Yeah. Don't think I have any
light right now. Let me look. Okay. What do I do? Just hit this? That's what you're talking
about right there. Good to go. It's good to be with you. I'm thankful for you people and
appreciate you and I don't know how many years that I've known
Brother Rupert and Betty, you folks, but I counted a joy to
know you and I appreciate each one of you. It's been my privilege
to be down a few times and try to preach. You're very attentive,
and I thank the Lord for you. If you have your Bibles, turn
with me this morning to 1 Peter chapter 2. And we'll look at verses 24 and
25. You should get a message this
morning if I just read these two verses I Would hope that you could apply
them to that of yourself First Peter chapter 2 verse 24 and
25 Who his own self By our sins in his own body on the tree that we being dead to sins should
live under righteousness by whose stripes ye were healed by whose stripes ye were healed
for ye were as a sheep gone astray but are now returned unto the
shepherd and bishop of your souls what a wonderful passage of scripture
for us We see in this the sheep going
astray. We see the Lord Jesus Christ
burying our sins in his own body on the tree. And we see the return
unto the shepherd and bishop of our souls. The Bible says we, as sheep,
have all gone astray. We have fallen. We've sinned. We've come short of the glory
of God. The Bible says we've turned each one to our own way. We're sinful by that of nature
and by practice, aren't we? We come into this world with
a sinful nature, then we practice that of sin. We sin against light. There's no excuse for us. As
the scripture says, we've wandered away. There's a hand that cares
for us. Like the shepherd and the sheep,
the sheep Sometimes they'd find a gap in the hedges and they'd
go through it. But once when they went through
it, they couldn't return. They didn't know how to get back. They couldn't return to the place
from where they had wandered. Now, that's different with cattle
or horses. I had some carriers to get out. And I've had cows to get out
and I didn't even know there's out they'd go back get back in
at the end of the day But here's man And the Bible teaches that
he's without prior to return He's gone astray He's done it
willingly He's done it foolishly And he's done it in stupidity. Gone astray. We confess that it's foolishness
that we went out of the path. We should have leeled to the
Lord. We should have given Him the glory that was due His name. One thing about sheep, they often
go after a fresh pasture, even if it has a lot of poisonous
weeds. They get tired quick, they get
weary. The shepherd always tried to
get them to eat all the grass before moving so it wouldn't
be wasted. They'd see other places that
they'd desire. But again, you see the care and
the need of the watchful shepherd. How we need him to watch over
us. Sheep were prone to follow one
another. I've read one place that says if it's going across
a bridge and one decided to jump, what happens to the rest of them?
They'd jump also. They like to follow one another.
They said in the old days when they went to slaughter sheep,
that they'd use the stuffed sheep to draw the others in. So you see something about them. But the Bible makes it clear
that when sheep is gone astray, they never return of themselves. They never find their way back
to the foe. Easy to go as mankind. Easy to stray. Easy to wander. And that's why we have to have
the Lord himself to come after us. What a beautiful picture
found over in the book of Luke where he goes out Finds the sheep
and lays it upon his shoulders and brings it home rejoicing
Turn with me to the book of Ezekiel In the 34th chapter of Ezekiel We find in verse number 6 he
says my sheep have wandered through all the mountains and And upon
every high hill, yea, my flock was scattered upon all the face
of the earth, and none did search or seek after them. Verse number 11. For thus saith
the Lord God, Behold, I, even I, will both search my sheep
and seek them out. As a shepherd seeketh out his
flock in the day that he is among the sheep that are scattered,
so I will seek out my sheep and will deliver them out of the
places which they have been scattered in the cloudy and dark day. And sheep return to the fold
because of the good shepherd that brings them or has brought
them. That's how they return. We notice the passage says his
own self by our sins. It's a sin this morning to wonder,
it's a sin to depart. Sin is the cause of all misery
in this world. You think about the misery and the evil, it's because of
sin. There's original sin and there's
actual sin And it all meets For the believer right here upon
the great Redeemer It meets upon him it meets upon our substitute
The Bible tells us sin must be atoned for it must be Put away
it must be blotted out What a statement that we have
when He says He's bearing our sins in His own body. This innocent substitute, we
see Him taking our sins. We see Him suffering. We see Him bearing our sins,
this one. Turn with me to Isaiah 53, and
this chapter, I just stop when I come to it, when it speaks
of our Lord Jesus Christ. And here's Isaiah, all these
years before, pointing out the Savior. And we see what he sees. When he looks at him, verse four,
he's borne our griefs, carried our sorrows. Yet did we esteem
him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded
for our transgression. That's why he's on the cross.
