Expounds on Isaiah 50, presenting Jesus Christ as the perfect servant and the light of the world. It highlights Israel's sin and turning away from God, contrasting it with God's persistent mercy and the ultimate sacrifice of His Son. The message emphasizes that Jesus willingly endured suffering, shame, and death as a ransom for sinners, fulfilling God's demand for justice while offering salvation. It concludes by urging listeners to trust in Jesus, the light of the world, to escape spiritual darkness and eternal separation from God, and to find true life and salvation in Him alone.
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to express for my brethren and myself our thanks to the assemblies here and in Lyman for putting on this conference and giving us the privilege of being here. We certainly appreciated all the labors of the ladies in the dining area. I'm sure we can I can say thanks for all of us to them. We've been abundantly fed And I really think both ways. From my own heart, as I sat and listened to the word of God as ministered by my brethren, I've been thrilled and I know going away blessed, blessed abundantly by the Spirit of God.
I'd like to say something else. I took some of my brethren's time this afternoon unwittingly, and so I'll try to give them back a little tonight. I'd like to look this evening into the book of Isaiah, Isaiah chapter fifty, and it's almost a temptation to read the whole chapter. It only has eleven verses, and it certainly gives me a view of the Lord Jesus, and so I think I will, but I'd like to take up just the last two verses. Thus saith the Lord, where is the bill of your mother's divorcement whom I put away? Or which of my creditors is it to whom I have sold you?
Behold your iniquities, have ye sold yourselves, and for your transgression is your mother put away? Wherefore when I came, was there no man? When I called, was there none to answer? Is my hand shortened at all that it cannot redeem? Or have I no power to deliver? Behold, at my rebuke I dry up the sea. I make the rivers a wilderness. Their fish stinketh because there is no water, and dieth for thirst. I close the heavens with blackness, and I make sackcloth their covering. The Lord God hath given me the tongue of the learner, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary.
He wakened it morning by morning. He wakened it my ear to hear as a learner. The Lord God has opened my ear and I was not rebellious, neither turned away back. I gave my back to the smighters and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair. I hid not my face from shame and spitting. For the Lord God will help me, therefore shall I not be confounded. Therefore have I set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be ashamed. He is near the justifyeth me who will contend with me.
Let us stand together. Who is my adversary? Let him come near to me. Behold, the Lord God will help me. Who is he that shall condemn me? Lo, they all shall wax old as a garment. The moss shall eat them up. Who is among you that feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of his servant, and walketh in darkness, and hath no light? Let him trust in the name of the Lord, and stay upon his God. Behold, are ye that kindle the fire, that compass yourselves about with sparks, walk in the light of your fire, and in the sparks that ye have kindled.
This shall ye have of my hand ye shall lay down in sorrow. John's Gospel chapter eight and verse twelve. The Lord Jesus is speaking and he's giving us one of those claims in his precious book to the I Am. In chapter eight he shows it so much. But here in verse twelve, then Jesus spake again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world. He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of light. Isaiah, as he brings a message to the people of old, in bringing the message, he shows us the heart of God.
He shows us the perfect servant of God. He shows us the Lord Jesus Christ. In showing us Him, He gave us an understanding of Israel and their sin and their turning away from their God. And they had really sold themselves in their sin. I've often marveled, as I read through these prophets, and think of how many times God and grace came to His people of old. And his desire was, just obey me and walk in my way and I'll bless you. Through Jeremiah he said, obey me and I'll plant you and not pluck you.
And I've often been amazed at the hard heart of the people who could turn and say to them and throw in his teeth, we will cause our children to pass through the fire. We will make our case to the Queen of Heaven. They directly threw back in the teeth of God a challenge to God to do something about it. I'm amazed at how many men today stand and shake their fists in the face of God and challenge him to do something about it.
You know, he did something about it in the days of old. He showed Him His mercy and then He brought His judgment because they refused His mercy. He scattered them to the nation. He brought judgment upon them. But it was ever His desire to have a fellowship with His people. And so He sends a perfect servant. He sends a servant whose ear was attuned to the master. He sent His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to fulfill the place of the perfect servant.
