What is The Bible all About?

Introduction: The Bible's Core Questions

0:04 Imagine with me that in preparation for our gathering for this worship service this morning, I had spoken to the chairman of our deacons and asked him if he would do me a favor. And that favor was to make sure that one of the deacons would secure a number of little notepads and an equal number of ballpoint pens, and that he would instruct the ushers that at this point in the service, they were to come down the aisles and distribute one of those notepads and one of those pens to everyone gathered here who's able to write. Not give it out to the little kids as a scribble pad, but as something that would be useful for the ministry. And sure enough, with their thanksgiving, and thankfully, predictable efficiency, Mr. Davies has secured the notepads and the pencils, and duly instructed the ushers. And right now, they've come down the aisle, passed them out, and each one of you now has in his lap a lovely little notepad and your own ballpoint pen.

1:25 And then I were to say to you that I'm going to ask you two questions, and I'm going to give you three minutes to answer each one of those questions, and I'm going to give you three minutes to answer each one of those questions, in your own way, and write it down on your notepad. And my two questions were these. Question number one. What is the Bible?

1:45 Simple question. What is this big, usually black, sometimes red, blue-covered book that you carry and bring to church called the Bible? What is the Bible? And he gives you three minutes to think and write.

2:04 And so you start thinking. What is the Bible? One minute's gone already. Coming up on two minutes.

2:13 I'd better write my answer. What would you write on your notepad? Then I said, time's up. Question number two.

2:23 Question number two is this. Why was the Bible given to us? What is the purpose of the Bible? You got the question?

2:37 Now think. Now write. You start thinking. And lo and behold, a minute passes.

2:43 Two minute passes. Uh-oh. Three minutes coming up. Got to write.

2:47 Why was it given to us? Now, I said, every one of you take your own pad. Nobody looking over anyone else's shoulder. I want you to grade your answer yourself.

3:00 And so we take up question number one. What is the Bible? And if you look down at your notepad and you found something like this, the Bible is God's Word. Or the Bible is God's Word written.

3:15 Or the Bible is the written revelation of the mind and will of God. Or the Bible is God's Word in the words of men. Anything like that, I'd say give yourself an A. For that is what the Bible is.

3:31 For the Bible says of itself, all Scripture, that is all that is Bible, is given by inspiration. Literally, by the out-breathing of God. Or in the language of Peter, holy men spoke and by inference wrote as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. So the Bible is the Word of God written.

3:58 Written through men. The Word of God in the language of men. But it is the Word of God carrying all the authority of God Himself. So that what Scripture says, God says.

4:14 And you give yourself an A if you are anywhere in that ballpark. But now the second question. Why was the Bible given to us? You might have a little more trouble with that.

4:27 But if you had anything close to this answer, you'd get an A as well. That the Bible is God's revelation concerning the things we need to know and believe about Himself and ourselves and His salvation in order to be ready to live, prepared to die, and fit to go to judgment. That's why the Bible was given. And again, the Bible tells us that.

5:03 In 2 Timothy chapter 3, Paul says to Timothy, From a babe, from a nursing child, you've known the sacred writings, the Bible, which are able to make you wise unto salvation through faith that is in Christ Jesus. The Bible, which is God's holy Word, is given to teach us what we need to know about Himself, ourself, and His salvation to be fit to live, ready to die, and prepared to go to judgment. But the Bible's a big book. And it's a complex book.

The Bible's Complexity and Central Verse

5:43 In many places. It is a book that contains some very strange means of communicating the mind and will of God. If you were to first encounter the Bible and open up to Ezekiel 1 and the early chapters of Ezekiel, and you saw wheels within wheels and fiery this and all the rest, you'd say, I can't make sense out of this book. Or if you were to open to the book of the Revelation and you were to read about dragons and beasts coming up out of the sea with ten horns, you'd say, What in the world is this all about?

6:16 But you see, if we read it carefully from beginning to end, we will come to the conviction that it is indeed God's revelation, God's Word, in order to teach us all we need to know about Himself, about ourselves, and about His salvation to be ready to live, to die, and prepared for judgment. But here's one of the wonderful things. Along the way, along the way, in the midst of Ezekiel's wheels and burning fire and John's beast coming up out of the sea with tails and all the rest, God has given us some lovely little statements that are like rare perfume. They give us the distilled essence of the whole message of the Bible. And God has kindly and lovingly put into some simple statements, along the way, the distilled essence of the whole message of the Bible. And it's one of those passages that we're going to study together this morning. If you want to know what the Bible's all about, master this one verse, and you have got a handle on what the Bible's all about.

7:34 And you say, Oh, Pastor, come off it. Yeah, I'm not kidding you. It's the truth. I wouldn't lie to you.

