Let's open tonight's service
with hymn number 18 from your Spiral Gospel Hymns hymnbook.
Let's all stand together. Number 18. God gave his holy inspired word
for only one great end, the prophets and apostles to reveal the sinner's
friend. The Bible is a book of Christ,
it only speaks of Him. On every page it shows us Christ,
it only speaks of Him. The prophecies of old record
God's wondrous mighty deeds. Those deeds of power and of grace
set forth the woman's seed. The Bible is a book of Christ,
it only speaks of Him. On every page it shows us Christ,
it only speaks of Him. The prophets all reveal our Lord
as prophet, priest, and king. The types the great redemption
show, Christ's blood and grace now bring. The Bible is a book
of Christ, it only speaks of Him. On every page it shows us
Christ, it only speaks of Him. Behold the Lamb, the Baptist
said, the sin-atoning One. As it was promised long before,
God's Son as man has come. The Bible is a book of Christ,
it only speaks of Him. On every page it shows us Christ,
it only speaks of Him. Our substitute obeyed the law,
then died and rose again. And in his word our Savior said,
Rejoice, I come again. The Bible is a book of Christ,
it only speaks of Him. On every page it shows us Christ,
it only speaks of Him. Please be seated. Good evening. We're going to
read from Isaiah 55 for our call to worship tonight. Isaiah 55.
It's good to have everybody back from
the holidays. Everyone that thirsteth, are
you asking yourself, are you thirsty? Are you thirsty? Come ye to the waters, and ye
that have no money, come. You, come. Buy. And eat, yea, come, by wine and
milk, without money and without price. And I've told you this
before, that term without price means to barter. Don't barter
with God. Don't make any promises. Rest in the promise that he's
made to you. Wherefore do you spend money
for that which is not bread, and you labor for that which
satisfieth not? Hearken diligently unto me. This
book is about Christ. Listen for Him. Eat ye that which is good, and
let your soul, let your soul. This is a heart matter, isn't
it? So many people use religion to try to patch up their life
here in this world. This is a matter of the heart.
Pray the Lord will be pleased to speak to our hearts. Incline
your ear and come unto me here. Here and your soul shall live. And I will make an everlasting
covenant with you. Even the sure mercies of David. Let's pray together. Our merciful heavenly father. We are grateful. We can call
you our father. Come to you on the merits and
in the name of thy dear son. We thank you, Lord, for the miracle
of the new birth. and oh how we pray tonight that
you would minister grace again to our hearts and cause us to
experience life in Christ. We thank you for the revelation
that you've given us of him. We pray, Lord, that you would
open our eyes, tender our hearts. We ask for the gift of faith.
We pray, Lord, that we would find ourselves with no place
else to go. and to cast all our hopes on
the glorious person and accomplished work of thy dear son. Father, we pray for our meeting
next weekend. We pray for Todd and Chris and
we ask Lord that you would burden their hearts with messages that
we need to hear. We pray that you would attend
all the services here that you would bless your children with
mercy and with grace, with light and with truth and hope and peace.
We pray, Lord, for those that are strangers to your grace,
and we ask, Lord, that you'd be pleased to call out your lost
sheep and give them life and cause us, Lord, to experience
the rejoicing of the new birth once again. And father, we pray for Lynn.
We ask Lord that you would strengthen her and enable her to come and
be with us next weekend. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen. Uh, Todd's wife, Lynn is having
some, um, physical problems and, um, not sure if she's going to
be able to come, but she feels better. She will. So, uh, Tom. Let's all stand together. Once
again, we'll sing hymn number 326. 326 from the Hardback Timnel. More about Jesus would I know. More of His grace to others show. More of His saving fullness see. More of His love who died for
me. More, more about Jesus. More, more about Jesus. More of His saving fullness see,
More of His love who died for me. More about Jesus let me learn,
More of His holy will discern, Spirit of God, my teacher be,
showing the things of Christ to me. More, more about Jesus. More, more about Jesus. More of His saving fullness see. More of His love who died for
me. More about Jesus in His Word,
holy communion with my Lord. Hearing His voice in every line,
making each faithful saying mine. More, more about Jesus. More, more about Jesus. ? More of his saving fullness
see ? More of his love who died for me ? More about Jesus on
his throne ? Riches and glory all his own ? More of his kingdom
sure increase ? More of his coming faiths of peace ? More, more
about Jesus More, more about Jesus, more of His saving fullness
see, more of His love who died for me. Please be seated. Will you open your Bibles with
me to Isaiah chapter 40 please, Isaiah chapter 40. The more I looked at this passage,
the more I felt like this is a summary of everything I've
ever preached. Everything we've ever believed is in these verses
of Scripture. And I just hope that the Lord
will be pleased to speak to our hearts tonight. I had someone
tell me recently that they didn't need to be told to come to Christ. that coming to Christ was a miracle
of grace and God would do it in their hearts in His time,
and that there was not any necessity for hearing the gospel preached
or for being called to come to Christ. It is such a clear denial
of everything that the Lord has taught us in His Word. Yes, coming
to Christ is a miracle of grace. Yes, coming to Christ is a work
of the Holy Spirit that he has to do in the heart. You can't
come to Christ. I can't cause you to come to
Christ. We're completely dependent upon him to do that for us. Nevertheless, he uses the means
of the gospel being preached to call his children to himself.
