The Lord Jesus Christ, as we've
seen previously in considering this chapter, sits upon the throne
of his glory, and his glory fills the earth. We were thinking a
little bit about that train that filled the temple. We were thinking
about how it speaks of all the great works which the Lord Jesus
Christ has done. How he undertook the responsibilities
of those duties laid upon him, which were incumbent upon him
by his father. We think, don't we, about the
eternal covenant entered into by God the Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit, and how the Lord Jesus Christ, in those covenantal responsibilities,
willingly, voluntarily undertook to enter into man's realm, enter
into this world, take upon himself human flesh, become incarnate,
and go to the cross and die for his people. Indeed, in many ways,
we probably have in the past, and we can legitimately see in
the words of Isaiah, after this sinful man had received the hot
coal upon his lip, upon the direction of God as the seraphim came and
laid it upon his lip, we can see how he spoke these words. Who will I send? Who will go
for us? Here am I, send me. And I think
perhaps Isaiah's words are themselves reminiscent of the words that
the Lord Jesus Christ spoke when he willingly and voluntarily
undertook to come into this world for us. Let us never lose sight
of what the Lord Jesus Christ has done for us. For it doesn't
matter where we travel or what we do. It doesn't matter how
old we are or how young we are. It ought always to stop us in
our tracks to realise that God himself, the eternal God, has
come into this world and taken upon himself our sin and the
guilt for that sin, paid the price of our iniquities and died
on the cross for us. The glory of the Lord Jesus Christ
both fills the temple as his people recognize and see and
understand and worship him for all that he has done. and his
glory is manifested by the gathering in of his people, the drawing
together of his people in that temple church, in that church
which is his body, with Christ as the head. And so we see the
manifestation of the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ, both in
his works and in that which his works have accomplished, the
saving of his people, the gathering in of his church. But men protest. The men and women of this world
protest. They say, how can you say that
Christ reigns? How is it that you say Christ
reigns when this world is so sinful? When sin is so rampant? When men act so wickedly? When there seems so little evidence? When unbelief dominates, when
the church, which is supposed to be the fullness of His glory,
is so small and insignificant and frail, how can it be that
you say, the glory of Christ, the glory of the Lord fills the
earth? Was Isaiah being a little bit
ambitious? Was he exaggerating a little
bit when he said these things? And perhaps sometimes you and
I are also tempted to doubt. The power of God, the glory of
God, the accomplishments of God, the ways and the wisdom of God
when we consider the things that are going on around about us. If God were in control, if he
was really in control, is this how he would make it work? Is
this how he would do it? Couldn't he have done it differently?
Couldn't he have done it better? Is this what he would have allowed
to happen? And you know, we harbour such
doubts, we harbour such thoughts in our hearts personally, for
our own lives, and more globally, if we can say it like that, in
the broader sense, when we see the way in which this world is
going. But we need to remember that our God is in control. whatsoever
comes to pass is according to His will and purpose. And we
need to take comfort from that, that despite all the apparent
contrariness that is in this world, and even the doubts that
creep into our own souls and our own mind, the Lord is in
control. His glory is manifested in everything
that comes to pass. When we say the Lord Jesus Christ
reigns. We say it because it's true. It's not an ambition. It's not
something we hope. It's not something we kind of
hope is going to be seen. someday in the future when he
brings everything together, that he'll wrap up this chaos and
he'll take, as it were, the final battle and he'll really win it
all in the end. No, he's winning now. He's accomplishing
his purpose now. This is the day that the Lord
hath made. Isaiah sees The whole earth,
it was in verse three, he sees the whole earth full of his glory. The whole earth is full of the
glory of the Lord. In Daniel chapter four and verse
25 and a little bit later in the chapter, we read these words.
The most high ruleth. in the kingdom of men, and giveth
it to whomsoever he will." Now think about that for a moment.
The Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever
he will. We look at our leaders. We look
at those in authority. We look at those who possess,
as compared and contrasted to those who possess not. We look
at the hierarchies. We look at the structures. We
think about the bankers. We think about the multinationals. We think about the possessors
of the land. We think about those who, in
a sense, appear to have the rule. And what does the word of God
tell us? It tells us that God ruleth in the kingdom of men
and he doles it out to whomsoever he will. Men think that they
have attained greatness, they've arrived, they've achieved, they've
fulfilled their ambitions. I was hearing about a man recently
whose wife is leaving him because of his naked ambition. and she
just can't live with him anymore. But these are the things that
inspire people. They're inspired to seek and
to gain and to obtain as much as they possibly can. And yet,
in the final analysis, the word of God says it is he. who doles
it out, it is he who gives it to whomsoever he will. He doeth
according to his will in the army of heaven and among the
inhabitants of the earth. I'm so glad that Daniel linked
those two things together because I don't believe that there's
one of us here would doubt that God was in control in heaven.
that God would say to this angel, do this, and the angel would
do it. Can you imagine for a moment
an angel saying, well, later? Or, no, choose someone else,
pick someone else. Can you begin to conceive of
such a thing? Of course not, it's ludicrous.
And yet, the Lord God is in as much control upon this earth
as he is amongst the armies of heaven. The events which unfold,
the things that transpire are according to his will and to
his ways. Luke chapter 12, Lord Jesus Christ
himself says to his people, it is your father's good pleasure
to give you the kingdom. This is the working. Okay, we've
not seen the end yet, but this is what it is working towards.
It's your father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. There
is nothing that Christ will not have as his inheritance. He will have all things. He is
all in all, and his people as his body are possessors of the
same inheritance as he has. Everything is ours. Now it might
be that there are some who have got more of this or more of that
or greater scheme or more popularity as far as this world is concerned.
But let us not for a moment imagine that our Lord has not done for
us exactly which is for that which is for our greatest good. All things are moving according
to our Lord Jesus Christ's words to the total absolute achievement
of God's will and purpose. Good things and evil things,
holy things and wicked things, all are coming together to accomplish
God's will and end. Our God has ordained whatsoever
comes to pass. And he has anticipated by prophetic
revelation, all that he is going to accomplish. So we have been
given a view, we have been given a sight, we have been given an
understanding in the scriptures, in prophecy, by the prophets
of the things that he's going to accomplish. And so that is
supposed to be for us a word of comfort. that the Lord has
told us what's going to happen so that we will be comforted
before it happens in the knowledge it's imminent, it's coming soon. He accomplishes his purpose in
time, employing whatsoever means he chooses. He can use the wicked,
he can use the holy. He can use those who despise
him and those who love him. And blow by blow, step by step,
the purposes of God are fulfilled. Isaiah saw it. He saw it. He said the glory of God is throughout
the whole world. And if what God promises, if
what God prophesies, if what God provides for manifestly comes
to pass, then the people of God and the church of the Lord Jesus
Christ, you and me, we are to be comforted and reassured that
despite all of the chaos and the wickedness and the sinfulness
around about us, all of the, here's a word for you, the inexplicability
Here's a cracker. How do we explain? How do we
explain all of this? Well, you don't have to. All
you have to do is say, the Lord knows. The Lord is in control. He is bringing all things to
pass. He has ordained it thus. And
we will see the fullness of His glory just as clearly as Isaiah
did, just as clearly as these holy angels, just as clearly
as those who cried out one to another, holy, holy, holy Lord
God Almighty. Isaiah saw Christ's glory in
the earth, and he saw it in the temple, he saw it in the church
of the Lord Jesus Christ. He saw that the train filled
the temple, that the Lord Jesus Christ was, out of all the nations,
out of all the cities, out of all the tribes and the peoples
and the families of this earth, bringing one and another, bringing
them together, drawing them together in order that his church might
be fulfilled, and there won't be one single individual missing. Not one missing. Not one missing. Those that He has loved from
eternity, those that He has won in time, those for whom He died
upon the cross, they will all be gathered in. And you see,
the beauty of the consequences of events tells us that God has
to be in control. If he wasn't in control of one
moment in time, one moment in time, supposing, I don't know,
supposing a car crash, supposing a boat sank, supposing something
happened that was outwith his control and a life was lost that
was outside of his control. And when that life was lost,
a little girl died. And that little girl that died
was outwith Christ's control. And the death of that little
girl was outwith his ability to stop it. What would that mean?
Well, it would mean that that little girl didn't find the husband
that God had arranged that she would have met. And there wouldn't
have been a family that God had planned would be brought into
this world. And that those children that
would be born from that relationship would not in turn go on and have
their own children and their children's children. And there
would be a whole line of the purpose of God denied because
one little event got twisted around about. Now what if there
had been elect people in that family? What if the little girl
had never heard the gospel? What if her family or her children's
children or her children's children's children had been the elect of
God and never been born? These things are impossible.
