Alright brethren, let's turn
to Isaiah chapter 55. Now our text this morning is
not Isaiah the prophet speaking. This is not Isaiah speaking.
It's God speaking. As you listen to this message
and read these words, try to ignore my voice and try to ignore
Isaiah's voice and hear God's voice. Hear God speaking this
word. This is God's call to the thirsty. First of all, God issues a call
with a condition. A call with a condition. He says
in verse 1, That means give me your undivided attention. It
means focus all your attention on what God is about to say.
This is more important than anything else that could possibly be on
your mind. He doesn't issue this call to
just an open call to everybody. The call goes forth to everybody.
God's not preventing anybody from coming. He said there, I've
stretched forth my hand to a disobedient and gainsaying people. But here's
the condition. It's not the conditions the world
gives you. It's not the conditions men put on the gospel. This is
the condition of God. Hold everyone that thirsteth. Everyone that thirsteth. Do you
genuinely desire to be satisfied I mean satisfied that you know
the true and living God. Satisfied that you have found
the true gospel. You found the truth. You want
to be satisfied, really satisfied. Do you genuinely desire to find
true, lasting delight? Delight for your soul. Are you
thirsty for everlasting life? Would you like to have everlasting
life and to know and be sure that you have everlasting life?
Do you thirst for full assurance, to be sure that God will will
give you nothing but everlasting mercies. Are you thirsty? That's who this message is for.
That's who God's calling. The thirsty. You see, it's not
that God's prohibiting anybody from coming. It's that men are
not thirsty. Men are not thirsty. You don't
have to talk a thirsty man into taking a drink of water. Where
does the thirsty go? If a man is thirsty, where does
he go? He doesn't go to some dry place. He doesn't go to a
dry fountain. He doesn't go to some dusty,
dry, desert land and try to find water. He goes to where there
is a fountain. He goes to where there is water. Because a dry place won't satisfy. A dry place won't quench a man's
thirst. And brethren, if you and I look
to ourselves in any regard to make ourselves accepted with
God, whether it's righteousness, or it's sanctification, or it's
preservation. If we look to ourselves in any
regard, that's like trying to quench your thirst by drinking
a big mug of sand. It's not going to happen. You
can't look to yourself and find this satisfaction that he's talking
about here. Those who are dying of thirst
are told here to come to the living waters. Come to the living
waters. God says, Come ye to the waters. Come to where you'll find the
full provision to meet all this need that you have. Whatever
it is. Whatever it is. Come to the waters,
come ye to Christ. Look at John chapter 4. Is Christ
the waters? Look at John chapter 4. Remember
the woman at the well? This is the account of her in
John 4. And look at verse 10. Jesus answered and said unto
her, If thou knewest the gift of God, And who it is that saith
to thee, Give me to drink? Thou wouldst have asked of him,
and he would have given thee living water. This is Christ
speaking. The woman said to him, Sir, you
have nothing to draw with, the well's deep, for whence then
hast thou that living water? Are thou greater than our father
Jacob, which gave us this well, and drank thereof himself, and
his children, and his cattle? Jesus answered and said unto
her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again. But
whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never
thirst, but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well
of water springing up into everlasting life. You remember the last day
in the great day of the feast, the Lord Jesus Christ stood and
He cried saying, If any man thirst, that's what He said, If any man
thirst, let him come unto Me. That's what He said. Come unto
Me and drink, He said. How do you drink? How do you
come to Christ and drink? He that believeth on Me. That's how. He that believeth
on me, as the Scripture said, out of his belly shall flow rivers
of living water. Christ is life and He gives life. Our text is going to speak here
about water and wine and milk and bread. They represent Christ. All of these things represent
Christ. He is the fountain of living waters. It's His blood
that put away the sin of His people that rejoices our heart
like wine. It's His gospel that's the sincere
milk of the Word that makes us to grow. It's the bread of life
given by God the Father. That's who Christ is. And notice
the text commands us to hear and come to Him. Verse 2 says,
hearken diligently unto me and eat that which is good. Verse
3 says, incline your ear and come unto me. He said. The blessings that He promises
to give us there in Isaiah 55-2, He says, let your soul delight
itself in fatness. This is spiritual food. This
is real soul food. Here in your soul shall live.
