All right, well, I'm gonna read
from Isaiah 41. This is where our text will be
taken from. I'm gonna read beginning of verse
one. And our text is actually from
verses five through nine. I'm gonna read from verse one. And I'm gonna read from verse
10. Isaiah 41. Keep silence before
me, O islands, and let the people renew their strength. Let them
come near, then let them speak. Let us come near together to
judgment. Who raised up the righteous man
from the east, called him to his foot, gave the nations before
him, and made him rule over kings? And as we saw last week, that's
speaking of Abraham, who is a type of Christ. This is speaking of
Christ. The first and with the last,
I am he. Now here's our text. The isle
sought and feared. The ends of the earth were afraid,
drew near and came. They helped everyone his neighbor,
and everyone said to his brother, be of good courage, or be strong. So the carpenter encouraged the
goldsmith, and he that smootheth with the hammer, him that smote
the anvil, saying, it is ready for the soldering, and he fastened
it with nails that it should not be moved. But thou, Israel,
art my servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen, the seed of Abraham,
my friend, thou whom I have taken from the ends of the earth, and
called thee from the chief men thereof, and said unto thee,
Thou art my servant, I have chosen thee, and not cast thee away. Fear thou not, for I am with
thee. Be not dismayed, for I am thy
God. I will strengthen thee, yea,
I will help thee, yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand
of my righteousness. And of course, that verse is
very familiar to us from the hymn, How Firm a Foundation.
All right, brethren, let's go to the Lord in prayer. Our gracious
Lord, Father, we thank you for your mercy, your kindness to
gather your people together tonight around your Word, to hear of
your Son, to hear your salvation for your people declared. And
Lord, we pray that you would send it forth with power. Lord,
please help me, help me to Faithfully declare, proclaim, preach your
gospel to your people. Give them an ear to hear. Lord,
let your spirit rest upon us. Cause us to hear the word and
to receive it and give us faith to believe it. Lord, let us look
to the Lord Jesus Christ alone for our righteousness and our
salvation. Lord, help us. You know our weakness,
our sins, our iniquity and infirmities. Father, forgive us, for Christ's
sake, and heal us, Lord, for Christ's sake. Lord, that you
would be glorified in your people, that you would turn our hearts
from darkness, from the thoughts and the wisdom of this world,
the false gods of this world, and the foolishness of this world,
Lord, cause us to look to your Son, Jesus Christ, and that in
Him we would find our all, and that you would keep us and hold
us and draw us ever nearer to yourself. Lord, we ask that you
would bless us with a building, a place more permanent, Lord,
that we may meet together to come regularly to hear your word
preached and to gather in fellowship with your people. Lord, we ask
that you would indeed bless us in this endeavor as we look for
a place that you would point out one to us, that you would
lead us to the place that you have prepared, we are certain,
even before this all began. And Lord, we ask that you would
make it known to us and establish us and settle us, Lord, in a
place where we can meet without being shut down or have the restrictions
of the government preventing us. And Lord, that you would
keep us, protect us from the disease that's going about and
has so many in fear. Lord, protect us. You know the
weakness of our bodies and you know the frailty of our and Lord,
we're nothing without you and can do nothing. Though we boast
and like to think of ourselves as something, Father, you know
our frame. You know how easy we fall and
how foolish we can be, but Lord, we ask that you would protect
us, that you would be our great physician, our shepherd, Lord,
that you would lead us and protect us and provide all things for
us. Lord, if we have not you, we
have nothing and no one. And so we ask that, indeed, you
would show yourself, reveal yourself to us, Lord, and that you would
indeed be our God, and that we would be your people, and that
we would follow you and listen to you and obey you in all things,
and that you would bring forth fruits of righteousness to the
glory and praise of your name, It's in the name of our Lord
and Savior, Jesus Christ, that we pray this, amen. Okay, brethren, so we're gonna
be in Isaiah 41. Isaiah 41, and tonight I wanna
look at verses five through nine with you. Now last week we were
looking at verses 1 through 4 and saw that though it had an eye
towards Abraham and what the Lord did with Abraham, we saw
that he was but a picture of Christ who works salvation for
the elect. As we close that, the Lord asks
a question, which he does commonly to teach us, to help us to think
and to consider what the Lord is revealing to us. And it's to bring his people
to acknowledge that he is God, because we so easily seem to
forget that. And so the Lord is faithful to
remind us and to make us to know that he is God and that he's
the one that saves us and continually provides for us. And in doing
this, he's turning us from the idols, the things of this world
that we are so naturally inclined to. the false gods, the idols
