Let's say a 55. Bless the Lord's
blessing before we begin. Our God and our Father, we ask
you to be with us now. Bless your word. Make us to hear
your voice in power. Make us bow. Make us trust your
dear son, our Lord Jesus. Make us cast all our care on
him. The care of our salvation, the
care of our daily trouble, the care of our every need, make
us cast all our care on the Lord Jesus. And forgive us, Lord,
for our unbelief and our sin. We thank you in Christ's name.
Amen. I'm going to read Isaiah 55, verse
1. Verse 9, the Lord says, As the
heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your
ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. The way God does things
is not the way of man. It's not
what enters into the heart of man. Our Lord has told us throughout
Scripture that you and I cannot, we will not believe on Him. And
worse, we cannot believe on Him. Cannot. Scripture declares the
things of God are foolishness to us. Absolutely foolishness
to a natural man. They're spiritually discerned.
And only God can give us a new Holy Spirit. We can't create
that. Only He can give it. So we're
at the mercy of God if we're going to believe God. God has
to come and do a work in the heart. And yet, in this chapter,
the Lord calls for sinners to come to Him, and He says, and
your soul shall live, and I'll make an everlasting covenant
with you, even the sheer mercies of David. God declared to the
Lord Jesus in verse five, He said, nations that knew not thee
shall run to thee. How can a dead sinner live? How can a dead sinner not only
believe on Christ, but run to him and cast all his need and
his care and his eternal salvation into the hands of Christ and
trust him alone to save. How's a sinner gonna be made
to do that? A dead sinner. Here's why, verse 10. For as
the rain cometh down and the snow from heaven and returneth
not thither, but watereth the earth and maketh it bring forth
in bud, that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the
eater, so shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth.
It shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that
which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto
I send it. The triumphant gospel. That's what the gospel is. It's
the triumphant gospel. It's not as vain men preach that
the Lord is frustrated and he's begging and waiting and hoping.
That's not the truth of God. That's not the truth of his gospel.
God's word never returns to him void. Never. When his word goes
forth, it always accomplishes what God purposed. It always
does. There's never a time that it
does not. Scripture declares to us now
that the Lord Jesus created everything. And he created it for himself,
for his glory. He created it to glorify him.
Colossians 1.16 says, by him were all things created that
are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible.
Whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers,
all things are created by him and for him. and he's before
all things and by him all things consist. That's what the scripture
declares. Now we see that in this text.
Our Lord made, he made the snow and the rain and how it operates,
he made it to glorify him. He made it to glorify his gospel.
He said, as the rain cometh down and the snow from heaven, Where
does it come from? The rain and the snow come from
the Lord. Where does his gospel come from? Where does this word
come from? It comes from the Lord above.
He said, verse 11, so shall my word be that goeth forth out
of my mouth. The word comes down from the
Lord. Go with me to Job 38. Back to your left there, Job
38. Listen to this. I was telling
somebody this week that so many things that have to do with nature
are right here in the Word of God, and scientists study for
years and years, and one day they discover something that's
new, and yet it was in the Word of God the whole time. And here's
an example of that. John 38. I mean, Job 38, he said,
verse 22, has thou entered into the treasures of the snow? Or
hast thou seen the treasures of the hail which I have reserved
against the time of trouble, against the day of battle and
war? You ever heard of these stories of wars that went on
and there was a critical battle and it started snowing or the
wind blowed out of this direction or it came a terrible rain and
it turned the whole course of the battle and caused a nation
to win the battle or win the war? That's what, I've reserved
it for the time of trouble. I've reserved it to pour it out
right when I purpose. By what way is the light parted
which scattereth the east wind upon the earth? The winds parted
is determined by the light. That's what that's saying. He
says, who hath divided a water course for the overflowing of
waters, or a way for the lightning of thunder, to cause it to rain
on the earth where no man is, on the wilderness wherein there
is no man, to satisfy the desolate and waste ground, and to cause
the bud of the tender herb to spring forth? Hath the rain a
father? Or who hath begotten the drops
of dew? Out of whose womb came the ice
