Let's go back to Isaiah 53. Probably you haven't closed your
Bibles. And I've had my eye on and my heart has been stirred
by one particular verse of scripture. Any of these verses would certainly
bear looking at very closely. I don't know, I've just had this
on my heart, verse six. The verse starts with all and
ends with all, and it has to do with all of the Lord's people,
all of the Lord's sheep. And the verse reads this way,
all we, like sheep, have gone astray. we have turned everyone
to his own way. The Lord hath laid on him the
iniquity of us all. Isaiah, the inspired prophet
of God, to me he speaks as though he is the spokesman for all of
the sheep of the Lord, for all of the Lord's people. And you'll
notice this in verse six when he says, all we like sheep have
gone astray. He always includes himself, all
we like sheep. He's not preaching saying, you
folks, all of you have gone astray. He says, we've all gone astray. And if you read down through
here, it's quite interesting. I don't have time to point out
all the the pronouns that he uses, where he does not separate
himself as though he's higher or better of a different class
as the rest of the Lord's sheep. He includes himself. It's like
in his mind's eye, he has a whole lineup of all of the sheep of
the Lord, and he's just one of the sheep. He's just one of the
Lord's little ones. He speaks on behalf of all of
the Lord's sheep, and all of the Lord's people are here compared
to sheep. Sheep which are defenseless. Sheep which are silly and foolish. Sheep which are weak and have
no strength. Sheep which wander off on their
own and can't find their way back. Sheep that are lost. Sheep, when they become diseased,
can't cure themselves. Sheep which, when they come up
against an adversary or an enemy, they have no defense against
that adversary or enemy. I tell you, when the Lord speaks
of us as being sheep, he certainly is not flattering us. Our God never flatters us. It
wouldn't be good for us anyway. And what good thing can the Lord
ever say about us except that which he's done for us and that
which he's done in us? But in and of ourselves, there's
no goodness in us. There's no soundness in us. As Isaiah writes in chapter one,
there's nothing within us but wounds and bruises and putrefying
sores. Nothing to brag about, nothing
to boast of. As we sometimes sing, I'm only
a sinner saved by grace. There are no big sinners and
little sinners, we're just sinners. There's none good, no not ones,
what the scripture says. And the word of God lays us all
out as being like wiggling maggots. We're just worms of the dust. And when we go through all of
the verses, if we had time to talk about our depravity and
our sinfulness, There'll still be more verses yet because really
when it comes to the glory of Christ, the half hasn't been
told. And when it comes to the fallen
nature and sinfulness of the Lord's people, the half has not
been told on that either. When we set forth our own sinfulness
and guilt and transgressions, the multitude of our iniquities, we don't set it forth. We don't
even begin to set it forth as bad as it is. Here are three things I want
you to see from this one verse of scripture. Here are three
things. Original sin. The old-time writers
and those of you who have read some of the older writers, they
talked about original sin. Of course, the word original
comes from origin, the first, the beginning. And the beginning
of sin among mankind, among humanity, The earliest sin was the sin
of Adam. When he transgressed God's specific
law, God gave him the fruits of the trees of the garden. You
may freely eat. That's what he said. Thou mayest
freely eat. But there's one tree which was
a symbol of the authority, the sovereignty, the dominion of
God Don't you eat of the fruit of that tree. You got all these
other trees. You can eat of the fruits of
all of them. But that one tree, that was symbolic of, that represented
the dominion of God, the authority of God. Don't you eat of it. That's very clear, very specific. In the day you eat of it, you'll
surely die. That's what God said. But Adam, he defied God. He rebelled against God. And
he ate anyhow. He knew what God told him. And
he said, regardless of what the Lord has commanded me, I'll do
as I please. No doubt, remembering what the
serpent had said to his wife, If you eat of the fruit that
God said you're not to eat of, you'll be as gods. The word is
you shall be as Elohim. You'll be like the Creator. In
other words, you'll be a god yourself. And you won't have
to answer to God. That was the original sin. And
we know that Adam did not sin as a prophet individual. He represented
the entire human race. By one man, sin entered into
the world, and death by sin. And so death passed upon all
men, for that all have sinned, or all have sinned in Adam. We all sinned in Adam. He was,
here's some good terminology, here was our federal head. He was our representative. And
when he stood upright before God, we did. And when he fell
flat on his face, when he became contaminated with evil, all of
us became contaminated with evil. Original sin. original sin. And this is what he's talking
about. All we like sheep have gone astray. We went astray in
Adam. That's all of us. All of the
Lord's sheep, all of the Lord's people, as well as all the goats. The sheep and the goats all fell
just alike in Adam. And we were ruined. Sin ruined
us. Sin's the cause of all the problems
in the world. Sin's the cause of sickness.