When you read Mark's Gospel, you read of the perfect servant. And you read there in the center of that precious book, at least to the center of thought. And you read there the Lord Jesus says, I am not come to be ministered unto, but to minister and to give my life as a ransom for many. And here Isaiah gives me a little picture of the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ. One who came and walked this scene and one who was tried in all points like as we are sin upon. One who knew what it meant to walk here. One who had an ear that was attuned to the Father.
One who always did the will of the Father. One who went about doing good. one who could they would have to say of him he does all things well and when they sent some to take him one day they had to say of him never man speak like this man a perfect servant whose heart was totally given to the will of God given to the will of God because in his heart was the same heart a heart of mercy toward the lost sinner and he was willing to go to the place of the extremity of the cross for the sinner. He was willing to go there for those that have thrown challenges in his teeth.
Israel did it long before here. Oh, one day they were out there in the wilderness then. Throwing in his teeth they said, Can God set for us a table in the wilderness? What a God. He set a table. He fed them with the manna. He fed them with the quail. But I know so many hearts today that are saying, Can God provide? Can God set a table for us? Can He give us eternal provision? Can He give us life? Can He give us understanding?
Yes, He can, and He did. He sent the light in the Lord Jesus. He sent him so that he might set the table. And you know he set the table with his own son. I read of Israel that they wandered in the wilderness in a solitary way, hungering and thirsting their souls fainted in them. But he sent his word. He healed them and delivered them out of all their destruction. Beloved, I'd like to say to you tonight, there is only one healing for a sick soul, and that one healing can only be found in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.
For Jesus was the Word, the expression of God that was sent into this scene that men might see God manifest in the flesh. And he came, and how did he come? A totally willing one. Who would give it back to the Smiders? Oh, you know, they thought that they might purge him by whipping. They thought they might chastise him by whipping. That's what Pilate thought at one instant, and then released him. Oh, but the people would have no part of that. Their cry was to crucify him. He gave it back to the Smider.
He gave his back to men with hearts like yours and mine. He gave his back to be beaten and strife, though, that he might be a redeemer, that he might buy his people back from the bondage of sin, that he might buy him back, that he might set him free. He gave his chief to those that would pluck off the hairs, and I see the Lord Jesus as he stands before those mockers. and they grab the hairs of his cheek and rip it out. And I see the suffering that he bore in my behalf. And guess what did he do?
I said to him so many times, Lord, why did you love me so? Why did you continue in that path? Anywhere along, if you could have said, had but the creature that I created and blotted them out, that's what His holiness demanded, that they be blotted out in judgment for sin. Oh, but He was a God with a heart of love. I know I've gone to so many doors and now, and a man or a woman comes and says, after we talk for a while, I'll hide your preachers. You're all alike. You talk about a God of judgment and a God of love. And I say amen.
That's my God. He was a holy God and His holiness demanded judgment. His holiness demanded a penalty for sin. But He was a God of love and so He sent His Son that He could bear that penalty. And He bore it for you and He bore it for me. He took it every week. Bore it for sinners. You see, He provided a way of salvation for lost sinners. Sinners, what's that? God tells us very plain in His Word what a sinner is. He says, all are sins and come short of the glory of God.
He says, there is none righteous, no not one. He says, there is not a just man and all the earth who do is good, and sin is not. Beloved, every one of us are in the same way. You can't look up at this preacher and say, ah, you think you're something above me, and you're looking down and you're preaching at me as a sinner, lost, and I'm unclean, but you're all right. No, bless your heart. I'm all right now because I was cleansed by the blood of the Lamb, but I'm still a sinner, a sinner saved by grace, and because he saved my soul, and I know the way of salvation that He provided.
I want to turn your heart to it tonight. Turn your heart to the person of the Lord Jesus. You see, in these last two verses what He's saying. He says, is there some among you that fear the Lord? Is there? Maybe there's some among you here that are like or needy that our brother reminded us of last night. who was a man devout in his own heart. He was devout toward God. And maybe there are some of you that are like that. You've gone to church your life long and you've known God. You've known him and you feared him in that sense of fearing an awesome God that is holy and you've seen his holiness and you look on it with awesomeness.
