The Forbidden Chapter – Dr. Daniel Baugh, Jr. – June 25, 2023

The Forbidden Chapter

Isaiah 53:1-12

Introduction:

Sharing Jesus in Israel
1. Messianic Rabbi Zev Porat has often shared the account of how he and his Chinese wife have employed a creative but surprisingly effective way to get a Jewish person thinking and talking about one of the most stunning passages concerning the Messiah in all of the Old Testament.
2. Rabbi Zev Porat and his Chinese wife opened a Chinese Restaurant in Tel Aviv.
  1. The Israeli people love Chinese food.
  2. Because of that, they are keenly interested when a new Chinese restaurant opens in Israel.
  3. They are usually anxious to try it out as soon as possible.
3. Zev Porat and his wife took the Old Testament passage of Isaiah 53 and printed it on a flyer in Modern Hebrew.
  1. The handout did not mention that it was a passage from the prophet Isaiah.
  2. It was written in simple paragraph form, without any verse descriptions.
  3. They never claimed it was an advertising flyer for a restaurant.
  4. But, because his wife is obviously Chinese and they had a group from China helping them, many who took the pamphlet assumed we were advertising a new Chinese restaurant.
4. When they took these pamphlets to the streets of Tel Aviv, an amazing thing happened.
  1. They would hand out the pamphlets to people walking on the sidewalk or sitting on public benches.
  2. Then some of them came back and asked them, “What is this? Are you Christians?”
  3. Remember, there was nothing on the paper to indicate the writing was from the Bible and the name of Jesus was not mentioned anywhere!
  4. Rabbi Porat would answer, “Yes, we are—but why would you ask this?’
5. Their response was something like, “Because this writing declares what you Christians say about Jesus. This is the story of Jesus.”
  1. Rabbi Porat would just look at them, smile, and say, “Really? Would it surprise you to find out this writing is actually the 53rd chapter of Isaiah? These words are not from the New Testament at all, and they are not from a Christian sermon or lesson. They are taken directly from the Jewish Tanakh. Yet, you are telling me that the words sound exactly like the New Testament Yeshua? How can this be?”
6. At this point they are usually quite stunned.
  1. They can’t believe what they are reading a flyer that is in their Scriptures.
  2. So, Rabbi Porat opens the Tanakh to Isaiah 53 and asks them to read it aloud.
  3. When they are finished reading, they ask, “How is it that I’ve never seen this, or heard this?’
7. Rabbi Porat tells them, “It is because your rabbis don’t want you to know about it. They know it sounds just like Yeshua of the New Testament, and they are afraid that you might become believers. After all, without any pressure or preaching on my part, you saw it for yourself simply by reading right from the Tanakh. If the rabbis are not afraid of it, why have you never heard them read it aloud? Why have they never encouraged you to read it or ask questions about it?’
8. Rabbi Porat and his congregation are now ministering to several of those who returned to ask about the flyer.
  1. This has been a powerful way to start a conversation about the Tanakh and how it reveals Yeshua.
  2. Isaiah 53 is probably the most powerful passage in the entire Old Testament for reaching a Jewish person for Yeshua as Messiah.
  3. God certainly uses mightily other passages in the Old Testament for this purpose, but even the rabbis know that Isaiah 53 is particularly powerful.

Using Isaiah 53 to Witness
1. But this passage has been used from the beginning to witness to who Jesus is – Acts 8:26-40
  1. Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch riding in his chariot reading Isaiah 53!
  2. 30 Philip ran to him and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet and asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?” 31 And he said, “How can I, unless someone guides me?”
  3. 34 And the eunuch said to Philip, “About whom, I ask you, does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else?” 35 Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning with this Scripture he told him the good news about Jesus.

The Life Story of Jesus
1. Isaiah 53 is a biography of the Lord Jesus Christ written more than 700 years before He was born.
  1. If you had to choose the great chapters of the Bible, there’s no way that you could overlook Isaiah chapter 53.
  2. Martin Luther said, it ought to be written on parchment of gold with letters of diamonds.
2. I love that song that says, Tell me the story of Jesus; write on my heart every word. Tell me the story, most precious, sweetest that ever was heard.
3. That’s what we’re going to look at today, the story of the Lord Jesus Christ here in the Old Testament!

