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[0:00] read in Isaiah chapter 53. We can read again at verse 10, although we're going to pick out some other aspects of the passage as well as what's in verses 10 and 11. Read at verse 10. Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him. He has put him to grief. When a soul makes an offering for sin, he shall see his offspring. He shall prolong his days. The will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. Out of the anguish of his soul, he shall see and be satisfied. By his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear, or for he shall bear, their iniquities. One of my favorite writers on Old Testament matters has a commentary on Isaiah after spending most of his lifetime studying the book of Isaiah. That is Alec Motir.

[1:03] And he says of a lifetime studying the book of Isaiah, as he finished his preparation for this commentary that he was writing, he said it was resembling himself to a very small mouse, nibbling heroically at a very large cheese. That's really how we feel every time we come to try and preach something from the book of Isaiah. It's such an enormous book, not only in terms of its length, but especially in the substance of its teaching and the depth of what it contains for us by way of conveying to us. The account of God's dealings with human beings, and especially in salvation and redemption. And the book of Isaiah, there's different ways in which we can approach it, many different ways, but we take the book as a whole. It can be divided up into different parts, but most people take it that it's comprised of three books or sections that you could call books.

[2:16] That doesn't mean that they were written by different authors. We take it that prophet Isaiah wrote the whole of Isaiah. But chapters 1 to 37, often taken as the book of the king, God and his kingship and his greatness. And then chapters 38 to 55, the book of the servant.

[2:35] And that especially is what we focus on today, the servant, of course, being Jesus Christ, who came to fulfill these prophecies about God's servant when he came into this world and served the Lord and gave himself to the death of the cross. And then the final part, chapters 56 to 66, often called the book of the anointed conqueror. Following on from his death and his resurrection, the anointed conqueror, the one who conquered death for his people and is anointed by God in order to be continually the savior of his people. That is much of what is taken up in these chapters.

[3:18] So there's the book of the king, the book of the servant, the book of the anointed conqueror. And chapter 53 lies in that middle section or that middle book, the book of the servant, where you find here, of course, the theme of the book of the servant is redemption. It's redemption where deliverance from sin, deliverance from the bondage of sin, from the guilt of sin, is very much what is taken up in this book of the servant. And at the heart of the book of the servant is the likes of chapter 53, the theme of it, which, of course, is the death of the servant and the nature of that death, which, of course, as we said, is fulfilled in the death of Jesus on the cross. And that itself, really, you could say in passing, is an indicator to us of the divine inspiration of scripture.

[4:11] How else could it possibly be that a man who lived hundreds of years before the event could actually describe the cross in such incredible detail and that came to be fulfilled to the letter in the death of Christ? Because God inspired such prophecy in order to prepare for the coming of the servant. And that's really the theme of our service today, as well as the sermon. It's Isaiah's view of the cross. Isaiah's view of the cross. First of all, he speaks about Christ's death as an offering for sin.

[4:55] And then secondly, Christ's own personal suffering and satisfaction, as these are described in these verses, especially in verse 11. So Christ's death, first of all, an offering for sin. Verse 10, Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him. He has put him to grief. When his soul, or you could say translated also, when you make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his offspring, he shall prolong his days. Now, three things about Christ's death there as an offering for sin. The source of it, the substance of it, the substance of it, and the success of it, the source of it is the will of God. The substance of it is that it is actually an offering or a guilt offering for the sin of his people.

[5:48] And the success of it is in terms of he shall see his offspring, and the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. He himself is going to see, as this prophecy puts it, this success for his office work.

[6:07] So the source of it, of Christ's death, or Christ's offering himself as an offering for sin, is in what's said here, it was the will of the Lord to crush him. It was the will of God the Father that sent him into the world, that provided this redemption for us.

[6:26] Now, this word is capable in Hebrew of being translated pleasure, and if you go to the authorized version, that's the word you'll find. It pleased the Lord to bruise him, or to crush him.

[6:39] It was the pleasure of the Lord to do it. So the word will is appropriate, but so is the word pleasing, or pleasure. The two things combine, really, when you think of what God the Father is in relation to sending a son to be the servant that gave himself to death, in death for his people.

