This passage does Isaiah 53,
verse six. Let's look at that together.
I think that I think I mentioned last week. To me, it seems like
Isaiah 53 has got to be one of the most important chapters in
all of Scripture. And so it is important for us
to consider it as such that it's what God considers important
is of utmost importance to us. And this is what we read there
in Isaiah 53. There's really three points.
The first two are joined together and summarize all that we are
as people, all that we are as mankind and all we are individually
in our state and in our condition. And let's just read them together.
It says the first sentence is this all we like sheep, have
gone astray." All of us. No exceptions. No excuses. It's our fault. This is God's
assessment. And notice, this is a confession.
The prophet is speaking by the Spirit of God, and he speaks
on behalf of all of God's people. All we like sheep have gone astray.
The people of God in Scripture are called sheep. They're sheep
because they need a shepherd. They're sheep because God has
given them to the shepherd. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
shepherd of His people. And it says here that all of
them have gone astray. And then notice the next sentence. It says this, We have turned
everyone to His own way. I remember this verse. It seems
like I've committed it to memory even from a child. Perhaps it
was a memory verse And I would say it, and I didn't understand
the second sentence, we have turned everyone to his own way.
Does that mean we've made other people turn to their own way?
Or we've turned other people to our way? That's not what it
means. It means that we ourselves have
turned to our own way. We've turned away from God to
our own way. That's what it means. And then
the next sentence is the most significant and the most important
of all three. And the Lord hath laid on him
The iniquity of us all. Now, I want to look at these
three sentences together with you this morning. Let's consider,
first of all, this first sentence. All we, like sheep, have gone
astray. This is the testimony of God.
Not one of us is accepted from this. Not one of us is left out. And notice, this is a confession.
This is a prayer. It's a prayer of God's people.
It's not a prayer of all men. Not all men pray this prayer.
although all men have gone astray. But it's a mercy of God when
God brings us to the point where we realize and confess to God,
ourselves and collectively as all of God's people, that we
have gone astray. We've left God. And it's an open
confession, but it's also an earnest confession, a confession
without excuse. Notice he says, all we like sheep
have gone astray. There's no contingency here. It's not because of this or that. We've just gone astray. We've
gone astray. And he compares them to sheep. Now, in Isaiah 1, verse 3, it
says this. It says, the ox knows his owner,
and the ass, the donkey, knows his master's crib. But my people
don't know me." That's what God says. And here it says, we, like
sheep, have gone astray. An ox knows its owner. So an ox knows its own owner
and will stay. And an ass, a stupid donkey,
knows where his crib is and he'll come back to that. But sheep
are the kind of animal that make a habit of continually, foolishly
finding a way out of the pasture into the wilderness. And once
they're out of the pasture and in the wilderness, they get lost.
And the only way they can be brought back is if the shepherd
goes out, seeks them, finds them, actually carries them and brings
them home. That's what sheep are like. They're
so foolish. that even though they're wise
enough to find the gap in the fence, the hole in the hedge,
they're so foolish that they can't find their way back to
that spot, and they're so senseless that they don't have the capability
of attaching themselves with affection to the one who cares
for them. That's the way we are, like sheep.
We're foolish, We're senseless. We constantly, continually practice
habitually going our own way and then we don't have power
to bring ourselves back. We don't have the sense or the
inclination or the ability to bring ourselves back. That's
the summary here. We're like sheep. Just like stupid,
senseless, ignorant, foolish, wayfaring, Weak, helpless sheep. Once they get out, they can't
protect themselves. They don't have anything to defend
themselves with. No claws, no big teeth. Most
of them are weak and they need a shepherd. And so God has taken
His people. Jesus said, I am the good shepherd
and my Father has given me my people, the sheep. And he says,
and I lay down my life for the sheep. And so, that's what this
text of Scripture is about. It's about the people of God
who are the sheep of God's pasture. And the shepherd is the Lord
Jesus Christ. We have all gone astray. And
all of us need a shepherd to bring us back. That's the confession. Now, when we confess this, it's
not a confession of hopelessness, of endless self of endless despair,
wallowing in our inability and our sinfulness with no hope.