Jesus’ Virgin Birth – vv. 1-2
1. The Arm of the Lord
  1. “Who has believed what he has heard from us? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him.”
    1. Jesus is called here the arm of the Lord. “For he grew up before him—that is, the arm of the Lord—like a young plant, and like a root out of a dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him.”
    2. This speaks of the Lord Jesus as a tender young plant growing in a barren desert.
    3. It’s a wonderful metaphor of the virgin birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ that we heard from Isaiah in chapter 7:14.
    4. Isaiah has already told us that He would be born of a virgin and that his name would be called Immanuel.
    5. Then in Isaiah 9:6: “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given.”
    6. Notice, a child is born—that is His humanity. A Son is given—that is His deity.
  2. At the birth of our Lord, He left His throne in glory, and came down into this world of sin and woe.
    1. He came like a tender plant, sprouting up in a barren desert.
    2. He was born in the stall with animals with flies, cow dung on the floor, the stench of the barn, wrapped in course cloth, laid in a feeding trough, surrounded by shepherds.
    3. That is the birth of the Savior.

The Law of Genetics
1. Jesus was born of a virgin – and that is fundamental to who Jesus is.
  1. Without the virgin birth, we would have no hope of heaven.
  2. There’s no way that you could be saved without the virgin birth.
  3. Why? Because Jesus had to be the God-man and that is the only way it is possible.
2. Mendel described the law of genetics.
  1. The law of genetics tells us why Jesus Christ had to be born of a virgin.
  2. The law of genetics says that, when we’re born into this world, every individual is the sum total of the characteristics of both parents.
  3. That means that all that was in your father and your mother is in you.
  4. It also means that all that is in you was in your father and your mother.
3. You may have dominant or recessive characteristics, but all of both of your parents are there.
  1. Suppose that Jesus was not born of a virgin.
  2. Suppose that Joseph was His father and Mary was His mother.
  3. Then Jesus would have been nothing more than a human, because Mary and Joseph were nothing more than humans.
  4. There would have been no hope for our salvation because Jesus would have been only human and He could save no one.
4. The Father was God himself, and the mother was Mary, so, Jesus Christ was the God-man.
  1. Not half God and half man!
  2. He was all God and all man!
5. There was never another like Him.
  1. Never dismiss the virgin birth.
  2. No virgin birth = no deity
  3. No deity = no sinlessness
  4. No sinlessness = no perfect sacrifice
  5. No perfect sacrifice= no atonement
  6. No atonement = no new birth
  7. No new birth = no heaven for you or for me.
6. Jesus was born of a virgin, that we might be born again.
  1. Jesus came to earth, that we might go to heaven.
  2. Jesus became a son of man, that we might become sons of God.
  3. He was the virgin born Son of God.

Jesus’ Righteous Life – vv. 2-3
1. Like a Young Plant

²For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him.

³He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

“like a young plant” – some translations say “a tender plant”
1. It means something small, fragile, insignificant.
2. The great Lord God Almighty humbled himself.
3. He became without significance in the eyes of men – the infinite became an infant.
“a root out of dry ground” speaks of His humility, His small beginning, a baby in the manager, seemingly without promise.
Then there was “no form, nor majesty, or beauty about Him.
1. This means that Jesus was a man and did not come to dazzle people.
The wisdom of God is that Jesus, born of a virgin, born in a very obscure place, and raised in a lowly village where His father was a carpenter.
1. There was no form, no majesty, no beauty, that we should desire Him.
2. If you had seen Jesus, you would not have known Him.
3. He was a common, ordinary human being.
4. Why did Judas have to point Him out in the Garden of Gethsemane?
He did however have the beauty and character and majesty and the nature of God inwardly.
1. Jesus was like the Tabernacle in the wilderness.
2. From the outside it looked like an ordinary tent.
3. But if you had gone inside that tent, you would have seen the gold and the shimmering light.
4. You would have seen the lights of the golden menorah.
5. You would have seen the scarlet, and blue, and purple of the veil.
6. You would have seen silver and gold.
7. The most exquisitely beautiful structure on the inside that the world has ever known and that is the way it is with the Lord Jesus.
If all you do is look at Jesus outwardly, then you do not know Him!
1. If you do not become a part of Him, then you will never know His inward beauty.
2. When we see Him, there’s no form, no majesty, no beauty, that we should desire Him.

