Thank you, Brother Robbie. Let's
turn to Isaiah 53. Isaiah 53. We're just going to look at one
verse. Isaiah 53 verse 1. Who hath believed our report? And to whom is the arm of the
Lord revealed? Who hath believed our report? And to whom is the arm of the
Lord revealed? Very often you'll meet with folks
who will say to you that they're not religious and don't care
anything about religion because they were once in it and they've
seen the hypocrisy of it and they don't care anything at all
about it. And I answer folks like that, I couldn't agree with
you more. Religion in our day is hypocrisy. I don't want to have anything
to do with it. And I wouldn't encourage anybody to have anything
to do with it. There is a few, a very small
number who worship the Lord. And our gospel is so far from
creating hypocrites because our gospel declares that everybody
is nothing. That everybody is a worm. And
when you're a worm and you're nothing, And you know that everybody,
your brothers and sisters, are the same. It's hard to play the
hypocrite. You are what you are. You're
a worm. You have never done anything. You cannot do anything to make
yourself savable or to save yourself. Salvation is entirely of the
Lord. That's the message that cures hypocrisy. but there's
a very small number that believes it. Such a small number that
it caused Isaiah to cry out, Lord, who hath believed our report? First of all, let's get the meaning
of these words. The word report means hearing
the word preached, hearing the declaration of the gospel. It
means hearing the good news proclaimed. He's asking who has heard the
gospel that we've preached. Just before this, if you'll look
back in Isaiah 52 and verse 7, the Lord Jesus said, How beautiful
upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings,
that publisheth peace, that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth
salvation, that saith undesigned, Thy God reigneth. How beautiful
upon the mountains are the feet of him that preaches the gospel.
And then we have here in verse 1 of Isaiah 53, Isaiah saying,
Lord, who has heard our gospel and believed our gospel? Who's
heard the report? Who's believed the report? And
to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? I turn over to Romans
chapter 10. In order to show you that this
report means the hearing of the gospel. The gospel. I want you
to see this. Romans chapter 10. And I want you to hold your place
in Romans. We will come back here. Paul is speaking by the
Spirit of God and he quotes three or four verses from Isaiah 52,
53, 54 right here in Romans 9, 10, and 11. It's like he's just
preaching from Isaiah. That's his text, Isaiah 52, 53,
and 54. Now right here in this part he's speaking by the Spirit
of God, by God the Holy Spirit, because God taught him this and
God taught him to speak this because this is necessary when
it comes to hearing this report, to believe in this report. Look
at Romans 10, 13. He said, Whosoever shall call
upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. You call on Christ
and He will save you. But, he says, how then shall
they call on Him in whom they have not believed? You see, you're
calling on Him. Now he says, how can you call
on Him in whom you have not believed? Call on Him in faith. You have
to believe Him. Believe Him. And how shall they
believe in Him of whom they have not heard? You see, this is all
in Him. He says, in Him, how shall they
believe in Him of whom they have not heard? Isaiah said, Lord,
who hath heard, who hath believed our report? Well, they'd heard
it. How shall they hear without a
preacher? That's God's means, God chose to save His people,
the foolishness of preaching. I don't believe that, I'm going
to say. Why would God do that? Here's the reason why. In the
wisdom of God. Every time we say we don't agree
with that, we're saying I don't agree with God's wisdom. That
proves us to be a fool. That proves us to be ignorant.
In the wisdom of God. It pleased God to save through
the foolishness of preaching. And how shall they preach except
they be sent? God's got to send the preacher.
And he's got to go with him. And he's got to bless the word.
Look at this now. As it is written, how beautiful
are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace. That preach
the gospel of peace. And bring glad tidings of good
things. But they have not all obeyed
the gospel. Now, before this Paul said, have
not they all heard? Yeah, Isaiah preached, Zechariah
preached, Jeremiah preached, from Moses all the way to John
the Baptist, his prophets preached. And then all through Paul's day
they preached the gospel. But they didn't all obey who
heard the gospel. Just because you hear the preaching
of the gospel doesn't mean that you're going to be called inwardly.
