Okay, hold on, it's getting weird
right now. That might have been good. Good evening, everyone. It's
good to be with you again. We're gonna open with reading
the scriptures. We'll look at our text this evening
in Isaiah 32. Isaiah 32. I'm gonna begin in
verse one again, and then we'll come up to our text and read
down through verse eight. Isaiah 32, verse one. Behold,
a king shall reign in righteousness, and princes shall rule in judgment. And a man shall be as in hiding
place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest, as rivers of
water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary
land. And the eyes of them that see
shall not be dim, and the ears of them that hear shall hearken,
the heart also of the rash shall understand knowledge, and the
tongue of the stammerers shall be ready to speak plainly. Here's
our text. The vile person shall be no more
called liberal, nor the churl said to be bountiful, for the
vile person will speak villainy. and his heart will work iniquity,
to practice hypocrisy, and to utter error against the Lord,
to make empty the soul of the hungry, and he will cause the
drink of the thirsty to fail. The instruments also of the churl
are evil. He deviseth wicked devices to
destroy the poor with lying words, even when the needy speaketh
right. but the liberal diviseth liberal
things, and by liberal things shall he stand, or be established. Let's open in prayer. Our gracious
Lord, Father, we thank you for your wisdom in sending your Son,
Jesus Christ, to teach us the mystery of the gospel, that is,
the righteousness of God, which is found in Christ and Christ
alone. Lord, receive us not upon our
works, our goodnesses, and our attempts at righteousness, but
Lord, receive us only in the person and work of Jesus Christ,
your Son whom you sent to put away the sins of your people.
and to make us acceptable to you, to have knowledge of you
and be established in peace with our God. Lord, we pray that you
would bless the hearts of all those gathered here this evening
to hear your word. Lord, we ask that your spirit
would fall upon us, that you would teach us right things.
And Lord, that you would enable me to speak the gospel plainly,
to exalt Jesus Christ, our Lord and our Savior. And Lord, that
you would bless your people to hear with the spirit, to hear
with the spiritual ear and be given spiritual sight and a heart
ready to receive your word. And that you would reveal faith
in your people, looking to your son, Jesus Christ, whom you've
exalted and set upon your right hand to execute and implement
the will of our God. Lord, we pray that you would
indeed give wisdom to the leaders of our nation. Lord, that you
would open this nation again, that we would have the freedom to move about without
the fear of the government abusing its powers and going against
the Constitution. Lord, that you would indeed give
us freedom and liberty and protect us, Lord, from this virus or
those that would seek to do us harm using this virus. Lord, that you would indeed keep
your people, protect them, provide for us, for we have none but
you, Lord, to provide for us. For what are we? And what are
our hands? And what are our ideas and thoughts and our strength?
Lord, if we have not you, we have nothing. And so, Lord, we
look to you to provide. And we look to you to defend
us. And to keep us. And Lord, most
of all, establish us. and the gospel of our Lord and
Savior, Jesus Christ, help us and enable us and make us to
speak the gospel boldly and to declare Christ freely with liberality
to all those whom you bring before us. It's in Christ's name we
pray this, amen. All right, so our text is Isaiah
32, and we'll be looking at verses five through eight this evening.
But I wanna do a little review of what we saw last week, where
the Lord revealed to us the King, the King, His Son, Jesus Christ,
that He is the righteousness of His people, so that it's not
because we have done good and avoided evil, It's not because
of any works that we've done or how religious we are or if
we're in the right religion or not. The hope of any person,
any man or woman, young or old, their hope is found in Jesus
Christ. That's the hope of God that he
has provided to the people. Christ and Christ alone is the
righteousness of God. And so this king, King Jesus
is abundantly sufficient to save his people to the uttermost. We were told in verse two, Isaiah
32 verse two, that a man, and this is speaking of Christ, shall
be as in hiding place from the wind. When the spirit, if the
spirit puts his eye upon any man, that flesh is withered. We can't stand before the holiness
of God. And so, Christ was provided to
be a hiding place for his people. To deliver us from the just wrath
of God that is coming upon all those who have sinned against
God. And that includes us. But we've been delivered in Christ. He died our death. He bore our
sin. He paid the price of righteousness
that we owe to God. And he died in our place. so
that we are now alive in Him by His Spirit, and we live and
move because of Christ. He shall be a hiding place from
the wind and a covert from the tempest, the wrath of God, as
rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock
in a weary land. And so we saw that this is Christ,
the Lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the world. His people
scattered throughout the world, Jews and Gentiles. And we were
shown that by this king, his princes shall rule in judgment. His princes shall rule in judgment.
