Let's begin this evening service
by standing and singing from your paper, The Lord Will Provide. The Lord Will Provide. ? Though troubles assail and dangers
affright ? ? Though friends should all fail and foes all unite ?
? Tis one thing secures us, whatever betide ? ? His promise assures
us the Lord will provide ? The birds without barn or storehouse
are fed, from them let us learn to trust for our bread. His saints what is needed shall
ne'er be denied, so long as tis written the Lord will provide. No strength of our own, nor goodness
we claim. Our trust is all cast on His
precious name. In this our strong refuge for
safety we hide. The Lord is our refuge, the Lord
will provide. When life is most o'er and death
is in view, the word of His grace will see us safe through. Not fearing nor doubting, with
Christ on our side, we hope to die shouting, the Lord will provide. I would like to read Psalm 87. Psalm 87. A psalm or song for the sons
of Korah. His foundation is in the holy
mountains. The Lord love at the gates of
Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob. Glorious things are
spoken of thee, O city of God, Selah. I will make mention of
Rahab and Babylon to them that know me. Behold, Philistia and
Tyre with Ethiopia, this man was born there. And of Zion it
shall be said, this and that man shall be born in her, and
the highest himself shall establish her. The Lord shall count when
he writeth up the people that this man was born there, Selah.
as well as the singers, as the players on instruments shall
be there. All my springs are in thee. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you
for all what you have given unto us. Father, we are unworthy of
anything, but Father, you continue to provide for us, whether it's
for our bodies and also to provide this place here where we can
come together. Father, we are thankful that
you also have completed all what is necessary to save your sheep. Father, you have taken care of
our sanctification, our redemption, and everything has been taken
care of on the blessed cross where you have poured out your
blood and you have made satisfaction unto the Father Father, thank
you for your precious gift of faith, whereby we can rest in
the Lord Jesus Christ and all that he has accomplished, and
that we can cease from our own religion and our own works. Father,
please remember us this evening. You know all the circumstances.
You know those that perhaps are struggling with their health
and those that are traveling. Lord, preserve us and bring us
together as a little flock here. Give us health and strength.
And remember, especially this evening, where Brother Eric hopes
to stand before us. Father, we thank you for him.
Continue, Lord, to give him the courage and the strength as he
prepares these messages. Father, pour out your spirit
upon him this evening and bless him that he may speak freely
of that finished and accomplished work, our only comfort and give
us, Lord, hearts and ears to hear. Remember us in mercy. Remember our loved ones, Lord,
our children. You know all things perfectly
and everything is perfectly in your hands. And Lord, you can
call them out of nature's darkness and give them an appetite for
the Lord Jesus Christ. For Jesus' sake alone, amen.
As you remain sitting, let us sing our second hymn. We've Come
to Worship You, Our God. We've Come to Worship You, Our
God. ? We've come to worship you, our
God ? ? Sinners redeemed by Christ's shed blood ? ? To hear the gospel
of your grace ? ? And from our hearts sing forth your praise
? O Lord, come down in mighty power, with your spirit fill
us this hour. Speak through your servant once
again, or else our worship is in vain. Helpless, we look to
you, our God. Reveal our Savior through your
word. Open our hearts, pour in your
grace. I've helped the world fill us
with praise. Thank you. Good evening. Turn with me to Isaiah chapter
50. We're gonna look at the first seven
verses this evening. Now, our God is always teaching
his people. And in that teaching he's consistently
making us to know the gospel. He makes us to know the joy of
our salvation and he shines forth to us the beauty and the excellency
of Christ. And this is especially made clear
to us. Christ is made bright to us when
we see what we are in ourselves, when we see the ugliness of our
sin. And by that I also include, and
I mean, the ugliness of our religion, the ugliness of our self-righteousness
and thinking that we can earn the favor of our God. And I was thinking about this
passage, and it begins with the Lord revealing to man that his
problems, everything that's happening to him and his struggles and
his coldness and darkness and deadness is the result of his
sin. And earlier this week, I was
picking some vegetables from the garden, and I had plenty
of cucumbers. And I was running some over to
my neighbor. I saw her pull up in the driveway,
so I was running some over. And right after she said thank
you, the first thing out of her mouth was, this earth is so crazy. And English isn't her first language. And so I wasn't really sure what
she meant. And I said, well, what do you
mean by the earth is so crazy? Are you talking about the weather?