through the foolishness of preaching. We preach Christ and Him crucified. And this passage of scripture
is so filled with a call to come. I've titled this message, if
you'll notice in the last part of verse nine, say unto the cities
of Judah, behold thy God. Now God's commanding the preacher,
the prophet, to say to the cities of Judah, and we extend the outward
call to all men, but we don't know who belongs to Judah. They're the ones that are going
to hear. And so we're not trying to make goats look like sheep. We're not trying to gain a big
following. If God's pleased to call out
a lot of folks, nobody would be more excited about that than
I would. But the preacher is like a sheep dog. He's just rounding
up God's sheep. That's all we're looking for.
We're preaching the gospel knowing and believing that the children
of Judah will hear. And what do we say to the cities
of Judah? Behold your God. Behold your God. Another way
to say that is, come to Christ. all flee to him. Look and live. The Lord said, and I, and if
I be lifted up, I'll draw all men to myself. And so we lift
up Christ and we call sinners to look. Moses told those children
of Israel in the wilderness, look to that serpent that's been
lifted up on the pole and you'll live. Some were close and could
get a clear sight of that serpent up on the pole. Others were far
away, but all they had to do was look in the direction of
the serpent and they would live. And that's what this book is
full of, a call to come. All four of the gospel writers
make it clear that verses three, four, and five are prophetic
relating to John the Baptist. They all quote these verses.
John's the one that said, behold, the Lamb of God, look to Christ,
who taketh away the sins of the world. Now sinners are the ones
that are gonna look. Those that have been stung with
the fiery serpent of sin are going to look to Christ. And
in doing so, God's going to give them life. He's going to cause
them to look, and He's going to heal them. There's no healing
apart from looking. And no one's going to look unless
the call to look is declared. Many are called. We extend that
call to all men. Few are chosen. God has to make
that call effectual to our hearts. And so as we extend the call,
my hope and prayer is for each one of us that we'll be saying,
oh Lord, let me hear your voice. Let me experience your call. Don't let me just hear the voice
of the preacher. Susan and I were talking the
other day and she was saying that one of the things that Henry
often said in preaching was, don't take my word for it. Check
it out. See what the scriptures say.
And I would amen that. Not only would I say don't take
my word for it, I'm not interested in you hearing my voice. except
as a means through which God would be pleased to speak effectually
to our hearts. And so that's our hope, isn't
it? And John was fulfilling this
prophecy that was made some 650 years before he was born. when he came and said in verse
3, look with me in verse 3, the voice of him that crieth in the
wilderness. Now here's the picture. Zion
is where the temple's built. That's where the sacrifice is
made. That's the gospel. Everything about that temple
pictured Christ. From the one door entering into
the temple, to the blood sacrifices, to the holies of holies, to the
veil, which is a picture of his body, to the Ark of the Covenant,
and all that was inside the Ark of the Covenant, everything in
that tabernacle pointed to the Lord Jesus Christ. Now the Israelites
were scattered all throughout Judea, much of which was wilderness. And so the prophet is calling
out to all the people of Judah, come to Jerusalem. Come to the
place where the sacrifice is made, because God said, here
I will meet with you. Now we know that the physical
fulfillment of that is no longer. As a matter of fact, sitting
on the same exact place where that temple was built is a Muslim
mosque. the dome of the rock is sitting
right there. So the Lord has done away with
that. It's the spiritual application. That's why we say this is not
a, you know, people say people like going to the Holy Land and
they like experiencing those places. No, this is the Holy
Land. This is Zion This is Jerusalem,
and God is calling his people out of the wilderness to come
to the place where Christ is to be met and to be known. And
he's to be known in the preaching of the gospel, isn't he? Faith
is the only means by which we can be saved. And the means by
which we receive faith is hearing. Hearing the gospel. Faith comes
by hearing, and hearing comes by the Word of God. I know I've
shared this with you before, but you understand why the Lord
would use hearing as the means by which He saves His people?
