Thank you, brother. Can I turn to Isaiah chapter 53,
please? Isaiah chapter 53 And we're
going to read from the verse one and we'll read to the end of a
chapter, Isaiah chapter 53. I have no doubt it will be a
familiar reading to most of you. Galloward here, but maybe you're
hearing it for the first time. And this is one of the most
blessed passages in the Word of God.
Isaiah chapter 53, commencing our reading at the verse one.
And once again we have a question asked here.
Questions were asked earlier on in the first of the gospel
songs. Well, here are some more
questions in the first verse. Who hath believed our report,
and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?
For He shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root
out of a dry ground. He hath no form nor comeliness
in. When we shall see him, there is
no beauty that we should desire him.
He is despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows, and
acquainted with grief. And we had, as it were, our
faces from Him. He was despised, and we esteemed
him not. Surely He hath borne our griefs,
carried our sorrows. Yet we did esteem him stricken,
smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our
transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities.
The justice meant of our peace was upon him, and with His
stripes we are healed. All we, like sheep, have gone
astray. We have turned everyone to his
own way, and the Lord hath led on him the iniquity of us all.
He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his
mouth. He has brought us a lamb to the
slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so we
openeth not his mouth. He was taken from prison and
from judgement. And who shall declare his
generation? Or he was cut off out of the
land of the living? For the transgression of my
people was he stricken, and He made his grave with the wicked
and with the rich in his death, because he had done no violence,
neither was any deceit in his mouth, yet it pleased the Lord
to bruise him. He hath put him to grief.
When thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin.
He shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the
pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.
He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied
by his knowledge. Shall my righteous servant
justify many, for he shall bear their iniquities.
Therefore will I divide him apportion with the great, and he
shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he hath poured
out his soul unto death, And he was numbered with the
transgressors, and he bare the sin of many, and made
intercession for the transgressors.
Amen. Indeed, that God will bless the
public reading of His word. Let's seek his face, please,
just for a little moment in prayer.
Our Heavenly Father, we rejoice in the gathering in this church
tonight. The people have come together.
We have come primarily to worship Thee, for Thou art God,
and beside Thee there is no other.
We have come also, Lord, because this meeting has been designated
as a gospel meeting already, Lord, the gospel has been
proclaimed and so on, and in the reading of Thy Word and I, they
are has come. Blessed are for the preaching of
the Word of God. What a burden, Lord, lies upon
the preacher's heart tonight. What a great responsibility.
But think of the apostle who was compelled to cry out and say,
who is sufficient for these things?
A necessity was laid upon him. Indeed.
He said, Woe, woe is unto me if I preach not the gospel.
But we thank you for our our sufficiency is of God.
We're not left in our own Lord for this matter.
We can look to heaven for help. Bless, I word, each and every
heart goered here. Thou knowest those who are yet
unsaved. We want them to get saved.
We want them to be redeemed by the blood of the Lamb.
I mean, there's some among us, banks that cold of heart
wandering away from the Lord, half in and half out as far as
the world is concerned. Oh, we want to see them
restored. And that there be among your
people tonight a little reviving even in the midst of the years.
Lord, in the midst of the years make known.
Give me the power that I need in Jesus name, Amen, Amen.
And to words of verse 6 that we want to look at tonight right
there in the very heart of this chapter 53.
It says all we like sheep have gone astray.
We have turned everyone to his own way, and the Lord have led
on him the iniquity, the sin of us all.
For anyone who is acquainted with their Bible both in the Old
and in the New Testament, Isaiah chapter 53 is perhaps one of the
easiest passages to interpret. The Lord in our verse Here verse
6 is God the follower and the hymn the masculine were there in
the same verse is a reference to God the Son.
And our interpretation here is confirmed in Acts chapter 8 when
the New Testament where we read of a man called Philip the
Evangelist. He met up with an Ethiopian man
who was sitting in his chariot reading this very passage, this
very passage. And Philip the Evangelist drew
near and he took the initiative. He says, do you understand what
you're reading? And the man says, well, really I
don't, you know, I'm wondering here of whom is the prophet
speaking? Is he speaking about himself or
is he speaking about someone else?
And the Bible says of Philip the Evangelist beginning at the same
Scripture. He did what I'm going to do
tonight. He preached on the hymn Jesus.
We need to remember that it might not just been as clear at
that time to the original writers.
In first Peter chapter 1, the Bible talks about the prophets
enquiring diligently concerning this salvation.
It would seem to indicate to us that they didn't have all the
light that we would have. They.
Maybe they were wondering of whom is this prophet speaking?
