Isaiah chapter 57 I think rather than read this,
let's just look at it as we go. Look at verse one. The righteous
perisheth, and no man layeth it to heart, and merciful men
are taken away, none considering that the righteous is taken away
from the evil to come. This is an extraordinary verse
of scripture. Evil men have been killing God's people since Cain
slew Abel. Long, long, long, long time ago. Throughout the history of Israel,
the God of Israel was despised and defied and the people of
God attacked and brought into captivities, different captivities
to different nations and bondage and slain by the thousands. There in Romans chapter eight
it says, we are killed all the day long. We are accounted as
sheep for slaughter. And yet, we can't be separated
from the love of God which is in Christ. Our Lord, we're more
than conquerors through him that loved us. The Lord speaks in
the New Testament of how that the prophets were slain by those
that hated Christ. He accused them of it. And those
sent to them were stoned by them, Matthew 23, 37. And think about
today, anybody with any biblical values at all, even if they don't
know God, they just live by biblical values. Evidently, most of them
don't know the Lord Jesus Christ at all, but they've just adopted
some of his teaching, not as gospel, not as not with any understanding
really, clearly, most religion, but as a rule of life. You know,
a lot of people think the law of God is our rule of life. We're
in big trouble if it is. But even those who even associate
themselves with the name of Christ at all are so badly hated that
they would be slain in the streets. Do you have any doubt about that? If we did not now live in a civilized
society, And by that, I just mean civilized, you gotta use
that word very lightly regarding our, that just means if you kill
somebody in the open, you're gonna, there's still accountability
for that. If you're not a baby. The true people of God now, we
just, we're not even noticeable. The world, you can't even hate
somebody you don't know exists. The world don't even know we
exist, really, do they? Some of our friends and family
do. We're just unnoticed by society.
We don't even have a loud enough voice to be heard and hated anymore. But can you imagine telling one
of these mobs in the streets that we see? protesting this or that and smashing
things and catching things on fire. Can you imagine standing
up on one of those burned out cars and telling them about the
Christ of this book? Freaks, you can't even tell what
they are. They're so marred by their evil. You can stop the killing with
consequences, but you can't stop the hatred. that's in the heart. And so the
righteous perish. Not eternally, it's not talking
about perishing in hell. The righteous perish, that means
to vanish or be destroyed from the earth. And nobody notices,
much less cares. Nobody even notices, it says.
Nobody lays it to their heart. And many in the scriptures, David
and others in the scriptures have mourned that. Lord, how
long will you allow your people to be despised and your name
to be dishonored in this earth? The salt of the earth is taken
away. That's what the Lord calls his
people. The light of the world is extinguished and nobody cares. That's what it's talking about. No one who knows the Lord Jesus
Christ And that's who's the righteous here we've seen that so many
times in the scripture the righteous perisheth That's those who know
Christ. That's just those Who are in him nobody who is in Christ
considers himself worth noticing? But the Lord said you're the
light you're the light The Word of God says the world is not
even worthy to have a His people in it, of whom the world is not
worthy. And not only are they not even
noticed, but look at the last part of the verse. The world
kills the people of God, and they think good riddance. When
they do notice, they're happy about it. You see that in the
second part of the verse? Merciful men are taken away.
