Chapter 5, Isaiah chapter 5. This message will probably be
a little longer and the next message will be shorter. I don't
like it when that happens. I was thinking about this on
the way over here and I told Melinda that I wasn't really
happy with my notes this morning. She informed me that, well, we're
not looking for mediocre, baby. So, I pray the Lord will make
it to where it won't be mediocre. We have here our next question
that our Lord asked a sinner. In Isaiah chapter 5 and verse
4, He says, ìWhat could have been done more to my vineyard
that I have not done in it? Wherefore, why, when I looked
that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes?î
Now in this passage, God the Father is speaking to His well-beloved
Son, Christ Jesus, concerning His vineyard. He says in verse
1, now will I sing to my well beloved a song of my beloved
touching his vineyard. The vineyard he's speaking of
here, he tells us in this passage, is the house of Israel and the
men of Judah. It's the Old Testament visible
church. Israel and Judah. And God used
Israel and Judah. He raised up that nation. And
He used that nation to show what we all are by nature and what
we will all do even though we've been given the greatest of advantages. That's what He shows us with
Israel. And what we learn here is sinners produce only dead
fruit unless Christ creates us anew. and Christ produces fruit
in us. Now we're going to see what God
did for Israel and Judah of the Old Testament. We'll see what
He did for them and their response. And then we'll go back and we'll
see what Christ has done for the Israel of the New Testament,
His elect. And then we will see how this
vitally applies to you and me in our day. Alright, first of
all, the advantage God gave to Israel of the Old Testament.
This is what we're seeing now, and we're going to see what their
response was. Isaiah 5.1, he says, My well-beloved hath a
vineyard in a very fruitful hill. Israel and Judah was the vineyard
of God's well-beloved son, Christ, who is the mediator between God
and men. God has entrusted this whole
thing to Christ from the foundation of the world. And so Christ formed
Israel to teach His people what we are. And it was Christ our
God who formed Israel. It was Christ our God who spoke
to Abraham and called him out, the father of the faithful. It
was Christ who spoke to Moses in the burning bush. It was Christ
who redeemed Israel out of Egyptian bondage. It was Christ who took
them across the desert and brought them to the land of Canaan. And
it's that land, that land of Canaan that he's talking about
here as being a very fruitful hill. That was the land of milk
and honey. All the other nations around
them were barren. All the world was in darkness,
spiritual darkness. And this one nation, Christ took
and He planted them in a very fruitful hill so that they would
have everything they needed to worship and serve Him. Christ
created this vineyard like a husbandman does a vineyard of grapes. He says here in verse 2, He fenced
it. He kept them protected. He kept
them hedged about from all the enemies around them. He says
there in verse 2, And He gathered out the stones thereof, stones
of darkness and stones of ignorance. He gave them light. He gave them
light. And he says there in verse 2,
and he planted it with the choice's vine. You remember when they
got to Canaan, and there was many who did not believe on the
Lord, and they wouldn't go in. And so the Lord let them wander
in the wilderness for 40 years until all those men died out. And then he delivered them into
Canaan and he planted this vineyard with his choice vine, with his
choice elect, sons of Abraham like Joshua and Caleb and other
believers that he had regenerated and given faith. So they started
out being led by men who believed the gospel. And then he says
in verse 2, and he built a tower in the midst of it. That tower
he's talking about, you know in a vineyard there's a tower
and it's a watchtower so you can watch and make sure nothing
gets in and harms the grapes. And that's a good illustration
of the temple that he built in Canaan. It was the temple of
God. It was the place where he put
his priests and where his prophets came and where they were the
watchmen watching over the souls of his people. The temple was
the place where God promised to meet with His people over
the mercy seat. In our day, He's promised to
meet us through the preaching of Christ and meet us in Christ. That's where He meets us. This
temple was like what we're doing here. This is what they came
there for. This was the watchtower. Verse
2, And also He made a winepress therein. A wine press is where
they brought all the grapes and you put all the grapes into the
wine vat and then they crush all the grapes and all the juice
flows out. Well, in the midst of where he put his people, he
put an altar. And that altar is where all His
sacrifices were brought, all these pictures of Christ, and
their blood flowed out, the blood of a substitute, constantly bearing
witness of Christ our substitute, constantly preaching Christ before
their eyes. And that blood flowed down that
altar for all those thousands of years, just like the blood
of the grape flows out in the wine press. And then it says,
Here is His charge against them in verse 2. And He looked that
it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes. When He says He looked for good
grapes, for good fruit, He was looking for love, and joy, and
peace, and longsuffering, and gentleness, and goodness, and
faith in Christ. and meekness and temperance,
because against these things there is no law. But they brought
forth wild grapes, they brought forth wild fruit, dead fruit. This is what they brought forth,
adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft,
hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies,
envying, murders, drunkenness, revelings and such like. And
those that do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.
