It's been a joy to be with you
today. I appreciate you people and I just
thank the Lord for you and it's been a real joy for me. Turn
with me to the book of Isaiah tonight and the gospel found
in the 53rd chapter of Isaiah. I just thought of something,
and I have it written in the back of my Bible here, and I'll
share this with you. Verse number 10. When you read this chapter, verse
5 is the verse I wanted to look at, but just a couple of things
here in verse 10. Just think about this. It pleased
the Lord to bruise him, pleased him, and to put him to grief. When thou shalt make his soul
an offering for sin, he shall see his seed. He shall prolong
his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his
hand. Years ago I wrote this in the
back of my Bible. what Rabbi Duncan said about
he shall see his seed. Now his name was John, but they
called him Rabbi, and he's a Presbyterian minister. And this is what he
said, when he shall see his seed. He shall see him born, brought
in. He shall see him educated, brought
up. He shall see him supported and
brought through. and he shall see him glorified
and brought home. My father-in-law found that in
his writings and shared that with me years ago, and I haven't
forgotten it. It's a blessing to think about,
he shall see his seed. Verse number five, and let me
read another verse found over in the scriptures that I'm going
to put with this verse. is 1 Peter chapter 2 and verse
24. Now here Peter writes, and he tells
us the same thing that Isaiah wrote all of these years before. And 1 Peter chapter 2 and verse
24, it says, to his own self, bear our sins in his own body. on the tree, that we being dead to sins should
live under righteousness by whose stripes ye were healed. For you were as a sheep going
astray, but now you're returned unto the shepherd and bishop
of your souls." So you have a shepherd. You have a bishop, an overseer
of your soul. The most important part I view,
you have an overseer, a shepherd. Now, the fifth verse of the 53rd
chapter of Isaiah, he was wounded for our transgressions, he was
bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement of our peace was
upon him, and with his stripes we are healed. As we, like sheep,
have gone astray, we have turned every one to his own way, and
the Lord has laid upon him the iniquity of us all." This verse
tells us of a spiritual healing. There are those today that would
use this verse and they say it's a physical healing. No, it's
a spiritual healing. You're going to get sick, probably
sometime or another, and we're going to die, aren't we? A lot of these people teach,
well, there's this physical healing, you're not going to get sick,
and you never get sick. Well, I'll tell you this, you'll
get sick someday, and we'll die. But this is spiritual, a spiritual
healing. With their stripes we are healed.
It speaks of us as a disease and it speaks of us as the only
healing for this disease that we have. And sin is spoken of
in the scriptures as a disease. It's spoken of as a plague. It's
like a monster. It debases one, degrades one. And it's something that man chooses
and he does it willfully. And God made man, he made him
upright when he made Adam. And sin was not in his nature
when he made him. And sin is that which is what's
wrong today with that of mankind. And it's destructive. is a destroyer. And when Adam
sinned, the Bible tells us that all sinned of his posterity. We sinned in Adam. And this is
what's put man out of order. I wish today that there's more
preaching upon the book of Genesis and what happened to Adam and
what happened to Eve and through the Scripture and how that It
put man out of order. And he's at a disorder. When
we look at it, isn't that what we find? It doesn't take long
to find this, that man's in a disorder. But he was originally created
without sin. Adam walked with God, the Bible
says, in the cool of the day, didn't he? And he was at peace. Everything was just laid out
before him. We drove over some fields today and you see the
weeds and the briars and different things and so forth, but everything's
just laid out perfect for Adam. And we see that there's a day
that he eat of the forbidden fruit. And the scripture said,
that day thou shalt surely die. And the Bible says for sin. as
a disease, it sets it forth as a crime, it sets it forth as
a trespass, a transgression, an iniquity. God made Adam upright. He was pure. He was perfect.
And we see his temptation, and we see sin entered, and death
by sin. And since then, man has been
put in disarray. We see what sin has done. We
see what sin is doing. And one of the worst things about
it is that man doesn't perceive it. Most people think they're all
right till the Lord begins to deal with them. They go along
and they just float along. They think they're all right.
