I have a very strong conviction
to preach the Gospel tonight as though I was preaching it
to a room of people that have never, ever heard the Gospel. The reason I have this conviction
is because there are some here who have never heard the Gospel. Oh, they've been here and they've
heard me preach but they've never heard the Gospel. And I want
you tonight to take your Bible. I want everybody here to take
your Bible like it's the first time you ever held a Bible in
your hand. And I want you to open the Bible and I want you
to read with me as we look in these Scriptures. And I'm going
to try, as God will enable me, I'll try my best to preach the
Gospel as simply as I possibly can preach it. Now, this time
the question that God asks sinners is found here in Isaiah 1. Now this is God speaking. This
is God speaking. He is speaking in vision through
Isaiah, but this is God speaking. And He is speaking to the inhabitants
of Judah and Jerusalem. Everything He says here has its
first application to Judah and Jerusalem. But this question
and everything else that we see here regarding sinners applies
to every sinner as we are born in our natural state. The things
that we are going to see here concerning our sin is what we
are the way we are born into this world. It speaks to every
one of us here. Every man, woman, child on the
top side of this earth, it describes us. Now in verse 5, here's the
question. God says, why should ye be stricken
anymore? If God threatens a sinner, if
God threatens a sinner or smites a sinner, will that sinner or
can that sinner of himself, can he hear and obey God? Can the sinner justify himself
of his sin before God so that he can be just with God? Can the sinner subdue his flesh
and put down his sinful flesh and obey the Word of God? God
answers, no. He says, why should you be stricken
anymore? Verse 5, you will revolt more
and more. If God just strikes a man and
doesn't sanctify it to his heart, He allows that man of himself
to deal with it, to deal with the correction, to deal with
the threatening or the chastisement or the rod or whatever, the providence,
whatever God sends. If he is smitten of God, it will
do no good. He will revolt more and more.
And here is why. Because the whole head is sick
and the whole heart faint. Now here is the point of the
message tonight. I want to drive this home in
every point that I preach. The only way that sinners can
be saved is for God to intervene and do all the things necessary
to save us. The only way a sinner can be
saved, the only way all those whom God saves are saved, is
by God intervening, interrupting, stepping in, and doing everything
involved, doing everything necessary to save that sinner. Now first
of all, God's creation bears witness with God that all men
have rebelled against God. Look back at verse 2. God says,
ìHear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth, for the Lord hath spoken.î
He's calling heaven and earth to witness with Him. And this
is what He says, "...I've nourished and brought up children, and
they've rebelled against Me. The ox knoweth his owner, and
the ass his master's crib. But Israel doth not know, My
people doth not consider." God calls heaven and earth to witness
here. He calls heaven and earth as
His witnesses of what He's done. And He says this, now listen
carefully, I have nourished, God said, and I have brought
up children. Now what God says there of Israel
is true of every man, woman, and child in this earth. God
has nourished and raised us up, every one of us. We are all the
children of God by God creating us. Go to Acts chapter 17 with
me. Acts 17 and look at verse 26. It says here, Acts 17, 26, "...God hath made
of one blood all nations of men, for to dwell on all the face
of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and
the bounds of their habitation." that they should seek the Lord,
if happily they might feel after Him and find Him, though He be
not far from every one of us. For in Him we live and move and
have our being, as certain also of your own poets have said,
for we are also His offspring." All of us are nourished and brought
up by God. God's made us all, He's created
us all, and He's nourished us, and He's brought us up. That's
true. By His creating us. And also
in our text, God calls heaven and earth to witness of what
we've done. Verse 2. Go back to Isaiah 1 and verse
2. And they have rebelled against
me. They have rebelled against me.
Go to Romans 5 with me. When Adam rebelled against God
in the garden, Adam's entire race rebelled in him. You hear
me now? When Adam rebelled in the garden,
every person, all Adam's race, we all came from Adam, That's
that one blood that God created. He made Adam a federal legal
head. He's the father of us all. And so, whatever Adam does, that's
what the legal standing goes to all his people, and also we're
all born of him. So scripture says this, when
he rebelled, we rebelled. Romans 5.12. Now this is God's
Word. Wherefore, as by one man, sin
entered into the world and death by sin. Spiritual death and the
cause of physical death is sin. And so death passed upon all
men. For that, all have sinned. The margin says, in whom all
have sinned. Look down at verse 19. For as
by one man's disobedience, there was the first rebellion. God said they've rebelled against
me. There's the first rebellion. As by one man's disobedience,
many were made sinners. Many were made sinners. Now,
that meant when Adam rebelled against the law of God and broke
that law of God, he became a transgressor and that sin was was passed to
all His people in Adam. Born then of Adam's corrupt seed. That's how we were all born.
