All right, brethren, let's turn
to Isaiah chapter 54. Robbie's scripture reading goes
along with our text this morning. He read the text there that we
have an inheritance, an eternal inheritance reserved in heaven.
And in Isaiah 54 and verse 17, we read this. This is the heritage
of the servants of the Lord. This is the heritage of the servants
of the Lord. The Lord is Jehovah, the triune
God manifest in the person of Christ Jesus, the Son of God. Heritage here means inheritance. It means an estate. It means
a portion. This is the inheritance of the
servants of the Lord. Every believer born of God and
called to faith in Christ is a servant of the Lord. You were
the servants of sin, now you're the servants of righteousness,
the servants of Christ our righteousness. So our subject is the servant's
inheritance, the servant's inheritance. You know, whenever a man dies,
he leaves his child, his children, an inheritance. Well, God tells
his children what the inheritance is. He tells us beforehand what
the inheritance is. He told us even before He came
and died what the inheritance is. How many here who believe
the Lord would like to know what is your inheritance? What does
the Lord God promise to you? What does He promise you shall
have? Well, in our text, the Lord God promises each of His
people that we're going to have education, we're going to have
justification, We're going to have protection and we're going
to have vindication. Oh, we're going to have this.
This is certainty. Now, that doesn't exalt this
subject. That by no means exalts what our inheritance is. Paul
said, speaking by the Spirit of God in 1 Corinthians, he said,
all things are yours. All things are yours. Everything belongs to us. Everything
that belongs to God, everything that belongs to Christ, belongs
to His people. We're joiners with Christ. Joiners with Christ. And we've already seen in this
chapter a great part of our inheritance. We saw here that in verses 1
through 3 that Christ, our husband, promises us we'll be fruitful.
In verses 4 through 10, He made an everlasting covenant with
us and He said we'll never be ashamed, we'll never be put to
shame, but He will give us everlasting mercies. He said in verses 11
through 12, Christ our builder said that we'll have His temple,
we who are His temple, living stones, we'll be adorned with
precious stones for precious stones. He will give us these
precious adorning stones. And so today, let's begin where
it all begins for us who believe, where it began for us who believe. And this is how it always begins
for a sinner, right here. He says, first of all, we're
going to be taught. All the church's children shall
be taught of the Lord, verse 14. And all thy children shall
be taught of the Lord, and great shall be the peace of thy children.
We won't stay here a long time because this is exactly what
we looked at in the first hour. Every individual elect child
of God shall be taught of God in the heart that He's made new.
What shall we be taught? Well, He's going to teach us
of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. It pleased God for Christ to
have all the preeminence. And so when He sends forth His
messengers preaching, you can discern they're His messengers
because they're the ones preaching all about His Son. They're the
ones declaring Christ, Christ, Christ, Christ. That's a sure
messenger of God. He's going to teach us in our
hearts, brethren, our total depravity. He's going to teach us our total
unrighteousness and our helplessness. And you know when you're going
to see that? You know when you're going to really know your sin
and your total absolute ruin in sin? When you behold the just
one. When He gives us a view of Christ
Jesus, the righteous one. That's when we're going to be
made to see we're sinners. When we see Him, we see His person,
we see His works, we see what He did and how perfectly righteous
He is, that's when we're going to be made to see ourselves as
totally ruined in sin. And having showed us our ruin
in sin, He's going to show us that salvation is entirely of
God's grace. eternal election, to Christ's
redemption, to our regeneration, our sanctification, to our preservation,
to our resurrection, to our glorification. All the work of God is all His
work. All salvation is the work of
God. It's all of God. Salvation is by grace, unmerited. unsought, unearned, all of God. And doing, teaching us all this,
He's going to teach us Christ Jesus is all. He is all, brethren. Men like to cloud the issue and
make it just all muddy. Christ said this, I am the way,
the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father but
by Me. Now that's about as clear and
simple and as It's just clear. That's the truth. Christ is the
way. He's the way to the Father. Christ
is the truth. We're just liars. We're all liars. There's no truth in us. Christ
is the truth. He is the truth. He spoke the
truth. Think of a man who never ever
once thought a lie or spoke a lie. Everything he did was right and
true. And everything he's still doing
is right and true. And He is life. He is the life,
brethren. He is the resurrection. He is
the life. And there is no coming to God
but by Him, but by Him. And all of God's children are
going to be taught this. I quoted this to you this morning,
but Christ said, No man can come to me except my Father which
is in heaven draw him. And He quoted this very scripture.