That's why he was afflicted of God. That's why he was smitten,
because he was wounded for our transgressions. We strive for
our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace
is upon Him, and with His stripes we are healed. Lord, we are sheep. Like sheep
gone astray, turned everyone to his own way. But the Lord
has laid upon him the iniquity of us all. So we see him dying
in our stead. We see his work upon Calvary's
cross. The scripture says he has made
sin for us who knew no sin. He himself, by our sins, the
Lord laid upon him the iniquity of us all. And he did this voluntarily. his own self I submit unto you
there's a connection between the shepherd and the sheep as
we read this portion of scripture we have our original fall and
it was by another it was by Adam who has made sinners by Adam But we see our Lord accomplishing
our salvation. He accomplished it a long time
before we was born. He's called the second Adam.
We sinned to Adam. Our salvation is in a federal
headship, is in Christ Jesus. There's several things in this
passage of scripture that we can find. One is God must punish
sin. That is an absolute. And we see Him laying it and
putting it upon our Lord Jesus Christ and making Him to be sin
for us. I don't think anybody knows when he comes to the crucifixion,
when he comes to the Lord and what he suffered, this only begotten
Son, when the wrath of God fell on him. I don't think anybody
can express it or anybody knows what all happened when it met
on Christ Jesus. But the result says that our
sin was put away. It's been removed. That the debts that we had has
been discharged. There's satisfaction made. I
remember reading about Christ and His work many, many years
ago, and a few things that stick with you, and I wish there's
a lot more that stuck with me, but they used to call the atonement
satisfaction. That's what He done. Christ made
satisfaction unto God when He paid for our various sins. And
I state unto you today that it is a redemption that redeems. It's an atonement that atones. We hear and see things that's
preached in our day and they say that there's been a redemption
but it lets people go to hell. They say there's been atonement,
but it lets people go to hell. I would ask what kind of redemption
is that? What kind of an atonement is
that? Is our Lord and Savior a failure? No, He's a Redeemer that took
our sin. He's one that paid the price.
The weight of our sins is put upon him and he bore them. And
I say unto you today that he bore all of his elect sins. He bore them. What was due them? We see him. He bore them so that we wouldn't
have to bear them. Could you bear the eternal consequences
of your sin? Would you want to? He'd bear. Bear our sins. Our debts was transferred to
Him. And justice was met. It was met. And this is a payment that God
demanded and a payment that He received and He did not demand
another payment. He doesn't have to be twice paid
when he's paid. Our sins is blotted out. They've
been put away out of God's sight. And Paul can write in the book
of Romans in the 8th chapter in verse number 1 says, There
now is no condemnation to those in Christ Jesus. He writes here that we've been
dead to sin. There's the old man and there's
a crucifixion. He's crucified. It says we live
under righteousness. In this next part of the verse,
it says, by whose stripes she were healed. The Bible sets forth that of
sin as a disease. and the scripture and we see
here a healing for that we have that of preaching today
that tells us that by his stripes we are healed this is a physical
healing it's not, it's a spiritual healing he healed us spiritually Here's a disease that is fatal
and sin is a fatal disease because of sin death entered into the
world And here's that of a healing Here's a great physician and
he came to heal And he heals by his death by his suffering It talks about stripes here,
and we see the horrible punishment and the shame of the cross. You
