You likely noticed there are
a lot of shalls in this brief passage. He shall, he shall not,
he shall. And we'll look at each one of
these, but there's no maybes, there's no trying, there's no
chance, a lot of certainty. Whenever our Savior is spoken
of, in his word or by his men, there's a lot of certainty. God doesn't try. All of this has been settled
a long time ago. We're just experiencing now and
will experience, have experienced, what God has ordained and brought
to pass. What he is bringing to pass. And we rejoice to be part of
that We rejoice to take our place in his purpose. David said, all
of my salvation. I know we've heard this verse
many times now, but you think about what he said. All of my
salvation and everything that I care about is wrapped up in
this. God Almighty made a covenant
with me. God did something. That's my
salvation. God did something. I'm in on
it, but he made it. He did it. And it's ordered in
all things and sure. It doesn't need my cooperation.
It doesn't need my signature. God did it. He saved me. And I delight in his salvation. That's all my hope and all that
I care about. That's a pretty big statement. And here in our text, God says,
behold my servant. Now this is not a huge change
in thought from the previous chapter. If you remember in that
chapter, he calls upon the heathen, he calls upon the godless, bring
your best case, and we're gonna have judgment day. We're gonna
settle. this issue between God and sinners. And what God said concerned his
son. You remember right there in the
next verse, he said, I raised up. Look who I raised up. And
this is who he's talking about. Behold, my servant. In the end
of all that, we don't have anything to say. He said that at the end
of chapter 41, didn't he? We have to declare from the beginning
that we may know before time that we may say. He is righteous. There's none that show it. There's
none that declare it. Yeah, there's none that hear
your words. Verse 26, you've got nothing to say. You've got
no argument to bring. You've got no say in this matter.
God has settled it. And here's how he did it. Behold
my servant. God just really has one servant. One true servant. In the ultimate
sense, nobody has ever served God but our Lord Jesus Christ. You say, but wait a minute, Chris,
now Paul has called himself a servant of Christ, a bond slave of Jesus
Christ. Absolutely. In Christ, we are
servants of God. That's by God's choosing and
God's calling, called to be an apostle, a sent one, a servant
of Jesus Christ. But we haven't ever served God.
Are we just going to be honest tonight or are we going to pretend?
We have never served God. We don't even know what it means
to serve God. Adam started to for a while I suppose. I guess
he served God in the garden until he fell. Revelation 22. Look at this. Revelation chapter 22. This has always been such a beautiful
passage of scripture to me. I like to just sit and think
sometimes about what's going to happen, what it's going to
be like. It's so far beyond us, we can't really get a hold of
much of it. But listen to the beautiful language
of this. And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear
as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the
Lamb. Now we know that's Christ, but
there's no need of a sun there because Christ is the light.
The lamb is the light thereof. So who's the water thereof? Who's
the river? That's Christ. He's everything
there. He's everything here. We just
can't see it here. Proceeding out of the throne
of God and of the lamb in the midst of the street of it and
on either side of the river was there the tree of life, which
bear 12 manner of fruits and yielded her fruit every month.
And the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.
That's Christ. There's no life or healing in
anybody else. And there shall be no more curse,
but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it, and
His servants shall serve Him. His servants shall serve Him. Well haven't his servants always
served him? No. No. Of course they haven't. Well
that just sounds real simplistic that his servants shall serve
him. That's kind of a big deal. Because that had never happened
yet. But we're gonna. We're gonna. Because of Christ. We had never really served him.
And notice it said no more curse. No more curse in the same It's
a verse there. No more curse. Why is there a
curse? Because his servant didn't serve
him. Adam served his own will and not God's. And we've been
doing that ever since. But there's not going to be any
curse there. His servant shall serve him. But God raised up A true servant
that did always those things that pleased Him. Well, didn't
the Son of God please the Father in Heaven? Of course He did,
but He had to come down here. If there's going to be hope for
you, He had to come down here and please His Father as me,
as you, as a man, as a servant. And He did always those things
that pleased His Father. And because of Him, I one day
will serve God. We're kind of just playing at
it now. Although, what a wonderful blessing to be his servant in
a sense now. Wonderful. I don't want to minimize
that, but you understand what I'm saying. It's hard to think about that. It's almost, oddly, easier to
think of the Son of God as God than it is to think of Him as
a man. We can't much think of Him at all, for that matter,
without, you know, just seeing as He's limited us so, so greatly
in our thinking, and just even as believers, we don't have to
believe. But you know what I mean by that?
