Turn with me first of all in
your Bibles this morning to 2 Corinthians. 2 Corinthians and the fourth
chapter. I want to read a few verses here
in 2 Corinthians 4, beginning with the first verse. Therefore
seeing we have this ministry, as we have received mercy, we
faint not, but have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty,
not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully,
but by manifestation of the truth, commending ourselves to every
man's conscience in the sight of God. But if our gospel be
hid, it is hid to them that are lost. in whom the God of this
world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest
the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of
God, should shine unto them. For we preach not ourselves,
But Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves, your servants, for
Jesus' sake, for God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness,
have shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge
of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Now last week, I tried to speak
to you about the necessity of revelation. Our only hope is
if God be pleased to give us a revelation. And I also tried
to stress the fact that only God Himself can give it. He's the only one. And then I tried to show you
the means of revelation, the means that God uses to give us
this revelation of Himself. And that is by the truth. It is by His gospel. And by that gospel taken and
used by the Spirit of God to reveal these things to us. And I'll read you this verse.
where Christ said, all things are delivered to me of my Father,
and no man knoweth who the Son is but the Father, and who the
Father is but the Son, and He to whom the Son will reveal Him.
And so this morning, I want to talk to you about the
one revealed. That's the title of my message,
The One Revealed. Because as Paul in our text has
just been speaking concerning the ministry of the gospel, And
the proclamation of the Word of God, the truth of God alone,
he says, yet men and women are blind. They have been blinded
by the God of this world to that truth, and to the One who is
Himself the truth, the Lord Jesus Christ. And yet though that is
the case, God in His omnipotent grace and power has been pleased
to reveal Christ to the one who wrote these words, to this man
Saul of Tarsus who became the Apostle Paul, And to all His
people prior to that and since that, with the exception of those
to whom He will yet reveal it. He has come and will come to
our darkness with His revealing light. And when He does, if you
look back at that sixth verse, Paul is led by the Spirit to
liken this to the natural creation itself. God's creation, when
he says, for God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness. God who said, let there be light,
and light was. Paul says, "...hath shined in
our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory
of God." And where does that light shine? And who does that
light reveal? Who is the one that is revealed
by the Spirit and truth of God? He says it is in the face or
the person of Jesus Christ. In other words, this revelation
is the revelation of Jesus Christ. And here are so many men and
women in this world who say they know and who think they know
who Jesus Christ is. As a matter of fact, they use
that name. with what I would call an unholy
familiarity. They speak of Him as one like
themselves, even less than themselves. And they refer to Him in ways
that in no way have any likeness, nor could have any likeness to
the Son of God Himself. Because when Christ is revealed
to a sinner, He is revealed as the glory of God, and most particularly,
as the glory of God's grace. of this revelation, and when
this revelation takes place to us by the gospel and by the Spirit,
it is and always will be of the Lord Jesus Christ. Turn over to Galatians chapter
1. Galatians chapter 1, and I'll
remind you that this is exactly what this same man, the Apostle
Paul, said of his own self. In Galatians 1 and verse 15,
he says, "...but when it pleased God, That's always when this
takes place. When it pleased God who separated
me from my mother's womb and called me by His grace. When it pleased God. He says,
to reveal His Son in me. And so clear is that revelation
from the Spirit of God, using the truth of God, that there
was no need for him to go anywhere else or to anyone else to find
out as to whether or not this is the true Son of God. He says, "...to reveal His Son
in me, that I might preach Him among the heathen immediately,
I conferred not with flesh and blood." No need for a second
opinion. No need for another authority. So clear and so sure and so convincing
was this revelation by God of His Son to and in this man that
he didn't have to look or go anywhere else. And that is the
truth of the gospel because the gospel, according to this book,
is the gospel concerning the Son of God. It isn't news about
