Alright brethren, let's go in
our Bibles to Isaiah chapter 40. Isaiah 40. Today most pulpits are preaching
on the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ. Because tomorrow is day
that pagans chose to mark as the day of Christ's birth. We know Christmas is a pagan
holiday, a pagan holy day. Christ's mass was originated
by false religion. The specific day of our Lord's
birth is not given in the scripture, and it's not what's important. It's not what's important. We
know it was not December 25th. We know that. But today is not
important. It's who was born that is important. It's who he is. It's what he
accomplished that's important. It's where he is now, what he's
doing now. That's what's important. That's what's important. I was
speaking with a pastor this week and I asked him, You know, was
he going to preach on the Lord's birth on Sunday? And he made
this observation, and it's so true. He said, you know, we preach
on the incarnation every time we preach. It's impossible to
preach the gospel without doing so. You have to preach that the
Son of God came down and took flesh. and He's the God-man mediator. There's no other name under heaven
whereby we must be saved. You can't preach the gospel without
preaching it. So we preach it every time we
stand in the pulpit. It's not just one day of the
year. And we don't attach any religious
significance to any day, but I'm thankful that there is a
day in which all over this world people are hearing about the
fact that the Son of God came down and took flesh. I like that. I like to know that people are
having to hear that and at least think about that. And I pray
God will be pleased to bless His people all over this world. I want you to look with me at
Isaiah 40 verse 10. Behold, the Lord God will come
with strong hand. And His arms shall rule for Him.
Behold, His reward is with Him and His work before Him. We saw
this before. The Lord God will come with strong
hand. Jehovah God has come. That's who Christ is. Emmanuel,
God with us. And you know why his name is
Jesus? The word means savior. And the
angel told Joseph and Matthew, in Matthew's gospel, he told
him his name shall be called Jesus. Here's why. For he shall
save his people from their sins. That's why His name is Jesus.
He shall save His people from their sins. We refer to Him as
the Lord Jesus because it's like giving honor to someone you value. He's our Lord. He's our Lord.
Our Lord Jesus. He's the God-man. Mediator. He's God with us. That's who
He is. And He has accomplished His work
of redeeming His people. Isaiah was sent with the word,
He shall not fail. And He did not fail. He did not
fail. Christ said in John 10.15. Let's look there. John 10.15.
I want you to see what our Lord Jesus said. Now this is Him speaking. This is him speaking. John 10,
verse 15. Well, let's read verse 14. He said, I am the good shepherd,
and know my sheep, and am known of mine. As the Father knoweth
me, even so know I the Father, and I lay down my life for the
sheep. That's who he died for. I laid
down my life for the sheep. He said over in verse 26, he
told the Pharisees standing there, he said, you believe not because
you are not of my sheep. That means he didn't lay down
his life for them. Therefore, he didn't give them
the Spirit. Therefore, they did not believe. You get that? You get that? What did he accomplish? Look over at Hebrews chapter
1. What did Christ accomplish? Hebrews 1 tells us in verse 1,
God, who at sundry times and in different manners spake in
time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last
days spoken to us by His Son, whom he hath appointed heir of
all things, by whom also he made the worlds, who being the brightness
of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding
all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself
purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the majesty
on high. The Lord Jesus said, I'll lay
down my life for the sheep, And that verse tells us, and He purged
the sins of the sheep. He purged our sins. And then
He arose and He sat down. He sat down because the work's
finished. The work's finished. Look over at Hebrews 9. Look
at Hebrews 9. Look at verse 12. It says, neither
by the blood of goats and calves, but by His own blood, He entered
in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption
for us. That's what He accomplished.
He eternally redeemed His sheep from the curse and condemnation
of the law by giving, shedding His own blood. He made His people
the righteousness of God in Him. Look over at Hebrews 10, Hebrews
10, and look here in verse 12, this man, after He had offered
one sacrifice for sin forever, sat down on the right hand of
God, from henceforth expecting till His enemies be made His
footstool, for by one offering He hath perfected forever them
that are sanctified. How were we sanctified? He said
back up there in verse 9, He said, I come to do Thy will,
O God, And then it says in verse 10, by the witch will we are
sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once
for all time. He did it one time. Just one
offering and he accomplished it. That's the whole point there
on the once. The high priest, earthly high
priest had to offer the lambs to picture that atonement. They
had to do it every year because it never put away sin. Christ
did it once. Once. For all time. For all eternity. It's done. It's accomplished. That's what
He did. So now what's He doing now? He arose and He sat down
at the right hand of the Majesty on high. What's He doing now?
