It's so good to be with you again,
and I'm thankful to Brother John. It's always an honor when somebody
asks you to come preach. Such a responsibility, and you
don't take it lightly. And thank you very much for asking
me. Pray the Lord will be pleased
to bless His Word tonight and truly make us hear, truly make
us hear this in our heart and know Him. Know Him. Not just some facts, not just
some teaching, but really that teaching would bring us to Him.
To Him. Our salvation is a person. Our
righteousness is a person. The Lord Jesus. And that's who
we need to know. That's who we need to believe
on. We need to be found in Him. So I pray he would meet with
us and exalt himself in our hearts, in our midst, make us truly know
him, the fellowship of his suffering, power of his resurrection. Let's turn in our Bibles to John
chapter 10. John chapter 10. In John chapter 10, after the
Lord gave this parable, I'm just going to speak mainly on what
He said about that parable. And there's something that He
kept repeating here. He kept saying, I am the Good
Shepherd. He repeats that, I am the Good
Shepherd. And He says here that what He
does, He does for the sheep. for the sheep. Let's read this,
John 10, 11. He says, I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd giveth his
life for the sheep. I am the good shepherd. The good
shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. But he that is a hireling
and not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth
the sheep, and fleeth, and the wolf catcheth them, and scattereth
the sheep. The hireling fleeth, because
he's a hireling, and careth not for the sheep. I am the good shepherd, and know
my sheep. and am known of mine, as the
Father knoweth me, even so I know the Father, and I lay down my
life for the sheep." He keeps repeating that, I am the shepherd,
I am the good shepherd, and I lay down my life for the sheep. He says the hireling, the sheep
are not his. That means these that he's saying
he cares for, they are his. They're his sheep. He says, and
I care for my sheep. I lay down my life for the sheep. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
shepherd. He is the shepherd. And he has
of people who are called here His sheep. They're the elect
of God, the chosen of God. And our Lord Jesus laid down
His life for the sheep. He laid down His life for His
people and He careth for the sheep. He cares for His people. There's a doctrine that is taught
all over the world and it's most commonly taught called universal
redemption or universal atonement. And the universal aspect of it,
they say, means Christ laid down his life for everybody. That all are his sheep. And they say he made atonement,
he redeemed all. Every man In this earth He redeemed
them all, that's what they said. And yet some end up being lost,
some end up perishing, but they said He died for all. Particular
redemption is the gospel. Particular redemption, limited
atonement, refers to the fact, the truth that Christ laid down
His life for the sheep. He came to save the sheep, the
elect, those God the Father chose and gave to Him. That's who He
came for. And the reason we preach this,
this is not just a doctrine that, you know, you'll hear folks will
say, well, we could just agree to disagree. Not on this we came. This is the gospel. This is the
difference between Christ being the victorious, successful Redeemer
and Him being a failure. Christ redeemed his sheep. He bought his sheep. He paid
the wages of sin, which is death, satisfied justice, and saved
his people. He laid down his life for the
sheep. This is not just some sideline issue. This is the gospel. This is the gospel. This must
be preached. This must be preached according
to the scriptures, because this is vital. This is the issue. What did Christ accomplish? The
issue is how can a sinner, a sinful, wretched, vile, lost, undone,
guilty sinner be just with God? That's the issue. And there's
only one way. Christ, the shepherd. He laid
down his life for the sheep. So first of all, I want to look
here at how he is the good shepherd. He's the good shepherd. And a
shepherd has got to have some sheep. If he's going to be a
shepherd, he wouldn't be a shepherd if he didn't have sheep. And
God the Father in eternity chose his son to be the shepherd. He chose him to give him all
the glory and all the honor in the salvation of a chosen people. Go with me to Isaiah 42. Now
let's look at this and listen to what our Lord says here in
Isaiah 42 verse 1. This is speaking to Christ and
we know it is because in the New Testament they quote this
passage. Look at Isaiah 42 verse 1. He
says, Behold my servant. This is God speaking. Behold
my servant. Whom I uphold, mine elect, the
one I've chosen, the one the Father chose, He chose His Son.
