Good morning. It's good to be
here. I've been blessed this morning. It's been a sweet time of fellowship
with you all and just really enjoyed the singing and appreciate
the reading of the scripture that goes along very well with
the message that we have this morning. Let's turn to Isaiah
65. Isaiah 65 and I'm going to look
at verses 11 through 18 with you Speaks about our God who
makes all things new He's the creator of all things new now
historically This prophecy began its primary fulfillment when
Christ, our Lord and Savior, walked the earth in flesh, when
he came incarnate in flesh. And we saw how that the Jews
under his ministry, how that the Jews rejected their Messiah. They rejected him. They would
not hear him. Regardless of that rejection,
Christ made all things new by His death and resurrection. He wasn't thwarted from doing
what He purposed to do according to the will of God His Father.
He accomplished it nonetheless. in the salvation of his beloved
chosen people. And this prophecy, as it began,
it's going to be completed. It's going to come to its fulfillment
when Christ returns for his bride. Now, this glorious redemption,
which is through his sacrifice, we see how that Christ reconciled
his people. When he died for his bride, he
reconciled her. He obtained her forgiveness. He put away the old things. He destroyed those things and
obtained life and redemption and reconciliation of his people
to our God. Christ did that in his death
and resurrection. He did this by putting away the
old things and creating all things new, creating them anew in the
Lord Jesus Christ. He accomplishes this in the new
birth through spiritual regeneration. This is all the work of Christ,
all the blessings that he performs for his people. He does this
and we rejoice in him. Turn to 2 Corinthians. I want
to show you verse here in 2nd Corinthians 5 and then put a
marker when you're there, a piece of paper or an extra ribbon you
have in the Bible. 2nd Corinthians 5 and we're going
to read first verses 17 through 18 because they witness this
very truth of Christ's reconciliation of his people, how that God blesses
us in Christ. 2nd Corinthians 5 17 and 18,
therefore if any man Give me a moment. If any man
be in Christ, he is a new creature. Old things are passed away. And that phrase is going to be
referenced in Isaiah, in our text today. Old things are passed
away. Behold, all things are become
new. And all things are of God, who
hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given
to us the ministry of reconciliation. And so, it's by Christ's reconciliation
of his people that the old things that are in us and what we are
according to this old nature, those things are put away. The old things refers to our
sins. The old things refers to what
we did, as religious as they were, those things that we did
to try to obtain forgiveness and favor with God. Those things
were according to the flesh. Christ has put those things away. And the fear and the doubts and
the worries that we had trying to labor and work a righteousness
for ourselves, Christ accomplished our salvation by putting those
things that couldn't save us, he put them away, delivering
us from that fear and from that bondage, as it's called in scripture.
created us anew whereby, according to His Spirit, we live in reconciliation
to God, who is no longer angry with us for our sins because
they've been put away. The redemption has been accomplished. And He comforts the hearts of
His people to know this and settles us. As we hear this blessed word,
He settles your hearts. Because in the flesh, we go back
to those things. In the flesh, we go back to works
and thinking that there's something we've done and something we can
do or have to do better. And He calms us down and shows
us again Christ and what He's accomplished. At the same time,
he turns the heart from the wicked things that we're trusting in
and doing wickedly, and turns us to the blessed hope that he's
given to us freely in the Lord Jesus Christ. And it's a comfort,
it's a comfort to the believer to be brought back to see Christ,
because we do get worked up and all excited and upset, and rightly
so for our sins when we see the rebellion of our own hearts in
his flesh, but what a mercy. What a double portion the Lord
gives us in putting away our sins and turning us again to
his blessed Son, Jesus Christ. Now, in our passage today, it
speaks of this new creation by the Lord Jesus Christ. Previously,
when we were here the last time in Isaiah 65, usually during
the midweek service, we saw the blessing of God for his people
in verses 8 through 10. And in summary, what it speaks
of there is the new wine, the blessing that's in the new wine
in the cluster, which is Christ and where he blesses his beloved
people in the Lord Jesus Christ. But in our text today, it begins
in verses 11 and 12. It begins with a startling rebuke
of the religious, the self-righteous religious, those who are trying
to worship God according to their ways, according to their thoughts,
and doing what they think pleases God and what earns them favor
with the true and living God. And the Lord tells them, your
worship's in vain. And he compares their religious
service to basically trusting in good luck and in fortune. He compares it to idolatry, to
worthless things that cannot save us. And then, following
that rebuke of the wayward way, of the wicked, and the things
that the natural man trusts in, following that rebuke, he then
traces out how that the Lord doth put a difference between
men, just as he put a difference between the Jew and the Egyptian
in Exodus, that same truth the Lord puts a difference between
his people and the wicked. He separates out those for whom
he will be merciful and gracious too. That's all according to
the election of grace. And we see how that the Lord
creates all things new by the Lord Jesus Christ. The bridegroom
doing for the bride. and she beholds her Savior, her
Lord, and she worships him and adores him, just as he adores
her and loves her and gave himself for her. I've titled this message,
Blessed in the God of Truth. And we'll first just look at
the wicked being described, and then we'll see the election of
grace who is blessed in Christ. All right, so our text begins
with the word but. meaning that the people that
are described here in verses 11 and 12 are not those who were
blessed of the Lord in verses 8 through 10. They're not numbered among them.