No man layeth it to heart, none considering They don't even consider
the truth of the matter. What they think is good riddance. They think they've won. They
think they're right because right makes might. I think that's how
you say that, you know. Whoever's right, you know, will
prevail. Not in this world. Not for now,
anyway. They think they're rid of the
God whom these wretched people espouse but they have no idea
what's really happening, what has really happened and what
is happening. God is taking his beloved ones
out of harm's way. That's what he's doing. The Lord Jesus Christ is standing
at the right hand of the majesty on high and receiving them into
his everlasting arms and he's about to let this world have
it. but not before he takes them
home. And we know that that's true in the end, when his last
sheep is called. When you read there, it talks
about him burning this world up. He hadn't done that yet because
he's not willing that any of his should perish, but that all
of them should come to repentance. And then he's gonna burn this
world up. That's him, the righteous are killed, But what's really
happening is they're taking away from the the judgment to come But that's true now When the
righteous are taken that was true when Cain slew Abel think
about this that changes everything Whenever we lose somebody that
we love and we're grieving over that they knew the Lord they
were believers, but we miss them It breaks our heart To lose them
for now, do we consider that God has a perfect reason for
taking them? A perfect reason. That's what
we see in this verse. Nobody considers why God did
it. Maybe we do, maybe His people
do. I hope we will. Think about that when the Lord
takes somebody. Think about who did it. The one that does everything
well is the one that did it. And when you think about him
taking them away from the evil to come, it kind of makes you grateful and
a little bit less sad, doesn't it? Even if there is no specific
terrible judgment that God is about to unleash on this world,
Is it not a blessing and a comfort to think that those whom the
Lord takes, perhaps he takes a little baby, perhaps he takes
a young child from this world that's very young, does it comfort
you a little bit to know that they will never see the evil
that we've seen? They'll never see that. Is that
in our verse? I know that babies and children
are not innocent in the sense of sinlessness before God. We're
born sinners because we're born of Adam. But the innocence that
they do have, there is an innocence that little children have. And if the Lord takes them, they'll
never lose that. It'll just get way better. The way we have. We've lost that,
haven't we? That's long gone. That's long
gone. That little damsel, I thought
about her in Mark chapter five. Some parents came to the Lord
and said, our little daughter is dead. And he said, take me, take me
to her. And of course, Professional mourners,
you know, they laughed at him, talking about she's asleep and
he doesn't understand. But when he had put them all
out, he taketh the father and the mother of the damsel and
them that were with him, and entereth in where the damsel
was lying. And he took the damsel by the hand and said unto her,
Talitha Kumai, which is being interpreted, damsel, I say unto
thee, arise. Now think about this, those who
are his, no matter how old you are when you die, those who are,
he calls all of us his little ones, doesn't he? You're still
a damsel to him. Do you suppose those who are
his who do not awaken in this world as she did, but awaken
in the world to come, Do you suppose that they are treated
less tenderly by him than to awaken with their
hand in his? I think not. Those who are righteous in Christ
Jesus, precious in the sight of the Lord is their death. They've been washed in his precious
sin-cleansing blood and they perish from this earth. How many
do you suppose there are now of his sheep in this world? You
ever think about that? I imagine it would shock us. I think it might if you think
about how many there were in his day. As he walked the earth,
this very son of God walked in the midst of sinners. Very, very few found the narrow
way that leadeth unto life. He is that way. Very few. And then in verse two, he says
this about them. He shall enter into peace. That's
what's going to happen to the righteous. They shall rest in
their beds, each one walking in his uprightness. Peace. Here's what's coming for those
who know the Lord. They're taken out of this earth
and people say, oh, that's terrible. Well, the God's people do. That's
a terrible thing. We need more people that know
the Lord in this world. And yeah, it's true in a sense.
That'd be nice, wouldn't it? But here's where they are and
what's coming for us. Peace, rest, and walking without
sin. No sin In other words, we're
gonna be with Christ and we're gonna be just like him He is our peace he is our Sabbath
our rest and he is our sinlessness Well, let's look at verses 3
through 13 we'll consider them together and Verse three, but
draw near hither ye sons of the sorceress, the seed of the adulterer
and the whore. Now this, we know who this he's
talking to now. He's changed. He's changed audiences
now, hadn't he? Against whom do you sport yourselves? Against whom make ye a wide mouth
and draw out the tongue? Are you not children of transgression,
a seed of falsehood? They have all kinds of causes,
don't they, and grievances in this world. They're going to
bad mouth everybody they can. But he said, who are you really
hating? It's him, isn't it? It's the
Lord. Inflaming yourselves with idols
under every green tree, slaying the children in the valleys under
the cliffs of the rocks. Among the smooth stones of the
stream is thy portion. They are thy lot. And it's because
they made their idols out of them. You'll see that in the
rest of the verse, I think. Even to them hast thou poured
a drink offering and hast offered a meat offering. Should I receive
comfort in these? You think you're making offerings
to God. But he said, am I supposed to
be impressed with that? Upon a lofty and high mountain
hast thou set thy bed, even thither with it wentest thou up to offer
sacrifice. Behind the doors also, in the
posts, hast thou set up thy remembrance. In their houses they have these
