All right, Ezekiel 17. I'm not gonna read the whole
thing again, but God brought Zedekiah into Babylon through Nebuchadnezzar. It was God who brought him there.
And he used Nebuchadnezzar to make Zedekiah a king. And Nebuchadnezzar
and Zedekiah entered a covenant with each other. They made an
oath. They vowed to God. Nebuchadnezzar
made Zedekiah swear that he would stay base. He wouldn't lift himself
up. He wouldn't rebel against the
king. And he would remain humble. And Nebuchadnezzar promised he
would prosper him. He would prosper him. We've been
brought we believe have been brought into an everlasting covenant
of grace. That doesn't mean we have a part
that we have to fulfill or God won't save us. That would be
a covenant of works. This is a covenant of grace.
The work has all been accomplished by Christ. But it is that message,
it is that grace through the spirit of God whereby God constrains
his people in the heart to honor God. to want to follow God, not
to excuse sin, not to run into sin, not to just take, well,
we all sin, so this sin's all right. No, no. Now God either works effectually
or he doesn't. And scripture says he does. And
when God's working in the heart, he will not let his child love
sin. He gonna make you hate it. He's
gonna make you mourn that sin. That doesn't mean he's gonna
remove all sin and make it so that you can walk through this
earth sinless. But he's gonna use that sin to keep you at Christ's
feet. Seeing your utter nothingness
and knowing Christ is all your righteousness. He's gonna do
that. He's gonna do that. Now, Zedekiah prospered for a
little while as he was obeying this covenant. But then he decided
he'd turn to Egypt and he went to Pharaoh to try to get Pharaoh
to help him. So he broke the covenant. He
lied to Nebuchadnezzar. He went back on his oath. And
when he did that, he broke God's covenant. He lied to God because
he had sworn by God. He had sworn by God. Now the
question God asked is, shall he prosper? Verse 15, shall he
escape that doeth such thing? Is he gonna be able to do this
and just get away with this? Can a believer break covenant
with God? Break his covenant with a man
in the earth where he's sworn to God and just escape scot-free? Or shall he break covenant and
be delivered? Is there any way that's gonna
happen? No. It's not gonna happen. Now, fact
is, you and I who believe, as well as all sinners in this world,
are covenant breakers. Now listen carefully, you've
never kept a covenant. I don't care if you're talking
about a covenant with God, a covenant with your spouse, a covenant
with another man in this world, you and I have never kept it.
Never kept it. Now, don't misunderstand me.
Outwardly, it's always better not to sin. It's always better
not to break a covenant. God's clear on that, but our
Lord on the Sermon on the Mount clearly stated to us, you take
a marriage covenant, to look upon a woman with lust in your
heart is to commit adultery. That means there's not anybody
on the top side of this earth that has kept that covenant faithfully
in perfection as God calls it, as God sees it. None, none. We're all covenant breakers.
Under the Old Testament, you had some who were chosen children
of God who were believers. Not a one of them kept that covenant
of works. You had to smile like the Apostle
Paul who said, as touching the law is blameless. Outwardly,
he came there and did everything the law required. But in his heart, he never once
kept it. For one thing, the Hebrew writer tells us those Old Testament
sacrifices, the blood of lambs could never take away sin. And
the only way anybody would have kept that old covenant is if
their sin was removed. But not only that, even when
we've dotted every I and crossed every T outwardly, we still have
sin in the heart and not honored God. Now, you and I believe we've
never kept a single covenant from the heart perfectly, not
in ourselves, not in ourselves. And sometimes, you and I who
have a covenant that we're entered into in the earth, Break it outwardly. Break it outwardly. It's the
same as when we sometimes are overcoming a fault and fall into
sin. Believers do that too. Shall
the covenant breaker prosper? What if a believer breaks an
earthly covenant and God always says the outwards worse? There's
some sins God says he hates. And the outwards are always worse. Is that believer, are they not
a believer anymore? Or does that mean they're not
gonna, are they gonna just escape? What's gonna happen? Every person
who breaks covenant lies to God and must die under the holy judgment
of God. Everyone, everyone. Some are gonna die in their flesh
and go to hell, like Zedekiah did. Others were crucified in
Christ by the grace of God, and he bore that judgment in their
place. He paid for that sin. But that's not gonna make God's
child say, oh, you mean my sin's paid for? Well, let's just sin
then that grace may abound. God forbid, Paul said. What's
that message going to do? It's going to make the believer,
it's going to chasten the believer when he's in sin, and it's going
to correct him, and God's going to bring him back to the feet
of Christ. Now, whatever he's broken, that
division may not ever be repaired, but this is going to happen.
