Good morning. Let's all stand
and we'll open this hour of worship with him that's on the back of
your bulletin. Let's all stand together. Wherewith shall we approach the
Lord, And bow before his throne, By trusting in his faithful word,
And pleading Christ alone? The blood, the righteousness,
and love of Jesus will we plead. He lives within the veil above
for us to intercede. Then let His name forever be
to us supremely dear, Our only all-sufficient plea, for all
our hope is there. We bless thee for thy word and
laws. We bless thee for thy peace. And we do bless thee, Lord, because
there is the throne of grace. Please be seated. Good morning. For a scripture
reading, would you turn to Romans 10. Romans 10. Verse one. Brethren, my heart's desire and
prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved For I bear
them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to
knowledge. For they being ignorant of God's
righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness,
have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God. They have not bowed to Christ. For Christ is the end of the
law for righteousness to everyone that believeth. For Moses describeth
the righteousness which is of the law, that the man which doeth
those things shall live by them. If you're here this morning thinking that somehow you can work the law out, God says, do
it perfectly, you shall live by them. But the righteousness
which is of faith, speaking of Christ, speaks on this wise,
forbid it so, say not in thy heart who shall ascend into heaven,
that is to bring Christ down from above, or who shall descend
into the deep, that is, to bring up Christ again from the dead,
no works of this hand will ever obligate God to do anything,
only Christ. And he says that in verse eight,
but what saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in
thy mouth and in thy heart, that is, the word of faith, Christ,
which we preach. that if thou shalt confess with
thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shalt believe in thy heart that
God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be safe. Let's pray. O gracious and merciful Heavenly
Father, we come into thy presence now in the name of thy dear Son,
the Lord Jesus Christ, the word of faith, all our righteousness,
the precious blood for the forgiveness of our sin. Lord, we do ask, and it's our
heart's desire, that as we hear the preaching of your word, Lord,
that you would be pleased once again to speak to our hearts,
that when we leave here, we shall confess that Jesus is Lord and
that Lord, you are pleased to raise him for you are satisfied
with what he has accomplished. Lord, it is not our righteousness,
but it is his righteousness that justifies us in thy sight. Lord, I pray you'd be pleased
to do that now by blessing your word that we would see the living
word lifted and exalted. Ask that you would do that now
for our brother as he comes to bring your word that we would
see Christ and that we would hear your voice through him. For we ask it in his name and
for his sake. Amen. Number 11 in the Gospel Hymns
Spiral Helmet. Number 11. Let's all stand together. With broken heart and contrite
sigh, A trembling sinner, Lord, I cry, Thy pardoning grace is
rich and free. O God, be merciful to me. I smite upon my troubled breast
With deep and conscious guilt oppressed Christ and His cross
my only plea O God, be merciful to me ? No works nor deeds that I have
done ? ? Can for a single sin atone ? ? To Christ the Lord
alone I flee ? ? O God be merciful to me ? And when redeemed from
sin and hell, with all the ransomed throng I dwell, my raptured song
shall ever be. God has been merciful to me. Please be seated. What a blessing it would be for
us all to be able to leave here this morning saying, God has
been merciful to me. I mean, really merciful. We're
not just being thankful for our temporal blessings, but merciful
to our souls. taking away our sins, giving
us hope. I meant to mention earlier that
I know the Finbys were in a car accident this past week, and
they're all fine. We're thankful for that. Digna
also was, and the lady that was in the car with her was injured,
was in ICU. I think she's out now, and I
wanted to pray for Digna's friend that was injured in that car
accident. Also, if you all could pray for my family, we have a
lot of family members that are coming to town this week. My mother passed away Thursday,
and I don't have any of my family members
that are believers. And some of them will be here
on Wednesday, and I'm hoping they'll come to services here
Wednesday night. And that maybe also we'd have
a chance to talk to them this week. So your thoughts and prayers
to that end would be much appreciated. Let's pray together. Our Heavenly
Father, we're so thankful for your mercy, thankful for your
grace, thankful for the hope of eternal life that you put
into the hearts of your children. Lord, we do pray that you would
cause people to have an interest in their own souls and cause
them to ask us questions and show a desire for the hope that
we have. We pray that you would give us