little shrines to different gods, and they light things and pour
things and put food out there. Thou hast discovered thyself
to another than me. and art gone up and hast enlarged
thy bed and made thee a covenant with them. Thou lovest their
bed where thou sawest it." Now think about what David said,
the Lord made with me an everlasting covenant. When it comes to their
false god, they made a covenant with their false gods. That's
not the way it works. And wentest thou wentest to the
king with ointment, and didst increase thy perfumes, and didst
send thy messengers far off, and didst debase thyself even
unto hell." He's talking about how they've influenced those
in high places, they're vulnerable to the influence of the godless,
the idolaters. Thou art wearied in the greatness
of thy way, Yet saidst thou not, there is
no hope. Thou hast found the life of thine
hand, therefore thou wast not grieved. In other words, you
trusted in yourself, and so you don't say there's no, what you
ought to be saying is, I'm hopeless, but you've trusted in your own
hand, in your own way, the greatness of your way. You're not grieved
over your sin. God's people Believe with all
their heart that they're perfectly righteous in Christ Jesus. And
you know what we still do? We grieve over our sin. Of course
we do. Oh, wretched man that I am. I
need to be saved from the body of this death. But not them. And of whom hast thou been afraid
or feared that thou hast lied and hast not remembered me, nor
laid it to thy heart. Have not I held my peace, even
of old, and thou fearest me not? I will declare thy righteousness
in thy works." God's going to lay bare their righteousness
in their works. And he said, it's not going to
help you. They are not going to profit you. They're still
saying, look at our wonderful work, but he says their works
of iniquity. They shall not profit you. When
thou cryest, let thy companies deliver thee, but the wind shall
carry them all away. When you're in trouble, is your
little statue gonna help you, your little shrine, you gonna
go to your little shrine then and light some incense and see
how much help you get? Vanity shall take them, but He that putteth his trust in
me." Isn't that so simple and beautiful? You see, in all that
language there, the intricacies and the complicated and weird
and just pagan rituals of religion, the stupidest stuff passes for
worship of God, doesn't it? Just the most Bizarre and evil And here's the other side you
just trust him Instead of doing any of that You just trust it. You just trust the Lord. You
just believe every word. He said you live on every word
that proceeds from the mouth of God and you wait on him and
that's so beautiful and simple and They put their trust in me. They're the ones that are going
to possess the land. Don't look like it now. Look
like they're perishing from the land now. But they're going to
inherit the earth. And I'm glad it ain't this one.
I don't want to inherit this one to you. We're going to inherit
the new one. Wherein dwelleth righteousness.
And they shall inherit my holy mountain. Now clearly God is
speaking to the idolatrous, the wicked, those who are not in
Christ. That's just to say there's Christ and there's Antichrist.
That's what we always see in the Scripture. He's talking about
the same ones described in 9-12 of the previous chapter. You
remember that? All ye beasts of the field come to devour.
Yea, all ye beasts in the forest the Lord is calling upon all
the animals, the wild animals to come and have supper. Because
I'm fixing to give you something to eat. And it's everybody who
hates God's son. His watchmen are blind, they're
all ignorant, they're dumb dogs, they can't bark, sleeping, lying
down, loving to slumber. Yea, they're greedy dogs which
can never have enough, they're shepherds that can't understand,
they all look to their own way, everyone for his gain from his
quarter. Come, you say, they all fetch wine and we will fill
ourselves with strong drink. So he's describing all of them
again in the sort of the details of their Godless religion And in the last part of verse
13 though there's a turning point the difference between God's
curse and God's blessing God's wrath and God's acceptance the
difference is what? Putting your trust in Christ That's the gospel put your trust
in in the Lord and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and not
shall be saved. The difference is faith given
by God. Faith is his gift. It's the fruit
of his spirit. A gracer you save through faith
and that's not of yourselves. It's the gift of God, not of
works. Lest any man should boast. given by God to lay hold of His
Son, to just trust His Son, to embrace His Son, to lean your
soul upon Him. That's the difference now with
regard to our experience of salvation. The difference in our experience
of being saved. The difference took place a long
time. When God said, I love Jacob and I hate Esau, there's a difference,
right? That's before there ever was a Jacob. But I'm talking
about the difference in our experience of salvation, the difference
in me right now. I trust him. By his grace, by
his power, by his gift of salvation, I trust his son. That's the difference. Everybody else is doing all kinds
of weird stuff. We just look into the Savior. We are the circumcision, Paul
said, the covenant people of God, which worship God in the
spirit. And we rejoice in Christ Jesus. And we don't have any confidence
in ourselves. We delight in him, we trust him,
we look to him. Now, salvation is a work of God
in us. whereby His Holy Spirit takes
the things of Christ, the truth of Christ, and reveals them unto
us. That's what the Lord said before
He left this earth. And in us, He reveals Himself
in us, and gives us life and faith in the Lord Jesus. But
salvation is also a work outside of us. Let's look at the rest
of the chapter now, verse 14. And shall say, cast ye up, cast
ye up, Prepare the way, take up the stumbling block out of
the way of my people. Those that trust the Lord, that's
what they say. They say, exalt. That's what that word cast you
up means. It means exalt, exalt, prepare
the way. That's what John the Baptist
was tasked with, wasn't it? Prepare you the way of the Lord.
