Let's go back to the book of
Isaiah chapter 53. Isaiah 53. I've got just a single verse
that I want to focus on today. And that is Isaiah chapter 53
and verse 6. It reads, all we like sheep have
gone astray. We have turned everyone to his
own way. And the Lord hath laid on him
the iniquity of us all." If you were to ask me what are
the main doctrines of our religion, I think I could go to this one
verse of Scripture and say to you, well, right here they are. the lost state of man by nature,
and the only means of our recovery, the death of the Lord Jesus. And if we are to estimate the
value and the importance of all other doctrines, we must judge
them by the relation which they bear to these two. Consider these two as being most
important. Our depravity, God's remedy. And I would also add to those
statements that these two facts, they need to be regarded and
they need to be considered in their relation to each other. For it is by the substitutionary
death of our Lord Jesus that we see the depth of our depravity. And when we look at our sinfulness,
we see the necessity of the substitutionary sacrifice of our Lord Jesus. We might say that by the awfulness
of our guilt, we see the excellency and we see the omnipotence of
the death of the Savior to make reconciliation for the sins of
His people. We always need to consider these
two truths together, for if we don't, We are in danger of falling into
despair on the one hand. If all we say to you is our sinfulness
and our depravity and we don't give you the other side of this,
well, we would say we are of all men most miserable. Is this
all there is? Is there only to be found bad
news in the Bible? Does God only tell us what we
are by nature? Is there then no good news? You've taken the Word of God
and you've lanced us open. You've exposed our guilt. Is
there now nothing to soothe us? You see, if we only set forth
man's depravity and man's sinfulness, and then we don't give the gospel
of the Lord Jesus Christ, we leave people saying, we're of
all men most miserable, there is no hope for us. On the other hand, if we don't set forth death of
our Lord Jesus Christ as being the remedy for an awful, awful
condition, then we'll have a low estimation of its importance. And I think that's the reason
most people have such a low estimation of the death of our Lord Jesus.
That's the reason they only see it as an effort as an act of
good will? Because they've never been brought
to realize the necessity of His death is on account of our foul
condition. So you've got to set forth both
of these truths as this verse of Scripture does. In fact, I
would say this verse of Scripture, Isaiah chapter 53 and verse 6,
it's really like a summary of all the Bible. Because kind of
squeezed into these few words, we have our sinfulness, we have
our neediness, we have our failure, we have all of our transgressions
and our iniquities, we have all of our sinfulness, here's the
fall of Adam, here's our individual transgression, That's set before
us and then on the other hand, here's this glorious remedy to
our desperate situation. Here's the substitutionary death
of the Lord's great servant. Here's the answer to that question,
how can God be just and justify the ungodly? So we've got to present these
together. And I'll tell you this, it's
because people have no real understanding of our fault in Adam, of our
sinfulness in Adam, that they don't have a real appreciation
for the death of our Lord Jesus. I assure you of this, if you
don't have an awareness of your indebtedness to God, You're not
going to have any real interest in the death of our Lord Jesus
Christ that settled the debt. It is only as you come to be
aware of your situation, that is, between you and God, of the
infinite debt that you owed but you could never pay. It is only
then that the death of our Lord Jesus, His great sacrifice, His
atoning work, it is only then that will be of utmost importance
to you. Until then, it will just be something
you talk about every once in a while. So these two vital truths must
be set forth together as the Scriptures do. And as we are enabled by the
Spirit of God to see our own depravity, and when the eyes
of our understanding are opened to realize that the only way
we could be saved was for God to make all of our iniquities
to meet upon the head of the shepherd of the sheep. Then we
will be made to rejoice. And we will do, as the 54th chapter
begins, You notice the very first word of the 54th chapter? After
in the 53rd chapter, after the Lord Jesus, this great servant
of Jehovah, after He has been set forth, after His substitutionary
death has been set forth, after it is set forth that it pleased
the Lord to bruise Him, that He was absolutely the successful
Savior, it is in chapter 54 that all of the saints of God are
commanded to do this. Sing! And doesn't a song of thanksgiving
arise in your heart when by the Spirit's grace your heart is
made bare at least to some degree before you? You see your depravity. You see your sinfulness. You
see your alienation from God. And then the Spirit of God pulls
back the blinders of your eyes and He shows you a loving substitute
who bore your iniquities in His own body on the tree. Who paid
your debt? who washed all of your iniquities
away, in whose glorious robe of righteousness you are now
dressed, does not your heart then burst forth and you want
to sing glory to God? This is what chapter 54 is about. Sing! Sing, O barren! Well, what are we singing about?
