Let's turn to Isaiah chapter
55. Isaiah 55. At the end of Isaiah 55, we saw
the effect, that which God works in the heart when He gives a
new heart by the Word of God. He blesses the Gospel to our
heart. The Word gives us a new liberty
that we didn't have. We were in bondage under the
law, we were in bondage to sin, and we have liberty. He said
there in verse 12, you shall go out with joy. Christ redeemed
us from the curse of the law. He made us righteousness. And
He comes and gives you a new heart. And He redeems you from
your sin nature. And He brings you out with joy.
And then the Word gives us a new leader. He said in verse 12,
and you're led forth with peace. We're led now. We're led of the
Spirit of God. You're never without a master. Either Satan's our master and
we're the servant of sin, or Christ is our master and we're
the servant of righteousness. But we're always led of somebody.
Now you're led of peace, the prince of peace. And then he
said, the Word gives new eyes to behold the glory of God in
the face of Christ Jesus. You start seeing the glory of
God where you didn't even see it before. He said there in verse
12, the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you
into sin. And all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.
You start seeing God's glory in Christ in the creation. And
then the Word makes us new creatures. He makes us a new creation. There's
a new fountain of life within the sinner now. There's something
new there that God made that wasn't there before. And this
is the result. He said in verse 13, Instead
of the thorn shall come up the fir tree. Instead of the briar
shall come up the myrtle tree. There's a fruitful tree there
now that's planted of God. It's going to bear fruit by the
Spirit of God. And then the Word makes us who once gloried in
ourselves to now glory in God. He said at the end of verse 13,
And it shall be to the Lord for a name. for an everlasting sign
that shall not be cut off. We start glorying in the Lord.
So now we come to chapter 56, and it's still speaking to believers.
It's been made new by the grace of God, by the Word of God, by
Christ our Lord. And here we're learning He's
teaching us to persevere in faith, judgment, and justice." Persevere
in faith, judgment, and justice. Now let's begin reading in verse
1. This will be our text, verses 1 and 2. Isaiah 56, verse 1. Thus saith the Lord. Now this
is the word of the Lord God. This is God's will for those
that He's made new by His grace. This is who He's speaking to.
Those He's made new through the blood and the righteousness of
Christ. Thus saith the Lord. Keep ye judgment and do justice. Keep ye judgment and do justice. This word judgment means keep
that which is equitable. That which is equitable. And
do justice means do that which is right. Do what's right. Verse 1. Here's the motive. Our
one motive. For my salvation is near to come
and my righteousness to be revealed. Christ the Lord is God's salvation. He's God's righteousness. Believers
in Isaiah's day, they were being told this. They were being told
to persevere in faith and in judgment and in justice because
Christ was soon to come for the first time. The salvation and
righteousness of God, Christ Jesus, was soon to come the first
time. Now we as believers today, we're
looking for Christ to come the second time. But we're told the
same message. Alright, verse 2. Blessed, happy. Happy and blessed of the Lord. The only way you're going to
do this is to be blessed of God. By the Spirit of God. And this
is what makes us happy. Happy is the man that does this.
and the son of man that lays hold on it, on God's salvation
and God's righteousness. Now, there are two things that
make up what it is for the believer to persevere in faith and equity
and that which is right. There's two things that make
up this charge that we're given, this command that we're given.
Here's the first thing, verse 2. Blessed is the man that keepeth
the Sabbath from polluting it. It keeps the Sabbath from polluting
it. Now, when they rested on the Sabbath day, that seventh
day, that day of perfection, seven, number of perfection,
Sabbath, rest, they rested on that day. That was typical of
the Lord Jesus Christ and a believer resting in Christ. Believing
on Christ, resting in Christ. So that's the first thing that's
involved. And then this Sabbath day stood for all the worship
of God. It stood for worshiping God in
God's way as God says He'll be worshiped and He'll be approached.
And that's in Christ our Sabbath, our rest. And then here's the
second way that we keep this equity and do that which is right.