Our minds can start wandering in ways that show us the foolishness
of imagining that God is not in control of every single event. He must be because He is bringing,
He is drawing everything together. as he wills. And amid a world
of wicked rebellion, God's ways are perfect. Isaiah knew it. Isaiah said, I dwell in the midst
of a people of unclean lips. Now that was his testimony. He
knew it for his own heart and he knew it for those that were
round about him. But within Second, he is saying
that the Lord's glory is throughout all the earth, and at the same
time, he dwells amongst a people of unclean lips. So he understood
perfectly that just because something wasn't right didn't mean that
God nevertheless wasn't in control of it. He saw no inconsistency
in this matter. He saw the Lord's glory in the
covenant purposes of salvation. He saw that Christ was united
to his people. He saw that the train filled
the temple, that the people there were all gathered in. And he saw their preservation
amid the wickedness of this world. So I say to you again, little
ones, little flock, be not afraid. Do not be afraid. Fear not. God is in control and he is gathering
his people by the gospel, day by day, week by week, year by
year. The reason why this world goes
on is because not all of the elect have been gathered in yet.
Soon they will be, and then we will see the fullness of the
glory of God in all its perfection. And then we will be amazed at
the way in which He has managed what we perceive to be such a
complicated, inexplicable thing, in order to glorify His own name,
and that that name was being glorified at every step of the
way. He is ordaining all the events
of this world to that glorious end of delivering his church
up as a perfect bride for his son. I want to just dwell for
a few moments on Isaiah's commission here in the context of what we've
just said. Look with me at verse 9 and 10. So Isaiah said that he was willing
to go. Isaiah said that he was willing
to be sent. We did remark about the change
that had transpired there. Here is a man who says, I've
got unclean lips. And the next moment, he is saying,
but I'll go and preach a holy message. We were talking a little
bit about the water in the bottle and how you want to keep it out
of the sunshine because the plastic deteriorates and contaminates
the water. So that if you've had this sitting
too long in the sunshine, you're going to be ending up drinking
some of the contaminants from the plastic. Why is that? Why is that? It's because, it's
because that which you drink out of wasn't clean. So if you're
drinking out of something that isn't clean, then you're hardly
going to be able to drink something that is clean. And this is what
we see in the preacher also. If that preacher had that Sinfulness
still reckoned to him. He would not have been able to
preach a holy message. So the angel brings the tongs
and the coal from off the altar and he touches the lips and he
purifies the lips and the angel declares, thine iniquity is taken
away and thy sin is purged. And therefore there is a message
that goes forth with purity, with clarity, a message which
is doing that which God wishes it to do. But there's something
interesting about this. Because I think not one of us
here gathered this morning would have anticipated what that message
would have been. Isaiah has just talked about
the glory of Christ. He's just talked about the gathering
in of the church. You would think that he was then
going to be sent out to begin that process of gathering in
the church. But the contrary is true. Look
at these verses. Verse 9. And he said, this is
the Lord that is speaking. The Lord says to Isaiah, here's
what I want you to say. Go and tell this people. Hear
ye, but understand not. And see ye indeed, but perceive
not. make the heart of this people
fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes, lest they
see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand
with their heart, and convert and be healed. We didn't expect
that, did we? We expected a message to go out
that was calling in the people, gathering them in, bringing them
in, fulfilling that glory that Isaiah saw, and yet here it appears
to be something quite different. And I think that we have to recognize
that these verses are speaking about sovereign grace just as
clearly as any passage in the Old Testament does. It is saying
that salvation, grace, the blessings of God, His mercy, His goodness, is at
His gift. not in the will of man. Free willers don't like these
sorts of verses because it shows them that the natural man in
his own strength has no ability. He is waxed fat. He is deafened to the truth. He is blinded to the truth. His
comprehension cannot take in these things that he hears and
says. And do you know that on at least
six occasions, the Holy Spirit has seen fit in the New Testament
to remind the church that this sinful unbelief serves God's
purpose and demonstrates His glory. Six times these verses
are repeated in the New Testament. Matthew repeats them. Mark repeats
them. Luke and John all carry these
verses and this prophecy. The book of the Acts and the
book of Romans tells us these verses and interprets them for
us. Hear ye indeed the gospel of
Christ, but don't understand it. Hear it, but don't understand
it. See it, but don't understand
it. See the works that the Lord Jesus
Christ has done, but don't perceive what these works mean. Hear the
gospel preached, but let it go in one ear and out the other.
