Isaiah 9, verse 8 begins, The
Lord sent a word into Jacob, and it hath lighted upon Israel,
just as the Lord hath sent His word to you and I. The Lord sent
His word into the nation of Israel, not just for a moment, but it
lighted upon Israel. Year after year, prophet after
prophet, the Lord continually declared what He would bring
to pass. And then He brought it to pass.
The Lord Jesus Christ said, Heaven and earth shall pass away, but
my words shall not pass away. You can count on God's Word.
It seems like everybody in this world is looking for somebody
they can count on. Well, God's the only one. His
Word's true and it's sure. And yet the whole nation, not
just one person, but the whole nation all joined together and said, no, God, no. So the Lord sent judgment after
judgment after judgment into Israel. Let's see what happened. Verse 11, the Lord sent the Assyrians
and the Syrians and the Philistines to wage war and destroyed the
land. Look at verse 11. Therefore the
Lord shall set up the adversaries of reason against him and join
his enemies together, the Syrians before and the Philistines behind,
and they shall devour Israel with open mouth. And he brought
it to pass. And then he says this, and for
all this, after all this, his anger is not turned away. But
the hand of his anger, the hand of his wrath, the hand of his
judgment is stretched out still. Well, verse 14. The Lord cut
off their civil and religious leaders in one day. Verse 14. Therefore the Lord will cut off
from Israel head and tail branch and rush in one day the ancient
and honorable He's the head and the prophet that teacheth lies.
He is the tail For the leaders of this people caused them to
err and they that are led of them are destroyed Therefore
the Lord shall have no joy in their young men neither shall
have mercy on their orphans their fatherless and widows for everyone
You mean even the orphans and the widows? Everyone is a hypocrite
and an evildoer. And every mouth speaketh folly
or villainy. For all this, after all this,
the hand of his judgment, the hand of his anger is stretched
out still. Verse 18, the Lord sent darkness
throughout the land, darkness of every kind. He sent moral
darkness. He sent political darkness. He
sent economic darkness. He sent spiritual darkness. Let's
see what happened. For wickedness burneth as the
fire. It shall devour the briars and
the thorns. It shall kindle in the thickets
of the forest. And they shall mount up like
the lifting up of smoke. He's talking about people. Through
the wrath of the Lord of hosts is the land darkened, and the
people shall be as the fuel of the fire. You see there? He's
talking about people. No man shall spare his brother. He shall snatch on the right
hand and be hungry. Sounds like a bunch of cannibals.
That's how he's describing it. They'll snatch on the right hand
and be hungry, and he shall eat on the left hand, and they shall
not be satisfied. They shall eat every man the
flesh of his own arm. Manasseh, Ephraim. What about
brethren against brethren? Manasseh, Ephraim, and Ephraim,
Manasseh. They'll eat their own brothers. And they together shall be against
Judah." They're brethren in Judah. And after all this, after God's
given them into all this darkness to where they just... It's literally
dog eat dog. They're just devouring one another. And after all this, his hand
is stretched out still, his anger is not turned away, Why? Why after all of that, why is
his hand still stretched out in judgment and God still angry? Why? Look back to verse 13. For the people turneth not unto
him that smiteth them. Neither do they seek the Lord
of Hosts." After hearing the Word of God's grace and after
beholding the judgment of God, why would they not repent and
seek the Lord of Hosts? You know that, what's the flight
data recorder? They still call it the little
black box. I think it's red though, isn't
it? I don't know why they ever called it the little black box.
