Ezekiel, the beginning of the
chapter, it speaks of the depravity of human flesh. We weren't born
good, we were born bad. And we're just doing what comes
naturally. It's just natural for us to be
bad. It's natural for us to be mischievous
and tellers of half-truths, wandering in this waste, howling wilderness
of the world. We're just doing what comes naturally.
It's the way we are. regenerated and quickened and
born again and have some new desires and new goals and so
forth. Anyhow, Ezekiel says in this
sixteenth chapter, it says, again, the word of the Lord came unto
me and this is what he said, Son of man, cause Jerusalem to
know her abominations. Jerusalem is used in reference
to the nation Israel. He is not just singling out the
city of Jerusalem, but it has reference to the nation Israel. And thus saith the Lord unto
Jerusalem, Thy birth and thy nativity is of the land of Canaan. Thy father was an Amorite, and
thy mother was a Hittite. And as for thy nativity, in the
day thou wast born, thy navel was not cut, neither wast thou
washed in water to supple thee. Thou wast not salted at all,
nor swaddled at all. None I pitied thee to do any
of these unto thee, to have compassion upon thee. But thou wast cast
out in an open field. to the loathing of thy person
in that day that thou wast born. And when I pass by, when God
pass by, tell them, when I pass by, I seen you in your condition. No, I pitied you, but when I
pass by, the God of mercy and the God of love. Oh, what love! great and glorious love of God
to love a sinful wretch like the one pictured here. I saw thee polluted in thine
own blood, polluted, trodden underfoot. I said unto thee, When thou wast
in thy blood, live! Yea, I said unto thee, When thou
wast in thy blood, live! I have caused thee to multiply
as the bud of the field, and thou hast increased and waxed
great. Thou art come to excellent ornaments,
thy breasts are fashioned, thy hair is grown, whereas thou wast
naked and bare. But," it said, "'I have prospered
thee in spite of who thou art.'" Now when I passed by thee and
looked upon thee, behold, thy time was the time of love.
That's when God saves people, in the time of love. And he said,
I spread my skirt over thee and covered thy nakedness. You've
got to have your nakedness covered, your sinfulness covered. You've
got to have a wedding garment on. You've got to have a garment
of spotless righteousness. You have got to have perfection
of perfection to clothe you from head to foot. I spread my skirt
over thee, and covered thy nakedness. Yea, I swear unto thee, and entered
into a covenant, an agreement, entered into a covenant with
thee, saith the Lord God, and thou becamest mine. You become
mine by way of a covenant. Then washed I thee with water,
I thoroughly washed away thy blood from thee, and I anointed
thee with oil." And I think these next verses here are speaking
of what I spoke of this morning, the garment of righteousness,
the righteousness of God, the righteousness of faith that is
provided by God freely imputed to the believing sinner. He is
covered with this garment, and he describes this covering here. He said, I clothed thee also
with broidered work. I shod thee with badger skin,
I girded thee about with fine linen, and I covered thee with
silk. I deck thee also with ornaments.
I put bracelets upon thy hands, and a chain on thy neck. I put a jewel on thy forehead,
and earrings in thine ears, and a beautiful crown upon thy head. Thus wast thou decked. with gold and silver, and thy
raiment was of fine linen and silk and broadered work. Thou didst eat fine flour and
honey and oil, and thou wast exceeding beautiful, and thou
didst prosper into a kingdom. And thy renown went forth among
the heathen for thy beauty, That is, it got out on you for your
beauty. The other nations see how I prospered
you. For it was perfect through my
comeliness which I had put upon thee, saith the Lord God. But
thou didst trust in thine own beauty. You began to trust in
yourself and played Playedest the harlot because of thy renown,
because of your greatness. Your greatness came from me.