What's our Lord doing now? Back there in Isaiah 40 verse
11. He shall feed His flock like
a shepherd. He shall gather the lambs with
his arm and carry them in his bosom and shall gently lead those
that are with young. This is what he's doing right
now. Christ is the shepherd of his sheep. They are his flock. There He is by God the Father
electing us, choosing us freely by grace. There He is by Christ
paying the purchase price of His own precious blood. There
He is by the Spirit of God regenerating us. There He is. We're His flock,
brethren, His flock. And He is feeding His flock. He's gathering His sheep through
the preaching of this gospel. And this gospel, He's the gospel,
he's the life, he's the bread that he feeds us. He is, he's
the life. And the gospel that's being preached
by his under-shepherds is the means by which he feeds us himself. This is how real Christ is feeding
his people, brethren. This is why God's people want
to assemble where the gospel's preached. The gospel's not preached
everywhere. It's just not. It's a rare thing
to find the gospel. It's just not preached over.
Men will say a lot of good things. Men will say some moral things.
They'll teach them some good lessons and things like that.
But that's not the gospel. The food for Christ's sheep is
the gospel of Christ himself. And this is how real he's feeding
his people. He said when he's assembled his
people, that he's there And He's ministering to us and He's feeding
us. If you knew Christ was gonna
be here preaching today, standing right here preaching today, wouldn't
you come? Wouldn't you just, you'd be here
early wanting to hear Him. That's what He says He's doing,
where He has assembled His people and sent forth His under shepherd
to preach. He's the one preaching. You can
read that in Isaiah 52. He said, in that day they shall
know it's I that does speak. It's Him speaking. That's why
His sheep want to assemble where His gospel is preached. We want
to hear from our Redeemer. It's so vital. It's so vital. He's gathering the lambs with
His arm. He's using us who He's already
saved and gathered to preach this Word, and through the Word,
He's gathering His lambs. He's gathering. He's calling
His lost sheep to Himself, doing it through the preaching that
exalts Him, that gives Him all the glory. The message that abases
man, that says there's no good thing in us, that it's all of
Him. That's the message. You go home
and read our 1st Corinthians 1. He said he sends and saves
through this gospel that no flesh of glory in his presence. It's
so that he gets all the glory. He gets all the glory. And He's
going to do this, He's going to gather each and every one
that He redeemed, He's going to gather us and give us faith. He must do that because He justified
His people and that same justice that required Christ to lay down
His life for us, now that He has justified His people and
redeemed His people, they can't perish. God wouldn't be just
to let them perish, and because God's holy, He's going to call
His sheep. You see, you need a touchstone. You need something to bring everything,
the touchstone to put everything, come to one point and say, now,
I know by this what's true and what's false. Well, here's the
touchstone. God is holy. God is holy. And so everything that he does
in the salvation of his people must be done in accordance with
his holiness. This is why he would not just
justify us and just say, well, they're justified. No, our sins
had to be paid for. And that's why it was a must
that the Son of God come and take flesh. A man's sin, a man's
got to be made, got to bring in the righteousness. And so
the God-Man came and He satisfied justice and brought in everlasting
righteousness because God's holy. And everything God's doing is
according to His holiness. Now that He's justified His people,
now that He's obtained eternal redemption, now that He's purged
our sins by Himself, Each one of his lost sheep must be gathered.
They must be called. They must be given faith because
he's justified them. Because God's holy. And so he
shall, he shall. He said in Ezekiel 34, 16, I
will seek that which was lost and bring again that which was
driven away and will bind up that which was broken and will
strengthen that which was sick. But I will destroy the fat and
the strong. I will feed them with judgment.
Anybody that thinks that they're fat and strong doing it on their
own, God said, I'm going to feed them with judgment. But His sheep,
He said, I'll gather them. I'm going to gather them. And
so through this gospel, He's gathering us and then look what
He's doing. He's carrying us in His bosom and gently leading
those that are with young. He leads us to see our own vileness
and our own sin. to see our need of Him. He leads
us to see how fully He is through everything we need to be accepted
of God. And He leads us all our days
through this wilderness, keeping us and protecting us because
He promised the Father He'd bring us, He'd bring each one to the
Father. Our shepherds stupefied in the
way Jacob led his people and led his flock. When Jacob met
Esau, this is what he said, this is a picture of Christ. Jacob
said to Esau, My Lord knoweth that the children are tender,
and the flocks and herds with young are with me. And if men
should overdrive them one day, all the flock will die. Let my
Lord, I pray thee, pass over before his servant, and I will
lead on softly, according as the cattle goeth before me, and
the children be able to endure, until I come unto my Lord, unto
seer." That's how Christ is leading his people. He's not going to
overdrive us. He's leading us like a shepherd.