He said, They shall be all taught of God. Every man that's heard
of the father and learned of me comes to me. That's the that's
the effectual sure Certain result that will happen when a man's
been taught of God. He's gonna leave Every other
false refuge and he's coming to Christ. He's coming to Christ
And then he says in great shall be the peace of thy children
Now, here's our second thing. This peace is the peace that
Christ is. This is the peace Christ has
wrought for us. And the second part here of our
inheritance is how we come to have this peace. He promises
us justification. Justification. Verse 14, he says,
In righteousness shalt thou be established. In righteousness
shalt thou be established. As opposed to oppressive injustice,
as opposed to oppressive robbery, as opposed to the oppression
of terror and fear that Satan plunged us into whenever Adam
sinned in the garden. When Adam sinned in the garden,
we fell under this fear and terror and oppression of Satan. And
we're going to be saved from that and from all of his messengers
because we've been established in righteousness. Established
in righteousness. That is the very attribute of
our God, holy righteousness. What men are preaching today
when they go around and they're saying that the chief attribute
of God is love, but that's not the chief attribute of God. The
chief attribute of God is holy righteousness. This determines
everything else God is, everything else God does. He doesn't love
in a way that's not holy and righteous. He loves in a manner
that's holy and righteous, and that's his chief attribute. But
even what men teach as love is not the love of God. It's this
sentimental junk whereby, you know, they're saying he loves,
but he can't save. He loves, but he just stands
by and watches them perish. You know, if I love my children,
I stand by and watch them starve to death. I don't think anybody
here would say that with love. If I love my children, Say I
love my children, I have the power to save them from drowning,
or save them from being run over by a car, and I don't do it.
You wouldn't say that's love. Well, God is love, but He loves
in holy righteousness. That's His chief attribute, and
the chief characteristic of His church, of His kingdom, is holy
righteousness. That's what He's made His people,
holy and righteous. And this righteousness is ours,
brethren. It's ours. He says, you shall
be established in righteousness. This righteousness is His people's
righteousness. He gives it, but it's not of
us. It's not of us. There's not a
just man on this earth that doeth good and sinneth not. That's
what Ecclesiastes said. Not a just man on this earth
that does good and sins not. The law Romans 3 20 says therefore
by the deeds of the law by you and I doing the law There shall
no flesh be justified in his sight for by the laws the knowledge
of sin That's what the law was given for the law was given to
shut my mouth in your mouth You know, that's what's gonna have
to happen before we hear God speak If you ever noticed in
our day, especially in our day, nobody's listening to what anybody
else is saying. Everybody's talking at one time
and nobody's listening to anybody. But when God makes you to see
in your heart, makes you to hear what the law says, you finally
shut up and then you can hear God speak. Then you can hear
what God says. But that's where we got to be
brought first. That's the reason men are always popping off and
they won't hear the gospel. And they'll say, well, this is
what I believe. Nobody cares. Nobody really cares what you
believe, what you believe wrong. And it's a lie if it don't agree
with this word. So we got to have our mouth shut
first and hear God speak. But this righteousness that we're
given This righteousness is of God. It's of Christ. Look at
the end of verse 17 there. He says, This is the heritage
of the servants of the Lord, and their righteousness is of
Me, saith the Lord. It's of Me. You see, all this
righteousness, all this free justification is by the person
and by the accomplishments of the Lord Jesus Christ, God's
own Son. Did you notice in Isaiah, We
went to Isaiah 53. It's all about Christ. It's about
how he was despised and rejected. It was about how that that He
opened out His mouth, He was led as a lamb to the slaughter,
He was led there, He was made sin for God's people, and then
God poured out the wrath of God upon Him in the place of His
people. And He did this that He might please God, that He
might satisfy the divine justice of God. And He says, and He'll
see the travail of His soul. He's redeemed some children by
this. He's brought forth some children
by this. And He's going to see those children brought to life
in faith in Him. because He's made them righteous.
And then Isaiah 54 opens up with saying, now that He's died, now
that He's shed His blood, now that He's accomplished the redemption
of His people, now here's your inheritance. Look over to Hebrews
9. I didn't have this in my notes,
but as we were sitting there singing, I thought of this and
I thought this would be good for you to read. Hebrews 9, look at verse 15. for this cause, he's the mediator
of the New Testament. That's what we're talking about
here. You know a man dies and he has a will and testament,
and after his death, he calls the children in, he reads the
testament, says this is what he wants you to have. Well, look
here. He's the mediator of this New
Testament that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions
that were under the First Testament, We broke the law in Adam in the
garden. And all the law spoke of all
our sins while we were under that law, under that broken law.
