If it cuts out, we'll just keep
going without it. But let's all stand together. We're open tonight's
service with hymn number 40. Number 40, great is thy faithfulness. Let's all stand. Great is Thy faithfulness, O
God my Father! There is no shadow of turning
with Thee. Thou changest not Thy compassions,
they fail not. As Thou hast been, Thou forever
wilt be. 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. Summer and winter and springtime
and harvest, sun, moon, and stars in their 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,
unto me. Hardened for sin and a peace
that endureth Thine own dear presence to cheer and to guide
Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow Blessings all
mine, with ten thousand beside. Great is thy faithfulness, great
is thy faithfulness. Morning by morning, new mercies
I see. All I have need in thy hand hath
provided. Great is thy faithfulness, Lord,
unto me. Please be seated. How grateful we are for his faithfulness. I want to begin by extending
our thanks and congratulations to Esquire Adam Clark. We're very proud of you, Adam.
Thankful, thankful to the Lord. Jordy, good to have you here
with us. And Norm and Nancy Wells from the Dalles, Oregon. Turn with me in your Bibles to
Leviticus chapter one for our call to worship Leviticus chapter
one. And we'll begin reading in verse
one. And the Lord called unto Moses and spake unto him out
of the tabernacle of the congregation saying, Isn't that wonderful
how the Lord speaks out of the tabernacle of his congregation
and his people come together? Speak unto the children of Israel,
and say unto them, If any man of you bring an offering unto
the Lord, he shall bring you an offering of the cattle, even
of the herd, and of the flock. And if his offering be a burnt
sacrifice of the herd, let him offer a male without blemish.
And he shall offer it of his own voluntary will at the door
of the tabernacle of the congregation before the Lord." What a picture
of Christ. He's the Lamb without spot and
without blemish. And the only hope of entering
into the presence of the Lord is through the sacrifice that
he made of himself willingly. And he shall put his hand upon
the head of the burnt offering. Now that's where I wanted you
to see tonight. If you go back to the original language, this
putting your hand upon the head is not just touching the head
of the animal. It's to put both hands on the head and lean all
your weight on the head of this animal. To lean heavily on the
animal. And that's exactly what happened
when the Lord Jesus Christ made himself a sacrifice for our sins. The hand of God leaned heavily
upon him, and the transfer of our sin was placed upon him. And the same thing is true of
those for whom the Lord does a work of grace in their hearts.
We don't just touch the Lord, we lean the entire weight of
all our soul and all our salvation on him. So he says, You put your
hand heavily upon the burnt offering, and it shall be accepted for
him to make atonement for him, a covering. And he shall kill
the bullock before the Lord, and the priest, Aaron's sons,
shall bring the blood and sprinkle the blood round about the altar
that is by the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, and shall
flay the burnt offering, and cut it in pieces. And the sons
of Aaron shall put fire upon the altar and lay wood in order
upon the fire. And the priest, Aaron's son,
shall lay the parts, the head, the fat, in order upon the wood
that is on the fire which is upon the altar. And his inwards
and his legs shall he wash in water. And the priest shall burn
all on the altar to be a burnt sacrifice, an offering made by
fire of a sweet savor unto the Lord. Let's pray together. Our merciful Heavenly Father,
how we rejoice in knowing that that you sent the fuel full fury
of your wrath the fire of your judgment upon our substitute,
our sin bearer, our savior. You leaned heavily upon his head
and was satisfied with the sacrifice that he made of himself once
for all to put away all our sin. We ask, Lord, that you would
do a work of grace in our hearts. We pray that you would enable
us to cast all our care upon Him, knowing that He cared for
us. Lord, that we would rest the
full weight of all our salvation on the sacrifice that He made
of Himself. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen. Let's stand together again. Number
314. Number 314. I am thine, O Lord. Let's all stand. I am thine, O Lord, I have heard
thy voice and it told thy love to me. But I long to rise in
the arms of faith and be closer drawn to thee. Draw me nearer Nearer, blessed
Lord, to the cross where Thou hast died. Draw me nearer, nearer, nearer,
blessed Lord, to the precious bleeding side. Consecrate me now to thy service,
Lord, by the power of grace divine. Let my soul look up with a steadfast
hope, and my will be lost in Thine. Draw me nearer, nearer,
blessed Lord, to the cross where Thou hast died. Draw me nearer, nearer, nearer,
blessed Lord, to Thy precious bleeding side. Oh, the pure delight of a single
hour that before Thy throne I spend. When I kneel in prayer and with
Thee, my God, I commune as friend with friend, draw me nearer to the cross where thou hast
died. Draw me nearer, nearer, nearer,
blessed Lord, to thy precious bleeding side. There are depths of love that
I cannot know till I cross the narrow sea. There are heights
of joy that I may not reach till I rest in peace with thee. Please be seated. Could you open your Bibles with
me to the book of Isaiah, chapter 1? Isaiah, chapter 1. Someone asked me recently about
the gospel. They said, I hear you all talk
about the gospel a lot. Does that mean Matthew, Mark,
Luke, and John? You know, those books in our
Bibles are called the gospel according to. And I was able
to say to him, no, they preach the gospel, but really every
book of the Bible could be called the gospel according to Isaiah,
the gospel according to Jeremiah, the gospel according to Ezekiel.
