Isaiah 52, verse 8 ends with
these words, when the Lord shall bring again Zion. And verse 9 begins, break forth
into joy, sing together ye waste places of Jerusalem. When God
sent Cyrus and he redeemed Judah out of Babylonian captivity,
and began to bring them back to Jerusalem. That was a cause
for great joy. That was a cause to sing and
to be so happy. Psalm 126 describes it. It's a song of degrees. It says,
When the Lord turned again the captivity of Zion, we were like
them that dreamed. Then was our mouth filled with
laughter. And our tongue with singing,
then said they among the heathen, the Lord hath done great things
for them. Even the heathen were saying,
the Lord has done great things for them. The gospel is a call
to happiness. It's a call to rejoicing. If
we were preaching a message that was a call to sorrow and to mourning
and to grieving, I could understand men not wanting to hear it. But
our call is a call to happiness, to joy. Look there in verse 7. It's good tidings. Good tidings. It's the publication of peace.
It's good tidings of good. It's the publication of salvation. This is great news. It's saying,
Thou God reigneth. This is good news. The gospel
says, come, eat, drink freely, without price, without money,
without price. Delight yourself in fatness.
Come and feast, the gospel says. Verse 9 says, break forth into
joy. Sing together, you waste places
of Jerusalem. You and I, who are called by
the grace of God, are waste places of Jerusalem. Just like those
inanimate stone walls and those stone buildings were wasted and
ruined, we were wasted and ruined. We were dead in trespasses and
in sin. Just like those walls, literal
walls, were wasted by the king of Babylon, we were wasted by
Satan, by the power of the prince of the air. Just like those literal
walls were wasted because the civil and the religious heads
in Judah turned away from God and turned to their own way.
Well, we were wasted because our head turned away from God
and turned to his own way. We were wasted. And those literal
places had to be built up again. And you know who built them up
again? Cyrus did. You can read Ezra sometime and
see. He was given this proclamation
of God to build his house and he built it. He built it. You
know who has got to build our house? The one Cyrus Pitcher.
The Lord Jesus Christ. He's got to build it. He's the
living stone. He's the foundation, disallowed
indeed of men, but chosen of God and precious. And you are
lively stone built up upon Him by His grace to offer up spiritual
sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. What are those
sacrifices? What sacrifices has He called
on us to offer up? He tells us plainly right here
in verse 9. Break forth into joy and sing together, you waste
places of Jerusalem. You mean that's what God considers
a sacrifice? Praising Him for saving us, yes. Now doesn't that have great reasons
to just rejoice? This is, this is the sacrifices
of God. The praise of our lips to Him. The calves of our lips praising
Him for the great things that He's done. So I want to show
you some of these reasons we have to joy and to sing. Here's
the first reason we have for joy and for singing. Look at
verse 9. The Lord hath comforted His people. The Lord hath comforted his people. Is there anything that you can
think of that's comforting about the message of free will works
religion? Is there anything that you can
think of that's comforting about that message? What comfort is
there in a message that tells a laden down, enslaved, powerless
sinner that God has done all that He can do and now that sinner's
got to free himself by His works? What joy is that? The Armenian's
God, the God that they declare loves everybody, wants to save
everybody, He really cannot save. They say He can't. They say he's
done all he can do and he can't do anymore. They say he can't
say. What joy is in that message? What joy is there in a message
that motivates people by threats of punishment? Is there any joy
in that? You think it'd be much joy to
have the clothes stripped off your back and your naked back
be lashed with the hot end of a whip? That's not joy. But that's what free will works
religion is all about. It's about what joy is there
in finding out somebody's sin and uncovering it before everybody
and blaming them and pointing the finger at others. What comfort's
in that? That's not comfort. That's just more taskmasters
making your life bitter with hard bondage. But here is a message
of comfort. I've got a message of comfort.
