All right, Isaiah 52:11: “Depart ye, depart ye, go ye out from thence, touch no unclean thing.” And partially quoted in the New Testament, applied spiritually to Christians in 2 Corinthians.

“Go ye out of the midst of her; be ye clean, that bear the vessels of the Lord.” Now, Paul makes spiritual application in the New Testament to a Christian in 2 Timothy 2. And the idea there is the Christian’s body is a vessel or temple of the Holy Spirit, and that the Christian’s body should be separated from other vessels and other bodies that are for dishonor, unclean vessels. And yet, here in Isaiah where you’re reading it, it’s literal, it’s like the priests in the Leviticus were told not to touch an unclean thing, when they bore the cup, basins, forks, spoons, and things that belonged to the Tabernacle. “Vessels of the Lord,” see? “That bear —” pick ‘em up, carry ‘em “—the vessels of the Lord.”

“Be ye clean, that bear the vessels of the Lord. For ye shall not go out with haste.” Going to take your time getting out.

“Nor go by flight.” Have to be in the future. In the Tribulation, they run for it.

“For ye shall not go out with haste, nor go by flight.” Well, they will in the Tribulation.

“For the Lord will go before you.” Second Advent.

“And the God of Israel will be your rereward.” We say, “rear guard,” or “rearward.” And the Old English is, “rereward.” “Re-” rearward. “Re-” rearward means “rearward,” and then “re-”’s a repeat. “Beyond the rearward,” see? The back end. The rear guard. It’s the right English. We just don’t use it any more. The “re-rearward.” “Rereward.”

“And the God of Israel will be your rereward.” Back in the back.

Now, this picture is a picture of Israel at the end of the Tribulation — we’ll make the Church Age from the organ to the pulpit, and we’ll make the pulpit the seven years of Daniel’s seventieth week. We’ll make the Millennium from the pulpit to the edge of the piano. And there are two things here. The Church Age ends here; out go the Christians. Daniel’s seventieth week starts. And, in the middle of that Tribulation, where this mike is, he says to Israel, “were given two wings of a great eagle, and she fled to the wilderness.” He said, “Pray that your flight be not in the winter, or on the Sabbath day.” Flight. So they flee then, see? “Flee to the wilderness.”

All right, Revelation chapter 12, the same event says that the woman fled to the wilderness where she had a place prepared of God where they should feed her 1,260 days. So Israel flees here. And yet the reference we read here says, “You shall not go out with haste, nor go by flight, for the Lord will go before you, and the God of Israel shall be your rereward.”

All right, in the Tribulation, Israel flees to the wilderness and hides there three-and-a-half years. The Lord comes and takes you out, you’re at the Judgment Seat of Christ. The Lord comes back, and when He comes back, He goes before Israel. When He comes down, He comes down to the wilderness, goes up the King’s Highway and the Mount of Olives, and as He goes, then the Jews come out. They come out of their hiding in the wilderness. The text says, “You shall not go out with haste.”

All right, the Lord comes down like that and goes up there and lands on the Mount of Olives. When He comes down and goes out there, the Jews come out and they follow Him up the King’s Highway just like they did when they came out of the land of Egypt in the days of Moses. And the Lord goes before them.

All right, 13. Now we come to a great passage, one of the greatest in the Bible. And this is much simpler than the things we’ve been talking about, and very practical. And, of course, for the Christian, why, it’s one of the greatest places anywhere in either Testament. And there are certain passages like that. They’re just, they’re outstanding. And this one begins in 52:13, where He’s stopped talking about His and begins talking about His servant, and He comes clear down to the end of 53 — twelve verses. And the devout mind and the heart that’s been regenerated can’t fail to see Jesus Christ in it. You can’t possibly miss it. Christ says, “Search the Scriptures, for they are they that testify of me.”

All right, we won’t have time for all of it. We’ll take three verses, beginning in verse 13. Fifty-two:13. “Fifty-two” —that’s four times 13. Verse 13, the reference is going to be to the death of Christ and the mutilation of Christ.

Fifty-two:13: “Behold, my servant.” And I took up considerable time in past weeks to prove that the servant was not Israel. I won’t take time to go back over all that thing again. But write down one good reference: 49:5-6. Chapter 49:5-6 shows you that servant is not a reference to the nation of Israel, but a reference to the Lord Jesus Christ.

And, in dealing with an orthodox Jew, you’ll often find that he says that’s a reference to the nation of Israel.

All right, 52:13: “Behold, my servant shall deal prudently.” Prudently is “wise.” Carefully. He says, “A prudent wife is from the Lord.” Choose carefully understanding, wisdom.

“Behold, my servant shall deal prudently, he shall be exalted.” Lifted up.

“And extolled.” Bragged about.

“Exalted” is raised up in the air, and “extolled” is magnified by praise, or lifted up in the sense of people making a fuss over Him.

“He shall be exalted and extolled, and be very high.” Quickly let your eye run down to 53:2. How’s that for height? Fifty-three:2. See how that thing contradicts? Boy, it’s rough.

Fifty-two:13, the servant shall be “exalted” and “high.” And he says in 15, “kings will shut their mouths at him.” So, imagine a man reading that, says, “Boy, this is going to be somebody. This is going to be Superman. This is going to be the greatest Man that ever lived. Kings are going to go by Him, and this Servant is going to say something, and the kings are going to shut their mouths. They can’t even answer. He’s going to be exalted, way up high, and lifted up,” and then 53, verse 2 says he’ll come out like scrub oak, or like scrub pine.

All right, 52:13: “Behold, my servant shall deal prudently, he shall be exalted and extolled, and be very high.” Second Advent.

Immediately he goes to the First. Fourteen: “As many were astonied.” Old English for “astonished.” Like a stone. Much better than “astonished.” “Astonied” is “like a stone” — petrified.

“As many were astonied at thee; his visage...” Now, that’s the personal appearance. The “visage” is not merely the face, but it’s like countenance. “Visage” is the appearance the face gives.

“His visage was so marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men.” Scofield has a good note on it, the Old Scofield Bible. Doesn’t it say the effects of the brutalities described in something there?

All right, “His visage was so marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men.” Then He’s beat up, and the face is beat up, and the face is “marred” — it’s banged and bruised. And it’s beat up to where you can hardly recognize it as a man’s face. And it doesn’t look like a man when you look at it.

And that’s the picture that Jesus Christ presents when He comes before Pontius Pilate. When Christ steps out there on the balcony and hands tied behind Him and whipped and crowned, the blood’s running off Him and the face all beaten, smashed in, when He stands up there, Pilate says, “Behold the man.” When he says, “Behold the man,” he’s dealing with a man whose face has just been battered out of recognition or shape. And that isn’t hard without breaking a bone. You can do it without breaking a bone.

A good fist across the bridge of a nose, if it doesn’t break a bone, cracks the skin, all across here. Did you ever see Bobby Hull coming out of an ice hockey game? He comes out of some ice hockey games with so much blood on him you can hardly see his face. And blood down here, and one good punch in the eye, if it’s put in the right place, will swell your eye shut. I’ve had fights back in the old days, when I was much younger, where I couldn’t see the guy I was fighting the last couple of minutes, because both eyes were slammed shut, and you couldn’t even open them. You were just kind of going by faith instead of sight.

And these eyes, they swell up like this, and then come out this way purple and blue. And then, of course, any sock around the side of the face here will puff up the mouth. And in many a fistfight, the man’s mouth is puffed up three times the size of what it ought to be.

And then, in addition to that, there had been thorns stuck in here, and then the face slapped, and then spit on the face.

So, what you have when the Lord steps out is just a mangled, bruised man, just beaten all to pieces with blood and spit all over him. And he says His visage was marred more than the sons and men.

“His visage was so marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men.” The normal chastisement for blasphemy is stoning, which the Jews couldn’t do. And then the normal killing for sedition or insurrection is crucifixion under Roman law. But nowhere is there any law about spitting on a man, and tearing out his hair, and slapping a crown of thorns on his head. So the verse says, “His form more than the sons of men” — any man. In plainer words, the brutality that was given to Jesus Christ were not prescribed for any man no matter what he’d done. You can’t find anything in the Old Testament about you should spit on his — well, you find that woman spitting in the guy’s face for loosing his shoe, you know. But it isn’t like the batting and buffeting and slapping and cursing and all that going along with it.

All right, 15: “So shall he sprinkle many nations.” Sprinkle? Well, how can He sprinkle them?

Verse 14: “His visage was ... marred.” His form was marred. Not merely His visage, but His form — the bodily shape — so He’s been whipped.

“So shall he sprinkle.” Then is must be blood. It must be blood. And the RSV says, “So shall he startle many nations.” Because the RSV doesn’t like the blood atonement and doesn’t like to think about the Lord sprinkling His blood.

Let’s come to the Book of Hebrews, and we’ll close here today. The Book of Hebrews, and we’ll see why Methodists and Episcopalians and Lutherans and Roman Catholics sprinkle. They have a ground for doing it; they have a Biblical ground. But, again, like I said, you can prove anything from Scripture. You have to rightly divide; you have to study to get it. Don’t take anybody’s word for it.

All right, Hebrews chapter 9. Hebrews chapter 9, and we’ll see where they get sprinkling. Now, the passage you read is a reference to somebody sprinkling his blood. All right, now, in Hebrews 9, Hebrews 9. Hebrews 9:12: “Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us. For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling...” “...sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh: How much more shall the blood of Christ —” sprinkled blood?

All right, let’s look at it again. Verse 18. Hebrews 9:18: “Whereupon neither the first testament was dedicated without blood. For when Moses had spoken every precept to all the people according to the law, he took the blood ... with water, ... and sprinkled.” Twenty-one: “Moreover he sprinkled.” Now, that’s where they get the baptism from.

Now, that comes again from failure to believe the New Testament. I’ve been sprinkled and baptized. I’m not prejudiced, huh. I’ve had both of them. And I was sprinkled when I was a baby in the Episcopal communion, put the cross on my forehead, you know, and threw water at me. And their teaching is this. Their teaching is the child is saved by the blood atonement — they believe in the blood atonement. I mean, if they’re orthodox, or they profess to. All right, if Christ died for your sins — blood atonement — then if this fellow takes the water and sprinkles it on you, it’s a type of the sprinkling of the blood on you. And that’s how you get saved or regenerated.

Now, what’s wrong with that? Well, the thing that’s wrong with that is that man is confusing purification by sprinkling with baptism in water. And there’s a difference. Now, that Jew may have purified things by sprinkling water on them, but when ol’ John the Baptist baptized, then he put ‘em under. And when Christ came, Christ went under and came back up. And baptism in the spiritual sense, Colossians chapter 2 and Romans 6 where he’s talking about the Holy Spirit putting you into Jesus Christ, is said to be “buried with him in baptism.” Therefore, baptism is not sprinkling — it’s burial. And, if you’re going to have a picture in water — like Peter says, “a figure of your salvation” — you can’t, when you bury a man you don’t put him up against a tree and throw dirt at him. You don’t sprinkle dirt at him. You take him and dig a hole and you put him in the hole and cover him up. So, when we baptize people, that’s what we do.

You say, “A lot of that’s how the rest of ‘em do it.” Yeah, a lot of them borrowed our thunder. A lot of ‘em borrowed our thunder. There wasn’t a Seventh-day Adventist of Jehovah Witness or a Campbellite in this country before 1600. And those ol’ Baptists were putting them under in 1400 and 1500 and 1600. We put ‘em under. And our folks borrow it, you know. So that’s the Scriptural way, and we baptize people, we put ‘em clear under cause we’re burying ‘em.

And I try to always be careful about that. You may have seen me sometimes baptize somebody and use hands, you know, start to float up to the top, and I put ‘em clear under. I don’t know what I’d do if all of them didn’t go under. But I know a preacher one time who baptized somebody, and a hand or finger got up, and he rebapized him to get the finger under. Now, that’s a real Baptist, brother! I don’t know if I’d go that far, but, when you bury ‘em, you don’t leave a hand sticking up.

ISAIAH 53

All right, now, Isaiah chapter 53, and we’ll begin at verse 1. Father, we’re thankful for this opportunity we have to come out again and assemble together in your name and read the Book and study. We ask your blessing upon the service today, and bless these teachers in back of these rooms, teaching these younger people and these children. And may this word of God get into their hearts and lives and stay there and fasten there and do something for them. And if you tarry, may these young people will grow up to be real testimonies in this community. And if things get tough and hard, we pray you’ll raise up in this church a whole generation of young people who will stand — and having done all, stand. Bless these teachers, and may you anoint them, and may their word given to students stick in their memory and stay with them. Bless our class here today as we study in Isaiah, and we look to thee now for help and leadership in all we’re about to say and do. Get us in the word. Make it real to us for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

All right, Isaiah chapter 53, verse 1. I’m going to take off my coat. I’m like to burn up up here. I guess down where you all are it’s cool. But the heat rises, you know. When you stand up here, you know, and you’re level about six feet above the back end of that building, it’s about — seems like it’s about 85 up here. Ah, I’m losing my touch. Ought to be able to just lie there when we go.

All right, Isaiah chapter 53, verse 1. Isaiah 53:1. Now this is the great chapter in the Bible on the atonement and the crucifixion. And this chapter shows up in the New Testament in Acts chapter 8, where Philip is dealing with the Ethiopian eunuch. And the Ethiopian eunuch is reading Isaiah 53, and asks him, “Of whom speakest this man? Of himself, or somebody else?” And then Philip opens in Isaiah 53, and the Bible says, “And from this same Scripture he preached to him Jesus.” So we know from the New Testament who this passage is about.

Isaiah 53:1: “Who hath believed our report?” And the implied answer is, “Not very many people.”

“Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?” And the implied answer is, “Not very many.” Now, it doesn’t say that, but it’s implied.

“Who hath believed our report?” Nobody, or very little. “And to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?” Not very many.

“For he.” And the “he” is a reference to 52:13: “Behold, my servant shall deal prudently.”

Fifty-three:2: “For he —” the servant “— shall grow up before him —” the Lord, verse 1, the arm of the Lord.

“For he —” the arm, the servant “— shall grow up before him —” the Lord, capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D.

“For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant.” Like, they say, plant your seedlings in the winter in these boxes, you know, and you put out these little old boxes with the dirt in them and put them in the window, and a little ol’ seedling comes up there that you plant about that high, and the spring comes, and you transplant it in the garden.

“For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant.” That is, a plant that could be frozen or killed.

“He shall grow up before him as a tender plant.” Nothing important. “And as a root out of a dry ground.” A root like a scrub oak, or a scrub pine tree. Nothing particular, nothing glamorous, nothing beautiful.

“And as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form.” And the form is the shape, like 52:14, “his form —” bodily shape “— more than the sons of men.”

Fifty-three:2: “He hath no form.” And it’s like he’s not a, doesn’t look like a weight-lifter, or like Errol Flynn or Clark Gable.

“Nor comeliness.” “Comeliness” is being handsome, or good-looking.

“He hath no form nor comeliness.” He’s not a handsome man or a beautiful man, like the picture drawing. I guess the most beautiful male you ever saw in your life is Salmon’s Head of Christ. It’s kind of — you ever notice that thing with the glow around it, kind of Errol Flynn with that long, well-shaped nose and that high, polished forehead, you know, and the arching eyebrows and the long eyelashes and the full lips, you know — all that business. Beautiful thing. The Bible says it wasn’t like that. The Bible says, “No comeliness.”

According to the Bible, He’s a Jew — He’s a Hebrew of the Hebrews. He’s a Judaean Jew. So He probably looked like a Jew.

All right, 53:2: “He hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.” Not a beautiful man, a good-looking man, or a handsome man.

“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 hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.” Now, years ago, two things happened. The first that happened is a French named Rene Menard claimed to have gotten hold of a piece of paper from a man named Lanfillas Justin. And Lanfillan Justin was a Roman senator, and Rene Menard published this paper. And this paper from Lanfillas Justin said that Jesus Christ was a “tall, handsome man, with gracious movements and a flowing walk, and he had long, red-brown hair and sparkling, clear, blue eyes,” and all this and that. And that’s supposed to be a human description of Christ — kind of an Irish Catholic, with blue eyes and red-brown hair, and long-flowing, tall, graceful, you know, swooping around.

So, whenever they picture Jesus Christ in these liberal movies, they always have him kind of swishing around in these long robes, like kind of a Bishop Pike or something.

And that isn’t the description given in the Bible.

All right, the second description comes from a Roman Catholic named Veronica, if she ever lived. She’s called St. Veronica. And Veronica, on the way to the cross, when Christ fell under the cross, the load of the cross, she was supposed to have had a handkerchief down on the ground. And when Christ fell down on the ground, his face went on that handkerchief. And then, when Veronica picked up this handkerchief, she had a photostatic facsimile in color on this handkerchief — which the Vatican still claims to have, and I’ve seen photographs of it. And on this thing the hair’s almost blond. So you get a kind of a, He’s kind of a Japhetic, Caucasian Christ. He’s not too Jewish. He’s a — you know, more like the man from U.N.C.L.E. or something. And kind of blond hair and blue eyes, you know, and his face on here.

And the Bible never describes Him that way. Now, His human description to the unbeliever — and this is the unbeliever — “There is no beauty that we should desire him....despised and rejected of men.” To the unbeliever, Jesus Christ was just a homely, common, ordinary Jewish carpenter. That’s all He was.

And I brought you a message on “Superstar” and pointed out to you that no man raised like Jesus Christ was raised with talk like they had Him talk in that play. A man that’s been a carpenter for eighteen years doesn’t talk like the “Superstar” talks. I mean, you fellows have known carpenters. You know any carpenters been carpenters eighteen years? A fellow who’s been a carpenter eighteen years don’t, when they pray, don’t get down on their knees at Gethsemane and say, “Now, what you started, I didn’t start it, you started it. I look for the truth and finally get damned.” That isn’t a carpenter talk. Not even a journeyman, let alone a master.

So the Christ that is presented in America by the teenagers, and the Christ that’s presented by the liberals, and the Christ that’s presented by the Roman Catholics is not the Jesus Christ of this Book. And so, when they talk about Christ, it’s like 2 Corinthians says, “Another Christ.” Or, “Another gospel.”

In plainer words, I could be standing here and I could be quoting you Scripture all day long talking about Jesus Christ, talking about the crucifixion, talking about God, talking about Heaven, talking about Hell, and just lie from start to finish. I could give you another Heaven — a different one that’s in the Bible — and a different hell that’s in the Bible.

For example, I’d give you a hell where your memory burns you — instead of the fire. But in the Bible, a fire burns them. You see? And I could give you a Jesus Christ that came up from the dead, and lived in the hearts of His disciples, see — instead of a literal Man that came up and His Spirit indwells the bodies of His disciples. You see how quick I could pull that one off?

And I’ll tell you, there are preachers in this country, from the time they get up in this pulpit, to the time they get down, they’re just putting out one great big lie in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost. And if you don’t know your Bible, you can’t tell it.

All right, the Catholic of a Roman theology is a blond-haired, blue — like da Vinci. How many of you ever seen “The Last Supper” by da Vinci? Let me see your hands. Well, he’s blond. He’s blond. He’s not brunette.

All right, the Christ of Roman theology is a blond-haired, blue-eyed, sort of effeminite character that can be reduced to a piece of bread on Sunday morning, and you can swallow him, if you put John 6 with Matthew 26. Now, that isn’t the Christ of the Bible. And the Christ of liberalism is a kind of a tall, Colleil JaBraun, kind of, you know, the man of Galilee, the great prophetic mystic that shows you the Christ in you and develops the divinity from the spark of life into whatever He’s going to do.

And those aren’t the Christ in the Bible. Now, let’s take our Bibles and turn to Song of Solomon, back to the left one book. Now, I know we’ve been through this many times before, but it won’t hurt to go through again. And the Song of Solomon chapter 5, notice the human description of Christ to the believer is anything but the picture given to us by Roman and liberal theology and by the hippies. Song of Solomon 5, verse 10, and I’ll begin at verse 9.

Now, there are two pictures here. And the first picture in Isaiah 53 is the picture of an unbeliever looking at Christ. And when an unbeliever looks at Christ, he sees a swarthy-faced, hook-nosed Judaean Jew with callouses on His hands, coming up in a carpenter’s shop, with that rough outdoors skin from sleeping outdoors at night — “the foxes have holes, the birds of the air have nests, the Son of Man hath not where to lay His head” — and he sees just a common, ordinary, earthly character when he looks at Christ.

Now, to the believer, He looks like something else. Song of Solomon 5:9: “What is thy beloved more than another beloved, O thou fairest among women? what is thy beloved more than another beloved, that thou dost so charge us?” Answer: “My beloved is white —” not colored. He’s white. Racial discrimination, if you ever saw it.

“My beloved is white.” You know, I’ve got pictures at home of Christ as black. They’re painting portraits of Him now as a colored man. I’ve got three of them at home. One of them’s a mural as big as the back end of this thing here, and have the old colored boy standing up there with the two fingers, you know, and the old sun disk right behind him. That isn’t Scriptural.

The Bible says, “My beloved is white.” W-H-I-T-E. You can spell. Now, I don’t know what the new versions say. But your Bible says “white.” “My beloved is white.” How’s that for discrimination? “My beloved is white.” He’s not black.

“My beloved is white and ruddy.” R-U-D-D-Y. An American probably says “ruddy,” and an Englishman probably says “roody.” I call ‘em “bootkis,” my boys call ‘em “butkis.” But it’s English. I mean, it’s the king’s English. The king’s English says “ruddy.”

“My beloved is white and ruddy.” “Ruddy” (or “roody”) is swarthy, it’s a red-brown, like Adam. He’s a Shemite. The nearest thing to it that you’d ever see would be an American Indian.

“My beloved is white and ruddy {“roody”}, the chiefest among ten thousand. His head is as the most fine gold.” It’s a yellow-brown, burnish appearance. “His locks are bushy.” Thick hair. “And black as a raven.” There isn’t any blond-haired Christ anywhere in the Bible — unless it’s an Antichrist. And there isn’t any red-brown-haired Christ in the Bible. They’ve been putting Clairol in their Christ. The Christ of the Bible is black-headed. He’s a Jew. He’s a Jew. Why wouldn’t He be dark-headed? His hair is “bushy and black as a raven.” Did you ever see a raven? It isn’t even dark brown. It’s black.

All right, “And black.” Verse 10: “white.” Verse 11: “black.” White, so far as the genes and chromosones and skin is concerned. As far as the hair is concerned, eyebrows — “black.”

“His locks are bushy, and black as a raven. His eyes are as the eyes of doves.” That’s gray. It’s a gray color. Ever shoot one in the fields and pick it up and look at it? It’s a clear gray. And it sticks out of the eyeball, looks like it’s looking in all directions at the same time. And it’s the most piercing stare you ever saw. That’s why some of the ladies don’t like to shoot doves; they’ve tried it. Some ladies down South have shot a dove and gone over and picked up the poor little darling, heh, and when they pick the thing up and saw that look, it finished them! And I will admit, it is kind of a, you know — I mean, you’ve got this big ol’ blunderbus, you know, and BEEEAAAAUUUUUU! — you shoot that thing, and this little ol’ feathered thing comes flopping down. And I’ve picked them up, you know, and had ‘em flutter. You get a bad shot on them. And what you have to do, then, ladies, if you have to pick it up by the tail and bang the head across your shotgun, and that’s the best way, I mean — knock it senseless and knock off the head so it doesn’t suffer. That’s better than suffering.

But it’s hard to get a woman interested in that kind of thing, you know. And yet, you know, deer hunting is just about as bad. I mean, I never have done it, but I’d really like to shoot about an 18-point buck or an elk or a moose. I really would. But the first deer I ever shot, honestly, when I looked at the thing, I felt kind of ashamed of myself. And they got those soft brown eyes, you know, and that kind of soft fuzz on the snoot, you know, on the head. Just makes you feel ashamed coming down like that. And he isn’t much of a match, you know.

Now, that dove, he’ll challenge you, you see. I mean, you’ll shoot up a box of shells trying to get two or three of them, if you’re average. If you’re average. And his chances of getting away are as good as yours of killing him. And those things come over. I’ve seen them come over just like a formation of airplanes coming in over a field with fifty hunters in it. And I have seen some fly clear across fifty hunters and never lose a tail feather. And those things come in, and the old boy just, he just dips and goes like that, and here these old things going “POW!” “POW!” “POW!” “BOOB!” “BOM!” “BOOB!” “POW!” “BAM!” “BOM!” Some guys got the choke out of his gun, you know. You’re supposed to put a plug in there, you know, and only three shells. I saw one one time fly over a row of bushes one time, and in that bushes you heard, “BAAA! BAAM! BAAH! BAAM! BAAM!” five of them. And every now on then, you hear one of these old guns like, some of these fellows back up there in Alabama, they got these old guns their granddads had, you know. And they’re better than a regular gun, because the angle on them on the stocks is better. The stock, the barrel goes like this, and the stock drops this way. Now, they’re not nice looking. See, you go down to the Penny and look at all those pretty guns, and they’re just shaped like that, you know, like an M-1 or a Springfield. But you may as well face it, man, if your eyes are this far above your shoulder, a foot above your shoulder, when you put the stock here, and it just barely bends, you’re sightin’ over a sight almost eight inches. And if a thing curves up and straightens out you’re looking right down the barrel. I mean, the old-timers, they knew what they were doing. And they didn’t make the gun for looks; they made it for shootin’. So the old-time shotguns have the stock here, and it comes up like this, and then it breaks — almost to the right angle there — and when the guy takes his gun and swings his gun up this way, when the stock hits here, he’s looking right down the barrel.

But that’s America, you know. And some of those fellows up there in Alabama and Georgia and Mississippi have those old guns, and some of them there have a great, big ol’ long barrel on them. And most of them are double-barreled. Some of them are single-barreled. And I guess they shoot a twelve-gauge shell, but, boy I’m telling you, some of those things go off, and I could swear the guy must have an I-don’t-know-what in there. I mean, some of them must be, sound like a ten-gauge shell or something. Sounds like they’re shootin’ a 60-caliber bullet. And when it goes off, it doesn’t sound like the new guns. The new guns go, “BOOOOP!” “BOOOOP!” “BOOOP!” like that. And those old ones go, “CUNNNK! CUNNK!” like a mortar, they echo, you know.

And that old bird come across there, and you’re, “CUNNNK! CUNNK! CUNNK!” back in the bushes. And I’ve seen that old bird come down, and come down and fly two feet off the ground, some of them, and then up to eight feet, and down to three feet, and then fifteen feet, and then just — SHOOOOOM! — right by you. I’ve had them go by me two feet off the ground. You couldn’t shoot ‘em. You’d shoot another guy out here in the field a little ways. And when you get fifty guys in the field, it’s just like salt coming down anyway, you know that, don’t you? Now, you get fifty guys in the field, and every time a guy shoots you hear this hail coming down all around you with a shot coming down. So it’s a sport. It’s hard to hit that dove. Hard to hit him. And a good dove shoot — it’ll try you. And it’ll cost something. You’ll wind up paying about two dollars per dove before you get through.

