I want you to turn with me this
evening to the 28th chapter of the book of Isaiah. The Lord makes a statement here
in this 28th chapter of the book of Isaiah to his professed people,
Israel. And he makes this statement to
these people by the prophet Isaiah. Now, it was made then, I don't
know how many years before the coming of the Lord, But it certainly
needs to be sounded out again in our day. This chapter has
to do with a refuge of lies. The people of Israel, for the
most part, I'm not talking about everybody in an absolute sense
or every member that comprised the body of the nation Israel,
was hypocrites and full of self-righteousness and trusting in themselves. That's
not what I'm saying, but there was a whole lot of them that
was. or this message of God given to the prophet Isaiah would not
have been as pronounced as it was upon them. Here in this fifteenth
verse, well, fourteenth verse, it says, Wherefore, hear the
word of the Lord. That's the twentieth chapter
of Isaiah. Wherefore, hear the word of the Lord, ye scornful
men that rule this people which is in Jerusalem." The religious
leaders of the day, the religious authority, those that rule the
people, the chief priests and the high priests and so forth,
the priesthood. Why? Now he says, you scornful
people, hear this word for this reason, because ye have said
we have made a covenant. That is, you have made an agreement
with death and with hell. We have made a covenant with
death and hell, and with hell are we at agreement. When the
overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall not come upon
us. We have made an agreement here, and we are safe from death
and secure from hell or the grave, as if a covenant had been formally
entered in between the two parties, death or the three parties, death,
hell, and the grave. And so he said, you scornful
men, I've got something to say to you. You fellows have entered
in an agreement here and it will not come to pass. It says, when
the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall not come
upon us. That's what they're saying. It
will not come upon us. Why? For we have made lies our
refuge, and under falsehood have we hid ourselves." We've made
our refuge in lies. Falsehood covers us. Well, I'm
going to skip down to the text. The text is the 20th verse of
this chapter, and this is the sum total of the pronounced judgment
against the nation Israel, these professed people of God at that
time. He says, For the bed is shorter
than a man can stretch himself on it, and the covering narrower
than that he can wrap himself in it. When a bed is short, a man cannot
lie down in comfort. The bed's too short. His feet
hangs out over the other end. Now, he may get some rest. He
may get some comfort, but he'll not get an absolute comfort for
which the bed is designed. That is a true bed. The bed is
designed for rest. may be able to lay his head down
and he may be able to stretch out and relax his tired body
and enter off, enter into a sound sleep and rest his body. Now when a bed is short, a man
cannot lie down in comfort and stretch himself out upon it.
And when the covering is narrow, a man cannot cover himself with
it so as to stay warm and comfortable. Now I know a little bit about
that because he used to sleep once in a while with the boys
when they were small. In particular, one of my boys,
Brad. I don't know why I slept with
him. I don't remember at the time. But roll in with Brad. And it wouldn't be long until
he'd just keep rolling over. He'd put the covers underneath
him. And he'd just keep rolling over. And little by little, he'd
take all the cover off of me. And I wouldn't have any. I wouldn't
have any at all. And I'd pull and it'd just be
tight. There'd be no slack there. And
I couldn't figure out what was going on. And finally I figured
out that he just kept rolling underneath him. He just kept
putting it underneath him. And I'd just have to jerk hard
like that and just turn him. Oh, I'd do that so many times
I'd lose my temper. So I know what I know what he's
talking about when he says the covering is narrower than that
he can wrap himself in it. He can't get wrapped up if the
cover is too narrow. Well, the text is, the bed is
shorter than that a man can stretch himself on it, and the covering
is narrower than that he can wrap himself in it. Now, you
see, The Lord makes this statement here to these professed people,
Israel as a nation at that particular time. Now, he uses this proverb
to describe to you and I those who seek to find a place of comfort
and rest in a refuge of lies. In a refuge of lies. What I want to know this evening
here is this. Let me ask this question at the
outset, and I'll not keep you long, so you bear with me and
we'll leave the building shortly. Now, what bed are you resting
upon? That's what I want to know. What
bed are you resting upon? Now, perhaps you've had a very
remarkable religious experience. You hear preachers talk about
religious experience. Have you ever read the life of
John Bunyan? The life of John Warburton? The
life of John Newton? Some of the great men of the
past had great religious experiences. Some do, some don't. It's not
necessary, but some have religious experience. Now perhaps you've
had a remarkable religious experience. You've felt deep remorse over
your sins. You've been sorry. and your heart's
been made heavy because of your disobedience and because of your
sins. And so you made a profession
of faith. You made a statement saying that,
I'm sorry for my past life and I'm sorry for my sins. I desire
to do better and I believe, I believe, I believe on the Lord Jesus.
