The Savior God’s Plan Provides

Transcript

GRM 1177
04/01/2018
The Savior God’s Plan Provides
Isaiah 52:13 – 53:12
Gil Rugh

We celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ and I want to take you back to the greatest passage in the Old Testament on the work of Christ, Isaiah 53. Perhaps the greatest prophetic passage in all the bible as some would consider it, written 700 years before Jesus Christ came to earth. God laid out clearly and in detail what would happen to Him. Something of the glory that would someday characterize His reign on earth and yet He laid out in detail that He would be rejected, suffer and die. The awfulness of the crucifixion, the wonder of the power of His resurrection and all to bring salvation to people who are lost and without hope in the world. So much of what absorbs us in life distracts us from the reality, what is basic and foundational to everything is the relationship we have or do not have with the living God. Where will we spend eternity? What do we do about our sin?

Isaiah is usually considered what we call the greatest of the writing prophets, those prophets that were used to record God’s word. Isaiah is given a fullness and clarity in his message. Chapters 40 to 66, really the last portion of the Book of Isaiah, are considered the highlight of prophetic Scriptures. Who else but God can tell the future? People make guesses about the future, have opinions about the future but only God can tell us for sure what the future holds and amazingly, in some passages, He tells us in great detail. That’s what happens in Isaiah 53. The section really begins with the last verses of Isaiah 52. Perhaps an unfortunate chapter break but the last three verses of Isaiah 52 go with chapter 53 and you’ll note there are five divisions that run through chapter 53. The first division being the last three verses of chapter 52 and then you’ll note each section is three verses. Verses 1 to 3 and then you have a break, verses 4 to 6 and a break, verses 7 to 9 and a break, verses 10 to 12 and a break.

As he pulls our attention to the coming of One who is identified as the Servant of God, the One who would accomplish the work of God, the One who would rule and reign and have the honor of the kings of the earth given to Him. The One who would be rejected by the lowliest and the highest of men would suffer in the greatest way, would pay the penalty for our sin, all put together in one chapter. Remember what Peter wrote in the letter he would write later? After the death of Christ he said, the Old Testament prophets wrote about the suffering of Christ and the glory of Christ, but it was not possible for them to understand, how both could be true in one Person, in what He would accomplish. Now as we look back, even as we’ve sung, Christ came to earth 2000 years ago, was rejected, crucified, raised from the dead and then the bible tells us He is coming to earth again, in power and great glory to rule over all His creation. The Old Testament did not sort those two events out. We’ll see that as we look into Isaiah 53. It simply prophesizes that both will happen. Seven hundred years before Christ would come to earth the prophet lays this out.

I should make mention, the Dead Sea Scrolls were found in recent times. Before the Dead Sea Scrolls were found, the earliest manuscripts we had of the Old Testament Scriptures were from about 1100 years, one thousand years after Christ. Some unbelieving scholars thought that Christians had adjusted the Old Testament in passages like Isaiah 53 to make that fit more with what happened to Christ. In other words, they were saying, “well what was written, what we have, is only a thousand years after Christ. What happened is Christians went back to Isaiah and fit things in there like Isaiah 53, so it would look like the Old Testament prophesized about Christ. Then they found the Dead Sea Scrolls and just like God would do—you know what the most complete scroll they found? Right, Isaiah, and you know what everybody agrees on? Those manuscripts and scrolls they found in the Dead Sea Scrolls went back two hundred years before Christ and you know what? Nothing had changed! Oh, there were minor changes like we have with language and small changes that go on but nothing in the message had changed, so they had to come up with a different idea to explain how Isaiah could write 700 years--but nothing can explain away the clarity of God’s word.

As we work through this, I also want to mention the Jews, the early Jews, down until about 1100 years after Christ. If you read the writings of the rabbis’ and so on, they agreed that Isaiah 53 is about the Messiah, and you can get books that quote from the rabbis. We sell some of them in Sound Words, and their writings during the first 1000 years after Christ interpret Isaiah 53 as referring to the coming Messiah. Now, about 1100 AD you had the Crusades going on, where the crusaders went and were going to liberate the land of Palestine from the Muslims, the infidels but something happened when they went over there from Europe. They saw the Jews as guilty too of rejecting Christ, being guilty of His crucifixion so they went back home to Europe and began a mass purging of the Jews. It was about that time then that the Jews began to reinterpret Isaiah 53 and say it doesn’t refer to the coming of the Messiah, it refers to us the Jewish people and all of our sufferings. It is important that we keep in mind what Isaiah writes is clear. It was fulfilled in Christ and even early Jewish rabbis recognized Isaiah was writing a prophecy about the coming of Christ, even when they didn’t believe in Him when He came.