And pouredest out thy fornication on every one that passed by,
his it was. And thy garments thou didst take,
and decked thyself, decked thy high places and thy colors, and
played the harlot. Whereupon the like thing shall
not come, neither shall it be so." Well, this righteousness
that I talked about this morning is the garment. It is His garment. It is of His making. It is of
His providing. It is a very rich and glorious
robe. It is a great robe. He said, I have clothed thee
with embroidered work and covered thee with silk. I decked thee
with gold, and thy raiment was a fine linen. This garment, this garment of righteousness,
this wedding garment in another place, it indicates that that's
the righteousness of God, this righteousness that that the salvation of God is
dependent, is grounded, is founded, has its basis in the righteousness
of God. Now, this garment of righteousness
is prepared to fit, tailor-made. You know what I'm talking about
when I'm talking about being tailor-made. I had a tailor-made suit one
time when I was about 23 years old. I bought a tailor-made suit. They measured me. They measured
my arm's length. They measured from my shoulder
to the middle of my neck. They measured down underneath
my arm to my waist. And they measured my waist and
my legs and the circumference of the leg and so forth. The
guy came from Cincinnati, all the way from Cincinnati, to the
United Woollen store in Fairmont and measured me for that suit
of clothes. I was making six or seven dollars a day, and
I paid sixty-five dollars for that suit. And I sure liked that
suit. pinstripe suit. I mean it was
in style, tailor-made, didn't come off of the rack, made to
fit. This garment, the righteousness of the Lord
Jesus Christ, this garment is prepared to fit for the person
that is to wear it, made to fit for the person. who is to wear
it. It is a great and glorious garment
made out of fine silk and decked with gold. Now, all other garments
are to be laid aside as invaluable for the bride to wear. The Bride of Christ. Christ is
the Bridegroom. and the church is his bride.
And so there's going to be a great wedding supper sometime and everybody's
going to have to have wedding garments on, which is the righteousness
of God. But when a man who believes, who comes to an understanding
of his condition as a sinner, that he's lost far off from God
and he can't come back, he don't want to come back, And if he
ever comes back, God's got to go where he is and fetch him
back. Well, when he comes to this understanding
about the righteousness of God, this blessed garment, all other
garments then of this individual is to be laid aside as invaluable,
no use, lamb aside. They are not fit for the bride
to wear. His righteousness is prepared
for believers. It is made fit for the soul. This garment answers the claims
and the demands of law and justice. And when the soul puts on the
righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, By faith he lays aside
his own rags, the rags of his own self-effort, the rags of
his own so-called works. He lays those filthy rags aside
and he has no confidence no more in the flesh. His confidence
now is in Christ who is his righteousness. And he casts his filthy rags
behind his back and tramples them underneath his feet. Now,
a regular man-made garment, nowadays generally made by some Chinese
man or Chinese woman or Taiwanese or someone from Guam or Puerto
Rico, they make regular man-made clothes that we wear here in
the United States. But whoever makes regular man-made
garments, they can only cover but one at a time. But the garment
of the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, His garment, His
robe of righteousness can cover many. All believers, are clothed and
covered with one and the same garment. They're all alike. Yours is not better than mine,
and mine is not better than yours. They're all alike. We're all
going to look alike. We're all going to be dressed
in the same garment. The garment of the righteousness
of Christ that he established in his doing and his dying is
an everlasting Righteousness. Everyone that has this garment has an entire garment for himself,
although this garment covers that multitude that no man can
number. Now, if you'll turn with me to
Matthew chapter 22. Or Matthew 10, maybe it is. Matthew 10. And verse 22, I believe. Now, I want to read this in light
of what I've said. And ye shall be hated of all men
for my name's sake, but he that endureth to the end shall be saved. Ye shall be hated of all men
for my name's sake, believers, followers of the Lamb, those
that are closely identified with Him and associated with Him,
that take His name, those who understand that they can do nothing
apart from Him, those who will not flinch and give in, those
who will not compromise His Word and His truth and His gospel.
He said, you'll be hated by men. They'll hate you for my sake. But he said, he that endures,
he that makes it through to the end, he said, the same shall
be said. Well, he's talking about the
end, the end of all things, the end of our lives. There's a time
to be born. I was born December the 19th,
1923. I was born in Preston County,
top of the mountain. I was 18 years old before I knew what
my name was. I didn't know what my real name
was until I was 18. I wrote to the county commissioner's office,
courthouse in Preston County, Kingwood, to get my birth certificate. And on the birth certificate
it said my name was Scott Richardson. I didn't know that was my name.
But God knew my name. My name was written in the Lamb's
Book of Life before the world ever was. My dad and mother may
not have known what my name was. They may have forgot what they
named me. And I didn't know, to be exact,
but God knew. God knew. Now the end of my life is coming
to an end. I've got just wishfully thinking
and hoping I've got three or four more years, and I've come
to the end. I'm 70. Going on 77 won't be
long until I'll be 80, if God spares me these three years.
