JOY "The Servant II" February 16

February 16, 2011

The Servant 2
Isaiah 52:13- 53:12

I     The Shocking Servant 52: 13-15
II    The Sorrowing and Smitten Servant 53: 1-6
III   The Silent Servant 53: 7-9
IV   The Satisfied Servant 53: 10-12

(Ernest Gordon tells a story, in the book, Miracle on the River Kwai, about Scottish soldiers, who were forced by their Japanese captors, to labor, on a jungle railroad. Under the strain of captivity, they had degenerated into hateful, even barbaric, behavior, toward each other, and then, one afternoon, something happened, that changed everything.

At the end of the day, it was the job of the Japanese officer, in charge, to count all the pieces of equipment, to cut down on any ideas of mutiny. That day, his count showed that a shovel was missing. He became enraged and demanded that the missing shovel be produced, or else. When nobody in the squadron budged, the officer got his gun and threatened to kill every one of the prisoners, on the spot. It was very obvious that the officer meant what he said! As fear and anger, swirled in the air, around them, one man finally stepped forward. The officer put away his gun, picked up a shovel, and beat the man to death. When it was over, the survivors picked up the bloody corpse and carried it with them, to do a 2nd tool check. That time, they discovered that no shovel was missing----there had been a miscount, the first time. 

The word spread, like wildfire, through the whole camp. An innocent man, had been willing to give up his own life, so that no one else would have to. He was willing to sacrifice himself, in order to save, all of the others. The incident had a profound effect…..the men in the camp, began to treat each other like they were brothers.

When the victorious allies swept in, the survivors, who were, by that time, walking skeletons, lined up in front of their captors and instead of attacking them or even lashing out at them------they looked at them, with pity and compassion, and forgave them. Then they turned and walked away, with their rescuers, into the rest of their lives.)

Jesus took it upon Himself, to be the suffering servant, and He went all the way to the cross, to save the life, of any person who would believe in Him and the power of His sacrifice. By the time that He got to the cross, Isaiah tells us, that He was so scarred and ugly that His appearance was beyond appalling. And Isaiah also tells us, that in the end, Jesus will be exalted above all people and that every knee will bend and every tongue will confess His glory!

To the Roman authorities and to the Jewish religious leaders, Jesus was an insignificant and rejected rabble-rouser. To us, on this side of the cross, He is our, ever-present, Risen Savior and Lord. As the Suffering Servant, He knew human sorrow and physical pain. But His suffering had a purpose, because He bore the punishment for our sins, so that He could be the peacemaker between God and us. Every one of us has strayed from our shepherd, like sheep tend to do----but God has placed the punishment for our straying, on Jesus, and He endured it all, without any complaint. He accepted and yielded Himself, to the death penalty, even though He was totally innocent. Everything that Jesus went through, was all a part of the fulfillment of God's plan, to restore us to Himself, as His children.
The death of Jesus, as the substitute, for us, exhibits the love of the cross, more richly and more fully, more gloriously and more glowingly, than any other account of it. Martin Luther saw this and gloried in it. He wrote this to a friend, "Learn to know Christ and Him crucified. Learn to sing to Him and say, "Lord Jesus, You are my righteousness, I am your sin. You have taken upon yourself what is mine and given me what is yours.You become what you are not, so that I might become what I was not."

Isaiah 52:13-53:12 is one of the best known and most loved Messianic passages in the Bible and, it is the climax, of the Book of Isaiah. It is a call for all believers, to be a testimony, to the wonderful love, of the Lord Jesus and to the mind-boggling, generosity and power of God. It is a God-ordained challenge, to the Jews 1st, and then to the church, to proclaim the marvelous good news of the death, burial and resurrection of our Savior. And at the same time, it boldly invites all believers, to take up the cross of Jesus, in the world that we live in, and to be the suffering servant's representative, ready to sacrifice, whatever He calls us to, for the salvation of our generation.

