Let's open up this morning's
service in the hardback hymnal number 40. We haven't sung this
in a while. Number 40, great is thy faithfulness. If you could please stand. Number
40. Great is Thy faithfulness, O
God my Father. There is no shadow of turning
with Thee. Thou changest not, Thy compassions
they fail not. As Thou hast been, Thou forever
will be. Great is Thy faithfulness, great
is Thy faithfulness. Morning by morning new mercies
I see. All I have needed Thy hand hath
provided. Great is thy faithfulness, Lord,
unto me. Summer and winter and springtime
and harvest, sun, moon, and stars in their courses above, Join
with all nature in manifold witness to thy great faithfulness, mercy,
and love. Great is Thy faithfulness. Great is Thy faithfulness. Morning by morning new mercies
I see. All I have needed Thy hand hath
provided. Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord,
unto me. Pardon for sin and a peace that
endures, Thine own dear presence to cheer and to guide. Strength for today and bright
hope for tomorrow. Blessings all mine with ten thousand
beside. Great is Thy faithfulness, great
is Thy faithfulness. Morning by morning new mercies
I see. All I have needed Thy hand hath
provided. Great is thy faithfulness, Lord,
unto me. Be seated, please. That's a great him in it. I just
told Trisha I wanna sing this tonight. We get to to Sarasota
and sometime we're not sure what him to sing but I'm so thankful
that our salvation is 100 percent based on his faithfulness to
us. What a comfort. What hope. We're not We're just not faithful, are
we? And he is. He is. Let's pray together. Our
Heavenly Father, we're so very thankful. For the hope that you
have put into our hearts. And knowing Lord that. Our salvation. Is secure before thee. In the
faithfulness of thy dear son. We thank you for his faithfulness.
to fulfill the law. We thank you for his faithfulness
to satisfy your justice, to bear the sins of his people and to
put them away once and for all by the sacrifice of himself on
Calvary's cross. Oh, how we pray that you would
send your Holy Spirit in power and that you would give us the
grace to look to Christ, to set our affections on Him, to place
all our hope and all our salvation in Him. Father, we thank you for little
James Edward and Lord, we thank you for the safety of the birth
of into this world and for for protecting Bree and how we ask
Lord that you'd be pleased now to. to give them both strength
as they recover and we pray for your hand of protection and your
hand of salvation to be on little James. We ask it in Christ's
name. Amen. James Edward Mattis Washi. told phil this morning i'm surprised
it in naming uh... michael david to get the md madison
there but hopefully he won't take after mad dog that part
of it anyway uh... we're so happy for for the way
she's in for the miracle of life would you open your bibles with
me to isaiah chapter forty nine please isaiah forty nine While you do that, I want to
bring you greetings from your brethren in Missouri. We had
a wonderful meeting last weekend out there, and I was so encouraged
with the heart that the Lord has given them to be a church
and to have a pastor. And they're bringing in different
preachers every other week. Matter of fact, I think Joe Terrell's
son is preaching there this morning. And so you pray for them. It's a good work. And the Lord's
taught many of them the gospel. And they have some visitors that
are attending, listening with great interest. And so as the
Lord enables you to remember They meet in Springfield, Missouri,
and they live in that area around there. It reminds me of when
we first started meeting here at the clubhouse. They rent a
community center, and they meet there on Sunday mornings. And
when they don't have a live preacher, they watch our services. They've
got a big screen TV set up there. And so it's a very encouraging
work, and I'm thankful. that we had an opportunity to
go and spend some time with them. All right, you have your Bibles
open to Isaiah chapter 49. Those of you that are with us
on a regular basis know that we've been studying 1 Thessalonians
verse by verse in the Bible study hour. But there were some things
in chapter 3 that I wanted to reserve for the second hour,
so we've just sort of reversed the order this morning. And we'll
be in Isaiah 49, the first hour, and in 1 Thessalonians chapter
3, the second hour. The question that I want to pose
to ask this morning in looking at this passage of scripture
is what is God looking at? What is God looking at? I want
to look at the same thing God's looking at, don't you? And in
answering that question, I'm very hopeful, very thankful that
God is not looking at me. that he does not look to me for
any part of my salvation. He's not looking to a decision
that I have made. Most religion today is based
on man making a decision. Coming to Christ is not a decision.
