Who hath believed our importance, and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? For he shall go up before us or before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground. He hath no form nor commonness. And when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. 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 of not. Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgression. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed. A subject this morning, the darkest day in the history of man, and we'll have an opportunity a little later on to show you what I mean by the darkest day in the history of mankind. When the sun refused to shine, when nature showed her sympathy for the one who was suffering upon the cross, and when darkness settled down upon this creation, what caused all this? In our text we read, He was wounded. Who was wounded? If you were to read this chapter and also beginning at verse thirteen of the preceding chapter, you would find who it is. Fifteen times you read in those verses something about he, him, and his. And the entire reference is to our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, if you want New Testament confirmation for that, all you have to do is turn to Acts chapter eight. When that Ethiopian unit was sitting in the chariot reading the prophecy of Isaiah, you remember how the Spirit of God led Philip to go up and sit beside him and answer his questions. Because the eunuch had asked this question, who speaketh the prophet did, Father himself, or some other man? How interesting that the Spirit of God should have led that interested man, a man who was Chancellor of the Exchequer of the Queen of Ethiopia, returning from Jerusalem, back to his homeland, carrying a parchment of Isaiah. How wonderful the Spirit of God should have led him to this chapter and to these verses. And his curiosity was aroused, and he said, Of whom speaketh the prophet is? Of himself or some other man? And you remember what Philip said. It says concerning him he began at the same Scripture and preached unto him Jesus. So we know that the he referred to in this verse five is the Lord Jesus Christ. He was wounded. The word was emphasizes the reality of it. He was, no guesswork here, he was wounded. His feelings were wounded. His heart was wounded. His mind was wounded. His body was wounded. He says, Is it nothing to all thee that passed by? Behold and see if there be any sorrows, like unto my sorrows, wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger. Oh, yes, she was wounded. A wound is defined by a surgeon as the division of the soft parts of the body by mechanical force. About thirty-five years ago, I was in the home of Dr. Cameron of Detroit, staying in his home over the weekend while preaching at the chapel there. And he said, I've written a little book that may be of interest to you, Brother Wilson. I'll be glad for you to take it and read it. And the title of that little book was, he was wounded. And in that book he points out there are five different kinds of wounds, and all of them apply to the Lord Jesus Christ. I think in a sermon as I looked it up, I wondered where I'd preached that and when. So I went through my file and found that I did on one of the months of nineteen sixty-three, I think it was the month of October. And so I referred to these five wounds, and I'm going to refer to them again. First of all, there is the confused wound. They shall smite the judge of Israel with a rod upon the cheek or upon the face. You read in Micah five wonders. And in the New Testament, they said it was a reed. They smote him with a reed. This caused a bruise, bruises. upon his heads and face. There you have a contused wound. Then you have a lacerated wound, a wound caused by a tearing instrument you have there in Isaiah fifty and six. The skirt he gave his back to the spiders and his cheeks to them that plucked off the hair he hid not his face from shame or spitting. Here is that lacerating wound. as those pieces of steel in that last, that Roman skirt, was drawn across its back, tearing the flesh from the bone. And as one has said, this back was like an island of ivory in a sea of blood. The result of that last, these lacerating wounds. Then you have a penetrating wound caused by a sharp-pointed instrument. Here are the wounds. the result of the crown of thorns that rested upon his head. Those long Jerusalem thorns about three inches in length, as they made that crown of mock royalty and put it upon his head, and then with the reed they spoke it, and there you have those rung wounds in his head, encircling his brow, penetrating wounds. But there is the perforating wound, a wound that goes right through. And where do we see this? He says they pierce my hands and my feet in Psalm twenty-two. And that's exactly what they did. But you come to an incised wound caused by a sharp-edged instrument. Here is the spear, that the soldier lungs into his side. Now this is the only wound that Jesus Christ did not feel. He felt all the others. But when this wound was