Good morning. I want to read
a very brief passage of scripture and then have prayer. And then
I've asked Jeff Toppenheim to bring the first message this
morning. I preached in Kingsport yesterday at their conference
and got home last night. So Jeff, thank you for doing
this this morning. And we'll pray together for the
Lord to bless Jeff and us as he speaks Isaiah chapter 52 verse
1 awake awake How oftentimes the Lord uses repetition for
For our good. It's it's it's him getting our
attention awake awake Put on thy strength Oh Zion That's
Christ Put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city. For
henceforth there shall be no more come unto thee, the uncircumcised
and the unclean. Let's pray together. Our Heavenly
Father, enable us to put on thy strength. Lord, we know that
Your strength is made perfect in our weakness. Lord, might
we, by your spirit, be able to confess our weakness, our inability,
our sinfulness, and look in faith to thy dear son for all the hope
of our salvation. Lord, we pray that you would
Bless Jeff and being able to declare Christ and bless us as
we listen for you to speak to our hearts. We ask it in Christ's
name. Amen. Jeff. Good morning. So I'd like to
preach a message from Isaiah chapter 8, please. Isaiah chapter
8. We just sang how God, our God,
must win the battle. That would mean that all we have
to do is be on his side, and we win too. But being the sinners
with our old nature that we have, the sinners that we are, that's
Easier said than done, staying on God's side. Say ye not a confederacy,
from Isaiah chapter eight, please. In 2 Timothy, throughout Timothy,
but especially in chapters one and two, in 2 Timothy, Paul is
telling Timothy about the dangers of ministering among a wicked
unbelieving generation. But he keeps pointing Timothy
back to the grace and the power of God as his encouragement. In chapter 1, Paul says to be
thou a partaker of the afflictions of the gospel. But how does he
partake of those afflictions? By the power of God who hath
saved us. He tells Timothy to hold fast
in the face of heresy and error, hold fast the form of sound words. How does Timothy hold on to those?
In faith and love, which is in Christ Jesus. In verse 15, Paul
says, all they that be in Asia are turned away from me. That's
why chapter two starts, he writes to Timothy, be strong in the
grace that is in Christ Jesus. So grace in the work of Christ
is the continual encouragement that Paul gives to Timothy. He says, endure hardness as a
good soldier of Jesus Christ. And then in verse 5 of chapter
1, he says, if any man strive for mastery, yet is he not crowned,
except he strive lawfully. So there is a God-honoring way
to strive. There is a way that honors God
to be a partaker of the affliction of the gospel. Lawful strife. And it's to partake of those
afflictions according to the power of God. Maybe the most common cause that
we have to endure hardness or to be afflicted with the afflictions
of the gospel is this, it's that we cannot have union with a false
gospel. We cannot join the crowd in their
chant to say that it's all the same. We all worship the same
God. Let's all unite. We can't do
it. But our weak, old, sinful nature
that we drag around with us is always making us feel tempted
to give in just a little bit. to join the crowd and to find
common ground. See, the truth is, I don't know,
you don't know what you would do to avoid confrontation or
to get an edge over someone else, expediency. You don't know what
you would do if God were to take his hand off that situation.
You could join in with anybody. I could. The next time we speak
with, as I do often, you probably do too, you speak with professing
believers, and it's very clear that they don't know God, because
everything they say is the exact opposite of what God says. We don't know what we would do. May God hold us up. God has told
us to never join Christ in his gospel, with a harlot, but bless
God, he doesn't leave us to our own wit and resolve to achieve
that. He gives himself as the one to
be looked on, to be encouraged, and with a strong hand, he teaches
us to not be afraid. And he teaches us that when a
man's ways please the Lord, he makes even his enemies to be
at peace with him. See, we're surrounded by heretical
ideas every day of who God is, what we are, and how God saves
sinners. The message we continually hear
from this world is that we all believe in Jesus. Let's unite
over the things that we have in common instead of being divided. There's nothing new under the
sun. People want to unite for expediency
or to show how virtuous and kind they are, which usually is the
reason, I believe. And the ones who refuse to unite
are reproached. They're put outside the camp,
but that's where Christ is followed, outside the camp. The one thing
that's worse than that reproach that we get, worse by far, is
that, like I said, we feel tempted to give in. a man was telling
me just the other day how he had accepted Christ. And he was
going on and on about how God is the perfect gentleman, and
he wants us to invite him in to our hearts. He won't force
us. And honestly, I was at work. I just nodded the whole time.
