We're gonna get started here.
All right, well, welcome everyone. We're gonna be in Isaiah 32,
Isaiah 32. And let's begin in verse nine.
Isaiah 32, we'll read in verse nine and we'll read down through
verse 17. Rise up, ye women that are at
ease, hear my voice, ye careless daughters, give ear unto my speech. Many days and years shall ye
be troubled, ye careless women, for the vintage shall fail, the
gathering shall not come. Tremble, ye women that are at
ease, be troubled, ye careless ones strip you and make you bare
and gird sackcloth upon your loins. they shall lament for
the teats, for the pleasant fields, for the fruitful vine. Upon the
land of my people shall come up thorns and briars, yea, upon
all the houses of joy in the joyous city, because the palaces
shall be forsaken, the multitude of the city shall be left, the
forts and towers shall be for dens forever. a joy of wild asses,
a pasture of flocks. That is, until the Spirit be
poured upon us from on high, and the wilderness be a fruitful
field, and the fruitful field be counted for a forest. Then
judgment shall dwell in the wilderness, and righteousness remain in the
fruitful field, and the work of righteousness shall be peace.
and the effect of righteousness, quietness, and assurance forever. Let's pray. Our gracious Lord,
Father, we thank you for your mercy, for the grace which you've
poured out upon us abundantly in your Son, Jesus Christ. Lord,
we see what we are by nature, in darkness, left to ourselves,
we are careless and at ease, indifferent to the things of
our God and the coming wrath of our God. Until you pour out
your Spirit, Lord, and make us to see and to know Christ, to
hear your voice, to believe your Gospel Word, to trust in Christ
and Christ alone for His righteousness' sake. to know that we are accepted
of you in Him and only in Him. Lord, we pray that you would
cause your people to hear your voice this night, cause us to
hear your gospel, cause us to cry out upon you, to seek you,
to know you, to rejoice in you. Lord, deliver us from the coming
wrath against your enemies and the enemies of your people. And
Lord, let us be counted among your faithful, your chosen children,
those redeemed by the blood of Christ. Lord, we pray for our
brethren, especially those that are sorrowing and suffering. We think of Pastor Fortner's
family, Lord, grieving at his loss and sorrowing that he is
no longer with them. the Lord we rejoice at the thought
that he is now in glory, beholding the sight of his Savior, resting
in that sweet peace of our God. Lord, we thank you for his labors,
the fruit that you bore in him, and how it has impacted and affected
so many of us. Lord, that it would be a reminder
to us how faithful you are to your
church, how good and kind you are to your church, to feed your
church, give them pastors after your own heart. Lord, help us
that our pastors to remember, to remember your calling and
that it is not a yoke, of ease of this world. Lord, that we
are called to serve our God and to serve your people, to minister
your gospel liberally to as many as you shall bring across our
path or send us to. Help us to be faithful, to lift
up Christ, to preach Jesus Christ and Him crucified, and to put
man down in the dust where he belongs. Lord, shake this flesh,
bring it low, and cause Christ to be exalted in Your people.
Lord, we pray for grace in these times, Lord, these uncertain
and unsure times, and bizarre things that we see going on.
We pray that Your will be done, and we take great comfort in
that, knowing that You are in control of all things, Lord,
We truly believe that and know that all things are in your hand.
And so Lord, we cry out to you. We lift up our voice to you knowing
that you hear the prayers of your saints because of your son
who is precious in your sight. You receive us in him, being
cleansed in his blood. that you have imputed righteousness
to us, for he has made us righteous. Lord, help us indeed to walk
circumspectly, even as we are called in the high calling of
our God to serve our Savior. Father, we pray for others that
are suffering with sickness, those that we know and care deeply
about, We pray for the D'Armiento family, that you would bless
them, that you would keep them. Lord, that you would comfort
Cheryl, comfort Art, comfort their family, and let them see
the power and the will and the glory of our God worked in their
lives. Be with your people in all their
various and numerous needs, Lord, many that I cannot number now.