But, even then, I’ve gone there and picked them up in the field, you know, and that thing is all warm and gray, you know, and fluttering, you know, and that eye looks at you, like, “Aren’t you ashamed of yourself, you big bully! Shoot a little ol’ thing like me.” And I’ve always wanted to hunt, you know, lions and bears and those kind of things.

Oh, about six years ago, a missionary in Michigan, he phoned me, and I couldn’t get off for Christmas that time, but he wanted to fly me up to Alaska. He had a mission station in Alaska. And he volunteered to fly me from Grand Rapids. If I could get to Grand Rapids, he’d fly me from there to Alaska, and fly me back, and spend a week up there, and he told me to bring my Springfields and 220-range bullets, and we’d hunt Kodiak or brown bear. And I sure wanted to go then. I sure wanted to go. I never went.

You think about a thing like that, now, he’s got about as much chance of getting you as you’ve got of getting him. And you kill that bird, you wouldn’t let his “baby brown eyes” bother you a minute!

All right, 12: “His eyes are as the eyes of doves by the rivers of waters, washed with milk, and fitly set.” Eyes set back in the head.

“His cheeks are as a bed of spices, as sweet flowers: his lips like lilies.” Now, of course, that’s the devout believing heart. That’s the way she sees Him. Other people don’t see Him that way.

“His lips like lilies, dropping sweet smelling myrrh. His hands are as gold rings set with the beryl: his belly is as bright ivory overlaid with sapphires.” An exaggerated description, but to a believer, why, 16, “He is altogether lovely.”

Sixteen: “His mouth is most sweet: yea, he is altogether lovely. This is my beloved, and this is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem.”

All right, back to Isaiah 53:3. So what we’re dealing here with is a natural Jew, a Judaean Jew, a Hebrew of the Hebrews, and, humanly speaking, He’s from Mary, and humanly speaking He’s an Israelite. And, being of the seed of David, He’s a Shemite. He’s a Hebrew and a Shemite and an Israelite and a Jew and, as such, He’d look like any Jew looks today. A laboring Jew. Not a clothing store Jew. A laboring Jew.

If you went over to Israel and picked up some of those sophthras there, you’d probably find a face just about like His. A common, ordinary face.

All right, 3: “He is despised and rejected of men.” Men don’t want him.

“He is despised.” They make fun of him.

How many of you have heard Jesus Christ made fun of this week? Could I see your hands? Anyway? Oh, there’s about twenty. Twenty-five in a crowd like this. And that’s only in a week. In a week. In a year, if you work out in the world, you’re going to hear it over and over and over and over again. And this irreverent business of referring to Him as “J.C.,” that’s very typical, you know. “J.C.” — like “J.P.” Morgan, you know, and good ol’ “J.P.” and good ol’ “J.C.” That’s the talk of somebody that’s looking down their nose at Jesus Christ.

All right, “He is despised and rejected of men.” Well, you’ve seen people reject Him. I have too. You’ve dealt with people; I’ve dealt with people, and they say, “Not today,” “Not today,” they don’t want Him, they reject Him.

“Despised and rejected of men.” Generally a man will talk about anything before he talks about Jesus Christ. Now, there’s degrees on it. Once in a while, you’ll find a fellow who won’t even talk about the church. See, I’ve been in those homes. I went to one home here about a year ago and knocked on the door, and introduced myself, and he said, “Well,” he said, “I’ll let you in on one condition.”

I said, “What’s that?”

He said, “That you don’t about religion or the Bible.”

And I said, “Well, I’m just going to stay outside then.”

And he said, “Well, I’ve had enough of this and that, and if you’re going to talk about it, you can go —”

And I said, “Well, I’d be tongue-tied.” I said, “That’s what’s on my heart, and that’s what I’m interested in, and if my Saviour and my Bible are not welcome in your house, I’m not either. Good day,” and I left him. See, you find them like that.

But then most people talk about religion, as long as you don’t talk about the church. And then some of them are more broadminded, and they’ll discuss churches — as long as you don’t talk about the Bible. And then some of them are more broadminded and even talk about the Bible with you, as long as you don’t bring them down to Jesus Christ. But, boy, you bring them down to Jesus Christ, and you watch that thing begin to back out and crawfish around there. And you give them the issue, see.

Oh, man, well, you all, you’re personal workers, you know how it goes. You could write a book on conversations you’ve had with people. You sit down there, and, “Where did Cain get his wife?” You know. “How did all the animals get in the ark?” “What do you think about Billy Graham?” “Do you think Oral Roberts is for real?” “What do you think about Billy James Hargis?” “Well, do you believe in talking in tongues?” “Well, how come these Campbellites say this and say that, and you think you’re right, and they think they’re right,” and, “What about —” anything, except Jesus Christ.

And you sit down and start talking about Him, and they begin to duck and slip and turn.

I wish sometime a personal worker would come to my house and put it on me. But I never had the opportunity. I’ve had Jehovah Witnesses come by there, and they’re not going to talk about Jesus Christ. They only talk about Jehovah. They talk about the literature. You know, get out the New World Translation.

And I’ve had the Seventh-day Adventists come around. They talk about all this nonsense. I’ve been saved 23 years, coming up March, and I’ve never had a man yet come into my house and sit down and open the Bible and try to lead me to Jesus Christ — in 23 years. And I’ll bet you they’re bound to be people all over this town never have.

All right, Isaiah 53:3: “He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.” Hence, a tradition about Him that He never smiled. And that’s from a description Lynn Phyllis Justin, and I don’t believe that, either. When it says, “A man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief,” it’s not saying He didn’t ever smile.

I’ve known men who were men of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and they smiled more than some of the other ones. You ever notice that? There’s some times when people who have the biggest heartache and the most trouble are able to smile more than the ones who don’t have so much trouble.

I don’t believe Jesus Christ never smiled. A fellow said, “Well, nowhere in the Bible did it say He smiled.” Well, nowhere in the Bible does it say Paul smiled. It doesn’t say that Peter smiled. It doesn’t say that James smiled. It doesn’t say that Moses smiled. It doesn’t say that David smiled. Where’d you ever read about Noah smiling? Where’d you ever read about Abraham, Isaac or Jacob smiling? Nobody “smiles” in the Bible. See? They just don’t mention it. They don’t ever mention it. But that doesn’t mean they didn’t.

Have you ever looked at photographs back in 1890 and 1900, 1910, and notice how few people smiled? Did you ever notice that?

And I’m that way, you know. They can’t get a picture of me smiling for nothing, you know, except kind of a sardonic grin, is about all I can get out. And the reason why, is, it’s so artificial, you know, when the thing isn’t real, I feel like a fool putting it on, you know. And, boy, I’ve seen some of them can do it, man, and just — and you go down there to the newspaper, and they say, “We want to take your picture,” and they make you sit down, see, and they make you, they always make you sit down in a chair and lean forward with one elbow down like this, you know, tip your elbow. And you tip your shoulders. See, the idea behind that is, in a frame, it looks better to have an angle across the frame this way, and something sitting up as far as balance goes, there’s just, something flat or something sticking up. So they always have you drop this shoulder.

And, boy, I tell you. I could show you publicity shots from Campus Crusade and Inter-Varsity Fellowship and some of these publicity things, a fellow’s — honest to goodness, you couldn’t get a better picture of a Hollywood star anywhere in the world. They got that light behind him, you know, and the highlight on this cheek, you know, and the highlight just touching this end of the nose, you know.

They always photograph me flat, you know. Light right straight ahead. Looks like something out of Sing-Sing. And you don’t get any contour to the face, see. And they get this light showing here, and this light showing here, and just a touch-up here, you know. Usually the guy kind of lights behind, you know, a spot over here, and one down at the bottom shooting up. And, what was I going to say? Oh, I was going to say, in those pictures, when you bend over this way, the fellow says, “Smile,” you know, and, “Say cheese,” you know, and all that, and watch the monkey, you know, and try to get you to smile.

And I never have appreciated that, because it all seems so artificial. And, back in the old days, you see this picture, you see these family pictures? These daguerreotypes from 1890 and 1910? They always show the man standing this way, with his hat, you know, here, and his arm around his wife, and she’s sitting there with her arms folded like this in this plain old dress, and she’s — you know, he’s — . And the reason why is because they’re facing this machine, see.

And that’s what I feel about it. And I’m real old-fashioned, man. I see that glass thing staring at me, and that guy back there, you know, like this, and I don’t feel like smiling. But they always do that.

And so I imagine the Lord Jesus Christ, I imagine He smiled a lot. He just didn’t smile for the camera — or for the record, see. But I’m sure He smiled. Why, you know He smiled. Anybody hanging out with Peter, James, you know, and John, Judas, and Matthew — why, you know He smiled.

All right. It isn’t all, with sorrow and grief, it isn’t all just gloom. I was thinking about, I wish — it’s too late now to start — but I wish really, man, we taped all of the classes out at the institute for the last six years. And I’d just like to play them for you folks here in the church here. Some of those things are so hilarious, you just wouldn’t believe it. You just wouldn’t believe it. I’ve heard classes just break up, just in pandemonium for four and five and six minutes. And for nothing planned. I mean, human nature being what it is, it just, you know.

We had one thing out there. We had all the guys get up and give talks. And I always give them something they’re not familiar with. Because, if I tell a guy to preach on rabbit hunting, I give it to a guy that I know hasn’t hunted any rabbits, or very few of them. And if I give a guy a talk on electronics, I give one to some guy, you know, who’d never seen the inside of a radio, just see what he’ll do with it.

And I’m telling you, I heard some things out there, Lord, I’m telling you. Boy, we had one guy get up, and he talked about the hydrogen cycle in plant life. And he didn’t know what he was talking about, from the time he got up to the time he finished. And he tried to illustrate it on the board, and he couldn’t draw. And, boy, I’m telling you, that thing got funnier and funnier. I couldn’t even hear him to grade him after awhile, I just sit, man, laughing. And the guy went on and on, and the thing about it is, he never cracked. He gave it with a straight face all the way through. That made it twice as bad, you know. I always blow my jokes, you know. When I tell something, I get tickled at it, and get to laughing, and that kind of ruins the effect. But, boy, when you go through that deadpan, man, you just, boy, you ruin it.

And I heard a guy a week or so ago give one on rabbit hunting. And, boy, if that thing wasn’t too much, man! That thing was just too much. I think that thing began, “The first thing you have to do when you go out is find a rabbit.” Ha! Ha! And then he said, “If you take the dogs with you,” he said, “the dogs must see the rabbit before the rabbit sees the dogs.” And I got to thinking about that thing, that dog sitting there looking at that rabbit, that rabbit looking at him, and boy, I’m telling you, I checked out, man!

It isn’t all long-face, you know. It’s not that way.

All right, 3: “He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows.” But I’m sure He smiled; I’m sure He laughed.

“And acquainted with grief.” If you’re acquainted with a thing, you know it. He knows grief. “And acquainted with grief.” And, I’m sure if any man lived who was acquainted with grief, I’m sure He was acquainted with it.

And you stop to think about all the things He went through as a man, just humanly speaking. All right, in the first place, about grief, did you ever hear somebody say, “Were you raised in a barn?” They say, “Shut that door. Were you raised in a barn?” They always give you that, you know. Well, He was raised in a barn. I mean, Luke chapter 2, born in a stable. Born in a stable. And you stop to think about growing up, and somebody saying, “Where were you born?” “I was born in Bethlehem.” “Show your birth certificate. Let’s see your records,” you know. You know, So-and-So born in Such-and-Such a hospital, Such-and-Such a time. And that thing says, “Delivered in a stable.”

And the boy grows up. And when He grows up, they think He’s illegitimate. I mean, Mary — she had the child, see — she was with child before Joseph married her. And so the child as far as the world is concerned is illegitimate. And you take a kid out there playing in the playground like that, you know. You know how the kids — they’ll say something about it. Children are cruel. They’re cruel — boy, they’ll rub it in, man, till it hurts. And then twist it.

And you stop to think about a boy coming up like that four or five or six or seven or eight or nine years old who’s sinless. Don’t you know He had some times with His playmates? I mean, some of you have boys and girls that are good as far as the world is concerned. I mean, they’re pretty straight as far as their playmates are concerned. And, don’t you know, some of their playmates give them a rough time? Boy, don’t you ever doubt it, man. You take kids eight, nine, ten, eleven years old, that don’t cuss and don’t tell dirty jokes and rebuke somebody for doing it, and kids twelve, thirteen, fourteen, and fifteen that don’t smoke and don’t go to dances and wear their dresses right and cut their hair — boy, don’t you think they don’t get it from out there in the world. They get it.

I saw one of my boys; he was about ten years old in a service, and I was giving an invitation. And I saw one of my boys when he was about ten turn around to a fellow behind him and witness to him during the invitation. And this kid was about twelve. And, from the platform watching the invitation, I saw my boy turn around like this and bend over, and I saw that kid raise up his hand like this, like that you know, then my boy turned back around. I thought to myself, “Yeah, just like the grownups. Just like the grownups.”

And so they get it. And, don’t you know, a man is, a young man coming up like He was, as pure and good as He was, don’t you know he got it every day of His life, man, coming up? And called His mother, “You know what your mother is? She’s so-and-so. You know what you are. You’re a —” That’s right. That’s right.

When He got older, you know what they said about him in John? They said, “We be not born of fornication.” You know what’s implied there? “We be not born of fornication, like you.” That’s what’s implied.

And so He comes up like that, and then coming up. You stop to think about the loneliness, man! I mean, no wife and no children and no friends coming up. And then when He picks His twelve, see, then they’re on Him day and night with no privacy of His own. And when He gets alone He goes up into the mountain to pray by Himself. And He comes down and people on him morning till night. “I want this,” “I want that,” “Lord, heal me,” “Lord, divide inheritance with my brethren,” here comes a sick baby, here comes a sick woman, here comes a crippled man, here comes a blind man, here comes a funeral — I mean, just all the time.

You talk about “acquainted with grief.” A man stands up there, putting His hand on a blind baby. Putting His hand on a kid with an epileptic fit. Putting His hand on somebody who can’t walk. Putting his hand on somebody who’s deaf and dumb, see. “Acquainted with grief.”

I never have gotten the full picture. I read the gospel accounts, and I don’t really get it. And sometimes they just kind of cross my mind like a film. But there’s no film been made of it. And there never will be. Of just hundreds and thousands of people coming up with tears running down their face. Dead babies. Sick babies. Sick mothers and sick fathers. Night and day and day and night. That’s the picture.

The Bible said the crowd pressed on Him to hear the word of God. And there wasn’t any place to get in the house because of the press. Just all the time, somebody having trouble.

All right, he said, “Acquainted with grief.” And then personal grief. I mean, don’t you know He was grieved when He went out through Caiaphas’ hall there and turned back there and looked around there and saw Simon Peter standing over there? And his mouth has just finished pouring out like a sewer, man. And there was His beloved disciple standing over there, the one who said, “I love you, Lord,” and all men are offended. He turns around and looks at him, you know, and here he is over there, just finished cussing for fifteen minutes.

Don’t you know that was a grief to Him?

And then, I believe even Judas was a grief to Him. Come into the garden and says, “Hail, Master!” and then the next thing he’s out there hanging on a limb, committed suicide.

Thomas was a grief to Him. The Lord rose from the dead and said, “All these fellows are going to stand by me now that I’m risen from the dead,” and after He arose from the dead, one of them said, “I don’t even think He’s around.”

“Acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him.” Well, when you hide from somebody, you’re ashamed to see him. “We hid as it were our faces from him.” And they rejected Him. “We hid as it were our faces.” Israel! See the plural? Not just Isaiah — “I hid my face” — but the nation.

“We hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.” And to esteem somebody is to hold him up high. And this one wasn’t held up high; He was looked down upon, placed down low.

“He was despised, and we esteemed him not.” In the New Testament, they say, “He’s a prophet.” Another one of them said, “He’s a good man.” Another one said, “Nay, but he deceives the people.” And one of them said, “He’s the Christ.” Another one said, “He’s not the Christ. The Christ comes out of Bethlehem, not Galilee.” And one of the said, “He’s a devil.” And one of them said, “He’s the prince of devils.” See? They get Him lower and lower. Somebody says He’s Christ, he’s not Christ, He’s a prophet, He’s not a prophet. He’s a good man. He’s a deceiver. He’s a devil. He’s the prince of devils. That’s how they responded to Him.

“He was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs.” Then it was like I told you back in 3, it wasn’t merely that He was acquainted with grief in the sense that He was whipped and cussed and persecuted. That’s His sorrow. But when it says, “Acquainted with grief,” verse 4 says, “Surely he hath borne our griefs.” That is, it’s an exchange. He’s familiar with our troubles.

Surely he hath borne our griefs.” They came and touched Him. “Surely he hath borne our griefs.” It’s quoted in the New Testament for His healing ministry.

“And carried our sorrows.” Then it’s substitutionary. It’s a transferance. It’s like me going into the Old Testament tabernacle and the sheep’s out there and the ox is out there, and I come up and place my hand on the head of a lamb or the ox, and the priest comes out there and cuts the throat. And that thing bleeds to death with my hands on it. It’s a transferance.

And when we ordain a man here, he comes up and kneels down, and the other elders get around him and put the hands on him. And the idea there is a transferance. See, we’re transferring our calling to him. And somebody transferred their calling to us. See, it’s going right on.

The Catholics call it apostolic succession. But, of course, you know what that is. We know what that is.

And so, when he says, “Carried our griefs,” it’s like the Lord is here, and then I take my griefs and sorrows and I put my hands on Him like this, touch Him like the woman did when she got healed, and I put my hands here, and when my hands are here, then they slit His throat. Or, in His case, they put a spear in His side, and the blood comes out and I’m transferred to Him.

All right, 4: “Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him.” Now, verse 3 says we didn’t esteem him. And verse 4 said we did esteem Him. So, the answer is, we didn’t esteem Him the right way; we esteemed Him the wrong way. I guess the word for it in English is “estimated.”

All right, verse 4: “We did esteem him.” And instead of esteeming Him high and mighty and holy, what He was in the arm of God, “we did esteem him stricken.” He was struck. “Smitten of God.” We said the Lord did it. And Simon Peter says the Lord does it in Acts chapter 2.

“Smitten of God, and afflicted.” And Isaiah says the Lord did it. Look at verse 10, right where you’re reading: “Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him.” And Simon Peter says, “Ye men of Israel, hear these words. Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did by Him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know; Him being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God.”

All right, Isaiah 53:4: “Yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.” So when Christ hangs on the cross they go by there, and they say, “He saved others; Himself he cannot save. If He be the Christ of Israel, let Him come down and we’ll believe.” And the idea is, “Well, you’re hanging up there, and if you’re the Chosen One of God, get down! And if you can’t get down, then God’s the one that’s got you. See, you’re a blasphemer and the Lord’s done it to you.” And that’s how they esteemed Him.

Verse 5: “But.” We got the wrong estimation. It wasn’t just that God did it. That wasn’t it. Five: “But he was wounded for our transgressions.” Wounds. The Bible says in Zechariah they’ll see the wounds in His hands and say, “What are these wounds?” And He’ll say, “Those for which I was wounded in the house of my friends.” So a wound is a hole in the hand and a hole in the feet.”

“He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised.” That’s the hitting, the beating in the face. They sat Him down in the Judgment Hall, slapped Him in the face and beat Him and hit Him.

“He was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement —” that’s a whipping. That’s a whipping.

“The chastisement of our peace was upon him.” How do I know what it is? Finish the verse: “And with his stripes.” “Stripes”—that’s the whipping with the whip.

“The chastisement of our peace.” That is, in order to get me peace, He had to take the whipping for me.

“The chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray.” Israel as a nation, the sinner as an individual. “All we like sheep.” The sheep’s the dumbest animal in the world for its size. “All we like sheep have gone astray. we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.” Now notice the universal aspects of that verse. “All we like sheep” —A-double-L. “We have turned every one ... and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of...” the elect. Right? Wrong. Universal atonement. Not particular atonement. Not limited atonement. General atonement.

“The iniquity of us all.” How many is “all”? “All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned every one to his own way.” Now notice the key sin that people commit is not something specific. That is, there’s one turn that’ll cover every sin I’ve ever committed and every sin you’ve ever committed. And that sin is, “Turned every one to his own way.” Now, your way may not be my way, and your way may not be your neighbor’s way. And your way may not be your husband’s way, and your way may not be your wife’s way. And your way may not be the way of the person who lives nextdoor to you. But you’ve got a way. That is, you’ve got a way that you do it. But you want to do it the way you want to do when you want to do it. And you justify and work that thing out your way. And that’s your way!

And the Bible says, “Every one of us has turned to his own way.” You’ve got people in this town who think that because they haven’t killed somebody or robbed a bank that they’re not sinners. And the Bible says, “Every one to his own way.”

A good example is Calvary. And in Calvary, as far as I know John is the only one who goes through the thing all the way, and he doesn’t get crucified. He gets out. And the Bible says in the Garden, John ran. “Then they all forsook Him and fled” in the Garden. And John may show up later, but, brother, when those soldiers came in that Garden, the Bible said they all forsook Him. That’s Peter, James, John, the whole bunch of them. They ran. Every one turned to his way.

And that’s the sin. That’s the sin that fixes people. It isn’t an item here, an item there, and an item there; it’s that old self-will. I fought that thing, man, that Ephesians chapter 6 said, “We wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers,” you know. And I used to think that thing was, you know, just armed warfare out with the world, you know, and the devil, you know, and fighting some of the brethren who are led by the principalities and powers, you know, like they think you are. And around and around with that thing and the unsaved and the liberals and the neo-orthodox. But, you know, that soldier in Ephesians chapter 6 doesn’t have any shin guards on his, no grease on his legs, because he’s on his knees. See, that wrestling is like Jacob and the Angel of the Lord. That’s a prayer thing, see? And when you go back to Genesis and find old Jacob wrestling with that angel, the problem Jacob has is self. That’s the problem he’s got. He said, “I won’t let you go unless you bless me.” Me! ME! See?

And the Bible said, “Everyone went to his own way.” Ol’ Jacob said, “I’m going to get that blessing this way,” and got it. “I’m going to get that birthright this way,” and got it. No he figures on getting away from Esau this way, by splitting up these men and women, these different things, you see.

That’s what I talked to you about Sunday night. I noticed I didn’t get many “Amens” in that. I got some “Amens” on Samson and some “Amens” on Lot and some “Amens” on David. And I hit ol’ Jacob and a silence descended across this place like a lull before a hurricane. You get to talking about that self-will, you know. And, you know something? That’s the root of all sin. I mean, I fought that thing out long enough to know what it is. I know what it is! It’s right at a point, see, there comes a point there where I finally decide either I’m going to act or not act, or not act or act. And right in there somewhere, there’s a line there, where you know it’s not going please the Lord, it’ll be displeasing to the Lord, or not exactly what the Lord wants. And when it gets right in there, that ol’ will goes this way or that way. And when it goes on God’s side “it’s not my will but thine be done,” and when it goes on this side over here, it’s “return every one to his own way.” Now, that’s the root of it, brother. That’s the root of it.

And I wonder sometimes about my people, how many of them on Thursday night visitation have that thought just pass through their minds? “Should I go or should I not?” And how many just automatically just, “Flip!” Turn that thing over there. And it’s your own way. It’s you.

That’s as carnal as shooting pool in a beer joint downtown. You know why the guy shoots pool in a beer hall downtown? Because that’s his way. You know why people watch television instead of reading the Bible? Because that’s their way. And the Bible says we’ve turned everyone to his own way.

You come to Calvary and the Lord’s hanging up there on the cross, and did you ever look at that thing? Here’s Simon Peter over here, cussing. That’s his way — commercial fisherman. And the “blankety-blank-blank,” that’s him over here doing this. And down here at the foot of the cross, these soldiers shooting dice. That’s their way. I mean, gambling’s an old army pastime, man. That’s half an army occupation — just shootin’ dice and dealin’ cards. That’s their way.

And then over here is Judas Iscariot, over hanging by his neck off of Gehenna, going to his own place, that’s his way. And here’s ol’ Thomas back in Jerusalem going through the Harvard Five-Foot Shelf of Classics and reading Schweitzer and Renond and Strauss and Graf and Welhausen and Tom Paine — that’s his way. And everybody’s going his own way.

Thank you, brother!

All right, 6: “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; —” we’ll have to close here “— and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.” Vicarious, substitutionary atonement — a sin-bearer. A sin-bearer. The Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. And this illustration I’ve used many times, always good. You tell a person, “That’s you right there,” and here’s the Lord over here. And here are your sins on you like that, and it’s always good to use a Bible, because it’s got all the sins listed in it, see. And you say, “There your sins are on there like that.” A lot of times, when I’ve done that, I’ve seen their eyes kind of, you know, open like, sins, you know, what a blasphemous thing to call that Bible sin. Well, it’s black. It’s black. It’s got the whole catalog in there. And so I say, “There your sins are on you like that. And God loves you and doesn’t want you to go to Hell. So God took your sins and placed them on Jesus Christ. Now they’re not on you any more, they’re on Him.” And that’s, “the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all,” see?

You get a guy to see that, he’ll get saved. I’ve done that and seen a light just go across his face, looked like he took a searchlight and just ran it across the face, just like that. And they never saw it until then.

All right, “The Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all,” and we’ll have to stop there on that verse and pick it up next time.

All right, Isaiah 53, we’ll begin at verse 4. Father, we’re thankful for the opportunity we have to read and teach the word, and we’re thankful for these Christians that love it and come out to hear it. We ask that you’ll bless them and provide their need and minister to them through the word. Help us to get a real picture now of what took place back there many years ago which we talk about so much and sing about so much, and when we pray, Lord, we’re always thanking thee for Jesus dying for us, and yet sometimes it isn’t real to us, and it’s like something happened in another world and another time. We pray that the words of truth might be real to us today as we come to them and may the Holy Spirit speak to us through this passage. For Jesus’ sake. Amen. Amen.

All right, 53:4. Now, this whole chapter is on the crucifixion of Christ. There’s no doubt about to whom it refers, because the greatest interpreter of the Bible is the Bible. The Holy Spirit interprets Scripture with Scripture. And in the New Testament, in Acts chapter 8, the Holy Spirit has interpreted this passage as referring to the blood atonement of Jesus Christ. When Philip talks to the Ethiopian eunuch, the Ethiopian eunuch had his Scripture open. The place of the Scripture which he read was this — quote — “He was led as a lamb to the slaughter and like a lamb dumb before his shearer, so he opened not his mouth. In his humiliation his judgment is taken away, and who shall declare his generation? For his life is taken from the earth.” Quoting Isaiah 53:7 and 8. And then Philip opens his mouth at that same Scripture and preached unto him Jesus. So no doubt about application.

All right, 53:4: “Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him —” that’s to estimate “— him stricken —” like the Lord hit Him — “smitten of God —” like God smote Him —”and afflicted.” And when terrible trial and testing comes and tribulation and trouble and heartache and sorrow, there’s always a tendency on the part of God’s people to judge real quick. Like the Jews were God’s people, and judge, “Well, the Lord’s against him.”

