Thank the Lord for this congregation. Boy, the Lord's been good to
you, hasn't he? Had you a good pastor, was pleased
to take him and give you another one. I don't know why, but I'm
not reading anything into this, but when you made mention of
these fellows you've known for a long time, you left out Glenn. It's a joy. Thank you, ladies
and men, for the fine food that we ate yesterday. That was so
good. Looking forward to another good meal today. I want you to
turn with me to Isaiah chapter 38. I appreciate Brother Don, Sister
Shelby. It's always a joy to be with
them. I appreciate his faithfulness. Both messages he preached, especially
that one on 1 John, so good for me. Isaiah 38, and let's read
this entire chapter. In those days was Hezekiah sick
unto death. And Isaiah the prophet, the son
of Amos, came unto him, and said unto him, Thus saith the Lord,
set thy house in order, for thou shalt die, and not live. Then
Hezekiah turned his face towards the wall, and prayed unto the
Lord, and said, Remember now, O Lord, I beseech thee, how I
have walked before thee in truth and with a perfect heart, and
have done that which is good in thy sight. And Hezekiah wept
sore. Then came the word of the Lord
to Isaiah, saying, Go and say to Hezekiah, Thus saith the Lord,
the God of David thy father, I have heard thy prayer, I have
seen thy tears. Behold, I will add unto thy days
fifteen years. And I will deliver thee and this
city out of the hand of the king of Assyria, and I will defend
this city. And this shall be a sign unto
thee from the Lord, that the Lord doeth this thing. that he
hath spoken. Behold, I will bring again the
shadow of the degrees which is gone down in the sundial of Ahaz,
ten degrees backward, so the sun return ten degrees by which
degrees it was gone down. The writing of Hezekiah king
of Judah, when he had been sick and was recovered of his sickness,
I said in the cutting off of my days, I shall go to the gates
of the I am deprived of the residue of my years. I said I shall not
see the Lord, even the Lord, in the land of the living. I
shall be whole man no more with the inhabitants of the world.
Mine age is departed and is removed from me as a shepherd's tent.
I have cut off like a weaver my life. He will cut me off with
pine and sickness from day even to night. Will thou make an end
of me? I reckoned to a morning that,
as a lion, so will he break all my bones. From day even to night
will thou make an end of me. Like a crane or a swallow, so
did I chatter. I mourned as a dove. My eyes
fell with looking upward. O Lord, I am oppressed. Undertake
for me. What shall I say? He hath both
spoken to me, and himself hath done it. I shall go softly all
my years in the bitterness of my soul. O Lord, by these things
men live, and in all these things is the life of my spirit, so
wilt thou recover me and make me to live. Behold, for peace
I had great bitterness, but thou hast in love to my soul delivered
it from the pit of corruption, for thou hast cast all my sins
behind thy back. For the grave cannot praise thee,
death cannot celebrate thee, they that go down into the pit
cannot hope for thy truth. The living, the living, he shall
praise thee, as I do this day. The father to the children shall
make known thy truth. The Lord was ready to save me.
Therefore we will sing my songs to the strength instruments all
the days of our life in the house of the Lord. For Isaiah had said,
Let them take a lump of figs, and lay it for a plaster upon
the ball, and he shall recover. Hezekiah also had said, What
is the sign that I shall go up unto the house of the Lord? In
love to my soul, that's what I want us to think of this morning.
I don't know another verse in the Old Testament that has been
translated in so many different ways as my text here in verse
17. And the commentators have taken
it in all the different translations and all that I've read has been
very profitable to my soul and been very Scripture. And I want
to look at the first portion of this verse with you just for
a few minutes. I want to split it up in three
portions. For peace I had great bitterness. And secondly, thou
hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption.
And thirdly, thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back. But I want to look at some different
ways that this first passage, this first portion of verse 17,
has been translated. One translation has it like this.