If you have a choice between Christ and something else, you
will always choose something else. I've never heard a person
saved from drowning say, you know, I was going down for the
last time and someone threw me a rope and I made a decision
to grab the rope. Have you ever heard anybody talk
like that? That's foolishness, isn't it? No. I was going down
for the last time. When that rope came, it was an
irresistible impulse to grab a hold of that rope. It was my
only hope. My only hope, and that's how a man comes to Christ.
He comes to Christ only when the Lord Jesus Christ is his
only hope. When God shuts him up to the
gospel and gives him no other options, that's when a sinner
will come to Christ. And this idea, well, you know,
I prayed the prayer, I accepted Jesus, I let Christ come into
my heart, I made a decision, that's foolishness. And it's
contrary to the truth. The truth is that no one will
ever come to me. And the Lord said that. No man
can come unto me unless the Father which sent me draw him. Makes
the call of the gospel irresistible to his heart. He cannot refuse
it. He's made to believe. He's made to come. And in that, all of God's people
know that had the Lord not made them come, they wouldn't have
come. They wouldn't have come. And the Lord gets all the glory,
doesn't He? So, what is the Lord, what is God looking at for my
salvation? Is He looking at a decision I
made? I hope not. Is He looking at a work that
I performed? Our works are so frail and fraught with our sin,
aren't they? Not by works of righteousness
which we have done, but by His mercy and grace the Lord has
saved us. It is not of Him that willeth. It is not of Him that runneth. It is of God that showeth mercy. So, it's not by man's free will
and it's not by man's efforts. it's by the mercy of God and
he will have mercy upon whom he will have mercy and whom he
will he hardness he's the potter and where the clay and he has
the sovereign right to make out of the same lump of clay some
vessels of honor and some of dishonor is not the what scripture
says that's exactly what it says now the fatalist will sit back
and say well then you know they just You know, if God's going
to save me, He's going to save me. If He's not, He's not. God's elect will become mercy
beggars. Oh, Lord, have mercy upon me.
Save me. Open the eyes of my understanding.
Take out my heart of stone. Put in a heart of flesh. Give
to me the gift of faith. They'll start begging for mercy. What is God looking at? He's
not looking at us. He's not looking at our will.
He's not looking at our works. He's not looking at the progress
that we're making in the faith. Look what he says. Here's the
verse. Verse 16. Here's verse 15 is the way I
feel, or verse 14 is the way I feel when I take my eyes off
of what God's looking at and look to something else. If I
look to my works, if I look to my decision, if I look to my
progress in the faith, this is how I feel. The Lord hath forsaken
me, and my Lord hath forgotten me. I lose all assurance. I lose all peace. I lose all
hope. Every time I look away from that
which God is looking at and start looking at something else for
the hope of my salvation, I feel forsaken of God. I feel far from
Him. I have no comfort. I have no
peace. And so the Lord responds by saying
in verse 15, can a woman forget her sucking child that she should
not have compassion on the son of her womb? Is that possible? It would be, it would be very
unnatural, wouldn't it? And the Lord says, as unnatural
as that would be, it could happen. And I suppose it has happened.
Yay, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee. Oh, there's my hope. Great is
thy faithfulness. If the hope of my salvation is
based on my faithfulness, I'm in trouble. I say, the Lord has
forsaken me. I have no hope. I have no comfort. If I'm looking to myself, if
I'm looking to anything other than what God's looking at, for
the hope of my salvation. I have known, God says, when
you're not faithful, I remain faithful. I remain faithful. I'll not leave you. I'll not
forsake you. I'm going to manifest my glory
to you. I'm going to restore to you the hope of your salvation.
