Good morning everyone, evening
everyone. All right, we're gonna begin our service. And tonight I wanna, our text
is gonna be in Isaiah 40, but when I was reading Psalm 90 today
to put into the bulletin, I noticed how many of the truths which
Moses speaks of many years before Isaiah was sent of God to preach
the gospel, how similar what Isaiah says in chapter 40 is
actually founded upon the spirit of truth revealed to Moses in
his day. So I'm gonna open tonight with
Psalm 90, and we'll read the prayer of Moses, the man of God. Psalm 90. Lord, thou hast been our dwelling
place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought
forth, or ever, thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even
from everlasting to everlasting. Thou art God. thou turnest man
to destruction, and sayest, Return, ye children of men. For a thousand
years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and
as a watch in the night. Thou carriest them away as with
a flood, they are as a sleep. In the morning they are like
grass which groweth up, in the morning it flourisheth, and groweth
up in the evening, it is cut down, and withereth. For we are
consumed by thine anger, and by thy wrath are we troubled.
Thou hast set our iniquities before thee, our secret sins
in the light of thy countenance. For all our days are passed away
in thy wrath, we spend our years as a tale that is told. The days
of our years are threescore years and ten, or seventy, and if by
reason of strength they be fourscore years, or eighty, yet it is their
strength, labor, and sorrow, for it is soon cut off, and we
fly away. Who knoweth the power of thine
anger? even according to thy fear, so is thy wrath. So teach
us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom. Return, O Lord, how long, and
let it repent thee concerning thy servants. O, satisfy us early
with thy mercy, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. Make
us glad according to the days wherein thou hast afflicted us,
and the years wherein we have seen evil. Let thy work appear
unto thy servants, and thy glory unto their children. And let
the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish thou
the work of our hands upon us. Yea, the work of our hands, establish
thou it. Let's pray. Our gracious Lord,
Father, we thank you that you have blessed us with the privilege
of declaring your gospel, to feed your sheep, to declare to
them your glory, your might, and your praise, that we should
behold our God. Lord, we pray that you would
bless this service tonight though we are scattered and in various
locations. Father, we pray that your Spirit
would indeed treat us as though we were gathered together in
one place. For this night we gather in one,
in our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, in whom we have a standing
before you, perfect, righteous, accepted of you, Lord, we ask
that you would indeed bless us to see our Savior, to rejoice
in Him, that our hearts would bless our God, that we would
praise you and have a thankful heart for what you have done
for us in delivering us from our sins and in turning our hearts
to you again. Away from this world, away from
this flesh, away from, Lord, the things which which detract
and show us to be fools in this flesh, but Lord, that you would
be pleased to attend the word, and that your voice would be
heard in the ears of the sheep, that we would hear it, receive
it, and believe it, and that your name would be glorified
in the hearts of your people. Lord, we pray that you would
Indeed, bless your people who are hurting, those suffering
and feeling sorrow and loss, and those who have experienced
loss recently, Lord, that you would minister comfort to them,
and that you would speak peaceably to them, and that you would lift
up their hearts before you, and that you would bless them. Lord,
that you would help us not to be foolish or to walk in the
way of this world and in this flesh, but that you would conform
our hearts, our minds, and our will to our Savior, Jesus Christ. Lord, that you would turn us
from the love of this world and indeed fix in us the love of
our God and Savior. For without you, Lord, we can
do nothing, and salvation is impossible apart from you. And
so, Lord, we seek you, and we ask you to do this for us. For we have no works of righteousness
of our own. We have no hope in ourselves,
or in our works, in our thoughts, or in our deeds. Lord, we ask
that you would indeed bless your people now. For it's in the name
of Jesus Christ that we come before you and ask these things.