But they testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the
glory that should follow, and certainly Isaiah and his friends
away back in those days, they had enough light in them to be
saved. The Spirit of Christ was in
them. But many of the details that we
take for granted now that we are familiar with in our age was
maybe at best somewhat hazy to them.
There's a little hymn in her hymn book.
It was written by Horatio, Horatio Bonner, Scottish
Presbyterian minister, way back in the 19th century.
And the second verse goes like this.
It says, rejoice and be glad. There's sunshine at last.
The clouds have departed and the shadows are past.
Now that's not a little happy song in this sense, not a little
song you might sing in a children's meeting.
The sun is shining in the sky. Do da, do da de No, What he
means is there is sunshine at last, The clouds, that is, and
the shadows, the Old Testament shadows, the types and shadows,
things that were hidden perhaps to the people wondering what did
they mean? He says they're now gone and
we've got the full light, the sunshine of the full revelation
of Scripture. We are no longer looking at an
incomplete jigsaw, but all the pieces that we need at this
moment are in place. We have the full light of
revelation and when we come to Isaiah chapter 53 written some
what was it 500 years, maybe 700 years, whatever there before the
birth of Christ. We are now reading it in 2025 in
the historical light of the cross of Calvary.
Isaiah gave us a prophecy. The four Gospel writers,
Matthew, Mark, Luke and John gave us the history.
The rest of the New Testament gives us the theology or the
light and the load, the application.
And maybe you're saying as we gather here tonight, well, what
does this tax mean to me? What benefit can I gain from
this tax I'm putting to you tonight?
I hope to prove to you that it should mean everything to you
here. I say here, and your soul shall
live. Isaiah chapter 53 and verse 6
deals with a fundamental problem.
A fundamental problem. You say I have enough problems
in my life. You might have, but here's a
fundamental 1 and you need to attend to this one first.
Let's look at the text. First of all, number one, with
three points tonight. Number one, we have this
problem, this fundamental problem, faithfully stated,
faithfully stated. What is it?
In a few simple words, it just says all we like sheep have gone
astray. Back in Isaiah chapter 30 and
verse 10, as Isaiah, who wrote these words was ministering to
the people, he was visited by a delegation and they tried to
limit and to control his preaching.
That's never a good thing, you know, unless the preacher's out
of order. But Isaiah wasn't.
He was speaking by the inspiration of the Spirit of God
and back in chapter 30 and verse 10, this delegation of the great
and the mighty, they came to him and they said, look, we're not
trying to stop you from preaching.
Well, you know what's common, don't you?
After that, they always try and soften the blow.
It's like when you go into the get your little Jag and down in
the clinic. Well, don't then put that nice
little bit of cotton wool on you and then rub the skin just that
little bit. Well, you know what's coming
after that. And that's what these men did.
They're saying to them in the fact, look, we don't want the
limit You're you're preaching, but there's always going to be a
but here, isn't there prophecy. Preach on the US smooth thing,
she can almost hear them say, can't you?
The smooth things? Give us things that are
palatable. Give us things that truths that
are, yes, true, but they're not so upsetting.
You've been laying it on thick and fast, Isaiah.
Can you not ease back a little? But Isaiah didn't play their
little game. If they wanted to heap to
themselves, as the Bible says men in the last days will do,
false teachers who would cater only for their lusts and for
their itching ears. Then Isaiah says, men, you're
going to have to look elsewhere. I cannot cater to your desires
and your wants. You need to hear, Isaiah says,
the things that I am preaching to you.
And this problem, when it is faithfully stated, isn't
palatable to the Sinner. It's not what he wants to hear.
You know, taste has never been the bottom line in any court
case. We don't swear.
If we are called to go to court and we stand up in the witness
box, we'll put our hand in the Bible.
We might even hold it up. Or those who don't believe the
Bible can bring their own religious book, or they can just
put up their right hand there. It's an indication that they are
swearing. It's a very solemn thing, of
course, to swear to bring an oath, but we don't swear in a
court case to provide what is tasty.
We're not there to entertain the jury.
We're not there to entertain the judge.
No, we put our hand in God's Word and we swear to tell the
truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
And so it is when we come to preach the Word, we come to deal
with a problem here. We must look at it fairly and
squarely. It's not as a tasty tonight.
That's not the issue. There's our men and our pulpit
to cater for that, if that's what you want.
But in a pulpit like this, we must deal with that which is
written, the words of truth. Look at those words gone astray.
This is the problem. All we, like sheep, have gone
astray. And these words, of course, need
a point of reference in order to have a fact.