We all were born of that one man, Adam. And so born of his
corrupt seed, we were conceived in sin so that as soon as we
came forth from our mother's womb, we began rebelling against
God. Scripture says this, Psalm 58.3, Oh, that's those people that
are way worse than I am. No, that's you and that's me
by nature. The wicked are estranged from
the womb. They go astray as soon as they
be born speaking lies. Nobody had to teach you and me
how to sin. We were born conceived in sin and therefore we already
knew how to do it. We came forth sinners. Our fall
was so severe. God tells us how severe our fall
was. Now go back to Isaiah 1. Our
fall was so severe that we are worse than even brute beasts.
Look here in verse 3. The ox knows his owner, and the
ass his master's crib, but Israel doth not know, my people doth
not consider. Israel doesn't know. My people
don't consider. Now, just as true as that's true
for Israel in Isaiah's day, that's true of every man, woman and
child. We don't know and we don't even consider. We don't know
the Lord and we don't even take the time to consider the fact
that we don't know the Lord. You can bring up any random subject
you want to bring up to anybody And just about 99.99% of the
time, they'll have some input on it. But you start talking
about this Word of God, and people don't even want to consider that.
Don't even want to consider that. Not only do we not know God,
we don't even consider these things. Romans 3.11, There is
none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. How many times parents do you
come in and you have to say, son, you are going to have to
get out of that Bible now and come over here and do some chores.
But you have to tell them, you have to get off that video game,
or you have to get out of that TV, or you have to get off under
that basketball goal. But never, you have to get out
of that Word. None understandeth, none seeketh
after God. Proverbs 17, 11. What do we seek
then? Proverbs 17, 11 says an evil
man seeketh only rebellion. An evil man, a sinner in his
natural state seeks one thing. Rebellion. Rebellion against
God. That's all he seeks. And then
look at this. God declares that we're all one. All of us on this human race,
we're all one. We're all one in total depravity. Go back now to our text. Before
God, all men of every nation are just one nation. We're just
but one nation. And look at what he says, Isaiah
1.4. A sinful nation. We're all just one people. Verse
4, a people laden with iniquity. We're all one race before God,
a seed of evildoers. We're just one family, children
that are corruptors. And we're all guilty of the same
crime. Look at verse 4, they've forsaken the Lord, They have
provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger. They are gone away
backward. Go over to Romans 3. This is
all summed up by Paul in Romans 3. Now this is God's Word concerning
me and you and everybody else as we are born into this world.
Now if you were going to see a doctor and that doctor was
telling you you had terminal cancer, I bet every one of us
would be, we would just be perched on the edge of our seat listening
to every word that came from His mouth, wouldn't we? This
right here is worse than having terminal cancer. Will we listen
to this? Listen, Romans 3, 9. What then?
Are we better? Is anybody better than anybody
else? Nope, in no wise, in no way. For we have before proved both
Jews and Gentiles. That sums up everybody. Everybody's a Jew or a Gentile.
That they're all under sin. As it's written, there's none
righteous, no not one. There is none that seeketh after
God. They are all gone out of the
way. They are together become unprofitable. There is none that
doeth good, no, not one. Their throat is an open sepulchre,
with their tongues they have used deceit. The poison of asps
is under their lips. whose mouth is full of cursing
and bitterness, their feet are swift to shed blood, destruction
and misery are in their ways, and a way of peace have they
not known. There is no fear of God before
their eyes. Now we know that what thing soever
the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law, now watch
this, that every mouth may be stopped. And all the world may
become guilty before God. This is the case with every single
one of us by nature. As we are born into this world,
we are all one in universal, total depravity, total ruin,
all guilty before God. Now, due to this ruin, God declares
it's useless for God to send correction because of ourselves,
we cannot do anything to save ourselves. That's the point of
the question in verse 5. Why should you be stricken anymore?