He says, blessed is the man, verse 2, that keepeth his hand
from doing any evil. That keeps his hand from doing
evil. Believers are given a spirit to want to seek to do always
what God commands in His Word. What Christ teaches us in His
Word. Number one, it's toward God and toward the way we approach
God and the way we worship God. We don't want to turn our hand
away and do evil. and not approach God the way
he says he'll be approached. And then two, it has to do with
our dealings toward our brethren and towards our fellow man. We
don't want to turn from what God says. We'll do evil then. We want to do what God says toward
one another and toward our fellow man. Now, to understand verse
1, how we're to persevere and what he's saying there, it'll
help us first to look at verse 2. So we'll start with verse
2. And when we start with verse 2, we're going to start with
that which typifies faith in Christ and true worship of God,
and that's the Sabbath. He says, verse 2, blessed is
the man that keepeth the Sabbath from polluting it. Now to keep
judgment, equity, that which is equitable, to keep judgment
and to do justice, to do that which is right, the first thing
that a sinner has to do is we have to turn away from doing
that which is evil. That means we've got to turn
away from trying to come to God by our works and by our righteousnesses
and by our sanctification, our holiness, and we've got to come
to God through faith in Christ, resting in Christ alone. Now
there was a lot of Sabbaths. You know that. There were many
Sabbaths. There were all different kinds of Sabbaths. But the one
we're going to look at tonight that shows us here this picture
of believing Christ and resting in Christ is that Sabbath in
the wilderness which was connected with the manna from heaven. That's
what shows us faith in Christ, our bread, our life, our righteousness. It shows Christ, our Sabbath,
resting in Christ. Turn to Exodus 16. Exodus chapter
16. Now Christ said plainly to us
in John 6. He gave us really the exposition
of Exodus 16. Christ said in John 6 that He's
the manna. He said He's the bread. Listen
to what he said. Let me read it to you. From John
6, 35. Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life. He said, I'm the bread that came
down. Moses didn't give you the true bread. He said, my Father
which is in heaven gave you the true bread. I'm the bread that
came down from heaven. The bread of life. And listen
to this. He that comes to me shall never hunger. This is so
important. He's telling us what Exodus 16
means. He says, He that comes to me,
believing on Christ, shall never hunger. And he says, And he that
believes on me shall never thirst. Alright, now when God gave the
manna in the wilderness. Let's read it. Let's just read
it. Exodus 16 verse 22. It says, It came to pass on the
sixth day, on the sixth day, that was a Friday, they gathered
twice as much bread, two omers, for one man. And all the rulers
of the congregation came and told Moses. And he said unto
them, This is that which the Lord hath said. This is what
the Lord commanded them to do. He said, Tomorrow is the rest
of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord. Tomorrow is Saturday, that's
the seventh day. That's the Sabbath day. It was
a Saturday. This is under the Old Covenant Mosaic Law. The
Sabbath was a Saturday. And he said, tomorrow is the
rest of the Holy Sabbath unto the Lord. It's rest unto the
Lord. And he said, bake that which
you'll bake today, and seethe that you will seethe, and that
which remaineth over, lay it up for you to be kept until the
morning. He said, you eat all you want to today, on Friday,
and whatever you don't eat, you lay it up, save it for tomorrow.
And it says, And they laid it up to the morning, as Moses bade. And it didn't stink, neither
was there any worm therein. Before, when they laid it up,
God said, You eat it today. He gives us grace for today.
He said, You eat it today. Eat Christ the bread today. And
they laid it up. God said, Don't lay it up. They
laid it up, and it bred worms, and it stinked. But today, they
laid it up on Friday, and it didn't breed worms. It didn't
stink. They were obeying God. Amen. Alright, it says, and Moses
said, eat that today. This is now, it's the next day,
it's Saturday. It's the Sabbath. Eat that today,
for today is a Sabbath unto the Lord. Today you shall not find
it in the field. Six days you shall gather it,
but on the seventh day, which is the Sabbath, in it there shall
be none. You won't find this bread in
the field today, he said. You won't find it there. And
it came to pass, He told them not to go out and look for it
on the seventh day, so what do you think they did? They went
out to look for it on the seventh day. It came to pass that there
went out some of the people on the seventh day for to gather,
and they found none. And the Lord said unto Moses,
How long refuse you to keep my commandments and my laws? See,
for that the Lord hath given you the Sabbath, therefore he
giveth you on the sixth day. On Friday he gave you the bread,
for two days. Abide ye every man in his place. Let no man go out of his place
on the seventh day. Now let me put that into just
regular word. God gave the manna and he commanded
the children of Israel that on the sixth day, on Friday, they
were to gather enough bread eat what they wanted to, and he said,
put it up, and he said, tomorrow, Saturday, the rest, the seventh
day, the day of rest, you're going to have plenty to eat through
that whole day. You don't even have to worry
about going out and getting it. Now here's the picture. Christ is
the manna. Christ is the bread. God gave
Christ the bread. He gave his son. And Christ,
like he said, you can work six days. Christ did all the work. When was He crucified? On a Friday,
He was crucified. He laid down His life. And when
He laid down His life, He gave us everything we need. He gave us a full provision of
bread, full justification from all of His people's sins, full
righteousness so that the fulfillment of the law in precept and penalty.
And so when God brings you to faith in Christ, to eat that
bread, Christ said you won't ever hunger and you won't ever
thirst. You got plenty of bread, justification, righteousness,
life, salvation, throughout the whole day of grace. So throughout this whole seventh
day of grace, what can we do now? We can just rest. We can
just rest. From all our vain works and our
legal works, trying to make ourselves righteous and holy, we can rest. So they were to rest from their
works. Now if they're resting from their
works, what's that mean they're doing? They believe God. If they
rested on that seventh day and didn't go out, it meant toward
God they believed His Word. They trusted Him. And it meant
toward God they were keeping that which was equitable, and
it meant they were doing that which was right, that which was
just. That is believing God, trusting
God's Word. That's what they were doing.
