In Isaiah 42, in verse 22, we
read, but this people, or this is a people, robbed and spoiled. They are all of them snared in
holes, and they are hid in prison houses. They are for a prey,
and none delivereth. for a spoil, and none saith restore."
That's a sad state of affairs. This is the description of Israel
turned over to captivity in Babylon, but it's a description of sinners. Sinners, like Israel were, are
the victims, truly victims, of our own robbery, our own robbery
and our own plundering. May find that a strange thing
that we could be the victim and the robber at the same time.
Snared in the holes of our own making, trapped in traps that
we've made. hidden in the prison that we've
made, the bars of which we've made, the walls of which we've
made, the locks of which we've made, and thrown the key away. That sounds like absolute insanity,
doesn't it? The prey, like a pack of wild
dogs, surrounding the weak. We're the prey of our own ravenous,
deceitful heart. Amongst all the sons of men,
there's none to deliver. Amongst the fallen sons of men,
there is none to deliver. None to free. None to deliver. Everybody's lamenting the mess
that we're in, just physically in this nation right now. Lamenting
the mess we're in. trying to come up with solutions
to restore, but it's all just more robbery and more spoiling
and more preying upon sinful man's own abject poverty. That's exactly what it is. Every
time in this world man comes up with a solution to try to
restore, it always involves somebody's nest being set on high at the
expense of somebody else's. That's the only way man knows
about restoring and that's not restoration. None sayeth restore. None sayeth restore. Restore
means restitution is made. Restore means what's been taken
away is all given back. Restore means everything that's
been been plundered and stolen and taken is restored. But according to God, not just
restored, restitution has to be made. There has to be something
above and beyond given back to him that is robbed and spoiled.
You see, nobody says restore. None sayeth restore. But I'm
going to tell you about one this morning, one who says restore. The one who says restore. This is what I want you to get.
Get this. Christ Jesus, the Son of God,
is himself the full restoration and the full restitution to Almighty
God who has been robbed. And he is the one who speaks
restoration. And in the heart, he saves each
of his children from the poverty, dead, sin-stricken state we're
in, into the equal and all good, full restoration and restitution
of the grace of God. Let's start out. I want you to
turn over to Exodus 22. God demands restoration. He demands restitution. His law demands it. That means God demands it. That
means God demands it. God demands it for his own glory,
for the glory that he is. Now the grace and the mercy of
God is toward those who are robbed and spoiled. I mean robbed and
spoiled. I mean in prison. I mean They
got no way to be delivered. They got no way to be restored. That's who God's mercy and grace
is toward. And He provides for them. Even in this law He gave in the
land, He's providing and declaring that He is the God of restoration
and restitution to the poor and robbed. Exodus 22, 1. He said, If a man shall steal,
rob an ox or a sheep, and kill it or sell it, he, that one who
did the stealing, shall restore to him from whom he robbed five
oxen for an ox and four sheep for a sheep. If the sun be risen
upon him, there shall be blood shed for him, for he should make
full restitution." In other words, if he don't restore, he's going
to die. If he should make full restitution, that word restitution
means the same thing as the word restore. If he have nothing,
then he shall be sold for his theft. He'll be sold for it. He himself will have to be the
restitution. He will have to give himself
to make the restoration and the restitution. We sold ourselves
in the sin in Adam. We sold ourselves. We didn't
have anything to pay God with and we sold ourselves. We became
the subjects of abject poverty, sinful, spiritual poverty. Look at verse four. If the theft
be certainly found in his hand alive, whether it be ox or ass
or sheep, he shall restore double. You see that? Double. Double
restoration. Verse seven. If a man shall deliver
unto his neighbor money or stuff to keep, and it be stolen out
of the man's house, if the thief be found, let him pay double. Gotta pay double. See, God's
protecting the one who is robbed. He's protecting the one who's
stolen. You see that? He's protecting him. This law
wasn't made for the righteous man. It was made for the wicked
man. It was made to hedge him about. But he has to restore
and he has to make restitution double. I said to you, we are
the ones who robbed. We're the ones who did the robbing.