and the gray frost of heaven? Who hath gendered it? Look back
at Job 37, verse six. Verse five, God thundereth. Marvelously
with his voice, great things doeth he which we cannot comprehend,
for he saith to the snow, be thou on the earth. Likewise to
the small rain and to the great rain of history. It comes from
God. The snow and the rain comes down
from the Lord. You know, I always find this
fascinating that according to scripture, God created the water,
but he never created any new water. There's only two ingredients
in water, two parts hydrogen, one part oxygen, yet man's never
made any, never created any water. Who has kept the water coming
down and going through the process, evaporating, going back up, kept
it filtered all this many millennium so that the same waters that
fell on Noah, on the people in Noah's day, it's the same water
you took a shower with this morning. Who's kept it in store all this
time? The Lord has. The Lord has done that. We can't
put away our sin. We cannot put away our sin. You
know what the message of a man being able to control the climate
is? That you can put away your sin. No, you can't. It's the same principle. It's
the same message. Saying we can control the rain
and the snow. They're claiming now they can
make it rain. Not if God's not willing. Not
if God doesn't do it. We can't put away our sin. We
cannot do it. We can't control what God alone
controls. We just can't do it. It all comes
down from God, but that's so with the Word. God made this
to illustrate the Word. His Word comes from God. The
Word comes from God. The prophecy came not in old
time by the will of man. Nothing came by the will of man
but sin. And that was only, that was still
under God's control and purpose. But men spoke in old time. They didn't write these scriptures
according to the will of man, but God gave it out of his own
mouth. He made men holy and made them
write his word, and that's how come we have the scriptures.
God did it. God's word declares things that
we'd have never written in this word. If it was of a man, we'd
have never written it. We would have never written in
this book that man is totally depraved and totally ruined and
cannot bring himself to God. A man would not have written
that about himself. And that's what the book says
about us. Nor would man have written that
salvation is of the Lord alone in every aspect. Man wouldn't
have written that. You can listen to men talk and
corrupt and pervert this word and know that man wouldn't have
written that in his scriptures. If man had his way, he'd rip
those scriptures out. This is the Lord's word. It's
the Lord's word that he declares of himself. God sends his gospel
to his child and he speaks the word. Deuteronomy 31, 32. He said, give ear, O ye heavens,
and I will speak, and hear, O earth, the words of my mouth. My doctrine
shall drop as the rain. My speech shall distill as the
dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers
upon the grass. You know, you go out after the
dew has fallen in the morning, you see this little bitty tiny
droplets on the little tender grass. That is needed to grow
that tender grass. But then, you know, when you
have a real heavy rainstorm, and you have this wild grass
that's growing, it's tall, when that heavy rain comes down, it
just bends that grass down and makes that grass fall down. When God sends the gospel, it's
like the steel is like the dew, it's tender, it's gentle, to
our inner man, and it renews the inner man in his child. But
that same gospel is a heavy downpour upon our flesh, and it's what
puts our flesh down. It's the Lord. Look back at Isaiah
40. You don't put your flesh down,
the Lord puts it down. Look here. Isaiah 40, he said,
we're all, Verse six said, we're all of flesh as grass, and the
goodliness thereof says, the flower of the field, look, the
grass wither, the flower fadeth. What's gonna make your old man
be mortified? What's gonna put him down? Because
the spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it. See, this gospel's accomplishing
two things. It's following like the dew upon
the inner man, and it's renewing our inner man, and it's coming
down hard upon our flesh and making us making our flesh be
mortified by His Spirit. Well, just like the Word comes
from God, Christ the Word came from God. Look at John chapter
1. He came from God. John 1, 1. In the beginning was
the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning
with God. Look now at verse 14. And the
Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory,
the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace
and truth." This book, the written Word given by God, is given to
declare the Lord Jesus. And He is the incarnate Word
who came down to fulfill the Lord's Word, to fulfill His promises,
to fulfill this Gospel. Now secondly, just like the rain
and snow come down and always accomplish the Lord's purpose,
so the gospel goes forth and always accomplishes his purpose,
just like Christ came forth and accomplished the whole purpose
of God. Look here, verse 10, let's read it again. Isaiah 55,