I've titled this message, The Gospel According to Isaiah. And if the Lord enables me to
have something to say, I hope to be able to preach through
the book of Isaiah on Wednesday nights for however long it takes. So that will give you an opportunity
to read ahead and be thinking about the next passage in Isaiah
that we'll be looking at. And tonight I hope to deal with
Isaiah chapter 1. The book of Isaiah has been called
the evangelical prophet. It has even been called the fifth
gospel in that it's so clear as to the truths of the gospel
and probably, as far as I can tell, the most often repeated
or quoted Old Testament book in the New Testament. It's interesting
that there are 66 chapters in the book of Isaiah. There are
66 books in the Bible. The first 39 chapters, which
is 39 books in the Old Testament, correspond with the Old Testament.
And the last 27 books correspond with the New Testament. And the
transition takes place in Isaiah chapter 40. where the Lord said,
Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, speak ye comfortably unto Jerusalem. And so, as we look through this
wonderful book of prophecy, I hope that the Lord will enable us
to have an understanding and a belief in the Lord Jesus Christ
as our Savior and the good news of the message of salvation,
which is the gospel. Someone also asked me recently,
well they asked someone else who listens to our messages from
afar, and they said, does Greg ever deal with end time prophecies? And they said no, we don't try
to figure out the events of what's going on in the world to the
prophecy of scripture. That's not for us to delve into. The scripture makes it clear
that the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. The testimony
of the Lord Jesus Christ is the spirit of prophecy. So we're
not interested in prophecy like some people might be interested
in it in terms of trying to figure out the events of of the day
in which we live and how they might fit in to different things
in the Bible. We're looking for Christ. In
the volume of the book, it is written of me. This book is all
about the Lord Jesus Christ. And this first, this book of
Isaiah clearly declares him. And my hope and prayer is that
we'll be able to see that. Now I mentioned a couple of weeks
ago the difference between inspiration and revelation. The writers of
scripture were given direct inspiration from God so that these men are
the ones that are described in the New Testament who spake not
of their own private interpretation but were holy men of God and
were breathed upon by the Spirit of God. and wrote infallibly
the Word of God. Now for us, the inspiration comes
to us by revelation. And if the Lord is pleased to
open the eyes of our understanding, then we'll hear the same voice
that they heard. Not in addition, not like they
heard it in the sense that they heard it for the first time,
but we'll hear it in the same power. And it'll be just as effectual
to us as it was to them. And so that's my hope, is that
we will be holy men who will be breathed upon by the Spirit
of God. And the same inspiration that
God gave to them will be revealed to us. And that there will be
no difference between what they saw and what we see. And that's
how this book starts out. The vision of Isaiah. The vision of Isaiah. I want
to have a vision. I really do. I want to see Christ. I want to see Him. Not with my
physical eyes. Not even with some sort of emotional response or esoteric
experience. I want to see Him in my soul. I want the light of the gospel
to shine in my heart, in the face of the Lord Jesus Christ,
and I want Him to reveal Himself to me. And if that happens, we'll
have a vision. We'll have a vision. The vision of Isaiah. Isaiah's
name means, Jehovah has saved. That's what his name means. Jehovah
has saved. People talk about getting saved.