So that we're working, the work we do in the kingdom of God is
through his power and grace. Through him establishing us in
the gospel. All right? And the Lord describes
these princes of Christ in verses three and four. We read, the
eyes of them that see shall not be dim, and the ears of them
that hear shall hearken. The heart also of the rash shall
understand knowledge, and the tongue of the stammerers shall
be ready to speak plainly. So that our eyes see the things
of God, our ears hear the things of God. We're taught by the Spirit
of God. We're given understanding. in
the knowledge of God, so that we know what God is revealing
to us, what he's declaring to us from the foundation of the
earth, that we are to look to Christ our Savior, and then he
loosens our tongue so that we speak and declare these things
and glorify God our Savior. Now tonight, I want us to look
at our text, beginning in verse five, and see the revelation
of the righteousness of God, so that, or rather in the revelation
of the righteousness of God, through Christ and his gospel,
he now, he reveals to us that all that religion that we once
formerly trusted in, and the things we hoped in to save us,
He exposes these things. He exposes those teachers of
those lies to be falsehood and folly, to be evil. So that we
stop esteeming them and speaking well of them and fearing them
and trusting their words. and we're turned from those things
to behold Christ, our Savior. Alright, so then we're turned
from those false ways and false teachers and we're turned to
Christ and we speak of Christ and His gospel. Now, the wicked
of course don't like to be exposed and they will usually get upset
about these things when they hear us declare the truth, The
Lord shows us here in this word that he exposes this, that we
are to be turned from these things, that we are to understand and
to know that what the religion of this world teaches is not
truth. God isn't interested in making
us religious people. It's not about being religious.
It's not about believing something. It's about being found in Christ
and in his righteousness. Righteousness of God. It's being
found in Christ and being delivered from the just wrath of God by
Jesus Christ. It's only in Christ that we know
and have any fellowship with God. It's all through our Lord
Jesus Christ. And now Paul tells us over in
Romans 5 verses 8 through 13. We see this. We see that we were
once in darkness. But now we're in the light of
God. That is, he's revealed light
to us. He's revealed Christ to us. And Paul tells us in Ephesians
5, verse 8. I said Romans, I'm sorry, it's
Ephesians 5. He said, for ye were sometimes darkness, but
now are ye light in the Lord. Walk as children of light. And
then he says, for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness
and righteousness and truth, proving, proving what is acceptable
unto the Lord. And have no fellowship with the
unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them. And when he says the unfruitful
works of darkness, that's what dead religion is. People put
a lot of trust and hope in religion and believe that that's their
sanctification, that that's their cleansing and their righteousness
and their acceptance with God. And the Spirit reveals to us
that all that time spent in that is nothing more than unfruitful
works. And that's a nice term for it,
unfruitful works. They're dumb, they're darkness,
they're death. They have no profit for us, meaning
they don't help us in any way with God. They don't teach us
anything about God. They don't draw us near to God.
They do nothing to satisfy the wrath of God and to appease his
just anger and wrath toward us for our sin and iniquity. It
does nothing for that. And so he says, reprove those
things, expose those things, declare them what they are. They're
falsehood and lies. They're not helping anyone. And
people are to hear that and know that. And they know that through
the preaching of the gospel. And then they'll see these things
were falsehoods. And he says, for it's a shame
even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret. And we saw recently in Isaiah
29 where The religious asked, who seeth
us? Who sees the things that we've
done in secret? We can do these things. God doesn't
see or know these things. And the Lord tells us, oh no,
he does see those things. He knows what's in the wicked
heart of man. That's why Christ never trusted
himself to wicked men. He knows what's in the heart
of man. But all things that are reproved are made manifest by
the light. for whatsoever doth make manifest
is light. And so the gospel will inevitably
expose the lies of false religion and expose liars, those that
continue to speak that which is not true, those that speak
and profess to speak in the name of God, but it's not true, it's
falsehood and lies. And then the Lord will reveal
to you who it is that speaks the gospel, who's declaring the
truth. And so I've titled this, Seeing
Things Differently, Seeing Things Differently. And we're gonna
begin with an understanding that there's a new revelation, a new
revelation by God. And so in these next few verses
this evening, It speaks of false teachers, false teachers who
are exposed by the gospel to be liars and frauds. They're liars and frauds, right? And so the Lord reveals this. He makes this known to his chosen
children by the Spirit, right? When he makes them alive in the
Spirit. You know, over in 1 Corinthians
2, in verse 14, we're taught that the natural man, What we
are by nature in Adam, when we're born of our parents, this is
every one of us, the natural man receiveth not the things
of God because they're foolishness unto him. Neither can he know
them because they are spiritually discerned. And we know that none
of us has the spirit of God naturally and we can't work ourselves up
to have the Spirit of God. We can't grow and achieve some
