Good evening. Let's open tonight's
service with hymn number 46 from the hardback temple. 46, O for
a thousand tongues to sing my great Redeemer's praise. And
let's all stand together. Oh, for a thousand tongues to
sing my great Redeemer's praise, the glories of my God and King,
the triumphs of His grace. My gracious Master and my God,
assist me to proclaim, to spread through all the earth abroad
the honors of Thy name. Jesus the name that charms our
fears that bids our sorrows cease. Tis music in the sinners ears. Tis life and health and peace. He breaks the power of cancelled
sin. He sets the prisoner free. His blood can make the foulest
clean. His blood avails for me. Hear him ye deaf, his praise
ye dumb, your loosened tongues employ. Ye blind behold your
Savior come, and leap ye lame for joy. Glory to God and praise
and love be ever, ever given by saints below and saints above
the church in earth and heaven. Please be seated. Good evening. Let's open our
Bibles together to John chapter 6. John chapter 6. And we'll begin reading in verse
27. I know you've come here tonight
having labored this day for the meat that perishes. And that's
a necessity in this world. But our labor now is the hope
of receiving that meat that doesn't perish. Look what the Lord says
in verse 27. Labor not for the meat which
perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting
life, which the Son of Man shall give unto you for Him hath God
the Father sealed. My body is your meat, indeed. My blood is your drink, indeed. The body of the Lord Jesus Christ,
everything that He did, everything that He is, in His life, is our
meat. It's our everlasting life. Verse
28, then said they unto him, what shall we do that we might
work the works of God? And Jesus answered and said unto
them, this is the work of God, that you believe on him whom
he hath sent. Now the Lord's not saying if
you want to do the work of God, then you exercise your faith.
No, this is the work of God that you would believe. If you believe
God's worked that faith in you. They said, therefore, unto him,
what sign showest thou then that we may see and believe thee?
What dost thou work? Our fathers did eat man in the
desert, as it is written, he gave them bread from heaven to
eat. Then Jesus said unto them, barely, barely, I say unto you,
Moses gave you not that bread from heaven, but my father giveth
you the true bread from heaven for the bread of God is he which
cometh down from heaven and giveth life unto the world. Then said they unto him, Lord
evermore, give us this bread. I hope that's the prayer the
Lord's put on our hearts tonight. Lord evermore, give us this bread. Let's pray together. Our merciful Heavenly Father, we come here to this place knowing
that you have caused us to assemble ourselves together. That you
have put into our hearts a desire for everlasting life, a desire
to know thee, a desire to be made right with thee. Lord, we
pray that you would that you would satisfy that desire tonight. We pray that you would reveal
to us the glory of thy dear son. And cause us Lord to know that
in Christ we have acceptance with thee. In Christ we have
salvation. In Christ we have all our righteousness. In Christ we have the hope of
knowing. That the. the judgment of thy law has been
silenced, and that we have full righteousness and full acceptance
before thy throne of grace. O Lord, feed us with that meat
that perisheth not. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen. Let's all stand together again.
We'll sing hymn number 19 from the Gospel Hymn Spiral hymn book,
number 19. Sovereign ruler, Lord of all,
prostrate at your feet I fall. You are holy, wise, and just. I'm a creature of the dust. All things move at your command,
governed by your mighty hand. Heaven, earth, and hell I see,
Fulfill all your wise decree. Dares a man resist his Lord,
Stand against the sovereign God? I will bow before your throne,
seeking grace in Christ your Son. Through his blood and righteousness,
Lord, I plead with you for grace. If you will, you can, I know. Grace and mercy to me show. Will you, Lord, my soul forgive? Grant this sinner grace to live. I've no other hope but this,
Jesus' blood and righteousness. Now I'm conquered by your grace. In the dust I hide my face. Give me Christ or else I die. I upon your grace rely. Oh, for mercy, now I plead. Grant me, Lord, the grace I need. Turn, oh, turn to me and say,
all your sins are washed away. In my son, your debt is paid. He for you, the ransom made. Please be seated. And my son, your debt is paid.
