Be of good cheer. It is I. Be not afraid. The Lord never used fear with
his children. Don't be afraid. It's me. Come
unto me. I'll give you rest. Brother Bert,
we're gonna sing the hymn on the back of our bulletin. Let's
stand together. ? God is our refuge and our strength
? ? Our ever-present aid ? ? And therefore though the earth remove
? Though nations raise and kingdoms
move, but when His voice is heard, the troubled earth is still to
peace before His mighty Be still and know that I am God,
for all exalted high. The subject nations of the earth
my name shall magnify. A river flows whose streams make
land the city of our God. The holy place wherein the Lord
most high has his abode. You may be seated. Will you open your Bibles with
me to Psalm 143, please. Psalm 143. And we'll begin reading at verse
7. Hear me speedily, O Lord. My spirit faileth, Hide not thy
face from me, lest I be like unto them that go down into the
pit. Cause me to hear thy loving kindness in the morning, for
in thee do I trust. Cause me to know the way wherein
I should walk, for I lift up my soul unto thee. Deliver me, O Lord, from mine
enemies. I flee unto Thee to hide me. Teach me to do Thy will, for
Thou art my God. My spirit, Thy spirit is good. Lead me into the land of uprightness. Quicken me, O Lord, for Thy name's
sake. And for thy righteousness sake,
bring my soul out of trouble. And of thy mercy, cut off my enemies and destroy
all them that afflict my soul. For I am thy servant. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father, we're thankful
that as we read your word, you put it on our hearts for this to be our prayer. Oh,
how we do pray that you would cause us to hear thy voice. We do pray that thou would quicken
us, cause us to come unto thee. Lord, the enemy, the enemy of
sin, the enemy of doubt, the enemy of fear, the enemy of unbelief. Oh, how we pray that you would
comfort us in Christ and destroy that enemy. But we ask it in
Christ's name. Amen. We have a 2-6-4. How firm a foundation, ye saints
of the Lord! He has laid for your faith in
His excellent Word. What more can He say than to
you He has said, to you who for refuge to Jesus have fled. Fear not, I am with thee, O be
not dismayed, for I am thy God. I will still give thee aid. I'll strengthen thee, help thee,
and cause thee to stand. Upheld by my grace should a man When through the deep waters
I call thee to go, The rivers of woe shall not thee overflow. for I will be with thee thy troubles
to bless and sanctify to thee thy deepest distress. When through fiery trials thy
pathway shall line, my grace all sufficient shall be thy supply. The flames shall not hurt, they
I only design, Thy draughts to consume, and Thy gold to The
soul that on Jesus hath leaned for repose, I will not, I will
not desert to his foes. That soul, though all hell should
endeavor to shake, I'll never, no, never, no, never forsake. Will you open your Bibles with
me to Isaiah chapter 28, please. Isaiah 28. Verse 29, this also cometh from
the Lord of hosts. This is from God, which is wonderful in counsel
and excellent in working. You and I are given to exaggeration
when it comes to language. Someone might prepare us a really
good meal and we would, after eating that meal, say, that was
wonderful, thank you. But by that, we don't really
mean that the meal was full of wonder, beyond our comprehension. Or we may say by way of encouragement
to someone, you did an excellent job. But by that we don't mean
that what they did excelled everything that's ever been done by anyone. We exaggerate, don't we? When
the Lord speaks, he doesn't ever use exaggeration. He speaks with
precise terms. And if he says something is wonderful,
it's full of wonder. If he says that something is
excellent, it excels everything. Now I wanna know what God calls
wonderful and what God calls excellent. Because what I call
wonderful and what I call excellent probably isn't. But when God
says it's wonderful, it's wonderful. It's beyond our ability to comprehend. And when God says the work is
an excellent work, By the way, these words are used in the perfect
tense in the original language, which simply put means that it's
an action completed, never to be repeated. So when God says
this is wonderful and this is excellent, he's talking about
what he's done. He's talking about the glorious
person and finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. And he's calling
upon us. to wonder, to wonder at the One
that He has given a name that is above every name, the One
that He has given preeminence to, the One that excels everything,
the One who has finished the work of salvation all by Himself
for His glory. Might God the Holy Spirit inspire
our hearts to wonder at the excellence of the Lord Jesus Christ. Because
everything else, everything else that we wonder at. Jorge and I were talking during
the break, and they just spent a week or ten days or so, two