If the Lord reveals himself to us, what he will reveal is what
he's already accomplished. We don't get saved, we discover
the salvation that He's already done. Jehovah has saved. He saved in the covenant of grace
when He promised to the Son to give Him a bride. And the Son
entered into that covenant promise and made a commitment to atone
for the sins of His bride. And the Spirit of God entered
into that eternal covenant. This all happened before time
ever began. Christ is called the Lamb that was slain before
the foundation of the world. Jehovah has saved. He's not trying
to get folks saved. We'll come to Him. Everyone for
whom God the Father chose in the covenant of grace, everyone
for whom the Lord Jesus Christ shed His precious blood, every
single one of them will come in the day of His power. He will
make them willing and they'll come. They'll come gladly. They'll come as broken sinners,
depending upon Christ for all their salvation, leaning on Him,
as we just read in Leviticus chapter 1, putting all the weight
of their soul on the head of their burnt sacrifice, the one
who quenched the fire of God's wrath and made our salvation
secure in His work of redemption. He atoned for our sins once and
for all. There's nothing to be added to
what the Lord Jesus Christ accomplished on Calvary's cross. He's not
waiting for us to add our faith or our works or anything else. He, when he reveals himself,
he gives faith and we believe. We believe. Believing is the
result of faith. You understand that? Faith is
a sovereign work of grace. You can't drum faith up. You
can't make yourself have faith. Faith is the gift of God. And
faith comes by hearing. And hearing comes by the Word
of God. So we preach the Word of God in hopes, believing, that
God's going to give faith to somebody. And when He does, that
person who receives the gift of faith is going to believe. And when they believe, they're
never going to stop believing. You can't, a believer can never
become an unbeliever. Ever. What God does, he does
right. And so he says the vision of
Isaiah, the son of Amoz, Amoz is the father of Isaiah, his
name means strong, and I hope for a a strong work of grace
in my heart and in your heart tonight as we look to God's Word
which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. Now that's God's
people. That's God's people. I want to be a part of that.
I want to be a part of the city of peace. I want to be a part
of Judah, the elect of God. And this prophecy concerns them. Now that's very important in
this first chapter, because if you can't see yourself in this
first chapter, you won't see anything else in the book of
Isaiah. There's some very strong language that's used in these
first few verses that we're going to look at that describe Judah
and Jerusalem. And my hope is that the Spirit
of God will give to us the vision to know that these things describe
us. If they don't describe you, then
you won't understand anything else in the book of Isaiah. Or
in the book of God, for that matter. You know, we talk about
total depravity. and uh... you know people people
talk about you know they have a problem with limited time or
they have a problem with with uh... particular redemption or
they have a problem with unconditional election or irresistible grace
their problem is with total prairie the top problem is they never
saw themselves as god describes us in isaiah chapter one once
the lord does that everything else just works out now as they
have began his ministry in chapter six. He's writing these first
five, but his ministry begins in the year that King Uzziah
died. I saw the Lord high and lifted up. And he says here that his ministry
was during the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings
of Judah. Now it'd be very easy for anybody
just to look up the names of those men in the Old Testament
and do some calculating and figure out that Isaiah prophesied for
over 50 years. Over 50 years. He's probably in his early twenties
in Isaiah chapter 6 when the Lord called him out. Remember
he said, I saw the Lord and the Lord gave him the gospel to preach
and Isaiah said, Lord, how long do you want me to do that? You
want me to preach this gospel? And most of these 50 years, you
can just read it in Kings and in Samuel. The history of Israel
during this 50 years was horrible, idolatry. And Isaiah is prophesying, preaching
the gospel during a time of history in Israel when they were given
over to idolatry. And that's what the Lord told
him in Isaiah chapter 6. You're going to preach the gospel, but
they're not going to hear you. And you remember what Isaiah
said? Lord, how long do I have to do that? And he said, until
the cities be wasted without inhabitants and the land be utterly
desolate. As long as there's somebody alive,
you keep preaching Isaiah. And he did. He was faithful to
the gospel for over 50 years. I hope the Lord will enable us
to do that. Don't you? Don't you want to be faithful
to the gospel to the end? We just sang about great is his
faithfulness. His faithfulness will make us
faithful. And that's what it did for Isaiah.