Actually, chapter 54 is about God bringing the Gentiles to
knowledge of the gospel. And we're made to rejoice in
Him. And He tells us in verse number
5 of chapter 54, look at this, for thy maker is thy husband,
The Lord of hosts is His name. 54 verse 5. And the Redeemer
of the Holy One of Israel, the God of the whole earth shall
it be called. Sing, O saints of God! What shall we sing about? What
can wash away my sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
Sing! Sing! Sing at the top of your
vocal cords. Sing in your heart. to the Lord. Sing. Sing, saved by the blood
of the crucified One. Sing. When we see the depths
of sin into which we have sunk, and when we see the very heights
of glory to which we've been raised due to the offering of
the body of the Lord Jesus Christ once for all, we will indeed
then sing, alas! And did my Savior bleed? And did my Sovereign die? Would He devote that sacred head
for such a worm as I? You'll sing. You'll sing. and maybe not sing with your
mouth. We'll all sing with our mouths
in glory. But you sing in your heart. You
sing praises to God. And you just bathe all of your
prayers with gratitude and thanksgiving to God for the blood. Oh, thank
God for the blood that cleanses us from all of our sins. And we'll sing wonderful grace
of Jesus, greater Greater than all my sin. Greater. Sing. And so in Isaiah chapter 53 and
verse 6, we look at this one verse of Scripture. And it's obvious that it divides
itself into two parts. The first part has to do with
us and our sad condition. Whereas the latter part of Isaiah
53 and verse 6 has to do with Jehovah and His gracious provision
for sin. We could say that this verse
divides itself into these two parts. Here's bad news and good
news. That's what it is. It's bad news
and good news. The bad news, that's about us. and our departure from God. The
good news is what God in Jesus Christ has done for us already. Already. We could say this is
the disease and the remedy. Here's the disease. The disease
of sinfulness. Here's the remedy. The death
of the Lord Jesus. But this is what I'm going to
call it, and here's the title of my message. Here's the problem
and the solution. And I hope that after this service
is over, and should someone ask you today, or maybe somebody
asks you tomorrow, did you go to church yesterday? Yes. What
did the preacher preach about? Well, he preached about this,
the problem and the solution. You can remember that. The verse
is easy to memorize because it begins with all and it ends with
all. All we like sheep have gone astray. We've turned everyone
to his own way and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us
all. Let's talk about the problem.
Here's the problem. It says, all we like sheep have
gone astray. We've turned everyone to his
own way. The Lord sets forth this great
problem in a general way and then in a specific way. In other words, He first of all
addresses all of us. We've all got the problem. But
then He focuses on each one of us. Now, he states the condition
in a general way. He says, all we like sheep have
gone astray. And I know most of the time in
the Bible when the word sheep is used, it refers to God's elect. But it can also refer to everybody. And I know that from passages
such as Matthew chapter 9 and verse 36 The Scripture says of
our Lord, when He saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion
on them, because they fainted, they were scattered abroad as
sheep having no shepherd. Like a large flock of sheep.
We've all gone astray. That's what Isaiah says. It's
everybody. We've all gone astray. You remember
the very first recipients of Isaiah's prophecy were the Jewish
people. It wouldn't be unusual for them to see sheep every day.
In fact, there's a good possibility some of these were shepherds.
They're sheep herders. And they knew how sheep were
quite familiar with sheep. Sheep go astray as a great flock
of people. This is the way he portrays it. In Adam, like a flock of sheep,
we all went astray." In other words, we all left the Lord in
Adam. This is the doctrine of original
sin. It's called original sin because
it's man's original sin. We all went away from God. We
all went astray from God. Go back to the Psalms. Psalm
14. if you would, Psalm 14. Notice how the Lord speaks here in Psalm
14. We're working on this fact that all
we like sheep have gone astray. Psalm 14, verse 1, The fool hath
said in his heart, There is no God. The fool. Not merely a fool, but the fool. I was reading to Nancy this morning. In fact, I was kind of scanning
the internet for some things and it said, or maybe it was
the last night, it talked about famous people who are atheists. Some of the wealthiest people
in the world. Atheists. Some of the people that are most
educated in the world, atheists. You know what God says about
an atheist? He's a fool. He says a fool. The fool has
said in his heart, there is no God, or quite literally, no God
for me. You can have your God, you can
have your religion, but no God for me. No God for me. One famous actor, I read it,
and if I called his name, you'd all know who he is. He's very
famous. He said, God, do I believe in God? He said, I am God. I believe in myself. Okay. Wow, that's what the serpent
said to Eve. He said, you'll be God yourself.
