This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Suffering Servant” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, March 8, 1987.

Then a shoot will spring from the stem of Jesse, and a branch from his roots will bear fruit. And the Spirit of the Lord will rest on him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and strength, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. And he will delight in the fear of the Lord, and he will not judge by what he sees, nor make a decision by what his ears hear.

But with righteousness he will judge the poor and decide with fairness for the afflicted of the earth, and he will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked. Also righteousness will be the belt about his loins, and faithfulness the belt about his waist. And the lamb will dwell, and the wolf will dwell with the lamb, and the leopard will lie down with the kid, and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together, and a little boy will lead them. Also, the cow and the bear will graze, their young will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox, and the nursing child will play on the pole of the cobra. and the weaned child will put his hand into the viper’s den.

They will not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. Then it will come about in that day that the nations will resort to the root of Jesse, who will stand as a standard for the peoples, and his resting place will be glory.” that it will happen on that day that the Lord will again recover the second time with his hand the remnant of his people who will remain from Assyria, Egypt, Hathorah, Cush, Elam, Shinar, Haman, and from the islands of the sea. And he will lift up a standard for the nations and will assemble the banished ones of Israel and will gather the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth Then the jealousy of Ephraim will depart, and those who harass Judah will be cut off. Ephraim will not be jealous of Judah, and Judah will not harass Ephraim. And they will swoop down on the slopes of the Philistines on the west. Together they will plunder the sons of the east.

They will possess Edom and Moab, and the sons of Ammon will be subject to them. and the Lord will utterly destroy the tongue of the sea of Egypt, and he will wave his hand over the river with his scorching wind, and he will strike it into seven streams and make men walk over dry shod. And there will be a highway from Assyria for the remnant of his people who will be left, just as there was for Israel in the day that they came up out of the land of Egypt. and Isaiah 53, verses 1 through 3.

Who has believed our message, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For he grew up before him like a tender plant and like a root out of a parched ground. He has no stately form or majesty that we should look upon him appearance that we should be attracted to him. He was despised and forsaken of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and like one from whom men hide their face, he was despised and we did not esteem him.

Our father, your word is heard throughout the world. It may well be that the word about us. Sounds forth as your word. A testimony concerning your greatness, a report of how your word has been received by us in our hearts. Truly throughout the world. It is similar for there are many congregations of your people who in receiving your word become, as it were, a message in themselves. Lord, may your epistles, your testament, be inscribed upon our hearts. May we be letters written by you.

We ask, Lord, now that our hearts open to receive well what you have to say for Jesus’ sake. Amen. I have been belaboring this passage a bit and don’t want to apologize for that, of course, But I wish to make the points that I have made again for you, at least in part, adding to what I have said some observations concerning these opening verses from Isaiah 53.

I think by now that it has been impressed upon you that Israel’s predicament is hopeless. Now I cannot say that with enough emphasis and none of us can receive that understanding truly its fullest impact. Do we live without hope? But surely we are not strangers to hopelessness.

We who have been born again by the gospel have hearts filled with hope. Yet, living as we do, do we not take stock of the circumstances out of which we were born? And do we not then rehearse again and again the testimony concerning our forgiveness? apart from the action of God on our behalf. Should I remind you of Ephesians chapter 2?

You are dead in your trespasses and sins, except for the grace of God manifest in Christ, whom God raised from the dead. the utter impossibility of our predicament, and that inscribed upon our minds, that being at the root of our own spiritual experience. That consideration, of course, arising out of what we know to be true concerning Israel and her predicament.

Her circumstance, her situation is utterly impossible. It’s not that you march into exile with hope of return. You march into exile as if walking into the jaws of death. And there is nothing stronger in all of the created order than death. That is the significance, you see, of the statement of Jesus when he is speaking to his disciples at Caesarea Philippi. making his promise to them concerning the future of the church. You may well read his promise along these lines, the gates of death will not prevail against my church. That is, the strongest thing in the entirety of the created order shall not prevail against Well, we look at Israel. These words, of course, here in Isaiah 53, written against the background of the demise of the ten northern tribes. The prospect for the southern tribes, just as dismal, the end being utterly impossible. Shall the people of God be restored? They cannot be. Shall they come back? No, they will not. Will death prevail?

Yes, it seems, except that God himself acts. But now you see, having taken in the impossibility of Judah’s Israel’s situation. The prophet moves on spokesman of God and describes to you the situation of the servant. The impossibility of Judah’s circumstance, the point of Israel If indeed that is impossible, and yet now God, by His prophet bringing word to His people, that they shall triumph nonetheless back by His doing.