I have a message of comfort. You who are weary, you that are
laboring, you that are heavy laden, you that are tired of
your sin and you loathe yourself in sackcloth and ashes, you that
despise the old man and that Or you that are sitting here
that just don't know what to do. You know you can't save yourself,
but you don't know what to do. I've got a message for you. Will
you hear it? I've got a message for you. The
message that God has sent me to declare, the message of comfort,
the message of good news, is not more things for you to do.
It's the message that the Lord hath done. The Lord hath done
it. Keep there with me at verse 9.
The Lord hath, the Lord hath, the Lord hath comforted His people. He's heard the cry of His people
by reason of our affliction. He's come to where His people
are. He's come and shined the light of His countenance upon
us. He's come to where we are and
He's manifest His everlasting love to us. He's come to where
we are and He's fulfilled His exceeding great and precious
promises that He's made in this word. And He's fulfilled them
to us. The Lord hath comforted His people. Because verse 9, look here, He
hath redeemed Jerusalem. He's done it. He's redeemed Jerusalem. He hath, God has come in the
flesh to where we are. He hath, Christ has taken the
place of each and every one of God's people. He hath, those
of us who couldn't save ourselves, those of us who were too desperately
ruined in our fallen condition to do anything whatsoever to
even pick up Satan's chain, much less break it and sunder. You
and I, who are desperately wicked, who are desperately undone, who
are who were sinners, real sinners. He hath. Christ has walked perfectly
under the law as our representative. He's taken the sin of his people
upon himself. He hath. Look over there at Isaiah
53. He hath. Look at that verse 5. He was wounded for our transgressions. He hath, that's what the scriptures
say, He hath redeemed Jerusalem. Look there, the chastisement
of our peace was upon Him. Look there, He was bruised for
our iniquities. He hath, He has died the death
His people owed to justice. Christ hath. And with His stripes
we're healed. Not with our stripes, not with
our sacrifices, not with our Anything we've done with His
stripes, we are healed. He hath redeemed Jerusalem. Are there any citizens of heavenly
Jerusalem here? Are there any of you here now
that are citizens of Jerusalem? Well, how can I know if I'm a
citizen of Jerusalem? Well, are you bound by your own
sins? Are you unable to free yourself? Are you desperate for deliverance? Do you see that your sin is against
God and God only? Do you desire for another to
come and save you? Are you ready to just lay down
all your ammunition and all your weapons and all your rebuttals
against God and to cast all your care into His hand? If you are,
I've got a message for you, because you're a child of Jerusalem,
if you are. God makes His people to be so. Christ makes, the Holy
Spirit makes His people to be so. Turn over to Isaiah 40. Isaiah
40. When you hear me telling you
what things He's done, does it make you feel like this is a
dream? Does it make laughter fill your mouth? Does it make
you say, can it be possible that God has done this for me? That
Christ has done this for me? If that's how you feel, if that's
what He's done in your heart where it's just overloading with
joy about this and amazement at His grace, then here's His
message. Here's His charge to me to give
to you. Isaiah 40 verse 1. Comfort ye,
comfort ye my people, saith your God. Speak uncomfortably to Jerusalem,
and cry unto her that her warfare is accomplished. When it says
cry unto her, it says speak to her heart. speak to her heart,
and cry unto her and tell her her warfare is accomplished,
that her iniquity is pardoned, for she hath received of the
Lord's hand double for all our sins." Every believer here, we're
no longer under the wrath of God. We no longer are we under
the curse of the law. There is therefore now no condemnation
to us. Whereas God remembers our sin
no more. We're no longer the prisoners
of law and justice. Not now. And he says to us, this
is what he says to us. Break forth into joy and sing
together, you waste places of Jerusalem, for the Lord hath
comforted his people and he hath redeemed Jerusalem. Isn't that
wonderful? Look here now, here's the second
thing, Isaiah 52. We have reason to joy and sing
because verse 10 tells us, The Lord hath made bare His holy
arm in the eyes of all the nations. He's made bare His holy arm. Now our God rules everything. He's of sovereign power. He doesn't
ask anybody for anything. He does what He pleases. In Daniel
4.35 the scriptures say, All the inhabitants of the earth
are reputed as nothing. And he doeth according to his
will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the