Are you talking about politics? What do you mean? And she just
said, everything. Everything's crazy. And I had added that, well, I thank the
Lord that our sovereign God is in control of all things, and
he has everything in his control, which she just blew right by. But thinking about it, I wish
I had asked her, well, why do you think this world is crazy? I would have been interested
to hear what her response was. Man blames God for their problems. I remember back in college, and
that's quite a ways now, but we had a class that was right
after lunchtime, and so a lot of the students would get there
kind of early, before the teacher, and it was a fun class. We had
a lot of good discussions. I was a professing believer at
that time, and so I was always taking any opportunity I could
to tell others about Christ, about the hope I had in Christ
at that time. And this one young woman in the
class, she just cried out, saying, how can there be a God? There's
so much evil in the world. There's so much evil in the world.
And I remember, explaining that it's because of man's sin. It's
because of man's sin that there's so much evil. And what man does
when we look at the oppression and we see the violence and the
murders, the crimes, the injustices being done, it can cause us to
wonder, well, Lord, where Where are you in all of this, and what's
going on? And we wonder, is this God's
fault? Has He lost control of His creation,
and does He need to get them in line? But what the Lord shows
us in the scriptures is that this is the result of man's sin,
and the Lord reveals it. He shows it to us, because the
child of God benefits from seeing what we are in self. We see,
we're made to see our need of Christ. We're made to see our
need of a Savior because we find that in ourselves we're not righteous,
we're not perfect. we're not even close to perfect. And there's sin in us that we
don't even know, let alone the sin that we do see and are ashamed
of. And so man puts the blame on
God, but the Lord faithfully shows us that it's for your sin
and your iniquity that this trouble and evil is upon you. He says in Romans 5 12 by one
man sin entered into the world and death by sin and so death
passed upon all men for that all have sinned and that's good
that we know that But we need to, the Lord brings his people,
his children to experience what we are, to experience that I'm
the sinner. I'm the one who's offended holy
God and I need forgiveness. I need the grace that he provides
in his son, Jesus Christ. And naturally, naturally, we
don't know that. The Lord declares it through
his gospel. He brings his people to hear
his call. He brings his people to hear
his gospel word, to hear what we are, and to hear that he's
provided salvation in his son. And that's what the Lord's revealing
here in this chapter. He's showing man, he's showing
the people that it's because of our sin and our rebellion. And then he reveals Christ. He
shows us that He's provided the mediator in His Son. He's provided our surety in His
Son. He's provided everything we need
for salvation. And there's a people that hear
it. And we're thankful that there's
a people that hear it because it's God's elect remnant Those
people he's chosen out to hear it. A lot of people hear it with
the ear. There's an outward call that
goes forth in the gospel that a lot of people hear what the
Lord is teaching his people, but how few, there's only a remnant,
a seed of the Lord that are given an ear of faith to hear it, to
receive what the Lord's saying and they believe it. And so when
he calls them out, he's giving us, he's teaching us a right
understanding of his salvation. knowing that it's not because
of my righteousness, not because of my works, not because I've
earned your favor or turned things around sufficiently to please
you. God is perfect. He's holy. And for us to think that our
works can turn His mind and cause Him to show us grace and mercy,
that doesn't line up with the scriptures or the testimony of
the Spirit revealed to us. We see it's all of grace. Recall what we've been seeing
in Ephesians. Turn over there to Ephesians
4. And pick up there in verse 17. And we'll read a few verses here.
This is man. This is what we are in this flesh
by nature. This is what we are. Paul says,
this I say therefore and testify in the Lord that ye henceforth
walk not as other Gentiles walk. in the vanity of their mind,
having the understanding darkened, being alienated or strangers
from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them
because of the blindness of their heart, who being past feeling
have given themselves over unto lasciviousness to work all uncleanness
with greediness." These are all vile, sinful works that arise
out of the heart of man. They're in us. They're in this
flesh. They're in us by nature. They are of the spirit of this
world. But look what Paul says to the
believers in verse 20. But ye have not so learned Christ."
