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The Gospel Observer
"Go therefore and make disciples of all the
nations...teaching them to observe all that I commanded you,
and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age"
(Matt. 28:19,20).
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February 21, 2016
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Contents:
1) Evidences of Faith: The Suffering Servant (part 2 of 2, Jim
Robson)
2) News & Notes
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-1-
Evidences of Faith
The Suffering Servant (part 2 of 2)
Jim Robson
III. And By His Stripes We Are Healed
When we return to the passage in Isaiah, we find many more
remarkable things. In order to fully appreciate how remarkable
Isaiah's prophecies are, we must remember that he wrote more than
seven hundred years before Jesus came to earth. Moreover, we must
imagine ourselves to be living before the gospel had been preached
all over the world. Let us pretend that we never heard of Jesus
Christ, and pick up reading where we left off:
"Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we
esteemed Him stricken, smitten by 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 by His stripes 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" (Isaiah 53:4-6).
How can we explain such a passage? Who is Isaiah talking about? How
could someone else's suffering help to heal you or me? How can God
lay my iniquities on someone else? It is a truly puzzling message.
Of course, if we stop pretending, the answers are easy. For those of
us who have heard the gospel message, it is obvious that Isaiah is
referring to Jesus. We know this because the New Testament teaches
that all have sinned, and that the wages of sin is death, but the
gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 3:23,
6:23). It is through the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross that
sinners have the opportunity to be forgiven, and to be granted
eternal life:
"And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the
judgment, so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. To
those who eagerly wait for Him He will appear a second time, apart
from sin, for salvation" (Hebrews 9:27-28).
It is only through the atoning death of Jesus Christ that we have
hope of everlasting life, for 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."
There is yet another point to be observed in these verses. Isaiah
indicated that people would think that the Servant had been smitten
by God. Rather than seeing that He was suffering willingly, in
obedience to God, the people would think that He was being punished
by God. And, in fact, that is what happened to Jesus as He hung on
the cross:
"And those who passed by blasphemed Him, wagging their heads and
saying, 'You who destroy the temple and build it in three days, save
Yourself! If You are the Son of God, come down from the cross.'
Likewise the chief priests also, mocking with the scribes and
elders, said, 'He saved others; Himself He cannot save. If He is the
King of Israel, let Him now come down from the cross, and we will
believe Him. He trusted in God; let Him deliver Him now if He will
have Him; for He said, "I am the Son of God"'" (Matthew 27:39-43).
We can see in the sarcastic taunts of these men that they felt Jesus
was lying when He claimed to be the Son of God. Thus, from their
point of view, His suffering was what He deserved, being a
blasphemous heretic. They felt that He had been smitten by God.
IV. As A Lamb to the Slaughter
You will recall that we were led to this study of the suffering
Servant by the eighth chapter of the book of Acts, where Philip the
evangelist met the Ethiopian eunuch on the deserted road from
Jerusalem to Gaza. The eunuch was reading from the prophet Isaiah,
and Philip was able to preach Jesus to him beginning with that
passage. Let us now turn to the verses which the eunuch was reading
when Philip approached his chariot:
"He was oppressed and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth;
He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its
shearers is silent, so He opened not His mouth. He was taken from
prison and from judgment, and who will declare His generation? For
He was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgressions
of My people He was stricken" (Isaiah 53:7-8).
Isaiah asserted that the Servant of God would accept His suffering
without complaining or defending Himself -- even though He was
innocent. His suffering, after all, was not for the sake of His own
sins, but for the sins of God's people.
We see here that Isaiah again prophesied about the redemptive nature
of Jesus' sacrifice. Somehow, Isaiah -- who wrote more than seven
hundred years before Jesus -- knew that a Man would give His life to
pay for the sins of others -- as he wrote a few verses later, the
Servant would be an offering for sin (Isaiah 53:10). When
considering such a passage, we can see how this would indeed be a
perfect place for Philip to begin telling the eunuch about Jesus. On
the other hand, if we put ourselves in the place of the eunuch, who
had not yet heard of Jesus, we can see why he had trouble
understanding these verses. Why would God's Servant be stricken for
the sins of His people?
Of course, it is only in the teaching of Jesus and His apostles that
we find the answer to this question. Jesus' sacrifice was an
expression of God's love for mankind (John 3:16). It was the way of
bringing men and women from all nations into one people (Ephesians
2:14-18). It was the only way for God to be just -- that is, to
punish sin -- and also merciful -- to forgive the sinner (Romans
3:21-26). Jesus' sacrifice and resurrection were the fulfillment of
God's ultimate plan of redemption, whereby He bought back people
from the clutches of sin, and gained the eternal victory over Satan
(I Peter 1:17-19; Hebrews 2:14). It is in Jesus that God
accomplished the plan of salvation He had announced in the garden of
Eden, wherein the Seed of the woman triumphed over the serpent
(Genesis 3:15). Once again, we are brought face to face with the
fact that the books of the Bible, though penned by some 40 human
authors over a period of 1500 years, work in harmony to present one
coherent message.
But there is something else about these verses in Isaiah that is
striking. Notice that it is prophesied that this Servant, although
He did not deserve the punishment inflicted upon Him, would accept
it quietly. And, in fact, when we read the passages that describe
Jesus' final hours, we find that He made no attempt to defend
Himself, and that He offered no complaints (Matthew 26:47-27:50;
Mark 14:43-15:37; Luke 22:47-23:46; John 18 & 19). Although He
possessed the ability to eliminate His tormentors in an instant, He
accepted their abuse with all the meekness of a sheep before its
shearers. Indeed, He is the Lamb of God, the pure and perfect
sacrifice for sin (John 1:29).
