Isaiah 1, God's appeal as a Father, Farmer, Physician

I'll thank you very much for staying for the gospel meeting part of the conference. There's always something of a note of sadness from a very enjoyable weekend to come to the last meeting that can be turned into a meeting of great gladness for you to be saved tonight. I'm always very keenly aware of the fact that as just a young boy at a conference and I had no intention of being saved at the time when I went to that meeting, but when I came out of that meeting, there was no doubt in my mind who God was speaking to.

I knew he was speaking to me. I didn't really care if there was another person in that large auditorium. I had over 50 cousins in that meeting in Sarnia, Ontario, and I wanted to be saved that night.

I didn't. I fell asleep on the top of my bed with tracks in my hands, crying out to God to save me. But on the next Monday night, I'd come to trust Christ.

Somebody told me that was long after. Somebody said about somebody getting saved after the Sarnia conference said, yeah, some kid from St. Thomas. I was the kid from St. Thomas, okay? So God could save me.

He can save you. So with that in mind, we're going to pray. Our Father, we thank Thee for the God that Thou art, a God that is rich in mercy, a God who will abundantly pardon, and a God, unfortunately, that in our sin and by our sins, we have offended.

All we like sheep have gone astray. That's true. We couldn't help that, but we could help.

The rest of the verse, we've turned everyone to his own way. So Lord, we pray that Thou'll remember all that are gathered here, these dear children, that parents that have such a concern for them, they could not have them in a better place. And we thank you for them, bringing them to the conference with all the work that's involved and the managing of children.

But what a night it would be where we'd come to the close of this year of the Mount Sterling Bible Readings that we've enjoyed so much, and to go home singing, blessing God for moving in salvation. Remember meetings to follow tonight in Blue River and up in Ontario, over in Stout, Lord, and the other places too, where our brother Christopherson there is preaching. We pray that Thou'll bless.

We thank you for blessing and encouragement in these places and trust, Lord, that as we would follow them in our prayers, it will be further blessing to the salvation of precious souls and honor brought to the name of the Lord Jesus. So we look to Thee now as we give thanks in His name. Amen.

I'd like to read with you in Isaiah, Isaiah chapter 1, Isaiah's prophecy chapter 1, or as known, the gospel of the Old Testament, Isaiah chapter 1. Isaiah chapter 1 and verse number 1, the vision of Isaiah, the son of Amos, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem, the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, Hezekiah, kings of Judah. Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth, for the Lord has spoken. Significant, that little statement there, the Lord hath spoken.

Here's what the Lord has to say with what has gone before him. I have nourished and brought up children. They have rebelled against me.

The ox knoweth its owner in the ass' master's crib. But Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider. O sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters.

They have forsaken the Lord. They have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger. They are gone away backward.

Why should ye be stricken any more? Ye will revolt more and more. Now he tells you what the problem is. The whole head is sick.

The whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot, even unto the head, there is no soundness in it but wounds and bruises and putrefying sores that have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment, and so on. Now, come over, please, to just verse number 18.

Verse 18. Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord. Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow.

Though they be red like crimson, in other words, so obvious, they shall be as wool. The Bible, among many things, is a family book. Do not let anybody tell you or take that from it, that the Bible somehow isn't up to date for the instruction, the teaching of families.

It is a family book. Back where I live in eastern Canada, when I first moved to the area 42 years ago from southwestern Ontario, one of the large chain stores sold large family Bibles. And many of the homes that I would go into that wouldn't know from Genesis, from Revelation, because it was an attractive-looking book, had bought it.

And it would be on their coffee table, in their living rooms. This Bible, one of our brothers worked in the stores, the Dominion store, as it was called then, sold all kinds of those books, even though people didn't realize what was between the covers of that book. Between the covers of that book, my friend, tells you, tells me, how we can be saved, how we can know that we are right with God, how we can be absolutely certain of being in heaven.

But so few people would open that book. Sometimes I would go into homes and the book would be open. They didn't know what it was open to.

I would look and see it. But there it lay. Think of it, the value of it, just kind of an ornament in the house.

That's all it was. And yet within the covers of that book, there was wealth of truth for raising a family, for teaching a family, for guiding a family, that is up to date as anything you'll read online or on the web, and better. In Isaiah chapter 1, I'm not sure that we should take it as a note of encouragement or not, but there is a lament by God Himself.

He said, I've nourished, I brought up children, and they have rebelled against me. Nobody likes a rebellious child. And yet, I just say there's a little of it in all of them, some more than others.

They just, I just talked to a couple back our way the other day, two children just the opposite. The one is so parent-pleasing. The one just strives, goes out of her way, his way rather, to make his parents happy.

