Our text will be Isaiah 51 verses
17 through 21. Now this pictures the church
of God as a woman staggering who's drunk with despair. Drunk
with despair. And she's been forced to lay
down. Her enemies have forced her to lay down so they can walk
over her, walk on her. And there's none to help her.
Of all those around her, there's none that can help her. There's
none there to give her a hand, none to help her. But God, who
pleads the cause of His people, tells His people in the midst
of her, He says, Awake and stand up, O Jerusalem. He says, I've taken this bitter
cup, and I've taken it out of your hand, and I'll give it to
the hands of your enemies. That's what He says. I've titled
this, Awake, Stand Up, O Jerusalem. And I want to give you our divisions
as I read the text. First, we see the call to awake.
Verse 17, he says, "'Awake, awake, stand up, O Jerusalem, which
has drunk at the hand of the Lord the cup of his fury. Thou hast drunken the dregs of
the cup of trembling and wrung them out.'" Then secondly, we
see a description of these perilous times the church was in. Verse
18, he says, "'There's none to guide her among all the sons
whom she hath brought forth. Neither is there any that taketh
her by the hand of all the sons that she's brought forth. These
two things are come unto thee. Who shall be sorry for thee?
Desolation and destruction and the famine and the sword. By
whom shall I comfort thee? Thy sons have fainted. They lie
at the head of all the streets as a wild bull in a net. They
are full of the fury of the Lord, the rebuke of thy God. Thirdly,
we see the promise of deliverance by our Lord, verse 21. Therefore,
hear now this, thou afflicted and drunken, but not with wine.
Thus saith thy Lord, thee Lord, and thy God that pleaded the
cause of his people. Behold, I have taken out of thine
hand the cup of trembling. Even the dregs of the cup of
my fury, thou shalt no more drink it again. And fourthly, he says,
God promises judgment upon those who afflict us. Verse 23, But
I'll put it into the hand of them that afflict thee, which
have said to thy soul, bow down, that we may go over, and thou
hast laid thy body as the ground and as the street to them that
went over. What I want you to see in this
tonight is we have a word of assurance from the Lord for these
dark times that His church now faces. as deplorable as the condition
of the visible church now is, the ultimate triumph of God's
true church is sure. It's sure. First we see here
this call to awake. He says, awake, awake, stand
up, O Jerusalem, which has drunk at the hand of the Lord the cup
of his fury. Thou has drunken the dregs of
the cup of trembling and wrung them out. Now in Isaiah's day,
God gave Israel over to Babylonian captivity. because her religious
leaders that were supposed to be leading her in the truth of
God had led them away from God into sin, to the works of their
own hands. And their civil leaders were
guilty of the same. And so the Lord turned them over
to Babylon. But in the midst of Jerusalem,
in the midst of Israel, there was a Jerusalem in the midst
of Jerusalem. There was an Israel in the midst
of Israel. There was a holy nation in the
midst of that nation Israel, that political nation. God's
judgment was not upon the true church. It wasn't upon His true
elect children in Israel. It was upon those who called
themselves His people in name only. That's who His judgment
was upon. His judgment was upon them. But
though the true church in their midst was not the one that He
was directly pouring out His judgment upon, they still suffered
when Israel was taken captive. They suffered when Jerusalem
was taken because they were there in the midst of them. So it is
for God's true remnant in our day, right here in our day, the
judgment of God, the woes of these last days. is upon this
nation. It's upon the visible church.
It's upon this nation. It's upon the whole world. And
though His judgment's not upon His people, His people not pouring
out His fury upon His people, we still suffer when the judgment
of God comes upon the visible church, when it comes upon our
nation, when it comes upon this world. We suffer because we live
here and we're in the middle of it. God's given us, his true
people, the cup of trembling, but not in the sense of being
against the Lord's people. He's done it just as God's elect
remnant suffered there whenever they were taken captive in the
midst of Israel, in the midst of that nation. But in Isaiah's
day, in the midst of these perilous times, the Lord said to His people,
Awake! Awake! Stand up, O Jerusalem! He said, Awake! Awake! Stand
up, O Jerusalem! You notice He says it two times.
