A Succinct Gospel Proclamation (Is. 53)

Introduction: Gratitude and a Survey on the Bible's Nature and Purpose

0:00 Now with the consent of the leadership, I do want to take just two minutes to express by way of deep gratitude my thanks to many of you who a year ago today were earnestly praying for me as I lay on an operating table and God was most gracious in hearing your prayers and the prayers of many others and I'm thankful for the lifetime remembrance I'll have of your affection and of your prayers in that large scroll that several hundreds of you signed and months after the surgery I could not bring myself to get rid of that scroll because it embodied so much of the tangible expression of your love and fellowship in a time of deep personal trial and I finally spread it out on the living room floor and took three pictures to capture the whole scroll so at least it will be there in one of our family picture albums but I do sincerely thank you for those expressions of your love and fellowship in Christ and for God's mercy to us and it is indeed a joy to be with you again in this conference.

1:21 Now I know many of you are weary this first night, you've had a long day of travel some of the parents have been a bit harassed by children that have been a little less than angels throughout the day as they've had to struggle with the heat and with other inconveniences but I would like each of you from the youngest to the oldest to use your imagination with me and try to imagine with me that in preparation for tonight's meeting the elders of the church at Mebane had directed the elders of the church at Mebane to the church at Mebane their deacons to greet each one of you at the door with a little notepad and with a pencil or a very inexpensive Bic pen and as you came in you took your notebook and your pen or your pencil and you sat wondering what in the world you were going to do with this and then when I the preacher stood up I said now we're going to do a little survey and I want each of you who can write to write down your answer to two very important questions two very basic, two very simple, two very pointed questions and the first question I asked was this what is the Bible?

2:41 now I hope no one is insulted by the question so often we take for granted the things that we think we know until we're forced to really define what we think we know about a given subject and if I were to ask you what is the Bible what do you think you would write on your notepad? put on your thinking cap don't raise your hand but think as hard as you would as if you were going to raise your hand and I were going to ask you before a class of several hundreds to give your answer what is the Bible? well I would hope that many of you if not the vast majority of you would write something like this the Bible is the Word of God or the Bible is the written Word of God the written revelation of the mind of God or the Bible is God's words given to us through apostles and prophets the words of God himself and if you wrote anything like that that would be an accurate expression of what the Bible is for the scripture tells us in 2 Timothy 3 and verse 16 all scripture is given by inspiration of God all scripture is God breathed

4:04 in other words the scriptures are the out breathing of the very thoughts and mind and will of God himself or as we read in 2 Peter 1 and verse 21 holy men of God spoke as they were literally carried along by the Holy Spirit so that though the Bible is the words of men given to us in the very language forms of men figures of speech similes and metaphors and parables it is ultimately God's words given to us through those men who were carried along by the Holy Spirit so if you answered on your notepad anything along the lines of the Bible is the Word of God the Bible is God's inspired revelation you'd get 100% for question number one but now question number two would be this question number two would be why was the Bible given to us not what is the Bible but why was the Bible given to us since God has revealed himself in the vast creation all around us and the scriptures tell us that he has the heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament shows his hand in the hand of God and the firmament shows his hand in the hand of God and the firmament shows his hand in the hand of God

5:32 all of creation speaks constantly and powerfully and eloquently God is revealing himself in all that he has created what is the Bible then and why was it given to us if God is revealing himself in the creation all around us according to Romans chapter 2 he reveals himself even in terms of what we know about ourselves we have this thing called a conscience This stubborn little monitor within who only has two words in his vocabulary, right and wrong. And we try desperately all through life to teach him a third word, and he's so stupid he won't learn it. He says right. He says wrong. We try to teach him the word neither, and he can't say it.

6:25 He condemns us. He accuses us, or he excuses us. And with God speaking in the world without us, and God speaking within the world of our own consciousness within us, why did God speak in this book? What would you put to question number two on your notepad?

6:46 Why was the Bible given to us? Well, you think for a minute. What would your answer be? Well, if you're thinking something along these lines, I believe you're thinking in the way that you want.

7:02 The Bible is God's revelation concerning the things we need to know and believe about himself, about ourselves, and about salvation, in order that we may be fit to live, prepared to die, and ready to go to judgment. That's what the Bible is. God has given it to us. That we might know and believe certain things about himself.

7:40 Things that we would never discover if we were to look at God's creation for a billion years. Things that we need to know about ourselves, that were we to look within ourselves for a billion years, we would never know. And things that we need to know and believe about his way of salvation that could not be known. Any other way, the Bible is given to us that we might know those things about God, about ourselves, and about the way of salvation that we may be fit to live, that we may be ready to die, and that we may be prepared to go to judgment. This is why in that same second letter to Timothy, Paul could say not only in verse 16, but also in verse 17, Paul could say not only in verse 16, but also in verse 17, of chapter 3, that all scripture is God breathed. But earlier in verse 14, he said to Timothy, from a babe, from a nursing babe, you have known the holy scriptures which are able to make you wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. And it is only in the scriptures that we can be made wise unto salvation.

9:05 And it is only in the scriptures that we can be made wise unto salvation. In God's revelation of himself in creation, we may be made wise with respect to the power of God, to something of the wisdom of God, to something of the vastness of God's mind, and the limitlessness of God's power. But you could stare at the farthest galaxy with the most powerful telescope and never get one syllable of an answer to the question, how can my sins, be forgiven? How can I know God?