And the ones we robbed is we robbed God, and by robbing God,
we robbed ourselves. We became sold under sin and
unable to deliver ourselves. Well, let me show you something
else God provided. Leviticus 25. Leviticus 25. On the day of atonement, That
day when the high priest went into the holiest of holies with
the blood of a lamb, for Israel alone, for them alone, representing
Christ's blood shed for his elect. When he went in there, Christ
the high priest, picture of Christ the high priest, he made atonement.
And on the day of atonement, in the 50th year, in the 50th
year, they blew a silver trumpet. And when they blew that silver
trumpet, The whole land was to come into rest. All the land
was to come into rest. Every man who had lost his inheritance
had it returned to him free and clear. Every man who sold himself
had everything given back to him free and clear. If he mortgaged
his house because he couldn't pay his debt, he got it back.
Got it back. He, all his debts were canceled. Every prodigal son who'd ran
off and thought he was gonna, knew better and he was gonna
try to provide for himself. He knew better than his father.
He's gonna provide for himself. And he ended up getting himself
head over heels in debt and sold into slavery. That prodigal son
only in the year of Jubilee, when they blew that trumpet,
he got to go home to his father, go home to his family. and rejoice
with his own family. promised here, he promised he'd
give the increase of the fruit, he'd give the increase of the
fields. And all of this is a picture of Christ our atonement, and
the gospel trumpet being blown, and all restoration and restitution
being made to God so that his prodigal sons can come home to
the Father, can come home to their family with God, and rest
in him. And God says, believe me, trust
me, depend upon me, and I'll give the increase of the fruits.
can cease from all labor with all restored to you. Now look
at verse 11. Leviticus 25, 11. A jubilee shall that fiftieth
year be unto you. You shall not sow. That means
you're not going to go out and do any farming. Neither reap
that which groweth of itself in it. This is not just for a
day. It's not just like the other
Sabbaths were for a day. This is a whole year. A whole
year. You've got to understand now,
we're talking about when planting and growing crops, that's how
daddy got up and went to work in the morning. That's how the
food was put on the table. We're talking about this is the
livelihood. This is the income. no sowing,
neither reap that which groweth of itself in it, nor gather the
grapes in it of thy vine undressed, for it's the jubilee. It shall
be holy unto you. You shall eat the increase thereof
out of the field. In the year of this jubilee,
you shall return every man unto his possession." That means
you give back every man that which is his. Look down at verse
17. He says, you shall not therefore
oppress one another, but thou shalt fear thy God, for I am
the Lord thy God. But thou shalt, verse 20, and
if you shall say, what shall we eat? the seventh year, what
shall we eat that whole year long, that we're to do no work
and rest, and our land isn't sown and we are behold, we shall
not sow no, nor gather in our increase, what are we going to
eat? That's the doubts of our mind. And God comes to us and
tells us to do something. And the first thing we do is
say, Yeah, but what what are we gonna do? In verse 21, then I will command
my blessing upon you in the sixth year, in the year before, and
it'll bring forth fruit for three years. So you don't have to do
anything. I'll produce the fruit, God said.
Now, all those that were poor during this time, those poor,
those who found themselves in poverty through some fault of
their own, they were either redeemed by a near kinsman, Somebody who
could come and pay everything that they owed. When they sold
themselves, it means they came into debt to their creditor.
And the kinsmen would come and he would pay the creditor what
they owed. And he would buy them because he was their kinsman.
That's who Christ is, the kinsman redeemer of his people. And he
could buy them. Or the lender, that one who gave,
brought him in and he either took of his possessions, took
of his land or his house or whatever to pay off that man's debt. Or if that man himself was serving
there. The lender could keep all of
that if there was no redeemer to redeem it. The lender could
keep his possessions or the lender could keep the man himself. They're
working with him. working with him, just working
off his debt. And the man sitting there working.