So verse 11, but ye are they that forsake the Lord, that forget
my holy mountain, that prepare a table for that troop, and that
furnish the drink offering unto that number. He's saying, you're
not the ones who I just described are blessed in me. Therefore
will I number you to the sword." We saw an example of this just
in Hosea 13 where they were idolaters and they were then numbered to
the sword. They were numbered to destruction
is what he's teaching there. And ye shall all bow down to
the slaughter, because when I called, ye did not answer. When I spake,
ye did not hear, but did evil before mine eyes, and did choose
that wherein I delighted not. And so these that are described
here are idolaters. And the holy mountain that they
forsook is not the law given at Mount Sinai, but rather, he's
saying, you've forsaken Mount Zion, my holy mountain, Mount
Zion, which speaks of grace, of peace, and reconciliation
in the Lord Jesus Christ. We are come unto Mount Zion and
unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to
an innumerable company of angels. Hebrews 12 22 that's where we've
come to that's where that's what the Lord is saying don't forsake
my holy mountain don't turn from the one in whom I bless my people
the Lord Jesus Christ whom I've sent to reconcile to redeem to
obtain eternal forgiveness and to give life and hope and peace
and grace in him And so we come to him. So these persons being
rebuked, they were said in verse 11, they were said to prepare
a table for that troop and that furnished the drink offering
unto that number. Now I read a number of commentaries
and there's various interpretations of what specifically was being
spoken of, which deities, which false gods were they talking
about? And what did it signify? mean but regardless when without
knowing exactly which false God it was throughout the scriptures
we see the same pattern in natural man whose heart goes off it goes
after false gods who has many idols set up in their heart many
things that lead them astray and turn us from looking at and
resting in the Savior the one who who brings his people to
Mount Zion the one who comforts his people in the redemption
he's accomplished for them. There's countless various idols
and they identify themselves with that number, that troop,
that number and that troop. Just as we saw with Hosea, I'll
show you another example. Turn over to Daniel chapter five,
Daniel chapter five. This is in Babylon with Belshazzar
as the king, the son of Nebuchadnezzar, and he gets carried away worshiping
false gods. In Daniel chapter 5, we'll look
at verses 4 and 5, and then I'll speak to what's being said in
verses 22 through 28, so you can read it again later. Daniel
5 verse 4, they broke out the the vessels that were taken from
the temple in Jerusalem. They broke those things out,
and they were having a party drinking out of those things,
the silver and the gold and whatnot. And it says in Daniel 5.4 that
they drank wine and praised the gods of gold and of silver, of
brass, of iron, of wood, and of stone. That's a troop of false
gods. That's a number of those false
gods. Verse five, and in the same hour
came forth fingers of a man's hand and wrote. That's when Belshazzar
saw God's hand right on the wall there. And the Lord rebuked him. He brought in Daniel. Daniel
came in by the queen's advice to the young king. And Daniel
tells him the interpretation of this. And he said, Belshazzar,
you've not humbled yourself. Your father, Nebuchadnezzar,
was humbled. And he humbled himself under the mighty hand of God.
