Let's open our Bibles together
to Isaiah chapter 42, please. Isaiah chapter 43. Excuse me, Isaiah
chapter 43. What does a blind man see and
what does a deaf man hear? That's the question I hope to
answer from this passage of scripture tonight. In verse eight of Isaiah
chapter 43, bring forth the blind people that have eyes and the
deaf that have ears. And we know that the seeing eye
and the hearing ear are both from the Lord. And that the Lord
came in order to give sight to the blind. He said to the Pharisees,
he said, for judgment I came into the world that they might
see which see not. And they which see might be made
blind. And the Pharisee says, are you
suggesting that we're blind? And the Lord said, well, if you
were, your sins be forgiven you. but because you say that you
can see, therefore your sins remain. And here the Lord says,
bring the blind that have eyes. Bring the deaf that have ears. And all this means is that, Lord,
if you don't give me eyes to see, I'll be blind. If you don't
give me ears to hear, I'll be deaf. I won't be able to hear
anything from God and I won't be able to see the truth. It's
exactly what the Lord meant when He said to Nicodemus, Nicodemus,
if you're not born from above, you cannot see the kingdom of
God. You can't perceive of it, you
can't understand it. It is a mystery, it is beyond
your comprehension. The natural man cannot receive
the things of the Spirit, they are spiritually discerned. Neither
can he know them. Our heart's attitude, the heart
of a believer is, Lord, I am blind left to myself, and I am
deaf left to myself. I'm completely dependent upon
you to give me eyes to see and ears to hear. Now, in the first
seven verses of this chapter, the Lord tells us what a blind
man sees, and what a deaf man hears. And so if these things
are true of me, then I have hope that maybe the Lord has given
me eyes to see. Maybe he's given me ears to hear. And so we'll begin in verse one. But now thus saith the Lord. Now that's all faith needs. That's all faith needs, thus
saith the Lord. You know the difference between
faith and fatalism? Fatalism puts its hope in a doctrine,
the sovereignty of God. I've met a lot of Calvinists
that are very fatalistic, and they are committed to the doctrine
of the sovereignty of God. But faith puts its hope in a
person. and believes on the God that
is sovereign. There's a huge difference. And
faith just wants to hear what that God has to say. And believes
it, there's no, when we communicate with one another, we're always
doing it, you're doing it right now, we do it with our own spouses,
the people that we trust. We're listening and we're wondering,
we're evaluating whether or not what we're hearing is true. And
then we're also reading inflections and body languages in order to
discern whether or not the person telling us is sincere. Is it
true, and are they sincere? We're always doing that, consciously
or subconsciously, we're doing that with one another. Faith
never does that with God. Never. It never questions. is what God is saying true. It
knows it's true. And it never wonders at the sincerity
of the Lord. And so if the Lord's given me
eyes to see and ears to hear, I just want to see Him and I
want to hear from Him. Don't you love the story of Luke
chapter 24 with the disciples on the road to Emmaus? And the
Lord says, oh, fools and slow of heart to believe. Ought not
these things to have been accomplished? These were spoken of in the scriptures
and beginning with the Psalms and the prophets and the law
and the Psalms and the prophets. He expounded unto them those
things concerning himself. And when they got to their home
in Emmaus, in the breaking of the bread, their eyes were opened.
And they saw him and he disappeared. And what did they say? Oh, did
not our hearts burn within us as He spake with us along the
way? That's faith. Thus saith the Lord. I saw an interview of a preacher
in Houston, I think he is. He was an investigative journalist
before becoming a preacher. He should have stayed in journalism.
But now that he's a preacher, he's using his investigative
journalist skills to give empirical evidence of the existence of
Christ and the truth of the Bible. You know, that might work. He's
sold 7 million copies of his book so far, I think, and people
may get convinced of that by that sort of argument, but faith
just wants to hear, thus saith the Lord. Just tell me what God
says, preacher. That's all I want to know. I
don't have to question whether it's true. I know it's true.
And I never wonder about the sincerity of the heart of God.
