Let's turn to Isaiah chapter
53. Isaiah 53. We're going to look
at one verse here. And the verse just naturally
divides itself. And these will be our divisions.
First we see here a general confession that all Christ's sheep make. All we, like sheep, have gone
astray. All we like sheep have gone astray. And then we have here a personal
confession that we each make about ourselves. We have turned
everyone to his own way. And then we have the gospel. Substitution. Our great shepherd. And the Lord hath laid on him
the iniquity of us all. Here we have straying sheep and
our shepherd. Believer, God has laid on Christ
the iniquity of all His elect people. And He's laid on Him
the iniquity of us individually, personally, all our iniquities. So that in Christ all our sin
is gone. It's gone. God remembers it no
more. And so now we can worship and
serve Him without fear all the days of our lives. First of all,
we have a general confession that's true of all God's elect,
and this is what we confess to be true of us all together. All we, like sheep, have gone
astray. Now the ones that are making
this confession are Christ's sheep. Christ's sheep, the elect
of God. Christ said, I lay down my life
for the sheep. for the sheep. Those God chose
unto salvation in Christ Jesus before the foundation of the
world are the sheep of God. The elect only are the sheep. Christ laid down His life only
for the sheep. Now only those who are the sheep
will make this confession honestly about ourselves. All we, like
sheep, have gone astray. In the beginning, in the garden,
We were the sheep of God. We were the sheep of Christ our
shepherd, even then. Now you remember what Peter said.
Peter said, quoting from this verse, you were as sheep going
astray, but are now returned. You're now returned unto the
shepherd and bishop of your souls. That means we were with him before. He's always been the shepherd
of his sheep. He's always been. The garden,
when we were in the garden with God, God was our God. He was our green pasture. He
was our light. Our light. He was our life. He
was our fellowship. We had communion with God because
God our shepherd was all those things to us. The law of God
was the hedge around the pasture. That was the hedge around the
pasture. And all our safety, all Adam's
safety and him representing all his people, all our safety was
to stay in that pasture. It was to stay there near to
God and to obey God. But to stray from God, to leave
God, to break through that hedge meant certain death. A sheep
can't survive away from the shepherd. And so when Adam transgressed
that one law in the garden, in him we broke through the hedge. We strayed like sheep from the
pasture, from our God, and therefore in Adam all we died. We died. We were severed from
God our life, severed from communion with Him. Romans 5.12 says, as
by one man. Sin entered into the world and
death by sin. And so death passed upon all
men for that all have sin. Now what a proper comparison
of us to sheep. A good comparison. We're dumb
like sheep. And we need a shepherd constantly
just like sheep does. Spurgeon said sheep are dishonored
by this comparison. And that's true. That's true. Someone might say, well, if Christ
was our shepherd even then, why'd he allow us to stray? Well, according
to God's determinate counsel, according to God's foreordination,
according to the eternal purpose of God, God, our shepherd, allowed
us to stray. Number one, to teach us, we need
a shepherd. to teach us our constant need
of God our Savior. That's the number one thing He
shows us. And secondly, He did it to manifest to us His glory
in our salvation. We wouldn't know God if it wasn't
for the fall. We wouldn't know God if it wasn't
for Him saving us from our sin. Now God wasn't to blame. He was
not to blame for our straying from Him. Lo, this only have
I found, that God hath made man upright, And they have sought
out many inventions. We did the straying. We're the
only ones to blame. So our text says all are guilty. There's no exception. This is
a general confession of all Christ's sheep. All we, like sheep, have
gone astray. Is there not one among all God's
sheep that's not good? Is there not one that has not
strayed? Psalm 14.3 says, they are all gone aside, they are
all together become filthy, there is none that doeth good, not
one. Alright, here's the second thing.