See the people being gathered, but don't comprehend what this
means. This is the lot of the natural
man. This is the reason why the church
of Jesus Christ, the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, Christ
himself, is so ridiculed and mocked and set aside in the estimation
of the natural man. He cannot see, he cannot understand. And this is what the Lord prophesied.
This is what he told Isaiah to go out and to declare. This was
not a great, big, open-armed welcome by any means. It was
narrowing down. It was showing that there was
an inability in man to come to Christ. Isaiah saw the church. He saw the train filling the
temple. He saw the numbers that were in there. He saw that great
body of believers that trusted the Lord Jesus Christ and for
whom Christ shed his blood, whom Christ won upon the cross to
himself. He saw the way of salvation.
He himself had experienced forgiveness. But when he took that message
to others, It was not given to them to believe. The Holy Spirit
did not open their ears or their eyes or their understanding. Indeed, the gospel came to them
as a stumbling block, as foolishness. They could not believe, they
would not believe, and therefore they were condemned. And that
doesn't deny the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. If the Lord
Jesus Christ tells us how it's going to be, then it emphasizes
his glory, and it shows that he is in control of all things. Even the headlong, destructive
run of men and women to a lost eternity, it is all in accordance
with the will of God. And that is true today. The preaching
of the gospel is a two-edged sword. Some see, and some are
blind. Some hear, and some are deaf. And if one or another, if a man
or a woman sees and hears Christ in the preaching of the gospel,
it is the work of God the Holy Spirit overcoming that natural
disinclination, that natural opposition, that rebellion and
antipathy towards the things of God. They cannot see or hear
or understand until God the Holy Spirit opens their eyes. The Apostle Paul says to the
Philippians in his letter in chapter 1 verse 29, unto you
it is given to believe in him. It's given to believe in him.
And in Matthew 13, verse 11, he said unto them, this is the
Lord Jesus that's speaking. He said unto them, it is given
unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom. That's the gospel. It's given unto you to know the
mysteries of the kingdom of heaven. But to them, it is not given. None of us here today should
be under any misapprehension, misunderstanding that in some
way we have contributed to our salvation by our own wisdom,
by our own will, by our own works, by our own abilities. It wasn't
given to others. It's been given to us. And that's
why we emphasize and re-emphasize and say it again and again that
grace is a gift. It's given. A gift is given.
And grace and faith And the ability to see, hear and understand is
God's gift to certain individuals. If He has given us that gift
as one in a hundred, or one in a thousand, or one out of a family,
or one out of a town, one out of a city, one out of a tribe
or nation, it is an act of magnanimity, it is an act of free and sovereign
grace on His part. And we are blessed amongst men
in ways that we cannot but begin to find thrilling our souls as
we think about the whole of humanity and the few that he has gathered
in. There are many who are going to a lost eternity this morning,
and their eyes are blind and their ears are deaf, but the
Lord has given it to us to see and hear these truths. If we
trust the Lord Jesus Christ, it is for the simple reason that
faith has been gifted to us. And why is it gifted to one and
not gifted to another? Well, let me tell you why. It
is because of God's love towards us. His distinguishing love towards
us. In eternity, God harbored a love. nor a love that was universal,
nor a love that was for everyone, but a love that was for certain,
discriminating love that distinguished between one and another, and
a love which laid itself upon one individual and bypassed another. In Malachi chapter one, verse
two, we read, I have loved you, saith the Lord, yet ye say, wherein
hast thou loved us? Was not Esau Jacob's brother,
said the Lord? Yet I loved Jacob, and I hated
Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the
dragons of the wilderness. There isn't, perhaps, a clearer
picture and a better picture. And again, it's why both the
testimony of Jacob's sons is as it was, and the way in which
it is recognized in the prophets and then amongst the gospel writers,
there couldn't perhaps be a clearer picture than twins. Twins. born of the same mother
at the same time, brought into the world at the same time. And
God says, in order to show his elective purpose, I loved the
one, but I did not love the other. I loved Jacob, and I hated Esau. Word of God says, who is sufficient
for these things? Who art thou, O man? Are we gonna
stand in judgment of God? Are we gonna say, you should
have done it differently, you should have done it better? This
is God that works, and if the Lord has opened our eyes to see
these things, then it should humble us in the depths of our
being, and it should shut our mouths against any recrimination
against him. The Lord hath done it, and he
hath done all things well. If the Lord loves you, then he
is the source of that love and every blessing that you possess
and every blessing that you will ever possess flows from the distinguishing
everlasting love of God towards you. Why is this passage, why
are these verses repeated so frequently in the New Testament? One of the many questions that
the disciples asked the Lord Jesus Christ during his ministry
was this. Why do you teach in parables?