He says, Awake! Awake! It's because we need to
be awakened from the sleep of unbelief and the sleep of despair. When we're in the middle of this,
in the middle of what we're in right now, in the conditions
we're living in right now. Brethren, this is always the
case, it'll always be the case. This world's religion grows faster
than God's true church grows. It always does, because they
use sinful means and methods to try to bring in people and
make converts. So it always, they are of the
world, they speak of the world, and the world receives its own.
They love the world, the world will join with them in a heartbeat.
And for this reason, the Scriptures tells us there's going to come
a time when false religion, false religion, a brief time, a definite
time, but it will be a time when the world's false religion will
rule this world. It'll rule this world. And the
Scriptures tells us there is a time coming that's a brief
time and a definite time, but it is a time coming whenever
it shall appear that the Lord's true witnesses, His preachers
and His people, His true witnesses, that they're dead, laying dead
in the street. And when that happens, this world
will rejoice. They will rejoice. This religious
world and this sinful, ungodly world will rejoice. The scripture
says this over in Romans 11 verse 10, it says, Those two prophets are a picture
of God's witnesses, God's people, His church, His people, His preachers. It's a picture of His witnesses.
And whenever it appears like truth has failed in the world,
this world's false religion along with the wicked, wicked folks
of this world will rejoice because our gospel torments them night
and day. They don't want to hear it. They
just don't want to hear it. And for the believer, times like
this are easy for us to slumber in unbelief and to fall into
this stupor of despair. I'm telling you right now, things
are going on in this world. The Lord hasn't told us when
He's going to return. He has not told us that. And He has
done it for a purpose. In every generation, they faced
heresy, they faced apostasy, they faced violence, they faced
war. But they were looking for Christ's return, even in generations
past. And the Lord hadn't told us when
He's coming, so that we will live our lives looking for His
return. Eagerly anticipating Him to return
and come back to us. That's what we're looking for.
We're looking for that. We're indeed living in a perilous
time. This is a perilous time in which
we live. And I want our young people to
understand something. The homosexuality that you see
being legalized by our politicians and being paraded on television,
this is not a sudden instance of tolerance and open-mindedness.
That's not what this is. This is judgment and fury of
God's wrath poured out. That's what this is. That's exactly
what it is. In Romans 2, it says, they changed
the truth of God into a lie. They changed the truth of God
into a lie and worshipped and served the creature more than
the Creator. So you know what the Lord did? He changed them. He changed them. So the Lord,
for this cause, God gave them up to vile affections, for even
their women did change. the natural use into that which
is against nature. And likewise also the men, leaving
the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust, one toward
another." That was the just judgment and wrath and fury of God is
what did that. They didn't like to retain God
in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind.
That's judgment. That's the judgment of God. And
when either the self-righteous world of religion or wicked sinners
in this world hear the truth of God, they both together say
the same thing, away with it. Away with it. We don't want to
have anything to do with it whatsoever. So whenever they see it appear
that lies are triumphing over truth, they rejoice. They rejoice. The true child of God, in living
in the midst of times like this, we easily will slumber in despair
and unbelief. Easily. And so God says to us,
awake, awake, stand up, O Jerusalem. Awake, awake, and stand up. And
I do pray God would speak this command effectually in our hearts
now personally, and that He would breathe the Spirit of life into
His church and revive His church in this time. He's going to do
that. after this world appears to have triumphed over his people,
and he's going to breathe life into his church, and there's
going to be a great revival in his church before he comes back.
That's so. Look here secondly. This is God's
description of these perilous times. The church has none to
guide her. Look at verse 18. There's none
to guide her among all the sons whom she has brought forth, neither
is there any that taketh her by the hand of all the sons that
she's brought up. You see, the visible church pictured
here is a woman staggering in despair. She's staggering along.
She's drunk with despair. But she's got no son to guide
her. She's got no son to take her by the hand and lead her
in the right way that she should go. You see, there is a church,
a visible church, but then there's the true church. There's God's
church. In God's grace, in days past, there have been a lot of
sons come forth that God's brought forth. that he's used his church
to bring forth, but God brought them forth. He brought them forth.
But there's coming a time when, for a time, there won't be that
many sons of God in this earth. There just won't be. We ought
to cherish our brethren. We ought to speak to them often. We ought to visit with them often.