I. The Shocking Servant: 52: 13-15
We know that in this passage of scripture that Isaiah is describing Jesus and we know that His mission into the world succeeded. We know that Jesus is highly exalted, because He was commissioned and qualified by God. Jesus knew just what to do, to achieve His purpose, and it worked. He did rise from the dead and and He was lifted up to the right hand of the Father and He does reign on high, with all power and authority, and He is coming again to dwell with us forever. Jesus, as the suffering servant is not to be pitied, He is to be worshiped. But the truth is, worship isn't generally, people's first reaction, to the cross. (when mary Kathryn and Griff were little. I think they were probably 4 and 5. It was Easter time and we were coming home from church talking about Jesus hanging on the cross. Griff said, "Mama, I would love to have seen Jesus hanging on that cross." and Mary Kathryn said, with all of her 5 year old wisdom, "Oh honey, you wouldn't have, it would have been so sad."----Griff was curious and drawn to it and Mary Kathryn was sad and uncomfortable with it.)

When we read this passage, about what theologians call, the Passion of Christ, the 1st thing that we notice about it, is the sheer horror of it. Jesus was beaten so badly and His body was abused, so beyond brutality, that people, seeing Him, would not have asked, "Is this the Promised Messiah?" they would have asked, "Is this even a human being?" But Isaiah want us to understand, with our hearts and our minds, that there was a direct correlation between the depth of Jesus' physical repulsiveness and the depth of His effectiveness, to purify us. His extreme power to cleanse us was measured by His extreme suffering.
The Holy Spirit prompted Isaiah to write with such graphic detail, about Jesus' visible, physical abuse, that it had to be an accurate account----- and Psalm 22 says "that people were so appalled at His appearance, that they turned their faces away." and Matt. Mark, Luke and John all indicate, that most of Jesus injuries, were inflicted on Him, by the priests and the scribes.  They all say, that He was slapped and spit on and beaten around the face before, He was flogged, by the Roman soldiers and crowned with the crown of thorns. All of His legal and His human rights were taken away from Him, by the religious authorities, the very people, who should have recognized Him, for who He was.

It's unbelievable to think, that men who were appointed, to lead the people in worship and to teach them about God, would stoop to such barbaric cruelty, against any human being, much less the Son of God. The scripture says, that the Lord's injuries were so grave that He was physically marred, beyond recognition. One thing is certain, by the time that Jesus was nailed to the cross, He was in an unspeakable physical condition. This fact, emphasizes the miracle, of His resurrection. Any human being, subjected to such physical abuse, crucified, drained of blood and then laid, in an unheated tomb for 3 days, would not have been fit to stand, much less walk around and take command of situations, like Jesus did, after His resurrection.

The word "sprinkle" in this passage, is taken from a Hebrew word which means "to astonish." So this actually means, "As ,many as were astonished by Him, so shall He astonish many nations." This is a hard concept to understand, but theologians believe that Isaiah is referring to the rite of purification, under the Mosaic Law. The priests would sprinkle the blood of the sacrifice on the altar and on the sacred vessels, as a symbol of sanctification. On the Day of Atonement, the High Priest would sprinkle blood on the mercy seat, which symbolized, that Israel's sins, as a nation, had been forgiven and they were fit, for the presence of God, for the next year. Even the priests, themselves, had to be sprinkled with the "water of purification." And on an individual level, if a person had been cured of leprosy, a priest would sprinkle blood on Him, to show that His disease was washed away and that he was healthy and fit, to be accepted back into the community. That's what Jesus has done-----He has sprinkled His blood on multitudes, of moral lepers and made them fit to be accepted, into the presence of God, and into His family. Jesus is both our sacrifice and our High Priest-------He didn't need to be cleansed--------His blood was already pure enough and lavish enough, to atone for the sin of the world, once and for all.
Isaiah prophesied, that there would come a day, when salvation would be established forever, and when the kings and the religious authorities, of this world, who have led and who will lead, the assault against Jesus, will have their mouths shut, forever.

Sometimes when I read certain books and when I watch creative movies, I can't help but marvel, at the intellect of a person's mind and their imagination. But human imagination, as wonderful as it is, could never have come up with the solution that God did, to take away our guilt. That Jesus would judge our wicked hearts, by bearing our our sin Himself, is beyond comprehension. Even we, who love the Gospel, struggle, to grasp an understanding, of the reality of it. It is a mystery to us, that this was part of the "joy set before Him",  that He wanted to cleanse the very ones, who dehumanized Him and caused Him, so much anguish and pain. His suffering is our blessing! That kind of love, fills us with speechless wonder.

