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Source: https://www.sermonindex.net/speakers/william-skates/seeking-savior-sorrowing-savior-sovereign-christ/
Let's look to the Lord in prayer for a moment. Our God and Father, we bow in Thy presence with thanksgiving for these clear testimonies to the saving grace of God that we have heard. We thank Thee for Thy mercy in reaching down and delivering us from our sins.
We thank Thee for the Saviour of whom we have been singing, the one who came out of love for poor sinners and bled and died upon the cross of Calvary to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. We thank Lord of the tragedy of going through life and missing the great offer of mercy and God's great salvation to perish and to be lost forever.
It is a tragedy that no one would be able to explain fully. But Father, we pray for any tonight in the meeting that are still in their sins, that they would listen to the Word of God, that it might get into their heart and into their conscience, would never leave them until they would come in saving faith to the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation.
So grant us Thy help tonight as we come to the Word of God together. We pray that Thou will guide and direct and grant that the Word of God with power will reach the heart and conscience and bring forth fruit in repentance and in salvation.
We ask for Thy blessing as we look to Thee, in the Saviour's name, amen. Let's turn again to the book of Isaiah chapter 53. Isaiah chapter 53, and thank you Jonathan for reading this already, verse number 5, but it's so good it bears repeating.
Isaiah 53, verse 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 we are healed. Now over to the New Testament, to the Gospel of Luke, please.
Chapter 19, Luke chapter 19. We'll read at verse 10, Luke 19, verse 10. For the Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost. For the Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.
Down to verse 41. About the Lord Jesus again, verse 41. And when He was come near, that is near to Jerusalem, He beheld the city and wept over it, saying, If Thou hadst known even now, at least in this Thy day, the things which belong unto Thy peace, but now they are hid from Thine eyes.
For the day shall come upon Thee that Thine enemies shall cast a trench about Thee, and compass Thee round, and keep Thee in on every side, and shall lay Thee even with the ground, and Thy children within Thee.
And they shall not leave on Thee one stone upon another, because Thou knewest not the time of Thy visitation. Now on over to the book of Revelation, please. Chapter 6, Revelation chapter 6. This is looking forward to the end of the tribulation period when the Lord Jesus will come back in His power and glory.
Verse 15,. And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains, and said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb.
For the great day of his wrath is come, and who shall be able to stand? And the Lord will bless to us the further reading from His word tonight. There's one thing about the gospel message when it is scripturally preached or presented, and that is it is all about the Lord Jesus Christ.
He is the center, He is the circumference, He is everything in between of the gospel message. Paul could say, I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.
It is a universal message to the whole wide world that whosoever will may come, and when they come to Christ, they will be dramatically and eternally changed from within, and changed in the sight of God, made a new creation in Christ, and destined eternally for God's heaven.
So the gospel is about our Lord Jesus Christ. We have read tonight from the book of Isaiah, and chapter 53, from this chapter that is all about Him, written some 750 years or thereabouts before Christ, B .C., 750 or thereabouts B .C.
But it's all about Him, and when we come to verse number 5, this verse also is about the Lord Jesus describing His sufferings 750 years later upon the cross of Calvary, and more importantly, the meaning of those sufferings as it presents to us the suffering Christ.
But He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement to bring us into peace was upon Him, and with His stripes we are healed. The suffering Christ. When we come over to the New Testament, to the gospel of Luke, and chapter 19, we have here the seeking Christ.
We've read why He came. The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost. So if you're in the meeting tonight and you're still in your sins, we want to remind you that you are lost, but the good news is this.
The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost. He's the seeking Christ. At the end of that chapter, we have had a little glimpse of the Lord Jesus approaching Jerusalem, and as He looks over a city, a city of people that will reject Him, we read, as He beheld the city, He wept over it.