And he says in verse 7, He says, for the vineyard, look at verse
7 there, He says, the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house
of Israel, and the men of Judah His pleasant plant. He looked
for judgment, and behold, oppression. For righteousness, but behold,
a cry. He looked for the fruit of judgment,
and what He means here is He looked for them to believe on
Christ. who settled judgment for his
people. He looked for them to deal justly with God and confess
their sin and their need of Christ and come to Christ that they
might be justified through faith in Him. And also that they would
deal justly with their brethren. But what did he find? Oppression.
Robbery toward God, trying to steal God's glory, trying to
steal the glory that belongs to Christ. and also building
up their homes. He had these false priests that
entered in and they fleeced the Lord's people, His poor people
and built these large places for themselves. He looked for the fruit of righteousness
but he heard the distressing cry of the poor come up into
his ears. And so he asked the question
in verse 4, Isaiah 5, verse 4. He says, What could have been
done more to my vineyard that I have not done in it? Wherefore,
when I looked, that it should bring forth grapes, brought it
forth wild grapes. The children of Israel, I want
you to turn to Romans 3. The children of Israel were given
every advantage that a people could be given. Every advantage
of people could be given. Romans 3.1 says, Paul says, What
advantage then hath the Jew? Or what profit is there of circumcision? Much every way. Much every way. Chiefly because
that unto them were committed the oracles of God. God committed to them all His
Word. He gave them light. In no other
nation He gave this to. He couldn't have given them any
more advantage than what He gave them. Now be sure to get this. This is the lesson. God teaches
us using the whole nation of Israel. They brought forth only
dead fruit. That's all they produced because
a sinner, even though he's given all these great advantages, A
sinner left to himself cannot produce fruit unto God. You recognize those two kinds
of fruit that I read to you. They are from Galatians 5. And
the grapes, that good fruit, Galatians 5 tells us that fruit
like love, joy, peace, that is the fruit of God the Holy Spirit. That's the fruit produced by
God the Holy Spirit. But the wild grapes, the dead
fruit, such as adultery and idolatry and hatred, that's the fruit
of the natural flesh of man. That's a man, unregenerate, left
in his natural born state. That's all he can produce. And
so even though they were given all this advantage, they couldn't
bring forth fruit. Go to Romans 6, just a moment.
Romans chapter 6. Look at verse 17. I just want
to point out one little phrase to you right here. Verse 17,
Paul is talking about when you were dead in sins. He says there,
you were the servants of sin. You were slaves to sin. You were in bondage to sin. It's
all you could do. He says there, let me see here. In verse 19, he says there that
you yielded your members as servants to uncleanness and to iniquity
unto iniquity. That's all we could do. We could
only yield our members to uncleanness and work iniquity. That's all
we could do when we were dead in sin. Look at verse 21. What
fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? For
the end of those things is death. Go to Romans 7 and look at verse
5. For when we were in the flesh,
the motions of sin which were by the law did work in our members
to bring forth fruit unto death. That's all we could bring forth.