the Lord that you would, oh Lord, that you would hear the cry of
your people, and that you would bring peace among your people,
among the brethren. It's in Christ's name, we pray
and give thanks. Amen. Okay, brethren, so our text is
specifically Isaiah 32, verses 9 through 15, and here, In our passage, the Lord has
sent his prophet, and he's speaking to his people by his prophet. The Lord's voice goes out. The Lord is speaking here. He
sent a prophet to speak to the people, and he's speaking to
the churches that go by his name. Now, historically, when Isaiah
was preaching here, This would have been to the children in
Jerusalem and the daughter cities, the cities about Jerusalem in
Judea. And this would have been so of
these people until the time when our Lord would come, when he
would come in the flesh. not only does it have an eye
towards that time, to the church of that time, but it has an eye
to the churches now, in the age of the Whore of Babylon, those
churches that claim to be the Lord's churches, but are really
nothing more than the Whore of Babylon. And so that's between
the time when our Lord came in the flesh and the time when our
Lord comes again, the second time. This would be the time
from Jerusalem being trodden down by the Gentiles until the
times of the Gentiles be fulfilled. So the danger that the Lord is
warning here about, what the Lord is saying, he's sending
forth his voice and making known that these people are in great
danger, they're in great trouble, they're in darkness, they're
bound in sin. And so, what we see witnessed
here is self-righteousness, self-confidence, dead religion, dead religion
among the people. That is until, until Christ comes. That's the main power here, is
that the church, the people, they're dead, except the Lord,
until he pours out his spirit upon them and gives them life
in himself, gives them his spirit, gives them the refreshing of
his spirit and his water of washing, and so that he gives life to
his people. And so, our life is in Christ,
and he restores his people, and he destroys his enemies. Now,
verses nine through 14, which is the bulk of our text, It speaks
of man's fleshly indifference. By nature, we have an indifference
to the gospel of God. We have an indifference to the
salvation of God. We're very careless and don't
really care to give God glory. If there's something in it for
us, something in it that excites and exalts our flesh, we can
get involved in that. That's why you see a lot of churches
so-called with a great deal of entertainment that appeals to
the flesh of men. And so that's where the churches,
left to themselves, this is where they are. Even if they have the
name, if they go by the name Christian, this is where they
are. Not just the Papists, not just
in Muslim and Buddhism and Confucianism and all the different religions
of this world. and all the dead things of this
world, but even in the churches, so-called, that go by Christ's
name. And then in verse 15, this is
where we begin to see the salvation, the salvation of God's people,
how that it's God who makes the difference for his people. He says in verse 15, until the
Spirit be poured upon us from on high. and then all the spiritual
blessings of God and heavenly places in Christ are poured out
upon his people. Okay? Our title is The Making
of a Fruitful Field. The Making of a Fruitful Field.
And as you can imagine, the true Church of God is a fruitful field. They're fruitful because the
Lord Jesus Christ bears fruit in them. He's the difference. He's the one who gives life and
not we ourselves. So let's begin here with these
verses nine through 14, looking at a warning, looking at this
warning, the voice of the Lord going to these religious persons. Now last week, we saw how that
the Lord converts his people. And when he converts them, he
makes them to know their false teachers, right? He makes them
to, to, cease delighting in them." Right? We once trusted in lies
and in dead religion. And it's the Lord who makes us
to see they're not as liberal as I thought they were. Meaning
they're not sharing the gospel. They're not declaring the gospel. They're vile persons. They're
speaking wickedness. And those people that I thought
were very generous are actually misers with the truth. They may
know they may know something of the gospel, but they're not
sharing it. They're not giving it out to the people. They're
hiding it in darkness, and they're speaking of the things that they
know excite the flesh, that they might please men, and even worse,
deceive men, and bring them down to hell with themselves. And
so the Lord makes us to know false teachers, and turns us
from those false teachers, and puts us into his church where
we begin to serve the Lord and to send forth his word liberally,
to preach the gospel liberally. So now the Lord calls to these
lovers of dead religion and he says to them in verse nine, rise
up ye women that are at ease, hear my voice. Ye careless daughters,
give ear unto my speech. Now we know from the history
of reading the Jews that many prophets were sent to them, and
time and time again, they would not hear what the prophets had
to say. They didn't discern that what
these men were saying was of the Lord, but they charged them
with being against the people, of trying to destroy the people,
of trying to destroy the Lord's heritage and to make trouble
for them. They saw them as false prophets,
They saw them as traitors of their land because they weren't
speaking good things and puffing them up and edifying their flesh,
right? They wanted to hear smooth things.
