Good evening, everyone. Let's
begin our evening service by standing and singing 328. Close
to thee, 328. ? Thou my everlasting portion ?
More than friend or life to me ? All along my pilgrim journey
? Savior let me walk with thee ? Close to thee, close to thee
Close to Thee, close to Thee, All along my Pilgrim journey,
Savior, let me walk with Thee. Not for ease or worldly pleasure,
Nor for fame my prayer shall be. Gladly will thy torment suffer,
Only let me walk with thee. Close to Thee, close to Thee,
Close to Thee, close to Thee, Gladly will I toil and suffer,
Only let me walk with Thee. ? Lead me through the veil of shadows
? ? Bear me your light's fateful sea ? ? Then the gate of life
eternal ? ? May I enter, Lord, with thee ? ? Close to thee,
close to thee ? ? Close to thee, close to thee ? and the gate
of life eternal, may I enter, Lord, with Thee. Let's go to Ephesians chapter
2. Ephesians chapter 2. And you hath he quickened who
were dead in trespasses and sins wherein in time past ye walked
according to the course of this world. according to the prince
of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the
children of disobedience, among whom also we all had our conversation
in times past, in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires
of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature the children
of wrath even as others. But God, who is rich in mercy
for his great love wherewith he loved us even when we were
dead in sins hath quickened us together with Christ by grace
ye are saved and hath raised us up together and made us sit
together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus that in the ages
to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness
toward us through Christ Jesus. For by grace are ye saved through
faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of
works. Lest any man should boast, for
we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works,
which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.
Wherefore remember that ye being in time past Gentiles in the
flesh, who are called uncircumcision, by that which is called the circumcision
in the flesh made by hands, that at that time ye were without
Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers
from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God
in the world. But now in Christ Jesus, ye who
sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ.
For he is our peace, who hath made both one and hath broken
down the middle wall of partition between us. Having abolished
in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained
in ordinances, for to make in himself of two one new man, so
making peace. and that he might reconcile both
unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby,
and came and preached peace to you, which were far off, and
to them that were nigh. For through him we both have
access by one spirit unto the Father. Now, therefore, ye are
no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the
saints and of the household of God. and are built upon the foundation
of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the
chief cornerstone, in whom all the building fitly framed together
groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord, in whom ye also are
builded together for inhabitation of God through the Spirit. Let's pray. Our gracious Lord,
we thank you, Father, for your for your grace and your mercy
toward us in your son Jesus Christ. Lord, we thank you for his blood,
his righteousness, that he is all our salvation and that you
look to no other but to him and you look for nothing else but
for him and his blood. Lord, we thank you for your grace
and so mercifully taking us out of darkness, delivering us from
the condemnation of our own works and that which we've earned by
our sins and iniquities and trespasses. Lord, we thank you that instead
of giving us what we deserve in this flesh, you've been so
abundantly gracious to give us life, eternal life and salvation
by your Son. freely, by grace, as it pleases
you. Lord, thank you. Father, we thank
you for your mercy upon this body. We thank you, Lord, for
our brethren. Lord, we pray that you would
minister healing and blessing to your people that are suffering,
that are struggling with sickness and weakness and health issues
in the body. We pray that you would give them
strength, that you would sustain them, Lord, and preserve them
and bless them to be able to come and worship with us. And Lord, we pray that you would
continue to bless this body. We thank you for how you have
sustained us to this day. that we may continue to proclaim
this word publicly and boldly, and that Lord, when it pleases
you, Lord, we ask that you would bless this people here in this
area, that you would call out your sheep from darkness, even
as we see that you have called us out of darkness and delivered
us from the course of this world and from being under the power
of the Prince of the Air. Lord, we ask that you would call
out others, that you would bring them here, and Lord, that you
would bless us as a body, that we would be able to continue
to feed upon Christ and have all the things that we need.
