Good morning. Let's open this
morning's service with a hymn from the Gospel Hymns, a new
little hymnal. Number 24, Jehovah Sid Canu,
The Lord Our Righteousness. Let's all stand together, number
24. Jehovah Sidkenu, the Lord our
righteousness. We love to call you by that name,
our Savior Christ Jesus. Jehovah Sidkenu, The God-man
live for us, bringing eternal righteousness which God imputes
to us. Jehovah Sidkenu, our substitute
who died. Your blood has put away our sin,
and we are justified. Jehovah Sidkenu, Your love has
won our praise. Trusting your blood and righteousness,
we're saved by your free grace. Jehovah Sidkenu, we stand in
you alone. Our only fitness before God is
in our Lord, His Son. Jehovah Sidkenu, the Lord our
righteousness. Christ Jesus, you alone we call
the Lord our righteousness. Please be seated. Well, we sent off to Yucatan
for our pianist this morning, and we're glad she could be here. Thank you, Winna. It's good to
have Cody and Winna here from Merida. Yucatan and what a blessing
they've been to this church over the years. We love them and so
thankful for them. I probably make this point every
time Cody's here, but maybe there's somebody here that hasn't heard
it, but when we were building this building in 1999, we had
not finished the building and we had a Wednesday night service
here and Cody brought the very first message preached in this
building. All right, let's pray together and ask the Lord's blessings
on this word. We're going to be in Isaiah chapter
26 and 27 this morning. Isaiah chapter 26 and 27. I was
planning on continuing our study in 1 Corinthians chapter 1 this
morning until I talked to Cody yesterday. I asked him, I said,
where are you going to be preaching from tomorrow? And he said, 1
Corinthians chapter 1. So I didn't want to... We'll let the Lord bless that
through Cody for us this morning. Let's pray together. Our Heavenly
Father, we're so thankful for this time to be together. We
thank you, Lord, for your church and for the fellowship that you
give to your children in Christ. We thank you, Lord, for the truth
of your gospel and how we do pray that you'd be pleased to
bless the word to our hearts and cause us to to be able to
look to Christ, to rest in Him, to find Him to be our all and
to find Him to be in all. We know that in the volume of
the book it is written of Him. And so, Lord, we ask for Your
Holy Spirit to take each verse of Scripture that we look to
this morning and cause our hearts to be drawn to Christ. For it's
in His name we ask it. Amen. Isaiah chapter 26. I just have
to read one verse that we looked at Wednesday night because it's
so glorious before we move on to the next passage. It's in
verse 12 of Isaiah chapter 26. Lord, thou wilt ordain peace
for us, for thou hast wrought. all our works in us. And if you look at the original
language that little preposition in can also be translated for
and it's true in both senses. He has wrought all works for
us in redemption, in salvation, in justification, and He works
all things in us. Faith, love, hope, peace. He does it all. And so the peace
that we have is because He has wrought all the work all by himself
both for us and in us and that's the only place to find peace
if if he didn't do it all then I have no peace because if I've
got to make any contribution whatsoever for the work being
done for me or for the work being done in me I'm sure of this I'm
gonna mess it up I'm just sure but to know that we have a God
who has wrought." He has worked it out. I like that word, don't
you? I like to think about, when I read that word in the Scriptures,
I like to think about wrought iron. You know, that's where
they take the iron and they fashion it uh... from just raw straight
uh... iron into some beautiful uh... uh... figure or or you know railing
or something like that and and uh... and that's that's uh...
that's what the lord's done he's wrought out a work for us and
uh... and how beautiful that work is
both for us and in us O LORD our God, O the lords besides
Thee, had dominion over us, but by
Thee only will we make mention of Thy name. They are dead, they
shall not live. They are deceased, they shall
not rise. Therefore hast Thou visited and
destroyed them and made all their memories to perish. I talk to
folks sometimes, I listen to the gospel, they say, oh yeah,
I believe that. and then they go back and listen to someone
else is not preaching the gospel and rejoice in that also and
i know that their idols have not been slain and uh... they've they've not been taught
of god when the lord brings you to christ he slays all the false
gods in your life and you remember them you're shamed and remember
them no more you can't go back don't want to go back all right
let's read on Thou hast increased the nation." That's the church.
