Let's open up this morning's
service to the Grace Hymn. We're going to sing to hymn number
two, and we're going to do it a cappella. This is our prayer
this morning. As we sing this, the Lord would
be pleased to do this for us. If you could all please stand.
Number two. Lord, we come before thee now. At thy feet we humbly bow. Oh, do not our suit disdain. Shall we seek thee, Lord, in
vain. Lord, on thee our souls depend. In compassion now descend. Fill our hearts with Thy rich
grace. Tune our lips to sing Thy praise. in thine own appointed way. Now we seek thee, here we stay. Lord, we know now how to go,
till a blessing thou bestow. Send thy message from thy word
that may joy and peace afford. Let thy spirit now impart Christ's
salvation to each heart. You can be seated. Good morning. Where did Claire and Annie go?
Ah, the Sharons are here from Lexington
and it's a real treat to have them. Welcome. We're going to be looking
at a passage of Scripture in Isaiah chapter 23. Isaiah chapter
23. Thank you for your prayers for
the church in Spring Lake, North Carolina. I felt like things
went real well last weekend and was very encouraged and I've
received several calls from them since then that have been equally
encouraging. Dennis is there this morning
preaching for them. So, as the Lord enables you,
remember the church where Rupert Reibenbach has pastored for 35
years and now is no longer able to preach. So, pray to the Lord
we'll give them wisdom and provide for them a pastor. So, let's pray together, ask
the Lord's blessings on his word. Our Heavenly Father, we're so
thankful that we can come to this place and have the hope
of knowing that you've promised to inhabit the praise of your
people. You've put it in our hearts to
worship you in spirit and according to the truth of your word. We
ask Lord that you would enable us now to do just that. We pray that you would open the
eyes of our understanding. We pray that you would give us
hearts to believe. We pray that you would cause
us once again to find Christ to be our all. and find him to
be in all. Lord, we do pray for the church
in Spring Lake, and we ask, Lord, that you would bless their services
this morning. We pray that you would provide
for them the wisdom and the direction that they need in this time of
transition. And, Lord, that you would raise
up a faithful gospel preacher. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen. I mentioned Wednesday night how
very, very thankful I am for Robert. The message that he brought,
uh, Sunday when I was gone last Sunday, what a, what a blessing.
And you go, uh, the, the study that he brought, um, was just
blessed my heart. I'm very, very thankful for both
these men. You have your Bibles open to
Isaiah chapter 23. I'd like to pick up on a phrase
in verse 9. The Lord of hosts has purposed
it to stain the pride of all glory and to bring into contempt
all the honorable of the earth. Now, my question for myself and
for you this morning is, has God stained your pride? We all come into this world with
pride. We've said that the best definition
of sin is a one-word definition, and that one-word definition
is a single-letter word, and it's the middle letter in the
word pride. It's also the middle letter in
the word sin, isn't it? We've just got an eye problem.
We think much too highly of ourselves. And the Lord is talking about
the judgment against Tyre, and He's saying that He purposed
it. He purposed it in order to stain the pride of man. Now, the judgment of God always
results in that. stains man's pride. And the scripture
makes it clear that in the day in which God rolls this whole
thing up and brings it to an end, every knee shall bow and
every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory
of God the Father. Now unwilling as the reprobate
may be, and as necessary as it may be for God to smite him with
a rod of his wrath to get him to kneel and make that confession,
every man will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory
of God the Father. Everything that happens in this
world everything has one end purpose, and that's the glory
of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's His glory. That's the purpose of it all.