Remember Christ said either make the tree good and its fruit will
be good or leave the tree alone, make it evil, and the fruit will
be evil. Because the tree is going to
be known by the fruit. A man that's corrupt can't bring
forth good fruit. And the one that God's made new,
and that new man, he can't bring forth corrupt fruit. Now today,
there's multitudes in religion. who were doing just what Israel
was doing. They had all the same things, all the oracles of God. They had all the same things
God had given. They had those things just like
God's true believers in Israel had. And today there's people
who they've got all the same word of God that God's true elect
have. But everything they're doing
in religion and all their wonderful works they're doing in religion
is nothing but dead fruit. That's all it is. Because they're
not born of God and Christ has not produced the fruit that they're
bringing forth. And I'll give you an example.
I studied a lot of writings and a lot of messages when I was
preparing this message. And you'd be amazed how many
preach on the responsibility of man. And that's what you should
preach from this. But they say, you see, if we
don't live up to our responsibility, then God's will is frustrated. And so then, just like he did
with Israel, he had to go to plan B and send forth his son
because they wouldn't cooperate with God. That's a lie. That's a lie. Look back at Romans
3 with me just a moment. When Paul was talking about the
advantages they were given, look at Romans 3 and verse 3. He says,
For what if some did not believe? Romans 3, 3. What if some did
not believe? Shall their unbelief make the
faith of God without effect? God forbid. Hey, let God be true,
but every man a liar, as it's written, that thou mightest be
justified in thy sayings, in thy word, and thou mightest overcome
when thou art judged. When a man doesn't believe what's
clearly revealed in God's Word, he's saying that God's not faithful
in His Word, and he's judging God Himself. But he doesn't change
God at all. He doesn't affect God's faithfulness
at all. He's just proving that he's an unbeliever, unregenerate,
reprobate. God's going to work what he says
he's going to work in his word regardless of what the unbeliever
does. So it doesn't affect God whatsoever.
So after the Lord called out his last elect in Israel, the
Lord destroyed that nation. Never to be built again. Look
at Isaiah 5 verses 5 and 6. Now go to, I will tell you what
I will do to my vineyard. I will take away the hedge thereof
and it shall be eaten up. And I'll break down the wall
thereof and it shall be trodden down. And I'll lay it waste and
it shall not be pruned nor digged. But there shall come up briars
and thorns and I will also command the clouds that they rain no
rain upon it. That's what God did. There's
a whole bunch of people right now that are thinking because
man created a nation called Israel and now our current president
just said Jerusalem is the capital. And you'd be surprised at how
people have gone crazy over that. Oh, this is it. God's raising
Israel up again and everybody's fixing to go to Israel and Christ
is going to come and there's going to be a thousand year reign
on this earth. That's not so. That's not so. Scripture says
that He went to Israel first. Christ went to Israel first.
Called out His elect from Israel. And when He's done with it in
70 AD, He destroyed it. Now there's just Gentiles. And He's going to save all His
Gentiles, elect. And when He's done saving us,
all Israel shall be saved. Because He's going to send forth
the gospel and turn away iniquity from Jacob. That's His people.
and He's going to save us all. But we're in the period that
men call the thousand year reign right now, and Christ is reigning.
