The righteousness of God gives us the power to become sons. That’s the seed that He released when He died and was crucified for us. The seed He had was not a human fleshly seed. It was the seed of eternity for you and me that if we receive it, righteousness will come on us and destroy our wickedness that we might have everlasting life. The Lord wants to give a message of intimacy in a way that will deepen our love for Him. He wants to bring us into a deeper place of relationship with Him. One of the most profound statements in the whole Bible is the very first words in Genesis 1:1: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. That’s all it gives of the beginning. We don’t get any information about when it was, and how it was, other than in the beginning. Then God’s spirit began to move upon the earth to create and bring forth what He wanted; a place He could fellowship with a people that chose to love Him. Only those that choose to love Him are going to be with Him forever. The rest will be destroyed and never remembered again. Isaiah 53 is a prophetic message about the Messiah. It’s amazing how accurate Isaiah was as a young man in his prophetic writings. Many things Jesus spoke and taught He used Isaiah as a reference. That should encourage even the young ones. If God speaks to you, it doesn’t matter if you are young or old; if you are hearing the word of the Lord it has strength. Truth and mercy builds strength to your character. Isaiah was a willing servant who spent years developing a relationship with God so God used Him mightily in many areas. This is one area we are going to look at. Isaiah 53:1, Who hath believed our report? And to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? That’s still true today. Who believes what we are talking about in the heavenly things? There aren’t many. In Isaiah’s time the people were still under law. Isaiah is talking about the things that were going to happen when Christ came upon the earth and changed the course and direction of salvation. The arm of the Lord is always the strength that God gives His children to accomplish the purpose which God wants done upon the earth. Isaiah is asking, who has seen the arm of God move? We are seeing the arm of God move on the earth now. It’s happening because there are many people crying out. Those that have prepared themselves will be able to give them understanding and interpretation. Those in the Old Testament and New Testament spent a lifetime figuring things out and putting it in the scriptures for us to read so we can move forward from there. Now those that want God can read and understand what God has given this body and other bodies like it so they don’t have to spend years trying to figure it out; they can move quicker and accomplish God’s word in a short time. The problem is, who is going to believe us? The only people that will believe are those that are diligently seeking. When Jesus came on the earth it was those that were seeking who recognized Him. Verse 2, For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant. Isaiah is prophesying of Jesus. He’s going to grow up before His Father and He’s just a tender plant. When He was twelve years old He was found after three days in the temple with priests and scholars talking about the word of God and they were amazed at how much He knew at the age of twelve. …and as a root out of a dry ground… Dry ground is like dry bones. There is no word around them that has salvation in it and they are in a dry place. That’s what is happening right now. God is drying up the word except for those that really want Him and have gone through a process that they are sick and tired of the world and they want the word of God. Those people will be able to find it but those that are enjoying their flesh are drying up and becoming dry bones that will have to have the life of Christ reinstated in them to be saved. Jesus came and He had a root in the earth, but the earth was dry, so He doesn’t learn anything from the people of the earth. He learned everything from heaven. That’s where I found myself in my early days. I wanted to know the truth and all I saw was dry ground. Nobody knew. They didn’t understand the Bible. They only took bits and pieces that sounded good. …He hath no form nor comeliness; He wasn’t like Esau who was a hunk and everybody loved him. In fact, Jesus’ countenance was common. There was nothing there that would draw you to Him as far as being extra special. He wasn’t handsome in the way man thinks of today. He didn’t draw anyone because of His flesh. …and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. Jesus was just common in His appearance. You would not expect Him to be anything by what you saw in His countenance. That’s what Isaiah prophesied here and that’s how He came. Verse 3, He is despised and rejected of men; Have you ever been rejected by anybody? My own father rejected me. …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. If you have life in you people will know it and they will wonder what is in you that causes a drawing to that. Christ had the life in Him and was still rejected. But you won’t get any place without that river of life flowing out of you. The fishermen who found Him didn’t hide their faces from Him. They told their buddies, we found the Messiah. There was life there. They found the life of man because they were looking for it. But the rest were happy with their lives and their flesh and their ways of doing things. It was good enough for their fathers so it was good enough for them. Verse 4, Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. In the very beginning of creation, God made a perfect world. In that perfect world there was no judgment because there was no sin. When sin entered into the