They wanted to hear how the Lord was gonna save them and deliver
them from all their enemies, even though they were poor. and because they were the delight
of the Lord. They were looking to hear that
what they were doing was good and right and pleased the Lord
well, that he was pleased with their works in religion. And
so they wouldn't do that. They would preach what the Lord
sent them to preach. And so the Lord came with his
word and he compared their religion to drunkenness. to drunkenness,
right? To drunkenness and to vomit.
In Isaiah 28, he saw that. And then in Isaiah 29, verse
nine, he explains what he really means. Not just, not physical
drunkenness, drinking wine and strong drink, but they had a
false spirit. He said in Isaiah 29, verse nine,
they're drunken, but not with wine. They stagger, but not with
strong drink. For the Lord hath poured upon
you the spirit of deep sleep, and hath closed your eyes, the
prophets and your rulers, the seers hath he covered, and the
vision of all is become unto you as the words of a book that
is sealed." And so here, back in 29, the Lord poured on this
people, this stubborn, hard-hearted people, drunken with a false
spirit, believing a lie, he poured out upon them a false spirit
so that they were just in darkness, a blinding spirit, a spirit that
kept them in darkness to the truth of the Lord. And so after
years of warning, after years of prophets, they went into captivity. They were brought into captivity
until it pleased the Lord to bring them out of captivity as
he had said. And one of the last, or the last
prophet is Malachi. And Malachi ministered the word
which the Lord gave him. And then there was hundreds of
years of darkness. There was hundreds of years of
darkness in Israel. And they were left without a
voice. They didn't hear the voice of the Lord for hundreds of years.
And so Isaiah's words here were very relevant, right? They were
very relevant to the people until the coming of the Lord. And so he says to these women
that are at ease, and these careless daughters, he says, hear my voice,
give ear unto my speech, right? Hear while I'm speaking, while
the word's coming forth, hear it, hear what the Lord is saying.
While the word is going forth, hear what he's saying. And so
he's speaking to the cities of Judea. He's speaking to those
that go by his name, that claim to be his. And when I was looking
at this, and he's saying, hear my voice, and how the prophets,
they spoke until there was, until they didn't speak anymore. And
the voice, the next time that they heard the voice is when
John the Baptist came, and just as Malachi had prophesied of.
And if you turn over to Isaiah 40, Verse six, Isaiah 40, verse six. It says, the voice, the voice, the
voice said, cry, and he, John the Baptist, said, what shall
I cry? And this is what he cried, all
flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the
field. So he's speaking here to these
careless daughters. And he's saying, hear what I'm
saying. The grass withereth, the flower
faded, because the spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it. Surely
the people is grass. The grass withereth, the flower
faded, but the word of our God shall stand forever. O Zion, that bringest good tidings,
get thee up unto the high mountain, O Jerusalem, that bringest good
tidings, lift up thy voice. All right, hear my voice, and
if we hear the Lord's voice, by the power of His Spirit, we'll
be able to speak. We'll be able to speak in union,
in unison with His voice. voice with strength, he says,
lift it up, be not afraid, say unto the cities of Judah, those
careless daughters, behold your God. They are made and come to
be liberal with the gospel. They are turned to the Lord. And so, This is the coming of
Christ, foretold by John the Baptist. And Christ is come,
to which the Father himself says to us, this is my beloved Son,
in whom I am well pleased. Hear ye Him. Hear my Son. And though he spake,
though the Lord spake in time past, unto the fathers by the
prophets, we are told that he hath in these last days spoken
unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things,
by whom also he made the worlds." So hear his voice. He's talking
about the voice of his Son. We're to hear Christ. We're to hear Christ, not be
so involved and busy and burdened down with our dead religion,
with our practices, with what we think pleases the Lord, and
going about to establish ourselves, and our denomination, and our
religion, and what we think is right, but to hear the voice
of the Lord, to hear Christ our Savior, and to lift up that voice
with strength that is his spirit, praying that he bless his word
and go forth, not with the spirit of dead works, not with the spirit
of blindness, but with the spirit of power and of grace and of
glory, declaring salvation to the people of God, that sinners
might know that there is salvation and forgiveness with God, not
in our works of righteousness, which we have done, but in Christ,
his salvation, whom he sent to bless the people, to save the
people. So before this voice spoke through
Jam, it was great darkness upon Israel and upon Judah. And verse
10 in our text, Isaiah 32, 10 says, many days and years shall
ye be troubled, ye careless women, for the vintage shall fail, the
gathering shall not come. And so during that time, prior