weeks maybe, in Spain, and he was telling me about some of
the places they saw and how wonderful they were. And if there's anything
in this world that is wonderful, it is something that God's made
in creation. But those things do not compare,
do they? they don't compare to the wonder
that the Lord describes in this passage of scripture and in all
of scripture for that matter for everything in this book describes
the wonder and the excellence of the Lord Jesus Christ so he says these things you see
that this also cometh from the Lord of hosts. This comes from
God. He's Lord over the living and
over the dead. You don't make Him Lord. He is
Lord. He's God. And this is what is
wonderful to Him. And this is what is excellent
to Him. Now whatever is wonderful to
God is wonderful. Whatever is excellent to God
is excellent. We dealt with a couple of these
verses last Sunday, but I have to go back to verse 16 to understand
what the Lord is speaking of here. Therefore, thus saith the Lord
God, behold, I lay in Zion a foundation. Now Paul just talked about that
foundation in 1 Corinthians chapter 3. No other foundation can any
man lay that's been laid. I'm the master builder. I put
down the foundation. That's the gospel. That's Christ,
the chief cornerstone on which everything is built. And only
that which is of Christ We'll stand the test of fire. God,
we just sang that, didn't we? Where the Lord said, thy dross
to consume. I'm not here to hurt you. I'm
here to consume the dross. And the Lord knows exactly how
much fire to put us through, to consume that which is of the
flesh. But here he says the foundation
has been laid. Who laid it? God laid it. And
what God did is wonderful. And what God did is excellent.
This foundation can't be shifted. It can't be changed. It will
sustain the weight of the church. The Lord Jesus Christ said to
Peter, whom do men say that I am? Peter said, some say that thou
art John the Baptist, some Elijah or one of the other prophets.
Whom do you say that I am? Thou art the Christ, the Son
of the living God. And what the Lord say, blessed
art thou Simon Bar-Jonah. Flesh and blood didn't reveal
that to you. You didn't figure that out on your own. You didn't
go to school and learn that. But my Father which is in heaven
has revealed it unto you. And upon this rock, What rock
that the Lord Jesus is the Christ, the son of the living God upon
this rock. I shall build my church and the
gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Everyone that the
father chose everyone that Christ died for the spirit of God is
going to make them willing and they're going to be put into
the church. Here's the foundation that the Lord has laid, and it's
wonderful, and it's excellent. A stone, a tried stone, a precious
cornerstone, a sure foundation, and he that believeth shall not
make haste. We don't run around looking for
any other way. We're resting in Christ. Feet planted on the Lord Jesus
Christ, knowing that he is the tried stone, the sure stone. Judgment also I lay to the line
and righteousness to the plummet and the hail shall sweep away
the refuge of lies and water shall overflow the hiding place.
Your covenant that you made, it's going to go away. The covenant
that God established will last forever, and everything's going
to be tested by Christ. And your covenant with death
shall be disannulled, and your argument with hell shall not
stand when the overflowing scourge shall pass through. Then you
shall be trodden down by it. From the time that it goeth forth,
it shall take you. For morning by morning shall
it pass over, by day and by night. And here's what I want you to
see. Look at the last part of verse 19. And it shall be a vexation
only to understand the doctrine. You see, the person who's made
a covenant with death, the person who's in agreement with hell,
the person who thinks that the promises that they've made God
are securing their salvation, they're not vexed by the threat
of judgment. They're content. They know that they've made a
covenant with death. They have the script. David said
they have no bans in their death. They're completely content with
what they have and what they believe. I'm okay. But here's
the wonder. Here's the excellence of the
gospel. We're vexed when we understand
the report. Who hath believed, Isaiah asks
in another place, who hath believed our report? Now that word report
is the word doctrine. Who's believed the gospel? And
he answers that question in the same verse when he says, to whom
the hand of the Lord has been revealed. That's the wonder. The wonder is that we would not
be comforted in a covenant that we made with death. Are you at
wonder that you're not content like everybody else? Were they
covenant of works? A covenant of free will? A covenant
that's dependent upon something that you do? Do you not wonder,
Lord, why don't I, why not I like everybody else? Why don't I believe
what everybody else believes? Why have you made me to differ?