This is a confession given by God, and a confession given by
God in the Gospel is always joined to a sight of the mercy and grace
of God in the Lord Jesus Christ. Confessions given by God do a
couple of things. They cause us to confess what
we truly are without excuses, truthfully, in our conscience,
to God. And secondly, they keep an eye,
keep an eye of faith in our hearts looking to God for mercy in the
Lord Jesus Christ. That's what a God-given confession
does. But now the second sentence. I want you to look at this with
me because I think this, as I was considering this particular passage,
this sentence had the biggest impact on me. This sentence,
I'd never really considered it before. But as I look at this,
I see here something about two things. The uniqueness of our
sin, our own personal sin. Look at this with me. He says,
we have turned every one, that's each one of us, even though it's
a collection, we, Yet, in that collection, he singles it down
to just you and just me. It's as if this confession is
coming from an individual. And the individual is one of
the we, but in talking from this person's vantage point, the Spirit
of God opens up to us what happens when God touches our conscience
and causes us to confess to Him what we truly are and what we've
done. He says, we, each one of us,
have individually turned to our own way. Our own way. We've turned from God's way to
our way. It says in Scripture over and
over again that every man did what was right in his own eyes. You may remember that in the
Old Testament, in the book of Judges, especially. This occurs
repeatedly. Every man did that which was
right in his own eyes. Never in time can I think of
a time when everyone does what's right in their own eyes like
today. And I'm sure that everybody has
always said that in their own time. But it seems to be to be
amplified in our day. But that's not what this verse
is talking about. It's not talking about those people out there.
This verse is talking about a single sinner who his own self has gone
his own way. This verse is teaching us that
each one of us have creatively and inventively, thought of sin
and gone after sin. The word here is He's turned
everyone to His own way. We've sought after it. Look at
Ecclesiastes chapter 7, right after the book of Proverbs. Ecclesiastes
in chapter 7. And take a look at this. It's
a similar thing. And to me, it helped me understand this verse.
It says here in Ecclesiastes 7, Lo, this only have I found. Verse 29, Ecclesiastes 7. Lo, this only have I found, that
God hath made man upright, but they have sought out many inventions. Do you see that? You know what
the word sought out means? It means to look for, to earnestly
try to find. to ask and request, have a delight
in and desire after. That's what we have done. We've
looked for and sought and desired after and actually wanted to
go, it says here, out many inventions. The word inventions here is inventing
things. It's creatively finding and conspiring,
twisting things so that we can find a way to go our own way. against God. That's what we've
done. Each one of us has found a way
against our own special light, in our own unique way, sinning
against God, sins that other people may not sin like we sin. Uniquely, with certain levels
of intensity or being unable to stop, or going after it with
habitual, continual pursuit, with a desire and a delight.
We're servants of sin. And that's the way God sees it.
That's the way the people of God, when God brings them to
see their state and condition before God, they say, I've gone
my own way. It's as if there's no other sinners.
It's as if the entire fold of sheep are still back in the fold
and only one of the sheep has left the fold. That one out of
a hundred has left. That's me. That's the one he's
talking about here. The one who, if no one else in
the world could be thought of as a sinner, that sheep has gone
his own way. That's what he's talking about.
My own way. Maybe that's a particular bent
you have in that direction. Other people don't have it. And
you think about that and you know you have had, God has given
you an understanding of the right way and you've turned from it.
We've deliberately sought after it. And we've found in ourselves
this propensity to go after that thing repeatedly, constantly,
willfully, foolishly, and without strength to recover ourselves.
That's what a sheep does. They go their own way. And the
other thing you see about this verse in Isaiah 53 and verse
6, if you look at it here, the second sentence, we have turned
everyone to his own way. Besides the fact that it's unique
to ourselves, that if God were to look at the whole human race,
he could see us as standing out and standing above as a chief
of sinners. A chief straying sheep. That's what I am. That's what
you are. God sees us this way. And God, the Spirit of God, convinces
us of our own unbelief, our own unique lack of trust in God,
turning from the truth. Not liking the truth, loving
sin and not liking the truth, holding down what we know about
truth and about ourselves and wanting it to go away so that
we can have our willful way. And that's the way we are. But
look at Luke chapter 18. Here's a man who was like this. This is a second part of this.
