Good morning. Let's open this
morning's service with hymn number 62 from the Hardback Tymnal,
crowned hymn with many crowns. 62. Crown Him with many crowns, the
Lamb upon His throne. Hark how the heavenly anthem
drowns all music but its own. Awake, my soul, and sing of Him
who died for thee, and hail Him as thy matchless King through
all eternity. ? Crown him the Lord of love ?
? Behold his hand and side ? ? Rich wounds yet visible above ? ?
In beauty glorified ? ? No angel in the sky ? Can fully bear that
sight The downward bends his wandering eye At mysteries so
bright Crown him the Lord of life, who triumphed o'er the
grave, who rose victorious to the strife for those he came
to save. ? His glories now we sing ? Who
died and rose on high ? Who died eternal life to bring ? And lives
that death may die ? Crown him the Lord of heaven one with the
Father known, one with the Spirit through Him given from yonder
glorious throne, to Thee be endless praise. praise. For thou for
us hast died. Be thou, O Lord, through endless
days adored and magnified. Please be seated. Good morning. I want to ask you to turn with
me in your Bibles to Revelation chapter 4. Revelation chapter
4. These verses are in reference
to that hymn that we just sang. And this is such an important
truth to understand because in free will, man-made religion, People talk about making Jesus
Lord. We just sang, crown him Lord
of life. And the religious, the self-righteous
would sing that hymn believing that they have the ability to
make Jesus Lord. God's already made him Lord. He's Lord over the living. That's the believer. and he's
Lord over the dead. That's the unbeliever. In other
words, he reigns sovereign over all men, whether they like it
or not. But look what the believers do
in Revelation chapter 4 at verse 10. The 4 and 20 elders, now
that is symbolic of the whole church. So here's all of God's
people gathered together in heaven The four and 20 elders fall down
before him that sat on the throne and worship him that liveth forever
and ever and cast their crowns before the throne saying, thou
art worthy, oh Lord, to receive glory and honor and power for
thou has created all things and for thy pleasure they are and
were created. All things are made for His pleasure,
and everything that happens is for His glory. What a God! What a God! Might He enable us
from our hearts to bow before His throne and to worship Him
in the power of His Spirit and according to the truth of what
He's revealed about Himself in His Word. That's why we're here
this morning. Would you bow with me in prayer,
please? Our merciful Heavenly Father, we come before Thy throne of
grace thanking You that we have a successful Savior, an advocate,
one who pleads our cause, one in whom we have all acceptance,
Lord, our desire that you put in our hearts and we pray that
you would strengthen it. Would be to worship him. Would
be to set our affections on him. Would be to see him. In the splendor
of his glory and of his grace. Or cause the Lord Jesus Christ
to be lifted up. Cause us to be drawn into his
presence. and to find our hope, our comfort,
our peace, and all of our salvation in his glorious person and in
his accomplished work of redemption. Forgive us, Lord, of our many
sins. Thank you for the blood of thy
dear son that covers them. We ask it in his name. Amen. You'll turn with me, please,
in your Bibles to Isaiah chapter 66. Isaiah chapter 66. What a journey the Lord has given
us in studying and preaching the gospel from the book of Isaiah. And now we find ourselves in
the final chapter. We could very easily go back
to Isaiah chapter 1, verse 1 and go through the whole thing again
and find gems of truth and pictures of Christ that we didn't see
the first time. But we want to conclude this
study with this question. What is it to tremble at God's
Word? What is it to tremble at God's
word. And we know that the spirit of
fear is not of God. He's given us the spirit of love
and of grace, the spirit of a saved mind, the spirit of peace and
hope in the Lord Jesus Christ. So when God speaks of trembling
at his word, what does he mean? What does he mean? Normally we
associate trembling with something that we're afraid of, a fleshly
fear. But here in verse 5 of Isaiah chapter 66, the Lord says,
Hear the word of the Lord, ye that tremble at his word. Now it is not my place It's not
my responsibility, it's not even my desire to convince you that
this book is the word of God. That's the work of the spirit
of God. And when he does, when he convinces us that this is
his word, we will find ourselves trembling at every word of it.