You see, when the world hears the gospel, They wonder how we
could believe in a God who wouldn't love everybody. A God who wouldn't
die for everybody. A God who wouldn't make salvation
available for everybody. But our wonder is that God would
reveal himself to us. That God would save anybody. Now the Lord says, this is wonderful.
Are you full of wonder that God has vexed your soul over that
covenant of death that you made with God? And everybody came
into this world. I don't care if you grew up listening
to the gospel. In your heart of hearts, you
had a work salvation. You had a works mentality. God
has to break you of that. You something I've got to bring
something I've got to do To believe that the Lord Jesus
Christ did it all by himself Accomplish salvation put away
all your sins and presents himself on your behalf for all your righteousness
You got to be you got to be broken. I A broken spirit and a contrite
heart God will not despise. Why? Because He gave it to you.
He gave it to you. What a wonderful thing it is
to be vexed in your soul at the report of the gospel. Lord, how
could I ever believe such a thing? How could I ever rob Christ of
His glory? How could I ever think that I
could make some contribution to my salvation or that anything
that I did was gold, silver or precious stone? It was all wood, hay and stubble. Are you wondering? Are you wondering? Why God would have mercy on you? Lord, why? Why would you save
me? Why would you save anybody? But
most especially, the chief of all sinners? The dregs of the
earth? The bottom of the barrel? Why
would you come to where I'm at and save a sinner like me? I stand in wonder at the excellence
of your work. The Lord says this is what he
wonders at. Are you wondering and do you
consider excellent what God wonders at and what God considers excellent? For the bed Look at, Isaiah uses
such graphic analogies, doesn't he? We saw previous in this chapter,
the banquet of vomitors and as it displayed a false religion. And now he says, he uses another
analogy that we can all relate to. Have you ever tried to sleep
on a chair or in a sofa or in a car or someplace where you
just couldn't get comfortable? You couldn't rest. Whatever little
bit of sleep you got you woke up feeling worse And here's what
he says for the bed is shorter than a man can stretch himself
on it and the covering Narrower than he can wrap himself in it
The bed that I made in the covenant of works I couldn't rest there
I There was no, and I tried to cover up myself with this blanket,
but it was like, it was like covering a grown man with a little
baby blanket. It just didn't, it didn't work.
It didn't work. It left me, it left me naked. And I wonder that, number one, that I ever
tried to rest there, and number two, that the Lord showed me.
how small that bed was, and how inadequate that covering was. All the covering that God gives
us in Christ covers all our nakedness. When God covered Adam in the
garden, He covered him. He didn't just give him a loincloth.
He covered him. He slew a lamb and covered him
with a fleece that covered all his nakedness. And so it is, when the Lord Jesus
Christ died on Calvary's cross, He covers us with His righteousness. Hides all our sin. Puts them
away from the sight of God. No reason to hide. No reason
to fear. No reason to do what our father
Adam did. Try to make for ourselves. Can you imagine? Clothes made
out of fig leaves? Sewn together? It's what we do,
isn't it? Oh, Lord. I wonder. I wonder what an excellent work
the Lord Jesus Christ accomplished when he shed his precious blood
as the Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world. I wonder at that. The excellency
of that work, not one sin is left. Not one single sin. I was talking to somebody this
week, and they, well, you know, Christ made an offer of salvation,
and he died for everybody, and you make his work effectual by
your faith. That's what the world believes.
