Let's turn together to the 28th
chapter of the book of Isaiah, Isaiah 28. I want to begin this message by
repeating to you three things that I commonly tell congregations
around the world where they have a faithful pastor. and a faithful
gospel church, things I've repeated to you a number of times, but
they need frequently to be remembered. I have no question that the greatest
privilege, the greatest blessing God can bestow upon anyone in
this world, upon any man, woman, any community, is the privilege
of hearing a man faithfully preach the gospel of his free grace
in Christ Jesus. The greatest blessing God ever
gave any people is a gospel church and a faithful gospel preacher. God's given you that privilege
for many years. And in doing so, he gives you
the means of grace He gives you the opportunity to know the living
God, to be saved by his free grace, to know his will, to be
fed with knowledge and understanding, and to find comfort and rest
for your souls. Every believer, every child of
God, ought to cherish the privilege of sitting under and being part
of a faithful gospel ministry. This is the ascension gift of
Christ to his church. This is the ascension gift of
Christ to his church. This needs to be emphasized and
understood in this generation as never before. Today, preaching
and preachers, for the most part, rightly so, are looked upon with
contempt. That ought never be the case
where men and women have the privilege of hearing a man faithfully
preach the gospel. Here's the second thing. The
greatest curse God can ever bring upon any people, this side of
hell, is to remove the light of his word and to silence the
voice of his preacher. God never leaves himself without
a witness. but it does take his light away
from those who despise it and refuse it and refuse to walk
in it and gives it to others. When God refuses to speak, when
God silences the voice of his prophet, when God stops the mouth
of his preacher, men and women are left to themselves to grope
in the darkness of religion without God. I often think about those
400 years between Malachi and John the Baptist. For 400 years,
God didn't send a prophet to his people. And if you read the
history of the Jews in those 400 years, it was never more
lamentable than during that time. God sent blindness to Israel. He cast them off. And our Lord
Jesus warns, I will remove my candlestick out of his place. I have seen it happen. Oh my
God. I've seen it happen many times
in my lifetime. Where once the gospel was faithfully
preached, God takes away the candlestick. And when he does,
no light is left. One occasion many years ago,
for 12 years, God's servant John Bunyan was locked up in Bedford
jail, not because of God's judgment upon Bunyan, but because of God's
judgment upon Bedford. For 12 years, God silenced his
voice in that place. And here's the third thing. The
greatest responsibility ever placed upon a man is the responsibility
of the Word of God, the responsibility of preaching the Gospel. I hope
I never get over the awesome weight of that responsibility. I pray that God will ever cause
me to tremble as I attempt to preach His Word, whether it be
to a thousand or to ten. God's given me the responsibility
of faithfully proclaiming his word. I ask you continually to
pray for me as I endeavor to do so. As God's ambassador, it
is my responsibility to speak to eternity bound men and women
in God's name. This is God's word to me. He
that hath my word, Let him speak my word faithfully. If I fail
to do so, the Lord God says, I'm responsible for your blood.
