Thank you so much. I enjoyed
the singing this morning. That was an amazing grace. That was so good. Let's turn
in our Bibles to Isaiah 59. I agree with Ravi. His grace is
amazing in every way. Every way. We should sing that
song more often, Eric. Isaiah 59. Now the text here, I want to
try to look at all 21 verses today, and the things recorded
here really happen. They apply to Israel in Isaiah's
day, but the Holy Spirit used the Apostle Paul to tell us in
Romans 3, he quoted from this chapter, and he tells us that
these things apply to all of us. What he says here concerning
sin applies to everybody in this world. Paul quotes from here
and he ended up saying because we've all sinned and come short
of the glory of God. This applies to us all. Now here's
the main point of the chapter. Except God sovereignly interrupts
us. Except God sovereignly interrupts
us and saves us by the Lord Jesus Christ, we're going to justly
perish in our sins. Our need for the Redeemer. That's
our subject. Our need for the Redeemer. And
I want to show you five things in this chapter. And they all
begin with a C. First is character. Second is
cause. Three is confession. Four is
Christ. and five is covenant. Character,
cause, confession, Christ, and covenant. First is character.
The character of God. Verse 1 says, Behold, the Lord's
hand is not shortened that it cannot save, neither His ear
heavy that it cannot hear. But your iniquities have separated
between you and your God, and your sins have hid His face from
you that He will not hear. How often have we heard the question,
how could a sovereign God allow such suffering in the world?
Well, brethren, the suffering in this world can never be blamed
on God. It can never be blamed on God.
He says, the Lord's hand is not short that it cannot save, and
neither is His ear heavy that it cannot hear. No, no. Now, he said over in Isaiah 50,
he said, Can I not redeem? You think I can't redeem? He
said, Do you think I don't have power to deliver? He said, At
my rebuke, I drive the sea. I make the rivers to stink. I
make everything just dry. Just at my rebuke, God said.
Jeremiah 32. Look over there with me. Just
to your right. Jeremiah 32. Listen to this. Jeremiah 32, 17. He says, Ah, Lord God, behold, Thou
hast made the heaven and the earth by Thy great power and
stretched out arm, and there's nothing too hard for Thee. Now
that's who our God is. Listen to this, Thou showest
lovingkindness unto thousands to thousands. and you recompense
the iniquity of the fathers into the bosom of their children after
them. There's where the suffering comes from. It's the fathers
and the children. That's where the suffering comes
from. He's great and mighty, the mighty
God, the Lord of hosts is His name. He's great in counsel,
He's mighty in work, And thine eyes are opened upon all the
ways of the sons of men, to give everyone..." Now listen to this,
"...to give everyone according to his ways, according to the
fruit of his doings." God's not unjust. The Lord's hand's mighty
to save His ears ready to hear all that call upon Him. But God
only hears those who call upon Him for mercy. for mercy. Mercy means I need God to withhold
from me what I deserve. Grace means I need God to give
me what I don't deserve. It means I need salvation. It
means I need God to save me because there's no possible way I can
save myself. Now that sinner that comes, God
will hear him. No, I don't hear Him. And He's
done that to thousands. Jeremiah said, He shows loving
kindness to thousands. You don't ever hear men say,
Oh, a sovereign God showing loving kindness to thousands. That's
what He's doing. That's what He's doing. In the
midst of all the suffering and sin, He's showing loving kindness
to thousands. and not being frustrated in doing
it. He's doing it exactly according
to His purpose, exactly right on time, exactly as He will.
So what's the problem? What's the problem? The problem
is that our sins have separated us from God. That's the problem. We will not call on God for mercy
because of our iniquities, because of our sins. God says this right
here to each of us personally. Look at verse 2. But your iniquities,
have separated between you and your God. And your sins have
hid His face from you that He will not hear. You see, it's
not somebody else's fault. It's certainly not God's fault.