Instead of peace, I had great bitterness. I thought to have
peace and prosperity, but bitterness to me, bitterness. One commentator
said this on this particular translation. He translated it
this way, while I thought to have lived in rest and ease,
being delivered from my enemies, instead I had grief upon grief. Now I thought that fits the context
perfectly. I thought to have peace. But
instead, I had bitterness upon bitterness. And I say that fits
the context because if you read chapter 36 and 37, you realize
what had taken place here. The king of Assyria, Sennacherib,
had sent a great army against the cities of Jerusalem, had
overcome them, whipped them, overtaken them, came down here
to Jerusalem, and he sent his general to speak to them. A wicked
man, a very vulgar man. And he was talking to some representatives
that King Hezekiah had sent out and he noticed some men sitting
on the wall so he raised his voice loudly where they could
hear him. He wanted to scare them. He said
he was going to take them away captive into another land and
give them things that they've never had before. What he's going
to do, he's going to enslave them. But he began to raise his
voice and he said, you fellows sitting on the wall, If you don't surrender yourselves
and come out to me, you're going to eat your own dung and drink
your own urine. Very vulgar, man. And he said,
don't let Hezekiah talk you into putting your trust in the Lord,
because all these other gods haven't been able to deliver
their lands from me. I've overcome them. I've crushed
their gods and burned them in the fire. Kingson Asher River wrote back,
Tucketh into the house of the Lord, and he sat down before
the Lord, and he said, Lord of the truth, he has taken over
other nations. And he has destroyed their gods
and burnt their altars in the fire, but they were just the
work of men's hands. You're the Lord. You're the God
of all the nations of the earth. You're the Creator of heaven
and earth. You know so often when the Lord's
people were in trouble in the Old Testament, They went to the
Lord, and this is the way they addressed Him. Thou art God that
created the heavens and the earth. They found a refuge in Him, the
faithful Creator. Well, the Lord spoke to Isaiah,
and He sent him to Hezekiah, and He said, This king and all
of his army is going back just like they came. I'm going to
put my hook in his nose, I'm going to put my gravel in his
mouth, and I'm going to lead him right back to where he came
from. And he sent him to Nineveh, and his own sons killed him.
Now that's the context of this. And no doubt Hezekiah thought
within himself, boy, it's a time of peace now. Boy, I'm going
to have peace now. The danger is past, the bitterness
is past, and now it's a time of peace. But instead of that,
what happened? Bitterness. We're told there
in verse 1, "...in those days Hezekiah was sick unto death. One trial had passed, one bitter
trial had come and gone, but instead of having peace, another
trial followed right on its heels." Isn't that the way it is sometimes?
When we've gone through a great affliction and we thought, surely,
surely, I've got through this. Nothing could have been worse
than this. It's time now to rest. I've got the victory through
grace. But what happens? Another trial. Another bitter
trial. There's an old proverb that says,
ills seldom come alone. They always come in bunches,
don't they? Very seldom we see one cloud in the sky. If you
see one, you see many. That old saying, when it rains
it pours, how often have you and I experienced that? Job,
bless his heart, the Sabeans came. They carried away the cattle
and they killed his servants and only one escaped to bring
the bad news. And just as he brought the bad
news, the fire of God fell and burned up the cattle. Then the
Chaldeans came and carried off the camels, and just as they
were going over the hill, the fire of God not only had fallen,
but now wind had came and twisted the house and fell on the kids
and killed all of them. And poor Job said, God gives
and God takes away. Surely that's the end of it.