Not only is it unique, but the other thing you see in this confession
is that it's a lonely confession. We have turned everyone to his
own way. You're on your own. You're out
there by yourself. When God touches your heart and
shows you what you've done and who you are and the propensity
of your heart to continually go after those things that you
know are wrong, and to turn away from the right and not even like
it and hoping that God somehow won't keep you from your sin,
that you'll be able to have it anyway. And then you see this
cry coming in Luke 18, 13, when the publican standing afar off,
he wasn't in the crowd. He couldn't stand to be with
the others when God put his finger in his conscience. He stood alone,
afar off, and would not lift up so much as his eyes to heaven. In his soul, he might have been
in a crowd, sitting around the table at Thanksgiving or Christmas
or some other family gathering. But in his soul, he knew there
was a loneliness because he felt himself to be unique. The only
sinner, the greatest sinner, the most deserving of God's wrath,
And he thought of this, and he stood afar off, and he wouldn't
lift up his eyes to heaven. But in the silent conviction
of guilt in his own soul, he smote upon his breast, and he
said these words, God, be merciful, be propitious to me, The, the
word is a sinner in the King James, but it should be The sinner. The sinner. I am The sinner,
as if there were no other sinners. It's a lonely confession. Sin
convicts us. God convicts us of our sin. And
that conviction leaves us without excuse, without reservation,
confessing, like a sheep, I've gone my own way, and I've gone
in my own way, unique to myself, worse than others, more aggravated,
more created to do evil, more bent on it, more persistent at
it. And I haven't even had a look
back because I've been a willing servant of my sin. That's what
God is saying here. That's what the confession is.
And when you when God brings you to that point, when you see
what you are and you confess before God, you lay low in the
dust. Remember Adam when he sinned? He hid. Remember when Job said,
I lay my hand upon my mouth and I say, I am vile. And Peter,
when Jesus came to him, he said, depart from me, I'm a sinful
man, O Lord. All these things teach us what
sin does. It shuts our mouth. It lays us
low, and we say, I am vile. I am the wretched man. I am the
chief of sinners, and I have no excuse for my sin. I've gone my own way. I can't
blame others. It's my way. I can't look at
others because the others didn't do it like me. They did it before God, but I
know my own heart to the extent that God has showed me, and it's
my own way. Now, this summarizes, just these
two sentences summarize the first part of the gospel. God repeats
the gospel over and over and over again throughout Scripture.
And here we have it. Our propensity, our condition,
our helplessness to do what's right, our proclivity to do what's
wrong, our continually going after it habitually, And we can't
help it, can we? We do nothing. Nothing. In our conscience, we know there's
never been a good thought. There's never been a right way.
In our conscience, we know that in ourselves, by nature, we've
never done one thing that we can look at and say, that's right,
that's good. We are sinners. That's what a
sinner is. A sinner. A sinner is someone
who never does right. And that's what we are by nature.
And the sheep all say this. And you know what sheep do? They're
not very noisy. When they're guilty, they're
quiet. And they're quiet. They just say a few words here,
I've sinned. I have gone my own way and we've
all done it like stupid, senseless, habitual, persistent sheep. Leaving the good pasture for
the wilderness grass and not even able to find our way back.
Not even wanting to find our way back. Not even having the
capacity for affection to the one who cares for us. That's
what we are, like sheep. But then look here at the second
part, which is the glory of God and the salvation, which is by
Jesus Christ. Isn't that the gospel? Our sin,
our total failure, our deliberate attempts, our deliberate and
willful going after our way. And God, in spite of us, by his
grace, saving us for his own namesake. Look at these next
words. And the Lord hath laid on him
The iniquity of us all. There's really about four things
in this verse. The Lord. That's the first one.
And then Him. The Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord
is God the Father. Him is the Lord Jesus Christ. And He has laid iniquity on us
all. Those are the things I want to
look at here. Look at this. First of all, the Lord hath laid
on Him the iniquity of us all. This is the glory of God. This
is the glory of God. Here we are sinners, stupid,
willful, foolish, helpless sheep going our own way. No care for
the shepherd. And yet the shepherd cares for
the sheep. Look at John chapter 12. John chapter 12, the glory of
God, the Lord, the Lord God, God, the Father has done this.
And that's a comfort, isn't it? If the Lord Jesus Christ did
the work of our salvation on his own, we might wonder if God
really wants to save us. But this is God's work. It's
God the Father's work, as well as God the Son. Look at this
in verse 27 of John 12. Jesus, just as He's contemplating
going to the cross, He says this, Now is my soul troubled. Not just His emotions or His
body, but His inward soul, His inmost being. He says, Now is
my soul troubled. And what? Shall I say, Father,
save me from this hour? No. This cause, for this cause
came I unto this hour. And so he says this to the glory
of God. This is all to his glory. He
says, Father, glorify thy name. And then there came a voice from
heaven saying, I have both glorified it and I will glorify it again. What was he talking about? Well,
let's read on. The people therefore that stood by and heard it said
that it thundered. Others said an angel spoke to
him. Jesus answered and said, This voice came not because of
me, but for your sakes. Now is the judgment of this world. Now shall the prince of this
world be cast out. And how will that happen? In
verse 32 it says how. And I, if I be lifted up from
the earth, will draw all men to me. And this he said, signifying
by what death he should die. You see that? You see, The Lord
Jesus Christ, looking forward to going to the cross as the
shepherd and as the Lamb of God. He cries out to His Father. The
people, as He faced this, His soul was troubled, and He reminds
them and speaks it out loud, and to His own comfort, He says,
What? Shall I say, Father, save me
from this hour? No, this is the reason I came
to this hour. This is why I came to the earth.
to glorify my Father." And so he says to his father, Father,
glorify thy name. And the response from heaven
is, I have, and I will yet glorify it again. In eternity, before
the foundation of the world, Jesus Christ was the Lamb slain. And then in time, throughout
history, God clothing Adam and Eve with the skins of the animal.