We know, Lord, that you don't need numbers or look for those
things, but Lord, we pray that we would be used of you to minister
to many other brethren and that you would call them out and that
you would establish this work here for many, many years, Lord. And Father, we pray that you
would help me to preach this word tonight, that you would
take that which you've given to my heart and that you would
bless the hearts of your people, that they would feed and be nourished
upon the body and blood of your son, Jesus Christ. We pray that
you bless it. with the presence of your spirit.
Continue to help us as we worship you. It's in Christ's name we
pray and give thanks. Amen. I would like to sing 209. Grace
greater than our sin, 209. Marvelous grace of our loving
Lord, Grace that exceeds our sin and our guilt, Yonder on
Calvary's mount aboard, there where the blood of the Lamb was
shed. Grace, grace, God's grace, grace
that will pardon and cleanse within. Grace, grace, God's grace,
grace that is greater than all our sin. Sin and despair, like
the sea waves cold, threaten the soul with infinite loss. Grace that is greater, yes, grace
untold, points to the refuge, the mighty cross. Grace, grace, God's grace. Grace that will pardon and cleanse
within. Grace, grace, God's grace. Grace that is greater than all
our sin. Dark is the stain that we cannot
hide. What can avail to wash it away? Look, there is flowing a crimson
tide. Wider than snow you may be today. Grace, grace, God's grace. Grace that will pardon and cleanse
within. Grace, grace, God's grace. Grace that is greater than all
our sin. Marvelous, infinite, matchless
grace. Freely bestowed on all who believe. You that are longing to see His
face, will you this moment His grace receive? Grace, grace, God's grace, grace
that will pardon and cleanse within. Grace, grace, God's grace,
Grace that is greater than all our sins. Okay, brethren, take your Bibles
and let's turn to Isaiah chapter 58. Isaiah 58, and I want to
look at the first four verses with you this evening. I've titled
this message, A Chastening Word, A Chastening Word. I thought
we would get to the next few verses which are a teaching word,
but there's great blessings in this word for the people of God. In verse one, our Lord, we see
here that our Lord sends his prophet and he sends the prophet
to speak to his people. He sends him to speak to his
people. Let's read verse one. He tells the prophet, cry aloud. Cry aloud and the sense is, use
your diaphragm and push this out with the strength of your
throat. Push out this word. Spare not,
lift up the voice like a trumpet and show my people their transgression
and the house of Jacob their sins. Now some have noted by
the words that will come to the description of their sins that
this is a people of the Lord in name only. in name only but
the Lord sends his prophet and he does describe them saying
show my people their transgressions and the house of Jacob their
sins now as we see their sins we see that these are awful sins
these are terrible sins Now, as man counts sin, no, they don't
look so bad. They're not describing adultery
or murder or fornication or drunkenness, not describing things like that. And that's what the world, that's
what the flesh says. Oh, that's easy to see. That's
wicked. Don't don't do those things. But what we see here
is an outline of a history of dead letter religion. These are practitioners of religion,
practitioners of dead letter religion, so that it's things
that they're doing that looks good on the outside. It looks
real good on the outside. It appears to be acceptable. They appear to be worshipers
of the true and living God. These are good, fine, upstanding
religious people. Their day would have been in
the Jewish religion and our day they would have been called Christians.