He leads us into green pastures and beside still waters. That's
rest. That's where you can feed. That's
where you can be nourished by Him. He leads us into the paths
of righteousness for His name's sake. If we turn out of the way,
He gathers us, brings us back into the path of righteousness,
keeps us running the race looking to Him. His rod and his staff
comfort us along the way. The shepherd's rod is used to
count the sheep. That's what he uses it for. He
counts the sheep, makes sure they're all there, and if one's
missing, he also uses that same rod that has that crook in it,
and he'll take the sheep by the neck, and he'll pull the sheep
back into the flock. That's the gospel. The rod of
God is the gospel, and His rod and His staff, they comfort me.
They keep me. He's a shepherd. He's preparing
a table for us in the presence of our enemies. Right here in
the midst of a world that knows not God, He's prepared this feast
for you and me to feast on. He says, come to the table, come
eat. And that's why His sheep want to assemble and hear the
gospel. He anoints our head with oil. He fills our cup so that
it overflows. He goes before us. He's the goodness
and mercy that goes before us, and He's the goodness and mercy
that comes behind us, surrounding us, keeping us. And so He'll
lead us all the way to final glory. He'll bring us, He won't
lose one. He said that, no man will pluck them out of my hand.
Now, here's where I want to get to. This is what I want us to
see here now. Is He able to do this? Is He able to gather every
one of His people? Is He able to lead us and guide
us and not lose one of us? Who is He? Who is this shepherd
we're talking about? Verse 12. Who hath measured the
waters in the hollow of His hand, and meted out heaven with a span,
and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed
the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance? The hollow
of the hand is that little part right there. We can hold about
a teaspoon in that right there. He held all the waters of the
world in the hollow of his hand. You see, he's showing us how
big God is. These are just expressions that
we can understand something of God. He's holding the waters. That's how big he is. It says
he meted out heaven with a span. A span is from the end of your
thumb to the tip of that finger right there. When you're on your
computer and you could open a window like that, I guess you still
can, like that, that's meting out a span. That's how it says
he meted out heaven, like that. The dust of the earth, he comprehended
it all in a measure. He weighed the mountains in scales,
the hills in a balance. Brethren, our shepherd's our
creator. He's God. who created all things. Look
at verse 13. Who hath directed the Spirit
of the Lord, or being his counselor, hath taught him? With whom took
he counsel, and who instructed him, and taught him in the path
of judgment, and taught him knowledge, and showed him the way of understanding?
We could have used this this morning in that first point about
the logos, couldn't we? Who's the wisdom behind every Anybody that has any semblance
of intelligence, who's the wisdom behind it? God is. But who taught
him? There was nobody before him.
He is wisdom. He is understanding. He is judgment
and knowledge. What is the world of fallen sinners
before him? You got all this world of fallen
sinners. You got all these obstacles to prevent him calling his sheep,
to prevent him from doing all these things. And if you listen
to religion, here's why we don't go listen to false religion.
They speak of this one as wanting to do something God doesn't want
to do anything. You and me want to do things
that we can't do. God does what he's pleased to
do. They talk about him not being
able to work his will because the sinner won't let him. And
you have to work with him to let him work his will. Do you
know how dishonoring that is to God? That's blasphemy. Look who he is. When are fallen
sinners before him? Verse 15. Behold, the nations
are as a drop of a bucket and are counted as the small dust
of the balance. He's taking up the aisles as
a very little thing. He's talking about the drop of
a bucket. He's talking about the, if you took, if you measured
something in a bucket, you poured the water out and there's those
little droplets in the bucket that don't even move the scale.
or if you're measuring out something and there's a little bit of dust
left in the bottom of the scale, like if you had feed or something
like that, you're measuring out the little dust and he said that's
what all the nations are before him. And when he talks about the isles,
he's talking about the continents, he's talking about not just little
islands, he's talking about every island, every continent there
is in the world and all the people therein. He says, and Lebanon's
not sufficient to burn, nor the beasts thereof sufficient for
a burn offering. All nations before him are as
nothing, and they're counted to him less than nothing in vanity. This is what he's saying, brethren.