Jesus’ Substitutionary Death – vv. 4-11
1. Written 700 years before His birth
  1. Remember that this was written 700 years before Jesus was born!
    1. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
    2. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people? And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth.
    3. Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities.
  2. Why was Jesus born of a virgin?
    1. So that He might die as a substitute for our sins.
    2. Jesus died in our place for our sins.
    3. The purpose of the death of the Lord Jesus on that cross was substitution.
    4. You and I sinned, and that sin must be paid for.
    5. God never has, God never will, God never can, let anyone’s sin go unpunished.
    6. God’s main attribute is holiness and if God were to let even one sin go unpunished, God would cease to be a holy God.

Jesus Took Our Sins to the Cross – vv. 5-6
1. Verses 5 and 6: “But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.”
2. He was pierced for our transgressions, as someone would be pierced by being nailed to the cross.
  1. The Lord Jesus took my sin and your sin upon himself.
  2. The Bible says that we went astray, and the Lord hath laid on him—Jesus—the iniquity of us all.
3. That explains what Gethsemane is all about.
  1. In night of Gethsemane, Jesus Christ is there alone, praying.
  2. The city sleeps, the disciples are asleep, but Jesus’ eyes will not close in sleep, until they close in death.
  3. Jesus is praying in such agony that His sweat is like drops of blood coming from the pores of His skin.
  4. And His prayer is, O Father, Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.
  5. The silence from heaven says, there is no other way.

Jesus Drank from the Cup
1. What was the cup that Jesus was talking about?
  1. It was the substitutionary death on the cross.
  2. What was in that cup?
  3. All of the filth, all of the perversion, all of the sins, all of the wickedness, all of the cruelty, all of the hatred, all of the evil of all of this world from Adam till the end of time.
2. The Lord Jesus Christ, who never knew sin, had to take that cup and drink it.
  1. Him who knew no sin God has made to be sin for us.
  2. The iniquity of us all was laid upon the Lord Jesus Christ.
  3. Bless the Lord—bless the Lord—O my soul.

Jesus Was Silent – v. 7
1. “He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth.”
  1. What an incredible prophecy this is!
  2. Matthew 27:12-14
    - 12 But when he was accused by the chief priests and elders, he gave no answer. 13 Then Pilate said to him, “Do you not hear how many things they testify against you?” 14 But he gave him no answer, not even to a single charge, so that the governor was greatly amazed.
  3. If you and I had been there and the chief priests and the elders had accused the Lord Jesus, we would have wanted to say, “Jesus, just tell them; just tell them straight out who you are, and tell them that you’re dying for our sins, not for your own.”
    1. But Jesus didn’t answer a word.
    2. Do you know why?
    3. Because the Bible says, “He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth.”
    4. Why did Jesus not open His mouth? Because He was my substitute.
    5. And, as my substitute, He had to take everything that I would have to take.
  4. There is coming a time when every unsaved person will stand before God, and they will not be able to say a word!
    1. The Bible says, let every mouth be shut and all the world become guilty before God.
    2. When you stand before God at the judgment, if you are unsaved, all of your sins will be upon you, and you will have absolutely nothing to say.

How Jesus Died
1. Jesus died in the eyes of those people as a criminal.
  1. They thought He was a criminal so He was despised and rejected of men.
  2. He was bearing our sin, our sorrow, but they saw Him as stricken, smitten of God and afflicted.
  3. They said, He’s just getting what He deserved, but He was getting what we deserved!
  4. I want everybody to know that I love the Lord Jesus!
  5. He took my sin and He took my shame and He did not even open His mouth through it all.
2. Jesus died alone.
  1. He was separated from God the Father on that cross.
  2. And not only did He take my sin, my shame, my separation, but He took my suffering.
  3. “By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people?”
3. Jesus died in suffering.
  1. We all need to learn about the suffering of the Lord Jesus Christ because then we will learn to love Him more.
  2. There is only one thing that will satisfy a holy God, and that is the sin payment made by the Lord Jesus Christ upon that cross.
  3. “Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities.”
  4. There is no way that you can satisfy God’s payment for your sin, there is no way that you can be saved, apart from the gospel of Jesus Christ.
  5. And God is telling us that 700 years before Jesus went to the Cross as God’s Messiah!

