For when the world with all its earthly
wisdom failed to know God, by means
of its own philosophy, God in His wisdom
was pleased through the foolishness of
preaching (salvation, procured by Christ
and to be had through Him), to save
those who believed (trusted in and
relied on Him).
(I. Corinthians 1.21).
HALLELUJAH! THANK YOU LORD JESUS FOREVERMORE!
Who has believed our message? And to whom has the arm of the Lord
been disclosed?
For the Servant of God grew up before Him like a tender plant, and like
a root out of dry ground: He has no form or comeliness, that we should
look at Him, and no beauty that we should desire Him.
He was despised and rejected and forsaken by men, a Man of sorrows
and pains, and acquainted with grief and sickness; and like One from
Whom men hide their faces He was despised, and we did not appreciate
His worth or have any esteem for Him.
Surely He has borne our griefs (sicknesses,weaknesses, and distresses)
and carried our sorrows and pains, yet we considered Him stricken and
afflicted by God.
But He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our guilt
and iniquities; the chastisement needful to obtain peace and well-being for
us was upon Him, and with the stripes that wounded Him we are healed and
made whole.
All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned every one to his own way;
and the Lord has made to light upon Him the guilt and iniquity of us all.
He was oppressed, yet when He was afflicted, He was submissive and opened
not His mouth; like a lamb, that is led to the slaughter, and as a sheep before
her shearers is dumb, so He opened not His mouth.
By oppression and judgement He was taken away; and as for His generation,
who among them considered that He was cut off out of the land of the living
for the transgression of my people, to whom the stroke was due?
And they assigned Him a grave with the wicked, and with a rich man in His
death, although He had done no violence, neither was any deceit in His mouth.
(Isaiah 53.1-9).
When it was evening, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named
Joseph, who was also a disciple of Jesus.
He went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus, and Pilate ordered
that it be given to him.
And Joseph took the body and rolled it up in a clean linen cloth used for
swathing dead bodies.
And laid it in his own fresh tomb, which he had hewn in the rock; and he
rolled a big boulder over the door of the tomb and went away.
(Matthew 27.57-60).
He was guilty of no sin, neither was deceit ever found on His lips.
When He was reviled and insulted, He did not revile or insult in
return; when He was abused and suffered, He made no threats;
but He trusted Himself and everything to Him Who judges rightly.
He personally bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we might
die to sin and live to righteousness. By His wounds you have been healed.
For you were going astray like sheep, but now you have come back to the
Shepherd and Guardian of your souls.
(I.Peter 2.22-25).
HALLELUJAH! THANK YOU LORD JESUS FOREVERMORE!
YOU IN THE DIVINE MYSTERY
Having made known to us the mystery
of His will in accordance with His good
pleasure which He had previously purposed
and set forth in Him.
That in the dispensation of the fullness of the
times to unify all things in Christ, both things
in heaven and things on the earth, in Him.
In Him also we have obtained an inheritance,
being predestined according to the purpose
of Him who works all things according to the
counsel of His will.
That we who first trusted in Christ should be
to the praise of His glory!
POINTS FOR PRAISE AND MEDITATION
1) God’s divine mystery revealed.
2) The divine mystery in the culmination
of the ages will unify everything in Christ.
3) As God works out everything according
to the counsel of His will He has predestined
us who first trusted in Jesus Christ to His
inheritance.
4) His destiny for all who trust in Jesus
Christ is to live for the praise of His glory!
HALLELUJAH! PRAISE THE LORD!