inflicted, he was dead. For when the soldiers came and they break the legs of the first and of the second that was crucified with them, the feet on either side, When they turned to Jesus, they thought he was dead already, and the soldier drew back his arms, with his spear. He flipped the Savior's heart and train when he plunged it into his stride, forthwith the tain of blood and water. We hear today about blood plots and serums, such nonsense, such disgusting expression. to be used in connection with the Lord Jesus Christ. This had no implication whatsoever, or no leak with God's salvation and the work of atonement, because he was already dead. He already had said it is finished, and healed up is finished, and the water and the plants that flowed from the Spirit had no relation whatsoever to our salvation. How do you express it then, or explain it? in this book by Dr. Cameron, and as he explained it to me that time, and why I haven't used it more frequently, especially of late, I don't know, although it's popped into my mind quite frequently. Here you have in this connection a wound, and it's caused in the side of Christ, and out from that wound came blood. That's clear. It must have flowed out. It wasn't bloodshot. And water! Dr. Cameron said there is such a thing as known as a pericardium, a sack that encases the heart of man. I see another stuff at the front here. Possibly he knows something about it. Ask your heart, doctor. Under normal circumstances, that sack of pericardium holds about one teaspoon full of liquid. But under extreme pressure and suffering and agony, that has been known to increase to a pint, and just like water. And it was that that that was punctured, when the spear went into a sack, that sack encasing the heart, containing around the pint or even more water, the water flowed out, the coupling of blood. That's the explanation, only sane and sensible explanation of the blood and of the water. It was that! And it was water, the blood from the heart, and the water from the pericardium. Some would minimize the physical sufferings of Christ and Christ and enhance His spiritual sufferings. I find no such differentiation in my Bible. In other words, if you read your Bible, you'll find, especially in Psalm twenty-two, that we'll be referring to in a few minutes, There's none. The spiritual and physical sufferings of Christ. In other words, meaning the same thing. You can get that out of your dictionary if you like. I only read a one death in my Bible, not two deaths. As some supposed genius claim, a physical death and a spiritual death. One death, one sacrifice. He died unto sin once, my Bible says, in Romans chapter six and ten. And we also read that we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all, not the offering of His Spirit. But we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. That's what my Bible says. Death is an entity. It includes several things. I don't find the true death. I find this about that one death, his crucifixion, his suffering, and his bloodshedding, and also the outpouring of God's wrath upon him, and included in that, he dismissed this spirit. One death. That's the entity of the death of Christ. They're all one. Now, I'm going to read to you. Some of the verses of Psalm forty-two, you can read it yourself. This came before me the other night while I was in bed, so I got up and looked at it. Now notice, this song gives us more of the inner feeling than expressions of the Lord Jesus when he was on that cross during the darkness than even the gospel. When that darkness settled down, Upon the face called Calvary and lasted for three hours, the sun refused to shine. Why? How could God shine upon or smile upon what they had done to his son? And seeing the sun refused to shine, if the sun were to go down now, or if there were any fits, the possibility is you could see the moon. because the sun shines upon the moon and the moon reflects the light of the sun upon the earth. But when the sun refused to shine, there was no reflection of light even from the moon. Darkness at noon days, the darkest time on power of the human race. When man killed the Son of God, even nature would have no part in this dastardly need. when they said, Away with this man, Away with this man, we'll not have this man to reign over us. Yes, there was a darkness being, the stain, the pains of human history. When God sent his son into this world, and they crucified him in cold light. Now listen, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so far from heaven me and from the words of my Lord? Oh, my God. I cry in the daytime, but thou hearest not. There are the three hours of light. And in the night season, I am silent. I am not silent. There are the three hours of darkness. Here is the Lord Jesus upon the cross. though he did something at the hands of men. And he separated from God because God could not look upon the state. But his spirit in no way, shape, or form died. When did the spirit die? Never. He was still God, though hanging upon that cross. For the Bible speaks of the church