And for those transgressions wherein we sinned under that
first testament, He came and He redeemed us. He purchased
us and He paid the debt that we owed to the law. He did that.
And He says, He did this, the end of the verse there in verse
15, that they which are called might receive the promise of
eternal inheritance. Eternal inheritance. For where
a testament is, there must also of necessity be the death of
a testator. The one who made it has got to
die before the inheritance is given. And then he goes on to
say there, even when he gave that first testament, he showed
us a picture to this. He told Moses, go down and you
sprinkle everything with blood. Everything that I'm giving to
picture my son, sprinkle it all with blood. And he tells us there
in verse 23, verse 22, he says, all things are by the law purged
with blood. Almost all things are by the
law purged with blood. And without shedding of blood,
there's no remission. It was therefore necessary that the
pattern of things in the heavens, those earthy things pictured
heavenly things, it was necessary that they should be purified
with blood, but the heavenly things themselves with better
sacrifices than these. For Christ is not entered into
the holy place made with hands, which are the figures of the
true, the pictures of the true, but he entered into heaven itself,
now to appear in the presence of God for us, nor yet that he
should offer himself often as the high priest entered into
the holy place every year with the blood of others. for then
must he have suffered since the foundation of the world but look
at this but now once in the end of the world has he appeared
to do what to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself and
as he's appointed a man wants to die but after this the judgment
so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many, and unto
them that look for Him shall He appear the second time without
sin unto salvation." He took our nature. He took the nature
of His children and He came to where we are to fulfill the law
for us. There's two sides to the law.
Two sides to the law. There's a positive side, there's
a negative side. The positive side requires we
fulfill the law, we never break it, we fulfill it, do it all
perfectly. It's summed up like this, love
God and love your brethren as yourself. You gotta love them
with all your heart, soul, mind, body, strength. and you may praise
yourself. That's the sum and substance
of the law. The only man that ever did that is Christ Jesus.
The only man. And it was given to show us,
the law was given and Christ came to show us how that law
is fulfilled. How is it fulfilled? Scripture
says Christ is the end of the law for righteousness. It says
this is the end for which the law was given. Here is the end
to which it was pointing. Here is the end. This shows us
how that law is fulfilled. How is it fulfilled? How do you
love God? You may praise yourself. You take all their sin and all
their debt and you go under the justice of God and you suffer
eternal hell for them so that they don't have to. So that God
is just and God is the justifier and so that all your brethren
are saved. You do that and you'll live. That's what the scripture
said. Do this and you shall live. Christ did it. He said, don't
think I come to destroy the law and the prophets. I came to fulfill
them. And he said, and he that doeth these and teacheth shall
be called great in the kingdom of heaven. He's that great one.
He did the law and he teaches you and me. It's finished. It's
done. It's accomplished. And that's
the positive side of it. The negative side is this. Anybody
that sins against it has got to die. Anybody that breaks the
law, they've got to bear the wrath of God. Eternal death the
death that never dies They got to bear that and both the positive
and the negative were accomplished one place on Calvary Street Christ
Jesus there as he was fulfilling the positive side laying down
his life for God and his people at the same time He totally thoroughly
put away the sin of his people and justified us from all our
sin Both were accomplished right there on Calvary's cross He appeared
to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself John said he was manifested
to take away our sins and in him is no sin Brethren, I'm telling
you this I've told you this and I'll keep telling you this every
believer here has perfectly eternally everlastingly forever Fulfilled
the law of God and has no sin has no sin That's what righteousness
is. That's what justification is.
Righteousness and justification are the same thing. That's what
it is. We're righteous. We're justified. The law says
no condemnation for them. They're right. They're just.
Christ did this and he established each and every one of his elect
He established this righteousness for them. And each and every
one will be called and brought to hear the truth that He did
it just for them. And by hearing this truth and
by Him being within them, being the way, the truth, and the life
in their heart, every one of them does what you do when you
hear that news. When Christ enters in, there's
no way you cannot do this. You believe Him. You believe
Him. And you rest in Him. And he said,
Abraham was fully persuaded that what God promised, God was able
to perform. And so he believed God. And the
scripture says, and it was imputed to him for righteousness. The
righteousness of Christ was charged to him. It was given to him.