to Christ's coming, right, there was no great ingathering of believers. There weren't multitudes of converts
to the truth. They had their religion. They had their religion. They
had their way of doing things and what they trusted in. They
had the law and the prophets. They had the priesthood and the
sacrifices. They had the temple and the altar
there. They had much of religion. They
had the outward appearance and the show of religion. And yet the Lord says in verse
11 now, tremble ye women that are at ease, be troubled. You're
at ease in your religion. Be troubled, ye careless ones. Strip you and make you bare and
gird sackcloth upon your loins. You have nothing, he says, so
seek the Lord. You think you have life, you
think you have a name, you think that you're rich, but you're
poor, blind, and naked. There's no riches, no righteousness,
nothing to come before your God. Nothing upon which God who created
the heavens and the earth and created you, nothing upon which
you can stand upon and have any hope to stand before God in yourselves. So hear his voice, hear his voice. He's sending his voice out. That
is the voice of Christ Jesus, our Lord and Savior. He says,
gird your loins with sackcloth, right? He's saying, repent, be
turned from your dead works to seek the true and living God.
Put your face in the dust, and seek the Lord, seek to know him,
humble yourselves under the mighty hand of your God and he in his
time shall lift you up. So dark and difficult were their
days, right? Their days were dark and difficult
and they were so dark and difficult that we're told in verse 12 that
they shall lament for the teats, for the pleasant fields, for
the fruitful vine. And what we see there, before
the Lord came, there was a great stretch of darkness there. There
was few, there were few who knew, a few who heard the promises
of God and believed and waited for the promise of God to appear
to them, right? There was a remnant. remnant
seed, a small seed looking for salvation. There was Simeon who
saw the Lord when he was a babe and he was brought by Mary and
Joseph into the temple to be circumcised and he rejoiced to
see the salvation of the Lord. And then Anna, the prophetess,
she came in, that instant, it says, and she gave thanks likewise,
just like Simeon, unto the Lord, and spake of him, of Christ,
to all them that looked for redemption in Jerusalem. All right, so there
were some who longed for those days, who looked for the blessing
of the Lord, and who looked for the outpouring of the Lord, but
it was a dry time. and the voice of the Lord was
not gone forth so that the people were not turned from their darkness. And even when Christ came, when
Christ came and dwelt among them, doing many miracles, many good
things among the people, teaching them the truth, healing the sick,
casting out devils, doing many good things, many miracles among
them, so that they knew and had the testimony and the witness
of the Spirit of God before them in the Son of God. But did they
receive Him? Did they receive the Messiah
when He came? There were a few, there were
a few, there was a handful of disciples and some women that
followed the Lord, but were told that Christ came, He came unto
His own, and his own received him not. They rejected the Messiah. The Jews in all their religion,
with their temple and sacrifices, the priesthood, the old covenant,
the law and the testimony, all right, all the scrolls and scriptures
and teaching and learning that they had in their whole system
of doctrine and theology, caused them to reject Christ, right? They rejected the Messiah sent
to save his people and they delivered him up to the Romans that he
be crucified, that he be crucified. And so it was very telling as
to the state of the world's religion at that time, just as it is very
telling to us that religion without grace cannot save. It's not a help to us, but a
hindrance, and it's nothing but a means of ease and comfort upon
false and untrue things. We need the grace and the power
of our God. As our Lord once said, that God
could raise up from these stones sons of God. He could raise up
people out of nothing to glorify and praise him if his people
in the churches do not praise and glorify him. And he's done
it many times throughout history. And so verses 13 and 14 say,
Upon the land of my people shall come up thorns and briars. That's
a reference to the curse that man is under in the garden. Thorns
and briars. Yea, upon all the houses of joy
and the joyous city, because the palaces shall be forsaken,
the multitude of the city shall be left, the forts and towers
shall be for dens forever. A joy of wild asses, a pasture
of flocks. And so, this was the state of
religion leading up to Christ's coming. This was the state of
religion after Christ came and refused to hear the voice of
God. They were stiff-necked and hardened
in their hearts. And we know that this has an
eye historically to when Babylon came and destroyed them and took
them into captivity, and then again when the Romans came and
destroyed Jerusalem and destroyed the temple in 70 AD, the Lord
destroyed their religion and their hope and their confidences
in the things of this world, in the things of flesh and of
man, and not of the true and living God. And so it's a picture
