The church's one foundation is
Jesus Christ, her Lord. She is his new creation by water
and the Word. From heaven he came and sought
her to be his holy bride. With his own blood he bought
her and for her life he died. Elect from every nation, yet
one o'er all the earth. Her charter of salvation, one
Lord, one faith, one birth. One holy name she blesses, partakes
one holy food. and to one hope she presses with
every grace endued. Mid toil and tribulation and
tumult of her war, she waits the consummation of peace forevermore. Till with a vision glorious her
longing eyes are blessed, And the great church victorious shall
be the church at rest. Yet she on earth hath union with
God the three in one, And mystic sweet communion with those whose
rest is one. O happy ones and holy, Lord,
give us grace that we, like them, the meek and lowly, on high may
dwell with Thee. Please be seated. till with a vision glorious her
longing eyes are blessed, and the great church victorious shall
be the church at rest. We look through a glass dimly
now, don't we? Then face to face. I want us
to read, good evening, I want us to read from Revelation chapter
4 for our scripture reading tonight. Revelation chapter 4. As you
know, there's a lot of symbolic language in the book of Revelation,
but it all points to Christ. It all points to Him. After the Messages to the churches
in chapters two and three John said after this I looked and
behold a door was opened in heaven and The first voice which I heard
was as it were a trumpet talking with me Which said come up hither
and I will show thee things which must be hereafter Every time
we come together for worship. Our hope is that the Lord will
open a door from heaven and and say to us, come here, look, I'm
going to show you the way it's going to be. And immediately
I was in the Spirit, and there's our hope too, isn't it? We're
not going to be able to see into heaven unless the Lord puts us
in the Spirit. And immediately I was in the
Spirit, and behold, a throne was set in heaven, and one sat
on the throne. And he that sat was to look upon
like a Jasper and a sardine stone. And there was a rainbow round
about the throne in sight, like unto an emerald. And you remember
that rainbow? When I see the bow, I'll remember the covenant
that I made with you. Isn't that what the Lord told
Noah? And round about the throne were four and 20 seats. That's
symbolic for the church. And upon the seats I saw four
and 20 elders sitting, clothed in white raiment, and they had
on their heads crowns of gold. And out of the throne proceeded
lightnings and thunderings and voices, and there were seven
lamps of burning upon the throne, which are the seven spirits of
God. Number seven is the number of completion and the perfect
work of the Holy Spirit redeeming all his church. And behold, the
throne was a sea of glass. I'm sorry. Before the throne,
there was a sea of glass like under a crystal and in the midst
of the throne and round about the throne were four beasts full
of eyes before and behind. This reminds us of the Sarah
film and Isaiah chapter six that were hovering over the throne
of God. And we know who's sitting on
the throne. John chapter 12 makes it clear that this is Christ's
throne. And the first beast was like
a lion, and the second beast like a calf, and the third beast
had the face of a man, and the fourth beast was like a flying
eagle, each representing different aspects of the nature of Christ.
And the four beasts had each of them six wings upon him, and
they were full of eyes within, and the rest And they rest not
day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty,
which was and is and is to come. And when those beasts gave glory
and honor and thanks to him that sat upon the throne, who liveth
forever and ever, the four and twenty elders fell 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, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power. For Thou hast created all things,
and for Thy pleasure they are and were created. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father, we ask that
You would be merciful to us tonight, and as we open Your Word, we
pray that You would open our hearts. We pray that you would
open a window into heaven and enable us to see things, Lord,
as they are—that the Lord Jesus Christ, sitting upon his throne,
having finished the work of redemption, and the seraphim crying, Holy,
holy, holy, is the Lord God of hosts. Truly, heaven and earth
is filled with thy glory. Lord, we confess to you that
we get caught up in looking at so many temporal things and getting
distracted from your glory by the things of this world. We
pray in this hour that you would enable us to set our affections