7:41 If ever I'm going to lie, I certainly wouldn't lie from a pulpit. One verse, which if you get hold of its teaching, you have a hold on the heart of the whole message of the Bible. And you know where that verse is found? In the chapter I read in your hearing.

8:00 Isaiah chapter 53 and verse 6. Isaiah chapter 53 and verse 6. And we're going to park and sit down with this verse as our companion that we might grasp, some of you, for the first time, what is the Bible all about. And for many of you, I hope it'll be a wonderful refresher course and be a little example of how you can use this verse as you seek to acquaint others with what the Bible is all about.

8:35 Isaiah 53 and verse 6. All we, like sheep, have gone astray. We have turned every one to his own way. And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

Isaiah 53:6: Two Major Divisions

8:56 Here in this verse are two basic major divisions of thought. They lie right on the surface. You don't need to know one letter of the Hebrew alphabet. You don't need to know much about grammar.

9:12 It's right there for us to clean it. Look at it. First of all, we have the bad news of our desperate condition in sin. We have the bad news of our desperate condition in sin.

9:30 Look at it. 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.

9:45 And then we have secondly the good news of a gracious provision for sin. And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. So those are the two obvious divisions of thought. Man in the misery and danger of his sin.

10:06 God in the marvelous manifestation of His grace and of His mercy. So let's unpack that. We want to get a hold on the whole message of the Bible as it's squeezed into this text of Scripture. First of all then, the bad news of our desperate condition in sin.

The Bad News: Our Desperate Condition in Sin

10:29 And you know what happens the minute I say that? There's a temptation to do things two things that are naughty. You better not do them. There's a temptation to do two things.

10:44 To pull a shade and to make arrows. You say the poor old man's...

10:53 No. There's a temptation the minute you hear the word sin and you hear the word our sin there's a temptation to pull a shade and to make arrows. You know what I mean by that? Just this.

11:10 Jesus said 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 when you hear that this verse is going to talk about your condition in sin you have a temptation with the fingers of your soul to reach out to a triple laminated room darkening shade and pull it down and say no way is anybody going to get inside of me and show me my sin. And I plead with you resist the temptation to go shade pulling. To go shade pulling. Or you may have the temptation to go arrow making. And what do I mean by that?

12:06 Well in John chapter 7 Jesus speaking to his own half brothers said these very insightful words and they are repeated again and again in the experience of the servants of Christ. Jesus said in John chapter 7 verse 7 the world cannot hate you but me it hates because I testify of it that its works are evil. Jesus said you know why people hate me is because I pull the shade up. And you're going to be tempted to make arrows and aim them at this man because he's going to be God's instrument to help you see your sin.

12:47 And our natural right reaction to anyone that shows us our sin is to shoot arrows and to hate them. But my dear friend I plead with you this morning resist the shade pulling arrow making tendency of your heart. A servant of God of another generation said the man that loves you most is the man that tells you the most truth about yourself. Think of that for a minute.

13:20 Suppose you hadn't had a general physical check up for a long time. And I mean you feel so healthy. You make everyone else sick. You go last time you had your cholesterol checked 120 and you eat ice cream every night and eggs every morning and all.

13:36 You know what you feel healthy as a horse. But you haven't had a general check up for a long time. You say hey I ought to go and get examined from stem to stern. My company is providing one of these wellness centers where you can go and get CAT scan and MRIs and every kind of blood test and every kind of scan imaginable.

13:54 And you say well the company is going to pay for it. Haven't had a general check up for a while. I feel healthy as a horse but I'll go anyway. So you go and you get scanned head to toe from toe back to head inside, outside.

14:08 They did everything but open you up and pull your liver out and put it on the table in front of you. However, however though you feel as healthy as a horse the scans reveal that you have a major mess in one of your critical internal organs. You don't feel a thing. But you've got a major mess.

14:33 And the blood test and the scans and all the diagnostic tests indicate this is an aggressive mass but it's the kind if it is dealt with with radical surgery there's a 95% survival rate. Now let me ask you something. You don't feel anything's wrong with you. You feel healthy as a horse.

14:58 If that doctor really loves you what's he going to do? Is he going to say oh well I hate to confront him with the nasty C word. I mean this guy came bopping in the office. I mean he just I mean he's going to get a big long face.

15:14 He's going to get the sweats. He's going to get all upset. He's going to I'll just tell him he is exactly what he feels like. Healthy as a horse.

15:22 I ask you does that doctor have an ounce of real love for that patient? Does that doctor have an ounce of real love for that patient? Does that doctor have an ounce of real love for that patient? No.