Now it gets personal. It gets personal. Here's a personal
confession that each individual elect child of God says of ourselves,
about our person. This is what we say. We have
turned everyone to his own way. As soon as we were born of Adam's
corrupt seed, every one of us individually, personally turned
to our own way. The wicked are estranged from
the womb. They go astray as soon as they
be born speaking lies. That's true of me, that's true
of you, that's true of all men. All men. Not only God's sheep,
true of all men. Now each of us, every one of
us chose a way that seemed right to us. This proverb says, there
is a way which seemeth right unto a man. So we each, ourselves,
saw a way that seemed right to us personally. You chose a way
that seemed right to you. I chose a way that seemed right
to me. Another man chose a way that seemed right to him. There
are as many different ways as there are different sinners.
One chose a way called immoral sin. One man, he reasoned within
himself and he said, well, I only have a certain amount of time
on this earth, so it seems right to me that I ought to just kick
up my heels and live my life in immoral decadence all my days. This man's way was to live in
pleasure and to indulge in sin. And there's as many different
ways to do this as there are sinners. Another man chose the
way of moral sin. calling it righteousness. And
there's many different ways to do that as there are sinners.
For instance, one chooses a life of morality. He hopes, I just
hope that my good outweighs my bad. He looks at others and he
says, I'm not as bad as them, I'm not as bad as them. I've
done some good things and I hope in that day when God returns,
my good will outweigh my bad. He has no concept that God is
holy, has no concept that he's a sinner, that every thought,
word, and deed, his whole being, inside and out, is nothing but
sin, and has no idea that God will by no means clear the guilty.
Another man chooses a way that seems right to him, and the way
that seems right to him is his decision for his Jesus. for His God, for the God of His
imagination. His way that seemed right to
Him was, well, I've been told God wants to save me, I've been
told that God would like to save me, He's done all He can do,
so I'm going to let Him save me. He lets His powerless God
have His way. This man's way is His will. This man's way is what He calls
His free will. This man's God is his will. This
man's trusting in himself. He has no idea God is absolutely
sovereign. He has no idea that God does
with his own whatsoever he's pleased to do. That nobody can
stay his hand, nobody can question him, nobody can turn him from
doing what he will. He has no idea of that. You know,
sheep will stray. Sheep will leave a pasture. They'll
leave their shepherd. But a sheep won't come back of
his own will. He doesn't have discernment to
know the way back. He just knows how to stray. He
doesn't know how to get back. And in that regard, a sheep is
more dumb than an ox or an ass. And in that regard, as sinners,
we're like the sheep. We're like the sheep. Of our
own will, we went astray from God. But we will not of our own
will return to God. We don't have discernment to
return to God. That's what the scripture says.
These things that I'm telling you now, they're foolishness
to a man who's not been born of God. He hears what I'm saying
to you and he says, I can come back to God when I want to. I
have a will. I think I told you all this. My friend Brian Morrell,
when the Lord first saved Brian, he didn't know a great deal,
just like a new baby in Christ doesn't know a lot, but he knew
Christ and he knew how God saves and he knew God's will was sovereign.
And he was talking to a man one time about how God saves, and
this man was, you know, telling him, no, I was saved of my will,
and I have a will, I can do what I want to, when I want to, my
will's free. And Brian kept showing him some
scriptures, you know, and in the end, after Brian told him
the gospel, this man said this, he said, I can't believe that,
I just can't believe that. And Brian said, see, your will's
not free. You can't believe this. of your
will, and you can't, you can't. Now Christ said there, He said,
the scripture says, the ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's
crib. They know how to get back, but
Israel does not know, my people does not consider. And furthermore,
Christ said, our sin, this is the condemnation, light has come
into the world, and men love darkness more than light. They
won't come to the light lest their deeds should be discovered
and reproved by God. So, if you could come to God
by your will, it would be the same as saying, you can put away
your sin. And that's impossible. You'd
have something to glory in, and that's what a man does. He glories
in it. Christ said, my sheep hear my voice. Now listen to
this, and I know them. That's knowing them, intimately
like a husband knows his bride. That's how we come to be made
willing in the day of His power, by being born of His Spirit,
being taught of Him. That's how we're made willing.