grace to speak to them with fear and meekness. We pray, Lord,
that this week that there would be members of my family that
you would be pleased to show mercy toward. Father, we pray
for Digna's friend, and we ask that you would recover her injuries. We thank you for keeping our
sister safe, and Lord, we do pray for the doctors that minister
to this dear lady. Perhaps, Lord, too, that it would
be an opportunity for her to have a desire for Thee and for
Digna to be able to share with her. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen. You have your Bibles. I'd like
for you to open them with me to Isaiah chapter 33. Isaiah
chapter 33. As I prepared this message and
thought about what this one verse says, it struck me that these
are the three branches of our government. Now, I'm not interested
in giving a civics lesson, but if you'll bear with me for just
a moment, I believe the Lord will teach us something about
the kingdom of God by contrast from the form of government that
we have in this country. But you see the verse, look at
it with me. Verse 22, the Lord is our judge. We have a judicial branch that
is given the responsibility by our constitution to interpret
the law. The Lord is our lawgiver. We have a legislative branch
made up of two houses of representatives from each state that compromise
together for writing the law. The Lord is our king. We have an executive branch of
government that is responsible under the guidelines of our constitution
to execute the laws that have been written by the law givers
and that are interpreted by the judges. I thought, I wonder if
our founding fathers had any interest in this passage of scripture.
So I just went online and checked it out and sure enough, Sure
enough, James Madison, the fourth president of our country, the
author of most of our Constitution, wrote all of the first 10 Bill
of Rights, stood before the Constitutional Convention in 1787 when our founding fathers were
trying to decide whether or not to have a central government.
and how to form that central government. There were many of
the states that weren't interested in having a central government,
but Madison got up and read this verse and said, now don't misunderstand
me, I'm not suggesting that our nation is a Christian nation
or that our founding fathers were even Christians, but they
did find many biblical principles, and I'm thankful for the freedoms
that we've enjoyed in this country as a result of it. Why did Madison
read this verse? And why do we have the form of
government that we have today? A good reason for that is what
we see this morning. You saw that Fidel Castro died
yesterday, I guess it was. I actually used to live in Cuba.
Fidel Castro, when he overthrew the dictator of Cuba, Batista,
who was a cruel dictator, Fidel Castro had good intentions. He could have led that country
to great prosperity. But what happened to him? What
happened to him? He got a taste of power. And power corrupts. And our forefathers
understood that principle. And so the reason that we have
three branches of government is so that the power does not
rest in one man. It's divided among many. And compromise has to be made
in order for decisions to be made. We can't handle power. We can't. It corrupts us. We need the division of powers
in order to control us. The Lord is our judge. The Lord is our lawgiver. The
Lord is our king. We shall be saved. All three branches of government
reside in Him, and we love it that way. He doesn't consult
any man. He has absolute total power. over writing the laws, interpreting
the laws, and executing the laws, and the only hope that you and
I will be saved is if he has all that power all by himself. We say power corrupts, absolute
power corrupts, absolutely. No man has ever had absolute
power. Our God has absolute power. How does that make you feel?
What do you believe about that? What do you think about that?
Does that give you hope? Does that give you comfort? To
know that our God reigns sovereign and He does whatsoever He wills
and no man can stay His hand or say unto Him, what doest thou?
To believe and to know that He works all things together for
good, for them that love Him, and those that are called according
to His purpose, our God reigns. He writes the laws, He interprets
the laws, He executes the laws, and God's people say, I'm so
glad. I'm so thankful. What did our Lord say to Pilate
when Pilate asked him, are you a king? Are you a king? And the Lord said, my kingdom's
not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world,
my disciples would fight you. But they're not interested in
fighting the government. Why? Because they're children
of a different kingdom. They're ruled by a different
God. What does the natural man say?
The natural man says, we will not have this Lord reign over
us. Not going to do it. Not going
to bow to Him. Not going to submit to Him. Not
going to give Him absolute control. Well, I live in a democracy. I'm gonna have some say-so about
this. I'm gonna vote my God. I'll have a vote to say about
whether or not God reigns over me. That's exactly what they
say. Well, we'll make a decision.