10, as the rain cometh down and the snow from heaven and returneth
not thither, but watereth the earth and maketh it bring forth
and bud. Verse 11, so shall my word be
that goeth forth out of my mouth. It shall not return unto me void. It shall accomplish that which
I please. It shall prosper in the thing
whereto I send it. Every drop of rain, every snowflake
accomplishes God's purpose. We read there in Job where it's
in the wilderness and there's no man. He's feeding, He's providing
water and rain to grow the herb and provide food for animals
there. And it's always accomplishing
His purpose, and that's true. When Christ came, Christ the
Word came, He came for a purpose. He came to fulfill God's eternal
purpose, and He accomplished everything the Father sent Him
to do. Our Lord Jesus came to establish
his church on this earth, because from the time he came on, everybody
he saved, he saved through the preaching of the gospel, and
he came to establish, to call out some sinners, and give them
the gospel, and give them faith, and give them a heart to preach
his word, because he's going to continue to preach through
them, and he's going to grow his church, and he's going to
save all his people through this gospel. One of the first things
Christ did is he began to call his people. And then he went
about showing us that he alone is the power of God. He went
about showing that he had the power to heal. He had the power
to give sight and give hearing to men and women that were blind
and deaf all their lives. He had the power to put away
disease. He had the power to make a person every whit hole. Was that just to show us that
he came to heal us physically? No, it was to show spiritually
he's the only one that gives life. He's the only one that
gives spiritual hearing and spiritual sight and makes you ever withhold
eternally. I want to know my brethren, I
want to see my brethren get well from physical infirmities, but
more than that, I want to know your soul. He said, well, I want
to know that you got a new man created that is eternally has
life by the Lord Jesus. That's what's more important
than anything we have in this earth. That's the need. And our
Lord Jesus came forth and then when the time came, he said this
was his purpose. He said, I laid down my life
for the sheep. He came to die. He was born to
die and he knew that. He said, I have a baptism to
be baptized with, and how am I straightened until it be accomplished?
He came to lay down his life for chosen sinners. I said that
there's things in this word that we'd have never put in it. One
of those things is how God can be just and the justifier. That never would have entered
into a man's mind. Shakespeare was a really good
writer. I took whole semesters in college of studying Shakespeare,
and he was a really good writer. but it never entered into his
mind to even raise this question, much less how to solve it. That
was what Darius had a problem with. He loved Daniel, and they
tricked him into signing this law that if any man's found praying
to another god besides this idol they built in the memory of Darius,
that that man would be thrown to the lions. They did it just
to trap Daniel to get him out of the way. And when they found
Daniel praying, they brought this news to Darius. The law
of the Medes and Persians was settled. Whatever that law said,
it couldn't be gone. You couldn't go back on it. It
had to be fulfilled. And God did that to picture his
law, because that's how God's law is. It has to be honored
and fulfilled, and God will fulfill it because he's holy. And Derive
stayed up all night long trying to figure out, how can I honor
this law and kill my friend Daniel, and yet show my friend Daniel
mercy? And he couldn't solve it. And no man can. And no man could have come up
with this. And he threw him in there, into that den of lies,
and he said, the Lord your God will save you. That's how God
is just and justified. God came down himself. to accomplish
his own purpose. And the Lord Jesus Christ went
to that cross and he bore all the sin of his people so that
God was just to pour out wrath on him. That's the purpose, is
to show God's righteous, he will not spare the guilty. And by
doing that and laying down his life for his sheep, Christ justified
all his people. He declared God just and the
justifier. In one act, on the cross, laying
down his life for God and for his people, he satisfied divine
justice for everybody he died for, and he declared God the
justifier. Just and the justifier. This
is why we preach particular redemption. This is why we don't say Christ
merely made salvation possible or redemption possible. We preach
it because it's God's glory. It's the very purpose for which
Christ came down. It's the very manifestation of
the righteousness of God. Everybody he died for, he justified. He accomplished it. When Peter
and James was in the mount and they and John and they saw the
Lord speaking with Moses and Elijah. They spoke of the decease
that he should accomplish. And that's what his death was.