In whom my soul delighteth, He delights in His Son. I put my
spirit upon Him. He shall bring forth judgment
to the Gentiles. He's going to bring forth judgment.
He's going to satisfy justice. He's going to honor God and save
his people. He shall not cry, nor lift up,
nor cause his voice to be heard in the street. A bruised reed
shall he not break. The smoking flax shall he not
quench. That's quoted in the New Testament referring to Christ.
This is talking about Christ. Now watch. He shall bring forth
judgment unto truth. The reason Christ came was to
declare the righteousness of God, to show how God is just
and He's the justifier. As Brother Kevin just said, to
show how He is just in no way clearing the guilty and at the
same time merciful and how He can do it in perfect harmony. He shall bring forth judgment
unto truth. He shall not fail, nor be discouraged,
till he hath set judgment in the earth, and thou shalt wait
for his law." What's he talking about, about setting judgment
in the earth? Look down at verse 21. The Lord is well pleased
for his righteousness sake. He will magnify the law and make
it honorable. That's what our Lord Jesus was
speaking about when he stood up at the Sermon on the Mount,
and he was speaking, and he said, do not think that I come to destroy
the law. Don't think I come to set aside
the law or diminish the law in any way. I came not to destroy
it. I came to fulfill it, came to
fill it full. Our brother read Romans 10 and
Romans 10 says he is the righteousness of God. Christ is the righteousness
of God. And he's the end of the law,
not to everybody. to them that believe on Him.
Because faith is saying this, when you truly believe on Christ,
you're saying, He fulfilled the law for me. He's the only way
I'm righteous, is Him. He fulfilled it. He fulfilled
it. He filled it full. He gave everything
that was required. He fulfilled it. And doing so,
He declared God is just, His laws honored, is magnified, and
while at the same time, what He did, He justified His people. And He did this for His particular
people. Go back to John chapter 10 and
look down at verse 29. And he's speaking here about
the sheep, and this is how he refers to them. My father which
gave them me. My father gave me these sheep,
he said. My father gave them to me. When
he chose his son to be the shepherd, he chose a people and gave them
to his son to be the sheep. Look at John 17. John chapter
17. He's praying here. The Lord is
praying to the Father. In verse 1, these words make
Jesus lift up His eyes to heaven and said, Father, the hour has
come. Glorify Thy Son, that Thy Son
also may glorify Thee, as Thou has given Him power over all
flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as Thou has given
Him. That's the sheep. Look down at
verse 6. I've manifested thy name unto
the men which thou gavest me out of the world. Thine they
were, and thou gavest them me, and they've kept thy word. And
somebody say, well, that's just talking about those that he called
while he walked this earth. Well, verse 9, he says, I pray
for them, he's talking about those that are going to believe,
I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given
me, for they are thine. I pray for them you've given
me. Them that you shall call out. Look at verse 12. He says, while I was with them
in the world, I kept them in thy name, those thou gavest me
I've kept, and none of them's lost but the son of perdition,
and that's just that the scripture might be fulfilled. And he says, Verse 20, neither pray I for
these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through
their word. It's just not a maybe. These
are the ones the Lord gave to him. Well, let's narrow this
thing on down now. So somebody might say, well,
he gave them all. He gave every man to him. Well,
he just said, I didn't pray for them. I prayed for them you gave
me. But now look over here at John 10 and look at verse 22. He was at Jerusalem at the Feast
of the Dedication and it was winter and Jesus walked in the
temple in Solomon's porch and then came the Jews round about
him and said to him, how long dost thou make us to doubt? If
thou be to Christ, tell us plainly. And Jesus answered them, I told
you and you believe not. The works that I do in my Father's
name they bear witness of me, but you believe not because you
are not of my sheep. As I said unto you, my sheep
hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me, and I give
to them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall
any man pluck them out of my hand." They're not going to perish. He said, you don't believe me
because you're not my sheep. You're going to perish because
you're not my sheep. My sheep are going to hear my
voice. He's going to make them hear his voice. And they're going
to follow me, and they're never going to perish. You see how
this thing is how the Lord preached his gospel different from how
the world preaches the gospel? The world makes the sinner to
be the all-powerful one and makes God to be the weakling dependent
upon the sinner. to by his will believe and by
his will make his work effectual and by the sinner's will to let
God do something for him. Christ said that's not how it
is. My father determined this thing
from the beginning. He determined the end from the
beginning. He sent his son to be the shepherd
for a particular people and Christ said I laid down my life for
them and they're not going to perish. They're not going to
perish. This is so vital because here's
why. It's not just to upset people,
it does upset people. It definitely upsets people. They don't want their will not
to be, the sinner wants his will to be the deciding factor in
this. And it is very offensive. But
we don't preach this just to be offensive. The reason we preach
this is because we're declaring Christ is the Redeemer. He accomplished the work the
Father sent him to do. That's what he did, verse 15,
John 10, 15. Now look, he said, as the Father
knoweth me, even so I know the Father, and I lay down my life
for the sheep. Now the reason he laid down his
life is the sheep, his elect, we owed, we owed the law. for our sin, or rather the law
owed us for our sin. The wages we earned was death. And that death had to be given. We had to die. Not just physical
death, eternal death, the second death. Justice had to be satisfied. And that's why the Lord Jesus
came. He came to honor the law. And that's what he did, brethren.
