GOD’S WORD FOR APRIL 14
GOD’S WORD FOR APRIL 14 ~ ~ Isaiah 53:7-9~ ~ “He was oppressed and afflicted,
Yet He did not open His mouth; Like a lamb that is led to slaughter,
And like a sheep that is silent before its shearers, so He did not open His mouth
By oppression and judgment He was taken away; and as for His generation, who considered
That He was cut off from the land of the living For the wrongdoing of my people, to whom the blow was due?
And His grave was assigned with wicked men, yet He was with a rich man in His death,
Because He had done no violence, nor was there any deceit in His mouth.”
“Yet He opened not His mouth”. Isaiah says this twice, as if for emphasis. He went through more than a normal man could endure—not only physically, but mentally, emotionally, and spiritually—especially spiritually. He was cut off from the Father. He, the Father, and the Holy Spirit are ONE. He was cut off from Himself! We can’t imagine how far down He had to come to be a man—then to be an ordinary, poor man—-then to be treated as the worst criminal ever—people each contriving to hurt Him more than the other man did—because of the hatred put against Him by the devil and His own Father, the Judge of the Universe!!!! The emptiness He must have felt losing His Father, and the pain the Father felt, having to turn His back on Himself!!!! On His Son!!!! Yet, this was His choice—for us.
Isaiah says He was taken away “by oppression and judgment” Oppression by God’s use of the devil to seal his own fate, thinking he was winning the war. Oppression also by the people that were used in the plan by the devil’s warfare tactics, both spiritually and politically, all ultimately controlled by the Father. And judgment—-oh, the judgment was the worst,—because the Father judged the Son as if He actually WAS the worst sinner ever. In fact the sin He carried for us was accumulative through the ages. It was the worst of the worst, mixed with the not-so-bad. But it doesn’t matter, because sin is sin, and NONE of it can get into heaven. He was perfectly innocent, as Isaiah says above, and that is the proof that He did it for us, and us only.
This is why He was silent. He wouldn’t rail against the soldiers—He knew they were just pawns—used by both sides. He wouldn’t rail against His people,–He knew they were just hopeless weak sinners who were blown by the winds of politics and doctrine. He WOULDN’T rail against the Father, because He is One with Him and this was their plan for eternal happiness for all who would accept it, and THAT is the Joy that was set before Him, and planned before Creation.
He was silent as a lamb because He IS the LAMB slain before the foundations of the world, written of in Revelations 13:8. All these things were foretold in the Old Testament. As the saying goes, the Old is the New foretold, and the New is the Old fulfilled.”
He was crucified on the very mountain on which Abraham laid his son Isaak in obedience to the Lord’s direction.(Genesis 22) This is the same mountain on which He will set down His feet at His second coming, to judge the evil of the world and rule on earth. Jerusalem has always been His chosen spot, and in the end, it still will be. We are blessed to be allowed into the blessings of His Chosen and Beloved people!
Live in the Light of Our Lord 