Their blood will I require at your hand. In consideration of
this, Paul said, necessity is laid upon me. Yea, woe is unto
me if I preach not the gospel. That's an awesome, awesome, awesome
responsibility. You too have a responsibility. You who hear the gospel have
a great weight of responsibility as well. It's your responsibility
to obey God's word. God will hold you responsible. I'm not pausing to look for something
to say. I'm pausing because I want you to hear me. God will hold
you responsible for every sermon you've heard and every sermon
you could have heard but chose not to. If you do not obey the
gospel, it will be to you a savor of death unto death. If you believe,
it is a savor of life unto life. If you do not obey, in the day
of judgment, Paul says you will be judged by my gospel. Now with that in mind, let's
look at Isaiah 28, verses one through 13. This is Isaiah's prophecy of
God's judgment upon his Ephraim, the 10 northern tribes of Israel,
when the time when Shamedesir would come in, the king of Assyria,
after the days of Hezekiah and Josiah, and he would be an instrument
of God's wrath in God's hand to destroy the kingdom of Ephraim. Let's look at it together. Isaiah
28, verse one. In verse 12, the Lord God speaks
of this judgment that's coming upon Ephraim, the 10 northern
tribes. And he speaks of this judgment and gave them his warning,
told them about sending his prophets. And in the last line of verse
12, he says, yet they would not hear. What a word. Yet they would not
hear. What an indictment. God sent
them his word and yet they would not hear. Because they would
not hear the word of God, God destroyed them in the day of
his anger. Let me call your attention to
five things very briefly in these 13 verses. First, in verses one
through four, God's prophet calls our attention to the equity and
justice of divine judgment. Woe to the crown of pride, to
the drunkards of Ephraim, whose glorious beauty is a fading flower,
which are on the head of the fat valleys of them that are
overcome with wine. Behold, the Lord hath a mighty
and strong one, which as a tempest of hail and a destroying storm,
as a flood of mighty waters overflowing, shall cast down to the earth
with the hand. crown of pride, the drunkards
of Ephraim shall be trodden in defeat, and the glorious beauty
which is on the head of the fat valley shall be a fading flower,
and as a hasty fruit before the summer, which when he looketh
upon it seeth, while it is yet in his hand, he eateth it up. God had been good to Ephraim.
He had given Ephraim the richest, most fertile land in the land
of Canaan. He had given them his word, his
ordinances, his prophets, his priests. But Ephraim despised
God's goodness, refused his word, and polluted his ordinances.
Therefore, God was determined to destroy Ephraim. Now understand
this and understand it well. We recognize that God has predestined
all things that come to pass. Judgment as well as mercy. But
judgment, like mercy, is always an act of justice. God's judgment
upon men is always an act of divine retribution. God never
brings judgment without a reason. It is God dealing with people
according to their merit, according to their sins. Our Lord tells
us plainly in Matthew 11, the greater the sin, the greater
the judgment. The greater the light God gives,
the greater the responsibility. The greater the light men reject,
the greater the darkness God brings upon them. Ephraim was
puffed up with pride. Therefore, God was determined
to tear her down. See, there's nothing in this
world God hates like pride, especially religious pride. Those who exalt
themselves, He will abase. Those who lift themselves up,
God will cast down. Pride is always the forerunner
of destruction. Ephraim had been intoxicated
with the wine of idolatry. Therefore God gave Ephraim up
to a reprobate mind. I have no question the Ephraimites
may have been guilty of drunkenness in a literal sense. Don't have
any hesitancy in acknowledging that. But the drunkenness for
which God destroyed Ephraim, he states plainly to be the drunkenness
of idolatry. Hosea chapter 4 verse 17, he
says, Ephraim is joined to his idols. Let him alone. Ephraim
was drunk with the wine that destroys the nations of the world,
the wine of Babylon's fornication. The wine of Babylon is the doctrine
of Babylon. It is the wine with which this
religious age is utterly intoxicated. The wine with which folks from
the white house to the poor house are utterly intoxicated. It is
the doctrine of Babylon. What is the doctrine of Babylon?
It goes by many names. It's found under many, many creeds. It's found with many religious
heads. But the doctrine of Babylon is
always the same. It doesn't matter whether it's
papacy or Islam or Judaism, Baptist, Presbyterian or Methodist, Pentecostal
or otherwise. The doctrine is always the same.
It is the degradation of God. It is bringing God down to the
level of man. Making God like a man. Making God helpless. Making God
subject to man. Making God's will subject to
the will of man. Making God's purpose subject
to the purpose of man. Making God's work subject to
the work of man. At the same time, it is the exaltation
of man. It is lifting man up in the house
of God, setting him in the place of God, demanding that he be
worshipped as God. If you care to investigate, you
will find that the whole of religion in this day is focused on man
and what he wants. Folks make plans to build churches.
