do I have to apply by? How do
I need to wear my hair? What do I need to eat? What do
I need to not eat? What do I need to drink? What
do I need to wear? What day of the week do I need
to worship on? You can't make sense of man-made
religion. It's confusion of noise. It's
just as confusing as the horrors that took place last night in
our city. And more people are being damned
and killed by false prophets this morning than those poor
people that suffered such tragedy last night. It's confusion of noise. That's
all it is. They say one thing, and then
they say, oh no, you're not under the law, you're under grace,
and then they take you back to the law. And they say, well now
the law has to become your monitor. And then, of course, they put
you under the authority of the elders, and the elders are going
to, you know, you're not under the law, you're under grace,
but we're going to crack the whip of grace on your back. Oh, you're
not? You see, it doesn't make sense. It's confusion of noise. It's just like being in a war. You can't make sense of it. Sometimes I'm sure that in the
heat of battle you can't even tell, you know, there's friendly
fire and there's people that get killed. It's just confusion. They'll say, You're dead in your trespasses
and sins. You're a sinner. You're born spiritually dead.
But you've got enough of a spark of life to exercise your faith. And your faith will become the
effectual cause of your salvation. Faith is not what you give God
to save you. Faith is what He gives you when
He does save you. Faith's not the cause of your
salvation, it's the result of it. He's the one that performs it.
The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this. And God's people say, Amen. I'm so thankful that God is giving
the performance evaluation for me, in the person of his dear
son. Because if he evaluates my performance,
I'm in trouble. I'm in trouble. If I've got to
stand before a holy God and be evaluated by my performance,
how sincere was your faith? How faithful were your works?
How good have you been? I can't tell you the number of
people I talk to that say, they say, well, you know, keeping
the law. I say, well, how are you doing on that? Well, I'm
doing my best. Your best isn't good enough. It won't work. God requires perfection. Perfection. Absolute, complete
perfection. How can we be any more clear
on this? The zeal of the Lord of hosts
shall perform it. And everything else is confusion
of noise. You can't make sense of religion. It's so convoluted. It's so confusing. Which end is up? It's like being
in a battle. It's like being in a war zone.
It's just each man for himself. It's people killing people and
putting people under bondage. It's horrible. For every battle of the warrior,
verse 5, is with confused noise and garments rolled in blood. Well, I'll just sacrifice a little
bit more. I'll go to church more faithfully. I'll read my Bible.
I'll turn over a new leaf. I'll give more money. I'll do
this and I'll do that. And I'll just let out a little
more blood. And God says, no, it's confusion
of noise. The zeal of the Lord is going
to perform this one. You're not going to perform it.
He's going to perform it all by Himself. Look at the last
part of verse 5. But, but this shall be with burning
and fuel of fire. When the Lord Jesus Christ hung
on Calvary's cross and cried, My God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me? The burning fire of God's wrath
was falling from heaven in order to satisfy the demands of God's
justice. And the Lord Jesus Christ was
absorbing all that fire until the fire of God's wrath was quenched. You remember those three Hebrew
children who would not bow to the false idol and they were
thrown into the fiery furnace and the king saw them in there
and he said, I see a fourth. I see a fourth and he'd be like
unto the son of God. And they came out of that fiery
furnace and the scripture says that not a hair of their head
was singed. There was not even any smell
of smoke on their clothes. Why? Because that fourth one
who looked like the Son of God was the Son of God and he consumed
the fire to himself so that it didn't burn them at all. Confusion of noise is what religion
is. The shedding of blood, man's
blood, is what religion is. But this one will be the burning
of the fuel of fire. That word fuel is the word meat.
It's talking about an offering put upon an altar. And all those
bulls and goats that were put upon the fiery altar in the Old
Testament never took away sin. But by the sacrifice of himself,
once and for all, he bowed his mighty head on Calvary's cross,
and after having cried, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken
me? He said, It is finished. It's finished. Father, into thy
hands I commend my spirit. Was it finished? Did he perform
it? Or did he leave something for
you to do? He finished the work. The zeal. That's his zeal. That's his commitment. How zealous are you for God? Sometimes some, sometimes not
so much, huh? His zeal never wavered. Never faltered. Every ounce of his being was
zealous for God. And God was pleased with the
sacrifice that he made as the fuel of fire. The fire of God's
wrath is quenched. There is now, therefore, no condemnation. There's no fear of death. There's
no judgment. There's no wrath. Not if you've
examined yourself to see whether you'd be in the Lord and Christ
be in you. And you know yourself. You're
not able. You're not able. And you've seen
the confusion of noise that there is in religion. And God's given
you grace to say, I can't go there. I need the simplicity
that is in Christ Jesus. I need the singularity of the
sacrifice that He made for me. I need a Savior. I need one who
can present Himself in my stead before a holy God. and speak
to God on my behalf. That's the Lord Jesus Christ.
