The Explorer's Report, Isaiah, 40:8

Good morning. Let's take a look here this morning, what we're going to call the Explorer's Report. And that's not just a nice little phrase there, but it has some meaning here. We'll take a look at shortly. In our own country, we have certainly a rich heritage of courageous explorers. Some of them, like I look at the Lewis and Clark expedition, it's phenomenal that they survived it. It is absolutely amazing. You look at some of the others and it's phenomenal that they survived that as well. Nonetheless, we've got some real rich history in our nation's explorers.

This Explorer's Report here today is a preview of spiritual discoveries. This is exploring, not territory, but exploring ahead in the book of Isaiah to see what's out there, what's ahead. If we were to open the book of Isaiah and take a look ahead, we want to take a sampling like an explorer would. They're not going to look at every jot and tittle, not every detail, but take a look ahead and see what's out there. What's the lay of the land ahead of me? That's what we'll be doing this morning.

The book of Isaiah, as we mentioned before, is one of the longest books, 66 chapters. It is, by chapter count, the same number of books in the Bible. So there's an interesting equivalence we brought up some months ago. So far, the approach that we've taken in general is to summarize the chapter, and in some cases, two or even three chapters at a time, and then pick a select passage Sometimes it's only been one verse, sometimes it's been several, but a select passage within that chapter or chapters, and then to focus in on that for more detailed study.

Obviously, we won't do that here this morning since we're exploring rather than doing our usual pattern. We've also noted just at the outset that the book of Isaiah, which we called at the beginning a prophetic anthology, is more than just a random collection of Hebrew literature. Isaiah did not just sort of take a bunch of literature and pull it together and say, hey, I think I'll publish this. Not that you could in those days, but I think I'll put this thing together and that's what they'll get. Certainly it's a collection of different kinds of things.

We saw right at the very beginning, there is poetry built into what Isaiah writes and it's scattered throughout the book. There is, and we'll see shortly here, history, historical accounts of what transpired, and that's in the chapters just ahead of us here. There are certainly, as we look ahead, places where Isaiah breaks out into song. And we've got that scattered throughout the book.

So it's best called an anthology. It is a prophetic anthology. And it also has a direction. And we want to take a look at that direction here this morning. Where is Isaiah headed with this? One of the things I'm glad to be able to tell you is that as we go through this long book, 66 chapters, it changes. I don't just put the tape player on and put the thing on autopilot and do the same thing each week. It's going in a particular direction. It is headed somewhere. Isaiah has a purpose in what he's doing.

So let's take a look at this preview of the spiritual discoveries here. We're right here, just before the end of this section that is God's warning to all nations. We earlier made this available, but as you go out of this room on the right afterwards, you can pick up another copy of this in case you missed it on the earlier distribution. It's a kind of a block chart that helps take a look at the book of Isaiah in whole, in total. And we'll be going from where we are here up into the middle 50s in the chapters and taking a look at that. One of the things that we're going to see as we go ahead in chapters 36 through 39, that's where we get the historical account. Isaiah, who's often writing messages to people, in 36 through 39 breaks into an historical account telling what happened. And one of the reasons that this is valuable is this answers some of the questions that we posed earlier.

There were multiple warnings, don't go to Egypt for help. It won't work. You will be, to use our modern vernacular, you will be shooting yourself in the foot. I'm sure Isaiah wouldn't have said that, but anyway. He gave them multiple, in our account, chapters of warning. Don't go there. Don't do that. Don't rely on Egypt. Trust in the Lord.

This account then tells us what happened from that. It was during the time of King Hezekiah, who was a king that Isaiah served as a kind of a court official for, and it brings to head all the things that Isaiah had been writing about concerning the threat from Assyria. Really, from the very beginning, we've been talking off and on about this threat from Assyria, right? Now, he says, here's how it happened. Here's how it came about. That's what these chapters are telling us. Here's a seal impression from King Hezekiah. It's one, by the way, of several that we have from Hezekiah's signet ring. after decades, basically, of trying to protect themselves from Assyria by every means possible.

They said, well, we can try this. We can do that. We can try this other thing. They discover that God is faithful to what he said at every single point. And we'll see how that unravels as they go through the experience here. But it's a key statement that's important for us to remember, even though we're not in Judah, even though, well, no, wait a minute, we do have a problem with Assyria. I think it's called Mosul. Okay.

In the church, God is still faithful. It's interesting to me as I was checking this out, the God is faithful phrase occurs three times in the New Testament. Paul writes each time, and each time it's directed to the church at Corinth. Do you think they had something to learn about God being faithful? I think so. He underscored that point multiply to this church.