That's exactly what the religious world believes. You exercise
your faith, and God will take what Christ did and make it work
for you. And now you know that that's
a bed too short to sleep in. That's a covering that won't
cover you. Every single sin of every single
one of God's chosen elect were placed on the Lord Jesus Christ,
and He bore the burden of them, the shame of them, and the guilt
of them once and for all, and satisfied divine justice by the
shedding of His blood. Not one sin's left. Not a single
one. If God should mark iniquity,
If He took the best thing you and I ever did and judged us
based on that, well, that's a covenant of works, isn't it? That's a
covenant that man makes. Verse 21, for the Lord shall
rise up as in Mount Parazim. He shall be wroth as in the Valley
of Gibeon. These are two battles that God
fought for Israel in the Old Testament. You can look them
up. And destroyed one of them, he rained hailstones from heaven
and destroyed the enemies of Israel. And here the Lord's saying,
the battle's not yours. It's not yours. It's God's and
he's gotten the victory. The Lord Jesus Christ got the
victory. The work has been done excellently. It excels every other work that's
ever been done. And it's a wonder to behold.
It is a wonder to behold. that he may do his work, his
strange work, to bring his act, his strange act. The gospel is
strange to the natural man. It's contrary to everything he
believes. He won't have it. He won't believe
it. And you won't either. It's contrary
to everything that you hold true by nature. The Lord's got to
cause us to believe it, doesn't he? The Lord's got to cause us
to rest. He's got to cause us to come.
He's got to give us faith. Faith is a gift of God. Faith
is not what you do to make what Christ did work for you. In the order of time, regeneration
and faith happen simultaneously. But in the order of events, in
terms of causation, cause and effect, regeneration necessarily
precedes faith. God has to do a work of grace,
regenerating our hearts. And faith is what a regenerated
heart does. Believing God is what a regenerated
heart does. You're not gonna bring faith
to the table. God's going to do a work of grace. He's got,
well, he's holding Nicodemus. Nicodemus, you gotta be born
again. You've got to be born from above. You gotta be born
of the Spirit. And when the spirit of God causes
you to live, you're going to live. And the evidence of that
is you're going to believe. And that's faith. And it's a
gift of God. What a wonder it is. It's a strange
thing to the natural man. Look what he says in verse 22. Now therefore be not mockers,
lest your bands be made strong. For I have heard from the Lord
God of hosts a consumption even determined upon the whole earth.
Now listen to me very carefully about this. Very carefully. There is no sin that's ever been
committed by anyone in this world. I don't care how horrible that
you might think it is. I mean there's some horrible
things that men have done. Horrible things that men have
done. There's nothing like mocking
the gospel. Your family members and your
friends that you've shared the gospel with and they laugh at
what you believe. are tightening the bands. They are tightening the bands. The man who does something immoral
will have his conscience to convict him of that act. The man who mocks the gospel All he's done is sealed his fate. I talked to somebody and they
start rejecting the gospel and I encourage him. I preached a
funeral one time. In a free will Southern Baptist
Church. And the preacher got up after I preached. And started
to recant everything that I had just said. And I was sitting
right there, Robert. This was at a funeral. And I
told him, I said, you better shut up right now. And he did. But I was saying
that for, I mean, he was going to, all he was going to do is
tighten his bands and tighten the bands of his, of everybody
that was there by mocking what had just been preached. Be not mockers, lest your bands
be made strong. For there's a consumption coming.
