All right, brethren, let's turn
back to Isaiah 55. Isaiah chapter 55. Verse 3. He says, Incline your ear and
come unto me here and your soul shall live. God says, I'll provide
you with food for your soul. And I'll make an everlasting
covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David. And we saw
this morning in that everlasting covenant that God has done everything
required in that covenant. He left nothing in the hand of
a sinner. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit
does everything required. In the everlasting covenant,
there's not one condition in it. There are no ifs and buts. It's all I shall and I will and
they shall. Everything in that covenant.
It's because the work of redemption has been accomplished by our
representative, the Lord Jesus Christ. He fulfilled all righteousness
when He walked this earth. He laid down His life on the
cross and He put away the sin of His people and He accomplished
eternal redemption for us. And when God makes His covenant
in our hearts, He makes us to know there's nothing left for
His child to do. There's nothing left. This is
not a conditional covenant. That was the covenant of works.
The covenant of grace says it's done. It's all done. Everything
is done. Everything is done. And therefore,
this is what I want us to see today. We're going to look at
this hour. We're going to see these sure
mercies now. What are these sure mercies God gives us? Well, every
promise that God makes to His child in this everlasting covenant
are sure mercies. That means they're surely fulfilled,
they're surely to come to pass, they're surely ours forever. They're sure mercies. They're
ordered in all things and sure. It's because God leaves nothing
in the hand of His people. This is what the scripture says.
All the promises of God. That's what these sure mercies
are. They're the promises of God in His everlasting covenant
of grace. All the promises of God are in
Christ, yes. Not maybe, not might, not if
you will. They're all yes. Yes. And in Christ, amen. And this
is why, to the glory of God. So God gets all the glory. So
what are these sure mercies? Well, I'm going to try to give
you these and I'm going to give you as many as I have time to
give you. If I don't finish, we'll look at it another time.
Now this is not in any particular order. And I'm not going to be
able to speak much on each one. I'm going to touch on them briefly.
So if you want to get my notes online, you're welcome to do
that. You can look at these things
more in depth. But Ezekiel 36, verse 24. Let's begin there. Ezekiel 36,
verse 24. First of all, God promises to
cleanse, to cleanse us. Look at verse 24. Ezekiel 36
verse 24. He says, I will take you from
among the heathen and gather you out of all countries and
will bring you into your own land. God says this to all His
people. To all His people. It doesn't
matter who your mom and daddy was, what nation you grew up
in. All His people now are scattered into all nations. everywhere. You can't tell where they're
from. God tore up their genealogy so they can't tell where they
came from. If they claim to be of the tribe of Isha, they can't
prove it because they're not proof of it. He's calling His
people out of the nations and every tribe, kindred, tongue
and people under heaven. And He calls us into our own
land. He calls us into that same land that Abraham was promised.
He calls us into that land for which Abraham looked when he
walked this earth. That city whose builder and maker
is God. The Hebrew writer said you've
been called to Mount Zion. that heavenly Jerusalem, that
Jerusalem which is above. We've been called into Christ's
body. That's where we've been called. That's our land. And
He says this, Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, I'll sprinkle
clean water upon you, and you shall be clean. From all your
filthiness and from all your idols will I cleanse you. God in grace, God in grace cleanses
His child from all our filthiness and from all our idols. God does
this. He does it by the blood of the
Lord Jesus Christ. He does it by the Word of God. And He does it by the Holy Spirit. And this is what the Scripture
says, not by works of righteousness which we have done, But according
to His mercy, He saved us by the washing of regeneration,
the cleansing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost,
which He shed on us abundantly. This is not a spit bath. This
is abundant cleansing. He shed on us abundantly. abundantly
through Christ our Savior, so that being justified by His grace,
we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
In Hebrews 9, He said, you had those blood of those bulls and
those goats, and He said, they cleansed men ceremonially. They
cleansed men typically. They were a picture of something
better. He said, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who
offered Himself through the eternal Spirit, purge your conscience? your inward man from dead works
to serve the true and living God. And He doesn't just cleanse
us one time, brethren. He continues to cleanse us. This
blood, He says, if we walk in the light as He's in the light,
we have fellowship one with another and the blood of Christ cleanseth
us. And that word ETH on the end
of the Old English means continually cleanseth. He cleanseth us from
all our sin. Alright, that's the first thing.
Here's the second. Verse 26, God promises to give
us a new heart and a new spirit. Verse 26, you think now, now
let me say this, you think, well now, He's got to do this before
I come, before He makes His covenant. Yes, He does this before we come,
before we hear Him, He has to do this. But then He tells us
what He's done for us. He shows us what He's done for
us. And this is what he says, verse 26. A new heart also will
I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you, and I'll
take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I'll give
you a heart of flesh. Oh, that old stony heart of flesh.