And He's reigning through the Gospel. Now, mingled in all of
these warnings of judgment, all along Isaiah was declaring Christ
is coming. Christ is coming. He was declaring
the good news that Christ is coming. He's going to save his
elect. Look back at Isaiah 4 verse 2. I had a lot I wanted to show
you where you can read through here and you'll see so many places
where he starts talking about Christ coming. But this applies
to a vineyard so I'm just going to read this one. Isaiah 4 verse
2. In that day shall the branch
of the Lord, remember He is divine and we're the branches, In the
day Christ works grace for us and in us, He and His people
shall be beautiful and glorious. And the fruit of the earth, the
fruit that Christ produces in His people, shall be excellent
and comely for them that are escaped of Israel. And it shall
come to pass that he that is left in Zion and he that remaineth
in Jerusalem shall be called holy, even everyone that's written
among the living in Jerusalem. He saved those from Israel. whose names were written in the
Lamb's Book of Life. That's His true Israel, and that's
who He saved. And He says, When the Lord shall have washed away
the filth of the daughters of Zion, and shall have purged the
blood of Jerusalem from the midst thereof by the spirit of judgment,
and by the spirit of burning. And the Lord will create upon
every dwelling place of Mount Zion, and upon her assemblies,
that is, upon each individual believer, and upon His churches
everywhere. He says there He's going to create
upon every dwelling place and upon her assemblies a cloud and
smoke by day and the shining of a flaming fire by night for
upon all the glory shall be a defense. Remember in the wilderness they
had the cloud to lead them by day and the fiery pillar to lead
them by night? He says here Christ is going
to set up on each of His people His presence and upon His churches,
His presence and His glory is going to be our defense. He says
in verse 6, and there should be a tabernacle, that's Christ
Himself, that's His heavenly Jerusalem where He dwells and
that's His churches where He gives us a refuge. He says, and
it will be for a shadow in the daytime from the heat and for
a place of refuge and for a covert from storm and from rain. We
come here And it's like an oasis in the desert. We get to hear
of Christ our refuge. Christ our hiding place. Go over
to Isaiah 5.16. Remember I said He looked for
judgment and for righteousness? Look at Isaiah 5.16. But the Lord of hosts, Christ
Himself, shall be exalted in judgment, and God that is holy
shall be sanctified in righteousness. That's what He looked for in
them. He's going to be exalted in judgment and sanctified in
righteousness. How so? By the cross. at the
cross. That's where we see Him exalted
in His judgment and in His righteousness. And then shall the lambs feed
after their manner, and the waste places of the fat ones shall
strangers eat. That means His elect among the
Gentiles. Strangers will come in and feed with the lambs. So, in the fullness of time,
go to Mark 12 now. In the fullness of time Christ
came. Just like He said He would. And
Christ gave a parable to these men of Israel and to these men
of Judah. He gave them a parable while He walked this earth. And
I want you to read this parable. Mark 12 verse 1. He began to
speak unto them by parables and this was His parable. A certain
man planted a vineyard and set a hedge about it and digged a
place for the wine vat and built a tower and let it out to husbandmen
and went into a far country. And at the season, he sent to
the husbandman a servant that he might receive from the husbandman
of the fruit of the vineyard. And they caught him and beat
him and sent him away empty. And that's what happened with
all the prophets God sent through the ages to these people. They
beat them, they shamed them, they would not hear the message
they came to declare from God. And so on and on it went with
his servants. Look down at verse 6. Having yet therefore one son,
his well beloved, he sent him also last unto them, saying,
They will reverence my son. But those husbandmen said among
themselves, This is the heir. Come, let us kill him, and the
inheritance shall be ours. And they took him, and killed
him, and cast him out of the vineyard. And it says, when they
heard him give this parable, They perceived that He was talking
about them. He was. He was talking about
them. And it angered them. Did they
bow to Christ? No. A man given every advantage
will not bow to Christ unless God regenerates him. Instead,
what did they do? They united together and they
crucified the Lord of Glory. They did exactly what He said
they would do in the parable. He told them what they would
do beforehand. And instead of bowing and falling
down and begging Him, don't let it come to pass, they ignored
the Word and they did exactly what He said they would do. Have
you ever noticed when people oppose us, brethren? They are trying their best to
prove to you the Bible is not true and that Christ is just
another man. But in everything they say in
their opposition to you, they prove exactly what Christ said
they would do. They do exactly what Christ said
they would do. And so they prove by their opposition. They think they are turning you
from the Word of God. But they prove the Word of God
is true. And they think they are going to convince you not
to trust Christ. And they just make us cling to Christ more
intensely. That's what these men, they did
exactly what Christ said they did. They crucified the Lord
of Glory. Now, secondly, let's go back now and see in our text
with an eye, look at it with an eye to Christ. And let's see
what Christ did for His new elect vineyard, the true vineyard.