It's passive. It's passive. He's not going
to let you make a contribution to your salvation. Isn't it wonderful? He's just stripped us of anything
that we can do. We're not asking for input. We don't have Bible studies where
people get together and pool their ignorance and come up with
some wild conclusions about things. We preach the gospel believing
that God's going to give the hearing ear and the seeing eye,
the scripture says, is of the Lord. And so God will give hearing
ears and he will give seeing eyes through the preaching of
the gospel. He's not going to let us make
a contribution to our salvation. He's going to get all the glory. Why do you labor for that which
satisfieth not? You know what we just read in
Isaiah 55? Come. You thirsty? Come to the waters.
Buy. Without money. And without price. Don't bargain with God. Just
come. God's people will come. They
need to be called to come. I need to be called to come.
I need to be reminded. Why? Because I'm so prone to
wander. Aren't we? We live in the wilderness. We live in a dry and thirsty
land. And all the things that we do
in our lives, it does not satisfy the thirst of a live soul. It doesn't. If you're a child
of God, you cannot be satisfied with anything this world has
to offer. And we enjoy the things the Lord's given us, and we get
way too wrapped up in them, don't we? And then we have to be reminded
of how unable they are to satisfy our thirst to give us life. And so the Lord says, The voice
of him that crieth, he's crying, he's declaring, he's heralding,
that's the word here, he's preaching to those cities of Judah. Come out of the wilderness and
prepare. Now that word prepare, I think
there's only one other time where it's translated prepare. The
majority of times this word is used in the Old Testament, it
is translated turn, and then it's also translated look. Turn
or look. That's what repentance is. Repentance
is turning. Now we know that what God requires,
God must provide. Turning is not a work that we
do, yet he uses the means of calling on men to turn. Calling
on men to change their minds about how it is that God is pleased
to save sinners. Change their minds about works
and believe that it's all of grace. Change their minds about
a God who's dependent upon them to do something in order for
Him to be able to save them. And to believe with all your
heart that salvation is of the Lord. It's all of Him. And so
He says, He says, prepare ye the way of the Lord or turn and
look. Look to Christ and make straight
In the desert, a highway for our God. A straight shot. No steps, no diversions, the
simplicity of Christ. There's nothing left to be done. It's finished. It's all done. So John says, look to Christ. And then, you know, the Pharisees
and the Sadducees came out to hear John preach, and he said,
he said, you children of vipers, why do you come? And then he
chastised them. He said, do not say that we be
the children of Abraham. God can raise up children of
Abraham from these rocks. So don't trust in your birth
or your heritage or anything else. And in fact, that's exactly
what the Lord did, isn't it? If He saved you, then He took
out your heart of stone and gave you a heart of flesh. He birthed
you from a rock. God can make children of Abraham
from the rocks. Isn't that glorious? They weren't They weren't interested
in the message of, and what did John say? Repent. Repent. Change your mind about how it
is that God saves you. Change your mind about your inability. to produce anything that would
merit any favor whatsoever with God. Change your mind about who
he is, the sovereign God who has already successfully accomplished
the salvation of his people. This is a summary of everything,
isn't it? And that's what he's saying.
He says, every valley shall be exalted. Now what that means
is the humble shall be lifted up. Those that have a broken
spirit and a contrite heart, those who have received a work
of grace in their hearts and caused them to see that they
are hell-deserving sinners, they're going to be lifted up. They're
going to see that in Christ, they're righteous and perfect
before God. The humble are going to be lifted
up. They're going to be given hope.