Our Lord Jesus Christ went to the cross. God couldn't just
declare us righteous. That law had to be satisfied.
It had to be honored. A man broke it. By one man's
disobedience, many were made sinners. A man broke it. So if he's gonna save sinners
who were men, he got to be made of a woman. He's got to become
a man. And he got to be the God man,
the sovereign God man, so that everything he accomplished is
eternal for his people. And he came, he was made of a
woman, He was made under the law, He was made sin for His
people, made a curse for His people, and He made His people
the righteousness of God in Him. He accomplished that. He accomplished
that. Scripture says, He gave Himself
for us that He might redeem us from all iniquity and purify
unto Himself a peculiar people zealous of good work. Hebrews
1.3 says, he's the brightness of God's glory. He's the expressive
and joyous person. He upholds all things by the
word of his power. And it says, and when he had
by himself purged our sins, he sat down at the right hand of
the Father. He did it. He accomplished it. Once in the
end of the world has he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice
of himself. That's what our Savior accomplished.
He didn't just do some kind of ambiguous putting away sin for
the whole world. If He did, the whole world's
got to be saved. But for the sheep, He said, I
lay down my life for the sheep. And for the sheep, He put away
our sin, brethren. He put it away. Completely, totally,
thoroughly put away the sin of His people. Brother Kevin read
from the Psalms and over in Hebrews 10, he talks about, he says,
that's me. He said, that's the Redeemer.
And it's by that will, His willingness to come, that we're sanctified. It's by His will, not our will.
It's by His will, by the offering of the body of Jesus Christ one
time. He said, by that one offering,
He hath, past tense, done, He hath perfected forever them that
are sanctified. He did it. He accomplished it.
And God, when He comes and He gives you ears to hear and He
speaks into your heart, He teaches you, I remember your sins no
more. Please get, I may preach on this
this weekend, When Adam sinned by one man, he sinned, he disobeyed. If you don't get anything else,
get this. Imputation, according to these scriptures, is God imputing
to a man what the man has been made by a prior act. Imputation is God imputing to
a man what he's been made by a prior act. Adam's the first
man God imputed sin to. He came to him and he said, you
obeyed the voice of your wife and you ate the tree I told you
not to eat of. He charged him with what he had
been made by pride. Now you made a curse. And when
Adam sinned, it says all sinned in Adam. And for that reason,
God imputed sin to the whole human race because we were in
Adam. That's why he imputed sin to
us. He didn't impute sin to us and treat us as if we were sin.