Jesus’s Victorious Resurrection! – v. 9
1. He shall see his offspring!
  1. “And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth.”
    1. Jesus was buried in a rich man’s tomb!
    2. This prophecy is so explicit and correct in the details of Jesus’ death and burial.
    3. “although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth.”
    4. Jesus was not a sinner—“ Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.”
  2. Jesus—shall see his offspring!
    1. “His seed” some translations say – That means His descendants.
    2. Why, He never got married.
    3. He’s dying at 33.
    4. Yet he shall see his offspring—His family—he shall prolong his days.”
    5. How can He prolong His days, He’s dead“… and the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.”
    6. What do you mean, descendants? What do you mean, prolonged days? What do you mean, the will of the Lord prospering in His hand?
  3. What it means is that Jesus came out of that grave!
    1. The Living Bible paraphrases it this way: “He shall live again”!
    2. That’s what makes Jesus Christ unique.
    3. There have been other religious leaders.
    4. Confucius came, lived, and died; and he’s dead.
    5. Buddha came, lived, and died; and he’s dead.
    6. Mohammed came, lived, and died; and he’s dead.
    7. Jesus came, lived, died; and rose again!
    8. Jesus is shown to be the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead.
  4. I read about a pastor who was visiting in Red Square in Moscow.
    1. The tomb of Lenin is there and there are soldiers there guarding his tomb.
    2. The pastor asked the guard, “Why are you here?”
    3. He said, “We’re guarding the tomb of our leader.”
    4. The Pastor said, “There’s nobody guarding the tomb of my Savior.”
    5. The guard said, “Why not?”
    6. The pastor said, “Because He’s not there. He is risen!”

Jesus’ Return
1. God sees and is satisfied – v. 11
  1. verse 11: Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities.
    1. He—that is, God the Father—shall see the anguish of his soul, and be satisfied
    2. Then—now, watch—” by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities.”
    3. And I want you to know that I’m one of those many who have been accounted righteous!
  2. At 14 years of age I repented of my sin.
    1. I said, Lord Jesus, forgive my sin, come into my heart, and save me.
    2. By the blood of Jesus I was justified by faith.
    3. Not by any works that I’ve done, but according to His mercy He saved me and made me righteous before the Father.
    4. Now listen to it: “for he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong”
    5. “because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors”
  3. Do you know what that means?
    1. It speaks of the time when Jesus will come again!
    2. Jesus Christ, the Messiah, the Redeemer is coming again to stand upon this earth, one more time.
    3. The only hope for this world is the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.
  4. We’re seeing that now, aren’t we?
    1. Washington can’t do it.
    2. The president can’t do it.
    3. The military can’t do it.
    4. The universities can’t do it.
    5. Science can’t do it.
  5. Isaiah told us this seven hundred years before He was born.
    1. The King of kings and Lord of lords is alive.
    2. And one day soon, He’s coming back – oh, glorious day!
    3. I can hardly wait for Jesus to come again!

Do you want to be saved?
1. I can’t understand why people don’t want to be saved.
  1. The only thing God asks them to give up are the things that will hurt them.
  2. When God says, I love you; I want to bless you, why don’t they let Him do that?
2. A pastor stood and preached and asked people to come forward and give their hearts to Jesus.
  1. A little girl, who didn’t understand what was going on, asked her mother, Mother, what are all those people doing?
  2. The mother said, they’re going forward to give their hearts to Jesus.
  3. The little girl said, why don’t we all go?
  4. That’s a good question!
  5. Why don’t we all go?

The Forbidden Chapter – Dr. Daniel Baugh, Jr. – June 25, 2023

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