If that's a believer, God's going to correct them and bring them
to the feet of Christ in repentance. And I'm going to tell you something.
That's what matters. That's what matters. Only the sovereign grace of God
makes the difference. That's all. Here you have some
people in the old covenant who sinned. All they saw was, I'm
doing these sacrifices. This makes me righteous because
I brought a lamb. That's works. The others came
and did the same works, but they saw Christ in that lamb. They
would tell their children, this is not making us righteous right
here. This pictures Christ to come,
and he's the one who makes us righteous. Those were believers.
They were saved by grace. Who made the difference between
the two? The sovereign free grace of God. And that's the only one
that makes the difference between us is the sovereign grace of
God. But what if a true believer breaks
their covenant? Shall they escape? Shall we prosper
any time we turn to sin and turn from Christ and run into sin?
Are we gonna prosper? Not if we're true believers.
Not if we're true believers. God shall chasten us with some
sore chastening, some sore correction, and he'll bring us to repentance. God only chastens those he loves. Hebrews 10 says, whom the Lord
loveth, he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he received. So
if you bear chastening, you bear correction. Sometimes we get
into some terrible trials and we think, maybe God doesn't love
me. No, he loves you, that's why
you're in that sore trial. He's correcting you. What is
the correction? To turn us from us, to turn us
from our sin, to turn us from our proud heart and bring us
down to Christ's feet so that we look only to Christ to be
saved. Since Christ fulfilled the old
covenant of works on behalf of his people and brought us under
the covenant of grace, God our Father will chasten those he
loves to keep his believing child looking only to Christ. And that's what I want to show
you from this passage. Now first of all, God's purpose
in chastening His people is to humble His child. Now, I'll say
this too. God does this when He calls His
child. So really what we're seeing here
is how God brings you to the feet of Christ the first time
and converts you. But it's also how He continues
to do this for His believing child. His purpose is to humble
his people, is to humble his people. Now notice how God describes
the people of Judah. Look back up in verse three.
He says, this great eagle came unto Lebanon. He's talking about
Jerusalem. He's talking about Judah. Why
does he call them Lebanon? Because Lebanon was known for
proud, tall cedars grew in Lebanon. He's calling them proud is what
he's doing. He's calling them proud. And
it says, verse six, he placed them by great waters and he set
them as a willow tree. Not a cedar, a willow tree. Verse
14, that the kingdom might be base, humble, that it might not
lift itself up, but that by keeping of his covenant it might stand.
The whole purpose for which God brought Judah into this bondage
in Babylon. Now understand, God's sovereign.
That means God controls the hearts of kings. He brings to pass everything
that happens in this world. Our God is in the heaven. He
done whatsoever he hath pleased, scripture said. Whatever he purposed,
that's what he does. And here, his purpose was to
chasten Israel, chasten Judah because There was a bunch of
rebels who were just looking to their works. But even some
of his believing people were starting to be turned back to
their works. And his purpose here was for
them. It was for those he loved. He was bringing them under the
hand of Nebuchadnezzar to chasten them, to take them from being
a proud cedar to making them a bowed, weeping willow. That's what he was doing. He
brings the lofty tree of our flesh down. That's what he says
at the end of the chapter. I'm the one that brought down
the lofty tree and dried up that green tree. You see, if we're
going to be saved, God's going to make sure we understand he
does the saving. That's not just in the first
hour. That's all the way to completion. It's God who does the saving.
He's gonna make his child base. He's gonna make it so his child
doesn't lift himself up in pride. Now be sure to get this. I want
you to miss this. God doesn't correct his saints
because his child has to keep a covenant of works. No, that's
not what he's doing. He corrects us from thinking
we have to keep a covenant of works. He corrects us from sinning
against him and brings us back to Christ in whom the everlasting
covenant of grace has been fulfilled. That's why he corrects his child.