He wants them to be pleased with him. His sister could care less. She rebels at everything.

I know nothing against red hair, but she's got the reddest hair I ever saw in my life. But anyhow, that's just the nature. But you know, the truth is this.

If they die in their sins, they go to the same place. Where are you going? Where are you going to be if you die? You see, these people were unreasonable. They were literally unreasonable, and they're thinking.

In my younger days, and I'm speaking to someone, you think the same thing. Come on, girls too. Dad has got to be the most unreasonable character on planet earth.

Something's wrong. Dad's lost it. He's not being reasonable.

Let me give you a little advice at thelordbe.com. As you get older, you'll find out that Dad and Mom were the most reasonable people you ever met, because I had to find that out. But they had rebelled. They had rebelled against me, and there's consequences for that.

We weren't allowed with it too far in the home I was brought up in. My brother, who's coming to my mind now, was going to Israel, so he very kindly suggested that I should go along with him. I said, no, no, no.

I'm going to see it when it is cheaper and when it is much safer, if you don't mind. But you go, well, I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to say a prayer for you when I get to the Wailing Wall.

I said, you've already been there. No, he says, I haven't. I'm going.

No, no. I said, you've been in the Wailing Wall. I can remember being dragged out to the woodshed by Dad, and you were doing a lot of wailing, and we hadn't even got there.

And I remember Dad turning and saying, what are you, what are you, what's going on with you? I haven't even touched you yet. Well, you're blaming your sins on Murray, and now you're going to go to the Wailing Wall over there and pray for me? I don't think so, okay? But that's beside the point. I want you to notice that God appeals to them in three different ways.

First of all, he appeals to them as a father, as a farmer, and as a physician. As a father, he says, I have nourished. When he says I have nourished, in other words, there was nothing that you needed that I didn't give you.

Isn't that true? Nothing that you needed that I didn't give you. Look at you tonight. I know when, you know, it starts with Mom and Dad and things are going sideways, I remember I used to think that, I wonder what it would have been like to raise in so-and-so's house.

They don't have all the stiff rules my dad had, because they went places my dad wouldn't take us and do different things. I used to think, you know, I can tell you tonight there's no other home I'd ever wanted to have been raised in. My parents feared God, and the greatest desire as a father he had was to see his children saved.

That's a wonderful thing, friend. So he appeals as a father. In other words, there's something affectionate.

It's not just a callous, cold approach to the thing. People get wrong concepts of God. Either they envision him as some deity with his hands on his hips, staring down at them and so angry because of their sin, or they swing the other way.

That he's like some grandfather that just says, well, try and do a little better and kind of pacifies the thing and covers over. Not at all. Friend, God is righteous, and he's holy, and he abhors sin.

He hates it, but he loves you, and he wants to reason with you. See, that's what these people here are unreasonable. That's why God says to them, come now and let us reason together, saith the Lord.

That's the only one that can reason with you, is God can. And it isn't that you sit down and say, well, I give this much, I give this side, and now God, you've been wrong about me. No, my friend.

It is you coming to understand from the Word of God what God says about you is absolutely true. What your case is tonight is not normal. It's abnormal.

Abnormal. When God made man, he made him as he remade the man in John chapter 5. Remember, he said the Lord Jesus said to him, Wilt thou be made whole? He didn't say to him, do you want to get out of your cot and walk? Sure he did. But he said, wilt thou be made whole? When God saves an individual, do you know what he does? He makes that individual the way that he would have been had sin not affected him.

He makes him whole, just as he made Adam. I could show you words to prove to you that's how God makes a man spiritually as he made the man physically. I had to go into what you would call your transport.

Let's see, we call it Transport Canada. You would call it the FAA. A doctor here a week ago, back in Canada, and the nurse said to me at his receptionist said to me, Mr. McCaskill, the forms are changed.

Please be careful as you're filling it out that you get it right, okay? She says because if it gets a lot of whiteout on it, it doesn't feed through the computer right. So I said, sure, I'll do my best. I got my name in and my address and had to put in whether there'd been any violations and everything was, I guess, was right.

Went in for my annual, I call the airplane got an annual, but so did I, but physical examination for my pilot's license and the doctor stamped it and he checked things off. I wasn't really watching what he checked off and then went out to the the hard part where you have to part with the money and pay for it out to the receptionist and she's looking at it and I'm just standing there getting my money out of my wallet. She says, Dr. McCray, come here a minute.

So she showed it to him. Oh, he said, Mr. McCandless, my apologies. In all those boxes relating to you, I checked off abnormal and I said, don't worry about it.