Amen. Okay, brethren, so our text is
found in Isaiah chapter 40. And this evening, I wanna look
at verses 12 through 17. Now, It helps, we need to remember
that what we're looking at tonight ties back to the instruction,
the encouragement, and the comfort for the people of God to, as
he said, behold your God. He tells us, he instructs us
to behold your God. In other words, he's saying to
us, Look to Jesus Christ. Look to Him, because He is our
light and our salvation. He's the one who removes the
darkness and brings us into fellowship with the Father, so that we're
not to look to self, we're not to focus and key in on our situation
or listen to our feelings, because these things can be very deceiving
to us. But instead, we are to behold
your God, because therein, in beholding our God and looking
to the Lord Jesus Christ, that's both our comfort and our confidence. Now, the one speaking here to
us in Isaiah 40 is seen in verse six. It's the voice. the voice,
and this is the voice of the great shepherd of the sheep who
said to us in John 10, 27, my sheep hear my voice and I know
them. I love them. I love them, the
Savior says, and they follow me. And he says, I give unto
them eternal life and they shall never perish, neither shall any
man, any creature pluck them out of my hand. None shall separate
us from the love of God in Jesus Christ. And this voice here is
giving instruction to the voice in verse three that crieth in
the wilderness. And this voice that cries in
the wilderness is not only speaking of John the Baptist, who would
foretell of Christ's coming in the flesh, but this voice even
speaks to the voice of the Lord's church in the wilderness. It's
the voice of the church in the wilderness, and more specifically,
to those that tell good tidings to Zion and good tidings to Jerusalem. those who declare the good news
of God in Jesus Christ to the church. Now, the voice of Jesus
Christ is giving instruction now to his church, that is what
he's telling them, or his pastors, his angels, his ministers of
the gospel, he's telling them what to preach. to preach Jesus
Christ, whom the Lord himself gathers into his local assemblies. The Lord is calling out and delivering
his saints in bondage by bringing them into local assemblies where
they hear and are fed and are nourished with the bread of heaven,
the manna from heaven, the bread of life, Jesus Christ. So it's
in the church that's preaching the gospel, that's declaring
the message that God has sent to the people to declare. They're
the ones that are nourishing and feeding the sheep with the
voice of the Savior, the Great Shepherd. And as we saw a couple
weeks ago and last week, that we're not to exalt man, That's
not what we're called to do. We're not called to build up
the confidence of man in himself, but we're to exalt and declare
the Lord Jesus Christ, who is our confidence and our hope and
our help. All right? Now, this is what
the Lord is telling us when he says, behold your God. Behold your God. Now this evening, I want to continue
to see this instruction of Christ in his word to the people of
God so that we see here God is demonstrating these truths through
gospel types and gospel pictures so that he is showing his people
that he is more than sufficient to save them to the uttermost
by himself apart from their own works. apart from their own works. Now, I've titled this message,
Our Creator Alone Saves. Our Creator Alone Saves. And the first point I wanna look
at with you is Christ, our creator. Christ, our creator. So, in our
text, we're given a description of creation by God, our creator. Look with me at verse 12. He
begins asking this question. or a series of questions. Who
hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted
out heaven with the Spam, which is a length between the pinky
and the thumb, stretched out, that's a Spam, and comprehended
the dust of the earth in the measure, and weighed the mountains
in scales, and the hills in the balance? Now our translators
added at the end of that a question, and it's a question mark, and
it's a question to provoke us to thought, to consider what
God is saying. Who's done these things? Who
has done these things? And it can also be read, or it
should also be read, as a description of the shepherd who feeds, who
gathers, who carries, and leads the flock. Those are all the
verbs that were used in the last verses that we looked at, verses
nine through 11. He feeds, and gathers, and carries, and leads
his sheep. And that is, there's only one
who fits that description, and that's the Lord Jesus Christ,
the great shepherd of the sheep. And so our God is telling each
one of you, his sheep, that all your fears, all your worries,
all your cares that trouble your mind because of the weakness
and the infirmity of our flesh, our sin and our flesh, the weakness
that we feel and see in ourselves, in our thoughts, in our heart,
in our actions, what we are and what we say and what we do. These
troubles which befall man are all in the care. Our troubles
which befall us, who are the Lord's people, are all in the
care of our triune God and Savior. He cares for you. He cares for
you. Lean upon Him. Look to Him. Confess
