I was thinking about it as Brother Allen was praying that
you just never can run out of reasons to thank God, can you? When we are brought together
in His providence here on this earth to worship Him in the midst
of His people, it is truly a foretaste of glory divine. My heart says, even so, come quickly. Lord Jesus. Turn back, if you would, with
me this morning once again to Psalm 22. Psalm 22. As we saw
last night, God promised His Son, the Lord
Jesus Christ, a seed, a seed for His successful suffering
and obedience. And as a reward for His victorious
cross death, He is assured a generation. That's what verse 30 says. A seed shall serve him. It shall be accounted to the
Lord for a generation. And as John says there in 1 John
3, this seed will always remain in him and in him is no sin. But I want us also further to
notice some more things that he says here about the seed of
Christ. How is it that he says that this
seed will serve him? Look down in verse They shall
come and shall declare his righteousness unto a people that shall be born,
that he hath done this." Now this morning, very quickly,
I just want to point out a few things that he says concerning
this seed of Christ. And the very first thing that
it seems that it says to me is, in verse 31, he says, they shall
come. And that says to me, as it does
oftentimes in this book, that if they shall come, then they
will leave something. They will forsake something. And these that are the seed of
Christ, they will leave their own way, they will leave their
own imagined righteousness, they will leave their works, their
will, their false religions, and they will leave what they
once thought was right about God. You see, that's what repentance
is. Repentance is repentance toward
God. And when the Lord brings his
seed, he brings them to repent of and forsake all their false
notions concerning who God is and how He saves sinners. Hold your place here and turn
over to Isaiah 55. In Isaiah chapter 55, he says
in verse 7, Let the wicked forsake his way,
and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord,
and he will have mercy upon him, and to our God, for he will abundantly
pardon." And I know that oftentimes in religion, We get an idea that
such persons who are described here are the out and out, blatantly
immoral and wicked. But that's not simply who he's
talking to here because all of those who seek their own will
and their own way and who trust in their own works and their
own ideas of righteousness, and what they think is right about
God, they are the wicked. And he says, let all of them
forsake their own ways, forsake their own ideas, and do just
exactly like what Paul did. Turn over to Philippians chapter
3 for just a moment. The amazing thing here about
what Paul is saying here in Romans 3 is that he is not talking about
how he once killed somebody, or how he once did drugs, or
was an idolater, or an adulterer, or something like that. He is
confessing and repenting of what he thought gave him acceptance
by God. Listen to him here in Philippians
chapter 3 and verse 4. He says, though I might also
have confidence in the flesh, if any other man thinketh that
he have whereof he might trust in the flesh, I am more. Circumcised the eighth day of
the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, and Hebrew of the
Hebrews, as touching the law of Pharisee?" In other words,
he's saying here what every preacher almost in every church in this
country would like to have as a church member, That's what
I was. Concerning zeal, persecuting
the church, touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless. But what things were gain to
me? They were not gain to God. That which is highly esteemed
of men is an abomination to God. He says, that which I counted
gain to me, those things I counted loss for Christ. Yea, doubtless, and I count all
things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus
my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do
count them but done, that I may win Christ." I count everything
that I once trusted in, that I once boasted in, that I once
hoped in, I count it now as nothing. I count it now as sin. And the very best that I could
do, and the very best that I thought I was, I'm brought to know that
in God's sight it was altogether vanity. He says, "...and be found
in him, not having mine own righteousness which is of the law, but that
which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which
is of God by faith." You see, if you remember, the Apostle
Paul, when he writes to Timothy, he describes his past in this