of this world that naturally we look to, the things we look
to and think, this is my righteousness, this is my salvation. And the
Lord turns us to Christ and says, behold, your God. And so he asks the question in
verse four, asking who hath wrought and done it, calling the generations
from the beginning. And I didn't see this or bring
this out last time, but the generations that he's speaking of are the
elect children. That's his remnant. That's the
generation of the Lord. It's his people. And he answers
the question saying, I, the Lord, the first and with the last,
I am he. So that every one of his elect
children, from the first to the very last one, all are saved
by the Lord Jesus Christ in absolute sovereign grace. Absolute sovereign
grace from the first to the last. And so we saw and we'll see tonight,
especially that the difference maker, the one who makes the
difference is God. is God alone. God alone is the
difference maker and this is seen when we behold the work
of his salvation that he does for his people as opposed to
the idolatry which the rest of mankind who remains blinded and
in darkness, that idolatry that they turn to for assurance and
for security and to pacify their screaming conscience and to ease
their minds. Now, I've titled this message,
The Difference Maker, The Difference Maker. And we're gonna begin
looking as a backdrop, before we get into these verses, we're
gonna look as a backdrop here, seeing that our God saves sovereignly. It's his sovereign salvation
for his people. Now, Throughout the ages, as
we read the scriptures, especially as we go through the history
that our God has given to us of how he has called out and
dealt with his people, man has witnessed in history, those that
experienced this, have watched and beheld how God saved and
provided for his people. They've seen his love and care
for them, right? And so that when they looked,
they saw their God is mighty to save, their God is able to
save, and he's delivered them out of certain and assured destruction. And the enemies, the people of
this earth, the inhabitants of this earth, as Isaiah typically
refers to those yet in darkness, the inhabitants of this earth,
they witness how God has richly provided for them in the faith
and confidence that they have in him. They believe God, even
against hope. And we know that's a fruit. That's
a fruit of the Spirit. That's not of this flesh. That's
not of our minds or because we and our flesh are anything different
from others or something special about us, but rather it's the
work of our God. And they believe God and continue
in Him, even in the harshest of trials. Now turn over to 1
Peter 1. 1 Peter chapter one, and I'm gonna
pick up reading in verse five, and Peter is speaking to the
brethren, to the church, as describing, they would be described as those
who are waiting for their inheritance, those who believe the word of
God and are waiting to receive their inheritance, an inheritance
incorruptible, inheritance indestructible in the Lord Jesus Christ. So
we're waiting. That's why we're not just partaking
of this world and seeking to do this world's things that this
world delights in and fancies. So he says in verse 5, who are
kept by the power of God through faith, through faith unto salvation,
ready to be revealed in the last time. So our God is keeping us
through the faith that he bears in us, that righteous fruit of
faith comes from him. and we're looking to Him, right,
where it's fixed in Him, wherein He says, ye greatly rejoice,
though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through
manifold temptations, that the trial of your faith, being much
more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried
with fire, might be found. All right, now God's revealing
to us the work that he's done and accomplished in us by his
Son unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus
Christ whom having not seen ye love in whom though now ye see
him not yet believing ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full
of glory receiving the end of your faith even the salvation
of your souls." And so, what we're looking to, the reason
why we rejoice in our God, the reason why the praise, the honor,
and the glory is ascribed to Him and not us is because this
salvation was totally, completely accomplished by the Lord Jesus
Christ when He came into this earth, when He came into the
world in the likeness of this flesh, and he revealed himself
to the people through good works, through many miracles, the healing
of people that were sick and diseased, raising the dead back
to life, and he spoke the truth of God to them, so that they
knew, truly, this is the Son of God, who was sent to save
and to deliver his people, just as God foretold it, in the Scriptures,
and He fulfilled all that was written of Him in the Scriptures. And so, He went to the cross
willingly, bearing the sins of His people. He bore their sin
and paid the price for their sin. He bore the wrath of God
in their place as their surety and their substitute, and in
so doing, in shedding His blood, He made propitiation, He made
atonement for the people, so that in Him we are forgiven,
because He paid the penalty, and He put away all the sin,
and God is no longer angry with His people, right? Because Christ
has done everything necessary so that, brethren, we shall come
to, we shall come to the end of the law of righteousness.