Because it's one of the greatest gifts God's given us in this
earth, is to have brethren. When we don't have any brethren,
we'll find out. It's a terrible time when we
don't have them. Now, I believe there's a rebuke here. It says
there at the end that it is. It says there that this is a
rebuke upon the church. And if you look at this this
way, it says, there's none to guide her among all the sons
whom she hath brought forth, as opposed to God bringing them
forth. There's no sons among the church
that she's brought forth that can guide her and can take her
by the hand and can lead her in the right way. What's the
problem? She brought them forth. She brought them forth rather
than God bringing them forth. You see, we've got to remain
true to the Word of God. If we're the true church of God,
we'll remain true to the Word of God and we'll preach God's
Word because religious efforts of every kind are constantly
going on in this world to make new converts. And every time
somebody uses a method other than the preaching of the truth
of God, to convert a sinner. If they're taught lies, they're
going to go forth teaching lies. And when they go forth teaching
lies, that's not how the Lord's people is going to be revived.
That's not how the Lord's church is going to be revived. Not at
all. So it's a time to awake and stand
up and tell folks the truth. It's time to stand up and tell
folks in our day, as hard as this world goes in the other
direction, and trying to legislate things that God says are evil,
we ought to go as strongly in the other direction, declaring
to men within no uncertain terms the truth that they're depraved,
that they're undone, that they're completely ruined in sin. We
ought to declare to people as boldly as we possibly can that
their sin nature as they come forth into this world is bound
by sin. It's bound by sin so that God
must give us a new nature that delights for Christ to have all
the glory and for our face to be in the dust. Because if He
hasn't done that, we'll want some glory. We'll want some part
in this. And we can't have it. We need
to tell sinners that they can't justify themselves or sanctify
themselves by their obedience to the law. It cannot be done. Is the law then against the promises
of God? God forbid. For if there had
been a law given, which could have given life, fairly righteousness
would have been by the law. but the scripture had concluded
all under sin. The law was given to conclude
all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might
be given to them that believe, that trust on Him, rest in Him. It's time to preach the gospel
of God's salvation by His grace, apart from the works of the sinner.
It's time to exalt God high and lifted up before folks and say,
this is our God. All flesh is grass. We can't
do anything to save ourselves. We have to. If it was possible
for a man to be saved any other way than for God to do it all,
God would not have sent his son. But because it is no way possible
for a man to save himself other than for God to do it, that's
why God sent forth His Son. That's why His Son came forth
to fulfill the law for His people. His Son came forth to work out
a righteousness for His people and to lay down His life for
His people and justify His people. The Son had to do it. There was
no other way. No other way. You remember the
children in the wilderness? Look at 2 Peter chapter 3. Chapter
3. Remember the children in the
wilderness? They waited. Moses went up to the mountain
to receive the law from the Lord. And he didn't come back on their
timetable. And so they said, we don't know what's become of
this Moses. Up! Make us gods to go before us.
Well, look at what's happening in our day. 2 Peter 3 verse 3,
knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers
walking after their own lusts. And saying, where is the promise
of his coming? For since the fathers fell asleep,
all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation."
These scoffers are in the church. These scoffers are in the visible
church. They're God's people by name
only. They go by name only. But what
they're saying is, we don't know what's become of this Jesus Christ
that's gone up and hasn't returned again. Oh, let us make converts
ourselves. We can resort to some means whereby
we can make some converts. If you want to see that that's
the context of the book, just go back and look all through
Isaiah. The Lord kept saying to them,
your strength is to wait. Your strength is to sit still
and wait on the Lord. And they said, we see the enemy
approaching. We see them growing and growing
and growing in number. We've got to do something. about
it." So they looked to Egypt and said, we'll go down to Egypt
and make an alliance with Egypt. That'll bring more into our camp,
more numbers in our camp. And the Lord said, run, run as
fast as you want to run. He said, those that pursue you
are going to be just as fast as you. And he says, and every
time you try to do a work to accomplish this salvation, I'm
just going to break off a branch. And I'm going to keep breaking
off your arms, and I'm going to keep breaking them, and breaking
them, and breaking them, until you're just standing there, just
a pole with no branches whatsoever. And I'm going to do this, the
Lord said, I'm going to wait. I'm going to wait, he said, that
I might be gracious to you. Because the Lord is going to
be glorified. He's a God of mercy and He's going to be glorified.
