Well my text this morning is
the last two verses of the chapter that Stephen read to us, Isaiah
45 verses 24 and 25, and the title is The Seed of Israel Justified. The Seed of Israel Justified. Do you remember every now and
then in the media, the Facebook type of media, or in the press
or somewhere like that, something will crop up that there was a
picture And it's weird, because half the population sees the
picture one way. like the lady's wearing a blue
dress, and the other half of the population see her as wearing
a silver dress. And it's like, well, how can
that be right? It's the same picture. It's the one picture,
but some perceive it as a blue dress and others perceive it
as a silver dress. How can it be so different? Well, it's an
odd feature of the eyes and the brain and differences between
different people. But you know, it reminded me
that there is an amazing difference in mankind when the scriptures
are read. There are swathes and swathes,
including very religious people, and they're in darkness. They're
in absolute darkness. There are many who study it and
they are in darkness. For example, I've told you before
about long discussions 30 or 40 years ago with Jehovah's Witnesses
about these chapters, 40 to 45 in Isaiah, and them being in
utter darkness because they saw nothing of what the child of
God sees. What does the child of God see?
The child of God sees the light which is Christ here. You say
he wasn't born then? Christ was there. In the beginning
was the Word and the Word was with God and he was God. He is
the one that was in the beginning, in his Word. He said these scriptures
are they which speak of him. For some, praise God, they see
the light, and the light is the light of Christ. God, who shined
light in the darkness of creation, has shined in our hearts, says
2 Corinthians 4, verse 6, to give us the light of the knowledge
of the glory of God, where? In the face of Jesus Christ.
This is the Lord manifest. And when I say Lord, I mean Lord
with small capital letters, meaning The very essence of God. Look
at verse 18 of our chapter 45. For thus says the Lord. Do you
see it there? If you've got a King James version,
it's in small capital letters. The Lord that created the heavens. God himself that formed the earth
and made it. He hath established it. He created
it not in vain. He formed it to be inhabited.
I am the Lord and there is none else. That's him speaking. Verse
21. Tell ye and bring them near. Yea, let them take counsel together.
Who hath declared this from ancient time? Who hath told it from that
time? Have not I, the Lord, and there
is no God else beside me? There's not some inferior God,
as well as the Jehovah God. There is no God else beside me.
He, God, is a just God. A just God. absolutely, unchangingly
just, but also a Saviour. And there is none beside Me.
Verse 22, Look unto Me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the
earth. all the ends of the earth, for
I am God, and there is none else." Who is speaking there as God? Who is it that is speaking there
as God? I'll tell you. It's Christ. In
the beginning was the Word, the Word of God. What's His name
in Revelation? On His thigh was a name, the
Word of God. This is Christ, the Word of God.
This is Christ who alone manifests the very being of God to His
people. No man has seen God at any time.
The only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, He
has made Him known. He has declared Him. He has manifested
Him. and He is God. In Hebrews 1 verse
8, quoting the Psalms, God says to the Son, to the Son, He says,
God says, to the Son, God says, God the Father says to the Son,
Thy throne, O God, is forever. Who's He addressing? The Son
of God. How is He addressing Him? As God, Thy throne, O God,
is forever and ever. Great is the mystery of godliness,
says Paul to Timothy, chapter 3 and verse 16 of his first epistle.
Great is the mystery of godliness, for God, God, God, the unknowable,
unseeable God, was manifest in the flesh. In John 1 verse 3,
we read that all things were made by Him. by the Lord Jesus
Christ. What do we read in verse 18?
