Okay. Tonight I wanna read from 1 Corinthians
2. 1 Corinthians 2, and we're gonna
read the first eight verses. I think it goes well with our
text this evening. Paul says, and I brethren, When
I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom,
declaring unto you the testimony of God. For I determined not
to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And I was with you in weakness
and in fear and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching
was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration
of the Spirit and of power. that your faith should not stand
in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. Howbeit we
speak wisdom among them that are perfect, yet not the wisdom
of this world, nor of the princes of this world that come to naught.
But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden
wisdom which God ordained before the world unto our glory. which
none of the princes of this world knew, for had they known it,
they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. Okay, let's pray. Our gracious
Lord, we thank you, Father, for your mercy and grace toward us.
Lord, that you would bless us to hear your gospel word that we would hear the preaching
of the cross of our Savior, Jesus Christ, that we would be given
of your spirit to both hear it and receive it and have faith,
the fruit of your spirit, have faith revealed in us. And Lord,
we ask that you would bless us this evening, that you would
help us to worship you to rejoice in God our Savior, who has saved
us and had mercy upon us and dealt with us so kindly, not
as our sins deserve, but in grace and love and kindness. You've shown us salvation. You've brought salvation into
our hearts and delivered us from darkness. And Lord, we thank
you for this and ask that you would Indeed, unite us to the
body of Christ, that we would be one with Him, and one with
one another, serving one another, and helping one another, and
encouraging one another, and that we would be taught of Your
Spirit. Lord, that You would deliver us from the love of this
world, and the love of dead, worthless things. that we may
know you and rejoice in God our Savior. Lord, we ask that you
would be with those that are hurting, struggling, fearful,
afraid. Lord, we ask that you would teach
your people and that you would reveal to us that you are God
above all. and you control all things in
this earth, in this earth as in heaven, and Lord, we pray
that you would keep us ever looking to you, beholding the things
of our God, and seeing how you are implementing your will in
the earth, and now you are establishing your kingdom, and your name is
being glorified in the hearts of your people, on their lips,
let our tongues, mouths speak of you, of your glory and grace
and power, that you have shown for the good and help of your
people. Lord, help us indeed to be lights
in this dark world. And Father, we pray concerning
this building, Lord, that we seem so close to have access
to. We ask, Lord, that you would
bless it, that you would give us favor with the owner, and
that you would bless the services there and that you would use
that location to call out many more of your people, other families,
Lord, who are seeking you and shut up in darkness but are looking
and desire to know the true and living God. Lord, would you please
establish us there in Battlefield and Lord, call out your people,
gather us together, that we may meet in peace and regularly,
without interruption, being able to declare the salvation of our
God in Jesus Christ, and that you would save sinners, and you
would bless them to hear the gospel, and that you would comfort
your people and grow us in the grace and knowledge of our Lord
and Savior, Jesus Christ. Lord, we only desire to glorify
him and to know you the true and living God. Lord, we ask
that you bless our services tonight, that you help me to preach it
in spirit and in truth, and that you help your people to hear
it in spirit and in truth. It's in the name of our Lord
and Savior, Jesus Christ, that we pray this. Amen. Okay, brethren. Our text is Isaiah
41, And I wanna look at verses 15 through 20 with you. Isaiah
41, 15 through 20. Now, the Lord is making known to his people that
the works of strength. What we see in our
fight against our enemies and the battles that we go in, the
trials that we have and the various afflictions that we experience
We see that our overcoming of these things is the work of our
God. It's all according to His will
and purpose, and He's executing and doing His will here in the
earth, and He's doing it in His people. He's doing it through
His people, for His people, to the glory of His name and for
our good. And He says back there in verse
14, Isaiah 41, 14, he says, fear not, don't be afraid, thou worm,
Jacob, and ye men of Israel. I will help thee, saith the Lord,
and thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel. So that he's reminding
us, we don't need to be afraid and fearful of what we see or
wonder about whether or not things are gonna work out well for us,
