Alright brethren, let's turn
to Isaiah 66. I want to begin reading in verse
18 just to refresh us. And I want
to point out a few things to you as we read this that will
help us for tonight. He says, verse 18, the second part there, He says,
It shall come that I will gather all nations and tongues, and
they shall come and see My glory. And I will set a sign among them. We saw last time, this is the
work that Christ did in calling out His elect from among the
Jews. How that He gathered them at
Pentecost, and through Peter He preached the gospel to them.
There was all nations gathered there, it says in Acts 2, and
He preached the gospel to them. And He made them to see Christ,
the glory of God. And He set that sign, He set
that banner in their heart. sanctified them, made them holy
so that they could believe and worship the Lord Jesus. That's
where he started this work. You know the sun comes up in
the morning and it comes up in the east. And John said in Revelation, he said,
I saw the angel of God ascending out of the east. And one that
was the commanding angel among those angels that came up out
of the east is Christ. And He said, Do not touch the
earth. Don't harm anybody in the earth
till I have sealed My servants. And that's Christ's command.
Don't touch anybody in this earth till I've sealed by the Holy
Spirit through the preaching of My Word till I've sealed mine
elect. with the Holy Spirit. That the
Word, the world is held in store right now by the Word of Christ. And that's the Word. Don't touch
them. Don't touch them till I've sealed all my people. Now that
sun comes up in the east like that angel ascended. Christ is
the day star that springs up. He's the Son of Righteousness
that arises with healing in His wings, with healing in His rays.
And it rises in the east. Christ started in the east. He
started at Jerusalem, calling out His people, sealing His people.
But then the sun goes throughout the day and it goes to the west.
And Christ, once He had called His people in Jerusalem, He sent
them forth. He started sending them to the
Gentiles. He sent them west to seal His people. He says there
now in verse 19, I'll set a sign among them, and
I will send those that escape of them, those that I've made
to escape of the Jews by My grace. I'll send them unto the Gentile
nations, to Tarshish, and Bull, and Lud, that draw the bow, to
Tubal, and Javan, to the isles afar off that have not heard
My fame, nor have seen My glory. And they shall declare My glory
among the Gentiles," He said. Now that's what That's that sun
going forth, sending the gospel to the west. And just like the
sun doesn't go down until all the work's accomplished through
the day, and then that's the end of the day. Well, Christ
won't stop this work until He's sealed every one of His children,
called them and sealed them. Then, the day of grace, this
day of grace will be over. Just like the sun comes in the
east, goes through the day, and when the day's done, then that
day's over. When He's finished calling all
these people, then the day will be over. But He started in the
east and He started calling. Now watch this here. Verse 20. And they shall bring
all your brethren for an offering unto the Lord out of all nations. Now look down at the last part.
As the children of Israel bring an offering in a clean vessel,
into the house of the Lord. Now that's priest language. Did you get that? That's priest
language. You know the children of Israel, they come, they had
a clean vessel, they had their offering, they brought it to
the Lord in a clean vessel. And the priests were the ones
who took that offering and brought them in and represented them
in the temple and offered up those offerings and the high
priest went into the Holy of Holies once a year. That's priest
language. So what he is saying to us here is what he did when
he called his elect Jews and gave them a new heart, sanctified
them, cleansed them, made them clean vessels by his sanctification,
by forming Christ in them. He made them clean vessels. But
what he did also is he made them priests. He made them priests
unto God. He is the high priest and he
made them priests. So now, and he sent them forth
with the priest's work. to minister to His people. And
the offering they bring is those that He sanctified. The people,
their brethren, those Christ has sanctified, they bring them
as an offering, just like the children of Israel brought an
offering in a clean vessel. So see, He's saying He's making
His Jewish, He made His Jewish elect people priests. He made
them priests. and sent them forth to do priest's
work. Now look, here's our text today. It says verse 21, And
I will also take of them for priests and for Levites, saith
the Lord. He's saying, I'll also take those
that are called out from among the Gentiles, that are brought
in as an offering unto the Lord now, Through my Jewish priesthood,
I will take them, those Gentile brethren, and I'll make them
priests. Just like I made my Jewish children priests. See
what he's saying? I made my Jewish people priests
and I'll take them also. These I've called out from among
Gentiles and I'll make them priests. And I'll make them Levites. Alright,
so he's saying he's replacing the priesthood, the old covenant
priesthood, with a new priesthood. And that's our subject, an eternal
priesthood. An eternal priesthood. And then
now let's read on to the end of the chapter. And he says,
why is he going to do that? Why has he made his Jewish elect
people and his Gentile elect people one holy priesthood? Why has he done that? Why did
Christ do that? And send them forth preaching
the gospel and call out others and make them priests and Levites.