know, that's about to scourge Paul one time, and he told them
he was Roman citizenship, so they wouldn't scourge him. But
they scourged our Lord, didn't they? Our Lord bore the stripes
in our very place. Isaiah writing about this and
these years before He wrote this he said it pleased the Lord to
bruise him That'll just stop us Here's God Almighty Here's this
son that was his delight from eternity And Isaiah, by the Spirit of
God, writes, and it says, the Lord was pleased to bruise him. They hung him on the cross, but
he is there by the determinant counsel of God, with the full
knowledge of God. It was a determinant thing that
happened. There was the piercing of His
body, His suffering. When we look at it, we ought
to see this. We see the love of God. We see
the love of Christ. But we also ought to see God's
anger against sin when He was made sin. It says, ye were healed. It's an effective thing. Sin is compared in the scripture
to that of the disease and one of the great diseases in that
day was leprosy. And as you know, leprosy, it
weighs at the extremities of the body. He'd wave the toes,
the fingers, the nose. And they wouldn't get near one,
there was a leopard. If they saw him, thought he was
dead, they just took a rope and lassoed him and carried him down
to Jerusalem to the garbage dump. It's said at night you'd hear
The howling and the screams coming forth. See, they didn't get close
enough to examine him. They looked like he was dead.
They just took him on down. And there's a picture of Gehenna. Now, think about that in terms
of the leopard that came to the Lord Jesus Christ. He came to him and saw Christ. He knew his power. He knew his healing. And he said,
if thou wilt, thou can make me whole. You heal me, thou wilt. I thought about it. What about that leper when the
Lord said, I will be thou healed. Look at the doom that he faced. The Lord said, I will. And here it tells us by his stripes,
we are healed. We need that healing. And here's that healing. Empowering
our sins in His own body. It tells us that we are crucified
with Christ, we died with Christ, we are resurrected with Christ,
and we are seated with Christ. The Bible tells us to live in
the newness of life. Live under righteousness Put
off the old man put on a new man Over in the book of Galatians
Paul writes Let me give you a couple scriptures here And 614 God forbid that I should glory
save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ by whom the world
is crucified unto me And I unto the world We live in it But it's to be
crucified Turn back to the second chapter of relations What a verse
this is in verse number 20. I Paul writes and he says I'm
crucified with Christ nevertheless I live but yet not
I but Christ liveth in me in the life which I now live in
the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me
and gave himself for me The Bible teaches us that we
live a life of faith. Look into the Lord Jesus Christ. We live a life of prayer. We live a life of love. Loving our Lord. Loving each
other. We live a life of hope, that
blessed hope. The day that we lay down these
bodies, we go to be with the Lord. We also live a life of repentance. I remember reading years and
years ago that Augustine, or Augustine, whatever you want
to call him, He said this, I was born for nothing but repentance.
That seems to be our lives, doesn't it? Repentance. Live a life of humility. What if the Lord hadn't dealt
with us? What if he hadn't washed sins in his own body? What if we was not healed by
his stripes? We see the consequences of all
of that. But again, we see the healing. Through this healing, our sins
is pardoned. I don't think we see, we know we're sinners. But yet,
do we really see how sinful that we are? Oh, the pardoning, what always
pardoned us. He subdues sin. He gives us his righteousness.
He gives us the power to serve Him. And it's because we've been delivered
from the bondage of sin. We serve Him. We desire to worship
Him. We want to honor and praise Him.
