Now, if you like to, you can
open your Bibles to the 53rd chapter of Isaiah, the scripture
which Brother Wembley read just a moment ago. I'll be coming
to that in just a few moments. The Lord had been pleased to
send a great revival, a time of refreshing to the land of
Samaria. There were several preachers
down there. One was a deacon by the name of Philip. He was
preaching in Samaria. God was performing great miracles
and wonders and people were being converted, brought to the knowledge
of Christ. And the scripture says the angel
of the Lord spoke to this man Philip and told him to leave
Samaria and to go down into a desert country. leading from Jerusalem
to Ethiopia. He didn't tell him why. He didn't
tell him what his task would be there. He just said go. And
the scripture tells us that this man Philip arose and left Samaria
and went down into the desert country of Gaza. And there he
met a caravan. This caravan was journeying from
Jerusalem back to Ethiopia. And the Lord said to him, said,
go join yourself to that chariot. And in the chariot was a man
of authority, a man of power and influence, an Ethiopian. And he was reading this portion
of scripture which Jay read to you a moment ago, this Ethiopian. The scripture said he had been
to Jerusalem. Somewhere he had heard about
the God of Israel. the God of Jacob, the God of
Isaac, the God of Abraham. Somewhere he'd heard about the
Jews and Israelites who worshipped the living God, the true God.
He'd heard about his law and his statutes and his ceremonies
and his feast days. And he had gone to Jerusalem,
I believe, seeking God, seeking some knowledge of God, seeking
some information about God, seeking to know this God. And evidently,
he did not get what he saw. Evidently, he was not informed.
Of course, the Pharisees and Sadducees had nothing to give
him. He saw nothing in their sacrifices and in their ceremonies
and in their feast days and whatever they were teaching or preaching.
But he did somehow secure a copy of the writings of the prophet
of Isaiah. the prophet Isaiah, and he was on his way in this
chariot going back to Ethiopia. He was the treasurer, treasurer,
under Kandese, the queen of Ethiopia. He was a very important man.
And he was sitting in this chariot reading this scripture right
here, Isaiah 53, the scripture which he read just a little while
ago. And the Holy Spirit said to Philip, go join yourself to
that chariot. And I don't know what took place,
but here this important man was sitting in the chariot reading
the Scripture, evidently on some kind of scroll or roll like they
used to write the Scriptures. And Philip was walking alongside
the chariot. God told him to join himself
to the chariot. He's walking along beside the
chariot, and Philip looked up at the man, and he said, do you
understand what you're reading? And the man said, how can I?
How can I? Except some man showed me. Why
don't you come up and sit with me? And Philip stopped the chariot
and Philip opened the door and climbed in and sat down beside
him. And the man showed him where he was reading in God's Word.
He said, I'm reading the prophet Isaiah here. And he says here
that he shall grow up as a tender, and before him as a tender plant,
as a root out of dry ground. See verse 2. He hath no form,
no comeliness. When we shall see him, there
is no beauty. We shall desire him. He is despised and rejected
of me, and a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief. Here is
it where our face is from him. Verse 4. He hath borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows. We did esteem him stricken, smitten
of God, and afflicted. He was wounded for our transgressions,
bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace
was upon him. With his stripes we're healed.
Tell me, tell me, of whom does the prophet Isaiah speak? This
is what the man asked. It's recorded in the eighth chapter
of Acts. Of whom does he speak? Himself or some other man? Who's he talking about? And Philip,
the scripture says, began right there, right there, at the same
scripture, and preached Christ to him. Christ incarnate, Christ
obedient, Christ the sacrifice, Christ the sin offering, Christ
crucified, Christ buried, Christ risen, Christ ascended, and Christ
coming again. And he preached to him. I don't
know how long he preached to him. I don't know how long they
rode in that chariot, but he preached the gospel. I do know
it was a one afternoon affair. I know he didn't spend two weeks
meeting there, Jake. I know it was just a brief time
that Philip preached to him because the sun was still up when they
came to a body of water. And this man said to Philip,
he said, here is water. What does hinder me from being
baptized? You mean Philip preached baptism
out of that scripture too? Philip preached identification
with Christ. Philip preached the purpose of
God to save, the Savior by whom God saves, and a confession of
faith in that Savior that brings salvation. And when they came
to that body of water, this man stopped the chariot and turned
to Philip and said, here is water, what doth hinder me from being
baptized? And Philip said, if thou believest,
thou mayest. And this man said these words.