It doesn't mean you're going to be given ears and a heart
to believe it. They didn't all obey the gospel. But you see there, he says, beautiful
are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace. And then
he says, but they've not all obeyed the gospel. And then he
says, for Isaiah said, Lord, who hath believed our report? So you see, he's talking about
the gospel. So then, faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the
Word of God. By not just the preaching by
itself, but the preaching accompanied with the Spirit of God, the Word,
the essential Word of God. So first of all, the word report
refers to hearing this Gospel, the announcement, the declaration.
Many heard Isaiah preach, but God had not given many faith
to obey the Gospel. And so Isaiah said, Lord, who
hath believed our report? Now, what is the message of our
report? What's the message of our gospel?
A man can't be expected to obey the gospel if he's not heard
the message of the gospel. What's the message of the gospel?
Well, our gospel is concerning the arm of the Lord. Hold your
place in Romans 10, but go back now to our text and look there
in Isaiah 52. Our gospel is concerning the
arm of the Lord. Verse 2 says, To whom has the
arm of the Lord been revealed? Arm refers to the power of the
Lord. That's what arm refers to. There
are proportions of power that God uses according to the work
He's doing. There's proportions of power
He uses according to the work He's doing. Now listen to this.
God does some things with His finger. with his finger. In Egypt,
after God, he turned the dust into lice. And the magicians,
Pharaoh's magicians, they said, this is the finger of God. This is the finger of God. When
the Lord God gave Moses the law and wrote it on tablets of stone,
the scripture says, he wrote on those tablets of stone with
the finger of God. And then when the Lord Jesus
cast out devils, men said, He said to men, if I with the finger
of God cast out devils, then you know the kingdom of God has
come unto you. See, God does some things with
His finger. And then we read of the hand
of God. God does some things with His
hand. When the Philistines took the ark of the Lord away, the
scripture says there was a deadly destruction throughout all the
city. Death came in all that city.
Who caused that? The hand of God was heavy there. The hand of God. Job said, we
receive good as well as evil by the hand of God. Believers
are taught to humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God
that He may exalt you in due time. The hand is more powerful
than the finger. The hand does a stronger work
than the finger. But the strongest work of all
that God does is the salvation of His people. And that work
is done with his arm. That's his arm. Scripture says
he hath showed strength with his arm. The arm of the Lord
represents the power of God. Look at 1 Corinthians chapter
1. 1 Corinthians 1. Christ is the arm. He's the power
of God. He's the power of God. I know
the gospel is the power of God. I know the Holy Spirit is the
power of God. Christ is the arm that works salvation. He's the
power of God. Verse 23, we preach Christ crucified
unto the Jews, a stumbling block, unto the self-righteous, those
trying to come to God to work their way to God, and unto the
Greeks, foolishness, those who are worldly men who think that
they are wise in their own philosophy. But unto them which are called,
both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God, and the wisdom
of God. Christ is the power of God. He's
the arm of the Lord. By Christ everything that's made
was made. And by Him all things are held
up and governed and consist. Hebrews 1.3 says He upholds all
things by the word of His power. This is Christ. But especially
the eternal salvation of His people is wrought by the exceeding
greatness of His mighty power. His arm, Jesus Christ, the Son
of God. He says there in our text, Who
hath believed our report? To whom is the arm of the Lord
revealed? For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant.
You see, the arm of the Lord is a person. He, he, he. Turn
to Romans chapter 1. Romans chapter 1. Our report, our gospel is concerning
God's arm, the Son of God, the Lord Jesus. Look at Romans 1
verse 1. Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle,
separated unto the gospel of God. Now he's going to tell us
what that is. Which he had promised to for
by his prophets in the Holy Scriptures. That's what we're reading about
in Isaiah. Here it is. Concerning his son, Jesus Christ
our Lord. That's what the gospel is concerning.
It's concerning His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made
of the seed of David according to the flesh, as a man, and declared
to be the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the
dead. He's God-man, the God-man. And this is what the Gospel is
concerning. Go to verse 16. What is our message when we preach
Christ? Alright? We understand Christ
is our message. He's the arm of the Lord. The
power of God is our message. But what do we preach when we
preach Christ? Our message is the righteousness
of God. The righteousness of God. The
way in which God can be just and the justifier of His people.