We can think of him as God, but it's hard to think of God as
a man, as somebody that needed to be upheld by his father. Angels came and ministered. He
gave his angels charge over him. And they came and ministered
unto him after he had been tried of Satan in the desert for forty
days. You know how that God defends
us. We understand that. He defends us all the time. Our
enemies do. If the Lord didn't defend us,
what, He keeps us? How many times would you have
fallen just today since you got out of bed if He didn't keep
you? He strengthens us. He did that
for His Son also as a man. Now we have to be upheld in many
ways because of our sin. Our Savior didn't need that.
He had no sin. But all the weaknesses, all the
infirmities of the flesh, As far as yet without sin Our Lord was a merciful and faithful
high priest that was touched with the feeling of our infirmities But when he bore our sin When
he bore our he was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief that
wasn't because he deserted And he was that all his life, but
the angels of God ministered unto him He was in the hand of his father.
You remember where he said, my sheep, no man can pluck them
out of my hand. And then he said, my father's
greater than me. And no man can pluck you out of my hand. We're
all in your father's hand. As a man, he was in the father's
hand, and we were in his hand. So we're wrapped up pretty good,
aren't we? In Christ. Untouchable. Infallible. And then he said, mine elect,
mine elect. This reminds us that God deals
with all men in two men. He'll either deal with you in
Adam or in the last Adam, which is Christ. Adam or Christ. God deals with you as the sinner,
the fallen Adam, sinner, Or he dealeth with you, as Paul said,
as with sons. He dealeth with you. When he
chastens you, that's not punishment for sin. How could we think that? When we go through something
bad, well, I'm suffering from my sin. Oh, we don't know what
that is and never will because of Christ. He dealeth with you
as with sons. Oh, and that's it. That's dealing
with you in Christ. His elect, Christ is the elect
of God. He is the chosen of God. And
all others who are chosen are chosen in Him. That's why we
see those blessed words all through the New Testament. In Him, in
Him, Ephesians chapter one, the whole book of Colossians, in
Him. Chosen in Him. Elect in Christ. Blessed in Him. with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places, in Christ Jesus. And every blessing
that God has, He blesses His Son. The Son inherits all things
by His own merit, because He deserves it. He's rewarded. We're rewarded because He deserves
it. When it says we were chosen in
him, it's saying we are elect in the elect. That's what it's
saying. And then he said this, in whom
my soul delighteth. There is a man, a human being, son of man, born of Adam, just like we were. But not of the seed of Adam. A man, flesh and blood like us,
yet without sin, yet without Adam's sin. The seed of woman. The virgin born, holy, son of
God. A man, a human being. I say son of Adam only in the sense
that all human beings came from Adam, but not from the seed of
Adam. Everybody born of the seed of
Adam is a sinner just like Adam was, just as sure as a dog begets
a dog. But Christ, born of Mary, born
of the Holy Spirit, the seed of woman, not the seed
of man. The one man that God is pleased
with. It's not that God is pleased
with Christ and then Christ does something for us and now he's
pleased with us also. It's not like that. It's God is pleased with Christ
and so in him he's pleased with us. He has done something for
us. He has changed us, but he didn't
make us in ourselves holy, meritoriously. holy and able to please God.
We're still sinful, vile, wretched creatures in this flesh. I can't
please God in myself and never have been able to, never will
be able to. My pleasing God is Christ himself. And I know that's hard to grasp
because there's nothing else like that. There's nothing else
like that. There's nothing else like the
The favor and blessing of God we have in Christ. We just have
to understand that when God looks at us, he don't see us. He sees
his son. He doesn't expect me to please
him, and it's a good thing he don't. He don't expect me to
keep his law. I've kept his law when Christ
kept his law. Christ is my pleasing of God.