meaning the law of righteousness says they that are righteous
shall be justified by God. God on his throne in the day
of judgment shall declare them justified, meaning they're fully
righteous because Christ has made us righteous. That's the
end of the law of righteousness. That's what it's declaring. That's
what it speaks of. Anyone who's righteous will be
declared justified by God. Now, because we are Christ's
people, because He did that work for us, He promised and has sent
His Holy Spirit to dwell in His people, to give them life, to
give us an ear where there was no ear, and a heart where there
was no heart, to hear and believe the testimony of God in his word
concerning his son, Jesus Christ, to show us that, yes, I'm the
sinner, and you've provided salvation in your son, Jesus Christ. And he makes us not only to hear
his voice and to learn of him, but to understand his will and
his purpose for us here in the earth, which is to live looking
to Christ, serving our God and our brethren, believing him till
Christ returns. And the work that God has done
for us, it's an eternal work. And in Him is our life, right? With all the sorrows that we
experience, and the trials and tribulations, these things, we
understand, are passing away. This is not the end. Our hope
is yet in Christ and it's begun, it's begun and we've tasted of
the Lord but we know that when he returns we shall be like him
for we shall see him as he is. But we know this, our hope is
fixed in him because it's by his spirit passing this knowledge,
helping us, making us to hear it and to believe it, to receive
it, right? It's a spiritual It's not a work
of man. Paul tells us over in 1 Corinthians
2, in verse 10, he begins saying that God hath revealed the things
of God unto us by his Spirit. He's the one that makes us to
know the things of God, and it's by his Spirit. And then in verse
12, 1 Corinthians 2, 12, He says, now we have received, not the
spirit of the world. There's a spirit in the world
that all those outside of Christ, all those that are yet the children
of disobedience and the children of wrath, That spirit is guiding
them. That spirit is over them, blinding
them and keeping them in darkness and in ignorance to the things
of God. That's not the spirit we have,
but the spirit which is of God. And he says that we might know
the things that are freely given to us of God. That's how we know
these things. That's how we're assured of the
promises of God, because His Spirit has revealed them to us
and so given them to us that we know these things. Sometimes
we stumble and are weak of faith and unbelieving, yet the Lord
keeps us and makes us to know. that he is our God and he's our
hope, so that we don't turn from the hope that he's given us in
Christ, that we don't turn away from him forever and go back
into this world. We understand because the Spirit
reveals it to us that this is a spiritual work. It's a spiritual
birth. You that believe on Christ, believe
because he's given you faith and life in the new man, the
inner man, which is created of the seed of Jesus Christ. And
so we understand, I didn't do this, just like I didn't do anything
for my first birth, naturally, so I didn't do anything for my
spiritual birth. It's of God, it's a work that
God does for the sinner according as it pleases him to do it. It's according as he determines. to save his people and ordain
them to life. This choosing was done in eternity
past, before the world was ever created, so that we can't boast
and say, I did that, or I had a hand in it. That's why the
Lord did it that way. Over in Romans 8, he speaks of
this. Romans 8, 29 and 30. He says there, for whom God did
foreknow. And we know, we understand that
the foreknowledge of God is, it means for whom he loved, for
whom he knew intimately such that he loved them. And God's
love is not a passive, inactive love that can do nothing for
the sinner unless they let him. That's not love. the love of
God moves him to action, and it's revealed right here, for
whom he did foreknow, right, it's not speaking of their actions,
it's people whom he foreknew, right, whom he did foreknow,
he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his
son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren, And he goes
on in Romans 8.30, moreover whom he did predestinate, them he
also called. Through his gospel word, he called
them. And whom he called them, he also
justified. Justified by Christ in whom they
are righteous. And whom he justified them, he
also glorified. It's done. Even now, brethren,
we are seated in heavenly places with our Lord and Savior Jesus
Christ. We are glorified, just as in
eternity past when God determined to do this, so it is all the
way to the end. There's nothing for us to do
to make this happen or make it effectual by our works. And so,
This salvation that we have is not of this world. It's not of
man. It's not of man's invention,
and it's not by man's works of righteousness that he thinks
he should be doing that make him righteous. Instead, our God
saves us by sovereign choice apart from the works of man,
regardless of any man who thinks he was seeking God. It isn't
man who seeks and initiates the work. It's God himself that initiates
and brings to pass fully salvation in his people. It's his work. So then, Paul tells us in Romans
9, 16, it is not of him that willeth. It's not your free will. We don't have a free will. It's
bound in sin and darkness. It's corrupt and dead. Nor of
him that runneth. Forget your works of righteousness. It's not by your will. It's not
by your works. Not of him that runneth, but
of God that showeth mercy. Now, the natural man doesn't
understand this. The natural man, with having
the spirit of this world, hears it and doesn't understand or
believe God, right? Or understands it from a doctrinal
perspective and thinks, well, that's my salvation because I
believe that doctrine. But they don't understand it.