We see Him here as the sorrowful Christ. As He has moved, by thinking about the judgment that will come upon a people that will reject Him as their Messiah, as the Christ, He's the sorrowful Christ. But then, I want you to think as well, from that verse 10 of chapter 19, not only is He the seeking Christ, but He is the sufficient Christ, for He has come to seek and to save.
He really does save that which was lost. When they come to Him in simplicity and trust upon Him, rest upon Him, as we have been hearing from our brethren, they are indeed eternally saved. He is sufficient to save all that come to Him.
And finally, from Revelation chapter 6, we see Him as the sovereign Christ, the one who will return, the one who will judge those that have rejected Him, and those that will refuse Him as their Savior.
And no matter what the strata in society may be, we've read about the kings and the great men, every man, every woman, boy or girl, that has rejected Christ will come underneath the wrath of the Lamb, the judgment of the sovereign Christ.
So the question tonight in the meeting that you are faced with is, do you know Christ is your Savior? Have you had a moment in life like we've been hearing already from our brothers as they have told clearly how they came to know the Lord Jesus as their Savior?
Have you had a moment like that? Because it is a very real thing to know Christ as your Savior. We live in a day when there is much that goes under the umbrella of Christianity. And it seems that you can claim to be a Christian and live your life any old kind of way, and there seems to be no change and no difference between that person and the next person that's an out-and-out sinner on the road to hell.
Something's wrong. I think of my friend Mike. Mike is a recovering alcoholic. I met with him for about a year in prison. God graciously reached and saved him, delivered him, and his thirst for the Word of God was remarkable, is remarkable.
I remember Mike saying to me on one occasion as we talked together, he says, I'm very grateful that God saw to it that I was put in prison because he was saved while he was incarcerated. But he says, I am more free today in prison with Christ as my Savior than I ever was on the outside with a bottle in my hand.
Changed from the inside out. Remarkable. Christianity works. It is real, and it is real good. We've read about a suffering Christ. You'll notice in those earlier verses, though we didn't read them, verse number three, he is described as a man of sorrows.
Now, that's remarkable. We sometimes sing, it's number 147 in the little hymn book we were using tonight, man of sorrows, what a name, for the Son of God who came. To think of it, the God who made all things by the very word of his power, he spoke all things into existence.
He speak and it was done. He commanded and it stood fast from the vast expense of the universe that seems to go on forever, declaring the glory of God, to the minute microscopic detail that's found in the DNA of a bacteria.
He made it all by the spoken word of his power, and he made you, and he comes into this world not to sit upon some earthly throne in a palace with earthly pomp and glory, but born in an outside place, given an outside place, even refused and rejected from his birth, a man of sorrows, but acquainted with grief.
Wasn't what the Jewish nation was looking for in a Messiah. Or they read the Old Testament, they even came to the book of Isaiah, and they saw that when Messiah comes, he's going to bring great deliverance, and there's going to be Israel taken from being under the foot of the Romans in their thinking to being the head of the nations.
That's a clear statement from the word of God, that last one. And they could see that, so they're looking for a Messiah that's going to come and deliver them in a tremendous way. That will yet happen.
So they couldn't understand it when he comes. And he comes in lowly form, just a little babe, born there in Bethlehem, in a cattle shed, led in a manger by parents that seemingly were just working class people from the village of Nazareth that was despised, and that's not at all what they were looking for.
And so we could have read that we didn't, but it's in those earlier verses. When we shall see him, this is the nation talking. When we shall see him, there is no beauty in him that we should desire him.
They weren't looking for that kind of Messiah, but that's how he came. So when we come to verse 5 where we read, and verse 5 opens with this little word, but. I want you to notice that it is indicating a change now in their thinking.
We thought that he was despised and rejected of men, yes, and we did esteem him not. We thought that God was against him. He was despised and we esteemed him not, smitten of God and afflicted, but. There's the change in their thinking.
You know, every true conversion to God involves a change in thinking. From wondering if the Savior could ever save me, to understanding that he is indeed the only one who can, and he's willing, and I trust him.