sense of a portion of the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God is
only given by the grace of God to whom He wills. And Paul says,
he that is spiritual judgeth all things, for we have the mind
of Christ. And what he's talking about there
is is the children of God, born dead in trespasses and sins,
born children of disobedience, born children of wrath, are made
alive by the grace of God, according to His choosing, His election
of His people, which He did before the foundation of the world,
before any one of us was born, before any one of us did either
good or evil. We were chosen of God and given
to Christ according to the good pleasure of our God. We'll see
that a little later when we go back to Ephesians. But when he
chose us, Christ came and did the work of salvation. And so
he sends his spirit forth now. And he sends his gospel forth
now. And he, and that call goes out. and as it pleases God, he sends
that word to his children. Many might hear it, but he sends
that word to his child, sitting in darkness, sitting in total
spiritual death, and he gives light and power through the gospel,
making them born again by the power of his spirit, according
as it pleases him in the time of his love for that person,
and he causes them to hear Christ. and to know it's Christ I need
and I have no righteousness of my own. Lord, save me, wash me
in the blood of Jesus Christ. And that's when that spiritual
nature is obtained, it's given by God, it's received, not by
anything we do, but it's given by God. And we are the happy,
passive recipients of the gift of life and grace in Jesus Christ. And that's when that spiritual
discernment begins. And we're taught the gospel,
and he makes this gospel known to us so that we understand the
things of God. And this is as opposed to those
liars who speak a false gospel. Our Lord said to his disciples,
henceforth I call you not servants, for the servant knoweth not,
the servant knoweth not what his Lord doeth, but I have called
you friends. For all things that I have heard
of my Father, I have made known. known unto you." So our Lord
teaches us. He reveals these things to us
through the gospel. That's why it's so important
for us to hear the gospel. And you notice that when you've
heard the gospel, and the Lord has blessed your heart, in the
Gospel, when you hear one of those false teachers preaching
now, if you hear them again, those that you've left, and you
hear them speak again, it's so clear and so plain what liars
they are, and how dead their words are, and how lifeless and
helpless the dead letter religion that it is, there's no spirit
there, there's no life there, there's no light there. So, it's
Christ that does that. It's Christ through the gospel
teaching you, so that he gives you an ear to hear and to know
what that person over there is saying is not truth. They're
appealing to the flesh. They're whipping up the flesh.
They're trying to threaten the flesh or promise the flesh some
reward. to motivate them, to get them
to do things for the Lord. But that's not salvation. Salvation
is in grace by Christ. All right, now, the next thing
the Lord gives us is in verse five, two teachers, two kinds
of teachers here. And then after he gives us the
teachers in verse five, we'll see in verses six and seven that
he describes or breaks down their order of operation. Now look
at verse five. He says, the vile person, shall
be no more called liberal, nor the churl said to be bountiful."
All right, so he's talking about a vile person and the churl,
right? Calling them what they are. And
so that under the influence of gospel light, believers no longer
call them what they used to think about them, right? We don't call
them those things. And what we have here is a transition
has occurred. All right, something's different
now. Before, we thought highly of these teachers. We thought
highly of them, that they were liberal and bountiful. We thought
good thoughts towards them and we thought that they had the
truth. But now we don't see that. Now we see them as vile persons
and as churl persons. And so what's the difference?
What's happened between before and now? What's happened? Behold
the King, verse one. The King, Jesus Christ, has come
with power into your heart and delivered you from death, given
you light in him, given you the gospel, caused you to hear the
gospel, caused you to believe by revealing faith in you. where
you cease trusting in your works, and you cease trusting in the
vain teachings of man, and you trust and believe God. You trust
Christ to save you, and have no other hope or trust but Him. So that's the difference there.
And so, our Lord's Gospel right, is one of sovereign grace. God doing as he pleases for his
people. And so our Lord's glorious verse,
voice, is heard by the people when it pleases Him. And so there's
a disclosure that goes on where God reveals to us that all we
trusted in before now are the words of vile persons and those
that are churl persons. And we begin to separate the
precious from the vile. We don't see that everybody who
claims to be speaking in the name of God is really speaking
in the name of God. As Jeremiah brings out that we're
to to take forth the precious from the vile, right? Just because
someone says they're of the Lord, it doesn't mean that they're
of the Lord. We separate the precious from the vile. We'll
know them by their fruits. Are they turning you back to
the flesh? Are they turning you to the flesh which can only bring
forth thorns and thistles? Or are they turning you to Christ
who bears righteous, acceptable fruit unto the Father by his
spiritual seed? So before the gospel comes, the
vile person, we called them liberal. And the churl person, we called
them bountiful. And so he's just saying there
that prior to the gospel, we thought highly of these people.
We esteemed these people, right? We were members of their body.