So the little things that take place in your life and in my
life and the big things that take place among nations. The
scripture says that the nations are a drop in the bucket to Him. They are a speck of dust on the
balance. And it's all purposed of God
to bring glory to Christ. Now, when the Lord is pleased
to save a proud sinner, He stains his pride. He brings him to the
end of himself. He causes him to realize that
Christ is worthy of all praise and all glory and all honor and
he brings us to bow and make confession to that now every
man will do it in that day of wrath all lord stain my pride
stain my pride purpose my salvation uh... bring me to the end of
myself and cause me to confess my total dependence on the lord
jesus christ That's... in the book of Revelation
the scripture says that He has created all things and for His
good pleasure and glory they do exist. So everything in this
world is for the glory of Christ. Now this city Tyre, and let me
say this, we we've there several chapters prior to chapter 23
that we skipped over and if you look back every one of them starts
with the burden of the burden of and and it's a declaration
of God's judgment and God's wrath against the enemies of Israel
I'm But the prophet is not declaring
this judgment with glee. He's not declaring it with a
sense of, you know, I've heard preachers preach on the wrath
and judgment of God as if they were taking pleasure in what
God was going to do to the reprobate. The prophet sees these judgments
as a burden, as a burden. And might God be pleased to give
us that burden? And let me say this, the burden
that we feel for the condition of the lost will be in direct
correlation with the burden that we feel for our own souls. When God gives you an interest
in the things that are spiritual for yourself, then you'll become
interested in the things that are spiritual for others. We've got to be given that ability. Otherwise, we're just going to
see everything in light of the flesh and in light of temporal
things. But when the Lord gives you a
burden for your own soul, Along with that will come a burden
for the lost. We warn the lost with a broken
heart. We don't say, as I've heard some
preachers say, you know, just go to hell if you want to. We
don't speak with that sort of glibness, that sort of hardness
of heart. We know but for the grace of
God, there go I." We know who it is that made us to differ. We know that we're as worthy
and deserving as any man for the wrath and judgment of God.
And so Isaiah, when he's declaring the Word of God, Word of God's
wrath and the Word of God's judgment against the enemies of Israel.
He begins every one of these prophecies with the burden of. I feel the burden. The burden first that I'm responsible
for. and uh... the burden that i placed
on the lord jesus christ when he went to calvary's cross when
the spirit of grace and supplication is poured out upon us we grieve
for the one whom we have pierced And we feel something of the
burden of responsibility for what he bore for us. And so, you know, this thing
is a, it is a burden, isn't it? So he says the burden of Tyre. Tyre was a port city on the Mediterranean. and all the commerce from Rome
to Egypt passed through Tyre. Tyre was a Phoenician city. There was a large port there,
lots of ships. It was an extremely wealthy city. They had all the prosperity that
the world had to offer, and that prosperity caused them to be
proud of who they were. And the Lord now is going to
talk to them about how, well, He's going to declare to them
what He's about to do. The burden of Tyre, how ye ships
of Tarshish, For it is laid waste, so that there is no house, no
entering in from the land of Shittim. It is revealed to them,
be still." Be still. Now, you can look it up. The
word Tyre means rock. And it was a rocky port. But here we have a picture of
not only what God's going to do in judgment against the reprobate,
But spiritually speaking, this is a picture of what God does
in the hearts of every one of those who come into this world
with hearts of stone, when he humbles them and causes them
to realize, I've got no place to rest. I've got to have Christ. I've got to have a Savior. I
can't satisfy the demands of God's law. I can't put away my
sin. And Lord, that I would see the
exercise of your wrath on my sin bearer and deliver me from
this burden. This burden. Look what he says. Be still, ye inhabitants of the
isle, Thou whom the merchants of Zidon that passed over the
sea have replenished. As I said, this was a port city
with an extreme amount of wealth. He's going to go on to explain
more about that. and by great waters the seed of Sihur." That's
a tributary of the Nile River, and so now he's making reference
to Egypt. Not only has your wealth come
from the Isles, not only has it come from Rome, but it's come
from Egypt. And all this human worldly wealth
has come to this city of Tyre. The harvest of the river is her
revenue and she is the mart of nations. Now that word mart means
she's the merchant of nations. In other words, she's the one
who's, she's the middle man. She's the one making the profit.