That stony heart of flesh is what we're born with the first
time. It's deceitful. above everything. You know, there
have been some mighty deceitful, deceitful cunning things and
people in this world. He said the heart is deceitful
above all things. It's desperately wicked. Who
can know it? None but God knows the heart.
Our hearts will deceive us. Our hearts will tell us, I'm
not bad. I don't care what a man says.
I'm not that bad. I'm not as bad as that next fellow.
Or it will tell us, I can keep the law. Or the heart will tell
us, this is all too outlandish. Don't even believe any of this
stuff. God come down from heaven and accomplish the redemption
of His people. The heart is deceitful. It's deceitful. And it's sinful. And it's proud. The heart is
proud. The natural heart. It's a stony
heart. You think of a stone. It's hard.
It's cold. dead, nothing about it, it's
just lifeless. That's the natural heart. It
must be taken out of the way. But God says He gives a new heart.
He gives a new heart, a new spirit. He gives a heart that's broken
and contrite before God. broken and conflicted, a heart
like a child, a heart broken, a heart that needs God to be
our Father. And He gives a believing heart
and a submissive heart. He gives a praying heart. For
the first time, a person could have said their prayers all they
want to, but for the first time when God gives this new heart
and this new spirit, we really pray to God. We really pray to
God. And when He gives this heart,
there are new motives. And this is the key. This is
the key. There are new motives. Everything
with God is about the motive. What's the motive? Is it to glorify
you or to glorify God? Is it to draw attention to you
or to glorify God? What's the motive? And God knows
the motive. He knows the motive. He gives
new motives. He gives new delights. He gives
new ambitions. God makes everything new. The
scripture says, if any man be in Christ, he's a new creature.
Old things are passed away. Behold, all things are become
new. That doesn't mean old things are abolished. It means the old
things you used to love and trust in and go after and run after,
they're passed away now. Now you got new motives and new
desires and new delights and new ambitions. You want Christ.
You want Christ. You want Christ. Alright, that's
the second thing. Now here's the third thing. God
promises to sanctify His child to a holy walk. Now I want everybody
to pay close attention here. This is where even those who
appear to preach the gospel of God's sovereign and free grace,
this is where they go off the rails right here. Now listen
to this, verse 27. He says, And I will put My Spirit
within you. I will put My Spirit within you. And I will cause you to walk
in My statutes. and you shall keep My judgments
and do them. When God works grace in His child,
He puts His Spirit within us. His Spirit within us. The Spirit
of His Son. Now the man that's in His flesh,
he cannot hear the Word of God, he can't bow to the Word of God,
and he won't and he can't. He won't and he can't. The carnal
mind is enmity against God. It is not subject to the law
of God and neither indeed can be. And that word law means,
it means not only the whole law of God, but it means any word
of God. He can't submit himself to the
gospel. He can't submit himself to the law. He can't submit himself
to God. Period. But the Scripture says,
you who believe, you're not in the flesh, but in the Spirit.
If so, be that the Spirit of Christ dwell in you. If so, be. He said, I'm going to put my
Spirit in you. And Romans 8 says, you're not in the flesh, but
in the Spirit. If so, be that the Spirit of
Christ dwell in you. Now, by putting the Spirit of
Christ in his child, he says here, I'll put my Spirit in you
and cause you to walk in my statues. He's not saying He's going to
put His Spirit in you and now you're going to be able to fulfill
the Law of God at Mount Sinai. That's not what He's saying.
I'm going to show you that in just a minute. That's not what
He's saying. If that was the case, all He would have done
was put His Law in you, put His Spirit in you, and He would not
have had to send Christ to the cross. No, He puts His Spirit
in us. And when He puts the Spirit of
Christ in us, God not only calls us to holiness, He gives us holiness. When the Spirit of Christ enters
in, that's when 1 Corinthians 1 and verse 30 is fulfilled in
us. Of God are you in Christ Jesus,
who of God is made unto us sanctification. When He puts His Spirit in you,
you have the holiness without which no man shall see God. I'm telling you, that holiness
is Christ. Christ, our sanctifier, is our
sanctification. I gave you this Thursday night.
I'm going to give it to you again in case anyone's never heard
this. But whenever God puts the Spirit of Christ in a sinner,
they have the holiness needed to come into God's presence in
perfection, in holiness. Now, I can prove that so. The
Hebrew writer said, without which no man shall see God. The thief
on the cross had both his hands nailed to the cross and both
his feet nailed to the cross. And he entered into the kingdom
of God that day. He entered into God's presence
that day. He didn't do one thing with his
hands, his feet, his nothing. He didn't do... But he had the
holiness required to enter God's presence. Why? God put His Spirit
in him. And that Spirit is Christ, the
sanctifier and our sanctification. And when God does that, He not
only calls us to walk in His way, in His way, but He makes
us walk in His way. When He puts His Spirit in us,
He makes us walk in His statutes and His judgments. He makes us
believe on Christ. He makes us love one another.