because our God is reminding us here, throughout scriptures
and especially here in our passage tonight, that all the blessings
of God are richly bestowed upon us in his Son, Jesus Christ. We know this because Christ our
Savior came voluntarily. He became what we are. He came
in the likeness of our flesh, the weakness of our flesh. He came into this life having
nothing, just like we all enter into this world, and he was made
like us, except he himself is without sin. He's the Son of
God. He's very God. And he became
a very man, just like us, that he might be a fit Savior, a fit
sacrifice for his people. And what we see is his triumph
over his enemies and over our enemies, we see his triumph in
his weakness. We see him forsaken by the Father. We see him having no no apparent
strength or ability to overcome his enemies, and yet it was there
on the cross in weakness, hanging there, willingly hanging there,
bearing the sins of his people, suffering under the wrath of
God, and it was there in that weakness that he overcame all
his enemies and our enemies, and he conquered our foes. He
even conquered our hearts there. He triumphed over the enemies
of his people and wrought for us in that hour, in that moment,
he wrought for us salvation, eternal life, and all the blessings
of God were given to us, secured for us there in that very moment
when he triumphed over his enemies upon the cross. And so our Savior,
we see him doing everything. He made atonement. He made a
covering. for the sin of his people, right? He made a covering there for
us by the death of himself. And we're told there concerning
his weakness in Psalm 22, verse six, he said, I am a worm and
no man. The son of glory, the God, our
creator, said, I am a worm and no man, a reproach of men and
despised of the people. And so he did this work in weakness
when he laid down his life for us, dying the death of his people
under the wrath of God in order that we should have life and
fellowship with our God and know him in truth and in light and
by his spirit. And so in Christ, all the blessings
of God are given to us, freely given to us, poured upon us in
the Son, Jesus Christ. Now I've titled our message tonight,
Worm Threshed Mountains. Worm Threshed Mountains, or mountains
threshed with worms. And first we're gonna look at
the work of God here in threshing these mountains. and then we'll
look at how the Lord provides for us. We'll see what he's declaring
to us in his provision for us, brethren. Okay, so first this
work of our God. Now, in Christ, our God is speaking
to us. He's speaking to us, just like
he blesses us in Christ, so he speaks to us now in Christ, and
he's speaking to us as we are but worms. We're weak. Just as
our Savior became weak for us, he's speaking to us because we
are weak in ourselves, right? We have nothing to boast in. And he says in verse 15, behold,
I will make thee a new sharp threshing instrument having teeth. Thou shalt thresh the mountains
and beat them small and shalt make the hills as chaff. Now when you think of a worm,
you realize they don't have any might, right? There's nothing
that, no great defense except for maybe they're slimy and ugly
and squirmy, you know, and people don't like to touch them for
that reason, but basically they have no defense. But the part
of them which is strongest, which is most profitable or useful
or valuable is their mouth. They use their mouths to chew
through hard soils. They use their mouth to chew
through rotting, decaying things and break those things down and
bring those things to nothing so that something more useful,
more profitable comes as a result of their being there in the garden. And so the Lord says that he's
going to make his people. He's the one who makes his people. He's the one that does this work,
and he says, I'm going to make you a new, sharp, threshing instrument,
having teeth. And the margin there, if you
look at the margin in your Bibles, if you have one there, it says,
instead of the word teeth, it says mouths, having mouths, right? Having the mouth of a worm there,
if you will, so that with these mouths, we shall thresh the mountains
and beat them small and shall make the hills as chaff with
these mouths that are going to chew through that rock and rubble
and dirt and rotting things there. And so what the Lord means by
this picture here, what he means is that he's going to do a wondrous
work in that first he shall redeem a people for himself. He's going
to make a people for himself that he's pleased to use. A people small, a people few,
a people that are weak in themselves and have no strength or ability
or anything to boast of, but the Lord's going to make use
of them in his power and and glory, and what he does is he
reveals to his church, he reveals to his gathered people who are
brought to know him, he reveals to them the mystery of godliness,
the mystery of godliness. And when I say the mystery of
godliness, I'm talking about the gospel of Jesus Christ. how
that we are saved not by our own works of righteousness, but
we're saved by that faithful sacrifice, that faithful work