9:40 How can I be right with God? How can I be prepared to live as I ought, to die in peace, and to go to judgment in safety? It is only in this blessed book that God has given us an answer to those most vital questions. And in giving us the answer to those questions, And in giving us the answer to those questions, God has not only, as it were, spread the answer over the whole face of scripture, but at certain points along the way, God himself has given us a little distilled picture of the whole.

The Bad News: Our Desperate Condition in Sin (Isaiah 53:6a)

10:23 He has given us spirit-inspired summaries of the very heart and soul of the message of the Bible. And during these evening sessions, God willing, we're going to be looking at some of those places in the scriptures, both the Old and the New Testament where God has concentrated into, as it were, vital nerve centers the very heart and soul of the message of life and salvation. And tonight we're going to look at such a passage in the Old Testament in the book of the prophecy of Isaiah. And I can hear Pastor Hugh saying Isaiah. Isaiah chapter 53, and the very familiar verse in the middle of this chapter, verse 6. And as we turn to it, may we turn with the disposition of heart that says, O Lord, help me to hear, help me to read, help me to listen to this text as though I had never heard it before. Now, in the midst of this chapter in which the prophet Isaiah, with the detail of an eyewitness, is describing the sufferings of the servant of Jehovah, who is none other than our Lord Jesus, and he writes in verse 6,

11:50 All we, like sheep, have gone astray. We have turned every one to his own way. And the Lord has laid...

12:04 He has laid on him the iniquity of us all. As we come to this passage, I say it's one of those passages in the Word of God that gives us God's own inspired summary of the very heart and soul of the message of life and salvation. And obviously, from even a surface reading of the text, we see that there are two very basic units. There's a lot of thought in this portion of the Word of God.

12:37 It begins with what I'm calling the bad news of our desperate condition in sin. All we, like sheep, have gone astray. We have turned every one to his own way. That's the bad news of our desperate condition in sin.

13:01 But then it's followed by the good news of God's... God's gracious provision for sin.

13:08 And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. And so we're going to look at the text under those two very simple, obvious headings forced upon us by the text itself. We begin with the bad news of our desperate condition in sin.

13:32 Now let me ask you, what has been your reaction? In the few moments since I announced that first heading? When you heard the words, we're going to hear something about the bad news of our desperate condition in sin. Did you have a reaction in your mind and in your spirit?

13:56 Did you hear those words with complete emotional and mental neutrality? Or did you have some reaction which upon reflection, you can identify? And what was that reaction? Was it the reaction that said, Oh no. Oh no.

14:17 Whatever I came to this conference for, I didn't come to hear bad news. I didn't have...

14:25 come to have someone point his finger at me and tell me I'm a sinner. I didn't come to have someone give me doleful, heavy, weighty stuff about sin. I didn't come to have someone give me doleful, heavy, weighty stuff about sin. That's not why I've come!

14:44 If that was your mental and emotional reaction, then you were tempted to reach up and grab the room-darkening shade that hangs in everyone's mind and begin to yank it down. May I tenderly and lovingly plead with you? Draw your hand back. You see, pulling down the shade on the light of the Word of God concerning who and what you are will not change the fact of who and what you are.

15:17 Pulling down the shade doesn't create a different reality. The reality is, all we light sheep have gone astray. We have turned, every one of us, to his own way. And pulling down the room-darkening shade in the mind does not change the fact.

15:44 It only shuts us out from the glory of the full blazing light of the Good News. Only those who let in the humbling, flesh-withering light of the Bad News will ever welcome with joy the glorious light of the Good News. For Jesus said, I did not come to call the righteous. And in the context of Matthew 9 and Luke 5, the parallel passage, the righteous were these Pharisees who were constantly pulling down the shade and saying, We thank you, God.

16:25 We are not like other men. We are not like sheep who've gone astray. We have not turned to our own way. They were constantly pulling down the shades.

16:38 And when they saw some who didn't pull down the shades, who knew what they were as sheep who had gone astray, as those who had turned each one to their own way, and the Lord Jesus was calling some of the riff-raff of Jerusalem and Palestine to himself in that setting, Jesus said, I did not come to call the righteous. I have nothing to do with those who do not see themselves in need of my grace. Those who stop their ears and pull down the room-darkening shade upon the bad news, I came not to call the righteous, but sinners. Those who see and know and feel themselves to be what God says they are, I've come to call sinners to repentance. And so I plead with you, if your first reaction was to grab the shade, would you not for the sake of your own never-dying soul pray God will help you to keep your hands in your pocket, no shade-wrapping, and say as you sit here tonight, O God, show me the truth about myself. For every man, every woman, every boy, every girl in this place

18:03 will eventually know the truth about himself in this life, leading to the knowledge of God's grace and salvation, or in the day of judgment when the day of salvation is over. But know the truth about yourself. You shall. You must.

18:29 So you're ready to look with me for a few minutes as we consider what Isaiah sets before us concerning the bad news of our desperate condition in sin. Notice how he does it. He does it in two ways. He first of all gives us a vivid picture of our desperate condition, and then he makes a very unflattering, bold assertion of our desperate condition.

A Vivid Picture: Straying from God as Supreme Desire and Delight

18:59 First of all, note the vivid picture of our desperate condition. All we, like sheep, have gone astray. What's the picture? It would be a picture familiar to every Israelite.