And they were trusting that God had provided everything they
needed. that he provided all the bread
they needed so that they didn't have to go out in that field
on the seventh day at all. That's what they would be declaring,
that that manna was going to sustain them, it was going to
provide their bread so they didn't have to lift a finger on that
seventh day. It pictured us keeping judgment and justice, keeping
that which is equitable and that which is right. by believing
on the Lord Jesus Christ, by believing the Word of God that
He's given us in His Word, that Christ is our bread, that if
you believe on Christ and rest in Christ, you'll never hunger,
you'll never thirst throughout this whole seventh day of rest. It's because Christ is our seventh.
He's our perfection. He perfected forever them that
are sanctified by His one offering. And He is our Sabbath. He's our
rest. We can rest in Him. We don't
have to keep working because He's plenty for us. If you look
back up in verse 18, Exodus 16, 18, it says, When they did meet
it with an Omer, he that gathered much had nothing over, and he
that gathered little had no lack. They gathered every man according
to his eating. And that's how it is with a believer. It's not our much faith or our
little faith that makes us have plenty. It's out of Christ's
abundance. Christ said, you believe on me.
Whether you have much faith or you got little faith, that don't
matter. That's not where the sufficiency
is. Christ said, you believe on me,
period. Whether it's much or little,
you'll have plenty. You won't ever hunger, you won't
ever thirst. What he's saying there is, not that you're going
to go through this life and not ever get hungry, he's saying
you won't ever need a righteousness before God. You won't ever need
to worry about your sins being put away, about you being made
perfect before God Almighty. It's done. You got it. That's
what he says, through faith. And that's how it is. And when
you have that, you can rest. You found rest. You can rest.
Now, there was something else included in that, too, though.
Also, they were to prove that they believed God by not doing
any work on the Sabbath day. And also what that included was
they were to keep equity, that which was equitable and that
which was just, that which was right, toward their fellow brethren. Everybody that was in their house,
men servants, women servants, maid servants, the beasts, everybody
in their house, they would take the yoke off of them. So they
didn't have to work either. They didn't have to do anything.
They could rest. and they could eat the manna
and rest. That was what he said would be
equitable and just to do. And so that's what believers
are to do. Christ, when he laid down his
life at Calvary, everybody in his house, everybody in his house
under his roof, all God's elect, He justified every one of them.
He took that legal, that yoke, that curse of the law that bound
us. He took it off of us, every one
of us. And he's given us the bread so
that we can rest. No matter who you are in his
house, he's done that for everybody in his house. And so, you and
I as believers, when we believe the gospel, That yoke's been
taken off us by Christ. And so we're not to go in and
turn around then and put that yoke back on our brethren. We're
not to make them come under the legal bondage of the law and
accuse them and blame them with the law and try to yoke them
into doing what we'd have them to do using the law to scare
them and terrify them into doing it. That's not keeping the law.
So when a man truthfully, truthfully, when those who've been redeemed
by Christ and they come into a congregation that's supposed
to be preaching the gospel and the preacher begins to take the
law of the Sabbath and to yoke them to try to make them come
to church and make them do this or that and threaten them with
the law if they don't do it, he's doing just exactly what
the law in spirit, the spiritual truth of the law said don't do.
That's what he's doing. And so God tells us here now,
He says, when you start believing Christ and resting in Christ,
don't stop resting in Christ. Don't turn from Christ to your
righteousness. Don't turn from Christ to try
to do anything yourself. When they went out in that field
and started looking for bread, they were saying, I don't believe
God. They were saying, I don't believe Christ is enough. I don't
believe that he's enough, that he's plenty, that he's all my
provision. And that's what men say when
they turn then again to the law and say, well now, I'm going
to do this just in case. God knows our heart. The law,
the word of God, it's a double-edged sword. It cuts to the heart.
God knows the thoughts and intents of the heart. And he knows when
a man's looking to that law, when he's wanting to obey God
because he wants to. He knows he's redeemed and he
knows he's made holy and he just wants to serve God because he
loves Christ. He's constrained by him or whether
he's doing it because he's trying to come to God. He got his just
in case works in case Christ is not enough. God knows that.
He says, rest in Him. Rest in Christ and keep resting
in Christ. I want you to look at Exodus
20. I just think this is beautiful. In Exodus 20, God gave the Ten
Commandments. Now I want you to see this. The first table is toward God.
Verses 2 through 7. He's toward God. He said, I'm
the Lord thy God, verse 2, which brought thee out of the land
of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods
before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image or
any likeness of anything that's in the heaven above or that's
in the earth beneath or that's in the waters under the earth.
Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them nor serve them. For I'm
the Lord thy God. I'm a jealous God, visiting the
iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and
fourth generation of them that hate me. And I show mercy unto
thousands of them that love me and keep my commandment. Thou
shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain, for the
Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain."