But what we find how the Lord is speaking, how he sends the
prophet to them to speak to them, we see that their works are corrupt. They are fleshly and they are
dead and evil. They do not please God. They don't please the Lord. But
understand that if the Lord is teaching truth to this people,
and by his grace he blesses them to hear that word, though it
comes as a rebuke to them, though it's hard to hear, if they are
blessed to hear by the grace of God, it's a good thing. It's a gracious word. It's a
gracious word. Now, it follows what we were
looking at last week. Let's just see in Isaiah 57,
look at verses 16 through 19. The Lord says, I will not contend
forever, neither will I always be wroth or angry, for the spirit
should fail before me, and the souls which I have made, the
people would wither. For the iniquity of his covetousness
was I wroth and smote him. I hid me and was wroth, and he
went on forwardly in the way of his heart." And we saw that
if the Lord only, if the Lord applies the law, if he lays on
men the yoke of the law and whips them with the law, we see that
that will not produce salvation. That man, the people, who were
rebuked in this way, they went on forwardly in the way of their
heart. They went on continuing in their
sin. And the Lord says, I've seen
his ways and will heal him. I will lead him also and restore
comforts unto him and to his mourners. In other words, in
spite of his works, I will be gracious to him. I'm going to
heal him. I'm going to turn him from his
wicked ways by grace. The law won't turn any man. The
law just stirs up enmity and wrath in the flesh. But when
God is gracious, that wicked, hard, stony heart is softened. by the love and the grace and
tenderness of our God. And he says, I create the fruit
of the lips, peace, peace to him that is far off and to him
that is near, saith the Lord, and I will heal him. So we see
these were words of salvation. They're words of grace. And so the Lord sends his prophet
to this rebellious people. to whom he will be gracious. That being said, what we see
here is that these people are not going to be left in darkness. The Lord is telling his people
this. because He's delivering them,
He's making us to know our sin, He's making us to know that the
things we do to get ourselves saved, to justify ourselves and
to sanctify ourselves, when we do it for ourselves, to get notice
with God, that doesn't please God. But the Lord is pointing
this out, showing us our sin, that we would drop, that we would
open our hands, let go of the filthy works, and look to our
salvation. Look to him whom God has sent,
the Lord Jesus Christ. to put away the sins of his people. And so he tells the prophet,
cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet. When
he says spare not, he says, don't hold back, don't pull your punches,
don't try to spare someone's feelings, tell them the truth.
and tell it to them plainly. They've got to know that what
they're doing is sin. The works that they're doing
are not pleasing to me, and they will not account for their righteousness
in that day that they hope to hear God justify them. They will
count against them. They'll count against them because
they're despising my salvation. They're not trusting him whom
I sent. Now, no one was more faithful
to declare the truth of God to the people than the Lord Jesus
Christ himself. He was the most faithful to declare
the truth. He always said that which needed
to be said and said it plainly so that it could not be misunderstood. Turn over to Matthew 23. We'll
see a place in Matthew 23 and we're gonna look at verses 27
through 29. Here our Lord is in the hotbed
of Jewish religion. He's there in the midst of the
scribes, and the Pharisees, the lawyers, and the Sadducees, the
doctors, and all the great men of the Jewish religion. Truly,
we could see our Lord in Psalm 23 when he says, thou preparest
a table before me in the presence of mine enemies. And he says
in verse 27, Woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For
ye are like unto whited supplicars, which indeed appear beautiful
outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all
uncleanness. You've painted the outside. You've
made the outside look pretty. It looks real good. But inside,
what's inside? Dead men's bones. Death is in
there. There's no life in there. Even
so, ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within
ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity. Woe unto you scribes
and Pharisees, hypocrites, because ye build the tombs of the prophets
and garnish the supplicars of the righteous. These are fanboys
glorying in dead things. They're glorying in dead things.
And they even went on to boast and say, had we been alive in
the day of our fathers, we wouldn't have treated the prophets like
this. We wouldn't have killed the prophets. And the Lord pointed
out to them, by your own words, you do testify against yourselves.
You testify that you are the children of those that kill the
prophets. How so? Because you sit there
and boast, saying we wouldn't have done that. We wouldn't do
such a thing denying the wickedness that's in our heart by nature.
Yes, we would do that. If the Lord leaves us to ourselves,
we are wicked. We will do wickedly. We will
do that which is evil and rebellion and filth against the Lord. These
people who boasted that they would never have killed the prophets
took Christ according to the determinate counsel and will
of God, and with wicked hands they crucified him." They did
exactly that. They filled up their iniquity
in putting the Lord to death according to the will of God.