Now this begins the theme of where I want us to go in the
next chapter, because the Lord is promising His blessings on
His church. Now there used to be a time when
we thought that gain was godliness. We thought that if I gained perfection in my works, or if
the church gained itself in numbers or in size, that that somehow
was an indication of God's blessings. The Lord's speaking of gaining
His church, but what He gains her in is He grows her in His
grace. He gives her more clear vision of Christ and a more sure
hope in Him. And that's, do you find yourself
seeing Christ more clearly now than you did before? And do you
find your rest in Him to be more sure for your soul than it's
ever been before? That's the gain that the Lord
gives. That's His work that He's wrought
in us. That's the work of grace, where
He grows us in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. Thou hast increased the nation,
O Lord. Thou hast increased the nation.
Thou art glorified. Thou hast removed it far unto
all the ends of the earth. separated us out from the world
and given us hope in Christ. Lord, in trouble have they visited
thee. They poured out a prayer when thy chastening was upon
them. Speaking of the unbeliever now,
he turns to God when he's in trouble. And speaking of our experiences
back in religion, we cried out to God whenever things got tough,
not ever seeing that we had a sin problem that was not going to
go away, regardless of our circumstances, regardless of how easy or how
difficult the situation of God's providence was in our lives when
the Lord makes us to be sinners. What did the Lord say? When it's
expedient for you that I go away, for if I go not away, the Comforter
will not come. But when He comes, when He comes,
here's what He's going to do. He's going to convict the world
of sin because they believe not on Me. There's my problem. I've
got a sin problem. And my sin problem is rooted
in my unbelief. And I find myself always crying,
Lord, help thou mine unbelief. Oh, my old man, he's not capable
of believing the gospel. And there's always this body
of death attached to me. Lord, I need to be delivered.
I need to be saved. And that's not something you
just cry out for when when you're having a difficult day or when
your circumstances are not working out like you want them to or
or maybe you're going through a particular trial this is a
this is a problem that centers deal with Every day. Every day. It never goes away, does it?
Always in need of Christ. Always in need of crying out
to Him. Lord, good or bad, whatever you've ordained for me in my
circumstances, I've got a spiritual need. This is a heart matter.
And I need for you to minister grace there. Like a woman with child, they
draweth near. The time of her delivery, she's
in pain and cries out in her pain so that we have been, and
so have we been in thy sight, O Lord. We were in pain. We were
like a woman about to give birth. Look at the next verse. We have
been with child. We have been in pain. We have,
as it were, brought forth wind. We didn't deliver a live baby. We couldn't deliver a live baby.
Why? Because we didn't know God. We
have no spiritual, that which is of the flesh is flesh, and
the flesh profiteth nothing. It's the spirit that quickeneth,
it's the spirit that gives life. And without Christ you have no
spirit, you have no life. You have religion, you have pains
and circumstances, you have an image of God, you have prayer,
you cry out to this God that you imagine to exist, and when
it's all said and done, This is what this scripture is saying.
They bring forth wind, all you've done is pass gas. That's it. You didn't bring forth a child.
You got some temporary relief and you brought forth a bad odor. That's it. Is that your experience? That was my experience in religion.
That's all I knew. We have not wrought any deliverance
in the earth, neither have the inhabitants of the world fallen."