God declares it's useless to strike a depraved sinner. It's
useless to strike him with the law of God. That's what most
churches are doing. Most churches are taking the
law of God and using it unlawfully. We just read the law was given
to shut every mouth and to declare us all guilty. That's what the
law was given for. But men are trying to strike
sinners with the law to try to make them clean up the outside. and call that righteous. That's
not righteousness. The Lord told the Pharisees,
you may clean the outside of the cup, but inside you're full
of dead men's bones. You're like a grave inside. It does no good to strike a man
with a law. It does no good for God to send
all kinds of troubling providence to a man and strike the man in
his family or in his occupation, in his business, in his health,
his body. That won't make a man repent. That won't make a man believe
God. It does no good to strike him there. It's useless to strike a man
with threats of hell. You can try to scare a man all
you want to. Yes, we're all going to die.
And after this, the judgment. You and I both are going to all
stand before God and give account to God. Believe it or not, like
it or not. That's so. But I can tell you
that until I'm blue in the face and tell you that except you're
found in Christ, you're going to go to hell and God's going
to cast you into outer darkness. And I can try to describe it
to you and talk about a place where God's presence is not and
how God takes His restraining hand off of everybody present
there so that anybody can do whatever comes into their mind
to you. And that won't That won't produce
repentance. That won't create a new life
in a sinner. That won't help him put away
his sin. That won't make him new. What
good does it do to strike you, God said? Now, men like to boast
that sinners have a free will. Well, God tells us right here
what we will do. This is God speaking and He tells
us, left in this state, if God just simply strikes you in one
of these ways, here's what you will do. Verse 5, you will revolt
more and more. Left to ourselves, though God
strike us, of ourselves, the only thing we'll do is we'll
revolt more and more. Now let me tell you what form
some of that revolt takes. Look at verses 13 and 14. And
you'll see that this revolt is often religious revolt. In verse
13, God said, don't bring me any more vain oblations. Incense
is an abomination to me. The new moons and the Sabbaths,
the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with it. It's iniquity.
Even the solemn meeting, God said. Your new moons and your
appointed feasts, my soul hateth. They're trouble unto me. I'm
weary to bear them. You see what I'm saying? You
can paint a man up with religion and get him in the finest church
or cathedral or denomination or whatever you want to that
you think is the greatest. He's just revolting against God. What's our problem? Verse 5.
The whole head is sick. That means our judgment is corrupt. And the whole heart is faint.
That means our affections are corrupt. We don't desire what
God desires. From the sole of the foot even
to the head, there's no soundness in it. That word soundness means
entirety. It means completeness. There's
nothing entire about a sinner. There's nothing complete within
a sinner. That means there's no character
and no principle in our sinful flesh. Nothing solid about Him,
about us. But there's wounds and bruises
and putrefying sores, stinking iniquity, abomination before
God. And no man can cure himself.
Look at this, they've not been closed, neither bound up, neither
mollified with ointment. You mean all that religious work
didn't clean up some of that stink? Not at all. God said they're
just open, putrefying wounds. They haven't been closed up,
haven't been mollified with ointment, nothing. No man can cure himself. Well, now then, that's a pretty
bleak picture. If God says what good is it going to do to even
try to correct a man, he'll just revoke more and more, then how
on earth can a sinner be saved? Is anybody interested in this?
Is anybody interested to know? You see, most people don't get
this far. They're not interested in what
comes next because they don't believe what we just said. No,
no, that's not me. It will do you no good to be
stricken. You'll just revolt more and more. So then how can a sinner be saved
out of this depraved humanity? Well, I'm going to narrow it
down to three things. First of all, salvation begins
Now get this and you'll get something that 99% of the religious world
does not have. Salvation begins with God. It does not begin with you and
me. It begins with God. It begins with God electing whom
He will save. Look in verse 9. Except the Lord
of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have
been as Sodom and we should have been like unto Gomorrah. Who
made the exception? Except the Lord of hosts. Before this whole world fell
in Adam, before we fell in Adam, before God even made the world
yet, God chose His Son. He chose to glorify His Son. He chose to exalt His Son. He
chose to give Him all honor and all glory and all preeminence
in all things. And the way God chose to do that
is by electing a people and giving them to Christ for Christ to
save. It's called divine election.
You can't read the Scriptures without coming across it. It's
one of the chief ways God's people address one another in the New
Testament. The elect. The elect. Ephesians 1 says,
Blessed be God and Father, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ who blessed us. This is a believer writing to
believers in Ephesians. And the us he is talking about
are us who have been called. And he said, God blessed us with
all spiritual blessings, all spiritual blessings in heavenly
places in Christ, according as He chose us in Him before the
foundation of the world. Why don't men like that? Because
when you start with God, you are not starting with man. You
automatically take the glory out of man's hand, out of the
sinner's hand, and give it all to God. This is what the book
declares. This is God's Word right here.
