We're in Isaiah 55. Isaiah 55. I'm gonna read one portion of
this. We've read in our scripture reading,
we read verses one through three. I'm gonna just read verse two
for a moment. The Lord asked this question,
wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread, and
your labor for that which satisfieth not? What's the purpose of your life? What is the purpose of your life? When the end comes, what is it
that You hope you will have accomplished. What is it that you will have
lived your life for? Is your life purpose to have
a career? Is it to have riches? Is your purpose to have a family? Is your purpose to enjoy pleasure? What is it that you are aiming
at in your life? What's your purpose? Listen to God here again in verse
two. Wherefore do you spend money
for that which is not bread? Why do you labor for that which
satisfieth not? To live for any of those things
I just mentioned, for that to be your purpose in this world,
is to spend money for that which is not bread. It's to labor for
that which satisfies not. Those things won't feed your
soul. Those things will not save your
soul. Those things are not life. They're
not eternal life. That's labor that satisfies not. If you could talk to a man that
is at the end of his life that labored for those things, he
would tell you he's not satisfied. Go with me to Ecclesiastes chapter
11. When we're young and we hear
these things, we think, you know, I have my whole life ahead of
me. You know, I'm not thinking about
those things now. All the different thoughts that
come into our mind. Tim James used to put it like
this. Our thoughts are, I wanna get all I can, can all I get,
and sit on the can. And you know, really, That type
of purpose for man, that's no difference than the beast of
the field. You know, the animals out there, they wake, they eat,
they sleep, they breathe, they breathe, they die. That's it.
And they don't think about anything else. Listen to the Lord speak
and tell you what's in store. Ecclesiastes 11, verse seven. He says, truly the light is sweet,
and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun. But
if a man live many years and rejoice in them all, but he doesn't
have Christ, lives many years and he rejoices in them all,
yet let him remember the days of darkness, for they shall be
many. All that cometh is vanity. Rejoice, O young man, in thy
youth. Let thy heart cheer thee in the
days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart and the
sight of thine eyes. But know thou that for all these
things God will bring thee into judgment. Therefore, remove sorrow
from thy heart, and put away evil from thy flesh, for childhood
and youth are vanity. It's a vapor that shall soon
vanish away. That's what this life is, just
a vapor. If our purpose depends on our
flesh, living for the life, this life, the sight of our eyes,
the enjoyment we get just in everyday things, in this body. Read on, Ecclesiastes 12, one. He says, remember now thy creator
in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not. nor the
years draw nigh when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them. Beauty is gonna start to fade.
Verse two says, while the sun or the light or the moon or the
stars be not darkened, nor the clouds return after the rain,
then the body's gonna become weak and the hands are gonna
tremble. He said, in the day when the
keepers of the house shall tremble and the strong men shall bow
themselves, Your teeth are going to go. The grinders cease because
they're few. Sight will dim. Those that look
out of the windows be darkened. Friends will start to disappear.
The doors shall be shut in the streets. Your hearing will go. Noise will make you fearful,
he said, when the sound of the grinding is low, and he shall
rise up the voice of the bird, and all the daughters of music
shall be brought low. Also when they should be afraid
of that which is high, and fear shall be in the way, and the
almond tree shall flourish, that's gray hair like the almond tree
in blossom. And the grasshopper shall be
a burden, and desire shall fail, Then your friends will die, he
says, because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go
about the streets. Then the mind goes, ever the
silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the
pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern.
And then death. Then shall the dust return to
the earth as it was, but that's not the end. The spirit shall
return unto God who gave it. and then we'll stand before God
to judge us according to what the purpose of our life was,
what we did with the time he gave us. So God says if your
life's purpose is a career and riches and the pleasures of sin
and making a name for yourself and all the things that we normally
just naturally want, in our text he says, Wherefore do you spend
money for that which is not bread? Why? Why do you labor for that
which satisfies not? He calls it in another place,
laboring for the wind. Laboring for the wind. Imagine
living for this world. Go with me to Matthew 16. Imagine
living for this world and you get old and you know you're about
to face God in judgment. and you don't have Christ. I've
seen men face this time. I've seen that happen to men
and I've heard them speak. It's a bad place to be. Matthew
16, 26. This is Christ. He said, what is a man profited
if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul? What shall
a man give in exchange for his soul? For the son of man shall
come in the glory of his father with his angels, and then he
shall reward every man according to his works. He will reward
you according to what you used your life for, what your purpose
was. He said in Mark 8, 38, whosoever
shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and
sinful generation, Of him also shall the son of man be ashamed
when he cometh in the glory of his father with the holy angels.