Why is he doing that work? Verse 22, For as the new heavens
and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before me,
saith the Lord, so shall your seed, all your brethren, all
your family, and your name, so shall it remain. So shall your
seed and your name remain. He is saying that to His people. He is saying, I am going to make
your children and your name remain. And here is how I am going to
do it. I am going to make my people a priesthood. I am going
to make you a priesthood. I am going to send you forth
to this gospel. I am going to call others to
this gospel. That is how He said He would
make that new heavens and new earth. And He is saying, that
is how I am going to make your seed and your name remain forever. And then He says this. It shall
come to pass that from one new moon to another, one season to
another season, and from one Sabbath to another, from one
week to another week, shall all flesh come to worship before
me, saith the Lord. He's talking about all those
He calls and makes priests. And that's all flesh, that's
all of them. That's all that God regards,
that's all. is those he calls and makes priests.
They're going to all come and worship me from season to season,
week to week. He's saying they're going to
do this forever, forever. And verse 24, and this speaks
to some things that we can see now, but it speaks more especially
to eternity, verse 24. And they shall go forth and look
upon the carcasses of the men that have transgressed against
me. For their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire
be quenched, and they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh."
Now let's look at this eternal priesthood. Now the first thing
we see here in verse 21 is he says, I will, I will. This is Christ our head, our
high priest. He says, I will take of them
for priests and for Levites, saith the Lord. I will also take
of them. Just like I took of my Jewish
redeemed people, I'll take of my Gentile redeemed people. And I'll take them for priests
just like I took them for priests. I'll make them all a new priesthood. I'll make them Levites. Now,
that shows you, brethren, nobody makes themselves a priest. A
priest. What's the significance of being
a priest? What's the significance? Why
do we have to be made priests? What God showed us in the Old
Covenant, when He established the priesthood, is He put new
garments on the priests, He anointed the priest with oil, He chose
the priest, He sprinkled blood on the priest, He did everything
necessary ceremonially to say ceremonially that those priests
were holy. He set them apart. He made them
clean, pure. He made them to be consecrated
to Him. He did everything. He put the
garments they needed on them. He anointed their ear, their
right ear, their right thumb, and their right foot. They can
hear Him, they can serve Him, and they can follow Him. He did
everything to make it so they could come in to that temple.
Did you know not everybody could come to that temple? Even out of all those that were
there called Israel, not everybody could come in the temple. Just
those that He made priests. That's all there was that could
come in that temple. And they came in and they served in that
temple. And what He's showing by that
is, out of all the people in the world, The only ones that
are going to be able to come into His presence are those that
He has made priests. He's going to have to make us
righteous before His holy law. He's going to have to make us
holy inwardly and have our bodies washed with pure water. He's
going to clothe us in the garments we need to come in, the priestly
garments, the righteousness and holiness of Christ. That's the
only way you can come in. And He is going to separate you
by the Holy Spirit, consecrate you and draw you to Himself so
that you can actually serve Him in that temple. He said anything
that is offered to me, anybody that approaches me, anybody that
comes near me has got to be perfect. Because God is holy. He is righteous. He knows no sin. Now listen to
that. Are you and I righteous? Are we holy? Did you say anything
today or think anything today that was just a little bit less
than absolute perfect righteousness and perfect holiness? Did you think anything that was
even remotely close to perfect righteousness and perfect holiness?
See, we need Him. No man can make himself a priest. In Hebrews 5 it says no man takes
this honor to himself. No man glorifies himself to take
this honor to himself. It would be glorying in ourselves
if we said we could make ourselves pretty. But he says this honor
is bestowed by God. He called Aaron and made him
the high priest. And when Christ came and dwelt
among us, Christ didn't even take this honor upon himself.