[7:00] This is not just merely an appointment, an official appointment, something that just has a matter of factness about it. It is, in fact, the will of the Lord, but it's in the will of the Lord in a way that pleases him.

[7:13] Remember the Lord's own words from heaven at the time of Christ being baptized. This is my son, the beloved one, in whom I am well pleased.

[7:26] And that continues right through the ministry of Jesus, through up to his death on the cross, includes his sufferings, includes everything that he did. He was pleasing to God the Father. God the Father sent him into this world to please him, to do his will.

[7:42] Remember Psalm 40, which we often associate, of course, at a time of communion as well. To do your will I take delight. Oh my God.

[7:53] I have come. It's written in the scroll. I have come to do your will, or to do your pleasure. That's where you find the word pleasure and the word will, we often use them ourselves ordinarily.

[8:04] What is your pleasure, you might say, to somebody if you're asking, what do you want me to do for you? Especially if you're somebody important, like royalty or whatever, you'd say, what is your pleasure, your majesty?

[8:17] That's really saying, what is your will? What do you want me to do? What will you have me to do for you? And that is the same with regard to this word then in Hebrew for the will of the Lord.

[8:28] It was the will of the Father to send the Son into the world, to give him to this life of a servant culminating in his death. And it was the pleasure of the Lord.

[8:42] It doesn't mean, of course, that we agree in any way with the caricatures of God that you so often find, sadly, in some publications today. That God is just a cruel tyrant and that the death of Jesus as a substitute is unbecoming of our understanding of God or of God.

[9:03] A proper understanding of the Bible, of the Scripture, both here and in the New Testament, fulfillment of it, realizes that Jesus came into his ministry on earth, the Son of God.

[9:19] And that he came to do the Father's will in such a way that delighted the Father that somebody was doing this which nobody else could possibly do.

[9:35] And meeting the requirements of God. Of course, that doesn't mean that Christ himself was not willing to do this.

[9:45] When you come to John chapter 10, we mentioned it last night, I think, in relation to the Good Shepherd. But what he says there is in terms of his own will also being active.

[9:59] That's one of the great mysteries, isn't it, of the incarnation and of what is at the very foundation of our redemption. That this person, this Jesus Christ, has his own will.

[10:09] And yet, as God, his will is really the will of God. But he has his own will as the servant who came into this world. And he has his own human will, along with his divine will.

[10:23] That's a mystery for us. But it's a mystery we believe in. And it's a mystery that's precious to us. And the Son of God, as he came into this world, he came to do the will of the Father.

[10:36] But as John 10 puts it, as he himself put it, I have authority. My own will is active in giving myself. I have authority to lay down my life.

[10:48] And I have authority to take it again, this command I received from my Father. So you're coming here today to remember the source of this offering of this death of Jesus.

[11:02] There it goes back to the will of God. And that Jesus came to fulfill God's will and to do his pleasure, if you like. And that God was fully pleased with all that Jesus did.

[11:17] That's why we can say today, as we sit at the Lord's table, that what was fully pleasing to God can hardly be any different or any less to us.

[11:29] We have our pleasure in Christ, as God himself has, as God the Father has. Our will in embracing Christ meets with God's will in providing him for us.

[11:46] That's the first thing, then. His death is sourced in God's will. Secondly, the substance of it, he says here, is an offering for sin.

[11:57] When his soul, or when you shall make his soul an offering for sin. Now, it goes back again in the Old Testament to the likes of Leviticus, chapter 5, where you find from there into chapter 6, a reference to the guilt offering, rather, where God was saying in terms of a certain guilt on the part of anyone, that a ram would be provided to make an atonement for their forgiveness.

[12:25] When somebody had sinned in a way that wasn't deliberate. And it goes into the next passage in chapter 6 of Leviticus. It's somebody there that has actually done something wrong.

[12:39] There's a number of things mentioned as the kind of wrongs you would do to a neighbor. Well, you have to make reparation. You have to make up for it. But you also have to have a sacrifice as a guilt offering given for you towards your forgiveness.