So, I don't know how many Jewish Pharisees heard that, but there
were some Pharisees that did. We know Nicodemus was turned,
and Joseph of Arimathea, a prominent man, he heard the words of Christ. We know Paul eventually heard
the words of Christ and he was turned and saw the wickedness,
that his religious works were dung. and filth in God's sight,
and certainly the Lord continues to say these words to Pharisees
to this day, because we all by nature are workers of iniquity,
and we're Pharisees in our heart, we judge others, we think we're
okay, we excuse ourselves, and so we need to hear them. We're
by nature hypocrites and Pharisees. We need to hear that. We need
to hear that, and by the Lord declaring this word, He uses
it to break our hearts and to show us that what we are doing
is not pleasing to the Lord. He says in Matthew 5.20, I say
unto you that except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness
of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into
the kingdom of heaven. If anyone thinks that by their
works they are doing something to please God, hear what Christ
says there. Unless your works are exceeding
the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter
the kingdom of heaven. These guys were pretty good at
what they did. They were exactors of the law. They were pretty precise in their
practice of the law. And I remember hearing that as
a child, as a young child, and I'd rack my brain trying to figure
out how. Am I ever going to do better
than what the Pharisees did, knowing myself to be weak and
sinful? How am I going to do better than
them? And I didn't understand it until I saw Christ. until
I saw the righteousness of Christ. That what Christ is saying is,
no, you're not going to outwork the Pharisees. You're not going
to work so good in religion that you're going to impress God and
obtain your righteousness. No. Give up your trying to please
God by your works and justify yourself to God by the works
of the law and good works. Look to Christ, whom God has
sent to save his people, to put away their sins. He is our salvation. He is our righteousness. And
he gives the Spirit to his people, whereby we walk by faith, looking
to our Lord. It says in Romans 8, 3 through
4, for what the law could not do, in that it was weak through
the flesh, our flesh, our flesh is weak. We can't keep it. God,
in grace, sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh
and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteousness
of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the
flesh, but after the spirit. so that we are born again by
the seed of Christ, the Holy Spirit, giving us life from the
dead. And that resurrection power of
God which raised Christ out of the grave, never to die again,
that's the same power that raises us up in the new man, never to
die again. ever looking to the Lord Jesus
Christ. One day these bodies will lay
in the grave, but we shall be raised again when our Lord returns
to redeem that which he's purchased with his own blood. And so the
Lord teaches us not to look to and trust our own righteousness,
not to try and outdo what our Lord tells us we can never do.
We cannot do it. It's to put down our labors,
to put down our trying to please God by our works, and to look
to the Lord whom our God has sent, our Lord and Savior, Jesus
Christ. So our text, it isn't just addressing
dead letter professors, vain professors of religion. It's
addressing us who by nature are vain professors of religion. We practice dead letter religion.
We were very religious. I think every one of us here
grew up in religion. And so the Lord is speaking to
us because we had to be delivered from dead letter religion. And
we thank God every day that he did speak to us and didn't leave
us in that dead letter religion. but He showed us our sin, He
showed us our iniquities, and He showed us Christ and blessed
us with grace to look to Christ. Now in verse 2 it begins to list
our sins in religion and there are times where I suppose carnal
preachers would take this and use it to start naming off sins
that people do in the flesh. They'll name off, don't murder,
don't cheat, don't steal, don't commit adultery, don't fornicate,
don't get drunk, some might even say don't drink at all. And so
it is that men will use this to start stripping away the outward
sins. But as a Pharisee who doesn't
do those things, you feel pretty safe. You feel pretty smug in
your little shelter of religion because you say, well, I don't
do those things. So he's not addressing me. The Lord's not speaking to
me here. I've ducked it all because I don't do those things. Yet our Lord says, even though
you don't practice those things, these people, these people were
sinning against the Lord, even in the midst of appearing very
righteous. Verse two says, yet they seek
me daily. and delight to know my ways.
As a nation that did righteousness, they forsook not the ordinance
of their God. They ask of me the ordinances
of justice. They take delight in approaching
to God. These are people who didn't typically
miss services. They were there. And when they
were there, when they appeared before God to worship him, they
showed great interest in the things that were being taught.
And they practiced them very carefully. They wanted to know,
all right, let's make sure here that my I's are dotted and my
T's are crossed. I want to make sure that I got
this right. This is important to me. This is very important
to me, right? That's how we are in religion. And we'll speak about the things
we're taught to speak of, and we'll show to others that we're
doing pretty good. Good people in this religion.