He tells us in another place, enter ye in at the straight gate. For wide is the gate and broad
is the way that leadeth to destruction and many there be. which go in there at. When I was in my early teens,
my grandfather Watson was who was like a spiritual father to
me. At that time, my mom and my dad
did not believe the gospel. And he insisted on one thing
from me, one thing. He was my pastor as well, but
he insisted on one thing, he insisted that I be in the church
service. That was all he insisted of me. He said to me, what I've said
to our young people here, he said, you might not want to come
to these services. He said, but come anyway, because
if you are the Lord's and if the Lord saves you, this is how
he's going to save you. And that stuck with me. I didn't know why at the time,
but that stuck with me. I went to a college that was
a little closer to home, about 45 minutes away. I came home
every weekend. I went to church services, not
every weekend, but I was pretty consistent in going. And I'm
so thankful that he told me that because that's how the Lord saved
me. And now I know, looking back, it wasn't me that that heard
that word and made that word stick with me. Now I know the
Lord did that. It was the Lord that kept moving
me to go when I didn't want to go, to go and hear. I'm so thankful
that happened. At the time, I just thought,
you know, look, I'm doing such a good thing. And I felt guilty
if I didn't go. My granddaddy wants me there.
I need to go. So I went. But now I know it
was the Lord moving me to go. Here's what the Lord says. Verse
one, he says, ho, everyone that's thirsty, come ye to the waters.
This world is called in scripture a dry and thirsty land where
no water is. Oh, it promises you an oasis,
and it'll look like you're gonna have wells of plenty, but you'll
find out this earth is a dry and thirsty land where no water
is. There's nothing here that's gonna
satisfy you. what you're looking for and what
you set out to get, when you get it, you'll have a momentary
fleeting moment where you have a little pleasure that you achieved
it, and then it's gone. And then you're looking for the
next thing. And it's just one thing after another, just like
that. One thing after another. Christ is the waters. He's the
waterer. You remember what he told the
woman at the well? He came to her, and this lady comes up,
and she has no idea who he is. She comes to this well, and she's
got her bucket. She's going to draw out water
out of this well. And he comes to her, and he said, give me
a drink. And she didn't know who he was. And
he said to her, if you knew the gift of God, and who it is that
says to thee, give me to drink. He said, you would have asked
of him, and he would have given you the living water. He said,
she said, sir, you don't have anything to draw with, and this
well's deep, from whence hast thou that living water? She just
thought he was talking about earthy things. She said, are
you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us this well, and he
drank this well himself and his children, his cattle. And the
Lord asked her and said to her, whosoever drinks of this water
shall thirst again. That's what I'm telling you.
Whoever drinks of the water of this world, whatever it is you're
drinking, you're gonna thirst again, and you're never gonna
quench your thirst, ever. But our Lord said, but whoso
drinks of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst. You'll never thirst. The water
that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing
up into everlasting life. We had a spring down from where
I grew up, and when I'd be riding my bicycle in the summer, it'd
be so hot, and I'd be on this old gravel road in the middle
of nowhere, but I knew where that spring was. There was a
little path beat to it where people would go out there and
get a drink, and I'd park my bike, run out there, and get
on my hands and knees, and that little clear spring water was
coming up, and I'd get down there, and I'd take a drink of that,
and it was so good on a hot day in the hot south of Arkansas. Our Lord said, this life I'm
gonna give you, It's gonna be like a spring that just never
ends. It's just constant water springing
up. Life, life, life. And he's that life. He's that
life. You'll be satisfied for the first
time. You'll have something that quenches
your thirst. And he said, you'll never thirst
again. He's never gonna let you go thirsty. Oh, you'll want more. You're gonna want more, just
like a thirsty man wants more water. But he's never gonna let
you be without it. He's gonna keep giving it to
you, keep giving it to you. And the last day, when he was
on this earth, he stood up there having this great feast, men
going through all their religious ceremony, and that was their
water. That's what they were drinking
up. They'd go a little while and they'd come back and have
to drink again, because they never could quench their thirst.
Just religious works and religious ceremonies and putting their
confidence in that. And he stood up that day and
he said, if any man thirsts, let him come to me. And he said,
I'll give him living water. And he said, he that believeth
on me, out of his belly shall flow living water. Life, never ending life through
faith in Christ. And look at this now, it's free. Listen, it's free. Verse one,
he said, Isaiah 55 one, and he that hath no money, come ye,
buy and eat, ye come buy wine and milk without money and without
price. Wine and milk in that day, what
he's saying is, come and get the most precious commodities,
the most precious thing that there is to have. Come to me
and you can have it. It's free. It's free. Come. No money. Buy and eat. What kind of buying is this?