which God has redeemed with his own blood. He was still grogged, although he was on the cross, and his spirit never died. You can't find it in your Bible. Now listen, following that, to these sufferings of his body. Verse fourteen of Psalm twenty two. I'm poured out like wax, and all my bones are out of the door. My heart is like wax, and is melted in the midst of my powders. My strength is dried up like a postard, and my tongue fevered through my jaws. Thou hast brought me into the dust of death, not death, but death. For gods have compassed me. The assembly of the wicked have enclosed me. They pierced my hands and my feet. I may tell all my bones, they look and stare upon me. They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my gesture. And you can read that full sound throughout the verse twenty. And he speaks more of his physical suffering than he does. the answer to this Father's fellowship. How clear the Scripture is. His body relaxed in death when He said, it is pinched, and He yielded up the Spirit. He bowled His tent upon His breath. His work was done. He yielded up His Spirit. and the death of the body and the departure of the Spirit were at the same time. For as the Spirit left, his body slumped or relaxed in death upon the neighbor. The Bible is very plain on that. The only time you find spiritual death in the New Testament or in your whole Bible as far as that's concerned is in Ephesians two and one. you have the crippled who were dead in trespasses and in sin. There you have the crippling of the spirit of God to life in the hearts of those who were dead in trespasses and in sin. That's the only time you read of a spiritual death. And this condition of the Ephesians Before they were saved, their condition was alienation from God, disobedience to God, and domination by the Prince and the power of the earth. That was never true of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ was not alienated from God in the sense the Ephesians or we were where, before we were saved, let alone disobedience of God. Let alone being controlled by the Prince and power of the air which is sacred. showing that that spiritual death there refers to sinners, quickened by the Spirit, has no connection whatsoever with the death of Christ. The offer himself without spot to God. That rules out every other death of the sinner. Only Jesus Christ offered himself without spot to God. His heart's cry is given us in verses one and two of Psalm twenty-two. But in the rest of those verses, verses six to ten and thirteen to eighteen, his reference to his sufferings and the sufferings of his body. But was he talking about his spirit in those verses? Or was he talking about his body? He was talking about his body. That's very clear. If the Spirit died, I want to ask you a question. When did the Spirit rise? I find nothing in my Bible along that line. I know the answer about the body. His body rose. The Spirit cannot die. That's absolutely impossible. The Spirit cannot die. Nor can the Spirit save. Now if a spirit could die and a spirit could save, God could have dispatched an unfallen angel, for angels are spirits. Yet therefore, an angel, a sinless angel could have come down and died. If a spirit could die, if a spirit could save, but that's an absolute impossibility. He took not upon himself the nature of angels. He took upon himself the seed of Abraham, a human body. Listen to this in Hebrews two, fourteen, sixteen. For as much then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, and I want you to get that. He, the Lord Jesus, also himself likewise took part of the same, that through death, singular, not plural, that through death, he might destroy him that has the power of death, that is the devil, and deliver them or us who through fear of death for all our lifetime subject upon him. For verily he took not on himself the nature of angels, but he took on him the seed of Abraham, a literal body with flesh and with blood. The body gets the pre-eminence in salvation, He says, a body hast thou prepared me. That's very clear. He bore our sins in his own body on the truth. That's in your Bible in first Peter two and twenty-four. You know, there are a number of things we find in the Scriptures that are linked together. And these are two important ones, his death and his resurrection. I find absolutely nothing about the death and resurrection of the Spirit of Christ. But seven times over, I find death and resurrection of the body related to seven important truths in our life. The truth of salvation, the subject of justification, and also the subject of our being not condemned, no condemnation, and the very subject of His Lordship. and the subject of consecration, and the subject of consolation, and the subject of eternal glory, does not contend upon the death or resurrection of the stone. I'm going to give you those scriptures. They're very pleasant to read. In First Corinthians fifteen and three and four, salvation. For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures. There's the death, burial, and resurrection