your needs to Him. Confess your sorrow and your
heaviness of heart to Him. Now turn over to 2 Corinthians
1. 2 Corinthians 1. And I'm gonna pick up in verse 3. Paul writes, blessed be God. Blessed be God. Now think, brethren,
what cause we have to bless our God. He says, blessed be God,
even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies
and the God of all comfort, who comforted us in all our tribulation,
that we may be able to comfort them which are in Any trouble,
any trouble is under the care and watch of our Savior. And
we do this by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of
God. For, verse five, as the sufferings
of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth by
Christ. Now, one of the troubles which
afflict us, one of the sorrows and the sufferings that we experience
here in the flesh is our sin. The acknowledgement and the understanding
that we fall short of the glory of God, that we are nothing but
sin, and have nothing to boast in of ourselves or our works,
and so our sin may rightly be counted among the sufferings
of Christ which abound in us." Why do I say that? Well, Peter
describes the sufferings of Christ in this way, Christ also, 1 Peter
3.18, Christ also hath once suffered for sins. He suffered
the sins of his people, the just for the unjust. So the comfort
which we are able to give others in their trouble, in any of their
trouble, is to direct them to look to the Lord Jesus Christ,
to look to the Deliverer, to look to the Savior whom the Father
has provided, which is to say, behold your God. Behold your God. And it's for this cause that
Peter adds in 1 Peter 2.9, but ye are a chosen generation. Why? That ye should show forth
the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness and into
his marvelous light. light which we do not know or
understand by nature except God call us out of our nature's darkness
into his marvelous glorious light whereby his spirit we see and
know him and understand the things that God has freely given to
us. Now our sin is as a chain of bondage. It's a chain of bondage
in death because our separation from God is death. We're described
as being dead in trespasses and sins before the light of the
Savior came and delivered us from that bondage of death. We
lie in darkness. We lie in spiritual darkness. That's where we remain until
the Savior, by his commanding, powerful voice, calls us out
of that darkness. And it's Christ alone who has
separated us from that darkness. Because previous, we were separated
from the light and the knowledge and the love of God our Savior.
We were separated from the comfort that God gives to his people
whom he calls to himself. Now in Proverbs 14, 19 we're
told that the way of the wicked is as darkness. The way of the wicked is as darkness
and they know not at what they stumble. They don't even see
they're stumbling, they don't know what they're stumbling over,
and they have no idea how to correct or fix it. And they'll
go to religion to try to fix it. They'll go to religion, even
so-called Christian religion, to try and make right what they
have done wrong. But it's when God saves a sinner. Not when the sinner saves himself,
not when the sinner decides that he's going to now follow Jesus,
not when the sinner decides that he wants to get himself saved
or wants to give his life to Jesus. It's not when the sinner
decides, but it's when God the Father decides. It's in the time
of His love for the sinner that does the saving and the turning
and the delivering of a sinner who is saved by God. And what
he does is he brings them into the light of his salvation. He delivers them out from the
reign and the rule of sin and death, which is over every man,
except God call him out. that. He calls them out of that
walk and that way and brings them into the light, life, and
liberty of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so our Savior is the one
who's bringing us out from that darkness. And Paul worded it
in this way in 2nd Corinthians 4.6 when he said, for God who
commanded the light to shine out of darkness and has shined
in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory
of God in the face of Jesus Christ." That is, Christ himself is the
very reflection, he's the very revelation, the revealing of
the light and the glory of God to us. It's how we know him It's
how we understand our God. It's how we see the foolishness
and the folly of our works and our sin. It's in the face of
Jesus Christ, by whom the Father is pleased to reveal himself
to the sinner. And so, we cannot work this salvation. We can't turn it around and we
can't deliver ourselves, but our God, God our creator, can
and will save his people. And this he does by the Son,
Jesus Christ. And there's no other way that
he does it. It's by Jesus Christ alone. Now we're told in John
5, 26 and 27, for as the Father, hath life in himself, so hath
he given to the Son to have life in himself, and hath given him
authority." He's given Christ the authority of God to execute
judgment also because he's the Son of Man. In other words, God
has given to Christ the Son of Man who was sent of God to save
his because He is the Son of God, He has all authority, all