Look at verse 16. I am not ashamed of the gospel
of Christ. Are you ashamed of the gospel
of Christ? I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it
is the power of God unto salvation, unto everyone that believeth,
to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For therein is the
righteousness of God revealed from faith, and I have that capitalized
in my Bible, from faith, from Christ, the faithful to faith,
to that faith he gives. As it is written, the just shall
live by faith. Now, turn over to Romans 3. What
is this righteousness of God? Turn to Romans 3. Our gospel
is concerning Christ. Our gospel is concerning the
righteousness of God that's revealed in Christ. What does all that
mean? Romans 3, 19. Now, we know that
whatever the law says, it says to them who are under the law.
And every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become
guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds of the
law there should no flesh be justified in His sight, for by
the law is the knowledge of sin. The moral law, the Ten Commandments,
were given to show you what a sinner you are. They were not given
for you to look at them and say and measure how far you think
you've come and how well you've measured up. They're given to
shut our mouth and declare us guilty. You're guilty. You say, well, I haven't ever
murdered anybody. Christ said, if you've been angry
with somebody without a cause, you've murdered. I've never committed
adultery. If you've looked on someone,
you've committed adultery. I told our young people Friday
night, if you are the cause that made somebody look on you because
you wear your pants so tight that you could see every dimple
on your behind, you've committed adultery. That's right. It's
that serious. Committed adultery. Now listen
to this. But now the righteousness of
God without the law is manifested. Apart from your working the law.
Apart from your deeds. It is witnessed by the Law and
the Prophets. Everything is written in this
book. The Law and the Prophets, the Old Testament, all speak
of Christ. It tells us all about Christ.
Even the righteousness of God, which is by the faithfulness
of Jesus Christ. By the faithfulness of Jesus
Christ. It's unto all and upon all them that believe. It's unto
all them that believe and it's upon all them that believe. For
there is no difference. For all have sinned and come
short of the glory of God. Everybody has. What is sin? Coming short of the glory of
God. That's what it is. Alright, now here's what this
righteousness is. Look at verse 24. Being justified
freely. being justified freely. That
means to be justified means that God regards you as never having
sin ever. Ever. Never. Can't be found,
can't be brought up. Past, present or future. And
this justification is free. That means it costs those that
are justified nothing. It costs His Son everything.
But it costs those that are justified nothing. Justified freely because
it's by His grace. by His grace, by His unmerited
favor, by Him setting His favor upon whom He would. And it's
through the redemption that's in Christ Jesus. Verse 24, Romans
3, 24. It's through the redemption that
is in Christ Jesus. It's not anywhere else. It's
not in something you do. It's not in something the preacher
does. It's not in something you and the preacher do. It's not
in something the church can give to you. This is where it is.
It's one place. It's through the redemption that
is in Christ Jesus. Whom God hath set forth to be
of propitiation. We went over that word this morning.
He set him forth to be the place of mercy. He set him forth to
be the one who appeased God. He set him forth to be the one
who made atonement. He set him forth to be the one
who made propitiation to him. Now watch, through faith in his
blood. This propitiation is joined with
faith in his blood. For His great love wherewith
He loved us, He sent forth His Son to be made a propitiation
for us, to be the propitiation for our sin. And you who He loved,
for His great love wherewith He loved us, He quickened us
together with Christ. He gave us faith to believe Him.
This propitiation is joined with faith. He will call those that
He's propitiated to believe on Him. And this is how you receive
this free justification. That's how we meet God in this
place of propitiation. The mercy seat. On top of the
altar where the blood is. That's where we meet Him. In
Christ. In Christ. In Christ. Through His blood.
Now here's why He sent Him forth. Look at this. To declare His
righteousness for the remission of sins that are passed through
the forbearance of God. To declare, I say at this time,
His righteousness. This is what the gospel is about,
His righteousness. That He might be just and the
justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. Not only is God the
justifier, or not only is God just, because He put all the
sin of His people on His Son and His Son died, and because
His Son laid down His life, God is just now. to save his people,
to justify them freely, to put this grace upon them, to give
them this faith to rest in Christ. He's just to do this, but he's
also the justifier. Because God was in Christ. Christ
is the God-man. He's God in human flesh. And
He, by His work, did the justifying. So He's the justifier. This is
the gospel. Nothing you can do. You can't
go to the law and justify yourself. You can't go to the law and make
yourself righteous. You can't go to the law and make
yourself presentable to God. Nothing you can do by your hand
will suffice. God won't have it. This is the
gospel. God sent His Son so that His
Son does everything to declare that God is just and He is the
justifier. God is the one who makes His
people righteous as God. God does it. God does it. One
more scripture. Turn to John 12. John 12. He saw that there was no man.