And there's a fear in your heart. Oh, that's good. Could I turn that fear then to the one who loved you as well? Because you see perfect love will cast out fear. And so if you're willing to come to the Lord Jesus tonight, you can come to one who can set aside the fear. The fear is good. That's the beginning of wisdom. That's where the fear of the Lord begins. That's where wisdom begins in the fear of the Lord. Will you take a look at him tonight and fear him? Have you been in that path? Isaiah is calling your heart to him.
Have you heard the voice of the servant? But are you still walking in darkness? You know, if you haven't put your trust in the Lord Jesus, you're walking in darkness. Darkness is ignorance. In the Bible so many times when it uses the thought of darkness, It's the soul in darkness, the soul in ignorance. That's what the Lord Jesus said to the woman at the well. She was in ignorance. He said, if thou knewest the gift of God and who it is that askest of thee to drink, thou wouldest have asked of him and he would have given thee living water. The love, the crux of the matter is, if thou knewest, If you knew the Savior tonight in the finished work of Calvary's cross, you turn to him and you trust in him.
That's what Isaiah says. You walk in darkness and you have no light. Oh, then trust in the name of the Lord. You see, the Lord Jesus in the Gospel of John is one that claimed to be light. The psalmist could tell us the entrance of thy word giveth light. When the Lord Jesus came into this world, He was the light of the world. It was the light that shone in a dark place, but the darkness couldn't overcome it. It was the light that shone in all brightness and glory. Down through the ages, the light of Calvary's cross is shown.
And it's shining to this day. It's shining in all the brightness and in all the glory of the crucified one. That's where the Lord Jesus went to bear the judgment for your sin and mine. And He did it so that a man who walked in darkness could have light. You know, God teaches us that that's the way we are. Men love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil. And that's the reason so many times we're like the darkness because we walk in an evil path and our deeds are evil. But once we see the Lord Jesus as the light of the world, and our desire is to follow him, my what a light will shine in when you receive him.
A light that is not only going to shine into your life, to bring eternal light, but it's going to be a light that will shine round about to the hearts and the lives of other men and women here. You see, Christ is the light. I'm afraid today that so many of us who are walking in the fear of God without rejoicing in the love of God are walking in the shadow. Have you ever seen a street that had all the bright lights on one side? And you went on the opposite side of the street and as you tried to walk along, it was in a dimly lit place and you noticed you stumbled and you fell along the way.
But when you went to the opposite side and you went to where the brightness of the light was, every clear detail of every nick and nooks and cranny and the sidewalk was revealed to you, and you didn't stumble, could I say to you, be drawn by the power of the Spirit of God tonight to the light of the Lord Jesus. And he'll light you for eternity. The entrance of thy words give us love. You see, to receive the Lord Jesus is to receive light and light. I've rejoiced so many times of hearing that and reading that high priestly prayer of the Lord Jesus, and he begins it with, and this is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou has been.
You have life eternal, beloved, then you know God. And you know the Lord Jesus whom God has sent. Oh, you see, I think our brother just mentioned a little while ago something about both God and the Lord Jesus. He mentioned, I believe, what Paul preached. And he reminded the Ephesian elders, that's what I preached. I went about from house to house, he said, teaching repentance toward God and faith toward the Lord Jesus Christ. If you had to change your mind about God and instead of seeing just how God in fear of holiness and a great God in awesomeness, that you've been able to see a God who will judge sin, but who loved the sinner and he judged the sinner's sin on his Son, the Lord Jesus.
And I'd like you to see the other son, Brother Cohen. Behold, all ye the kindle of fire, that compass yourselves about with sparks, walk in the light of your fire. There's so many people today who've made up their own religion. And man, they're really coming. They're coming in every direction, and most of them seem to come right out of the West Coast states, and a lot of us centered around Hollywood and the Berkeley campus. I've heard of religions of the people of six, six, six, and the perfect man and all the rest.
And I've been amazed at how it's all set up as duplicates of things that I've been taught in the Word of God that are evil. We've got Satan worshipers and churches of Satan. And in the city of Davenport, we've got several churches that are Spiritist churches. I was amazed. I think it was in a town down south when a church of Satan moved into the town. And the Council of Churches was wondering whether they should receive them into the council. How far can you go?