They know nothing of the grace and the power of God unto salvation
to work this and reveal this in his people. and so they don't
receive it. And Paul tells us that also in
1 Corinthians 2 verse 14. Why? Because they are foolishness
unto him, neither can he know them because they are spiritually
discerned. It's with spiritual discernment
that we believe God and know that this is his work. And if
it wasn't his work, we're dead. There's nothing we can do to
save ourselves or make ourselves righteous. With this truth being
so, with this being the case of sovereign electing grace of
our God to deliver his people out from the wrath which is coming
upon this world, in, hidden in the Lord Jesus Christ, who has
obtained eternal redemption for his people, We come now to this
text where we see an ignorant people, utterly lost, kept shut
up in blindness and darkness in their natural thoughts and
ways with God. All right, so let's see this
here in verse five. Isaiah 41, verse five. the Isles sought, which is a
term we know are the Gentile nations that are far off from
the land of Israel. Typically, they understood, they
called the Isles those places where they had to go by ship
to go to. Those are the Isles of the Gentiles. All right, well, they saw the
works of God. They heard of the works of God
for his people, and they feared. The ends of the earth were afraid.
They drew near and came. Now, this drawing near here isn't
that they drew near to God as a result of what they saw. Now,
yes, there were some that drew near to God. There were some
proselytes before Christ came who believed and went into the
Jewish practices, right? Those practices, but if they
were saved, they were looking to, they understood these things
are pointing to the Christ, the Messiah in whom is my salvation
and my hope, right? And then we know that there were
many Gentiles who heard the gospel when the word went out from Jerusalem
and Judah and beyond Samaria, they heard the gospel and there
were many Gentiles then who did believe on Christ. But what this is speaking of
right here are those Gentiles that saw and heard and rallied
around one another to protect their wealth in idolatry and
in dead-letter religion. And so we see what man will do
when left to his own devices, when left to his own understanding,
having nothing but the spirit of this world, we see the darkness
that he goes into. And we see this, especially as
when the gospel went forth, when the gospel went forth. And Paul
speaks of the gospel going forth in Romans 10, 18, saying, their
sound went into all the earth and their words unto the ends
of the world. And so this is the response there
of those blinded, those dead in trespasses and sins who have
no part in Christ, who have no part in his inheritance, but
they turn to one another and they encourage one another in
counterfeit religion, in a false religion, in a lie. death." All
right, so they look to their idols and the works of their
own hands. All right, that's what we see
here. Look at verse 6. They helped everyone his neighbor, and everyone
said to his brother, be of good courage. Be strong, brother,
be of good courage. Now, you think of all those nations
that witnessed our God delivering his people, right? Prior to Christ's
coming, we know that, well, we just saw how Abraham defeated
four kings with 300, I think, 18 trained servants to deliver
a lot and all the goods that they had taken, right? And we
saw how the Lord delivered his people, a people who were slaves,
from Egypt, at the time the most powerful nation in the known
world there. And then, as they were traveling
to the land of Canaan, we saw how the Moabites tried to defeat
them, but God destroyed them and put the curse on them instead.
We saw that when they did finally go into the land of Canaan, there
were many nations defeated by them, who could not stand up
against them, and God fought for Israel and defeated those
people in the land of Canaan. And then, you know, we've been
seeing here in Isaiah where Judah saw their enemies of Israel and
Syria destroyed, right? They made a confederacy together
and God brought it to nothing before their eyes. And then there
was Assyria who came right up to the neck and God destroyed
them, right? And so many nations, our God
has shown and revealed his work for his people. And all those
nations had false gods. They all had gods. If you look
and you go to their ruins, you can see some incredible temples
that they had built to their gods that all came to nothing. Their gods didn't fight for them
and their god did not protect them because there were no gods.