And men look at that and they think, oh, I can do that. The
children of Israel thought, we can do that. But they didn't
have Christ teaching them in their heart that this thing reaches
to you, the thoughts and intents of the heart. You can just think
about taking God's name in vain. There's thousands of ways you
can take God's name in vain. You can say you believe Christ
and you're resting in Christ and trust in Christ to have redeemed
you from the curse of the law that He's all your righteousness
and all your holiness. And turn to that law, to look
at that law and say, I'm going to try to come to God with this
law too. That's taking His name in vain.
I've taken His name in vain. I said I trusted Him. I've called
myself a Christian trusting Him. That's not what a real Christian
does. He rests in Christ and trusts Christ and believes Christ.
He don't take His name in vain. But look here, there's the first
table. The second table is toward man. Look at verse 12 through
17. Honor thy father and thy mother that the days may be long
upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. Thou shalt
not kill, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not steal,
thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor, thou shalt
not covet thy neighbor's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's
wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox,
nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbor's. Now that's
towards man. Now in the middle of this, if
you took these two tables and you looked at these tables like
a book opened up, and you look at the hinge that's hinging these
two tables together, it's the Sabbath. It's the Sabbath that's
keeping both of them together. And what is the Sabbath? I was
trying to show you there, the Sabbath had part of it was toward
God. I'm believing God, I'm trusting
God, I'm looking nowhere else but to God. And it also meant
I'm taking the yoke off my brethren. I'm not going to bring them in
bondage anymore. So it was toward God and man. So the Sabbath is
looking towards the first table and it's looking towards the
second table. Christ is that seventh Sabbath. He's that perfect
rest. He's the one who gave that law
equity. He gave it the just equal amount
that God required toward God and toward His people. and he
justified us, he gave it the justice it demanded and the penalty
of it toward God and toward his people so that he's the complete
and total fulfillment of it. Now here's what he says when
he makes the everlasting covenant in our heart. That was the covenant
he made when he wrote that law on tables of stone. The covenant
he makes in our heart when he writes the everlasting covenant
and writes his covenant on our hearts is this. Look at verse
8, Exodus 28. Remember Christ to keep Him sanctified in your
hearts. Exodus 20, verse 8. You thought
I misread it, didn't you? Remember Christ to keep Him sanctified
in your hearts. Remember, He's the one that fulfilled
this. He's the one that fulfilled it.
Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work, but the seventh
day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God. And in it shalt thou
not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant,
nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that
is within thy gates. Now here's what that Sabbath
pictured. Look at verse 11. For in six days the Lord made
heaven and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them is. He
made His creation, His first creation in six days. On the
seventh day He rested, because the work was finished. Christ
made His new creation, His people. He made them in the six days
of His work on this earth. And when He cried, it's finished,
and said, it's finished, it was done. And when He arose to God's
right hand, you know what He did? He rested. He sat down because
the work is done. And He's the seventh day in whom
you and I rest. He's the one we rest in. Wherefore
the Lord blessed that He is Christ and sanctified Him. What did
He do? He raised Him from the dead and separated Him and said,
now to you and me, now you rest in Him. You rest in Him. So,
there is where we rest. We rest in Christ. Now, we don't
add our works to Him. We don't try to add anything
to Him because if you do that, you are saying Christ is not
bred for you. He is bred for you and you don't hunger and
thirst anymore when you believe Him. He's the end of the law
for righteousness to everyone that believes. And when you believe
God and believe Christ is enough, there's when you rest and that's
when you don't hunger and thirst anymore for righteousness. It's
those that are still working, trying to earn a righteousness,
trying to sanctify themselves. They're the ones that don't believe
Him. They don't rest in Him. And when you do that, when you
do that, your works are not equitable. They don't equal what God says
is just and right. Our works of the law, trying
to come to God, is never equitable. It's not keeping judgment. It's
not doing what's right, because God says our works are not equitable. They're not right. Only Christ
has done that. So we rest in Christ. So, first
of all, that's the first way we keep judgment. And we do that
which is right, is resting in Christ the Sabbath. We rest in
Him. Now, here's the second thing.
We keep equity and we do that which is right toward God and
toward men. Verse 2 says, Isaiah 56 2 says,
By keeping your hand from doing any evil. Now some people, you've
heard people say this, and if you preach the gospel, if you
preach God's sovereign grace, that God chose these people,
that He sent Christ and Christ completely fulfilled the law
for His people, redeemed us from the curse of the law, that He
brought us out from under the yoke of the bondage of the law,
and that we're no longer under the law, we're under grace. You
preach this message and religious folks are going to accuse us
of preaching a doctrine that is licentious. My doctrine is
not mine, it's God's. They're accusing God's doctrine
of being a doctrine that teaches men to sin. They say, if you
preach that, men are going to sin. Men are going to want to
live a life of sin. And that's, our text is telling
us, no, that's not what it does. It makes you want to do that
which is equitable and that which is right. Because you're resting
in, you see Christ your righteousness and you want to rest in Him.