Well, we want to look into these stanzas on Christ. We’re just going to highlight matters. For some of you it will be familiar material but I just want to overview this section, draw to our attention that the sovereign plan of God was to provide a Savior in the Person of His Son. I think we’ll be encouraged and amazed again as I have been, even going through this section again, at the details God gives regarding Christ and His work. Let’s look at the closing verses of chapter 52 verses 13 to 15. “Behold, My Servant will prosper, He will be high and lifted up greatly exalted.” What you have in verses 13 to 15 are something of an overview of amazing truth about this coming servant of God, and the contrast that is presented regarding Him, so this is an overview and then it will be fleshed out, if you will, given more details in what follows.

The first thing to be said is “My Servant will prosper.” That title My Servant here is referring to Jesus Christ. Remember when Christ walked the earth, He said, “I always do the will of My Father who is in heaven.” He came to do the will of the Father, carrying out the work of redemption, in which each part of the Triune God was involved, but Christ the Son of God was the One who would come to earth. He is My Servant. He’ll come back to this title in pulling it together when we get down to chapter 53 verse 11 and the next to the last line, My Servant will justify the many.

Two identifications of Christ as My Servant pull this section together. In verse 13 of chapter 52 He says, “My Servant will prosper.” That word prosper comes from the word for wisdom, and the idea is because He functions with wisdom He is successful, and He accomplishes what God intends, so He prospers. He is effective He is successful. “My Servant will prosper, He will be high and lifted up and greatly exalted” and if you’re familiar with the New Testament, you know Paul wrote to the Philippians in Philippians chapter 2 and says that Christ came and suffered. “Therefore, God has highly exalted Him and given Him a name, which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. He will be high and lifted up and exalted and that’s something that is not fully realized yet.

Look around the world. By and large, people aren’t honoring Christ and exalting Him. Yet here this statement, we know He’s coming again to earth and this will be fulfilled but the next statement, verse 14. “Just as many were astonished at you-“ and you note, our translators have inserted, in italics—“My people.” It’s not in the text. They put it there because they thought it might explain it more clearly. I think you should stop at, “Just as many were astonished at you,” referring to Christ, the Servant that was just mentioned. The astonishment, the amazement is why? “He was marred in His appearance more than any man” that emphasis on, being marred. He was marred in His appearance more than any man and His form more than the sons of men. This gives us some picture of the awful agony that Christ suffered on the cross. A deeper and greater agony than was suffered by anyone else who was crucified because He is the God-Man. He is bearing in His body the penalty for sin.

We won’t have time to look at many references but come back to Psalms 22, just a little bit before the Book of Isaiah. Psalm 22 and Psalm 22 is a Psalm of David. Now David lived about 1000 years before Christ. Isaiah is writing 700 years before Christ so David wrote this in Psalm 22 about 300 years before Isaiah wrote Isaiah 53, and it is a great Psalm prophesying of the coming death, the crucifixion of the Son of God and the Psalm begins with the words of Christ that He uttered on the cross. “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?” Come down for time to verse 6, again from Christ. “I am a worm and not a man, a reproach of men and despised by the people. All who see me sneer at me; they separate with the lip, they wag the head, saying, ‘Commit yourself to the LORD; let Him deliver him; let Him rescue him, because He delights in him.’” You remember when Christ was on the cross the people say, “Oh, well He claimed to do great things of God, He claims to be able to call on God. Let him call on God to deliver Him.” The very thing that the Psalmist said, 1000 years before that they would declare.

Come down to verse 14 this description of what the crucifixion of Christ would be. “I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint.” When you hang, actually the weight of your body begins to dislocate the various joints. “My heart is like wax; it is melted within me. My strength is dried up like a potsherd, my tongue cleaves to my jaws; and you lay me in the dust of death. For dogs have surrounded me; a band of evildoers has encompassed me; they pierced my hands and my feet”--because He was crucified. You know, the Jews didn’t crucify, the Jews stoned people who needed to die, deserved to die but He would be “pierced In His hands and His feet. I can count all my bones.” He hangs there, as we would talk about, He is skin and bones. You see the weight of the agony! They look, they stare at me; and then what so clearly happened at the foot of the cross, “they divide my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots.” That picture of the awful agony that Christ suffered as He hung on the cross. For as Peter would later write, “He Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree.” He was dying for us the weight of the wrath of God and the consequences and the judgment of our sin was on Him as He hung there.