They look at others and say there's something wrong with them, but
they're all right. And this power of sin There's
the effects of it, and it affects the whole person. Now, I've heard
people say that it affects land, it affects his mind, and so forth,
but the will, that it doesn't affect the will. It's suspended
above this. That's absolutely false. It's
the whole person. Man wills to sin. That's what
he deserves. And it affects the whole person.
The heart, the Bible says, is deceitful. Who can know it? Yeah, people say, well, I know
my heart. But Scripture says it's deceitful. It even compares
it to a stone, hard. And how hard is some people?
How hard is the very heart of some people? Several years ago,
I had a person that attended church. He was involved in something
that he shouldn't be, and his wife and I confronted him
one night, and he told me, he said, it doesn't make any difference
what it costs, I'm going this way. That's pretty hard, isn't
it? No matter what the cost is. So he went that way, and I won't
go into the rest of the story, but again, man's heart is hard. We see his eye, he's blind, he's
blind to the truth, his understanding. Look at man's understanding today,
and how he's being in that of history, and his very mind, what
he perceives in his mind. what he does and so forth and
so on. And sin makes man foolish. As the brother read tonight,
he lives as his no God. Now that's foolish. That's making the wrong decision
when one says, I'll go my way. And yet that's a picture of sin.
That's a picture of man. He goes his way. It paralyzes
man. It puts him without strength,
puts him in a weak place. There's no power to believe or
will to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. He'd rather believe a
lie than the truth. I was listening to a news program
a few weeks ago, and the one that was commentating said that
80% of America is Christian. 80%. And that's his statement,
that 80% of America was Christian. Now, I thought about that, and
I know what he was thinking about is that 80% of America is religious
in some way or another. That's what he was saying. He
doesn't know what real Christianity is. And would you believe today
that 80% is looking to the Lord, is looking to His salvation?
Would you believe that? I sure wouldn't believe that.
Would you believe today that 80% is following Christ? It comes back to this. There's
a few, doesn't it? It comes back to this. And would you believe today that
80% believes the Word of God? But that's his statement, that
80%. And that's just how things have digressed over the years. What people called a Christian
four or five hundred years ago is altogether different today.
That's how things are called. Everything now is Christian. It's all changed. and broadened. They used to teach that salvation
is the Lord, is of Him. Now, salvation is of man. What he does, doing, is of him. Sin has affected the whole of
man. He loves sin, desires sin, he
has not turned from it. And he's like one at the pool
of Bethesda. He gets stepped into the pool. He lies in wait. He has to have help from the
great physician. Isn't that a picture? He's there
as an impotent one. He has to have help. He has to
hear one say, rise up and take up thy bed and walk. He has to hear one say, live. Sin is far the worst thing that
has ever happened to man. It deadens him. And he doesn't feel it. He doesn't want to feel it. He
doesn't want to hear about sin. So most preaching today, and there's one popular preacher
today that has about 20 or 30,000 church members, and he says,
well, I'm not going to talk about sin. That depresses people. Now,
wouldn't you like to sit under that? No, that depresses people
to hear about sin. But when you hear about his stripes
and healing, that's a different story, isn't it? And so man,
he tries, because of this, because of sin, he tries to fill that
of his empty soul with that of the things of the world and the
pleasures of the world. But it's like Solomon of old
when it comes to that which is all empty, isn't it? It's all empty. Most people,
what they gain in the world, they want more of it, don't they?
It's vanity. That's the word I was looking
for a while ago. Solomon says it's vanity. Solomon
had it all, didn't he? You go back and read the story
of Solomon, and he had it all. He says it's all vanity. Now,
here's another picture of sin in the Scripture, and that's
leprosy. That's a foul disease. And I
can't tell you just how foul that it was. It began and it
eats a person's extremities, eat the fingers off, eat the
nose off, eat the toes off. Do you know when they died they
wouldn't even get close to them? They would take and throw a rope
around them and drag them down to which is called Gehenna, the
lake of fire there, or the town where they burnt the trash, that's
where they would take them. That's how bad leprosy was. And
the Bible describes sin as such, foul, infectious, deformity. It's the worst ill that could
come upon one, is sin. And you know, it proved fatal.
And one can't get rid of it by themselves. The only cure is the Great Physician,
the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the only cure for this
disease. And the Bible says if it's left,
it only increases, and when it's finished, it brings forth death.