We weren't delivered from our sin. We weren't even delivered
from our circumstances. We were just in the same old
boat. We had no hope, had no peace, had no comfort, had no
assurance of salvation. All right. The dead men, the
dead men shall live together with my dead body shall they
arise. awake, sing, ye that dwell in
the dust." When I rise from the dead, they're going to rise from
the dead. That's what Paul meant when he said, oh, that I might
know him and the fellowship of his suffering and the power of
his resurrection. That when Christ was crucified,
I was crucified in him. And that I suffered in that crucifixion
and God's satisfied. He's satisfied. Justice has been
fulfilled and my sin's been put away. There's my hope. And that
when he was raised from the dead, He was the firstborn among many
brethren. You remember in Matthew chapter 27 when the scriptures
describe our Lord's death on the cross and it says that he
cried with a loud voice and gave up the ghost and the veil in
the temple was rent from top to bottom and the and the earth
did shake and the rocks were rent and it goes on to say the
graves were opened and many of the saints which slept arose
and came out of the grave after the resurrection now at that's
glorious I can explain that there's been lots of discussion about
what who were who were these dead saints that rose from the
grave and went into the holy city and made themselves known
to the people in the city I am they almost had to be men
like john the baptist and zacharias and anna and uh... saints that
had died in that generation that people in jerusalem new and the
lord after he rose from the grave brought forth those saints that
were asleep in the grave and gave them audience if you will
in the in the city of jerusalem as proof of what he came to do
their dead bodies shall rise with my body and and he's called
the firstborn among many brethren here's our hope one of the hope
is there if there's if it here's what paul said if in this life
only we have hope in christ we are of all men most miserable if this gospel is only to get
us through this world and make life a little more palatable
and bearable in this world the scripture says we're miserable
We're fooling ourselves. That's not what it's about. You know, we say we know that
all things work together for good for those who love God and
those who are called according to His purpose and we believe
that. But you know what? If you think,
well, you know, I'm just gonna look for the good in this and
I'm gonna find some good in it. The good that God brings out
of every one of the circumstances that he puts us through is the
salvation of our soul. It's the glory of Christ in eternity. You may not see the good in terms
of your circumstances that come out of any problems that you're
having in this world. You may not see it. You think, well, the power of
positive thinking, I'll just look for the silver lining around
the cloud and I'll find the good in it. You may not see it, but
faith will confirm your heart that our God is doing everything
for my salvation. And that's the ultimate good.
And nothing else in the end really matters. Because the stuff we
call good in this life may not really be good and the things
that we call bad in this life may not really be bad. We don't
see things like God sees things, do we? You know, we want the
best for our children, don't we? And sometimes we get the
idea that easy is good and hard is bad. That's not usually the
case. Your children are going to have
to go through what you went through. And sometimes hard's good and
easy's bad. You know, we judge everything
the wrong way, don't we? It's all about the resurrection.
It's all about the resurrection. If there's no resurrection, we
are all men most miserable. We're just playing religion.
We're just doing what everybody else is doing. high in the sky
by and by, you know, we'll just have a better life here and a
little bit better tomorrow, you know, things are going to get
better. They may not get better in terms of the way we measure
better. But if we have hope in the resurrection,
if this promise that God makes here that their dead body shall
rise with my dead bodies and if those saints that were asleep
in jerusalem came forth out of the grave and walked into the
holy city and revealed themselves to their friends as and then
ascended back into glory with went back into glory for the
first time when the lord the lord ascended they must have
gone with him scripture doesn't tell us but you know they did here's our home vanity of vanities, all else
is vanity. It's empty isn't it? How foolish it is to invest your
time and all of your effort into things that are temporal. Lord, give us grace to set our
affections not on things of the earth, but on things above, where
Christ is seated at the right hand of God. You sit by the bedside of a loved
one who's dying, who has no hope. And you'll know, that day's coming for you and
me. And in that hour, nothing else matters. Nothing. What you've accumulated, what
you haven't accumulated, what you've done, what you haven't
done. Here's my, here's my hope, look, look. the dead men shall
live together with my dead body shall they arise awake and sing
ye that dwell in the dust now how do I know this promises for
me I mentioned this last week the Holy Spirit teaches his children