Sin's the cause of death. I read a story during the Great
Depression. There were soup lines in every
major city in the United States. And one day, this fellow was
serving soup to the homeless, to the hungry, to those who were
down and out. And he spotted a man who stood
out to him in the crowd. He said, this man had on a very
expensive suit, though now it was dirty. as was he. And that man, who no doubt had
been a wealthy man, now looked like everybody else, but he did
have a nice suit of clothes on. And when the man stepped up to
get his soup, the fellow behind the counter serving the soup
said, sir, are you okay? He said, well, I'm hungry. He
said, where'd you come from? He said, you see that big building
over there? I lived in the presidential suite. He said, I used to have it all. He said, now I got nothing. He said, I guess you could say
I've seen better days. My friends, we've seen better days. Looking all the way back to Adam,
before his fall, we've seen better days. We lived in the presidential
suite. We had it made. Adam, our representative, walked
with God, talked with God, met with God, worshipped God, reverenced
God, sought always to do the will of God. But he fell from the presidential
suite. And when he fell, we all fell
in him. And now we're just beggars. We're
poverty stricken. All we like sheep have gone astray. Psalm 14, three says, they're
all gone aside. They're all together become filthy.
There's none that doeth good. No, not one, not you. You hadn't done any good. We
say, my dear mother, she was a good woman. No, she was not. Not before God. I know as we view goodness, I
think back, I'll tell somebody about when my grandfather, Bird,
died, that hurt me, and my grandmother, Bird, and my grandfather and
grandmother, Ferguson, too. But especially my grandfather,
Papa Sam was his name, Samuel Byrd. You know, if somebody asked
me, is he a good man, I'd say he's the best man I ever knew. But you know, Papa Sam wasn't
good. And my grandmother wasn't good. And I'm not good. and you're not good either. Hear me now, no, hear the word
of God. There's none good but one, that's
God. None good but one, that's God. By one man, sin entered into
the world and we all died. The scripture says, since by
man came death, by another man came resurrection
from the dead. That's Christ. For as in Adam,
all did what? We died. In Adam, all died. This is the doctrine of original
sin that you rarely hear preached if you watch the television preachers. and you listen to the radio preachers,
they rarely, if ever, talk about anything like original sin. And the thing about it, Adam's
sin was imputed to, it was charged to, all of his posterity. We're born bad. We're born bad. I remember. Brother Jack Shanks,
who's with the Lord, been with the Lord several years now. He
was a headmaster of a so-called Christian school in Memphis,
Tennessee. And he said all the problem kids,
they were taken to his office. And this one little boy, his
name was Johnny. Man, he was in trouble, and so
Jack sent a note home to his mother and said, you need to
come into my office. Your little Johnny is just trouble
on two feet. And she came in and she said,
now let me just say this. My little Johnny is a good boy. But he fell in with the wrong
crowd. And Jack said, darling, Your
little Johnny is the wrong crowd. That's the way it is with all
of us. We are the wrong crowd. We went astray in Adam. There's
no question about it. There's no goodness in us. There's
no soundness in us. You see, the Lord's sheep, I
know the sheep are his elect. But the Lord's sheep are as contaminated
with sin as are the goats. We are not born, nobody is born
in an unbiased condition. We're not born in spiritual neutral. We're not born good, we're born
evil. David said, behold, I was shapen
in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. The filthy
stream of sin flows from a corrupt fountain, just trace it all the
way back to the Garden of Eden, to that original sin. Original
sin is the root of our problem. We inherited our corruption from
our father, Adam, and from him, every generation has been thoroughly
infected with spiritual death. This is the guilt of sin. I know
in Christ, we pass from death unto life, but in Adam, Our representative
there in the Garden of Eden, we pass from life into death. And we will remain in that condition
if God just leaves us alone. That's all he's got to do, just
leave us alone. So first of all, we went astray
in Adam. That's original sin. Now I'm
gonna show you three things in this verse. Here's the second
thing. Personal sin. Because that is seen here in
the next expression, we have turned everyone to his own way. Now it's personal. You see, it's
one thing to say, you know, we're all sinners. And a lot of people are willing
to admit that. But now wait a minute, it goes
further than that. We are personally sinners. We have turned everyone to his
own way. There is a way that seemeth right
to a man, but the end thereof is the way of death. It's the
way of evil. It's the way of false religion.