power, all glory to execute and implement the will of God for
the people, all peoples, those that are to be saved and those
that are to be sent to eternal hell for their eternal punishment. This declares to us that Christ,
Christ himself is the creator of all things that we see and
know and understand. He's our creator. And that's
how the scriptures speak of him. Actually, if you turn over to
John chapter one, John chapter one, we see this. And I'm just
gonna pick up in verse three, but the apostle John, being led
by the Spirit is speaking of Christ, the Word of God. Christ,
the Word of God, and we're told in verse three that all things
were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that
was made. In Him was life, and the life
was the light of men, and the light shineth in darkness, and
the darkness comprehended it not. The darkness did not understand
it. That is until God has mercy on
the sinner and reveals faith in them. And that faith which
he reveals is fixed in the Lord Jesus Christ. The faith which
God forms in the heart of a sinner looks to the Lord Jesus Christ
for all their salvation. That's where we're to look, is
to Jesus Christ alone. And we're told in John 3.21,
since you're in John, look there in chapter three, verse 21, but
he that doeth truth, he that has that fruit, that righteous
fruit of faith revealed in them, and looks to the Savior whom
God has sent, he cometh to the light, right? His faith looks
to the light of God. who is their life, the Lord Jesus
Christ. Why? That his deeds may be made
manifest, brought to light, that they are wrought in God. We come to the light of God,
to Jesus Christ, ever looking to him, so that it is evident
to all that the fruit we bear is not of ourselves, not of this
flesh, but wrought in God himself by his power, glory, his spirit. All right? Actually, let me go
to Romans 7, 4. Romans 7, 4. You see this here, Paul writing to the brethren
tells us, he says, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the
law. You stop looking to and trying
to work righteousness under the law, under the yoke and bondage
of the law, trying to free yourself and trying to cleanse you of
your sin and trying to make reconciliation between you and God. How so? We're dead to it by the body
of Christ. See, we've been taken out from
the body of Antichrist. We have no more part in that
inheritance of dead, corrupt, sinful Adam. We don't have any
part in the first Adam anymore of his corrupt seed. We've been
taken from that body and put into the body of Jesus Christ. We're married to him. That is
that ye should be married to another. We're not married to
Antichrist's body anymore. We're not under the yoke of the
law anymore for righteousness. Even to him who is raised from
the dead. by Him, by our Husband, by our
Lord, His incorruptible seed, by Him we should bring forth
fruit unto God." So, yes, the law was given to reveal and to
show us that we are sinners, that we cannot work a righteousness
for ourselves, but that's not how we're saved. The law gives
us no power It doesn't work righteousness in us. It gives us no power to
cleanse our filthy hands of the sins and the iniquity, the transgressions
that we have committed, and we cannot cleanse ourselves from
the stain of sin by the keeping of the law. It's only by the
precious blood of Jesus Christ that we are made clean. And it's
only by the Spirit of Christ that we're going to walk in paths
of righteousness, not looking to the law, not looking to the
law which was given to yoke the sinner and to bind them lest
they should continue in their sin and iniquity. but we have
the Spirit of Christ whereby we know and understand the things
which God hath freely given to us in the Lord Jesus Christ."
So salvation, the reason why I'm going into this is to show
us that salvation is the creative work of Jesus Christ. It's his
creation in the sinner to destroy that power of sin and death in
us and to create life in us by his spiritual seed whereby we
bring fruit unto God. We bear fruit by the seed of
our husband and savior unto the glory praise of God. All right, now in Colossians
3.10, it's what Paul calls the new man, saying this new man
is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created
him, created him. See, Christ created the new man
that's in us, whereby we know and praise and glorify God, our
Savior. So Jesus Christ is both God and
Creator of all men. And there is a remnant for whom
He is the Savior. The Savior. He is the Savior
whom God provided to deliver that remnant and bring them to
Himself so that we are that chosen generation of peculiar people
who know and love the Lord God, who have been delivered out of
that darkness and bondage to know the true and living God. And there is no other Savior
but Jesus Christ. And so in our text where Isaiah
writes in 40 verse 12, he says, of this Savior, this Savior hath
measured the waters in the hollow of his hand and meted out heaven
with a spam and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure,
and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance."
He's saying this God, this Savior, is the creator who created you.