morality. It isn't news about benevolent
things that are to be done. It isn't news about denominations
and religions and such. It is concerning the Son of God. And that's why the Spirit of
God, using this Word and Gospel of God as a means of revelation,
Christ said, He takes the things of Mine and He shows it to His
people. He takes the things of Christ,
the things concerning the Lord Jesus Christ. the things that
exalt and glorify the Lord Jesus Christ. He takes the things of
Christ and shows them unto us. And this revelation, though to
different ones, and though at different times,
and though in different places, is by these means virtually the
same." In other words, whether it was Paul in his day, or one
of the other apostles in another day, Or whether it's the Lord's
sheep in one generation or the next generation, no matter how
much cultures or traditions or whatever it is changes, the revelation
is always the revelation of Jesus Christ. Always the revelation
of Christ. And it is especially and particularly
the revelation of Christ crucified. It is a revelation not only of
who He is, it is a revelation of what He's done, and most especially,
it is a revelation of what He's accomplished for that one to
whom God reveals Him. It's a revelation of that sinner's
salvation in its totality by the grace of God in Jesus Christ
and Him crucified. It will always be that. In other
words, we may learn more about who He is. And we may learn more,
and surely will, about what He actually accomplished. We may
learn more of how it is God's grace to us. We may learn more
about all the particulars and all the references in Scripture
to this One and His work. But it always winds up pointing
to Jesus Christ. And in Isaiah 6, way back in the Old Testament,
we have an illustration of this revelation. I've said this for
a long time, and that is that God, in His infinite wisdom,
gave us the illustrations first. I know preachers are always looking
for illustrations. They thrive on illustrations. They seek to illustrate divine
truth. And it oftentimes winds up nothing
more than illustrating by these stories of interest that entertain
people, but they don't really truly illustrate what only God
can illustrate. I remember reading one time about
a preacher who said, an illustration in a message, in a sermon, is
like a window. A window that lets in light. But who wants a house that is
nothing but windows? You see, only God can reveal
to us the truth about Christ, and He uses His Word. He uses these illustrations that
He's already given us, and this revelation that we find in Isaiah
6 is not only a revelation of what He did to Isaiah, but of
what He does to all His sheep in every generation. Why? He says, because they'll all
be taught of God. They're everyone going to find
out some things. They're everyone going to be
given an understanding. They're everyone going to be
taught the truth of God. And Christ says, just like the
prophet says in another place, and when they're everyone taught
of God, Christ said, and everyone that's taught of God, everyone
that learns of the Father, what does He do? He said, He comes
to me. Because the revelation of Jesus
Christ, by the Spirit of God, through the Gospel of God, is
the revelation of such a glorious being, such a glorious person,
such glorious grace, such glorious accomplishment, that it blinds
our eyes to everything else. Turn over to Isaiah chapter 6, and listen to what Isaiah writes
concerning this revelation that he received, this revelation
that every one of God's elect will receive. And the first thing
you have to notice in his confession is that it had to do with a particular
time. It took place at a particular
time. In other words, you and I, even
in the natural realm, we know when it is dark. Do we not? We know when it is night. And we know also when the sun
rises and it is light. Now granted, we are often unable
to pinpoint the exact second or the exact minute, but we know
that it was dark, and now we know that it is daylight. And
when the Apostle Peter begins to describe how this Son of Righteousness
When the sun of righteousness arises with healing in His wings,
when the day star, the sun comes up, we might not know exactly
the minute, the hour, the place, but we know that at some point,
we know about the point when God brought us out of this darkness
into His light. He begins with these words. in
the year that King Uzziah died." In other words, something took
place. God did something to and for
Isaiah at this time in his life, in his experience, that brought
him from being so involved in writing down the things that
this king did, to behold Him one that was worthy,
far more worthy of all His attention. And he looks back now, and he
might not take you to that hour, but he knows that at that point
God began to open his eyes and teach him and reveal to him the
glories of the Lord Jesus Christ. Isaiah had seen so much. Isaiah had done so much. And