Tyre is profiting from all this commerce that's going on in the
world and everything is passing through her. and she's accumulating
more and more possessions. That's the heart of pride, isn't
it? Not just the possessions of this
world. The Lord said, what does a profit a man if he gained the
whole world and loses his own soul? What would a man give in
exchange for a soul? But we're not talking about just
worldly possessions. We naturally think that we have
a possession that will satisfy the demands of God's law. We
naturally think that we can muster up some level of obedience that
will recommend us to Him. We naturally think that our will
is strong enough and powerful enough to be able to appropriate
salvation when we get ready for it we're just full of wealth
aren't we we're full of pride we're we're just like and naturally
now we're just like the church at Laodicea when the Lord said
that well let's look at let's look at verse up Revelation Revelation chapter 3 Here's where we are, lukewarm. We like comfort, don't we? We're not comfortable if we get
too hot. And we're not comfortable if we get too cold. We just like
lukewarm. That's the comfort zone, isn't
it? And that's the pride of our flesh. We just want to be comfortable.
And so the Lord said, I know thy works, verse 15, that thou
art neither hot nor cold, cold nor hot. I would that thou wert
cold or hot. So then, because thou art lukewarm
and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of my mouth, because
Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and
have need of nothing, and knowest not that thou art wretched, and
miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked." We don't know that
if the Lord doesn't make it known to us. We'll consider ourselves
to be rich. We'll be just like Tyre. If the Lord doesn't reveal to
us what he's telling us in the next verse, look what he says,
come, come, I counsel thee, buy of me gold tried in the fire. Now Isaiah said in Isaiah chapter
55, come buy without money and without price. The only person
that can afford this gold that's tried in a fire is the one who's
got nothing. Lord, I don't have anything.
I'm not like Tyre. I don't have anything. I don't
know anything. I can't do anything. That's when
the Lord stains your pride, isn't it? Because by nature, we will
depend upon the things that we've got. Both physically and spiritually,
we will lean on our ability. until the Lord purposes to do
for us what he did for Tyre and stain our pride. Look what he says, I counsel
thee by me, gold tried in the fire, that thou mightest be rich
and white raiment. What's that white raiment? That's the robe of righteousness. That's the unrent robe. that can't be divided. That's the perfect obedience
of the Lord Jesus Christ to His Father. Buy it of me. You're
going to buy it without money, without price. You're going to
come poor, naked, miserable. That's how you're going to get
it. If you're like Tyre, God's going to humble all Tyres. In the end they'll be humbled
or now they'll be humbled. Oh Lord, I don't want to be humbled
in the end, do you? That thy may cover the shame
of thy nakedness that it does not appear. We're just like our
father Adam. we're naked before God and yet
we try to sew together fig leaves we try to put our hands to the
work don't we try to cover up our nakedness Lord I'm I'm naked
I don't have I'm here I am completely exposed the Lord you know we've praying in public is always a
very hard thing for me I'm because you can't do it without being
conscious of the fact that men are listening to you. You just
can't do it. I can't. Maybe you can. I've
not been able to get there. But to get in my closet and pray
and to be able to to i was telling folks wednesday night somebody
asked me about what don't you and your wife have prayer and
bible study on a regular basis i said no way you know prayers
very personal we pray together for special needs or or or if
we're having a meal or something of that effect but i don't want
her to hear what i'm saying to god i told the folks was that
she'll lose all confidence in me and i've got no interest in
listening to what she has to say When you get in your prayer
closet, you're going to get naked before God. And that's between
you and the Lord. And you don't express that to
anybody else. But if the Lord does that, if you're able to
do that, He has stained your pride. He has brought you low. And He has made you to be a mercy
beggar. And you can't tell a lie to God.
You know, we deceive one another, don't we? We deceive ourselves,
but you get between you and the Lord. There's no deceiving Him. You can't lie to God. Isaiah
speaks of that in another place, I can't remember the verse, but
he says, my children will not lie. My children will not lie. They can't. You get before God, And you know
that He knows everything. He knows your thoughts before
you think them. He knows you're going out, you're
coming in. He knows your words before you speak them. What are
you going to hide from Him? Come and buy from me. Be poor, naked, miserable, blind. Has God stained your pride? as He made you low, low enough
to cry out to Him for mercy and depend upon Him for everything,
for all your righteousness, all your justification before God. Poor and needy, look what he
says, that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear and anoint thine
eyes with eye salve that thou mayest see. Oh, Lord, open my
eyes. Open my eyes. Give me Your Spirit. Enable me to see. The Lord does everything. And we'll see this in the end. We'll see it in the end, that
everything ultimately is for His glory. The scripture says
in Proverbs 16, verse 4, the Lord hath made all things for
Himself, yea, even evil for the wicked for the day of evil. Get that? The Lord hath made
all things for himself, yea, even the wicked, for the day
of evil. Our God hath done whatsoever
he wills with the armies of heaven and the inhabitants of the earth,
and no man can stay his hand or say unto him, What doest thou?