He is able to create life in you, and to protect you, and
to provide all things necessary for your salvation, and for your
good, and for your keeping, and nourishment, And so he says this,
to confirm to you who are troubled, who have no hope of delivering
yourselves, he's testifying to you as the one who created all
things, that he's able to save you. even in the midst of your
captivity, even in the midst of the sorrow and the wickedness
and the evil, all about you, including this flesh, which is
all about the soul which He's created and put in you. And you
think about it, right, that this Jerusalem, this people, Judah,
they were told, you're going into captivity. You're going
into captivity. And so the Lord is saying to
them, I who created the heavens and the earth and who created
all things am able to deliver you from your captivity. And that's a comfort to us who
know that we were at once captive in our sin, but God has sent
his son to deliver us from that power and that reign of sin. He's going to keep us for he's
delivered us. And for this cause, the psalmist
wrote so beautifully in Psalm 121, verse one and two, he said,
I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, right? Those hills which he weighed
in a balance. Unto those hills from whence
my help cometh. My help cometh from the Lord
which made heaven and earth. And so the Spirit of God is pleased
to remind us over and over again that this One who created all
things that we see is the One who creates life in us and brings
us out of darkness into His marvelous light. And so the Lord is saying,
behold, your God. Behold, your God. Any sorrow, any trouble, any
tribulation, behold, your God is in complete control and able
to comfort you with His Son, with the Spirit of His Son, Jesus
Christ. Now, this brings us to look more
closely at salvation by Christ's offering, alright? So, with man,
salvation is impossible. With man, salvation is impossible. Now, when the disciples, with
Christ, heard him speaking with such authority, showing that
no man can save himself, they asked in Mark 10, 26, who then
can be saved? Who can be saved? If God is so
perfect and holy, and a man rich in works cannot save himself,
who then can be saved? And Jesus looking upon them,
saith, With men it is impossible. It is impossible. But not with
God, for with God all things are possible. All things are
possible with God. You see, God doesn't need to
consult. He doesn't need or consult with
men in anything. What God does is He reveals His
will in men, in the hearts of men. He reveals it to them as
it pleases Him to do. So we are to stand back and not
put our hand to the work, but stand back and behold your God.
Look to Him. Seek Christ our Savior. Seek
Him for salvation. Seek Him to bear His fruit in
you and to keep you. Keep you looking to Him. Now
the Lord says in verse 13 and 14 of our text, Isaiah 40, 13, Who hath directed
the Spirit of the Lord, or being his counselor hath taught him?
With whom took he counsel, and who instructed him, and taught
him in the path of judgment, and taught him knowledge, and
showed to him the way of understanding? So when it comes to What the
Lord's saying to us is when it comes to the wisdom and the judgment
of God, man, by nature, is utterly ignorant of God. He's ignorant
of these things. He's not instructing or showing
or revealing anything to God. God doesn't need man to show
him how it's done or to show him or show him up that man is
good. It's not going to happen. Man
cannot save himself, right? And we're told that in 1 Corinthians
2.14 that the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit
of God because they're foolishness unto him. Neither can he know
them because they are spiritually discerned. And man by nature
does not have the Spirit of God to know and understand the things
of God. He can't spiritually discern
them. Now wisdom is the counsel of God, and Christ is the wisdom
of God. Wisdom is the counsel of God,
and Christ is the wisdom of God. Turn with me over to Proverbs
8. Proverbs 8, and look at verse 22. And we'll read down to verse
25. So Proverbs 8, 22. The Lord possessed me in the
beginning of His way, before His works of old. I was set up
from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was. When there
were no depths, I was brought forth. When there were no fountains