You take Job. When Job had that thing happen to him, why, his friends came around there and said, “Why, the Lord’s got it in for you.” Wife came around and said, “Curse God and die.” But that wasn’t the problem. That wasn’t the problem. The problem was inner thing. Job was self-righteous. And all these things they guessed might be wrong, that wasn’t what was wrong. The thing was, Job was a self-righteousness.

And in this case here, Jesus Christ is not self-righteous. Jesus Christ is perfect and sinless. And yet what happened to Him was the common lot of the common criminal, or a transgressor deserving capital punishment. He was numbered with the transgressors. So, naturally, the attitude is, “Well, it’s the justice of God. He got what was coming.”

It’s like, if they took Manson, Charles Manson, and burned him in the electric chair, frankly, my attitude would be, “Well, good, that’s fine, that’s the way it ought to be.” See? And yet, if you stop to think about it, that’s the place Jesus Christ took. And human nature being what it is, maybe when Jesus Christ was hung out there, I’d have said, “Well, good, that’s the way it ought to be.” See? So we did esteem him stricken of God. And yet, it shouldn’t have been that way in his case.

All right, 5: “But he was wounded for our transgressions —” And the “our” here is Israel. Now, of course we know it applies to anybody. Philip applied it to an African. He applied it to a nigger. The first man ever to get saved the way you were saved was a nigger. That’s a humiliating thought, isn’t it?

Now, you take, David was saved, but he wasn’t indwelt by the Holy Spirit permanently. You take, Abel, he was saved by the blood of the lamb, but he wasn’t born again. You take, the dying thief on the cross, he was saved, but he wasn’t part of the body of Christ. Christ died before he died, see?

All right, when the dying thief died, there wasn’t any Holy Spirit descending at Pentecost to put him in the Body of Christ. You can’t say, you can’t say, really you’re saved like hardly anybody until Acts chapter 8. You can’t say you’re saved like they were saved at Pentecost. At Pentecost they were told to repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins that you may receive the Holy Ghost. Well, I didn’t have to be baptized to receive the Holy Ghost. That isn’t me in Acts 2.

In Acts chapter 3 he said, “Repent that your sins may be blotted out when the times of refreshing come from the presence of the Lord, and he shall send Jesus who before was preached unto you whom the heavens must receive until the time of the restitution of all things spoken of by the mouth of the prophets.” Well, he says in Acts chapter 3 that the sins won’t be blotted out till Christ comes back. That isn’t me! That isn’t me. My sins are blotted out already. My sins don’t get blotted out at the Advent. My sins are gone.

The first man in the Bible that’s saved by grace through faith — now, Abraham was saved by grace through faith — but the first man who was saved by grace through faith and got the Holy Spirit by faith before he was baptized by belief in the blood atonement was an African. And the Holy Spirit’s purpose in doing that is real clear, because all through the New Testament Paul keeps saying, “I’m a servant. I’m a servant. I’m a servant. I’m a servant. I’m a servant. I’m a servant.” And the word he uses is the word for a slave. African. “Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be to his brethren.” So the Lord right at the beginning for the Christian puts him on the level with a slave.

That’s all seemed kind of funny to me, you know. You hear about, you see the Africans running up and down the streets, you know, hollering and yelling, you know, “We shall overcome. We shall overcome. We shall overcome.” Isn’t that stupid? I mean, if you’re saved, you’ve already overcome. First John chapter 4, verse 4, and 1 John chapter 5, verse 4, says, “This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. Who is he that overcometh the world but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?” I’ve already overcome! If I belong to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference — “Christian,” “Christian” — I’m not going to be out there on the streets singing, “We shall overcome.” I’ll be out there singing, “You can overcome.” Not “we.” I’ve already overcome.

And the fellows out there singing, saying, “I want my rights, I want my rights, I want my rights.”

I was down here in the court one time listening to some sad cases. And I heard one fellow get up there, he got up there and said, “I want my rights. I want my rights.” And the judge said, “OK, I’ll give you your rights. Twenty years in Rightford!” Just like that, man! He gave him his rights.

And the Christian doesn’t go around saying, “I want my rights, I want my rights, I want my rights.” A Christian came not to be ministered unto, but to minister. A Christian is a servant. Christ said, “If they call the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more those of his household?” And Christ said, “I’ve washed your feet to give you an example. You should do as I have done.” Why, if I’m a child of God, I’m not out there hollering, saying, “I gotta have this, and gotta have that, and need this, and need that, and don’t have this, and don’t have that, and gotta have this, and gotta have that, and I’m getting gipped and I’m gettin’ cheated, and I want my rights.” That isn’t Christian talk. The talk of a Christian is a servant of servants. The talk of a Christian is, “Thank God I have a chance to serve. And thank God I have a chance for the Lord to use me, and thank God He’s given me what He’s given me.” It isn’t that stuff! And you put some of that “Christian,” “Christian” Southern Leadership Conference — that isn’t any more Christian than Judas Iscariot!

Five: “But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities.” “Our” — of Israel. And yet applied to a Gentile.

“He was wounded.” Holes in the hands and feet.

“He was bruised.” Beat up in the face.

“The chastisement—” whipped with a whip.

“He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him.” What we had coming. We had it coming to get peace. And couldn’t get peace without it.

“Was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.” I put my name in. I read verse 4, “Surely he hath born Pete Ruckman’s griefs, and carried Pete Ruckman’s sorrows, yet Pete Ruckman did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for Pete Ruckman’s transgressions, he was bruised for Pete Ruckman’s iniquities, the chastisement of Pete Ruckman’s peace was upon him, and with his stripes Pete Ruckman is healed.”

“All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way.” And I read that before.

“And the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.” All right, the Lord has laid on Him. So we say, “Lay it on!” Or, “Lay it on him!” And when a Southerner says that, he means, “Put it on my back.” They say, “How much you put on me? Or lay it to me. Or lay it on me.” When they say, “Lay it on me,” it’s an old-time expression. It means, out in the country, when a guy wanted something, he’d say, “Lay some potatoes on me.” Or, “Lay some onions on me.” Or, “Lay a ham on me.” And when he says that, he means, “Put the thing up in my back where I can carry it on my shoulder.”

And up North I guess they say, “Give me some,” see? But down South, you lay it on them. Because the guy walks off down the road with the thing on his back. You never learn that stuff in college; you have to get out there in the sticks and here them say it. And so when he says, “Lay it on him,” or “Lay it to him,” it means on the back.

And when Christ is whipped, then the iniquity is “laid” on him.

Now, the Bible doesn’t say with what kind of whip he was whipped, and there are all kinds of gruesome descriptions of it. And some of the sermons preached on it are real dramatic, and they have a cat-o-nine-tails. The standard teaching on it is, hwen Christ was whipped, He was whipped with a Roman scourge, a cat-o-nine-tails. And usually, when evangelists and preachers preach it, they make the thing so horrible, I’ll guarantee you five strokes would decapitate you. There’d be nothing left to you. They usually make it nine thongs of leather of like this, with pieces of flint or iron i that thongs. Well, you take that thing and slap a man ten times with it, and he isn’t going anywhere. And a cat-o-nine-tails is not meant for “forty strokes save one.” In the Old Testament, it said when you whip a man, you’re to give him “forty strokes save one.” You’re to give him thirty-nine. Thirty-nine strokes with the cat-o-nine-tails won’t leave you in any condition to go anywhere. And so probably it’s not that.

Take your Bible and turn to 2 Corinthians and we’ll run a few verses, and I can show you what it probably is. Now, I can’t tell you for sure. But we can see what it probably is.

All right, 2 Corinthians 11. Second Corinthians 11. Paul is speaking about being whipped. And he says in 2 Corinthians 11 verse 24, “Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one.” Except one. Thirty-nine stripes. Five times. “Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep.” All right, forty stripes save one. And that’s the prescription in the Old Testament for beating a man, and it says after he’s been beaten with 39 stripes that you’re not to give him more, lest your brother seem vile unto you. And I don’t have the reference marked. Has anybody got it marked? He said, if a man is to be beaten, you’re to cause him to lie down before the face of the judges and you’re to administer forty strokes save one, and beyond this you’re not to exceed lest your brother seem vile unto you. Where’s that? It’s in Deuteronomy, isn’t it? All right, Deuteronomy 25. Deuteronomy 25, yeah, 3. All right, Deuteronomy 25, and I’ll begin at verse 1. Deuteronomy 25:1: “If there be a controversy between men, and they come unto judgment —” like Christ before Pilate “— that the judges may judge them —” like Pilate the judge “— then they shall justify the righteous —” which they didn’t do “— and condemn the wicked —” which they didn’t do.

“And it shall be, if the wicked man —” in this case Jesus Christ “— be worthy to be beaten —” which He wasn’t, but they did “— that the judge shall cause him to lie down, and to be beaten before his face —” before the judge’s face “— according to his fault, by a certain number.”

Maximum number: “Forty stripes —” stripes! stripes! see it? Bible says, “With his stripes we’re healed.” Forty stipres he may give him, and not exceed: lest, if he should exceed, and beat him above these with many stripes, then thy brother should seem vile unto thee.” And what that thing is saying is, when the man is whipped, if you go above thirty-nine, you’ve torn him in two. And he’s just a mass of just blood and pus and open intestines and kidneys and bladder and everything else. Thirty-nine stripes administered in the right way can cut a man — I mean, the inner organs come right through the skin.

Well, the question is, what kind of a whip? Well, I’ve read the Book through and read it through and read it through, and the only kind of whip I can find that they used is back in the Book of Judges. Go back to the Book of Judges, where Gideon is returning from the battle. Judges chapter 8. Judges chapter 8. Judges chapter 8, verse 6. And with this kind of whip here, you could administer thirty-nine strokes without killing a man, but he’d sure be in a wretched condition. Judges 8:6: “And the princes of Succoth said, Are the hands of Zebah and Zalmunna now in thine hand, that we should give bread unto thine army? And Gideon said, Therefore when the Lord hath delivered Zebah and Zalmunna into mine hand, then I will tear your flesh with the thorns of the wilderness and with briers —” which is a whip you can get anywhere.

All right, verse 15: “And he came unto the men of Succoth, and said, Behold Zebah and Zalmunna with whom ye did upbraid me, saying, Are the hands of Zebah and Zalmunna now in thine hand, that we should give bread unto thy men that are weary? And he took the elders of the city, and thorns of the wilderness and briers, and with them he taught —” “taught”: child pegagogy, chastening, the chastisement of the son, “taught.” Reading, and writing, and ‘rithmetic, “taught” to the tune of what? Hickory stick. Which is quite a — you’re not going to be able to give a fellow thirty-nine slaps with a hickory stick. About two of them will do fine. You’ll bust every bone in his body. Of course, depending on how thick it is.

But now, did you ever stop to think about this? If you were just — suppose you knew nothing about the Bible. I mean, suppose you never had a Bible class, and never been to a Bible school. And you are just readin’ through your Bible. And you read about Christ being whipped. And then you read about Him bearing the curse. Christ becoming a curse for us. For it is written, “Cursed is everyone that hangeth upon a tree.” What would you naturally think of? If you thought of a curse being put on somebody? Well, you couldn’t miss it. Because in Genesis chapter 3 he said, “Cursed is the ground for thy sake. Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth unto thee.” And the Bible said, “Christ is made a curse for us, for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree.” And they put a crown of thorns around His head. So, by analogy, and Scripture with Scripture, you can’t get any other kind of a whip. Now, you might not be able to prove that that is the whip, but they whipped Him with that whip, and that whip is the curse, and the curse is laid on Christ. And it’s called a “stripe,” and He got the stripes, and the Bible said, “Our iniquities are laid on Him.”

So what you have, the nearest thing to it would be a wild rose bush. There’s one growing across the street over there, the old “pastorion.” Across the street, behind that fence is a wild rose bush at the bottom of that pecan tree. And those things grow out like this, and it isn’t like a twisting runner. But like a bush. And the thing grows out like this, and that thing that goes out, you leave it untrimmed, it’ll go, oh, it’ll go ten or fifteen feet. And you take that thing at the bottom, after you trim that thing and prune it so it’ll bear more rose each year, that thing’ll get thick at the bottom and you get a bottom of that thing as big as your fist. And what they’ve got there evidently is that. That’s what they’ve got. And the guy has got, he’s got about four or five of those switches in his hand, say, oh, five feet long, with the thorns in them, see? And, if you whipped a man that way, it wouldn’t kill him, like iron. You take a cat-o-nine-tails with pieces of iron in it, it’d do more than tear. I mean, it’d bruise and mutilate and break.

One of the worst weapons they use street fighting is a bicycle chain. And you wouldn’t think that would be much of a thing, but a bicycle chain, when you hit a member or limb with it, it not only cuts like a whip, but it breaks bone. Because it’s iron. And that thing across the wrist, across the hand, would put a man, just incapacitate him.

And so, if you had a whip with iron pieces in it and hit the man that many times, you’d be breaking bones, and what does the Bible say about Christ’s bones? “Not a bone shall be broken.” So chances are 3,000 to one that the evangelists are wrong. When I say the evangelists, I never heard one preach yet that didn’t make it that big, long Roman cat-o-nine-tails. And, of course, it makes a gruesome, bloody description, and that makes you appreciate the death of Christ more, see. But I don’t know how far you can go crossing the Scripture to get an effect. And so, what you probably got there, you got a rod about this long from a rose bush, thorns and briers, and that thing there then is whipped down across there. And, of course, if you ever whip your kids with a switch, you know it goes, “FFffffwwweeet! Fffffwwwweeet!” like that. And if you can’t get your child to obey any other way, I’ll guarantee you that thing there will work. That thing has a demoralizing sound to it that just takes all your blood out of your head. And if you just take it, sometime make a sound with it, you don’t have to hit anything, just, “Ffffffwwweeet! Ffffffwwweeet! Ffffffwwweeet!” like that, or against your own leg, you know, “Fffffwwweeet!” Slap! “Fffffwwweeet!” Slap, you know. You can make them run.

Now, I’ve talked to mothers who said it didn’t work. But I don’t know, man. They must have had some tough sons. That thing crosses the bare legs, boy, I’m telling you, that thing puts the fear of — and in the winter, in the winter, my goodness, man!

I’ve been up there in Kansas when it was, you know, 20 degrees and 10 and 5 below, and we wore short pants. I guess that’s an old European way of dressing. We didn’t wear long pants till I was 15. We wore short pants. And knee-length socks and short pants in the winter, and the knees were always bare and this part of the leg was always bare.

And that switch come down there on a cold day, man, and you just think you got hit with an ax, man. It was horrible!

And so this thing here is a hard way to punish way to punish a man, and these whips, you see, are not smooth like a willow or like a peach tree limb. These whips have thorns in them. And so, when a person is whipped there, the thorns stick in the flesh with him. And so, when He comes out before the crowd, He not only has thorns stuck in His head, He has on His chest and His stomach and His back and His legs and His arms anywhere from twenty to a hundred thorns that have broken off in the skin. That’s the picture.

I’ve only seen one picture of the crucifixion that really was the way it was, and it was drawn by a surrealist. And he had the body all elongated, so it didn’t look right. But he had that thing the way it must have looked. And, I mean, boy, he had, it was just ghastly. He had all the thorns busted off. And blood coming from each one of them. And he had the body kind of a pale green after the blood was all gone out of it, see? And I forget what artist that was — some surrealist. And he has a grotesque crucifixion like kind of a scarecrow, and the body’s all elongated so it doesn’t look like it’s human. But that’s a more realistic picture than these things you buy down at the dime store. Down at the dime store, you always have the Lord hanging there with this kind of rosy, pink flesh, you know, nice blond hair like some woman out of Hollywood, and one little hole and one little hole here, you know, and one little hole in the feet, and sometimes a little hole here with blood running down about three-and-a-half inches. Did you ever notice that? You ever notice things like that? Maybe you don’t notice things like that unless you’re an artist, but I always notice things like that. And that blood running down there about three inches off there? Well, that’s just the way it wasn’t.

All right, Isaiah 53. Now, of course you can’t paint it exactly as it was. I never do. I paint it as near as I can to the truth. But you can’t paint it exactly as it was because if you paint it exactly as it was, you’ve got Him naked. You over there, take over there in John and Matthew, Mark and Luke, when the Bible describes the crucifixion, the Bible describes the garments. And there are four garments they take. And then the fifth garment is a seamless robe with a hole in the top, and rob and divide that thing up, they shoot dice over it. Well, that’s the clothes are. And so, the indication these days, they put Him to shame while they crucify Him naked in capital punishment. Well, you’re not going to paint that. Of course, if you’re Catholic, you might paint it. But that isn’t prejudice. I mean, I’m speaking from the standpoint of an art connisseur, see. I’m not speaking prejudice. You ever see any Catholic paintings of Jesus Christ? I’ve seen plenty of them with Him naked. They’ve got some up the to university at Bob Jones in the art museum. So I’m not speaking from prejudice. I’m speaking from fact. And that kind of thing, you just don’t do that.

I mean, somebody says, “Well, realistic —” You don’t go that far for realism. That isn’t it.

All right, Isaiah 53:5: “But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes —” Stipes. Stripes. Henceforth and forevermore, stars and stripes, stripes represent shedding of blood. So the stripes in our flag are red. And they’re red-and-white. And the barber pole is red-and-white. The reason why the barber pole is red-and-white is barbers didn’t used to be barbers. A barber used to be called a leech back in the old days, in the Medieval dark times. And back there, when a man had trouble or was sick, he’d go to the leech, and the leech would put a leech on him and suck the blood out of him. And their theory was, since the life of the flesh was in the blood, which it is, then whatever goes wrong with a man, there must be something wrong with his blood. Which is good thinkin’.

I mean, maybe they weren’t right, you know, twenty percent of the time. I’ll bet you eighty percent of the time they were right!

Did you ever go down to the hospital and talk to all of the people who have blood trouble and see how many of them are connected with blood? And they got all these names after them, you know, like “osis” and “mitis” and all these cotton-pickin’ names after these words. And you check them right down, I mean just put the doctor right on the spot. The blood is not transporting the calcium. Uh, the blood, the arteries are thick. It’s not getting through the veins. The veins are constricted. There’s a clot here. Or there’s a constriction, a restricted place in the heart. Or one of the valves doesn’t work. Or the cancer’s in the blood. Or it’s Hodgkin’s disease. Or it’s something else. And you get pinning those people right down, you’d be amazed how many of those things are connected with the blood. Now, there maybe some bandage or tissue or bone that isn’t, but you’d be amazed how many of them are. If you put the thing right down.

And they’ve got another disease, Hodgkin’s disease, and oh, I can’t think of it, it’ll come to me in a while. But those things are connected with the blood. So back in the Dark Ages, when the fellow would go to the barber, the leech, the leech would say, “Now your trouble is, your blood’s no good. So let’s get rid of some of it.” And they put the fellow down and put the leech on him and sucked the blood out of him, sometimes killed the guy, but then sometimes he’d get well, too. Sometimes he’d get well.

So the sign for the leech was a red-, see, and-white pole. And the red was the blood and the white was the bandage around the pole. So you go to the barber and you get cut on today and get your face all hacked up when they shave you, you got a red-and-white pole out there!

All right, 5: “And with his stripes we are healed.” Now, I don’t why Americans put it on their flag, but it’ll have something to do with blood. What do they say it is? What do they say red is on the flag, an American flag? What is it? Blood shed for the country. Is that right? They didn’t tell me that in school. They told me that white was for purity and the blood was for Heaven and the stars were for the states, but they never told me what the red was for.

You notice how folks say it? They always say “the red, white, and blue,” see, they always say it that way. They never say, “The white, blue, and red.” They never say, “The blue, red, and white.” They always say, “The red, white, and blue.” And they do that unconsciously, see, because the red’s the blood. Without shedding blood there’s no purity, see. And so it’s red and white, then the purity, and there’s no Heaven without purity. There’s no blue without white and there’s no white without red.

Isn’t that weird? So they say, “Red, white, and blue.” And, you know, you get these little wordless books. Brother Wright, when he was here last time, he was all shook up. He just about had a church split over there over a little handkerchief he had. You see that handkerchief he had? And it was yellow, green, red, black, and white. And, of course, those, if you know your Bible, you know what that is. That’s the wordless book. And some guy asks you, “What’s that up in your pocket?” You say, “Well, the black stands for this.” And I told him to get me one. I thought it was real good.

But he got going through that, and somebody got all shook up over that black, see. They say, “Black is the color of sin.” Oh, naughty, naughty! I mean, we’re trying to, you know, trying to integrate people and set up the United Nations of the Antichrist — you can’t say black’s a bad color! You know. And I have trouble out here in Daily Vacation Bible School, some lady’s out there giving this wordless book, and there were some colored people in the class. Well, I guess it is kind of embarrassing to have somebody get up there and say, “This black stands for...” Well, for what does it stand for, man? It stands for what? See?

Now, let me show you something. Now, you can learn a great lesson from that. You can learn whenever people start talking about being more tolerant and exercise more tolerance along these lines, they’re trying to take away your liberties from you. See? Now, let me show you that anyone, if a guy is so tolerant that he will object to me saying that black represents sin, you know what he’s doing? He’s taking away my right of free speech. See? If I can’t say it, he’s taking away my right of free speech.

You say, “Well, don’t say anything that will offend anybody.” Well, then, let’s close the church and burn the Bibles and go home. Shall we? I mean, if you’re going to get this country down to where you can’t say anything that offends anybody, then, just burn up the churches, burn your Bibles, forget the whole scene. You can’t teach or preach this Book without offending somebody.

It’s an offense to me, man! That’s why it’s black. See that thing? It’s black. That’s a record of man’s sins there. Black! You know what black represents? It represents sin.

And a fellow said, “Well, you ought to be more tolerant. If you’re more tolerant, then you lose your freedom.”

One of the ways to keep your freedom is be intolerant of some things.

All right, Isaiah 53, verse 6: “All we like sheep have gone astray.” Sheep’s the dumbest animal in the world for its size. The Lord’s very uncomplimentary, isn’t He? When He wants to point to your salvation, He said it’s like an African. When He wants to point to your intelligence, He said you’re like a sheep. And a sheep’s the dumbest animal going for its size.

I’ve heard sheepherders say that and swear by that. They said a chicken has more sense than a sheep. And I talked to an old sheepherder up near Wayne, Alabama, one time. And he said sheep will go across the meadow, and one sheep will jump up and kick his heels together. And he said if there are twenty sheep behind that sheep, they’ll come up right behind and jump up and all click their heels together. See, for no reason at all. Just to do it.

And he said when you try to get the sheep back to the barn, he said, “I’ve had sheep within twenty feet of the barn and had some dumb sheep turn around and look back over the fence, back in the fields this way and then get giddy and gallop off this way and gallop off this way and finally get out through a hole in the fence and get hurt getting out, looking for the barn — when they were all going into the barn.

And so you’ve got a sheepdog. You got a sheepdog, and a sheepdog goes out there, and a good sheepdog will pick ‘em out.

One of the most beautiful things you’ve ever seen in your life is a Scot collie work a herd of sheep. And I’ve never seen it, you know, in reality, but I’ve seen films of it by the hour. That’s the most fascinating thing. You watch that old collie, and he’ll run in a “U” around that flock. This flank, then the rear, and then the flank. Then the rear and the flank. Then the rear and the flank, like that. And as he goes around there, any stray he’ll drive them back into the flock. And if the flock’s moving too slow, he’ll go to the back end of the flock and nip the heels of those sheep and get them moving. And when the back goes like this, even the front has to go. Now, how that dog can figure that out, I don’t know. But I’ve seen that dog run around there trying to herd the sheep, and I’ve seen them heard the sheep into a place where the opening wasn’t much bigger than this thing right here.

Out in Scotland they get a stone wall, and the stone wall runs out around this way and makes a thing a little bit bigger than this platform and comes back here, and the opening’s somewhere about three feet wide. And that old dog will around there and what he finds is a block, up there at the front. He’ll run around to the back end of that thing and nip those heels, and then when those sheep move forward like this and tend to spread out, he’ll run to both flanks and drive them back in — just herd ‘em. A man couldn’t even do it. A man couldn’t do it like a dog.

And he says, “All we like sheep have gone astray.” So, people in God’s sight are dumb. They’re stupid.

And the sheepherder told me, he said, “When a sheep gets dirty,” he said, “it can’t get clean.” He said, “You have to clean it.” And he didn’t know he was giving me a sermon, you know. But he said, “A sheep can’t clean himself with his wool.” And he said, “He’ll rub himself, and get against the fence and can’t get it off.” He was telling me about the sheep in the Bible, you know, “though your sins be as scarlet they shall be as white as snow, red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” You know, like real white, snowy, fluffy thing. He said the dirtiest thing you’ve ever seen in your life is a herd of sheep after they’ve been out in the pasture a couple of months. He said they’re always kind of a dirty brown-gray. And then the shepherd has to wash them.

That’s something, you know that? That’s something.

COMMENT: In verse 5, where it says, “With his stripes we are healed,” every Holiness in the world uses that for physical healing.

ANSWER: Yeah they do. Brother Sutek’s pointed out at the end of verse 5, where it says, “With his stripes we are healed,” is used by holiness people to prove physical healing. And they do.

Now, I’ll show you how they work that. Come to Matthew chapter 8, and the reason why they do that is because of this passage in Matthew 8, where it does refer to physical healing. Matthew 8, verse 16. Matthew 8:16: “When the even was come, they brought unto him many that were possessed with devils: and he cast out the spirits with his word,—” comma “— and healed all that were sick: That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, —” quoting Isaiah 53 “—Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses —” quoting loosely Isaiah 53 verse 4.

So because of that they say, “With his stripes we’re healed” is a reference to physical healing.

And they couple that with a passage in Exodus 15 that says, “I am the Lord thy God that healeth thee.” Now, I’ll show you how that works. Take your Bible and come to Romans 8. And get Romans 8 in one hand and Isaiah 11 in the other. And it’s true. It’s true. But, like all heresies, all heresies in this age are Bible truths that are misplaced dispensationally.

All right, Romans 8 and Isaiah 11. Now, if we’re to believe what we read about healing, then when Christ died on the cross, number one, He bore our sins and transgressions — that’s spiritual healing. Then He bore our sicknesses and our infirmities — that’s physical healing. So, when Christ dies on the cross, and I come to Him by faith, I should be able to get spiritual healing. And when I come to Him by faith I should be able to get physical healing. See, that’s how it goes. I mean, by grace you are saved through faith. Right? All right, by grace you’re healed through faith. That’s the reasoning. Now, the reasoning is, if He bore your sins, then you get saved by grace through faith. Then, if He bore your sickness. you can get healed by grace through faith. Which is good reasoning.

However, it’s got some problems in it.