Satan from the very beginning, he's called the father of lies,
And Satan at the very beginning has caused men to call into question
the word of God. When he first approached Eve
in the garden, what did he say? Did God say that thou shall not
eat of all the trees of the garden? He was twisting the word of God,
changing the way, he knew what God said. But he added a little
bit to it, didn't he? And Eve corrected him. And Eve
said, oh, no, God didn't say we can't eat of any of the fruit
of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and
evil. That tree that's in the midst
of the garden, we should not eat of it, lest we die. That's what God said. The day
in which you eat of this fruit, the day of this tree, you shall
surely, surely die. Now Satan just comes right out
with a bold-faced lie, doesn't he? He said, you shall not surely
die. Don't believe that. God doesn't
want you to eat of that tree because he knows in the day in
which you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you'll become
like God. And man has wanted to be God ever since. Ever since. That's what this whole thing
about making Jesus Lord of your life is. Man putting himself
on the throne of God and making God subject to his will. And
then nothing's changed. Go all the way back to the garden,
nothing has changed. It's exactly the same, isn't
it? Well, I'm here to say without apology, God is God and we're
not. And his word is true. And God
says all men are liars. God alone tells the truth. Oh, that the Spirit of God would
cause us to hear His Word and to tremble at His Word and to
believe His Word, to believe His Word. Though Satan is still
at work, men will say things like, well, you know, the Bible
contains the Word of God, but it's not all the Word of God.
Or they'll say things, well, how much of the Bible do you
have to believe in order to be a believer? Every word of it, every single
word of it. That's how much you have to believe.
God makes you believe or you just believe God. You don't call
him into question. You don't say, well, I wonder
if this is what, this is true or this is not true. You believe
everything God says. And that's my first point as
to what it means to tremble at God's word. It means to believe
it, every word of it. 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.
And the scriptures came not by private interpretation. Men didn't
sit down and say, well, you know, I think this is what God would
have us to know. No, holy men of God wrote as they were moved
by the spirit of God. I said, well, you know, the Bible's
been written and rewritten so many times over the years, how
can you be sure? The God who inspired the penman to write
his words is certainly able to preserve the integrity of his
word, and we believe he has. And we bow, we tremble at his
word. We believe what he says. Let me ask you a question. What
is your source of authority? What is your source of authority?
For most men, their source of authority is their own opinion. Well, this is what I think. Well,
you can take what you think and you can take what I think and
you can take what everybody else thinks and take it down to the
coffee shop and you might be able to get a cup of coffee with
it. It doesn't matter what we think, does it? It doesn't matter
what we think. What does God say? That's our
source of authority. We don't care what the world
says. We don't care what we think is true or what we, what does
God say? That settles every controversy. Most men in making themselves
to be God have made their own opinion the source of their authority. Others look outside of scripture
for signs and wonders. Two weeks ago, I was sitting
on a train in Australia, and a man sat across the thing from
me. We engaged in conversation. He
looked at me and said, do you believe in signs? I said, no. Really? You don't believe in
signs? And he proceeded to open his
phone and show me a picture of a cloud that he had taken that
was somehow he saw the figure of the face of Jesus in the cloud
and then he began to tell me about the circumstances that
took place in his life immediately following having seen that cloud
and that was God's sign for him. Now that, there's a lot of folks
that are looking for signs and wonders. They're looking for
evidence that God's speaking to them. They're reading license
plates and they're looking at at pictures outside of the scriptures
in order to try to... that's their source of authority.
That's their source of authority. That's the proof that God is
speaking to them. We have no source of authority. Everything else is subjective.
Our opinions are subjective. Signs and wonders are subjective.
God said, a wicked and perverse generation seeketh after a sign.
We're not looking for signs and wonders. I told this man on the
train, I said, I believe everything I need to know about God is contained
in His Word." And he said, well, yeah, that's true, but we still
have, you know, we still have signs. No, we don't. No, we don't. We have God's Word. We tremble
at God's Word. We believe God's Word. We look to the Word of God as
the sole and final authority of all truth. We settle all controversies
with this question, what sayeth the scriptures? That's it. That's it. And we're not intimidated
by the pseudo-intellectuals who would accuse us of being unscientific. uneducated, backwoods Neanderthals. Don't you know that the things
that are written in this book are impossible scientifically?