You've not learned, you've not heard Christ that you should
continue to walk in this sin and rebellion and thinking nothing
of it. But rather, our Lord, He shows
us what we are and shows us our need of Christ and shows us that
only Christ saves His people. Only Christ is the righteousness
of His people. Only He works this gracious salvation
in us in such a way that we learn Christ. And what I'm getting
at is that we experience, we experience this grace. We know, the Lord makes us to
know what we are, to hear the testimony concerning man, that
he's a fallen sinful creature. And that includes me. That's
what I am in this flesh, a fallen, sinful man who cannot save himself,
but he's given his people an ear to hear who is our salvation,
the Lord Jesus Christ himself. And so this is what he's revealing
to us. And I've titled the message Driven
to Christ. driven to Christ. And we begin here with these
first three verses where man's rebellion against God, his sin,
is made evident to him. And this is the In the picture here, it's the
nation of Israel complaining against God. They're the ones
saying that God's abandoned us. He's unjustly left us, and he's
not helping us. If you remember back in the last
chapter of Isaiah 49, verse 14, but Zion said, the Lord hath
forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten. And they cry that
out in the midst of the promises of the Lord being made to his
people in his Son, in the person of Jesus Christ, the Son of God,
whom he sent to this earth to bear flesh like unto his brethren
to put away our iniquity. And the Lord responds to this
notion in verse 1. Thus saith the Lord, so this
is Isaiah 50, verse 1. Thus saith the Lord, where is
the bill of your mother's divorcement, whom I have put away? You're saying I put away my people
Israel, bring out that bill of divorcement. And what he's talking
about is in the law, when an Israelite would put away his
wife, he had to give her a bill of divorcement. And in that Bill
of Divorcement, it would list out for her what uncleanness
he had found in her and why she didn't please him anymore. And
this was the Bill of Divorcement he would give to her and send
her out of his house. And so the Lord's saying, why
don't you pull out that Bill of Divorcement that you say I
gave you? And there you'll see, when you
look into it, you'll see in your heart is the sin and the evil,
how defiled and corrupt you are. And you'll see your own sin. You'll see your iniquity and
your trespasses, the rebellion you've worked against me. You'll
see your own adultery and your fornication. That's what he says
when you look at that Bill of Divorcement. And he goes on there
saying, or of which of my creditors is it to whom I have sold you? In other words, what the Lord's
saying is, I don't know anyone, anything. I haven't sold you.
I haven't done this to you. I didn't sell you off to pay
or settle any debts that I had to somebody. And then he tells
them what it is. Behold, for your iniquities have ye sold
yourselves, and for your transgressions is your mother put away. And so the Lord is saying, the
truth of the matter is, I've not abandoned you. I haven't
left my people. This is the picture he's showing
us here. I've not left you, but your own sins and iniquities
have put you away. Your sins have separated you.
And that's what he says in Isaiah 59, verse 2. Your iniquities
have separated between you and your God, and your sins have
hid his face from you that he will not hear. And so that's
the issue. The issue is it's man's sin and
iniquity. Man wants to blame God, but he's
saying, why don't you look at your heart? Why don't you hear
what I'm saying in my word and teaching the people that we're
the ones who have sinned and rebelled against God. It began
in the garden in Adam. And when we come forth, we go
right into sin, committing and doing those things that we lust
after. And the Lord then gives an example
in verse 2, where he says, I'm not hiding the truth so that
I cannot be found, but when that sound, when the gospel trumpet
goes forth, no man can be found to hear it. No one shows up to
hear it. No one wants to hear the word.