And he could keep all that till the year of Jubilee. So one of
two things, either a kinsman redeemer could come and pay it
all to him, to the lender, or the lender could keep all of
it till that year of Jubilee. But if the kinsman redeemer paid
it, then the lender gave all the possession back to the man.
That was the debtor. He gave it all back to him. Or
when the jubilee trumpet blew, he gave it all back to him then.
And so God's purpose in all this was, is so that that one who
comes poor and can't pay, he's helped out by somebody. He's
got somebody there who's his brother that'll help him. Not, we think of creditors, we
think of MasterCard and Visa. We're not talking about that.
We're talking about a brother just helping out the other one.
Help him out. And then that one that helped
him out, he was also assured that he'd be provided for. He'd
get everything back. He'd get everything that he helped
this one out for. But he couldn't borrow, he couldn't
demand an increase, he couldn't demand an interest of the one
he was helping out. He couldn't demand usury of him. This wasn't doing something for
your profit. This was just one brother helping
the other brother so that all the brethren were insured that
they would be provided for. All of them provided for. And
because God required that nobody oppress the other one. Nobody
take any interest from the other one. This wasn't for profit at
all. And God said, and trust me in
this and I'll provide everything for you. I'll do all the providing
for you. Look at verse four. I'm sorry,
Leviticus 26, look at verse 4. Then I'll give you the rain in
due season, and the land shall yield her increase, and the trees
of the field shall yield their fruit, and your threshing shall
reach unto the vintage, and the vintage shall reach unto the
sowing time. That means you're going to have
plenty of grapes for the wine, and the wine's going to last
until the time that you sow again. And it means there's going to
be plenty. And you shall eat your bread to the full and dwell
in your land safely. And I'll give you peace in the
land. You shall lie down and none shall make you afraid. And
I'll rid evil beasts out of the land. Neither shall the sword
go through your land. Man! You mean God made that promise? That it all Restoration would
be made. If I fall into debt, my brother's
going to restore me. And if I'm the one restoring
my brother, I have the assurance that I'm going to be restored,
and that God's going to give peace in our land, and He's going
to give us all the fruit. We just trust the Lord, believe
the Lord, and do what He's told us to do for one another, and
God will provide everything. And you would think with such
a wonderful God given such a wonderful, his promise in to his people. Everything would just be, that'd
be just a land of milk and honeywood. Just a land that you'd say, man,
let's move there. How did things fall into the
sad state that we read about in our text? But this is a people
robbed and spoiled. They're all of them snared in
holes, they're hid in prison houses. Therefore pray and none
delivereth. Therefore spoil and nobody is
saying restore. Nobody's restoring anybody. How'd it get to that? How'd it
come to that? Nobody believed God. Simple as that. Nobody believed
God. Nobody cast their care into God's
hand. Instead of restoring, they oppressed
and exacted from one another. When they borrowed, when they
lent to the one that was in debt, they brought him into the house
and they chewed him out upside, up one side and down the other
and made him feel ridiculous and made him feel low and made
him feel pressed out and made him feel like they was doing
him a great favor just letting him into their presence. And
then they said, well, here, we're going to give to you, but now
we demand interest from you. You're going to have to pay us
back. You're going to give us something back because of this
great, what we've done for you. And so then there was more robbing
by the poor that went on because they got to rob and try to get
away with it and try not to get caught so that they don't get
brought before these hardy rich folks who's just trying to make
more money off of them. Before long it all ended up and
next thing you know you had a whole land full of folks where There
were some who owned all the banks, and they owned all the credit
card companies, and they had all the offices in politics and
in the temple. And they had their hierarchy
in the temple, so that now, even if you went into the house of
God, they was the most religious, most pious, most holy people
you'd ever want to see outwardly. And every bit of it was a selfish,
increase for self, trying to get all for self so that everybody
was robbing everybody, everybody was plundering everybody, and
they was all in prison themselves, and there was none to restore
and none to deliver. That's the state of mankind.