abounding with water, before the mountains were settled, before
the hills was I brought forth. Well, here, the Spirit of God
is describing Christ, the wisdom of God. And it's by Christ, by
his wisdom, by his word, he made the worlds and all that in them
is. Our God made all things by his word, his wisdom, the Lord
Jesus Christ. And so he created this world
for Christ. so that Christ himself is called,
in Revelation 13, 8, the Lamb slain from the foundation of
the world. It was always purposed by God
to do this, to have a remnant for himself and to save them
by the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, in 1 Corinthians 1, 23 and
24, 1 Corinthians 1, 23 and 24, because We know and it's been revealed
to us that Christ himself is the Lamb of God, slain from the
foundation of the world. For this cause, 1 Corinthians
1.23, we preach Christ crucified. Now unto the Jews, he's a stumbling
block. And unto the Greeks, foolishness,
right? That is, those that are working
and laboring in religion by goodness, by works under the law, by their
ecclesiology, their study and practice of the church and the
administration of the church and all their high churchmanship,
those that are looking to the law for righteousness. and their
practices under their denomination, those who are trusting in those
things, Christ is a stumbling block. He's in their way. It doesn't make any sense. They're
just out there practicing religion and practicing what they deem
as goodness and righteousness to save themselves with God. And just like the Jews, they
stumble over Christ. All right, now unto the Greeks,
He's foolishness, right? Those that philosophize and think
that by their wisdom and knowledge, they, through humanity and through
their thoughts and their own wisdom, they can know God and
they can work goodness in the earth and try to make things
right with political solutions and other ideas. But God says,
that's all foolishness. That's foolishness. And they're
stumbling around, groping about in darkness, so that unto them
which are called, out from the Jews, right, and out from the
Greeks, both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God, and
the wisdom of God. Christ is the wisdom of God. You wanna know wisdom? You wanna
know God? Look to the Lord, Jesus Christ. Now, countless numbers
of men and women perish in their sins because they refuse the
wisdom of God. They will not hear Christ. They
will not come to him. In their heart and in their minds,
he's foolishness. He is not salvation to those
who have no spiritual ear hear what God is saying to the nations,
to the peoples, look to my Son, look to my Savior. There's no
other salvation but in Christ alone. Now, our God, for that
elect people, for that chosen few who yet remain in darkness,
our God sent his Son. He sent his Son in the flesh
to come into the world and to satisfy, to fulfill the law of
God perfectly. Perfectly. Both to God and to
men, Christ satisfied the law in all points perfectly. And then he went to the cross.
for His people, bearing their sin, bearing their shame and
their iniquity, to do for them what they could not do for themselves.
he bore the wrath of God in their place. So that the wrath, the
debt of wrath that I accumulated and worked up by my sin and iniquity,
my flesh and my heart and my thoughts and my words and my
deeds, Christ bore them in his body and with his righteous soul,
he made sacrifice unto God to put away the sin of his people
forever. so that we're told by the Apostle
Peter in Acts 10.42 that Christ was ordained of God to be the
judge of quick and dead. And to him, verse 43, give all
the prophets witness that through his name, whosoever believeth
in him, whosoever's hope and confidence is fixed in Christ. Believing that God sent him and
that God raised him from the dead to do this work and putting
away our sins, we're told that they shall receive remission
of sins. And that word remission, to remember
what it means, what does that word mean, remission? It means
that in Christ we are delivered, escaped from the penalty of sin. We shall never die that second
death. We've tasted of the first death
in Adam, that spiritual death, because of our sin and iniquity,
we didn't know the things of God. But now in Christ, we have
no fear of that second death, which is eternal separation from
God in complete and utter darkness. Christ has delivered His people.