without a doubt, Isaiah knew so much, but he didn't know God
as He must be known. It's such a scary thing that
men and women can know so much. that they can know so many Bible
facts, that they can quote so many verses, that they can carry
on in their lives under some banner of religion and still
not know God. He'd never seen the Lord. He'd
never had this revelation of God. He didn't know God as He
must be known, which is in the revelation of Christ the Lord. That's what Paul said. He said,
there I was, teacher, preacher, moral man, but he said, I was
before a blasphemer. Now when did he learn that? He learned what he was before
when the Lord Jesus Christ revealed Himself to him. And he looked
back and he said, I was before a blasphemer. I wanted to know. You know that we use words and
we don't really maybe have an understanding of them, especially
as they are in the Scriptures. But I wanted to look up some
of the definitions in the concordance in the Greek and find out what
does that word blaspheme mean. It has lots of definitions. It
has to do with abusive or scurrilous language. One definition was
the word slander. And one definition gave it like
this, to switch right for wrong, or wrong for right, or to call
what God disapproves right, and to call what God disapproves
of right. In other words, it is to believe,
to say, to confess wrong things about God. And Paul said, I was before a
blasphemer. Oh, he quoted Scripture. Oh,
he was head over heels cradle roll up in religion, born a Jew,
taught by Gamaliel, all these things. But he said, I was before
a blasphemer. And the only thing that changed
that, the only thing that brought him from being a blasphemer,
This man who said he did the things that he did, said the
things that he said, believed the things that he believed,
ignorantly in his unbelief. The only thing that changed that
was the revelation of Christ. When it pleased God to reveal
His Son in me. And so when he writes to those
believers at Ephesus, and he speaks of this same Christ to
them that they believed on, he says, "...in whom ye also trusted
after that you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your
salvation." How did God reveal Christ to them? The same way
He reveals Christ to each and every one of His people, and
that is through this Word of Truth, which is what? The gospel
of your salvation. Oh, Newton, we sung that song
this morning, Amazing Grace. He knew something about this.
Because he said, I once was lost, but now am found. I was blind, but now I see."
Do you think a blind man that is miraculously healed and given
sight, do you think he can tell a difference? Does he acknowledge
that this is a thing that has been done for him? Imagine the
blind man and the blind people in the New Testament that Christ
opened their eyes. They know when that happened.
My friend, if we've ever been brought out of darkness into
the light, we may not be like that song, which I really don't
like. I can tell you the time, I can take you the place, and
all that kind of stuff. But we know that we were lost,
but now we're found. We know we were blind, but now
we see. We don't see like we want to
see, or like we ought to say, or even like we hope to see.
But we know that it's a big difference between when we were blind, when
we were saying things about God so stupid, so ignorant of God's
truth. We didn't know Him. That's the
way it was with Isaiah in the year that King Uzziah died. Something
happened to him. He got a revelation from God. And this man, without a doubt,
was knowledgeable in what the Old Testament Scriptures up to
his day, such as the books of Moses, he had some knowledge
of what those books said. But there's something he hadn't
seen. Because he says, in the year that King Uzziah died, I
saw the Lord. I saw the Lord. And this is none other than the
Lord Jesus Christ. This is none other than the one
that every Old Testament believer and every New Testament believer
sees. in this revelation. I saw the
Lord. Paul said, there's just one Lord. I saw the Lord. The Lord Jesus Christ. And that is exactly who he saw
because Christ, in John 12, He says this, These things said
Isaiah when he saw His glory and spake of Him. That's who
Isaiah is talking about. The Lord Jesus Christ Himself
says that. This is who Isaiah saw. This is who he saw when God gave
him faith to believe and behold Christ as He was set forth in
the Old Testament Scriptures. I saw the Lord. Christ said to
those Jews in His day, He said, Your father Abraham rejoiced
to see My day, and he saw it and was glad." Oh, he didn't
have a revelation as clear as those who hear the gospel in
this day do, but he saw Him. He saw Him as Abel's Lamb. He
saw Him as that ark that Noah found refuge in. He saw Him in
all those Old Testament sacrifices, what they represented. He said,
I saw the Lord. I saw the Lord. Well, how was
He? How was the One that Isaiah saw?