Look at verse 2. The Lord says, Hear, O heavens,
and give ear, O earth. Now the word earth there is the
earth, the inanimate objects of the earth. And the Lord is
saying in this first chapter, in this first few verses, that
the angels will hear what I'm saying. and the rocks will hear
what I'm saying before an unregenerate man will hear what I'm saying. The rocks will hear the voice
of God before an unregenerate man will hear the voice of God. The Lord said, these rocks will
cry out. If you remain silent, these rocks will cry out. What does that tell you about
our natural condition apart from the intervention of God's grace
giving us the new birth? Before we're regenerated, we're
deaf. We're blind. We're dead. We're
worse than rocks. We can't hear. We won't hear. The Lord has to do a work of
grace to take out the heart of stone and put in a heart of flesh. He has to unstop our ears and
give understanding to our sight if we're going to believe. The
natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit, neither
can he know them. Now what the Lord, the Lord begins
this prophecy by telling us, the rocks will hear my voice
before you do. That leaves me in a pretty bad
state. Hear, O heavens, and give ear,
O earth, for the Lord hath spoken. I have nourished and brought
up children, and they have rebelled against me. The ox knoweth his
owner, and the ass his master's crib. But Israel doth not know,
my people doth not consider. The brute beast know who feeds
them and who corrects them. The brute beast, the animals
of the farm, have a respect for their master that the creatures
of God don't have for him. Now the Lord is describing us. He's describing us. He's saying
that the ox have more sense than you do. And the rocks will hear
my voice before you do. Lord, is that me? Yep. It's me. It's me. If God doesn't do a work of grace
in my heart, if he doesn't cause me to hear, A person can sit
and listen and learn doctrine and recite things that they've
heard without ever hearing the voice of God. Look at what he
says. Ah, a sinful nation. A people laden with iniquity. a seed of evildoers, children
that are corruptors. They have forsaken the Lord.
They have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger. They are
gone away backwards. Backwards. All we like sheep, all we like
sheep have gone astray. Each one has gone unto his own
way. If the Lord doesn't arrest us,
if he doesn't stop us, if he doesn't speak to us, if he doesn't
regenerate us and save us, we will go in the opposite direction
of God. Opposite direction. And we may
go in that direction reciting things that are true, but never
believing them. If they speak not according to
the law and the testimony, it is because there is no light
in them. You can't have partial light.
You can't have partial birth. You can't have partial life.
You're either alive or you're dead. We come into this world. The Lord is describing our natural
condition. This is how we come into the
world. We come into this world with less sense than an ox. We come into this world with
less ability to hear the voice of God than the rocks. We come
into this world as evil doers. We come into this world drinking
iniquity like water. We come into this world doing
no good thing. That's our natural condition.
A person hears this and says, well, that's not me. If that's
not you, then you don't need a Savior. You don't need a Savior. and you won't hear anything else
that the voice of God has to say until first he makes you
to be a sinner. They have provoked the Holy One
of Israel to anger. I will in no wise, I will in
no wise pass over your iniquity. I must punish sin. I'm gonna
punish it. And we'll either be the recipients
of the wrath of God separated from him for all eternity or
we'll have the hope of knowing that our sin bearer, our advocate,
the one for whom God Almighty leaned heavily upon his head
and transferred all the sins of all of God's people to him.