We've received in our Savior remission of sins, deliverance
from the penalty of our sins, all because Christ willingly
laid down His life and paid the redemption price, the price to
redeem us, to purchase us with His own righteous blood. All right, now, The reason that
salvation must be this way is because the religious men, right,
those that seek to save themselves, as well as those sinners who
could care less and don't give any thought to God and just seek
their own pleasure and their own will and would do their own
thing, all men must hear this, that men fall short of the glory
of God. That's what our apostle told
us, all men have sinned and come short of the glory of God, Romans
3.23. And so man doesn't hear what
God has revealed to us regarding sin. That if there was a law
that we could work for our own righteousness, our God would
never have sent his darling son into the earth. He would never
have taken on the lowliness of our stinking flesh. because we
would have been able to work a righteousness for ourselves,
but God is showing that we can't. Not in the beginning, not in
the middle, not at the end. We ever need the Lord Jesus Christ
and his salvation. And so the Lord is showing us,
as we saw with the Jews and the Greeks, no nation upon the earth
has ever figured out how to save themselves. No nation upon the
earth ever understood or learned how to please God, except that
God revealed salvation to them, which he revealed in the face
of his son, Jesus Christ. He made the mystery of God known
to us through Jesus Christ, all right? So now he says in Isaiah
40, verse 15, Behold, he tells us, the nations
are as a drop of a bucket and are counted as the small dust
of the balance. Behold, he taketh up the aisles
as a very little thing." So the Lord told Jerusalem and Judah
in the years following Hezekiah that they would be taken captive
by Babylon, and Babylon is a representation of spiritual Babylon. Spiritual
Babylon is the great whore church. She's a whore, and she has no
part with the Lord's people. Her part is with the spirit of
Antichrist, and she bears false fruits, and she has no part in
Christ our Savior. There's a description of Revelation
18, if you wanna turn there, of the great whore church. Revelation
18, verse two. This is a description of that
evil false church, which claims to have its part in God and in
Christ, but it has no part in it. We're told, verse two, that
it, is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every
foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird. For all nations have drunk of
the wine of the wrath of her fornication." She's an adulteress
and a fornicator. and the kings of the earth have
committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth
are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies. Now, for all
her influence among the inhabitants of the earth, our Lord tells
us that she, like all the rest of the nations, are as a drop
of a bucket, and are as the dust, the small dust of the scale.
And now, if you've ever worked with a bucket and had water in
it, you don't take thought of the drop that either clings to
the bucket and doesn't fall out or to the drop that detaches
itself and falls out of the bucket, right, out of the bucket. And
you don't take thought if you're weighing something about a small
little amount of dust. It makes no difference in the
grand scheme of things. It counts for nothing. And so
he says to us, because he takes no thought of her. He says, come
out of her, my people. Come out of her, my people, that
ye be not partaker of her sins and that ye receive not of her
plagues. We're to come out of her and
not to have any part with her lies and her false religion,
her false works, those things that she's trusting in because
it's all pagan idolatry. It's all made to look good. It all sounds good. It has an
appearance of them having angels, ministers of light, and they
appear to be good, and they appear to say the things that are good
and right, but we're told that her paths are falsehood and lies,
that she's a deceiver, and so we're to have no part with her. She convinces men, saying, fornicate
with me, and I'll bear fruit to your God. I'll help you bear
fruit to God. You just fornicate with me."
And what the Lord's saying is, have no part. Look to my son,
Jesus Christ, alone for your righteousness. Don't look to
the law. Don't go back to the law, which
I gave to Moses to give to Israel to show them that even they are
sinners, right? And anyone who looks to the law,
if they're honest, We'll see that it reveals that we are sinners,
incapable of pleasing God in our works. We're not consistent,
and we can't do it. And even if we were consistent,
we're still sinners, and we're still sinners in ways we don't
understand, right? Or she says, your Lord's gone
on a far journey. Just rest with me a while and
take your fill of sin and this world's pleasures. Forget about
that for a while. Don't worry about the Lord. Just
do what feels good to you. She's a deceiver. And we're told
that that man who listens to her knows not that the dead are
there and that her guests are in the depths of hell. That's
the fool. That's the heart of the fool
that looks to the false religion of this world, whether it's the
Catholic Church, whether it's continuing in Judaism, whether
it's continuing in the law and adding to Christ, or it's Hinduism,
or the Muslims, or any of these false churches and false religions
which turn us away from Christ to look to our own works. And
there's countless numbers of churches that go by the name
of Christ that are yet looking to products of their own flesh
and trusting in their works and not looking to the Savior to
save them, not having confidence in the Savior, but having confidence
in what they've done for the Savior, and thinking that it's
because of their works, their faith, their deeds, their denomination,
their confession, their walking the aisle, that it's because
of those things that God is pleased with them. No. Our God is pleased
with His Son, Jesus Christ, the Savior of Christ. He's a sweet-smelling
Savior to the Father. in Christ and you shall be received
of God the Father. Come with your own works and
you'll come stinking and rotting like the sinful piece of flesh
that we are by nature and God will reject us and have no part
in us. It's because man sooner believes the flesh and is more
likely to trust the flesh. Well, that's all he'll do is
trust the flesh than to believe the voice of the Son of God.