Now, two or three hours ago, he didn't know Jesus Christ.
He asked Philip, of whom does he speak? He didn't even know
of Christ. Two or three hours prior to this,
he was, I'll tell you something in just a moment, but he didn't
know Christ. And here he is saying, I believe that Jesus Christ is
the Son of God. I believe that Jesus Christ is
the Son of God. And the scripture says that Philip
got out of that chariot, took that man down into the water,
both he and Philip went down into the water, and he baptized
him, and they came up out of the water. That's baptism by
immersion, a confession of faith. This man got back in his chariot
and went on his way to his country, and Philip was taken away from
that spot and taken somewhere else to preach the gospel. You
say that's a quick conversion. Well, let me tell you something.
There were the three essentials for conversion right there. There
are three essentials for conversion. Three absolutely essentials.
Number one, there was a sovereign Lord there. He sent Philip to
preach to this man. He sent Philip to preach to this
man. That's right. The Lord sent him.
Now, several times in the Scripture it talks about God sending. There
was a man sent from God whose name was John. And Paul said,
how shall they preach except they be sent? And God sent his
servant to this sheep, whom he was pleased and whom he had purposed
to call. That's essential. Paul, describing
his own conversion, says, when it pleased God, who separated
me from my mother's womb to call me by his grace. Paul was saved
when it pleased God. Now this is essential. A sovereign
God. Salvations of the Lord. The salvation
of the righteous is of the Lord and of him only. God saves. God
purposed us to save. He said, I'll show mercy to whom
I will show mercy. I'll be gracious to whom I will
be gracious. No sinner is going to be saved
until he's confronted by a sovereign Lord. Now, that's the first thing
that's essential to salvation. Salvation is never an accident. Whom God calls, he calls on purpose. It's never an accident. For whom
he foreknew, he predestinated. Whom he predestinated, he called.
Whom he called, he justified. Whom he justified, he glorified.
That's the first essential to salvation, is a sovereign Lord. A sovereign Lord. We pray for
revival, but it'll come as God pleases. Listen to this scripture. And this is used by missionaries
all over the world. Lift up your eyes upon the fields. They're white already unto harvest.
Now, what's the next verse? Pray ye that the Lord of the
harvest, that he will send forth laborers into the field. He'll send forth the laborers.
Now, if you think a fellow's going to accidentally get saved,
you're dead wrong. God on purpose saves sinners. To them, watch this verse, all
things work together. We know that all things work
together for good to them who love God, who are thee called
according to His purpose. His purpose. He calls His sheep
by name. They hear Him and they follow
Him. So that's the first essential, a sovereign Lord. That'll make
us pray intercessory prayers. That'll make us call upon him.
You see, he's not obligated. He's not indebted. He owes you
nothing. He owes me nothing. He'll save
whom he will. He'll move where he will. He'll
work when he will. He's a sovereign Lord. That's
so. Now, here's the second essential,
salvation and conversion. You don't have any conversion
until you have this. The first is a sovereign Lord. He saves. Salvation's of the Lord. Jonah
will stay in the belly of the fish if God doesn't deliver him.
The Samaritan woman will stay in the condition she's in if
God doesn't meet her and save her. The thief will remain on
the cross, on his road to hell, unless Christ calls him. Zacchaeus
will stay up the tree if Christ calls him. Lazarus will stay
in the tomb if Christ calls him. Is that so? We pray sometimes, Lord, enable
the preacher to say something that will convince somebody that
he ought to trust Jesus. He'll never do it. He'll never
do it. Not without God's power. God
will say it through the preacher, but the preacher is not going
to accidentally say anything. That's just so. Sovereign Lord,
he'll save the salvation of God. Life, the Son quickeneth whom
he will. As the Father hath life in himself,
so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself, and the
Son quickeneth whom he will." It's no accident when a dead
man comes out of the tomb. It's no accident when a blind
man sees. It's no accident when a deaf
man hears. It's no accident when a lame
man walks. It's on purpose. And it's no
accident when God called one of his sheep by name. Now, it's
just so. That's just so. God will send
his messenger to his sheep, and they'll hear his voice, and they'll
follow him. Now, here's the second thing.