He makes us follow after Christ and love the Gospel and sit under
the Gospel and love to take of His ordinances. He makes us believe
God and love one another. Why? How so? What, you husbands
and wives, what is it that moves you to serve your spouse Demands
are love. Commandments are love. Which
one is it? I asked Melinda if I could tell
this on her because it's funny. And it illustrates this point
perfectly. But I want to make sure she didn't
mind. The other day she worked. I mean from sunup to almost sundown
she had worked all day long. I mean, working around the house,
cleaning, getting things done. I mean, she got a lot of things
done. And she got, she was tired. And
so she went in and sat down and turned the television off for
a minute and was just sort of laying there, you know, not doing
anything. And I thought, I'm going to have a little fun with
her. And I walked in and I said, woman, I said, you just going
to lay around all day or you going to get up and do something?
And I'm glad looks aren't bullets or knives, because I'd be a dead
man right now. But that illustrates my point.
Commands and demands, that doesn't make us want to serve. Love makes
us want to serve. And whenever God forms Christ
in the heart, it's like having Christ's sweet, loving embrace
with us. And it's His love, not compulsion,
not force, not demanding, not commanding. It's His love for
His people that constrains us to serve Him and to honor Him.
That's what Paul said. The love of Christ constraineth
us because we thus judge. If one died for all, then we're
all dead. And that He died for all, that
they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto
Him that died for them and rose again. You see, when we see that
we were all dead, all for whom Christ died, and when Christ
died, He died for us because we were dead, that we might live. And He gave us life. And now
we see, we don't want to live for ourselves, we want to live
for Him. That's what constrains a man. The law won't do that.
It won't do that. Alright, here's the fourth thing.
Look at Ezekiel 36, 29. God promises to save us from
uncleanness by providing for us. from uncleanness by providing
for us. Look in verse 28. He says, And
you shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers. Now,
get your mind off of physical land just a minute. I'm not going to get into it.
That's another subject. But dwell on this land right
here. What land did he give Abraham? Where's Abraham now? He's in
the land God gave him. That's where he is. Where's Jacob?
Where's Isaac? Where's Jacob? They're in the
land God gave them right now. That's where they're at. He said,
I'm going to give you this land. I'm going to bring you into this
land. And we've been brought there in spirit already. We've
been brought there. And he said, and you shall be
my people and I'll be your God and I will also save you from
all uncleanness and I will call for the corn and will increase
it and lay no famine upon you And I will multiply the fruit
of the tree and the increase of the field that you shall receive
no more reproach of famine among the heathen. You know what most
of our uncleanness is due to? The pressure to provide for ourselves. That's what most of our man's
uncleanness is due to. All mankind all together is like
a pack of starving dogs with one biscuit between them. And
we're just trying to crawl over one another and bite and devour
one another to get our piece of the biscuit. And that's where
majority covetousness, the love of money is the root of all evil. That's where most of our uncleanness
comes from, is trying to provide for ourselves. But by giving
us assurance that God shall provide, He takes that pressure off His
child. He's not saying here I'm going
to give you health and wealth and prosperity. The believer
don't want that. What we want is to know God's
for me and He'll provide for me. Whatever He's pleased to
give, that's fine. I just want to know He's going
to do the providing. And God tells us here that He'll
do the providing. Look at this. In temporal things,
in literally temporal things, God has power to call for the
corn. When did you and I ever call
for the corn? I'm not talking about call the server and ask
him to bring us out some corn. I'm talking about call it out
of the ground. Call for the corn. We got to till the ground, plant
the seed, look at the heavens, and pray to God that he'll give
everything needed to grow it. God just got to call the corn.
He just calls the corn. He says here, I can multiply
the fruit of the tree. David knew this promise. He said
the sure promises of David. David said, I was young and now
I'm old and I have never seen the righteous forsaken or his
seed begging bread. Never seen it. Never seen it.
But more importantly than temple meat is spiritual meat. He brings
us into this land and He gives us Christ the bread from heaven.
And He promises He'll never take Christ away. But He says, I will
increase. I'll increase. I'll only increase.
But I'm never going to take Him away. Ah, that's a good blessing. That's a sure promise now. Alright,
here's the fifth thing. Look at verse 31. God promises
to make us loathe ourselves because of ourselves. Verse 31. Then
shall you remember your own evil ways, and your doings that were
not good, and shall loathe yourselves in your own sight for your iniquities
and for your abominations. You know, the world doesn't see
a blessing in that at all. The world's teaching one another
to love yourself, self-worth, self-exaltation, self-glorification,
self, self, self, self, self. That's what the world's teaching.