Many people have been tortured and killed in inhumane ways, and knowing about their suffering, arouses our sympathy and moves us to compassion------but just knowing about their suffering, doesn't change our hearts and make us new people. But Jesus' suffering and death, was a moment in time, that changed the hearts of mankind, for all eternity. The gospel message is not just "Christ lived and then He died"-----that would only be an historical fact, like "George Washington lived and he died". The Gospel message is , "Christ lived, to show us the way and then He died for our sins, so that we could walk the way." You and I are as guilty of Jesus' death as Annas and Caiphas and Herod Antipas and Pilate. We plucked out Jesus beard and slapped His face and spit on Him and beat Him on the head and flogged and ridiculed Him and nailed Him to that cross,every bit as much, as they did. People are astonished when they finally understand the message of the Gospel and the beauty of the ugly brokenness of Jesus's body-----but the truth is, we can't rejoice in the good news of salvation, unless we first face, the bad news, of condemnation. Jesus didn't suffer and die because He was guilty, He suffered and died because we were guilty. ( I will never forget when I visited Rome and walked into St. Peter's Basilica, in Vatican City and burst into tears, when I saw Michalangelos's Pieta-------the sculpture of Jesus after He was taken down off the cross and was being held all broken and pitiful, in His mother's arms and Nicodemas was standing behind them. I remember being  so moved by the sorrow, in the eyes of Nicodemas, and then, I remember that I almost couldn't breathe, when I realized that the face of Nicodemas was Michalangelo's own self-portrait------it made me sob. Dale cried too; we couldn't help it. There is no doubt, in my mind, that Michalangelo knew that His sin, had beaten Jesus' body and placed Him on the cross, and it brought me face to face, with the fact, that mine had too.)

II. The Sorrowing and Smitten Servant  53:1-6

The nations respond to the Suffering Servant with silence. There are no words, in the human language, that can express the depth of what we feel, when the Gospel becomes real to us. Even the people closest to Jesus had no words. They walked and talked with Him; they knew Him personally, they shared food and shelter and tears and laughter and many long conversations and still there were no words. There were a lot of people, who knew Him, as the man in their neighborhood, who made His living as a carpenter, but was, a gifted teacher of the scripture and could even perform incredible, miraculous healings. He grew up, in the full light of God's glory, but He was a mystery to those around Him.
Knowing about Him, though, didn't make belief in Him, as God's son, the Messiah, a reality. We can't really understand the enormity of it-----we just have to accept it and believe it. It took faith to see the glory of God in Jesus, of Nazareth. It still does!

"The arm of the Lord" is a phrase that carries a double meaning. It refers to God's sovereign power and it refers to the Lord Jesus Christ, because He came to the earth, specifically, to carry out the Father's will.
1.) God's sovereign power----God's arm of power flies in low, under, the defensive radar,of our human prejudices and self-glory, and stirs our hearts. It wakes them up and gives us, a true glimmer, of the glory of Jesus. We can't believe the truth of the Gospel, without God's help. Because, we are so much more shallow and superficial, than we believe ourselves to be, we look on the surface of things. We, unfortunately, judge by appearances, and God, thank goodness, looks under the surface, at our hearts. He, with His strong arm of power, through the guidance and leading of the Holy Spirit, prompts us to believe with our hearts, what, we could never believe with our eyes.
2.) The Lord Jesus Christ----In sending Jesus, God was stretching out His arm of power, to give us salvation. Jesus grew up before the Father, like a tender plant----He was like a root coming up, out of dry ground. From the moment of His birth, Jesus walked in the full gaze of the Father. God watched Him grow through childhood into manhood and He liked, so much, what He saw, that when Jesus began His earthly ministry------the heavens opened up, and everybody at His baptism, heard the voice of God say, "This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased." God was so absolutely sure, of the Lord's perfect progress and ultimate victory, in His mission, that the words, that He had Isaiah speak, concerning Jesus, were in the past and the present tense, even though 7 centuries still remained till His birth.