earth and none can stay his hand or say unto him, What doest thou? That's his power. But this power
of his holy arm is more powerful than that. It's more powerful
than that. His holy arm is the power and
wisdom of God manifest in the salvation of His particular people. The Lord hath made bare His holy
arm. The redemption of His people
was a holy work. It was a holy work. He was upholding
His holy name. He was upholding His holy law. He was upholding His holy justice. That's what was taking place
on Calvary's tree. And it took a holy arm to uphold
all that holiness. And so He sent forth His holy
arm. Christ Jesus, His Son. And He
came forth. Look there at Isaiah 53 verse
1. 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. The arm of the Lord is His Son,
the Lord Jesus Christ. You see, everybody in the world
is talking about God's love. And God's love is manifested
in that He gave His only begotten Son for His people. But I'll
tell you what's manifested on the cross. His justice is manifested
just as much as His mercy is. Mercy is on full display. There's
no doubt about that. But justice is on full display
in Calvary's tree. Holy justice. His holiness is
displayed. He hath made bare His holy arm. The more I consider that, the
more I consider the doctrine of substitution, the doctrine
of Christ coming, the more I marvel at the wisdom of God to devise
a way that He could save guilty, hell-deserving sinners and be
just in doing so. I marvel at that. That's amazing.
A universal atonement. that just universally makes atonement
in general, but in particular doesn't save anybody. There's
no power in that. There's no holiness in that.
There's no wisdom in that. You know what that is? The atonement
that says it was... Atonement was made for Judas
the same as it was for John. You know what that is? That's
a weak inconsistent, unjust bunch of nothing is what that is. It's
as weak and powerless as the vanity and the vain minds who
come up with that scheme. It's nothing but a substitution
of a particular people, a death for a particular people, Christ
vicariously bearing the wrath of God on behalf of His particular
people. That is His holy arm and that
gives me rest. You know why? Because I believe,
I trust the Word of God when He speaks to my heart and He
says that He put away all my sin by the sacrifice of Himself. I believe and I trust my conscience
is clear with regard to the righteous demands of the Law of God. Because
I believe, God, that by the bleeding wounds of the incarnate God,
I've been made righteous. And He's done it in a way that
has made righteousness and peace kiss one another in perfect harmony.
This is how God saves sinners. This is how He saves sinners
and yet remains perfectly holy. How? How? He takes all the sin
of all His people and takes it off of them and lays it on His
Son. And He makes His Son to bear
our sins in His own body on the tree. And He makes His Son to
be the only one that He looks to. The only one that He looks
to as being the one who's guilty before God. The only one who
has disobeyed His command. The only one who has not done
as He ought to do. So that He can justly pour out
the justice that His people deserved upon Him. And yet at the same time while
He's doing it, He's the pleasure of His Father. He's the delight
of His Father because He's doing exactly what His Father determined
before to be done. He's taken He's taken His Son
and He's made His Son a lamb. He's made His Son to be the substitutionary
lamb for His people. He's made Him to be caught in
the thorns and to be laid there on the altar in place of His
chosen sons. And so now Christ bears everything
that His people deserve. He bears everything they deserve
for His people. By that, God has poured out fully,
completely, all the demands of justice upon His own darling
Son. He has satisfied justice Himself
for His people. And now, in perfect harmony with
His justice, He can be merciful and just pour undeserved favor
upon His people and be holy and just in doing so. Nothing about
His holy character has been blemished whatsoever. That's how God can
be just and the justifier. That's how it's done. It's because
He did it for a particular people. It's because He did it for a
people that He chose from before the foundation of the world.
I've said this to you before. You don't go purchase a gift
for somebody that you don't know. Do you? Have you ever done that? And gone home and wrapped it
up and put it up on a shelf and sit there and wrung your hands
and said, Oh, I just wish somebody come and claim it. You don't
do that. God doesn't either. Christ came
to this world knowing who He was coming to save. He said,
I know my sheep and I lay down my life for my sheep. He came
into this earth knowing what the pleasure of the Father was.