But you who know God, you see the blessing in there. God's
taught you to loathe yourself for all your sin and all your
iniquity. Did you notice there he says,
then, then, then you'll remember your own evil way. Then, it's
only after God has brought us to see the glory of God in the
face of Christ Jesus. Before then, you see these fellows
that get busted for something on television. Oh, they're just
crying, crying, and crying. They're crying because they got
caught. That's why they're crying. But God says here, when I've
showed you my glory in the face of Christ Jesus and showed you
what He's done for you, He says, then you're going to mourn your
sin. Then you're going to loathe yourself for your sin. And we
don't ever stop. Our sins are before us and we
hate it. We hate it. Alright, I'm going to talk more
on that in just a minute. This is my sixth point. God promises
to write His law on our inward parts. Turn over to Jeremiah
31. Jeremiah 31. Listen very carefully on this
part, too. We're going to camp out here just a minute. Jeremiah
31, 33. This shall be the covenant that I'll make with the house
of Israel. After those days... What days
are those? After the day when Christ has
accomplished the redemption of His people. The day we live in. After those days, saith the Lord,
I will put my law in their inward parts. and write it in their
hearts. Now, if you want to look at Romans
8, I've got to go through this rather rapidly. Romans 8. This
right here is the totality of this law that God writes on our
heart. This is it and it's a totality. This is the law that God writes
on the believer's heart. Romans 8 verse 2. Romans 8 verse
2. It's the law of the spirit of
life in Christ Jesus. Now that's how you sum up this
law. It's the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus. And this is what this law does.
It makes me free from the law of sin. I'm going to show you
what that is in just a minute. And from the law of death. And
I'm going to show you what that is in a moment too. This spirit
of life in Christ Jesus makes us free from the law of sin and
death. This is a spiritual law. This
is not written on stone. It's written in the new heart,
God says. Now this is one law, but it's made up of several laws.
Whenever the Hebrew writer quoted Jeremiah, he said God promised
he'll write his laws. on our inward part, plural. God
here says I'm going to write my law. Now that's, it's the
spirit of life in Christ Jesus. The law of the spirit of life
in Christ Jesus. But there's several parts to
this. There's several laws that go with this. First of all is
the law of God. This is what Paul meant by the
law of death. The law of death. The law of
God given at Mount Sinai is the ministration of death. You saw
this morning why. I showed you this morning why.
Now by nature we have the law of God written on our conscience.
We have it written on our conscience. But our conscience is defiled.
It's defiled. That's why in Romans 2, Paul
said the Gentiles who don't have the law, they do the things contained
in the law. And he says, and they show the
law of God written on their conscience. But here's a problem. He said,
and by that law they accuse or excuse one another. But you know
the law doesn't excuse anybody. When we don't understand what
the law says, it don't excuse anybody. So, here's what happens
when God writes His law on our hearts. I'm talking about when
He comes and He makes you hear what the law at Mount Sinai says.
Just like He did Paul in Romans 7. The law, He said, I was alive
once without the law. He had the law. He thought He
could keep the law. because he was dead in sin. And
you think you can keep the law, if you think you can keep the
law, it's because you ain't keeping it, I can tell you that. No sinner's
ever kept it. And he said, I was alive without
it once, I thought I had life. And what he meant by without
it was, God hadn't written it on his heart yet. And he says,
but when the commandment came, when God wrote the law of God
on his heart so that he could see that it's spiritual and it
reaches to the heart, and it says, if you've thought on a
woman, you've committed adultery. And it says, if you've gotten
angry without a cause, you've committed murder. It tells you
when you're sleeping at night and you dream something wicked,
you're guilty. You're guilty. You're broken. I'm telling you,
brethren, when he does that, sin revives and I die. That's when I die. This is the
law. He writes it on our heart. And
for the first time, brethren, we start delighting in the law
of God. I'm talking about that law of
Mount Sinai. We delight in it. We see it's holy and it's just
and good. Because without it, I would have never known my sin.
I would have never known my sin. I showed you this morning. That's
why I gave it. Not to come to God by it. He gave it that you
might know your sin. And I love it now because that's
what it shows me. And this is what else that law
contains. It contains the law of sin. He said the law of the
Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law
of sin and death. But God writes the law of sin on that inward
man. What is that? Look over at Romans 7. I'll show
you. Romans 7. We're made free from that law
of sin just like we're made free from the law of death. But in
order to show us that all our fleshly man is his sin and to
keep us from looking to our flesh, from looking to our works of
deeds according to the law, to keep us from looking at ourselves,
God on the inward man reveals to us what the law of sin says
about our flesh. He shows us in your flesh even
after you believe dwells no good thing. Look at Romans 7.21. Here's
Paul, a regenerated man, and he says, I find then a law that
when I would do good, evil is still present with me. For I
delight in the law of God after the inward man. That's that law
of God. He sees it now, he understands
it's holy, just, and good, and he delights in it, in his inward
man. He says, but I see another law
in my members, in my flesh, in my old fleshly nature, in my
old fleshly thoughts, in mine, in my old fleshly deeds. I see
another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and
bringing me into captivity to the law of sin. which is in my
members. What does it mean by that? It
means when I would do good, I'm always sinning at the same time.