Now, you think how offensive it was for the king of Judah
to be brought into Babylon and put there amongst the city of
merchants. This was the choicest tribe in
Israel, Judah. He was king of it. He's from
the house of David, the choicest house in the whole nation. And now he's a vassal king. He's a king, he can tell his
people what to do, but only if Nebuchadnezzar tells him it's
okay. He can't do anything but what
Nebuchadnezzar will let him do. Neither can you, and neither
can I. Say, I got a free will. Well, you can get up, walk back
here to the back of that room. But if God had purpose from eternity
for you to make it to the back, you ain't making it back there.
We can move around and walk around and have a will, but we can only
do it in so much as God moves us and hedges us about in this
world. And He controls everything. He controls everything. You consider
how degrading this was though for this king. He's brought down.
He's a captive now. What a blow to his pride. That's
why he was there. God was humbling his true people
in Judah. Now God chastens you and me often,
and the reason he does it is usually pride. That's enemy number
one for a believer, is pride. What does pride do? I wouldn't
do it. Look what they're doing. I wouldn't
do that. That's pride. You can't criticize
and be critical of a brother without saying, though you might
not say it verbally, without saying, I'm better than that. Can't do it. Think how offensive
this was to this king when he puts us in trying situations
and you're brought into some pain. Listen, usually it's our
fleshly pride. And you know that's what the
painful part is usually? Is our pride. We don't like to
be able to not do something. To save ourselves out of it.
We don't like to not be able to be in control of things. That's
our pride. But God's gonna bring us into
places where we just don't have control of anything. And he's
gonna show you, this is how it always is. That's how it always
is. He's doing that, brethren, to
bring us down from enemy number one and keep us humbled, trusting
His mighty hand. Now, when you are put in a trying
situation and you're suffering and it's painful, remember, remember
how the Son of God willingly came down to such a degrading
place as this. Here he is, holy God, came down
and dwelt amongst a bunch of stinking sinners like us. Who hated him. Everybody came
in contact with, hated him. Look at Philippians chapter two. But look what he did. How were
you saved, believer? Was it in pride or humility? Look at here, Philippians 2,
3. Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory, but in lowliness
of mind, let each esteem other better than themselves. You want
me to tell you how all of this bickering back and forth in the
United States would be solved? If everybody esteemed the other
better than themselves. But what you have is pride on
all sides. and it's always the other one's
fault. It's the other one's fault. You know what that means? There
won't be any peace on this earth. Only God can do that. Only God. Christ is the only place where
people are equal. We're all equally maggots before
God. I don't believe I'm that bad.
And you're probably not one of God's. Look, look not every man on his
own things, but every man also on the things of others. Let
this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who being
in the form of God, meaning he's God, but look what he did. He
thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but he made himself
of no reputation. He took upon himself the form
of a servant. He didn't come to be served,
he came to do the serving. and was made in the likeness
of men and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself
and became obedient unto the death, even the death of the
cross. Hold your place right there.
You see, we were saved by humility. by Christ coming down. So do
you think God's gonna let us walk around in our pride looking
down on others and not esteeming others better than ourselves
when our Redeemer who redeemed us saved us by being made the
least? No, he's gonna bring his people
down. He gonna bring us down. He came into this world not to
do his own will. He said, I can of my own self
do nothing. But he's God. Yeah, but he took
the form of a servant. And so as a servant, he's trusting
the Father and doing what the Father tells him to do. And he
said, I can of my own self do nothing. As I hear, I judge.
