Isaiah 53:6

Introduction: The Enduring Truth of God's Word

0:03 I'm sure there are some of you who have been in the way of a disciple of Christ for some time, and there are texts of Scripture that if they could become invalid by using them again and again, you and I would have worn them out. 1 John 1.9 is such a text. If we confess our sins, He's faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins, to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

0:30 James 1.5, if any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God. And one that would be worn out if God allowed His Word to be worn out by use is Luke 11 and verse 13. If you who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?

0:53 Well, believing that promise is as fresh and valid as though our Lord spoke it 30 seconds ago, let us together. Let us together ask our Heavenly Father to give His Holy Spirit to the one who preaches and to each one who listens to His Word. Let us pray.

1:12 Our Father, we have worshipped You in Your holiness. We have worshipped You as the one true and living God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And now we come to petition You as our loving, gracious, large-hearted Father. And we are asking not for things that are not good, but for things to consume upon our lust.

1:36 But, our Father, we are asking that You would send Your Holy Spirit in fresh and copious measures upon each one of us gathered in Your presence, that the one who seeks to open up and proclaim and apply Your Word may do so not in word only, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, and that each one who sits before the Lord Jesus, the great prophet of this Church, may be conscious of that Word coming to his or her heart with spiritual light and heat and with the blessing of Your own unique work in every one of our hearts. O blessed Holy Spirit, gift of the ascended Christ, we plead that You will shine upon the face of Christ in our hearts this night, that we may know Him, better, that we may love him more fervently, that for some they may come to trust him for the first time. Blessed Holy Spirit, come to us as we wait for your blessing. Through our Lord Jesus Christ we plead. Amen. The whole of our Bibles are given to us as a revelation of the mind and will of God,

3:03 setting forth the things that you and I must know and believe if we are to be fit to live, ready to die, and prepared to go to God in judgment. And this is true of the whole of Scripture. Paul could write to Timothy in his second letter and say in what to us is chapter 3 and verse 15, from a babe, from a child, from an infant, Timothy, you have known the sacred righteousness of God. You have known the sacred righteousness of God. You have known the sacred righteousness of God. You have known the sacred righteousness of God. You have known the sacred which are able to make you wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. Christ himself in the uniqueness of his person and in the perfection of his work is the great focal point of the whole of the Word of God. But along the way, within the unfolding of his mind to us, God has

Isaiah 53:6 - A Summary of Law and Gospel

3:57 given us statements in the Scriptures in which he has summarized for us the very heart, the very nerve centers of God's saving revelation to us in Jesus Christ. And tonight we're going to look at just such a summarizing statement in which God by the Holy Spirit through the prophet Isaiah gives us the distilled essence of the whole message of the Word of God. The older writers used to say the entirety of the Bible can be summed under one of two heads. It is a message of the law and of the gospel. A message of man's ruin in sin and God's redemption in Jesus Christ. And we're going to look tonight at just such a text from Isaiah chapter 53 and verse 6. Familiar words I'm sure to many of us, but I trust they will come home with fresh understanding and power to all of our hearts in the midst of this description of the suffering servant of the Lord that has details in it that would cause us to wonder if indeed Isaiah had been an eyewitness of the scenes surrounding the crucifixion of Christ. I heard tell of a person who was a Jew in his

5:17 background in religious training who happened to come into a Christian assembly and someone was reading Isaiah 53. And he said to the person who brought him, I'll not listen to this stuff from the New Testament. And his friend said, no, he's reading from the prophet Isaiah 53. And he said, no, he's reading from Isaiah concerning the suffering servant of the Lord. And in the midst of that marvelous section that sets forth our Lord Jesus with the details of an eyewitness, the prophet tells us in verse 6 of that chapter, all we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way. And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. And in this text, we're going to read from verse 6. There are two very obvious units of thought. We have set before us, first of

6:10 all, what I'm calling the bad news of our desperate condition in sin. All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way. That's the bad news. And then it is followed secondly by the good news of God's gracious provision for sin. And the Lord has laid on him, the suffering servant, the iniquity of us all. And so in our time together tonight, I want you to consider with me from this text, allowing the mind of the Spirit of God to cut our path through the text, the bad news of our desperate condition in sin and the good news of God's gracious provision for sin. First of all, then, the bad news of our desperate condition

The Bad News: Our Desperate Condition in Sin

7:04 in sin. And I would be very surprised if there are not some who, even now, by just announcing that heading, find the hands of the soul reaching up for the curtain pull of the mind and of the spirit. And when you hear the words, desperate condition and sin, there's an instinctive reaction. We want to pull down the shade over the light of God's word that will show us to be what we really are as sinners. Jesus addressed this very tendency in John chapter three. This is the condemnation that light has come into the world and men love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil. Neither will they come to the light lest their deeds should be reproved. And I would be very surprised if there are not some boys, girls, young men, older men and women sitting here tonight who just hearing the words, bad news, desperate condition, sin. These are things I don't want to hear about. And we are

