You don't have to turn there,
I just want to read one verse from Zechariah chapter 6. And speak unto him, saying, Thus
speaketh the Lord of hosts, saying, Behold the man, behold the man,
whose name is the branch, and he shall grow up out of his place,
and he shall build the temple of the Lord. except the Lord
build the house they labor in vain that build it. The Lord
say to Peter upon this rock I shall build my church. The hymn on the back of your
bulletin goes so well with what we were just looking at in Mark
chapter 7. Come whosoever will nor vainly
strive to mend. Don't vainly strive to mend your
life. Look to Christ. Look to Christ. Alright, let's stand together.
Brother Tom, come please. The hymn on the back of your
bulletin. Come whosoever will, nor vainly
strive to mend. Sinners are freely welcome still
to Christ the sinner's friend. The gospel table spread, and
richly furnished too, with wine and milk and living bread, and
dainties not a few. The guilty vile and base, the
wretched and forlorn, are welcome to the feast of grace, though
goodness they have none. No goodness he expects, he came
to save the poor. Poor helpless souls he ne'er
neglects, nor sends them from his door. ? His tender loving
heart ? The vilest will embrace ? And freely to them will impart
? The riches of his grace Please be seated. Good morning. Our scripture reading
this morning will be found in Isaiah 42. Isaiah 42. We're going to be reading the
first 16 verses as our call to worship. Isaiah 42. Behold, my servant, whom I uphold,
mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth, I have put my spirit upon him.
He shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles. He shall not
cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street.
A bruised reed he shall not break, and a smoking flax shall he not
quench. He shall bring forth judgment
unto truth. He shall not fail, nor be discouraged. till he hath set judgment in
the earth and the isles shall wait for his law. Thus says God
the Lord, he that created the heavens and stretched them out,
he that spread forth the earth and that which cometh out of
it, he that giveth breath into the people upon it and the spirit
to them, that walk therein. I, the Lord, have called thee
in righteousness and will hold thy hand and will keep thee and
give thee thy covenant of the people for the light of the Gentiles
to open the blind eyes and bring out the prisoners from the prison
and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house. I am the Lord. That is my name. And my glory will I not give
to another, neither my praise to graven images. Behold, the
former things are come to pass. And new things I do declare before
they spring forth, I tell you of them. Sing unto the Lord a
new song and his praise from the end of the earth. Ye that
go down to the sea and all that there is in the isles and the
inhabitants thereof, Let the wilderness and the cities lift
up their voices, the villages that Kedar doth inhabit. Let
the inhabitants of the rock sing. Let them shout from the top of
the mountains. Let them give glory unto the
Lord and declare his praise in the islands. The Lord shall go
forth as a mighty man He shall stir up jealousy like a man of
war. He shall cry ye roar. He shall prevail against his
enemies. I have long time holding my peace. I have been still and refrained
myself. Now will I cry like a traveling
woman, trailing woman. I will destroy and devour at
once. I will make haste mountains and
hills and dry up their herbs and I will make the rivers islands
and will dry up the pools. I will bring the blind by the
way that he knew not. I will lead them in the paths
that they have not known. I will make darkness light before
them and crooked things straight. These things I will do unto them
and not forsake them. Lord, Father, God, we come before
you in the name of the precious name of the Lord Jesus Christ
to thank you, Father, that we have a place that we can hear
the gospel and come have fellowship with the burden Father, we pray
that your Holy Spirit be with us, both with the hearers and
the passers, as he brings forth the word, Father. Father God,
open our eyes, open our ears so that we may hear. Make us
see what you want us to see, and that will be the Lord Jesus
Christ and his glory. Father God, we ask, we are totally
dependent on you, Father, to send your spirit and show us
Christ. We pray this also for the other
churches that are in other places that they may preach the gospel,
Father, that they be glorifying the Lord Jesus Christ. May you
accept our singing and our praises to you, Father, not because the
perfect, but because you're worthy of all the praises that we could
ever give you, Father. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Let's all stand together once
again. We'll sing hymn number nine in your spiral gospel hymns
hymnal, hymn number nine. "'Tis not that I did choose thee,
for, Lord, that could not be. This heart would still refuse
thee, Hast thou not chosen me? Thou from the sin that stained
me, Hast cleansed and set me free. Of old thou hast ordained
me, That I should live to thee. Your love had no beginning, no
cause in me was found. That you should choose to save
me, a sinner strongly bound. But grace not earned or sought
for was purpose for my soul. For me salvation brought, for
Christ paid the dreadful toll. was sovereign mercy called me,
and taught my opening mind. The world had else enthralled
me, to heavenly glories blind. My heart owns none before thee,
for thy rich grace I thirst. This, knowing if I loved thee,
thou must have loved me first. Please be seated. Open your Bibles with me to Isaiah
65, please. Isaiah 65. brought a message from this passage
of scripture a couple weeks ago entitled why me Lord because