way. He said, I was before a blasphemer. He doesn't say, I was before
a Christian and I just came into the doctrines of grace or I was
really a believer, God really saved me all those years ago
in that old revival meeting or something like that, even though
I hadn't heard a clue of the gospel, didn't have any understanding
of the scripture. He said, I was before a blasphemer. I was before an injurious person. I was before a persecutor. I was before ignorant. I was before an unbeliever. And one key characteristic of
these who are the seed of Christ, he says, they shall come. And there is no doubt that when
they come, they will each and every one leave everything else
but Christ behind. Listen to what he says in Isaiah
43. He says, Fear not, for I am with
thee. I will bring thy seed from the
east, and gather thee from the west, I will say to the North,
give up, and to the South, keep not back. Bring my sons up from
afar, and my daughters from the ends of the earth. They shall
come." And they shall come, not only because God says that they
all shall come and leave everything else behind, but also because
this one who is spoken of here, the shepherd, he said, I'll bring
all of thee. He looked at those that he spoke
to and he said, other sheep have I that are not of this foal,
them also I must bring. When those Pharisees refused
to hear what he had to say, refused to believe on him, he didn't
get real upset and disappointed that his work would be a failure,
that his word would be rejected. He simply said, all that the
Father giveth me shall come to me, and him that
comes to me I will in no wise cast out. He says here, they
shall come. And they will not stop short
of coming to Him who is the Lord Jesus Christ. They will come
to Christ by God-given faith. I like what somebody did with
that word faith. I think you would call it an
acronym. F-A-I-T-H. Somebody said that stands for
forsaking all. I take Him. And that is exactly what is being
said here. They shall come, every one of
them to the Lord Jesus Christ, They'll come to believe on Him
and to trust Him alone and to rely on Him, on this One who
is outside of themselves and apart from their works, and they
will, every one, be found at His feet. In the 14th chapter of Romans,
Paul makes a statement, and it's in a context that if you're not
really careful, you'll kind of miss it, because in that verse,
he makes a statement of a principle. This is what he says. He says,
Whatsoever is not of faith is sin. Now you know what preachers
in our day and probably a whole lot of other days say that that
means? That means if you can do something believing, it's
not a sin. If you don't have faith in doing
it, then it's a sin. That's not what he's talking
about here. What he's saying is Anything that you receive,
anything that you possess, anything that you trust in, any righteousness
that you might imagine that you did not receive as the gift of
God through that faith that He gives is sin. And you know what that means?
That means everything else but Christ is sin. That's what he said. Everything
you do is sin. Everything you think is sin.
Everything you imagine is sin. Everything you depend on in yourself
is sin. Everything whatsoever is not
of faith is sin. And they shall come, every one
of them. They shall be brought. Paul is
saying later in Galatians, in reminding of this very thing,
he says, and the law, is not of faith. It's not going to be your obedience.
It's going to be His. And they shall, every one, come. They shall, every one, come to
Christ. They are pictured as a long line
being brought out of every nation, kindred, tribe and tongue, a
host making a pilgrimage, not to Mecca, but to Jesus Christ. They shall come, and they are
always found coming to him. And though they cannot, as he
said, come of themselves, no man can come to me except the
Father which hath sent me draw him, and I will raise him up
at the last day. It is written in the prophets,
and they shall be all taught of God. Every man, therefore,
that hath heard and hath learned of the Father cometh unto me." Somebody said, well, why are
you always preaching Christ? We preach Christ because everyone
who is taught of the Father, everyone who learns of the Father,
will be taught the things concerning Christ, and when he teaches them,
he says, everyone come. Every one of them comes to the
Lord Jesus Christ. But lest we imagine that this
is merely an external kind of coming, he shows us, if you look
back in verse 31 of Psalm 22, he shows us the second thing.