But you know, we like to find out what's the source of the
problem. We want to find that little black
box so we can find out what's the source of the problem. Well,
God tells us. Why will we not turn to God? Why will you not turn to God? Repent from yourself. And this is not just for the
person who has not yet been converted. We repent continually. Repentance
is an ongoing thing with a believer. What is it that causes us to
want to go in our way and have our way and our will performed
rather than submitting ourselves to God Almighty and trusting
His way. Why is it? Look at verse 9. Isaiah 9, 9. And all the people
shall know. He said, I sent this Word and
all the people know it. All the people know it. But God's
Word has come to you and to me. God's Word has gone throughout
this world. Sinners are without excuse for turning to him Just
as he said here all the people shall know and they all do but
what was the problem? Even Ephraim and the inhabitant
of Samaria that say in the pride and stoutness of heart. Uh-oh
There's the first problem That's the little black box. We found
it It's pride and stoutness of heart The first reason that God
must bring us to repentance is that our heart is proud and it's
stout. It's hard. I want you to look
at a few Scriptures with me. Look at Jeremiah chapter 17 verse
9. Jeremiah 17 verse 9. This is how God, who knows the
hearts, who knows the secret of the heart, this is how He
describes the heart. The heart is deceitful above
all things, and desperately wicked. Who can know it? Who can know
it? Genesis 6. Look there with me. Genesis 6, verse 5. And God saw that the wickedness
of man... He did say of men. He's not just
talking about that particular generation. He's not just talking
about that particular group of people. God saw the wickedness
of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of
the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. Let me give you another one,
Ecclesiastes 9, verse 3. This is what the wise man said,
Ecclesiastes 9, 3. Look to the middle part of the
verse there, verse 3. Ecclesiastes 9, verse 3. Yea, also the heart of the sons
of men is full of evil. And madness is in their heart
while they live and after they go to the dead. Madness is in their heart while
they live and after that they go to the dead. Did you know
that hell won't make a man repent? You know that after you die and
go to hell, Hell won't make a man repent. Did this judgment make
him repent? Without God sanctifying it to
our hearts in power and grace, the bare judgment of God will
not make us repent, not even if we're in the fires of hell.
The rich man whom the Lord gave the parable of, he went to hell. And from hell, he said, send
forth a drop of water so it can quench my tongue. He didn't ask
for God to have mercy on him. He didn't say, confess God was
right. He didn't confess the name of
Christ. He said, I just want to be delivered
from this hell is what I want. And he said, send somebody to
tell my brothers about this place so they don't come to this place.
He still didn't repent. All he was worried about was
if he couldn't have it for himself, he wanted to have it for the
next thing closest to him, his brothers. And the Lord said,
they've got Moses and the prophets. If they won't hear them, they
won't hear a man though he came from the dead. Hell won't make a man repent
any more than the judgments that go on all around us will make
a man repent. Now God may use those and reveal in us that it's
Him that's doing it and bring us to repentance. But just the
judgments won't do it. They won't do it. So the first
reason is God must work in us in power and grace to bring us
to repentance because the heart is evil and wicked. It's evil. Let me give you a verse you can
look at at your leisure that will verify what I'm telling
you. That's what this is saying. Chapter 1 and verse 5 of Isaiah. He said, Why should you be stricken
anymore? You will revolt more and more.
And here's why he said thee will. The whole head is sick and the
whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot even
to the head, there's no soundness in it but wounds and bruises
and putrefying sores. They've not been bound up, closed,
mollified with ointment. He says, verse 7, your country
is desolate, it's wasted, it's burned with fire in your presence,
overthrown by strangers. The daughter of Zion is left
as a cottage in a vineyard, a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, a besieged
city. And here's the only reason that
He didn't destroy them all. Except the Lord had left us a
remnant. Except He had left us a remnant,
we'd be like Sodom and it'd have been like until Gomorrah. Well,
the second reason that God must work repentance in us is that
we don't know how to seek the Lord. We don't even know how
to seek the Lord. If we could somehow gather up
the gumption to try to come to Him of our own accord, we still,
without His power and grace, don't know how to come to Him.
Look here in our text, Isaiah 9, verse 9. They say in the pride
and stoutness of heart, the bricks are falling down, but we will
build with hewn stones. The sycamores are cut down, but
we will change them into cedars. Who said this? Who said this? Look back down there at verse
15. Their most respected religious and civil leaders said this to
them, and because they said it to them, the people said it.
The ancient and honorable is the head, and the prophet that
teacheth lies, he's the tail. The leaders of this people cause
them to err, and they that are led of them are destroyed. Isaiah
came preaching Shurjazam. He came saying, God has an elect
remnant chosen before the foundation of the world, and this remnant
shall be saved. He came preaching Immanuel. God
is with us. God is fighting this battle.
God is the one who will accomplish this victory, not we ourselves.
He's the mighty, He's the everlasting Father, the mighty God. He's
the Prince of Peace. We can't do it. He came preaching,
may or shall I haspass. Don't you worry that God will
miss one of his elect. He'll hasten to the spoils. He will come and gather up those
that are his treasures. He'll gather up his jewels and
none shall be lost. And in the process of gathering
them, he will hasten the wicked to their own destruction. And
he said, now put your trust in Him. Put your confidence in Him. Wait upon Him. Fear Him. Dread Him. Don't make a covenant
with men. Don't fear what men can do to
you. Trust Him, and He shall be for a sanctuary for you, and
He shall destroy all your enemies. But their ancient and honorable,
their prophets said, well, the bricks are falling down. They
could see that these enemy kings had come into their land and
had started already knocking down their houses, destroying
their houses and their buildings and everything around them. And they confessed the bricks
are falling down. Man has an understanding that
something happened in the garden and that he failed. Man has some
understanding that something's got to be done. Something's got
to be done. The Gentiles, who didn't even
know God, knew something had to be done, even though their
gods were just gods of their imagination, even though they
were without God, without any of the covenants of promise.