He's the only one. Everything else is confusion
and noise. Why does the Bible speak of hell
as being a fiery pit where the worm dieth not and the fire is
never quenched? It's never quenched. I need one. I need one who has
put out that fire for me. Life is short. Soon will pass. And only what's
done by Christ will last. Everything else is vanity of
vanities. Everything else is temporal.
All the accumulations, all the works, all the accolades, all
the material wealth, whatever it is, whatever it is that we've
performed in this world is coming to an end. He's the one who performed
something that will last forever. Let's read on, look at the rest
of this. For, for unto us, now anytime
that there's an us, there must also be a them. I want to be a part of us, don't
you? Lord, make me to be a part of
us. I don't want to be a part of them. I want this to be for
me. Don't look to your right or to
your left. Lord, save me! I stand before you to preach
the gospel. I can't tell you the number of times that I have
to cry out to God in preparation to stand here and preach and
say, God, save me! Save me! Have mercy upon me! Lord, I can't stand and tell
folks how to be saved and what to believe if you don't have
mercy upon me. Unto us a child is born, made
in the likeness of sinful flesh, born of a woman, born under the
law, to save them which are condemned by the law of God. It behooved
Him to be made like unto His brethren. Unto us a child is
born. Unto us a son is given. This is the eternal Son of God,
who left the glories of heaven and became a man. God's perfect man, born of a
virgin. in order to be able to fulfill
all the demands of God's law and satisfy the requirements
of His justice. This is the zeal of the Lord
that's going to perform this. Unto us, a child is born. Unto
us, a son is given. God gave His only begotten Son. And whosoever believeth upon
Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life. And the government shall be upon
his shoulder. All governments. All governments. Don't worry about Putin. Don't worry about who the next
president of our great country is going to be. And I'm thankful
for our country. I'm thankful for the freedoms and the blessings
that God's given us here. And I've fought for our country. I vote. I'm grateful. I want good for our country. All the nations are a drop in
the bucket to Him. And all the governments are upon
His shoulder. Most importantly, His dominion
is an everlasting dominion and His kingdom is from everlasting
to everlasting. This is the kingdom of God that's
upon His shoulder. And His name shall be called
Wonderful. Wonderful. We use that word so
loosely, don't we? Don't ever call God awesome.
He's not awesome. If you're going to use awe to
describe God, then call Him awful, because there's nothing some
about Him. And he's not wondersome, he's wonderful. He's full of
wonder. He's beyond our comprehension.
Oh, Lord. The wonder of your grace. The
wonder of your person. He's your counselor. He's the
mighty God. He's the everlasting Father.
He is the Prince of Peace. The zeal of the Lord of Hosts
will perform this. He's gonna do it. He doesn't ask for counsel from
anybody. I love thinking about this. If
you can get a hold of this, then maybe you'll understand something
about everlasting. Our God is omniscient, He's omnipotent,
He's omnipresent, and He's never had a new thought. He's never had a new thought. That means that everything that
happens in time has already happened in eternity. When God speaks
of Himself being eternal, He's talking about something that
never had a beginning. God doesn't have plan B. God
doesn't see something and get caught off guard and say, well,
I've got to readjust here. He's God! The zeal of the Lord of hosts
shall perform this. What a glorious God we serve.
A God who's always having to adjust His plans to the whims
of man. The God that most people believe
in is a God who is dependent upon your will. What kind of God is that? I'll
tell you what kind of God it is. The person who believes that
has put themselves on the throne of God. And they have made for
themselves an idol that worships them. That's not the God that is. That's
not the God we're talking about. That's not the zeal of the Lord
of Hosts. Our God reigns. And He hath done whatsoever He
wills. And no man can stay His hand
or say unto Him, What doest Thou? He's sovereign. And when the
Lord Jesus Christ came into this world, He didn't come in order
to try to save anybody. He didn't come to make an offer
of salvation. He performed that which He came
to do. God's going to evaluate His performance.
God has evaluated His performance. That's what the resurrection
is all about. You know that. The resurrection of the Lord
Jesus Christ is God Almighty evaluating the performance of
His Son and saying, I cannot allow my Holy One to see corruption.
And His resurrection is the positive proof that God is satisfied with
what He accomplished. And here's the question. Are
you and I satisfied with the same thing God's satisfied with?
Or do we think that, well, that's really not enough. I got to do
my part. Verse 7, and we'll close. Of
the increase of His government and peace, there shall be no
end. Now, when we use the word increase,
we typically mean to add something to what's already been there.