Wherefore, verse 2, when I came, was there no man? or why, when
I came, was there no man? And what I called, was there
none to answer? And we can look through the scriptures
of how the Lord provided many to come and declare this gospel. And he sent his prophets, many
prophets, to Israel to declare and teach the people, to warn
the people, to turn their hearts back to the Lord, but none heard. And ultimately He sent His Son,
His only begotten Son, taking upon Him our flesh. He came as the Lamb of God to
put away the sin of His people. But those who bore that name
that they should have been there to hear, they rejected Christ. That nation of Israel rejected
Him. They would not hear Him. They
refused to hear Him. And they would not believe on
Him or come to Him. And that's in spite of the mercy
that God had for His remnant people. And so man's always pointing
the finger at God. And he's playing the victim and
blames the Lord. But do they seek the Lord where
and when He's preached? There's hardly a place in this
world where a man can go and not hear the gospel now. It's broadcast over the internet
now and there's many ways that someone can hear the gospel and
it's in written form. It's on tapes and CDs and DVDs
and right over the internet. You can stream it, you can stream
it live, you can stream old messages, and there are plenty of good
gospel messages to be heard. But the question for man is,
are you a sinner? Am I the problem? Am I the sinner? Are we the sinners, the ones
who, that all this evil and corruption that's before us, it arises out
of our heart, and men and women like us. It arises from us. Are we the sinner in need of
God's salvation, or do we justify ourselves and seek to blame God? Turn over to 1 Peter 2, and then
put a marker there, because we'll come back in a few minutes the
same chapter, 1 Peter 2 and verse 6. Peter speaks to this in this
portion of Scripture saying, "...wherefore also it is contained
in the Scripture, Behold I lay in Zion a chief cornerstone,
elect, precious, and he that believeth on him shall not be
confounded. He that believes on Christ will
not be humiliated, or ashamed, or sorry in the day of judgment,
He that believes on Christ shall be blessed and happy, because
they even now have life in Him. to all men that in him is salvation. He's provided full, free salvation
to the uttermost to all who believe God, all who believe his son
and look to him for salvation. He even asks back in our text,
verse 2, in the middle there, he says, is my hand shortened
at all? Am I incapable of of working
salvation for my people? Is it shortened at all that it
cannot be redeemed, or have I no power to deliver?" Well, the
Lord is able. He's able to save His people,
and He makes His people to know that. But the problem is the
hardness of man's own heart, his unwillingness to believe
God, and his refusal to believe what God says concerning himself
that he's the sinner and or that he's incapable of saving himself. He just doesn't believe the Lord.
And then when he hears the salvation the Lord has provided for his
people, that man testifies to his unrighteousness because he
has no heart for it, no interest whatsoever in the salvation that
the Lord has provided his people. I'll read from Romans 3, verses
10 through 12. Paul said, as it's written, there
is none righteous, no not one. There's none that understand
it. There's none that seek it after God. They're all gone out
of the way. They are together become unprofitable. There is none that doeth good,
no not one. And in this flesh, Apart from
the grace of God, that's what each and every one of us is by
nature. This includes us. We weren't
seeking God. It was God who gave us a heart,
who showed us our need and caused us to hear the gospel and to
thirst, to become weary in ourselves and to thirst for His righteousness.
The good news, however, is that God does have a people whom He
will be gracious to Him, and He draws His people, and feeds
His people, and comforts His people with this word, this gospel
word, the word of His grace. And that's what the Lord is showing
us here in verse 2, back in our text, verse 2 and 3, He's showing
us that with God, nothing's impossible. With man, salvation is impossible. We cannot save ourselves, but
with God, all things are possible. And he says there at the end
of verse two, behold at my rebuke, I dry up the sea, I make the
rivers a wilderness, their fish stinketh because there is no
water, and dieth for thirst. And these words, they evoke that
imagery of when the Lord delivered his people that were slaves in
Egypt and he delivered them out of Egypt. There's imagery here