Buy without money? That's the Lord's kind of buying.
You come buy without money. Without money, without price.
There's some religions that make poor sinners think they can pay
for their religion. You know the Catholic religion
does that. You can pay to have your sin absolved by a man. Now you talk about depravity,
to really believe that I can go and give my hard-earned money
to a man, and a man can put my son away? Impossible. But people do it. People believe it. People pay
big money. And that's really and truly, that's what most religion
is anyway. People are giving their money
to the church because they're guilty, and it just helps soothe
that conscience a little bit. You know you were not redeemed
with corruptible things as silver and gold from the vain conversation
received by the tradition of your fathers, but with the precious
blood of Christ as a lamb without spot and without blemish. The
Lord Jesus Christ came down and did everything required so that
he can present his people to God, perfect in his perfection,
righteous in his righteousness, holy in his holiness, He paid
it all so that it's free to His people. And He says to you, I
told you these promises He made this morning. I showed you these
covenant promises. And right after that, I said,
if you want in on that, come to Christ. That's what He's saying.
He says, come to Me. No man in you. No merit. You didn't do anything. You have
nothing to give. You don't have any worthiness
in you. You don't have any righteousness in you. You don't have any ability
in you. You don't have anything to purchase
this life with, this everlasting life. You come empty, a sinner,
ignorant, undone, unable, just a wretched, wretched sinner. Come with nothing. He said, I
didn't come to call the righteous. I really don't like people that
think they're righteous. They just get on my, they get
under my skin. People that think they're good
and holy and pious and righteous and religious and they look what
I do, look what I did. But I'll give you news, Christ
didn't like them either. He told the Pharisees, you're
just a bunch of vipers. And that which you highly esteem
is an abomination in the sight of God. But he said, I came to
call sinners. I fit that bill. I meet that
qualification. I've had people, I've had righteous
people tell me, I meet that qualification. They tell me, you're just a sinner.
Thank you. Thank you for reminding me. I
have the qualification to come to Christ. Come buy wine and milk without
money and without price. When he makes you know that his
blood put away all the sin of his people, that his righteousness
is the righteousness, he'll robe you like that prodigal son took
his inheritance and went into a faraway land and spent it all
in riotous living. Then he ended up in a hog trough
feeding on the husk with the hogs. And he came to him and
he realized, the servants in my father's house live better
than I do. And he headed home. And his father saw him coming
a long ways off. And his father went out there
and he put the best robe on him. Christ will come to you and he'll
put his righteousness on you. That perfect, seamless garment
of righteousness that he worked, he'll put that on you. And he
put his ring on his hand. That ring is the symbol of the
covenant. He come and said, I'll make this covenant with you.
All these promises, they're yours. But you come this way, come without
money, come without price. Don't come thinking you gonna
buy this. Think about religion. Religion is trying to get you
to pay. That's what they're doing. False religion trying to get
men to pay. And the sad thing is, men will pay whatever false
religion tries to get them to pay. If they told you you had
to walk across broken glass barefooted, Men would shuck their shoes off
in a heartbeat and start walking. The Lord is telling, he's, I'm
trying to get you down to his price, nothing. You don't, you
can't buy this salvation. You cannot earn it. It's free. Come without money and without
price. Everything has been provided. Oh, it cost a great price. It
cost Christ dearly. God gave his only son. The Lord
Jesus Christ laid down his life. It cost him dearly, but it's
free for his people. Christ is life for the soul. Listen to me now. We're talking
about things that satisfy. Christ is life for the soul.