Give Him the glory. And it says in verse 25 that
you've returned. You've returned unto the shepherd
and bishop of your souls. You were, but are now returned. What blessed words. You were and now
you've returned. I submit unto you that that makes
all the difference in the world right here, doesn't it? If we just left it there as a
sheep going astray, look at the consequences of that. Look at
the terribleness of that. Sheep going astray, but now look
at the blessedness of this. You've returned unto the shepherd
and bishop of your souls. How great is it? It's an eternal thing. Isn't
it? It goes on for eternity. If you've
returned to Him, He's brought you to Him. It goes on. It continues. By the way, the Bible sets our
Lord as a shepherd here. He's the great shepherd. It sets
him forth as the good shepherd and the chief shepherd, all three. Now, he's the one that comes
after his sheep. He's the seeker. He's the one that finds His sheep. He calls. Hear His voice. I'll tell you, it's a wonderful
day when He comes to you and He says, I've come to get you. I've come for you. You're mine. I redeemed you. I bought you. I paid the price
for you. I've healed you. I've come to save you. Oh, you've
wandered away. But I've come for you. What a blessing. Wake up for us. He saves us. Could be in a dark night. And
I tell you that's where sin will take you sometimes in the very
darkness. It comes after she. It could be in the deep fog that he has all she and I. the fog of life. He says, I've come to get you. It could be in the swamp, the
mire of the swamp. And I think that's a pretty good
picture of man. He just gets a little deeper
and a little deeper in the swamp of life, doesn't he? He's going
down. I don't see man jumping up, but
I see him going down. I've come to get you. It'll be wonderful this morning. If you're here, even now, he
says, I've come to get you. He calls to you. I've come to
get you. I paid a price for you. I bought
you. You're mine. You're not your
own. You've been bought. You know there's no hope of the
sheep getting back except that of the Lord Jesus Christ appears. The Good Shepherd. No hope. A lot of you, the Lord came after you in the gospel. You're sitting
on the gospel and the Lord came after you, didn't he? Come to
fetch you. He has pity for his sheep. Great love. There's something else that he
does, the sheep. He puts in them a desire to return. He creates it in their hearts
and their souls. He works a wheel in them. They see a need of the shepherd. They look at the mare. They look where they've wondered. They desired a shepherd, and
it's His work to be brought home. Can you see that sheep out there
in the middle of the night, wandering far away? And if it's even daytime,
they couldn't find their way back, but in the fog of it all, He says, I've come to fetch you. I've come to draw you. I've loved you with an everlasting
love, and in loving kindness, I've drawn you unto myself. To hear that heavenly voice. Matthew heard it. He was sitting
at the seat of the custom, this tax collector, and the Lord said,
come follow me. Zacchaeus had climbed up in a
tree. And the Lord come by and he says,
come down. I'm gonna be with you. Salvation's
come to you today. There's old Saul. He has taken those Christians
to be persecuted. The Lord appeared to him. He says, I fought hard to apprehend
for that which I've been apprehended, didn't he? He said, Lord apprehended
me. He was one of the Lord's sheep.
And the Lord apprehended him. And I submit that's what he does
for his sheep. He apprehends them. there's that voice that says
come and it's with power it's effectual it's a voice of grace it's a voice of mercy it's a voice of love It says, now you've returned. What were we? Just poor, wandering
sheep. But now you've returned. Who gets the credit for this?
Who gets the glory? I tell you, we're grateful to
the Good Shepherd, aren't we? We give Him all the glory. If
you've been returned from that of danger, if you've been returned
to that of safety, you've been returned to the shepherd. I say
unto you, you're grateful to him. That's who you're grateful
to. He came for us. He goes on and tells
us here, he's a bishop of our very souls. He watches over His
flock. I'm glad that we're under His
watchful eye, that He watches over us. We're under His tender
care. He keeps guard over that of His
sheep. We know that wolves We know of
that of dogs, vicious dogs. The Lord guards His sheep, watches
over them. He watches over His flock, but
He also watches over us as individuals. Now, in closing, You were, but now you've returned unto the shepherd and bishop
of your souls. You've returned to Him who is
the overseer. What a blessed verse. What a
blessed experience. You were, but now you've returned
unto the shepherd and bishop of your souls. May the Lord bless you. As we think about what he's done
for us, what he's bore for us, And as he's done this, we're
dead to sins, and we should live under righteousness. And think
about these stripes that was healing stripes that was put
upon him. May the Lord bless you people,
and I thank you for the opportunity of being here and speaking to
you this morning. Give God the glory for all that
he's done. What, do you have a hymn? No. Let Doug sing it.