on things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of
God, not on the things of this world. Lord how we need for you
to speak to our hearts Lord if you're silent Then we're lost. Oh How we we pray that you would
cause us to hear thy voice cause us to to come And to see the
one who was and is and is to come the first and the last The
one who's worthy of all praise and all glory and all honor We
ask it in Christ's name, Amen. It is finished, sinners hear
it. Hear the dying saviors cry. Hear the Lord himself declare
it. Justice has been satisfied. It is finished, go proclaim it,
to poor sinners far and wide. Holy Spirit, make them hear it,
Jesus Christ, for sinners died. It is finished, all is over,
Jesus drank damnation dry. What a Savior, what a Savior,
see Him now exalted high. It is finished, look, behold
Him, seated at His Father's side. Yonder on the throne, behold
Him, Christ our Substitute who died. It is finished, hear him
pleading, As our advocate on high, His own blood's great merit
pleading, Pleading justice satisfied. It is finished, can you hear
him? All the work is fully done. Now believing, looking to him,
we are saved by God's own Son. Please be seated. If you'd like to turn with me
in your Bibles to Isaiah chapter 43. Isaiah chapter 43. And just before the service,
Tom was telling me that Jimmy called. Jimmy married into the
Bandle family. in West Virginia, and many of
them have been here over the past years. Joyce, who is Sarah's
grandmother, sweet sister in Christ, fell today. And she has multiple injuries
as a result of that fall and is not doing well. So I want
us to pray for Joyce before we start. So let's do that. Our
Heavenly Father, we're so very thankful to be able to come before
Your throne of grace and ask You, Lord, for Your help for
our sister and for Sarah and for the Vandal family. Lord, we pray that You would
be merciful and that You would comfort them in this time of
trial and trouble, and we ask that You would give the The nurses
and doctors that minister to Joyce now, the wisdom that they
need to know how to treat her, and we pray that your hand of
healing would be upon her, Lord, and you'd give her strength and
that you would encourage our brethren in West Virginia through
this trouble that you have sent. We ask it in Christ's name, amen. I've titled this message, In
Spite Of. In Spite Of. That's a good definition
for grace. In spite of the fact that we
had no interest in Him, He had interest in us. In spite of the
fact that we would never call on Him, He called us. In spite of the fact that we
would not appreciate the things that He did for us, He gave us
a desire after Him. In spite of the fact that we
have nothing but sin in ourselves, we have perfect righteousness
in our substitute, the Lord Jesus Christ. In our text tonight,
the Lord exposes all our sin and unwillingness. And yet he
says, in spite of that, in spite of that, I'm going to show mercy
towards you. I mean, there's one place in
verse 25 where as you're reading through, you expect the Lord
to say, I'm going to punish you for this. And instead of that,
he says, I'm going to forgive you. In spite of the fact that
you had no interest in forgiveness, I'm going to forgive you. What
the Lord is saying is, if I don't call them, they won't come. If I don't provide for them a
righteousness, they won't have any. If I don't save them, they
won't be saved. If I don't find a reason outside
of them for their forgiveness, They won't be forgiven. There's
nothing in them to merit my favor. In spite of all their rebellion
and all their sin, I'm going to have mercy upon them. You remember last Wednesday night
we looked at verses 18 through 21 and asked the Lord to show
us those things that we ought to remember and those things
we ought to forget. And in order for us to see how
this continues in verse 22, let's go back to verse 18. Remember
ye not the former things, neither consider the things of old. Forget what you were. You're not that anymore. Behold,
I will do a new thing. Now it shall spring forth, and
shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the
wilderness and rivers in the desert and the beast of the field
shall honor me and the dragons and the owls because I give water
in the wilderness and rivers in the desert to give drink to
my people, my chosen. Now we're the dragons, we're
the owls. We're the ones the Lord's gonna
have mercy on. We live in a wilderness and the Lord says, I'm gonna,
this is what I'm gonna do for you. I'm gonna save you. I'm gonna give you water to drink.
Where's that water come from? It comes from Christ. You remember in John chapter
seven, on that great day of the feast, it was the Feast of Tabernacles.
