Isaiah 53 is presented as a profound prophecy foretelling the suffering, death, and redemptive purpose of Jesus Christ, explaining why the Gospel message, despite its unbelievable nature, offers salvation.
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
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
tender
plant and like a root out of a dry
ground he hath no form nor cess and when
we shall see him there is no beauty that
we should desire
him 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
him
not surely he hath borne our griefs 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
all we like sheep have gone
astray we have turned everyone 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 sheers 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 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 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
his
hand 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 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
53 is the
book as you know the first 39 chapters in
in
Isaiah deal with
judgment and
condemnation from 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 chter 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
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
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
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 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
believe now the strange question
question is asked in verse one who hath
believed our report our
message and to whom is the arm of the
Lord revealed verse one is saying that
God through his word and through his
Works has revealed himself to men and
yet men will not
believe when the Gospel of John was
being written the Apostle John got to
that 12th chapter he's CL 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 mistake 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 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- 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
is
divine he is humble yet he's
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 two 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 ch
7:14 behold the Virgin shall conceive
and shall be with child and his name
Shall be Called Emanuel
God With
Us 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 Aid 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
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 say this is so
unbelievable he he he's human and yet
he's is
divine when our lord Jesus stood before
the Jewish multitudes 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 a another
meaning to verse two 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 back Woodsman a uh a
hillbilly uh a nobody oh he's just a
root out of dry ground this was true of
Jesus from every human point of view he was
was
nobody he was born to
a little Jewish mother whose husband was
a poor [Music]
[Music]
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 could call
him a Nazarene he's a na 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 he 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
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 griefs 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 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
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
so
unbelievable verses 1- 4 it concerns an unbelievable