8:10 told in our day, if we're to reach modern men and women, we must not use such terminology. It bristles with negativism. And we have a generation that goes about with a bruised and tattered self image. And we must never, never offend them by using such words as bad news, desperate condition, sin. Well, there is one problem with that whole approach. It has absolutely no basis in the word of God, none whatsoever. And those who refuse to tell men truly what their true condition is under the guise of being their friends, they're their worst enemies. The prophet Jeremiah confronted this continually when he sought to lay before the citizens of Judah, the tragic state they were in as sinners. There were a hundred false prophets who came along and stroked them and said, all is

9:04 well. Saying, peace, peace, when there was no peace. Robert Murray McShane, the saintly Scottish preacher who died just before his 30th birthday, told his people, never forget that the man who loves you the most is the one who tells you the most truth about yourself. And I want to love you in Christ's name by telling you the truth that God gives us about each and every one of us. He sets before us first of all this bad news of our desperate condition in sin. And notice how he does it. First of all with a vivid picture of our desperate condition all we like sheep have gone astray. And then with a blunt assertion of our desperate condition we have turned every one of us to his own way.

Vivid Picture: All We Like Sheep Have Gone Astray

10:03 And so by the Spirit of God, the And so by the Spirit of God, the The Spirit of God, the the power of The prophet sets out the bad news in this vivid picture and in this blunt assertion. Let's spend a few minutes on each of those expressions of our desperate condition in sin. First of all, the vivid picture of our desperate condition. The prophet says, all we like sheep have gone astray.

10:29 And kids, this is the proper use of the word like. I'm carrying on a one-man campaign in our assembly to purge from the working vocabulary of all of our young people the excessive use of the word like. And whenever they use it, I put my hand on their shoulder and I say, well, what's the simile you're about to introduce? What is like something else?

10:51 Or about whom or about what are you expressing mild affection? I like it, I like him, I like them. And it's a standing joke. The pastor Martin in his old, he's got on a hobby horse and he's determined to stomp out this excessive nonsense use of the word like.

11:09 And then my secondary campaign, thank you, sir. I like it when people like my campaigns. It's the excessive use of the word awesome. Awesome about everything except the one being who is awesome.

11:24 Well, that's out of my system now. We come back to the text. All we like. And it's not physical.

11:32 It's similar for the prophet. He's not using like because he can't think of a more appropriate word. By the guidance of the Spirit, he is telling us all we like sheep have gone astray. Here the prophet incorporates into this language the imagery of the entire human race as one vast flock of sheep.

11:58 And in an agrarian society, they would have understood, immediately, the imagery. Back in chapter 40, he speaks of the Lord himself coming. And in his coming, fulfilling the role of a sensitive, loving, caring shepherd, showing particular sensitivity to the ewes that are carrying their little ones. And so when the prophet declared, all we like sheep have gone astray, they would have understood the imagery that the entire human race, including all those, those of God's privileged people within Israel, were like one vast flock of sheep who had gone astray.

12:41 Gone astray from their rightful shepherd. Gone astray from the path marked out by the shepherd. And it is right that this should have that broad application because the apostle Peter, in the first century, writing to people off in Asia Minor, with no relationship, whatever, to the nation of Israel, he wrote of them, quoting this very verse, for you were going astray like sheep. 1 Peter 2 and verse 25.

13:16 Well, what's bound up in that imagery? Well, think with me for a minute. If a whole flock of sheep goes astray, from what, from whom, does the flock go astray? In what sense are we then, like a vast flock of sheep, that has gone astray?

13:34 Well, the answer of Scripture is that we have strayed from God Himself as the object of our supreme desire and our supreme delight. We have gone astray from God Himself as the object of our supreme desire and our supreme delight. You know your Bible well enough to know that man alone was made as image of God. Let us make man in our image and after our likeness.

14:07 In the image of God created He Him. Male and female created He them. And in that distinct identity as image of God, there is included this uniqueness about us as human beings. We were made with a capacity to know the God who made us.

14:24 Not merely to reflect His glory and His power. The stars and the galaxies and the sun and the moon and the grass upon the hills. All of God's creation is smothered with His fingerprints. But it reflects God with no consciousness of what it is doing.

14:41 But we and we alone as image of God along with angels and seraphim and cherubim were made with a capacity to know God personally. To know Him as human beings know and recognize and exchange thought and affection one to another. We were made that in the knowledge, knowledge and communion with God we would fulfill the very purpose for which we were created. Man and man alone was made with this capacity.

Straying from God's Person and Law

15:13 Made so that loving God supremely and obeying God implicitly man would have his highest delight and God would receive His optimum glory from man the creature. But now the prophet says all we like sheep have God. We have gone astray. We have gone astray from God Himself as the object of our supreme desire and our supreme delight.

15:42 What is the first and great commandment? The Lord Jesus was asked that. Matthew 22 What is the first and great commandment? And what did the Lord say?