to rejoice and grieve at the same time at the same time ye that sing and ye that dwell
in the dust." Is that your experience? Do you find great hope and delight
and rejoicing in thinking about who the Lord Jesus Christ is
and what He's done for you and at the same time you grieve over
this dead man that you carry around with you and the sin that's
ever before you? See, we live in the dust and
we live in glory at the same time at the same time it's not
like William here one minute I'm over there the next minute
and you know where we just you know schizophrenic and he up
and down and here and there we if you if you're in Christ you're
a new creature all things are passed away a all things have
become new you've got a new nature And that new nature, Stan, you
didn't discover your old man until you got a new man. And now that you have a new man,
you know you've got two natures. And the one lives in the dust,
and the other sings. Isn't that it? The dead bodies shall rise with
my body. They that sing and they that
dwell in the dust. For thy dew is as the dew of
herbs and the earth shall cast out the dead. Your graves were open. John chapter 21, the son quickeneth
whom he wills. And then in verse 25, the Lord
said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, the hour is coming, and
now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God,
and the dead shall live. Shall live. Have you heard the
voice of God? I'm not talking about an audible
experience. I'm talking about something a
whole lot louder than that. A whole lot more convincing than
that. Audible sounds can be deceiving, can't they? Especially when you
don't hear well. You know, what do they say? Ask my wife. She'll tell you how confusing
audible sounds can be for me. But when God teaches you they shall be all taught of God
and when he teaches you speaks to your heart and causes you
to see that my only hope is in the the work that Christ has
done both for me and in me in his in his sacrificial death
on Calvary's cross and in his victorious resurrection the hope
that I have to live spiritually for ever is found in Christ I've heard that heard his board that I'm my sheep
hear my voice and they follow me they follow me we're not following
a set of rules and regulations We're not following laws. We're
not following commandments of men. We're following after Christ. In the volume of the book it
is written of me. And this book is a revelation
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And every time we turn to it,
we're looking for Him, aren't we? Because He's the one we're
following. And we look back over our shoulder. If you've done any plowing at
all. I remember the first time I moved to the country. Bought
a rototiller and decided I was going to plant a garden. Never
had done that in my whole life. And cranked that thing up and
started working my way down. I was so proud of myself and
I started looking back and checking out the ground I was plowing
and I was so, so delighted with what I was doing. Got to the
end of the area where I wanted to and my thing was all over
the place. Didn't take me long to realize
The only way to make a straight furrow is to set a stick at the
end where you want to be and keep your eye fixed on that. You're looking where you've been,
what you're doing, your accomplishments. This one thing I do, forgetting
those things which are behind, I press towards the mark. for
the prize of the high calling in Christ Jesus. Looking unto
Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith. Who for the hope
that was set before Him, endured the cross, despising its shame. Oh, what a glorious Savior we
have. These promises are all about Him. Look at verse 20,
come my people Now when God says come, you say,
well I don't know if it's for me. He says come. Come. Your warrant for coming
is God's command to come. You're not going to get any other
reason for coming other than the fact that God said come.
All you that labor in a heavy laden, come. And the spirit of
the bride say, come, come unto me, learn of me, take my yoke
upon you. It's light, it's easy. Why? Because the Pharaoh's already
been dug, the work's already been done for you and in you. And so the Lord says, come my
people, enter thou into thy chamber. Who's your chamber? Is your chamber
Christ? Is He the city of refuge? In Old Testament,
the Lord gave them those cities of refuge. If you accidentally
killed someone, the law, the strictness of the law said, an
eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. So you kill somebody even if
it's by accident. You've got to give your life for that. So God set up cities of refuge
so that you could flee into that city of refuge and escape the
Avenger of Blood. The next of kin, by the law,
the next of kin was authorized by the law to take your life,
to pay for the life you took. If you got into that city of
refuge, you were safe. Stay in that city, don't come
out. The Avenger of Blood is sitting at the gate, he's waiting
for you to come out. You come out, he's going to kill you.
That's the law, isn't it? Christ is that city of refuge.
And the Lord says, come. And all over Palestine, all the
roads, wherever they led to, if there was one that was headed
to a city of refuge, those roads were marked. There were signs
on those roads saying, there's a city of refuge over this way.