of our Savior who died in our place, who gave himself, who
gave up the ghost, shed his blood, gave his life, that we should
have life in him, that we should have a covering of righteousness
to stand before our God and be accepted of him. All right, so
we're speaking of the gospel, and that gospel is revealed by
God to us. It's the gospel word, and he
sends his people forth who are taught this gospel word, though
we're weak in ourselves, and they're gonna go forth with nothing
but their mouths, just like a worm, right? No, nothing beautiful
about it, nothing, Glorious about it, nothing strong about it,
but they have a mouth, and they're gonna use that mouth to proclaim
this gospel, to proclaim this mystery of godliness to other
people. All right, that's what the Lord
is showing us here in this passage. Now, when our Lord was raised
from the dead, and he ascended up to the Father in heaven, he
gave his apostles power and authority to proclaim the gospel, to declare
what Christ had shown to them, to declare this gospel of Jesus
Christ. And so they began to speak this
gospel there in Jerusalem and the surrounding cities of Jerusalem
there, okay? But our God in wisdom, He scattered
his people. He sent them out from Jerusalem
and the surrounding cities out to Samaria, and then from Samaria
even out further to all the known world, all the way now even to
here, which wasn't even really known by most of the world at
that time. But he did this by sending a
persecution. He caused a persecution. It says
in Acts 8.4, Therefore, they that were scattered abroad went
everywhere preaching the word. With their mouths they went forth
being persecuted, but everywhere they went, they preached the
gospel of God. They used their mouth to preach
wherever the Lord sent them and to declare the truth of Jesus
Christ. And so, even in that little thing,
we see the wisdom of God, how even when we experience setbacks,
when we experience disappointments or failings or things we thought
should come to pass but they fall through or something else
happens that we weren't expecting. We know that our God is wise
and in control, and he's working all things together for our good. Even as these brethren thought,
wow, we love the Lord, we're his people, and yet persecution
is coming against us, and they fled from where they were, but
the Lord used that to spread his gospel word. And so by this
foolish means of preaching the word of God, we know that our
Lord through that is, he uses it to save his people. He says in 1 Corinthians 1.18
that unto us, Paul said, unto us which are saved, that preaching
of the gospel, it is the power of God. We know that this is
what God uses, it's where He brings to bear his power in the
preaching of the word to save his people. Paul, in 1 Corinthians
1, he called it the gospel. He called it the preaching of
the cross. He called it the cross of Christ,
right? That's what we're preaching.
That is the gospel, to declare what Christ our Savior has accomplished
for his people there on the cross. Not to be ashamed of it, not
to belittle it, not to put it aside and talk about religious
things. but to proclaim and declare to
the people what Christ himself had to do for us and did for
us willingly in the death and sacrifice of himself there on
the cross. And so it's this foolishness,
right, which them in darkness think is just foolishness that
our God uses. This is how he saves his people. In 1 Corinthians 2.7, Paul said,
we speak the wisdom of God. We speak the gospel of God. We
preach and declare the cross of Jesus Christ. We speak this
wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom which God ordained
before the world unto our glory. And the Lord tells us in his
word more about this word. He says in Hebrews 4 verse 12,
He says the word of God, which is speaking of the gospel of
Jesus Christ, the cross of Christ, he says the word of God is quick,
it's living, it's powerful and sharper. With teeth, a mouth
with teeth, it's sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing
even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the
joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of
the heart." This gospel is the teeth of our mouths, right? We're just speaking this mystery
of godliness. We're just proclaiming what Christ
our Lord and Savior has done for us, and we ourselves, we're
nothing. We're nothing. There's nothing
special or glorious or amazing about us, and yet the Lord uses
this word to minister to his people, to give you exactly what
you need when you need it. He's answering questions that
you have. He's equipping you with his word
and his answer before things happen to you, during the time
that things are happening to you, after things have happened
to you, and he's ministering this word, he's teaching you
Him. He's teaching you His glory and
His grace all being revealed in Jesus Christ who loved us
and gave Himself for us. It's never separate because we
become good or religious people that God is pleased to work with. Man pushes Christ aside but our
God never does. That's how He deals with us.