That's what He said. Sinner, can you just for a moment,
just for a minute, just for a minute, take the blinders off, pull your
head out of the sand and look to the horizon. Look to the horizon. Take your focus and your mind
off of these trinkets of dust and these mirages in the dry
desert. Take your eyes off all those
things and realize you have an eternity to spend somewhere. You have an eternity to spend
somewhere. It may begin today. It may begin
today. You have a need for acceptance
with God. You have a need for righteousness that you can't
provide. You have a need for holiness that you can't muster
up in you. You can't give yourself a clean heart. Who can bring
a clean thing out of an unclean thing? You need somebody to represent
you to God. Wouldn't it be amazing if God
made you thirsty today? I mean really thirsty. I mean
made you all of a sudden have a hunger and a thirst after the
Lord Jesus Christ. You know what the Lord said?
He said, Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness. They shall be filled. They shall
be filled. So that's who this Word is to.
And then look here secondly. God issues a second condition
and a call. He says in verse 1, And he that
hath no money, he that hath no money. Not only do we have to
have a genuine thirst to come to Him, But we must come with
Him with having no way of paying for that which we need. We have
to come to Him with absolutely no way of paying for that which
we need. He that hath no money. The Lord Jesus Christ said this.
It's easier for a camel, a real camel, a big old humpback camel,
it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle,
a real eye of a needle, like you sew with. It's easier for
a camel to go through the eye of a needle than it is for a
rich man to enter into the Kingdom of God. That's the problem. This is what's prohibiting a
man from having a thirst and a hunger after Christ. He's rich
in his own works. He's rich in His own so-called
goodness. He's rich in His own so-called
righteousness. Rich in His own deeds and His
own opinion of Himself. As well as His worldly possessions
and His worldly ambitions and all the things that keep Him
from coming to Christ. And Christ said, such a man,
you'd sooner get a camel to go through the eye of a needle than
get such a man to go into the Kingdom of God. If the way is
too straight and the way is too narrow for you, my friend, you
can't have all this extra baggage and come this way. Because this
way is Christ. Him alone. That's the way. You must come with no merit in
you. You must come with no righteousness in you. You must come with no
goodness in you. You must come with nothing you
can work up and nothing you can provide. Nothing. You must come
totally empty. That's the only way to come to
God. Now why is that so important?
Why is that necessary? Well, if you come with anything
at all, then Christ is not all and in all. If you come with
anything at all, Christ will not be your all and an all. If
you got just one thing that you think is going to add to it,
Christ is not all. And God is going to have those
that He saves to be glorying in His Son and His Son being
our all. If I think I've got some wisdom
of my own, Christ won't be all my wisdom. If I think I have
some righteousness of my own, Christ won't be all my righteousness.
If I think I have some holiness in me, that I'm working up and
I'm making more and more holy, then Christ, I will not have
a heart to confess Christ is all my sanctification. If I think
there's something I can pay to free myself from the curse of
the law, something I can do to gain God's favor or keep God's
favor or anything whatsoever like that, then Christ will not
be all my redemption. But those who come to Christ,
come to Christ saying, in my hand no price I bring, simply
to Christ I cling. He's the only way to God. The
only way to God. I went on a vacation one time
when I was a college student. I went with some friends of mine
and we planned on this vacation to be gone for three days. And
so, you know, I was a poor college student and they didn't have
ATMs back then and all I took with me was enough cash for three
days. for three days. And I wasn't
living luxurious in those three days, but I took enough money
to last three days. And I got there and I was riding
with some friends and they wanted to stay for five days. And so
at the end of the third day, I was out of money. I didn't
have any money. None at all. And they didn't
have any money to loan There I am, 12, 14 hours away from
home, no bank to go to, no checkbook, and I mean I'm out of money.