Is that what God did to you? Charged you with sin and treated
you as if you were sin? I was made sin in Adam. I was
made sin in Adam. And Paul is telling us in Romans
6, reckon, impute yourself to be dead indeed unto sin. He couldn't say it more emphatically.
and alive unto God. He said in Galatians 3, you are
dead and your life is hid in Christ at God's right hand. God
imputes what a man has been made by a prior act. How could that
be? Because he hath made him sin
for us who knew no sin that we might be made to righteousness
of God in him. He came to do what we couldn't
do for ourselves. He came to honor that law, to
declare how God is righteous, to declare how the just judge
does nothing but what is absolutely, thoroughly, perfectly just. The
righteousness of God is what's at stake. That's what's important. The righteousness of God. God
will do nothing that's not just. He will do nothing that's not
righteous. That's why he had to send his son. That's why his
son had to go to the cross. There's not a man in this room
who would call a judge in this earth just if your son stood
before that judge and he charged him with sin when he was not
guilty. Explain to me how that manifests
righteousness. It doesn't. Our Lord Jesus Christ
came, I don't have to explain it, I just believe it. I don't
have to explain it, I just believe it. He laid on him the iniquity
of us all. All his sheep, he laid on him
the iniquity. He was wounded for our transgressions. You read on that psalm Brother
Kevin preached from and he said he owned them as he is, he owned
them. He wasn't made a sinner. He wasn't a rebel against God.
Adam became sin by disobedience. Christ was made sin by obeying
the Father, by going to the cross. And the Father, however, laid
sin on him and made him sin for us. And that's why he numbered
him with the transgressors. That's why he numbered him. That's
why he imputed sin to him. And then came him being made
a curse. Read the order of it, brethren. In Genesis, God came and found
Adam and charged him with sin. And then he made him a curse.
He made the earth a curse. He saved Adam because he was
in Christ. The curse was everything that
he had to bear. And here's the good news. Not
only did he make reconciliation for his people and totally put
away our sin, but However this was, he was touched with all
the feeling of our infirmities. He knew no sin, but he knows
what all our sin, what the effects of it. He was touched with the
feeling of our infirmities in every way You can't find anything
in this book that our Savior didn't suffer. You can't find
anything in this book that He wasn't touched with that you're
going to suffer, that you're going to go through. He knows
it. He knows it. He knows what it is to be forsaken
by somebody that was His friend that betrayed Him. He knows what
that's like. He knows what it is to hunger,
he knows what it is to thirst, he knows what your sickness feels
like, he knows everything because he was touched with all of it.
He knows what it is to be forsaken of the Father. He knows what it is to suffer
that second death. You and I will never have to
suffer that. Because he did. He did. But see, why did he have to do
that? Because he not only came to make
reconciliation for the sins of his people, he also came to be
a faithful high priest to be able to minister to us and comfort
us as we go through this veil of tears and suffer all these
things we suffer. And he knows these things better
than we know them. Because he's sinless. He's holy. You and I
are like fish in water. They don't know what it's like.
Well, they don't know what water feels like. You and I don't even
really know what sin is, because that's all we are in our flesh. He knows what it is to be among
sinners and to be touched with all the feeling of our infirmity,
because he knows no sin. And here's another thing, too.
I think it's, you know, people talk about, well, he, it was
just, He justified us by just bearing the wrath and what have
you, but there's a, that whole act of what he did on the cross
is him fulfilling the positive aspect of the law. That was love.
That was the righteous love of the law that is the fulfillment
of the law. And he did it by justifying us
by putting our sin away. No greater love. He wasn't talking
about just making a statement that greater love hath no man
than this and he laid down his life for his friend. He was saying
that's what he did. There's no greater love than
his. And that is the perfect, absolute perfect fulfillment
of the law. And here's another thing. While
he suffered that, while he's suffering on the cross, while
the Father's not answering and he's in that darkness, He never stopped praying to the
Father, looking to the Father, counting on the Father's covenant
promise, trusting that the Father... He said, I set my face like a
flint because I know my Father will justify me. When I've satisfied
that, He's going to raise me and declare, I did all this by
obedience. I put sin away by obedience.
And you and I are given faith, and don't ever boast in your
faith, because the greatest thing most faith any man has is a mustard
seed. It really is. The faith by which
we're saved, the faith of our faith, is Christ. You want to
see where that was displayed, look to that cross, hear Him
in these Psalms crying out, my God. That's faith. My God, why hast thou forsaken
me? Never ceasing to faithfully trust
the promise the Father made to him. And when you read Romans
8 and you hear him say, Who is he that can condemneth? It's
God that justified us. It's Christ that died. That's
just almost the exact same thing Christ said in Isaiah, talking
about himself, how he said his face was like a plant of new.