A seeking center. Where you have a sovereign Lord,
you'll have a seeking center. It's just so. This man, this
man, when God works with the preacher, he'll work with the
penitent. When God works with his servant,
he'll also work with the center. When our Lord Jesus Christ came
to the well, there was a woman came to the well. You see what
I'm saying? When our Lord walked out of Jericho,
Zacchaeus climbed up a tree. When our Lord walked out of Jericho,
Bartimaeus was sitting over there, needy, weary, hungry, blind. And here was a man who was seeking
the Lord. There can be no grace where there's
no guilt. There can be no mercy where there's no need. There
can be no healing where there's no disease. That's what our Lord
Jesus said. When he went down to the house
of the sinners and publicans, and the religious fellows stood
over here and said, why does he eat with publicans and sinners?
And our Lord, knowing their thoughts, turned to them and said, the
world don't need a doctor. That's just so. The world do
not need a doctor. Sick people. And I'm saying here
the reason there was a conversion, the reason there was a salvation
brought about in the life of the eunuch is a sovereign Lord
met a seeking sinner. A saving Lord met a seeking sinner. A hungry sinner, a weary sinner,
a needy sinner. You don't fill full buckets,
you fill empty buckets. And then here's the third necessity.
There is the Word of God. The Word of God. These are three
essentials. You're not going to have a conversion
without a sovereign Lord. Because salvation's of the Lord.
It's the gift of his grace. It's the work of his Spirit.
And you're not going to have conversion where you have no
seeking sinners, no hunger. Blessed are they that hunger,
they shall be filled. Blessed are they that mourn,
they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meat, they shall
inherit thereof. Blessed are these, you see, coming
to me all ye that labor, O every one that thirsteth. Every invitation
of Christ has this condition. Are ye in need? When he sent
his servants out to invite them to the feast, he said, go out
and invite the lame and the hawk, the poor and the blind. And then the third thing is the
word of God. Philip began at the scriptures and preached Christ
to it. Men aren't going to be saved
without the word of God. Of his own will beget he us through
the word of truth. We are born again, not of corruptible
seed, but of incorruptible seed by the word of God that liveth
and abideth forever. This man sat and listened to
Philip as he talked about this scripture right here, Isaiah
53. Here was this man sitting, hungry,
seeking, sincere, wanting to know the truth. This man had
been on a long journey. We travel so rapidly today, you
know, it doesn't take us any time to get anywhere. But this
man had gone all the way from Ethiopia, and some of you know
where that is on the map, all the way to Jerusalem. And he
was so weary and so tired and so desirous to know something
about God. He'd been all the way up there
and he'd learned nothing, he'd heard nothing. And now he was
on his way home. I believe he was like those people
in the 7th chapter of John who were leaving the feast. And our
Lord cried out and said, If any man thirsts, let him come to
me. And out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.
They were thirsty and they'd come all the way to Jerusalem
and found nothing. And this man had gone there to
the feast and he'd found nothing. And on the way back he was reading
the Word. And as he read the Word, he didn't understand it.
He read about this one who was rejected and despised and a man
of sorrows and acquainted with grief and who was wounded and
bruised and by his stripes were healed and oppressed and afflicted,
yet he opened not his mouth and he said to Philip, of whom does
the prophet speak? Tell me. Philip began there and
preached unto him Jesus. Now let's see, let me see if
I can reconstruct what I believe Philip had to say. I believe
Philip went back, and probably Cecil, he went back to chapter
52. Back there, what you read tonight. There's a possibility
he did. But let's just look at chapter
53 a moment, and let's see what Philip said to it. Philip went
back here, and he said, The prophet said in verse 1, Who hath believed
our report? And to whom is the arm of the
Lord revealed? In other words, who hath believed
our doctrine? Who hath believed our gospel? Who hath believed
our teaching? Man by nature, men by nature
do not believe the gospel of Christ. Men by nature may believe
a social gospel, but men by nature do not believe the gospel of
Jesus Christ. They just do not. Every prophet
complained about this thing. Who hath believed our message? Who hath believed our report?
To whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? Turn to John chapter
5. Let me show you something. This is true all the way through
the Word. The natural man does not believe this message. And
let me say this to you. I really can't blame him. I really
can't blame him. It's an impossible message to
believe by nature. Brother Barnard used to say,
he'd stand back and he'd point and he'd say, there is a man
hanging on a cross between two feet. outside the walls of Jerusalem. And that man is a bloody mess. His visage, back there in chapter
52, his visage, his image, his form, marred more than any man. He didn't even look like a man.
Those soldiers had kept him in the hall there and beaten him
to a pulp. They had taken their hands and
pulled out whole gobs of hair, his beard. They'd slapped his
face. They'd hit him with their fists. They had scourged him
with 39 strikes. You know what a scourging is? There was a whip that was made
out of different strands of leather. And in the end of each strand,
they put bone or rock or glass or metal in each strand, the
whole strand. And they were allowed to hit
a man not 40 times, 40 save one. A scourging was 39 strikes. And
they'd tie him to a post, and one of the soldiers would take
this scourge, this whip, with all of these leather strips,
with the glass and the metal and the bone in the end. And
he'd come back and rake it across the back, hit him across the
back and rake it. And they tell us in the history
books that when he pulled that whip back, he would throw flesh
and blood all the way across the room on the other wall. That
they'd seen men so scourged that their intestines were showing
through their back. That all their ribs were showing
back there. They were just held together
by strands of muscle that had been ripped with this cat of
nine tails with a bone or a piece of metal or a glass in every
one of them. Paul had that three times. And survived by God's
grace. Three times received our forty
stripes, save one. Didn't he say that? But our Lord
was scourged. And then he was taken out yonder,
and between two thieves he was nailed to a cross. This is Jesus
of Nazareth. This was the carpenter by trade.
This was the son of this woman Mary. His disciples were a motley
crew. They were not educated men. They
were not influential men. They were not men of esteem and
power. They were fishermen, shepherds. One was a physician, Luke. The
rest of them were just Just ordinary people. And this man walked around in
a robe. He had no place to lay his head.
He owned not a piece of property. He didn't have a university degree.
He never saw the inside of a college. He was just 33 years old. And
now he is hanging on a cross. His blood running out, dripping
on the sand. A Jew rejected by his own nation. despised by his own leaders,
anybody that was anybody had turned thumbs down on him. Nobody
stood for him. Who shall declare his generation?
Who shall defend his cause? Not even his disciples had turned
their back on him. One sold him for 30 pieces of
silver, one cursed and denied he knew him, the rest of them
were out hiding somewhere. Nobody stood with him. Nobody. That's something. There was a black man who came
along and they made him carry the cross of Jesus Christ because
nobody else would. That's right. And there he hangs
on that cross, and here's what the preachers are saying, that
that mass of flesh, that man who has no form, no comeliness,
no beauty, no influence, no power, no prestige, nothing! Not a friend! Deserted even by God! That Jew
hanging on that Roman cross is my Savior and my God. Whoo! That's hard to believe.
That's pretty hard to believe, John. Ain't nobody going to believe
it but a fool or a Christian. That's right. That's right, Ed.
A man's fool to believe that or else he knows something nobody
else knows. Just like that fellow, here's
Noah out there. Here's a man, old man, got three
boys, old man, way up in the air. And he's building a ship
on dry land. It's funny. He's out there on
the side of a hill building a ship. Now he's either a fool or he
knows something nobody else knows. That's right. In John chapter
5, listen to what our Lord said. You got it open there? He said
in John chapter 5 verse 40, You will not come to me that you
might have life. I receive not honor from men,
but I know you, I know you. You have not the love of God
in you. Verse 43, I come in my father's name and you receive
me not. If another comes in his own name,
him you will receive. Now this is, this other fellow
comes, he says now the way to come to God is for you to be
good and quit certain habits and certain things and try to
do good, try to treat your neighbor right. And try to do these things. Now that sounds a little better
than that fellow hanging on that cross is my Savior and my Lord
and my Redeemer. You see, if I can do something,
this is clean, that's bloody. You see, this is my self-work
and that's somebody else's work. This appeals to my dignity and
my pride. Get cleaned up and dressed up
and burn a candle and sing a cantata and make some sweet music and
talk about the dignity of man. That's better than standing around
a bloody Roman cross and pointing to a crucified criminal between
two thieves and saying, bow down! That's a lot easier. That appeals
to the flesh. That makes more sense. And that's
the reason Paul said, look at 1 Corinthians 1. Listen to what
Paul said. in 1 Corinthians chapter 1. Now,
he says over here, now the preaching, the preaching of good works is
not foolishness. The preaching of man's dignity
is not foolishness. The preaching of man's merit
is not foolishness. Verse 18, 1 Corinthians 1, the
preaching of the cross is foolishness to them that perish. It's foolishness. And that word there is sheer
nonsense. The preaching of the cross, a
Jewish failure, wasn't that what he was? According to them, according
to them, a total failure. Nobody believed him, nobody loved
him, nobody followed him, not to Calvary. He went to the wine
press alone, nailed to a Roman cross. Substitute, sin offering,
lamb, sacrifice. In the stead of sinners, the
preaching of the cross is foolishness. Foolishness. Go back to the text.