[12:52] So both these matters come together. There's the relationship with God. There's the relationship with your neighbor. You make reparation. That's really what God is doing by providing for us Christ's death.

[13:05] It didn't just satisfy all the demands of God which it did. It also met all the needs of lost sinners. It met all God's demands.

[13:21] And it met all the needs of lost sinners. That is what you find in Christ's death. Christ's death. That's why it says here, when his soul, or when you shall make his soul an offering for sin.

[13:35] That means it can be either God that's mentioned there, or as the ESV translation here has it, and it's quite possible to have it this way as well, when his soul makes an offering for sin. In other words, looking at the servant himself giving himself, which is perfectly biblical and proper.

[13:50] Christ gave himself. Christ loved me, says the Apostle Paul, and gave himself for me. There's the personal aspect of Christ's own giving of himself, his own active will in giving himself for his people.

[14:04] But there's also the fact that he was given by the Father. In the words of 2 Corinthians 5, 21, for example, where Paul is there talking of the matter from the side of the Father, when you have made him, when he is made Christ, who knew no sin to be made sin for us.

[14:26] So, here is something that's precious to us today as well. His soul is really a description for his life. Jesus didn't hold anything back when he gave himself.

[14:44] He didn't give 99% of himself. He didn't give 99.9% of himself. He gave himself. He didn't withhold anything that needed to be given in order for us to be saved.

[15:01] He didn't say, when he came into the world, I can go so far, but I can't go that far. He didn't say that he would go towards the very borders of death or take a step towards it and come somehow to feel something of its enormity and of its bite.

[15:19] He didn't say, well, I can certainly go as far as to die physically, but I'm not going to die spiritually. I won't take the sin of my people to the extent that I become an offering for them, that I take their place, that I experience the damnation that they deserved in my own soul.

[15:36] He didn't do that. He didn't step back from that. He went so far as to give himself to the entirety of death, the death you and I deserved, the death that we consider as we come today at the Lord's table to consider the Lord in his death, that death embraced.

[15:58] Every aspect of hell. I know it's hard to accept even, let alone understand, but we're not doing justice to the death that Jesus died if we think that somehow he held himself back from every aspect of that death.

[16:20] The damnation that we were rescued from, we were rescued from it because he died it, because he took it to himself, because he did no less than to give himself to the whole of that death as the wages of sin.

[16:41] And the pleasure of the Lord is involved even to that extent as well, because you see here that the pleasure of the Lord, whether you think of him giving himself or of the Father making his soul an offering, the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand, the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.

[17:07] Jesus is as pleasing to God in his death as he was before he came into the world to die.

[17:21] The Lord's delight is in him as the substitute of his people. And yet at the same time, mysteriously, he has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

[17:35] He makes him a curse. He made him a curse. He turned his face away from him. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

[17:48] And that forsakenness accompanied mysteriously at the same time by the pleasure, by the delight of God in him.

[18:00] The substance of his suffering, the offering of his soul, the offering of his life, he has made a guilt offering for us. Thirdly, the success of that death.

[18:15] The source of it is in the will of God, which as we say includes his pleasure or his delight. The substance of it is that he is an offering, he is a guilt offering for our sins.

[18:26] And the success of it where it says that he shall see his offspring, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper by his hand.

[18:37] That's the result of the offering. He's going into what happens after the death of Christ, and even after his resurrection from the dead particularly, he shall see his offspring. He himself shall see the success of his work.

[18:51] He shall see the result of it in his people for whom he died. He shall prolong his days. There's the Isaiah's view of the cross extending into the resurrection of Christ from the dead.

[19:04] He shall see his days. He shall prolong his days. He shall see the success of his work. He shall prolong his days. And this is never said, there are a lot of references in the Old Testament to kings, and to references indeed to the death of kings.

[19:24] Nowhere in the Old Testament does this description apply to kings in their death, where here he shall prolong his days.

[19:37] they go to sleep with their fathers. Death dethrones them as they come to the end of their reign.

[19:50] Every king but Jesus, that's what's true of them. But for Christ it's the opposite. It's through death and resurrection that he comes to his enthronement.