It was an eight day feast. Sacrifices were made each day
and on the eighth day was the was the crescendo of the feast
when the procession of people would go to the temple and The
priests would take a large labor of water and pour out the water
symbolic of the Holy Spirit and there was total silence among
the people as that water was being poured out and then as
soon as it got poured out and It turned into the most jubilant
worship. They said, if you've not seen
the joy on the eighth day of the Feast of Tabernacles, you've
never experienced joy in your life. That's just how exciting
it was. Well, during that moment of silence,
before the people were to break out in public worship, the scripture
says the Lord Jesus Christ stood up when it was silent. And he cried with a loud voice. And he said, if any man thirst,
let him come unto me and drink, and out of his belly shall flow
rivers of living water. And it was right after that that
the Pharisees asked the men, why didn't you bring him? And
they said, never a man spake like this man before. The Lord
Jesus Christ is that river of water for those who are in the
wilderness, and it was the rod of the law that smote the rock
in the wilderness that allowed that water, caused that water
to come forth. The rod of the law has smitten
our sin bearer on Calvary's cross, and God's satisfied, the law's
been fulfilled, and the water of life flows from him to us. It's going to tell us that in
spite of the fact that you have no interest in me, I'm going
to give you water. In spite of the fact that you're
an owl, you're a nocturnal animal, only interested in darkness.
In spite of the fact that you're a beast, a dragon. David said,
I was as a beast before thee. I've got no more understanding
of the things of God than an animal. In spite of that. I'm going to have mercy upon
you. Look what he says. Verse 21, this people have I
formed for myself and they shall show forth my praise. But thou
hast not called upon me, O Jacob, but thou hast been weary of me,
O Israel. You ever felt weary of God? You
do something out of obligation. Our children are wearied by coming
to church, aren't they? And before the Lord was pleased
to reveal himself to us, it was just wearisome. You do anything out of obligation,
you do something hoping for a reward, or you do something because you
think somebody else expects you to do it. In time, that just
becomes wearisome, doesn't it? And the Lord said, you're weary
of me. But in spite of the fact that
you haven't called upon me, in spite of the fact that you're
weary of me, look what else he says. Jacob thou has been weary of
me. Oh Israel verse 23 thou has not
brought me the small cattle of thy burnt offerings That's the
lamb a Small cattle is the that's the lamb. That's the Passover
lamb you you you came in some religious ceremony, but you didn't
come to me on the basis of the shed blood of the lamb and You
came on some other basis. You came hoping that I would
reward you for what you've done. Ted and I were talking to a man
yesterday and he told us that he was an agnostic. But he said,
he said, I live by the golden rule. And we had just spent several
hours with a really nice guy. And I said, well, that's a good
way to live. Not going to get you into heaven. That's a good
way to live. Y'all live by the golden rule.
Y'all treat other people the way you want them to treat you.
You'll get along with folks in this world a whole lot better
that way. The problem is that those people
that you're treating well in this life are not the ones that
you're gonna have to stand before in order to get into heaven. And there's no work that a man
can do in this life that will earn him favor with God. I'm afraid that our friend Mike,
who's said he's an agnostic, is not going to be an agnostic
long. He's 70 years old. There's going to come a day real
soon where you're going to know. You're going to know that there
is a God. But that's what we are by nature. Wearisome. You see, only the
Holy Spirit can make worship spiritual. He's the only one
that can do it. He's the only one that can make
our worship acceptable to God. He's the only one that can put
into our hearts a desire for Christ. He's the only one that
can open the doors of heaven. He's the only one that can open
God's Word and reveal to us the glory of Christ. And apart from
the ministry of the Holy Spirit, we're just wearied by the things
of God. We're wearied by it. And so the Lord says, Jacob,
Israel, I've been a weary to you and you've come but you didn't
come to me based on the you didn't come to me based on the shed
blood of the Passover lamb the lamb that is without spot and
without blemish you came believing that somehow you were going to
be rewarded for your righteousness or for your riches or for your
repentance for your faith for your obedience,
for your sincerity, for your obedience, for your commitment,
for your sacrifices. That's all religion is. And all
those things become wearisome, don't they? We're wearied when
we're not resting. And if we're looking to anything
for our acceptance before God other than that Lamb, we're going
to be weary. Come unto me, all ye that labor,
and are heavy laden. I'll give you rest. Take my yoke
upon you, and learn of me. For my yoke is easy, my burden
is light. I'll give you rest for your soul.
And until he does that, we will weary ourselves with religion. We'll weary ourselves trying
to earn favor with God. Living by the golden rule or
whatever it might be So the Lord says you you've not brought the
small cattle verse 23 neither hast thou honored me with thy
sacrifices You brought your sacrifices hoping that your sacrifice would
somehow Earn you favor with God Give you some points You haven't
honored me with your sacrifices. I have not caused thee to serve
with an offering nor wearied thee with incense. I didn't tell
you to come to me like this. Men conclude on their own that
the way to get to God is through good works, is through free will,
it's through sacrifice, it's through dedication, it's through
offerings, it's through... Men conclude that on their own.
