From Clocker Valley in County Tyrone we present Let the Bible Speak. It's good to have you join us as Gospel Minister the Reverend Peter McIntyre is here to let the Bible speak and preach Christ in all his fullness. Good afternoon, I begin by asking you a question. What does Easter mean to you? Time off work? A few days away with the family? The weather certainly is cold, but at Easter time we look forward to spring and summer, don't we? Yet Easter should mean more than that. Why do we have Easter? Why do we observe this season? Because on Friday we think about the death of Christ. Good Friday. He was offered for us. And then on Easter Sunday we consider the most vital and most wonderful event that ever took place in the history of the world, Jesus Christ rose again. Today I want to share with you the true meaning of Easter. We're going to think about Christ and his sufferings, the man of sorrows. We'll turn to Isaiah 53. First please listen to Mrs Alexander's wonderful hymn, There is a Green Hill Far Away. There is a green hill far away, without a city wall. when God was crucified, who died to save us all. We may not know, we cannot tell what pains he had to bear, But we believe it was for us He hung and suffered there. He died that we might be forgiven, He died to make us good, we might go at last to heaven, saved by his precious blood. There was no other good enough to pay the price of sin, He only could unlock the gate of heaven and let us in. Oh dearly, dearly has he loved, and we must love him too. redeeming blood, and try his works to do. And trust in his redeeming blood, and try his works to do. We're reading some verses from Isaiah chapter 53. We're beginning at the verse 1. Who hath believed our report, and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant and as a root out of a dry ground. He hath no form nor comeliness, and when we shall see him there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid as it were our faces from him. 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. The chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed. All we lake sheep have gone astray, we have turned every one to his own way, and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. May the Lord bless the reading of his word to our hearts. The passage we have read is all about the Lord Jesus Christ. It may have been written thousands of years before Christ came into this world but the prophet Isaiah was prophesying concerning the Messiah and in particular in this great chapter the prophet foresees the agonies of the Son of God. In the verse 3 of Isaiah chapter 53 we have a title for Christ while he was in the midst of his pains. The title is simply, a man of sorrows. The Lord Jesus Christ is given many titles in the Word of God. He is the Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. He is Emmanuel or God with us. He is the door, he is the way, the truth, the life, he is the great I am, he is the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end. Here in Isaiah chapter 53 the title does not sound quite so majestic, it does not sound so wonderful. and yet this title was an essential part of the person of Christ as He became our Saviour. Here He is called the Man of Sorrows. This afternoon please think about this title for a few minutes. Firstly, I would draw your attention to the humanity of the Man of Sorrows. The Lord Jesus Christ became man. He was the Son of God. He pre-existed his birth. He dwelt for eternity as the second person of the Holy Trinity. He was there when the worlds were created. In fact, we are told, without him wasn't anything made that was made. And yet he who is all-powerful, he became man. And in becoming man, he subjected himself to the miseries of this life. He became a poor man, being born into a peasant home. Throughout his earthly sojourn we are not told that he ever had a home. He said the foxes of foals, the birds of the air have nests, but the son of man hath not, were to lay his head. When he needed a coin to show the people that they were to render unto Caesar the things that were Caesar's and unto God the things that are God's, he had to fetch a coin from the mouth of a fish because it appears he had no money. He lived a life of poverty. and in his human body he was sinless, and yet he subjected himself to the weaknesses of humanity. He became hungry, he slept, he became tired. These were the sorrows of Jesus Christ in his humanity. Secondly, I want you to think about the wounds of the man of sorrows. We are told that there are five wounds that the human body is capable of suffering from. The Lord Jesus Christ bore each of these five wounds. He suffered from the wound of contusion. This occurs when the blood vessels are broken below the skin, a bruise is formed, but yet the skin itself is not broken. After the Jewish Sanhedrin accused him of blasphemy and proclaimed him to be guilty of death, we are told that they spat upon him. They struck him with the palms of their hands. They pummeled him with their fists. Hand after hand slapped the face of our Lord. It became a bruised face. We are told that his visage