15:53 The first and great commandment is this Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart with all thy mind with all thy soul and with all thy strength. Now think with me. If that's the first and the greatest commandment what's the greatest sin you and I can commit? Is it not violation of the greatest commandment?

16:15 The greatest sin you and I commit is failure to love God supremely. To delight in God supremely. And the text tells us that all of us like a vast flock of sheep have gone astray. We have turned from God Himself as this object of our supreme desire and supreme delight.

16:40 One of the saddest verses in all of the Bible to me is found in Romans chapter 3 where the Apostle is summing up his indictment of the entire human race as sinful and in need of a righteousness that only God can provide. And he says as it is written there is none righteous no, not one. There is none that understands. Now think of this next phrase.

17:06 There is none that seeks after God. Do you feel the pathos of that? There is none that seeks after God. Man, the creature made with the capacity to know God to be wrapped up in His love and in His glory to live before His face with delight and joy.

17:30 There is none that seeks after God. That's the indictment. You and I like sheep have gone astray. We have left the living God as that object of supreme desire and supreme delight.

17:48 And furthermore we have strayed from the law of God as the governing rule of our lives. We've not only strayed from God's being and God's fellowship but we have strayed from God's law as the governing rule of our lives. A clear indication of this in Romans 8 in verse 7 the carnal mind is enmity against God for it is not subject to the law of God. Neither indeed can it be.

18:20 The carnal mind that is the disposition with which we are all born is not possessed of some enmity to God. The text says the carnal mind is enmity itself. The carnal mind the natural disposition of our hearts is a clenched fist against God himself. The carnal mind is enmity against God.

18:45 And how does it show its enmity? By standing out in the church parking lot and raising the fist to heaven and saying I do not believe there is a God. No. It shows its enmity to God by its insubordination to the law of God.

19:00 The carnal mind is enmity against God for it is not subject to the law of God. And all of God's thou shalts become the human hearts I will not. And all of God's thou shalt nots become our I will I shall. Whatever God says we show our disposition of alienation against Him by our refusal to be subject to His law.

19:32 In the summary of that law in the ten words etched by the finger of God upon stone God says we are to sanctify His person. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not attach your heart to anything else as an object of supreme delight and love and desire. God's person God's worship God's name God's day the sanctity of God's institutions of home and government the sanctity of life the sanctity of life of sex possessions truth the sanctity of the heart as we go down through all of those ten words of God given in that unique way and realize that they touch not just our outward deeds but the deepest springs of the heart so that unrighteous anger is murder and the decision to lust in the mind is adultery and the fixing of the heart upon objects as objects of inordinate love and that is what God has done for us in the first and the tenth commandments and each one of us has strayed from the law of God as the governing rule of our lives now that's not a pretty picture but when the prophet wrote all we like sheep have gone astray this is exactly what he is setting before us what the apostle

Blunt Assertion: Everyone to His Own Way

21:00 brings before us in more extensive than 18 through Romans 3 and verse 20 but now notice what the prophet does in setting out the bad news not only does he set before us this imagery this vivid picture of our desperate condition all we like sheep have gone astray now he gives us a blunt assertion of our desperate condition we have turned everyone to his own way you see what he does he moves from the group picture we are all like one vast flock of sheep and now he says we are going to turn in the zoom lens on every single individual among those who are like a vast flock of sheep and we have turned everyone into a group picture you are having an all church picnic or fellowship time and someone has a wide angle lens and is going to take a group picture of the entire church family the first time you see it where do you look

22:29 now be honest where do you look am I unusually perverse in that no we instinctively look for ourselves would God we did the same when we read our bibles and God is forcing us to look at ourselves it's not enough that we stand back and say yes I do acknowledge I'm part of the church and I have a desire and delight and has left the law of God as the governing rule of life there's the generic there's the sweeping picture but God says I want you to see yourself more distinctly and more particularly in the holy spirit and I want to do it and I want to do it how I want to do it for whatever reason I choose to do it you see have the prophet said we have turned every one of us

23:58 to and then named a specific sin idolatry unjustly I do not harbor a spirit of anger that is the essence of murder and we could wiggle out from the description but when the prophet says we have turned every one of us to his own way he would be saying each of us has his or her own spirit and we have to do it for what purpose I do it Paul gives us the New Testament commentary on this part of our text when he writes in 2 Corinthians 5 and verse 15 and that he Christ died for a person by nature living unto self now in some cases that means a person becomes openly profligate immoral blasphemous ugly in some cases it means people become very refined and cultured and educated

25:27 and impressive and very benevolent and they do lots of quote good deeds but the common mistake of all sinners is this living unto themselves living unto themselves that's why when Jesus gave the terms of discipleship what was the first step in attachment to Christ if any man wills to come after me let him deny what he denies his indifference to human government no he says let him deny himself that word denies exactly the same word used when Peter dissociated himself from Jesus and they said you're one of them and he said I am not they said yes you are and he brings upon himself a self centered self because it's the common denominator of all of us it's the prophet's blunt assertion of our desperate condition we have gone astray like sheep