They still were religious as they could be because they knew
there's something that we've got to deal with, and there's
something that we've got to do to appease those gods. But, here's the problem. Here's the problem, here's the
madness, here's the deceitfulness, the wickedness of our hearts
by nature. They said the bricks are falling
down, but we will build. We'll build them. We'll build
it. That's the message of false prophets then, that's the message
of false prophets now. The bricks are falling down,
but we'll build them. And look here, and we'll build
them with hewn stones. Not only can we build it, we'll
make it better than it was before. We'll take chiseled stone rather
than bricks. I'm reminded of what the Lord
said about the altar. You know what he said about the
altar? If thou will make me an altar of stone, thou shalt not
build it of hewn stone. For if thou lift up thy tool
upon it, thou hast polluted it. Neither shalt thou go up by steps
unto mine altar, not by degrees. This thing's not a gradual thing,
that thy nakedness be not discovered thereon. Salvation is start to
finish the work of the Lord. If I lift up my tool on it, or
you put your tool to it, thou hast polluted it. If you attempt
to go up on this altar yourself, your nakedness is going to be
revealed thereon. Except the Lord build the house,
they labor in vain that build it. Except the Lord keep the
city, the watchman waketh but in vain. Boy, I'll tell you, it's bad enough to miss that
the Lord has to build this house, or else we labor in vain. But
then for watchmen, God's watchmen, who He set to be watchmen, for
men to come and claim to be His watchmen, and to say that there's
something that we can do to keep the city, to work up some kind
of repentance. Just get a little more harsh
with people. You'll get them to repent. That's
a tool that you put upon God's living stones. And he said, you
put your tool upon it, you've wasted it. If God doesn't keep
that city, you labor in vain. It's all vanity. He said, Edom
saith, we're impoverished, but we will return and build the
desolate places. And thus saith the Lord of hosts,
they shall build, but I will throw down. They shall call them
the border of wickedness and the people against whom the Lord
hath indignation forever. That's what God says about it.
Well, this fourth thing here reveals the real problem we have
in the way that we think we can seek God. The way the unregenerate
man thinks he can seek God. The way we fall into thinking
when we fall into trials as believers. And we begin to walk in that
old fleshly nature. This is the problem that we have.
The sycamores, you see there in Isaiah 9? They said, the bricks
are falling down, but we will build, and we'll build it better.
We'll build with hewn stones. Now, here's the heart of the
matter. The sycamores are cut down, but we will change them
into cedars. This is the heart of the issue.
They didn't only say they'd rebuild their houses. They said they
could improve upon the creation around them. There's the issue. That's the issue. The real problem
with the way spiritually dead sinners seek God is that the
unregenerate sinner puts himself in the place of the Creator. You're dealing with trees now. We're not just talking about
buildings. We're talking about God's work.
The unregenerate man changes the truth of God into a lie and
worships and serves the creature more than the Creator. Do our
preachers say what these false prophets said in Isaiah's day?
