Congregation let me invite you to open your Bible this evening to Isaiah 53 Isaiah 53 This is a passage that is obviously Messianic and particularly so in terms of pointing us to the sufferings and the death of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ on the cross. Isaiah by the Spirit is able to look ahead and see and understand. And we by the Spirit are able to look and see and understand. I remark to you again that it is never a history lesson or at least not merely so when We take up the scriptures, whether it's an Old Testament passage or one prophesying what Christ would come to do. But rather, this is received by faith and believed, therefore. So our text will be, in a moment, 6 and 7. But we'll begin Isaiah 53 at verse 1. Who has believed our message? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? He grew up before him like a tender shoot, like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hid their faces, he was despised, and we esteemed him not, surely, He took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows. Yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought peace was upon him. And by his wounds, we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray. Each of us has turned to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth. He was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. By oppression and judgment, he was taken away. And who can speak of his descendants? For he was cut off from the land of the living. For the transgression of my people, he was stricken. He was assigned a grave with the wicked and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth. Yet it was the Lord's will to crush him and cause him to suffer. And though the Lord makes his life a guilt offering, he will see his offspring and prolong his days. And the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand. After the suffering of his soul, he will see the light of life and be satisfied. By his knowledge, my righteous servant will justify many and he will bear their iniquities. Therefore, I will give him a portion among the great and he will divide the spoils with the strong because he poured out his life unto death and was numbered with the transgressors, for he bore the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors. And beloved, that is Christ for us. Let's ask his help once again in prayer tonight, shall we? Let's pray. Well, precious Father in heaven, thank you for saturating the scripture with the blood of Jesus Christ. So that we see in every book, every chapter, we see again and again with such significant repetition, you teaching us about what Jesus Christ has done so that we would believe. Oh Lord, help us to believe. And so own us as your own tonight. And by your spirit, fill us with the word of Christ. We ask in Jesus' name, amen. Dear congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ, behold tonight the cross. Look at it. Don't turn away. Behold tonight the suffering servant. Look at him in agony. Don't turn away. Behold tonight what must be done for our salvation and has been done for our salvation. Look at that work, his work on the cross. Look, and without turning away, believe. believe that he endured all the agony which we should have suffered because to him, all his elect are worth it. Look at him tonight, and if I can say it again, stare and believe that in paying our transgression debt, the Lord didn't complain, saying we aren't worth it. In paying our transgression debt, the Lord didn't complain, saying, we aren't worth it. And one of the reasons that's such a significant summary of this passage is because if you're anything like me, there have been so many times in your life where you have thought about yourself, I'm not worth his sacrifice. Have you ever thought that about yourself? I know we have. It's something that comes into our minds too often. But here what we see from the text is that he never said that. He never said we're not worth it. So first of all, tonight, our actions bring a great transgression debt. Now, as usual, we're going to pay very careful attention to the text and follow it. So do that with me tonight, beloved. First of all, again at verse 6, we all, like sheep, have gone astray. Each of us has turned to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. Now actually in the flow of Isaiah 53, the first hint at the reason for his horrible sufferings come already at verse four. Surely he took up our infirmities, carried our sorrows. Then again at verse five. And so what we're seeing is the catalog, infirmities, sorrows, transgressions, iniquities. Those things define us. As much as we need tonight to stare at the cross, we need tonight to stare at those truths. So that then at verse six comes the reason why we have infirmities and sorrows and transgressions, why those things are dealt with and why they are foisted on him. We, you see, violated known boundary markers set down by God. in a real sense, and if you want to think about it now in this way, we all have lived like we are part of Adam and Eve's herd, or part of their flock, or part of their brood. And this is where Isaiah is going here. And let's just be blunt about it. Just as they, Adam and Eve, stupidly went after the forbidden fruit, we, like dumb animals, sheep, we're called in the text, went, and we still go every day, dumbly, through the fence of forbidden territory that God has placed. He has said, no, don't go there. And what do we