was marred more than any man. He suffered from the wound of laceration. To lacerate means to tear to pieces. After the Roman governor Pilate condemned Christ guilty of death, He was delivered to the Roman soldiers who scourged his back. This was the preparation for the crucifixion. They stripped him. They lashed his back with a whip. That whip was made up of several leather straps and knotted into those straps were pieces of sharp bone or pieces of metal. time and again it whipped mercilessly through the air severing skin, severing flesh, severing nerves. The scourging we are told only lasted for four minutes and yet the pain was so excruciating and the blood loss was so awful that some people died of bleeding before they ever reached the cross. Christ did not die as a result of the scourging but nevertheless he suffered greatly. The Lord He was also inflicted with the wound of penetration. This means to puncture the soldiers. They plaited a crown of thorns, long sharp eastern thorns. They placed a crown of thorns upon his brow. Then they beat the thorns down in through his skin into his skull and the blood coursed down his face. He had not even reached the cross. He was still in the torture chamber and already he had suffered three wounds. When he was led through the streets of Jerusalem, out through the city gates, up the hill to the place called Calvary, he was stretched out on the ground. And there he received the fourth wound, perforation, and four times the nails went straight through his hands and his feet. Then he was raised up into the air, where his body was suspended in a most unnatural position, hanging, bearing only his own weight. We are told that that in itself created the most terrible pain. Every breath would have been agonising. And after he died, there was the fifth wound of incision. As if they had not done enough to mutilate him while he was alive, The soldiers thrust a spear into his side and created a gash so great that after he rose again, Thomas was able to thrust his hand into the Saviour's side as he cried out, My Lord and my God, O the winds of the man of sorrows! Thirdly, I want you to think about the curse upon the man of sorrows. The Lord Jesus Christ had greater pains than the physical agonies. He was cursed. He was cursed in the death he suffered. He died upon the cross and the scripture says, cursed is the one that hangs from a tree. He was cursed in the sin He bore. The Scriptures tell us that on the cross Jesus Christ was our substitute. He took our sins and our sorrows. He made them His very own. He was made sin for us who knew no sin. He took the sins of humanity. He took our personal iniquities. He became guilty for those sins. He suffered for those sins. Whenever his father looked down from glory, he saw not his son on the cross. He saw the vile sin of humanity upon his son. And then the father cursed him. No one could look upon it. Three hours of total darkness. An unnatural darkness. In the middle of the day, at the end of which we are told that Christ cried. He never cried before. He spoke before. but he cried at the end of the three hours. Whenever he was having his hands and feet pierced, I can hear those two thieves wailing and screaming and shouting with agony, but yet he uttered not a word. He was led as a lamb to the slaughter as a sheep before her shears is dumb. He opened not his mouth, but whenever his father forsook him and caused him to suffer hell for us, your hell and my hell, he cried out My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? He did this for us because the man of sorrows was a substitute for sorrow. Our sin creates sorrow in this life. It will create infinite sorrow in the life that is to come. But Christ took that infinite sorrow upon his own body so that we might never be forsaken by God, that we might escape hell, that we might go to heaven, that we might have a saviour, that we might be saved. How are you saved? You can be saved only through the Christ who died for you. I would appeal to you today to take Christ as your Saviour. Embrace this man of sorrows, that you might be set free from the sorrow of sin, that you might have the assurance that He is your Saviour. Thank you for listening. you've been listening to Let the Bible Speak. If we can be of any further spiritual help, or if you would like to receive some free gospel literature, we invite you to write to us. Our mailing address is Let the Bible Speak, Rev. Peter McIntyre, 13 Willand Crescent, 5 Mile Town, County Tyrone, BT75OQL. That's Let the Bible Speak, Rev. Peter McIntyre, Thirteen, Willand, Crescent, Five Mile Town, County Tyrone, BT75, OQL. You may hear Mr. McIntyre preach each Lord's Day here in Clocker Valley Free Presbyterian Church at 11.30am and 7pm. For further information you may phone us at 028 8952 1611. 028 8952 1611. We assure you of a very warm welcome at all the services and look forward to having you visit with us. Thank you for listening today. May the Lord richly bless you, and don't forget to tune in on this same station at the same time next week, when once again we turn to the scriptures and let the Bible speak.