15:36 He loves himself. And my friend I want to be a faithful doctor this morning because whether you feel it or not you have a malignant mass that will drag you to hell unless it is excised by the power of the gospel. And I want to begin by helping you to face God's diagnosis of you. And that's why we're going to start with the bad news of our desperate condition in sin.

16:12 Now, how does God set it before us? Well, look at your Bible and you'll see that He does so in two ways. He does so first of all by a vivid picture of our desperate condition. All we like sheep have gone astray and then by a blunt assertion of our desperate condition we have turned every one of us to His own way.

The Vivid Picture: Straying Like Sheep

16:39 So, we have a vivid picture and a blunt assertion. A vivid picture of our corporate condition all we like sheep have gone astray and then a blunt assertion of our individual condition we have turned each one of us astray in the Bible. Let's unpack them for a few moments. First of all, the bad news of our desperate condition in sin is to be seen in terms of this vivid picture of our desperate condition.

17:21 The prophet compares our condition in sin to something that would have been very familiar to his readers and his hearers. They were an agrarian society. The only time you saw a sheep was at Turtleback Zoo, let alone see a flock of sheep. You never saw a flock of sheep.

17:48 You've had no opportunity to observe the interaction between shepherd and sheep and sheep and shepherd and all of those things. So if you're going to understand those biblical prophecies, then you have to understand that all of us like one vast flock of sheep have gone astray. And when he used that vivid imagery, that vivid picture, what was he understoring? He was understoring the fact that all of humanity without exception are part of one flock of sheep. And so he says that all of us like one vast flock of sheep have gone astray. And what reality do we have in this world of animals and animals and animals and animals and animals and what realities does that vivid picture underscore and identify? Well, let me just speak of two of them.

19:15 First, we have strayed from God Himself as the object of our supreme desire and our supreme delight. We have strayed from God Himself when a flock of sheep goes astray. It leaves its rightful shepherd and the intimate relationship between the sheep and the shepherd. And likewise, when the prophet says all we like sheep have gone astray, he's underscoring the Biblical truth that each and every one of Adam's sons and daughters have been born into the image of God. You and I as creatures made in the image of God, we were made that we might find our greatest delight and our true identity in intimate, unbroken, face-to-face communion with God. When we were born into the image of God and the image of God we were made to

20:44 be one with God. When we were born into the image of God we were made to Of all of the trees you may freely eat, but of that one tree in the midst of the garden you shall not eat of it. In the day you eat, you will die. And the picture there in Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 is that of exquisite mutual delight, perfect compatibility between God and the creature made in His image, blissful mutual contentment one with another.

21:27 And that was the crowning glory of man, Adam and Eve, unlike the beast whose constitution and functions reflect the wisdom and the power and the love and the tender care of God for His creation and His creatures and for man. And man was made with a capacity that no cow even in Eden ever had. Adam could see a sunset and with breathless wonder, throw up his hands and say, Oh God, what a majestic God You are! And something of Your majesty and beauty is mirrored in the sunset.

22:11 The cow looks up at the same sunset and goes, No capacity, no capacity to see and perceive the handiwork of God, to be thrilled with God, to be ecstatic with the wonder of being a creature who can know God, and commune with God, and talk to God, and who can hear God talk to Him. That's the horror of sin, that when the prophet says, Oh, we like sheep have gone astray, we've gone astray from God Himself as this object of our supreme desire and delight. What is the first commandment? Jesus answered that question. They were trying Him to try to get Him involved in, in rabbinical discussions and debates, and they said, Master, what's the great commandment?

23:09 He said, The first and great commandment is this, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your soul, and with all your strength. And you see that commandment for Adam in Eden was not a burden. That was the open door to His delight and the exquisite joy of being God's creature made in God's image. The greatest criminal act of the human race was to turn from God as the object of that passionate supreme love with heart, mind, soul, and strength.

23:51 There are many sad verses in the Bible, many, many sad. Many happy-making verses, but many sad. You know what, in my judgment, is one of the most sad verses, if not the saddest verse in all the Bible? I'll tell you, when Paul is describing the state of the whole human race, Jews and Gentiles alike, in Romans chapter 3, he's giving a summary statement starting in verse 9 through verse 18.

24:24 In verse 11, he says this, there is none that seeks after God.

24:33 There is none that seeks after God. The only creature except the angels made with a capacity to know God, to seek Him with delight, to experience personal, intimate communion with Him, there is none that seeks after God. Why? All we like sheep have gone astray.

25:02 Gone astray from God is the object of our supreme desire and delight. But then secondly, we've strayed from the law of God as the governing rule of our lives. We've gone astray from God and His law as the governing rule of our lives. You see, when the sheep leave the side of the shepherd, they leave the shepherd's crook and the shepherd going before them and leading them and directing them.