And take up the stumbling block out of the way of my people,
those that trust Christ, they get everything. They're perishing
now from the earth in a physical sense, but they shall inherit
the earth, a new earth wherein dwells righteousness. They inherit
the inheritance. The Lord is our portion and our joint heirs of Jesus
Christ. That's what we inherit. The one
who made everything and owns everything, including us, what
we have, what we own, what we inherit is Him. And here's what those people
say, exalt, lift up, prepare ye the way. The idea is this,
God's people are returning to Him Remember, he said, I'm gonna
bring you back, I'm gonna bring you home. Back in the beginning
of chapter 56, those who are by law outcasts from the Commonwealth
of Israel, God said, I'm gonna bring you back. So here they
are coming back, and the people of God are saying, exalt, prepare
the way, take the stumbling block out of their way. Take away the stumbling block
of false teaching and idolatrous religion. Anything that would
get in the way of those sinners getting to Christ. That's the
goal. That's the destination. That's the end all be all. We
got to get to Christ. Take everything out of the way
that would hinder that. Just as the roads to the cities
of refuge The Lord instructed that all obstacles were to be
removed from those roads and they were to be maintained constantly. The avenger of blood is coming
after him. There should be no impediment. People were told,
if you want to live, you run to that city of refuge. It wasn't
an obstacle course. No, no. And that's accomplished by preaching
Christ. What they're saying is just preach
him, just declare him plainly. When Paul said, seeing we have
such hope, seeing that that city of refuge is so vital to the
one who's guilty of blood, and the avenger of blood is coming
on his heels, that's so vital. Seeing that that is such a vital
thing, they got to get there. We make the way clear. That's
what he's saying when he said, we use great plainness of speech. No stomach block. No, no compromise. The way is cast up or exalted
in that way is Christ. If you're going to get to Christ,
what you need to know is Christ. That sounds overly simplistic,
but that there's. People say, well, you need the
Lord, and then they tell you all this other stuff today. That's not how you get to Him
by you doing something. You get to Him by hearing of
Him. That's the way He ordained it. He is Jacob's ladder. You gonna get to glory? You're
gonna have to lay hold of Him. Lay hold of the ladder. There's
one way there. He is the way, the truth, and
the life. Prepare the way. Move every stumbling
block out of the way. He's the way to God. He's the
truth. You're not going to get to God.
It's not a physical road. It's the gospel, the truth. And the only way you could enter
into His kingdom is by being, you got to be alive. But not
the way you are now, you got to be born again to see the kingdom
of God and enter the kingdom of God. Way, truth, life, Christ. No man comes to the Father. But
by that way, that truth, that life, him, no man cometh unto
the Father but by me. And so if this is talking about
coming to God here in our text, and it is, then it's talking
about Christ. And we preach. Here's why we
say what we do, because of what he said. Listen, look at verse
15. Here's what he said. For thus
saith the high and lofty one that inhabiteth eternity." You
see why we say cast ye up? You see why we say exalt, exalt?
Because we know who he is. He's the high and lofty one that inhabiteth eternity. You ever think about that? You
want your mind to start, your brain to smoke? and your mind to be overwhelmed. Start thinking about that. He
lives in eternity. He operates in time. Now, time
is his. He created time. But see, we
inhabit time. I can't even think about anything
happening unless it happened after something and before something.