He is my righteousness. He is my holiness. We're without
spot or wrinkle or any such thing in the sight of God where it
counts because of the precious blood of His Son. And as He stands
as our representative before God. God's not pleased with my
faith. He's not pleased with my works.
He's not pleased with anything except as He is pleased with
me in Christ. God gave me faith in His Son
because He's pleased with me in Christ. My faith doesn't please
God. But my faith lays hold, the faith
that he gave me, it lays hold of Christ and unites me with
Christ who is my righteousness. In whom my soul delighteth. His
soul delighteth in all of his people, but he does so in his
son. And because God delights in his
son only, I must be found in his son. That's what Paul realized
in Philippians chapter 3 where he's writing, God is only pleased
with his son and so I must be found in him not having my own
righteousness. If God should mark iniquities,
and he does, but if he marks any in me, I can't stand before
him. That's what he was saying, not
having mine, I must be found in him, not having my own righteousness,
but the righteousness which is by the faithfulness of Jesus
Christ, which is unto us by faith, given unto us by faith. How does
that happen? How is it that we're found in
Christ? How can I be found in Christ? Paul said in 1 Corinthians
1 26, for you see your calling brethren, how that not many wise
men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called.
You see, your calling, that's you he's talking about, not wise,
not mighty, not noble. But God has chosen the foolish
things in the world. He said, oh, fools and slow of
heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken. That's
us. The foolish things of the world
to confound the wise, and God hath chosen the weak things of
the world to confound the things which are mighty. Now this goes
right along with our text. Think about this when we're talking
about the smoking flax and the bruised reed. He deliberately
chose the bruised and the sputtering, weak, pathetic things. And the base things of the world
and the things which are despised hath God chosen, yea, and things
which are not. to bring to naught things that
are, that no flesh should glory in his presence. All right, the
reason I read all that, we're getting to my point here, which
all of this is included in the point. God has chosen those that
just, they're no good. They're just worthless. So that no flesh would glory
in his presence, but, Well, we're a bunch of no-count,
bunch of losers. Let's just quit. No, but of Him
are you in Christ Jesus. I'm a fool, but He's my wisdom. I'm a fool. I'm base. I'm base, but He's my righteousness. I'm weak, but He's my strength.
Of Him, but of God. Yes, you're nothing in yourself. Let's just come to terms with
that. You know why we're disappointed all the time? Because we expect
to be something and we find out we're not. That'll do it. If we keep looking to Him, of
God, are we in Christ Jesus, who is made unto us wisdom, righteousness,
sanctification, and redemption, all the things that were not
by nature, that according as it is written, he that glorieth,
let him glory in the Lord. If a fool, and in that same context,
Paul said, we have the mind of Christ. We preach the wisdom
of God in a mystery. If a fool can understand and
know the wisdom of God, what's going to happen? He's going to
glorify that God. That's what's going to happen.
Let him that glory. Glory in the God who gave such
wisdom to such a fool. Who turned the light on. And
in spite of us, we know who God is. Isaiah 45 24 says this surely
shall one say in the Lord have I righteousness In the Lord God
is pleased with me Am I the one that's saying that I'm saying
that in Christ. I have righteousness and strength When God says this is mine elect
in whom my soul delighteth I know he's happy with me too I Because
I must be found in him I'm pressing toward the mark Even to him shall men come all
that are incensed against him will be of shame but in the lord
Shall all the seed of israel be justified And glory That's
what we just read We're he's made unto us all these things
and we glory in him we glory in him And then he said this,
I put my spirit on him. Listen to John 333, he that receiveth
his testimony, this is our Lord, he that receiveth his testimony
has set to his seal that God is true. For he whom God hath
sent speaketh the words of God. For God giveth not the spirit
by measure unto him. The Father loveth the Son and
hath given all things into his hand. He that believeth on the
Son hath everlasting life. And think about this as I'm reading
this. I'm going to back up and read this again. You think about
how all of this has meaning for me. The way God sees his Son
and receives his Son. And glories in his son and delights
in his son that all has meaning for me. Why did he become a man? So I would be in on it He didn't
need to please come down here to please the father for himself.