26:56 we have turned each one of us to his own way and that's bad news you want to know how God feels about people leaving him as the supreme object of desire and delight turning to their own way as the rule of life indifferent to the rule of God and his law then go back to the early chapters of Genesis and picture Adam and Eve with heads hung in shame like when the whole earth was inundated with a flood and bloated dead corpses by the tens and hundreds of thousands stand back and think of what it was like when God rained fire and brimstone upon the cities of the plains and utterly consumed them go through your Bible and you will see that God does not want to forbid any revelation from the law of God we have no other choice but to believe

Personal Confrontation with the Bad News

28:25 it. We will in the infamy of the law of God that this Analogous speech of men can not be heard condition. Bishop Ryle, the old Bishop of Liverpool, said, the first step on the road to heaven is to know that we are by nature on the way to hell. Have you made the first step to heaven?

28:58 In other words, have you personally come to grips with God's description of your desperate condition in sin? Has this matter of who and what you are as a creature made in the image of God, but who has rebelled and been alienated from God, has the reality of what you are as a straying sheep and a self-centered, self-willed rebel against God, has that become the most burning, pressing issue with which you've ever occupied your mind and your heart? Am I speaking to young people that, who are my friends? And where will my next zit show up on my face? And what will my grades be? Is that the stuff that really grips you and possesses you at the level of your concern? Have you ever spent a restless hour thinking about what you are in your desperate condition as a sinner? If not,

30:02 don't pat yourself on the back. God has mercifully given you life and breath and brought you to this hour when you're very desperate. Very indifference to what you are before Him is added reason for God to cut you off in your sin. But He's mercifully spared you and brought you into this place, and He's confronting you not with some preacher's notions about reality, but God's infallible declaration of your reality.

The Good News: God's Gracious Provision for Sin - Its Author

30:31 All we, including you, like sheep have gone astray. We have turned, every one of us, including you, we have turned to His own. And in that condition, we are liable and exposed and justly placed under the righteous frown of a holy and an almighty God. And the Scripture says it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. And if that's all I had to preach, I think I'd fold my Bible and say, oh God, don't ever ask me to preach again. But I bless God that here in this very passage, the bad news of our desperate condition in sin is followed by the good news of God's gracious provision for sin. And it comes to us in these words, and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. Now, I want you to note with me several things about this wonderful statement, this good news of God's gracious provision for sin, and note with me, first of all, its author. The first part of the verse, when it's talking about us,

31:51 it's bad news. All we have gone astray. We have turned, each one to his own way. And then there's this marvelous transition. And the Lord, in other words, the living God, has intruded in grace and in mercy. And if you want an acid test of any professed way of salvation, ask yourself this question. Does it force me to think in terms of an arrow coming down out of heaven, touching man in his sin and helplessness and hell-deservingness? Or does it set out a framework in which an arrow rises from earth to heaven in which man makes his own way in some way or other into the favor of Almighty God? The whole emphasis of the Bible from

32:46 Genesis to Revelation is that in this matter of dealing with man's sin, Almighty God takes the initiative. And the Lord, the Lord, the sovereign Lord of heaven and earth, He has chosen to do something to rectify our desperate condition. And isn't that the emphasis throughout Scripture? You go back to Genesis. Adam and Eve have sinned. They have an aversion to God. They try to hide among the trees of the garden. God takes the initiative. And God comes to them. God says, Adam, where are you? God knew where He was. But He's coming in grace as well as in judgment. He takes the initiative. And remember what He said? When speaking to the devil, He gives this word of gospel promise. He says to the

33:34 serpent, I will put enmity. I am going to establish warfare between you, the serpent, and the woman, between your seed and her seed. He's going to come to you. He's going to crush your head, but you're going to bruise His heel. You see what God was saying?

33:51 Adam and Eve, Satan, have aligned themselves with you. They've gone over to your side. They accepted your interpretation of reality. They embraced your lying notions given to them that there was some fulfillment to be had in the way of disobedience to me that they could not know in covenant fidelity and obedience to me. They've aligned themselves with you, but I'm going to break up the alignment. I'm going to put enmity between you and the woman. That's sovereign grace. God's breaking up the alignment. We aligned ourselves with the devil in our first father. And God says, I'll bust up that alignment. I'll put enmity. And as we read through the scriptures, we find that emphasis culminating in what is perhaps the most familiar verse in all of the Bible.

34:47 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. Or in Ephesians chapter 2, after Paul paints that horrific picture of what we are as walking dead men, dead in trespasses and sins, walking about in lust, having our whole lives directed by the powers of darkness. And we are by nature children of wrath. And then verse 4, he says, but God, that's what we are to that condition. What's our hope? But God, who is rich in mercy.

35:27 Paul does the same thing in Titus 3. We ourselves who are one times foolish, disobedient, hateful, serving diverse lusts and pleasures. But he says, but God, who is rich in mercy, for His great mercy has, in Jesus Christ, brought cleansing and pardon. of God's gracious provision, we're directed first of all to the author of that provision.