God made him sin who knew no sin, that we might be made the
righteousness of God in him. Here's our condition. We've all
gone backwards. Look at verse 5. Why should you
be stricken anymore? You revolt more and more. The
whole head is sick and the whole heart faint. God doesn't correct, He doesn't
save His people through punishing them. I've seen over the years, many,
many times, People get an interest in the things of God because
they're going through a trial. They're going through a real
troubling time in their lives, and they become interested in
spiritual things. They'll come to church. They'll
cry out, rejoice, and say, oh yes, that's wonderful. And then
when the trial passes, they're gone. They're gone. I was talking
to somebody just the other day about this in terms of, I've
seen it happen with relationships. A relationship will break up
and one of the individuals will get interested in the gospel
and then they'll patch things up and they're gone. They're
gone. Now, am I suggesting that the
Lord doesn't use trouble sometimes to cause us to be interested
in the gospel? Yes. But if our interest in the
gospel is just because of that trouble, when that trouble passes,
so will our interest. Was the Philippian jailer in
trouble when he heard the gospel? Yeah. He was about to kill himself.
Was the Syrophoenician woman in trouble when she heard the
gospel? Yeah. Was the woman with the issue of blood in trouble
when she heard the gospel? Yeah. But the interest that they
had went far beyond that immediate trial, that immediate trouble
that they had. They had an interest for the salvation
of their soul. So the Lord says, why should
I punish you? The more I punish you, the more
you're gonna go astray. Punishment doesn't change your
heart. It's the goodness of God that
leadeth to repentance. It's seeing what the Lord Jesus
Christ has done for me that causes me to be brokenhearted and causes
me to want him. Look at the last part of verse
five, the whole head is sick and the whole heart faint. Now
listen very carefully to this because wherever your head is
is where your heart is. He doesn't say here your heart
is faint but your head's got it right. Have you ever heard
someone say, well they believe the gospel in their head but
they don't believe it in their heart and they missed heaven
by 18 inches. You know what that does to me?
If that statement's true, then that statement causes me great
concern for where my heart is. Because I know what I've got
in my head, but you know, maybe my heart's not, maybe I just
learned some things and I don't, that's a horrible statement,
that person believes in their head. Now, the disconnect is
not between the head and the heart. The disconnect is between
the heart and the mouth. Men by nature are liars. They'll
say things that aren't in their head or in their heart. They'll honor God with their
lips when their hearts are far from Him. And just because a
person learns some doctrine and memorizes some verses and is
able to recite some things, I can teach a five-year-old to do that.
I can teach a parrot to do that. Well, I can't, but I guess somebody
could. You know, you see what I'm saying? So don't try to figure out, well,
where's my head and where's my heart? You know, if you wanna look at
anatomy, your heart's in your head. This thing in your chest,
if the heart is your affections and your head is your understanding,
and those two things are always together. If you don't have an
affection for Christ, you don't have an understanding, even if
you're able to say some things that are true. Look what he says,
the whole head is sick and the whole heart is faint. Not when
you got a little bit understanding, you got part of it right. The
whole understanding and the whole affection are wrong. The Lord's
describing us prior to regeneration. And when he does a work of grace,
we're able to say, Lord, I do believe that Jesus Christ is
the Son of God. I know I believe that. I believe
Him. I don't have any place else to
go. I've cast all the hope of my
salvation on Him. My affections aren't always there.
If I'm just always thinking about how much do I love Christ and
how sincere I am, I'm going to be in trouble. But my heart is there. I do believe
with all my heart. With all my heart. I'm persuaded. that he is able to keep that
which I've committed unto him against that day, and I don't
know where else to go. Lord, you alone have the words
of eternal life. I've got no place else. Verse six. You remember what
I said? If you cannot see yourself in
this description, you'll not understand anything else in the
Word of God. If you say, well, that's not
me. I'm not laden with iniquity. I'm not a sinful nation. You
know, I hear the voice of God. I've got some understanding.