That's the state we came into in Adam. In our day, in our nation,
you look around right now, we got folks in this nation, like
Jamie, without jobs, You got creditors exacting payment with
interest. They don't really care if you
don't have a job. You got nothing to pay. You got absolutely nothing
to pay with. You can mortgage your house.
You can sell your land. You can do everything. You still
can't get it all paid. And on top of that, just more
taxes and more taxes and more taxes. The rich is getting richer
and the poor man's paying the band. And the poor man is just
as guilty as the rich man. Ain't no one that is not guilty
of the whole thing. We hear great swelling words. We hear it in the White House.
We hear it every time a politician can get his mug in front of a
camera. We hear it in every church. You hear it in all the churches
in the land. All people talking about restore,
restore, restore, restore. And everybody doing the same
thing. Everybody demanding interest. Everybody robbing and pillaging
and plundering the other and bringing each other into us to
pray and none say and deliver. And all of it together, it's
God that we've robbed. It's God we've attempted. We've
attempted to still the glory that belongs to God. The glory
of simply bowing to God. The glory of simply believing
God. Believing what he said. Believing
his word. Believing that he is true. Simply
trusting him, bowing to him, believing him, and trusting he's
going to provide. He has and he is going to provide
everything. That was the whole message. He
said, is this, is not this the fast that I've chosen? Is this
not the, this is the Sabbath that I've chosen, God said, to
loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, to
let the oppressed go free, and that you break every yoke. It
wasn't for personal gain, it was so everybody involved is
guaranteed that full restoration is yours, and fruits, all the
fruits of God are yours. But it requires faith. It requires
believing God, truly believing God. And yet, all of this, and
all of this, this is what God said of His people. Though there was His elect people
in the midst of that. Though there is His elect people
in the midst of all this today. This is what He says. Because
we're no different. His people are no different.
This is what we are in our flesh. No different. And he says, I
will restore health unto thee. I will heal thee of thy wounds,
saith the Lord, because they called thee an outcast, saying,
this is Zion whom no man seeketh after. God said, I will restore. I will. That's what he gave the
whole law to show us. He gave the law to show us we
ain't gonna do it unless he does it. So let's talk about the one
who says restore. grace to the robbed and the spoiled,
to the spiritually robbed, the spiritually dead, the spiritual
man who's robbed himself and spoiled himself and brought himself
into captivity. He's the one that Christ says
restore to. He says restore to him. Look
at Psalm 69.4. Christ had to come. He had to
come. And this is what the scripture
says of him. Psalm 69, 4. They that hate me without a cause
are more than the hairs of mine head. They that would destroy
me being mine enemies wrongfully are mighty. Then I restored that
which I took not away. I restored that which I took
not away. He restored to God, his father,
that which he took not away. And he restored double restitution
to him. He took the place of his people
as the one who himself had robbed God. You see, this is amazing. This is amazing. God merely required
in His law, He merely required in His law of sinful men. He just said if you're caught
stealing, you pay back the man you stole from and you pay him
back double. This is the amazing mystery.
This is the amazing thing of the gospel. We're the ones, the
ones that Christ came to save. We robbed God. We completely
robbed God. We're the ones who committed
the crime. We're the ones who committed the crime. and full
restoration and double restitution is being made to God whom we
robbed. But while that restoration and
double restitution is being made to God whom we robbed, Christ
is saving us who are the robbers. He's restoring that which He
took not away. We see our oppressiveness. The
scripture says he was oppressed, pressed out. We see what we are.
We see, any man wants to talk about how good he is, man at
his best states altogether vanity. We want to see what we are. This
is what we are. Here's Christ Jesus, the lawgiver
himself. Here is Christ Jesus, who's God,
Emmanuel, manifest in our flesh. Here is the judge himself of
heaven and earth. Here we are guilty dead sinners
in need of Him that He make full restitution of God on our behalf.