My judgment's just because I seek not my own will, but the will
of him that sent me. When the trial causes pain and
you're suffering, use that. Use it. This is something I've
been doing a lot lately. Use that pain and remember how
much Christ bore. It helps when you hurt a lot,
because that way you can think, and my Savior bore so much more
than I'm bearing. This hurts so bad, I can't hardly
stand it. This hurts so bad, it takes my
breath away. It hurts so bad, I just break
out crying. It's just out of the blue. And
it's nothing compared to what Christ poured for me. But when he was in the Garden
of Gethsemane facing that, you know what he said? Not my will, Father, but yours
be done. And guess what? He said, lo,
I come to do thy will, O God. He took away that first covenant
of works that He may establish this second covenant of grace
by the witch will, by Him doing God's will. We've been sanctified,
made holy, perfected through the offering of the Lord Jesus
Christ one time. He perfected us by that. So when
God chastens us, believer, when He brings you down, places you
in a circumstance that you might not like, Maybe you're in a relationship
where you're facing difficulties with a person. Rather than put
it all on that person and say it's all their fault, why don't
we say maybe God's humbling me. I'm at work with a superior and
he's abusing his power. God put him there. Why? To humble me, to trust God, wait
on God. If I have sickness and pain,
why couldn't God just heal me? Yeah, He can. But He put me there
to humble me, to trust Him. So never rise up in pride. What
did Zedekiah do? You know what he was doing? He
raised up in pride. He raised up in the very thing
God was chastening his true people from. He was correcting his true
people in Israel from that very pride. But Zedekiah rises up
in that pride and he says, I'm gonna deliver myself out of this
trial. Nine times out of 10, that's what we do. Remember, God is doing it. I can't get out from under God's
hand. God said, shall he escape? You think you're gonna get out
from under God's hand. I couldn't get out from under my daddy's
hand. I'm gonna get out from under God's. Remember, God's
saving me from me. He's saving me from my pride.
He's saving me from my sin nature. He's making it so my sin nature
won't have the reign over me. Zedekiah took matters into his
own hands and he said, I don't care what God says. He broke
his covenant and because of his sinful fleshly wants, the lusts
of his flesh, he lifted his hand against God in utter pride and
broke the covenant he had made. That's the only reason he did
it. Anytime you and I do anything contrary to the will of God,
it's sin, it's not the new man doing it. It's not the Spirit
of God in you doing it. It's not Christ in you doing
it. It's our sinful flesh. That's all there is to it. Notice
here, God didn't ask for a bunch of details in our text. He just
asked one question. A man gonna break the covenant
and prosper? That's all that matters. That's all that matters. Wait on God to exalt us in due
time. When the trial is there and you're
in the trial, he's teaching us, humble yourself and wait on God
to exalt you in due time. Put yourself under God's hand,
suffer whatever cross it is, and wait on God to deliver you.
Now look back there at Philippians 2.9. Christ suffered the cross,
he bore the sin of his people, he suffered the judgment of God,
and when he had finished redeeming all his people and accomplished
the will of God, what happened? Philippians 2.9. Wherefore God
also highly exalted him. He made himself the lowest, he
humbled himself, and when he finished accomplishing God's
will, God highly exalted him and gave him a name above every
name. Turn to 1 Peter 5. And look at verse five. He says there in the middle part,
yea, all of you, talking to believers, be subject one to another, submit
to one another, and be clothed with humility. For God resisted
the proud and giveth grace to the humble. Humble yourselves
under the mighty hand of God, He may exalt you in His time. That's what Christ did. Christ
submitted to the Father. And when the Father's will was
accomplished by Him, then the Father exalted Him. And He's
telling us the same thing. I think Peter knows what he's
talking about. I think I'd listen to Peter. He denied the Lord
three times. He was sifted by the devil, and
he found this out. And he says, casting all your
care upon him for he careth for you. Cast your care on Christ. That's how we ought to deal with
every trial. Humble yourselves under God's
mighty hand and cast all your care into his hand and trust
him to save you. That's what he did for us in
the first hour when he brought us to this place. He humbled
us to see our total inability and he gave us grace to cast
it all on Christ That's what he's gonna keep doing for his
child. Now secondly, when God chastens us, remember, it's not
to destroy us, not to destroy his child, it's for our good.
God had Nebuchadnezzar in verse five, Ezekiel 17, five, he had
Nebuchadnezzar plant them in a fruitful field. He placed it
by great waters. When he's talking about this
willow tree, he put it in a fruitful field. Verse eight, it was planted
in a good soil by great waters that it might bring forth branches,
that it might bear fruit, that it might be a good levine. Even
in chastening us, God remembers mercy. God ruled Nebuchadnezzar
to put his chosen people in a fertile place where they would have everything
they needed. Wouldn't be denied what they needed. When he brings
you into a trial by his chastening hands, God's still providing
our needs, not our fleshly wants, our needs. Christ is still our
righteousness before God. God's everlasting covenant of
grace is not changed, and God will provide our temporal needs.