I don't have a red cent to my name. You know what I had to
do? I went to McDonald's in between
the breakfast shift and the lunch shift and begged them to give
me a pancake that they had left over. I had to beg them. This is how God's going to save
sinners. When you don't have anything
with which to pay, you come to Christ begging for mercy. That's the only way you'll come
to Christ begging for mercy. Christ said, I didn't come to
call the righteous to repentance. I came to call sinners to repentance.
Sinners. That loathsome one that people
turn their nose down on. That one that men say, I don't
know how somebody could do something like that. That one who folks
like to separate themselves from and say, how could a person think
like he thinks? That's who Christ came to save.
There are few and far between. Few and far between. When I was
down there on that trip and I was coming back, we stopped at a
convenience store and I went in and I asked this man at the
convenience store, I begged him, I said, can I have just a cup
of water? cup of water. I didn't want the
big fancy cup. If you just got a little old
dinky cup, that'll be fine with me. I just need some water. And
that man at the store, he said, nope, I won't give you any water.
He said, but I will give you something. He said, I'll give
you some advice. He said, get a job because nothing
in life is free. And he's right. Nothing in this
world is free. Nothing. But this world is just
the opposite of God. This world is exactly opposite
to God. God says here, He that hath no
money, come ye, buy and eat. Yea, come, buy wine and milk
without money and without price. Man-made religion is trying to
get you up to their price. That's what they're trying to
do. God is going to bring His people down to His price, free. Salvation is free. Linda and
I were at a restaurant back home one summer and we were eating
dinner. I looked across the restaurant and my cousin Tim was sitting
over there with his family. We visited a little bit. We already
had our food and stuff, so we stayed at our tables and all,
but we visited a little bit. When we got ready to go, I asked
for the bill. I wanted to know what I owed.
A server came by and she said, it's all paid. You don't owe
anything. It's all paid. That's what you find out when
you come to Christ. You find out it's all paid. It's
all paid. Redemption from the curse of
the law is already accomplished. Those that Christ died for, He
accomplished it. He accomplished their redemption.
Righteousness is already established. Sins have already been purged
for all for whom Christ died. All, I mean all, everything was
accomplished by the Lord Jesus Christ. That's why He cried and
said, it is finished. There's nothing that remains
to be done. Nobody in this world can make His blood effectual.
His blood is effectual. It accomplished the work. His
blood accomplished the work. Salvation is free to those who
come because it costs the precious blood of God's only begotten
Son. That's why salvation is free.
Jesus paid it all. All the debt I owed. Sin had
left a crimson stain. He washed it white as snow. He
did. Not my faith did. Not anything
I did. He did. He did. How do I know
Christ accomplished this for me? How do I know He accomplished
this for me? Are you thirsty? Are you thirsty? Maybe this is a better question.
Are you bankrupt? Are you destitute of all righteousness?
Are you destitute of any good in you whatsoever? You know the
reason men don't like my gospel? They think they're good. Think
they're good. My gospel says you ain't worth
a plug nickel. And I'm not either. And men don't
like that. But that's the truth of God.
But if you're that way and you see there's nothing good in me. There's nothing savable, nothing
worth saving, nothing worth keeping in me. I guarantee you this,
a man does not feel that way. He does not have those kinds
of thoughts unless God has begun to do a work in his heart. And
he says to any that thirst, God says this. He says come and feast
on the wine of Christ's blood and the bread of his life and
the water of life. He says come and feast. Feast. Now thirdly, God asks a question.
Look here, verse 2. He says, Wherefore do you spend
money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which
satisfies not? Isn't this something? This is
God speaking. And He condescends to me and you, to our little
feeble minds, and says, now, come now, let us reason together. Your sins are as scarlet, they
shall be white as snow. This is what he's saying, come,
I'm going to reason with you now. This is God's thinking and
He's going to reason with me. He's going to reason with you.