He works He blesses us in his son, Jesus Christ. And so Paul
said in 1 Corinthians 2, verse four to five, 1 Corinthians 2,
four and five, he said, my speech and my preaching was not with
enticing words of man's wisdom. but in demonstration of the Spirit
and of power, that your faith, whereby you believe God, the
testimony of God concerning Christ, meaning you know what you are
and you know what I am, we're sinners, in need of His grace
and mercy, that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men,
but in the power of God. And so it's not who's preaching. It's not who is standing here
declaring the word to you. It's not how effective of a speaker
I am. It's not how I'm preaching the
word to you, but it's what we're preaching. Rather, who we are
preaching, who we're exalting and lifting up, and it's the
Lord God, as it pleases Him, that comes with power. attending that word and bringing
it home to your hearts, causing you to hear, causing you to receive
it and believe that word by the Spirit in your heart by faith. All right, so the Lord, he brings
the power of God to bear upon our hearts. He brings it to bear
upon what we're hearing and to know this is the word of God
and the work of our God and what he does in the salvation of his
people. And he says to us, thou shalt
thresh the mountains and beat them small and shalt make the
hills as chaff. Now, Some say, well, these mountains,
they are the pride of our flesh. And I think that's true. It is
speaking of the pride of our flesh. And we see that, but notice
there in our text, he says mountains. and hills so that these are plural. These are many mountains and
many hills that are being threshed so that more broadly we understand
this to be imaginations and every high thing that exalted itself
against the knowledge of God. And that's from 2 Corinthians
10 5. Every high thing that exalts itself against God. These are
those towers and those bulwarks that men set up in their hearts
and their imaginations by which they defend, try to defend against
the truth of God and try to hold down the fort of their own thoughts
and their own works and their own idolatry and confusion. And it's the gospel that comes
and tears those things down and threshes them to dust, to chaff,
makes them small and nothing. All right, so one mountain. right, concerns the law, right? This thought, this idea that
man has that by the law, I'll make myself righteous. By the
law, I'll make myself more acceptable to God. By the law, I'll try
to justify myself. Or some who know well, it's Christ
that justifies, but it also goes for the law by which we try to
sanctify ourselves. See, we've got to come in to
know that Christ is all. He's our justification, and He's
our sanctification as well, right? By one sacrifice, He hath forever
sanctified His people. He sat down at the right hand
of God, having accomplished our redemption. And so, these mountains
stand opposed to our seeing and beholding and believing the Lord. And all that, this is just the
weakness of the flesh and the folly of our minds that the Lord
is taking down. So only by the word of faith,
which we preach, can we say to this mountain, be thou removed,
be thou removed and be thou cast into the sea. And Christ said,
it shall be done. And we preach the gospel. And
as the Lord reveals faith in your hearts, that's when you
see, yeah, it's not by my works of righteousness. It's not by
my best attempt at keeping the law that God receives me and
that I'm saved. It's by the blood of Jesus Christ
alone. Lord, have mercy on me. Turn
me and save me from dead letter religion. So no flesh is gonna
climb to God and please him by their works. but it also goes
on to all the mountains of our fears, the mountains of our sin,
right? All these things that stand opposed
to us, by which we hide behind as a defense to keep from hearing
the truth of God and to keep ourselves out of the light of
God. And so by the gospel, he deals
with our doubts, he deals with our fears, he deals with our
unbelief. When we try to hold on to our
works of righteousness, it's the gospel that comes and takes
those things out of our hand. It's the gospel that empties
our hands of self-confidence and self-righteousness and believing
that we are somehow contributing to the work that Christ alone
must do. It's the gospel that comes against
the mountain of covetousness and the mountain of idolatry
by which we stand opposed to the truth of God and the foolishness
of these things. It's this mountain of pride and
hatred and lust and laziness that the gospel addresses and
deals with us. And so the Lord gives his people
the gospel and enables us to preach and proclaim and declare
the gospel because that's how he's threshing these mountains
and these hills, things great and things small, but all of
it's gotta go. And it's the Lord that's gonna
deal with it. And that's the comfort is as our God deals with
it in his word and he teaches us. Christ's blood covers our
sins and our iniquities, and he'll uncover each of the things
that he'll uncover in us and deal with us through the preaching
of the gospel. And it pleases him to make us
righteous in him, and it pleases him to conform us to the image
of his son, Jesus Christ. And he does this through the
gospel, and he's patiently declaring that gospel, and he's patiently
threshing those mountains that stand opposed to the truth of
God. And that's a comfort, brethren.