He says, My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow
Me. He's formed in us in this knowing
of us. That's what it means. He's formed
in His people so that His people hear Him and follow Him, made
willing to have a will to do nothing else but follow Him.
Because He did it. It's His power. And He says that,
I give them eternal life and they'll never perish, neither
shall any man pluck them out of My hand. They won't hear the
voice of strangers anymore. When they hear the voice of a
stranger, that's not their God. When they hear the gospel preached,
they recognize, that's not my Savior. I'm not following Him. But they hear Christ in the message
and they know, that's my Savior. I'm following Him. I'm following
Christ. So, because we have to be known
of Christ to be able to follow Him, to be made willing, that's
why in the end, this way is going to lead to death for men because
in the end Christ is going to say, depart from me, you workers
of iniquity. I never knew you. I never was formed in you. You
didn't come to me of your will. I never made you willing. Another
chooses a way called keeping the law. Keeping the law. Self-justification or self-sanctification. The law given at Mount Sinai,
including the Ten Commandments, were not given for us to try
to come to God by the law. They were given to show us our
sins and to shut our mouths in guilt. Look at Romans 3.19. Romans 3.19, Romans 3.19, Now
we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them
who are under the law, That's who the law speaks to, brethren.
Paul said to Timothy, the law wasn't made for a righteous man.
The law is made for those who are unrighteous. The law was
made for those who are under it, that every mouth may be stopped
and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore,
by the deeds of the law, there shall no flesh be justified in
his sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin. And then
Paul said to the Galatians, after you've been born of the Spirit,
men will claim they get somebody to make a profession, and they
claim they believe Christ, and they take them right back to
the law. And Paul said, you that have begun in the Spirit, are
you now made perfect by the law? Are you now sanctified by the
law? Do you now grow by the law? Is that how you grow? No. It's
by Christ our sanctification. He's our righteousness, our justification,
and He's our sanctification. So there are many more ways that
men choose, but you get the point. You get the point. We have turned
everyone to His own way. Yet when you take all these individual
sinners' personal way, each individual sinner's personal way, and you
put them all together, they're all the ways of death. Listen, there is a way which
seemeth right unto a man but the end thereof are the ways
of death. Christ Jesus said I am the way.
He said I am the way. He said search the scriptures
for in them you think you have life and they are they which
testify of me and you will not come to me that you might have
life. So this is what each individual
child does. This is what we do prior to His
grace. We've turned everyone to His
own way. And the sinner that won't confess this, the sinner
that won't say this about himself and turn from his way, if we
say we have not sinned, we make him a liar and his word's not
in us. Alright, now here's the third
thing. God in great grace and mercy toward his elect did this
great thing. This is our gospel. Substitution. Isaiah 53 verse 6. The Lord hath laid on him the
iniquity of us all. Now together, all we like sheep
have gone astray. And the Lord laid on Christ the
iniquity of all His elect sheep. And then it gets personal. Individually,
personally, we have turned everyone to His own way. And the Lord
laid on Christ all the individual personal iniquity of each one
of His sheep. Now first notice who did this.
The Lord hath. The Lord hath. It means the triune
God has done it. It means Christ Jesus himself
who is the Lord has done it. He's done it. It's not done when
you repent and believe. That's not when our sins were
laid on Christ. It's not done when the believer
is called out of darkness into light. The Lord hath. The Lord
hath. It's not done repeatedly. The
Lord hath done this one time and it's finished. It's done.
It's complete. Now secondly, notice who the
substitute is that's taken the place of his elect. The Lord
hath laid on Him. On Him. On Christ. On Christ. Christ is the substitute Lamb.