When he was serving God as the God-man, serving for his people,
he didn't take this honor upon himself. He said, but God said,
this is my son, today have I begotten thee. Thou art a priest forever
after the order of Melchizedek. God had that glory of making
him a priest, our high priest. He's the only one that can make
us a priest. Now that tells you this, and get this clearly, that
means there are no man-made priests. The papacy, the Catholics, all
the priests, the Pope and all the lesser priests and the cardinals
and all these, they're made by men and by their own will. That's
not how God's priests are made. at all. It's not that kind of
priesthood. And Protestants are just as bad.
They want to put their robes on and they want to stand between
the sinners and God and try to be a mediator between them. There's
one mediator between God and men. That's the man Christ Jesus.
When that man calls himself a vicar or a vicar, that's saying a mediator. There's but one mediator, that's
Christ. And any man that tries to put himself or any other man
between sinners and God, put another sinner between sinners
and God as a priest, that man is anti-Christ. He's doing exactly
opposite to what Christ said to do. Christ said don't do that.
Don't do that. Don't call another man a master
or a father. Don't put another man between
you and God. Christ is the God-man. And to try to take his place
is anti-Christ. Only God makes this priest. Turn
over to Exodus 19. Exodus 19. Now you remember whenever
God called Israel. Now listen to what He told them.
Exodus 19 and look at verse 5. He said, Now therefore, if you
will obey my voice indeed, If you will obey my voice indeed
and keep my covenant. He is about to give him a whole
bunch of laws. And he is going to say, now if
you will do this, this is my covenant, if you keep this, then
here is all these promises that I will do for you. That is called
a covenant of works. And he says, now if you will
obey my voice and keep my covenant, he is saying if you will fulfill
all this law, then You shall be a peculiar treasure unto me
above all people, for all the earth is mine. And you shall
be unto me a kingdom of priests. He is saying you will be kings
and priests. A kingdom made up entirely of
priests. That is what you will be. And
a holy nation. These are the words which thou
shalt speak unto the children of Israel. And so Moses went
and told them that. And look down at verse 8. And
all the people answered together and said, All that the Lord has
spoken, we will do it. We will do it. And then you can
read on there. What happens is God came down
on the mount. He told them, He said, You tell
them to wash themselves. Get good and sanctify. Sanctify
themselves. come near tomorrow, but they
can't touch the mountain. They can't come to the mountain
and touch it. But they just draw near and I'm
going to descend in the cloud. And when he did that, that mountain
went to trembling and smoking and quaking and was on fire.
And they shrank back from that mountain. And those same people
that were saying everything the Lord had said, we'll do it, they
shrank back and they said, Moses, don't let him talk to us. You
go up there and you talk to him. We don't want to talk to Him.
We can't approach Him. We need somebody to go for us
up there to approach Him. And so they sent Moses to be
the mediator for them. Look over now at 1 Peter 2.9.
They never did any of the things that God said for them to do. And He told them there, if you
do those things, you'll be My holy priesthood, My treasure,
My holy nation. They didn't do any of those things. The Lord sent Christ. And Christ,
on behalf of His people, He walked this earth and He did everything
that was written in the law. He did everything. He obeyed
God's voice. He kept God's covenant. He's
the high priest who came here and served for His people. He's
the Lamb. He's the scapegoat on whom our
sins were laid that took the sins of His people away into
a land not inhabited. He's the spotless Lamb on whom
all the sins of His people were laid so that He was crucified
in the place of His people. He died so they don't die. He
answered the justice so they don't answer the justice. He
paid the wages of sin, which is death, so that now all they
will receive is free mercy and grace from God. And then He took
His own blood, not the blood of bulls and goats, His own blood,
and as the high priest, holy, harmless, undefiled, separate
from sinners, He entered through the Holy Spirit into the holiest
of holies. That high priest only went to
a room where there was a mercy seat. And he sprinkled the blood.
And God said, okay, we are going to pretend like atonement has
been made until next year and then you have to come back and
do it again. Because they never could make atonement. They could
never make true propitiation through what He was doing. But
Christ didn't enter into that place. He didn't enter into a
a temple made with hands, our Holy of Holies made with hands.
He entered into God's presence, having accomplished redemption,
eternal redemption, and went in and God said, I'm pleased.
