The Mystery of the Death of the Lords' Servant (Isaiah 53:10-12)
Rev. Myung-Sin Choi
“10 Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief. When You 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. 11 He shall see the labor of His soul, and be satisfied. By His knowledge My righteous Servant shall justify many, For He shall bear their iniquities. 12 Therefore I will divide Him a portion with the great, And He shall divide the spoil with the strong, Because He 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.”
Introduction
In 1998, I went to receive training in a mission home in Busan, Korea. In that mission home, there was a young minister who was serving and this minister was serving in New York, and a pastor went to this minister and told him to join training in Korea. He was doing his ministry well but suddenly, a spiritual problem came upon him. He was suffering so much from this spiritual problem that it turned him crazy. At that time, I was in the field and during worship, he couldn’t listen to messages and would just draw pictures during messages. But that minister continued to attend every message and did not miss any sermon. After a year, he was afflicted for a year but one day, in the midst of that insanity, one of the words from the sermon hit his heart. At that moment, he said that he felt something was coming out of his body. After he looked at his body and what he was doing, he saw himself drawing during the message. That person was healed and he is continuing to do his ministry still in Korea. I saw this in the field and I see these things in the fields. What I am always praying for is for the filling of the Holy Spirit that came upon Mark’s Upper Room to come upon me and this church. The reason is because when the word of God is proclaimed, the Holy Spirit is at work. I saw healing take place when the word of God is proclaimed. When the word of God is proclaimed, the darkness within your family line will be broken. John 6:63 “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life.” - May these works take place during today’s sermon. I received a lot of grace from the book of Isaiah 53. I think this message is very precious and important. That is why I always pray that I can always accurately proclaim about Jesus Christ. Through today’s sermon, Amy you discover Jesus Christ once again.
1. God's Will
1) God's plan of salvation
Verse 10 - This is astounding. It pleased God that Jesus was bruised. The reason why Jesus was bruised was because He suffered on the cross for mankind’s sins. In order to solve our sins, God wanted Jesus to die. What kind of being and person is able to do this? God took His Son, Jesus to die on the cross for the sins of mankind. Do you feel how much God loves you? Jesus was bruised for us. This shows the great pain that Jesus went through. In order to understand, we need to look at how lambs were sacrificed in the book of Leviticus. When a lamb is sacrificed, the entire blood of the lamb is drained and their skin is peeled off. This represents how sin is peeled off. When the skin is peeled off, the flesh is cut into pieces. This is showing how much pain and suffering that Jesus will go through. God allowed all of this.
Not only that but Jesus’ soul was given as an offering. “Soul” means “Nephesh”. When we look in Genesis 2:7, it speaks about the breath of life and this breath of life is also speaking about, “Nephesh.” This soul was given as an offering to God. God also took Jesus’ soul, not only His body, as a sacrifice on the cross. God allowed Jesus’s entire body to be used as a priest and to be sacrificed entirely. Why is that? The result of Jesus’ death was the “seed.” Through Jesus’ death, His spiritual children will be born. That is why if you look at the seed, it says that it will be prolonged. After Jesus died, He resurrected in 3 days. God allowed Jesus to fulfill His role as the eternal priest and allowed us to enjoy God’s presence eternally. This all took place so that God’s plan could be fulfilled through Jesus Christ.
There are two types of sin, which is trespass offering and sin offering.
2) God receives the burnt offering
There are two types of sin, which is trespass offering and sin offering. We can see this in Leviticus 5:15-18, 14:11 “If a person commits a trespass, and sins unintentionally in regard to the holy things of the Lord, then he shall bring to the Lord as his trespass offering a ram without blemish from the flocks, with your valuation in shekels of silver according to the shekel of the sanctuary, as a trespass offering. 16 And he shall make restitution for the harm that he has done in regard to the holy thing, and shall add one-fifth to it and give it to the priest. So the priest shall make atonement for him with the ram of the trespass offering, and it shall be forgiven him. 17 If a person sins, and commits any of these things which are forbidden to be done by the commandments of the Lord, though he does not know it, yet he is guilty and shall bear his iniquity. 18 And he shall bring to the priest a ram without blemish from the flock, with your valuation, as a trespass offering. So the priest shall make atonement for him regarding his ignorance in which he erred and did not know it, and it shall be forgiven him. 14:11 Then the priest who makes him clean shall present the man who is to be made clean, and those things, before the Lord, at the door of the tabernacle of meeting.” - Trespass sins examples are like stealing from the church and if you did, then you needed to pay back 1/5th of what you stole back to the church.
Leviticus 14:11 - This means that when you give a trespass offering to God, a priest will take the belongings of the person who stole and the person who stole before the offering. The soul of the sinner will be sacrificed. In the Old Testament, no human beings were sacrificed. But if you look, it says that their souls will be sacrificed. Not only was the lamb sacrificed but Jesus sacrificed His entire body and soul. When the trespass sins were given, then the bondage of God and man were restored. This shows the role of Jesus Christ as the true priest.
