that maybe a good name for this
Bible conference might be something like the Geriatric Conference. All these old preachers. But
I say some of you are not so young yourself, are you? But you know I love you. And
I've loved you for a long time. I'll never forget the first Bible
conference I came here somewhere around 1980. And after the first
service, we went back to the motel room and I told my wife,
I said, we found our family. We found the people of God. And
I've loved you and I've been so thankful for your support
of me and my family. and the work there in Jacksonville,
North Carolina. Obscure to many, but not to God. Not to God. I thank you and I
thank God. I want you to turn tonight to
a very familiar passage of scripture. Isaiah chapter 53. Isaiah 53. You know, there is a big difference in believing in God and believing God. The rest of faith comes when
we believe God. The comfort of the scriptures,
the peace, the assurance in all things is born out of
believing God. I thought about when I was thinking
about what to preach Paul's words to those mariners. In that storm that he called
the Urocladon Wind. I don't know what that means,
but it sounds bad. He said, sirs, be of good cheer. For I believe God. But it didn't just end it with
those words. He said, I believe God that it
shall be even as it was told me. He believed what God said. Believed his word. And sometimes if God enables
us to believe what He says in one verse, if He opens our understanding
and gives us by His Spirit faith to believe one verse, it comes
like a flood of blessing and joy And it is an absolute miracle
of His grace. If I believe one verse, the Spirit of God has to deal
with me in such a miraculous, supernatural way just to get
me to truly believe one verse. And such a verse might be as
the one I want us to look at mainly tonight, and that is the
verse 6 in Isaiah 53, where Isaiah writes, All we like sheep have gone astray,
We have turned every one to his own way, and the Lord hath laid on him
the iniquity of us all. I want us to look at this in
two parts, the first phrase and the last phrase. In the first phrase, he says,
all we like sheep have gone astray. We've turned everyone to his
own way. You know, men like the alls to
be universal, and it is truly universal in
the sense of all our race, all. In Adam, all sinned and come
short of the glory of God. All fell in Adam. All died, the Scripture says. All went astray at their birth. We come forth from our mother's
womb speaking lies. We're astray in our nature. We're astray in this flesh. We're astray from the truth of
God. But these words, this we in this text is particular. All we. It's written to those
to whom the Bible is like a letter from God. This is the Word of
God to the people of God. And if we look at it any other
way, claim any promise or whatever it is, and we're not a child
of God, we're just reading somebody else's mail. All we. All of the elect of God, chosen
of God, called by various names in the scripture, we sinners, we sons, we ungodly, we lost, and we sheep. You see, we didn't go astray
like everybody else. He says, all we sheep, like sheep,
we went astray like sheep. We were never lost like goats. We went astray from God, like
every other one, but we didn't go in that sense. We didn't go
as sheep, as goats. We went astray as sheep. That's
what sheep naturally do. We went astray, but we went astray
as sheep. And God's sheep, we went astray
as those whose care was always entrusted to the shepherd. God's sheep's care has always
been entrusted to the shepherd, and they all belonged to the
shepherd. That's what he calls us in John
10, my sheep. But we all as sheep went astray. We went astray as those lost
sheep of the house of Israel. That's what Christ said. Who you sent to? I'm sent to
the lost sheep of the house of Israel." We went astray as sheep,
those sheep that he laid down his life for. John 10. those
sheep that He gave His life for, as if we might forget that. We
are sheep of the Shepherd who gave His life for us, laid down
His life for us, not goats that would become sheep. But when we went astray, we were
sheep. And we as sheep are those who
will be enabled to hear His Word. My sheep hear my voice. If you're a sheep, one of God's
sheep by His amazing grace, you're going to come to this verse someday,
and it's going to speak to you. It's going to be good news to
you. Nobody won't have to tell you
it's for you. It's not as a possibility that
it could be yours. This is for you. We are sheep,
and the sheep will be enabled to hear His Word, to hear His
voice, and follow Him. Now I wonder, is that you? Is
that me? When Brother Tim was speaking,
that was for me. I could rejoice totally in salvation