He says here, why are you spending money for that which is not bread,
for that which is not life at all? He says, why are you laboring
for that which will never satisfy? the vain imagination of every
carnal mind and of all false religion, they call you to the
field and to the kitchen. They don't call you to the table.
They call you to the field and to the kitchen. They don't tell
you come drink the wine. No, no. They say you go plant
your own grapes and you tend your own grapes and you grow
your own grapes and you pick your own grapes and you crush
your own grapes and you make your own wine. That's what religion
tells you. All man-made religion tells you
that. And so you'll never have your heart rejoiced with the
wine of Christ's blood that put away all the sin of His people
because they're too busy telling you how to earn your own righteousness. They don't tell you to come to
the table and drink of the sincere milk of the word. They tell you
to raise your own cow and milk your own cow and strain your
own milk. And you don't ever get to drink
the sincere milk of the Word because they're too busy looking
into the Word of God and telling you how you can have life by
things you do from the Word of God. Is that not what they're
telling you? Christ said you search the Scriptures
for in them you think you have life. But the Scriptures are
they which declare me and you will not come to me that you
might have life. They bid you raise your own wheat,
harvest it yourself, prepare it, bake it yourself, but they
don't ever give you Christ the bread. Why? They're too busy
telling you the lie that the work of God is for you to work,
rather than the truth that the work of God is to believe on
the Lord Jesus Christ. Men are scared of that message.
Men are... I've had men tell me they're scared of that message.
They say, if I preached that message, my people would, you
know, they would do this and that and all kind of sin. And
mainly they say they'd sin all they want to. I guarantee you
there's not a preacher on this planet that's not keeping his
people from sinning all they want to. I guarantee you that.
They're sinning all they want to. I guarantee you that. And believers sin more than we
want to. We send more than we want to. And this message doesn't
make us want to send more. It makes us want to send less.
That's right. God says, Wherefore do you spend
money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which
satisfies not? All your works, all works of
religion, they take from you. They take from you. But they'll
never give you anything that eternally satisfies. Never. And you can work and work and
work and labor and labor and labor. You will never ever satisfy
the Holy God. Never. And you won't ever be
satisfied either. Your conscience might be soothed.
It might even get to the point where it's seared. But you won't
have any satisfaction. You won't have any satisfaction.
The Lord said this, come unto me all you that labor and are
heavy laden and I will give you rest. Are you weighted down? Are you being told over and over
and over, do, do, do, do, do, this is what you need to do,
you've got to do this, you need to meet us over here, we're going
to pass out track. If you don't come now, you're
the black sheep. Are you tired of laboring? Are
you tired of hearing that message that tells you to do, do, do,
do? Would you like to rest? Christ
says, come unto me all you that have been burdened down with
this vain, godless religion. All you that just had burden
upon, burden heaped upon you. Come unto me and I'll give you
rest. I'm meek and lowly of heart.
You'll find rest to your souls. He said, my yoke is easy. And
my burden is light. Why is Christ's yoke easy? Why
is His burden light? The Scripture speaks of Christ
carrying two things on His shoulder. One, it says the government is
on His shoulder. The government of presenting
all His people spotless and without blame and unblameable to God
is on Christ's shoulder. And it says when He finds His
lost sheep, He carries it on His shoulder. That's why his
yoke is easy and his burden is light. Ain't nothing on our shoulders,
brethren. Everything is on Christ's shoulder,
including you who believe Him. That's right. Wherefore do you spend money
for that which is not bread, and labor for that which satisfies
not? Nothing in this world is going
to satisfy nothing. Look at this next thing. How
do I come to Christ? We see here only God can make
us willing to come to Christ. Look at verse 2, Isaiah 55, 2. He says, Harken diligently unto
me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight
itself in fatness. How can a dead man hearken and
eat? Doesn't that sound kind of contradictory to tell a man,
now if you'll listen and eat, you can live? That sounds kind
of backwards, doesn't it? Listen and eat and you'll live. Remember the dry bones? Remember
the dry bones? Remember what the message was
that the preacher was told to go preach? The Lord said, prophesy
upon these bones and say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear the
word of the Lord. Go to these dead, scattered,
dry bones and say, Hear ye the word. Say to them first, O ye
dry bones. Why? Why is it that God says,
say to them, oh ye dry bones? We need to be told we have no
life in us. God says, go to them and say
to them, you have no life in you. You're dry. You're dry. Can you just picture that old
parched, sun bleached bone out in the middle of a field? I used
to run around in the fields over in Hope, Arkansas. We lived there
for a little while. I'd run around over in the fields
in Hope and you'd come across an old There's a bunch of just
some bones scattered around out there from an old cow. Just old
white, bleached, dry bones. He said, that's what his people
are. He said, and you go to these bones and you say, oh ye dry
bones. A sinner must be told that he
can't do anything. And then he said this. He said,
and say unto them, hear the word of the Lord. Hear the word of
the Lord. He didn't tell them to go and
say, well, you've got a little spark of life in you, you just
need to fan that flame into life. That's bad news for a sinner.