It's not my neighbor's fault. It's not something's fault. The
fault is me. This is what God said. He said,
don't be looking at others, don't be blaming God. He says, blame
yourself. That's what God said. Your iniquities,
your sins have done the separating. God won't hear upon us unless
we call confessing our sins. God won't hear us unless we call
on Him confessing our total inability. God won't hear us unless we call
confessing our need for Christ alone to save us from our sins. But due to our sin and due to
our separation, we won't call God that way. We won't call on
Him that way. Isaiah 50 and verse 2, Wherefore,
when I came, was there no man? When I called, God said, there
was none to answer. There was none to answer. None
to answer. Look here in Isaiah 64 and verse
7. I just looked this up a minute
ago. Look at this. Isaiah 64 verse 7. There is none that calleth upon
thy name, that stirreth up himself to take hold of thee. For thou
hast hid thy face from us, and hast consumed us because of our
iniquity. A man just can't, he can't rouse
himself up. You hear preachers preaching
that, saying, you know, fan the flame and all that and stir yourself
up. You can't stir yourself up to
call on God. That's what God's saying here.
Your iniquities have separated you from your God. that he won't
hear. To the sinner that prefers to
stand in his own so-called righteousness, to stand there in his own righteousness
and to face God and go through this world living by the sword,
and then to die and face God and make his boast and make his
claim before God, God says, I'm going to give him exactly according
to his works, I'm going to give him exactly according to his
deeds, according to his ways. But that man that comes confessing,
I need mercy, I need to be saved, I can't save my, I need Christ
alone. God said, I'll give that man
according to his ways. Who's a God like unto thee that
he doesn't retain his anger forever? He passes over the transgression
of the remnant of his people because God delights in mercy.
He said, now which way do you want to come? You want to come
in your righteousnesses? Or do you want to come bowing
and robed in Christ's righteousness? God says, either way, I'll give
that man according to his ways. I'll give him according to his
ways. I'll give him salvation because of Christ, or I'll give
him damnation because of himself. Either way. So let's stop blaming
God. Stop blaming God. God delights
in mercy. God delights in grace. The one
and only one to blame is you and me. We're the sinner, brethren.
It's our iniquities. It's our iniquities. So here's
the first thing to get. If God saves us, God gets all
the glory because it's His work. He's done it from A to Z. But
if we meet God outside of Christ and we perish in hell, there
is nobody else to blame but us. Our sins separated us from God.
Our dear. The wages of sin. You earn death. The wages of sin is death. That's
earned. But the gift of God, freely given,
is eternal life. Do you see that? See what I'm
saying? Alright, secondly. the cause. Now in verses 3-8
God declares the cause of all suffering in this world and the
cause is man's own sin. Now we're going to look at these
verses and I want you to remember Isaiah is declaring the sins
of Israel in Isaiah's day but he's speaking about every man
in this earth. You can read it in Romans 3 verses
9-18 at your leisure but he's speaking of all men on this earth. Now you and I do all of these
things inwardly. Everything we're about to see
here, we do this inwardly in our heart. This is what the old
man of our flesh is, and this is all that's in an unbeliever. It's just this old man of flesh.
But you and I that believe still have this old man with us. If
we hadn't done it outwardly, it's just because God restrained
us. That's all. But we've done these things in
our heart. Alright, first of all, our hands and our fingers.
Verse 3. Your hands are defiled with blood,
and your fingers with iniquity." It means innocent blood. I was
thinking about this. You think about, first of all,
the blood of our own children. You realize you and I are guilty
of murder when we cause a child to be conceived? We're conceiving them in sin.
We're bringing forth death, spiritual death. We're guilty from the
outset of slaying our children, because they were born of us.
Born of us. And then, when they come forth,
we teach them false religion. All around this world, men teaching
them false religion. Teaching them to seek life in
this world. Seeking them to forsake God's church, God's people, and
go seek life in the world. Slaying the innocent. That's
like, remember when the Lord spoke of them taking the children
and throwing them in the fire? That's what it is. Throwing them
in the fire. Taking them out of where they
could hear the gospel because of some vastly important thing
like a ball game or something like that. Slaying them. Just
throwing them to the fire. throwing them to the fire. But
most importantly and preeminently here is the blood of the Lord
Jesus Christ. He's the innocent blood, the
Lord Jesus Christ. When a man hears the truth of
Christ, look over at Hebrews 10. When a man hears the truth
of Christ, hears it preached, and he forsakes the assembly
where God's put his gospel, where the gospel is preached, he forsakes
the truth, he won't hear it, won't bow to Christ, forsakes
the assembly of God's people. Here's what God says about him,
right here. He's sinning willfully. And that man, he's crucifying
Christ all over again. He's treading underfoot the blood
of Christ. Now look at this, Hebrews 10, 25. Not forsaking
the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some, but exhorting
one another, so much the more as you see the day approaching.