God wants to be our God, but he's waiting on us to let him
do it. What foolishness. The Lord is our judge. The Lord is our lawgiver. The Lord is our king. And we
shall be saved. That's the only way we're going
to be saved. The only way you're going to be saved, the only way
I'm going to be saved is to bow to him as judge, lawgiver, and
king. He writes the laws. He interprets
the laws. He executes the laws. Have you ever had someone say
to you when you're trying to talk to them about the gospel,
don't judge me. Don't judge me. You're just being
judgmental. No, we're not. No, we're not. We believe ourselves to be the
chief of all sinners. We're not standing in judgment.
We're not pointing our fingers outside the church and talking
about how evil those people are. We know that the evil that we've
got to deal with is in our own hearts. We know that if we lock
ourselves up in the closet, we're just going to take the worst
evil with us. We believe that. What we're telling
people when we tell them the gospel is the standard by which
God judges. Now the Lord said, by your words
you shall be justified and by your words you shall be condemned.
If a man says to you, quit judging me, God is my judge. Say to them,
amen. And if you hold to that, Those
very words, that God will throw back into your face and say,
yep, I am your judge. The Lord is our judge. We believe that. How does he
judge you? How does he judge you? The standard by which the Lord
judges. All men is the perfect righteousness
of the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the plumb line. He's the
standard. Everything else is a teetering
wall. God says, if you don't measure up to the perfection
of my son, if you fall short of his glory, then I will judge
you. I will judge you, condemned for
all eternity. You must be found in Him. Not
having your own righteousness, which is of the law. You cannot
go about, as Burt just read in Romans chapter 10, trying to
establish your own righteousness. Christ is the end of the law
for righteousness to everyone that believeth. Oh Lord, give
me faith. I know I'm gonna stand. There
is a God with whom you must do. Don't fool yourself. Each one
of us are going to take our last breath sooner than we think,
and we're going to stand before a holy God. How is he going to
judge you? How's he going to judge you?
The gospel just tells men the standard by which God judges
everyone. I shared this illustration with
you all before. When I was in the Navy, my job was an instrument
repairman. And so I sat in a clean environment,
and they would send us instruments, pressure indicators, thermometers,
level indicators from other ships. And we would plug them into our
standards. and calibrate them or repair
them so that they measured the same pressure or whatever it
was as the standard. And we called our gauges the
standard. The standard. And sometimes we'd
get a gauge in off a boiler from a ship and it's supposed to read
20,000 psi and it'd read 200 psi. And we thought, oh my goodness,
that boiler could have blown up. You know, these guys working
in that boiler room thought that they only had 200 PSI and they
actually, you know, had 20,000 PSI. You've got to have your gauge
calibrated. Otherwise, it's going to blow
up on you. And you're going to die. Christ is the standard. He's the only one that God Almighty
is looking to. He is our judge. I want to show you a verse of
scripture. The Lord opened this to me this week and I hope it'll
be a blessing to you. Turn with me to Isaiah chapter
53. Isaiah chapter 53. So what does God require of me?
Have you seen where the Pope put out an edict this past week
saying that he's giving the priest permission to absolve women in
the Catholic Church who have had an abortion? If they're really
sorry. If they're really sorry. Is that
the standard that God's going to judge you and I by? If we're
really sorry, if we really mean it, then God will forgive us. Listen carefully to what I'm
about to tell you. You know how sometimes, I say this to my shame
and to your shame, sometimes we jest over an imperfection
in our life. We make light of sin. You know, well, I just, you know,
I was that way. I did this or did... If you could see the one
sin in your life that offends you and others the least, the
kind of sin that you might be tempted to jest over, if you
could see it like God sees it, you'd crawl under a rock and
never want to show your face to another human the rest of
your life. You can't be sorry enough for
your sins. Because you don't see your sin
for what it is. I don't see my sin for what it
is. Now if that's true about those things that we would jest
over, what about the real bad things that we are so ashamed
of that we try to sweep under a rock? You see, if God is looking
to your sorrow and my sorrow for our sin, If that's what he's
judging, you know, people say, well, repentance, repentance
means that you're really sorry. That's not what repentance means.