He says, they shall come and they shall declare his righteousness. Do you see that? That's what the seed does. they
shall declare his righteousness." Jeremiah says, in his days, Judah
shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely, and this is the
name whereby he shall be called the Lord our righteousness. And he says the same thing concerning
the very church of the Lord Jesus Christ a little later, and this
is the name whereby she shall be called. What is it? The Lord
our righteousness. That's the name. And that is
the declaration. of all the true people of God,
everyone who is brought by the Spirit of God to believe on Christ,
this is what characterizes them, they shall declare His righteousness. And I hear a lot of people talking
about righteousness. But most of the people I hear
They are talking about their righteousness. And if they are
not talking about their righteousness at that moment, they are talking
about something that God does in them that enables them to
be righteous by what they do. Paul said in Romans 1, For I
am not ashamed, of the gospel of Christ. For it is the power
of God unto salvation to every one that believeth, to the Jew
first and also to the Greek, for therein, in the gospel, is the righteousness
of God revealed. From faith to faith, as it is
written, the just shall live by faith. Now, I can't figure
out. I remember, this has been some
years ago, I remember hearing your pastor spoken of in this
way. Somebody said, well, he's got
a lot to say about righteousness. And this is what I said. I said,
yeah, and anybody else who preaches the gospel has a lot to say about
righteousness. Because the seed shall declare
his righteousness. Because the gospel of the grace
of God in Jesus Christ is the revelation of God's righteousness. And these who are the seed, they
are those who declare His righteousness, that God is just to justify them
and declare them righteous in the Lord Jesus Christ through
the cross. Turn over to Isaiah 54. Isaiah
54. And look down at what it says
in verse 17, because he's talking here about the children of God. He's talking about this seed
of Christ. What does he say? No weapon that
is formed against thee shall prosper, and every tongue that
shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. I'll be honest
with you, that thought has floated me quite a bit of late. But look
at that last statement. This is the heritage of the servants
of the Lord, and their righteousness is of me. Not only is their heritage, the
fact that they shall be protected and delivered, that they shall
rise up and stand against their very accusers in the day that
God appoints. But this is their heritage. Their righteousness is of me."
How is that? Well, when Paul writes in Romans
5, he declares this very thing. He says, "...for as by one man's
disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall
many be made righteous." Now, how is anybody made righteous? What is it that these seed say
when they declare His righteousness? Well, they say this, just as
by one the many were made sinners by the disobedience of one, and
what that actually says is this, by the one disobedient act the
many were made sinners." You know when that was, don't you?
In that garden. He likewise parallels that and
says this, by the one act of obedience, the many were made
righteous. Now, you tell me which act that
was. It was his obedience unto death
even the death of the cross. You see, when Paul writes in
that most well-worn verse in 2 Corinthians 5 and verse 21,
he says, For he hath made him to be sin for us who knew no
sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in He didn't say, by him. He said, in him. And he is talking about how that
Paul writes the same thing in 1 Corinthians 1 and verse 30
when he says, but of him are you in Christ Jesus. who of God is made unto us wisdom
and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, that according
as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord." Now, we have been in Christ a
long time. But having been in Christ a long time, we are most
especially and most closely connected to Jesus Christ in His death,
in His burial, and in His resurrection. And therefore, in Him, we are
made the righteousness of God. I told your pastor we were talking,
if I had one One thought, I earnestly and I sincerely believe that
it cannot be spoken enough, that it cannot be talked about enough,
that there are so many things to obscure it to our eyes, to
lure us away from it. But when you hear that scripture
say that it is God that justifies, that is, that declares his people
righteous, he follows that immediately with this. It is Christ that
died. How far did our race fall when
we fell in Adam? Well, as we say in eastern North
Carolina, we fell plumb to the bottom. We fell so far that we could
never, ever get ourselves out. We fell so far in violation to
God's command that we could not ever in any way go back and redo
or get a second chance. He said, the soul that sins shall
what? Die. That's how we're made the righteousness
of God in Him. That is, we declare that God
was right. that He is right, that He is
just to save us, to bless us, to help us, to give everything
to us, because He did it through the dying of His Son, the Lord
Jesus Christ. We declare His righteousness. We declare that We are those
of whom the Apostle describes in this way. He said, they which
are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of
God. If you have any association with
God, you think by some link in the flesh. And let me warn you this, that
includes even being related to, married to, friends with, even
the true people of God. But he says they are not the
children of God which are the children of the flesh, but the
children of the promise are accounted for the same. He goes on to say, Now to Abraham
and his seed were the promises made, he saith not, and to seeds
as of many, but as of one, and to thy seed which is Christ. You see, Christ is called the
seed, singular. And when Christ is called the
seed singular, all His people, all those members of His body,
all those stones in that building of which He is both the foundation
and the capstone, every one of them being one with Him, are
the seed also. He says, "...wherefore then serveth
the law. It was added because of transgressions,
till the seed should come to whom the promise was made, and
it was ordained by angels in the hand of a Mediator. They shall every one come, they
will leave everything and every one, if necessary, behind. They
shall come to Jesus Christ. They shall come and embrace His
true gospel. They shall leave every false
way, and they shall declare His righteousness. Paul says, for
ye are all the children of God by faith in Jesus Christ. For as many of you as have been
baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew
nor Greek. There is neither bond nor free.