We were in their religion. part of them, and we stood in
awe of them, and we feared them, and we listened to them, and
we sought their counsel and their teachings, because we believed
that they were of the Lord. But the reality is, their voice
was a voice of death. They spoke from the crypt. They spoke from the grave. Under
their tongues is poison, the poison of asps, right? And they
spoke that which was not true. And our Lord even said to the
religious leaders, if the Lord When he spoke to the people,
the people that he exposed more than any other for being utterly
vile and sinful, it was the religious people, right? The religious
leaders, the Pharisees, the scribes, the Sadducees, those students
of the law. And he said to them, woe unto
you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites. for ye are like unto whited suffocers,
which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full
of dead men's bones and of all uncleanness. Even so ye also
outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within you're full of
hypocrisy and iniquity. All right, so it's the Lord through
the gospel that reveals this to us, that makes us to see all
those people that we trusted him, they don't have the truth.
And so we turn from them. We don't wanna have any part
with them because he's exposed their falsehoods and their lies. All right, so it's different
now. And these false teachers are
now called what they are, vile persons in churl, okay? So now
let's look here at verses six, and then we'll look at verse
seven. Verse six speaks of the vile person. The vile person
will speak villainy, and his heart will work iniquity, to
practice hypocrisy and to utter error against the Lord, to make
empty the soul of the hungry, and he will cause the drink of
the thirsty to fail. In other words, he's never going
to speak the truth that will satisfy and teach and feed the
new man. It'll never produce the Lord's
righteousness. It'll never reveal the righteousness
of our God in the heart of a believer. In other words, he'll never reveal
Christ to them. He won't speak of Christ. He won't declare the
truth of God in Christ. And so that soul will be left
hungering and thirsting for righteousness. And so here, this verse shows
us that those that were once called liberal, meaning princely,
those that were generous and we thought willing to speak the
truth, those that we thought were generous with the truth
of God, we now call them fools. Villainy means foolishness. In
other words, they're speaking foolishness. They're not sound
men. They're not sound teachers. They're
fools. They're speaking villainy. They're
speaking foolishness. And so when they speak, when
they bring forth a message or a sermon, they make it clear
and evident that they don't know the gospel. They don't know the
gospel. They don't reveal the truth of
God in the person and work of Jesus Christ. They may be speaking
from the Bible. They may be bringing out texts
from the Bible and stories and lessons and moral lessons and
the law and and bring that to bear upon you and what you should
be doing more of, but they don't speak the gospel. They don't
declare and reveal Jesus Christ, right? Some of the things that
we hear them say are, they speak of the goodness of man, right?
There are teachers out there speaking in the name of God who
speak of the goodness of man. But is a man good? Are we good? Our Lord said, there's none good
but God. God is good. Men are sinners. Men by nature are utterly sinful,
utterly depraved, unable to work righteousness and to please God.
And should we do that which is right, we've only done that which
is our duty to do. We haven't profited God in any
way. We haven't done anything good
or deserving of praise, we've only done that which we're supposed
to do. So there's nothing to glory and boast in. Man's not
good. God is good. And some, even when
they speak of God, when they're trying to comfort people in times
of uncertainty and when the people are fearful and afraid, they
say things like, well, I don't believe or accept that God controls
all things. Because that would mean that
God is in control of even the things of evil. That God must
permit and allow things that are evil and bad and hurtful
to people. And so they'll say, well, I can't
accept then that God is sovereign over all things and that he controls
all things. But that's contrary, direct contrary,
direct opposition to the word of God. In Psalm 115 verse three,
We're told that our God is in the heavens and he hath done
whatsoever he hath pleased. In other words, God is doing
and ruling and doing that which pleases him. And so if he brings
evil upon a city, It pleases him to do it, and he's working
his purpose, because he's working all things together for the good
of his people, to them that love God, to them who are the called
according to his purpose. And so he rules and reigns in
the hearts of men. Now the evil of man is already
there. And the Lord is just working
and controlling all things to bring about His will as it pleases
Him. To effect that which is necessary
for His people. And so He'll even allow trials
and tribulations to come upon his people, and hardships, and
death, and sorrows to come upon the people, and sicknesses, and
wars, and famines, and economies crashing, all in order to bring
about good for his people. As we saw earlier, the Lord says,
I'll wait that I may be gracious to you. I'll wait, I'll let things
play out and keep on going that I may be gracious unto you."