And He came to accomplish His good pleasure. And His good pleasure
was that He would magnify His law before the whole world and
make bare His holy arm before all nations. And that's what
He did. He shows that He is a God who
will by no means clear the guilty. He shows that He is a God who
holds His people to the line, to the plumb line. He will not
by any means spare those who are guilty because He's just. Now, when you're guilty, you
don't want to hear that because you know He's not going to clear
you. There's no way He's going to
clear you except you be found under the blood of His Son. But
I'll tell you this, when He makes you know He's done this for you,
you delight in it because a just judge that will do right is a
judge that is on the side of His people. And that's who our
God is. And He will do right for His
people because He satisfied justice for them. That same justice that
demanded that they die, that same justice for Him to be just
now demands that they live. because justice is satisfied
for them. It demands He keep them all these days as they walk
through this earth. It demands that He continually
shine His light upon them and bring them out of darkness. It
demands that He continually give them an increased faith in them
and cause them to see their Redeemer. It demands that when they get
too big and think they can walk on their own and they don't need
Him, it demands He take His power off of them a little bit and
let them fall down on their face so they can see that they entirely
depend upon His grace to keep them and hold them and provide
for them and bring them to Himself. There's a man that's kept the
whole law of God. He's the last Adam. He's the
Lord from heaven. There's a man who's paid the
wages of death and he's lived to tell about it. And he's the
Lord Jesus Christ. And all whom he represented are
now accepted in the beloved because of what he has finished. Psalm 98, 1 says, O sing unto
the Lord a new song, for he hath done marvelous things. His right
hand and his holy arm hath gotten him the victory. The Lord hath made known His
salvation. His righteousness hath He openly
showed in the sight of the heathen. He hath remembered His mercy
and His truth toward the house of Israel. All the ends of the
earth have seen the salvation of our God. You reckon there's
anybody in this world, anywhere, that hadn't heard about Christ
dying on Calvary's tree over 2,000 years ago? You reckon there's
anybody that hadn't? He said, He has, all the ends
of the earth have seen the salvation of our God. This thing wasn't
done in a corner. It wasn't, but in that verse
10, our text says there, but in the eyes, in the eyes of all the nations,
and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our
God." How are they going to send it? because God's going to send
his messenger upon the mountains to each and every elect child
of God that he's accomplished his redemption for. No matter
where they are in the ends of the earth, he's going to cause
them to see the salvation of our God. They may have seemed
to be the most desolate, but they're going to share in his
joy. They may have seemed to be never reachable, he's going
to reach them. He's going to get his word to
them, and he's going to make them to be like men who dream.
They're going to be pinching themselves and saying, is this
real? Is this too good to be true that
He has called me, saved me, and then come and called me by His
grace? This very fact, it ought to make
us, every one of us, want to send the gospel as far as we
can possibly send it into this earth. Because God's going to
call His people. He's going to make His people
see what He's done for them, no matter where they are in the
ends of this earth. And as for those that will not come out
of darkness, as for those who try to put their head in the
sand and shut up their ears and make their heart as hard as adamant
stone, and they will not hear the Word of God, They're going
to see it too. They're going to see the salvation
of the Lord too in the day of judgment. Because the scripture
says, At the name of Jesus, every knee shall bow of things in heaven
and things in earth and things under the earth, and every tongue
shall confess that the Lord Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of
God our Father. Alright, here's the third thing. And the Lord commands us who
believe to depart from Babylon. And He commands us to do this
no less than four times. Now look here with me at verse
11. He says, Depart ye. He says it again, Depart ye.
He says it again, Go ye out from vents. Touch no unclean thing. He says it again, Go ye out of
the midst of her. Be ye clean that bear the vessels
of the Lord. Now Babylon, that the city of
proud, unclean idolaters, opposed to God, opposed to His people.