Yet, our Lord is saying that By nature, we don't come to the
end of these things. We don't come to see what this
word speaks of, that it's speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's not telling us how to get
ourselves saved. It's telling us of Christ. It's
all pointing to him who is the salvation of God, given freely
to his people, to his people, that they would be delivered
from death. Turn over to John 5, and we're
going to pick up in verse 38. So our Lord is speaking to the Jews,
practicing Jews, and he tells them, He says, ye have not God's
word abiding in you. It's not dwelling in you. For
whom he hath sent, him ye believe not. You're not resting. You're
not trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ, he's saying. If you had
the word of God abiding in you, you would hear him whom God has
sent, and you would receive him. And you would believe him and
rest in him. You would trust him for all your
salvation. And he says then in verse 39,
search the scriptures. Oh, I could do that. We love
to do that in religion. We love to search the scriptures.
For in them ye think ye have eternal life. They thought they
were keeping the law perfectly and that they were doing everything
they were supposed to do and that surely God would recognize
what they were doing. But he tells them, and they are
they which testify of me." All this word is speaking of Christ. All the types, the shadows, the
pictures, and the law, they all declare the Lord Jesus Christ. Whether you see it or recognize
it or not, it's all speaking of Christ. And all the accounts,
the historical accounts, everything declares the salvation of our
God for his people. in the Lord Jesus Christ. It's
all showing us pictures of how the Lord deals with his people
and how he saves them in grace and mercy by the blood of Christ.
But the natural man remains in darkness when there's no grace,
when the Lord doesn't send the spirit to drill this word into
our hearts to make us to hear it, and we're left to ourselves,
this is what we see, verse 40, and ye will not come to me that
ye might have life. Man loves to speak of and boast
of his free will. He likes to think that he has
a will to choose or reject God. But as we see here, man left
to himself will always reject salvation. He will always count
himself unworthy of eternal life. He will not rest in Christ. He's always got to be doing something.
He may take the name of Jesus up on his lips, but he's going
to keep on working just to make sure he's adding his own works
to the mix. He just wants to make sure that
everything's OK. So he's going to do his works.
And Christ says, ye will not. With your free will, you will
not come to me, because man's will is in bondage to his sin
nature. He's in bondage. He's dead in
trespasses and sins. And the Lord says, now, I receive
not honor from men. In other words, I don't need
your faith to validate me. That's not why I'm telling you
it. I'm telling you it to tell you the truth. That's what he's
saying. I'm speaking to you so that you know what you are by
nature. in verse 42, but I know you that
ye have not the love of God in you. And where the love of God
is, the Lord delivers his people out of that. He shows us our
sin and he delivers us out of that sin and out of that dark,
broad way that leads to destruction. And so by nature, what the Lord
shows us in his word, throughout his word, including the passage
we're in tonight, is that by nature, in this flesh, we are
carnal. We are dead in sins. And no,
the Lord isn't pleased because we're giving it our best in religion
and trying to do what we're supposed to do. Our Lord convinces his
people that this is so, that we need him, that yeah, I have
been I thought I was pleasing to God and now I see my works
stink. I see now that I'm an offense
and that I'm not trusting in Christ. That's what he makes
his people to see. Turn over to Ephesians chapter
2. Ephesians chapter 2. And the first The first three verses there
says, describing what we are by nature, Paul says, and you
hath he quickened. You hath he made alive spiritually
who are dead in trespasses and sins, wherein in time past ye
walked according to the course of this world, according to the
prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in
the children of disobedience. among whom also we all had our
conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling
the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature
the children of wrath even as others." And what the natural
man thinks when he reads that is, oh yeah, he's filling up
all those those wicked sins. He's running in blatant works
of darkness and sin. He's out cheating and stealing
and robbing and murdering and doing whatever his heart desires
in those wicked things. But even in religion, That one
who practices religion desires to merit God's favor. He wants
God to recognize him and reward him for his labors. That's also
a lustful, sinful desire of the flesh because we want our boast. We want to be able to boast before
God. And so until Until the Lord delivers
us, we're in bondage to this flesh. We're in bondage to the
ways of darkness, even though we can appear to be very religious,
even very righteous to others. Now, the carnal man, we're told
in the scriptures, being left to his wisdom, is enmity. It's
enmity against God. Romans 8, 7 and 8 says that the
carnal mind, which is what we come, which is what we're born
into this world, within Adam, the carnal mind is enmity against
God. It is not subject to the law
of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the
flesh cannot please God." Try as hard as they will, they cannot
please God because they're laboring in the flesh and they're not
trusting Christ. And so let's go back to our text
in Isaiah 58 verse 3. And here we see that this is
what the flesh desires and lusts for is that recognition of God. The beginning of verse 3. Wherefore
have we fasted? Why have we fasted they say?