Do our civil leaders say what these men said in Isaiah's day? These fellows intended to save
themselves by their work. They intended to improve upon
God's creation by replacing the sycamores with cedars. What do
our leaders say today? Let me tell you this, the Holy
Spirit said, The day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night,
into which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise,
and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also,
and the works that are therein shall be burned up. And the madness
of sinners says, Well, we can fix that. We'll just go green. We'll just start recycling. We
can stop that. The sycamores are torn down,
we'll replace them with cedars. We can stop that. And worse than
that, that's the thought in the pulpit, in the majority of pulpits
in our day. We broke it, we'll fix it. better
than we did before. But the fact of the matter is,
just as the first creation was God's work, the new creation
made within a sinner is God's work. Sinners are utterly incapable
of making the new creation, the new heart which God requires. utterly incapable of turning
to God unless God continually purges our conscience, continually
grants us repentance, and continually turns us and leads us in the
way that we should go. If that wasn't the case, He wouldn't
have sent forth the Holy Spirit. Why did He send forth the Holy
Spirit? He shall guide you into all truth. Just one time and
then from then on the preacher will do it? No. He'll do it from
then on. He'll do it from then on. There's
a way that seemeth right unto man, but the end thereof are
the ways of death. Now be sure you get this. Here's
the point. The heart is so deceitful that
even under the judgments of God, sickness, You sorrow over a loved
one that's died. You fall on economic hard times. You have domestic trouble at
home. You got some personal tragedy
in your life. These things will make men grope
in the darkness for an escape. not for the Lord, for an escape
from that torment, that feeling that they're going through. Judgment
will make a man build himself up with a religious profession,
a membership in a church. Judgment will make a man hew
out the stones of a reformed life and he might fly right for
a while. He might fly right all his life
on the outside. Judgment will cause a man to
do whatever it takes short of confessing his nothingness and
submitting to Christ. He'll do whatever. Ask Cain. Ask Pharaoh. Ask Herod. Ask Judas. But not even hell
makes a man repent. Psalm 78, 31 says, The wrath
of God came upon them and slew the fattest of them and smote
down the chosen of Israel. For all this they sinned still
and believed not for His wondrous works. Therefore their days did
he consume in vanity, and their years in trouble. And when he
slew them, then they sought him. And they returned and inquired
early after God. And they remembered that God
was their rock, and the high God their Redeemer. Nevertheless,
they did flatter him with their mouth, and they lied unto him
with their tongues. For their heart was not right
with him, neither were they steadfast in his covenant." Oh, they look
like they repented. They looked like they did, but
God said their heart wasn't right with them. You know why? God
didn't do it. God didn't do it. He didn't grant
them repentance. He didn't work repentance in
their heart. So what must you have before you'll truly repent
and seek the Lord? What must we have? If we turn
to Ephesians chapter 1. Ephesians chapter 1. Consider
this now. When you behold this judgment
here that took place on them and it didn't make them truly
repent from the heart and seek the Lord, then that tells us,
number one, this heart problem and this not understanding how
to even seek the Lord, it is horribly, horribly incurable
by anything you and I can do. And then, secondly, it teaches
us that after all the power that God manifests in bringing whole
nations into their land, in creating this civil unrest and this darkness,
moral darkness within, in taking the restraints off of men and
allowing them to devour one another, after seeing that God did that
in power, And that didn't bring them to repentance. That tells
you and me that it's going to take a power far greater than
the power God exerted in bringing those judgments upon them. A
power much greater than that. Far excelling the power of God
that brings, turns a king's heart. or brings a nation up against
another nation. You know what he called that
over there in Isaiah 7, I believe? He said, I'll just hiss for him,
like you hiss for a fly. He said, I'll just hiss for him.
It's no big deal to God. But this thing of giving a man
repentance and causing him to have life and causing him to
seek God, it's a power far greater than that. Let's see what it
is. Ephesians 1, verse 17. Here's Paul's prayer for the
Ephesians. And you notice now, he's talking to folks who are
believers. You remember how he started out
this letter? He starts out, he's talking to
the elect of God, chosen, to whom God has come to in all wisdom
and prudence and given them an understanding. But he still prays
for this forum continually because this is an ongoing thing. that
the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give
unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge
of Him." That's what it's going to take to turn us right there.
The eyes of your understanding being enlightened that you may
know what is the hope of His calling. If we ever discover
the hope of His calling, the hope He calls us unto, we'll
turn. and what the riches of the glory
of His inheritance in the saints. That's Christ, brethren. He's
our portion, and His people are His portion. And what is the
exceeding, listen now, the exceeding, the power that exceeds, that
excels all other power, the exceeding greatness of His power to usward
who believe. according to the working of His
mighty power. What mighty power? What power
is it going to take? Look here. Which He wrought,
He worked it in Christ. God worked this power in Christ
when He raised Him from the dead. and set him at his own right
hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and
power and might and dominion and every name that's named,
not only in this world, but also in that which is to come. You
want to have true repentance? You want to be raised above all
the powers and principalities and all the evils that wage war
against you? Don't go to a preacher. Don't
go to a mourner's bench. Don't go to a, join a church. Don't go someplace and go to
a Protestant priest that you have to ask to pray for you.