God giving to Abel a lamb. God giving to Noah and his family
the ark, the Passover lamb. All the sacrifices throughout
the Old Testament finally culminated in the cross of Christ. All these
things were the eternal will and counsel of God to bring about
the redemption of His people and atoning for their sins by
the death of His Son. That was the glory He had given
already. He had manifested forth His glory. And He says, and I'm going to
glorify it again because I'm going to bring it to fulfillment.
I'm going to bring the accomplishment of all that Christ would do.
And the Lord Jesus Christ looks forward to that. He says, if
I be lifted up, I will draw all men to me. All those the Father
gave me shall come to me and none will be left out. Because
like my sheep, I'm laying my life down for them. and I will
have them." So that's the first part here. The Lord hath laid
on Him the iniquity. God the Father. It was to His
glory. And was it just that God do this?
Was it just that God should lay the sins of His people on His
Son? Remember, it's the Lord that
did this. All in our system of In our judicial
system, in all the laws in our lands, in all the laws in Scripture,
you look at them and you see them, how God requires punishment
for sin. He has laws that we are to live
by, and the guilty can't go free, and all these things. Those things
are to teach us that God in His sovereignty has laid down what
is right and what is wrong. And since God did it, then if
God has laid the iniquity of his people on Christ, you know
that it's just. Shall not the judge of all the
earth do right? God is just. He can't do wrong. And so that's the first reason.
We know it's just. But it's also just because Christ
did it willingly. Remember what we just read there
in John chapter 12? The Lord Jesus Christ said, what?
Shall I pray, Father, save me from this hour? No, this is the
reason I came to this hour. He did it willingly. He laid
down his life for the sheep. He said, I have a baptism to
be baptized with, and how am I constrained and straightened
until it be accomplished? My meat and my drink is to do
the will of God. He loved me, Paul says, and He
gave Himself. He gave Himself. He wasn't a
victim. He gave Himself for me. All these
things teach us that what Christ did, He did willingly. He wanted
to do what He did. He took our sins. He bore them
willingly. And so God laid them on Him justly
because it was right that God do it. If God did it, it must
be right. And if he laid him on Christ
and Christ voluntarily gave himself for our sins, then he was a willing
victim, but also a willing sacrifice, not a victim, but also because
he identified with his people. Notice, he's the shepherd, they're
the sheep. He identified with his people
in the covenant that God made with him. God made a covenant
with Adam. In the day you eat, you'll surely
die. God made a covenant with Christ. in the day that you obey,
surely your people shall live." Remember, it's the Lamb's Book
of Life. The book that was written from
the foundation of the world is the Lamb's book of life. The
life depended upon the slaying of the Lamb. And if the Lamb
was slain, all those written in that book are given life because
the Lamb was slain. And God saw that it would be
that way, and He determined it, and it was so. And God did it
justly. He laid our sins on Christ because
it was His sovereign will and justice. It was Christ's willingness
to do it. And Christ had an identity, a
union with his people as the shepherd and the sheep, the branches
and the vine, the husband and the wife, the head and the body.
All these things teach us the identity and the union of Christ
with his people. And so they teach us the justice
of it. But notice he says here in this verse, laid on Him the
iniquity of us all. He laid it upon the Lord Jesus
Christ. Now, I want you to look at this
word, iniquity, in this verse. Notice, it's in the singular.