world, God began to bring judgments. The first main judgment after Adam and Eve sinned was that they were removed from the garden and they had to labor for their food. As time went on, satan began to really take hold and to change them from the love of God to the love of their flesh. …yet we did esteem him stricken. We approved of Him being struck down. …smitten of God, and afflicted. God allowed Him to be hammered on while He was on the earth. That put in Jesus a longing to deliver a people from bondage into life everlasting. Verse 5, But he was wounded for our transgressions… He was wounded for us taking the place of God. …he was bruised for our iniquities (doing things with satan’s powers to get our way): the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. How many times have you heard that? Many people like to declare that. He took the punishment I should have taken so now I don’t have to worry about anything. There was time years ago that I said I don’t want to hear one word about faith. I didn’t preach on faith one time for six months because what I was seeing in the church as faith was not faith. It was faith in the flesh and not of the spirit of God. I didn’t want to hear about that kind of faith. God honored that by building His faith in us because we rejected the world’s opinion and knowledge of faith. If we could get saved by the ideas of man we wouldn’t need Christ. I don’t want man’s ideas, I only want what God says. …and with his stripes we are healed. Yes, He bore the stripes in our place, but there is one thing that people omit when they say this, and that is, for us to receive what Christ had, we have to go through the same thing He did, that is, die to the world and live unto God. If that doesn’t take place, we’re not receiving that which Christ gave. So all must die and be born again. Jesus said when He was on the earth, God gave Me this commandment that if I lay down My life it will be raised again unto glory, and that had never happened before. But Jesus trusted the Father that when He died, He would be raised again. Verse 7, He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, ye 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. You don’t stop the falsehoods that are flying by fighting back at it. If it is silent, it dies. If you stir it up it becomes alive again. Verse 8, He was taken from prison and from judgment: Jesus was put in prison and then He was judged on the cross and then removed from the earth as a person because He died. When He died, His fleshly body was no more as it was. … and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: He was cut off before He had a wife and a lineage through children upon the earth. He never had any of that. But He has millions of children now because all of humanity who want Him are children of Christ. They will be living with Him forever in eternity. …for the transgression of my people was he stricken. Transgression goes back to us taking it into our own hands to do what we thought God wanted done. We can’t be saved by that. Verse 9, And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth. He went into the heart of the earth and preached to those that were in a place that had the right to hear salvation; that wanted Him but couldn’t find Him. God knew the people that wanted Him, but because Christ hadn’t yet come to deliver, they had to die and wait. Christ went down to the grave and preached to the rich in His death. Verse 10, Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt 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. When Jesus died, the Lord bruised Him by Him going on the cross. When He was ready to go on the cross and die, He was very grieved, even to the point of tears of blood. There was that much pressure in His being to not go on the cross that He bled through His skin. His soul was the only human being whose soul was perfect at the end. Christ’s soul was completely tied to the Father and not to the flesh. He required His flesh to be submitted to God, therefore it was not used for satan. He was the only one that was qualified to die on the cross for our sins. Our soul was polluted when man sinned and judgment followed from that point on to cause us to come into a better place. Not perfect, but when Christ died for us then He had the power to redeem us and that’s the free part. We didn’t have to go through what He did, but we’re still going to have to go through the process of getting rid of the sins of our soul, which include what we did, what our generations did, and what’s on the earth. Verse 10 also shows us the absolute of God the Father. I remember one time I was complaining about something I was having to go through to the Lord, about the pain and the suffering I was going through. He said, What about My Son? What did He have to go through? And I said, You’re right. I haven’t gone through anything like He did. He went through what was my requirement. He did it for me because I couldn’t do it because my soul was not pure. Jesus went with a pure soul and as a result He inherited all things. …when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed. Jesus did leave a seed, and that seed is eternal life. For those that die and take the course that Jesus did, that seed will be an eternal seed that you will be redeemed forever. …he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. The person that receives the seed of God will prosper in God’s hands. We have the promise that if we are following the Lord and that seed is in us, we are going to prosper in Him. What do you think that seed is? That seed is the righteousness of God. The righteousness of God gives us the power to become sons. That’s the seed that He released when He died and was crucified for us. The seed He had was not