Always. Never time I'm not doing it.
He says, O wretched man that I am. This is what it brings
us to see. O wretched man that I am. And he says, who shall deliver
me from the body of this death? Is he going to look to his flesh?
Is he going to look to the law? Is he going to look to his works?
No, because God has written the law of sin on his heart, he's
going to look one place. Verse 25, I thank God through
Jesus Christ our Lord. That's who's going to deliver
me. So then, with the mind, I myself serve the law of God. That's
my inward motive. And he said, but the flesh, the
law of sin. That's all I do in my flesh is
sin. That's it. Alright? That's another law he
writes. He writes the law of righteousness
on our heart. I don't have time. I'm going
to have to hurry. You know, the Gentiles, they weren't following
after the law of righteousness. The righteousness of the law
means the perfection of God's law. The righteousness of God. The righteousness of His law.
The Gentiles weren't even following after it. They didn't even have
the law. And Paul said in Romans 9, he said, they have attained
to it. but the Israelites who were under
the law and had the letter of the law and were just strictly,
carefully trying to follow after the righteousness of the law,
he said they have not attained to it. Why? Because they sought
it not by faith, but by the works of the law, by their deeds, by
their doing. Because they stumbled at that
stumbling stone of Christ. They couldn't say, they couldn't
confess, they don't mind, a man doesn't mind to say, he can be
part of my salvation, let me hang on to my law keeping. But
they stumble at saying, he's all my righteousness and my law
keeping counts for nothing. Your law keeping counts for nothing.
It counts for nothing. Nothing. Else Christ is not all. It can't be both. It can't be
both. But He writes that law in our heart and He shows us
that because Christ was made sin for us, who knew no sin,
that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. By what He's done,
we've been made the righteousness of God in Him. He shows that
to us. And He writes the law of faith
on our heart. He shows us that Christ did it
all. He shows us that Christ declared God just and the justifier. And He shows us that we have
this righteousness of God and are made this righteousness of
God in Christ through faith. Because Christ did everything.
So then where is boasting? What excludes boasting? The law
of works? No, no. The law of faith. The
law of faith. He writes the law of liberty
on our hearts. The law of liberty is the gospel. The law of liberty
shows us we have free access into God's presence. The law
of liberty is believe God and love one another. This is the
rule we're under as believers. Love God and love one another.
Follow God, believe God, trust Christ for all your righteousness
and love your brethren. You have free access to that.
You have liberty. And the man that looks into the
perfect law of... It's perfect. There's nothing
else to be done. It's perfect. And the man that looks into the
perfect law of liberty and doesn't forget what he's heard, but is
a continual doer of the work. What is that work? He said, this
is the work of God that you believe on Him whom He sent and love
one another. The man that continues under
this rule, he will be blessed in his days, he said. But to
all liberties never to make us to give in to our flesh. He said,
at the same time you've been called unto liberty, only use
not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve
one another. What do you think of when I said
give an occasion to the flesh? I bet 99% of people sitting here
thought about some immoral sin. It also means don't look to your
flesh for righteousness. Don't look to your church going.
Don't look to your prayers. Don't look to your reading the
script. Don't look to you for anything for righteousness. Don't give
in to the flesh at all. Don't bite and devour one another.
Because we're going to be judged by the law of liberty. And the
law of liberty rejoices in mercy rather than judgment. That's
what James said. And he writes the law of love
or the law of Christ on our heart. If a man be overtaken in a fault,
you which are spiritual, restore such a one in the spirit of meekness,
considering yourself lest you also be overtaken in a fault,
and so fulfill the law of Christ. Why is it called the law of Christ?
Because Christ gave it. He said, brethren, this is my
commandment. Believe on me and love one another. Now this is
the law God writes on our heart. This is the law God writes on
our heart. The laws He writes on our heart. The spirit of life
in Christ. It makes us free from the law of sin and death. He
promises I'm going to write this on your heart. Here's the next
thing. God promises us reconciliation. Reconciliation. Look at verse
33. Jeremiah 31, 33. Behold the days, wait a minute,
Jeremiah 31, but this shall be the covenant I will make with
the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord. I put my
law and my report right in their hearts. I'll be their God and
they shall be my people. I'll be their God and they shall
be my people. When God says in your heart,
I will be your God, you know what's going to happen. You're
going to be His people. You're going to be His child.
You're going to delight to be His child. You're going to say,
Oh Lord, it's amazing that I should be called a son of God. A son
of God. Here's the next thing. God promises
to make us know Him. These are the sure promises.