That's what, I believe, Philip told him that. He said, this
wasn't done in the corner. You heard what happened in Jerusalem.
You heard about Jesus of Nazareth. Who's going to believe it? That's
where Philip started. Unless God opens your eyes, you're
not going to see His glory. who to whom is the arm of the
Lord revealed, revealed, revealed. Eye hath not seen, ear hath not
heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man the things
God has prepared for them that love him, but he hath revealed
them unto us by his Spirit." Now look at the next line, verse
2. Philip said, he shall grow up before him as a tender plant.
Now you would expect if God was coming to the earth, just human
nature, would look for him on a cloud in majesty and power. A human nature, a human mind
would look for God if God were coming to the earth on the mighty
mission of redeeming sinners. God from the foundation of the
world has purpose to save a people, a race, a nation, a kingdom,
a people. ruled over by his son to magnify
and exalt his son forever and ever. If God were coming down
here on that task and on that mission to redeem that nation,
that peculiar people, that holy nation, that special people,
that royal priesthood, looks like he'd come with fanfare and
with all kind of fabulous music and announcements and power and
armies. No, sir. Oh, sir. Over there, because there wasn't
any room in the inn, over there, because nobody cared, because
nobody was interested, is a little old girl having her first baby,
17, 18 years old. And she screams with pain and
cries in travail. And finally, in that cow stall,
surrounded by sheep and shepherds, That little girl brings forth
a tiny infant. And they cut its cord and tie
its navel and swaddle it and wash it. There in that stable,
surrounded by cow manure and straw. And bathe him off and
wrap him up in a blanket and hand him to that little girl.
That's Jesus Christ. That's God Almighty. That's hard
to believe. Bob, Richard, Paul. You believe
that? That's reason it's foolish. That's
God. God's come that way. A tender
plant, a little old tender plant. What if they'd have dropped him?
It'd have killed him. What if the corn had choked him
when he was born? It'd have killed him. That's
right. A tender, tender plant. So susceptible
to bruise and destruction. And then read on. There's a root
out of dry ground. Whose baby is this, Mary? Well,
who's Mary? Well, she's a Jew. A Jew? Good
night. Looks like God's coming to the
earth. He'd come through some nation that was worth something,
on some account. The Jews? Why, the Jews are all
but gone. They don't even have a nation.
They're under Roman dominion. You see, here's a dry, parched
desert. And there's a root, dry desert,
no light, doesn't look like any moisture or greenery anywhere,
just that old root in the ground. You wouldn't think there's any
life in that root, but there is. And if it gets the proper nourishment
and the proper care, that life will come forth. And our Lord
came forth from that dry ground, from the Jews. And look here,
He has no form. There's no comeliness about Him.
There's no beauty, and we've seen there's no beauty, there's
no influence, there's no prestige. Here he comes, here's his mother
riding on a donkey, carrying that little baby. And they have
to flee down to a foreign country, Egypt, to keep being killed by
Herod. And when he comes into town,
he comes in with a bunch of fishermen and a bunch of shepherds. There's
no beauty, there's no prestige, there's no influence. Well, he
says in verse 3, he's despised. They said, we know who he is,
he's the carpenter. We know his mother and his sisters
and his brothers, and men rejected him. He's a man of sorrows, acquainted
with grief, verse 3, and we hid as it were our faces from him.