It was imputed to him. He was robed in the righteousness
of Christ. And it says, and that same righteousness
shall be imputed to you if you believe. If you believe. It will
be that same righteousness. Believe on Him. Believe on Him. By Him we have peace with God. Through faith we have peace with
God. Because He justifies and we have access into all this
grace by Him. That's right. And you notice
that it says eternal inheritance. What Brother Robbie Reddick said,
an eternal inheritance. It's because Christ is eternal.
He didn't just restore us back to the garden. I've heard men
say that, you know, He wiped the slate clean. Now going forward,
you got to keep the law. No, no, no, no, no. He didn't
bring us back to the state we were in in the garden. He is
eternal and everything he did was eternal. He made us eternally
righteous This is an eternal inheritance an eternal inheritance. We're eternally righteous Christ
our righteousness Really is he's the totality of our inheritance
by far. He's the totality he is our inheritance
And everything else that is said in this chapter and throughout
the Scriptures, that is the inheritance of the believer, it all flows,
it all is established upon and flows from this truth that He
is our righteousness and we have been made righteous in Him. We
are established in righteousness. Established in righteousness.
But then it tells us this, not only is our inheritance education,
not only are we going to be taught of God, the truth, not only are
all these people going to be justified, But thirdly, our inheritance
is protection. Look at verse 14. He says, Thou
shalt be far from oppression, for thou shalt not fear, and
from terror, for it shall not come near thee. Look at Hebrews
2. First and foremost, this is what
this has to do with, the oppression and the fear and the terrors
of the devil and all of his messengers. All of his messengers. He's got
apparently evil messengers that you can just see are evil messengers.
And He's got messengers that are robed that look like angels
of light. The devil does. But Christ is going, He says,
you're going to be far from, you're not going to have their
fear anymore. You're not going to be oppressed
by them anymore. Look at Hebrews 2.14. He says, For as much then as
the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also himself
likewise took part of the same, that through death he might destroy
him that had the power of death, that is the devil, and deliver
them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject
to bondage." You know, when you're dead in sins, you're under oppression. You're under an oppressive, hard,
heavy load. And I know what that's like.
Every believer knows what that's like. You know, when you sit
here and you hear the gospel and you think, you know, you
don't know what I'm thinking. You don't know what, how, how,
you know, we all know that every believer knows what an unbeliever
thinks and feels and what, when you hear the gospel and we know
it, we know the justice, the self-justification you use. We
know the self-righteousness you use. We know that we've done
it. We've been there. I was there, but it's all fear. It's all fear. It's motivated
by fear. It's a fear of dying. It's a fear of meeting God. It's
a fear of not having done enough. You know, it's like this, you
kind of have a little bit of, it's not peace even, it's just
your conscience is sort of soothed. And you don't really see your
sin. And really, when you're lost,
all you see of your sin is what you do. That's your sin to you
when you're lost, just what you do. And you do something that
you know is wrong, and your conscience bothers you. Man, it just eats
you up and just bothers you. It bothers you. You don't want
your mom and dad to know. You don't want anybody to know about
it. You want to hide it, keep it hidden. And you don't realize
God knows it. It's just right. It's in the
clear, broad daylight in front of God. He sees it all knows
it all and so what you do is then you gotta you gotta I gotta
fix this I gotta do something sue this conscience and whether
it's conscience or it's consciously you do it or Unconsciously you
do it you do something to try to sue that conscience you always
do something to try to sue that conscience some some good deed
because the the oppressive nature of Satan is this You picture
righteousness as being a scale And here's you here's your evil
and you got to put some more good on the good side and try
to get the good Good outweigh the evil and you just keep doing
that and it's keep those back and forth and that's just terror
That's fear. You just always running running
running always trying always trying to get some peace that
laughs You're not ever gonna get it. You're not ever gonna
get it It takes the blood of Christ to purge the guilty conscience. To make a new man within purge
that conscience so that you see. It doesn't mean that us believer
doesn't feel guilt. It doesn't mean that we don't
see our sin and our sin trouble us. What it means is though that
we have this peace of knowing. My sins are never going to separate
me from God. That's what underlying and undergirding
everything else, we have this assurance, God's never going
to let me go. He's never going to let me go.