do? We charge through every sinful action earns an Adam debt or an Eve debt all over again. Violations where there are penalties which must be paid and we have no way ourselves to pay our debt. How great my sins and misery are. Now when you're teaching your children that second question and answer of the Heidelberg Catechism, you have to instruct them as they get to that time of age where they're beginning to accumulate words for themselves and words begin to take meaning for them because that's not always the case with our young children, but they come to a certain age and they begin to understand words and definitions. And so when you are saying to them, listen, the catechism reminds us that one of the first three things we must know is how great my sins and misery are, child, loved one, we're not using the word great, like we would say, great job, or that's such a great result. That's not how the catechism is using that language there, is it? But rather, what a great mountain of debt I have accumulated for myself. What a great and horrid Adam debt and Eve debt I owe. How many boundaries that God has placed have you crossed? There's the language, transgression. Has God ever said no, but you said I'm gonna do it anyway? Verse six, we all like sheep. What do sheep do? They go bleating over the cliff. Time after time, that's what we do. Look at me, I can do this on my own. I'm gonna do it my way, and off over the cliff we go. Each time we say, not God's way, but my way. Is it greed for you? Is that where the issue is? If not greed, is it anger for you? If not anger, is it lust? If it's not one of those things, surely it's pride? Because, well, I don't commit any of those sins, you say. Look how well I'm doing. Maybe it's complaining like Israel did in the wilderness and received the judgment of God. And what's on your list? Which one would you check off in the box? How great are your sins? What Adam debt have you racked up? What Eve debt do you want to own to tonight? Notice in verse six that it begins with the collective, the plural, and ends the same way in verse six, we all and us all. That's comprehensive language. That means we all have to own it. None of us left to ourselves has a zero balance on our debt ledger. In fact, calculating the number of debts would be a terrifying experience for us. Just today, what did you do? I'm serious. Let's get into this, beloved. Just today, what did you think? How did you answer somebody? Not maybe with your words, but in your heart. What did you go after that God said, no, not that, but rather this? When we look at the text, we must come to the conclusion that the Bible is talking about us. Transgressions, iniquities, do we want to own any of those? Do we want to say these infirmities and these sorrows are mine? I did it. It's only when we begin to admit that that we can go to the second thing. I don't want you to go to the second thing if you're not tonight willing to admit that you have part in the first thing. Good Christians, we're sinners. We've broken God's commandments. We've crossed the line time after time. I'm almost tempted to ask you to raise your hands tonight whether or not you believe that and agree with that. Now, please don't, but at least in your heart, do that. Are you raising your hand right now? Are you saying me too? Why? Well, because secondly, the Father laid the cost of our debt On his son. What is 6B say the second part of verse 6? And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity. Of us all. But. We read that too tenderly. There's a real problem here with the English language. It's because we think of that term laid on him softly, sort of like it floated down like a feather and landed on him from the father. That's wrong. In every way, that's wrong. Almost all the English renderings of it get it wrong. The old New American standard comes the closest to the intent of the Hebrew when it translates the phrase this way, the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on him. That's close because the original word here from the Hebrew means to hit or strike violently. The Father rained down upon Jesus Christ at the cross all our debt. He took the ledger of what we have accumulated. Remember that great mountain, and he poured the barrel out, and it fell violently, striking his son. It pummeled him. What does Isaiah say occurred? He was crushed. Our transgression debt violently fell from the father's ledger book, crashing down upon the lamb on the cross. There's nothing tender or soft or sweet about the father laying on his son our transgression debt. It tore him. Verse five, be it crushed the son. And in a moment, we're gonna see that in the language used about oppression and affliction in verse seven. Oh, what a terror. What a terrifying terror and crushing power falls on Jesus Christ on the cross. We have a hard time thinking about it. It's distant. It's hard to grasp this because we have no real way to make the connection. Probably the best we can do is something like this, and it's such a weak way of even beginning to think about it, but if you were ever yelled at, harshly treated by somebody else, a parent perhaps, But that's so far away, isn't it? We don't like being yelled at. I don't like being yelled at. You don't. But that's so far away, isn't it? To what happened to Jesus Christ on the cross. And what a violation to the communion and fellowship between the Father and the Son. It tore and it ripped and it brutally broke