He said, I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne. He wasn't walking around the
shores of Galilee in sandals. He wasn't a babe laying in a
manger. He wasn't even on a cross. He's on a throne. You see, men
and women don't know much about that nowadays. They'll say, King
Jesus, and then they'll reduce Him down to a beggar and a pauper. That's what makes me know they've
never seen the Lord seated upon a throne. He's described in our
day by these religionists as weak and helpless and pitiful. I'll never forget one time in
Mexico, I went into one of the, I think it was the town of Isamal
in the Yucatan there, and walked by this big cathedral type building
where all of the people came in under this banner of worshipping,
honoring God. And you walk in that place, and
the thing they're most proud of, is the Virgin of Isamah. Do you
know what it was? It's a statue of Mary, supposedly,
and she's holding in her arms the limp, dead body of what's
supposed to be Christ. They haven't seen the Lord. And
far more than that are all of these crucifixes upon which someone
that is supposed to be Jesus is hanging there, limp and dead. That's not the preaching of the
cross. The preaching of the cross has to do with who was hanging
on that cross, and more especially, about what he is accomplishing
on that cross. Isaiah said, I saw the Lord. And He is sitting on a throne. He is the sovereign King. King of kings. Lord of lords,
the Apostle says. Reigning and exalted. And that because of His accomplished
victory. He's seated. at the right hand
of the majesty on high." A man. Somebody preached an old sermon
years ago entitled it, There's a Man in Glory. He's not where
he once was. He's not how he once was. Meek and lowly. He's on the throne. Have you seen it? Paul says in Philippians 2 that
he humbled himself, took on the form of a servant, became a man,
sin excluded, and was obedient unto death, even the death of
the cross. And for that reason, God has
highly exalted him. Any view of Christ that he is
not highly exalted in is not the true Christ. That's why all
these pictures of Jesus. The picture of Jesus Christ is
the gospel. There were no artists that portrayed
Him. There were no cameras that snapped
His picture. so that all men can have is that
vain imagination that they have. The picture of Christ is who
He set forth in the gospel. How He set forth. He is Himself
the truth. How can we see Him except in
the truth? He is Himself the light. How
can we see Him except in His own light? He said, I saw the Lord high
and lifted up. You can't lift Him up. I can't
lift Him up. His enemies only lifted Him up
to the cross. Somebody has exalted Him to the
throne of glory. That's the Father. Just like
when the priest went in to the Holy of Holies and offered that
sacrifice and sprinkled that blood, he was entering in to
the place and presence of God, because God said that he would
dwell between those cherubims over the mercy seat. And so that priest as a man went
in once a year. But the Bible says he didn't
go without blood. And He went into that holy place
and He sprinkled that blood on the mercy seat. How do we know
that God accepted that sacrifice on behalf of the people He represented? Oh, He had little bells like
pomegranates sewed to the hem of His garment so when He moved
around there, that noise, that sound could be heard. But how
do we know God didn't just kill Him and reject Him? He came out. When He came out, that meant
God had accepted the sacrifice. And when the Lord Jesus Christ
came out of the ground, came out of the tomb, came out of
death, resurrected in glory, God exalted Him because He had
accepted His work. On the behalf of sinners like
you and me, God accepted everything He was and everything He did. We don't have to wonder. We don't
have to live in fear like men try to make us live in. Our representative,
our Savior, has been exalted to the throne, and He sits there,
intercedes for us, and is the living testimony that He saved
us. He saved us. And that throne has become a
throne of grace to us. Oh, I honor His throne. I praise
Him for sitting there on that throne. I live under His rule
and reign, glad of it, some of the time. But I can come boldly to the
throne of grace, to the exalted King of glory, to find help in
my time of need. And I have a lot of them. I have
a lot of them. I need grace. And it says here,
when he saw Him, he said, and his train filled the temple. There was no room for anything
or anybody else but Him. This temple is His church. He says it is in the New Testament. And in His church, in His true
church, there is no room for anything or anybody to glory
in or boast in except Him. His salvation has no other participant
in it as to the accomplishing of it except Him. He by Himself purged our sins
and sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high. There's
no room for boasting. Paul said, where is boasting
then? It's excluded. The train of His glory, all the
things of His glory is so great, there is so much, He is so much,
He has done so much that it excludes and chases out every other thing
or person. Just like when that tabernacle
was set up and the temple was set up, and the Bible says that
the Shekinah glory filled that place and everybody had to get
out. Because there's only one that
can be gloried in. And he that glorieth, let him
glory in this, that he knows the living God. He that glorieth,
let him glory in the Lord. There's no room. You see, that's
one thing we see. We come to understand that in
this salvation, you and I have no ground or basis upon which
to glory. Not my will, not my faith, not
anything. You see, that's part of what
Paul called the offense of the gospel. It just hits right at
the root of human pride and totally crushes it into annihilation. We've got nothing to be proud
of in ourselves. We've not done anything, added
in any part to our salvations. And if we have no part in our
salvation, if Christ is all and has done all, then we don't have
anything to toot our little horn over. So the psalmist writes
it this way, same thought, in his temple, doth everyone speak
of his glory. You're not in His temple if you're
still talking about yours. Are you a Christian? Oh yes.
How do you know you're a Christian? Well, I did too. No, it's all of what He did.
Look at verse 4. In verse 3 it says, Above it stood the seraphims,
each one had six wings, with twenty covered his face, with
twenty covered his feet, with twenty did fly. And one cried
unto another and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of His
glory." What's going on in his temple? Worship. He's being worshipped. He is being glorified. And there
is a proclamation of things concerning Him. These creatures, these seraphims,
they seem to be a picture of those sent of God to preach the
gospel of the glory of God. What are they saying? Holy, holy,
holy. wherever you find a gathering,
when the holiness of God is put somewhere off to the side, if
present at all, and another attribute of God is exalted to its exclusion,
that's not His temple. Everything about Him is holy.
He's holy in His person. He's without sin. He knew no
sin. He's holy. Everything He is,
but also everything He does, He does in holiness. Holiness
oftentimes means one of a kind. He's holy. Nobody like Him. Not only does
it mean that he has no flaw or imperfection and can do no wrong,
there's no one like him. And that's true of his salvation.
There's no other salvation like it. Because it's done by the
Holy One, it's accomplished by the Holy One, it's revealed by
the Holy Spirit, and God in His infinite holiness is glorified. The message speaks of His glory. They're not just crying, love,
love, love, are they? They're crying, holy, holy, holy.
Oh, but that love of God is a holy love. That justice of God is
a holy justice. It's a holy mercy. It's holy
grace. That's what He brings us to find. He's holy. Central to God is
His holiness. And the whole earth, He says,
is full of His glory. Creation? He gets all the glory
in it. Providence? What's going on? He gets all the glory in it,
but most especially in salvation. He gets all the glory in it. And what effect does this revelation
of the true Son of God, the Lord of glory, have on those who truly
see Him? What happens when we first begin
to see the Lord of glory? What happens when God begins
to reveal to us His holy character? His inflexible justice? Holy justice? Well, verse 5,
Isaiah says, Then said I, Woe is me. I wonder how many that Isaiah
had pronounced a woe on prior to this. He was dedicated to His King. And I can imagine that everyone
that was against the King, He pronounced a woe on them. But
there's something about the revelation of Christ. There's something
about the revelation of who God is in His immaculate, infinite
holiness. In that brilliance, in His light,
we see light. And that light shines on us. And we're a bad-looking sight. Rebels. Corrupt. When the Spirit of God begins
to shine in our hearts and tell us, teach us, cause us to know
what we really are, what we have hidden even from ourselves, what
we surely try to hide from others, but what we cannot hide from
God. When we find out what we are
in ourselves, we quit saying, woe is thee. And it becomes,
woe is me. You, according to the Bible,
are all sinners here. Not as bad as me. That light, that revealing light,
came to the soul of Tarshish. He now knows he was a blasphemer. Injurious. Self-righteous. Filthy. You hadn't had a pure thought
in your life. Do you know that? Me either.