I know he's got my, I know the thoughts that I have for you,
thoughts for peace and not evil, but I'm gonna bring you to your
expected end. And so the child of God just
wants to hear from his and her Lord to know what he said. bring
to me the blind people that have eyes and the deaf people that
have ears. Now, if that describes me, then
I just want to know what the saith the Lord is. I love when
Peter says, he says, we did not bring to you cunningly devised
fables. We handled the word of God. And
then he describes that glorious mountaintop experience when the
veil of our Lord's humanity was taken away and the radiance of
his deity shined forth like the noonday sun. And that was a mountaintop
experience. But I love the next verse. Peter
says, yet we have a more sure word of prophecy. What's he talking
about? The revelation of Christ made
in his word. In the volume of the book it
is written to me. And the child of God just wants
to know, what does God tell me about Himself and about how I
can be saved? I just want to know what the
Lord says. Thus saith the Lord. How many
times we read that in the Bible. So we're not trying to defend
the Scriptures. All Scripture is given by inspiration
of God. All Scripture is profitable for
doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness,
that the man of God may be thoroughly furnished unto all good works.
We just want to know what God says. And then Peter goes on
to say, he's talking about the scriptures being eternal, and then he goes
on to say, and this is the word which by the gospel is preached
unto you. So we're not talking about just
reading from this book and saying that we believe the words of
this book, we're talking about discerning, rightly dividing
the word of truth and discerning the gospel from this book. If Christ isn't being preached,
if the gospel of God's free grace is not being preached, if Christ
is not being lifted up, the word of God's not being preached. So I know I have hearing ears. I know I have seeing eyes. I
know by nature I'm deaf and blind. But by God's grace, I want to
know what God says. Thus saith the Lord. And the
spirit is not, I want to hear so that I can decide whether
or not, no, we're like Samuel, aren't we? Remember when the
Lord spoke to Samuel and he went to Eli and wanted to know what
Eli wanted? What did Eli say? Next time you
hear his voice, speak Lord, for thy servant heareth. The scripture is, listeneth,
in the King James, but it's, Lord, I'm listening with the
intent to do whatever you tell me. Whatever you tell me. And then after God gave that
horrible judgment against the sons of Eli, Eli wanted to know
what the Lord told Samuel. And Eli said, you tell me. where the curses that God spoke
to you are going to come upon you. And Samuel told Eli about
the judgments that God prophesied concerning his sons. You remember
what Eli said? It's the Lord. Let him do whatsoever
seemeth good in his sight. Now that's a man that's got eyes
to see. That's a man that's got ears to hear. It's the Lord.
Whatever he does is right. Whatever he says is true. I just
want to hear from Him. I just want to hear His voice. Speak, Lord. And so he says, but now thus saith the Lord that
created thee. When God speaks, the Lord never speaks to someone
who doesn't obey. He's not going, he doesn't make
his voice heard in the street. He's not crying out for men to
let him have his way. When he speaks, he speaks to
his people. And just like with Matthew there
with the money changes, I'm sure Matthew had a great profession.
He had a good source of income. He was doing pretty well. And
then the Lord comes along, Matthew, you follow me. And immediately,
Immediately, he got up from his table, left his things, and followed
after Christ. Every time the Lord speaks, God's
people just believe. My sheep, they hear my voice.
They follow me. And notice in verse 1 of Isaiah
43, when the Lord speaks, he calls his people Jacob. Israel. Every believer's name,
your given name if you're a child of God is Jacob, and your surname
is Israel. Let me show you that. Look in
chapter 44 at verse 5. One shall say, I am the Lord's,
and another shall call himself by the name of Jacob, and another
shall subscribe with his hands unto the Lord, and surname himself
by the name of Israel. Now look at chapter 45, at verse
four. For Jacob, my servant's sake,
and Israel, mine elect, I have called thee by thy name, I have
surnamed thee, and thou, even though thou hast not known me.
You didn't know me, but I gave you a name. See, every time God
speaks, he calls his people by their name. Now, it doesn't matter
what's going on in a room. We're so fond of our names. When you hear your name spoken, Aaron Greenleaf, you hear that
name, your ears are all of a sudden tuned to who's speaking my name. And nothing else is important
except for whoever it is that's speaking here, what are you using
my name for? That's the way it is when the
Lord speaks, isn't it? But you know what? Every child
of God got the same name. Jacob, that's our birth name. That's our natural name. That's
how we came into the world, supplanters. And when God calls you by your
name, and you follow after him, you
know that your first name is Jacob. You know that in you,
there is no good thing. You know that every imagination
of thoughts of your heart are only evil and that continually,
that you're a sinner. By nature, you were born a sinner. In sin, my mother conceived me.