the Lord says in this passage that he's gonna call people who
did not seek him why would you call me I wanna go back to the
same passage scripture God's Word is alive it's so full of
truth there's a statement in this first verse that is so glorious
and I I just hope the Lord will We'll speak to our hearts this
morning and give us at least a glimpse of His glory. The statement
that the Lord makes in Isaiah chapter 65, after He says, I
am sought of them that ask not for Me, I have found in them
that sought Me not, I said, behold Me, behold Me. That's the title of the message
this morning, Behold Me. Look at me. Now I want to introduce this
message by going back to the beginning. What was Satan's temptation
to Eve in the garden? God knows that in the day you
eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and
evil, your eyes will be open and you will be like God. That's the temptation. It's seen in every area of life.
Our desperate attempt to control our circumstances goes all the
way back to the beginning. We want to be God. Our Disobedience and disregard
for the will of God is seen evident every day in our lives. We want
to set the standards for ourselves to be like God. All of our man-made religions
of the world are based on God being subject to the will of
man. and obligating God by the works
of man. It's all an attempt for man to
put himself on the throne of God. It goes all the way back
to the garden. We have a God complex. And perhaps one of the clearest
evidences of our God complex is our desperate attempt to get
the attention of other men. You see, God's the only one that
has the right to say, behold me, look at me. And yet we come into this world
crying out for other men to look at us. We never get over it,
it only gets worse. The world looks at our technological
advances and concludes that we're evolving. The truth is that nothing
could be farther from the truth. Man is not evolving, he is devolving. Look how well we have perfected
this God complex. of look at me. Say what you want about social
media, you know in your heart of hearts that's what it's all
about, don't you? You know that YouTube could better be called
MeTube and Snapchat could be called see me quick and Facebook
is really look at me. That's what it's all about. We're
so caught up in this need to be God. Where used to be that
you had to achieve something great in order to draw the attention
of the world. And now every plain Jane and
every John Doe can put himself out there in the world and pretend
to be somebody important. What are we doing? What are we
doing? This message is not about social
media. I just want you to see with me that this is the evidence
of our God complex, so concerned. We're doing what only God has
the right to do. Now, what is the difference between
when God says, look at me, and when man says, look at me? Well,
when man says, look at me, it's motivated by his own insecurities. It's sinful. It's prideful. It's one worm saying to another
worm, look, I got on top of the pile. And if you've ever gone
fishing with worms before, you know that the ones that crawl
to the top are the ones first picked off and used as bait. God, on the other hand, when
he says look at me, when he says behold me, it is a call of grace. It is the most merciful thing
that our God can do. It is our salvation. When God says, behold me, behold
me, look at me. You see, when God says that he
has the right to say it, and not only does he have the right,
But it is our good that the Lord would be merciful to open the
eyes of our understanding and enable us to see Him for who
He is? What does behold actually mean? Well, it means to look. It means
to look. You remember when John the Baptist
was about to be beheaded and he sent some of his disciples
to the Lord and asked the Lord this question. He said, art thou
the one that should come or should we look for another? And what did the Lord say to
John's disciples? He said, you go back and tell
John what you have seen and what you have heard. Oh no, don't
look for another. Don't look for another. Look,
look, and you shall live. Moses made a serpent of brass
and put it on a pole in order to, it was the only cure. It
was the only cure for those people in the wilderness that were being
bitten by fiery snakes. That's a picture of our sin problem. And the snakes are all around
our feet. And we spend all of our time trying to kill the snakes
and beat off the snakes. And the Lord said, look, and
you shall live. To behold the Lord Jesus Christ
is to look in faith to Him. It's not to be religious or to
pretend to know God because of your religiosity. Nicodemus fit
that category, didn't he? And the Lord said to Nicodemus,
Nicodemus, you can't perceive. You cannot perceive of the kingdom
of God. You can't see it. You can't understand
it unless you're born from above. The natural man receiveth not
the things of the Spirit." If we're going to have eyes to see,
the Lord's going to have to give us those eyes, but here's the
means by which He gives us eyes to see, by commanding us to behold
Him. Oh, you see, when God says, behold
me, look at me, the believer's heart says in response to that,
Lord, I want to see you for who you are. I want to know something
of your mercy and of your grace. I want to know of your accomplished
work of redemption. Lord, you've commanded. You see,
the ability to look is in the command to look. God says, look. Our warrant for
looking to the Lord Jesus Christ is his command to look. Don't
say, well, you know, I can't see. I'm just, you know, I'll
just wait. God says, behold me. And in case you didn't get it
the first time, he says the second time, behold me. Look at me. I was talking to a man about
this one time and he said, well, I'm looking, I don't see anything.
