About Isiah 53

THIS WEEK I read a little bit in this wonderful book called "The Case for Christ," where a former atheist journalist goes to really knowledgable Christian professionals in many different fields and discovers the evidence for believing Jesus. He asks all the right really hard questions, and these guys give him a bunch of really good answers so that he discovers the reliability of the Bible (which is remarkably reliable even among ancient texts) as well as the explanations to many things which get us Christians confused alot of the time. Lee Strobel has several books, including "The Case for a Creator" (which I'm really excited about reading sometime) and "The Case for Faith," and I strongly recommend these books to you.
Please borrow books from me! I have so many books to recommend (see the section on the right) and I have a compulsive urge to lend them to you!
Anyway, I was reading in that book about a Jew named Louis S. Lapides who grew up thinking the New Testament was like a Nazi handbook and who hadn't a clue about the Messianic prophecies. After he'd read those prophecies he read the New Testament and was blown back by how well Jesus with them, and how he hadn't even known! Can I get an "amen?" Mr. Lapides aksed GOD to show him whether Jesus really is the Messiah, and he was assured. He has been saved and become a pastor! So I wanted to share this chapter with you which Mr. Lapides was particularly amazed by. It's Isaiah 53, I hope you know it. When you read it, think about Jesus and who He is, and what He is meant to do.
Isaiah 53:
"1 Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? 2 For He shall; grow up before Him as a tender plant, as a root out of dry ground. He has no form or comeliness; and when we see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him. 3 He is despised andrejected by men, a Man of great sorrows and acquainted with grief. As we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. 4 Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; Yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by GOD, and afflicted. 5 But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His striped we are healed. 6 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. 7 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. 8 He was taken from prison and from judgment, and who will declare Hid generation? For He was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgressions of My people He was stricken. 9 And they made His grave with the wicked - but with the rich at His death, because He had done no violence, nor was any deceit in His mouth. 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 righteousness 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 sins of many, and made intercession for the transgressors."
Read it through. Amen, right? It was fun to type, too, let me tell you, because I got to look at it phrase by phrase. Those words are about Jesus, hundreds of years before He was born in this world! Isn't it great we have a copy of this? Imagine how confused the Jews must have been reading this before Jesus came. And many Jews and others have not a clue about this. If they don't believe us when we tell them about miracles, about the existence and goodness of GOD and about the ability of this one Son of GOD to wipe away our sins, I say we should try getting their attention by showing them this and the other prophesies. They're bound to say, "Woah, how did this get into the Old Testament? That sounds just like their Jesus, but it's a totally different time in history!" The New Testament includes so many allusions to the Old Testament, and I find a great number of them come from the writings of the prophet Isaiah. I read it and wonder what it was like for Isaiah to know He was prophesying the wondrous things that GOD would be doing to save His people - that's us! - from our own transgressions. What was it like to know these things and be the one to write it down for Him? I looked again at this chapter when I was doing my Purple Book lessons. I recommend this book to you: "The Purple Book: Biblical Foundations for Building Strong Disciples" by Broocks and Murrell. I'm doing this book with my Life Group (yay, I have a Life Group!) and this chapter explains how we sinners actually hide from GOD after we sin because we know we're guilty, and so He makes a covering for us by spilling the blood of something innocent, to save us. This He did with the troublesome two in the Garden, and this He did with us all by giving Jesus to "intercede" and to "bear our iniquities." I really love this passage, and I hope you all remember it too in this coming week and always.
May blessings and courage be with you from our Lord, every day we are in this world, and let's make the most of this time before He comes back, which could be any time or any decade!
Share your miracles, please! I'd love to hear about what GOD is teaching you, too!