And it's a disease that's passed down from one generation to another. When it says all have sinned,
it comes short of the glory of God. Now that comes down and
through that of man, doesn't it? Adam comes right down to
us. And there's a heredity part of
it. It's universal. No one is exempt from it. It's
universal. It's incurable. And there's no
human physician that can cure this disease. Just think about
that a moment. Here's a disease that, you know,
they spend thousands and millions of dollars to cure disease, but
here's a disease that all this research and all this medical
millions cannot cure. And even death doesn't cure it. You know what it does? It seals
it. There's some sad words in this book right here. There's
glad words, and there's some sad words. One of them is, he
that is filthy, let it be filthy still. That's sad words, isn't
it? But here's our text, and it deals
with that of a healing of sin. It says, with his stripes we
are healed. Now, speaking of his stripes,
we know that is his death, we know that is his suffering, in
which there was physical and spiritual suffering, and he substituted
himself in our very place. That's a great doctrine of the
Scripture, substitutionary atonement, what he did on our behalf. And
I submit to you today that it takes a heavenly medicine for
this very disease. No one on earth can solve it. It takes Christ to solve it. We see that the wounds of Christ
is a spiritual healing for us. It's that of a remedy for sin. And many people set forth a remedy. It's amazing what all has been
said in history to remedy that of sin. Some says, well, take
the sacraments. And some people believe that
the sacraments, that that'll save one. No, Christ. Others say, well, go through
that or ceremonies and so forth along this line. And I mean,
you can just name it. Churches have spoken of just
about everything to try to heal sin. But there's no healing power
in these things. The healing power is in Christ.
He's the great physician. And we see that He bore the pain,
He bore the suffering in Himself. The Bible tells us here that
the chastisement of our peace was upon Him. He was bruised
for our iniquity. He was wounded for our transgression. And this is what happened when
He stood in our stead. He bore that which we deserve.
He took our sins upon Himself. bearing the very penalty upon
himself. And sin had to be paid for. And he righteously can pardon
it because justice has been vindicated. That's how God can be just and
forgive at the same time because of what Christ has done, the
payment is made. And we look at him as the great
sin bearer. We see His suffering. We see
His blood shedding. We see Him dying. We look to Him in faith, believe
Him. And that is the hand that brings
the medicine to our very souls. We trust in Him, look to Him,
believe in Him. And the Bible says if you trust
and believe in Him, thou shalt be saved, didn't it? So you don't let anything interfere with this
divine remedy. You don't let anything take the
place of it. You don't let anything interfere
with it. One prays, but it's Christ that cures. One repents, but it's Christ
that cures, isn't it? Faith, but again it's Christ
that cures this disease. And with his stripes we are healed. So it tells us this, that this
healing is not of the sinner. It's not what he feels. It's
not what he does. It's not in his vows. It's not
in what he promises. But it's in his stripes we are
healed. See, this Bible, it's Christ. It's all Christ,
isn't it? There's nothing else. Absolutely
nothing that is healing except the stripes
of the Lord Jesus Christ, which is His suffering. And it's in
Him, in Him alone. And the thing of it, he makes
us perfectly whole. Doesn't the scripture say that
you're perfect in Christ? You're perfect in him. So this
healing, what does it do? It takes away the very guilt
of sin. So by nature and by practice,
we're sinners and guilty, but we see all of this laid upon
the Lord Jesus Christ. Now if your sins is laid upon
him, How can they be in two places if they're laid upon Him? We're
like sheep, we've gone astray. The Bible says He made Him to
be sin for us, whom you know sin, that we might be made the
righteous of God in Him. So what does this do? It takes
us from being a stranger to God. It takes us from being condemned
for sin. One of the passages in Ephesians
that I always just brought a lot of joy, and I've thought a lot
on it, and that is that we are accepted in the Beloved, accepted
in Christ. We've been accepted. The Bible
in Romans says there's none condemneth. That's what this healing does.
You're not condemned any longer. As he rose and as he came forth
and he's making intercession for us at God's right hand from
enemies, now friends. That's what this healing does.