As a child, the Lord Jesus was as tender as any baby is. He was dependent on His mother for everything. At her knee, He learned how to crawl and walk and to feed Himself. From both of His parents, He learned about life, and behavior, and manners and God. He played with His brothers and sisters----- and because He was their oldest----- I am sure, that there were times, when He had to babysit.
He was also like a root, springing up from a dry, infertile ground, because He came from such an unlikely location. He was born into poverty. He was descended from a line of royal people who had lost their royal status many years before. The whole area was a conquered jurisdiction, under Roman rule. Nobody would have expected the Savior of the world, to spring from a peasant family, from Nazareth.  And Nazareth, itself, didn't have a good reputation. It was a post for Roman soldiers, with all the problems that would be associated with military towns. But God knew who Jesus was-----He knew that He was the root of Jesse---the descendant of King David and He knew that Jesus would be a tender plant, of blessing and beauty, and grace; and that He would grow up, out of the dry ground, of complacent and disbelieving Israel, specifically, and of wicked humanity, in general. To God, the Father, Jesus was precious beyond words--------but to unbelieving people, He had no form, no comeliness and no beauty.  And, it didn't have a lot to do with the way He physically looked-----it had everything to do with His character.

For the most part, people couldn't see His moral beauty---because they didn't want to. We still don't want to. We don't like it, when people show us the error of our ways, by their moral behavior or by their pointing it out to us, in scripture----it makes us uncomfortable----so we do everything we can, to make ourselves feel better, by tearing them down. (A typical American family was driving home from church. Dad was fussing about the sermon being too long and sort of boring. Mom said she thought the organist played a little too loud during the second hymn that we sang. Sis, who was a music major, in college, said that the soloist sang about half a note off key during most of the song. Grandma said that she couldn't hear very well-----they were sitting in a bad place. Little Willie listened to all of this and started to fuss about the lady in the big hat who had sat in front of him, keeping him from seeing anything-------but intend, he leaned up and nudged his dad in the back of the neck and said, "But Dad, you gotta admit, it sure was a good show-----and you only had to give em a nickel.")

The Bible is silent, about what Jesus actually, looked like. But from what it does say about Him, I don't think He was physically ugly, at all. We know that He was a carpenter-----so He must have broad shoulders and fairly large muscles, because of all the lifting and heavy labor that He would have done.  Luke 2:52 says that, "He grew in stature with God and man." And, we know that when He started His ministry, that crowds flocked to Him, to hear His sermons and to see and experience His miracles. So, there must have been something, physically attractive about Him, because, people are shallow and they are rarely drawn to ugly people. 
But, people of lowly birth tend to be invisible to the ruling classes. So it wouldn't have really mattered what He looked like.

Great leaders are frequently affluent and blessed with useful connections. There is a usually a certain amount of pomp and flair associated with their rise to public notice. Jesus didn't have anything, of material worth, to recommend Him and He didn't know anybody of note, who could sponsor Him.
He grew up in obscurity, and it wasn't until He began to heal the sick and to speak our publicly, that anybody even really noticed Him.
Men looked at Jesus with scorn and distain, because His teaching interfered, with the lives that they loved to live. That's when men began to turn away from Him. (Isaiah 53:3) says, "a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief and we hid our faces from Him; He was despised and we esteemed Him not." It got to the point ,that it didn't matter how many miracles He could perform or how many gracious words that He could speak--------people only treated Him with derision and rejection. And because He was suffering in our place, He endured it all patiently. The Jewish leaders, as a whole, just could not acknowledge, that a man of such humble origin, could really support the claims, that He made about Himself-----they must have thought and discussed among themselves, "God's son, yeah right!" They ignored, the clear evidence in the scripture, of His identity, and they let prejudice overcome their logic.

It's normal for us to think that Jesus was smitten by men-------because------it was men who beat Him and spat at Him and plucked out His beard. It was men who nailed Him to the cross and mocked Him while He hung there--but the reality is, that it was actually God who did the smiting. God always knew, that the penalty for sin would only be able to be paid for, in the way that it was. He always knew that Jesus had been born, so that He could die, in our place. 

Often, the physical agony of crucifixion is stressed. I could give you detailed, medical explanations, of what took place inside the Lord's body---- and it was terrible, horrific even---------but His physical suffering was nothing, compared to the spiritual suffering, that He endured. The Lord's physical suffering is not what redeemed us------we were redeemed, when God laid the sins of the world on Jesus and Jesus accepted them, in our place. The spiritual sacrifice that He made for us, was far more costly, than any physical pain, could ever be. The cup, that Jesus dreaded in the Garden of Gethsemane, was the indescribable cup, of substitution. For a few brief moments, Jesus became pure and unadulterated sin-----and when that happened, God, who cannot be where sin is, left Him. They had never been apart-----God had always been with Jesus, every moment of every day------so the agony, of being separated from His heavenly Father, was almost more than He could bear and He cried out, "My God, MY God, why have you forsaken me!" (Matt. 27:46) But God never gives us more than we can stand, and it was in that moment, that the cup was drained to the dregs, and the sacrifice was complete. It was entirely for us that Jesus suffered. We were guilty, but He took our place. He was wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities. And His stripes, are what have purchased our healing.