It'll never have to be done again. You've perfected the people. Those ceremonies are over. You're
the one they pictured. All the blood of the lambs is
done with. You're the lamb. You're the high
priest. You're the way that my people
can enter now and have boldness to enter and welcome access to
enter when I've washed them and purged them and made them, given
them faith to trust You. And that's what Christ did. And
because He did that, when He calls you now, here's what He
says, 1 Peter 2, 9. He doesn't say, do this, keep
my voice, obey my voice and keep all my covenant. And then you'll
be this, he says, now because of what Christ has done, look
at verse 9. You are a chosen generation. You are a royal priesthood. This is the exact same wording
that was in Exodus 19, 6. You are a holy nation. You are
my peculiar people. That is a treasure. That was
the King's treasure that he minted with his signet, so everybody
know he could... You know how now you get a nice
car or something that's a status symbol, so you can show your
grandeur or whatever you are, get your name put on your gate
out front or whatever it is, you know, to show this is...
Well, the king would have his peculiar treasure that he stamped
so that it had his mark on it so that he would show that off
and everybody would see it and know, man, that king is wealthy. Look at the wealth he's got.
That's what peculiar treasure means. God says that's what you
are to me. You're my peculiar treasure. You're my status symbol
to show just how wealthy a God I am. How merciful and rich in
grace and mercy among suffering and all my glories, how rich
I am towards you. You're my peculiar treasure.
Look at this. That you should show forth the
praises of Him who hath called you out of darkness into His
marvelous light. Now, go back and think about
what we saw in our text. And he called those Jews all
on the day of Pentecost. And he sent forth Peter. You
know what Peter was standing up and doing? He was showing
forth the praises of Him that had called him and made him a
priest. He was acting out his priestly office. He was doing
what his priestly duty was to do. As a priest, we're no longer
going into the temple now and trying to point Israel to tell
them, now you've got to offer these lambs and you've got to
bring this sacrifice and this offering. That's not what our
job is. We're to go forth now and declare the praises of Him
who is the Lamb. Declare the praises of Him who
that whole thing pictured. So that as we do that, then He
sanctifies them and we bring them as an offering in a clean
vessel to the Lord. And they too come and say, Lord,
here we are. By Your grace, we're presenting
our bodies a living sacrifice to You. We're Yours. We're yours. So that's what Peter was doing.
He was showing forth the praises of Him that had called him. And
so, that was his priestly duty. And when he called those 3,000
on the day of Pentecost, and 5,000 later, and established
the Jerusalem church, and then he spread them into the world,
and he said, now go preach my gospel. They were going forth
as the priests of God. doing the new priestly duty,
preaching Christ and Him crucified. That's what they were doing.
And so he says, now when I, through their gospel, I'm going to call
out these Gentiles. And as I call them out, I'm going
to also make them priests. And you know what they're going
to do? They're going to go forth showing my praises. And I'm going
to call out some more. And I'm going to keep calling
them out and keep calling them out until I've called them all
out. That's what he's telling us here
in our text. The priest served the high priest. That's what
the old covenant priest served the high priest. Every one of
us that he's made priest, we're serving Christ our high priest.
We're doing what he says to do. They taught the law and they
pointed people to the offerings and the sacrifices. We preach
Christ and point them to Christ. Tell them all about Christ. The
Levites now. Who were the Levites? He said,
I'm going to make them for priests and for Levites. The Levites
were the tribe from which all the priests came. That's where
Aaron came from and that's where the priests came from, just from
the tribe of Levi. You remember when Jacob was blessing
his sons and we saw the other day that he came to Levi and
he cursed. He said, you're cursed. You're
cursed because of the anger he showed when he was avenging the
rape of his sister. He said, you're an angry people,
an accursed people. But years later, what happened?
God showed His grace. Because that's the tribe He chose.
And said, they had a curse on them, but I'm going to show them
grace. And I'm going to make them to
be my priestly tribe. And from them, I'm going to call
out Aaron. And he's going to be my high
priest. See, we were a people who had the curse on us. Cursed
in Adam. Cursed by what Adam did. But
by grace, God chose His elect people. And He says, I'm going
to make you priests and Levites. And He said, and not only that,
Christ came and took bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh,
made like unto the seed of Abraham, made just like God's elect children,
took the nature of His children. And He's a high priest chosen
from among His brethren. from among all us spiritual Levites. That's who He was chosen from.