And I'm going to cause you to look to the one that I'm looking
to. What is God looking at? I want
to look at the same thing God's looking at, don't you? Look what
he says in verse 16. Behold, I have graven thee on
the palm of my hands. There's your hope. If God's looking
at you, if God's looking at me, to get proof or assurance of our
salvation based on something that we've done, What comfort,
what hope is there in that? Oh, but if he's looking at his
hand and the wounds that the Lord Jesus Christ suffered on
Calvary's cross in his hand, then I know that his work is
perfect. And I know that all those for
whom Christ was crucified are saved. They're saved. Not one
of them is going to be lost. Now, let's think for just a moment
about the wounds of the Lord Jesus Christ, because that's
what God's looking at. Listen to what Isaiah says in
Isaiah 53. He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace
was laid upon him, and by his stripes we are healed. Now I
love, people love to take that by his stripes we are healed
and talk about being healed from all diseases and sicknesses in
this life. I've never met one, I've never
met a single person that believes that, who didn't eventually suffer
a disease that took their life. The disease that we need to be
healed from is the disease of our sin. That's the sickness
that the Lord Jesus Christ went to the cross to heal us of. By
his stripes, we are healed. Now the Lord was wounded in 1,
2, 3, 4, 5 places on the cross. Let's begin with the head. They placed a crown of thorns
mocking him as king and took a reed and drove that crown of
thorns into the brow of his head until those thorns blunted themselves
against his skull. Now I know that's a horrible
picture, but that's exactly where he was wounded. Why? Why? Because that's where our
problem is. You thought that I was altogether
as thyself." You thought that God loved everybody. You thought
that Christ died for everybody. You thought that God was trying
to save everybody. You thought that you had a free
will. You thought that God was going
to be impressed with your works. The Lord Jesus Christ had to
be wounded in his head to pay the penalty for our wicked thoughts. Everything the natural man thinks
about God, prior to his regeneration, prior to the ministry of the
Holy Spirit, enlightening the eyes of his understanding and
teaching him from the scripture, everything he believes about
God is backwards. It's not that the unsaved man
needs to have his doctrine tweaked. It's that he has to have his
mind changed. That's what repentance is. Repentance
is to have a changed mind. Everything the natural man believes
about God is just the opposite of what the truth is. And he's
got to be given a new mind. And the Lord was wounded in his
head because of our corrupt thinking. Secondly, it was wounded on his
back, wasn't he? Forty stripes of cat-of-nine-tails
opening up his back, the flesh of his back to the very bones
of his shoulder blades. Why? Come unto me all ye that
labor and are heavy laden. Take my yoke upon you. My burden
is light. My yoke is easy. Learn of me. I've bore in my back the burden
of your sin. Now in religion, men labor all
their lives in order to try to put away their sin. I've watched
people laboring on their deathbed attempting to atone for their
own sins. They're doing everything possible
to make things right with God. You can't atone for your sins.
You can't do it. That's why the Lord Jesus Christ
was wounded in his back. And that's where God's looking.
God's looking at the crown of thorns pressed into the brow
of the Lord Jesus Christ. God's looking at the wounds on
the back of the Lord Jesus Christ. He's not looking at our sacrifices,
our faithfulness, our attempts to... Look where God's looking. What did Paul say? Oh, wretched
man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I've got this flesh attached
to this dying corpse tied to my back. Who's going to deliver
me? That's why the Lord Jesus Christ
was wounded in his back. Thirdly, he was wounded in his
side. That Roman soldier came and took
the sword of God's justice and plunged it. He knew exactly which
ribs to put it between. These were professional men of
death, executioners. And he knew exactly where to
place that sword so that it would go directly into the heart and
out flowed water and blood. The water is a picture of our
sanctification. We are washed by the water of
His Word. The blood is a picture of our
justification. The only way that we're going
to be justified before God is through the shed blood of the
Lord Jesus Christ. What is God looking at? He's looking at the wounds. He
says, Your names are written in My hands. But that's just
symbolic of all the wounds of the Lord Jesus Christ. He's looking
at the wounds of Christ, the shed blood, the sanctifying grace
of the water of His Word that flowed from His side when that
soldier sheathed the sword of God's justice into the heart
of the Son of God. And then we have the wounds on
our Lord's feet, don't we? You remember Mephibosheth? Mephibosheth, Saul's son, hiding
out in Lodabar. David said, is there anyone left
from the household of Saul that I might show mercy toward him? And his servant said, well, there's
old Mephibosheth. He's afraid you're going to kill
him. But he's crippled in both his feet. For when he was fleeing
from David as a child, as a baby, his nurse fell and he broke both
his feet and he can't walk to this day. We've crippled our feet in a
fall. The fall of our father Adam. Fleeing from God, we have
crippled our feet and we can't walk. What did David say, bring
him to me? It was Jonathan's son, that's
who he was, and he said, Oh, Mephibosheth, Mephibosheth. And
he sat him at the king's table, and he hid his crippled feet
under the tablecloth of the king's table, and he said, Mephibosheth,
you're going to sit there the rest of your life, and you're
going to eat of the king's fare. And he had mercy on him for Jonathan's
sake. There we are. The scripture says
our feet are swift to shed blood. Everywhere we walk, everywhere
we go, everything we do is sinful in the presence of God. Sin is
not just the stuff that we feel bad about. Sin is everything
we are. Sin is what we do. The Lord had
to be wounded in His feet. You remember when James and John
went to the temple to witness and worship, and they found a
man at the gate called Beautiful, begging for alms. He couldn't
get in. He wasn't allowed to enter in
to the worship of Jehovah because he was crippled. He couldn't
stand. What did Peter say? Peter said, silver and gold have
we none, but such as we have, we give unto thee in the name
of Jesus of Nazareth, stand and walk. And immediately he leaped
to his feet. Oh, we're just like that crippled
man. We're at the gate called beautiful. We're standing at
the very gate of heaven, but we can't get in. We can't get
in. Why? Because we're crippled.