He shall accomplish it, no one else. Will they have strength in and of themselves in Babylon? Will they have any power or might before the nations that take them captive? Are they not sold into slavery and unto death and dissolution? It is true, but God shall triumph, and they shall be congregated again upon Zion, and there prays God.” This, of course, by the power of His Word.

So, as we have said before, if this leaves people awestruck and dumbfounded, we move on and consider the estate of the servant described at the end of chapter 52. For even more astonishing will be the end of that servant. If the world stood in amazement at what happened to Israel in her they will even more so be amazed at what transpires in and to and through the servant. For if there has been humiliation experienced by Israel, the humiliation will be even greater, far greater, infinitely greater for the servant. If there has been a fall for Israel, she having fallen from the heights, how much greater the fall for the servant, and that margin, the seriousness, the incredible seriousness of the humiliation endured, undergone by the servant. He is more marred than anyone, simply because the distance between his glory and humiliation is greater than any.

Well, the circumstance and situation for the servant will also be one of impossibility. As it has been for the people, so it will be for the servant. He will undergo the impossibility of their circumstance and know it at its depths. But in the midst of it all, as the servant himself has confessed throughout these portions of Isaiah, he will put his trust in God alone.

Where might we look? Truly, where is our hope? Gazing upon ourselves, into ourselves, upon our conditions of heart and mind, we find nothing within ourselves that generates hope whatsoever. Our hope is God. facing the impossibility of arising from death is the servant who, because of the Lord now and the Lord’s vindication, he prospers.

But you see, as you move into chapter fifty-three, The impossibility of the circumstances facing the people at large is compounded. So not only are you facing the impossibility of their circumstance, they going into exile and there being no hope of life except through God. Now, as you take up the opening statements of the fifty-third chapter, you are confronted with the impossibility of something else.

Not just of life from the grave. Not just of being rescued from this death-dealing exile. But in the face of all that the Lord has said, even through his prophet, All of the promises that are here being spoken and articulated well. You are faced with the impossibility of belief. It will not just be a matter of you being rescued. It will be a matter of you even believing that you can be rescued.

For not even that much will be found in you who have believed our report and to whom is the arm of the Lord been revealed. Those two questions are shot as it were from a cannon. The blast is overwhelming. For it sounds as if in response to those questions, Isaiah in speaking them expects the answer to be, no one. maybe even better, who can believe? The impossibility of the people being regrouped, marched back westward from Babylon to the land. But then you see compounding the impossibility of Israel’s circumstance is the impossibility of belief within the people left to themselves.

Is there a reason why you are a Calvinist? Was it simply because you happened to find this church? You stumbled over it? Was it because you were raised in it? Has it gripped you? Has it gripped you, the reformed character of your testimony? Do you realize what you’re saying when you confess the fact that you are of the reformed faith?

We are not here simply speaking glibly about the impossibility of life out of death apart from the work of God. We are speaking about something even more serious than that. You cannot even believe unless it is granted to you from above. You can’t even take a step towards God unless He draws you. There is not an ounce of strength within you apart from what He is about within you.

Let this register upon you. Let it settle in. Do we pat ourselves on the back tonight because we have the good sense to come and hear the word? Do we congratulate ourselves because we have the good sense to accept the offer that’s given? And that somehow separates us from our neighbors.

I believe that that poor slob You can’t even believe apart from the work of God in you. Your faith, your faith is a gift of God. Let her impossibility of our circumstance then we thinking the power of death we cannot live apart from God but consider it as has been said often a dead man does nothing he doesn’t even believe therefore if we are to believe the report If we are to receive the revelation of a mighty and wonderful work of God, it must be through the work of God in our hearts. the theme of impossibility as we move down into the fifty-third chapter. First of all, with regard to the impossibility of our circumstance of that compound.

But we look at the servant himself, too, and this now being emphasized for us. Looking at that second verse of the fifty-third chapter. For he grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of parched ground. I’ve already suggested to you that the circumstance of the servant is impossible apart from God. And witness to that is given to us here by reference to the parched ground.