I know some things. I'm not like that. We're talking,
and a believer knows that whatever light he has is by the grace
of God. Whatever righteousness he has
is not his. His righteousnesses are as filthy
rags before God. So the child of God is looking,
yes, this is what I am apart from the grace of God. This is
what I am by nature. And if the Lord left me to myself,
this is all I would be. And my old man is still this
way. He's still this way. He can't be corrected. The old
man can't be taught. He can't be improved on. That's
why we need a new man. We need a new nature. We need
a new heart. A heart of faith. A heart that's
alive. A heart that believes. From the sole of the foot. even unto the head. There is
no soundness in it, but wounds and bruises and putrefying sores,
they have not been clothed, neither bound up, neither mollified with
ointment." That word ointment is oil. The Spirit of God has
not done a work of grace. That's just my old man. That's
what he looks like, a leper. a leper. Not a clean square inch of flesh
anywhere on him. He's got no righteousness, there's
no goodness in him. Paul said, in me, that is, in
my flesh dwelleth no good thing. Right now. Right now. Christ
came to save sinners, of whom I used to be the chief. Is that
what Paul said? No. This is me, Lord. You're describing me. Oh, how
desperate I am for a Savior. How dependent I am on the righteousness
of Christ. How I need an advocate with the
Father. How I need someone to put away
my sin before the eyes of God and satisfy His divine justice.
That's what a sinner will be saying. Your country is desolate. Your
cities are burned with fire. Your land, strangers devour it
in your presence. And it is desolate as overthrown
by strangers. That's the world we live in,
isn't it? There's nothing out there. There's no life. There's no salvation. There's
no light. Men are confused. They're desperate. They're dark. They have no hope. And we walk around out there
and we think, Lord, why me? Why have you given me an understanding? Why have you given me a heart
for Christ? Why have you caused me to believe
the gospel? Why didn't you leave me to myself? And the daughter of Zion that's
the child of God, is left as a cottage in a vineyard, as a
lodge in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city. She just,
you know, we're living in this land of plenty and here we got
this little cottage. Here we are in our little cottage. except the Lord of hosts had
left unto us a very small remnant. We should have been as Sodom
and we should have been like under Gomorrah. The Lord told the people at Capernaum
when he performed miracles there and revealed himself there and
they couldn't hear it. They would not believe it. He
said it would be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah in the
days of the wrath of God than it would be for you. Now had the gospel been preached
to them, they would have believed. They would have believed. Oh, the humbling reality of knowing
that once I've heard the gospel, I'm responsible before God for
it. Lord, teach me and don't let me go. Don't turn me loose,
don't let me go back to my old man. I'll be just, that's all
I've got. That's all I've got. It's just
a remnant, a very small remnant. That's the reality of the truth
of God in this world. You see that, don't you? You
talk to enough people, you're around enough people, you know
they don't have any light. They don't have any hope. They
don't have any understanding. They're doing everything they're
doing in darkness and they either have all their hope in their
material things or they have their hope in a covenant that
they have made with God. And you know that covenant is
going to be disannulled, don't you? You think, Lord, the people
of this world, they just can't see. They don't know. Who maketh thee to differ? What
do you have that you've not received? This is not a matter of pride.
This is a matter of great humility before God. God, why would you
show me? Why me? And when we preach the
gospel and we talk about a remnant, we talk about God's electing
grace, the natural man, the religious man says, well, that's not fair. That's not fair. I can't tell
you how many times I've heard that. That's not fair. Why wouldn't
God want everybody to be saved? And the child of God who has
some understanding of the gospel says just the opposite. Why would
a holy God save anybody? And most particularly, why would
he give me the time of day? Why would he save me? This is who I am. I'm a leper. From the sole of my feet to the
top of my head. Laden with iniquity. Just like
everybody else. Now in the next couple of verses
the Lord is talking to preachers. Hear the word of the Lord. Ye
rulers of Sodom. Now He's not talking about Sodom.
He's talking about who he just described. In the previous verse he said,
you've been just like Sodom and just like Gomorrah and now he's
addressing them as Sodom and Gomorrah. And he's saying to the preachers
and the rulers, Hear the word of the Lord, ye rulers of Sodom,
and give ear unto the law of your God, ye people of Gomorrah. To what purpose is the multitude
of your sacrifices unto me, saith the Lord? I am full of burnt
offerings, and of rams, and of the fat of fed beasts. I delight
not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of gee goats."
Now he's describing religion, isn't he? Men are naturally religious. They know there's a God. They
know that they've got some sin problem. They don't, they've
not been made sinners. They don't understand that everything
about them is sin, but they know that there's a God with whom
they must do. And they, and so, and they know they're the sins
that they are aware of need to be atoned for. And so what do
they do? They go about atoning for their
own sins. They go about making sacrifices. And the Lord is saying
to them, He's saying, why did you do that? Why are you doing
that? Have you been there? I spent 40 years of my life doing
that. And there are times now, when
I look away from Christ, and the spirit of the Pharisee is
still in my heart, I think, well, God will be pleased with that.
Or I can make up for that. Or I can atone for that. And the Lord's got to teach me
all over again. No, you can't. Why are you doing that? I'm not
pleased with your sacrifice. There's only one thing I'm pleased
with. That's my son. Come to him. Flee to him. when you come to appear before
me, who hath required this of your hand to tread my courts?"
You think something you've done, or some commitment you've made,
or some sacrifice that you've made, or some renewed zeal that
you have is somehow going to atone for your sins? No. Don't bring anything from your...
If it's from you, it's defiled. It's just defiled. Bring no more vain oblations. Incense is an abomination to
me. The new moons and the Sabbaths,
the calling of the assemblies, I cannot away with. It is iniquity. Even your solemn meetings. It
doesn't measure up. I'm not satisfied with it. Your most, my most sincere prayer
needs to be forgiven. You put an offering in that box
back there, and that needs to be forgiven. And I hope you do. And I hope you're sincere about
it, and I hope you're generous, and I hope you're regular and
willing. But you know that whatever you do has to be forgiven. You've never had a pure motive
about anything you've ever done, have you? Why? Because you're
a sinner. And we do something and we think,
well there, God will be pleased with that. Not if it's not covered by the
blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, He's not pleased with it. If it's not done in faith, He's
not pleased with it. You say, what does that mean?
I'm looking to Christ for all my righteousness before God.
I realize that everything I do, because I do it, it's sin. And
I'm in need of a Savior. I'm in need of a sacrifice that
I can't produce. Your new moons, your appointed
feast, my soul, hateth. They are trouble unto me. I am
weary to bear them. When you spread forth your hands,
I will hide my eyes from you. Yea, when you make many prayers,
I will not hear. Your hands are full of blood.
Now that just simply means, it doesn't mean that we don't serve
God with our hearts. It doesn't mean that we don't
give and we don't witness and we don't pray. It doesn't mean
any of those things. He's talking about doing those
things thinking that the fact that you did it makes it acceptable
to God. You see the difference? We do
all those things. We have We have appointed feasts. We have solemn assemblies. That's
what we're doing right now. But the fact that we're here
doing it, if that somehow is salving my conscience or giving
me some hope that God's pleased with what I'm doing and that's
going to earn me favor and merit with God, then God says, I hate
it. I'm not pleased with it. I'm
pleased with my son. He's the only one I'm pleased
with. Your hands are full of blood.
His hands are clean. And so the next verse he says,
wash you and make you clean. How am I gonna be washed? Only
by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Who has clean hands and
a pure heart? Christ does. And if I come to
the God in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, I have acceptance
because of the Beloved. Because of Him, I'm accepted.
He's all my acceptance before God. Our Heavenly Father, we ask that
You would make Your Gospel effectual to our hearts. and cause us to
find all our cleansing and all our washing in Thy dear Son. For it's in His name we ask it. Amen. 235 in the hardback tenement.
Let's stand together. Pass me not, O gentle Savior,
hear my humble cry. While on others Thou art calling,
do not pass me by. Savior, Savior, hear my humble
cry. While on others Thou art calling,
do not pass me by. Let me at the throne of mercy
find a sweet relief. Kneeling there in deep contrition,
help my unbelief. Savior, Savior, hear my humble
cry. While on others thou art calling,
do not pass me by. Trusting only in thy merit, would
I seek thy face. Heal my wounded, broken spirit,
save me by thy grace. Savior, Savior, hear my humble
cry. While on others Thou art calling,
do not pass me by. Thou the spring of all my comfort,
more than life to me, Whom have I on earth beside Thee? Whom in heaven but Thee? Savior, Savior, While on others thou art calling,
do not pass me by.