This is your daily reminder. God has not run
out of mercy, not for you, not today. Welcome
to the New Mercies Podcast. Welcome. Today is
Wednesday, March the 25th. So thankful you found
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cost of all. of the fees and all the things that
we have to pay for. So all that out of the way,
today's reading plan on March the 25th, 2026
is Isaiah. 53. We are going back to the Old Testament,
looking at a place that will radically change
our lives if we jump in and understand it. And
so in our reading plan, I want to share a little
bit out of this passage today. I'm not going
to read every single verse. I encourage you to
do so. It's just 12 verses, not too long today.
But in those 12 verses, they're divided up into
some amazing places. And it's a picture of what
would happen to Jesus, the Messiah. This is one
of the prophetic moments in the Old Testament
talking about what was to come. So here's what
I want to do. I want to read just verse number
one, and then I want to give you kind of the
breakdown of what this chapter will look like.
So if you've already read it today, if you've
been in our reading plan, you've already read
it, I'm thankful. Hopefully, maybe this will
help you to go back and read it again, maybe
with those sections blocked off so you can kind
of see a little bit of the pattern that it takes.
But I want to read verse number one of Isaiah
53 right now, and then we'll talk about it. Here
we go. Isaiah 53, one, who has believed what
he has heard from us? And to whom has the arm
of the Lord been revealed? Now, a lot of times
we will just read a verse in Scripture and then
we just keep reading, right? And I want to take
a pause here and I want to just talk about something
that I was reading in one of my commentaries
that I have that kind of brought a new thing
to light for me that I had not really considered
before. But here's the thing I think is pretty
amazing. Whenever it talks about the... attributes
or the characteristics or the physique or the
things of God. It is important to note here in
verse number one, it talks about the arm of God.
Now, I am a person, I believe every word is in
the scripture on purpose. I don't believe God
put the word arm in there by accident. I think
he did it on purpose. And here's what I think.
So we're about to read in Psalm 53 the beautiful
gift of Jesus dying for us, the great substitute
that died for our sins. He's pierced for our
iniquities. He takes on our sin, takes on the
wrath of God so that we don't have to experience
it. This is one of the most beautiful places
in all of the Scripture. the suffering servant
who is going to be murdered, who's going to be
slain like a lamb to the slaughter. It is unbelievable
the amount of love that we see in this text.
But here's what I want to say. It starts out
with the arm of God. Why does that matter? Here's
why I believe it matters. We see throughout all
the Scripture, for instance, in the book of Psalm,
chapter 8, down in verse number 2 or 3, I believe,
in verse number 3, it says that all of creation
was made by the work of His fingers. The fingers
are the smallest part, the weakest part of the
arm, right? It's the very end. And then I look
into the book of Exodus chapter 13. I look and
I see that it was by God's hand that he delivered
Israel out of Egypt. Now the hand is more powerful
than the fingers, right? So it took a little
bit more. It was a little bit more forceful.
It was a little more strength that was flexed
and shown whenever Israel was delivered out of
Egypt. What happened when Israel was delivered
out of Egypt? We know the Passover happened,
right? That Passover took place, and then God
delivered his people out of the land of Egypt,
of slavery, of bondage, into the promised land
eventually. And so we see the work of his fingers
is everything we can see in the universe. That's
God's just work with his fingers. Then we see
the mighty work of his hand delivering his people
out of slavery and bondage. What does he show
whenever he delivers lost sinners into a relationship
with him? We see the strength of his arm. It
gets stronger and stronger and stronger. This
is a powerful, powerful thought. I hope and pray
when you read it again today. Maybe you'll see
a little different emphasis here. This is God
not just showing the work of his fingers. It's
not him just showing the work of his hand. This
is him showing the work of his arm, his mighty,
strong, powerful arm. whole chapter today, it
goes from there and gets better and better and
better. I don't want us to miss anything whenever
we're reading this text today. What I do want
us to understand is as we are looking at this
chapter, at this couple of verses here, verses
one through four, give us the life and the ministry
of Jesus. If you read those first four verses,
it will point to him being born out of the root.
It says in verse number two, like a root out
of dry ground. Now, we know that Israel has already
been spoken about in the Old Testament, and in
specifically the book of Isaiah, multiple times
as a tree. And we can go back and look at prophetic
words, and we can see that even whenever the
stump has been broken down out of that root,
there would be the Messiah. He would come. This
is the root of Jesse. This is Jesus, the one
who comes. And it says out of dry ground. Why
does it say dry ground? Well, when Jesus was
born into the world. politically, spiritually,
it was a dry place. It was desolate. There was
no hope to be found, and yet in that dry place,
there was a root that came. There was that that
was at the very beginning of the people of Israel,
the promised one would come. There's a lot of
symbolism within this text, and I don't want
us to miss something just because we may not
understand it. I do want us to dive in and see
a little bit more and more as this gets, the
scripture becomes, I consider it like more robust,
more beautiful. The more you dive in, the more
you see. But I want to encourage you today to
see the first four verses are the life and ministry
of Jesus. And then verses five through eight
are the death of Jesus, how he dies. He's pierced.
crushed. He is like a lamb to a slaughter. It
talks about his death. And then in verse number
nine, it talks about his burial, how he is buried.
And then verses 10 through 12 talk about his
resurrection and his exaltation, how he will
be resurrected and he will be exalted. If you
read this text now, after knowing kind of the
way it's broken down just a little bit, it may
help you to sink into that section a little bit
more. Verses five through eight are powerful.
How Jesus dies. We will see in the New Testament,
in Luke 23, in multiple places in the Gospels,
we'll see how Jesus died. We can go back to Isaiah
53, and we can look and see just how it happens
and how it overlays beautifully. But what goes
on, what we see in the Gospel accounts, is explained
and given more of a foundation in Isaiah 53.
If you look at those... Text in those verses
in verses 1 through 4, you'll see more of the
ministry of Jesus, how he's born, how he is raised
up, and how he does ministry. You'll see that
symbolically within there. And then verses, again,
5 through 8, talk about his death, how he dies,
the reason he dies. Then you see his burial happen
in verse 9. And then you see, verses 10 through
12, this massive exaltation, this beauty that
he is going to be, God's going to give him everything.
And as I read this text, And as I read it over
and over again, I just want to encourage you
today. We have a God that loves us so much. And
the love of God is so powerful. It is far more
impressive the way that Jesus redeemed us than
how God created everything. He created it all
at the work of his fingers. He delivered Israel
out of slavery with his hand. But he flexed his
mighty arm to bring us into his family. An unholy
people made holy. This is powerful and beautiful
today. I hope you appreciate what God has done
for you more and more. And maybe so much you
just can't contain it. Share it with somebody
today.