We can't offer anything to God to merit salvation. Everybody and everything before
him is nothing. If you took all the cattle in
Lebanon and tried to offer a burnt offering, and all the people
in Lebanon, it wouldn't satisfy God. It wouldn't satisfy God. Listen, brethren, everything
already belongs to Him. What are you going to offer to
Him? Everything belongs to Him. He created it all. All are as
nothing and counted to Him less than nothing in vanity. That's
the Word of God. That's the Word of God. You see,
think about this. Any offering to God that's going
to merit something with God, merit salvation, it has to profit
God. Christ's offering merited salvation
for His people. It profited God. It declared
God just and justifier. It saved His people, Christ's
offering. But if you and me are going to
offer Him something, it's got to profit God in order for it
to be meritorious. And there's nothing we can offer
to God that's going to profit God. Listen to this, Job 22.2. Can a man be profitable unto
God as he that is wise may be profitable to himself? That's
a rhetorical question. No, we can't offer anything to
God and be profitable to God. Job 35.7, if thou be righteous,
what do you give him? Or what receiveth he of thine
hand? If you could fulfill the whole
law in perfect righteousness, you just did what you should
have done. They didn't merit anything. Oh my soul, this is Psalm 16,
oh my soul, thou art seven to the Lord, thou art my Lord, my
goodness extendeth not to thee. My goodness is not, God's given
me everything, I'm not giving God anything. Can you say that? Do you believe that? We believe
that, don't we? Verse 18, to whom then will you
liken God, or what likeness will you compare unto Him? Here's
what foolish men do. The workman melts a graven image,
and the goldsmith spreadeth it over with gold, and casteth silver
chains. He that is too poor, that he
hath no oblation, he chooses a tree that will not rot. He
seeks unto him a cunning workman to prepare a graven image that
shall not be moved. Have you not known? Have you
not heard? Hath it not been told you from
the beginning? Have you not understood from
the foundations of the earth? It is he that sitteth upon the
circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers. It's He that stretched out the
heavens as a curtain and spread them out as a tent to dwell in
that bringeth the princes to nothing and He maketh the judges
of the earth as vanity. When's the last time you had
your day planned and you walked out the door and there was a
grasshopper and you said, I can't, I can't, I'm not able to do anything
I plan to do today because that grasshopper, he won't let me
pass him. I can't get to my vehicle. That
grasshopper stopped me from doing anything. God said everybody
on the planet together are just grasshoppers before Him. Just
grasshoppers. He brings princes to nothing.
He makes the judges of the earth as vanity. Is anybody going to
stop Him from doing this work? Anybody going to stop Him from
gathering His lambs and carrying His lambs and saving His lambs?
Behold, he taketh away, who can hinder him? Who will say to him,
what doest thou? Our shepherd is God. It's who
Nebuchadnezzar was made to behold when he said, He liveth forever,
and His dominions an everlasting dominion, His kingdom from generation
to generation. All the inhabitants of the earth
are reputed as nothing, and He doeth according to His will in
the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth,
and none can say unto Him, What doest thou? That's who Christ
is. That baby born, if everybody's
going to be looking at this sweet little baby Jesus, that baby
is God who's ruling everything. Remember how he said all flesh
is grass? He said that earlier in Isaiah
40, all flesh is grass. The grass wither, the flower
fades because the spirit of the Lord blows on it. Look what he
says right here. Anybody that tries to hinder
him, any of the princes of the world, or any of the judges of
this world, anybody tries to hinder him in his work, look
what he says in verse 24. Yea, they shall not be planted.
Yea, they shall not be sown. Yea, their stock shall not take
root in the earth. And he shall also blow upon them,
and they shall wither, and no whirlwind shall take them away
as stubble. We spend all our lives building
up a house and building up our place and our stuff, and here
comes a tornado. And it looks like a little house
made of a toothpick, just demolishes it. You can look down in the
south, where I'm from, and when a tornado comes through, and
you can look at it from an aerial view, and it looks like God just
took his fingers and went across the world and just passed here
and there. He scatters it with the whirlwind.
We take that blower out here, and the leaves will be on the
parking lot. You just blow those leaves and just blow them right
off the parking lot. That's what the Lord does with nations, and
with princes, and with men that think they're mighty. He just
blows on them, and they just carried away like those leaves.
That's who our Savior is. When His child becomes weak and
weary, here's what our Shepherd speaks affectionately in our
heart. When you're weak and you're weary, here's what He speaks.