They're going to be given life. And every mountain and hill shall
be made low. The proud, the self-righteous,
those who look down their nose at other men, thinking that they've
got something that somebody else doesn't have, the proud are going
to be made low. What a work of grace. Here's
what the Gospel does, isn't it? It does both, doesn't it? It humbles our pride and it encourages
our humility, gives us hope in Christ. And the crooked shall
be made straight and the rough places plain. Now, what does
that mean? What does that mean? Well, the
picture is that of some workers that are preparing a road They
didn't have paved roads like we have, so the roads would get
obstacles in them. They'd get rocks in them, or
trees would fall over them, and the workers had to go out in
front of the king in order to remove the obstacles out of the
way so that the king could come unobstructed to Jerusalem. And so what he's saying is make
plain, make straight, remove the obstacles. I got to thinking
about what some of these obstacles are. The very thing that you
will hear in free will, man-made, works religion as the means of
your salvation is really an obstacle. It's an obstacle. What do they
say? Make a decision. Make a decision. Now if you know anything of grace,
that's an obstacle to you. You don't want to be told to
make a decision. You don't want to be told to exercise your free
will. Why? Because you know what your
decision making is like, don't you? How many bad decisions have
you made in your life? How many commitments have you
made that you haven't kept? You see, so the very thing that
religion lays out for the hope of your salvation, the gospel
sees it as an obstacle. And God says, get those obstacles
out of the way. Remove them. They're stumbling
stones. They're keeping men from Christ.
Another obstacle that men put in the way is good works. If
you'll make this decision, and then you'll live by these rules
and regulations, and you'll look for evidence of life in your
life, then you'll have hope of salvation. That's an obstacle.
That's an obstacle. If you're going to tell me to
look to my good works for the hope of my salvation, God's shown me that all my works
are filthy rags, and that becomes an obstacle to me. I can't find
any hope for my soul in the works that I've performed. The only
work that I can look to for the hope of my salvation is the perfect
work of righteousness accomplished by Christ and the work of atonement
that he accomplished on Calvary's cross. So the Lord is saying,
make straight the way. Remove the obstacles. Don't give
men something to do. Don't give them a prayer to pray,
a decision to make, a work to perform. Those are obstacles. Tell them to look to Christ. He's the only one that ever kept
all of his promises. He's the only one that ever performed
works that were satisfactory to God. And so in preaching,
what are we doing? We're exposing the obstacles
that men put in the way. You know another obstacle that
men put in the way? Knowledge. Knowledge. You need to have more
knowledge. And, you know, you need to go
to this discipleship class. You need to have this theological
training. You need to have this information. And before you can
be saved, you've got to have more knowledge. You've only got
to have knowledge of two things. And God will give them to you.
You've got to know that you're a sinner. And you've got to know
that Christ is the Savior. That's it. Do you know that? Do you believe that? That you are a sinner. That everything about you before
God is sinful. That's what he's going to go
on to say. Tell them that they're all grass. And that the Lord Jesus Christ
is God's approved and successful Savior for sinners. This is a
faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation. Christ Jesus
came into the world to save sinners. You see, that's a knowledge of
something that the natural man can't have. The natural man doesn't
believe that he's a sinner. Only the spiritual man knows
that. Only the one who's been given ears to hear believes that
they are sinners. That everything about them falls
short of the glory of God. That they've never been able
to keep one of God's laws not one single time. And the natural man, oh, he calls
Jesus Lord. The Lord said, you honor me with
mere lips, but with your heart, you're far from me. No man can
say that Jesus is accursed by the Holy Spirit. Now, what is
it to be accursed? What is it to be accursed? It's
to be separated from God with no hope and no reward. To say that Jesus Christ died
for someone who's going to end up in hell is to call Jesus Christ
accursed. That's to say that he was cursed
by God, he was separated from God without the benefit of reward. He wasted his effort. No man
can say that. Not if he's got the Holy Spirit. And no man can call him Lord
without the Spirit of God. Not with understanding. To say
that he's Lord, that's a work of grace. He's absolutely sovereign. I bow to him, trusting him alone
for all my salvation. That's the only knowledge you
have to have. So when the Lord says, make straight the way,
remove the obstacles, get those rocks out of the way, get those
trees and move them out of the way. Why? They're hindering men
from getting to Christ. Free will is an obstacle. Good
works is an obstacle. More knowledge is an obstacle.
And I thought of a fourth one. I'm sure there's more. Feelings. You need to have a feeling. You
need to have an experience. That's an obstacle. Why? Because your feelings are just
like everything else about you. They're fickled. They're fickled. Feelings come and feelings go.
Feelings are deceiving. My only warrant is the Word of
God. None else is worth believing.