They were made of wood and silver and gold and they could not save
them. And then after Christ came, we
see that same spirit of darkness continuing man. They yet remained
ignorant and dead to the things of God, so that as the gospel
went forth, right, there were Jews who fought against the gospel,
who didn't believe and were jealous at the gospel, that they were
hearing that it's not their works of righteousness, but Christ
is our righteousness. Well, they didn't like that.
And then they really didn't like it when the gospel spread out
to the Gentiles, and they became jealous, and they forbid the
apostles from preaching the gospel. Yet it didn't stop them, of course,
thankfully. And then there were Caesars,
right? In Rome being the greatest empire at that time, there were
Caesars who persecuted the Christians and tried to eradicate, destroy
those that believed Christ. And then there were other Gentiles
as well, who were makers of idols, who saw, who made connections
and said, wait a minute, if this goes on, we're going to lose
our livelihood and our wealth that we've built up. And Isaiah
says it this way, Isaiah 41.7, so the carpenter encouraged the
goldsmith, and he that smootheth with the hammer, him that smote
the anvil, saying, it is ready for the soldering, and he fastened
it with nails that it should not be moved. Now, there's two
manifestations that we see in this. There's two ways that this
is manifested in the rebellion of man to this day. The first
one was seen when Paul was there preaching the gospel. Now if
you turn over to Acts 19, Acts 19, Acts 19 verse 20, just to
begin, we see there that mightily grew the word of God and prevailed. There was great success going
out to the nations there as a result of the gospel being preached
and attended to with the spirit, with his power and glory and
grace. Then verse 23, and the same time
there arose no small stir about that way, the way that Paul preached. And for certain, a certain man
named Demetrius, A silversmith which made silver shrines for
Diana brought no small gain unto the craftsman, whom he called
together with the workmen of like occupation and said, Sirs,
ye know that by this craft we have our wealth." Right? Your
dad and your granddad and his dad before him and so on. This
is our health. This is how we have our substance. Moreover, verse 26, you see in
here that not alone at Ephesus, but almost throughout all Asia,
this Paul hath persuaded and turned away much people, saying
that they be no gods which are made with hands, so that not
only this our craft is in danger to be set at naught, to be set
aside and forgotten, but also that the temple of the great
goddess Diana should be despised, and her magnificence should be
destroyed, whom all Asia and the world worshipeth. And when
they heard these things, they were full of wrath and cried
out, saying, Great is Diana of the Ephesians." And so, That
response, right, this was literally happening just as Isaiah foretold
it. They responded in this way. They
recognized, wait a minute, we're gonna lose everything here if
the whole world goes over to this way. We're losing our people
that are coming to us and asking us to make them idols and the
wealth that we get from that. And they're leaving these gods
that we worship. And so, As a result of that,
the gospel going forth, these men were impacted and they feared,
and so they came together to try and destroy Christianity. They came together to try and
destroy the gospel that Paul preached, but they were fighting
against the one true and living God, and so they had no success. But there's another manifestation,
right? There is that type of idolatry
still in the world today, but we don't see it very prevalent
in our day. We don't see it a lot in our
nation and the nations of Europe and other westernized areas. And so, The other manifestation,
though, that we do see, that we are very much aware of is
the counterfeit religion that arises in the heart of man. And we know this because we heard
of a Jesus, we heard of the Christian faith, if you will, we heard
of many works and went through any number of churches and denominations,
right? but they spoke things that were
true, and they spoke from the Bible, and many of them, most
of them teach lessons of morality and works out of this word, right? We know that they do that, but
they know nothing of the grace of God, and they know nothing
of the power of God, all right? Some, the doctrine is very foul
and very man-centric, right? It speaks of what man must do
to be saved. And they hear of Jesus and they
believe on Christ, but most who profess Christ yet think there
is something for them to do. And that's not a salvation if
there's any part that's yet relying on our work. on something that
we must do to complete the work that Christ has done. Now, they
wouldn't ever word it that way, but they still believe and teach,
well, there's still something that I must do. There's something
I have to do. Christ did the work of salvation,
but it's not yet effectual until I do something. And so they insert
themselves to some degree, whether it's a lot of their works that
have to be done, or half and half the work has to be done
by them, or most of the work has to be done by Christ, or
even 99% of the work has to be done by Christ, but it's them,
it's their faith that they have to add to pull start that engine
of salvation through their faith. And yet that's not salvation.