of religion in our day. It's true, religion, there's
never been a time where man was able to save himself, where man
was pleasing in his flesh to the Lord. There's never been
a time when we that are the sons and daughters of Adam, right,
before the fall, yes, Adam pleased the Lord well, but after the
fall, there's never been a time when man pleased God in the works
of his flesh. the religion of man, the religion
of works, the religion of this world, the religion of flesh,
is always dead, and comforts itself in dead things, in things
which are destroyed and shaken by the Lord. And so the Lord's
voice is always turning us from the things of this world, turning
us from death to the true and living God. That's what the Lord
is constantly doing. It's because we're born of Adam's
corrupt, dead, impotent seed, and we cannot cure ourselves.
We can't change it. Just as a leopard can't suddenly
remove its spots from itself, we can make ourselves good. We that are evil cannot make
ourselves good by our works. We're born children of wrath
and disobedience and destruction until the Lord has mercy upon
us. And so, even when you think about
it today, especially in Missouri here where we are, there's many
people that are happy to tell you that they are religious. There's a lot of people that
are very, willing to boast that they themselves are religious.
And they'll do it in many different ways. They'll even tell you jokes
to let you know that they're of a religious sort. The jokes
that they tell you have a sort of religious connotation to them. And so what I find though is that men
boasting in his religion is that the boast is in what they've
done, their hope, what they've done in religion for the Lord. Their rest and their peace isn't
in the Lord himself, but in what they themselves are doing in
religion for the Lord. What works they're accumulating,
what good deeds they're doing, And part of that involves them
being very vocal in the fact that they claim to be Christian. And so their trust is in their
works and not in Christ. And that's exactly what Israel
was guilty of. Their trust was in their works
in the law. And that's why they wouldn't
hear the prophets. Their confidence was in their
works in the law that they went to the temple, that they did
the sacrifices, and went to the priests like they were supposed
to do according to the law, and therefore, that was their confidence. They had taken care of business
with the Lord, and so they were very confident in themselves. And so the refuge was in what
they were doing in serving the Lord, and not in Christ himself. And that's why the Jews could
reject the Messiah, so they thought, and they were confident to reject
Christ because they were confident in their works. And is that not
the state of religion today? Men and women boasting of their
decision, boasting of their faith, not boasting of God's choosing,
not boasting of God's Christ and His salvation in Christ and
His mercy and grace toward them, the sinner, but their boasting
is in what they've done for Christ and how they've stopped doing
this and started doing that. And that's where their confidence
lies. That's what man is trusting in. and so they're about ease and
comfort in their works. Now, as much as this speaks to
the generation of the Jews prior to our Lord's coming and in the
days of his flesh, it speaks to the church so-called in our
day. It's true, just as true as it
was then, it's true for us as well, so we should never boast
ourselves foolishly in thinking that these words have no meaning
for us. And the Lord says to us, hear
my voice. This is my beloved son, in whom
I am well pleased, hear ye him. Amos even, the prophet Amos said,
woe to them that are at ease in Zion, those who have no fears
and doubts because they've made a confession of faith, they follow
the steps prescribed in their religion, they rejoice in their
decision to follow Jesus, but the reality is they're hoping
and trusting him the idol Jesus, which the blacksmith of their
own heart has formed and made for themselves, and they bow
down to that idol and not the true and living God. It's because
God didn't choose them, they chose God. God didn't choose
them, they chose God, and so they're confident now that they
can be teachers of others, in their dead religion, and that
they can go and declare to others the salvation of God, and to
be like them, and to participate and join in their practices,
and the programs that they have for their community, and things
like that. And so the Lord is showing us
that no one saves themselves. None of us is able to save ourselves,
and that all our religion, in the works of the flesh, all our
religion amounts to a hot steaming pile of dung, and that's it,
before the eyes of the Lord. That is until the Lord intervenes
with his spirit. And so, it was true of the Jews
then, and it's true of the Jews and the Gentiles even now, until
the Lord reveals himself that we are born dead in trespasses
and in sins. and that he makes us to know
that we don't see the truth, we don't see the light, we don't
see the life that God has provided in his son. And so the Lord sends
forth his ministers to preach this gospel, who preach not themselves,
right? We don't preach ourselves, but
Christ Jesus, the Lord, and ourselves, your servants for Jesus' sake.