Verse 34. He says there, And they shall teach no man,
shall teach no man, no more ever man his neighbor, and ever man
his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for they shall all know
me from the least of them to the greatest of them, saith the
Lord. He'll be all taught of God in the heart, in truth, in
spirit. The natural man, he cannot receive
the things of the Spirit of God because they're foolishness to
him, neither can he know them. He can't do it. And yet Christ
said to know God is life eternal. To know His Son whom He sent,
this is life eternal. How are we going to know Him
then? God says, I'm going to write it on your heart. I'm going
to make this covenant in your heart. I'm going to make you
to know Me and you're going to know Me. and have life eternal.
Here's the next thing. God promises us free justification. Verse 34. He says at the very end, I will
forgive their iniquity and I'll remember their sin no more. As
long as you think that there's some good in you, and as long
as you think that you're righteous by anything you've done, you'll
never have this sure promise made to you by God. Never. Christ
hurt some men one day, and they said, why is your master eating
Republicans and sinners? And he said to them, the whole
need not a physician, but they that are sick. And he says, go
find out what that means. He said, I didn't come to call
the righteous, I came to call sinners to repentance. I came
to call sinners to repentance. The church is not a place for
wealthy people. The church is not a place for righteous people.
The church is a place for sinners. Sinner. Dead, dog, dirty, no
good, rotten sinner. That's who the church is for.
That's who Christ calls. But everybody that He calls and
everybody that's made to know that all we are and all we do
is sin, we have this sure promise. God says, I will forgive your
iniquity. And not only that, He says, I
will remember your sin no more. Satan can accuse you to God all
he wants to. Every enemy you've got all over this world could
join together and bring up every sin you've ever committed and
have them cataloged and alphabetized in order. You could fall a thousand
times a day. God says, I forgive their iniquity
and I remember their sins no more. You know what David says
about that? He said, Blessed, happy is the man whose sins are
forgiven. Happy is the man to whom God
will not impute sin. Just won't. He just won't. All
we do is see our sin and loathe ourselves for our sin. And God
says, I don't remember it anymore. I don't remember it anymore.
Man, isn't the believer a mess? He's just a mess, isn't he? We
got all these blessings. Read those blessings Christ speaks
about in the Sermon on the Mount. They just sound like contradictions.
We're empty and we're full. We're poor and we're rich. We're
happy and we're sorrowful. Why? Because of this promise
God's made to us. And I wouldn't have it any other
way, would you? And a lost man hears that and he thinks, why
would you want to be in that shape? It's the most blessed
thing ever. It's the most blessed thing there
can be. All right, let me hurry. Let me hurry. Here's the next
thing. God promises to make us fear Him. Look in verse Jeremiah
32 and look at verse 39. Jeremiah 32, 39. Bear with me,
I'm going to go just, I got, I got, I think two more things
to show you, but bear with me because I want you to see these
today. We can get through this. I want you to see these. Verse
39, he says, I'll give them one heart and one way that they may
fear me forever, for the good of them and of their children
after them. You know what true godliness
is? It's to fear God. True godliness is to fear God,
is to reverence God. When you have this reverence
in your heart, you have the beginning of wisdom. Of God is Christ made
unto us wisdom. When Christ is made wisdom to
us, we've got reverence for God. We've got reverence for God.
Now we want to put forth our best all the time for Him. We reverence Him. And we can't
make ourselves godly. We can't make ourselves godly.
We can't make ourselves fear God. Much less make somebody
else fear God and make somebody else godly. You can't do that.
You can preach hell and the devil and paint as ugly pictures of
it as you want to. You can't make a man fear God. You just can't do it. You can't
put reverence in his heart. You can't put that trembling
in his heart that he needs to know that God's not playing games.
We're going to stand before him. And He's angry with the wicked
every day. You can't put this in a man's heart. Only God can
put this in a man's heart. And He does it by giving us one
heart. One with Christ. He sets us on
Christ alone. Every believer, every believer,
he says here, I'll give this. I'll give them one heart and
one way. God does this. You think he's
going to fail at this? We think God's going to have
trouble doing this? God says, I will give one heart
and one way. And you and I all have these
same things, sure mercies, you and I that believe. We all have
these sure mercies we've been talking about up to this point.
He's cleansed us. He's given us a new heart, a
new spirit. He's written His law on our inward
parts. He's saved us and provided for
us and saved us from our uncleanness. He's done all of these things
for us. Given us this reconciliation. We're one with Him. He's given
us justification. He's done all this. He's done
it by giving us one heart. We all have sin in our flesh
and loathe ourselves and see our temptations and our weaknesses
and our faults and stumblings and all that. We see that. And
therefore, you don't have, in God's body, in His church, you
don't have people, believers, exalting themselves over one
another and trying to glory in themselves and get everybody
to look at them. That's not what's going on in God's true church.
That's not what's happening where He's assembled His people together.