Because once you start to look at this, your first question,
the logical question is going to be from what standard have we
gone astray? From what path have we wondered
if I make a, a, a spelling mistake as well as you and I, I
write you a letter and you come back to me and say, well, you,
you spelt that word wrong. Well, we're going to have to.
I mean, I might say, well, fair enough, no big deal, is it?
But supposing I was on a fighting form and I would say,
well, no, I think you've got it wrong.
Well, what will we do? We would head probably to the
Oxford English Dictionary, wouldn't we?
We would go to the great authority and we would see who
had spelt it wrong. And here the matter relates to
sin. The word, their inequities, is
just another one of those myriad words for sin.
And the point of reference is binding upon us all because when
we step outside, first of all, the will of God, you step out of
the will of God and you step into sin.
And God in heaven, who sits on his throne of justice and
holiness is the sole arbiter of what is good and what is bad.
This is absolute truth. This is not something that is
negotiable. I, I, I say to you tonight,
ignore the chattering classes. Ask yourself, what does God, my
Creator, my judge? What does God require of me?
The will of God is clearly expressed in the law that bears
his name. The law of God is summarily
expressed in the 10 commandments, and those are very
important things to be acquainted with.
Here is the will of God. And if we stray like sheep from
these commandments, then this is inequity, because the Bible says
by the law is the knowledge of sin, because that's what sin is.
It is a transgressing of the law of God.
Now that word astray is a very expressive word, the Hebrew
language in which it was originally written, this very
expressive language. And we have the authorised
Version, which is a very expressive version of this very
expressive language, and it's translated elsewhere.
This word astray is used over in Psalm 107, verse 4, concerning
the children of Israel in the desert for 40 years.
What did they do in the desert? They wandered.
All we like sheep have wandered away.
It's used over in second Kings chapter 21 and verse 9
concerning a wicked man called Manasseh and it says of Manasseh
that he seduced the children of Israel to do wickedly.
Our words are are used and again in this Old Testament that the
word is translated elsewhere will not look at them all by the
word erred, erred. It's translated by the word
deceived. It's translated by the word
dissembled. And there's not one of those
words that you would wish upon yourself.
You're setting out on a journey. You don't want to be wandering.
You don't want to be deceived. You don't want to be dissembled,
set in total disarray, because when you have a strange sheep,
you have a lost sheep. And the famous parable that
Jesus told the word in Matthew 18, of course, bringing us into
the New Testament and Matthew 18 had talked about the sheep going
astray. And Luke 15, the same parable,
the word is that the sheep was lost, and it means to be lost
from fellowship with God. Again, the language of Ephesians
4 and 18 concerning an unsaved man, he is alienated, alienated
from God. He is alienated from God.
He's alienated from the favour of God.
He's out of kilter with God. The Bible says the wrath of a
sin hating God lies heavy upon the Sinner.
Sin is the just precursor of wrath.
The soul that sinneth wanders heirs, is dissembled out of the
way. The wages of sinner's death.
You'll notice there that it's universal.
We're still in our first point. It's universal in its scope.
Who does it apply to? All.
No exceptions.
The only exception, of course, was Christ Himself, the sinless
Son of God. But for the rest of us, born of
a natural generation, we have all gone astray, every one of
us. This is the problem here that is
faithfully stated. But notice again, as we look at
the passage #2 we have the problem here.
Further studied. It goes a little deeper.
He drills down a little bit more.
It says all we like sheep have gone astray.
Notice the middle part. We have turned everyone to his
own way. We ask the question, who is
responsible for the spiritual lostness?
We've always got to put the blame, don't we?
Somewhere. And we start to dig a little
deeper here. Well, how did this happen?
Who's to blame for this? Where does the buck stop?
As one of the old American presidents, he put it on his
desk. The bus, the the book.
The book stops here. Where does it stop in this
matter? Can we blame our first follower,
Adam? You see, we're all related
tonight. You're my relatives because if
you trace your family tree back and I trace my family tree back,
we're going to go back probably through job path.
I'd imagine being all on this side of the world.
We're going to go back the Adam and our first foer sinned
against God, and he must spare part of the blame for what is
happening today, because it says by one man, by Adam, sin entered
into the world, He opened the door, he let it in, and death
has passed upon all men. Can we blame our fower, Adam?
Yes, to a point. Can we blame the devil, the
devil's, the tempter, the seducer, The seducer?
We've used that word already. Yes, to a point.
Because he has blinded the minds of them that believe not.
Can we blame our words? Yes, to a point.
Wicked man, it says in Jeremiah 32 caused Judah to sin.
And maybe we can start looking for a scapegoat tonight.
We look in our family. You say all of you only knew the
family on which I grew up in or maybe we can look to our friends
and said I fell in with the wrong company.
