Good morning. If you'll take
your bulletin and open it up to the bottom of the inside right,
you'll see the dates for our conference that are going to
be here before we know it. And please make note of those
times and dates. And in addition to Mike and Todd
and David, I've asked Donnie if he would come back, and so
Donnie Bell, Lord willing, is going to be here also and preach
for us at the meeting. Thank you for your prayers for
our meeting this week in Sarasota, and I'm so encouraged with so
many of you all that came over. I just thought we had remarkable
services, every one of them, Friday night, Thursday night,
Friday night, Saturday morning. For whatever liberty is worth,
I felt like I had a lot of liberty to preach. And Don brought some
wonderful messages. And people there were very encouraged. We had a lot of visitors. And
it was good. So continue to pray for the brethren
in Sarasota. They'll all be over here in a
few weeks for our conference. Would you open your Bibles to
Isaiah chapter 55? Just want to read a few verses
here before we get started. Verse 1, ho, everyone that thirsteth. Oh, oh my God, just hoe us. Stop us in our tracks. Get our
attention. Enable us this morning to put
everything out of our minds, all the distractions of this
world and of life, and give our attention to Him. He's gonna
have to do that. We're just, we're so prone to
wander, aren't we? Oh, everyone that thirsteth,
come ye to the waters. And he that hath no money, come
ye, buy and eat. Yea, come, buy wine and milk,
without money and without price. Now, the unbeliever might say,
well, that's a contradiction. No, it's not. No, we come, we
buy, but the purchase price purchase price for the milk and the honey
and the wine is the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Wherefore do you spend money
for that which is not bread? Oh, how much energy and effort
and trials and troubles we put on ourselves for that which is
not bread. and you labor for that which
satisfies not, hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which
is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness." Let your
soul delight in Christ. Incline your ear. The ear is
the is the avenue to the heart. Faith
comes by hearing, and hearing comes by the Word of God. Might
God be pleased to give us ears to hear? Incline your ear, come
unto me. Hear, and your soul shall live,
and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure
mercies of David. Brother Norms Wells is with us
this morning, and we're so Glad you're here, Norm. And I've asked
him if he would bring a message this first hour. So let's pray
together, and Norm, you come afterwards. Our Heavenly Father,
we're so very thankful that once again you've brought us together
in this place. You've blessed us with the promise
of thy presence. We ask that you would bless your
word now. to the hearing of our ears and
that you would give to us faith to set our hopes on the Lord
Jesus Christ and his accomplished work of redemption. Thank you
for Brother Norm. Pray that you'd give him just
liberty and memory as he stands to speak. Give him words to say. Thank you for the for the brethren
in Sarasota, for the work of grace that you're doing there,
for the services that we had this week, and we pray your continued
blessing on that work. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen. Well, it is truly a blessing
to be with you today. I wasn't sure how it would be
to ride with two grandsons from Oregon to Florida, but it turned
out OK. I was glad to do that, glad to
be asked, and I was thankful for this opportunity. We bring
tidings from the Dalles, Oregon, and I ask you remember us out
there. We're a fur piece away. But we're still in the same vineyard.
I say that about everywhere I go. We're still in the same vineyard.
It's not two different vineyards, it's the same one. Just locality
is a little different. I would that you turn with me
to the book of Isaiah this morning. I appreciated the reading in
the men's group. It was from the Old Testament,
the book of Ezekiel. And I appreciated what we just
heard from the book of Isaiah, chapter 55. Now I'm convinced that if you love grace, you love
God, you love mercy, if we lived in these days, we'd be looking
for these guys. Isaiah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Hosea,
Haggai, we'd be looking for those guys, because those are the people
that spoke with, thus saith the Lord. That's what we just heard,
thus saith the Lord. And I pray that that's why you're
here today, because your pastor Every time he speaks, whether
he says it or not, says, thus saith the Lord. We don't have
anything else to say. There's nothing else to preach
but this word. And I was amazed at the number
of times just in the book of Ezekiel it says, thus saith the
Lord. It's over 200 times. just in
the book of Ezekiel. So that's why you're here, I
pray. That's why I'm where I am. And that's why I pray that the
people who attend out there in the Dalles come. Now some of
them come and they say, boy, all he does is preach out of
the Bible. And that's the best compliment I could ever hear.