I make a decision here, I make a commitment, I make a confession.
Well, you've made a profession of faith and there's been many
changes in your outward life and your conduct. And it may
be that your life has been greatly changed, greatly reformed. You quit doing some things that
you used to do. You used to like to do certain
things, but after you've had this remorse, this sorrow, after
this profation of faith, after certain outward behavior, after
your conduct has changed, and certain things you quit doing
that you once did, and you just cut them off. You just cut them
off right now. You read your Bible. You are
very punctual in reading your Bible. You set a time every day
aside where you can read the Bible a little bit. Maybe you
read so many verses every day or so many chapters. Or it may
be that you read a whole book. Or it may be that you systematically
read the Bible or you have ascribed to some program whereby you might
go through the Bible, read the Bible through In so many months
or in a year's time, you can read the Bible through, and maybe
you've read it through two or three times. You may not know
what's in it, but you've read it through. Well, you read your
Bible and you say your prayers, and you support the church, and
you're very orthodox in your creed. That is, you're very sound
in what you believe, and you're very strict in your behavior. Now, let me ask you this. Are
you resting upon these things? Are you resting upon these things
that I've mentioned? Now, if so, you hope that because
of these things that God will accept you. And the Lord himself
will say to you, though, the bed is too short that a man can
stretch himself upon it, if you are resting upon these things. And there are multiplied thousands,
I believe, of people who are religious. They are religious,
and they do conform to these things that I've mentioned. They have some remorse, and their
conduct has changed. And they have quit certain things
and taken up certain other good habits. And they do read their
Bibles, and they do say their prayers, and they do go to church.
And they do support the church and they are orthodox in their
creed and strict in their behavior. And they are resting upon those
things as a means of their acceptance with God. Huh? That's right. A lot of people
like that. They're resting upon that. They're resting upon what
they've done and who they are. They made a little old change
back here. Four or five years ago, ten years, twenty years
ago, they made a change. They become religious. And their
confidence, the confidence that they have that they're going
to heaven when they die is that they go back. They go back 20
years ago and say, I made a profession of faith. I was sorry for the
way I acted. I read my Bible. I'm strict in
my department and my behavior. I support the church. Evidently,
I must be what the preacher's talking about when he talks about
a Christian. I must be a Christian because of these things. Brethren,
that's a refuge of lies. There's no salvation in your
religion. There's no salvation in your
conduct. If you're trusting in all of
these things or any one of these things, why? you're trying to rest in a bed
that's shorter than a man can stretch himself upon it. The
bed's too short, won't get the job done. Well, let me go on. Now, what
you're covering, what you're covering. Most people have a
very attractive covering, outwardly. They cover themselves with religious
devotion. I remember a young lady, not
too many years ago, She made a point. Whenever I was around,
she made a point of telling me about her religious devotion. She made a point of it. And it
was so obvious that she was trying to prove to me that she had religion. It was just like a glaring source,
like a spotlight. Whenever I got around her, she
made a point to let me know how religious she was. I remember
one time she told me this. We started to talk about something,
but she took that conversation and brought it right back around
to herself and reminded me that she would have been a little
more punctual if she had not been hindered that morning in
her religious devotions. And she went on and told me,
at her little altar that she bowed at that morning. She told
me, I read from this chapter and I studied this and I studied
that. She made a point of telling me about her religious devotions
that morning. Now, that's all right. I'm not
saying that it's wrong to have religious devotions. We ought
to, as far as that goes. but that religious devotions
can turn out to be a refuge of lives if we are trusting in it. If we think because we have some
little outward covering here, that that is a means of our acceptance
with God, that we certainly must be saved because of what we are
doing, then brethren, that is a refuge of lives. This same
girl, a preacher called me not too long ago and he said, He said, I want to apologize.