Now look, verse 25. To whom then will you liken me,
or shall I be equal, saith the Holy One? Lift up your eyes on
high, and behold who hath created these things, that bringeth out
their host by number. He calleth them all by names,
by the greatness of his might, for that he is strong in power,
not one faileth. The sun and the moon and the
stars that he created, he named them and he's held them in place
and they've been doing what they're supposed to do ever since he
created them. The rain comes down and he never
made but any one water. He never made any more water.
How on earth, you know, if you listen to me and we're going
to run out of water and we're not going to have anything to
drink. There's a reason they want you to think that, is so
you'll go pay more than gasoline for water at the grocery store,
that's why. But let me tell you something, he made one water
in the beginning. That water comes down, it filters
down into the earth, in the deep recesses of the earth, you'll
see a spring, and you'll see just crystal clear, clean water
springing out of the earth. And it flows into the creeks
and the rivers and the sea and then the sun comes out and it
evaporates and goes up and the whole process just keeps going
and keeps going. And it's been doing it from creation. That water right there. Same water that fell in Noah's
day. Never been any new water. Who keeps it in store? God does.
He said, as long as the sun and the moon and the stars and the
seasons are in place, He said, if you can change those, then
you can change my covenant with my people. The everlasting covenant
of grace that Christ has ordered and made sure by His blood. He
said if you can change the seasons, you can change that. Why do you
think the devil has convinced everybody in this world that
the seasons are changing and that the climate is going to
change and that we can fix it? Why do you think that? Because
it goes directly against the Word of God, that's why. is to
create unbelief in you so that when you read the Word of God
and what God says about the seasons being held in store and about
Him bringing it to pass, you'll say, well, you'll have to choose.
Are you going to believe God or are you going to believe men? I'm going to believe God. By
His grace, I believe God. This is the shepherd who became
a man like us. This is our shepherd who laid
down his life and justified his people. This is our shepherd
who sent the gospel and called us to himself. He shall not fail
to carry us and feed us and grow us and keep us by this word.
He won't fail. You see your brethren sin or
you see your brethren, your pastor do something wrong, The wisest
word that was ever spoken to me, ever, was when a preacher
came down and said, do you believe God is sovereign? He will correct
your pastor, He'll correct your brethren, and He will teach you
in the process just like He's teaching them. Be merciful, be
long-suffering, speak the truth, speak the gospel, try to encourage
one another to look to Christ and continue in faith. Don't
try to whip and destroy your brethren. That's not your business. God's ruling. He's the sovereign
of heaven and earth. Who are you and me? Have you
not heard? Here's His application to us. This is His message to
His people. Now tell me, if it's not exactly
what I just said to you, This is his application. Don't you
love it when God gives you, he gives you the message and then
he makes the application so you don't even have to think, wonder
what it is. He tells us what it is right here. Right here. Verse 27. Why sayest thou, O
Jacob, and speakest thou Israel, my ways hid from the Lord, and
my judgments passed over from my God? When we're afflicted,
when trouble comes, why do we think, oh, God's just forgotten
me? Why do we think something like
that? Why do we think the affliction is out of His control? Why do
we think we have to take matters into our own hands? Verse 28,
Hast thou not known, hast thou not heard, that the everlasting
God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth
not, neither is weary? There is no searching of His
understanding. We are Jacob, brethren. That
means we are sinners. supplanters, that's what we are
in our flesh. Our salvation is that we're Israel
by our Heavenly Father's divine election, by redemption, by our
shepherd, we're Israel. But we're Jacob and Israel, that's
who we are. Little sinful man who put so
much stock in our strength and our wisdom. You know what we
do? We grow weary every day and we
have to go to sleep, don't we? Take the strongest man. At some
point, he's going to get tired. He's going to go to sleep. He
grows weary. Not our shepherd. He's God. He faints not. He's never weary.
There's no searching of his understanding. All the time, even when we're
sleeping, our Lord, He's watching over His people. Working all
things together for the good of His people, for His own glory.
And He's doing it in perfect wisdom. Perfect wisdom. But I'm the sinner and I don't
have understanding of what to do in my trial. I don't. And
you know what, brethren? When you are brought into a trial
and you get weary and you become faint and you don't know what
to do, that's all by design by our God. That's so for his people. Look here, verse 29. He giveth
power to the faint, and to them that have no might he increases
strength. Even the youth shall faint and
be weary. Those that we consider most strong, they'll be faint
and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall. You remember
how the Lord wrestled Jacob? And he wrestled Jacob, and Jacob
kept fighting. He kept fighting. He kept trying
to wrestle with him. And he would not prevail when
he did that. God will bring you into a trial.