All right, Romans 8, a reference to the Second Coming of Christ. Romans 8 verse 18: “For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope, Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption —” Well, how come I can’t get loose from that now? I can’t get loose from the bondage of corruption until Jesus Christ comes back. If Christ dies to save me from my sins and heal me and died for my transgressions, how come I can’t get loose from the bondage of corruption? Why is it my body dies? It wears out and dies — it’s corruptible — goes in a hole in the ground. Why? I mean, if healing’s in the atonement, and Christ is incorruptible and Christ has a perfect body and a sinless soul, and I trust Him by faith and get what He has, how come I can’t stay out of the grave?

Well, there’s a problem. Twenty-one: “Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation —” the whole creation “— groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only they —” the whole creation “— but ourselves —” Christians “— which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our” soul? No sir! Our soul is redeemed. The redemption of our sins? No sir! Our sins are redeemed, Romans 3. The redemption of our body.” The body has never been saved.

What’s this got to do with sickness? Verse 26: “Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities.” And that’s just what you read in Matthew chapter 8, in loose quotation, “Himself took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses.”

Then the Christian now has infirmity waiting for an infirm or an incorruptible body. And the whole creation waits.

All right, let’s go back to Isaiah 11 and get Isaiah 11 verse 6 and notice when Jesus Christ comes, not only do we get an incorruptible body but the whole creation gets redeemed. Isaiah 11 verse 6: “The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.” Verse 9: “They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.” All right, then what we have here is when Christ dies on the cross, salvation from sin and transgression and iniquity is instantaneous — just like that. BUT ... when the Holy Spirit comes into the body of the Christian and gives him a brand new man inside, that man is saved, sinless, perfect, complete, incorruptible — but he’s housed in a corruptible cage. And this thing I’m housed in is in the bondage of corruption. So it rots — falls to pieces.

All right then, if I want physical healing from the atonement, I can get temporary physical healing — temporary. I can’t get permanent. And the reason I can’t get permanent is the body I’m in is no good.

Well, if Christ bore all my sicknesses — and He did — and all my infirmities, which He died, then some day I’ve got to get a perfect body. And some day I’m going to get it — but not now.

And then, our Holiness brethren, what they forget is when Christ died on the cross, He just didn’t die for people, He died for dogs and cats and flowers and rosebushes and mountains and waterfalls and rivers. That’s what they forget, see. They forget the field is the world, and this fellow went and sold all he had and purchased the field — he purchased the world. And the world is awaiting redemption.

Now, the dogs and the cats and the monkeys and the giraffes and the stream and the flowers and the birds and the bees don’t have to worry about spiritual redemption. That’s our worry. ‘Cause they don’t sin. You never met a sinning dog in your life. That’s right. It’s perfectly legitimate for a dog come up behind you and just take a hunk right out of your leg — and God will never hold him accountable for it. And he won’t have to go back and pray and nothing, you know.

And it’s perfectly legitimate, you know, for an eagle or a chicken hawk — you see them right above a field, you know, and see an old field rat, field mouse down there, and they’ll swoop down there and just put his claws to it and blood spatter all over the place, and carry him up there and just eat him alive. Never have to go to confession and join the church or nothing. No baptism.

But the trouble is, that that animal needs to be redeemed physically. So, when Christ dies on the cross, they put a crown of thorns on His head. What’s that? The curse placed on nature. And He’s whipped with thorns — the curse placed on nature. So, when Christ comes back, nature gets saved.

Now, see this body I’m in? That’s a part of nature. That’s Mother Nature’s work right there. That isn’t the Lord’s work. You wait until you see the one the Lord’s got for me! Now, that’s Mother Nature there. That’s Eve — “mother” — “mother of all the living.” That’s Mother Eve’s work right there. That’s Mother Nature. And that’s corruptible. That’s bondage.

So, I can claim temporary healing because Christ died for my sicknesses. And I can say with the Psalmist, “Blessed be the Lord that forgiveth all mine iniquities, who healeth all my diseases,” but I can’t say it yet. I can say the first part. I can say, “Bless the Lord O my soul, who forgiveth all mine iniquities.” So I can say that. But I can’t say that He’s healed all my diseases. But I’m going to say it some day.

All right, Isaiah 53. Isaiah 53. So the Holiness brethren, some of them are in a little bit kind of in a hurry for their salvation. Now, if you get in that mess, you’ll be in a bad mess. I’ll tell you why. I mean, I’ve watched this thing for years, and I’ve been to holiness meetings. I bet you A.A. Allen and that fellow who took his place and the old prophet over there, and the Reverend Eichman Coder, I’ll bet I’m one of the greatest fans they have — I listen to them all the time. I’ve heard the Reverend Eichman Coder preach more times than Billy Graham. That’s right. I really have. And I listen to those fellows and study them. And you know, if you ever want to get in a mess, if you ever got in a mess, you get messed up in that.

Now, I’ll show you how it’ll work. He’ll say, Well, “He that is born of God doth not commit sin, for his seed remaineth in him, and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.” See? So, when I got born again, I’m sinless. And then right away your conscience will say, “You messed up.” But you’ve committed sin since you’ve been saved. And then you read over there in Hebrews where it says, “If we sin willfully, after we receive the knowledge of sin, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins.” So you appease your conscience and say, “Well, I may have sinned, but I didn’t do it willfully.” See? So I’m born again, I’m sinless — “being born again” — and if I sin, I don’t do it willfully, see. Well, if you don’t do it willfully, you don’t have to confess it. And if you don’t confess it, then the Lord gets out the thorns and the briers and teaches you.

And, consequently, you’ll find that sickness runs higher among Holiness people than any other people in this world. And they need the healers!

Now, I’ll tell you now, I’m not making fun of anybody that’s sick, really I’m not. But, honestly, when you go to those meetings, all you find of the sick people there are people from that church. You won’t get half a dozen sick Baptists or sick Methodists. Once in a while, you’ll get one or two — you won’t get a half a dozen. They’re all people from that outfit.

You start going around and telling the Lord you’re sinless, you don’t commit sin, and brother, He’ll take out a belt and just the hide off your back about three inches thick. That Bible says, “If we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged. When we are judged, we are judged, we are chastened, chastened, chastened. The chastisement of our peace — with His stripes — chastened of the Lord.” See? So, if you get in that mess there, you’re liable to stay sick and stay whipped. And it’s bad enough to stay sick — but I wouldn’t want to get whipped all the time I was being sick. I’d get out of one or the other. I mean, if the Lord wanted me sick, I’d get out of the whipping. And if the Lord wanted me to get the whipping, I’d try to get out of the sickness. But I wouldn’t take both of them if I didn’t have to, man. I’d confess and judge a thing and then ask for the healing after I confessed it and judged it.

But that’s nonsense to go around and say, “Well, I’m born again now, so I don’t sin any more.”

And the people say, “Well, if you don’t sin any more, well how’d you get sick?” See?

“Well, I just lacked faith. If I’ve got enough faith, I’m going to get healed.”

I’d like to see any healer in this world have enough faith to believe that God will replace teeth that isn’t out or pull it out. Why, you realize that a tooth and an eye are so important that a man’s life is given for a tooth and an eye? Do you realize, do you know what he said back there in the Old Testament? He said if you knock out that servant’s eye or knock out his tooth, he’s free for the eye or the tooth — his servitude’s over. Now, don’t you know there are a lot of servants trying to get a black eye through that thing? Don’t you know that?

I mean, you know, the servant has a side as well as the master. And don’t you know a lot of servants are trying to get the master mad enough to knock him in the mouth one time and spit a tooth out and then hit the road and get their freedom?

And a tooth is so important, the Bible says if you lose a tooth, why, you get your freedom.

And I can just see a healer praying a tooth back in. They caught one woman. They caught one woman with a little old suitcase on the plane, with these fittings. And she claimed this. She claimed that she had all her teeth pulled by a dentist, and she went to bed that night and prayed and had a dream, and the angel of the Lord came down and filled her mouth with gold and silver and diamonds. And she had these perfect plates, you know — and they had diamonds in them. Had diamonds in them and gold and silver in them. And she showed these — must have looked terrible — showed these teeth at all these meetings, and claimed the Lord put them in her mouth while she was asleep. And they were fitted so perfectly, a couple of people examined her and couldn’t tell they were false teeth. They looked real — but they were false teeth, they were plates put in there made by a dentist.

I’ll tell you one thing. I’d like to see a healer pray away a real toothache, too, without going to a dentist. Did you ever have one of those toothaches in the back teeth, that when it goes off it just goes BZZZZZNNNNNN — you know, clear up into here like an icepick going through your head. And can’t you see that fellow saying, “I just got faith to believe it’s gonna quit.” One hour. Two hours. “I got faith to believe it’ll quit.” Three hours. Four hours. Man, I’ve had ‘em run nine hours, man! And you get one of those things about every fifteen minutes, boy! Gets after awhile you walk down the street, you’re just going, “Ah-huh!” and leanin’ with it.

I’ll bet you, when they get a sure-enough toothache, I’ll bet they go to a dentist. I’ll bet you!

Oral Roberts had a meeting over here in someplace here in Pensacola here several years back and the tent fell down. When was that thing? You all remember that? Don’t some of you remember that, folks live here in Pensacola?

SOMEONE FROM CLASS COMMENTING.

He said Oral Roberts went to the Baptist Hospital to get his back fixed, you know, he had a little back trouble. He didn’t go to the Holiness hospital, did he? And didn’t the tent fall down or something? Or was that some other town? Was that Mobile?

SOMEONE FROM CLASS COMMENTING.

Well, I thought he had a tent fall down. Maybe someplace else. Maybe Mobile or someplace. But one of those places a tent fell down and injured about forty people. And Brother Ahlub went straight to the hospital! I thought to myself, well, they’ve got the power of healing, just get him back ‘em back in the healing line, man. There’s no sense running off to the hospital.

Now, you know, these things are funny to you that believe the truth. You know, some folks take it just as serious. And the trouble is in not knowing your word. And those souls, bless them, some of them are good people and love the Lord and fine, sweet Christian people and they really are. But they’re just stupid! I mean, they won’t get in the Book and they won’t study, and the most distractive thing you ever had in your life is trying to teach a Holiness church the Bible.

Now, I’ve been in them. I’ve been in them. I’ve been in a Wesleyan Methodist church and said, “Turn to it,” and those little sheep will sit there and look at you like this, you know. And they can’t turn the page. They don’t know where the books are. And they look down at it and then they look back up again real quick like they can’t read. And you can’t teach them anything so they just go on believing it.

QUESTION (unintelligible).

ANSWER. Usually. Usually. And it’s usually something a doctor can’t ever find. It’s usually, “The doctor said I have a cancer” — it’s inside someplace, see. And then they always have somebody to pay a fashionable salary to to exhibit one outside that’s fixed up to prove that all of them are healed.

QUESTION (unintelligible).

Yeah, Bruce went to a healing line over here in — who was that fellow? Who? Jenkins — and he went up there and asked them to heal this scar here that hadn’t all healed up, sore sometime in his arm, and asked them to heal it, you know. And he went through the act; the fellow bluffed. If I remember, Bruce said he put his hand over it and prayed, you know, and just said it was beginning to heal. And, you know, to keep his faith and it would heal up later, you know, fix it up later. All that stuff!

They call it, Bederwolf calls it “whipping post theology.” And Bederwolf’s book on “whipping post theology,” the idea is that when Christ was whipped, see, you’re healed physically, so you get physical healing with His stripes, “whipping post theology.” And it has two sides. It’s funny to a believer who knows the truth, but it’s tragic to somebody who’s sick and trying to get healed.

And I’ll tell you, maybe some of those fellows are saved, but I wouldn’t want to be at the Judgment Seat of Christ and have on my hands the blood of people in wheelchairs and arthritic people in beds — I wouldn’t want it.

I mean, you stop to think about this. Wouldn’t I be a dirty dog to get into this microphone this morning at 12 o’clock and have that thing go out over the air and say, “Ah, the Lord is telling me, yes, I see you there, sister, you’re lying on your bed, you’ve been suffering from arthritis for —” and that thing go out in that county hospital and hit Mrs. Salter, and she’s lying on that bed, been there with muscle spasms, lying in Vasoline for nearly twelve years, and me on this radio saying, “Just have faith! Have faith! Ask God for strength! Turn your faith loose! You know, lay hold by your faith!” I’d just as soon shoot a man who’ll do it. You’ll get off a lot better. I’ll guarantee you! I’ll guarantee you, with murder, you’ll get off cleaner.

You think about that poor soul out there, thinking, “If I just had the faith, if I just had the faith. I’ve got to believe. I’ve got to believe. I’ve got to believe” — and then trying to believe, see. And trying to believe, and the program’s over. Ummph! Down on the bottom — “I didn’t have faith. I’m not a good Christian. I don’t love the Lord,” see.

The devil will get in there and just take that thing and just jam that thing through. You’d get off better killing somebody. You’d get off a lot safer.

You remember John Hall who used to be in the wheelchair? John Hall told me, he said he used to go to those healing meetings. And he said, “About the fourth one I went to,” he said, “I left it and I made up my mind I’d never go back.” And when this fellow was down here — what was his name, Nathan Bemis talked to, down here on Cervantes Street? Ewing. When Ewing was down there, I talked John into going one night. The two of us went down there and sat, and of course he got a big bang out of it, and got tickled, you know, and enjoyed it — I thought. And, during the meeting, you know, I kind of watched him occasionally out of the corner of my eye, and he was sweating just a little bit up in here.

After it was over we went home, and I said, “Well,” I said, “I hope it didn’t upset you.” I said, “We’re not going back again, if you don’t want to get back.”

And he said, “No, I don’t think I want to go back again.”

And after we got home he told me about it, and he said this. He said, “Even though I know those fellows are fakes,” and he said, “I know they are,” and he said, “Even though I know they’re lying,” and he knew they were, and he said, “Even though I know that stuff is all phony” — which he knew — he said, “When he gets talking about ‘Only believe, only believe, all things are possible, only believe,’” he said, “I just get stirred up and get all tore up inside,” and he said, “I just can’t stand it. I don’t want to go back.”

And I believe him. I believe him. Like I said, you just get off better robbing a bank than doing that.

I wouldn’t want to have any part in it. Maybe those fellows are saved and maybe they’re lost, I don’t know. But when you get to the Judgment Seat of Christ and meet — suppose you were saved and did that. Anybody can do it, see? Anybody could do it. I could go in the healing business tomorrow night, man.

Here, two months ago I had a knot there in my elbow bigger than a golf ball sitting out there. I’d already gone and seen the physician and paid the down payment for the room, reserved the room and paid the surgery fee, all ready to go. And then the thing just went JJJUUUUIPPP — disappeared, and I went down to the doctor and said, “Well, it’s gone. What am I going to do with it?” And he felt around there and messed around and said, “Well, no need to operate. Get your money back.” And out I went.

Now, you know, if I was like some of the brethren, you know what I’d do? Get on that radio — “Awww, the day God healed me! Yes, I never forget the day!” — you know, that stuff. And then I’d get on there and say, “Well, God can do for you what He did for me, if you’ll just have faith —” Well, that’s a dumb thing to say. I didn’t have any faith. I paid my fee. See, I didn’t have any faith. Must have been somebody else. I have to go on your faith, see. Maybe somebody else is praying for me. And get up there and say, “Well, now, if you just write in now, I’ll pray for you, and if you put your hand on that radio, I’ll pray the prayer of faith” — why, you nut! Maybe the guy got healed because four hundred other people are praying for him! Not because of your prayer. Maybe if the guy came up in the healing line and got healed, maybe it’s because everybody in the tent was praying. If he did get healed, see, it might not be this fellow up here. Stupid business.

Well, I didn’t mean to get off on that. Our time’s up anyway. We’re going to have to close.

All right, five: “With his stripes we are healed.” And like I said before, our healing comes later, our perfect healing, and right now our healing’s only temporary. And don’t ever get messed up in anything like that in trying to —

I was up one time in Baltimore, Maryland, and I went into a home there, an elderly woman. Her name was Martha Segal. Her daughter’s name was Bertha Segal. And Bertha had been bedridden for twenty-five years, and the mother raised. And that was all that was in the house — no brothers, no sons. There was no father. There was pension, there was no Social Security, no insurance. No welfare. And it was a tenemant district of Baltimore on Washington Street — which is now all black. And it was one of those houses where it’s built on the north side of the street, facing away from the sun. And when the sun would come up, it would shine down through the tenemants, and it would come in the side windows of that house about thirty minutes in the morning and about thirty minutes in the afternoon in the summertime. And in the winter it didn’t even come through.

And in that house that woman, Martha, waited on her daughter, Bertha, in the bed for twenty-five years. And the woman had fallen down the stairs in the basement and she was on crutches. And for almost two years she waited on the girl in the bed with crutches. And the girl in the bed had arthritis so bad, she was just all twisted up like this. And she had a typewriter, and she typed with one finger with this typewriter. And she mailed out letters to Mohammedans. And she had three Mohammedans through the letters she sent over to Africa and Arabia.

That’ll fix you, man! That just, that’ll fix you for life.

And this woman crawled around here in these crutches. You know what she told me one time, Mrs. Segal told me? She said, “Brother Ruckman,” she said, “it wouldn’t be so bad,” she said. “We get along and the Lord takes care of us.” But, she said, “The thing that makes it so bad are the Christians.” And by that I knew enough to know what she was talking about. And what the Christians would do is come in there and pray for the girl to get healed, and when the girl didn’t get healed, they’d accuse them of sin and not having faith. That’s what it is. And, boy, you’ve got to watch that kind of business there, or the Lord is likely to give you a taste of it yourself.

Well, Isaiah 53. Isaiah 53, beginning at verse 6. Father, we ask your blessing upon our work today. We pray you’ll bless this visitation coming up Thursday. May these Christians get awake and get about your business, not just spend all their time and not all their time with job, may they do something for thee while they’re here, and not waste the years. Lord, give us an open door in this town so people will listen to what we have to say. And our members, may they not be turned down, Lord. We know they’re not turned down as much as we kid about, but still, Lord, we ask thee for more open doors, more willing hearts and ears to listen to our message. And may you give our ladies and our men good fortune and good perseverance as they go on their way, and give them some souls afire and some blessings as they do this work for thee. Bless our Bible studies now in the back rooms and here in the main auditorium. May the word of God have access to our hearts and lives for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

All right, Isaiah chapter 53, beginning at verse 6: “All we like sheep have gone astray.” And we covered this before, but you ought to memorize it.

“All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.” Every Christian ought to know that verse. You ought to be able to quote that verse without even looking it up. And, for a blessing, you put in your own name — or put in the name of the man you’re dealing with.”

“All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed.” And the “afflicted” is physical violence. But oppression can be in the form of emotional things or spiritual things.

“He was oppressed, and he was afflicted.” And oppression can take a number of forms. There’s oppression in Spain. Up until this last year, if a bunch of Christians had a church, they couldn’t put a sign out in front of the church saying where it was — up till last year. That is, Spain has been a fascist dictatorship since Mussolini. And we send them about $15 million a year — which is rather stupid. And that’s called oppression.

In Russia there’s oppression for the Christians. Oppression takes forms like this. In Russia, the Christian kid will come to school, and they’ll make fun of him. Then they’ll get the name of the parents and forbid the parents to deal with anybody else’s children. And when they have daily vacation Bible school in Russia, there are many who meet out in the woods and have to hide. Even if they don’t get arrested, see, and thrown in jail, they’re oppressed.

Here in America we talk about an “oppressed minority.” You know, an “oppressed minority.” But the oppressed minority in America is not the colored people. The oppressed minority in America is an American Indian. It makes up a much less minority than the colored man. The colored man in America is not oppressed. The colored man in Africa is oppressed — but not in America. The colored man in America — you take hundreds of colored people in this town that drive down that bridge in a Buick or an Oldsmobile. I’ve seen them, man. And get out there with five rods, and put up little ol’ wooden blocks across the bridge, and they all have Mitchell reels. You can’t get a good Mitchell reel under $24, man. And you get a salt water reel, they’re $40 and $45.

A fellow’s got $200 worth of rigging there, and sit there and open up his ice cooler with his RC’s in it, and at night he’s got his Coleman lantern.

That ain’t oppression! That ain’t oppression! That’s good! Some of you don’t have it so good. I bet some of you haven’t got a Coleman lantern and five rods and a brand new Oldsmobile and an ice chest.

And, talking about oppression in America. The greatest minority in America is Bible-believing Christians. Bible-believing Christians.

All right, verse 7: “He was oppressed.” Well, they made fun of Him and they lied about Him and they arrested Him.

“And he was affliceted.” They whipped Him and slapped Him.

“Yet he opened not his mouth.” When He stood before Herod He didn’t answer him. He opened His mouth to Pontius Pilate, but He didn’t open it to the people who did the whipping. The people that did the whipping, He just took it in silence.

Let’s turn to the New Testament and pick up the account in 1 Peter. First Peter chapter 2. First Peter chapter 2, talking about the Lord being quiet, not opening His mouth. First Peter chapter 2, verse 19. Now, this is the hardest thing to do many times, keep your mouth shut. First Peter chapter 2:19: “For this is thankworthy, if a man for conscience toward God endure grief, suffering wrongfully. For what glory is it, if, when ye be buffeted for your faults, ye shall take it patiently?” In plainer words, it’s good if you’re getting buffeted for doing right, but if the mess you’re in was your own doing, and you got what you had coming and earned it, why, then, that isn’t anything. That’s just the law of life there. He’s talking about if you take it good when you get kicked in the pants and get tore up because you done right, see, and not your fault, then OK. But if the mess you’re in is just the natural consequence of some decision you made and some action you took, why, what’s that? That doesn’t merit any reward. That’s life. I mean, that’s just — unsaved people go through those things, that’s nothing.

“For what glory is it, if, when ye be buffeted for your faults, ye shall take it patiently?” That isn’t anything.

“But if, when ye do well, and suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is acceptable with God.” All right, if, when you do well and suffer it — comma — “ye take it patiently.” It is not enough to do well and suffer. There are three things: Doing well, and suffering, and taking it patiently, see? Sometimes we get off too quick. We say, “Well, I’m doing well, I’m suffering for it.” Yeah, but you’re griping about it, too! It says, “take it patiently,” see? So all three are there.

“If, when ye do well, and suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is acceptable with God. For even hereunto were ye called —” I wish this weren’t so.

“For even hereunto were ye called.” I’d just as soon this hadn’t been in here.

“For even hereunto —” I’m called for this.

“For even hereunto were ye called —” This is why God called me.

“For even hereunto were ye called —” If he had said anything but this it would have been better.

“For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps —” in suffering. So, when Paul mentions about it being a ministry, he says, “Approving ourselves as ministers of God in stripes, in tumults, in necessities, in imprisonments — see those things? A good minister should be ready to go to jail. And a good minister should suffer things he needs and doesn’t have — necessities. And imprisonments. And tumults. Riots — towns tore up. Those things.

“Leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps. Who did no sin.” Well, He’s sinless; we’re not. You know, Charles Sheldon wrote a book called, “In His Steps.” And he got it from this verse 21. And Charles Sheldon, in his book “In His Steps,” at the end of the book he said, “I think we need to redefine the Christian.” Whenever they say “redefine,” see, you know what’s coming. Whenever a man says “rethink” or “redefine” or “re-examine,” you know what he’s saying? He’s saying, “I think it’s about time we call black white.” You mark that thing down when you read something. You read along and a fellow says, “We need to re-examine this,” or “redefine,” see, do the thing over, you know what he’s saying? He’s saying, “Let’s do it over again backwards” is what he’s saying.

And at the end of that book in Sheldon’s “In His Steps,” it says, “I think we should redefine the word ‘Christian.’ A Christian is somebody who would do what Jesus would do if He were here.” See, that’s what it says in that book. And you’ll find that book recommended by every conservative Christian leader in this town. That’s a statement of a lost man.

A Christian is most certainly not a man who does what Jesus would do if Jesus were here. If Jesus were here, He’d rule the nations with a rod of iron. And if He were here like He came the first time, He’d minister to Israel and heal sick people and raise dead people. See? And preach to Jews only. A Christian is certainly not somebody who would do what Jesus would do if He were here.

And if that weren’t bad enough, He’s here! See? I don’t have to do what Jesus would do if He were here. The Lord Jesus Christ is in me — He’s here! And I don’t do what He’d do if He were here. I do what I do because He’s here! See?

Now that fellow wrote that book, and every conservative Bible teacher in this town recommends that. You’ll find Bradley’s Book Store full of it, you know, “get this great Christian work, In His Steps.” That’s the kind of business.

You know, a fellow came to a preacher one time, and he said, “I’m wondering how to get saved by following in His steps.”

And this preacher was wise, and he said, “Where’d you get that from?”

And he said, “It’s in the Bible.”

And the preacher said, “You know where it is?”

And the man said, “No.”

And the preacher said, “I’ll show you where it is.” And he turned to this passage in 2:21. And he said, “OK, it says, ‘Follow his steps.’ Now what’s the first step to take?” And the first step to take was the next verse. Look at the next verse. That’s the next step to take. “Who did no sin.” You ready to take that step? That’s quite a step.

“Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth: Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not.” Didn’t pass it back.

“But committed himself to him that judgeth righteously.” See, He kept His mouth shut. “When He was revilved, He reviled not again.” Boy, did you ever to stop to think what He could have said if He wanted to? I mean, He was sitting there in the hall and they were slapping His face and spitting on Him and saying, “Hail, King of the Jews,” you know. “Hail King of the Jews? You’re a king, are you? Some king!” Flack, whack, whack! you, spit in His face and cussing Him out and four-letter words and all that. You know Roman soldiers, what they’d say.

And can you imagine what He could have said? I mean, if He was who He claimed to be — He said “the hairs of your head are numbered” — and if He knew them before they were born, He knew them when they were conceived in the womb, He knew their bodies when they were fashioned before they were born, He knew their name, rank, and serial number, and could control the cells in their bodies. The Bible says in Hebrews chapter 1, “All things are held together by the word of His power.” “All things are held together,” see.

David said, “Thou knowest my down-sitting, thou knowest my uprising, thou understandeth my thought afar off. O Lord, there’s not a word in my tongue that thou dost not know it altogether.” Sitting there in that chair where they’re beating Him up and slapping Him and cussing Him, He could have said anything. See? I mean, some fellow haul off and popped him, and He could have said, “You are So-and-So, you are born in such-and-such a place, and you’re thirty-five years old, and you’re a third hitch in the Roman legion, and you’re Battallion 53 in the fifty-fourth regiment, and your commanding officer is So-and-So. And you’re married to So-and-So and you got two children, their name is Lintillius and Josephus,” or something, see? “And you plan to stay in for twenty years and serving a twenty-year stretch and retire, and you got your home up there by the Baltic Sea when you’re getting ready to retire.” So He just could have called the whole thing out. Or he could have made fun of them.

What if they were slapping Him in the chair, He suddenly put on His glory? Wouldn’t that have been horrible? I mean, you know, Matthew 17 says, “He was transfigured before them, and His face became as the light of the sun, and His garments whiter than any fuller can whiten them.” What if He had been sitting there in that chair and they been hitting Him and slapping Him and cussing Him and all of a sudden He’d taken His transfiguration — which He could do, just anytime. Just suddenly assume His deity. And there they are trying to look at something as bright as the sun and hit it, see, and He’s standing there. And all He has to do is just wave the hand, brother, and the whole building just disappears in smoke.

“Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not.” See, He could have threatened them. He could have made fun of them or He could have threatened them.

They said, “We’ll kill you,” and He could have said, “You’ll kill me your foot! I’ll put you in Hell!” Slap! See, just like that. And He could have done it.

“When he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously.” God the Father.

“Who his own self bare our sins in —” IN! “— his own body.” Not just “on.” “Bore our sins in His own body.” He became sin for us. “Bore our sins” — plural. You can’t preach the gospel without preaching about sins.

“Bore our sins.” I’ve heard people say, “Well, you ought to just be positive, you know, and not be negative.” Preacher told me one time, he said, “I don’t preach about sins, I just preach about sin — S-I-N.” Instead of S-I-N-S, “sins.” But the Bible says that Christ died for our what? “Sins.” According to the Scriptures, you can’t preach the gospel without preaching about sins. You have to name them. If you don’t name them, you’re not preaching the gospel.

I’ve heard some of these smooth, slick characters on this FM station, you know. They mention “sin” they always mention it kind of apologetically. They kind of say, “And we should repent of our sins and learn to have forgiveness for transgressions. For, as David, our iniquities —” and then what? Like what? Like what? Like what?

They said, “Well, the Lord can save you and forgive you of all your sins” — NAME ‘EM! One, two, three, four, five — NAME ‘EM! They never get around to naming them.

I like those Holiness preachers better than some of them. Those Holiness preachers will name them, man. They get up and rave and roar and rant spit, boy, and just call the catalog. I appreciate that.

You know, Richard Wurmbrand, he said, “The way things begin to go to piece in Romania,” he said, was, he said, “You could tell things were going bad” — now this was Wurmbrand. He said, “You could say that the Lord was good, but you couldn’t say that the devil was bad.” He said that was the first sign that things began to slip in the preaching. They let you, you’re allowed to preach all the love and truth you wanted to preach — just as long as you didn’t preach anything negative, you’re safe. You start saying, “The Devil was bad,” then in came the state and began to clean it up.

And, you know, a lot of fundamental Christians in America are just about there. They’re just about there.

Twenty-four: “Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree.” We say “cross” but it’s called a “tree” because it’s made out of wood.

“His own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins.” Not just dead to sin, but dead to “sins,” plural.

“Should live unto righteousness.” It matches Romans 6. Matches the Pauline, doctrinal statement.

“That we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness.” It’s almost verbatim from Romans 6.

“By whose stripes.” I’m back in Isaiah.

“Be whose stripes ye are healed.” I’m back in Isaiah. “By whose stripes ye were healed.”

All right, back to Isaiah 53. Isaiah 53:7: “He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.” Well, there’s a contradiction in the King James Bible. I guess we’ll have to get rid of it!

Let’s turn to Acts chapter 8 and look at the contradiction. Acts chapter 8, verse 32. Acts 8:32. All right, now Isaiah says in Isaiah 53:7, “He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, ad as a sheep before HER shearers is bumb, so he openeth not his mouth.” Acts chapter 8:32 says, “The place of the scripture which he read was this, He was led as a sheep to the slaughter; and like a lamb dumb before his shearer, so opened he not his mouth.” Was it a female or is it a male?

Acts chapter 8:32 says, “a lamb dumb before his shearer.” Isaiah 53 verse 7 says, “as a sheep before her shearers.” You know, it’s a pity we don’t have a “reliable” version, isn’t it? Heh! We’ll have to throw it away and get us a new ASV, OK?

You know, there in Panama City, I told them, I said, “If you can find mistakes in that Bible, I’m in Room 219 at the Ramada Inn. I’ll be glad to see you any time.” And nobody ever showed up. Well, you think he could have found that, couldn’t you? I mean, I ought to give them a list of contradictions to help them out if they don’t know where they are.

I mean, there’s one right there, I mean, it says, “his shearer,” “her shearers,” you know. So it must be a female or a male.

And then the sheepherders say this. The sheepherders say that that a lamb doesn’t bleat when it’s being sheared. And a male sheep doesn’t bleat when it’s sheared. A lamb doesn’t bleat when it’s sheared, and a female sheep doesn’t bleat when it’s sheared. And a male sheep doesn’t bleat when it’s sheared. But a female lamb does. That’s it. He said a male lamb and a male sheep don’t bleat. And a female sheep doesn’t bleat. But a female lamb does bleat.

And so what you have here in Acts chapter 8 verse 32, “Like a lamb,” and if he said, “her shearers,” the lamb would have opened its mouth. Because a female lamb will bleat when it’s being sheared. So he said, “A lamb before his shearers.” It’s a male lamb. And the male lamb doesn’t bleat.

Then back over here in Isaiah chapter 53 verse 7 it says, “As a sheep before her shearers” — the female sheep won’t bleat. She’s grown up. But the female lamb. So whoever wrote Acts and Isaiah was very careful to put in an apparent contradiction so a guy would break his neck on it. And yet, still, the One that wrote it was the One that knew what sheep did when they were getting sheared.

Now, you tell me how Philip knew the difference in sheep and Isaiah knew the difference in sheep. Isaiah was of the priesthood. He wasn’t a sheepherder. How’d he know?

Now, you understand that? When the thing is grown up — I hate to use that — when it’s grown up, it’s a sheep. It’s a sheep. When it’s little, it’s a lamb.

All right, three of them will not bleat — the male sheep, and the female sheep will not bleat when they’re being sheared. But the female lamb will bleat being sheared. The male lamb won’t. So, “the male lamb before his shearers,” Acts 8, and, “the female sheep before her shearers,” Isaiah 53. Good ol’ contradiction. But you’d have to be a sheepherder to get the thing straightened out.

So the Lord doesn’t write a Bible just for preachers and teachers. And the Lord doesn’t just write a Bible for scholars and Greek scholars and Hebrew scholars. He writes a Bible for sheepshearers. And when he says, “As,” and “Like,” “as a sheep before her shearers,” “as a lamb before his shearers,” and gives the similitude, it’s always exact. There’s no mistake in it.

All right, Isaiah 53, verse 7: “He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb —” see the difference?

“So he openeth not his mouth.”

The lamb brought to the slaughter is one thing; the sheep to the shearers is something else.

“so he openeth not his mouth. He was taken from prison.” They had him in jail during those trials.

“And from judgment.” He was taken from Pilate’s judgment hall.

“And who shall declare his generation?” Two things on it. Look at the middle of verse 10 for “generation.” In the middle of verse 10 it says, “He shall see his seed.” So it can be, “Who will declare the people He gave birth to?”

Verse 10: “He shall see his seed.” Verse 8: “Who shall declare his generation?” What he brought forth.

Come back to Psalm 22 and notice it again. Who can declare the children that He generated. Psalm 22, verse 30. Psalm 22:30, and notice the context is the crucifixion again. Psalm 22, verse 30. Psalm 22, verse 30: “A seed —” like Isaiah 53:10 “— shall serve him; it shall be accounted to the Lord for a generation.” “Who shall declare his generation?”

Thirty-one: “They shall come, and shall declare his righteousness unto a people that shall be born, that he hath done this.” He’s generated them. They’re his seed.

And notice in Psalm 22 the crucifixion, verse 16. The crucifixion, verse 17. The crucifixion, verse 1. So you’re right alongside Isaiah 53.

All right, Isaiah 53:8. Isaiah 53:8: “He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation?” That’s one reading.

All right, another reading: Who shall declare his generation?” The generation that did this. The generation that cut Him off. The generation that crucified Him and killed Him. Christ said, “A wicked and adulterous generation seeketh for a sign.” And it said about His crucifixion, “All these things shall come upon this generation.”

Turn to Matthew 23 in the New Testament. It can mean that. It may mean both. Matthew 23, verse 34. It can mean, “Who can declare the generation that was responsible for His death?” Nobody, because nobody knows who they were. We know Caiaphas and Annas, the high priest, we know Herod and Pilate, but we don’t know the people out there in the crowd that yelled, “Crucify him! Crucify him!”

Matthew 23, verse 34: “Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city: That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar. Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation.” The one that crucified Him.

All right, Isaiah 53:8. Isaiah 53:8: “He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people —” of course, it’s Israel here.

“For the transgression of my people was he stricken.” The Bible said about Him, “Thou shalt call His name Jesus, for He shall save His people.” “For the transgression of my people was he stricken.”

“And he made his grave with the wicked.” Two dying thieves.

“And with the rich —” Joseph of Arimathaea “— in his death.” Now how can you explain that? You know, folks say, they say, “How do you know the Bible is the word of God?” Well, my goodness, how in the world could anybody write that about a man? And say, “This man is going to be born in Bethlehem,” like Micah says. “And He’s going to ride upon a donkey,” like Zechariah says. “And His name is going to be Emmanuel,” like Isaiah. “And He’ll be virgin born,” like Isaiah said. “And He’ll be the seed of the woman,” like Genesis says. “And He’ll die on a tree, be cursed on a tree,” like Moses said in Deuteronomy 21. “And He will have died with wicked people,” like Isaiah says. “And He’s going to buried in a rich man’s grave,” like Isaiah says. Now, how do you account for all those things showing up like that on one man anywhere from 500 to 2,000 years before the man’s born? You can’t do that! That’s illegal! You can’t do that. You just can’t do that. There isn’t anybody in this building that can do that.

Suppose Abraham Lincoln said, just suppose this. No, let’s move back a little further than that. Napoleon. Napoleon wrote down on a piece of paper, “A man’s going to be born in 1992 and his name is going to be Robert Abernathy.” And he put the thing up. And then about and so-and-so, years and years later Abraham Lincoln comes along and says, “This man, Robert Smith, or whatever his name is, is going to be born in St. Louis, Missouri,” and then a little time goes by, and along comes General Grant, and he writes down, “This man, Robert Smith, is born in Missouri, and he’s going to die at the age of 42 in an accident in downtown New York at Central Avenue and 45th Street at 3 o’clock in the afternoon.” And then time goes by, and then Woodrow Wilson picks up his pen and says, “This man, Robert Smith, is going to be interred in Greenlawn Cemetery in Chicago in a southwest suburb.” And then along comes FDR and writes down and says, “This man, Robert Smith, is going to leave behind him thirty thousand dollars in stocks and bonds and two thousand dollars in real estate, and the lawyer’s fee is going to be $455.97.”

Why, you wouldn’t believe it! Nobody would believe it. You can’t do that. Why, there’s phenomenon like that anywhere in the world. Yet Moses writes down one thing, Zechariah writes it down later, Isaiah writes it down later, Micah writes the thing on down later, and then all of them come through in one man. You can’t do that!

But it’s done!

So whoever wrote this Book knows all the future. Whoever wrote that Book. And He said He’s going to make His grave with the wicked, and in His death He’s going to be with the rich. Grave with the rich and His death with the wicked. Well, you couldn’t write that unless you’ve seen it.

So then what you have is the Lord up in eternity looking down like this. And the Lord looks down in eternity and all time stretches out ahead of Him, and He sees two thieves there dying with Christ, and here’s, “My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?” and here’s a fellow saying, “Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom,” and He sees ol’ Joseph — Joseph ain’t even born yet! He sees ol’ Joseph come out and get the thing off the cross, body off the cross. And Joseph hadn’t even been born yet! And He sees Joseph go out and get the body and lay it down and wrap it into fine linen, and Mary and the rest of them go to the sepulchre, put the thing in the tomb, roll the stone back, you know, and the soldiers come and seal the tomb, you know. And tey go on back.

They hadn’t even been born! See? They weren’t born the time of Isaiah.

And when Isaiah gets down and writes, the Lord said, “Well, I’ll tell you how it was.”

Look at the past tense. Five: “He was wounded ... He was bruised ,,,” See that thing? You see the past tense? And Isaiah is sitting down here writing, and he said, “What’ll I write?” And the Lord says, “Well, I’m going to tell you how it was.”

And Isaiah said, “Yeah, but this hasn’t happened yet.”

The Lord said, “It don’t make any difference. The way it went was like this.”

And then Isaiah sit down and begins to write, and the Lord said, “He was wounded, and He was bruised,” and this, that, and this and that, He did this, and He did that. And it hadn’t even happened yet.

Folks say, “How do you know the Bible is the word of God?” Well, how do you know you’re breathing? Now that’s the greatest proof the Bible’s the word of God. “The testimony of Jesus Christ is the spirit of prophecy.” You can’t beat that! You can’t beat that.

The Bible says, “If a man believes on me, he won’t come into condemnation.” See? Christ said, “In my Father’s house are many mansions.” “I would that they behold the glory that you gave me before the foundation of the world.” I am standing right here; I’m just as good as him! I’m just as good as him.

The Lord has already seen the White Throne Judgment. And Peter Ruckman never showed up. He said, “He that believeth on me shall not come into condemnation, but is passed —” past tense — “passed” — “from death to life.”

And the Lord has already seen the White Throne Judgment. He’s already judging, you know. He saw the whole thing. And he wrote down and said, “Well, that fellow isn’t going to show up. He already got out.” In plainer words, the good promises are just as good as the bad ones. And the Bible says you’re accepted in the beloved; you’re accepted in the beloved. And the Bible says you’re seated in heavenly places, as far as the Lord’s concerned you’re already there! The Lord’s just enjoying fellowship with you up there right now!

Some of you just aren’t enjoying it down here.

All right, 53:9: “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.” Strange thing. “He made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence.” That’s a strange thing. I mean, why would He make His grave with the wicked since He had done no violence? See the contradiction there?

“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.” Well, wicked men do violence, and most of the folks that are rich have had deceit in their mouth. So He got buried with the wrong crowd. He was numbered with the transgressors.

Ten: “Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him.” Now, if you’re here this morning, and you’ve been bruised, write your name in.

“It pleased the Lord to bruise him.” Romans 8:28. It doesn’t please us. The writer of Hebrews says, “No chastening for the present seemeth to joyous, but grievous. Nevertheless, afterward it yieldeth the peaceful fruit of righteousness to some of them are exercised thereby.”

“It pleased the Lord to bruise him; he —” The Lord — “hath put him to grief.” The Lord did it. There’s a way in which God the Father is connected with the crucifixion. Turn to the Book of Acts. And, you know me, I’m no hyper-Calvinist, but there’s a truth here. Acts chapter 2. Acts chapter 2, verse 22. Simon Peter preaching. Acts 2:22: “Ye men of Israel, hear these words; Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know: Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God.” There’s the sovereignty of God.

“Ye have taken.” There’s the free will of man.

“Ye have taken, and by wicked hands.” There’s the free will of man. Individual responsibility.

“And by wicked hands have crucified and slain.” But, notice in verse 23: “Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God.” That is, God knew what had to be done ahead of time and knew what would be done, and then God allowed it to be done, and determined it to be done. So He says, “It pleased the Lord to bruise him.”

All right, 53:10: “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.” Now notice He can’t see His see until His soul is made an offering for sin.

Notice something else. “When thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin.” Christ said that “My soul is sorrowful, even unto death.” And When Christ bore your sins, you see, He didn’t just bear them in or on His body. The Bible said His soul was an offering for sin. Not just the body.

In plainer words, “He hath perfected forever them that are sanctified by one offering.” And He said when He came into the world, “Burnt offerings and sacrifices thou wouldst not; a body thou hast prepared me,” Hebrews chapter 10.

Offering the body: “Brethren, I beseech you, present your bodies a living sacrifice.” All right, the body dies on the cross and the sins are on the body. But you read over there in 1 Peter that Christ bore your sins IN his body. Not just on it; in it. So Isaiah said He offered His soul as an offering for sin.

Well, “the soul that sinneth, it shall die,” and Christ says at Gethsemane, “My soul is sorrowful, even unto death” — which means that when Christ — and I’ve taught you this, and I know it’s wild — but when Christ died on the cross, then His soul suffered what a man’s soul would suffer in Hell. “This is the second death.”

Burn.

On the cross.

He said, “I thirst.” And on the cross, He says, “I am a worm, and no man,” Psalm 22.

Which indicates that when He dies there on the cross, not only the body suffers the poured-out wrath of God, the soul is suffering the poured-out wrath of God, and the soul is perishing in there like the soul of an unsaved man. And the sins are falling on him, and that soul in there has taken the shape of a serpent. “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up.”

Christ takes the Devil’s place.

He says in Galatians 3, “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us.” “Cursed art thou above all beasts; thou shalt go upon thy belly, and thus shalt thou eat all the days of thy life.” It’s said to a serpent. To a serpent.

And Christ said, “As Moses lifted up the serpent, so must the Son of man be lifted up.” And of course those things are too holy and sacred and deep to talk about. You can’t say Christ became the Devil. I wouldn’t say that. “No man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus Christ accursed.” But, “Cursed is every one that hangs on a tree,” see, you can’t around that thing. It’s an atonement that, in that time He’s on the cross, He suffers all the agonies of the damned that a man would suffer in eternity in the lake of fire as one of the Devil’s children.

All right, Isaiah 53:10: “Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin.” Not just His body. His soul. Look at the middle of verse 12: “Because he hath poured out his soul.” “Because he hath poured out his soul unto death.” The death of the soul. Not just the body.

All right, back to 10: “Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin.” Notice the singular. Not just the things we commit. The soul takes the place of the sin nature. It takes the Adamic curse on it.

“An offering for sin.” All right, when He does that, “When thou —” God the Father “— shall make his soul —” Jesus Christ’s soul “— an offering for sin, he —” God the Father or Christ “— shall see his seed.” Christ’s seed. “He shall prolong his days —” it’s Christ “— and the pleasure of the Lord —” God the Father “— shall prosper in his hand —” Christ.

Therefore: “when thou —” God the Father “— shalt make his soul —” Jesus Christ “— an offering for sin, he —” Jesus Christ “— shall see his seed —” Jesus Christ’s seed “— he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord —” God the Father “— shall prosper in his hand —” Jesus.

“He shall see of the travail of his soul.”

So, let’s turn to the Book of Psalms and see about His seed. When Christ dies on the cross, He brings forth seed and a generation. And we’ll go to Psalm — what is it, 89? — Psalm 89. Psalm 89. Christ says one time in John chapter 12, He says, “Except a kernel of wheat fall on the ground and die and abideth alone, but if it dies it brings forth much fruit.” And the seed can’t bring forth fruit till it’s dead. It has to die.

You take a kernel of corn, you know, like you get off an ear of corn. You take that thing and after that thing comes off that corn hard, you put that thing on the shelf and leave it there, and you can leave it there till it rots and it will not grow up into a stalk, a cornstalk. It won’t do it.

But you take that thing and put it in the ground and bury it, see, death — death — you put it in the ground and bury it, you put it in the ground and bury it, see, then it brings forth much fruit.

So when Christ dies on the cross He can’t bring forth the seed till His soul is made an offering. When it’s made an offering, they bury Him. And when they bury Him, He can bring forth fruit. He had children. He never did get married. Couldn’t have any physical children, see. And yet it speaks about “his seed.”

That’s the strangest man that ever lived. He was born of a woman’s seed — and a woman has no seed. And He begat children and had no physical seed to begat them with. Isn’t that strange? I mean, He was born of a woman with no male seed involved, and then all his children don’t have male seed either — weird. Most unique man ever lived.

And He dies, and when He dies, then the seed comes up, and you’re the seed. You’re the seed. Spiritual children.

All right, let’s see where you are in here. Psalm 89, I’ll begin at verse — oh, good — I’ll begin at verse 19. We’ll just about get the whole thing. Nineteen. Psalm 89:19: “Then thou spakest in vision to thy holy one —” Jesus “— and saidst, I have laid help upon one that is mighty —” Jesus “— I have exalted one chosen out of the people —” Jesus. “I have found David.” Then David’s a type of Jesus Christ.

“I have found David my servant.” For four weeks in Isaiah you’ve been studying Jesus Christ as “my servant” and “the servant of the Lord.

“My servant; with my holy oil have I anointed him.” Bible said Christ was anointed with the oil of gladness above His fellows. The word “anointed” is “meshach” — “Messiah.”

“Have I anointed him: With whom my hand shall be established: mine arm also shall strengthen him. The enemy shall not exact upon him.” No tax. Won’t tax Him. “Nor the son of wickedness —” the Antichrist “— afflict him. And I will beat down his foes before his face —” Second Advent —”and plague them that hate him.” Second Advent. “But my faithfulness and my mercy shall be with him —” He rose from the dead “— and in my name —” He said, “I am come in my Father’s name “— And in my name shall his horn be exalted. I will set his hand also in the sea —” Mediterranean, the Millennium “— and his right hand in the rivers —” Euphrates, Millennial land grant “— He shall cry unto me, Thou art my father, my God —” “My God, My God” “— and the rock of my salvation. Also I will make him my firstborn.” It can’t be David. David wasn’t His firstborn.

“I will make him my firstborn, higher than the kings of the earth.” Am I going overtime? I’ve got a quarter till. I see a whole bunch of people standing out there. Well, I sure hate to stop here. Well, I must stop. Anyway, well, we’ll pick it up.

Anyway, lookie here. Look at 29. Look at 29: “His seed.” Look at verse 36: “His seed.” See that thing? Verse 30: “His children.” See that thing? We’ll get that next time. We’ll have to close. All right, we’ll close.

Lady in a miniskirt or a G string, I don’t know which, about the same, and says, “Rejoice, rejoice, she’s dancing in the aisle with a preacher. The joy of Advent and the coming of Christ and the period including four Sundays before Christmas was celebrated by worshippers dancing in the aisle Sunday after Holy Communion.” Excellent time. “At the Southern Methodist University in Dallas. A Miss Chris Fouch and Southern Methodist chaplain Claude Evans are among the participants. The dancing at the service is part of Chaplain Evans’ program to relate religion to today’s youth.” Now, that’s that word I was telling you about — “related” — and “meaningful related” and “relative,” all that stuff, see. Whenever he says that, it means all hell’s going to break loose. That’s with the word in there.

Now here’s another one I thought you might like. This is an essay on teeth and some boy wrote this in school, about the fifth grade. Essay on teeth. “My teacher asked me to write an assay” — an “A-say” — “teeth is my subject. Teeth is a noble animal. Teeth is hatched in the mouth. Most every man has teeth except in a hen. She ain’t got any. She swallows her vittles whole and chews them with her gizzard. My grandmother has false teeth. She puts them in a glass of water. I told her she ought to buy her a gizzard. A man has one mouth, one nose and two ears and two eyes. His mouth is to hatch teeth in. His nose is to sniffle air with. His eyes are to catch dust in. And his ears is to keep his hat from falling down over his face. Man has one skeleton. A skeleton is what’s left when the insides are taken out and the outsides are taken off. Man has one spinal column. His head sits on one end and he sits on the other end. Man has one skull; his brains are on the inside, iff’n he’s got any. His hair is on the outside, iff’n he’s got any. Women’s has ankles. Ankles are to keep calves from coming down and eating up the corns. And that’s all I know about teeth.”

Ahh, here’s one more here I picked up, a little item. Now this is a perfect pastor for your church. “If he is young, he lacks experience, if his hair is gray he’s too old. If he has five children, he has too many. If he has none, he’s not setting a good example. If his wife sings in the choir, she’s being forward. If she doesn’t, she’s not interested in her husband’s work and is probably backslidden. If he speaks from notes he has canned sermons and is a bore. If extemporaneously, he’s not deep enough. If he spends too much time in the study he doesn’t mix well with people when at home preparing a good sermon. If he’s attentive to the poor he’s playing the grandstand. If to the wealthy, he’s trying to be an aristocrat. If he suggest changes for improvement of the church, he’s a dictator. If he makes no suggestion, he’s a figurehead. If he makes use of illustrations, he doesn’t give enough Bible. If not, his teaching is not clearly understood. If he condemns wrong, he’s a crank. If he condones wrong, he’s a sinful compromiser. If he preaches an hour, he’s tiresome. If twenty minutes, he’s lazy. If he preaches the truth, he is insulting and meddling. If he doesn’t preach it, he’s a hypocrite. If he fails to please somebody, he’s hurting the church. If he tries to please everybody, he’s a fool. If he asks for your tithes and offerings, he’s preaching about money. If he doesn’t, he’s not cooperating with the board. If the salary is small, he works to make a living. He is not devoting enough time to the ministry. If he visits the members when they don’t come to church, he’s nursing babies. If he doesn’t, he’s not doing his duty. If he preaches all the time himself, the church gets tired of him. If he invites too many guest preachers in, he’s shirking his duty.” That’s the perfect pastor.

All right, Isaiah chapter 53. And let’s begin at verse 10. Isaiah 53, verse 10. Now, Father, we ask your blessing upon all our activities today and especially in this building. Bless the morning service and evening service. Bless the music and the musicians who are going to play in this building and sing for your glory. And I pray the Holy Spirit of God will minister to this congregation. Give them what they need from the word and from the music and from the singing and from the praise. We ask the Lord Jesus Christ might be exalted in all these services and these Sunday School rooms back here in the plant, and may the young people grow in grace and knowledge of thee and the word find a permanent place in their heart. Give us understanding now in the Scripture. And help me as I try to teach others and I teach myself from this Book. And may this Book be a blessing to me as this congregation. Open our eyes, Father, that we might behold wondrous things out of thy law, for Jesus’ sake. Amen. Amen.

All right, Isaiah chapter 53 verse 10. Now we’re going through Isaiah one verse at a time if you’re new with us this morning. And we’re glad to have you here, some of you visitors, and hope you get a blessing from the Sunday School. We’re an all-Bible Sunday School. We don’t use any literature from, oh, ten years old and on up, but just take the Bible one verse at a time. We only use one version in these classes; that’s the King James Version. We use it because it’s the Bible of the Protestant Reformation. And this Book here has been bought with the blood of martyrs and saints and reformers. And it’s unlike any other book you get your hands on.

For example — I’m not going to dwell on this — but for example, Good News for Modern Man, Living Letters and Phillips, Weymouth and Moffat, Goodspeed, ASV, RV, RSV, New ASV, and the rest of them were written by men who were under no pressure and no persecution and no opposition. It didn’t cost them anything to make their books, and they made a mint in money by selling them.

Now, this Book here, it cost the fellows that put this Book together their lives, their family, their blood and their homes. The text this is taken from in the Old Latin is the text of the Waldensians and Albigensians. And they paid for it with their lives, their family and their children. And when it was published, nobody made a dime off it. It wasn’t copyrighted and it wasn’t even authorized. We call it the Authorized Version because the Holy Spirit put His seal to it. But I’ve got a first edition copy over there in my house for $300, and the word “Authorized” doesn’t even occur on the flyleaf or the frontispiece. So that’s why we use this one.

All right, in Isaiah 53:10, speaking of the death of Christ, and of course the whole chapter is on the crucifixion as you can see. All right, 53:10: “Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him.” And “bruise” literally. Verse 5: “Bruised for our iniquities.” That is, hit and slapped in the face until His face was bruised.

“Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him.” Then God the Father was the Author of it eventually. “He —” The Lord “— hath put him —” Jesus “— to grief.” Back up in verse 3, He’s acquainted with grief: “He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.”

Verse 10: “It pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief.” And “grief” is more than sorrow. We read He’s a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. Sorrow is being down in the dumps. The colored folks call it “having the blues.” And sorrow is just being down and low and down in the bottom of the barrel, see, and kind of mumbling and occasionally weeping.

But grief is something that almost causes a panic. That is, it affects the whole body and the whole system. Grief turns into crying out loud and sometimes even screaming. It’s a verbal sorrow. And He knows about both of them.

“Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou —” God the Father “— shalt make his soul —” Jesus Christ “— an offering for sin, he —” Jesus Christ “— shall see his seed, he —” Jesus Christ “— shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord —” God the Father “— shall prosper in his —” Jesus CHrist “— hand.”

Now, see how all those “his”es and “he”s refer to one person? “Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he —” the Lord “— hath put him to grief.” And that’s the only time it’ll be the Father.

“When thou shalt make his soul —” Christ “— an offering for sin, he —” Christ “— shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.” Now we know that because of verse 11: “He shall see of the travail of his soul.” All right, back up to verse 10: “He hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin.” Then when Jesus Christ dies on the cross, He dies as a blood atonement, a sacrificial, substitutionary death, fulfilling the place of a burnt offering or a sin offering in the Old Testament. And I know that’s bloody, I know that’s crude, I know it’s archaic, I know it’s out of date, I know the liberals don’t buy that at all, and I could care less. That Bible makes it clear that Jesus Christ, when He died on the cross, died as a sin sacrifice, just like you’d kill an ox at an altar. And that’s a bloody mess, and that’s a bloody business. But it’s a bloody Book. And if there’s one thing that’s missing from modern preaching, it’s that element right there.

Now let me show you some verses. Come to Matthew chapter 26. Matthew 26:38, and this is Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. I read when Christ died in the Garden of Gethsemane, He sweat great drops, as it were, of blood falling to the ground. And in Matthew 26, when He’s in the Garden of Gethsemane praying, I find this. Matthew 26, verse 38: “Then saith he unto them, My soul.” “My soul.” You read in Isaiah His soul was an offering for sin. “My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death.” The death of a soul. Well, the death of a soul is the second death.

Take your Bible and turn to Revelation chapter 20. And notice that the death of the soul is the lake of fire. Revelation chapter 20 verse 12: “And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God.” They’ve already died once. “I saw the dead.” See, they died once. “I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it —” they died once “— and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works. And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.” Death of a soul. Lake of fire.

So when Christ in Gethsemane says, “My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death,” and when Isaiah says “His soul shall be an offering for sin,” he’s talking about Christ’s soul going through what an unsaved man goes through in Hell. Dying in your place.

Let’s look at it again. Turn to Hebrews chapter 10. Hebrews chapter 10. Hebrews chapter 10. Now this element has been going out and fading and fading and fading, even from conservative preaching, until now, when you mention these things, sometimes even the Christians get kind of nervous. It’s a peculiar thing. I listen to some of these FM stations, Christian radio stations, and listen to those things, not just the one here. I listen to ‘em up in Canton. They have one up there. And they have one near Dayton, Ohio, that I listen to at Camp Chatawqua. And I’ve listened to about four of them. And they run from morning till night. I listen to them sometimes, oh, two or three and four hours a day. And some of them are a little stronger than others. SOme of them are weaker than others. But in listening to those things, I don’t believe that I’ve heard more than three times out of 800 programs, three times in 800 programs — easily 800, and that’s conservative, might be well over 2,000 — but not more than three times did I ever hear a fellow say that Christ died on the cross and shed His blood to save you from Hell. Now I’ve heard him hit at it, and over it, and under it, and around it, and through it, and by it, and past it — but never land on it. And I’ve heard ‘em say, “The Lord loves you, and doesn’t want you eternally lost. So He sent His Son, and His Son showed you the love of God and Christ at Calvary shows us” — over it, under it, past it, around it, by it, through it — any way except right on it, right on it.

And right on it, brethren is — and I’ll just talk with you plain — right on it — I don’t care if you’re the best man or the best woman in this town, and you’re just about next to the Trinity. You’re going to go to a lake of fire and you’re going to burn and you’re going to burn and burn and burn and burn unless you can find a perfect substitution to take your place. And the perfect substitution is God’s Son dying and offering His soul instead of yours.

That’s it, see. That’s the long, the short, the middle and both ends. And if it hasn’t got that in it, it ain’t it. It is not it. I always like “isn’t it” better. Quicker.

Down there in Panama City I saw a fellow, and he gave a real good thing. I enjoyed it. I mean, really, it was impressive. And he had a board with a bunch of pictures on it. And it gave me a lot of ideas, you know. I draw mine while I talk. But he had his already painted out ahead of time. And then he had a stereo tape deck with it and played music behind it. Real effective. And he turned these things over. He’d say something, then this thing over, and turn it over. And had about, oh, maybe seventy pictures on it. And he got down to the end of that thing, and it was a thing on dope and acid rock and stuff, and when he got down to the end of that thing, he had a picture of Christ on the cross, and then he had an empty cross with just shreds of clothes hanging on it, empty cross. And then he had a picture of Salomon’s Head of Christ, kind of, and the last thing on it said, “Love me” — it was a picture of Christ, see.

And it was effective, see. I mean, it was effective. And if he got into high schools and showed that thing, I’ll bet in high school that would just tear them to pieces. I mean, just, boy, it just bust up a congregation. And one of the things he had in that was a rock singer, I don’t know, I don’t know their names. I mean, they’re all bums. And he had this rock singer singing and screaming into that microphone and singing, “Is anybody up there?” Or, “Does anybody hear me?” And then, “DOES ANYBODY HEAR ME?” And then, “DOES ANYBODY HEAR ME!!!!!” you know, like crying out to God, you see.

Well, you get that thing with a bunch of African tom-toms behind it, boy, it’ll curdle your blood. And then right after that he brought in the stereo, “Jesus Loves Me, this I know” — see, real effective. It was good, see. Don’t misunderstand me. It was good.

But, you know something? The thing didn’t end with the gospel. The gospel is not “Love me.” The gospel is “Christ died for your sins, and was buried, according to the Scripture, and the third day He rose from the dead according to the Scripture.” Now, when you show an empty cross and show His face, it kind of looks like He may have risen. But what you want to show is an empty tomb, see — not an empty cross. I mean, they took the dying thief down off the cross. See? What you need is an empty tomb.

All right, Hebrews chapter 10. Hebrews chapter 10. That’s a technicality, but that’s the gospel. All right, Hebrews chapter 10, verse 10. Now in Hebrews 10, verse 10, he’s going to talk about Christ dying for your sins and Christ presenting Himself as an offering. Hebrews chapter 10, begin at verse 10. Some of y’all didn’t bring your Bibles with you this morning, did you? Hebrews 10, verse 10. Now, when you come here, bring your Bible. We study Bible here. This is a — if it’s a Sunday School, you know, it ought to teach you some Bible. He says, “Study to shew thyself approved unto God,” and he wasn’t telling you to study the Sunday School literature, that’s for sure.

All right, Hebrews chapter 10, verse 10: “By the which will we are sanctified —” watch it “— through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.” All right, Isaiah said He offered His soul. The writer of Hebrews says He offered His body.

Look at Hebrews 9:28. Nine:28: “So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many.” All right, when Christ died, He offered His body, He offered His soul, so he said, “Christ was offered.”

Hebrews chapter 10, verse 10: “By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once —” not twice; “once.” “The offering of the body ... once for all.” Verse 11: “And every priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins: But this man, after he had offered —” Offered. Offering. Offered. Offered “— after he had offered one —” not two “— one sacrifice for sins for ever —” forever; doesn’t have to be repeated —”one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God; From henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool. For by one offering —” not two, not three, not four “— for by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified.”

All right, back to Isaiah 53. Now, he said here that when Christ died on the cross, He made an offering. And the offering He made was His body and His soul. And God made an offering out of Christ’s body and Christ’s soul, and God made it for one offering and one offering forever, because the offerings the priests made regularly could not take away sin. And the only thing that could take away sin would be one perfect offering offered forever.

Now, the reason why He said “offering of a soul” is because the soul is eternal. And if Christ died on the cross and just gave His body, that wouldn’t be a complete, effectual offering, because the body dies. But He offered His soul. And then again, Christ said, in one place, He said, “Fear Him that is able to destroy both body and soul in hell.” So when Christ offers up His body and soul, He offers up a burnt offering and says, “I thirst. I thirst.” And no water is put on the offering. It’s a burnt offering for your sins.

Now, that’s Old Testament. You know, you talk to Americans about that, man, they say, “Well, you know, church membership and baptism, the Holy Ghost, and talking in tongues” — what about the offering?

You know, one time I was talking with a Campbellite preacher, and we talked about this and that and the other thing. And, you know, he didn’t know where he was going. He was telling others, but he didn’t know. And I got to talking to him after awhile, and I said, “You know something?” I said, “What if you and me were to both die and come up before the judgment and the Lord point His finger right in our face and say, ‘Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.’?” I said, “What would you do.”

He said, “Nothing you could do.”

I said, “What would you tell the Lord?”

He said, “Nothing you could tell the Lord.”

I said, “Why, sure, there’s something you could tell the Lord.”

He said, “You couldn’t tell the Lord nothing. If the Lord wants to put you in hell, there’s nothing you can do about it.”

And I said, “Why, sure you could, man. I mean, the same God that said, ‘Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire,’ said, ‘Come, ye blessed of my Father.’ If He’s good for one, He’s good for the other, see. I mean, the same God that said the first one said the second one.”

And he said, “Well, yeah, yeah...”

I said, “Now, if you had to die and face God and the Lord said to you, ‘Could you give me one reason why I shouldn’t just take you and put you in hell?’ what would you say?”

And he said, “Well, I’d tell the Lord because I’ve repented and confessed and believed and been buptized.”

And I said, “Well, I wouldn’t tell Him any fool thing like that.”

And he said, “Why not?”

And I said, “Well, you know what I’d tell Him. I might have repented wrong. I might have confessed wrong. I might have believed wrong. I might have bup-tized wrong.” I said, “You know what I’d tell Him?”

He said, “What would you tell Him?”

I said, “I’d tell Him, ‘Lord, remember the blood of Jesus Christ.’”

That old Campbellite turned kind of green around the gills and he said, “Oh, well, yeah, there’s that.”

Uh-huh. That’s it. That’s it. See that thing? And you mark it down, brother, whenever a man thinks about the blood of Jesus Christ as an afterthought it’s because He’s not under it. Boy, you never catch a born-again child of God talking about the blood of Christ and saying, “Oh, well, there’s that.” Yeah! You know, that’s all there is, when you get right down to it. I mean, if you want to talk about “repent, repentance, confession, believe and baptism,” I’d say, “Oh, yeah, well, there’s that.” That’s what I’d say. Yeah, sure, there’s that. I mean anybody can get in there. You can repent like Judas and believe like Simon the sorcerer and go to Hell like somebody else. But if you’re going to talk about the thing that’s essential, it’s the blood that’s essential!

All right, Isaiah 53, verse 10. Isaiah 53, verse 10. We’ve been on this chapter about five weeks. But that’s the heart of the Bible. Isaiah 53:10: “Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, —” Now: “— he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.” “He shall see his seed.” Then the Lord Jesus Christ has children. He bears seed.

Take your Bible and come to John chapter 12. John chapter 12. And in John chapter 12, pick up verse 23. John 12:23, now talking here about His seed. And the Lord Jesus Christ has no seed until He dies and is buried and comes up again. And he states this here in this passage. John 12, verse 23: “And Jesus answered them, saying, The hour is come, that the Son of man should be glorified. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: —” watch it: “— but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.”

“If it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.” Seed. Seed.

So He dies. And He dies, and when He dies, He brings forth fruit. He has a seed.

Let’s see what the seed is. Come to John chapter 1. John chapter 1, beginning at verse 10. John 1, verse 10. Now, the Lord Jesus Christ never married, so He never had any physical seed. So His seed has to be spiritual seed. John chapter 1 verse 10: “He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: Which were born, —” it’s a seed, you see?

“Which were born —” it’s a seed “— not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” Born of God.

Let’s come to John chapter 3. John chapter 3. So the Lord Jesus Christ offers Himself for your sins, then He dies, then He’s buried, then He comes back up, and then He begins to give birth. John chapter 3, verse 3. John 3:3: “Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb, and be born?” You read about two deaths, the second death. Here’s the second birth. “Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water —” a reference to verse 4 “— and of the Spirit, —” a reference to verse 3, “born again” “— he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; —” First birth. Mother’s womb. “That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of” what? Not the water. “The Spirit.”

Eight: “So is every one that is born of the Spirit.” No water to it. The water has no connection with the second birth at all. And the Lord is very careful to tell you that. He says, “So is every one that is born of the Spirit.” So if you’re going to be born again, the Holy Spirit has to come into you and give you a new birth. And that won’t happen until you receive the risen Saviour.

All right, Isaiah 53, verse 10. Isaiah 53:10: “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.” All right, the seed is over here in the Psalms, and we started in it this last time, and then had to quit. But come to Psalm 89 and see about the seed. Psalm 89, and I’ll begin at verse 29. Psalm 89, beginning at verse 29. If you have a Bible, the Psalms are right in the middle of your Bible. Break your Bible right in the middle and you’ll be on the Psalms. Psalm 89. Now this is talking about Christ’s seed. Psalm 89, right in the middle of your Bible. Psalm 89 and begin at verse 29. Psalm 89:29: “His seed also will I make to endure for ever, and his throne as the days of heaven. If his children —” there is His seed. “His seed,” 29. “His children,” verse 30.

“If his children —” now if you’re saved, that’s you. “If his children forsake my law, and walk not in my judgments; If they break my statutes, and keep not my commandments; —” they’ll lose their salvation and go to Hell, right? Right? No, that isn’t right.

Thirty: “If his children forsake my law, and walk not in my judgments; If they break my statutes, and keep not my commandments; —” they’ll fall from grace and the Holy Spirit will leave them. Right? No, that isn’t right.

Thirty: “If his children forsake my law, and walk not in my judgments; If they break my statutes, and keep not my commandments; Then will I visit their transgression with the rod, —” verse said “it bruised him.” Verse in Isaiah said “they bruised him.”

“And their iniquity with stripes.” You read in Isaiah, “With his stripes you’re healed.” You’re going to get just what Christ got. He was a son, learned obedience. You’re a son, you’ll learn it too.

“Then will I visit their transgression with the rod, — beating “— and their iniquity with stripes —” whipping.

“Nevertheless —” great promise, called “the sure mercies of David” in the New Testament.

“Nevertheless my lovingkindness will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail. My covenant will I not break.” If the Lord said it, He stands on it. If He made an agreement with you, the agreement’s good on His part. If you break your part, that’s your business. He’ll keep His part. And He said in His part, He said, “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto life.” And He said, “He that hath the Son hath life.” And Christ said, “I give to my sheep eternal life, and they shall never perish.” The Lord made that covenant with you; the Lord’s going to keep that covenant with you.

Now, you can kick and scream and holler all the way to Heaven, but you’re going to make it. So you might just as well make up your mind that you’re going to be there and enjoy it. And the Lord may have to bruise you and kick you all the way, but you’re going to go. And so there’s no use trying to give up and go back to Hell ‘cause you ain’t gonna make it.

All right, 34: My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips.” When the Lord says it, you can bet your soul on it. I mean, if you’re saved, that’s all you’re doing anyway.

Folks make it so difficult. They say, “Do you believe a saved person can be losed, or a saved person can be unsaved? And you Baptists believe once saved always saved,” and all that kind of business. Well, I’ll tell you how we do it. We just bet our soul on what He said. That’s all. We’re gamblers, every one of us. I’m a gambler. I’ll go further than bet my money and my house and my kids — I’ll bet my soul. That is, I’ll take my chance on going to Hell on what He said. Now, He said if I receive His Son He’ll give me eternal life. He said if I believe in His Son I’d have eternal life. He said once I trusted His Son He’d dwell with me forever. And He said He that hath begun a good work in me will perform it till the day of Jesus Christ. And I got my soul bet on it.

Somebody says, “Well, what do you think —”

I ain’t gonna bet my soul on what you say!

They say, “Well, what about this person —”

Well, I’m not going to bet my soul on that verse. I’m going to bet it on the ones where He made the covenant and made the promise. I’m not going to bet it on the ones that think that maybe somebody in some dispensation might lose it if something happens. That isn’t a very good place to bet your soul.

You know, if you’re going to bet money, you better bet it on a sure thing. These people, they do it all over the country, you know, these Super Bowl games and pro games. I bet you every weekend in this country, I’ll bet 80 or 90 million dollars changes hands over those games. More than that. And they’re just taking a chance, you know. A fellow says, “I got a sure thing. I got a sure thing.” Well, a fellow isn’t going to bet his money unless he thinks it’s a pretty sure thing!

So if I’m going to bet my soul, I’m not going to bet my soul on 2 Peter chapter 2. And I’m not going to bet my soul on Acts chapter 2. Well, I’d be a blank fool if I bet my soul on Acts chapter 2. That’d be a stupid thing to do. If I’m going to lay down my soul, I’d better lay it down on something like 1 John 5:12, or John 1:12, or John 3:36 or John 5:24 or Romans 10:9 and 10. I’d be an idiot to lay my soul down on Hebrews 10. Wouldn’t that be stupid? I mean, who’d bet his soul on Hebrews chapter 6? Not me.

A fellow said, “You believe it’s the word of God?” Yeah, but you got to be careful what kind of stakes you put down there. Would any of you bet your soul on Exodus 20?

See, folks are funny. They say, “Well, you just can’t through there picking what you want.” Yes, you can. You can bet on a sure thing. Christ said, “He that believeth on me hath everlasting life and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death to life.” That’s a sure thing. OK? I’ll bet. And there goes the chip, brother. It’s blue. Blue chips all the way. I’m counting on that.

Now, if you want to count on, “It is impossible for those who once tasted the power of the world to come and the gift of the Holy Ghost, if they should fall away, to renew them again to repentance, seeing they crucify the Son of God of themselves and put Him into open shame,” you can go ahead and bet on that. But it’d be kind of foolish.

And if you want to bet your soul on “If we sin willfully after we received the knowledge of sins, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sin but a fearful looking forward to the day of judgment and fiery indignation which will devour the adversaries. He that died under Moses’ law died under two or three witnesses. Of how much sorer punishment shall ye suppose he should be thought worthy of? who hath trodden under foot the Son of God and counted the blood of the covenant wherewith he was —” I wouldn’t fool with it! I wouldn’t fool with it.

Just get you something simple, like, if you believe in your heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. And, “Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” That’s where to bet. You don’t bet on, you know, “It had been better for them not to have known the commandment, than after they had known it to turn from the holy commandment,” and, “It is written again, like a dog back to his vomit, like a pig wallowing in the mire,” that kind of business. You got no business being there. Or being in, “Repent, and be baptized, every one of you, in Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost, for the promise is for you and your children in the name of Lord God, our God shall call them that are near and far off.” You have no business in there because you don’t know what that means.

I don’t know what it means, and I don’t think you know what it means. I mean, I never met two men in my life who agreed exactly on what that thing meant. Aren’t folks funny? You know, they’re so odd. Some of you, you mortgage your houses to take chance on things that you don’t know whether they’re going to work out or not. And some of you get into debt up to your neck at Christmastime, you know, to help people out. And you’re willing to stick your neck way out, you know, way out and way out and trust God to take care of it. And yet the problem is some of you that wouldn’t just stick your soul out on naked faith and trust Christ’s atonement. Now that’s what to do.

Well, I’m getting wound up and I’m going to have to close. Well, let me finish this thing here. Psalm 89, verse 34: “My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips.” He says back in the Book of Numbers, “God is not a man that He should lie, neither the son of man that He should repent. Hath He said, and shall He not do it? or hath He spoken, and shall He not make it good?”

And the Lord says, “As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me and every tongue shall confess to God.” And when the Lord says it, He won’t go back on it. He won’t repent of it. He’ll stick with it.

Verse 35: “Once have I sworn by my holiness that I will not lie unto David.” And, you know, if God swears by His holiness, He’s swearing by the greatest thing He has. He swears by His sinlessness, His holiness. And the Lord says in the Old Testament, “I have sworn by myself I’m going to do this and that.”

That’s why men say “G.D.,” you know. These fellows out here saying “damn this,” and “damn that,” and “damn the other thing,” you know why they usually put a God in front of it? To make it have authority. They’re trying to swear by the highest power there is. So they ask God to do it.

And the Lord said, “I swore by myself.” The Lord put His own name on there. Can you imagine that? God the Father up in Heaven raising His right hand and saying, “I swear by God,” this and that and the other thing, when He’s talking about Himself? And that’s what He said here. He said, “I swear by God, by myself, that that Man and His children will get through, and I may beat ‘em and this and that, but I’ll not take my mercy from them.”

Verse 35: “Once have I sworn by my holiness that I will not lie unto David. His seed —” there it goes again. “His seed —” verse 29. “His seed.” You say, “Well, he’s talking about David.” Well, I’ll show you that in a minute.

All right, 36: “His seed shall endure for ever, and his throne as the sun before me.”

All right, come to the Book of Acts now, and let’s see about these things on David. Acts chapter 2 — there’s a good place. Acts chapter 2. Acts chapter 2, verse 29. Acts 2:29. He’s talking about the seed of David, and somebody says, “Well, it’s just David’s seed then, it’s not Christ’s seed.” Yeah, but lookie here. Acts chapter 2, verse 29: “Men and brethren, let me freely speak unto you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his sepulchre is with us unto this day. Therefore being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne; He seeing this before spake of the resurrection of Christ.” Verse 34: “For David is not ascended into the heavens: but he saith himself, The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, Until I make thy foes thy footstool. Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ.”

The Son of David — His seed.

So I take you in Psalm 89 and start you down through there on David’s seed, why, I’m not putting a private interpretation on it, I’m telling you what the Book says. David’s a type of Christ; therefore, his seed is a type of you. And He said, “My mercies will not depart.”

All right, we’re going to close there.

All right, Isaiah 53, beginning at verse 10. Isaiah 53, verse 10. Father, we’re thankful we have good health this morning and can stand here in a comfortable building and sit here in a comfortable building and read your word together and study. We ask your blessing on Mrs. Alder in the county home this morning; we know she’s losing her hearing, Father, and going through trials and privations that we know nothing about. And, Lord, we realize there are thousands just like her, all over this country. Help us to count our blessings and be thankful for what we have. We pray you might bless this colored boy, Dave Scott, that got saved, and fill him with the Spirit of God and do something inside him that will change him and give him a backbone and courage to stand up against the old crowd. And, Lord, really work in his heart for him, that he might stand for thee and do something and have an effect on the people he comes in contact with. We ask you to fill him with the Spirit of God and get him in your word and give him a love for your word and a thirst and may you do something with this young man for your glory. Bless our study now together from your word, and may it be as real to us as it is to thee. For Jesus’ sake. Amen.

All right, Isaiah 53. Now, we’ve been in this chapter here. I’ve been trying to get out of this chapter for about two months. I think we’ve been eight weeks in here. But it’s hard to get out of. And the chapter is dealing with the blood atonement and the crucifixion of Christ. And of course that’s the heart of the Bible as far as the Christian is concerned.

Now, the heart of the Bible as far as God is concerned is not the crucifixion. As far as God the Father is concerned, the greatest day in His calendar is not the day when His Son was murdered by wicked men, like Simon Peter says in the Book of Acts and Stephen says in the Book of Acts. The greatest day on God the Father’s calendar is the day that Jesus Christ comes back to this Earth and gets what belongs to Him, see.

So, from my standpoint, the greatest day for me is the First Advent. But, from God the Father’s standpoint, the greatest day is the Second Advent. And I’m glad the Lord came and I’m glad He died, see, that’s why I’m spending a lot of time in here, see. This is my place, Isaiah 53. But the Lord’s place is not Isaiah 53. The Lord’s place is Isaiah chapter 11. That’s the Lord’s place. And God is much more interested in His Son getting the glory and honor that belongs to Him as a rightful Owner of the universe and of this earth, than He is in His Son coming down and being murdered and whipped and stripped and dying a shameful death.

Now, that’s how I get in on it, see, so to me it means a great deal. That’s self. That’s self, see. I mean, I get in on that because He died for me.

So the center of the Bible spiritually is Isaiah 53. But it’s not politically. The center of the Bible politically is the throne, and that’s what the Lord’s interested in.

All right, Isaiah 53:10: “Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him.” And we commented on this before. Literal, bruise in the face, the brutalities committed by the soldiers in Matthew chapter 26 and 27.

“Yet it pleased the Lord to buise him; he —” the Lord “— hath put him to grief: —” Christ. With foreknowledge; the Lord’s hand is behind it.

“When thou shalt make his soul —” Christ’s soul “— an offering for sin.” And we went through that before and showed you in the New Testament about “soul sorrowful even unto death.

“Thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin.” Not just for sins, the things we’ve done wrong, but for sin, singular, personified. John the Baptist said, “Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin” — s-i-n.

And he said, “Make his soul an offeirng for sin.” So Paul says in the New Testament that Christ was made sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. Christ became sin, personification — the thing in itself. Sin for us, “who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.”

And verse 10: “He shall see his seed.” And last Sunday we went through that a good bit on the new birth and regeneration.

“He shall see his seed.” And I showed you passages in the Psalms that show how you’re His seed and you have the promise of the sure mercies of David. David had promises of eternal security which nobody else in the Old Testament had.

Take your Bible and come to Acts chapter 13. And if the average person did what David did in the Old Testament, he’d have lost it right on the spot. Just like ol’ Samson had the Spirit of the Lord depart from him, and Saul had the Spirit of the Lord depart from him. And when David his sin of adultery, he knew the Spirit should depart from him. And David got down on his knees in Psalm chapter 51 and he said, “Take not thy Holy Spirit from me,” see, so he knew he could lose it back there in the Old Testament.

But David had promises that nobody else in the Old Testament had. Now notice how this is pointed out by the apostle Paul in Acts 13. Acts 13, Paul preaching. Acts 13:26: “Men and brethren, children of the stock of Abraham, and whosoever among you feareth God, to you is the word of this salvation sent.” Then he comes on down. Now, verse 33: “God hath fulfilled the same unto us their children, in that he hath raised up Jesus again; as it is also written in the second psalm, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee.” Now, watch it; 34: “And as concerning that he raised him up from the dead, now no more to return to corruption, he said on this wise, —” what’d He say? Quote: “I will give you the sure mercies.” “Sure mercies —” of who? “Of David.”

What’s he talking about? Let’s read on a little bit more. Acts 13:38. Acts 13:38: “Be it known unto you therefore, men and brethren, that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins: And by him all that believe —” there’s no baptism in the chapter.