19:16 Here the prophet stands among his people and pictures the entire nation, and we shall see from the use of this passage in 1 Peter 2, it refers to all of humanity as one vast flock of sheep which in its entirety and without exception has gone astray from its rightful shepherd. All we, like sheep, have gone astray. And I say he refers not only to himself and his fellow Israelites, but Peter, writing hundreds of years later to a bunch of Gentiles in what is now Turkey, Asia Minor, quotes this verse in chapter 2 and verse 25 of his epistle and says, You were as sheep, as sheep going astray, but have now been returned unto the shepherd and bishop of your souls. So it is right for us to see in this text that the Spirit of God is describing the entire human race without exception as a vast flock of sheep, all of which has gone astray, gone astray from its rightful shepherd, gone astray into a position of exposure

20:43 to danger, to predators, and even to destruction. Now what realities are couched in that simile? In this vivid picture of our desperate condition, what is involved in you and me being, you and I being part of this vast flock of sheep that have gone astray? Well surely, from the analogy of Scripture, that is, from the total witness of the Word of God, it involves these two basic matters.

21:14 First of all, we have strayed from God Himself as the object of our supreme desire and our supreme delight. You see, when the sheep go astray from the shepherd, there is a disruption of a personal relationship. You remember how our Lord Jesus captured this dimension of the shepherd-sheep relationship very graphically in John chapter 10. He said, the sheep do not follow the voice of a stranger.

21:51 They only listen to the voice of the true shepherd. And He said, I know My sheep, and I am known of Mine. There is a reciprocal knowledge. There is not merely a professional relationship.

22:06 The hireling, who has a mere professional relationship to the sheep, he flees when danger comes. But because there is a personal relationship between the sheep and the shepherd, the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. And in this picture of all of humanity like a vast flock of sheep going astray from its rightful shepherd, the prophet is pointing to this tragic reality that in being part of that flock of sheep, you and I have gone astray from God Himself as the object of supreme desire and supreme delight. You say, what's the big deal about that?

22:50 Well, the big deal is that that is the glory of what you are as a human being. You among all of God's creatures, you alone, the angels excepted, were made with a capacity to know God personally and to find delight in God. You and I were made in our first parents. We were made that life would be what God intended it would be as we found in God Himself our supreme desire and our supreme delight.

23:30 Man was made to function as he loved God supremely and obeyed Him implicitly. That's why God said, of all the trees of the garden you may freely eat, but of the tree that is in the midst of the garden you shall not eat of it. For in the day that you eat thereof, dying you will die. In the day that I am no longer your supreme delight and the object of your supreme desire and my will is the regulative framework of your life, death has entered.

24:04 Your life is in finding in me and in my will your delight and your desire and your highest joy. The moment something else comes in, death has intruded into the human race. That's why the first commandment is, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy mind, with all thy soul, and with all thy strength. God shall be the object of your supreme desire and delight.

24:39 And that was not a burden laid upon us. That was to find our true fulfillment and identity as creatures made in the image of God, made with the capacity to know Him and to love Him and to delight in Him. One of the saddest verses in all of the Bible is found in that summary of Hebrews, human sinfulness, in Romans chapter 3, where Paul having corralled one segment of humanity after another and indicted them with the bad news of their desperate condition in sin. First of all the Gentiles who do not have the Bible, then those who have the light of more heightened moral instruction, and then the Jews who had the Old Testament scriptures, and after he corrals them all and herds them together as a vast flock of sheep who have gone astray, he comes to his summary statement in Romans 3, 10 to 20, and says as it is written, there is none righteous, no, not one. There is none that understands, and here are the sad words, there is none that seeks after God. Think of it. There is none

26:03 that seeks after God. Out of the whole vast flock made with the capacity to know Him, made to find their supreme delight in Him, and their supreme desire toward Him, there is none that seeks after God. They are all gone aside. I want you to think for a moment of a cow.

26:38 In some ways a pathetic animal, in some ways a lovable animal. I've had two relatives who are dairy farmers, and I never cease to be amazed at how attached they can get to their cows. And they know all of their little quirks. What fascinated me come milking time, that they know which quarter of the udder milks out the quickest and the rest.

27:01 They know their cows. But if you ever look closely into a cow's eyes, they're not only soft and melting, but they have the most stupid blank stare.

27:13 Did you ever look into a cow's eyes? And in all seriousness now, think of a cow. He sees the farmer coming, and he dumps a load of feed in his trough, and his eyes see the feed, and there's a certain look when he sees the feed. Take that same cow, put him out in the pasture, and there's a breathtaking sunset.

27:45 God is just taking the brush of his own infinite beauty, and stroke upon stroke, every few seconds the whole canvas changes. The cow looks up with the same look with which he looked in a trough full of feed. The cow doesn't catch its breath, and it sees nothing more beautiful in a sunset than in a trough full of feed. And that's the tragedy of what sin has done to me and to you.

28:28 Made with a capacity to commune with God in breathless wonder, we stare at God like a cow looks at a trough full of feed. There is none that seeks after God. What a picture of our desperate condition in sin. All we, like sheep, have gone astray, part of that vast flock of humanity that has gone astray from God himself as the object of supreme desire and supreme delight.

A Vivid Picture: Straying from God's Law as Governing Rule

29:12 But furthermore, we have gone astray from the law of God as the governing rule of our lives. You see, when the sheep are within the precincts of the shepherd's will and purpose, they are under his gracious protection and under his wise government. Psalm 23 eloquently bears witness to this. The Lord is my shepherd.

29:39 I shall not lack any good thing. He makes me to lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside waters of quietness. He guides me in paths of righteousness.