It's a picture, it's an emblem of this ungodly world and of
free will, man-exalting, works religion. Now turn over to 2
Corinthians verse 6. Paul quoted this verse. in 2 Corinthians 6. You just
imagine the picture. Get the picture here now. These
folks were captive slaves in Babylon. And the Lord sent a
deliverer and redeemed them out of their captivity and sent the
messenger to declare it to them and say, He's redeemed you. You
can go back to Jerusalem now. He's provided all things necessary. You can go back. Jerusalem's
going to be built. His house is going to be built.
And you can worship God again. And do you know that some of
the people did not leave Babylon? They stayed there. They said,
no, we'll just sit here. We've been here so long. At first
we wanted to go out, but we've just been sitting here so long
now. These people are our people. We like them. We get along with
them. We got green grass on our yard
and a white picket fence and a little puppy dog, and that's
as good as it gets. We got everything we need. And
they just stayed there. They just stayed right there.
But the believer, those who God's worked in their heart, they can't
stay there. God commands them to come out. Look at 2 Corinthians
6.14. Be ye not unequally yoked together
with unbelievers. For what fellowship hath righteousness
with unrighteousness? And what communion hath light
with darkness? And what concord hath Christ
with Belial? Or what part hath he that believeth
with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple
of God with idols? For ye are the temple of the
living God. As God hath said, I will dwell
in them and walk in them, and I'll be their God, and they shall
be my people. Here is what Paul is quoting
from our text. Wherefore, come out from among
them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord. And touch not the unclean
thing, and I will receive you. And I will be a father unto you,
and you shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.
Now, we are not to be like monks and not to be like nuns. We have
to live in this world, we have to work in this world, we have
to obey this world's laws. Paul told those in Corinth. He
said, I told you not to have fellowship and have company with
fornicators. He said, yet not all together
with the fornicators of this world or with idolaters or extortioners. He said, because then you'd have
to go out of the world. You're going to have to have
some dealings with them. But still, we've got to remember
that our holy God, by divine election, by accomplished redemption
and by sanctification of the Holy Spirit, He has separated
us from this world. He's called us out of this world.
And He said to us, if you were of the world, the world would
love His own. But because you're not of the
world, but I've chosen you out of the world, therefore the world
hateth you. I tell you this, if you're a
believer, you can go around pretending that your worldly friends love
you and flattering yourself that you can befriend your worldly
friends and God's people and everybody loves you the same.
And I guarantee you what you don't know is your worldly friends
hate you. I can tell you that. If you stand
for Christ in this Word and declare the truth in this Word, they
hate you. That's just so. So the Lord will have his saints
to be separate from this world, from its principles, from its
pleasures, and separate from its various forms of works religion.
When he says, touch no unclean thing, he means when you go out
of Babylon, out of free will works religion, out of your self-righteousness
that I've called you out of, don't bring any of it with you.