For if we sin willfully, after that we receive the knowledge
of the truth, That means if we forsake Christ, reject Him, reject
His gospel, reject His church, won't assemble with his people,
won't bow to him. That's sinning willfully. That's
what he's talking about. If we do reject Christ, there
remains no more sacrifice for sin. But a certain fearful looking
for of judgment and a fiery indignation which shall devour the adversaries. He that despised Moses' law.
Now it's going to offset the law and the gospel. The man that
despised Moses' law died without mercy under two or three witnesses.
The covenant in that day was Moses' covenant. Moses' law.
And the man that despised Moses died without any mercy under
two or three witnesses. Now look what he says. Of how
much sore punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy
who hath trodden underfoot the Son of God? His blood's on His
hands, the blood of Christ. He's trodden underfoot the Son
of God and counted the blood of the covenant wherewith He
was sanctified an unholy thing and is done to spite unto the
Spirit of grace. There's our hands and our fingers.
Inequity is what's inequitable. You know, here's God, He demands
justice. He demands that the soul that
sinneth must die, must go, must eternally suffer the punishments
of hell. And we think, well, if I just
offer God my good works, that ought to even it out. That doesn't
equal out, does it? That doesn't equal out, does
it? A man will say, well, I know I've sinned in the past, but
starting today, I'm turning over a new leaf and I'm going to fly
right from here on. Well, if you could fly right
from here on, what about all those sins before? That don't
equal out, does it? The only thing that equals out
is you have to die and I have to die. And we can only do that
in Christ and then be made alive by God. That's the only way.
Now that's equitable. That's what God calls it. Alright,
here's the lip and the tongue, verse 3. Isaiah 59, 3. Your lips have spoken lies, your
tongue has muttered perverseness. Now, first of all, this is an
indictment against preachers. Number one, first and foremost.
Preachers, in God's Word, preachers are the number one cause of rebellion
and sin and all of these things. Preachers are. Prophets, preachers,
the priests, what have you. And they're the number one cause.
A man stands up and he speaks lies against God and lies about
man. He stands up and He speaks of
man not being depraved. He speaks of man's will and man's
worth. He speaks of man's works. And He speaks lies on God. He
tells men God chose men because He saw something in them. He
tells men that Christ came and died for all men. He wants to
save everybody. If man, I'll just let him do
it. Those are lies against God. That's all a lie against God.
That's perverting the gospel, Paul said. A perversion of the
gospel. He brings a man, the believer
that's delivered by Christ and brought out from under the law
and is under grace. He comes to him and says, but
now except you do this or that, you can't be saved. Brings him
back under law. Paul says, perverting the gospel.
Spoken perverse thing. Preachers are number one. But
then also included in this are fathers and mothers, educators,
philosophers, politicians. They're all included in this.
Anybody that God's put in authority to rule and lead people, they're
all included in this. Brethren, this is true. In so-called
churches, in homes, in schools, in our laws, in every form of
media, This world is teaching our children to speak perverseness. That's all they're teaching.
That's all they're teaching. That's it. If this world teaches
it, if this world embraces it, you can be certain it is against
God's Word. It is wrong. You can be certain
of that. Just mark it down. That's so. That's just so. Listen
to Isaiah 5 verse 20. If you want to turn there, Isaiah
5 verse 20. This is the world right here. And this is what
God says about the world. Man lost in his sin. This is
us by nature. Isaiah 5.20. Woe unto them that
call evil good and good evil. They put darkness for light and
light for darkness. They put bitter for sweet and
sweet for bitter. Woe unto them that are wise in
their own eyes and prudent in their own sight. Woe unto them
that are mighty to drink wine, and men of strength to mingle
strong drink, which justify the wicked for reward." Justify the
wicked for a gift. It says, "...and take away the
righteousness of the righteous from him." For a gift. Therefore,
as the fire devours the stubble, and the flame consumes the chaff,
so their root shall be as rottenness, and their blossom shall go up
as dust, because they cast away the law of the Lord of Hosts,
and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel." They despised
God's Word. God's Word is true. God's Word
is holy and just and good. Everything from cover to cover
of this book, you want to You want to know how to lend to somebody? Read God's Word. You want to
know how to diet? What's a good diet? Read God's
Law. You want to know anything? Just read God's Word. If we could
do God's Law, We would be holy, just, and good. Because everything
in it is holy, just, and good. There's nothing in it that's
bad for anybody. It's all holy and just and good.