So the Lord's executing and implementing His will and power in the hearts
of the people. Other foolish things that men
speak of are the free will of man, right? There are people
out there that speak of man's free will. I heard that a lot
growing up in religion. But man doesn't have a free will,
right? These false teachers, they cannot
perceive that man is in the gall of bitterness and in the bond
of iniquity, right? Or in the bondage of iniquity. So that, as I was saying earlier
in Adam, man is a slave in the body of sin. He's a slave in
the body of sin. He's not free. He's completely
corrupt and weighed down with sin. He's depraved. He's evil. He's darkness. He has no fellowship. In fact, he hates God. He hates
the truth. He hates light. He hates his
Christ. He hates God's gospel. That's our nature. We're a slave
in the body of sin. We're captive to the law of sin
and death, and we can't ever break ourselves free of that.
If God doesn't set us free, we shall never be free. God's the
one who must set us free, and he does that for chosen redeemed
sinners whom he set his love upon. Man is no more free than
a cattle on a free-range ranch being raised and waiting for
the slaughter. Man is no more free than that. He may choose to munch on a piece
of grass to the left or the right, but either way, he's always going
to work the purpose and will of God for him. And so another
thing that they do is they appeal to man to do good, right? They appeal to man to do better
and to try harder that he may find favor with God, making up
things like God helps those who help themselves. And that's just
a lie. That's not true at all. They
neglect to mention that they that are in the flesh cannot
please God. We cannot please God. And so
when you appeal to the flesh, And you try to provoke people
to do better in the flesh. All you're ever going to get
is works of the flesh. You're only going to get the
works of the flesh when you appeal to the goodness of man. When
you say you can do better, try harder. Now we do train up our
children to do good and to do that which we teach them is right.
but we understand and know that that doesn't increase or elevate
our standing before God. It's not gonna make us acceptable
to God or put away our sin. There's only one that can put
away the sin of man. There's only one that wipes away
the guilt of man and the condemnation, and that's Jesus Christ and Christ
alone. All right, they'll tell you or
they'll speak of God's universal love, right? That, oh, God would
save you. He wants to save you. He loves
you and wants to save you, but you have to let him. You have
to let him do that, right? And they're willfully neglecting
the word where the Lord says, Esau I hated, Jacob I loved,
but Esau have I hated. And what the Lord is revealing
is that God doesn't have a universal love for all men. There are those
that he has set his love upon, and his mercy upon, and his grace
upon. He's chosen Jacob, and his Jacob's
scattered throughout the world. And the Esau's, he passes them
by, leaving them to themselves, leaving them in darkness, and
showing that man cannot and will not ever turn from his darkness. He can't change his nature. He
can't change what he is by nature. an evil corrupt sinner. Only
God can change the nature, and that he does by making his people
born again by the seed of Christ, taking them out of that body
of sin, out of that part they have in Adam, delivering them
from Adam's inheritance, and giving them to Christ, making
them born in his body, and taking part in Christ's inheritance
of eternal life. So we're told that our God declares
the end from the beginning, and from ancient times, the things
that are not yet done, saying, my counsel shall stand, and I
will do all my pleasure. And he tells us what his pleasure
is, that God is not willing that any of us, any of his people,
his chosen people should perish, but that all, all his people
should come to repentance. All right, so he's working his
will in the earth to bring all his people to repentance through
this gospel. And now this is revealed, if
you turn over to Ephesians one, Ephesians one, and then we'll
look at a couple of verses there, pick up from verse four. We see
that the way our God does this is by revealing faith in his
child. Look at Ephesians 1, and we'll
start in verse 4. That it's according as he hath
chosen us, right, there's that specific people, us, in Christ,
before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy
and without blame before him in love, having predestinated
us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself according
to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of
His grace, wherein He hath made us accepted in the Beloved."
Alright, so we see the work is of our God. He's doing the work.
He's choosing. He's putting us. He's revealing
to us Christ. And so He He gives us life and
puts us in the body, in the family of God, in Christ, in the Beloved,
as it pleases Him. And so, these that are foolish,
they speak of foolishness. They speak of the universal atonement
of Christ. They speak of Christ as having
shed His blood for every man. And what they're doing is saying
Christ's blood is ineffectual to save. It can't save unless
you, unless you by the weakness and the impotence of your flesh
somehow manage to fire up the engine of salvation through the
gasoline of your faith. But if your hope is in your faith,
then you shall perish in your sins, because that's not salvation. The faith we have looks to Christ,
believes Christ, and trusts that He has done all the work of salvation,
that He has provided salvation. It's a finished work. It's not
waiting for us to do something to finish it up. It's already
finished. The works have already been finished
in Christ. and he through his gospel is
revealing that to the hearts of his people through the preaching
of the gospel so that they hear and believe. It's a supernatural
power of God, not of this flesh. If your faith is of this flesh,
it's dead worthless, religious, dung of man. And let it go. Call it foolishness. Call it
what it is. It's just dung and darkness and death. Our hope
is that this flesh, that this faith isn't of the flesh, but
it's of God. And that my hope in Christ is
of God. Him having revealed Christ in
me and shown me my need of Him, my need of His salvation. That's
what our Lord does. He works that in His people. He calls them. Are you a sinner? Do you hear God calling you?