It's the way of open wickedness. There are many ways to death,
but just one way to life. And Christ is the way. We've turned everyone personally
to his own way. We've turned to an evil way,
to a dark way, To a false religious way? To a crooked way? To the
wrong way? Turn back just a few pages to
Ecclesiastes. Look at Ecclesiastes chapter
seven. The last verse of Ecclesiastes,
so we're just looking, we're in Isaiah, go back, Song of Solomon,
then one more book is Ecclesiastes chapter seven. Ecclesiastes chapter
7, last verse of the chapter. Here's what the preacher said.
The preacher is Solomon. He says, Lo, this only have I
found, that God made man upright, righteous, A companion? Somebody who feared
the Lord? Somebody who reverenced God?
God made man upright, but they have sought out many inventions. God made us upright in morality,
in righteousness, a creature righteousness, but nevertheless
righteousness. And because man was right toward
God. Man was brilliant. Man had dominion
over everything. But he decided to seek happiness
and joy and satisfaction and contentment in other ways. But you see, man was made to
glorify God and enjoy Him forever. You read the great confessions
of faith, about all begin that way. Man was made to glorify
God. But man's not content with that. Because our aim toward glorying
somebody is self-glory. Isn't that right? Self-glory. Self-satisfaction. Self-happiness. Man wasn't content to just glorify
God. He wants to glorify himself. Self-gratification. Ah, that's
the goal today. Whatever makes you happy. That's
what they say. Whatever makes you happy. You
know, before Adam fell, you know what made him happy? Glorifying
God. Worshiping God. And we know a
little bit about that by the power of God's sovereign saving
grace. It's wonderful to glorify God.
It's wonderful to hear of Christ crucified, buried, risen, exalted,
Christ who died for us, Christ who poured out His life's blood
to wash away our sins. That makes us happy. we still have a problem with
self-gratification. And now men and women won't seek
the glory of God. In fact, in most church services
that I've watched on television, the service is geared to make
people happy. Are you happy in Jesus? That's
what they say. Everybody happy? If you're happy
and you know it, clap your hands. We used to sing that all the
time in Sunday school. It's about my happiness. But you know what? It's not about you at all. Not
really. It's not about me. It's about
the glory and honor of the Son of God, who loved us and gave
himself for us. John the Baptist, they kind of
bragged on him. Boy, have you heard, you've heard
that preacher, John the Baptist? Woo, boy, he's a firebrand. John said, he must increase. I must decrease. It's hard to get out of the way
of self. Isn't it? Come on now. It's hard
to get out of the way of self. We're taught in the scriptures
to do all for the glory of God. Do you? Do I? Let's be honest now. We're utter failures, do you
know that? Good thing we got a successful Savior. He said, I'll always do those
things that please God. We were made to glorify God,
but we seek happiness and contentment by a multitude of things. Sins
are the inventions of men. There are many and there are
numerous. And I'll tell you, it's sufficient
evidence of our own depravity, personal guilt, that we prefer our ways to the
way of the Lord. Let me show you another verse.
Look over Jeremiah chapter six. Look at Jeremiah chapter six. It is sufficient evidence and
proof of our own depravity, of our own personal guilt, that by nature we prefer our
own ways to the ways of the Lord. Jeremiah 6.16, you there? Thus saith the Lord, stand ye
in the ways and see and ask for the old paths. Where is the good
way? And walk therein, and ye shall
find rest for your souls. Ask for the old paths. Tell you what, when somebody
is preaching, you listen to a message on the radio or on the television,
Lord willing, it won't ever happen here, And the preacher says,
let me tell you something you've never heard before. Ask for the
old ways. I don't want to hear something
new, because if it's new, it's not true. And if it's true, it's
not new. You see, the gospel of the grace
of God descenders through the crucified, buried, risen, exalted
Savior. That's not new, that's old. It's
ancient. It's as old as God. It's not new. Ask for the old
paths marked out in the ways of God, in the Word of God. Ask
for the paths that the flock of God's sheep has always trodden. Ask for the old paths where the
church of our Lord Jesus Christ historically has been following. Don't act like the countless
religious fools of our day who run from one doctrine to another,
from one religion to another, looking for the right path. Ask
for the old paths. Where is the good way? And walk therein. The old path's
the way of righteousness. It's the way of holiness found
in Christ, who is our holiness. It's a way of sovereign grace.