Everything is so full of our sinfulness. I can't look at what
you have got without being covetous or jealous. I can't look at your
gifts and be truly happy that you have it, that you can do
it. It's the truth. Woe is me. And I'm a man of unclean lips. Why does he say that? Because
out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh. What we say
betrays what we are. I'm not so bad. Oh, yes, you are. I do the best I
can. You're a liar. You do not. And even if you could and did,
it wouldn't be good enough. You may run me off. I'm just
going to tell you the truth. This is the way it is. Woe is
me. You say, well, I know I'm a sinner.
No, you don't. If you did, you'd flee to Christ. You wouldn't have any other hope.
You wouldn't have any other Savior. You wouldn't have any other righteousness.
You'd have to have Christ." He said, "...was me." And this
is the case of all who are brought to believe God. They begin to
believe what God says about them, not what mom and dad said. Not
what the husband or the wife said. Not certainly what some
ignorant preacher said. But he said, all sin. None righteous. None that do good. None that
seeketh after God. No, not one. Woe is me. In Isaiah 1, Isaiah is given
that description by God, not only of Israel, but of all men
and women by nature. And he says, there's no need
to send all these things against you, because there's no soundness
in you. You are from your head to your
toe nothing but wounds and bruises and putrefying sores that have
not been bound up or mollified with ointment. You're like a
leper with incurable leprosy. And you've not even been bound
up. There's no medicine put on you. You're just like an open,
running sore. And Paul said, this is exactly
what I was, even though I was a Hebrew, I was a Pharisee, I
was living under the law, though I was learned, though I was moral,
trying to do my best, trying to set an example, trying to
live for God. He said, it was all done. It
was all garbage, refuge, filth. And he said, when God brought
me to Christ, I saw it for what it was, and I cast it off. Do you mean, Paul, that all your
years in religion and all those experiences you had and all that
you know, you mean that was all sin? Absolutely. Because whatsoever is not of
faith is sin. If what I've got, To commend
me to God is not what God has revealed to me and given me faith
to believe in one outside of myself. It's sin. It's sin. Daniel said at one point, he
said, I was left alone. and saw this great vision, and
there remained no strength in me, for my comeliness was turned
in me into corruption, and I retained no strength." Down toward the
end of Job, Job makes this confession, He says, I have heard of thee
by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth thee, wherefore
I abhor myself, and I repent in dust and ashes. John in the Revelation in chapter
1, when he is given this revelation of Christ, the man in the midst
of the golden candlesticks, it says, And when I saw him, I fell
at his feet as dead, and he laid his right hand upon me, saying
unto me, Fear not, I am the first and the last." He said, when
I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. And all these proud
strutting peacocks of humanity, if they ever are by God's grace
brought to a revelation of Christ through the gospel, they'll be
on their faces. They won't be walking down somebody's
church aisle waxing their bubble gum, big grin on their face,
shaking the preacher's hand, saying, oh, what a good boy am
I for doing this. No. They'll be bowed at the feet
of the sovereign King of glory. Unclean lips. You know what unclean
lips are? They're the lips of all who do
not speak the truth concerning Christ. They're ashamed of the words
of Christ. They're ashamed of the words
that give all the glory to Christ. That's why they don't talk about
election. That's why they don't talk about
predestination. That's why they have a universal
atonement. They won't tell you who Christ
said He died for. He said, I lay down my life for
the sheep. Woe is me, because I'm a man
of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean
lips. Everybody is just like me. How do you know that, Isaiah?
For mine eyes have seen the King. He won't ever be the same again. You know and I know that even
in the natural life, there are some sights you see in this world
as you live and go on that you're really never the same after that.