It's not what you and I figure out and go and do. It's hear
the gospel. Give your ear to hear the gospel
of our Savior Jesus Christ, knowing that our God is pleased to work
through the preaching of the gospel. And he's got you. You're saved by by his grace
and faith. And that's a real comfort for
us. But rest in him and pray and
ask that he establish his kingdom in your heart. But even that
prayer is of him. Even that prayer is of him. All
right, now, the gospel, with the voice of the spirit, chews
through these mountains and makes these hills and mountains chaff. All right, look at verse 16.
Thou shalt fan them, and the wind shall carry them away, and
the whirlwind shall scatter them, and thou shalt rejoice in the
Lord, and shalt glory in the Holy One of Israel. And so what
we see here is this is the Spirit of God. He's that wind which
bloweth upon these mountains. He's the wind that bloweth upon
this flesh, right, and withers this flesh. It's the wind of
the Spirit that scatters these imaginations and these high things
that exalt themselves against the knowledge of God. It's His
voice, it's His Spirit that's the wind that blows these things
away. They're ground down with the
Gospel and blown away by the Spirit of God. He said in Isaiah
40 verse 7, he said, the grass withereth, the flower fadeth,
but the spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it, surely the people is
grass. And so, we brethren that hope
in God, that have no confidence in the flesh, that are the elect
children of God, that believe him, what he's saying is that
he withers our flesh, he's the one teaching us His Word, and
revealing Christ in our hearts by faith, and He withers this
flesh, and those vain mountains that we trusted in, and hoped
in, and built our hopes upon at one point, the Lord deals
with those things, and He grinds them down to smallness so that
what we once hoped in is not what we hope in as he grows us
in himself. We're all destroyed by the gospel. And so, through this all, he's
delivering his people out from that crushing darkness, hidden
beneath that mountain, if you will, right? So while we read
of millions of great people, of kings and people of stature
and might who cry for the mountains to fall upon them and to hide
them from the face of Christ who comes to judge them in that
day, believers instead are made to flee that mountain, to run
from that mountain, to go to Christ, to go to the light of
Christ and to know him and to be embraced by him in his arms,
in his loving arms. And so this is the work of the
spirit and it's the work of the gospel preacher by the spirit,
right? Turn over to Isaiah 52. Isaiah 52, I wanna look at verse
eight, and then verse seven, and then verse six with you there.
Isaiah 52, eight says, thy watchman, the gospel preacher, shall lift
up the voice with the voice, the voice together shall they
sing for they shall see eye to eye when the Lord shall bring
again Zion." The voice that the gospel preacher lifts up is the
gospel that our God has taught us by the Spirit and he lifts
it up in harmony with the voice of the Spirit. My voice is nothing
but if the voice of the Spirit attends it and the words I'm
saying are brought into melody and harmony with the Spirit of
God by the power of God, it will be, and he attends that word
and brings it home to the heart. And how do we know whether or
not our voice is in tune with the Spirit's voice? Well, Paul
said, for we preach, not ourselves, but Christ Jesus, the Lord, and
ourselves, your servants, for Jesus' sake. We're not talking
about how great we are, I'm not talking about how wonderful you
are or how wonderful I am. Don't look to me, look to the
Savior. Look to the Lord Jesus Christ. So we speak of him first and
foremost, right? Because God, who commanded the
light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts. All
right, and he's shining our hearts to give the light of the knowledge
of the glory of God in the face of his son, Jesus Christ. And he tells us, but this treasure,
what treasure? The gospel treasure, we have
this treasure in earthen vessels. And these weak bodies, these
weak nobodies that we are, that the Lord is pleased to use these
worms, if you will, and he's pleased to reveal this gospel
in us by which he takes us worms and threshes these hills and
mountains, these imaginations and every high thing that exalteth
itself against God." It's all through the gospel. I hope you
see that brethren and are encouraged by it. And so the gospel therefore,
when we know this as he's revealing this to us, and that's why we