[20:04] That he comes to be installed as the anointed conqueror. He shall prolong his days. You know, the mystery of the Lord's Supper includes that particular mystery as well, where you find that Jesus is present through the Lord's, through the Holy Spirit, with his people to this day, as he taught the disciples in John's Gospel, that although he was going, he would send the Comforter or the Holy Spirit to be with his people and he was going to be present as well as the Father present through that Spirit.

[20:42] We will come, he said, and make our home with the person who obeys our word, who receives our word, my word. The Jesus who died is the Jesus who's present here with you today.

[21:01] That's an element in the preciousness with which you hold him, precious. He's precious in many respects, but he's precious especially because death has not interrupted his personhood as the Savior of sinners.

[21:21] He continued through death and after death and in resurrection and on towards exaltation and into his presence here with his people today.

[21:35] And one of the things for which you're thankful today is that you know the prolonging of his days is fulfilled even in his presence with you. And that is true of no one else, of no other king but himself.

[21:51] You go back to chapter 14 of Isaiah, you find a description there of the king of Babylon and the greatness of the king of Babylon and a lament over the demise of the king of Babylon and the wonder as it were in the realms of death as it's put there as he goes to join the ranks of the dead and the ranks of the dead all break out with amazement saying is this he who had the nations under his power, under his spell, has he come to this?

[22:22] Yes, even the king of Babylon but he shall prolong his days. This anointed conqueror through death goes toward his enthronement and he's enthroned today.

[22:40] Yes, having been crushed crushed for our iniquities, it was the will of the Lord to crush him but he shall prolong his days and the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.

[22:53] Now you see, it's interesting, isn't it, that the same will of the father that led to his being bruised for our iniquities, crushed for our sins, that led to him giving himself to death as a guilt offering, he became the executor of that will.

[23:14] After his death and after his resurrection, after his installment, it is to Jesus that Sam 2 is addressed, ask of me and I will give you the nations for your inheritance.

[23:27] There's the executor of God's will. He's been placed there by God the father to execute his will, to announce and to dole out and to give out the contents of the will of the father for his people.

[23:44] And that will was one that he took to himself in his obedience unto death. And as it contained life for his people, so that's what he's now doing.

[23:57] And that's what you're now receiving by way of the word and by way of the Lord's Supper. So Christ's death and offering for sin, the source of it, in the will of God.

[24:09] Substance of it is being an offering for sin in which he himself is actively, willingly engaged. And the success of it, he didn't just survive, he continues as the living Savior to be the executor of God's will that led to his death in the first place.

[24:31] All of these wonderful things, we won't just skim the surface of them, but they're all here in this magnificent passage. And along with his death as an offering for sin, you have in very much detail and very graphically the personal suffering and satisfaction of the Lord.

[24:49] Look at verse 11. Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied. There's a success again. He shall see and shall be satisfied.

[25:01] The fruit, the benefits, the result of the anguish of his soul. You can translate that because of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied.

[25:12] And that really takes you into the realms of the way that Christ himself is conscious of the result of his death and conscious with his own delight in the success of his death and his resurrection from the dead.

[25:25] Because of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied. In other words, the people of God as they are themselves the fruit of his sufferings as you are today.

[25:37] You yourselves are the fruit of the son's sufferings on the cross and his death. And he sees that. He's looking into this relatively small place compared to eternity where he is.

[25:56] And today he's looking down on his people and he's with them and he sees in you the success of his ministry. Doesn't that fill you with wonder, with thankfulness, with amazement, that he out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied.

[26:20] And that anguish is a very important word, the word anguish, because it takes you into the kind of sufferings that he endured.

[26:34] Intense, complete, and voluntary. It takes you into verse 12. He shall divide the spoil because he poured out his soul to death.

[26:47] You think of his sufferings, you think of his sufferings unto death as personal sufferings. They were so intense as we said already, it included the sufferings that belong to a lost eternity, that belong to hell, that belong to damnation, that belong to God's judgment of sin and of what sinners deserve.