of the body associated with salvation. Then justification in Romans four and twenty-five. Who was delivered for our offenses raised again for our justification? if the body of Jesus Christ is insignificant, if all the emphasis upon the spiritual death, Christ, why is it we read these texts that we can only be saved, that we can only be justified when the body, the literal body of Jesus Christ rose from the dead? That's the Bible. No condemnation. Listen to this. in Romans eight thirty four who is he that condemns it is Christ that died yea rather that is risen again who is even at the right hand of God who also make an intercession for life no condemnation why because Jesus Christ was condemned in my place at the cross and to show God's satisfaction in the death of Christ God raised them from the dead. Therefore, seeing Christ was condemned to be, there's no condemnation now, for I've made that Savior mine. Then his lordship, in Romans, fourteen and nine, for to this end Christ both dined and rose and revived that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living. The lordship of Christ over the life of a Christian is dependent upon the literal death of Christ and the literal resurrection of Christ. I find the Spirit of God not included in those two deaths. I know the Spirit of God has something to do with his resurrection, for he was declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness by the resurrection from among the dead. That certainly wasn't the Spirit of God that rose from the dead. It was His literal body, the body of Jesus Christ. Then you have consolation or consecration. In Second Corinthians five and fourteen and fifty, for the love of Christ constrained us, because we thus judge that if one died for all, then we're all dead. and that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and goes again. Our very consecration to God is dependent. And the acceptance of the offering of ourselves to God, for that is what consecration means. It is dependent and accepted on the fact that the literal death and the literal resurrection of Jesus Christ. Then consolation. Read that over in First Thessalonians chapter four. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring the rich. They say Christ should have died on the cross. I asked the question, when did his spirit rise? And if we were to be told that a spirit did rise, and went back to the Father, and we have no further evidence, we'd be in the dark. For when my Bible speaks of a body, a literal body, a man who's done, and on the third day rose again, a literal body, there to be seen at hand. For what did he say to the disciples in the upper room? Handle me and see, for a spirit hath not flesh and bones that ye see me hath. He immediately explained to them that the spirit was not there in their midst. He was there. The person of our Lord Jesus Christ. Handle me and see for the spirit thou blest in bones, as you see me. And so this is the consolation that when Jesus Christ comes again, when he comes for his people, when he comes for his church, we're going to have literal body. We're not going to be a bunch of spirits. For as he is, so he shall be. In a nice afternoon, he the first sheep, and all who are saved of his coming, shall be caught up to meet him in the air, thus for a mighty harvest of souls. The first sheep has already gone to heaven, a sample of that mighty harvest of gold and grain, precious souls saved by the grace of God, and we shall be like him. Beloved, now we are the sons of God. And it does not appear yet what we shall be. But we know that when He shall appear, we shall be like it. We shall see Him as He did. And then the last and seventh thing is the glory. Revelation one, eighteen, and we hope to announce next Sunday definitely when we start, maybe two weeks from today, it depends upon the reaction to this morning's message. How I feel. What did he say in Revelation one? I am he that lived. I was dead, but I am alive, whatever more. What did they see in heaven? A lamb fleshed his way. They saw the person of Christ. He saw in his excellent glory. He doesn't say the Spirit died in his again. For a literal body died, there he rose again, ascended, seated, and God fled. These are the seven scriptures, the seven truths that are dependent absolutely upon the literal death and literal suffering and literal resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, who literally went back to heaven. and who will literally come again to the air. For we shall be caught up together till we kill him, him, the air. That's a wonderful consolation. What is the cause of his wounding on the cross? He was wounded. You can't wound the spirit in the sense he was wounded. He was wounded. He was wounded. how he's going to bruise a spirit. He was chastised. How are you going to chastise a spirit? And with the stripes that fell upon him, how are you going to put stripes upon him? The Spirit. He's talking about the suffering in his body. He was wounded for our transgressions. That was the cause of his