It's a way of substitutionary atonement. That's the old paths.
Preach the old gospel to me of the innocent dying for the guilty
to save the guilty and free us from our sins. Ask for the old
paths. Preacher, give me that old message
of good news. The old path of sovereign grace. The old path of everlasting salvation. The old path of Jesus Christ
and his bloody atonement. The old path of Christ and his
righteousness. The old path of Christ and his
salvation. The old paths are the paths of
salvation in which the saints of God have steadily walked with
God down through the years. Adam, Abel, Job, Enoch, Noah,
David, Solomon, Simon Peter, the apostle Paul, The old paths are found in the
gospel of Christ. He's the old path of righteousness. The old path of life. The old
path of salvation. And God's promise to all who
heed this counsel is this. Ye shall find rest to your souls. However, Here's man's problem by nature. Our response is, we will not
walk therein. That's man's response. And let me say something to you
right here. I don't believe that God can
inflict a greater judgment in this life, in this life. than to give us up entirely to
the way of our own hearts. What a judgment, what a judgment. The Pharisees fussed about the
Jews, or the Lord's disciples rather, the Pharisees fussed
about the Lord's disciples eating with unwashed hands. fussing
about stuff like that. Our Lord said a few things and
the disciples came to him and said, you've offended these religious
brethren. You just got too hard. Too narrow. You know what he said? Leave
them alone. Leave them alone. Don't preach
to them. That's right, don't preach to
them. Don't testify to them, don't testify to them. Don't
preach to them, don't preach to them. Just leave them alone. They love their blindness, they
love their false religion, they gonna perish in it, and I'll
tell you, leave them alone. What a judgment. Oh God, don't
leave me alone. You see, there is just one right
way, but a thousand wrong ways. And at the end of every wrong
way is death. Let me tell you something. There is no wiggle room when
it comes to the truth of the gospel of Christ. Hear me now, there's one God,
that's all there is. Rest of them are make-believe
idols, that's all they are. One God who's holy, just, and
righteous. One God who's sovereign in all
of his doings. There's one mediator between
us and that God. Mary is no mediator. Saint Jude
or some other dead saint, they're not a mediator either. They can't
take into the presence of God. That's a lie. That's absolutely a lie. Don't you pray to some dead saint Pray to God through Christ. There's one mediator. That's
all there is. There's no room for another.
There isn't another. There's one sacrifice for sin. Behold on the cross of Calvary,
the Son of God. He's God's sacrifice. And He paid all the debt of His
people. There's one gospel. You say,
well, Jim, you preach your gospel, and then the Catholic church
preaches their gospel, and the Lutheran church preaches their
gospel, and the Mormon church preaches their gospel. Wait a
minute. There's just one gospel. It's
God's gospel. It's the gospel that gives him
all the glory. It's the gospel of pure grace. It's the gospel of our salvation. And there's one salvation. And here's the third thing. Remember
I said I'm gonna show you three things in this verse. Original
sin. Original sin. Go back over there
and look at it. Isaiah 63, six. All we like sheep
have gone astray. That's all of us. Original sin. And then there's personal sin.
And if you don't know something about personal sin, if all you
know about is original sin, you don't know the gospel yet. Because everybody just about
is willing to say, you know, we're all sinful. Everybody's a sin preacher. Yeah,
well, what about you? What about your guilt? Hang on,
I'm not that bad. I'm not like others. Yeah, that's
what the Pharisee said. I'm not like other men are. Yeah,
you are. Yeah, you are. There's original sin, there's
personal sin, and here's the third thing. The iniquities of
all of the sheep were laid upon Christ. Charged to his account, Messiah suffered for the sins
of his people. Behold the volunteer Savior who
took our sins upon himself. I don't think any of us can really
enter into the fullness of what's said here. The Lord hath laid
on him the iniquity of us all. This was a real transference
of sin, transgressions, and iniquities, a real transference of indebtedness. all of the filth, all of the
mass of the iniquities of all of the sheep of the Lord were
transferred to our substitute. I can't explain that. But I can tell you this, that
our Savior in the Psalms, he referred to them as being his
sins. How are they his? They were transferred
to him. Turn back to, look at Psalm 40. Look at Psalm 40. Look at verse 12. And this is what they call a
messianic Psalm. Psalm 40, verse 12. This is real
now. It's not make-believe. This is
not just a picture. This is real. And these are the
words of our Savior. He says, For innumerable evils
have compassed me about. And we know this is Christ because
if you look earlier, like in verse 6, "...sacrifice and offering
thou didst not desire, mine ears hast thou opened, burnt offering
and sin offering hast thou not required. Then said I, Lo, I
come, and the volume of the book it is written of me." Where is
that recorded in the New Testament? Anybody? Hebrews chapter 12,
isn't that right? Hebrews chapter 10, excuse me. Hebrews chapter 10. So I know
who this is talking about. And now he says, for innumerable
evils have compassed me about mine iniquities. Wow. Mine iniquities. have taken hold upon me so that
I'm not able to look up. My God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me? Because innumerable iniquities, evils have taken hold upon me. He says there are more than the
hairs of mine head. I can't even enter into that.