Isn't that what David said? And so I came into this world
as a sinner. And yet, we get our surname from
our father, don't we? And so the Lord says, I'm gonna
call you by your name, Jacob Israel. In your Jacob nature,
you're nothing but sin. But as Israel, you're nothing
but righteousness. Perfect righteousness in Israel,
a prince. a supplanter by nature, but a
prince by grace. I've imputed to you my righteousness,
I've given you the mind of Christ, I've given you a new nature,
and that's your name, Jacob Israel. Now, one way I know that I'm
a blind man that can see is that a blind man cannot see why God
would save them. A blind man can't see why God
would save them. Is that true of you? Can you
come up with any reason why God would save you? If you can't, that's a good indication
that you're a blind man with eyes. You're a deaf man with
ears. The child of God knows that all of his salvation is
a free grace. There's no reason in me, no righteousness
in me, no merit in me, no reason why God should save me. If he
saves me, it's gonna be for his namesake. It's gonna be all by
grace, not by my works. And so the Lord says, the blind
people that have eyes and the deaf that have ears, bring them
to me. They're gonna wanna know what I say. Thus saith the Lord
that created thee. Lord, you did create me. You're
my maker. You formed me from the dust of
the earth. You're the potter, I'm the clay. You have the sovereign
right to do with the same lump of clay. Whatsoever you will,
you make some vessels of honor, some of dishonor. No man can
say unto you, what are you doing? What doest thou? No man can stay
your hand. He's sovereign over the armies
of heaven and all the inhabitants of the earth, isn't he? And God's,
those who have eyes to see and ears to hear, they delight in
the one who is absolutely sovereign, who creates them. Lord, you're
my creator, I can't, I have no life apart from you. O Jacob, and he that formed thee,
O Israel. Created Jacob, formed thee. by
the potter Israel. Look what he says. For fear not, fear not, for I
have redeemed thee. Not, I will redeem you if you'll
let me, or I will redeem you if you'll do your part, or I've
provided an opportunity for you to be redeemed. No, I've redeemed
you. You've been bought with a price.
The blood of the lamb's been shed. The sins of God's people
are covered. You have no reason to fear. Fear
not. You're not to fear the wrath
of God. The wrath of God has been expiated. The Lord Jesus
Christ is our... He's our sin bearer, isn't He? He's the expiation of our sins.
He satisfied the demands of God's wrath. He absorbed all the fiery
wrath of God's justice. Put it away once and for all.
No fear. Jacob, don't be afraid. Jacob
is real. Don't be afraid, I have redeemed
you. You've been bought with a price,
not with silver and gold, not with corruptible things, not
the things that you brought, but with the precious blood of
the Lamb, without spot, without blemish, the perfect Lamb of
God. When I see His blood, I will
pass by you. I have redeemed thee. I have
called thee by thy name. What's your name? What's your
name? Is your name Jacob Israel? That's
my name. Jacob Israel. I called thee by
thy name. You're mine. You belong to me. And when thou passest through
the waters, And the scripture says, the way of the Lord is
through the seas. There's some rough waters in this life. There's
no question about it. And the beauty of that is that
just like when the Lord was on the Sea of Galilee with the disciples
in that storm, he says here, when thou passeth through the
waters, I'll be with thee. I'll be with you. The disciples
thought the Lord was going to let them drown. There he was
sleeping in the boat. Oh, what sort of man is this? When he speaks, the seas are
made flat. The wind stops blowing at what? And in heaven, the scripture
says there are no more seas, are there? The seas represent
two things, as I understand them in the scriptures. Turbulence,
I've been in some turbulent seas. spiritually and physically. You
have two. And they represent separation. The continents are separated
by oceans, aren't they? And we grieve over those times
when the Lord withdraws His presence from us. And even when He speaks
and He's giving us His peace and hope and we're having a We
still want more, don't we? I have not yet apprehended that
which has apprehended me. This one thing I do, forgetting
those things which are behind, I'm pressing towards the mark.
There's a separation between me and God. I look through a glass dimly
now, I want to see Him in the fullness of His glory. And it
doth not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when He
shall appear, we will see Him as He is and be made like Him.
And as soon as we get to Revelation, what do we see? With the throne,
there is no more sea. No more sea, no turbulence, no
separation. That's what the child of God's
living for. That's what he's waiting for. That's his hope. That's his anticipation, to see
Christ in all of this splendor, to be made like him, not to have
any more of these fleshly turbulences of this world. When thou pass through the waters,
I'll be with thee, and through the rivers, they shall not overflow
thee. You're not gonna drown. You're not gonna drown. I'm not
gonna let it happen. And when thou walkest through
the fire, thou shall not be burned, neither shall the flame kindle
upon thee. How can we read that without thinking about those
three Hebrew children thrown into the fiery furnace? And the
king peered in, what'd he see? I thought we threw three in there.
