Have You Believed God's Report?

- Wayne Dailey -
Founding Pastor, Bethel Revival Center

God knew what would take place in that day when Jesus would give His life as a
ransom for this world. Let’s look at this account with this in our hearts and minds,
knowing that chapter 53 of the book of Isaiah is speaking of Jesus and His sacrifice
on the cross:

Isaiah 53:1
Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed?

Here are two questions: Who has believed our report? I thank God that those who
have believed and received Christ, believing on Him to the saving of their soul –
were believing the report give in God’s Word. In this report God speaks of giving
His Son Jesus to redeem the world.

And to whom is the Arm of the Lord revealed? The Arm of the Lord has been
revealed to us in His saving grace and great might, reaching His hand out to us.
These Scriptures were first given to Israel through the prophet Isaiah – but so many
of them failed to believe his report.

Isaiah 53:2
For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry
ground: He hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see Him, there
is no beauty that we should desire Him.

They should have been expecting that when Jesus came He wasn’t going to come
arrayed in His glory. He wasn’t going to come with all of the brightness that we
read of in Revelation. When He came to earth, He came with a robe of flesh. He
came down from heaven, taking upon Himself the form of man. And it doesn’t
sound like He was had a lot of beauty that we should desire Him.
What were they looking for?

Man wasn’t prepared for God to just send His Son in the form of man. What were
they looking for? What were they expecting? We should take note that the things
which are so clearly written can so easily be looked over. How could the nation of
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Israel look over all of this and fail to understand that they were doing what these
Scriptures are saying concerning the Lord Jesus.

Think about some of the things, then, that are so clear:

Isaiah 53:3
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 not.

Now, think of that. Just look at how they despised the Lord when He was here.
Now, not everybody despised Him – but there were multitudes who wanted
nothing to do with Him. When we read the Gospels we find the fulfillment of all
that was said here in Isaiah about Jesus’ sufferings. Remember, now, He didn’t
suffer these things for Himself – but for you and I. It was for us that He suffered,
so we could have deliverance.

A man of sorrows: we read of some of the things He went through. How would
those things affect us if we had to go through them? That mockery of a trial, being
led to Calvary, the open shame He faced hanging on the Cross.

Think about Jesus being despised, rejected, a man of sorrows – acquainted with
grief. These Scriptures are pretty plain in telling us what He went through. There
were the multitudes who wanted to follow Him, to be His disciples. Even a great
company of the priests turned to accept Him after His crucifiction. But then there
were others who rejected Him, who esteemed Him not, who wanted to have Him
crucified.

Would you feel bad if you were rejected by everybody? What if tomorrow there
was nobody who could say a good word about you? Everybody was down on you?
Everybody was saying all manner of evil against you? Would that bother you?
Think what it was like for Jesus to be rejected, to be despised – a man of sorrows,
acquainted with grief as people hid their faces from Him.

A lot of this trouble came from the high priests’ office. They were the ones who
stirred great animosity against Jesus, demanding His crucifiction. They were blind
leaders of the blind.

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We should have been hung on a cross

Isaiah 53:4
Surely He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem Him
stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.

He bore our griefs, and carried our sorrows. You and I should have gone to
Calvary. There should have been millions of crosses there at Calvary: one for
every one of us. The wages of sins is death (Romans 6:23). We deserved to die for
our sins. What did Jesus do to deserve Calvary? He who was without sin.

Jesus wasn’t put to death for His sins. He had none. He went to Calvary for us, in
our place. When He died for you and me, He was paying our debt. If Jesus hadn’t
died on the Cross in our place, we wouldn’t have escaped the dying. The best we
had going for us in our sins was that the wages of sin is death. Jesus paid that debt
for us.

Yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. When He was
hanging on the Cross many had harsh words to say:

Matthew 27:39-43
And they that passed by reviled Him, wagging their heads, and saying, Thou that
destroyest the temple, and buildest it in three days, save Thyself. If Thou be the
Son of God, come down from the cross. Likewise also the chief priests
mocking Him, with the scribes and elders, said, He saved others; Himself He
cannot save. If He be 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.

They derided Jesus as though He was getting what was due Him. They were
bringing all this on Him because He said He was God’s Son. And they said He was
blaspheming God. Oh, they were blinded, weren’t they.
O U R . . . not HIS

Isaiah 53:5
But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities:
the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are
healed.