Go to God Himself if you know Him, because He alone can raise
you with the same power that He raised Christ Jesus the Lord
far above all principality and power, even the ones that we
don't even know about. It's the same power He wrought
when He raised Him from the dead. You know what's included in that
power? It's included in what He did before He went into that
grave. That's the power it takes. It's
the power that came to this earth and walked before God Almighty
and went to the cross and laid down His life and justified God
Almighty as being just and the justifier. Declared Him righteous. just
to justify Whomsoever he's pleased to justify and Purged his people
and put away his sin and for that reason Wherefore God also
has given him a name above every name in power He raised him from
the dead and set him on a throne of atonement absolute dominion
at His right hand. And that's where He's reigning
and He's ruling right now. And you will not be turned until
He enters into your heart and tears up your little playground
and snatches everything out of your hand that you thought was
valuable and forces you to His feet and causes you to look up
and behold Him. And beholding Him in His glorious
light, you'll abhor yourself in sackcloth and ashes, and not
until then. Not until then. You can do all
those things that look like repentance, but you can't have God-wrought
repentance until He does it. because he purchased the glory. He purchased the right to the
office of high priest. He consecrated himself to that
authority to where he has the only right there is to work obedience
in the hearts of his people. He alone does it. He alone does
it. That's why he said, except a
man be born again, he can't see the kingdom of God. He told Nicodemus,
he said this to Nicodemus, that you can't see the kingdom of
God. You can see a system of theology.
You can learn the doctrines of John Calvin. You can learn the
history of the Reformation. You can learn all about the preachers
of the Reformation. You can learn all of that if
you want to. But you can't know God without this power right
here. You can be brought under a church
council and you can be disciplined by the Sanhedrin, by the Pharisees,
by those that would think they can climb up to God's throne
and sit in His seat and usurp authority over Christ the Lord
and make you repent themselves. You can have that happen. And
they can bring you into an outward measure of what appears to be
repentance. But you can't have this repentance
unless Christ works it in you Himself. And Nicodemus said, how can these
things be? How can these things be? And
you know what Christ said to him? He said, Nicodemus, you call yourself a teacher?
You call yourself a teacher in Israel and you don't know this?
If you don't understand this, you won't understand heavenly
things if I tell you them. You won't have any idea what
I'm talking about. And Nicodemus didn't have one
idea what he was talking about because he didn't give it to
him. He couldn't see the kingdom of God standing right in front
of his face. He couldn't understand how God has the power to do these
things. All he could do was go through
this Scripture and look in the Lord's Word and find a place
where it looked like it was something that man could do and he camped
out right there. All he could do is anytime anybody
talked about this power and authority is fan through his Scriptures
and find a place that sounded like it refuted that. Sounded
like it went against that, that Christ has this power to do this.
He would go to those places because it appeared to be that this thing
has to do with the strength of a man's hand and he'd camp out
right there. But that's all he could do. That's
all he could do. And continue to ask questions.
How can this be? How can this be? Well, let me
show you. Ezekiel 36.25. Ezekiel 36.25. The Lord said, Then will I sprinkle
clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean. From all your
filthiness and from all your idols will I cleanse you. Who said He'd do it? Who said
He'd do it? The Lord said he'd do it. A new
heart also will I give you and a new spirit will I put within
you and I will take away the stony, proud, stout heart out
of your flesh and I'll give you a heart of flesh. And I'll put
my spirit within you and I'll cause you, I will cause you to
walk in my statutes and you shall keep my judgments and do them. Look down at verse 31. Then shall
you remember your own evil ways and your doings that were not
good, and shall loathe yourselves in your own sight for your iniquities
and for your abominations. Not for your sakes do I this,
said the Lord God, be it known unto you. Be ashamed and confounded
for your own ways, O Israel. That's all we have to be, is
confounded and ashamed for our way. The Lord does this for His
namesake. The Lord does this for His honor
and His glory. Look over Zechariah. Zechariah
12, verse 10. This is a good one. This is a
good one right here. Zechariah 12, verse 10. I will pour upon the house of
David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace
and of supplications. And they shall look upon me whom
they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him as one mourneth
for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him as one
that is in bitterness for his firstborn. That's how repentance
is wrought in the heart and no other way. The only way that
you and I who trust God will be turned from whatever idol
it is that we're going after, from whatever evil covetousness
we're lusting after, from just wanting to have our way. That's
what it is. The only way we'll be turned