That's what it is to have your conscience purged, to have that peace that
won't end. And when you have that, brethren,
when you know you're established in righteousness, and you know
Christ is that righteousness, and you know as Christ is, that
is how you are right now. And you see him seated at the
right hand of God, and you see the work is finished, and you
see he's accepted of God, and you see you have access to God
through him, then brethren, this is the peace. This is the great,
great peace we have. And when you have that, Satan
can huff and puff and try to blow your house down. He can't
do it. he can try and try and try to bring you back on the
affliction and the oppression of will works religion he can't
do it anymore it's like setting a plate of perfectly cooked prime
rib down in front of you and then over here having a little
stale cracker with some potted meat on it you're like i'm not
going to eat that i got this we've got the feast of fat things
i mean we've got we're not going back to to crackers We're not
going back to that. That's what false religion is.
But He does give us this sure expectation. Look here in verse
15. Behold, they shall surely gather
together. They shall surely gather together.
The enemies of Christ shall surely gather. They gather in Christ's
name, they gather in disguise, and they gather as close personal
friends and loved ones. Are they going to gather? And
they're going to gather together. They're together. Those who are
enemies to each other gather together as friends to persecute
Christ and His people. They could hate each other. The
Pharisees didn't get along with the Sadducees. They didn't get
along with the Nicolaitans. All these different
ones, they didn't like each other. They didn't like Pilate and Herod
didn't like each other. The Herodians. Herod had a whole
group of men following him. He had a religion in himself.
None of those men liked each other. And this is the problem
I have with men who claim that they preach sovereign grace.
They claim they preach particular redemption and the sure salvation
of God's people by grace. by Christ alone. They claim they
preach that, but here's where the rubber meets the road. They
will sooner side with Armenian free will works religion than
they will with those who really preach the gospel. There are
men like that, and they might as well not even claim to preach
the truth because they show by who they'll choose sides with
who they're really together with. And they'll gather together.
You'll have mama who don't want you here in the gospel, who's
saying, you know, stay away from that stuff. And she's appearing
so sweet and she loves you. And, and she's, you know, I'm
just looking out for the best for you. And I'm telling you,
she's in leagues with the, with the one who's wanting to burn
down every church and, and, and Satan himself. Christ said, if
you're not with me, you are against me. They'll gather and they're
together and they'll gather together in great numbers too. To the
natural eye, it always appears like the enemies of Christ are
more in number than we are. Look at 2 Kings chapter 6. 2
Kings chapter 6. There was a man named Elisha and he went out
to fight. And he had a servant, a young
man with him that was his servant. He was with him. Here's a picture
of Christ and His surface. Christ in you and I. And this
young man woke up one morning. He went out. And he went out
there and the fire's just sort of barely burning. Everybody's
been asleep. Everybody's still asleep in the camp, you know.
Everything's quiet. The sun's just coming up. Just
breaking day. And he walks out there and he
looks and there is a host of the enemy there. They got him
surrounded. And he went and he got Elisha
and he said this in verse 15. There at the end he said, Alas
my master, how shall we do? 2 Kings chapter 6. Alas my master, how shall we
do? Verse 15. We are surrounded he said. Now look at this. And Elisha
answered. He answered, Fear not, for they
that be with us are more than they that be with them. And Elisha
prayed and said, Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes that he may
see. And the Lord opened the eyes
of the young man, and he saw, and behold, the mountain was
full of horses and chariots and fire round about. I tell you
right now, if God would open your eyes, may God open our eyes
of faith to see. God, Christ, the angels, a heavenly
host, has got us surrounded. That is protecting us from all
the enemy. They will gather together. He
said they are going to gather together. You are going to see
them gather together. But God, there is more with us than there
are with them. Always more with us than there are with them.
But look at this. The Lord says back in our text
Isaiah 54 in verse 15. He said they will surely gather
together but not by me. That means in their heart, their
goal, their motive, is not the will of God. Their motive is
not to exalt God and abase man. Their motive is to exalt man.