He for you, the ransom, ransom is made. Will you open your Bibles with
me to Isaiah chapter 45. Isaiah chapter 45. I had today, as I was preparing
for this message, a delightful conversation with a young lady
who told me that she thought about heaven and hell and death
every day. I thought, boy, that's unusual. That's unusual. And after I was
able to talk to her about the Gospel, she said, what can I
do to be saved? This passage of Scripture answers
that question. What can I do to be saved? How can I be saved? How can I
be saved? How can I be delivered? How can
I have the hope of knowing that in just a few more days when
this life comes to an end that God's going to accept me into
his presence? How can I have the shame and
guilt? She was telling me how painful it was for her to go
to church. She felt judged. She felt like
everybody was better than her. I said, well, I promise you if
you come here, you won't be made to feel that way. There won't
be a single person here looking down at you. Most especially
the pastor. We all consider ourselves to
be the chief of all sinners. Look with me in verse 22 of this
passage. Look unto me and be saved. It's just that simple. It's that
simple, no more complicated than that. The Lord Jesus Christ says,
look unto me. As the serpent was lifted up
in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up. And
anyone that looks to Him will live. Why a serpent? Why did God instruct
Moses to make a brazen serpent? Isn't a serpent a picture of
Satan? Yeah, and he's the source of our sin problem, isn't he? Our father Adam may have bit
into an apple or some fruit that God had forbidden, but the real
bite in the garden was the bite of the serpent that infected
our father with sin and you and me. And so the Lord Jesus Christ
bore in his body upon that tree the sins of his people and suffered
the full wrath of God's justice in order to put those sins away
once and for all. And he said, look, just look,
look at what I, look at, look at what I've done. Look at who
I am. Look at who I am. I'm, I'm the
son of God. I'm the fullness of the Godhead
bodily. Well, I've been thinking about
this passage all week from Sunday, and I've just thought, you know,
most folks, God is just way too small. And our estimation doesn't
begin to measure up to what He really is. But He's God. He's God. He said, look to me, don't look
to the law, don't look to your works, don't look to your righteousness. I told this young lady today,
I said, you know, she said, here's what she said. She said, she
told me a little bit about her life and the things that she
had done and was doing even now. And she said, but she said, I,
you know, several years ago, I prayed and asked Jesus to come
into my heart. And I said, well now, what you've
just told me, I said, you told me about the things that you're
ashamed of, the things that you think are sinful, but you've
also told me about this experience that you had inviting Jesus into
your heart. I said, now which do you think
God considers to be worse? She said, what do you mean? I said, well, what do you, well,
The sinful things, I said, no. I said, if you think that Jesus
is sitting up in heaven waiting for you to let him save you,
your sense of presumption and self-righteousness is much worse
than that. She understood. She understood. Look back with me to verse 20. How can I be saved? How can I be saved? How can you
be saved? Well, the Lord doesn't leave
us wondering the answer to that question. He makes it very clear,
very simple. Look what he says in verse 20.
Assemble yourselves together And come, draw near together. So the Lord, the Lord says the
veil has been rent, the holies of holies is open, the blood
sacrifice has been made on the mercy seat. Here I will meet
with you. Come, come. I'm so hopeful this young lady
is going to come. Come here and come to Christ. But that's where salvation begins,
isn't it? It's coming. It's hearing that
irresistible call and not being able to not come. And assembling
ourselves together with others that are coming. So, assemble
yourselves together. Come. Draw near. Draw near. Ye that are escaped of the nations. Who is to be saved? Those who come who are escaped
from the nations. The nations, the scripture says,
are a drop in the bucket to God. They're a speck of dust on the
scale. They're nothing to Him. They're vanity. The only thing
of any significance, of any importance that's taking place in this world,
of eternal importance, is the salvation of God's people. And so he says, have you escaped
from the nations? Has the Lord brought you out? Has he delivered you from the
idolatry of the world? Look what he says. ye that are
escaped of the nations. They have no knowledge. They
have no knowledge. They have no understanding. They
don't believe God. They're basing all their faith
on lies. On lies. They have no knowledge of the
truth. They set up wood for their graven
images and pray to a God that cannot save. A God that cannot save. He's
not able to save. His hands are tied. He wants
to save, but he's, you know, he's dependent upon a salvation,
a God who depends upon us. To make some contribution to
our salvation is a God that cannot save. He's a God that cannot
save. He can't save. He doesn't have
the power to save. Verse 21, tell ye, Go ahead and speak to them and
tell them to bring their gods. Tell them to bring their little
Jesuses and their little gods. The gods of their imagination.
The god who wants to save, but he just can't get it done. The
god who made an offer of salvation, but can't make that offer effectual
without your cooperation. without your commitment. He's
just not capable. Bring that God before me. That's
what the Lord said in verse 21. Bring your false gods and your
imaginary gods before me. Let them take counsel together.