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Notice how often we are mentioned in this verse: our transgressions, our iniquities,
chastisement of our peace. He did all this for us. It was because of our
transgression, our iniquities that He went to Calvary. And He took those stripes to
provide our healing. Couldn’t God have come up with a plan that wouldn’t require
Jesus to go through all this suffering?

There’s a higher, higher manner of thought and ways with God. God does not wink
at sin – He never did, and never will. Sin was always horrendous, always wrong:

Romans 6:23
The wages of sin is death . . .

Jesus came and paid those wages. He died on the Cross for our sins. He took our
place that we would have to bear that guilt.

Romans 6:23
. . . but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ.

Jesus came and went through all this that the world might be saved. We received
this gift when we turned to believe in Him. We believed His sufferings were for us,
for our salvation. And, when we believed on Him, God saved us.

But where is the world today? It’s not chasing after Jesus. It’s not running to
church. What are they going to say at the great judgment day? Will they declare, I
didn’t believe it. I didn’t want it.

Are they going to say those things they say now day after day – when they face the
final judgment? When they hear those final words, Depart from Me, ye cursed, into
everlasting fire? What are they going to say? They could have been saved if they
had chose to believe in Jesus to the saving of their souls. Their hardness of heart
and their unbelief. In refusing to believe, they face that second death – but they
didn’t have to end up there. All they had to do was to believe. God made a remedy
wherein they could be saved – IF they believed.

We look at the sufferings of Jesus for us, for our salvation. We are saved because
of that belief in Him. That’s the whole idea: He was wounded for our
transgressions; bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon
Him; and with His stripes we are healed.

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Here in this one verse, we can see how the sufferings of Jesus were written out in
detail here to show us what they were for.

He was bruised for our iniquities: they slapped Him with the palms of their hands,
they buffeted Him. And with His stripes we are healed: He took the whipping on
His back to provide for our healing. He gave His body to suffer in our place. It’s
hard for us to understand the great plan of God that brought our salvation – but
realize that it was for us. He was wounded for our transgressions.

The treasure of His peace – is ours

The chastisement of our peace was upon Him. This is one of the wonderful things
He has given us: peace with God.

John 14:27
Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I
unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.

He gave us His peace. We should be possessing the peace of God in our hearts. Do
you have peace? First, let me ask, Are you at peace with God? Jesus made peace
with God for us all through the Blood of the Cross. There’s just one mediator
between God and man – the Man Christ Jesus. He made peace with God for us.
The world is not at peace with God. The wrath of God abides on the sinner every
day. But it doesn’t have to remain that way:

John 3:16
For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever
believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

Yes, Jesus did all of this for us. The first place we find His peace in our lives is
when we are at peace with God, having received Jesus as our Lord and Saviour.
He’s a peacemaker, a mediator between God and man. Through Jesus’ sufferings
the way was made wherein we could have peace with God – when we believe in
Jesus as our Saviour. No longer are we at war with God. God’s wrath is no longer
on us. His grace is on us. His favor and His love are upon us. No wise are we in the
state we were in before salvation.

Let’s be thankful for this great peace we now have with God – that peace that
passes all knowledge and understanding.

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Reconciling the World

Now, God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Him. Calvary brought forth the
great work of God.

And with His stripes we are healed: the stripes that Jesus wore on His back. In the
judgment hall Jesus was stripped, and then beat with many stripes by the soldiers.
Those whippings laid many stripes upon His back. Through His body that was
broken for us, through those stripes we are healed. We don’t fully grasp how we
were healed of sickness and disease – but we were,

In Peter’s epistle (I Peter 2) we are told that with Jesus’ stripes we were healed.
Isaiah was speaking prophetically – looking ahead: but Peter was looking back,
after Jesus took those stripes.

Yes, His stripes had a purpose

Matthew 8:16,17
When the even was come, they brought unto Him many that were possessed with
devils: and He cast out the spirits with His word, and healed all that were sick:
that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying,
Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses.

We look also at the spiritual healing that came into our heart and soul. In Luke 4
Jesus talks about how the Spirit of the Lord was upon Him, anointing Him to heal
the broken hearted. He was there for them in His sufferings. He was there for the
bruised. He was anointed of the Spirit in His ministry to reach out to people in
need.

There was a full atonement made, affecting our whole life – in three major areas:
body, mind, and spirit. Romans 12 speaks of renewing our minds. There’s a great
renewal in our lives when we get saved. We live under the hand of God’s blessing
every day. He daily loads us with benefits:

Psalm 103:2,3
Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits: Who forgiveth all
thine iniquities; Who healeth all thy diseases;

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He would forgive all our sins, and heal all our diseases. What a marvelous thing to
have all our sins forgiven, and all our diseases healed. Do you believe God can
heal every disease?