Repentance means that God has changed your mind about how it
is that God remits your sin. How does He put your sin away?
There was a time when I thought, well, if I could just grieve
enough, if I could just be sorry enough, if I could be brokenhearted
enough, if I could cry enough tears and kneel and pray harder,
then God would see that and He would forgive me. No, He won't. You can't be sorry enough. Why? Because you cannot see your sin
like God sees it. You don't want to see your sin
like God sees it. The only thing you need to know
about your sin is what happened to the Lord Jesus Christ as a
result of it. Now look what God says in Isaiah
chapter 53. Verse 10, yet it pleased the
Lord to bruise him. He was oppressed, he was afflicted,
he bore our iniquities, he bore all our sins in his body, he
bore... You and I, listen to me now,
you and I cannot bear the shame and the guilt of one sin if we
saw it like God sees it. And the way God sees it is the
way it is. The Lord Jesus Christ bore in
his body on Calvary's tree every one of your sins, every one of
my sins, and every sin of every one of God's elect from Adam
to the last one that he saves. That's why in the garden, three
times in the garden of Gethsemane, he said, Father, if there be
any way this cup can pass from me, Let it be. He wasn't talking
about the agony, the physical pain of crucifixion, as horrible
as that was. He was talking about the bitter
dregs of our sin. Nevertheless, not my will, but
thy will be done. His soul was grieved over sin
because he knew that when he got to the cross for the first
time, He was going to experience sin, not his own. Nevertheless, the experience
that he would bear would be the full shame, the full guilt, the
full holiness of his father forsaking him, not being able to look upon
him. And so that's why he says in
verse 10, it pleased the Lord to bruise him. God saw sin as
it really is on his own darling son and he had no choice but
to put him to death. Why? Because his eyes are too
pure to look upon sin. He's holy. He must punish sin. He hath put him to grief. when thou shalt make his soul
an offering for sin. He shall see his seed and shall
prolong his days and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in
his hand. Who's the seed? We are. God saw sin on his son and he
put him to grief. And look at verse 11. He, that's
God the Father, shall see the travail of his soul. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
only man that ever experienced sorrow for sin before God to
such a degree that God said, I'm satisfied. I'm satisfied. He shall see the
travail of his soul and shall be satisfied by his knowledge. What knowledge? What knowledge? The knowledge of sin. You and
I have never had the knowledge of sin. We've never had the knowledge
of sin. Not like this. You've never felt guilt. You've
never felt shame. You've never been broken before
God. Not over your sin. But he was. And God saw the travail
of his soul. And God was satisfied. He's not
satisfied with your sorrow. He's not satisfied with mine.
He's satisfied with Christ. If his judge, if him judging
me is based on the sorrow of my soul, he's going to judge
me guilty. He would say to me, you have
not felt the full weight of sin. I'm not satisfied with your repentance. I'm not satisfied with your sorrow. See, the gospel just tells men
the standard by which God judges everything. He saw the travail
of his soul and he was satisfied. Why? Because by his knowledge
my righteous servant shall justify many and he shall bear their
iniquity. Oh, that's glorious! That's glorious! Can you hear God saying, Christ
bore your iniquity and he, unlike you, felt the full burden of
it before God. He saw the blackness of it. He
saw the darkness of it. He saw the evil of it. His soul was afflicted. And God
said, I'm satisfied. Are you looking to Christ? God's
going to judge you and me by Christ. The Lord is our judge. Not only ours that we see here
physically, but Christ is speaking. God is Christ's judge. And he was satisfied with the
sacrifice that he made of himself to put away our sin. He was satisfied
with the righteousness that the Lord Jesus Christ presented to
God on our behalf. God made him who knew no sin
to be sin. That we might be made the righteousness
of God in him. God judged the Lord Jesus Christ. and judged his life holy and
judged the sacrifice of his death sufficient. And if you're outside of Christ,
you have no hope that God will judge anything you've ever done
as sufficient. You'll never be holy in his sight. The Lord is our judge. The Lord is our lawgiver. I love that. He didn't have to... Let me read this verse. I almost
forgot it. Psalm 73 verse 22. So foolish was I and ignorant. This is David speaking. Listen
