Okay, this evening now we're taking a look at Isaiah 28. Isaiah 28, verse 16. And I'm taking a title for the message from that verse, a sure foundation. You see that? Therefore thus saith the Lord God, behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation, a stone, a tridestone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation. He that believeth shall not make haste. Those who believe that foundation to be Christ and rest upon that foundation have salvation, have everything that God has promised and give His children. Now, I delight in the things of God, in the gospel of God, things that are certain and sure, certain and sure, true and everlasting. We read in 2 Samuel 23 about the covenant of grace that's ordered in all things and is sure And then in Hebrews 13, 20, we read about the sure promise of the blood of everlasting covenant, that great shepherd of the sheep who laid down his life for his people. And then in 2 Peter 1, you remember we studied this not too many months ago. We have also a more sure word of prophecy. Don't you like things that are sure? That you can count on? And then Romans. 4, we looked at this not too many weeks ago. Romans 4 verse 16, is by faith that it might be by grace to the end that the promise might be sure to all to see. Now I trust, you're like I am, I trust that you find comfort in those things that are unquestionably sure, undeniably safe, and eternally true. Don't you just find comfort in those things? It's troubling to our heart to see so many finding comfort and seeking refuge in that which is contrary to that which is sure, safe, and true. Isaiah called them falsehoods. He called them a fading flower whose glorious beauty is a fading flower. Look back at verse 1, Isaiah 28 verse 1. Woe to the crown of the pride to the drunkards of Ephraim, they're drunk with idolatry, drunk with religious pride. God hates pride, especially religious pride, whose glorious beauty is a fading flower, all flesh is grass, and the head of the fat valleys of them overcome with wine, drunk with idolatry and perversion. It's troubling to my soul to see so many going about in our day to establish a righteousness of their own doing and totally discarding the righteousness of God revealed in the gospel. On Christ that solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand. He alone is my glorious beauty and dress. We've looked at that word righteousness so many times, especially in the book of Isaiah. the gospel of God reveals the righteousness of God given in the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul said, I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ for it's the power of God and the salvation to everyone that believe it, to the Jew first and also to the Gentile, for therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith. And then we studied recently from Isaiah, excuse me, Romans four, about the blessedness of that man that David described. Blessed is that man to whom the Lord imputeth righteousness without works. Now this is the righteousness of God that's provided in the gospel and freely given unto us. That's the only way we can rightly stand before God justified is to be found in Christ. Believers are not ignorant of that righteousness. as revealed in the gospel, and they're certainly not going about to establish a righteousness by their own doing. Your best moral day, your highest moral plane. If you read over here in Isaiah 64, you know what God says it is? Filthy rags. Never mistake morality for righteousness. Morality is just morality before men. Uprightness before men. But before God, what is it? Nothing but sin. Nothing but sin. Nothing but a refuge of lies. Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth. Well, in this chapter, God's going to tell us the difference between the false refuge of lies of men and the true refuge of God revealed in the gospel. One will save you eternally, that true refuge in Christ. The other will damn you forever. One will bless you with all spiritual blessing and heavenly in Christ Jesus, that foundation that God has laid, being accepted in the beloved. The refuge of lies will do nothing but curse you and damn you. The gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ will justify you freely by his grace. The other refuge of lies will condemn you forever and ever and ever and ever. Now, do you have a refuge? Do you have a righteousness? Believers can say, yes, I do. Christ, the Lord Jesus Christ. He's my refuge. He's my righteousness. Remember that psalm I call the only psalm? What number is that? The only psalm. What number is that? Psalm 62, right? He only is my rock and my salvation. He only is my refuge. He only is my righteousness. Now, trust Him at all times, ye people. Pour out your heart before him. God is a refuge for us. Our refuge is built only upon the foundation of God, the rock of ages, the Lord Jesus Christ. All other ground is shamrock, sinking sand, sinking sand. Christ is that only rock of salvation that God has provided. There is no other. There is no other. There's just one refuge. That refuge is Christ. That shelter is Christ. Now, I want to look, first of all, at man's refuge of lies and falsehood, found in verse 14 and verse 15. Man's refuge and falsehood goes like this. Wherefore, hear the word of the Lord, you scornful men, wicked men, that rule this people which is in Jerusalem, referring