The Good News: God's Gracious Provision for Sin - Its Method

35:55 It is the living God, Jehovah Himself. But now note with me secondly the method of His provision. And the Lord hath closed His eyes to our going astray and turning to our own way. No, the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all, the good news of God's gracious provision not only points us to the fact that God is the author, but that the method of that provision is bound up in what Jehovah God does with someone called here Him.

36:35 Who is the Him? We go back to look for the antecedent in terms of the proper noun, and we don't find it in verse 5. He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised.

36:48 Who is the He? Who is the Him? We go back to verse 3, verse 2, verse 1. We still are not given the clue, but when we go back to verse 13 of chapter 52, behold, consider, look at, stand back, and consider My servant.

37:08 My servant who shall deal wisely. It is the servant of Jehovah with whom Jehovah deals. He deals in this matter of making provision for our sin. It is none other than our Lord Jesus Christ.

37:26 For you remember in Acts chapter 8 when Philip is told to go out into a desert place and he joins himself to a chariot. And he comes upon an Ethiopian eunuch who is reading from the scroll of Isaiah. And Philip says, what are you reading about? And he says, this is what I'm reading.

37:46 And then he says, He says, is the prophet speaking of himself or another? And the text tells us, Luke tells us, that from that portion of Scripture, Philip preached unto him Jesus. Jesus is the servant of Jehovah. And God's provision for sin has in some way or other to do with what Jehovah does in reference to the servant of Jehovah.

38:13 It is what Jehovah does in relationship to his obedient servant. And what he does is wrapped up in these words. Jehovah, the Lord, has laid on him, made to strike upon him, the suffering servant, the iniquity of us all, stated in the simplest way. God's method of provision for sin is the substitutionary curse bearing of his obedience.

38:44 It is in Jehovah making to light or strike upon his suffering, obedient servant, the penalty due to our sin, that God has made a way for righteous pardon and for just forgiveness. And I want us to sit and meditate in our mind's eye for a few moments upon the significance of those words. And the Lord has laid. Upon him, the iniquity of us all.

39:17 What is he telling us? Well, with this whole chapter as the backdrop to what I'm about to say, he's telling us that God's method is substitutionary curse bearing. In other words, if we are truly to understand the sufferings of the servant of the Lord, we must get beyond thinking of that suffering in terms of its horizontal realities and dimensions. It was very real suffering.

39:44 When they apprehended him in the garden and bound him like a common criminal and dragged him off to the high priest's house and began to mock him, began to bring false accusations. And then he's taken to Pilate and up to Herod and back to Pilate, during which hours he is spat upon, he is jeered, he is buffeted with fists and with rods, a crown of thorns is placed upon his head, he is dressed in purple, he is given mock worship. He is taunted, blindfolded. Tell us who struck you.

40:19 Prove to us you are God's final prophet. Then staggering beneath the load of the cross placed upon him, so that they wondered whether he would make it to the place of execution, they conscript another to carry his cross to Golgotha. And then he's impaled. And you know the story.

40:39 He is hung up between earth and heaven. Further jeering. Further mocking. Further deceiving.

40:44 Despising. Even two people executed to the left and the right. The scripture says, cast the same in his teeth. He was brutalized.

40:54 It was cruel, sadistic brutality. But my friend, you haven't begun to understand the significance of the cross, if that's all you see.

The Vertical Dimension of Christ's Suffering

41:05 It is not in what men were doing to Jesus that contains God's method of provision for our sin. It's what God the Father, was doing with God the Son. And the Lord has laid on him. Verse 10.

41:25 It pleased the Lord to bruise him. But you say, wait a minute. I thought it was the soldiers who buffeted him. I thought it was the chief priest and the other religious leaders in the rank and file that they stirred up to mock him and falsely accuse him.

41:41 But the prophet says it pleased the Lord to bruise him. He has put him to grief. And until we see the true reality of what Jesus did in the vertical dimensions, it's what God the Father is doing with God the Son. As Hugh Martin in his marvelous book, The Shadow of Calvary, points out, God so ordered the events of Jesus' execution that everything that was transpiring in the human theater was to mirror what was transpiring in the human theater.

42:18 in the human theater. In the invisible, heavenly theater of spiritual reality. From the time that Jesus gives himself up in Gethsemane until hanging upon the cross, he yields his spirit into the hands of his Father. Jesus is seen in one light only.

42:40 That of a guilty, condemned felon. Had you been a visitor to Jerusalem on that weekend, and you witnessed the arrest in the garden, the arraignment before the high priest, and then the Sanhedrin, and over to Pilate, and up to Herod, and back to Pilate, and out along the Via Dolorosa until he's hung upon the cross, and he dies, you'd say that man is one sure-noth guilty, death-deserving criminal. That's the only appearance that our Lord had in the human theater. And Hugh Martin, rightly points out that God so ordered events that that might set before us the greater and the spiritual reality that there was an appearance before the court of heaven with God robed in his robe of righteous judge. And when Jesus, who in the eternal spirit offers himself up to God, appears before the tribunal of the living, holy God of whom we sang, and tonight, and he is charged with the iniquity, the hell-deservingness of our sins, he appears in court, and the plea is made. What do you plead? And he says, Father, I plead guilty as charged.