to what he says, I was as a beast before thee. An amoral animal. How many of
you have pets? They do something wrong, they
may show a little shame. David said, I was as a beast
before thee. I was just as incapable of experiencing
the full guilt and full shame of my sin as my dog. I couldn't do it. This is so liberating. This is
the freedom of the gospel. God's not waiting for you and
me to get sorry enough. Zechariah chapter 12, they shall
look upon him whom they have pierced and they shall mourn
after him as one mourneth after his only begotten son. The only
thing you need to know about your sin is what it cost the
sinless son of God to put it away. And even though we can't even
begin to comprehend what our sin looks like to God, He did. He did. I don't know what that
meant. I can't relate. I can't enter
into that experience, but I know that He did. And God saw the
travail of His soul, who bore my iniquity, and God was satisfied. And that's enough for me. Is
that enough for you? So next time somebody says, don't
judge me, God's my judge. You say to them, I'm not judging
you. I'm worse than you are. But when you said God's your
judge, you spoke the truth. And if you don't come to Christ,
you'll find those words to be condemnation to you. Because
He's going to judge every sin. Every sin. The Lord is my lawgiver. You
see that? It's such a glorious verse. And
I'm so grateful that, you know, wherever our founding fathers
were spiritually, I don't know where they were. But the principle
here is we belong to a kingdom that doesn't have to divide its
powers. Because our king is a perfect
judge, and he's a perfect lawgiver. And he didn't have to consult
anybody. He didn't have to get a bill
passed through Congress. He didn't have to consult the
Constitution. He didn't have to go to the Bill
of Rights or come up with some sort of amendment in order to
figure out, well, I wonder what kind of laws I should give them.
He wrote the laws that he wanted to be written. And he didn't
consult anybody. And his law has to be kept. It
has to be kept. Perfectly. And the Lord Jesus
Christ, God judged the Lord Jesus Christ. Did he keep my law? Yeah. He kept it. You and I have never
been able to keep one of God's laws. Not perfectly. Not in our hearts. We can't do
it. But through faith we do. Through
faith we do. God looked at Christ, he said,
there's my beloved son, in him I'm well pleased. You hear him. Hear him, follow after him. He's
the law giver. He not only interpret the law,
he kept the law. Do we keep God's law? Turn with me to 1 John chapter
3. Think with me for a minute about
the Ten Commandments. The first four is two stone tablets,
right? Four of them on one stone and
six on the other. And the first four had to do
with our relationship with God and the last six have to do with
our relationship with one another. And the Pharisee asked the Lord,
what is the greatest commandment? And the Lord Jesus Christ said,
love the Lord your God with all of your heart and all of your
mind and all of your soul. And the second is like unto the
first, love your neighbor as yourself. For all the law and
the prophets hang on these two commandments. So, do I love the
Lord with all my heart and all my soul? When I believe on Christ,
I do. Because the Lord Jesus Christ
loved God with all of his heart, all of his mind, and all of his
soul. And to his dying breath, Father, into thy hands I commend
my spirit, he trusted the Father. Even when the Father was thrusting
the sword of his justice into his son's own heart, he trusted
God. He knew it was for the sins of
his bride. And he knew that God would not
allow his holy one to see corruption. He knew God was going to raise
him from the dead. He knew God was going to reward
him for his good work, for his perfect work. And so when I look to Christ,
when I believe on the Lord Jesus Christ for all my righteousness
before God, I'm keeping those first four
commandments. And I can say to you as my brethren,
I experienced this, Trisha and I experienced this on Friday
going out to Texas to Cody's funeral. What a blessing. What a blessing it is to be around
God's people. What? I don't have that anywhere
else. I'm fixing to have just the opposite experience in my
family this week. And it's nothing like it. It's
nothing like the love that God puts in his heart, in our hearts
for one another. You can't not love God's people. You just can't do it. Love your
child of God. verse 23 1st John chapter 3 you
have your Bibles open and this is his commandment that we should
believe on the name of his son Jesus Christ and love one another
as he gave commandment gave us commandment and he that keepeth
his commandments and dwelleth in him and he in him and hereby
we know that he abideth in us by the spirit which he hath given