How does it happen if there's no time? Well, I'm gonna be, there ain't
no gonna be in eternity. That's why the scripture speaks
the way it does. We're seated already at the right hand of
Christ, at God's right hand. We're seated in the heavenlies
in Christ Jesus. Because in eternity, It's all
done already. That's where he lives. He speaks of those things that
be not as though they are because he inhabited the eternity. We
see not all things yet put under him, but let me tell you something.
They're under him. He's exalted. whose name is holy. I dwell in
the high and holy place, not made with hands. With him also that is of a contrite
and humble spirit. To revive the spirit of the humble,
to revive the heart of the contrite ones, for I will not contend
forever Neither will I always be wroth, for the Spirit should
fail before me in the souls which I have made." Now let's think
about this. There's a lot in those two verses.
But I want to especially point out a couple of things. God is
high and holy. That's His Son. I don't understand, some people
say the only God we'll ever see is the Lord Jesus Christ. I don't
know. I don't know if, how we will experience Father, Son,
and Holy Spirit when we know even as we're known. I don't,
I don't understand any of that. The Lord hadn't revealed it and
we're not going to know it. But I'll tell you this, I know this,
God's Son is given a name which is above every name. He is the
high and lofty one that this is talking about. He has exalted
his son. He is highly exalted. Now, every
knee has not yet bowed to him, at least in our experience, in
time, but he inhabiteth eternity. Every knee shall bow. We're going
to get in on that, aren't we? Everybody's gonna get in on that But God has already highly exalted
his son his name is already above every Name he is holy and I love
this part. He dwells in the high and holy
place And there's somebody living there with him Hmm him that is
of a contrite and humble spirit You're not born with one of those.
You may have one of those tonight. You may have a contract, an humble
spirit, but you didn't, you weren't born with it. How do we get one of those? How
do we become one of those? Because remember, you don't have
a soul, a spirit, you are a spirit. We are what we are on the inside.
The outside's just a shell, just a house, just a tent. It's called
a tent, a tabernacle. But listen, here's how we get
it. To revive the spirit of the humble, that revive, we think
of the word revive, somebody's fainted and we use smelling salts
or slap their face or something, let's revive them. No, not in this, this is not
what that means here. It means to give life. It means
to give life. We use it a different way. We have a contrite and humble
heart because we have a new heart that's actually alive spiritually. The heart that beats in the heart
of flesh is spiritually dead. Our natural man, the natural
man, the old man is spiritually dead. We're born again of the Spirit
of God, born from above. God said, I'm going to give you
a new heart. There's your humble one. There's
your contrite one. There's the one that bows to
Christ. Blessed are the poor in spirit. You know anybody like
that? If you do, it's because God gave
them a spirit like that. He revived their spirit. The spirit of the humble. He
gave them life. He gave them life, spiritual
life. That's where our humble heart
came from. I'm gonna give you a new one. Our old one's not
that way. The word contrite means dust. It literally means dust. And the idea there is broken. Dust is ground to become dust. It's broken and crushed or ground
to powder. It means submissive. Remember what Paul said in Romans
10, 3? They being ignorant of God's righteousness and going
about to establish their own righteousness. That's pride.
Haughty. That's lifting up cell. I know
what God says, but I know I can do better. I can do good. My
good will outweigh my bad, and everything will be fine with
me and the man upstairs. But then God, he may just crush
you into powder. They have not submitted Themselves unto the righteousness
of God the Jews as a people had not done that Paul said there
but God's people have That's our tag God's people have They've
submitted why because God Brought him into dust. He brought him
into the dust Verse 16 God simply says look
I will not contend forever for The natural man is enmity with
God. And we, his sheep, are natural
men when we're born into this world. But that enmity that exists
between God and his people, before we come to know who he is, you
know, the Lord, Paul said, we're the ambassadors of the King.
And here's our message. Be ye reconciled to God. By nature,
we're enmity against God. But that enmity that exists by
nature between God and his people is not forever. He's not gonna
contend with us forever. The Lord Jesus Christ made peace
by the blood of his cross. That's where contention ends,
right there, at the cross. He hath made both one and reconciled
us to God by the sacrifice of himself. And he said that there
in the last part of that verse, verse 16, where it talks about,
that's a little bit maybe hard to understand there in the key.
