Isaiah 53, verse 10. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise
him. He hath put him to grief, when
thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin. Or, better translated,
his soul shall make an offering for sin." His soul shall make
an offering for sin. Now, the Jews had a clear idea
of what an offering for sin meant, an offering for sin. The guilty
sinner knew that without the shedding of blood there was no
forgiveness, absolutely none. Now, you turn with me to the
book of Leviticus. the book of Leviticus, chapter
17. Now, this was clearly taught in God's word, clearly set forth,
that without a blood sacrifice there was no forgiveness. In
Leviticus 17.11, the Scripture says, For the life of the flesh
is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make
an atonement for your souls. the blood maketh atonement for
the soul. It is the blood, not the law,
works, not religion, not ceremony, it is the blood that maketh an
atonement for the soul. In Hebrews 9.22, the scripture
says, Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness. Now, call it what you want to,
call it a slaughterhouse religion, call it a first-century doctrine,
but without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness. Therefore
the guilty sinner bought a sacrifice, bought an offering, and the blood
was poured out at the foot of the altar. Now, the guilty sinner
knew this. Without a sacrifice, without
an offering, there was no satisfaction. And without satisfaction, there
was no pardon. Absolutely no pardon. Without
a sacrifice, without a sin offering, there was no satisfaction. There
was no clearing of the guilty. There was no satisfaction of
God's justice. And without the satisfaction
of God's justice, there was no pardon. Now, four things were
always essential in this sin offering. Always, these four
things were absolutely essential. There could not be a proper sacrifice
or a proper sin offering without these four things. First of all,
there had to be acknowledged guilt. Acknowledged guilt. In other words, the person who
came with the offering must be conscious of his guilt, of his
need, of his sin. That's the reason for the sin
offering. If there's no sin, there's no need for an offering.
If there's no sin, there's no need for a sacrifice. Because
of sin, sacrifice is necessary. Secondly, there had to be a victim,
and that victim had to be a spotless victim. Now great care was always
exercised in selecting a lamb. When they brought the lamb as
a sin offering, as a sacrifice, the lamb was not just any lamb.
The lamb was not a lamb that they couldn't sell on the market. The lamb was not the runt of
the litter. But the lamb was always a perfect,
spotless lamb without blemish, carefully selected, the best
of the entire herd, always. The third thing, the guilty the
sinner who was bringing the offering, who was bringing the lamb, who
was bringing the sacrifice, put his hand on the head of the lamb,
on the head of the victim. Now, what this was, this was
in essence the whole transaction. Putting his hand on the head
of the victim, he confessed his sin, and a transference took
place. In other words, in type, that
is, at least, The sins were confessed and passed from the guilty to
the victim, that is, in tithe. When they brought the spotless
lamb, the guilty sinner put his hand on the lamb and confessed
his sins. And there was in tithe a transference
of guilt from the guilty to the innocent, from the guilty to
the victim. And then the fourth thing that
was absolutely necessary, the priest would draw a knife and
slay the victim, which then must utterly be consumed with fire.
Now those are the four things essential. First, the guilty
sinner. Secondly, the spotless sacrifice,
or lamb. Thirdly, a transference of guilt
from the guilty one to the innocent one, or to the victim. And then,
because sin bringeth forth death, And because our sins deserve
death, and because God's word says the wages of sin is death,
the soul that sinneth, it must surely die, the one who now had
the guilt, the one who now had the sin, had to suffer under
the penalty of death. Now, let's look at these four
things in relationship to ourselves tonight. First of all, we are
the guilty one. That has to be established. We
have no gospel for the good. You know, I was reading a Sunday
school quarterly this afternoon, a Sunday school message, and
it was about Nicodemus. And the very first thing that
it said in this Sunday school lesson about Nicodemus, it said,
Nicodemus was a good man. Nicodemus was a good man. Well, now, let me tell you this.
If Nicodemus was a good man, he did not need a Savior. If Nicodemus was a good man,
God Almighty would be unjust to send him to hell. If Nicodemus
was a good man, he has nothing to fear at the judgment bar of
God Almighty, nothing whatsoever. But Nicodemus was not a good
man. Nicodemus was a religious man. Nicodemus was, compared to men,
a moral man. But the Bible says there is none
good, no, not one. The Bible says God looked down
from heaven to see if there were any that did do good, and he
said they all together become filthy. God says every imagination
of man's heart is deceitful. And the only reason that you
can label any man or any woman good is because you can't see
their heart. If you could see them as God
sees them, if you could see us as God sees us, you wouldn't
label anybody good. In Adam, we are guilty because
from the fall of our father we stand with a guilty race rejecting
the will and government of God Almighty. We sought in the garden
to throw God off the throne and establish our own rule, and the
whole race of mankind is condemned and under the wrath of God. In
birth, the Scripture says, who is right, us or the Scripture?