Those people in that council must be totally in darkness. And they're walking in it. But you know, beloved, when we start to take the things of this word, and there are many sincere people who want to go in that way who are walking in darkness yet, because they kindle their own fire. You know, When God first set up the worship in the tabernacle, and the offerings were put there on the altar, the burnt offering, the sin offering, the peace offering.
And then Aaron backed down away from the altar, and the fire descended from God, and it consumed the offering. And God said there wasn't any other fire to be brought before him. But it isn't only but a short while, according to Leviticus Pen. If there are two young men, they dab in a valley, and they take a strange fire, their own desires, and they bring it in before God, and immediately the fire falls, and their lives are struck just like that. I think that we could get a good idea to see what God is talking about.
If you're going to kindle your own fire, then you're going to walk in the sparks of it. You're going to walk in the light of the fire you've made. Oh, God doesn't strike on death like that today. But he said, remember this. So one day you're going to lay down in the sorrow. You might have your own ideas about salvation, friend. And you might have been in some good, stately, beautiful cathedral all your life. And you might have loved all the ritual of it. You might have loved the priesthood of it.
You might have loved all the things of the doctrines and the dogmas that they set. But if they're contrary to the word of God, And there's no eternal life to be found in them. And they are for the most part. And you walk in them, you're walking in the light of your own fire. And one day you're going to lay down in the fire. Because one day the end of your life will come. And the fire that you've been kindling all along and you've been rejoicing in its sparks is going out because it wasn't eternal.
And then will you lay down in sorrow. Then will you lift your eyes in a place of torment, just the same as the rich man of Luke sixteen. He was undergoing the sorrows of hell. The torments of hell. Not one, but many. You can receive the light tonight. The person of the Lord Jesus. He is received by faith. And when you receive him, Saves you from hell.
He makes you a son of God. Born from above. And he gives you an eternal home in heaven. I liked our two brethren preaching last night. They talked about being saved. Seems a term people don't like anymore. I want to use all kinds of other words. The deliverance from judgment is salvation. found in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's found in the one who suffered and bled and died. It's found in the one who came to minister to us.
It's found in the one who gave himself as a ransom for men. It's found in the one that Isaiah said can redeem. Do you know Him? You can't. He's life. He's life. He's liberty. He's yours. If you're about receiving God's sake. Shall we pray?
Blessed Father, we thank you for directing our hearts to the person of thy beloved Son, through thy servant's message from thy Holy Word. We pray that the Holy Spirit, in convicting grace and power will bring some precious soul to the Savior. And as we continue the blessed theme of salvation, may the work of salvation be wrought in many hearts. We ask it by thy grace that it will be done in the Savior's name and for his glory.
Amen. I'd like to direct your heart to a verse in the New Testament in chapter four of the Book of the Acts. Concerning that blessed person our brother has set before us so vividly and so faithfully. And the words of the beloved Apostle Peter, as in chapter four in verse twelve, he closes his blessed message before the rulers and elders of Israel. saying of that same one whom our brothers spoke of as being the light of the world, neither is there salvation in any other.
For there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. Oh, may we repeat the word. We delight the psalmist. Our brother has brought the person of the Saviour before us, and the exclusive salvation that he alone has. Neither is there salvation in any other, for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved. Dwell with me by the Spirit's aid, upon the words...
that Peter has uttered. Note with me first of all the last words that are in the text. For they bring before us the great necessity that belongs to every one, man, woman, boy and girl. Note the words of Peter. We must be saved. We must be saved. It is an imperative necessity. Every man, woman, boy and girl is in the need of salvation. We must be saved. And why is this great need so apparent?
Oh, my beloved sinner, friend, may I tell you from the word of God, as the Spirit wrote through His servant Paul in Romans chapter six, and the opening words of verse twenty-three. The wages of sin, the inevitable penalty, and the reward, the wages of sin is what? Death. That is what you and I have earned. That is the result of sin. And you cannot find a person upon whom the wages of sin rest without the fact.
that all that sin, and we've all come short of the glory of God, we're all guilty before Him. I would like you to consider with me the penalty that is involved, the wages of sin. That which we have earned is death. Think with me for a moment or two, and seriously, of the meaning of this consequence of sin. What is death? What is the result? What is the ultimate concerning my sin and your sin? As I read my Bible, I find that death, nowhere in the Bible, means ceasing to exist.
