“WE ESTEEMED HIM NOT!”

Isaiah 53:3-5                                  (ESV)

“3 HE was DESPISED AND REJECTED by men, a MAN of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces HE was despised, and “WE ESTEEMED HIM NOT”. 

4 Surely HE has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed HIM stricken, smitten by GOD, and afflicted. 

5 But HE was pierced for our transgressions; HE was crushed for our iniquities; upon HIM was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with HIS wounds we are healed.”

The hurt of having a friend embarrassingly deny and reject you, even though they know how many good things you have done for everyone, especially them, cannot be understood.  We can only hurt for the offended.   When you see this being manifested before you, only then can you just begin to minutely imagine the loneliness and desertion that JESUS experienced during HIS trial and crucifixion.  There wasn’t anybody, including family and friends, who stood up and said “NOT GUILTY” as GOD IN FLESH sacrificed HIMSELF for the sins of ALL mankind!

It is estimated that Isaiah 53 was written around 700 years before JESUS came onto the scene.  How did Isaiah know that JESUS would be DESPISED AND REJECTED by men?  It has been estimated that over 400 prophecies about JESUS were made in the Old Testament.  The odds have been calculated by someone smarter than me and if my recollection is correct it seems like if someone fulfilled only eight of the prophesies it would be described as such:

"The prospect that anyone would satisfy those EIGHT prophecies was just 1 in 10 to the 17th Power.  Let us try to visualize this chance. If you mark one of ten tickets, and place all of the tickets in a hat, and thoroughly stir them, and then ask a blindfolded man to draw one, his chance of getting the right ticket is one in ten. Suppose that we take 10 to the 17th power silver dollars and lay them on the face of Texas. They will cover all of the state two feet deep. Now mark one of these silver dollars and stir the whole mass thoroughly, all over the state.”

What Isaiah wrote about JESUS wasn’t an educated guess, it was Divinely inspired by ALMIGHTY GOD over 700 years before JESUS made HIS appearance.  And yet mankind, “WE ESTEEMED HIM NOT”!  Our CREATOR intermingled with humanity and our EYES did not SEE HIM as being WHO HE said HE was!  Like I said, HIS family and friends didn’t even fight for HIM.  “WE ESTEEMED HIM NOT” because it had been prophesied that HE would be DESPISED AND REJECTED by us.  

GOD’s WORD WILL BE FULFILLED!  It took AT LEAST 700 years for JESUS to fulfill some prophecies, but even today “WE ESTEEM HIM NOT”!  GOD, our CREATOR, giver and sustainer of life, is waiting for us to recognize HIM as our KING, and “WE ESTEEMED HIM NOT”!!!