Isaiah writes like we were at the cross, because we were. It was our guilt that required Jesus' death. (Rembrandt, like Michalangelo, knew who had taken His place on the cross------in his painting, "The Raising of the Cross", Rembrandt painted himself into the picture as one of the men, crucifying Jesus.) Isaiah did the same thing with a pen and piece of paper.  He didn't just tell the story of Jesus, He told our story too. Where would we have been, that day? Would we have been cowering in an upper room, somewhere? Would we have been celebrating, with our fellow conspirators, for having averted a crisis? Would we have stood in the street yelling crucify Him? Would we have nailed the nails into His hands and feet? Would we have turned away and hung our heads in shame? Would have kneeled at His feet, and stayed with Him to the end, and then begged for His body, so that we could bury Him? 

Jesus was a man of sorrows, but they weren't His sorrows. He didn't deserve them-----they were ours. In a way, that we don't understand, Jesus became our substitute. God shifted our blame onto Jesus. And Jesus willingly received it. Guilt has to be paid for. It can't be swept under the rug. We know that, just from our own life experiences. When we, or our property, are injured, even in a fender bender, someone has to answer for it, either us, or the other person. The damage and the cost don't just go away. If its going to be put right, then someone has to pay for it. That's the way it is with God------there is no way that He can turn a blind eye to the evil that is damaging His world. God confronted man's wickedness, by paying our debt Himself. He knew what it would take, to satisfy it and He did what it took. He charged the infinite weight of our debt to Jesus, and Jesus willingly, embraced it. (I have a friend who grew up with a preacher, for a daddy, who was a very wise man. When she was a little girl, probably about 5, she misbehaved in church. When the service was over and the family got into the car, her daddy told her, that she was going to get a spanking when she got home. Sure enough, when they got inside the house, he told her to follow him to the back bedroom. The whole way down the hall, she was begging him not to be spanked, "Please daddy, please daddy, no." When they got to the bedroom, he took his belt off-------and handed it to her and said, "I'm not going to spank you for your misbehavior, you're going to spank me, I'm going to take your place." This broke the little girl's heart as she said, "daddy, I can't"---- and then----- he told her the story, about another Father and His child and their love for each other and their love, for each one of us.")

The blood of Jesus, is flowing out to sinners of all kinds------taking from them, their guilt, their shame, their loss, their tears and their despair-------and He is giving them (us) a whole new life. Jesus is saying to each of us, right now, "I don't want you to bear your burden one minute longer------I want my bruising to give you peace-------I want my stripes to heal you." Sin is serious--we're all like dumb sheep, who wander away from our shepherd, through our own self-centered and self-righteous excuses.  Isaiah calls it transgressions, which means rebellion against God, which is daring to cross the line that God has drawn. He also calls it iniquity, which refers to our sinful nature. In other words, we are sinners by choice and by nature. Like sheep, we are born with a nature, that prompts us to go astray and like sheep, we foolishly decide to go our own way. This means that by nature, we are born children, of sin and by choice, we become children, of disobedience. But we can take hope, because  John 10:1-18 tells us that "under the law of Moses, the sheep died for the shepherd, but that under grace, the good shepherd died for the sheep." It reminds me of the song, "Amazing love, how can it be, that thou my God, wouldst die for me…"

III. The Silent Servant  53:7-9

Jesus never complained and He never asked for mercy. Not did He threaten His tormentors or seek to escape. One of the most difficult things for us to bear, is false accusation. The desire to defend ourselves and to lash out at the accuser, is intense. We read in Matt. 26, that the chief priests, used false witnesses to accuse Jesus, but Jesus didn't justify their accusations, by engaging in rebuttals with them. He didn't' have anything to prove to the men who hated Him, and God already had a perfect knowledge of His innocence. The death of Jesus was a miscarriage of human justice, but it was also, our Lord's, clearheaded, choice. He wasn't caught in a web of events, beyond His control. He willingly laid His life down. Isaiah compared Jesus to a lamb being led to the slaughter, who is silent in front of its shearers. Jesus' death, didn't mean that He yielded to weakness, it meant that He exercised deliberate control. He was not overpowered; He chose not to fight back. Whatever came His way, from men or God; He received it, without any protest. In both His actions and His words, He died entirely in innocence, and the final indignity, was, that He was buried, not alongside martyrs and saints, but with the wicked rich.