He's the substitute Lamb that God Himself provided. God provided Him. He told Abraham... Abraham told Isaac. The Lord
will provide himself a lamb. And Christ is that lamb. He is
God providing himself. He is the lamb God himself has
provided. The first head and representative
of God's elect was a man, Adam. Well, there is a last head, a
last representative, and he was made a man. God the Son came
and took human flesh. Since by man came death, By a
man came also the resurrection of the dead. Now see what it
was that the Lord laid on our substitute here. The Lord hath
laid on him the iniquity. Now what does it say there? What
does it not say? It says the Lord hath laid on
him the iniquity. Punishment followed. Punishment
followed. Wrath followed. Judgment followed.
but not before iniquity itself was laid on Him. God's just. He's just. He did not pour out
punishment, wrath, justice upon His Son until iniquity was laid
on Him. The Holy Spirit doesn't say it
was as if the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity. It says
the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity to bear the iniquity
of God's elect. in His own body, on the tree,
is the very reason why God prepared a body for His Son. Look over
at Hebrews 10. Hebrews 10. And look at verse 4. Hebrews 10, 4. It is not possible
that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins.
It's not possible. Wherefore, when He cometh into
the world, when Christ came into the world, when God the Son,
God Himself came into this world, He saith, Sacrifice and offering
thou wouldest not. You were not pleased with sacrifice
and offerings of bulls and goats, but a body hast thou prepared
me. A body. In burnt offerings and
sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure. They never satisfied
justice. Never. They were in ceremony
only. They were in type only. They
never did put away sin. He says, Then said I, Lo, I come,
in the volume of the book it is written of me, to do thy will,
O God. It was God's will that His Son
come and His Son bear the sins of His people in His own body
on the tree and that justice be poured out on Him and that
He satisfy the justice of God for His people. Look back at
Hebrews 2. Hebrews 2, look at verse 9. Hebrews 2 verse 9, we see Jesus
who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering
of death, crowned with glory and honor. We see Him now crowned
with glory and honor, but that was His crowning glory too, to
suffer for us. And He says that he, by the grace
of God, should taste death for every. Man is left out in the
original, but it's for every. It's for every chosen child of
God. We know that because God's taking
the sin of His people and putting it on His Son. He's paying for
the sin of somebody. He's taking the sin of all His
elect collectively, of all our sin individually. Alright, look
at this. For, here's why he did it. It
became him for whom are all things and by whom are all things in
bringing many sons into glory to make the captain of their
salvation perfect through sufferings. For both he that sanctifieth
and they who are sanctified are all of one for which cause he's
not ashamed to call them brethren. You see, it was, he came and
he was given a body to bear our sins. And then to bear the punishment
for our sins. Now, go back to our text and
note whose iniquity was laid on him. Hebrews 53 verse 6. The Lord hath laid on him the
iniquity of us all. Of us all. Now you know, according
to the scriptures, that this was not everybody. God said,
Jacob have I loved, Esau have I hated. Christ stood there and
he said, I laid down my life for the sheep. And he looked
at men and he said, you don't believe because you are not my
sheep. He's saying, I didn't lay down
my life for you. I'm not laying down my life for you. He laid
down his, so he took the iniquity of all his sheep and put them
on Christ. Now Christ Jesus, the God-man,
never committed transgression. He never committed transgression.
He came into this world to fulfill the law. And that's exactly what
He did. He fulfilled the law. Christ
Jesus as a man made under the law was examined by the law and
He was found innocent. The Lord is well pleased for
His righteousness sake. But Christ came into this world
to make the law honorable and to magnify the law. And so, that
God might be just and God might be the justifier. And therefore
when the hour was come, because he was the only spotless lamb,
he was the only fit substitute, he was the only man who could
willingly do this, he willingly, willingly gave himself to have
the iniquity of his people laid on him. He did this himself to
bear the sins of his people. 1 Peter 3.18 says Christ also
has once suffered for sins. That's what He suffered for.
He suffered for sins. He suffered for sins. He suffered
for sins. They were not His own sins. They
were our sins. The sins of His elect. But He
suffered for sins. That's why He suffered. The just
for the unjust. He Himself was just. that He
might bring us to God being put to death in the flesh but quickened
by the Spirit. So He willingly gave His body
that was prepared for this purpose to be the substitute lamb to
bear the iniquity of His people and thus justly bear our judgment. The Lord has laid on Him the
iniquity of us all. 2 Corinthians 5.21 says, He hath
made Him sin for us. that we might be made the righteousness
of God in him. Now men will say, that means
he was made a sin offering for us. It's true, he made his soul
an offering for sin. But brethren, in that verse,
sin is the antithesis to righteousness. He was made sin, who knew no
sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. And if you make that word sin
to be a sin offering, you destroy that antithesis in that verse.