It's bad, but we're now through it, and at least things will
settle down. But then the balls from the top
of his head to the crown of His feet. Isn't that the way it happens
sometimes? One trial, one affliction after
another. And it seems like we never have
settled peace. You know what, brothers and sisters,
if it wasn't for the tender mercy of God, you and I would be swallowed
up. Wouldn't we not? We're over much
sorrow. Oh, when I thought, peace, peace,
But bitterness, to me, bitterness. But here's another way that some
translators have interpreted this and translated this. For my peace I had great bitterness. Or my bitterness came that out
of it might come peace. Or my bitterness issued into
peace. Out of my bitterness. The bitterness
came for this cause, that it might bring peace. Well, that's true too, isn't
it? Weeping may endear for a night, but joy comes in the morning. And what is it that makes us
glad for the sunrise, sometimes after a long, dark night? There are things that you and
I have suffered in our life that we'd never go through again for
anything. But we wouldn't take anything
for what we went through. Because out of that great trial
and affliction came great peace. Remember when we were lost? Remember
when the Lord made us to know that we were lost? That was pretty
bitter, wasn't it? Would you take anything for that?
The whole problem with our lost loved ones, they don't know that.
They've never suffered the heaviness of that. They never went in the
heaviness and bitterness of their conscience, smiting their chest,
God be merciful. Oh, what a bitter trial that
was. Would you take anything for that? What came out of that? The peace of Christ that His
blood gave you. Oh, that Philippian jailer, he
sprang out of that jail. And he was trembling and fell
on his face. Oh my, what bitterness he was
in. And he said, men and brethren,
what must I do to be saved? But we know how that ended, don't
we? They spoke unto him the Word of the Lord. And he believed
in God. Rejoice in Him with all his house. Look over here with me in this
same book in Isaiah 61. I think the scripture tells it
very well. In Isaiah chapter 61, and look here in verse 1. Brother Don read the scriptures
to us last night. Our loud afflictions which are
but for a moment worketh for us. Afflictions work for us. They work for us now, and they'll
really work for us hereafter. The issue in peace when God is
in the affliction. Look here what he says in Isaiah
61, speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Spirit of the Lord
God is upon me because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good
tidings to the meek. He hath sent me to bind up the
brokenhearted. What's binding up a broken-hearted
man that's not broken-hearted? He doesn't value binding up.
It's a broken soul and not a whole that appreciates and values the
binding up. To proclaim liberty to who? The captives. The opening of
the prison to them that are bound. To proclaim the acceptable year
of the Lord. The day of vengeance of our God
to comfort who? All that mourn? To appoint unto
them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for their ashes,
the oil of joy for mourning, the garments of praise for the
spirit of heaviness." I tell you, I don't pray for afflictions.
I never have and I never will. And you won't either, will you?
But boy, I tell you, if they come, to reveal to us the peace
that's in the Son of God, then let Him come. Let Him come. Oh, bitterness, but it issued
Him to my peace. Back in our text again in chapter
38, here's something else we learn about these afflictions.
Sometimes they come one after another. Sometimes they come
to bring peace, to reveal peace. But they teach us something else,
and I bet we've all learned this. This is a good lesson about prayer. If I had only one passage to
take us to this morning, to teach us that we should pray and not
think, we should be courageous in prayer, it would be this scripture
here. Because look back again in verse
1, Isaiah 38, and look back here in verse 1. Hezekiah was sickened
to death. Isaiah the prophet, the son of
Amos, came unto him and said, Thus saith the Lord, Set thine
house in order, for thou shalt die, and not live." Verse 2,
Then, then, now the Holy Spirit put that in there for a reason.