25:38 They leave the government of God. They leave the shepherd. And when the prophet says, all we like sheep have gone astray, gone astray not only from God as the object of our desire and delight, but from His law as the governing rule of life. So that Paul in Romans 8, 7 had to write these sad words.

26:03 The carnal mind, that is, the disposition, the governing disposition of the soul of every man or woman by nature, until transformed by supernatural grace. The carnal mind is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can it be.

26:31 What a horrible statement. But it's true.

26:36 The governing disposition of every one of our souls by nature is enmity itself. It doesn't say the carnal mind is at. The text says the carnal mind is enmity itself, nothing but enmity against God. And how does it show its enmity against God?

26:55 By denying the existence of God and trying to be an atheist?

27:00 Or what someone called, I read last week, you know what an agnostic is? Someone says, I don't know. That's just a polite atheist.

27:09 The text says this. It shows its enmity by its insubordination to God's law. It may admit the existence of God. It may give lip service to God as creator and governor of His world.

27:25 But when it comes to the government of my world, God, mind your business. My world's my world. It is not subject to the law of God. God's law that says we're to love Him supremely.

27:41 You'll have no other gods before me. The sanctity of His being. You're to worship in my way alone. Second commandment.

27:48 Third. Fourth commandment. You're to honor my name. Fourth commandment.

27:52 Honor my day. It goes on to speak of the sanctity of instituted government. Honoring father and mother. The sanctity of life, sex, possessions, truth, and the sanctity of the heart.

28:03 And wherever God says thou shalt, the human heart says I will not. And wherever God says thou shalt not, the human heart says I will. Because it is enmity against God. When the prophet said all we like sheep.

28:20 Have gone astray. All we like sheep have gone astray. This is what's bound up in the statement. The bad news of our desperate condition locked up in this vivid picture of that condition.

The Blunt Assertion: Turning to Our Own Way

28:39 A vast flock of sheep who've gone astray from God. But then secondly notice this blunt assertion of our desperate condition. Look at it. We have turned everyone to his own way.

29:03 You see from the corporate collected picture of the whole human race like a vast flock of sheep, it now individualizes. Let me illustrate it this way. Whenever you've been involved in a group picture and the group picture gets posted in the office or gets passed around. What's the first thing you look for?

29:25 Come on, be honest. What's the first thing you look for? Your cousin Josie? Your uncle Harry?

29:35 No, no. You look for yourself, right? I could ask how many of you are going to be honest and admit it. Okay.

29:44 All right. That's what we do. Now that's what we've got to do with this passage. All we like sheep have gone astray.

29:52 That's the wide angle lens. There's the whole human race encompassed in that lens. All we like sheep have gone astray. Now we get the super zoom lens and there's only one person in the picture.

30:08 That's you. That's me. We have turned every one of us to his own way from the generic imagery to the specific individual blunt pronouncement. We have turned every one of us to his own way.

30:29 Now notice. If the text had said we have turned every one of us to idolatry, to profanity, to murder, to adultery, to thievery, we might rise up and say, that's not true of me. Now eventually, if you search the law of God deep enough in your own heart with enough honesty, you say, I'm guilty. But in terms of the actual, external, divine law of God, it's not true of me.

31:01 It's the external, visible expressions of how you show your identity as a straying sheep. This is the common denominator of every one of us. Each one of us has his own way of straying. Each one of us has his own individual pattern in which we express our enmity to God and our alienation from God.

31:29 We have our own custom made pattern. made path of self-indulgence the new testament counterpart of this text is second corinthians 5 15 where the apostle says and that 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 he assumes that every corinthian no matter what his individual pattern of sinful life was before conversion here was the common denominator living unto self why do some people become self-righteous very religious polite nice useful people in the community but strangers to god's grace strangers to their sin and their need of christ strangers to repentance and faith because that pleases them it may be a combination of genetic factors and training and and upbringing, and culture, they feel comfortable living unto themselves in a path of polite, self-righteous, religious community service. Some people become outright hedonists, throwing themselves on the crest of every sensuous pleasure until they are the object of the

32:47 disgust of 90% of even the world. And why do they do it? Because that pleases them. Again, genetic factors, factors of contacts and influences and involvements, all kinds of things, you see, may flow in to make your tailor-made, self-centered life, but at the bottom, you live to please yourself. And you weren't made to live to please yourself. You weren't made that your life be regulated by what I want, when I want it, why I want it, how I want it. I'm going to live for myself. And the prophet says, this is bad news, but this is accurate news. Always, like sheep have gone astray, we have turned every one of us, without exception, to his own way.