God didn't say that. You come to me by my son, he's
the only way you're gonna come to me. I am the way, the truth,
and the life. No man can come to the Father
except by me. But man-made religion, Mike,
we were talking with our friend yesterday, and he was saying,
I despise religion. I said, me too. I said, me too. I hate it with
a passion. I hate the lies of it. I hate
how it deceives men. I hate the burden that it puts
on men's shoulders. I hate the glory that it robs
from Christ. And the Lord says, I didn't call
thee to this. Man-made religion is just that.
It's man-made. It didn't come from God. And
the Lord's saying, you didn't come to me on the basis of the
small cattle. The tender, innocent, spotless
lamb. You didn't come to me based on
that. You came to me with your prayers and your sacrifices and
your dedication and your works and your will. And look what
he says in verse 24. Thou hast brought me no sweet
cane with money. Now that's a Reference to the incense that
was burned in the temple. It's a very costly incense and
Or say you you'd you didn't offer up prayers in Christ You you
you prayed like that Pharisee you prayed unto yourself father.
I God I thank thee that I'm not like other men and Now you didn't
come, you didn't come based on the blood and righteousness of
the Lord Jesus Christ. Neither hast thou filled me with
the fat of thy sacrifices. Now that word filled means satisfied.
You haven't satisfied me with your sacrifices. And here's the
thing about it, you can't satisfy God. God saw the travail of his
soul and was satisfied. God is pleased with and satisfied
with the Lord Jesus Christ, and you and I will never be able
to satisfy God. Ever. So the Lord's describing
what we are by nature, trying to earn favor with God, being
religious, hoping that we're going to obligate God to save
us based on something that we've done, and not coming to Him based
on the blood and righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. You
haven't filled me with the fat of your sacrifices, but thou
hast made, look at the last part of verse 24, but thou hast made
me to serve with thy sins, and thou hast wearied me with thine
iniquities. Here I have provided for you
and loved you and served you, And all you can do is sin. And your hope of satisfying me
is presenting to me your iniquities. And you wearied me with your
iniquities. And at this point you expect
God to say, I'm done with you. But in spite of all of these
things, Jacob, in spite of your unfaithfulness, Israel, in spite
of your worldliness, in spite of your weariness, I, even I,
let there be no doubt about it, who's doing the work. It's I,
even I. I'm gonna do it all from beginning
to end. I am he that blotteth out thy
transgressions. I love that word. You know, sometimes
they'll show on the news a top-secret document that's been redacted,
and it's got black lines on it, and there's no technology that
can read through those black lines and discover what was on
that piece of paper. I mean, that's something they
do to government documents, and nobody can read through it. And
that's what the Lord's saying, I blotted out your sins. You
can't read through it. What he used to blot out our
sin wasn't a black marker, though. It was the blood of the Lord
Jesus Christ. When I see the blood, I'll pass
by you. I blotted out your sins. I've
removed them from you as far as the east is from the west.
Look what he says, I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions
for my own sake. I didn't see anything in you.
I didn't take away your sins because you were sorry enough
for them. I didn't take away your sins
because of your repentance, because of your righteousness, because
of your riches. I couldn't find anything in you.
To give me reason to take away your sin. So in spite of the
fact that I couldn't find anything in you, I did it for my namesake. Now if you've ever bought a house,
you've signed your name 50 times on 50 pages of, that's a covenant. And every time you sign it, you
are promising to pay back what you borrowed. And what the Lord's saying here
is, my name's on the contract. I made a covenant promise with
my father. And my promise was to save my
people, to redeem them, to take away their sins. And for my name's
sake, because my name's on the contract, my name's at stake,
I couldn't find anything in you. But in order to maintain the
glory of the faithfulness, the truthfulness of my name, I'm
going to fulfill this covenant. in spite of you. Oh, that's grace. That's grace. Of course, I've done all these
things for you, but you're weary of me, and then you've wearied
me with your unrighteousness and with your inequities. But
in spite of all of that, I, even I, am going to blot out your
transgressions for my namesake. That's why I'm going to do it.