It's all honoring to God and honoring to your neighbor. Every
bit of it. But we forsake that because we think we're wise in
our own eyes. We're prudent in our own eyes.
And I could give you hundreds of examples, you know, of the
ways that men just think, well, that's old-fashioned. That's
out of date. That's biblical thinking right there. We don't
do that today. And look where we are today.
What have we produced today? What's the fruit of our hand?
A rotten blossom. That's what we've got. A rotten
root. That's what we have. Alright,
look here. Therefore, because of all this,
Isaiah 59, God says there's no justice in the land. Look at
verse 4, Isaiah 59, 4. None calleth for justice, nor
any pleadeth for truth. They trust in vanity, and speak
lies, they conceive mischief, and bring forth iniquity. God's
law As I said, it's holy and good. But instead of trusting
in God, we trust our way and we speak what we think. That's
what we do. Why is our government so corrupt?
Do you think our government is corrupt? Our government is corrupt.
It's what God is saying here. It's corrupt. Every government
in the world is corrupt. Why? I'll tell you why ours is. It's a little thing called special
interest groups. special interest group. Take
away, justify the wicked for what? A reward. And take the
righteousness of the righteous away for what? A reward. And
you know, all of these special interest groups are looking out
for me. They're looking out for number
one. That's what they're all about. Now we see this injustice
in the world and we get upset about it. We get inflamed over
it when we start talking about politics and all that. We blame
the Republicans, blame the Democrats. The Democrats blame the Republicans
and this group blames that group and that group blames the other
group and it's a white issue or it's a black issue or it's
an immigrant issue or a non-immigrant issue. God says that's not the
problem at all. God says the problem is us. You take men who at their heart
in everything that they do is what's in it for me and you're
going to end up with injustice. With injustice. And that's at
the heart of just about every decision you and I make. How's
it going to benefit me? I passed a house in Pennington
yesterday and it's run down. I was looking at the main street
and I was just admiring how they painted all these houses on the
little row there, these row houses, and I thought this one house
was not painted. I thought, that house needs to
be painted. It would make this street look so much prettier.
And I got to thinking, I thought, what if I just showed up there
and just start scraping that house, painting that house, and
somebody come out, you know, what are you doing? I'm just
going to paint it. What color you want it? I'm just going to
paint it. It won't cost you nothing. I'll just paint it. And I got
thinking about that thought, and I just got to laughing. I
thought, folks, they would be suspicious of you. What are you
doing? You're up to something now, you
know. That's where we are. That's what we've done. To ourselves. To ourselves. Each of us. Next
is God's description of the thoughts and intents of the heart. This
is God's description now. And this is God's description
of natural religion as well as our government of ourselves right
here. God describes us as being secretly conniving and self-serving
people. Now listen to this, verse 5.
They hatch cockatrice eggs, adder eggs, poisonous snakes. and weave
the spiders well. And he that eateth of their eggs
dieth, and that which is crushed, or that which they produce from
the eggs, breaks out into a viper, a poisonous snake. You see, our
fruit that we bring forth is the fruit of a poisonous snake. That's what he said. Cockatrice
eggs. And they look good. Our fruit
sometimes looks like what we bring forth looks like it's good
to eat. Oh, that's going to be beneficial. But you eat that
egg, he says, and you're going to die. Or, if that egg hatches
out and produces something, it's always going to be poisonous,
he said. And you think about a spiderweb. He said we weave
spiderwebs. Where does the spiderweb come
from? It comes from within the spider. Where does our spiderwebs
come from? Where does all our sin come from
and our conniving and our scheming? It comes from within. It comes
from the heart. And then you think of this. You look at a
spiderweb. It looks attractive. A spiderweb
is pretty. Light hits it and it's just a
work of art. You look at it and you think, that is attractive. But you know what it's meant
to do? Trap the prey. And that's what our spiderwebs
are. They look attractive, but they're meant to trap the prey.