wound. He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquity. The chastisement with the view to our having peace was upon him and with his stripes. The stripes that fell upon him. I am healed. I am saved. How wonderful that is. There you have the fruit of the wounded. Healed. That word healed implies and includes pardon. fordiveness, freedom, life, peace, be saved, and to be satisfied with time and for eternity. In the coming day, and we're right for it, Israel is right. She's back in the land, she's waiting. Would your God instead start looking to Egypt one year, Egypt one year later, or looking to our world, to Syria, or fearing Russia or China, oh, if the Jews today got a hold of the truth of God, then he looked for him, the only true deliverer of that nation. And he will deliver them in a coming day, in that dark day the Son of the Son of God, upon Israel. Then they should see him come. They'll ask the question, what are these wounds in thy spirit? No. What are these wounds in my friend? He shall say, These are they? I was wounded in the house of my friend. I was in the house of my friend, nineteen hundred years ago. You were my friend, but your proof is right now. You condemn me. You have been able to a cross. You didn't believe I was your Messiah, but I was. And because you reject me then, you were set aside and blessed. Loved to the Gentiles. But I called out to the nations the Gentiles who trusted me during these nineteen hundred years. And you, because of your rejection of me nineteen hundred years ago, have passed through the fires of persecution. A national struggle, an almost extinction. to the dark ages, but now you're alive. You're a nation in the left. And if you believe now that I'm your Messiah, your king who is crucified, here's the evidence I'm the same one that hung on that cross outside in the early century, nineteen hundred years ago, with a mock crown that's fallen from my head. When they shall look upon him, whom they have seen. It is Israel who will use this language. She was wounded for our sake. He was bruised for our wickedness. The chastisement was laid upon him for us to put away our sins and be distracted. We as a nation can be healed, and then it shall be a nation shall be born in the day when Israel will receive their long long form of science, who came, who came unto his own ninety hundred years ago, and his own received a knock. But since then, as many as received him, to them gave you the power to become the sons of God, until that glad day when the church completes an assignment, shall be sought to glory. Then he turns his attention to his trusted people, Israel, now in the land surrounded by a river. And he is their promised deliverance. He will come, and he'll save his will from extinction and annihilation. They shall look upon him who may have sinned. The literal body, the marks, the wounds of Calvary still upon that blessed body, and throughout eternity were not for the look of the Spirit. Oh, no. How shall I then know the amid so most about it. What token too will show me the object of thy love? Those wounds, those wounds, Lord Jesus, those deep, deep wounds will fail of the sacrifice of freedom from sin, from death, from death. How wonderful when we can say wounded for me, wounded for me. There on the cross she was wounded. Yes, can you sing that? Jesus Christ was bruised and bruised, chastised, chastised, and striped with a stroke of blood, that I might be healed, that I might be saved. He's a living man at God's right hand. Why don't you accept? Confess yourself as sinner before God and worthy of eternal death. Believe the Lord Jesus Christ to be your substitute for your sins and for the penalty of your sins. Say, I accept him as my personal Savior now, and then thank him for the forgiveness of all your sins and trust him, for grace and strength to live for him until he comes, or till sadly they are done. will you say this morning concerning the Lord Jesus? Yes, he was. He was free. He was chastised. And I might say, people say, I want to feel. You're not saved on your feelings. You're saved by the feelings he felt when he took your place on suffering in your stead. And there were sad and ghastly feelings But if you accept in your feelings, you will be feeling of relief. God, bless, and glory, and evermore. Our Father, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, who commends to thy presence, we ask thy blessing upon thy glory, grant of some precious soul and mystery, and might come to know the Savior whom to know is light eternal. ask it in our Savior's precious name. Amen. Shall we sing in closing our favorite hymn, Two Hundred and Fourteenths. It might be a good one to sing that hymn at the end of anyone who is right at the moment. Wounded for me, wounded for me. It's a lovely chorus and new girl to read it. Five-O-Five. Let us sing five-O-Five. Most of us know it. Will you use it to language as we stand and sing? But if you've trusted Christ this morning, come and tell us. If you've made that decision in the past and not contest it suddenly, here's your opportunity.