It's because you're looking with the
wrong, you see this eye of faith. You don't go see them with your
natural eyes. That's the works of the flesh, trying to find
God. And that's what people do. They
look at their behavior as we saw in the first hour. They look
at their doctrine. They look at how they've achieved
beyond their peers. The Apostle Paul was doing that.
Saul of Tarsus was doing that. He had excelled above his peers
and he was convinced. that he knew God because of what
he looked at in his life with his natural eyes until the Lord
Jesus Christ arrested him on the road to Damascus and knocked
him off his high horse. Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou
me? Who art thou, Lord? And the scripture
goes on to say, and the men which journeyed with him stood speechless,
hearing a voice, but seeing no man. Those who journey with God's
people, the rest of the world, oh, they hear something, but
they see no man. They see no man. The Lord says,
behold me. Looking for physical evidence
is not how we are going to behold him. Believing on the Lord Jesus Christ
He is resting all the hope of your salvation in His glorious
person and in His accomplished work, trusting His life for your
righteousness and His death for your justification. You say,
well, how much of Him do I have to see? Oh, what we see of Him is so
small. Do we even have a word to compare
what we see of Him? It's so minute compared to the
infinites of His glory. We can only catch a glimpse of
Him. But here's the thing, it's not
how much of Him you see. It's not the amount of your faith. The Lord said, if you have faith
as small as a mustard seed, You shall be able to say unto this
mountain, Be thou be removed and cast into the sea. What is
that mountain? It's the barrier. It's my sin
before God. You see, it's the object of our
faith. The Lord Jesus Christ is the one who said, Behold me. Beholding Him is looking to Him. It's trusting Him. It's believing
on Him. God's book ends with this command.
The Spirit that's the Spirit of God and the bride that's the
church says come come just like you are come to the Lord Jesus
Christ now in religion they give men something to do for their
coming so they can have something to say well they haven't walk
an aisle they haven't pray a prayer they haven't go to a new members
class something something to do no This is a work of grace
in the heart. In the heart. Come unto me, all
ye that labor and are heavy laden. Take my yoke upon you. My burden
is light. My way is easy. Learn of me. Learn of me. Oh, that the Lord
Jesus Christ Don't move a muscle in coming to the Lord Jesus Christ. Turn to me to Hebrews chapter
nine. Verse 28, so Christ was once
offered to bear the sins of many and unto them that look for him
shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation. How do I know I've looked in
faith to the Lord Jesus Christ? Because I'm looking for him right
now. I'm looking for him right now. You see, I'm not looking
back to an experience that I had when I felt good about something
I did. I'm looking to the Lord Jesus
Christ right now. Peter put it like this. He said,
to whom coming. We never stop coming. Never stop
coming. That's how we know. See, the
hope of knowing that we're looking to Christ is not based on anything
from the... you don't know. I don't know. If when I was... thought I was
looking in the past, I was actually looking or believing on the Lord. But right now, you see, faith
is a right now experience. It's a right now experience.