He just spends his time. And I heard a young man from
here, I heard the story about someone in his family said, why
do you attend there? And his comment was, the preacher
only uses the Bible. That's the best compliment, isn't
it, Brother Gray? All right, Isaiah 64, and we'll move along
here. And I would like to read verses
6, 7, and 8 this morning and spend a little time there on
the subject of thou art our potter. Now there's two verses that lead
up to verse 8, and that's our text verse this morning. But
here in Isaiah chapter 64, and there in verse 6, but we are
all as an unclean thing. I can say this without reservation,
that only the church will ever fess up to this. Only the church
will ever confess this. Only the church knows this. that
we are all an unclean thing. There's nothing in us that God
has any interest in. He only has interest in giving
us his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, and that's what he does. We're
the only ones, the church is the only ones, and the reason
for that is found in the book of Ezekiel chapter 36 and verse
31. Then, after I give you a new heart, after I have cleansed you, after
all the things that God does for us, then shall ye remember
your own evil ways." We have no concept at all of what we
are until He gives us a new heart and see what it costs God to
redeem us. The blood of His only begotten
Son. That's what it cost him. The
price was heavy because the damage was heavy. When Adam fell in
the Garden of Eden and passed that on to us, the damage is
so tremendous, it took the Son of God to redeem us, to pull
us out of a horrible pit. So after We are quickened after
we're given a new heart, after we're regenerated. Then we have
that aha moment. We may have committed some crimes
before then, but we always are able to say, I'm not like him
though. And Paul leads us to say, I'm
worse than him. I'm worse than him. I'm only
evil continually. I'm the chiefest of sinners."
So as we look there, verse 6, and we're all as an unclean thing
and all our righteousness are as filthy rags. You know, they're
just rags and unclean ones and filthy ones at that. And his
robe is so perfect. That's all we glory in now. We
don't glory in our rags of righteousness, our filthy rags of righteousness.
We have no righteousness of our own, and only the church is able
to say that. We're only able to confess that
after the Lord has dealt with us. And then he says, and we
all do fade as a leaf. Out in Oregon, we have a lot
of deciduous trees. And this time of year, there's
very few leaves. Once in a while, you see one
that's still hanging on. But when a wind comes along,
it's going to be popped loose. Now, I'm thankful for the spring.
It'll come. We'll see the leaves come back.
But we're all like that leaf. We're just dangling there until
the wind comes along. And we do fade as the leaf. And we're blown around by the
wind. If it wasn't for the stability that we have in our hope, the
anchor for the soul would be blown around like the wind blows
a leaf around. We'd not be sitting down. But he is our rock. He is our
firm foundation. And I'm glad he nailed our feet
to the rock. That we're settled on Him and
we can't get away. And then in verse 7, and there
is none that calleth upon thy name. You know, it's only the
church that realizes, it wasn't me that called. I didn't call
on Him. My goodness, I went through the
form, I went through, I'm so good He has to take me. And then
we realize there's nothing in us. Not even, well, you know,
just as a reminder over there in the book of John, that Mary
and Martha's brother had a problem. Jesus finally told the disciples,
he's dead! And that's where we find ourselves,
dead in trespasses and sin, and he's the only one that can raise
us from that position. We are none that call upon thy
name. And that word stirreth in the
next phrase there, that stirreth up himself to take hold of thee.
That means to awaken or be quickened. None of us did that. The church
is the only ones, the body of Christ, the redeemed ones, are
the only ones that are able to confess and are willing to confess
and be honest about it, that it is, I'm a sinner, I'm a sinner
saved by grace. I have nothing in myself that
attracted God. God did not choose us because
of foreseen faith. He chose us because of foreseen
unbelief. We were unbelievers, and if it
hadn't been for Him choosing us before the foundation of the
world, we'd still be in unbelief. He took the first interest in
us. He's the one that does all the work, and we're the recipients,
and thank God for that. And then He says here, In verse
7, for thou hast hid thy face from us, and hast consumed us
because of our iniquities. The church is so interested in
what God has to say about themselves, and there is not one time that
the church will ever say, the people of God will ever say,
believers, and I hate to use this, but we have to from time
to time, use the word true believers. We just do it. Because there
were a whole bunch of people, there were 5,000 that we know
of at one time, that said they were disciples of the Lord Jesus
Christ. And when he began to teach about these very things,
they walked with him no more. And I've had people, preachers,
tell me, well they're all Christians and they're just backslidden.
That's not what God said. You believe not because you're
not my sheep. That's exactly what happened
there. They had no interest in the Lord Jesus Christ except
for physical blessings. Oh, God wants you to be a millionaire. I'm better than that. I've got
all the riches of glory. All right, now verse 8. But now,
O Lord, thou art our father, we are the clay, and thou our
potter, and we all are the work of thy hand." Now I'll never get to the depth
of that. I'll never get my arms around it. But oh, now, but now, oh Lord."