where he dried up the Red Sea, he parted the waters, dried the
grounds so they could walk safely through the the sea there and
then when Egypt followed their army was destroyed and and he
brought many many many things upon them upon Egypt and and
rebuked Egypt severely he says I clothe the heavens with blackness
I make sackcloth their covering And the Lord showed and demonstrated,
this is the God of creation. And Christ even revealed His
might and His power before His disciples. When He came, He showed
them that even the wind and the waves obey Him. And they asked,
what manner of man is this? that the wind and the waves obey
Him, and yet He is Almighty God. And so, there's a couple things
revealed here to us in this word, and that's the first is, nothing's
impossible for Him. Even though we cannot save ourselves,
even though our sin is vile and wicked and worthy of eternal
death, salvation is not impossible for God. He's provided the means
of his salvation for his beloved chosen elect sheep, whom he chose
out for himself before the foundation of the world. And then second
thing is he's able to turn events. You know, we see there pictures
of Egypt, but we also see how the Lord can dry up things in
our life, prosperous things in our own lives that we were trusting
in and happy with, and grown very comfortable and at ease
in, and he's able to dry up some of those things. Thankfully,
he rarely wipes it all away, but there are times where he
dries up just the right thing for us. He knows exactly where
to touch us and to bring these hard, locked legs down on their
knees and cause us to cry. To cry. not just cry out, but
to cry and weep before our God, and say, Lord, I'm so cold, and
I've grown so far apart from You, and He's able to break us
in such a way so as not to destroy everything, but to bring us to
see, Lord, help me, have mercy on me, Lord, be merciful to me,
forgive me, and renew me, and restore me, in the spirit of
your grace, Lord. He's able to do it so that we
cry out for His mercy and His salvation. And in doing so, He
reveals His power and His glory in such a way that all these
words here in these scriptures, they come alive to us. And we
see that it's a living word. that He is the Living Word and
He makes it effectual in our hearts and we're blessed to read
it and to see how the Lord is true and made it real in our
hearts, in grace. What is man? That thou art mindful
of Him, O Lord. And we see, Lord, why would you
even take thought of me? to break me and my hardened,
mad dash to hell and my utter corruption, yet you seek out
me, a poor, little, unprofitable sheep. who can do nothing for
himself or herself, and the Lord does that for his people. And
so the many that are left to themselves, they don't hear it. They get hardened and continue
on. They will not hear it, but there
is a people whom the Lord loves. And He does this for even a small
little flock because He loves them. Because He loves them and
cares for them and provides for His people. And He'll make them
to know His salvation. If you have your marker, go back
to 1 Peter 2. 1 Peter 2 verses 7 and 8. And Peter writes, this word for you that do hear,
and for you that do believe, that you may know the grace of
your God for you. He says, unto you therefore,
which believe? He is precious. But unto them which be disobedient,
and that means they do not believe the word of God, they don't believe
the word of God concerning Christ and His salvation, they have
a righteousness of their own, It says, unto them which be disobedient,
the stone which the builders disallowed, the same is made
the head of the corner, and a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense,
even to them which stumble at the word, being disobedient,
or unbelieving, whereunto also they were appointed. And that
is sobering words for the religious, because When we're well studied
in religion and in doctrine to such a degree that we look to
that knowledge as our hope of salvation, we can be very hard
and miss what the Lord is teaching us. If you're His, He'll go after
you. But it may take time before we
hear it and get ourselves into quite a mess. but He is faithful
to save His people and deliver them from darkness. So, one thing
that believers learn is that when things are going well in
His flesh, we don't pay attention, and we don't hear, and we can
sit in the gospel ministry for years even, and things be going
well, and think of scriptures like when When the Lord is pleased
with a man, He makes even His enemies to be at peace with Him.
And think everything's well until the Lord shakes it and we realize
everything isn't well. And I speak that from experience.