by the grace of God and nothing else. It was for me. And so is each and every word
and promise in this book. Because this describes the people
of God. Does it describe you? Are you astray? But it's the name that God has
made us by His grace, and He reveals to us His truth and this
revelation of what He's done for us and what He's been to
us. And it's evidence by the faith
he gives to believe it. I read that to many people, they
say, I don't believe that. I do. I've never, since the Lord
saved me, I've been everything you've said, but I've not been
able to disbelieve this. I'm like Abraham, hope against
hope. It shouldn't be, but it is. Can't
be, but it is. I've tried not to believe that,
but I can't. I believe it. We believe God
that it was and it is and it shall be as he says in his word. We went astray. Ain't no doubt
about it. I went astray in my early life,
but I didn't know I'd already gone astray in Adam. Oh, we like sheep, and we've
turned everyone to his way, to his own way. What way is that? Well, some went the way of irreligion,
and some went the way of religion, and some went the way of immorality,
and some went the way of morality. Me, I went the way of a little
bit of everything. But it's always that way that
seemeth right to a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death. Man's ways are only one way,
the way of death. All his works are dead works. He's spiritually dead. But when
he says here this, he joins it quickly with the next phrase. And it's joined, if you notice,
by an and, not a but. Not a but. Because what follows
is not a reaction by God or a contingency plan by God. It's in full harmony
with what He said in the first phrase. It's the eternal purpose
and sovereign will of God, the grace of God in the Lord Jesus
Christ. Oh, we like sheep went astray. We went astray so far we couldn't
get back. That's why we're lost. But we're
lost sheep by nature and by birth and then Adam and all this. But
he says here, and, and this is not a reaction, but it has to
do with the Lord Jesus Christ and God's salvation of his sheep
by Christ. And the first thing I want you
to note in that is the originator of salvation. Where do we start? I'm telling you, when I start
thinking sometime about preaching, and I see such a congregation
I know of vast backgrounds and moral states and ideas and opinions
and all like that, I ask myself, Lord, where do I start? Well,
I start with God. as He is. Because first of all, unless
God brings us to believe His Word, we've got nothing to talk
about. But God brings all His people
to believe His Word, and they're going to be brought to believe
what God says about Himself. And God says in this book so
many times and so many ways that salvation is of the Lord. If we begin, we have to begin
with the Lord. All of salvation begins with
God, is accomplished by God, and it's to the glory of God,
not man. Every piece. That's what grace
does. It glorifies God exclusively. That's why men don't like it.
They want a choice. Let me decide. Well, if you decided,
you'd be God. Old Nebuchadnezzar, he stood
up on the balcony. He said, oh, oh, this great Babylon
that I have built, that's the center. That's the sinner. But the originator
of salvation is in that second phrase, the Lord and the Lord. And look at this. Look at what
else it says. The Lord hath. Oh, preachers say you wouldn't
believe what God would do if you let him. What He'd do for
you if you would just allow Him, or if you would take the first
step, or if you would just accept Him, or if you'd just decide
for... You wouldn't believe what God would do for you. No, you
won't believe what God has done. The Lord hath. I believe that's past tense. The Lord hath. That's what I
want to hear. If you ever find out what you
are as a dead, doomed, dying sinner, you won't want to hear
what you're to do. You want to hear what God has
already done in His grace. The Lord hath. This involves
something that He has already done and done before the foundation
of the world in all eternity. The Lord hath. All these people say, well, in
the mind and purpose of God, I've got news for you, friend.
There ain't nothing else. Oh, God, He'll do something. We know He's already done something
in the mind and purpose of God, but I assure you what He has
done in His mind and purpose is what's going to be done. And
nothing else? Nothing less and nothing more.
This is the Lord hath. Well, what has the Lord done?
The Lord hath, and He's the Lord that changes not, the Lord that
does whatever He does forever that men may fear, and it says
here that the Lord hath laid. Laid. The Lord hath laid on Him. Boy, if you'd read that to me
45 years ago, I'd probably say, so what? But he's talking about sins.