And Bob's already 80 and a little past it, and Rosemary. Women don't like that. Men don't
care, Rosemary. Bob don't care. If you say he's
90, he just grins. But Glenn, he's getting old. Carl, Fred and these fellas,
all getting old. It's going to come an end time,
Mr. Brown. Brown knows that. He's getting old, Katie. It's
coming end time. He that endures to the end, to
the end of life, shall be saved. We started, didn't we? I started
in this race. I started about fifty years ago,
I guess, maybe more, I don't know. I was in my middle twenties
and I started running this race. That's when I began. But now it's closing down to
the end. And he that endures to the end, Which leads me to say now, right
now, our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. The consummation of it, the realization
of it, is nearer now than when we first started. But before the Son of the Son
of Righteousness, but before the Son of Righteousness
arose upon us and displayed the glory of His person and His finished
salvation, before that took place, what dark, proud, ignorant notions
of salvation did you and I entertain? Before the Son of Righteousness
arose and revealed unto us the truth in regard to the grace
of God and the doing and the dying of the Lord Jesus Christ,
how many foolish and awful thoughts and notions did you and I have
in reference to God's salvation? instead of seeing righteousness
as a gift by the Lord Jesus Christ and justification of life coming
as a free gift and eternal life as the gift of God through the
Lord Jesus Christ, we vainly, ignorantly thought that salvation
was to be had by some righteousness or some good deeds of our own. Am I telling the truth? That's
the truth, so help me God. That's vain thoughts we had before
the Lord revealed himself to us as my salvation. We had vain, vain thoughts like
that. Well, in our natural state of
blindness, Before we saw Jesus, you remember Rupert here the
other day preaching from over there in the book of John, was
it, where it says, And we behold Jesus. We see Jesus. In our natural
state of blindness, before we were quickened by the Spirit
of God and given life, and before the glory of God shined in the
face of the Lord Jesus Christ and was revealed to our hearts.
Before we saw Jesus, we thought enduring to the end might give
us a claim to be saved. Didn't we think that? We thought
that if we endured to the end, it might give us a fair claim
to gain favor with God. Now, when the sun of righteousness
shines into our soul, we see that we are saved in the Lord
and by the Lord with an everlasting salvation. We begin by seeing Jesus. Now
of this blessed sight, when we first saw him in his beauty,
in his loveliness, the sweet singer of Israel said he's the
fairest among ten thousand. He's the lily of the valley.
He's the bright morning star. He's the fairest of the fair.
It's all together love. We begin by seeing him. Now of
this blessed sight, let us hear the seed name. Who have hope in him, let us
endure to the end. We hear the cry of the cross
that said, It's finished! And we hear him proclaim from
his throne, It's done! We hear him say, I'm the Alpha! I'm the Alpha! I'm the finish
of your faith! I'm the Alpha! I am the Omega. I am the first and I am the last. I am the beginning and I am the
end. Of Him we are chosen to salvation
through the sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the
truth. God help us to hold on. endure, those of us that tremble at times,
thinking, Will I endure? Will my faith hold out unto the
end? Well, let me comfort you with
this thought. If you are His and He is yours,
if you know Him and He knows you, If your eyes are fixed on the sacrifice, if you touch
the sacrifice, like the woman that had the issue of blood,
when she broke through the crowd, reached through that crowd, that
throne of people that surrounded the dear Savior, she reached
through that crowd, And she touched him. She just said, If I could
just touch the hem of his garment. That's all I need to do is touch
the hem of his garment. She broke through that crack.
And I suppose her finger brushed the hem of his garment. And he
cried out, Who touched him? Virtue hath been drawn from me
by that touch." If we have touched Him, if we have touched Him, He hath said, when Peter trembled,
he said, I have prayed for you that your
faith faileth not. And He prays for us. He prays
for His people. He ever lives as our Mediator,
the right hand of God, just like He said to Peter. He said, Satan
has desired to have you, Peter, to sift you as wheat. But He
said, Peter, I have prayed for you. That's your faith being
broken. We're going to make it to the
end. That's the good news. Heaven and earth to the end. Clothed in the everlasting sweet
garments, freely imputed to us, the righteousness of Christ.
We're going to endure to the end and fall asleep in Jesus. if He doesn't come for us before
that time. All right. Let's stand.