to those priests and those prophets, False priest, false prophet, because you have said, we made a covenant with death. We ain't afraid to die. We have an agreement with hell. With hell, we are in agreement. When the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it won't come to us. It won't bother us. For we've made lies our refuge, and under falsehood have we hid ourselves. In the years that I've been in the ministry, 45 years, I've talked to a lot of people over the years. I've talked to a lot of people over the years. And I can maybe only think of one or two times I've had a conversation with mostly strangers that I've talked with and tried to witness the gospel to. And most of them, with maybe an exception, have some sort of refuge they're hiding in, some sort of hope they're hiding in, some sort of refuge that they built. It may be a religious refuge, it may be an irreligious refuge, but they have some kind of hope that they're hiding in, and it's not the true refuge, the Lord Jesus Christ. Now it's most evident that those who refuse to hear the word of truth, and receive the truth of God, and believe the truth of God, will go about to build a refuge that has the foundation that's false. No matter how many times you tell a lie, you can tell a lie a hundred times, a thousand times, it never becomes the truth. Does it? Never. The truth is always the truth. Nothing but the truth. Our Lord said, you should know the truth and the truth will set you free. Those folks here in Isaiah 28, the Lord said of them, these folks declared before God, oh, we believe. We believe in a God. We believe that men will die. Well, it's pretty obvious around the hillside, there's cemeteries everywhere. We believe that a man will die. We believe that, well, there may be a judgment to come, but it won't come nigh to us. You see what they're saying there? It shall not come nigh to us, for we have made a refuge of lies under falsehood, have we hid ourselves. You see, these folks who are hiding in this false refuge, they think they've got things all fixed up with God. We've made peace with God, they say. I've made my peace with God. We have done many good works. You remember those folks in Matthew 7 said, Lord, our Lord, to not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, go and enter in the King of God. And they said, Lord, we preached in your name. We've done many wonderful works, and we've cast out demons in your name. We've done all these different things. We have a refuge. What we have done. Remember what the Lord said? Depart from me, you workers of iniquity. Don't hide in the refuge of your supposed works or goodness. We have made a flimsy false covenant with death, they say. This covenant they have is not the covenant of grace. It's a covenant of their puny ungodly works, which will not satisfy God, will it? Only the covenant of grace in Christ. Our Lord said to those in Luke 15, You are they which justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts. That which is highly esteemed among men, he says, is an abomination in the sight of God. They say, we've made an agreement with death, with the grave. This agreement is not based upon the agreement of the word of God, nor of salvation, but it's an agreement that we have made. What does that count for, before God? Nothing. Nothing. We have our own religious experience, our religious feelings. We're trusting our denomination or good works or some kind of religious profession that we've made. We've made a refuge of our own doing. It's not the refuge of Christ alone, but rather it's what he called here. You've made yourselves a covenant with a refuge of lives and under falsehood have you hid yourselves. You didn't hide in Christ. You hit it in yourself. These phrases are expressive of their being fearless before death, meeting God in judgment, and of their confidence and assurance that they should not be affected by the holy wrath and justice of God. Well, the Lord blows that all apart, doesn't he? Down in verse 17. Judgment, God said, I will lay to the line a strict holiness, judgment, All judgment's been committed unto the Son. He's going to judge the world in righteousness by that man. A line, a line has no variance. And the righteousness is a plummet, a line and a plummet. When you build, you lay block, you have that line, and you lay block to that line, and that corner, that plumbob, this way and this way, no variance. God said there's no variance in my judgment. Judgment will I lay to the line and righteousness to the plummet and the hail, the hail. of God's wrath shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters of God's judgment shall overflow the hiding place, and your covenant with death shall be disannulled, and your agreement with hell will not stand when the overflowing scourge shall pass through. You shall be trodden down by it, judgment's coming. Judgment's coming. The wrath of God is coming. He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life. He that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God. The wrath of God is poured out upon those. The standard of judgment is absolute holiness before God. You and I cannot produce a righteousness or a holiness that's satisfying unto God. We cannot produce that, but we can possess one in Christ, but not of our own making, of his doing, his dying, his obedience unto death. In Christ, we have the garments