know this is in our interest to hear the gospel and to support
the gospel and to send this gospel word out, it's beautiful to save
sinners. We love the gospel of our savior,
Jesus Christ. We want to hear him exalted because
we know that this is how our God saves his people. And he's
pleased to glorify his son in our midst. And so we come to
hear it. And it says there in Isaiah 52
verse seven, How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of
him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace, that bringeth
good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation, that saith unto Zion,
thy God reigneth. We declare him and declare our
God reigns. He is saving his people. He is
saving his people. I don't need to whip you with
the law. which was given to control the
flesh of man, we know, we have the Spirit of God, we preach
Christ. And my sheep, he said, hear my
voice and they follow me. All right, not the voice of Moses
showing them and declaring to them what sinners they are. We
know now what sinners we are. We hear the voice of Christ and
follow him and he teaches us He teaches us in the heart. And
he says in verse six, he says, therefore, my people shall know
my name. We're gonna know the name of
Jesus of Nazareth, that he is the Christ of God. All right,
we're gonna know his name. We're gonna seek to know him. and see him glorified in all
his word. We're gonna see Christ in all
the word, the types, the shadows, the pictures, all revealing to
us our salvation in the person of Jesus Christ. Therefore, they
shall know in that day that I am he that doth speak. Behold, it
is I. And that's what we even find
in our text. If you go back to our text in
Isaiah 41, and you look at verse 20 with me, This is exactly what
he's declaring to us. Verse 20, that they may see and
know and consider and understand together that the hand of the
Lord hath done this and the Holy One of Israel hath created it.
And a lot of religion spends their time creating things, right?
They're creating bodies and churches and creating catechisms and charters
and creeds and things that they do and their bylaws and all the
things that that man does to create a body and to be effective
in the world. But our God, our hope is that
our God is pleased to reveal himself, to declare his name
to us, and to enable us by the power of his spirit to hear his
voice and to follow him, to believe him, and to serve him and worship
him in this world. All right, now, so having that,
our Lord shows us how he provides for us, all right? Let's move
on to verse 17 here, Isaiah 41, 17. Now our God has delivered
us from death, right? He's threshed these mountains
and hills that we hoped in and trusted in, and he teaches us
who our God is, and we read, when the poor and needy, right? Through the gospel, what he does
in the preaching of the gospel, in threshing away these mountains,
everything we hoped in, all our riches, all our productivity
in religion, and all the fruits that we thought we had in religion
and trusted in, these things are all wiped out. They're all
just brought to dust, to chaff, and blown away, and they're scattered
all about, and so we are become poor and and needy in spiritual
things. We need the grace of God. We don't even know what to do.
Oftentimes when you hear that gospel and all your hopes, all
your hopes in the flesh that you trusted in are wiped out,
a lot of times we're wondering, well, what then do I do? How
am I saved? How do I get myself saved? Well, you don't get yourself
saved. Nobody gets themselves saved. God saves his people through
Christ in the preaching of the gospel, and they that hear it
and look to him by his power, they trust in him. We rest in
him. We confess, Lord, you're my only
hope. I have no hope, but you and you
alone And so he says to the poor, or he says, when the poor and
needy seek water, and there is none, and their tongue falleth
for thirst, I the Lord will hear them, I the God of Israel will
not forsake them. So we're thirsting for a while
because we're still looking, well then what do I do? Right,
we're searching among, there's no longer a mountain with a nice
stream coming off it. There's no longer green things
and trees and shrubberies and things that once fed us in our
dead religion. Those things have been wiped
out. There is no fountain, there is no stream, there is no green
thing for us to trust in. It's been dismantled by the gospel. And so we're wondering, what
Lord, what can I do? And, We're just breathing out
with a thick, heavy tongue. We don't even know what to say.