44:06 My son, you're charged with all of the sins of a vast multitude whom no man can number out of every kindred, tribe, and tongue and nation. My son, do you willingly, do you from the heart embrace the indictment, Holy Father, guilty as charged? And the Father says, I must unleash the sentence. The wages of sin is death.

44:36 The essence of death is separation. And in the way that our minds can never fathom, and I don't believe we'll fathom in all eternity, the Son of God bears, in Himself, the unleashed fury of the wrath of God for every single sin that you and I committed because we were straying sheep, because we had turned each one of us to His own way. And God takes the just penalty for our sins, and He charges His Son as guilty with them, and He vents His pure and holy and righteous fury until the Son, who was, as we read tonight, as a lamb before her shearers was dumbed. It was the pressure of the forsakenness by God that at last He could bear no more. And three hours of silence, three hours of darkness like the darkness in Egypt before God delivered His people. No soldiers are taunting.

45:44 No chief priests are mocking. There is silence. Compare the Gospel records in those three hours. Total, total silence.

45:54 And out of the dark silence comes a cry, My God, my God, why didst Thou forsake me? And the Bible records no answer, but the Bible gives us leave to know what the answer is. My Son, I've forsaken You because I've laid on You their iniquity. And when, in a way that we shall again never fathom, the Father makes known to the Son, that all the demands of His righteous law have been met.

46:32 The Son cries out. He doesn't whimper and expire. It says He cries out with one more loud cry, Tetelestai! It is finished!

46:42 What's finished? Not I am finished! It is finished! All that I must do to carry the sins of my people into the land of forgetfulness.

46:52 And then He says, having had a felt sense of the restored favor of His God, not my God into Your hands, but my Father into Your hands, I commit my spirit. The work is done. I have borne the iniquity of straying sheep. I have gone into the bowels of hell and felt the fury of Your wrath, my Holy Father.

47:21 And it is finished. That's what the Bible means when it says in Galatians 3.13, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law. How?

47:31 Becoming a curse for us. Everything it would mean for you and for me to go down into an eternity of being the focused objects of the wrath of God. Whatever the curse meant for us, that's what it meant for Him. Or in the language of 2 Corinthians 5.21, He who knew no sin was made sin for us. Without in any way being defiled in His Spirit, He comes in the closest proximity to our sin that He can in our room instead bear that sin on our behalf. The psalmist speaking prophetically says, All Thy waves and Thy billows have gone over me. You remember when Jesus said, I have a baptism to be baptized with?

48:24 That was His baptism. Being overwhelmed and submerged in the wrath of His Holy Father. This is God's provision for straying sheep, for self-centered, willful sinners. God makes the provision.

The Certainty of Justification and God's Invitation

48:43 God makes it in the substitutionary curse bearing of His own Son. And over the years as I've sought to find hymns that capture the heart of the biblical message, none captures it better than the hymn that I want to quote in your hearing now. I wish it were in our Trinity Hymnal. You'll notice the progression in the first stanza.

49:06 Christ is likened to one who bears a burden. In the second stanza, He drinks a cup. In the third stanza, He feels the rod of God. In the fourth stanza, an unleashed tempest.

49:19 In the fifth stanza, a sword. And then in the final stanza, a marvelous expression of faith in Christ, God's provision for sinners. O Christ, what burdens bowed Thy head. Our load was laid on Thee.

49:38 Thou stoodest in the sinner's stead. Didst bear all ill for me. A victim led, Thy blood was shed. Now there's no load for me.

49:50 Death and the curse were in our cup. O Christ, was full for Thee. But Thou hast drained the last dark drop. Tis empty now for me.

50:01 That bitter cup, love drank it up. Now blessings draft for me. Jehovah lifted up His rod. O Christ, it fell on Thee.

50:13 Thou wast sore stricken of Thy God. There's not one stroke for me. Thy tears, Thy blood beneath it flowed. Thy bruising healeth me.

50:27 The tempest's awesome voice was heard. O Christ, it broke on Thee. Thy open bosom was my ward. It braved the storm for me.

50:37 Thy form was scarred. Thy visage marred. Now cloudless peace for me. Jehovah bade His sword awake.

50:47 O Christ, it woke against Thee. Thy blood the flaming blade must slake. Thy heart its sheath must be. All for my sake.

50:58 My peace to make. Now sleeps that sword for me. For me, Lord Jesus, Thou hast died. And I have died in Thee.

51:08 Thou art risen. My bands are all untied. And now Thou livest in me. When purified, made white, and tried.

51:16 Thy glory then for me. My friends, our salvation is wrapped up in some oblique, secondary way with something or other that Jesus did on our behalf. No. Jesus died the just for the unjust.