29:53 The whole relationship is one of gracious government in which the shepherd guides the activities of the sheep. But now the prophet says, All we, like sheep, have gone astray. And when sheep go astray, they not only leave that personal relationship to the shepherd, they step outside the rule and the governing will of the shepherd. And surely when the prophet uses this simile, All we, like sheep, like sheep have gone astray.

30:27 He's pointing to this ugly reality in that you and I have not only left God himself as the supreme object of desire and delight, but we've left the law of God as the governing rule of our lives. Paul states it in very blunt and strong language in Romans 8 and verse 7 when he says, The carnal mind, that is the mindset of everyone who has not known the transforming power of the grace of God in his or her heart, the carnal mind, it doesn't say is at enmity with God, he says it is enmity. It is enmity itself. The carnal mind is enmity against God. Now how does it show its enmity? Well in some cases you have those that will openly admit and vocally try to deny that there is a God, that there is any supreme being who has any rights over them, but those are relatively few and I doubt there are such among us here.

31:37 But Paul goes on to say, The carnal mind is enmity against God for it is not subject to the law of God. How does it show its enmity against the being and person of God? It takes it out with respect to the expression of God's will for us. It is not subject to the law of God.

32:00 The enmity against God terminates upon our disposition to God's rules and regulations for us. It is not subject to the law of God. Neither indeed can it be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.

32:17 Every one of God's thou shalts elicit from our hearts an I will not. All of God's thou shalt nots elicit from us the response, I will. When God says thou shalt, I say I will not. When God says thou shalt not, we say I will.

A Blunt Pronouncement: Each Turned to His Own Way

32:44 When the prophet says all we, all we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned every one of us to his own way. He is setting before us this bad news of our desperate condition in sin with that vivid picture of the flock of sheep that has gone astray. But then he moves on from that vivid picture to this blunt pronouncement. Look at the text.

33:18 All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned every one to his own way. Note from the general imagery the prophet now gets very specific. Some of us can remember in our grade school days. They may still do this.

33:44 I think in the school my grandchildren are in they do this. When it came time for the annual photographer or the annual pictures to be taken and the school photographer came, we would always first of all have a class picture. That was the group picture. Now if you're honest with me kids, tell me whenever you see a group picture, maybe the one that was taken of your class this past year, what's the first thing you do?

34:10 Do you look for the teacher? Do you look for your closest friend? No, who do you look for? You look for yourself, don't you?

34:17 Come on, be honest. I don't think I'm the only one that does that. We all do it. Your eyes go right to where you remember you were in the group picture.

34:25 But you see you can still be lost in the group picture. And the prophet took a group picture when he said, all we like sheep, the vast flock of humanity is the sheep or are the sheep who've gone astray. But now the photographer sits you on the bench and he says to you, smile. And so you try to put on something that looks like a natural smile and you know you're the only one that's going to be in that picture.

34:50 And then you got to take those horrible things home and show them to mom and dad and try to pick out the best of the worst. But you see once the photographer sits you on the bench and tells you to smile, nobody else is there. And that's why so often it's hard to get a natural smile because you know all the attention of the camera and the photographer is on you. Nobody to the left, nobody to the right.

35:12 It's just you in the eyeball of that camera. And you know that when the picture comes, you're not going to get lost in the crowd. It's just you. Well that's what the prophet does.

35:21 We may have been lost in the crowd. Oh yes, we're all sinners. We're part of a race that is sin. But now the prophet takes the individual portrait and he says, We have turned every one.

35:36 And now he doesn't use any simile, no likeness, no word pictures. It's a blunt, ugly, honest pronouncement of our desperate condition. We have turned every one of us to his own way. Each of us has his own tailor-made way that is a course of life, a pattern of life.

36:06 And what frames it and dictates it is our own self-will. We have turned every one of us to his own way. Now that way may be made up of some of the things that our peers think are important. And because we want to be accepted by our peers, we incorporate their standards for what is fun, and what is cool, and what is uncool.

36:35 And we make up our way in terms of our own personal ambitions, our own pride, our own likes, our own dislikes. Our way is a collage, it's a stew, it's a hash of what our peers think is important and what we want to do to please them and what we like and what we desire and what we want to pursue. But at the end of the day, this is the common denominator. It is our own way.

37:07 That's why in a parallel passage in the New Testament in 2 Corinthians 5.15, Paul describes what we are as sinners in similar languages. He says this, and that he, Christ, died for all that they who live should no longer live unto themselves. But unto him who for their sakes died and rose again.

37:34 He says every Christian before he was a Christian, this was the pattern of his life. He lived unto himself. Now that produces a broad spectrum of differing lifestyles. On the one end of the spectrum there is the person who because of temperament and background and a host of influences without and within his upbringing, his traditions, his culture, he or she may live a very moral, upright, decent, productive, industrious life.

38:11 That young person studies hard, obeys mom and dad in terms of the chores to be done, the things that they are to do around the house, the life when you look at it externally is a structured, well-ordered, productive life. You see that young man or woman growing up in that context, and you say he or she is going to amount to something. Then on the other end of the spectrum there is that young person that bucks at anything that looks like structure, anything that looks like authority, anything that looks like meaningful, productive activity, absolutely lawless, constantly has the bit in his or her teeth, bucks and kicks against anything and everything. What is the common denominator between the two of them? Well, if they are not converted, here is the common denominator, each one is doing his own thing, living unto himself. You tap that young man on the shoulder and say, now son, young man, why are you living that way? Well, I feel better when I do this.