And you want to follow Him and do what He says to do. Paul was
accused of it. Look at Romans 5. I just want to state this, and
then I'm going to show you what Christ said about it. Look at
Romans 5. Look at verse 20. In Romans 5, 20, He said this. He preached our doctrine. He
said, By one man's disobedience, many were made sinners. So by
the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. And men will
say, Well, Christ made it possible for us to be righteous. Did Adam
make it possible for us to be sinners? How He made us sinners. And Christ made His people righteous. By one man's obedience shall
many be made righteous. Well, then what's the law for?
Moreover, the law entered that the offense might abound. That's
the law's purpose. To declare us guilty. Guilty. But where sin abounded, grace
did much more abound. God's grace abounded over all
the sin of Adam and of you and me. Look, and it says here, that
as sin hath reigned unto death, that's what sin did, it reigned
like a king, like a sovereign unto death. We couldn't do a
thing about it. And he says, and even so, grace
reigns through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ
our Lord. And there's nothing you can do
about it. We can't stop it. It's going to reign. Just like
sin reigned and we couldn't stop sin. And it reigned unto death.
Grace reigns. And it reigns through righteousness
unto eternal life, and it reigns by Jesus Christ our Lord. And
men can't stop it. He's the only one. He did it.
He made us obedient. What do men say then? What are
we accused of? Licentiousness. You're preaching...
You're giving men a license to sin if you take the law out of
the way and say Christ fulfilled it. Look at Romans 6. What shall
we say then? Shall we continue in sin that
grace may abound? That's what we're accused of
saying. You're teaching men to just keep
on sinning then and so grace can abound. No, God forbid. How
shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein? Our
old man that was under the law, that was dead, that was under
the curse and under the law, he died when Christ died. So
how's that old man going to continue in sin anymore? He's dead. The
new man that's born of God is created in righteousness and
true holiness, one with Christ Jesus the Lord, seated with Christ
at God's right hand, Christ in you, the hope of glory, so that
we can't sin. That's what John said. He that's
born of God does not sin and can't sin. Because his seed,
Christ's seed, abides in him. That incorruptible seed. And
there's a new man there that can't sin. But now, not only
that, we don't want to sin. That new man don't want to sin.
Back in October, I put an article in the bulletin that Brother
Paul Mahan wrote. And I think this is so true. Listen to this.
Free grace no more makes a person want to sin than health makes
a person want to get sick again. You ever had the flu real bad
and once you got over the flu, you say, I just want to go get
the flu again. No. And when you've been saved by
free grace, you don't want to get sick again. You don't want
to run into sin again. But this second part is true
too. He said the notion of sovereign grace giving people license to
sin is the foolish excuse of Pharisees who are not willing
to give up their own righteousness. That's what it is. Men won't
let go of the law and rest in Christ. They want to keep going
out on that Sabbath day and saying, well now I know God said I would
have plenty and I can rest here and I won't have every hunger
and thirst again, but I'm going to go out and see if I can't
gather up a little bit on my own too. What did they find when
they did that? Nothing. And God says, you try
to mix your works with my grace, you're going to find nothing
with God. God won't have us. He just won't have us. And men
that do that, when a man disobeyed and broke God's Sabbath under
the Old Covenant, you know what God did to him? He cut him off
and he killed him. He separated him from his people
because he proved he wasn't God's people. And under this new covenant,
this everlasting covenant, when God's people rest in Christ and
cease from our works of righteousness and our works of holiness, trying
to make ourselves righteous and holy, because we're chosen of
God, redeemed of Christ, and born of His Spirit. That's what
the new man does. And the man who don't do that,
who won't rest in Christ, you know what he's proven? God didn't
choose him. Christ didn't redeem him. And
the Spirit has not regenerated him. That's what it proves. God's
cut. He's cut off. Cut off. Look here. Our text declares that God's
sovereign grace in Christ doesn't make the believer want to continue
living in sin. It makes him, first of all, a
sinner saved by grace through the cross of Christ. He's given
a new spirit to keep that which is equitable and right. Number
one, by resting from his vain works in Christ our righteousness.
And number two, by obeying God's word in our lives toward God
and toward one another. Now let's go to Matthew 5. Matthew
5. How do we learn what Christ would
have us to do. Who did He say there, you're
going to be led forth in peace, by peace, by the Prince of Peace?
That's how we learn. Christ is teaching His people,
and He's teaching us through the Spirit, through the Gospel.
Matthew 5, look at verse 17. This is Christ. You remember
how we, when we went through the Sermon on the Mount, our
young folks were so young, y'all don't remember this, I know,
but Whenever Christ, somewhere on the mountain, let's look at
verse 5. See in the multitudes, verse
1, He went up into a mountain, and when He was set, set down,
His disciples came unto Him, He opened His mouth, and He taught
them. You know what Christ has done right now? He's done what
He's done right there. He's gone up to the mountain,
to Mount Zion, to the right hand of God, and He's set down, and
He's drawing His disciples unto Him, and He's teaching us the
gospel. and He's teaching us what He would have us to do,
and He makes us willing in the day of His power. Now, look at
the sermon. Look down at verse 17. He said,
Think not that I come to destroy the law or the prophets. You
know why He said that? He was accused of what we're
accused of. He was accused of preaching a licentious doctrine.