Why do you teach in parables? And the Lord's answer is so significant
that every gospel writer relates it. They all do. Matthew, Mark,
Luke, John, they all give us this incident. And the Lord Jesus
Christ said, why do I speak in parables? Because this is what
Isaiah foretold. That's what the Lord says to
his disciples. He's saying it takes spiritual thing, it takes
spiritual life to discern spiritual things. He's saying that the
natural man can't receive the things of God. He is saying that
to see things of faith, we must be given faith. To hear things
of faith, we must be given the gift of grace. And whether it's
the words that the Lord Jesus Christ spoke, as in Matthew,
Mark, and Luke, or the works which the Lord Jesus Christ did,
his miracles, neither the words nor the works, neither the gospel
nor the miracles that the people saw were sufficient in themselves. to cause those people to believe. Why is that? Because they were
dead in their sin. Because Isaiah saw it to be the
case. God's pattern, God's purpose,
God's ways were thus revealed, prophesied all those years ago. And whether that was in Isaiah's
time itself, or subsequently at the time of the Lord Jesus
Christ, or beyond, The evidence that the Lord has presented is
this, that men will not see and men will not understand until
the gift of faith has been bestowed upon them. The Lord Jesus Christ
says to the disciples, blessed are your eyes, for they see. and your ears for they hear. It is God's gift, it is God's
blessing to an individual if they see and hear and understand
the Lord Jesus Christ. Verily I say unto you that many
prophets and righteous men have desired to see those things which
ye see and have not seen them and to hear those things which
ye hear and have not heard them. We are blessed in this day above
so many to have these things revealed to us in our life. Furthermore, Luke, the gospel
writer, relates these words in the Acts of the Apostles, and
he tells us that Paul applied the message of Isaiah to the
Jews When they came to him in the last chapter of the book
of Acts, they were told that they came to him in Rome and
they asked him to explain the message that he preached. And
the Apostle Paul tells us, in using Isaiah's words that this
very prophecy would be used to take the gospel from the Jews
and give it to the Gentiles. And so it was the fact that the
Jews could not hear could not see, could not understand, rejected
the things of God that opened up the gospel to go into all
the world. Hitherto, it had just been the
prerogative of the Jews to hear these words preached. But now,
says Paul, because You have dealt with the gospel as you have done. God is about to take it out into
the world and he is going to gather his elect from the isles
and from the nations and from the Gentiles. Be it known therefore
unto you that the salvation of God is sent unto the Gentiles
and that they will hear it. I love the confidence of the
Apostle Paul in that verse. He's saying, your eyes were closed,
your ears were dull, your understanding was benighted, it was darkened,
but the Lord will open the eyes of the Gentiles. not universally,
but here and there, according to his elective purpose and his
distinguishing love, he will open the eyes of the Gentiles
and they will hear the gospel. It was a curse upon the house
of Israel. It was Ichabod written above
the doorposts. It was saying that God had abandoned
this house and he was taking the gospel to the world. And again, it proves the lie
of free will, and it emphasizes the power of sovereign grace. The Gentiles will hear, and they
will be converted. Isaiah, he saw the train filling
the temple, he saw the church gathered in. I guess he saw you
and me that day when he had that vision. And the Apostle Paul
saw us too, because he was able to say, the Gentiles will hear,
and they will be converted, because he knew the gospel was the power
of God unto salvation. Just in closing, I want to say
this also. Here we see, in this witness
to sovereign grace, something of the way by which God calls
that people to himself. At the end of the passage, we're
told, look at verse 13. But yet in it, shall be a tenth,
and it shall return, and shall be eaten as a teal tree, and
as an oak, whose substance is in them when they cast their
leaves, so the holy seed shall be the substance thereof. I think
it's a most interesting conclusion to this pretty amazing chapter. This pretty amazing passage in
the Old Testament is concluded in an amazing way. And why should
it be otherwise? Isaiah was faithful to his commission. He took that message, and yet
he had a question also. He said, I'll take the message,
Lord. It was his commission to do so. And in obedience, he took
that message to the people of his age. And it was repeated
multiple times by the Lord himself and by the Apostle Paul in the
New Testament. He was faithful to his calling
and commission, and yet he had a question. How long is this
dullness? How long is this abandoning of
the things of God going to continue? And the Lord's answer showed
how God's overarching purpose is always being accomplished
throughout the affairs and the events and the circumstances
of this world. His will is being fulfilled.