He came down here and did that for me God delighted in him before
he ever came down here, but now he delights in him as me for
me So let's read this again He who hath received his testimony
hath said to his seal that God is true. For he whom God hath
sent speaketh the words of God. And he said, as the Father hath
sent me, so send I you. To do what? Speak the words of
God. That's what we do. For he whom God hath sent speaketh
the words of God. For God giveth not the Spirit
by measure unto him. Now he had the Spirit as a man
on him without any measure. We have the Spirit. We have the
same Spirit, the Spirit of God. But by measure, to some degree
or another, God giveth the gifts of the Spirit and he gives the
Spirit by degrees to his people. But he had the Spirit by measure,
but we have the same Spirit. And look at the rest of verse
35. The Father loveth the Son and hath given all things into
his hand. Well, weren't all things His
already? He was sitting on the throne of heaven. But now, as
me, all things are His. He that believeth on the Son
hath everlasting life, and he that believeth not the Son shall
not see life, but the breath of God abideth on him. I have
hope because of all of these things, because the Father delights
in His Son, because He chose His Son. Mine elect And He upheld
His Son. He sent His Son. And He shall
bring forth judgment to the Gentiles. That's the next phrase in our
text. Now what exactly did He bring forth to the Gentiles?
That was the question that came to my mind as I read this. What
is this judgment? As I've said to you before, people think about
judgment. You talk to somebody and say, what's the first thing
that comes to your mind When you think of the judgment of
God, if I say the judgment of God, what do you think about?
Oh, they say, well, hell. Hell. That's God judging sinners. That's wrath. That's punishment.
That's hell. That's part of it. That's included
in it. But this thing of judgment is Him deciding everything. He
may decide to take you home with Him forever. He may decide to
wash you from your sins. It may not have to do with hell.
Not where you're concerned. It's everything he decides. And
you know what he decides? Everything. It means the deciding of a case. Who decides the case? He does.
Which cases does he decide? All of them. He decides what
you're going to do tomorrow. Doesn't matter what you've planned.
And of course there's all different layers of significance to this
word judgment. And there is a day of reckoning,
a day of judgment in which all the things that are wrong are
going to be set right. But that too is Him deciding
the outcome. It's Him bringing to pass the
verdict on everything and everybody. And that's what He brings to
the Gentiles. Now think about this, the Gentiles
He's bringing forth something to them in this text that they
didn't have before. He's going to bring forth judgment to the
Gentiles. If Christ hadn't done what he
did, in other words, according to this text, they wouldn't have
this judgment, whatever it is. And as I said, it's the deciding
of a case. All judgment is committed unto
the Son. He said, the Father judgeth no
man. He's committed all judgment to me. The deciding of every
case is in his hand. Sovereign, almighty, what he
says goes. He's the judge. Now, would that
not have been true had God just ignored the Gentiles? If God
had just let all the Gentiles go to hell, would not he still
be on the throne of judgment and deciding everything? Of course
he would. But the bringing forth of that
to them is his revealing to them who he is. Sovereign. Life, death, your sins are forgiven,
yours aren't. He revealed himself as the sovereign
one who decides everything. You see how it flies in the face
of this when people talk about their free will. That's not just
a little bit of error in judgment. That's utter rebellion against
the Christ of God is what that is. Your will is an affront to
heaven. To talk about your will being
free is high treason against the Son of God. This is not talking about just
the final judgment as we think of that too, you know, the judgment
sea of crime, the judgment throne, the great white judgment and
things like that. This is Christ, that's in Christ's
hands too and there will be one. But all of it now is in His hands. Things are being decided right
now as you sit here tonight. You know who's deciding them.
It ain't you. It ain't me. God has decided some things already. That's what David was saying.
It's ordered in all things and sure it's settled. We saw the
shall, shall, shall. He has. It's done. It's accomplished. And he's written them all down.