[27:08] That's the intensity, the intensity of Christ's suffering. We can never understand that. it's beyond our reckoning even though we believe it and appreciate it and accept it.

[27:22] That's what he suffered. That's the intensity of what he suffered, especially when he said, why have you forsaken me? There is nothing more intense in suffering than being forsaken by God.

[27:39] Being forsaken by God in an eternal measure is what Jesus experienced in his death on the cross. And it's complete. You see there he's poured out his soul to death.

[27:52] He was numbered with the transgressors, yet he bore the sin of many and makes intercession for the transgressors. There's nothing lacking of what Jesus was required to do that he left undone.

[28:07] He did it all. He's finished it. It's complete. The sufferings are complete. And it's voluntary too because he did this not just because the father sent him.

[28:20] He wasn't forced into doing it. He did it because it was his own delight as well to do the will of the father and save his people. And that means the personal satisfaction that's there for Jesus is something that really gladdens your heart, doesn't it, today as you come to think upon his sufferings and his death and how that was for you and how it was so intense and how it was so complete and how beyond our understanding the things that he suffered in the death that he died.

[28:53] But you now see his satisfaction at the outcome of it. He shall see and he shall be satisfied. He shall see the fruit of his sufferings.

[29:05] And the satisfaction that Jesus has follows on into the justification of his people. In verse 11 there, he shall see and be satisfied by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous.

[29:23] That's justification. We come to be justified including forgiveness of our sins. We come to have righteousness in God's presence as he imputes that to us, as he writes it on our account, instead of the guilt that was there, the guilt offering dealt with our guilt.

[29:41] And instead of the guilt, now it's replaced by righteousness, the very opposite of sin and of guilt. And he sees that and he's satisfied with that.

[29:54] You know, it's a really humbling thought that our justification, our being accounted righteous before God, is satisfying to Jesus.

[30:08] And you're thrilled because of that. You're thrilled that this Jesus who died this terrible death, this indescribable pain, has come to satisfaction in himself and with you as the result of his death.

[30:23] He shall see of that travail of his soul, as the old AV puts it. He shall see out of the anguish because of the anguish of his soul, and he shall be satisfied. He shall be in danger really of trivializing it by using such language, but we could say that as he looks down today and sees his people remembering him in his death, you could say that his verdict is, it was worth it.

[30:57] it was worth it. It was worth dying that death. It was worth suffering that suffering because look at what it's achieved.

[31:12] Look at what it's done. Look at how it's satisfied all the demands of God. Look at how it's met all the needs of such sinners. Look at where they are today because of the anguish of my soul.

[31:32] And that is humbling in the extreme. That's why he goes on to speak, it goes on to speak, Isaiah, I will divide him a portion with the many and he shall divide the spoil with the strong.

[31:46] Now, the many, you could say just briefly because the time is passing, the many are really equivalent to the ones that he saves. He shall make many to be accounted righteous, those who come to have justification, who come to be righteous in the presence of God, the saved, in other words.

[32:07] He says, I will divide him a portion with the many, but that's better translated, I think, and Motier is, I owe this to Motier and his insight into Isaiah, where he says a better translation really would be, I will a portion to him the many as his portion.

[32:28] In other words, God is distributing to him the many for whom he died as his portion, as what is allocated to him as a result of his death.

[32:41] And along with that, he says, he shall divide the spoil with the strong. And again, Motier says it's better to translate, he shall divide the strong as spoil.

[32:54] Strong being the likes of the kings and the great ones of the world of whom Jesus himself spoke so often that they were just closing their minds to him and to his claims.

[33:06] You see, in chapter 52, the bit we read there has the kings and the kings shall shut their mouths because of him. It also mentions the many as the many were astonished at you.

[33:17] So, the many and the kings, the great ones are brought together there and then in chapter 53, you find them again brought together here in terms of the result of Christ's suffering, Christ's death.

[33:29] Kings shall shut their mouths because of him. Why? Why should kings shut their mouths because of him? Because they recognize however great they may have been, here is one who is infinitely greater.

[33:44] And their mouths are just clothed with dumbness in the presence of such greatness, of such a king as this, of such a conqueror as the conqueror of death itself.