I thought a whole lot about Abraham, what God said about him. God
said he's my friend. Boy, that's something to have
written by you. Just think about that, it's written
for all eternity, Abraham's my friend. Well, Abraham saw Christ as he
took Isaac there to offer him, didn't he? That's a picture of
Christ. The Old Testament, people have
argued with me over the years and they tell me that Old Testament
people are saved one way and we're saved another way. I say,
no, we've all been saved the same way, saved by grace, saved
by looking at Christ. Moses saw Him, didn't he? That's
how they were saved. Isaiah wrote this whole chapter
here of Christ. It's the Gospel. This healing, it reconciles us
to God. I shudder to think, and I know
you would shudder to think, that you was an enemy. That's what we were by sin. But
now we're reconciled by the stripes, by His death, His suffering,
we're reconciled. Reconcile before God. We say,
Our Father. Reconcile. You know, the Bible
speaks of that of fellowship and reconciliation and it means
that we agree with God. Reconcile. It's a healing. Healing from the love of sin
to the love of Christ. the blood of Christ and this
as a healing, we see what it cost him. It cost his coming,
it cost his death, it cost his suffering. You know, he was daily
the Father's delight before he came, wasn't that what the scripture
says? Daily his delight? And yet now we read here, it
pleased the Lord to bruise him, to put him to grief. Talks about
verse 11, the travail of his soul. He shall see the travail
of his soul and be satisfied. I wrote sometime back, I put
fully beside of that. Fully, he shall be satisfied. He's fully satisfied, Christ
is. So this healing, it turns one
from indifference to God to that of service. It turns one of giving
oneself to the Lord. When we think about, with the
stripes, we're healed. You know, we've wasted a lot
of time over the years, haven't we? You've wasted a lot of hours
before you're saved. And here's that that heals you. It heals the coldness of heart. If we see Christ in His stripes,
we are healed. Shouldn't that cure that of the
coldness of heart? I don't want my heart to be cold.
I want it to be warm, hot for the
Lord. It's a cure for that love of
the world. There's so many things that this
world does, takes its place on. But again, we're just passing
through. It's all we're doing. Just passing
through. And here's something, when we
say, by His stripes we are healed. There's a cure for that in the
world. We look to Christ. We don't look to the world. We find that when we see that
by His stripes we are healed, we bow in gratitude to the Redeemer. Bow to Him with thanksgiving. It's a great healing. Could I
just sort of set forth Saul, then Paul, and you think about
the healing that took place there. Here's this old persecutor. Here's
this blasphemer. He stood there when they stoned
Stephen. Stood there and held his clothes. Here's what healed him. Isn't
it? What healed him of that sin?
Of being a sinner? Persecutor! And turned him into
a preacher of the unsearchable reaches of Christ. I just think about him so often. The Apostle, and what the Apostle
Paul, and what he's written. And just, you know, the Bible
says he's an example of those who afterwards believe. He's
an example. And just think about how it changed
him. And it's by his stripes that
he's healed. And here's that healing. Now,
in order to be healed, one has to take that of the medicine.
It has to be applied. And what do you do? You just
trust yourself to the Lord. You rest in Him. You just look to Him. Receive
Him. This morning, if you've been
healed, you're healthy. Isn't that what this would bring
about, health? You're healthy, spiritually healthy
this morning, if you've been healed. And you don't need to
lie in bed and groan about this, You've been healed. The curse has been removed. For you fell in Adam. And also
by practice, Christ is the cure. And he's made that of a cure
for us by taking the curse upon himself. This healing, our sins
are forgiven. What a word that is. Forgiven. You know, the Bible says He's
moved to... I believe that was read this morning. Was that read
this morning? He's removed our sins as far
as east as from the west. Sometime recently it was read. In some context. I don't know
where. But look what He's done. It's
healing. It's taking your sins and put
them away. Removed them. One place it speaks
of, he's dropped them into the very depths of the sea. You know, the sea's mighty deep
in some places. It's miles. Some places they
tell me they've never, they don't know how deep it is. Good picture
is that, when they confessed the sins upon that of the goats
there and took them out in the wilderness, isn't it? Never to
be seen again. So today this healing, the blessed Lord was punished in
your stead and my stead. Sins forgiven, peace. I don't know how one can have
peace without their sins forgiven.