She believed the lie of the serpent, so does this guy. God says, the
fool has said in his heart, there is no God, no God for me. And
look what God says. They're corrupt. They're spoiled. They're ruined. You know when
something is in the refrigerator and it gets kind of pushed back
to the back and it stays back there and it stays back there.
One day you open the refrigerator and say, what is that smell? The food that you'd put in there
a few weeks ago has got pushed back to the back corner where
you can't see it. It's up under the shelf. You know what's happened
to it? It's spoiled. It's ruined. It's corrupt. God
says that about us. We're corrupt. Corrupt. Watch it. They're corrupt. They've done abominable works.
There's none that doeth good. None that doeth good. Because
for somebody to do good, it's got to be a work of faith. It's
got to be due to the grace of God within you. It's due to the
fact that God ordained you to that good work. And it's got
to be done for the glory of God. And God says there's none that
doeth good. Look at verse 2, "...the Lord looked down from
heaven upon the children of men to see if there were any that
did understand and seek God." God is portrayed like we would
do to look down, to investigate, to inquire and discover, is there
anybody out of all of these billions of people Who understand? Who understand who God is? Who understand their own dilemma
of sin? Is there anybody who understands
the need for a sacrifice? Is there anybody that seeks after
God? And this is God's conclusion
to His investigation, verse 3. They are all gone astride. They
are all gone aside. Or literally, they have all gone
astray. Here is all the billions of mankind
who will ever live in God Almighty who has infinite knowledge. He
looks at all of mankind. Is there anybody? Is there anybody? He doesn't say, is there anybody
rich? Is there anybody wealthy? Is there anybody who is wise
in the things of the world? But He says, is there anybody
who understands Me? Is there anybody who understands
their own needs? Is there anybody who understands
the Gospel? Is there anybody who seeks Me? And God looks down through all
the centuries of time. He looks upon all the people
who will ever live. He said, not a one of them. Not
one. Not one. The wisest man in the
world in the things of God is a fool. God says it's not one. He says in verse 3, they're all
gone aside. They're all gone astray. They're
all together become filthy. That is stinking. There's none
that doeth good. No, not one. This is God's estimation for
what has happened. We went astray. We went astray. See, that's what our text says
back over here in Isaiah chapter 53 and verse 6. All we like sheep
have gone astray. What have we done? We've left
God. We left God. Well, you say, when did we leave
God? In Adam. We left God. When Adam violated God's law,
He was saying in effect, I'll be God myself. I'll be the master
of my own fate. I'll not bow to God anymore. I'll not bow to His will. It's
my will and my way. And he went astray. But the thing
of it is, when Adam went astray, he didn't go astray by himself.
He took the rest of the flock with him. That's what happened. All of the rest of us, we were
all piggybacked on Adam, right? I walk in our neighborhood. Several
months ago, I was walking. It was very early, and you couldn't
see real well, but I did see this unusual-looking creature
cross the road in front of me on one of the side streets, and
I kind of picked up my pace to see what it was. And as I picked
up my pace, that little varmint picked up its pace, and I discovered
it was a possum. And she had on her back five
little ones. I took a picture of her. I took
a picture of her. I showed it to the Lord, remember? And they were all riding her. Where she went, they went. And
when she went faster, they went faster. They were just like part
and parcel of her. They were just attached to her.
They were hanging on. Listen, we were piggybacked on
Adam. Where he went, we went. You understand? He was a representative man.
He took us into the depths of degradation and sin and death
when he sinned against God. so that all we like sheep have
gone astray." When did that happen, preacher? In Adam's fall. That's when that happened. That's the reason the Scripture
says, for sense by man can't death. That's all that can come
of man now, is death. For as in Adam, All die. Adam led us astray. He led us into iniquity which
resulted in our death. All have sinned. We were led astray. We went wrong
in Adam. We left the Lord. We left life.
