Isaiah 53:1-11

Blessed passage; I hope you all know it by heart; it should be like the alphabet to every child. See how it begins.

Isaiah 53:1. Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed?

This is the continual cry of the men of God. The sent ones of God who come to bear testimony of the Lamb of God have no easy time of it. With broken heart they have to go to their Master, and say, «Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?»

Isaiah 53:2. 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.

Carnal minds never did see beauty in Christ, and never will. Christ as the great sacrifice is always rejected.

Isaiah 53:3. He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.

Blessed be his name. Some of us can say that with great delight: «With his stripes we are healed.»

Isaiah 53:6. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.

«He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth.» Our blessed Master there are his seven cries upon the cross, but not one word of murmuring, no complaint against his enemies «He opened not his mouth: he is brought as the lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.»

Isaiah 53:8. He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken. And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth.

Isaiah 53:10. Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.

«Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him.» If ever there was a man whom God should have protected from every sorrow, and guarded from every stroke of injustice, it was Jesus; and unless it was for sins not his own he suffered, unless it was as a substitute for man, it was the most unjust of all heard of injustices that Christ should die at all.

Isaiah 53:11. He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, And he shall divide the spoil with the strong: because he hath poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.

«He shall see of the travail of his soul.» Oh! what a joy is this to us! He did not travail in vain. His pangs were as of a travailing woman; but the birth, the glorious birth that comes of it in the salvation of multitudes this is his recompense.

This exposition consisted of readings from Exodus 29:38; Isaiah 53:1.