The Lord hath laid. And that means something like
he's made to me on his head. Whose head? the one in Isaiah's
report here, that's what this is, you mentioned the report,
this is the report. And he's saying here, the Lord
hath laid on him, made him responsible, made him accountable, the Lord
Jesus Christ, the Messiah, the man Christ Jesus, he's laid on
him, and that is the glorious truth of the imputation. You say, I don't know about all
this imputed righteousness, sir. I don't know about the when,
I don't know about the where, who, what, when. Well, can you
believe this? The Lord hath laid on him. That's where this few thoughts
came from. I just happened to open up and
come to this verse, and it struck me so marvelously. I said, Lord, if I can believe
that the Lord hath, if I can believe on a finished work, if
I can believe the truth of imputation, I may not be able to explain
it, but I know this, the Lord had laid on Him And if he's laid it on him, it
ain't on me. It's not. You say, preacher,
could you know I can't speak any more eloquently? Or I can't
speak any more theologically? Or any more oratorily, if that's
a word? This is the truth. The Lord has laid on him. He has taken the responsibility
of my sin off of me and laid it on him. Kind of like in that picture
of old Bunyan's pilgrim, when the bag he was carrying, that
heavy burden, rolled off his shoulders and rolled down into
the cave, never to be seen again. All the ugliness of my sin, all
my sinnerhood, my everything about me that displeases God,
everything about me, my sins, great and small, if there be
such, my sins of omission and commission, all of them laid
on Him. That's easy to understand naturally. But it's impossible to believe
unless God gives us faith. He's laid. He hath laid. I kept reading that. It got sweeter
as I went. He hath done this. God has done
this. The one I'm accountable to. The
one who's in charge of everything. The one I've sinned against.
He took it upon himself to lay on his dear son. The iniquity of us all. On the surety. I like to think of it this way. There's a real transfer. There's
a real transaction. As sure as the man in Israel
went and laid his hand on the sacrifices he had. A real transfer
has taken place. It's already done. It's already
finished. I have no part in that. I have
no way of altogether understanding all of it. I have no way of boasting
in anything. The Lord has done it all, and
He's laid on Him. Even in heaven, I don't think
we'll understand fully what it is to be a sinless man. He's laid on Him. You see, the one who's described
in verse 2, He. And you know what? I read this
this afternoon. The words He, His, and Him. in this one chapter are used
over forty times. Forty times. That's why the gospel
is about Him. He! And there's never been anyone
like Him. He's in His unique self. You know what He gave Himself? The God-man. Oh, he shall grow up before him
as a tender plant and as a root out of a dry ground. He hath
no form nor comeliness, and when we shall see him, there is no
beauty that we should desire him. They walk right by the God-man. They had no hesitation to accuse,
falsely accuse, the God-man. There was nothing special to
the eye about the God-man. He didn't look like, as you said
one time, Wild Bill Hickok's painting, like you see on the
walls of everybody. But he was God in flesh. He was God so that that could
be an infinitely valuable and a satisfying sacrifice because
only God can satisfy God. And he was a man that he could
do that one thing that fulfills the law. And that's to die. To die. When Paul said, we preach, he
said, I've determined to know nothing among you except Jesus
Christ and Him crucified. You say, well, I don't want to
hear about all that blood. Oh, my. Well, you won't ever
hear anything from this book then. It's a book of blood. It's a book of death. Because death for sin is the
only thing that puts away sin. And so he gave himself. He. He. The one who knew no sin,
the one who had no fault in word or deed or motive, and who as
God never changed in that, The one who had sin imputed to Him,
not infused in Him, but Him, the Lord Jesus Christ. I feel unworthy to even utter
that name, to utter the name of a man, who please God in everything. Oh, we have our great men that
we admire, these people that get elected and you think they're
talking about God talking about them as if they are able to deliver
us in some way. They're not. He did. He's the Christ. He's the only one that God ever
spoke audibly from heaven and said, this is my beloved son
in whom I'm well pleased. Him. Talking about Him. He's always pleased with them.
He is that one who died as a lamb without spot and without blemish. The Lord laid on Him. Not you. Not the best one you
ever knew. Not your beloved grandmother.