Exalt man. Their motive is to take God off
the throne if they could. That's their motive. And he said,
they're going to gather together. And then look what God promises
us in verse 15. He said, but whosoever shall
gather together against thee shall fall for thy sake. That's
right. I've seen this happen too. There's
two kinds of enemies of God. There's enemies. They're all
enemies in their mind. They're all natural man's enmity
against God. And they'll gather together against
you. It might be that one that's always
telling you he loves you, he loves you, he loves you. But
then he's saying, you know, every time you try to bring up the
gospel, he's saying, no, don't. But what about this? This is
what I believe. There's two kinds of enemies, though. There's one
that God's love from everlasting. They're chosen. They're going
to fall. They'll gather together against
you, but they're going to fall. They're going to fall by God's
grace through His gospel. And then there are those that
are the enemies of God that are going to fall in God's power
and His justice. apart from grace and mercy. But
they're going to all fall. Hebrews 10 says, This man, after
he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on
the right hand of God from henceforth expecting till his enemies be
made his footstool. And they're going to all be made
his footstool. They're going to all bow. They're going to
all bow. Everyone. Some are going to bow
by grace and kiss the feet of the Master. Some are going to
bow in justice, but they're all going to bow. They're going to
all fall. They're going to all fall. And God says to them, they're
going to fall for your sake, for your sake. Talk to the believers
for your sake. He's saying, for my great love
wherewith I loved you, they're going to fall. They're going
to fall. Psalm 105 says, When they were but a few men in number,
yea, very few and strangers in the world, when they went from
one nation to another, from one kingdom to another people, he
suffered no man to do them wrong, yea, he reproved kings for their
sakes. And he said, Touch not mine anointed,
do my prophets no harm. Where does the enemy come from?
Where does the enemy come from? Why does God allow the enemy
to be here? Why does he do that? Well, this
is what our text says. They serve God's purpose. Look
here in verse 16. The Lord in absolute sovereignty,
He brings forth the enemy Himself. He brings forth the manufacturer
who is manufacturing all the weapons of our enemies. Look at verse 16. Behold, I have
created the smith that bloweth the coals and the fire. That
blacksmith that's making the weapons that's going to rise
up, where the people are going to rise up against you, he said,
I made that, man. And he said, and I'm overruling the instruments
that they make. He says, that bringeth forth
an instrument for his work. And God overrules the user and
the use of those instruments. Verse 16, he says, and I've created
the waster to destroy. God said, I've created him to
destroy. He said, I made him for that purpose. When Christ
arose, Christ led captivity captive. That means He conquered all His
enemies and He led His people captive. He did that. Christ
led captivity captive. And Christ right now is using
the destroyer to destroy the destroyer. Christ is using all
His enemies to destroy His enemies. That's right. That's what He's
doing. That's what He's doing right now. Revelation 13, verse
10 says this, He that leadeth into captivity shall go into
captivity. He that killeth with the sword
must be killed with the sword. And He says, here is the patience
and faith of the saints. We're just waiting on Christ
to finish that work. That's right. The person that leads into captivity
and leads men into slavery, the person that's killing with the
sword, he's going to be led into captivity and he's going to be
killed with the sword. And we're just waiting on Christ
to finish the work. So when you look around and you
see evil happening and you see things coming to pass in this
earth, you can know for sure. I can't look at it and see how
in the world is that working for good, but it is working for
good. God is bringing glory to His name and He is saving His
people by every last thing. Everything. Everything. You can
be certain. And so since He rules even the
destroyer, He gives His people this sure promise. Look at verse
17. No weapon that is formed against
thee shall prosper. No weapon that is formed against
thee shall prosper. You see, I don't know why in
the world men would reject God being absolutely sovereign. I
don't know why men would balk at that and not like the message
of God controlling even the enemy, even Satan himself. The scripture
says, he walketh about seeking whom he may devour, not who he
can devour, not who he has power and ability and authority to
devour, whom he gets permission to devour. Whenever he came with
the children of men to worship God, Satan did. He came with
Job's children to worship God. And God and Satan had a discussion. And God said, Have you considered
Job? Have you considered him? There's none like him. He's righteous. He escheweth evil. And Satan
said, You've hedged him about. I can't touch him. That's the
only reason that he does that. And so God said, I give you permission.
I give you permission. But Satan couldn't do a thing
until God gave him permission. But you know why I love that
message? You know why I love the truth that God's in control
of Satan himself? That he's God's devil? Because
God promises me and you who are established in righteousness
by the righteousness of Christ, no weapon that's formed against
you is going to prosper. It's not going to prosper. God
could only say that if he was in full control of absolutely
everything. Can you say that to anybody you
love? Can I make that promise to anybody
I love? Absolutely not. I certainly cannot
because I don't control all the people and the weapons. God does. He does. There shall no evil
happen to the just, but the wicked shall be filled with mischief.
Proverbs 12, 21. See, you look over history and
now think about this. When I hear this scripture like
that, I have to look back at history and I think, okay, I
do see in history that God has not allowed the enemy to even
touch his children. Pharaoh at the Red Sea, he destroyed
him. Pharaoh at the Red Sea. Haman,
remember Haman? He wanted to kill Mordecai and
wanted to destroy all the Jews. And God hung him on his own gallows
that he made. Joshua and Israel, when they
got to Jericho, there's all this host of enemies. The city's walled
up. That city fell down flat by then. God protected them.