He said, I want to apologize to you and to your church. And
I said, well, just what do you mean? He said, do you know so
and so? And I said, yes, I know the girl. And he said, well,
he said, you know, she came and joined our church. And he said,
you knew about that? And I said, well, yes, I knew
about it. I thought, well, she was having trouble here and didn't
seem to get along. If she went there and was getting
along, then I was happy for her and everyone involved. And I
just was willing to forget about it. And he said, well, no, that's
not the whole story. He said she came up here and
said she Oh, he said she was very religious, very religious,
very pious, and she had a great outward covering of religion,
and religious piety about her. Oh, he said she was a super ultra
Christian, wanting to just lead everybody. And he said, we took
her in. He said, I should have called,
we should have called your church or wrote a letter to your church
and asked for a letter. Asked for background on this
young lady. So he said, I want to apologize.
And I said, well, what's the problem? Oh, he said, she's got
big problems. I said, what happened? Well,
she said, she's living with a man and he said, she's pregnant again.
And she's pregnant again, and this was the second child out
of wedlock. She's pregnant again. And he
said, she's been chasing every man in the congregation here.
He said, we've had an awful time with her, an awful time. He said,
she is the most wickedest woman that I've ever dealt with in
my life. And he said, I've been preaching
for 25 years. I only mention that to tell you, brethren, most
people have a very attractive covering. They cover themselves
with religious devotion. They cover themselves with outward
morality. Always judging others. Always
judging some poor soul. By themselves. Saying, that fellow
out there is doing this and doing that. I wouldn't do that. I wouldn't
do that. Wonder why he does and things
of that nature. They cover themselves with religious
devotion and cover themselves with outward morality. They cover
themselves with obedience to the law. They cover themselves
with religious knowledge and piety. I ask you this evening,
what's your covering? What's your covering? What are
you covering yourself in this evening? Is it your piety? Is it your religious knowledge? Is it your religious devotion? Is it your outward morality?
Is it your obedience to the law? Most people seem to think that
they can, in some way or the other, make up for their past
wickedness by becoming religious. And that's a sad mistake. Can
a man cover his sins with a blanket of self-righteousness? No, a
thousand times no. The Lord Himself says in this
parable to the nation Israel through the prophet Isaiah, He
says that for the bed is shorter than a man can stretch himself
upon it, and the covering narrower than he can wrap himself in it. I ask you, what are you resting
upon this evening? and what you're covering. Well,
I'll tell you this, we must have a better bed and a better covering
than what I've talked about here this evening. We've got to have
something better than that if we're going to enter into the
joy of the Lord. We must submit to the righteousness
which is in Christ Jesus. There's no bed upon which a man
can stretch himself and find rest. None whatsoever. For his
soul, except the Lord Jesus Christ and his finished work, be his
sole object of faith. Let me talk to you for just a
little bit here this evening, and I'll be brief about our need
of redemption, our need of salvation. You know, in talking about the
cure, I find it impossible to not mention the disease and its
extent or the extension of that disease. Now, the salvation of
God is the cure and sin is the disease. And how far has this
disease gone? Well, that's a good question.
That's a real good question. How far has this disease gone? Now, the answer to this question
determines the nature of the remedy required. How far has
the disease gone? Well, I'll tell you. As to the
extent to which sin has infected you and me is clearly answered
in the Bible. Let me read something to you
here in Romans chapter 3, I believe. Chapter 3 of the book of Romans
and verse number 10. Let me read this to you. Verse
number 10. Open your Bibles there and put
your finger right down on that verse there. Verse number 10.