To trap the prey. That's man's religion. paints
these giant buildings and gets these giant programs going and
gets all these things to lure you in. And all he's done is
trapped you. He's trapped you. Trapped you. And then the web though, you
know the other thing about a web, it can be torn down so easily.
There's no sturdiness to it, it just comes right down. That's
all our spider webs, all our scheming. Listen to God, verse
6. Their webs shall not become garments, neither shall they
cover themselves with their works. Their works are works of iniquity,
and the act of violence is in their hands. Their feet run to
evil. There's our feet. They make haste
to shed innocent blood. Their thoughts are thoughts of
iniquity, wasting and destruction are in their paths. The way of
peace. Christ, the way of peace. They know not. And there is no
judgment in their goings. They have made them crooked paths
and whosoever goeth therein shall not know peace. God says, whoever
goes in the path man's made shall not know peace. Not the peace
of God. Not the peace that passes all
understanding. They shall not know peace. And they won't know
peace in this earth either. God says in His Word, Job 4.8,
He says, They that plow iniquity and sow wickedness shall reap
the same. He said in Hosea 8.7, They've
sown the wind, they'll reap the whirlwind. It hath no stalk,
the bud shall yield no meal, if so be it yield, the strangers
shall swallow it up. In other words, live by the sword,
die by the sword. I was watching this morning,
there was some game show on, and the guy that's hosting it,
he was on that Dancing with the Stars, and I thought, he used
to be an actor back in the 80s, and I thought, well, he parlayed
that into something. Now he's hosting a game show. I think that was a mighty long,
dry stretch from the late 80s all the way to 2015, wasn't it? I'll tell you something. That's
just an example. In a business like that, you're
living by the sword. It's dog-eat-dog. And that's
the way it is in religion. That's the way it is in government.
That's the way it is all over the world. That's the heart of
man. I'm going to get you before you get me. And God says, you
live that way, you're going to die that way. You sow that, you're
going to reap that. You're not going to sow evil
and robbery and conniving and these spider webs and these outer
eggs and expect to reap anything but that. That's all we're going
to reap. The cause of all our trouble
and all our sorrow in this world is us. It's our sins and our
iniquities. Now, did you notice here the
sins mentioned here? They cover our hands, and our
fingers, and our lips, and our tongues, and our feet, and our
hearts. You see, turn back to Isaiah
1. When God started this, declaring
this to Judah in Isaiah, using Isaiah to preach this to Judah,
listen to what He said. He told them that it's not going
to do any good to discipline you. It's not going to do any
good to take what's there. and try to make a purse out of
a sow's ear, that ain't going to work. You just can't do it. He says it's got to be destroyed
and it's got to be something new made. Look what he says here.
Isaiah 1.5, Why should you be stricken anymore? Why be chastened? Why be corrected? You will revolt
more and more. The whole head is sick, and the
whole heart is faint. From the sole of the foot, even
unto the head, there is no soundness in it. But wounds, and bruises,
and putrefying sores, they have not been closed, neither bound
up, neither mollified with ointment." You see, God's not going to take
what we are and make something out of us. No, sir. He just described what we are
by nature. God's got to make a new man in
us. He's got to create a new creation
within us. Now, that brings us to this third
thing. Confession. Now in verses 9 through
15, the voice changes. Now it's not speaking from God
speaking of us. Now it's somebody among us confessing
what we are. And that one that's doing it
is Isaiah. And he's confessing what we are.
He's including himself and pleading to God confessing what we are.
Now that's what God's going to bring us to do when He creates
us anew. Number one, He's going to bring
us to confess what we are. Confess what we are. We've got
to be brought to confess our blindness, our spiritual blindness
and our total helplessness. Look at verse 9. Therefore is
judgment far from us, neither does justice overtake us. We
wait for light, but behold obscurity. Isn't that right? Everybody in
the United States, I'm just speaking for our country now, and you
could say this about the whole world, but what are we waiting
on right now? Better times, aren't we? We are
just waiting on better times. I hope it gets better. And if
the truth was told, I bet every one of us is just on that kind
of a little tense that that bubble is going to bust again. And guess
what? It is. It is. I'm pretty well convinced
that the last 100 years was the century of America and the next
100 years is going to be the century of China. I picked up a little wooden ship. We went to the Boston Tea Party
Museum. I picked up a little wooden ship
of the USS Constitution and turned it upside down and it said, Made
in China. I thought, there we go. That's us to a T right there.