Now the Levites, so then the Levites were brethren. They're
brethren. They're one tribe, one family. They're brethren. That's what
we are. When God's called you and quickened
you and brought you to faith in Christ, He makes you see we're
all brethren. And see what the Levites did
as the priests were serving in the temple. That was their whole
work, was to serve in that temple. And the Levites' work, who was
all their family, what their work was to do was, they were
to provide for the priests so they could minister. And they
were to provide for everything for that tabernacle, everything
for that temple. That was their life. And they
did it, the priests and the Levites, they did it trusting God to provide
all the provision for them. You see, while all the rest of
the world and the rest of the people were out, they had their
minds on their farms and they had their minds on their business
and politics and pleasure and just, you know, everyday stuff
they had to do. They woke up in the morning thinking
about what I have to do today. They went through the day thinking
about what I need to do today and they went to sleep thinking
about what I've got to do today. Not the Levites. The Levites
woke up and they thought, I'm going to serve God's tabernacle
today. Whatever needs to be done, I'm doing it for God's temple.
I'm doing it for God's priest. I'm doing it for my brethren.
I'm supporting them. And I'm not going to worry about
how I'm going to be provided for. God's promised me He'll
provide for me. God said, now I'm making my people
the new priesthood. And so as Levites, we wake up. And what's on our mind, our mission
is, whatever we're doing, we're doing it for God's glory. Whatever
we're doing, we're doing it for His temple, for His church, for
His people. We're supporting His ministry.
We're helping those that are ministering the gospel. We're
doing everything for this gospel to go forward. That's what he
means when he says, we're no longer an old priesthood, no
longer old Levites anymore. Christ said, I'm making a new
priesthood, a spiritual priesthood, and I'm making spiritual Levites
by my blood. That's what every chosen, called,
child of God, redeemed child of God is. Priests and Levites. Let me read this to you from
Revelation. Look at Revelation 5 if you want to see this. Revelation
5 and verse 9. They sung a new song,
saying, Thou art worthy to take the book and to open the seals
thereof, for Thou wast slain and hast redeemed us to God by
Thy blood out of every kindred and tongue and people and nation.
and has made us unto our God kings and priests, and we shall
reign on the earth." There's people who think that we're waiting
to reign on the earth, that Christ is going to come again and we're
going to reign on the earth then. He's saying in our text, I'm
going to send this gospel forth. And from the time He sent that
gospel forth from Jerusalem, I told you, this is the last
day. From the time He came, and beginning of that The time He
came is the last days, and in these last days, He has called
His priests, set up His priesthood, and we've been reigning with
Him on this earth ever since. We're going forth under the captain
of our warfare, conquering and to conquer. We're not failing,
we're reigning with Him as kings and priests. And it's just going
to get better and better and better. And we're going to do
this for a set period of time. In Revelation, it's called a
thousand years. It's not going to be just a thousand years.
It's just a set period of time until He's called that last one
out. And then this day of grace will
be over. The sun will go down and the day of grace will be
over. Alright, now look. Why is He doing this? Let me
hurry and I'll finish this up. Verse 22, He says, this is how
I'm going to save my people. This is how I'm going to save
my people and preserve them. Look at Acts, I mean Isaiah 66 and
verse 22. It says, For as the new heavens
and the new earth which I will make shall remain before me. No, no. We saw that. Everything about the new heavens
and new earth is spiritual. It's eternal because it's of
eternal Lord Jesus Christ and it will remain forever. And it
says here, Just like that, saith the Lord, so shall your seed
and your name remain. Now, specifically, he's talking
to his Jewish elect people, his Israel. He's telling them, you're
my true Israel. You're my true priest. You're
my true Levites. And those that I'm going to call through you
are my true priests and my true Levites. And what I'm telling
you is, your children, all Abraham's seed, all his true seed, all
his true children, are going to last forever. They're going
to all be born spiritually, born again by Him, and they're going
to live forever. And your name is going to live
forever, because our name is His name. And the way He's going
to do it is what we're doing right here now. That's the point. The way He's going to preserve
His people and keep His people and grow His people and never
lose one of His people is through what we're doing right here,
right now. He said to those people that
day, He said, the reason you do not believe Me is because
you're not My sheep. And He said, I told you this. He said, My sheep hear My voice. Have you ever heard Christ's
voice? I've never heard Him speak in person audibly. Where do we
hear His voice? We hear His voice when the Gospel
is being preached and His Word is being declared. And He speaks
into our heart through the Spirit and makes you trust Him and believe