And that's what he brought forth to the Gentiles. His book. His
judgments. His reckoning of things. His
truth. His gospel. All of the will of
God. Revealed right here. That he's
seen fit to reveal. How many Gentiles had any idea
who God is before Christ came? Have you ever thought about that?
There are a couple of exceptions in the Old Testament. Just a
couple. for the sake of his, you know,
because they were his sheep. But how many before the Lord
Jesus Christ came had any idea? And then he comes and he sends
his disciples into all the world. He preached to the Jews only
when he came. But he sent his disciples into
all the world to preach the gospel. Why? Because some of them were
chosen in the chosen. Some of them were elect in the
elect. He calls his people out of every kindred tribe nation
and tongue under heaven Remember that God said to the nation of
Israel. Let me read it to you in Deuteronomy 7 7 you've heard
this before The Lord did not set his love upon you the nation
of Israel nor choose you because you were more in number than
any people For you were the fewest of all people but the Lord loved
you and And because he would keep the oath which he had sworn
unto your fathers had the Lord brought you out with a mighty
hand and redeemed you out of the house of bondmen from the
hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. Now we know that he wasn't talking
when he says I've loved you and I redeemed you. He's not talking
about every Jew. Everyone that's born a Jew is
saved by God. We know better than that. He
said I hate Esau. Esau was a Jew. And we know that
that's true of many of them and in John 3 16 all the world is
included in that For God so loved the world that he gave his only
begotten son and again We know that's not everybody if he gave
his only begotten son to save everybody then everybody be saved
That's pretty clear, but he's saying all the world all the
world The Gentiles are brought in Judgment is brought to them
the truth of God the gospel is brought to them revealed to them
that Christ is all that he's the judge that he's sovereign
that he's the one that decides that he is the one by his precious
blood who actually makes the difference between sinners Not the world without exception,
but the world without distinction every kindred tribe nation tongue
under heaven And he sent them out, he said, going to all the
world, all the world, but not to save the world. We're going
to see that in the next verse, not to save the whole world.
If God wanted to save the whole world, how long do you think
it would take him to do that? He said, my hand's not shortened
that I can't save. He wants to save the world. He saved the
world. He could have done it yesterday. But this was all new to the Jews.
This was newly revealed to them as a whole. Even many of his
disciples didn't understand that. They didn't think the Gentiles
should be included in it. Simon Peter refused to preach
to the Gentiles. He said, I've never eaten anything
unclean. You remember the Lord Jesus said
to him, don't you call unclean what I've cleansed. And then Simon preached to them. It's good to be included in it
It's good to be included verse 2 He shall not cry nor lift up
nor cause his voice to be heard in the streets Turn to Matthew chapter 12 scripture
nothing sheds light on scripture like scripture Matthew chapter
12 verse 15 But when Jesus knew it, he withdrew
himself from thins. And great multitudes followed
him, and he healed them all. And he charged them that they
should not make him known. Can you imagine? Can you imagine
that? Don't tell anybody that I healed
you. Don't tell anybody who I am.
Don't tell anybody the power that I have. Don't tell anybody. Why did he do that? That it might
be fulfilled, which was spoken of Isaiah the prophet. Saying
what? Our text. You see that? Behold
my sermon whom I have chosen, my beloved, in whom my soul is
well pleased, I will put my spirit upon him. And he shall show judgment
to the Gentiles. He shall not strive nor cry. He's not going down through the
streets saying everybody come to me, come to me, come to me.
He didn't do that. He shall not strive nor cry,
neither shall any man hear his voice in the streets. There were
times when he stood at that last great day of the feast, you remember,
he cried out, is anybody thirsty? Come. But that was a specific
place at a specific time in a specific way for a specific reason. He
didn't always do that. He didn't go around everywhere
trying to save everybody. He came, he said, I came to seek
and to save that. All those lost sheep that my
father gave me, I'm not gonna lose any of them. That's who
he came to save. And that's why he didn't go around
trying to save everybody. He didn't come to save everybody.
He told them, don't tell anybody. Why in the world would somebody
that's trying to save the world say, don't tell anybody who I
am? Nobody that's trying to save the world ever did say that.