of salvation and the robe of righteousness in the Lord Jesus Christ. Isaiah 61 10 tells us that. Now, the second part of this message is found in verse 16. Look at the refuge that God has provided for us. Now, this is a no brainer, isn't it? Left to yourselves. And just the way of looking at the things, would you rather hide in a refuge of lies that's going to be destroyed or hide in the refuge that God has provided that will endure forever with everlasting salvation? Believers know that Christ is all our salvation. He's given us faith. He's given us faith to look to Him for all salvation. Let's look here for a moment at this refuge we have in Christ. Therefore, verse 16, thus saith the Lord, behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation, a stone, a rock. Christ is that rock of ages, tried, stridestone, it's precious cornerstone, it's a sure foundation. He that believeth shall not make haste, never be forced off. With God, there is an everlasting covenant made with the Lord Jesus Christ, order and all things, and is sure. The God of peace that brought again from the dead, our Lord Jesus Christ, that great shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you perfect in every way. Jeremiah 32, the Lord says this, and they shall be my people, I will be their God. I will give them one heart, one way that they may fear me forever for the Lord, for the good of them and of their children. After them, I will make an everlasting covenant with them. I will not turn away from them to do them good. I will put my fear in their heart and they shall not depart from me. That's covenant language. I will and they shall. This everlasting covenant of grace is found in the Word of God in the Lord Jesus Christ. This everlasting agreement and covenant found in the Word of God that the Lord Jesus Christ came to save his covenant people. And my friend, he did not fail. He did not fail to do that. In Matthew 9, the Lord said, I didn't come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance. In Luke 19, the Lord said, I came to seek and to save that which is lost. You all know this from 1 Timothy 1. This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation that the Lord Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners. Paul said, I'm the chief one. That's covenant language, isn't it? There is a true refuge for sinners to hide in from the storm of God's wrath, and it's Christ and Him crucified. You see, the Lord Jesus Christ already took the storm of God's wrath for us, died in our room and in our stead. Therefore, there is no condemnation to those who are in the Lord Jesus Christ. There is a true, solid, established foundation upon which every weary sinner can totally rest. Our Lord said, everyone that is weary and heavy laden, he said, come to me and I'll give you rest. I'll give you rest. I'll give you rest. I will. Now, by whose authority do we have this foundation laid for us, this true refuge? Verse 16, Therefore thus saith the Lord, This is the Lord God. This is Almighty God who says, there is a sure refuge for sinners to rest upon. Thus saith the Lord God. Without question, this foundation that God has laid for Zion, that's His church, is none other than the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. There is no other foundation. Other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid. There's no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. We are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone. Now who has provided and established this foundation? Therefore thus sayeth the Lord, behold, I lay in Zion. The origination of our salvations is in the eternal covenant of God, the eternal covenant of grace. Who has provided and established this foundation? Behold, I lay in Zion. God himself is the architect, the supplier, the builder. of this safe and secure foundation of salvation. Remember our Lord said to Peter and those apostles, I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Remember only that which God provide will God accept. We're accepted in the beloved. He is Jehovah driver, the Lord will provide. Therefore thus sayeth the Lord God, Behold, I lay this foundation for my church. Zion is a picture of the church here. I lay this foundation for Zion, my people, my people. Now notice the characteristics of this foundation. This foundation's stone. This foundation upon which sinners rest. It's called here a stone, a stone. It's called here a tried stone. Now I don't know a lot about building, but I've built a few things. And one of the first things you have to do when you build a building is dig a footer and pour a foundation. You pour a foundation upon which the building rests. And you don't, You don't just dig down to the sand and put your block on the sand. You've got to put that rebar in that concrete and pour that concrete and put those anchors in there and cement that block to that foundation. Then the building will stand. built back here when we had the house back here. And we were flooded, I think it was in 2002. And we built a garage on the side of that house there to protect this side of the house from the flood water and to seal up the old garage. And we're going to dig a footer for the foundation to be poured into. And I laid out the foundation to make it square and everything. And I gave both my boys a shovel. And I said, you're going to dig the footer. And they