And we found no fault in Him. Absolutely nothing to accuse
him of. But we dragged the prince of life into our so-called court
of justice. We dragged him in and our justice,
our oppression, our way of doing things, our way of exacting,
our way of doing that which we thought religiously, politically,
and everything else was right. This was our way of doing things.
We exacted of him the payment of a felon. That's our oppression. That's the best we have right
there. But what we meant for evil, God
meant for good. God put him there. He put himself
there. He went there and laid down his
life. And if he'd save his people from himself, from themselves,
he couldn't save himself. He has stricken hands as surety
and his bed must be taken from under him. But in all that suffering
and all that punishment he endured for our robbery, he paid to God
his own blood. And he made restitution to God,
everything that God demanded, holy, justly in his law that
God demanded. He gave him perfect fidelity.
He gave him perfect service. He gave him perfect love to God
and to his brethren. He gave him perfect satisfaction
to everything the law demands. And he restored everything that
he took not away. And he said it's finished. But
there's more. There's more to that. Christ
himself is that, you know when he said if you steal an ox or
anything or somebody gives you their stuff to keep and somebody
steals it, you've got to repay them double. You've got to not
just pay them back. You've got to not just restore.
You've got to pay double. Christ is the restitution, the
double portion, the extra above and beyond, which with alone
God is satisfied with. The only one He's satisfied with,
that's Christ. He's our restoration and He's
the restitution of all things. Isaiah 42 says, speak ye comfortably,
Isaiah 40 and verse 2, speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem and
cry unto her that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity
is pardoned, for she hath received of the Lord's hand double for
all her sin. She got double. It's been paid
back and paid back with increase. Double restitution made to God
Almighty. And Christ is not only the restoration
to God, He's restoration in the heart of His people. He comes
and He speaks in the heart of His people and He creates hope
in His people. I'll just read this to you. I'll
give you the scripture and you can look at it later. You know
the story of Jacob and his sons. They had cast Joseph into a pit
and left him for dead. That's what we see there with
what we did with Christ when he came. But Christ, but Joseph's
been exalted over Egypt. He'd been exalted over the whole
land so that he had all the storehouses, was in charge of all the storehouses.
He was in charge of all the, everything there to provide for
all the people. He was in charge. Christ has
been risen, raised from the dead and he's over everything. He's,
God's given him the, Key to the storehouse and it's his to do
with what he will and when Jacob's sons came down there his own
brother They came down there. They didn't know Joseph. They
it's been years later They came down there with money and and
all these things and they're needing corn. They need something
to eat. They don't have anything They're destitute. They're bankrupt.
They got nothing and the scripture says in Genesis 42 25 that Joseph
commanded to fill their sacks with corn and And he said, restore
every man's money into his sack. They came down there and gave
him money to him trying to buy corn from him. And he said, you
fill their sacks full of corn and restore all that money back
into their hands. I don't need their money. I don't
need what they're trying to give me. And he says, and you give
them provision for the whole way. provide for the whole way
for him. And thus he did unto them. And
you know what happened when he did that? Those sons came back
to Jacob's house and they saw along the way, they saw that
money in there. And they were afraid that somebody,
that Joseph or somebody was going to think that they had stolen
that money back and took it, took it back. But what it did
was because of what He did for them. You know what it did for
them and for Jacob when they got back to their father Jacob?
It put fear in their heart. It put fear in their heart. They
feared and trembled. You know what Christ does when
He first speaks? He makes us to see all these
things He's done and He makes us to Fear, he makes us to come
into reverence to him. He makes us to bow down before
him. How would it fill your soul? How would it give you joy unspeakable?
If you knew, if you could hear something and knew that all your
debts were paid. You mothers and fathers sitting
here. You know, every debt you have
is paid. And not just every debt is paid,
but it's paid above and beyond. And corn is given to you so that
you've got all the fruit provided for you from now on. And your
worries are over. Your worries are over. You've
got nothing else to worry about at all. Wouldn't that just thrill
your soul? That's the good news of the gospel.