Our Lord did though. I saw on a website once that
the purpose of a certain man's ministry, I've told some of y'all
this, this man touted himself as the consummate gospel preacher.
And he said on his website that his purpose of his ministry was
to make Jesus famous. The man wanted to meet with me
and have And I just simply told him we have different purposes.
Your purpose is not my purpose. And so we really don't have anything
to talk about. That's repulsive, isn't it? To make Jesus famous.
That's pretty repulsive. And it's counter to what our
Lord's purpose was and is. It's just counter to that. It's
not what our Lord came to do. He never was famous. He never
meant to be famous. He didn't want to be famous.
That's not what His purpose was. If our Lord's purpose was to
save everybody, He wouldn't have said, don't tell anybody who
I am. He would never say that in a million years. But what
about us? He knew who the elect were. And
He went right to many of them individually, didn't He? He said,
let's cross the sea over here. Well, where are we going, Lord?
There's a madman over there I've got an appointment with. He knew who the elect were. He
wouldn't write too many of them, but we don't know that. And has
he not told us to go into all the world and preach to every
creature? Yes, absolutely. But he also said, if they don't
receive you, shake the dust off of your feet and go somewhere
else. We know that his purpose is not
to save the world, and so that's not our purpose. We just want
to declare the glories of the Lord Jesus Christ and whatever
his purpose is in that. Whether it's the saver of death
unto death or life unto life. That's his business. Our business
is to proclaim the glories of the Savior. To tell who he is
and what he did and why he did it. And most people fall under
that shake the dust off your feet category. Most people fall
under that category. I've had to shake a lot of dust
off of my feet. How about you? But bless God, it hadn't always
been that way. It's not that way every time,
is it? The Lord has never been famous. If He came to be famous, He's
a failure, isn't He? What happened was they beat Him,
mocked Him, spit on Him. Punched him in the face and nailed
him to a cross and laughed at him. Doesn't sound very famous
to me. That's what you call infamous.
It's just the opposite. He's not ever going to be famous.
People don't love him anymore today than they did then. I don't
care how many stanzas of Oh How I Love Jesus they sing. They
feel exactly the same way today as they did then. And we would
too, if not for his grace. But by His grace we're looking
for His sheep just like He did. I don't know who they are. And
we're gonna have to preach to everybody that'll listen in order
to find them. That's fine. Everybody that'll listen. Anybody
that's willing to listen. Come on. But I tell you what
we don't have to do to find the sheep. We don't have to prostitute
the Word of God to find them. We don't have to make God out
to be a beggar in order to find Him. We don't have to cast pearls
before swine in order to find Him. We don't have to diminish
the offense of the cross in order to find Him. If your purpose is to get the
world saved, then your purpose is counter to His, and you're
going to have to compromise the truth to get it done. If your purpose is to declare
Christ and Him crucified, the world's gonna hate you. He said,
they hated me, and they're gonna hate you. And they hate you because
they hate me. For my sake, you'll be persecuted
and hated. But that's all right. But Christ
will be honored. He's gonna be honored, and His
sheep will be saved, every last one of them. And listen to this, a bruised
reed, verse three, a bruised reed shall he not break and the
smoking flax shall he not quench. He shall bring forth judgment
unto truth. I'm so thankful for this. Our
Lord is tender and kind and gentle and longsuffering. He's not looking
for the strong and capable. He's looking for the bruised
reed. That's who he came for. When you have a reed, a certain
type of plant, a slender plant, have you ever seen, and once
it's broken, you can't hardly get it to stand up again, can
you? You put it back up, it's gonna fall back over. That's
what this is talking about. When our Lord has a bruised reed
in his garden, he don't pull it up and throw it away. Those
are his favorite ones. His garden is full of those.
That's all that's in his garden. That's all that's in his garden.
You see, they're beautiful with his comeliness, not their own.
Those are his favorite ones, the ones that are always bent
over. The bruised, the word bruised literally means crushed. The
crushed plant, the crushed reed, a tender plant, once you step
on it, it's not ever gonna be worth much after that. I've accidentally
done that before, planting my tomatoes or whatever, planting
my garden. Have you ever done that? You're planting the next
row, and you go, oh no, I stepped on that one, it's crushed. And
you can try to bring it back, but it's not ever gonna bear
any fruit, to speak of. It's not gonna be worth anything.