There is neither male nor female. For ye are all one in Christ
Jesus. And if ye be Christ's, then are
ye Abraham's seed. and heirs according to the promise. They shall all come to the Lord
Jesus Christ. They are like that woman who
had an issue of blood. There will be every obstacle
possible in their way. There will be friend, there will
be family, there will be tradition, there will be false knowledge,
there will be everything imaginable. But they shall all come and they
shall all declare His righteousness. But what else does it say? It says that they shall declare
that He has done this. This is the Lord's doings, and
it's marvelous in our eyes. You know, I get so tired of hearing,
I was at a funeral for my uncle not long ago, and humanly speaking, I'd have
to say he was a good man, and I entertained a little bit of
hope that maybe he had some understanding of the gospel. But, when they
had the funeral, you know, you may not, I'll say
this, a funeral says much more about the living than it does
the dead. It shows much more in what the
living trust in, regardless of what the dead one trusted in. And it made me glad, brother,
that if I get in such a situation that my family goes and buries
me in a Catholic shrine somewhere, it won't matter about me. It
won't change what I am in Christ, not one bit. But they just brag on it. They
just brag on it. They tell things that are lies
about God, contradictory to God. in ways of salvation that are
just totally nothing but various forms of human works for human
glory and all that. And the thought that came to
my mind, they speak peace, peace, they tell lies, and he said,
these people, they love to have it so. I had my wife by my side and
a few others, friends of ours, fellow believers from the church,
and we're just there as nervous and as anxious as a long-tailed
cat in a room full of rocking chairs, and we hate everything
that's being said but everybody else. They love it. They love it. And I thought, that's so sad.
Here they are here in all these lives, and they love it. But
I'll tell you what the seed will say. They will declare that God
has done this. They will declare what He had
done for them. They will declare what our brother
preached last night, that it is finished. And wherever you
find the true people of God, wherever you find the seed united
and gathered together, they are talking about what He had done. The psalmist in Psalm 29 says
this, in his temple, he likens his temple in the one
hand of a believer, and on the other hand of the whole composite
of believers, the Church. But whether it is one or whether
it is the whole group, he says this, in his temple, Does everyone speak of his glory? That's how I measure everything
anymore. Does it, is it glorifying to the Lord Jesus Christ alone? In his temple, does everyone
speak of his glory? They say, the Lord's done this. Paul writes in Romans 9, and
he said, as Isaiah said before, except the Lord of Sabaoth had
left us a seed, we'd been as Sodom and been like Gomorrah. That's what it is. There goes me but for the grace
of God. The Lord's done this. He'd done
it all. And it doesn't matter what it
is in the matter of salvation, whether he's the one that chose
us, he's the one that did it, whether he's the one that predestinated
us, he's the one that did it, whether it's redemption, reconciliation,
calling, it doesn't matter what it is, it's the Lord that's done
it. And not only that, everything that happens, it's the Lord that's done it. Did your man get elected president? It don't really matter. It's
the Lord that did it. It's the Lord that did it. I had a verse of scripture, or
a passage of scripture in my mind, and I kept running back
to my mind, running back to my mind, and you know, and speaking
of Brother Tim, I think it was, and he Brilliant as he is, you
know, he knew exactly where it was and told me, and I went racing
back to it. Sure enough, said just what I
thought it said in Isaiah. He talks about God judging a
nation and a people by taking away their good leaders and their
statesmen and such as that. He goes down a whole list and
shows that this is the judgment of God, and then he turns. And he says, but you can say
this to the righteous. It's going to be well with them.