God is faithful. It's not a statement God is temporarily faithful, but God is by character faithful. That's the key thing that's underscored here. Judah could count on God for being faithful for their physical protection. That's the promise that they could count upon, God's faithfulness in that promise. If you trust me, I will take care of you absolutely. Guess what?

For us in the church, it's a bit different. We have the revelation of truth to us, God is faithful, but it shows itself differently. Rather than with the Jews who are blessed if they trusted the Lord, blessed if they obeyed the Lord, and who are blessed in earthly ways, instead, our blessings have been given 100% already, so you're already blessed, sorry, nothing you can do to change it. Hope that doesn't hurt your feelings. You are already in Christ, in the heavenlies, in Him, 100%. Not in the circumstances. Your blessings are not in the circumstances. Not in things down here. That's a good thing.

Here's 1 Corinthians 10.13. One of those three places where Paul writes to the church at Corinth, to the believers there, and tells them God is faithful. He keeps telling them that. No temptation has overtaken you, but such as is common to man. And God is faithful. It's not a temporary statement or he'll be faithful for the next five minutes. but God is faithful all the time. That's his character.

God is faithful who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able. Does it stop there? Who will not allow you to be tempted, period. No. He will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape so that you'll be able to endure it. It is through the temptation, not by avoidance of it or freedom from any and all temptations. God is still faithful, isn't He? But we need to remember, this is our promise of His faithfulness. We're not Israel. We're not replacing Israel. We're counting on the promises to Israel.

If I'm driving up to the stoplight and Nancy says, Vern, you're going awful fast for a red light, and I'm not putting my foot on the brake, I'll say, God is faithful, right? No. Okay? God has not promised to preserve me in physical circumstances. It's through the temptation. Okay.

Now, Isaiah provides an historical account here demonstrating God's faithfulness. Now we're back into the historical account. And it looks like this. One of the things that we showed early on, and we'll be looking at it here again, I want to give a kind of a preview. This is what Hezekiah did.

He constructed additional reinforcements and things like that around Jerusalem. And so here's actually a piece of the wall that was built exactly in preparation for this event that Isaiah is about to tell us about. And this was a part of his protection, this wall that you see right here. That's Isaiah's broad wall referenced in 2 Chronicles, 2 Kings and Isaiah, all three of those places.

Hezekiah also had a tunnel built and we made a point there, it was a huge technological accomplishment. It was about 200 years before the Greeks repeated anything as technologically advanced. So that tunnel is something that people can look at and visit today. It was made in preparation in order to make sure that the water supply was not something that could be attacked while the Assyrians came. Sennacherib was the name of the Assyrian ruler that they were concerned about.

And you find multiple references to that water tunnel. This is it. We also pointed out inside on the water tunnel, because they started on two ends, when they met, one of the workers actually wrote the story of the encounter when they met, coming from two ends, and it's inscribed on the wall. We'll go into more detail when we get there. Okay.

There's also been found, very interestingly, the Assyrian side of the same events. So we'll see what the Assyrians have to say. It's interesting. They do report the same encounter that we look at here in this coming portion of Isaiah with the Assyrian spin on how it all came about. You see the Assyrians aren't about to say what actually happened. So they give the Assyrian spin on it and it's recorded right here. Interestingly, very well preserved. More on that later.

Now, at the start of Isaiah chapter 40, something very interesting and astounding happens. I would say actually several very interesting and astounding things. Chapter 40 opens with some words that reveal insights into both the first and second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.

In Isaiah's day, the first coming was seven centuries ahead. Think of what that would be like for us. Could you tell me what's going to happen seven centuries from now? Would you have a clue? That's what Isaiah did. Not only that, the second coming, we're now 2,700 years after the time of Isaiah, the second coming is yet to be fulfilled. But what Scripture lays out, that will be fulfilled just as precisely as the 7th century's prophetic word was given.

Isaiah chapter 40 verse 3 is paraphrased in Matthew 3. Remember the number 40 here. This is where it is telling of the ministry of John the Baptist. Matching up the chapters in the books, you have Isaiah has 66 chapters, the 40th chapter is where this foretelling of John the Baptist takes place. Matthew is the 40th book. Interesting coincidence and lineup there. Here is the first five verses in that 40th chapter.