You know what I do? I pull that thing up and throw
it away, but not my savior. He don't do that. I'm too glad. I'd pull it up and put another
one there, but not him. Not him. He likes the crushed
ones. He uses the ones that aren't going to ever be worth nothing. It's not ever going to bear very
much fruit. It's okay. It's alright with him. Now if you're a healthy plant,
You know that uses all of its resources to just put on pretty
flowers and lush leaves like that fig tree that didn't have
any figs on it. He cursed that thing. You know
why he did that? What good is a fig tree that
don't have any figs on it? If it would have had one fig
on it. But it didn't have any. I'm sure
it was a lovely tree. But our Lord cursed it. But our
Lord is not ruthless and cruel. That's not what that's saying.
He just hates self-righteousness. That fig tree represents the
Pharisees who look good and proud and strong and capable, you know,
on the outside. But they ain't never borne any
fruit for God. Don't even know who God is. Our
Lord's not ruthless and cruel. He just hates self-righteousness.
But the plant that is bowed over and can't hardly talk. Moses
said, I can't even talk, Lord. That's why I came to you. I'm
going to go with you. I'm going to speak for you. But
that plant that can't produce anything, really not much. Maybe
just like Tabitha in Acts chapter 9. I always think about her for
some reason. Says she's full of good work. You know what she
did? When she died, everybody said, look at this coat she made
me. She made me a coat. That don't sound like much. Not
to you. Not to me, maybe. Unless somehow
we can begin to see things the way our Lord does. It's not about... He doesn't need us to carry the
weight. He doesn't need us to produce
He doesn't need us to win souls, it's not about that. That widow
put two mites in there, what's that gonna do? We can't get anybody,
we can't even keep the lights on with two mites. He said, she's
put in more than anybody else here today. Does that make sense
to us? Maybe I just have one mite. The Lord says that's the biggest
gift in the place. If it's about that alabaster
box of warmth. Lord, we could have done all
kinds of good with that. She did what she could for me. She
did it for me. She's anointed me for my burial.
She did it for me. That one mite. Is it worth anything? Depends on what it's for. Is
it for Him? With all your heart. With all
your heart. That's the bruised reed. The
Lord don't need any money. Do we understand that? The Lord
don't need any money. Well, don't quit giving because
Chris said we don't need any money. We do have to keep the
lights on. But you know what I'm saying? The Lord don't need
any money. Does he? He allows us. David said, who
are we that we should be able to give back what you gave to
us? What a privilege. What an honor that is. He don't
need our talents and our gifts. He gave them to us, not to make
us a big deal. He did it for his glory. Now
what are we going to do with it? And the smoking flax. Flax, I
found out, I never did understand it. I thought it was maybe a
picture of somebody trying to start a fire, and you know, and you
can't get it going. But the flax is apparently what
was used to make wicks for lamps. Or what they then called candles.
It talks about the golden candlestick. There was no wax involved in
that. That's a lamp. That's what they called a candle.
And the wicks were made out of flax. And so in other words here,
he's talking about a lamp or a candle that's barely even,
it's just smoldering. It's not putting forth any light.
No light, it's just smoking. And how appropriate is that right
now when we just got through seeing In the book of Luke, how
that the Lord talks about, He said, you're the light of the
world. Don't hide the light. Shine the light. You're the light
of the world. Oh, but Chris, there's not much to us. That's
all right. He don't need there to be much
to you. The smoking flats, I'm just flickering. I don't even flicker most of
the time. It's okay to want to do better for Him. But you know
what? That's not why he saved you. So you could put out for
him. We are the light of the world,
but let's be honest. There's not much to us, is there?