This is what God did before the world began. He wondered that
there was no intercessor and therefore His arm brought salvation
to him and his righteousness sustained him. The Lord made
bare His holy arm in the eyes of all the nations and all the
ends of the earth shall see the salvation of the Lord. All right,
John 12. I want you to see here now. We
see plainly that Christ is the arm of the Lord spoken of in
our text. Look at John 12, verse 34. The people answered him,
Christ, we've heard out of the law that Christ abideth forever.
How sayest thou that the Son of Man must be lifted up? Who
is this Son of Man? They ask in the Lord. Then Jesus
said unto them, yet a little while is the light with you,
walk while you have the light, lest darkness come upon you.
For he that walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth.
While you have light, believe in the light, that you may be
the children of light. He was saying to them, quit protesting
what I'm saying and trying to object to what I'm saying and
believe me. While there's time, believe me
while you can. Now look here, these things spake
Jesus and departed and did hide himself from them. But though
he had done so many miracles before them, yet they believed
not on him. That the saying of Isaiah the
prophet might be fulfilled which he spoke, Lord, who hath believed
thy report? And to whom hath the arm of the
Lord been revealed? Isaiah was speaking of Christ's
day as well as his own day. And so what have we seen here?
We've seen our report is the gospel, the hearing of the gospel.
A man's got to hear the gospel. He's got to hear the gospel by
a God-sent preacher, by God giving him ears to hear it. Our gospel
is concerning Christ Jesus, the Son of God, the arm of the Lord,
the power of God. And our gospel, our message is
that by Christ's finished work, God is both just and the justifier
of his people. Therein is God. That's how God
receives all the glory because it's God's righteousness by whom
we've been made righteous. Alright, second thing. Let's
find out why Isaiah made this statement. Why did he say, who
hath believed our report? Why did he say, to whom is the
arm of the Lord revealed? In Isaiah's day, very, very,
very few people believed the gospel he preached. Very few
believed. That's why he said, Who hath
believed our report? Where can a believer be found
who believes on your Son who we preach? That's what he's saying.
Lord, where can a believer be found? That's what I've titled
this. Where can a believer be found? Do you ever get discouraged
because there's very few that you run into who believe the
gospel we preach? Do you understand that very few
do? If you don't, just start telling them about the gospel
and you'll find out very few believe the gospel we preach.
Very few do. Most believe God loves everybody
and He wants to save everybody and He would do it if man would
just... if man would come down off His
throne and submit to Him and let Him save them. Then He'd
save them. That's not God. That's not how God saves. That's
not the God of this Bible. They don't even remotely resemble
this God. that's blasphemy against this
God. The reason folks hate the gospel
is because it makes that which men thinks is their righteousness
to be filthy rags, to be menstrual cloths is the word. It makes
everything they've been working for, everything they've done,
everything they've covered themselves in, everything they've vested
all their time in, it makes them to know that's just fig leaves.
That's just menstrual cloth that you've wrapped yourself up in
and you think God's going to receive you because of that.
Filthy rags. The gospel declares there's nothing
a sinner can do to make himself righteous so that God will accept
him. Nothing. The gospel declares
Christ and Christ alone is the righteousness of God. The sinner's
got to take his hands off of the whole work. He's got to... When you laid down in your bed
last night and went to sleep, What did you do to bring yourself
to this morning? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. You reposed upon that bed and
just rested. That's what God calls on us to
do, is to repose upon Christ entirely. Take your hand off
everything and lay down in His arms and trust that Christ is
going to carry you from the night darkness of this world of sin
and the curse into the glorious light of his kingdom in his presence. To trust him. And the gospel
declares that a sinner can't even do that unless God gives
him the grace to do it. And so therefore, men don't like
the gospel. They hate the gospel. It's offensive
to men. And many think that they have
a very good reason for rejecting us because not many believe the
gospel. Men will look at... Men like
to be where the majority is. I said Thursday night, this is
Satan's... One of his things he plays upon.