They go to communities, they go to areas, and they do surveys
and do some scouting to find out what people want. And if
we find out what you want, we'll build a church and give you what
you want. Second Thessalonians 2 makes it plain. It's called
the worship of man. It is ascribing to man the work,
the right, the power, the ability, the adoration, the esteem, and
the reverence that belongs only to God. God save us from the
wine of Babylon. In this place, I make every effort,
and I have the whole time I've been with you, and God helping
me, it will be so today, tomorrow, and until I draw my last breath.
We will not honor men but God. We will not seek to please men
but God. We will not seek to entertain
men, but rather proclaim the gospel of God's free grace in
Christ. All right, here's the second
thing, verses five and six. Here Isaiah proclaims for us
the abundance of God's grace, His free, sovereign, saving grace
for sinners in Christ. In that day. In the day when
God destroys Ephraim, in the day when God destroys the ungodly
who will not hear his word, in that day shall the Lord of hosts
be for a crown of glory and for a diadem of beauty unto the residue
of his people, and for a spirit of judgment to him that sitteth
in judgment, and for strength to them that turn the battle
to the gate. The Apostle Paul wrote in Romans
5 20, where sin abounded, grace did much more abound. And we
have an example of God's super abounding grace in these two
verses. In wrath, God remembered mercy. He showed mercy and the goodness
of his mercy in his grace and preservation of Judah. He showed
justice and the severity of his justice in the destruction of
Ephraim. Here, Judah is called the residue
of the people, representing God's elect from among the fallen,
depraved, and judged people. When Ephraim was carried away
in Assyrian bondage, God gave favor to Judah during the days
of Hezekiah and Josiah. During that time, the Lord of
Glory was the beauty of his people. And he gave those two godly kings
of Judah the spirit of judgment and strength to rule his people
and to conquer his enemies. But the prophecy speaks of one
greater than Hezekiah and Josiah. This is a prophecy of our Lord
Jesus Christ, who is our diadem of beauty and our crown of glory. There is among the fallen sons
of men a chosen people called the sons of God, a remnant according
to the election of grace, the residue of the people, chosen
by God in Christ unto salvation before the worlds were made.
The Lord Jesus has washed us in his blood, sanctified us by
his spirit, he rules us by his righteousness, and we're made
complete in him. He is our crown of glory. Certainly as this prophecy speaks
of the judgment of God in the last day, I can't help but to
observe that Christ shall be our crown of glory in everlasting
heaven itself. There are multitudes who talk
about degrees of reward in heaven. They talk about various crowns
that people earn by their works, by their obedience. They call
it good works after salvation. They earn what Paul calls a crown
of life and a crown of righteousness and an incorruptible crown, a
crown of glory. But all those crowns, are not
crowns earned by us. All those crowns are found in
Jesus Christ, the crown of glory, our diadem of beauty. There are
no degrees of reward in heavenly glory. Salvation in its entirety
is the work of God. Certainly, it is folly and utterly
ridiculous for anyone to imagine that the consummation of salvation,
heavenly glory, somehow depends upon our goodness and our obedience. Here is the abundance of God's
grace. God chose us. God put us in Christ. God has
made us heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, our blessed
Savior. And Christ, who is our crown
of glory and our everlasting King, rules the universe in the
spirit of wisdom. He rules the universe in the
strength of his omnipotence, our righteous King. Oh, thank
God for him who sits on his throne. Number three, verses seven and
eight. Isaiah here speaks of the sovereignty and freeness
of God's mercy and grace in Christ. But they also, that is the residue
of the people, the people of Judah as well as Ephraim, they
also have erred through wine, through strong drink, are out
of the way The priest and the prophet have erred through strong
drink. They are swallowed up of wine.