I'm talking about as to the extent to which sin has infected you
and I. I say the Bible is clear on this
point. In Romans 3 and 10, it says,
There is none, or as it is written, there is none righteous, no,
not one. Now, you want to determine? the extent of the infection,
of the disease in you and I? How far has it extended right
here? As it is written, as what God
has said, there is none righteous, no, not one. There is nobody
under the sun, outside of the Lord Jesus Christ, that is righteous.
Everyone outside of God's sun is unrighteous. Everyone outside
of God's Son is the opposite of righteous, and that's unrighteous. They are the opposite of godly,
they are ungodly. That's how far sin has infected
every soul who's a member of this human race. They're unrighteous. Unrighteous. Unrighteous! Nobody! universally, not just
confined to the 50 states that make up the United States, or
England, or Australia, or France, but wherever, wherever a man
is born a woman, this rule applies. Born in sin, conceived in iniquity,
go astray from their mother's wombs, speaking lies and falsehoods. That's not unrighteous. No, not
one. Surely, that's not to be taken
in an absolute sense. Surely, God can look down from
heaven upon the children of men and find one? And find one out
of three billion or four billion souls? Sure God, whose eyes are
in every place and everything is as an open book to Him, surely
He can find one righteous that will meet the standard of the
requirements of God's justice and holiness. No, sir, He can't
find a one. Not a one. Not a one. As it is written, there is none
righteous. No, not one. No exception. They're all gone
out of the way. Verse 11, there's none that understand
it. Nobody. Apart from divine grace,
there's not anybody that understands God. I don't care if he's got
25 degrees from 25 different colleges. He cannot understand
God or he will not seek after God apart from divine grace. God must set this in motion. God must seek Him before the
sinner seeks God. God must take the initiative. This sin, this disease of the
soul has infected us in such a way that we are far off from
God. And there is none righteous,
no, not one. There is none that understandeth.
There is none that seeketh after God. I never sought Him, did
you? Don't tell me you sought Him.
You never sought the Lord. You say, well, I did seek Him.
Yeah, your seeking was the result of Him seeking you. Your seeking
was the result of Him seeking you. He sought you first. Listen
to me, brethren, sisters. Left to yourself, left to myself. Just left to my natural self.
I'd have never sought God. If you was left to yourself,
you'd have never sought God. God takes the initiative. Someone
said one time, he said, well, the preacher was preaching. After he got through preachifying
and waxing eloquent, he told his heirs, he said, I've preached
to you every night for seven nights. And he said, you won't
listen and you won't respond. So he said, I've done all I can
do. And he said, God has done all he can do. So he said, now
you can just go on and go to hell. And some fellow stood up, and
he said, hold on. If you've done all that you can
do, and you can't get me, and God has done all he can do, and
he can't get me, what makes you think I'll let God put me in
hell? If God's trying to do something
and He can't do it with me, what makes you think, huh? What makes you think that when
the time comes that God says, bind him and send him to hell,
that I'll submit to that? Oh, my soul. Listen. They say,
well, the sinner takes the first step. Say, you've got to take
the first step. Let me tell you this. If you can take the first
step, What prohibits you from coming all the way? If you can
take the first step, why don't you come all the way? You can't
take the first step. God's got to take the first step,
and the second step, and the third step, and the fourth step,
and the fifth step, and He's got to come where you are, and
He's got to pick you up and put you on your feet, and He's got
to lead you to Himself! He's got to give you everything
that's needful and necessary for you to come! Sin has so infected
your soul! God, you're helpless and hopeless.
Ah, no exception. Alright. You see, you're depraved. That's the trouble. I'm depraved
and you're depraved. Every man. How do we get that? Through Adam. Through Adam. That's
how we got that way. Adam! Adam! By one man's disobedience. That's how we got to be what
we are. Our father was Adam. And our
grandfather was the dust of the earth. That's where we came from.
We came from dust. God made man out of dust. That's
our grandfather. Dust. That's where we need to
get back to, make our headquarters. Dust. Adam was our father and
he is a rebel and a sinner against God. He acted in our stead. He's
our federal head. And that's how we got in this
trouble. That's how we got this sinful nature. It's through our
father Adam. We don't have to blame Adam,
we'd have done the same thing if we'd have been there. He just
acted in our stead. Acted like we would have acted.