Because it's impure and it'll cause you to be defiled. Don't
bring it with you. I'm thankful for those first
reformers that God used to come out of Babylon, of the Roman
church. I'm thankful for that. But they
brought a whole lot of impurities out with them. They did. And
in our day and time, those things are ruling and reigning more
than anything else by those that go by the name reformers. But
the Lord says to His child, Be ye clean that bear the vessels
of the Lord. Every child of God, every child
of God is washed in the blood of the Lamb, washed in regeneration
by the Holy Spirit, and is clean every whit. That's what the Lord
Jesus Christ said. By His grace, He said, you're
clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. Abide
in me, and I in you. That's what he said. We were
defiled in our sin, but by the grace of God, you're washed,
you're sanctified, you're justified in the name of the Lord Jesus
and by the Spirit of our God. We still have sin, we still have
sin in our flesh, we still commit sin, but we've been washed in
the blood of Christ, we've been justified by His righteousness,
and every born-again child of God is holy and entirely clean
in the sight of God. All our sins are pardoned. We're
perfectly righteous before God, perfectly cleaned by His Word,
by the sentence of justification and absolution pronounced on
us by Holy God. And He's the only one who can
absolve our sins. You can go to a man wearing a
funny hat with his collar turned around backwards and he can tell
you he's absolving your sins, but if you meet God, you'll find
out he never had the power to do it. So the Lord says to us,
be ye clean that bear the vessels of the Lord. When they went out
of Babylon, they literally took, the Babylonian king had taken
a bunch of those sanctified vessels out of the house of the Lord
and he took them away captive to Babylon. And those vessels
were pictures of his people, examples of illustrations of
his people because When Satan came into the garden and deceived
and used Eve to beguile her, and then Adam with his eyes wide
open, sinned against God, taking the forbidden fruit, well right
then Satan, the king of Babylon, took all of those vessels of
God, his elect people, sanctified by God before the foundation
of the world, he took them away into Babylon. But by His grace,
Christ has come and He's delivered His people and He's bringing
all those vessels back into the house of the Lord. So they literally
took golden vessels out with them. But here's the thing, you
who've been called of God, those that were carrying those vessels
were priests unto God. You that have been called of
God have been made priests unto God. I read it to you all ago
that we may offer up spiritual sacrifices to God. We've been
made priests unto God. And what we're carrying with
us are the precious riches of His Gospel. The Gospel of His
Word. And so He tells us, be you clean
that bear the vessels of the Lord. You be clean. This separation is not just to
be separate from Him. It's to be separated from them
unto God. It's to have more communion with
our God. It's to have fellowship with
our God. where for Jesus also that he might sanctify the people
with his own blood suffered without the gate. Let us go therefore
unto him without the camp bearing his reproach for here we have
no continuing city but we seek one to come." Our love for the
saints, our desire to be with God's people, to be around his
people, to spend our time with his people, Christ said that's
the mark that's going to save this world that you're my disciples.
He said, by this shall all men know that you are my disciples
if you have love one for another. Now, when I was a new believer, I had more worldly friends my
age than I had believers my age. I did. And I lived further away
from the church. And I didn't have very much communion
with believers. And my old man of my flesh was
fed by it continually. And the inward man was vexed
by it continually. I wouldn't recommend that to
anybody. But the Lord continued to separate me. The Lord actually
literally moved me away. Moved me away. And inwardly,
He gave me more and more of a desire to be with His people. You remember
in 1999, I told Lynn, I said, we moved to Nashville. We lived
in Nashville and the Saints lived out there in Franklin about 30
minutes away. And I told Lynn, I said, we can't
stay here any longer. We got to get out there. I want
to live out there. I want to be out there where
they are. And we did. Best thing we ever did. You know
who did that? God did that. God put that in
my heart. God was the one moving me in
that direction. He gets all the glory and all
the praise for that. So I found myself desiring to
be with His people more and more. And it was far better. Far better. Because the Scripture says, iron
sharpeneth iron. But evil communications corrupt
good manners. That's just how it is. Believers
want and they need to be with believers. We've got the same
motive. The love of Christ constrains
us. We operate under the same rule. Faith that works by love. And we speak the same language.
We speak the language of heavenly Jerusalem. A believer just can't
be comfortable with this world. He just can't be. Well, let me
move on here quickly. Lastly. Lastly. The Lord commands
His people to follow Him in faith. Now look at verse 12. He says,
For ye shall not go out with haste, nor go by flight. Now isn't that strange? He just
sat there and said four times, Depart ye, depart you, get out
of here, get out of here. But now He says, You shall not
go out with haste, nor go by flight. He's saying to us here
that you're not going to go out in a hasty manner running frantically
about as if you're afraid that somehow the enemy is going to
overcome you. Look back there at Isaiah 51 and verse 14. We
saw this several months ago. Isaiah 51, 14. The captive exile
hasteneth that he may be loose, and that he should not die in
the pit, nor that his bread should fail. You get the picture of
him. He gets the news that he's free and he can go. And man,
he's packing up, he's getting ready, and he's trying to get
out of there as fast as he can. Before somebody comes along and
says, Oh, wrong man. We got the wrong man. You know,
you got to stay. Or the enemy comes upon him and shuts the
door and says, we're not letting you go. But look at the next
line. The Lord said, but I'm the Lord
thy God. I divided the sea whose waves
roared. The Lord of hosts is His name.