That's not what the scriptures teach. Yes, we have faith, but
it's revealed, worked, given to the people of God by the Spirit
of God giving us life in the new birth. As it pleases God,
he moves upon whom he will and reveals faith in them so that
in the preaching of the gospel, they hear the word and those
that the Spirit falls upon, they're given faith to receive it and
believe that Christ is salvation. And so God has worked salvation
in them. Yes, we must believe, but it's
a work which he himself does for his people. And so the majority
of religion does, you know, is contributing, doing something.
They've heard of the gospel, right, to some degree. They've
heard of Jesus to some degree, some form of a man named Jesus,
and they've made up all manner of varying degrees of works that
they need to do to make it effectual, and thereby have turned to an
idol. They've manufactured an idol
in their own mind and in their own heart. and think, this is
my salvation. This is what I must do to please
God. And so they're still trusting
in their works of goodness and believe that God is gonna have
mercy on them in the day of judgment because of their obedience to
the form of godliness that they've invented by the spirit of the
world yet dwelling in them and them being in darkness. And so
this we know is true of The Jews who continued seeking righteousness
by their works of the law, they heard what Paul was saying, but
said, no, I don't think that Christ is the righteousness,
it's by my works of the law. You have that, where they rejected
Christ and trusted their own works, and then you have a whole
bunch of varying degrees of believing Christ, and yet adding their
works, like the concision. that Paul had to deal with in
that day, who professed to believe Christ, and yet still cut the
flesh, thinking that they had to do something. And today, that
cutting of the flesh goes up to, well, now I believe on Christ,
now I have to keep the law, right? I've gotta cut the flesh with
my law. Or I believe on Christ, or rather, I hear of Christ,
and now I have to add my faith. and it's of me, it's of my flesh
that I believe. And I have to add that faith
and I have to keep on believing, otherwise I'll be lost forever. And they speak of a faith which
is of their flesh. And yet the believer speaks of
faith, but gives God the glory and says, Lord, this work, this
fruit is of your spirit. Lord, I believe, help thou mine
unbelief. Lord, keep me ever looking to
your son, Jesus Christ. And so we see it, right? Many Christian denominations
and faiths today, they're all guilty of the same thing, right?
Whether it's through their confessions and their baptisms, right? Or they're trusting in their
church history or the titles of rank that they've moved up
in their service there in the church. Some are trusting in
their giving of money, building wings on buildings, or adding
benches and donating these things. They're trusting these, right?
Or they purchased the Bibles or the hymnals that the church
now uses, right? Or their time of service that
they give, their participation in a choir, or in children's
church, or teaching Bible study, or going out and handing out
tracts on the street, or their various practices or the programs
that they've invented or participate in. And people look at those
things and that's their trust. That's their hope. That's where
they draw their confidence from. Well, I must be a Christian because
I'm now doing Christian things. That's where man's hope. And
so, they think this is what pleases God now. I heard Jesus, I went
up to the front, I prayed the Romans prayer, the Romans wrote,
I gave my heart to Jesus, and now I'm doing Christian things.
And they think that's salvation. But their hope is in what they're
doing, what they've done. I gave my heart to Jesus, and
now I'm saved. We don't do anything in salvation. Our God is the one who does all
the work of salvation in us, and we give glory to him. And
he'll glorify us because it's his work, where his children
were adopted into his family by the blood of Jesus Christ.