Now, God, he'll justify me. And so now because he accomplished
that, he says to you who are his sheep, now you reckon that
to be so for you too. Nobody's going to condemn you. I say a 54. He says, every tongue
that rises in judgment against you, you're going to silence
them. We're not. He is. We don't have
to say a word. He did it. We could just try.
He's our advocate. They say if a man that tries
to represent himself in a court of law has got a fool for a lawyer,
and we try to open our mouths to represent ourselves, we're
betraying. We're the fool. We just keep
our mouths shut. And he's the advocate for it.
I've told this story before. There was a friend of mine in
Tennessee. Y'all know Brother Marvin Stoddicker. And Brother Marvin, who was a
member in the congregation, had to go to court. And Brother Marvin
went to court with him, just to sit with him as he was waiting
to be called up by the judge. And all day, these people kept
trying to come up before the judge and represent themselves
before the judge. And the judge was just tearing
them up one side and down the other, telling them, you don't
speak the law, you should have got a lawyer, you don't know
what you're doing, get out of my court. I mean, he was doubling
their fines and everything else. And here sits this brother with
Marvin. And Marvin said, and his lawyer
wasn't anywhere to be seen. And he said, I was getting really
worried for him. And he said they called his name.
The judge called his name or the bailiff or whatever, called
his name. And just about the time this
brother went to stand up, his lawyer had come in and was sitting
down front and they didn't see him. His lawyer stood up and
said, I represent him. And the judge said, you and I will talk
later. And that was it. My brother didn't have to say
a word. We have an advocate. He's ever living. His presence
with the Father says, it's done. It's finished. I've redeemed
my people. It's accomplished. And He's made
us the righteousness of God in Him. I can't even wrap my mind around
that. The righteousness of God? You
know, I love this. Somebody said, I can't remember
what old preacher was, said it like years ago, said, when you
read the law and you read the thou shalt and thou shalt not,
when you're under the law and guilty, those are commands to
you. But when you're in Christ, trusting
Christ, those are promises. You shall have no other God but
Him. Perfectly. Perfectly. We got so many idols. We couldn't dare stand before
God and make a claim that we've never had another idol. We got
one every time we look in the mirror. But He served God perfectly,
brethren. We have the righteousness of
God. It's a person. It's a person. I'm not going to let I'm not gonna let the devil send
Pharisees like they did, you know, how they came to Christ
and constantly trying to entangle him in his word. Like these men
here stood there and said, how long are you gonna make us sit
down? It's all your fault. I'm not gonna let anybody take
any of this precious word that we've given from our Redeemer
and sidetrack me to splice and dice it and try to explain it
away and lose the beauty of that redeemer who did this for us,
the shepherd who did this for us. Brother Henry used to give
that excellent illustration about a botanist, he can dissect a
rose and cut that rose and tell you every little part about that
rose to the point that you can't even tell it's a rose anymore.
I don't want to do that. I want to sit before you the
rose of Sharon. I want you to see him and know
him and what he did. That's... You can have all the
doctrine, all your eyes dotted and your teeth crossed and miss
him and miss everything. But if you have him, you have
all. You have all. I had a bunch more I was going
to say, but I believe that'll do it. I pray to Lord bring us
to Him and just let us fall down and rest and trust Him. He says here, He cares for the
sheep. Over there in Peter, Peter said, cast your care on Him for
He careth for you. If you go to Psalm 38 and read
it, and what the marginal reference says is, roll all of it on Him. And that's what faith is doing.
Faith is coming empty with nothing, adding nothing, taking from nothing,
not trying to. Faith is just saying, Lord, I'm
in your hands. Do with me what you will. Save
me. And he careth for the sheep.
He will not lose one. He gonna call every one. Bring
them to him and bring them home and he won't lose one. Justice
demands it. Righteousness demands it. They
got to be brought. They got to be brought. All right,
brother.