No, we're not intimidated by that. Look at our text. Hear
the word of the Lord, ye that tremble at his word. Your brethren
that hated you, that cast you out for my namesake, said, let
the Lord be glorified. Now, the Lord, see, there's gonna
be opposition. If you believe God's word, if
God gives you the grace to believe everything God says, you're gonna
find yourself to be at odds with most of the folks in this world.
And your brethren, the Jews said of the disciples, we're doing
God's service by putting you to death. The Lord said they
were gonna do that. He said, they will bring you
before their magistrates, they will sentence you to death, and
they will believe themselves to be doing God's service. And what do they do? They accuse
us of not serving God because we believe what God says. And
that's what the Lord said, hear you that tremble at His word,
you brethren that hated you. Why do they hate those who believe
God's word? because they're a source of intimidation
to them, aren't they? If you're intimidated, you turn
around and try to intimidate. And men hate Christ. They hate those who stand with
him. And they're intimidated by God's people. Don't be intimidated
by the pseudo intellectuals. Listen to what Paul said to Timothy.
in 1st Timothy chapter 6 verse 20, O Timothy, keep that which
I have committed unto you. Lock it up in your heart and
believe every word of it. Avoiding profane and vain babblings. Don't argue with men. I was talking to Angus last night,
Angus Fishers, the pastor in a church in Australia and he
was going to visit a man And we were a preacher, a preacher,
who a young man in this preacher's church came to the conference
where we were a couple of weeks ago and heard what we were saying
and went back and confronted his pastor. And now his pastor wants to talk
to Angus. And we both agreed, you know,
whatever conversation you might have with this man, don't argue
with him. Don't, just avoid profane babblings. Declare the truth
as it is in Christ and stand there confident. Listen to what
he says. Oh, Timothy, keep that which
is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings and
oppositions of science so falsely called. There's a lot of fake
science going on in the world. There's a lot of men that are,
a lot of people that are basing facts on theories and that's
not science. That's not science. We just avoid those things and
believe what God has said. Turn with me to the book of Jeremiah
chapter 36, just over the next book in your Bibles. Jeremiah
36. This is a, we believe God's word, we believe
every bit of it. We believe that our God is absolutely
sovereign over all men, the living and the dead. We believe that
He has the sovereign right and has in fact chosen according
to His own will and purpose those whom He would save. It's called
election. It's called predestination. We
don't cut that out of the scriptures. We believe that the Lord Jesus
Christ successfully redeemed everyone that God chose in the
covenant of grace, that he bore all the sins of all of his people
of every generation and satisfied the demands of God's justice
and God's holy law and put away their sins once and for all by
the sacrifice of himself. That's what this book teaches.
That's what God says. We believe the gospel, every
bit of it. We don't rest the scriptures
to our own destruction. The Lord said they take the word
of God and they twist it and they rest it. They split the
baby, don't they? Well, they say, well, yeah, but
God says this and God says that and let's find some common ground.
No, no. We believe everything that God
says. We don't pick and choose. what
we decide to believe, as is the case in this story in Jeremiah
chapter 36 beginning at verse 20. And they went into the king,
into the court, but they laid up the roll in the chamber of
Elishema, the scribe, and told all the words in the ears of
the king. So now, Elisha is the, he's the
scribe. He's the one who's been given
the responsibility of writing down the things that the prophet
tells him are the word of God. And they bring this scroll in
to the king, and they unroll it, and they begin to read every
word of it. So the king sent Jehudi, Now,
Jehudai is the same word for Jew, and the Jews represent in
the Bible, not the true Jews, who are the true descendants
of Abraham, but the Jewish people represent the religious, the
religious. And so the king sent Jehudai
to fetch the roll and took it out of the hand of Elishema,
the scribe's chamber, and Jehudai read it in the ears of the king
and in the ears of all the princes which stood before the king.