a human fleshly seed. It was the seed of eternity for you and me that if we receive it, righteousness will come on us and destroy our wickedness that we might have everlasting life. We’re going to prosper in His hand. Verse 11, He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: Jesus had travail in His soul when He died on the cross. His Father turned His face that the world might know that the power of Christ will redeem you from the power of death. If the Father would have been in the middle of it then it was the Father that had done it, but Christ did it for us. The redemption He made for us is a seed which is also called the quickening spirit. When we receive the seed of Christ, and operate in the power of the righteousness of Christ, then He will be satisfied with us and give us the grace to come out of it. In John 1 it says He has given us the power to become sons of God. We have no excuse because God has given us His seed. It’s the seed of righteousness that gives us the power to become like Christ by destroying the works of the enemy that is in us that our soul might be cleansed and live forever. Verse 11 again, He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; God’s righteous Son, who is Jesus, will justify many. Jesus died for many. Isaiah prophesied that. Jesus didn’t die for those that didn’t want Him. He died just for those that seek Him and want Him because He doesn’t let His righteousness upon the wicked. They had to want Him. If you dry up that righteousness so those that are lost don’t have power and need help, it’s at that point that Christ can begin to work with individuals that want Him and need Him. It’s when we need God that we accept what God speaks to us, whether through teaching or through our experiences with Him. When we are in a place of needing Him He gives us righteousness to battle that our soul would be delivered from the grip of our generations. …for he shall bear their iniquities. Christ gives the righteousness to us that we might be able to take that righteousness that is Him, and destroy iniquities in us. In that way He is bearing our iniquities. When someone doesn’t know anything you have to bear with them to teach them. That’s what He’s talking about. God bears with us to remove our iniquities. People think Christ just says get out and that’s it and the iniquities are gone. No, He bears with us to help us through His power to receive the righteousness of God to destroy wickedness. Verse 12, Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death: He divides a portion to Jesus. In Old Testament times, after a battle the king got half of the spoil and the other half was split between those who went to war. If you remember, some of the tribes went after another nation and defeated them and brought back the spoil and when the others found out they were upset that they didn’t invite them to come along. They wanted to go to war because half of the spoil was divided to all of the soldiers that were there. But the other half belongs to Christ. So Jesus receives a portion, and He divides the spoil with the strong, which is the army and those that trust Him, know Him, and are led by Him. Those that walk in righteousness are the strong ones because they can destroy the wicked. …and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors. He made intercession for the transgressors when He said, Lord, hold not this sin against them. What a God. Now let’s look at 1 Corinthians 15:45, And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit. Adam and Eve had living souls. Their souls were living but when sin came, death came to the soul. The only person that could deliver mankind out of it was one that had a perfect soul. Verse 45, Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; The natural having the spirit of God in them which was His breath, and the body coming alive because of the Spirit and together they became a living soul that could function on earth and also with heavenly powers. …and afterward that which is spiritual. Christ came as a spiritual being as well as a physical being. He was fully God and fully human. Verse 47, The first man is of the earth, earthy: Earthy people can’t save themselves because sin cannot save sinful people. …the second man is the Lord from heaven. As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly. Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption. Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. That’s what we are fighting, to destroy satan so we can defeat death and be resurrected into eternity. Verse 55, O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord. We’re going to prosper and we are going to have a portion of the spoil that satan and his followers have right now. I don’t know what all that means because it won’t be the wealth of money, it will be the wealth of power and authority and ruling in righteousness. No matter what happens, it’s more important that you walk in the righteousness of God than anything right now. That righteousness will help you be a warrior and the strong hand of God will be upon you. When you walk in the hand of the Lord, your fruit will not be wasted. Only God can redeem you and He is absolute. He was satisfied when He saw the anguish of His Son in travail for the people. He said, I’m satisfied, and then He let His Son die on the cross. When Jesus died, the Father turned His face and would not look at His Son to see the pain He went through. The question God will give you if you don’t have the righteousness of God is, Why didn’t you receive My Son when I gave Him to you? I gave you power. I gave you the opportunity to have wealth and prosperity and be in the land of the living. Why didn’t you do it?
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