All the debt's been paid. All the debt's been paid. It's
all paid. And He's given us corn in our
sacks. He's come into these bodies and
He's created life. And He feeds us this word of
His gospel. And He continues and He gives
us all provision for the way. All provision for the way. And
you know what that makes a man do? You know what that creates
in a man? When he does that, it restores a man to God. You know what they turned around
and did? What Jacob and his brethren turned
around and did? See, we don't bring to God anything
but what God's already given to us. We do not bring to God
anything but what God's already given to us. And that is His
Son. That's the fruit, that's the
restoration he's given to us. Those, those, Jacob did this. When Joseph sent him home and
he did all that, he said, he said, you go home and come back
to me and bring Benjamin with you. Benjamin was the son of
his, his mother and his brother, his full, full brother. And he
said, go bring him back to me. I want to see him." And so they
went home. And this fear in their hearts
that they had when they saw all this corn in their sacks and
they saw all this money restored to them. And he said, Jacob said
this, he said, take double money in your hand and the money that
was brought again in the mouth of your sacks and carry it again
in your hand back to him. And he says, and then Genesis
43, 15, he says, and the men took that present and they took
double money in their hand and Benjamin and rose up and went
down to Egypt and brought it all back to Joseph. You see, God's given his son.
He says, bring my son to me. Bring, bring Benjamin to me.
And He gives you the corn in our sacks. He gives us the full
restoration that Christ is. And all we bring to God is His
Son. All we bring to Him is everything
He's already provided us in His Son. By faith, standing before
Him and saying, Lord, here I am. Here I am. And the story goes,
he set them at his table, and he fed them, and the more they
went along, the more he revealed himself to them, and the more
he revealed himself to them, the more they were amazed, and
the more they wept, and the more he wept for them, and the more
they were restored. That's the gospel. That's the
gospel. Everything restored. And this
grace, turn now to Galatians 6, this grace makes a believer
a restorer to our brethren. Galatians 6. Whenever Christ speaks and He
says restore, Christ speaks and this is what He said. He says
in our hearts, brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, You
which are spiritual, restore such a one in the spirit of meekness."
You see, the law required that to be done, and nobody did it.
Nobody did it. But grace doesn't require it
to be done. In grace, in the gospel, do you
believe, the love of God comes into the heart. Believers are
made partakers of the divine nature. Christ is formed in us,
and the love God is, he makes his people to be. He speaks in
the heart, and he says, brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault,
ye which are spiritual, restore such a one in the spirit of meekness.
and do it considering yourself. Do it remembering what you are. We've experienced by the personal
revelation of God Almighty, we've experienced how we robbed and
how poor we are, how we sold ourselves by this jubilee trumpet. We've been made to see that we're
the robber, we're the spoiler, we're the one who was the line
making its prey upon another. And we robbed the God of the
glory and Christ restored it to God and He's come and restored
all to us. And He makes us to see by that
just how big, just how far-reaching this word fault really is. If a man be overtaken in a fault.
Because we committed all the crimes robbing God. We know that. We did. We committed all the
crimes robbing God. And yet Christ came and restored
everything to him from whom we stole. And he also restored us
who did the stealing. That's far-reaching. That's the
fault we are. How far-reaching is this fault?
It's that far-reaching. If your brother's overtaken in
a crime against you, against another, sinned against you,
done whatever, restore him. We sold ourselves for nothing.
Our near kinsman restored everything. He restored, he's both the kinsman
redeemer, and he's the restorer, and he's the restoration himself.