Matthew 10:1
And when He had called unto Him his twelve disciples, He gave them
power against unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all manner of
sickness and all manner of disease.

Jesus was sending out the disciples, giving them power to heal all manner of
sickness and disease. We should take hold of this fact, believe it, and when
afflicted pray for His healing power and anointing.

I believe what the Scripture says. It is our duty to believe all that the Word of God
says. We shouldn’t read the Scriptures and pick and choose what we believe and
what we don’t believe. It’s God’s Word. We should read it with a concern,
knowing they are Scriptures of Truth. Truth will prevail, stand for ever. Truth
never gets changed. Why would one want to change truth? then it would be an
untruth, a lie. What Jesus told us is true. It was true then, and it is still true today.
It’s been true to every generation. Out of His mouth came only truth. He had no
lies to peddle, no pet peeves to talk about. He just preached the truth day after day.

To speak truth like Jesus spoke truth is to have a full knowledge of truth. How else
could He declare all He had to declare? It was given to Him of His Father to have
truth, to speak the truth. Yes, He spoke the truth – and He spoke it in love.

One thing about truth: it’s weighty. If you take it and examine it, you can’t change
it without changing it from the truth into error. The Scriptures are for ever settled
in heaven, never to pass away. They could burn a million Bibles, but the truth
would still be there. All the fiendish men that thought they could remove the Bible
from the world tried in vain.

For us!

Now, lets think of Jesus and His suffering . . . all for us. He suffered nothing for
Himself. He had no sin – but took our sins upon Himself on the cross, becoming
sin for us.

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Isaiah 53:6
All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way;
and the LORD hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all.

That’s the way we were before we received Christ. He came for our benefit. The
Bible calls us the sheep of His pasture. And we all had gone our own way, gone
astray; and the Lord laid on Him our iniquity – the iniquity of the entire world. The
guilt of all was laid on Him. The weight of that guilt. He who knew no sin bore our
sins to Calvary. It is His Blood that redeems us.

He did what we couldn’t have done for ourselves. If we tried it would not have
been acceptable in God’s eyes. By our works or by our efforts we cannot make
heaven our eternal home.

Isaiah 53:7
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 shearers is dumb,
so He openeth not His mouth.

In His sufferings, He did not become mouthy. Isaiah gives the illustration of a
lamb being led to the slaughter with no resistance. The lamb makes no noise on his
way to be slaughtered. Neither does it make any noise when it is being sheared.
When the shearers take hold of the sheep, and strip its entire coat of wool off – but
it makes no resistance. I watched my brother sheer his sheep, and they were silent.
And this is the way Jesus was in being led to the slaughter.

Jesus would have had every reason to cry out for the evil that was done to Him: but
He kept quiet. He was taking our sins upon Him. This is why He was sent into this
world – to suffer in our place. He wasn’t upset about those who were coming
against Him. He took it. He suffered those things for us. To think that He would go
through all of that just for you and I.

Isaiah 53:8
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.

All that Jesus went through! Our minds can’t fully comprehend it all.

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Isaiah 52:13-15
Behold, my servant shall deal prudently, He shall be exalted and extolled, and be
very high. As many were astonied at Thee; His visage was so marred more than
any man, and His form more than the sons of men

His face and His body were so beaten, more than any man. They had it in for Him,
branding Him as the devil. Bear in mind what went on at His trial. It was brutal.
They beat Him beyond recognition! His countenance was so altered and changed
by the beating they gave Him. And then they placed the crown of thorns on Him,
and beat it down with a rod upon His head.

And then they led Him away to be crucified, and laid spikes in His hands and feet.
Just imagine the pain! And yet He cried out from the cross, Father, forgive them!
They know not what they do.

Bear in mind that He endured all of this that you and I might have life. When you
look at the awfulness of sin, and compare it with the awfulness of the suffering
Jesus endured you’ll get some understanding why the cross. Sin could not just be
let go, ignored. God was not going to take sinners to heaven in their sinful state. He
was not going to bring the sin of the earth into His heavenly home. When we go to
heaven we will go without sin.

Revelation 19:7-9
Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honour to him: for the marriage of the Lamb
is come, and His wife hath made herself ready. and to her was granted that she
should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the
righteousness of saints. And He saith unto me, Write, Blessed are they which are
called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb. And He saith unto me, These are
the true sayings of God.

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