He says here, look here in verse two. He said, why do you spend
money for that which is not bread and labor for that which satisfies
not? Now listen to what he said. Hearken, that means hear diligently. Listen closely. Listen now, listen. Hearken diligently unto me. Christ says to you, listen closely
to me. And eat ye that which is good. You see, the way you eat this
food is with the ear. You eat by hearing. hearken diligently
and eat that which is good and let your soul delight itself
in fatness. Incline your ear and come unto
me here and your soul shall live. He gives faith through hearing
his word, through Christ speaking. See, I can sit here and speak
today and I can speak, I can turn to all these scriptures
When we got Him speaking to us right here, we don't have to
turn to a bunch of scripture. And I could say all these words,
but it's His word, and it's Him speaking His word. And when He
speaks His word into the heart, that's when you're gonna obey
Him. You're gonna hear, you're gonna listen closely, and you're
gonna hearken diligently, and you're gonna hear, and you're
gonna eat, and your soul's gonna live. and your soul will be satisfied. You'll be satisfied. Faith comes
by hearing and hearing by the word of God. By Him speaking
effectually His word into the heart. Listen, that's how believers
grow the same way. You might think this word is
just for people that have never believed. He's talking to His
church. The chapter division was put
there by men. We saw in the first hour those
covenant promises are to his believing people. And then he
gets finished with that and he says, now, come to me and hear
and delight your soul in Fatima. See, we never stop coming to
Christ. This is how we keep being saved
and this is how we keep growing and this is how everything we
need is coming to Christ freely without anything. Now listen,
don't ever come to Christ with any more than you came to him
the first time you ever came to him. When you first came to
him, you didn't have a thing. You knew you were a sinner and
had nothing to offer. Don't ever come to him with anything
more than that. Come empty, with no price, nothing
to buy, come empty. because this is how we keep hearing.
He says, come to me, all you that labor and are heavy laden,
and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn
of me for I'm meek and lowly in heart, and you'll find rest
for your soul. Soul rest. For my yoke's light,
it's easy, and my burden's light. Let me tell you what his yoke
is. Tell you why it's light. It's light because this is what
he tells you to do. He tells you, believe me. Did
you see what he just said to you? He said, hearken diligently,
hear, let your soul delight itself in fatness. That's a light yoke,
isn't it? Those are some pretty easy commands,
aren't they? Just keep hearing me, keep looking
to me, keep trusting me. See, that's what faith does.
We hear and we eat and we believe through faith. And that's his
yoke, is believe me, trust me. Trust me. I'll tell you when
the test comes is this. He said, these oppressive ones,
they're surely gonna rise up. And he said, but they're not
gonna hurt you. I'm gonna save you. And here's
the patience of the saints. Listen to this, Revelation 13,
nine. Let me give you this. I meant
to give you this in the first time, but listen to this. He
said, if any man have an ear, let him hear. He said, he that
leadeth into captivity, the person that's trying to take oppressed
people and take them captive, he shall go into captivity. He
that killeth with a sword, he must be killed with a sword.
Here is the patience and the faith of the saints. Faith does
this, faith trusts him. not only for my eternal standing
with God and my eternal acceptance with God in the day of judgment,
faith trusts Him today. When people are trying to lead
you captive and trying to oppress and real people in a real situation
are trying to do real things that are harmful and hurtful
and oppressive, it is trusting the Lord and patiently waiting
on Him to work it all out. That's a light and easy yoke,
brethren, to trust Christ, believe Christ, He will make good on
all these promises for us. That's what he'll do. Listen
now, he said, and don't come with money. He said, come empty. Come empty. Now listen, if you hear him and
you believe him and you come to him, you trust him. Here's
the promises he makes. He says in verse three, and I
will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies
of David. We saw this morning what they
are. David here is a picture of Christ. Let me show you that.
Go with me to Acts 13. Acts 13. Acts 13. And look here in verse 33. God hath fulfilled the same unto
their children, in that he hath raised up Jesus again, as it
is written in the second Psalm, thou art my son, this day have
I begotten thee. and as concerning that he raised
him up from the dead, now no more to return to corruption,
he said on this wise, I will give you the sure mercies of
David. This is God's word to Christ.
I'll give you the sure mercies of David. But Christ is saying
to you who are his, God's saying to you in Christ, I'll give you
the sure mercies of Christ. Look, go back to our text. Read
it here with me again. I'll give you, verse three, I'll
give you the sure mercies of David. Look at what the Lord
says. Behold, I've given him for a witness to the people.
That's who Christ, he's a witness to it. He's a leader and a commander
to the people. That's who Christ is. Behold,
he says to Christ, you shall call a nation that thou knowest
not and nations that knew not thee shall run to thee because
of the Lord thy God and for the Holy One of Israel for he hath
glorified thee. He's raised Christ up. And he
says now, because of Christ's finished work, he says, you come
to me and trust him. He says, I'll give you the sure
mercies of Christ. What do we see this morning?
He said, I'm gonna establish all my children as my living
stone. I'm gonna teach them. He'll teach
you everything. He said, I'm gonna protect you.
You're gonna be established in righteousness. You're gonna have
great peace in Christ. He said, I'm gonna protect you.
He said, and I'm gonna vindicate you and no tongue that rises
up against you will ever be able to condemn you. Now, let me tell
you something. I began this by saying, what's
your purpose in life? Here's my purpose in life. The
Lord made my purpose to be his purpose. Here's my purpose. I want to spend my life, myself
believe in him, and I want to spend my life telling needy,
perishing sinners, there is one savior who can save you. That's
the Lord Jesus. And when my life is over, I want
to have, I want it to be said of me that he did one thing.
