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8-19-2018 Weekly Message
The Meditation of the Week: Isaiah 53:1-12
Word of God: Titus 2:1-15
The title of the book: Our lives in the hope of the glorious appearing of the Savior Jesus Christ

The Apostle Paul testified that the Lord Jesus Christ will appear gloriously. The “glory” that appears in the Bible is related to the second coming of Jesus Christ.

We see evil people glorified in the present evil world we live in. However, those who are to be honored  by people, are rather being framed, jailed, and even killed.

A man who has been most respected and honored in human historyappeared in the world two thousand years ago. But he received great reproach and suffering as the prophet Isaiah prophesied, and was eventually killed in the hands of sinners. His name was “Jesus”. He was not only man, but God manifested in the flesh. About 700 years before Jesus appeared to the world, the prophet Isaiah prophesied of  him:

” Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed?

2For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.

3He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

4Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.

5But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.

6All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. “(Isaiah 53: 1-6)

When He finally was conceived by the Holy Spirit and appeared as a man, as the prophet Isaiah had prophesied before, He was rejected for him not to have any safe place for himself. And at last he was slain on the cross to remove the sin of the world, as well as for those who persecuted Him unto death The apostles testified about the suffering He received.

At that time Herod, the King of the Jews, killed children under two years old to kill child Jesus, who was about two years old. Herod, a man of Satan, committed a great murder in order to prevent Jesus from removing the sin of the world (Matthew 2: 16-18).

When Pilate asked the Jews who accused of Jesus what kind of judgment against Jesus, they asked to crucify Jesus:

“Let him be crucified! … and his blood be on us, and on our children!

Finally, they stripped him, and put on him a scarlet robe. And when they had platted a crown of thorns; they put it upon his hand, and a reed in his right hand: and they bowed the knee before him, and mocked him, saying, Hail, King of thr Jews! And they spit upon him, and took the reed, and smote him on the head. And they gave him vinegar to drink mingled with gall: and when he had tasted thereof, he would not drink. They parted his garment, casting lots. (Matthew’s testimony) (Matthew 27: 22-35)

The prophet Isaiah prophesied of taking all sufferings of Jesus  to fulfill his will to come into the world to give his body as a sacrifice offering for the sinful world as  loving the world even in such a  terrible suffering:

” He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.

8He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken.

9And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth.“(Isaiah 53: 7-9)

          Jesus endured cross for the joy that was set before him in order to fulfill the will of His Father in heaven. Apostle Paul testified to the Hebrews about this:

”  Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. 3For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds.

4Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin.5And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him: “(Hebrews 12: 2-5).

            Christians who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and become children of God no more belong to this world.  So even if we suffer in the world, we shall be glorified when the Lord Jesus Christ come in glory. Jesus said to his disciples:

” If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.” (John 15:19)

          Apostle Paul wrote to the saints in Rome in suffering:

” And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together. 18For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. “(Romans 8: 17-18).

           Apostle Paul testified to his spiritual son and pastor, Titus, “ Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;” (Titus 2:13). About the coming of glory,    “Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works. “(Titus 2:14). I have testified.

          Therefore, Apostle Paul speaks of the lives of those who wait for the Lord Jesus Christ to be appearing  gloriously: pastors have to speak the things which become sound doctrine:  aged men be sober, grave, temperate, sound in faith, in charity, in patience: aged women likewise, that they be in behaviour as becomes holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things: they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands , so that the word of God be not blasphemed.: Young men likewise exhort to be sober minded.: servants exhort to be obedient unto their own masters to have clean relationship: Living  soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world, we are to prepare  to meet the Lord Jesus in glory. .

Amen! Hallelujah!