In birth, the Scripture says, we come forth speaking lies from
the womb. Men are straying from the womb,
conceived in sin, shapen in iniquity, brought forth speaking lies.
In thought, God says, your thoughts are not my thoughts. God says
every imagination of the heart is evil continually. In affections,
Christ said, the world hates me, hates me without a cause.
Christ said, the men of the world love darkness and hate light.
In mine, having the understanding darkness, you neither know me
nor my Father, and in will, Christ said, you will not come to me
that you might have light. Nicodemus, a good man? Nicodemus
was a religious man, but he was not a good man, he was a sinner. Now, if you were to pick out
someone in history, if you were to pick out someone in the past
that you would regard as a really good person, who would
you pick out? Well, the Catholics have selected
Mary. And they have gone to the extreme
position of saying that Mary was immaculately conceived, that
is, she was like Christ. born without sin. That's not
true. And then they have gone also
to the point where they say that she did come forth from the tomb
and rise in the body to heaven. They may say she didn't die,
I don't know, but the bodily assumption of Mary. And they
even say that she is the Mediator and we pray to her, Hail Mary,
Mother of God, full of grace and truth, pray for us sinners.
But did you know that Mary was a person who needed a Savior
just like you and me? She was a sinner, she was a guilty
sinner, she was a daughter of Adam, she was a fallen woman,
she was a shameful, guilty, filthy sinner in the sight of God Almighty.
And she said herself, My soul rejoices in God, my Savior. Read, if you will, Romans 3,
beginning with verse 10. So I say, select anyone in the
Bible, anyone in history, anyone in the present day, and I will
say this unto you, they are guilty sinners in need of a Savior,
in need of a sin offering, in need of a sacrifice. And without
a sin offering, Mary will go to hell. And without a sin offering,
you'll go to hell. And without a suitable sacrifice,
there can be no forgiveness, there can be no remission, there
can be no pardon. There's got to be a sin of it.
We have got to, first of all, establish guilt. If we're not
guilty, we need no offering, but if we are guilty, we need
an offering. Christ said, The well have no
need of a physician, but they that are sick. I've not come
to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance, and we're sinners.
It says in Romans 3, verse 10, as it is written, there is none
righteous, and this includes Abraham, and Moses, and Isaac,
and Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, and Elijah, and the disciples, and
Mary who gave birth to Christ. There is none righteous, no,
not one. There is none that understandeth,
there is none that seeketh after God. They are all, A-L-L, all
gone out of the way. They are together become unprofitable. There is none that doeth good,
no, not one." Look down here at verse 20, verse 19. Now, we
know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them
that are under the law, that every mouth, not some mouth,
not the majority of mouths, but Every mouth may be stopped, and
all the world may become guilty before God." Verse 23, "...for
all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God." That's
what led Job to write. Look at Job, if you will, chapter
9. Job 9, verse 20. Listen to what Job says. If I justify myself, and boy,
we're good at that. It started with Adam back there. The Lord came to him and said,
Adam, have you eaten the fruit of the tree I told you to leave
alone, the woman? If it hadn't been for her, I
wouldn't have eaten it. She gave it to me. We justify ourselves. God said to Eve, have you eaten
the tree? She said, the serpent you made.
You made the serpent. If you hadn't put that serpent
down here in the garden, I wouldn't have done this. If I justify
myself, my own mouth shall condemn me. If I say I am perfect, it
shall prove me perverse." Look at Job 15. Here is an interesting
observation, Job 15, verse 14. What is man? That he should be
clean. You are not clean. And you may
be clean in your own eyes, and you may be clean in the eyes
of the people about you, and you may be clean in the eyes
of your family, but in the eyes of God, you're unclean as the
lepers of old. You're as unclean as a wiggling
maggot. You're as unclean as the most
unclean thing on God's earth. What is man that he should be
clean? Christ said it's not that which goeth into the mouth that
defileth a man, it's that which comes from the heart. Out of
the heart proceed those things that are wicked and evil. What
is man that he should be clean? He that's born of a woman, that
he should be righteous. Watch this. Behold, God puts
no trust in his saints. You know, I see people riding
down the road with these silly little statues on their dashboard,
St. Jude. Oh, St. Jude, pray for us and
keep us safe. St. Jude can't keep himself safe.