For God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness hath
shined in our hearts, or to give the light of the knowledge of
the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. And we have
this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power
may be of God and not of us." And so we do see the weakness
of this flesh, and we do see that we're nothing in ourselves,
so that we're brought to see, my God, have mercy upon me, save
me, deliver me, choose me, Lord. deliver me from this dung, deliver
me from darkness, deliver me from the death that I'm in. All
right, and so that's what the Lord does. He pours out his spirit
upon his people. And that's what we see in our
next point here. The Lord's prophet declares the
God of our salvation. And he declares to us that we
are God's choice. His people are the choice of
God, not that we chose God. The religion does, they say,
well, God couldn't do it. I'm gonna finish and complete
that which God himself could not do for me. I'm gonna make
the decision. and I'm gonna save myself by
choosing to follow the Lord. And so they're trusting in the
strength of their own hand. But the gospel teaches that our
God chose his people and that he does for us what we cannot
do for ourselves. And you see how the religion
of the flesh flips it around, they get it switched up and all
backwards. And so the Lord does this, we're
in darkness until, verse 15, until the spirit be poured upon
us from on high and the wilderness be a fruitful field and the fruitful
field be counted for a forest. All right, before we were all
dead religionists. We were all blinded by nature's
darkness. That is until the Lord poured
out his spirit upon us. Turn over to Isaiah 44. And here we see that it's the
Lord who chooses his people. Look at verse one. Yet now hear,
O Jacob, my servant in Israel, whom I have chosen. Thus saith the Lord that made
thee, and formed thee from the womb, which will help thee. Fear not, O Jacob, my servant,
and thou Jeshurun, whom I have chosen. Just as he chose his
people then, so he chooses his people now in Christ. And he
says, for I will pour water upon him that
is thirsty and floods upon the dry ground. I will pour my spirit
upon thy seed and my blessing upon thine offspring. So we see that we in ourselves,
in our flesh, in Adam, we're the dry and thirsty ground. But we don't know it until the
Lord makes us to know this, until he makes us to know the truth
that we're dead, we're of a dead root, there's no life, we're
not bringing forth any fruit to the Lord. And so he makes
us to see that we're dead in ourselves and the boasting stops. We stop boasting and speaking
of what we've done for the Lord and we begin to boast of what
the Lord has done for us. He pours out His Spirit upon
us and makes us alive in Christ so that we see what He has done. The Spirit convicts us and calls
us to Christ, and he shows us the crucified Savior, what he
did to put away our sin, how that he came to be the faithful,
fit sacrifice for his people, to provide for them and do for
them what they cannot do for themselves, and bearing their
sin in his own body, and going to the cross as the Lamb of God
to take away the sin of his people, so that the wrath of God was
poured out upon him, and he made atonement, expiation, to put
away the wrath of God by putting away the sin of his people. and he satisfied God. He pleased
God well. That's why we're to hear him
and look to him, trusting that he himself, by himself, accomplished
our salvation sufficiently, and God is fully well pleased with
his work, and there's nothing more for us to do. and he gives
us his spirit so that we are alive now to look to him and
to rejoice in him and walk before him in faith and love and he
bears the fruits of knowledge and growth in the Lord so that
we love him more and more and love our brethren as we see and
hear and discover all that God has done for us freely in his
son, Jesus Christ. This isn't worked up in the flesh,
it's by the pouring out of his spirit. And we rejoice as we
see what he does for his people. Our Lord said in John, in places
like John 16, verse eight, he's speaking of the comforter. the
Spirit, the Holy Spirit of God. He says, I'll send him to you.