For there are many that believe death is the end of everything. There's nothing beyond it, and that cessation is the meaning of it. The Word of God never gives that interpretation. Death always is separation. The wages of sin is death, and what is involved is separation. As I read my Bible, I find that there is a threefold phase of death's meaning. May I first suggest what may be more familiar to us all?
And that is physical death. Has sin never come into the universe? Has sin never come into the world? We would not have physical death. Physical death is the result of sin. And what transpires when physical death takes place in the human body and the human life? What happens is this. There is a separation. The spirit and the soul, the immaterial part of it, which is the most important, the spirit and the soul is separated from the body.
My beloved, when death comes physically for you and for me, it will be the separation of the spirit and the soul which inhabits the body. It will be separated from the body. humbly but earnestly asked the question, if that were to come for you, where would you go? Where would you be? It is one of the inevitable consequences of our sin. The wages of sin is death. But then there is another character of death in the word of God that we may speak of as being spiritual death, meaning moral and spiritual death.
spiritual separation, and that from God. May I quote the words that Paul as he wrote them in Ephesians two, verse one, writing to the Christians that Ephesus he says, you have gone quickened, you have been made alive, who were dead in trespasses and in sin. And the Apostle is referring, to the spiritual state, to the moral and spiritual separation that existed in the heart and in the line of those Ephesian believers before Christ became their Savior.
They were spiritually separated from God. Morally, they were at a great distance away from Him. And my beloved, if you're away from God, If you are far from God, it's your sins that took you there. It's your sins that put you in that state of spiritual death. Remember in the Garden of Eden, God's declaration was, the day thou weest thereof thou shalt surely die. And then you read that Adam lived on to be nine hundred and thirty years. But the day he took the forbidden fruit, The day he disobeyed God, the day that sin was committed, he died and was morally and spiritually separated from God.
And that was very evident when God came into the garden and had to say, Adam, where are thou? For he and Eve began hiding. She were afraid to meet God. Their hearts were at a distance. and their soul had been separated from him by sin. My beloved, that's the inevitable reward of sin. Over him, writer wrote, I wandered far away from God. The prodigal son went into a far country from his father. And the soul that is away from God He's tasting the result of his, his and her sin.
Separated, morally, spiritually, away from God, and a heart far from himself. Sin does it. And if you have any consciousness, my sinner friend, that makes you confess, I am far away from God. You're in the state of spiritual death. But then may I go further. There is a phase of death. There is of greater consequence. And of eternal consequence. You know what it is, I hope. That eternal phase of separation.
When God will cause you to be banished. And to lie forever in your sorrow. that you have died in your sin to be banished forever in the press from the presence of God in that lake of fire which burneth forever and ever eternal banishment eternal separation never can you be restored if that separation takes place in your soul history My beloved me, I go back to Peter's word. If the wages of sin is death, if the ultimate consequence is that eternal separation and banishment from God forever and ever and ever and ever, for they rest not day and night forever and ever and ever.
Do not you and I have a great necessity? Do we not need a great salvation? And do we not need to cry out? I need to be saved. We must be saved. Oh, my beloved, you never get saved until you say I must be saved. I never did. And the night the Lord Jesus saved my soul. I turned when the preaching was finished to the companion that was sitting next to me, the Christian that was sitting there, and I said, I thought to be saved.
I must be saved. I wish people again in that condition. I must be saved. I thought to be saved. Who can save me? My beloved, do you feel that, Miss Peppady? May God the Holy Spirit... produce it in your heart and in your soul to confess, I must be saved. I've got to be saved. I'm in danger. For the opposite to salvation is danger. The opposite to salvation is to perish in the late of fire. What a great necessity. Every man, woman, boy and girl in the world has this same necessity.
No, if you don't feel you need to be saved, you're wrong. And I don't care whether you feel it or whether you don't. You need to be saved. You need to be saved. Don't tell me that you don't need to be saved. God says we must be saved. I hope the Spirit of God defends your conviction for that need to confess. I must be saved. The fool can say me. from such a penalty, the wages of my sting. In Peter's verse, there is not only a great necessity, there is a great opportunity.