apart, if only for a moment, the sense the Son had in His human nature of the glorious communion between Him and His Father. They would come from His lips at the cross, the cry of dereliction, why have you forsaken me? Put a mirror up to your face to get the answer to that cry of dereliction. Why have you forsaken me? We are the reason. It was our debt that caused it. He became sin for us. The Father pounded down onto Jesus Christ on the cross all our sin choices. Do you want to catalog them again? Our vile, selfish, murderous, lustful, greedy, arrogant, self-serving, self-seeking behaviors. And all was horrid. to Jesus Christ because of me and you. All was horrid for Jesus Christ and the cross because of our parents and our children, because of our grandparents and grandchildren, because of us. Gloriously beautiful communion between them, father and son was rent and torn if only for a moment as sensed by the son in his human nature, all was grief because of sin. It's what Isaiah sees. I sometimes wonder about the prophets, particularly about Isaiah, what he understood about what he was given. I hope and trust that he understood significantly about what he was given. But surely, beloved, we must understand. To come thirdly to the sun bears the weight of our terrible debt. There are four subsections in verse seven, or to say it better, there are two sets of poetic parallelism here. In verse seven, 7a and 7c go together. He was oppressed and afflicted. He was led like a lamb to the slaughter. That's poetic parallelism. Then, and this will be our point four below, 7b and 7d go together, the issue of the closed mouth. We'll come to that in a moment. But both verse 7a and 7c describe what happens to him because, verse six, the father crushed him down with our transgression debt because we wickedly sinned against him. And what happens to Christ on the cross, according to 7a and 7c, is a driving oppression of increasing torment, and he is slaughtered. I like that the NIV translates the word that way in rich terms. It's dark, it's very hard, but it needs to be put that way. He's oppressed. It's a driving oppression. He's afflicted. It's an ever-increasing significance of affliction. It doesn't get less. It doesn't get lighter. It doesn't get easier on him as he goes through the hours of the cross, especially from noon until three, when at noon, the sun, when it's supposed to be at its brightest, is extinguished, as it were, and all is darkness. And for three continuous hours, there's a driving oppression. There's an ever-increasing affliction. And he is being slaughtered. You think of the perfect animal brought to the priest for the sacrificial right all through the Old Testament, and it was so seemingly quick and easy. The slitting of the throat and the draining of the blood onto the receiving stone, as it were, as C.S. Lewis again gets a hold of. But for Christ, there was nothing quick nor easy about it. Why? because of our iniquities which cause his slaughter. He must take all upon himself and in his horrid agony pay the full price, our debt, all those transgression charges. They have to be paid in full because the wages of sin is death. He is on the cross paying what we owe. This Isaiah sees, foretells, for our benefit, this is recorded for us in the scriptures so that we can look back and see and understand. This is what we need to know better than anything else. And I say that to covenant parents, to say to their children, No matter what skill you take up, no matter what hobby you have, no matter what trade you get into in your vocation in life, all of those things you need to know incredibly well, but know nothing better than what Christ has done. Read, grow, enrich yourselves in the scriptures and great Christian materials like our confessions and other good books that focus our attention on what Jesus Christ has done. We need to know this better than anything. that he was oppressed and afflicted, you don't come to Easter without first going to the cross. It simply doesn't happen. He was led like a lamb to the slaughter. But when you see your sins, do you immediately next see Christ? Is it automatic for you? Is it the first thought that comes to your mind when you had just realized something you just did, said, thought, behaved, believed was sinful? Is it automatic for you next to see Jesus Christ? You must. We must see when we know our sins, Jesus Christ being broken and crushed for us so that next we can see that he heals and consoles us. That reality must go through our minds. This needs to become for us very practical, very practicable. Where we train ourselves in this. And I think that for a couple of reasons. And they go in different directions. But both of these reasons are born of the practice of when we know our sin, the very next thing we consider is Jesus Christ having been crushed on the cross for us, oppressed and afflicted and slaughtered when we sin and we know our sin. Think of that. And the first reason why we must is because Satan wants to chase that thought from our minds. Our flesh is right there with him agreeing. Oh, that's not so bad. It's not such a big deal. Don't worry about it. And the less we think of the crushing affliction that occurred to Jesus Christ when we're confronted with our sins, the less we will think our sins serious and the easier it will be for us to sin and sin and sin and sin. Beloved, train yourselves that when your sin is to your mind, now aware immediately that