From Ivory Palaces to an Old Rugged Cross

Turn in your Bibles please to Isaiah chapter 53.

We're beginning in verse 2.

Isaiah chapter 53. beginning in verse two, we'll read to verse seven.

And these are Old Testament pictures of the Lord Jesus.

Verse two, for he shall grow up before him as a tender plant and 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.

He is despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.

And we heard, as it were, our faces from him.

He was despised and we did not esteem him.

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.

or we like sheep have gone astray.

We've turned everyone to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

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.

I wonder this morning, as we've been going over these verses together, I wonder if we've missed something, a wonderful facet of who Jesus is.

Yes, we see the bleeding, broken, burden-bearing Savior on the cross, but we're missing something, something that makes what we have just read a million times more powerful and more precious, that makes every drop of the blood of Christ more wonderful.

Now, please don't get me wrong, and don't worry, I'm a preacher of the cross.

My life's motto is make much of the blood of Jesus.

I believe that God's called me to mention his son's precious blood every opportunity I can.

Like the Apostle Paul, I preach Christ and him crucified.

I believe there's power in the blood of the Lamb, that Jesus Christ is the Lamb of God slain for the foundations of the world.

He is God's ultimate sacrifice for sin.