number 485, Revive Us Again. Let's all stand together. We praise thee, O God, for the
Son of thy love. For Jesus, who died, is now gone
above. Alleluia, amen. Alleluia, thine the glory, revive
us again. We praise thee, O God, for thy
Spirit of light, who has shown us our Savior and scattered our
night. Hallelujah, thine the glory. Hallelujah, amen. Hallelujah, thine the glory. Revive us again. All glory and praise to the Lamb
that was slain, who has borne all our sins and has cleansed
every stain. Hallelujah, thine the glory. Hallelujah, amen. Hallelujah, thine the glory. Revive us again. Revive us again. Fill each heart with thy love. May each soul be rekindled with
fire from above. I want us to read together from
Colossians chapter 2, Colossians chapter 2. As we were just singing that
hymn, I had flashback memories to many years ago in religion
where we would schedule revival meetings thinking that we could
control God's blessings if we just put enough effort into it. come to realize now that revival
is something we need every day, every day. You have your Bibles
open, Colossians chapter 2, we'll begin reading in verse 2, that
their hearts might be comforted, being knit together in love and
unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding. The Lord would
give us the full assurance of understanding what the natural
man cannot understand. It's called the mystery of the
gospel. It's hid from the natural man.
To understand that all our hope is bound up in the person and
work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Look what he goes on to say,
to the acknowledgement of the mystery of God and of the Father
and of Christ in whom? in the Lord Jesus Christ are
hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. If we're to have
understanding, we're going to find it in Christ. God has made
him to be for us our wisdom, our sanctification, our justification,
our righteousness. Everything is in him. And this
I say, lest any man should beguile you with enticing words. How
easy it is to be deceived. For though I be absent in the
flesh, yet am I with you in the spirit, joying and beholding
your order and the steadfastness of your faith in Christ. There's our hope. Looking to
Christ, resting in Christ, relying upon the Lord Jesus Christ as
our life. As you have therefore received
Christ Jesus the Lord, how did you receive him? You received
him as a babe, you received him as a mercy beggar. As you received
Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him. We never get beyond
that dependence that we have on him. rooted and built up in
him and established in the faith as you have been taught, abounding
therein with thanksgiving. Beware, lest any man spoil you
through philosophy and vain deceit after the traditions of men,
after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ, for in
him dwelleth the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and you are
complete in Him." Complete. Everything that God requires
from you and from me, He's the head of all principality and
power. Everything that God requires
from us, we find in Christ. That's the mystery of the gospel.
The natural man can't see it. He wants to bring something to
the table. God says, no. My son is all and
he's in all. Let's pray together. Lord, you've said, unless you
build the house, they labor in vain that build it. Lord, we pray that you would
make our labors tonight effectual, that they would not be done in
vain, that they would be done by you. Lord, that you would
speak, that you would open our hearts, that you would reveal
to us the glory of thy dear son, and that you would cause us to
find all our hope in him. Lord, we don't want to engage
in a labor that would rob Christ of his glory. We pray that you
would enable us to lift him up. Pray that you would give us an
understanding of the mystery of the gospel and cause us to
find Christ to be our all. and help us to know that he is
in all. For it's in his name we ask it.
Amen. Pass me not, O gracious Father,
sinful, wretched though I be. Though you might in truth condemn
me, let your mercy fall on me. Love of God so everlasting, Blood
of Christ so rich and free, Grace of God so strong and saving,
Magnify them all in me. Pass me not, O blessed Savior,
let me hear your gracious call. I'm a guilty, helpless sinner,
Savior, at your feet I fall. Love so everlasting, blood of
Christ so rich and free, grace of God so strong and saving,
magnify them all in me. Pass me not, O mighty Spirit,
you can cause the dead to live. Speak the word of saving power,
give me faith and make me live. Love of God so everlasting, Blood
of Christ so rich and free, Grace of God so strong and saving,
Magnify them all in me. Pass me not a poor lost sinner. If you will, you can save me. Reach down with your hand of
mercy. Saving others, Lord, save me. Love of God. Please be seated. Hosea chapter 14. Hosea chapter 14. I am so hopeful that the Lord will
enable us to understand what he's saying
here. I believe the Lord's given me
a little light on it and blessed my soul. And I want that light
to shine in your heart and in my heart tonight and for the
Lord to give us an understanding of what it is he's saying in
these last few verses of the book of Hosea. I believe if he
does, you'll be greatly comforted. You'll leave here with hope.