It's in the singular. And He has laid, the words in
the margin say, He has made to meet. And you read those and
you wonder, what does that mean? But if you put it together, it
means this. Remember, Put yourself in Adam's
conscience. When Adam sinned, did he know
he was doing wrong? Oh, you better know he did. God
had told him. Now, he was deceived, but Adam
knew full well what he was doing. When he took that fruit and he
ate of it, immediately he knew he was naked and he knew he was
exposed before God. And the full weight of that one
sin so drove him to fear and fleeing from God that He couldn't
even stand. He had to hide behind the trees. Even though they couldn't hide
Him, He had to hide. That was what that one sin did
for Him. And remember David when he sinned with Bathsheba. That
one time, that one sin, it made him feel lower. He cries out
in Psalm 32, My bones were like the drought of summer all the
day long. I'm crying, crying because God
has afflicted me because of that sin. And remember, when Peter
denied Christ, he went out and he wept bitterly. That's what
sin does. It drives our conscience to a
state of despair. And we don't know what to do. We can't lift our eyes up. We're
bowed down. And there's nothing that gnaws
at us more than the guilt of our own sin. I believe that's
what hell is, is the constant gnawing of our conscience in
the sight of God, the intensity of it growing over time, so that
we cannot even look up. That's one sin, just one. Have
you felt it? Have you known it? Oh, if I would
have just been not so foolish. So stupid was I and foolish,
like a beast before thee. And yet that's what this verse
is talking about. All of the sins of all of God's
people were funneled together. That's what it means. They were
brought and meet together. They met together as all collected
in one aggregate, one collection, one focal point on the Lord Jesus
Christ, like a tornado taking all the strength of the entire
storm and focusing it on a single point on the earth. Or like all
the streams and the mountains flowing down together, collecting
all the water into one basin and pouring that wrath, that
indignation, of our sins, the guilt of it, on one man at one
point in time, the Lord Jesus Christ. God laid them on him. He laid them on him. Like the
priest in the Old Testament laid his hands on the live goat, confessing
over him all the sins of all the people as one guilt on that
one animal. And you know, it's that unique
sin. That unique sin. Remember, we've gone our own
way or our own way, so each one of us have felt the guilt of
our own sin crushing us and causing us, Lord, I'm the sinner. And yet that has come upon the
Lord Jesus Christ. That's the suffering of the Lord
Jesus Christ, knowing that before God, He Himself was the sinner. He Himself. Remember what it
says in 2 Corinthians 5? It says, verse 21, it says, He
has made him sin. He has made him, it says in the
King James, to be sin. But the words to be are italicized
to indicate to us they were not in the original. It just simply
says, He has made him sin for us who knew no sin. And then
look at Psalm 40. Look at Psalm chapter 40. These
words here, this is undoubtedly A prophecy with the words of
the Lord Jesus Christ in prayer. They're repeated in Hebrews chapter
10, verse seven and following. But here in Psalm 40, he says. Sacrifice in verse six, Psalm
40, verse six, sacrifice and offering doubt, it's not desire.
This is Christ praying in prophecy to His Father, and He says to
His Father in prayer, you didn't desire all the sacrifices and
all the offerings of the Old Testament. They never made satisfaction
for sin. You didn't desire it. Mine ear,
mine ears hast thou opened. That means He made him His willing
servant. Bored his ear through, like to
the post. Like the master who would make
his servant a servant forever. He took him and he willingly
bore his ear through. Mine ears hast thou opened. Burnt
offering and sacrifices and sin offering thou hast not required.
Then said I, Lo, I come, I come in the volume of the book. It
is written of me. That's the gospel, our sin and
the Savior. And he says, I delight to do
thy will, O God. They delighted to go astray,
but not I. I delight to do thy will, O God.
O my God, yea, thy law is within my heart. I have preached righteousness
in the great congregation. Lo, I have not refrained my lips,
O Lord, thou knowest. I have not hid thy righteousness
within my heart. I have declared thy faithfulness
and thy salvation. I have not concealed thy lovingkindness
and thy truth from the great congregation. And then he prays
on, he says, withhold not thou thy tender mercies from me, O
Lord. Let thy loving kindness and thy truth continually preserve
me. And then look at these next verses. Here you hear it. Here,
in this verse, you hear the cry of one made sin. He says, for
innumerable evils. That one sin that would weigh
us down to hell, he says, innumerable evils have compassed me about. Mine iniquities have taken hold
upon me so that I'm not able to look up. They are more than
the hairs of my head, therefore my heart faileth. This is the
cry of the Lord Jesus Christ. God the Father glorifying Himself,
bringing satisfaction to His justice, honoring His law and
His holiness and His righteousness, and magnifying His wisdom and
grace. All the sheep are gathered, each
one confessing their own iniquity, their own sin, and God laying
each one of those individual, unique sins. The loneliness they
felt in their confession has come and laid it upon the Lord
Jesus Christ, and He felt the iniquity as one poured upon him,
and he took it willingly. Now, he was the Lamb. He was
spotless in his nature as God. He's the Holy, Holy, Holy. As
man, he was born, conceived without sin. In his life, he never sinned. He always did those things which
pleased his Father. But there was never a time when
the Lord Jesus Christ had no sin that was more important than
at this time when He suffered under the wrath of God. It's
easy, or it's easier, to trust God when everyone around you
is trusting. It's easy to praise God when
you're in the congregation and everyone is praising God. But
think of it. All men forsook Him and fled. They cast accusation and falsehood
in his face. I gave my back to the smiters
and my cheeks to them that plucked the hair off. He did it willingly. And they ripped his flesh and
they accused him of not trusting in God. They accused him of not
being known by God. They even set up a test. If God
will have him, let him save him. And they did all this, and God
Himself forsook him. He says, Oh my God, my God, why
hast thou forsaken me? And yet, in the midst of all
that forsaking, tormenting, and torture, and persecution, and
falsehood. You know what He said? But thou
art holy. He trusted in the Lord. Though
He slay me, yet will I trust Him. Though the people who sin
so grievously and continually and habitually and have no power
to save themselves, though their sin lay on me, yet He loved His
people and gave His life for them. He never stopped. His love
was stronger than death. Song of Solomon 8.6. It's stronger.