Then Hezekiah turned his face towards the wall and prayed unto
the Lord. This is absolutely amazing. The
Lord said, you shall die and not live. Now that settles it,
doesn't it? But what did this man do? He
sought the Lord. He prayed right in the teeth
of this affliction, this bitterness. I tell you, this is one of the,
if a man ever had faith in the Scriptures, that led him to prayer,
this has to be the man. Because here the sentence had
already gone out against him to the Lord. Why even pray? But he did. He did. Well, sometimes we have to be
careful when we read the Scripture. Because there may be something
hid in there that we just don't know about. There may be an unless
hid there. You're going to die and not live
unless you seek my face. It's seemingly there wasn't an
unless. And prayer seeks those unlesses out, doesn't it? He
didn't know it until he prayed. Oh, sometimes, brothers and sisters,
when God seems to be against you, when the Word of God seems
to shut you out. Even when your own understanding
seems to shut you out. Oh, this man believed what the
Lord said. He said there in verse 10 and
verse 11, He's cut me off. He's going to make an end to
me. He believed it was, but you know what he did? In the face
of all of this, he sought the Lord in prayer. That's amazing,
isn't it? We go to the Lord sometimes in
prayer when our case seems to be hopeless. And according to
my understanding of things, it is hopeless. There's no way out
of this. But you know, sometimes that's
the best time to pray. I think this is verse 20 here
in this chapter of one of the most amazing verses. Look at
this in verse 20. The Lord was ready to save me. That's not what the Lord said,
was it? He said, I'm ready to kill you. But behind that, and
prior sought this out and found this out, behind all of my understanding,
even behind my interpretation of the Word of God, He was ready
to save me. I've talked to people that were
convinced they weren't one of God's elect. I've talked to people
that were convinced that they had sinned, an unpardonable sin. But to their utter amazement
and joy, they found out that they were wrong. They found out
they were, after all, one of God's elect. They found out they
had not sinned, the unpardonable sin. And you know how they found
it out? Through prayer. They sought the Lord earnestly,
and He heard them. And all the time He was ready
to save them. I mean, I don't know of anybody,
lest it may be Jonah, that was any worse fixed than this man. I think he was probably in worse
condition than Jonah. The Lord never told Jonah, you're
never going to get out of that place. He said, out of the belly
of hell cried I. You can't get any lower than
that, can you? not out of the belly of hell, I prayed, I cried
unto the Lord, and out of that belly He heard my prayer." Oh, when a heart is broken up
with a bitter waffle cup, then's the time. Then's the time to
go to Christ. That's when he often hears our
prayers. Next time you think everything's
against you, and your situation, your circumstances is impossible, and according to your own understanding,
there's just no way out of the situation you're in, do this. Pray. Seek the Lord in earnest. Thirdly, let's see this about
this. In verse 38 and verse 1, I think we learn something else
about these bitter afflictions. They're the messengers of instructions. They're a great teacher to us.
He said there in verse 1, set your house in order. He sent
this awful ball, and man, the pain and maybe the fever, and
he was looking down at that ball Word came to him, set your house
in order, you're going to die. Boy, how often has the Lord sent
afflictions to teach us. Set your house in order. What
was wrong with his house? I don't know. But he knew, didn't
he? He knew. And there are times
when, brothers and sisters, our house, our homes need to be set
in order. Our priorities need to be looked
at and brought into check. Our ways need to be mended, and
sometimes these afflictions will do it. I heard a dear young preacher
say just the other day, he said, our houses, our homes should
be little worship centers. Isn't that so? How often does
worldliness creep into our houses, our homes, and the Bible is seldom
read with reverence? Oh, we read three or four verses
quickly before we go to bed, but how often do we read it to
our children and our grandbabies with reverence? Prayer is seldom
had. We seldom sing the songs of Zion
in our homes. Did your home ever get that way?
Put your house in order? Oh, if it takes afflictions to
bring me back as the head of my house, to pray with my children
and my grandchildren where the name of the Son of God is heard
and His ways are taught and salvation is known in our house. It must
have been something like this because Hezekiah mentions there
in the verse, the Father shall teach the children. They shall
make known the ways of the Lord to the children. Oh, afflictions
are good, aren't they? If they set things in order.
And that's why the Father sends them in love. Not to punish His
children, but to correct them. Cause them to set things in order. Look at the second portion of
this verse. And as the interpreters looked at this, they have a lot
to say about this second portion of verse 17. But thou hast, in
love to my soul, delivered it from the pit of corruption."
One translates it like this. And this fits the context perfectly. The Lord had delivered Hezekiah
from going down to the pit, and here he traces the cause of it.
Why did he deliver me? You delivered me because you
loved me. You delivered me from going down
to the pit because you loved me. That's the cause of it all. Oh, that's very telling, isn't
it? That's very good. That's very instructive. The
whole Bible will bear witness to that interpretation and translation.