You know, there's people around here that if never, they weren't
raised in families, they didn't have this book, they've never
been taught this book, they've never been in a church that preached
this book, and they don't have what everybody has that are sitting
here. You know, Scripture says to whom
much is given, much is required. Everybody that's heard this gospel
will be held to a different standard than folks who didn't have it.
See, to have never had it and reject God is one thing. To reject,
just reject the light of nature, which leaves a man without excuse. But to reject the Word of God
that's been declared in truth, that's worse. So listen to what I'm saying.
This book, God's given it and all through it He declares the
way He saves is it began in eternity before God. God determined the
end from the beginning. He didn't base it on anything
in His people. He chose His people by His grace. And you see what they're saying
there is they said except the Lord had chosen a remnant, unless
there was a very small remnant among us who are God's true Israel,
Then a long time ago, we would have been like Solomon and Gomorrah.
What did God do in Solomon and Gomorrah? He destroyed it. But
you remember what God told Abraham? He said, Abraham said, he had
Lot down there and Lot was a child of God. And he was a righteous
man in Christ, by Christ's righteousness. And Abraham petitioned God and
he said, what if you just find 50 righteous men down there?
God said, I'll spare it if there's 50. What if there's just 40? And he worked his way all the
way down and God said, if there's just 10 men there, I'll spare
it. God spared it for one. There was one man there that
we know of and God spared it until he got that man out. But
then what happened? He destroyed it. And they're
saying if God didn't have an elect remnant in Israel, He would
have long time ago destroyed this nation. Except the Lord
of hosts had left us a very small remnant, He would have destroyed
Israel. Well, you know what? Back there
in the garden, when Adam sinned, except God had an elect remnant,
He would have destroyed Adam right then and destroyed all
humanity right then. Well, why hadn't He destroyed
the earth now? Romans 11 verse 5 says, ìEven
so, then, at this present time also there is a remnant according
to the election of grace.î Thatís why thereís a remnant that God
chose. So first of all, this thing of
salvation begins with God choosing whom He will. He chose whom He
would. And then secondly, God's elect
remnant are saved by God sending His own Son to redeem His people
in judgment. Go to verse 24. He spoke there
about how the city is ruined and the place that once was beautiful
is ruined and it's all corrupt. And that picture of Israel becoming
corrupt, that's just a small little picture of this whole
world falling in Adam. And so what's God going to do
now? Verse 24, Therefore saith the Lord, The Lord of Hosts. That capital L-O-R-D, remember,
means Covenant God. The God of Covenant. The God
who promised His Son. and whose Son promised Him. The
covenant of grace is all ordered and assured by God, the Lord
of hosts, the Mighty One of Israel. Ah, I will. I will. I will ease me of mine adversaries. I will avenge me of mine enemies.
I will turn my hand upon thee and purely purge away thy draws
and take away all thy ten. And I will restore thy judges
as at the first and thy counselors as at the beginning. He said
there that all the rulers and the preachers, everybody was
corrupt. They were all doing what they were doing for bribes
and for rewards. He said, I'm going to give you
judges and I'm going to give you true counselors and afterward
thou shall be called the city of righteousness, the faithful
city. Zion shall be redeemed with judgment
and her converts with righteousness. You see, God says there, I'm
going to turn My hand upon you. He's talking to His elect. I'm
going to turn My hand upon you. I'm going to purge away your
draws. But before God could turn His
hand upon His chosen remnant and do a work of grace in us,
He turned His hand upon His own Son. And He redeemed His people with
judgment. Go to Zechariah 13. Zechariah
13. Look here, Zechariah 13. He said, I'm going to turn my
hand upon you, mine elect. But before he turned his hand
upon us, he turned his hand upon the Lord, upon Christ. Look here,
Zechariah 13, 7. Awake, O sword, against my shepherd. Against the man that is my fellow,
saith the Lord of hosts. Smite the shepherd. and the sheep,
there's the elect remnant, they shall be scattered into all the
world. And I will turn mine hand upon
the little ones. But see, he doesn't say I'm going
to turn my hand upon the little ones until first he's pulled
out his sword and with his hand he's smitten the shepherd. Why
was Christ smitten? Why should Christ be smitten
by the Lord? That's our question. He said
of us, of the sinner, why should you be smitten anymore? You'll
just revolt and revolt. And here he says, I'm going to
smite the shepherd. Well, why should the shepherd
be smitten? The shepherd should be smitten because his whole
point in coming was to redeem his people in judgment. His whole
point was to declare the righteousness of God. And so He came forth
and to purge away our draws and our sin and to manifest the righteousness
of God, the sinless Lord Jesus Christ willingly gave Himself
to bear our dross. If He's going to purge our dross,
our sin, He had to first bear our dross. He had to bear our
sin. And He had to stand as the head.