He was illegally tried and condemned to death. In today's courts, a person can be found guilty of terrible crimes, but if it can be proven that something in the trial, was illegal, the case has to be tried again. Everything about Jesus' trial, from start to finish, was illegal, but Jesus don't get a 2nd trial. Since Jesus was crucified with criminals, as a criminal, it would have been logical for His dead body to be left unburied. That was the usual way of things, but in the Jesus' case, God had other plans. The burial of Jesus Christ is as much a part of the Gospel as His death and resurrection. His burial, is proof that He actually died. The Roman authorities would never have released His body to Nicodemas and Joseph of Arimathea, if Jesus hadn't been dead.
Jesus had done no violence and there was no question of any deceit in Him. He was perfect and totally beyond reproach. But because God so loved the world, He was pleased to bruise Jesus, for the world. God wasn't pleased, in the sense, that offering up Jesus, gave Him pleasure. It just means that it pleased Him, because it was in accordance, with His will, for Jesus' sufferings, to provide the way of salvation, for a guilty world. (Charles Swindoll says that,
"If our greatest need had been information; God would have sent us an educator. 
If our greatest need had been technology; God would have sent us a scientist.
If our greatest need had been money; God would have sent us an economist.
If our greatest need had been pleasure; God would have sent us an entertainer.
But our greatest need was forgiveness; so God sent us a Savior."

IV. The Satisfied Servant  53:10-12

Jesus conquered sin and was satisfied because He had done His job well. He wasn't embittered by it, because He knew it was God's will and that it was the only way. He didn't hang from His cross, screaming curses at His jailers, and He didn't blaspheme God, the way other victims did. This is the mystery of the cross. Not only did He offer His body for sacrifice, but even ,more importantly, he offered His soul. All the animal sacrifices in the OT, had pointed forward to this one moment, when Jesus would sacrifice Himself, body, mind and spirit, once and for all, in my place, in your place and in the place, of every person, who has ever been born.
The cross was God's greatest victory ------Jesus achieved God's ancient purpose-------with His work, on the cross, Jesus has made the way for man to be at peace with God. The judge took the place of the criminal and fulfilled, the just demand, of His own Holy law. And He is satisfied. And Isaiah says that the result for Him, is that "He will see His seed". We are His seed, in the sense, that we have been born again into God's family." To the Jews, to die childless caused great grief and shame------but Jesus didn't die childless---------because of His anguish, on the cross-----He has given birth to a spiritual family that can't be counted. His offspring is beyond manmade measurement. Isaiah 12 uses a military metaphor to describe this------he says that Jesus will divide the spoils of His victory with us, as His  "strong partners, in God's saving plan." The world perceives the followers of Jesus as little more than a band of fugitive, losers-------it's sad, that the world can't see, that with Jesus, as our redeemer, that we aren't losers, that we are rich beyond measure---and that  we possess, already, all the wonderful things of God, that are worth possessing.   

According to Isaiah, Jesus will stand back, and look at His accomplished work and the result of God's saving plan and He will compare it to the price that He had to pay for it's success----and He will be satisfied.

(Hours behind the runner in front of him, the last marathoner finally entered the Olympic stadium. By that time, the drama of the day's events was almost over and most of the spectators had gone home. The athlete's story, however was still being played out.
Limping into the arena, the Tanzanian runner grimaced with every step, his knee bleeding and bandaged from an earlier fall. His ragged appearance immediately caught the attention of the remaining crowd, who cheered him on to the finish line.'

Why did he stay in the race? What made him endure his injuries to the end.? When asked the questions later, He replied, "My country did not send me 7000 miles to start the race. They sent me 7000 miles to finish the race. And I am satisfied."(Quote Magazine, July 1991)

Right now, today, all over the world, Jesus is enjoying the satisfaction, the sheer pleasure, of bringing many lost and ungodly people into righteousness. He is actively, saving guilty people and He is treating transgressors, like they are His friends and He is sharing His victory, with His former enemies. He is making intercession, with the Father, for the very ones, who nailed Him to the cross. And He is satisfied!