It's Unbelievable

I'd like us to turn to Isaiah chapter 53. I shall read the entire chapter as you follow along. Isaiah 53, the great Old Testament prophecy of the birth and life and death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Who hath believed our report, and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? For he shall grow up before him like a tender plant and like 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. He is despised and rejected as man, 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 grief and carried our sorrows, and 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 for our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed.

All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned every one to his own ways, 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 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 would be 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. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him. He hath put him to grief.

And 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 hands. 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 bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors. Isaiah chapter 53 is the heart of the book.

As you know, the first 39 chapters in Isaiah deal with judgment and condemnation. In chapters 40 through 66, we have a message of comfort and salvation. Isaiah is something like the Bible in miniature.

There are 66 books in the Bible, and there are 66 chapters in Isaiah. There are 39 books in the Old Testament, and there are 39 chapters in Isaiah that deal with judgment and condemnation. There are 27 books in the New Testament giving us the message of grace and salvation, and there are 27 chapters in the latter part of Isaiah that give us the salvation of God.

Isaiah chapter 40 opens the New Testament section of the book with, Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people. The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord. It's John the Baptist coming to point the way for the Lord Jesus Christ.

The very heart of this latter section is chapter 53. Down through the centuries, the Bible students have asked the question that that Ethiopian treasurer asked in the book of Acts chapter 8, Of whom does the prophet speak? Of himself or of some other. And you'll recall when Philip the Evangelist joined this treasurer and heard him reading Isaiah 53, Philip, beginning at that very place, preached unto him Jesus Christ.

Now there are those who tell us that Isaiah 53 is talking about the Jewish nation, certainly in the latter part of the book of Isaiah. The Jewish nation is called the servant of God. There's no problem with that.

But I have a difficult time applying Isaiah 53 to the nation of Israel for three reasons. First of all, we read here about someone who voluntarily was suffering. I don't think this was ever true of our Jewish nation.

They were carried into captivity against their will. It was not voluntary. Secondly, I read that in Isaiah 53, the one who is suffering is innocent.

No human being, Jew or Gentile, can claim to be innocent before God. All we like sheep have gone astray. We've turned everyone to his own way.

Thirdly, the one who suffers here in Isaiah 53 suffers not for his own sin, but for somebody else's. It is not only voluntary suffering, it is vicarious suffering. He is a substitute.

And with all due respect for our Jewish friends whom we love, nowhere do we discover that the nation of Israel ever suffered for the sins of the world. No, I think when you read Isaiah 53, you come face to face with Jesus Christ. And the message of Isaiah 53 is the message of the gospel.

Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures. He was buried. He arose again the third day according to the scriptures.

And it's this gospel message that people must believe. Now the strange question is asked in verse 1, Who hath believed our report, our message? And to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? Verse 1 is saying that God through his word and through his works has revealed himself to man and yet man will not believe. When the gospel of John was being written, the apostle John got to that 12th chapter.

He's climaxing the public ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ. And he writes these words, Though he had done so many miracles before them, yet they did not believe that it might be fulfilled, which was written by the prophet Isaiah, Lord, who hath believed our report? To whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? And people today have the same sin and make the same mistakes. God reveals himself and God speaks to people and people won't believe.

Now he's speaking in this chapter not only about the nation of Israel in her unbelief. He's talking about all people. I speak to friends right now.

I speak to listeners right now who have not trusted Jesus Christ. We want to look at Isaiah 53 and answer the question, Why is the gospel so unbelievable? What is there about this gospel message, the message of our Lord Jesus, that is so unbelievable? Why is it so difficult for people to believe? The prophet suggests three reasons for the unbelief of so many, many people. Verses 1 through 4, The gospel concerns an unbelievable person.

Now he describes the Lord Jesus here in these first four verses, and he makes three statements about him. He says he is unbelievable, because he is human, yet he is divine. He is humble, yet he is exalted.

He is hated, and yet he loves people and dies for them. And this is unbelievable. The Lord Jesus Christ was human, and yet he was divine.

We have in verse 2 his birth. For he shall grow up before him like a tender plant, and like a root out of a dry ground. When our Lord Jesus came to this earth to become our Savior, he was born of the Virgin Mary.

Isaiah had prophesied this back in chapter 7 verse 14, The prophet is picturing here a dead, barren earth. And in this earth is a dried up root. And yet from this root there springs forth a majestic tree that bears fruit.

Now initially he's talking about the nation of Israel. When our Lord Jesus was born into this world, he came at a time when Israel was a dry ground. Their religion was stale and arid and dead.

They had formality without any power, and they had ritual without any reality to it. And our Lord Jesus came into that desert, and he was the root out of dry ground. He was human.

He grew up. And yet he was divine. He was the eternal.