[34:00] And so, like a conqueror in the old days coming back from battle, with the spoils of victory along with him to display them before his people. As you find through history, especially in times of the Roman Empire, you would find the general coming back with those that he had conquered dragged behind him and all the spoils of victory laid before his own people as proof of his victory.

[34:26] Well, Jesus has the same principalities and powers. As Paul puts it using his words, he made a show of them openly, triumphing over them by his death.

[34:43] The anointed conqueror. The strong has become his spoils. They're his by right of victory. And today, you are sharing those spoils of victory among yourselves.

[34:59] you are the fruit of his atoning sufferings. But you also share among yourselves the benefits of his death. You feed upon Christ crucified and the benefits of his death, as the confession of faith puts it regarding the Lord's Supper.

[35:19] What a great honor and privilege is ours. To realize the kind of death that Jesus died. To realize the kind of people that we are for whom he died.

[35:34] To realize something of the cost to himself of redeeming us from sin. Of becoming our guilt offering. and to realize that what we receive from him today is just a foretaste of what's waiting for us with him in eternity.

[35:59] I pray that God will bless these words to us. Let's now sing to God's praise in Psalm 22 in English. That's on page 27.

[36:12] The children are going to be coming from the Sunday school to join us during this singing. We'll sing from verse 27. Dennis Farris verse 31.

[36:24] That's on page 27. The whole earth will remember him and turn towards the Lord their God.

[36:36] All peoples will bow down to him, the nations of the world abroad. Dominion to the Lord belongs and over nations he is king. The rich of all the earth will feast and worship with an offering.

[36:47] All those whose destiny is dust will humbly kneel before his throne. They cannot keep themselves alive for they depend on him alone. Posterity will serve the Lord and generations still to come will tell a people yet unborn the righteous acts that he has done.

[37:06] These verses the whole earth will remember him. The whole earth will remember him and turn towards the Lord their heart.

[37:31] all people's will bow down to him. The nations of the world abroad dominion to the Lord be loved and open nations in his king.

[38:05] The rich of all the earth will feast and worship with an offering all those whose destiny need is dust will humbly kneel before his throne.

[38:39] They cannot keep themselves alive for they depend on him alone.

[38:54] for austerity will serve the Lord and generations still to come will tell of people yes and more the righteous hand that he has had.

[39:29] children welcome to the service it's good to have you with us today here for the Lord's supper and what you're going to see in a moment is the distribution giving out of bread and of wine both of these are a picture for us of the death of Jesus where he gave himself to the death he died on the cross so that the bread represents the sufferings of Jesus and the wine in the cup represents the fact that he really did die it was indeed a real death that he died and before we come to that we normally have what's called a fencing of the Lord's table I'm only going to take a minute with this because for one thing most of the people who are going to take communion at the table already and we're going to just spend a few moments and again it's Isaiah chapter 53 and verses 1 to 4 where you find a description here by

[40:36] Isaiah of this servant of God who as we were saying is Jesus and what you find here interestingly is that in some ways Isaiah 53 is written almost as if it was after the death of Jesus took place and so it's saying here that there was an opinion about Jesus before that before we came to know him for ourselves there was an opinion of him that wasn't right in other words Isaiah really is taking us into a pre conversion experience and opinion of Christ and as we come to ask the question who should come to take their place at the Lord's table well it's people who have first of all an experience of once seeing Jesus in a certain way and then having that changed as they came to know him properly by God's blessing and by God's grace in other words it's a bit like

[41:37] Luke chapter 24 remember these two disciples walking on the way to Emmaus and Jesus came alongside them and they didn't know it was him and they began speaking about the things that they had just seen and witnessed in Jerusalem the death of Jesus the fact that his tomb was empty and so on and they didn't know that this was Jesus and a little later on they actually came to realize when they shared a meal with him that it was actually himself there's a change in their outlook there's a change in their experience similarly to that not exactly the same you see what he's saying here he grew up before him like a young plant like a root out of dry ground he had no form or majesty that we should look at him and no beauty that we should desire him he was despised and rejected by men a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised and we esteemed him not in other words they saw no attraction in Jesus to begin with nothing to draw them to give their lives to him he was like a root out of a dry ground nothing there that really looks in any way interesting just something shriveled something that's not worth thinking about something that you just kick aside when you come across it a root out of a dry ground he had no form or majesty that we should look at him he is not very impressive that we should give our lives to him and no beauty that we should desire him and you find that description in the gospels of those who didn't understand who