Where do we trace our salvation to? If you had to trace it to
one place, what do you trace it to? Is it not the love of
the triumph of God? The everlasting love of God. For God so loved the world that
he gave his only begotten son. Why did the Son of God came and
why did he suffer and why did he give up his life? Because
he loved the church and gave himself for it. What do we trace
our calling to? Calling out of darkness into
His light? I have loved you with an everlasting
love. Therefore, with loving kindness
have I drawn thee. The world talks about the love
of God. Brothers and sisters, I contend that the lost world
knows nothing about the love of God. They profess that God
loves them, and they don't trace their salvation to the love of
God. Oh, a woman told me one time, she said, God loves everybody
and He loves everybody the same. It wouldn't be right for Him
to love one over another, or more than another, or not love
one at all. What does the love of God have
to do with your salvation? I mean, when you get right down
to where the rubber meets the road, what does the love of God
have to do with you being saved? Everything. Everything. You're just like Hezekiah. That's
where you trace your salvation to. He delivered me from the
pit because He loved me. That's the only kind of love
I know anything about, to be honest with you. I don't know
about a love that'll leave a man to perish in a pit. I don't know
about that kind of love. I'm sorry. No, I'm not. I don't
want to know anything about that kind of love. Love not in word
but in deed and in truth. How does God love? Another translation reads it
like this. Thou hast been lovingly attached to me from the pit. Even in the pit you love me. Boy, think of that. Even in the
pit you love me. Think about a pit. Boy, you're
in the pit. What kind of pit? Sin is a pit,
ain't it? Man, that's a pit. The pit of
sin. Stinking pit. Sin's nature. Our fallen nature. What a pit that is. We experience
the stink of that, don't we? I remember when we were in high
school in our science class, we used to dissect these frogs. These girls would start gagging.
Man, you just peel the skin back, then peel the muscle back, and
you get into the guts. And oh, it was a stinking mess. They tried to put the stuff on
it to lessen the smell. It was a mess. We'd laugh. Us boys would laugh at the girls
while they were gagging. Can you imagine dissecting your
heart? Can you imagine dissecting your
fallen nature? Ripping back one layer of depravity
and smelling the stink and ripping back another layer of your depravity
and seeing the enmity and then ripping back another and seeing
the lust and the self-will and the self-love and self-righteousness
and rebellion and you just get on and oh the stink of it all. A pit, an awful, awful pit. We know where this sin and those
who are left in their nature to live in it and obey it and
die in it, we know what a pit that leads to too, don't we?
That leads to a real pit. The pit of hell. And here was
a man who said, while I was in this pit. When I was in this
pit. Even when, even while I was in
this pit, you loved me. You loved me from the pit. We
err, brothers and sisters, if we think the Lord never loved
us until we love Him. And we err if we think He loves
us more now that He saved us than He did before He saved us. If He loves you now, He's always
loved you. And when He saves you, His love
for you does not increase. It knows no increase. It cannot
increase. Even when we were dead in sin,
for His great love, wherewith He loved us, even when in you
you sat in this pit of fallen nature, and you mourn over it,
and the stink of it makes you sick, but right there still He
loves you. Jesus Christ loves you from the
pit. Another translator said, He loved
me from the pit. He embraced my soul from the
pit. He kissed me from the pit. Thou hast loved my soul out of
the pit of corruption. Just like a father pulling up
to his house and seeing smoke rolling from the house and knowing
his son is in there, what would he do? Would he wring his hands,
hope that he can see his way out, hope that he finds his way
out? I'll holler and hope he hears
my voice. Why, no. What does he do? Man,
he runs into that house, doesn't he, with no regard for his own
safety. He feels the smoke going in his
lungs. He searches until he finds that child. And what does he
do? He embraces him in his arms, gets a sheer hold upon him, and
carries him out to safety. Love. Love. I love this one. I love this
one. One fellow translated it this way. You loved me from the
pit of corruption. You loved me out of the pit of
corruption. Your love drew me from the pit
of corruption. I love that. I love that. Your love. What was it drew me
from the pit? Love drew me from the pit of
corruption. Christ loved us out of our love
of sin. Why don't you love sin anymore?