I know a whole lot of Christians that would agree with you. Abnormal. So he did his correcting.

I still had to pay my bill. I thought maybe because he made such a foolish mistake, he said, you know, forget the bill. No, you still paid the bill.

Abnormal. Sin has made you abnormal in your thinking. Sin has, my friend, put a twist into your thinking that has made you literally unable to reason when it comes to spiritual things or scriptural things.

That's why I can, I'm sure I'm talking to men here that can talk to any men that they work with about logging, lumber, marketing. Turn to the same man and say, are you saved? He can't talk. The most foolish line you'll ever hear will come out of him.

What's wrong? That's Isaiah chapter one. Then he appeals to them, not only as a farmer, but as, rather, as a father, as a farmer. He says, the ox knows its owner.

The animal knows its owner. We have got large dairy farms in the town where I live. Farmers just going out the highway, milks 400 of them.

You go by there at three o'clock in the afternoon and they're lining up. Sure. You say, well, they're going because they want to be fed.

They're going to be milked, that's right. But they do want to be fed, but they know who's going to feed them. They know where the feed is.

The ox knows its owner. My people don't know. My people don't understand.

They don't relate to it. Understand my friend tonight that it has been God that has fed you. It has been God that has preserved you all these days along.

And it's good for you to understand that clearly tonight. But regardless, the reason that you need to be saved is because you cannot improve your present condition. Do absolutely nothing about it.

I was going over to the North of Ireland for a funeral of a friend a month and a half ago, sitting in the airport in Halifax, Nova Scotia, just minding my own business, working away at my laptop. And a man come and sat down beside me. He said, you're going to London Heathrow.

He said, yeah. I said, is that your final stop? No. He said, I'm actually going from there over to Belfast, Northern Ireland.

A lady just sitting behind her, seeks her back to me. She says, excuse me, sir. I hear you're going to Belfast area.

I said, I am. She said, do you mind me asking you where you're going? I said, well, I'm actually going to Coleraine. Oh, she says, well, that's where my husband and I lived for how many years? 20 some odd years.

But he died. So I'm back here where we lived a few years after over there. I said, if you don't mind me asking, was he ready to go? And she says, ready to go.

I said, was he saved? But yeah, yeah, yeah, he was saved. He was saved. I said, okay.

I said, because you know, if you're not, you're not ready to go. Quite very quiet. Five minutes later, I'm working away.

I'm not watching. And she says, excuse me, sir. I can't, nothing if, please, I'm not speaking offensively or in a degrading way at all at the moment.

She says, a Catholic priestess just sat behind you. I said, oh, very good. So she's talking to him and she says, show that to the man behind you.

So he reaches up this mug he has and it said all men are created equal. And I said, well, that's partly true, but not the whole truth. I said, excuse me, sir.

Can I ask you just a very simple, plain question? Are you saved? She answers for him. She says, excuse me, sir. I find that a very embarrassing question for you to ask people if they're saved.

Well, you just told me your husband was saved. Yes, but I still find it hard. I says, I don't.

I have no problem with it. How about you? How about you? I'm speaking to some here today and you'd try to pass coin, maybe, I mean, I don't know you or no circumstances as being saved and you know the most uncomfortable moment in your life is when you're questioned about it. The longest half hour, hour in your life is a gospel meeting.

Time to get this settled, friend. This is for eternity. This isn't just for this week or being able to pass coin with the Christians or the preachers.

This is for eternity where you're going to be. Okay? So what has to happen? You have got to meet with God. So he appeals as a father.

He appeals as a farmer, as a physician, and he simply comes to a very conclusion and it's good. It's very simple. You remember it like this, that from the head to the heart to the heel, there's no soundness in it, but wounds and bruises and putrefying sores that have not been bound up nor mollified with ointment.

That's your condition. So all the way through God takes the assessment and he says, is it possible humanly speaking you can reason with this? No. Then he said, here's the answer.

Come. Come now and let us reason together, saith the Lord. Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as stone.

Though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. You know, we want to cover our sins up and we want to hope that they're not seen as bad as they are. We live in a day when people flaunt their sin.

They're proud of it. They boost about it. But then they suffer for it.

Just read a report not too long ago of a young, very popular woman, actress, couldn't take it any longer. There was hardly anything in Hollywood that she hadn't been there and done that. And I think you know what I mean.

And the only thing left to take was her own life. And unfortunately, that's exactly what she did. She couldn't face it.

When all the time there was a God willing to forgive her. There was a God willing to save her. There was a God willing to make her white as snow.

But what had she to do? Come now. Not tomorrow. Come now.

Come now and let us reason together. So when it comes to reasoning, there's got to be a basis for it. What's the basis for the reasoning? The Word of God.