Not that wonderful old preacher that was so saintly. But the
Lord laid on Him. I wish the Lord would fix our
eyes on Him. We're all so worried about them
when we could be rejoicing about Him. The Lord has laid on Him. He did it so in eternity when
He laid it on Christ as our surety. He did it when He laid it on
Him responsibly again when He hung on the cross. There's a lot of debate about
the winds, but there's never any wind in God. And he, verse four says, surely he hath
borne our griefs and carried our sorrows Yet we
did esteem him as stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted, but he
was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities,
and the chastisement of our peace was upon him and with his stripes. He's already borne them. You say, when did he bear them?
from old eternity all the way till he drew his last breath
on that cross, and he bore them away. He bore them away. He was bearing
our sorrows. That's much more than a few tears
you shed because your dog dies. Our sorrows as sinners. He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace
was upon Him. That's substitution. Sweet substitution. Because in the sweet substitute,
we have a sweet satisfaction. And with his stripes, we are
healed. He said, oh, I wish I could get
this back healed or this pain healed. Well, neither one of
them will kill you eternally, but sin would. But he said, we're healed. As
a matter of fact, Peter takes up the same thing. And he says
it in this way, who his own self bear our sins in his own body
on the tree that we being dead to sins should live unto righteousness
by whose stripes ye were healed. Can you hear that? Can you believe
it? You say, you don't look so good
yourself. Well, I don't feel so good. 77 this year. That's our mileage. But I'm healed. Because the Lord has laid on
him the iniquity of us all. Verse 7 says, He was oppressed
and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth. He is brought
as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shears
is done, so opened He not His mouth. He was taken from prison and
from judgment, and who shall declare his generation? For he
was cut off out of the land of the living, and for the transgression
of my people he was stricken." People to the end of this world
will be debating, these theologians, these religious people will be
debating the whether or not the atonement
of the Lord Jesus Christ is universal or whether it's particular. It's just going to be that way. But if words mean anything, if we believe God, he says, for
the transgression Now, this is God speaking through the prophet
now. It's in the first person. For the transgression of my people was he stricken. He was stricken in their place.
He laid down his life for these sheep. He gave his life for the
sheep. As a matter of fact, Peter goes
on. He says, for ye were as sheep
gone astray, but are now returned. You are now returned to the shepherd and bishop of your souls. You're
returned. You're healed. You don't have any inequity.
You don't have any sin. It isn't that you weren't a sinner.
It isn't that you weren't a stray. But Christ, when he hung on that cross, the Lord laid on him. Those old hymn writer's words
really mean a lot in light of this verse. When he said in his
song, payment God cannot twice demand, first at my bleeding
surety's hand and then again at mine. That's why God can be
and is a just God and a savior. Because in justice, the Lord laid on him the iniquity
of us all. Blessed is the man to whom the
Lord will not impute sin. How can the Lord not impute my
sin, hold me accountable for my sin? Because he laid my sin
on Christ. And he bore them away in his
own body because he died as a substitute. He's the lamb slain from the
foundation of the world. He's the lamb slain on Calvary,
and when you see him in glory, he's going to be as the lamb
newly slain. His work is finished, but it's
always fresh. In other words, the iniquity
of us all, his people, that one great weight of all the sins
of all of his elect of all time were laid on him. That means
made to rush in like an army in vengeance. They rushed in on Christ on the cross. Can we believe one verse? Look back at verse 1. That's
where he begins, Isaiah does. Who hath believed our report? The gospel is a report. It's a report of what Christ,
by the grace of God, has done for his people. for us. That's all. You say, how do I know I'm thus? That's all. When you realize
you're not them, I couldn't be saved their way, works and whatever. That's all. Who hath believed our report?
And to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? My prayer is for
you, if you're one of God's sheep, heal this night by simply, if I've done nothing
but read this one verse, reveal that good news to you. I appreciate you. Boy, I sure am glad I was here
tonight. Those two excellent messages
give our Lord the glory for them. Now, we've got soup and sandwiches. That's what's back there. I reckon that's what's back there.
But some need. So if you want to stay and fellowship