God himself formed the earth and made it. He created it not
in vain. He formed it to be inhabited. I am the Lord and there is none
else. Who made it? The Lord Jesus Christ. In John
1 verse 3, all things were made by him and without him was not
anything made that was made. You see there, the Jehovah's
Witnesses have got it completely wrong because they say that the
Lord Jesus Christ was the first created being of God. Without
Him was not anything made that was made. If He was made, then
how can He have been made? Because without Him, nothing
was made that was made. Colossians 1.16, by Him, Christ,
were all things created by Him and for Him. Is it not clear
who is speaking here? It's our Lord Jesus Christ. Verse
23, I have sworn by myself, the word has gone out of my mouth
in righteousness and shall not return, that unto me every knee
shall bow and every tongue shall confess. Philippians 2, verses
9 to 11, that unto Jesus shall every knee bow. Isn't it? It's
Jesus. It's the Lord Jesus Christ. In
Isaiah 45, verse 25, it says, the seed of Israel shall be justified
and shall glory. At the end of 1 Corinthians chapter
1, we read that Christ is made of God unto us, wisdom from God
and righteousness. and sanctification and redemption. He is everything that we need
before God. Therefore, if you are going to
glory, where will you glory? Let him that glories glory in
the Lord. The seed of Israel shall glory
in the Lord, in Christ, in Jehovah Jesus. This is it. Now I want
to see in these two verses, firstly God's purpose of grace, Secondly,
the fulfillment of his purpose, the accomplishment of his purpose.
And thirdly, the peril of unbelief. First of all, God's purpose of
grace. God's purpose of grace. It's
quite clearly grace here. Look unto me and be ye saved,
all ye ends of the earth, for I am God. He's a God of salvation.
He's a God, we read, who delights in mercy. It is the delight of
God. to be merciful to sinners. Is
that not amazing? It is the delight of the holy,
just God who doesn't change to be merciful to sinners. He has
a purpose of grace. Why is there a need for grace?
You know the verse that I quote so often to you from Job, in
fact it's a couple of times in Job, but the text I remember
is Job 9 and verse 2. What shall a man do to be just? How should a man be just with
God? That was Job's question. He thought
he'd done everything to be just with God. As good as a man could
get, and he probably was as good as a man could get. But it wasn't
enough. How should a man be just with
God? How should a man who is a sinner,
all of us, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of
God, how should we be declared just with God? How should we
be justified? The seed of Israel shall be justified.
How should we be justified? Answer, it's there, verse 25,
in the Lord. justified in the Lord. But who is it that is justified
in the Lord, so that we are just with God, so that we are right
with God, so that we are at peace with God? Who is it? It's only
the seed of Israel. The seed of Israel shall be justified
and shall glory. Nobody else. Because the message
of Scripture from front to back is that God is a God of discriminating
grace. He is gracious to whom He will
be gracious. He has mercy on whom He will
have mercy. This is what it declares from
start to finish. The natural man hates it. As
people we hate that message of God's particular redemption,
but it's the message of the Scriptures. And it hangs together so clearly,
it cannot be any other way. You see, we're told in Hebrews
2 verse 16, that when Christ came, He took not on Him the
nature of angels, He didn't come to save angels, but He took on
Him the seed of, now, people would think it would say the
seed of Adam, in other words, all people, but it doesn't. It
doesn't say the seed of all people. He took on Him the seed of Abraham. Who is the seed of Abraham? Ah,
the Jews, you say. No, no, the elect people of God. How do I know that? Galatians
3 verse 29. If you are Christ's, says Paul,
Whether you're a Jew or a Gentile, if you are Christ's, then are
you Abraham's seed. If you are Christ's, you are
the seed of Abraham, the seed of Israel. For Abraham was the
father of Isaac, who was the father of Jacob, who was named
Israel. This is the people of God, the
seed of Israel. If you are Christ's, if you trust
in Christ, if you believe in Him, if He is your Lord and Master,
you are the seed of Abraham. You are the seed of Israel. And
you, this text tells us, are justified in the Lord, His elect
alone. Who are His elect? They're born. You must be born again, said
Jesus to Nicodemus. You must be born. How are you
born? Natural birth is a birth of blood,
of bloodlines. And in birth there's blood itself,
but born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of
the will of man. Is it clear enough to you? Born not of the will of the flesh,
nor of the will of man, born of God. It is God, it is God
who determines these things, for God is sovereign over all
things. God is the one who softens the
hearts of some, his elect. and hardens the hearts of others.