saying, sinner, look to me, look to Christ, trust my salvation,
trust my son. Stop trusting yourself. Stop
believing that you can do it and that you're good. You're
not good. We're all sinners. We've all sinned and come short
of the glory of God. Our hope is in the salvation
of God, which is Jesus Christ. That's where our hope is fixed.
those that hear and hear of Christ and believe yes Lord I believe
they they reveal that that God has given them that faith and
that hope in Christ and all who trust in Christ shall never be
ashamed but their sins are put away forever So there's not a
universal atonement, and now it's up to you to finish it off. Not at all. The scriptures, if
you're there still in Ephesians 1, look at verse 7. They declare
a finished salvation. Verse 7. Ephesians 1, 7. In whom we have Past tense, we have redemption
through his blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches
of his grace. Not according to something we've
done, but according to the riches of his grace, wherein he hath
abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known
unto us the mystery of his will. We don't know who the elect are.
We preach the gospel to all, declaring Christ. But he reveals
the mystery of his will. He reveals the gospel. He reveals
salvation in Christ to whomsoever he wills. And it's very often
not the people we think it would be. It's sinners. It's sinners
who have no hope in themselves. Poor, needy, wretched sinners. outcasts of religion, outcasts
of society, outcasts of their family, young, old, anyone. God can save anyone, and He does. He saves the nothings, the poor,
the weak, and the lowly of this earth, and reveals the riches
of His glory in Christ to them. that it's according, so having
made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his
good pleasure, which he hath purposed in himself, 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. 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."
Our God is not moved by a man's decision to follow Jesus. He's
working all things according to the purpose of his own will. Now all who call upon him and
having no hope or trust in themselves, any who call upon him shall be
saved, because in that one he's revealed his will and purpose
in them by revealing faith to them, and fixing that faith in
the only one who can save which is Jesus Christ the righteous.
So we see that we begin to hear when we hear the gospel and we
see Christ and we see his salvation and we know it's our God that
saves us and not we ourselves. It's our God that saves us. Then
we see these people here that are saying this are vile. They're
fools. They're speaking foolishness
about God. They're not speaking the truth. They have nothing
for those that are hungering and thirsting for righteousness
because they keep laying upon them more works. Well, try harder,
do better, be more consistent, come in here, read your Bible,
keep praying, keep trying, keep doing, right? They're always
turning you to the flesh and something you need to do instead
of turning you and exalting Christ before your eyes, lifting Him
up and declaring Christ the successful Savior. And all that they say
just leaves poor, helpless sinners, hungering and thirsting for righteousness,
and they're never satisfied. But our God delivers us from
that. He delivers His people from those broken cisterns which
can hold no water. No person thirsty is gonna ever
have their thirst quenched carrying around a broken cistern. that
they thought was full of water. It has nothing in it, all right?
So the vile person is no more called liberal, all right? And now this also happens with
those we call bountiful persons, bountiful, all right? We once
held them in esteem and thought, wow, how rich they are in the
knowledge of God. How rich they were in the knowledge
of God, right? How generous they are in sharing
this out of their bounty and out of their study and their
knowledge of God. Well, by the Lord's regenerative
light, by him giving us life, we see that the instruments also,
verse seven now in our text, Isaiah 32, seven. The instruments
also of the churl are evil. He deviseth wicked devices to
destroy the poor with lying words, even when the needy speaketh
right. All right, well, the churl is
one who is a scoundrel. They're a scoundrel, right? They're
a fraud. They use deceit and trickery
and they're crafty, they're frauds. And so the instruments that this
one employs, right? The scoundrel, this fraud, what
they employ, they use tricks and craft to keep themselves
in power over others, right? They use, they say things, that
press your buttons in such a way so that you are reminded that
they're up here and you're down here. Don't question them. Don't
question them and don't look up these things yourselves. Just
take what they say. If you've got a problem with
what they say, well then they'll censor you. They'll put you out
of the church. They'll make sure that you have
no voice there to cause trouble. Not that we're there to cause
trouble. We say our peace and if there's nothing there, then
move on. It's not about causing trouble. But what he's trying
to do is he's just trying to say these things to keep people
under his power and under his thumb. He wants to maintain control
over the people. And so his riches are nothing
more than the so-called riches of this world. But he can't do
anything to bring you into the riches of God. He has nothing
for you in the things of God, but what he hopes in are things
that are shaken, right? And we saw how the Lord said
that he'll rise against the enemies of his people and he'll shake
them. He'll destroy them by his shaking, right? And that reminds
us of what the Lord tells us in Hebrews, that there's coming
a day when the Lord will shake the heavens and the earth. And
all that is not lasting shall fall apart, that shall crumble
and be destroyed because it's not lasting. It'll be burned
up. And that's what the riches that the trill has, right? The
one who we thought was rich in the things of God, but they're
empty vain. They're just an empty sepulcher.