I'm lost. in the ability to comprehend
that. Look over at Psalm 69. Psalm 69. There's a real transference
here. Something really happened. Psalm
69, verse 5. Verse 4 says this. They that hate me without a cause
are more than the hairs of mine head. They that would destroy me, being
mine enemies wrongfully, are mighty. Then I restored that
which I took not away. Now listen to the Savior. O God,
thou knowest my foolishness and my sins. My sins. You say, well, he was the sinless
one. That's right. But he took our sins so that
they're not ours anymore. And the Savior said, they're
mine. That's what he said. They're mine. My sins are not
hid from thee. And therefore the wrath of God
fell upon him and not on us. Because you see, sins can't be
in two places at the same time. And here's the glory of the particular
redemption of our Lord Jesus Christ. He took all the sins
of His sheep, put them upon Himself. He became answerable to God for
our iniquities. There in our text. The Lord hath laid on him the
iniquity of us all, laid on him, made to meet upon him the iniquities
of us all. How horrible would that have
been for all the iniquities of all of the chosen people of God
of all the ages to meet in one place upon the blessed Savior. And he said, they're my sins. They're my sin. He said, they're
my iniquities. But Lord, they're not yours,
they're mine. They're the sins and iniquities
of all of your people. But he said, but I took them
off of you. You don't bear them anymore. And I'll tell you what, if he
took your iniquities, you can't be punished for them,
because you don't have any iniquities, you don't have any sins. Where'd
they go? They went on him. What'd he do
with them? He died for them. The justice of God whipped him,
whipped him in his soul. The wrath of God was diluted,
as it were, into a cup, and he drank that cup of God's wrath
right down to its last bitter dregs. And the cup was empty. No more wrath. And therefore, Paul says in Romans
8, there is therefore now no condemnation to their inherent
Christ Jesus. Why won't we be condemned? How
come we're spared? How come the wrath of God's not
gonna touch us? Because it's already touched
our substitute, that's why. In a manner that is beyond our
comprehension. And I think men make a mistake
when they try to enter into the darkness of substitution. I tell you what, there's a reason
God blotted out the Son for three hours when he dealt with the
Son of God. I can't comprehend it. Somebody
said, well, I can't wrap my head around that. Well, I can't wrap
my head around deity, what deity does. But I do know this. All we like sheep have gone astray. That's original sin. We've turned
everyone to his own way. That's personal sin. And the
Lord hath laid on him, made to meet on him, the iniquities of
all the sheep. And the sheep go free. You say, well, where does faith come
in all this? Well, faith is a gift of God
as a result of the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. God
gives us faith to believe him. So you believe, you mean you
believe what you can't comprehend? Of course I do. Do I believe
God made the world? Yeah. Do I comprehend and I know
how he did it? Hey, my little peanut brain can't
handle all that. I just believe he spake and it
was true. It was done. And I believe the
cross of Calvary, all my iniquities were laid on the head of my substitute. And I don't bear them anymore.
That's one of the strongest arguments for particular redemption. And for some, I'd say, well,
you know, he bore the sins of Judas just like he bore the sins
of Paul the apostle. I say, you don't know what you're
talking about. You don't have any idea of redemption
and substitution. If he died for me, I can't die. That makes sense, doesn't it?
I can't die. If he took my sins, I don't have them anymore. And all I can say is thank you,
Lord, for taking them off me and bearing them away in the
land of forgetfulness. All right, well, let's sing closing
songs.