That's right. Look here, we wait for light,
but we behold obscurity. For brightness, but we walk in
darkness. We grope for the wall like the
blind, we grope as if we had no eyes. We stumble at noonday
as in the nighttime. We're in desolate places as dead
men. We roar all like bears, and we
mourn sore like doves. We look for judgment, but there
is none. For salvation, but it's far off
from us. That's where we got to be brought.
We got to be brought to the end of us, brethren. And then look,
we got to be brought to confess the reason that judgment and
salvation is far from us is because of our own iniquity and our own
transgression and our own sin. Look at verse 12. For our transgressions
are multiplied before thee. There's the cause, he said. Our
transgressions are multiplied before thee, and our sins testify
against us, for our transgressions are with us. And as for our iniquities,
we know them, in transgressing and lying against the Lord, and
departing away from our God, speaking oppression and revolt,
conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood.
And we must be brought to confess that it's not God's fault, but
that we've turned away from God. Look here at verse 14. And judgment
is turned away backward. Justice stands afar off, for
truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter. Yea, truth faileth, and he that
departeth from evil maketh himself a prey. Isn't that true in our
day? Doesn't it sound like God's describing our day? Right now,
every television show you turn on, you've seen me, anybody that's
here that's my age or older, you've seen this, you know, whenever
the world breaks in a little more and can see it in some way,
all of a sudden it's fashionable and you see it all over the place. You can't turn on a television
show anywhere that don't have a queer in it. Everywhere. A
sodomite. Everywhere. You gotta have one
in it. And if you speak out against
that and say this is what God's Word says, they consider you
their enemy. You're like a prey. You're like
the prey of a wild animal. Isn't that true? You can't speak
God's Word and stand up and say this is what God says and you
sure can't do it in religion. They call you a bigot. They call
you a racist. Every special interest group
out there is coming up against you and arguing against you and
they don't have anybody's best interest at heart. Al Sharpton
and Jesse Jackson, them fellas, if they accomplished what they're
after, they wouldn't have a job. They don't want that. They want
to keep it stirred up. It's what God says about us,
brethren. That's true of me and you. That's true of us by nature.
It's our fault. It's nobody else's fault. But
understand, the first thing the Holy Spirit does, He's going
to convert a sinner. And the first thing He does when
He does it, He's going to bring us to confess our personal sins
against God. Against God. And the confession
of sin is always the beginning of forgiveness. If we confess
our sins, He's faithful and just to forgive us our sin. If we
confess our sin, there's where it begins. I'm just talking on a national
level. I'm just looking at it from a national standpoint. Look
at us as a nation. Do we ever just come to a point
where we say, we've sinned against God? We've left God, sinned against
God, and we can't fix this. It's broken. God, we need you
to fix it. What do we do instead? We can
fix it. We broke it, we'll fix it. And
that's us personally, by nature too. We've got to be brought
to confess our sins. He's faithful and just to forgive
us our sins. And it cleanses us from all unrighteousness.
And now fourth thing, Christ the only Savior. Christ the only
Savior. Verse 15. With this confession
now look what comes. And the Lord saw. And it displeased
Him that there was no judgment. God looked upon this whole world
and He saw that there was no man who was just. Isn't that
amazing? Now that's what He's saying here.
I looked on the whole world from the deepest, remotest places
to the most populated places and couldn't find one man that's
just. Not one. not even one. And therefore
God sent his Son to do the work no sinner could do. Verse 16,
And he saw that there was no man, and wondered that there
was no intercessor. Now here's what He sent Christ
to do. This is the Lord Jesus' work. This is what He accomplished.
Number one, God saw no man. He saw no intercessor among all
the sons of men. And so Christ came to intercede
by saving His people. Verse 16, Therefore His arm brought
salvation unto Him. God Himself became a man to save
His people from our sins. His arm. Christ Jesus the Lord
is His arm. And He brought salvation unto
Him. Matthew 1.21 says, Thou shalt call His name Jesus, for
He shall save His people from our sins. That's who He is. Now
once in the end of the world hath He appeared to put away
sin by the sacrifice of Himself. Thou hast given Him power over
all flesh, Christ said, that He may give eternal life to as
many as Thou hast given Him. That's what He came to do. That's
what He accomplished. Alright, here's the second thing.