You and I, we both need a Savior. We are both born with a sinful nature. The psalmist said, behold, I was shapen in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me. Right from our very earliest moments of existence, we are found as sinners with a sinful nature.
And as we begin to grow and develop as a child, doing that which we know to be wrong, yet we do it, we practice sin. And so far as that goes, there's no difference. We've all sinned. The word of God says, for there is no difference for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.
And all men, women, boys, and girls are alike found in this condition before God as sinners in his sight. And if you have never come to an understanding of that, if it has never gripped your soul that it is my sin that is the issue between my soul and God, and it needs to be dealt with because God is holy, and God will not allow sin into heaven.
If I'm going to be there, I need my sin taken away because God is holy, sin must be punished. And that's the story in the gospel tonight. That is the message of the gospel that God has found a place where sin is punished.
It's punished alone in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ and those that trust him have their own sin put away. And that's what these people, the nation of Israel in Isaiah 53 and verse 5 come to appreciate and every soul that trusts Christ as their savior, they come to appreciate it too.
But on that cross, but he was wounded for our transgressions. Take it home to your own heart tonight in a very personal way. Even as we've been hearing of Jonathan, as he understood that the Lord Jesus on that cross, he was wounded for my transgressions.
He was bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement to bring us into peace was upon him. And with his stripes, we are healed. That thought of transgression is the idea of going beyond a boundary. God has set limits and we have broken those limits.
The idea of iniquity is the thought of lawlessness, a lawless attitude. We know what wrong is, but we're going to do it anyway. That's iniquity and those sins and those iniquities, the very attitude of rebellion against God, it deserves punishment, chastisement.
If ever there's to be peace with God, sin must be punished and our verse is telling us the chastisement to bring us into peace was upon him. Upon who? Upon the Lord Jesus, upon the cross, when he was crucified.
It's a plan of God to deliver souls from their sin, one who never sinned, God made to meet upon him the iniquity of us all, who his own self bear our sin in his own body upon the tree. And God who knew them laid them on him and the punishment that sin deserves falls upon Christ when he was made sin for us.
He who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in him and on the cross of Calvary, the Lord Jesus bore in full the judgment that sin deserved. And when I take him as my savior, God reckons that all my sins have been punished already in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.
That's really why he came, son of man has come, to seek and to save that which was lost. If you never appreciate the fact that you're lost, that you are a sinner, that you're on your way to hell, and that's exactly what you deserve.
You would never be looking for deliverance and you would never be looking for a savior to give you deliverance. But to understand that my sins deserve eternal judgment from a holy God brings me to the point where I welcome this great truth.
The son of man has come, the Lord Jesus, to seek and to save that which was lost. When we think of his coming, as we've already mentioned, into this world, it's wonderful that the angels could declare to the shepherds, unto you is born this day in the city of David a savior.
That's why he came, which is Christ the Lord, his coming. He has come to seek and to save. Tells us of his compassion, it tells us of the heart of God moving out in love toward men that do not deserve it, men and women, boys and girls, that are rebels at heart against God.
And yet out of infinite love, God sends his own son into this world, we've heard it already, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believes on him should not perish, but have everlasting life, salvation, a home in heaven.
Do you have it tonight? The seeking Christ. He has come to seek and to save that which was lost. Now that is not only a descriptive term of the sinner, but that is a descriptive term of what that sinner realizes in his own heart before he will receive Christ as his savior, that I'm lost, that my sins have separated between me and God.
I'm lost to God now, and if I die in that condition, I'll be lost to God forever. But for the sinner that comes in all his lostness and his non-understandingness, you don't have to figure it out before you come to Christ.
You'll never figure it out. But in all your lostness, you're already qualified because he came to seek and to save that which was lost. So come in your lostness to Christ, and when you come, you'll find the welcome mat is out, for he has come already to seek and to save that which was lost.
