Hello and welcome to the broadcast ministry of the Evangelical Methodist Church in Darlington, Maryland, where Dr. John McKnight is the pastor. On today's message, we take the text from Isaiah 52, verse 13, through the end of chapter 53. The subject is, The man of sorrows, 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. That is from Isaiah 43. This is the third message from Isaiah 52 and 53. Here is Dr. John McKnight. Will you turn with me once again to Isaiah, the 53rd chapter, as we continue our study in Isaiah 53, this being the third message thus far coming from this portion of the word. We began our study in chapter 52 at verse 13, because in reality, That is the beginning of the narrative which continues in chapter 53. And so to have the complete picture of what chapter 53 is speaking of, we must have those last three verses of chapter 52. We noted in those three verses that the servant of Jehovah is presented. And from New Testament scriptures, we know that the servant of Jehovah presented in verse number 13 of chapter 52 is indeed Jesus Christ. And in those last three verses of chapter 52, three amazing things are said concerning Him. First of all, He shall deal prudently, meaning He will be infinitely wise. But in spite of his wisdom, second, he will be marred. His visage will be marred more than any man. And in fact, the wording of the writer is that his visage will be marred to the point that it is not recognized as a human. It will be an absolutely astonishing mutilation of this infinitely wise servant. But the third item in verse number 15, this servant infinitely wise, though a marred to a level that is astonishing, will yet be exalted and extolled and made very high, and in fact, he will be exalted to an extent which is as astonishing as was his marring. And having presented that servant, and these extremes of wisdom and of mutilation and of exaltation, the prophet then says, who has believed our report? Who can believe that such is and has been? Who can recognize what is truly happening? And we noted last Sunday that that question in verse 1 of chapter 53 Actually, two questions who have believed our report and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed must be understood in the literary genre of its writing. It is Hebrew poetry. And just as we read and understand English poetry in a different manner than we read and understand a letter from a friend afar, so when we read poetry in the Scripture, There are certain characteristics of the Hebrew poetry which are necessary to our understanding of what is being said. And we understand that Hebrew poetry, unlike English poetry, did not stress rhyme or meter like we do, but instead the emphasis is upon the parallelism of statements. And so one statement, one fact, might be stated two or three or four different times with different words but parallel statements. And the prophet Isaiah wrote this book in the Hebrew poetic style so that what we find is a poem here and the poetic statement in which two statements parallel are made. saying the same thing. Who hath believed our report, and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? And what it is saying is, those who have believed this report are those to whom the arm of the Lord has been revealed. And when it speaks of the revealing of the arm of the Lord, that expression The arm of the Lord is a metaphor for His strength, His might revealed graciously, mercifully to men. And it is affirming with a question. Those who have believed the report are those to whom God has moved graciously and powerfully. And many other Scriptures can be cited to come into the same understanding of the text. Who, for example, could believe that a crucified man hanging naked and shamed and mutilated upon a cross is the Savior of mankind? None could believe that unless the power of God's holy arm was revealed to them in a convincing work of grace to change their heart from unbelief unto faith. And so the prophet asks that question, who hath believed our report and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? showing us that believing this is not simply a matter of a casual human decision making up the mind to do this or that, but it is a matter of divine power favorably imparted unto an unbelieving heart in order that that heart might believe the gospel set forth in the passage. But that question in verse 1 does more than simply identify who has believed. It also serves to introduce a second party into the narrative. The first party has already been identified, my servant. He will deal prudently. He will be marred. He will be exalted and extolled. That's the first party. But now there is a second party. And the second party is those who, beholding this servant, wise, mutilated, and exalted, then believe in that servant. And this second party is identified with that personal pronoun that appears throughout. We. Us. Our. And the first verse tells us the other people of whom the rest of the chapter is speaking. So that we might recognize For the reading of Isaiah 53, it is talking about Jesus Christ and it is talking about all of those who believe the report of Jesus Christ. Now, for our consideration today, verses 2 and 3, what is the nature and character of those who have believed his report? Well, the fact is The nature and character of those who have believed his report is here presented as being unbelief and unbelievers. They