But then I look at Scripture and other times, other times,
the Lord allows the enemy to touch his saints. Some have been
killed, some have been crucified, some have suffered some cruel
deaths. I've seen the Lord do that. So
what does the Lord mean here when He says, but no weapon that's
formed against you shall prosper? This is the one thing that matters.
If God permits anything to come to pass against our persons,
personally, to where we're touched, He's going to give us grace to
endure it. He's going to give us grace keep us so that we can. But here's the thing that matters.
This is the thing that matters. He's saying nothing whatsoever
shall be able to separate one of his children from the love
of God that's in Christ Jesus. That's what matters. That's the
thing that matters. Romans 8.38 says, Death nor life nor angels, nor principalities,
nor power, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height,
nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us
from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. That's
what matters. He that dwelleth in the secret
place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the
Almighty. I will say of the Lord, He's
my refuge and my fortress, my God in whom I'll trust. Surely
He shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler and from
the noisome pestilence. He promises His people protection. Nothing's going to separate us
from God. Why? It flows from that righteousness,
brethren. We're established in righteousness. No child for whom
Christ died can ever end up separated from God, and that separation
from God is hell. We can't end up in hell. We can't. Because Christ has paid everything
we owe and made us the righteousness of Christ. This is even hard
to even speak this, say this, but just bear with me. Could
you imagine God forsaken Christ now? Can you imagine God turning
His back on Christ now? The work is finished. No. He
could only do that one time. And that was because Christ was
made sin for His people and stood in our place. That's the only
way God could justly turn His back on Christ. He can't do that
now. Christ has put sin away. And
Christ is righteous, sitting at God's right hand in eternal
righteousness. And His people are too. And so
God can't, He can't turn His back on Christ and He can't turn
His back on His people. Nothing will separate us from
the love of God in Christ. Here's the fourth thing. Our
inheritance is education, justification. We're made righteous in Christ.
We have divine protection. And fourthly, God promises us
our inheritance shall be vindication. Look here in verse 17. In every
tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment. Every tongue
that rises up and judges you in judgment, in that final day
of judgment, thou shalt condemn. Every tongue that shall rise
against thee in judgment, in judgment, thou shalt condemn.
The devil is the accuser of the brethren. Turn to Revelation
12.10. We will be wrapping this up. Look at this. Revelation
12.10. He is the accuser of the brethren. This first and foremost applies
to Him. But look at this now. Verse 10, I heard a loud voice
saying in heaven, now is come salvation and strength and the
kingdom of our God and the power of His Christ. This is Christ
having accomplished the redemption of His people, having put our
sin away. For the accuser of our brethren is cast down. which accused them before our
God day and night. See here, sinner, let me tell
you something. You that are under the condemnation of God, you
that have not believed on Christ, you are right now under the condemnation
of God. And Satan, every day, constantly
accuses you to God. He's pointing out your sins to
God constantly. But this is the good news. This
is the good news for every believer, for everyone for whom Christ
died, That accuser has been cast down and he has nothing wherewith
to accuse his people anymore. He can't accuse us of anything.
God says of those for whom Christ died, who shall lay anything
to the charge of God's elect? It's God to justify. Christ died
for them and he's risen and he's interceding for them. And when
Satan, if he tries to come and accuse, just like he tried to
accuse Joshua the high priest, The Lord petitions the Father
and says, this is a bram plucked out of the fire. This is one
of mine. And Satan is turned away. He
can't accuse his people because Christ has put away our sin.
The Lord guards us. He's our righteous advocate with
the Father. If we sin, we have an advocate with the Father.