I'm gonna send him to every one of my people. And when he has
come, he will reprove the world of sin and of righteousness and
of judgment. And he says, of sin, because
they believe not on me. In other words, just as I said
earlier, the Spirit's gonna make us to know that in ourselves
dwells no good thing. We're the sinner. Our works don't
please God. We need the grace and mercy of
God, which he's shown in his son, Jesus Christ. The Spirit's
gonna make that known to us. and then of righteousness. He
says, because I go to my father and ye see me no more. And so that it's not simply that
we no longer see Christ who was himself the righteousness of
God. We beheld Christ and saw his,
we saw what true righteousness was when Christ walked on the
earth in flesh. But now he's not here. But it
doesn't just mean that. What he's showing us is that
the spirit has applied the blood. of Christ to us. We ourselves
aren't righteous in ourselves. We're righteous because of Christ,
because Christ is righteous and he bore us in his body and he
made us righteous so that the spirit reveals what Christ has
done and the gospel goes out, the general call goes out. Many
hear it, but in the chosen people of God, The difference is that
the Spirit reveals in His people faith. He reveals that they hear
what God has done, and they know in their heart, they believe.
And with the mouth, they confess Christ Jesus the Lord. He is
the salvation of God. They believe because the Spirit
has revealed, borne fruit in them, that He's revealed faith
to them, whereby we believe. And so believing, God imputes
righteousness to us. Abraham believed God and God
counted it, imputed righteousness unto him. So it is with us. It's
not our believing that saves, but it's that Christ has made
us righteous. We believe unto righteousness,
it's the righteousness of Christ our Savior, and then of judgment,
because the prince of this world is judged, meaning that we shall
know that all the enemies of our God, all our enemies, sin
and Satan and death, they're all defeated. And we know that
when Christ our Savior returns, he shall destroy our enemies
once for all, because they're already defeated. All right,
now, none of this is by our will or by our work. We don't effect
salvation. God effects salvation in his
people. He's the one who brings the blood of Christ and applies
it to our guilt and our dead consciences. And he makes us
alive by the spirit of Christ so that our part in the dead
seed of Adam, we have no part in that body anymore. We're the
part of Christ, we're born of his spiritual seed, and are now
sons and daughters of God, of Christ our Savior, and our part
is in His inheritance. That's our inheritance. That's
why we rejoice in Him, and so our will is conformed to Him,
and we walk after Him by His Spirit, not trusting in the flesh,
trusting in His spiritual blessed work, which He's done. And the
works we do are all ordained for us in Christ our Savior. Now, this world, what we see
is the world rejects this truth. The dead religion doesn't wanna
hear these truths. But that's not our confidence. We don't expect them to hear
and to believe. We know that this kingdom is
a spiritual kingdom. It's a kingdom, not of this world,
not of this flesh. Our savior said, I will pray
the father and he will give you another comforter. that he may
abide with you forever, even the spirit of truth, whom the
world cannot receive, because it seeth him not." All right,
the world, this flesh is very fleshly, and it can't see the
spirit, so it doesn't believe the spirit. Neither knoweth him,
but ye know him, for he dwelleth with you and shall be in you. And so that's what we see there
in verse 15, until the spirit be poured out be poured upon
us from on high, and the wilderness," he says, be a fruitful field,
and the fruitful field be counted for a forest, right? And that
begins with this barren, dead person in religion before you,
bringing forth fruit, being made alive by the power and grace
of our God, pouring out his spirit upon whomsoever he will, and
teaches them The words of grace teaches them the good news of
our God and His Son, Jesus Christ, so that we rejoice in Him and
are no longer looking to and trusting in this flesh. So we begin to sing. This barren
woman who bore no children begins to sing and to declare the voice
of our God, to lift up His voice and to praise Him in the midst
of the people. This world though, when they
hear it, they'll say, you don't speak the truth. You're barren. You're not even speaking according.
to what the truth is. You're not bearing our works.