I believe God. I believe every word that He's
spoken. You know, people say, well, how
much do you have to believe to be a believer? If God makes you
to be a believer, you're just going to believe it all. You're
going to believe every bit of it, aren't you? And the Lord
said in John chapter three, he said, he said, this is the condemnation. Light has come into the world
and men would not come to the light. Why? Because they loved
darkness more than light. Why? Because the light exposed,
and I'm paraphrasing, their evil deeds. The light of the gospel
exposes the self-righteousness of the religionist. The one who's
trusting in something they've done, a will that they've exercised,
a work that they've performed, a knowledge that they have, knowledge
of theology or whatever, a feeling that they... See, people, we
did it. We trusted in an experience.
No, when we cried and we came down front, we prayed the prayer
and we got baptized, and we're looking back to that experience
thinking, men won't come to the light.
Let's read those verses, I can't quote them. John chapter 3, verse
19. And this is the condemnation.
That light is coming to the world and men loved darkness rather
than light because their deeds were evil. The religionist won't come to
Christ. Why? Because it exposes all those
things that he's hoping in for his salvation as being evil. The decision that he made, the
works that he performed, the feelings that he had, the experiences,
all those things, he won't come to Christ. The irreligious won't
come to Christ because they're holding on to their darkness
and they refuse to come. Look what he says. For everyone
that doeth evil, and that's the religious and the irreligious, Why? Because anything other than
trusting Christ is evil. Whatever's not of faith is sin.
And so he says, for everyone that doeth evil, hateth the light,
neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. That word means discovered. It
won't come to Christ because their religious deeds are discovered
for what they are, iniquity. and their fleshly deeds are discovered
for what they are, sin. But he that doeth truth, what
is it to do truth? It's to believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ. He that doeth truth cometh to
the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are
wrought in God. Now that's the same word that
we use for wrought iron. When you take just a plain piece
of metal and fashion it with heat and hammering into something
beautiful. And that's what God does, isn't
it? He rots us. And whatever faith I have, God
gave it to me. Whatever knowledge I have of
Christ, God gave it to me. Whatever desire I have to follow
after Him, God gave it to me. All these things are wrought
in Him. And we don't take any glory or
any credit, do we? No flesh should glory in His
presence. This is the summary of everything,
isn't it? This is just a glorious description. Get those things out of the way.
Feelings? Well, if I could just feel a
little bit more sorry for my sin. You can't You can't feel
sorry enough for your sin. We don't have any understanding
of how evil our sin is. The Lord Jesus Christ, by his
knowledge, my righteous servant shall justify many. He's the
one that drank the bitter dregs of God's justice on Calvary's
cross and experienced, he experienced the full weight of every one
of your sins. And God saw the travail of his
soul and was satisfied. God doesn't look to the travail
of my soul and God's not satisfied. Oh, I pray that the Holy Spirit
would break me over my sin. I pray he'd break you over your
sin. I pray he'd cause hatred in our hearts for our sin. I
pray that he would cause us not to sin. But none of that is going to
earn us any favor with God. God saw the travail of His soul
and was satisfied. Light has come into the world.
This is the condemnation. But men love darkness rather
than light. Why? Because the light discovers their
deeds for what they are, evil. Evil. But he that doeth truth
He cometh to the light. And what does he declare? That
work of grace was wrought in God. He was wrought in God. He was wrought in Christ. And
he wrought it in me. All right, go back with me to
our text. So the prophet is saying exactly
what John said. Repent. Get those obstacles out
of the way. And isn't it ironic that the
very thing that men present as the means of salvation, once
you hear the gospel, you come to realize that those things
are not means to salvation, they are the obstacles of salvation.