God saw no man, He saw no intercessor among all the sons of men. And
so Christ came to intercede by upholding the righteousness of
God. He came to bring in justice.
He came to bring in, to uphold righteousness in the earth. Look
at verse 16. And His righteousness, it sustained
them. For He put on righteousness as
a breastplate. You see, His righteousness is
a person. His righteousness is sustaining. For He put on righteousness
as a breastplate and a helmet of salvation upon His head. That
means He's governed and ruled by righteousness and for the
salvation of His people. Who's His righteousness? Who's
God's righteousness? Let me show you in Romans 10.
Romans 10. Here's who God's righteousness
is. Verse 1, My heart's desire and
prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved. I bear them
record they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge.
For they being ignorant of God's righteousness, going about to
establish their own, have not submitted themselves to the righteousness
of God. For Christ, there's the righteousness
of God. Christ is the end of the law
for righteousness to everyone that believes. Christ is the
righteousness of God. God said in Isaiah 42, 21, The
Lord is well pleased for His righteousness sake. He will magnify
the law and He will make it honorable. And when the fullness of time
was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under
the law, to redeem them that were under the law. And that's
what He did. So that we could receive the
spirit of adoption. And then here's the third thing
Christ came to do. He came into this world to be
the intercessor. He came into this world to save
His people. He came into this world to uphold
the righteousness of God. He came into this world to destroy
His enemies and all the enemies of His people. Look at verse
17. He put on the garments of vengeance
for clothing as well, and was clad with zeal as a cloak. According
to their deeds, accordingly He will repay. Fury to His adversaries. Look at that. According to their
deeds, that's how you will repay. Let me ask you something sitting
here. Don't believe God. Now be honest with me. Do you
hate this message? Would you just despise being
here? Would you rather be somewhere
else? God says this. According to their deeds, accordingly
He will repay. The same fury that you have toward
God, that's the fury He's going to pour out on His adversaries.
That's what He's saying. And he says, recompense to his
enemies, to the islands he will repay, recompense. That means
it doesn't matter if you're Jew or Gentile, it doesn't matter
where you are, he's going to repay. He went to that cross
and he said, now is the judgment of this world. Now is the prince
of this world cast out. And he crushed Satan's head on
that cross. And he told his people, he stood there and he said, he
that's not with me, is against me. That's what an adversary
is. Whoever's not with Christ is
against Christ. You can speak of God loving the
world till you're blue in the face. God's love is in Christ. God's love is in Christ. Christ
said, and he that's not with me is against me. He's against
me. And then look, fourthly, Christ
came to establish His kingdom. And He came to do it by establishing
it in the hearts of His people all over this world. Look at
verse 19. So shall they fear the name of
the Lord from the west. You see, all these things I just
declared, the first three things here, this is our gospel. And
so as this gospel is going forth, this is how we're going to be
brought to fear the name of the Lord from the west and His glory
from the rising of the sun, from west to east, when the enemy
shall come in like a flood. And every time you hear the gospel,
the enemy comes in like a flood. It does. You sit here and the
Lord said that it's like those birds that come down, they get
the seed that's scattered. Gospel seed is going out and
the birds come and they take away the seed. Some of them don't
even have a chance to take root. It's gone. Your thoughts are
just fleeting. They're just here and there and
all over the place. You don't even hear the Word at all. The flood
comes in. Others don't have any root in
themselves. It's gone hard ground. It comes
up just a little bit. Oh, I love it. We love that.
That message was so good. Christ got all the honor. I'll
see you next week. Don't ever see them again. Gone. Quick as it came, it's gone.
Just like that. But for God's child, when that
flood comes in, He's not going to allow that flood to take the
seed away. Look what He said. When the enemy shall come in
like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard
against him. He'll lift up a banner. He'll
lift up an ensign. And that ensign is Christ. He'll
make it so that when your eyes try to turn from Christ, there's
Christ. When your eyes try to turn this
way from Christ, there's Christ. And you can't get away from Christ.