And that's the only reason that God would ever save you and me. Only reason. One reason and one
reason only. Because the name of the Lord
Jesus Christ is on the covenant. He's our surety. What did Judah say to Jacob? He said, if I don't bring Benjamin
back, hold it to my account. I'll take the blame forever. That's what he said. I'll take
the blame forever. I'll be his surety. And that's
the Lord Jesus Christ standing before the Father with his name
on the covenant. If I don't bring every one of
them to glory, I'll take the blame forever. You think that's
possible? For the Lord Jesus Christ to
be blamed for not having fulfilled the requirements of the contract,
the covenant, the promise? It's not, is it? Benjamin didn't
have anything to do with his salvation. It was Judah's name
that was on the line, not Benjamin's. Benjamin was the benefactor. I will do it, verse 25, for my
own sake, and will not remember thy sins. Now our God is omniscient. He doesn't, He's not saying that
I'm going to have a lapse of my Essential nature my omniscience. He said I'm not going to remember
your sins against you because I'm going to remember what Christ
did That's what I'm gonna do I'm gonna remember his sacrifice
his offering not yours And I'll merit you with his favor And so the Lord says in verse
26 Remember me. Put me in remembrance. Don't
look to anything you've done. Nothing you've done is good enough. Like I said, live by the golden
rule. That's a good thing. But don't look to the way you
treat men. Don't look to your offerings to God. As the hope
of your salvation, that's what the Lord's saying. If you're
gonna be saved, you're gonna be saved in spite of you. Your
offerings are not sufficient and your works are not good enough.
But I'm gonna save you. I'm gonna do it for my name's
sake and I'll remember your sins no more. Put me in remembrance. Look to me. Let us plead together. Now that's the word impute. It's
the word reckon. It's the word to make just. And what the Lord's saying is,
believe the gospel as I have declared it. That the only way
that you can be righteous before God is to have the righteousness
of Christ imputed to, charged to, reckoned to your account. Believe what God has said. Reckon
yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin. Reckon it to be true. Why? Because it is. It is true. If God says, I'm going to blot
out your sins, I'm going to redact the top secret document. No one's going to be able to
read it. And I'm not going to remember
your sins anymore. And I'm going to do it all for
my name's sake. So reckon it to be so. Why? Because I said
it is. You say, well, my sin is ever
before me. I'm sort of like David. Psalm
51. It may be ever before you. But
it's not before God. Not before God. Not if he's blotting
it out. There's your hope. So when the
Spirit of God convicts you of the sin in your own life, you
look to Christ and you realize, in Him, Him he's gonna call us
Jeshurun in a minute and Jeshurun means upright one and I looked
in my in my my dictionary for a definition of Jeshurun and
and it said symbolic name for Israel Representing her ideal
character Well, I would change that definition I It's a symbolic
name for Israel, representing her true character, not her ideal
character, not what she wishes to be, but what she is in Christ. Put me in remembrance, verse
26, let us plead together, declare thou. Now the Lord has given
us something to do. But you can do it without moving
a muscle below your neck. That's right. Declare. With a heart, man believeth
unto righteousness. With a mouth, confession is made
unto salvation. With your words, you are justified. And with your words, you'll be
condemned. If God doesn't have mercy on
our friend Mike, he stands before God in just a little while and
says, well, I live by the golden rule. That will be the words
that will condemn him. By your words. And so the Lord
says, come. Notice, believe what I have done
and declare thou that thou mayest be justified. What do we declare? That salvation's of the Lord. What do we declare? That we're
sinners, that we have no righteousness. God is just in condemning us
and that he's right that we've been we've been wearied of God
and we've wearied God and there's no reason why he should find
in us any reason for him to save us and if we're gonna be saved he's
gonna have to find a reason outside of us he's gonna have to look
to another So we say what God says. You remember 1 John 1, 9? If
you confess your sins, he is faithful and just to forgive
you of your sins and cleanse you of all of your unrighteousness.
I hate it when preachers try to impress folks with Greek and
Hebrew language, kind of like what we were looking at in 1
Corinthians 14, Sunday, you know, with the men that speak in tongues.