That's the silliest thing I know. I know one Catholic priest that
sold a statue to a man and said he guaranteed protection up to
70 miles an hour. God putteth no trust in his saints. St. Jude is no more saint than
I am, and I'm a saint and I guess he is too. Every believer is
a saint. Every child of God is a saint.
There are no special saints. The first shall be last, and
the last shall be first. And the man who puts any stock
in so-called St. Mary and St. Mark and St. Luke and St. Jude, puts any stock
in that sort of thing, is an idolater. You might as well worship
me as worship St. Jude. God puts no trust in saints. The heavens are not clean in
God's sight. You talk about people being clean, the heavens are
clean. How much more abominable and
filthy as man, every man, any man, all men, abominable and
filthy, man drinks iniquity like the water. Now this little old
silly, emotional, sentimental religion that we've got today
that talks about, he's a good man, he's as rotten as hell,
every human being on the face of this earth that ever came
forth from the womb of a woman and walked in shoe leather upon
this earth is rotten and filth and abominable and wretched and
guilt in the sight of God. Now that needs to be established,
it needs to be told, the truth needs to be proclaimed from the
pulpit. We are not good. We are sinners,
we need mercy, we need grace, we need help, we need a sin offering. If you are not a sinner tonight,
I'll dismiss you, we'll excuse you, we'll let you go home, because
there is no hope for you anyhow. The only thing that can bring
you to God is, first of all, to realize you are a sinner. Secondly, Christ, the spotless
One. Where are we going to find a
sin offering for these guilty creatures? Who is this Jesus
of Nazareth? Turn to the book of Luke. Listen to this. Who is Jesus
Christ? When the guilty sinner went out
to get a lamb to offer as his sacrifice, he looked and found
a spotless lamb, without blemish, without spot, without taint,
without sin. Where can we find one? Look through
heaven, earth and hell. Where can you find a spotless
sacrifice, a spotless tent offering, a suitable tent offering? Look
through heaven and look through earth and you will find but one
perfect man, the man Christ Jesus. He is not in the angelic band,
he is not in the race of fallen men, he is on the throne, he
is the God-man. And if he will consent to come
to this earth and be our sin offering, then we'll have a suitable
sin offering. If he will consent to come to
the earth and go to the cross, we can have a sin offering. But
if he will not, without him there can be no sacrifice. Without
him there can be no offering, and without the offering there
can be no satisfaction, and without the satisfaction there can be
no pardon. Who is this Jesus Christ? Well, let the angels
of God tell you, Luke 1, verse 30. Who is this Jesus of Nazareth? In Luke 1, verse 30, the angel
said, "'Fear not, Mary, thou hast found favor with God. And
behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son,
and thou shalt call his name Jesus. He shall be great and
shall be called the Son of the Highest, and the Lord God shall
give unto him the throne of his father David, and he shall reign
over the house of Jacob for ever, and of his kingdom there shall
be no end." And Mary said, How can this be, seeing I know not
a man? And the angel said unto her,
The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the high
shall overshadow thee. Therefore also that holy thing,
that holy thing, which shall be born of thee, shall be called
the Son of God." That's who he is. He's the Holy Son of God. Who is he? Ask the high priest. Look at Luke chapter 2. And Simeon
said, verse 25, it says there was a man in Jerusalem whose
name was Simeon, Luke 2.25. The same was a just and devout,
waiting for the consolation of Israel, waiting for the Messiah,
and the Holy Spirit was upon him. And it was revealed unto
him by the Holy Ghost that he should not see death till he
had seen the Lord's sacrifice, the Lord's sin offering, the
Lord's He came by the Spirit into the temple, and when the
parents brought him the child Jesus to do for him after the
custom of the law, Simeon took Christ up in his arms and blessed
God and said, Lord, now let us thy servant depart in peace according
to thy word, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation." Simeon had
looked at the law many times, and he had never seen God's salvation.