That's terrible news for a sinner. You're making that sinner think
that he's alive and he can do something for himself. You're
lying to that sinner. You're telling him a damnable
message when you tell a man that. He says, go tell them they're
dead. And He doesn't say, and go tell them, give them a step-by-step
playbook on how to be born again either. He didn't say, go and
tell them, do this, A, B, and C, and you can be born again.
He said, go tell them to hear. Tell them to hear. And then He
said this, tell them this, don't tell them things that they can
do, tell them what I'm going to do to make them hear. He says,
Tell them this, Thus saith the Lord God unto these bones, Behold,
I'll cause breath to enter into you, and you shall live. You
know what I do when I preach? I preach to you and I tell you
you're dead, and then I tell you how God gives life to dead
sinners. That's my message. That's it
every time I stand here. That's what God said preach.
Tell them they're dead, and then tell them how I give life, God
said. No ability, no will, no spiritual
discernment in you whereby you can hearken to God's command.
But now look here, this word hearken, see this word hearken
here? Hearken diligently. Hearken and diligently, both
these words are the exact same verb. They're translated from
the exact same Hebrew verb. Hearken diligently. They both
mean hear with spiritual discernment. That's what they mean. Hear with
spiritual discernment. The first word is spoken in the...
I'm going to get fancy on you. The first word is spoken in the
imperative. It's God's command. Hearken. And the second word is in the
infinitive absolute. It's like an adverb. It tells
you how to hear. Hear diligently. We saw it this
morning. When this call of the good news
goes out, when you're told you're dead, you're told you're dead. And this is what seminaries tell
preachers. Don't tell the people they're
dead. Don't tell them that they're sinners. And churches say that
when you're out witnessing to people, don't tell them they're
dead. Tell them there's something they can do. Give them something
to do. God said tell them they're dead and tell them how I say.
how I do all the work. And God says through that work,
through that message, I'll do the work. I'll do the work. And
so we preach this message and as it goes forth, God gives the
command, hearken. You see, I said that word, hearken.
It won't do anybody any good. But
if God says it and He says it in your heart, you're going to
have spiritual discernment immediately. And when he says, hearken diligently,
you're going to start diligently hearkening to God. That's right.
And this is the only way a man can hear. Look at 1 Corinthians
2. 1 Corinthians chapter 2. He says in verse, let me get
there. 1 Corinthians 2 and verse 14. He
says, the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit
of God. Everything I'm saying today is
of the Spirit of God. This is the Word of God. But
a natural man don't receive it. He can't receive it. Look at
this. They're foolishness unto him,
neither can he know them because they're spiritually discerned.
I'm sitting here telling you, you want to know if you're elect
of God, it's going to be if you're thirsty. Now let me switch that.