But I'm going to give you a Greek word, and you'll know it. You
know the word Lagos is the word for word. Then the beginning
was the word and the word was with God and the word was God.
The word became flesh and dwelt among us. That's the word Lagos.
It's the word of God. And the word homo means together
or same. And the word in 1 John 1.9 is
the word homologos or homologia which means Speak the same word
that God speaks That's what it means The word confess is a conjunction
of those two words homo and logos And all God's saying is you say
what I say I So God's not asking you and me to come before Him
with some fancy words, or to make up a prayer, or to figure
out, what do I say to God? All He's saying is, you just
say amen. You just say amen to what I have
said. You just speak the same word
back to me that I have spoken to you. And so he says declare
what I just said and you'll be justified. By your words you'll
be justified and by your words you'll be condemned. Isn't that
so simple? That's so simple. That's all faith is doing. Faith
just says what God says. It just believes what God says.
And so we don't say, well, you know, it could be this way, it
could be, no, God said it, that settles it. You've seen the bumper
sticker that says God said it, I believe it, that settles it.
Just leave out the I believe it. God said it, that settles
it. I hope you believe it. If you do, you'll say back to
God the same thing he said. It's just that simple. People
complicate religion. And all we do is when the Spirit
of God convinces us that this is the Word of God, then every
word of it is believed. And we just, when we read it
and hear it preached, we just say, Amen. Amen. Verse 27, Thy first Father hath
sinned. Yeah, and I sinned in Him. Adam, he's talking about Adam.
Adam is our federal head, and that he represents all of mankind. And when he fell, we fell. And
Adam is our seminal head. We were in the loins of Adam. And everything that he did, we
are held responsible for before God. You were there. You were in the garden. However
many years ago. And you were in Adam. And when
Adam sinned, you sinned, I sinned. You say, well, I don't like being
responsible for that. If you don't see yourself in
Adam, you can't see yourself in Christ. You want credit for what the
Lord Jesus Christ did on Calvary's cross? You want to be found in
Him, not having your own righteousness, which is of the law, but that
righteousness which is by the faithfulness of the Lord Jesus
Christ, then you've got to be found in Adam too. Your father sinned. When you
sinned, you died. You fell. Thy first father hath sinned,
and thy teachers have transgressed against me. Everybody you heard outside of
the revealed truth of the gospel in the Word of God were liars.
They were liars. All your teachers, all your religious
teachers, all your moral teachers, all your political and teachers,
whatever teachers. The word here is orators. You see the word teachers? It's
the word orators. They spoke well. You were drawn
away by their words. You had itching ears. They told
you what you wanted to hear, but it wasn't the truth. It wasn't
the truth. Therefore, I have profaned the
princes of the sanctuary. I profaned them. All those religious
teachers, I exposed them for what they are. They're liars. And I've given Jacob to the curse
and Israel to repurchase. I put you under the law, that's
the curse. I caused you to see what the
law requires. And if the law exercised its
justice against you, you see, I hate bringing up Mike, but
Michael, but Mike, living by the golden rule yesterday, you
know, that's being under the law. I'm just going to do my
best to satisfy the demands of the law. And when God profanes
the teachers and causes us to see what the demands of the law
are, we don't want to be under the law anymore. Lord, I can't
give it to you. God gives Jacob to the curse. Have you ever been under the
law? And Israel too reproaches. Yet,
in spite of your inability to keep the law, in spite of the
perfect holiness of the law, in spite of the demands of the
law, the requirements of the law, yet now, here. And I said, God requires something
of us, but it doesn't require any movement below the neck. You declare what He declares,
and you listen. You hear. Faith comes by hearing,
and hearing comes by the word of God. Yet now hear, O Jacob,
my servant in Israel, whom I have chosen. Thus saith the Lord. Don't you love that? Don't you
love just being under, thus saith the Lord? I don't have to, I
don't have to figure it out. Just, God said it. Thus saith
the Lord. that made thee. He's your creator. When you make something, you've
got ownership over it. You can do with it whatever you
want to do with it. When you make it, it's yours.
What did we just read in Revelation chapter 4? He created all things
for His good pleasure. For His glory. All things were
made by him and for him. Thus saith the Lord that made
thee and formed thee from the womb, which will help thee. Fear not. Oh, Jacob, my servant,
and thou Jeshurun, whom I have chosen. Jeshurun means upright. And here we are, Jacob, Israel.