You've not done that. But instead, you've lifted up
your heart against the Lord of heaven. And you're worshiping
idols. You're worshiping a troop of
false gods. You're praising the gods of silver
and gold, etc. And the Lord, you're not worshiping
or bowing down before the Lord. And then he tells him what it
says. It said, meenie, meenie, teakle, you farson. And he interpreted
that. Meenie is the same word in our
text, numbered. Meenie, you've been numbered.
And Tikal is you've been weighed and found wanting. And Piraeus
from Eupharsin means you're divided, you're separated, you've been
divided by the Lord. And that's what the Lord is teaching
us throughout scripture, whether you're looking at Hosea 13, you're
looking at Isaiah here, you're looking at Daniel, we see that
the natural man has a troop of idols that he worships in his
heart and in his mind, and he humbles himself before those
foolish things his own way, but not before the true and living
God. And so the Lord says, when we're
weighed, when he weighs us, we're found wanting. And therefore
he numbers the wicked to destruction. He separates them out to destruction,
to the sword, as it's termed. It means he'll destroy them.
But for his people, he's gracious and merciful. And that's what
we see here. We see how easy it is for the
natural man to be covetous, to be an idolater, to be a vain
worshiper of God because he's worshiping the God of his own
imagination. And it can come in many forms.
Many different things lead the heart and mind astray. And this
is why it's so true, like what Brother Scott was saying earlier,
that there's many idols. We may not bow down to a stump
or a stone in the backyard, but we bow down. We go after many
foolish things and things that lead us astray. There's all kinds
of things that turn our hearts. And it's only by the grace of
God that we're not hardened and sealed in that, but rather turn
back to behold the grace of our Savior, to behold His sufficiency,
to be given a heart that is soft and bows under the hand of God
and hears what He's saying to us and turns to Him and worships
the true and living God. And it's so prevalent that The
last thing that the Apostle John said in his epistle, 1 John 5,
verse 21, the very last scripture says, little children, keep yourselves
from idols. Amen. Because we do go astray
with looking after many foolish things. And the natural man separates
himself from the true and living God and goes after those things,
being under strong delusion. But the God of grace is the one
who delivers his people from that. He's the one who separates
his people from dead works, from the way of death and going down
to destruction and delivers them from that, bringing them to himself
through the Lord Jesus Christ. And he does that through the
preaching of the word. That's why we preach and declare
and exalt and lift up that ensign. as Christ is called in Isaiah,
that ensign, that beacon, that light, the truth, we lift him
up because that's how the Lord captures the heart of his people,
conquers the heart of his people and brings them to himself to
behold him. And that's why we preach the
word, the simple word, which so many get so tired of and don't
want to hear and think it's foolishness. And yet we preach that because
it's through the simplicity of Christ that you're instructed,
that he teaches you what you have need of hearing, to behold
what's needful and what's important is Christ. Because otherwise
we go after worries and doubts and fears, all kinds of things
in this world and in his flesh that would capture us. But the
Lord brings us back through the preaching of the gospel. And so it's for our good. It's
for our good to be gathered with the people whom the Lord gathers,
his sheep, to hear this word and to be encouraged and settled
and comforted again. Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people. How, Lord, through the preaching
of the word, declaring what we are in the flesh, but what God
has done for his people by his darling son, Jesus Christ. Now,
following those verses and the next few verses, what we'll see
here is that distinction of blessings which God makes. He's tracing
out here what is the election of grace. He's showing us that
it's God who puts a difference between the wicked and those
whom he will be merciful to. It's not that God's word is powerless
or unable to save, it's God effecting his will in the hearts of his
people and separating them out unto himself to the blessings
which he freely gives, richly gives, in Christ Jesus. Romans 9.6 says, It is not as
though the word of God hath taken on effect, for they are not all
Israel, which are of Israel. In other words, God puts a difference
in whom he will. Therefore, he said a little later,
after speaking to Pharaoh, Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will
have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth. He's just hardening
up what we already are by nature and sealing the wicked to their
way, he's numbering them to what is their lot, and he numbers
his people in Christ, sealing them up to the lot that he has
in Christ, that he's given freely in the Lord Jesus Christ. All
right, so let's look at verses 13 and 14. Again we are seeing
how God puts a difference in the election of grace. Therefore,
thus saith the Lord God, Behold my servants shall eat,
but ye shall be hungry. Behold my servants shall drink,
but ye shall be thirsty. Behold my servants shall rejoice,
but ye shall be ashamed. Behold my servants shall sing
for joy of heart but ye shall cry for sorrow of heart and shall
howl for vexation of spirit. Now this is true in the literal
sense where the Lord provides for his people. That doesn't
mean everything's easy and we're eating bonbons and sitting back
on on a fluffy Pillow all the time that doesn't mean that but
the Lord does provide He provides and he keeps us looking to Christ
who feeds us and and heals us and comforts us in other words
He's saying you're not gonna pine away. You don't need to
worry and pine away Fearing the things that keep us up at night.