They're out of the way through strong drink. They err in vision. They stumble in judgment. For
all tables are full of vomit and filthiness. The tables of
sacrifice, the tables of worship, full of vomit and filthiness,
so that there is no place clean. The men of Judah were just as
vile and guilty as the men of Ephraim. They committed the same
crimes. They profaned the same ordinances
of God with the same vomit of superstition and excrement of
idolatry through the drunkenness of will worship, just as fully
of those in Ephraim. Now look at this small assembly,
and the fact is Most sitting before me now were just as guilty
of the crimes of Ephraim as anyone else. Drunk with the abomination
of Babylon of worship, of worshiping yourselves. And God had mercy
on you. God had mercy on me. What was the difference between
Ephraim and Judah? What's the difference between
you and me and others? God chose Judah. God was merciful
to Judah. What's the difference between
you and your brother, your sister, your mother, your father, your
son, your daughter, your husband, your wife, your neighbor? What's
the difference? It is God who made you to differ
from another and only He. God's grace is sovereign. God's grace is free. God's grace
is unconditional. And God's grace puts a difference
between men. Who maketh thee to differ from
another? What hast thou that thou didst not receive? Now if
thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory as if thou'st not
received it? Number four, verses nine through
11. Here is the method of divine instruction. Whom he, the Lord
God, shall teach, and whom shall he make to understand doctrine? Them that are weaned from the
milk and drawn from the breast, I thank thee, O Father, Lord
of heaven and earth, because thou hast hidden these things
from the wise and prudent and hast revealed them unto babes. Grown men and women, well-educated
men and women, intelligent men and women, brilliant men and
women, when humbled by the grace of God, receive his word like
babies just weaned from the breast. They eat up anything Mama puts
in their mouths. They just take whatever Mama
puts in their mouths. Now, no, you are not to take
whatever this preacher puts in your mouth or any other preacher.
But whatever God puts before you in his word, his people humbly
bow to and receive. They don't rebel, they don't
buck against it, they bow to it and receive it. Verse 10,
for precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon
line, here a little, there a little. For with stammering lips and
another tongue will he speak to his people. Not only does
he teach the humble, but he uses stammering lips to teach them.
He teaches them with the most unlikely of teachers. God sometimes
raises up men to preach the gospel who are brilliant, well-educated
academics. Usually, usually he takes men
who have no natural abilities, no natural skills, and uses men
of stammering lips to teach his people the most wondrous mysteries
of the universe, the mysteries of redemption, grace, and salvation
in Christ. Now let's look at verse 12 and
13. Here we're shown our responsibility.
the responsibility of obedience to the word of God. To whom he
said, this is the rest wherewith ye may cause the weary to rest
and the refreshing. Yet they would not hear. But
the word of the Lord was unto them precept upon precept, precept
upon precept, line upon line, here a little, there a little.
that they might go and fall backward and be broken and snared and
taken. The word of God was to the people
of Ephraim a savor of death unto death. To the men and women of
Judah, it was a savor of life unto life. God was pleased to
save the people of Judah and preserve them in the days of
Hezekiah and Josiah. The people of Ephraim God cast
off because they would not hear his word. My dear friends, God will not trifle. with folks who trifle with his
word. We will either bow to it or we
will be damned by it. I wrote to a young preacher friend
of mine last week. You'll see an article about it
in the bulletin in a few weeks. He asked me a question about
the passage of scripture in 1 Corinthians. And I summed it up by telling
him, this book is full of snares and jinns and traps. Just as
we just read here, God gave them this word, line upon line, precept
upon precept, that they might fall backward and be broken and
snared and taken. It's full of snares and gens
and traps to entrap the rebel so that Christ, the foundation
stone, might be made to them a stumbling stone over which
they stumble into hell. That's according to God's purpose.
And it's made to you and to me who believe a savor of life unto
life. A savor of life unto life. So that the very same book by
which God reveals the gospel to sinners, he uses to ensnare
the reprobate. and they will not receive his
word, and by his word are forever damned. If you believe the gospel,
if you cherish the word of God, if you bow to God, his word is
to you a saver of life unto life, not because of you, but because
God from the beginning has chosen you to salvation. Blessed are
your eyes, for they see. Blessed are your ears, for they
hear. Blessed are your hearts, for
they believe. Amen.