what comes next to your mind is the reality of what Jesus Christ did. But it's not just that the enemy wants to take that from you, but it is beloved because we need assurance. We need confidence that it's Christ born. We need the reality that the scripture gives to us that our sins are atoned for We're cleansed and forgiven. Lest we become hardened and go where Hebrews six warns us to never go and to not be concerned about our sins. Fourthly, then we'll look at that now more carefully. He suffered in silence so we can cry out. Remember we said that verse seven is divided like this, seven A and C, and now we look at seven B and seven D. And what we see when we look at that part of verse seven is a closed mouth. And here already was something that I said in the sermon, we're wondering and we're thinking through it. Because we understand that at the cross, Jesus Christ did cry out, in fact, It's been put now for centuries that he spoke, quote, seven words from the cross, and of course we understand that. But what Isaiah sees here and makes much of in this case is that he didn't open his mouth. He was silent as a sheep before its shears and did not open his mouth, so what are we to make of that? Well, beloved, I think particularly, and this is the theme, of course, in the sermon, particularly, He was quiet about, listen, a particular possible complaint. What is that particular possible complaint? And why do we need to consider it here? Why does Isaiah bring it up here? Because of what suffering is like. And we need to remember that Jesus Christ is fully man. He really feels. He is in incredible agony of soul and body, and yet knows us. Remember that mirror I told you to hold up? And ask that person that you're seeing in that mirror why Jesus Christ was, as it were, abandoned by his father on the cross. And the person looking back at you is the reason. And because of those things, that particular possible complaint which Jesus Christ, while he's suffering, could have uttered is, they're not worth this. Can you see that, beloved? Now I said possible complaint. because Isaiah makes the point that he doesn't issue that complaint. This is the sense of Isaiah's prophecy here. He speaks, he shouts out seven words while on the cross, but in those seven words, he never says, why am I suffering for those people? Why am I suffering this agony for the likes of them? He never says that. He never says, oh, when they are a Christian, when they're regenerated and a believer and a follower, they're going to commit these sins. This person is going to violate my commandments in the following hundreds and thousands of ways. Why should I be suffering here on the cross for them? They're not worth it. Can we say that such a complaint has legitimacy? Doesn't the scripture say that while we were yet enemies? Say that again. While we were yet enemies, Christ died for us? But about such a particular possible complaint, he remains tight-lipped and silent about the fact that we were his enemies when he saved us. about the fact that after I save them in time and space, they will still break my commandments. Read several of the other Old Testament minor prophets and see if that isn't exactly what the minor prophets say about the people of God. He saved, God saved his people and now look at what they have done. This is the whole theme of Hosea, by the way. Oh, adulterous Israel. Have we broken his commandments? Can I ask that in a more personal way? Can you say about yourself that I've broken his heart? Haven't you? Haven't I? Broken his heart? And yet, while on the cross, he does not ever complain, saying that you and I aren't worth it. because of his great love for us. And because he never cries out saying we're not worth it, we have now the privilege and the blessing to cry out, oh, have mercy on me. And wouldn't we want to do that? Lord, have mercy on me. And then Lord, thank you for accepting me, showing, taking that pain and that agony that you did on the cross for me, a grief so deep that I cannot begin to fathom it. You took all of that for me so that I can be forgiven and cleansed. Do you see what the text is teaching us? While oppressed and afflicted, he didn't say we're not worth it. While being slaughtered, He is silent so that we can cry out, so that we can have a love for Him in our hearts, born of His work for us at the cross, so that we will not doubt, so that we will not devalue His work, so that we will trust all that He has done for us, so that we will glory in a real salvation. Not a hypothetical one, not a pretend one, not a halfway measure. full and complete salvation. And oh, by the way, if we really want to get serious about the question, are we worth it? And if we're honest and say no, it is then when we begin to understand what grace is. Grace is. It's the very nature of what Jesus Christ did on the cross for us. Amen. Well, Father in heaven, we cannot really fully understand what Jesus Christ endured on the cross for us, but we need to know so that we will see something of the great salvation that he has accomplished for us. so that we will have soul-enriching, heart-filling confidence that we are really forgiven all our sins, and that, yes, you do fully, completely love us and say we are worth it. How, Lord, can we praise you more? Receive that praise from us tonight, we ask in Jesus' name, amen. Let's take our red songbooks and from there we'll stand to sing 128. I saw one hanging on a tree. Our red songbooks, 128.