You want to know if you're a natural man. Does all this sound foolish
to you? Does all this sound like it's
useless to be sitting here having to hear all this? Then you're
a natural man. You're a carnal man. You're dead
in trespass and sin. You're a dry bone. That's what
you are. But he that's spiritual judges all things. How does he
get this? How does he get... Look back
up the page there. Look back up the page. Verse
10. God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit, for the Spirit
searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. God has revealed
these things to us. What does it mean to hearken
diligently? What does that mean? So I've
got to hear God. God's got to speak into my heart and I'm going
to hearken. What is it to hearken diligently? When your favorite
band drops that new record and you can't get enough of listening
to those new songs, and you listen, and you go back and you listen
again. And you walk around and you got your headphones on and
you just can't stop listening. You want to hear every little
note. And you go back and you hear something new in it. You
hear some new harmonies in it. You go back and you hear something
else about the production of it. You just keep listening,
you keep listening. You're hearkening diligently
to that, to that band. What God says when he speaks
into the heart, he says, hearken diligently unto me. Hearken diligently
unto me. And you know what's going to
happen when God gives that command? You're going to hearken diligently. We're going to drop all those
things that were so important to us and we're going to start
hearkening diligently unto God. We're going to do so in the preaching
of the gospel. You can't, you can't, the only message and the
greatest message that'll make sinners delight to come and hear
the gospel of Christ preached is the gospel of Christ. That
makes sinners want to come hear the gospel because God's spoken
into their heart and said hearken diligently and they want to hear
Him. And then they'll take the Scriptures and they'll follow
along in the Scriptures while the Word's being preached. Because
they want to see, what does God say? I want to hearken diligently
to God. I want to see what God says.
And the natural man will just sit there and go... You just
hear all these pages turning all around him. He just sits
there and goes, I'm not turning. I don't care about that. He's
a natural man. It's foolishness to him. But
Jude said, now look, and then you go home and you take the
word home with you and you get home and you say, I want to look
that up. I want to go print those sermon
notes off or I want to go and listen to that message again.
I want to talk about it. Did you hear what he said on
this part right here? Yeah, I heard that. Let me show you what that
made me think of. When you turn to the Scriptures
and you discuss them with each other or you go to them yourself
and you look, just like the Bereans, they were more noble. They went
home and they searched the Scriptures to see if these things were of
God. Don't take a man's word for it. I'm just a man. I might
come down with some kind of brainiac disease tomorrow and I might
come in here and preach something to you off the wall. Go home,
go search the Word and see what it is. See if what I'm telling
you is true. By the same command, it's God
who teaches us how to come and how to eat. Look here at verse
3. Incline your ear and come unto me, here in your soul shall
live. What happens when a baby is born?
You got to teach that baby everything. Don't you? He gets to where he's... They don't even know how to drink
milk from their mother's breast. They got to be taught that. And
then when they go from that to some kind of mushy stuff, they
got, you see them, they get it all over their mouth. They got
to be taught how to eat that. And then when they get a little
bit older, they got to be taught how to eat a little stronger
food. God's the one that teaches us. Once He's given us this command
to hearken diligently, and He's given us life, and He's given
us ears to hear, then He starts telling us how to eat. And He
says here, incline your ear, come unto Me, hear, and your
soul shall live. Isn't it something? We come to
Christ through our ear. We come to Christ through the
ear. Or rather, Christ comes to us through the ear. He comes
to us through the ear. We hear the gospel that declares...
What do we hear the gospel declare? We hear the gospel declare we
come to Christ in our heart, believing on Him. We come to Christ because we
come to His throne of grace, begging mercy from Him. We come
to Christ by coming to Him all the days of our life the same
way. We come to Him through this Gospel. We come to Him through
our heart. We come to Him through His throne
of grace. And we keep coming. Unto whom
cometh Peter? We keep coming to the Lord. And
it's by God's effectual command through the hearing of the Gospel
of Christ that God gives faith in the heart, that He keeps us.
What Robert read? Faith cometh by hearing, and
hearing by the Word of God. He said, incline your ear. And
it's by God's same effectual command through the hearing of
the gospel of Christ that God continues to grow believers.