David said, I've been young and now I'm old. I've not seen the
righteous forsaken in his seat begging bread. He's not gonna
forsake us spiritually or temporally. He's gonna provide for us, even
when we're in the trial. When Zedekiah humbled himself
under Nebuchadnezzar's hand, look at verse six. The vine grew,
became a spreading vine of low stature, whose branches turned
toward the king and the roots there were under him. So it became
a vine and brought forth branches and shot forth sprigs. See, when
he was obeying, God prospered him. When God chastens us with
these perplexing, painful acts of providence, and you just don't
know what's happening, remember, God's grace is sufficient right
where we are. We're, oh, if I could just change
these conditions, then I'll get out of this. No, it's not your
conditions that are your salvation. Well, the circumstances aren't
our salvation. You don't take a man out of one
environment and just say, well, it's his environment that's the
problem, the way he was brought up. That's not his problem. That's
not his salvation. The grace of God is salvation. And He can give you that grace
in the middle of a storm. He can give you that grace in
the middle of a dump where you're poor and don't have anything.
Wherever you are, He can give it to you. And it's His grace
that's sufficient. Paul said, lest I should be exalted
above measure. He's given all this abundance
of revelation. He said, God gave me a thorn
in the flesh. What was it? A messenger of Satan
to buffet me, to beat me down, is what it was, Paul said. God
gave it to me, he said. Lest I should be exalted above
measure. Lest I be too big in pride. And
I thought I sought the Lord three times to remove this thing from
me. And the Lord answered, my grace
is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Paul, you're gonna know about
my strength. The way you're gonna find out
I am all your strength is for me to bring you so weak that
you have none. That's what the trial's for. And so Paul was made to say,
I'll glory in my infirmities. I'll glory in my infirmities
that the power of Christ may rest upon me because when I'm
weak, when I can't do one thing for myself, when I really am
forced to wait on God and commit it to him, that's when I'm strong. We're usually way too busy to
do that. Way too cumbered about to do that, got too many idols
around us to do that. God can take all that away from
you and bring you to a place where you're alone and you gotta
trust Him. That's when you're strong, because
you're not looking to you. Our Lord Jesus prayed three times
in the Garden of Gethsemane. Paul said, I prayed three times
to just be removed. Our Lord prayed three times in
the Garden of Gethsemane. You remember what the Lord did?
He sent an angel and strengthened him. Christ is the one that told Paul,
after he prayed three times, Christ is the one that told Paul,
my grace is sufficient for you. Christ experienced that as a
man. He experienced how sufficient
the grace of God is as a man so that he could comfort Paul
when Paul prayed three times and asked for it to be removed.
Nope, I'm not removing it. My grace is sufficient for you
right where you are. Thirdly, if I rebel against God's
chastening hand, what am I really doing? If he's chastening me
and I start trying to save myself out of it and I rebel against
it and I break a covenant or whatever, what am I really doing? Look at verse 15. But he rebelled
against him and sending his ambassadors into Egypt that they might give
him horses and much people. What was that? That's the place
God delivered them out of. That's the place where they were
captive. He went back to Egypt where he had been in bondage
and asked them to help him. You know what we're doing every
time we lift up our hand against God's providence and against
trial, whatever it is God's brought us into, every single time we're
going back to our sin nature, our sinful dead heart that God
has already delivered us from. We're looking back to those dead
works and that polluted sinful will and that polluted sinful
understanding and trusting ourselves that God's already brought us
out from. That King of Judah, Zedekiah,
you know why he rebelled? It wasn't because he needed anything.
He had everything he needed. God had given it to him. It's
because God didn't give him what he wanted. That's why. He didn't have what he wanted. He thought the grass was greener
on the other side. And if we do that in the trial,
trying to get out of it, trying to deliver ourselves out of it,
we're looking to our will, our works, and our wisdom away from
the Lord Jesus Christ. We're not under covenant works
that we have to keep, but when we start doing that, it's just
like despising God's everlasting covenant of grace and saying,
I'm gonna do this on my own. Shall covenant breakers prosper?
God's already delivered his child from the bondage of our Egyptian
sinful flesh in Christ. He's not going to let sin nature
have dominion over you anymore. He's going to renew that inward
man and Christ is going to be our strength and He's not going
to let sin dominate us and take us away and separate us from
Christ. That's what would happen if He left us in that shape.