Come back to Isaiah 53, “so many were astonished... is appearance was marred more than any man and His form more than the sons of men.” The suffering of Christ was to a greater degree than any had ever suffered, because no matter how they died; they never died bearing the judgment of God on them, for their sin. It was a weight, a judgment that only Christ could bear. 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. What they had not heard they will understand.”

Something amazing revealed here in His suffering, where He is so marred in His appearance that He will sprinkle many nations. That sprinkling refers to applying something, for example when the high priest went in to the mercy seat on the Day of Atonement. He took the blood and sprinkled it, applied it to the mercy seat. The picture is that benefit’s being applied to some. Peter would open his first letter, in the second verse of that first chapter of 1 Peter, and refer to those that have come to salvation in Christ, as having been “sprinkled, with the blood of Christ.” That means the benefits of Christ’s death have been applied to those who believe in Him. He was dying in their place and the benefits of that death have now been applied, so that when Christ died and I believed in Him, I am now pictured, seen by God as having been identified with Christ in His death. That’s what is portrayed here when He said He would sprinkle many nations.

Now keep in mind Isaiah is writing 700 years before Christ. The Assyrians haven’t taken the northern tribes into captivity and the southern tribe will have to go in. Isaiah, in that time framework with the coming and carrying out of the Assyrian captivity, and yet He talks about the nations experiencing the benefits of Christ’s death. “Kings will shut their mouths on account of Him; what had not been told them, they will see, what they had not heard, they will understand.” You understand there was no evangelistic program in the Old Testament. There was no missionary outreach going on in the Old Testament. The prophets like Isaiah weren’t sent to other nations, and even an exception like Jonah had a particular purpose because of Assyria’s relationship to Israel and their coming judgment, but now the nations are going to stand before Him. They hadn’t been told before but now the message comes to them, and remember what we call the Great Commission, the closing verses of Matthew chapter 28. He tells his disciples, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel.” Here you have the anticipation as a result of His terrible agony and suffering and death on the cross. The benefits of salvation will be carried to all the nations, and there will be people from these nations, who come to believe in Him, and they’ll see and they’ll understand, so you have the summary now.

Now you come into chapter 53 and you continue these stanzas. Remember this stanza at the end of chapter 52 is really the first stanza of what is unfolding then in the rest of these stanzas. Chapter 53 opens up. “Who has believed our message? To whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?” It’s like a rhetorical question, nobody has believed in it. Basically, when He came, John chapter 1 says, “He came to His own,” the Jewish people, “and His own did not receive Him.” He is rejected by men; ultimately, the cross is the ultimate rejection. We will not have this man to be king over us. The very people that should have received Him did not, and by and large, the Gentile people didn’t care. He’s a Jewish Messiah, who lived His entire life and carried out His entire ministry, basically, within the land of Israel. Very little beyond those borders. “Who has believed our message? To whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?”

Now you tell the problem. You know it’s sort of like we look at Scripture. You have people today and you can talk to almost any Protestant or Catholic or generally religious person in our country, and talk about the love of God. Yes, I believe in the love of God, yes I believe—I mean that’s just great! People like to be selective. Well it’s nice to talk about the love of God. Let’s talk about the wrath of God. All of a sudden, the interest diminishes--that’s not what I want to hear, that’s not what I want to know, so people pick and choose. They’ll pick a verse out that talks about the love of God, and that’s all that needs to be said. That’s what happened when Jesus Christ came to earth. The Jews knew about the Messiah who would come and be a deliverer for the nation. We just read verse 13 of chapter 52. “My servant will prosper, He’ll be high and lifted up and greatly exalted,” and in verse 15 “kings are going to stand before Him amazed, recognizing Him as King of Kings, but who has believed our message, to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?”