Him. And you can't do anything else but that. That's when you
hear His voice. That's when He knows you. And that's when you
follow Him. And because He does that, He
said, I will not lose one. I won't lose one. And He's telling
us here, The reason you need each other and the reason I need
you and you need me and we need to lay aside all differences
and bear with every burden and bear with all the differences
and all that stuff and lay aside, make second things, second things
is because this is how He calls His people and shows us our full
redemption and keeps us looking to Christ and grows us in the
grace and knowledge of Christ. And this is how all our true
spiritual children will be born and how our spiritual name will
remain forever. Because it's Christ's name. Now
look at the next thing. He says, verse 23, It shall come
to pass that from one new moon to another, from one Sabbath
to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the
Lord. This is just showing that point right there. When He says
there, He says from one new moon to another, from one Sabbath
to another, just like He is talking about priests and Levites, He
is using Old Covenant language. We are not walking by the ceremonies
of new moons or anything like that, observances of new moons
or anything like that. They stood for seasons. They
showed you seasons. See, we have been called out
from that old covenant light, that old natural light to Christ
the light. He is our light now. When you
read over Revelation, it says the kingdom had no need of the
sun or the moon because the Lamb is the light of it. We have been
called to that light. And we've been called from that
Sabbath day that was under the law to Christ who is our Sabbath
in whom we rest through faith. And so just like we've been called
from that to this, He said from one season to the next season,
from one week to the next week, we're going to keep worshiping
Him. He's not going to lose us. He's going to do it through this
method we've been looking at right here, this means we've
been looking at. And then, in the end, He's going to call us
from the glory of this light we have now, where we see dimly,
where we see so feebly, and He's going to call us into His presence
and we're going to behold Christ face to face in the brilliant
light of His glory. And then we're going to be called
from this rest we have in Him through faith to that glorious
rest, that glorious liberty of the sons of God. So what He's
saying to you is, this is never going to stop. It's never going
to stop because I'm going to use my people as my priests to
spread this word and this is what I'm doing through it. Some
people hear that and say, well, that sure is giving yourself
a lot of importance. Let me see if I can illustrate
this. I had a boss one summer. He was a wealthy man. I had no
idea what this man was worth. And he had every... I mean, he
had all the people he needed working for him. He didn't need
anybody else working for him. He had every position covered
and everything he needed done covered. But for my benefit,
for my benefit, he said, come here, I'm going to give you something
to do. And I worked for him that whole summer. You see, God doesn't
have to use us. He's wealthy. He can do what...
He's absolutely sovereign to do what He will, with whom He
will, and to do it all according to His holiness. He's just called
His people and is using His people for your benefit and my benefit.
This is to benefit us. This is to show us that He is
sovereign, that He can do what He will, how He will. This is
to show us that you're not the one that's important. He's the
one that's important. When you know that and understand that,
then we don't start exalting ourselves over one another when
we get in a little disagreement about some stupid thing and say,
well, you ought to be treating me better. No, neither one of
us are the important thing in this. God's what's important.
And we're just here as priests to carry forth this gospel. And
so we lay it aside. Because we've got to have Him.
We gotta have his gospel. We gotta have this work he's
doing. Isn't it wise that he would do
it this way? It's just so wise. It keeps you
together. This is the vessel that he carries
us on. The transportation represented
by all those different kinds of beasts. This is the transportation
he carries us to his house. Now look at this last thing. There's some of you sitting here
and there's some in every place you preach who hear all this
and they think this. They think just what I thought
when I was a young man. You know, I got all my life for
that. It's not that important to me. You are raping God. You're robbing Him. You're thieving
Him. What's something you can think
of that is the most worthless thing that could possibly be
on the planet? A man that would take everything
that God gives, all this amount of light He gives, having a place
to worship God and having a place where the Gospel is going forth
in truth, and take everything God's provided and not apply
himself to hear what God says and understand and try to enter
into this a little bit. The man that won't do that, whatever
you can think of that's the most worthless thing on the earth,
that man's worse. He's more worthless. And I'll tell you what's going
to happen one day. When these people are saved, right now we
can look back, we can go forth from God's house. They left out
of old Israel. the new Israel, those He had
called and made priests. And they looked back in 70 A.D.