It says something very different. Remember, a lot of what Isaiah has been saying has certainly talked about time ahead, time when The Lord will come and reign. Here he says a different message. It's a very interesting message. Comfort, O comfort my people. You see, they've been through a lot of trauma. Lots of trauma for a long time. Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God. Speak kindly to Jerusalem. Is that all of what Isaiah has been doing? Speaking kindly? It's been some difficult time, hasn't it? speak kindly to Jerusalem, call out to her that her warfare is ended."

And here is the part that is quoted in Matthew 3.3, a voice is calling, clear the way for the Lord in the wilderness, make smooth in the desert a highway for our God. Now, in what sense did John the Baptist do that? You might be thinking, well, wait a minute, John the Baptist never worked on roads at all.

How does this fit? Okay, let's take a look at that. Here's what would happen in those days. If a king was going to come into your country or you're part of the country to visit, the custom was fix the road. Why did you fix the road? Think about this.

You're a farmer, right? And you've got the field that you're trying to grow crops in. and the field has rocks, right? What do you do with the rocks? Pitch it in the road, right? So here's the farmer, they're pitching all the rocks in the road. You don't want that when the king comes, right? So what do you do? You pitch it back into the farmer's field.

All right, so there was a rock war between the farmers and the road fixers, okay, and so what you would need to do is then fix these rocky rough places like you see this picture here, fix the rocky rough places, fix the sharp bumpy rocks, smooth this out, get it ready for the King.

That's what this is an announcement about. It's not telling John the Baptist, get building roads, make them nice. It's telling John the Baptist, prepare the way for the King. Is that what he did? Yeah, that's what he did. Prepare the way for the King. Was Jesus the King? Yes. He was also the sacrificial lamb. And it's interesting that the gospel of John, twice has John the Baptist saying, behold, the lamb of God, the sacrificial lamb, this lamb, that's his preparation. Prepare the way for the King, the King who will also pay the price. Okay.

Going farther down in this introductory passage here, it says, then the glory of the Lord will be revealed. This is the revelation. Here is the Lord himself coming, the Lord Jesus Christ coming. He is the glory of the Lord. He is the revelation of God's glory. Now, let's talk for a minute because we're going to run into this again. Glory, what is it? Glory is the radiant essence of who God is. Got that? The radiant essence of who God is.

Why do I say, I could say just essence. Would that be sufficient? It would be true. We say radiant essence because we get to the end of Revelation, and by the way, do they need to light the lamps in Revelation at the end? No. All of the New Jerusalem is lit up entirely, and I'm talking, don't need any sun or anything of the sort. All of the New Jerusalem is lit up entirely by the radiant essence of who God is. Isn't that amazing? So you don't walk into a room and turn the lamp on. No, it's already lit. The radiant essence of who God is. No day, no night. Why? God is continuously the radiant essence who lights all.

One of the things that we underscore here as we go through this passage, Isaiah continues to proclaim God's eternal purpose. to reveal His glory and declare His glory, to share His glory, we'll talk about that more in a minute, that He might be glorified. Those four things. Isaiah continues to underscore as we go through that set of chapters, 40 through 48, God's glory and the fulfillment of God's eternal purpose in all those four ways. Now, here's something for us to take a look at.

We've talked about the Gentiles, Israel, and the church. At times, you may hear people say, well, I don't want to be like Israel, because they're blessed earthly, and we get to be blessed heavenly. And those Gentiles, I mean, they're just out to lunch.

No. What is amazing here is the fulfillment of God's eternal purpose is through the Gentiles, through Israel, and through the church in different ways. All three of those groups fulfill, in those different ways, God's eternal purpose. The Gentiles will not be saying, oh, it's alright to be a Gentile, but I sure wish I was a Jew. And the Jews won't be saying, boy, it's alright to be a Jew, it's just great, but I sure wish I was part of the church.

No. The Lord has allotted those three groups, and all three will fulfill completely God's eternal purpose. They will all be delighted, none disappointed, into eternity. Okay. Isaiah 40, verse 5, Then the glory of the Lord will be revealed. All flesh will see it together. All will see His glory. All. Every one.

Isaiah 41.16, but you will rejoice in the Lord. You will glory in the Holy One of Israel.

The Lord Himself will be the source of glory and glory given to Him will also fulfill God's eternal purpose. Again, glory is something that is God's, the radiant essence of who He is. And our sharing of that glory, isn't that amazing? He shares that glory with us. Our sharing of that glory is a fulfillment of God's eternal purpose. And our, in return, glorifying Him fulfills God's eternal purpose. Now here's one we've got to take a look at. I am the Lord, that is my name. I will not give my glory to another.