You'll leave here with peace. Verse nine, the last verse of
this chapter, who is wise and he shall understand these things. Prudent and he shall know them. I've titled this message, Hope
for the Wise and the Prudent. Lord, would you make me wise?
Would you make me prudent? Would you open the eyes of my
understanding? Would you give me the grace to
understand what these things really mean for me, for my soul,
for my salvation, for the satisfaction of my sin? Would you do that
for me? He said, this is for the wise
and the prudent. For the ways of the Lord are
right. Now we know that this whole book
is about the Lord Jesus Christ. We know that he is all and he's
in all. We know what we just read in
Colossians, that he is the fullness of the Godhead bodily and we
are complete in him. And so the Lord's saying, If
I make you wise and I make you prudent, I'm going to give you
the understanding, I'm going to give you the light to know
that this is about my son. For he is the way, he is the
truth, and he is the life. It's all about him. And you're
to be found in him. The ways of the Lord are right,
and the just walk in them. They walk in Christ. As you received
Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him. If the Lord gives
us wisdom, if the Lord gives us understanding, if he makes
us to be prudent, we'll see that these verses are about the Lord
Jesus Christ and those who walk in him. For the transgressors shall fall
therein. The unbeliever will take these
admonitions and precepts and conclude that there's something
for him to do. There's some responsibility that
he has in order to make these things work for him. And the
scripture says that the very the very things that will be
hope and life and light and salvation for the wise and the prudent
will become a stumbling block to the unbeliever. God will send
them a strong delusion that they might believe the lie. They'll
take the word of God, they'll rest it, they'll twist it, and
they'll make it into a rule book for Christian living, and they'll
be condemned by the very thing that they're trying to fulfill.
that won't see that these things are about Christ. I want you
to see some of what the Lord has shown me in these verses. We finished Sunday with verse
four. I will heal their backsliding. I will love them freely, freely. You don't bring anything to the
table. You're not going to obligate God. How oftentimes we, we're
so works oriented. We think, well, you know, if
I could just, if I could just believe better, if I could pray
more, if I could be more faithful, if I could, if I'm going to love you, I'm
going to love you freely. You're not going to obligate
me. It's going to be free grace or it won't be, it won't be anything.
It's all of God's grace. Look what he said, I will love
them freely for mine anger is turned from them. There's no
anger. There's no anger in the Lord. You know, our work's mentality,
our work's thoughts are based on doing something to try to
negate or try to appease the anger of God for our sin. You
know, we're always trying to offer up something to compensate
for the guilt and shame of our sin. God says, no. I'm going to love them freely.
And they're not going to obligate me in any way, for my anger's
turned away. All my wrath has been put away. Matter of fact, Before time,
we know that the wrath of God fell on the Lord Jesus Christ
when He hung on Calvary's cross 2,000 years ago, but we also
know that the scripture says, I've loved them with an everlasting
love. So in the economy of God's time,
there was never a time, it wasn't like God had to spill out His
wrath on Christ in order to, in order to, to do away with
the anger that he had toward his children. The Lord Jesus
Christ is the lamb that was slain before the foundation of the
world and in the covenant of grace. There's never been a time
where God was angry at his children. And his wrath had to be satisfied.
Justice had to be met. And that's what happened on Calvary's
cross. But it's not like God was saying, okay, I'm not angry
anymore now. He's never been angry. Not with
his children. Now the scripture says he's angry
with the wicked every day, every day. But with his children, he's
got nothing but grace, nothing but love, nothing but favor toward
them. And the only thing that's going
to give you peace and me peace and the only thing that's going
to encourage us to love Christ and to trust him is to believe
that. is to believe that it's all of
Him. It's all of Him. Now look what
he says in the next verse. I will be as the dew unto Israel. Now, we live in a semi-tropical climate
that gets a lot of rain every year. But Israel's not that way. It's very arid, very dry. We read in the scriptures of
the early and the latter rains necessary for the growing of
crops, and we see in that the picture of our regeneration and
the picture of our glorification And then what we read about in
the scripture that between the early and the latter rains, in
order for those crops to stay alive, as is always the case
in a desert climate, there's a big temperature change between
nighttime and daytime, and the mornings are filled with dew,
and it's that dew that keeps those plants alive. It's that
heavy, heavy dew. between the early and the latter
rains that shows up every morning, miraculously almost. It was in
the air all the time, but you couldn't see it. It's not like,
you know, we feel our humidity in our air, but not there. It's
just you wake up in the morning and the dew is on the grass and
on the plants, and it sustains them through that dry season,
so that when the latter rain comes, they can they can be fruitful. And here the Lord's speaking
to us. Between the first reign, your
regeneration, and the latter reign, your glorification, I'm
going to sustain you with the dew of life. You know, we oftentimes
think, well, if God would just bless me with showers, if he
would just open up the windows of heaven and pour out showers
of his grace, then all would be well. And he's saying to us
what he said to Elijah. Remember when he went to Mount
Sinai? And Elijah saw the fire, and
he saw the wind, and he saw the earthquake, and God wasn't in
it. And then there was the still small voice. Brothers and sisters,
your growth in grace is going to be in very, very small increments. And it's going to come as God
provides daily bread through the dew that he brings. He's going to be for you, too.
He's going to sustain you. We live in an arid world that
Scripture calls a dry and thirsty land where there is no water,
there is no bread, there's no life. And the only way that we
can be sustained in this life is for the Lord to provide for
us day in and day out that moisture of grace. that enables us to
grow and stay alive during this dry spell. That's what we are.
We're like the children of Israel, wandering in the wilderness.
We need that daily bread. passage of scripture in Micah,
let me just read it to you, Micah chapter 5 verse 7, as the dew
from the Lord as the showers upon the grass. Now the scripture
speaks of this dew oftentimes upon the tender grass. You know
what, you know what deluges do to tender plants? They destroy
them. If God gave us what we wanted
and opened up the windows of heaven and showered us with blood,
we'd be more than we could bear. And so he gives us daily dew. And that's how he grows us. That tarrieth not for man, nor
waiteth for the sons of men. This dew doesn't tarry for man. It doesn't wait for the sons
of men. In other words, the do that God
gives you to grow you in His grace is not given to you because
you've done something to deserve it. That's how we think, isn't it?
Oh, if I could be more faithful. If I could pray more, if I could
read my Bible more, then I would somehow get more of God's blessings. And that's what the Lord's saying. This dew, this shower that comes
upon the grass, tarrieth not for man, and weighteth not for
the sons of men. In other words, God gives it
every day. You say, if I could hate my sin more, Your hatred
for your sin is the due of grace. Your desire to pray is the due
of grace. Your faith is the due of grace. You see, you don't bring these
things to God, well, if I could just hate my sin more, if I could
have more faith, then I'd get more due. No, that is the due. That is the due. Your understanding of the gospel
is the due of grace. Your desire for Christ, your
coming to Christ, your love for Christ, your love for the people
of God, your love for the gospel, your love for the word of God,
that is the due of grace. It's not that you bring these
things to God in order to be rewarded with more grace. That is the grace of God. Peace, hope, light, prayer, faith,
faithfulness. This is what the Lord says. I'm
going to be for them as the dew unto Israel. And it's gonna be
in small portions, and it's gonna be every day. You know, weeds
grow really fast. The trees of righteousness, which
are the plantings of the Lord, and he calls us the cedars of
Lebanon. Those trees are, some of them,
thousands of years old. I read up on the trees of Lebanon,
some of them over 100 feet tall, some of them over 45 feet in
circumference. And Solomon, you remember, cut
down the trees of Lebanon in order to build the temple. Those
trees grow in very rocky, very rocky soil, and they grow very
slow. They grow very slow. You know, this desire that we
have, I just want to grow. Don't you have that desire? I
want to get so far. I feel so retarded. I feel so hampered. Lord, yeah, day by day, I'm going
to give you a little more due. You say, well, aren't the scriptures
filled with admonitions and precepts and rebukes? Yes, they are. And as soon as you think that
you've obeyed one of them, any one of them, as soon as you think
that you've obeyed one of them, then that work has become a dead
work. It's become iniquity. The seeing eye and the hearing
ear, the Lord hath made them both. If you're able to see and
you're able to hear, it's because the Lord gave it to you. What
does Ephesians say? We are his workmanship, created
in Christ Jesus unto good works, which he hath ordained that we
should walk in them. This idea, boy, if I could just
do more, if I could read more, if I could pray more, if I could
study more, if I could be more faithful and more committed,
then I'd get more grace. That's a works mentality. I'm
going to be the dew for you. The hot sun of the day is going
to dry you out. And you're going to need that
cool temperature at night to draw the moisture out of the
air. And those droplets of water are going to be found upon you
and that's going to sustain you. And then you know what's going
to happen? There's going to come another day and it's going to be hot.
And you're going to need another cool night in the desert to collect
more dew to sustain you for another day. So I just need a, I need a sign.
Have you ever heard someone say, put out your fleece? They're
referring to that example that Gideon had, that story of Gideon
in Judges chapter six, where God called Gideon to go to war
against the enemies of Israel and Gideon wanted to have a sign
from God. And so you remember what he did?
The scripture says he put out a fleece of wool. And the first
night, the ground around the fleece was dry, and the fleece
was so wet that he wrung out so much water from it. And then,
in fear of God, he went the next night and he said, Lord, I need
to know for sure. Show me a sign. And so he put
the same fleece of wool out. And the second night, the ground
all around the fleece was soaking wet, and the fleece was completely
dry. The fleece of wool. There's your sign. Don't put
out your fleece in order to try to get evidence from God that
you're a Christian, that you're a child of God, that you're saved.
Here's your sign right here. The dew of God's grace was upon
the Lord Jesus Christ and they wrung him out. of all the water
and then God forsook him and left him on the cross all by
himself. And now the dew is on the ground
around the fleece and the fleece has been made dry. There's the
sign. Look to Christ. There's another example in the
scriptures. The children of Israel in the wilderness. And the scripture
says that they woke up in the morning and there was a heavy
dew on the ground. And when the dew went up into
the heavens, there was left behind, behold, a small white thing. And they said, what is it? It's
manna. It's your bread. There's your sign. Both in the
fleece and in the manna, we have a picture of what happened to
the Lord Jesus Christ on Calvary's cross. That God withdrew from
Him, took from Him all the protection of the Spirit of God, all the
graces, left Him to die by Himself. Suffered the full wrath of God's
justice in order that the dew of God's grace would be provided
for his people in order that the manna, the children of Israel,
when the dew went up from heaven, they said, behold, there's a
small white thing on the ground. What is it? It's manna. There's
your sign. Don't look for something in yourself.
Don't think, well, if I can just do more, I'll get more of God's
grace. No, I will be the dew unto them. Look to Christ. Rest in Christ. You're not going to obligate
God. Turn with me to Deuteronomy chapter 32. And if we are able to look to
Christ, to rest in Christ, to rely upon his finished work for
all our blessings, didn't we just read that in Colossians?
That all the blessings of God are in Christ. They're all bound
up in him. You're not gonna obligate God
to bless you. God blesses you, it'll be for
Christ's sake. Look at Deuteronomy chapter 32,
verse 1. Give ear, O ye heavens, and I
will speak. And hear, O earth, the words
of my mouth, my doctrine. My gospel shall drop as the rain,
my speech shall distill as the dew, as the small rain upon the
tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass, because I will
publish the name of the Lord, ascribe ye greatness unto God. Give him all the glory. The dew of his grace is upon
the tender herb. the tender grass. We couldn't
handle the showers that we think we want. It drowned us. He is the rock. His work is perfect. For all his ways are judgment. For he is the God of truth and
without iniquity, just and right is he. You see that? Here's the reason for the dew.
It's because of him. It's because he's the rock. Turn
with me to Deuteronomy chapter 33. Chapter 33, and look at verse
27. The eternal God is thy refuge. Flee to Christ. Flee to Christ. You're not gonna obligate God.
God's blessings are all bound up in Christ. There is none like,
I'm sorry, verse 27, the eternal God is thy refuge and underneath
are the everlasting arms and he shall thrust out the enemy
from before thee and shall say destroy them. Israel then shall
dwell in safety alone. The fountain of Jacob shall be
upon the land of corn and wine. Also his heavens shall drop down
dew. Happy are thou, O Israel. Who
is like unto thee? A people saved by the Lord. He does all the saving. All of
it. This dew just appears, doesn't
it? Happy art thou, O Israel, who
is like unto thee, O people, saved by the Lord, the shield
of thy help. And who is the sword of thy excellency? And thine enemies shall be found
liars unto thee, and thou shalt tread upon the high places. Your
enemy, my enemy, our number one enemy, is the thought that somehow
we can do something or avoid something in order to obligate
God to bless us. That's your biggest enemy, isn't
it? And what's God doing right now?
He's exposing that enemy. He's exposing that enemy for
who he is. Elijah said to Ahab, there shall
be no dew nor rain these years, except by my word. And Israel
went through a drought and they experienced a famine and the
rain did come. But what had to happen in order
for that rain to come? Carmel had to happen, didn't
it? Elijah had to go up on Mount Carmel, and he had to slay the
prophets of Baal, and he had to make a sacrifice, and the
fire of God had to fall. There it is again. The rain comes
as a result of what Christ has done. He's the fleece on the
ground. He's the manna on the ground.
He's the one that had to be sacrificed. This is when the rain comes.
Looking to Christ. Glorifying Christ, resting in
Christ, giving him all the glory for all things. There's no other
way. Turn to me to the Song of Solomon,
chapter five. Oh, there's so much in this passage
of scripture. Song of Solomon chapter five,
look at verse one. Here's our Lord speaking to his
church. Has he spoken this to you? I am come into my garden,
my sister, my spouse. I have gathered my myrrh with
my spice. I have eaten my honeycomb with
my honey. I have drunk my wine with my
milk. Eat, O friends, drink, yea, drink abundantly, O beloved. I brought everything. This is
the garden right now, right here. I brought everything. And he's
saying, you're my friend. Eat, drink, be filled with the
abundance of grace and know that it's all in Christ. Look at verse two. I slept, I
was in a slumber, a spiritual slumber. You ever been that way? But my heart waketh. It is the
voice of my beloved that knocketh, saying, open to me, my sister,
my love, my dove, my undefiled. For my head is filled with dew,
and my locks with the drops of the night. All this grace is in my head.
It's in my hair. It's not you. And what does she say? Here's
what the bride says, I've put off my coat, how shall I put
it on? I have washed my feet, how shall
I defile them? She's hesitant, she's reluctant
to get up and open the door, meet her beloved. And so what's
he do? He leaves the scent of his grace
upon the door. My beloved, put in his hand by
the hole of the door. And then my bowels were moved
for him. Oh, he did it. He caused me to want to come
to him. I rose up to open to my beloved and my hands dropped
with my fingers with the sweet smelling myrrh upon the handles
of the lock. He touched the door. So when
I opened the door, I smelled the scent of his grace. I opened
to my beloved, but my beloved had withdrawn himself and was
gone. My soul failed when he spake. I sought him, but I could
not find him. I called him, but he gave me
no answer. The watchmen that went about
the city found me, and they smote me. They wounded me. The keepers
of the wall took away my veil from me." Here's what a works
mentality will do. The works, the idea that I can
do something, It's the smiting of the law. I charge you, O daughters of
Jerusalem, if you find my beloved, that you tell him that I am sick
of love. What is thy beloved more than
any other beloved? O thou fairest among women, what
is thou, beloved, more than another, beloved, that thou so charge
us? O my beloved is white, he's ruddy, he's the cheapest among
ten thousand, his head is as the most fine gold, his locks
are bushy and black as raven, his eyes are the eyes of dove
by the rivers of water washed with milk and fitly set, his
cheeks are the bed of spices as sweet flowers, his lips like
lilies dropping sweet-smelling myrrh. His hands are gold rings
set with beryl. His belly is as bright ivory
overlaid with sapphire. His legs are as pillars of marble
set with sockets of fine gold. His countenance is as Lebanon,
excellent as the cedars. His mouth is most sweet, yea,
he is altogether lovely. Everything about him is beautiful. This is my beloved, and this
is my friend, O ye daughters of Jerusalem. The dew. Go back with me to our
text. I will be as the dew unto Israel,
and he shall grow as the lily. Now in Song of Solomon chapter
2 verse 1, the scripture refers to the Lord Jesus Christ as the
rose of Sharon, the lily of the valley. And then he speaks to
his church and calls her the lily of the valley. And I read
some commentaries on that and men are debating, well, is he
talking about Christ or is he talking about his church? Yes. You can't separate Christ from
his church. Everything that's true about
him is true about his bride. And what did the Lord Jesus Christ
say? Consider the lilies of the valley, for they do not spin
and they do not toil, yet Solomon in all of his glory was not arrayed
like one of them. Quit spinning, quit toiling. It's not gonna get you anywhere. It's the enemy. To think that
somehow I can do something to force the hand of God and to
cause God to bless me. No, you can't. All the blessings of God and
all the promises of God are yea and amen in Him. Look to Him. He's the reason
why God blesses His people. He's the dew. He's the lily of
the valley. God'll make you to grow. I wanna
hate myself. You will. You'll hate it. I wanna
believe God. You will. I wanna love Christ. You will. But it'll come as the result
of faith. Not the reward of it. It's not,
you know, it's not. These lilies of the valley, as
they're referred to in the scriptures, I read up a little bit on them. One they think that's being referred
to here is called the crown imperial. It's a royal flower, and it grows
wild. It's not cultivated. It's not
planted by men. It just grows wild, and it grows
in the valleys. What a picture of our Savior.
A royal, imperial God, who reigns sovereign over His people, grows
in the valley, and He's not planted by men. He's not cultivated by
men. The church, by virtue of her
union with Christ, we are members of his body, members of his bones,
members of his flesh, and what's true of him is true of us. I am the rose of Sharon, the
lily of the valley, as the lily among thorns, so are my beloved
among the daughters." So now he's calling us the lily, but
he's saying that we're a lily among thorns. What is that? Is that the opposition to the
gospel that's in the world? Well, yeah, it is, but that's
not the biggest thorn I'm dealing with. When Paul prayed that the Lord
would remove from him the thorn in his flesh, the Lord doesn't tell us what
it is. And men have speculated that it was some sort of physical
malady that he suffered. I don't think that's what it
was at all. I think it was his flesh. She'll be as a lily among thorns. The corruption of our flesh,
the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of our own hearts,
the lust of our flesh, the pride of life. And the Lord says, I will be
as a do to Israel. And he shall grow. as the lily,
and cast forth his roots as Lebanon. Lebanon wasn't a country back
then, Lebanon was a mountain. Snow-capped mountain on the northern
border of Palestine, separating Israel from Syria. And Israel
depended upon the water that came off of of Lebanon to provide
for them. As the snows melt, that water
came down and different rivers and streams that came off that
mountain provided refreshment for the children of Israel. And
now he's saying, as the streams that come out of Lebanon, she'll
cast forth her roots. She'll drink of that water of
life. His branches shall spread and his beauty shall be as the
olive tree. Now we don't have time tonight
to go to Romans chapter 11, but Romans chapter 11 is so clear
that we are the wild olive branch that was grafted in to the root.
John said the ax has been laid to the root of the tree and it's
been cut down. Speaking of Old Testament Israel,
But the roots still there and Joe put it like this He said
the root of the matter is in me that root is the Lord Jesus
Christ And we've been grafted in as a wild olive tree into
that root And if you read all Romans chapter 11 that the Lord
is very clear and telling us don't take pride in that If he
cut out the original olive branch, don't you think that he'll cut
out the wild one too, if you take pride in thinking that you
did something to get yourself rooted into that? No, he rooted
you in, he grafted you in. See, all of these pictures exalt
the work of the Lord Jesus Christ in saving sinners. He's doing
it all. He's doing everything. And God's
people who believe Him just rejoice in His work. They're not looking
to add to it. And they certainly don't want
to take away from it. Verse 7. They that dwell under
his shadow shall return. They shall return. They'll keep
returning. Perpetual backsliders they are.
They will be brought back to Christ. I hope you're returning
right now. I hope the Lord will give you
grace to return many times every day. They shall revive as the
corn. Lest a corn of wheat die, and
fall into the earth, it can't bring forth life. That corn of
wheat is the Lord Jesus Christ. He died, was buried, and he rose
again, and we're found in him. Our life is because of his resurrection. We're not gonna create some kind
of life for ourselves. It's the resurrection of the
Lord Jesus Christ. He's the firstborn among many
brethren. When he was raised from the dead, we were raised
from the dead in him. He's that corn, shall grow like
the vine. What'd the Lord say about the
vine? Unless the branch abides in the vine, it cannot bear fruit. It won't stay alive. It has to
abide in the vine. And those branches that do abide
in the vine, the vine dresser prunes them. He prunes them. He keeps reminding them. of their
sinfulness, of their inability to bring anything to the table
of salvation. He prunes them of all their wild
efforts in order that they might produce more fruit to his glory. The scent thereof shall be as
the wine of Lebanon. I understand it was a very exceptional
wine, grapes that grew on the side of that mountain. Here we have the sweet savor
of life that comes as a result of that
shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ on Calvary's cross. That
woman had opened that alabaster box, filled the room with the
aroma of that perfume. And when the blood of the Lord
Jesus Christ is shed, when we look to that shed blood as our
only hope of salvation before God, oh, the scent, the scent
of that wine is sweet, and the same message of grace that's
a savor of life to some is a savor of death to others. I know this
kind of preaching makes a lot of people uncomfortable. This
kind of preaching makes people think, well, you're advocating
antinomianism, you're advocating lawless living, you're advocating
just, you know, indulging yourself in the pleasures of the flesh.
No, we're not. We're saying that all of our
salvation is by God's free grace and that we can't do anything.
And we start looking at what we do and what we don't do and
what we haven't done and what we have done as some contribution
to grace and the saver of life becomes a saver of death. And so Ephraim will say, What
have I to do anymore with idols? This kind of thinking is idolatry. It's robbing Christ of his glory
and it's setting man on the throne of God. And I hope right now
you're saying to the Lord, what do I have to do with idols? I have heard him. and observed him. I've observed
what he did. I'm one of these wise and prudent
that have been given understanding. I see that this is the gospel.
This is Christ. He's the olive root. He's the
dew from heaven. He's the vine. He's the corn. He's the lily of the valley.
He's the water that comes off of Mount Lebanon. and all blessings
are in him. What have I had to do with idols?
I've heard his voice. I've observed him. I'm looking
to Christ. I am like a green fir tree. Finally,
I have life. I have life. And the Lord says,
notice there's a period after tree. That's a new thought, new
sentence. From me is thy fruit found. That's Christ speaking. From me is thy fruit found. That'd be an appropriate title
for this message, wouldn't it? From me is thy fruit found. Let's pray. Our heavenly Father, We beg your forgiveness for our
idolatry, for our fleshly thoughts, for robbing Christ of his glory.
Lord, we thank you for the revelation of the mystery of the gospel
that you made in your word. We pray right now she would cause
us to find all our hope in him. For it's in his name we ask it.
Amen. number 90 in the soft bacterial
lit stand. Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior,
reigns upon His throne forever. Nothing ever, ever happens but
for good to Christ's redeemed ones. He who bought us will protect
us. His name is our mighty fortress. Though our foes be all around
us, in His hands Christ safely holds us. Daily food and ample
shelter, Jesus promised to his follower. Never has a need arisen
but what he supplied from heaven. Christ is full of loving kindness. He is sovereign, wise, and gracious,
faithful to his covenant people. Let us never more be fearful. For the honor of our Savior,
let us trust His love and favor, be content with His provision
and the joy of His salvation. From me, it is I who am proud. I am proud of you. I am proud of you.