at Jerusalem. And there it is burning. There
it is. They said sometimes 500 Jews
were crucified at once in one day. There it is. And that's
physical judgment being poured out on a physical nation because
they disobeyed a physical covenant, but it was all disobeying God. And it's showing you what it
is to meet God in fierce, strict justice right there. And they
looked back and saw the carcasses of them that had died. And they
said, that's just all those people we looked at and we thought they
were such men to be looked up to and renowned for their education
and their wealth and all their accomplishments in life. And
they're just being slaughtered right there with the drunks that
we've shamed and looked down on. They're all together being
consumed. And you and I can look back and
see that now. And we can kind of see God's judgment in it,
His justice in it. Because we see at Calvary's tree
what God's justice did to our Savior. And we see what we deserve
there. And we see what we deserve there.
And we see what it took to satisfy that justice and save us from
it. So we understand and delight in God's justice. Because we
see how He sent His Son to uphold it. to uphold it. We love His
mercy. Oh, thank our Lord for His mercy. But we do see how wonderful His
justice is. Well, one day, when He said this
is never going to end, this new heavens and new earth won't end.
One day He's going to call the last child out and He's going
to bring us all into the new heavens. This one is going to
pass away. We're going to be in the new
heavens and new earth without sin. A priesthood totally perfect
and righteous in Christ, with Christ, before God. And then
we're going to know what justice is perfectly. We're going to
know how right it is. And we're going to look at all
those that God casts out because they rebelled against Him. And
we're going to rejoice. We're going to rejoice because
everything God does is right. And you're going to see it in
that day. We're going to know it in that day. And for those that
want to rebel against Him, now read what it says here. We're
going to look upon the carcass of the men that have transgressed
against Me, God said. Listen to this description. For
their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched.
and they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh. Death's not the
end. Death will just usher you into
another state of being. You'll either be by God's grace,
by His work, by bowing to Christ and resting in Christ, you'll
be with Him forever in a bliss that you can't even imagine.
But if you face God without Him, I've enjoyed hearing the story
about David and John. They jumped out of an airplane
today. And I enjoyed hearing that story about them. But I'm going to tell you something.
Be careful tempting God. Because that quick, you could
be in eternity with Him. And if you're not resting in
Christ completely, that worm and that fire, I don't know what
it is. Christ killed that worm for His people on Calvary's tree
and He quenched that fire for His people. We'll never face
it. But for the person that meets Him outside of Christ, that worm
will never die and that fire will never be quenched. I pray that you go back and read
the first chapter of Isaiah. see where He started this thing.
He started it because He had given them all this light. Just
like He has given you the gospel and He has given you a place
to come where you can hear it. And they just wouldn't. Or they
came in when they did come in and they thought, well, God loves
me because I came today. Or God loves me because I sacrificed
this or I sacrificed that. He said, I am sick of that mess.
You draw near to Me and you speak of Me with your mouth and your
heart is a thousand miles away from Me. Hear that Word and read
this book and see what He's done and how He's saved by mercy and
by grace and how great His salvation is for those that He draws to
trust His Son. And see too how never-ending
that justice is for those that are found outside of Christ.
And heed what He says. I pray He'll give you grace to
heed what He says. And for us that He's made priest,
when I read stuff like that, it makes me know we need to really
have our minds set on one thing, God's house, God's people, God's
priesthood, this gospel, calling out His people, and don't worry
about how you're going to be provided for. God says, prove
me, test me, God said. Test me. See if you can serve
me too much. See if you can sacrifice too
much for me, God said. Just try it and see, God said.
You try it and see and I guarantee you, you will find something
very, very happy and very enlightening. It can't be done. You can't out-give
God. You can't out-sacrifice God.
God is going to provide for His people. If it's done to serve
His Son and to further His glory, God's going to bless it. Always,
He promises to. I pray that will make us be true
faithful priests to Him. Alright, brethren. That's it.
Eight years to the day. We're done with Isaiah. We'll
come back and look at it some time to time, but we're done
with our series.