He was accused of being an antinomian, of being lawless, because He
said, I came to fulfill it. And He said, But don't think
I came to destroy it. not the law or the prophets.
I am not come to destroy but to fulfill. He's the fulfillment
of the law, the prophets and the Psalms. Everything written
in that book. in the Old Covenant is Christ.
It's all about Him and about what He fulfilled. And He fulfilled
it all and He did it for His people. He said, "...For verily
I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle,
that is, the crossing of the T and the dotting of the I, shall
in no wise pass from the law till all be fulfilled." God's
holy. He's righteous. He's just. He
won't just save people by sweeping His law under the rug and saying,
we'll just overlook that. That's just one little eye that
had to be dotted. We won't pay that any attention.
What would you think of a teacher? You got a test and you've written
out everything in this test and it's about handwriting and your
teacher comes and she says, well, you've got a failing grade. You
missed dotting this eye right here. You failed the whole thing. You say, man, that's a strict
teacher. That's God. God says, when it comes to my
law, you failed to dot one I. You missed it. You missed the
whole thing. You missed the whole thing. Christ
said, but I guarantee you this, this earth and this heaven is
not going to be over with and passed until every I is dotted
and every T is crossed to that law. Who's going to do that? Christ did. He said, I came to
fulfill it. I came to fulfill it. But now
we'll work Now look at verse 19. Let me read this first. Whosoever therefore shall break
one of these least commandments and shall teach men to do so,
he'll be called the least in the kingdom of heaven. That don't
mean he's going to be in the kingdom of heaven. That means
everybody in the kingdom of heaven is going to be talking about
that person who's in the deepest spot of hell, the false preacher,
and saying he's the least. He's the least. What I tell you
all the time, the false preacher is going to be the one that's
going to be in the lowest, deepest part of hell. There are no degrees
of reward in heaven. We're going to all have Christ,
our righteousness, our inheritance. There are degrees of hell. And
the false preachers get in the worst place. And in heaven, he's
going to be regarded as the least, as the least. Why? Because will
workers, self-righteous Pharisees, do this. They take the law of
God. and they teach the law of God in such a manner to make
you, the sinner, feel like you can keep it, and that you can
obey it in the righteousness God requires, and that you can
come to God and be justified and made righteous by your law
keeping. The only way you can do that is to bring that law
down to a level whereby a sinner can keep it. That's to just teach
the letter of it. Just teach the letter of it.
When I read that law to you a while ago, if that's all there was
to it, was that letter of I've never actually killed somebody.
If that's all there was to it, you might could keep it if it
was just outward in the letter. But it's much deeper than that.
It's much deeper than that. Look here. So they break it by
teaching men that they can obtain a righteousness by it. They break
it themselves and they teach others to break it by teaching
they can obey it and have a righteousness by it. And to prove that he's
talking about the Pharisees, look at verse 20. He said, I
say unto you, except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness
of the scribes and Pharisees, you can in no case enter the
kingdom of heaven. Now look here, now here's what
he does, verse 19, second part there. But whosoever shall do
and teach, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of
heaven. That's Christ. Christ did the
law for his people and he teaches you the way that you do the law
is you come to him and believe on him and thereby you establish
the whole law. Not by your doing, by his doing
and his dying. That's how you establish it.
And then Christ teaches us the spirit of grace and love that's
in the law. That's what he teaches us to
do. So that we don't turn our hand again to evil, that it makes
us want to keep that which is equitable and that which is just.
That's what we've been learning in Ephesians. We've been learning
in these exhortations in Ephesians, we've been learning to keep equity
and do that which is just toward God and toward one another. That's
what we've been learning. Now look here. Let's see some
examples. Matthew 5 and look at verse 21.
He teaches here that murder is in the heart. It's in the heart. Look. You've heard that it was
said of them of old time, Thou shalt not kill. And whosoever
shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment. Well, folks
will say, I didn't commit murder. So I'm good. I'm righteous. I'm
not in danger of the judgment. But I say unto you, this is what
Christ teaches us in the heart, that whosoever is angry with
his brother without a cause, unjust anger, he says, he shall
be in danger of the judgment. And whosoever shall say to his
brother, Rake us, shall be in danger of the counsel. And whosoever
shall say, thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire. He said,
when you and your heart are angry and you start to just mutter
it under your breath against somebody, you're guilty. guilty
therefore if you bring your gift to the altar and there you remember
that your brother has all against you Leave your gift before the
altar, and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother,
then come and offer your gift. Agree with your adversary quickly
while you're in the way with him, lest at any time the adversary
deliver you to the judge, and the judge deliver you to the
officer, and thou be cast into prison. Verily I say unto thee,
thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou hast paid the
uttermost farthing. He's saying there, you might
be religious, you might be coming to offer your gifts to God and
your offerings of your service and of your monetary offerings
and your praise and all this stuff. But when you find out
that your brother's got ought against you, he's got something
against you, he said, don't imagine that just being religious is
going to make up for that. Don't imagine just being religious
is going to make you right with God. That's to turn away from
doing that which is equitable, and that which is just, and that's
to do evil. You mean a man could get all
spit-polished, and all shined up, and be in religion, and be
offering all these offerings, and all these gifts, and all
his service, and going all over the world, and being the greatest
humanitarian, and the most benevolent man in religion, and being the
poster child for the Baptist church, and you mean that's not
going to make up for everything he's done wrong? No. Who's the brother that's got
all against us? It's Christ. It's Christ, first and foremost.