We sympathize with each other. Because everything that's happened
to you has happened to me in some way. And what's happened
to me has happened to you in some way. And everything you
do, I've done it. And what I've done, you've done
it. And we know we're sinners is what we are brethren. And
so we sympathize with one another. So rather than walking into the
tent where one of us is in our sin and pointing it out and telling
everybody like Cam did. We take the cover and walk backwards,
not looking on the sin of our brother like the other two brothers
did, and we cover up the sin of our brethren. That's what
believers do. Not to excuse it, but not to
expose it. We do it reminding one another
of what Christ has done, and how He's put away our sin, and
how if God says, I remember it no more. If God says He remembers
it no more, I'm not going to remember it. Isn't that right?
And that's how we love one another. This is true godly reverence. And it's because this one heart,
in it, He gives one way. One way. One way of salvation.
One way of access to God. It's a new and a living way.
He gives us one way of acceptance with God, one way of justification
with God, one way of sanctification, one way of obedience to God.
And it's not me and it's not you. It's Christ Jesus the way. He's the way. He's the way. And
our hearts and affections now are set on Christ. Our wills
are in submission to Christ. We all together have been called
by His grace. One heart means this. I want
what you want and you want what I want. It's for Christ to have
all preeminence. That's what we want. And wherever
you have a body gathered, assembled like that, you know what you're
going to find? You're going to find a happy family. That's what
you're going to find. A happy family. I'll tell you
what. Believers don't have feigned
faith. We've got unfeigned faith. We're sincere and upright by
His grace. We love without dissimulation
for Christ and one another. We've got genuine repentance,
true faith, and we truly desire to serve Him. And it's because
God has given us one heart and one way. He's the only one to
be praised for this. The only one. And this makes
us happy. This makes our blessed, happy
family of God, a family of believers. Men, I get so sick of hearing
men talk about planting churches. I get sick to my guts of hearing
that. We plant churches. We've planted
this church and that church. Men plant their churches by their
schemes and by all of their cruel cruel things that they do and
then they try to struggle to hold it all together by all their
means and their schemes and all their cruel rules. Men do that. They put it together that way
and then struggle and struggle and struggle and try to keep
it together that way. God plants his church by giving us one heart
and one way and God keeps it together the same way. And he
does it through this preaching that exalts one, Christ Jesus
the Lord. That's how God does it. And he
says this, I do it, verse 39, that they may fear me forever. For the good of them and of their
children after them. For our personal good and the
good of one another and for those that God is going to call out
by His grace to join us. That's our children hereafter.
That's who he's talking about. That's what I do. Here's the
next thing. I think this is number 11. God promises He'll never
turn away from us and He will not allow us to turn away from
Him. These are all the sure mercies
of this everlasting covenant He makes in our heart. Look at
verse 40. Jeremiah 32, 40. I'll make an everlasting covenant
with them that I will not turn away from them to do them good.
But I will put my fear in their hearts that they shall not depart
from me. At times, it appears God's turned
away from us. Does it appear like that to you
sometimes? It appears like He's turned away from you sometimes.
And He's done that for our good. But He's never turned away from
His child. Because He says here, I will not turn away from them
to do them good. He might make us think He's turned
away from us to do us good. But He said, I will not turn
away from them to do them good. You see, He turned away once.
He turned away one time when Christ stood in our room and
stared on Calvary's tree. He turned away then and poured
out justice on His Son in the place of His people. And because
Christ satisfied God's justice and reconciled His people to
God, God says, I will not turn away from you to do you good. I will never turn away from His
child to do us good. But he says this, he promises
this, I will put my fear in your hearts so that you won't turn
away from me. So that you won't depart from
me. Will you depart from God? Drop of a hat. Drop of that,
left to ourselves, we'll depart from God. In our heartbeat, we'll
depart from God. Who gets the glory for you persevering
in faith? God does. They say we're kept
by the power of God. If He didn't keep us, we'd surely
fall away. But He says here, I'll put my
fear in your heart that you will not depart from me. Aren't you
so glad for that? I'm glad for that. I'm glad for
that. Alright, here's the last thing.
I know this is a lot, and I don't normally preach 12, 13, 14 points. More than that if you count all
those laws I gave you. But listen, I want you to hear
this, and I want you to be overwhelmed with it. I want you to say, that
is a lot. Because I ain't even covered
it all. I near about covered it all. But this is sure mercies
that God writes on our heart. None of this God has said, you
will do. None of this God has said, I will do all this. All
this. Now listen, verse 41. Well, let
me tell you this before you read it. Listen to me. God promises
us assurance forever. That's what we all want. We want
assurance. I want assurance. I want to know these things are
true. One reason, you know, men don't believe God is they have
no assurance that these things are true. I want assurance they're
true. I want assurance God's going
to do all these things He said He's going to do for me. Well,
He promises us. He promises when He makes His
covenants with us that we will have assurance. But now listen
to me. Listen carefully. This assurance
is not in you and it's not in me. You're not going to find
this assurance in you. Here's the good part. This assurance
is assurance when me and you don't feel like we have any assurance. This is assurance when you and
I would agree with Satan himself and say, no, we're not a child
of God. This is assurance when we have
absolutely no assurance. Here it is, verse 41. Brethren,
don't ever look to you to try to find assurance. I can tell
you this. If you and I find some assurance
in something we've done, we need to let go of that quick.