He says of Pharaoh, for this cause, for this reason, I raised
you up. This is what he says of Pharaoh
in the days of Moses coming out of Egypt in the Exodus. He says of Pharaoh, for this
cause, I raised you up that I might harden your heart to show my
power in the earth. God is sovereign. This is not
national Israel, for we read in Romans 2, 28, he is not a
Jew, a true Jew, which is won outwardly by physical, genetical
descent. No, no, no. He is a Jew who is
won by that circumcision which is of the heart, by the Spirit
of God. We read in Romans 9, verse 6,
they are not all Israel, they're not all the people of God, which
are called Jews, which are the descendants of Abraham physically.
No, not all Israel, which are of Israel, not professing Israel,
not the ancient nation of Israel, not modern Jews, not modern Christendom
even, only the elect of God. Romans 11.5 There is a remnant,
it says, according to the election of grace. You say, oh, that's
very limiting, isn't it? Does this book really say, does
God's Word really say that there are so few? No, in actual fact,
it says a multitude which no man can number. A multitude of
elect, redeemed, quickened, made alive sinners, a multitude. And only these, this multitude,
are justified in the Lord, in Christ, not in themselves. How are they justified in the
Lord? Firstly, they're justified by
eternal union with Him. It is in the Lord, not by the
Lord. They're justified in the Lord,
by virtue of being put in eternity into union, into legal union,
into union under the requirements of divine justice, in the Lord
Jesus Christ, in eternity. Betrothed. in a marriage betrothal
to the Son of God, to the second person of the Trinity, in eternity,
to the one who is the Lamb, it says in Revelation 8, 13, the
Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. There are people
who, because they're in Him, we read in Romans 8, verse 17,
are heirs of God, of the things of God, due to inherit the things
of God, and joint heirs with the Lord Jesus Christ. And he,
a surety and a substitute for his people, as the bridegroom
of his bride took absolute legal responsibility for his bride,
his church, his people, his elect, given to him before the foundation
of the world. So that we read in 1 Corinthians
3 verses 21 and 23, all things are yours and you are Christ's
and Christ is God's. Everything that he is, you have.
It is so strong a union So strong a union that God made the sins
of his people to be Christ's. And if we say we have no sin,
we deceive ourselves. Of course, we're sinners from
start to finish. There is none that doeth good.
No, not one. But God made the sins of his
people that would separate them from God, that would bar them
from citizenship of the kingdom of God, that would keep them
out of God's heaven, for nothing that defiles shall enter therein.
God made the sins of his people to be Christ's sins. You say,
that's blasphemy. How on earth can you say that?
I can say it because the scripture says it. 2 Corinthians chapter
5 verse 21. He made him who knew no sin to
be sin. Which sin? The sins of his people.
Why? That his people might be made
the righteousness of God in him. That great transaction where,
as it were, The sins of the people of God were swapped for the righteousness
of God, so that Christ took the sins and paid for it entirely,
to put it away, to blot it out, to blot out the handwriting,
all of the law that was against us and all of the sins that declare
that we have broken that law. He bore them. He bore the guilt
of them. He bore responsibility for them.
He didn't just offer to pick up the price. He actually was
made that sin. And being made it, God justly
punished him. God justly poured out His divine
wrath upon him that those sins might be paid for. How do I know
they're his sins? He says it in the Psalms. By
divine inspiration, when God the Holy Spirit inspired David
to write in Psalm 69, my sins are not hid. Who's speaking there? By inspiration
it's Christ that is speaking there on the cross bearing the
sins of his people. The sins that he was made for
he never committed any of his own for he was tempted in all
points like as we are yet without sin. But it was so that God's
righteousness might be made his people's righteousness in him. Christ faithfully submitted to
the Father's will. He fully met the demands of God's
righteousness, of His law, of His justice, as His people's
substitute. And so we read Galatians 2 and
verse 16, Galatians chapter 2 and verse 16 says this, knowing that
a man is not justified, How is it, you know, remember our text?
In the Lord shall the seed of Israel be justified. A man is
not justified by the works of the law. How then? By the faith
of Jesus Christ, by the things that he did faithfully, obeying
his father, bearing the sins of his people, going to the cross
of Calvary, perfectly keeping the law, being found a perfect
Passover lamb to go to that cross, bearing the sins of his people.