He provides everything in his time, in his goodness, in his
way, that keeps us walking in the way of faith for our good,
for our everlasting good and comfort. But there's also a spiritual
blessing here in these words in which the wicked and the rebellious,
they will hunger and thirst. They're not gonna hear the word
and it's not going to profit them. But for you that are his
people, you shall hear the gospel and it will be made profitable
to you. It isn't profiting them, they
don't wanna hear it. They refuse to hear it. They may hear it
audibly but they don't hear it in heart. But the Lord takes
that word and makes it so that you do hear it and you are profited
and you are strengthened and rooted in the Lord Jesus Christ. And so they'll be sorrowful and
vexed but you'll be made glad and you'll rejoice and you'll
sing those hymns. with joy and understanding and
gladness. And you'll sing in your heart
in the night season when the Lord turns you from your fear
of destruction and causes you to behold Christ, to look to
Him. In Psalm 118 verse 22 through
24 it captures this joy of the people when it says, the stone
which the builders refused is become the head of the corner. In other words, that When religion
looks at Christ, they see him as either just a small component,
a little facet in the whole scheme of religion, or they just reject
him outrightly as having no part in their salvation. But they
treat him as something that's not that important, just a piece,
just a trinket, just something that they despise. But to you
who believe, he's everything. And the Lord is telling us He
is everything. He's the head of the corner.
In other words, He is the most important stone. He's the foundation
upon which the whole building of God's people is built upon
and without Him the whole building collapses. It falls. We have
no standing before God outside of the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ
is not all to you, then He is nothing to you, and you have
no part in the inheritance of God of His saints in Christ. He has given Christ who is everything
to the believer. You who know Nothing of these
scriptures, but Christ, you know everything. You have everything
because Christ is all and in all, he is the very salvation
of his people. He is the Savior, the Lord, the
husband, our friend, our counselor, our mighty God. He's everything.
He's been made everything by God to his people to be everything. Everything's been committed to
Him and everything's in His hands. He is the Savior. He is the Messiah. He is the Christ, the Mediator. He's the Reconciler. He's everything
to His people. The Lord says, let me go on in
Psalm 118, this is the Lord's doing and it's marvelous in our
eyes. This is the day which the Lord hath made. We will rejoice
and be glad in it. Because it's the Lord's doing.
He's the one who's separating, who puts a difference between
the people. Separating his people unto Christ. And the wicked are
numbered to the sword, to destruction, to everlasting destruction, in
other words. And so it's not as though the Lord is preventing
the wicked from hearing it. The doors are open. We try to
encourage people to come. We encourage people to come,
and we put out things to encourage people to come and to hear this
word. And some do, but they won't hear
it. They don't hear it. So it's not
like the Lord's preventing people from coming to hear it. It's
that they don't want to hear it. As the Lord said to the Jews
in John chapter 5, but ye will not come unto me that ye might
have life. That's the natural heart of man. That's the natural disposition
of man is he will not. He won't come to Christ that
he might have life unless God unless God drags him, John 6,
unless the Lord draws him to himself, he's never gonna believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ. Matthew 23, 37, 38, O Jerusalem,
Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets and stonest them
which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy
children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under
her wings, and ye would not. That's the natural man. Ye wouldn't.
You won't do it. Behold, your house is left unto
you desolate. And so the heart of natural man
is hard, and the Lord, if the Lord isn't gracious to you, he
hardens your heart further in that hardness, in that unbelief.