That's why I know that verse, because I've been there. And the Lord, in mercy, causes
His people to hear His Word. And He shakes that which is made
with the hand, this flesh, that which is made, and He shows us
it's all It's all worthless and He can bring down man's works
and yet graciously, amazingly, wonderfully keep and maintain
that which He's given, that which He's built and given to you in
Christ and sustain you and keep you and in the work lose nothing
but the flesh. Lose nothing but the flesh and
be blessed and comforted and drawn to your Savior. When we
lose something that this flesh has kept and protected and coveted
to such a degree, when we lose that, the Lord always draws us,
His people, to Himself. And how is that a bad thing when
we're brought near to the Lord? and to cry out to Him and to
seek Him. And so, the natural man left
to himself, when he's separated from God, he's happy until the
Lord shows him his need and takes away that prosperity that he
was depending on and trusting in. And so, the Lord does it
because He won't leave His child in darkness. And so the all-wise
God and Savior, he's teaching his people. He brings us to the
end of ourselves to behold our God, to hear him. It says in
1 Corinthians 1, verse 29 and 30, we're told that he brings
us to see our weakness, to see that not many wise, not many
noble, not many mighty are called. But the foolish things of this
earth are called in him, his people, who have nothing to give
to him, that no flesh should glory in his presence. But of him, but of God, are ye
in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom and righteousness, and sanctification and redemption,
so that Christ has made everything to us. And we're in Christ by
the glory and the power of our Almighty God. So at this point
in the chapter, the Spirit makes known to us the One that's speaking
to us, that is revealing all this to us in wisdom. And we
see that it's Christ, Christ Jesus, our righteousness. And He's been speaking the whole
time. And we know it's Him, you just go to verse 4 in our text,
Isaiah 50 verse 4. The Lord God hath given me the
tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season
to him that is weary. He wakeneth morning by morning,
he wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learned. This is the Son of God who's
enrobed in flesh, who's come, our Almighty Savior, our God
and Savior, our hope when there was no hope, our light where
there is no light but darkness. And we see this is the mediator
between God and man, whom God the Father has sent, his own
Son. John 3.34 says, for he whom God hath sent speaketh the words
of God. For God giveth not the spirit
by measure unto him. And so our Savior comes and reveals
himself. And in so doing, when he reveals
himself in power and in might and in his glory to his people,
there's a renewing and a refreshing of his spirit and a comfort in
him. It's because we're restored in
him. And he delivers us from those worthless things that we
trusted in and show us that He is precious. He makes Him precious
to us over and again. And that word in season that
He speaks, that's the gospel. That's the gospel which comes
to us as good news because we're made weary. That word weary is
that we thirst. we thirst for His righteousness,
and we're made hungry for His righteousness, which only He
could give, so that we receive that Word, which He says there
in Matthew 11, 28 and 29, Come unto Me, all ye that labor and
are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you
and learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall
find rest unto Me. your souls." And so, the Lord,
that word, He says, we'll learn of Him. And that's what He does.
He teaches us, He learns us Christ. It's not good grammar, but it's
right. It makes it to the heart. He
learns us Christ well so that we hear His gospel word. He is
precious to us. He is that chief cornerstone.
and were made to believe him and I think I'm just going to
stop there because I think that's a good place to stop and just
to to think sweetly on your Savior. The rest of these words, it's
all of Christ, and you see what he does, how he performed for
us. The point I was gonna make a
little later is, it's not just seeing and knowing that Christ
did this for us. It's not just the doctrine or
the knowledge of it and seeing it in the scriptures, but it's
made precious to us because we see his love for us. in sacrificing Himself for unprofitable
sinners who could not save themselves. His great love drove Him here,
and His great love and mercy and grace drives us to the Lord
Jesus Christ. So I pray He bless your heart
and that He continually keep driving us to the Lord Jesus
Christ and rejoicing in Him. Amen. All right, brethren, let's
close in prayer. Our gracious Lord, we thank you
for your mercy and how kind and gracious you are
to not leave us to ourselves, especially when we're in defiance
and being ignorant and trying to hide out in darkness and keep
things from you. Lord, you know all things. And
we thank you for your mercy and power which is able to shake
our works in such a way that they all crumble. But that which
you've made can never fall apart and can never be destroyed. And
you won't destroy it because you've promised it to us in the
covenant of grace established by the blood of our Savior. Lord,
we thank you for your great mercy and love The peace which you've
given to us in your Son, Jesus Christ, keep us ever looking
to Him. Bless your people, Lord, because
we need you. And we're thankful that we need
you because that's your work of grace in us. We pray for your
people here. We pray for your churches where
the gospel is preached. We pray that you would call out
your people that are hungering and thirsting and not being fed
by the gospel, that you would call them out of Babylon, out
of dead churches, and bring them to be with those lights and candlesticks
which you've set upon the earth for your people to hear this
gospel, that they be fed of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's in His
name that we pray and give thanks. Amen. Let's all stand and sing Amazing
Grace. 236 Amazing Grace. Amazing grace, how sweet the
sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now I'm
found. Was blind, but now I see. Was grace that taught my heart
to fear, and grace my fears relieved. How precious did that grace appear
The hour I first believed Through many dangers, toils, and snares
I have already come ? This grace hath brought me safe thus far
? ? And grace will lead me home ? ? When we've been there 10,000
years ? ? Bright shining as the sun ? We've no less days to sing
God's praise than when we first begun.