Remember, how did we die? Our head. Our legal representative
rebelled against God and we sinned in the garden in Him and became
sinful in Him. Unrighteous by His transgression.
Well, if you go back to Romans 5 and read it, the whole point
of that is to say, as by one man's disobedience many were
made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. Christ the Lord is that one.
He's that Holy One of Israel. And so He took our draws. He
took the sin of this elect remnant so that now God would be just,
righteous to smite Him. instead of His people. It would
do no good to smite you and me. We would just revolt more and
more. But when He smoked the shepherd, when He smoked Christ,
when He turned His hand upon Christ and He smoked Christ,
Christ bore it. He bore the justice. He bore
that sword, that smiting in place of His people. And so by His
blood, judgment has been laid to the line. God has redeemed
His people in justice, in righteousness. He's done it in a right way.
That's why the Scripture says this, when He had by Himself
purged our sins, He said, I'm going to purge your dross. How
does that purging of our dross begin? It starts with Him at
Calvary. bearing our dross and being smitten
by the sword because He was bearing the dross of His people so that
justice has been laid to the line. Justice is satisfied and
by Him, by Himself, He purged our sins and sat down on the
right hand of the Majesty on high. Isaiah said in verse 27,
Isaiah 1.27, Zion, that's all God's elect. That's all the select
remnant. That's the true Israel, the true
church. Zion shall be redeemed, how? With judgment. And now,
Isaiah was talking in future tense. He was speaking prophetically
that Zion shall be redeemed in judgment. You know what our gospel
is? Zion has been redeemed in judgment. It's accomplished.
When Christ said it's finished, that means it's done. It's accomplished. So salvation is first of all
by God choosing an elect remnant. The Lord, except the Lord of
hosts, had left us a small remnant. And secondly, it's by Christ
coming forth and Him taking the place of that remnant and bearing
our draws and bearing the justice that that draws demanded so that
now judgment, we've been redeemed with judgment. And then here's
the third way. From God's right hand, there
where Christ sits at God's right hand as the head of His church,
He does what Isaiah prophesied. Verse 26, God said, He said,
I'm going to restore your judges and your counselors. Christ sends
forth His Gospel out of heavenly Zion, out of heavenly Jerusalem,
from His throne of grace. I don't have time now, but you
can read Isaiah chapter 2, and you'll find over there, I believe
it's in verse 3, He talks about the law going out of Zion. That's
the Gospel. The Gospel goes out of Zion.
You go read Hebrews 12, and He'll tell you we've come unto Mount
Zion. heavenly Jerusalem. And from
that throne where Christ sits, He sends the Gospel out of Zion.
That's how He restores our judges and our counselors. And He sent
forth His apostles and His preachers. That's the judges and the counselors
He's talking about. Men who will declare these wonderful
works of God without apology, in spirit and in truth, according
to God's Word. That's what you want. You don't
want a preacher who will take a bribe. Do you want a president
who will take a bribe? Do you want a governor who will
take a bribe? Or a mayor who will take a bribe
and pervert justice? You surely don't want a preacher
who will do that. And if a man won't speak according
to this Word, it's because he is taking bribes. And he'll lose
that bribe if he preaches it. But He sends forth His judges
and His counselors, His preachers, His apostles, and they speak
the Word in truth. And also He does it this way,
by Him sending forth the Holy Spirit, who regenerates His people
and creates us anew and guides us into all truth in Spirit. Why is this funny? Why is this
a joke? Because that is a hammer. That
is that bench he is sitting on. It will only be when the Spirit
of God comes forth and gives life. It makes me to see, or
whatever sinner it is, to see that this is me that is the sinner. This is me that is ruined right
here. I need God. Then this will be life and death. Then you'll be that cancer patient
sitting on the edge of the seat saying, physician, tell me what
I need to do. Tell me how I can be cured. So that's how He establishes
these counselors. He sends the gospel forth out
of Zion. He sends His preachers preaching.