Simeon had looked at the ceremonies and the rituals and had taken
part in them, but until he saw Christ, he couldn't say, "'Mine
eyes have seen thy salvation.'" Who is he? Let the Father tell
you, Luke 3. Now, when all the people were
baptized, It came to pass that Jesus, also
being baptized and praying, the heaven was opened and the Holy
Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon him, and a voice
came from heaven which said, Who is he? Thou art my beloved
Son, in whom I am well pleased. God has never been well pleased
with any other creature but Christ. Who is he? Let the demons from
hell tell you. Look at Luke 4, verse 33. Who
is he? Luke 4, verse 33. And in the
synagogue there was a man which had a spirit of an unclean devil,
and cried out with a loud voice, saying, Let us alone. What have
we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth? Art thou come to
destroy us? I know thee, I know who you are. Pilate didn't know, Caiaphas
the high priest didn't know. The world knew him not, but the
devils knew who he was. And they said, we know thee,
who thou art. the Holy One of God. There is the spotless sacrifice,
the angels know him, the high priest recognized him, the Father
himself tells us, the demons in hell tell us, and even the
pagan rulers said, at least he's a just man. And the Roman centurion
said, surely this man was the Son of God. So we have the guilty. And secondly, we have the spotless
sacrifice. Here it is. The guilty and the
spotless sacrifice. There is no other. There is no
other. If Christ is not your sacrifice,
you don't have one, because he's the only holy one of God. He's
the only perfect man. He's the only one without spot
and without blemish and without sin. Christ is the only perfect
one. All right, now the third thing.
It's got to be the transference of guilt. The guilty one picked
out the perfect lamb and brought him and put his hands on that
lamb and transferred in tight, this is a picture, his sins from
himself to that lamb. Now, there's only one who can
effect this transference, this transference of guilt, and that
is the Heavenly Father. I can't do that. I can't take
my sins and put them on Christ. The only one who can do that
is the Pope. If God had said in his sovereignty,
I will have no substitute, I will have no sin offering, then each
man shall die for himself. It has to be just, I have to
keep my sins where they are, on myself. It was grace and only
grace that led the divine mind to say, My son shall be numbered
with a transgressor, he shall bear the sin of many. I turn
to 2 Corinthians 5. Here is the transference of guilt.
Now, brother, you have got you a job on your hands when you
talk about what you're going to do with your sins. If you die in your sins, Christ
said, you can't come where I am. Now, my sins are between me and
God. My sins are heavy upon my heart. My sins are on my record. How
am I going to get my sins off me unto the Sanofi?" Now, look
at 2 Corinthians 5.21. For he, the Father, hath made
him, the Son, to be sin for us. The Father transferred the guilt. In his covenant of mercy, in
his eternal purpose of grace, in his eternal sovereign love,
he made Christ to be sin for us. Our sins were laid on Christ. He bore our sins in his body
on the cross. God Almighty, the Heavenly Father,
he made Christ to be sinless. He took the perfect, spotless
Lamb and put him down here in the flesh as a man and transferred
my guilt from me to the Son. He made him to be sin, who knew
no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him."
Look at 1 Corinthians 1, verse 30. Watch it here now. 1 Corinthians 1, verse 30. It
says, of him are you in Christ Jesus."
The Father puts you in Christ. You didn't get there by the hand
of an evangelist. You didn't get there by the prayers
of a mother. You didn't get there by the smooth
talk of a pastor. You got there by the will of
God. of healing are you in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto
us wisdom, righteousness and sanctification and redemption."
Now back to Isaiah 53. Isaiah 53, verse 6. Now watch
this. The transference of guilt All
we, like sheep, have gone astray. We have turned every one to his
own way, and the Lord has laid on him, on Christ, on the offering,
the iniquity of us all. What makes Christ the perfect
sacrifice? Number one, he had no sin of
his own. Number two, his sacred deity
makes him an effectual substitute. Number three, he had the same
nature, and therefore he could bear the penalty. Number four,
he was ordained of the Father and accepted by the Father. All right, there you have three
things. Now you have the guilty, You have the spotless, perfect
offering, the only one. Thirdly, you have the transference
of guilt. The will of the Father, the purpose
of the Father, the mercy of the Father, hath laid on Christ our
iniquity. Now then, the victim has got
to die. Sin bringeth forth sin. Christ
has got to die. It pleased the Lord to bruise
him. Look at verse 10. It pleased the Lord to put him
to grief, when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin."