That word Lord is capital letters. It came from the word Jehovah.
When we run into that in the Old Testament, capital L, capital
O, capital R, capital D, the translators are telling us that's
the translation of the word Jehovah. Oh Jehovah. Thou art our father. Now the first time in the Bible
that that word father is used is found in the book of Genesis
chapter 2. Would you just turn there for a moment? There are
a lot of ways that this particular word is translated, but in this
passage, as well as in Genesis chapter 2, we find that the definition
that we're most familiar with, I had a father, He's passed on. I'm still his son. He's my father. He's the one that aided in me
coming into this world. Genesis chapter 2 is the first
time this particular word is used in the Old Testament, and
it says here, therefore shall a man leave his father, and his
mother, and shall cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one
flesh." Great instructions are found here. But the point I want
to make is that Adam, even though he did not have a physical father,
uses these words to share with us the responsibilities that
we have when we get married. Shall a man leave his father
and his mother? Now that's the one that brought
us into the world. Now the church confesses, Jehovah,
you're our father. Now there's a reality about this.
Jehovah, you're our father. We had no spiritual interest
in God. We had no spiritual life whatsoever
until God worked a work of grace and we describe it as, you're
our father. You're the one that brought us
into this world. You're the one that brought us
to spiritual life. You're the one that bore us.
We're born again, not of corruptible seed, but incorruptible seed
by the Word of God. It is ye that had a specific
interest in bearing children, and the church are the children
of Jehovah, the children of God. He had an interest in bearing
us, and in fact we find that the Apostle Paul confessed at
the appointed time. Now, My wife and I have had four
children, and every time that she was pregnant, the doctor
said, this is the day the child will be born. Guess what? Never happened. Some were late. Some were early. But they were
born at the appointed time. In the fullness of time. The fullness of time. Now it
was a real blessing to run into that verse after I was saved
because I got real concerned. I wish God had saved me earlier
and saved me from a lot of stupid things. I went through the form of pastoring
and I look back and I'm ashamed of some of the things I said
about God. But you know I ran into that verse over in the book
of Galatians. In the fullness of time, at the improper moment,
He brought the word to my ears and applied faith. He is my father. He brought me
into life. He created a new creature in
Christ Jesus, a new creation. And so the church confesses,
you're our father. We bow to you as our father. And in some aspects, the Holy
Spirit, now please don't put words in my mouth, but in some
ways the Holy Spirit carries on at the aspect of the mother. That which is in your womb, Mary,
is of the Holy Spirit. And then the church confesses
over here in the book of Isaiah chapter 64. And only the church knows this.
We wish our friends, we wish our neighbors. I wish my brothers
and sisters. I've got religious brothers and
I've got religious sisters and I have a brother. He's tried
it three times, didn't work. That's what he said. Tried it
three times, doesn't work. I pray for him. You know, I read
recently a preacher, he said he quit praying for his family.
Now he cries out for them. Cries out for them. Isaiah 64,
the church realizes this thing. Now we don't have many potters
around anymore. They're all factories. When I
was teaching in a high school, a friend of mine had the pottery
class. I would go down there and look at those. Some of those
students could turn out some of the finest work of pottery.
Thin vases. Some of them turned out it was
a work. They put their name on it, got
graded for it, but it was just a work. What does the church
say here? Thou art our Father, we are the
clay. Now that's just dirt. Just dirt. And Thou our potter. Now the first time that this
word is used in the Bible is found also in the book of Genesis.
And it shares with us there that the Lord formed man of the dust
of the earth. That word formed is the same
word that we find here for potter. The Lord formed man of the dust
of the earth and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life
and man became a living soul. God had an interest in creating
man to begin with and formed him as he would form him. He
was the potter there with that pile of dirt. He's the one that
gave us these digits. He's the one that gave us two
ears. He's the one who gave us two eyes. He's the one. We've
seen pictures of aliens and all that they surmise what they look
like. Aren't you glad that we're made in the image of God? Two
eyes, two ears, two nostrils, a mouth, ten fingers, ten toes. That's the average. We're made
in the image of God. He is the Potter. He's the one that took the lump
of clay and made it as He wished. And when it comes to spiritual
things, He's the one that takes the lump of clay and makes it
as He wished. He's the one that forms us. He's
the one that raises us. He's the one that gives us life.
He's the one that decorates us. We have nothing to do about it.