When God would save men from their sins, he took his own son and wedded his own son to humanity. Our Lord Jesus did not come to this earth and simply make a visit and then go back. He came and joined himself with your very nature.

He was made flesh. That's the only way he could get the job done. And people said, this is so unbelievable.

He's human and yet he's divine. When our Lord Jesus stood before the Jewish multitude and claimed to be God, they shook their heads and said, this man is mad. He's demon possessed.

How can he say before Abraham was, I am? How can he say Abraham saw my day and rejoiced? How can he claim to be God in human flesh? It's unbelievable. Yes, it is. But it's true.

He was human, yet he was divine. He was humble, and yet he was exalted. The Jewish people have another meaning to verse 2. He shall grow up before him like a tender plant and like a root out of a dry ground.

Back in Isaiah's day, whenever a Jew wanted to call somebody a backwoodsman, a hillbilly, a nobody, he's just a root out of dry ground. This was true of Jesus. From every human point of view, he was nobody.

He was born to a little Jewish mother whose husband was a poor carpenter. Their family was not the greatest in Israel. He was born in a manger, poor.

He was born in the little town of Bethlehem, not in the great metropolis of Jerusalem. He grew up in Nazareth, and people said, can any good thing come out of Nazareth? Whenever you wanted to give somebody a kind of a nasty nickname, you'd call him a Nazarene. He's from Nazareth.

Isaiah is saying that he is humble, and yet he's exalted in his origin, in his appearance. There's nothing about him that makes us want him. There are thousands of printings of various pictures of the Lord Jesus, but nobody knows what Jesus looked like.

All we know is there was nothing essentially physically attractive about him. He was human, yet he was divine. It's unbelievable.

He was humble, and yet he's exalted. It's unbelievable. He was hated, and yet he loved people and helped people.

It's unbelievable. I read here he was despised. This means they didn't want him.

They looked down upon him. He was rejected of men. This means he was forsaken.

His family forsook him. They said he was a little bit out of his mind. His nation forsook him.

We will not have this man to reign over us. His own disciples forsook him and fled. And I would remind you that when he died on the cross, our Lord was forsaken even of his father.

My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me, despised and rejected of men? He says we esteemed him not. That means we didn't put a big price tag on him. We didn't put a big evaluation on him.

There are men today in the United States of America who are seemingly more important than other men. When I travel, I don't have bodyguards with me. I'm not that important.

When the president travels, he has bodyguards with him. He's a very important person. When I take a plane and fly somewhere, the press doesn't pay one bit of attention to it.

But when Mr. Kissinger gets on the plane to go somewhere, the press is very attentive to what's going on. He's far more important. Our Lord Jesus Christ, when he was here on earth, was not followed by the press.

He wasn't written up by the journals. He wasn't interviewed by the great people. He was not highly esteemed.

And yet, in spite of the way people treated him, look what he did. Surely he hath borne our grief and carried our sorrows. Now he's not simply talking about the tears of life.

He's talking about the consequences of sin. Do you know why there's grief in this world? Because of sin. Do you know why there's sorrow in this world? Because of sin.

And when our Lord was here on earth, and he saw the sin and the sickness and the death, and he wept. And while he was here on earth, he healed the sick and took away their grief. And he raised the dead and took away the sorrow of their loved ones.

Matthew, over in his Gospel, quotes this verse, applying not to the death of Jesus, but to the life of Jesus. While he was here on earth, he gathered together those who were brokenhearted, those who were ready to quit, and he loved them and he dried their tears. And yet, what did men do to him? They rejected him.

Yes, the Gospel is unbelievable because it concerns an unbelievable person. The Lord Jesus Christ. Human, yet divine.

God in the flesh. Humble, yet exalted. Hated, yet he loved people.

And died for them. That leads us to the second reason why the Gospel is so unbelievable. Verses 1 through 4, it concerns an unbelievable person.

Verses 5 through 9, it demands an unbelievable price. Do you think that salvation is something cheap? Do you have the idea that almighty God can just snap his finger and men are forgiven? God can move his finger and make a universe. When I consider the heavens the work of thy fingers, God can bear his arm and do great and mighty things.

When it came to saving your soul and making your life worthwhile, putting your home back together again, giving you a place in heaven, rescuing you from hell. When it came to that, it demanded an unbelievable price. Look at verses 5 through 9. We see him suffering.

The emphasis in verse 5 is on the pronouns. But he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities.

The chastisement for our peace was upon him. And with his stripes we are healed. We see him suffering.

Now let's take these words. He was wounded. That Hebrew word wounded means pierced.

He was pierced for our transgressions. You see, he wasn't stoned to death. He wasn't burned to death.

He wasn't drowned. He wasn't strangled. He was crucified.