There is a consumption coming. The whole world's going to be
consumed by fire. And those who have mocked the
gospel will suffer in that day of consumption. Now I love the way the Lord,
do you not wonder at that? Is that wonderful to you? Verse 23, give ye ear and hear
my voice, hearken and hear my speech. Now this is not me talking
to you, this is God speaking to us. He said listen, Listen to what
I'm about to tell you. Don't reject it. Don't deny it. Don't change it. This is the
Word of God. Wonder at it. This is an excellent
message of salvation. This is the only hope you've
got. Everything's going to be consumed
in the end. This is the only thing that's going to stand the
test of fire. the one who has already gone
through the fire. That fourth man that walked with
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the fiery furnace, what the
scripture says, he looked like the Son of God. And they weren't
burned, were they? They weren't burned? The scripture
says not a hair on their head was singed, and they didn't even
smell like smoke when they came out. Why? Because that was the
Lord Jesus Christ. He consumed the heat himself. He walked through that furnace
with them. That's our only hope. There's a furnace coming. I know
you've probably heard that passage of scripture preached when it
comes to the trials and troubles of this life. And there are some
fiery trials that we go through in this life. But that's not
the fire that you need to be concerned about ultimately. It's
the consumption. of this world and there's only
one that can consume the heat. That's the one who walked through
the furnace for us. He's already put out the fire of God. All
flee to Christ. Come to Christ. Trust him. Don't
mock the gospel. Believe a wonder at his excellence. What an excellent savior he is.
Look at verse 24. Doth the plowman plow all day
to sow? Doth he open and break the clods
of his ground? Ezekiel tells us to break the
fallow ground of our hearts. Now, what God commands, God must
provide. So now he's talking about the
Lord being the husbandman. The Lord is the farmer, and he's
breaking open the heart. And David said, if sacrifices
is what you want, I would bring them. But the sacrifices of God,
the sacrifices that God provides, and the sacrifices that God's
pleased with is a broken spirit and a contrite heart. That he
will not despise. And now he's saying, the Lord's
going to break open your heart. Here he is. He's the plowman. And he's not doing it haphazardly.
He's saying, does the plowman just plow the ground without
any purpose? No. God's not going around trying
to get folks saved. He's not just plowing the ground.
He's not just throwing it out there, see what's gonna stick. He's like a farmer who's got
a purpose. And look what he says in verse
25. When he hath made plain the face
thereof, doth he not cast abroad the fitches, and scatter the
cumin, and cast in the principal wheat, and the appointed barley,
and the rye in their place? You see, this farmer's got a
plan. He takes his plow, he breaks open the ground, he puts cumin
here, he puts rye there, he puts wheat over here. He doesn't just
mix it all together. What's the Lord doing? He's telling
us what He does, spiritually. He knows who His children are.
He knows who He chose in the covenant of grace. He knows who
it is that the Lord Jesus Christ gave His life for. He knows where every one of His
sheep are. He's not going to lose a one, is He? And in His
time, He makes them willing in the day of His power. When the
day of love comes, He breaks open their heart and He plants
the seed of the gospel. Verse 26, For His God doth instruct
him to discretion and doth teach him. The Lord Jesus Christ, everything
He did, he did at the discretion of the Father. Every word he
spoke, he spoke the Word of God. He didn't come into this world
and make a haphazard attempt to save anybody. Every step he
took, Every word He spoke, every person He spoke to, everything
He did was excellent and wonderful and with purpose. And the purpose
was the salvation of His people and the glory of God. We serve a God of purpose. Somebody
tells you about a God who's doing His best, You know, God... I talk to people
all the time. I talked to somebody this week.
You know, God votes for you. The devil votes against you.
And you break the tie. And that's a lie right from the
pit of hell. It's a covenant of works. Verse 27. For the fitches are not threshed
with a threshing instrument. Now, I don't know what fitches
are. Somebody said it's black cumin. It's a type of, it's a
spice. And you don't, when you harvest
it, you don't break it open with a threshing instrument. Neither
is a cart wheel turned about upon the cooman, but the finches
are beaten out with a staff and the cooman with a rod. Breadcorn
is bruised because he will not ever be threshing it, nor break
it with the wheel of the cart, nor bruise it with the horseman." So he's taking this harvested
wheat now and very carefully takes it to the threshing floor,
but he doesn't crush it. He doesn't crush it with a cartwheel.