God's View of Sin and the Consequences

33:43 If you ask the question, well, how does God look upon all of us? Well, I want you to know, God doesn't look upon it with a kind of accommodating indulgence. It says, well, you know, boys will be boys, human beings will be sinners. No, He doesn't look upon it with a kind of accommodating indulgence. He doesn't look upon it with an unprincipled indifference, like an old, near-sighted, doting old grandpa, that the grandkids can get away with it. They love to go visit grandpa, because they can get away with murder. That's not God. He's not an unprincipled, indifferent grandpa. He's not an accommodating, indulgent man.

34:26 No. Look what He did with our first parents. He drove them out of Eden, and pronounced the sentence of death. Sweat of the brow, pain in the process of mothering. What did He do when men's straying became so aggravated, and their living unto self so aggravated that the earth is full of violence and indifference to the norms of God? God blotted out the whole human race except one family, eight people to spare. That's what God thinks about this straying and this living unto self. When it came to an aggravated expression in the city of the plains where people said, my body's my own, this was the first city-wide, town-wide, area-wide expression of aggressive, militant, homosexual philosophy and patterns of life. Our bodies

35:25 are our own. We'll do what we will with them. Nobody's going to tell us. God says, we'll see. God sends fire out of heaven to consume the cities of the plains. He has a nation that He's nurtured and cared for. He's nurtured. He's nurtured. He's nurtured. He's nurtured.

35:38 He's nurtured. He's nurtured. He's nurtured. He's nurtured. He's nurtured. He's nurtured.

35:39 He's nurtured. He's nurtured. He's nurtured. He's nurtured. He's nurtured. He's nurtured.

35:40 Entered into covenant with them. Showered them with blessings innumerable. They won't obey God. God says, okay. He destroys their temple. Sends them into captivity for 70 years.

35:50 A few hundred years later, He lets the Roman armies destroy their temple and dismantle their nation and leave it in rubble. And then the Bible has a doctrine of a place called hell. My friend's sitting here this morning. does not take lightly the reality bound up in this bad news of our condition in sin.

36:24 The soul that sins, it shall die. The wages of sin is death. You are of purer eyes than to look upon iniquity. These are the statements of God's infallible Word.

The Necessity of Recognizing Our Condition

36:42 That's the bad news. There was a bishop in the Anglican Church who said these very profound words.

36:55 The first step on the road to heaven is to know that we are by nature on the road to hell. The first step on the road to heaven is to know that by nature we are on the road to hell. I ask you, has this reality ever become an all consuming obsession of your own mind and soul?

37:26 Has the truth of the bad news of your condition in sin ever become the thing that blocks out all other things so that day and night, whenever your mind could be free from any other responsibility, only one thing matters. God Almighty has a controversy with me. I stand under His wrath. He could cut me off any moment and I'd drop into hell. Until it becomes the grand obsession. If you take it seriously, my friend, the devil will gladly cooperate with you to make anything and everything else the matter of your obsession. Guys, gals, face, form, son, the latest movie, the latest video, the latest this, the latest that, anything but to get you to think soberly. About your true condition.

38:30 He's so mad at God, he's determined to take as many of God's creatures to hell with him. And the grand weapon he uses is to get you to be obsessed with everything but the one thing that ought to be the obsession of your mind. How can I be right with God?

38:48 And what I'm trying to do this morning with all my heart, and with my Bible open before me, and with illustration, and with analogy, and whatever else I can do is to break the spell by which the devil has got some of you like this. He stands in the wings even while I'm preaching, laughing to himself. Ha, ha, ha! I've got so-and-so sitting there in Trinity Church, and the preacher's up there pouring out his heart.

39:16 And I've got him thinking about this, thinking about that, thinking about the other, deflecting this, deflecting that, and the devil stands in the wings and with hellish glee he gloats that he's got, but oh my dear lost friend, I want to unget you. The first step to heaven is to come to grips and take seriously that by nature, you're on the road to hell.

The Good News: A Gracious Provision for Sin

39:49 But thank God our text is not only a text that has the bad news of our desperate condition in sin, but secondly, consider with me the good news of a gracious provision for sin.

40:07 All we, like sheep that have gone astray, we have turned every one to his own way, and, and, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. This is good news, good news of a gracious provision for sin, and I want you to see two things about the good news, just like we saw two things about the bad news, two things about the good news. One, note the author of this provision for sin. Note who the author is. And the Lord. You see, when they're talking about us, it's bad news. Good news comes when you talk about the Lord, Jehovah. The great I Am, He, the offended God, has taken the initiative to do something about our condition in sin, so that the author of this good news and this gracious provision is the offended God Himself. We're going to hear

41:17 about something that God has done in the face of the bad news of our sinful condition. And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. You want to have a good little rule of thumb by which to assess any religious system that professes to be good for your soul. Ask yourself this question. Does it tell me what God has done? Or does it tell me what I can do and I have done? There's the acid test. Every false religion starts with man and terminates upon man.