Again, we need to ask ourselves, why would Isaiah, in the eighth
century BC, think to write about these things? What would make him
imagine a Servant of God who would suffer for the sins of the
people? What would make him think that this Servant would suffer
quietly, without defending Himself or complaining? Where would
Isaiah get such ideas? It is difficult to explain in naturalistic
terms.
In this article, we have looked at eleven verses of Isaiah's
prophecies of the Suffering Servant. We have seen that, in point
after point, Isaiah's predictions were fulfilled in Jesus. The
skeptic may suggest that the New Testament writers somehow
manipulated their accounts to give the impression that Jesus
fulfilled Isaiah's prophesies, but this assertion is without any
factual basis. On the contrary, many of the instances where the New
Testament describes how Jesus fulfilled Isaiah's prophecy make no
mention at all of Isaiah. If they were frauds trying to deceive
people into believing that Isaiah's prophecies were fulfilled in
Jesus, they would certainly point out the correlation between their
own stories and Isaiah's prophecies. Moreover, we cannot go to any
one book of the Bible to see all of these connections; the passages
which show the connections between the Suffering Servant and Jesus
are scattered throughout the New Testament. It is simply not within
the realm of reason to suppose that all of the men who wrote these
books, being in different parts of the world as they wrote, somehow
collaborated to produce such a perfectly harmonious correlation
between Jesus and Isaiah's Suffering Servant. Furthermore, when we
consider that all of the various passages we have cited blend
seamlessly in their context, we conclude that they could not have
been fraudulently inserted.
In other words, the passages we have considered are genuine,
authentic, and honest. That being the case, we cannot escape the
conclusion that Isaiah foretold of a Person and events more than
seven hundred years beforehand. That is powerful evidence of the
inspiration of the Bible.
-- Via The Watchman Magazine, September 1, 1999
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John 6:26-29
"Jesus answered them and said, 'Truly, truly, I say to you, you seek
Me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate of the loaves,
and were filled. Do not work for the food which perishes, but
for the food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man
shall give to you, for on Him the Father, even God, has set His
seal.' They said therefore to Him, 'What shall we do, that we
may work the works of God?' Jesus answered and said to them,
'This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent'"
(NASB).
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-2-
News & Notes
I was sorry to hear that Alma Lee Mayfield passed away
February 20. It was probably in 2002 when I first met her and
her husband Jim who were members of the church of Christ in Metairie
(a suburb of New Orleans), where I had attended some gospel
meetings. After the damage Hurricane Katrina brought to their
building, the church no longer met there. So Jim and Lee soon
placed membership with the Southside church of Christ in Gonzales,
which was about 58 miles from their home. Since it was on
Tuesday that we had our midweek service in Baton Rouge, it was there
in Gonzales where I became more acquainted with the Mayfields, for I
began attending the Wednesday evening services there on June 30,
2010 and continued to do so until moving from the Baton Rouge area
in June 2014. Lee was such a gentle, sweet, and friendly
person, and had also been quite an encouragement to others. I
always enjoyed talking with her. She will truly be missed.
Also passing away was Herbert S. Craft, Jr., of Trenton,
Florida. He was an uncle of Danny Bartlett, one of our
members.
It was also mentioned last week of the passing of Robert Allen
Young (the husband of Anita, another of our members), and of Shirley
Jernigan who was the mother of Gege Gornton, who used to also
attend here before moving away, and still has family who does.
We extend our condolences to all of these who have lost loved ones,
and let those of us who are Christians be remembering them in our
prayers.
And also for the following:
Carol Drain, who will soon begin chemo treatments for a total
of six.
Michelle Rittenhouse, who has been undergoing some medical
tests for her heart.
Also with heart trouble are Misty Thornton and Rex Hadley, Jr.
Barbara Sutherland (Marie Pennock's niece), who has been
diagnosed with breast cancer.
And Danielle Howard, who has been having some trouble with
her back.
WordPress version of this week's bulletin:
https://thegospelobserver.wordpress.com/2016/02/27/the-gospel-observer-february-21-2016/
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The Steps That Lead to Eternal Salvation
1) Hear the gospel, for that is how faith
comes (Rom. 10:17; John 20:30,31).
2) Believe in the deity of Christ (John
8:24; John 3:18).
3) Repent of sins (Luke 13:5; Acts 17:30).
4) Confess faith in Christ (Rom. 10:9,10;
Acts 8:36-38).
5) Be baptized in water for the
remission of sins (Mark 16:16; Acts 2:38; 22:16; Rom. 6:3,4;
Gal. 3:26,27; 1 Pet. 3:21).
6) Continue in the faith; for, if not,
salvation can be lost (Heb. 10:36-39; Rev. 2:10; 2 Pet.
2:20-22).
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Tebeau Street
CHURCH OF CHRIST
1402 Tebeau Street, Waycross, GA 31501
Sunday services: 9:00 AM (Bible class); 10 AM
& 5 PM (worship)
Tuesday: 7 PM (Ladies' Bible class)
Wednesday: 7 PM (Bible class)
evangelist/editor: Tom Edwards (912) 614-8593
Tom@ThomasTEdwards.com
http://ThomasTEdwards.com/go
(Gospel Observer website)
https://thegospelobserver.wordpress.com/
http://ThomasTEdwards.com/audioser.html
(audio sermons)