Jesus Christ the righteous and He's the propitiation for our
sin. Listen, furthermore, those who rise against us by discrediting
our gospel, we shall condemn. Every false gospel is created
by Satan. He's the father of lies. And the devil raises up
religions. You know there's religions that
were around, you know, 100 years ago, 200 years ago, thousands
of years ago, that aren't around now. Why not? Satan raises up a religion, Christ
casts it down. He'll raise up another one and
Christ will cast it down. The only religion that's going to
last into eternity is God and Christ, our Redeemer. That's
the only religion. Satan's the father of lies. He's
constantly making up new religions. But if we preach Christ, brethren,
we can expect this. Those that hate the gospel, those
that hate Christ, that hate God, they're going to speak evil of
us. Look at Matthew 10. Matthew 10 and look at verse
24. The disciple is not above his master, nor the servant above
his Lord. We are talking about the inheritance
of the servants. The servant is not above his Lord. It is
enough for the disciple that he be as his master and the servant
as his Lord. Now here is what Christ means
by that. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub,
how much more shall they call them of his household? Fear them
not therefore for there's nothing covered that shall not be revealed
There's nothing hid that shall not be known What I tell you
in darkness that speak you in the light and what you hear in
the ear that preach hip on the housetops Make it public he said
and don't fear them which kill the body but are not able to
kill the soul But rather fear him which is able to destroy
both soul and body in him now look at Romans 12 Romans 12 He
said, in the day of judgment, everybody that preaches against
your gospel, Satan himself, you are going to condemn him. Those
that rise in judgment against our gospel, we are going to condemn
them. And he says this, as far as personal injury, those that
rise up against you personally and charge you personally, you
are going to condemn them too. Look at Romans 12, verse 9. And
the worst one that condemns us, you know who it is? Our old fleshly
man. And you are going to condemn
Him in judgment too, in the judgment day. Look here, verse 19, Romans
12, 19. Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves,
but rather give place unto wrath. For it is written, Vengeance
is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord. Therefore, if your
enemy hunger, feed him. If he thirst, give him drink.
For in so doing, thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head. Be
not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good. Overcome evil
with good. And that heaping coals of fire
on his head, that was a good thing. If you're in a country
where it's freezing cold, and you're cold, and you need fire,
you need heat, that's a good thing. To warm somebody. To warm
somebody. You're doing that person a favor. You know, when you have a child,
you have a little baby, and they're crying and fussing and kicking
and screaming or whatever, you don't just leave them. You don't
just turn around and start abusing them. You love them, and you
care for them, and you clothe them, and you change their diaper.
You do whatever it is that's causing their trouble. You fix
it. That's what the Lord said. Help
your enemy. They're just a little screaming,
tantrum-throwing baby. and don't even know it. I'm talking
about grown men. They don't even know what their problem is. Feed
them, give them drink, clothe them. That's doing them more
good than anything else you could do for them. And if God don't
save them through the gospel, feed them with the gospel, clothe
them with Christ, the message of Christ, and if He don't bless
it in the Day of Judgment, He said, vengeance is mine. He said
in the Day of Judgment, you condemn them. You'll say, I told you,
I preached the gospel to them. Now look, let me tell you what,
I'm going to show you one more scripture. 1 Corinthians 4, I
think you need to see this. This will show what I'm saying
here. Remember how Paul, he had all
these people at Corinth and they were the false preachers in 1
Corinthians 4. They were saying that he's not
a true preacher and they were making all these accusations
against him and raising up the different ones to say things
about him. Look at what Paul said about himself. 1 Corinthians
4, 3. He said, With me it's a very
small thing that I should be judged of you, or of man's judgment. Yea, I judge not my own self. I judge not my own self. For
I know nothing by myself. Yet am I not hereby justified? Because he that judges me is
the Lord. That's who's judging things.
He's the Lord. So what He said, leave it in
His hand. Leave it in His hand. In that day of judgment, Christ
is going to declare of you before Satan. There is no condemnation
in this one. He is going to declare before
all those who rejected our gospel, who heard this gospel preached
by us here like this or from you individually. We are going
to stand before them in the day of judgment. And Christ the Master,
the Judge to whom all has been committed, He is going to say,
They preached the gospel to you. Every word they told you was
true. And for your personal enemies that have condemned you and said
things about you, Christ is going to say, they gave you water to drink.
They gave you coke for your back. They didn't do anything but good
to you. That's all they ever did to you. That's all they've
ever done. And we're going to be standing
there going, Lord, when did we ever do any of these things? And in that day, He said, you
are going to condemn them. Noah condemned that whole generation.
How? He preached the gospel to them. Every tongue that shall rise
against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. So, this is an
inheritance we have. And it is a great inheritance.
We are going to have fruitfulness, everlasting mercy, precious stone
for precious stone, education. They will be all taught of God.
justification, established in righteousness and in great peace,
protection, no weapon formed against thee shall prosper, and
vindication. Every tongue that rises against
you in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants
of the Lord, and their righteousness is of me, saith the Lord. Amen.