Pushed God off of the throne. And because, because of one man's
disobedience, sin has entered in. This loathsome disease of
leprosy has ate us up, has consumed us. From the bottom of our feet
to the top of our head, everything about us is corruption, is loathsome
sore. We're depraved. Depraved. Not just depraved, but totally
depraved. That is, every part of our being
has been infected with sin. We're not as bad as we could
be. But we've got a bad nature. You see, this depravity spells
moral inability. Sin has so crippled you and I
in regard to our moral powers, that you and I cannot perform
anything that's truly acceptable to God. Not a thing. In our natural state, we can't
do anything. Well, now listen. The doctrine
of human inability. Let me tell you what that means.
It means that apart from divine grace, Man is totally unable
to put himself aright. He's fallen, and apart from divine
grace, he cannot erect himself and stand straight up. He can't
do it, apart from the grace of God, apart from the intervention
of God. You see, he can no more bring
about his spiritual recovery than a man can lift himself up
by pulling his shoelaces. Can you bend over and pull your
shoelaces and lift yourself up off of the ground? You cannot
do it. Well, you can come as near doing
that as you can spiritually recover yourself. You see, a man left
to himself. He can't do anything acceptable
unto God. Now, he's still able, don't misunderstand
me, he is still able to do some things naturally good. What can he do? Well, he can
be obedient to the external laws, he can do that. What else can
he do? He can be a respectable citizen,
he can do that. He can even show himself to be
gracious, to be kind, and to be sweet. But listen to me, in
all of these otherwise virtuous deeds and actions, there is one
fatal defect. They are not done for the glory
of God, or have they been prompted by love to God. Moral inability. He cannot do anything acceptable
unto God. The sum total of all of this
is what? Sum it up in a four-letter word.
L-O-S-T. Lost. Lost. That's the sum total. Man's lost. He lost. Jesus came to seek Him to save
whom? Lost people! Depraved people! If you can find yourself, you
don't need Jesus! What do you need Him for? If
you can go to heaven by... If you can live forever and have
the abundant life, if you can have that by becoming religious,
why did Christ die? If you can have that by trusting
in a refuge of lives, which is religion, Which is, what you're
doing and what you don't do, your code, your ethics, your
standard, your practices, your profession, your Bible reading,
your saying your prayers, and you can put that all together
and put it in your hand and say, well, look, that's what I'm trusting
in. I've done this and I've done
that and I took this step and that step. You'd be like the
Church of Christ people. They say, well, salvation's in
this step and that step and this step and that step. And when
you get down to the baptismal pool, then you're baptized for
the remission of sins, and then after you come out and join the
church, and then if you live faithful and do not sin, but
balance your days, there's hope that you might be saved. So,
what kind of news is that? Huh? Huh? You tell me tonight
that I've got to be, well, you believe in Jesus and be baptized
and join the church and then never sin no more. the rest of
your life and you're going to be alright. You ain't giving
me any good news. You know what you're doing? You're
sounding the death knell as far as I'm concerned. You're driving
another nail in my coffin. That's all you're doing for me.
I want to hear some good news. I want to hear some news from
God that there's one who God has laid hell upon Him who's
mighty. I want to hear about Him who
stood in my place, in my stead, in my room. and did for me what
I couldn't do for myself. I want to hear about him. The
sum total then of this man, that's been infected by sin, L-O-S-T. I'll tell you ten things. I got ten things I want to say.