Let them put together all their wisdom, all their understanding. And then let me ask you a question. Who of those gods hath declared
a salvation from ancient time? In other words, what the Lord
is saying is, out of all the imaginary gods, all the gods
of wood, hay, and stubble, all the gods of silver and gold,
all the gods of man's imagination, all the idols of the world, any
of them establish before time ever began, a covenant, and place
in that covenant a particular people and reckon them to be
in Christ before time ever began? Any of those gods like that? Or are they gods who, well, they
have a plan to save, And they're working out their plan. You know,
there's no God. What does he say? Who hath told
it from that time? Does he have a set number of
people that he purposed to save from the beginning? Has his message
of salvation remained exactly the same? Or is your God adjusting
his plans based on the whims and will of man? You see, every
idol, every god fashioned by man is having to continually
adjust his plans based on the whims, the works, and the will
of man. Every one of them. I told this young lady today,
I said, let me tell you, she grew up in a church. and in a
church, I should say, and I said, let me tell you the message that
you heard all your life. God loves everybody, yep. Christ
died for everybody, yep. God wants everybody to be saved,
yep. Man has a free will, yep. You gotta make a decision in
order to make what God did work for you, right? Yep. I said,
every one of those are lies. Every one of them are lies. And when I finished talking,
she was visibly moved. And I'm just so hopeful for her. But she said, yeah, I've never
heard anything like what you're telling me. Never. In 29 years, I've never heard
anything like that before. And there is no God beside me. All those gods of man-made religion,
all those gods of false gospels, all those idols fashioned in
the imagination of man, they're not like me. They're not like
me. There's none like them to me.
A just God. and a Savior. Now the word just
there is the same. We sing that song, Tom, Jehovah Sidkenu. Sidkenu is righteousness, and
that's the word here. And righteousness in this context
means a full, perfect, complete adherence to the law of God. That's what righteousness means.
That's what Sidkenu means. The Lord is our righteousness. You see, I was reading someone
recently and they said, well, you know, the Ten Commandments
Matter of fact if you read all the all the confessions and all
the catechisms They will say they'll talk about the Ten Commandments. What is the what is the moral
obligation of? the believer to the commandments
and Almost all of them will say no man since the fall has been
able to give perfect obedience to the law of God nevertheless
We're to strive to do our best. And so the law becomes the rule
of life. And you measure your success
by how close you're getting to keeping the law. But let me tell
you something. You walk out there in the parking
lot and try to touch the moon. Just try to touch the moon. You
say, well, yeah, there's no way. Well, just try. Do your best.
What are you going to get, a six-inch vertical leap? You know, that's
about what mine is. Christ is the end of the law
for righteousness. You and I cannot become, no one
has ever been able to achieve perfect obedience to the law,
that's what they say. No one's even come close to satisfying
the demands of God's law. Not even close. Christ fulfilled all the requirements
of God's holy law. Now, the religionists, the self-righteous
will hear us talking like this and they'll say, are you suggesting
that we just live lawless lives? No, we have a law. It's the law
of grace. It's the law of Christ. It's
the law of love. It's the law of the spirit. We're
not measuring and monitoring ourselves by the mosaic law. We're looking to Christ and following
after him. He is our rule of life. He kept
the law. We have a God who is just, a
God who is righteous, a God who will not settle for anything
less than perfect obedience to his law. And he's not impressed. with
our efforts or attempts to strive to keep the law. Like I said,
you might as well try to touch the moon. You can't do it. Christ kept the law. We have
a just God. He satisfied God's holy law. He silenced its voice. He loved, what is the summary
of the law? One Pharisee asked the Lord,
what is the greatest of the commandments? And he summarized the whole Decalogue,
the whole 10 commandments. Love the Lord your God with all
of your heart, all of your mind, and all of your soul, and love
your neighbor as yourself. And that's exactly what the Lord
Jesus Christ did. Every thought and imagination
of our heart is only evil, and that continually. We've never
been able to love the Lord with all of our heart, all of our
mind, and all of our soul. Christ never did anything but
love the Lord with all of his heart, all of his mind, and all
of his soul. Every minute of his life was in complete obedience
and worship to the Father. There's my son. In him, I'm well
pleased. Hear ye him follow after him
There's no other God like this we have a God look and there
is no God else beside me a just God and a Savior now, how can
God be just? That means that he He doesn't compromise his law. He demands perfect, complete