He doesn't trample it over with the hooves of horses. The chaff
suffers that. The chaff that's separated from
the corn suffers the crushing of the cartwheel and the hooves
of the horsemen. But the wheat is treated very
carefully. The wheat is beaten out with
a staff and with a rod. And he gathers up his wheat into
his barn. What a glorious picture. The
Lord is saying, I'm not going to crush you. A smoking flax
he will not quench. A bruised reed he will not break. He's not going to crush his children
with a cartwheel like he does the chaff. He's going to use
the rod of correction. He's going to use the staff of
the gospel. Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort
me all the days of my life. And he's going to gently separate the wheat and the barley and
the cumin, gather it into his barn. Do you
wonder at that? Do you wonder why God wouldn't
just crush you with the wheel of the cart? Why he wouldn't
trample you underfoot by the horseman? Why he would take the
time to take his rod and his staff? The rod is a scepter. That's the picture of Christ
reigning as king. And he's revealed himself. through
the gospel as king of kings and lord of lords and you wonder
at his glory don't you you bow to him and the staff is a picture
of him being the good shepherd who knows his sheep and he calls
them by name and they follow after him and he does everything
that he has to do in his divine purpose to not lose one of his
sheep We could say from this passage of scripture, not only
will he not lose one of his sheep, he'll not lose a single cumin
seed. Not a single one. And those are really tiny seeds.
He's gonna save them all. This also, cometh from the Lord
of hosts, which is wonderful in counsel
and excellent in working." That means the message, that's counsel,
is to our wonder. And the work, that's the accomplishment
of salvation, excels all other works. excellent and wonderful. We'll use those words again,
I'm sure, in our attempt to describe something of this life, and that'll
be fine. But aren't you so glad to know
what God calls wonderful and what He calls excellent? Because
that's what really meets the definition of those words. Let's
pray together. Our Heavenly Father, we're thankful
for the revelation that you have given us of thy dear son. We're thankful for the wonder of his glory and his
grace and the excellence of his work. We pray that you would
increase our faith and cause us, Lord, to be even more at
wonder and see more of His excellence. We thank you for this table.
We thank you for what it represents. We pray now, Lord, that as we
receive the bread and the wine, that you would cause us once
again to wonder at his excellence. For it's in Christ's name we
pray. Amen. I want to ask the men if they'll
come and distribute the bread and the wine. We're going to
sing number 17. You can just remain seated. Number
17 in the Gospel Hymns book. See the table spread before you. See the feast of bread and wine. These are symbols of our Savior. tokens of his love divine. Bread that's broken is his body,
crushed beneath the wrath of God. Wine poured out is a reminder
of our Savior's precious blood. Children of our God, remember
how He bought your soul and mine. In remembrance of our Savior,
eat the bread and drink the wine. Jesus came to God incarnate to
fulfill God's holy law. On the cross he made atonement
and retrieved us from the fall. Let us ne'er forget the promise
Jesus made to come again. Soon he comes, our King, to call
us home to glory. Praise his name with this hope
and expectation. We rejoice to keep this feast,
celebrating our redemption, till we lean on Jesus' breast. Celebrating our redemption till
we lean on Jesus breast. That's what this is. It's a celebration.
It reminds us of that wedding feast we'll once one day enjoy,
seeing Him in the fullness of His glory. We look through a
glass dimly now, don't we? We worship, we see in part, but
then we'll know even as we are known what a glorious day that'll
be. The Lord said, as often as you
do this, do it in remembrance of me. We remember that this
bread represents his sinless life made as an offering for
our sin. And we do it in remembrance of
him. Not a single drop of our Lord's
blood was wasted. What I mean by that is that he
didn't die for anyone that's not going to be with him in glory. Everyone he died for will be
saved. They will wonder at his excellence. And all their sin. Will be covered. The Lord said, when I see the
blood, I'll pass by you. We do this in remembrance of
Him. And all God's people said, Amen. Let's stand together. Brother
Adam Clark, would you close us in prayer, please? Heavenly Father, we do not have
words adequate to glorify you, but we thank you for this beautiful
morning and preaching of the gospel. Thank you, Father, for
causing us to have a sheer foundation in Jesus Christ, our Lord and
Savior. We pray that you would continue
to keep