Men don't want to be in the minority. Men want to be with the majority.
That's a product of sin. Men want to go with the flow
regardless if the flow is right or wrong. They want to be with
them so they don't look like they're standing out here on
their own. Well, let me tell you something. You'd be wise
not to judge something right based on the fact that the majority
in this world thinks it's right. Because the majority in this
world is always wrong. The majority is always wrong
in this world. The report, the gospel of Jesus
Christ has never been received by the majority in any given
generation. Not in Isaiah's day, not in Christ's
day, not in our day. Look back at Isaiah chapter 1.
Isaiah chapter 1. Now, don't get me wrong. There
was a lot of religion in Isaiah's day. A lot of religion. A lot
of religious people. They got so tired of having to
come just to one temple because God said He was showing there's
one Christ and there's one way to God. So He made one temple
with one altar, with one ark, with one mercy seat, with one
high priest. And that's the only place God
would be worshipped, is that place. And folks got tired of
going to that place and so they went high up in the mountains.
Just the place they built their churches showed you how they
were trying to work their way to God. They went high up into
the mountains. They climbed high up into the
mountains in the high places and built groves there. Built
them a place, planted them some trees and all where folks could
sit around under the trees in the shade and not be out in the
hot desert sun and they could worship their idol gods there.
just like people build churches all over the world to worship
their God. But God was showing there's one
place to worship Him, in His temple, in Christ, at His altar. Our altar is Christ. On His mercy
seat, our mercy seat is Christ. Through His high priest, our
high priest is Christ. That's the only place. Now look here, Isaiah said this
in Isaiah 1-9, Except the Lord of hosts, had left unto us a
very small remnant. We should have been as Sodom
and we should have been like unto Gomorrah. He said, except
God left us a very small remnant in this earth, I believe, we
would have been destroyed a long time ago like Sodom and Gomorrah. He's saying that the people he
dwelt around, that were with him, that were worshiping all
his idols, were no better off than those inhabitants of Sodom
and Gomorrah. That's exactly what he's saying.
And he's saying that if God hadn't elected a people, a very small
remnant, we'd all be like them. We'd all be like them. Look here.
The scripture says, verse 12, when you come to appear before
me... Oh, look at verse 11. To what purpose is the multitude
of your sacrifices unto me, saith the Lord? You see, the multitude
of your sacrifices. I'm full of burnt offerings of
rams and the fat of fed beasts and I delight not in the blood
of bullocks or of lambs or of he-goats. There was a multitude
of sacrificing going on. But men, it's just like this.
God's given us the law to say, this shows you you're guilty.
And you know what men do? They take the Ten Commandments
and they say, I'll do these and I'll present myself to God by
these. Well, that wasn't what they were given for. They were
given to show you you're guilty. You're misusing them. Well, men
took all the sacrifices that God gave to show them a picture
of Christ that's coming and they said, oh, well, we'll just take
these and offer these lambs and we'll work our way to God by
sacrificing these lambs. They misused the sacrifices. God said, this is not for you
to try to come to me because you killed a lamb. He said, that's
like killing a man to me. He said, I gave you the lamb
so that you could see a picture of substitution in the lamb,
that Christ is my substitute, who am I sending that's going
to take your sin and lay down his life and by his blood purge
his people of his sin. But instead of worshipping Christ,
you're worshipping a woolly lamb and your sacrifice of that lamb.
That's ridiculous. But that's what men do. They
take the things that God has given to show us Christ and show
us our need of Christ and take those things in our day and say,
I'll come to God by these things. That's why Christ said, you search
the Scriptures because in them you think you have life. By reading the Bible you think,
God's going to receive me because I read the Bible. By coming to
church, you think, God's going to save me because I come to
church. God said, I established a church so you could go there
and hear about the one by whom I do the saving and fall at His
feet and be saved by Him. Not so you would think that you
could be saved simply by the act of coming to church. You
see what I'm saying? There was a lot of that going
on. But that's idolatry. That's man worship. That's the
same as carving you out of a giant totem pole and dancing around
it in a loincloth. There's no difference. Thinking,
imagining God's going to Now I'm not saying don't read your
Bible. You should read your Bible. And mothers and fathers, we should
never read our Bibles in public to try to draw attention to ourselves. We should never do that. But
in the home, we ought to teach our children to read the Bible.