And we'll hear, well done, thou good and faithful servant, enter
thou into thy rest. And we're gonna cast our crowns
before him and say, Lord, not unto us, not unto us, but unto
thy name be all the glory, praise, honor, and power, because you've
done it. All right, when Paul wrote, of
the Jews, this could be said of any one of us in the churches
today, right? Romans 10, three, for they being
ignorant of God's righteousness and going about to establish
their own righteousness have not submitted themselves unto
the righteousness of God. They're not resting in Christ. They're resting in their works
or their belief. What they think is godliness
and their righteousness. And so Christ alone is the righteousness
of the believer. Flee from idolatry. That's why I tell you these things,
because it's idolatry. Flee from it, because that's
not gonna save you in the end. Christ and Christ alone is what
saves us, and not we ourselves and our works. and yet man continues
to form his idol God in his imagination to worship and to find relief
in, and comforts himself from his guilty conscience in what
he's been doing lately for God. That's what man trusts in. But
Christ alone is the hope of the believer, as it says in Romans
10.4, for Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to
everyone that believe it. And he slays the body of sin,
which rules over us naturally. He puts us, this old man, to
death so that we have no part in Adam. That inheritance and
what's coming to him is severed. We're severed from that body
of sin and death and we are made alive in Christ and accepted
of him. God receives us in Christ Jesus
alone, and so the dead religious works and the hope in those things
ceases. It's over. We have no part or
any hope in that, and our God delivers us from it. Now, I have
no problem with having an order of service, right, and understand
how an order of service can vary from one local church to the
next local church, but dead letter professors set their hopes on
these things. That's where they're setting
their hope and resting their faith in their works and their
belief systems, their systems of theology, rather than in the
person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so what we have here
in scripture, as we're coming to verse eight, is that God himself
is the difference maker. He's the one that delivers his
children from idolatry. Look at verse eight. but thou
Israel art my servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, the seed
of Abraham my friend." Now, I understand when you read that statement,
you do see that it does speak to the body of Christ, right? It speaks to the church, the
body of the church there, right? And we see that and acknowledge
it, know this, brethren, it is speaking first and foremost to
the head of the church, the head of the body, the Lord Jesus Christ. When we read, but thou, Israel,
art my servant, that is speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ, who
took upon him the form of Israel, who took to himself the name
of Israel and became like we are, in the flesh, to do for
us what we cannot do for ourselves, to make us righteous. And he's been called of God to
do the will of his Father in saving his people, so that the
Son, God the Son, Jesus Christ, laid aside his glory, right,
he became Though he were rich, he became poor for your sakes.
He laid aside his glory and became low, a servant, to put away our
sins, to lay down his own life for sinners such as us, filthy
sinners who can't work righteousness of themselves. And he did this
to redeem us from the wrath of God and to forever put away our
sin, making us righteous with our God. And so, Christ is God's
chosen, in whom his people are chosen in him. Ephesians 1, Ephesians
1 verses 10 through 12, confirms this to us, saying, Ephesians
1 10, that in the dispensation of the fullness of times, he
might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which
are in heaven and which are on earth, even in him." Don't miss
that. We're being gathered in Christ
because that's the one in whom we come before God and in whom
we are accepted of God. Look, verse 11, in whom also
we have obtained an inheritance. It's never by our works, and
it's never apart or severed from Christ, in whom also we have
obtained an inheritance being predestinated according to the
purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his
own will, that we should be to the praise of his glory. who first trusted in Christ. And we know that the Father is
the one who first trusted in Christ, who first, having loved
us, committed us, gave us to Christ, trusting that he would
work and obtain salvation, eternal redemption for his people whom
he loved. And then Christ is the seed of
Abraham, his friend. Galatians 3.16 tells us this
plainly. He says, now to Abraham and his
seed were the promises made. He saith not, and to seeds as
of many, but as of one. And to thy seed, which is Christ. You see, this is first and foremost,
our text here is speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now hold
your finger there in the New Testament, we'll be back at the
end, but of Christ the Savior, our God speaks of his glory and
power. Verse 9, Isaiah 41 9, Thou whom
I have taken from the ends of the earth, right, this is Christ,
Thou whom I've taken from the ends of the earth, and called
thee from the chief men thereof, and said unto thee, Thou art
my servant, I have chosen thee and not cast thee away." And
so this, brethren, the Lord Jesus Christ, He is our deliverance,
right? Our deliverance isn't our worshiping
of God in the church. That's not our deliverance. It's not our way of doing things
or our system of theology that is our deliverance, right? Not those doctrines. That's not
what saves us, but that's what the world thinks saves them,
some form or variety or combination of those things. They're trusting
in and hoping in their idols that they've created of God.