They shall look upon him whom they have pierced. They have pierced my hands and my feet, says Psalm 22. He was pierced for our transgressions.

Look at that next word. He was bruised. That means crushed.

It isn't just referring to a quicking that he had. It's the crushing of the weight of sin. When they nailed Jesus Christ to the cross, says Peter, who his own self bore our sins in his own body on the tree.

He was crushed under the weight of our sins. I wonder if anybody here today would be willing for God to reach all the way back to Adam and all the way down to the end of time and take all of the murder and vice and vomit and filth, empty every cesspool of iniquity, put it into one great crushing load and lay it on you. He was pierced for our transgressions.

He was crushed for our iniquities. The chastisement, the punishment for breaking the law that I should have felt he felt. To put it in everyday grade school language, he took your whipping.

Do you remember that last time you lied? He was whipped for that. Do you recall that lustful deed that's hidden by some shade of darkness? He took the whipping for that. It wasn't just that he bore the punishment, he bore the penalty.

He was made sin. Martin Luther, in a very courageous statement that almost shocks you, says, on the cross, Jesus became the greatest sinner who ever lived. What he meant by that was because of all of the burden and stain and poison of the sins of the world laid upon Jesus, God treated him as though he were the greatest sinner who ever lived.

By his stripes we are healed. That's an amazing thing. He was stricken that I might be healed.

Now he's not talking about physical healing here. He's talking about healing from sin sickness. The sickness of sin.

The worst sickness in all the world. And there's no vaccination you can get to make you immune. And yet Jesus Christ paid the price.

It meant suffering. It's an unbelievable price. It meant substitutions.

All we like sheep have gone astray. We've turned every one to his own way, and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. Have you noticed the word that he used this year? He was wounded for our transgression.

That means breaking the law. God draws a line and says you can't go over that line. That's rebellion.

And it says here, yes, but he was pierced for our rebellion. He uses the word transgressions, and he uses the word iniquity. That word iniquity is a Hebrew word that means crooked.

God looks down upon me and says, oh, I wanted you to be straight. I wanted you to obey my word. When I made the first man, I made him to be straight.

I measured him, and there was no variation. Oh, but sin came, and sin has made everything crooked. And men can't think straight.

They think crooked. And men can't talk straight. They speak in devious lying ways.

And men won't walk straight. They walk with the limp of sin. And the Lord Jesus took my rebellion on his body.

He took my crookedness on his body. He uses the word iniquity. It was substitution.

It's interesting to read the theologians down through the ages wrestling with the cross. Why did Jesus die? Someone says he died for his own sin. No, the word of God doesn't tell us that.

Someone says, well, when he died, it was an example for others to follow. The word of God doesn't tell us that. Someone else says, when he died, it was such an evidence of the pity of God.

It broke people's hearts, and they wanted to repent. The word of God doesn't say that. I don't find too many people around the cross who have broken hearts waiting to repent.

Most of them went by and said, look at him. He claimed to trust God. Let God take him down from the cross.

There was not much brokenheartedness. There was a lot of bitterness. A lot of hardheartedness.

He tells us in verse 6 why he died. The Lord hath laid on him, Jesus, your sin. There are two all's in this verse.

All we like to teach have gone astray. You walk into verse 6 a sinner. You can walk out of verse 6 a saved sinner.

The Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. Would you notice, please, that verse 6 tells you and tells me that our sin is so bad, it has us locked in on two counts. Number one, we're born sinners.

All we like to teach have gone astray. It's our nature. We are sinners by nature.

Oh, you say, I can't. That's not my fault. That's my mother and dad's fault.

Ah, but he moves on to say, we have turned everyone individually to his own way. We are not only sinners by nature. We are sinners by choice.

And no one here today can look into the face of God and say, I have not deliberately disobeyed you, Lord. No, we have to hang our heads in shame and say, I've gone my own way. And you've gone your own way and you've discovered what happens when you go your own way.

There's sorrow and there's tears and pain and shame and broken homes and broken bodies and ruined lives. And yet the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. There's sacrifice and suffering and substitution.

And Jesus didn't fight. The prophet says they took him from prison and from judgment. He didn't get a fair trial.

His civil rights were not protected for him. He didn't argue about it. As a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he opens not his mouth.

Some of us can remember when the stockyards were still down the way here in the south part of Chicago. It used to be a big deal to go visit the stockyards. One of the most interesting things you'll remember was the way they used to lead the sheep and the goats to the slaughter.

It was done in such an interesting way. A couple of the animals had been trained to lead them. They called them the Judas goats and the Judas sheep.

And these sheep would just get in front of the flock and just begin to lead them. And the others would just follow so meekly. And they would have their throats cut.

They'd be slaughtered. Our Lord could have summoned the angels of glory. One angel in the Old Testament wiped out 185,000 soldiers like that.