The many floods of the ungodly and even the wrath of God could
not quench His love for His Father, for His righteousness and for
His people. He took our sin and He made them
His very own. Look at verse 10 of Isaiah 53.
It says, Thou shalt make his soul. I'm
just pulling this phrase out of the middle of the verse. Thou
shalt make his soul an offering for sin. You see that? And then
in verse 11, it says, He shall bear their iniquities. And then in verse 12, And he
bear the sin of many. He bore it. He bore it up and
he suffered for it. He suffered in his conscience.
He suffered in his body. He suffered in every way possible.
for every sin of every one of his people. The Lord has done
this. It was God's will and it was
to his glory. But now notice here, in this
verse, he says the iniquity of us all. You see that? Of us all. All of the sins of all of God's
people were laid on the Lord Jesus Christ. But how many sins
are these? All of their sins. And how many
people did God, did the Lord Jesus Christ, how many people
sins did the Lord Jesus Christ bear when he went to the cross?
Did he bear the sins? of Korah, Dathan and Abiram who
had already perished under the wrath of God? Did He bear the
sins of those in the grave that had died in the destruction of
Sodom and Gomorrah? And how about all those in the
flood of Noah's day who had perished? Did He die for their sins? Did
He die for the sins of Cain? Did He die for the sins of Esau?
When he says, Jacob, have I love and Esau have I hated or Pharaoh
or any of those? Remember what Jesus prayed? I
think it's in look at John chapter 17. John chapter 17. Actually, it's in verse chapter
15, John 15, I think. Or maybe I don't even have that
chapter right. Let's see if I can find it. It's in actually verse
chapter 13. That's where I'm looking. Going
back in two chapters at a time. He says in chapter 13, verse
1, look at this. Now, before the feast of the
Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour was come, that he should
depart out of this world to his father, having loved his own.
Do you see that? Which were in the world. He loved
them unto the end. Once loved, always loved. Do
you see that? And supper being ended, the devil
having now put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son,
to betray him, Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all
things to his hand and that he was come from God and went to
God, he rose from supper, laid aside his garments and took a
towel and girded himself. Here he had loved his own which
were in the world. He loved them to the end. But
here's this one Judas Iscariot and the devil put it into his
heart to betray the Lord Jesus Christ. And so he comes to Jesus,
I mean, comes to Peter, he comes to Peter to wash his feet and
and in verse six, then he comes to Simon Peter and Peter said
to him, Lord, does thou wash my feet? Jesus said to him, what
I do now, You know what I do, thou knowest not now, but thou
shalt know hereafter. And Peter said, Thou shalt never
wash my feet. Jesus answered him, If I wash
thee not, thou hast no part with me. And Peter said, Lord, anything
required for me to have a part with you, wash me, the whole
thing, head, feet, hands, everything. Lord, not my feet only, but also
my hands and my head. And Jesus said to him, He that
is washed does not need save to wash his feet, but is clean
everywhere. And you are clean, but not all. You see that? Who wasn't clean? Judas was not clean. Why? Jesus
hadn't washed him. Why hadn't he watched him? He
was not his own. He didn't love him. And he didn't
love him to the end. And now he says, for he knew
who should betray him. Therefore, he said, you're not
all clean. And then he says, he goes on. He said. Well, let's go ahead and read
through this. This is worth reading anyway.
Not that this was part of the sermon, but I just wanted to
read through this. Verse 11, For he knew who should
betray him, therefore said he, You're not all clean. So after
he had washed their feet and had taken his garments and was
set down again, he said to them, Know ye what I've done to you?