I just nodded. And I wondered, did I do the
right thing? I could say, well, this is the first time we had
talked about it. I'll probably have a chance in the future to
talk again, and I'll be a little bit more direct. I don't know. These things trouble me. Maybe
I should have said something right then and there. There's
this constant battle to give in and make peace. And God's
words for Isaiah in here have something for us. This is something for us right
here. Let's read. Isaiah chapter 8, start at verse
11. Chapter 8, verse 11. For the
Lord spake thus to me with a strong hand, and instructed me that
I should not walk in the way of this people. Now here's what
he said. Say ye not, Isaiah, say ye not,
a confederacy to all them to whom this people shall say, a
confederacy. Neither fear ye their fear, nor
be afraid. Here's what you do instead. Sanctify
the Lord of hosts himself, and let him be your fear, and let
him be your dread. Isaiah, don't join your voice
to all those who are saying, let's all team up. For some background
now, turn just back one page to chapter seven. See, Syria
and Israel, Ephraim, had joined together to war against Judah. God's church, God's people. Some
in Judah wanted to surrender. They wanted to join in and be
absorbed into these two armies instead of fight against them.
Let's read chapter seven, verse one and two. And it came to pass
in the days of Ahaz, the son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah,
king of Judah, that Rezin, the king of Syria, and Pekah, the
son of Ramalia, king of Israel, went up toward Jerusalem to war
against it, but could not prevail against it." He's about to say
it's because of Emmanuel, God with us. Verse two, and it was
told the house of David saying, Syria is confederate with Ephraim
and his heart was moved and the heart of his people as the trees
of the wood are moved with the wind. Now look at chapter eight,
verse six. For as much as this people refuseth
the waters of Shiloh, Shiloh means the one to whom it belongs,
refuseth the waters of Shiloh that go softly and rejoice in
Rezin and Remalia's son. They rejoice in these armies
teamed up against them. If you're a believer, I know
something about you. We can all say this. You hear
the world and its chorus for everyone to be unified and drop
all their divisions and be unified in spiritual things. You hear
that and it honestly makes no sense to you. You cannot figure
out how anybody could think that way. because two gospels cannot
be reconciled together when they're different. That's what I know
about you. If you believe God, it makes
no sense to you to hear this world's chorus. And God taught
you that. God worked that in you. He taught
you that by teaching you to look to him. When you've seen the
glory and the beauty of God, you can't put him in the bin
with all the other gods. You can't do it. Let's read chapter
eight, verse 11 through 13 again. You cannot lift him off of the
pedestal he's on and put him with the others. For the Lord
spake thus to me with a strong hand and instructed me that I
should not walk in the way of this people, saying, say ye not
a confederacy? To all them to whom this people
shall say a confederacy, neither fear ye their fear. nor be afraid. Sanctify the Lord of hosts himself,
and let him be your fear, and let him be your dread. Sanctify
God. If I join his gospel with a false
gospel, I'm giving the idea to others that God is not very special. There's really nothing special
about him. The best defense against doing that is to have a heart
filled with how special he is. This is what Jude meant when
he said, keep yourselves in the love of God. Sanctify the Lord
of hosts himself. Let him be your fear. Sanctify
him. Bless his name for what he's
done. And let him be your fear. Think about where you'd be if
he hadn't done that for you. Let's get started. In these verses,
The Lord is telling Isaiah to not be like the others. He instructs
him with a strong hand to not walk in the way of this people,
namely, by calling for confederacy with Syria and being afraid of
what they're afraid of. And here's the cure that God
gave, sanctify the Lord. Where do we find strength to
separate from error? It's by thinking on how God saves
and glorifying him for it. Keep yourselves in the love of
God. Verse 11 here, now it takes a
strong hand for the Lord spake thus to me with a strong hand.