He's saying, why are you so frantic? Why are you so hasty? Things
that are done in haste are usually done in unbelief. They're usually
done in unbelief. Therefore, our God calls on us
to calmly, deliberately depart from all falsehood in faith,
knowing whom we have believed and being persuaded that He's
able to keep that which we've committed unto Him against that
day. For the Lord our God promises to keep all those who follow
Him. Look at verse 12. Now He didn't
give that command without following up with something. He says, for,
because the Lord will go before you and the God of Israel will
be your re-reward." He's saying, the Lord will go before you.
He says, I'll go before you and I'll make the crooked places
straight. I'll break in pieces the gates of brass and cut and
sunder the bars of iron and I'll give thee the treasures of darkness
and hidden riches of secret places that thou mayest know that I,
the Lord, which call thee by thy name, am the God of Israel.
That's Isaiah 45, 2. I'd encourage you to read that.
He says, you follow me, I will make the crooked places straight,
I'm going to break in pieces the gates of brass, and cut in
son of the bars of iron, and I'm going to give you the treasure
that's in darkness that you can't see. I'm going to give that to
you in hidden riches of secret places that you may know that
I, the Lord, that called you by your name, am the God of Israel. You know what He's telling us?
He's telling us to calmly serve Him in faith where we are, being
willing to spend and be spent for the Lord because Everything
that's crooked, He's going to make straight. Everything that
would hinder us, He's going to cut the bars. And He's going
to give us treasures that we don't even... that this world
don't see. They're the treasures of His
grace. They're the treasures of His mercy. They're the treasures
of His... of the accomplished righteousness of Christ, our
righteousness. and everything we need, when
we don't even see, when you would think there's no possible way
this is going to, this is against all reason. Have we not found
out by now that everything God does is against our reason? Isn't
it so? It's against everything that
we would reason. Everything. And then look here,
he says, and the God of Israel will be your rear ward. That's
what it means, your rear ward. It means those of you that are
straggling along. I've thought of this a long time.
You know, I've said before, you can only go as fast as the slowest
sheep. I don't know if that's true or
not. Because the Lord says, you just go. I'll gather them up. I'll gather them up. I'll make
sure those that are mine don't fall away. That's what He said. Christ shall feed His flock like
a shepherd. He shall gather the lambs with
His arm. That's what this means. I'll
be your rear ward. It means He'll gather you up. That's what it means. As those,
as you walk, and some are saying, I can't, I just don't think we
ought to do that. I don't think we ought to go
this way. I can't do it. I can't walk with you anymore.
Christ says, come here. You're going to walk with Him.
And He just picks you up, carries you, and He won't lose one. That
gives us the confidence of knowing, brethren, if a man is able to
walk away and never walk another day with us, there's a reason. There's a reason. But when those
try to go away... How many times have you tried
to go away? How many times have you been the one lagging behind?
How many times have we been the one that was stumbling and falling
and not walking with God's people? And yet he would not take no
for an answer. He picked us up like a shepherd
carrying a little lamb. And he gently led us along. That's
what he says he'll do. He's not going to lose anybody.
He's not going to lose his people. He tells us, don't you be worried
about it. Don't you be hasty. But you go. And you go out. And I'm going to provide everything
along the way. That's what he said. Alright.
So having heard all these things, what shall we do? What shall
we do? Well, number one, we're going
to break forth in joy and sing together. And number two, we're
going to depart and break ties from Babylon once and for all.
Paul said, having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let
us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit,
perfecting holiness in the fear of God. Let's be done with it,
with Babylon, once and for all. And thirdly, we're going to do
so in the calm assurance of faith that our covenant keeping God
is before us and He's behind us and He shall not lose one
of us. That's who our God is. Amen.