Today is the day of salvation. Right now is when we know we're
looking. We can't have any assurance about
the look that we made in the past and we can't have any confidence
that we're going to look in the future right now. God's calling
on us right now. Behold me. Behold me. Look to me. Trust me. Believe on me. Paul said in 2 Corinthians chapter
4, he said, looking on those things which are seen, which
are temporal, is not looking. But looking on that which is
not seen, that's eternal. And that's the hope that we have
eternal life. What do we see when we look to
Christ? Zechariah chapter 11, the Lord
put it like this. He said, when the spirit of grace,
and that's what we need in order to look on Christ, we need grace.
And believers are the only ones that ever get grace. And everything
that a believer experiences is by grace. I've heard self-professed
theologians talk about common grace. You know, that there's
a sense in which God loves everybody and God is is benevolent to the
world, that's not true. The only time the word grace
is used in the scriptures, it is salvific, it is unto salvation. And so everything that a child
of God experiences in this life is by God's grace and the children
of God are the only ones that experience the grace of God.
And the only reason that the unbeliever enjoys any benefits
from God in this world is because the church is still here. And
as soon as the church is taken away, all the benefits that God
has given in this world for the sake of His people by His grace
are going to be taken away. So the Lord makes it clear. Paul, Zachariah makes it clear,
when the spirit of grace and supplication. You see, it's the
spirit of God that makes us cry out for God to supply to us what
we're in need of. If you're asking God to save
you, it's because God put it in your heart to ask him to save
you. And he did that by his grace. So when the spirit of grace and
supplication is given to the house of Israel, to the children
of God, to the inhabitants of Israel, they will look upon him
whom they have pierced and they will mourn after him as one mourneth
for his only son. We'll look to the Lord Jesus
Christ on Calvary's cross and know that that's what God had
to do to take away my sin. Hugo just read it from Isaiah
chapter 42, behold my servant whom I uphold. God over and over and over and
over again calls on us to behold him. And what do we spend all
our time doing? Beholding one another and beholding
ourselves. Oh, Lord, forgive me. Enable me by your grace to cry
out for your supplication, for you to supply for me what it
is I need. Art thou the one, or should we
look for another? That's what John said. Oh, no,
tell John what you've seen. What have you seen? The blind
see, the lame walk, That's what we see. We see something we've
never seen before. We see that the Lord Jesus Christ
is the Savior of sinners, sovereignly, successfully accomplishing our
redemption by his sacrificial death on Calvary's cross. That's
what we see. We didn't see that before. We
thought that he made an offer of salvation But we had to make
it effectual by something we did. Tell John what you've seen. Lord, I see something I've never
seen before. And that's what this word behold
means. Behold means that you're, you remember when Job, when Elihu
preached the gospel to Job and Job's first words out of his
mouth, Behold, remember Job, God was angry at Job because
the scripture says Elihu was angry because Job had justified
himself. Job spent all that book saying,
I'm not deserving of this. I didn't do anything to deserve
this. Why me, Lord? And then when Job heard the gospel,
what did Job say? Behold, I am vile. I see something I've never seen
before. Tell John what you've seen. When the spirit of grace and
supplications poured out on the house of Israel, inhabitants
of Jerusalem, they will look upon Him whom they have pierced. We'll see one who has loved us
with an everlasting love. God didn't start loving us when
He opened our eyes. No. No, his love doesn't change. He said, tell them I've loved
them with an everlasting. I loved them. And all that they experienced
before I opened their eyes, you see, I know them perfectly. I
know exactly what each one of them needs in order for them
to come to me, in order for them to believe, in order for them
to behold me. And I've ordained a particular
set of circumstances for each one of their lives so that everything
I'm doing for them is by my grace and for their salvation. And I'm doing it out of love.
I've loved him with an everlasting love. I've always loved him. We'll see one who pleased the
father with his perfect obedience. And we'll see ourselves as unable
to keep any of God's laws to his satisfaction. We'll see one
who satisfied the demands of God's holy justice by shedding
his precious blood for the redemption of our sins. And we'll see that
his blood actually washed away all the sins of all of God's
people. We'll see the brightness of the
glory of God and the express image of his person in the Lord
Jesus Christ, the one who upholds all things by the word of his
power. We'll see the one who works all
things after the counsel of his own will, the one who has all
the governments of this world on his shoulder. You see, this
book is all about the Lord Jesus Christ. In the volume of the
book, it is written of me. you search the scriptures because
you think in them you have eternal life but these are they which
testify of me this book tells us who it is we're beholding
so if we're if we're confessing you remember With your words
you should be justified and with your words you should be condemned.