It was an accomplishment. What did he do? Just like the
snow and the rain comes down and accomplishes a purpose, Christ
came down and he accomplished the purpose for which God sent
him. He made an end of sin. He put away the transgression.
He put away our transgression in Adam. He made an end of all
our personal sins that we sinned against Him. He totally, thoroughly
made atonement for us with God. He made His people at one with
God. And the only way that could happen
is to put away all our sin, to make us righteous and holy so
that the righteous and holy God could be one with us. He had
to do that. We couldn't do it. He had to
do it. No man can make himself at one with God. He had to do
that, and that's what he accomplished. He fulfilled every word written
in the scripture, and he entered into that holy place, and he
sat down at God's right hand, and that's why you believe is
because he made intercession for you, and he sent the gospel
to you, and he prayed the Father and sent the Holy Spirit to you,
and he made the word affection in your heart. It's all of the
Lord. Just like the rain and snow,
come, can you stop the rain and snow from falling? No. The wind
blows where it will. The Holy Spirit enters into a
man irresistibly, when he will, at the time appointed by God,
and he gives life, and you can't stop it. You can't stop it. And our Lord Jesus draws us to
himself and he gives us the faith to trust him, the will to trust
him. It's all of the Lord. It's all
of the Lord. Just like the rain and the snow
accomplish his purpose. Isaiah 58, 11, he says this. The Lord shall guide thee continually
and satisfy thy soul in drought. and make fat by bones, and thou
shalt be like a watered garden, like a spring of water whose
waters fail not. Hosea 6, verse 4 says, he shall
come unto us as the rain, as the latter and the former rain
upon the earth. The Lord made it so that in Israel
there were two rains each year. There was the autumn rain quickly,
It came after the seed was sown and then there was the spring
rain. One made the seed germinate,
the other made it grow up, ripe, made it fit for harvest. Christ
came the first time and did his work of grace and completely
justified his people, declared God just. He said, I sanctify
myself that my people might be sanctified through the truth.
He separated himself and did all the work and finished the
work that he himself might be the gospel through which he sanctifies
his people. So that's the first reign, and
then he comes to you in the day of grace through the spirit,
through the gospel, and gives his child life. That's the latter
reign. He come to us as the early and
the latter reign. And what does he do? His work
always accomplishes that which he sent it for. The rain maketh
it bring forth in bud, our text says. It makes it bring forth
in bud. And that's what the rest of the
chapter here, I'm going to preach another message on it, but he
says, verse 12, you should go out with joy. That's from the
Lord. That's the fruit of his gospel.
You'll be led forth with peace. Where does that peace come from?
Christ said, my peace I give unto you. The mountains and the
hills shall break forth before you into singing. All the trees
of the field shall clap their hands. You start seeing the Lord
in all his creation. Just like we're sitting here
looking at the rain and snow and how it pictures the gospel
and pictures Christ the Word accomplishing God's purpose.
You start seeing that Christ made everything for him. It's
to glorify him. Instead of the thorns shall come
up the fir tree. Instead of the briars shall come
up the myrtle tree. You know why there's thorns and
briars? Our sin. There was no thorns and briars
before man's sin. We're the reason there's briars
and thorns, because of the sin. Why is the earth so scarred?
It's because of man's sin. Animals weren't afraid of man
before they come up to Adam and he named them. Why are they so
afraid of us now? Wouldn't you be afraid of us?
We're afraid of us. Sin entered, and death by sin.
but he's gonna make a new man that's gonna be like the fir
tree and like the myrtle tree. And what's the purpose? And it
shall be to the Lord for a name. It's glorifying him. For an everlasting
sign that shall not be cut off. Sinners all over the world, you
start trying to tell them to preach the gospel and they go,
I wish I had a sign. You didn't believe the gospel,
you are the sign. You're the sign that it's all of God's grace.