So that all our possessions are given back to us. So if a man
sold himself, if he's found himself in poverty, if he's found himself
in debt, what do we do? Restore him. With asking nothing
in return. And assured of this, God's already
restored us. And God says, now you do for
your brethren what I've done for you, and I'll keep everybody
restored, and I'll provide all the provision along the way. What do we restore with? We yoke? We're going to do that? We're
going to yoke? Remember Matthew 18, when that man's forgiven,
he goes out and right away he goes to find somebody that owes
him something. He takes him by the neck and says, pay me right
now. We're going to do that? I told you about Zacchaeus this
morning, when God said, empower, make haste and come down, he
came down. And you know what he did? Without any more compulsion,
without any more restraint put on him, without anything else,
you know what he did? He came down and he said this. He stood
there and he said, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the
poor, and if I've taken anything from any man by false accusation,
I restore him fourfold. You know what he gave back? Nothing
but what God already gave him. That's right. That's sovereign
grace makes men restorers, not of our leftovers, of firstfruits. Christ the firstfruit. Christ
the firstfruit. And everything He's given to
us. Look here, I want to, I know, let me give you this. Galatians
6 there. He says, He says there, Verse six, let
him that is taught in the word communicate unto him that teacheth
in all good things. You know who's taught us? Christ
the Restorer. You know who said to us, restore?
Christ the Restorer. He's the one that's taught us
in the word. You know what we communicate back to him? You
know the good things are we communicate back to him? We sit down at his
feet. And we believe him and we hang
on his words and we follow him and we trust him. And we communicate,
we restore with everything he's given us, his gospel and the
fruits of our labor and the things that he's given and put in our
hands. We help restore one another, help restore our brethren. Because
you know why? It's not just the preacher that
communicates good things to the people. It takes the whole body
of his people to communicate the good news of the gospel to
his people. And every foot that he uses, every elect child of
God that he's brought together and used, who gave of themselves
by his grace to bring the gospel to me, which Christ did, which
he, that's how he brings it. And he used them to make this
word effectually in my own heart. Their feet is as precious to
me as my Savior's feet. You know what I'm going to do?
I'm going to wash them. I'm going to restore them. I'm
going to uncover their dirtiness. I'm going to uncover their faults
and try to make them feel horrible and make them feel neglected
and withhold grace from them and truth from them. No. No. I'm going to love them as I've
been loved, freely. Freely. That's what God's grace
does. You know, remember this. As poorly as your attempts are
at trying to obey Christ, as faulty as you are in restoring
your brethren, though all the enemies of your
own flesh And all the Pharisees round about you want to accuse
you and they want to bring you into bondage and make you feel
horrible. God doesn't accuse you. That's true of the believer.
Your works are perfect before God in Christ. Absolutely perfect
before. I want the Lord to teach us that
about our brethren. He said, you do this to the least
of my brethren, you've done it to me. Most of our sinful thoughts, just plain out acting ugly and
criticizing and accusing and Most of it all is from this.
Wanting to be recognized. Wanting to be recognized. Wanting
to be looked at. Wanting to be thought we've done
something. Everything that God's called
on us to do in this life is just reasonable service. Just reasonable
service. He's done everything. He's done
it all. It's all restored. It's done. whatever he's called
us to do, just reasonable service. But don't let that be your concern.
Don't let it be your concern that folks see you. Don't let
it be your concern if you feel like you go unnoticed. Don't
let that be our concern. Don't let it be our concern at
all. Because this is what our peace and our strength is. He
says, God's not unrighteous to forget your work and labor of
love. which you've showed to His name and that you've ministered
to the saints and do minister. Say, well, I don't feel like
I minister to the saints. The day you do, you hadn't. The
day you feel like you've ministered to the saints, you've stopped.