39:14 I sleep better. I feel my life will count for something and you can listen to him talk for a day and a half and it has nothing to do with the fact that the God who made me has shown me I was made to know him, made to serve him, made to commune with him. And in the word of God, I have come to see that by nature that is the last thing I want to do and I was a rebel against this God and I wanted to do my own thing. But God has brought to me through my parents, through the church, through other influences, the knowledge that there is a Savior who bids needy sinners to come to him.

39:53 And by his grace, I have come to that Savior. I have taken his yoke upon me and there is nothing more I want to do in life than please him. And I know it pleases Christ when I obey my mom and dad. I know it will please Christ if I apply myself to my studies.

40:09 I know it will please Christ if I live a structured, God-honoring life. He is no longer living unto himself. Now his outward life, you and I might not be able to tell any difference in it. But the whole motivation is as different as night and day.

40:28 No longer living unto self, but unto him. And this person who is out here living the openly, lawless, rebellious, unstructured, unproductive, wasted life, it's very evident that he has the bit in his teeth. But you see at the end of the day, there may be more hope for him seeing his true need than this one who thinks that because all is structured and acceptable and pleasing and gets the commendation of people that all is well. No.

41:08 The prophet tells us we have turned every one of us to his own way. Here is the blunt pronouncement of our desperate condition as given to us by the prophet. Now how does God react to this reality? Couched in the bad news given by the prophet.

God's Reaction to Sin and the Call to Self-Examination

41:34 As God beholds humanity like a vast flock of sheep going astray. Turning aside from him as the object of supreme desire and supreme delight. Turning against his laws the governing rule of life. Turning into a course of self-pleasing.

41:55 Is God indifferent to all of this? All we need to do is go back to Eden. No sooner does man turn into his own way. Go astray from his God.

42:09 But God comes on a mission of gracious inquisition. Adam, where are you? Where are you Adam? Face up to what you have done and what it has done to you.

42:25 And then God who comes seeking him. God who intervenes in grace as we shall see God willing later in the message. Is the God who makes it plain to Adam that his threats were not idle threats. In the day that you eat dying you will die.

42:46 Adam has already experienced the radical effects of spiritual death. He runs from the God to whom previously he ran in delighted affection and desire. He hears the voice of God in the garden in the cool of the day. And think of it.

43:04 He runs from his God instead of running to him. And God speaks those words of curse. And the scripture tells us the wages of sin is death. The soul that sinneth it shall die.

43:21 That we were by nature children of wrath even as the rest. This is our desperate condition in sin. Now I ask you. A very simple question.

43:36 I want to ask you dear children and young people and adults as well. Has this bad news of your own desperate condition in sin ever become the most pressing the most inescapable the most haunting the most disrupting reality in your life? You see I'm not asking you how you've been reared in a home where you've been taught the Bible and taught the catechism and you know the biblical doctrine of sin. I'm not asking you do you sit under a ministry that gives due place to the bad news of your desperate condition in sin. I'm asking you this question. Has your desperate condition become the kind of thing that you can't escape? It's with you when you wake up.

44:36 It's with you when you go off to school. It's with you when you go home. It's with you especially when you lie on your bed at night and there's no music in your ears. There's no chatter from your peers in your ears.

44:52 There is no sound from the TV and no images impinging on your eyeballs. You lie there on your bed. Do you think I know God made me? I know God sees me.

45:08 I know God knows my thoughts. I know that God will call me into judgment. I know one day I'll die. I know that I'm not right with God.

45:25 I ask you dear children and young people dear adults, friends who are here has the bad news of your desperate condition in sin ever gotten hold of you and gripped you and pushed all other lesser concerns aside? Old Bishop Ryle wisely said that the first step on the road to heaven is to know and to feel that by nature you are on the road to hell. That's the first step to heaven is to know and to feel that you are on your way to hell. How some of us bless God that though the truth to which we're exposed was by our present judgment very truncated in many ways very imbalanced very inadequate the bad news of our condition was pressed home to us and we could never sin with a high hand. Some of us can remember weeks and months and even years of those restless efforts to slip off into sleep at night afraid that if we died we'd sink into hell.

The Good News: God's Gracious Provision for Sin (Isaiah 53:6b)

46:52 Now am I saying that everyone must have the same degree of intensity of terror in the light of the bad news? No! But I am saying when Jesus said I came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance that surely he said he means for us to understand until our sickness as sinners becomes a matter of all absorbing concern we will never apply to the great physician. Our bad condition our desperate condition the prophet sets it before us when he gives us this statement of our unreasonable straying and our unbending self-will. But now note with me secondly the text not only puts before us the bad news of our desperate condition in sin but it sets before us the good news of God's gracious provision for sin. The good news of God's gracious provision for sin. And I want you to notice two things as well about the good news.

48:13 You will notice first of all the author of this provision. The transition in the text from bad news to good news comes with the introduction of the Lord himself. And the Lord and Jehovah have laid on him the iniquity of us all. The author of this provision is God himself.

48:40 And then the nature of that provision and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. The author of the provision is God himself. The nature of that provision is the substitutionary sin bearing of the servant of Jehovah. Now if you'll excuse me I want to find my glasses.

49:05 Here they are. First of all then the author of the provision here the transition is glorious from what we are and what we have done to what the Lord has done in the intervention of his grace and of his mercy. And the Lord and Jehovah the eternally existent one he has come into the human condition in grace and in power. And by the introduction of the good news by setting the author of that provision before us the prophet underscores what is true from Genesis 3.15 right clean to the end of Revelation 22. The salvation taught in this book is a salvation beautifully summarized in the language of the prophet of whom we'll hear this week Jonah salvation is of Jehovah. And here is the acid test of all so called religions.