He said, for the spirit should fail before me and the souls
which I have made. If I contended with them forever,
they would perish. Not in the sense that we talked
about a while ago, but they would eternally perish. They would
fail. If the Lord should mark iniquity, who should stand? And
so, that contention that we have
with him is put away. Otherwise, we would perish forever. The souls that he made. Didn't
he make everybody? Yeah, but there's a whole nother
sense that's talking about. That's his true people right
there. That's his true creation. And here's the thing about it,
he said, if I contended with them forever, they wouldn't be
able to stand. They would perish forever. And
that can never be. That can never be. The reason
he has a universe is to save a people. They can
never, never perish. Verse 17, for the iniquity of
his covetousness was our wrath, and smote him. I hid me and was
wroth, and he went on frowardly in the way of his heart." Now
has he reverted back to talking about those idolaters and Christ-hating
reprobate that he was talking about earlier? No, he's not talking
about them anymore. He's talking about you and me. For the iniquity of their covetousness
was I wroth. When Paul says there in Romans
3, where we read this morning, verses 22 and 23, that there's
no difference, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of
God. There's no difference. That's what he means. There's
no difference. Sounds like he's talking about those godless ones.
He is talking about some godless ones, but not those ones. Not those ones. These are different
ones. We come short of the glory of
God just like even as others. We're the children of wrath even
as others. No difference between Hitler
and the Apostle Paul. There's no difference. No difference in us. The difference
comes in the next verse and we're going to see that in a minute. By the way, can you see Saul
of Tarsus in that? He went on in his way. I afflicted
him, I was wroth, I hid from him and I, what did it say there? I smote him. But he went on in his way. You
remember what the Lord said to Saul of Tarsus when he finally
brought him down into the dust and Saul was done, done fighting. He was ready to lay down arms.
He said, Lord, who are you? And he said this, is it hard
for you to kick against the goads? I see him in that, don't you?
The Lord said you were, you went on in your covetousness and in
your, in your ways and your, the frowardness of your heart.
And I smote you. I goaded you like a mule. I directed you. I moved you.
Even then he was in control of us. But we went on in the way
of our heart for a while, but not forever. This is that
contention that he just said in the previous verse is not
gonna last forever. Yes, we sin and he's wroth and
he smites us and we go on, we rebel, but that's not gonna happen
forever. And here's the difference, verse
18. I've seen his ways, just like
he had the ways of the idolaters. Boy, he knows everything about
them, doesn't he? He describes in detail their
godless religion. He said, I've seen your ways
too, my people, my sheep, I've seen your ways too. I'm gonna
do something about that too. There's the difference right
there. I've seen his ways and will heal him. And then I'll lead him and restore comforts unto him and to his mourners. God sees
that we're just as evil. He's the one that wrote Children
of Wrath, even as others. He's the one that wrote For There's
No Difference. All have sinned and come short
of the glory of God. I see that he's a child of wrath. I see that there's no difference.
I see it, but I'm gonna fix it. I'm not gonna put him in hell
for it. I'm gonna fix it. What the law can't do, the law,
I smote them and they just rebelled further. In Isaiah chapter one,
he says, why should I smite you anymore? You're just going to
become more and more hard necked. The law is not going to bring
you where you need to be. What the law could not do and
that it was weak to our flesh, all our flesh is going to do
is rebel more and more. But what the law could not do,
God sent his son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin and
condemned sin in the flesh. And this is interesting. In the
other case of those who same evil wretches that we are in
verse 12, he calls their evil righteousness. You know why they do it? Because
that's what they call it. They say, we're worshiping God.
We've got all these incense burning. What do you think we're doing?
Look at, we got all this stained glass. We do all this weird stuff
up here. Why do you think we're doing
that? We're worshiping God. He calls that their righteousness.
But he says this, it's not going to do you any good. It's not going to help you. He
calls our evil iniquity. You know why he calls it that?