Every year in the United States, there are many immigrants that come to this country. There are many more that would love to come. In New York Harbor, there is the Statue of Liberty, and across the base of the Statue of Liberty, there is inscribed these words, Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free.
And the implication is, we'll give them freedom here in the United States. But every year, many hundreds of thousands are effused entry into the States. But I want to tell you something, that the Lord Jesus Christ has a welcome mat that is embracive of all who come.
He said, All that the Father giveth me shall come to me, and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. And you come to him tonight with an honest heart of needing him as your Savior. And he'll more than welcome you, he'll bring you into the very family of God and set you down as a son at the Father's table, such is the greatness of his salvation.
He has never lost a case yet, yet those that come unto him to be saved. It was in January of this year, the 15th, Captain Sully Sullenberger prepared his plane with his co-pilot, a U .S. Airways jet, flight 1549, leaving LaGuardia Airport.
They went through their preliminary checks and they taxied to the threshold of the runway. They got clearance from the tower and they accelerated down the runway and that jet leapt up into the sky above the city of New York.
However, there were other occupants of the sky that day that had not filed a flight plan, and as a result there was a collision. Those Canadian geese never knew what hit them, but they succeeded in extinguishing the two engines on that jet.
Immediately Captain Sully Sullenberger, he radioed the traffic controllers, told them of his problem. They tried to divert him to another airport, but it wasn't going to make it, and while his co-pilot went through the checklist trying to restart the engines, he set the plane into a glide to ditch in the Hudson River.
He glided down into that river, successfully crash-landed, immediately the doors opened and all the people began to pour out onto the wings, and you know the happy ending to that story. Eventually, every soul on board was delivered.
They were all rescued. There wasn't one soul lost, and he has been treated to many accolades, and he has been proclaimed as a great pilot, and so on, and no doubt he is, but I want to tell you of a greater than Sully Sullenberger who has never lost a soul.
All that come unto God by him, he delivers them and delivers them completely from the problem and the penalty of their sin. Lands them home in heaven, and I tell you what, they don't even get their feet wet with the judgment of God, but there is coming a day when those who have refused him will come under his judgment.
You see, God has decreed that the man of Calvary who died upon that cross in shame and agony he shall reign from the river to the ends of the earth, and he will put all enemies under his feet. He shall break them in pieces like a potter's vessel.
He shall rule them with a rod of iron. God thinks so much of his son, and of the work that he has accomplished on Calvary, that all who reject him and refuse him as their Savior, they will be eternally refused and expelled from his presence, and that means the judgment of God forever.
We've read about the sovereign Christ of Revelation chapter 6, and the survivors of the tribulation. They meet Christ in judgment. We've read the great men, doesn't matter what strata in society you are, doesn't matter what heights you might reach in this life, if you come to the end of your experience here on earth and you're meeting the sovereign Christ in judgment, we read that the kings of the earth and the great men and the rich men and the chief captains and all the mighty men and every bont man and every free man, they hid themselves in the rocks and in the mountains and the caves and in the rocks, and they cry to the rocks and mountains, fall on us and hide us from the face of him that sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb for the great day of his wrath is come.
And it ends up with a question, and who shall be able to stand? Tonight in your sins, you're taking the place of standing against him. There's none that will be able to stand against him. Why rebel anymore?
Why continue on in sin? Why not come to him and embrace him as your savior tonight and recognize that on the cross he died and he was wounded for our transgressions, therefore for mine. He was bruised for iniquity, therefore for mine.
And the chastisement, the punishment to bring me into peace with God was upon him. I need him as my savior. I embrace him as my savior. I take him at his word and deed. Christ died for sinners. This I read, and in my heart, I find the need of him to be my savior.
I trust him. And he says, him that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out. You come to him tonight, he'll receive you, he'll save you. For the son of man has come to seek and to save that which is lost.
May God help you to take him tonight as your savior and be saved for time and for eternity.