Is that in conflict with sharing His glory? Do we have a problem? Is that an issue? Do we have a mistake in the Bible? Is there a difficulty here? Well, remember we said reveal His glory, declare His glory, and to share His glory. Is this in conflict with that? Now, remember, what's the next line down? This is Hebrew poetry, so it's rhyming. Nor my praise given to graven images.

The Lord will not give up and transfer His glory to another. And this whole section is about idols and engraving images, as we'll see shortly. He will share His glory. He will not do an all-out transfer and say, you have it. And certainly not with the idols that we'll look about here in a minute. He will indeed share His glory with us, those who are saved. And that fulfills God's eternal purpose.

Here's Isaiah 42, and here he talks about all the different kinds of terrain and the lands that are out there, different sorts of topography. And in verse 12, let them give glory to the Lord, glorify him and declare his praise in the coastlands. Declare his glory. Okay. Here's another one.

In Isaiah 44, 23, shout for joy, O heavens, for the Lord has done it. Shout joyfully, you lower parts of the earth. Break forth into a shout of joy, you mountains. This is a place where Isaiah, who often has a tough job, you imagine being in Isaiah's place, all the difficult things he had to say. Here is a place where he gets extremely jubilant. He gets to express immense joy.

And notice there's the pattern heavens and earth in that first part there. Heaven and earth is everything. That's the way the Jews would say everything. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. That's the way of saying everything. Break forth in the shadow of joy, you mountains, O forest, and every tree in it. Down to the last one.

For the Lord has redeemed Jacob, and in Israel He shows forth His glory. How do you like that? Remember we said there's the Gentiles, Israel, and the church. Does He just show His glory in the church, but not in Israel? No. He shows His glory in Israel, and will do so. As a matter of fact, it will be phenomenal. Absolutely astounding. It'll be wonderful. Is anybody feeling a little stuffy in here? I know some folks are. Can we hit the fan? I notice it seems we've gotten turned off. It might take a little bit to catch up with us. Thank you.

In 4613, I bring near my righteousness, it is not far off, and my salvation will not delay. I will grant salvation in Zion and my glory for Israel." What will He do? He will share His glory with Israel. He also shares His glory with us. How does that happen? How do we grow from glory to glory?

2 Corinthians 3.18, as we behold the Lord through His Word, we are transformed. He does the transforming, not us. We are transformed from glory to glory. We also get to share His glory. This is the expression of that sharing of glory for Israel. 48.11 is the last of the chapters 40-48. For my own sake, I will act. And how can my name be profane? And my glory I will not give to another.

Isn't it interesting that the Lord looks at things going on here on planet earth and His glory is at stake? That's one of the things that if you look at, the Lord is faithful. We've seen that before. But the Lord looks upon it and He says, for my name's sake, I must be faithful. The Lord's character is consistent.

And the Lord's glory is central to his eternal purpose. We see again here the thing, I will not give my glory to another. I will not share my glory as to transfer it to another and cease being the source of all glory. Okay, Isaiah 40 through 48, it's God versus the idols. Now we see the battle.

That same chapter we just read from here, it deals with the character of God versus the idols, and that's one of the reasons for the theme that we just saw, God's glory. We can take the character of God in those chapters exactly as presented. Does God's character change? No. God's character does not change, and therefore, when we see statements about God's character, we take them direct. We don't need to do the question asking, well, is this for Israel? Is this for us? No. Take it direct. That's God's character. That's who He is. God is faithful. We can count on it.

The idols, however, have a problem. Who does the work for an idol? How does an idol get created? You've got to make it. How does an idol get carried around? You've got to carry it. How does an idol get polished up? Because after all they tarnish things like that. You got to do it. How do you please the idol? You got to do it. The character of the idol is to constantly demand that you do something. Isn't that true?

The idol is constantly demanding that you do something that we might be inclined because of looking at these things, these Canaanite idols, to think, well, that's nice, but that's irrelevant because that's over, you know, 20 centuries and plus beyond that. Years ago, John writes to the church and he says, beware of idols. Keep away from them.

We in the church can get into situations, circumstances of all kinds, where we begin looking upon our own works as the answer. We can get there too. That's the problem with the idols. They demand that you do all the work. Here are some of the idols that were commonly used in Isaiah's day and before, just so you get an idea of what Isaiah is talking about. Now, God on the other hand wants us to rely entirely on what He has done, is doing, and will do. Huge contrast. Do you want an idol? Get ready to work. If you want an idol, that's what you're going to do. You're going to make it. You're going to carry it. You're going to move it around. You're going to fix it. You're going to please it. And you're going to do the work.