You can't add anything to God. The word here is abundance. Abundance. And the word end is limitless. And so the literal translation
of this verse 7 is, of the abundance of His government and the abundance
of His peace, there is no limit. It's a declaration of His absolute
sovereign control over all things. That's what it is. The abundance
of His government and the abundance of His peace. There should be
no limit. There's no end. There's no way
to put a measurement to it. Why? Because upon the throne of David,
and upon his kingdom, to order it. Now that word order means
to prepare or to make ready. You remember when the king gave
a feast for his son's wedding, and they went out and invited
the guests, and one man said, well, I've got a wife to marry,
and I've got a father to bury, and I've got this to do and that
to do, and they wouldn't come. And what'd the king say to his
servants? Go out into the highways and hedges. Now that means go
to the street people. Go to the homeless. Go to those
homeless camps out there in the woods, those people standing
on the side of the street begging. And compel them to come. And
they'll come. They'll come because they ain't
got nothing. They'll come. And the house was full. And tell
them, here's what the king said, tell them that everything is
ready. table set. All they got to do
is walk in. It's all ready. They're going
to come because they're hungry. Now which one are you? Are you
the homeless beggar on the side of the road with nothing? Or are you the one that's got,
well I got too many things going on in this life right now. I'll
take care of things with God later on. The beggars will come. sick, the blind, the lame, the
halt, they'll come. They'll come. Why? Because everything's
ready. It's all ordained. And it's been
ready. It's been ready from before the
foundation of the world. Christ is the Lamb slain before
the foundation of the world. David said, Though my house be
not so with God, yet He has made with me, not I made with Him,
He made with me an everlasting covenant. Everlasting doesn't
mean it starts here and lasts forever. It means it never had
a beginning, never had an end. This covenant of grace that God
established is from everlasting to everlasting. We can't comprehend
that because we live in this thing called time and space and
we calculate everything by time and space. Only through the eyes
of faith can you believe in everlasting. I'm amazed to know that even
the Big Bang theorists have brought all their theories back to an
infinitely dense and eternal speck of matter that exploded
into the Big Bang. So even they have to come to
a point to where for there to be time and space, there has
to be something outside of time. God's eternal. He's eternal. He made with me an everlasting
covenant ordered in all things, and sure, this is all my salvation
and all my desire. It's all I've got, and it's all
I need. The zeal of the Lord of Hosts
shall perform this." And He did. He performed it. Look at, to establish it, That means to sustain it, to
bring it to its full end. So not only did God purpose it
in eternity past, not only did He provide everything that was
necessary in order to ratify the covenant through the shed
blood and the sinless life of the Lord Jesus Christ, but he's
going to make sure that every single one for whom the Lord
Jesus Christ died, every single one that God Almighty chose in
the covenant of grace, every single one of them is going to
come under the sound of the gospel and they're going to be made
willing in the day of God's power. I'm not going to lose one of
my sheep. Not going to lose one of them. So I ordered it and
I established it. with judgment, with judgment and justice. Now judgment is the act of the
judge exercising a decision and justice is what that decision
is. So it's judgment That's God making
a judgment, and He gets to make all the judgments. And He's making
it on justice. That word justice is most often
translated righteousness. The Lord Jesus Christ is called
the plummet. He's the standard by which God
judges all things. You and I are going to stand
in the presence of God. We're either going to measure
up to the perfect righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, or
we're going to fall short. He ordered it. He established
it with judgment and justice. The zeal of the Lord will perform
this. Where's your hope? Where is your hope? Is it in
Christ? Alone? Or like most folks, Christ
plus something else? Let's pray together. Our merciful
Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for
your precious promises. We thank you for the performance.
of the Lord Jesus Christ, and we ask now that you would give
faith to your people to rest the hope of their souls on thy
dear son. For it's in his name we pray.
Amen. Brother Byrd, 40, let's stand
together, number 40. Great is Thy faithfulness, O
God my Father. There is no shadow of turning
with Thee. Thou changest not, Thy compassion
they fail not, As Thou hast been, Thou forever will be. Great is Thy faithfulness, Great
is Thy faithfulness, Morning by morning new mercies I see. All I have need that thy hand
hath provided, Great is thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me. Summer and winter and springtime
and harvest Sun, moon, and stars in the courses above Join with
all nature in manifold witness To thy great faithfulness, mercy,
and love. Great is Thy faithfulness, Great
is Thy faithfulness, Morning by morning new mercies I see. All I have needed, Thy hand hath
provided. Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, hardened for sin and a peace
that endures. Thine own dear presence to cheer
and to guide. Strength for today and bright
hope for tomorrow. Blessings on my with ten thousand
beside. Great is Thy faithfulness. Great is Thy faithfulness. Morning by morning new mercies
I see. All I have needed, Thy hand hath
provided. ? Great is thy faithfulness,
Lord, unto me ? Amen. Thank you.