I see four. And the fourth. is the figure
of the Son of Man. Well, it's because it was the
Son of Man. And when those Hebrew children came out, the scripture
says that their clothes weren't singed, that not a hair in their
head was singed, the smell of smoke wasn't on them. Why? Because that fourth man,
the Lord Jesus Christ, who was in that furnace with them, he
absorbed all the heat of that fiery furnace. And that's what
he did on Calvary's cross. He absorbed all the fiery wrath
of God's justice. He put away our sin. Don't be
afraid. I've redeemed thee. I've got some seas I'm going
to take you through, and they're going to be difficult. But just know
that there's going to come a day when there is no more sea. You're
going to have to cross through some rivers. There's still a
river to come. The River Jordan is still to
come. You know the name Jordan means death. And we've got a
final enemy that we've still got to meet up with. But the
Lord says, you're not going to drown through that river. I'm
going to get you through it. I've redeemed thee. And when you go through the fiery
furnace, the furnace of trials and troubles in this life, I'll
be there. I'll absorb the heat of them.
And I have absorbed all the fiery wrath of God's justice for your
sins. I put them away. Do you have
eyes to see? These things cannot be seen by
the natural man. They can't be believed apart
from the work of grace in the heart. Oh, what hope, what comfort,
what joy we have when the Lord gives a blind man eyes to see,
when he gives a deaf man ears to hear. These are the things
we hear. These are the things we see. Look what he says in
verse 3, for I am the Lord. I am the Lord. thy God." We don't talk about making Jesus
Lord. We don't talk about, you know, people write books on the
Lordship of Christ. They've got Jesus as their Savior,
but they don't have Him as the Lord because they're not following
Him in enough obedience to prove that He's really Lord. He is
Lord. We're just like Thomas. Oh my
Lord and my God. We know that he's absolutely
sovereign. We know that he does whatsoever he wills. And we love
it that way. He's the potter. We're the clay. We're like that Syrophoenician
woman. The Lord called her a dog. What'd she say? Truth, Lord. Yes. The Lord's the one we worship. The Lord's the one we trust.
He's Lord over the living and over the dead. You say, well,
He's not my Lord. Yes, He is. Yes, He is. You see, you don't have to submit
to Him to be Lord, for Him to be Lord over your life. He reigns
Lord over everything and everybody. My God, He's the one I worship
and I bow to, and He is the Holy One of Israel. Apart from Him, Israel has no
holiness. If I'm going to be made holy,
I'm going to have to be found in Him. Not having my own righteousness,
which is of the law, but that righteousness which is by the
faithfulness of the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the Holy One. And my hope is that He that sanctify
us, and they that are sanctified, that's holy, that's what that
word means, holiness, are all as one. So that as He is, so
am I in this world. He's the Holy One of Israel.
God can't accept, God's eyes are too pure to look upon iniquity. He can't have fellowship with
anything that's short of His holiness. And so if I'm gonna
stand in the presence of God, I gotta be made holy. How am
I gonna, the Holy One of Israel. He's gonna have to, He's gonna
have to stand in my stead. He's gonna have to present Himself
before the Heavenly Father on my behalf for all my holiness. He's the Holy One of Israel. And He's my Savior. I can't be saved anywhere else.
If I'm going to have my sins put away, He's going to have
to put them away. If I'm going to be found acceptable
before God, He's going to have to make me acceptable. If I'm
going to have a righteousness in the presence of a holy God,
He's going to have to make me righteous. He's the Alpha and
the Omega. If I'm going to believe, He's
going to have to give me faith. If I'm going to be called, He's
going to have to call me. If I'm going to be one of God's
elect, He's going to have to choose me in the covenant of
grace. Salvation is of the Lord. It's all of Him. If I'm going
to remain faithful as a believer and not fall away, He's going
to have to keep me from falling and to present me faultless before
the throne of God. He's going to have to do it all. That's the gospel, isn't it?
I'm gonna do it all or I'm not gonna do it at all. One way or
the other. Not gonna let you put your hand
to it. You can't make a contribution. I'm gonna get all the glory.