and thou seest not. Wherefore have we afflicted our
soul, and thou takest no knowledge? So they're recounting to the
Lord their sacrifices that they've made, the afflictions that they're
bringing upon themselves. And they stage afflictions. They
bring themselves into staged afflictions in order to afflict
their souls to get God to take notice of them. And people will
do this in religion. Wasn't there a time, sister,
in Right, there was a time, I grew up in a neighborhood with a lot
of Jewish children and a lot of Catholic children, and I remember
that on Fridays, the Catholics didn't eat meat, right? They
ate fish, and that was considered a sacrifice. And there's a time
of Lent, where they choose something to go without in order to afflict
themselves. But just as we see here, the
Jews did that, and God took no notice of it. So is that work
yielding fruit? Is that gaining God's attention? Is God rewarding us for those
things? He says in his word, no, no, he doesn't reward us
for those things. And so they're doing these things
and they expect God to see it and God to reward them for their
works. And that's the filthy sin. That's trying to put God into
bondage. That's trying to put God into
a position where he now owes you something. And instead of
we, the creature, being humbled and brought low because the Lord
showed us what we are and that what we do deserve, rightly,
is damnation and judgment and hell and not his mercy. Turn
over to Matthew 7. Matthew 7, verse 21 through 23. All right, Matthew 7, 21. Not everyone that
saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven,
but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.
Now listen to their works. Many will say to me in that day,
Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? And in thy name
have cast out devils? And in thy name done many wonderful
works? You'd think that they said, Lord,
have we not slept with many prostitutes and drank ourselves silly and
did drugs and did all these wicked works? No, they listed religious
sounding works. They listed works that most people
say, well that's good, that gets God's attention and God's gonna
bless you and save you. No, they were prophesying, they
were speaking in the name of the Lord, they were casting out
devils, putting away filthy works and sins, and done many wonderful
works. They did a lot of good things.
And then I will profess unto them, I never knew you, depart
from me ye that work iniquity. He called their righteous works
iniquity because they were trusting in those works to justify themselves
and to sanctify themselves. That's why our Lord tells us
that of God, Christ is made unto us our wisdom. He's made unto
us our righteousness, our justification. He's made unto us our sanctification. He's made unto us our redemption. He is our salvation. He's our
full, complete deliverance. He's everything that the sinner
needs. All that God requires, He looks to the Son for. Not
to us the sinner. He looks to His Son. And those
who come to the Father in Jesus Christ, I have full free pardon
and receive the inheritance that is given to the Son. And so we're
blessed in the Lord Jesus Christ. And our Lord said, he that doeth
the will of my father, which is in heaven, he shall enter
into the kingdom of heaven. What is it to do the will of
the father? To believe on him whom God has sent. And that's
his work. It's a work of grace. If you
believe on Christ, it's because God is being gracious to you. It's because God will be merciful
to you. In fact, the perfect scripture
for that is in Romans 9, 15, and 16. Romans 9, 15, and 16,
where God said to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have
mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.