I think that's much of the trouble of mankind. But when you have forgiven, you've
been forgiven. I think about that one that died
beside the Lord. His sins is forgiven. He said,
today thou shalt be with me in paradise, didn't he? I believe Mr. Ryle said this
about it. He said, we know of one that
died like that, but says don't count on another one. Could be
or might not be. You don't know. A lot of people
say, well, I'll confess and believe upon the Lord right before I
die. Well, I don't believe. You better count on that, because
you don't know how you're going to die. You don't know what's
going to happen. You don't know what kind of minds you're going
to have. By the way, it's the Lord's work anyway. But I just
wouldn't count on that. But it gives you peace. You can
rest. You can rest in Christ. It's
a resting place. And it brings about an everlasting
peace. And that's heaven. It's called an everlasting rest.
My grandmother, years ago, 50, I guess about 60 years ago, she
made, I think you call them door lids or something, where you
crochet these things. Is that what you call them? One
of them has eternal rest on it, where she'd hung on the back
of her chair. Eternal rest. Something else about this healing,
it has recuperative power. It's a sacred medicine. It brings
the wonderer back. I'd say y'all sing that song,
Prone to Wonder, Lord, I Feel It. Don't you? Prone to Lord, prone
to wonder, Lord, I Feel It. And here's that. It would bring
you back. David says, Restore the joy of
my soul. Restore it. And here's that which
does. This healing, we see that it
puts our sins away. It subdues sin. But yet we're
not perfect yet. But there is a subduing of sin. And a grand result of all of
this, as we read it and look at it, that one day we'll be
free from all the tendency of evil and sin. Isn't that what heaven is? No tendency, no sin. That would
be in the past. This healing brings one to the
feet of the Lord Jesus Christ and bows to Him. A lot of people say, well, you
take Christ as Savior, then ten years later you might just bow
to Him as Lord. Now, have you ever heard of Scripture
and what Paul preaches and tells us that when you believe, you
believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ? Doesn't he? You don't separate
him out, try to take part of him now, part of him later. He's
who he is! You bow to his Lordship. And
you just can't have this healing and remain as you are. Can you? It changes one. It makes them
a new creature. It makes them alive. It puts
them in agreement with God. In this healing, we hear the
gospel. The Bible says faith cometh by
hearing. We trust our very souls to Him. And here's my last point. When Christ heals, He cures for
life. I'm glad he doesn't do a halfway
thing. Cures for life. When he says
his stripes, we're healed. That's a cure for that of our
very lives. It's a cure for that of eternity.
It's not something that is temporary. Now all in heaven, The Bible sets forth that the
church is a part here and is a part that's already gone, gone
to heaven. But I say unto you that they
all lift up their voice and say, by His stripes we are healed
or we were healed. Don't you? By His stripes. Now what it does? When we see that we are healed
by His stripes, we give Him all the honor. Give Him the glory. I just can't stand to see men
try to take glory from our Lord. I can't see that of preachers
that try to promote themselves. We promote Christ. And give Him
the glory. Give Him the honor. Give Him
the praise. And that's what we'll do forever. Tonight. This verse speaks to your heart. You've had this spiritual healing.
Who do you praise? You praise Him. You give Him the glory. And that's
such as it should be. Because we'll just keep going
astray. That's what we were. We turned
everyone to the wrong way. But the Lord laid on Him the
iniquity of us all. Laid upon Him. What verses that
we have here in this passage of Scripture. It's from the 53rd
chapter, and how it says, for Christ. You know, it starts off
here that how, it says, we didn't see all of this, but now we see
it. That's how we were, wasn't we? We didn't see all of this
to start with, but now we see it. By His stripes, we are healed. May the Lord bless you. I've
enjoyed being with you today. It's a privilege to come and
be with you and share some of the things of the gospel. We're blessed. I'm blessed. You're blessed. And we thank
Him for it. Father, bless these who's come
this day and take Your Word and may These verses just stand out
unto them, and may they carry them forth and ponder them and
think about them, and in turn, just give thee thanksgiving for
what you've done. As we look at Brethren and Beloved
of the Lord, again, the greatest title that could be given unto
us, and to see that by thy stripes, Christ's stripes, we are healed
Oh, how great is the great physician of our very souls, the shepherd
of our souls, and the bishop of our souls. We thank you. We praise you. Bless these people
in Christ's name. Amen.