Paul said to the Galatians, this is what I want to learn of you.
Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law or by the
hearing of faith? And he said, are you so foolish
having begun in the Spirit by the hearing of faith? Are you
now made perfect by the flesh, by the works of the law? No.
The same way the believer begins, that's how we continue. By the
hearing of faith. God gives faith through hearing.
And hearing by the Word of God. By God speaking it. By God speaking
it. And we continue to grow that
same way. But notice this now. Notice this. When Christ stood
up on that day, on that great day of the feast, and He said,
Ho, everyone that thirsteth, come unto the waters, Christ
said that to everybody. I'm sitting here saying this
right now, and I'm telling you this is God's Word, and I'm not
making any distinction between anybody here. I'm just saying
it to everybody here. You know what that means? You're going to have to stop
blaming God for not coming to God. Because he's not hiding anything
from anybody. He's not barring the door. Why aren't you coming? Not thirsty. Got plenty of money. Got plenty, don't need it. Rich,
increased with goods, got need of nothing. Don't need God. Look at this last thing. For
those to whom this word comes in power, who obey and believe
on Christ, God makes a promise. He makes a promise. He says in
verse 3, And I'll make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure
mercies of David. This is the second time we've
seen this today. We saw it this morning. When God called those
that came and said we believe the Lord, we're going to obey
His voice. You go home and read it this afternoon in Joshua 24.
God made a covenant with them. Covenant with them. God says
here, you come to me, I'm going to make a covenant with you.
Notice it says, I will. This is God's prerogative. It's
His prerogative to make a covenant with whom He will. And it's only
God that can write the law of His everlasting covenant on our
hearts. He's the only one that can do it. And then He says,
it's an everlasting covenant. It's from everlasting to everlasting,
eternity to eternity. This covenant was ordered and
secured and settled in eternity when God put a people in Christ
Jesus and Christ agreed to fulfill every last part of it. It was
settled right then. It's God's covenant of free grace
given to His people in Christ before the foundation of the
world. Oh, that's such good news. Look, it's founded on nothing
but the goodness and grace of God in Christ. That means you
and I can't put our polluted hands on it and mess it up in
any way. Isn't that good? Aren't you glad? Now look, and
then He says, I'll make this everlasting covenant with you.
I'll make it with you. With you who look for salvation
in nobody but Christ. With you who look for righteousness
in no other but Christ. With you who come to Christ through
faith, thirsty, without money, without price. He says you shall
be filled. And then look at this, God calls
His covenant the sure mercies of David. They are sure because
every stipulation of this covenant is accomplished by God in Christ
Jesus. It is all finished. There is
nothing to add to it. There is not a tee to cross or
an eye to dot. It's all accomplished, ordered
and sure. He says, and he calls it mercies, the sure mercies,
because we need mercies. We need abundant mercies. We
need mercy upon mercy upon mercy upon mercy. It's mercies. And
he says, and it's the sure mercies of David, because David, as a
king and a mediator, is a picture of Christ, who came through David's
house. That's who he's speaking about,
about Christ. About Christ, the sure mercies of Christ. The covenant
that God makes with us is Christ Himself. Christ Himself. He shows it. We're going to look