This is the fruit that you should be bearing. You should be doing
what we say, right? Oftentimes, it's the law. You should be trusting in the
law now. You should be walking by the
law. That's your rule of life. No
dead person still yet dead in trespasses and sins in your flesh.
Look to Christ. Trust Him. Believe Him. And so the world says, no, that's,
That doesn't sound right. There's something we've got to
do. There's something that man must do. But though this world
rejects us, yet our God receives us because it's his precious
seed. It's his work that keeps us ever
looking to Christ and rejoicing in him. So be faithful, brethren.
Be faithful to Christ and be liberal with his gospel. We're told, well, let me say,
in Galatians 4.28, Paul writes, saying, brethren, as Isaac was,
we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise. We have the promise of a spirit
whereby we know him and believe him. But as then he that was
born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the spirit,
even so it is now. This world will persecute the
people of God when they speak and declare the gospel. And they'll do that until the
spirit be poured upon them, just as the spirit was poured out
upon us who heard his voice and believed and now speak according
to his voice. Nevertheless, what saith the
scripture, Paul said, cast out the bond woman and her son, for
the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the
free woman. In other words, we reject their
religion. We don't seek to find common ground with the dead works
of religion, right? When they're boasting of their
dead false works and their refuges and their hiding places. We have
no comfort for that and we have no comfort for them in that. But as the Lord enables you,
declare his gospel liberally. Just keep giving him praise and
glory. I've heard many of you that do
talk to those who are yet in their flesh. And it's hard to
speak to them because they seem to be delighting so much in their
works and their hope. And the more they speak, the
more you see it's just a hope of the flesh. And I like what the Lord has
given you to do. Just keep turning them to Christ. Just keep showing them that we
give all the glory, all the praise to our God and Savior, Jesus
Christ. And so we reject their religion in that way. So then
brethren, we are not children of the bondwomen, but of the
free. And so being free, let us speak
as free men. Let us declare the liberty that
we have in Christ, having been set free from the dead works
of this flesh and made alive to the things of God, wherein
we boast and rejoice. So then, Verse 16 in our text,
then judgment shall dwell in the wilderness and righteousness
remain in the fruitful field. And the work of righteousness
shall be peace and the effect of righteousness, quietness and
assurance forever. If we become as those who are
at ease and careless, it's only because the church has become
or is just like the churches back then, those that went by
the name of God but didn't know the truth in living God. But
we who hope in Christ and have no confidence in the flesh and
look to him only, we are Christ's bride and we're not of that whore
of Babylon. And therefore, let us come out
of the false ways. Let us hear the voice of our
God. Let us remember him and hear his speech. Be turned to
Christ. Don't be moved away from Christ. Seek his face, and that's how
you'll know the will of God. It's Christ. Christ. Christ is
our Savior, our confidence, our foundation, our hope, and our
surety. He's our assurance to stand before
God. And so we preach Jesus Christ,
and him crucified, and so that his voice goes forth. into this
wilderness, and that's how God makes his people in this wilderness
a fruitful field. That's how it will be converted,
is through the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I pray
the Lord will bless this word to your hearts and comfort you
and keep you in his Son, Jesus Christ. Amen. All right, let's
close in prayer. Our gracious Lord, Father, we
thank you for your grace, for the power and
the gift of your Son, which is revealed to us in the pouring
out of your Spirit upon us, the pouring out of your holy, precious
spring fountain of water, your Spirit, whereby we know that
in ourselves we're nothing but sinners. but you've provided
all in your Son, Jesus Christ, and that he is indeed salvation. And there is no other name under
heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. Oh Lord, fix
our hope and our faith in Jesus Christ. Let us look to no other
and have confidence in no other but Jesus Christ. Turn us from
the works of the flesh Turn us from the ease and the comfort
of this flesh. Deliver us from dead works and
false religion. And keep us stayed in the refuge
that you have provided for your people, in Jesus Christ. It's in his name we pray and
give thanks, amen.