his elect Israel. He says here in verse 1, Now
will I sing to my well-beloved a song of my beloved touching
his vineyard. My well-beloved hath a vineyard
and a very fruitful hill. When the Son of God took flesh
and dwelt among us, and God the Father spoke from heaven, what
did He say? He said, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am
well pleased. And He speaks here of Christ
his beloved, his well-beloved having this vineyard. And the
work of creating his people anew, this work of creating his vineyard
anew, making his people brand new, it's all the work of Christ,
just like creating that first vineyard was the work of Christ.
He says, verse 2, he fenced it, he gathered out the stones thereof,
he planted it with a choice vine, but this time he didn't plant
it with simply plant it with men and leave them alone. This
time, He planted this vineyard with Himself. Christ Himself
is the choice vine. He is the one God the Father
chose. Behold My servant, Mine elect in whom I have chosen.
I have put My Spirit upon Him. He shall bring forth judgment.
And He is the choice vine. And when Christ came, He chose
out some men, apostles, and they were His choice planting. And He used those men to go forth
and preach the gospel, His apostles, so that the Scripture says, Paul
said, I've planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. And
so now the Scripture says we're built upon the foundation of
the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief
cornerstone. He's the choice vine. He's the
chief vine. But the way this church has been
planted and this vineyard has been planted is He sent forth
His apostles preaching the gospel so that we're on the foundation
they've laid, which is Christ Himself. Verse 2, And He built
a tower in the midst of it. Christ Himself is our high tower. The righteous runneth into it
and are safe, Scripture says. He's the high tower of His people.
wherever He's gathered up His people, just like He did for
the old Israel of old, wherever He's gathered His elect, those
He's redeemed, where He's gathered them up, He's put a tower in
the midst of them. He's placed His church and He's
placed His watchmen where the gospel will go forth, watching
for your souls. And this is the watchtower right
here. Where we're at right here is His high tower. Verse 2, And
he also made a winepress therein. He pictured it with that altar
on which all the blood was shed. But now Christ Himself has come. And Christ, Scripture says, He
trod the winepress of the fury of God's wrath all along. There was no man to help Him.
He went and He was made sin for His people and He tread that
winepress all along. And He was pressed down under
the shame of our sin and pressed down under the righteous judgment
of God upon Him. And until it squeezed out His
life's blood, just like the wine of the grape is squeezed out.
Verse 2, And He looked that it should bring forth grapes, And
by Christ's finished work of redemption, it brought forth
fruit in abundance. This new vineyard brought forth
fruit in abundance. All because of Christ our righteousness. Go back now to Romans 7 and look
at this. Romans 7 verse 4. Wherefore, my brethren, Romans
7 verse 4, Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the
law by the body of Christ, that ye should be married to another,
even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring
forth fruit unto God. See how we are bringing forth
fruit? Go to John 15. John 15. Look at verse 1. Christ said,
I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch
in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away, and every branch
that beareth fruit he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more
fruit. Now you are clean through the word which I have spoken
unto you. Abide in me, and I in you, as the branch cannot bear
fruit of itself except it abide in the vine. No more can you
except you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. He that abideth in me, and I
in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit. For without me you
can do nothing. See how our fruit is produced?
Scripture says, Psalm 92.12 says, The righteous shall flourish
like the palm tree. He shall grow like a cedar in
Lebanon. Those that be planted in the
house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God. They
shall still bring forth fruit in old age. They shall be fat
and flourishing to show that the Lord is upright, to show
that He is our rock and there is no unrighteousness in Him.