And therefore, we don't ever want to depart willingly. We
don't want to depart from hearing the word of God. We want to hear
it and be fed because this is where the Lord instructs his
people, where he turns us again to wisdom. And so we give God
all the thanks and the praise because he's the one that has
turned us from a hardness, from dead works, from false religion,
from a false gospel, and turned us to Christ. And he keeps us. And the difference, if you're
wondering, well, how do I know if I'm one of God's elect? The
difference is he manifests his grace in the heart of his people. In other words, he keeps us ever
looking to Christ. How do I know if I'm one of the
Lord's elect? Do you believe on Christ? Because he manifests
that gift of faith in the heart of his people that does believe
and has no other hope and is turned from other hopes. When
the flesh turns us away, the Lord turns us back and keeps
us ever looking to Christ. And we'll see this as we finish
out this passage here. In verse 15, here we see a difference
in verse 15 and verse 16 between the wicked and the righteous. Verse 15, again, is the wicked
here. He says, and ye, to the wicked,
ye shall leave your name for a curse unto my chosen, for the
Lord God shall slay thee and call his servants by another
name. In other words, the wicked trust
in their decision, or they trust in their works, they trust in
their religious service, they look to those things for their
comfort and their hope and for proof that they are the Lord's. They look to their will and their
works. And so that their name or rather
their comfort is in their name. It's in what they've done and
what they're doing for the Lord. Look at verse 2, because the
Lord says, these are your thoughts and your ways. Isaiah 65 verse
2, I have spread out my hands all the day unto a rebellious
people which walketh in a way that was not good after their
own thoughts. So the wicked walk in their own
way, in their own thoughts. They're trusting things that
they've done rather than trusting the one whom God has sent. They're
looking to what they do for the Lord for comfort rather than
believing Him whom the Father sent, the Lord Jesus Christ.
And now here, here's the manifest difference between the religious
man left to himself and the grace of the Lord, which is revealed
in faith, manifest in his people, they have faith in Christ. Verse
16, that he who blesseth himself in the earth shall bless himself
in the God of truth, and he that sweareth in the earth shall swear
by the God of truth, because the former troubles are forgotten
and because they are hid from mine eyes. So those shalls that
are spoken of there, it's because the Lord has willed it to be
so for his people. As he says in other scriptures,
I will and ye shall. I will and ye shall. I will be
your God and you shall be my people because God has willed
it to be so. Be ye holy for I am holy. That's the will of God who's
revealing to you what he's purposed for you in Christ and what he
accomplishes in you and for you in Christ. What he does because
it's a holy calling. Not what you do, what he does.
It's what he accomplishes in you. He's making his will known
in his people. The reason why you believe, it's
not because you've done something special to make yourself special
or to make yourselves accepted or noticed by God by the things
that you do. The reason why the Lord is gracious
to you is because of what he's done for you in the Lord Jesus
Christ. It's what Christ has accomplished
for you. In other words, he's the one
who atoned, made atonement for your sins, who made an atonement
for your false ways and your wicked thoughts and the things
that you trusted in. Christ made an atonement to put
those things away and reconcile you to God. Look at the end of
verse 16, that last phrase where it says, because, because the
former troubles are forgotten and because they are hid from
mine eyes. What the Lord's saying there
is He has reconciled you. He's provided the ministry of
reconciliation and He's given this ministry of reconciliation
to the church to preach and to proclaim what the Son has done,
what He has accomplished by the death of Himself to make an atonement
for your sins. and make an atonement for your
false ways. This is what we've been given.