Leave off all your religion. Leave off everything, all your
offerings and everything. And first thing you do is you
go and be reconciled to that brother. Go to Christ and bow
down to Him and believe on Him. That's to do what's equitable
and that which is just before God. And then before your fellow
man, same thing. If you're worshiping God and
you believe Christ, you trust in Christ for your righteousness
and holiness, and you've got a brother that's got all against
you, Christ says, leave off all your vain worship now. You've
polluted it. Go to that brother and be reconciled
to him. Go be reconciled to Him. That's
what's equitable. That's what's just and right.
Isn't that what Christ did for us? He came to where we are and
reconciled us to God. He did that for us. And reconciled. And then He came and taught us
the gospel. Said, now you be reconciled to God. And made us
willing to be reconciled to God. He says, now to you fellow men,
go be reconciled to Him. And that's the only grace is
the only thing that'll make you want to do that. And if you try
to do that and you try to say, well, now that's my righteousness,
that's my holiness, we've turned into doing evil again. Turn from
that which is equitable and that which is right. See, you've got
to be taught these things by the Spirit. A man can't get these
things by just reading it in a letter. He could take that
very thing that Christ just spoke and say, well that means that
I need to go and be reconciled to all my friends, call up all
my brothers and say, will you forgive me? And then the man
thinks he is righteous because he did that. First and foremost
it means to be reconciled to God through faith in Christ.
And then it means, and treat your brother with the same kind
of, that Christ has taught you, that He's treated you with. Look
here, here's another case. Matthew 5 there and then verse
27. He said, you've heard it was
said, thou shalt not commit adultery. That's what the law said. You
see, we're not saved and then go back to Mount Sinai. We don't
go back there. We go to Christ at Mount Sinai
and say, Lord, teach me what this law means. And you go to
Christ at the mount where He's seated and He'll teach you what
the law means. But He says, But I say to you, whosoever looks
on a woman to lust after her has committed adultery with her
already in his heart. And if you're right, I offend
you. If you're looking on a woman, pluck it out and cast it from
you. For it's profitable for thee that one of thy members
should perish and not that thy whole body should be cast into
hell. And then look at verse 31. It's been said, Whosoever
shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement.
I say unto you that whosoever shall put away his wife, saving
for the cause of fornication, causes her to commit adultery,
and whosoever shall marry her, that his divorce commits adultery.
And here we are. We've committed adultery. We've
looked on a woman and lusted after her in our hearts, and
that's committing adultery. So we here, chosen of God, Christ's
bride, the church, we've committed adultery. Is Christ just going
to give us a bill of divorcement? No, Christ is going to come to
where we are and He's that one member that rather than the whole
body should perish in hell, He's that one member that said, put
all their sin on me and pluck me out so that the rest of the
body don't perish. punish me so that the rest of
the body does not perish. And so when He fulfilled the
law like that for His bride, He made it so that the law is
dead to her, and she is dead to that law, so that now not
only has He put away our sin by being plucked out Himself,
He has made it so that we are lawfully married to Christ, and
no more adulterous, and no more fornication, righteous in Him. And so when he teaches you that
in your heart, you know what he makes the believing husband
and the believing wife do? He makes them want to overlook
every little difference between them, and every little thing,
and love each other, and cherish each other, and help each other,
so that there's no kind of anything that would be unfaithful
to each other whatsoever. That's grace work, and that's
what grace does. And then I got to hurry, but
he goes through, read the whole sermon on the mount. We went
through it one time. You can go look at my notes and
listen to the messages. He goes through and he teaches
you a whole lot there too about keeping equity and doing justice
when it comes to worshiping God. Don't do your alms before men.
You're giving. Don't do it before men to be
seen of men. Don't pray to be seen of men. You see, this doing
justice and doing that which is right and not turning again
to evil, it's in our worship toward God, doing what Christ
says do, and it's in our dealings with our fellow man too. It's
toward both. Once you're made righteous and
holy in Christ, now you want to obey Christ, and you want
to hear what Christ says, what the spirit of the law is, rather
than the letter of it. Because this is grace and love,
this is not the dead letter legalism that you hear folks preaching
and teaching and all that stuff. But look here, here's the sum
of it all, Matthew 7, 12. All things whatsoever you would
that men should do to you, do ye even so to them. For this
is the law and the prophets. That's what it is to do equity
and to do that which is right and to not turn your hand to
evil toward your fellow man. Whatever you would have men do
to you, do so to them. For that's the law and the prophets.