He's despised and we esteem him not. That's God in human flesh. Now, our Lord was born low that
he might be identified with the lowly. Our Lord came and took
our flesh. He was numbered with the transgressions,
bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh. In order as a man
to meet the holy law of God, he had to become a man. In order
for the captain of our salvation to accomplish what he came to
accomplish, he had to be identified with us, tested in all points. Our Lord knew what poverty is.
Ain't nobody here as poor as Christ was. He had no place to
lay his head. He said the foxes have holes
and the birds of the air have nests. The Son of Man doesn't
have a place to lay his head. Our Lord knew what it was to
work, to sweat, to toil, to hurt, to be hungry, to be thirsty.
You've never suffered a need. You've never endured a trial.
You've never faced a difficulty or a stumbling block or an obstacle. You've never gone through a battle.
You've never walked the thorny way that he didn't walk. That's
what I'm talking about. In all points, as we are, tested
in all points, and yet without sin. And I'm sure that Isaiah,
I mean that Philip sat there and told him, I don't know how
long it took. Brother, however long it takes, it'd be all right,
wouldn't it? If you knew at the close of this service that you'd
come to know that Lord, and to believe on Him, to trust Him,
and to be saved, go on your way rejoicing, it'd be all right,
wouldn't it? No, Barnard said we're in too
big a hurry to go to hell to listen to anybody preach Christ.
We're going to get there as fast as we can. We're not going to
tarry along the way and ask any questions, because we've got
all the answers. We're not going to subject ourselves in submission
to God's minister, because everybody's his own pastor and preacher,
and everybody's formulating his own condemnation. But this man
sat and listened. He listened. He listened. And Philip said, you see that?
You see that? Despised, rejected. A man of
sorrows, acquainted with grief. You know, look at this next verse,
he says. This is what our Lord did. That's the substitute Savior
identified. Now watch this. Surely, verse
4, He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Yet we did
esteem Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. It was
God who sent Him. See, this is God's purpose. This
is God's plan. God sent Him. He came on the
mission assigned by the Father. No man takes this upon himself.
The Father sent him. The Father sent him. And he was
wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities.
The chastisement of our peace was upon him. Now watch this.
And with his stripes we're healed. God treats sin as a disease. Sin's a disease. It says with
his stripes we're healed. If you will, turn with me to
Matthew chapter 8. Now, there was a fellow preaching
recently, and this is no new thing, I've heard it a lot of
times before. In Matthew chapter 8, verse 17. Now while you're finding that,
let me read verse 4 again, Isaiah 53. Verse 4 says, Surely he hath
borne our griefs. and carried our sorrows. Now when Matthew quotes that
over in Matthew 8.17, he quotes it this way, see verse 17 Matthew
8, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the
prophet saying himself took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses. And what this man was saying
the other day, Jay, and what's been said for years is that healing
in the atonement. And what they mean is bodily
healing. Well, there's healing in the atonement, but it's healing
for the disease of sin. And sin is a disease. God treats
it as a disease. He treats it as a disease. That's
what he's talking about. Sin is a disease. Let me show
you how it is a disease. Now, what does a disease do?
A disease pollutes the body, a disease paralyzes the body,
a disease poisons the body, and a disease will destroy the body. That's what it does. Now watch
this, watch seeing. Let me give you four or five
things. Number one, and a disease is something that a man contacts. In other words, it comes upon
him within him or from without, but it's something that comes
upon him. Alright, when man was, sin first of all, man wasn't
created with the disease of sin, it came upon him. He wasn't created
with the disease of sin, he was created without sin. He was created
holy and upright, righteous in God's sight, in the image of
God. And this disease of sin, which pollutes and paralyzes
and poisons and destroys the human soul, man received that
disease when he rebelled against God. Death passed upon men. Condemnation passed upon men. Judgment passed upon men. It
came into us. Secondly, it is a disease that
affects the whole man. It's not a disease that just
affects the hand. It's a disease of soul and spirit
that affects the whole person. In other words, Isaiah said,
from the sole of your feet to the top of your head. There's
no soundness. Now listen to this. The eyes. Having eyes full of adultery,
they cannot cease from sin. The thoughts. The mind is enmity
against God, is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed
can be. Ears. Having ears, they hear not. Death. Sin is deafness. Lips. The poison of asps, snakes
is under the lips. Tongue. With the tongue, they
use deceit. The mouth, mouth is full of cursing. The throat, an open grave. The heart, deceitful, desperately
wicked. The will, you will not come to
me. The affections, without natural
affection. The feet, swift to shed blood.