He'll bring the trouble to you. And you're fighting to try to
save yourself out of it. You're fighting to try to say
this and that to your brother and work this out with them.
And you're fighting to do this and that. You're not going to
prevail. You're not going to prevail. How did Jacob prevail? The Lord touched the hollow of
his thigh and put his thigh out of joint. And Jacob couldn't
fight anymore. He was weary and faint, and all
he could do was hold on to the Lord and beg Him, please have
mercy on me. Have mercy on me. Save me by
mercy. And that's how Scripture prevailed. Well, when you come into these
trials, and you've wrestled and tried to work it, and you can't
work it out, and you've just made a mess of things, and everything's
just awful, and where you ended up, and you're so weary and faint,
that all you can do now is cry out for God to have mercy on
you. That's the Lord wrestling you.
That's the Lord touching the hollow of your thigh, putting
you out of joint, so you stop thinking it's of your hand and
you just believe him. That's mercy. That's mercy. Paul said, lest I should be exalted
above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was
given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet
me, lest I should be exalted above measure. And for this thing
I have sought the Lord three times, and to my depart, He said
to me, My grace is sufficient for you. My strength is made
perfect in weakness. Most gladly, therefore, will
I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may
rest upon me. I take pleasure in infirmities,
and reproaches, and necessities, and persecution, and distresses
for Christ's sake. For when I am weak, when all I can do is trust my
Lord, Then I'm strong. Are you weak? If you're weak,
if you're really weak, you know this about yourself, you can't
save yourself. You can't save yourself from
a cold, much less salvation. And you just trust the Lord.
That's when you're strong. He's your strength. He's the
only strength. Verse 29, He giveth power, but
only to the faint. That's the only ones He gives
power to. And to them that have no might, He increases strength. He says, verse 31, But they that
wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount
up with wings as eagles. They shall run and not be weary.
They shall walk and not faint. You know what waiting on the
Lord is? It's believing God. It's believing God. It's walking
by faith, not by sight. And they that wait on the Lord,
they'll renew their strength. Why does the Lord make you wait?
Because He's going to be exalted. He's going to be exalted. We
saw this. You can look back there at Isaiah 45, 24. Surely shall one say, in the
Lord have I righteousness and strength. Even to Him shall men
come. Brethren, you and me. You know
the gospel. You would never say, I have righteousness
by my works. I'm righteous because I've justified
myself and by my law keeping I'm righteous. You wouldn't say
that, would you? Because you know He's your righteousness.
In the Lord you have righteousness. Well, any time you and me are
trying to save ourselves by the strength of our hand, if we're
trying to sanctify ourselves in this world by the strength
of our hand, if we think it's by our works that these things
are coming apart, It's the same as trusting that we've made ourselves
righteous by our works. He said, in the Lord shall his
people say, I have righteousness and strength. I have both in
him. He's my righteousness and my
sanctification. He keeps me separated, the one
who made me righteous. That's right. The Lord will renew
your strength. He told Israel, I delivered you
on eagles' wings and I brought you to myself. That's what He
told them. The Lord alone did lead Him.
There was no strange God with Him. He made Him ride on the
high places of the earth that He might eat the increase of
the field. This is the Lord that does this. Why does He do it? Go back to Isaiah 30. I want
you to see it. Remember this? Why does He make
you wait? He told them to wait. They wouldn't
wait. Verse 18, Therefore will the Lord wait. Isaiah 30, 18.
Therefore will the Lord wait, that He may be gracious to you,
that He might save you by grace. And therefore will He be exalted,
that He might have mercy on you. For the Lord is a God of judgment.
Blessed are all they that wait for Him. For the people shall
dwell in Zion at Jerusalem. He will save all His people. But He'll do it by grace. And
He'll be exalted in our heart. He said, when you call, He'll
answer. That's what He said. Have you
called on Him? Have you called on Him? He said,
when He hears it, He'll answer you. You know when you really
call on Him? When you really call on Him is when you have
no strength. And you need Him to be your righteousness
and you need Him to be your strength. Your righteousness and your sanctification. That's when you call on Him,
and that's when He answers, and He'll be your strength. This
is the God who is God. This is the Savior who's God.
This is Emmanuel, God with us, Jesus, for He shall save His
people from their sin. Amen.