And so He brought Israel into this bondage and captivity in
Babylon. And He's saying to her now, where's
all the children that you've brought forth? Where is there
any child that you've brought forth that can take you by the
hand and guide you into the truth? And so, in the world today, you've
got a visible church in this world that's been teaching sinners
the way to salvation is by the strength of your hand, and the
way to salvation is by you doing. And so now, when the church is
running, it's swallowed up in this world and all the world's
joined in with it so that you can't tell the world from the
church. Where are you going to find a son now that the church
has brought up that can lead her in the right direction and
guide them in the right direction? They've all been taught lies.
They've all been taught lies. He says, this is the sorrow and
the trial that's come upon the church, verse 19. These two things
are coming unto thee. Who shall be sorry for thee?
Desolation and destruction, and the famine and the sword. By
whom shall I comfort thee? Desolation and destruction means
violence and havoc, social sin. It means breaking of a dream
or shattering of the interpretation. And I think what it has to do
with is this. The preaching from those who are the church in name
only has created a people, as Romans 2 says, filled with all
unrighteousness and fornication and wickedness and covetousness
and maliciousness, full of envy and murder and debate, deceit,
malignity, whispers, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud,
boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without
understanding, covenant breakers without natural affection, implacable,
unmerciful." That's what it's created. That's what it's created.
Destruction. Destruction. You have to think
it's the judgment of God when we live in a day when there's
more people willing to say, I was saved by making my decision for
Christ and by my law keeping and Christ making up the difference.
And at the same time, we live in the most vile, ungodly generation
that's ever been. What else can you say it is but
God's judgment? And here's the second thing I
think this breaking of the interpretation means is what 2 Thessalonians
2.10 says, Because they receive not the love of the truth that
they might be saved, for this cause God shall send them strong
delusion that they shall believe a lie. that they might be damned
who believe not the truth but have pleasure in unrighteousness.
We're talking about religious, self-righteous unrighteousness. I don't know if you understand
this, but do you really understand that not everybody in this world
is preaching the gospel? You really understand that there
are 99.9% of the people in this world, and in our day, this harlot
has dressed herself like she's straight out of the Reformation.
And she's coming and she's preaching the five points of Calvinism,
but she's telling you there's still something you got to do.
You got to go back to that law and you got to make yourself
holy by it. Brethren, that's not the gospel I preach. That's
so different and so opposed to the gospel I preach, that's not
another gospel. That's not the gospel I'm declaring
to you. Do you realize that? I want to make sure that's clear.
Because churches that are preaching it, the believers got to go back
under that law and come under that yoke and they're wanting
her to lay down so they can walk on top of her. That's not God's
true people, not his true church. Famine of the word and the sword,
he says here. That's the other thing. Famine
of the word and the sword. Amos 8.12 says, they'll wander
from sea to sea, from the north even to the east, they'll run
to and fro to seek the word of the Lord and shall not find it. And I know what men say. People
hear that and they say, I see churches everywhere. They say,
how can you say something like that? I hear men that I think
are preaching the truth and that I think I can go and worship
with everywhere. I'm going to be as honest as
I can. Maybe you don't know the truth. That's what I want to
say to folks. Maybe you don't know the Gospel.
Because that's not the case. You can't go everywhere and hear
the Gospel preached. We are living in a famine of
bread. Gospel bread. And it's going to get worse before
it gets better. I'm telling you, I'm amazed at what I'm seeing
on television. I'm amazed at what our government's
doing. I'm amazed at it. And it just
is, according to this word, it's God's judgment. And according
to this word, it's because the truth is not being declared.