By the time Christ came, the Jews had focused on the fact when the Messiah comes He’ll deliver us, and the rest of the message was just ignored so the problem was verse two. He “grew up before Him like a tender shoot, like a root out of parched ground, humble, lowly,” insignificant beginnings. Where was He born? In Bethlehem, He wasn’t even born in Jerusalem, the capitol for Israel. Born in Bethlehem, a little stop on the way, five miles outside of Jerusalem and you know when He was born? When the wise men finally came and arrived at Jerusalem then, “Where is the King of the Jews that’s been born?” I don’t know, the King of the Jews been born? Herod the King of Israel has to call for Jewish scholars and say, “Where does the Old Testament say, the Messiah would be born and of course, Micah who is a contemporary of Isaiah prophesied it would be Bethlehem, but not an important place. He didn’t have striking beginnings. Born in a stable. It’s not what you expect with the coming of the King of Kings and LORD of LORDS.

“He has no stately form or majesty that we should look upon Him, nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him.” You know what the neighbors said about Christ. “Isn’t this Joseph the carpenter’s son? Aren’t His brothers and sisters living among us?” We know the neighborhood, we know there’s nothing, you know, there’s no majesty and they just thought, another one of the kids in Joseph and Mary’s family. Yeah, we know the whole family. He’s nobody special, there’s nothing about Him that makes Him stand out to be kingly. “He has no stately form or majesty that we should look upon Him nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him.” He grew up there until He began His public ministry about 30 years of age, He just was a person there, so nothing striking that drew people to Him and that led to verse three.

“He was despised and forsaken of men. A man of sorrows acquainted with grief.” We sing the song that we have, “Man of Sorrows! what a name, for the Son of God who came. Ruined sinners to reclaim! Hallelujah, what a Savior!” They didn’t recognize that. He’s just a man to be “despised, acquainted with grief” and we know the difficult life the life that would end in a terrible death. Like one from whom men hide their face, He was despised, we did not esteem Him. You know, it’s amazing to think, the Creator of all things—“all things were created by Him and for Him. Without Him, nothing has come into existence that exists,” could take to Himself humanity and walk the earth, and man’s opinion of Him is One to be despised, looked down upon, treated as not of worth and value. We didn’t esteem Him. How amazing! How blinded by sin we are because He did not come with what men looked for. We admire great men, powerful men, rich men, people of influence and Christ comes with a lowly birth, a humble unassuming life. He’s despised because He is the Son of God. He is the sinless Lamb of God but men and women are not drawn to Him, so where do we go with this?

We had the contrast, the One who will prosper, be greatly exalted as we started out, the One before whom kings will bow and yet He has no appearance that makes Him kingly. In fact, He’s rejected of men. Then verses 4 to 6—there’s no greater verses in all the Old Testament than verses 4 to 6. The clear presentation of the vicarious substitutionary death of Jesus Christ. “Surely, our griefs He Himself bore, our sorrows, He carried.” That’s what He was doing; He was taking our place, our griefs, our sicknesses, our sorrows, our pains. We’re not primarily talking about curing physical illness, although He did that. You know what physical illnesses are a result of, our spiritual sickness. As the prophet wrote, the whole body is sick because sin corrupts us in our entire being, physical sickness and physical death is what? It is a consequence of sin? The death of Christ ultimately remedies that, first by dealing with the spiritual issue, and ultimately when He comes the second time and establishes the kingdom there won’t be any disease. There won’t be any sickness, so our griefs He Himself bore, our sorrows He carried. He was dying for us, that’s the point. All that is wrong with us, “yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.”

We have people of the day; they didn’t recognize any greatness in Him they had to ask the rulers. The leaders said, “Have any of the rulers believed in Him?” and when He died on the cross, well, “He deserves to die.” He said, He was King and Pilot found himself in an awkward place. We won’t have this Man to be our king and if you don’t crucify Him, you’re no friend of Caesar so Pilot put above the cross, “King of the Jews.” The Jews didn’t like that but Pilot said, “what I’ve written I’ve written,” why? You asked me, as a Roman to crucify your King that’s why I’m crucifying Him. He claims to be a king and we Romans only have one King, Caesar but we esteemed Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted but He was dying for us. Those who stood around the cross, except for that handful of believers, didn’t understand that but “He was pierced through for our transgressions,” so the contrast that’s told at the beginning of verse 4. Our griefs, our sorrows but we—here’s what their view was, how they saw Him but now we come back but “He was pierced through for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; the chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, by His scourging we are healed.”