These were boys I went to school with.
I ran around with them. If I hadn't had them, I would
have been so lonely on me own and they they led me in the sin
We can blame maybe even government policies and send
they're pumping us stuff out others morning, noon and night
and it's had an influence upon me in educational trends.
These are all small points. Tonight, they're all small
points. They're like those little fig
leaves sewn together to cover the nakedness of sending Adam
and sitting even sent as sinning Eve.
Because our text very firmly and very justly puts the blame where
it squarely belongs. You can bring all these other
things into play if you want. Don't forget, other people face
that as well. The Bible says we have turned
everyone to our own way. What we did, we did willingly.
Our wills are sinfully perverse. They're free.
Yes. Do you believe in the free will
of man? Yes.
In this sense, we call it the free agency of man.
We're not puppets, we're not puppets, we're not being moved
around, we're not blocks of wood, we're not ottomans.
So we're free, but at the same time and in a different
relationship, we're also bound. We're bound in sin.
That man that commits sin, the Bible says, is the servant, or
as it can be translated as a stronger translated, the slave
of sin. And man is a willing slave.
He sells himself in the spiritual slavery.
He is a rebel and a willing rebel.
And it's that that makes us fully accountable and therefore
justly punishable for our sins. The Lord stops in and he says
you did what you did freely. You did what you did because you
wanted to do it. You love the darkness rather
than the light because your deeds are evil.
When Adam sinned in the garden, he had thought he could hide.
Big garden, big trees got a way out of sight of the Lord's, we
thought. And God just came into the
garden. And he says Adam where art I
where art I. Of course, it was God's business
to summons Adam to appear. Things were never going to be
the same again. The fellowship was broken.
He was out of kilter with God. He was now an enemy of God and
God summoned him and Adam stepped out from behind the tree
with his little fig leaves and was answerable to God.
You remember Cain, it was Adam's son, his first born son, and he
wasn't in the garden. He, the Bible says he's in the
field with Abel, his brother. Abel's a righteous man.
Abel loves the Lord. He's a converted Sinner.
Cain is a wicked person and they have a little.
It says they talked in the field.
I have to dig deeper into that someday.
I would say they argued in the field.
I can see Abel. They're arguing for the blood
theology. You've got to come key in the
way of the blood. I came by the lamb.
I was accepted with God. You brought the fruit of the
ground. Yes, it looks so pretty, your
little flowers and your little vegetables, but God rejected
them. Why not come God's way?
And old Cain, the wicked, carnal, ratchet Cain rose up.
And you know what he did? He slew his brother.
And then God says to him, Cain, what hast thou done?
It's not that God didn't know, but he's dragging the confession
of guilt out of the mouth of Cain and going a lot further
than a sinning flower had ever done.
Because the case gets worse and worse and worse.
Cain checked God, he tried to deny his responsibility.
He says, am I my brother's keeper?
I really have to give an account.
And you know, that's the great mistake which people make.
We try and plead that we are innocent and the Bible says we
are guilty. There's a tendency today, it's
the problem of the age, to view our sins using the wrong set of
lands. And that's why and that's how
and that's when we go astray. There is a way that seemeth
right onto a man, but the ends thereof are the ways of death.
Man allows himself to be LED astray by his own wicked and
deceitful heart. Jeremiah 17 verse 9 is a
fundamental verse. Never get away from at the heart
of man. Deceitful, deceitful, above all
things, desperately wicked. Who can know it?
That's why the Bible says that that man who trusts in his own
heart is a fool because he's trusting in a heart that is
deceitful. A deceitful heart was like a
deceitful friend. Many a man went into business
with a partner. He felt he could trust that man.
He felt they could do business together and the partner in
business was thieving money off him.
He was safe in a little way. He was presenting one set of
books when he had another. And the man says, I was
deceived. I never thought, well, the
deceiver is in your own heart. Heart of man by nature is wicked
above all things, desperately wicked.
The question, the challenges are, who can know it?
Who can Plumb the depths of the wickedness of his own heart?
And that's why the Word of God is necessary.
When you have the Word of God as your guide, you're thinking
straight. You're going to see things as
they really are. Let me tell you what the Bible
says about your way. It's a hard way.
You want to throw the Bible aside, say it's not for me.
It's a hard way. The way of the transgressor is
hard. That's what the book says.
It is a hopeless way. Oh, you say, but I am on the
side in the majority. There's many in my Rd.
Yes, it's called the Broad Rd. There's a name on it that's
called the Broad Rd. Where does it lead?
Leads to destruction. It's a hopeless Rd.