It's not being preached. You shall fall by the sword,
the Lord said, because you turned away from the Lord, and therefore
the Lord will not be with you." That's what he said. He says
here now, he says, there's none to guide her. Now he says down
here, look, he says, who shall be sorry for thee? And look at
this, he says, He said, by whom shall I comfort thee? You know
what the Lord's preachers, those that Christ has called and sent
and delivered, you know what we're sent to preach? You know
what our message is? Isaiah 40, verses 1 and 2. Comfort
ye, comfort ye my people, saith the Lord. Comfort her, cry unto
her and tell her her warfare is accomplished. Call unto her
and tell her I have accomplished it. I've done the work and I've
rewarded unto her double for all her iniquity. That's how
the Lord has sent forth His preachers to comfort His people, to tell
His people Christ has so fully accomplished salvation. He so
fully fulfilled the law that now His people have nothing whatsoever
to do to come into God's presence. It's done by Christ Jesus the
Lord. And He says, by that message
I'll call them and I'll bring them to the obedience of faith
and I'll give them hearts willing to follow Christ and seek after
Him. But men won't preach it. Men
will say, if you preach that too fully, folks are going to
be licentious. Well, your damnable heresy is
making a nation full of licentious people. And that's just so. Preach morality all you want
to preach it and watch you create a world of immoral, ungodly people. And preach Christ on that. the
whole counsel of God right there in that one. Preach Him. And
you watch a people's obedience in their heart by the grace of
God who long to follow after Him. I told a man this week,
I said, the more time a preacher spends by the grace of God in
the Word and in prayer so that he can exalt Christ before the
people high and lifted up, in proportion to how He does that,
so in proportion He'll have a people, by God's grace, that'll believe
Christ and long to honor Him and walk in a way that's glorifying
to Him. And by that, that's the best
gift that God could give to such a preacher. It's the best gift
He could give, to have a people glorifying Christ and loving
Christ and wanting to honor Him and glorify Him. That's all any
preacher could ask for. And directly in proportion to
the time a man spends snooping around in his people's business
and trying to find something where he can bring them back
under the yoke of the law and whip them and scourge them and
tell them to lay down so he can walk over them. In the same proportion
as he does that, he'll have to spend all his time using the
yoke of the law. Because it's just a big old bunch
of law-yoking mess. It's not even any truth involved
in it. God's not in it. The sharper
the sword is, the less effort has got to be taken. Just preach
Christ. He does the work. So these sons the church has
brought forth have fainted. It says here they fainted. Verse
20. Thy sons have fainted. They lie at the head of all the
streets as a wild bull in a net. They are full of the fury of
the Lord, the rebuke of thy God. How do God's true children not
faint? How do we not faint? You know
what Paul said? Look at 2 Corinthians 4. 2 Corinthians
4. We do not faint. The same way
we receive mercy to begin with is the way in which we do not
faint. is by the excellency of the power of God. That's how.
Look at 2 Corinthians and look at verse 4 and look at verse
1. Paul says, as we have received
mercy, we faint not. In the same manner, same way
that we receive mercy, that's the same way that we don't faint.
Well, how do we receive mercy? Look down at 2 Corinthians 4
verse 7. He said, we don't have any power
in us, but the excellency is of the power of God. It's not
of us. That's how we begin. That's how
we receive mercy in the first place, by the power of God. You
know how we don't faint? By the power of God. But now,
if her sons and daughters started, if they began by their running
and by their willing and by the works of their flesh, no wonder
they faint. No wonder they faint. They're
like a bull in a net. You take a bull and you throw
a net over him. He's going to try to find deliverance.
He's going to try to get free from that net. And he's going
to fight and fight and fight and wrestle and run and pull
and prod and do everything he can to try to get free. But you
know what's going to happen to him? He's going to wear himself,
slap out, and end up laying in the street tangled up in a net,
worse than he was to begin with. And the Lord said, and that's
what's happened to your sons. They've tried to deliver themselves.
They've tried to free themselves by the same power that they started
in. And now they're just more entangled and more entangled,
and they're just lying in the street. Lying in the street. Well, let's look at this third
thing. Here the Lord promises deliverance. He promises deliverance. He says, verse 21, therefore,
having shown the church there's none among her who can save her,
the Lord says, therefore, hear now this, thou afflicted and
drunken but not with wine. Now, are you sitting there and
are you afflicted by all this? Is all this judgment that God's
brought, is it afflicting you? Is it making you drunk but not
with wine? Drunk in despair? Drunk in and
just seeing how shameful and what sinners we are and just
longing for God's deliverance. Does it make you to want Him
to come forth and to save His people? And when He speaks to
His elect, He speaks to His true church. Be sure to catch these
next words. Verse 22, Thus saith thy Lord the Lord. You see, small letter L-O-R-D
refers to the Lord Jesus. Capital letter L-O-R-D tells
us he's Jesus Jehovah. He's Jesus the God. That's who
he is. Now catch that little word just
before his name. This makes this good news, sweet
news to me personally, to you personally. He says, thy Lord,
the Lord. Thy Lord, Thee Lord. Thy Lord,
by divine election of grace in Christ. Thy Lord, by eternal
adoption as His sons and daughters. Thy Lord, by the blood of the
everlasting covenant. Thy Lord, whom none shall be
able to separate from Him." Poor worms like us, poor desperate
worms like us, in the midst of a mighty nation, in the midst
of the most powerful nation, in these big churches, and we're
the most religious nation in all the world right here. In
the midst of all this, a bunch of worms like you and me that
nobody regards, nobody has any regard to whatsoever, because
God has made Himself our God by His grace toward us, we can
lay claim to His omniscience and His omnipotence to watch
over us. We can lay claim to His omnipresence
to be our company. His immutability to be our security,
His throne of grace always open to us, His justice always to
defend us, His holiness always to separate us and keep us, His
truth always to teach us, His mercy always to forgive us, His
eternity ready to receive us, because His everlasting pledge
is, Thus saith thy Lord, Thee Lord. Because of what He's done. Because of who He is. Now listen
to what He said. Verse 22, Thy God that pleadeth
the cause of His people. He pleads the cause of His people. God's both the judge and the
advocate of His people, and He pleads the cause of His people.