But He's not going to do that. He won't allow us to prosper
in our sinful flesh. He won't allow it. Remember,
if I break a covenant, I break an oath, I break a vow to some
person, here's what else I'm doing. I'm breaking a covenant
to God. Verse 19, thus saith the Lord
God, as I live, surely mine oath that he hath despised, and my
covenant that he hath broken, even it will I recompense upon
his own head. Our covenant to another person,
if it's entered into with an oath, by a vow, it's to God. It's to God. And to break it,
I have to lie to God. I have to despise God to do it. Jeb Zedekiah wanted out from
under God's hand. That's what he wanted. That's
really what we want. When we, I'm saying when we're
falling into this sin, overcome by our sin nature and we're rebelling,
what we're really wanting is to get out from under God's hand,
because he's the one that gave that trouble to us. We turn from
his covenant of grace back to the covenant of works. It's what
we do any time we rebel against his chastening hand of providence. And we're never justified to
rebel, never. I'm not, you're not, nobody else
is. We can't use sin to justify sin ever, never. So lastly, shall
God allow a true child of God to prosper if he rebels against
God in his sinful flesh? If you're in a trial and you're
handling it awful and you're trying to deliver yourself out
of it, is God gonna let you prosper in that? If you've made a covenant
with somebody, entered an oath with them, is God gonna let you
prosper to break that? Not if you're a child of God.
He's not going to let you prosper in your flesh. Because that would
be to let you go. He's not going to do that. When Zedekiah broke that covenant,
God brought him to the feet of the king who had made him king.
Isn't that what he did? Well now, God brought him there
for judgment. But the Lord Jesus already bore the judgment for
His people. He already bore it, so the sin's
put away. But now we've got to be corrected
and saved from our sin nature. So what's he gonna do? Look here
in verse nine. First of all, he's gonna mortify
her flesh. He says there in the middle, it's gonna wither in
all the leaves of her spring. Oh, we think we freed ourselves
from God's chastening hand, and we think, boy, the grass is greener
now, it's looking good, everything's prospering just like I want it.
Just like Jonah, when he found that ship going to Tarsus. He
said, boy, springtime, the sun's shining, I got it made now. God
said, when it ought to be blooming, it's fixing to wither in the
springtime, because God's going to make it wither. Look here,
even without great power are many people to pluck it up by
the roots thereof. Yea, behold, being planted, shall
it prosper? Shall it not utterly wither?
God's gonna send the east wind to touch it and it's gonna wither
in the furrows where it grew. Now let me tell you something,
that's the best thing that can happen to you and me, believer.
But that's painful. That hurts. That hurts. As believers, we don't want to
do this, do we? We'd rather be obedient children
to God, and not sin, and not rebel, and not break our oath
to God, and not have to go through that. But that's what God's gonna
do for His child, to turn us back to Christ, and it'll be
painful. But He's gonna dry up our fruits of our flesh, and
not let them prosper. The grass never turns out to
be greener on the other side. Now, shall we escape? Shall he
break the covenant and be delivered? Verse 16, God says, as I live. He says, I've entered into covenant
on this thing. As I live, saith the Lord God.
He swears by himself because he can swear by no greater. He
gonna save his child. Look, verse 16. Surely in the
place where the king dwelleth that made him king. Who's the
king of the believer? Christ is the king. If we're
gonna see what God does for a believer, we gotta look at the opposite
of what he did for Zedekiah. What he did for Zedekiah was
in judgment. But Christ is our king, and he's saying to us,
in the place where the king dwells that made you king, Christ is
the king who made us kings by his blood, and it's his oath
we despise, it's his covenant we despise, whose covenant we
break, even with Christ our king, who's in the midst of heavenly
Jerusalem, you shall live. See that? Now with Zedekiah,
he brought him back to Babylon to that king he despised, and
Zedekiah died. God says to his child, that king
that made you king, I'm gonna bring you to heavenly Jerusalem
to see him on his throne, high and lifted up, the one that made
you king, and you're gonna live with him. I'm gonna make you
live by him. Look here. Verse 17, neither
shall Pharaoh. Pharaoh represents our sinful
flesh. It ain't gonna prosper you. You're not gonna win this
war with your sinful flesh. He says, casting up mounts, building
forts to cut off many people, seeing he despised the oath by
breaking it. That's turning from God to our
flesh. He shall not escape. What's that song Moose sings
where he says, sovereign love, arrest that man. This is what
God, when we start running away, breaking our covenant, breaking,
running from God's hand, he gonna say, arrest him, bring him back.