You see this, He was pierced, He was crushed, chastened, scourged. These strong words to tell you as we read in Psalm 22, the awfulness of the suffering of Christ and it was all for us, our transgressions, our iniquities for our well-being, our peace, our shalom, our healing, everything He was suffering was for us. That’s why Peter puts it so clearly. “He bore our sins in His body on the tree.” He had no sins. He was the Lamb of God. He had no spot He had no sin. “All of us,” all of us, all of us “like sheep have gone astray, each one of us,” no exceptions anywhere “has turned to his own way; but the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him.” Sometimes referred to as the John 3:16 of the Old Testament. “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, in order that whosoever believers in Him might not perish, but have everlasting life. All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us turned to his own way. The Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him,” our sin our penalty our guilt.

You know it is amazing, in the Day of Atonement, Leviticus 16 you can read it. There were two goats set aside, the one goat was going to be killed, the other goat is called the scapegoat, the goat that would remove the sin. That goat would be lead away and sent off into the wilderness and the picture was the one goat dying, that’s what’s necessary to pay the penalty for sin and the one goat carrying the sin away. What Christ did when He died on the cross He accomplished both, His death paid the penalty for our sin and carried it away, so it’s no longer on us, all of it was carried by Him. We, those who had gone astray, the guilty ones who had turned to his own way. That doesn’t stop, it’s not enough just to say, well I believe in Christ, yes, I believe He died, and we mix that with our own purposes and plans. He is the only sacrifice, the only Savior, the only One who can die for us and remove our guilt and our sin.

So we go on, “He was oppressed and He was afflicted, yet He did not open His mouth; like a lamb that is led to slaughter, like a sheep that is silent before its shearers, He did not open His mouth.” He wasn’t fighting against those, He was mocked, He was spit upon but He wasn’t coming after them. Pilot was amazed when Christ didn’t answer him. “Pilot says, ‘Don’t you understand I have authority to crucify You or set you free?’ Christ said, ‘You wouldn’t have any power if God didn’t give it to you.’” He’s not arguing, trying to tell Pilot, let me explain to you how unjust this is, let me tell you why you should set me free. No, He’s silent. Why, because He said, “He came to give His life a ransom for many. By oppression and judgment He was taken away,” verse 8, “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?”

Talk about blind! Here the people are, in the presence of the Son of God being crucified on a cross, and no one’s considering that His death was for their transgressions. Even the Jews who are Isaiah’s people, the people that God had chosen. Those are the ones that deserved to die, the sinners and the only sinless Person who ever walked the earth and lived a sinless life is hanging on the cross and they don’t consider it was due for the transgressions they—how blind are people today that go celebrate Easter? What do you think is going on? Well some churches will be packed on Easter because at least you should go to church on Easter. Why? Well, Christ died and He was raised from the dead. What does that mean to you? He died for you, died for me, it’s that personal but they weren’t considering. They weren’t standing there saying, “Oh, He’s dying for me!” How awesome is that! Well they hear the message--on with their life they went.

His grave was “assigned with wicked men.” He was crucified that’s, the death of a criminal. They didn’t even crucify Roman citizens. It was too terrible a way to die but He was assigned with the wicked men. He was crucified with two criminals and one acknowledged, we deserve to die, He doesn’t, yet He was with a rich man in His death. A rich man in His death, that’s pretty specific, remember what happened? Normally those who were crucified were not given an honorable burial, that part of their shame was now you’re buried as a criminal but there was a wealthy man who came and asked Pilot for the body of Christ. The rich man came. What, did Pilot say, “You can have His body.” The details that God does--He was with a rich man in His death, He should have been buried as a criminal, crucified as a criminal and buried--as a rich man. Why, because He had done no violence, nor was there any deceit in His mouth.

You have God’s testimony here but the LORD was pleased . . . the contrast, “He had done no violence, there was no deceit in His mouth.” “The wages of sin is death” and then we’re told in verse 10, “but the LORD was pleased to crush Him, putting Him to death,” putting Him to grief. That doesn’t seem right, that’s why some, shocking that they would even dare to say, but they do. They say, “to say that Christ died in our place is divine child abuse. That would be God abusing His child for no reason.” God tells us why He did. “The LORD was pleased to crush Him, put Him to grief that He would render Himself as a guilt offering.” He had to take our guilt. You’re right, He didn’t deserve to die but in the awesome plan of God, the love and mercy, He came to take our place to bear our guilt. “The wages of sin is death” and I am guilty. “Each one of us has turned to his own way; but the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.”