2. God's Plan
1) Christ's righteousness
Verse 11 - The fact that Jesus’ soul was sacrificed, Jesus was pleased with this. Do you understand the love of God? Do you feel it? We can kind of understand how a father may sacrifice His Son because He loved His Son but God, the Son, Jesus was the one who died for us. That is why God called Jesus His righteous servant. Why did God call Jesus His righteous servant?
Jesus who knew no sin since He was sinless but He still died for us so that we could become righteous again. We who were sinners, we were given the mystery of righteousness once again. Through Jesus’ knowledge, He possessed the knowledge to save people and restore their righteousness. Jesus was pleased with this, He fulfilled this through the power of the gospel. This shows Jesus’ role as the true Prophet. When we accept this and believe in this, then we can become righteous. Jesus was pleased that we will become righteous.
2) The gift of the Holy Spirit
Verse 12 - The result of Jesus’ death was that the power of the Triune God was upon us. Jesus was able to share the great power of God and shared this power with us. All authority and power was given to Jesus. This power that was upon Jesus has been given to us. With this power, He poured the power of the Holy Spirit upon us. This was because He was victorious on the cross. All powers of heaven and earth were on Jesus and are with us. This is because Jesus was the true King.
Ephesians 4:8 “When He ascended on high, He led captivity captive, And gave gifts to men.” - God gave all authority and power to Jesus. The power of the Holy Spirit was given upon Jesus as well. There was God’s great plan behind this. This great gift was shared to us as well. The greatest gift was the Holy Spirit that was given to us. This was possible because He gave up His body and soul on the cross. He died on the cross for us. Jesus gave up His soul and glory for us. Jesus gave up everything for us. The reason why we must discard everything before Jesus is because He gave up everything for us. In return, what did we receive? We were the sinners but Jesus bore all of our sins on our behalf. When Jesus died on the cross, there were 2 crosses next to him. There were two wicked sinners next to him but He was hung on the spot where the most wicked sinner would be hung. Satan thought that if he killed Jesus that he would rule over everything but the result was that all curses were put on Satan through the death of Jesus on the cross. When Jesus was dying on the cross, He prayed for the sinners next to Him. When Jesus died on the cross, Jesus prayed for us who were sinners.
Luke 23:34 “Jesus said, 'Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.' And they divided up His clothes by casting lots.” - This is astounding. Whenever I meditate and pray, I realize that Jesus who is the True King died on the cross for us. When He did this, not only did He broke down Satan but He broke down all darkness and curses of mankind. This is why we are alive because Jesus died for us. May we enjoy this. May we continue to live with the power and authority of a king.
3. Three Guideposts
1) Answers given ahead of time
We need to pray with the 393 prayer and the power of the heavenly throne. We need to enjoy our spiritual blessings. How can we be guided? We need 3 guideposts. God has given us answers in advance.
Acts 1:1, 3, 8 “The former account I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach, 3 to whom He also presented Himself alive after His suffering by many infallible proofs, being seen by them during forty days and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God. 8 But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.' ” - The accurate answer that we must hold onto is the power of the Holy Spirit, the power of Jesus Christ, and the power of the kingdom of God. God allows these powers through worship.
Hold onto Acts 13:2-3 “As they ministered to the Lord and fasted, the Holy Spirit said, 'Now separate to Me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.' 3 Then, having fasted and prayed, and laid hands on them, they sent them away.” - When we hold onto Jesus, the kingdom of God, and Holy Spirit then God will guide us. We will be raised and God will send us out.
2) Life's turning point
We need to discover our life’s turning point. Acts 16:7-8 “After they had come to Mysia, they tried to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit did not permit them. 8 So passing by Mysia, they came down to Troas.” - When we are guided by God in life, a problem may come upon us. No matter how much you pray, you feel like God is not answering you. This moment is the greatest turning point in your life.
Acts 16:8 - You need to lay everything down, listen to God’s voice, and pray. Then your life’s turning point will come upon you.
3) The last guidepost
Acts 19:21, 27:24 “When these things were accomplished, Paul purposed in the Spirit, when he had passed through Macedonia and Achaia, to go to Jerusalem, saying, 'After I have been there, I must also see Rome.' 27:24 Saying, ‘Do not be afraid, Paul; you must be brought before Caesar; and indeed God has granted you all those who sail with you.' ” - When you look at Paul’s journey, he always held onto Acts 1:8. His thoughts were always on how to fulfill God’s desire of world evangelism and Acts 1:8. And, how he can always be filled with the Holy Spirit. He always prayed these prayers. He prayed and he received the answer of Rome. God was so pleased.
Acts 27:24 - God guided Paul so perfectly. God’s goal is to save 237 nations and raise up 5,000 tribes. If you pray with these things, then God will answer you.
Conclusion
John 17:20 “I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word.” - This is not just talking about these people but God is talking about the apostles and us. Wherever we go, the power of life is given to us. We are able to have the power to save people around us. 237 and 5,000 tribes are not just God’s words but it is God’s absolute plan.
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