50:16 Does the arrow point from man upward what man does to attain the favor of God to somehow turn away the disfavor and displeasure of God? Or does God take the initiative does God intervene in the human predicament? Surely that's the emphasis of some of the most well known text of scripture John 3.16 For God for God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.

50:51 Ephesians 2.1-4 verses 1-3 Paul describes our wretched condition culminating in the language we were by nature children of wrath even as the rest but God but God who is rich in mercy for His great love wherewith He loved us. Or Titus chapter 3 again Paul is describing the human condition and then he makes the transition in verse 4 but when the kindness and mercy of God appeared. It is God Himself intervening taking the initiative to do something for that vast flock of sheep that has gone astray for those who have each and every one of them turned to His own way put Himself in the path of death and destruction and the judgment of God. But now notice with me what is really the heart of this entire section of scripture that is surely as the author of that provision for sin is God Himself the focus of that provision is none other than the substance of the servant of Jehovah. When you say where did such a mouthful come out of the passage well look at it with me

52:20 for a moment. The person on whom iniquity is laid is not named in our text the Lord has laid on Him. So when you find a pronoun you go backing backwards to see what is the nearest antecedent. Where was the last mention of the Him?

52:40 Well you look back in verses 4 and 5 He has borne our griefs yet we did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God He was wounded for our transgression but who is He? Well we go back to verse 1 of chapter 53 Who has believed our message? To whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed? He grew up before Him He has no form nor comeliness He was despised but who is He?

53:08 Well you go all the way back to chapter 52 in verse 13 Behold my servant Behold my servant Look at consider my servant and it is the servant of Jehovah who is in focus from verse 13 of chapter 52 right on through to the end of chapter 53 and that servant of Jehovah is none other than Jesus of Nazareth. You remember the incident in Acts chapter 8 Philip the evangelist is driven by the Spirit out into the wilderness and there he finds a man in a chariot reading from a scroll in Isaiah the prophet and he is reading what we identify as Isaiah 53 verses 7 and 8 and he is puzzling as he reads and he says to Philip of whom is the prophet speaking? of himself or someone else? and in Acts chapter 8 we read that beginning from that portion Philip preached unto Him Jesus Jesus as the fulfillment of all that the prophet had written about and what he is telling us in this passage is that Jehovah has laid or made to light or made to strike on the servant of Jehovah the iniquity of us all in other words something happens

The Nature of Provision: Substitutionary Sin-Bearing

54:36 to the servant because of an activity of God of Jehovah that involves our iniquity so you have God the servant and our iniquity and in the interaction of those three realities is the very heart and soul of the good news of God's gracious provision for human sin and what is the relationship of those three things? the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all or down in verse 11 the latter part of the verse He shall bear their iniquities Jehovah the servant of Jehovah and our iniquities what is He telling us? and here I trust to be as simple and plain as human language will enable me with the aid of the spirit I doubt there is one sitting in this room from the youngest to the oldest who does not have some knowledge of the gospel record of the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth you know something about His arrest in the garden of Gethsemane His being dragged in the early hours

56:04 or the late hours of the night into the early hours of the morning before the high priest and then before Herod and Pilate the false accusations the crown of thorns the robes with which they smote Him the lashes upon His back bearing His cross being hung as a malefactor at a place called Golgotha but what I want to ask you is that have you by the word and the spirit come to see that in all of that horrible description and it is I sought to read it as though reading it for the first time yesterday morning and it is a gruesome scene it is a horrendous scene buffeted bruised mocked spat upon this feverish frenzied brutal sadistic treatment of Jesus of Nazareth but have you ever seen how all of that is tied together to Jehovah the servant of Jehovah in our iniquities the kindred of Jesus in the presence of Jesus who is said by the Lord to be the King of kings and the true God of their life

57:33 and the Son of the Father of the Trinity and of His Son and all His peace in those who come Your blessing is to be all His precious and full glory unto You Jesus Jesus the Father the Son the Holy and the Holy and the Holy Nothing vertical, nothing, sorry, nothing horizontal, no horizontal relationship. The false accusers, the mockers, the taunters, the abusers, the soldiers, no. The true significance is found in the vertical realities. It is the Lord who has laid upon him the iniquity of us all. You remember that from the time he was arrested in the garden till the time he cried out, it is finished. Had you been a visitor in Jerusalem those hours, you would have seen one who in all the outward relationships appeared in one relationship to society and one only. He is a guilty, convicted, felon, worthy of death.

58:53 He is a guilty, convicted, felon, worthy of death. And a death that they would not even impose upon a Roman citizen. Only upon a slave. Only upon an outcast.

59:10 And as Hugh Martin in his masterful work has clearly demonstrated, God was permitting and governing and directing all of that activity in the theater of what men could see. To give as it were a demonstration of what was going on in the realm where men could not see. For as surely as he stood as a condemned felon before the human Roman authorities, before which he was indeed innocent, he stood in the courtroom of God before the judge of the universe. And there he was laden with guilt. The one who was holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, in the court of heaven was charged with guilt, was charged with criminal activity. Activity not his own, but according to our text it was the Lord, making to light upon him the iniquity of us all. In the court of heaven he is charged with the guilt, with the guilt and the hell deservingness, and the wrath deservingness of our sin.