at that more next time, but this is what it means. Turn to Romans
8. I'll show you what it means.
Romans 8. The same exact covenant or the
same exact inheritance that the Lord has given to Christ, that's
what He says He'll give to His people. Look here in Romans 8
and look here in verse 16. The Spirit itself bears witness
with our spirit that we are children of God. He is making that covenant
in your heart. He bears witness in your heart
that you are a child of God. And if children, then heirs of
God and joint heirs with Christ. If so be that we suffer with
Him that we may be also glorified together with Christ. This is
what He does. He makes this covenant in our
hearts. This is the point of the whole thing. He's telling
us to come to nowhere but to Christ. You see, God the Father
chose His Son and He said, I'm going to glorify my Son. And
the way I'm going to glorify my Son and glorify my name in
my Son is this. I'm going to create a world and
I'm going to populate it with the people. that have fallen
into sin by their own deeds, by their own unrighteousness,
by their own ungodliness. And I'm going to send my Son
into that ungodly, hell-deserving place. And my Son's going to
come forth and my Son's going to declare my name. He's going
to preach me. to everybody as he walks this
earth. And not only that, he's going to fulfill the righteousness
of my law in precept and in penalty. He's going to love me and he's
going to love my brethren as himself. And he's going to lay
down his life for them and put away their sin by the sacrifice
of himself. And then I'm going to glorify
him more because I'm going to raise him to the right hand of
my throne on high and I'm going to give him all power in heaven
and in earth. And He's going to go forth with
His disciples until the end of the world, calling for me to
send forth the Holy Spirit. And I'll send forth the Holy
Spirit into their hearts, and they'll hear me speak, hearken
diligently. And the one that they'll hearken
to is my Son. And the one they'll call upon
is my Son. And the one they'll cast their
care upon is my Son. And the one they'll feed upon
is my Son. And the one that they'll worship
is my Son. all the days of their life, and He'll keep on keeping
them all the way through their life, so that nothing can harm
them, nothing can hurt them, nothing can separate them from
the love of God which is in Christ Jesus. And then when they die,
at the appointed hour that I've set, I'm going to raise them
from the dead, and eventually I'm going to raise their bodies
incorruptible, and they're going to come before me, join together
with me in body and in spirit, and they're going to worship
me, and they're going to see me as I am, God said, and they're
going to see me in the face of that God-man, Christ Jesus. and
worship me all... He said, God said they're going
to worship Him all the days of our life, the eternity, for all
eternity. These are the sheer mercies God
promises us in our heart. And we want it to be so. We don't
want a glory. We don't want to have God, anybody
praising us or looking up. We want Christ to have all the
glory. Because that's what God desires.
He's made our will His will. That's what He's got. Now look,
we are going to just read this out. Look at verse 6. We will
come back here another time. But this I think is a good way
to end this message. Look at verse 6. This is God
speaking now. He says, Seek ye the Lord while
he may be found. Call upon him while he is near.
He may be found right now. He is near right now. Seek ye
the Lord while he may be found. Call ye upon him while he is
near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man
his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord, and he'll have
mercy upon him. And to our God, for he will abundantly
pardon, for my thoughts are not your thoughts, Neither are your
ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher
than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my
thoughts than your thoughts. For as the rain cometh down,
and the snow from heaven, and returns not thither, but waters
the earth, and makes it bring forth in bud, that it may give
seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be
that goes forth out of my mouth. It shall not return unto me void. But it shall accomplish that
which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto
I send it. 4. Ye shall. Listen to this. You know, this tells you the
ones God is speaking about right here are the ones that He is
going to call. Because He doesn't say anything about anybody else. He just says, You shall go out
with joy and be led forth with peace The mountains and the hills
shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees
of the field shall clap their hands. Instead of the thorn shall
come up the fir tree. Instead of the briar shall come
up the myrtle tree. And it shall be to the Lord for
a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off." When
you are brought to Christ, everything around you begins to glorify
Christ. You start seeing Christ in everything
around you. How God created everything to
glorify His Son. Everything makes more sense.
This whole world makes more sense. Why is it that the sun rises
and the sun shines its light on a moon that has no light in
it whatsoever? If it didn't have light, it would
just be surrounded by darkness. But that sun shines into that
moon and gives it light. Who's that glorified? the Son
of Righteousness. Why is it that a seed falls into
the ground and dies, and from it comes up a vine, and from
it comes all this fruit? Because that glorifies Christ.
Everything God made, and you'll begin to see the hills clapping
their hands, and you'll begin to see Christ everywhere. And
God says this, He says, and this is to the Lord for a name. You'll
start glorifying God. And he says, for an everlasting
sign, it shall not be cut off. I pray God will make that effectual.
Amen.