That's a chosen child of God, don't let him go. He shall not
escape, verse 19. Therefore, thus saith the Lord
God, as I live, surely mine oath that he has despised my covenant
that he's broken. Now watch, I gotta add a word
here for you so you can get it. Even this sin, have I already
recompensed, not upon his own head, but I've already paid it
on my son. That sin you're breaking in the
trial, that sin we're breaking in breaking the covenant, he
says, I've already paid for that sin and put it on the head of
my son. And he bore it. and I'll spread my net upon him,
and I'll bring my snare upon him, and I'm gonna bring him
to Christ. I'm gonna bring him to heavenly
Jerusalem by sovereign grace and mercy, and I'll reason with
him there, and I'm gonna teach him his trespass, that he's trespassed
against me. We're always gonna be brought
to confess our sin to Christ when we've done this. And when
God reasons with His child, what happens? At the end of verse
21, you shall know that I the Lord have spoken. And you know
what we do? This unchangeable covenant of
grace has planted Christ our substitute upon that high mountain
and imminent in the mountain of the height of the Lord. And
so when God does this work in His child, look at verse 24,
here's what He's doing for us. He's bringing down the high tree
of our sinful flesh, exalting the low tree of our inward man. He's drying up the green tree
of our sinful flesh and making that dry tree of our inward man
to be renewed and to flourish. That's what He's doing. And then
He makes us know, I the Lord have spoken and have done it.
And what do you do? First thing we did when we saw
Christ bearing our sin, we mourned for Him as mourning for the firstborn. That's how He brings you to repentance.
He brings you to see. And then you're not so proud
anymore. It's not all that other person's
fault now. God has turned that finger around
and you see, I'm the sinner. I'm the sinner. And now there
can be some unity between you and God, between you and your
brother. Why? Because you're not proud
pointing a finger. You've been humbled by God, been
humbled by God. That's the unchanging unchangeable,
sovereign Lord of God, sovereign love of God that brought us to
repentance in the first hour and keeps bringing His child
to repentance and won't let us go. You know why salvation by
grace is the best news you'll ever hear if you find out you're
a real sinner? Because it means there was nothing in you that
made God choose you. And that means you can't send
away God's grace. You can't send it away. And we're going to do this throughout
our lives. We've got our sin nature. We're going to sin, we're
going to rebel, we're going to try to get out in front of God's
chastened hand, we're going to break covenants, all these things.
But you know what God's going to do? He's going to bring you
back into unity with Christ at His feet and show you He did
it. And that'll constrain you. You'd not want to go do that
same sin again. I don't want to do that again.
And if you do, He'll do it again. And He'll keep on until He gets
you at Christ's feet where you say, I just follow Him. I just want to follow Him. That's grace. He might not repair the damage
that was done by your sin. He might not fix the division
that was done by your sin. But He brings you into this unity
with Christ, and that's what matters. That's what matters. Our Father, we thank you for
this word. Pray, Lord, you'd make us be able to hear it. Pray
that you would, if there be any sinner, everlasting love by you
that is in the gall of bitterness and lifted up in pride and justifying,
self-justifying and condemning. Lord, work this work in their
heart. Work this work in our hearts.
Do it in all of our hearts. bring us down, bring us off our
lofty throne, and bring us to the dust, bring us to Christ's
feet. Lord, exalt Christ in our heart. Make us behold Him and
rejoice that everything's fulfilled by Him, and make us to follow
Him. Lord, if you work this in us,
it'll make us humble. It'll make us to love our brethren
and be lovable from our brethren. Lord, do this and make us united. We ask you to be with Cheryl
and bless her and her upcoming surgery and be with their family. We pray, Lord, for Shelby and
thank you that you've been strengthening her and pray you continue to
keep her. We pray for Robin and Lance and their daughter. Lord,
we know she took a turn for the worse. We pray you'll strengthen
her and keep them. Lord, you know your needs of
your people. We ask you to be merciful to us. Keep us from
being lifted up in pride. And Lord, don't let us be so
chastened by you. We're just dust. We can't handle
much. Lord, just keep us where we need
to be. Forgive us our sins. We thank You for Christ our Lord.
It's in His name we pray. Amen. All right, brethren, we're
going to observe the Lord's Table.