Why? Even we have believed in Jesus
Christ that we might be justified by the faith of Christ. Note
it's not our believing that justifies us. Our believing is the evidence
that we are justified. What justifies the people of
God is the faithfulness of Christ. It's what he did, not by the
works of the law. For by the works of the law shall
no flesh be justified. Obeying the law does not make
anybody just in the sight of God. No. Verse 21. Tell ye and bring them near.
Yea, let them take counsel together. Who hath declared this from ancient
time? Who hath told it from that time? Have not I, the Lord, and
there is none else beside me, a just God? and a saviour. He was just in that he punished
his people's sins in the person of his son, when his son became
a man, born at Bethlehem, raised at Nazareth, made of a woman
when the fullness of the time was come, made of a woman, made
under the law to redeem those who are under the law. Cursed
is everyone that does not continue in all things written in the
book of the law to do them, but Christ has redeemed us, his people,
from the curse of the law. How? By him being made that curse
for us, and thereby God remains perfectly just. a just God and
a Saviour. Oh yes, by eternal union is how
we're justified in the Lord. Secondly, by belief in Him. I thought I just said that it's
not by our believing. I'm absolutely certain of that.
It is not anything that we do, including anything that we might
do by way of believing, but We demonstrate that we're in that
union with Christ that has saved us from our sins, that makes
us the objects of God's mercy and grace by the fact that we
believe the Lord. We believe in Him. Salvation
from condemnation is experienced in our lives as believers. It's
experienced. It's something that is felt every
single day. Not a day goes by that you don't
feel thirst. that you don't feel hunger, that
you don't feel the need to breathe. Isn't it? Isn't it true? If a
day comes along, I mean, maybe you can go without food for a
day or two, but if a day comes along when you don't feel the
need to breathe, you're dead. Is that not true? Think about
it spiritually. How many days go by and we don't
feel a desperate need to commune with our God? belief in the Lord,
it's an experience thing, it's a real thing that we experience. And by Christ, by belief in Christ,
all that believe in him are justified from all things from which you
could not be justified by the law of Moses. That's what is
said in Acts 13, 39. By your doing you could never
be justified. But through faith, looking to
Christ and seeing what He has done, you experience that you
are justified from all things that you couldn't do for yourself
by keeping the law. The seed of Israel showed their
election. Look at 1 Thessalonians. Look
how the seed of Israel shows its election of God. In 1 Thessalonians
1 and verse 4, Paul says, knowing, brethren beloved, your election
of God. He says, knowing that God specifically,
deliberately, of his own volition, chose you as opposed to others,
knowing, brethren beloved, your election of God. Verse 9, they
themselves, the people around, show of us what manner of entering
in we had unto you, and how ye turned to God from idols to serve
the living and true God. How did that happen? Because
by his grace, And by the power of His Spirit, when the Gospel
was preached, your hearts were opened, as opposed to others.
Some people, you know, the Gospel is preached and it bounces off.
It bounces off like ping-pong balls hitting a hard steel case.
And the message goes out and it just bounces off. But to others,
the Spirit, Lydia, remember, Lydia, Philippi, the seller of
purple, When Paul preached, there were the women by the riverbank
and it says, the Lord. It doesn't say Paul's preaching
was so powerful that she couldn't deny it. That was true, but that
wasn't the reason. Why did Lydia believe when others
didn't? The Lord opened her heart. These Thessalonians, they opened
their hearts because the message that Paul and those with him
preached had such a powerful entering in to their experience. And you know that verse I quote
so often in the second epistle to the Thessalonians. We are
bound to give thanks to God for you brethren, beloved of God,
for God has from the beginning chosen you to salvation. How
do you know he's elected them? Through sanctification of the
spirit, you're set apart to it, and belief of the truth. You
evidence it because you believe the truth. As I heard Don Faulkner
say recently, faith is the only sure evidence of faith. How do
you know you are Christ? There's only one way. You believe
the gospel of His grace. But you don't just believe it
mentally. Here's the third point. By communion with Him. It's living
faith. It's heartfelt experience of
forgiveness. Heartfelt. You know, we are the
true circumcisions, says Paul to the Philippians. We worship
God in the Spirit. We have a desire to worship God.