They're the very things keeping men from Christ. Verse 5 in our text, Isaiah chapter
40, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed. He gets all the glory, doesn't
He? For everything. He gets the glory for choosing
us, for redeeming us, for atoning for us, for sanctifying us, for
adopting us, for calling us. He gets all the glory for keeping
us and presenting us faultless before God. He gets all the glory. I can't take credit for anything. And all flesh shall see it together,
for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. When a word goes out from God's
mouth, it accomplishes the purpose for which God sent it. And this
gospel message will harden some, it will be a savor of death to
some. Some will hear it and they'll
reject it. Why? Because their deeds are
evil. It's just that simple. They cannot and will not confess
their deeds for what they are, evil. And so they won't come
to the light. and the gospel will actually
harden them. The mouth of the Lord hath spoken
it. Oh, never a man spake like this
man before. Don't you love it when they sent
those arresting police to bring the Lord back to the Sanhedrin
and they came back empty handed, where is he? We couldn't touch
him. We couldn't touch him. His words
were too powerful. We were afraid of him. And that's every believer's experience,
isn't it? We don't want to put our hands
to what he's done. His words are too powerful. His words are
life and truth. And there's no words anywhere
else out there like that, is there? I can't speak those kind
of words. The politicians aren't speaking
those kind of words. The educators aren't speaking
those kind of words. The economists aren't speaking
those kind of words. There's no words like the Word
of God. But He's given us His Word. And
His Word has become flesh. And He's dwelt among us. And
we by the eyes of faith have beheld his glory as the only
begotten of the Father, the only one that's full of grace, full
of grace, not works, grace. The law was given by Moses, but
grace and truth came by the Lord Jesus Christ and full of truth. Oh, Lord, speak to my heart.
Speak to me. Just cause me when I hear your
word to always say, Amen. Amen. No ifs, ands, or buts. No debates. No objections. And the voice said, Cry. Again, that word is declare. Proclaim. Make it simple. Don't don't make religion so
convoluted, isn't it? I mean, it's what do I do this
or do I do that or did I do it right or which one or how much
and how often it's and the gospel is so simple. No wonder Paul
said, I fear, lest as Eve was deceived by the serpent, that
you would be drawn away from the simplicity that is in Christ. Christ is all and he's in all. And so the Lord's saying to the
prophet, cry, declare the gospel to them. Tell them about Christ. Tell them who he is. Tell them
what he's done. And the prophet says, well, where
do I start? Look what he says, look what he says in verse 6. And cry, and he says, what shall
I cry? Where do I begin this message?
Begin by telling them that all flesh is grass. That's free. Because apart from
the grace of God, apart from the new birth, Apart from Christ
being in me, which is my hope of glory, I'm nothing but flesh. And this grass he's speaking
of is not a manicured lawn. This is the wild grass. This is the weeds and the grass
that's growing in the fields. Tell them they're like that. You know what the Lord's saying?
Don't look to your flesh for proof of life. Don't look to your flesh for
proof of life. Say, well, all my children, my
children are believers, and I go to services, and I read the Bible,
and I'm a spiritual man. Don't look to the flesh for proof
of life. You're going to deceive yourself. Tell them they're grass. Paul said, In me, that is, in
my flesh dwelleth no good thing. Nothing. They that are in the flesh, Romans
chapter 8, cannot please God. Nothing we do in the flesh can
please God. Tell them that they are grass. Look what he says. All flesh
is grass and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the
field. You say, well, I've been able
to produce some good things in my flesh. Yeah, if you compare flesh to
flesh, flesh does some good things and flesh does some bad things.
And, you know, I hope that, you know, we do some good things
in our flesh. But you know what those good things are? It's just
the flower of the grass. The grass withereth, and the
flower fadeth away. There's no substance to it. There's
no salvation in it. There's no salvation in it. Salvation's
all in Christ. Do good things in your flesh.
Do good things for people. Be kind, be considerate, be thoughtful. But don't look to proof of life
from your flesh. Look for proof of life in Christ. Do I believe the gospel? Do I
believe Christ? Am I resting and hanging all
the hopes of my soul on that nail that's been set in a sure
place? Is Christ my life? Because He's the only one that
God's pleased with. The grass witherth, the flower
fadeth. Why? Because the Spirit of the Lord
bloweth on it. If the Spirit of the Lord has
blown on your flesh, then what I'm telling you right
now, from God's Word, you know is true. You know it's true. That which is of the flesh is
flesh. The flesh profiteth nothing. It is the Spirit that quickeneth.
It's the Spirit that giveth life. The Spirit of the Lord has blown
on my flesh. And what is the conclusion that
the child of God has come to when the Spirit of God blows
upon him? I'm a sinner. Everything about my flesh is
sinful. Nothing that I can produce in my flesh will earn me favor
with God. I am completely dependent upon
another. I'm dependent upon one outside
of me, completely outside of me, for all my righteousness
before God. Now the natural man doesn't believe
that. He does not believe that. He believes he's got something
that's going to merit him some favor with God. He's comparing
himself to himself thinking that he's getting better. Or he's
comparing himself to other men, thinking that he is better, he's
above average at least. It's just all flesh, isn't it?