But we have to be planted by Him and He has to bring forth
the fruit. Now, God is satisfied with Christ
because of His work Our risen Lord is doing the opposite for
His vineyard of what He did for that unfruitful vineyard. He
is doing just the opposite. Instead of taking down the hedge
and the wall, Christ hedges us about and He protects us so that
no harm can be done to us. Isaiah 26, verse 1 says, In that
day shall this song be sung in the land of Judah. We have a
strong city. Salvation. Now listen to this,
salvation will God appoint for walls and bulwarks. You can,
in Isaiah 26.1, you can go in your Bible, and it's a small
S, but you can write a capital S there. Because remember when
they held up Christ and said, I've seen your salvation. Salvation
will God appoint for our walls. Christ is that salvation that
He's appointed to protect us. His righteousness accomplished.
Because God's just and all His people have been made righteous
in Him. God won't allow anything to happen to His people. It would
be unjust. So He won't. Christ is the wall.
In that day, sing ye unto her a vineyard of red wine. I the
Lord do keep it. I the Lord do keep it. Just as
Peter said, we're kept by the power of God. And instead of
laying it waste and not pruning it, We just read what Christ
does. Every branch that beareth fruit,
He purgeth it that it may bring forth more fruit. All His people
are going to bring forth fruit by Him and He's going to send
trials and put us through painful trials and purge us, prune us
and purge us to make us bring forth more fruit. And instead
of withholding the water of the gospel, They said, I will withhold
the clouds and there will be no rain on the Israel of old. But He won't do that for His
new elect, His elect people, His new vineyard. He says in
Isaiah 27.3, I will water it every moment, lest any hurt it. I will keep it night and day. Who is this new vineyard? Look
at Isaiah 5.7. For the vineyard of the Lord
of hosts is the elect house of Israel. and the elect men of
Judah, His pleasant plant. That is His elect from among
the Jew and the Gentile. That's His true Israel. Those
men of that natural nation were not all His elect. But this new
vineyard is made up of only His elect. Look, He looked for judgment
and in Christ, by Christ behold judgment. He looked for righteousness
and in Christ and by Christ behold righteousness. He brought all
His people to look to Christ and deal justly with God. He
brought us to confess our sin to the Lord and to say we need
to be saved by Christ alone. We need Him to fulfill the law
and righteousness for us. We need Him to justify us because
we can't do it ourselves. That's what faith proclaims.
And that way Isaiah 60, 21 says, Thy people also shall be all
righteous. because we were in Christ, and
by Him we've been made all righteous. All righteous. He says, they
shall inherit the land forever, the branch of my planting, the
work of my hands, that I may be glorified. Isaiah 61.3, that
they may be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that
He might be glorified. And Paul put it simply in Philippians
1.11, He said, we're filled with the fruits of righteousness which
are by Jesus Christ. They're by Jesus Christ unto
the glory and praise of God. Now, let's answer this question
again, but let's answer it now concerning the new covenant vineyard.
In verse 4, what could have been done more to my vineyard that
I have not done in it? Nothing. Christ said it's finished. He's done everything that needs
to be done. Wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes,
brought it forth good grapes, because Christ divine produces
only good fruit, brethren, and he shall not fail to produce
good fruit in his people. Now, thirdly, let's see how this
applies to us right now, where we are. What are some lessons
we can take from this? First of all, remember this. God has given us, right here
in our day, far more light than He ever gave to Israel in the
wilderness. Christ has come. He's redeemed
His people. The gospel has been given to
you right here in this place so that you have the gospel of
our Lord. Do not do what Israel did. They despised it. They wouldn't
seek the Lord. They didn't walk in this light. You walk in this light by being
here to hear the gospel preached. You walk in this light by going
home and studying what you heard. You walk in this light by casting
all your care on Christ to keep you and produce fruit in you. But they wouldn't walk in that
light. And just like Israel of old, brethren, the Lord destroyed
that nation in His wrath And there's coming a day when He's
going to destroy this whole world in His wrath and every rebel
that would not walk in His light is going to be cast into outer
darkness. Every single one of them. That's
serious business. God is a God of love, but He's
a God of wrath too towards the ungodly. And here's the fact
of the matter. If we're saved, It's going to
be because God predestinated us. He chose us in Christ. He
predestinated us to the adoption of children. Christ Jesus redeemed
us. It's going to be all God's doing and God's going to get
all the glory. But if we perish, it's going to be all our fault.