There's nothing in it but dead men's bones. And so he's not
even, those that are rich in earthly things. He's not even
generous with those things to you, right? He's not helping
the poor and the needy. And so he's not bountiful, but
he's a miser. He keeps it to himself and he
doesn't reveal the things of God. Even if he has a knowledge
of these things in his head, he doesn't reveal these things
or make these things known to you. And so when he speaks of
the promises of God, he speaks of them in terms of being a condition
upon your obedience to make them effectual to you. And so he finds no cause of rejoicing
in God, because in his own mind, everything he has, he's gotten
for himself, because of his goodness, or because his hands have gotten
it for him. So he's trusting in his goodness,
his obedience, what he's done, and that's why he's blessed in
his own mind. And so rather than generously
declaring the riches of God to the poor and the needy, he keeps
it for himself and he gives you the husks and the dead letter
of religion and feeds you with those things and gives you no
quenching water for your thirst and no food for your hunger,
all right? So now we know that the churl
is no more said to be bountiful, right? We don't esteem these
false teachers, these former teachers, the way we esteem them
once. We see that they're just dead in their religion. It's
the religion of man. Now, seeing the false teachers
here, after Christ has come and revealed himself and revealed
his gospel to us, and he's growing us in the knowledge of our salvation
in Jesus Christ through this gospel, we're told, or we see
who the true liberals are. Verse eight. Isaiah 32, eight. But the liberal diviseth liberal
things, and by liberal things shall he stand. Well, we know
that the first man, the true liberal man is Christ. It's Jesus
Christ, and he's the one that blesses us with his liberality. He gives his spirit. He's the
one who's liberal toward us through his gospel, and he's kind to
his people, in giving a measure of faith to his pastors that
he raises up and sends them out to dispense with liberality and
generously the grace of God in Jesus Christ, right? We speak,
we declare abundantly and freely the riches of our God, which
is in Jesus Christ, the righteous, right? That's why we speak of
him and declare him because he's our salvation and he's our hope
And so we're called liberal now, right? We're called liberal because
we're free and liberal with the grace of God. We're not trying
to create steps and ladders and various things that you have
to achieve and do and hold you to a certain timeline and keep
you under a microscope and make sure that you're adhering to
our pattern and what we say you need to do. but we're preaching
Christ and we think well of you, right? Love thinketh no ill. We want to believe those that
speak of Christ and rejoice in Him. We want to believe that
they are our brethren. And so we'll hear what they say. We'll hear what they say as best
we can at face value, but we know that it's only a matter
of time before the flesh begins to boast of itself, and that'll
be revealed, and we'll see what they are, but we're liberal with
the grace of God. We declare that all who believe
on Jesus Christ shall receive remission of sins, because that's
the testimony of our God through the prophets and the scriptures.
That's what He's revealed to us, that all who hope in Him
shall find rest for their weary souls. All who hope in his righteousness
shall have their hunger satisfied and shall have their thirst quenched
with Christ. Christ, Christ is our salvation. And so that's our liberality
is in Christ. We're generous with the gospel.
We speak and dispense the gospel freely and abundantly declaring
what God has done for us. in His grace and mercy, and sending
His Son, Jesus Christ. Because that's what we're called
to. We're called to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo
the heavy burdens, to let the oppressed go free, and that we
break every yoke. We're not looking to bind you.
with man's dead religion. We're not looking to bind you
with whippings and beatings and threatenings and using a carrot
and a stick before you. No, we're here to preach Christ
knowing that preaching Christ is the best thing that we can
do. It's the best thing I can do
for you. It's the most It's the richest thing I can declare.
It's the richest thing I can give you is to preach Jesus Christ
and Him crucified to you. It's not to deal our bread, or
rather it is to deal our bread to the hungry and that we bring
the poor that are cast out to our house, right, where the Lord
is worshiped in spirit and in truth. When we seize the naked,
that we cover him, what do we cover the naked with? the righteousness
of Jesus Christ, and that thou hide not thyself from thine own
flesh. All right, I'm a sinner, unable
to work a righteousness of my own, and I've been turned to
Christ by the grace and power of God. Well, why would I hide
that or keep that back from you? Why would I lie to you and make
you think that I'm something that I'm not? I'm nothing but
a sinner who's been saved by grace and given a hope and a
trust in Christ, in Christ alone. I still see the weakness and
the sinfulness of this flesh and I have no confidence in it
and don't want to look back to it. There's nothing there in
this world or in this flesh. All the hope of the sinner is
in Christ. Look to Christ, believe Him,
trust Him. That's the salvation that God
has sent. It's Jesus Christ. Look to him and believe him. Our Lord said to his apostles,
I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And
whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven.
And whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. If that's true, then ought we
not be liberal, shouldn't we be liberal with the gospel? Shouldn't we seek to declare
the gospel to all who will listen, and pray for opportunities to
speak the gospel, and pray that the Lord bring hungering and
thirsting souls across our path, and to enable us to be in season,
even when we're out of season, even when We're not thinking
of the things of God, and when we're struggling and buried down
in our own woes and cares and worries and fears, but that the
Lord would be pleased to bring some hungering soul across our
path, and that we would be brought to remember Christ. and to be
compassionate with them, and to be kind and generous, to be
liberal and bountiful with the poor and the needy, to preach
Christ. And sinner, that's why Christ
came, that's why God sent him, because we can't save ourselves,
but Christ is the Savior. And God sent him in the likeness
of this sinful flesh. He took this flesh upon him,
but he was without sin. He wasn't born of Adam's corrupt
seed, he was born He was conceived in Mary's womb of the Holy Spirit. He's without the sin of Adam.
Unlike us who are full of the sin and corruption of Adam's
dead seed that we're formed by. But Christ is righteous, good,
holy. He fulfilled the whole law of
God. And he went to the cross for
sinners. He went to the cross bearing
each and every one of his people in his own body, carrying their
sins, bearing them in his body. And there he went to the cross,
dying the cruel, painful death that was ours, that we should
have died. And he bore the wrath of God
against sin, against our sin, the sins and iniquities that
we committed, he bore them. on behalf of his people, in their
place as the Lamb of God, making a sacrifice of himself to put
away the wrath of God, to pay their debt that they owe to God
perfectly. And so, by his death, we died. And the law has nothing more
to say to us. We have no more part in Christ. Those whom Christ
died for have no more part in Adam. I mean to say, they have
no more part in Adam, and our part now is in Christ. It's in
Jesus Christ, and we have His inheritance. You keep hoping
in Him, and trust Him, and believe Him, because He's the liberal
one, and He gives us, not as our sins deserve, but He gives
us, He shows us love, and kindness, and peace, and patience, and
joy, and gladness, and delivers us from the sin of this flesh. Remember what Paul said. He was a man moved by God. He was a man filled with the
love of God in Christ. And he saw and knew what a sinner
he was. As religious as he was, he was
a sinful, wicked man. And he was brought to see that
when Christ came. And he said to the Ephesians,
I kept back nothing that was profitable unto you. but have
showed you and have taught you publicly and from house to house,
testifying both to the Jews and also to the Greeks, repentance
toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ." What Paul
was saying there and what I'm saying to you this evening is,
repent of your dead religion. Has Christ come? Is Christ the
King? Is He the Savior, the only one
that can save you? then be turned from your dead
religion and the words of those false teachers, those vile persons,
those churl ones, be turned from them. Don't call them liberal
and bountiful. They're false words, they're
vain words, they're dead words. Be turned from them, repent of
those things of dead religion and believe God concerning the
testimony of his son, Jesus Christ. He's the only righteousness that
we need. Be turned to Jesus Christ. Look to Him and hope in Him,
that's faith. You that believe Him, that's
faith. You have no hope in yourself, hope in Christ. Trust Him, believe
Him. And those who do shall never
be ashamed, for their sins are put away, and they shall stand
before God in the final day, accepted of Him, clothed in the
white righteous robe of Jesus Christ the righteous. I pray
the Lord bless that word to your hearts and give you freedom. bondage from your sin, bondage
from dead works, bondage from false religion, that he deliver
you from that bondage and false religion and deadness, that he
deliver you from them and establish you, stand you up in
the Lord Jesus Christ and his righteousness, amen. Let's pray. Our gracious Lord, Father, please,
we ask that you bless this word, that you deliver sinners in bondage,
out of their bondage, that you deliver sinners from dead religion,
that you deliver your people, Lord, from liars and false teachers
and establish them in Christ. Lord, cause them to be brought
into the hearing of your gospel and give them faith when they
hear it. Help your people. to be generous and liberal with
your gospel to as many as the Lord our God should call. Lord,
help us to do all things for the sake of the elect. It's in
Christ's name we pray and give thanks. Lord, take these words
of clay and even my stumbling and mixing up words sometimes. Lord, bless it. Bless it in the
hearts of your people. Cause us to hear it right in
Christ. It's in his name we pray and
give thanks, amen.