Because that's what it is. That's what it really is. But
he said, in effect, here, I see your righteousness, and it's not going to help you. And I see your evil, and I'm
going to heal you. I see how wretched you are. I'm going to save you anyway. There's the difference. There's
a difference made in us now, but there's a difference that
happened a long time before we ever experienced anything of
God. And there it is right there. God saw our evil just like he
did theirs. And he saw theirs and said, I'm
going to put you in hell. You're righteous. It's not going
to help you. It's not going to do you any good. You're workers
of iniquity. Get out of my sight. And he saw our evil and said,
oh, I'm going to have to do something about that. And he sent his only
begotten son in the likeness of sinful flesh. He condemned
our sin in His flesh. The Son of God became a man in
order to save me from my sin. And you know the difference,
don't you? Why would He treat one that way and treat the other
that way? It's love. Those that you love,
you know, when somebody you don't much care for does something
against you, it really just, ugh. You know what you want? You want
them out of your life. That's what you want. Get away
from me. When somebody you love hurts
you, when one of your children hurts you, you know what you
say? What can I do about it? I've got to, it can't be this
way. I can't be like that. I've got to fix it. It's love, isn't it? It's love.
It's that simple. Did you know I thought about
this a little bit studying that God's love is the most mysterious
thing that there is. I believe that. I believe it's
the most mysterious thing. You might say, well, the greatest
mystery, Chris, is that God would save a wretch like me. I get
what you're saying, but you know what? I know why He saved me. He saved me because He loved
me. I just can't figure out why He loved me. Can you? Well, He loved you, Chris, because
of Christ. Yeah, and I rejoice in that.
But He hates others because of Christ. Sure does. That's their condemnation. I'm just as guilty as they are
of killing God in my heart. I know that He did it to show
the riches of His glory. He reveals that in Romans chapter
9. He's going to reveal the riches
of His glory on the vessels of mercy. But why am I a vessel
of mercy and not wrath? when I so richly deserve his
wrath? I can't answer that. I don't
know why, but it doesn't much matter right now, does it? Oh, the love of God. Verse 19, he
said, I create the fruit of the lips. Peace peace to him that is afar
off and to him that is near saith the Lord and I'll healing I'm
gonna heal you. I'm gonna heal you of your evil
your idolatry Your selfishness your pride your self-righteousness.
I'm gonna fix it There's healing because there's peace and there's
peace because there's healing I They go together, don't they? This peace is something that
is spoken. It comes from the lips. See that?
I create the fruit of the lips. Peace. Peace. And it's something
that God creates. Just as surely as God created
the heavens and the earth, he in the new creation The making
of new creatures in Christ Jesus has brought forth peace for sinners.
Christ made that peace by the blood of his cross, and that's
what is spoken. That's the fruit of the lips
of everybody that speaks for God. Peace by his precious blood. Peace for those who trust in
him. Back to the beginning of where
that turning point was. Those that trust in him. Peace
made. But look, no peace at all for
the wicked. Look at verse 20, but the wicked
are like the troubled sea when it cannot rest. What a picture. Even when the ocean is calm,
it's not calm, is it? I thought about this. I believe
there was only one time that any sea was ever perfectly calm. You know when it was, don't you?
When the Lord said, peace be still. He didn't say be relatively
still. I guarantee you, there was not
a ripple on that water. It ain't ever been like that.
I've seen the ocean a bunch of times. I've seen it calm. It's
not really calm. It's still moving. And that's how the wicked are.
There's no rest. Whose waters cast up mire and
dirt. Everything they do, every move
they make, to please God, it doesn't do anything but stir
up more dirt on them. The more you do, the more you
sin. There's no rest. There's got to be holiness if
there's gonna be rest. There's got to be healing if
there's gonna be rest. There's no rest for the wicked.
Why? Because they're wicked. Their waters cast up mire. There
is no peace, saith my God. to the wicked, no peace because
no healing, no life, no trust, no new heart and spirit, no reviving
as we saw, giving life to their heart, to their spirit, no trust,
no Christ. What a picture. And I see this
in some that I love, in some of my own flesh and blood. There's
never, ever any rest. It's constant turmoil. And they'll
say, oh, everything's wonderful now. And two days later, the
world is caving in. It's a constant just turmoil,
drama, unrest, misery. It's a horrible
thing to watch. And we're just like that, aren't
we? We still feel it, don't we? It's hard for us to rest, because
that flesh, boy, it never does, does it? It never does. It'll
still say, have you done enough? It'll still say, boy, I don't
know about you. It will still, it still stirs
it up, doesn't it? It still stirs it up. I'll tell
you, we know where peace comes from, don't we? Peace be still. It's the fruit of his lips. It
comes from the power of his word. And we say, what manner of man
is this? That even the winds and the seas obey his will. Let's pray.