Jacob's our our given name Israel's our surname We get our surname
from our father He gives it to us Jacob means supplanter and
Israel means Prince And here we are in Christ upright before
God in spite of the fact that we by nature are just like Jacob
and Lying thieves. That's what we were. It's what
we are by nature just lying thieves God says yet you're gesturing
For I will pour water upon him that is thirsty and floods upon
the dry ground I will pour my spirit upon thy seed and my blessing
upon thy offspring if any man thirst let him come unto me and
drink Out of his belly will flow rivers of living water. And the
Lord told that woman at the well, if you drink of the water that
I give unto you, you'll never thirst again. In other words,
you won't have to go anywhere else to satisfy your soul other
than Christ. And they shall spring up as among
the grass as willows by the water courses. And one shall say, I
am the Lord's. And another shall call himself
by the name of Jacob. And another shall subscribe with
his hand unto the Lord and surname himself by the name Israel. You
see, every one of God's people acknowledge the fact that they
are Jacob by nature and Israel by the new birth. In spite of
the fact that Jacob is unworthy, Israel has been shown grace. Thus saith the Lord, the King
of Israel, and his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts. The Lord Jesus
Christ didn't come to make an offer of redemption. He's God's
Redeemer. The sacrifice that he made on
Calvary's cross was not for you. It was for God. It was for God. You notice that. Thus saith the
Lord, the King of Israel and his Redeemer. Now, just like
Benjamin, we're the benefactor of that redemptive work, but
the offer of redemption was made first and foremost to God. He
gave he was fulfilling the requirements of the covenant he had signed
he had put his name on that covenant And he was gonna he was gonna
Fulfill it all this is all my salvation all my desire. That's
what David said about the covenant I am the first and I am the last
and beside me there is no God Now in some in most Churches that call themselves
Christian The Lord Jesus Christ is not the first You're the first
you take the first step and then he'll he'll he'll take you the
rest of the way And then that and then there's those who would
pride themselves in believing the sovereignty of God who would
say oh no, oh no Christ is the first step and He's got to regenerate
you before you can believe, and then they'll put you back under
the law to make you finish the work. I am the first and the
last, the beginning and the end, the alpha and the omega, I'm
gonna do it all. I'm gonna do every bit of it,
and I'm gonna get all the glory for it. Because I can't trust
you for anything. I've got to do this in spite
of you. In spite of you. who verse 7 as I shall call and
shall declare it and Set it in order for me Since I appointed
the ancient people who's gonna who's gonna fulfill the requirements
of this covenant Who's gonna do it? What are you going to
do? To obligate God What are you
gonna do to save yourself? What are you gonna do to make
peace with God? You can't do anything I'm gonna have to save you in
spite of you. Lord, save me in spite of me. And the things that are coming
and shall come, let them show unto them. Who's gonna reveal
the things that are to come? God's the only one that can do
that. Fear ye not, neither be afraid. Have not I told thee
from that time, and declared it? You are even my witnesses? Is there a God beside me? Yea,
there is no God, I know not of any. Who is a God like unto thee,
that pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by the transgressions
of his people? Who's like our God? Most folks just have an idol
in their own imagination fashioned after themselves. Men by nature set themselves
up on the throne of God. They make God dependent upon
them for something. Our God's not that way. He's
absolutely sovereign. And he's done all the work all
by himself and he gets all the glory and he does it in spite
of us. And God's people say, amen. That's the kind of salvation
I need. Our heavenly father, we're thankful
for your grace and for your mercy and know how we need you to save
us in spite of us. What great hope and comfort, what fear you take away when
you give us the faith to believe what you have said. We ask that
you do it for Christ's sake. Amen. Brother Tom. Number 45. Let's stand together.
Number 45 in the hymns of grace. How vast, how full, how free
the mercy of our God. Proclaim the blessed news around
and spread it all abroad. How full it does remove the stain
of and makes our souls as white and pure as though no sin had
been. O guilty sinner, come! Christ stands to comfort thee. Come, cast thyself upon His love,
so vast, so full, so free. I'm glad salvation's free. I'm glad salvation's free. Salvation's free for you and
me. I'm glad salvation's free. Amen. Thank you very much.