And the Lord was wounded in His feet because that's where our
sin manifests itself every step that we take in this life. And
then finally, He said, Your names are written on My hands. He was
wounded in His hands. And you know from all of Scriptures
what the hands represent. The Scripture says, who shall
enter into his gates? He that hath clean hands, and
a pure heart, and has not lifted up his soul unto vanity." Now
who wants to raise their hands saying, my hands are clean? Every
work that I have performed with my hands have been pleasing to
God and I'm willing for Him to look at my works. for the hope
of my salvation that's what your hands are picture of we work
with our hands don't we the truth is that there's not one single
work that you have ever performed that I have ever performed that
we want God to judge us on if God judged you by the most sacrificial
thing you've ever done in your whole life you're going to hell if he judged you by the most
sincere prayer you've ever prayed you're going to hell That's why
the Lord Jesus Christ was wounded in his hands. Only by the works
of the Lord Jesus Christ. God's looking at the hands of
Christ. He's not looking at your hands.
He's not looking at my hands. He's looking to the work of Christ. What's the first words that we
have recorded in the scriptures from the Lord Jesus Christ? It's
when his mother found him in Jerusalem at the age 12. And
what did he say? Did you not know that I must
be about my father's business? And then the scripture speaks
of the father's work, which the Lord came to do. And what's the
last words that the Lord Jesus Christ spoke, recorded in the
scriptures from the cross? it is finished the work that
god sent me to do i have accomplished i have worked out the salvation
of my people and god is looking to the head, the back, the side,
the feet, and the hands of the Lord Jesus Christ. We are accepted before God in
the Beloved. In the Beloved. Now where are
you looking for the hope of your salvation? Where are you looking? Might God give us the faith to
look to the same person that He looks to? That's what He said. Look at our... The Lord has forsaken
me. That's our thoughts. That's our
feelings whenever we look anywhere other than Christ. We feel forsaken
of God, don't we? We feel lost. We feel hopeless. We have no assurance. We have
no peace. Why? Because we're not looking
where God's looking. And God says, will a mother leave
her sucking child? Perhaps. Maybe. It would be a
rare thing. But I'll never leave you. My faithfulness. For your names are written on
my hands. Now the names of those whom God
chose in the covenant of grace before the world began wrote
their names indelibly in the Lamb's Book of Life those are
the ones that Christ came to die for the scripture says he
laid down his life for the sheep contrary to what most folks believe
the Lord Jesus Christ didn't come into this world to die for
everybody make an offer of salvation for man to reject or accept That
would put you on the throne of God. And that would make Him
subject to your will. Oh no. Oh no, He's God. He's God. He successfully satisfied
the salvation of God's elect. And when He entered back into
glory, the Scripture says that God's Word And Christ is the
Word of God. In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the Word
was made flesh and dwelt among us. That's Christ. And my Word
will not, it will fulfill that for which I send it. It will
not return unto me void. When the Lord Jesus Christ ascended
back into glory, he took with him the names of those for whom
he lived and died. And he says, your names are written
on my hands. When you're unfaithful, I'm looking
at what I did. I didn't make this offer to you.
I made this offer to God. And God was pleased with it.
And the hope of your salvation is based on my finished work
of salvation. I'm looking to my hands. Are
you looking to the same place God's looking? That's the only thing that matters,
isn't it? And that's the only place you're
going to have peace. The only place you're going to have peace.
If you look anywhere else, you're going to find yourself trying
desperately to atone for your own sins. Look at the rest of this verse.
Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands thy walls,
are continually before me. Now, Zechariah chapter 2, here's
what God's looking at. God's looking at the hands of
the Lord Jesus Christ and He's looking at the walls of the New
Jerusalem. When that New Jerusalem came
down from heaven in Revelation chapter 21, the scripture says
that the angel measured the walls and they were 144,000 cubits,
a picture of all of God's elect. 12 times 12,000. Every one of God's
children are going to be saved. Why? Through the Jasper walls. Those walls were Christ's. Listen
to Zechariah. For I saith the Lord will be
unto her a wall of fire about and will be the glory in the
midst of her. This is what God says. I'm going
to be unto her a wall. and I'm going to be the glory
in the midst of her. And here the Lord says, I'm looking
continually at your walls. I'm not looking at you. That
wall is the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the wall of protection.
listen to it the very first reference to walls in the scriptures is
found in exodus chapter 14 verse 22 the waters were a wall onto
them on their right hand and on their left so when the children
of israel passed through the red sea and they walk through
by faith god separated the waters and the waters were a wall on
both sides of them Those waters, those walls were protecting them.
And those are the same walls that collapsed on the Egyptians
and drowned every one of them. Now where do we see water else
in the scriptures? At the great flood, don't we?
At Noah's flood, the deluge that God sent in order to destroy
the world was a judgment of water. It's the Lord Jesus Christ that
walls up the judgment of God and protects His people and enables
them to pass over on dry ground. He said, the waters will not
overflow thee. They won't. Why? Because I'm
your wall. I'm your wall of protection. In the Levitical law, the Lord
makes it clear that on the day of Jubilee, that all property
that had been sold for the previous forty nine years goes back to
its original owner all slaves are delivered all all debt is
canceled and that's a picture of christ coming as our jubilee
restoring onto us what we lost in our father adam but there's
an exception there's an exception if a man buys a house within
a walled city. The man who sells him that house
has one year to redeem it. If he doesn't redeem it in the
first year, then that house permanently becomes the possession of the
man who bought it, and even on the year of jubilee, it cannot
be returned to its original owner. Now, the houses that were bought
out in the country that weren't in a walled city those houses
on the day of jubilee had to go back to the original owners what's the picture once you possess
a home what the lord say in uh... john chapter fourteen uh... let
not your heart be troubled uh... help me out in my father's house are many
mansions if it were not so I would have told you I go and prepare
a place for you and if I go and prepare a place I will come again
and receive you into myself there's the house in the walled city
and once you possess that house you can't lose it what once it's
yours it's yours what's the significance of the one year Well, in my years
of ministry, I've, I've noticed sadly to say that, that there's
been several occasions where people have come and they've
heard the gospel and they give lip service, but generally speaking,
within a year, they're gone. Well, then a year, they've fallen
away. Henry Mahan used to say to a
secretary when a new person wanted to make a profession of faith,
write their name in pencil. Let's give them a little while
and see if it sticks. If it's of the Lord, it will.
If it's of the Lord, it will. If it's not, they'll give up
on that house probably within a year and be on their way. Oh,
but to know that nothing can take away the possession that
the Lord has gotten for His people in the walled city. In the walled
city. And then the scripture speaks
of man-made religion being a teetering wall with undobbed mortar. And men lean upon it and it falls
on them and kills them. God's looking to that Jasper
wall, that Jasper wall that surrounds the city of God. And that's where
we're to look. If we're looking to a wall that
we're leaning on with undobbed mortar, that wall is going to
fall and it will destroy us. Just like the walls of Jericho. When Joshua brought the children
of Israel across the Jordan River, and they marched around the city
of Jericho one time a day for six days. And on the seventh
day, they walked seven times around the city, and they blew
the ram's horn. The people cried. And what happened
to the walls? They crumbled. They fell. The
children of Israel took over the city. That's what's going
to happen. The Ark of the Covenant was with
Joshua. Joshua being a picture of Christ,
the Ark of the Covenant being a picture of Christ, the ram's
horn being a picture of the preaching of the gospel and the people
rejoicing in the finished work of Christ. And what happens to
the walls that men build? They fall. They fall. Behold, I have graven thee upon
the palms of my hands. Thy walls are continually before
me. So the only question you and
I have to ask, answer, am I looking where God's looking? He's looking
to the wounds of the Lord Jesus Christ. He's looking to the walls
that surround the city of God. He's not looking at you. Aren't
you glad? Amen. Alright, let's take a break. th th