We left righteousness. We left guidance. We left safety. What happens when a flock of
sheep leaves the shepherd? They lose the guidance of the
shepherd. They lose the fellowship of the
shepherd. They lose the protection of the
shepherd. And now they're exposed to all
kinds of dangers. That's us. That's us. We are exposed to every wind
of doctrine religiously. We will believe anything and
everything except the truth. Except the truth. Why is that
preacher? Because we went astray like a
flock of sheep. Our going astray was an act of
unthankfulness. Our going astray was an act of
foolishness, because it put us in grave danger. And as a result of our going
astray, we are lost in confusion, in
ignorance, and we just wonder about, no idea what the truth is. Just a foolish flock of sheep. But notice back in our text,
He doesn't only set forth our sinfulness in a general way, all we like sheep have gone astray,
but then He brings it to each of us individually. We have turned everyone to his
own way. Maybe the best way to illustrate
this is, you know, you go to a reunion, family reunion, high
school reunion, whatever. Or maybe at work, a picture with
a bunch of people. A bunch of people, they take
pictures. Here's the whole group photo. And then you get a copy
of the photo. Who are you looking for in that
photo? Well, you know who you're going
to look for. Let me see how I look. Well, this is what Isaiah does.
Isaiah, as it was, he takes a photo of all of the family of Adam.
He says, here we all are, like a flock of sheep. We've all gone
astray. And you say, well, that's real
interesting. But then Isaiah says, let me show you your picture. Let's just get individual on
this. And then he brings it down and
he says, Each of us, we've turned to our own way. He magnifies
it to where now you're in focus. I don't have my cell phone with
me because I don't ever bring it up here. I'm afraid I'll leave
it on in a ring and everybody will be singing Dixie. But on your cell phone, now some
of you, if you're not as high tech as I am, You won't understand
this, but you take a picture of something like that on your
cell phone, and sometimes you'll do this. And some of you say, what in
the world are you talking about? And others say, yeah, I know
what he's talking about. You enlarge it. Right? That's what you do. Yeah, see, you didn't know I
was high tech, did you? What that does, it makes little,
that which is little, bigger. This is what Isaiah says, Oh,
we like sheep have gone astray like a great flock of sheep. He brings ourselves into focus. He makes us large. And he says,
we have turned Everyone to his own way. You see, you can get
lost in the whole flock of sheep. Yeah, that's right. We all went
astray in Adam. But wait! Wait. This focuses on you too. You
individually. And me individually. See, we
like to get lost in a crowd. But the Lord, through He brings
His servant Isaiah to make sure you don't get lost in the crowd.
You're not lost in the flock. He says, we've turned everyone,
every one of us to His own way. Our own way. We've cast off God. We've cast off God. We are now
on a course of self-determination. A course of self-will and a course
of self-satisfaction. I will live my life in a manner
in which I choose. The way that makes me happy,
I'll do what I want to do. I'll seek my welfare. The gratification
of my flesh is all that I'm interested in. I will do my own thing. You see, it isn't correct. to say that we've all turned
to a life of open filthiness. No. Or to say that we've all
turned, each one of us has turned to a way of thievery, a life
of thievery, or a life of drunkenness. But I'll tell you what is true
of every one of us. We have each of us turned to
His own way. But it's not God's way. It's
not God's way. What is the way of man? It's
the way of self-exaltation, self-love, self-will. Look at a verse with me in 2
Corinthians 5. There it is in this chapter. A brief statement which the Apostle
Paul, in three words, he sums up what it means to turn
everyone to his own way. 2 Corinthians chapter 5 and verse
15, that he died for all, that they
which live should not henceforth live unto themselves. That's our problem by nature.
We live unto ourselves. We live unto self. It's all about
us. You see, it ought to be all about
God. It should be all about God's
will. God's glory. God's exaltation. It ought to
be all about God's worship. But no, we've all turned to His
own way, which is, I exalt myself. I'm the center of my world. And you know that's the case.
People watch things on the news. Well, does that concern me? No.
Well, I have no interest. It doesn't have anything to do
with me. And when it comes to religion,
being accepted by God, we turn to our own way of salvation,
be it baptism or good works or making a decision, trying to
live a better life. But that which we all have in
common, each of us individually is, our way of salvation by nature
is not God's way. Because God's way is one way,
Christ Jesus is the way. It's a new and living way. It's
a way of grace alone. It's a way of God's electing
grace, God's redeeming grace, God's regenerating grace, God's
keeping grace, God's saving grace. But the natural man says, no,
it's about me. If I decide for Jesus, that's
fine. I'll do it whenever I want to.