60:32 And when God sets court in the theater of heaven to deal in righteous judgment, justice unmixed with mercy, the scripture tells us in Galatians 3 and verse 13, Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law. How? Being made. A curse for us.

60:58 For it is written, cursed is everyone that hangs upon a tree. Or in the language of 2 Corinthians 5.21, he who knew no sin was made sin for us. Shocking language.

61:11 Some have tried to soften it by saying made a sin offering. But the language does not permit that softening. Made sin. Yes, still in himself.

61:24 Holy. Harmless. Undefiled. Never more pleasing to the Father than in the moment of his highest act of obedience.

Christ's Baptism and the Cup of Wrath

61:35 And yet made sin. Made a curse. Jehovah making to light upon him the iniquity of us all. And there are two figures that our Lord Jesus used as he anticipated his own suffering.

61:56 And perhaps these will help us by the Spirit's enablement to grasp a little more fully how this is good news. Good news of God's gracious provision for sin. Some of you will remember that our Lord Jesus said in the Gospel of Luke, I have a baptism to be baptized with. And how am I compressed until it is accomplished?

62:25 Luke 12 and verse 15. I have an immersion. I have an ordeal to undergo that is like being submerged in the waters of baptism. I have an inundation to be inundated with.

62:40 And how am I pressed to let it be accomplished. And there upon the cross in the language of Psalm 69, Messiah says, all thy ways and thy billows shall be filled with love. Thy waves and thy billows have gone over me. There upon the cross, the sluice gates of the stored-up righteous wrath of God against human sin is let loose upon His own beloved Son.

63:13 The baptism which our Lord was compressed in spirit until He underwent it, that baptism inundated Him until it wrung from His holy soul the mysterious cry, My God, My God, why, why have You forsaken Me? Why, why do I feel in my soul the terrors of the damned to whom He will say, Depart from Me, you cursed ones. He was made a curse for us, and He feels the departingness of the Father's frown until He cries, My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me? Jehovah has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. Then the second figure our Lord used was the figure of the cup. Remember in Gethsemane.

64:23 All of His acts. Agony was focused on this issue of the cup. Oh, my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me. If this cup cannot pass away except I drink it, not My will but Yours be done.

64:39 And then when He is arrested in the garden, John 18, there's a desire on the part of some of His own to protect Him. He said, The cup which my Father has given me, shall I not drink it? And you see, there's a little different emphasis. The baptism is something He undergoes.

64:59 He is inundated. He bears Himself to the full fury of the righteous anger of God against the sins of His people. But in the cup, it's something He does actively. The cup which my Father has given me, shall I not drink it?

65:20 Shall I not consciously, deliberately take it to my lips, tip it up, and drain it dry? Picture our Lord upon the cross. And in that realm that human eyes could not see, there's no record in the Gospels of any cup but the cup of the drugged wine that He refused on the front end of His crucifixion. That's the only cup we read of in the Gospel records.

65:49 But Jesus said there was a cup that He would drink in conjunction with His crucifixion. And that was the cup put to His lips by His Father, filled with His wrath unmixed with mercy. For if that righteous wrath against human sin is not vented, if the cup is not drunk by a worthy substitute, then all of us who are part of that straying flock, who have turned to our own way, we must drink. We must drink our measure of a cup.

66:30 And there in the invisible world of spiritual reality, it is reality. Though spiritual and unseen by human eyes, the Father presents the cup to His Son. And the Son had already said, the cup which my Father has given me, shall I not drink it? And our Lord Jesus took the cup.

66:59 And turned it up. And began to drink. And He drank. And He drank.

67:08 And in a way that eternity will not exegete for us. He drank with unusual intensity in those three hours when the heavens were shrouded in darkness. And the soul of the Son of God was plunged into darkness. And when our Lord knew that the last drop had been drained, then He cried, not with a whimpering sigh, but with a loud voice, Tetelestai!

67:41 It stands accomplished! It is finished. Not I am finished. It is finished.

67:50 What is finished? The hymn writer has captured the truth beautifully when he wrote, O Christ, what burdens bowed Thy head. Our load was laid on Thee. Our load was laid on Thee.

68:05 Our load was laid on Thee. Thou stoodest in the sinner's stead, didst bear all ill for me. A victim led. Thy blood was shed.

68:16 Thy bruising healeth me. Death and the curse were in our cup. O Christ, it was full for Thee. But Thou hast drained the last dark drop.

68:30 It is empty now for me. That bitter cup, love drank it up. Now blessings draft for me. Jehovah bade His sword awake.

God's Justice and the Resurrection's Amen

68:44 O Christ, it woke against Thee. Thine open bosom was its ward. Now sleeps that sword for me. Men may mock and men may jeer.

68:59 Men may sneer at the concept of a vengeful God. And a God who would require of His own Son this ultimate sacrifice. But according to the prophet and according to the whole testimony of the Word of God, this and this alone is goodness. That God can still be impeccably just and spotlessly righteous.

69:30 And say to the likes of you and me, forgiven, pardoned, all of the demands of my justice fully met. Righteous peace. Just pardon. Honorable acceptance.

69:50 Holy welcome. Because the Lord made on Him the iniquity of us all. But you say, Pastor Martin, how do I know that in that unseen realm where all of this transpired, how do I know that the court of heaven is satisfied and the case against all and any who trust only in Christ and what He has done, that that case against them is dismissed? The scripture tells us, though He was delivered up for our offenses, He was raised again on account of our justification.