do not believe. This is why the question is asked, who have believed our report? And verses two and three tell us why they don't believe. And so we focus our attention on these two verses. Verse two, it speaks about this servant and says, 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. It describes him as growing up before him and the hymn is to be understood as the same one referred to in the last phrase of the preceding verse Jehovah the one whose arm is revealed and this servant will grow up before him as a tender plant and what it is showing us is that Christ's life from its humble beginnings onward, was always lived in the presence and in the view and attention of Jehovah Almighty God. That Jesus Christ was the one who was the intent focus of the Father's attention, and that He observed His Son, and that He loved His Son, and that His whole being, the entire divine constitution, was focused upon His Son. This is why when Jesus was born in the manger of Bethlehem, unseen and uncared by all the world, angels were present to proclaim, unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior which is Christ the Lord. Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace and good will to man. This is why as Jesus was baptized there was suddenly the voice from heaven accompanied by the descent of the Spirit of God proclaiming, this is my beloved Son. And so he shall grow up before Him as a tender plant. Now that's a very a vivid and instructive description. A tender plant. The Hebrew term here, I'm told, means a suckling as a babe that is dependent upon its mother's milk. But it is not speaking of human sucklings. It is speaking in the realm of vegetation. And so the tender plant here we might understand as A sucker. Now, I must explain that terminology. When I was a teenage boy, Ken Webb and I would be in the apple trees of our beloved late Edwin McNutt, who had an orchard in Darlington. And many times through the year, our job was to be cutting suckers. Now, a sucker was a new growth of a branch starting out on the trunk of the apple tree. And if they were not cut off, they would grow up there sometimes as thick as the hair on a dog's back. And they would grow to no profit, to no benefit. If you let them go for a year or two, the tree would be filled with suckers, which were just new shoots of growth. And, oh, they would grow this far in one season. new shoots of growth that would spring out of the trunk of the tree, never to produce fruit, but only to draw sap out of the tree, so that nutrients which otherwise would go to the production of fruit were sidetracked and taken into the growth of the suckers. So we had to go out there with the pruners and cut suckers, climbing through the branches and trunks of the tree, cutting out the suckers. And this is the concept that appears in verse 2 when it says, "...he shall grow up before Him as a tender plant." Meaning that those who view Him will not see in Him anything worthy of saving or keeping. They will not find in Him anything of fruitfulness or substance. And so in Mark, the 12th chapter, we find Jesus speaking to the religious leaders, a parable about a vineyard owner who had gone to the great expense and work of preparing a vineyard and then leased it out to keepers while he went to a far country, expecting those keepers to keep his vineyard. And when it was time for the harvest, he sent a servant to get what was his, and the vineyard keepers chased the servant away and treated him in an insulting manner. And so the owner sent another servant, and this servant they stoned and drove him away. And so the vineyard owner sent another servant, and this servant they killed. And so the vineyard owner decided, I will send my son. Surely they will reverence him. And when he sent his son, those working the vineyard said, this is the heir. Let us kill him and the vineyard will be ours. And so they killed the son. And the parable Christ was giving was a picture of his own situation as the Son of God sent to God's vineyard, which the religious leaders of the Jews had usurped as their own. And Jesus concluded by saying to them, have ye not read the scripture, the stone which the builders rejected is become the head of the corner? And he speaks there of man rejecting the cornerstone. Man rejecting as just another sucker to be cut off of the vine, the one who is its very definition of fruitfulness. That is the response of man to Christ when he came. he shall grow up before him as a tender plant. A sucker that is cut off and thrown away mindlessly when in fact he is the very substance, he is the true vine himself. Verse 2, for he shall grow up before him as a tender plant and as a root out of a dry ground. a root out of a dry ground. And I think that this expression is, in fact, a multi-layered illustration of the circumstances of Christ as He came into this world. He was born from a virgin's womb. A virgin's womb is dry ground. It is not to be productive, but by the miracle of the virgin birth, Christ came from that dry ground. He was born into a very humble family. There was no might or power. There was no wealth connected with his family. It was a family that was laborers and they were not looked to to be great and mighty and powerful in the land. Not only was that the case, but the family was living in a land that was occupied by enemy troops that had been overrun by the Roman Empire. It was not only