God doesn't predestinate men to hell. You'll read in Scripture,
all through Scripture, Every time God turned a man over to
reprobation, He said, it's because you would not hear My Gospel,
you would not believe My Word. Every time. See, God's just.
He does nothing that's unjust. When He pours out fury upon a
people, it's going to be just because we sinned in Adam and
we would not come to Him and believe on Him. Now again, let
me remind you, We are responsible to believe on Him. Everyone is.
But our inability to believe on Him does not excuse our responsibility
to believe on Him. I am preaching something to you
that you are going to have to look in God's Word and see this
is so brethren. Our inability does not excuse
our responsibility. The creditor comes to you saying
you owe a bill. You say, well, I don't have any
ability to pay it. They're not going to say, well,
you're not responsible for it then. No, they're going to say,
well, you're still responsible to pay it even though you don't
have the ability to pay it. And so, therefore, God's just, brethren,
to pour out wrath on men. You know what Esau did? Esau
sold his birthright. Esau hated God. Esau despised
the light God had given him. And God poured out wrath on Esau. He poured out wrath on Esau.
You see, God didn't choose you and me and save us without it
being upon a condition. The condition wasn't in us. The
condition was Christ had to come and work all the works to make
us righteous. And God's not going to punish
men in hell except there was a work that was unrighteous.
Because God's just. Everything He does is in strict
righteousness. When you try to discern any truth
in this book, you start right here remembering Christ is righteous. And everything He does is going
to be done in righteousness. You have that key, it'll unlock
the whole of the scriptures for you. And you'll be able to understand
these things because He's righteous. He's going to do what's right.
He's going to do what's right. Would it be right for a judge
to call you into a courtroom and say, we're going to lock
you up in prison and you hadn't done anything? To be locked up? That wouldn't be just, would
it? Well, when He throws us into hell, if we meet Him without
Christ and meet Him rebelling against His Word and meet Him
dead in our sin, it will be just because we earned it. What does
the Scripture say? The wages. The wages. The earned wages of sin is death. You earn it. We earn that. Christ
Jesus is the Savior of sinners, brethren. If you cast your care
on Him, He'll save you. He'll receive you. He delights
to show mercy. He says repeatedly in the Old
Testament, Come unto me, seek me while I may be found. I'm
not like men are. I will have mercy. I will save. I delight to save. And I pray
today God the Holy Spirit make you His new creation and make
you put off the old man with his sinful deeds and put on the
new man which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness
and bring you to Christ and rest all your hope in Him. It's a
fruitful vineyard that Christ has made and His people have
a glorious future brethren. So remember this, you that believe
the Lord, you're bought with a price, therefore glorify God
in your body and in your spirit. You're bought, you're purchased.
Whether you eat therefore or you drink or whatever you do,
do it all to the glory of God. In just a few minutes, after
the next message, we're going to partake of the Lord's table.
We're going to eat and we're going to drink. And you know
what we're going to do? We're going to do it giving our God
all the glory. I pray He bless that message.
Amen. Let's stand together. Father, thank You for Your Word.
We pray that You would bless it to our hearts now and Lord,
some things are hard to be understood, but we pray you would make us
see and know exactly what your word says. Lord, don't let us
earn condemnation. Save us in spite of us. Send
forth your spirit to your elect and quicken us and bring us to
the feet of Christ. We ask it in Christ's precious
name. Amen.