[43:18] Jesus was and what he had come to do and for many of yourselves you can relate to that even if you were brought up to know the gospel and brought up to learn about Jesus in your homes it doesn't mean that you came to see him as so attractive to your soul that you wanted to give your life to him not to begin with anyway some of you might have from an early age and that's good that's why it's good to have the children here I hope you even today see Jesus as one who is so beautiful that you are drawn to him that you give your life to him but most of us here didn't and we could say that he wasn't even though we knew about him we didn't really care to know him properly but things changed and how we once saw Christ is now actually in verses 4 and 5 how we now see Christ surely he has borne our grief and carried our sorrows yet we esteemed him stricken smitten of

[44:19] God and afflicted but he was wounded for our transgressions in other words he is saying before we came to know him properly we thought he was suffering because God had something against him and because he had done something wrong himself and therefore he was stricken by God and smitten and afflicted for that reason but now we know he was wounded for our transgressions not for something he did wrong himself and he was crushed for our iniquities and upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace and with his stripes we are healed we now see Christ as connected inseparably with our sins with providing for us an answer to our sinful condition which we could never do ourselves and we can say that he was bruised for our iniquities it's an entirely different view to what we once had of him in the words of

[45:30] John Newton I once was lost but now I'm found was blind but now I see I once was I once saw Jesus in a certain way but now I see him differently I see him in relation to my sin and to my need and I see that my sin caused his suffering as McChain says in his great hymn as well Jehovah Sid Kenu he says he wept at times under the gospel as a youngster when he heard the descriptions of Jesus sufferings yet thought not that my sin had caused this he said thought not that my sin had nailed to the tree Jehovah said Kenu was nothing to me but when free grace awoke me with light from on high then legal fear shook me

[46:35] I trembled to die no refuge no safety in self could I see Jehovah Sid Kenu my refuge must be that's why we come to the Lord's table because what we once were has changed into what we are now by the grace of God how we once saw Jesus we are ashamed of that now how we see him now unashamedly on his side unashamedly his people and today we come to the Lord's table and seek that by his grace his beauty his power would be impressed upon us all more now while we sing some more verses and we'll sing from Psalm 115 no Psalm 118 sorry at verse 15 while we sing some verses the elements will be placed on the table and if anyone else needs to take their place at the

[47:43] Lord's table of the communicants please do so during the singing Psalm 118 from verse 15 in dwellings of the righteous is heard the melody of joy and health the Lord's right hand doth ever valiantly we'll sing on until the elements are placed on the table in dwellings of the righteous in dwellings of the of the righteous is heard the melody of joy and health the Lord's right doth ever value the right hand of the mighty

[48:51] Lord exalted is on high the right hand of the mighty Lord Lord doth ever valiantly I shall not die but heaven shall the works of God discover the Lord Lord hath me chastiseth sore but not to death given o mile o set thee open unto me me but it all righteousness then will

[50:09] I enter into them and I the Lord will bless them and I the Lord will bless this is the gate of all by it that the josh shall enter in thee will thy bridge for the meters and pass my safety in Lord my safety in well as is customary we read our warrent for our observance of the Lord's Supper reading from first Corinthians chapter 11 and verse 23 for I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread when he had given thanks he broke it and said this is my this is my body which is for you do this in remembrance of me in the same way he also took the cup after supper saying this cup is the new covenant in my blood do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me for as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes and so on.

[51:53] Following that example and pattern we now give thanks to the Lord. Lord our God we confess in your presence what an impossible task it is to give thanks adequately for such a great provision as is represented before us.