He pleads the cause of His people in the court of judgment. Legally,
we're sinners. Legally, we're guilty. Legally,
we've got to have our sin cleared in the court of God's law. We've
got to be cleared before God Almighty. So from eternity, He
stepped forward and He said, I'll be the surety of this people.
And He came forth when the time came and He stepped forward and
He said, I'll take flesh and I'll live under the law for these
people. And He came forth and He said, when the hour was come,
He stepped forward and He said, now I'll take all their sin myself. Whatever they owe you, charge
that to Me. And He said on behalf of each
of His people, I'll plead their cause. Whatever they owe, I'll
pay it. Whatever it is, I'll pay it.
We owed a righteousness we couldn't work out, and we owed a death
to justice that we could never satisfy. And He says, I'll pay
it. And He fulfilled the righteousness
of the law in every jot and tittle for His people. And He went to
the cross and He justified us of all our sins. And He is our
righteousness. and having pleaded the cause
of His people on the cross and having borne all that suffering
and pleaded it on the cross, He pleads the cause of His people
in the court of our conscience. He sends His gospel to us and
He comes to us and He begins to preach in this gospel and
we're just hearing the words of a man. That's all we're hearing.
But something all of a sudden, the Spirit of the Lord enters
in, and that blood is applied, and He washes us, and renews
us, regenerates us, and renews us by the washing of regeneration. And He begins to apply that word,
that blood, and when He does, He makes us to see all we are
is sin. All our service is sin. All we've
ever done is sin. Can you say all you've ever done
is sin? Are you sinning right now? Can you say there's enough
sin right in this right here to just send you straight to
hell? There is. There is. That's all we've ever
done is sin. But I tell you what, He comes
there and He speaks in our conscience and then it stops being the words
of a man and Christ speaks and He says, I've pleaded your cause
for you. He says, you needed someone to
work out a righteousness for you and I worked out a righteousness
for you. And he says, you needed somebody
to justify you and I laid down my life and I've justified you. And he says, you needed somebody
to come to you and reveal this in your heart and now I've come
to you and I'm revealing this in you. And He makes it real. And for the first time in our
lives, we confess that all we are is sin, and all we've ever
done is sin, and all we are is grass. And for the first time
in our life, we believe on this One who's pleaded our cause for
us. We believe, He's pleaded my cause for me. And then not only does He plead
our cause there in that way, He pleads our cause in heaven
before God the Father. You see, we sing, saints sing,
and you may sing like a songbird, but because sin's what we are,
sin makes all our songs have a lot of bad notes in them. And
we pray, saints pray, but because sin's what we are, when we pray,
all our sin makes our prayers bad prayers. And we do works. Everywhere there's faith, there's
going to be good works accompanied by it because God's grace is
at work there and there's going to be some good works accompanied
by it. Works that prove, that justify the fact that we really
do believe God. Sacrificial works that prove
we really do believe Him and trust Him. But because we're
sin, our works are covered in the slime of sin. But Christ
is there in the presence of God for us. And through Him, through
Christ our High Priest, on Christ our altar, all our songs and
all our prayers and all our works come up to God in Christ Jesus
as an offering and a sacrifice of a sweet-smelling savor unto
God. And He delights in it by Him.