You that give him all the glory, declared this whole works of
God, you're the sign. He said they'll be for a sign
that won't be cut off. You're the sign that salvation's
entirely of the Lord. What's the rest of the world
saying? They're saying they did something. They're saying it's
partly of man. That's not a sign. That's an
evident token of depravity, of ignorance, of unwittingness. But you that believe, that's
the sign that salvation is all of the Lord. The miracle of His
grace made you do so. He said, I'm the bread of life. He that cometh unto me shall
never hunger. He that believeth on me shall never thirst. That's
what the rain and the snow's for. Give seed to the sower and
bread to the eater so you don't hunger and thirst. Christ came
down. He makes it so when He enters the heart, you'll never
hunger and thirst again. You'll always have the bread
of life. And listen, this word never fails to accomplish God's
purpose. Go to 2 Corinthians 2. 2 Corinthians 2. This right here is what makes
God's preacher fall down at God's feet. This right here is It's too big for us. 2 Corinthians
2.15 We are unto God a sweet saver of Christ in them that
are saved and in them that perish. For we are unto God a sweet saver
of Christ. I'm sorry, I need to read verse
14. Thanks be to God which always causeth us to triumph in Christ. The triumphant gospel. And maketh
manifest the savor of his knowledge by us in every place. Always
and everywhere. This is what he does. We are
unto God a sweet savor of Christ in them that are saved and in
them that perish. To the one we are the savor of
death unto death. to the other, the saver of life
unto life. And who is sufficient for these
things? He goes on, he says, our sufficiency
is of God. When you know that every word
you preach, we're rejoiced that this word is accomplishing God's
purpose to give life to his people. But this word's also accomplishing
God's purpose to condemn those that won't believe. That's, we're
not sufficient for this. We're not sufficient for this
at all. God promises he'll give seed
to the sower, bread to the eater. It's written, he dispersed abroad,
he'd given to the poor, his righteousness remaineth forever. Now he that
ministereth seed to the sower, both ministereth bread for your
food, and multiplies your seed sown, and increase the fruits
of your righteousness. We don't glory in any fruit in
us, personally. We don't glory, the preacher
doesn't glory in the fruit the Lord produces through the preaching
of the gospel, sinners that he produces, that are given life
through the gospel. We don't boast in that. He did
it. And He gives the seed. He gives
you the strength to sow it. He blesses the seed sown. He
causes it to bring forth and increase. Everything's of the
Lord. Next time you see it snow and
rain, I tell you, when you read there that the Lord says, He
says to the snow and the rain, Be thou on the earth. It makes
me realize I need to shut my mouth and not complain about
the weather. It's coming because he sent it
and it's coming to accomplish his purpose. This word, this
word always comes from the Lord and always accomplishes God's
purpose. That makes me want to shut my
mouth too in murmuring that I just don't see anything happening. people being blessed or the word
accomplishing. No, it's accomplishing. He didn't
say there you're going to see it all be accomplished. We might
not see it being accomplished. We might not see what the Lord's
doing, but He's going to do it. He's going to do it. Let's go
to Him. Father, thank You for this word.
Thank You for blessing Your people. Giving us the certainty and the
assurance that You always accomplish Your purpose with Your word.
Lord, let us be thankful for the rain and the snow, and let
us remember every time we see it, your triumphant gospel. Make us remember Christ, our
triumphant Savior. Make us remember how you bless
your word as it goes forth to save your people. Lord, pour down upon us now. Make us to experience the showers
of your blessing. Make us to grow in your grace
and make us to be continually seeing everything's of your hand
and give you all the glory in all things. And Lord, give us
faith to trust that you're going to make your word accomplish
your purpose in our brethren. is so that we can trust you and
speak the gospel to one another and encourage one another and
wait on you. Forgive us, Lord, for our murmuring. Forgive us our sin. In Christ
we ask you, amen.