You call me master and Lord, and you say, Well, for I am. If I then your Lord and master
have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet.
For I've given you an example that you should do as I have
done to you. Verily, verily, I say to you,
the servant is not greater than his Lord, neither he that is
sent greater than him that sent him. If you know these things,
happy are you if you do them. I speak not of you all. I know whom I have chosen. You see that? Had he chosen Judas? No, he had not chosen him. He had chosen him to be his disciple,
but he had not chosen him to be his own. He had not cleansed
him. He had not washed him. And so
he says all this because the scripture might be fulfilled.
He that eats bread with me has lifted up his heel against me. And then look at verse 23. Now
there was leaning on Jesus bosom, one of his disciples whom Jesus
loved. Do you see that? John lay on
his bosom. Did he love only John? No. But
John, like all the disciples, could look up into his eyes and
say, I'm one of those whom you love. In Isaiah 53, it says,
the Lord had laid on him the iniquity of us all. Now, in Scripture,
the Lord Jesus plainly declares the following. I lay down my
life for the sheep. And we know that not all men
are sheep, because in the same chapter Jesus said to the Pharisees,
He says, but you believe not, because you're not My sheep.
Now, He said, you're not My sheep, therefore there are some men
who are not sheep, and some are sheep. And He says, I've laid
down My life for the sheep. And then we know that Jesus also
said this, He loved the church and gave himself for it. He loved the church, just like
a man who loves his bride. I was thinking about this just
yesterday. I wonder if my children, if I said to my children, I'm
going to buy you a car and pay for your college and pay for
your car insurance, I'm going to pay for all those things for
you. But let's suppose that I was Bill Gates. And I said, I'm going
to do that for everyone in California. Now, I don't know if Bill can
afford that much, but I think he's got a lot of money, so maybe
he's big enough. Maybe he could say everyone in the town I live
in. I'm sure he can do that. Let's
say that I did that and I was Bill Gates. I'm going to pay
for everyone's college across the city. And I told my children,
because you're my children, I'm going to pay for your college.
What difference... would it make if they were my
children? If I treated them just like I
treated everyone else and I paid for the college of every one
of the people in the state or the city. They wouldn't get any
distinct, unique relation. I mean, there would be no benefit
in that relationship with me that other people didn't have.
They would say, well, what good is it? We're the children of
Bill Gates if we don't get anything more than the rest of these people. Jesus said about Lazarus, He
loved Lazarus, He loved Martha and He loved Mary. But why would
He distinctly say He loved Lazarus and Martha and Mary, if He loved
everybody the same? What good would it do to say,
if I told the woman out there, a stranger to you all, Mary,
I love you. And I so told my wife the same
thing. It wouldn't make any difference, would it? My love for my wife
wouldn't be unique. It wouldn't be special. It wouldn't
be love at all, because you couldn't distinguish it from one thing
or another. If God loved everyone the same, if Christ died for
everyone the same, if the Spirit of God draws everyone the same,
then what difference does all those things have in the salvation
of anyone. But the good news is that God... You know what this verse is saying?
It's not saying that because we did these things, the Lord
has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. The message of this
verse is this. We're helpless and deliberately
have gone our own way. We're so helpless. We're perversely
helpless. We're inventive and creatively
helpless and disobedient. And God had to reach out and
take our sin, lift it up off us, put it on his son and make
satisfaction for that sin. And if he hadn't done that, then
we would be treated just like the pigs and the ox and the ass
and all these other non-sheeps. We would have been left out to
die and the wolves would have come and eaten us. That's what
would have happened. No, the gospel is that God has
done something we could never do for ourselves or ever wanted
to do for ourselves. Nobody was standing up and saying,
Lord save me. God puts everything that is required
for our salvation on Christ, and then He brings the consequence
of that to us by the Spirit of God drawing us irresistibly to
Himself so that He would save us. This is the salvation of
God. It's a salvation that actually
accomplishes. It's a salvation that actually
fulfills the will of God. When Jesus Christ went to the
woman at the well, he says, my meat and my drink is to do the
will of God and to finish his work. It's to finish it. It's
to actually perform it. And his work is to save his people
from their sins. That's what he did. He laid the
iniquity of us all on Him. Look at Leviticus 16 and verse
30. One more verse here. I want you
to get this. Leviticus 16. If you read through
this chapter, you see it's about the atonement. The atonement,
the high priest once a year went in and made atonement. But this
chapter teaches us so plainly that one priest, the high priest,
dealt with God for the people. on that day. And when he did
it, he actually made atonement. And atonement means he made satisfaction
to God and appeased his wrath and took it away. And then the
consequences are he took away the sins of his people and God
blotted them out, forgave them, removed them far from him. But
look at verse 22 and verse 22 of chapter 16. The goat shall
bear upon him I'm sorry, verse twenty twenty one. Let's read
twenty two. And when he says and when he
this is Aaron or the high priest, when he had made an end of reconciling
the holy place and the tabernacle of the congregation and the altar,
he shall bring the live goat after he had reconciled the people
and the tabernacle and all these things. Then Aaron would bring
the live goat, lay his hands on the head of the live goat,
confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and
all their transgressions and all their sins, putting them
on the head of the goat, and shall send them away by the hand
of a fit man into the wilderness. And the goat shall bear upon
him all their iniquities to a land not inhabited, and he shall let
the goat go in the wilderness. That's showing how God has put
away our sins from us and from himself, from himself mostly.