Why? Because our words come from our hearts. And you hear a man
talk about a God who loves everybody and wants to save everybody,
you know that he hasn't beheld Christ. He hasn't beheld the
Lord Jesus Christ. That's not the revelation that
our God has made of himself in this book. When God says, behold me, We
all behold the same one. We're not saying, well, my God's
like this or my God's like that. No, my God is the God who has
revealed himself in his word. His name is called Wonderful,
Counselor, Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. The governments really are upon
his shoulder. He is our righteous advocate seated at the right
hand of the majesty on high, making intercession for us. When we beheld him, we behold
ourselves. And we're able to say with our
brother Job, behold, I am Bile. We're able to say with the apostle
Paul, in me, that is in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing. All my
righteousnesses are as filthy rags before God. You see, when
God enables us to behold Him, we behold ourselves. And we become completely dependent
on Him for His grace. We see our inability. We see
our leprous condition outside of Christ. We see that the heart
really is desperately wicked. that it really is defiled. That
all those things that the Lord talked about in Mark chapter
seven, that we looked at the first hour, that those things
are in my old heart. And we don't talk about giving
our heart to Jesus. He's got no need for that heart. We need him to give us a new
heart, don't we? Behold, the man." Know what Pilate
said? In Ezekiel chapter 9, the Lord
is pronouncing judgment against Israel, against Jerusalem in
particular, and he talks to the prophet Ezekiel about how he's
going to destroy the whole city. and the prophet cries out to
God and he says Lord is there not anyone that can be spared and the Lord said behold this
is in Ezekiel chapter 9 behold the man who's dressed in linen
who has an ink horn by his side and that man goes through the
city of Jerusalem and he takes his ink horn and he marks the
forehead of certain individuals in the city of Jerusalem. And
then the angel of the Lord comes and kills everybody that doesn't
have a mark. Now, who is that man dressed
in linen? And what is that ink horn? That is the Lord Jesus
Christ and that inkorn is his blood. And it goes right back
to the very same thing that God said to Moses. He said, when I see the blood,
I'll pass by you. God has an elect people. He's
chosen them according to his will and purpose. He's marked
them with the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. And they're the
only ones that are gonna survive the destruction of God's wrath.
Why? Because the wrath of God has
been satisfied for them in the person of their substitute. There's
another place in the scriptures where the Lord says, behold the
man. Pilate had no idea what he was
saying. Remember the Jews wanted the
Lord crucified and so thinking that he would satisfy their bloodthirsty
desire, he had the Lord scourged. And he had the Roman soldiers
mock him and put a crown of thorns on his head. And he had a purple
robe put on him. And he brought him out, hoping
that this would be sufficient to quiet the crowd and disperse
the people. And Pilate said, behold the man. They weren't satisfied. They said, crucify him, crucify
him. Pilate said, but I find no fault
in him. said, uh, he's your king. We have no king, but Caesar crucify
him. And the Lord says to you and
I in Isaiah chapter 53, that he was wounded for our transgressions. And so I stand before you this
morning and on the authority of God's word, I say to you,
I know what I'm saying, Pilate didn't. Behold the man. What did they see about him?
They saw that his back was shredded to the bone as a result of the
scourging of those Roman soldiers. Now the truth is that you and
I have a burden that we cannot bear. If you die with one sin
on your back it will drive you into hell. One sin. The Lord Jesus Christ bore all
the sins of all God's people so that the scripture says by
his stripes we are healed. The wrath of God was satisfied
in the scourging of the Lord Jesus Christ to deliver us from
the burden of sin by his wounds. Wounded for our transgressions. Oh, what a strong man he is.