They saw God and feared and came together, but not to God, they
came together to an idol, a dead letter religion that we see all
around us to this day. And so it's Christ who is the
one that we believe and in whom our faith is fixed, right, like
an anchor. Created and fixed in Christ by
the Spirit of God who does this in us. And so the Spirit's revealing
to us the truth of God. He's revealing to us our need
and he's showing us that this is your salvation. Trust him,
hope in him, believe, in Him, and so that's why we rejoice
in Christ, and you can tell that we rejoice because it's He that
we speak of. We're speaking and proclaiming
the Lord Jesus Christ when we're gathered together because we
know that's my salvation. That's why we don't go off and
talk about dead works. We trust that as we go through
this Word and the Spirit reveals Christ to us, He's also conforming
us to His Son, Jesus Christ, and by His Spirit, We know him,
and love him, and love our brethren, and serve our brethren. It's
by his spiritual work. And that's why we glorify our
Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, because he is our righteousness,
and he's the one in whom we approach our God. So now, in Christ, we
serve our God who says to us, in Christ, thou art my servant. It's in Christ. And in Christ,
we have been chosen of God who says to us, I have chosen thee. In Christ, I chose you in Christ. And in Christ, we are kept and
preserved forever, who says to us, and I've not cast thee away. I'm not casting you away, you're
mine. I've done all these things. That
which I've begun, I'm going to complete it. I'm going to bring
it to the end. You're going to be glorified. You even are now
seated with Christ in heavenly places. So it's all in and by
Jesus Christ. Everything that man is clinging
to for the hope of his salvation, they're but idols. They're just
idols that he's manufactured. They may not be wood or silver
or gold, but in his mind they are. He's got things that are
precious and things not so precious and things that he really puts
his hope in and things that he doesn't, but he still does, thinking,
well, it all comes together for a nice idol. It's a nice God
of salvation for me, but it's not gonna stand for him in that
day. It won't be fixed. That's why
they fastened it with nails and chains so that it wouldn't be
moved, because what a shame that would be if it falls on its face.
and that's what all man's gonna be who's trusting in his own
false idol God, right, and his own works. It's gonna be found
on its face and they'll be ashamed, but you that hope in Jesus Christ
shall never be ashamed. You won't be naked before Almighty
God and all his heavenly host rejoicing in him in that day. All right, so it was fashioned,
that there was fashioned by the world's spirit, Let me close
with 1 John 5. Now, this is 1 John 5, that's
the last chapter in 1 John, and we're gonna look at the last
three verses of 1 John 5, the very end, how the apostle John
ends his letter to the brethren. 1 John 5, verses 19 through 21. Now, this is everything I've
just said to you. This is exactly what John is
saying. This is what he has in view. And we know that we are
of God, his creation, and the whole world lieth in wickedness. They lieth in wickedness yet.
So that our God is the difference maker. He's the one making the
difference from us in the whole world that lies in wickedness.
Verse 20, and we know, that the Son of God is come and
hath given us an understanding, an understanding that this world
knows nothing of, that we may know Him that is true, and we
are in Him that is true. even in His Son, Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal
life. Verse 21, little children, keep
yourselves from idols. See that? Keep yourselves from
idols. Amen. So I really believe John
had that in view. Keep yourselves from idols, brethren. Keep yourselves from idols. Let's
close in prayer. Our gracious Lord, Father, we
thank you for your salvation in your Son, Jesus Christ. This
is the true God, and in him we worship our God. Lord, we have
nothing of ourselves. We don't trust in ourselves.
We have no confidence in the flesh. Father, we pray that you
would keep us by your Spirit and ever bring forth fruits of
righteousness in the inner man which is created of Christ Jesus
by your Spirit. Keep us walking in the Lord Jesus
Christ. Lord, do not cast us away with
this world. We trust you and believe you
and have nothing apart from you. Lord, keep us from idols. Keep
us from trusting in our works and our doctrines and our thoughts,
and ever keep us fixed in looking to the Lord Jesus Christ and
Him alone, because we know, Lord, that it's in Christ that we are
received. Lord, we love You. We love You
and pray to You because we know that You alone are salvation,
and we have nothing, Lord, if we have not You, and if You keep
us not. Lord, we pray this In the name
of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Lord, save your people,
all of them out of darkness. It's in Christ's name we pray,
amen. I tried to wave to your mom,
but it wouldn't let me stop. Oh, you tried to? Yeah, I waved to Ken, and I waved
to Barb. And then, for some reason, it
wasn't letting me wave to Johnny. You can't wave to Johnny? I know. He's my favorite. We
got Scott, but I'm no Johnny. No Johnny. Did she talk to you? Yeah, it's not quite, it's a
little north. So when you're ready to do it.
Oh, I don't mind. I can go with you too, I don't
mind. They have a good rub there. They have a little store there.
Plus, I'll make sure you don't get charged the extra six bucks.
We'll bring some coolers and I'll help you guys because it's
a lot of twisting and fast moving and turning and your modelers
going out of bounds. Oh, so they don't, you pack your
own?