[52:15] Lord our God we receive we receive we pray the offering of our thanks small though it is in comparison to what it should be. We recognize Lord as we read and heard in your word today of the enormity and the entirety of your offering of yourself as a sacrifice for sin.

[52:34] We come before you O Lord to take these elements that we now pray will be sanctified to a holy use so that they will be indeed to us not only a representation but a means of conveying to us spiritually the death of Christ and the benefits of it.

[52:52] We thank you O Lord for your will that sent Jesus into this world. For your will as the Father of your people and as the Father of the Son who provided such a great redemption in such an amazing way.

[53:12] And we give thanks to O Lord that you came into this world that you were willing completely and perfectly to carry out the will of the Father.

[53:23] And that you gave yourself to that death of the cross that accursed death that painful death. That death that is so wide and so deep that we ourselves can hardly even think of it.

[53:37] We thank you that as we realize the benefits of your death today, that the prospect for your people is such a glorious one, that that death will never come near them again.

[53:49] You have rescued them from it, and we bless you today for that. We pray that you forgive our sins that still remain with us, even though we know that they are forgiven in our justification.

[54:02] Yet, O Lord, you teach us in your word and by experience that we need to come before you daily, seeking that you would forgive the sins that we are conscious of doing.

[54:14] Forgive us, Lord, we pray, for how short we come in our lives, in our dedication and in our commitment to you, compared to what this great sacrifice of your death requires on our part.

[54:27] But we thank you that our acceptance with you is on the basis of that sacrifice itself, and not on the basis of anything that we can do, perfectly or otherwise.

[54:39] So receive our thanks now, we pray. And in all of this, look upon us with your mercy. Present yourself before us, and help us to know your presence here.

[54:50] For Jesus' sake, amen. Again, we think of Isaiah's prophecy, chapter 53, where we come to see Jesus, as we've been looking at, as the Lamb of God.

[55:07] And as you find described there as well, in verses before the ones we were looking at, verse 6, 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.

[55:22] He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth, like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is done, so he opened not his mouth.

[55:33] All we like sheep went astray. Many different ways in which we ourselves strayed from God.

[55:47] But we know that we were far from it. Sometimes even sitting in pews like these, we can think back of hearing the gospel preached, and it making little impact on our souls.

[56:00] I hope the children today will actually take note of this as well. How important it is to really listen carefully to the gospel being preached, and to the word of God being read.

[56:13] So that you take it seriously, so that you think of what his teaching is about. Well, it says here, we all like sheep have gone astray. The willful disobedience of our human souls.

[56:27] But it's offset, and it's countered, and it's overcome. By the willful obedience of the Lamb. All we like sheep have gone astray.

[56:38] But he, the Lamb of God, as a sheep before our shearers is done, as a lamb that is led to the slaughter, so he opened not his mouth. What is that saying to us?

[56:50] Well, it says that his willful obedience, to do the will of the Father, to suffer, and to die for us, is God's provision against our willful wandering from him.

[57:02] Today you come, today you come, to pay your thanks and respect, by taking communion, by taking the bread and the cup, that signify the Lord's death.

[57:17] You remember where you were before he found you. You remember that he came to search for you. And he went into the wilderness of your sin, of your lostness, to search you out.

[57:32] But he found you there, with a spiritual hypothermia that was about to lead you to death. He found you in your deadness.

[57:45] He found you in your disinterest. He found you in all that you were, compared to what you should be. Not only did he find you, he took hold of you.

[57:58] He brought you back. He brought you before the Father and said, this is why I came into this world. This is a sample of those I came to save.

[58:13] You remember today, as you remember him in his death, you remember that he did that for you. And you remember that this, all too little in return, you are able to do for him.

[58:28] Your strain is no more the case. He's brought you back. He suffered and died to do that for you. And today, you take communion in remembrance of him.

[58:46] We read, the night in which the Lord was betrayed, that he took bread, after he had given thanks, he broke it and said, take, eat, this is my body, which is for you, this do, in remembrance of me.

[59:02] After the supper, in like manner, he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, this cup is the new covenant in my blood. This do as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.

[59:14]  For as often as you eat this bread, and drink this cup, you do show forth