The problem further studied. Thirdly and lastly, here we have
the problem finally solved, the problem finally solved.
It's a human problem, but it has a supernatural answer.
It's not resolved to do better. And somebody taking you aside
and says, son, you know you need to pull up your socks.
That used to be the phrase one to pull up your socks.
You need to catch yourself on. It's not somebody taking you
aside and saying nothing. Let me let me show you here how
how you can deliver yourself. It's not clean up your life.
It's not men broken fences. That's here in our text.
Even though all we like sheep have gone astray, we're lost.
We have turned everyone to our own way.
We are responsible for our own condition.
Here's a message of the gospel the Lord laid on him, the Lord
Jesus, the iniquity of us all. And in one stroke it recognises
how sinful, how guilty and how hopeless we are.
And if you haven't had that realisation yet, that hasn't
come home to your heart by the conviction of the Spirit of God,
then then it's highly unlikely that this great Calvary truth
will benefit you that much. Because the Bible says it's not
those that are whole, that is healthy who need the physician.
Not that any of us are, but many people think, well, there's
nothing wrong with me. This gospel that you preach,
take it to the slums, take it to the where the drug addicts are.
Take it to the, the pubs when they're, they're falling out,
getting out and tripping over. And they, they're, they're
hooked. And they say, but it's not for
somebody upright like me. Well, if you think like that,
you don't need the physician. But it's the sick, the people
who realise their lost estate. It's not the healthy Jesus came
to call. Not the righteous, not the
righteous, but sinners Jesus will receive.
The only physician who can heal your sin sick soul is the very
God whom you spend your life rebelling against, not an
ignorance. God is not an ignorance of who
you are. He is not an ignorance of what
you have done. You may think, no, I saw you,
but with full knowledge. But He knows the end from the
beginning. With full knowledge, the Father
sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world.
The Good Shepherd came, and what did the Good Shepherd do?
He laid down his life for the sheep.
God the Father LED on him the iniquity of us all.
He sent them to the cross as our sin bearer and our great sin
bearer. The Good Shepherd came and He
went willingly to the cross. He went like the Lamb to the
slaughter. The sheep before her heirs was
done. He opened not his mouth.
The old hymn writer says he could have called 10,000 angels
to destroy the world and set him free, but he didn't do it.
They came for him and there's the disciples with them.
Peter grabs the sword. He's going.
Peter's going to fight. Peter's going to go down dying.
Peter has already said all men forsake yell, not forsake you.
Peter's wheedling the sword around like a madman and our
Lord's still in control and he says let these ones go, let
these men go, let these sheep go because it says in the book,
you're going to smite the shepherd.
The Good Shepherd gave us life for the sheep and they're in the
Calvary Centre cross. And that emblem of suffering and
shame, Christ bore our guilt. He was wounded.
It was our transgressions, He was bruised, It was our
iniquities. The chastisement of our peace
was led on Him by His stripes. Our we heedy bore our guilt.
He took my sins and my sorrows, and He made them His very own.
He bore the burden to Calvary. He suffered and he died alone.
He silenced in that. He satisfied the just demands of
the divine law, the laws clamouring rightly for our
destruction. Jesus silenced the law because
he said, let all the wrath fall in me.
That's why he cried, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
Because the wrath of a sin hating God was poured out in him
and he's secured. I don't believe he only
provided. That's true, but it doesn't go
the whole way. Let's go the whole way tonight.
He's secured salvation for his people.
That's why he cried it as finished.
The lost sheep was out in the mountains, wild and bare.
The Good Shepherd went out to look for it.
The parable that Jesus told. How long did he look?
Till we find it? Till we find it?
And he's looking for you tonight, Lost sheep.
Do you not hear his call? He's Westerling, as it were, for
you. He, he, he's shouting for you.
He wants you to hear his voice. He wants you to respond to his
message. You need to be saved.
Your excuses don't work when you make an excuse for your sin.
You're only multiplying your sin.
You're only adding another sin to this great mountain debt that
you have. The Bible tells you what you
need to do. You need to repent and believe
the gospel. That was the message of John the
Baptist. Very simple, very plain, very
understandable. Repent.
That means do AU turn, because if you're on the wrong Rd, you
need to do AU term. You need to get back round into
the right way. Repent and believe the gospel.
Call in the name of the Lord. The book is very clear in this
matter. All the simplicity of it all,
the wonder of it all. Whosoever that covers the all
who have sinned, whosoever shall call in the name of the Lord,
shall be saved. You can go home rejoicing
tonight that your sins have been forgiven, this great problem
finally solved and solved for eternity.
If you come as a Sinner to Jesus, May God draw you and
bring you to Himself.