“By him all that believe.” Not one word said about baptism anywhere than eight verses either way. “All that believe are justified from —” some —”things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses.” Right? Wrong!

“And by him all that believe are justified from” A-DOUBLE-L “things.” “All things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses.” Now, David was under the law of Moses. And when David committed his sin — I don’t know if any of you have thought about it or not — but in David’s case there was no sacrifice for the sin. When David committed his sin, he said, “Burnt offerings and sacrifice thou wouldst not, or I would have bought them.” Then he said, “The sacrifice of God are a broken heart and a contrite spirit.”

Now, you know why he said that? Because over there in Leviticus chapter 20 or 22, I forget, it’s 20:22, in Leviticus chapter 20 he says, “The adulterer and the adulteress shall both be put to death.” See, both of them are caught and stoned. When they brought the women taken in adultery to Jesus, they said, “We caught this woman in the act.” And they said, “The law says stone her. What do you say?”

And Jesus didn’t answer them. Just got to writing something on the ground. And He looked up awhile, like He didn’t even hear, you know. And they said, “Well, what do you say?”

And He said, “Well, you fellows, which one of you is without sin? You pitch the first stone.” And kept on writing.

And the Bible doesn’t say what He wrote, see, and I’m just guessing. But if I know the Lord like I think I know Him, and I know the Bible like I think I know it, I could imagine what He wrong was Leviticus 20 verse 22, and wrote down there — let me just see if I’m quoting the right one. It’s 20:22 or 22:20, one. Some of you are liable to look it up and mess me up. It’s 19 — no, that isn’t it. It’s — it isn’t 20:22. It’s 20:10. Leviticus 20:10. So He probably bent over there and wrote down Leviticus 20:10 there in the sand. And 20:10 says, “And the adulterer and the adulteress shall” both “be put to death.”

Well, now, you bring in this woman and say, “Now get this woman and kill her. We caught her in the act.” Well, brethren, have you ever figured it out, if you caught her in the act, where was the man? All right, this woman was caught in the act; there was a man involved; where is the man? They just brought in the woman, you know, blaming the woman as usual. That business, you know. If something goes wrong, it’s the woman’s fault every time.

And so they bring in the woman and say, “Now it’s her fault.”

And He says, “Well, where is the man?” The man wasn’t brought in.

Well, what would happen if the man had been brought in? They couldn’t have gone to the Temple and offer a sacrifice. Because the law doesn’t allow any sacrifice for that sin. The law says, “Stone them” — capital punishment.

Well, David committed it. How come he didn’t get stoned?

“Sure mercies of David.” “Justified from all things which you could not be justified by the law of Moses.” See that thing? And so that thing is put on David, and when it’s put on David, it’s put on his seed. And the passage I showed you showed you are His spiritual seed.

Now, let’s see where the Lord gave those mercies to David. Let’s go to 2 Samuel, and I’ll give you the time and place when He gave David a special dispensation He didn’t give anybody else. Second Samuel chapter 7. And this is grace in the Old Testament. Under law, it’s grace stuck right in there. So you can’t just hack your Bible up. You can’t just say, “Well, it’s this way here and it’s this way here and this way here, with no exceptions.” There are exceptions in there, come along in there. The exception proves the rule.

All right, 2 Samuel chapter 7, and this is the Lord talking to David, and He says to David in verse 11, 2 Samuel 7:11, these words: “And as since the time that I commanded judges to be over my people Israel, and have caused thee to rest from all thine enemies. Also the Lord telleth thee that he will make thee an house. And when thy days be fulfilled, and thou shalt sleep with thy fathers, I will set up thy seed —” you read in Isaiah 53 He’ll see His seed “— thy seed after thee, which shall proceed out of thy bowels, and I will establish his kingdom.” Referring to Solomon, son of David. “He shall build an house for my name, and I will stablish the throne of his kingdom for ever.” He didn’t establish the throne of King Solomon forever. So you can’t, you can’t, you see, you just have to read it carefully. He says there — and I’m not making a liar out of the Lord; I’m saying when you find something there you don’t understand, you got to look around for the right place to place it. He comes down through there and says, “All right, I’m going to do this and build you a sure house. And I’m going to take your son, I’m going to establish his throne forever” — and the Lord busted up the kingdom of Solomon before he’d been dead 40 years. And Israel went one way, and Judah went the other.

Then the reference is obviously to something spiritual.

All right, let’s go ahead. Second Samuel 7:14. Now here’s the sure mercies: “I will be his father.” Is God your Father? OK.”And he shall be my son.” Are you one of God’s sons? OK. “If” you “commit iniquity —” it’s you. You can’t put it on Solomon; his kingdom was torn up. You’ll have to go beyond Solomon. “If he commit iniquity —” he’ll go to Hell? No sir! He’ll get away with it? No sir! “If he commit iniquity —” he’ll get stoned? No sir! He’ll get killed? No sir! Well then he’ll get off scot-free? No sir! “If he commit iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men, and with the stripes of the children of men.” Temporary. Earthly. In time. Men! Not God. He’s not saying if a Christian messes up he’ll go to Hell and be punished forever with my wrath. He said, “I’ll do it like a man does it.” Well, men are down here.

All right, verse 14: “If he commit iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men, and with the stripes of the children of men: But —” here’s the sure mercy. This is what Paul is quoting. Fifteen: “But my mercy —” sure mercies of David. “But my mercy shall not depart away from him —” there it goes “— as I took it from Saul, whom I put away before thee. And thine house and thy kingdom shall be established for ever before thee: thy throne shall be established for ever.”

Now, when David gets praying, he prays a strange thing here. Let’s see if I can find this. Come to the end of 2 Samuel, and in the end of 2 Samuel let’s look at David’s last prayer before he dies. And it’s recorded over here in 2 Samuel 23. Now, you see you have to read that thing carefully. He comes down there and he says, now, “I’m going to give David sure mercies” — this is David — “I’m going to set up the seed after him and build him a house; his house is going to last forever. I’m going to give David a sure house; I’m not going to take the throne away from his seed; the mercy will last forever; I’m not going to take it away like I did Saul.” And then when David dies, Solomon takes over, Solomon messes up, the Lord tears up the kingdom, Jews go into dispersion — and they’re just coming back now.

Therefore, if the Lord told David, “I’m going to do this and that,” then what the Lord told David was not fulfilled in David’s lifetime or in Solomon’s lifetime. It has to go out here — or God’s lying.

See, the Bible, folks, interpreting the Bible is just that simple. You just believe what it says. And if it contradicts, it goes some other place. It can’t go where it contradicts because the Lord isn’t going to contradict. So if the Lord says, “I’m going to do this, this, and this,” and you didn’t see it here, you got to look for it out there — if you believe the Lord.

Now, watch what David says about this thing. Second Samuel 23:1; now this is the last thing he ever wrote: “Now these be the last words of David. David the son of Jesse said, and the man who was raised up on high, the anointed of the God of Jacob, —” that’s your Messiah, meschach “—the anointed of the God of Jacob, and the sweet psalmist of Israel, said, —” what’d he say? This. He said, “The spirit of the Lord spake by me, and his word was in my tongue.” David’s inspired. “The God of Israel said, —” this is what He said to David, and David’s quoting Him: “The God of Israel said, the Rock of Israel spake to me, —” and here’s what He said. He said this. He said: “He that ruleth over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God. And he —” this one’s that just and rules in the fear of God “— he shall be as the light of the morning.” The ruler is just, and rules in the fear of God, shall be as the light in the morning. How many of you read what I’m saying? Let me see your hands. All right, if you were in “The Second Advent,” you know the language.

All right, 4:”When the sun riseth, —” Malachi 4:2, when the sun rises, Sun of righteousness “— even a morning without clouds; as the tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining after rain.” There’s a rain right before the Advent. How many of you read that? Let me see your hands. You’ve been studying. You know where it’s going, see. You see, it’s one Book. It’s one Book. And all this stuff, this sticks in here, and this sticks in here, and this sticks in here, and this sticks in here, is like an organism.

Now, 5. Here’s the statement. It’s a shocker. “Although my house be not so with God.” Well, what in the world? The Lord just said, “David, your house will be.”

And David says, “It is not.”

“Although my house be not so.” David said, “I’m not the just ruler ruling in the fear of God.

But the Lord said he was. And the Lord said, “I’m going to build you this house, and this house is going to do this, and this house is going to do this.”

And David said, “My house isn’t so. My house isn’t so.”

I mean, there’s Absalom out there, hanging on an oak. And one of his children, hanging by his hair, a hippie and dead in the oak. Here, his other boy Amnon, murdered by Absalom. Here’s his daughter raped by her own brother. See? “My house is not so.”

Well, then, when the Lord’s telling David, “I’m going to build you a house, and this house, and this house, and this —” who’s He talking to if He isn’t talking to David?

Well, let’s go to Matthew chapter 1. Matthew chapter 1, we’ll see who He’s talking to. Matthew chapter 1 verse 1. Matthew chapter 1 verse 1. Solomon was David’s literal son. And David said, “My house isn’t going to be like these prophecies God made.” And yet the Lord made them. The Lord can’t lie. It must mean something.

All right, Matthew 1:1. Here it comes: “The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, —” underline it: “The son of David.” There it is. “The son of Abraham.”

Then, when the Lord speaks about David’s seed and David’s son in the Old Testament, He’s talking about the Lord Jesus Christ in those passages. Therefore when He says “his seed,” “his seed,” “his seed,” “his seed,” “his seed,” He’s talking about you if you’re saved. The Bible says, “Being born again of incorruptible seed by the word of God that liveth and abideth forever.” Bible said, “As many as received Him, to them He gave the power to become sons of God, even to them that believe on His name, which were born.” See?

So those “sure mercies” go to you, and you are David’s seed — spiritually — by Scripture with Scripture. And David’s own confession is, “These things God gave me of my house, it isn’t true of my house. It’s true of somebody else’s house.”

All right, back to Isaiah 53. Isaiah 53. Now, you think about how somebody could write a Book like that. How in the world can anybody write a Book like that? How could somebody back in Samuel’s time write what I showed you in 2 Samuel, and then Isaiah, 200 years later, write what he wrote, and then Paul get up in the synagogue in Acts chapter 13 — snap! —and spit that thing out, not even knowing that Luke was going to write it. And then, when Luke wrote, it matched Isaiah and 2 Samuel, and then pull together on something that hasn’t yet taken place. Folks say, “How do you know the Bible’s the word of God?” I ask them, “How do you know you’re breathing?” You can’t buy any Book like that!

Somebody said, “Well, Jean Dixon, she prophesies future.” Amateur! Amateur!

What I want to see is this. I want to see Jean Dixon write something that’ll match something Abraham Lincoln wrote that’ll match something that Claire Booth Luce wrote, that’ll tie in with something Voltaire wrote, that’ll tie in with something that Plato wrote, that’ll tie in with something that Aristotle wrote, that predicts an historical event that’s going to take place in the next twenty years. That’s what I want to see.

I don’t want to see them agreeing on philosophical conundrums, you know. I don’t want to have them getting all together and saying, “Well, a man at his best is better than a man at his worst,” or, “We know that the hope of man is his hope in himself,” that kind of — you know, anybody can fool around with tiddly-winks.

But what I want to see is one of them coming in there and say, “This fellow here’s going to be born on such-and-such a day.” And the other one say, “This fellow’s name is going to be So-and-So.” And the other one say, “This fellow is going to die in Such-and-Such a place.” The other one say, “This fellow’s going to come up from the dead in Such-and-Such a day.” And then agree as their witness through 8,000 years. That’s what I want to see. I want to see that.

When I see that, I’ll trade my Bible and take up that book.

All right, Isaiah 53, verse 10. Isaiah 53:10: “He shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, —” He’s not going to stay dead. He’s going to come up.

“He shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.” This is, what God wants done, He’ll do it. He’ll prosper.

Eleven: “He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied.” Great verse. Joseph said when one of his boys was born, he said, “I’m going to call him a certain name because God hath made me fruitful in the land of my affliction.” But he said, “I’m going to call the other boy another name, because God hath made me forget all my toil in all my father’s house,” Genesis 41 verse 51: “And Joseph called the name of the firstborn Manasseh: For God, said he, hath made me forget all my toil, and all my father’s house.” Now I don’t understand all that. But it’s like this. It’s like some day you die. And they take you down to Fisher Pew or McNeil’s, or wherever they’re going to take you. And then take you out there and bury you. And before the undertaker ever gets your body, your soul has left, and you’re absent from the body and present with the Lord. And then you’re up there with the Lord Jesus Christ, up there in glory, and you can’t remember a thing. You’re just resting in Him.

And then one of these days He comes and gets you a new body, and you get your new body and go up there and then you stand before the Judgment Seat of Christ. And that new man stands there and watches the old man perform at the Judgment Seat of Christ — I mean, give account for the things done in the body, the old body, not the new one. So a new man, just like Christ, stands there and watches the old man perform before the Judgment Seat of Christ. And all this stuff come up, and wood, hay, and stubble, and fire, all this and that.

And then that thing’s all over, see. And then you come back down and reign on this earth for a thousand years. And you move out on the White Throne and watch all that new man, watching the other old men. And then you step out in eternity.

And after you’ve been in eternity for about fifty billion years, see, or 550 trillion, give or take a few hundred million. And you get out there, and one day you sit down. And you think, “What was the name of that place where I lived? What was the name of that place? Capa-oluu? Hola-hola-cola-cola-pessa-ussa — what was the name of that place?”

And then you go back to the Lord and say, “Lord, I can’t remember about that thing. I used to live down on the Earth, somewhere down there, but it’s so far back I can’t even remember it.”

And the Lord says, “You can’t?

And you say, “No.”

And say, “Well, I don’t know how to tell you to remember.”

And the Lord says, “You ever read the Bible when you were down there?”

“Oh, yeah, Lord, thy word forever is settled in Heaven.”

And the Lord says, “Well, go over and get you a copy.”

So you go there and you open that Book — King James 1611 — and you go over and you open that Book up there, and go ahead and open that thing and look at that thing, and you see a promise there, and it says, “My God shall supply all your need through His riches and glory by Christ Jesus.” And you see that thing, you look at that thing, and then it begins to come back to you, see.

I mean, He said, “The Holy Spirit will call to your remembrance all things that I said.” And He says over there in Isaiah about the new Earth and the new heavens, He said, “The former shall not come into mind; they are passed away; neither shall they be brought to mind any more.”

The only souvenir you’re going to have from this Earth, good brethren, is this Book. You’re not going to carry any other souvenirs with you.

You say, “Well, my wife.” Your wife will be like the angel of the Lord. She’ll be like Christ. Your children will be like the angel of the Lord. They’ll be like Christ.

You won’t take any souvenirs with you. You sure won’t take your car or your house — what in the world would you need them for? Would any of you that live in a trailer drag a trailer up there and trade it in for a gold mansion?

And what would you need a car for? I mean, you can be able to travel 150 billion light-years a second. What in the world would you need a car for? It would just slow you down. See, you can’t carry it with you.

So this is what you have here. This is the remnant, see, you’re going to have here. And you go back and look at that thing and say, “Ohhhhh, yeah! I remember on time we ran out of groceries, and I remember one time my kids got in trouble, and I claimed that promise, and I prayed over that promise,” you know, and — snap! — PENSACOLA! See that? It’ll come back to you. Pensacola.

But you have to make an effort. You’ll have to make an effort. And I know it doesn’t seem like that right now, because right now you have Pensacola and the weather and the family problems and the economic problems and the church problems and the job problems are pretty heavy on you — but they won’t be some day. And then you’ll look back across that thing, and you’ll be satisfied.

And I’ll tell you what the Lord did. The Lord died for sinners and got back up to glory. And when He went back up there in Acts chapter 2 — He already made one trip, you know, in John 20 — second trip up, and the second trip, when He got up in Acts chapter 2, He came near to the throne, and reported to the Father, and the Father said, “Well, Son, I guess it’s all over for awhile.”

And the Son said, “Yes, it’s all over for awhile. I don’t know how long it’s going to be. It depends on what they do about it down there. We can come back in Acts 7 or stretch it out.”

And the Father said, “Well, just sit down and rest. Take it easy.”

And Christ sat down.

You think I’m kidding? The high priest couldn’t sit down in the Old Testament because there wasn’t any chair in the Tabernacle. And the Bible says, “Sit down at my right hand.” Right? “Till I make thine enemies thy footstool.”

So He said, “Sit down, Son.” And the Lord Jesus sits down.

And He sits down there and He gets about three or four hours’ rest. And the Lord says, “Uh, wake up just a minute, something’s going on.”

And He wakes up. And the Lord says, “Look down there.” And there’s old Stephen down before the Sanhedrin, boy, giving them thunder and lightning stewed down to a fine poison. And He comes down through there and says, “Now, watch what they’re going do.” And all those people take him out and stone him. And they take him out and stone him, and the Lord stands up there beside that throne and says, “Don’t worry about it, Stephen, I’ll have you up in a minute. It’s all over now but the shouting. Good night.” Sits back down.

And He sits back down, and the Lord says, “Now, you worked real hard, and you poured out your soul unto death, and your soul’s been an offering for sinners. Now you see how they’re getting saved. They’re going to get saved all through this age. Now you just take it easy. You’ve had a hard day, Son.”

And the Son leans over against the throne this way, and closes His eyes. And He’s just up there right now interceding for me. And just praying about people already saved.

He hasn’t prayed for world peace one time in nineteen centuries!

Did you know that?

He hasn’t prayed for world peace one time. He just closes His eyes and says, “Now, Lord, help that person out there, and work this thing out there, and they think they know what’s best for them, it might be even better for them to do this, and Lord you work that out, and send So-and-So over there and fix that thing up and take care of this match,” you know.

And down here this world’s just going to hell, man, just blowing just like a holocaust, man, just to pieces —

The Lord don’t care. He don’t care nothing about it. He’s resting. And He’s up there in Heaven looking back upon what He went through for sinners, and He’s satisfied. And every now and then an old IBM computer rings, you know — and here comes another one, you know — and here comes another one — and the Lord’s over there just leaning up there and praying, you know, and here comes, the computer’s ringing them off, see, ten thousand saved, forty thousand saved, fifty thousand saved, sixty thousand saved —

He gets to thinking back about the cross, and He can’t remember what it was about. I mean, He thinks about dying, and a seed, and a seed can’t bear fruit except it fall on the ground, you know, and die. If it abides alone, it can’t bring forth fruit, but if it dieth, it bringeth forth much fruit. Much fruit. So He goes there, and that computer goes, “Twenty million, twenty-one million, twenty-two million, twenty-three million, twenty-four million —”

You know what He’s doing? He’s counting His investment. He’s counting His holdings. He’s drawing interest. It’s just a fellow just works all his life, just like a dog, putting money in the bank. And he puts money in the bank and retires, and then sits back and just watches that thing accumulate, see. And then it doesn’t look like it was too hard of work after all.

But when you go through it, it does.

So it says, “He’ll look upon the travail of His soul and be satisfied.”

That’s the last thing Charles Wesley said before he died. Charles Wesley was a hymnwriter, John’s brother. And Charles Wesley, when he died, he was lying in a bed, and he said, “I should be satisfied with thy likeness when I wake.” And then his voice got quieter and they had to bend over to hear what he was saying, and he said, “I should be satisfied with thy likeness when I wake.” And about thirty minutes later, his lips just moved, and they got up right next to him and heard him say, “I should be satisfied with thy likeness when I wake.” And about fifteen minutes later they had to hold up a mirror on his breath, you know, to see if there was any vapor left. And the last word that fellow when the vapor went out, he said, “Satisfied.”

That’s great, you know that? I mean, that’s what’s wrong with some of you crabapples here this morning. That’s right. That’s right. You’re just dissatisfied. Can’t get what you want. Just all tore up. And, you know, one of these days you’re going to be satisfied and look back at the travail of your soul, and you’re going to be satisfied — if you had any travail to look back on.

All right, 53:11: “He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many.” There it goes. “By his knowledge.” And, of course, that’s in line with the crucifixion. “Shall my righteous servant.” Christ justified. Paul says, “By him all that believe are justified from all things.”

Now, how does His knowledge justify me? Finish verse 11: “For he shall bear their iniquities.” That’s His knowledge. His knowledge is He loved, He gives, He takes your iniquities on Him — that’s knowledge. A man that has that has understanding. And takes the blame for you and dies in your place. “He shall bear their iniquities.”

“Therefore.” Now the Lord’s through with talking about the hard part. Now He’s going to talk about what He’s going to do. “Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great.” He’ll share with the kings, mayors, governors and dictators.

“And he shall divide the spoil with the strong.” He’s going to split the booty because he fought the battle.

“Because he hath poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors.” Two thieves. And if you’re ever going to get saved, you got to be numbered with them. You don’t just slip into Heaven. You might slip into a church or slip into a class or slip into a baptismal pool and slip out of the water. Like a fellow said, that’s what people are doing these days, they’re just slipping. You just kind of slip it in and slip it out, you know, and slip in here and slip in there. But you don’t slip into Christ. That is, to get saved, you have to number yourself with the transgressor.

You have three crosses up there. And this one here is a crook, and this one here is a crook, and this one here is numbered with the crooks. Now, if you’re not a crook, stay off the hill. Because if you get on the hill, you’ll be numbered as a crook. And I don’t know of any man that wants to be numbered as a crook if he’s not. But Christ did. And Christ was not. And He was numbered with the transgressors. And if you’re ever going to get saved, you’re going to have to say, “Well, I’m a crook too.”

Now, that’s so hard. That’s especially hard for these liberal educated folks. You know, they’re always talking about “intellectual honesty.” They think because they don’t believe the Bible they’re honest. You know what? Ah, these dump thumps go around saying, “Well, I can’t kid myself. I just, I just don’t believe it and can’t see it, and therefore I’m this honest fellow. I rationalize and what I can think and figure out I believe in, and what I can’t think and figure out I can’t believe in, so I’m to my own self and it follows as day follows night. If thou canst speak true to thyself, thou canst not be true or false to any man! Ahem!”

You ol’ crook! You ol’ crook!

You never met a man in your life that was completely true to himself all the time. Is any man in this building that’s lived 24 hours a day after what you knew was right, without muffing one time? Well, I don’t believe you. I don’t believe you.

And I’ll tell you something else. The best man that ever lived in this world sat right down there. I talked with a fellow about three days ago up in Birmingham. I was talking about, I hadn’t seen him for twenty-five years. He was an all-American center for Alabama when I was there. He played in the Rose Bowl twice. His name is Donmolevich. Fine ol’ Englishman! And ol’ Joe Donmolevich is — you can tell him anywhere, you know, a big ol’ ape-like-looking fellow. I went in his home and talked with him. And I said, “Joe,” I said, “I haven’t seen you in twenty-five years.” And I told him what happened to me. And I said, “Now, there’s been a lot of waters under the dam since we saw each other.” And I said, “I’m not going to pry into your private matters, but,” I said, “I came by to check you.” And I said, “The Lord told me to come by here and check you out spiritually.” I said, “You going to church anywhere?”

And he said, “Yeah, well, we haven’t been going like we ought to, you know.”

That means, “I haven’t been for eight years,” you know!

And he says, “We’re Methodists. We go to a Methodist church when we go.”

And I said, “Were you raised Methodist?”

“No, I was raised Catholic.” He’s a Hungarian Catholic. And he said, “Now, those Catholics are good people. You know, a lot of people say this and that about them, you know, but, my side” — you know, same old stuff.

And I said, “Joe,” I said, “Did anybody ever take a Bible and show you how to be saved out of a Bible?”

He said, “No, never did.”

I said, “You got a Bible here in the house?”

He said, “Yeah, yeah.” He looked around wildly for it. It wasn’t in the room or the kitchen, or the dining room.

And I said, “How about going and getting it?”

So he went and got it and brought it in. And it was a King James Bible; didn’t have a mark in it, man. The cover looked like it was about ten years old. The inside looked like it was about a week old, you know. Nothing folded, nothing bent. When I find a Bible and not a page folded and not a line smudged, not a mark in it, not a leaf torn out, you know, that’s a bad sign.

And so I took that Bible and sat down and I said, “Now, Joe,” I showed him White Throne Judgment, Revelation 20. And I showed him, “God will judge the secrets of men,” Romans chapter 3. “God will bring you to judgment in every evil work, good and evil,” you know, “Every secret work,” you know, Ecclesiastes 12.

And I said, “Now, Joe,” I said, “If you had to stand before a judgment like that, how would you make out?”

And he said, “Oh, I think I’d make out all right.”

You know, you almost feel like laughing at him, you know, it’s just pitiful. And he said, “I got faith in myself. I got faith in myself.”

And I said, “Well, it’s a great thing to have faith in yourself, man, but I mean if every single thing, every secret thing you’ve done and thought in the last twenty years —”

And he said, “Well, I never hurt anybody. I never tried to hurt anybody.”

They always say that. You know, they always start negative. “I never killed anybody.”

Well, how come you’re so negative? Why don’t you talk about all the people you’ve been a blessing to? And all the people you led to Christ, you know, and all the people you got into the Bible? Why do you always say, “I never hurt anybody?” Kind of negative, isn’t it?

You know, I always suspect they’ve been hurting people when they begin to talk that way.

And he said, “I never hurt anybody.”

And I talked to that fellow and talked to that fellow. And after about a half an hour, I finally said, “Well, Joe, if you dropped dead right this minute in this sofa and had to face God, would you trust the death of Christ, dying for your sins, to get you by, or your own righteousness?”

And he turned his head aside and wouldn’t look at me and said, “I trust the death of Christ.” And then, when I checked him down, he was a saved Catholic, got saved when he was a boy — a lot of them are like that. I’m not saying all are lost and going to Hell. He sure enough was a saved man. He just wasn’t enjoying it.

And when you put him on the spot, see, he wasn’t willing to take his place among the transgressors. You had to talk him into it, you know.

Boy, you ask me a question like that, and watch what I say! You come around me sometime and say, “Well, if you had to face a judgment like that, how would you make out?”

I said, “Man, I’d go to Hell like a jet-propelled bullet, is what I’d do.”

You say, “What are you counting on to save you?”

“I’m counting on the blood of Jesus Christ to save me and nothing but the blood of Jesus Christ.”

And this passage said He was numbered with the transgressors, and I got up there to Him by being numbered as one of the transgressors.

You say, “Well, I —” You ain’t going to get there any different! That Book says, “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” If there’s any unsaved person in this building here this morning, I’m going to tell you something right now. Until you are willing to place yourself where God placed His Son, you ain’t going nowhere — but straight down. And if you’re better than Jesus Christ, you’re somebody. And Jesus Christ was numbered with the transgressors.

Now, if you stay off the hill, you’re a better man than He is. You must be somebody. You must be somebody.

And I’ll just bet you’re not. You’re probably a transgressor, aren’t you? So you shouldn’t be ashamed to take your place. I mean, live up to your profession, brother! Be honest with yourself.