That's all right. You know what? Because he is
the light of the world. Both are true. It's a great privilege to speak
for our Lord, to witness for Him, to be a light for Him. And we want to set the world
on fire, don't we? We want to. You know, David said in Psalm
107-80 that men would praise the Lord for His goodness. and
for His wonderful works to the children of men. He said that
four times in that same psalm and we want that. We want people
to see Him and to know Him and to glorify Him. Don't we? I don't
like the world the way it is. Wouldn't it be wonderful to set
this whole thing on fire? And somehow there'd be what we
might think of as a revival, whatever you want to call it,
where the Lord begins to reveal Himself to people. Maybe it starts
with those that we love that are going to hell. And maybe
it spreads from there. That'd be wonderful, wouldn't
it? But we start thinking we're going
to do that. We need to understand something. He's going to have
to do that. We're just smoking flax. We're just smoking flax. We want
everybody to know Him. We want everybody to rejoice
in Him. We want to be a shining light for Him here. But how's
that going? Are we setting anything on fire here? It's easy to get discouraged,
isn't it? And I'll tell you this, it's such a, it's hard to explain,
but I'm on cloud nine half the time, and the other half the
time, I'm in the ditch. And there ain't a whole lot in
between. Doesn't seem like. I mean, how can you not be on
cloud nine? Look what God's done here. Look what God's done here. Done something special right
here. There just ain't no doubt about it. And what a blessing
to be in on it. But then I begin to think about
what are we doing? What are we really accomplishing
here? People say things that get me
discouraged. Not us. I don't want to get into
details, but you know what the prevailing
thought is. We ought to be doing all this and that and have all
these ministries and outreaches and all this kind of stuff. And
sometimes I wonder if we shouldn't be doing something like that. Maybe we are a complete failure
in that regard. And so you can see how I might
get discouraged sometimes too, huh? We can't even do sometimes
some very, very little things, much less anything big. So it's
easy to get down to it. You know why I don't get so discouraged
though that I quit? This is the honest truth now.
You know why I don't quit? Because of the next two words
in our text. He shall. It's not up to me. It's just not. And I'm so glad.
I don't want to use that as an excuse to be lukewarm and to
be lazy or to be ineffective. I don't want to use that as an
excuse. But I'm so glad. The smoking flax. He will not
quench. He shall accomplish His purposes. He shall bring forth judgment.
He shall bring forth His truth. He shall. And I see His disciples
in the Scriptures. There wasn't much to them either,
was there? How is it that you have no faith? And I've been
with you so long and you don't know who I am. And it's hard
not to take a little encouragement from that because I can say,
that's me. And he didn't cast them off. But at the same time, I'm not
happy to be a failure every day. But you know what I am happy
about? That he chooses failures. And he don't just rip us up and
throw us away in spite of the fact that we are failures. We are the light of the world.
A smoking candle is not just useless, is it? If you had a
candle in your house and all it was putting out was smoke,
you know what you'd do? It's not just useless, it's a nuisance.
That pretty well describes us, doesn't it? If we are the light, then how
in the world is the world going to have any light? Because He's
the light. Because He shall. In spite of
us. He's always used such as us.
All through this book, we see it, don't we? He's always used.
Nobody's from nowhere. And I reckon he's still doing
that. For whatever it is he's using us for. And I pray this
often, Lord, give me wisdom. If there's something else, there's
something more that we need to do. Give me the grace and the
means to do it. We ain't got long here, y'all.
Whatever we're going to do, we better get to doing it. Maybe
we are doing it. I'll tell you this, we ain't
going to do nothing. You know that. I'm encouraged
and I rejoice that he would use me and you. But most of all,
I'm encouraged and rejoice that he's going to get the job done
in spite of us. And if we're in on it, what a
blessing. What a blessing. Let's get back up on cloud nine.
What a blessing it is that he would use us. Isn't it wonderful? He shall not fail. I'm out of
time, but we'll have to talk about this next time. He shall
not fail. We're a bunch of bruised reeds
and smoking flax. But He is the victorious, successful,
almighty Son of God. And He's not going to fail. And
because He's not, we're not. We're going to be the saver of
death to some and the saver of life to others. Who's sufficient
for that? We're not. But our sufficiency,
Paul said, is of God. And so we're encouraged in the
Lord. Let's pray.