He's loved you out of your love. of sin. I know conviction has
its place. Guilt has its place. I know that.
Fear has its place. But I tell you what, brothers
and sisters, nothing will draw us to Christ like a knowledge
of His love. It wasn't fear that broke Peter's
heart when he denied the Lord. It wasn't the guilt of it he
felt upon his conscience. Whatever he felt. But when he
saw the Lord Jesus, look at him. His heart was broken. There is
one who loves me. And look how I have sinned against
Him. One man said, if thou had bid
the thunders roll, and lightnings flash to blast my soul, still
stubborn I had been. But mercy my heart subdued, a
bleeding Savior I have viewed, and now I hate my sin. Love will
draw us out of our sin. The love of Christ, the knowledge
of His love will constrain us from our sin. How many times
has it brought you back from a backslidden state? When your
heart was so hard and so cold, you had no desire, you had no
will to pray or to believe. What was it that drew you back?
the knowledge of His love. Was it not? Thy love has drew
me from the pit. Look at the third portion. The
last portion of my verse is this. Thou hast cast all my sin behind
thy back. Here is what must happen if we
are ever to be delivered from the pit of this corruption that
we find ourselves in. And here is what love affects.
Thou hast cast all my sin behind thy back." Behind thy back. We use this term a lot, don't
we? We change it just a little bit. But now we call putting
it behind us, don't we? We've gone through some trials,
something awful has happened in our life, and boy, it's just
about devastated us. But we get through it, and we
say we've put it behind us. We've got through it now. It's
all behind us. By that we mean it's out of our memory, it's
out of our mind. We've forgotten about all that. Now we're getting
on with our lives. This is what it means when the
Lord says, I've cast your sins behind my back. They're so thoroughly
put away by the blood of Jesus Christ that God himself can never
remember them anymore. He can never see them. They can
never come into his mind. They're behind his back. And
what's behind your back you cannot see. Oh, he condescends to speak
to us in this kind of language so we can understand him. It's
behind his back. He said, "...in another place
as far as the east is from the west. So far have I removed your
iniquities from you. I purged them, I blotted them
out as a thick cloud." I blotted out your transgressions. And
all of them is saying the same thing. The blood of my Son has
so purged them away, has so taken them away, I can't remember them
anymore. That's a covenant blessing. This
is the covenant I'll make with them. I'll put my laws in their
minds and write them in their hearts, and their sins and iniquities
will I remember no more. And how many did He cast behind
His back? All your sins. We go around groaning and moaning
and moping over them, don't we? Praying with the prophets, Oh,
Lord, please don't remember the sins of my youth. Oh, Lord. He won't. He won't. I don't know what the judgment's
going to be like. And I probably know about as much as Brother
Don does. I don't know much about what
the judgment's going to be like. Some of those scriptures I can't
get a hold of. But I know this, brothers and sisters, I know
this, that no child of God will stand at the judgment and be
confronted with his sins. Why? They're behind his back. Who's going to call him to memory?
Not God. He has no memory of them. They're
purged. They're gone. All of them. Oh, I feel for these poor people
who take their own sins and cast them behind their back. They
refuse to acknowledge them. Oh, I'm going to hide them from
my own eyes. Well, God won't hide them from His. When a man
throws his own sins behind his back and won't acknowledge them,
they're there in the light of God's countenance. But when a
man says, my sin is ever before me, and he goes to the Lord and
confesses it, you know what the Lord does? He puts them behind
his back, and they're gone. Is your sin ever before your
face? They're not before His. Ain't that wonderful? Oh, no
wonder. He says here in verse 19, the
living, the living, he shall praise thee. as I do this day. Oh, bless His name. God bless
Brother Don. Thank you, Pastor.