He told sinners to come to Christ without money and without price
and Christ will save them. That's the only thing I wanna
do. I wanna just, I wanna help sinners look to Christ. So that
purpose rules everything. That purpose rules where I'm
gonna live, because I gotta be by a church where I can hear
the gospel. That purpose is gonna, where
I go, where I don't go. What I do, what I don't do. Whatever
you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus
Christ and to His glory. That's what God says to us. That's
my purpose. And I can't do a thing without
Him. My purpose is gonna be fulfilled by Him working it. And that's
His promise. You see, I'm trying to tell you,
brethren, and then when you get to the end of this life, I'm
gonna show you something. I'm gonna show you something.
These sure mercies of David. Go with me to Matthew 6. Matthew
6. When you believe on Christ, you
have his righteousness, you have his holiness, you have this peace
with God, you have this acceptance with God, then the works that
you do, the spiritual sacrifice, they're acceptable to God by
Jesus Christ. And not only that, but all those
other things you were working for, all those other things that
was your purpose, that you thought that's what your life was about,
he said, I'll add those things to you as you need them. Look
here, Matthew 6.31, take no thought saying what shall we eat or what
shall we drink or where shall we be clothed. All those things
do the world seek after. That's what he's saying, lost
men seek that. Your heavenly father knows you have need of
these things, but seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness
and these things shall be added to you. All these things will
be added. Whatever you need, he'll provide
it. I've never needed anything, I've
never wanted for anything. He's provided whatever I needed,
just everyday thing. Take no thought for tomorrow,
tomorrow take thought for the things of itself, sufficient
of the day is the evil thereof. And right now, go to Mark 10,
right now, you have an earthly father, you have an earthly mother,
sisters, brothers, I said some people live for family. Listen,
Ecclesiastes was telling us, they gonna die. You're not gonna
have them always. And one day you might not have
anybody that's your earthly family. But let me show you something
here. And when you believe Christ, they may turn on you. But listen
to what Christ says right here. You're gonna have way more fathers
and mothers, sisters and brothers. You're gonna have more lands.
And after that, eternal life. Look, Mark 10, 29. Jesus answered
and said, Verily I say unto you, there's no man that hath left
house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife,
or children, or lands for my sake and the gospels, but he
shall receive a hundredfold now in this time houses, and brethren,
and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands with persecutions. and in the world to come, eternal
life. Now listen, go with me to 2 Samuel
23. At the end of his life, David
believed Christ by God's grace, and he went through his whole
life. The Lord said, I'll make the
sure mercies of David with you. Now that's the mercies of Christ
to you. All the mercies of God are in
Christ. Now David went his whole life, and he had some trouble,
but listen to what he said right here. You take a man who never
believed Christ, he's at his dying day, and he knows he's
about to face God, and he might try to act tough around you and
act like he's not afraid, but he is shaking in his boots. He's
tried to convince himself there's no God, he's tried to convince
himself death's just death, but he knows in his heart of hearts,
I'm fixing to stand before God, and I don't have a righteousness. Christ provided everything through
His life, sisters, brothers, fathers, mothers, land, a hunter,
foe. He provided everything He needed
in this life. And then He got to His dying
day. And it says, verse 1 says, These be the last words of David.
Look at verse 5. Although my house be not so with
God, yet He hath made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered
in all things and sure. This is all my salvation and
all my desire, though he make it not to grow. This is it. This
is it. Imagine now, he's provided everything
you needed in this life. He used you to speak his gospel,
he used you to call other needy sinners to himself, taught his
children, saved them, protected you from oppression, provided
everything for you, all your life that you needed, gave you
more sisters and brothers, fathers and mothers and land than you'd
ever would have had. I could drive from here to California
and stay for free the whole way if I wanted to, just staying
at brethren's houses. and he's giving you all this,
and then you come to your dying breath, and you draw your last
breath, and he says, come, my child. Now you can really start
living. Now you have eternity with your
Redeemer, and you have all things, everything that's his. He said,
you're joint heir with me of everything that belongs to me.
I tell you what. If somebody offered you something
free and that's what it was, anybody that turns that down,
you gotta say that's a fool. A man that would turn that down
is a fool. That's as good as it gets right
there. That's the purpose for which God made the world, what
I just told you. I pray God make that your purpose.
Christ and his gospel and his people and his glory. Amen. All right, Brother Adam.