That's what He's going to do in the heart of His child. And He overcomes that enemy in
our heart. Look here lastly now. And when He does, He makes a
covenant. We saw this all this morning,
so I'm not going to labor this, but here's the covenant. Verse
20 and 21. This is a covenant He makes in
the heart of His child. He brings you to the feet of
Christ. Verse 20. The Redeemer shall come to Zion,
and unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob, saith
the Lord. Zion is His church. Zion is his
church. The individual believer that
makes up Zion. That's what he's talking about
here. Christ is going to come into the midst of his church.
He's going to come into the heart of that individual child he's
calling out. And look at this. And this is
what he says. And as for me, this is my covenant
with them, saith the Lord. My spirit that is upon thee.
That's the only way you're going to see him and believe him. He
put his spirit upon me. My spirit that's upon thee and
my words which I have put in your mouth. Where does the mouth
speak from? From the heart. I've put them
in your heart, I've put them in your mouth. Put these words
there, he said. Look, they shall not depart out
of thy mouth. You know what he's saying? I'm
going to preserve you in faith. You're going to keep believing
me. He that's begun a good work in you is going to continue it
to the day of salvation. That's what he said. Look at
this. Nor out of the mouth of thy seed, Nor out of the mouth
of thy seed, seed, saith the Lord from henceforth for ever
and ever." Who's our seed? Who's our seed, seed? You sit here and you hear the
gospel preached, and you sit here with one another for a long
time, and one day somebody just starts fading away. Something
else comes along that's better, and next thing you know they're
gone. And you grieve. You weep over it. It saddens
you. It just tears me all kind of sideways. I go try to figure
out what I did, what was it I preached that offended them. I know which
message was it they left on or whatever. I go looking. I do.
I look at all that stuff. But here's the fact of the matter.
They weren't our seed. They weren't our children. John
said, if they'd have been of us, they wouldn't have went out
from us. Now, I'm not talking about somebody that leaves here
and goes to another church where the gospel is preached. I'm talking
about somebody that leaves and just forsakes the gospel. They weren't
of us, he said. They left because they weren't
of us. Our seed are those that you and I have come together
and the church is spoken of as the mother. And we're, Christ
is the husband and the church is the mother. And we together,
this is our ministry, this is our sending forth this gospel
together with Christ. And Christ through that seed
births His child and He brings forth children. And those that
He brings forth through this gospel that we collectively support
here to be preached, His gospel, when He brings forth a child,
that's our seed. That's our seed. Those are our
children. And our seed seed, our children's children, as those
gather with us, those that are born gather with us, our children,
and they support the gospel, and more are born, younger ones
are born, that's our seed seed. And God said, I'll never take
this word out of their mouth, just like I won't take it out
of yours, I'll never take it out of theirs, and I won't permit
it to be taken out of theirs. That's how we continue believing.
You know, I don't even know what men used to always talk about.
Once saved, always saved. They were always arguing over
that, you know. Well, for the believer, when
he's saved by Christ, he is saved. He's saved. He's going to be
in God's house, hearing God's Word, because he delights in
it. It's his heart and he wants it. He sees what God saved him
from. Now, here are four things promised
to every chosen, regenerated, repentant sinner. This is what
God said. First, the Redeemer shall come to them. Secondly,
my spirit shall not depart from them. Thirdly, my word shall
not depart from them. And fourthly, for every elect
child, they shall be called. Thy seed and thy seed's seed
shall be called. Now, there's four promises He
makes in this covenant to His child. Your Redeemer is going
to come to you. My Spirit won't depart from you.
My Word won't depart from you. And it won't depart from those
born of this gospel either. Your seed seed. Now hear what
God speaks. This is what God's telling us.
Turn from our transgressions. Turn from our iniquities. Turn
from this world. You're not going to find life
in this world. You're not going to find happiness in this world.
You're not going to find peace in this world. You are just not
going to find it. It's temporary and fleeting at
best. And the things you have to do,
and the sacrifices you have to make to get that temporary peace,
make that peace worthless. Absolutely worthless. But I can
tell you this, Christ says, turn to Me, and put all your trust
in Me, and rest in Me, and you shall never perish. You have
eternal life. Life that will never be taken
away. upon life, upon life, upon life forevermore believer. That's
what we have. Sinner, do you want that? Call
on Christ. He delights to show mercy. I
pray He'll make you do so. Amen. All right, brethren.