They ought to see us read the Bible. We ought to teach them
to read the Bible. We're going to teach them one
of two things. We're going to teach them to pick this book up and read this
book or we're going to teach them to pick up the remote control
and plant themselves in front of the television and watch that.
And you just watch. Whichever one they do is what
we're teaching them. And one day we're going to stand
before God and He's going to say, I gave you some souls to teach
about me. What did you do? What did you
do? What did you teach them? Except the Lord of hosts had
left us a very small remnant, we would have been as Sodom and
Gomorrah. Look at Isaiah 10, look at verse 22. Isaiah 10,
22. For though thy people Israel
be as the sand of the sea..." See, there was a lot of people.
There was a lot of them. And they were all worshiping.
They were all vainly religious. "...yet a remnant of them, or
among them, shall return." Return to the Lord. He said, "...the
consumption decreed shall overflow with righteousness." Alright,
let's go to Romans chapter 9. Romans chapter 9. And I'll hurry
along here. Romans chapter 9. Like we saw in John 12, we saw
that Isaiah wasn't just speaking only of his day, he was speaking
of Christ's day too. Well, Romans 9 shows us that
what he said there, Isaiah said there, was not only about his
day, it was about Christ's day and it was about Paul's day.
Look here, Romans 9, 27. Very few believed on Christ when
he walked this earth. And Apostle Paul tells us why
and he applies it to his day, verse 27. Isaiah also crieth
concerning Israel. Though the number of the children
of Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant shall be saved.
For he will finish the work. That's what it means by he'll
cut it short. He will finish the work and cut
it short in righteousness, because a short work would the Lord make
upon the earth. The Lord Jesus entered His public
ministry when He was 30 years old, and a little over three
years He finished the work God gave Him to do on this earth.
He finished the transgression, He made an end of sins, He made
reconciliation for iniquity, He brought in everlasting righteousness,
He sealed up the vision and prophecy, and He anointed the Most Holy,
all in a little over three years. That's why John 12, he warned
them, saying, Yet a little while is the light with you. Walk while
you have the light. Believe on Christ while you have
the light. Center the truth. The same is true of us. Christ
is coming back in a very short time. He's got a short work of
calling out His people. And it won't be long. It'll be
through. It'll be finished. And He's coming back. He's coming
back. Believe on Him while you can. Look at verse 29. And as
Isaiah said before, except the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a
seed, we had been as Sodom and been like to Gomorrah. He's speaking
of his own countrymen, those of the nation of Israel. He said,
except the Lord had elected a people, we'd have been a goner. Look
at Romans 11 just a minute and look at verse 3. This is what Elias said in his
day. Lord, they've killed thy prophets and dig down thine altars
and I'm left alone and they seek my life. But what saith the answer
of God unto him? I have reserved to myself seven
thousand men who have not bowed the knee to the image of Baal.
Even so then, Paul says, at this present time also there's a remnant
according to the election of grace. Oh, believer, don't get
too discouraged. If you look around and it seems
like there's just not many that believe the true and living God,
God has always got a remnant. He's got a remnant. And they're
not going to bow their knee to the image of Baal. He's not going
to allow it. All right, look here now. This
is what he's talking about. Look at Romans 9 and verse 30.
Romans 9, verse 30. What shall we say then? What
do we say about these things? That the Gentiles, which followed
not after righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even
the righteousness which is of faith." God showing that salvation
is of God, who shows mercy to whom he will, the Gentiles didn't
have the scriptures, they didn't have the prophets. That's right. They were not seeking to be righteous
before God. at all. Yet God sought His elect
among the Gentiles by sending Paul with the gospel to them
and God regenerated them and He taught them that Christ is
His righteousness and that you receive this righteousness through
faith. As Isaiah said, who have believed
our report? And He regenerated them and gave
them faith to believe and they believed on Christ. And by that,
through that, They attained to the righteousness of the law. What does that mean, if you attained
to the righteousness of the law? It means there's not one demand
that the law requires of you, believer, that you have not met
fully and completely by Christ. Past, present and future. Everything
the law demands, can demand or has demanded, You have fulfilled
fully by Christ. They attain to the righteousness
of God by faith. By faith. But now look at verse
31. But Israel, which followed after
the law of righteousness, hath not attained to the law of righteousness. They had the Scriptures, they
had the Law and the Prophets. They were trying to be righteous
by keeping the Law and making sacrifices. But they didn't.