We worship God in the Spirit. We rejoice in Christ Jesus, for
He is the one who has saved us from our sins. We have absolutely
no confidence. Ah, well, you know, my mother
and father were this, that, and the other, and I come from a
family of believers. No, we've got a good tradition. No, irrelevant.
Utterly, utterly, utterly irrelevant. No confidence in the flesh. No
confidence. None whatsoever. None. You children growing up
in believing families, no confidence in the flesh. None whatsoever. No. We believe in the Lord Jesus
Christ because He has come and shown Himself to us. And we're
conscious of the Spirit's inner testimony. It says in Romans
8, 16, the Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit that
we're the children of God. The Spirit of God confirms within
you, you're the child of God. He takes the things of Christ
and shows them to us. He shows us His blood paying
our sin debt. and clearing it completely. Is
that not what he does? In the inner depths of our consciousness,
the Spirit of God shows the blood of Christ. This is discerning
the body and blood of Christ in the communion service. He
shows us the comfort. We feel it, we know it, we know
this comfort. Who shall bring any charge to
God's elect? They can't do it. Christ has
died for them. You know, that really is a divine putting round
of the arm of comfort, isn't it? To the child of God. I'm
going to face God. I know it's appointed to die
once and then the judge. I have no fear. Why? Because
my sins are blotted out. How do I know? For Christ has
died. How do I know it was accepted? He rose again from the dead.
We grow in grace, yes, as we go through life. We ought to
grow in grace and the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. We
should increasingly hate the world as we go through this life. We really should. You know, it's
a beautiful place and there are things to enjoy and there's nothing
wrong. God says that he accepts your works in Christ. He accepts
your works. He accepts what you do. But there's
an increasing hatred of the things of the world. John says to believing
people, love not the world, neither the things that are in the world.
If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in
him. We really ought to meditate upon that. And those who are
his possess a good hope. We live our lives knowing where
we're going. We live our lives knowing that
this is but for a moment. We live our lives knowing that
this experience is just for a short time, and with all of its ups
and downs, it is nothing to compare with the glory that awaits the
people of God. We, as the Word of God says,
walk, live our lives in the Spirit of God, and not according to
the flesh. So you see, God's purpose In
the Lord shall all the seed of Israel be justified and shall
glory. God's purpose is that His elect, the seed of Israel,
shall glory, and shall glory in the Lord, in His salvation,
not in self. It's the Spirit's work to expose
self. Do you remember the parable of
the prodigal son? And he is such a picture of us
in our waywardness, but there's a key point of that when he's
in the pigs field, feeding the pigs, and he's in such terrible
condition, and it says, he came to an end of himself. Ah, that's a good place to be.
He came to an end of confidence in himself. You know, the world
constantly tells us a message that you've got to have self-confidence.
And don't get me wrong, you have to have ambition and you have
to be confident that you can do the job you've been given
to do. But in terms of the things of eternity, no confidence in
self, end of himself. It's a prerequisite for glorying
in Christ the Lord. He who has made unto us wisdom
from God and righteousness and sanctification and redemption,
where should we glory for that? Not in anything of self, but
we glory in the Lord. This is the purpose of God, that
all the seed of Israel shall be justified in the Lord. So
how is it accomplished? This is my second point, and
I'll speed up, don't worry. He appoints men to come. Look
in the middle of verse 24. Surely shall one say in the Lord
have I righteousness and strength, even to him shall men come. God appoints men by his sovereign
grace to come to him. God appoints some men when he
passes by the majority of others. He appoints them to come to him.
He doesn't justify and leave them alone until they die and
go to glory. He calls them to come to Him,
now in this life. Who? The elect, the chosen, the
redeemed, the regenerated. He teaches them the truth of
God. He draws them by His Spirit. He leads them under the sound
of true preaching, the preaching of the gospel of grace, the preaching
of the message of this book. Do you know, increasingly, I
find that that which is false religion and false Christianity
looks at us and our friends, the people that we were with
last weekend at the conference at Dudley, and calls us hyper-Calvinist. Well, I tell you, If the charge
of being hyper-Calvinist is that you preach the Gospel exactly
as it is portrayed in the Scripture, then go ahead, call me a hyper-Calvinist,
because that's what this book teaches. It teaches the absolute
sovereignty of God in salvation and reprobation. God is sovereign
over all things. You either have a God who is
God, or you have a puppet, and you are the God of that puppet.