a weak family, but a very weak family in a very weak nation. And so the prophet in the Old Testament, I think, foreseeing these very things, prophesied of Christ's birth in Bethlehem and wrote, but thou, Bethlehem, Ephratah, though thou be little among the cities of Israel. It was an out of the way, little place, not deemed to be highly productive and fruitful. And when one of the disciples was told concerning Jesus, this is before he became a disciple, he was told of Jesus of Nazareth and his instinctive response was, Can any good thing come out of Nazareth? A root out of a dry ground. This was the view of humanity toward the Lord Jesus Christ. And as the prophet writes concerning this servant of Jehovah, this prudent, despised but exalted One, he writes concerning us as we treated Christ as nothing more than an inappropriate growth to be cut aside and cast out as a root growing out of a dry ground where there should have been no fruitfulness at all. What can come from that? And whether we sit consciously and think of it or not, this is exactly how every one of us has treated Christ. Paul wrote in Romans 3, there is none that understandeth. None that seeketh after God." You did not seek Him. Left to yourself, you would have wandered in unbelief, uninformed and unconcerned that you were uninformed for unconcerned with Christ. This is the natural man's way toward Jesus Christ. I can recall years ago as a counselor at the Promised Land camp each Friday afternoon, maybe it was Thursday afternoon, taking campers into the streets of Lancaster for personal evangelism. And the method we followed was to have a little questionnaire where we asked people certain questions, which we hoped would open the door for an evangelistic word of witness. And one of the questions was, what do you think of Jesus Christ? And the questions resulted in answers of a great variety. The one I remember was from an aged gentleman whom I learned in the conversation was organist in a church in Lancaster. And his immediate response with a very reverent quiver in his voice was, he's my Savior. But most of the answers were flippant, unconcerned, it doesn't really matter, and that's the way the world is today. If it is not blaspheming the name of Christ, it is utterly indifferent toward Christ. And that's what we are by nature. Thus, the description of our view of Him is given in this second verse, for it says, He hath no form, nor comeliness, And when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him." These were the circumstances of Christ's life. When we see him, there's no beauty that we should desire him. The suckers on the trees are to be cut off and cast away. There's no beauty to them. And who would ever think that out of the dry ground you would get any kind of a harvest or fruit. Leave that alone. Let's get to where moisture is. We, by nature, are rejecters of Jesus Christ. And while our consideration of the passage must conclude with the second verse for this morning. It is a place for us to stop and press to each heart present that burning question, what is your interest in Jesus Christ? What is your interest in Jesus Christ? I fear that too many professed believers He is rather incidental to their existence. He is there, thank God He is there, but that's about all the concern that men have. Where is that interest in Him that can say with the psalmist, as the heart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after Thee, O God. I press that question to you. What is your interest in Jesus Christ? What is your interest in his saving work? Have you believed on Jesus Christ as your only Savior and your Lord? If not, I would bring again the apostolic word, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. Today, we partake of the Lord's Supper, the cup and the bread, symbol of the blood and of the body of Christ. This is the only authorized memorial to Jesus Christ. Statues and pictures and all of the rest of Christ are out of bounds. This is the memorial, the picture of Christ that God has authorized. And if you have believed in the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior, you are welcome to participate with this congregation and to partake of these symbols of His body and His blood. If you have not believed in Christ as your Savior, then this table is not for you. But it can be if you but believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. He has promised that He will not reject any who come unto Him. And so I with Him implore you, come. Come to Christ. not by walking an aisle or doing some deed, but by believing. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Come thus to Him and you will be saved. And when you come to Him believing, you will find that everything He accomplished through His crucifixion and death on Calvary was in fact accomplished for you. that there He, as the prophet writes, bore your sins in His body. And because He bore your sins, He justifies all whose sins He bore. Believe on Him and be saved. And for all who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, join us as we feast upon Him by faith observing these symbols of his body and his blood. That was Dr. John McKnight preaching a message from Isaiah 52 and 53, a man of sorrows, despised and rejected of men. Thank you for listening to this, the broadcast ministry of the Evangelical Methodist Church in Darlington, Maryland. This is Don Nixon speaking.