The sight of it alters you somehow. I remember one night, when I
was involved in police work. And we were on a stakeout watching
a drug place. Got a call. Went down on a road
down in Hubert. And they began to gather up their
other law enforcement. And there lay two teenage girls,
dead. They'd been kidnapped. They'd
been used to commit a bank robbery. They'd been raped and murdered.
I'll never get that out of my mind. I'll never forget that. That changed me. I don't even
like to watch such things on TV anymore because it's a lot
different when it's real. And if we ever have a revelation
of Christ, oh, He's such a One. His glory is such. Our state
is such. We ever see the King, the Lord
of hosts in all His glory." So what happens? Look at that
sixth verse. "...then flew one of the seraphims
unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken
with the tongs from off the altar." Now here is Isaiah. He's seen
the Lord. He's brought to this. He knows
that God is the sovereign King of glory. He knows in that light
what He is. Woe is me! If God left him right
there, he'd perish. You can know about the sovereignty
of God. You can know that God controls
all things. You'll still perish. But he said, one of these messengers
took a coal. You know what a coal is? A burning,
shining coal from off the altar. What does that mean? That means
that the sacrifice had already been consumed. All that was left
was the coals. But he took one of those coals
and the tongs from off the altar, put it on his lips, He laid it upon my mouth and
said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips, thine iniquity is taken
away, and thy sin purged." In other words, this is just a picture
of the finished work of Christ. When that altar had those coals
on it, that meant the sacrifice had already been offered, that
meant God had already accepted that sacrifice, and all that
was left is this evidence. Whenever John sees the Lamb in
the Revelation, he says, that he saw Christ as a lamb newly
slain. In other words, even at that
hour, that finished work was still fresh. And that's what the gospel shows.
The finished work of Christ. But these are living coals. The
gospel is a living gospel. And it is the evidence that He
has by Himself purged our sins. Purged our sins. This finished work of Christ
proclaimed and revealed by the Spirit of God to the sinner God
saves, reveals what Christ did on that cross, how that He satisfied
the Holy God on behalf of those that were given to Him of the
Father, how He saved us and now calls us. and tells us the good
news, the gospel of our salvation. He is not a babe, a carpenter,
a man on a cross, a man in a tomb. He is on the throne of glory
because He saved His people from their sins. He stood as their
surety. He died as their substitute before
divine justice. He bore the just penalty of their
sins in His own body through death." He said, your sins are purged.
That means washed away. Something about that sacrifice.
Saved you entirely. Saved you completely. Saved you
eternally. Now look at your Lord. Look at
your Savior. But what can I do for Him? Nothing.
It's already been done. But worship Him. Praise Him. Glorify Him in what you say,
what you do. Turn over just briefly to Hebrews
chapter 10. The Apostle Paul is comparing
and contrasting those priests to this one priest. Those sacrifices
to this one sacrifice. Hebrews 10 and verse 12, after he had offered one sacrifice
for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of God, from henceforth
expecting till his enemies be made his footstool. For by one
offering he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified." Sanctified,
set apart unto God in that everlasting covenant. Sanctified, set apart
unto Christ when He died, and they died in Him on that cross.
Sanctified by His Spirit when He takes His Word, this Gospel,
and sets them apart, brings them to believe it, and they see the
Lord. And then Gen. Isaiah, he has this voice he hears. Also I heard the voice of the
Lord saying, who shall I send and who will go for us? Then
said I, here am I, send me. What's he going to do now? He's
going to be a witness? He's going to simply Tell those
He bears witness to about the One He saw, and how He was, and
how He saved Him, and how He therefore gets all the glory. This is the One revealed. May He be pleased. If we've never
seen Him before, to reveal Him to us. And may He be pleased
to keep revealing Him to us again and again and again. Father,
this day we pray You'd bless Your Word to the hearts of all
who hear it for Your glory and honor and praise for the glory
of Your grace that You've given Your people in Christ Jesus the
Lord. We pray in His name, Amen.