So then, it's not of him that willeth. God isn't looking to
your will, free, in bondage, or otherwise. God isn't looking
to the will of man. That doesn't save him. Nor of
him that runneth. It's not that guy who's doing
many good works, but of God that showeth mercy. It comes down
to the will and purpose of our God, and the will and purpose
of God is that he will be gracious to his people in Christ, because
it glorifies the Son. No, it does not glorify this
flesh. It puts this flesh in the dust on our faces, but it
glorifies the Son, whom our Father in Heaven delights in. And he
purposed to glorify the Son. And so all the glory, all salvation
is in Christ. It's none for man, none for man. The very fact that our God will
open the gates and let us into heaven is glory enough. It's
undeserving grace and mercy that he should receive a sinner like
us. And so our Lord says, trust Christ,
trust him. He said in Matthew 16, 25, whosoever
will save his life will lose it, and whosoever will lose his
life for my sake shall find it. In other words, that one who
isn't trusting Christ can't let his works go. He's terrified
to let his works go, because he can't see, well, how is God
gonna be merciful to me? But the Lord's shown, Let that
go. Look to the One whom God has
sent. Look to the Son. Trust His blood. He is able to save to the uttermost. He gives His Spirit. and he'll
lead you and he'll cause you to walk in the ways of truth. That's why he said in Matthew
6, 33, seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness
and all these things that you're worried about and troubled about
and have so many questions about, they'll all be given unto you. all be added unto you." Those
works that you're worried about, the Lord will bring them to pass. That's why it says in Ephesians
2 10, for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto
good works which God hath before ordained that we should walk
in them. Stop trying to come to God with
Jesus and your works. Come to the Lord in Christ alone. And all those other things, he's
ordained what you will do. He'll keep you. He delivers you. He turns your heart from walking
in filth and wickedness. It's all of him. In Philippians
3.3, Paul said, for we are the circumcision. We are the children
of God, not made with hands. It's not about circumcision,
cutting the flesh by the hand of flesh, but by God, by the
spirit of God, reaching where no man can reach and get to.
Because the Lord knows the heart. He looks on the heart. So we
are the circumcision which worship God in the spirit and rejoice
in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh. Christ is all our
confidence. Christ is all our salvation.
Trust Christ. He keeps and delivers his people
to the utter most. And so through the rebuke of
God, by bringing us to see what we are, that no, our works don't
save us, it strips the flesh of vain confidences and trusting
in self, and delivers us from dead-letter religion, and brings
us into the light, to behold the light of heaven, the Lord
Jesus Christ, who is the light of this world, the only salvation,
that God has sent into this world to save his people. Look to Him. And so, our Lord, the word comes
as a harsh word to the people, but it strips the flesh. It's to deliver us from the filthy
ways of this world. And so, what we find is, it's
not just little oversights. Oh, I didn't realize that, you
know, I was adding to it. No, the Lord's saying this is
wicked. This is abomination. This is the filthy way that man
goes, because he's so confident that what he's doing, that his
righteousness is good and acceptable with God, that he won't hear
He won't hear Christ. He won't look to Christ. He won't
trust in the blood of Christ. He keeps looking to what he has
in his hand. But when the Lord does strip
it down, then you see the invaluable work of the Lord Jesus Christ. You see the person, the salvation
of God in Christ. Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable
gift, the Lord Jesus Christ. And so we find that our Lord
is gracious when He does this to us, when He shows us our need.
And at the end of verse 3, Isaiah 58 verse 3, Behold in the day
of your fast, at time that you set aside to sacrifice yourself,
and to make sacrifices and to afflict yourself, he says, you
find pleasure in it. That's your fast. What you're
doing, you find pleasure because you think this is it. I'm accruing
good, valuable works on the other side of the scale to outweigh
the wickedness. And he says, and you exact all
your labors. If you do something nice, if
you do something good, you expect God to recognize it. And we see
it even when we do it for other people. We expect them to recognize
it. And if they don't acknowledge it, we're like, wow, that was
rude. They didn't acknowledge it. Because we expect to be rewarded
for our works in the flesh. In the flesh, we think others
should recognize it. And we do it with God, too. Lord,
don't you see what I'm doing? hard I'm working for you, you're
not acknowledging it, doing nothing for me, right? And that's how
we are by nature. And he continues verse 4, behold
ye fast for strife and debate, right? We want others to feel
sorry for us and glory in us and we argue with them if they
don't see it the way we think they should see it. If we got
to spell it out for them we get mad, don't you see what I'm doing? And to smite with the fist of
wickedness. We want mercy for ourselves,
but we're exactors with others. We want others to recognize,
you know what, I'm having a bad day. I'm sorry, I had a short
temper with you. But then when someone else is
short with us, we're quick to judge them and not assume that,
hey, maybe they're just having a bad day. Maybe they're worn
out and having a tough time. We do that to one another. And
the Lord tells his people, ye shall, now here's words of grace,
ye shall not fast as ye do this day to make your voice to be
heard on high. So all that. That self-indulging,
the Lord says, I'm going to deliver my people. I'm going to show
them true righteousness. I'm going to show them Christ.