That's toward men. Here's toward Christ, toward
God. Enter ye in at the straight gate. Who's that gate? It's Christ.
Come to God through Christ alone. That's it. Wide is the gate,
broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many there be
which go in there at straights the gate, narrow is the way which
leads to life, and few there be that find it. Free grace is not a doctrine
that makes you want to sin and not give you a license to sin.
Free grace is a doctrine that makes you righteous and holy
before God, complete before God, by God's grace, by the doing
and dying of Christ. And that grace, constrained by
the love and grace of God in your heart, makes you want to
do that which is equitable and just and right toward God and
toward men. That's what it makes you want
to do. Not looking to yourself to come to God, looking to Christ
only. Now let's go to the last thing and I'll be quick. Turn
over there to Isaiah 56.1 and we're going to sum this up. I
tell you what, for sake of time, you go to Romans 13. Let me read what he said in Isaiah
56.1. This is what he said. He said, Thus saith the Lord, keep ye
judgment, and do justice, for my salvation is near to come,
and my righteousness to be revealed. In short, he's saying this, continue
in faith, continue in doing that which is equitable and just,
because Christ is about to come back. He's soon to return. They
were looking for him to come. And you remember when John the
Baptist came? John the Baptist came and he came preaching, the
time is fulfilled, the kingdom of God is at hand. He's right
here. So what did he say? Repent ye and believe on the
Lord. He said this, he was saying,
he's the voice of one crying in the wilderness, he's saying,
prepare you the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. In other words, if I called you
up in the middle of the night, tonight, And I said, I said,
Michelle, get ready. It's time. Christ is here. We're
going home. He's here. He's come. We're leaving. We're going. Are you going to
say, well, let me gather up some of my things here. Let me pack
a bag. Let me get my stuff together.
Let me go in here and I'm going to have me a cocktail before
I go. Let me go over here and I've got a friend of mine over
here who's been peeving me off. I'm going to go over here and
slap them real good before I go. You're not going to want to do
any of that stuff, are you? You're going to want to go. Listen to Paul. Right here, Romans 13, 11. This
is the New Testament version of our text. Knowing the time
that now it is high time to awake out of sleep. For now is our
salvation nearer than when we believed. Capital S. Christ is
nearer now than when we believe. The night is far spent, the day
is at hand. Let us therefore cast off the
works of darkness and let us put on the armor of light. Let
us walk honestly as in the day, as in that day that the Lord
returns. How you want to be found walking that day Christ returns.
That's what he says. Not in rioting and drunkenness,
not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying, but
put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the
flesh to fulfill the lust thereof. Turn to 2 Peter 3. Reckon when
Christ comes now, and He's here, you reckon we're going to be
making a whole bunch of provisions for our flesh? No. Everything here is going to be
burned up. The heaven and the earth will be burned up when
Christ returns. He called his people out then.
None of this stuff's going to even remain. Nothing you own,
nothing I own, none of it's of any value. It's all going to
be burned up. So Peter says this, 2 Peter 3.11,
seeing then that all these things should be dissolved, what manner
of persons ought you to be in all holy conversation and godliness? looking for and hastening unto
the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on
fire shall be dissolved and the elements shall melt with a fervent
heat. Nevertheless, we, according to His promise, look for a new
heavens and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. Wherefore,
beloved, seeing that you look for such things, be diligent
that you may be found of Him in peace, without spot, and blameless."
Isn't that how we are in Him? Yeah. Don't you want to be found
that way? I do. Look here. Verse 17. Ye therefore, beloved, seeing
you know these things before, beware, lest you also be led
away with the error of the wicked. See what he's saying? It's easy
to be led away. You're not led away. Satan beguiles,
he tricks. Led away with the error of the
wicked. Fall from your own steadfastness, from Christ. but grow in grace
and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Spend
your time there, he said. To Him be glory now and forever.
Christ said He'll present us holy and unblameable, unreprovable
in His sight, if you continue in the faith and be not moved
from the hope of the gospel. And Paul said later, he said,
which hope is Christ in you? The hope of glory. So what he's
saying in our text is persevere, trust in Christ only. He's the
one in whom we've got the equitable righteousness God requires. He
says, and keep judgment and justice in your worship and service to
God and in your dealings with men. And he says, because my
salvation is near to come, my righteousness is about to show
up. He's about to be here. That's
what he's saying. You know what those Pharisees,
you know why they missed Christ? You know why they miss Christ?
When He came the first time, they were making provision for
the flesh. They were having a great show, enjoying their works and
everything they were doing. We can do that in religion. We
can do that out of religion. We can do that in religion. We can do that in sin. Our text
is saying, look to Christ, look to Christ, look to Christ. Don't
turn again to sin. Amen.