51:37 Our iniquities were laid upon Him. And charged with them, He suffered the full weight of the justice of Almighty God unleashed in the court of heaven upon His dear Son. That's the good news of God's gracious provision for sin. And if you sit there and say, but Pastor Martin, how do we know that in His few hours of agony upon the cross there is such a full satisfaction to the justice of God that I can say with Paul there is therefore now in the present hour no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. I want to be able to say, for me, as to any penal affliction from God for my sin, the judgment day has come and gone. There is now in the present no condemnation. How can I be absolutely certain?

52:36 I know Jesus cried, it is finished, but then He died. Ah, yes, my friend, but three days later He rose from the dead. And I love to think of Joseph's empty tomb as God's megaphone saying to the world, it is finished! It is finished!

52:53 I have raised my Son from the dead. Romans 4.25, delivered up for our offenses, raised on account of our justification. You have diah with the accusative, you Greek students.

53:08 Raised on account of our justification. In the court of heaven all of the demands of justice are satisfied in the suffering of the servant of the Lord. But then you ask, and rightly so, how can I make all of that mine? Well, God here through the prophet tells us.

53:31 We just turn over to the 55th chapter. Based upon the suffering servant's work, chapter 54 tells us of the great expansion of the kingdom of God. God's grace extending to the Gentiles. And then in chapter 5, it is as though someone says, but oh God, how can I make all of this mine?

53:56 That I can know my sins are pardoned. That I will stand in the last day acquitted and welcomed into the presence of my God. Though I acknowledge that I have been a straying sheep and a self-willed rebel. Here in chapter 55, God takes upon Himself the role of a street hawker.

54:18 A vendor of goods who goes through the village and through the streets, offering his wares. And I never think of this passage, but what I think of a summer that I spent in Augusta, Georgia. And what they call the white trash section. It was poor, poverty of the worst kind.

54:35 And as I was there ministering in this little mission hall through the summer, several mornings a week, I can still see her in my mind's aisle. A lanky black woman would go through the streets, up and down the streets with a long stride with her basket of okra, saying okra, here get your okra. Fresh okra. Fresh okra.

54:53 She was hawking her wares. God says, ho, everyone that thirsts, come to the waters. And someone says, but I've got no money. He says, that's fine.

55:04 He that has no money, come, buy and eat. The only price is that you come. It's all paid for. Ho, everyone that thirsts, come to the waters.

55:14 He who has no money, come buy and eat. Come buy wine and milk without money and without price. And then God reasons with people. He says, you've got some money in your pocket.

55:23 But you're spending it on stuff that is not really bread. It can never satisfy. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Hearken diligently unto Me.

55:35 Eat that which is good and let your soul delight itself in fatness. Incline your ear. Come to Me here and your soul shall live. And I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David.

55:47 Behold, I've given him for a witness to the peoples, a leader and a commander. The servant is now exalted. He is given the place of authority and power. And on the basis of his accomplished work for sinners, God invites sinners to come to this gospel feast of free pardon of all of our sins, peace with God, the gift of the Spirit, all that God pledges to give in covenant grace to those who will embrace His Son.

The Call to Repentance and Return

56:18 And then he goes on to give further direction, saying now if you're serious about this, verse 6, seek the Lord while He may be found. Call upon Him while He's near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts. Now look, and let him return unto the Lord, for He will have mercy upon him and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.

56:40 As we close, park with me on those words, verse 6 and 7. Seek the Lord while He may be found. Call upon Him while He's near. It is your responsibility to seek this God who has made such a marvelous provision, a provision suited to the need of the vilest of sinners, a provision that is perfect in all of its parts.

57:04 Seek this God while He may be found. Call upon Him while He's near. Well, in what posture, in what disposition should I seek Him and call upon Him? In the way of repentance, let the wicked forsake, what are the next two words?

57:18 His way. We have turned, everyone, unto His own way. God says, get out of the God business. You weren't made to be in the God business.

57:29 You're My creature, made to find your delight in doing My will. Get out of the God business. Forsake your way. If any man would come after Me, let him what?

57:39 Deny himself. It's one and the same gospel, dear folks. It's not a gospel in the old and a gospel in the new. A gospel that before the death of Christ demanded repentance, but now you just need to tap your head, tip your hat to Jesus and go tripping in the Kingdom.

57:54 No! God says in every epoch of redemptive grace, let the wicked forsake his way. Get out of the God business. And the unrighteous man, his thoughts be prepared to have God renovate you from the inside out.

58:08 For as a man thinks in his heart, so is he. Repentance that doesn't touch the deepest springs of the heart is no true repentance. And let him return unto the Lord. All we like sheep have gone astray.

58:23 We've gone astray from the God who made us for Himself, to delight in Himself, to find our highest joy in Him. He says return to this God, that He will be to you all that God desires to be, to every penitent believing soul. Let him return unto the Lord and return in this confidence. He will have mercy upon him, mercy based upon the work of the suffering servant.