But look at verse 30, same chapter, for on that day. Not over a period
of time, not that he would perform something that would then later
be made effectual by what the people would do, but this is
what he did. On that day shall the priest make an atonement
for you to cleanse you, I hope we hear this, that you may be
clean from all your sins before the Lord. Sins of every kind. The root of all sins is unbelief.
It was unbelief which led Eve to eat from that tree of the
knowledge of good and evil. Satan put it in her heart. He
said, yea, hath God said? She thought, well, maybe for
a moment, maybe He didn't say it that way. And she ate unbelief. The children of Israel fell in
the wilderness because of unbelief. God paid for the sin of unbelief. Just like every other sin. And
it happened on that day. Hebrews 1.3. When He had by Himself
purged our sins, He sat down. He sat down because He finished
the work. He sat down on the throne because
He rules and reigns having completed everything. ruling over His enemies. All of our sins, like a mighty
army coming against Christ and Him, bearing our sins and rising
again so that the enemies of our souls were vanquished and
silenced. And He raises triumphant, making
a show of them and putting them away. The Lord had laid on Him
the iniquity of us all. Now, so you ask the question,
how do I know I'm one of the sheep? The answer is simple. Are you one like these who confess,
Lord, I've gone my own way? And I see that the Lord has laid
on him. He has. Notice his past tense.
He laid on him from eternity and therefore he fulfilled it
in time. He has laid it on him. Are you one who looks to Christ
and says like the publican, Lord, be propitious, be merciful, like
on the Day of Atonement, to me, the sinner, the only sinner,
the one who's the worst sinner, as if I'm the only one who ever
sinned. Lord, be propitious, make amends, satisfaction, appease
your wrath for my sin by Christ. Are you that one? Have you been
reconciled? to how God saves sinners, that
He does it by laying their sins on Christ? Are you a sheep that has gone
so far astray that you actually need and have to have God choose
you, and have to have Christ die for your sins so that He
actually paid for them without any contribution from you? or
any consent on your part? Are you one of those sheep who
need God the Holy Spirit to come and woo you and persuade you
and give you life and give you faith and take away your blindness
and your deadness and give you a new heart? Are you one of those
kind of sinners? Then the question is answered.
You are a sheep. You are one of God's sheep. All
that matters to the glory of God is what Christ has done for
His people. And the sheep, to the sheep,
all that matters to them is what Christ has done for His people. And so you agree with God. You're
His sheep. His sheep am I. And that's the
message of Isaiah 53. Helpless, foolish, stupid, willful
sheep saved by one so mighty and wise and powerful that he
would bring them back, seek them out, bring them to himself and
save them by the sacrifice of himself to God for us. Let's
pray. Father, we thank you that the
Lord Jesus Christ is our champion, our captain, our high priest,
our king to deliver us, our priest to intercede and save us by the
sacrifice of himself, and our prophet to tell us what he's
done, and to not only tell us what he's done, but tell us what
God did from eternity. And what will be the eternal
praises of those who have been washed from their sins in His
own blood, that they will say, worthy is the Lamb who sits on
the throne, worthy, worthy is He who sits on the throne who
washed us from our sins in His own blood. Lord, we pray that
we would see Him worthy. He has borne our sins, carried
our sorrows, even though we considered Him to be stricken and smitten
of God and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions,
bruised for our iniquities. Our chastisement was upon Him
to make peace between us and God. And we thank You, Lord,
that even though we have uniquely sinned and are lonely in our
confession before God, that You have laid our sins upon Christ. How thankful we are that You
have accepted Him, and that is all our hope. Christ dying for
us. In Jesus' name we pray and thank
You. Amen.