We're thirsting for that water. And the Lord tells us, I, the
Lord, will hear them. I, the God of Israel, will not
forsake them. Now, if you look at that verse,
it doesn't say anything about us crying out, right? We're thirsty,
but it doesn't say anything about us seeking the Lord or crying
out for him to quench our thirst. It just says, when the poor and
needy seek water and there is none, and their tongue faileth
for thirst, I the Lord will hear them. And that's because It's
the Spirit that's interceding for us. It's the Spirit that's
praying to God on our behalf. We're threshed. Our mountains
are wiped out and we don't even know what we're doing. We're
just confused sheep there and not having anything left to boast
in of ourselves. That's because it's the Spirit
itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot
be uttered. And Paul said in Romans 8 27,
he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the
spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the
will of God. And so our God knows what we
have need of. We're struggling, we're hurting,
everything we hoped and entrusted in was wiped out by the preaching
of the gospel, but then by the power of Christ, giving us life
by the seed of Christ, making a new man where there was no
man at all of Christ, God's going to fill that sinner. He's going to deliver that sinner
and establish them in peace and in righteousness, and he's going
to give them a well of water, the Holy Spirit, whereby we know
our God and call out upon him. See, there's nothing that the
sinner did to make this. It's all the work God in grace. The work of God to send that
gospel, to tear down our strongholds of death, and the work of God
to make us thirsty and to quench that thirst by the giving of
the Holy Spirit, applying the blood of Christ, giving us spiritual
life in Christ whereby we know him. Look there at verse 18.
He says, I will open rivers in high places. Like you thought
you were in high places before in your mountains, we didn't
know nothing of God. God says, I'll open rivers in
high places and fountains in the midst of the valleys. You've
been brought low in yourself and God will reveal himself to
you. to you in his Son by the Spirit. I will make the wilderness a
pool of water and the dry land springs of water." And so our
God does this for us, right? For people that many thought
would never hear the gospel, and in lands where people thought
the gospel would never be revealed, or those people would never hear
or receive that gospel word. Our God abounds above and beyond
all the foolish imaginations of man, and he's able to do whatsoever
he pleases. And he says there in verse 19,
I will plant in the wilderness the cedar, the shitta tree, the
myrtle, and the oil tree. I will set in the desert the
fir tree and the pine and the box tree together. And so this
is just a mix of trees that don't even belong together or belong
there in the wilderness. But our God gathers in his people,
right? He gathers in his people from
every kindred and tongue and people and nation. In grace he
does this. These are the elect that he's
calling from the four corners of the earth out of every kindred
and tongue and people and nation, and he gathers in those Gentiles,
and he gathers in his people from the Jews, and he establishes
his people in local assemblies, in local bodies, in churches
that he's assembled and brought together as a body, each having
different abilities and gifts and uses there in the body to
serve with one another. we see that it's our God who
does all this, right? We didn't have anything to do
with it. And he was the one who sent out
that gospel word. He's the one who threshed those
mountains with worms, preaching the gospel, not having any talents
or abilities themselves, just preaching and supporting. and
sending out the gospel by which the Lord tore down the hopes
of this flesh. And when we were nothing and
didn't even know to call out to him, he heard by the intercession
of the Spirit and revealed through the flowing of that water, the
Holy Spirit, he applied the blood of Christ and revealed Christ
to the sinner whereby we know him and rejoice in him and are
satisfied and have peace with God in the Lord Jesus Christ. So I pray that in this word here,
in this text, you're made to rejoice in God, our Savior, for
his great love and care and provision for us in his son, Jesus Christ. And to know, brethren, that he
does this, as he says there in verse 20, that you may see and
know and consider and understand together that the hand of the
Lord hath done this, and the Holy One of Israel hath created
it. Amen. All right, brethren, let's pray.
Our gracious Lord, Father, we thank you for your great mercy that you should do such a wonderful
work for sinners such as we are. that you would deliver us from
the vain hopes and confidences of man and bring us to nothing
in ourselves, that we might find our all in the Lord Jesus Christ,
that he would be revealed in us by faith, by the power of
your spirit, that we would be robed in his righteousness. Lord,
help us to hear that word. Indeed, save us in your grace
and mercy in your Son, Jesus Christ. Help us, Lord, to hear
that word. Help me to preach it ever more
clearly as we go. And Lord, help us to hear it
by your Spirit. It's in Christ's name that we
pray and give thanks. Amen.