58:48 And he will abundantly, abundantly pardon. You say that doesn't make sense. You mean in simply turning from the very thing that would take me to hell, and coming to God in faith and laying hold of this promise of mercy and forgiveness, this sounds too good to be true. God says I know that, so that's what I'm going to tell you.

59:06 My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are my ways your ways. Don't expect you can fathom God's mercy. It's unfathomable. The infinite God stoops to the role of a streaker.

Returning to the Shepherd and Overseer of Your Souls

59:20 And he says come. He says come. And if you truly come, you will not simply come to rest solely on the saving work of the servant of Jehovah, but you will come so that 1 Peter 2.25 will be true of you.

59:38 Turn here please, if you will, for our last text this evening. 1 Peter 2, verse 25. For you were going astray like sheep. As far as we know, Peter had never visited what is now the land of Turkey, Asia Minor, suffering saints to whom he writes, but he knows that part of Adam's race, this was true of all of them by nature, you were going astray like sheep.

60:07 But now they've been converted. And how does he describe them? But are now returned not unto the saving work of the shepherd and overseer, but you are now returned unto the shepherd and the overseer of your souls. He said you were astray sheep, but now you have a personal Savior and a personal shepherd and a personal bishop.

60:34 The Jesus who died, and Peter has spoken of Him repeatedly in this epistle and will again in chapter 3. Christ suffered for sins once, righteous for unrighteous, that He might bring us to God. Peter says all who are truly part of that community of true saints, they were as sheep going astray, but they have now been returned unto a person. Not just to, quote, faith in the finished work of Christ.

61:07 I cringe when I hear preachers say, admit you're a sinner. Believe Christ died for sinners. Trust in the finished work of Christ and you'll be saved. No, no.

61:18 It is Christ Himself who is the object of saving faith. The Christ who finished the work. The Christ who lives. The Christ who is Lord.

61:27 The Christ who is Master. Peter says that's how these people were converted. They were changed from straying sheep to sheep that are comfortable under the government and the rule and the saving mercy of the great shepherd. And that's the only two kinds of people here tonight.

61:47 As surely as they're just men and women. He's and she's. Boys, girls. There are straying sheep and there are returned sheep.

62:03 It's only two kinds. Now I want to ask you, which are you? Can it be said of you that you have now returned to the shepherd and the overseer of your soul? That the Spirit of God has shown you not only the way of God to pardon sinners through the work of Christ, but shown you the loveliness of Christ, that you counted your joy to be His willing bondslayer, to be His obedient sheep.

62:32 For He says, My sheep hear My voice, present tense, and I know them and they are following Me, present tense, and I give to them eternal life and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of My hand. He says, My sheep are held. But what's the mark of His sheep? They have the open ear and the obedient foot.

62:51 They hear My voice. They follow. Why? They've been returned unto the shepherd and the overseer of their souls.

62:59 May God grant that if you are still a strange sheep, you return to the shepherd and to the bishop, the one who alone can confer upon you grace and mercy and pity and pardon and all that you need that you might stand in the last day acquitted in Christ and forever be with Him. The bad news of our desperate condition, the good news of God's gracious provision, God grant that for those of us who can say, by the grace of God, I'm one of those sheep now nestled under the side and protection of the shepherd. Dear people, this is your tenth anniversary. Under God's blessing, what has built this church? It's not the pious mush of feel-goody religion. It's been faithfulness, faithfulness to the message of the Bible that tells us what we really are as sinners and has unashamedly proclaimed how it is that sinners can be right with God.

64:11 And if the Lord tarries and spares some of you young people, upon your shoulders will rest the responsibility that that message that is distilled in this text of the bad news of our desperate condition and the good news of God's gracious provision will be preached in this place or in a larger place if that's in the will of God until the Lord Jesus returns. You have an awesome responsibility. Some of you have heard more truth before you reach your fifteenth birthday than some of us knew when we were thirty. And to whom much is given, of him shall much be required.

64:55 Let's pray. Our Father, what thanks can we raise in surrender to You that there would be such a Gospel, one that proclaims what You have taken the initiative to do in free, sovereign love and mercy. We think of those angels that rebelled and for whom no redemptive grace was provided, towards whom nothing but judgment has been and will yet be shown. And yet, O Lord, many were part of that race that fell in Adam, and yet You have shown mercy.

65:39 And we thank You for that mercy. And we pray that this night there would be some who, having discovered for the first time their true state in condemnation and death and rebellion, O Lord, would You not draw them unto Yourself that they may pillow their heads this night as those who have returned to the Shepherd and the overseer of their souls. Thank You for Your people here who love this message, who seek by every legitimate means to proclaim it to others. And we pray that from this pulpit and from this assembly of Your people there will continue to go forth in the days and months and years to come should You delay the coming of Your Son. O Lord, may the trumpet of Gospel truth sound a certain and clear note that all in this part of the world that You have made would know that there is an everlasting Gospel, that there is in the Scriptures an abiding and a changeless message of condemnation and of hope. May Your blessing rest upon Your people in this place. Hear our prayers and continue with us, we plead in Jesus' name.

66:59 Amen.