With God, it is entirely different. With God, you depend on his work. You depend on what he has done. You depend on what he is doing and what he will do. Huge contrast, huge difference. Massive, massive contrast. One aspect of God's eternal purpose is that He shares His glory with us. Can the idol share glory with you? No. If it's got any glory at all, you've got to give it to it. You have to give it its glory. The idol has no glory to share with you. There is no radiant essence of what the idol is. It's all make it and fake it. That's the idol. It's a make it and fake it proposition.

This same set of chapters also puts a focus upon God as the Creator. Isaiah is a book of the Bible that speaks more about creation than any other book of the Bible, and this section of Isaiah within that set of chapters, speaks more of creation than all others. Isaiah speaks almost twice as much about creation than Genesis. And in the book of Isaiah, it's those chapters, 40 through 48, that speak of creation even more than the rest of the book. So that section underscores God as creator, hugely, tremendously. Why does it do that? Why would that section do that?

God can create. He brought about spiritual beings, and that's one thing. We think of creation, we oftentimes think of the physical realm. He brought about angels. How many angels? Innumerable. That's the figure given by Hebrews, innumerable. John tried to give it a number, myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands on top of that. He brought about human beings, created two, who then reproduced to create the billions that we have now. He brought the entire physical creation into existence.

Now, how well do idols do that? Not so good. They not only can't do that, but you have to use created matter to make them. That's not so good. And so the Lord makes this bold comparison. He says, I made everything. Let the idols try to do that. Isaiah speaks as the Lord's mouth as he talks through these chapters. And he challenges the idols much like Elijah did when he challenged the prophets of Baal. He says, let those idols try to make something. Just let them go for it. See what they do. Watch.

One of the little accounts talked about, I think, in Bible backgrounds or some class like that, goes like this. This is a Jewish story that's extra biblical. It's not in the Bible, but it's about Abraham. Abraham and his father lived in Ur. Abraham's father, according to this story, had an idol shop in the city of Ur. And at this idol shop, of course, Abraham and his father worked together. And then, at one point in time, Abraham's father said, Abraham, I got to go out for a while.

You watch the shop. I'll come back and, you know, take things over then. He said, fine, dad, no problem. Abraham's father takes off. Abraham takes an ax to all the idols except the one big one. and he takes the axe and puts it over right next to that idol. Abraham's father comes back, and needless to say, he's very surprised, and not positively so. Abraham, what happened? Abraham pointed to the idol and says, that guy did it. Abraham's father, of course, says, well, he can't do that. See? They can't do a thing. And that's Abraham's point, or at least so the story goes.

Isaiah 40-48 also says God knows the future. This is pivotal. One of the things that sets God apart is that He knows the future. In Isaiah, we have several passages there in this 40-48 section where the Lord repeatedly says, and again, it's the idol challenge, right?

Let the idols create. Then He repeatedly says half a dozen times, let the idols try to tell the future. Just ask them. See what they tell you, right? It can do it. God reveals the future to human beings by intent, on purpose. He deliberately reveals the truth that we need to know.

God's Word is not a crystal ball to tell us about what's going to happen in the future as if just to satisfy some human curiosity. What's going to happen in the future? That's not the purpose of God's Word. It is not a divinely inspired crystal ball, okay? So apologies, Doris. Okay.

Now, there's an Isaiah timeline here for us to take a look at. Here is Isaiah writing in his own day these, what we now number as 66 chapters, and Isaiah is prophetic. Certainly, he talks about things that have already happened. We already mentioned that creation is a theme in Isaiah that is unparalleled by any other Bible book. And this section that we've talked about, even more so. Isaiah talks about things in his own time. And as we go through this 36 through 39, where he writes in historical section, Certainly we'll see that.

But he gives short-term prophecies. In some cases we have evidence he gave prophecies that were a year to three years out. And that was a means of the people of that day confirming that he was God's prophet. Did these prophecies come true or is this guy full of horse feathers? Just slightly ahead, by that I mean like a couple or a few centuries, he prophesied things that now in his history we know actually occurred. He even gave the name of one of the men who was going to be pivotal well over a century in advance.

Christ's first coming, he gives details. We've seen that in chapter 7 particularly. This is a virgin, she'll give birth to a son. The second coming, the time even in our own day yet to come, he spells out a great deal about the millennial kingdom, the time when Christ will reign upon the earth, and this description of that millennial kingdom. And then into the last chapter, chapter 66, the new heavens and the new earth.