Quick. Because it's not assurance. It's grasping for a straw on
a sinking ship and the straw is going down too. That's not
something you want. You don't want assurance in yourself.
But assurance where God says, I will assuredly do this with
my whole heart and my whole soul. Now that's assurance that can
be counted on. That's assurance, brethren. That's
what we want. We want God to tell us this.
God to promise us this. And I'm telling you now, don't
be looking at that land. People lose the blessings of
God because of their millennial stand. People lose this. I wish
folks had never come up with that so folks could concentrate
on Christ instead of concentrating on sidetracked rabbit trails. This land we're talking about,
you just imagine when this land right here is gone. When God
calls you to Himself and He says, look out there. You see that
ball of fire? Right there? That's everything
you called reality. That's everything you called
literal, right there. That ball of fire. That's the
heavens and the earth where you dwell, right there. That's all
of it. I've called all my people out of it. And I've saved my
people from it. And He's going to say to the
believer, to the unbeliever, He's going to say to the unbeliever,
While you dwelt there, I told you my gospel. I sent my gospel
to you. I declared my gospel to you.
You ate my bread. You drank my water. You wore
my garments. You used my earth. You used everything
I gave to you and abused everything I gave to you, but you refused
to hear me. Every prophet I sent, you would
not hear my word. But you're going to hear it now.
Everything they ever told you about my son is true. He is King
of Kings and Lord of Lords. Bow your knee and confess it. And we're going to bow our knee
and confess it. And then he's going to say, you see that ball
of fire right there? You see this gulf between us
and it? It's fixed. It's fixed. They can't come here
and we can't go there. But when I throw you into that
ball of fire, That's melting with a fervent heat right now.
That ball of fire you called heaven and earth. That ball of
fire you called everything that meant anything at all to you.
When I put you there, you're going to know me and you're going
to know my son and you're going to know everything my people
have and are rejoicing in all the days of your life. And this
is going to be the worm that never dies. You can't come enjoy
any of it. And you had your chance. You
had your opportunity to hear the gospel and you would not
hear. Now depart from me, you worker of iniquity. I never knew
you. And he's going to say to his
child, I was hungry, you fed me. I was thirsty, you gave me
drink. You did every work I ever commanded you to do. You kept
my old law in perfect righteousness. Never one sin, never one iniquity,
never one stray thought. You did it perfectly. You loved
me and you loved my brethren. better than yourself. You laid
down your life for them. You laid down your life for them
to suffer and die for them and to glorify me. You did that for
me. And we are going to say, Lord,
when do we ever do that? When do we ever do that? And you are
going to say, in my Son. In my Son. In my Son. in my son. Come, inherit the
kingdom prepared for you before the foundation of the world.
Before the foundation of the world. And you know what will
happen? We'll be planted in the land
he's talking about. And you know what he said right
now? His people, the believer, you're planted in it right now.
You're planted in that land right now. Right now. Now, Now, let
me say this, I'm done. You see here, the mediator, Christ
is truly the mediator of a better covenant established on better
promises. Everything about this is better.
Better, better, better, better. Now, if you still want to come
to God by the law, then none of this applies to you. You got
to keep the whole law of God. You got to do everything perfectly
yourself. And time's running out. You're
going to meet Him here real quick. So you better get to hopping.
You got to do it all. everything, all of this. But,
if you see that it's impossible, you see you need a mediator,
God says, He gives you three statutes. He gives you three
judgments. Man, his yoke is easy and his
burden is light. He gives you three statutes right
here. Incline your ear, come unto me,
and hear. And God promises your soul shall
live I'll feed you all my days." If you can come and incline your
ear in here, He's already given you spiritual life. He's saying,
I'm going to feed you this everlasting bread all your days. You've got
nothing to worry about. And He says, and I'll make with
you an everlasting covenant, all these sure mercies of David,
every one of them. hit their dying day and they
stand there before they're fixing to meet God in eternity and they're
shaking and they're trembling and they're just trying their
best to just take that next breath because they just want to hold
on to this life because they're so afraid of meeting God. David laid on his dying bed and
he said, although my house be not so with God, He's made with
me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and sure, and this
is all my hope, all my desire, all my salvation. And he closed
his eyes and met God and he's still enjoying the mercies of
God today. Amen.