The Lord Jesus Christ shares with us in the book of Matthew
when He spoke to a whole bunch of Pharisees. Woe unto you Pharisees,
for you clean up the outside of the platter and leave the
inside so filthy." He used the illustration, you've got all
of these graves here and they're all whitewashed or beautiful,
but you know what? Inside they're still filled with
dead man's bones. And then the Apostle Paul was
led to write for us as the Holy Spirit moved upon him, The church
says we have this treasure in earthen vessels. The outside
is corrupted, yes it is. But the inside, that's where
God did his work. And we have Christ in us, the
hope of glory. We have the gift of God in us,
the hope that we have. He's taken this old corrupted
frame, this one that will fall down someday and be cast aside,
buried, whatever, however we ask to have our bodies disposed.
But in that body is Christ Jesus the Lord. And He has promised
newness of life, eternal life, life with Him for eternity, sitting
at His feet, praising Him for eternity. Why? Because we have
this treasure in earthen vessels. It's not the outside that's been
cleaned up. It's been the inside cleaned
up by God. He put away death. He gave us
life. He put away frown. He gave us
joy. And all of it is another name
for the Lord Jesus Christ. He that formed thee. He's the potter. He's the one
that moved upon us. He found us as we heard this
morning in a field as it were. The world polluted and he came
by and said live. He said live. That's the only
reason we're living. He said to live. The only reason
we have an interest in him because he had an interest in us. The
only reason we have love for him because he had a love for
us. The only reason we care for him because he cared for us.
The only reason for us being who we are is Almighty God, our
Potter. Turn with me if you would back
in the book of Isaiah to chapter 43. Isaiah chapter 43. He's the
Potter. We're the clay. He's our father. The church realizes without reservation
of all our sin. David confessed that in Psalm
51. And that's one of the things
that every believer will have something in common with every
other believer. Sinners. Sinners. It's interesting when we study
about the cities of refuge, no one ever had to ask anyone else
that was in there, why are you here? We know why we're here. No one
has to ask, why are you in Christ? Sinner. Saved by grace. I don't have to tell you my stories.
You don't have to tell me your stories. We know. We just downright
know why we're here. We know why we assemble. We know
why we bow. We're just sinners saved by grace.
He had an interest in us. He's the one that formed us.
He's the father. He's the potter. He's the one
that came and found a pile of lump, a lump of coal, a lump
of dirt. And that's what he's working
with. Here in Isaiah chapter 43, verse 1 through 3, the apostle
Isaiah, he's a pastor. He was pastoring
a flock. God gave him this message to
write. He's one cent. God sent him. But now, thus saith
the Lord, that created thee, O Jacob, and he that formed thee,
O Israel. That's the word potter. He's
Israel's potter. And we're spiritual Israel. We
drove by a place yesterday and I didn't notice it. You know,
I'm looking out one window. That's one thing you get to do
when you're riding. You get to look out more windows.
Jennifer said, there's a gathering of people over there, Jews for
Jesus. I says, I'm a Jew for Jesus.
Spiritual Jew. It's not one that's one outward. It's one inward. That's the true
Israel. The church is a true Israel.
Now what God does with those people is his business. He saved
the Apostle Paul, and the Apostle Paul was an Israelite. But he
found out what it was to be an Israelite. Not all Israel is
of Israel. Not all the church that's assembled
is Israel. Not everyone. But I just leave
them alone. Where would you rather have them?
All right. Thus saith the Lord. O Jacob,
and he that form thee, O Israel, fear not, for I have redeemed
thee. I have called thee by thy name, and thou art mine. When
thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee, and through
the rivers they shall not overflow thee. When thou walkest through
the fire, thou shalt not be burned, neither shall the flame kindle
upon thee. For I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel,
thy Savior. I gave Egypt for thy ransom,
and Ethiopia and Sheba for thee." What a statement is made here
by this pastor of Israel, Isaiah by name, when it comes to the
church. Who are we? redeemed of God. Who are we? Formed by the Father. Who are we? Those that God chose
before the foundation of the world, gave to His Son in the
eternal covenant, and redeemed by the Holy Spirit in time. Those
are the ones that know what it is to call Him Father and Potter
and Friend. Turn with me just a little further,
verse 7 of that same chapter, it says, Even everyone that is
called by my name, I've created him for my glory, I've formed
him, yea, I've made him. The word formed is the same word
we find over in Isaiah 64 for Potter. You formed us. We look at you as the one that
put the clay on the wheel. Remember Jeremiah? Oh, Jeremiah. He needed an illustration
for Israel. You know that's about the only
difference that pastors have is the illustrations that we
share. We use the same word Preach the
same gospel. The other day, my Bible class
teacher, he brought a lesson. And we don't compare notes. And
I brought a message. And one of the men came up and
said, that was the same message. And I says, if it wasn't, you'd get
after one of us. It's the same message. We share
a little bit different experiences, different illustrations. And
Jeremiah needed an illustration for Israel. And God said, go
down to the potter's house. Now I want you to go down there.