It takes a strong hand of God to make us quit from men. Since
our birth, we've been finding out every day of our lives that
staying on other people's good side is good for us. It makes
our life easier. We've been finding out our whole
lives every day that to be a part of the crowd, this world, you
have to play by their rules. And to sanctify the Lord and
not say confederacy, that takes a strong hand. It takes God reversing
everything we've learned or muting it, better yet, everything we've
learned about how to deal with people and everything we want
naturally as far as how other people see us. that's gonna have
to go out the window. It takes resurrection power,
really, is the only power that can do that. It takes the power
of being crucified with Christ before we'll ever say, I am crucified
to this world also, and the world's crucified unto me. He spake unto me with a strong
hand. He loved me enough to be direct
and firm with me and forceful. The only way that a person will
stop walking in the way of these people. The only way that happens is
first, seeing that God loves the unimportant, the little,
the ordinary people. Secondly, seeing how that's the
path that Christ took through this world. Go to 1 Corinthians,
please. 1 Corinthians chapter 1. God loves the ordinary, the unimportant
people. Starting in verse 18, for the
preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness,
but unto us which are saved It is the power of God. For it is
written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and will bring to
nothing the understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is
the disputer of this world? Hath not God made foolish the
wisdom of this world? For after that in the wisdom
of God, the world by wisdom knew not God. It pleased God, by the
foolishness of preaching, to save them that believe. For the
Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom, but
we preach Christ, crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling block,
and unto the Greeks foolishness, but unto them, which are called,
both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God, and the wisdom
of God, because the foolishness of God is wiser than men. the weakness of God is stronger
than men. That's why we don't have to join
the true gospel with the false. We don't have to say Confederacy.
"'cause what they call foolish and weak is strong and wise. "'For you see your calling, brethren,
"'how that not many wise men after the flesh, "'not many mighty,
not many noble, are called. "'But God hath chosen the foolish
things of the world "'to confound the wise, "'and God hath chosen
the weak things of the world to confound the things which
are mighty, and the base things of the world, and things which
are despised hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not,
to bring to naught things that are, that no flesh should glory
in his presence. God's strong hand that he instructs
us with shows us that the meek, the things which are not, will
inherit the earth, and they'll bring to nothing those that thought
that they were something. You won't try to fit in with
men when you realize that it's the people who don't fit in who
God loves. Number two, this happens when
we see that this is the same path that our Lord Jesus Christ
trod. He was despised and rejected
of men, and the darkness comprehended him not. Turn to John chapter 17 real
quick, please. John 17. This is God taking Isaiah and
us by the hand and telling us, don't ever, ever call for a confederacy
with those who don't know me. John 17. Verses 14 through 16,
I have given them thy word, Christ says, and the world hath hated
them because they are not of the world, even as I am not of
the world. I pray not that thou shouldest
take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them
from the evil. They are not of the world, even
as I am not of the world. What an honor to be on the same
path that he took. Back to our text, please. Verse 12, say not a confederacy
to all them to whom this people shall say a confederacy. Don't be of this world. Don't
lend your voice to those who say, well, it's all the same
anyway. Lately, I see in the Reformed
world, there is such a push among Reformed pastors and thinkers
to accept Catholics, Roman Catholics, as brethren. These are men who
have their bookshelves and libraries filled with books written by
people who risked or gave their life to separate from Roman Catholicism. And now they're saying that that's
Christianity. I don't understand it. Say not
a confederacy. The only way somebody could do
that is if they have never seen the glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ. You won't keep something separate
if you don't think it's special. And if you don't think it's special,
you've never seen it. You've never seen him. Verse 13, how, how do we not
call for a confederacy? How do we keep separate? Sanctify
the Lord of hosts himself and let him be your fear. Let him
be your dread. Thank him for what he's done,
and know where you would be if he hadn't. Let him be your fear. Our Lord once told the disciples,
fear not them which kill the body, and after that have nothing
more that they can do. But I'll tell you who you should
fear. Fear him who, after he is killed, has power to cast
both body and soul into hell. Was he introducing the possibility
of hell for his disciples there? Was he saying, you better be
afraid, my sheep, who I came for, who I made everything for,
who I'm about to die for. You better be afraid. If you
mess up, your father will cast you into hell. He wasn't saying
that at all. He was saying, tremble in awe
and worship at the one who has the power to do that and will
do it to others. This is who your father is. Let
him be your fear and sanctify the Lord of hosts. Turn to songs. Song of Solomon. Chapter one,
please. This is what it means to sanctify
God. I cannot find a better place
in the scriptures in a few verses. to show what it is to sanctify
God our Father. Song of Solomon, chapter one,
verse one. The song of songs, which is Solomon's. It's also every believer's song.
Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth, for thy love is
better than wine. Because of the savor of thy good
ointments, thy name is as ointment poured forth. Therefore, do the
virgins love thee. Draw me, we will run after thee. The king hath brought me into
his chambers. We will be glad and rejoice in
thee. We will remember thy love more
than wine. The upright love thee. His love
is better than wine, because knowing that we are in his hands
and knowing that he is in the Father's hands is better than
any feeling, anything that this world can even think of or give. The virgins love thee, the ones
who are not defiled with a harlot, the ones who walk in white, who
he's made worthy. Virgins love him. The way to stay away from error
is to love the truth and to love the one who's taught you the
truth. How do we not bend to the heresy of denying election,
personal particular choosing of people to eternal life? How do we avoid that? I think
on these things, like Paul said. Let's go to John chapter 10.
John 10, verse 24. The best way to avoid error is
love the truth. John 10, verse 24. 24, then came the Jews round
about him and said unto him, how long dost thou make us to
doubt? If thou be the Christ, tell us
plainly. Jesus answered them, I told you,
and you believed not. The works that I do in my Father's
name, they bear witness of me. But ye believe not, because ye
are not of my sheep, as I said unto you. My sheep hear my voice,
and I know them, and they follow me. And I give unto them eternal
life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them
out of my hand. My father which gave them me
is greater than all, and no man is able to pluck them out of
my father's hand. He told them plainly that his
father loved him because he lays down his life and takes it again
in verse 17. He's already said that. And they
say, how long do you make us to doubt? How do we, see that
every page of the Bible is about the one who laid down his life
and took it again, the one whose father loved him and sent him.
How do we see that? And they're standing there saying,
why are you making us doubt? Tell us plainly. Well, he said,
you believe not because you are not of my sheep. If God sends
that to your heart and power, You're not going to join forces
with those who deny it. You can't. The way to avoid error
is by loving the truth, loving the one who taught you the truth. David said, I hate the works
of them that turn aside. They shall not cleave to me.
How do they not cleave? How can I keep from saying confederacy
with those who say Jesus Christ died for all. Well, by sanctifying
the Lord and letting him be my fear and my dread, by seeing
the God-man lifted between heaven and earth, and imagine what it
could have been like when he stooped down and began to feel
heavy, the scripture says, heavy with our sins, heavy with my
sins, Imagine facing God's unbending
justice. Let him be your fear and your
dread. Imagine facing his justice the
second after I closed my eyes the last time without an advocate. Being at the bar of God's justice
with nothing to say, and he wouldn't listen anyway. He already knows
the verdict. the terror, the dread of that,
and to know that this man, Jesus Christ, is the only reason why
that won't happen. You can't join in a confederacy
with those in error when you know that. In Colossians chapter one, it
says that Jesus Christ reconciled us to God by in the body of his
flesh through death. God, who will by no means clear
the guilty, we are reconciled to him, and it's in the body
of Christ's flesh that we are reconciled. Our reconciliation
is in him. It's not in us, and it's not
through faith. It's in him through death. to present us holy and unblameable
and unreprovable in God's sight. Because his son took on flesh,
because he condemned sin in his flesh, God's elect have no sin
in the sight of God. See, men fall away little by
little, and I've seen it happen. They start off solid. They fall
away a little by little. They join with this group and
they influence them even more. They join with them and they're
even further influenced away from the truth. They've called
confederacy with everybody in all of Christendom because they
never really loved the truth. They never loved, they never
got a glimpse of Jesus Christ and his beauty and perfection
and the pity joined with power that he had when he came and
took our sins on himself. Lord, keep us from that, please,
God. Please, Lord, have us to always love your son. Have us
to look to him for everything that we need and to know that
your word is the only word we need. Amen.