They weren't righteous. Why not? Wherefore, verse 32,
because they sought it not by faith, but as it were by the
works of the Law. They heard the same Gospel as
the Gentiles, so why didn't they stop working and believe on Christ?
Verse 32 says, For they stumbled at that stumbling stone. As it
is written, Behold, I lay in Zion a stumbling stone, a rock
of offense, and whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed. Christ is that rock of offense.
He's that stumbling stone. Why do men stumble over Him?
Keep reading. Verse 1. Brethren, my heart's
desire and prayer to Israel is that they might be saved. They're
not saved, He said. I wish they would be, but they're
not. For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but
not according to knowledge. Religious people have a great
zeal. They do. They're going about
doing a lot of works. There's no doubt about that.
I've watched churches. I've seen church buildings on
my drive. I figured up the other day, I think I made that drive
from Pennington to here 1260 times. And I've seen churches
be built since I've been here big I don't mean just little
chair I'm talking about big nice buildings be built since I've
been here right self-righteousness will run circles around God's
people they will they have a zeal of God because they're trying
to work themselves to heaven and you got to work a lot to
sue that guilty conscience but look But they, being ignorant
of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own
righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness
of God. For Christ is the end of the
law for righteousness to everyone that believes. Nobody will say,
nobody will say, well, everyone will tell you, well, I'm not
working to be righteous. I'm not trying to work for righteousness.
I'm just doing this because I believe God's made me righteous. That's
what they'll say. You bring them under the sound of the gospel
and let them hear what I'm preaching to you now. They'll hear it for
a little while, just to be nice and to put on the front. But
you make them sit there and keep listening for a while. They're going to start looking
for an out. They're going to start looking for an out. And
they're going to look for that out by trying to make the preacher
to be guilty of something so they can justify themselves for
not hearing it. That's what they did to Christ. That's what they
did to all God's preachers in His days. That's what they've
done to me for four years that I was here. They try to find
something guilty in you. That's why you've got to bite
your tongue in two Sit on your hands and not do anything. When
you'd like to raise up, tell folks the way it is. Because
if you do that, you're taking their shotgun and you're loading
it up with double-aught buckshot, cocking the hammer and putting
it in their hands and saying, here, shoot me. You can't do
it. You've got to keep your mouth
shut. Keep preaching this word. This is the sword. This is the
sword that discerns the very heart of a man right here. And
it'll do it. It'll do it. Here's what the
truth is about us, brethren. Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? It's God that justifies. Who
is He that condemns? It's Christ that died, yea rather,
that's risen again, who's even at the right hand of God, who
makes intercession for us. That means there's nothing past,
present or future that can be laid to our charge by the law
of God. Nothing. and men who say they're
not working for righteousness will say, you can't tell men
that, don't tell men that, oh, we won't be able to keep them
here worshipping God. Because the man who doesn't understand
this by the Spirit of God, he will stop worshipping God. Because
if he thinks this means that I don't have to hear the gospel
anymore, you mean I don't have to do all this stuff that I really
don't want to be doing? I don't have to be going door
to door and passing out tracts? You mean I don't have to be I
don't have to be coming up here and working on my off day. I
don't have to be going to a men's meeting and a woman's meeting
and a prayer meeting and the kids meeting and doing all this.