to us God gives His people, in the
new birth, the Holy Spirit. Romans chapter 8 says, if you
have not the Spirit of God, you're none of His. And if you have
the Spirit of God, the Spirit of God is pointing you to Christ
for all your righteousness, and you believe that He sorrowed
for your sin, He bore your sin, He established your righteousness,
and God will judge you in Him, with all of your heart. And you can't say that you believe,
if you're a child of God, this is my experience, I know it's
your experience too. If you're a child of God, you
don't believe anything like you believe the gospel. Everything else is subject to
error, isn't it? You hold yourself suspect on
everything else you believe. You know, I'm just not sure about,
I think this is the way it is, but when it comes to the gospel,
you say, I know whom I have believed and I am persuaded that he is
able to keep that which I've committed unto him against that
day. Well, all my heart and all my mind and all my soul, I've
got no place else to go but to Christ. And in doing that, by
the grace of God, you have kept his commandment. Those first
four commandments, you've kept them. God's put in your heart of love
don't we we rub each other the wrong way and we but you just
can't get out You can't fall out of love with your brethren
You cannot fall out of love We forgive one another would
love one another you do that in your home you do that with
your with your brethren and And in so doing, love, the scripture
says, is the fulfillment of the law. So, the Lord is our lawgiver. Has
he put his law in your heart? That's what it means to have
the law of God written on your heart. It means that you love
Christ and you love your brethren. You believe on Christ. If He's put His law in your heart, you've kept the law of God. This
is His commandment. The Lord is our judge. He's going
to judge you by the standard of Christ. He's going to judge
me. He's our lawgiver. Has He given you His law? Has
He written His law on your heart? And He's our King. He executes
the law. Oh, He's our King. Lift up your
heads, O ye gates. for the king of glory shall come
in. Psalm 24, who is the king of
glory? The Lord strong and mighty. The Lord mighty in battle. You remember the story of David
going to battle against Goliath? That was the beginning of his
reign as king. Samuel anointed him right after
that. What did David say? What did Goliath say? Send out
one of your men. You let one of your men fight
against me? And Goliath was nine feet tall?
David was so small that Saul's armor was too big for him. And David runs out there on the
field with a sling. He's running at Goliath. And
Goliath's thinking, who is this? You're sending a boy against
me? And he slings that stone and it buries itself in the forehead
of Goliath and then David takes Goliath's own sword and cuts
off his head. And all Israel got the victory
over the Philistines because one man was strong in battle,
mighty, king, king. And then another story, when
David was out battling the Philistines and he left his wives and children,
all the men's children and wives, in Ziklag. And when they came
back home, from a distance they saw the smoke coming up from
the city of Ziklag and they knew what had happened. The marauders
had come in and taken their wives and children, every one of them.
David's men were so grieved. They they just assumed they'd
all been killed or taken captive there. We never see him again
David mustered his men together and went out after the Amalekites
and the end of the story is David recovered all Not one woman not
one child was lost he recovered every one of them Oh, we have
a king. He's called the son of David.
He's gotten the victory. He saved every one of his people.
He's strong and mighty. Open the gates. The king of glory
shall come in. The Lord is our judge. The Lord is our lawgiver. The
Lord is our king. And we shall be saved. Amen. Brother Tom. Let's stand together. Number
42. ? Let us praise the name of Jesus
? ? Prophet, priest and sovereign king ? ? To him render adoration
? ? Lord and homage to him bring ? ? Let us praise the name of
Jesus ? God incarnate from above Came to save His chosen people
Sent from God in covenant love Let us praise the name of Jesus,
Who upon Mount Calvary, Shed His blood and sealed our pardon,
Died from sin to set us free. Let us praise the name of Jesus,
Prison-conquering, gracious Friend, Advocate and Mediator, All our
hopes on Him depend. Let us praise the name of Jesus,
for he brought us to his fold. Come, exalt his name and worship,
may the Savior be extolled. Let us praise the name of Jesus,
Till we see Him face to face Then throughout the endless ages
Praise Him for His love and grace Yeah. Yeah.