Why? because the avenger blood's hot
on your heels and the Lord wanted to make sure that everybody knew
how to get to the city of refuge and so that's what we're doing
right now we're marking the road aren't we and that's the city
of refuge flee to Christ flee to Christ it's the only place
to be safe come enter in to thy chambers you've got a chamber
a safe place, a city of refuge, a closet if you will, a place
to escape. Escape what? Escape the wrath
that is to come. Look what he says. And shut thy
doors about thee, hide thyself as it were for a little moment
until the indignation be overpassed. Oh, it's a fearful thing to fall
into the hands of an angry God. You think there's not wrath coming?
You think there's not judgment coming? Oh, there is. And how
much greater is that judgment for someone who's heard the gospel
and rejected it? This is an awesome, humbling
thing for those of us that have heard the gospel, isn't it? Oh,
Lord, don't leave me to myself. Don't take your hand off of me. the lowest the lowest place in
hell's gonna be for those who have sat under the gospel and
heard the truth and profess faith in christ and then departed from
the gospel come into your chamber hide yourself in christ for there's
indignation that's coming there's wrath that is to come won't be
a part of that it you know ever since you'll be punished don't
you their gods holy He cannot overlook a single violation of
his law. Neither the punishment of our
sins will be satisfied in the sacrifice that Christ made on
Calvary's cross, or it will never be satisfied in the wrath that
is to come. So the Lord says, choose you
this day whom you serve. Come, come, come into your chamber. escape the indignation that is
to come. God's people are irresistibly
drawn. For behold, behold, don't lose
sight of this, the Lord cometh out of his place to punish the
inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity. Don't think that
that they're, you know, By nature, if the Lord doesn't
speak to our hearts, we'll lose sight of this. Because by nature,
we just go through life thinking, you know, everything's fine.
There's no judgment. There's no wrath. There's no
hell. There's no indignation. It's the way the world lives. The Lord cometh out of his place
to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity.
The earth also shall disclose her blood and shall no more cover
her slain." The very first crime committed
after the fall recorded in the scriptures. It's when Cain killed
Abel. And what did God say? Your brother's
blood cries out. for justice. Cain thought he... Cain, don't you think... Cain
thought, you know, he did it privately. He didn't do it anywhere
around Adam and Eve or any other siblings or whoever they were.
He thought he'd gotten away from it. Gotten away with it. That's
the way the world is. They think they've gotten away
with it. They haven't gotten away with anything. God's seen
everything. Oh Lord, satisfy your wrath in the person
of my substitute. Let him bear all my guilt and
all my shame and all my sin. I don't want to have anything
to do with the indignation of God. And that day, The Lord with His sore and great
and strong sword shall punish Leviathan, the piercing serpent,
even Leviathan, that crooked serpent, and he shall slay the
dragon that is in the area." Now Revelation chapter 20 verse
6 speaks of Satan being that dragon. So this is a reference
to Satan. and the Lord came to destroy
the works of the devil who held us captive by his will and the
Lord came to set captivity captive you see here's the thing about
you gonna be captive you're gonna be captive you and I we're gonna
be captive to either Satan or Christ that's it Men say they're free. They can
do it. They're not free. They're captive. You're either going to be captive
to the devil or you're going to be captive to Christ. And where the Spirit of God is,
there's liberty. Oh, stand fast in the liberty
where Christ has made you free and be not entangled again with
the yoke of bondage. if this it if the Sun make you
free you're free indeed the world talks about being free they a
pride themselves I think I can do what I want what I want you're
not you're doing exactly what the devil would have you to do
that's all you're doing you're not free you're following him all but the follow after Christ
come into your chamber. I've destroyed the works of the
devil. I've set you free from him. Come and be captive to me. The thoughts that I have for
you, they're thoughts of good, not of evil, that I might bring
you to your expected end. What is your expected end? Our Heavenly Father, we're thankful
for your mercy and we ask that you would. Be gracious to us. And cause
us. To find our rest. And our captivity in thy dear
son. For it's in his name we pray.
Amen. Family to the door.