Now a potter was much more important in those days because if you
had plates on your table, a potter made them. Someone in the community
made those plates and dishes and bowls and all that stuff.
Go down to the potter's house. Now watch that potter of the
same lump. Same lump. Same lump my father
was from, and he had no interest in the real gospel. He had only
interest in his works gospel. But it's the same lump. He says,
I'm going to have that potter make a piece of pottery, and
it's going to get broken on the pottering wheel, and I'm going
to throw it away. And then there's going to be some clay. I'm going
to have that potter turn it out to a beautiful work of art. Paul was asked to go to the same
passage of scripture in Romans chapter 9 and deal with Potter. Can I not do what I please with
mine? And you know the church says,
absolutely you can. And the world says, oh no, oh
no. The church says, absolutely. Do with me as you please. Whatever
you wish. You're our Lord, you're our sovereign,
you're our king. We bow before you because Reverend
and Holy is his name. And we say, do with me as you
please. I know this, nothing will humble
a pastor more than a bowl of your grandson's oatmeal being
spilled in his lap on the way to church. Yeah, it's a humbling experience.
And you walk away and say, Lord, thank you. It cleaned up pretty
well. Isaiah 43 and verse 21. This people have I formed for
myself. That word formed is the same
word for potter. This people have I pottered for
myself. They're my people. They shall
show forth my praise." And chapter 44 and verse 10, God is asking the question, who
hath formed a God? Boy, there's a lot of professional
God formers, but it's little g, little o, little d. Little Idle God. Little Peanut
God, as Brother Henry used to talk about. Little Peanut God. Who hath formed the God? Who's
been the God's potter? When it comes to God, he said,
the God. There's no God formed before
me, nor after me. No one pottered me. I am the
potter. You are the clay. You know, if
we turn to the book of Ephesians, chapter 2, we'd find the New
Testament statement that is almost identical to what we read over
here in the book of Isaiah, chapter 64. Would you turn there with
me? Ephesians, chapter 2. You could
probably quote this. Most people do. I realized a
number of years ago that you're not going to be able to enjoy
Ephesians chapter 2 if you can't rejoice in Ephesians chapter
1. If you skip chapter 1, you have
no business in chapter 2. Ephesians chapter 1 tells us
why we can enjoy Ephesians chapter 2. Ephesians chapter 1 talks
about all the spiritual blessings we have in Christ. And a major
part of that is, He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation
of the world. Now, let's go on to chapter 2,
verse 2, or verse 8. Remember what we read over there
in Isaiah 64. Oh man, I am unclean. For by grace are you saved through
faith. and that not of yourselves. It is a gift of God, not of works,
lest any man should boast. Verse 10, for we are his pottery. We are his workmanship. We are
his workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works which God
hath before ordained that we should walk in them." And Isaiah
said, as the church prayed and commented, You're our father. You have all our spiritual welfare
in mind. We have nothing without you.
You're our potter. You're the one who formed us.
Our righteousness, our self-righteousness is valueless, but your righteousness
is all our hope. And we are his workmanship. Can
you just see God and, you know, we picture things as we read.
came down there in the Garden of Eden, took a pile of dirt,
formed it into Adam, breathed into his nostrils the breath
of life, and he became alive, animated. His spiritual relationship
with God until the moment he took of that forbidden fruit.
Now my Bible class teacher shared the other day something I'd never
thought about. You probably have, but I'm going
to share it. He was going over that passage
of scripture and he said that man was created in the image
of God and we read about God being light. God is light and
in him is no darkness at all. And he says, I have this impression
that when God created Adam and created Eve, that they put off
this glow, this light, in resemblance to God. And the moment that Adam
ate, that light went out. And then they realized they were
naked and covered themselves. Up to that point, they were light. Boy, the lights went out so quickly,
instantaneously. And they're in darkness. But before that all happened,
it said, there's a lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
Redemption will be taking place. God's not caught off guard. The
weather map didn't catch him off guard. He knew purpose that
his son would be the savior of his people and the potter of
his family.