At the heart of all of God's works, at the heart of all of
God's works, is his purpose on behalf of his holy seed. His holy seed. Remember that
phrase. There it is. The holy seed shall
be the substance thereof. It's the holy seed that was in
view from eternity. It was the holy seed that was
seen by the Godhead in the covenant of grace. It was the holy seed
that has always been at the forefront of God's dealings with man. And
that holy seed was To a great extent, with very
few exceptions, that holy seed was limited to the men and women
of the Jewish nation, the children of Israel, until the time of
the Lord Jesus Christ. And only then do we see that
holy seed. reaching out and including the
Gentiles that were to be saved, the elect Gentiles also. But it was always the Holy Seed. Everything he did was for the
Holy Seed. The Holy Seed is the substance
thereof. You look at the tree and it looks
dead. You look at the teal tree, you
look at the elm or whatever it is, the oak tree, the oak tree
that's mentioned. You look at that and it looks
dead. And you say, well, where's the glory of the tree? Where's
the verdancy? Where's the life? Where's all
the power of that tree? I think some of the trees that
you've got around here are beautiful. I know you don't like those cottonwoods
but I think they are splendid. They are just so majestic. They
just reach up into the sky and there must have been hundreds
of blackbirds in the two opposite the little building where we
lived yesterday afternoon because the whole thing was just a living
mass of the leaves blowing and the birds enjoying the time.
They're just so splendid. And then in winter it all looks
dead. And you say, where's the life
in that? You think you could go up and push it over and it
would just collapse before you. But the life was in the tree.
Even though it's not evident, the life is in the tree. And
we look around in this world and we say, where's the glory?
Where's the life? Where's the power? It all looks
dead. But what is the answer to that?
The substance is in it. The holy seed is in it. And therefore it is out of the
deadness of that tree that the new life will come. And it's
out of the deadness of this world that the Lord is drawing his
holy seed, that the elect are being brought by the preaching
of the gospel. I am confident in preaching the
gospel. I am confident every time I preach
the gospel that this word will do His people good, will bless
His people, will encourage His people, will gather His people,
will draw His people to Him, because the glory of the Lord
fills the earth. And the Holy Seed is the substance. The Holy Seed is the substance. Whether we think of that holy
seed as the Lord Jesus Christ, or we think of it as those whose
Christ has won, in a sense it doesn't matter for the picture
is the same. Everything was directed to the
coming of the Lord Jesus Christ for the salvation of his people
by the shedding of his blood. The holy seed, or as the angels
called the Lord Jesus Christ, that holy thing, that holy thing,
the holy child, And Isaiah informs us that for the sake of that
holy seed, that holy thing, the remnant would be delivered. And providential care of God
has always been upon his people, even in the apparent deadness
of the world around about us. That holy seed is the elect of
God, chosen in Christ, That acorn has the full life of that mighty
oak tree bound up inside it. And so it is that the elect of
God in this world, in this creation are all present. They are in
the holy seed and they will be brought forth and the glory of
Christ will be manifested in their salvation in his time. Why do we preach the gospel?
Why does God persist with wicked men in this world? Why does he
have forbearance, patience, long-suffering towards the wickedness and rebellion
of this world? Why is this world still going
despite all that rebellion against God? Because he's gathering his
holy seed. because he's waiting on that
seed coming to fruition, wearing on all of the events, all of
the circumstances that must take place for that one And that one's
child, and grandchild, and great-grandchild, and on all through the generations
that must be picked here and there, from amongst the Jews,
from amongst the Gentiles, until the whole of the Lord's people
have been brought together. The earth is full of the glory
of God, because the holy seed is the substance thereof. The
Holy Seed is the substance. The Holy Seed is the essence.
The purpose of all that the Lord God does is the Holy Seed. Father, Son, and Holy Ghost have
done all and are doing all that is needful for that Holy Seed
to be delivered. And the glory of Christ is his
gathered people and the affection that he places upon the redeemed
flock of Christ. May the Lord God reapply these
truths to our hearts and comfort us in all our ways as we see
his plans unfold for the salvation of his dearly beloved people.
Amen.