And it's null and void. It does not convey the message
that Paul was conveying in it. He hath made Him to be sin for
us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness
of God in Him. When Peter quoted this verse,
he said, Who His own self bear our sins in His own body on the
tree. Paul said Christ has redeemed
us from the curse of the law being made a curse for us. You can't make that say anything
else but what it says. He was made a curse for us. God
didn't merely count him to have died for his people. He didn't
merely impute death to him and say well he died for his people.
Christ had to die. He had to die. And God didn't
merely impute our sin to Him. God made Him to be sin for us
who knew no sin. Brethren, don't miss the blessing
of this because of the smokescreen of Satan. I don't want you to
get caught up in controversy and get caught up in what this
one says and this one says. I want you to get the blessing
of this. I want you to see the blessing in what this is saying
to us, brethren. Christ became sin for you. For you who know Him, for you
who believe Him, for you who are His sheep. He took your sin
and it became His as truly as it was yours. And not only the sin of His elect
collectively. Folks like to say, well He died
for the church. He died for each individual elect
child of God. He took the sins, past, present,
and future, of every elect individual child of God, and He bore those
sins in His body on the tree. The iniquity. If you took all
our sins all together, the ways of death, and the ways we call
just and righteous, what we call holiness and righteousness, it
did not equate with what God calls holiness and righteousness.
It was iniquity. It was inequitable. It didn't
add up to what God calls holiness and righteousness. Not at all.
All our iniquities can be all traced back to that one iniquity
in the garden. And God took all our sins, all
our ways, and He laid it on Christ. Now you try to think about this.
You take all our various ways, all our sins, you compare them
to the number of paths that there are just innumerable number of
ways and sin, all of it sin. Innumerable sins because the
people He died for is a number no man can number. We can't number
the sins that He bore. You take all of those and you
picture them as being just these paths crisscrossing all over
the world from the four corners of the world. God brought all
those paths down to one way, one iniquity, One mass of iniquity. And He laid it on His Son. He
laid it on His Son. You picture this. You picture
a mountain. And you can look at that mountain and you can
see all these streams coming down from the mountain. And they're
all coming down. And as they go, they get a little
bigger. And this one connects with this one. And this one connects
with this one. And they come all down to one giant stream. And they all dump into one lake
at the bottom of the mountain. Those streams are our iniquities,
our sins, our transgressions, our trespasses, past, present
and future. God made them all to converge
into one and dumped the whole mass on His Son. The Lord has laid on Him the
iniquity of us all. Look over at Leviticus 16. Now this was a type, this was
not the express image. This was a ceremony only. But
look at this right here, Leviticus 16, 21. Aaron, he's the high
priest. Aaron shall lay both his hands
upon the head of the live goat. and confess over him all the
iniquities of the children of Israel." He wasn't confessing
over him the iniquities of the Gentiles, heathen nations, only
the children of Israel. And God put the iniquities of
all His elect children of Israel, whether they be Jew or Gentile,
upon Christ and only them. But look, all the iniquities
of the children of Israel and all their transgressions and
all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat. Now,
this was a type ceremony only. This didn't really go on the
goat. They shall send him away by the hand of a fit man into
the wilderness, and the goat shall bear upon him all their
iniquities unto a land not inhabited, and he shall let go the goat
in the wilderness. Now, more expressly than what
is pictured here in this type, which was just a ceremony, Christ
Jesus, our great high priest, Our great high priest who is
himself the Lord, he laid on him the iniquity of all his people.
He did this willingly. All the iniquities of the children
of Israel and all their transgressions and all their sins did he put
upon his own head, brethren. And he owned them to be his own.