Isaiah tells a lot about things that are going to happen. He does tell a lot about the future, not for crystal ball curiosity, not to find out if you're going to be at a red light at 3.14 this afternoon or a green light. No idle curiosity, but things that are momentous, things that count. The idols, on the other hand, they don't know anything at all. Just ask them. They can't tell you even what's happening right now. The idols are no good for that. They can't even tell you what did happen. That's pretty bad.

Now, doesn't it make sense to trust the one who knows the future for sure? Doesn't it make a lot more sense? He knows where it's going. He knows its purpose. He knows its eternal purpose. In fact, he's the one that put it into place. There is a belief that has been gathering some steam in recent decades.

It's called open theism, openness of God, the open view, various terms like that. There are even some churches in this area, even some with the name Bible Church, that support that idea and propagate it. Open theism has this little quip, if you will, The God who likes surprises. Yeah, how do you like that? The God who goes, whoa! Who likes surprises. Open theism. God is as much in the dark about the future as you are. I didn't know that was going to happen. That's the God of open theism. That's what some say is the God of the Bible. Can you imagine that? Isaiah.

Chapters 40-48 says six times, the primary difference, here's the contrast, a primary difference between God and the pagan deities is that the real God knows the future. If I then settle for a God who doesn't know the future, is it closer then to a pagan deity? Yes, that's serious business isn't it? Serious sacrifice. major and huge thing to lose.

Another thing that starts out in this section and continues on into the next section is the My Servant theme. There are several passages in this section in Isaiah which refer to the Lord Jesus Christ as My Servant. And this is true of this passage upcoming in Isaiah here. The Apostle Paul carried this theme over as well in speaking and writing to the church at Philippi, saying that the believers there ought to look to Jesus Christ, saying, look, he took on the form of a servant, which is precisely what is brought out in the book of Isaiah. This is a doulos, and a similar word is used in that, my servant, here in the Greek Old Testament.

So, well in advance of Paul's writing, well in advance of that, Isaiah, seven centuries in advance, says that the Lord Jesus Christ would be his servant to carry out the things that he had in mind to do. My servant will justify the many as he will bear their iniquities. Jesus Christ, who is our Lord, coming in the form of a servant, God's servant, explicitly, has taken upon himself the sins of the entire world.

1 Timothy 4.10, For it is for this we labor and strive, because we have fixed our hope in the living God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of believers. 1 John 2, 1 there, Jesus Christ the righteous, and he himself is the propitiation for our sins, not for ours only, but for those of the whole world. The Lord paid the price sufficient for every single human being on the planet. Those who believe have forgiveness of sins, but the price is paid sufficient for all. This man paid the price. Did he pay the price for both of the guys crucified next to him? Yes. Only one of them took advantage of that.

One of them was the one that Jesus said, today you will be with me in paradise. Here is the gospel where Paul lays out, it is those who believe that Jesus Christ died for your sins, was buried and raised. That's the basics of salvation. All right, when Isaiah wrote that God's servant will justify the many, how many will be justified and what does that mean? As many as received him to them, he gave the right to become the children of God, even to those who believe on his name.

For the sake of time here, I'm going to jump ahead, so please don't get concerned that I'm all of a sudden popping ahead here and I need to do that. We fully deserve to bear the iniquities that the Lord carried on our behalf. They were our sins. He bore them on our behalf. He didn't do it out of drudgery. He didn't do it because, oh, okay, I guess I will. Alright. He did so out of a heart of love for us.

And this is amazing. Hebrews 12, 1 and 2, Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us lay aside every encumbrance in the sin which so easily entangles us. Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. for the joy set before Him." That is an amazing thing, isn't it?

For the joy set before Him, He endured the cross. He didn't just say, alright, if you want to, I guess I will. But instead, He looked ahead. He said, I have to pay the price for these people, even those people that are sitting in the pews at Holly Hills. Yeah, bargain. I'll go for it. I'll do it. Why? For the joy set before him, not out of drudgery, not out of compulsion. He didn't have to lay there while they put the nails through him. He did it for the joy set before him, out of his heart of love.

And Isaiah in Isaiah 53 gets a quick and amazing glimpse of that. Let's take a moment to pray. Lord, we thank you as we look at this set of passages here and look at what Isaiah lifts the curtain on here in terms of what is going to happen. We thank you as we look at that, that you for the joy set before you endured the cross, that you bore our griefs, that you took it upon yourself. We thank you in Jesus name, Amen.