42:05 God only comes in as something ancillary to what man can do to lift himself up, what man can do to fill his heart with pride that he has accomplished his own salvation.

42:19 Whether it's sitting cross-legged with closed eyes and learning the mantras of a Buddhist system of mind control and drawing near to whatever's out there and getting in touch with it. It's man reaching upward. Man creating his own ladder to heaven.

42:42 Whereas God's provision is just that. It is God's provision. It is God breaking in to the human condition. And that's the pervasive emphasis from Genesis to Revelation.

42:57 Once man, his sin alienated himself from God and runs to hide in bushes. Who takes the initiative? You don't have Adam coming out of the bushes saying, oh God, you know, I ran from you. I sinned and I feel some emptiness and some ache in here and God, I want to seek you.

43:14 No, he's running and hiding in the bushes and it says, God, come to him and says, Adam, where are you, Adam?

43:23 And God finds him. And then God says, I'm going to do something. I'm going to put enmity between the serpent and the woman. Between the serpent's seed and the woman's seed. I'm going to break up this alignment. Adam, Eve, you've aligned yourself with the devil. You'd be aligned with him in time and in eternity but I'm not going to let you do it. Hallelujah. I'm going to break up the enmity. I'm going to do it. I will put the enmity. And that's biblical religion from Genesis 3.15 to Revelation.

43:58 God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. God commendeth his own love to us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Ephesians 2.1-3 describes our wretched condition.

44:20 Ephesians 2.1-3 describes our wretched condition. But then verse 4 says, But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us.

The Method of Provision: Substitutionary Atonement

44:32 This provision has God as its initiator. God as its author. But then, look at the method of this provision. What is the method? And here we've got to put on our thinking caps and marshal our faculties to think. Look at the text. And the Lord, he's the author, has laid on him the iniquity of us all. You may have a Bible that has in the marginal reading he hath made to light on him. Both of those translations are weak. Men who know the Hebrew language thoroughly, and I'm not one of them, tell us that the word used here should be translated, the Lord hath made to hit, or to strike violently upon him, that the word has the concept I lay, I laid this on the pulpit. I gently laid it. You take the little one, and you lay the little one in the crib.

45:43 It's not that the Lord laid our sins upon him. No. There was something violent in the activity of God. The Lord hath made to strike violently on him the iniquity of us all. Now, we've got to think.

46:01 Who is the him? To whom does this pronoun refer? Jehovah does something to him that is the very heart of his provision for sin. What is it?

46:15 Who is he? Well, if we look back to the preceding verses, verses 4 and 5, we don't get any real clue. Surely he has borne our griefs. He was wounded for our transgressions, but he's not identified.

46:31 We go back to 53, 1 to 3, who has believed our report. Verse 2, he grew up before him. Verse 3, he was despised and rejected. He was despised, but who is he?

46:43 Who is the he? Who is the he to which all these pronouns refer? That's why I began the reading with verse 13 of chapter 52. There he's identified.

46:55 Here is the subject of all the he's of the following verses. Behold my servant. Behold my servant. It is the servant of Jehovah.

47:12 And when Jesus was in the days of his flesh, he took several of these passages in which God speaks of his servant, and he applied them directly to his self without embarrassment and without equivocation. The servant of Jehovah applied the passages directly to himself. So, the him of verse 6 is none other than Jesus, the Jesus of the gospel records, the Jesus of supernatural conception in Mary's womb, where eternal deity, the eternal Word, took to himself a true, rational, human soul and body, and was constituted the theanthropic person, that is, the true God-man, two distinct natures in the one person forever. The him of verse 6 is none other than the God-man, Christ Jesus, the one who grew through every stage of human development, grew in wisdom, stature, favor with God and man, Luke 2, 52, was tempted of the devil, validated his identity with his miracles,

48:40 was hung upon a cross, rose the third day from the dead. This is the him of verse 6. Now, think with me carefully. If the author of this provision is God himself, what is the method of this provision? The method is nothing other than the substitutionary sin-bearing of the servant of Jehovah. The substitutionary sin-bearing of the servant of Jehovah. Since Jesus is the him, the provision for sin is made by God the Father, causing to strike, to hit violently the servant of Jehovah. Not for any sin of his own, for the scripture says he was holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners.

49:40 And in this very passage we read in verse 5, he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed. Verse 10, it pleased the Lord to bruise him. He has put him to grief.

50:07 What is the method of God's dealing with our sin? It is nothing less than the substitutionary sin-bearing of the servant of Jehovah. Now you know what that means. I want to say it as simply as I can without touching in any way the mystery and the profound mind's boggling reality.