Note “He will see His offspring He will prolong His days the good pleasure of the LORD will prosper in His hand.” See we’re coming to the end because He started out in verse 13 of chapter 52, “My servant will prosper and the good pleasure of the LORD will prosper in His hand.” How amazing is this plan that we are sinners lost and without hope and the penalty for our sin is death, including an eternity in hell and God intervenes with His Son, and He’ll see His offspring then later in Hebrews I and the children you have given Me. We become His children. We refer to ourselves as the children of God. We are sons of God, we are heirs of God and coheirs with Christ, Paul writes in Romans chapter 8. As a result of the anguish of His soul, He will see it and be satisfied; by His knowledge and I take it, it is referring “by the knowledge of Him, the Righteous One, My Servant, many will be justified as He will bear their iniquities.”

So how does this all get transacted? Well the message of Christ is preached. At the end of the Gospel of Luke Jesus said, it was the plan of God that the message of Christ’s death and resurrection would be preached, so the people might hear and believe. So it’s through the knowledge of Him, the Righteous One, who didn’t deserve to die but He was crushed. He was a guilt offering for our sin. “My Servant,” connecting us back to chapter 52 verse 13, “will justify the many, as He will bear their iniquities. Therefore, I will allot Him a portion with the great, He will divide the booty with the strong; because He poured out Himself to death, was numbered with the transgressors; crucified with those who deserved to die, yet He Himself bore the sin of many, and interceded for the transgressors.”

What did Jesus say when He was being crucified? “Father forgive them; they don’t know what they’re doing.” and Hebrews chapter 7 says, “He ever lives to make intercession for us.” What a passage! Seven Hundred years before Christ unfolded God’s purposes in bringing salvation to a lost world by the provision of His Son who would take the place of sinners and die on the cross. How sad it is, 2000 years after Christ, people are still blind and in confusion to the message. They’re going to church because somehow going to church—I got baptized, I take communion so I think things are good. You know what the message of Christ is? Nothing else helps. Nothing else is necessary. Nothing else can be done. Jesus Christ did it all. We sing the song, Jesus paid it all, all to Him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain. He washed it white as snow. There is only one Savior and it is a complete salvation He provides, “It is finished,” He uttered as He died on the cross

You don’t get saved by attending this church. You don’t get saved by being baptized here. You don’t get saved by partaking of communion. You don’t get saved by keeping the Ten Commandments. Those are all lies of men to blind you to the truth of Isaiah 53. “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 but by the knowledge of Him the Righteous One, the Servant of God, many will be justified” because what Christ did is credited to your account. When you let go of everything else, your confidence in your church, the confidence in your baptism, the confidence in yourself, in someone else and you take hold of Jesus Christ--I believe that He really died for me. God, I’m trusting Him and only Him as my Savior. It’s so simple people go right by it. How sad it is! How sad it is that 700 years before Christ, Isaiah prophesized what would happen. How sad it was when Christ came. It happened exactly as it was said. It’s not sad that He died because God was pleased to crush Him, that was His plan. It said that men so rejected Him but God in love turned the tragedy into salvation because if He hadn’t died we wouldn’t be saved, so I guess it comes down, have you believed what God said? How sad it would be that you come to an Easter service, be confronted with what Christ did, so that you might be forgiven and you walk out the door and say, well I guess we’ll have lunch and that’s all there is to it. You could have paused and placed your faith in Christ, been cleansed from your sin, God considering you now His child, redeemed, redeemed a child of God who can sing of that for eternity. I trust this is a day of salvation for you.

Let’s pray together: Thank You Lord for the riches of what You have provided for us in Christ. How awesome it is that You revealed in such detail Your plan for bringing salvation not only to the nation Israel but also to the nations of the world. In His death on the cross, He was doing what could never be done by anyone anywhere, but Him, the salvation He provided 2000 years ago with His death on the cross, which was sealed with His resurrection from the dead. He’s alive today and the righteousness that comes from You is credited to each one who places their faith in Him. Lord I pray for any who are here, who perhaps trusting their attendance at this church, having Christian parents, Christian friends. Perhaps they’ve been baptized, failed to appreciate there is only one Savior and there is only one way to have the benefits that this Savior provided applied to them--that’s by believing in Him. May we who know Him be thrilled with the anticipation! He’s coming again to complete what You promised, to rule and reign in glory. We praise You in Christ’s name. Amen.












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