from that is when we behold once again by this sprinkling, cleansing
fountain of grace, sovereignly working effectually in our hearts,
is for Him to purge us to behold As David said, I've sinned against
thee and thee only. I haven't. I've sinned against
thee and thee only and done this evil in thy sight. until He brings us to behold
that all our transgressions are against Christ Jesus, the Son
of God, our hope, our rejoicing, our redemption, our salvation,
until He brings us to see that every transgression is against
Him and Him alone. We'd go our own way. We would
consume lust upon lust upon lust, wanting our will and our way
and our right, But every time he gives us a glimpse of Christ,
he turns us and we're turned. That's how he works repentance
in the hearts of his people. And we cry out then with Titus
and we say, it's not by works of righteousness which we have
done, but according to His mercy He saved us by the washing of
regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost. It continues,
it's a continual renewing. Behold, all things become new
and they're new every day. The old man is perishing and
the new man is renewed day by day. which He shed on us abundantly
through Jesus Christ our Savior, that being justified by His grace
we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
Remember these three things. We have a heart issue. We're
proud and we're stout-hearted. Don't look to your own way. Don't
look to your own way. What would Jesus do? I'll tell
you what He'd do. The first thought that comes
into your head, 99.9% of the time, He'd do the opposite of
that. We're opposite of Him in this flesh. Repentance originating
out of a mere fear of God's wrath is not repentance. It's repentance
to be repented of. It won't do you any good. Thirdly,
we need God to come to us in power, to create us anew, to
reveal Christ in us, and to continually, continually, continually teach
us, guide us, lead us, turn us, direct us in the heart through
this gospel that He sent to you. That's what we're going to have.
Those three things are facts. They're facts. Well, two people
are going to hear this message. Two people. The only two kind
of people there are in this world. Somebody that insists on their
way. They're going to hear it and
they're going to say, well, if nobody can repent but those whom
God makes to repent, then why in the world can God blame me
if I don't repent? I can't do it unless He makes
me do it. The only word God gives to that
person is, Nay, O man, who art thou that replies against God? You're proud and you have a stout
heart. And the fact of the matter is,
Christ didn't come to condemn the world. He came that through
Him the world might be saved. The person that believes on Him
is not condemned. The person that doesn't believe
on Him, he's condemned already. condemned before you ever didn't
believe on Him. You see, He said, this thing
of repentance is grace. Light is coming to the world.
This is a condemnation. Light is coming to the world
and men love darkness rather than light. Because the deeds
were evil. Afraid if you come to the light,
you have to repent and give up that darkness that you love.
But men love darkness rather than light. The Lord said, that's
why they won't come to me. That's why you won't repent.
Don't blame God for your sin. It's because you love what you
are. And then, where God has begun
this work in power, the broken-hearted man is going to come just like
that leper did. He came, Scripture says, and
he worshipped Christ. And he said, Lord, if Thou wilt. He didn't come demanding anything.
He didn't come in that spirit of unlawfulness and legalism
to where you try to yoke somebody into something. He came saying,
Lord, if you're willing, you can make me whole. You can cleanse
me. You can make me pure. And he
went away clean. He went away clean. Or they'll
come like the Canaanite woman. She came and she was turned away
by the Lord. He didn't even answer her the
first time. And then the disciples said,
I said, Lord, she's getting on our nerves. Let us send her away.
We need to excommunicate this one. She's not fit to be around
us. And she kept coming anyway. She
kept coming anyway. And she said, Lord, help me. And he said, it's not meat to
take the children's bread and to cast it to dogs. And she said,
truth, Lord. That's true. I'm a dog. But she said, yet the dogs eat
of the crumbs which fall from their master's table. Even a dog gets a crumb. And
he said, what great faith. What great faith. Are you a leprous dog? Are you
just a mangy old dog? Or can you build your own house? The poor in spirit, they that
mourn, the meek, those that hunger and thirst after the Lord our
righteousness, you know why they're blessed? Because He's given them a lowly
spirit. and a heart that mourns, and
a hunger and a thirst, and a desire for Him, and all things are yours. That's blessed. I do pray that God will teach
us what true repentance is, and that He be pleased to grant us
repentance, that we might behold Him. And
I'll tell you what you behold after He does that. After you've corrected your child
and they come to you and they crawl up in your lap and they
wrap their arms around you, do you hold out that hand of judgment
on them again? Let's let God do the correcting. Let's let God do what only He
can do. Let Him be our fear and let Him
be our dread. Let Him be our sanctuary. And
turn from this world, the covetousness of this world, who desires to
have His dominion. We'll do it through His gospel.
We'll do it by His power. And that's the power that Paul
warned many would deny, even though they had a form of godliness.
May God give us repentance.