Oh, see, you're self-willed. It's all about you. This is our problem. We fell
as a flock of sheep. And each of us individually,
we've gone away from the shepherd. But here's the solution. And thank God there is a solution
to this awful problem. Thank God there is a hope for
those of us who've gone astray. Those of us who have individually
left God to go our own way. The Scripture says, all we like
sheep have gone astray. We've turned everyone to his
own way. And the Lord, the Lord did something. The Lord did something. The Lord
didn't say, if you ever come to your senses, let me know.
The Lord didn't say, if you'll take the first step toward me,
I'll meet you halfway. No. It's saying the Lord did
something. What did the Lord do? He laid
on Him the iniquity of us all. There's a delightful verse. Look
with me in the little bitty book of Hosea. This is a blessing to me. It
was a blessing to me. I hope it will be a blessing
to you. And I'm sure you've read it before in the book of Hosea. Hosea chapter 13. And this is another little verse
that is so full of meaning. And yet it's like here are these
two great big monumental truths condensed down into just a couple
of little statements. And here they are. Hosea chapter
13 and verse 9. O Israel, thou hast destroyed
thyself. But, I love that, but, in me is thine
help. And notice what the Lord says,
and the Lord speaks six things that he will be to his people.
Number one in verse number ten, I will be thy king. I'll be thy king. I rule not
only in creation and providence, but I rule in your salvation.
And it's a good thing He does rule in salvation, because if
it were left to us, we wouldn't be saved. Nobody would be. I
will be thy King, He says in verse number 14. Number two,
I will ransom them from the power of the grave. I will ransom them. Number three, I will redeem them
from death. This is what the Lord says He
will do. You see, this salvation that
we, as a great flock of sheep, we went astray. Every one of
us, we've turned to our own way. So, where's the remedy going
to come from? Where's the solution going to
come from? We know what the problem is.
Who's got the solution? Do you? Does any man? Does any religion? Does all the
wisdom of the world? After so many thousands of years
of the so-called intellectual wisdom, the Apostle Paul says
in 1 Corinthians chapter 1, the world by wisdom knew not God. Who's going to come up with the
solution? Only God can. Only God can. He says, I will ransom them from
the power of the grave. I will redeem them from death. He says, O death, I'll be thy
plex, O grave, I'll be thy destruction. And then He says in verse 4 of
the 14th chapter, He says, I will heal their backsliding. And then He says, I will love
them freely. And then he says in verse 5,
I will be as the dew of Israel to refresh. Where does the solution
lie? Only with the Lord. My friends,
and I speak to you as honestly and as openly and clearly as
I can, as simply as I can, we know what the problem is. The
only solution has got to be a divine solution. You know that's the
truth. It's got to be. It's got to be. And the Lord says, deliver them
from going down to the pit. I found the ransom. Who did it? He did. He found the ransom. He came up with the solution. I know men today, preachers all
over this world saying, just like the prophets back in Israel's
day, they say, peace, peace. God's a God of love. You don't
have anything to worry about. As long as you're not a terrorist
or a murderer or a rapist or something like that, you'll be
okay. Peace, peace. They say God's all grace and
mercy. You don't have to worry about
hell. You don't have to worry about
judgment. God's not going to punish sin. He forgives and forgets. Ask the people of Noah's day
about that sort of thing. Eight souls were saved in an
ark. And after a few days, millions
of bloated bodies floated on the water. Ask those folks about that. Ask
those folks if God will judge sin. You ask the people of cities
of the plinths, Sodom and Gomorrah. Ask them if God will punish sin.
Resurrect them. They'll say God opened up the
heavens and He rained hell out of heaven that day. And then
He sent us to hell. But if you want to know ultimately
if God will punish sin, take another visit to the cross. And
you see our Lord Jesus dying under the wrath of God. taking
the cup, the cup of God's wrath, and drinking it, and drinking
it, and drinking it, and drinking it, until he drank it all, God spared not His Son, but delivered
Him up for us all. Oh, seeing the death of our Lord
Jesus Christ, the solution to the problem. See, the solution
is not, well, I tell you, after this message, I've got to start
doing better. You've still got the problem. That's no solution. The solution cannot be found
within yourself. The solution is to be found with
God in Christ Jesus and in His substitutionary death alone. That's the solution. That's the
solution. The blood. The blood of the Lord
Jesus Christ. That fountain opened up for sinners. We're going to continue this
subject this evening. So you'll know what text to go
to. Isaiah chapter 53 and verse number 6. Let's get our hymn
books