said, Dad, what's the footer? I said, you're about to find out. So they dug that footer. They dug that footer by hand. And we poured that concrete in that foundation. And the building of that garage was built on that foundation. And when the floodwaters came again, and they came again, 2007, 2009, and 2010, that water pushed up against that wall and it did not falter because it was on the foundation, the rock. How much more is the church of the Lord Jesus Christ resting on that solid foundation that God has laid? God has laid. And notice here, it's called a tried, established, proven stone. Christ is that rock in a weary land. He is that proven foundation. No sinner ever perished resting on the Lord Jesus Christ. is tried and tested. The Lord Jesus Christ was tried and tested by Satan. And the scripture said, the prince of this world cometh, and he hath found nothing in me. Tried and tested by the law of God, the Lord Jesus Christ was. For we have not a high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin, tempted by Satan, and he defeated him. Tempted and tried by the law, he honored it. Isaiah 42 verse 21 said, he will magnify the law and make it honorable. Tried and tested and proven by the father. The father speaks from heaven and said, this is my beloved son, whom I'm well pleased. So it was a tried stone. And then look what it says next. Precious. A precious cornerstone. Now what does a cornerstone do? It knits the building together. A cornerstone. And we know the Lord Jesus Christ is that cornerstone. We're knit together in Him. We're knit together with love. To those that perish in their sin, to those to whom the gospel is foolishness, Christ is a stumbling stone, a rock of offense. But unto you which believe, He is precious. He's a precious cornerstone. Christ is that living stone upon which we build and rest. To you, who rest upon Christ. We read that in 1 Peter chapter 2 verse 7. To you who believe, He is precious. We have the precious promises of the gospel that cannot fail. We are redeemed with His precious blood. We are justified by the exceeding great and precious promises revealed in the gospel. And we have obtained like precious faith. Therefore thus sayeth the Lord God, Behold, I lay in Zion. for a foundation of stone, as Christ the Rock tried precious cornerstone, and you know what? It's sure, it's certain and sure. You see that? It's certain and sure. One that cannot be destroyed, one foundation that cannot be disannulled, destroyed, one foundation that will not fail. A sure foundation of faith and hope and peace can rest upon, find comfort and eternal happiness, resting in that rock of ages, the Lord Jesus Christ. This foundation is firm and strong and movable, everlasting, it'll never decay, never needs improvement, never needs an update, never needs to be replaced or changed because He never changes. I am the Lord, I change not, therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed. We read this in 2 Timothy 2.19, Nevertheless, the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, the Lord knoweth them that are his. In conclusion, in closing, always happy to hear that word right, now in closing, Oh boy, he's about to wind this up, okay. Those that believe in hope and trust that foundation, those that rest upon the sure and immovable foundation of Christ alone will never be forced out. He that believeth, not worketh, not laboreth, believeth shall not make haste. Faith rests totally upon Christ. Faith looks to the Lord Jesus Christ alone. Never be forced out. Never be forced out. He that believeth shall never be ashamed of the gospel. When Paul quotes this in Romans 9.33, he gives this, when he quotes this, A stumbling stone and a rock of offense, but whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed." Here or hereafter. Paul said, I'm not ashamed of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. When Peter quotes this same scripture in 1 Peter 2, 6, we read earlier, he uses the word Behold, I lay in Zion a chief cornerstone, elect precious. He that believeth on him shall not be confounded. Unto you there which believe, he is precious. Never be forced to flee, never be ashamed, and never be confounded. Do you have a refuge? Do you have a refuge? Is it the Lord Jesus Christ alone? There's no other. There's no other. We have a refuge of truth, don't we? Not one of lies. Christ alone, grace alone, faith alone. We can say with the Apostle Paul, for the which cause I suffer these things, nevertheless I'm not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed, and I'm persuaded he's able to keep that which I've committed unto him against that day. Throw away everything else. Count everything dung, lost, and ruined, as Paul said. I count all things lost for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord. Oh, that I may win Christ and be found in Him alone. Who is what? All our salvation. Salvation. Isn't this saying the same thing that Jonah said? Salvation is of the Lord. There is no other salvation but in the Lord Jesus Christ alone. This is the foundation that God has laid. This is the foundation upon which He has caused us to rest. This is the foundation which gives us comfort and assurance, doesn't it? Resting on Christ. Christ alone. That's all our hope. With the Lord Jesus Christ, There is endless hope without the Lord Jesus Christ. There is a hopeless end with Him.