50:31 Hear me carefully. You will never understand how God has made provision for your sin unless in your mind, when you read about Jesus dying, you get beyond what the Jewish leaders did to him, what Judas did to him, what the soldiers did to him, what the mocking cloud did to him, in their feverish, frenzied, brutal, cruel, sadistic treatment of our Lord. As horrific as that is, hear me, my friend. Until you see beyond what men did and what he suffered at the hands of men, you will never understand God's provision for your straying, for your living unto yourself. For the provision is found not in what men did to him, but what in God the Father did to him. Until you grasp what the Father did to the Son, in all of the agony and in all the horrific, terrifying events surrounding the cross, you'll never see and grasp God's provision for your sin.

The Father's Action and Christ's Suffering

51:51 What did God the Father do?

51:54 We read verse 10, it pleased the Lord to bruise him.

52:01 He has put him to grief. Did the Father come out of heaven and take a club and physically bruise his son? No. Did the Father in the realm of the external events of the cross do something that caused him grief? No.

52:23 It was in the unseen world of spiritual reality that the Father bruised him, that the Father put him to grief. And perhaps it will help you if I explain it this way. You remember Jesus was in the garden praying with his disciples. Judas comes with the mob from the high priest and the soldiers and they arrest him, they bind him. From that moment when he was bound, dragged off to the high priest and then to Pilate and then off to Herod and back to Pilate and then to Sanhedrin and then tied to a stake and then he was cruelly scourged. Then the cross beam was laid upon his shoulders and he was taken out and executed on the cross. From his being arrested and apprehended in the garden until he was hung upon the cross and his lifeless body was taken down and placed in a borrowed tomb, he appeared in only one visage, only one

53:32 appearance before anyone looking on the scene. And you know what that was? It was the posture. That's the word I'm fighting for.

53:42 It was the posture of a condemned felon. If you had been standing halfway between the garden and the high priest's palace where he was taken after they apprehended him and bound him, you'd say, there goes an apprehended criminal. He's in handcuffs. He's been dragged off to the police station.

54:07 And when you see them interrogating him, when you see them then mocking him, the crown of thorns, the scourging, you say, there is a guilty criminal. And then when you see him dragged out and the nails placed in his hands and in his feet and lifted up and executed in an execution reserved for the scum of society. No decent Roman citizen was executed by crucifixion. You say, there is not only a guilty criminal but the worst of criminals.

54:42 His whole posture, before the visible sight of anyone who saw any part or all of this is, this is a guilty criminal.

54:53 Now among the many reasons God permitted that, here's one of them. God was demonstrating in the theater of the visible what was in reality going on in the theater of the invisible.

55:07 In that invisible realm where God dwells and where our sins are recorded and where God's justice burns against sin. And where His righteousness and holiness demand the punishment of sin, God is saying, My Son is the guiltiest of all criminals. And I will treat Him as such. And while men brutalize Him and hang Him on a cross, the Father's bruising Him. The Father's putting Him to death. Why?

55:43 Because He is making to strike violently upon His Son the punishment due to you and to me for our straying and for our turning to our own way. And when our sins, not in their defiling influence, for the Son of God was never more pure than when He was most guilty. Never more undefiled. Than when He was laden with the sins of the world.

56:19 No, He is charged with the guilt and the hell deservingness of our sins. And when He is charged with them, the Father sits in court robed in His robes of pure justice. And He takes His place upon His throne of inflexible, eternal, unbending justice. And before Him stands a criminal laden.

56:44 With the multitudes of the sins of a great multitude whom no man can number. And while the Father sits in court and His Son stands before Him, laden with those sins, the Father bruises Him. The Father puts Him to grief. The Father pours into the soul of His Son the felt experience of hell.

57:12 What is hell? Depart from me. Depart. Depart from me.

57:19 Depart from me. Source of all light and love and grace and mercy. Be swallowed up in the bitterness of all that is opposite to love and grace and mercy. The Father bruised Him.

57:37 Until the Son who bore silently all the indignities that men could heap upon Him. And the hours when the heavens were shrouded in blackness. The Son could bear no more. And toward the end of those three hours as the Father was bruising Him.

57:55 And the Father was putting Him to grief. From the depths of His holy soul were run those words. My God. My God, why have you abandoned me?

58:15 Hell is abandoned. The Father bruised Him. The Father put Him to grief. When you shall make his soul an offering for sin.

58:32 My friend, that's what your sin looks like to God. That's what my sin looks like to God. All that I have been and done and am as a straying sheep, as one who turned to his own way. What's it look like to God?

58:50 Go to Golgotha. Go to Golgotha. And look beyond the contused, bruised, bleeding, battered body of Jesus. And hear the cry, my God, my God.

