Today, Isaiah 53:7-9:

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. He was taken from prison and from judgment, and who will declare His generation? For He was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgressions of my people He was stricken. And they made His grave with the wicked--but with the rich at His death, because He had done no violence, nor was any deceit in His mouth.

We are looking together at Isaiah 52:13 through 53:12. And today, Isaiah 53:4-6:

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. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.

We are taking a closer look at Isaiah 52:13-53:12. Today, 53:1-3:

Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? 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 hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him (Isaiah 53:1-3).

We all need to draw closer to Jesus. Anyone disagree? God gave his prophet Isaiah remarkable revelations for us. The section immediately preceding our study speaks of God's people as His servant and we may study that. But let's start with Jesus. Over the next weeks I hope you will join me in looking at 15 verses, Isaiah 52:13 through Isaiah 53:12. Let's have a closer look now at this morning's segment, Isaiah 52:13-15.

Hear these verses:

Jesus and His disciples have just been on the mount of transfiguration. He had shone in that moment of brightness. His three most spiritual disciples had seen Him glorified. The thick, blinding, indescribable effulgence of Jesus' deity pounded into their retinas. Jesus had prayed for strength to endure His Gethsemene test on behalf of humanity, that they might witness a manifestation of His divinity to comfort them in the hour of their supreme agony. God had given it.

There's something wrong when a church bends itself into pretzels to go along and get along. In the world, sure. But not in the church. Jesus is not a plastic Savior; He did not change His tune to fit what was popular in that culture. He took our nails in His flesh—nails which otherwise justly would have pierced us. The wages of sin is death, and we have earned those wages. Jesus intervened and bought our freedom. That didn't take a weak or plastic person; it took a strong and unbending person, relentless in being love.

We haven't always responded to Him with the respect due Him. We get distracted. We forget the price paid and we forget the blessings that are ours as Jesus' redeemed disciples.

Every seven years the fourth of July falls on God's seventh-day Sabbath. God's gift of rest in His salvation on that day coincides with His gift of liberty to the nation of America in 1776. Rare is the worship service where I touch a secular holiday. But it seems timely this sabbath to highlight how special is God's gift of liberty to this nation, as Americans are presently under siege by those who do not love liberty.