I'm going to show them it's not by their religious sacrifices
and works that get my attention. That's not what pleases me. I'm
pleased with my son, the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave his life
for his people on the cross to put away their sins. He's our
propitiation. He's the one who turned the wrath
of God that was against us away from us and brought it on himself,
being our sacrifice, bearing our sins, and put it away to
obtain remission, forgiveness for our sins for us. Peter tells
us that the earth also and the works that are therein shall
be burned up. All the works, good and bad,
all that's gonna get burned up in the judgment for the wicked.
But in grace, in the day of grace, our Lord in mercy destroys our
confidence in our works. It's a merciful thing. He's gracious
to do it, to deliver us from vain fleshly confidences, to
see that our works are not a refuge. They're not a refuge from the
Lord. Christ is the refuge. that the
Lord has given for his people. He's the one that we run to.
He's the one that we look to and trust him. He's our hope
and our salvation. To trust in anything else besides
Christ is a slippery slope. It's like standing on sand when
a great tidal wave is rolling in. and coming to wipe us out. And so there's many scriptures
where our Lord rebukes the dead religion of the Jews. We see
that. But for his people, the true
Israel, Christ's rebuke yields fruits of righteousness. He does
it for our good. It's to separate us from those
vain dead works and to trust and feed upon the Lord Jesus
Christ and Him alone. And I'll close with Isaiah 55,
verse 10 and 11. We're close there, so let's go
to Isaiah 55, verse 10 and 11. The Lord says, for as the rain
cometh down, and the snow from heaven and returneth not thither,
but watereth the earth and maketh it bring forth in bud, that it
may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall
my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth. It shall not return
unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall
prosper in the thing whereto I sent it. Amen. All right, let's close in prayer,
and then we'll have a hymn. Our gracious Lord, we thank you
for your grace, and not leaving us in dead letter religion, but
showing us that Christ is sufficient for all our salvation and that
you require nothing else. You need no other salvation. You need no other works, but
you are pleased and satisfied with the work of Christ. You're
pleased and satisfied with the blood of Christ. You are pleased
and satisfied with your son. and you tell us, hear him, look
to him. Don't look to anything else,
but to Christ and Christ alone. Lord, help us indeed to look
to Christ by faith, which you bear in us, which you bring forth
from us by your spirit. Lord, help us to look to him
who is all our salvation and all the hope that you've given
to your people. Thank you, Lord, for this mercy
and grace. It's in the Lord's name that we pray and give thanks,
amen. Our closing hymn is 255 Blessed
Assurance. 255. Was it assurance, Jesus is mine? Oh, what a foretaste of glory
divine! Heir of salvation, purchase of
God! Born of His Spirit, wash in His
blood. This is my story, this is my
song, praising my Savior all the day long. This is my story,
this is my song, praising my Savior all the day long. Perfect submission, perfect delight. Visions of rapture now burst
on my sight. Angels descending bring from
above echoes of mercy, whispers of love. This is my story. This is my song. Praising my
Savior all the day long. This is my story, this is my
song. Praising my Savior all the day
long. Perfect submission, all is at
rest. I in my Savior am happy and blessed,
Watching and waiting, looking above, Filled with His goodness,
lost in His love. This is my story, this is my
song, Praising my Savior all the day long. This is my story,
this is my song, praising my Savior all the day long.