I don't have to do any of this stuff. And you know what they'll
do? They'll stop doing it. There
was somebody here one time and I told them, I said, they kept
calling me and calling me. Every time they'd miss they'd
call me and go on and on to me about, you know, I'm sorry I
missed and all this stuff. And I said, listen. I said, you don't
have to come to church. If you don't come, that don't
make you righteous if you do come and it don't make you unrighteous
if you don't come. You don't have to be here. God's
people come because they want to be here. Because they delight
in what they're hearing. And you know what happened? That
person quit coming. And you know what that person
manifest? The whole time they were in reformed religion, and
they were showing up because they had to, they were not there. They never were there. They never
were there in spirit with their heart. The Lord said, these people
draw near to me with their tongue, and they speak things with their
tongue, but their heart's far from me. And that was the case.
They're desperate. That's why religion says don't
tell them that. We can't tell them the truth.
They won't come back. And they won't. They won't. You
got to keep them under that yoke, that heavy yoke on them and make
them come. That's why religion won't do it. But I'm thankful
for religion because it makes this world a better place to
live in. I'd hate to see all those people doing what they
really want to do in their heart. Wouldn't you? Wouldn't you? It takes a lot of leaves to shade
the fruit on God's tree. And He makes sure there's plenty
of leaves on that tree to shade His true fruit. That's right.
Alright, let me finish with this. Who's going to believe then?
I'll end it with this. It says there in our text who
will believe the report. The second part. To whom the
arm of the Lord is revealed. That's who's going to believe
that. To whom the arm of the Lord is revealed. It's got to
be revealed. The heart's got to be quickened.
We've got to have it revealed. The Lord told Peter. He said,
Peter, are you going to go away? Are you going to go away with
the rest of them? Peter said, Lord, to whom shall we go? You've
got the words of eternal life. And he said, Blessed art thou,
Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto
thee, but my Father which is in heaven. He revealed this to
you. All the gospel goes out to many. Everybody hears it here
today. Some are sitting here saying, all right, man, we just
struck 12. When are you going to end this thing? When are you
going to stop it? We're ready to go. And some are saying, just keep
on. I like it. I like what I'm hearing. I'm
fixing to end it. But this is the truth. Many are
called, but few are chosen. The word goes out to many. but there's few God has chosen
who He makes this word life in our heart. And the thing is,
and I know you don't understand this, but you keep saying, you
just say the same things over and over and over. God is the
one who makes this gospel new to us every single day so that
we never get tired of hearing about Him. Do you ever get tired
of eating your natural bread? Do you ever get to the point
where you just go, I've eaten the same thing I ate yesterday.
I'm not going to eat anymore. I'm eating food every day. I'm
not going to eat anymore. You never get tired of food because
it's your life. Well, this is our life. We never
get tired of Christ. He's our life. Now, you remember
when you were a child? Remember when you were a child
and you had no worries because you knew that your father was
going to take care of everything and everything was settled. You
didn't have to worry about a thing. That's what Christ says. Come
to me with childlike faith and believe me. He says, Verily I
say unto you, whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God
as a little child, he shall not enter in. You come to God and
you just trust Him. Quit fighting, quit being, quit
trying to put up your objections and quit trying to make the Word
seem like it contradicts itself. It doesn't. And you just believe. You just believe. Look at verse
6, Isaiah 52, 6. I'll end with this. This is what
the Lord said. My people shall know my name. Therefore they shall know in
that day that I am he that doth speak. Behold, it is I. The New Testament version of
that, He said, My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and
they follow me. That's right. Let a man preach
Christ as the healer of the sick. Let him preach Him as the feeder
of the hungry. Let him be preached as the great
example to follow so that you can work yourself to heaven.
Men don't get angry with that at all. They don't get angry
with that at all. But preach that He is the righteousness
of God. Preach that He is the holiness
without which no man will see the Lord. and that you can't
do anything to make yourself righteous or holy. He is all. Men won't hear that. Very few.
Very few. Well, let me close with this. We've seen this. Our gospel,
our report is our gospel. It's our gospel. God is just
and justified those who believe by the finished work of Christ
Jesus. We learn why Isaiah said, Lord, where can a believer be
found? Because there's very few, very few who believe the gospel
in any given age. He always has a remnant. He always
has a remnant. Don't look at the appearance
of things to judge what God's doing. Don't do it that way.
And thirdly, those who believe do so because the Lord has revealed
Christ in them. He revealed Christ in them. If
you believe on Christ, rejoice. Flesh and blood didn't reveal
this to you. God the Father did. Amen.