59:05 Why have you forsaken me? How can I preach it without being swallowed up in tears of grief? But my sin put him to death. My sin, my sin caused his cry.

Hymn Illustration: The Burden of Sin

59:24 I know of no Christian hymn that captures this biblical truth more powerfully.

59:32 More graphically than the hymn by Annie Cousin. In which she likens Christ's experience at the hands of his Father. To a vast burden. To a full cup of wrath.

59:47 To a rod. To a tempest. And to a sword. And this is what she wrote.

59:54 O Christ, what burdens bowed thy head. Our load was laid on thee. Thou stoodest in the sinner's stead. Dits bear all ill for me.

60:09 A victim led, thy blood was shed. Now there's no load for me. Death and the curse were in our cup. O Christ, was full for thee.

60:23 But thou hast drained the last dark drop. Tis empty now for me. That bitter cup, love drank it up. Now blessings drown.

60:35 Left for me. Jehovah lifted up his rod. O Christ, it fell on thee. Thou was sore stricken of thy God.

60:46 There's not one stroke for me. Thy tears, thy blood beneath it flowed. Thy bruising healeth me. The tempest awful voice was heard.

61:00 O Christ, it broke on thee. Thy open bosom was mine. My ward, it braved the storm for me. Thy form was scarred.

61:12 Thy visage marred. Now cloudless peace for me. Jehovah bade his sword awake. O Christ, it woke against thee.

61:23 Thy blood, the flaming blade must slake. Thy heart, its sheep must be. All for my sake. My peace to make.

61:34 Thou sleep'st that sword for me. Ah, my dear friend, if you can hear of such a Savior, and say, I still want to be a strange sheep. I still want to have my own way. What can God do who loves his Son, but send you to hell?

Application: Repent and Believe

62:00 I ask you, what can God do who loves his Son, but banish you if you treat with scorn, sin, and sin? I ask you, what can God do who loves his Son, but banish you? I ask you, what can God do who loves his Son, but send you to hell? I thank him that at the rise of the righteousness of Jesus our Lord, we have blessed the şu God, because he has begun, the conceit of a right Dee God knows God, and I give to you the mercy of God today and all the upward and ek though one be on the right path, if you God was not satisfied with sending his Son once for all, exposing him to death and smiting him with his wrath, though he loved him his only begotten Son ㅎㅎ if he wanted to overwhelm him, give it the full after marriage or something like that and bring down his kid, as if selfship, but not even behave to sin.

62:42 and completely He showed extreme severity against Him, yet He was always the well-beloved Son, as we have said, and it all took place that we might be forgiven.

62:56 He was not, I say, satisfied with that. But He daily sets before us this treasure, that we may enjoy it. He declares to us that Jesus Christ, who once had His side pierced, today has His heart open, as it were, that we may have assurance of that love that He bears to us. And as He once had His arms fastened to the cross, He now has them wide open to draw us to Himself.

63:29 My friend, in the light of the good news, what are you to do? The Bible's answer is clear. Repent and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Turn.

63:41 Turn from that living of a life independent of God, which can bring you nothing but misery now and misery in the age to come. Turn from that life of living unto yourself. Throw yourself down at the feet of this Savior, who lives and with open arms says, Come to me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly of heart.

64:14 You will find rest to your souls, for my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. Yes, there is a yoke, there is a burden, but it's the yoke and the burden of the One who died for us, and who lays upon us nothing but that for which we were made, to know God, to commune with God, to glorify God, to serve God in the light of His law and His word. The whole Bible, condensed in one verse, the bad news of our desperate condition in sin, all we like sheep have gone astray. We've turned every one to his own way, but the good news of a gracious provision for sin, and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. In the early hours of this morning, my prayer was, Oh God, if the gospel is the power of God unto salvation, I believe it is. Oh God, this day brings some within the orbit of its power, who will mark this day as the day of salvation. My friend, it is the day of salvation today.

65:33 If you hear His voice, do not harden your heart. Go to this Christ. He welcomes sinners. Let's pray.

Concluding Prayer and Plea

65:49 Our Father, what can we say when we have sought, in some little way, to understand the magnitude of Your grace and mercy in the sending of a Savior for the likes of us? Oh God, by this gospel, conquer some hearts today. For those of us who are Your children, conquer us afresh, for we've grown cold and indifferent and calloused to those things that our Savior was willing to undergo that we might be saved. Lord, warm our hearts.

66:26 Draw us afresh and back to our first love, that out of that love we may be more zealous in obeying our Lord Jesus, more fervent in our prayers, more unashamed in our witness to others of His grace and mercy. Seal then Your word, we pray.