This is what we've been given to preach and to proclaim. It
is finished by the Lord Jesus Christ. It's all done, and He's
given us this ministry of reconciliation. Go back there to 2 Corinthians
5. 2 Corinthians 5. We'll come back
here to Isaiah. Let's finish out that chapter
19 verses 19 through 21. He's given to us the ministry
of reconciliation there at the end of verse 18 to wit or to
make more clearly known unto you. To make this clear, to proclaim
this, and to say this, that God was in Christ, reconciling the
world unto himself, that is, some from every tongue, tribe,
people, kindred, nation, unto himself, not imputing their trespasses
unto them, and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation. Now then, we are ambassadors
for Christ. As though God did beseech you
by us, we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God. For he hath made him, Christ,
to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the
righteousness of God in him. And so, We proclaim this work
of reconciliation to you because this is what God has given to
us to do, this ministry, to make known to all people what God
has accomplished for all his people, Jew and Gentile, in the
Lord Jesus Christ. And we leave it to God to make
a difference between who he will. But we pray all people be reconciled. This is how the Lord reconciles
His people in Christ. And we declare Him and the Spirit
regenerating His people manifests faith which looks not to what
they do, not to the old things, but to what Christ has done and
accomplished mightily, fully, sufficiently, by his own blood,
by himself, and by what he's done for us. And so, this is
how we bless ourselves, if you will, according to the language
here, shall bless themselves in the God of truth, and they
shall swear by the God of truth. In other words, we're looking
to Christ and Christ alone. We're looking to him, believing
that we have been reconciled, that our sins have been put away,
Though in this flesh we still see our weakness, we still see
sin present in this flesh, we feel its temptations, but we
know, through faith, that Christ has obtained our eternal redemption
and put it away. And we walk in that faith. Looking
to him following him because he says he that followeth me
or as a result of his power We follow him and he says this promise
he that follows me shall not walk in darkness meaning you're
not gonna look and trust in those false ways and Trust in your
works and trust in what you've done. You're gonna be turned
to look to what I've done and rest right there in Him. And so back in verse in Isaiah
65 verse 17 and 18. For behold I create new heavens and a new
earth and the former shall not be remembered nor come into mind
but ye are But be ye glad, and rejoice forever in that which
I create. For behold, I create Jerusalem,
a rejoicing, and her people a joy. Now I know that there is a day
that we are looking forward to, when this shall be fulfilled
in its fullness, and our faith shall become sight, and we shall
see this day in the Lord Jesus Christ. But this day has already
dawned in our hearts. we've been made new creatures
in the Lord Jesus Christ. In other words, we had that earnest,
that down payment. which is the Holy Spirit given
unto us, which manifests this hope, this faith, which is given
to the children of God, which looks to Christ. We are made
new creatures now so that we aren't going about trusting in
our idolatry, trusting in our vain religion. We're delivered
from that. We're new creatures. We're not
trusting in those things anymore. We're trusting in Christ and
Christ alone. That's a new creature. We've
been justified by the blood of Christ. That's a new creature. The natural man doesn't have
that hope. The natural man hopes in what
he's doing for the Lord and in his religion. You that hope and
have faith in Christ, in Christ alone, that's a new creature. And that's a creature created
by the Lord Jesus Christ because he makes all things new. All
the world throughout history has been a bunch of idolaters
identifying with that truth, with that number, and numbered
to destruction. But there is a remnant, a remnant
of grace, that God has revealed, that hope, that life, which is
not of themselves, but of Christ, and looks to him alone. Now that
coming day, when this new creation will be realized fully, is declared. Go over to Revelation 21. Revelation 21, and let's read
the first five verses. Revelation 21, verse 1, beginning
there. And I saw, this is the Apostle
John saying, I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first
heaven and the first earth were passed away, and there was no
more sea. And I thought about that for
a while. What is it with a sea? Well,
a sea is a division. A sea divides and separates.
the nations, but there's no more seed. There's nothing separating
us or dividing us from the Lord anymore. And we're not separated
or divided from one another. We're one people with our one
Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. We're one. There's no more seed,
no more division, no more separations. And I, John, saw the holy city,
New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as
a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out
of heaven saying, behold, the tabernacle of God is with men,
and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people,
and God himself shall be with them and be their God. And God
shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and there shall be
no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there
be any more pain, for the former things are passed away. the former
things, those things that the Lord's saying, I've put those
things away by the death of my son and given you life by his
life. He that sat upon the throne said,
behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, write, for
these words are true and faithful. So this new creation cannot be
known by us. We will not see it nor know it
except we are made new creatures here now by the grace of God
given in Christ. He reveals faith in his child.
How do I know if I'm his? He reveals faith which looks
to Christ, rests in him, believes him. That's where he settles
his people is in Christ. That's how he comforts his people
in the Lord Jesus Christ, looking to Him. And so, as it said back
in Isaiah, God's people shall bless themselves in the God of
truth. They shall swear by the God of truth. This is speaking
of the Lord Jesus Christ. John wrote of it. We've been
given this word to preach it because this is what the Father
has purposed to reveal to His people, that He's made all things
known. put away the former things by
Christ. The sin has been put away, the
false hope's been put away, all those things that cannot save
have been put away in and by the Lord Jesus Christ. And so
we believe the Savior, who is our very righteousness, He is
our very justification with God, and we live by Him, and in Him,
and through Him, and we bless ourselves in Him. by confessing
Him to others, telling them that our hope is in what He's done.