Don Fortner preached the other day, I was at a Bible conference,
and a fellow was telling me, he said Don Fortner preached
at his church the following Sunday, or the Sunday before that, previous
Sunday, and Don said, well, he said, this is my text. And he
said, I've got twelve things I want to tell you. And said
the people just quivered. I've got twelve things. Well,
I've got ten things. It won't take me long to tell
you ten things. The sum total of this is man
is lost. That's the first thing, he's
lost. And the Bible says he's perishing,
that's the second thing. And the third thing, he's under
the wrath of God. That's the third thing. The fourth
thing is he's separated from God. The fifth thing, he's victimized
by the power of evil. And the seventh thing is that
he has no hope. And the eighth thing is he's
without God in this world. And the ninth thing is the curse
of sin follows him into the next life. And the tenth thing is
that the second death awaits him. and the wicked shall be
turned into hell." That's the sum total of being lost before
God. What are you trusting in this
evening? Are you trusting in your religion? Behold the Lamb
of God that taketh away the sins of the world. If you can come
to the place, if you can come to the place under the power
of the Spirit of God through the Word of God to see yourself. Really, see yourself as God sees
you. Not as you see yourself. You
look pretty good. You look pretty good to yourself
because you are looking through rose-colored glasses. And you
look pretty good. You look pretty good to your
neighbor because he can only see the outside. But I'm telling
you, if you could ever see yourself as God sees you, if you could
ever see yourself as you are and see your black, corrupt heart,
your depraved, deceitful heart, you ever see that, oh, I'll tell
you what you'll do. You'll fall down. You'll fall
down before God and seek mercy from the court of mercy. And
if God ever saves you and if He ever saves me, It will be
through the Lord Jesus Christ who died for sinners. He died
for sinners. He died for perishing people.
He died for people that had no righteousness. He died for people
who were lost people. He died for people who were guilty
people. He died for people who are ashamed
of themselves. He died, in other words, for
sinners. He died for sinners. He died
for sinners. Let me say again, the more I
can convince you that you're a sinner, I'm the better friend
I am to you. The more I can, more, if God
will help me, if God will use me. In His mercy and in His grace
to convict you, to convict you of your sinnerhood, the more
that you can be convicted that you're alienated from the life
of God because you're a rebellion and you're a sinner and you realize
that you have no hope in yourself, you're ungodly and you're ungodly
and you hide your face. And in the presence of God, you
can't look upon His face. You see your guilt. I'm the best
friend that you ever had. Because it's only the sinner
that has an interest in Christ's blood. Do you get that? Christ died for sinners. If I
convince you that you're a sinner, I do you a favor. Because only
sinners are entitled to that which Christ did. He didn't do
it for righteous people. You see that? He didn't do it
for righteous people. You righteous? Abandon your righteousness. Abandon your righteousness and
your sophistication. Abandon that. Quit trusting in
your righteousness. You've got none. You've got none,
really. You think you do, but you don't.
You don't have any. Your righteousness, the best
day you ever lived, the best act you ever performed, in the
sight of God, He has asphalt the rags. Best thing you've ever
done. Best thing you've ever done ought
to be spit on. It's no account. It's abomination to God. It's
a stench to His nostrils. You can't do anything in yourself
that's acceptable unto Him. You can't do it. You can't do
it if you're a fallen sinner. You've got a bad nature. Everything
you do, you do for your glory, or for the glory of your children,
or your neighbor, your boss. You don't do it for the glory
of God. It's not acceptable. Renounce. Renounce your righteousness. and trust in His. Can you do
that? Can you renounce yours and trust
in His? When is the righteousness of
God revealed? In Jesus Christ. Let me read
that to you, and then I'm going to quit. Romans chapter 1. Look at this. Romans chapter 1. If I can find
it. I think I can. If I stay with it. Romans chapter
1. Look at this now. Verse 16. Paul said he wasn't ashamed of
the gospel of Christ. For it is the power of God unto
salvation to everyone that believeth. The gospel is. What is the gospel? The gospel is Christ. That's
what the gospel is. It's Christ. Alright. To the
Jew first and also to the Greek. Now, verse 17. You need righteousness? You've got to have it. You've
got to have a righteousness. You've got to have a covering. For therein, that refers back
to the gospel, for therein is the righteousness of God revealed
from faith to faith, as it is written, the just shall live
by faith. O Lord, bless these struggling,
scattered remarks to our hearts the salvation of some poor soul,
and to the glory of God, who alone is worthy. Let's stand.