Now the king sat in the winter house in the ninth month and
there was a fire on the hearth burning before him. And it came
to pass that when Jehudi had read three or four leaves that
he, that is the king, cut it with a penknife. Now a penknife,
you look that word up, it's a scribe's knife. So now the The king takes
the scribe's knife and he begins to cut out the parts of the scroll
that he doesn't like. And he cast it into the fire
that was in the hearth until all the scroll was consumed in
the fire that was on the hearth. Now here's the thing about it.
You take out any part of God's Word as the Word of God and you
might as well throw the whole thing into the fire. It's not
our place to pick and choose what part of God's Word we're
going to believe. It's all God's Word. If you don't believe one
word of it, you don't believe any of it. Yet they were not afraid. What does it mean to tremble
at God's Word? To deny election? to deny particular redemption,
limited atonement, to deny sanctification, being made perfect in Christ,
to put men under the law. They didn't tremble at it. It
didn't bother them a bit. They thought, well, we'll just
get rid of this and throw it in the fire. We tremble at the thought of
cutting out any part of God's Word. Ye that tremble at the
Word of God, hear ye what the Word says. This is part of trembling,
isn't it? There's no fear of God before
their eyes. There's no trembling at God's
Word. They think that they have the ability, the intelligence,
the wisdom to pick and choose what they will. And so they just
take out and there's no fear. Nor rent their garments neither
the king nor any of his servants that heard all these words. They weren't afraid. What does it mean to tremble
at God's word? It means to believe every word of it and to not change
it. For whosoever shall be and to
believe what God's Word says about Christ. And really, it's
all about Him, isn't it? In the volume of the book it
is written of me, for lo, I have come to do thy will, O God. When the Lord rebuked the Pharisees,
the Jews, the religious, who would have said, this is the
Word of God, He said, You don't believe God's Word. If you believe
God's Word, you believe in me. If you believe what Abraham said,
you believe in me, for Abraham rejoiced to see my day. He believed
in me. and then he said you search the
scriptures they were very diligent Bible students you search the
scriptures because you think in them you have eternal life
you think by learning doctrine you think by memorizing scripture
that you're going to earn favor with God by your achievements
but these are they which testify of me this book is a book about
Christ It's the revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ and how
it is that God's pleased to save sinners. What is it to tremble
at God's word? It's to believe God's word and
in believing God's word, we believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. I like what one preacher said in reference
to commentaries. And you know, the commentaries
on scripture, and someone asked me recently, it was a meeting
with some men, well it was in Australia, some of the men were
asking me, you know, how do you prepare for preaching and who
do you read and who do you not read? And I told them, I said,
well, the more I preach, the less and less I read of other
men. I find myself, I mean, I've got
a library full of books. I haven't referred to most of
them in years. There's one or two men that I might refer to
now, but the scriptures interpret the scriptures. We just compare
the spiritual to the spiritual. What did the church do for 1,400
years before books were made? The Bible says of the writing
of books there is no end. At much study wearies the soul. And I like what I heard one preacher
say. He said, you know, he said the Word of God sure does shed
a lot of light on dumb commentaries. That's true. That's true. But you meet people today and
they say, well, you know, we've got this creed and we've got
this confession and we've got these, they're living among the
tombs. They've got dead theologians
that they're referring to as the source of authority. They
don't tremble at God's word. They tremble at what John Calvin
or Martin Luther or Charles Spurgeon or some other dead theologian
had to say about something. Oh, you that tremble at my word. Paul left Thessalonica under
duress and went to Berea because the Jews in Thessalonica would
not receive the word of God. And when he got to Berea, he
said the Bereans were more noble than those of Thessalonica because
they received the word with gladness and they searched the scriptures
to see if what I said was true. Now that's what I want for you. That's what I want for me. For
God to enable us to receive his word with gladness. I've preached
to men who sat there with their arms crossed saying, well, preacher,
just see if you can teach me something. They weren't receiving
the word with gladness. But I don't want you to believe
it just because I said it. I want you to receive the word
of gladness, but I want you to search the scriptures and see
if what I'm saying is true. And if it's not, you rebuke me. You see, both those things go
together, don't they? Like the, remember the parable
of the four soils that the Lord gave about the sower that sowed
the seed and the seed was the word of God and the word of God
is the gospel. The revelation of the Lord Jesus
Christ, that's what this book's all about. And some of the seed
fell on hard soil and the birds of the air came and snatched
it away and they had no regard for the word of God. No regard,
they didn't even hear what was being said. Here's what it means
to tremble at God's word Here, you see, look back in our text
in Isaiah 66. Here, the first word, here. You remember when Eli had young
Samuel in the temple as a servant and the Lord was calling out
young Samuel. Samuel is just a boy. It was
in the middle of the night and Samuel heard a voice and Samuel
thought it was Eli. And so Samuel got up and ran
to Eli and said, yes, master, what would you have me? Oh, no,
I didn't call you, go back to bed. And the second time it happened
and he ran to Eli and said, Eli was the priest. He said, what
would you have me to do? And Eli said, it wasn't me, go back
to bed. And the third time Eli realized that God was speaking.
