afar off. Those who seek my life lay snares for me. Those who seek my hurt speak of destruction and plan deception all the day long. But I, like a deaf man, do not hear, and I am like a mute who does not open his mouth. In Psalm 39, nine, I was mute. I did not open my mouth because it was you who did it. Jesus is completely innocent. He is spotless and without sin of any kind. Yet we hear at the foot of the cross this deafening silence from the Lamb. Just prior to the cross, Jesus is asked by Pilate for a defense. Give me your defense. I have the power to crucify you. Give me your defense. And Jesus answers him not a word. And Pilate marvels greatly. Jesus, our Lord, suffers silently for us. Like a lamb led to the slaughter, He does not open His mouth. 1 Peter 2.21-23, For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow His steps, who committed no sin, nor was deceit found in His mouth. That's right from Isaiah 53. who, when he was reviled, did not revile in return. When he suffered, he did not threaten, but committed himself to him who judges righteously. O Christian, wait silently for God. When you are persecuted, do not retaliate, but let your soul wait silently for God alone. God shall vindicate your just cause. So picture the innocence, this silent innocence. Picture it, this innocence of Christ. Picture it like that of a lamb. A little girl is given a newborn lamb for a gift. Someone gives her a lamb as a gift. She holds the lamb, this tiny little lamb, while the lamb nuzzles her face. She feeds the lamb from a bottle. The little girl delights to watch the tiny little lamb sleep. She loves the lamb, even though the lamb, with its occasional soft bleeding, more often remains silent. The lamb doesn't talk. The lamb's silence marks its innocence. And in the same way, if you want to raise the degree of preciousness, think upon the relative innocence, and we say relative because all little babies are born with a sin nature outside of Christ, except for Christ. Think of the relative innocence of a little human baby. The little baby cannot talk. She watches her siblings play and she smiles when her mother enters the room to pick her up after her nap. But for the most part, she is silent. Her silence Her inability to speak declares her relative innocence. How much more then should we praise the innocence of Christ? He who spoke, and when he spoke, the heavens and the earth came into being, now chooses to be silent at the cross. He loves us all the way to the cross in silent suffering and in silent innocence. He entrusts himself to the Father's judgment, to the Father's justice. So what then shall the Father do? How shall the Father respond to these who have crucified His Son? What shall the Father do when the day of judgment comes? Shall He not silence the wicked, the rich scoffers who scoffed at Jesus while He was on the cross, and all of the mockers who mock God's Son even to this very day? Shall He not silence them with the roar of His fury and the deafening sounds of the torrential rains of the fire of His wrath. But we extol the glory of His silent sinlessness, His innocence. He doesn't even have to speak. When the final day comes and the saints are gathered around the throne, the four living creatures and the 24 elders and billions upon billions upon billions of the saints, greater than the stars in the sky or on the sands on the seashore, when they're all gathered around the throne and ready for the great day of the Lamb, for the Lamb's final culmination, He doesn't even need to speak. He won't even have to speak. He simply stands in the book of Revelation. He simply stands silently in the midst of the throne and of the four living creatures and in the midst of the elders and surrounded by all of the saints from all of the ages. And immediately, all he has to do is stand. And immediately, all of heaven erupts with a most thunderous shout of praise. Revelation 5, 11 through 12, this is where we end. Then I looked and I heard the voice of many angels around the throne, the living creatures and the elders, and the number of them was 10,000 times 10,000, and thousands of thousands sang with a loud voice, no more silence, with a loud voice, worthy is the lamb who is slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing.