Joy wasn't expecting to play
tonight, but here she is, and we're glad she's here. Let's
open tonight's service with hymn number 47 from the Softback Tymnal. Number 47, The Covenant, Ordered
and Sure. Thank you, Joy, for being willing
to do it at the second's notice. God the Father and the Son and
the Spirit, three in one, in eternal ages past, made a covenant
sure and fast. God my Father chose His own in
the person of His Son, and ordained that I should be one with Him
eternally. God the Son agreed to come in
the flesh to bring me home. He would keep God's holy law. and retrieve me from the fall. Christ in love so willingly stood
as my great surety. For my price he offered blood
to appease the wrath of God. God the Spirit, heavenly dove,
promised to come down in love, bringing life and peace and grace
to the chosen, purchased race. He seeks the lost, heals the
lame, And He brings us to the Lamb. By His mighty sovereign
call, God's elect are gathered all. This poor sinner is secure,
for God's covenant will endure. It is sealed by God's own word,
by His Spirit and His blood. Blessed Holy Covenant God, I
am yours by ties of blood, ties of grace and ties of love. Hold me to my God above. Please be seated. Good evening. I want us to read from Galatians
chapter 3 for our scripture reading tonight. Preached a couple of weeks ago
from Galatians chapter 2 verse 21, I do not frustrate the grace
of God, for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ
is dead in vain. How frequently we are prone in
our flesh to frustrate the grace of God. There's a wonderful passage
of scripture we're going to be looking at in Hosea that speaks
to that very subject, and I hope the Lord will tie that together
with Galatians chapter 3. O foolish Galatians, who hath
bewitched you that you should not obey the truth before whose
eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth and crucified among
you? This only what I learn of you.
Received you the spirit by the works of the law or by the hearing
of faith? Oh no, we weren't saved by the
law. We were saved by faith. Are you
so foolish? Having begun in the spirit, are
you now made perfect by the flesh? Are you going to improve your
position before God by something you do or something you don't
do? Is that what you think? Have
you suffered so many things in vain if it be yet in vain? He therefore that ministereth
to you the spirit and worketh miracles among you, doeth he
it by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith? God
give you his spirit because you've earned it or because you believe
the gospel, you believe Christ. Even as Abraham believed God
and it was accounted to him for righteousness. Know ye therefore
that ye which are of faith the same are the children of Abraham. Those Lawmongering Pharisees
said, we be the children of Abraham. No, your father's the devil.
If you were the children of Abraham, you would believe me. Abraham
believed God. And the scriptures, foreseeing
that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before
the gospel unto Abraham, saying, in thee shall all nations be
blessed. In your seed. Not in your seeds,
but in your seed, the Messiah that would come through Abraham. So then, they which be of faith
are blessed with faithful Abraham. For as many are as of the works
of the law are under the cursed, for it is written, Cursed is
everyone that continueth not in all things which are written
in the book of the law to do them. You're going to be justified,
sanctified, righteous before God by your law keeping? You're
going to have to keep it all. Every jot and tittle. Not just
in outward behavior. Like Saul of Tarsus said, concerning
the law, I was blameless. Before other men, no one could
find a charge against me as far as my outward behavior was concerned.
But when the law came to my heart, sin revived and I died. God spoke
to me, showed me the real meaning of the law. But that no man is
justified by the law in the sight of God is evident, for the just
shall live by faith. That's all we've got. All we've got is faith in Christ,
looking to Christ, resting in Christ, believing on the Lord
Jesus Christ. Christ is our life. He's our
righteousness. All the hope of our salvation
is bound up in Him, all by Himself. He accomplished everything. How
prone we are. What do we think when we sin?
Oh, I can fix that. I can do better. No, you can't. Putting your hand to the plow
and looking back. Do I want to plow a straight furrow? Yes.
Do I want you to plow a straight furrow? Yes. But you're not going
to do it by looking over your shoulder. And the law, the law. The law
is not a faith, but the man that doeth them shall live in them.
Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made
a curse for us, for it is written, cursed is everyone that hangeth
on a tree. Bearing in his body upon that
tree our sins, satisfying God's justice, and fulfilling all the
demands of God's law, all by himself, once for all. It's done. that the blessing of Abraham
might come to the Gentiles through Jesus Christ, that we might receive
the promise of the Spirit. That's what you need. That's
what I need. We need the promise of the Spirit. And if we're going
to have it, it will be through faith. Not by works, through
faith. Let's pray. Our merciful Heavenly Father,
we are thankful that we have an advocate before thee, Jesus
Christ, the righteous one. One who stands in our stead,
pleads our cause, presents himself before thee on our behalf. We ask, Lord, that you would
enable us to set our affections on him tonight. that we would
be the true circumcision, which worship God in the spirit and
rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh. Lord, we plead that you would
do that for us in our hearts. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen. Let's stand together once again.
We'll sing hymn number 13 from the Hymns of Grace handout. It
should be in the front of your peruse there. Number 13, So Be
Still My Heart. Upon my great and sovereign God,
I cast my soul and rest. My Father's hand controls the
world, and what he does is best. So be still, my heart, and doubt
no more. Believe and find sweet rest. God's wisdom, love, and truth,
and power combine to make thee blessed. In raging storms and
fiery trials, He keeps me from all harms. He walks with me and
holds me in His everlasting arms. So be still, my heart, and doubt
no more. Believe and find sweet rest. God's wisdom, love, and truth,
and power combine to make thee blessed. My God with skill infallible
and great designs of grace, with power and love that never fail,
shall order all my ways. So be still, my heart, and doubt
no more. Believe and find sweet rest. God's wisdom, love, and truth,
and power combine to make thee blessed. My life's most minute
circumstance is ordered by my God, Who promised that in all
things He will ever do me good. So be still, my heart, and doubt
no more. Believe and find sweet rest. God's wisdom, love, and truth,
and power combine to make thee blessed. Please be seated. Thank you, Joy. It's good to
have you here. Carl and Barb Moore are also
with us. They're going to be here Sunday and next Wednesday
from way up north. They know you all better than
you know them. They watch the services every week with their
kids on Wednesday and Sunday. Good to have you all here. And
we want to welcome our brethren in Sarasota. Turn with me in your Bibles,
if you will, for just a moment to Hebrews chapter 12. Hebrews
chapter 12. We'll come back to this at the
conclusion of the message, but I want you to see verse 8. But
if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then
you're bastards and not sons." Now, I don't want to be a bastard.
I don't want to be an illegitimate child of God. I don't want to
deceive myself in thinking that I belong to God when I don't.
The Lord, in this passage of Scripture, tells us that He knows
how to discipline His children. and he always succeeds in doing
it. How does he chastise his children? Does he do it like we do it?
Turn with me to Hosea chapter 5. Hosea chapter 5. The first question that I want
to ask is what is it in our lives that needs chastising? What is it in our lives that
needs to be corrected, that needs the merciful hand of a loving
Heavenly Father to correct us? Now, we would think, well, it's
our sin. It's when we disobey God. I want to say what you've heard
me say on many occasions, and that is that the greatest sin
of all is self-righteousness. And the sin that doth so easily
beset us, the mother of all sins, those behavioral problems that
cause our conscience to be conflicted, is not really the problem. That's
more the manifestation. That's more the, and if we just
focus on that, then we haven't really got to the root of the
problem. The root of the problem is unbelief. The root of the
problem is not trusting Christ. The root of the problem is the
natural way in which we think that we can fix our problem.
And we can somehow improve our lives when our conscience convicts
us over some manner of behavior. The first thought that comes
to our mind is, I can do better. I can fix that. I can stop that. Or I can start
something else. And we have these tendencies
of rededicating ourselves in hopes that we're going to...
We go to the arm of flesh in order to fix our problem. And
that's when the Lord has to chastise us and correct us, not in order
to fix that particular problem that we thought was the problem,
but in order to cause us to see our need for Him. That's what he's doing. In all
the chastising, in all the correcting, he is bringing us back to himself
to find in sweet fellowship with him, to find in faith the entire
hope of all our salvation and all our life, all our sanctification. That's why I wanted to read Galatians
chapter three. Oh foolish Galatians, who have
bewitched you? How bewitched we are in thinking,
well, we were converted by the Spirit through faith. Are we
going to improve ourselves by the works of the law? Are we
gonna somehow? No. As you received Christ Jesus
the Lord, so walk ye in him. How did you receive him? You
received him as a mercy beggar. You received him as a child. Lest you become as a little child,
you should not enter the kingdom of heaven. Suffer the little
children to come unto me, for such are the kingdom of heaven.
What can a little child do? What can a baby do? Two things. You've heard me say
this before. A baby can mess itself up and
a baby can cry. And that's about all it's capable
of doing. And that's where the Lord brings his children back
to through his corrections. To cry out to him for mercy and
for him to clean us up. Not to clean ourselves up. Ephraim's
name translated means double ash heap. Double ash heap. That's where the Lord finds His
children, on the dunghill, on the double ash heap. What is
there there? There's nothing there. You have
your Bibles? Turn with me to Hosea chapter
5. Hosea chapter 5. Look at verse 15. I will go,
here's the Lord speaking to Ephraim, I will go and return to my place
till they acknowledge their offense and seek my face. In their affliction,
they will seek me early. I'm going to withdraw from them
the awareness of my presence until they realize that they
can't fix their sin problem. They can't make themselves better.
When I would do good, evil is ever present with me. They're going to seek me. And
when they seek me, they're going to find me. Now, that's the way
the Heavenly Father corrects His children. That's the chastisement. Don't interpret every trial and
trouble that you go through as a chastisement of God. That may
be the biggest blessing He ever gave you. That's ill. Well, chastisement is too, for
that matter. We're going to go back to Hebrews
chapter 12. These things are not pleasant for the season,
but in the end they lead us to the peaceable fruit of righteousness. What's the peaceable fruit of
righteousness? Christ is the peaceable fruit of righteousness.
He is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that
believes. He is our righteousness. And so this chastisement of the
Lord is not always in a matter of, you know, hardships and troubles
and trials. It's a loving Heavenly Father
withdrawing from His children the awareness of His presence
until they burn with a desire to be back in fellowship with
Him. Now, the only way that you're going to do that is if you've
tasted that the Lord is good. If you've never experienced his
grace, then you don't know what it's like for him to withdraw
the awareness of his presence and leave you to yourself. You
don't know what that's like. It's all you've ever known is
being to yourself. But once he brings you to himself
and shows you his grace, his mercy, his forgiveness, then
from that day on, from that day on, the heavenly father, when
he withdraws from us, he said, I'll never leave you nor forsake
you. That's why I think it, that's why I want to emphasize the word
awareness. He's not withdrawing his presence,
but he withdraws the awareness of his presence. And that's what
he's saying here. Look at verse 15 again. I will
go and return to my place till they acknowledge their offense
and seek my face. In their affliction, they will
seek me early. And here's what they're gonna
say. Look at chapter six, verse one. Come and let us return unto
the Lord for he hath torn and he will heal us. He hath smitten
and he will bind us up. He's the one that's done this
to us. He's the one that's torn our hearts in this conflict that
we've been trying to fix. Now, back up to verse 11 of chapter
five. Ephraim is oppressed and broken
in judgment because he willingly walked after the commandment. Now, what does that mean? I read
that, I thought, boy, that doesn't make sense at all to me, until
I looked up that word commandment, and it's only found in one other
place in the Word of God, and that's in Isaiah chapter 28.
It's a reference to the law of God, but it's not a submission
to God's law, it's rather an attempt to keep God's law. So now what the Lord is saying
is Ephraim was oppressed and broken in judgment because he
willingly walked after the commandment. He went back to the law of God
in order to try to fix his problem. That's what he did. He went back
to the works of the flesh. He thought, I can fix this. I can obey God. I can keep God's
law. I can satisfy His justice. I
can put away His chastisement from me just by, you know, I'll
just do a little better. Let me show you that. Turn with
me to Isaiah. The only other place this word, in the original
language, this word commandment, in Hosea chapter 5, verse 11,
is only found in one other place in the Word of God. And it's
a It's a low view of the Word of
God. It's such a low view of God's
Word that it leaves one thinking that they have the wherewithal
to satisfy the demands of God's commandments. And so they go
back to the law of God. And they use the Bible as a rule
book for Christian living. That's exactly what he's talking
about here. He's talking about exactly the same thing that the
Pharisees did when the Lord said to them, you search the scriptures
because you think in them you have eternal life. You think,
well, if I can just do this and do that and avoid this and avoid
that, I'll just be more faithful. And the Lord said, these are
they which testify of me. Ephraim, the double ash heap,
has fallen away because they willingly went after the commandments
of God in an attempt to keep them. Isaiah chapter 28, verse 9. Whom shall he teach knowledge,
the knowledge of the gospel? the truth of God's free grace
in the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Who's he gonna
teach now? And whom shall he make to understand
doctrine? Who's God gonna make to understand
the gospel? Them that are weaned from the
milk and drawn from breast, the children, the children. They're the ones, the little
children, they're the ones that... Four, verse 10. Here's the word, you see that
word precept? Precept, it's used six times, I think, in the next
couple of verses, and it's the only other place in the word
of God where that word commandment in Hosea chapter five is found,
is translated the word precept here. So now what are these people
doing? for precept hath been, that's the, you see
the words in italics there, for precept, here's what they say,
precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon
line, line upon line, here little and there little. We're gonna,
we're going to, We're gonna go back to the Bible and we're gonna
build our doctrine line by line, precept by precept, commandment
by commandment, and we're gonna earn favor with God so that we're
not chastised by him and so that we can please him. It's going
back to the law. For with stammering lips and
another tongue will he speak to this people. Oh, they're so
dedicated to the Bible as their rule for living, and they can't
hear the gospel. A person who's bound up in the
law, and I'm talking about the law of God. I'm not talking about
man-made laws. I'm talking about a person who
is taking the Bible as a rule book for Christian living that
can't hear the gospel. I can't hear it. The gospel is so contrary to
what they're doing, it strips them of their righteousness,
and as far as they're concerned, that guy is speaking with stammering
lips in another language. I can't hear it. Might as well
be speaking in Swahili. He doesn't have any understanding
of what it is you're saying. I mean, Christ? Christ is the
end of the law? Yeah, but still got to go back
to the law, don't I? Oh, foolish Galatians! There's such liberty here. Every
opinion of man in the world, whether it be Buddhism or Islam
or Catholicism or reform Calvinism or Arminianism or whatever. Every persuasion of man is based
on something that you do. The gospel of God's free grace
is so contrary to the way men think. My thoughts are not your
thoughts. My ways are not your ways. While
the heavens are high above the earth, so are my thoughts above
your thoughts. It's already done. Well, you can't tell people that.
It'll be a license for sin. Not if they're looking to Christ.
The only time that you won't want to sin is if you're looking
to Christ. The only power you have against sin is grace. Where sin abounds, grace does
much more abound. Your sin doesn't need the law. That's only gonna aggravate it.
Your sin needs more grace. What liberty, what freedom there
is in Christ. Look at this, look at this passage. To whom he said, This is the
rest wherewith they may cause the weary to rest. And this is
the refreshing yet they would not hear. You see, this preacher
comes with stammering lips and another tongue. And he's telling
about the one who satisfied all the demands of the law. He's
telling about the one who is their life. He's telling about
the Lord Jesus Christ to look to Him, to rest in Him, to find
your life in Him. and they wouldn't hear. Why? Because they were too busy building
precept upon precept, line upon line, here a little, there a
little. Ephraim was stammering because she went back to the
commandment. She willingly, willingly followed
after the precepts of God's word in her attempt to earn favor
with God. But the word of the Lord was
unto them. Look at verse 13. Here it is, this is that word
commandment, precept. For the word of the Lord was
unto them, precept upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon
line, line upon line, here a little and there a little, that they
might go and fall backwards and be broken and snared and taken. You make the precepts of God's
Word your rule of life, and you're going to be snared and taken
back. And as soon as you look away
from Christ and start to look to your performance of the law
as your righteousness, and the Spirit of God has been quenched,
and the Heavenly Father has withdrawn the awareness of His presence,
and you're going to find out, you're going to find out, if
you're a child of God, that there's no hope there. and you're gonna
come fleeing back to him. You're gonna come back to him
the same way you came back to him the very first time. You
came to him the very first time. Oh, Lord. Every precept of your
word just exposes my need for Christ. That's what it does. Somebody's thinking, well, you're
advocating lawless living. No, I'm not. No, I'm not. It's called the law of Christ.
It's called the law of grace. It's called the law of love.
And it's a much better law than trying to make the precepts of
God's word the rule for your life. You're just gonna be snared. That's all it's gonna do. Verse 14, wherefore, hear the
word of the Lord, ye scornful men that rule this people which
is in Jerusalem. Because you have said, we have
made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement,
when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall
not come upon us, for we have made lies our refuge. We've taken the precept upon
precept and the line upon line. And we pride ourselves in how
well we're keeping them. And we've lied to ourselves.
Because the truth is that we've never kept one of God's precepts
for a moment. Not for a moment. We've made
our lies because if we don't have any love for the truth,
we don't have a love for Christ, We like God's word because it
gives us something to do. And we've made lies our refuge. And what does God say? And under
falsehoods we have hid ourselves. Not that the Bible's false or
that the word of God is a lie or that the precept is a lie,
but they've lied to themselves in thinking that they've kept
them. And that's what Ephraim did in Hosea chapter five. Therefore, thus saith the Lord
God, behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation, a stone, a tribe
stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation. He that believeth
shall not make haste. He that's resting in Christ,
he that's built his life upon the rock, He's not going to be running
around to and fro trying to figure out whether or not he's doing
what he's supposed to be doing in order to keep the precepts
of God's Word. He's not going to be doing it.
This stone is a tried stone. It's been tried by God. Tempted in every way that we
are, yet without sin. That's what makes him different.
That's what makes him different. Every time we're tempted, we
sin. We sin in our temptation. We don't have to fall to temptation
to sin. We're sinning when we're being
tempted. How are we going to keep the
precepts of God's word? We look to the one who kept them
for us. He's the tried cornerstone. Judgment also will I lay to the
line, and righteousness to the plummet. I'm gonna use a plumb
line. One thing I've learned in construction
with a plumb line, that thing's always straight. When you let
that thing stop rocking, it's gonna be perfectly perpendicular
to the horizon. Perfectly. The Lord said, I'm
going to put up a plumb line. And that's my righteousness. And that plumb line is Christ. And he's perfectly perpendicular
to this earth. Everything in this earth is 180
degrees out from him. It's just... And the hail shall sweep away
the refuge of lies, and the water shall overflow the hiding place. Oh, Lord, don't let me hide in
my own righteousness. Don't let me hide in my law keeping. Don't let me hide in what I think
that I've done that's better than somebody else or better
than I used to do or whatever. This is when God corrects his
children. He corrects them for their biggest
sin, self-righteousness, which is the result of unbelief. And your covenant with death
that you make shall be disannulled, and your agreement with hell
shall not stand when the overflowing scourge shall pass through. Then
you shall be trodden down from it. Oh, I don't want that to
happen to you, and I don't want that to happen to me. And yet there's something in
me, and there's something in you, that's just a double-ass
sheep. And that's why we have to keep
hearing the gospel. Because we keep having these thoughts. I
can do better. I can fix that. I can be more
righteous than I am. And we compare ourselves to ourselves,
and we compare ourselves to one another, and in doing so, we
are looking away from Christ. And we're going back. to precept upon precept, line
upon line, here a little, there a little, and we're gonna be
snared and fall. Go back with me to Hosea chapter
five. You see, it's the same thing
that Israel said when Moses came down off of Mount Sinai and he
read the Ten Commandments. And what did the people say?
What did they say? We will do it. That's what they said. And Moses
said, you can't keep God's law. And then he made the sacrifice. There's your hope of standing
before God. But man in his pride says, oh,
we'll do it. We can do that. I can work that out. Now look
at, Ephraim is oppressed and she's broken in judgment because
he willingly walked after the commandment. He made the precepts
of God's word his rule of life rather than Christ. And when Ephraim saw his sickness,
when he was brought under conviction and realized that he couldn't
keep God's law, what did he do? What'd he do? He did what we do. I'm sorry, look at verse 12.
Therefore will I be unto Ephraim as a moth, and in the house of
Judah as rottenness. I'm gonna fill that robe that
they've put on themselves with holes. And one thing about the
robe of righteousness, that white robe of righteousness that we
get from Christ, there's no holes in it. There's no holes in it. God says, you try to go to that
Babylonian garment, you try to clothe yourself with your commitment
and your dedication and your performance, and I'm going to
be to you like a moth. I'm gonna come into your closet
at night, I'm gonna eat holes in that fabric. And I'm gonna
be like a rottenness, I'm gonna be like a worm, it's gonna be,
it's just gonna eat it up and it's gonna be rotten. I'm going
to do to you what I did to the children of Israel when they
gathered up their manna and they came back the next day and it
was rotten, full of worms. That's what I'm going to do.
Why am I going to do that? Because I love you and I'm not
going to let you rest in your own righteousness. I'm going
to drive you back to Christ. I'm going to sabotage all of
your attempts to try to find comfort and hope and rest in
anything other than the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what I'm
going to do. And when Ephraim saw his sickness,
verse 13, and Judah saw his wound, then went Ephraim to the Assyrians. Now you can look up these words,
it's not hard. The word Assyrian translated means steps. Steps. I'm gonna get back to
God by my steps. I'm gonna do A and B and C and
I'm gonna fix this and that and I'm gonna stop doing the other
and I'll get my way back to God. And the Lord said, you build
an altar with steps, and you climb up that altar with steps,
and the only thing you're going to do is expose your nakedness. You can see a picture of this
altar that's built with steps and men with flowing garments
walking up, and you see their nakedness. You're just gonna
be ashamed. Don't go to Syria. Don't go to
steps. Don't try to figure out, okay,
I gotta fix this. I can change this. I can do better. It's going to
Assyria. And look what else they said.
Not only will they go to Assyria, but they'll also go to King Jerob. Now, Jerob translated means contender. Contender I'll contend with God
I'll defend myself. I'll be like Job You know, I'll
I'll make promises. I'll I'll I'll make commitments
I'll just you know, I'll go into a contentious relationship with
God and he'll and he'll he'll have feel a favor on me Then
that what the isn't that what our Ephraim flesh does that the
double-ash heap in it Do you do this? Verse 14, for I will be unto
Ephraim as a lion, and as a young lion, and I will tear and go
away, and I will take away, and none shall rescue him. I'm gonna come in, I'm gonna
mess up your plans. your attempts to try to fix your
life and fix your problems and make yourself a better person,
I'm gonna make them, you're just gonna be frustrated. I'm gonna
be like a lion. I'm gonna come in and just tear
up all your plans. Lord did that for Peter, didn't
he? When did Peter fall? When did he fall? Did he fall
when he stood there by that fire that night and denied the Lord
Jesus Christ three times with cursings? Is that when he fell? No. He fell at the Lord's supper
when he said to the Lord, when the Lord said, you're all going
to scatter, you're all going to deny me. And Peter said, they
might do it. Not me, not me. And then he couldn't even stay
awake in the Garden of Gethsemane when our Lord needed him the
most, when the Lord called him in there to pray with him, couldn't
stay awake, and then took off Malchus' ear, but, you know,
that was all part of his... What was Peter? The Lord told
Peter, you live by the sword, you're gonna die by the sword.
You wanna live by? What is the sword? The sword's
the Word of God. You want to take the word of
God and make it precept upon precept and line upon line and
ear little by their little and try to, and put yourself under
the commandments of God in order to try to earn favor with God
and you live by that sword, you're going to die by that sword. That
sword can do nothing but kill you. It's all it's going to do
is kill you. Peter pulled out his sword. Oh,
he was so confident. And the Lord came to him like
a lion. And the Lord ate holes in his righteousness and came
to him like a worm, a canker in his heart. And Peter fell
grievously, and God broke his heart. And the Lord later met with him.
Peter, lovest thou me? Lovest thou me? Oh Lord, you're going to have
to give me your love. When did David sin? When he laid
with Bathsheba? The scripture tells us that it
was during the time of year when the kings all went to battle.
And Joab and David's men were all in battle and David was supposed
to be with them. What did David do? In his self-confidence, he
sat back and took his ease in Zion and thought, I got this. I got this. We don't have to
worry about, we don't have to worry about this. Rather than
being in the, in the spiritual battle of trusting God, realizing
his own weakness, a self-confident, And so God says, verse 15, I
will go and return to my place till they acknowledge their offense. Now, you know, I just suspect
that you all are just like me in that when you do something
disobedient to God, you don't have to wait to acknowledge that
as an offense. You know immediately You knew
before you did it that it was wrong. You walked into it knowing
that it was an offense. That's not what we have to, it
doesn't take any time at all to acknowledge those things,
does it? But what it takes time to acknowledge is our attempts
to fix our sin problem ourselves. The Lord lets us go to Assyria.
He lets us go to King Jerob. He lets us try to fix it. You
know, a wise parent, when a two-year-old child in defiance and rebellion
says, I can do it myself, I can dress myself, I can get this,
the wise parent just lets them do it until they get so knotted
up that they cry for help. Help me. And that's what the
Lord is doing. He'll let you knot yourself up.
And he does. And that's his wise chastisement. The withdrawal. Look, he says,
I will go and return to my place till they acknowledge their offense
and seek my face in their affliction. They will seek me early. It won't
take them long. I know how to correct them. They've
tasted of my goodness. They know what it's like to be
able to rest in Christ. They know the goodness of my
grace. They can't live long without
it. I'll let them try to fix their own problems, but they
won't stay there. I'm gonna be like a lion to them. I'm gonna
mess up their efforts, and they're gonna come back to me. Come, here's what they're gonna
say. Come, let us return unto the
Lord, for he hath torn and he will heal us. He hath smitten
and he will bind us up. He's the one that left us. He's
the one that frustrated our efforts. He's the one that sabotaged all
of our attempts to try to be self-righteous. He's left us
like this. And he's the only one that can
heal us. Let's go back to him. Let's go
back to him. You can't read verse two without
knowing that the Holy Spirit would have us consider what the
Lord Jesus Christ did when he went into the grave. Look at
verse two. After two days will he revive
us and then the third day he will rise us up and we shall
live in his sight. You're not gonna live in the
sight of God by your efforts. You're not gonna live in the
sight of God by your obedience, by your attempts to satisfy the
demands of God's law. You're not gonna live in God's
sight that way. You might live in your own sight for a little
while, you might impress others for a little while, but if you're
a child of God, the spirit of God's gonna convict you of your
greatest sin. Unbelief and self-righteousness. And you're gonna realize that
it was the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ who on the
third day came back to life. He's my righteousness. He's my
life. He was offered up for my offenses.
He was raised again because of my justification. I'm justified
before God. I'm justified before God, not
by my efforts. but by the resurrection of the
Lord Jesus Christ. He's my justification. So that
now there's no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus.
We're free. We're free. The law's got nothing
to say to us. The word of God is precious to
us, but we're not making it a rule book. We're looking to the Word
of God for the revelation of Christ. In the volume of the
book, it is written of me. The precepts are not line upon
line, here, there, little rules of life that we're to try to
make ourselves acceptable to God. They expose our sin, and
they cause us to see our need for a Savior. And it's the only religion in
the whole world that is based on something that has already
been done. It's finished. It's all accomplished. There's nothing for you to do. Now there's a little word in
verse 3 that I want you to scratch out. It's in italics, it's not
in the original text, and it doesn't belong there, and it
takes away from the meaning of this precious, precious promise. It's the word if. Then shall
we know. We follow on to know the Lord. His going forth is prepared as
the morning and He shall come unto us as the rain, as the latter
and former rain unto the earth. He's gonna come unto us. The
latter, the former rain is your regeneration. That's when God
opened the windows of heaven and the truth of the gospel came
to your heart and you believed God. The latter reign is your
glorification. And that's, you're waiting for
that, you're hoping for that. You know, I was thinking, I thought
of an illustration today that just really, two men in prison,
two men in prison, and the warden comes to both of them on the
same day and he says to both of them, he says, 24 hours is
all you got left in this cell and you're out of here. And one
of them, delights and rejoices, and the other one goes into a
state of depression, what makes the difference? The first guy
was going home, and the second guy was going to the electric
chair. This life is a vapor. It is a
vapor. I was talking to somebody. I
have these conversations with people all the time. 72 years
old, I said, George, I said, you know, we're not going to
be here much longer. He said, oh, don't talk like that. My wife was talking to 80-year-old,
85-year-old this past week. Oh, we're not old. We're not
old. And she said, I'm old. We're not going to be here much
longer. And your response to that, your response to that truth
is based on whether or not when you get out, you're going home
or you're going to the electric chair. I'm excited about getting out. I'm looking forward to it. The latter rain. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father,
we're thankful for your word, and we confess, Lord, that we
are so prone to unbelief. We're so prone to self-righteousness. Lord, forgive us for that. We've
robbed Christ of his glory. Every time that thought enters
our minds, Lord, we pray that you would forgive us, that you
would draw us back to thyself, cause us to find our hope, our
happiness, all our salvation, in thy dear son. For it's in
his name we pray. Amen. Number 126 in the Saltback Temple. Let's stand. Come, weary, helpless, guilty
one, lost and condemned in sin. Repent, believe, and trust God's
Son. His blood can make you clean. There is forgiveness with our
God. O sinner, hear His word. There is forgiveness through
the blood, forgiveness with the Lord. Behold God's Son, the Substitute,
God made him to be sin, that he might righteousness impute
to all believing men. There is forgiveness with our
God, O sinner, hear His word. There is forgiveness through
the blood, forgiveness with the Lord. Complete atonement Christ
has made, redemption's work is done. The ransom price was fully
paid by Christ and Christ alone. There is forgiveness with our
God, O sinner, hear His word. There is forgiveness through
the blood, forgiveness with the Lord. Would you be righteous
in God's sight, forgiven of all sin? Then trust the Savior crucified,
who was for sinners slain. There is forgiveness with our
God, O sinner, hear His word. There is forgiveness through
the blood, forgiveness with the Lord. Awesome.