He's gonna plead our case one day in that great judgment day
when we meet God in judgment. He's the one, we're gonna keep
our mouth shut. And he's the one that's gonna
declare what he's done for his people. and that none of your
law keeping, none of your good works, none of those things that
you've done are going to be why God gives you admittance in the
glory. It's going to be Christ only. Christ only. And if we
come thinking something we've done is going to give us admittance
in the glory, we ain't getting in. It's just that simple. Christ is the one we've got to
have. So why are we preaching Christ? Why doesn't the Visible
Church preach Christ and Him only? There's an obvious reason. He says to us, I've taken that
cup out of your hand and I've drank it for you. You'll never
drink it again. And then fourthly, He says here,
though we suffer affliction, as God judges this world, God
promises judgment upon those who afflict us. He says, I've
taken that cup of affliction out of your hand, but I'll put
it into the hand of them that afflict thee. which have said
to thy soul, bow down, that we may go over. And thou hast laid
thy body as the ground, and as the street to them that went
over." You see how this is where we were. We were amongst the
people that said, now bow down, that we may go over. With their
rules and regulations, with their constant legislating of how to
be holy, and their legislating of how to be righteous, and their
legislating of how to be wise, and their legislating of how
to be redeemed. And God says, I'm taking all
that affliction where they whipped you and they bound you and they
yoked you, I'm taking it off of them and I'm putting it, I'm
taking it off of you and I'm putting it on them. I don't have
time for you to turn there. In Revelation 11, in verse 1,
the Lord said, measure the inner court. He said, measure that
inner court there. He said, measure it where the
temple is, where the altar is, wherein my people worship. And
that's a picture of His true people. We worship in the sanctuary.
We worship in the holy place through Christ who pleads our
cause. We enter by a new and living
way. We have boldness to enter by the blood of Jesus Christ,
by the new and living way which He's consecrated to for us through
the veil, His flesh. We have permission to enter into
His glory by Christ in prayer, in acceptance, in communion with
God. We're the temple of God. And He says there, measure that.
But He says, but now there's an outer court there. He said,
don't measure that. He said, I'm giving that to the
Gentiles. And by that, He's showing us, brethren, how that God Himself
separates His people from the vile, how He keeps them separated. That Gentile, that outer court
picture, those who worship God in outer appearance only, who
worship God in the outward form only, who are just His people
in name only. And He said, they're going to
tread My holy place for 42 months, an exact, definite period of
time. And he says, and it's going to come to a point to where the
world's going to so join with them and it's going to get so
built up and so full of religion that it's going to look like
my witnesses are dead and laying dead in the street. And he says,
but the Lord's coming. And he said, when the Lord comes,
he's going to send forth the Spirit of life and he's going
to breathe life into his witnesses. And he's going to say, Awake!
Awake! Stand up, O Jerusalem! And we're
going to stand up. And he says, and when we stand
up, he said, that world of the ungodly is going to look at us
and they're going to be fearful. And he said, and he's going to
say to us, arise. And he said, and I saw the witnesses
arise up into glory with the Lord. And he said, and immediately
in that hour, I'm pouring out fury on that people. I poured
out fury on him. On all those people in the outer
court, all those people who afflicted you and because for their sakes
you had all this affliction on you and life was hard for you
and it was a burdensome task for you to get through this life.
He says, I'm taking all the yoke that they put on you off of you
and I'm putting it on them. And he's going to put it on them
forever. Forever. So what do we say to all this?
What do we say to this that the Lord has taught us here? Well,
first thing, awake. There's no time to sleep right
now. This is no time for unbelief. Awake. Awake. Seek the Lord yourself
personally that you may know Him and be edified by His Word
yourself. And seek to set forth His Word
in this earth so that others know it. And secondly, know this. Whenever it looks like this world
is prevailing and that all the things that are coming to pass
are prevailing and that the church is being just losing ground and
losing ground and losing ground, know this, Thy Lord, the God,
Thy Lord, Jesus Christ, the God of glory shall plead your cause.
He'll plead your cause. He'll continue to feed his sheep
as long as he's got sheep in this earth. And know this thirdly,
the battle is not our battle. He says, I'm going to plead your
cause, and I'm going to take off the affliction off you, and
I'm going to put it on your people. He says to you, you just stand
still and see the salvation of the Lord. You just watch him
do it. He's going to do it. That's the three thing. Awake,
trust him, and watch him save. Watch Him say, Amen.