Just one worm competing with another worm, seeing who's higher
up in the dirt. No, when the Spirit of the Lord
bloweth upon your flesh, then you will say, surely, surely
the people is grass. They're all grass, they're just
like me. That's why the people of God, you know, I know we all have different
personalities and different, but child of God, don't be intimidated
by anybody. by anybody. They're flesh. They're just like you. They're
grass. Don't be impressed with them.
And don't try to impress anybody else with your own flesh. And if the Spirit of the Lord
has blown upon you, then you're thinking right now in your heart,
oh, that's so true, amen. Amen, I need to be reminded of
that. The grass withereth, the flower
fadeth, and it does. Fades in age, but
it also fades You know, we might have thoughts of pride for some
good thing that we do and then the spirit of the Lord blows
upon it and he fades it away, doesn't he? You wanna multiply your sin,
just be proud of something that you've done. You're just gonna
make it worse. But the word of our God shall
stand forever. Oh, child of God, aren't you
so thankful to have a word from God that you know is not going
to move? It's not going to change. Philosophy
changes. Nations change. Governments change. Everything changes. The economy
changes. But God says, My Word stands
forever. And not one jot or tittle of
this Word will pass away. The Lord Jesus Christ came as
the Word of God to fulfill all the promises of God's Word. And
He cannot fail. And He's not discouraged. And He's accomplishing His purpose
right now. Right now, as His Word goes out
in my heart and in your heart, He's giving us hope. He's given
us strength. He's given us substance. It's like the hymn we sang, Dope
and the Service. The Bible is a book of Christ.
This Word all points to the Living Word, doesn't it? Oh, Zion. Oh, Zion. Now, we've been studying Hezekiah.
During those 15 years that Hezekiah lived after the Lord healed him,
he commissioned a tunnel because, remember, the prophet tells him
the Assyrians are coming back. Well, you might not know that.
In chapter 39, the prophet Isaiah told Hezekiah the king that Babylon's
coming. And they're going to take away
everything. And so Hezekiah commissioned the construction of a tunnel.
It's still there today. It goes from the spring of Gihon,
which means living water or gushing water, which is down in the valley
of Kidron, outside of the city of Jerusalem, and goes through
solid rock for 1,750 feet and ends up inside the city supplying
water to the pool of Siloam. And I mean, it was a marvel. It still is. You can't figure
out how they dug it. I mean, it's hundreds of feet
deep and it's through solid. Matter of fact, they started
at both ends and met in the middle. No idea how it was done. I got
thinking, isn't that, Christ is that spring of living water.
And he's cut a channel through solid rock. to bring water into
Zion. And you know what Zion translated
means? A parched land. A parched land. And apart from
that water being brought in from that living well, we would be
in a parched land. The Lord has provided living
water in the pool of Salome. Peace. Peace with God in the
Lord Jesus Christ. What hope. And so he's crying
to Zion, oh Zion, that bringeth good tidings, that bringeth good
tidings. What are the good tidings that
Zion brings? Well, there's the good tidings
that all flesh is grass. That's a good tiding, isn't it?
Don't tell me that there's something in my flesh that I can bring
to God. That's not good news to me. I don't find any hope in what
I'm able to produce in my flesh. So the good tidings is all flesh
is grass. The good tiding is that God sovereignly
elected a people according to his own will and purpose before
time ever began. That's good news. Because if
my salvation is determined by me choosing him, I don't find
any hope in that. I don't find any peace. I'm in
a parched land. There's no living water coming
to me. If my salvation is determined
by a choice that I have to make, tell me about a God who has elected
his people according to his own will and purpose. Tell me about
a God who has successfully redeemed his people. The longer I live
and the more I watch myself and other people, the more I'm convinced
that we just aggravate our sins by trying to atone for ourselves.