Now, if I were to describe the physical sufferings of Christ,
the scourging, the brutality, the humiliation, the agony, the
nails, the crown of thorns, I'd completely fail if I attempted
to describe his physical sufferings. But I say the most extreme sufferings
of Christ, as our sin offering, were his soul sufferings. Christ
made his soul an offering for sin. He said in the Garden of
Gethsemane, as his blood began to come from the pores of his
body, my soul is exceeding sorrowful unto death. Christ bore our guilt
And the guilt of our sins upon his soul was the olive press
that squeezed the very life out of him. Christ literally bore
hell for us. My God, why hast thou forsaken
me? On the cross of Calvary, Christ
died under the knife of God's wrath. pierced into his soul
as our sin offering, a perfect sin offering, and therefore there
is now no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus. That's
the gospel. That's the gospel. Now, old Dr. Marsh, who was pastor in Beckingham,
England, had a favorite verse of a hymn written on a little
card over his mantle, and it went like this, "'In peace let
me resign my breath, and thy salvation see.' O God, my sins
deserve eternal death, but Jesus died for me." And one day the
Earl of Roden was visiting with Pastor Marsh, and he saw this
verse over the mantle. The Earl was a professing Christian,
and he asked the pastor if he could have a copy of that verse
and put it over his mantle. And the pastor said, Well, certainly,
help yourself. So he wrote it down, he had him
a little plaque made, and he put it up over his mouth. In
peace let me find my breath, and thy salvation see. O God,
my sins deserve eternal death, but Jesus died for me. When General
Taylor, this is a true story, when General Taylor, who was
the hero of the Battle of Waterloo, was visiting with the Earl of
Roden, staying in his home for a visit. He read these words
over the mantle, and he read them over and over and over again.
And the Earl of Roden didn't say anything, he just watched
the General, and the General would come and stand in front
of that mantle, and he would just read and read and read and
re-read those words, just sit back. Finally one day the Earl
asked him what he thought of that verse, and he said this,
I have thought of nothing else since I've been in your home.
I've read that verse every day. And I have committed my soul
to the Lord Jesus Christ and received him as my Redeemer. And I believe, Earl, that I can
say the same thing in peace, that me resign my breath And
the general asked for a copy of that poem, and he took it
home with him, and he gave that verse to an officer that was
leaving for the Crimean war. And this officer took it and
went to war. And he was wounded, severely
wounded, and they brought him home to die, to the same town
in England. And Dr. Marsh, who started this
whole chain of events with that little poem over his mantle,
Dr. Marsh came to visit this wounded
officer who was dying, and Dr. Marsh asked him, Sir, what is
your hope for eternity? And the wounded officer looked
at him and said, It can be put in the words of a hymn, In peace
let me resign my breath. and thy salvation too. My sins,
O God, deserve eternal death, but Jesus died for me." And the
old pastor said, Where did you get that? And the officer said,
I got it from General Taylor. He got it from the Earl of Logan.
And Pastor Marsh said, Thank God, he got it from me. We never know, my friends, what
a word, what God the Holy Spirit will do to effect the salvation
of a sinner. Just a verse, just a word. But that sums it up. And please
let me resign my breath. And thy salvation, see, O God,
do you realize it? My sins deserve eternal death. But the thing between me and
hell is the blood of Christ, and no man can go to hell with
the blood of Christ on him. When I see the blood, I'll pass
over you. Not when I see your work, not
when I see the law, not when I see your church membership,
but when I see the blood!" I'll pass over you. I take my place
with the first century preachers and the preachers before Christ
and the preacher able back yonder offering the blood sacrifice.
I would not be without the blood of Christ, for his blood cleanseth
us from all sin. And you take your liberalism
and you take your modernism and you take your new theology and
your new revelations and take them wherever you want to take
them, but give me the blood of Christ. I feel saved and I feel
secure and I feel certain that the blood of Christ is near to
the heart of God and where Christ is, I am. Our Father, take the
word and let it not be just words, but let it be a message. Let
it be a warning, let it be an invitation, let it be the voice
of God that speaks. Let us, as ambassadors of Christ
in the Spirit of Christ, beseech men, they who reconcile to God,
flee to the cross, flee to the blood, Let the blood be your
rescue. Let the blood be your hiding
place. Let the blood be your covering. Put it on the doorpost
and on the lintel and rest secure. For when I see the blood, I'll
pass over you. It's the blood that makes the
atonement for the soul. Without the shedding of blood,
there's no remission. And I hope and I send offerings
as the blood of our dear son, the spotless, perfect Lamb of
God. In his name we pray, amen.