You’re looking at the desert. You’re looking at a situation circumstance that in the mind of the prophet as he speaks wherein it is impossible for life to come forth. It’s not just a strange occurrence, it’s an impossible occurrence. The root does not arise out of the harsh ground. Now the background in some regard for this is what we read in Isaiah 11 tonight. We heard there, in the opening of that chapter, about the branch, the stem coming out of the root of Jesse. And once more, the image is of a felled tree. The tree is dead. And the branch comes forth.

As with regard to the servant himself, the circumstance is utterly impossible. It is only God who brings life out of death. or just as this root spoken of in verse two of chapter fifty-three is seen against the arid background of the parched ground, so that branch is seen springing forth from the stump of Jesse. The marvelous transformation, so that now life is there in the place of death, and glory appears in the place where only humiliation was known formally. But the impossibility is underscored here, so as to stress the fact that the servant knows that infinitely.

There is something else here, too. For it’s as if we are dealing here with a double image in treating the tender shoot, the root, that appears in the dry, parched ground. Added to the impossibility of the servant’s restoration is the uselessness So the image here is not of a branch coming out of a stump, it’s of a runner. It’s of what has been called a sucker going out along the ground. A wild growth that saps from the plant, its strength, so utterly useless is it that it is to be cut off and thrown away.

And it is with that image, then, that the prophet proceeds. For he suggests to you now that the form of this one, this servant, who appears is as utterly useless. He is viewed as meaningless in the program and purpose of God. How can it be that God would ever place any value upon this one? How could it be that the one who takes this form, the one whose life appears in this manner. How can it be that God can place any value upon him?

So it is the impossibility becomes all the more complex. For you see, it is not just the fact that there is an impossible situation facing Israel. But it’s not just the fact that there is an impossible situation facing the servant, one that he takes to himself. There isn’t only an impossible situation facing us with regard to our belief. But now, as we look at the servant and his form, we say it is utterly impossible for the Lord of Glory, for the God that we know and have worshipped, It is utterly impossible for him to achieve his purposes through such a one as this.

And if you don’t get the snarl in your voice, you miss it. If the contempt is not there in your own voice as you speak, you miss it. The Prophet does not shy away here, you see, in speaking with first-person plural pronouns by which he includes himself, so that the contempt, the snarl, is in effect registering itself upon him, he being numbered with the people. who see the form of the servant as utterly contemptuous. You read the last part of the third verse.

It’s unfortunate that we allow some of these verses to stand as they do, for we don’t talk this way anymore. And the impact of the language is often lost to us. He was despised and we did not esteem him. What does that mean? We did not esteem him. It means this, we didn’t think anything of him. We viewed him as completely useless and meaningless for the accomplishment of God’s purposes.

Well, of course. There is a miracle already at work. There is the manifestation of the power of God already at work, for the prophet is speaking from the standpoint of faith, one obviously already visited by God, enabled to believe himself. And as you read it and you include yourself in the passage As you to speak with first-person plural pronouns, we are. As you speak in this fashion, you to have been moved. and that by God, out of the impossibility of your circumstance and situation, to believe that which is utterly impossible. And now, as surely as the Prophet, as the Prophet looks upon the form of this One and embraces Him as His own, you do the same.

And you own Him as your Savior, that One who has come to bear your griefs and carry your sorrows. That one stricken, smitten for you, afflicted, pierced through for your transgressions and crushed for your sins, recognizing full well that the chastisement that you deserve has fell, fallen upon him.

And you’ve been healed. You have been restored. The lost sheep have been sought out, found, and all of your iniquities have been laid upon the Lamb of God, this great, glorious, incomparable servant for your sakes. You have to love him. You have to love him. Now that your hearts have been moved by the work of God, given faith as a gift, the impossibility of your own believing removed.

You embrace the one who is marred beyond description. The one for whom you formerly had contempt, against whom you could only snort. The purposes of God reside in him alone. He being the focus of our hope and confidence. Life in the place of death. Righteousness in the place of sin. Glory in the place of judgment.

Have we not stood afar off, Lord? Snarling within ourselves, as it were, how could you save with such a one as this? For we did not esteem him. We viewed him as a worthless runner a worthless sucker draining strength from the true plant possibly which we considered ourselves to be but this root, this stem is our hope and you have made him glorious Our Father, before the impossibility of our circumstance, now made plain to us afresh that nothing is impossible with you, certainly not our salvation.

That being completely and fully a work done by you because of your inexplicable grace. O Lord, May we grow up in all respects into the fullness of our Savior. And Lord, we pray that we would be at peace with the manner in which you have revealed him, the way in which you have brought our salvation to pass.

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.