We do. We're constantly tempted to atone
for our own sins. And the more we try to atone
for ourselves, make up for things, the less hope we have, the less
peace, the less comfort, the less rest we have. Tell me about
a Redeemer who has successfully atoned for my sins. He's put
them away and He's presented Himself before God. Tell me about
one who irresistibly calls His people. Don't tell me about a
God that I've got to somehow persuade to take me. Tell me about a God who persuades
me to believe on Him. I need an irresistible call. If you give me a call that I
can resist, I'm going to resist it. These are good tidings, aren't
they? Tell me, you're telling me, you
know, I was talking to somebody this week and they were sharing
the gospel with a Reformed Calvinist. And I said to them, I said, well,
you know, in the Arminian, Christ, here's what I said, I said, Christ
is the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end. And in
free will Arminianism, they deny Christ as the alpha. They say,
no, you gotta make the first step. Then he'll carry you through
to the end, you know one saved always saved so you'll you know
He's the Omega, but you got to be the Alpha and in Reformed
Calvinism They they say oh, no, you can't make the first step.
God's got to sovereignly Regenerate you that's a work of grace and
they make Christ to be the Alpha very strongly but then they deny
him to be the Omega saying that you got to hold out and You've
got to do your part. You've got to keep the law. You've
got to prove to us that there's proof of life in your behavior. And so they deny him as the Omega. Aren't you glad that he's the
Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the
last? And it's good news that he keeps his people from falling
and presents them faultless. He delivers them gloriously to
heaven. I go and prepare a place for
you. Let not your heart be troubled. My father's house are many dwelling
places. If it were not so, I would have
told you. And he has prepared that place. And we have a priest
who intercedes on our behalf. That's good news. Salvation is
of the Lord. And that's what John preached. That's what every prophet of
the Old Testament preached. That's what Isaiah is being commissioned
and called by God to preach. That's what every gospel preacher
today preaches. Salvation is of the Lord. He's
done it all by himself. And he gets all the glory. And God's people say, oh, that's
good tidings. That's good tidings. I'm so thankful. Oh, Zion that bringeth good tidings,
get thee up to the high mountain. Now that's Mount Zion. That's
the top of the, that's where the dome of the rock is built
today. But that's where the temple was
built. And that's where Abraham offered up Isaac. Same place. That God says, here's where the
lamb's gonna be slain. And what did God say to Abraham?
God shall provide himself a lamb. He'll provide himself. God did
the providing. He provided the lamb to himself.
And he was the lamb that he provided. God shall provide himself a lamb. Get ye up to the high mountain.
Don't settle for anything less. Oh Jerusalem that bringeth good
tidings, lift up thy voice with strength, lift it up, be not
afraid. Men hate this message. They hate
our God and they will hate you. If you're looking to get along
in this world, You know What Lord makes it clear you you're
gonna have you're gonna have some enemies if you you declare
this message Say unto the cities of Judah
behold by God I Have to leave you read this last verse. I know
we're I We're going a little long. Behold, the Lord God will
come. Now I've mentioned to you several
times, the prepositions in the Hebrew sometimes are hard to,
here's the proper interpretation of this verse. Behold, the Lord
God will come against the strong and his arm shall rule for him. The Lord God will come against
the strong and his arm shall rule for him. Now what's strong
in your life? I know what's strong in your
life because it's strong in my life. Satan's strong. Your flesh is strong. The temptation
of sin is strong. Death is strong. Men have been looking for the
fountain of youth since the beginning of time. They haven't found it
yet. No one has escaped it. Death's coming. And it's strong. The Lord has come against the
strong. And with a strong right arm,
He's defeated the strong. Oh, let death march on. Oh, grave, where is thy victory? The strength of death, the strength
of the grave is sin. The strength of sin is the law. And death has been conquered. Christ has satisfied the demands
of the law. Behold, the Lord God, that's
the Lord Jesus Christ, will come against the strong and his arm
shall rule for him. Behold, his reward is with him
and his work is before him. Now the Lord Jesus Christ is
the only one, the only man, who could present his work before
him to recommend him to God. His works went before him. Now
that's what everybody's trying to do. That's what religion's
all about. Men trying to present their works,
their knowledge, their free will, their good attempts. They're
trying to usher themselves into heaven by presenting their good
works to God. The Lord Jesus Christ, the only
one, whose works went before him. You present anything to God other
than the work of Christ. the person of Christ for the
hope of your salvation, God will reject those works. You will
have no acceptance. We have acceptance before a holy
God in the Beloved. Say unto the cities of Judah,
Behold your God. Look to Christ. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father, we are so
very thankful For the declared truth of your word, the simplicity
of the gospel, the hope that you give to your people in Christ.
Oh Lord, increase our faith. Cause us to find in him our all
in all. For it's in his name we pray.
Amen. You're dismissed. Okay.