Okay. It's got to be the Word of God. That's why it says in Acts chapter 17 that Paul reasoned with them out of the scriptures.

He did not go outside of the scriptures to reason. He reasoned with them out of the scriptures. So the basis for the reasoning is what the Word of God says.

What's it say? Oh, we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way. The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

What else does it say? The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life to Jesus Christ our Lord. What else does it say? He that believeth in the Son hath everlasting life. He that believeth not the Son shall not see life.

Is that you tonight? Is that you? Never to see life? Or are you going to come amongst those that believe? Those that trust him? Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that heareth my word believeth on him that sent me hath everlasting life, shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death into life. That's a wonderful truth tonight, Fred. That's beyond our reasoning tonight.

But reasoning has to have a beginning, like the prodigal son. And you need to do what he did. He just sat down and he assessed his situation.

He said, this is crazy. What am I doing here? There's plenty back in my father's house. And I'm starving here.

I'm going back there. No, he didn't say I'm going home. He's going to the father's house.

The way to the father's house was to the father. And he would go, but there was a beginning for it. Okay? There was a basis for the reasoning and there had a beginning.

Listen, am I speaking to someone this meeting tonight? Why not start right now? Before you leave that chair that you're sitting on tonight, as a poor, guilty sinner, you coming to agree with God and admit, God, you're absolutely right. That when you say, as we have right here, that from the, uh, sole of the foot, even under the head, even under the head, there's no soundness in it, but runes and bruises and boots are fine sores. In other words, it's a picture of a leper in a horrible condition, a stench you wouldn't want to go near.

You couldn't take it. But God says, I will. God says, come to me.

Come to me. Come unto me. Come now and let us reason together, saith the Lord.

Notice the time frame. Come now. Not tomorrow.

Not later tonight. Come now. Do you know, if you were to understand the truth of what you're hearing and heard last night, if you would understand that and believe it, you wouldn't get off the chair until you were saved.

If you put the effort into going after it, that you put into it, and some people do fighting it, you'd be saved. Why does Saul strive against him? He giveth not account of his matters. My friend, why not come, just as the verse says, come now.

Let us reason together, saith the Lord. Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow. Though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.

I want to tell you that while this was being spoken to these people, they didn't come, but they're going to come. They're going to come. That's Isaiah chapter 53 will be the testimony of these people and how they were saved from their guilt and their sin.

And they'll look on him whom they have pierced. As the prophet Zechariah tells us, Isaiah 53, but he was wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our inequities. The chastisement of our peace was upon him and with his stripes, stripes singular, we are healed.

There's been a provision made for you at Calvary tonight. The Lord Jesus Christ has died. He's paid the price.

There's nothing you have to do. You don't have to raise your hand. You don't have to try believing the right way.

You couldn't do it if you tried. Because you know something? There's no wrong way of believing. You either believe it or you don't.

That's what the Bible says. You say, well, that's the word that stumbles me. Do you actually think that God put a word in his Bible long before you or I were born and said, well, I know people stumble at this, but we'll use it anyhow? Not at all.

There's no other word he could have used. I at times have listened to some men trying to feel sorry for sinners and the word believe. My friend, if God rewrote his book, his Bible tomorrow, he'd use the same word.

Because it's the only word he could use. It's the only word that he needed to use. And let me close with this.

Let me just give you this verse as I close tonight. Come now, let us reason together, saith the Lord, though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be red, though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. Imagine white as snow, once red, white as snow.

And they're all taken away. Never to be put back on again. I don't know a lot about sheep or sheep farming or the raising of sheep, but I do know this much about it.

You take that sheep, that wool from that sheep that its nature has produced, you can't put it on again. You're going to use all the scotch tape you want. You'll never put that wool on.

You can never put it back to it. Its nature produced it. It can't get rid of it.

You can't get rid of your sins. Somebody has to take them away. That's the truth of the Bible.

That's the truth of the word of God. He will take them away. God says, just come to me and I'll look after it.

Okay? Isn't nice when you have people, you've got difficulty, they say, well, just come to me and I'll look after it. You don't have to do it. I'll look after it for you.

You come tonight. Come now and let us reason together, saith the Lord. Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow.

Though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. Shall we pray? Our Father, we thank you for the gospel and for the truth of it. We remember, Lord, that we had no desire to reason with God.

There was a resistance in our heart. There was rebellion. There was everything and anything except wanting to know our sins forgiven.

Thank God for that moment. We just came as we were, just guilty, lost, and helpless. And now just make us whole.

Bless thy word tonight as we thank thee for it. In the Savior's name. Amen.