And being the only fit man who himself could take our sins away,
Christ bore upon him all our iniquities unto a land not inhabited. Look at Isaiah 53 in verse 8. Look there after the question. It says, He was cut off out of
the land of the living. For the transgression of my people
was he stricken. He was wounded for our transgression.
He was bruised for our iniquities. For the transgression of my people
was He stricken. And here's the good news. By
His stripes we're healed. By His stripes we're healed.
God raised Him from the dead declaring to the whole world
that justice is satisfied, propitiation has been made for His people.
It's done. God is just and now He is the
justifier of all who believe on Jesus the Lord. He said in
those days, And in that time, saith the Lord, the iniquity
of Israel shall be sought for. Who seeks for it? Satan does. That he might accuse the brethren.
But he says, there shall be none. None. The sins of Judah and they
shall not be found. For I will pardon them whom I
reserve. Christ our Shepherd came looking
for us. And He gathered us. and He put a new spirit in us,
a new heart in us, and He taught us this good news. And here's
why He did that, brethren, that we might not henceforth live
unto ourselves, but unto Him. In 1 Peter 2.24, He said, Who
His own self bare our sins, and His own body on the tree, that
we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness. And
I recommend you put a capital R on that, because that we should
live unto Christ our righteousness, by whose stripes you were healed. For you were a sheep going astray,
but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls. Listen to this from Luke 1.74.
He said that He would grant unto us that we, being delivered out
of the hand of our enemies, might serve Him without fear, in holiness
and righteousness before Him all the days of our life. Now
don't miss this. Don't miss this. Christ was not
made a sinner. Christ was not made sins. Christ
was made sin. He was made sin. And we're not
made holy and righteous merely. We're made holiness and righteousness. That means our whole being This
new man that He's created in Christ Jesus is holiness and
righteousness. So no matter, we're not in the
flesh, we're in the Spirit. If so be the Spirit of Christ
dwells in you. So it's not just what we're doing that's holy
or right. It is the fact we are now made
holiness and righteousness. So now we can serve God without
fear. Because God is holiness and righteousness
and we're one. He that sanctifieth and they
who are sanctified are all of one. He's holiness and righteousness
and we're holiness and righteousness. So we can serve Him without fear.
And it said, and he did this. Listen to this. Psalm 32, verse
1 says, Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.
Listen to this. Blessed is the man unto whom
the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is
no God. You see, in our spirit we have
been made as He is already. We have. That's why when we die,
there's nothing going to be done to our spirit. We're going to
be with Him immediately in glory. It's because in our spirit, in
Him, we're holiness and righteousness. So we can serve Him without fear.
We can serve Him without fear. Because this is what He says.
I don't feel like it. It don't matter what you feel.
All I see in me is sin. That's all that's in you and
me is sin. In our flesh, But He's made us holiness and righteousness
and that's how it is. And He says there that He did
this so that we could serve Him without fear all the days of
our life. How long is the days of a believer's
life? How long? Well, our flesh is
grass. It's withering and it's going
to die. But that's not us, brethren. That's not the new man. That's
not us. We've been born of the incorruptible
seed of the Word of God which liveth and abideth forever. And so, we're going to serve
Him now and forever. Now and forever. So brethren,
live your life reverencing God, but not fearing God. When I speak
to you about the fear of God, I'm not saying be afraid of God.
I'm saying reverence God. Serve Him with fear and trembling,
that is with reverence. But we don't do so afraid of
God because we have no reason to fear God. We've been made
one with Him. And do so thanking Him and praising
Him because He laid on your shepherd all your iniquity. It's gone. God says, I don't remember it
anymore. It's gone. And we're going to serve Him
like we're serving Him now, but better. Because in that day,
we're going to be made like Him in body and spirit. And we're
going to serve Him forever without fear. You reckon we'll be afraid
of Him in glory? Huh? No. His apostles weren't afraid of
Him when He was walking beside them and talking to them. We
won't be afraid of Him. We don't have any reason to be
now. We've been made as He is. So serve Him without fear in
thankful adoration all the days of your life. Amen. Let's stand together.