I'm gonna do all the saving. Look at the rest of verse three
and verse four. I gave Egypt for thy ransom,
Ethiopia and Seba for thee, since thou wast precious in my sight,
thou hast been honorable and I have loved thee, therefore
I will give men for thee and people for thy life. I did a little carpentry work,
well this week, but several years ago I did some carpentry work
for the theater in Orlando, and I
was building sets for the upcoming play. And while I was building
these sets for the upcoming play, the play that they had been doing
for several months came to an end, and we took all those props
and threw them away. Just threw them away. I may have
saved a couple little things, but most of it just went to the
trash. And we had to build all new sets for a whole new play.
And I thought about, you know, the drama of redemption that
the Lord is doing in this world. He's the director. His church,
His church, His people are the actors in that play. and everything
else is props. And when the play's over, the
props are going in the trash. I gave Ethiopia for you. I gave
Seba for you. I raised up Pharaoh for this
very purpose that I might show my power through him. Everything
I'm doing in this world is for my church. Everything. that I raise up kings and nations
and the big events of national affairs and the minute details
of each of our lives right down to our very sin. He's working all things together
for good for them that love him and those that are the call to
go into his purpose. The only reason this world exists
You see, Putin is your servant. He is. He's your servant. The President of the United States,
he's your servant. If you're a child of God, the
guy over there in North Korea, he's your servant. That's what
God says. If you've got ears to hear and
eyes to see, you know that your Lord, your God, the one you worship,
the Holy One of Israel is doing everything for the salvation
of His people. Everything. There's not an event that takes
place. What's the evidence of that? when the last of God's elect
are brought by the grace of God to believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ, this thing's coming to an end. Just like that, it's
over. The only reason this world exists
is for the salvation of God's people. It's the only reason. And everything that happens in
your life and my life, ultimately, happens by the purpose of God
to accomplish the salvation. Paul called them necessities.
The things that we get so bent out of shape about, the Lord
says, those are necessities. That's all part of it. I've got
everything under, everything's on schedule. I got this. It's all working according to
my purpose. And it's all ultimately going
to be to my glory. And it's the only reason the
world exists. All the props are going in the
trash when the drama of redemption is finished. I gave Ethiopia, Egypt, Saba,
Russia, China. It's all for you. It's all for
you. And there's a kingdom that God's
setting up. Look, look with me. We've got
just a minute. Look over in chapter 45 chapter
45. Look at verse one. Thus saith the Lord to his anointed,
to Cyrus." Now, who's Cyrus? Isaiah is prophesying 200 years
before this event's gonna take place. Cyrus hadn't even been,
I mean, Cyrus' great, great, great grandparents hadn't even
been born. Cyrus is a Persian king. He's the one that's gonna
overthrow the Babylonian Empire, and the events of Cyrus's, the
events of Isaiah 45 are recorded in Daniel chapter five. You remember
the story, Belshazzar is having a feast, and he brings into that
feast the vessels from the Lord's temple that his grandfather had
taken out of Jerusalem, and he sees the handwriting on the wall.
You've been weighed in the balance. You've been found wanting. and
this night you're going to be killed. Cyrus is the one who
came in and killed Belshazzar that very night. And the Lord's
prophesying, the Lord's telling his people, I'm going to send
you to Babylon And then I'm going to deliver
you from Babylon, and Cyrus and Darius, the Medes and the Persians,
are the nation that God's going to use to bring the children
of Israel back to Jerusalem, to rebuild the temple. And he says, I'm gonna raise
up this man whose right hand I have holden to subdue nations
before him. I will loose the loins of kings. You remember what happened in
Daniel chapter five when Belshazzar saw the handwriting on the wall?
The scripture says that his loins were loosened and his knees knocked
together. And Cyrus came in through the
leaved gates and overthrew the city. What's God saying? I'm
gonna, I've got it all planned out. I've got a purpose and it's
all for Israel. It's all for Israel. Every bit
of it. Everything our God is doing.
What is faith? It's putting our hope, our trust,
our reliance upon the Lord our God. who is sovereign in salvation. He's sovereign in providence. He's sovereign in creation. Faith is resting all our hope
in Him. Claire, I've given you Ethiopia,
Egypt. It's all for you. It's all for
you. Don't be afraid. Now this, the Lord's giving us
a description of those blind men who have eyes and deaf
men that have ears. And this is what blind people
see and what deaf people hear. Is this a description of your
faith. This is every believer's experience.