All right, 12, finishing up: “He was numbered with the transgressors.” We’ll close here. “And he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.” Many used like the New Testament. “The Son of man is come to give His life as a ransom for many,” and of course, a little later, He says, “A propitiation for all.” All men. Well, “all” is quite a few of them. So He says, “Many.” He says “many” because there’s many of them. It isn’t selective. It doesn’t mean some over here, and then omitting some over here.

“And he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.” Christ’s death was an unusual death. You probably won’t die like He did, even from a human standpoint. Now, I don’t mean atonement, but I mean just, in thinking about dying, when Jesus Christ died, did you ever stop to think about this? When Jesus Christ died, He had no comforters. He had no comforters. Now, you’ll probably have some. You might be killed in a car wreck out there on the highway, but you’ll probably have a friend there staying with you until the ambulance comes, or you may die on the way back in the ambulance, getting back to town, and somebody in the ambulance holding your hand. Or you get to the emergency room, there’s somebody trying to help you out, see.

So, in the worst predicament, most people have comforters. Now, He had no comforters. I mean, nobody to tend to Him or minister to Him or to pray with Him or pray for Him to help Him out. Now, if you die that way, you may be like His death in that sense. But then He had no covering for His body. Chances are, you won’t die naked. Not one person out of a thousand dies naked.

Brother Rimmer told me about finding a car off the bridge the other day over here in Pensacola Bay with a couple of dead people in it; they fished them out; went off the bay bridge and drowned out there. They had their clothes on, though. They had their clothes on.

And you take folks dying in the hospital. They have a nightgown on, or pajamas, some kind of wrapper on them, you see. And not many people just die naked. Even a soldier who gets blown to smithereens has his uniform on when he gets blown to smithereens — unless some mortars blow their clothes off them.

But not many people just die with nothing on at all. And He did.

And He had no request granted. If you stop to think about this, when you die, you leave a will. And you’ll say, “This and that and so forth and so on,” and the courts will carry that thing out. When Jesus Christ died, none of the requests were granted. Now, before He left, He bequeathed the will to His disciples and said to the Father, “I will that those you give me be where I am,” and the Lord answered that. And He said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do,” and the Lord answered that. But that was between Him and God, see. Nobody did anything for Him!

One of His requests was, “I thirst.” See, He wanted water. They didn’t give Him water. And the chances are a thousand and one when you die, you’ll say, “I need some more pain medicine,” or something, and somebody will bring it. Or you’ll say, “I need some water,” and somebody will hold up your lips and put it down your lips. That goes on in the hospital all the time.

But you have a death here with no comforters, no covering, and no request granted.

And, finally, it’s an unusual death in that this death is a public death. And chances are ten to one your death will be a private death.

Now, I say chances are ten to one. If this country goes the way it’s going, some of us are going to die public deaths — those that believe the Bible. They’re going to make a public spectacle out of us and make us an example. They’re going to put it to us. We’re going to get it. And so, not all of us are going to die in private and secret and quiet, with family and loved ones around. Some of us are going to get put out there in public, brother, with the camera on us, and get it — if the Lord tarries. They’ll see to that.

But most people don’t die that way. Most people die privately, in a home or a hospital or in a car, see, some way, or on a fishing boat, heart attack or something. It’s just private.

And then it was a vertical death. Did you ever stop to think about how many people die vertically? Everybody you knew who ever died died horizontally. Now, a man can be walking, see, and have a heart attack and fall over and die. But you don’t find many people that have to stand up like this and then stay there until they die, see. That’s an unusual death.

And this One hung vertically. No place to lie down. No place to rest.

Why, if you had a heart attack walking, you’d fall horizontally. You’re walking along the street and have a heart attack, you’d lie down. You’d die lying down.

But not this One. This One dies standing straight up.

And I think that’s not only unusual, man, that’s remarkable. And when they said, “Surely this was a just and righteous Man,” boy, it goes beyond that — it was an upright Man, an upright Man. I mean, the Man, He lived all His life straight up, brother, straight. And when He died, He was still straight. He didn’t quit. He wasn’t lying down. Straight up. Straight up.

All right, we’ll close there. I may be running a little overtime. Get kind of carried away with those places.

All right, Isaiah 53. And before we start, I have one or two items here I thought you might like to be interested in. And I read these now, because we’re on the radio at 11 o’clock, and you read this stuff over the radio, you’re liable to get off the radio real quick. But I always wanted my people to be informed on how things are going. And since I don’t take a newspaper, I have to rely on what gets passed on to my by my members. And this is some material here that you ought to know about.

This is the state Southern Baptist Convention paper here, the Alabama Baptist, page 10, December 18, 1971, and says, “The Metropolitan New York Baptist Association comprised of Southern Baptist churches in the New York area has received an application for membership by a Negro Baptist church with a woman pastor. If the association votes next year to accept the church into full membership, it’d be the first church with a woman pastor to affiliate with a Southern Baptist Convention association. The church, Christ Temple Baptist Church, is located at 161 131st Street in New York City. Reverend Mrs.” — my, my! — “Reverend Mrs. Drucilla Fordham is the pastor. It is presently affiliated with the progressive National Baptist Convention and is seeking dual alignment with the Southern Baptist Convention.”

Now that’s an application for them to take in a church where a woman is pastor, and you couldn’t find a woman pastor in that Bible no matter what version you’ve got, from cover to cover. If you ever got an Amplified Version where it talks about “deaconesses” in Romans 16:1, recommended by the New American Standard Version in the margin, if you’ve got a church with a “deaconess” in it, you wouldn’t have a church with a “pastoress.” See, what in the world are you going to do with that? So that’s a church going in now, or being voted on by the Southern Baptist Convention. And this church is a member of the National Council of Churches and it’s trying to get in both conventions. And there’s one like that in St. Louis. And that way the Southern Baptist Convention can slip into the apostate National Council without the members being aware of it. And that’s what’s going on; it’s been going on a good time.

All right, here’s another one. These are items in different places. How many of you know Daniel 2, and know about the ten-federated kingdom of the Antichrist? Let me see your hand. All right. “Today the world is thinking in terms of world power blocs. The Common Market has announced plans to enlarge its membership to ten nations and to elect a president over the federation.” Ten-kingdom federation. That is, you go by the King James Bible whether you believe it or not. Whether you believe it or not’s immaterial. If you’re unsaved, you just have to go according to the blueprint.

“In an article in the July 28, 1971, edition of the Japan Times entitled ‘Who Rules the World?’ columnist Max Lerner divided the world power structure into two federations of ten rulers in each one.” No, here’s the setup, and twenty men are listed. Out of the twenty men that are listed, nine are Roman Catholics. That’s nearly half. Of the eleven that remain, only two of them are professing Christians. Two out of twenty. And nine are Catholics, and the rest of them are Buddhists, Taoists, Hinduists or Atheists. Hindus or Atheists.

First ruler: “Nixon of the United States.” Professing Chrisitan.

“Brezhnev of Russia.” Atheist.

“Sado of Japan” — Shintoist.

“Mao Tse-Tung of China” — Atheist.

“Brandt of Germany” — Catholic.

“Pompedeaux of France” — Catholic.

“Jean Monet of the Common Market” — Catholic.

“Heath of England” — Episcopalian.

“Tito of Yugoslavia” — Catholic.

“Seasequ” or whatever his name is “of Romania” — Catholic.

“Sadat of Egypt” — nothing.

“Golde Meyer of Israel” — Jew.

“Haile Selassie of Ethiopia” — professing Christian.

“Indira Ghandi of India” — kind of half-Hindu and half- atheist.

“Suharto of Indonesia” — atheist.

“Premier Trudeau of Canada” — Catholic.

“Allende of Chile” — Catholic.

“Castro of Cuba” — Catholic.

Manned by the United Nations and Pope Paul of the Roman Catholic Church. Just like I taught you, right straight on through. Nine out of twenty.

Now, there’ll be twenty out of twenty when that thing finally shows up.

All right, one other thing here. “On September 10th and 11th of this year, the National Council of Churches approved a grant of $302,000 to an organization called Clergy and Laymen Concerned. Clergy and Laymen Concerned sponsored the National Organizing Conference in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and at this convention the following things were suggested.” Now, when I say the National Council of Churches put $302,000 in this organization, you must remember that at least thirty percent of the churches in Pensacola are members of the National Council of Churches — about a third of them.

And they voted $302,000 to this organization that suggested the following programs:

“1. David Indellinger urged the delegates to visit prisons for the purpose of organizing revolutions against the guards.

“2. Support for Angela Davis.

“3. Release of political prisoners, especially Black Panthers.

“4. A resolution made to abolish all prisons.” No prisons. That is, you can do anything and get away with it and never suffer for it. You cannot be put in jail.

“Next, an assistant to Mike Gravel, senator from Alaska, told the convention how to destroy the military establishment from within.

“Next item, Mohammad Kenyata, a black radical, approved the killing of white police officers by blacks, and churches were encouraged to enlist the aid of homosexuals.”

Three hundred and two thousand — you know something? I’m glad that I don’t sit in a church that’s joined with a mess like that. And when I put my money in that plate, no that thing goes out to support a mess like that. Now, when you come to Brent and put your dollar in the plate or your fifty cents or whatever it is, that’s something you never have to worry about.

And folks say, “Well, you make an issue of this.” Yeah, but you don’t ever have to worry about it at all.

And folks say, “Well, I don’t believe in being negative.” Yeah, but you see, you don’t have to worry about it at all here.

You say, “Well, I give it, and I give it by faith and let God —” yeah, but you see, but you still kind of worry about it. And if you don’t, I’ll put a worry on you. But here you never have to worry, see, just drop it in there and you know that thing’s going to go to pay light, utilities, rent, bills, salaries, preaching of the word — you never have to worry about a Black Panther getting it.

Now, here’s the next thing. This is a bill put through, and I think Nixon just vetoed it, didn’t he? That child care bill? Well, this is before he vetoed it. And this bill, which they’ll try to put through again in about a year: “The beginning cost for a child for day centers, according to Edward Ziglar, head of the child development at HEW, will be $1,600 per child per year.” They’re going to tax you a thousand dollars to raise somebody else’s kids in a year, and give you a $650 tax exemption for your own kids.

That’s weird, you know that? I mean, the government figures you can raise your kid for six hundred and fifty, but when they take your kid, they got to double the bill on you. That’s peculiar, isn’t it? If it costs the government $1600 a year to raise a child, they ought to give you $1600 for each of yours. I mean, surely, you can’t do as good as they can do. They got the whole federal budget at their disposal; you just got a job down here someplace.

Quote: “It is not a question of whether we are going to have a nationwide day-care center, but what it is going on to be.” And then he goes on and talks about this thing. And, according to this setup that they have, under this program a child can take his parents to court and sue them for damages. He can also sue his school.

All right, well, enough of that. We’ll go from the ridiculous to the sublime.

QUESTION: What is the name of that organization that they voted that $302,000 to?

ANSWER: That organization is called Clergy and Laymen Concerned. Clergy and Laymen Concerned, and they sponsor the National Organizing Conference at Ann Arbor, Michigan, and then the following items are presented to them at that time.

And the documentation for that is the American Council of Christian Churches magazine called Accent, September 1971.

Now, Father, we’re thankful that this holiday season is about over, and we have a chance to devote our entire time to thee and your word and your people and your ministry. Help us, Father, to be diligent, and may we be better Christians this next year than we have been the last. Lord, give us more time for personal work, more soul-consciousness, more concern for the people round about us. And, Lord, help us to see them through your eyes instead of our own. And may we be concerned about them and do something about them. Forgive us, Father, for missing opportunities to witness. And may we take advantage of these opportunities in the next year that lies ahead, every possible opportunity. Bless our Sunday School, Father, and bring in some men and women here that are hungry for the word and need the word and who will take the manna from Heaven as it is and not lust after the garlic and melons and leeches of Egypt. Bless us, Father, and give us wisdom now in your word. For Jesus’ sake. Amen. Amen.

All right, Isaiah 53, verse 12. Now, we’ve been in this chapter about, oh, about two months, and we’re finishing it now. And I hate when I see a visitor come to Sunday School to go on and finish a thing, knowing how much material is in it and how rich it is, what we’ve been through, but we have to go on and finish it up.

And the passage is on the crucifixion.

All right, 12: “Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great.” That is, when the spoils of war are laid out, the Lord Jesus Christ, He gets the spoils.

“And he shall divide the spoil with the strong.” Now, spiritually speaking, the devil owns this world and runs it. And he gets it by the permissive will of God. And, yet, when the battle is over, the Lord Jesus Christ is going to walk off with the spoils.

Take your Bible and turn to Luke chapter 4 in the New Testament for comment, and of course the Scripture is always its own best commentary. And Matthew chapter 12. Matthew 12 and Luke 4. When he talks about these things, he talks about the Lord Jesus Christ becoming a man, becoming a servant, dying for your sins, humbling Himself. And because of this, when the war is over, He doesn’t come out as a slave or a servant; He comes out as a King and a general. And when He comes out, He divides the prey, the booty from the battle.

Now, here are the references. Luke chapter 4 verse 5. Luke 4, verse 5: “And the devil, taking him up into an high mountain, shewed unto him all the kingdoms of the world.” There’s the booty, there’s the spoil, there’s the money.

“All the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And the devil said unto him, All this power will I give thee, and the glory.” The power and the glory. The disciple’s prayer said, “For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory.” The devil said, “I got ‘em.” And they’re delivered to the devil until the Lord comes back.

So he says, “That is delivered unto me.” The devil’s got ‘em. “And to whomsoever I will I give it.” “I give it.” The devil is called the god of this world in 2 Corinthians.

So, all the great men of this world who have become great in the eyes of the world are all under the leadership and dominion of the devil. Consequently, when you go to high school and college and get a college education, what you learn about is the devil’s boys. And you study them. Some of them are good men, like Ralph Waldo Emerson, Thoreau. Some of them are bad men, like Henry VIII. And some are bad women, like Lucretia Borgia. Some of them are good women that profess something and live clean lives.

But the kingdoms of this world are the devil’s. And if you’re a saved child of God, you have no business with the world. “If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” And your heroes are a different set.

A fellow said to me one time, “What’s wrong with,” he said, “with long hair?” he said, “And how long is long?” You know, they always give you that jazz. And he said, “What’s wrong with long hair?”

And I said, “Well, it’s what it’s associated with.”

And he said, “Well, I can’t be responsible for the association.”

Why, sure you can. What does it remind people of? In plainer words, when a fellow wears long hair, who’s he trying to copy?

A fellow said he’s trying to copy Jesus Christ. Oh, blow it out your stack, man! There isn’t a hippie in this town who wears long hair because he’s trying to copy Jesus Christ. When he gets long hair and you call it to his attention, he says “Jesus Christ” for it. But that ain’t he grew it.

I mean, who you trying to kid? If I want to find out what a man’s like, you know what I do? I look for his idols — what he worships, who his stars are. Who’s your star? See? And when these fellows dress like this and look like this, you know what they’re trying to do? They’re trying to look like and dress like their idol, their god.

And when you get saved, you change heroes. Did you know that?

You know, before I was saved — now, you’re going to laugh at this — before I was saved, you know who my heroes were? I mean, you wouldn’t believe this, and you think, “Well, how stupid,” you know. Unsaved people are all pretty stupid. And you know who my heroes were? They were John Dillinger and Pretty Boy Floyd and Alvin Carpis and ol’ Machine Gun Kelly. And the Barclay Boys, and ol’ Clyde Barrow, and that bunch. And people like Artie Shaw and Benny Goodman and Stan Kenton and Joe Louis, you know. And Rommel and General Pershing.

And then I got saved. And I picked up a whole new bunch of heroes. I picked up Billy Sunday and Dwight L. Moody and — why, I never knew those people! A fellow suddenly was talking about Bob Jones Sr. I don’t know Bob Jones from Flob Jones, I didn’t know the name for them. Who’s Bob Jones? Beats the fire out of me. I never heard of him.

I mean, all my people, they were a different bunch of people, you see. And when you get saved, you change heroes.

Somebody said, “Well, you just ought to follow Christ.” I know, I know, I know all the answers. I’ve heard all the answers. But, you know, very few people are that way. As a matter of fact, I never really met one. I may meet one; I’ve only been in the ministry twenty-three years. And I have never met one Christian in my life who didn’t admire and respect some other great Christian. I never have. And I think it’s perfectly legitimate, and I’m all for it.

But you change your heroes, see. How did I get in — oh, I was going to say this. The devil runs this world and runs these kingdoms, and he runs the place and owns the place, and he gives it to whomsoever he will, so when you find somebody way up in the world, you know where they got their power from. They didn’t get it from God.

You know that for everyone like Johnny Cash and Elvis Presley — that got way up and paid the price, they paid it. For everyone that got way up like that, there are a hundred guitar-strumming, cigarette-sucking dopeheads in Pensacola and Foley and Milton and Florala and Bay Monette and Mobile and New Orleans that are just dying of TB with a pile of debts you couldn’t even pay.

And the devil just lets you see the big ones, see. That’s his boy. I mean, he’s good advertising. The devil isn’t going to let you see the rest of them. I played in dance bands with the rest of them.

All, right, now he says, 6: “And the devil said unto him, All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will I give it.”

All right, let’s turn to Matthew 12, and in Matthew 12, speaking of the devil’s treasures and the devil’s kingdom and power and glory, look what the Lord Jesus Christ says to His audience. Matthew 12:26: “And if Satan cast out Satan, he is divided against himself; how shall then his kingdom stand? And if I by Beelzebub cast out devils, by whom do your children cast them out? therefore they shall be your judges.” He said, “If I’m casting them out by the devils, your children are people that you teach. They say they cast them out. If they cast them out, and you’re telling me I cast them out by devils, your kids must do it too! So they’ll judge you. You better hadn’t go telling me I cast them out by devils. You’re talking about your own kids!”

Twenty-nine: “Or else how can one enter —” here it comes “— enter into a strong man’s house, and spoil —” Spoil. Spoil. Like he said in Isaiah.

“And spoil his goods.” Who is the strong man? Twenty-six: the evil.

“Else how can one enter into a strong man’s house, and spoil his goods, except he first bind the strong man? and then he will spoil his house.”

All right, Isaiah 53, verse 12. Now, in all this, what you see is, you see the world down here, and the world’s in a solar system, and the solar system’s in the end of an S-shaped nebula, down in a bunch of constellations in the back end of nowhere. And here’s this thing sitting down here and has a god. And it’s a minor god. It’s called the god of this world; he runs it. It’s his kingdom. And God the Father delivered it to him to give it to whomever he will.

And Christ says, “I pray not for the world.” Now, we know “God so loved the world,” but He’s talking there about dying for sinners. He’s not talking about the world system, see. God doesn’t love the world system: “All that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but of the world. And the world with the lust thereof passes away, but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever.”

All right, there’s that thing sitting down there like that. And that thing is sitting down there like that, and the devil runs it, operates it, owns it, and controls it. And if you want it, sell out and he’ll give it to you. Of course, he won’t give you all of it. See, he’ll lie to you. He said he’d give you all of it; you can’t get all of it. Charlemagne never got all of it. Napoleon never got all of it. Alexander never — you won’t either.

All right, there’s that thing down there. He’ll give it to whomsoever he will.

All right, here comes a thief. And the thief comes into the strong man’s house. And he comes in there to steal from him. I mean, you read there about Him being crucified between two thieves. Didn’t you read over there in the Garden of Gethsemane, where He said, “Are you come out against me as thieves?” As a thief — “with staves?”

The thief comes down in there and gets in that house. And he says, “I can’t get the stuff out of this fellow’s house till I bind him. And then I’ll spoil his goods.”

So this ol’ thief leaves — doesn’t take anything out of the house. And he leaves, and he dies a vicarious death for sinners, and pays the price for the junk in that house. See, we’re the junk. And He buys this junk in this house. And then when He does that, He says, “All right, behold I come as a —” what? There she goes. “I come as a thief.” And when He comes back, He goes into the fellow’s house and says, “You’re in kind of tough shape, aren’t you?” I mean, the devil’s over there bound in the corner.

And, “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory,” see?

And the devil’s bound over in the corner, and the Lord comes in the house and says, “I’ll take this, and this, and this, and this, and this, and this, and this” — and then leaves with them. And that’s us. That’s us.

I mean, we’re the junk the Lord purchased. And the devil had us when we were following the world’s system. We’re in that house, and the Lord comes into that house, and comes in there, and the devil’s bound up in the corner, and the Lord says, “I’ll take you, and you, and you, and you, and you” — and spoils his goods.

Now, there’s another sense in which it’s even more true. The Bible says at the end, when Christ returns at the Second Advent, the devil is bound a thousand years, Revelation chapter 20, verses 1 to 3. All right, when the strong man is bound, the Lord not only takes out the Christians, but then He takes over the kingdoms.

See, the devil said to the Lord up there in the mountain, he said, “You see all these kingdoms?”

“Yes.”

He said, “I’ll give them to you if you want.”

The Lord said, “I want them.”

The devil said, “Well, go ahead and take them.”

The Lord said, “What’s the price?”

The devil said, “Just bow down and worship me one time, and you can have them.”

And the Lord said, “No, thank you, I’ll get them later anyway.”

And the devil said, “Well how do you figure that?”

And the Lord said, “In Isaiah chapter 53, my Father said I’m going to divide the spoils, I’m going to spoil your house, and if those kingdoms are yours I’m going to get ‘em!”

Let’s come to Revelation chapter 11, and notice that not only does the Lord spoil the devil’s house in the sense of taking out the people He died for, He spoils the devil’s house in that He gets his kingdoms! Revelation chapter 11, verse 14. And the devil is literally bound in the Millennium — not spiritually. I mean, he’s removed from the scene and hindered from doing anything else in the Millennium.

So he says in Revelation chapter 11, verse 14: “The second woe is past; and, behold, the third woe cometh quickly. And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, —” now watch it: “— saying, —” verse 15: “The kingdoms —” see the plural? Plural. Literal, earthly, visible kingdoms.

“The kingdoms of this world.” That’s what the devil said to Jesus on the mount of temptation you just read in Luke 4. “All these kingdoms are mine.” He showed them all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And he said, “If you bow down and worship me, I’ll give them to you.”

And the thief said, “I’ll get them later anyway.”

All right, verse 15: “And the kingdoms of this world.” The New American Standard Version says, “kingdom.” The American Standard Version says, “kingdom.” Why is that? To get you off the track. So you’d think it was a spiritual kingdom. You see, there’s a kingdom of God — singular — kingdom of heaven — singular — but these are “kingdoms.” See the “s” on them?

All right, “The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever.” So the Lord Jesus divides the spoils.

All right, back to Isaiah 53, verse 12. Now, where you come on this as a Christian is, if you suffer with Him you shall reign with Him. And, “the present sufferings are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us.” And so, if you refuse the devil’s offer for the kingdoms of this world, and you stand against the world in this age as a child of God, and hold forth the word of life, like a light shining in the midst of a perverse and crooked generation among whom you shine as lights to the world, then when the Lord comes back, you help divide the spoil with Him. And He says in Luke chapter 19, when the Lord returns, He’ll say to some Christians, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant. Have rule over five cities” — “cities” — plural. No “city of God,” no spiritual — “cities.” And to another, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant, have thou rulership over ten cities,” and so forth and so on. And those are literal, earthly cities on the ground.

Now you don’t hear much about that these days. These fellows talking about the “spiritual kingdom” and the “spiditual” this and the “spiditual” that. But the Bible says, when Jesus Christ comes back, He’ll take over a literal, physical, visible kingdom and divide it up. And if you’re a child of God and you’ve been faithful to Him, you get part of the spoil.

There’s a passage over there in Job. It says “the lame take the spoil.” Which is a peculiar thing. It’s like saying a guy goes into battle, and he can’t fight — he’s crippled. But he divides the booty just as if he fought. And the application is the Christian. And when the spoils are divided, Nixon and U Thant and Churchill and Roosevelt and Mao Tse Tung don’t get them.

Old Sarah Smith up in North Carolina on the other side of Black Mountain in Wheelgate Gap — she gets them.

See, that’s one of the Lord’s big jokes, you see. The lame take the spoil. And when the spoils are divided out, the HEW and the NEA and the CIA and all this — they don’t get ‘em. They don’t get ‘em. And when they divide that thing out, Ghandhi and Indira and Mahatma and the rest of them, and all these great world leaders — they don’t get anything. They had theirs.

I mean, a spoil goes to — oh, some old bedridden saint over here in the county hospital that had been praying over there for about ten years. The lame get the spoils, see? That’s how it’s going to work. That’s one of the Lord’s jokes.

I wonder who’s going to get to rule Pensacola in the Millennium? “Ten cities” — somebody might get Pensacola and Endsley and Prairie Pass and Brownville and Warington and all these other places around here — ten of them.

Wouldn’t you like to run Pensacola for about five or ten years? I mean, just do anything you wanted to do? And of course you couldn’t now, because we’re corrupt now, we’d mess up. But, how would you like to run this city being able to pass through a solid door, like Christ died, and become visible or invisible at will, like Christ was, Luke 24, and travel faster than the speed of light, like Christ did in John chapter 20 and Matthew chapter 28, and not need any food to stay alive, and have a perfect, sinless body, and be unable to be tempted, and be unable to sin — and then get ahold of this town? Boy, you talk about the tables turning, man!

You know what I’ve always thought — and I know this is just fantasy, you know — but I’ve always thought in the Millennium I’d like to come back and get a pickup truck full of golfballs, and go down and park in front of these liquor stores and throw at the liquor store. Now, you know, I’m not going to do it. I mean, that’s silly, you know. But, you know, that smashing glass has such a beautiful sound. And you know how they line up these liquor bottles on a shelf, and they just shine and sparkle? And just — did you ever go to the fair, you know, and throw at the milk bottles with a baseball? Well, I’ve always wanted to just get a carload full of golfballs, just out there, just pitch at them all day long, just to hear that glass tinkle.

Well, somebody’s going to get Pensacola, and I don’t know who it’s going to be. But I imagine when it comes out, it’ll be the lame. It’ll be the lame. It won’t be the leaders. Probably won’t be the preachers. It’ll be the lame. “The lame shall divide the spoil. The Lord has funny ways of doing things.

All right, 53:12. Fifty-three:12: “Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong.” Why? Because He was strong? No sir. No sir. “Because he hath poured out his soul unto death.” See, the Lord dies a reverse. The Bible says, “He that humbles himself shall be exalted. He that exalts himself shall be abased.”

“Because he hath poured out his soul unto death.” And I commented on that soul before in Gethsemane with verse 10.

“And he was numbered with the transgressors.” Literally in the New Testament. He’s called a thief. He’s crucified between two thieves, numbered with the transgressors. So, if you’re ever going to get saved, then your name not only has to be in the Book of Life, but your name has to be with the thieves.

“And he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.” As Dwight L. Moody used to be preach it, he said, “The Lord Jesus Christ appears to everybody on this earth in one form or another in these days by the Spirit.” And says, “Let him go free; I am the ransom. Lay no stripes on him; I took the lash. Let the cup pass; I drank the dregs for him. Let him live; I tasted death for him. Crown him with a crown; I wore his crown of thorns.”