obedience to his law. And at the same time, save lawbreakers. How can he do it? The Lord Jesus Christ bore in
his body upon that tree, all our violations of God's holy
law. Put them away once and for all
by the sacrifice of Himself. Oh, what a glorious Savior. He
is just and He's the Savior. Now that word Savior means deliverer. liberator, rescuer. Who's going to deliver us from
the curse of the law? Who's going to liberate us from
the wrath of God? Our Savior. He did it. That's what He did. As the sinner's sin-bearer, He
paid all that God requires for all our sin. Satisfied God's
holy justice. And then he says in verse 22,
look unto me. Look unto me. Don't try to impress God with your law keeping. He's very unimpressed with anything
that we do. Oh, but how satisfied he is with
Christ. Look unto me, and be ye saved. All the ends of the earth. There's
only one means, method, and message of salvation in all the world. Every culture, every language,
Every people, every nation, it's the same. Same message. For I
am God. And there is none else. I'm God. I'm the fullness of
the Godhead bodily. Everything you're ever going
to know about God, you're going to see it. You're going to find it out in
me. I keep making reference to my
conversation, but I'm so encouraged with this young lady. She said,
well, what about good people? When they die, if they don't
believe what you just said, don't they get to go to heaven? And
I said, well, I said, I reminded her of what we talked about.
I said, you know, there really aren't any good people in the
world. Oh yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense. Know what the
Lord said? Good master, what must I do to
be saved? Why callest thou me good? There's none good but God. There's none good but God. In me, that is in my flesh, dwelleth
no good thing. When we call a person good, we're
just comparing that person to bad people. Or if we say that we've done
something good, we're just comparing that act to something that we
did that wasn't good. But, that's not God's standard
of comparison. God's standard of comparison
is SIDKIN YOU. His righteousness, His justice,
His holiness, perfect obedience to His law all the time. That's the plumb line. That's
the standard by which God is measuring everybody. That's why I said, look unto
me. Look unto me and be saved. Verse 23, Ascribe to the Lord Jesus Christ All ability to save, all power
to save, all right to save. Look unto Him. He's the Christ,
the anointed one. I have sworn, verse 23, by myself. I didn't consult you. Didn't
consult anyone else. I spoke the words went out of
my mouth They accomplished the purpose for which I sent them.
They will not return them to me void God speaks it that that
just settles everything doesn't it? I Have sworn by myself God the Father swore he struck
hands with he made it he entered into a an eternal covenant of
grace with the Lord Jesus Christ and with the Holy Spirit before
the fall ever took place the fall was for the purpose
of the covenant Adam didn't sin and then God said what we're
gonna do to fix this problem The solution to the problem was
God swearing by Himself to His Son to give Christ a bride. And Christ entering into that
covenant and swearing to the Father to redeem His bride. And
the Holy Spirit entering into that covenant and agreeing to
regenerate irresistibly to make them willing in the day of His
power. I have sworn by myself I didn't consult you. I didn't
wait for you to need it. The solution to the problem was
already set in place before the problem existed. I have sworn by myself the word
is gone out of my mouth in righteousness and shall not return. That unto
me, unto me, every knee, shall bow, and every tongue shall swear." There's going to come a day when
God is going to parade His bride before all of creation as the
trophy of His grace, and all men will see who Christ is and
what He did, what He accomplished. And He'll be so glorified. And surely, surely, one will say, in the Lord is
my righteousness and my strength. All of my ability to believe
the gospel was in the Lord. My righteousness before God was
in the Lord. I didn't have any. It was all
in Him. Even to Him shall men come. Come to Christ. Just come to
Christ. Right now. In your heart. How shall I be saved? Come to
Christ. And all that are incensed against
Him, all that refuse to believe, all that Don't love the Lord
Jesus Christ, anathema maranatha. Didn't we see that in 1 Corinthians? They shall be ashamed. For in the Lord, in Christ, nowhere
else I've got to be found in Him. Lord, you've got to put
me in Christ. In the Lord shall all the seed
of Israel be justified. Now, to be justified before God
means that, remember, He's the one who is just and Savior. And that means that the law,
I fulfilled the law. Let me show you that. Turn with
me to Galatians chapter two. Look at verse 16, Galatians chapter
two, verse 16. knowing Remember we we we saw
in Isaiah chapter 45. They have no knowledge that set
up wooden images. They have no knowledge But we
know We know we know who Christ is. We know he's accomplished
We know what what he did and satisfying the law knowing that
a man is not justified by the works of the law. I You're not going to be justified
before God by striving to keep the law. It's not going to justify you.