He always gets his way. and his way. Look back to our
text in Isaiah 20, 23. The Lord of hosts hath purposed
it. Listen to Psalm 76 verse 10.
Surely the wrath of man shall praise thee. Is God responsible for our sin?
Did he cause us to sin? No. No. as our God use every
sin and everything ultimately for his glory the wrath of man
shall praise him and the remainder he shall restrain now that means
that what he can't use for his glory he's not let happen what
he can use for his glory he's not gonna let happen everything
that happens is for the glory of our God." And that's a comfort
to the child of God. That's a great hope. Solomon said in Ecclesiastes,
there's a time to be born, and a time to die, a time to plant,
and a time to pluck up that which is planted, a time to kill, and
a time to heal, a time to get, and a time to lose, a time to
love, and a time to hate, a time of war, and a time of peace,
and he hath made everything beautiful in His time. How is it that everything
turns out to be beautiful in His time? It all serves His glory. It all serves His glory. Every
bit of it. The Lord of hosts hath purposed
it." Everything is unto the praise of His glory. What did those
seraphims say in Isaiah chapter 6 that were hovering over the
throne of Christ? Holy, holy, holy is the Lord
God of hosts. The earth is filled with His
glory. Filled with His glory. Oh Lord,
one day we're going to join that heavenly host praising Him for
His glory. I tried to quote this a moment
ago, Isaiah chapter 40 verse 15, Behold the nations are as
a drop of the bucket and are counted as a small dust on the
balance, behold, he taketh up the aisles as a very small thing."
The nations. the nations. His glory is great
Psalm 21 verse 5 in thy salvation honor and majesty hast thou laid
on him honor and majesty God has laid on Christ and look what
he says about this this wealthy city Tyre let's go back to our
text verse 4 Be thou ashamed, O Zidon, for the sea hath spoken,
even the strength of the sea, saying, I travail not, nor bring
forth children, neither do I nourish up young men, nor bring up virgins,
as at the report concerning Egypt, so shall they be sorely pained
at the report of Tyre. When the wrath of God comes against
this city, destroys it, all the world will grieve. Revelation
speaks of that when the nations of the world are destroyed and
God manifest His glory in the end. Pass ye over to Tarshish,
how ye inhabitants of the isle, is this your joyous city? whose antiquity is of ancient
days, her own feet shall carry her afar off to sojourn." This
is what you're taking pride in? This prosperous city? These things
that you think are so strong and powerful and able to get
you through? That's what you're going to take
pride in? who have taken this council against
Tyre, the crowning city, whose merchants are princes." So the
very merchants of this city were kings and princes, nobility. Whose traffickers are the honorable
of the earth. This is the way of the world,
isn't it? The way of the world is pride. Just pride. Just trusting in yourself, trusting
in the things you have. I have a theory about pride. It's not really pride. It's really, if you get down
to the root of it, it's really a very, very fearful spirit of
inadequacy and insecurity. It's what it really is. Why else
would we be proud except to try to impress our peers? Why would
we need to impress our peers unless we felt bad about ourselves? You know, pride is really rooted
in a fear of man, isn't it? The Lord hath purposed this judgment
to stain the pride of all glory. and to bring into contempt all
the honorable of the earth. Let me ask you a question. Pride
is something we've all struggled with. It's all something we've
all got. Something's still going on about
it, isn't it? Do you despise your pride? Has
he stained it? Or is it still something you're
trying to polish up? Is your honor contemptible to
you? When the Lord purposes to make
us sinners and to cause us to see our need for Christ, that's the result of it, isn't
it? They shall despise themselves. Oh, Lord. Our God has got a purpose. Might
He be pleased to purpose His grace for us now that we don't
suffer the purpose of His wrath in the day of judgment. All right,
let's take a break. Thank you very much. Okay.