70:32 And in a very real sense, the resurrection was God's three day delayed amen to the cry, it is finished. When our Lord said it is finished to the world, He was finished. Even to His followers. And how moving is that account.

70:53 Again read just yesterday morning of those two on the road to Emmaus, all their hopes dashed. We had hoped that it was He who would redeem Israel. But oh how soon their dejection was changed to joy. He cried it is finished.

71:12 Three days later God raised Him from the dead and out of Joseph's empty tomb reverberates the thundering amen of heaven. It is finished. Raised again on account of our justification. The text contains bad news.

God's Directive: Seek the Lord While He May Be Found (Isaiah 55:1-7)

71:33 Bad news of your, my desperate condition in sin. But it contains good news of God's gracious provision for sin. And in the light of these realities what does God now say to you and to me? Are we to stand back and say yes that's true, I believe that.

71:56 What are we to do? Well in closing may I just direct your attention briefly to the words of the same prophet in chapter 55. As a result of the work of the servant of Jehovah in chapter 54 God speaks of the enlargement of the place of His dwelling. The great increase that will come to God's tent as a result of the suffering of the servant of Jehovah.

72:25 And then in chapter 55 God stoops to liken Himself to a street hawker. And He says, Oh everyone that thirsts come to the waters. He who has no money come buy wine and milk without money and without price. One of the freest, fullest most condescending offers of grace and mercy.

72:46 Then God says in verses 6 and 7 seek the Lord while He may be found. Call upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake His way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him return unto the Lord and He will have mercy upon him and to our God for He will abundantly or will multiply pardon. Here is God's own directive to us.

73:20 We are to seek this Jehovah this Lord from whom we have miserably strayed turning each one to His own way yet this one who has in grace and mercy intervened for us. We are to seek this God when? While He may be found. While He may be found.

73:43 There is a time when He may be found. There is a time when He will not be found in the posture of mercy the posture of welcoming the posture of gracious invitation taking the role of a street hawker saying come, come, come buy and eat without money and without price. Seek this God while He may be found. How do you seek Him?

74:09 He tells you call upon Him while He is near. And He is never nearer according to Romans 10 than in the preaching of His own word. The word of faith is near you in your mouth and in your heart. This word Paul says that we preach.

The Disposition of Repentance and Faith

74:26 Call upon Him while He is near. Well with what disposition should I call upon Him? In a disposition of repentance let the wicked forsake His way. You see we are back to this business of your way.

74:39 We have turned each one to His own way. God says stop it. Get out of the business of thinking you have the right to run your own life. Get out of the business of thinking you have a right to run life by your own standards.

74:52 Set your own rules. Let the wicked forsake His way. Whatever makes up your way as we described it earlier. That part of it that is the standard of your peers abandon it.

75:05 Christ's word will regulate what you wear the music you listen to the friends you choose. Not peer pressure not peer pressure. The pressure of a dying immolated incarnate God raised from the dead. The pressure of Jesus' will will dictate my way.

75:25 Let the wicked forsake His way. And the unrighteous man his thoughts. You are ready to have all of your thinking about yourself and life and reality shaped and molded by God through His word. And then here is faith.

75:41 Let Him return unto the Lord and to our God. In what disposition and confidence? In the confidence that returning to Him you will find Him a God ready to multiply pardon. You need not go on believing the devil's lie about God.

76:00 That God is out to cramp your style and restrict your life and compress you into a pattern that will just shrivel up everything that makes life meaningful. That's a lie. It started in the garden when that vicious liar and father of lies said to our first mother and father there's some good to be had outside the will of the good God who made you. That's a lie.

76:28 It's an insult to God. And oh dear people some of you believe that lie. That's why you don't come to Christ. Listen to this passage.

76:39 Go to this God. This God whom you will find to be disposed to abundantly pardon. You go to Him on the grounds of what He has said about His servant. He says, Behold My servant.

76:55 Look at Him. Look at Him. Look at Him. He shall be exalted and very high.

77:01 And the prophet goes on to describe what will be the path to that exaltation. The path of being so buffeted, so abused, that it's said, as one from whom men hide their faces. A scene so ugly people turn away. He went through all of that that He might bring many sons to glory.

77:24 Those who would see in the substitutionary sin bearing of the servant of Jehovah the display of God's heart to sinners. And they'd be overcome by that display. And they would embrace the offered Savior and joyfully give themselves up to this God, that He will be their God. In the language of 1 Peter 2.25, to be a Christian is to be returned unto the rightful shepherd and bishop of your souls. You were a sheep going astray, Peter says, but are returned unto the shepherd and bishop of your souls. We've only got two kinds of people here tonight. Straying sheep and returned sheep.

78:10 That's all. Straying sheep and returned sheep. Which are you? You say, well, no, no.

78:23 Straying sheep, returned sheep. Which are you? Which are you? Let us pray.

Prayer of Repentance and Supplication

78:44 Our Father, we would own with fresh shame and repentance the ugly reality of our straying from You and our turning to our own way. We marvel at Your patience, that You did not cut us off in our arrogant rebellion against You. We thank You that we are not in hell tonight. We thank You for the good news of Your gracious provision for the likes of us.

79:23 We thank You, Lord Jesus, for Your willingness to come into our human condition, for Your willingness not only to become bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh, but for Your willingness to undergo that horrendous baptism and to drink that bitter cup. And we pray that by Your own present ministry through the Spirit, You will lay hold of some straying sheep that they may become returned sheep. Seal Your word to our hearts, we plead, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.