It's going to be well with them. It doesn't matter. It's the Lord
that's done it. It's the Lord that has done everything. And He says, we are a chosen
generation, a royal priesthood and holy nation, a peculiar people
that ye should show forth the praises of Him who has called
you out of darkness into His marvelous light. You remember that old fellow
that was so possessed of the devils in Mark chapter 5, had
so many devils in him that they called him Legion. And the Lord Jesus Christ came
where he was, living there in the tombs, and he ran out a raving
wild madman, and Christ confronted him, and the devils in him were
forced to bow down and acknowledge him for who he was, and he cast
them out. And he said, Lord, I'm going
with you. I'm going to serve you. I'm going with you. You remember
what Christ said? He said, no. He said, you go
down to your house and you tell them what great things God has
done for you. That's what full-time Christian
service is all about. It's where you live. It's where
you work. It's among your family. It's
before your children and your neighbors. and your friends,
telling them what great things God has done. Confessing that salvation is
of the Lord. And then he says this, they will
declare this unto a people that shall be born. Now, I'm telling you what, preacher, we're not on a fool's errand.
And not only preachers, but every believer, every one of God's
seed in Jesus Christ, we're not here just simply to take up space
and hold together the moments of time until Christ's coming,
but to bear witness and to declare his righteousness and to tell
what the Lord has done for us and for all his people to a people
that shall be born. They're going to hear. I'll tell
you, if that thought did not possess my mind, I couldn't make it as a preacher.
I couldn't open my mouth. I make so many bungles and stumbles
and see so little, understand so little, forget so much. But I know this, that this message
of Christ crucified, this declaring of His righteousness, this telling
men and women what God has done. We declare that to a people. They may not be the ones that
we wanted, but they are a people, a seed
that he says shall be born. A fellow told me once, after
I got through preaching, he said, you know what, preacher, he said,
really, when we preach the gospel to the least likely, we've really
preached it to the most likely. And I thought, how profound.
That's right. We declare him and his righteousness
We tell what great things he hath done for his people in Christ
unto a people that shall be born. I can't give them birth. There's one thing about it, you
certainly can induce labor on the new birth. But when our Lord stood before
old Nicodemus, you know, I really believe that Nicodemus has been
pretty well messed over pretty bad. And I don't have any doubt
when the Lord's words to Nicodemus were that he must be born again,
that he was talking about the necessity of the new birth. But I think he was really also
meaning just exactly what he said. You must. be born again. And that's why when the gospel
is preached, we preach it to everybody. I don't have any qualms
about that at all. I love to preach the gospel to
everybody, as many as who will come. I don't call them out.
Just come. I've got one message for them all. Wherever I go,
the same thing. It's so easy. I don't have to
wonder if I should go there and preach or not. If God opens the
door, I know I'm going and I know what I'm going to preach. Jesus
Christ and Him crucified. And somewhere along the line,
we'll preach Him. will bear witness of him to one
of those people who shall be born. They must. They must. One old preacher said, has that
promise failed in its accomplishment? A seed shall serve him. Does
not the Lord Jesus Christ still reign at God's right hand full
of gifts and grace? And has he not promised to be
with his church and people even to the end of the world? Thus,
though it be perfectly true that a great bulk of mankind will
follow after shadows, yet there are a few whose souls are really
intent upon substance. If there are those who are given
up to believe a lie, there are those that love the truth. And
if there are those who worship they know not what, there is
still the true circumcision who worship God in the Spirit, who
rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh. They shall come and declare His
righteousness unto a people that shall be born, that he hath done
this." This is something that God has
done. You can mark this down. In this
day, in this actual day, is it November 15th? In this actual
day, somewhere, someone, because God chose them, because Christ
died for them, because the Holy Spirit has called them and begotten
them from above, they will serve Jesus Christ. They will praise
Him. They will follow Him. They will
worship Him. They will attribute all their
salvation to Him. They will glorify Him. And I pray God, let it be me. I pray it will be you. I pray
it will be this assembly. I pray it will be the assembly
that I pastor, that you pastor, that you pastor, others. It's called somebody will. Somebody
will. A Cedars Earth.