He won't hear that voice of the shepherd who told us that my
sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me. And this, our great shepherd
tells his saints in verse 16, He's teaching us, showing us,
Lebanon is not sufficient to burn, nor the beast thereof sufficient
for a burnt offering. Stop trying to earn your way
with God. Stop trying to please him by
your works. Are we sinners? Yes, we are.
Are we fools and are we brought low and reminded of the sin? Yes. And don't, we ought not
to do it. And that shouldn't be our pursuit
or our goal or what, we should find no pleasure in that. It
should trouble us. But how are we comforted? How are we healed? It's looking
to Christ and seeking Him, confessing our sin to Him and asking him,
Lord, have mercy upon me, direct my steps, keep my heart, keep
me looking to you, Lord, and not to the things of this foolish
passing world. That's going to be burned up,
all right? So, our works are insufficient
and they shall, they always do fall short of God. All our sinners
needing his grace entirely from beginning to end. And thanks
be to God, he's the alpha and the omega. He is the beginning
and the end. And so we look to him, all right? Now verse 17 says, all nations,
just like our righteous works of this flesh, all nations before
him are as nothing, and they are counted to him less than
nothing and vanity. Brethren, God our Savior has
raised His Son from the dead, and He's given us hope in Him
and told us, look to Him. Look to Him. That's why I sent
Him. Believe Him. And He's the one that nourishes
you. He's the one that instructs you and declares to us to preach
Him. And that's how we're fed. because
he's gathering us, and he's carrying us, and leading us, and feeding
us, because he's the great shepherd, and the one who leads us in paths
of righteousness. And he shall judge the nations. In the day of his judgment, in
the day of judgment, he'll judge the nations, showing that their
works do not please him, and their works are counterfeit to
God. but God is well pleased in one,
his son Jesus Christ. Peter tells us in Acts 4.12,
this is the stone which you builders, which was set at naught of you
builders, which is become the head of the corner. The one thing
that man thinks so little of is Jesus Christ. We know how
in religion, especially in Christianity, right, Christian religions, what
men are hoping in today, Christ is but the gate. He's but a doorman
that they just walk on by. And they walk on by and they
go up to the skyscraper of man's works, the height of his vanity,
right, of all the things that he does in the name of God for
God, and Christ is down there on the ground floor as the doorman
that they just walk past and trample over. But, were told
neither is there salvation in any other for there is none other
name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved."
Christ is at the door, right? He is the gate and it's through
him that we enter and it's in him that we are presented to
the Father and kept all the days of our life. So I pray that the
Lord Bless each of you that hear my voice, that you hear the voice
of Christ, and that you look to Him, and that you seek Him,
and stay upon Him, seek to stay upon Him, beg the Lord to keep
us, and that you hear His voice with the ear of faith. That's
the gift of God, that's the grace of God, to bring us out of darkness,
into his marvelous life. It's in Christ, and that's where
he keeps his people. And all those, though they hear
him for a time, but move on to their own works of righteousness,
because they're not satisfied with the chief stone that God
has provided, they shall have a fearful and terrible day, and
that day of judgment. But to those as weak as we are,
as hard as it is for us to believe sometimes, that God should love
a sinner like us, a weak, poor, helpless sinner. He tells us
he'll lift up our heads, for he's our light, and he's our
glory, and he is the lifter of our heads, and he speaks for
us now and shall speak for us in that day, and he shall say,
well done, thou good and faithful servant, enter thou into thy
rest. So I pray the Lord bless that
word to the hearts of his people and call sinners out of darkness
into his marvelous light. Amen. All right, let's close
in prayer. Our gracious Lord, Father, we
thank you for your glory, for your power, for the wonder of
your grace, which you've revealed in the face of your Son, Jesus
Christ, who is the light and life of men. Oh Lord, have mercy
upon us. Lord, we see countless thousands,
thousands upon thousands, going upon the broad road that leads
to destruction. Father, deliver us and keep us
on that narrow way ever walking in the light of your Son, Jesus
Christ. Open our ear, Lord, with the
ear of faith that we may hear the voice of our Savior and know
and experience his love for us. And Lord, that by your grace
and power, we would follow him. It's in the name of our Lord
and Savior, Jesus Christ, that we pray this, amen.