But as long as you don't feel like you do, you can be sure
you're ministering to the saints. If He's put you together in His
body, you're ministering to the saints. We minister to one another
in ways we don't even understand. Being together with one another,
being in each other's presence, calling and talking and just
not being somebody that you can be around and just be yourself
and not feel like that you've got to be held to some kind of,
under some kind of microscope. Plus all the other things you
do, all the other things too. You minister, you minister. He
says here in verse 9 of Galatians 6, let us not be weary in well
doing, for in due season we shall reap if we faint not. I thought
I wasn't supposed to be sowing. Well, we are sowing. We're resting completely. And
this is how he said sow. In Hosea 10-12, sow yourselves
in righteousness. Reap in mercy. Sow to yourself
in righteousness. How am I going to do that? Lay
down at the feet of Christ. Study Him. Hear Him. Rejoice in Him. Sow to yourself
in righteousness. Sow to your spirit in these great
and wonderful things Christ has done for you. And He says, and
reap in mercy. Reap in mercy. Be merciful to
everybody else. Reap mercy. Sow in righteousness
in all things. You're going to reap mercy. Mercy. Kindness. Mercy. What am I gonna
eat, though? What am I gonna eat if I'm not
sewing to try to make myself righteous? And won't everybody
look at me and see what I've done, how far I've come, how
much better I am now, and how I'm somehow ought to be regarded
as sitting in the chief seats. If I don't do all that, try to
pull myself up to God and make myself seen by God and by everybody
else, how am I going to expect to prosper? How am I going, if
I stop working and trust Him, how am I going to be prospered?
He said, rest in my Son, I'll make the ground fruitful. That's
what He said. You'll dwell in safety and be
filled with plenty. You know what contentment with
great, with godliness is? I told you what godliness was
this morning. It's seeing He's restored everything and He's
working in our midst and doing everything right. You know what
contentment is? It's knowing that. It's knowing
Him. It's contentment with godliness.
So that when Christ becomes all our wants, then we're satisfied
for Him to provide all our needs. And that's how God makes a fruitful
field. A fruitful field called a believer.
That's so. Instead of wringing our hands,
we got the assurance that no matter how lean our times are,
our times are in His hands. And He that spared not His own
Son, but delivered Him up for us all, will with Him freely
give us all things. Well, I want to give you one
last word. If you're hearing the Restorer
speak, and you've heard Him, And you believe Him. You cast
all your care on Him. I'm going to give you something.
One last word here. 1 Corinthians 15. I tell you
what. Acts 3. Go to Acts 3. This will make you go home dancing
right here. Acts 3. Not only has He done
all that, but that trumpet Have you heard the trumpet this morning?
It gives a distinct sound that is liberty. That's what it does. You don't have to hear this trumpet
blown. When you hear the true gospel
trumpet blown, the thing that makes the believer rally together
and come to that trumpet is, it gives a clear, distinct, certain
sound. That silver trumpet blown in
that day of Jubilee, there was other trumpets blown, but that
trumpet gave a sound like no other trumpets. So when you heard
that trumpet, you knew liberty, freedom. I've been free. Everything's
been restored. I'm provided for. That's what
the gospel is. That's what the gospel is. If
I ever give a man a warning and say, beware, like Paul did. He named people's names and he
said, beware. If I give a man that warning,
it's because that trumpet ain't giving off the sound of this
trumpet. But this is the trumpet. When you hear this trumpet, listen
to this. There's coming a day when a trumpet's gonna be blown,
and it's called this, Acts 321. It says, the heaven must receive
Christ until the times of, look at this now, restitution of all
things. There's coming a time. We hear
this today and we rejoice. There's coming a time when he's
gonna come back. 1 Corinthians 15 says, in a moment,
in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump, the trumpet's
gonna sound. The jubilee trumpet's gonna sound.
And the dead are gonna be raised incorruptible. And everybody
that's here that remains that day is gonna be changed. When
we see him, we're gonna be like him. And in that day, we're going
to enter into the restitution of all things. We're going to
begin experiencing the true jubilee. And this is what it's going to
be. Every restored child of God is going to enjoy the eternal
bliss of restoration, such as the eye has not seen, such as
ear has never heard, such as our hearts have never even been
able to imagine. Atonement in the fullest. Forgiveness in the greatest magnificence. Perfection of liberty and rest
and bounty beyond imagination. And brotherly love in unfailing
perfection. That's in your home dancing. This is the gospel. This is all
because of him who said restore. Amen.