And we preach Him and declare Him. These things, our Lord said
earlier in Revelation 3.14, these things saith the Amen. Christ
is the Amen. He's the fulfillment of the promise
of God to us. The faithful and true witness,
the beginning of the creation of God. He's the faithful one. He's the true witness. This creation,
this new creation, begins in Christ. That's where it starts.
It all begins in Him. Just like this physical creation
that we see was all made by God in Christ, by Christ, the Word
of God. And it began by Him, so it is
we who are new creatures begin by Christ. We began in Him. It
all starts in Him. And we praise Him and glorify
Him and worship Him. So I pray that's a comfort to
your hearts and that you don't look to yourselves, but just
keep looking to Christ. Whatever we go through in the
new year, we trust in the blessings of God and for his provision
because he's made all things new. And we have that confidence,
that promise in him. You look to him and he'll bless
it. Amen. Amen. All right, let's
pray. Our gracious Lord, we thank you,
Father, for your grace. We thank you for this word of
reconciliation, how that you've put all things away out of your
sight. And Lord, we thank you that by
your grace and your new creation, you put those things out of our
sight as well, turning us from sin, turning us from the the
works of sin and unrighteousness and trying to work a righteousness
for ourselves or to attain forgiveness for something we've done. But
Lord, keep us, let us be turned from wickedness, but let us be
turned ever to Christ and to look to Him to save us, to put
away our guilt and put away our doubts and deliver us, Lord,
continually from the bondage of this flesh. to ever look to
Christ, to rest in Him, to walk in faith, to be kind and generous
and loving toward one another, and willing to declare this hope
which you've given to us in your Son, Jesus Christ. It's in His
name we pray and give thanks. Amen. All right, now we're gonna take
the Lord's Supper. So Brother Joe will pass out
the bread and the wine, and then we'll take it together, take
it together. So Brother, if you could, yeah,
if you could just pass that out, and then we'll close with a hymn and be
dismissed. He's doing that just remember
to pray for brother Scott next weekend. I'll be at Darwin's
and brother Scott will bring one message It'll be at 1015
the one earlier message. It'll be then and then so pray
for brother Scott and and Hopefully you can all make it so pray the
Lord bless that and I'll be back the next week after that we'll
have again our regular midweek services and then So after the
8th, that's when Brother Scott preaches, after the 8th and next
Sunday will be the regular service. And we'll keep going there. Two
messages, so. I'll be reading from 1st Corinthians
11 verse 23 Paul said for I've received of
the Lord that which also I delivered unto you that the Lord Jesus
the same night in which he was betrayed took bread and when
he had given thanks he break it and said take eat this is
my body which is broken for you this do in remembrance of me
after the same manner also he took the cup when he had supped,
saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood, this do ye as oft
as ye drink it in remembrance of me. For as often as ye eat
this bread and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord's death till
he come. Let's all stand and sing a closing
hymn. It'll be 488. I will sing of
my Redeemer, 488. you O sing of my Redeemer, and His
wondrous love to me. On a cruel cross He suffered,
from the curse to set me free. Sing, O sing of my Redeemer,
With His blood He purchased me. On the cross He sealed my pardon,
paid the debt, and made me free. I will tell the wondrous story,
How my lost estate to save, In His boundless love and mercy,
He the ransom freely gave. Sing, O sing of my Redeemer,
With His blood He purchased me, On the cross He sealed my pardon,
Paid the debt and made me free. I will praise my dear Redeemer,
His triumphant power I'll tell, How the victory He giveth over
sin and death and hell. Sing, O sing of my Redeemer,
With His blood He purchased me, On the cross He sealed my pardon,
Paid the dead and made me free. I will sing of my Redeemer, and
His heavenly love to me. He from death to life hath brought
me, Son of God, with Him to be. Sing, O sing of my Redeemer,
With His blood He purchased me. On the cross He sealed my pardon,
paid the debt, and made me free. Thank you.