The flesh, in it dwelleth no good thing. Every faculty of
our being has been touched by this disease. And let me show you this. It's
a disease, thirdly, that passes from father to child. We have so many things we inherit.
I have a hearing problem that the doctor says is inherited.
My father had it. My sister's got it. My brother's
got it. I've got it. Possibility my children may have
it. But this particular weakness
passes on. And when a father begets a child,
that child, listen to what God says about Adam begot a son,
Adam, in his likeness. That's the kind of sons we beget
in our likeness. Now God made Adam in his likeness
or image, but when Adam had his firstborn, he was born in the
likeness of Adam, sin. The disease was already in his
blood. He was born a dying creature. And every child born in your
home is born a dying creature. Psalm 51, 5, David said, In sin
my mother conceived me, I was brought forth from the womb,
speaking life. And then fourthly, this disease. Man wasn't created
with it, it passed upon him in rebellion. It's a disease that
permeates the whole being and paralyzes the whole being. It's
a disease that's passed from father to son. And fourthly,
it's a disease incurable by human power. Absolutely incurable. That's right. Can the Ethiopian
change his skin? No, sir. Can the leper change
his spot? No, sir. Neither can you do good
that are accustomed to doing it. Well, what's to be done? Well, that's what makes this
message so precious here. Look, and sin is a disease, and
when it says he carried our sicknesses and our sorrows and our diseases,
he means our spiritual diseases. Now, let me tell you something.
The Lord Jesus Christ is true. He did redeem us soul and body. But brethren, some of God's sheep
and children are going to experience the same sicknesses and the same
sorrows and the same difficulties in the flesh that everybody else
experiences. You're going to have it. You're
going to have gallbladder and heart trouble and you're going
to have different cancer and different diseases. Christ, when
he died for us on the cross, redeemed our soul. And it may
be God's pleas to heal a person. It may be, but healing is not
automatically in the atonement, brother, just not there. And
don't let anybody come along and tell you because you have
arthritis, because you're not trusting Jesus. Now that's a
lie. It's just not right to tell people
that. It's not right for preachers
to stand up and say, because Christ, if Christ died for you,
you're supposed to enjoy perfect health. Well, if that's so, we'd
never die. Well, my soul, you'd never get
old. Why would my hair turn gray? My hair turns gray, and my teeth
decay, and my skin wrinkles, and I get stooped, and old, and
forgetful, and I come to the place where I'm senile, then
I die because I'm a man, because of the flesh. I've got to lay
this down to pick up the new body. It's just not right. I'll tell
you what they do it for. They do it to gain. They do it
to get your offerings. They do it to get your recognition,
and your fame, and your prestige, and a pat on the back, and all
this other fallible junk. If they just tell the truth,
Christ redeemed us. But I'm still a man. I don't
forget that when they came to our Lord, talking about Lazarus,
they said, he whom you love is sick. That's pretty good. He whom you love is sick. Christ
loved him, but he still allowed him to get sick. And more than
that, he allowed him, Charlie, to die. And you're gonna die,
and I'm gonna die. But that'd be the best thing
that ever happened to you. To die is gain. Go to be with the
Lord. I can't get into the kingdom
of heaven without leaving this outfit. I've got to die. And we're going to have the same
problems because we've got a human body just like everybody else.
But our spiritual man is healed, perfectly healed. That's what
he said. That disease of sin is gone. Gone. Look at verse 5. Can you put your name in there?
Put your name in there, John Haslam, in verse 5 and 6. He
was wounded for John's transgression. Your transgressions, what you
did against God, the Lord Jesus took in his body, paid for, ever
better, ever better. John, he was bruised for John's
iniquities. He was bruised for John's iniquities.
You put your own name in there. The chastisement of John's peace
was upon him, and with his strife, old John was healed, was healed,
is healed, perfectly healed, completely healed, totally healed,
eternally healed. Nothing needs to be added. Because
verse 6 said, every one of us, all of us, just like a wandering
sheep went astray. We turned, what, to our own way.
You live like you please, when you please, did what you please.
But God laid on him, on Christ, the iniquity of every one of
us.