And Eli said, you listen to what God says. That's the Lord speaking
to you. And so Eli told Samuel how to
respond to the voice that he was hearing. And Samuel said to the Lord,
speak Lord for thy servant listeneth. Now that word listeneth is the
word hear. And it means to hear with an
anticipation of obeying. It doesn't mean to hear out of
curiosity. This is what it means to tremble
at God's word. It means to, it means Lord speak,
speak for thy servant listeneth. Lord, I, you remember when, when
the Lord arrested Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus, we looked
at that last week, knocked him off his high horse, changed his
name from Saul to Paul. And when Paul realized who it
was that was speaking to him, what did Paul say? Lord, what would you have me
to do? Just speak. Just speak. Trembling at God's Word is asking
God to speak with an anticipation of hearing and believing what
God has said. And when God puts a desire for
your salvation on your soul, that's all you're going to want
to know. I don't care preacher by anything at what does God
say what's God say about Christ what's God say about how I can
be right with God how can a man be right with God God tells us
he tells here you that tremble at God's
Word most men don't tremble at God's Word they gotta take it
or leave it attitude about what God says They have no fear of
God. They have no desire for the salvation
of their own soul. They think they're going to live
forever. We tremble at God's Word. Another story about Eli in 1
Samuel chapter 4, Eli had two unfaithful sons, Hophni and Phinehas,
who were following in his footsteps as priests, but they were false
prophets. They were wicked priests. And
as a result of their wickedness, the Lord sent the Philistines
in and routed the Israelites and stole the ark and killed
Hophni and Phinehas. And now Eli is an old man. The
scripture says he's dim in sight, he's heavy, he's sitting upon
a stool and the servant comes from the battle and tells Eli
what happened about the death of his two sons. And Eli's heart, the scripture
says in 1 Samuel 4.13, trembled for the ark. And when he heard
that the ark had been stolen, he fell off his stool, broke
his neck and died. He didn't die in hearing about
his two sons. He died when he heard the ark
had been stolen. Now, what is that ark? That's the gospel. That's the
Lord Jesus Christ. That's the revelation of God's
presence. That's the word of God. And to
Eli, the word of God was more precious to him than were his
own two sons. Here, ye that tremble at God's
Word. Oh, we do, don't we? When God
gives you faith to believe His Word, to believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ, to believe everything that God has said, you tremble. You tremble at His Word. You
see that everything in the Scripture points to His glory. And your
desire is to know and have the Lord Jesus Christ, who is only
revealed in the Word of God. And he's most pleased to make
himself known when God's Word is preached. Sometimes I have
people say to me, I couldn't keep up with all the
scripture references that you were taking us to. Don't you
love preaching that just is about God's Word? Most preaching today
doesn't have any of God's Word in it. You know, they'll quote
a little verse here or there. They don't capitalize on God's
Word. They don't love God's Word. They
don't preach God's Word. They tell stories or they, you
know, it's all about something else, isn't it? It's all about
something else. Might God be pleased to cause
us to tremble at his word. Amen. Let's take a break. or how our interpersonal relationships
work.