My Lord said he could have called legions of angels. There wouldn't have been much left. But he didn't because he loved you.

Yes, the gospel is unbelievable because it concerns an unbelievable person. And it demands an unbelievable price. He had to die.

But thirdly, the gospel is unbelievable because it fulfilled an unbelievable purpose. What did God accomplish by all of this? Verses 10 through 12. My, we could spend days just meditating on what he says in verses 10 through 12.

But let me put it into three capital statements. Number one, justice was satisfied. It pleased the Lord to bruise him.

Now, this doesn't mean that God the Father had great glee over the suffering of God the Son. Oh, no. What it meant was that the holiness of God was satisfied.

Justice was satisfied. You see, some people have a rather Pollyanna, man be pen, be Santa Claus view of God. They say, well, if God is God, he can just blink his eyes.

And he didn't see my drunkenness. And he didn't see my adultery. And he didn't see my lying.

And he'll just forgive me. Oh, no. Somebody has to pay the price.

Let's suppose that I owe you $100. I'm glad I don't. Let's suppose I do.

And I go to you and say, you know, you're such a wonderful guy. Just forget about it. You say, wait a minute.

I gotta pay for this. We don't deal with politics in this pulpit. But you'll recall when President Ford granted forgiveness to his predecessor.

People were up in arms. Who's going to pay for this? They were right. Somebody has to pay for something.

And God is a holy God and says, my law must be satisfied. And God is a loving God and says, my creation must be saved. And so a holy, loving God met at Calvary.

Righteousness and peace kissed each other. And justice was satisfied. Now, hear me.

God has paid the price for your sins. If you accept this price, you're forgiven. But if you reject it, you've rejected the only satisfaction God ever gave.

You must make satisfaction yourself. And you can't do it. That means eternal judgment.

You see, it fulfilled an unbelievable purpose. Justice was satisfied. Secondly, sinners were justified.

Verse 11. He shall see of the travail of his soul and shall be satisfied. By his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many.

The word justify is one of the great words in Christian vocabulary. It means to be declared righteous before God. And you, the lost sinner, come and you stand before God.

And God says, condemn the soul that sinneth. It shall die. Then you turn and you see one hanging on a tree.

And you say, oh, I believe, I receive. And the voice from heaven that once said, condemn, now says, justified, righteous. You see, it's a transaction like this.

God picked up your bank book one day and he looked and saw that you were bankrupt. Nothing but bad records against you. You couldn't pay your spiritual debt.

And he said, I'm going to do this. I'm going to take your debt and pay it. That's why Jesus died.

And when you trust my son, I am not only going to forgive you all your debts, but I'm going to take your bank book and I'm going to give you my righteousness. That's justification. You know what that means? That means I stand before God today not in the weakness of Warren Wiersbe.

I stand before God today closed in the righteousness of Jesus Christ, accepted in the beloved. He hath made him to be sin for me, he who knew no sin, that I might be made the righteousness of God in him. Justice was satisfied and sinners were justified and God was glorified.

That's the purpose for the whole thing. The whole purpose of Calvary was to conquer sin and death and hell and bring glory to God. Verse 12 tells us it was not a defeat, it was a victory.

He's dividing the spoils. Therefore will I divide him a portion with the grave. He shall divide the spoil with the throng, because he has poured out his soul unto death and he was numbered with the transgressors.

I began to count and I stopped counting. I began to count and discovered 85 references to Isaiah 53 in the New Testament. It's all over the place.

And I didn't count all of them, I'm sure. 85. What he's saying here is simply this.

It achieved an unbelievable purpose. Sin was dealt with. God was glorified.

And now the Lord Jesus is alive in heaven, having conquered, having been raised from the dead, and he can be your Savior. Now, I grant you this is all very unbelievable. He's an unbelievable person.

But he's true, he's real. It's an unbelievable price, but it works. It's an unbelievable purpose that I should share in the family of God.

He shall see his seed. He shall see the children that shall be born through the travail of the cross. It's unbelievable.

It's unbelievable. But you had better believe, because if it's unbelievable and you don't believe, it becomes unbearable. Jesus said, Except ye believe, ye shall die in your sin.

He that believeth on him is not condemned, but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. Oh, my friend, it's unbelievable. But believe.

Reach out by faith. Trust him. And you'll become a child of God.

Who hath believed our report? Will you believe today? For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Gracious fathers, our hearts well up within us as we contemplate Calvary, not in a sentimental way, but in a spiritual way. Who are we that he should die for us? Who are we that he should bear our sins on his body? Oh, Father, thank you for Calvary.

I pray that those here today who have not trusted Christ will trust him. And I pray too, Father, that those of us who are believers will appreciate more what it means to be a Christian. Help many to believe today.

I pray in Jesus' name. Amen.