That's the publican, isn't it? The publican, oh, God, I thank
Thee that I'm not like other men. The hypocrisy of self-righteous
religion. I fast and I tithe and I especially
get I'm not like that. I mean the Pharisee, I especially
thank you that I'm not like that publican over there. And the
publican would not so much as even look up but smote himself
upon the breast and what did he say? Oh God have mercy upon
me, the sinner. And the Lord asked this question,
which of those two went down to his house justified? Right
with God. having no condemnation before
the law of God. Which one? The mercy beggar. The publican. A man is not justified
by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ. You're not going to be justified
by your faith in Jesus Christ. We do have faith in Jesus Christ.
Our faith is in His faith. It's from faith to faith. Our
faith is in the faithfulness of the Lord Jesus Christ. By
the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ
that we might be justified by the faith of Christ. Our justification
before God is by His faithfulness. Remember, to be justified means
that you've fulfilled all righteousness. The Lord told John the Baptist,
suffer to be so for now, for this is necessary that we might
fulfill all righteousness. I've got to be baptized because
my baptism is in their stead. And in order for them to be made
clean before God, I'm gonna have to be baptized. not by the works of the law,
for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified." The law is for the lawless. It is. The child of God doesn't have
to go back to the law. He's got Christ to look to. Look
unto me and live. And you say, look to the law,
look unto me. But if while we seek to be justified by Christ,
we ourselves are found sinners, is therefore Christ the minister
of sin? God forbid. God forbid. We don't accuse him
for our sin. Go back with me to our text. Verse 24, surely one shall say
in the Lord, in the Lord, I have righteousness and in the Lord,
I have all my strength. I don't have strength in myself. We have no confidence in the
flesh. No confidence. All of our confidence
is in Christ. Even to him shall men come and
all that are incensed against him shall be ashamed. In the
Lord shall all the seed of Israel be justified. Not one will be lost. Everyone
that God chose in the covenant of grace, everyone that Christ
died for, Everyone of them is going to hear the gospel. Everyone
is going to be saved. Not one child left behind. And
everyone is going to ascribe to Christ all the glory for their
salvation. They're not going to say, well,
you know, I made a decision. I prayed a prayer. I did this.
I did that. Here's the evidence of my salvation.
They're going to point to the Lord Jesus Christ and he's going
to get all the glory. They're going to know that He's
the One. He's the One that satisfied the
demands of God's law for them. He's the One that put away their
sin. He's all their righteousness
and all their strength before God. He's the One that called
them out of darkness into His marvelous light. He's the One
that took out their heart of stone and put in a heart of flesh.
He's the one that gave them faith to believe. He's the one that
opened their ears and enabled them to understand, to hear the
gospel. To have some understanding of
themselves being a sinner, of Christ being the Savior. He's the one that continued to
work in them. causing them to will and to do
of his good pleasure, giving them a desire for Christ to keep
looking and keep coming. He gets all the glory, doesn't
he? You didn't do any of that. He did it all. In the Lord shall all the seed
of Israel be justified. And in the Lord, shout all the
seed of Israel, glory, glory. Let's pray. Our heavenly father. a simple message of salvation. You've declared it in your word,
and oh, how we pray that you would work in our hearts and
cause us, Lord, to look unto thee and live. Father, we pray for For this
young lady that I spoke to today and asked, Lord, that you would
give her ears to hear and cause her, Lord, to be saved. We ask
it in Christ's name. Amen. Brother Tom. Number 24. Let's stand together.
Number 24. Jehovah, sit, can you? The Lord, our righteousness. We love to call you by that name,
our Savior Christ Jesus. Jehovah Sidkayu, the God-man
lived for us, bringing eternal righteousness, which God imputes
to us. Jehovah Sidkenu, our substitute
who died. Your blood has put away our sin,
and we are justified. Jehovah Sidkenu, Your love has
won our praise. Trusting your blood and righteousness,
we're saved by your free grace. Jehovah Sidkenu, we stand in
you alone. Our only fitness before God is
in our Lord, His Son. Jehovah Sidkenu, the Lord, our
righteousness. Christ Jesus, you alone we call,
the Lord our righteousness. Thank you.