He sends the Spirit to make it effectual in the heart. And then
Christ does this. He does what He said He would
do there. He said, I'll purge away your draws and all your
tin. He does that inwardly. He's done
it at Calvary's cross before the law, before the judgment
seat of God, before the judge. He's done it now. Now He comes
and He's going to have to make you understand it. And to do
that, He is going to have to purge away your dross inwardly.
He is going to have to take away your tin inwardly and create
in you a new man and bring you to hear this message. And the
Scripture says, How much more shall the blood of Christ, who
through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God,
purge your conscience from dead works? Well, preacher, you said
when He had by Himself purged our sins, He sat down at the
right hand of God. That is what He did before the
law of God. But then He comes and He purges
our conscience from dead works too. This is the purging of our
draws and taking away of our ten. And in verse 27, by all
of this, He makes His converts with righteousness. He redeemed
us with judgment and He is going to convert us the same way, with
righteousness. He makes His redeemed, regenerated
people willing to confess what is right. What's a righteous
confession? All I am is sin. All I can produce
is sin. I can't contribute one thing
to this work. That's what it is to be converted
in righteousness. What's a righteous confession?
The Lord is all my righteousness. He's all my hope and all my stay.
I trust Him to have done all this work for me and in me and
to keep me and bring me to glory and present me to Himself without
spot or without blemish. He is my only hope. That is a
righteous confession. He makes His converts in righteousness.
So you and I are ruined. It will do no good to smite us.
How are we going to be saved? By divine election. By Christ
redeeming us with His blood and by the Spirit of God regenerating
us and converting us with the end. And this is done in judgment
and in righteousness. So let me end here where God
ends. This is the word to every sinner sitting here now. If this
applies to you, if you are this sinner that is talking about
right here, if you can say without a reservation, ìThatís me youíre
talking about,î then Iíve got a word for you. If thatís not
you, Iíve got a word for you too. Iíll get to it in just a
minute. But here's the word to the sinner, verse 18. Come now,
let us reason together, saith the Lord. Though your sins be
as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Though they be
red like crimson, they shall be as wool. If you be willing
and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land. Has Christ
sent this word to you now and said, Come now, let us reason
together, and made you willing? Has He? If you are willing and
obedient, what does that mean? Is there something I need to
do? Here it is. Are you willing to confess your sins are red
like scarlet? Are you willing to confess that
you can't wash them, that you can't do anything about them?
Are you willing to confess you're saved by God's electing grace
apart from your works, by Christ's redeeming grace apart from your
works, by the Holy Spirit's regenerating grace apart from your works?
Are you willing to confess Christ is all your righteousness and
you have none of your own? You're saved totally by Him apart
from any works of your own? That's what it is to be willing
and obedient. And if you be willing and obedient, you shall eat the
good of the land. What's that mean? What he said,
verse 18, ìThough your sins be as scarlet, theyíll be white
as snow. And though they be red like crimson, theyíll be as wool.î
Thatís eating the good of the land. Eating the good that Christ
has brought to us. Iím washed. Iím purged. Iím righteous with God. Iím righteous
with God. But I have a word, if you're
not this sinner and none of this applies to you and you're a really
good person in your mind, I've got a word for you too, verse
20. But if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured with the
sword. Christ bore that sword of justice
in the place of His people. And everybody that calls on Him
and casts their care on Him, Everything Christ is and everything
He accomplished is ours freely. So that we are complete in Him.
But if you refuse Christ and you rebel against this Word of
God, God says justice will be carried out. Righteousness will
be poured out. But you must bear that sword
on your own. Are you willing to bear that? How do I know, preacher, any
of this is true? How do I know any of this is what is going
to truly happen? Verse 20, For the mouth of the Lord hath spoken
it. This is the Word of God. This
is the Gospel. Just think about this. Everybody
in this room tonight, November the 30th. Here it is, what is
it? 8.31. From this moment forward, when
we meet God, nobody here will say they didn't hear the truth.
Not anybody. What's your excuse for not believing,
son? I sent my Word to you. November
30th, from 7.30 to 8.30, you heard it preached. You saw it
in my Word. Why didn't you believe it? It's
my Word that's spoken. Why didn't you believe me? You
calling me a liar? Why didn't you believe me? And
for some, you'll be able to say, Lord, thank you. You made me
hear it. And you saved me. And I pray
God make you hear this. Save you. Amen.