If the charges were hyper-Calvinist, and that's because we preach
exactly what this book says, then bring it on. We're hyper-Calvinists. No. He teaches us, He draws us,
He leads us under the sound of true preaching. True preaching,
the message of the Scriptures. That which to this world and
the religious world is foolishness. Well, the world around, that
message is foolishness. To the Greeks, to the world in
general, it's a foolish message. How can people be saved to be
right with a God if there is one, by the death of another
one on a cross? 2,000 years. Foolishness. And to the religious folks, what
you mean, that and that alone? Oh, no, no, that's a stumbling
block to me. To the Jews, to the religious folks, it's a stumbling
block. It's something to trip over.
But this is the message of Scripture. Whosoever shall call on the name
of the Lord shall be saved. But as Romans 10 tells us, how
are you going to call on something that you haven't believed in?
You call on something you believe in, don't you? If something goes
wrong with your gas boiler at home, you don't call on any Tom,
Dick or Harry, you try and find one that you believe in will
fix the boiler for you, and you call on Him. You call on Him
to come and do a fix. You call on a God that you believe
in. And how are you going to believe
in God unless you hear? And how are you going to here
unless someone preach the gospel to you. That's what it says.
It might be in writing that it's preached to you. It might be
on an internet sermon that it's preached. You might be in the
room when the preacher's there preaching it. But it has to be
something that comes by one of God's servants to your mind,
that you hear, believe, and then call, and are saved. And how
shall they preach unless they are sent of God? God uses means
to cause men to come, to come, to come to Him. Even to Him shall
men come. He uses circumstances. He uses
providence all the way my Saviour leads me. Look back down your
life, those times when He caused your path to cross with someone
who gave you a gospel message. He takes away the fragile props
of life, Those things that we lean on, He takes them away.
Oh, oh, this hard, hard thing that's come along. How many people
can testify to the fact that a severe bout of illness brought
them to the Savior? Praise the grace. There was a
hymn that used to say, praise the grace whose fears alarmed
me. There were fears in the providence
of God that alarmed me and drove me to Him, that showed me that
I am appointed to die once, and then the judgment, that I am
justly under the curse of the law, that I am facing a God who
is a fearful fire, consuming fire into whose hands it is a
fearful thing to fall, that caused me to cry out, what must I do
to be saved? coming empty-handed, as the hymn
says, nothing in my hand I bring, simply to thy cross I cling.
Empty-handed, without any righteousness other than those filthy rags
righteousnesses of our own efforts, which are of no good whatsoever.
No, no righteousness at all. Thirsty for the righteousness
of God. Hungry for the righteousness
of God. And hearing that voice that says,
come and you shall be filled. Labouring under the burden of
sin that would condemn me to hell. Heavy laden under sin's
guilt that would condemn me to hell. Knowing that there's no
other way than to come. But how can I come before one
so holy? As Esther said, Esther the Queen,
when she was going to go in to the Emperor, and it was a dangerous
thing in that culture in those days, that just by one look the
Emperor could command your execution. And Esther says this, I'm going
to go in, and she said, if I perish, I perish. And so the sinner comes
to that point, I'm going to go to God. And if I perish, I perish. It's all in His sovereign hands,
all in His sovereign will. And compelled to come, feeling
that there's nowhere else to go. To whom shall we go? You
have the words of eternal life, you alone. Unable to resist the
will and call of God's Spirit, for He, the Spirit of God, makes
His people willing in the day of His power. No man can come,
says Jesus in John 6, 44. No man can come. He causes them
to come, but no man can come except the Father. God, the Father,
draw him. This is a divine drawing. And
rather than those people dreading a consuming fire, that drawing
of the Father causes them to hear this. Isaiah 43 and verse
1, what does he say to his people? Fear not. for I have redeemed
thee. Fear not, I'm dreading the consuming
fire. Fear not, I have redeemed thee. I'm dreading the condemnation
for the guilt of my sin. Fear not, says God, for I have
redeemed thee. And he gives the sight of faith
by his spirit to see Christ's death. clearing the sin debt,
the blood being shed that paid the price of the sin debt. He
gives the eye of faith to see the righteousness of God transferred
to that penitent sinner. He confirms the adoption that
is signed and lodged legally in heaven, that we might receive
the adoption of sons, it says in Galatians 4, 4 and 5. What,
even for me? Even for me, some might say.