You remember when God raised up Samson? There's another place
in that story where the Lord said, behold the man. And Samson
was an incredibly strong man. He went down to the city of the
Philistines. The scripture said he took these huge iron gates
with their hinges and put them on his back and carried them
off. And the children of Israel came in and routed the city of
the enemies of God. What a picture of Christ. The
Lord Jesus Christ said, the gates of hell shall not prevail against
me. My people are being held captive by the devil. and I'm
gonna go into the very pits of hell and deliver them and my
back strong enough to carry not only those gates but all their
sin. Behold the man. What else do we see about the
Lord Jesus Christ when Pilate pointed to him and said behold
the man? Well he already had the crown
of thorns pressed into his brow. It was a mock crown. they were
mocking him as being king. What do we see? The scripture
says this about our head, the whole head is sick. Now that's your head and my head.
That means that every imagination of our thoughts are only evil
and that continually that means that you and I have never been
capable of having a holy thought and God knows our thoughts and
they're all sinful before him and the Lord Jesus Christ never
had a thought that wasn't holy and by he was wounded in his
head in order for our transgressions that are in our head The Lord said, your thoughts
are not like my thoughts. As the heavens are high above
the earth, so are my thoughts above your thoughts. You're not
capable of having my thoughts. I had them for you and I was
wounded for your transgressions. What about when the Lord went
to the cross? Well, his wounds continued, didn't
they? He was nailed through his hands. Why? Why? Because God said, if you're going
to approach God, you must have clean hands, clean hands. Now our hands represent our works. And you and I have never been
able to produce a work that would be acceptable by a holy God. The Lord Jesus Christ, every
work he performed was holy. And when we say behold the man,
Behold his back. Behold his head. Behold his hands.
He was wounded for our transgressions. Where else was he wounded? He
was wounded in his feet, wasn't he? His feet were nailed to that
cross. The scripture says that our feet
are quick to shed blood. Like sheep, we've all gone out
of the way. We are so prone to wander. Oh,
the places our feet take us. We're not able to walk. We're
not able to stand right before God. Every step the Lord Jesus
Christ made. This is what he's saying. Behold me. Behold me, look at
me, look at what I've done for you. I'm the only hope you have. Believe
on me." He was wounded in his feet to
put away the transgressions of our feet. And where was his final
wound inflicted on his body? Yeah, that Roman soldier came
and thrust a spear, knowing exactly which ribs to go between in order
to get straight to the heart, and out poured water and blood. Oh, the scripture says our hearts
are deceitful, wicked, above all things. Who can know them? You know, you hear a mother of
a criminal being interviewed, well, he's got a good heart.
No, he doesn't. And neither do you and neither
do I. Not our old heart. Not that heart of stone. We need
a new heart. A heart that's able to believe.
A heart that's able to behold. A heart that's able to look.
A heart that's able to trust the Lord Jesus Christ for all
our acceptance before God. And he loved, you see here, the
summary of the law, love the Lord your God with all your heart all the time. When have you ever
done anything with all your heart? I learned a long time ago not
to get too hard on myself about my motives because my motives
are never pure. They're never pure. And neither
yours. His were always pure. He loved
God with all of his heart all the time. And he was wounded
in his heart to take away the sins of our hearts. And he says,
behold me. Behold me. And we in our foolishness We
keep saying, behold me. Don't behold one another. Don't behold yourself, or at
least confess how wicked it is. We never can get away from it,
can we? We're just so caught up with
what other people think about us all the time. Behold me, behold me, and you
shall live. As the serpent was lifted up
in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up. Oh,
look at Him, look at Him. Our merciful Heavenly Father, thank you for the command to
behold Christ. Thank you for the revelation
of who he is and what he's done. Thank you for your Holy Spirit,
the one who enables us to look and live. We pray for your spirit,
for our salvation. We ask it in Christ's name, amen. Number 225, let's stand together. I heard the voice of Jesus say,
Come unto me and rest. Lay down, thou weary one, Lay
down thy head upon my breast. I came to Jesus as I was weary
and worn, I found in him a resting place
and he has made me glad. I heard the voice of Jesus say,
behold, I freely give. The living water, thirsty one,
stoop down and drink and live. I came to Jesus and I drank of
that life-giving stream. My thirst was quenched, my soul
revived, and now I live in Him. I heard the voice of Jesus say,
I am this dark world's light. Look unto me, thy morn shall
rise, and all thy day be bright. I looked to Jesus, and I found
in him my star, my sun. And in that light of life I'll
walk till traveling days are done. Thank you.