What, even for me? Listen to this. Listen to this. However bad a sinner you are,
John 6, 37. Him that cometh to me, I will
in no wise cast out. But I'm too bad. Him that cometh
to me, I will in no wise cast out. Come unto me. I quote it
often, come unto me, Matthew 11, 28, come unto me, all ye
that labour under heavy laden, under guilt and sin, I will give
you rest for your souls. My yoke is easy, my burden is
light, Revelation 22, 17. Whosoever, what, even me? Whosoever
will, wants to, let him take of the water of life. I haven't
got the price to pay. Freely, freely. And coming they
confess, verse 24, what do they say? Surely shall one say, in
the Lord I have righteousness and strength. I have His righteousness. I have His strength, which is
made perfect in weakness. That which bears fruit. What
sort of fruit does it bear? We read it in Galatians 5, 21,
22. But it's a changed attitude from
the attitude of the world. It's a submissive spirit to the
will of God that seeks His word and His will and says, whatever
this world around me tells me I ought to be doing, I will seek
God's will for where I should be and what I should be doing.
that seeks God's will for who my partner should be in life,
that seeks God's will for where I should go and what I should
do. He gives me a spirit of humility, of selflessness, of gratitude. What was the accusation of God
against the world? They were not thankful. He gives
an attitude of thankfulness. He gives an awareness of fleshly
weakness. Paul, the more he grew, the more
he went on. He wrote those letters as his
life went on. He starts out early on by saying,
I'm not meet to be called an apostle. Oh, well, maybe you're
meet to be called a good saint then. No, he says, I'm the least
of all the saints. Oh, well, maybe you're the least
of all the saints, but at least you're not a saint. No, he says,
I'm the chief of sinners. That was it. His perception of
what he was in the flesh got stronger of how much a sinner
he was. What great salvation this is,
is it not? Is this not great salvation?
In the Lord shall the seed of Israel be justified and glory.
What a peril there is in neglecting it. In Hebrews 2 verse 3 it says
this, how shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation? If we're incensed, look at verse
24, all that are incensed against him shall be ashamed. Incensed
against God. for his salvation. The peril
of unbelief, I'll be very quick. How incensed? In what way incensed? Incensed because we don't like
God to rule over us. They said, we will not have this
man to rule over us of Christ. Incensed at his sovereignty in
salvation, at his absolute sovereignty. Incensed at his particular redemption. in sense that God shows grace
to his sheep and not to his goats, that he makes a division, that
some he calls and others he leaves, that Jacob he loves and Esau,
I'll use the word because Scripture does, he hates. This is God. This is true God. They value
religion, which God rejects. That's it, those that are incensed,
instead of hearing his word and his truth, they put in place
of it a refuge of lies, as it says in Isaiah 28, a refuge of
lies. You know, there are many, we
read it often in Matthew. In that day will say to me, Lord,
Lord, haven't we done all this in your name? And he will say
to them, depart from me, I never knew you. Now let me tell you
what's illogical to human reason. We've read, no man can come unless
the Father draw him. But listen, those who neglect,
those who disbelieve, do so willingly and entirely of their own sinful
choice. Where are you? Are you aligned
with the seed of Israel, justified, or incensed at God? If you're
alarmed because you think you might be with the latter who
are incensed with God, then let me just... give you this one
scripture of encouragement. Isaiah 55, six and seven. Seek
ye the Lord while he may be found. Call ye upon him while he is
near. 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. Amen.